Julia

Happy Valentine's Day

from Patrick

from Caroline and Edward

and...

xoxo from Sump Vesuvius (no. don't ask. really.)

I don't carry my camera around all the time so sometimes I cheat. I see something and think ooooh I want a picture of that and then I stage a photograph to recreate whatever it was that I wanted to capture in the first place.

Like these two photos. I walked into the closet yesterday to get socks (I have chilblains again on two toes - what is up with that?) and noticed something glinting in the laundry hamper. Was that a... ?

It was.

It was a camera lens poking out of my laundry hamper because Edward - for mysterious reasons of his own - was hiding in there furtively photographing things with Patrick's camera. Weird? Sure. Hilarious? Definitely. I now know what it feels like to be relentless stalked by the press but I'll bet even Cleopatra never had paparazzi hiding in her laundry basket. Of course she probably kept asps in there.

Anyway I was sorry to lose this moment so I asked him to get back into the hamper while I went to get my camera. He obliged. We repeated. Now it's like we were all there together. Hooray.

Oh and here is one of the shots from his photo expose

You can see Caroline's arm as she approaches stage right; which means Edward's skulking paid off as he nailed rush hour in my closet by managing to photograph a staggering two (2) people. I didn't realize the camera had a fish eye setting but it must and Edward activated it by stabbing at all the buttons. I really like the effect. I mean, if you were hiding in a laundry basket taking photographs wouldn't you want them to look all bulgy and distorted like that? Me too.

Here's another posed photo. Caroline and Edward were sick most of last week. Correction: Edward was sick (all high fevers and listless apathy and gacking) and Caroline was "sick" by which I mean she realized that she was on her way to preschool while Edward would be staying home with the library books and a warm TV she said, "Cough."

And I said, "Oh please" and she said, "No really. Cough. Cough cough cough."

The thing about being a twin is there is always the possibility that your mother might conclude it really is not worth the effort to send just one of you to preschool, especially when she hasn't packed lunches and she hates to pack lunches.

She stayed home with her cough.

So they were both sick to varying degrees and I took this picture to commemorate the pathos of it all.

Good, right? Sad and waiflike and brimming with invalidism? Well in truth this is a retake because when I first approached the couch with a camera they did this

Do you know what that is? That is a picture of at least one child who should have gone to freaking preschool that day, that's what.

Patrick and I are on book three of the....

wait! Books. Very important.

You may recall that one of my readers, Katelyn Sinclair, has written a book called "The Golden Ball" (available through her website or here at Amazon) which Kirkus Review described as "playful poetry that begs to be read aloud." I hosted a book giveaway, some of you received copies, we all faithfully swore to report back for... oh heavens what did they call them? workshop. that's it. awful word... we promised to constructively criticize and now the time has come to do so. If you received her book or have read it through other channels I would really appreciate it if you would leave a comment here about what you liked and what you think could use some tweaking. thank you...

So Patrick and I are on book three of Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching books (starts with Wee Free Men) and we are enjoying them beyond measure. The other day Patrick said, "Who're ye callin' a banana ye scunner?" and I fell over laughing. God it was funny.

Huh. I read that over and maybe you had to be there but it really was very funny and we're now conversant in Discworld and the books are excellent and I thank you - emphatically - for the recommendation.

Coincidentally I have just recently become obsessed with the ancestry dot com website and the Mac Nac Feegles are tying in beautifully with the line I am poking at which extends back beyond forever in Scotland (minus the hundred years or so in Ireland - damn Cromwell) so we are all about the knowing of the Scots right noo. I have never mentioned this before because I am rightly ashamed of it - but genealogy is a secret passion of mine.

When I was 14 - and this is true - I used to take the subway downtown and pay my $4 guest fee to use the library at the D.A.R.

I was easily the youngest person in there by about 70 years and my fellow genealogists were fascinated by me. Or maybe they wanted to drink my blood. I don't know.

I will never forget when one brittle and no doubt well-intentioned but seriously icky woman asked if I attended college. I said no, I was still in high school. She asked what school and I named the DC public edifice of middling learning that had the honor to claim me as one of their own.

She paused.

She blinked.

She said, "But aren't there black students there?"

Seeing as how my high school was over 85% African-American and WHAT THE FUCK LADY I said why yes, yes there are.

She said, "But honey, don't you mind?"

The DAR, ladies and gentlemen, purposefully narrowing their horizons since the flood. Good LORD. I thought at the time and I am thinking it now just... GOOD LORD. 

Where was I? Oh yes. I was confessing the fact that I am fascinated by begats even though I know, I KNOW, it is the single most boring subject anywhere, ever. No one is interested in your family history. Absolutely no one. Even other genealogy squabs don't care about your finds and it is rare for two of us to exist within one family so even the person who really should care, and say, oh DO go on Julia, you know, my brother, does not. 

He was bored by it when we were teenagers and he continues to be bored by it today. Which is odd because he is the one who stands to benefit the most, being all male and older than me, should I discover our claim to an ancient Peruvian title plus castle plus 800 goats due upon demand. But he just makes a kind of uhhhmmmmming noise when I mention the first school teacher/veterinarian in Tennessee or the Cherokee Nation or the Battle of Dunaverty and if I persist in hypothesizing about a maternal line while he's driving I can hear him slamming his head against the windshield and pouring hot coffee on his lap in an effort to stay awake. So I know, it's boring. 

But my grandmother liked genealogy and she told great stories and I remember being really really little and hanging on her every word as she talked about her family and who did what when and I love looking at these names and dates and thinking oh yes, her and him and that one. There's the story about how my grandmother's mother died (oh I know I've already told you this one. just imagine how many times Steve's heard it) from influenza when my grandmother was a toddler and how her father was left to raise five children. Being a practical although perhaps not very romantic man he waited a few months and then marched next door to where a spinster named Willie kept house for her brothers.

(Willie was unmarried, my grandmother explained, because she had had a horseback riding accident and, well.... was believed to be barren. Crivens)

"Willie," said my great-grandfather, "I feel sorry for you."

And she said, "Why Mr. N, whatever do you mean?"

(they were in Alabama so feel free to go really lavish on the accents. I do)

And he said, "I feel sorry for you because you are going to have to marry me and raise my children."

Sigh. And she did. And had five more children in the process, so go figure.

Anyway I love that story and just the other day I was bumbling around on the ancestry site and found that somone had posted a picture of Willie. I had never seen one before and I was all a'flutter. I mean, there she was. Amazing.

Oh oh OH! Or the fact that both of my grandmother's grandfathers fought together in the Civil War. There were lots of stories about them but my favorite was the one that hinted that one of them deserted when his son was born but returned to his regiment six months later. It was all terribly romantic in a war is stupid and they should have all been farming sort of way but I thought about it as I was looking at records this week and sure enough, there he was. Present, injured, present, awol, and then... back again.

Wow. I seriously have no idea why I brought this up. How funny. I am even more boring on the subject that I realized. Once I get started it is impossible to get me to stop. At least when I am writing I am able to look up and find out where I started. Poor Steve just goes glassy-eyed and waits for me to trail off indefinitely.

Right. Scots. Mac Nac Feegles. Tiffany Aching. Good books, thinking about starting the Bartimaeus trilogy next. Will advise.

And apropos of nothing, Patrick drew this comic and I find it delightfully subversive. I don't know why it posted sideways. Sorry about that. Enjoy your weekends - we have a sitter tonight and I asked her to come at four in the afternoon. Not because we have anything to do but the idea of missing the entire pre dinner, dinner, post dinner was too lovely to miss.

PS So, and I am asking this in the whisper of one tentatively seeking out fellow deviants, do you, um, ever check out the censusii of 1850 and 1860? Does the word tree convey anything thrilling to you? I mean, socially, of course. Take it or leave it. Quit any time you like.

PPS I fixed the link to Patrick's comic.

The party went quite well, if I do say so myself. As parents dropped off their children Steve told them that we hoped to have the movie finished by around 8 but that they (the parents) were welcome to come back a little early and join us for a beer or a glass of wine or, um, water or chocolate milk or whatever and chat with other parents from the school. A surprising (to me - I took the under on Steve's bet) number of people took us up on this - possibly because the movie did not actually end until 8:30 and thus we were holding their kids hostage - so we wound up with a mini grown-up party in addition to our movie party and it was very nice to put faces to the license plates at which I have so often shaken my fist.

-actually I am kidding. Patrick's old school parking lot was filled with the dregs of humanity (abounding in line jumpers and speeders and handicapped parking space stealers) but this new place is a miracle of both efficiency and courtesy and I did not grudge them my wine or my chocolate milk -

Since so many parents came back early we only had two and a half hours until reinforcements arrived and it was all fine. The pre-Celexa me would have freaked out anyway but the normal me recognized that the entertaining bar for the twelve and under set is pretty low and, anyway, they were all just so excited to be together and not at school that they barely noticed the food or the movie or anything. This has been a realization that took me forever to assimilate but has been incredibly liberating: people (big and little) just like being together and appreciate hospitality in pretty much any form. You do not have to meet each and every dietary need. You do not have to dust the antimacassars and bust out the good plastic glasses. Just invite people and be happy they came and it tends to be a pretty good party. 

One guest has severe food allergies and arrived with his epi-kit. Just as I was worrying what to feed him he solved my dilemma by explaining that I shouldn't bother because he never eats anything away from home. I said, "Oh? Never? Nothing?" and he said, "Would you if someone not knowing what an egg looks like meant you COULD DIE?" and I thought awww it's like a whole classful of Patricks bless their teacher's heart and I said, "No, I wouldn't. Water?" He declined.

One kid had already seen Ghostbusters and hated it so he wandered upstairs when the movie started. I took him to Patrick's room to find a book and then he and I sat on the couch together and read in companionable silence for about an hour. In twenty years of entertaining he was, without question, my favorite guest ever.  

As people showed up we put on that collection of Pixar shorts that someone mentioned, then broke for pizza and carrots and cookies once everyone had arrived (thirteen in all.) After a loud but tidy dinner (at the conclusion of which over 90% of the children picked up their plates and cups and cleared their places - Steve and I almost fell over in awe) they trooped back downstairs for the the main feature which was... Ghostbusters. We could have gone with practically any of your other suggestions but just as I was heading off to Blockbuster to peruse the classics for things like Willow and The Last Starfighter my friend Noelle reminded me that Blockbuster is going out of business and I would be lucky to buy discounted bright blue shelving there let alone rent a movie. D'oops. So Ghostbusters it was and THANK YOU for the heads up on the poltergeistian s-e-x because no one I consulted had remembered the ribaldry. Being forewarned enabled us to forearm Steve with the remote control. So he established himself in a corner during the movie and whenever something happened that might cause random parents to send us heavily underlined copies of the Bible he created a technical difficulty complete with tipsy cameraman.

(I actually wondered if the reason why none of us remember the sex scenes was because our parents had done the same thing lo these many years ago. Like, no one has ever seen the unexpurgated Ghostbusters because generations of parents have frantically tripped over the cord to the Betamax just as things started to get steamy.)

I went with the carrots, by the way, because you told me to and because you were right: carrots are easier than salad. I am not entirely convinced that salad would have been universally reviled (but but but my kids eat it - I mean, except Caroline who has never eaten a green vegetable in her entire life and views our nightly salad like so many caterpillars on her plate) but I also know that no quantity of personal experience can qualify a person to predict what children in toto will eat. Take Oliver Twist, for example. I'll bet that just as he was up there asking for more some orphan in the corner was poking dubiously at her bowl saying, "I don't like this kind of gruel."

But yeah, Caroline won't eat vegetables except maybe carrots despite having them on her plate every day for the past seven hundred years. It doesn't matter if they are steamed or roasted or raw or cut a la Parenting magazine into whimsical shapes like zebras and the Arc de Triomphe. I have served them with dip and butter and bribes and... nothing doing. Edward, in contrast, loves vegetables. He can eat an entire bunch of asparagus by himself. He has been known to clasp his hands together and say, "Ohhhhhh zukeemee!" He can polish off a pint of tomatoes, two ears of corn and as much broccoli as can be wedged into a plastic produce bag. And Patrick, who got the full force of our first child only child why won't he eeeeeaaat angst still eats exactly what we fretted over when he was three: red pepper, carrots, salad and raw spinach - broccoli and asparagus only under protest. Potatoes, never.

Good lord where was I? Oh right I served carrots to strange children and some of them ate them and some of them did not and I did not really care one way or another. I didn't even care - much - when the pediatrician asked Caroline at her four year check if she eats vegetable and Caroline turned her head into her shoulder and did a full-on silent screen shudder and said, "Vegetables! Oh NO!" And then I had to listen to a lecture that was directed at her but really at me about how she needed to be presented with a daily assortment of fresh n' healthy blah et ceteras.

Oh hey, did I ever tell you about their four year appointments? They were pretty humdrum so probably not. In terms of size Caroline is 25/25 and Edward is 50/50-75. They tested vision and hearing but since Edward already sees an eye doctor annually for the iris cysts that blinded him as a newborn (he's fine) and has seen an audiologist after his ear glue issues (also fine) there was nothing new there. Caroline shook hands with the pediatrician and asked how his kids were doing. He said, "Fine. How are you parents?" She said, "Oh they're good." When we left he said that were both fine, healthy and developing normally; Caroline scarily so. She really is the most social of butterflies and we are so not and I think scary is a good word for it because the rest of us find her willingness to stop in a restaurant and admire someone's baby rather frightening.

So here's a discussion question: what happened to calling adults by their titles? I called every adult I knew Mrs or Mr and the only exceptions were family who became Aunt First Name. That went for my parents' friends as well as my friends' parents. I actually rented a room from my best friend's Dad for a few months after college and I still cannot imagine calling him Harry. But no one at Patrick's party even attempted a Mrs. I don't mind, mind you, and I'm sure if I had said "You may call me Mrs Danvers" while clanking the ring of keys around my belt they all would have done so but I am curious. Is this regional? National? Do they do this even in the - pearl clutch - South? 

When I want to be alone I take a bath. Generally this works for about five minutes until Caroline's mermaid senses go all tingly and the next thing I know she has materialized from under the bathroom door and executed a neat swan dive as she enters the tub with me. Then Edward will wander in, look at us in surprise and say, "Oh, are we taking a bath?" and he'll plunge in too. That's when I climb out because bathing with three people in the tub is not really alone. Sure the butcher and the baker did it, but did Garbo? No.

When Steve wants to be alone he remodels part of the house which is further proof that Steve is much smarter than I am and not only because he understands which way to turn the wheel when he wants to back up to the left. Not only does no one strip off their dinosaur pants and climb into a construction zone with him but it is hard to prolong even the lengthiest bath much past an hour whereas the basement project alone took Steve two years. Two years of throwing up his hands apologetically and saying, "I would [whatever] but I have to flange the binnacles; unless you don't care if the toilet downstairs flushes... ?" And when I hastened to assure him that, yes, I do prefer those new flush toilets that everyone is talking about he said, "Well then I guess you'll have to [whatever] without me because those spy sprockets aren't going to monkeywrench the panel slotters all by themselves."

I mention this because Steve was without a project for almost a year and he started to get sort of twitchy and that's why this corner of our basement that used to be a good place to throw things we don't use but might want later (like the microwave with the broken door and the antique phone from Steve's grandparents' house in Ohio) is now painted burgundy and smells like popcorn. It's our new place to watch TV and although my intial reaction was Oh my god, really? Another place for Edward to watch television? I have to admit it has been pretty fun. We started Family Movie Night and at least once a week all five of us crowd onto beanbag chairs and fight over what to watch

[What is WRONG with these people? How can you NOT want to watch Tangled over and over and over and over again? It's awesome. That song? In the boat? With the floating lanterns? I LOVE THAT SONG]

Inevitably Patrick asked to invite some people over so that he could have Friend Movie Night (Patrick takes after his father in that he loves to entertain and doesn't quite get that hospitality is not manufactured wholesale by elves any more than clean towels are but fine) and after saying for the past six weeks, sure, we should do that some time I surprised the hell out of myself by saying ok how about Saturday?

Patrick made up a guest list that included every boy in his class but one and when I pointed out that he couldn't just not invite one kid he was horrified and said, "Oh I didn't mean to forget HIM. Of course we have to invite HIM. And all the girls too I guess."

So we have invited Patrick's entire fourth grade class (plus a very good non-school friend) for pizza and a movie at our house in two days.

These are my questions for you:

1. aaaaaarrrrruuuuugh

2. If I have a sufficient quantity of cheese pizza, water and lemonade and I make a giant salad and chocolate chip cookies do I need anything else except popcorn?

3. What? Movie? Should? They? Watch?

They are 9-10 year olds, boys and girls. I have only met a couple of parents and am anxious not to offend anybody by which I mean that I am anxious not to have anyone call me afterward to say, "Lemuel never used the word buttmunch before he was corrupted at your house." So, you know, ix-nay on the seminal Tom Hanks' work Saving Private Ryan I mean Bachelor Party. Also I don't want it to be something they have all seen so often that they get bored and wander into the rest of the house to set fires in wastepaper baskets - that's Caroline's job.  

Please (please please) advise. Also if you want to come over and help I will be able to excuse myself and take a bath. Just saying.