Oh, my.

We went to another check-up at the vet today, and Lacey, Duchess of Dachshund, has increased from 6lbs, 4oz when we first got her (2 1/2 weeks ago) to 7lbs, 10oz today. Wow!

It requires eating, of course, but it also takes a lot of snoozing to gain that much weight so quickly. Lacey knows how to sleep. Yep, she's among the pillows on my bed, if you're wondering.

You're spoiled rotten, I told her, and at such a tender age.

I have no idea what you're talking about, she said.

Required Reading

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

Friend, READ THIS. Such a good book. Michael Pollan is a terrific, compelling writer (as you might expect a journalism professor at Berkeley to be), and his subject matter is fascinating.

Most people I know have been avoiding hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrup, etc, for some time now. I predict that this book will recommit you to such avoidances through a thorough and sometimes shocking history of how industry, government, and marketing have created the supermarket mess that we navigate through today.

I hear that Pollan's previous book, The Omnivore's Dillemna, is even better. Have you read that? I plan to, soon.

Many, many thanks to Sharlene Gin, who first said to me that I MUST read this book. I loved it, Sharlene!

You know you've crossed over when...

you're cooking for your dog at 6am. Her little issue persists, and the vet thinks we need to reset her intestines with some extremely bland food--white rice and extremely lean ground beef. (I had to go buy the white rice, as I've only got brown rice in the house.) She's also drinking filtered water. Ooh, la la.

The funniest part is, I didn't mind at all.

Dogs are a very, very sucessful species.

I blame it on the kitchen.

When Lacey got me up at 5:30 one morning last weekend, I decided to just stay up and make dough from scratch for cinnamon rolls. A few hours later we had these, plus some cream cheese icing to melt on top. Oh so good. I've been meaning to make homemade cinnamon rolls for, I don't know, forever? And the kitchen in my new home has finally inspired me to actually do it. I've been going through my recipe books, making new dinners--more spices, more veggies, more variety. Mostly extremely healthy, with the notable exception of these golden beauties. I think it's been good for our family's transition in general to have a lot of homemade goodness. I know it's been good for me.

She has this affect on all of us

Hubris

A woman was moving to another state with her husband and two children and 15,000 pounds of stuff.

Oh, come on, the woman said. This is my eleventh move in 18 years, my twenty-first move of my life, and that doesn't even count the usual college moves, and moves from one house to another in the same town. I've moved overseas a couple of times, I've moved with a baby, a toddler, with a baby and and toddler. Moving to Ohio? Come on, challenge me.

Okay, the universe said, and added a puppy.

What's so hard about a puppy? The woman said. I've had puppies before. Bring it on.

Okay, the universe said. It will be a puppy so small that it's dangerous for her to take any stairs or jump off any furniture in the house, so the simple act of going from the kitchen down two stairs to the family room and out the door to go potty will require airlifting. Every. Single. Time.

Okay, said the woman.

The puppy will have diarrhea. You won't know why. You'll take her to the vet and put medicine in her food and try a new kind of food and take her outside more or less constantly because that's how often she poos.

Um, all right, said the woman.

Of course allowing her to spend any time on carpet will be quickly nixed, so you'll have to rig a sophisticated network of boxes in every doorway (3) going into the kitchen to keep her in the kitchen. Then you will have to stay in the kitchen with her so she doesn't get lonely. You will shuffle heavy boxes across the house to the kitchen floor for this purpose. This will work reasonably well until your six-year-old strolls through and does not, cannot, remember to replace the kitchen door boxes.

Hmm, said the woman.

You won't be able to leave the dog outside alone, even though you have a fenced yard, because this sweet little puppy will be teething, and will eat everything she sees. This includes sticks, which the vet specifically warns you against. $60 in appropriate dog toys will be no match for the lure of a really good stick, which will be prolific in your new yard. You will put the kids on the job to watch the puppy and play with her while you unpack a box. This works for a little while. Not long enough to get to the bottom of the box.

Uhhh, said the woman.

The diarrhea won't stop at night, naturally, so the puppy will wake you at 2:30, and again at 4:30, and then she'll pretty much be up for the day around 6.

Uncle, said the woman.


Okay, seriously, it's been challenging. Or it was challenging, when she was still this new puppy that somehow became a part of the move-in. But now, 10 days later, the puppy is Lacey, this wonderful, loving, playful, adorable little friend. I'm smitten. You can tell she's going to be a great dog. My kids have fallen in love with her. They've figured out games to play with her, they've lost their fear of somehow hurting her or not carrying her right, and we've all fallen into a rhythm together that mostly works. And, mercifully, she sleeps a lot, as puppies do. Much gets done when the puppy sleeps. Not unlike the old days of scurrying around when the babies finally fell asleep. Actually, I've been in a time machine in many ways--more on that in another post.

The boxes aren't done, but they're pretty close. I've been cooking, because I love, love, love my kitchen, it's such an inviting place to be, and I'm there anyway, hanging out with Lacey. My kids are doing great. There are some very nice neighbor families and neighbor kids. My husband is back to work and he already loves his job. I'm doing well. I'm lonely for my friends (you know who you are!) but I'm okay. I'm losing the feeling that I'm actually on a very odd vacation in someone else's house, a vacation featuring heavy lifting and dog feces, and I'll be going home (or waking up?) any time now. It is slowly becoming my house. It's good to blog again. Love to all!

One last hurrah

We were warned not to go by just about everyone, but yesterday we joined the throngs on the National Mall to see the national fireworks display. And we are completely thrilled that we did. Yep, the crowd pushed in from all sides. Yep, trying to get on the Metro afterwards was crazy. Yep, it rained on us periodically through the day, and yep, our rears went numb after sitting on the steps of the Lincoln memorial for almost seven hours. But we just didn't care, and the kids were incredibly good sports, completely on board with the adventure. We had a grand time--people watching, playing chess, reading Anne of Green Gables aloud, pulling our picnic out of our backpacks little bits at a time, taking turns walking around a little to let the blood flow back to our legs, playing I Spy with the umbrellas when it rained, and lamenting that there are too many black umbrellas in the world.

And then, at 9:10pm, there we were on the top steps of the Lincoln memorial, with Abe himself right behind us, enjoying the same view of the fireworks that we did. We were a few steps up from where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his Dream, where Marion Anderson, disinvited from performing at a local concert hall, sang out for a crowd of thousands--a crowd of regular people of the United States who enjoyed a free concert by one of the greatest singers of their time.

The fireworks shot up, just over the Washington monument. They filled the air with noise and smoke and unlikely color, the throng oohed and aahed, and we were right there in it.

It was great.

So, good bye to Washington DC. Good bye to Arlington and McKinley Elementary and Nottingham St. The packers come Monday, and by Thursday, if all goes well, we should be in Ohio. This blog is going to be really silent for a while until I get my computer hooked back up. I hope to hear from you on the other side.

It's been great, friends.

More butterflies

Because we just hadn't had enough of them. After Leah's butterfly party, we went to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, which besides everything else that is wonderful there, has recently opened the Butterfly Pavillion.

Have you been? Oh, please go. It is so great. I know, I know, there is much gnashing of teeth over it because there's a fee, and everything else Smithsonian is free, so that's just so wrong. Yes, it is wrong, so gnash away, and then still go because you can't miss this.

The butterflies flitter and flutter all around you. They land on you. They land on everyone around you. They are every color and every size and put you in mind of spring, new life, renewal, and every story you've ever heard about fairies. This all happens at about 100 degrees, as they keep it hot and moist in there, how the butterflies and flowers like it best. So it's simultaneously a good sauna sweat. Bonus!

And, to top it all, there was this Uncle Fester butterfly, who looked for all the world like a tarantula with big ol' wings on his back. We kept our eye on him and were hopeful he didn't feel like going for a flight of his own. He was perfectly still on the wall the whole time we were there, and frankly, he doesn't really look capable of flight, does he? A flightless butterfly? Anyway, he redefined the word butterfly for me, and that's good, too.