brandy on the carpet and chartreuse on the armchair

maura @ 9:29 pm

Can someone please tell me why we have not managed to make it to the Red Hook Pool until today? Seriously, we are dumb! Because a fantastic time was had by all three Smillers today. First stop: the pool, which is just enormous: a 4′ pool the size of Rhode Island with a 1′ kiddie pool + sprinklers right next to it (with easy parking right out front!). The sun was punishing, but there was a little shade on the edges and the pool was so nice and cool, it didn’t even matter that it was 90 zillion degrees out.

Next stop, the soccer field catty-corner to the pool, around which vendors sell incredible, amazing, freshly cooked Latin American food. J + I split a meltingly delicious chicken tamale and an enormous chorizo taco (with a handmade tortilla!). Gus, Senor Picky Eater, shocked us by wolfing down a pupusa con queso, which was even more surprising as he’d spent the walk from the pool to the vendors whining that he wanted a hot dog, just a hot dog, a hooooooooot dooooooooooog. And we washed it all down with a limeade. Yum!

As if that could even be topped, we decided to pull out all the calorie stops and head over to Baked (best. bakery. name. ever.) for a sugar fix (a.k.a. desperate attempt to keep Gus from falling asleep in the car on the way home*). We split a yummy lemon cake (with lemon curd between the layers and lemon buttercream frosting) and brought home a lemon lime bar and this crazy peanut butter + chocolate cake. Yum YUM!

And no, we didn’t go to Fairway (ample parking be damned, how could we ever cheat on the Food Coop?). Red Hook is so pretty, so urban yet so quiet, like a small town in the city. I think we shall go every weekend!

* which didn’t work: he was out by the time we crossed the Gowanus. We parked the car on our street and then everyone napped for 45 minutes.

In other news, that cute blond monkey named Veronica Mars is finally off our back. We watched the finale of season 2 last night. Two whole seasons in 24 days, is that some sort of record? Some sort of dorks-with-no-life record, maybe. ANYway the finale was satisfying in some ways (Veronica + Logan TLA! Bye-bye Harry Hamlin! And of course we knew the Mayor would turn into a demon!) but not in others: hello, BEAVER is the evil mastermind??? That just seems kind of contrived. And the Jackie with a kid thing is kind of lame, too. But we will be front and center for season three, on that new weird country + western network. Yee-hah!

when there is nothing left to burn you have to set yourself on fire

maura @ 10:05 pm

What a difference 13 days make! I’m sure you’ll be happy to hear that my wounds are nearly completely healed now, with the exception of my knee. Of course I reopened that puppy by banging into the coffee table tonight while I was “playing” Mousetrap* with Gus. Duh for me. On the bright side, the face wounds have healed scab-free and are completely makeupable. If I’m wearing pants, no one even has to know how much of an idiot I am!

* “playing” Mousetrap with Gus involves setting up the whole trap mechanism and having him trap mice, in this case the red + yellow mice, repeatedly. No actual turns are taken, no actual game is played. It’s mind-numbing, but in a fairly inoffensive way.

So I’ve been meaning to expound on Anne’s comment from last week that the found stroller is cursed. You know, I think she may be onto something! Since I found that stroller we have been sick and sick. AND, last week my computer’s hard drive crapped out! Luckily I live in Nerd House, where there are 3 other computers to choose from, though I miss mine, a lampy iMac. Since then I’ve been on a PC where things are uglier. I’m so sorry for your ugliness, dear PC-users.

At first I thought the curse was an unhealthy curse. I found that stroller on the way home from the gym, and all the illness + injury has kept me from going to the gym much. But then the busted computer, I don’t know how that fits in. I mean, it is 3 yrs old, though I must admit I’ve never had a hard drive die on me. Anne, any ideas?

My friend S said, “are you going to get rid of that stroller?” and Jonathan was like, “no, we cannot, I LOVE it.” So there you go.

And in the making lemonade department, we used the computer fixit shop errand as an excuse to have lunch at Shake Shack, where we’ve been wanting to go forever. Gus ate his weight (about 28 lbs.) in cheeseburger, fries and chocolate milkshake, which astonished us. And it was yuuuuuuuuuummy.

And in other weekend news, my mom came up for a sleepover with Gus, and we hightailed it way across the river for a hotel date night. We stayed here, ate here, saw this and drank this (little cans! bendy straws! so festive!) staring out the window of our room. The next morning we slept til almost 8:30am! Such is the childfree life. Of course, we had to run back to Brooklyn quick because we missed that kid so much, but what are you going to do.

jump in, jump out

maura @ 12:41 pm

Ooh, I have a whole hour between now and when I need to pick up Gus from school, yay for free time! (And look, I’m getting a handle on that OCD thing by NOT cleaning the bathroom right now, even though it really needs it. Go me!)

Since our last chat, we’ve all been sick here. AGAIN. Last week Gus had an ear infection (Tu), double pinkeye* (Th) and strep throat (Sa) [AGAIN]. I did feel pretty bad for the poor kid — much of the time he just wanted to sit on my lap and watch videos, which he never does normally so he must’ve been feeling pretty bad. Then Jonathan got sick, some sort of strep-like bacterial throat thing, so now I am the only person in the house NOT on antibiotics (though I have a sore throat, too, but it hasn’t gotten worse than that). And of course now Jonathan has a cold. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: kids are germy.

* and here I would just like to point out that if you can love your kid when they have evil caterpillars of chartreuse (”a color that I have not seen”) goop coming out of the corners of their eyes, you pass the parenting test.

What was a huge drag about the sick thing was that my mom had come up over the weekend to have a sleepover with Gus, and Jonathan + I were going to have a hotel date (the first time we’d have ever been away from Gus overnight). But then he got sick, so those plans were scuttled. Instead we went out to dinner in Manhattan, which was a very decent alternative. We narrowly got a table at Prune, a new (to us, but really 3 yrs old I think?) place in the East Village. And it ROCKED. ComPLETEly lived up to our expectations. We had cocktails (Pimm’s Cup! I am so girly!) and sweetbreads (deep fried!) and suckling pig with garlic mayo and cornmeal poundcake with strawberries and braised lettuce, peas and artichokes in butter sauce. Yum yum yummy yum. And my new favorite summer wine ever, Ca’ del Solo’s Big House Pink. I’m going to make my neighbors go in on a case of it with us so we can make it our sandbox + baby pool wine this year.

Non sequitur of the post: someone at work got the new Pipas CD (yay iTunes shared library!). Thank you, baba alligator, whoever you are!

Man, am I actually out of things to say? How can that be? What can I talk about? How I read Unconditional Parenting again and it really has made a huge impact, yet even so Gus stuck an index card + a toy coin into the VCR last night, [temporarily, thankfully] busting it? I really want to get the apt. painted but I am too stingy to pay someone and Jonathan is too realistic about our moods to not pay someone? How I am already so very looking forward to our 4th of July visit to J’s parents in Indiana (Gus usually wants nothing to do with us there so we have lots of free time: last year I RAN OUT of books to read!)? How Jonathan’s been pretty busy with work lately so hasn’t had time to work on a new design for this, and I really should make one my damn self? How long my to do list is? Uh oh, I’m starting to freak the OCD again, I should go and load the dishwasher. Later.

so so so busy

maura @ 1:36 pm

but jonathan sent me this link and it just cries out to be posted: this is the blog of the main buyer at the coop. get yer fresh coop news here, including such tasty tidbits as why you can’t get grade b maple syrup in ny state anymore (how will anyone ever do the master cleanser fast???).

in all seriousness, we in this household are mightily pissed off about the maple syrup thing. luckily we’re visiting my dad in vermont very soon, mostly likely with an empty suitcase in tow.