Showing posts with label Carmen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Carmen. Show all posts

Saturday, December 20, 2014

Merriment



So, last night I made gnocchi with Italian sausage and Savoy cabbage. I'm using this very cool food service called Blue Apron which you should check out all on your own as this is not a sponsored post nor an infomercial (I only hawk friends' books and creative endeavors). That's Saint Carmen in the background, helping with Sophie. When the boys sat down to eat, I learned that they had made a bet on whom could keep their hands the straightest throughout the meal for the longest time.



They set the table that way. They got drinks from the fridge that way, including ice. They sprinkled parmesan cheese that way, and they ate and drank that way. They also laughed huge guffaws throughout the dinner while Carmen, Sophie and I shook our heads and occasionally burst out laughing, too.

Reader, you know how you wonder what dark secrets lie behind families' seeming normalcy?



There is no darkness here, and there might not even be light.

There is idiocy of the merriest proportion.

When Oliver started screaming that his hand was stuck and then, for real, started to nearly cry because of the pain, when I stopped drinking my 22 oz. bottle of hard cider long enough to rub his cramped hands vigorously, Henry declared himself the winner.

Later, I had to lie down to digest all the merriment and my 22 oz. hard cider.



How lovely are my branches.

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

How We Do It: Part Part XLIX




All day long, here and there, I've felt like crying. I don't really know why nor do I think we have to attribute something to everything. Is Mercury in retrograde? Are there solar flares? Are half the animal species of the earth truly gone forever? Sophie has had several days of increased seizures. Last night, I heard the telltale cry as Carmen was bathing her. I burst into the bathroom to help. Sophie lay naked, fully exposed and jerking. Carmen was crouched down in the tub, holding her under the arms, protecting her head. Her legs were banging into the sides of the tub, her toes twisted. I reached down under her knees, and together Carmen and I lifted her up and out of the tub, lay her down on the tile floor, grabbed towels to cover her. There's not much worse for me in Seizure Land than the naked bathtub seizure. Even today, as Oliver and I filled one of Moye's beautiful bowls with cactus blend, carefully placed a few little cacti in, sprinkled tiny pebbles and sparkly stones around them, and placed an air plant in the hole at the top of the vintage baby, I saw Sophie's eyes in my head, dark and implacable. Is she ok? one of the boys called out from the kitchen last night, and I said, Yes. Go ahead and start dinner. We ate Korean-style beef on skewers and rice and broccoli slaw. Carmen brought Sophie into the kitchen and fed her while the boys and I finished up. Contrary to what you might think, I never, ever get used to it.  The fit, the flare, the start, the life goes on.

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