Rooful.

Let's play 'Where's roo?'

They're shooting a Liam Neeson film (or part of one, anyway) in my neighborhood. The story is set in the Seventies, so they made all the current cars move out for period-appropriate wheels. Lots of Oldsmobiles.

It doesn't look as different from what had been there as you might think.

But the film crew painted over a much-loved mural, painted by local kids a few years ago. The neighborhood is not pleased. I hope the producers budgeted for a replacement.

Here's a short film about the youth organization that made the mural:
 

I was looking around for pictures of the mural and found this:


Heehee! Did you spot me?
Sprog looks really tiny, and I think those are my maternity jeans, so I'm guessing this is from early fall, 2011.

All you need is love.
I'm glad someone captured that memory.

Denouement.

He is dead.

His remains lie trapped beneath A History of the Geography of Africa.

Disgust for my repulsive living room rug finally won out over irrational fears of mid-size arthropods, so I opened the hallway closet to pull out the Dyson.

He was underneath!!!

On his back though...

Wait, was that a leg twitch? Ah!

With Falstaffian valor, I threw the book at him.

I am a hero.

Strife.

Fiona was grappling with the water bug when I noticed him.

I don't know if he was in the jogging stroller, and she dug him out, or if he was under it somehow. She chased him towards my son's little rolly bookbag cart thingy.

"Ahhhh."

Sprog looked at me from his booster seat, alarmed.

"Ah- it's, it's nothing. It's just a bug. Fiona's got him."

Still, I moved my laptop out of range, to the other side of the booster seat.

Then, Fiona was done. She stalked off. Nothing in her mouth. And... nope. No body. None that I could see, anyway.

Which meant he was still alive. Either in my son's cart, or he'd crawled under the door to the hallway closet.

Crap.

"That meant he was between me and the vacuum cleaner,"
I explained to my husband later.
(The vacuum is my preferred bug-killing device, since it's effective at long range, and makes me feel like I have a big bug-killing bazooka or something.)

"AND between me and the door." Which meant I couldn't leave.

"It really put a damper on my morning, since we couldn't go out, and the living room rug is really filthy. Sprog was pretending to nap on it earlier and I was like, No! Don't put your face on that! It's gross. But I was afraid to open the hallway closet, because the bug would be there, ready to... I don't know, spit acidy venom in my face or whatever it is I think those bugs are going to do. Why am I so afraid of them? I'm sooo much bigger than they are, and all they can do to me is be utterly vile."

Apparently being vile holds a lot of power over me.

"And now it's like I feel extra bad, because I'm being a coward in front of Sprog. Although, actually, I was prepared to go hunting for it. That's why the red Converse was out. And the big book on the table."

"I noticed."

"Yeah, I figured of all the big, heavy books we have, you wouldn't mind it so much if I got bug guts on A History of the Geography of Africa."

"Yeah, you chose well there."

"I had to make a quick assessment, cause I wanted to be ready if the bug showed up again. But then I remember those sneakers. Books are like grenades-- they're big and wide and you can cover a lot of area dropping them from farther away. But the sneaker is more of an I'm going in! close-range weapon. If that makes any sense."

"Yeah, no, I'm following you."

"And I was thinking I could free myself by going and getting him so I'd know he was dead. So that was kind of brave."

"It was."

"But I really wanted Fee to hunt with me, but by that point she'd gotten all comfy on the top of the chair, and when I tried to get her she was like, Lady, I'm on a break. So... I decided to just wait and see if he showed up again."

"I see Fee scratched Sprog's arm again."

"Yeah. She's been kind of a punk with him lately. But she fought with the bug, so she's still in my good graces. Fiona the Brave! She just needs to adjust back to civilian life again."

Christian rock album covers for atheists.

I took a bunch of pictures in the park yesterday. There was so much glare, I couldn't see the screen on my phone, so I just snapped a bunch to see what I'd get.

'This one's sort of weird, but I like it.'

'That's Faith + 1.'

'You think?'

'Totally.'

Why, in America they haven't spoken it for years.

" You know what I hate? When they have you choose a language for a website, and if you want English, you have to click on a Union Jack."

" Even though the language you want is actually called English?"

" ...
"Yes. I hate it even then."

" Do you think we should have changed the name of the language by now? Like it should just be called Awesome!?"

" Yes. I speak Awesome."

" So now click on the Awesome Flag."

" Yeah. Awesome."

One way to add spice to your marriage...

"I make no sense."

"What?"

"Well, I'm all unhappy with my weight, but then I eat a bunch of ice cream."

"Oh."

"Well, it's done. No sense worrying about it. I should just embrace my sexless life and become one of those floating mind slugs that talk through their vaginas."

"Um. What?"

"You know. Those things from Dune."

"Oh. The Navigators."

"I guess."

An avatar for the avatar for my avatar.

I've been venturing into an omnipresent but new-to-me form of socializing online.

I'm enjoying myself, but boy does it make me nervous. I'm thinking of that Cronenberg film where smooth-skinned but sickly twenty-year-olds plugged creepily organic game systems pulsing with virulence right into the base of their spines.

So I've created yet another version of me. But they all orbit the actual me, and it's only a matter of time before the connections are realized in ever-tightening strands.

This is a work in progress.

A Sail! Assail.

This nurse wasn't wet.
She bore this child herself--
bore the secret scars to prove it.
Bore him still,
rickshaw-like before her as she ran,
postpartum buttocks and belly
flapping behind her in the breeze.

Just a few blocks more.
Up ahead, the subway elevator conveyed
a relentless stream of wheeled youth to the surface,
spilling across the sidewalk.

'Watch it! Watch it!'
I am a pedestrian. You are vehicles.
You're old enough to learn traffic laws.

The boy in front was kind.
Apologised. Made way.
His gaggle didn't agree.
Behind her, she could hear the swell
of honking indignation.

She felt it before she saw him.
A puff of displaced air,
her ass in his hands.

He wanted to do something to it.
He said. She didn't want to hear.

'Did you kick him in the face?'
her husband asked later.
Her kung-fu wasn't that good.
And the baby.
The baby was there.

But what could she do?

She settled on a cold stare as she ran.
Romeo stared back. Not backpedaling.
What did he think that look meant?
I'm old enough to be your mother.
You're too young for these shenanigans.
Don't... don't.

She said none of these.
A calm voice. A time-out voice.
'What is the matter with you?'

Her words were the cue.
Squawking boys zipped past her, too close--
cocky biplanes buzzing a barn.
'WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH YOU?'
'DON'T RIDE YOUR BIKES ON THE SIDEWALK!'
'OOOOOH! BUT WHAT ABOUT THE BABY???'
trailing off as they sped down the hill.

Is everyone looking at me?

But what could she do?

Just one block more.

And then,
the man, the... developmentally-disabled man who lived in her neighborhood,
really thin, with thick glasses--

"Does he have a very long face?"
"Yes. And a scruffy chin."

--she almost knocked him down.

'I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!'

But what could she do?

A key, a door, a hallway.
She caught her son's attention unintentionally,
slapping the elevator button harder than it needed.

He smiled at her.

'You won't grow up to be like them.'
She kissed the top of his head.
So young, but that soft spot was already a distant memory.

He grabbed hold of the scarf she wore round her head,
to hold her close.

Some moves.

Yesterday in music class Sprog took a real shine to a girl who was sitting across the room. An older girl-- closing in on three, by the looks of it.

He kept getting up and crossing the room, first just to stand close to her and point at her, then to offer her an array of percussion instruments, then to poke her lightly in the stomach and the arm.

Little girl was having none of it. Whenever it seemed like she was getting really frustrated with him, I'd come over and take him back to our spot, with smiles and apologies to her mom.

Then, towards the end of class, he walked across the room towards her with his arms outstretched, and gave her a big hug. Consternated, she stepped back and knelt on the floor. So Sprog knelt down in front of her,fluttered his eyes closed, leaned in slowly and kissed her right on the mouth! She was so startled, she let him.

All the grownups in the room:
DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!

Then he got up, all smiles, ran towards me and flung himself in my lap.

Egg Hunt!

Here are many photos from Sprog's very first Easter Egg Hunt, last Sunday.

We decided to take over a little-used corner of our local park. We went for a walk all together, and then J split off to hide the eggs while I did a loop with the stroller.

Apparently, just when he was gesturing to me for the all-clear, someone walking by stopped and picked up one of the eggs. "What's this?"

J just looked at her. She put it back.

We let Sprog out of the stroller, and gave him an Easter egg basket, primed with a few eggs already in it, to give him an idea of what was on.

He was intrigued.

At first Sprog was far more interested in gathering sticks than colorful plastic eggs.

But when J opened up one of the eggs, and showed him the candy inside, Sprog became a determined egg-hunter.

After all the pretty eggs were found and duly deposited in the basket, we had some fun exploring our little corner of the park, and dipping into candy.