Turbo Turtle

This one's going to be short-if you are lucky--and definitely sweet. It can't be all poo poo humor people. I'm a Mom with two cute kids who are growing up and doing cute things that makes me want to document the growing and the cuteness. Sure, they poop, but that's not very interesting. **

There's been a shift in the season, we are surrounded by late-season granita snow, for the most part. I have already documented the cabin fever in our house. At this point, most of us have just started to lean into it. You know, rolling instant Neflix after instant netflix-who gives a crap if movies are bad for you. It's fucking MARCH. The A-man's watched the wonderful-but bizarre cult flick The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T about, uh, (wait for it) 5,000 times. Last night we were trolling the instant plays and I nearly lost control of my bowels when I realized we could watch The China Syndrome last night. I have always wanted to see that movie. I was about eleven when it came out. And damn if it didn't get the job done. It opened with an awesome yacht rock song, for the opening credits, even. Oh yeah, what's the job it's supposed to do? Put me to sleep, eventually. We never have any intention of finishing anything we watch on instant Netflix. We just want our eyes to roll back in our heads and the drool to start flowing within twenty minutes. But that's actually a week night thing. I actually wanted to watch TCS and will finish it. Because by the time Jack Lemmon was hunched over that fucked up pump I was goooonne.

You know what really does it for us? BBC productions of obscure mystery writers. Give me an Albert Campion episode anytime--it's better than two valium and a warm beer. Those vintage cars, the characters you can't keep track of, the British countryside. It's a heady mix custom -made to knock us both out.

So we have all managed to self-soothe our way thru this final passage of winter. All of us except our dim-witted tabby cat. She keeps trilling and purring at the door, getting whiffs of the skunks and what-not visiting our compost heap. Girlfriend thinks it's gonna be like last year, with her skipping out to the woods across the street all day then finally coming back around noon the next day. Bob and I are both so sick of reenacting our own version of the touching ending to Breakfast at Tiffany's, with the couple crying and holding their lost cat. Last year it was all kinds of painful craning outside, scanning the woods, calling her name, even though she's never learned it, and finally, catching some movement in the woods, spotting her playing with a twig, completly unaware of our anguish. I run across the street and attempt to lure her while Bob stands on the steps singing "Mooooooon Riiivver." Then we both hug her while she stares around blankly, unsure what's going on. We love our dumb cat!

Anyway, about the title, turbo turtle does have relevancy. With all this thawing going on, the kids have had initial forays on their bikes. Last year Bob -famous for his love of the dump swap, came back with a little blue bike for the boy called a Turbo Turtle. The graphic is hilarious, with a grimacing turtle on a bike. Or did I just make that up? It's so easy to imagine.

I loved that name because it pretty much sums up what we want for our kids.Yes, we want them to grow up, and have all these wonderful experiences, and it does seem to go kind of turbo sometimes. But just how fast can turbo be when paired with turtle? A perfect pace for a busy parent with a growing kid. Kind of like my favorite phrase Jumbo Junior. I just love big defintions that get tempered, I guess. May we always be blessed to move at the turbo turtle pace.


**Unless you count the time the A-man swallowed a damn lego. Yep, the eternal daydreamer was playing alone in his room, running some elaborate fantasy in his head that somehow lead to him putting a six-dot red brick in his mouth, tilting back like a braying seal or something, and allowing it to sliiiide down his throat.

I heard him coming down the stairs, crying in a way that I never had before. I was on the phone, natch, with Anne when he came in saying "Mom I swallowed a lego!" When I realized it was still in his throat I called 911. We went to the emergency room, but by that time, that six-dot was in the boy's tummy. Mr. ER doc said, in dry-doc talk, "He's just going to have to shit it out."

So for the next two weeks or more our fondue forks got a workout like they never imagined when they were being forged by some happy Swedish guy in 1974. What kind of ceramic pot is this, they wondered? What kind of dessert fondue is this, that needs to float in so much liquid? How come it gets stabbed, and not eaten?

I wonder how many takers I will have for my always-a-hit-Christmas Eve fondue party now? I wonder who will believe me when I kick off a blog entry with a solemn promise not to talk about poop and immediately launch into an anecdote about violating fondue forks? I can still hear my boy's sweet, shrill voice calling (weeks after we had given up, mind you) "DADDY! GET THE FONDUE FORKS!" Maybe I should just call it Flapdoodie, then. Just being honest.

Daily Rhubarb-Cabin Fever Edition

Too many snowstorms later, cabin fever hits the house Saturday evening in all its edgy glory. It started when Bob began rooting in the so-called Liquor Cabinet: The up-to0-high-to-be-useful -over-the-sink place where we stash our random bottles of booze, and also the smelly, rusty lunchboxes (the ThomasTankengine ones have vanished and now Lucy has to use the Shaun Cassidy/Parker Stevenson Hardy Boys lunchbox my sister sent me as a gag gift. It still smells like a 1970s lunch in there. Bologna, mayo,and Kraft Singles on verrrrry white bread, and uh, whiffing deeper, I think there's a sub note of ....let's say a lil'Debbie cake and a bag of Fritos. Thank god the thermos was no longer inside. Can you imagine what Wyler's lemonade would smell like after all these years?) So, back to poor Bob--he's suddenly inspired, in a way that only a parent who's been in the house, all week with two small children who are training mightily for a slot in the qualifying heat of the National Sibling Bickering Olympics would be.

And how's the Bickering Olympics training going? Oh, very well! Thanks for asking! Archie's been honing his Outrage at his sibling for even glancing at, or daring to touch, any of his unassembled Bioncle pieces while he puts his creepy cyborg together using a booklet the size of an unincorporated town's phone directory. Meanwhile, Lucy plans on sweeping the Umbrage event by screeching her sibling's name each and every time he walks past her while she's playing on the floor, or registers his disdain over her slowly shredding sweat pants she insists on wearing all the time. I'm telling you, these two are headed for the cover of Bickering Sibling Monthly: A Magazine for the Ardent Sibling Bickerer. I can see the pull quotes for the cover now--Lucy Parks says "There's nothing that you absolutely CANNOT take umbrage with when it comes to your sibling, I know, because I do." Archie Parks retorts: "LUCY DO NOT TOUCH THOSE BIONCLE PARTS! GET THOSE OUT OF YOUR MOUTH ....MOMLUCY'SCHEWINGONMYBIONCLEPARTS!!!!!!!!!"


So yeah, Bob's pretty much ready for a drink and he's getting very inspired by the bottle of Hennessy that the Moore-Odells so kindly bequeathed us at Christmas tide. I had saved the pretty metallic box that this swanky booze came in for awhile. Not being used to having amber fluid of this caliber in the house, I wasn't sure what kind of cocktails you concocted with it. I recall the back of the box had some geography based drinks;there was a ...Hennessy Miami (add confectioner's sugar?) Damn. Could not think of what kind of drink to make. And let's face it, we have limited mixers here at any given time. So, enter the website --here's where we'll get some information on how to refresh ourselves with this exciting, yet baffling libation. Oh noooo. First of all, when you go there you have to present your bona fides and they have that ridiculous pull-down menu where they want to know what country you are from. Not a big deal except they don't put the US at the top. Oh yeah, hennessy's HUGE in Afghanistan. So, after clearing that hurdle, this crazy make-you-think-you're-shopping-for-v-necks-at-Banana-Republic music kicks in. Fancy photography of Really. Beautiful. People. They are thinking long and hard about their Hennessy cocktails. There's some very small links at the bottom -yay! recipes! Salvation's at hand! But wait! The good folks at Hennessey want to know what kind of mixers you have on hand. Not much, good folks at Hennessy, not much. After awhile the buy merchandise at a mall music starts to wear, so we give up. On the website, I mean. Never on the actual booze. Bob now has another geographical cocktail to submit to Hennessy. What's in a Hennessy Vermont you ask? Maple syrup, lemon juice, the booze, and bitters, of course.