Fisch Food

Share a book that made you laugh.

I am not kidding: I bought this pre-pre-schoolers' book when I was sixteen because I stood in a bookstore in Los Gatos, CA and got uncontrollable giggles everytime I turned the page.  When I realized I had to leave the store with the book, I told myself I'd just buy it for my 2-year-old [babysitting] charge.  Then I bought two copies, because I just couldn't imagine not having a copy for myself.

I think the most pathetic thing is: there's no plot.  It's literally a book full of horizontally bi-sected pages, with a bunch of adjectives on the top half and a noun on the bottom.  So, for instance, the example on the cover might say, "Delicious!  A cheese and tomato spider!"  Keep the spider on the bottom, flip the top page to reveal another picture, perhaps of a strawberry ice cream cone, and now the pages read "Look!  A creamy strawberry spider!"  Flip the bottom of the page to reveal an old lady, and all of the sudden you get, "Look!  A creamy strawberry granny!"

I'm sorry, but there's no logic to it: this book has me in stitches every time I read it.  And I have many, many wonderful memories of me and the boy I bought this book for, sitting on his bedroom floor randomly flipping pages with tears running down our faces, we were laughing so hard.

Are you worried about a swine flu pandemic?

Noooo.  And I've got sickies right here in my backyard.  It may, however, result in my not being able to go to Monterrey for a work trip, which is tentatively a month out.  That would be nice.

I check Vox almost daily, but I haven't posted.  There's not a lot to write, honestly.  But I did get this cool new camera about 6 weeks ago.  Been playing around with it quite a bit.  I realized I could easily just post some pics with blurbs for an update. 

 

So, the first 1500 pictures were of our "kids".  They were willing subjects.  Two things I immediately loved about the camera: ability to manipulate settings to avoid using the dreaded flash, and being able to shorten my depth of field. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then I bought the electric tea kettle from Sur La Table.  Well, you can get it anywhere, I think, but I had gift cards to SLT.  This thing IS everything it's cracked up to be.  Boils a full pitcher of water in 8 minutes, brings water to the perfect green/white/oolong tea brewing temp.  Seriously, it makes a HUGE difference, makes tea so, so... accessible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Andy had a birthday, which we actually celebrated.  (Seriously, we have to make concerted efforts NOT to let birthdays and other celebratory occasions fly by unnoticed.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then, we took a week of evenings and installed a garden bed over this packed Texas clay.  Bought a roto-tiller in the process.  My mom's coming for a visit next weekend.  She's already been informed that she needs to pack her garden gloves and that I WILL be taking her straight to the nursery once she gets off the plane.  Okay, maybe I'll let her unpack first.

 

Oh, and we found out that Hugo likes to eat garden dirt.

 

 

 

 

 Then Easter.  We got together with friends and smashed eggs over each other's heads.  Why?  What did you do for Easter??

Of course, there was major cooking/baking/eating to be done.  I love having friends who love food as much as I do.  I was responsible for the cake.  Thanks again, Epicurious, it was delish.

 

What question do you hate being asked?

"So when are you two going to have kids?"

This is the single-most inappropriate question I think you could ask a couple.  It falls into the "Think Before You Speak" category, filed under "What Did You Expect the Answer Would Be?"

There is little more private in a couple's relationship than the decision whether or not to have children and, if so, when.  When this question is actually posed, the answer to this question is either lamely vague or a lie, point blank.  If the question was answered honestly, the following awkward scenarios arise.  See if they don't make you squirm, just a little bit.

1. The couple wants kids, but not now. By far, the easiest of all the scenarios.  You get to tell the truth and still be the hero.  "Not now," or, "Someday," and if you're feeling a little Palin-esque, throw a little knowing wink in there too.  You will be heralded for your willingness to both procreate and wait until the proper time.  Unfortunately, this is the answer that 9 out of 10 women recommend, whether it is actually the truth or not, because it is the easiest way to avoid having these other squirmy conversations.
2. The couple doesn't want kids
.  The asker's inquisitive nature about when children will eventually come on the scene implies their supposition that kids are inevitable.  To indicate otherwise leads to the inevitable "Why not?" conversation where you have to defend YOUR God-given choice or the awkward, trailing "Oh..." where the asker really has no idea how to recover.  In this situation, the child-hater (*snort*) still feels the need to lamely defend their position.  In either case, both parties find themselves wishing they were 10 miles away from each other doing something that does not pertain to children at all.
3. The couple wants kids but can't have them.  Great job, now your question has just delivered a throat punch to the asked.  It's bad enough that this woman (or her mate) can't have what they so badly desire and what has been ingrained since birth as a simple, natural role that all women will fulfill someday, but now you've just drawn a big, flashing neon arrow at the problem.  Salt-in-the-wound, twisting the dagger, it's a veritable choose-your-own-adventure for clichés.  Way to remind this person that they already feel like a failure, especially if she's a woman.  If they're nice, they'll spare you and give you the answer to #1 on this list.  If they're anything like me, they'll turn it around on you and tell you the truth.  "Oh, we want kids, but we've been trying for 5 years with no luck."  There, now don't you feel like an asshole?
4. The couple is actively trying to have kids, but doesn't want anyone to know.  Again, you get #1's answer on this one.  The couple exercises their right to privacy about their reproductive organs.  Go figure.
5. The couple is actively trying and doesn't care who knows.  In this case, you haven't actually made the person in question uncomfortable.  Way to go.  However, you need to think about how comfortable you are with the inevitable visual that ensues after the person tells you that they're "trying".  Welcome to our bedroom.  Would you like to discuss my ovulation cycle and his sperm count?  How about how many times we've had sex this last week?

So, I don't really care how entitled you feel when it comes to a person's private life.  On this subject, it's best to just let people come to you with this information.  Take it off your list of elevator questions, and stop asking your kids.  Odds are, you'll find out the answer, it just may not be on your timeline.   

Victor Hugo that is.  I've just gotten into parts of the book that have lines so good they need to be read aloud.  When's the last time you read literature that was so beautiful you just needed to hear it?  I swear that's why I persist (yes, sometimes, it is persistence) through the classics.  They weave such an unbelievable, rich tapestry of characters, settings and plot lines. 

My character, Jean Valjean, just carried a wounded soldier - his daughter's beloved - through miles of sewer, waded neck-deep in sewage at times.  He finally arrived at a sewer grate - locked.  He almost succumbed to the hopelessness of his situation.  Impossible to go forward, no strength to go back.  He finally escaped (I'll spare the details).  When he, at last, emerged into the fresh air at sunset and set his burden on the beach, this was the entry:

For a few seconds Jean Valjean was irresistibly overcome by all this august and caressing serenity; there are such moments of forgetfulness; suffering refuses to harass the wretched; everything is eclipsed in thought; peace covers the dreamer like a night; and, under the expansive twilight, and in imitation of the sky which is lighting up, the soul becomes starry.

It just almost makes my chest ache, it's so good.

Here's how to play:

1 - Go to wikipedia, click 'random article' in the menu, or use this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The title of the first random article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your album.

3 - Go to flickr and click on 'explore the last seven days' or use this link:
http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 - Put it all together using your choice of software.

 

Whooo hooo... who's the hottie? 

 

Hitting refresh on the UPS tracking page every hour doesn't make tomorrow come any sooner than it had already planned to. 

This is why I most often opt to pay sales tax in lieu of waiting for a package to arrive...

Show us a baby animal.

 

I could just as easily show you a picture of Hugo now, because, even though he's only two, he acts like a big honkin' puppy.

I'm sure Hugo was small at some point.  Simple Biology tells me this.  We just never knew him in a compact form.  When the husband and I decided that we wanted to get a dog, orrrrrrrrr when I finally wore the husband down until he caved and let me get a dog, I had only one condition to follow: it must be a puppy.  You know, for the bonding that goes on between owner and puppy.  :::eyeroll::: Hub was sure that he would only bond with the dog if it was cute.  Nevermind the headache and hassle of having a baby animal around the house.  I guess we just had to live it.

One thing I did know about labs is the two classes of energy.  Didn't know this?  Yeah, it was a learning experience for me too, at one point.  Look around.  Labs are probably the most common dog around still, and you can break them down into two groups: the English style, which is thicker, tankier, and lower energy, and the long-and-lean style, which is a lot more prevalent in the states and can be denoted by well, leaner labs with a lot more energy.  Now, don't get me wrong here, labs are working dogs.  English or long-and-lean, it doesn't matter, they can still go for 3-mile runs and still be game for a good round of fetch in the backyard.  Oh, I really - and I mean really - had wanted to get an adult dog from a rescue.  But, given that I wanted a lab, and given that I was barely getting my husband to go along with it, I needed genetics working for me at that point.  I was a desperate woman.

 

So I called around to breeders.  It didn't take long until I found a wonderful woman, whose entire life is devoted to her labs, down near Austin.  She told me she had a three-month-old chocolate male pup, who had a wonderful middle-of-the-road temperment, but unfortunately also had an overbite.  Normally she didn't sell dogs to people not interested in showing, but here she was with a dog she couldn't show and couldn't breed.  Hmmmmm.  She offered to bring him up for a dog show near us that some of her other dogs were in.  The hub and I drove out to the show, and the breeder showed us to her van (or small bus?) where our Hugo was hanging out.  We were immediately shocked.

33 lbs Hugo was, when we first saw him.  Instead of this cute handful we were expecting, Hugo looked like the puppy that ate the other puppies.  We (or, I) fell for him right away, and the rest is history.  I suppose it bears mentioning that, while it was definitely a slow-to-warm up situation, Hub is completely head over heels for this dog now.  If you've ever met a dog like him, I'm sure you understand. 

It's obvious that here at Vox we love blogging and with Valentine's Day fast approaching, we want to know: why do you love blogging? It can be a list of what you love, a story connected to your blog, a person you met through blogging, an opportunity that came your way... anything! Just share the love!

Just celebrating the fact that this isn't a schmoopy Valentine's Day qotd:

I love blogging, because I love writing.  I was just thinking about it this morning as I recalled a conversation that I had with my husband's family around the dinner table on a recent visit.  I have another blog that they love to follow.  "I don't know how you come up with what you write," my father-in-law said.  My sister-in-law, in response, said, "Just the idea of sitting down and writing makes my palms sweat... I don't know what I'd write about."  Last night, my husband was encouraging me, again, to think about writing a book, an idea I've toyed with but have usually put away because of feelings that I'd spend a lot of time writing something inane and uninteresting.  On that topic, he said, "You know what I'd do to get started?  I'd take my favorite album, like Ten, and I'd write a short story about each song.  Maybe tying them together, maybe not."  I looked at him, smiled, and said, "Getting an initial idea isn't the problem.  I have tons of ideas."

It hit me today that writing is an entirely different experience for me.  I have to write to organize the thoughts and ideas floating in my brain, just so that I can stop thinking about them and get back to life as usual.  Never have I thought, "I want to write something.  Now..... whaaaaaaat should I write about?  Hmmmmmmm."  It's always the opposite.  My train of thought gets so far off track, that I finally submit to it by opening Vox, my other blog, a new Word document, my moleskine that I carry around, whatever is at arm's reach, and I write it out.  Once I have it on paper, I feel relaxed again and can go back to thinking about what I should be thinking about.

So, Vox, I love blogging, because I would've been writing anyway.  Now I get to share my thoughts with someone else, without otherwise publishing myself, and that is pretty satisfying. 

It's the "blue" in me: in seeking to understand; I seek to be understood.

I know what writer's block is.  It's not that no thoughts are coming to you; it's that your brain is full of thoughts that you can't talk about.  Thus nothing else can get through.  Thus, no writing.