Homeownership

We are official homeowners. Better said, we officially own 20% of a house. I’ve decided my 20% includes the pool cause, DANG, it’s getting hot up in he-a (check the thesaurus: Hades=Arizona summer; and it’s not even summer yet!). I thought buying a house would instantaneously cover me with a fuzzy blanket of relief, stability. Even after visiting it several times, planning it’s future did not create belly butterflies. All I could think about was our money hemorrhage with no foreseeable cure. Then I cleaned the pool and hung some pictures. Warmer. Then I removed a chandelier and painted it. Getting there. And as the house becomes more and more Carolinian (of the Garcia variety), I think more and more that I can live with the ugly fireplace and the chipped counters and maybe even the monstrous bookshelf that makes a statement I’m not sure I agree with. The carpeted bathroom still spells n-a-s-t-y, but at least it’s Carolinian nasty.
As a homeowner of 4 weeks, I’ve learned the primary responsibility of home-owners:
1) Displaying holiday paraphernalia including, but not limited to: door wreaths and lawn figures.
2) Making sure your house isn’t an embarrassment to your neighbors.
Presently we are failing in both categories. I pledge to collect as many snow globes and twinkle lights as possible. As to #2, I’m afraid we are far from it, but progressing. Project#1: The first time we met our neighbors they mentioned that they are downwind of this:

See the pile on the roof? Can you imagine how many birds over a span of how many decades it took to create a pile of dung this high? Let’s ponder this. [And you are thinking, “let’s NOT ponder this.” And I am responding, you have entered my realm, welcome.] Have you ever been pegged by a white shower just as you think you’re on top of the world? On the mission I was teaching a spiritually-charged charla when a seemingly cute dog approached, lifted a leg, and sent a river down my skirt. No, the man didn’t request another charla; the dog must have been a messenger from the devil.
Project #2 (in reference to the same poop picture): Notice the column hovering over the pile. It is (or was, b/c it’s been sent to the grave) a plastic owl: a pigeon predator placed to protect the roof. This reminds me of another Chilean anecdote. Some Chilean front yards donned 2-liter bottles filled with water. Why? When dogs go to lift a leg on their property, they will see their reflection in the water bottle and be scared away. As logical as a plastic owl.
Project #3: Unfortunately for us, the former owners of our house had a botanical philosophy of “more is more.” We have cut down a few trees, bushes, plants, weeds, etc.

I found 3 birds' nests, about a dozen wasps' nests, a wall light, spigot, and a beer can behind the blanket of vines that covered our back wall. 

Christening the pool:

Elijah making his room his:
Translation: "Do not touch trucks"

That bottom note would scare most parents. Dual language has benefits, but E confuses vowels. He was indicating the number of notes on his door.

Interesting Iris Part 2

David is not the only one fascinated with Iris. There is no end to her entertainment capacity in the car. The kids ask her a stream of questions like so:
Iris, do you want to eat a bike? Her response: Yeah.
Iris, do you want to eat a toilet? Yeah.
Iris, do you want to eat Iris? Yeah.
Uncontrolled laughter between each question and usually a recap to me. “Mom! Iris wants to eat her eyeball!”
She also amazes me. How blissful it would be not to know the difference between good and evil. We walked in on Iris smearing her poo across her crib and body. She stared at us as if to say, “What up my homies, I’m just cillin’ like a villain.”
Iris, do you want to eat poo?
Yeah!
Actually her new favorite cuisine is dirt and she'll eat it wherever she can find it. The other day she ate the playground sand from Elijah's stinky shoes.

Happy Easter

Claire’s first day of soccer=comical. Most of the practice was spent examining a ladybug, much to the chagrin of the coach. Claire had a roll-on-the-ground fight with the other girl. A little boy screamed for at least 10 minutes because he was scored on. The game was even better: scoring on themselves several times with hands, fraternizing with the fans, playing in the net, more tantrums. And just as E mixes soccer and karate, C mixes soccer and dance, prance, frolic.

The most interesting person David knows

Oh man, another extended period without posting. This time I have been busy remembering how much I like books, packing my head with someone else’s words instead of my own. In the past month I have listened to 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, Mitochondrial Curiosities (I wish I wrote that book), Billy Bud (listed as a “Classic” b/c Melville wrote it, but classically bad), Sheri Dew excerpts (inspiring), Saints (Orson Scott Card is too salacious), Waiting to Die in Miami (exquisite! and anyone with or without ties to Cuba needs to read it). Is this the reason I majored in English? My own rationalization for the major was that I was interested in everything and English allowed me to read about everything, which of course is ridiculous rationalization. I think the real reason was that for me it was the best possible ratio of highest GPA / least work required. And then I came back from the mission and realized I couldn’t continue to save the world as an English major. My dad had always encouraged doctorhood (still does, as recently as last night) so I thought I might take aim at the medical profession. I took chemistry, anatomy, and other such fleshy classes and have never studied so hard to get good grades. I practically shacked up with the cadavers and to this day it’s hard for me to eat leftover meat. The formaldehyde is still stuck in my nose whiskers. Circumstances and a lack of drive didn’t allow me to become a quack, but I’m not dead yet.
Enough about me.

David: Chews gum as if to punish it.

Elijah: Was limping for 2 weeks after his ER visit and has discovered the joys of legal narcotics. Habit forming? Yes indeed. He also got a new bike which means…

His old bike was painted pink for Claire. Claire, Claire, Claire. That girl has been bestowed with the gift of gab. Especially during prayer and song—she’s always singing. Try as I might to concentrate on the theme, I usually have no idea what she’s trying to say b/c it’s so disjointed. Every once-in-a-while I’ll catch a “that Jesus can do everything for us” and a “kumbaya,” and maybe a “bingo was his name-o,” but most of the time I just can’t keep up.  At the end of one of her recent heavenly conversations, Elijah remarked, “that wasn’t a prayer, that was a story.”

David recently commented that Iris is the most interesting person he knows. She rides a scooter, for as long as her attention span permits=a few feet but progressing. You can often find her on all fours barking—yes, she thinks she’s a dog and waits patiently to be petted as she licks my feet. She’s a climber and has the skull fracture to prove it. It’s quite a long crack, along her left parietal and occipital plates. That’s how we ended our spring break—began and ended in the ER; we are true vacationers. And yet she still injures her head on a daily basis. She would be the first one to sign a petition to allow people of her size to bungee jump. Some of her vocabulary: “I Iris” (as she points to herself; she pronounces it with the American accent even though everyone calls her Eedees), “Where is she?,” “I do” (she volunteers for most things), “yeah, yeah, yeah.”

And there you have us of late.

Camping and Ostrich Festival

David took E & C camping. Iris and I joined at the beginning, but prefer beds at night.

Claire, of course, camped in style-- in a red velvet Christmas dress. First thing she asked upon waking was to put the dress on again.

Elijah woke up with something missing. And that night, the unprecedented occurred. I caved in like a teenager. “Come on Caroline, one time won’t hurt, everybody’s doing the tooth fairy.” And so we have entered the realm of mythology, tradition, and fairy dust. This is E with his spoils.

 The next day we went to Ostrich Festival. It sounded way too loony to miss. And it was. Started with a bad magic show, next a funnel cake

add a goat mistaking Iris' finger for an udder (it's cousin had just reached into its nose with its tongue to pull at least half a cup of snot into the mouth--gotta love animals)

emus chased by children 

then cross the Ben Hurr chariot race with ostriches

and add the county fair.

Today we kicked off Spring Break with a trip to the ER.
Toxic Synovitis for the boy. The poor child has been immobile and frantically clawed every time we tried to move him. He has just started hobbling again, thank goodness.
   And a big congrats to David who completed his second marathon a few weeks ago. He ran it with a brother and 3 bro-in-laws.

Vacation, Come to Mama

Wow, going on 3 weeks without a post. Excuses are the usual, disease and nothing new.
Of course the first excuse is disease. We have gone through a few rounds of acute bronchitis—although David was the only one brave enough to get it officially diagnosed which if I knew it came with a cool inhaler and codeine, I might have gone in too.
And second, life has been boring—our weekends have been consumed with house-hunting. Who knew house-hunting would be so horribly life-sucking. Whoever told us “now is the time to buy,” lied to us. It’s a seller’s market out there, at least in the square mile I’m willing to live in. See, the last 2 cities we’ve lived in have turned me into a car-hater, so we drew a circle around the school in which we want to matriculate our children, but eliminated houses with HOAs (because I refuse to pay someone to judge me and my yard and who gives me a pretty little fine if I don’t meet approval). At this point I’m ready to take the first tree house available. Or maybe even an underground cave, if I can get good home insurance on it. Dealing with squirrels and groundhogs has to be easier than sellers and their agents.
And to make the week better, I told off (more like emailed-off) the principal at E’s school, because really, punishment by taking away recess is counterproductive, proliferates bad behavior, propagates lower tests scores, and I hereby promulgate the destruction of humanity in general (my goal this week was to learn and use new words—can you tell?).
So finally after several lackluster weekends I said, “Enough! Weekend vacation, come to Mama. I need you like I need antibiotics.”
First we stopped in Tucson. Memories rained. I’m going to skip a recap for now because I’m still sorting through the squall. Then we headed to Tombstone. On the way we stopped at San Xavier mission which was built in the late 1700s. It serves the Indian Reservation so we enjoyed fry bread and the beautiful church.

Then on to...

First we stopped at the graveyard.

Rode in an original stagecoach from the time. The driver's beard was original too.

It was a mining town with establishments like Madame Moustache, Big Nose Kate's Saloon, and Shady Lady's Closet.

Largest rosebush in the world--it covers 8000 square feet. The root was sent from Scotland in 1885. The caretaker claimed there are "millions" of blooms when it's in season.

The Birdcage Saloon. The children were thrilled their parents took them to such a wholesome enviromnent. It was sprinkled with knife and bullet holes. The upper rooms housed the brothel and the lower rooms housed the longest continuous game of poker ever: about 8.5 years.

O.K. Corral. The guy on the right was interviewed on The Cobert Report. He was fined for dressing like this without a permit. He contested and won.

Reinactment of the gunfight.

We drove to Bisbee but the kids were asleep so we didn't get out.

PS. Happy Birthday my little man.

I love you to pieces.

My first recipe post

I have never done a recipe post, for good reason--I'm not a good cook. But this is a delicious, borrowed recipe from a world-renowned cook: Betsy Nagel.

Taco Soup

As I prepare to make this soup tonight, I remember an old man who cleans bathrooms in the middle of nowhere:  Xochicalco, Mexico. We were visiting the ruins and my son struck up a conversation with him about poisonous bugs, or something. When I told him where we were from, the first impression he mentioned of our country was that we survive on a diet of canned food (“comida enlatada”). At the time, I dispelled the myth, but today I reinforce it proudly.
I haven’t made this soup in a long time. I made it a lot as a newly-wed because: 1) it's easy, 2) it's cheap, 3) it moves bowels (David likes that).

2 cans of kidney beans
1 can of diced tomatos
1 can of green beans
1 can of corn
1 packet of taco seasoning

Put it all into a pot and heat. You may use as many add-ins as you want: cheese, sour cream, chips, road kill (that’s my own touch), etc.
Now, this technically isn’t a proper recipe post without a beautiful food picture, but I’m fresh out of road kill. Stay tuned…