Gems from the Bairn

Steve goes on church visits on Tuesday nights.  Tonight after Steve left.

Bairn: Mom, do you love Daddy?
MBC: Yes, do you love him?
Bairn: He went away on visits, but I'll never leave you alone.  I'll always stay here with you.


Looking at pictures of Italy.

MBC: I've been there. 
Bairn: When were you there?
MBC: Oh, before you were born I used to travel.
Bairn: Yep, I was just waiting in the hospital for you.  Wog, wog, wog.  Just waiting for you to come get me.



At the local market where Steve does some engineering for their new building.

MBC: Daddy's over in that building for a meeting today.
Bairn: No, no, Mommy.  This is the market.  Daddy comes here for doughnuts.  Church is for meetings.  Why are you so wrong?

From The Bairn

MBC: See you later, alligator.
The Bairn: Don't be wild, crocodile. (pause) Stay in the zoo.

Eating with The Bairn

Steve to The Bairn: What's your favorite fruit?

The Bairn: Cucumbers.

Steve: What's your favorite vegetable?

The Bairn: Lettuce. [This is a lie.]

Steve: What's your favorite kind of meat? [This is a trick question.  The Bairn does not eat meat.]

The Bairn: Cranked meat.

Steve: What kind of meat?

The Bairn: Cranked meat.  From Daddy's cranking machine.

Aaah, yes, sausage.

Where is my hot water bottle?

I'm sick again.

And I take back my comments about being plenty warm in our cold flat.  The temperature dropped again and it's too too cold.  We do have three machines that help keep us warm and Steve has given all of them names.  Mr. Woods is the dehumidifier who keeps the damp out.  Glenn is the electric space heater.  And Gassy Jack is the portable butane heater.

(MBC: Why Gassy Jack?
Steve: Because he's a gas heater and he jacks up the heat.
MBC: Aaah.)

We're not getting Christmas gifts (austerity + moving back to North America in March) this year but we are cat/housesitting for a friend for two weeks over Christmas and her place has central heat.  Central heat!  Two weeks of heat without the fear of Gassy Jack (I'm pretty sure he's going to tip over and set the place on fire despite all Steve's explanations of why this is not possible) is going to be the best Christmas present ever.  (And I'm going to tell this story to Baby McBaby someday when he wants a pony for Christmas.  Before you were born, we were so poor that our best Christmas present was HEAT, so you just look forward to that new pair of underwear that you're actually going to get for Christmas and put the thought of ponies right out of your head.)

Special Songs

Friday morning Steve was singing 'That's Amore' while he prepared breakfast.

MBC: What did you just say?
Steve: When the moon hits your eye like a big piece of pie, that's amore!
MBC: Like a big piece of pie?
Steve: Yeah!
MBC: No, the song says, 'like a big pizza pie'
Steve: What?! Who's ever heard of a pizza pie?

And it went on for a bit while I asserted that everyone knows you can get a 'pie' and be referring to a pizza and Steve informed me that perhaps I'd never properly been in love because the song very clearly states that it feels like being hit in the eye with a piece of pie.

A few weeks ago I was singing about Puff the Magic Dragon and Steve commented that he would like some wax with which to seal his letters. Right in that very second (and not a moment before) I realized that Jackie Paper didn't bring Puff cleaning supplies (ceiling wax) but rather sealing wax. How curious.

It also took me years to understand that the song by The Bangles is about a manic Monday and not a man NAMED Monday. I always wondered why it would be better for him to be named Sunday.

Grocery Store Treats

Today we drove from Boston to Virginia and stopped in a store in rural Pennsylvania. A fantastic store. I wanted to take lots of pictures, but even more than that I wanted to NOT be a gawking outsider. I snapped just one quick picture while the young women running the store weren't looking. This is the candy aisle. Imagine similar rows of flour and pretzels and noodles for Amish pot pie stored in clear plastic bags.


We bought pear butter and seasoning to make Italian sausage (which we can't get in the UK) and these tiny pig sprinkles. I feel overwhelmingly compelled to make a farm-themed birthday cake now.

Yesterday we stopped at a far less exciting grocery store in Maine. As we were standing in the dairy department, an elderly woman approached us. She looked very well put together and friendly, like a grandma. She turned to Steve and asked him, "Do you know how to keep a goober in suspense?" When he said that he didn't, she replied, "I'll tell you tomorrow!" Then she chuckled and patted me on the arm and confided, "Oh, I got him!"

I've never heard an adult use the word goober before.

Walk This Way, Part 3

I like to take walks. I've discovered while in Nova Scotia that being in the car for very long makes me extremely antsy and that then I must take a walk soon or I get mean and grouchy and start muttering under my breath. I have previously described walks with my mother and my sister. This is how a walk goes down with Steve. Imagine it with lots of mosquito slapping.

MBC: What if I had a webbed hand?

Steve: You could have the webbing surgically removed.

MBC: But I wouldn't want the webbing removed because I could do amazing things with a webbed hand.

Steve: You could just get webbed gloves for the times when you felt you needed webbed hands.

MBC: No! If I had a webbed hand and I was strolling along the beach and I saw a swimmer in distress, I could immediately jump in and swim speedily to his rescue with my amazing webbed hand.

Steve: I don't think a webbed hand would make you that much faster.

He also shot down my ideas for a hook hand and an Inspector Gadget-style extendo hand.

Can you believe some people?

Men are From Mars

We're in Montreal while Steve attends a conference. The university didn't inform him they were funding the trip until after Steve had booked us budget accommodations. We're staying in a dorm room without air conditioning. WITHOUT air conditioning. It's approximately 5,000 degrees in our room.

Tonight Steve and I scheduled our evening around the location of businesses with temperatures below 90 degrees, loitering in the frozen food section of Provigo and making a visit to Mr. Tim Horton for doughnuts. I was having trouble deciding between the two doughnuts I wanted.

Steve: Don't worry. There will be lots more opportunities to eat at Tim Horton's.
MBC: No, there won't. We can come here maximum once a month.
Steve: What?! I used to come here every week.
MBC: What?!
Steve: And last year when I was here, Sandy and I bought a dozen doughnuts and ate them.
MBC: How long did it take you to eat them?
Steve: We ate them for lunch. We each ate six.
MBC: ?!

I have a hard time imagining two women thinking that was a good idea. I may be wrong, but I find it hard to imagine.

We Might Be Terrible Parents

Sometimes I hear myself talking to Steve about the allotment and I worry about what it says about our future parenting techniques.

Sometimes I'm the baddie:

Steve: What are you doing?

MBC: I'm chopping this plant to the ground.

Steve: What?

MBC: Yeah, it won't do what I want it to do, so I'm just going to cut it down.

Steve: No, no! You just have to train it to go in the right direction.

MBC: Nah, this is easier.

And sometimes Steve's the baddie:

Steve: This plant has got to go.

MBC: Why? I like that plant.

Steve: No, it's useless. It doesn't do anything.

MBC: But it's pretty. I like the ornamentals. Wait until it gets bigger and blossoms before you make a decision about it.

Steve: I'm gonna pull it out. It's not carrying its weight around here.

You see what I'm saying?

Not That I'm Complaining (No, Really, I'm Not)

I just discovered that David Ivers and Brian Vaughn have been named the new artistic directors at the Utah Shakespearean Festival. I was explaining to Steve why this is very good news and why we need to visit Cedar City and eat over-priced tarts and see fantastic productions.

Steve: Yeah, we can do that in the future.
MBC: The near future?
Steve: Nooo, we don't have enough money in the near future. We can see Shakespeare in Scotland, though.
MBC: But we can't eat at the Pastry Pub in Scotland.
Steve: No, but we can eat at an actual pub here.
MBC: But the Pastry Pub has that one kind of cake I really like.
Steve: We could drive to Paris and buy you cake at a superior bakery for less than it would cost us to go to Cedar City.
MBC: But one of my favorite thrift stores is in Cedar City.
Steve: We could fly to Turkey and attend a bazaar for less than it would cost us to go to Cedar City.

So, I suppose we can't go anytime soon.

And when we went back to the car boot sale this week, the baby wellies were gone.

And the cranberry juice we bought at Aldi is actually 'cranberry juice drink.'

And Mr. T is now selling cookware on infomercials. I saw it with my own eyes.

Life is full of disappointments.

My New Best Friend

Steve and I stopped at a car boot sale on Saturday. A woman was selling little, tiny, toddler-sized wellies for 2 pounds. They sent me into raptures and I kept thinking about them and talking about them.

MBC: Oh my goodness, weren't those little wellies the best thing you've ever seen?

Steve: Not really. They look just like regular wellies, but they're small.

MBC: I know! They're so small. They're tiny to fit on little tiny, baby feet that can go tramping through the garden. (pause to think about whether I should go back and buy 12 pairs of tiny wellies) Maybe I should buy some baby wellies.

Steve: We don't have a baby.

MBC: Don't they make you wish we had a baby? So we could squash it into little wellies?

Steve: They're just little boots.

A day or two later I was looking at zooborns and I saw this great photo and I made Steve look at it while I gushed over how sweet and tiny that little jumping goat is.



MBC: Look at this goat! Isn't this the sweetest goat you've ever seen? Doesn't this goat make you wish we had a baby? (I'm really not campaigning for a child. Tiny things just make me think about babies.)

Steve: But it's a goat. It makes me wish we had some livestock maybe.

Last night we had an activity with our little 8 to 11-year-olds at church. Darling, red-headed Lydia came in late, sat down on a chair in the first row, swiveled around, looked me up and down, pointed her two fingers toward her eyes and then at me in that I've-got-my-eye-on-you gesture, and then turned back around in order to raise her hand every 2 seconds to give the missionaries what for. Later in the evening she held my hand while she prattled on about everything she's ever thought and told me that she knows all about me and how I've been talking about her. (I have. Her Dad was over a few weeks ago.) I want her to be my best friend in Scotland. I want her to have slumber parties at my house and to keep me amused with her sassy, 8-year-old ways.

Then we drove Chloe home (after she gave an earnest closing prayer in which she prayed for the people who were "destructioned" in the volcano) and she talked and talked and talked in her tiny, soft voice to Steve about where she goes to school (with detailed directions on how to reach it) and how her Dad dropped her off at the swimming pool before checking to see if there were life guards and about the Travelodge where they stayed over Easter holidays.

When Chloe got out of the car, Steve turned to me and said, "Now, I want a baby."

Which is not any kind of announcement. But next time we're at the car boot sale, I'm buying boots.

The Fashion Police

Doesn't Steve look sharp here? Yes, yes, he does. Very handsome.


Occasionally, though, we have a difference of opinion about his wardrobe. Early in our relationship, we were having dinner at Steve's house. We'd just come from church and Steve went to change into more casual clothes. When he reappeared, he was wearing The Sweatshirt. It's silk-screened with an outdoor scene of a wolf and boots on a porch. It's not exactly to my taste. In fact, when I saw it, I had to have a little internal conversation with myself about how it was only a sweatshirt and it didn't indicate anything negative about the content of Steve's character or have any bearing on my feelings for him personally and that all it meant was that Steve quite liked the Smoky Mountain Gift Shop look.

After we were engaged I suggested to Steve that perhaps he should take that particular piece of clothing out of his rotation.

Steve: What?! I wore that sweatshirt (actually, he probably called it a jumper) specifically to impress you.
MBC: What?!
Steve: Yeah, I thought it would make you think I was the kind of guy who liked to stay home in the cabin in front of the fire. You know. It's cozy.
MBC: That is not the message I was receiving from that shirt.
Steve: But it's so nice. I got it in 1992 and it's still in perfect shape.

Yes, I could tell that it came from 1992.

The week before the wedding, Steve and I were talking on the phone and he told me that a friend was over and wanted to have a last hurrah kind of night. The friend suggested they do something I wouldn't allow Steve to do after we were married, so the activity Steve came up with was to wear The Sweatshirt.

Sunday Steve pulled out a zip-front sweatshirt and started to praise it. I wrinkled my nose at it and noted that it's several sizes too big for him. He could shoplift a pot-bellied pig out of the store while wearing that sweatshirt and no one would notice.

Steve: What?! It's so great. It was my granddad's. I've had it since 1992.

At least he doesn't wear lady pants.

Things we forgot to discuss before the wedding.

Steve came into the living room a few mornings ago, sat down, and, as he put on his socks, asked, "So, as far as singing rodent bands go, who's your favorite?"

The Salad Days

I have become an eater of salads. I decided that with another person in my household it was worthwhile to buy salad greens, because, with help, I could finish a bag before the leaves turned to slime. My sister makes fantastic salads, so we followed her lead on the basic salad construction, which is as follows:

1. mix of greens

2. fruit--pear, mango, apple, or orange slices are the best

3. gorgonzola cheese

4. toasted walnuts--We don't have these, so we leave them out. Soon I'm going to try hazelnuts, which we do have.

5. oil and vinegar with a touch of salt and/or pepper

We started with that idea, but it's only a loose guide. The stores here sell whole, roasted, peeled beets packaged and ready to eat, so we always chop up a beet and throw it in, and I like to add dried cherries or dried cranberries. Saturday night we just had salad and cornbread muffins (the cornmeal had to be tracked down at Mr. Fu's, a warehouse that sells African foods) for dinner, so we boiled an egg and added that to the salad and I like cucumber or peppers in my salads.

The tricky part is the oil and vinegar dressing which we haven't entirely mastered yet but which Steve is getting very good at with the help of a cookbook we picked up a few days ago at a community sale in St. Andrews. If you have pointers, fire away.

Last Friday as we were making lunch, Steve started waxing poetical about our salads.

Steve: I think salads may be one of my favorite parts of our marriage. Yep, when I look back over our married life, I'm really so pleased with the salad aspect.

MBC: When you look back over our long married history?

Steve: Yes, when I think about our weeks of marriage, I just love the salads.

MBC: We won't be married weeks until tomorrow. Tomorrow makes two weeks of marriage.

Steve (completely undeterred): When I look over our days of marriage, I think salad.

Sometimes I am Amused

Steve emailed me this conversation he had with some of his engineering club students, and I think it's very amusing and blog-worthy. I even asked permission before posting it, although Steve sent it to me when I was in Wales and the Internet came to me through the large-screen TV, making all the email I received public, and sometimes when I'd check my email, Kirsten would sit down next to me on the couch, and I'd say, "So, you gonna sit here and read my email now?" and she'd say, "It's from your mom" and then I'd say, "Yeah, but then I'm going to read the one from Steve" and then she'd say, "Yeah, so?" and then I learned to check my email at night after she and Stash went to bed (because you never know what kind of scandalous information Mom might send me).

I added the bold, but otherwise the following text is as Steve sent it to me, so Me=Steve and Them=Scottish Students.

Me: Hey... guess what, I've arranged for us to enter the UK-wide agricultural engineering challenge this year, down in England. We just need to fund raise some cash to pay for transport. We'll be building a robot!

Them: Oh cool, what kind of robot, like the ones in Robot Wars that battle each other?

Me: No... umm, more like an... agricultural robot. They send us a motor and some wheels and we design and build the rest to perform the task they give us.

Them: Right, that's great, what's the task?

Me: Going up a hill pulling a block of wood.

Them: Like in a field over rough terrain?

Me: No, ah, well, actually it's a model of a hill. I think it's made of plywood.

Them: Right, but when we're done we can repurpose the robot to do something cool and run it around campus?

Me: Umm, actually they ask for the wheels and motor back.

Them: . . .

Me: But we'll get a guided tour of an axle factor!

Them: Actually that does sound cool, let's have our first meeting on Thursday night!

Funny, right?

My Mother is Full of Surprises

One night last week after my sister's kids had been put to bed, my mom, my sister, and I were up talking (and busting out the treats, which I always KNEW happened after I went to bed as a child). My sister was saying how it would have been impossible for her to marry someone whose favorite movie was something like Legally Blonde.

MBC: Yeah, well, you have to cut people slack on things like that, though, because we all have our guilty media pleasures. Like, you know, maybe some of us find ourselves unexpectedly fond of, you know, maybe, The O.C.

Mom: That's right. Or Judge Judy.

MBC and Sister: the sound of heads whipping around to stare

MBC: You watch Judge Judy?

Sister: You like Judge Judy?

Mom: I want to be Judge Judy.

MBC and Sister: open-mouthed staring

Mom: Yep, Judge Judy just lays down the law. Tells it like it is. Sets everybody straight.

Wow. True confession.

Waiting, Waiting

The giant storm that has descended on the Rockies has delayed my departure from Utah. This is what I do while I wait to leave (my options are limited since it's COLD and I'm sick).

1. Have wacky conversations with E(6).

E(6) sat next to me on the couch and leaned over with her lips puckered.

MBC: What are you doing?

E(6): This is what I do to [little boy in her class]. I want to kiss him someday.

MBC: Why do you want to kiss him?

E(6): Aunt! Because I LOVE him.

Silly me.

2. Have wacky conversations with Tuey.

Tuey: (with his face buried in my sweater) Oh, Aunt. You smell. just. like. an aunt.

3. Have wacky conversations with my sister.

MBC: Weather.com says that it's still going to be snowing in Rock Springs tomorrow. And in Cheyenne. And in Denver.

Sister: Check Accuweather.

MBC: Why? Do they have better information?

Sister: No, but they'll tell you what you want to hear.

MBC: Oh, hmmm, yeah, it does say here that the weather should be improved tomorrow.

Sister: See? Doesn't that make you feel better?

MBC: No. I'm pretty sure weather.com is correct and there's still a terrible storm in Wyoming. I feel lied to.

Sister: Well, I feel better.

We're hoping to leave tomorrow. Cross your fingers for us.

Aw-aw-awkward

I have an instinct to say yes anytime anyone asks me anything (except at the library at closing time).

Would you please cover this shift? Yes.
Can you help set up for this event? Sure.
Would you like a fifth slice of chocolate cake? Absolutely.
Could you possibly let these 15 people cut ahead of you in line? Of course.
Would you mind carrying this small bag of unmarked currency through customs for me? Why not?

My natural inclination is to be agreeable. Sometimes it should not be. Like today at church when I was accosted by the wife of this guy I vaguely know from our brief dating experience.

Wife: Hey, I know this is kind of weird, because I don't really know you at all, but I know [my husband] knows you some, and I wanted to ask you something.

MBC (in head): Please don't ask me something weird and ludicrous like whether or not I'm secretly carrying a torch for your husband.

MBC: Oh, sure.

Wife: There's this guy I want to set you up with. I mean, I don't know you but you seem really cute and I've known him my whole life and he's the nicest guy and really likes to have fun . . . So, would you be interested?

See, this is where the lying should have started. This is where I should have mentioned that my boyfriend Jack doesn't like it when I date other people.

MBC: Oh, well, I'm going to Europe in 12 days.
And I'm not coming back for four months.
And then I'm moving across the country.

Wife: So, would you be interested in doing something with him this week?

And THIS is where the saying NO should have started.

MBC: Um, I guess you could give him my contact information as long as he's okay with the fact that I'm leaving the country.

And then I was giving her my phone number and it was very deja vu from when her husband was asking for my phone number and the whole situation was weird but here's the main thing: I have NO time before I leave. My family's coming to visit this week, I have to store all my stuff across town at my friend's house, I have to figure out how to fit four months of clothing and supplies for a trip that includes both being vomited on by babies and attending Mozart's Requiem at St. Martin-in-the-Fields across two seasons into two carry-on size bags, and I have to play, play, play with marmots and teach Tuey his new special mantra: I will take care of Aunt in her old age even if she misses my 3rd birthday.

Really must learn to say no.

A Stolen Story

My sister told me about this experience with Tuey last week. I will now steal the story (much like she has stolen my gray fleece jacket, which I would like back) and tell it before she has the chance (perhaps she wouldn't post it on her blog anyway, because it does involve nipples).

Tuey was wandering around without a shirt on last week, when he noticed his nipples. He looked down, fingered one of his nipples, and asked, "Mommy, what is this? A kidney?"

The Bad Bits of Summer

There are similarities between childbirth and the Summer Reading Program. Sometimes my sister says to me, "Aren't these the cutest kids you've ever seen? Don't you think I should have one or two more?" And then I say, "Remember how last time you were pregnant you told me that if you said you wanted another baby I should hit you in the face with a shovel?" And then SHE says, "No." Similarly, I always forget how truly terrible the first week of the Summer Reading Program is. I know in my brain that it will be bad, but until I'm at work with, no kidding (I counted at the busiest point), twenty-one people crowding around the main reference desk and three people holding on the phone, I don't really recall what the beginning of summer is like at the library.

Today the Summer Reading craziness was followed by hanging out at the DMV for an hour, so it's a good thing that I had morning glory muffins to greet me at home. The muffins are very similar to garden harvest bread, except that they're more likely to kill you, being full of delicious fat. They're particularly hazardous to your health if you happen to have made them with really old coconut which may have gone rancid. Try not to do that.