So I could wiss you Merry Cwissmass...

Mary plucked cherries while Joseph stood around

I would love to go back to this tree today and get some photos of the berries in our current snowstorm but, you know, I'm battening down the hatches.

Most. Mature. Photographer. Ever.

This is a select excerpt from the "CLASSROOM BUILDING" sign on my campus. I was waiting to meet a student who never showed so I was feeling a bit snarky.

It also reminds me of a friend from college, whom I was constantly (and correctly) accusing of being "sassy." Then when a store called "Four Seasons" in my third-rate hometown mall went out of business and left its sign behind, I stole the letters S-A-S-S and gave them to my friend, who hung them on her dorm room wall with some degree of pride.

If anyone wants a wall-sized enlargement of this photo I will totally do that for you at cost.

Never leave the Lord unattended

I was at a Catholic wedding with my Jewish aunt, who nudged me to take a picture of this sign. Neither of us had much idea what it meant, but we both liked the language of it, outside of a religious context. There are few committed adorers of any kind in this world, I think. Anytime — AM, PM — we could use some.

On the road again

I took this this weekend while driving, in inclement weather. Because I'm smart like that. But I'm completely enamored with highway shots, and I like how the colors and the purposely slowed shutter speed took form.

Well, THAT was embarrassing

I took Chuckie to the vet yesterday because his belly had become increasingly distended over the past several months. That and (I apologize in advance) he's had loose stools. I was convinced he was afflicted with some sort of serious intestinal ailment. I was concerned for his well-being.

It was a bad sign when I arrived and all the veterinary assistants were like, "My, he's gotten BIG," and "Ooh, Chuckie, you're a BIG boy aren't you?" and "Wow, he's really GROWN since the last time we saw him."

Not, "Chuckie doesn't look well."

Just, "Your cat has a fat, fat ass."

They weighed him and he's now 14.8 lbs, meaning he's gained more than three pounds in less than three months.

The vet, a laid-back middle-aged biker with salt-and-pepper hair and a slight Southern accent, came in and started prodding Chuckie's enormous belly. Chuckie just lay there on the examination table, accepting it as some sort of odd pat.

"Huh," the vet said. "No sensitivity or soreness. I don't feel any unusual masses. It's not particularly firm..."

I could see where this was going.

"Chuckie here needs to lose weight."

I tried explaining to him that though Chuckie does eat constantly, we have to leave the food out because our other cat is tiny and getting smaller. Most of the time Chuckie is monopolizing the food bowl, I said, but on the off chance that Bitty comes down for a bite, shouldn't there be food out for her? Shouldn't there?

He shook his head. Separate, measured feedings from now on.

I sighed.

"You know," I said, "We got him from the shelter. I think there was a time in his life when he didn't have enough food, and now that it's always available he's overcompensating."

The vet shook his head again.

"You know, sometimes people try to tell me that," he said. "But cats just don't have that level of... cognition. It's not like they wake up in the morning and think, 'I better stock up on food now - I might be out on the street tonight.'"

He paused, and prodded Chuckie's belly a bit more, for good measure.

"He just likes to eat."

So now Chuckie gets just 3/4 cup food per day, split into two feedings. He is going to drive me bananas, I just know it. I asked the vet if it's okay to feed him early in the morning and then not again till evening.

"Or does he need a mid-day feeding?" I asked.

"No, he most certainly does not," he said.

Last night I didn't feed him because he already had been eating all day. He was underfoot the entire evening, looking up at me expectantly, like, "Oh, pardon me, you probably didn't notice, but the food bowl is actually empty."

Or perhaps I'm attributing him with too much cognition again.

Then he ate a piece of penne pasta one of the boys dropped at dinner.

All golden

Because our nutcracker collection was on its way out of control following an after-Christmas clearance last year, I'm now limiting it to one new cracker per boy, per Christmas. This was Jackie's choice for 2008.

It's fair to say he's one of the ones that falls under the "creepy" category.

For one thing, we got him at the thrift store. I love shopping there, but the premise of the store is that it's filled with items that other people rejected. It's times like these when it's easy to tell why.

He's also the only nutcracker without a wooden face -- instead he has this molded old man doll's face and it's actually a part of his sternum that unhinges to do the cracking.

Finally, his outfit is completely covered in gold sequins, hat and everything. Oh, and he's missing his feet. But other than that, a perfectly fine specimen.

Here's how Jackie described his newest acquisition:

"He's my nutcracker and I call him old man but he's a king, and he has a mustache, and he can stomp his teeth and he's all golden. And he doesn't have any feet."

They will crack your nuts

Here's a special treat for my loyal readers: This month I will be featuring a series of photos of my son Eli's nutcracker collection. He has amassed a number of the earnest, wooden figurines in the last couple of years. He can't really explain what he likes about them; he just likes them. I do too, the more I'm around them, though some are a little creepy. Not you, fellow. Some of the other guys.

How to make the perfect pierogie

Starring my mother-in-law, Luella:

Only for the lucky and the strong

This is a partial role of vintage wallpaper I scored at St. Vinny's last week that smells like old lady house and was without a doubt used to plaster the walls of an old lady bathroom in, like, 1976. And I love it.

It didn't come across well in the photo but the background is actually a slightly metallic champagne color and the roses are red velvet, the full bloom ones being about six inches in diameter. It was $1. Can you imagine?

I like to make my own cards from images torn from old books so I was thinking I may use it for Christmas cards, or gift tags. I really want to spread the wealth on this one. Any suggested uses would be very much appreciated, friends.

The Uncooperative Patient

Over the weekend Eli had an awful stomach virus where he didn't keep anything down -- not a bite of applesauce, a slurp of Gatorade or a nibble of gingersnap -- for 24 hours. But he was so sweet, just resting and snuggling and saying, quite often as I waited on him and cleaned up after him, "You're a good Mama."

Now Jackie has come down with the same virus. He was up all night throwing up but by 5:30 he was ready to go downstairs and play. I had to hold him down in bed a couple of times. Then he got upset that I made him eat applesauce for breakfast, instead of getting Froot Loops like his brother. Then he threw up again, but it was like it re-energized him, and he collected all his "guys" and started playing on the floor. So I made him sit on the couch in the same "nest" of blankies I made for Eli, where he proceeded to grab his Indian figure and fire imaginary arrows at the cat (pictured).

Finally I put on Indiana Jones and he settled down a bit. The boys play together constantly and look alike and love the same things, so in my mind I sometimes group them together as one singular, brother-tastical unit. It's times like these when I realize just how different they are.

The photos I'll never post

I taught the boys how to use our small digital camera. They loved it.

They took pictures of flowers. They took pictures of fall leaves. They took pictures of the cats. They took pictures of me putting laundry away. They took more pictures of the cats.

Then, when I was in the shower, they pulled down their pants and took what they called "weenie pictures."

Now they're on break from the camera.

And I feel like frickin' Mom of the Year.

I Heart Fall

Fall is far and away my favorite season, and every year I get photos of the boys romping in the leaves and generally epitomizing all that I love about this time of year.

We also keep the annual tradition my mom started when I was a kid of a fall caramel apple walk by the river. Unfortunately there was nary a caramel apple to be found in our town, so we had to go to the Wisconsin Dells fudge district, which is kind of like a red light district only with $7 caramel apples. I kid you not. On the bright side they weighed like 3 lbs each and two were enough for the whole family.

Some eye candy follows. Enjoy.

Apocalypse now

I've been driving by this sign for at least a year and ignoring its fiery plea. Recently I finally succumbed. Go ahead -- go to it. It'll blow your mind.

Grandfatherhood

My dad looks a lot like his dad, who died before I was born. Whenever I saw a picture of my grandpa, I'd ask, "Um... was Grandpa Keith grumpy all the time?" and the answer was always, "No! He was really funny, a great storyteller, had a really odd sense of humor." Not unlike my dad. But here is the reason I ended up asking that question:

This is my Irish dad, enjoying a root beer float on Labor Day weekend. Seems like a boy would like a root beer float on a hot day, but his expression for some reason conveys, "What is wrong with you people? Why are you doing this to me?"

Whenever I see him I try to get some candids of him being goofy, or relentlessly tickling my boys, or snuggling with them for a bedtime story, or in deep and proud concentration with Eli as they fish. Because that's the kind of grandpa he is, and some day I want to be able to not only tell my grandkids so, but show them.

This last one I edited to look like some old polaroids of my grandpa from the 70s. It's a little more of a smile than I typically get. We'll call it the do over.

Captain Chuckerpants

In the continuing saga of Jack molding our new cat Chuckie into some sort of stuffed animal-baby brother hybrid, I introduce to you... Captain Chukerpants.

"Hey look, Mama -- Chuckie's wearing underpants!" Jackie announced this morning, as if Chuckie had woken from his slumber and decided, on his own volition, that the fur covering for his privates was simply not enough. "Underpants it is!" he must have declared.

I initially was like, "Get those underpants off Chuckie," then quickly added, "Wait... let me get my camera."

Because the funniest part was how chill Chuckie was about the whole thing. I didn't see the putting on of the underpants so I'm not sure how that went down, but look at his face. There's no indignity whatsoever. He's all, "Yeah, I'm hanging out in these oversized sports-themed skivvies. What's it to ya?"

He's the cat of my childhood dreams. Instead, when I was in fourth grade, we got Fritzi. She was a sweet kitty but not so much into being dressed up in clothing. At all. I had a ruffled baby bonnet I thought was particularly fetching on her and I would put her on bonnet lock-down in my room. Also, once she got in a fight with another cat and got a claw through the ear, resulting in a permanent piercing. I would put little hoop earrings in it, thinking she looked adorable, especially when paired with aforementioned bonnet. But the expression on her face was decidedly sour. I have pictures.

But Chuckie pretty much held this pose until I was done. Then he ate some food, in the underpants. And laid back down, apparently to take a nap, in the underpants.


Finally I made Jackie take them off, for real this time.

When it was over, Jackie patted him and said, "Good boy, Chuckie."

He sure is.

Rainbow Swirl

To borrow a photography term, we have hit the "golden hour" of summer in terms of popsicle consumption. School starts in under two weeks, and my normal nutritional restrictions for the boys are going the way of the summer pool pass and the water balloon fights.

Popsicles before breakfast? Why not!

Popsicles immediately before we leave for preschool so that you are covered from chin to knee with streaks of sticky syrup, like a walking human fly trap? Can't see a problem with that!

Popsicles ten minutes before bed? No different than a warm glass of milk, as far as I can see!

They're like 40 calories, they have some semblance of fruit or artificially fruit-flavored goodness, and they make my boys happy. We sit on the front stoop, talk about the world (mostly the worlds created in the mind of George Lucas, but why quibble) and savor those last fading moments of summer.

Nothing can change this love

Everything is still going swimmingly with Chuckie, with the exception of one minor incident today.

I returned from having dinner with a friend tonight to find Jackie sitting sullenly at the dinner table. Erik informed me that he had hit Chuckie and just got off a long time-out. This was totally unlike Jackie, who just this morning professed to "lov(ing) cats more than anyone in the whole wide universe," who LOVES cats in all caps, who literally tried to French kiss cats ON THE LIPS until he was told they lick their butts with those same lips, which only partially deterred him.

I had a feeling I wasn't getting the whole story.

So when the boys went to bed just now I brought it up with Erik. [In the interest of full disclosure, Chuckie has been having some digestive issues since he came home. It all gets in the litter box, but it's pretty... loose. And sometimes he passes gas and it smells just like a dog fart, which if you've ever smelled a dog fart you know is about the worst kind of fart there is. Erik calls it "shit farting," one of the many phrases he coined which initially seems either redundant or nonsensical but when you think about it you say, "No, that's right. That is exactly right. It is like a pile of shit vaporized into fart form." But onward.]

Erik admitted he was in the kitchen making dinner when he heard Jackie exclaim, "Eeew! Something smells like pooooooop!"

And Erik walked into the living room at the exact moment that Jackie was swatting Chuckie in what Erik described as "the butthole region." [God, I hope no one from the Humane Society is reading this right now. Tomorrow Cat Protective Services will be knocking down our door.]

Erik ommitted this part of the story when Jackie was present because he assumed, rightly, that I would laugh. Which I did, because I am an immature jerk.

Now hitting animals is wrong and bad and I condemn it. Thankfully Chuckie didn't seem to be injured in said region. Furthermore, do you remember the story about the caterpillar? Because the moral of the story is, when one animal gets thrown out a window by my son for pooping and the next animal gets off with a swat on the butthole region for a shit fart, that is what I as a parent call progress.

He's a floater

These are a little late, but after working four weddings in three weeks and going through thousands of my "professional" photos I was a bit tired of, well, uploading.

Anyway, the boys took swimming lessons this summer and Eli especially loved it. He learned how to swim almost immediately and I've never seen him so conscientious and driven about a sport. Normally he's the kid who kind of stops paying attention during first-grade football and gets a wavering spiral to the forehead. Or gets bored during soccer and just stands at one end of the field waiting for the ball to come to him. Or gets put in the t-ball outfield again and again by an overly competitive coach of 7- and 8-year-olds to the point where when the ball finally does come to him he just watches it roll by. All of these I witnessed in the last year.

But swimming is different -- it's an individual sport, and Eli is an independent kid. He's studious by nature, and he gets to study the strokes, perfect them, on his own. The pride I felt seeing him float on his back with ease, his eyes closed in concentration, finally in his own little world of athletic achievement, made my throat clamp up.

Jackie, on the other hand, is a natural athlete -- coordinated, strong, fearless. His favorite part of swimming lessons was leaping off the diving board and landing on the heads of the instructors trying to catch him. They eventually moved out of the way:

World, meet Chuck

I hadn't planned on getting another cat so soon. But I was browsing the local Humane Society website yesterday and saw a picture of a gentleman named "Chuckie." Here's what the description said:

"I'm Chuckie, a good looking, classic type of guy. I'm young, and I have a lovely tabby striped coat with warm brown tones to it. My eyes are large and a cool amber-green color. I've already been neutered, and I would just love a new home with YOU!"

Meh.

But it was his face that drew me in. It had so much character, and eyes that looked sad and mellow and bemused all at once. The boy had soul.

I took the boys to see him yesterday, and though he'll never be a replacement for Mini, he's everything we could hope for in a cat and, at the same time, I can feel that he will be more than just a cat for our family. He's going to fill a gaping hole we didn't even know we had.

Everyone at the shelter loved this boy. When we visited yesterday I didn't want to say I was there to see a specific cat, so I told the gal at the front desk that we had just lost a cat we'd had for 10 years, we were thinking about maybe adopting a new one, did she have a cat that was good with people, good with other cats... before I could even finish she said, "Chuckie. You need to meet Chuckie."

When we took him into the secluded "patting room," he alternated between playing with the boys and nuzzling them while rumbling like a distant freight train.


And then another staffer told me that they have 160 cats at the shelter, but when they needed to choose one to take to visit lonely people at the nursing home, they picked Chuckie.

That's all I needed to hear.

So welcome to the family, Chuck. Make yourself at home.

My car goes/Chicago

Okay, so my mom's rental car does. These are from my trip last week to Chi-town with my mom and sister. It was back-to-school shopping the summer before ninth grade all over again. Fun times and girl fights, baby. Nothing like it.

These descriptions will be brief because I'm still in a sad mood about the cat.

I cheated and took this one in the reflection of the sculpture at Millinium Park. Pretty rad, no?

I liked the three yellow lights here. The green building on the left is the Carbide and Carbon Building on Michigan Ave, an art deco stunner that's now the Hard Rock Hotel, though we won't hold that against it. My new business website and logo are going to be slightly art deco themed so I was jazzed about this building.

This is a bus:

This is my mom shopping at Eileen Fisher on Michigan Avenue wearing some sort of shower cap mask that's a prerequisite for entering the dressing room, and in the foreground, a woman who was put on God's green earth for the sole purpose of working at Eileen Fisher and convincing my mother to buy a full-length khaki linen dress. I mean, look at the woman. She emits Eileen Fisher from her pores. What, your mom never shopped at Eileen Fisher? Nevermind.

We had to take at least one photo to show my dad what a good time she had in the big city:

Isn't she adorable? From what I gather, she has permanently "borrowed" that sweater from my sister, pictured here:

She's thinking, "Damn, I wish I had that polka dot sweater right about now."

Here's a picture from the same locale, but from a slightly different angle so as to crop out the sister:

We noticed there's a certain type of boy who lives in Chicago. And this is it:

Window shopping at a wig store in the neighborhood where my sister's friend, who's working on his doctorate in philosophy, lives. I let you in on that fact to add clarification and depth to the photo:

My mom was a very nervous city driver. Unreasonably nervous. There were many quick inhalations of breath through clenched teeth and utterances of "Jeeezzz!..." Note the furrowed brow:

This one's from the car driving at night. Not entirely in focus but I like it.



This is my favorite from the trip -- my mom reading in bed in the hotel, as seen in the reflection in the window:

Can you tell I like skyscrapers and skylines? The North Dakota girl in me still finds them exotic and romantic.

That's all she wrote.

p.s. The title is from a song my sister clued me in to by The Felice Brothers:
"My car goes/
Chicago/
Every weekend to pick up some cargo/
I think I know the bloody way by now, Frankie/
And turn the god damn radio down, thank you."