Playing Hookie

We did not make it to V-meister's gymnastics class yesterday afternoon.

The sun was out.

The playground beckoned.

In it, a great puddle of mud with J-dog and V-meister's name on it.





People got wet.



And it was thrilling.



The very reason why galoshes were put on this earth.

N'est-ce pas?

Plant Whisperer

I inherited a mess of plants from the former owners of our house. My family scrambled to place bets on how long they would survive.

When the P-Dawg and I did a final walk-through before receiving the keys just over one year ago, the former lady of the house lovingly introduced me to each plant by name and gave me explicit instructions for its care and nurturing. I followed her around, scribbling in a spiral notebook which I promptly lost.

A few months ago, the family had gathered for a cookout at our place, and while the rest of us were chillin' on the patio, my mom and mother-in-law stepped into the sun room to inspect my plants, as is their custom.

I could see them through the windows, making their rounds.

After visiting the Hawaiian ginger and the cymbidium orchid, they lingered in front of my Christmas cactus with bent heads a-murmuring. There was some sad nodding and hand gesticulation, and then the two of them emerged with long faces.

"I hate to tell you this, Rima," my mother said with a glint in her eye, "But your Christmas cactus is dying, if not already dead."

"Yep, it's a goner!" my MIL gleefully interjected. "There will be no reviving that one. Have you ever watered it?"

"You guys!" I rolled my eyes. "It's a cactus! It will bounce back."

The mothers exchanged knowing looks.

"It's a succulent," my MIL corrected. "It does need water from time to time."

"You said succulent!" I snickered.

"What?"

"Nothing."

I continued to water the Christmas cactus whenever it occurred to me, which is to say almost never.

And last week, this happened:



It bloomed.

The next time they came over, I flaunted my cactus and taunted the mothers with my stoopid-fresh plant cultivating skillz.

"Have you noticed how beautifully my Christmas cactus is blooming?" I asked. "And a full month ahead of schedule, no less?"

The mothers circled my plant with arched eyebrows.

"Well if you want to know the truth" my MIL said, "Even a rock could thrive in this sun room of yours."

"Dumb luck" said my mother.

Then they sauntered off arm-in-arm to identify hidden safety hazards in the basement.


Plants-a-plenty

Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them*

Yesterday morning, I was practicing my note on the violin when I remembered that I hadn't fed Valentine and Clementine yet.

After drinking a second cup of coffee, emptying the dishwasher, checking the Halloween weather forecast, and scheming ways to get my hands on some swine flu vaccine, I went upstairs to tend to the fish.

As far as I could tell, Clementine was exhibiting normal goldfish behavior, but Valentine was dead.

Carp! I mean, "crap!"

I scurried away to consult Dr. Google ("What does it mean if my goldfish is floating head down and not moving or breathing?"), posted it all over Facebook and Twitter, and was temporarily bouyed by the myriad of possible ailments that might cause a goldfish to behave in this manner (and believe me, there are quite a few.)

I'd peek in on him with hope throughout the day, but he looked dead every time.

When the P-Dawg came home that evening, I cornered him.

"I have some bad news. Either Valentine is dead, or very, very ill. He's floating motionless at the bottom of the tank, tangled up in some seaweed next to SpongeBob. I first noticed it this morning and have been monitoring the situation hourly."

"To make sure he's still dead?"

"Shut up! He might be constipated."

The P-Dawg went upstairs to investigate and silently pronounced him at around 8:30 PM while the little V-meister hovered obliviously about, marveling at Valentine's ability to sleep upside down. Then he scooped Valentine out of the tank and made his stealthy way to the bathroom down the hall.

"Where are you taking Valentine, Daddy? Is he still sleeping?" the V-meister wanted to know.

The bathroom door closed swiftly and soon a hearty flush was heard.

When P-Dawg emerged, the V-meiser was beside herself with grief. "WHAT DID YOU DO WITH VALENTINE?" she wailed.

The P-Dawg couldn't break it to her. We just weren't prepared for "the talk" yet.

"I'll tell you tomorrow," he said.

But the V-meister persisted, so the P-Dawg had no other choice but to tell her

. . . a honkin' pack of lies.

(Valentine, you see, had been unwell in her tank environment and therefore had to go - via our bathroom plumbing - straight into Lake Erie, where she is now swimming happily about with her toxic friends.)

Another thing that went down the toilet last night: my earlier pledge to be honest with my kids about the harsh realities of life.


*Apologies to Al Franken

But Nothing Could Be More Horrifying Than Nellie

I happened upon my old copy of Little House in the Big Woods the other day while looking for something in my ancient keepsake chest. It was one among only three books I'd apparently deemed worthy of saving (the other two were Ramona and Her Mother and a Catholic Guide to Sex) and I thought it would be fun to read aloud from it with the V-meister every night before bed.

A few nights ago, we curled up on the couch together and started.  Things were pretty much as I'd remembered them in the Big Woods, except that by page three, there was talk of wolves eating little girls.  Ten pages in, someone had been attacked by a panther, Pa had shot a deer, butchered a pig and rigged its carcass up in the yard, Ma was making entrail stew, Laura and Mary were tossing the pig's inflated bladder around the yard, and my rainbows and unicorns reading voice had morphed into an apologetic whisper.

All this Blood and Guts on the Prairie took me quite by surprise - I didn't rememer any of it from back in the day.  And so I took to muffling and sometimes flat out dropping words like "dead", "killed," and "carcass," but the ever vigilant V-meister was reading along and consistently calling my bluff.  So like any good mother concerned with preserving the rose tinted facade of modern life in the 'burbs, I skipped to the chapter about Christmas. I told myself it was because I wasn't in the mood to explain entrail stew just then, when the ulterior motive was essentially to shield the V-meister from unpleasantness of any kind and faciliate her current belief that chicken nuggets come pre-fabbed and batter dipped straight from the heavens.

Oh, sure, we've talked about death: I accidentally rented the story of Babar and his mother when V-meister was two.  And when my grandmother passed away, I explained my beliefs about the afterlife in the most benign and pleasant way I could, making it sound like the awesome passage I'd like to convince myself it is.  But one day V-meister will have to learn that not everyone dies peacefully in their sleep, that awful things can happen to good people, that there is pain and suffering, that the meat we eat for dinner was butchered.

Ours is a whitewashed, Photoshopped, and airbrushed world.  And it's not that I really believe in protecting my babies from all of its harsh realities, but rather that I don't know how far to peel back the glossy veneer, how much of the gritty core to expose, or when.

I remembered how upset I was with a friend some time ago when she relayed to me a story about being at a museum with her young daughter at the same time as a pair of conjoined twins.  To my horror, she explained that she wasn't able to herd Mary out of the exhibit in time to prevent her from glimpsing the twins, but proudly recounted how she'd explained, post facto, that they were "kind of like Zack and Weezie on Dragon Tails" and therefore nothing to be afraid of.  How dare she keep her daughter away from those little girls as though they were some kind of monstrosity?  How could she compare them to a cartoon character, rather than providing an honest explanation? 

But judging from the cold sweat that Little House in the Big Woods provoked in me, I see that I'm no better.  I'll admit I initially insisted that Babar's mother was "just sleeping" (I later had to renege because, even at age two and a half, V-meister wasn't buying it.)  I couldn't bring myself to tell her what was inside her great-grandmother's casket.  I make it a point to flip the news channel when war footage is being shown,  and I regularly omit the word "chicken" in front of "nugget" just so my kids would eat.

The funny thing is, I actually learned a lot about life from watching Little House on the Prairie reruns.  And  - wonder of wonders - witnessing countless unmedicated labors, amputations, fires, and gruesome illnesses through Michael Landon's deft lens didn't actually make me any worse for the wear.  If anything, I was pleasantly surprised to learn as an adult that my chances of contracting smallpox or dying in a covered wagon accident ware actually quite slim.

As luck would have it, the V-meister wasn't too impressed with Little House in the Big Woods, anyway (too many words, not enough pictures), so for the moment, I've been spared the ole' "How to Avoid Being Eaten Alive by a Panther" speech.  I think I'll put Little House in the Big Woods back in the chest with the Catholic Guide to Sex until she's . . . about thirty.  But I will make a conscious effort to answer her questions about the harsher realities of existence honestly and in an appropriate context for her age, whatever that may be.

I guess it's time to start calling a spade a spade. (Or a chicken a chicken.)

And now if you'll excuse me, I have to get my rabbit stew on.

When Science And Life Collide

I came home from choir rehearsal last night to find the P-Dawg beside himself with glee.

"WE ARE NOT CHIMPANZEES!!!!" he announced as I knuckle-walked through the door.

I immediately put down my banana, stood upright, and joined him in the family room, where P-Dawg breathlessly informed me of the discovery of Ardipithecus Ramdus or "Ardi", the fossil that has usurped Lucy's claim to fame as mother of humankind. It's the sort of news that has many scientists drooling over their pocket protectors, and the P-Dawg even more so because one of the members of the research team that discovered Ardi just happens to be a former professor of his.

I immediately went online and read all about this long lost biped cousin. It turns out she stood about five feet tall, weighed 110 pounds, and was in desperate need of a properly fitting bra.

In other words, she's me, only furrier.

Rimarama Recommends: The Outdoors

My kids are Outdoor Kids but I am an Indoor Mom, which can be problematic.

In grade school, one of the worst punishments you could impose upon me was to send me outdoors until dinnertime.  If Chrissy Long was not available to play Mary Lou Retton with, I'd just roller skate around and around the cul-de-sac, hoping for the salvation a wipeout could bring.  Once back in the comfort and safety of my bedroom lair, I could rejoin Ramona, Beezus, and Nancy Drew OR resume the work of molding Barbie-sized wedding cakes out of wads of wet toilet paper if I so desired, AND I DID.

But like I said, J-dog and V-meister?  Outdoor kids.  They love dirt and sunshine.  And back when I was pregnant for the first time and busy planning my stay-at-home-motherhood fantasy, frolicking outside was not accounted for in my short-sighted daily itinerary of: nurse baby and read books until dinnertime.  So it was kind of a shock when all of a sudden I had these two kids for whom I was expected to provide, you know . . . fresh air.

Well, I don't know what happened - maybe it's the fact that I actually like our new backyard, maybe it's old age - but I'm slowly coming around to this Spending Time Outdoors concept.  On more than one occasion last week I daresay I experienced an intense desire to go on a hike.  (Has anyone else had this happen to them?)

I even put on sneakers and packed a picnic lunch, for crying out loud.  And you know what?  It was lovely. There are some really nice things outdoors, readers.

And do you know what else?

Nothing beats meandering down a mossy trail on a cool summer's day with walking stick in hand and two wonderstruck little human beings tripping along beside you.

It's Not a Cult

I have been to L1thuan1an camp and back!

There is no air conditioning at L1thuan1an camp. There is no Internet and no cell phone service. You share a bathroom with ten other families, you sleep in a bunk bed, and you let your children run rampant sporting Kool-Aid mustaches. All in all, it's a jolly good time.

I've told you a little bit about my family's cultural background, yes? But I can't recall whether I mentioned that V-meister and J-dog are bilingual. I've been speaking L1thuan1an with them since they were babies, so they are both fluent. And, see, there's this total immersion sleepaway camp in Michigan that I used to attend as a child where we conversed in our mother tongue, drank Tang, sang ballads, folk danced, and occasionally re-enacted ancient pagan solstice rituals. It was always the highlight of my year.

I loved it so much that I used to be inconsolable for weeks after returning home. When I became too old to attend as a camper, I signed up to be a counselor. So, when the opportunity presented itself to attend a weeklong family camp, the Ramas were among the first in line to attend - even the P-Dawg who has not a lick of L1thuan1an in him, went with us.

He was quite a trooper, eating cold beet soup and kugelis (potato and egg casserole) with the best of them, teaching a childrens' juggling class, participating in a campfire skit, and learning a few choice L1thuan1an phrases ("Let us drink ale.")

Now we're back, fighting off a summer sickness and digging out from underneath a mountain of laundry. But it was definitely worth it.


Me, running an obstacle course - and moving very quickly, I might add.


Obstacle course, leg two: pile diving off a picnic table


The V-meister and I performing in front of the campfire.


The V-meister and her cousin dressed up for L1thuan1a's one thousandth birthday party. (Can I get a what? what!) It is actually older than that, but was first mentioned by name in the annals of history about a thousand years ago.

So we had a birthday party. The kids dressed up all medieval-like, ate pizza and cake, and later watched Shrek II dubbed over in L1thuan1an. And while they did, we adults drank mead and ate whole chickens with our bare hands in the next room over.

Okay, not really, but we had a beer pairing dinner featuring everything from maple cured ham, to Lithuanian garlic bread with Havarti dip, to cured salmon finger sandwiches, to shrimp gumbo, split pea soup, black bean chili, and sour cherry pie. It was a pretty sweet birthday party.











Some other scenes from our trip:


The P-Dawg posing in front of some nature and a couple of SUVs.


The P-Dawg, preparing to juggle raw eggs over my mother's head as part of a campfire stunt.


Thorn Lake ("Spyglys")


The beach at dusk.


A cross. L1thuan1ans were one of the last in Europe to convert, but now they're as Catholic as they get.


That's all for now. I hope to be back on a fairly regular posting schedule soon!

I Took a Vacation

I've been on vacation, my peeps. As you may have surmised, I went AWOL on the blog, but I also took a couple of trips, including one with family and a group of good friends on Lake Michigan:


The blue house is where we stayed.


V-meister on the beach where we played.


J-dog reveling in the feeling of wet sand between his toes.


Rima and P-Dawg Jolie-Pitt-Rama


Rima "Baywatch" Rama.



My friend Vida at the dinner table, eagerly anticipating the evening's repas of wagyu steaks, lemon chive smashed potatoes and fresh greens. Her husband, Chef V, cooked our fabulous dinners. While the men gathered 'round the kitchen island to keep him company, we ladies sipped adult beverages out on the deck:


"We don't cook, but we do chill."

One day we went cherry picking, and V baked this pie:

It was the best pie I ever put in my pie hole.

Evenings, we'd sing by the fire pit while Derek played guitar:





We made wreaths out of wildflowers.


And danced ancient Lithuanian folk dances by twilight.

It was the kind of vacation I've wanted to take ever since V-meister and J-dog were born: a large house, a beach, good friends, good food, good drink, and sunkissed children scampering about. Bliss!

In short, I've simply been enjoying myself and seeing to it that my kids have the lazy, unregimented kind of summer I remember from my own childhood - full of slow as molasses mornings, picnics, sprinklers, sandboxes, sidewalk chalk, afternoons at the pool, ice cream, and morning cartoons.

It's been good. But I've been thinking . . .

"Perhaps I should dust off the old blog."

Some photos in this post were unabashedly pilfered from the Facebook pages of my friends.

I Am a Card Carrying Curmudgeon

I always thought a trip to the zoo meant shuffling obediently from one wildlife habitat to the next, whining about having to go to the bathroom, and begging for a Sno-Cone. But now they've made it all fun and stuff, with rides and jungle gyms and a Ben & Jerry's stand every twenty feet. I don't know where they put the elephants.

We went last week and instead of feigning interest in some impossibly far off and partially obscured animals, J-dog and V-meister spent the afternoon frolicking and running away from me in the labyrinth-like play area. There was a jungle gym, a five-hundred foot long tunnel slide, and a swamp with a mechanical alligator that would periodically lunge out of the water to give me a heart attack.

But I had driven across town, parked three time zones away, and spent a bazillion dollars for an EDUMACATIONAL FIELD TRIP. We were going to see some animals if it was the last thing we ever did.

We located the "African Savannah" habitat and while I made a great show of ooo-ing and ah-ing over some baby giraffes, the V-meister fiddled with the brakes on J-dog's stroller and asked if it was time for ice cream yet. We got Sno-Cones and ate them near the "Savannah". While my daughter was busy trying to jerry-rig a coin operated view-finder, a flesh and blood giraffe walked by right under her unsuspecting nose.

Before I knew it, it was time to go home.

But I remember when the zoo was a place where you went just to see some animals and maybe climb on the big boulder over by the primate house. The gift shop was nothing but a tiki hut where they sold T-shirts, bumper stickers, and the occasional troll pencil. I also remember a time when the childrens' section at my local library had more books than toys, and when my backyard entertainment consisted of a ball, some dirt, and my own spit. And I think there's something to be said for that.

I'll bet my local art museum is the only holdout without an interactive "kid zone," a place where you might actually get Tasered for climbing into a display. And I rather like that. Because I don't think we're doing our children any favors by manufacturing all of their fun.

What's Up, Doc?

In my family, garden pest control is serious business.

My dad is a gentle soul by nature, but he keeps a professional grade slingshot always at the ready for his rabbit nemesis. You never know when that doggone rabbit is going to turn up in the garden, and the last thing you want to be is caught unprepared.

One time it showed up during a family Scrabble tournament and my dad forfeited the chance to score a triple word score using the letter "Q" for what he saw as his golden opportunity to take Bugsy down once and for all. One minute he's sitting at the dining room table, rubbing his palms together over his trophy prospects, and next thing you know, he's crouching behind a rhododendron bush out back.

I can't even tell you how many times I've popped in on him standing stock still by the back door with his slingshot poised to shoot, but as far as I know, the rabbit and all his progeny are still on the premises.

Then there's Uncle Vic, whose been fighting the chipmunk family in his backyard for going on ten years now. After trying every method known to man to rid his vegetable garden of the chipmunk contagion, my uncle finally resorted to smoking them out with fireworks. But those chipmunks are still partying it up under his lawn, and my uncle's got a deck of cards in his nightstand with a picture of their leader on the ace of spades.

With the arrival of the P-Dawg into the Rama clan, however, a new age dawned in the realm of man-on-rodent combat - the age of technology.

When we were first married and living in the hut, the P-Dawg and I discovered a skunk family living under our back porch. After placing several unanswered calls to our city's pest control department, my husband decided to take matters into his own twenty-first century hands. And that meant "internet research."

Luckily, I happened to walk into the computer room just as the P-Dawg, his index finger poised above the mouse button, was preparing to click "Confirm Order" on a batch of powdered fox urine.

Rimarama: "Tell me you are not ordering urine over the internet, P-Dawg."

P-Dawg: "Just hear me out, Rimster! According to the extensive internet research I've been doing, fox urine is the very last word in skunk control."

Rimarama: "Are you freakin' kidding me, P-Dawg? For all you know, some dude peed in a cup and you're about to send him $39.95 for it! I can't let you do this! Please step away from the computer now."

The skunks were eventually exterminated using more conventional means, but the P-Dawg's war on pestilence was just beginning.

I got a UPS shipment this afternoon. Hoping that my new flannel sheets had finally arrived, I tore the package open to find a load of these:



"The Pestacator": A solar powered, underground rodent repellent. The P-Dawg plans to use them to wage war on the mole colony in our front yard.

Let the games begin.

Accidental Fun

Our visit to the pumpkin patch yesterday coincided with their Annual Family Fun Festival, which caught us a little off gourd guard.

It's not that we don't love Families OR Fun, but when we decided to go it was getting close to nap time and what we'd had in mind was a peaceful half hour or so of letting the J-dog and V-meister frolic in the sun before picking a couple of pumpkins and heading right back home.

As opposed to, for example, spending a whole afternoon among teeming masses of sticky, cider fueled children in a place where the toddler-to-port-a-potty ratio is three hundred to one.

As the P-Dawg and I were mouthing, "I don't know - should we go?" back and forth to each other at the main gate, the V-meister piped up from the backseat in a small, hopeful voice.

"Mama? Daddy? What are you saying? Is there a FESTIVAL OF FUN happening here? ARE WE GOING TO THE FESTIVAL OF FUN??????

So it was a done deal. Five minutes and twenty-four dollars later, the family Rama was bouncing on the back of a tractor bed, headed for Fun's epicenter.













Totally worth it.

BooBees

I have a fear of bees.

You'll recognize me as the person who goes nuts at the picnic if a honeybee so much as ventures within a five mile radius of my plate. I'm the one who will flip the table over in my haste to flee, then ruin everyone's good time by hovering nervously and trying to shoo it away for the remainder of the outing.

I'm not even allergic, just skeert.

But bees were the furthest thing from my mind this morning as I tripped along a flower lined sidewalk at the local outdoor shopping plaza, on my way to purchase a birthday gift for the P-Dawg.

I was minding my own beeswax (HAR!), thinking merry thoughts and humming a Barry White tune in my head when I walked straight into a swarm of honeybees (and by "swarm," I mean, "one or two").

As luck would have it, one of those bees made a beeline (you don't see it, but I just fell off my chair and am ROTFL) for my shirt and disappeared therein.

I reacted the way any sane mellisophobe would do: by flailing hysterically, renting my garments, and dancing a little jig as confused eyewitnesses watched from the sidelines.

By some crazy miracle, I was not stung.

But what's even more amazing is that the kamikaze bee who flew down my shirt? Fell out onto the sidewalk, DEAD AS A DOORNAIL (or dazed and confused, at the very least).

I can only assume it was my boobees that struck him down.

(Incidentally, tobacco is supposed to be a good antidote for a bee sting. I got stung on a Girl Scout camping trip once and was carrying on about it until our scout leader stubbed out her Virgina Slims menthol, broke it in half, and smeared the tobacco combined with some spit on the affected area. Which totally shut me up. I hope somebody gave her a badge for that. "Bee prepared," is what I always say.)


OK, who threw that tomato?

I Dodged the Bullet

The V-meister and I were flipping through a family photo album earlier today when I was seized with a maniacal compulsion to point out one shot in particular where I was about six weeks along with the J-Dog.

Me: "I'm dying to tell you how babies are made!" "See this one here? J-dog was just a tiny speck in my belly then, waiting to be born!"

My Head Voice, clucking: "Bawk! Baaaawk! Say, 'uterus'! Baaawk!Chickensh1t!Baaawk."

V-Meister, peering at the photo: "But why was he in there?"

Head Voice, beeping urgently: "Danger, Will Robinson!"

Me: "Well, did you know that before we come to live here on Earth, we live in Heaven with God and we have, like, invisible bodies called 'souls'? When it's time for us to be born, we go from living with God to living inside our mamas for awhile, where we grow bodies around our souls until we're ready to come out into the world. Because, you see little V-meister, you need a body to live in the world!"

Head Voice: "Wow. That was deep, Sylvia Browne. What kind of superpowers do these invisible bodies have?"

V-Meister: "But how do the babies get out of the mamas' bellies?"

Head Voice: "Uh-oh . . . Say, it, b1tch!"

Me: "Through a little hole called uh . . . uh . . . a 'vuh-jay-jay' 'vagina.'"

V-Meister: "Oh."

Me: "Any more questions?"

Head Voice: "Are you retarded, Rimarama?"

V-Meister: "But. . . why do the babies have to come out of a hole? Why can't the mamas go up there and bring the babies back? Maybe God could put a little bit of glitter in His hand and rub it around and then say the magic formula so the babies could come down here. The babies shouldn't have to come out of a hole."

Me and Head Voice, in unison: "Ain't that the truth."

V-Meister: "What did you say, Mama?"

Me: "Well, there's no actual glitter involved, but the way it happens is kind of like magic. It's . . . a miracle!! The Miracle of Life!"

Head Voice, making choking noises: "Gag. me. with. a. spoon."

Me: "Hey! Let's go watch TV and eat candy!"


Fin.

What Would Al Gore Do?

Pledging to participate in Blog Action Day by writing a post related to the environment on October 15th seemed like a good idea when I signed myself up a month ago.

But as the time to post drew nearer, I started feeling like a fraud.

Sure, I've invested in those cute, recyclable canvas grocery bags, but I forget to take them with me on 3 out of 4 trips to the store.

I've switched to one ply toilet paper and energy-saving fluorescent light bulbs, even though, as Steven Colbert would say, they make me look like Skeletor (on a good day).

I've made a few other small lifestyle changes, but somehow they feel negligible.

I suspected that saving the earth involves a little more blood, sweat, and tears than I am currently producing, so I decided to assess my personal ecological imprint using this calculator.

My results?

If everyone in the world lived my lifestyle, we would need 5.7 planets to support it.

I played around with it, changing different variables in my answers to see just what it is I need to do personally to prevent the Earth from biting it.

Ditch the car, move into a solar-powered commune, wipe the little J-dog's bum with palm fronds, and eat nothing but locally grown, organic nuts and berries, that's what.

I became discouraged.

But suddenly, a flash of inspiration!

What Would Al Gore Do? I said to myself, and clicked over to the climate crisis web site.

Hope rose like a phoenix from the ashes!

I found ten very simple, yet high-yield tips for reducing my energy consumption.

From here on out, when faced with a difficult environmentally related decision, I will simply say to myself, W.W.A.G.D?

It turns out I don't have to move into a dome home or wear a hair shirt, after all.

(But I would do those things and more, if only you would run for Prez, Al. I've always thought you were HOT in a non-ozone threatening kind of way.)

Oh, Hell to the No

Saving the Planet, One Blog at a Time

Peoples of the internet, go ahead and ask me how many times I’ve made use of my toilet plunger today.

Yes, that’s right.

It’s the little V-meister.

I’m always telling her, “One square for number one, two squares for number two.”

Why, yes, I do exaggerate, but you’re picking up what I’m laying down. I’m trying to run, if not an entirely green household, then at least green-ish. Chartreuse.

But the V-meister, she be liberal, too.

With the toilet paper.

We’re talking about at least twenty squares for a mere tinkle, my friends.

Is there any way, short of hosting an intervention with every potty trip she takes, that I can remedy this situation? She's felling trees left and right, and she's only three.

Sigh.

October 15th is blog action day, but it's not too early to start thinking about how you might be able to contribute with your super blog powers. Click here to find out more.

Another Communique from the World of Nature

Yesterday was P's birthday and also orientation night at the V-meister's new school.

It was an evening of peaceful exploration, a way to help the children ease into the school year. And because it's a Montessori school, it was all very informal. And gentle.

To wit: a couple of four year-old boys patiently instructed Vija in the work of washing and drying dishes at the mini Montessori sink. (The practical skills part of the Montessori curriculum was what sold my husband on it: They learn how to shine shoes? Wash windows? Make cappuccinos? Sign her up!)

She was eyeing that little sink all night, but it was a popular attraction and always very congested. Finally, I urged her to ask the boys who were using it if they could show her how to do the work.

And she marched right up in her size 4T uniform (where does the time go?), which she had insisted on wearing although it was not required, and asked in a delicate accent,

"Show Vija please how to wash dishes?"

And, bless their generous little hearts, they happily obliged!

(If that had been me at age four? Your turn is not yet! A pox on your house and may all your goats die.)

But these Montessori kids, they're different.

As it turns out, the V-meister's enrollment in this gem of a school is the result of a stroke of dumb luck on the part of her hapless parents. We learned last night that it's the "best kept Montessori secret" in these parts. Everyone kept asking who referred us. How could we admit we picked it out of the phone book during an elaborate drinking game?

The P-dog told them it was Maria Montessori, but quickly retracted when informed that she's fifty years dead.

And guess what?

As we were walking out, basking in the rosy Montessori afterglow and before I went ballistic upon discovering that the J-Dog's diaper had soaked through, I saw an entire herd of little deer feasting on the leaves in the grove next to the building!

These deer, you guys, they were truly Bambi-esque, not like that stag that almost killed me last week.

And this time, they communicated to me that we had made the right choice for Vija's education and that Owen Wilson is going to be OK .

They also wished the P-Dog a happy birthday.

And it was all good.

Not Bambi, After All

It's been called to my attention that stalking a wild, hungry animal with rather large horns is, how do you say? Extremely dangerous.

Here's a little conversation that took place at our house yesterday evening:

P-Dawg: (perfunctorily perusing Rimarama blog while eating some takeout I ordered because I can no longer be bothered to cook)

"Wow, that's a great picture!"

Continues reading.

"Did you actually go outside to take that?"

Me: "I was only just outside the back door. Plus, zoom lens, you know."

Him: "Are you kidding me? That picture was taken out by the garage! And that deer looks evil! What would you have done if it had charged you?"

Me: Charged me? For what?

Him: (incredulous) "It was a wild, hungry, animal. And it's mating season, for God's sake! That deer could have gored (a decidedly unpleasant word, that) you in two seconds! Oh, Rima, it makes me ill just to picture you out there. You have to promise not to pull something like that again."

Me: (ashamed) OK . . . but did you like my post?

Well, Hello Deer

Kids and I were lunching on some leftover pizza and freeze-dried corn yesterday when I looked out the kitchen window and saw this:



Uh, yeah.

You should have seen the camera-hunting frenzy that ensued. Because that deer had "blog" written all over it, you know what I mean? So after locating my camera in here:


Really? Where do you keep yours?. . . I ran outside and started clicking away all paparazzi style. It was like that deer was Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt and I was freakin' Just Jared.

My forest friend paused for a moment in the midst of chewing an apple he had actually plucked from our very own apple tree, and he and I locked eyes. And do you know what that deer telepathically communicated to me?

I'm having lunch. Is there something I can help you with?

Boy, did I feel like a heel!

But that didn't stop me from taking just a few more shots before scurrying back to the house in time to stop Jonas from launching himself out of his high chair, seat belt and all.

Another thing I learned during this zen moment was that my camera has an extremely handy little "record" feature whereby a person can actually take live footage! Which I did, but I'll spare you the Blair Witch Project cinematography for now.

Here's another picture, just to prove to you that Bambi was in my back yard and also to illustrate the unfortunate way in which our throwaway lifestyle is encroaching on mother nature's right to thrive: