we have already received a couple of very nice condolence cards.

I KEED! I KEED!

although we are not logistically in a place to embark on some romantic celebration of our glorious union, i can safely speak for both of us in saying that we are totally in love with … US.

the past summer has been one amazingly chaotic journey … fraught with uncertainty, hope, a little disappointment, a lot of anxiety, a side of deer-in-the-headlights-WTF-?-!-?-!-?, and — ultimately — a big ol’ vat of ass-patting, we are freakin’ studly, take no prisoners PRIDE.

in the end, we are still in poughkeepsie, but we are in a great little house (that — post-summer-adventure — we can MAYBE stop sinking money into for, like, 17 minutes) … we have a super-elastic kid who weathered a lot of nuttiness recently and whose life is imminently going to be further disrupted by a new baby sister (becoming increasingly lukewarm on) and going to preschool (always very excited to talk about) … steven is a man who can totally keep it together when it counts the most, taking care of his family AND HIMSELF, even in the face of succulent temptation … and i will go ahead and say that i ain’t too bad myself. i oughtta launch a project-management how-to series. “six-sigma” this, suckas! try orchestrating what i was while 7-months pregnant, parenting a two-year-old, and in a six-week time frame. i’ll show you efficiency and trouble shooting (and a really cute house*).

so all this might be a tad cryptic, but the three or four of you who read it and actually care probably already know what’s been going on. rest assured that steven and i are kicking massive amounts of ass. sure it would be great to have some idyllic, conflict- and surprise-free life (um, in california), but then neither of us would know how awesome it is to be with someone who — without doubt — has our respective back.

perhaps our good fortune amidst the chaos of life comes in part from the day we chose to get married. today is grandma oma’s birthday. oma knows ALL ABOUT kicking ass. she does it daily. she’ll get flustered before reluctantly admitting it. now that i think of it … once she admits it, though, she really doesn’t have too much of a problem letting anyone know what’s what.

happy birthday, grandma!

and happy anniversary, steven!

* post & pics coming soon!

steven: didion’s totally got his chakras in order. nice job.

me: what are you talking about?

steven: haven’t you been talking to him about chakras?

me: um, no.

apparently the above exchange was preceded by this exchange, when steven was tucking in our resident swami …

didion: my feet are connected to my legs. my legs are connected to my penis. my penis is connected to my tummy. my tummy is connected to my head.

steven: what is in between your tummy and your head?

didion: my neck. (pause) and then we have this spot. (pointing to space at the top of the bridge of his nose … aka, the third eye (!!!)  … cue rod serling …)

steven: what’s that spot? (pause) do i have it, too?

didion: yes. (pointing to steven’s “spot.”)

steven: what does the spot do?

didion: it’s connected to our bodies. EVEN OUR TOES!!!

holy crap. so i must investigate further. i went upstairs, and d-man was laying in his bed, quietly, but still awake. i knelt next to his bed …

me: didion, can you tell me about your spot? (pause) do you have a spot right here? (pointing to the third-eye zone.)

didion: yes. this is my spot. (touching the top of the bridge of his nose.)

me: what does your spot do?

didion: it’s connected to the rest of my BODY!!!!

me: it is? that’s great! can you tell me who told you about your spot?

didion: I DID!

me: wow! you figured out your spot all by yourself?! does mommy have a spot?

didion: YES! (he is really excited and happy right now.)

me: i’m glad i have a spot. i think you should lay back down so you can rest your eyes and your spot. good night, kiddo.

didion: good night.

so there you have it. didion’s been moonlighting as a yogi between legos and sesame street. perhaps we should all be extra kind to our spots today.

there is much inside meaning in the gift, and the book currently resides in a sort of keepsake drawer where i keep a couple of bottles of parfum tres cher, a pair of pearl earrings, my passport … stuff like that. a decidedly non-dear, non-glamorous, but oh-so-useful lint roller also hides out in the drawer… for a cat that drops her weight in fur on a near daily basis.

didion likes to “roll mommy’s side of the bed,” and tonight he did just that, getting the roller out and putting it back all by himself. seeing the life stinks book and especially noting the cover art, d-man had this brief exchange with his daddy:

didion: what is that lady doing?

steven: she’s screaming.

didion: but why?

steven: that’s a very long story. (pause) … it involves a lot of existential investigation.

didion:  i like that story.

woot!

anyway, i did my own take on it tonight. steven has already declared it one of his favorite things from my repertoire. i have no name for it, and i can’t find the original recipe on her site … i suppose since it is a bastardized version of another recipe, it is fitting that it remain nameless.

no-name ricotta & pasta thingamagig (that serves 4)

• pasta — i am guessing i used about three-quarters of a box of whole-grain linguine … in truth, it was about a third of a box each of linguine and penne … i wanted to get rid of both partial boxes …
• 15-oz. container part-skim ricotta
• 1 cup chopped hazelnuts — yes, lidia used walnuts, but so what … walnuts, hazelnuts, pecans … i think any is fine!
• 1 clove garlic (finely chopped or pressed)
• 1 cup (medium-to-finely) chopped arugula — yes, she used parsley, but by now, you should know i renew a torrid affair with arugula every summer.
• 1/4-1/3 cup grated parmesan
• 2 boneless, skinless breasts — lidia specifically called her recipe a vegetarian option. i wasn’t going to use meat, but there was a killer deal on breasts at the grocery store today. (i season with kosher salt, freshly ground black pepper, dried thyme leaves, and garlic powder.)
• 1 tbsp each unsalted butter and olive oil
• kosher salt and black pepper to taste

1. get your pasta going. don’t forget to generously salt your water!
2. heat the butter in a skillet and after the bubbling in the butter calms down (meaning the water is cooking out), add the olive oil (to prevent the butter from burning). once the oil and butter are nice and hot, start cooking the seasoned chicken over med-high heat … about 5-6 minutes per side. don’t move it around! RESIST! RESIST! RESIST! you want a nice caramelized sear on each side — plop it down, wait the five/six minutes, then turn it. don’t touch it again until another five/six minutes elapse.
3. while the pasta and chicken are cooking, combine the ricotta, garlic clove, hazelnuts, parmesan, and arugula in a medium mixing bowl. season as necessary with salt and pepper. (though, watch it on the salt since you are already using parmesan.)
4. let chicken rest for about five minutes.
5. drain pasta, BUT BUT BUT reserve at least a half cup of pasta water. combine pasta and ricotta mixture. (i mixed it all in the pasta pot.) add pasta water to loosen the ricotta mixture and encourage creaminess.
6. thinly slice chicken on the bias.
7. load up plates or deep bowls with pasta; evenly distribute chicken among servings, topping pasta with the meat.
8. CHOW DOWN!

we were both wrecked, wheeling the cart out to the car … wrecked and — in my case — preoccupied … with what to make for dinner and dread over the $300 i dropped on paint crapola.

but holy cow if didion is not a team player. we are about a third of the way home, and he tells me …

“i need to wear my seat belt.”

“uh-huh, that’s right. we all need to wear our seat belts in the car,” i might be half listening to my child, but i am triply self-congratulatory on raising such a conscientious kid.

“i don’t have my seat belt.”

“sure you do,” i’m thinking i’m gonna do the pasta thing that’s been percolating for a couple of weeks in my head.

“i NEED to wear my seat belt. i don’t have my SEAT BELT.”

“huh?” finally i pay attention to my gut voice, which has been knocking this whole time, and i look over my shoulder to find didion slouching down in his car seat, totally unbelted.

d’oh!

luckily we were close to a strip mall (can you imagine!) and could zip into the parking lot to correct mommy’s teeny oversight, which allowed plenty of time for didion to fall asleep and for me — now with a properly secured child — to calculate the gratuitous amount of good karma i burned through before realizing my child has got shit figured out better than i do.

much grass to rainbow oil for doing it.

getting the stupid thing out provided prime opportunity to clean out that half of the basement, so with garbage bags and shop-vac in hand, i organized and cleaned up and found some quite interesting stuff tucked away in the floor joists.

how about some washing-machine wringer grease! of course, we have to use “machine” loosely since it really amounted to a woman cranking the hell out of a — better word — contraption.

or how about some solidified cascamite!

the best find was the insecticide. when steven got home, i showed him the stuff, pointing out that the two top active ingredients were sulfur and nicotine. he was kind enough to point out the five places where “arsenic” or some form thereof was listed. there was a lot of pointing out … and a lot of me saying “oh. shit.” i was just stuck on nicotine. (ahem)

we duct-taped the container and tripled-bagged it. steven filled out the hazmat disposal form, paid the five bucks, made the reservation for drop off, and last week, d-man and his daddy went to the dutchess county resource recovery agency to get rid of this poisonous blast from the past. the best part is that the DCRRA is located near the sewage-treatment plant, so d-man got to see lots of big pipes and steam.

drying up with no infection (woot!)

black and flaky and ready to slough off (double woot!)

the dermabond fell off completely last week, and now the thing is the skinniest little line of carnation pink. it looks really good.

but enough gore. let’s look at art … didion loves to take pictures … of his stuff … behold:

gordon from sesame street

james and big foot

it’s got it all: scale! color! shape! legos! and it’s operated by an ELEPHANT!