Bill and Glory's Haven: August 2005

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

F R E S H !

Every night for several months Murron, our toddler, has the same routine. She gets her diaper changed (potty training is forthcoming), she gets into her pyjamas WITHOUT any help (as she exclaims, "I try! I try!"), and she brushes her teeth (as we exclaim, "Open! Open!). This is capped off with her favorite part of oral hygiene: FRESH! It's when we pour a small portion of mouthwash into the cap and she swishes it around for a few seconds, before the flavor and antiseptic agents start to sting her tongue, then spits it into the sink. We give her a bit of water to drink and when she has swallowed her 4th sip we take her out of the bathroom and she proceeds to make her rounds. She walks up to each one of us and says, "Smell my fresh?" and sends a short puff of minty breath to our smiling faces. She gets the same reply every time: "Mmmm, fresh!" She smiles and goes to the next willing recipient of fresh.

Murron has her words for everything. For more than a year she has used a word to ask for things: GOGGY. It's definitely a word of her own invention but I think we have all borrowed it from time to time. I've even caught myself using it to ask Bill to hand me something when the kids are asleep or otherwise occupied. Just the night before last she said, "Goggy?" to ask me for the digital recorder that we were using to record her singing, "Stop! And let me tell you, what the Lord has done for me." Another word is NEE NEE, which describes every food and beverage known to man. Oh, she knows what juice, milk, cereal, cookies, hot dogs, and chicken is. But nee nee suffices when she's just plain hungry and wants something yummy to fill her tummy. And when she is at a loss for words and doesn't know what something is she has a special word for that as well: A TU.

Bill and I know that these days won't last and one day all we will have is her recorded voice. That will give us comfort when her voice no longer resembles the one we will document and save and cherish for many years to come. In fact, I really think that her words will make it into a lexicon along with toddler-ese throughout the centuries. And we can be the proud parents of a history maker.

Glory

Thursday, August 25, 2005

What To Do? What To Do?

We have a very lovely coffeepot that was “free” from Gevalia just for trying their line of wonderful gourmet coffees. It is classy, sleek, and smart. It is the stainless steel model with a visible water level, clock, and we can program it to brew our coffee at the precise moment we…er…I or Bill, that is…step out of the shower and don a fluffy white bathrobe. There is a certain status that we feel we have achieved in this acquisition. We are almost yuppies.

So, after purchasing what we deemed to be the equivalent exchange in luxury coffee flavors, we cancelled our shipments. Now we’re back to Folgers, Sanborn and Chase (which I fondly refer to as Sanford and Son), and the occasional splurge of Seattle’s Best (my apologies to any Starbuck’s loyalists). We still have the coffeepot, our trophy of sorts, to remind us that we are still high ranking among coffee drinkers the world over.

Alas, a day of fear and dread came when we discovered that we had run out of cone coffee filters. These were the Melitta specialty papers that strained our coffee so meticulously that every cup was as smooth and enjoyable as applying mineral oil to a baby’s bottom. When we realized the fate of our existence I did what daughters, sisters, wives, and mothers have done for centuries: I told myself that I could deal with this little setback and that we would still enjoy our breakfast blend, just differently.

Upon opening the pantry my eyes seized upon a package of basket filters. With practice I have become skilled and quite nearly expert at folding these circles into cones. There is an art to this, however, and might take some trial and error but the resulting product is nearly the same as a factory made cone filter. On occasion when my eyes are still blurry from an unsound sleep (pregnancy in the last trimester will do that) I will place a folded cone into the coffee pot, pour in the Folgers grounds which I have fine-milled for a slightly gourmet flavor, and brew a ¾ pot of coffee only to discover fine silty grounds on the bottom of my cream and sugared beverage. I tell myself that this is to be expected but I resolve to make better folds and creases for next time.

Now if I can keep all these pesky flies out of my coffee cup my mornings would be most pleasant.

Glory

Sunday, August 14, 2005

Diamonds are a toilet's best friend

It's funny how I liked, and loved, some girls when I was a wee lad when they were just plain witches to me. The witchier they were, the more I loved them. A glutton for punishment, you say? Perhaps.

Melanie was a her name. She was cute. She was nice. She hugged me once after a kid named Augustine threw a ruler at me and nearly poked out my eye. (A quick hometown newspaper check several months ago revealed that my ol' childhood chum Augustine got another notch on his rap sheet for drug dealing, again. Seems that ruler throwing was just the beginning of his criminal career.)

But I digress...

I wasn't the only one who loved Melanie. Todd loved her, too. So, I hatched a plan to show just how far I would go to prove my (our) undying affection. I would buy her a ring. Yep, the fanciest, prettiest, most gorgeous ring a 10-year-old could buy.

I wonder how serious the jeweler took me when I walked into her store and started pouring over the diamond-, sapphire- and ruby-encrusted rings like a gem expert. Then, there it was. The ring that would be proud to be on Melanie's finger. I asked to see it. The lady behind the counter smiled and let me look it over. It was fine to me. I noted the price tag wrapped around it: $2.08. No problem. I reached into my pocket, brought out $2.08, slapped it on the counter and ran out the door.

The next day I told Todd I had the ring. I was too chicken to give it Melanie myself, so I asked Todd to give it to her for us. After lunch, Todd went behind her and tapped her on the shoulder as she walked with one of her girlfriends. She turned around. Todd kissed her, forced the ring into her hand and ran away. Success!!

The next day, I summoned the courage and told Melanie that the ring was from both Todd and me, but it was I who bought it. I asked her what she thought of the ring. "I flushed it down the toilet," she said matter-of-factly, smiled an evil smile, turned around and walked away.

That bothered me for a couple of days. How anyone could trod underfoot an act of love was beyond me. How insanely evil.

How insanely stupid.

For some reason, I thought of this episode a couple of years ago and finally realized that I actually stole the ring! That diamond ring didn't cost me a week's worth of lunch money, no. It was $208! Funny that the jewelry store owner didn't come charging after me.

Silly Melanie. She was pretty, but she wasn't too bright.

Bill