Happy Halloween

I love this day.

The chili just started on the stove--our traditional Halloween feast despite being a balmy 87 degrees--and the candy bowl has been restocked and we're just waiting on the boys to come home from school.

Speaking of the boys, I realized this morning that I don't do that often enough, and they are pretty great. Amy has taken up a lot of the attention around here, but they are so great with her that I am continually amazed by their genuine kindness. The delight in every new word, provide endless encouragement and have never uttered a complaint or a frustration when having to figure out what she wants which isn't always easy. They are true blessings.

So, after that mush-fest, Happy Halloween, all.

Miscellany in pictures

1.) I don't know if our "Halloween in Florida" theme complete with "Bone de Soleil" suntan lotion was enough to sway the judges when parked two Hummers down was our favorite ex-rocker in full pirate regalia.




2.) The boys had a good time, though.



3.) Even Amy found a costume since she wouldn't wear the one I brought.


4.) Congratulations to all of you bums who are Cardinal fans. I hate you.

5.) Um, there were several of you that I dined with last night who let me leave the restaurant looking like this:



I realize that after 4 hours of Trick or Treating in a sandy parking lot, 37 pounds of melting candy, veal picatta and a one-handed attempt at lip gloss with a 3 year old in your lap does not lead to my best appearance...But hells bells ladies! I looked like a dirty table cloth. You might have at least thrown a napkin over me or sprayed a little Shout on my neck. Jeesh.

Today

Well, despite the hay and raffia embargo in the greater Tampa area, I have managed to concoct some sort of scarecrow from a lot of yarn and duct tape. It ain't pretty, folks, but it'll have to do. I also pulled an Indian buckskin vest from my ass, so at least they will be dressed for a picture or two before they strip down because it will be 850 degrees in the parking lot this afternoon.

But if I really pull it together in the next 6 hours, the crowning Halloween achievement will be a championship trunk decoration and some killer appetizers in which I sculpt a skull from cream cheese.

It's not much of a life, but at least it's mine.


Thinking of you today through pumpkins and Snickers bars, Mom.

It's me who is scary

If Halloween actually fell on Halloween this year, I'd be ready. But instead, it falls tomorrow when we have our annual Trunk or Treat event at the school. You decorate your trunk, and the kids go treating through the parking lot. I really enjoy it, but I've expended most of my creative energies on the trunk theme so I can win whatever prize I'll never use, so the boys' costumes are only half done. Which means Matty's Indian costume will have to be a loin cloth and Stevie the Scarecrow will end up being a crow. Or just a scare, since his mother has lost her brain.

(I'll post pictures.)

Big Day

The only benefit to Amy not speaking yet, is when I asked her what she wanted for her birthday dinner I heard her distinctly say, "Pork medallions encrusted with mustard seeds with a red wine sauce." So that's what we had.

The cake was not homemade.


I bet she wished she didn't have pork medallions encrusted with mustard seeds with red wine sauce for her 3 year old birthday dinner.

Kung Fu Fighting

I will sum up the weekend by confessing that Sean and I almost were arrested for felonious assaults. He almost killed a man who gave us the wrong directions to the hotel on Friday night contributing to the normal 90 minute drive to be an 8 hour excursion into the mean streets of Orlando and I almost went to blows over a pint of milk at Mickey's Toon Town.

But instead we used the bail money to buy swords from Pirates of the Caribbean and the Little Mermaid DVD.

Happy Birthday Amy.

TGIF,S and S

To celebrate Amy's 3rd birthday and to assuage my maternal guilt over her next few weeks of doctors, tests, evaluations and other invasive humiliations, we're off to Disney World this weekend. It's the last 2 day in stretch before Martin Luther King Day that we don't have plans. Next week's Halloween festivities--it has now become a week long festival rather than just one evening of Trick or Treating--will be busy, but there still is a slight chance in the cosmos that we will be dumping those responsibilities on our good friends and running off to St. Louis for a wedding/World Series junket....

I guess that will be determined if we have any money left after dinner at the Polynesian resort.

Stupid is what stupid cooks

After noticing the two side effects of my condition--one being I am losing brain cells at a rapid pace now and can't remember my own name most of the time--and second, my new habit, nay obsession with cooking, Sean asked if I was nesting.

"Only in the kitchen so don't expect any miracles in the rest of the house," I answered over a saucepan of Bernaise sauce.

"Don't get me wrong, I am certainly not complaining," he said, shoveling a forkful of rosemary (yes, but I planted a ton of other herbs a couple of weeks ago in the courtyard) and garlic roasted potatoes in his mouth.

"So you won't care if I am stupid as long as I am stupid over a pan of asparagus tips?"

His non-answer was my answer.

Weekend Report (Because I know how much you care about these mundane details)

Some weekends earn their reputation for fun.

The boys all traveled to Miami for the Lightning game on Friday, so I went to Bunko, which is always a good time. Even sober. Even when I lose. Which I usually do.

We all took in the hockey game on Saturday, and they won, which makes the evening even better. Amy even enjoyed it. The air horns were louder for her than last year, but she didn't cry and stayed content with the bucket of popcorn in our laps.

Yesterday, we took in the Buc's game, which I hardly care about, but the weather was so perfect, it was nice to be outside, if you count the open windows of the suite to be outside. When we got home, we took the kids down to Main Street--what a cute little hamlet Safety Harbor is becoming--to eat at the new restaurant and ice cream parlor and take a walk on the pier. It was just nice.

This is a big week for birthdays and the preparation for even more in the coming weeks. I have to figure out how to sew WWE costumes for the boys and bake a Spongebob cake for Amy. Woot.

Do you want fries with that?

I worked lunch room duty today, and not one kid asked me for my autograph.

Dread

Not that I have any concrete proof, or, for that matter, any reason whatsoever to believe anything other than the normal boring evening is in store for me, but...

I feel like the swim and tennis center that normally houses the HOA meeting I am hired to cover may be my slaughterhouse tonight.

In fact, I am so neurotic that I already have an entire scenario played out in my warped mind where the normal glares they cast at me are followed by accusations and an ugly confrontation. One demands that I answer impossible allegations. Another demands a retraction and my resignation. Yet another throws me out and calls for a tar and feathering. One makes a motion for a restraining order against me keeping me from a 10 mile radius of the community limits. They put my caricature up on the telephone poles and alert the authorities of my license plate number. (Someone even throws a mythical bottle of water that is only half-filled with the label peeled off, and shouts, I knew Bob Woodward! Bob Woodward was a good friend of mine! And you, sir, are no Bob Woodward! )

Paranoid hormones, perhaps. Or maybe I am just taking this way too seriously.

Jambalaya Cocktail, Jamabalaya Scampi

The best part of cooking like a crazy person all week long, is the crazy amount of leftovers there are tonight while we sit back and watch the Lightning on our new billboard size High Def TV.

After jambalaya omelets for breakfast, jambalaya wraps for lunch, and now jambalaya once again for dinner...leftover night officially ends soon.

Brush with fame

Stevie: Mom, do you know who the band, "Cheap Trick" is?

Me:Mind immediately propelled backward to the summer of '93 when they toured with AC/DC and I was selling their trademark black bandanas from a stand next to the stage to the melody of I want you to want me...

Yeah, I've heard of them.

Stevie: Well, I got the lead singer's autograph at lunch today.

Me:Wondering if he performed an impromptu concert over sloppy joes How did you know it was him?

Stevie: He had a sticker name tag on and long hair. He had lunch duty today.

Me:Every teenaged fantasy of black leather pants and whiskey replaced by image of aging rock star in a hair net and Salisbury steak.

I am so freaking old.

Mile High Club

Well, not really, but I am pretty aroused over my latest stroke of luck...9 airports have just agreed to carry my book baby! Wooohoooo! I could be in carry-ons across the country shortly.

I suddenly love to fly.

Good appointment

We went to the follow-up appointment this morning for Amy's surgery--she now has lots of air traveling over those eardrums. They said the normal space for that cavity that the adenoids are located measures about 1 cm. Her adenoids measured almost 3...she is breathing and hearing a lot more comfortably without them.

We will follow up with a more extensive hearing test in the next few weeks, and her throat is taking a bit longer to heal, but things are looking very good and healthy at this point. While she has yet to start speaking in long missives, she has started caling me "Daddeee," which is light years ahead of the sign language of a week ago.

Parsley, Sage Rosemary and Rosemary

I'm staring at about 400 bushels of fresh rosemary in the laundry room.

The original purpose of so much of this herb was that they were in the shape of little Christmas trees last December when we replanted the front landscaping. Over the course of the summer, they have grown from cute topiaries, to a massive flowing forty acre field. And while I love a rosemary-crusted rack of lamb as much as the next gal, I would have to slaughter Old McDonald's farm to use up a fraction of what I have just harvested.

So unless you have an ingenious use that I haven't thought of, here is the plan:

1) Rosemary-infused olive oil and vinegar.

2) Rosemary soap (although I have no idea how to make such a thing.)

3) Wreaths.

4) I've got nothing after that.

Maybe I'll just have to roll them and settle for rosemary cigarettes rather than cloves.

I must be feeling better

I spent about 3 hours yesterday making chicken empenadas, knowing full well that I was the only one who would appreciate the laborous process these take. Then I spent the next 3 hours reading--something I have not been able to enjoy for two long, quiet months.

At midnight, I put down my book and ate another cold empanada straight from the fridge and it was the single most delcious thing I have ever tasted.

Hit me

Despite not drinking a drop, I still had to drag myself through the rest of the weekend feeling as though I frequented that open bar on Friday. But we all had a great time. (I had battery issues with my camera, so this is the best I could do for a photo, courtesy of Sue.)


We ended up spending most of our gambling time at #17's table. I managed to keep my fan adoration in check, not bringing it to the attention of my table mates that we were in the presence of Stanley Cup greatness--this being the player that scored the winning (and only) two goals in game 7 against Calgary on June 7, 2004....He was as charming and gracious at the tables as on the ice.

Today we're getting a late start, Amy was up all night again. I have to get to the grocery store despite going at least 3 times that I can recall this week, we are out of absolutely everything. This will give me a chance to shop for dinner items for tonight as Sean returns and I think I'm going to treat him to a feast courtesy of the Barefoot Contessa that I've watched all week for some odd reason.