KateAndDally

Thoreau's Best Post Ever

Except that sometimes the dispatches from teaching are pretty cool....However, this is wonderful.

Gender Confusion Hits the Disneyworld Set

Meet Mr. America.   "He" is a jester puppet The Littlest Offering created in summer camp today.  (The astute amongst you will be saying, "but Mrs. O, wait, "Miss America" is clearly writter upon his/her chest."  And you'd be right.)

Mr./Ms. America enters beauty pageants, or is entered by his/her super-strong big sister, who carries him to the pageant hall in his sleep, depending on which version of Mr./Miss America's story TLO feels like telling at that particular moment.  And he/she wins!  A triumph of acceptance and diversity!  Except that TLO's fellows didn't like her story line and abandoned her to obscurity, when Mr. Preston entered the room to hear their Jester-Puppet stories and they declined to participate (apparently b/c they didn't find Mr./Ms. America "funny."  Everyone's a critic.)

A Portrait of Guilt:

I don't know what she's done wrong, but it's sure as hell something.

Meet the Family

Some pictures from this weekend...

From Saturday, it's Numba One Niece Jenny ...

and Emergency Back-Up Niece Skylar...

And from Friday night, it's Alison and Robert...well, it's Alison right here, during "Trampled Rose."

And here they both are.

Giving the Middle Finger to Death...and other dispatches from the Father's Day Weekend 2008

The pod people having generously provided a "travel allowence" to their employees, we are caught up bill-wise, which is always a dangerous proposition for me, since Wikipedia's explanation of the phrase "cash burning a hole in one's pocket" has my picture front and center.  Anyway, Unqualified Offerings and I needed a little fun in our lives, so I went ahead and bought tickets to the Robert Plant - Alison Krause tour Raising Sand, which played at Merriwether Post Pavilion on Friday night.

UO had a good time -- after I convinced him that, yes, we really could afford it and yes, we were going to have to pay $15/hr for a babysitter -- but she's 27!  German!  a professional au pair!  Coming from Bethesda!  Willing to jump in at short notice!  YOU know what those kinds of arguments are like ... Anyway, we both had a great time, the kids loved Nina the German Au Pair, and we were home by midnight.  Just in time to get 8 hours' sleep so we could celebrate...

Laura and Bruce Renewing their Vows!  Also celebrating Jenny's adoption by Bruce, once Laura got done weedwhacking the Human Weasel.  And I got it all on video.  Let's hear it for the Flip!

First up: Laura and Bruce's vows, presided over by Pastor Paul, who married them in January of 1999...And here's Jenny and Skylar making their vows to their parents....And lastly, the presentation of the entire family...

And well, the less said about the Syrah they served, the better....I cried (at the vows, not the wine) and UO did too...

And since I keep promising to publish doggie stuff, here's some video of the doggles from when I first got the Flip (and then promptly let the batts run down...)

Catching Up

Well, it's been a while since we last chatted, and sometime when I wasn't watching (literally) KateAndDally.typepad.com had its 10,000th visitor.  I don't know who you were, but I thank you.  I feel I know you – I probably do, since I can count the folks who read this blog on the fingers of one hand; why you keep coming back 10,000 times I don't know, but I'm grateful.

Offering Boy turned 12 on May 24.  I am stunned and amazed.  He looks more and more like his father every day.  With my hair.  And I wish he'd give it back, my scalp gets cold. His hamster, the estimable Cream, passed away at the end of March.  We said, that's it, no more; but now OB's friend J has acquired two hammies, supposedly males, but no, no, sexing hamsters is very tough and instead of two males, our friends got one of each; and so in the fullness of time we shall accept one of their offspring, assuming Hammie Mom doesn't eat them first.

If one of Hammie Mom's offspring were to pen an acrostic poem, it might go something like this:

M - y guardian

U - sually doesn't cannabalize us

M - arvelous

M - agnificent

Y - ou might sit on us, though - ouch

***

Speaking of acrostic poems, The Littlest Offering's class completed a unit on poetry and had a "Poetry, Parents and Pastries" party to celebrate their writings.  TLO recited this “surprise” poem, which Unqualified Offerings knew about, but I did not.

G - reat person

R - emembers his family

A - ll of us loved him

N - never said never

D - ied with a great heart

P - eaceful man

A - always very nice

Come on.  How many 7 year olds do you know could think up the line "died with a great heart"?

I had to go outside the room and cry a bit.

 

***

It's storming here now.  It stormed last week and we lost power for 18 hours or so.  Just enough to lose everything in the fridge and freezer...But hey, we have power; AND we don't have a gas leak, for which I'm very grateful...I walked into the house this afternoon and thought, "oh crap."  I thought that yesterday too, but that was tangible, since Dally was suffering from diarrhea (ick).  Today there was only one explanation, and it wasn’t mammal-produced...geez, it never stops...so for a while I mulled calling Wash Gas against ignoring it and maybe dying, all because of some little "inconvenience;" and finally I called.  Turns out our old range is shot to hell Hel-lo, tell me something new), but there was no actual leak.  Thank you, Jesus. 

***

On Saturday we go to watch Laura and Bruce renew their vows.  The horrible chemo seems to have arrested the cancer, but it hasn't carted it off to jail yet.  However, Aunt Laura, Samurai Wife and Mom, used the situation to bludgeon the Human Weasel into agreeing to give up parental rights to #1 Niece Jen so that Pineapple Bruce could adopt her.  Everything has been signed, so Laura made good her promise to Jen and officially changed her name. Now she, Bruce, Jen and Sky are all one family with one name.  Please God, let them remain so for many years.

Things Not Of A Muchness At All

I was going to title this post "Things of a Muchness" for no good reason; but sense prevailed when I realized that actually none of my topics were alike, except that I've probably written about them before.I didn't mean to publish that sentence either but my title font has gone wonky and I was trying to restore it to normalcy and gee, the damn thing just published itself, I guess.

Anyway, here's a neat picture...

And here's Dally in profile -- she had been posing in the sun, which showed off her lovely groomed coat and her noble profile, but by the time I'd hauled out the trusty camera phone, she'd moved on to poop in a corner of the garden.  Life always degrades Art, let me tell you...

So I am sitting here catching gnats in my wine, contemplating my stuffed-ness.  It was a two reception day, as I had breakfast with Senator W. and lunch with Representative C, courtesy of national PACs throughout the US.  Don't think I'll be needing any dinner...

People think that the DC reception circuit is so glamourous but let me tell you, it underlines the value of cotillion training, or some other place where you learn to introduce yourself smoothly to strangers and make interesting small talk that doesn't involve staring out the window and saying, "My, that's an interesting cloud shape." 

People who attend receptions on Capitol Hill haven't had much cotillion training, and that includes some of the politicians. 

At my breakfast reception I sat next to a rep from Major League Baseball and one down from the rep. from the American Publishing Association, so they talked about baseball books, and about the differences between the minor and major leagues.  Fascinating stuff.  Then at lunch I listened to people bitching about their FIOS connections, and the hideous media bias of the Washington Post (this isn't entirely a figment of the GOP's imagination) but almost spit my soup when the woman from a widely-known telecom company insisted we all read the Washington Times for balance.  The Times is such a looney nutjob of a paper (except for its DC-local coverage) that I'm not even going to link to it.  Didn't pick up any scrumptious tidbits of political gossip...everyone is just repeating the same old rumors.  That's the beauty of this political season -- none of us really knows what's going to happen.  Uh oh, someone is IMing me...happy dozing, friends.

Other Things that Make Me Smile

Through absolutely no effort on my part, the rugosa bloomed this weekend.

I suppose I really should fertilize it, or prune it, or something kind.

Also, we have really wonderful neighbors.  They've brought dinner for us for the last two nights, and generously included a bottle of OK wine.  (Let's just say it benefitted from me forgetting to put the cork back in last night.)

Things That Make Me Smile

The Littlest Offering made this for Mother's Day and I meant to blog on it, but it got lost in the course of events...

"Usually isn't mean,"  I love it.

Thanks to everyone who sent kind thoughts our way.  We truly appreciate them.

Adieu

Daniel Thomas Gallagher entered eternity today at 3:02 p.m.

And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.