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Earmark of a good Saturday: Your son calls from the bathroom, “Mum! I have diarrhea. Come wipe my butt.”

Oh, gee, can I?

Our 4th of July was alright. I spent most of the first part of the day rolling around and moaning. I had a horrible headache and allergies, but once I got my act together we went to a picnic/graduation party for a cousin of mine. The baby joined a game of wiffle ball and I got pretty happy about the fact that he felt comfortable just playing with some kids he didn’t know. I could never do that when I was a kid. Hell, I can’t do that now.

We stopped by the mother-in-law’s house and tried to figure out where to go to see fireworks. The sister-in-law got a text message from her friend, Maria, and we remembered that she lives on the South Side Slopes with an amazing view of downtown. We sped over there and when we stepped onto one of her THREE decks we saw:

Pretty, no?

The fireworks themselves were kind of meh. I kept trying to take pictures but my little digital camera really isn’t up for low-light and long exposures. I got a few alright shots, though:

When we got home, the husband and I watched Assassin of Youth. When Incredibly Strange Video was going out of business, I bought a bunch of campy old drive-in movies about young women with loose morals and a few movies about the devil reefers. They’re kind of entertaining, but they get tedious after awhile. Plus, it’s just downright infuriating that people still kind of think that way.

And obviously the depiction of high school life in the late 30s, before the word “teenager” really existed to describe people of that age group, is somewhat exaggerated. But imagining a life where listening to 78s and doing the Charleston was the general idea of a wild Saturday night was kind of depressing.

Also, these movies were made purely for the propaganda/shock factor, so there wasn’t a whole lot of time to worry about the plot making sense.

In a similar vein, we watched most of Brazil on Thursday night. I really, really wish I could psychotically love that movie the way everyone else does. But it’s just SO weird. Everyone and everything in that movie makes me feel vaguely sick and it reminds of some long not-quite-terrifying nightmare I would have had as a kid. The soundtrack does kick ass, though.

Ahhhhh….tee-ball is over. And I finally got a shower for the first time in, uh, a few days. This day is shaping up to be a success, provided I can kick this writer’s block for the paying gig to the curb. And if the husband can rouse himself from this epic nap that he’s taking, we can go to see Wall-E.

Speaking of my husband (the charming guy making that interesting face in the picture above), he almost got into it with one of the moms this morning. We were watching the baby’s team practice, and the coach tossed the ball at a kid who held his glove out all weird and nearly got his block knocked off. The husband commented that it was a lousy throw, but that the kid needed to hold his glove up better. Just observations, not, “Oh my god! That kid needs to step it up or we’re going to lose the championship and then I’ll have to berate my kid to ease my insecurities about my failures in life.” Like, TOTALLY NOT being one of those parents. But apparently, the coach’s wife was sitting next to us and said, “Hey! That’s my husband and my kid out there! Thanks a lot! You know, everyone has a bad throw from time to time.” The husband and I just kind of stared at her. We all sat there uncomfortably for a few minutes until she finally huffed off.

Yeah. I’m really glad that tee-ball is over. Even if it means that I have to wait a whole year to see the baby in those huge helmets.

Kids, above is my first successful batch of homemade English muffins.

Look! Those nooks and crannies? I made those!

My first attempt ultimately failed. I never got a chance to get to the actual cooking and the dough, which had been sitting in the refrigerator for two days at that point, seemed a little funky. So I just cut my losses and tried again.

The baby and I tried one and they are very, very good. I really can’t buy packaged English muffins anymore…which is kind of a bad thing since these were a tad time-consuming for a bumbler like myself.

(Please do your best to ignore the frizz. It’s been humid for the past few days and I’m pretty powerless against my hair’s will.)

I had the brilliant idea to grab the last little bit of coffee from the pot and take my laptop out to the porch.

Dude, seriously, can June last forever?

Tomorrow is the baby’s last day of tee-ball. I’m not completely heartbroken over this fact, since Saturdays and Sundays will now be sleeping-in days again. Getting up early 7 days a week is NOT what’s up.

We went out to the Greek Food Festival in Oakmont last night and while there I bumped into a 65-year-old(ish) man who was not wearing a shirt and had both nipples pierced. So…yeah. My great-aunt, who is in her late 70s and is just deliciously crazy, was heading to the beer vendor and offered to buy me a Yeungling. She came back with these two huge plastic pilsner glasses that had flashing LEDs in the bottom. It’s the greatest thing ever. I call it my party glass.

We also stopped at a party that one of the MA students was having at her house which is pretty close to us. She has a couple of kids, including one who is right around the baby’s age. We only stayed for a little bit, but we had a really nice time and I foresee us hanging out with her and her family more in the future. A local mom-friend! Who’da thunk?

Alright. Even though I have a short mag article to write, I’m going to read a book. Not feeling quite ready to form coherent prose for a non-internet audience.

Oh, dudes…look what I’ve wrought.

Pomatcha cupcakes (plus a drop of red food coloring because we like ’em pink and minus the pomegranate seeds because those aren’t around this time of year) and Brown Sugar Hazelnut cupcakes with Blackberry Buttercream Frosting

But that’s not all.

Kiwi Cupcakes with Lime Frosting

And I’m very sorry to do this to you, but

Mango Kulfi Cupcakes

I am going to send Ms. Raspberry Eggplant my Weight Watchers bills because I am going to eat the hell out of these cupcakes.

Also, please snicker at my Suzy Homemaker cupcake carriers:

Alright, I’m off to shower and get ready for the sister-in-law’s graduation party. Have a lovely Saturday!

Someone on flickr just questioned my street cred!

Anyway, the Rick Wilhite thing on Saturday was pretty fun. There was a decent turn-out, but there was a mass exodus around 1 a.m. or so. Very strange.

Rick Wilhite and his aura played many good records, including “Numbers” by Kraftwerk as a special treat.

Jwan’s ear! Jwan encouraged me to wear high heels more often but dude, I was practically in tears by the end of the night. Ballet made my feet all wide and thick. They are not dainty enough for girly shoes.

Frank showed up! He was in town for a friend’s wedding! I really need to get my teeth cleaned!

The event was all multimedia n’at. This painting was created on-site and I kind of want it for my dining room. There was also a sneak peek at Paul Dang’s movie Still City. Paul’s been working on the movie for awhile and I hope he’s able to release it soon because it looks pretty awesome. I love the title, too. It’s a play on words. People from this area tend to pronounce “steel” as “still” (ie, Stillers instead of Steelers). Imagery-wise it’s also pretty great. The three rivers flow through us constantly, but Pittsburgh is still, right in the middle of it. And Pittsburgh, for better or worse, never goes anywhere. Take that however you want. It just contains this weird mixture of people who are creative and loyal and cynical and interesting and just all around kind of weird.

Despite my rather radical beliefs, I’m very conservative about some things. For example, when I cook, I MUST have a recipe and I will not deviate from that recipe unless there’s a very good reason, ie, I’m out of an ingredient or I’m drunk. Similarly, my clothes are my clothes and I will not alter them to suit whatever kooky mood I’m in. I may have once made a pair of jean shorts by cutting up an old pair of jeans, but that’s about it.

Last year, when we went to Detroit, I got a nice, very old-school-looking t-shirt from the roller skating rink we went to. The only problem with it was that the shirt itself was poorly made and the neck came up around my throat. This made the shoulder seams bunch up oddly. All of these things combined made me gag when I wore it.

But today I went a little crazy and actually took a pair of scissors to the shirt.

Please also note my hair. I spent a good 35 minutes with the flat iron. I’m wearing the shirt and the hair to AVA tonight, where Rick Wilhite of fair Detroit will be playing records. Not sure what I’m going to wear on the bottom. Maybe I’ll just stick with these boxer shorts I’m currently rocking.

Somewhat related, the baby and I made a video greeting for Tracey today for her birthday, but I didn’t send it to her. When I got a look at myself, my face, I was stunned. I look so…tired. And old. And swollen. And worn out. This past year aged me so much. I’m freaking out somewhat. Sure, I can definitely do things like eat better and do yoga and get more sleep and stress less now that the semester is almost totally over. But I feel like maybe I wasted the last year of my “youth” spreading myself too thin. What if I’m just “old” now?

Promises to keep, 1500 words before I sleep.

If you wanted to buy a Sam Cooke album, where would you go?

Anyway, have some smattering…

That, my friends, is our car. We went and got it last night. It’s a zippy little thing and it has all of those new-fangled things like airbags and air conditioning and seatbelts that aren’t completely twisted. It’s a gigantic upgrade for us.

Pardon the cloudy picture. I took it through the screen door this morning and I was still un-showered and in my pajamas.

I took this picture a few days ago to illustrate the pretty purplish-pink and spring green combo that was all over the place. Isn’t it yummy? I wish the colors could stay like that all summer.

This is the mourning dove that lives on our porch. She’s mad pregnant. The slut.

That’s the grass in our front yard. Yeah. We’re those people on your street who make it difficult to sell your house. I’m deliberately only showing you a small portion, because I think if I showed you what it really looks like you would wonder when I moved to the savanna. This is why I can’t live in the suburbs. I would already have been put on some kind of witch trial for letting it go like this. Although…two years ago one of our neighbors passive-aggressively cut our grass after it got to about this point and if you’re trying to make a snotty point, I don’t know why you would do that. How do you know I won’t just think, “Oh, sweet, the grass-cutting gnomes were here?” I think a better tactic is to shave “CUT ME” into the grass.

“Let me out! Must kill small wildlife!” Yesterday, this guy was practicing his pouncing with one of his toys, going over and over his moves from various angles, looking very serious about the whole thing. I realized that he reminds me of Uncle Rico in Napolean Dynamite and I’m waiting for him to start telling me about how he almost won the big game back in ’88.

L to R: Dude in a leopard unitard, beer #6, me, Bolt

Our buddy Matt is quite the amateur photographer. He went to a rodeo recently and snapped this picture of a bull rider literally folded in half after he was tossed from the animal he was riding. Every time I look at it, I gag, and yet I am transfixed.

I can’t say I feel sorry for the guy. Bull riding is just rather stupid, in my opinion. There’s the questionable outfits and, oh, the fact that there are BULLS involved. I’m not a doctor, but I’ve heard that bulls aren’t really known for their chillaxin’ abilities. They’re more of a HULK SMASH disposition.

Anyway.

I voted. It was votetastic.

I need to remember to take my camera with me tomorrow so I can take a picture of how gorgeous these flowering trees are next to the regular light green leaves. The flowering trees are this gorgeous pink/purple and the combination reminds me of sorbet or something sweet and luscious.

Also, since it’s spring, the dude next door has brought out his motorcycle and sits outside revving his engine for about 20 minutes before tearing off down the street with what has to be the loudest racket I’ve ever heard. Yes, window-installation-guy, you are a total outlaw on your trips around the block. Classic bad ass.