Typing Till The Children Wake Up

Sweet Tea Reminds Me of Airplane Travel

Our new coffee grinder stopped grinding on Friday, so this morning I am drinking hot tea with just a bit of brown sugar and just a bit of milk. I am fickle with my tea in a way I am not with coffee. Coffee I drink with milk. Just enough to make it look lighter, not drowning in milk, but without that sharp coffee edge. When I was first dating Saint Aardvark, I drank my coffee black because he did and there was never anything milk-like in his fridge. But all that stopped when we moved in together and I started helping buy groceries.

Coffee has rules. Arwen posted about this the other week. Things I had not considered but which made sense. Tea can be re-heated at any time during the day, she said. Coffee has to be consumed upon brewing or it is,
well,
bad.

In a word.

Tea I drink: sometimes with milk. Sometimes with milk and sugar. Sometimes with lemon. Sometimes with lemon and honey. Sometimes with nothing at all.

Herbal tea: nothing at all. Favourite herbal tea: peppermint.

Green tea: nothing at all. Favourite green tea: jasmine. So fragrant and makes me feel like I am drinking the air of a Chinatown kitchen shop, those ones with the baskets hanging from the ceiling and the rows upon rows of chopsticks and the small, nodding, waving cats that bring luck.

Speaking of Acidity in Your Gut…

I went to my doctor the other day, the doctor I don’t like, because she had the results from my abdominal ultrasound, the one the walk in clinic doctor ordered after my several days of nausea 6 weeks ago. Which days of nausea have not returned, by the way. The visit took 4 minutes. There is nothing wrong with me.

Except: my liver is larger than normal but according to her, the doctor I don’t like, it’s a normal variance.

But now I am curious about all of my internal organs. I already knew I had a huge bladder, because of it stopping my contractions when I was in labour with Trombone. And also because I can go a long time without peeing. When she told me I had a big liver, my first thought was oh no, I drink too much! but my second thought was are ALL my internal organs supersized? Am I actually HULK? Am I going to explode?

My third thought was, wouldn’t it be sarc-awesome-astic if my doctor sees it as a natural variance but really it’s Something Awful that Dr. House Would Diagnose on the Spot.

I swear I am not a hypochondriac. I don’t even watch House anymore because it is the same show every time.

However I do have a new family doctor to go see so I won’t be visiting Ms. “It was probably stomach flu” again anyway.

The Children

Fresco just turned 17 months old and now has five teeth.

Trombone started preschool this month and has turned in to that first year university student who knows everything and thinks you, the parent, are an idiot for reading the newspaper / holding on to an irrational love of ’70s music / believing you have a scrap of knowledge in your head that he, the university, sorry, University, Student hasn’t already learned in his first week of classes.

In a word,
headdesk.

And he is starting to scare me with his guitar obsession. For example: we were at the library yesterday. We chose some books to carry to the corner to read. I carried mine and he held his against his chest and strummed his as he walked. And sang, “Badum dum dum waiiiiiiiiiii nai nai nai daddddummmmmweeeeeeeeeooooooO!” That’s my guitar solo, he said.

These are things that become wonderful anecdotes but in the moment, make me a little nuts.

Wow, They Are All Still Sleeping So I Get More Time

I started running two weeks ago. I went out on a Tuesday evening after putting Fresco to bed. It was fantastic. Early fall evenings are perfect for running. I put on my running shoes and my ugly orange running watch and my music player and it was sweet. I started slow – running 1 minute and walking 4 minutes until I got to 30 minutes. I went again two nights later. But it was getting pretty dark when I was coming home and I’m just not comfortable in this neighbourhood in the dark, alone. Part of the neighbourhood is very busy roads. Part of it is old, residential streets that don’t all have streetlights.

Problem is I’m building to something, to the 30 minutes of straight running. I don’t want to push too hard, I already have a sore ankle and a clicking knee from yesterday morning. So I need to spend three sessions a week. Mornings are impossible and as dark as the evenings. I may just run once a week, on the weekend, and go to the fitness centre to run on the False Sidewalk (treadmill) with the other zombies. At least you can watch people swim, because the treadmills overlook the pool. It would be kind of like running along the beach.

Also, I am Growing My Hair

And it’s a good thing I have a hundred head scarves from my last head scarf obsessive phase, oh, 10 years ago.

Date Related News

There are two exciting events on today in Vancouver; Portobello West where the very talented Hudsonny will be selling her work and the Word on the Street festival, which is chock full of my favourite things like books and writers and words. I will not be attending either event because I am going to visit with family who is in town for one day only. But I wish I was going to the other events too, in that way you wish there could be five of you so each could go, do stuff, buy stuff, come back, discuss it.

Also, I believe this weekend marks 19 years since Sarah, Monkeypants and I met at UBC’s Arts One Camp and formed the Naturally Curly Hair Club. And also rolled down hills and mourned the passing of Dr. Seuss and shared a pair of shorts for the first of many times to come. (NB: I think that was just Sarah and me, MP. I don’t believe I have ever shared shorts with you.)

That just sounds like a euphemism waiting to happen, doesn’t it. “Sharing shorts.”

Happy Sunday, all.