Diary of a Mad Housewife

1 very large mug's worth of milk. I think mine are more than 16 oz. As long as you are going for hot cocoa, you may as well go for broke.

In small saucepan:

3 heaping teaspoons of cocoa powder
3 teaspoons of sugar
Just enough milk to get it all wet.

Whisk (with mini-whisk or fork) over medium heat to get it to all meld together into perfect chocolate goo.

Whisk in:
2 hefty shakes cinnamon
1 gentle shake of chili powder

The rest of the milk.

Keep stirring until desired heat; do not let it boil.

Optional: a dash of salt (I don't use it)
Or instead of cinnamon and chili powder use just cinnamon, or a light pinch of pumpkin pie seasoning. Or ginger and orange zest/flavoring (without the cinnamon).

Mmmmm. But first, we go out to play in the snow.

Time to get rid of a few things in the coming weeks:

Crib bedding with matching lampshade (w/ lamp base, probably), window valances, crib bumper, and possibly other odds and ends I've forgotten about. This is in a gender-neutral ecru-on-ecru print of moons and stars.

A high-end Bellini crib in bleached wood with a matching dresser. These cost a fortune and were a gift from my mother, so I will be negotiating with her as to just how I can rid myself of them. She may insist that I sell, but I can probably convince her it is OK to give them away (or at least 'loan' them for a few years) if they are going to a friend or friend-of-friend. This comes with a barely-used high-end mattress (water proof/resistant/something and other details that escape me) plus whatever associated stuff like mattress pads I can find. Or maybe those go with the bedding. Whichever! The dresser btw is a changing table and I believe I still have the pad for it with two peach pad covers, but I wouldn't want to swear to that.

We may also be getting rid of two full-depth twin mattresses.

This is all in preparation for getting the girls bunk beds with a built-in dresser and setting them up in a new bedroom (formerly ours; we're taking the room that is now Big Girl's).

Before the knee, we were in the midst of massive home-improvement projects.

We, and I use the word "we" loosely to mean Christopher, repainted the bathroom, ordered a new vanity with sink to replace the one that is falling apart (exactly as pictured here -- viewable when it is not Shabbot, when they close the website), got a new faucet for said sink, a new light fixture, and are eagerly anticipating being able to afford a total retiling and putting in of a new tub next year.

We're also working on replacing the dining room table (ours is staggering on its last legs, literally), and as such have been scouring options.

In the midst of this I cam upon the Treadwell Galleries. And now I have massive object lust for almost everything on that site, or at least in that listing.

Now of course a lot of the projects are stalled with boxes piled around. Bad timing!

mr_niggle is ill, and in Atlanta. Very ill. Very in Atlanta. I call him to fret at him about his being ill and getting home with a snowstorm coming.

Me: You shouldn't be driving in your state.

Him: I'm not, I'm driving in Georgia.

Badum-ching

I got a lot of loot. I won't catalogue it all here.

I just want to celebrate my husband a moment.

He got me what I asked for -- exactly and precisely. A Soda Club penguin, which I would not have known about were it not for ratphooey. Now I can make my own fizzy water. And I have a penguin. Yay!

But he also got me the thing I wanted most, did not know I wanted, and had not asked for. The Principles of Uncertainty by Maira Kalman. This compiles Ms. Kalman's contributions to the NY Times of last year, October through April. They are sort of visual poems, and are breathtaking and resonant and amazing. He knew how much I'd loved them.

Thank you, sweetie.

It was a good Christmas -- an exhausting Christmas Eve (baking all day) topped off with the family party, then Christmas Day with zinzinzinnia and thickie, which made it extra-special. Tony is now home, and the girls are delighted (Glory is all over him as I type this.) What more could I want?

"Snail. Issa snail."



So sayeth Gloriana, who is a day or two shy of 23 months, and just drew it. Then she drew about twenty more little spirals she tells are snails, as well.

Tony has just gone to take a nap.

Glory decided I should have a nap, too. And then it was time to wake up. ("Kup! Kup!") and that I had a dream. I asked what my dream was about and she said, "Salad. Eating. Salad." I said, "I was dreaming about eating salad?" and she said, "Yeah."

She now wants to take a nap with her monkey and dream about salad, too. Even more than she wants to dream about strawberries, which she is currently eating.

Edit: Tony, per Glory, is dreaming about his broken blanket. ("Blankie. Broken. Oh." -- with 'Oh' said in a calculatedly heartbroken tone.)

Back from a truly lovely and peaceful trip to visit shayde and catya and various and sundry other folks. Mostly we spent the weekend at Catya's family's incredibly cozy house on a lake in Maine (this was nowhere near the coast; if you cross the pond you are in New Hampshire.) It was great, among other things, to spend time with their son and get to know him a bit better and to watch he and his eight-year-old age-mate playing together all weekend. Whenever I see boys that age it reminds me, of course, of Patrick, but I find this no longer gives me melancholy. Instead it just makes me breath with relief and admiration to see the world Z lives in and the person he's growing into.

My favorite moment was waking up early Sunday morning and getting to sit and chat with Cat while we watched the sun find, light up and warm the water.

The girls I think really enjoyed themselves. Gwen can be hard to read in this respect, but she did consent to venture into the water a few times and even took two journeys on a motor boat -- the second with no parent along! Glory also got her first ride on a motor boat -- or a boat of any kind, for that matter. She told us "done boat," after, but I noticed she is no less taken with the notions of "boats" and "water" than ever. ("OooooOOooo, Daddy! Iseeya boat! OoooooOOOOooo, Gwennie! Iseeya a a WATER!")

There was the unexpected bonus of music Sunday night back in the general Boston area and a chance to meet redheadedmuse in person. Our lengthy conversation about Sarah Lawrence has my mind churning in interesting directions about what happens when I go back to school in a year or two. Hmmmm.
Monday (today) we met up with Pär, Minna and Aileen for lunch/playground before heading home. Great timing on all sides had all three available during business hours right when we wanted them. Hurray!

I always think of Boston as worlds away. It's really not. And I'm thinking we could and should make the trip more often.

Lately, I have turned into an executioner.

Mysteriously, in the last week, there has been an invasion in my home. This has caused us no small amount of annoyance and occasional dismay -- which at last bloomed into full-boiled rage and then into bloodlust.

Fortunately, my neighbor MaryAnn who works at the container store bought me a gift yesterday. An Instrument of DEATH. See picture:



Yes, the pests invading our house are common houseflies. Yesterday, there were about three dozen of them. Today we are down to about six; the balance all killed by the mighty huntress, yours truly.

A few observations based on no research whatsoever:

- Flies probably like the light because it helps them to figure out when shadows are coming. Shadows=death.

- It is therefore so much easier to kill flies when they are not sitting in lights. Before visiting the mighty Whap of Doom, I turn off overhead lights that might tip off the flies that I am coming.

- When you see a pair of flies copulating, try to catch them before one can fly off. Because a) they die happy and b) you never know which one is the girl and therefore needs to be chased more aggressively.

- Despite my husband's pleas, there is no way to kill the flies gently so that they do not leave fly goo on the walls, doors, mirrors, etc. at times. Sure, sometimes you kill the fly and it is intact. Sometimes you don't.

- Some of the suckers are wily and like to hang out on/in corners. I find a lot of waggling of the swatter flushes them out.

- I, the mighty huntress, would like to note that the best way to sneak up on the fly is to let a little of your shadow fall on it from a distance, then approach slowly. The fly is lulled into a false sense of security and then SMACK.

And finally:

- This is a lot more satisfying than video games, but my children are beginning to doubt my sanity.

Spring Awakening was pretty awesome. The lyrics could be a bit more coherent but that is the only criticism in a show that was truly riveting.

Please do watch the performance from the Tony awards here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgkdoIz5tmE

If you have not seen it, because the recorded soundtrack doesn't do this show justice at all.

Of course, the third song they are sampling in the Tony show was "You're Fucked" but they can't say "Fucked" so they just cover their mouths for that word.

The idea: Take a 19th century German novel about coming of age and the angst and pain and sorrow and confusion of doing so in a repressed society. Put it on the stage. Make all of the internal monologues happen as modern rock music in modern words, but otherwise keep the setting in the 19th century.

There's also a live, semi-nude deflowering scene on stage which I believe the husband found a bit titillating, but which I found heartbreaking.

It won for best musical, of course.