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August 31, 2005
big sky, rhode island
The eagle has landed here on the EC. Here's a shot of the beach that is a few blocks from our house. Sadly, the used condoms, empty tackle boxes, and other unidentifiable flimflam littering the shoreline did not make it into the shot.
We love this beach and with the self-righteousness of the newly arrived, we vow to start committees and take actions to clean it up post haste, though I fear we will draw the scorn of the locals. The one person we've met, our babysitter-to-be, informed us that this beach is no longer cool and nobody goes there. Too bad, more flimflam for us!
I'm suffering from Stickus Outimus Sorethumbolism in that everyone here seems from another universe; one in which they scream at workers in places of business, smack their kids in the head for being lippy, and don't give a shit if you have a nice day or not. While opening a bank account at my local bank, I saw an enraged 300 pound man in mirrored shades practically dismember the branch manager because he misunderstood the bank's check-clearing policy. To her enormous credit, the beautiful Latina branch manager gave it right back at him and somehow, no shots were fired. The man left complacent, I was relieved, and the branch manager beautiful.
Our house is the shantyshack in a very well-to-do town. We moved here to be closer to my family, because of the ocean, for the school systems and the smaller-town lifestyle, all very good reasons. I adore our little house in spite of all its LEAKING from the tail-end of Katrina. I just hope that eventually we'll start feeling less like a sociological experiment or an unwatched reality show: can the madcap, misfit family make it in Moneyville or will the pony-moms take them down?
My husband just came downstairs to inform me that working in his underwear is awesome. We're going to be the best officemates ever.
Posted by Max at 06:50 PM | Comments (0)
August 07, 2005
More bounce to the ounce
I’m a lean, mean, packing machine. Well, not really but I am getting some packing done in between watching the Netflix movies we’ve had since January (!) and checking to make sure the Internet hasn’t disappeared. I’d say we’re about 75% done, with the rest of the stuff like: the sheets that are on our beds, dirty laundry, half-used bottles of lotion. Figuring out how to pack the last crumbs of my decade plus here will be my husband’s job since the Bean and I are Jet Blueing on Monday and he’s not leaving for another week or so.
Meanwhile, my husband is with our two year-old son at his family reunion and calls me periodically to tell me that Bean is white-water rafting, eating pork rinds, and doing shots with his Grampy. He’s under strict orders to call me back when the kid is on land and sober.
Seattle is not cooperating by being all hot and sunny and friendly. Who wants to leave a city that beams sun into your eyeballs at 7:00 am and says “Hello there! Want to go to the wading pool? How about some sushi later, and a couple of cold microbrews with friends?” Does Rhode Island even have wading pools and sushi, or is it going to be the Atlantic and clam chowder from here on out? I guess that wouldn’t be so bad. But the friends thing, aye carumba. I am nervous that we are entering the Land of Ultraconservative Momdom, where all the mothers have tans, cutely disheveled blonde ponytails, and pleated khaki shorts. I’m wondering how my husband with his tattoos and his Judas Priest t-shirts and me with my I-don’t-even-know-what are going to fit in.
Situations where everyone has to chat and drink punch and wear pastels turn me into a showcase of failed girlishness and I end up longing for my dirty south music while picturing everyone naked. That feels like a sentence that has never been written. There should be a bell that goes off or something, especially because, as any of my grad school professors will tell you, I’m a bit hackneyed when it comes to the words and the writin’ and stuff.
In closing, I would like to note that while I enjoy looking at Campbell Brown* and feel that she resembles one of my favorite ladies Parker Posey, to me Ms. Brown seems slightly insincere and like she might have been mean to people in her not-too-distant past. I hope it's not the case, but that is my impression. Is it because she is a famous newscaster and I am currently an unemployed, Molson-drinking packer of boxes? One wonders.
*OMG you can buy Campbell Brown! We’ll take two!!
Posted by Max at 02:16 AM | Comments (0)
August 04, 2005
Something new to wrinkle your nose at
Son of Max recently received feedback that postings are too infrequent. I agree that posts have been spotty at best. However, Son of Max has also recently learned that everyone from the President of Chile to the Pope of Greenwich Village is reading this little homage to maternal minutia and therefore subject material has grown a bit…limited. I can only safely write about three things without risking offending something or someone: broccoli, windsurfing and aardvarks. Then again, I can be pretty offensive in person so I guess one should expect the same of an electronic version of me. Son of Max: all of the bad attitude with none of the pesky eye-rolling!
Man, I am a blogging cliché. See for yourself...
A History of Blogging
1. Hear about blogging from wildly successful blogging friend. Like a big dork, ask “So what is blogging, anyway?” Feel like an ass a few months later when you clue in on how famous said friend is in the BC (that’s blogging community, yo!)
2. Start stalking and lurking around other blogs, but never post because people try too hard to be funny in the comments section and you feel that when it comes to the comedic arts, brevity is not your strong suit anyway.
3. Debut your own site: offend friends with very first post!
4. Write about some crap
5. Want readers, but only if they are not related to, working with, or considering hiring you. Find out this is not the case.
6. Don’t write about some other crap. Have tedious, perpetual, and also cliché internal debate about Why You Blog if you can't write about things you want to write about
7. Apologize for not writing more (live your own blogging pet peeve!!)
8. Allude to the fact that you may quit blogging
9. Keep blogging
10. Quit blogging, take up windsurfing
There you go. Now you know how it all shakes out. I should get ahead of the curve on 2006’s trend and just start windsurfing now.
The Bean and I leave on Monday. Or, as we’ve been discussing it:
Mama: Who’s going on an airplane?
Bean: Mama
Mama: Who else?
Bean: Coco*
Mama: Where do airplanes go?
Bean: Up in the sky
Mama: Who are we going to see?
Bean: Baby Miles
Mama: And what does Baby Miles do?
Bean pretending to cry: Crying
Mama: And what do we do when Baby Miles cries?
Bean: Kisses
Mama: And what else?
Bean hugs self: Hugs
*His other nickname. Well, one of them.
**7-week old cousin, also colicky. Sorry, sis!
I think I just demonstrated why I blog: to bore you. Oh, and to show I'm a woman of my word AND that we've been busy, here's my leaving Seattle shots of the Bean.
Posted by Max at 10:53 PM | Comments (0)