Coca Cola Blak -c'est tres delicieux!

This is my new special treat. I got one once in a gas station last winter and I LOVED it. But then I didn't see it for a while and assumed, like so many things I like, that it didn't take off and was discontinued. But not so--I got a 4 pack today from a local small grocery store--hooray!

Although this is what the official website has to say, I would describe it more as a very dark and luxurious chocolate/caramel/coffee Coke. It is decadent, like Godiva chocolates or something. It is amazing. It only comes in little glass bottles and that might make it more special. (In fact, I know that that makes it more special, because just imagining drinking it out of a plastic cup makes me feel very sad.) So yes, the little glass bottle adds to the whole thing.

If you like Guinness, espresso, or dark chocolates, give this a grown up, sultry, big sister of Coke a try. I think you might just find that its awesome.

Big Wheel link

Here is a link that I got by typing "Big Wheel Tricycle" into Froogle.com

http://www.playthingspast.com/em701.html

With an adjustable seat (no tools required, just lift it out and pop it in wherever you want) it can be shared with more than one kid.

If you don't know about Froogle, oh my gosh-- it is a service linked on the google main page that price shops for you! Try it out! Save hours!

The Bald Cypress

The seed

The leaves
The crazy roots
The bark
The "knees"

The body shape
Seed again
Swamp livin'
One more pic of the gorgeous fruit.

There is a tree that I love, called the Bald Cypress. I could have copied and pasted something off the net here, but that just isn't my style. So lemme tell ya about this cool, cool tree.

It kinda looks like an evergreen at first glance--it has needley looking, feathery leaves. It has a main trunk that is tall and thin, like a pine. But, if you get lucky enough to get close to one, you might find yourself thinking "huh?" You will see that has a very, very peculiar fruit, which looks like a lumpy little globe! They are fantastic, blue and brown and bizzarre.

The trunk has a very rosy hue, and is shaggy and flaking off. This may or may not catch your eye--but hands-down, the neatest thing about the Bald Cypress are its' knees! It has these roots that bulge and grow upwards out of the surrounding areas, all around the tree and far , far away! These have come to be known as their knees. They really do look like knobby, bumpy, scary knees of an old creepy tree person. These could be really bad for your home's plumbing, I am thinking, if you had a Bald Cypress in your yard.

This tree is supposedly unheard of where I live--it is a swamp tree! The knees are usually pictured as protruding up out of the swampy waters of Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, the Carolinas. But we had one by our old house, and tonight, out walking with the boys, I discovered one by us! I was so happy! I wanted the people to be out in their yard, so I could talk to them about their Bald Cypress, and they could think I was a freak, and I would not care. And maybe they would start to love it, if they didn't already.

Maybe you have one near you, and you didn't even know it. Tell me if you see one, ok?

Big Wheel bliss

There are few things in the world of childhood more awesome and right-on as a low rider, Big Wheel bike. Trike. Three wheels is a trike. Whatever. You know exactly what I am talking about...that rumbling sound, the determined way that a kid has to wriggle their whole body to really make it fly---priceless, such a snippet in time, such a CLASSIC. Any other words escape me. Gertie from E.T.? That kid from The Shining? Everyone you knew in the '70's and '80's?

I don't like these tiny versions of big kid bicycles that the stores are promoting nowadays. I think they are inferior, unstable, dangerous, even. It's a very new invention, these itty-bitty bikes with the little training wheels--and ya know what? I am going to go so far as to say SCREW 'EM! I hate them. It is a big ploy to sell you more and more itty bitty __itty little bikes, and helmets and pads, too--'cuz you know what? A Big Wheel, a genuine Big Wheel, can last your kid from age 3 to 8 or even longer. In this disposable age, wheres the "value" in something that actually lasts more than 2 minutes? Those tiny tiny bikes with the 10 inch wheel diameters suck. They tip over, and if your child is that tiny, to ride a ten inch bicycle, then they are pretty young and tippy themselves. Why add more misery?

Kids on Big Wheels can FLY. They can SOAR. They are steady and sturdy and stable and strong and powerful and mighty and awesome--exactly what the big corp's do NOT want for our kids--its a conspiracy, I swear it. I swear it. I swear it.

Children! Parents! Friends! Stand up for big wheel tricycles! Get them for our girls especially. They will have enough low quality tipping and teetering thrown their way as they grow up. Let 'em soar.

YO GABBA GABBA!

OH MAN!!!

I just got to see my first episode of Yo Gabba Gabba on Nick Jr--I knew I would like this thing, I had heard alot about it, but I LOVED it, if only stylistically.

With its myriad Atari-Generation references, sparse and uber-hip techno soundtracks, totally Gen X graphics and "look", I almost want to say it is like a Wonder Showzen for toddlers. Except that is really, really bad to say. Because Wonder Showzen is terrifying in its over the brink insane irony and painful humor--but if you get it, you get it, and you will get me when I feel a connection.

The first episode featured some ska, Tony Hawk, Biz Markie, a furry hatted DJ, some haunting Nintendo-esque melodies, and just heaps of great 70's and 80's fonts, graphics, puppets, kids doing the robot, and just total Pee-Wee's Playhouse, indie-rock aura.

Is it a bit stupid? Yes. Is it a bit annoying? Yes, the puppets giggle too much. But in the sea of faux-educational programming out there, this is a COMPLETE breath of fresh air. This one feels like your film student friends had a baby and now they made a show for kids, if only to make parenting more pleasant and tolerable for the artsy-wonderfully-intelligent-enough-to-know-that-its-more-than-ok-to-just-freak-out and-shake-your-rump-ah crew of Gen X-ers who are having children who really cannot stomach much more Dora or Barney.

Click the link and you will see how !Brilliant! this thing really is.

It's baaaaaack...

Well, for a while now we have had no satellite TV service. We have existed perfectly well with just the shows that come from the air. PBS, CBS, and occasionally a few others "come in clear". It was summer, and I wanted to be ____ somehow lofty or good or thrifty or highbrow or low tech or what have you and not watch TV very much. We were gonna do other stuff, and all that, remember?

Well, when Steve told me that for TWENTY DOLLARS LESS than we currently pay for Internet and Phone, we could have Internet, phone, and cable TV as well, I was curious and irritated and excited and mixed. but the others "won", and the cable is here!

Look, if you don't want your kids to watch TV, turn it off. But if and when you are gonna watch TV, I'm not gonna be fake and say it isn't awesome to have Animal Planet and Nick Games and Sports and Noggin and Discovery Health, History Channel, Discovery Kids, Nickelodeon, National Geographic channel and Sprout rather than static-y Sesame Street and Price Is Right.

We get to watch sports again now and I don't even dare think about Comedy Central and all that stuff---tonight I will check out all the channels we have, it seems like alot of really good ones! YAYAYAY !!!!!!

My Internet seems faster and they switch the phone in a week or so.

I am really glad. My little sick kids are completely festing out with the new shows, and they are laying still and drinking ice water. So I blog and fold clothes and switch laundry loads, and all is calm.

sometimes a pat on the back has to come from yourself

Steve and I were on track to probably each bring in $40,ooo a year, give or take. We could have had all of the outward trappings of modern-day middle class "success". 2 new cars, a stainless steel fridge, perhaps matching couches or a TV that was thin. Gutters and gutter covers. Go golfing, I dunno.

But then we had a baby and we wondered how it would all work out. Was the baby as important as the fridge, the gutters, the golfing, the flat screens, the couches? What about if we wanted more than one baby?

... then we heard about this fantastic invention: it is a person who lives at your house, full time, and does it all. She cooks breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She does all your grocery shopping, staying within budget, making healthy choices, catering to the various needs of all the family members. She cleans and cleans and cleans, even if you don't have a dryer. She does laundry and she gives the kids baths and brushes their teeth and hair and takes them everywhere they need to go. She makes appointments and keeps track of who needs what when and where. Throughout the day, she will feed your pets and clean them, too. She does toilets and stains and organizes closets and garages. she keeps up on your pool and your mail and your outside birds. She can take your kids to their schools and keep up with all of their school needs and expenditures and activities and field trips and friends and teachers and grades--or--for slightly less cleaning and slightly more money, she can teach your kids right in your own home--freeing you from worry about shootings and shunnings and failings and flunkings and lack of education and also the need for 4 minaiture trashy wardrobes. She entertains your children and keeps up with your work schedule so that you will have a hot meal ready when you walk in.

The only problem is, she costs about $40,000 a year to hire, give or take.

So we got the brilliant idea to just eliminate the middle man and have me do this job.

I don't care one bit if this post sounds sexist, in our family it was a MOM that we needed as a couple, and we both agreed that we wanted me to do this. In many families it is a DAD. In many families there is only one parent. Or two moms. Or two dads. Or Grannie and Big Ben and a dog. Whatever, I wanted to write this today instead of just cutting and pasting yet another one of those articles that claims how much what I do is "worth" in dollars. To Steve and I, me doing what I do was worth exactly one full salary of one person with a bachelor's degree in Psychology.

What is in store for our future? Possible midwifery, possible travel/relocation. Possible Dad does the homeschooling. Possible live in a camper and make our fortune doing some kind of internet based thingy which so far eldues us. House boat. Log Cabin. Downtown Loft. Who knows. But right now, I am a suburban mom, albeit a progressive one--and I know in my heart that the way we do things and the actions we make are much more real than any labels might make me or our family sound on the outside.