Potatoes in the Mist

So the plague has been sweeping through our apartment - but we are all getting different versions. First I had a flu-type plague (chills, fever, congestion). Then D had a bathroom plague. Now E has a vomiting/bathroom plague. It seems to have passed over - but strep and pinkeye are taking over his classroom. E seems immune to pinkeye (famous last words) but has had strep without symptoms several times (passing it to D and me). OY! Saturday we have to go to the post office, en famille, to get E and Z's passports. I guess the presence of both parents is necessary to make sure no one is being kidnapped. What a pain in the a**. It is infinitely harder to get passports for a minor than for yourself. What's more, the handy passport coordinator was dwelling on driver's licenses. I told him I didn't have one. He said, "Do you have a passport? Is it valid?" Yes. Yes. So that was fine. What's up with their website, then, saying a driver's license was good e...

My niece just sent me a photo of her prom dress. I feel so old! I remember when she was three years old and used to say, "I wub you." Although...more seriously, getting "older" is bothering me less. I will turn 40 in July 2015, but I think with the right attitude, it could be an adventure. I think as women get older, they care less what others think about them. I can feel it happening already.

So I'm trying to get passports for the kids. We're thinking of going to Cancun for E's winter break. I've never been to Mexico before, and I was looking forward to it. But getting passports is a b***h! I gathered up E's and Z's social security cards and birth certificates (an accomplishment in itself) and located a rush passport service (we had to hold on to E's birth certificate for a while, which is another story for another time). I also have to get 2X2 photos of them taken at CVS, which seems a little ludicrous because Z is only one, but whatever. The sticking point is...they want ID for the parents as well, and a passport is apparently NOT ENOUGH. And I currently have no license (yet another story). P.S. My mother came to the rescue, mailing my birth certificate and social security card. Also, D thinks the rush passport service is wrong about the requirements, because he thinks the state department will accept a passport as parental ID. However, I wan...

I'm feeling nostalgic for a bike ride I used to take. I haven't used my bike since before I got pregnant with Zoe. I didn't want to ride while I was pregnant, and since then we've been pretty much attached at the hip. But someday, when she starts going to preschool, I plan to ride my bike on a regular basis again. Anyway, this ride involved leaving my hometown, Danvers, and going to Topsfield, which was pretty rural and had a fancy cul-de-sac, William Fairfield Road, where I used to walk my dog and daydream about living (never happened). The bike path was hilly and thick with trees. Eventually it turned into a road, which was pretty deserted. You'd go through Amesbury and a series of tiny towns. Then, if you persevered for twenty miles, you were in Gloucester. Good Harbor Beach. The summer I turned 18, I had a lot of energy and I did this ride (forty miles round trip) on a regular basis. Once I went with a friend. I remember when we got to the beach, she fell asle...

I'm reading The Missing Manuscript of Jane Austen by Syrie James. She also wrote a book about Charlotte Bronte and the "lost memoirs" of Jane Austen. It's really cute, a nice read. Basically her main character finds a missing manuscript that Jane Austen wrote, and the whole thing is embedded in the novel. I compared it to Emma (also on my Kindle) and she pretty much got the tone right.

Here is the hat I finished today. It was a fun knit, though there was lots of purling. The yarn is called Snapdragon. I think it should be called Watermelon.

Today I got my hair highlighted and cut in long layers. I really do feel like a new woman. Funny how small things can make a big difference. I like looking at my hair and seeing little bursts of color. Z likes to bring me the DVD for Bridget Jones's Diary . We watch it on my computer together, usually just a few scenes because her attention span is not that long. I forgot how funny that movie is.

Today my SIL came over, I had some clothes to give her (for the baby), plus a present for her baby from my mom, and the tray for the highchair I already gave her. She seemed kind of frazzled and overwhelmed. It turned out the baby was "breathing shallowly" in her sleep earlier and she freaked out and took her to the pediatrician, who checked her lungs and said she was fine. Also, the baby won't sleep anywhere at night except her car seat. Almost done with book 3 of the Dragon Tattoo trilogy (officially known as the Millennium trilogy, after the magazine they work for in the series, but isn't my name better?). He's a gripping writer but he goes off on boring tangents that you can skip because he never mentions them again. Read a really juicy blog entry today. I won't reveal the blog, but whoa!

A certain baby napped for a long time today. That enabled me to finish book 2 in the Stieg Larsson trilogy. But it means she's not interested in bed now. I've started book 3 of the trilogy. I'm happy I came late to the series, so I can just whip through the whole thing and not have to wait for each book to come out. Today I made Rachael Ray's tomato pasta soup . I really liked it. I may even prefer it to the more complicated minestrone from Moosewood that I've been making all these years.

D picked up a book today. He said originally it was printed in a limited run, $500 per copy; now it is publicly available. It's a charming book. In its original form, it was a letter from Joyce to his grandson, Stephen James Joyce. (The lunch in the background was good too. I had a pear salad with pomegranate seeds and a pesto ricotta pizza.)

Our building toddler association didn't have a New Year's Eve party this year, so we decided to throw one ourselves. It seemed to go well. Nobody can get a babysitter that night anyway and people seemed relieved to have something they could take their kids to. Some of the kids pretended E's bed was a spaceship: One woman told me, "You guys are saints for letting everyone's kids come over." When we got up the next morning, I saw what she meant: puzzle pieces everywhere. We did get it all cleaned up, and I don't regret it. Though the kids ended up going to bed at 10:30.

So I'm reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Surprised by how much I'm enjoying it. I've been unimpressed by other Scandinavian literature I've tried - Smilla's Sense of Snow and The Snowman come to mind. But this seems warmer, more connected. I like the characters and they seem real to me. Found out that a girl in my co-op is having her third baby. They already have one child of each gender, and live in a two-bedroom apartment. The thought of a third child just fills me with exhaustion. I think two is enough, for me anyway...

So D and I had our last private school interview today. So glad to have it over with - and we ended on a high note. I was pleasantly surprised - we were interviewed by the director of Super Fancy Private School, and she was down to earth and lovely. Apparently she is known for charm, but it seemed genuine. Regarding the shooting at Newtown - I have nothing to add to all that has been said - but I do hope it is an impetus for much-needed change, and I like Anne Lamott's words - "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it" - and Victoria de Soto's bravery.

Proust is not really my style but I can totally see why the madeleine sparked reminiscence...this morning as I was making pancakes, I ate a little of the batter (with raw egg) and remembered how there used to be shakes with raw eggs in them. Morning shakes with banana and wheat germ. Does anybody remember these? If so, do you know how to make one (the proportions)? I would love to.

One of my persistent fascinations is fate vs. free will. My high school history teacher showed us a PBS film about Oedipus Rex (complete with ominous drums, etc.) He summed it up like this: Oedipus was destined to sleep with his mother; he couldn't help it; but he could choose what he was going to do about it. (He chose to blind himself.) In other words, my history teacher continued, we have a certain amount of destiny that puts us in a box, but we can choose what to do in the box. Related: if I could know everything that is going to happen in my life, I would do it. I hate surprises, and I like to be prepared. But even if you came across some omniscient gypsy who could see into the future...could s/he really predict it accurately? Maybe just the boxes, but not the choices inside.

Well, thanks to Etsy and Uncommon Goods, I am almost done with my Christmas shopping. And I kind of enjoyed it! This is my note to self that it is possible. In other good news, we are almost done with private school stuff - just 3 things to go to in the whole month of December, and I only need to go to 2 of those. So, yay!

This afternoon, I went for a walk with Z and saw a bunch of wild turkeys on my former English teacher's lawn. They were large and skittish. They marched across the street together. When Z and I followed, they flew into the trees.

So I'm visiting my hometown. It's not too cold yet, and E is having a great time with his Dodo, putting her through her paces in the kitchen. We only arrived this afternoon, and they've already made peanut butter Hershey kiss cookies, pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, and now some fruit salad. He is innovating by adding cherries. We got E's score report for the private school test (like the SAT for college) and he scored 98th percentile on one section, 99th on the other. We are both excited and proud of him. Yes, it is twisted to have to take this test at this age, but so awesome that he did well, which also means we will have some control over the process instead of it controlling us. So, yay. Reading Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver and Help, Thanks, Wow by Anne Lamott, whose nonfiction is so fantastic. I also bought a book of poems by Mary Oliver; I only really loved the first poem, but that is worth it, I guess.

I finished knitting a cable hat, put it on to see how it looks, and Z loves it. She keeps looking at my head and giggling. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

So we had a tour, followed by an interview, at a private school this morning. We saw their terrace, the "hydroponic lab" where the kids grow lettuce and basil, and even a pet iguana. He reminded me of Lurch, the iguana at my orthodontist's office when I was a kid. My orthodontist loved Lurch, to the point that he had him stuffed when he died and wrote a poem in his honor. (This may sound creepy, but was actually quirky and charming.) He also asked all the girls to marry him after he took their braces off (ditto). I was startled when we got to the interview portion of the program and the interviewer seemed nervous. She immediately asked, "So are we fifth on your list, or tenth?" D said something smooth and deflecting and I thought about how each of these interviews are different. She definitely gave the sense of trying to "sell" the school to us and make a good impression - probably the way it should be! Usually they try to trap you with tricky questi...