I don’t mean to brag, but I have assembled a team of the funniest freaking sports bloggers over at Draft Day Suit and I am as proud as I can be.
Even if you don’t like sports, this site will crack you up.
Please do yourself (and me) a favor and go check it out.
My friend Susan, you might know her as WhyMommy, is having surgery this morning. She is having six tumors removed from her body as part of her ongoing battle with cancer.
My other friend Jean, you might know her as Stimey, had a fabulous idea. We all want to support Susan, but we don’t want to dwell on her illness. Since Susan is a scientist, Jean thought that we should have a virtual science fair in her honor.
I jumped at the chance to honor Susan, then in typical Sarah fashion I procrastinated all week, then panicked because science is not my strong suit.
I am a writer and a musician for a reason, people.
But! It turns out that we did science accidentally. It wasn’t so much a science project, as our hypothesis would have to be something like “Tomatoes and peppers may grow in our side yard if we plant them.” but it was an experiment as we’ve never tried to grow anything in this particular flower bed before.
Behold:
My kids told their grandparents that we are farmers.
And of course these three did most of the dirty work.
What? Somebody had to take pictures with their cell phone. (Did I tell you that Nikon finally made me return Precious?)
Science is all fun and games until somebody gets very tired and her Dad touches her with his dirty hand.
My prediction is that we will grow tomatoes and they will taste better than the ones at the grocery store and I will save money on my salads and fajitas.
Ian’s prediction is that deer will come to our house and eat our vegetables.
Gabe’s prediction is that Ian will sneak out in the middle of the night, eat all of the tomatoes and blame rogue deer.
Claudia was ignoring me when I asked for input.
* * *
We love you, Susan. Thanks for the inspiration. I’ll bring you some beautiful bell peppers by the end of the summer.
This morning my five year old son told me that he needed to take his lunch to school in a shopping bag instead of the $30 Bakugan lunch thing I bought for him because that is what all of the “cool kids” were doing.
Then he said that he knew he was a cool kid because he had a stuffed dragon.
I kind of wanted to tell him that he shouldn’t worry about the cool kids. The kids that are cool in high school usually have pretty mediocre lives by their mid 20s and nobody even remembers who the cool kids were in their Kindergarten class.
I wanted to tell him to be himself and to have fun. I wanted to tell him that if it made him happy to take his lunch in a hat then that is what he should do.
I wanted to tell him that the cool kids don’t matter.
Of course, I still care about the cool kids. Yes, I care about them much less than I did when I was in 8th grade, but a tiny little part of me will always want to part of the “in” crowd. I know it doesn’t matter. I know I am happy. I know my life is good and I have great friends, but this girl is still in there somewhere wanting to be friends with the most popular girl in school.
Now I’m just hoping that the cool kids have decided against bras to the grocery store because I accidentally left the house without mine on this morning and had to shop in my coat the entire time.
I’m also hoping that my daughter can somehow continue to avoid caring about what the other girls are doing. This might sound sexist but it always seemed like the popularity game affected the girls more than the boys. I would love it if my children could avoid the pain of insecurity.
This week I’ve heard some of the most amazing writers I know worrying about how much they suck. These are men and women in their 30s and 40s who astound me on a regular basis. These are published authors and A-List Bloggers and people whose words have made me cry or howl with laughter.
Maybe the insecurity never goes away. Hopefully it just gets easier. I feel bad for my kids because they still have to get through the worst of it, and they don’t even know it is coming.
And I can know what I know about growing up and still try not to worry about the shopping bags and dragons I can’t predict for them that I know will show up. And I can be glad that he says he knows he’s a cool kid, for now, for whatever random reason. It can’t hurt to store some of that up for the times when I know he won’t feel that way.
Maybe we will get lucky and all they will have to do to be cool is take their lunches to school in shopping bags. I have hundreds of those and I know where to get more when they run out. I bought the stuffed dragon on eBay so I can replace that too.
But the Kindergarten kid who decided on shopping bags owes me thirty bucks for the Bakugan lunch bag.
I’m not that great of a cook, but I like food.
Gabe does most of the quality cooking in this joint, but I try to do at least half of the cooking.
This is why I was on the internet trying to figure out how to hard boil an egg.
I mean, yes, I know you boil eggs in a pan with water in it on the stove, but I was looking for cooking times. Hard boiled eggs always trip me up.
I went to my handy dandy search engine and I searched for “perfect hard boiled egg”.
And you want to hear something crazy? I chose the third entry because it looked the most promising and it just so happens that I personally knew the person who wrote the article.
I don’t mean that I met her at a book signing or we were introduced once at a cocktail party. I mean she used to be my boss.
I just took 40 minutes finding a picture of us together from BlogHer ‘07 and it turns out I look like a crazy person with balloon head and so I won’t post it, but thanks to the glory that is Flickr (and the genius of Isabel via twitter):
Picture Courtesy Mom2Summit flickr pool
We are the two in the middle. I am the pasty one. She is the one with the pretty hair.
My whole point is that what are the odds that I find a random recipe on the internet and it turns out to be written by someone I actually know? Maybe this web isn’t so wide after all.
And also, thanks, Stefania. My eggs were perfect.
I’ve been known to drink a beer or two (or eight) every now and then.* I love beer and I love wine. I even love some mixed drinks, but they don’t so much love me.
This is not my point. What I was going to say is that I come by it honestly. My mother’s entire family are pretty solid drinkers. This tends to get me in trouble when I hang out with my cousins.
So one night I was drinking (heavily) with my cousins and we had to get up early the next morning. We had a pre-wedding get together. I wasn’t hungover exactly, but I certainly wasn’t at me best. When we got to the shower the hostess offered us a mimosa. Not to be the type of person to turn down such an offer I accepted.
Here is the thing with champagne in the morning after a long night of drinking: after about a half a glass I was buzzed again.
I need to give you this back story to justify my behavior.
This was the first time I had been to the house of these people. They are very nice upstanding people. The bride’s whole side of the family are lovely upstanding Christian people. Our side, not as much.***
I hope you understand that I have been forthcoming that I possess the maturity of a 12 year old boy when I tell you that when I saw this plaque hanging by their garage door I laughed until I was doubled over and crying.
It was the kind of laughter where no actual sound was coming out.
That is when my Dad walked into the kitchen.
I think he thought there was something wrong with me. Probably because I was weeping and gasping. When he asked me what was the matter all I could do was point was point and wheeze.
I believe his exact words were “Nice, Sarah”.
My parents are very proud of me.
Fast forward about ten years. I am actually a grown up with my own house and children and a job and everything. I had just successfully convinced my kids to clean their rooms. I was feeling pretty good. My deadlines had been met, the house was clean (ish) and I was ready for my evening fantasy football draft and neighborhood birthday party. Then I heard knocking.
I went downstairs to the front door.
Nobody was there.
Yet, still there was knocking, as of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
I found the kids. They weren’t hitting anything. The cats were sleeping. I was starting to feel crazy and I asked the kids if they heard knocking.
“‘Tis some visitor,” I muttered.
And then I looked out my back door and it was no bird. It was my new neighbor. She is going into Kindergarten this week just like The Goon Squad and she was coming over to play.
About ten minutes later there was another knock, and this time I was prepared and I went to the kitchen door first.
It was the new neighbor mom and she was looking for her daughter.
I think I actually have my own back door friends.
And now I understand the sign.**
Back door friends really are best. I think it is the idea that there are no formalities.
Then my new neighbor brought me a beer. I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
