Octopus Falls in Love with You

Utagawa Kunisada.
Floating Bridge of Dreams
(Yume no ukihashi), 1854.

I'm making a game for Chris for two people, inspired by my freaky tattoo thing (so you know what kind of game it will be), called Tales of the Fisherman's Wife: Roleplaying the Floating World.

Set sometime in a fantasy Japan. When the Fisherman leaves for sea, he gives his wife 6 words to weave a story while they are apart. The Wife creates a story from his 6 words (see title of this post for example), which she tells him when he returns.

He rolls the d4 to determine how long he will be gone. 1-4 days. The longer he's gone, the more they miss each other. The more they miss each other, the more graphic her story.

The Wife rolls the d4 to determine how many fish he caught. The more fish, the more leisure they will enjoy. The more leisure they enjoy, the more input the Fisherman gives.

But the Fisherman and his Wife have caught the attention of kami, oni, or otherworldly beings who try to seduce, possess (or supplant), devour, or serve them. While the Fisherman fishes, the "Wife" Player plays the part of the being attached to him, and the Fisherman player plays the being attached to the wife. Players take turns playing out what happens while the lovers are apart and vulnerable to the demons or spirits.

Players must successfully hold off the spirits until the couple is reunited. The Wife's story should incorporate the couple's escapades while they are away.

It uses dice and cards. A short game, no more than an hour. That's what I have so far, what I came up with at work last night. Now I'm going to sleep on it.

Sacred Red Placenta Roses

Generally, when we do "sacred" or solemn acts, they come out awkwardly funny. For us, "sacred" means embracing the absurdity in what should be a solemn moment. Sacred generally involves dancing. Sacred means we call upon the Creator to come laugh with us. Laughter is holy. Silly or interpretive dance brings us close to the divine. Take, for example, how we say grace. Don't laugh. This is an important rite for us:
God is great, God is good.
God is dancing in our food.
Good is good, God is great.
God is dancing on our plate.
Amen. [louder]AMEN!

So this was our Sacred Placenta Planting Ceremony.

Ingrid's placenta has been living in our freezer for neary 2 1/2 years. Today we finally buried it. We sectioned off a new little garden space by the side fence and planted a rose bush over it. The rose bush was a Father's Day gift for Chris. I got it from BJ's for $10. For a $10 rose bush, it's quite nice.

Ingrid napped upstairs, Bea played across the street. Chris asked me to help him plant the rose bush. I said, "Let's bury the placenta while we're at it."

Chris said, "Okay. Do you think we should put it in the microwave to let it thaw?"

I said, "That's gross. I'm not cooking my placenta in a microwave. It'll be fine."

"Well, if you don't think it will the freeze the roots..."

"Dude!" I said, "It's warm outside. The ground is warm. It'll thaw before it does any damage."

So I fished around in the freezer and found the placenta, lovingly wrapped in two Ziplock freezer bags. No more mistaking it for frozen steak. I brought it outside and opened the bags. It was the first time I've looked at it in over 2 years. It was dark red and frosty, and I could see the umbilical cord, and the veins, and the fleshiness. "I made that!" I said.

"It looks like a kombucha baby." Chris said.

"You're right." I said. "Except it's bloodier."

"Maybe the midwives switched it on you and actually gave you a kombucha baby."

"I don't think so. I took a good look at it. It wasn't kombucha. Look how bloody it is. Kombucha isn't bloody."

"They could have poured blood on it to make it look like a placenta."

"That's silly." I said.

"But what if they did?"

I told him to shut up. Not in a mean way. Just in our "okay, it's not funny anymore" way.

And suddenly I got really sad. Ingrid's birth story is the poster birth story for the superior care you can get when you have your baby at home with competent, caring midwives. I couldn't make up a better birth story. I looked at the placenta and remembered it all, and then realized that this might be the last placenta I make. Ingrid could well be our last child. Yesterday at the farmers' market, I saw scads of pregnant women, and one mom with a newborn. I'm hit hard with baby-wants right now. Chris is not. Bea and Ingrid were both unexpected gifts. If we have a third, there would be no surprises. It would be a mutual agreement, an endeavor, a planned thing. We don't do many "planned things", which makes me think a third baby might never be. Things could change in a couple of years. We'll see.

But this rite was to honor Ingrid's birth, and to plant our rose bush. I snapped out of the baby wants for the moment. Chris dug a hole, noting he wanted it to be deep enough so that nothing tried to dig it up. I dropped the placenta in, and it fell with frozen thud. Chris covered it with a little more dirt and I watched some worms squiggle around. They must have felt exposed (and a little cold). I threw a banana peel over that (to feed the rose bush. It was a tip I learned from the man at BJ's who checks to make sure everything in your basket is accounted for on your receipt). We placed the rose bush over that, and set it.

"Should we say a few words?" I asked.

"I don't know. 'Here lies the placenta.'" Chris said.

That was good. To the point.

"I'll do a little placenta dance." I said. I twirled around a couple of times, and did a couple of stag leaps. "This is the placenta dance..." I sang to the tune of Nick Cave's "Weeping Song".

We took a few steps back and admired our rose bush, and made a plan to fill the whole flower bed with roses. (Yeah!) I thought about our third child who might never be, and wasn't sad.

"I like them rough neck thugged-out guys."

Primo and I have an ongoing joke about our "girlfriends" and "boyfriends". Each evening while cooking dinner we chat in the kitchen, and the conversation goes a little like this:
Me: So I ran into one of my boyfriends today at lunchtime.
Primo: Which one?
Me: Insert name of random cute guy I see on the street. [I often refer to actual people we know, and while I'm pretty sure said actual people don't read this, one can never be too careful. Why spoil the fun? Why embarrass myself more than I already probably am?]
Primo: And what did you do?
Me: [graphic description of things I only do with my husband.]
Primo: Well when I go to the gym tonight, I know my girlfriend will be there, and I'm going to [graphic description of things he only does with his wife].
Then there's lots of laughing and groping and everyone's happy.

There's much more to it, but I'll skip ahead. I ask Primo:
"So are you jealous of my boyfriends, since you know them?"
Primo: No, of course not, because I know I could beat the shit out of them. Don't you want to beat up my girlfriends?
Me: No, not really...
I can see that he's waiting for me to say yes. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.

Holy smokes! Is jealousy part of the fun of this game for me or Primo? If I was actually having a relationship outside of my marriage, it probably wouldn't be with any of my chosen "boyfriends", and Primo the hippie Quaker, is not one to beat someone up unless someone threatened his family. Then again, he's a big burly guy, and I wouldn't pick a fight with him if I was one of my suitors. If there were suitors. But there it is. It's great fun to imagine Primo brawling over me.
Silly but true, I still like them rough neck thugged-out guys. I thought I'd had my fill of them. I met Primo, fell in love with him, and for a good six months waited for him to do something shitty to me, like break up with me for no reason; or do something stupid and bad, like get arrested. It never happened. He treated me like a queen and still does, and hopefully I do the same to him. Even sillier is that I like to watch Primo pretend posture like a thug. He's surprisingly good at it.

On Primo's end, I'm his only long-term relationship, so other than his physical preferences, I don't know if he likes bad girls. I don't think he does, and I'm a poor representation of one anyway. But when we play our girlfriend/boyfriend joke, he often asks if I would beat up one of his girlfriends if I saw her on the street. Obviously the reality is that I would not. But I do see the glimmer in his eye when I say, "Oh course, darling, I'd waste the b-yotch who messes with my man."

And once I wished Primo would play role-playing games with me. We already do.

Bad Girl!

On Sunday I went under the needle for another two hours. I've known the Jeremy, the tattoo artist, for almost 6 years. We first met in an Anatomy and Physiology class that I was taking for nursing school and he was taking to get licensed to practice tattooing in Massachusetts legally. He's still the only legally working tattoo artist in Franklin County, MA, as far as he can tell. Anyway, I adore Jeremy outside of his tattooing skills. He's funny, gregarious, generous, a good confidante, and an all-around decent fellow who is fun to hang out with (and always good for a boost of positive body image!). Unfortunately we don't get to hang out very often, so a regularly scheduled tattooing appointment has the added bonus of catching up with a dear friend, and talking about stuff that we may not generally feel comfortable talking about with other people. We talked a whole lot about sex and relationships. It's like going to a hair salon!

While he worked and we chatted, I flipped through a tattoo book called 1000 Tattoos. Occasionally we even talked about tattoos and piercing. Both of us are not into facial piercings except nose piercings, and to some degree piercings in general. Admittedly, I've had both nostrils and my septum pierced at various times (and would do it again), my tongue was pierced for about 9 years, I got my ears pierced when I was 5, and I had my navel pierced when I was 20 and took it out 6 years later. They're still not my thing, but I appreciate them on other people to a degree. And it's not something tattoo aficionados admit very often. It's like not liking someone who should be your best friend, who probably is your best friend or close cousin. You see each other at the same places all the time, people think you look alike, have similar tastes in art, etc, but for some inexplicable reason, you don't care for that person. You appreciate their finer qualities and that there are things you share in common, but you're just not into them. Jeremy's not into facial tattoos, while I find them incredibly fascinating, unnerving, attractive, and often beautiful. We talked about how I'd like to have my arm tattoo extended to my forearm, and mostly finished in the next 18 months (Koi, a peony on my elbow, more waves, cherry blossoms, skulls...)

While Jeremy worked on a particularly painful spot, I focused on the book in my lap. I just happened to have it opened to a pictured of a beautiful and beautifully tattooed woman ca. 1920. I love photographs of early twentieth century heavily tattooed people, circus folk, Asian, Polynesian and other "ethnographically" tattooed (facial tattoos!), military, and most especially women. I can only imagine what it must have been like for a woman in the 1920's who just liked tattoos on her even if she was the painted lady in the circus. What compelled her to get tattooed? I'm sure the reasons are pretty much what they'd be nowadays, which is why the unnamed woman's face made for a good focusing image.

Even nowadays, but perhaps less so in our Happy Uber-liberal Valley, women with big tattoos are viewed as biker chicks, loose women, or otherwise ladies of some ill repute. On a personal level, I've experienced this. When I lived in Memphis about 15 years ago, a total stranger in a shoe store, who at first asked me on a date (I said no), told me that if I was his girlfriend, and he discovered I had a big dragon tattoo on my back, he'd dump me then and there. He then went on to tell me that it would probably be hard for me to find a nice man who wasn't a gangsta or biker dude. I told him that I I've had no problems finding nice men (I just didn't pick them at the time), that I'm better off without someone who would be so shallow as to dump me for having a tattoo, as it was my body, after all, and that clearly he and I were not going to be going on a date and I wasn't going to buy any shoes from him. Lastly, I told him I didn't judge him for not having any tattoos, so God bless him, sad little man. The fact that a total stranger felt he had some right of ownership over me is silly enough not to go there. But if I got that feedback from one person, I'm sure there are at least 10 or more people out there who are thinking it, (even if I didn't refuse to go on a date with them). Like my parents. Or my boss, who once said she "hated" tattoos. I don't think she had noticed mine yet, and I don't keep them all covered up at work. She can hate them if she wants. They didn't come up in my horrible performance review.

So this morning I asked Primo if he thought I looked like a biker chick, or a loose woman, or a bad-ass woman, or any other tattooed woman stereotype. "No" he said. "You smile too much." He's mentioned I have more of a hippie librarian look. He then went on to admit that he didn't believe those tattooed women stereotypes, and never did. Oh well. Primo again proved himself to be the most wonderful and princely husband I know he is, even though we were mad at each other all weekend. Peacemaking is so fun...But I digress. The shoe salesman was wrong on so many levels.

How much of the stereotype do I internalize? Well, I have a whole wardrobe devoted to tattoo concealing, even in summer. I'd be willing to not wear a bathing suit ever again if I had a really beautiful, but maybe disturbing tattoo because I wouldn't want to be judged, especially around my children. If anything I suppose I struggle with the idea of tattoos being symbols of rebellion, of wanting to be different. There are many other things about me that make me different. Being an ethnic minority in an ethnically homogeneous area of the country makes one stand out even in a business suit. Looking different is par for the course. As far as being rebellious, if not being a sheeple makes me a rebel, then so be it. I don't cover out of shame. I cover because sometimes communication is easier when people aren't distracted by how long your hair is, or all the color on your arms. And I am happier not covering them up.

So I'm not a bad girl after all. Well, I feel much better now that I've confirmed that.

There are lots of women out there with big tattoos. Yay. There are very few African American women with big tattoos (which makes me feel a little special, a little different in a nice way), and very very few African American women tattoo artists. The most prominent one is Jacci Gresham. The one time I was unable to recover from being starstruck, and thus couldn't even talk was when I stopped by Jacci's booth at a tattoo convention in Memphis. Sigh.

Revolting Bodies: The Monster Beauty of Tattooed Women
An All-African American Owned and Operated Tattoo Shop Pinz-n-Needlez has a female tattoo artist who's a Sister!
And another one
And another one
A really intense facial tattoo. It's not beautiful, but I can't look away.

Oooh! Almost forgot. The Klezmatics album Wonder Wheel is the best records I've heard all year. It's a collection of never recorded Woody Guthrie lyrics set to some incredible music. Bea and Ingrid both love it, and there are no songs that I have to skip over because of the language or content. Bea and I had an interesting and difficult conversation about war, why I hate the President, and how innocent people (like babies) die in wars--all prompted by listening to "Come When I Call You".

Furthermore, pleasant as you are, you totally and utterly suck!

Yesterday the universe dealt me nice big smack in the face. No need to get into the particulars, because there are so many. But here's the abridged version.

I was scheduled to have my yearly performance review at 2 pm. At 9 am, my boss hands me a pile of work that needed to be completed before I left for the day. At 9:30 am she hands me this form I'm supposed to fill out for my review. It was the kind of form that really deserves several hours of thoughtful contemplation. So between doing all the work she slammed on my desk, the office meeting, the constant interruptions, and the lunch I never got to eat, I devoted all of 25 minutes to my self appraisal, and I never quite finished it. Plus I left half an hour later than I should have, had to race over to pick up Ingrid, and proceed to the potential bright spots of my day.

It was also the day the bookkeeper comes in, and she had a thousand questions for me, and interrupted me basically ever 20 minutes with a question whose answer needed written 0documentation.

The performance review was the absolutely worst review I've ever received, and since I had no time to prepare, I had little proof that I'm actually a thoughtful and hard-working employee, despite my flaws. It was really bad, much of it was just wrong, inaccurate and completely unfair. And I can take criticism. I really had to hold back the tears and suck it up. I've never had a bad review. Ever. Not ever. When I brought up my good qualities, my boss wholeheartedly agreed with me, but since it wasn't in writing, my entire review on paper just sucked.

And then the migraine came without warning. Three hours later, when I was home, I downed 1000mg of acetaminophen and drank some tea. That made me slightly less cranky and a bit less in pain.

I managed to finish the project, more or less. It was finished to my boss' satisfaction. I picked up Ingrid and went home. So here's where it gets better. Meg and Vincent dropped their kids off so they could go talk to people about buying the house across the street from me. And their meeting went well. Oh how I would love for them to be my neighbors!

So I started cooking dinner. Pork sirloin, peas and rice. A simple, but tasty meal. And since I hadn't eaten dinner or breakfast, I was really looking forward to eating with my family. But they (Primo and Bea) didn't show up until 7 pm, and had already eaten, because they had gone shopping! I won't even go there.

After dinner, Ingrid took all her clothes off and peed on the couch and the floor.

Primo went on at length at how I should write a rebuttal to my review. I really needed him to say, "yes, that sucks, dear. Keep bitching until you get it all out." He did tell me I was hotter than Diana Ross and Donna Summer and the pretty woman he checked out at the bookstore. That was nice, I guess.

I got Ingrid to sleep, packed up my new green teapot, and walked around the corner to Meg and Vincent's house for our weekly game night. Things got better after that. Joshua, Emily, and Vincent, and I went for a walk (Jeddy, too) after playing Carcassonne and Pirate Rummy (Meg played, too, but didn't go on the walk), and Joshua bought me two donuts, and I got a nice pity party and group hug at the Dunkin' Donuts. That's where I remembered the two parking tickets I got that day. Lovely.

I'm looking for a new job. Thank God for my friends and husband.

He's a Cutie, Isn't He?

Here is a photo of my handsome and princely husband, taken about 5 years ago. I will keep it here for just a short time, since he doesn't want photos of him here (he's in cognito here, so I doubt you'd recognize him from this photo if you saw him on the street.) [EDIT: I tweaked it so it will stay up a little longer, until Primo asks me to remove it.] He emailed this to me with the message "Did I ever mention that you can't compete with my snood style?". Snood style is an inside joke that I can't even begin to explain. There are a couple of styles in addition to snood style. But this is snood style, because he's wearing a snood on his head (duh...). "Bean style" is another style, but you don't wear it. Snood style has nothing to do with sex, as inside jokes between couples often do, although depending on the context, "bean style" sometimes does. It's probably not what you think.

Clearly Primo is a bored today as I am. He also sent me this link of bad album cover art, which I think I emailed him several years ago when I was bored at work. #62, Demons Crying "Amazing recordings of demons speaking through people who are possessed by them", and #72, Karatist Preacher, are my favorites.

The Voice of Fertility is not a Voice of Reason or Logic

Here's a little secret that I never told Primo. Ever since I was 14, I've wanted wanted to have at least four kids. My mom is the second of 5 and my dad is the ninth of 10. I'm the first of one. I come from a huge extended family that despite the physical distance, for the most part we're all usually happy to see each other at family gatherings, weddings, and funerals. Anyway, perhaps I romanticized big nuclear families, because I love being in a big extended family, but there it is. I want lots of babies. As an only child, four is lots to me. Heck, two is twice as many as I grew up with. Primo is the second of 3, with a 13 year age difference between him and his younger sister.
The Baby Wants are back and hitting me hard. It started around my birthday, when I hit the late side of my mid-30's. There's this little fertility voice (aka biological clock) in my head saying, "just one more...three is the magic number...babies are cool and they smell like love..." I've heard that voice before, but this time she started out loud, and hasn't quieted yet, despite the voice of reason that says, "now's not the time." It's sort of like having the proverbial angel and devil on your shoulder, except there's a fertility goddess on one shoulder (take your pick) and an IUD on the other.
And there's this other voice coming out of the body of the co-conspirator in the whole baby-making endeavor saying, "not yet...no more babies for now...I think we have enough." Clearly we are not on the same page. Too many voices!
Primo and I have never "tried" to have children, they just sort of came along when we weren't paying attention. Six weeks before our wedding, just before Rosemary Caine put the final stitches in my wedding dress, I found out I was pregnant. We never saw it coming, and I don't recall hearing the fertility voice. I was in my 20's at the time, maybe that's why. For a couple of years after Bea was born, we actively tried not to get pregnant, and I think Primo and I just figured we'd have just one. I liked being the only child. Primo liked having one, I liked having one, even though I had always thought I'd have more. But then the fertility voice started whispering in my ear, "how about one more, and if it's a boy, you can name him James...Babies are sweet and they fit better on your lap than dogs do..." Yes, even the fertility voice is not down with the name Jedediah. Why James? It would go well with my maiden name. (Think Ian Fleming).
With Ingrid, the fertility voice just whispered for several months before she got what she wanted. I like to think I'm pretty in tune with my body, and Primo and I had gone almost three years without a surprise, with me just "being in tune". (The "being in tune" method of contraception should not be confused with fertility awareness, which can be highly effective, so I'm told.) Then we hit a stressful spell in our lives. Our landlord decided to renovate our apartment and we had 10 weeks to find a new place. We decided to buy house in a seller's market. I stopped paying attention for just one month. We should have known. With Bea, it was the stress of getting married and the wedding dress being a done deal. We found out we were expecting Ingrid the same day we withdrew our a deposit from a 200 year old farmhouse fixer-upper in Bernardston, and put it on our needs-only-paint-and-paper downtown house that cost us about $40,000 more.

I really try to think about this logically. Ingrid's not even two years old. The idea of two kids under the age of two or two kids in diapers is not terribly appealing to me. Our house is near critical mass with all the sentient beings (2 kids, 2 adults, 2 cats, 1 big dog, 2 frogs). With another baby, I would have to quit my part time job, which maybe should be on the "pro baby list", except that Primo and I put in equal contributions towards the mortgage. I'm returning to my pre-pregnant-with-Bea body when I was physically fit, and as much as I loved my pregnant body both times, I really like not having a pregnant body right now. We no longer employ the "being in tune" method, we actually use highly effective contraception that require a visit to a women's health care professional to reverse. We made a conscious decision not to get surprised any more. And most importantly, Primo really doesn't want more babies right now.
None of it makes sense, and I guess it's not supposed to. Clocks run on their own, and there's that part of me that sees age 40 as some kind of deadline for procreation, and 40 is on the horizon. I still want to have another baby. Now. See, call me odd, but I liked being pregnant and giving birth. All or most of it: the morning sickness (which I never had much of); the funky food cravings (extra rare red meat--especially lamb, overcooked vegetables, extra smelly cheese like Stinking Bishop and La Clochette chevre, an aversion broccoli, strawberries, and chocolate); the bizarre dreams (nursing a dog, giving birth to things that aren't babies); the emotional roller coaster rides; the unwanted attention and invasive questions from total strangers; the naming wars (Primo will be happy to know that "Jedediah" is off the table, now that we have a dog named Jed); the sore nipples; the sore everything; the uncertainty of everything; the meconium and other pregnancy/childbirth-related fluids, and most of all, the baby who smells like love and fits on your lap better than a dog.
Well, venting makes me feel much better. I'll go back and read the logical reasons why not to have a baby now, and the "Primo doesn't want one" bit, and hopefully that will drown out the fertility voice for the next month or so.

Somewhat related link: Quiverfull
And on the other side of the spectrum, Population Connection (formerly, and more harshly known as Zero Population Growth.)

A Conversion Story (with Murder Ballads) Part One

The first time I saw an autoharp up close and personal, I was hooked. One of Bea's day care providers brought it in to play to the children. Bea must have been about a year old. I've always had a fascination with harps and zithers (Who doesn't?), and string instruments in general. I played the violin and piano in elementary and middle school, and I'm a sub-par but enthusiastic guitar player. The autoharp is accessible, affordable, has the haunting stringy sound, is perfect for blue grass and accompanying murder ballads. Most intriguing is that you hug it when you play it. What's not to love about it, the horrible sound it makes when it's out of tune notwithstanding?

My first autoharp was a gray Silvertone from the early 70's. I traded a Memphis bass guitar for it. It came with a cool "Mother Maybelle Carter Plays the Autoharp" record, a few metal finger picks, a tuning wrench, and broken chord bars that desperately needed refelting and some replacing. I fixed it with the generous help of the kind folks on the Cyberpluckers list. I should have replaced the strings, and perhaps sent it to someone who could make it completely playable, but I didn't really have the money, or the time. I played it as is with great frustration and joy. I knew there was something fun in there, because when it was in tune, and I pressed the right chords, even the dead strings didn't sound so bad.

When I was pregnant with Ingrid, I went on a purge and sold the Silvertone on eBay to a nice man in England. But I missed it! I knew I'd eventually do it right, and this summer, I embarked on a new autoharp adventure. I ordered a custom Timbreharp, 21 chord in zebra wood. It probably won't be finished until early-mid 2007. So what's a girl to do in the meantime? Well, I got a second harp to learn how to maintain and tinker on. So that I wouldn't have redundant autoharp set-ups, I decided to convert that second one from a 15 chord chromatic to a 10 chord diatonic 'harp that plays in F and C, with lock bars to dampen the B and B flat notes when appropriate. Have I lost you? Go back to the Cyberpluckers link and read up on why anyone would do such a thing. Basically diatonic harps may be somewhat limiting when you're jamming, but they have a full, rich sound. Since I really only play for myself, I can convert a song to the key of F or C (or the corresponding minor keys), and once the 21 chord chromatic Timbreharp is here, I'll try to be less shy and find some folks to jam with.


This guinea pig harp is an Oscar Schmidt 1979 Model 15 EBH/R with an imitation rosewood finish (I think it’s an imitation rosewood finish and not a starburst finish) in pristine condition for its age. I got it on eBay, where you can get wonderful 'harps and total crap 'harps, and not know which til it arrives in the mail. I count myself lucky. It was bought new in 1979, only played a few times, and kept out of extreme temperatures. I can't say I got a bargain, there was a bidding war involved, and going purely on instinct I bid to my upper limit. But I did get a solid harp. I ordered a new set of strings and a custom set of wooden chord bars in walnut with birdseye maple chord buttons and bar covers from Lumbert Mountain Music. This is going to be a sexy little 'harp.
Last night I embarked on the first part of my conversion. I removed the existing chord bars and all the strings. I enhanced the experience with a pot of green tea (inspired by Alan Horvath's coversion story with coffee) and some murder ballads, and it was great fun to be had by me. I can see how autoharp modification can become an addictive hobby. I wish I had some wood appliqués to put on this baby. Next harp will be the art harp. I took the piano scale sticker off, though.


After reading the chapter on restringing in the Autoharp Owner's Manual I carefully took the old chord bars off and unstrung it, removing the high octave strings first. After playing a few old Clannad songs, I moved on to Pentangle's version of "Cruel Sister" It really set the mood nice and dark. ("They made a harp of her breastbone...")

Oh how I love to take things apart! Once I got to removing the the middle octave, I moved on to a couple of versions of “Pretty Polly"--my very favorite murder ballad (first Darol Anger's 9 minute jam with Mary Chapin Carpenter singing, then Hilarie Burhans--a gem I heard at the end of a Deadwood episode). Well into the middle octave string removal, Primo came downstairs after taking a GMAT practice test, frazzled and bitchy. He'd not studied at all, and was scheduled to take the test on Wednesday (he has since rescheduled). I read him the reality riot act. [“Dude, you have no one but yourself to blame. You haven’t looked at the study book for a whole month, and your test is Wednesday? Stop complaining!”] I moved on to James Yorkston and the Athletes singing a creepily incestuous version of “Edward”, and noticed that someone had dropped a Popsicle stick in the sound hole! Prime suspect: Ingrid.

My conversation with Primo degenerated to Primo whining about wishing they'd let him play Scrabble instead of taking the GMAT. I suggested something much more uncomfortable that involved a very sensitive orifice, to which he joked he'd rather let them do than take the GMAT. Well, that was a little too dark for me, so with a very unpleasant image in my head of my dear husband being violated by the Admissions Committee at the Isenberg School of Management, I put on headphones and listened to some Gillian Welsh until I finished and had a naked autoharp. Primo watched CSI Miami and continued to complain about the GMAT. Poor honey!


On a very sad note, I just heard there will be no more Deadwood episodes. Yet the Sopranos lives on. I don't understand it.
Stay tuned for more autoharp conversion escapades. I'm sure the next part will be interesting enough that I'll actually talk about what I do. Taking the strings of was easy. Next step: restringing!

The Courtship of Parthenia and Primo Ellingsgard.

Part One: Housemates Hook Up

I don't think the husband ever reads this, so I sometimes bitch about him. But not today. This is one of my favorite stories to tell: how the husband and I lived together longer than we've actually been a couple. Th husband once asked me not to post photos of him, or reveal his name. So I call him the husband. It sounds a little cold, and I worry that when I write about him, a mild complaint will sound much bigger than it actually is.
Since this is meant to be a happy fest about the husband, let's warm it up and give him a name. We'll call him Primo. [Tengetical anecdote about the name Primo: When we were thinking of baby names for Bea, the husband--Primo--said he wanted to call our baby "Primo" if it was a boy. It became a joke between us, and perhaps there was a little poke at some of the kooky (to him) names I was thinking up. Like Jedediah. Only thing is, I was serious. Or maybe he was, too. I never could tell.]

Anyhow, Primo and I met in 1995. I was living in a house with 3 other roommates, and my roomate Frank went to Amsterdam for a semester, and needed to sublet his room. We placed an ad in a few papers, and got a few calls. One was from a UMASS student named Primo Ellingsgard. He sounded nice enough on the phone, so we invited him over. The very first time I laid eyes on Primo, I sat on our porch and watched him walk from the corner up to our house. He had shoulder length curly blond hair that bounced with each step of his very distinct walk. Primo has beautiful, touchable, soft hair with these big curls. It almost breaks my heart when he cuts it. As he got closer I saw that he was really cute. If I remember correctly, he wore black Converse hightops. I don't know what else he wore.
Needless to say we picked him, and he moved in at the end of August. First we hung out as friends. All the time. I think around December, I admitted to myself that I has a crush on my housemate. By New Year's Day, it was clear to me that there was something there. Several near kisses, extended snuggle sessions, and tickle fights later, on January 13, I asked him if he wanted to make out, and we did.

Stay tuned for more Primo Ellingsgard happy fests...

The Alpha Bitch De-Bitches

Okay everyone together, deep breath. Inhale.......and......exhale. One more time. Inhale.....and.....exhale. Ah.
How could I forget that dancing makes me irie?
I took Bea to Dance Spree this evening. It's amazing what a little movement can do for your mood. Miss "Ha ha! The dog pissed on your gym clothes" Grumpy Pants boogied her grumpy pants right off. It was just what the doctor might have ordered. Bea and I got to hang out and have fun, and I got some exercise, which I need on a daily basis in order to maintain a reasonably sunny disposition. I didn't make it to the gym yesterday.
And I had a little taste of the proveribal karmic crow before I left. Jeddy got a little excited and, that's right, ladies and gentlemen, he pissed on my bag. I'm sure he did it not because he just adores me, but because he got excited and pissed all over the place, as young dogs are apt to do. Just a little dribble got on my bag, but enough to remind me how much it really sucks to have a dog pee on your stuff.

The Universe chastened me by way of the Dog. Thanks, Universe. Thanks, Jed.

So why all the pee in the house? Jed never lived in a house before he came to us, and we've had him for about 3 weeks. He's about 95% house trained, and Dec 1 was his 5% day.

My Dog Speaks for Me When I Must Hold My Tongue

The crap of the week:
I discovered my frog tank is infested with planaria.
My mom is having a cardiac catheterization and I had a dream about her telling me she was dying of a heart illness.
Work just plain sucked.
My older daughter tested my patience at every possible moment, and showed me just how similar we are.
The husband's schedule allegedly required him not to be home before 8 pm Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday and on one of those nights he chould have called, but he didn't because he never calls to say he's late, and I was in a bad mood, and I would have liked his company and help earlier in the evening, so I've been a little annoyed (pissed) at him all week. But what do I say? "You can't go out"? I can't say that. I'm going to be gone most of the day on Sunday, and the shoe has been on the other foot before--many times. So I didn't say anything. I just gave attitude here and there, enough to let him know I was annoyed about something that may or may not have had anything to do with him. He probably thought I was just menstrual. And yes, I know my behavior was wrong.

Maybe Mississippi Jed picked up on the last one. Jed adores me. I'm the alpha bitch in the pack. This morning, he peed all over the husband's mesh gym bag that was full of his freshly laundered exercise apparel. The husband didn't notice until he got in the car to go to the Y after work, and noticed his car smelled like dog piss. (I guess he wasn't going to tell me he was going to spend the whole evening at the Y tonight, and not come home before 8 again.) So he had to come home to wash his dog pissed clothes and actually tell me of his plans to work out all evening. I said, (paraphrasing) "not so fast, dude, I'm going out tonight with Bea, and you're staying home." And I laughed.

Thanks, Jed.

Note: This isn't how the husband and I normally communicate. Our communication is mostly healthy, but we all have our days, and today apparently was not mine.

I Been Good! I Been Bad!

On Thanksgiving Day I did not pig out, but I did eat much.

The day before Thanksgiving, I sat on my parents-in-laws' couch, and worked on Get Away Jordan for a solid hour or so. I made fantastic headway, and can happily say the rules are 90% complete. I will try to write an actual play account on The Forge on Saturday.

The day before we left for Thanksgiving dinner I took Jed for a walk and forgot my neighborly plastic bag. Jed ended up crapping in the yard of the neighbors who let their pit bulls loose all the time and inevitably find their way to our yard and crap in our yard. I did not feel much remorse.

The husband and I are about to check into a hotel near Salem, MA, sans nos enfantes, to celebrate our 8th year wedding anniversary, and we plan to be very, very bad. Well, as bad a two married folks can be with each other.

But My Husband's Not on There!

I'm not sure how we got on the subject last night, but Meg told us about The Cleaning Hunk website. I just checked it out, but I'm at work, and it's making me laugh so hard I'm crying. So I'll have to delve deeper later.
But this site is flawed. Where's the husband who has scrubbed the toilet maybe 3 times in the nearly 11 years we've been together? I don't think I saw him work a toilet even when we were housemates--when he was really hunky. I mean he's handsome and attractive still, but we've had two children together, need I say more? We're not the hotties we were in our twenties, and I have cleaned many more toilets than he has. Suffice to say, it would be a greater turn on to watch my husband scrub the toilet than one of those pretty boys. I want to watch a real man clean!
Perhaps I'll change my mind after I really look at the website. The husband may not scrub toilets, but he does clean the kitty litter, take out the garbage, change diapers, and do the dishes. I don't see Cleaning Hunk scoopin' cat poo.