Black Wednesday & Other Adventures

While we have yet to set foot in a retail shop for the purpose of procuring Christmas goodies for the children, I will be at Kroger first thing in the morning to purchase every bag of Archway Wedding Cookies available in a three-city radius.

Why? Because Archway, evil, crack-distributing corporation that it is, happens to sell my particular form of crack only this time of year. Fine. Fine, the Girl Scouts have been causing people to go into Thin Mint withdrawls seven months before the next cookie drive every year for a thousand years. It's nothing new. But you see, at least the Girl Scouts know they make a killing off pathetic addicts who buy eight dozen boxes and claim they'll freeze them to last all year. (They don't last. They do, however, taste quite nice straight out of the freezer. *ahem*) But Archyway? Evidently, the idiots manning the helm of that company have completely discounted the addictive nature and potential economic impact of this product (or, to put it bluntly, what the hell is wrong with these people that they don't send more to the stores?!?!?) There are other "wedding cookies" out there, but don't be deceived. They're all made with plain sugar and nuts. Archway, though, they've put Soilent Green or Kentucky Fried Chicken seasoning or something into theirs. There is no substitute.

So, anyway, unlike the Girl Scouts, you can't pre-order. You don't know how many you'll find on the shelves. You don't even know who will have them from year-to-year. It's like watching network television move your favorite show around until they finally kill it. It's painful. Once I'd found this year's store, I had to track down the manager, explain my twitchy plight, and beg for inside information. He then checked the delivery schedule and did a little math in order to slip me the hot tip of the week - the cookies were delivered tonight, but won't be available for purchase until tomorrow. Thank God the FDA doesn't know about these, or there'd be a limit, a three-day wait, and I'd have to get a seasonal job bagging groceries at Kroger just to maintain connections.

In other news:

A blind hem! I did it! I friggin did it! And they're gorgeous - well, for being invisible. But I DID it! Unfortunately, I did it an inch too long on one panel, and so will be reliving the joy again tomorrow. Ah, well, it was worth it. The boys helped with the measuring, marking, cutting, and layout. Somewhere in there, among four people (one of whom kept draping himself in fabric and running around, yelling "Nekkid Thomas! Nekkid Thomas!") working on one project, there was bound to be a miscalculation in there somewhere. Otherwise, the curtains look great. Woohoo!


Smidge let John read to him tonight at bedtime. I was going to slip off and put the dishes away, but how could I resist listening in on that? Looking in to see the boys huddled over a book together, enjoying one another? C'mon, sometimes a Mom just has to store that stuff up while she can. Winter's comin' - and with it, Cabin Fever. This could be the dose that gets me through to March, right?

Miss Emily pulled herself up beside the tub tonight and stood there, playing and talking with Smidge while he bathed. She stayed up the whole time, just laughing and throwing things into the tub. (We moved anything potentially dangerous, such as the clippers and the toilet brush. Right now, he thinks it's cute, but with her arm, all it's going to take is one good smack with a blunt object and all that cute-baby-girl stuff will come to a screeching halt.) Her balance is really good (she doesn't get that from me), and when she crawls now, she's fast. Alarmingly fast. Can't bake, take things down to the basement, or get something from the car without a backup watch to keep her within the safety perimeter. This little girl's going to have absolutely no trouble at all keeping up with her big brothers.

James found a copy of Frankenstein, and he's thoroughly enjoying that. His reading has brought up more questions about things like cloning, creation, ethics, and power. We've discussed some of them before, after hearing bits on the news, or reading an article in the paper, often simply after he's mulled something about a bit and needs to synthesize it. Somehow, though, fiction, far beyond news sources or everyday events, has a way of capturing all the "what ifs" that we just don't have the patience to field all the time, condensing them into terriffic plays of the imagination. He sometimes answers his own questions, sometimes makes me ask questions, and once in a while we just nod in understanding. It's a little daunting, when I think about all that the kids need to learn in the next few years. But it's good. And it's interesting. He keeps me on my toes. Maybe by the time Miss Emily is reading on her own, I'll be ready to tackle whatever she throws at me.

Man, today was GOOD. They just don't come like this all the time. But when they do? Mm, it is indeed a sweet, sweet life.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy