jennanddave.com

Henry and I are hosting playgroup this week and our house is such a disaster that I had to start cleaning today. What's sad is our house has only ~1200 square feet of living space. That gives you an idea of the magnitude of the mess.

Sometimes I think when we moved to this area we moved back in time to the turn of the 20th century. This feeling is mostly based on what comes up on the local news. This area is dealing with a huge drug-trafficking problem, enough that you hear about it pretty regularly on the news. What gets top-billing though is the arson problem. Central and Northeast PA seems to be lousy with firebugs. Arson feels like such an old-fashioned crime to me. Buildings are sent up in flames with such frequency that I'm surprised there are any left standing uncharred.

The other night news broke about a couple of corrupt judges in a nearby county who received oodles of money for placing juvenile offenders (is "delinquent" no longer politically correct?) in a specific detention facility. Often these kids didn't receive fair hearings. I'm not naive about the way some people operate in the world, but it's still frightening that this sort of thing happens, adults in power taking advantage of kids they should be helping. This particular news item struck me as being very Charles Dickens.

After watching the news story about the corrupt judges, which was, of course, followed by the latest incidents of arson, I couldn't shake the feeling that back in 2003 when we moved here we had somehow stepped through a time warp that had carried us back to the early 1900's.

Posted by Jenn at 01:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Last week I finished reading "The Watchmen", the graphic novel that will soon be a movie that, unless it has a happy Hollywood ending tacked onto it, will spread its message of bleakness to many more millions of people than have read the book. When I closed the back cover of "The Watchmen" I decided that whatever I read next would have to a bit, well, brighter. So I picked up "Tess of the d' Urbervilles". Oops.

In college I took a class that was called something along the lines of "The 19th Century Novel". One of the first books we read was a Jane Austen novel, and every class discussion involved some sort of swooning and face-fanning on the part of the professor. I ended up dropping the class because good grief, but one of the things she said has stuck with me to this day. She said that a reader can figure out pretty quickly how a Jane Austen novel is going to end, and that the joy of her novels are in the telling of the journey that the characters take to get to that end. I felt the same applied to "Tess of the d' Urbervilles", except you knew that there wasn't going to be happy ending and you wondered why you were torturing yourself with 400+ pages of misery. The upside was that Tess was one of the best characters I've ever encountered in a novel. The downside is what Thomas Hardy puts her through. Poor Tess.

Earlier this week I got two surprise packages in the mail. One was from Mel who sent along the first three volumes of "Sugar Sugar Rune". The other was from my parents who sent me volume 2 of the Complete Little Orphan Annie collection. The literary forecast in this house shows sunny weather in the near future thanks to my friends and family who have taken *very* good care of me this week.

Posted by Jenn at 10:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Anyone who knows my kid knows that he is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a daredevil. Last summer he desperately wanted to go down a tube slide but was too scared so I gave him a shove and off he went. I don't think he's forgiven me yet because when faced with something new, he looks at me warily while vehemently declaring he's 100% certain he does not want to do whatever dangerous activity we're encouraging him to partake in. And even though Dave was miles away from the slide incident, Henry's distrust extends to him as well.

A couple of weekends ago we tried to take him sledding. Dave was extra-super-excited at the thought of sledding with his kid. Henry, however, made it halfway up the hill before stopping in his tracks and bursting into tears. After trying to convince him to at least watch his Daddy sled down the hill, I finally took him back to the car. I happened to know that at school the next day there would be lots of sledding going on so I consoled Dave with the thought that Henry seeing kids his own age sledding might be enough to get him to give it a try. It wasn't. He did like pulling the sled though.

A few minutes ago one of Henry's teachers sent me a text message with a picture of Henry sitting in a sled and trying to pull himself along. She wrote "Making progress!" Indeed he is!

Posted by Jenn at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Lately I've been having really vivid dreams. A couple of weeks ago I had a dream about spats that made such an impression that last night while watching a program on comedy on PBS which featured an old clip of a guy dancing and wearing spats, my eyes bugged out. I don't know why, especially since it wasn't a bad dream about spats, it was just vivid. Also, I should really go back and fix that second sentence, but, meh, who can be bothered?

Last night I dreamt it was late February and when I walked out to our front yard I noticed our tulips had bloomed. And then I noticed other flowers had bloomed. And our three trees had blossomed. I was extremely happy that it was finally spring (although a bit concerned by how early it was happening). Then I woke up and lo and behold it was ridiculously cold out and everything was still covered in snow. To make myself feel better I went to the grocery store after playgroup and bought some out-of-season and shipped-from-who-knows-where watermelon. It tastes like summer. I'm feeling environmentally irresponsible but very happy.

Posted by Jenn at 02:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I was tagged for a meme on Facebook and since, like this blog, it's all about me, I thought I'd be lazy and post it here as well. I'm such a cheater. Anyone else who wants to do it, go for it!

Ruth tagged me, so in accordance with the rules . . .

Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.

1. I was born in Louisiana.

2. Your guess as to my natural hair color is as good as mine. Haven't seen it since 1991.

3. The last 1/2 hour of "Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind" never fails to make me sob like a little kid who has just lost her balloon.

4. I'm married to the Southern Gentleman.

5. I lived in the greatest little condo in the world in Salem, MA for three years, one house away from Salem Harbor.

6. I've had a weakness for vampire fiction since I was 15.

7. I decided I was going to marry Nicolas Cage after I saw him in "Wild at Heart".

8. Whenever I hear "Only Wanna Be With You" by Hootie and the Blowfish I turn up the volume and sing along really loudly, because I'm cool like that.

9. F. Scott Fitzgerald is my most favorite author ever.

10. I think the movie should be called "F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button'"

11. I only read Hemingway novels so I know what I'm talking about when I tell people I think he's unbelievably overrated. Know it, don't blow it!

12. If we ever have another kid and she's a girl, we're naming her Annie after the main character in the comic strip "Little Orphan Annie".

13. My husband puts up with a lot.

14. When we first moved to this particular university town, people thought I was a college student.

15. No one makes that mistake anymore.

16. When I lived in New Orleans, my ex-boyfriend and I went to Lake Pontchartrain to get in a little sun-bathing. We got bored after 15 minutes and headed back to the dorm. 15 minutes at high noon that far south was just long enough for me to get one of the worst sunburns I’ve ever had. I was green with aloe and didn’t get out of bed until the next day.

17. I’m learning Italian via Rosetta Stone so that when I watch a Marcello Mastroianni movie I can concentrate on looking at him instead of the subtitles.

18. My 3-year old and I like to eat cheese and crackers while watching “Little House on the Prairie” reruns after his nap.

19. If we ever have another kid and he’s a boy, we’re naming him Oliver Warbucks after the character in the comic strip “Little Orphan Annie.” Not really. We’re naming him The Asp.

20. When I was in high school my post college plans were to move to France and teach English.

21. One of my French professors in college used to consistently show up to class drunk. He’d talk about French for five minutes, then ramble on about random stuff for the next 45.

22. I’ve never been drunk.

23. I’ve only had my license for four years.

24. I’m still sad “Gilmore Girls” is off the air. Somewhere in this list I quoted a line from “Gilmore Girls”. Bet your bottom dollar you can’t figure out which it is.

25. I have a strong affinity for Chinese sesame seed buns filled with sweet bean paste.

Posted by Jenn at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Not too much has been going on. We had an ice storm Tuesday night and into Wednesday so Henry's school was closed. One perk of living next to a public school is that when you don't hear the school buses rumbling by, you know that there's either been a two-hour delay or it's been canceled altogether. This is convenient because it means I don't have to get out of bed extra early to check online or on the television. Instead I can turn off the alarm, roll over, and go back to sleep. Priceless.

Henry is still asking for another Christmas tree. The other night I was talking with him after tucking him in for the night and he asked if it was going to be Christmas again soon. I explained that we'd have to wait a whole year, then I rattled off all of the months between now and next December. When I was done he said "No, I want it to be Christmas, and then I just want it to be anudder Christmas." Fair enough. Sometimes I feel that way about beach vacations. Actually, I always feel that way about beach vacations.

Tomorrow we're supposed to get 7-8" of snow. If we're feeling plucky maybe we'll head out and get some sledding in. I can already hear Henry protesting once he sees the dangers that are involved in sliding down a snow-covered hill on a flimsy piece of plastic-covered foam. Perhaps there's a bit of a wild-child in him, yet.

Posted by Jenn at 05:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Today was the first day back to the usual routine. After a week straight of getting up mid-morning, to say it was tough getting out of bed this morning at 7:40 is putting it mildly. Henry was very happy to get up, but very unhappy to hear he was going to school. Until he spied his lunch box sitting on the counter. Then he was practically pushing me out the door. Right now he's probably running circles around one of his teachers, because that's what he does when he sees her. It's either excitement or a territorial thing.

After dropping off Henry, I headed to Curves for the first time in three weeks. I hadn't been back since I got the stomach bug, and then we traveled, and then I decided my time last week was best spent on the couch with a book. It was nice to move my body again, although my back is still complaining from the shoveling of slush I did before we left for Boston. I'm getting old. And apparently boring because this post is starting to put me to sleep. Until next time...

Posted by Jenn at 11:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So far we've celebrated 2009 by sleeping in until mid-morning, which, as it happens, is what we did to say good-bye to 2008. It's been glorious, indulging in complete laziness, but it is going to make it extremely hard on Monday to wake up and have Henry dressed and at pre-school by 9AM, which is about an hour earlier than we've been getting up. There is no question that Henry completely takes after his mom and dad, although generally he wakes up ready to greet the day. The prolonged morning sluggishness will no doubt come as he gets a little older; it's in his genes.

Posted by Jenn at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)