Maaaaarthaaaaa!

I have decided that blog-writing is a kind of therapy for me and that the main reason I've been so cranky lately has nothing to do with it being January - which is usually enough to reduce me to a miserable, hopeless blob- and it has nothing to do with the world going to heck in a handbasket...financially, politically, socially, spiritually...No, it's solely due to the fact that I've let blogging rust by the wayside. So now, in the glorious pursuit of my own selfish happiness, I shall subject any and all readers to the minutia of my life once again.

I was working with Philip today, and my phone rang. I answered it, said, "Hello, this is Claire..." and the person on the other end said, " This is Martha." Silence. Blank. Martha? Hmmm... Martha, Martha, Martha...

Now, I have only known one Martha in my life, and I haven't spoken to her for years. Not that we had a falling out or anything; she was a good friend from college and we just lost touch. But this was the kind of thing she would do - call me up out of the blue after years of silence and just say, "This is Martha." I was floored! I was bewildered! How had she gotten my cell number?! I could picture her - her smiling face, her dark eyes behind glasses, her dramatic hair, her feet in open sandals traversing the Saint A's campus, even in the snowy dead of winter, her kind, intelligent, accident-prone self, somewhere in Vermont on the other end of the phone. I said, "MARTHA R-----?!" And she said, "No, Martha from Nanston Dental, calling to confirm Charles' dental appointment on Wednesday." Blaaagh. So matter of factly. As if we spoke all the time and were great old, first-name-basis friends. I felt mentally whiplashed. How dare she sound so familiar! Suddenly, there was this great excitement- here was my dear friend Martha... and then she was snatched away by a stranger. Now I feel a great Martha shaped void in my life and I cannot find her on Facebook. So I am sending out a great Martharic yawp into the cosmic void: MARTHA! How have you been? What are you up to? Do you still live in Vermont among the heathen liberals? I must hear from you!

Trogdor Comes On a Bib!

As we drove home from church today, and I watched Aiden fall asleep, wearing his meat-head hat from Aunt Liane, I was seized with an inspiration. I whipped out my cell phone, got a picture of him and sent it to her. She texted back a moment later, saying that we should be getting a package from her soon. And then I wondered if perhaps it had already come and was waiting for us at home; it occurred to me that we had not gotten the mail yesterday. When we got home, I sprinted up the driveway and lo, there was a package in the mailbox! It was mostly full of something else, but the other thing inside was...a new, knitted bib for Aiden...and yes that is a Trogdor patch on the front! HA HA! ( For the uninitiated, Trogdor is a fearsome, fire-breathing dragon who wreaks havoc and destruction upon feudal countrysides in a faux-videogame within an online cartoon-ish...type...thing. Um, yeah. It's a sort of "guess you had to be there" kind of thing. ) It has just made my day.

The big blurry swath on the left is his hand. He's flailing his arms with exceptionally vigorous joy. And who wouldn't, after all, with a cool, new bib and the green tissue paper it came in to play with!

I apologize for the poor quality picture here. This was taken with a cell phone after all. And I know it looks like I cut Aiden's hair with a weed-whacker, but it actually looks a tad better in real life. Have you ever tried to cut the hair of a small person who won't sit still and who violently resists your bescissored hand's advances? If you haven't, you can't judge me. If you have, and have succeeded better than I, I hereby officially invite you to my house to cut Aiden's hair. Not to discourage you or anything, but I'd liken it to trying to apply lipstick to an eel. Except in this case, you're using sharp instruments. Which renders this task infinitely more dangerous.

And in case anyone cares to know the current video sound emerging from the basement: bagpipes.

"Very Punny" - A Post in Which Your Assistance Is Required

The other day I went to Lowe's with Philip and we were haunting the Lawn and Garden section, waiting for someone to jump on the forklift and drive it around. One of the employees came by and apologized that there wasn't a whole lot going on. He said, "The rain has put a damper on things." I laughed in that painful way you do when someone delivers a pun... and then said I appreciated his pun.

Later, as I tried to explain to Philip what a pun was, my brain went BLANK for examples. How can this BE? I love puns! I kept coming up with Tom Swifties, which is a whole different kettle of worms. ( Ew! A kettle of worms! There's another thing I love - mixing metaphors.) I know I could probably just google up a billion different puns, but I said to Philip, "Should I put a post on my blog, asking people to give me examples?" And he said yes. SO! If your brain doesn't go blank like mine, please leave a pun in the comment box so I can give Philip a better idea of the wonderful world of puns. ( Better yet, you can leave the comment on his blog if you want. We enjoy checking his comment box every so often and he LOVES getting comments.)