The BoneBlog

Somebody had a mishap at recess yesterday and is developing a bit of a shiner:

Plus he’s fighting a cold. Insult to injury, I must say.

Poor little dude.

This past weekend Ethan discovered an empty milk jug and cajoled Greg into making a bird feeder out of it. I told Ethan he had to sit down and design it first, and he did, including the drawing of the deck, rain gauge, and just how it should be hung. They dangled it from a long string and even though it swings precariously and twirls around enough to make me sick just watching it, it seems to be a favorite of the local tufted titmouse population.

I just hope the birds brave enough to land on this feeder don’t get sick from the wild ride. I’m not looking to clean up bird vomit from the patio this spring.

A couple of weekends ago we went searching for the eagles who arrive in our area each year as part of their migration.

Okay, so it wasn’t as exciting as the title of the post would suggest, but we started our day with…

DONUTS!!!!!!!!

Henceforth, I will always do that. In capital letters with lots of exclamation points. Because, you know, they are DONUTS!!!!!!!!! And DONUTS!!!!!!!! make me feel just that way.

So the prospect of DONUTS!!!!!! and the coffee got us all rarin’ to go for the long drive up to Alton for our almost-but-not-quite-annual jaunt to see the eagles.

Before we began our search in earnest, we stopped off at Confluence State Park. None of us had been there, and it was honestly pretty cool. They have built a walkway down right to the very confluence, with interpretive stops along the way. Observe:

And then, ta-DA! The confluence point itself, which has clearly spent much of its life underwater.

Having received our fill of the confluence (and DONUTS!!!!!), we moved along to our usual eagle-watching stomping ground, where we saw this gorgeous pair of birds:

But alas, those were all we were going to see that day. We drove up the River Road as far as Elsah, but had no more luck. Perhaps if we’d waited a little longer in the season or if the winter hadn’t been quite so mild, we’d have seen more.

We consoled ourselves with the knowledge that although we failed in our eagling quest, we saw the confluence, which ranks right up there in majesty. We enjoyed a nice drive on a pretty warm (if overcast) day, and we got our fill of…

…wait for it…

DONUTS!!!!!

Sounds like a winner to me.

As some of you know, I’ve been taking a cake decorating class.

I signed up for it a month or two ago on a whim. I knew that with winter coming on, I needed a reason to get out of the house during the day, lest I fall victim to my typical winter doldrums, which hit me miserably right about this time. I had never given any serious thought to cake decorating, but it sounded fun and I knew it would give me something to do other than laundry.

After finishing the first course, I liked it so much I wanted to sign up for the second, which was to continue on the same day of the week, same time. But over the weekend I received the news that there weren’t enough students continuing in the course to hold the day class – but good news, the night class was still available.

That is good news from the standpoint that I still get to attend; but I find that I dislike going out on weeknights in most cases – that is time I like to spend with Greg and the kids without rushing around after dinner and homework. Furthermore, I really wanted to get out of the house during the day so I wouldn’t go stir crazy.

Saturday morning before I left for a  hair appointment, I told Greg what happened.

“How many students do they need to sign up for the class to continue?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “At least one. Maybe two.”

“So just pay for the extra spot so you can still have the day class,” he suggested.

“After all,” he joked, “we’re making all this money. We might as well spend it.”

I got in the car and thought about his offer. Tears of gratitude stung my eyes all the way to the salon. I’ve never known a man so generous. I don’t know how I managed to marry someone willing to pay double the enrollment fee for a class just so his wife could take it at a more convenient time. It must just be dumb luck.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is how I won the lottery. And I wouldn’t give it up for anything.

The good far outweighed the bad. Here’s to more of the same in 2012. Happy New Year, everyone!

January:

February:

March:

April:

May:

June:

July:

(and Laurel’s stay at JBA, plus her birthday)

August:

September:

October:

November:

December:

I can’t believe the entire Christmas hullabaloo went by without a post. So let’s do this right quick.

First, we picked a tree, naturally. We went to our usual tree farm. It was a beautiful day – and early, too. Laurel had a Fiddler performance that we had to get to downtown by late morning, so we were rushing around. All was good, though, and Ethan even broke into uncontrollable giggles at the sight of the farm dog pooping alongside the tractor path.

As if he’d never seen that around the house.

On the other hand, he is a six-year-old boy, and there is nothing funnier to a six-year-old boy than poop and farts.

Ethan was so excited about helping Greg cut down the tree. That lasted for all of about 15 seconds before he realized (as I had told him) that cutting down Christmas trees really is harder than it looks, and that’s why we bring Dad along. No matter, though, Ethan is good at supervising and Greg is good at taking direction, so everything worked out.

Unfortunately, it’s even more difficult to haul the tree back to the pick-up spot. This is particularly true when the tree is a spiny fir tree, the pick-up spot is a quarter-mile away, and your six-year-old son is alternately laughing with glee at your plight and trying to trip you as you haul the hulking thing around.

From Festus, we hauled ass to get back home and get the tree into water while Laurel changed into her Colonial Fiddlers costume so we could drive alll-alllll-alllllllllllll the way downtown to the Old Courthouse for a performance. We also cleaned blood from the spots where the tree had poked tiny holes in Greg’s ear as he was carrying it around. Oh, joyful day!

By the way, the acoustics in the Old Courthouse are pretty awesome, largely owing to the beautiful dome:

BUT!

After the performance, out we came, hungry and eager to try a new restaurant when we came upon this:

Yeah, that’s our car in the front. AWESOME, right? For a reading of my attitude about the situation, note the crossed arms and defensive posture in the corner of the photo.

Sigh.

Oh, and by the way, the broad who hit us wasn’t even in a legal parking spot.

St. Louis City being what it is, Greg and I debated back and forth about whether to even bother calling the cops about this. In the end, however, experience has taught us that while something may look minor, you can have troubles down the line, so we called. We only waited maybe 20 minutes for a response – sweet. The officer showed up, thoroughly chafed that he was being bothered about such things I’m sure, but he was fairly adept at hiding his annoyance. He took the information, mistook me as the person who had hit the car until we explained that no, I was not the resident dumbass in the situation. Just as he was wrapping up, the real driver of the car showed up. And boy, was she a character.

“Is there something wrong?” she asked.

We told her what she’d done, pointed it out to her, and she was So Exasperated that we would even dare to bother with such a non-event. And, much to my chagrin, she was wearing an Occupy t-shirt.

Ugh. That’s really frustrating to me, because I support the Occupy movement, and here’s this gal, parking in an illegal spot, bumping into us, accusing us of not having been there when she got there (we assured her we had veritable hordes of witnesses in the Old Courthouse who would happily march out and attest to the opposite), and acting all up in arms because SHE hit US.

She even told us this had happened before and she was shocked – SHOCKED! – when she got a bill a few months later from the driver she hit.

Fucking whatever. If you don’t want to be billed for damaging people’s cars, how about you, I dunno, DON’T GO AROUND HITTING THEM? Looking back, I REALLY wish I’d said something to her about straightening her act up and not representing the 99% so fucking poorly. I mean, dammit, park in legal spots at the very least, and be respectful when you damage property.

At any rate, she was in luck because the next day I had the car assessed and was told the scuffs she made probably wouldn’t lead to a pyramid of damage down the line. Just in case, though, we’ve got her name.

Moving right along.

We didn’t have time to decorate the tree at all until two or three days later. That’s how our December has been, folks. In fact, we might as well just fast-forward past all the orchestra and Fiddler performances, all the classes and baking and buying and all of that, with the exception of one Glorious Day when we had SNOW! A whole dusting of it! And it sort of stuck to the deck! Well, at least it stuck long enough for this:

I think that photo sums it up.

So now on to Christmas morning.

Oh, wait! Silly me. I would be remiss if I didn’t display the manner in which Ethan came home from his school lock-in one Friday.

Talk about a mess. And yes, in the photos below his hair is striped like a candy cane, his nails are painted black and white, his mouth is surrounded by blue food dye, and he has a three-foot-long licorice in a bag.

WOW. We even paid money for that.

And yes, we put up the Christmas lights this year and had them working and the whole shebang, but then we got a bunch of moisture and the GFI kept tripping and the lights stopped working and so all was for naught. Next year, by god, we’re putting them up in October and I will be CERTAIN the damned things are working because it took hours – HOURS for me to do the programming, it was super-cute and made me giggle to see it, and for what? For nothing! Joyeux Noel, everyone! Hell!

Okay, really, Christmas morning.

Ethan bounded out of his room plenty early, and after much groaning and whining, Greg and I dragged ourselves out of bed for the annual ritual of opening the presents from Santa as we wondered why we do this every year. But look! Such joy! Such happiness! Such….

…yeah, well.

We have some photos of Laurel, too, but she was making faces in all of them, so.

And that was Christmas.

The day after Christmas, we had the tree down, the lights down, and everything clear for the New Year. It was so exciting to put those decorations up, and so exciting to take them down.

It was all fun and games (and bickering between the kids and storming around and overeating to excess and bloating and all) but now the break is just about over. School resumes on Monday – not a moment too soon for all concerned.

Happy New Year, everyone.

…who makes homemade birthday cards:

Can’t think of a better man to have by my side.

Here’s to many, many more healthy and happy years.

For years now, I’ve wanted to attend the St. Louis Thanksgiving Day Parade, but either the weather was awful or we were cooking for a noon meal or things just didn’t work out. I didn’t think we were going to go this year, either. However, the week before Thanksgiving, we missed a tree lighting ceremony and fireworks (along with many other families) because the published time was a half-hour later than the time the organization actually performed the ceremony. As is my way, I complained, and when I complained I went straight to the top, firing off an e-mail directly to the organization’s chairman, who graciously offered us VIP admission for the Thanksgiving parade to make up for our huge disappointment the week before.

We couldn’t pass it up.

We were treated to a continental breakfast in the Old Courthouse, followed by preferred seating on the parade route right where the local TV station was filming – which meant we got to hear all the bands play!

So thank you, Christmas in St. Louis, for taking a very unfortunate and disheartening situation and turning it around for us. Kudos to you and organizations like yours who really walk the walk when you try to make people happy.

Here are the photos – there are many of them. Many:

Unbeknownst to me, Ethan’s teacher interviewed each student in her Kindergarten class, then compiled a booklet with all the responses and sent it home.

Here are Ethan’s responses, which made me laugh and cry. Neither one of his responses are entirely accurate (for example, he evidently thinks our TV is smaller than it is and that we own an iPad which would just about kill Greg).

How do you cook your Thanksgiving turkey?

Dad will go to Shop-n-Save and buy a turkey. He buys one as big as our TV (32 inch). He takes it out of the wrapper and cooks it for 24 minutes at 10 hundred degrees. Dad will cut it, too.

What are you thankful for?

I am thankful for my mom. Mom pretty much does everything for me. She cooks for me, she cleans things up for me, she reads with me, she shows me how to have plants…she talks to me a lot. She listens to me a lot, too. She loves me. I am thankful for my Dad. He lets me play on the iPad, Wii, and Xoom. He plays with me a lot. He likes it. I am thankful for my sister, Laurel. She doesn’t mind playing with me. She tries to teach me a lot of stuff. She is teaching me Judo. She helps me a lot. She sets up games for me on my 25-year-old computer. I love her. Two of my three grandmas died. This makes me sad because it makes my mom and dad sad. But we have to never forget them and we won’t. Grandma Rost is special. Her name is Grandma Rost because she roasts a lot of things. I’m not even kidding…that is why! She lives close to Branson. We visit her every year. She likes me and plays with me. I am thankful for all my friends at school.

* * *

In reading through the responses from the other kids, I happened upon a response from one little boy, Kyle. Kyle said, “Soon [Dad] will fly a long minute and be home. I am thankful for Dad, I miss him so much.”

Kyle’s dad is in the Middle East. The teacher noted both she and Kyle had to take a break for a minute after that. So did I. I hope he comes home safely, soon, and permanently.

* * *

I know it’s early, but Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.