Putrid, pink, pukalicious party

Today i have hung pink garland, purchased pink balloons, and I know that you are going to have a hard time believing this, but I had to go purchase pink garments. I owned nothing pink, except one old bulky sweater from my super chubby days. I have taken one special birthday girl out to lunch and I am currently softening butter for strawberry icing for pink cupcakes.

Why must they love only what we hate? I am going to pour myself a big, black coffee and a huge chunk of black chocolate cake and watch a Tim Burton movie or something.

In the Bag

In my constant pursuit to stop using the plastic I have picked picked up a few of these beauties in the dollar section of the Target. They are lightweight, durable and best of all they zip up tiny and go right in my purse so I never am without an extra bag. Martha would call it a good thing, I will call it a lazy girl's guide to saving the environment.

Sister Act

I alluded in the last post to the fact that my brother and sister had been to visit along with parents and I have to admit, we had a good time. I always express surprise at having a good time with my siblings because they are eleven and thirteen years younger than me. That makes my sister a junior in high school, let's just say that most days it is a stretch to find something in common with them. They grew up thinking of me as their mother. My mom worked the night shift most of my junior high and high school years so I picked them up from daycare off the school bus, cooked dinner, sometimes baths depending on how late my dad was getting home. I did nighttime feedings when my mom worked doubles, I took them with me to school events. This sucked. However, now that I am a parent I have been able to make peace with the knowledge that making ends meet was hard and my parents were doing the best they could.

However, now I am younger, more energetic and therefore, still posses the ability to be strict, unlike my older, more worn down parents. My parents exploit this by using my monthly visits to actually get my sibling to do their chores. This is counteracted by the guilt I felt about going away to college and missing out on a lot of their childhood. So we have this warped relationship where I am constantly riding them about school, work, friends, life choices, but I simultaneously act as an ATM to anything they think they can milk out of me. Chad is very tolerant of this. We went through a stage when Olivia turned one and still wasn't sleeping though the night and I was just trying get my brother through his last semester of English in high school that turned very ugly.

Anyway, I am not saying that we have a ton more in common with them these days, but we have a little. More importantly, they are turning into real, live adult-like people. They make funny jokes, they are real aunts and uncles to their niece, they never forget a birthday, and actually try hard to buy real gifts with the $6 they pool together between the two of them. Even though all I did was take them shopping around town on Saturday, I was impressed about how much they knew about me. It gave me hope that someday I will not just be their sister, I will be their friend.

Happy Birthday To My Pink Princess

So in all the frenzy of Oscars and the cat, my parents coming to visit and Olivia's last week of school (where, of course, they are having a week long celebration of their anniversary which requires me to be there for events in the morning and afternoon) somewhere in there my kid turned four. This was a very emotional birthday for me because I really had to say goodbye to my baby this year. Olivia has always been very independent, but the last of the things that she needed my help for disappeared over the past few months. She zips her own coat, no longer allows me into the stall in the public restroom and even used turning four as impetus to conquer her fear of the very large macaw at the pet store, without any prompting from me. I am a proud mama these days, even if it has been a little trying with the attitude and the boundry-pushing and the negotiating, oh and the scheming. I know that I get to hang on a little longer, though, because when I asked her today how she felt about tomorrow being her last day at school she said, "Good, I like being at home with you." Me too kiddo.

So I am going to work hard this year to treasure what is left of my little baby, to try not to complain, and really document the last of my time with her before she goes off into the world to become a big girl.

Confessions of a person who thinks about drowning this cat

Wondering why I haven't been blogging in awhile? You are looking at it. Olivia's 4th birthday gift was a cat. While I contend that she would have been just as happy with a fish, her father wouldn't have been so now we have a kitten. What I really have is another baby. The thing poops everywhere, follows me everywhere and has my kid wound up higher than a kite which is what I needed on the week of her pink pajama pizza party. I hate to say this because probably everyone reading this blog is and I know this because I get your Christmas cards with your animals on them, but I am not an animal lover. I had many, many pets as a kid and I liked exactly one, my box turtle. I like my space, my quiet time and when my kid is gone I don't want to be climbed on my something that smells.

But i love my husband so I caved, again. At least it is not a freaking dog.

Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto

So for Japanese night i knew I had no choice but to let Chad take us out for sushi. Japanese cuisine is where I really fall down on the chic, bourgeois mother-unit. Sushi makes me gag. I cannot stomach uncooked meat, be it tartare, any kind of raw egg, or raw fish. I feel a little self-conscious about it because every time I say I don't eat sushi people look at me like an uncouth hick. So when faced with the thought of trying to gag down another California roll, I knew what had to be done. And that thing is hibachi.

I did not feel guilty at all about giving Olivia a semi-authentic (hibachi actually did originate in Japan, at hotel to entertain American guests) experience if it meant I did not have to eat fish eggs. The upside was that we were able to talk to the chef and try out our new Japanese phrases, and what kid wouldn't love hibachi?

So arigatou gozaimasu and on to India!

My Friends Do Cool Stuff

One of my best friends, Sarah, works here and her boss was on the Bryant Park Project today. I would love to do a longer post on this and will soon, but this is a great organziation and resource for cancer patients and their families.

Why I Will Not Make Any More Jokes About Putting My Mother In The Home

Okay, that's a lie, but I won't laugh as hard about the jokes I make. Well, that might be a lie too. Anyway, this post is about how i cried all the way through Away From Her. All the way through, to the point where i thought Chad was just going to shut off the movie. You would have thought we were watching Schindler's List. My husband caught on to the reason behind the crying right away and started this dialogue:
"I am not going to get Alzheimers!"
To which I responded, "What are you talking about you already can't put on matching socks."
"That's totally different"
"You have the short term memory of goldfish, I find you wandering around the house constantly."
"It's the price of genius, baby."

Chad is an absent-minded professor who I am convinced has early on-set Alzheimers but that is not why I was so torn up by Away From Her. There is a scene in the movie where the husband has to leave the wife in the home and then go to his house alone and I panicked at that thought. Chad and I will be married ten years next year and I already am having a hard time remembering what my life was like before Chad. By the time Olivia graduates from high school we will be married nearly twenty-five years, we will have been together longer than we were apart. By then I probably will have forgotten what my life was like before Chad.

I have never been a person who dreams of sitting on my porch swing growing old with my spouse. I never fantasize about being a grandparent, or cruising around in an RV. In fact, I never think of getting older at all. When I think of retirement, I think of Olivia going away to college, when I am forty-five, which is not old at all. I prefer to live in the moment and the only forward thinking I like to do is for financial planning purposes only. I guess it is because I have always assumed that Chad and I would be together that long and it would be the same as it is now. So just the mere thought of having to leave my husband alone in a strange place with strange people after being together probably more than fifty years was devasting to me.

I suppose I need to start thinking about because i might need fifty years to get used to the idea.

The Missing Rockette

We had crowded polls yesterday, so i was a little concerned that I was going to be arrested for electioneering when my daughter busted out a full-on Rockettes kick line singing, "Burrock O-ba-ma" in the middle of my elementary school gymnasium yesterday. Which would have been particularly annoying since I did not vote for him. Obama campaign, if you really want to appeal to soccer moms everywhere just put a video of my kid on your web site.

I did have a proud mama moment when the poll workers asked olivia who she was voting for and she told them George Washington because he was the first president. I followed the logic.

Four things

To balance out my karma for being so crabby about the weather lately I thought I would post four good things that happened to me today.

1) Filled up my tank from empty for less than 30 bucks. Technically this happened yesterday, but I am still excited about it today.

2) Took the kid to get her teeth cleaned today and she made me laugh and laugh because EVERYTHING about the dentist was new and exciting. The hygenist agreed that our appointment would probably be the highlight of her day too.

3) Starbucks employees who give hugs and a new hot cocoa to a crying, accident-prone kid.

4) A Super Girl adventure that starts out, "Vamos, nina! Let's find that house, grab the map." Who can't crack a smile at that?

Change can do you good

Well, I did actually finish Julie and Julia on vacation and i would like to go on record as saying that I am probably one of the few who really like this book. If you look too hard it is a poorly edited book written by someone whose prior writing experience had been writing a blog which, as we all know, aint much. However, if you have recently turned thirty have recently woken up feeling like maybe life hadn't turned out like you thought it might and that you are powerless to change it, then this is the book for you.

Now I am not saying I hate my life, by any stretch of the means, but we all get stuck in a rut, get bogged down by routine. In fact, I am willing to bet that almost everybody reading this blog is working a job they find a little bit boring, for which they are a little over-qualified and their main worry is how they are going to afford x,y and z, which is why they work at said boring job. I personally have the luxury of working with my kid, who may extremely maddening, but is never boring. However, that is only half my day, the other half is running a house, which everyone will agree is boring, let's face it my job is to do the things most people schluff off on their spouse, housekeeper, dry cleaner, etc.

So am I going to cook every recipe in Mastering the Art Of French Cooking? Hardly, I have a kid and would never be able to just give up on housecleaning and there is no way I could de-bone a whole duck. I can barely cube raw chicken without gagging. However, I am starting to come around to the idea that a little change in the rountine can make a lot of difference. So after the Oscars I will officially be on the hunt for a new project, I am open to suggestions. . .

Red carpet revelry

Everyone who knows me, knows that I am an Oscars fanatic. Back in the good old days I used to see them all, but the last few years we have been relegated to what we could see on video, usually slim pickings. This year, though, we are have hit pay dirt. By Oscars time there are only a few that won't be out, unfortunately one of those is There Will Be Blood, a probable winner. Luckily, Chad and chose well in our Christmastime while Liv was with the sitter choices and saw No Country For Old Men and Juno. This week we are renting any remaining films that we can cram in, a movie a night. We are committed, we are dedicated, we are never going to make it. This will not stop us from becoming fiercely competitive about our Oscar picks as we fight over the computer all week to see who the internets thinks is going to win Best Sound Editing and BEst Live Action Short Film.

So far we have seen La Vie En Rose, which Chad fell asleep watching, not once, but twice. Seriously, he woke up tried to continue, and feel asleep again. I love foriegn cinema, always have. I love the French language and have seen many, many softcore porn flicks that are considered cinema by the French. Yet, with a few exceptions, French films are like red wine
(or Taco Bell), I go everytime expecting a different result, but end up on the bathroom floor with nothing but regret.

Gone Baby Gone worked out considerably better last night. I love noir and I think this is the next place noir is going. I had a few nitpicky problems with the film, but I was surprised to find a lot of them presented in the deleted scenes section of the DVD and overall I think the right choices were made. It felt authentic and it is always satisfying to have a film with an uncomfortable ending.

Tonight will be Away From Her and The Assasination of Jesse James is in the stack for tomorrow.

Super Tuesday, Redux

Tomorrow is our primary and the strategies are flying at the Gendreau house. For those of you out of state, Wisconsin is an open primary, which means we can vote for any candidate from any party. In fact, eight years ago I voted for John McCain, what goes around comes around. This year is a real challenge, I am torn because John Edwards' name will still be on the ballot (don't even bother to post that it is a waste of a vote, I hear it everyday here at home), but I also could vote for Mike Huckabee to make the Republican race more interesting. I actually saw a Huckabee sign in a neighbor's yard and I had to stop the car, it is just not something that you see in Madison.

Listening to all the election coverage, I am truly distraught about the fact that I am completely ambiguous to my party's current candidates. Sadly, I am not alone, most Democrats say in polls that they are satisfied with either candidate. So why does it feel so crappy? I think it is because I have a sinking feeling that they are both going to suck it up against John McCain and it is cold comfort to know that Republicans aren't too fond of him either. I suppose that we just have to think that if nobody is happy, some compromising will have to happen and something will actually get done in Congress?

Gentlemen, start your engines

SO this weekend was whole hot mess of crazy, another seven inches of snow, high winds, birthday party shopping, etc. The high point for Olivia though, was the Daytona 500. Angie was kind enough to tip us off to the fact that this event was going on because Chad and I are both so completely ignorant of NASCAR that we would have totally missed it. Olivia, on the other hand, can't get enough. I should preface this by saying Olivia loves everything fast. She went on her first roller coaster when should could barely walk up to it, her favorite gift of all time might be her mini motorcycle, she moves at high speed at all times and loudly complains whenever anyone else is not up to her speed. She cracks up most pedestrians by standing on any street corner anywhere and yelling at passing bikers, cars, buses, whatever, "Go racers, go racers, gooooooo racers!!!"

SO I don't know why her father expresses such shock that she would love Nascar. But the best part of yesterday was his horror when I was teaching Olivia to say "Get 'er done."

We actually got to the beach this trip which was so nice. I could easily live in a hut on the beach forever, though Chad mocks this statement because as he points out, I am wearing a sweater which a true beach bum would never be caught dead in.

What Happens When I Wake Up Too Early

So Valentine's Day kind of snuck up on me after we got back from Florida and I really was not interested in handing out the pre-packaged Valentines so I offered to make a snack. Well for whatever reason on Thursday I woke up before the alarm and with that early morning wake-up came a ridiculous, delusional confidence that I could accomplish anything. SO fruit cups with only pink and red fruits with the watermelon cut into heart shapes it was. Then i decided, I have about an hour and half before I have to be at my hair cut, I'll make heart-shaped bread too. In retrospect, it was either that or do laundry or something else equally productive. However, when I showed up with this snack there was another mother there who was quickly cramming pre-packaged valentines into the half-day kids' bags whom she had apparently forgotten to make valentines for the evening before. I swear this woman was trying to murder me with her thoughts. So this goes out to all the other moms, please don't think I am a Martha Stewart wanna-be, I am simply a woman who would rather cut seventeen hearts out of bannana bread than unload the dishwasher, again.

PS-The most awesome part, and the way you can tell you live in an affluent suburb, is when I explained to the kids that the red citrus in the cup was a blood orange they all looked at me like, "Duh." Apparently, they had eaten them with lunch several times already.

Deepest, darkest Peru

Okay, so I know that I am really behind on my blog, but let's face it, I am really behind on everything. Part of it is travelling and the non-stop shovelling. Most of it is deepest, darkest Peru. This what I call the last throws of winter in Wisconsin. February is typically the last fits of cold weather and March is the beginning of Spring. Not so mucch this year. I hate deepest, darkest Peru because once you have entered it you feel like nothing is ever going to make you happy again and you revert to this completely ego state where you can only motivate yourself to do the one thing that you think might, maybe make you happy in that very moment. This is the bad time of year where, we eat out alot, shop for things we don't need and end up with something ridiculous like a random piece of furniture. I actually told a friend yesterday that she couldn't come over because I had no interest in making my house even remotely sanitary.

So the blogs posts may stack up for awhile, unless of course I decide at any random moment that i want to blog in which case I may just uncork and post dozens of items. That's just how it goes in deepest, darket Peru.

oops

I forgot to mention that we were going to Florida. I sometimes forget that some people use my blog to make that I am not dead. Not dead, just trying to talk myself into a happy place since I am back in 4 degree weather with five inches of snow that needs to be shovelled before I go to the dentist. Ugh, happy place, happy place!!!!

Make it stop, make it stop!!

So for the eighth week in a row Olivia is home with me on a school day. For the second week in a row Olivia is home because it is a snow day. First of all, why can it not be a snow day on a Tuesday ever? Luckily for me, the snow day allowed me to reschedule my dental appointment guilt-free. Had it been my manicure-ape shit crazy. However, this snow day has also forced home my husband. Ordinarily, Chad would go to work if it meant that he had to walk there, but today 10 inches of snow has literally made that his only option. Unfortunately, not every single office in Madison is closed nor is our internet down so Chad is turning my house into his office. Our house is not large. Today is that glimpse into what retirement is like. He is home when he should not be, he is using the phone, he is randomly wandering in on games, storytime. (He is making me crazy, but don't tell him that.)

Fun fact-If you feel like you keeping hearing me bitch about snow it is because I am it has snowed in Madison 38 of the 68 days this winter. We also need only 13 inches of snow to break the record for most snowfall ever in Madison. Considering the ten inches we will get today and that we still have two to three months left of snow temps, I think we'll make it.

Hard Day's Night

So this week we are feeling a little beaten down by the weather. After the hot water handle, the garbage disposal, yesterday I am driving and come to a slow stop because of the slick roads and part of my roof rack comes sliding down my windshield and scared the crap out of me.

This is all a precursor to saying that we have been letting Olivia watch some evening tv this week. In addition to Super Tuesday election coverage, we all sat down and watched about twenty minutes of Hard Day's Night. It was actually an awesome experience. Olivia knows the Beatles' music of course, but this was the first time she had seen images of them singing it. Though Chad and I can still remember a time when you never actually saw people performing music unless you were at a live show, Olivia understands no such universe. Our children's librarian and I actually had a long talk about how kids today might not actually be able to tackle long chapter books (like Charlotte's Web) until they are much older because the lack of pictures is a much larger hurdle than it was for my generation.

Anyway, it was an awesome experience because, well, it was the Beatles. Chad and I both been big Beatles fans from childhood probably and we loved watching the movies in college, the dry, irrevrant humor is still hilarious. Plus they have the best soundtrack ever. Mostly, is was that perfect moment that every parent dreams of when they get to share something they truly love with their child, and the child totally gets it. We rocked it out together, saying things like, "Olivia this is the greatest rock band OF ALL TIME."

And after weeks of long hours, bad colds, terrible weather, there is no pick me up like singing at the top of your lungs, "But when I get home to you, you know that thing that you do, it makes me feel all right."

Ur-banal

Chad and I had a little wistful moment for city living this week. Chad and I both grew up right outside big cities and lived in Washington DC for a little over a year before choosing to settle in Madison. Ususally we don't stray too far from our little suburban enclave on the Northside of Madison, but this week we had a series of events that basically kept us downtown for three days. Above are some shots of Olivia at our Contemporary Art Center. We were nostalgic for all the things we loved about city-life as we walked to all of our destinations, ate at great restaurants, grocery shopped in small bursts instead of all at once, and saw some great shows at our arts center. It just reinforced Chad and I's decision that our next "house" will be a condo downtown.

How A Doughnut Saved My Life

Today I believe a doughnut saved my life. Last night while cleaning up our garbage disposal fell off. Yes, you read right, fell off. So at 7 PM it was off to the Home Depot for a whole new garbage disposal. Needless to say, our house was a three-ring circus all night last night. Chad did a great job replacing it, though but we were up late after what had already been a long day. So this morning Chad went out and brought home these from our local kosher bakery. I usually can't eat sweet pastry in the morning, but Olivia's giddy glee for being able to eat dessert for breakfast was contagious. We spent the rest of the morning playing snow baseball, sledding and having a good time.

Though, is it possible to have doughnut hangover?