this is the life

Two of the kitties are snuggled on the Littlest’s bed, all warm and snuggly.

The Boy’s Neo is all tubby and plumpalicious*

My Penelope is her gorgeous little tiny self.

*’tubby’ and ‘plumpalicious’ are the Words of the Day. When I drive the babies to school, everyone must come forward with a WoD, then use all of them three times during the day. Since the Boy rode with the Daddy, Littlest and I didn’t have to deal with ‘diarrhea’ or the like. Though, when he does come up with what we call the First Grade Trash Talk, Littlest will grin up at him and retort, “Diarrhea, diarrhea, diarrhea”. Ha!

divine visitation

Karla’s quesadilla Jesus made me think of the talking gefilte fish a couple of years ago.

Especially because the quesadilla and the fish shared the same fate. They were eaten. I’ve got to give Karla a break, because the quesadilla wasn’t talking to her when she ate it. That would have been way bizarre. Quesodillas don’t have mouths.

The gefilte fish, on the other hand, was yelling in Yiddish– prophecies, no less. And the Hasidic butcher grabbed for a club. Although to be perfectly honest, none of us knows how we would react to a fish telling us about the end of the world.

I hope I recognize any visitations that happen around here. Other than my angels. They are pretty much the definition of divine visitation.

Stuff–

1. There’s a new Fucktard in town, folks– and she’s SCARY. I’m going to award her the Fucktard of the Month title. February’s pinup Fucktard. She’s a specious, self-absorbed, sanctimonious (and yes I know– the alliteration overload has kicked in, but still)–SELFISH woman who is hiding behind her falsely sweet smile, and trying to hurt people I love. She (almost) makes me ashamed to say I’m Christian, until I remember that though she proclaims to be crusading in the name of all that is right and holy, she exemplifies not one single Christ-like characteristic. The really scary thing? I just described three separate women at our school, and they have a mini-coven in training.

2. Our seriously chubby kitty Neo makes alot of noise when she walks on the wood floors. Like, she thumps with each step. And she’s snuggleicious.

3. This is a very good day to watch the old Winnie the Pooh “Blustery Day” video. The rain song is one of the best sing-a-longs ever:

and the rain rain rain came down down down,
in rushing winding rivulets,
’til the river crept out of its bed,
and swept right into Piglet’s.

poor Piglet he was frightened
with quite a rightful fright
and so in desperation
a message he did write: “HELP! P-P-P-Piglet (me)”

4. mmm.. Diet Coke.

5. Have noticed new behavior in self: where stress used to trigger more hyperactive hopping about, now I sink into the blogosphere. Hmmm… must explore correlation between blogging and weight gain. Or not.

6. Boy just sent SOS message from school; his computer crashed. MamaNerd to the rescue.

Grrr…

…argh. Bleeeech–

pitiful pathetic paella

So, yesterday I took a break from the insane frackin’ chaos my life has been for the past year, and spent the day on my valentine to the family– a special dinner. I love to cook, and generally trot out new menus regularly, but not recently (refer to earlier chaos comment; by the way, isn’t ‘frackin’ a great word? Me likey Battlestar Galactica. Any chance to throw out hard consonants, and this girl is on the train).

Anyway, I had been researching paellas for a couple of days. My many cookbooks offered various prep methods, while all calling for similar ingredients. Because I would be out of commission from 4:00 to 7:00 (basketball tournament), I opted for a paella rendition from Cooks Illustrated, 1995. It had all sorts of early prep work, then a flurry of last-minute throwing together, and Voila! Perfect Paella! Which is Perfect Bullshit!

For the record, I enjoy CI’s articles, which are a scientist’s dream of experimentation on the road to ‘perfect recipes’, but usually they are way too anal for me. I’m more of an intuitive chef. Still, I don’t think I’ve ever had a flop from CI. Until last night. After spending a zillion dollars on wild lobster, mussels, shrimp, & calamari. After spending a zillion hours readying the chicken, chorizo, and arborio. Plus all the chopping of onions, mincing of cilantro, roasting/peeling/seeding of poblanos that was going on to create the sofrito.

HUGE anticipation, music is playing, wine is flowing, babies are washing up, and the table looks awesome:

So, here are the great bits from the night: theBoyChild playing seriously great tunes for all of us; Husband, BestFriend, and BoyChild all putting a brave front on things to make me feel better; the relief on the girls’ faces when I brought out the huge batch of macaroni & cheese (okay, the relief went beyond just the girls); the total hilarity the night descended into as theBoy starts pulling calamari (okay– SQUID) tentacles from the paella and throwing them to the Goldens. Ooo– and last night Husband and I watched “Dot the I”– great movie.

Now I’m in recovery. Must go heat up some mac-n-cheese.