it's almost lunchtime, can't you tell?

is it wrong that i think sloppy joe pizza sounds like a good idea?

because it feels wrong.

but sounds sooooo good. i might come up with a recipe and try it out. i'll let you know how it turns out.

the final countdown

man i loved that song. i got the europe tape for christmas one year, and played that song endlessly. now it will be stuck in my head for most of the morning, i imagine. regrettably, i hardly remember any of the lyrics/tune except for the nasally and dramatic chorus.

but in this instance, the final countdown that i am referring to is the countdown to BROWN FAMILY BEACH EXTRAVAGANZA, 2008 - launchtime estimated at 6:00 (or, likely 7:00) a.m., saturday. 5 days(ish) from now! in preparation, i have a billion and one chores for every evening this week - laundry, hosue cleaning, rustlin' up supplies, packing. the usual stuff. i don't know about you, but i hate HATE coming home from a long trip to a dirty/cluttered house. i hate it. with a passion. scott can vouch for that. i am usually a wee bit testy after a car ride of any length and just about anything will set me off into a tizzy of a tantrum, but i am especially sensitive to piles of dirty crap all over the place. that gets me every durn time. i hate walking in the door, exhausted from a 7 hour ride in a hot car, to be greeted by the stench of cat litter and rotten garbage cans whilst tripping over a pile of bags by the door then slipping in a stack of old newspapers. while carrying piles of wet towels covered in sand from the beach. call me crazy, but the experience leaves me annoyed to say the least. SO. i have some work to do before we leave. :)

i also have to obsessively go to the weather channel website to check the forecast for next week. so far so good! although anyone who has spent any length of time on any coast will agree that the weather channels tells dirty dirty lies. the weather on the ACTUAL beach - you know, where sand meets surf and turns into fun and kites and drippy castles? - can be completely different from the weather inland. even a few miles can make a huge difference. so while weather.com currently says the week looks gorgeous and sunny and not too hot... it's anybody's guess, really.

and actually, the weather doesn't really matter that much. we've had plenty of fun during crappy weather in the past. and i can just go to the beach some other time for fun in the sun (assateague camping!), but the ohioan inside me - the one who used to drive 12+ hours to get to the nearest beach, and only saw the ocean once a year - just won't be truly satisfied without sunny weather.

in other news, i am wearing a new skirt today. and it is remarkable how wearing a new skirt can make me so happy.

weather watch, 2008

Beach Vacation Countdown - 9 days. NINE DAYS, PEOPLE. that means nine days to lose 25 pounds; nine days to fit into shorts; nine days to daydream about doing nothing for a whole darned week... and, nine days to stalk the weather channel nonstop to fret about the weather for the week.

and you know what? my family has been luck (knock, knock on wood) for most of our vacationing years. sure there was that one year that we got evacuated from wrightsville beach and my entire family had to crash at my tiny 2 bedroom apartment in greenville. then there was that other year where it was freakishly cold and windy, and the only way to get some sun was to huddle on one of the upper decks in a wind-shelter fashioned from towels and sheets. no matter! the other years were lovely. and we always have fun anyway.

today was the first day that the week creeps into the 10-day forcast on weather.com. saturday is partly cloudy, high of 81. perfecto!

correspondence - then and now

as an archivist, part of my job involves bringing new collections into the archives. often these new additions, or accessions as we call them, arrive in odd containers - old cardboard boxes, paper sacks, laundry bins. this time, the donor was attending a history symposium at our center and arrived with a rolling suitcase in tow - full of old letters. over the years, i've gotten good at just whizzing through stacks of correspondence - picking up the general date ranges, maybe a overall theme or subject to add to the catalog record - without getting too bogged down in reading the actual contents of the letters.

this time, i've gotten reeled in.

i know the donor - she's an older lady, and an astronomer. we have other collections of her letters and papers already in the archives, so i knew that this addition would contain mostly letters to and from her parents. this bunch is from the 40s and 50s, and begins while the donor is in college and sort of follows her as she starts fellowships, and research projects, and moves around the country - still writing her folks 2 or 3 times a week. sometimes the letters are signed from "Daddy" or from "Mother," but often they written by both parents. They are all typed on an old typewriter with crooked and skippy letters, and often - especially when Daddy is writing the letter - full of cross-outs by the other parent, correcting facts and adding details to the letter.

the correspondence is useful in a couple of different ways - the donor's father was a scientist as well, and he often asks questions about his daughter's work or mentions well-known people that they both know. the donor often talks about lectures or classes taught by well-known people, or speaks of research and schedules of study. but the BEST part is the everyday story telling by her parents. at first i wondered if the daughter was bored out of her skull reading these letters, but maybe not. her parents wrote extremely detailed accounts of their days: where they went shopping for food, how much a cantaloupe costs at the market, who stopped by for bridge (and what kind of ice cream they brought with them, and what kind of cookies Mother served with the ice cream, and when they went to bed), what Daddy accomplished in the yard, how many times the dog threw up in the flower bed. crabapple jelly and how many pans of applesauce from the neighbor's trees. "desert bridge" and "supper bridge." it just goes on and on. i thought it was kind of ridiculous at first. but you know what? they were writing these letters instead of calling each other on the phone - nowadays, letters are reserved for more serious topics or for special occasions. if i compare these letters to phone conversations that I have today - with parents, siblings, friends - the content is pretty much spot on. i tell my mom what i am making for dinner, she tells me what she and dad watched on TV the other night, or how much it rained that morning. dad might say how he fixed something on the car, or his latest project at my sister's house. so these letters aren't ridiculous at all! they could almost be transcripts of any conversation that we have with our own parents, especially those of us kids who live far away. conversations like these keep us from forgetting what home is like, and they show our parents bits of our lives.

aside from all that, these letters are completely inspiring me to sew more. the daughter was going to college in a town without much shopping, and later working too many hours at secluded observatories (most are far from cities, to get away from the city lights) to shop for clothes. she would describe what kind of design she wanted in a blouse, or a skirt or a winter coat - and Mother and Daddy would comb the Baltimore shops for candidates. there are many debates on the color "plum" versus the color "aubergine" and "copper" versus "golden brown." discussion of plackets, and gussets and facings and linings. placement of zippers. aqua fabric with the red sailboat "motif" and the dove gray trim. recycling old clothes into new clothes - aprons made from dresses, belts made from the trimmed-off hems of skirts. this kind of seems modern again.

okay, i am off to go read more letters!

the power of rain

i am almost afraid to go home and look and my garden and yard. we've had nonstop rain since yesterday afternoon. and before that, it rained for part of each day for almost a week. the plants are threatening to overthrow the human regime. i didn't know that hollyhocks could get so big. mine (planted from seeds last year) have morphed into giant bushes taller than my knee right now - and it's only may! early may! i fear that i've planted them too close to the sidewalk. i might have to move them, so that visitors don't get lost or eaten on the way to the front door.

our power went off this morning. as the Gods of Monday would have it, the power went off just as i started my shower. the rest of my shower was a memory test, to see if i could locate my shampoo, conditioner, soap, etc in complete pitch-blackness. you see, i don't have a window in my bathroom. when the lights are out, it is D-A-R-K in there. and you know, when you stare at a darkdark room for a while... your eyes start to play tricks. you start to see weird blobs and become convinced that monsters or killers are creeping around you. or, at least, you do if you're like me.

lesson learned: you really CAN tell the different between shampoo and conditioner, just by feeling it. try it! you'll see.

one thing i am thankful for, living in a city: when the power goes off, you still have water! and you can still use the stove, if you have a gas range! okay, so that's two things. growing up on the edge of the boonies, we had a well for water and an electric pump. that meant at the threat of a storm, we would fill up pitchers of water - just in case. and the bathtub, so you could use buckets of water to flush the toilet. and if the power went off for a long time, and there was enough rain... then the basement would start to flood, since the sump pump was electric as well. that meant a 3 or 4-person bucket brigade from the sump hole in the basement, through the laundry room, up the goddam-slippery basement stairs, across the goddam-slippery wet kitchen floor, out the back door, across the porch... then you had the toss the water from the bucket into the yard and head back in for more. all without falling down in the goddam-slippery dark. plus, the yard would be all scary and stormy and dark, and full of werewolves and/or killers. once all of us kids left the house for college, my parents got a generator. go figure.

i hope the power is back on when i get home. but if it's not, at least i can still cook dinner. and i can take a bath if i want to. and that's fine by me.

cutest baby in the whole world:

maddie!

pictures, pictures, get yer pictures here!!!

i charged up the ole camera last night and took some pictures of the deck and patio garden, and the lovely new hedges! i didn't get any "before" pictures of the backyard. just picture in your mind's eye a dirty weed patch next to a shifty-looking alley. then make it a little uglier, just to be safe. then tip over all the garbage cans. and add a few empty beer cans. and that's probably pretty close to reality.

now it looks like this!



my garden is also getting bigger and better:


tomatoes gone wild


lovely peas starting to blossom

and little wild kitties getting bigger:




head over to my flickr to see the rest:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/melaniejeanbrown/sets/