Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Spoiled, and undeservedly so.

Why are some Christmases so much better than others? This Christmas was, well, just really fantastic. The lovely in-laws came down on Christmas Eve, and we spend a hilarious and hysteria filled evening with the family at Mark and Shan's, watching the kidlets do laps around the kitchen, dining room and living room, screaming in glee from the effects of sugar, avarice and Yuledite cheer. I love watching little kids open presents. They get so excited just when they see the first corner of the box they start quivering and shrieking before they even know what it is. We gave Kyan a little shopping cart, which he pushed around for the rest of the night, picking up all the toys and accessories he could find, like a 1950s housewife. He just needed the pearls and a twinset.

We open presents Christmas Day, and I don't know what Christian was thinking when he went shopping, but I got not only a Compact Oxford English Dictionary, but a Bernina sewing machine. Now, most women wouldn't really like to receive a dictionary and an item of domestic importance for Christmas, but this is THE dictionary to end all dictionaries and the sewing machine, it has an AUTOMATIC NEEDLE THREADER. I don't have to lick my thread and get the point of the needle stuck in my finger when I feel the need to hem something. I no longer need to knit my sweaters together as I can now sew them (after they've been blocked on the blocking board I received from said lovely in-laws), and make a tidy, shiny, pretty, neat and fancy edge that will never unravel. And, using my loupe that weighs about seven pounds, I can look up the definition, etymology and first known written example of each digitally programmable stitch I use.

I'm very excited. I now truly am Little Suzy Homemaker.

Monday, December 18, 2006

Still in the running.

As most of you already know, I was in a car accident on my birthday, last Wednesday. It was a collision with a man on a Vespa while I was turning left across Aurora to get to Steel Pig for a birthday pork sandwich. The other driver was apparently fine, which is a miracle, but due to HIPAA regulations, the police were unable to give me his name or the name of the hospital where the ambulance took him. I have not heard about his state, but the paramedics were fairly certain he wasn't seriously hurt. It was an accident, pure and simple, as the two stopped lanes of traffic that gestured for me to turn kept me from seeing the man, who was very small in stature and was hidden behind the hoods and roofs of the lanes of traffic. It was horrible, and I never want to have anything like that happen to anyone I know. I additionally and not as importantly missed my Seattle Opera principal audition. I had a hard time thinking about this audition the day it was supposed to take place and for several days afterward, as the welfare of the man on the scooter kept my mind pretty much occupied, but once the worst of the anxiety after the accident was past, I became more and more upsent that I had missed my chance to be heard for real roles with such an important house. I thought that I wouldn't get a chance to be heard again until the next round of auditions in two years time, but I was told tonight that, despite not having sung for the General Director, I would still be considered for appropriate roles.

'Tis the season to be jolly.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Welcome to the world, Blewett 3.0.

Declan Joseph Blewett was born to my brother, Mark, and his wife, Shannon, yesterday:














The little burrito is another behemoth, weighing 9 pounds, five ounces at birth. I think whatever the hospital bathes new babies in should be classified as an illegal substance due to its mind-altering properties. Has anything ever smelled as good as him? No.

My parents and Shannon's parents are all in town to help. Mom and Dad are staying with us, and I awoke this morning to Mom standing on the stepstool in the kitchen, the contents of my entire spice/tea cupboard spread on the counter and Mom scrubbing the shelves and reorganizing all the contents by type and frequency of use. "This is fun!" she said. She then wanted to iron my clothes and I'm wondering what the house will look like when I get home. Will she have reupholstered the couch? Remodeled the bathroom? Who knows. Anything is possible.

Sunday, December 10, 2006

An indigestible problem.

Cut it out, tie it up, fill it with sand and have the Fire Department decommssion it, I don't care. I just want someone to fix my stomach so I don't have reflux anymore. Singing today felt as though I had sandpaper glued to my cords, rough side down. I feel like I always have to clear my throat, acid bubbles constantly nto my esophagus and I feel wheezy all the time as my trachea is irritated.

I'm going in to a new doctor next week to have an upper endoscopy, a pressure test and a 24 hour pH monitor. I'll then have a consultation with the doctor to see if I'm a good candidate for hiatal hernia repair surgery. Cross your fingers for me.

Friday, December 08, 2006

If only we had loam instead of oak.

When I get home from work, the first thing I do is let Cyril out of his cage. I hear the rustling and impatience as soon as I open the door. The top of his cage has a "playtop" held open by a wooden perch, which he only sits on when we wants to be the highest being in the room. He usually waddles over to the little birds' cage and flaps for a few minutes, whether to establish that he could, in fact, gobble them up with one bite (although he's afraid of Fritz since the great October toe-biting incident) or to exercise, I don't know. He then climbs back into his cage, retrieves a pellet, climbs back out again and perches on the very front of the top of the cage and eats the pellet, holding it in his three toed foot, occasionally losing his balance from leaning over too far while trying to catch a glimpse of me in the kitchen, as I may be making him up a sumptous meal of beans and cooked squash. Mmmmm. Lima beans. He looks like a little spectator at a ball game, eating popcorn with one hand (foot) while watching the game with the one eye not facing the back wall. It must be hard to have monocular vision.

When we bought our first bird, all the books warned of the parrot blast radius. As parrotlets are so tiny, the amount of mess they created was equally tiny. However, Cyril is a medium size bird and makes a medium sized mess, right in front of his cage; a constant rain of bits of pellet, bits of his breakfast, bits of treats from the previous night, all in a little, filthy pile in front of his cage, into which I step every time I walk by, and then track into other parts of the house. I find broken pieces of nut shell in the bathroom, and not from my own consumption. Now, I know that the biological purpose of this disturbingly barbaric means of eating is to ensure future generations of the jungles and forests that are parrots' natural habitats, but my living room does not need to be planted. The food he eats wouldn't be good for growing anything, anyway. Well, maybe the squash. It grows well in Seattle living rooms, I hear.