A., you guys, has a new battery.  For his phone.  I’m serious!  Call and talk to him, if you want to, for hours!

In other news:  the Dow’s down, the bull’s up, I’m eating lettuce leaves, and Chiquita I believe (I think that’s what I hear) is throwing up.

Julie Nipp had a party and I didn’t go.  Still.  I expect her to come to all mine, if she doesn’t I’ll be livid. 

Zulkey’s fun, read her. I have work to do.

Julie Nipp said I looked nice today, she likes my jeans.

My father-in-law has a cell phone and voicemail but he doesn’t check the messages, he assumes you’ll call back. Keep this in mind if you get his voicemail.

More later.

Julie Nipp’s making lunch, for invisible friends. 

… I had a disturbing conversation with G.’s friend, N., on the way to school.  We were discussing the term, “cuckoo” and its usage when N. said:

“I’m cuckoo for my imaginary friends.”

“Oh?”  I ventured cautiously.  “You have imaginary friends?  Where are they, N.?”

“They’re at home.  Some are on the wall, some are under the sea.  I talk to them at night.”

“Interesting,” I said, and then to the 411 operator, “‘Yes, Sherwood, Oregon, please.  Child Psychiatry or Social Services, thanks.’   Um, how many imaginary friends do you have, N.?”  I asked while on hold for the number.”

“Eight.  Gianna’s seen them, too.” 

“Well, Gianna might not be able to go to your house for a little while, Sweetie, until your Mommy gets you a really nice doctor.” 

I only had one imaginary friend.  His name was Bobby and I took him everywhere.  I don’t know why N.’s mom makes him keep his locked up all day in his room. 

Have a wacky Friday, kids.   

Shameless plug of the week: 

  Cedar Canyon Water — Crisp, sparkling taste!  Special teeth-whitening enhancement molecules!  Get rock-hard abs in three weeks or my name’s Wilma! 

What are you waiting for?  Order yours today!

Julie Nipp doesn’t have any sponsors. 

 … we’re having a spell.  First MLK’s day, then no school, now no school again.  Snow and ice ice and snow and me playing Life — I’m the blue car this time and I chose not to go to college then got knocked up with twins; I guess that or Iraq. 

Powell’s bloggers are teasing people with not-yet-released books — and this one sounds great, I want it!    Office Space on paper.  I’d buy it for my friend Shanthi but she doesn’t do books — Okay, S., I’ll get the DVD when they make the movie.  Or heck, we’ll just go see it and sit in the front row with trans-fat-buttered popcorn.

Walking to post office, then grocery, then home to make lentil stew in new Crock Pot.  Don’t hate me because I’m fascinating!

Posso guardare un film?

I saw the first bug today. I thought it would be later, in the Spring. Not technically the first, there are the small black flies still — fresh dead piles of them every day — but this was the first meaty one. It had long skinny legs, and wings, I think … hard to tell, I was running.

I’m having problems, too, with the carpet. I see little people in it, crawling around. It follows me, the carpet; outside, around the yard, today clear to Dundee before I was rid of it. But the shower is nice, the kitchen is fine. The carpet temporary … my sanity intermittent, carpet or not.

No school for G. today and she won’t stop harrassing until I play Candyland. Which is no fun because she’s marked all the candy cards and I don’t like to play that way, I just don’t.

I haven’t got one bit of work done since God knows when, not one bit. Have the manuscript printed and neatly bound (a different one, Good Wife is on hold), but can’t carve out the time to make it sing. Have rewritten it 20 times in my head. I talk to myself when I drive, mouth the words. If the kids aren’t with me (I pretend some semblance of normalcy when they’re around) I read what’s in my head right out loud.

“Get off the chair,” she said. “Now.” The man got off the chair and began to circle the room in an unsettling manner.

You know, stuff like that. Have ordered Hell, Purgatory, Paradise [Dante's Divine Comedy: Great Courses on Tape] for a project, and also with always an eye toward the memoir the children will write. Since order and discipline will be absent (at least from my chapters) I’m aiming for eccentric genius ala Dierdre Burroughs (as played by Ms. Bening):

“While my school friends popped their bubble gum to Milkshake, my mother blasted the Great Courses from my cotton candy-colored tape player. It was the formidable Neitschze I bonded to in my tender years, my mother swooping down with grand gestures over each point, rather than that precocious little bilingual cookie Dora.“

Okay, Candyland. I’m blue. More to come. (This was hastily pecked out, will make better efforts in future. Julie Nipp folds her clothes.)

[ ... if a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him." -- Mr. Twain]

Thank you, all of you, for your helpful tips on country living. I have had one pleasant reader advise me of the excellent duck hunting in these parts, another recalls good bar fights, and Lisa Austin generously shared her dry-skin remedy for combatting the erratic heat blasts of an 100-year-old house. Julie Nipp has demonstrated an appalling lack of attention and I’ll take that up with her shortly.

All in all, it was a fine week. The cows came home, the chickens roosted, A. fired up the riding lawnmower. (Carbon emissions equal to 350 late-model Cadillacs driving to Tulsa, but all in good fun.) The Cowboys won, we picked Luxurious Red for my office, we decided on the parking system (diagonal to the garage.)

That’s it. Though, psst! A. — I realized in our little chat last night you made a hypothetical reference to hating me … “those times when I hate you,” I think you said. You do know that you are not allowed to hate me, right? Right. And that I, on the other hand, have free emotional reign, no obligation to rationality, and reserve the right to “hate” you for no good reason at any time without proper notice … you know all that, right? Good. All set, then.

Back to your cubes, everyone. Heads down thumbs up. I have dentists and haircuts to attend. Whee.

I’m sick … what a baby I am. First morning in new house we spent at the hospital. I made A. take me there, to check it out, get drugs for pneumonia.

We left a 10-year-old house for a geezer — 100 years old. So there are drafts and odd closets and nooks and crannies and all that, it’s great. I christened it, on my sickbed, by finishing off Claire Messud’s fabulous, fabulous book, The Emperor’s Children … tremendous, stunning; I think the Times called it “near perfect” or maybe “perfect”. It was. Unbelievable. (Oh, here I found it; “near-miraculous perfection,” and Meghan O’Rourke was quoting another source but who cares.)

No TV, no phone, no net until Friday. So far no big deal. Though there was snow today and we couldn’t get the school closures. Otherwise, nice. I don’t know what’s happened in the world, except that Chad is being stormed by rebels and they’re saying they’re not. How that slipped into my life, and not the details of TomKat’s wedding romp, I do not know.

More to come. Happy antibiotics!

Julie Nipp eats twinkies.

No rain today, and livin’s fine.

• James Stewart or Cary Grant?

• Men look at women a lot.

• Painting outside.

• We don’t know what we’re doing.

Cheers.

Julie Nipp’s having Doritos and peanut butter for lunch.

I’m having panic attacks, I think. Like when Tony freaked out after the ducks flew away. Staying up late, forgetting to breathe, being nice to the cat …

I think A.’s freaking out, too. This morning he got mad because I wouldn’t sign my ballot. But I want to sign it when I sign it, when the house is quiet and not a tornado of laundry and backpacks and walking fast here and there. Like right now. Right now it’s quiet for five minutes — no Curious George no Clifford — and I have five or ten more before G. comes down. So now — no one rushing me, no one pushing me, no one handing me pens — I’ll sign my ballot. And this afternoon I’ll drop it off. And maybe I’ll even open it up to see how A. filled it out. Maybe not.

Woo-hoo! — this just in, unrelated to nothing — A. found junior’s jacket!

I have another excerpt that I might post in a minute. It’s a page I cut but I kind of like it.

Julie Nipp has a purple sweater.

N. is here playing with G. this morning, no school. And he just leaned over the Sorry board and whispered, “I want to marry you, G.” When I was five it was Brian Owen. Brian Owen wanted to marry me and he gave me a fake ruby necklace when we moved away. I never saw him again, hope he made it okay without me.

Zulkey has a funny interpretation of the Kerry thing today.

[P.S. -- Mark, I loved your family saga! It was beautiful, I read it twice. And Jerry now I can't even find Ben's white thing. It's probably in the same place as G.'s homework, my notes for my last chapter, and Junior's jacket. I can't live like this, without stuff spread out all around, it stifles my creativity and makes me mean. (Sorry about that, A.)]