We're in Deep Kimchi Now....

After staring at each other for a few hours this morning with our thumbs up our bums, we blew this popsicle stand. We had that moment in the driveway, where we were trying to pick a direction...should we go to Target? To Zerns (the big farmer's market/flea market place)? To Cabellas for a kid-sized life jacket for Carl's planned canoe trip of hazardous doom?

We ended up picking Target.

But then, BUT THEN! We stopped at this International Food Market place, that we have been wanting to check out, and OHMYGOD. This place is totally full of international foodstuffs.

I'm talking giant bumpy melons of undetermined origin. Crazy spices that come in root-form, like ginger, but not ginger. Aisles and aisles of noodle packets and dried seaweed and strange little Asian donut dumplings filled with random stuff. LIVE EELS.

Craziness.

Carl did not realize til we left that he was wearing his dragon shirt with Chinese symbols all over it, and probably went tramping through the Asian food place with "American Asshole" stamped all over his shirt, for all he knew.

Anyway. Now we have a giant jar of kimchi in our fridge.

Kimchi is basically pickled cabbage, shallots, garlic, and spices. Sometimes, Carl will roll past some place in his old stomping grounds, and tell stories about his past kimchi conquests. "That used to be a Korean store. Kimchi." "This one time, I stopped at that Indian deli, and KIMCHI." "I had a Korean aunt when I was little. KimCHI."

He also tells a story about how kimchi is traditionally made by burying all of the ingredients in a clay urn and letting the whole thing ferment for months and months. So yeah. He'll have fermented garlic-cabbage breath for a month, but he'll sure be happy.

(KIMCHI!)

Nothing Like a Foreign Object in Your-

Dreary weather makes for good naps. It's still spring, raining off and on; not yet too hot to relax. This is great weather for spooning on the couch on a Saturday and drifting off to that between-sleep place...cool air from the window washing over us as we lounge in the total bliss of each other's arms...

...and then someone drops a seed in your ear.

Kids are great.

Did anyone every tell you that? They're GREAT.

She was totally ninja about it, too. No rustling of hair, no brushing fingers against my skin, just-plunk!

Nap. Over.

Upon the Sudden and Glorious Whisking Away of the Three Year-Old in Honor of a Mother's Day Wish for Solitude

Alone in the house.
No demands echoing from
the walls; I miss them.


I miss them; Somehow
I must drown my wistfullness.
Haagen-Dazs; hot bath.


Bubbles. Not for me
mostly; for her-a playground.
Moms should get a turn.

I wallow-Quiet
crackling suds envelop me
book propped, wine handy.

How to Grow Your Own Hippie

I know that this is the second time in two weeks that I've mentioned hippies...but-

Last Saturday, we packed the kids up and went to the Sproutwood Farm Fairy Festival.
Think: Renaissance Faire with odd folk music and fairy-related craft vendors. Actually, there are all kinds of vendors. Lots of food and pottery and leather and art.

Carl brought me to this place in 2006, when I was pregnant with Wendy, and I have been hooked ever since. (This and other invitro infusions high in groove-factor may have something to do with how bitchin-ass-awesome my kid is. Probably.)






When I toted her there as a baby, I enjoyed the private tents they thoughtfully set up there for nursing mothers, complete with a bunch of wicker rocking chairs. When she was one, she discovered the joys of chasing bubbles with the flock of other fairy children. Now, she's old enough to dig on all of the ambiance-the forest maze, the women in leather outfits leading miniature ponies, the mushroom-shaped observatory house, and all of the people wearing wings.



I feel a real sense of pride that she kind of takes all of this in stride. Band of moss- and leaf-covered Green Men roaming the premises? Check. Gypsy singer warbling in French? Tres Sweet. Spontaneous drum circle and horde of dancing fairies? Whatevs. Lets rock it.

This is just too good not to share, despite the stupid all-chin look on my face just at the end there. Please do not stare too long into my flared nostrils. You will be fall in, and then my face will be stuck that way.

The people here are awesome. All froot-loop stuff aside, you come away from this thing feeling better about humanity. People want to share; people are delighted by simple things; people understand about recycling.

Of course, when you have too much of that goodwill stuff taking place on an organic farm with a quasi-mystical theme, you are bound to scare up these people:

They shout at you over a bull-horn as you go through the gates, imploring us pagan evildoers to reprove the temptations of pagan evil. It doesn't work very well. They yell "Hey, all of you fanatics!" and the crowd just cheers back at them.

Carl: Ah, jeeze, I'm feeling fanatical....I might just...COMPOST SOMETHING! LOOK OUT!

Somehow, they don't manage to spoil the mood.
:-)

When Our Dryer Breaks...

(*cue emotional music*)

...I tell him that it is not an emergency. Because it's not. We still have heat and water. And light. Our food is still cold. The internet still works. We can deal, for a while, without a dryer.

And actually, we have alternatives. These alternatives come with a whole box of springless clothespins that we found here in a wooden box.

Solar and wind! Harness the awesome POWER! Also, free. Harness the awesome freedom from having to buy $60 dryer parts!!!

Do you like how the clothes line is right next to the old outhouse?

Right now, I don't know why we haven't done this the entire time. (Mo, its called WINTER. And also LAZINESS. Oh right. Thanks.) Maybe in a few weeks, I'll change my tune about this. I will decide that trying not to drop the wet laundry into the freshly mown grass clippings while yelling at Duke to get out of the basket through a mouthful of old-tymey clothes pins is a pain in the ass.

I don't know.

Maybe I won't. Look, call me kinky, but sometimes I dig playing 40's housewife. (With a college degree and the legal right to open my own bank account.)

I have to be honest here-I don't really smell the sunlight in my clothes, or anything. I hate to break it to you all, but dryer sheets do not smell like the actual outdoors. A whiff of my authentically line-dried PJs does not evoke spring rain and wildflower meadows. Unless you count the pollen accumulation, which I don't, because I don't have allergies.

Wendy thinks that we don't need a fixed dryer, either, because this gives us a capital excuse to go outside.

"Come push me on the swing."
"Meh."
"Don't you have laundry to hang, woman?"

******************

Dear Baby Jesus,
I just wrote a whole blog entry about laundry. Please send me more employment soon.
Love,
Handmade Apron Fetish in PA.