Mamalion asked for my potato soup recipe. I’ve been making this soup since college; my aunt gave me an old cookbook she’d had since the 50s and this was pretty much the only recipe I ever tried in the whole book. Easy and oh so yummy.
Peel and dice one small [...]
A few happinesses for a Monday morning…
Lesley’s new calendar is in her shop.
This piping hot cup of cawpy I am sipping. (That’s hot cocoa to those of you without a Wonderboy.)
Candles on my kitchen table.
Small folk in footie pajamas.
Shower gel that smells like fresh oranges.
That [...]
Originally posted Jan. 25, 2005. This was one of the first posts I wrote for this blog. At the time, Jane was nine, and Wonderboy was just a few months older than Huck is now.
In March of 1997, Jane was 21 months old. I took her to a friend’s [...]
There are days when your own life seems surreal to you.
I mentioned the G/I doctor has ordered a bunch of tests for young Wonderboy. For some of the tests, we needed to deliver a stool sample to the Children’s Hospital—between the hours of 9 and 11:30—within one hour of, er, [...]
It’s because I’m too busy having conversations like the following…not to mention chasing after the scattered fragments of my sanity afterward.
SCENE 1
G/I Dr.: We think it’s possible your son has Condition X. There is no conclusive test for this, but here’s this list of expensive and time-consuming tests I’d like [...]
We started our day giggling over this science humor:
Via BoingBoing, conveyor of many delights.
[...]
Fans of Maria Wilkes’s Caroline books will be interested to know Maria has a new picture book out, a sweet holiday story called The Star of Christmas. Published under Maria’s maiden name (Maria T. DiVencenzo) and illustrated by Elaine S. Verstraete, this gentle and golden-hued tale [...]
I tweeted a request for computer programming tutorial recommendations (for Jane), and a number of useful suggestions came pouring in via Twitter and Facebook. We’ve not had time to investigate them yet—we are busy enjoying a grandparent visit for a couple of days—but I thought I’d post the list here [...]
Things I did this week:
• Spring cleaning. I know, I know, I’m six months late. Or six months early: maybe that’s a better way to look at it. Besides, I once heard a chaparral expert mention that Southern California’s true spring is in November (going by plant [...]
The everyday magic of surface tension: “the quality of a liquid that causes the surface layer of that liquid to behave like an elastic sheet.”
HT to my hubby, as usual. He always finds the best stuff.
[...]We’re lying side by side, reading. A book for him, a screen for me.
Me: I want a cupcake.
Him: What? Where’d that come from?
Me: This post I’m reading. See?
I point at the word. CUPCAKE. It looks somehow magical, evocative, as if it were spelled out in actual cupcakes instead of plain [...]
Wonderboy: My hearing aids aren’t working.
Me: Oh, are your batteries dead?
Wonderboy: Huh?
Me: Do you need new batteries?
Wonderboy: What?
Me: Come here, let me check your hearing aids.
Wonderboy: I think my batteries got dead.
(And yes, we can communicate in sign language as well, but during this conversation I was holding a plate [...]
Just one week ago, Jack was in his prime. Ruddy, round-cheeked, he had a cheerful grin for all the world.
Then he went out one night and got lit up.
Now, sad to say, that once sprightly youth has aged before his time. He spends his [...]
“It’s rather an unusual case,” said Madam Chairwoman blandly. “The prisoner is a poet. You will all, I know, cast your minds back to the many poets who have written favorably of our race—’Her feet beneath her petticoat, like little mice stole in and out’—Suckling, the Englishman—what [...]
Once upon a time, there was a very tidy cupboard.
Then along came young Sir Destructalot.
Having wreaked maximum havoc, he paused, well pleased with his efforts…
…and looked around for new frontiers.
Enticing prospects beckoned at the far corners of his world, but first [...]
What I should probably try to chronicle tonight is how Jane, Beanie, and I came to the conclusion this morning that Plutarch is garlic. (That’s a compliment.)
But it’s late, and I only have a few minutes here, and the pieces of today that might disappear if I [...]
Well, my day went something like this:
Drove to children’s hospital for Wonderboy’s appointment with our favorite specialist, the esteemed yet down-to-earth doctor of genetics. Only one of my boy’s many many physical anomalies seems to be genetic—the albinism—but Dr. J is also a dysmorphologist, which means she takes an interest [...]
Because I sliced my thumb and forefinger while washing a knife this afternoon (nothing serious) and don’t feel like doing much typing.
And because you can’t ever go wrong, can you, posting pictures of scrumptiousness like this?
Yesterday he managed to snag a bottle of barbecue sauce out of [...]
