Pieces of What

Let’s see, let’s see … let’s do quick takes, shall we? Because it’s all just bouncing around my head up in here, and there are so! many! things! I want to talk about, none of which are particularly interesting or post-worthy. How’s that for a fun set up?

1) I can’t believe I’m the mom who takes her 15-month-old to, um, gym class, but there you go. The truth is, I do kind of hate myself when I’m sitting in a circle singing some inane song about CIRCLE TIME! WITH FRIENDS! but dude, it’s with Megan & Lila (love!), it’s out of the house at the PERFECT time of the morning, and it’s cheaper than spending my life savings on cheap jewelry I’ll never wear at Target. And she’s faceplant-caliber exhausted after class (HA HA CLASS, like they learn anything), which is worth every penny right there, although honest to God, I feel SO RIDICULOUS when I’m cheering as my wee child is careening down a makeshift zipline in a plastic swing. Yes, that’s right, a zipline. I don’t know, either.

(A ZIPLINE)

(It was kind of awesome.)

2) At said gym, the one thing that makes me NUTSO is that they never refer to the moms by their names, nor do they even ASK WHAT OUR NAMES ARE. There’s this singsongy introduction, and we all share our kids’ names, but since the age group only goes to 22 months, aren’t … well, aren’t the moms more important? For God’s sake, this is really about US, let’s be honest. It’s OUR sanity on the line here, not the babies’.

We had some shifting of our gym days, and when they called to confirm, they were sure to point out to me that “Lila’s mom” agreed to the other day as well. And though obviously I know Lila’s mom, I was like, WHO? WHO IS THAT? And when they told Lila’s mom that they were switching, they said they were going to talk to “Samantha’s mom,” too, and I’m like, GYM LADIES. MEGAN AND I HAVE NAMES. OR SHOULD I JUST CALL YOU GYM LADY?

3) I do believe that I have finally, and for real this time, given up on Grey’s Anatomy. I didn’t see the season finale, nor did I TiVo it, and after hearing of the horror of horrors and what a totally stressful scene it was, I’m just like, really? Really, Shonda? I’m done. I don’t care about Mer, Der, Christina, Owen, Teddy or whoever the eff the next stupidly-named doctor who joins the scene is. I don’t care. I’m finished with you! FINISHED! FINISHED.

4) I am also all set with bathing my child. ALL SET, PLEASE. AND THANK YOU. We’re going through what is very clearly A Phase, but it is an UNPLEASANT phase, one that involves a refusal to have any water on top of her head, which means I can just barely wash it, but conditioning and combing it out? OH PLEASE. At this point, the back of her hair very clearly resembles a NEST of some sort, and isn’t that something we say to be funny? My hair looks like a rat’s nest? HA HA. Hers actually does. The back of it is all tangled and screwy and like, STUFF GETS STUCK IN IT back there. I pull lint out of it on an hourly basis, and I am not kidding, this morning I had a very frustrating moment removing the Velcro arm of a very tiny monkey. There are MONKEYS in my kid’s hair, for crying out loud. MONKEYS.

5) GUESS WHAT STARTS ON SUNDAY? Oh that’s right. TRUE BLOOD. Guess what comes out shortly? MY TRUE BLOOD BOOK. I’m giving away copies this week, so stay tuned! WHOO. Also, I’ll be writing updates throughout the season on Smart Pop’s site, so keep your eyes peeled this season. For my part, I hear that Eric has a new love interest, and while the prospect of more Naked Eric is very appealing, I am strangely possessive over Naked Eric (what?) and am really only interested in Naked Eric with Naked Sookie, even though I don’t even LIKE Sookie that much. How do you even explain this? You don’t.

I also hope Bill is eaten by wolves. Which, given the trajectory of the novels, is not entirely outside of the realm of possibility. (Oh stop, that’s not a spoiler. I only WISH he was EATEN by them.)

6) OH YOU GUYS, WITH THE DINNER SUGGESTIONS. I want to hug and kiss and love on each and every one of you. I have taken them all to deep, deep culinary heart, and have implemented a few of your ideas already. And, in fact, this week is Ground Zero for testing, and I’ll update you as we go. I should also add that explaining the many nuances of Adam’s culinary tolerances is sort of impossible, but that “saucy” does not apply to things that are supposed to have sauce, like pasta.

Ergo, tonight’s meal was pasta with sausage, peppers and onions and it was DELICIOUS, if I do say so. I picked up two links of hot Italian chicken sausage at Whole Foods, chopped it up and sauteed it with some onions and red/yellow peppers, topped off with Trader Joe’s puttanesca sauce in a jar, served over whole wheat rotini. SO GOOD. I sauteed the sausage/veggies during naptime, threw the sauce over it, and just left it on low until dinner, when I boiled the pasta and baked a take n’ bake loaf from TJ’s as accompaniment.

Not that you need any tips from me, much less the Food Douche kind, as YOU are the culinary geniuses, but I almost never make my own tomato sauce anymore, since every blasted can of tomatoes has BPA in it, and I’m also kind of freakish about which jarred sauces I’ll use, because an alarming number of sauces have HFCS in them, which, I’m sorry, what? Tomato sauce and corn syrup, what? GROSS. And also, WHY? Plus Trader Joe’s sauces are almost always delicious and superinexpensive and … oh yum. It was great, and we all ate together at 5:30. Only downside: It was a bit too spicy for Sam, as a lot of our meals are, so she had rotini with butter and cheese, plus fruit.

And yet: highly recommend. Also? Leftovers out the ying yang. WIN.

Happy Monday, y’all!

*MGMT

85 comments June 6th, 2010