At a Party:

Her: What’s that on the puppy’s belly?

My poor, long-suffering neighbor, Katy: Erm…those are her nipples.

Her: ???

K: Like…her boobies.

Her, excited: I have some of those!

and lifts her shirt to demonstrate.

K: er…did anyone else see that?

later that same night…

Her: Mama! Mama, the trees! They are staying on the ground!

My Thought Bubble: She’s not wrong…

Then the Big Kid tries to play I Spy with her…

Big Kid: I spy with my little eye…

Her: Nope! I don’t see it!

BK: No, honey, I have to…

Her: I Don’t See It!

BK: Okay, you have to pick something, like a mailbox…

Her: I see one!

BK: Well, yes but…

Her: I see another mailbox! There’s one! They are all staying on the ground! The maaaiiiilllllboxxxxxeeesssss are all staying on the grrrrrooouuuunnnnddddddd.

There is a theory here at The Compound that perhaps a schizophrenic’s brain and a three year old’s brain could be remarkably similar.

Stuff I did was talked about on the radio. That is how I roll, people. I am big time.

What actually happened was, I volunteered to run a bake sale for MoveOn.org last weekend. It went really well and money was raised and a lot of strangers baked cookies and pies and bread, and some people I know did some stuff, too. At the end of the day, GL was graciously helping clean up, and perhaps slightly less gracefully dumped a billion gallons of lemonade all over herself. Audrey was quite dismayed and yelled, “GL spilled Obama’s lemonade!” I think she was under the impression that Barack was going to show up at the end of the bake sale and declare presidency. If only.

As if that wasn’t enough tastiness, tonight we made Spaghetti with Strawberries. Go ahead, click the link. Then follow the recipe and then hire a good bouncer because there will be a party in your mouth that is totally A List.

The Radio People also talked about other stuff I did, namely the TJTK, and even plugged the tshirt I made for it. Click the link to listen to the first few minutes of it, and there is Miz Jaz, knitting her little heart out on the radio. Aw.

Things she has said to crack me up, just since 4:30 this afternoon:

1. Katy gave her a lollipop (because that is what Katy does) and we said she could have it tomorrow after lunch, as it was nearing bedtime. Cut to 4 seconds later, and she is hiding behind the chair eating that damn lollipop while I was getting wasted talking with Katy. I asked her what was up, and she proudly tells me she is being “sneaky”. I said, okay, but let’s not be sneaky because Mama needs to know what is going on so she can keep you safe, and it’s not nice to be sneaky. “Oh,” she says, saddened because that sneaky thing was really working out for her for a minute there. Later, I reinforced the idea, and she says: “Right, Mama. I won’t be sneaky any more at six greggity lane.” (attention stalkers: we have poisonous snakes. do not attempt to decipher the address and come kill us)

2. At storytime, she is playing with the top to a medicine dispensing syringe (up yours, Toys R Us!). I start to tell The Three Little Pigs, and she suggests that the Big Bad Wolf could us the syringe to help blow the houses down. After a brief question and answer period, I say, “Sooo, the Big Bad Wolf should eat the pigs?” Yes, she says. He’s hungry. I won’t reprint the text – watch for the hardback from Harper Collins! – but it came down to Audrey helping the BBW blow all the houses down with this new device that she invented. She and the Wolf strolled along, blowing down pigs’ houses, and in the end he eats three pigs, is sated and happy, and then they go out for ice cream. That’s my little carnivore.

3. Amazingly, that little tale didn’t put her to sleep, so I brought out the big guns: a version of a fairy story my great aunt would tell me, involving different colored fairies coming and sprinkling fairy dust in her eyes (makes the child shut eyes, at least for a moment) and then soothing shhh noises as the fairy helps her sleep. Once we got around to the second round of pink, grey, brown and chartreuse fairies, I slowly tried to sneak out of bed. She groggily opened her eyes and murmured, “Okay, you can go now.”

Japanese television is odd. There are several snippets of this balloon guy. Not any weirder than America’s Got Talent, I suppose.

 Anatomy of a Gummi Bear. When I was 13, I went to see my cousin in New Hampshire. We met at the Mall of NH, as they lived far from anything, off of a logging trail infested with bears and rabid moose. They seriously couldn’t get pizza delivery. Who can live like that? Anyway, at the mall, we ingested a pound of gummi bears in the course of an hour, and I don’t know if they were super sugar gummis, or we were just 13 and hormonal and suggestive, but we buzzed around that mall  and giggled like we were on some seriously good acid.  We tried to replicate the effects, but none were as good as that day.  Was it just a confluence of early adolescence and familial bonds? Or did someone spike the gelatin? Either way, gummi bears always make me feel nostalgic and happy.

If you are in the downtown Northampton area on Saturday the 21st, stop by the Hungry for Change Bake Sale You Can Believe In, sponsored by MoveOn and volunteered by me. Please buy stuff; jI don’t want to have to eat 12 dozen cookies. (well, in theory I do, but in practice I don’t want to have to work out any more than I already do.)

This describes fairly accurately what I have been up to.

I have also been obsessively carving through the archives of this lovely woman. Mostly because she describes playdates thusly:

“I cruelly fed Esme a chocolate wafer at the next table while we listened to Mrs Shutup crap on about how Freddie shan’t eat anything unless it has been expressly shat by Buddha into a basket woven from GM-free lentils.”

True love, I tell ya. Thanks, Jaz.

Are you a good housewife? Find out now!

I was pleased to find out that “stumbles home after five mojitos and spends the next day moaning” was not even on there! On the one hand, I do react “with pleasure and delight to marital congress”; however, “telling risque or vulgar stories” is 5 demerits. Which goes hand in hand with using “slang and profanity”, such as this story:

Audrey told Pete he looked “fucking cute” when he mentioned he needed a hair cut. Seriously, do I really say it that much? We are so getting kicked out of preschool.

First strawberries of the season.

We decided to have them mostly unadulterated, just some slicing and some sugar, although if you asked me, I would have told you to use an old family recipe, using a blender and some tequila. Ah well, they were good anyway.