As one of the few people in our social circle who actually saw Cats -- the OG Broadway version, not the CGI nightmare fuel currently taking a big ol' litter box dump in the box office -- I have been asked many times over the last few months to...explain...Cats. Like, what? Why? And...huh? Mostly I've just shrugged and been like, yeah. I don't understand what they were thinking. It's a pretty weird show with people dressed as cats singing song after song about different kinds of cats, but half of the words are made-up nonsense. Then one cat comes out and sings "Memory," which is the only song without any nonsense words and therefore feels like it belongs in a completely different musical and no, I don't know what the cat is even remembering in the first place because "plots" and "story arcs" aren't really this show's thing. But since it's a good song she gets to fly off the stage to cat heaven to either get reincarnated...or possibly killed off in a Logan's Run-type scenario because the show does have that whole late 70s/early 80s hellscape vibe mixed with Big Sexy Homoerotic Cat Energy. But the cats come out... Read more →

A belated thank-you for all the feedback from...wow, was it only last week? Just a mere 47 impeachment news cycles ago? Anyway, thanks for all the feedback/advice/commiseration on whether we should let Noah quit the saxophone. (I didn't realize CAPS LOCK was on when I typed the original title of that post, then I decided to just keep that way for funz, and now here we are a week later, stuck with it again because STYLISTIC CONSISTENCY.) Your comments were all (mostly) very helpful, and I hope that it speaks to my growth as a Blog Person that FOR ONCE, I was able to read a ton of conflicting advice from the Internet without my head exploding like an anxiety balloon and/or me getting all snippy at people because THAT ADVICE IS NOT RELEVANT TO OUR SITUATION BECAUSE OF REASONS I COMPLETELY FORGOT TO INCLUDE IN MY POST. THIS COMMENT SECTION IS RESERVED FOR OMNISCIENT BEINGS ONLY. One of the background details I didn't include (because the post was already rambly AF enough), was that Jason played the saxophone as a kid. As did his big brother before him. His parents bought a really, really nice Yamaha sax for his... Read more →

Some of you may remember that power outages were a frequent occurrence and regular problem in our old house and neighborhood. We lost power almost every time it snowed, or rained really hard, or there was some wind, or somebody sneezed a little too loudly while standing a little too close to the power lines, etc. Sometimes it would be out for a few hours, most of the time it took at least a full day, and occasionally it went out for multiple days at a time. Make that multiple occasions, actually. You may remember all that, but it was made clear to me this morning that my children absolutely do not. Around 6:24 a.m., a couple of our smoke detectors started beeping. (OH GOD DO YOU ALSO REMEMBER THE BEEPING?) We realized the power had gone out, like huh. That's honestly never happened, and is still one of my Top Five Favorite Things about this house and our neighborhood: Underground power lines that don't get knocked out by falling tree branches every other goddamn day. Glory be. We peeked out a few windows to confirm that it wasn't just us -- the entire neighborhood was completely dark. We heard... Read more →

A question, for you, O Internet: How do you decide if, and when, it's okay to let your kid quit? My children have quit lots of things. Every sport they've ever attempted, for example. I still have a garbage bag full of karate belts in the basement somewhere, probably buried under Ezra's cricket equipment. (That passion flamed out when he realized he actually wasn't any...good? At cricket? And that was fine, because I was likewise not any good at being Team Parent. I still have the t-shirt, though!) They're all good strong swimmers but begged to quit lessons once they hit the higher levels that involved the diving board and the unheated pool at the Y. And we let them quit because we got super sick of listening to them collectively bitch about it every goddamn Saturday morning. Ezra dabbled in guitar and attempted violin (arrgghhh my earssss) before finally settling on the flute -- which he loves! And actually IS very good at! Like kinda phenom good at! Which is great! Except it means the cheap little student flute we bought for $75 off Craigslist is no longer working for him and I just learned what an "acceptable" flute... Read more →

We had an IEP meeting yesterday. Another IEP meeting in an endless series of IEP meetings. Yesterday's meeting was for Ike, and then there's another meeting for him in February, and then one in March for Noah, and I think one more after that, to finalize his schedule for high school. (Tonight is technically Ezra's middle school orientation, but we're going to skip it. We already know everything about the middle school and how things work and where the IEP meetings happen.) The purpose of the meeting yesterday was to go over Ike's reading and writing levels and finalize the academic parts of his IEP. It was an unusually tense meeting. The district imposed new rules for who can receive certain accommodations for standardized testing. Ike meets every single criteria except one: He's been receiving services for dyslexia for one year instead of the required two. So he'll get extra time, but nothing to help him read or decode the test questions. I thought back to kindergarten, when I begged his teacher to have the school's reading specialist come and observe him, to look at his mixed-up writing and spelling and his struggles with basic sight words. Wait and see,... Read more →

(Things That Do Not Work is a sporadically running feature on things in my house/life/general existence that Do Not Work. Sporadically means "I haven't written one of these since March of 2019." Try using it in a sentence today! Anyway, here is Part One and Part Two.) This towel rack. It Does Not Work. This particular towel rack was left behind in the kids' bathroom by the previous owners, probably because they learned, as we have, that it Does Not Work. No one uses this towel rack. Except for me, when I hopefully and foolishly hang fresh, clean towels on it every laundry day LIKE A SUCKER. THE FLOOR IS OUR TOWEL RACK NOW, MOTHER. There is a photo somewhere, in the deepest recesses of my camera roll (aka last month), of two towels I discovered on the floor of their bathroom. One is absolutely covered in black mildew spots. The other has been peed on -- likely quite recently! -- by a dog. I will not post it here, because it is entirely too disgusting. (Apologies to all of my friends and family members who received said photo in an ALL CAPS text message from me. You are the... Read more →

Anybody got any recommendations for nice-looking fake trees that I could maybe get on sale right now? Because look at this shit. Although, honestly, I just swept up the carnage and burned it all up in our fireplace. Jason came inside from dragging the tree-corpse to the curb and said our neighborhood smelled amazing! *** Hey, remember when I had a baby? Don't ever do that, because look at THIS shit. A smallish-large niche corner of the Internet lost its mind over that, while he was just like, "GREAT, another THING I have to DO now. It never ENDS, these days." *** (I just now watched the yard trim collection guy pick up, toss, and mulch our giant-ass tree. It took him barely a minute, but I bet he hates us now.) (Yes, it snowed! Don't worry, they didn't cancel school for that piddly lil' covering. They simply closed three hours early yesterday and had a two hour delay this morning for maximum schedule fuckery. YOU CAN STILL SEE GRASS, PEOPLE.) *** Look at this shit, for no particular reason (other than BFF doggo adorableness, of course): We originally decided that we wouldn't take in another foster dog until the... Read more →

Happy New Year! So much has happened since I last posted, most of it documented in photos I don't feel like editing yet. Here are a few I managed to resize down to something that won't blow the creaky wheels off this ol' antique of a website. First up, the second-greatest gift I received, courtesy of Jason: A Wall Of Julia Child for my kitchen. We were at a restaurant recently that had this delightful photo framed on the wall and I declared that I needed it in my life. He found it, printed and framed it, along with two other photos of Julia posing maniacally with mallets and knives. And then, to complete the set, he added a classic still of Dan Ackroyd as Julia. I giggle like a goddamn idiot every time I look at them. And I look at them A LOT. But the number one greatest gift I received was courtesy of Ezra, who made me the following book in honor of my birthday. (Which also happened, as much as I'd like to deny that I am creeping ever deeper into my 40s. But my eyesight and knees and graying roots and widening feet and everything... Read more →