this week random

The quilt is sitting on a folding table in the living room awaiting a fabric hoop.  It has been patiently waiting there since Sunday evening.  Although I drew in the design yesterday.

School Starts September 7th around here.  I have three orientations/open houses to attend - high school, middle school and preschool - this week. I have already attended a  Booster Club meeting for Mr. Cynic's jazz choir.   Toots will start preschool in October when she 'ages into' the 2.5 year old program.  Thankfully, they are holding a spot for her.

The edits are once again in a holding pattern, because my kids are bouncing off the walls and I am obsessed with a quilt.

Captain Comic is a spinning top of transitioning to middle school anticipation/ anxiety. A case of sick tummies has been making its way through the family in an unpleasant way, too.


Today, I am taking all the kids out to buy sneakers, socks and underwear for the boys.  I am setting my goals small and late.  I'll go out for school supplies later in the week - if Hurricane Earl doesn't stop by for a visit. In that event, I will go during Labor Day weekend.  I take Mr. Cynic for a haircut on Friday.  He is currently resembling my older brother circa 1978 with the curl of bangs across his forehead and wings flipping away at his temples.  Captain Comic had his cut last week.  I never would have survived both in the same week.

I know.  I am nuts - school supply shopping on Labor Day weekend. My life is mayhem, and I like it that way.  At least the mayhem is somewhat manageable these days, and when it isn't, I throw my hands up, I yell,  and I laugh myself silly.

i am a freak

I have become an obsessed quilting freak for the weekend. 


It started with a inspirational trip to a fabric store and a sketch. 

It launched with a return to the fabric store and material purchase.

And now I have gone off the deep end, because if I don't finish it tonight, after spending 13.5 hours poking myself with a needle and pins yesterday, I will never finish.  So instead, I'm opting for the die trying route.

Don't worry, I am making efforts to document the process and blog with follow, but now back to the salt mines sewing table.

I have a novel to finish editing, don't I?  And the sun has come out and not too hot this weekend, so NOW I decide I must quilt or die?!

festivus

In my book you can never have too many candles.  I once nearly lit my parents' dining room on fire with candles on my father's cake for his 65th birthday.  It was a fairly small cake with 65 candles and one to grow on - a veritable bonfire.

Captain Comic took a while to blow out the twelve, plus one to grow on and the representative numerical candles on his cake last night, but he got them all. 

He was excited to receive a video game version of WIPEOUT!  that silly accident not even waiting to happen show on ABC, a promise of the ordered graphics animation software on its way via snail mail after an online order, and the ability to order The Official Godzilla Compendium, which he used relatives' birthday money to order a used copy online last night. There is no way any of us would pay the full price for a new one of those.  It's prohibitively expensive.

We stuffed ourselves on his requested dinner of tofu dogs, chicken tenders, celery and fries (I picked up sweet potato ones) and caffeine free cola and root beer (which he mixed). He opened presents, all of which he guessed ahead of time, but still acted surprised.  Then we shared a family viewing of Diary of a Wimpy Kid. 

I have to tell you, especially if you have a middleschooler, it is hilarious.  Captain Comic loved the book, and though there were some plot and character diversions, it generally remained true to the spirit of the book.  Definitely a good renter family movie. The relationship between the brothers greatly resembles our homelife, but insert Toots for the toddler brother.

Speaking of Toots, she aptly summed up our low key celebration during dinner last night when she declared, "My, this is a lovely birthday!" 

he's 12

Captain Comic turns twelve today.  12.

I look at a young man on his way to none of us knows where, but likely having to do with making monster movies or writing and drawing comic books.  But to look at him, standing before me, eighty pounds of the beginnings of puberty, those big blue/green/grey eyes still hold the otherworldly innocence, the tapped into different parts of the Universe look in them that they did when he was little and looking up at the stars or birds or clouds passing by.

I look at him and still see this little boy of three in one of my favorite photos of him.  He is lying in the grass way down in the backyard of my parents' house, looking for a patch of peace in the middle of the mayhem that is my whole family together for a Labor Day weekend visit.

Most of the time, even now, he looks like he is locked in a battle with the Universe, fighting for existence without pain, without misunderstanding.  He is in a continual Yawp! moment a la Dr. Seuss's Horton Hears a Who.    Only rarely does he find peace when he goes off by himself, to lie in the grass and let the breeze and bird chirps calm him. 

He is beautiful.  He is my boy. And I believe one day, he'll be able to tell us what his world is like without a fight about it.

12 Things about Captain Comic that don't have to do with Godzilla or giant monsters:

1.  His love is big.

2. His middle name is Bird.  It was the only thing that stuck in my head throughout his pregnancy, when I tried desperately to come up with something else that would honor what little is left of my Cherokee heritage through my paternal grandfather. This name caused great consternation among my family until I called my father on the morning he was born, who then said, "It's Pop's birthday, you know."  End of that family dispute.

3.  He likes to eat sugar out of the pantry by the handful.  Chocolate chips, too.  They never seem to last long enough in the pantry to ever make it into cookies.  I know this is happening by the sounds of foraging behind the pantry door, then the guilty sneaker clad covert thump-thump-thump up the stairs.  Largely because of him, my family keeps the dairy industry alive.  We go through at least six gallons of milk per week.  Don't even bring up how he is capable of demolishing cheese.  And yet, he does not have a weight problem.

4. Opposite of Mr. Cynic's record breaking, a lollipop has no chance of survival in Captain Comic's orbit.  One crunch and gone.

5.  No one gives bigger, more sudden, and more tackle oriented hugs.

6. He makes me laugh every day.  Every single day, without fail.

7. He finished his summer reading and report and attendant required pictures two weeks before they were due. Even while putting up a fuss about it. 

8. He can recite anything he's ever heard, seen or read, if it caught his interest in the slightest.  When he recites a scene from a movie, he includes background sounds, rhythms, and music most of us miss while it adds ambience to a scene.

9. He loves Weird Al Yankovic.

10. If we're anywhere near water - beach, lake, pool, he has to be near hypothermic before I can coax him out.

11. Much of the time, he may not know quite what to make of Toots, but he loves to make her laugh.  He worships the ground Mr. Cynic walks on to the degree that he'll pick a fight with him just to be near him.

12.  He loves, in his own curious way - as in he seeks out any fact on breeds, behaviors, etc. -  dogs and cats, especially our Lucy the terrorizing terrier and Babette, my beautiful old ghetto Queen.  And of course, anything reptilian.  But right now, he is obsessed with pugs.  Seriously obsessed. 

Mr. Cynic may be the child who cracked my heart open like an egg when he made me a mother, but it is Captain Comic who taught me just how far love can stretch and surprisingly, grow.

Happy Birthday, Kiddo.  I love you.

not to be outdone...

....by the previous two sleepless nights, last night's adventures included:


Babette the ghetto queen, luxurious long haired tabby, who slept on my bed for 14 years, but who in recent months has decided her preferred sleeping arrangement is on the driveway under my van, came back. Walked around.  Licked my face. Purred in my ear.  Walked on my head.  Walked on Honey's belly.  Stuck her paw in my mouth.

Then long about 5am, while I was enjoying a rather surreal dream, she dumped my glass of water right on my face.

When did she acquire thumbs?

dunce day

Someone please pass me a pointy cone hat and a seat in a corner.  That is likely the best place for me today.

Sunday night, Toots was having sleep issues, and her crib is in with us until Mr. Cynic goes to college.  Her night talk and cries, etc kept us up for much of the night, and Lucy unlocked her crate and made a bed for herself under ours, with periodic shakes of her jangly collar.

Last night, around two to three in the morning, a domestic dispute occurred outside of our house, making all the neighborhood barkers pipe up, especially ours, who was in her crate downstairs. Amidst the barks, toward the end of things I heard an angry, "If you want me to take you home, then I'll take you home!"  Then things began to quiet down.  Shortly after, I heard the whoosh of a speeding car out of the subdivision and onto the highway that runs behind our house.  I thought things were over.  I was wrong.

I held off calling 911, but someone else in the neighborhood apparently called.  I heard huge sirens and then it got quiet again, seemed like they sped down the highway, not into the neighborhood. I was wrong.

Suddenly, with dogs still barking madly across the neighborhood and  in our home,  someone leans heavily and repeatedly on our doorbell.   I wasn't certain whether it was police or someone seeking refuge.  I didn't want to go downstairs, but they obviously weren't letting up until someone did, so like the good wife I am, I verbally shoved a very sleepy Honey out of bed to check. 

Thankfully, it was the police.  Honey was not as coherent as I was to answer any questions of what we heard, so I joined them on the porch and told the freshly scrubbed teen looking deputy what I've mentioned above.

There's obviously more to this story that involves a couple of broken bottles and a bloody rag in front of our house in the street, and who knows what else. 

But my main concern, is that it looks to be a rainy day, I have three kids of varying ages and interests likely stuck in the house, and a few projects waiting for me to work on them, and I have no brain to come up with any ideas for any of these situations due to serious lack of sleep. 

Oh and the dulcet beeps, clangs, etc of heavy equipment working on the same highway behind our house again.  What ever it is they are doing out there has sincerely become an Syssiphian exercise in local bureaucratic roadworks.  Work has been going on for the entire time we have lived in this house.  As soon as they seem to finish, they tear it up and start again.

Where's a good book and an escape route?

Calgon, take me away!

idea becomes reality

Honey and I ran some errands together over the weekend, sans kiddos.  For one of them, I dragged him into the fabric store.  He has a pretty good design aesthetic, and helped me to decided to use a different purple for the quilt than the one that initially inspired it.  This one with butterflies and flowers goes nicely with the yellow dragonflies and is a much more toddler rainbow appropriate than the luscious purple with coppery dots. 

I may have to go back and buy that one for myself for a tank dress, if I feel particularly capable and ambitious after this quilting episode. 

The pink is an alternate, too.  And I decided to go with the deeper medium watery blue instead of the sky blue, which leaned toward a lavendar in its batik.

Overall the materials are better suited for Toots, without getting too kitchy and teddy bear oriented, like many quilts do.  I'm not so big on the baby themes approach. 

Today, amidst laundry and sundries, and likely during her nap, I will start cutting, and possibly piecing and pinning. 

If I break it down into steps, I will less likely neglect my family - as I often do under the pretext of working on my novel.  So the quilt won't be finished in 48 hours, but my children will be fed, and still know they have a mother. 

weekword prompt: nostalgic

School year is about to start, which draws me back to one thing, as I sit here much farther south than I want to be come September:  New England.

I always get nostalgic in autumn, particularly for autumn in New England.  Even when I lived there, my heart ached nostalgic as September approached, then led into October, November, and turned from the brilliant colors to the blank canvas of winter.

Over the course of a lifetime growing up and living in Connecticut and Massachusetts, I watched for the first yellow leaves of the aspens which brought tears to my eyes and made my heart leap a little.  I counted the turning colors through the birches, the maples and oaks over about a six to eight week period.  The scent of the air, changing ions, changing ozone put my head into an entirely different and timeless place.

The photo above is from my last New England apple picking, a tradition that was a strong part of my boys' early upbringing.  It's mid-October, the height of leaf peeping season in Massachusetts, and the height of the most flavorful apple picking, too.  We lived a few miles down the road from this orchard, which was the boys' favorite.

Now, especially since I developed an allergy to apples, I feel especially nostalgic for the crisp bite of a MacIntosh, Roma or Gala picked right from the tree, under a stormy sky as a late afternoon storm approaches to beat the vibrant purple, red and gold leaves from the trees onto the ground.

Addendum:  I forgot to credit Christine E-E for coming up with this week's weekword!  See who else is participating over on her blog.

big ideas

I'm getting big ideas.  This can be dangerous.

I'd been thinking of this anyway, in a small way, but then I went into the room to wake Toots from her nap yesterday afternoon, and saw her cute little feet poking out of her baby quilt, and I couldn't leave it alone anymore.

So, without a budget, and with Captain Comic in tow for his haircut errand before his middle school orientation event this morning,  I sought out a fabric store, planning on a bright but very simple quilt that I might be able to put together inexpensively - for the first time.  I found gorgeous fabrics, I got big ideas that grew bigger the more fabrics I fondled. Thankfully, I had no budget to speak of, and Captain Comic interrupted me a millions times, so that I couldn't do a decent job of pricing things out in my head.  I left, considering a more thought-out trip to the store without such a blank canvas to work with as I hoarde all the beautiful Indonesian Batiks in the store.

I am not a seamstress, but when the boys were little and a bit before then, I found myself charging into projects with needles and glue guns.  I sewed a Godzilla out of fleece and polyfill, by hand, without a pattern when Captain Comic was in first grade.  I sewed a Peter Pan tunic and hat with a jaunty yellow feather when Mr. Cynic was three or four - again, no pattern. I even made kangaroo ears and tail for Captain Comic and me for his first Halloween, sewed his ears onto a beanie cap and tail onto the Baby Bjorn, and my ears onto a headband. I reupholstered furniture, haphazardly. 

I used to peg my pants in high school, by hand stitching.  I embellished denim jackets and jeans when I was in college with embroidery and weird materials - all vaguely by the seat of those jeans.  I'm an odd mix of perfectionist inhibition and ah eff it attitude when it comes to most creative projects, which is probably why they largely occur far between.

I have threaded a bobbin maybe three times since my 8th grade Home Ec class. 

But now I want to make a quilt and as excited as I am, I am somewhat intimidated because the boys' late grandmother was an intense Master Quilter and I know a couple of really fabulous fabric artists right now.

I really did just want to make something simple, but my creative juices got flowing, and I don't necessarily feel completely out of depth.

So, last night, with visions of the fabrics in my head, I sketched a couple of ideas. I borrowed some less than great markers from the kids, and this is the result, so far:

I know, my rendering skills, well, aren't exactly skills, but I think it gets the image across.  The idea is after I stripe the fabrics together, and fill the quilt, I will run the whole thing through the machine (har, har, we'll see how well that goes) to make swirly seams because there is no way I will handstitch that aspect anywhere near like my former late mother-in-law.

Now just imagine the blue a bit lighter, closer to a mottled sort of sky blue. and that middle blue stripe is a very crisp clean even rows of nickel sized daisies on a light blue background. I may use that pattern for the border instead of a deeper fuscia than what you see here. 

The purple fabric I have in mind is a really deep watery purple with little coppery gold dots in it. and the green is a batik field of grass.  The yellow has a light scribbly pattern of dragonflies and butterflies in it in white.

What do you think?

Am I not supposed to be spending my creative wellspring on my novel in progress?

and back to writing....

Yesterday, my writing group met.  I had not opened my manuscript since the session I went to about month ago.  I kind of feared where I was in it and was pleasantly surprised that I was at page 93 in my purple line edits. I won't use a red pen - looks too much like violent spilt blood.

The significance of being at page 93, is that I was much farther along than I thought I was, and being a middle reader novel, I was darn close to the end. So guess what?

Yesterday, I finished my purple line edits.

Now to go into the document to make the changes official from the purple scribbles. Toward the end, my purple pen ran out of ink, so the end edits are in black, which is what I had in my purse. 

Anyway, I feel good about the book, still.  I can't tell you how many times I've read it since I started it back at the dawn of time.  At this point, the changes I was having trouble believing in, make better sense to me. The bottom line is I still cried while reading the end. My main character's growth is evident. 

And I love him.  He has been growing up alongside my boys, as if he is one of them himself.  Mr. Cynic was a year or so younger than him when I started, and is now in entering the halfway point of high school.  Captain Comic was in preschool when I first wrote the twelve year old into existence, and now he turns the age of my character in a bit over a week from now.

So, from here on out, I want to try to see if I can pick my way through the manuscript document, inserting the scribbles by day,  instead of waiting for my writing group to meet in silence and commitment to writing.  I am hoping that transferring the changes won't take as much concentration as the purple lining did.  I hope I can do it while my menagerie runs around the house.

Draft Two, (er 5,010) complete. Phew - kind of.

a few weekend amusements

I kind of wish I had one of these at home sometimes, as Captain Comic looks right at home in it, don't you think?  And then Miss Toots managed to make even a stockade look Diva.

We don't usually do things like go minigolfing, but decided yesterday that something new was in order. We all had fun, even if little shade was available and we were quite overheated.  Toots was very pink in the cheeks after a few holes.  Captain Comic got a hole one!

Today, in the van, while sharing one of his cds with me, Mr Cynic, who plays bass, expressed, "When I hear a band without a bass, I die a little inside everytime." 

Later, while making myself a salad with goat cheese, Captain Comic wanted to try some goat cheese, though was hesitant about it.  First words out of his mouth after trying it: "Can we make a goat cheese cake?"

All in all, we've had a fun and relatively low key weekend.  How about you?

erm, writing, hello?

I write.

I am 'working on final edits' of my first middle reader novel.  Actually it's the first novel I've run a plot line through to its conclusion.

But apparently, this particular aspect of my life has escaped me utterly for the past couple of weeks or so.

*knock knock*

Writing?  Anybody home?

tired and travel photo

I am exhausted. I think I crashed long after our whirlwind trip.  I haven't been able to muster musings of the trip, though it was jampacked with visits with friends and family, a foot led wander of my favorite city, Boston.

Here is an iconic tourist shot of Copley Square: Trinity Church reflected in the Hancock Tower.  I even captured a Duck Tour in it.  Toots was enthralled with the fountain and chasing pigeons as the adults who walked around with her wanted to collapse in the grass and shade, which we did, taking turns keeping her out of the fountain and off of Boylston Street.

The above photo is one I never would have been caught dead taking when I lived there.  Although, secretly, even then, I loved the juxtaposition of the old gothic revival stone church reflected in the modern blue glass and steel structure.  The difference now, is that I can't just walk into Copley any old time I want and see the changing light of day and season.  That's why I took the photo, because I always did love this particular aspect of Boston, the blend of the classic and modern architecture.  The Victorian flavor of remembrance of things past while looking to the future that is still very much a part of the general character of the city and its populace.  Boston is simultaneously, continuously Colonial through Current, old ships and new museums.

Since I've been back, I have not gone to bed at a decent hour, and not for any good reason. I have been doing heavy gardening and yardwork manual labor, which has been very satisfying, but exhausting, especially in the heat.  I have tried doing things useful and fun with the kids, but not too far reaching.  Before the trip, we had visitors, while wonderful to see, little Baby G did not sleep much during the night, and Little M was a nearly 4 year old ball of energy.  During the trip, Honey and I definitely ran ourselves down, and exhausted Toots, too, by packing too much into too little time.  We tried to not be too ambitious, but, honestly, the trip itself was darned ambitious. The day we left our friends' place in Cambridge for Connecticut, and picking up the boys, poor Toots was wailing protest over everything, very uncharacteristic behavior for her. 

I am past wailing protest tired at this point.  Now I just want to curl up with a good book and escape the world a bit.  I am absolutely grateful to have the boys back home and am enjoying them, but after the current load of laundry finishes, and after doing quite a bit more weeding out back by the broccoli and pepper plants before it gets too hot and muggy, I may just curl up with the book I am currently reading, and disappear into its Belizean rain forest.  It's time for the vacation from the vacation.

beach day

It was crowded beyond belief.

The storm out at sea made for extremely rough surf.

We came home with sand in every possible crevice and then some.

Honey lost the second pair of relatively new prescription glasses and his Red Sox cap in the undertow.

We loved every minute of it.

garden & storm

You'd think I would come home from a whirlwind road trip and relax, but no!

Half of my bushes out front have bitten it in the heat wave, and I couldn't stand to see all that pathetic brown take over, so I've been bushwhacking.  Literally.

This activity led to wanting to follow through on moving the border of the front garden back that I've been talking about doing pretty much since we moved in 3.5 years ago.  I'm still mid-process on that, but yesterday, I transplanted some of those forward bushes back closer to the house to fill the holes left by the dead ones.

The fanciest tools I own are long handled hedge clippers, a smallish shovel and a wheel barrow.  So yes, ladies and gentleman, I am doing all of this work old school - by hand.  It's rough on my back, but I do enjoy it.

Last night, as soon as I finished two major transplants, the sky blackened and opened up, the wind howled and I watched from inside as my backyard birch trees bent in half, like Cirque du Soleil performers.  The power went out.  The generator kicked on.  We reset clocks, etc. Then in the middle of the night, it happened again.

This morning found rooftiles galore across our front yard from the neighbors across the side street (we live on a corner).  Also birch and pine branches, a culvert full of pine needles and pine cones, and my crazy rose vine trellises on their side. 

Across the main street, our neighbors' basketball hoop took out the windshield of their car. 

So I got back to work out front, playing the biggest game of actual pick up sticks, and cut the crazy rose vines down to remove the old broken trellis I was already propping up anyway with a newer one.  I reset the new one for new vines to grow up, then dragged the old wooden trellis covered in thorny vines to the strip of scrappy trees by the highway behind our back fence the back woods. Thankfully, new transplants survived the winds. 

I currently have Mr. Cynic raking the needles and pine cones out of the culvert and wheeling them in the barrow out to the back woods.  He's really a good kid.  Don't tell him I told you. He also brought the roof tiles back to the neighbor after I gathered them.  I asked him to bring them to the door, but he just dropped them over their back fence to make their crazy dogs bark invasion.

So that's what I have been up to besides laundry that I haven't posted much on my trip North.

Ain't life grande?  Work hard, wear protective goggles.

family & the new pizza tour of new england

One of my favorite yay moments of our trip was visiting my niece in her digs in Worcester, MA.  She is finishing her BA this coming school year and I am very proud of her.  She has always been a self-motivated and curious student, an active go-getter and compassionate soul.  This summer she worked a rebuild mission trip in New Orleans's 9th ward.  I really admire her.  I want to be her when I grow up.  :)

She's also silly as can be.  Look what she taught her youngest cousin:

She took us out to a new organic pizza place in Worcester, Flats.  Their sauce has a simple clean flavor, much like Pepe's in New Haven, CT, the Original pizza place. There is some conflict about whether pizza was "invented" at Pepe's or some other place in NYC, but I maintain it was Pepe's.  Anyway, another pizza we got at Flat's was a pesto, portabello and goat cheese number that if you are ever within a three hour drive of Worcester, is worth the detour.  Deeeeeelissssshhhh!  and the whole wheat crust was to die for.

Another good pizza place we enjoyed on our trip was by her recommendation as well.  Gregory's Pizza in Monroe, CT.  I didn't find a link, and I'm still pooped, so I didn't try very hard.  All the online reviews seemed positive at a glance, though. When we stayed at Big Bro's house, this was what we got for dinner to entertain Honey's brother, sister and brother-in-law.

The thing that struck Honey and me was that even what we used to think was a bad pizza in New England, is still a good pizza where we live now.  I don't want to say that good pizza is part of my nostalgia for New England, but we can only find a halfway decent Phillie style pizza as the best around here. Pizza is just a necessary part of our family experience. 

My children are deprived.

When we stayed with friends in North Cambridge, we convinced them after a hurly burly day to just get pizza in the neighborhood, though they recently (witihin weeks) moved in and hadn't tried Marco's yet. Again, looks like good reviews on the net, but not a website.  The thin crust was excellent, perfectly crispy and chewy.

I have to say, part of the appeal of our annual trips to New England is the search of a good slice.  I wanted to hit a couple of old favorites, or even Pepe's, which is more in my Honey's childhood locale, but I was pleasantly surprised to find three new places - to me anyway - and really enjoyed them.

Sadly, Newbury Pizza, which was a regular good giant cheap slice during my main Boston proper days, is under new ownership.  What used to cost a buck and fill me for the afternoon now costs about five dollars, according to the person with whom many an afternoon slice was had there back when a big cheap slice was often all I ate in a day. Eh, the sauce was always a tad too sweet for my taste anyway.

And that's Cath's new pizza tour of New England, 2010 edition.  Seriously, you have to try Flats if you are ever within a day's ride of Worcester.  It's small, the staff is friendly and the pizza is gorgeous.  Worcester is a pretty happening little old industrial city - culturally, Boston's slightly more boisterous younger sibling. 

Expect Delays Ahead

This was a sign we thankfully only saw blinking on rare occasions as we made our way North to visit my Beloved Boston, friends and family around Massachusetts and Connecticut as well as retrieve Captain Comic and Mr. Cynic from a month with their father. 

However, my head is about as useful as a puddle of cotton candy melting in the rain, so please bear with me as I try to sort out vacation yays and respites along the way.

One beautiful respite happened at Miranda Hersey-Helin's lovely home in MA.  In the late afternoon, kids running around everywhere as a few of the Studio Mother cohorts got together, Toots decided to make a run for it up the grassy slope back toward the house.  Sunlight hit her and the grass just right so Honey snapped a bunch of pictures.  This shot reminds me of Andrew Wyeth's painting, Christina's World - in a good way.  The painting is more heavily wrought with meaning than Toots' climb up the hill is, but I like the contemplative, view from the back resemblance, the long golden grasses, the breeze and sun in her hair.

I know, I said I'd give a full report, but the way I feel after air mattress surfing with Toots between Honey and me for 5 nights running, driving hither and yon, over hill and dale, and walking Boston, etc, then rash watch, I can't do it in one shot.  Not that we didn't appreciate the hosting, we are just still feeling the aftereffects, because we are no longer in our twenties and able to crash on people we love's floors with the same bounceback these days.

So welcome to vacation replay week of highlights. 

Consider it like stop and go traffic on I-95: eventually, progress will be made.

I will also spare you the slide show.

Since we have been back, I have taken Captain Comic to the pediatrician for 2 days running, with two calls in between, for a mystery rash around his mouth.  He is now on a course of prednizone taper with bactroban ointment because between the pediatrician and me, we determined he's having a pretty strong reaction to poison sumac and poison oak from the yard at my big brother's new house.  And Impetigo seems to have joined the party.  They see a lot less cases of sumac and p. oak down here than up north, so first pediatric inspection was a bit un, un, oh I can't think of the word. see?  melting cotton candy brain.

It's actually an old house Big Bro and his significant other are restoring.  There was a lot of brush clearing involved.  And there's still more to go. As we were at a big family picnic for both families, Captain Comic found some solace hovering around the edges of the yard at times, and if he did what he did to my little potted juniper in our driveway last school year while waiting for the bus to come in the morning, then he probably plucked some sumac and poison oak leaves, then touched around his mouth.  Bingo - rash.  Then picked at it, opening a door for an opportunistic bacteria to move in.

Lovely, isn't it?  Glad I spared you the actual visual now, aren't you?

So, please enjoy the shot of Toots. I'll be replaying it in my mind as I find a way to get through the rest of today which includes more laundry and an aspie on prednizone.  That medicine made me insane when I took it for an allergic reaction years ago.  I can only wonder what it'll do to Captain Comic. 

road head

We're back with the full complement.

We have a collective case of road head.

Fun was had, full report to come in the near future.