Hip-steria 09/05/2010
 
 
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Hipsterroo
Check it. Roo, 3, asassin of cool, is hip to the hipster vibe. Here he poses as a pre-K metrosexual a la Urban Outfitters, listening to emo punk after finishing a "little readers" biography of Che Geuvara and having engaged with other pre-K'ers in the form of not-quite-passive aggression called snark.

Okay, Roo doesn't know a thing about hipsters, but one of his favorite new phrases is "Hip, hip, hooray!" (which he cheers for himself every time he makes cracking good contact with a golf, soccer or whiffle ball--he is very self-congratulatory, which is kinda hipster). And that is straight from the fridge, Dad.

I don't know what the all the new attention to hipsteria mania means, exactly, except that it serves as yet another well-spring of bafoonery I can make fun of.  Actually, I have always found hipsters pretty funny, even back when I studied them in college and they were calle "beat poets" or "grunge."

Some of my favorite hipster things:
1. Hipster babies.  Apparently dressing your young children to look like aloof self-Googling fashionistas is a thing some people do for fun now. There are endless websites and even photo studios dedicated to the look of the "hipster child."  The good part is, the kids are pretty cute, and the hopelessly bored and arrogant expressions on their faces crack me up. Even though their facade is saying, "You make me wither," you know they are really thinking, "I would rather be playing LEGOS."

2. Hipster Christianity. Please.  This is actually a thing now.  It is, in fact, even a bone of contention in theological circles (well, mostly theoblogging TAG circles) of debate. There are actually smart people--fundies and longhairs--who worry that a bunch of trendy scenesters who have taken church into their package of cool are going to ruin the Christianity.  All I have to say is, if you think the message of Jesus can't stand up to a bunch of williamsburgers, then your roof is leaking.

3. Yah, obiously I am tickled by the slang, some of which includes:
KNOW YOUR GROCERIES:
Be hip, aware, alert to the situation.
CHICAGO OVERCOAT:
Coffin.
FREE TO RUN FOR PRESIDENT:
Out of work, unemployed.
HAVE ONE ON THE CITY:
Drink some tap water.
THAT VIBRATES ME:
I'm impressed, I really like it.
(and my favorite)...
SELF GOOGLER:
blogger
 
Unplugged Pastor 08/31/2010
 
 
"Unplugged" in the good way!  Pastor Steve is now home from CAB surgery and recovering nicely.  He was gracious enough to show me (and apparently throngs of others) his beautiful incision scars--maybe a little more of your pastor than you really plan on seeing, but still a good sign.  Sadly for him, though, his aftercare instructions say he will not be able to "vacuum" for at least 3 months.  This will be a tremendous struggle for PS, according to wife Stephanie, and they are both in my heart.

Thanks for all your prayers, and please continue to raise PS and wife Stephanie up during their continued reovery!
 
 
Dogged Days 08/28/2010
 
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sucker for a pretty face
All my life the end of August has been a tornado of crazy.  So, before you ask, yah, that's where I've been the last week or so. Crazy. How about you (shh, I won't tell!)? C'mon, let go, live.  Make mental illness your friend.  Things are so much easier once you do!
Crazy can even be fun.

And now, just because your emotional well-being and sense of normalcy is so important to me (I'm such a giver!), here is a rundown of the latest semaine de fou at the BCD house. I promise you will feel much more well-adjusted and superior once you read.  XO from me.

1. Mother Teresa's Centenary Birthday Bash, NYC
Now, of course I was unable to attend myself (okay, I wasn't invited either), but just knowing about the existence and nature of this party was a hell of a kick-off to crazy. The Empire State Building, blue comedy by Jackie Mason, flowing champagne, punk rock and after-parties. If the Saint of Clacutta isn't twirling in her grave (or, sorry, in her "Glory") over this, then I ain't German. Doch!
2. Refrigerator of the Living Dead.
You know how your fridge runs fine, then dies, killing off all your food in the night like a fiendish werewolf (what, you don't call your refrigerator "Lupus?"), then runs fine so you buy more food, then dies...
3. Schoolhouse Rocks.
Oh, wait, I meant to say "sucks." Back-to-school isn't just a time in the calendar, it is a season, a whole state of mind, and for some of us, a possible future cause of death (yes, SoS, I may die).  My lads are only out of school for 5 weeks in the summer, and by the end of it I am seriously considering radically alternative lifestyles (hermitage, traveling carnival barker, murderous felon, nun).  I love my children but they have the kinetic energy of Niagra Falls and the intensity of a nova.  It is a 5 week Iron Man of round-the-clock parenting that would turn Dr. Spock into a gibbering idiot and make Father Avram seem like a wussie.
4. Spring Cleaning.
Yah, I start it in August.  That's how bad it is and how long it's gonna take me.
5. The Damn Democrats.
It's an election year and I'm a little bit political.

So, you get the gist.  Sanity returns tomorrow (let us pray).

p.s. Thanks Tio T. for taking us for a State Fair escape to another kind of crazy!
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speed demons
 
 
watching over me 08/24/2010
 
 
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Thanks for the cool new timepiece, secret admirer, whoever you are.  I don't know if you're the same anonymous friend who sent me the gold watch back in 1988, or if you are just another someone among the many who despise my beloved $5 Cassie (see Old Blog, Feb 25, 2010) and long to see her die.  Either way, I love my "Time For A Cure" autism awareness watch.

Smooooch! And God bless your heart.
 
 
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Only 92 hours until the opening of the MN State Fair. Can't you just smell it blowing in the wind?  Of course you can!

Now, you all know I love the Fair--and who doesn't? Where else can you go to shamelessly stuff yourself on cuisine with virtually no food value while watching a hog-calling competition and carrying around the new "Holy Toast" image of Mary French toast bread stamp you just bought under the Grandstand?  What other giant yearly party lasts 12 days and is an experience you have fond memories of sharing at some point in your life with nearly every family member, friend, co-worker, boyfriend/girfriend, or 4H prized baby hog you've ever had? Hmmm? Nirvana!  On a stick!

Top 10 things I love about the MN State Fair:
1. No other event this fun offers a free printed "guide to agricultural terms." That's just classy. MN Nice!
2.  What other venue still features "Weird Al" on it's main stage, hmmm? MN's got talent (oh, plus the Leinenkugel amateur talent show, too!)!
3. Roo with a dripping butter and corn niblet goatee; Toe with Martha's melted chocolate chip cookie freckles all over his face.
4. Grannies with their prize-winning quilts, pickles, jams, african vilolets, and portraits of the Last Supper made out of seeds.
5. Secret meetings with the cackle of rads at the DFL booth.
6. Becoming kitchen gadgetech savvy "Under-the-Grandstand:" QuikChop, Sham-Wows, Port-a-Pint folding beer glass, Pizza Boss 300, Beetle Sporks and Picnic Table Condiment Sets, etc. 
7.  A Prairie Home Companion, live, under the stars, among a sea of MN grown folk (a brief moment of harmony amongst the nordic tribes).
8. Smiling, excited 4H boys and girls showing off all their prize-winning hard work (farmer's daughter).
9. Trans-fat and copious amounts of sodium, all without guilt (don't judge me).
10. The inevitable uttering of the phrase, "Remember when..."
 
 
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Toe caring for tweeters he has named 'Boojay,' 'Lemon Bird' and 'RedBelly'
Tweedledee, summer's almost over.  Soon the songbirds of MN will be migrating (or, as The Pigeon says, "migrating on my nerves") to exotic desitnations south, heading down to Havana for another exciting winter of rum, fandango, el béisbol, cigars, lounging on the Playas de Este, tostones and despotism.  (Psst...a little birdie told me most migrants will be avoiding Arizona and other SW border states this year).

Our theme this month at home has been birdies (autistic kids love unifying themes--everything tied together with a nice big harmonious bow is comforting and structured). Since Toe and Roo and Mommy all love birds, we've had extra fun reading about, watching and "playing" birds. Here are some of our (low-cost!) activities from this avian August...

1.Meeting new species and making bird friends through the special power of kids' literature. Fave library books have been Edward the Emu ("Free to Be You and Me" for 2010), The United Tweets of America (very funny, but, no, not about Twitter!), Stellaluna (okay, a bat is not a bird, but still...), Owl Babies (a very wise book), P.D. Eastman's The Best Nest & Are You My Mother?, Backyard Birding for Kids (fun by the ton!), and of course all the Mo Willem Pigeon books.

2. Birdentification. Lucky for us, we get a wide variety of warblers here near the Mississippi River, but we're also close to an amazing and deeply-wooded nature center that is a haven for everything from egrets to goldfinches.  We've done a bunch of birdwatching there, making pals with some of the other regulars (cottontops). Roo has even spotted several species of the enigmatic and elusive "Green Bird!" (leaves).

3.  BirDVD. On rainy or brutally hot days, we also watched Fly Away Home (sniffle!) and 3 movies about penguins: Surf's Up, Happy Feet and (sob!) March of the Penguins (after which I had to be sedated).  I don't want to really want to talk anymore about it than that.

4. The 3 Cs: Crafts, Coloring and Crazy Birdlike Behavior. This here is where we took us some glue, stryrofoam, feathers, crayolas, a cheap pine craft house from Joanne's, backyard sticks, alligator clips, etc., and basically created anambient  microcosm of the bird world. Nests, a birdhouse, and of course, taxanomic looking baby birds (I'm not sure that's a word, but it fits).  There was also a fair amount of tear-assing around the house and yard while yelling imitation bird calls and flapping our "wings" (as you can imagine, this is what the lads enjoyed most, neighbors least). 

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Roo, AKA St. Francis of the Perpetual Popsicle
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our house is a very very very fine house
And that's it for the birds.  Next month's theme: Heroes of Socialism.
 
death by Jemima 08/19/2010
 
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I love the historic gastronomy blog Four Pounds Flour, but this post of theirs on "extreme bacon pancakes" has got me in a fright.  If Hub somehow links onto it, he won't live to see the lads graduate high school (I mean, we're talking about a man who thinks "bacon" is an appropriate birthday party theme).

As much as I hate to admit it, I think this is a cover-up job for the Digg Patriots.
 
 
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Dambit. I hab a code. A really bad code.

Sorry, this isn't really a post about "tea" in the strictest sense, so if you're from the Linnean Society, buzz off and read the best book on tea ever written if that's what you're looking for.

This is a true story and it's my story and campt you see ibe crambby and sick? Achhoo!

So for me, the best thing (actually, the only good thing) about having a cold is drinking steamy African red tea--made by my loving Hubby--from my Royal Doulton Brambly Hedge "Winter" tea cup.  Does that sound too stuffy and cotton-top for you?  I don't care.  When I have a cold I am also selfish and 5 years-old.

Before I go on, note: I neither collect nor dsiplay tea cups, fine china, porcelain dolls, doilies or other Victoriana and bric-a-brac. My dust-collectors are books.

Now, here's the tizzle:
The winter Hub and I first dated was a bitter, snowy, windblow, record-breaking beast. Cold. (See the "dying without a lifeboat" scene from Titanic). Hub saw the adorable bunnies cuddled up to the fire on this cup in some shop and thought of me (where he was shopping at the time, or why, remains one of Hub's last close-hold mysteries). He bought it for me, served me tea while I studied in my bone-chilling grad student hellhole apartment. He also promised to get me each of the 3 remaining seasons in the set of 4 Brambly Hedge cups to show his love knows no limits of weather or time.

Long story short, the honeymoon on new love sets soon, and I gave up many colds ago on ever seeing the tea cups of Spring, Summer, Fall.

So there you go.  Our love, Hub's and mine, frozen forever in one cozy snapshot scene of everlasting winter, with Hub as my repentent tea-brewing slave 'til the end of time.










 
 
I am not immune 08/17/2010
 
 
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I am being killed with kindness--and no, this time I don't mean church ladies bearing pies. Once again my helper cells are helping too much, and yesterday I was diagnosed with yet another autoimmune disorder.  Lord help me--er, wait, no!  No more help!

So, for those of you who are keeping track, in addition to being an enemy of gluten, wheat, peanuts, cane sugar, serveral beans (thank God not Arabica!), corn, avacados, cauliflower, oranges, birch trees, ragweed, dust mites, cats, a host of pollens and flora, chemicals and sundries, my own skin, my own tears and my own perspiration, my body's immune system appears to be adverse to my just being alive in general.  Sigh.

Hallelujah, amen, let's just get it over with.

After months of trying to figure out what new insidious agent has been causing spontaneous hives and painful needle-like transient rashes, my troupe of very excellent (if not solemn) doctors have concluded it's just me.  My lymphoid cells are so revved up and raring to go, they are just bursting out in self-expression, whenever and wherever they please. Like cheerleaders with OCD.

Of course what I have is incurable (isn't it always?), and may become progressive (can't it always?) but there are treatments (aren't there always?). More medication (I swear I am becoming best buds with my pharmacist), more odd medical technologies that I find are really just a computerized step up from leeching.

So that was my Monday.  How was yours, Sunshine?
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Today I ask your prayers for our beloved Pastor, Steve West, his wife Stephanie and their family.  After an urgent angiogram, Pastor Steve was very unexpectedly found to have 4 nearly occluded vessels in his heart and is now awaiting open heart surgery for a quadruple bypass.

PS is our friend and family, vital and energetic, tireless in his care and shepharding of a church family who adores him and his amazing wife, Stephanie. The lads love him like a crazy uncle, and he and Stephanie are an example, an encouragement and a joy to all of us who have a privilege of knowing them.

Surgery is tentatively scheduled for a week from Tuesday (after blood thinners have left his system), so join us in boldly asking God to bless us all with a safe procedure, and thorough and speedy recovery.

We love you, "Sugar Man"!