harry potter and the order of the phoenix

Only two more books to go… now if I can just sequester myself away from all media for the next two or three weeks I should be able to get through both books without happening upon any spoilers. I have been reading the bulk of these books at the gym. The elliptical machine and treadmill both have a very good magazine/book rests that have worked for the hardcover books – reading my paperback Goblet of Fire while exercising was quite a feat of human engineering. Okay, so I will admit that a few people at the gym look at me weirdly for being so engrossed in a book while sweating and pumping away. But let me tell you it makes going to the gym so much more enjoyable than flipping through some soul sucking fashion or tabloid rag and the time passes much quicker than when I listen to music or watch the crap on the tv, so I figure it’s all good. These books are so much fun to read! Now I have to go out and see this movie, which has gotten great reviews. How could it not, all of Britain’s acting royalty seems to be in these movies. Oh, how I love Alan Rickman and Gary Oldman and David Thewlis. Ralph Fiennes too, but he’s even harder to appreciate in the Voldemort makeup. Toby was teasing me asking if I was going to the midnight party at Barnes & Noble for the Deathly Hallows book. I couldn’t really drag Owen to that, even though he loves all the Harry Potter movies, he’s not quite 5 yet. And wouldn’t it be sad if I was more enthusiastic than him, all giddy for the last book while he’s busy rubbing sleep out of his eyes and yawning, pulling on my hand, begging me to take him home. But seriously, I didn’t want to go to those book parties. It would be great if I was a kid, but since I’m not it’s best to stay home, finish the Half-Blood Prince and read the last book before the ending is all over the news.

harry potter and the goblet of fire

Can I tell you how badly I wish that I was a British teenage witch going to Hogwarts?! Oh or just to be a teen or tween muggle right now, all these libraries and bookstores are having midnight parties for the final book in the Harry Potter series on Friday. How cool is it to garner that much enthusiasm from young kids for reading. These books are so well done, I can't wait for Owen and Oona to be old enough to read them. The great thing Rowling does is let the characters mature throughout the series and go through all the teenage angst that is so confusing, especially if you're a powerful wizard and have Lord Voldemort on your tail. I'm half way through the next in the series and am just regretting that I didn't start reading these sooner because I don't want to find out the ending of the series until I read it, which will probably be close to impossible with all the publicity Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is generating. I was finishing Goblet of Fire when I took Owen to karate last week and the teacher was like 'you should put a book cover of 'War and Peace' on that so you're not embarrassed to be reading it in public.' I'm not embarrassed, they're a lot better than some of the current adult fiction out there. Apparently though in England they put out Potter editions with adult covers, it's all so silly. A good book is a good book regardless of the niche they categorize it as for where to place it in the bookstore.

vultures

I don't know about you all on the east coast but we had a severe storm here last night. We had just gotten back from eating out at a neighborhood pub, ugh I felt very bloated afterward, and heaved my onion petal belly over the tub to get Oona clean when I noticed the heavy sheets of rain outside our bathroom window. Trees were bowing pretty badly and pieces of our neighbor's tarpapered roof blew onto our roof. I shouted to toby that it looked like hurricaine weather from the second floor and had he looked out the back windows? A moment later I heard him telling me and Oona to get downstairs right away. I know it's bad if Toby's showing concern about the weather. So I toweled Oona off and we came downstairs, just in time to see the umbrella for our backyard table blow past the kitchen window and proceed tumbling down the street. The storm passed quickly and when it was over half of a pine tree was on top of our neighbors minivan. Everyone came out and was gawking at their car. Our poor neighbors! They were at the hospital having their 3rd child at the time. Apparently, they had been in the minivan ready to drive away when the husband's sister said 'maybe you should leave the minivan in case we need it.' So they took their civic across the street, which wouldn't have been hit by the tree, and left the minivan which got smacked down by the pine. Actually it looks like the minivan weathered (ha ha!) the storm pretty well, it looks like it only got some superficial scratches on the roof. But I guess at the time with a downed tree on it it looked pretty newsworthy because a local newscaster came out to cover the story. And, of course, the neighborhood gossip and a family that garners a lot of head shaking and eye rolling, their poor children are doomed, are busy vying for a chance to talk to the news. But I think, in a rare display of restraint, even the newscaster realized this wasn't really worthy of the 'more news less fluff' plug that the station hypocritically says its news is all about. Most people that talk on the news here in Pittsburgh are usually missing a tooth, or five, and have pittsburgh accents so thick at times it would be best to subtitle what they're saying. Gotta love the vultures looking for their fifteen seconds on the local news. Still waiting to hear how the baby is and if they named her yet, as of a week ago they were telling me they still didn't have a name, this might have been an elaborate ruse to keep potential criticism on a name choice at bay.

fondled then tossed aside

Gosh! I have so many posts that I've want to put up but I'm swamped with freelance work right now, which is a good thing money-wise but a bad thing for my back, shoulders,neck and right arm. And I need to put up a new banner for summer, summer will be over before I get to it. I'm going to have to go through old picutres of mine because it's hard for me to find something that epitomizes summer here in Pittsburgh, I guess because I always associate summer with the ocean and beach - I'll get something appropriately summery up there soon. Big news, Toby & I hired a babysitter for the first time ever (can you believe it?) the only people who have watched the kids have been our Moms but I really like this one girl who watches the children at the gym and she agreed to watch them Saturday so we could go out for Toby's birthday and we had such an enjoyable time. It's amazing just how much you can appreciate savoring a leisurely meal and bottle of wine without children! Everything went wonderfully, the sitter said the kids were great so maybe this is something we can do once or twice a month regularly now. Oooh, I might start feeling like an adult again if that happens.

So... I meant this to be a short post to say 'hi' but I wind up rambling about stuff totally unrelated to the pic & title of this post because I wanted to show this bracelet which is what everyone picked up and oohed at when I was at the craft show a lifetime ago but, man, no one would buy it! It was a steal at $40 with real turquoise, amber and sterling. The lady at the bead store told me the dice like beads were yak bone (not ivory) and that they use all of the yak. Who knows, could be resin I just loved the look of them they had great mah jong like yak bone beads too. Now all my beaded jewelry sits in a plastic container that used to contain bindi masala a year or so ago, hopefully I can sell that stuff some time in the future but no craft shows are in my future. I'm not enough of an extrovert for something like that again.

The Devil in the White City

I started reading this book a few months ago and couldn’t get into it but decided to give it another chance and am very glad that I did. Although the book can be a bit slow at times, well, I guess it isn’t really slow, it’s more like there’s a narrative distance, possibly given that it’s a historical novel, still in all it’s very interesting. The story of Daniel Burnham building the World’s Fair in Chicago is juxtaposed well with the darker tale of the insatiable appetite to kill that plagues Dr. Holmes. It's always interesting, to me at least, to see how callow and base some human beings can be. And It was great to read about all these notable architects and, the renowned landscape architect Olmstead, who were so influential to architecture and landscape architecture. The task of making a World’s Fair that would outdo the 1889 Paris World’s Fair weighed heavily on all those involved. The story behind the attraction that’s built to ‘Out Eiffel Eiffel’ is truly amazing. It’s interesting to note what Larsen writes in his notes and sources at the end of the book, he wanted to write a story about this fair because it’s pretty hard to comprehend a city taking on such an impossible feat and having such civic pride in this day and age. And in this modern day of litigation (oh my, all the lawyer commercials I see on TV, some are so comical in their baldness!) there is no way the attraction I tease you with would have ever been built. There, now hopefully I’ve tempted you enough to want to go read this book.

place exasperated sigh here

The past couple of weeks I've been looking at daycare centers. I figured it might be a good idea to put Oona in daycare a couple times a week so I'm not feeling so constantly overwhelmed. I might be able to chip away at my long 'to do' list and it would make it infinitely easier when I got slammed with a bunch of freelance work at once. I also though it would be good for Oona to socialize with kids her age. But I'm flabbergasted at the quality of the centers I've visited and one of these places is a center a few of our friends have used (which has a basement 'play area' for rainy days that's scarier than the basement in 'Blair Witch Project'). Every place has been filthy - stained, grubby carpets covered with litter, most places have smelled. Today's gem reeked of that cloying cherry scent found in porta potties that does little to disguise the smell of poop. The place I visited today was HORRIBLE! Every surface in the toddler room was covered in grime, crayon scribbles or, frequently, both. I felt like being real snarky and saying 'Oh you shouldn't have cleaned up just for me.' but I didn't. To be honest, as soon as I entered most of the places I've visited these past two weeks I knew I'd never leave Oona there but I always feel rude to just leave so I take the tour and ask some questions and then tell them I'm looking around and will get back to them in a week or so. I feel so bad for the kids in these centers. These are the daycare centers that we can afford, they're are other places, probably better, cleaner but it's prohibitively expensive and it's not right that only wealthy people should get quality daycare. These visits at daycare centers make me feel great about the babysitting area at the gym, which is spotless and the girl that watches my children most often is great with them. There's a church I drop Oona off at occasionally that's also clean and is well supervised but it's a 25 minute drive just to get out there so it's not exactly the most convienent daycare available. When we were in a lower tax bracket and before Oona was born I used to put Owen in a daycare that was in a really bad section of town, we used to nervously joke that it was ghetto daycare. But that place was always clean, didn't smell bad and the women that worked there were wonderful with Owen. Unfortunately the center shut down. I'd love to have a few hours a couple times a week to myself so I could clean, cook, iron during daylight hours (now I only do it when the kids are asleep and that's basically the last thing I want to do at the end of the day), see doctors without Oona trying to get into the biohazard needle box, go shopping perhaps. Maybe I could find someone to come to our house a couple times a week, maybe a pediatric resident looking for some pin money.

the tiny tyrant

Uncle! I admit it, Oona has a much stronger personality than me. I'm quite sure she'll go very far in life with all her moxie and determination and such a sweet little face too, but damn! trying to raise a child that's so strong willed really kicks my ass some days. Oh, and is she ever manipulative. I once met a Mom who refused to believe her 5 year old son could be manipulative, didn't think it was possible at that young an age. Meanwhile for the past, oh year or so, Oona has mastered the art smiling sweetly, batting her eyelashes and giving just enough attention to someone in order to get her way. I don't think it's a bad thing, but I'm not in denial, I've seen her withhold affection and throw epic tantrums if she doesn't get her way. Over the past month she has brought her screaming to a new level for ear pain, she reminds me of those fell beasts that screeched in the air while carrying the nazguls in Lord of the Rings. She even has an ever so slight dragon tongue, a tiny little cleft in the middle. Who knows maybe she is part dragon or fell beast, she is surely one tough little cookie. Nancy sent me a great link for children's tees, particular favorites are puerile and dilatory. I thought maybe I could make a bunch of my own with freezer paper stencils - obstreperous, tyrant, ebullient, soporific you can have a lot of fun with 'fancy' words describing your child or the effect your child has on you.

Oh and one FYI - I finally figured out what caused Oona's rash on her face! If Philly whipped cream cheese sat on her face at all, it gave her a rash. What the hell are they putting in that stuff to give her a rash? Other cream cheeses don't have the same effect, it's very bizarre and strengthens my resolve to feed the kids whole/organic/unprocessed food as much as I can. If only they could lower the price on organic blueberries. Plus for all you Moms putting sunscreen on your kids, and yourself, I highly recommend you check out this site for info on how safe your sunscreen is, pretty scary to see what some of the chemicals in kids sunscreens have the potential to do.

No one belongs here more than you

I had high expectations about this book, I loved ‘Me and You and Everyone we know’ thought that movie was such a lovely, uplifting surprise. I’ve had some bad experiences with art films one salient example was a puppet/claymation version of Faust that was the visual equivalent of shoving bamboo sticks under my fingernails. I read one of the short stories in this book, The swim team, in Harper’s and loved that story. People were mentioning her and Lorrie Moore, one of my favorite (top five) writers, in the same sentence, saying Miranda July had a similar style of combining humor and pathos. Oh, I was so primed to crack open this book in the lurid eightiesesque hot pink cover and revel in all that it was. Have to say I was a bit disappointed. There are a couple stories that I thought were very strong – The Swim Team and Something that Needs Nothing. There are others with glimpses of brilliant observation but they’re not fully realized. In some ways this book seems immature. Maybe (probably) I’ve become much harder to please now that I have two kids, am constantly exhausted and don’t have much, or let’s just come out with it and say any, social life. And the sex stuff, ugh, I know it’s meant to be dark or embarrassing or alienating to convey the feeling of the character or plot or blah blah blah. I for the most part hate sex stuff in books because it almost always comes across as cringe worthy or feels gratuitous and there are very very few writers who can write about sex well. At times I felt like this was a horny, poor man’s Lorrie Moore book. BUT, big but, I think if Miranda July made a film about any or all of these stories they’d probably come across brilliantly. I just think I need to see this on film for it to come across effectively, but because of the potential and two great stories I'll give it 3 plums.

yummm

I've had a culinary epiphany in the past week! I discovered Fage and reawakened my love for plain Greek yogurt. I am not typically a yogurt person, it just doesn't appeal to me try as I might to embrace something so healthy, probiotic and good for me. Years ago (1991!) I went to Greece with my college roomie for three weeks after college graduation and fell in love with the plain yogurt over there which was so creamy and sinfully good. But after one mouthful of Dannon plain yogurt, on arriving home, I gave up on finding good yogurt in America. Still something lured me back to yogurt last week, all the healthy probiotics in them that are supposed to aid GI troubles I guess. I came upon Fage which advertised that it has the thick yummy goodness that I remembered sampling in Paros and it didn't disappoint. It also has a lot more protein than regular yogurt. So now I'm on a daily yogurt kick - eating plain yogurt and fresh strawberries I don't even recognize this former muffin junkie?!

Scary FYI that I received from Ideal Bite 'Yoplait's strawberry yogurt gets its pink color from crushed female cochineal beetles and their eggs.' Yuck!

owie stardust

Owen has entered the glam rock stage at the ripe young age of four. I don't know how this fascination with makeup started, maybe by watching my Mom put on her 'face' at the dining table when she visits us. It sure isn't from me, as anyone who knows me well can attest. I'm makeup free for better or worse. A couple weeks ago he mentioned wanting makeup and I said 'yeah, sure' and thought no more of it until I picked him up from the Eagle's Nest at our grocery store (so wonderful that they have a daycare area for 3 to 9 year olds because when Owen shops with me he is KING of the impulse buy) and told him I got him a surprise to which he excitedly shouted 'Makeup?!' and when I told him no popsicles he actually got upset. So a few days later I bought him a couple eye shadows and a blush and unearthed a colored lip balm that's been rolling around in the bathroom drawer for a couple years now. As you can see the finished result was priceless. My neighbor said she'd be more concerned about the whole makeup thing if he had actually put it on appropriately. He's four, makeup is colorful and sparkly, I'm not too worried about any gender confusion/sexual orientation issues. I save my worries for the all encompassing kid safety stuff.

the children of men

I love books by PD James. She almost feels like an old friend to me, I've been reading her books since college. In a way I feel like she's a guilty pleasure that I indulge in because she writes mysteries. But her books can be quite literary, thoughtful and very English, so I guess I shouldn't feel all that guilty about reading them. I think most people that like her are probably 20 years older than me, watch PBS and Law & Order and listen to NPR on a regular basis - could be totally off base on this one but it's just a feeling I get about her fan base. This book is different than her 'Adam Dalgliesh' mysteries. I saw the movie first, usually a 'no no' but the movie and book are very different except for their dystopic view of a literally barren future. I enjoyed both the book and the movie, the book definitely goes into more detail and there are a lot of ethical questions raised which can be quite thought provoking. But I'm a fan of the movie too. It was directed by Alfonso Cuaron, who also directed 'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban' which is one of the better Harry Potter films, and it's got Clive Owen in it, a ruggedly handsome manly man. Read the book or see the movie or do both, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

crisis averted

My self inflicted torture in order to ease my driving/kid safety related anxiety was put on hold this weekend. In other words Toby and the kids stayed home. It wound up being a really enjoyable weekend. We went to Phipps Conservatory on Saturday and Oona & I had never been before. That place is amazing! I think I'll have to make regular trips over there this coming winter when it so cold and colorless outside. I felt healthier just strolling around inhaling the plant-healthy air. We had a cookout that night and then today we went to a couple open houses - I know this won't make sense to those of you on the East coast but out here it seems that the larger homes for your money are in the city, crazy huh? Let me tell you house hunting with a screaming 20 month old is priceless. Below are some pics from Phipps.

A very cool tree trunk, crazy leopard-like orchids and Owen in the butterfly room. If you enlarge the picture of Owen you will see his scar, the result of unsupervised play at a friend's house. I went against my better judgement and let him play in his friends room with some other children upstairs. Minutes later I heard him crying and ran up to find him bleeding. Apparently, he fell against a corner of the play table and took a chunk of skin out right above his eye. He is the most accident prone person I know, next to myself.

Oona saying 'fish' while pointing at the koi in a pond and these amazingly beautiful huge bowls from the Chihuly gardens and glass exhibit. Very pretty and very expensive. I kept thinking that I might trip and somehow knock one off the stand - this would be next to impossible and would require pretty severe projectile tripping on my part, but I think I'm capable of it. My God if tiny bowls he made were selling for five grand in the gift shop how much must these be worth?!

freaking out

I realize this might be a bit hard to see from the computer but I fed Oona a cinnamon raisin bagel with cream cheese today and after cleaning up her face this rash is what I found. A few days ago I gave her an everything bagel with cream cheese and she developed a similiar rash right after eating it, although the rash wasn't as large. I don't know what is going on, whether it's the cream cheese or the bagel that's causing this allergy like reaction. I initially tought the sesame on the everything bagel might have triggered the rash so I gave her cinnamin raisin but it obviously isn't the sesame. She's had bagels with cream cheese before without a reaction and she eats other bread and dairy products without getting a rash. This is torture to me because Toby's taking the kids to his parents tomorrow for the weekend. It will give me time to do some major cleaning and decluttering in this house that's desperately in need of such help (we're planning to put it on the market next spring) BUT I'm in a panic about the kids. Truth is I never really like them visiting there because I'm a major worrier and they live in a rural part of central Pennsylvania where the nearest hospital is 20 miles away and it's not exactly a state of the art medical center. I imagine Oona being fed something and going into anaphylactic shock and if that happens out there they might as well drive her to the funeral home over the hospital because by the time they get to town she'd be dead. Agh! And they're going to a graduation party at Aunt Karen's where there are open stairways to the basement and second floor and Oona still can't go down stairs by herself. Oh and Aunt Karen's has a trampoline where clumsy Owen could easily maim or kill himself. This is such torture for me but part of therapy for someone with anxiety issues is to, in essence, basically torture one's self and expose yourself to the very things you worry about again and again until the worry loses its power - sounds fun doesn't it?! The thing is, I worry about driving and my children's health and safety which are huge sort of omnipresent things in my life, so it's like in order to function I have to constantly torture myself. Here's hoping the weekend is over and my kids are back home, safe and sound, before I know it. Hope your weekend is more enjoyable than mine.

pretty. impractical. peony.

I love peonies. I think they're such pretty flowers with their large heads and almost papery petals. We have two peony plants in our back yard and while I love the flowers these plants produce I think the plant doesn't make much sense. As soon as the flowers bloom all the stems hang down on the ground, like the flower weighs too much or maybe the plant can't deal with that much beauty. It just seems like some botanist would have found a way to breed these plants so that doesn't happen. Oh and three days after the flower blooms all the petals start dropping off, so you can maybe enjoy your flowers for two days tops. Maybe this is just an issue with our particular plants (God help anyone planning to put these in a bridal bouquet if that's not the case) we could have a couple peony plants with huge 'failure to thrive' issues, I don't know. I cut off all the flowers last night with Owen's assistance. He kept saving flowers to bring to his friends at school. When we were done I said that maybe it would be best if we put some flowers in a jar and Owen brought the bouquet in for the whole class to enjoy, that way nobody would have hurt feelings if they didn't get a flower. He thought that was a good idea and Toby brought him to school with his peony bouquet in a jar, petals dropping off with each step he took. Oh well, it sounds like his teacher handled receiving a bunch of flowers past their prime well.