dual personalities

Daughter #1 here. Put those praise hands in the air, I still have a job!! Last week, while feeling anxious and uncertain, my mother and I watched several classic Treehouse of Horror episodes. And oh man, were they ever enjoyable.

I will admit that finding the exact clips I wanted proved rather difficult. I really wanted Kang and Kodos saying, “That board with a nail in it may have defeated us, but the humans won’t stop there. They’ll make bigger boards and bigger nails. Soon they’ll make a board with a nail so big it will destroy them all!”

And of course, the episode where Homer sells his soul for a donut speaks to me on many levels. Once again, on this blog, I find myself identifying with a large, overweight man who likes snack foods. This episode also features Lionel Hutz saying, “I watched Matlock in a bar last night. The sound wasn’t on but I got the gist of it.” which is something I say fairly regularly.

Homer’s scream is something that has really brought me joy for the past few weeks. And this clip highlights it quite nicely. The end of the episode has the classic, “TV’s warming, glowing, warming flow” that calms Homer down until the Tony Awards start and his urge to kill begins rising. Another phrase I use regularly.

I sound like a real weirdo. And a super nerd.

Of course, I can’t talk about Treehouses of Horror with the original and one of the best segments, The Raven.

Happy Friday! I hope this brought you some joy.

Can you believe it? Katiebelle is 5 months old.

Well this is a very darling age of sticking our tongues out, shrieking with joy, holding on to mommy’s arm while sitting on her hip, and so on. Add to that a winter wardrobe with ears attached to everything and it’s all pretty darn cute.

Occasionally, we practice sitting up (albeit pitched forward) and do very much enjoy this view of the world. As for rolling over, we’re still working on it. We’ll get there!

In the meantime, tummy time is the best:

I borrowed the title of this post from an Isaac Rosenberg poem that I recently came across called “Break of Day in the Trenches” . I love his characterization of Time as a constant yet somehow irrelevant force. Time didn’t mean much to the men awaiting death in the trenches, and it seems to have lost some of its power in these Covid lockdown days. Well, I do not plan to dwell on sad WWI poetry today, and I’ve definitely had enough of Covid, so I thought we could celebrate Johannes Vermeer’s Halloween birthday by looking at a couple of his marvelous paintings.

Born in Delft in 1632, Vermeer inherited his father’s art dealer business when he was only 20. Shortly after, he married a well-to-do local woman and they went on to have 14 children, of whom four died in infancy. Vermeer himself died at the age of 43. They certainly used to pack a lot into their short lives, while we who enjoy comparatively longer lives often squander our extra time. As Amor Towles wrote, we “shell our days like peanuts”. Just how and when Vermeer learned to paint no one knows, but he sure could wield a brush!

His sense of light, color and perspective is incomparable.

Our mother introduced us to the Dutch painters early on. We had a reproduction of The Milkmaid in our kitchen and plenty of art books around.

As I have mentioned before, three channels of black and white TV and nothing else to do are enough to get anyone reading and studying pictures. Looking back, I see how my own house, our mother, and art books shaped my taste in interior decoration and preference for natural light.

Unless one’s main goal is to follow fashion, great art provides a better aesthetic model than interior decorating magazines. Each one of Vermeer’s paintings invites the viewer to create a story about the figures and scenes depicted. His paintings pique our interest in times past and exercise our senses. I think it’s time to look at some of those large art books gathering dust on my shelves!

Moving from the sublime to the practical, I will leave you with my latest household wonder discovery — vinegar! The calcium build-up on our faucets and around drains had become so bad that I had started to plan renovations. (You might think it a tad excessive to rip out perfectly good faucets, but they were horrible.) The internet provided the answer: soak rags in vinegar and cover the encrusted area. Leave for an hour or two and then simply wipe it off. My faucets look like new!

Have a Happy Halloween and don’t let the ghouls get you down!

Well, Daughter #1 here. Thank you to my mother for covering for me while out and about traveling the state. It has been a busy month, but the end is in sight, terrifying as that might be.

In my work travels, I crossed Branson off my bucket list. It was much prettier than I realized and I definitely want to go back when I can spend more than 2 hours there. I also got to spend some time in Hannibal and I was less thrilled with it. But then again, it was a grey day and the day I was in Branson was the most beautiful fall day yet. [shrug emoji]

I’ve done some more sewing–advancing to pouches with curved openings. I must say, I think this is pretty darn cute.

I’ve also spent many a sleepless night watching this series of videos on YouTube. Again, I don’t know what this says about me. Actually, I do.

Tomorrow, I’m driving up to Columbia where I intend to buy several cases of wine to tide me over through the election. Pray for us all. And pray that I still have a job on Wednesday.

“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:37-39).

I have never been a huge Halloween person and have been pretty disturbed by the degree to which my neighbors have gone overboard with decorations this year. I guess everyone is in need of some catharsis? But I could do without faux graveyards on every corner. That said, I felt a real intense need to get my darling daughter into a pumpkin costume this month and I have no shame.

As I said on Instagram, this is truly the internet content we need right now.

The pumpkin beret! The booties! Her little tongue! She was feeling this costume.

After round one of photos, I decided I wanted to try to stuff the tummy so that it had more of a pumpkin feel, because this is how I bring myself joy.

Well,it sort of worked, but I guess I got less careful about keeping my own body out of the frame. And also, someone had had enough of not putting things in her mouth.

In other news, my iPhone storage problems have returned, probably because my camera roll looks like this:

The babe continues to be the sweetest “pumpkin” around. She continues to love her feet. Her thumb has also grown in her estimation. Sometimes she manages to suck her thumb and grasp her foot simultaneously — a double whammy of comfort.

We all have our coping methods — hers are just more adorable.