the 12 days of july
I mentioned to the sister-in-law when she was in town over the 4th that perhaps one of the reasons that American society shifted to quick, cheap, processed foods is the fact that kids can be ungrateful little turds. I have been on pretty severe pancake and banana bread kicks this summer and almost every weekend sees me sweating over the stove trying to achieve buttermilk pancake perfection.
The morning of the 4th, I was back at the pancakes, having skipped running a 5k nearby because of female trouble.
GPOY
Giddy on Aleve, I added dashes of nutmeg and cinnamon to the batter and fresh, organic blueberries from the farmer’s market while the pancakes were cooking. I was thinking up names for my new domesticity blog when the kid looked at these glorious circles of flour and buttermilk and feminine mystique and said, “Eh…they smell too Christmasy.”
What.
It was the nutmeg, I guess, but DUDE. Come on.
“Haven’t you ever heard of Christmas in July?”
“No. What’s that?”
“It’s uh…it’s…you know,” I replied, slowly realizing that I had no clue what it was aside from something that I heard about at an age young enough that I accepted its existence because it sounded awesome because hell yeah let’s do Christmas now; why wait?
“…It’s Christmas…but in July.” He was obviously past the age where this sounded like anything to get excited about, plus Hallmark has their Christmas stuff out already, so who cares.
Anyway, it turned out to be an appropriate segue for the rest of this month. I’ve been trying to fit the events, both small and annoying and large and frustrating, into a reworked version of “The 12 Days of Christmas,” but I’m not that creative. If I was, it’d go something like:
On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:
12 days of pinkeye
11 days of antibiotic eyedrops
10 days of heavy rain
9 days of 90-degree highs
8 days of fruitfly infestation
7 days of housefly infestation
6 days of uninhibited poison ivy growth in the backyard due to aforementioned heavy rain
5 days of waiting for dry days to get toxic spray on the poison ivy
4 days of stinkeye from my neighbors who are all fancy and don’t live in their own personal urban jungles
3 days sunburn and unsatisfying peeling
2 days of flash flooding
And a partridge in a pear tree
July 18th, 2013 at 9:33 pm
Plague & pestilence! Begone!
July 21st, 2013 at 9:53 pm
I’ve been sprinkling cinnamon and vanilla on French toast, but you’re killin’ me with nutmeg in pancakes. I can’t wait to try it.