When School DOES Start

Check back in three weeks. The girls will be in school and I won't be so scattered. Learn about NOSE piercings, the fish that didn't get away, my latest visit to Wal-Mart, my tooth, what really goes on in the country and other good stuff. Aloha!!! Learn about that, too.

Wednesday Catsup

Another Day In Paradise. AKA Dantes Inferno. Tequila hates the lake, puddles, rain showers and her life jacket. We purchased two kayaks so Tequila can spend even more time in hell.
Milk and Herring. Forgot the herring. Missed my A&W rootbeer float stop. Compensated with slightly stale Krispy Kreme donut nuggets. Departed grocery store in a monster rainstorm. Unloaded groceries in monster rainstorm.
American Idol. Next year Birdie will be 18 and I won't have to get up at 4 a.m. to accompany her. When she wins, I expect to cash in on a huge share of loot and glory.
When Books Go Camping. Big Guy talked me into another camping trip. I will tear pages from my used book stash to blot the sweat running down my body. It's going to be a hot one.
Tequila and the Chicken Wing. Poor dog hasn't stolen another one. Neither did she catch the squirrel that fell out of a tree and landed at her feet. Tequila almost caught a cat, a red-handed one. Cracker loves dogfood, especially if it's stolen.
People Of. Attention Wal-Mart: Did you know some of your people escaped? I'm finding them at Target.
What Daisy Wrote. The author is pretty sure she wasn't sincere when she wrote her essay. Judging by the follow-through, I'm positive she is right.
Bite Candy. Break A Tooth. Repeat. Discoverd my dental plan provides good coverage for crowns. Have returned to chomping on ice and munching hard candy.
Little Shop Of Books. Turns out I don't spend four hours a day eating bon-bons in my p.j.s.  The family is scavenging for clean laundry, drinking the bottom dregs of milk and alarmingly close to out of toilet paper.
Clueless About Grass. My neighbors that planted grass out of season have a good-looking lawn. My other neighbors the Freshbloods are growing nutsedge around chunks of concrete and discarded brick. I will return to picking on them.
The Girl With The Voice. She can also wield that voice to scream at her mom, who regretfully popped her for it and screamed back. Sometimes, it's not so great to be the mom. But it's hard to be the daughter, too. I remember.
Scrambled Brains. No Daisy, I didn't fix them for dinner. I just thought about it.
Ashes, Iced Tea & Casseroles. I can no more make casseroles for Lent than I can successfully give up iced tea. I completed six casseroles, mostly after Lent was finished. 
Bachelor Brad and Sweet Emily. The engagement is off. I bet their bank accounts are fatter, but not as fat as the coffers of People magazine.
Red Velvet Success. Sis wants my poundcake recipe. It's Southern Living's Granny's Poundcake. I'm not sharing as Sis will call me "Granny." Already niece Fancy Free called me "Grandma," apologized, then fled to Mongolia. I'm dipping big time into Clairol's Natural Instincts. If successful, I will send Sis the recipe retitled "My Much Younger Sister's Poundcake Recipe That Puts To Shame My Red Velvet Cake."

It's Hot

This morning, I dropped Big Guy in a corn field, with five hoes, a canopy and two water coolers. He and a group of five buddies will build character, experience a growth opportunity or just plain sweat as temperatures top out in the triple digits. My character doesn't need to be built, I'm not interested in growing, and whatever charm Big Guy worked to get buddies to the field isn't working on me. I will spend my day in air-conditioning except when walking from the house to the car to the book store and back again. And while walking, I plan to complain about the heat. If I knew where my cellphone was, I might even call Big Guy to compare notes on how hot it is in the field vs. how hot it is in the parking lot. He will say, the heat is not that bad, come join us in the field. I will know different. It's hot. It's July. It's St. Louis.

Snails

I stop a lot when I walk my dog Tequila. Not so much because Tequila stops, although that happens, but also because I toss wriggling earthworms off the sidewalk and into the grass. I'm sure the birds aren't happy, but I like to think the earthworms live to wriggle another day. I feel the same way about snails. I don't find them as often, but when I do, I pluck them up and scoot them out of danger. When Birdie and Daisy were preschoolers, earthworms, including one named Stacy, lived in a jar on our kitchen table. That worked until we ate spaghetti for dinner. Not a pretty picture, so we turned them loose in an outdoor planter. Birdie sobbed thinking the birds would get them. I told her not to worry as our earthworms were smart. The girls grew older and we graduated to other pets, including four snails kept in a glass bowl on the kitchen table. The kitchen table has always been popular for housing. I found the snails while walking at Creve Coeur Park. That was the easy part. I had a harder time figuring out how to keep them alive. I googled "snails" and recipes for escargot popped up, followed by ways to kill snails plaguing gardens. It took a lot of misfired searches before I discovered how to care for them. But I did. Dotted with flecks of different nail polish, Sunny, Mr. Pink, Royal and Ocean lived good lives in the kitchen. Birdie and Daisy would let them crawl on their fingers like moving rings. Although, I'm not sure my two teenagers would do that now. And we all discovered that snails aren't timid and will move really fast when you set them on the kitchen counter and forget to watch them. After several years, Royal and Ocean died. I turned Mr. Pink and Sunny loose in the backyard and told them to watch out for birds. Chances are, that day, the birds were happy. I hadn't thought about the pet snails for a long time Then I stumbled across a children's book called The Snail's Spell by Joanne Ryder. I am glad someone else liked snails enough to write about them. Ryder's book was even recognized by the New York Academy of Sciences as an Outstanding Science Book For Young Children. I wish I'd had her book before I googled and accidentally found out how to cook and kill the little critters. I plan to spend more time browsing through kid books. If I ever find a porcupine, I'll need to know how to raise him or her or at least how to remove sharp needles from my nose.

Another Day In Paradise

You, Too, Can Do It

I'm highly susceptible to suggestion, which is why I stay away from Floridians with land to sell. I've heard Florida real estate bargains are code for "own a piece of the swamp." The last thing I need is to move closer to establishing a habitat for wayward iguanas. While working at the used book shop in St. Louis limits my availability to explore Florida land deals, it's not a safe environment. I expected to stumble across books I want to read like The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest and The Pact. I didn't anticipate encountering highly suggestible treasures like The Basket Book. I flipped through it during an itsy, bitsy break expecting to find photos of pretty, handcrafted baskets. Turns out this treasure, first published in 1988 and available for about $6, contains instructions for making baskets. As my itsy, bitsy break melded into a 10-minute work stoppage, I agonized between weaving a "decorative, but useful" Melon Slice Wall Basket or a "service" Potato Basket. Then I remembered, I don't weave. I resumed shelving only to stumble onto Flower Drying With A Microwave. That one nearly had me plucking flowers from in front of the shop two doors down. Then, I remembered, my microwave isn't clean enough to fry flowers. For the record, Flower Drying With A Microwave doesn't describe its technique as frying, but that is what would happen in my kitchen. For $2, someone else will channel Martha Stewart, learn the flower secrets and redecorate the world. Encounters of the suggestive kind always come in threes, so I wasn't surprised when a slim, $1.50 project book leapt out at me: Cartoon Animals. The very first page states, "If you can draw a circle and a straight line--and if you can unleash your imagination...there's no limit to what you can create with animals...and it's fun!" So, yeah, I'm going to be an artist. I will use the proceeds from my work to buy land in Florida for iguanas gone bad. Then I will teach iguanas to weave baskets while I dry flowers in the microwave.

Milk And Herring

If it were left up to me, my family would be vegetarian. We would graze the backyard grass for breakfast, lunch and dinner. That's how much I hate shopping for groceries. But in an hour, I'll put my distaste aside. List in hand, I will drive to the store. There, I'll discover I have lost the list. I will shop anyway, knowing that we need milk. We always need milk. Why I ever told the girls to drink lots of milk is unexplainable. Stubby children with weak bones and fragile teeth are happy children. At least I think they are. Daisy and Birdie are always unhappy when the milk runs out. If they didn't miss it, they'd be more content, although perhaps toothless and short. As for Big Guy, he thrives on herring in wine sauce. Every evening, he snacks on it. That keeps the cats lining up for kisses. The rest of us keep our distance. When I go to the store, I'll attempt to buy herring. How hard I'll look for it is debatable. Shopping complete, I will run through the A&W drive-through for a rootbeer float. Or maybe I'll skip the shopping and go straight for the float. If the family gets hungry enough, there's grass to nibble. And it's fresh.

Idol Audition

As a well-grounded, secure-in-myself, not-living-life-through-my-daughter individual, I assumed I was immune to Idol Fever. Wrong. The moment we entered the Scottrade Center, a tiny piece of me knew Birdie would be the next American Idol. I started planning how I'd be a really cool Idol mom, modestly deflecting numerous suggestions that my daughter must have inherited her singing skills. And I indulged in a few fantasy moments of Birdie keeping me in the lifestyle to which I'd like to become accustomed. Two points supported my Idol fever: Birdie wasn't wearing cowboy boots, and there was a whole lot of screechy, flat, sharp singing filling the arena hallways. Birdie still had to audition. That meant continuing with the herd, now three hours into Idol mode. We found our seats inside the arena and settled in to wait. An Idol wanna-be behind me chattered about this Idol producer and that Idol producer. She'd auditioned seven times. I snuck a peek at her: An aging cowgirl with pig-tails surrounded by a whole family dressed to herd cattle. In front of me was an Idol wanna-be guy, asleep. He woke up long enough to shout "I'm the next American Idol!" with the rest of us. We screamed because the Idol Machine said scream. It also told us to shout, "Welcome to St. Louis!" At this point, going on 9 a.m., we would have shouted anything the machine asked, especially when Ryan Seacrest appeared. The cowgirls, and everyone else, leapt to their feet. Ryan reminded us that St. Louis is where Carrie Underwood kicked off her run for the Idol. Then Ryan left and the crowd settled. The Idol Machine set up audition tables on the arena floor. Then section by section, Idol-wanna-bes were herded into line. As they reached the arena floor, workers took their tickets and release forms. The forms bluntly warn that auditioners may be made fun of. Everyone was placed into groups of four and directed to an audition table. One by one, each singer sang for Idol producers. A few Carrie Underwood clones received "golden tickets" to move to the next round, so did the irritating banana and the chunky guy in pink tights. I hope they understood the "may be made fun of" part of the release. Pepto girl didn't advance. Neither did Birdie. And that's when my Idol fever faded into tired from waking up at 4 a.m. Idol workers snipped Birdie's wristband, and mine, too. We followed other not-gonna-bes off the arena floor and were released into the arena parking garage, near the dumpsters. We shuffled out to the sidewalk and back to our ordinary lives. Maybe a fruit-suit would have propelled Birdie through to the next round, or perhaps a pair of cowboy boots made from Ryan Seacrest photos; or a matching set of pink tights and angel wings. Or maybe if it had been a different day, a different city and a different audition table. Birdie can sing. But at that moment, all she wanted, all I wanted, was a nap. And maybe a bite of lunch. But no more Ryan Seacrest sightings. Ryan will have to wait another year to hear this American Idol.