Summer again. Great.

If you don't want to read about sex-type stuff, then this isn't the post for you. Sorry, I'm just in that type of mood today and sometimes you just need an outlet. If you find this kind of thing to be offensive or don't want to ruin the pristine image of me, then maybe you should just stop here. Just thought I'd mention it.


"Did you do those today?" The Mister looked more closely at the kitchen counter.

"Yes," I coyly answered. "I wanted to see if I could still do it."

"Um, why?" The Mister sounded a little suspicious. Oh, sheesh.

We all know what tying a cherry stem in your mouth is rumored to signify, but I don't know what the fuss is all about. They're only cherry stems and I don't know how it could possibly mean anything. But I must confess the truth: warm weather gets me thinking about sex. Of course, I can't really blog about it because The Mister very clearly spelled out that he doesn't want to read about any exes (I don't blame him) and I don't think that he wants to broadcast our own business on the internet (especially in front of my mother, Egads!).

Still, as the temperature starts to rise the heat triggers memories of older days kind of like the way that smells trigger memories. Temperatures increase, clothing decreases, skin wears a thin layer of dewy sweat (this is the nicer version of ewwwy sweat and infinitely more sexy), and bodies become more languid in the heat. Now I watch passively as others go through the whole rituals of seduction and attraction. They participate in the hunt and they get to feel the spark of chemical attraction, to experience the thrill of that first touch or being able to finally get the chance to breathe in the intoxicating scent off the skin of a new lover's neck.

This kind of stuff is for other people now, but, like a phantom limb, my libido surges forth in the warm weather and brings back distant memories of when it was my constant companion, best friend, and worst enemy. If love is a battlefield then lust must be a four-star General. There will be no more battles for me these days, but it's nice to know that I still know some of the maneuvers.

Hee hee.

Father's Day

I couldn't let this day go by without posting at least a little something about my father. This is one of those weekends where Father's Day and his birthday fall on the same day, followed the day after by the anniversary of the day that he passed away. He would have been 73 today, but unfortunately he died the day after his 59th birthday. These kinds of weekends used to be very raw in the beginning, but it's been 14 years now and it has mellowed to merely a remembrance.

My father wasn't perfect and it wouldn't be right to turn him into a saint. He had really grumpy moments. It was my father who once, when he didn't want to speak to his mother when she called, added the phrase "tell her to go sh*t in her hat" to the family lexicon. (In his defense, she wasn't very nice.) He rigidly held to the attitude that his opinion was always the right one. He was not very patient at times.

There were many good things about him, too. Even in the grumpiest mood, he was never, ever negative. He could be lots of fun and he definitely knew how to laugh at himself when it was required. For example, he and I went food shopping during a trip to France and he bought a huge can of what he took to be mixed fruit ("Apples and apricots, what an interesting combination," he had said at the supermarket), but when we got back to the chalet, my brother took one look at it and said, "Dad, do you know what you bought? 'Confiture' is jam." Now realizing what a silly mistake he had made and faced with the most enormous can of jam that any of us had ever seen, he laughed, got out four bowls, dished out several spoonfuls of jam in each bowl, poured mineral water over his and sat down to eat. "Come on, kids, it's great with mineral water!" Of course he didn't expect us to eat it, but we gamely took a bite each when we weren't laughing. Making light of these kinds of mistakes was really his way of dealing with them.

He devoted himself to his family despite not having much patience for the nuts and bolts of child rearing. Instilling honesty, a good work ethic, cultural appreciation and excellent manners were of utmost importance to him. Academic achievement was really important to him. Over the years, he made a lot of sacrifices for his family and always worked really hard. When we were younger, he would often be gone for work before we got up and come home from work after we had gone to bed so that he could support his family. Weekends were always about family and because of his love of the outdoors, much of our childhoods were spent in the Adirondack Mountains, hiking, kayaking, x-c skiing, or camping, all on a shoestring budget. When we were a little older, he finally switched to a corporation which eventually gave him the opportunity to work overseas, which, with the excellent pay and hardship benefits, would earn enough money to pay for college and offer the opportunity to show us some of the world. He strongly believed in trying new things and he encouraged me to take flying lessons, learn to scuba dive, and study abroad during college.

I have many really good memories of my father, but I'm going to share one of my favorites. Right after I graduated from high school, I met my parents in Vienna, Austria, before we headed to the middle east for the rest of the summer. Early one evening, we went to the Stadtpark (City Park) for some cake and wine. There's an ornate, old building there where a small orchestra plays on the terrace where they've put a dance floor and my parents got up to dance a waltz. My father was a really wonderful dancer and I sat and watched them disappear and reappear amongst the other couples. At other times, I watched the peacocks wandering amongst the beautiful flower gardens and across the lawn. It was lovely.

As the sun was setting, we finally got ready to go and were only a little way down one of the gravel paths.

"Why didn't you dance?" he asked me.

"I don't know how to waltz," I confessed.

"You don't? Here, let me show you." He showed me where to put my arms and hands and there on the path in the twilight, to the orchestral music that was floating across the gardens, he taught me how to waltz. Of all the memories of my time with my father, those several minutes, dancing on the path in the twilight with my father is the one that makes me smile the most.

Happy Father's Day and Birthday, Dad, and Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there.

Night of the Living Food Protein

I was standing in the waiting area at my son's gymnastics class on Monday, uneventfully waiting for the hour to tick away. It's a comfortable waiting area with spacious, carpeted riser-like steps for you to wait and watch the classes through the wall of windows that looks into the gym. From there you can see your kids do their graceful cartwheels and handsprings or, alternatively, trip over their own feet and fly through the air in an impressive display of flailing limbs. Whichever.

Anyway, the first thirty minutes had gone by quite uneventfully. That was until I glanced over to the entrance of the hallway that leads to the front door and I saw it on the floor:


The Cheez-It Square of Death!!! (cue Psycho shower scene music)


My pulse raced and my breathing quickened. I broke out in a cold sweat. I kept looking over my shoulder at the bright orange, one inch square cracker. It sat there looking all innocent as it mocked me, just waiting for the right moment to strike! Aaaaagh!!

Okay, so that seems a little bit extreme, but it really is true that those things really wig me out. Cheddar cheese goldfish crackers? They're like the piranhas of the snack world to us and they and their inevitable shower of crumbs are simply everywhere where you find kids.

Still seem a bit extreme? The bottom line is that it's hard to have a child with a deadly milk allergy in a world that's littered in cheddar cheese cracker crumbs. They're everywhere from playgrounds and sports venues to regular retail stores where they're knocked off the stroller trays of snacking children and then are selectively ignored by the young child's parents so that someone can step on them and spread the crumbs all over the store from the bottom of their shoe. And if anybody's going to find that trace bit of crumb, it'll be my son. He finds them often enough that I lament that Benedryl doesn't come in a multi-vitamin supplemented formula, y'know, to kill to birds with one stone, so to speak.

Anyway, the place where my son goes for his gymnastics class is no exception to the ubiquitous goldfish cracker rule. The carpeting is a veritable smorgasbord of cheddar cheese cracker crumbs, cookies, sandwich crumbs, and spilled milk. We watch the kids scarf down all this milky goodness and then go running into the gym without so much as wiping their mouths or hands on a napkin, subsequently spreading all that milk-protein all over the equipment. This is why my younger son can't take a gymnastic class even though he'd be quite good at it, but has to sit out in the waiting area in a stroller the entire time.

Yes, he's turning five years old and he still sits in a stroller while we wait, but only because the last time that he was out of the stroller at the gymnastics place, he was gagging on his tongue by the time that we got home. There's nothing like giving shot of epinephrine into your kid's thigh, taking a scenic ambulance ride, and enjoying the hospitality of the hospital overnight to give you the reason to dread kid snacks when you see them.

So, as we got ready to go at the end of the class on Monday, I looked back and the cracker was gone. Gone?! I hustled off to the car just in case it had snuck off and was waiting to pounce.

Musical Interlude: Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown

Ooh, two posts in a day! I really like Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown and when I found this, I knew I had to post it. Hope you enjoy it.



(Oh, and if you liked that, check out the video on the bottom of the video screen for "Gatemouth Brown- Pressure Cooker". It was a toss-up which one to post.)

Call me Delilah

It's been another long absence. Um, oops. The Mister was out of the country for most of last week and I usually don't sleep very well when he's gone, so I ended up too exhausted to be able to construct a coherent sentence. Not only that, Sasha and JP were over for movies many of those nights to keep me company, so there goes that blogging time as well. As for this week, I've been working in the yard or just recovering from last week.

Anyway, enough excuses and on to the subject of my post.

I hardly ever talk about my younger son. He's the biggest pill on the planet sometimes, that is, when he's not being completely charming and happy. He can go from "joy" to "headache" in a heartbeat, usually over something really minor like changing clothes, eating, toilet training, or leaving the house when he doesn't want to, or, as the case has been lately, letting me cut his hair.

It's been months since he would let me cut his hair. We were jokingly starting to call him "Hippy". He would whine, protest, thrash and even throw himself off the haircutting chair if we tried to get him to sit for a haircut, running a great risk of my severely cutting him with the scissors and making it necessary for The Mister to hold him down so that I could finish the haircut that my son, by some miracle, had reluctantly let me start. It usually makes me break into a cold sweat just thinking about his next cut. We had eventually resorted to begging, time outs, even bribes, but they were all useless and it looked like I was losing the battle until I happened to read a post by Heart in San Francisco at Guilty With An Explanation where she wrote about how she used to cut one of her son's hair while he slept. Ingenious! So, that's what I did last night or at least attempted to do and I'm happy to report that, while I take no real pride in the quality of the cut (not one of my better ones... no surprise there), I got the job done.

One thing that I wasn't looking forward to was the scene that he was going to make when he woke up and found that his carefully protected locks were gone. I had the aspirin ready and waiting for the inevitable stress headache. As it turns out, he didn't even notice. Ah, sweet victory.

(Thank you, Heart in San Francisco, for the idea that had never occurred to me. You're a genius. Oh, and I have no idea how your blog disappeared from my links list, but I've fixed that. Your blog is fantastic and I want to spread the joy.)

Where does he get this stuff?

Our eldest son has a way of catching us off-guard sometimes.

This past weekend, The Mister was working on the computer while our almost seven year old son was playing nearby with his Lego Star Wars figures and, since our son rarely stops talking, he was explaining his play scenario to his father.

"Luke and Leia are getting married," he informed The Mister.

"They can't get married, son. They're brother and sister," my husband replied.

"It's too late. Leia's pregnant."

Oh. My. God.

Parental Advisory- Explicit Lyrics

As some of you know, a lot of the music that I listen to is not exactly kid friendly. For example, the Beastie Boys are not known for their wholesome lyrics. However, this doesn't stop me from listening to the kind of music that I like to listen to, but it does present a rather interesting conundrum when it comes to my kids. They're always, and I mean always around.

At home, this isn't a problem. I just plug myself into my iPod and they're none the wiser, but in the car, music proves to be a little more problematic. So, what's a girl to do? I've become very good friends with the volume knob. It helps to know the lyrics very well. When some explicit lyrics are coming up, you get your hand ready on the volume control and, when you get to the objectionable lyrics, you turn the volume completely off for the duration of the word/phrase that you need to blip out. Done correctly, this technique will help preserve the purity of your child's vocabulary until their friends (or, by sheer accident, you) lend a hand in mucking it up.

Having heard me talk about doing this and also being in the car with us to witness it, Sasha sent this to me. Thanks, dude. ("Dude"... mwaahahahaha!)

A Night at the Movies

I saw the movie "The Lives of Others" with a JP and Sasha this weekend and I'll have to say that I'm still thinking about it. If you're not familiar with the film, it's a German movie about a German secret police wiretapper/interrogator in 1984 East Berlin who is ordered to wiretap and eavesdrop on a couple, a high profile author/playwright and his actress girlfriend. The movie got all sorts of awards internationally, including the Best Foreign Film Oscar this year. Rightfully so, I think.

Still, when I see movies or hear stories about these kind of activities of paranoid and controlling governments, it makes me perhaps a little more uncomfortable than it might make others around me because it hits sort of close to home. This movie got me thinking about what my mother went through as a child in the Baltics in Europe.

My grandparents had an apartment in the capital city where they lived much of the time, but they also spent time out in the country on the family farms. My grandfather's and grandmother's family farms were near to each other and they had known each other since grammar school, which is where they met (apparently my grandfather used to dip my grandmother's pigtails in the inkwells). After my grandmother and grandfather both finished college, they got married in 1928. Since my grandfather's early life had been centered around agriculture, he went to school to study dairy bacteriology and went to England to get his master's degree. Unfortunately, World War II intervened and he had to leave the country to go home before he could defend his thesis, so the actual degree was never received even though he did all of his work and research.

When the Germans came and occupied my mother's country, my grandfather spent time in a prison camp because he was educated in England, but one of my grandmother's brothers was able to convince them that they had no reason to suspect him of anything subversive and win my grandfather's release (apparently, this great uncle was a pretty respected member of the military and could use his influence effectively).

The Russians also occupied their country and, because my grandfather had studied abroad and was considered a possible threat, the Russians had a KGB agent living in the house with them as a "precaution". Of course, the woman whom they'd placed there couldn't be there all the time, so she would have "talks" with my mother about who had come over when the agent wasn't able to be there and what they'd talked about. My mother was four years old at the time.

One summer day during the Russian occupation, they were at my grandmother's farm when the Russians came and took all the neighbors from the nearby farms away in buses, but by some stroke of luck or fate they didn't go to my grandmother's farm. My mother said that they saw the bus hesitate at the end of the long drive to the farm and then drive away. They're not sure what happened to the neighbors or why the Russians didn't come to take them away, too, but after sleeping in the woods during the night for a time in case of a nighttime raid, they finally packed up a horse cart with all they could carry and left the farm, trying to get to the coast to escape. In the end, they got cut off by the oncoming Russian front and ending up living as refugees in Germany before they could get sponsored to come to the US years later.

All in all, they ended up better off than many. Many of my relatives had been put on cattle cars by the Russians and were sent to Siberian labor camps. Several didn't even survive the trip there, including some relatives in their 80's and some children. My dad ended up in Berlin with his mother after his father was taken away when he was 7 years old. His side of the story is less clear, since he never talked about it when he was alive, but I do know that he had to survive the nightly Allied bombing by lying in trenches during the air raids and he finally got out of Berlin by clinging to the outside of a train for 11 hours with his mother, who had to struggle to keep him awake through the night so that he wouldn't fall off. I don't know much other than that.

Having heard about what my parents have had to go through, I see movies like "The Lives of Others" with a particular chill, not to mention a bit of added perspective about all the petty things in my life that have been bothering me lately. Those things can go on the back burner and, with any luck, stay there for good.

Oh, and my mother, through an offer by the present government of the country where they came from and lots of sweat, paperwork and red-tape, has now gotten both the family farms back. My grandparents would have been happy to see it.

My Glorious Weekend

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Foreign Foods

As if that that isn't enough, there are "Mini Dickmann's" and regular "Dickmann's" in addition to the "Super Dickmann's."

Apparently, only the mini-sized ones come with a white chocolate coating.

Oh. My. God. Where does one even begin?!


Of course, here's their homepage to check out if you're curious.