Muchas Grass-ias

Tonight, as I drove home, I felt the need to do a little nose picking (I say this with no shame).  While I was up there, I made a most interesting discovery.  I found a piece of grass up my nose.  Now this might make sense if I had an outdoor job, like lawn care, or if I had recently been camping, but since I rarely step foot outside and have spent the day in and out of stores with my family, there is no logical way to explain how this came to live in my nostrils.

So, what the heck?  What's next?  A vuvuzela up my butt?  Wait, isn't that what most people say about me anyway?  Maybe with the sound and all...  Vzzzzzzzzzzz!

All Things Considered...

You know how on NPR, they have a segment that starts with "On this day in history..."  In my life, the news would be like this:

On this day, in the projects, while we watched the World Cup, Eli Clinton ran wild through the house, trying to get someone to pay attention to him by shouting, jumping, and kicking things.  In his mania, he managed to smash his mother in the face with a small plastic basketball.  Then, minutes later he kicked a big blue ball (after being instructed not to kick it in the house, though his distracted mother did not carry through with her threats so her warnings went unheeded), which launched violently toward a coffee table that held various cups.  Of course the ball struck my jumbo coffee cup, producing a geyser-like explosion all over the room.  The angry coffee spilled onto my computer sleeve (luckily it was thick enough to prevent a total disaster) and onto a bag containing a light colored knitting project I have been working on for months.  Unfortunately, I can't wash the baby blanket until it is finished and by then the stains will likely be set.  I'm sure lots of people prefer their babies to be wrapped up in blankets that have brown stains and smell like a rotten coffee shop.

As I was busy cleaning up the soaking carpet and damaged projects, we heard a lot of commotion coming from the kitchen.  Then Linda flew into the room much faster than we've ever seen her jelly butt move.  She was puffed up and terrified.  When I went into the kitchen, I saw the purpose of the terror.  Our sliding door was open and on the other side of the screen was a big dog jumping around and barking.  Lorenzo was holding his ground, hissing and threatening to attack the excited dog.  I called Mark and Lars (who was fortunate to be visiting during the crazy storm) into the kitchen to laugh at Lorenzo with me (yes, I know, I'm terrible, but he's such a tough little turd).  Mark got close to him to observe and suddenly Lorenzo lashed out and savagely bit him in the leg.  A few minutes later, poor Mark realized that his shin was dripping blood down his leg from 3 different teeth spots (luckily Lorenzo got his rabies shot yesterday or we'd have an Old Yeller situation on our hands).  Eli saw the blood and visibly trembled and started to get very concerned for his daddy.  This was only the second time he's really ever seen blood and he didn't like it one bit.  So we all ran around like crazy for a while longer, cleaning up blood and coffee and feeling once again like somebody was playing a joke on us and filming it all.

And of course later tonight, I opened the refrigerator and out flew a box of blueberries that hit the ground and exploded, sending berries all over the floor and under the refrigerator.  I was too lazy to pull out the fridge so I will likely be met with the smell of rotting fruit later this week.

But, on a positive note, Marina finally cut her first tooth today, at 9-1/2 months old.  Phew!  At least all this crabbiness has an explanation!  I thought she had suddenly become her mother!

I can't wait to go to bed tonight.  I bet I will lay in some cat poop or something...

Current Lecture Series: Resourcefulness

A good wife and mother is resourceful. She can think on the fly and does not often waste. Since I am writing a book on tips and tricks of a good wife and mother, I thought I would pause for a moment and share an excerpt so you too can be ready in any situation.

If you come home from your evening job and find that your husband is hungry and the food supply is low, you will likely have to rummage through the cabinets and refrigerator trying to find enough components to make an acceptable meal. If you look hard enough, you will find a bag in the back of the freezer containing a number of freezer-burned 1/3 pound hamburger patties. You can take this treasure and throw it on the grill - or in our case, if you don't have a grill and wouldn't know how to use it if you did, you could slap that baby on the handy George Foreman. If you find that you don't have any hamburger buns, but you do have a number of hot dog buns (and consequently no hot dogs), it would be a stroke of genius if you opened up two hot dog buns and laid them flat for a nice freezer-burned hamburger bed. If you add some old onions and a few globs of ketchup and mustard, your husband will have a fine dining experience. I have included a photograph if this is a recipe you would like to try in the future. I might actually send this one to Bobby Flay to see if he would like to include it on his show.  Notice the presentation and the lack of side items for this meal.  I like to think my main dish is usually so spectacular, it would only embarrass anything else I could put on the plate. 

Another example:  If you find yourself as a newlywed, living in an apartment that doesn't allow animals, yet feel compelled to adopt a cat, you will likely have to cover your windows so the sun-starved beast doesn't bust you while you are at work.  What should you cover your windows with, you ask?  I suggest going to the local fabric store and picking up a stylish piece that will not only accent the windows you have to nail it to, but also bring a warmth into your rooms.  If it is on clearance, that is a bonus.  And if you have any of the luxurious fabric left, you might want to hand-stitch a pillow that can follow you from house to house for the next 6 years, acting as a brilliant upgrade to any piece of furniture.  I have also included a picture of said pillow, including a close up where you can see the intricate detail.

Do you see how easy it is to bring light into your home and your family member's lives with your resourcefulness?  I will be giving a lecture series at the local community college this summer for anyone who is looking for some help in this area.  Just wait until you hear what I can do with piles of laundry and dishes!

Ole Ole Ole

As the World Cup approaches and our excitement grows, I am reminded of my history in soccer. I grew up playing soccer. Admittedly, I was never very good. I was always looking for ways to get out of running and I rode the bench with a mastered skill. I am lacking in competitive spirit. I always enjoyed friendships with my fellow teammates more than going to practice. I am glad, though, that I played so long because is was good for me and I like saying I used to play soccer; then people can think I was a super-star athlete and I am not about to correct their thinking. I will undoubtedly sign my kids up to play as soon as they are old enough.

Here is a small catalog of some of my soccer disasters:

Once, in high school, while we were driving to soccer practice, a few of my teammates and I decided we didn't want to go that day, so we turned our car around and went somewhere else (I can't remember where now, probably to eat something). Since people had seen us in route to practice, driving all together, panic quickly spread around and it was assumed that something terrible had happened to us. When we turned up unharmed and sheepish, we were chastised and suspended for a handful of games. We were all starters too, which made it even more annoying to the team. Oops. I think it was my brilliant plan too.

Another time, while playing on a travel soccer team, as a defender, I managed to score on my own goalie, twice. It was quite amazing. I don't know what the heck my coach was doing leaving me in there so long. The other team must have loved it.

From time to time, my dad used to make us be linesmen at local soccer games, since he was in charge of assigning refs to all the games. I was not very good at it since I would forget which way to point the flag and sometimes lose focus and miss calls completely. I remember in one specific game (I am ashamed even as I type this), I thought that I had never really called an Offsides call in a game, so impulsively I raised my flag up at an arbitrary time. Immediately the coach for the offending (or not really offending at all) team started yelling at the ref (who happened to be my dad) that I was wrong but the other team was clapping for me. My dad came over to confer with me, where I assured him I was right. Why did I do things like this you ask, I don't know, I often ask the same thing.

Once I decided I was going to quit my traveling team because I didn't want to go to practice; I wanted to hang out with my friends instead, but they convinced me to go to one last practice before I quit. So I went. And during conditioning, while I was loafing along instead of sprinting, my foot got caught in a tuft of grass and I slowly and clumsily fell to the ground. It turned out I had broken my ankle, though no one really believed me because I was so lazy, they thought I just didn't want to run anymore. They were mostly right.

I feel like Chunk from Goonies with all of these stories... (remember the scene where he was telling the Fratelli's about everything bad he had ever done?)

I feel like I should redeem myself with one good story. It took me some time to think of this: One time, my traveling team was really short on players and didn't have a goal keeper so somehow I got volunteered to go and play. After thinking I was going to crap my pants, I went in and it turned out I was actually pretty good, even though I couldn't catch the ball for anything. I could, however, run out and tackle the approaching players and grab the ball. What do you know? Turns out I am awesome after all. Then I got recruited by the women's national team where I went on to have a successful career until I retired so I could have babies and stay home to raise them. One part of this story may be inaccurate. I will let you decide which part that is.

So, I advise you to keep your kids in soccer, even if they complain and are kind of junky at playing anyway, because if nothing else, they will have some great stories later in life. And also imagine I am saying something wise about building character.

Mistaken Identity

Today, while we were eating lunch, we had the music playing from my iPod and the song "Por Ti Volare" by Andrea Bocelli came on. I am always surprised at how much Eli listens and observes (and often repeats - yikes!). He will sit quietly and eat (certainly not always) and then repeat a line from the song from that's playing. Some times he will ask personal questions about the artist singing, like "Does he or she have a cat?" Or "Is he dead?" But today, while this song was playing, he simply announced "This is Jesus singing." He has said that before, when he thinks a song is really beautiful, especially when it is an opera-type of song. That's right, my kid's got class.

In case you want to hear Andrea Bocelli (and possibly Jesus) singing, here is the link to the song on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTlPPqPodiA&feature=related

Ignore the odd images flashing throughout the video.

Also, speaking of Jesus... if you recall back a few months, I wrote a blog about gifts that Mark used to give me in college and how they were wonderfully ridiculous and making a reappearance in our lives these days. In that time, I was also in the habit of awarding spectacularly useless trinkets to my main squeeze. One of these items was a mug in the shape of the face of an obscure professional wrestler. The cumbersome cup was difficult to drink out of without spilling all over you. A few weeks back, I was scraping around in the back of the cabinet and I spotted it. I introduced it to Eli during a meal. He asked me who's face it was. I told him it was Daddy with a beard. He told me I was wrong and that it was, in fact, Jesus on the cup. I told him he was right. He said he looked mad. I agreed and reasoned that it must be because he didn't like me pouring hot liquid into his head. That is understandable.

I took out my camera to illustrate for this blog and without prompting Eli decided to incorporate his finger into the pictures.

Angry Eyebrows!

Notice the lone rogue sunflower seed on Eli's shirt