Can you tell what we were for Halloween? I was Medusa, Dave was “turned to stone”, Jack was a ninja, and Luke was a scary monster. My hair was better the third time I did it:

Laura commented that I should have done my hair like that the first time I wore that dress, at my dear sister’s wedding.  People would have found the snakes to be odd, I think, but my hair still would have looked a lot better than it did 12 ago, during that “short hair phase”.  Awful.   And speaking of my short hair, this is the first couple’s costume that Dave and I have done since Fidel Castro and Elián González.  My costume was basically the fact that my short hair made me look like a boy, plus a life vest.  Dave looked exactly like Fidel Castro.  So this time around, as a pillar of stone, he had the problem of people not knowing what/who he was when he wasn’t with me.  But at least he wasn’t a woman, dressed as a little boy, lost at sea, adrift at a party with nothing but sexy nurse, sexy vampires, and sexy butterflies between her and the keg.

I’ll need to go back and check but I think one of my new years resolutions was to do 10 craft projects this year.  And I used to wonder in the back of my little head if I would ever get around to sewing that apron, or finishing that ornament kit that I started 3 years ago. And the answers to those questions are maybe, and probably not. But I think it is important to use your imagination and to be creative; it’s good for you. But is all the guilt about never doing any of the crafts on your list worth the benefit when you finally make something?  And how do you find the time? I’ll tell you. You hang out with a four year old who has an idea for something he wants to make, and he wants to make it right now, so get started immediately.

I’m not sure how this started, but Jack frequently has a plan to make or do something impossible and for a while, my first instinct was to give him boring alternatives to what he wanted to do, or explain why his plan was impossible, but we could do something else fun instead. When he wanted to dig for dinosaur bones, I said, “You could look at some bones in a museum? Maybe in a month, when we have a free Saturday, I could take you?” LAME. Finally, I gave him a shovel and a patch of the yard and told him to dig for dinosaur bones. He was happy, and I realized my imagination needed a tune up.

Because I love the idea of crafts, I had gotten two Halloween craft books from the library, with no real plan or time for any of the crafts. But the night Luke left for camp, Jack was sad and he decided we were going to do some crafts. And we wanted to do them quickly. Since he doesn’t really have the ability to do a lot of the stuff, I have to be fast or he loses interest or becomes crabby. And the last thing I need is another unfinished craft/crabby child. But the speed part is the best part for me, because aside from my occasional lack of imagination, I also suffer from a little perfectionism, but  crafting with Jack has cured that. The first thing we made was a Dracula soap dispenser, that dispenses soap that looks like blood, out of its teeth. I stopped the urge to do anything other than get this made as fast as possible and Jack was thrilled.  I hope he wants to get rid of it now that Halloween is over.

We also made a paper chain ghost (Jack did the eyes), a sock puppet ghost, and a cool Frankenstein head out of a cereal box.  The top of the head opens, and you can hide stuff in there.  Jack drew the face on the Frankenstein, and as he was working on it, he said, “Wow, I sure am working hard aren’t I?”

So after that night, I felt like I had been put through the wringer, and I returned the craft books ASAP, having met my quota for the year.  But I did learn something about parenting Jack; when he wants to build something, just start getting out supplies.

Dave, however, had not had that lesson.  So the  other  night, when Jack said, “I need to build a robot, can I use your tools in the garage, Daddy?”  He said yes.  And you may think that’s because Dave is naturally more supportive and imaginative than I am, and that he didn’t need to learn any lessons, but the truth is that Dave just wasn’t really listening to the question.  Jack said the robot was going to be able to set the table, eat Jack’s food for him, do homework, clean the house, and keep Jack company when he gets lonely.  I said, “The homework machine, oh the homework machine..” which conjured the Shel Silverstein poem into everyone’s head and Jack realized he’d need something the size of a tank.

Well – Dave took the easy way out and offered to do the dishes while I helped build the robot.  I gave Jack some metallic looking paper, popsicle sticks, tape, scissors and string, and it was half an hour of building before Jack wondered, “What   how am I going to bring him to life?”  I suggested maybe taking a picture would do it, if he used the flash.  So he took 80 pictures of the robot and then it was time for bed.

As someone who likes to buy books about crafts, and art projects, and stock the supplies, but never has time, or energy for being creative, Jack is my perfect opposite.  An I think it’s so fun and refreshing to start a project wondering, “how can I bring this to life?” instead of not starting something that you think will never work out.

I was a Botany major in college, and one semester I had an 8:00 am physics class and a 9:00 am Botany class.  Once, in my 8:00 am Physics class, I noticed an inch worm on my leg.  It was probably fall, and I was wearing jeans and hiking boots.  I watched the inchworm inch up my leg until it got to my knee and then I got nervous and put it back down by my foot.  This happened a couple times and I planned to keep track of it until class ended and I was able to take it back outside.  And that was a good, environmentally friendly plan right up until we had a pop quiz at the end of class and I lost track of the inch worm.   I looked around and felt more guilt than worry about the little guy who was destined to die of boredom and malnutrition in the physics hall.  (Nothing against physics, I love physics, but inchworms probably have other interests.)

Alas, I headed all the way across campus to the Botany building and settled into Botany 101.  In that class we sat around tables, about 8 people to a table.  I told everyone the hilarious anecdote about the inchworm and then class started and I fell asleep. It was 9:00 am, as I said, and maybe that pop quiz really wore me out or something. Regardless, it was a light sleep, and I am sure I was still listening, and incredibly, I was probably still taking notes.  Notes that I would find highly useless when it was time to study.  What woke me?  The slight padding of little inchworm feet on my ear.  And how did I wake up?  Frantically, with arms waving and hair tousling.   Then I did what any normal, self respecting person would do; I pretended that nothing had happened.  I glanced around, and no one was making eye contact so obviously no one saw.  I took a deep breath and relaxed as much as I could, still not knowing exactly where I might see or feel an inchworm next.  Then the person next to me leaned over and whispered in my ear, “It’s in the middle of the table.”  Yup, there it was.  I knocked the inchworm out of my hair and into the middle of the table and there it was still crawling around.  That was one tough inchworm.

Now, that was a long time ago, but all the inchworm horror came back to me last night as I was preparing swiss chard to go into my frittata.  I set the chard on the counter before I washed it, and when I picked it up there was an inchworm.  I shuddered.  Had I really once repeatedly picked up an inchworm and put it back down by my foot.  Using, my own hands?  Yuck.  Who was I then, that 8:00 am morning?  Some sort of wide-eyed environment-saving tree hugger?  I was obviously someone who had never had an inchworm in her hair.  An experience like that can change a person.  But, ok, I still wanted to save the inchworm, especially after everything I put that first guy through.  But there was no way I was touching it.  So after I tore the leaves off the chard, I left some stalks on the counter next to the inchworm.  And once it crawled onto a stalk, (no one knows better than I, how fast those things move) I took the stalk outside.   Then I walked a couple steps towards the grass and tried to fling the inchworm off the stalk.  What happened instead, is that the stalk broke in half, and I had the stump in my hand while the rest of the stalk with the inchworm went flying.

Then the dog picked up the stalk and ate it.

I just redacted a giant history of MetaMegan and weight issues to get right to the point, because, really.

I am on a new exercise/diet plan.  The exercise part is a two day a week weight training program that I am working on with a trainer.  The diet was supposed to be that I eat the way I normally do, but sort of stay aware of what I am eating and be reasonable.  But has anyone ever known me to be reasonable?  I really don’t like to “pay attention to what I am eating” so if I am doing that, it means I try to eat as little as possible, and that always backfires.  Usually pretty spectacularly, with me flying into a rage over someone leaving a bag of pretzels out on the counter.  I barely even like pretzels, but if the bag is open on the counter, and I am at a huge calorie deficit, and I eat pretzels without even thinking about it, someone is going to hear me freak out.  And by “someone” I mean, my family and any neighbor in a 100 yard radius.

So, today, I went to the gym, then came home and had coffee and oatmeal with skim milk.  Then I went to work, with a lunch I had packed.  I usually go shopping at noon on my days in the office, so I thought I would eat a quick lunch before noon.  On my way to the microwave, I was thinking,  “Wow, that oatmeal really did the trick.  I am barely even hungry yet.  Still,  I should eat before I get really starving.  Tra la la, this diet is going really well.”

Then I put my lunch in the microwave and started to to figure out how the microwave works, when I saw the time. 

It was 10:45.

If there is one thing I love in life, it’s to turn over a new leaf.  Or, I should say, I like to read about how to turn over a new leaf.  12 weeks to be bikini ready, or a 3 day cleanse, or basically every month of O magazine.  But something always gets in the way of completion of my self improvement.  (The main thing that gets in the way of completion is that I do not start.)  For example, Dr. Oz’s 3 day cleanse lost me at sauerkraut.  The most recent thing I read was the Jerry Seinfeld productivity method.  The gist is, you get a giant calendar, and you do your thing (for example, exercise, or writing, or flossing your teeth, or meditating) and after you do your thing that day, you put an X on the calendar.  After you have a string of Xs, you don’t want to break the chain.  Then once you are doing something every day, yea for you! I printed a thing that just had squares that started at 1 and ended at 365, and I told myself I could put an X through the day if I did one of three things.

1.) wrote a blog post
2.) worked on my book
3.) did a writing exercise from a book that I have.

I lasted around 16 days straight before I missed a day, and then another day, and then the next thing I knew, there was no way I could figure out where I was because the dates weren’t on the calendar, and if I started on March 3rd, then I’d have to add 3 days to whatever day it was, and let’s just forget the whole thing.

But it’s a Monday, and it’s the unofficial start of summer, which is a perfect time for starting or restarting a project so here I am.

And where am I?  Sitting on the patio, thinking of the potential unofficial drink of the summer. Remember when I discovered Hendrick’s gin?  Then, last summer or so, I had a few gin drinks with my good friend, and I asked for the recipe at least thrice, and all that I remember from it was “gin” and “cucumber dry soda.”  Alas, more ingredients than that=too complicated.   Hendrick’s is sometimes recommended to be garnished with cucumber, so I had a brainstorm a few days ago that Hendrick’s and Cucumber Dry Soda could be the drink of the summer.  But I only like to buy Hendrick’s on sale, and the Memorial Day ads led me to believe that no sales were imminent.  Also, I hadn’t seen Dry Soda anywhere, but their website led me to believe it was at Whole Foods and King Soopers.  I struck out at Whole Foods, and King Soopers, and was very sad and frustrated.  Summer is supposed to be relaxing and carefree.  Had I picked the wrong potential drink of the summer?  Maybe it wasn’t meant to be?  But if it wasn’t meant to be, then why did I keep thinking about it?  Well, last night around 5:00 pm, I called King Soopers and yes, in fact, they do stock Dry Soda, and it’s on the top shelf of aisle 4.  By the time I got off hold and had my answer though, it was 5:49 and the liquor store closes at 6:00.  I pedaled so fast, I was just a blur on a cruiser bike.  I stopped only when I was in the gin section and I took some heaving breaths and thought at first that they didn’t carry Hendrick’s.  Turns out there was one bottle left, but I couldn’t reach it.  Yes, top shelf liquor.  So top of the shelf, that I, and adult woman, was not capable of reaching it.  I must have looked forlorn, and possibly dangerous, like the type of person who was considering climbing the shelves, because someone asked if I needed help.  I did, in fact, need help.  And before I knew it, I was on my way to King Soopers with Hendrick’s in my backpack.  (AND IT WAS ON SALE!)  And of course, the reason I couldn’t find the Dry Soda at King Soopers the first time I was there, was that they were on the very top shelf, where I couldn’t see or reach them, in the “healthy” drink section.  Once I had gotten to the coconut water I guess I gave up.  So I found the Dry Soda, angels were singing, the sun was shining a beam straight down onto me, harp music was playing, until there was a giant scratch of the record and all my dreams came crashing down to earth.  There are 7 flavors of Dry Soda, and King soopers stocked 3 of them.  Note, cucumber was not one of the three stocked flavors.   Curses were uttered.  I just bought the darn blood orange dry soda, and a cucumber, and I made a drink with Hendrick’s and blood orange Dry Soda over ice, and garnished it with some cucumber slices.

It was the most anti-climatic delicious cocktail I have ever had.