Paris Daydreams

A Facebook friend of mine (the incomparable Muffy Bolding) is looking for a sublet and a friend of hers suggested a site in which he invested start-up money, airbnb.
I decided to check it out because I have quite liked the idea of home stays rather than hotels for a while now.
Of course, for the destination I entered the one place I will always choose to go if it's totally up to me: Paris. BIG mistake. I'm about to take the joint AmEx and run away for a week or two or five.
The windows, the balconies, the tucked-in-the-eaves garrets with exposed rough-hewn beams and tiny kitchens tucked in corners and handheld showers in teeny tiny tubs and the artist's flare for decorating that many people who sublet because they travel a lot seem to have, especially when they travel with their ballet or theater company or antiquing journeys across Europe for their boutiques as many of the subletters seem to mention. The Nutella and croissant and baguette and cheeses displayed in many of the artfully arranged kitchen pictures. The views of Parisian rooftops and La Tour Eiffel and canals and La Seine and Notre Dame de Paris. The little cobbled lanes one must travel to reach the flats.
MUST. Go. Back.
SOON!

Like a Laser Beam

This morning I did not go to bed until the men were all leaving for the day. I always marvel at how my men--and I do mean all three of them--can stand around or wander around aimlessly while waiting for others to be ready to leave the house, but as soon as it's time to actually leave, one or more of them suddenly remember seventeen things they need to do. Many mornings, I hear Nate (who drives the boys to school because it's on his way to work) say this: "I'm leaving with or without you." This is after many "clock" warnings and with much impatience, of course.

This is how my men are with many things in life, not just getting out of the house. School projects, homework, cleaning up after themselves, completing chores and errands and on and on. Much "wandering around aimlessly" and a flurry of activity at the end that threatens to derail the whole task at hand.

But if they get a project in their heads about which they are excited. BAM! The "focus laser" comes on and nothing can deter them.

My youngest came home today and proceeded to gather supplies from around the house and work on his Halloween costume for quite a while without getting distracted before he was done. And then? He cleaned up after himself!! Wacky, wild and weird in this household, let me tell you.

blahg-er is blah

Words haven't been floating around in my head so much the past week or so. Images, ideas, pictures, maybe other people's words if I feel like reading for a bit but I'm just not chatty. Not in real life, not on paper, not on the screen. Or in a box with a fox eating lox.
I think the stressing out over the lady parts and the fact that I fucked up and missed my ultrasound on Wednesday and now have to wait until Election Day for the damn thing is just too much to think about so my brain has decided to just not think the way it normally does. Or I had a stroke. (Ah, just kidding. )
So Election Day promises to be... interesting? As I've said before, I do not have the good luck with which my husband has been blessed. For him November 2 is a promising day. For me? It's a terrifying prospect of Republithugs and hysterectomies.
On the other hand, if they see something during my ultrasound, even if it's not good, at least I'll have an answer and hopefully a treatment will be decided for me. Because if they see nothing then I have to decide if I want to roll the dice on a hysterectomy since "it may or may not help with the pain of unknown causes." I'll probably vote no; Nate feels the same. But we are both also hoping for an answer. Ack! This whole thing is just one big-ass conundrum. I don't want to have something "wrong" with me, but I know something is wrong because I don't feel "right." But the doctors--so far--say it is nothing, basically.


As a side note: I finally disconnected my Tumblr account from my Facebook account because I was overwhelming too many people with posts. I know I'm usually too prolific for some people, so the addition of tumblahgblahgblahg to my normal load of blergh scared some people off from reading my page at all anymore.

An Addendum

As a child we did have some family dinners at my Grandma and Grandpa Taylor's house and, usually, it was spaghetti if it wasn't a picnic or a holiday.

There was always a bag of sliced bread (often Vim), a tub of margarine (Parkay, maybe?), the crock full of spaghetti sauce and a Fire King Tulip motif mixing bowl full of San Giorgio spaghetti.

When I was older and living on my own--maybe even after I had my own children--I asked my grandma for her spaghetti sauce recipe, because I remembered how much I loved those meals.

It was then I learned that frying up some burger, tossing it in some Ragu, doctoring it with several "salts"--you know: celery, garlic and onion--and letting it simmer for a while, maybe even in a crockpot was a simple thing that could make your grandchildren think you were a real Italian chef.

Simple Things

I am a great lover of good food. From a hunk of cheese with a hunk of bread and some wine to an elaborate multi-course tasting menu, I love good food.
But sometimes, for me, good food is not always snob-worthy. Some of my favorite comfort meals in the world:

• American cheese grilled on potato bread with a can of Campbell's tomato soup
• Fried up burger in jarred red sauce over boxed spaghetti with Kraft grated Parmesan and a slice of packaged bread with--wait for it--Country Crock spread on it (I'm sure this is due to the overwhelming presence of margarine in my childhood. I find non-butter "butter" comforting.)
• Reallyreally rich mashed potatoes with heaping helpings of sauerkraut on top of them
• Harvard beets forked right from the jar
• large curd, full fat cottage cheese on Triscuits with Fresca or TaB or ginger ale

Other than the beets, these are all, in one way or another, a remnant of my childhood. I don't have any particularly fond or poor memories of these foods; I simply remember these simple things. And I enjoy them shamelessly.