Colonel Mustard in the Billiard Room with the Wrench?

Posted on June 9, 2020 by Shoes

Weighing in at about six pounds and with a length of 20 inches, our billiard table is elegant and impressive. Cue sticks of 22 inches long, balls, triangle, and table brush all scaled to size, it proudly proves that good things do come in small packages.

Brushing his new billiard table.

Distinguished enough for Colonel Mustard to be found swirling a snifter of brandy next to while thumbing the rope or weighing the possibilities of the lead pipe, our billiard table provides mystique and demands reverence. And for $33.99 with free shipping from Amazon, there is really no reason not to own one.

Or was it the wrench?

That is what Carter thought anyway, as his desire to spend his birthday money while quarantined threatened to overwhelm him. Amazon to his rescue! Driven by boredom and with ample cash burning a hole in his pocket, he took to the internet to single-handedly restart the economy.

Carter is a huge Clue fan. He loves the game, but more than that, he loves the 1990 Clue book series, an out of print set of 18 books each containing 10 mini-mysteries (except the first book that contains 13) where the Clue characters and their extremely wealthy and overly trusting host, Mr. Boddy, come to life (and then to near death, over and over and over again).

“So that’s what it means by the Billiard Room!” were the first words out of Carter’s mouth as he tore into his Amazon package and came face to face with the aptly labeled billiard table box.

The rest of the afternoon was spend playing billiards and drinking tea (not brandy) in his billiard room.

 

Posted in Little Feet, The Virus | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Simple Sunday – Snoozing

Posted on June 7, 2020 by Shoes

Sasha is very good at snoozing.

Just looking at her makes me tired. *yawn*

Posted in Simple Sunday | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

A Trader Joe’s Christmas in Spring

Posted on June 5, 2020 by Shoes

As like most things, shopping looks a lot different in this time of COVID-19.

Husband is the main grocery store shopper. He goes out as infrequently as possible, using curbside pick-up whenever possible. The list of places we shop has shrunk to mostly Costco and Fry’s.

Because of this, we have not had the unique items one can only find at Trader Joe’s. Last week, Husband braved a trip to TJ’s and the excitement was palpable.

Arms up in celebration of some delightful treasure.

A feeling like Christmas morning was in the air as Husband walked through the door carrying sacks of  groceries.

Items were pulled from their crisp, brown, paper bags and inspected with interest and glee.

Ok, well, not all items were met with glee by all people.

Even our dog, Haley, did not want to miss out on the excitement, choosing to settle down with a nice six pack of stout.

Colorful Carrot Coins, Frozen Roasted Corn, Tomato & Roasted Pepper Red Soup, Masala Simmer Sauce, Asparagus Risotto, and All Butter Shortbread Cookies with Chocolate Filling (among so many other glorious items to numerous to list here), welcome home!

Posted in Food Glorious Food, Little Feet, The Virus | Tagged , , , , , , | 11 Comments

Not a Mermaid

Posted on June 3, 2020 by Shoes

Last Saturday Ellie, our neighbor came over. Her twin’s dance class started up again and the class only allows one parent and no siblings to go, in order to keep the number of people small. We have been allowing the kids to play together cautiously during our seclusion, mostly outside. But we are in the triple digits of summer heat, so they are playing indoors.

The fact that Carter is 12 and Ellie is 6 does not seem to matter. They have been fast friends for about three years, since Ellie’s family moved in next door to us. Ellie’s mom and I have discussed how sad it will be when one of them or the other will not want to play with the other due to their age difference. I am beginning to wonder (and have hope) that that day may never come.

As I walked past Carter’s bedroom door, I caught a peek of them on the floor, Carter reading a Winnie the Pooh book to Ellie.

He then moved on to a Catwad book, less endearing and timeless, but a book nonetheless.  Here is an excerpt taken from Amazon if you are blissfully ignorant of Catwad and don’t know what I am talking about.

Apparently one of the characters in the book was slicing up pizza and there was a conversation surrounding the number of slices. If it was cut into 6 slices, the character could eat it all, but if it were to be cut into 8 slices, then that would be way too much pizza for him to eat. I have not read this riveting book, but based on the excerpt above, I would guess that this was Blurmp’s opinion. Carter found it funny that Ellie agreed with this, funny enough to come and tell me. I explained to him that Ellie, who just finished kindergarten, has not yet learned about fractions and I asked him to explain it to her. Carter informed me that he had already done so, “It is still just one pizza, it doesn’t matter how many slices it is cut into.” Go Carter! (And now that I have typed this, I think this would be a great introduction into fractions for my third graders next year…)

Fractions were set aside and before they got bored and decided to go swimming, I overheard this tidbit of conversation.

carter – If you could be any animal what would you be? Remember, you would have to be it for the rest of your life. The words “rest of your life” were dramatically emphasized. There was a slight pause, followed by a disdaining : And don’t you dare say mermaid! 

ellie – There was about ten seconds of what I can only imagine were deeply filled thoughts before she had her answer. Cheetah!

carter: I would beeee, an owl! No, a hawk.

With that most important question out of the way, they decided to go swimming.

Posted in Little Feet | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Simple Sunday – Sorry Eyes, Bitter Heart

Posted on May 31, 2020 by Shoes

Sasha fancies herself to be a cat, even though she is clearly not a cat. She greatly enjoys sneaking up onto the back of our couch cushions, straddling them, and then falling asleep.

She knows the word “off” and will do so if it is spoken in a severe enough manner and repeated multiple times.

Her eyes say “sorry” but her heart does not.

 

 

Posted in Furry Feet (and fish), Simple Sunday | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Not so little. Not so easy.

Posted on May 30, 2020 by Shoes

It is easy to write about the little things in life. I love capturing, examining, breaking apart, and wordsmithing on the small, seemingly insignificant fleetings that float past. I love them for so many reasons: they are the thread that hold together the larger pieces, they show the true essence of time and people, they are usually quick and fun to write about, and I adore looking back on them to remember and smile.

And while those little moments are what I write about, what I focus on, there is a bigger moment, a moment so long that is has outgrown that term, never fit that term, although it too is a thread that runs continually through the lives of so many people.

On Tuesday I watched the video of George Floyd die under the knee of Derek Chavin.

I can not stop thinking about it. And if I allow myself to replay it in my mind, I feel all over again nauseous and my body starts to tremble.

I want to say that I do not have words, but I do have words, I just fear that they will not, cannot do justice to the justifiable rage and emotional upheaval deserving of it.

I think about perspective and where mine comes from, where yours comes from. I think about how I define myself, where the definition of me which ultimately shapes how I see, react, respond, and reflect upon events and circumstances, started. I am white. I am a woman. I was raised in a two parent family. Politics, religion, socioeconomic. Every detail makes up the construct of me and the lens upon which I view the world.

Pivotal moments in my life have slapped me upside the face, made me realize that how I see, what I assume based upon my views, limited and only slight of dimension, are not the total truth. Will never be the total truth.

I cannot began to know what it feels like to be African American. I cannot began to understand a normal where it is unsafe to simply be because of how I look, because of the definitions and blindness and hate society continues to hang on to.

We can talk about celebrating one another’s differences and respecting each other all day long, but doing it, living it, is entirely different. Changing the construct so that those differences are not dangerous to have, to be, is even greater still and needs to be where we are going. Needs to be where we already should have been. Because this is not a moment. This is not a simple or fleeting, never to be seen again. It continues and continues and continues and continues.

I don’t know what to do with this. I am not comfortable writing about this. This is not cathartic for me.

There are fifteen minutes until launch. The air is filled with the smells of chocolate and peanut butter from some concoction Husband just baked. I should be studying for the National Board Certification test I am taking Monday morning.

Life moves forward.

And I don’t know what to do with this.

 

Posted in Random Thoughts | Tagged | 4 Comments

Nervous Pickles

Posted on May 29, 2020 by Shoes

me: Why are there spots of juice or something on the table?

Cody: It was the pickle jar. It sweats ever time I open it – it gets nervous.

Cody is a voracious pickle eater who has been known to eat many, many pickle slices in a sitting.

A nervous pickle jar makes total sense.

If you look closely, you can see the sweat forming on his upper brow.

 

 

 

Posted in Food Glorious Food | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

Simple Sunday – Into Pieces and Back Again

Posted on May 24, 2020 by Shoes

Husband did some research and then a seven dollar part and a couple hours later my computer was back.

This was my laptop on Thursday.

It had been acting up – randomly making chargers unusable (yes, more than one), slowing to a crawl, refusing to acknowledge that it was plugged in until the removal of it’s battery – making me very upset.

Nicely done, Husband!

Posted in Simple Sunday | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Back in the Summer of ’95

Posted on May 23, 2020 by Shoes

A couple weeks ago during one of our dinner conversations, the question of whether cats have bellybuttons came up. I started telling a story of the momma cat who had her litter of kittens in the closet of a housemate of mine, casually mentioning that happened to be the summer I lived with a rock band in Portland, OR.

Kitten bellybuttons were immediately forgotten. What rock band? Would they have heard of the band? Was the band famous? I couldn’t remember, no, and I doubted it but I liked their music – were my answers. I texted my friend who also lived in the rock band house (it wasn’t the entire band, mind you, just a couple of the members) and who happened to be the reason I was in Portland that summer. It was an impromptu summer adventure before I started college at ASU. We had very little money and so the more people in the house, the less our share of the rent.

She texted me back quickly – New Bad Things. Right, how could I forget?

I cranked up FreeWheel! on Spotify and danced like a fool while loading the dishwasher. Husband and the boys backed quietly out of the kitchen.

After the dishwasher was loaded, the text thread continued

She found it for me in a matter of minutes. Yellow Pages – a 1 hour 29 minute comedy that was released in 1999. Husband surprised me by buying a copy off eBay. I think he was excited to find out he was married to a movie star. Both my friend and I made the cut and are visible in the longer restaurant scene, but I am not recommending you watch it. It is rather horrible.

You would think that living with an indie rock band and spending a day on the set of a movie as an extra would have been highlights to my summer adventure all those years ago, but they were not. Not even close. What I do remember is this:

  • iced coffee at Powell’s. I could not afford fancy iced coffee so I ordered ice and coffee and put it together. I spent many a morning there.
  • visiting Hal at the Greyhound station almost everyday to check on my lost bag (I packed for an entire month of adventure in that bag that was stolen off the bus. It was never found, but the monies they compensated me with paid for my first semester of college books.
  • braving public transit by myself all around Portland (my friend worked a summer job, while I bummed around living on little, but living a lot.)
  • Kinko’s – for some reason we spent some memorable times there, copying resumes perhaps?
  • learning that the green leafy flecks in the cheap burritos sold from the hole in the wall restaurant walking distance from our house, was cilantro. I hate cilantro but did not know what it was that sometimes made me hate my burrito or taco until that moment. From that point on, I could order Mexican food free of fear that it would have that awful herb in it. Exhilarating!
  • antique shopping on the way to or from a natural nude hot springs and finding a great vintage, tattered, black cardboard suitcase with metal clasps and a leather handle. I used it for a suitcase then, but now it is where I put items that have significance to me.

And yes, kittens do have bellybuttons, but I forgot to tell Cody and Carter that after the slight derailing of our original conversation.

Posted in Random Thoughts | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Simple Sunday – So much can be conveyed in a look

Posted on May 17, 2020 by Shoes

You know when your cat comes over and lays down next to you wanting to nap, but he is so cute that you can’t stop petting him?

That happened to James today. Poor baby James.

Posted in Furry Feet (and fish), Simple Sunday | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments