On The Radio EP

i finished recording the EP: On The Radio.

most of the songs were recorded at daphne's dining room table on a grey, cool, windy monday morning. i met josephine at the blueline for espresso & zucchini bread. we talked about childbirth & divorce & whatwhat. it was inspiring...espresso? conversation? so i ran back to the glen arlo & up to daphne's vacant penthouse apartment. i punched the red button & quit when i wasn't getting anywhere. and because the babysitter needed to go home.

the rest was patched together on our kitchen floor, surrounded by boxes full of old dishes my grandmother gave me, while the kids were napping in the afternoon.

1. on the radio 2. over & over 3. oh no 4. new year's eve 5. heat lets off.

$5 friday. or whenever

der-her!

we three e's went to the airport, shared a rootbeer float, talked to julie, brooke, renae, & joie & waited around for kate to arrive.

annabelle talked about joie the whole way home from the airport: "she gave me one ride, then anutha one, then anutha one. lots of rides [in the stroller]."

and kate made it back a-okay. i am happy to report that she will probably kill me for posting this hilarious picture. (it's a mask, folks...a mask!). welcome back, kater-tot, skate, tate.

VON BOYAGE

come one, come all!

who: yourself
what: a night of fun, games and dinner, just like old times
when: saturday night, 6:30 pm
where: mark's (dundee)
what: to lavish our best gal caron with love and affection before she and ja and the blondes head out to the final frontier

all who cares readers are invited, just post a reply here on the blog asap so i know how many seats to reserve at the restaurant.

OFFICIAL BOOK

"a tree grows in brooklyn" by betty smith is our official book for the spring. let me know who's reading it.

cupcake

i got a german chocolate cupcake this morning from cheryl (from sweet magnolia's). it was yummy. she helped me pack dishes in the kitchen.

i got my haircut in the afternoon & gave me usually ambivalent stylist a big goodbye hug.

i finished recording songs. i'm selling the recording friday night. for a buck or something. working on some homemade packaging (amb: recall "above busy street" pkg?) getting the glue stick out.

my dad called me this afternoon & it made me cry. my dad is so wonderful this way: he is so understanding & at the same time reassuring that everything's going to be okay.

book club update...

i am still within the first 80 pages of the book, but I am surprisingly "hooked" thus far. Only being in one prior book club myself, and without much experience in critiquing works of literature, I am not sure how to articulate my opinion as of yet. Maybe one of you more experienced literary minds could share your opinion and start the ball rolling from this point and it will help me know how to process...
thanks :-)

Absolutely Enjoyable

I watched this movie last night and thouroughly enjoyed it... I don't know how many of you are a J. Moore fan, but she gives and excellent performance in my opinion. Based on the movie, I am sure the book would proove to be an enjoyable read as well... maybe another WHOCARES bookclub option.

eat this chicken

i was hanging out with my friend amy saturday night, and she gave me a bunch of her favorite recipes. you've heard of julie/julia? well, i'm going to fix all of amy's recipes this week. amy/darbia.
we just had this recipe for dinner tonight and it's stinkin delicious. and so simple, too! TRY IT. if the rest of the recipes are even half this good, i'll post them too.

Amy's Balsamic Chicken

3 or 4 chicken breasts
1 pkg. dry onion soup mix
1 tsp. paprika
2 cloves of garlic, pressed or minced
1/4 c. balsamic vinegar (i ended up adding more, and if you run out of balsamic vinegar like i did, you can add any balsamic salad dressing you might have on hand. still turns out tasty)
2 8oz. cartons of sliced mushrooms

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine all ingredients except chicken. Place chicken in a greased casserole pan. Pour mushrooms and sauce over chicken and toss to cover well. Bake 45 minutes. Serve with rice.

we do what we can

started packing the bookcase in our family room...pulling books & placing them in HUGGIES boxes. i started looking around and realized how fortunate i am: that the things i think about when i think of leaving omaha are memories filled with friends, family, lots of laughter...many lessons learned, hand-in-hand, from you & with you, good friends. i pack my stuff and remember growing up here.

we got our first & only dog, spritzer, when we first moved to omaha. we lived in a rental home with an enormous backyard. we had three or four fruit trees & a slope perfect for sledding. i had a bowl haircut. i made my first best friend, suzy prokop, in that house. cathy & i used to prank the radio station from our basement. she dared me to pee in a cardboard box down there. i got my first barbie doll on my 4th birthday in that house. i got married for the first time while living there--to our neighbor, robbie lewis. it didn't work out.

now, my baby cries. more later.

the life you save may be your own

toss a handful of confetti in the air for flannery o'connor, because today is her birthday. which makes today a damn fine day. i love her so much, i cannot think of a single thing to write that does the subject justice. teaching "everything that rises must converge" and "good country people" is the highlight of every american lit class (with fitzgerald coming in a close second, caron). ah. i'm so in love i'm speechless. you lovers of o'connor, please help. write something about reading her.

THE LAST BREAKFAST

OUR FINAL INSTALLMENT OF THE WHOCARES BREAKFAST: NEXT FRIDAY, MARCH 31st. if you're reading this: you're invited. bring your favorite breakfast food to share, kids if you have some, & whatever else might seem appropriate. invite friends. stop by on your way to work.

we're open 6am-10am.

i'd be so happy to see you there.

u-haul

when you're tired & you wake up in the middle of the night thinking about renting a u-haul & how to pack a house, the best thing to do: have fun with photoshop.

the title of this picture: "dude".

*girl pictured doesn't not smoke weed. it's a joke.

happy birthday!

happy 1st birthday to annie & sophie delsenno. and to cathy: you've made it through such a wide array of change & you're still pretty, kind, & have all of your sense intact. wow. and you don't have a catheter anymore!

why i am so freaking mad

my sister, cathy, & i met at charlestons in west omaha after a mad rush through the kohl's sale racks. i found a really cool workout jacket. cathy found some jeans & shirts.

and now this: as we were sitting at our table, there was a woman & man sitting in the booth next to ours. i heard the woman say this to the man: "you don't know how much i hate your wife". and then, in between conversation, we heard each of them jab back & forth about, tossing the word "affair" & "love" as if they belong in the same sentence. cathy heard the woman say: "she's got you on a chain. she knows you're out tonight." my face was getting redder & redder & thankfully cathy's calm demeanor kept me from turning & saying something stupid like: SHAME ON YOU. but would it really have been so stupid?

on turning 65

It's the birthday of the poet Billy Collins, born in Queens, New York (1941). He's one of the few modern poets whose books have sold more than a hundred thousand copies. He thinks that too much modern poetry lacks humor. He said, "It's the fault of the Romantics, who eliminated humor from poetry. Shakespeare's hilarious, Chaucer's hilarious. [Then] the Romantics killed off humor, and they also eliminated sex, things which were replaced by landscape. I thought that was a pretty bad trade-off, so I'm trying to write about humor and landscape, and occasionally sex."

He was in his forties when published his first book The Apple That Astonished Paris (1988), but by the end of the century he was arguably the country's most popular poet. His collection Sailing Alone Around the Room (2000), has sold more copies than any other collection of poetry in the 21st century.

From "The Writer's Almanac"

Annabelle's sidekick

Linus the ninja.

a tree grows in brooklyn

i started betty smith's "a tree grows in brooklyn" & i have to, have to, simply must recommend it to you. have you read this?

and also: this reminds me of our idea for a whocares book club. we'll choose a book, read it, & then have a retreat half way between my house, your house, & everyone else's house. a reason to get out of dodge & to see one another. whaddya say?

they don't call me oprah for nothing.

bow to your sensei

ja's dad bought some kid-size kimonos in japan. domo-arigato, mr. roboto.

SOLD & almost OUT

we left violet with in omaha with my parents, dropped annabelle off in peoria with jason's parents, & we drove down to springfield to find an apartment or house to rent. and we found nothing. there was a great 3 bedroom above a pole barn on the outskirts of springfield, but the previous tenants must have smoked in the place. other than the lingering stale cigarette smell, it was perfect. off a dirt road, big yard to place in, large bedrooms, definitely out our current ghetto affiliation...oh ah.

while we were sitting in the parking lot of an apartment complex, our realtor called with an offer on the house & we accepted it. our house has sold.

so we returned to omaha without a future dwelling place, but we're happy & content with our two little girls reunited & a big snowstorm baring down on the midwest. i can't believe it: only 3 weeks left.

$10 T-Shirts

This is it... one of the better websites for ordering shirts. Everything is $10 until Wednesday morning. Good Deal.
Hope everyone's snow day is absolutely terrific!

the vernal equinox and one year being married

today is the first day of spring, the vernal equinox in the northern hemisphere. on this day the north and south poles are equally distant from the sun, so we will have almost exactly the same amount of daytime as nighttime. finally. FINALLY. a day of rejoicing for those of us with seasonal mood swings.

margaret atwood said, "in the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt."

ajw and i just celebrated one year of marriage. and it feels good! happy.

i bought these tulips yesterday and snipped them and placed them in water. it's time to put winter away.

Music Downloads

Updated my downloads page should any who cares members wish to check it out! How 'bout that snow, eh? Love it!

On an entirely different note, the picture is of my back yard on the banks of the Nechako River. It was taken by my Grandpa, Larry Reid. As far as I know, it was the last picture he ever took - of a sunrise no less with all of its symbolism, and for all we know perhaps it was the last he ever saw. I wonder what last splendid vista of nature will pass before my eyes without me even knowing...

epidurals and circumcisions...

this past week has presented me with a lot of "firsts." there is the obvious - having a baby. but there is so much more...

- the first epidural ever, which ended up being the first EIGHT epidurals ever... yes, the dr. says i have "tight" spaces... and even suggested i have scholiosis...

- the first time a pain killer (the epidural) has not worked for me, resulting in a severe drugging, in fact sometimes i still hallucinate

- the first time a MAN other than my husband, has been south of the border. and to think all this time i have so careful to get a woman OB and this week i really could care less.

- the first time a dr. has made several bad decisions while caring for me. (almost putting me on magnesium, mis-measuring my cervix by TWO centimeters)

- the first time i have been numb from my chest down (my leg did fall off the surgical table once!)

- the first time my husband threw up in a labor room - there wasn't even blood - just a lot of screaming

- the first time caron has ever seen my insides - and she liked it.

- the first time i have ever had an incision more than an inch and a half long

- the first time i have ever had my skin stapled together

- the first time i thought a dr. lost an instrument inside of me

- the first time i have ever been strapped to a table with no pants on (yikes!)

- the first time i have ever ordered an italian strawberry ice and apple juice at two o'clock in the morning.

- the first time i have ever said "oompa loompa" for no reason at all (these drugs were absolutely crazy... like i said, i am still messed up)

- the first time i have seen a recently circumcised wee-wee, and had to take care of it

the list could go on and on and on and on and on... but the best first is being a mom. little kids are great. there is such a warmth you feel, an attachment, a bond that is so strong. this baby is part of me. and i love him. he was worth the 15 hours of labor and the following surgery... and the following three days in the hospital. i would do it again. i would go through double what i did if i had to. finn is the greatest blessing and i can't wait to share him with you all.

Top 'o the morning to ya!

May those who love us, love us.

And for those who don't love us,

May God turn their hearts.

And if he can not turn their hearts,

May he turn their ankles,

So we may know them by their limping.

May you live as long as you want, and never want as long as you live.

finn

beach reading

hello from st. thomas, dear friends! here are a couple of pictures. the nighttime one is my favorite. i can't believe i took something that good. god bless digital!
we never knew we had a thing for the tropics until we got here. i told andrew that this is the best spring break of my life. ever.
miss you!

down with unmc, yeah you know me

last night we went to see finn, corrie, & justin at the med center. 8lb, 8oz. 19-1/2 inches. he's really cute. you should go see him.

and when violet got violent, i took her for a walk around. had lots of "this time last year" thoughts. funny how short a year can be, right? what were you doing this time last year?

this time last year: actually, i was probably eating lucky charms!

whocares' kids

A WHO CARES C-SECTION

ask corrie for the details:
announcing the birth of finneas [finn] edward easley, born monday march 13th around 9:45am by C-section at UNMC. she will be there for 3 days. i'm sure by tuesday she'd love to have visitors.

i liked it. i got to see the C-section. doctors are amazing.

harry potthead

i just finished the fourth book in the potter series today and went out and bought the fifth one. if you are looking for a brainless and entertaining read - you should pick them up! or borrow them...

"didi and the newsboy cap," an exceptionally long post

the sweet picture of daphne and annie posted below got me thinking about clothes.

very early this morning, while andrew was giving his legal brief (due today) one final edit, i was under the covers, feeling hungover and headachy for no reason. well, a week ago i bought a copy of "bazaar" magazine, the one with salma hayek on the cover, and it was on the night table. and so i picked it up and started to read. never good to read a fashion magazine while in bed with a headache. it can only make things worse. paging through, i found an article on sharing clothing with friends to cut costs, which said something like, "buying that $3,000 blouse won't hurt quite so much, knowing you can share it with a friend." ha. ha! a three thousand dollar what? you can get a 1986 oldsmobile calais, 72,000 miles, white with brown interior, for half that. i sure did.

the point is, some people really love clothes. you'd have to care for clothes pretty passionately to make a purchase like that. and if i cared that much for a blouse, i probably wouldn't share it with anybody else. i threw the magazine to the floor. all this sartorial musing led me to the realization that clothes don't matter that much to me. in fact, there are only three clothing items i've ever really loved. and two of them apply to men.

1. i love a man's bare foot in a brown loafer. ever since the 9th grade, when david cook wore dusty brown loafers on his dusty brown feet one summer at camp, i've been devoted.

2. i love a man in a blue dress shirt with the collar open and the sleeves rolled up 3/4 of the way. i could go on at length about the appeal of that arrangement.

3. i love a girl in a newsboy cap. this goes back to 8th or 9th grade, too. i had a red plaid newsboy cap, and it was simply too cool to wear. i adored it. i adored my reflection in it. and i was terrified of being made fun of for wearing it (homeschoolers in nebraska had a dress code of sorts, and anything resembling janet jackson was not on the list). so it's still wrapped in tissue paper, kept in a flowered hat box at mom and dad's house. only wore it once or twice.

but daphne got me thinking about it. if it's really one of my few favorites, i should bust it out again. forget that the season's wrong. forget that red plaid really isn't done anymore. next time you see me, i might just be winking at you from under my old newsboy cap.

p.s. the first thing i ever heard about my future husband: the day he met ali and emily, he was wearing a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up and loafers with no socks. ali said so. and she has a crazy, meticulous memory. so before i met him, i knew he was destined to be mine.

music

so here's some new stuff that i think you should at least check out. okay? okay.

Sean Hayes: Big Black Hole & the Little Baby Star (the title track of his new cd. a little more Jack Johnsony than his other stuff, but fun. esp. for spring. Jack Johnson might be a bad word on here. who knows! who cares!)

Bonnie Raitt: Love Me Like a Man (the best version is on "Road Tested". stanley fish could go to town with this song. anyway, the most exciting thing is that she PLAYS it herself. lots of women can sing. but not lots can play like that. damnation.)

Rory Block: County Farm Blues (a little dark, but awfully nice)

you know something? on who cares, we're frank with each other about what we like and what we don't like. i like that about us. haha. we're not afraid to shoot each other down. for example, a certain blog member suggested edith piaf a while ago and subsequently had to offer a defense for liking it (a rather unsuccessful defense, at that). recently a certain other blog member recommended "the girl in the cafe" to certain ones of us. some certain ones liked it better than some certain other ones. (3 out of 5 people vs. 4 out of 5 people). so yeah. here i am. recommending stuff to you all. we'll see what happens. i'm a toughie. you can shoot straight with me.

ps. monday was Casimir Pulaski Day. how do you like that? and i was even in chicago!

didi

have a nice trip, daphne. we'll miss you!

new song

no, not newsong the band. i added a new song. nobody does it like innocence mission, but i had to try. thanks for letting me use the apartment, daph.

it's hard out here for a pimp

why does charlize theron always wear really terrible dresses? doesn't she have a fashion advisor or something?

and i think jennifer garner needs to fire her alterations lady after she almost completely wiped out on her walk to the podium to present.

and finally, folks: it's hard out here for a pimp. oooh oooh oooh.

weird weird choreography last night. it was like church interpretive dancing. hokey.

batty

i was up at the church today. they caught a bat. beth [holding bat] is a bat expert so she came up to seize the bat & take him to the bat house she built in her backyard. she held the bat & let me pet it. bat wings. now there's a new food for "outback steakhouse". yum.

drink up baby

i think when you know you're going to leave a place, everything starts getting better. this has happened every time we've planned on moving. this morning, even though we were tired, the light in our bedroom seemed bluer & softer, more forgiving, more "a new day full of grace" feeling than ever. how to recollect everything great that has happened in this house?

gosh. i think it might finally be happening. i am getting sad. because this is it for me & ole omaha. won't be back here to live. ugh.

got some itunes singles today. good for gray & sad days.
1. iron & wine LIVE - the trapeze swinger
2. amelia - between the bars (cover)
3. kathryn williams - all apologies
4. the postal service - against all odds

creative writing and other marvelous glories

things went pretty well tonight. better by far than last time. i took some advice from a few wise friends (you know who you are) about making the classroom feel creative. we did away with tables and chairs, and had a circle of pillows and blankets on the floor, lit some candles (purchased hastily from the souq), and made a pot of coffee. immediately the all-girl dynamic stopped feeling like a liability. there was great conversation, ideas flowed freely, and i'm now a believer in the power of a rearranged room. thanks all for your good input.

Great morning.

Thanks, Caron, for opening your house for breakfast and fun this morning. Wish I could have seen more of the early crowd.

Funniest thing uttered this morning: Darby comparing living with a 2-year-old to living with an Alzheimer's patient. Wow, how true. Examples:"What's your name, Linus?" "How's your birthday, mama?" (six months ago), "What'd you say?" (nothing was said)

donutholes

the whocares breakfast was nice today. we should have more 6am breakfasts. thanks for the hospitality caron! and thanks for the holes, darb! anne marie, you JUST missed out on the donut holes!

rolls in the backyard... a mystery

once every few months, justin and i, and rudy, experience the joy of having rolls tossed into our backyard. we will find one everyday for several weeks, and then it is over. as you can imagine, rudy, our little dog, loves this. as pet owners this is not cool for several reasons.

a. this roll is the size of my foot. rudy will eat the whole thing, whixh i can hardly believe it fits in her stomach. rudy will gain main pounds if she eats one of these every day.

b. this bread makes rudy poop a lot. therefore i have to get off my sorry bum and let her out (often times, only to eat another roll)

c. these rolls are stale. grossly stale. i mean, if you are gonna throw food to our dog, at least let it be fresh...

d. what if these rolls are laced with cocaine? will our dog be an addict forever? will she need therapy, or rehab when the rolls stop coming?

there is nothing we can do about it though... if we yell at rudy to stop eating it, she gulps it down faster, and starts choking, and throws it up and then tries to eat it again... we have given up on stopping her, as it will probably cause more harm than good.

i have been very angry about this for some time now, thinking "why can't people just respect others?" but then i got a glimpse of one of these rolls before rudy got to it. now i feel bad. if you will notice, there are litle bits taken out of the roll. add this to the oddity that the rolls are always found under our giant pine tree... what other conclusion can one come to except that it is the BLACK SQUIRRELS... yes, they swarm our neighborhood and definitely have it out for the brown squirrels... black squirrels digging in other people's garbage, bringing there stale offerings to our home.

i think these rolls are a peace offering from the black squirrels to rudy. sometimes rudy will find one of these creatures lurking in our backyard, and she despises them... perhaps these rolls are the squirrels way of saying, "i am sorry, but we love your yard, please let us stay..."

what's a person to do... absolutely nothing... no control whatsoever. oh well. it makes life exciting!

36 weeks, 5 days.

me in my sweat gear, these are actually jason's sweats caron... they are good pregnancy pants. come to think of it, this sweatshirt used to be ja's... he gave it to me. but the belly, the belly is mine.

somebody get that thing

anna & i got the wheel down with a hoe. fitting for the neighborhood, yeah?

Here's a strange confession:

I like to keep a bag or two full of cheese crackers or cereal and raisins in my purse. i always say they're snacks for Linus-- and they are, but I think really I like to keep them there because I'm secretly afraid of me and my kids getting stranded in the car somewhere and I wouldn' have anything to give my child if he got hungry. I've found myself taking inventory of half-eaten snack-food that is in the car for that very reason.

Hello Sunshine

My mom bought this crazy little sunshine outfit for Ada. She looks concerned that I put it on her today. I don't blame her.

Started a new book...

I guess I can't really recommend it yet because I've not finished it-- but I will and soon. One of those books that are purely enjoyable and you find yourself sneaking off to read when you should be doing something else.

paint

william carlos williams, sort of

so much depends
upon a brown
jeep

driving west to
omaha for the
weekend

see you friday morning...