sarahmichelef

You know, small ones, like this.  That crawl into your lap for scritches and paw at your face if you have the temerity to stop rubbing their bellies.

We had the oh-so-painful task of a whole HALF DAY of dogsitting for our friends today.  Which basically entailed going over to their house, letting my best canine friend out to play and pee, swimming in their pool for an hour, and then feeding Juneau before we left.  But I had never encountered Juneau except in a situation where she was totally excited because PEOPLE!  in her HOUSE!!!!  We walked in and she bounced around sooooo excited to see us and I sat down on the couch and next thing I knew I had 100 lbs of dog in my lap begging for bellyrubs.

Poor pup has really been suffering with the heat wave (no a/c at the L house) but this afternoon was cooler and she chilled on the deck and in other shady spots while TRex and I swam.  Love that dog.  Still would love to have a Great Dane someday but right now our lifestyle is NOT conducive to a dog of any size.

... was brilliant. childsplay7 , T, and sprirtwolf got here a bit before 9 on Thursday night. We did not get moving quickly Friday morning between sleeping and getting everyone clean and going to the grocery store, but in the afternoon we went to the Botanical Gardens and then T cooked us an epic dinner (dilled salmon in pie crust, roast carrots & apples, roast kohlrabi and sauteed kohlrabi greens, and an apple pie for dessert). Saturday we went to the zoo and then for a walk on Elmwood and dinner at JP Bullfeather's. More staying up too late talking Saturday night and they left around 11 this morning to drive back to Boston. We all had tons of fun and I think sprirtwolf is TRex's new favorite person on the planet.

( photographic evidence )

Last week C said to me, offhandedly, "we're going berry picking on Sunday if you want to come" and I said sure, thinking you know... an hour, maybe two, bring some berries home, and then later we could go play minigolf like TRex had decided we needed to for Father's day.  (Because Froggy does, you see.)

I forgot who we were going with. C had said that they were picking at 11 so I called her to find out the details at about 10. She said, "We're leaving in 15 minutes." I asked, "Where in the hell are we going that it's going to take 45 minutes to get there?" The answer, it turned out, was Coulter Farms in Lockport. Rather than her trying to give us directions, we decided just to meet at their house and follow them.  The plan was that B was going to meet all of us there having gotten there on his bike (the long way... because it may be far but it's not 60 miles from here to Lockport!)  It ended up being us, C&B and the kids, 2 sets of their friends (4 parents & 3 kids) and B's sister and her husband. We picked (and ate) oodles of strawberries and sugar snap peas, and ate nearly as many as we picked I think (like you do). And then we rode the tractor to another set of fields and picked and ate some more. All told I think we were at the farm for 2 or 2 1/2 hours.

And then it was decided that we needed lunch, so we followed C again, this time to
Brickyard BBQ in Lewiston, were fortunately there was seating on the patio because the five kids who were there were going a little crazy running around. We were there until about 3:30... TRex fell asleep in the car on the way home and M and I took advantage of the chance to get some major trimming of trees and shrubs done (including him up on the garage roof cutting back the neighbor's maple tree that was serving as an ant superhighway). And then we had salads for dinner, which included both strawberries and sugar snap peas. Of course.

 I want to remember this weekend, the idyllic times in the sunshine, the bike rides, the good times with friends.  Even the Lord of the Flies- esque birthday party we went to yesterday afternoon.

Saturday I have already posted about.  I hope our gardens do well... we definitely enjoyed putting them in and TRex loves watering them!

Sunday was another perfect day weather-wise.  I was grumpygrumpy in the morning but then I went for a long walk when TRex and M went for their Sunday morning donuts and blasted Liz Phair into my brain and felt much better.  After that we tried out the trailer bike and all tooled around the neighborhood a couple of times.  After lunch and a nap we went to the most lord-of-the-flies fifth birthday party ever.  Seriously... 15 kids, a 15x15 patch of grass, and three toys that weren't water balloons.  Oh, and completely insufficient parental supervision.  Awesome.  Apparently there was one point where a mom lit into her kid (verbally) and M and B just looked at each other like, "what do we do?????"  As M put it, her actions were totally fine (chasing him down and putting him in time out) but the verbal abuse that went along with it was pretty horrifying.  I don't know, I was upstairs where they were doing cake and presents at the time.  More tooling around after that, and grilled chicken salads for dinner 'cause we'd all eaten junky food at the party.  The food - which was potluck - was spectacular.

Today... more perfect weather.  We cleaned the house in the morning because we were having our March for Babies team over for a pizza party (note: not all that easy to get pizza on Memorial Day) at lunchtime.  Hung out with the P family and the L family until all the kids got crispy, with some hilarity and only one minor mishap (Mister T managed to flip over the folding chair he was sitting in, tumbling headfirst into TRex's garden).  They hauled a whole bunch of toys out... Mister T was careening around the driveway pushing a teddy bear and an oversized stuffed Pikachu in the doll stroller, the girls were blowing bubbles, and B was playing whiffleball with his mom/whoever he could get to pitch to him.  After that, another nap, and then we went out on our bikes to take advantage of CWL's invite to swing by later if we were bored... TRex thought that biking to Miss J's house was the BEST THING EVER and the two of them played very well for an hour or an hour and a half while the adults lounged on the deck and laughed at /lamented the crazy dogs.  (Un-fixed one year old male Weimaraner = waaaaaaay too much dog for me.  Said dog PLUS a same-aged female Greater Swiss Mtn Dog = >200 pounds of insane canine energy.)  And then we biked home and ate MORE pizza and salad, watched the Electric Company, and put the girl to bed.

Bliss.  Only now I have to write a lecture for tomorrow.  To that I say BOO.

I woke up at 9 to a certain young lady, who had been up with Daddy since 7, climbing on top of me and giving me kisses.  We all lazed about in bed 'til 10, when I got up, had breakfast, and put on snow clothes to go clear the driveway and sidewalk - we only got about 3" of the predicted 6.   I was smart and put on the coffeepot before I went out so when I got back there was hot coffee waiting for me.

The other 2 went out for donuts and I did some stuff on the Internets (printed out a Sid the Science Kid coloring page that M found last night, printed & filled out the last charter school app that we needed to do).  When they got back, we decided to go sledding.  The forecast, according to the local NPR, was for mostly cloudy.  They lied.  It was BEAUTIFUL - weather.com claims that right now it's 21 out, but I think it was warmer than that.  No wind, brilliant sun.  The hill was CROWDED - we just missed J, she had gotten cold and gone home with her dad.  Corey was still there with B and her sister in law, as well as M & I and their moms.  And a million other families.  Corey mocked me for looking like Elmer Fudd, but I don't care - I was warm.*  For the first bit TRex wanted one of us to sled with her, which was fine - her sled easily holds a kid plus an adult. Then she decided she needed to go alone, a bunch of times.  And then she decided she wanted to go "in a pile" - headfirst, grownup on the bottom and her on top.  I volunteered for that insanity, and it actually worked pretty well - she didn't fall off like we thought she might and I had some hope of steering (hands on snow).  So... all told we were out in the snow for close to 2 hours, which is FOREVER in four-year-old time.  And then we came home, had lunch, and now she's napping - big surprise!

*She may have a point.  My snow gear consists of long johns under sweatpants, big wool socks, and these boots. On top, I've got a tank top, long-sleeved t-shirt, fleece hoodie, parka, and my "Buffalo hat" (which is what really leads to the mocking).

... and I even compose posts in my head; they just never manage to make it out of my fingers and onto the keyboard.
( Fashion blather... ) knew the person was pregnant; in one, I did not (probably due to the facebook/college friend being male); in the third, I found a HS friend on facebook two days after his wife had a baby.I think that hits the high points of what's running around in my head these days...

We had a very chill weekend... it was quite nice in advance of the madness that is coming.

Saturday was errands in the morning, then a nap for TRex while M and I did various things around the house (like sorting through the giant pile of software CDs in the study and throwing way approximately 2/3 of them, as well as salvaging data from & wiping 8 100 MB zip disks), and then we went to the pool with the P family until it decided to pour on us.  I had mis-remembered T's age - he just turned two, not three...  but my confusion was forgiven as he is nearly as big as TRex and at least as coordinated.  She woke up this morning declaring, "I like T!"  In the evening, M and I cooked some food (he made his special Gen. Tso's Chicken, for which I can post the recipe if anyone wants (and if I haven't previously) and I made pasta sauce in an attempt to use up the fresh oregano we brought back from MD and then I kicked his butt at Bust a Move for a while.

Sunday M & TRex went to donuts, I did some yoga, we lounged around, splashed in some puddles.  We took advantage of having a monstrous vehicle (our rental replacement while the Outback is getting its side panels and door skin replaced) and M went out and bought the extension ladder we've been needing for a while and then he fixed a drainpipe and cleaned out the gutter underneath the neighbor's ancient maple tree.  We spent some time watching the clouds, idly weeding in the gardens (and M cleared out the joint between the curb and the street, which is the most fertile soil in our entire yard, I swear), going for a walk around the block.

It was nice not to be out DOING all day Sunday, even if the DOING is just going to the pool.

This morning M took TRex to school on the bus-and-train and I had breakfast with spanish_rhode and her hubby.  And now I'm back to dissertating.

She may claim not to like patient care, but she's the one who had the brains to tell me to take an antihistamine when my upper airway is COMPLETELY MISBEHAVING.  Smarter than the docs at my clinic, that one is.

I had a dream about you & N last night.  You were a couple, but the fact that you were living in China was explained by the fact that she was a giant panda.  There was more to it than that, but I can't remember the details.

Seriously.  I can't make this stuff up in my conscious mind, but my subconscious goes freaking crazy.

TRex woke up around 6:30, we did our morning thing and got M off to work around 7:30.  The morning was punctuated by TRex slamming her closet door on her foot which required icing and clearly hurt her for a good bit of the morning even after some Tylenol.  We played outside / shoveled out the plow refuse, watched the Little Einsteins, ran some errands, had lunch with a friend, TRex took a nap while Steph and I dug through the infant clothes for stuff that would fit S's son when the adoption finally wends its way through the bureaucracy.  After nap, we made collages and snowflakes, and then M came home and we had extra tasty dinner (chicken, broccoli, and stuffed shells that Slightly Batty Neighbor brought over last night) and our package arrived from Lands' End so TRex and I had new boots to tromp around in and so on...  And she was in bed before 8.

I feel like I'm not articulating it well... it was just a very, very relaxing.  Steph and I are probably going to go finish off our shopping together tomorrow afternoon.  Yay, shopping buddy!