Listeme

So there are two drawers in the kitchen. One is for silverware and measuring spoons, very well organized. The other is a thing drawer. I’ve been here nine days and already have a thing drawer. It holds the rest of the stuff. The things. Batteries, measuring tape, undefinable implements. Is this just the way my brain works? Must I have a miscellaneous file? Of course, at the moment I have a spare room, too. The rest of the apartment is spotless, well-organized, peaceful. But beware the spare room. Open it at your own risk. Is the little place of disorganization necessary to the rest of my life going neatly and purposefully? I am fine with that.

I’m starting to get my act together here. The pile of boxes slowly retreats under my fierce gaze (although I’m still adding boxes to the pile, which doesn’t help. I think the poor pile is getting mixed messages. “Does she want us to shrink or NOT?”) It is weird to live alone. Five days into this, so far everyone is surviving. One missed bus. A few miscommunications. The calendar is nowhere near functional yet. But we are all okay. The kids think the apartment is cool. I suspect that the novelty will wear off soon. Some snarling and grumpiness will happen.

Last night at Scrabble club , all my years of preparation finally paid off. People have scoffed at me. But no more! When S. arrived at the club, I was odd man out, so I immediately offered/begged for a game. He had his arms full of stuff, bags and the like, and I began to set up my board, rummaging through my (disorganized) bag for racks and tiles. And gum. And a cough drop. And a pen. Meanwhile, S. was rummaging less successfully in his bags. He’d located a salad but was muttering under his breath. I found the other wooden rack and slapped it on the table. “You wouldn’t happen to have a FORK in there, would you?” he asked sarcastically. He obviously doesn’t know me very well. “Why -- yes I do!” I opened the outside pocket of the bag, pulled out a stainless steel fork, and handed it to him. He took it without further comment and ate his salad.

Two address changes to note: After sifting through all the wise advice people gave me regarding the livejournal quandary and so forth (and ponies and kittens), I have decided to just mirror this blog at livejournal. When I feel the need to delve into more scrabble details, I will do this only at the livejournal blog. This will be the only difference between the two. The community features at livejournal make this worthwhile, in my opinion. (Community features include friends lists, groups, communities.) I’ll back-post starting January 1, probably. The other address change is less trivial. I am doing something today which I’ve never done before: writing a rent check. Yep, I’m moving down the road about a mile. The cats are staying at the house; the dog is moving to the apartment with me. The kids will continue to base their operations at the house but will be free to come and go at either place. All are doing well.

It’s January 31. I’m sure you all know what that means! Yes, it’s time to give Marsh some advice. Here’s my little dilemma. I like the way this blog is going. (I know, some of you think it needs a bit more spice, excitement. To quote one reader: “what you need is more scrabble porn.”) But I also want to take advantage of some of the features of livejournal, particularly the community features. So I was thinking about (and actually made) a more scrabble-oriented version at livejournal. Maybe I will take some of my general scrabble posts here and expand upon them over there. I don’t know. I don’t really want to just have two identical blogs. Honestly, though, I don’t want to only post about scrabble over there, either. So. Advise me!

This was in the mail: Life’s Too Short To Clean Your Own House. A lovely brochure, featuring a lovely couple, with two lovely blond children, sitting in a lovely family room. The dad is reading a book with one of the daughters. The mom is laughing over a laptop with the other daughter. A pretty picture. Short answer portion of the quiz: 1. Why did the advertising folks choose to put two girls in the picture instead of a girl and a boy? 2. Why did they choose to have the mom pose with the laptop? 3. Who cleans the housecleaners’ houses? Bonus question: are the perky college students pictured on the inside of the brochure real housecleaners or just models?

I don’t need another puppy. I don’t need another puppy.

Guess what this is. Here’s a hint.

Eighth grade mall dilemma . Say Ashley and Nicole have been best friends since kindergarten, but now, because of a suspicious incident at last week’s dance, Ashley has decided that Nicole is out to Steal Her Boyfriend. So she doesn’t want to hang out with Nicole, of course. Nicole is furious that Ashley has accused her of such a thing. Ashley’s boyfriend isn’t even that cute! So, Nicole doesn’t want to hang out anywhere – I mean ANYWHERE – that Ashley might be. Unfortunately, the mall is still the best place to hang out, and she is not going to stop hanging out there, for god’s sake, not because of that horrible Ashley certainly. But clearly it wouldn’t hurt to try to show up there when she knows Ashley won’t be there, like during Ashley’s bassoon lesson on Thursday night or Sunday morning when Ashley’s family is at church. But there is a problem. If she only goes to the mall at those times, then Ashley will hear about it and know that Nicole is only going during times whe...

“Like generations before us, we have a calling from beyond the stars to stand for freedom ...” Maybe George Bush was talking about God here, although I kind of thought the God crowd thought about God as a bit closer than, say, Andromeda. But I’m very happy to think of Bush sitting out on a rock by a lake, squinting and grimacing, trying to pick up what his imaginary friends from other galaxies are telling him. Maybe my imaginary alien friends and his imaginary alien friends party together once in a while. I mean, if you’re going to imagine stuff, you might as well aim high.

Let the weeping and wailing begin. It’s SOWPODS time. (For those who don’t know what the heck SOWPODS is: SOWPODS is the dictionary the rest of the world uses. The U.S. uses its own dictionary, and that’s what is used at most of the tournaments I attend. But for now it’s SOWPODS time.)

I like seeing how people live. What books do they keep next to their toilets? (And they better read in the bathroom!) Do they alphabetize their spices? Do they have phones in every room? What about lights? Do you see their house glowing from miles away? Is there a fire extinguisher in the kitchen? Flashlights? Magic marker happy faces on the wall, five-year old shoulder height? It’s like archaeology. Our houses and schedules say so much about us, if we care to look. Bonus question: is 8-foot chain link fence sufficient to contain a Basenji? What if it is a genius Basenji, like my little Curie? What if there is snow on the ground? Show all your work.

I thought I was just being dumb. The trivial pursuit questions weren’t making any sense. “Huh??” I asked after every question. I couldn’t even figure out which nouns the questions were looking for. Perhaps it was the wine. “What prolific novelist’s book jacket photo did the Devil Rays pepper with pushpins, after his visit preceded an 11-game losing streak, in 2002?” Read aloud. You be the judge. Wine? Or incredibly poorly written questions?

Ideals are tested in the rain. You know, like: park far away from the store. I say this all the time. It’s good for the heart. Let the little old ladies park close in. The pregnant women with little kids. But, ugh, it’s really really cold and rainy and windy tonight. Besides being uncomfortable, that’s bad for my hair. I just have to hope I don’t see anyone I know.

My scrabble rating as of today is 1695. It has been a little higher than that, but I’m marking an official line here: January 1, 2005, I’m at 1695. What will it be on January 1, 2006? This week’s scrabble news/progress. Let’s see, I went 3-1, won 20 bucks. The club situation was awkward, though. Right after I arrived, Bob arrived, and we paired up. He won the first game. Then the entire operation had to move to a member’s house, because the community center was closing early for holidays. When we got there, the other director said, a little hesitantly, “Bob, you want to play Marsh? You two are the two highest rated here.” Bob said yes. (He doesn’t enjoy playing lower rated players, I don’t think.) I said, kind of jovially, “good, I can win my money back!” But I had the sense that the other players thought that I didn’t want to play with them. Okay, it IS good for my game to play against players like Bob. Especially for money. But I don’t want to irritate other pl...

I love fresh starts. (That’s one of the things I miss about not being in school; I loved blank notebooks and teachers who didn’t know me. September used to be my favorite time of year.) So New Year’s is a time of optimism. For that matter, so is Thanksgiving. Or June 13. Pick a date. I bet I could be optimistic about it. Bad habits? A chance to get rid of them. Clean the closets, get rid of the cobwebs. 2005 is almost here!

Let’s take stock of our year, shall we? We managed to turn a high school kid into a college kid (and if you don’t think that’s a goal, you have not been paying attention.) We pursued a big dream, a scary one, and spent six weeks in New Hampshire proving that we weren’t silly for dreaming this dream. We lost weight! We played division one at nationals, and managed to achieve our two primary goals: don’t embarrass ourselves and stay away from cameras. We found music again. (And thanks, Santa, for the blues studies!) We survived roller coasters and didn’t throw up or give up.

Merry Christmas , everyone. The kids are happy and tired and playing with their new gadgets. I’m getting ready to chop up some butternut squash. Curie keeps hiding her new Christmas bone and then forgetting where. I have wacky music on in the background. And I’m full of leftover hot chocolate. Up-to-the-minute reporting!

Baking with toddlers. My niece Julianna is a spy. We’ll be sitting around, chatting or having lunch, and she’ll say, out of the blue, very very meaningfully: “the monkey at the playplace is very scary.” And it is clear that she expects a specific response, although none of us know exactly what that response is. “The blue camel is falling down.” The creche on my coffee table was quite interesting to her. “Look, baby Jesus lives in a castle. With a butterfly!” (The angel, of course.) Nieces are great. I can let her just eat frosting if that’s what she wants. It’s not my job to worry about nutrition. Okay, back to digging cookie crumbs out of the upholstery!