fun

Pigeon mating rituals.

~ thedailydish ~ 10 Comments

This weekend in one word: Glorious. Let’s face it, Spring is the BEST. Yes, I know I love Fall, and summer rocks, and winter has its perks, but whose spirit doesn’t soar when the weather turns warm, the sky is blue, and trees are casting snowy petals to the wind like confetti. Thankfully we spent almost all of the weekend outside. Yesterday we took a long walk with the ladies into town and back. They both really impressed me with their stamina and stoicism. Only on the return trip did they begin to complain about being tired, and even then, not much. Given that we walked at least 8 miles, I’d say that’s pretty darn good.

My favorite part of yesterday – apart from the “Cream Delight” donuts we had for breakfast and the general pleasantness of the day and company, was witnessing Springtime at its finest in the middle of the city. Rittenhouse Square was quite the scene. And not just the humans. All of creation seemed hepped up and ready for action. We spent a good bit of time watching the pigeons. This was my first foray into the live-action show that is Pigeon Mating, and let me tell you, it was fascinating.

It began with a dance. I noticed one particularly striking brown male strutting eagerly around a female gray. He wound his way round her, following her every move like a defensive basketball player, vigorously bobbing his head and strutting to get her attention. The female seemed less than impressed. Brown Guy was not thwarted. Within seconds he’d puffed out his neck to stellar proportions and began cooing to beat the band. This guy meant BUSINESS. His neck seemed to say, “Baby, Look at ME. JUST LOOK AT THIS NECK. I am THE MAN.” She still seemed disinterested, and in fact, began moving across the grass as though trying to escape. Within seconds, a second male had flown in. A large gray. He mimicked the brown guy’s initial bobbing dance, then BAM! there went the neck. Feathers puffed, flesh engorged and rippling. The two males circled and puffed, locked in hot pursuit of this most-attractive female, and she dodged and wove, completely immune to their charms. Here, there, everywhere across the park there were small groupings of pigeons reenacting this age-old ritual. Every now and then I would see the fruits of their labor come to fruition, as one of the males would leap up onto the back of a female, and seconds later it was over. and Another dance had begun. The whole thing gave me a new-found appreciation for pigeons. Yes, I know everyone in the city (or at least most folks) despise them, but they are truly interesting and beautiful birds.

An all-too-short weekend.

~ thedailydish ~ 10 Comments

Hope you all had a fun & relaxing weekend.

Me, I got spoiled. On Saturday my husband took the ladies to a friend’s birthday party, leaving me with 3 hours of complete freedom. WOW. I walked into town. I stopped for a chocolate croissant at a little cafe – all by MYSELF. I went clothes shopping at H&M. I cannot tell you how nice it was being able to try on as many clothes as I liked – so many in fact, that I lost track – with no children beating on each other, pestering me about how bored they are or grabbing my behind. I’d almost forgotten what it was like. And it was AWESOME.

Sunday, a beloved & very brave friend took the ladies to the Camden Aquarium, leaving John & I free to go walking with our dog Max, who absolutely LIVES for these rare jaunts as only child.. We explored a local nature refuge, spending a lot of time off the beaten path.

Back in the day this land used to be a whole town. Streets with shops and homes, and people. Before the Philadelphia redevelopment authority confiscated the land and razed it all to the ground to make way for airport (and Korman Suites) expansion. A very sad story, especially since this area, known as The Meadows, was long home to my husband’s family. The whole place is very surreal. Open fireplugs sprout from the ground like metal flowers, and the ground is littered with half-buried construction debris, tires, empty beer cans and other trash. The oddest thing is how many lifeless shoes we found dotting the landscape. Dozens of them. What could have compelled all these people to not only remove, but LEAVE, their shoes like this?? I half-imagined we’d turn a corner and find a big mound of corpses. It’s a very strange place. Feel free to check out a few photos HERE.

And now it’s MONDAY. again. Back to the workweek. I tend to get a little depressed on Mondays. But sometimes I enjoy feeling maudlin, so I’ve been watching the old Boomtown Rats song on Youtube and sort of reveling in it. Another weekend gone. Oh well.

Egg hunt with the chicks

~ thedailydish ~ 4 Comments

Happy Easter everyone! Sending candy-coated wishes to you all. Here at the palatial West Philly estate, we are still recovering from the FIVE HOUR LONG birthday party we sponsored yesterday, which was super fun & super successful, but left us reaching for the bottle well into last night. Well. o-kay, just me.

This morning my husband, live-in tech whiz supremo that he is – recorded the ladies egg hunt, which of course I just KNEW you’d be dying to see, even though we have not showered and are not wearing any fancy pants Easter costumes or anything. So w/out further ado, Click here for the HUNT.

My first sewing project.

~ thedailydish ~ 6 Comments

Yesterday I was positively GIDDY with the glory that is my brand new sewing machine. So after finishing up all of my housewifely chores, and reading half the manual, I decided IT WAS TIME. I put my younger daughter in the car and off we went to find my very first sewing machine project. And since I just knew my younger daughter would soon be demanding huge amounts of my attention, attention which would otherwise be captivated by the glow of the light on my new sewing machine, I was also looking for a foolproof bribe. Which I oh-so-conveniently found in the form of a 15 piece paint-your-own plastic suncatcher kit; the best $4 I have spent in quite some time.

As a complete novice sewing champion, I wanted to select a pattern which wouldn’t tax my repertoire of skills and throw me over the edge. Here is the pattern I selected:

It does look sort of complicated, but reading the back of the package I decided it would fit the bill, requiring only fabric, thread and the pattern itself. It was waay less complicated than the prom dresses featured prominently in the racks, and slightly more practical than the patterned scrubs, especially since I am not employed as a vet tech – well, not professionally anyway. I was not eager to undertake anything requiring elastic, buttons or zippers, since I hadn’t gotten to that section in the manual AND I WANTED TO SEW NOW!! I then chose a 100% cotton batik print from India, not only b/c I found it attractive, but also b/c I knew its busy pattern would mask any less-than-perfect stitching and/or slip-ups. It looks like this:

YES it IS PRETTY. Thank you.

So by mid-afternoon I’d delved headfirst into the wondrous world of My Very First Sewing Project. And then the fun began. Because I never knew how truly colorful my vocabulary is, nor just how thin I can stretch my patience.

As I laid out the fabric and removed the pattern from its paper sheath, I wondered WHAT THE HELL I’D GOTTEN MYSELF INTO. It’s been 20 years since Home Ec at Abington Jr, and a lot of other baggage has been crammed on top of the Suitcase of Sewing Knowledge in the interim. I pondered the thin tissue pages, I studied the pattern directions which seemed to have been written in some secret cuneiform for sewing professionals. I am a cook. I know basting, but WHAT THE HELL IS BASTING?? After several online consultations and a whole lot of worried sweating, I just said Screw It. and I started. I knew it wasn’t going to kill anyone if it wasn’t perfect, I AM NOT NASA.

So as I pinned, and pondered, and carefully cut, I simply prayed that this undertaking would not render me so angry I would throw my beautiful new sewing machine out the front window. And as I stitched and bitched, basted and un-basted, and jammed the bobbin for the UMPTEENTH F*CKING TIME, I knew, thread by thread, that I was earning my stripes. I was rediscovering the joy that is creation, and seeing what every creator sees. The wondrous beauty in form. Round about midnight (with a dinner break in between) it was DONE. Well, technically I still have to slip-stitch the bodice liner to the inner seam, but as you cannot SEE THAT IN THE PICTURE, it is DONE.

Weekend with Mommy

~ thedailydish ~ 10 Comments

My weekend in one word:

CHA-CHING!!!!!!!!!!

And in two:

CHA CHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For those of you who are vision impaired, Saturday night I won $738.50 at the Borgata Casino Hotel & Spa on a slot machine. I will NOT tell you which one b/c it is now my secret luckiest winniest machine ever and MINE ALONE. Plus I do NOT want to encourage anyone in the folly that is gambling. Let’s face it folks, you are probably better off going into the bathroom, taking out your wallet and flushing it down the toilet than to try to WIN AT GAMBLING b/c it ain’t gonna happen. EXCEPT FOR ME!!!!!!!! WOOHOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

What a magnificently crazy fun-filled weekend!! Today I am trying to get back into the swing of things, but frankly I’m really not feeling much inclined. And who can blame me? The prospect of laundry and chores, bleech. I haven’t even brushed my teeth yet, and I might not now b/c I AM RICH. I am ready to retire for good. Like my good friend Jim next door who has thrown in the towel after 36 glorious years. And I am not speaking of 36 years of WORK – Oh NO! He is 36 and has decided to retire. B/c THAT is West Philly living and I LOVE IT!

SO where was I?? Oh yes, the weekend was grand. Well to be honest it started out a little shitty, but what else could it be when a sewer line backs up into your basement? Ahhhhh. Nothing like the smell of poop in the morning. Or the afternoon. Cause that’s how long it took us to remedy THAT lil problem. And by US you know of course I mean my beloved husband, b/c he’s the one who had to touch the stuff. YUM-YUM. Here is a photo for your enjoyment:

Look at that hand. He joked that he was going to rinse it in gasoline, but I do not think he actually did. At least not while I was watching. He had to go to the Home Depot and rent a big giant snake. It is a tool for plunging out your sewer line and not the fanged animal of course, though that would have been preferable to the poo. So the weekend’s festivities got off to a bit of a late start, but you can see how Saturday night finished, so who cares. right? My husband is the BEST.

Sunday we took in the last day at the Philadelphia Flower Show. They were not being persnickety about which door you used either, much to my relief. Though of course you had to buy tickets which of course did not come cheap. But that’s o-kay b/c our weekend was ON THE BORGATA. So the flowers were fun, the swarming masses much less so. We ate lunch across the street at the Reading Terminal Market. We had cheesesteaks at Rick’s, which is still there, at least until the court date in June. I had not eaten at Rick’s for quite some time and realized why. No offense to Rick’s, but they are one of the few (if only) Philly cheesesteak joints that 1) don’t chop their meat, which I don’t care for, and 2) offer the “works” aka lettuce & tomato on the steaks. As a Philadelphian I have to say this is weird. I have eaten steaks all my life and have yet, until this weekend, to see hoagie fixins on one unless it’s a HOAGIE. Oh well. It was otherwise o-kay. And of course we had Bassett’s which rocks above all others. I had pumpkin AND peach on one cone and it was simply Heaven in an ice cream.

Yesterday we spent the day at Peddler’s Village in Lahaska. My parents used to live minutes from there in New Hope, and my mommy hadn’t been back since moving to Atlanta. Almost a year and a half ago. So we took the tour and tooled past her old pad. It was not looking too bad, but it just wasn’t the same. We spent the rest of the afternoon eating and playing games at Giggleberry Fair, the Peddler’s Village (slightly) less commercial equivalent of a Chuck E. Cheese. Since it was a Monday afternoon, it was D-E-A-D. My mom took the girls on the carousel and the older man who runs the thing let them stay on waaay longer than normal. I believe out of sheer boredom. It was great fun the first 5-10 minutes, but after that all three of them looked a bit queezy. My husband & I were both very glad to be watching from a bench. Afterward, we hit the outlets. My mommy bought the girls a HUGE bag full of stuff from the Children’s Place, they must have gotten like 5 outfits each. Everything was BEYOND CHEAP, like 99 cents, $2, $3. CRAZY. I think she spent $70 total on the whole lot of it. I really like the Children’s Place very cute & colorful clothing, but some of their stuff can lean distinctly towards trampville. Hoochie mama gear on women is mildly entertaining; on a 4 year old it is criminal.

My mommy also bought me the rockingest pair of shoes. They look like granny shoes, here I am wearing them:

YES they ARE COOL. They will look better w/out my fuzzy polka dot socks, but they still look great even with them. WOW. I love these shoes. I used to have a pair like this back in the early 90s (that’s 1990s NOT 1890s, though they probably looked just like this back then too). My friend Daffy just bought a similar pair. Yay! Okay now all you crazy salivating foot and shoe fetishists can MOVE ON.

SO I had been thinking of buying a sewing machine with my remaining Borgata winnings, but when we went to JoAnn Fabrics yesterday to check out the machines all they sold were Vikings. I’d read great things about Brother machines; not only are they inexpensive but they are supposed to be FABULOUS. So I passed on the $400 unknown Viking. I am going to continue researching. or maybe I will stumble into one at a thrift shoppe for an irresistible LOW LOW price and go for it. I am lucky, you know. But now that my mommy has once again returned south, the whole idea seems less pressing. Or maybe just less fun.

My mommy left at the crack of dawn this morn, leaving behind the faint scent of her perfume and the familiar dull ache which has returned once more to my heart. I know that there are people out there who have awful mommies. and I feel so badly for them. BUT I do not exaggerate when I say that my mommy is simply THE BEST MOMMY IN THE HISTORY OF THE WHOLE ENTIRE WORLD. Unfortunately for us, she is also a successful executive who now lives 800 miles away in ATLANTA. SO unlike yours truly, she can’t just hang out in West Philly for all eternity not brushing her teeth. Don’t get me wrong, I am beyond proud of my mom. To me as well as the rest of the world she is a certifiable SUCCESS in every way. And being a success is a good thing. But being on the receiving end of success sometimes truly sucks. I miss her. I wish she didn’t have to work so hard for people who don’t really care about her. My daughters sob when she leaves. And so do I.. Which is better?

All-in-all, this weekend of fun with my mommy has reminded me of several things. Poop smells. Gambling does not pay unless YOU WIN. And I would rather be with my family and have less money, than be rich & successful apart from them. YES money can be great, especially when you are poor. But it cannot buy you happiness. A lesson that Eliot Spitzer should have learned, but. unfortunately some never do.