You suddenly see me as a trend-setter, don’t you?  You want to be more like me and don’t know why.  Well, it’s because I have an iphone now.  Steve upgraded and I got his phone.  I loved my phone before my current one.  It was so…phone-y.  But it died and I got the newer version of it and it’s just crap.  The camera is AWful.  So once the new iphone came out, I kinda hoped Steve would need an upgrade.  And he did, and now I have a new toy!  Of course, I have no earthly idea how to work it.  I’ll just poke at it for a while and see what happens…

Kidney stone blast tomorrow at 11:30.  I am focusing on that great sleep I’ll get from the general and not thinking about the fact that it might hurt afterwards…

And now, on Sesame Street’s 40th anniversary, we remember Ernie.  Or, as he was known here, Uhnie.  The Christmas before she turned three, Uncle Justin gave Julianna a Sing and Snore Ernie.  I don’t think she knew anything about Ernie or Sesame Street at that point, but she imprinted on Ernie.  Instant love.  Then, somewhere along the way, she got a beanie-baby sized Ernie.  She carried both of them EVERYwhere.  She acquired a small plastic Ernie figurine and added that to the retinue.  Big Ernie, Little Ernie, and Tiny Baby Ernie.  For her third birthday, she was given another beanie baby sized Ernie who was instantly dubbed All Clean Ernie, in honor of his contrast with Little Ernie.

Tiny Baby Ernie was frequently mislaid, resulting in many tears.  I came across a store that had a few of them, all of which I bought.  I took them home and stashed them in a box of sewing supplies.   One day Julianna found the nest of Ernies.  Her eyes got huge as she said “Mommy!  YOOK!”  At which point the Ernies were dispersed around the house  and, luckily, the Ernie madness waned just a bit.

Ernie was a gateway to Sesame Street, though.  Julianna was the only of the kids to watch it, and I really enjoyed getting to watch it again.  I even came to like some of the newer songs and bit.  Never warmed to Elmo, though.  Sorry.  Kevin Clash seems like a great guy when I hear him interviewed, but Elmo irks me.  In watching the show, Julianna came to know of Bert, Ernie’s long-time companion.  She used to ask me to talk like Ernie and /or Bert.  “Talk yike Uhnie Buht!” she’d demand, as if she’d paid extra for that.  She also asked me to tell stories about Ernie and Bert, particularly requesting stories about pigeons flying into their shirts and tickling them.  yeah, I know.

I don’t remember how it all ended.  I think Ernie was supplanted by Oddball, the white puppy from 102 Dalmatians (and oh how THAT lasted).  But at least I had cause to buy the Sesame Street alphabet CD and Best of Sesame Street Songs…and I think I need to find those CDs…I could listen to Tap Myself to Sleep….

Okay, I have nothing to offer today, but dammit, I’m not going to blow the whole post-a-day-in-November thing this quickly.  So here, a day late, a bit of delightful Sesame Street:

It was gorgeous today, and for once I actually went outside instead of looking up from the sewing machine, seeing it was dark, and saying “crap, I forgot to go outside.”  I sat in the sun and read the paper.  I knelt in the sun and pulled up dead plants from the garden.  I walked in the sun while I listened to The Bugle.   I pulled the dead flowers from my raised flower bed.  It was originally meant to be a vegetable bed, but it’s alll the way over on the other side of the yard, like 30 feet from the side walk, so I never remembered to tend it (oh yes, I am a MASTER gardener), so this year I just put flowers in it.  I had Bachelor’s Button, Love-in-Mist, and zinnias, all nice cut flowers.

I’m particularly fond of the Love-in-Mist, or Nigella.  It’s such a lovely blue when in flower:

No, I didn’t take that photo.  Pretty, though, isn’t it?  So they’re these blue, white, or pink flowers that seem to float in this fern-y foliage.  Really nice.  And then it makes a cool seed pod when the petals fall off.  As I was pulling stuff up, I thought “Oh, I should get the seeds and replant them rather than buying the seeds every year” (genius.  MASTER GARDENER, I tell you).  Of course, I’d waited too long and most of the seeds had fallen and wee little Nigella were growing, doomed to the first frost.  But I picked through the seed heads anyway.   In most of them, some little critter was living.  It was pretty neat the way nature sees a cozy spot and moves right in.  I felt rather bad for disturbing them.  I moved them to the compost pile, which is a nice place to live if you’re a buggy critter.

I do love the big fall weed-pull. so satisfying.  And of course I’m gleefully spreading those weed seeds when I yank up the plants.  i know that b/c I’m the Master Gardener.

If anyone knows a spiderwort specific herbicide, I’d be most grateful.  I hate that plant and it has taken over.  Alternatively, tell me what brilliant herbal uses it has.

We’re just back in from the school talent show.  None of my kids were in it, which was surprising, b/c generally if there’s a spotlight on, they’re in it.  But no.  I’d feared an evening of screechy violin and cello solos (our school has a huge strings program) but only one kid trotted out her fiddle.  Instead, I should have trained my dread on the pop songs.  One Miley Cyrus,  two Hanna Montana, and FOUR Taylor Swift songs.  Oy.  of course, I’d never heard any of them before and with luck, never will again.  I told Ben they should have done Skullcrusher Mountain to keep things balanced.

The teachers did a funny dance to “The Potty Dance, ” a song about the dance you do when you have to pee.  It involved a lot of toilet paper and dancing about so the kids LOVED it.  I heard one kid say “We have the coolest teachers in the world!”  A sixth grader did a terrific magic act, notable not for the tricks but for his showmanship.  I had a mom crush on this kid to begin with, but I’d totally chaperone the prom for him now.  Impressive gymnastic tumbling, adorable baton twirling, siblings performing together at levels of cuteness that made my heart hurt.

But perhaps my favorite was the first grader dressed as Amish Johnny Cash, singing “The Man in the Mirror” with no ability to pronounce r’s.  The Man in the Miwow.  adorable.

I’ve been reading comic books the last few days.  As mentioned in an earlier post, I got the House of Mystery books from the library.  I really enjoyed them, they were suspenseful and super creepy.  I am very bummed that the next volume won’t be released until February.  Since graphic novels seem to be suiting my attention span right now, I went up to Steve’s office to see what he had.  I recalled him recommending the Invincible series to me a while ago (when I’m not ready to hear things they just slide right off.  Then I have to try to figure out what it was you said, ages down the road).  It’s a superhero comic (which House of Mystery is not), and I don’t always like those, but these are very fun.  The main character is a high school kid who has just come into his powers (his dad’s from another planet, you know).  It’s funny and clever while still being a superhero comic.  And best of all, Steve has about 10 of them.

In other news, yesterday Julianna was one of the students selected to talk to a delegation from Bermuda.  They wanted to look at our school to…uh…I have no idea.  Case the joint?  Reassure themselves that Bermuda was an excellent choice of residence?  Anyway, it was quite an honor.  The article about it in the paper is here.  In case it doesn’t work, here’s the part you care about:

Toward the end of the visit, the Bermudian educators sat and talked with five middle school students.

The Montessori philosophy allows students to learn at their own pace. Eighth-grader Julianna Greenberg told the delegation that successful Montessori students have to learn how to manage their time and set priorities.

“We have goals here, but there are no rules about how fast or how slow you can go,” she said. “We’re on our own to meet our goals.”

She told the story of a friend who, when faced with the freedom afforded Montessori students, goofed off too much and didn’t get her work done. She transferred to a school with more structure and is doing well.

Julianna was indignant that they called her an 8th grader.  “I TOLD them I was a 7th grader.  I saw them write it down.”  So now she knows the big secret–the newspaper is full of lies, misquotes, and half-truths.  In fact, given the newspaper, I don’t even believe her name is really Julianna Greenberg and I named her.

When I tidied up the family room the other day, I also brought the doll house up out of the basement.  I’d gotten it at Goodwill a couple of years ago, with the dream of turning it into a haunted house that I could trot out at Halloween.  Like so many grand schemes, it hasn’t happened.  But I have found that both Ben and Lily will play with a house if it’s in the family room, so I thought I’d put it out for a while.  Sure enough they were into it like a cat with a shipping carton.

This morning, as I was waiting for the coffee to steep, I noticed the sun streaming in the front windows of our house and, thus, through the windows of the dollhouse:

Luckily, I looked closer…

Apparently, that nice Tarantino boy came over to play.

I spent most of today putting away the Hallowe’en decor, cleaning the family room, and winter-izing it.   We don’t have storm windows or anything fancy like that, so here that means changing to the heavier curtains, swapping up the floral fabric for stripes and solids, and changing the plates and bowls from the aqua populuxe to the more sedate wedding stoneware.  I’m posting a photo not b/c I’m sure you are all dying to see my red curtains, but b/c Steve is away and otherwise will not get to see the room looking clean.  He’s not back until Monday, by which point it will be trashed.  Oh, who am I kidding, I’m sure it’s trashed now.

That rug is an experiment.  It’s been on my front porch all summer.  I got it at the Asian market, it’s made of plastic.  My hope is that it will survive the Pee Cat.  Allie loooves to pee on fabric that’s on the floor.  Rugs in particular.  So our house has NO rugs.  If the bath mat doesn’t come right up after a bath, she tags it.  She is also the one who brings mangled baby bunnies into the house and craps in the shower.  However, she also snuggles up with Ben at night and it means the world to him.  So she gets to live.  For now.  Anyway, because we have no subfloor and a dirt floor basement and floor board with the occasional (hah) gap between them, we get drafts in the winter.  No danger of radon poisoning here, let me assure you.  So I’m hoping that this mat will help block some of the drafts and will not invite cat pee.  fingers crossed.

I’m generally pretty lax with my kids, not one to hover.  But I’m beginning to think about encasing them in a clear acrylic coating.  One of my imaginary friends has just found out that her 15 year old has really rare weird heart things going on and will be undergoing loads of tests.  Another imaginary friend’s 9 year old daughter was complaining of headache last week and is now having a lump removed from her brain.  And an actual friend’s 13 year old just had a ruptured appendix and is in the hospital with severe peritonitis.  Not good.  It makes a slacker panic just a bit.

And speaking of panic, for those playing the Home Version of What’s Up With Deana’s Kidneys: my stone blasting procedure will be on Thursday the 12th.

So Steve left for California last night.  He had an 8 o’clock flight and he called me at 10:30.  I was surprised to hear from him but I’m so out of the loop maybe everyone calls from the middle of the flight now.  But no, he was on the ground still.  Apparently the plane hit a goose on the way in and the wing had to be repaired. Which: gah.  But then, as I’m chatting with him, the pilot comes on and says “We’re just waiting for the epoxy to dry and then we’ll be able to go.  It’ll be about 90 min.”  In essence: As soon as the glue dries, we’ll hurl this baby up into the air and across the country.  You have 90 min to make your peace with the deity of your choice.  It was a weird moment where you realize just how ridiculous flight is.  I prefer to think of it as magic and do not need them telling me that the thing is held together with…airplane glue, I guess.

We went in to the library today so that Lily could hook up with a school chum for a playdate.  I browsed the new books while we waited.  Even though I have a massive pile of books awaiting my attention, I came home with four.  Two are graphic novels since I can’t even seem to summon the attention span for a young adult novel these days.  One is Ad Nauseum: A Survivor’s Guide to American Consumer Culture, which I picked up b/c I love advertising and it had a blurb from Patton Oswalt on the front.  The other is Why is My Mother Getting a Tattoo and Other Questions I Never Thought I’d Have to Ask, based on the hope that a series of essays might hold my attention.  I think the computer has killed my attention span.  The graphic novels, or, if we must, comic books, are the House of Mystery series, vol. 1 and 2.  They’re..grim.  But short!

Mad Men last night–loved it.  I’ll not spoil anything at this point, but I just love that show.  Every screen shot looks like a period photograph, so exact is every detail.  The blinds, the hair, the posture.  A shot from Little House on the Prairie does not look like it was taken in the late 1800s.  Mad Men is just spot on and brilliant and beautiful.  love.

Tonight’s dinner–fritatta.  I love fritatta, just throw whatever is in the fridge into a skillet, cover it with eggs and cheese, and bake.  Always yummy.  Using up leftovers makes me feel so righteous.  Esp. since it’s something I’ve had to force myself to.  Growing up (and, really, my folks still do it), we’d save a tablespoon of green beans and trot them out at the next night’s dinner.  But as an adult, I just had to force myself to eat something after it had gone into the fridge.  My standard leftover recipe: put it in corning ware, put it in the fridge, throw it out in a week.  But I’m getting better.  Roasted veg are my favorite to re-use.  I roast a huge pan of vegetables, eat them fresh and hot the first night.  Put some in soup. Some on salad.  And end it all up with frittata.  Righteous.

Another one come and gone…Nothing left but picking up candy wrappers off the floor.  This year, however, I have told Ben and Lily that for each wrapper I pick up, I’m taking a piece of candy.  That will motivate Ben, I think.  Lily doesn’t care quite as much.  We’ll see which is stronger at least, greed or laziness.  Prediction: for Ben, greed will be stronger; Lily, lazy.  Julianna squirrels hers away into her room like a normal person.

It started to rain about 6, and we were worried that it would make trick or treating a bit soggy (never considered not going, I mean, really), but it stopped by 6:30.  Everyone got suited up and ready to go.

This year, Julianna went out on her own with Rhiannon and Molly.  She originally planned to be a fairy, but then thought of Sgt. Pepper a couple of weeks ago.  I thought how much *I* would have loved to do that at her age (and why didn’t I think of it?  hmmm?), and scrambled to make it happen.  I found a collarless ladies suit coat with a matching tank top at Goodwill.  The tank was green to just above the bust and navy the rest of the way, but it was enough green for me to make a collar and two epaulets for the coat.  Then I handed it over to her to trick out.  I think she did a pretty bang-up job:

The hat was a “biker hat” from the party store, spray painted and trimmed.  Amusingly, I just saw on Facebook that a high school friend’s son ALSO went in a green Sgt. Pepper coat.  I’m drawing up the betrothal papers.

Ben, deciding to costume around his hair this year, decided to go as Tom Baker as Dr. Who.  Which is kind of complicated, but his previous costumes have included “a rebel pilot from the ice planet Hoth.”

And Lily, who can’t really be bothered to put too much thought into this, decided to just pull some stuff from the dress up bin and be a witch again.  She’d thought vampire for a while, but I think it seemed like a hassle.  See: lazy, above.

I suggested that she change out of the pants she’d worn all day and maybe go with stripey leggings, but no, too much hassle.  Sigh.  Where did I go wrong in instilling proper costume love?

Steve, as I briefly mentioned, went as his Evil Twin.  As we all know, the only way to tell an Evil Twin is that they have slicked back hair and a goatee:

He couldn’t wait to shave it off though.  He has never been one to enjoy facial hair.  See how much happier he looks with it gone?

That picture totally cracks me up.

For once, I managed to slap on a costume for handing out candy on the porch. I just got the dress I wore to be Narcissa LaStrange for the HP movie, my beloved cape, and a mask with hair I’ve had for ages.

We had our usual Day of the Dead decor, so I blasted mariachi music and handed out full-sized bars.  We had about 8 left, so we must have had about 140 trick or treaters.

I was impressed by the number of kids that tried to take two bars, even when I said “Choose which one you’d like,” a sentence that contains the number One.  I didn’t hesitate to slap that extra bar back into the bowl.  Greedy monkeys.   Also weird–the way candy preference went.  The bowl contained Hershey’s plain and with almonds, Skittles, kit kats, Reese’s, Starburst, 3 Musketeers, Snickers, M&M plain, peanut, and mini.  The first bowl emptied down to 8 Snickers bars.  Why was no one taking Snickers?  The second bowl emptied down to 6 or 7 Hershey’s  (leaving THOSE, I understand), and then the third bowl left us with 4 Reeses, 3 KitKats,and a peanut M&M.

Also, I had to prompt almost every kid to say “Trick or Treat.”  They just walked up and stood there or said “Hi.”  They all said “thank you,” which is nice, but I need to hear the traditional greeting if you want the grub.

No particular trends in the costumes.  I was expecting a sea of vampires.  Perhaps they were stymied by the costume shop.  I went in earlier to get Julianna a hat for her costume and thought I’d pick up something for Lily.  At the time, she was fancying a vampire look and I figured they’d have an aisle of vampire gear.  Nothing.  I asked someone, thinking maybe they had so much it couldn’t fit into the regular costume area.  She showed me the “gothic” section, which mostly featured crucifixes.  “Um, vampires cannot wear crosses.  They’re burn-y.”  Blink. Blink. “Oh.”  Whatever.  I guess nowadays, vampires are just sparkly high school boys with a tendency toward stalking.  Guess you can’t buy a creepy stare at the costume shop.  Anyway.  Very few TV characters,which is usual.  Or maybe I’m just really out of the kids’ TV loop now.  Very likely.

So, the kids are gorging on candy.  I’m in bed not feeling quite right and gagging a little at the smell of the stinkbugs Steve just vacuumed up.  He’s off to CA this evening, so we’re going to assume I don’t have the Pig Pox and I’m just a bit under the weather.  no fever, though, which is the main sign, I think.  November is National Blog Posting Month, and I’ll once again try to post every day.  It seems easier than joining the Write a Novel in November group.  But Lily didn’t get her lazy from nowhere, so don’t hold your breath, people.