ode to the red sox

Oh, my Sox, I’m loathe to say,

Have broken my heart another day.

2011 season’s sudden and bitter fall,

In all estimation, is the worst of baseball.

The Spring, per usual, was lacking grace,

But fortitude steeled upon every fan’s face.

Papi’s homers sang past the Green Monster

And Gonzalez surprised with his hutzpah.

Pedroia and Ellsbury, ah my boys, are

The hardest working players in pro ball.

The beauty plays it as an art.

The littlest player pumps the biggest heart.

I love the rest of the guys, too,

But here’s the thing, you know it’s true:

As much as our team plays as a team like no other

These two play as determined brothers.

For most of the season we were number one

Then September stole all the fun,

With so many of our players on the DL

What could we do? What the hell?

Three weeks of watching torture,

The Yankees circled like vultures

And right at season’s end,

We began to rise, a bit slowly, but rise again.

Terry Francona chewed his gum,

He chewed and chewed until we won.

Extra innings lay in Papalbon’s hand.

Then we tied and lost again.

And then that Tampa Bay,

Who are these guys anyway?

I couldn’t watch, my husband yelled

How on earth? Again, I ask: What. The. Hell?

We rollercoastered our way through the final few.

The Yankees were rough, Tampa Bay, too

We took both series’ last games, and didn’t whine.

Then we lost to the Orioles in the bottom of the ninth.

A short season this year, tis true,

Maybe I’ll cower with the flu.

While other teams’ fans raise up cheers

I’ll stay away from October play, cause:

THERE’S ALWAYS NEXT YEAR.

Warning: not so mild language.

It’s that time – short family vacation, camping, after we drop the boys off to their father. See outside the walnut grained vinyl veneer station wagon? That’s our camping reservations forecast for  the duration. Lucy is not a fan of thunderstorms when in the house. I wonder how she’ll fair in a tent?

We should be back in four days. Glub glub.

And then we’ll do it again with the boys when we get them back in August.

sixteen

My first born turns sixteen today.

Fall 1996, Gaga & Papa’s house in Ct.

Tears start now.

Not because I’m sad, not because so much of my life has passed in that time, not because I mourn the passing of his childhood.

But because I am very proud of the child becoming a man before my eyes, as only a mother can know. Love keeps cracking me open to my own vulnerabilities and strengths that I discovered through growing him inside sixteen years ago and watching him grow, as best as I can without interfering with his fully realizing himself.

16 on 16:

1. He’s a very old soul, and a very old soul is he.
2. He sneezes a lot.
3. He plays a mean electric bass.
4. He’s teaching himself guitar.
5. He smirks, always.
6. He sings, really really well, competitively well.
7. He writes songs.
8. He writes books, has since he was in kindergarten.
9. He’s fragile, in good ways.
10. He’s strong, of spirit, not so much in body.
11. He is very very protective of those he loves.
12. He oozes into furniture, merges, becomes one.
13. He’s kind of a space cadet.
14. He has a very dry wit. (Hence calling him Mr. Cynic here)
15. He has good hair.
16. The girls think he’s cute, kind of like a pocket rock star.

I love him very much, and I like him, too. He’s pretty darn cool. And speaking as his mother, I’m kind of glad he’s still a pipsqueak.

Valentine’s Day 2011, He let me do this.

I love you, K-Bear, Happy Birthday. 

gardening love

I love to garden. I didn’t say I was good at it, but I love it. Sometimes I am orderly and plan ahead well, other times I get ideas. Yesterday involved a bit of both.

First, I have been neglecting the front flower patch’s needs for a while and second, I really needed to redo the driveway pots. Captain Comic has picked all the leaves off of two sets of small evergreens, first juniper, then vertical japanese boxwoods. Some of the storms we’ve had did the final damages. We have flower pots with something tall in them so Grandma and I can navigate around the brick borders of the ‘bridge’ over the culvert. We can’t see them from our five foot two and three perspectives as we back out of the driveway.

Before: if you look way in back you can make out what I am replacing.

These are the pots, new plants,some homemade humus in the wheel barrow

 and some good potting soil with food.

After: left side of driveway, five leaf Akiba.

After: right side of driveway, Carolina Jasmine.

I planted white Star Jasmine which grows on my fence near the wisteria in my backyard a few years ago.

Yes, the brickwork is broken, no I didn’t do it.

 It was like that when we moved in. 

One of these days…when I get a Round To-It.

Anyone remember that old 70s truck stop souvenir? Tap-Tap?

I liked the little bird trellises at Lowe’s garden center, and they were the cheapest thing that wasn’t plastic and still fit my idea for replacing the evergreen skeletons.

Self-portrait of a gardener

I looked down at one point during mulching and discovered I was covered in dirt from head to toe.

Life is good. Go plant something and watch it grow. 

all nine kinds of pies

 ”But there were all nine kinds of pie that Harold liked best.” 
                                                      ~Crockett Johnson, Harold and the Purple Crayon

Easter with my in-laws is full of pie. On Friday, Grandma stood at the stove and stirred Italian cream in the double boiler by the batch. She got a workout and a half stirring homemade sweet Italian cream, at least three batches of vanilla and one chocolate. She also made two ricotta pies. Her sister from the DC area brought pies galore, and her sister who lives down the street made quite a few, too.


Let me see if I can catalog them all:


Grandma made:
1 Vanilla cream pie
1 Pineapple cream pie
1 Chocolate cream pie
2 Ricotta pies
4 Easter Breads


Auntie L made:
1 Vanilla cream pie
2 Barley pies


Auntie B made: 
6 Ham pies
Easter Breads (haven’t seen hers yet, can’t count them)
1 Veggie lasagna with homemade pasta (Thank you!)
1 vat of “Manest” (here’s Rachael Rae’s recipe for reference)
and a heck of a lot of other food.
I think her plan is for 2 more sweet pies, too.


I made the Good Friday vat of Pasta e Fagiola. The one day of the weekend that the rest of the family will join me in the vegetarian realm.


There is a ton of more food to be had over the course of Easter and time with all of my in-laws. All of it is made from scratch, and there are only twelve people to feed, one weighing in at a whopping 26 pounds.


Gotta love a family where food equals love – especially in pie form.

vote for me – american gods

I love Neil Gaiman’s writing, from Black Orchid, Sandman, and Books of Magic graphic novels to  Good Omens with Terry Pratchett, Anansi Boys and the Newbery Medal Winner The Graveyard Book. My favorite book of his is American Gods. I am nearly as well versed in world mythologies, but not nearly as easily referential as Mr. Gaiman, nor so quick to bring forth the old stories into a new millennium in amazingly inventive tales. Nor am I anywhere near as prolific – since it is taking me nearly a decade to write my first novel in a time he has written and published, well, many many more, as well as screenplays, and much more.

The tenth anniversary of the publication of American Gods is bringing with it a new audiobook edition. With that on the horizon, there is a contest to be a reader for it – a chance for his myriad fans to play a character in my favorite novel.  Of course you realize, I am utterly enthused about the prospect of playing a Neil Gaiman character.

Here’s where you come in. Anyone can vote once per day until mid May. Please vote for me. I am ‘cathysea’ in the voting gallery. And then, please go back and vote for me again tomorrow, and the next day and so on.

I would be immensely grateful to you for furthering my opportunity to be a part of a book I’ve read nearly as many times as I’ve read To Kill a Mockingbird, in about one quarter of the years I’ve been reading my other favorite book, which I have read nearly annually since 1974. I always find something new in American Gods each time I read it. It’s very nuanced and a great old fashioned murder mystery, too. I think what I love about the book the most though is how it shows the transplanted author’s genuine love for the expansive landscape and character of his adopted home and all of our influences.

Please click on the link above, vote for me, and spread the word via blog, twitter and facebook, etc so that I may have a chance to be a part of my favorite book in the UNIVERSE.

planting in the rain

I bought these and a couple of pretty and perfumey plants yesterday, as well as some dark tarp to try to kill off weeds in my garden plots before I try to plant.

This morning, I planted the flowers in pots I bought as it started to sprinkle. It’s raining properly again now, and frigid, too. 

I also covered the vegetable plots with the tarp and strategically placed bricks to hold them in place for about a week, until I can have some sunshine to really get out there and do a good job of plotting the vegs. 

I also spread the african daisy, cosmos, and catnip packets along my back fence where no grass or anything else I’ve tried repeatedly to plant will grow, especially grass. 

I spread the viola packet along under the boxwoods and holly out front. 

I can’t wait to watch the colors come up. 

writing surprise

Grandma took Toots out with her this morning, which means I should be able to write in the house. But first I need to clean off my desk so I can spread out the critiqued pages. And I have to keep myself from being tempted to do other cleaning or gardening futzing.

Yesterday at writing group, I did what I hadn’t been doing as I rewrote this draft - a pretty thorough read through of what I have so far, and I took care of minor corrections I missed along the way.  I made it to the nurse scene. The scene I had stopped at three days before. The one I had trouble rewriting because it will change things down the line in the manuscript and I don’t know quite how to rewite those yet.  I mean I do, but you know, I don’t.  I know what needs to happen, but haven’t actually put it in the document yet.  I just have my list of things to change.

So today I will rewrite the nurse scene in which the main character’s mom previously rescued him from further embarrassment by picking him up. Now he’s going to have to go back to class in the embarrassing borrowed sweatpants and shirt. As if things weren’t bad enough for the kid there already.

I had a bad habit of protecting my main character in prior drafts, finding outs for him rather than writing the tough scene that would progress the plot forward.

But this rewrite is going to change a couple of other threads I’ll need to deal with another day. Hence the avoidance yesterday. Okay, my breakfast is almost finished, so, time to get to it!  Thanks for ‘listening to my thinking aloud’.

the teen

I don’t mention as much about my oldest as I do the other two. So I will share a tale of him now.

Saturday, I took Mr. Cynic out for a driving lesson, not in the high school parking lot, but on actual roads.

I nearly died. The boy panicked as we approached a main road and started veering off to ‘pull over’ to avoid it by having me drive us back into a subdivision from the main road.

Because we live in a coastal plain, the roadsides here have culverts for flood control. He nearly drove us into one, a near barrel-roll, passenger side – me - first.

I can hit some pretty high notes as a soprano. Never this high, except maybe while I was giving birth to him.

My driving lessons with him do not generally involve screaming, but I had said “Don’t!” about seventeen times in quick succession before screaming “Stop!” in an operatic fashion.

Think the Queen of the Night Aria from Mozart’s The Magic Flute – without the surrounding tune. Just that flute-like high note near the end.

I suggest when you get to this stage of parenting to take a few more trips around the big parking lot in your area.

Eventually, I got a pretty good laugh from it. After I stopped shaking violently. He’s generally a cautious kid, hard to get him to drive over 20mph. I taught his father to drive with him and his brother strapped in toddler and infant seats in the backseat, way back when. So I know I can do this, and survive to tell more tales.

 

hello there

Well hello, little friend! 

Punxatawny Phil seems to be onto something.  Spring is coming.