Ode IV a Mellowcreme Pumpkin

The election's less than 100 hours away
I found out they fired the lady who cleans my gym today
She's been there 10 years
They only gave her two weeks severance pay

A month ago I was at the store
That I would find my sweet pumpkins I was sure
But they only had the big bags
Which cost a dollar more

In this down economy
Where even the air seems to come with a fee
The only mellowcreme pumpkins I've had to eat this year
Were those I got for free

Their taste was still sweet
But I would have spent my hard-earned cash on this treat
If only Brachs had sold regular size bags
Sigggghhh...when it comes to sugary pumpkins, the man, he has me beat

My hips don't lie

I am finally able to comfortably get into this position in yoga, after a couple of years of trying. I had a particularly good class, despite the teacher's drop-dead gorgeous husband's overpowering and revolting f-a-r-t-ses. Yuck. Well maybe his nasty butt smog lowered my blood pressure and contributed to my flexibility. Who knows. But man did he stink.

In other McP news, I have been so busy lately I have barely had time to think. Or clean. So my apartment is a bit of a disaster. I am home tonight, thank goodness, and around this weekend, but I have to work (which is a good thing) and am meeting one of my very best friends from earlier in life for breakfast on Saturday. And that is a great thing. I am very excited to see her. We met the very first day of freshman year high school English.

Almost there...

I have nearly made it to the end of my quest to not turn on the heat before November 1. It was a bit rough this afternoon. I went for a run a little before noon then came home and jumped into the shower and into some clothes before I got too chilly but then didn't blow dry my hair, which was a mistake. Which I remedied with a turtleneck, blazer, sweater, scarf, hat, and two pairs of socks.

Oh and pants.

I'm in the midst of another marathon week...heading out to watch D again tonight. I'm running out of groceries and the apartment is getting a bit messy but I'll get to it. It's nice to actually have things that need balancing.

Also I just read this post over and good GOD is it boring. If I told you I went to CVS without my underwear on the other day, would that excite you?

Adventures in Babysitting

So tonight D and I were playing an imaginary game involving swords and Dora the Explorah. I accidentally lopped my hand off and went the hand store to buy a new one, only instead of a hand they sold me a balloon and it kept whapping me in the face.

When her mom and dad got home her dad shared that when D heard on NPR about the poor kid who died when an AK47 kicked back and shot him in the head, she laughed.

I plead ignorance.

In all seriousness the Looney Tunes versus reality conversation still needs to occur with the nation's three-year-olds.

In other AiB news, D apparently waited in a corner for 15 minutes so she could surprise me when I walked in the door. I, again in all seriousness, felt very honored.

3x3

Yesterday I attended a pumpkin carving party and was in the same house with the highest number of three-year-olds as I think I've been since I was three myself. They were surprisingly well-behaved three-year-olds, especially given the amount of readily available sugar. I am impressed with our nation's toddlers! Too bad they have a few years to go before they can run things.

Anyhoo, the party was at Daisy's house. She and I worked side by side making trick-or-treat bags for a time before she headed off to hang with girls her own age, but I'm babysitting her tomorrow and Wednesday. I'm happy to be able to do it. Daisy has been sucked in by the whole Disney princess thing buuuuuuuuuut as she has a geek for a dad she also is into Batman, GI Joe and Transformers so when we go on imaginary adventures together we are accompanied by both Sleeping Beauty and Optimus Prime.

I figured out how to work the scanner!

But didn't have enough time to really fiddle. To get a closer look, click on the image. I'd say this is maybe 1977...it's hard to tell. Moo was born in '78, when I was five. Anyhoo, Friar Tuck (aka Little Brother) and Porkchop (aka me) are enjoying a fine meal of Chinese food. Note the salad, no doubt prepared by health-conscious McMumsy, who heard that fat children became fat adults and was freaked out by the butterballs she kept giving birth to.

I believe I am wearing matching green pants in this picture. I am filthy in many of my childhood photos. This is due not to lack of soap but (I am told) to my love of running around outside.

Some things never change.

Backfill

I realized I never wrote about, A, my latest trip to NYC and, B, the first time I farted in front of Dr. Moo's boyfriend.

A: NYC was not the greatest, but based on the amazing time I've had the last few trips, I was due for a less-than-stellar one. I did ride down next to the daughter of a woman who, running for office in NH in the early '70's, tussled with the Union Leader and, very likely, my grandfather. So that was interesting. The daughter is a clown but more of the European style and had just been in Finland, I think, performing. She also used to train Macys employees for the Thanksgiving day parade.

I was all excited to work on the bus, which has outlets and free Wi-Fi, but when I got to the bus station I discovered that though I'd brought all my laptop accessories, including my laptop bag, I had forgotten my laptop. Which is typical for me. I was pretty anxious about remembering everything, too anxious, really, and I ADD-ed it. Luckily I had knitting and a book and my iPod Sheena so it was all groovy.

In NYC itself I took a hot yoga class in Union Square (was staying in Chelsea). Walking there at 7:30 in the morning on a Saturday was pretty neat because the streets were so quiet. Later L and I went to Chinatown for some amazing dumplings and the streets definitely weren't quiet. I also saw a lot of smeared doody on the sidewalks and a guy peeing as we walked by; we had to skirt the river he was creating. Oh and they were having this open house weekend so L and I toured a really cool carriage house in the Village. The owners weren't home but there kitties were; one, a fatty, was sitting by the sign-in book giving everyone the stinkeye. The other was old and skinny and liked the loves; he was seated on top of a book featuring the house and refused by way of not moving his fuzzy butt to let people turn the page.

I did enjoy seeing L. She is a fine hostess. I will probably go back before she comes home in December.

B: I was on the phone with Dr. Moo right after I got back from NYC; her bf was making dinner. He said "When is your sister going to write about the first time she farted in front of me?" Well here you go, buddy. It was Friday night, Deerfield Fair weekend. Dr. Moo and I were just about to blow out the candles on a birthday cake (we did a dual celebration since we were both home). I let one rip. Moo's bf was pleased. Moo had been trying to explain to him when it is and is not OK to cut the cheese. In a restaurant, not OK. At your parents' house, OK. So think of it as a little demonstration. Of course, you must also know your audience. And the crowd that night was a little low on gas, if you catch my drift. Wocka-wocka-wocka!

Lettuce Pray...

...that I can eat this giant lettuce, courtesy of L's CSA, before it goes bad...although if you click on the picture you will see that it has already started to turn. Look out, George! Look out, Martha! There's some angry produce on the loose.

Promises, promises...

No 'shroom pictures tonight as I am headed out to a restaurant opening and then dinner with a friend. So swank! But of course after I spent an hour getting ready the button popped off my sweater and I realized my glasses were just a wee bit crooked so...just another typical day in my life. Try though I might to scrub off the wackness, something always shines through.

How my new camera and I spent our weekend...

...looking at ice on Monadnock
...and the view
...McPolack in her natural element



Mushroom hunt photos TK tomorrow!

Coming soon to a Polish-Irish blog near you...

...PICTURES!!!

I got back from the gym this AM to find Dr. Moo's very generous birthday gift waiting for me by the front door: a digital camera! It even records movies! With sound!

Sooooooooooo my plan is to figure out how to use this puppy before Sunday, when I am going with my German friend on a mushroom-hunt on the Cape. Maybe I will figure it out earlier and include pictures from my hike up Monadnock tomorrow (probably solo, unless I can convince OSB to come) or even the biannual Dub-Dub rummage, greatest church sale in the world. But since I'm leaving to go that in like half an hour, probably not. I will have to use old-fashioned word pictures to capture it.

woooOOOT!

Smooth sailing

Well I didn't end up going to Persephone on Tuesday, owing to my friend's baby's low-grade fever, but she did drop off a fabulous gift: stuff from a magazine beauty closet. It is good that I do not work at a magazine with a beauty closet, or as a movie star for that matter, because when I see free stuff I go into a bit of a frenzy. Only being Catholic, I feel guilty about that frenzy and try to hold myself back. So I'm like a slobbering rabid doggy but one on a leash. And at the other end of that leash is Jesus.

Questionable metaphors aside, I go crazy for free stuff and would end up taking everything.

Anyhoo as a gag gift given my advanced age, she snagged me some wrinkle cream from Estee Lauder. I looked it up online and the stuff costs 80 bucks. That's 80 bucks I'm rubbing all over my face until the bottle is bone-dry, thank you very much. I'll let you know if it works. As it is, in the days since I've turned 35, I've been goober-eyed at by a waiter and hit on by a bookstore employee (after I said in response to there no longer being a public restroom "it's a sad day for those of us in the world with tiny bladders" he told me he was sorry but that was an adorable thing to say) who can't be more than 22 years old.

And that's pre-wrinkle-cream application.

Uh-oh

Palin as President.

"Urine next!"

...would be what the wife of a urologist said to me as she tottered tipsily from the loo Sunday night at Hammersley's Bistro, where McMumsy had taken me to eat. It is Little Brother's favorite restaurant (I had the shock of my life eating roast chicken prepared by LB using their famous recipe. My previous chicken experiences with him involved Hungry Man.) and it was tasty but dang is it expensive! 25 to 38 dollars an entree and if you want broccoli it'll cost you an additional eight bucks. The food is of course divine, and you do get plenty to eat even if you don't get broccoli.

Anyhoo I had this fiddling-while-Rome-burns feeling eating there, what with the economy in the shitter and all, even though I was eating on McMumsy's dime. I think it was the urologist's wife that sealed it for me, that and feeling very contentedly closed off from the big ugly world while eating tasty food like this was something we did every night.

And in fact it has become something I do every night, at least this week...last night L, my German friend, and Carmen took me to a fancy pizza joint and sang happy birthday over a pink candle stuck in a tub of avocado; tonight my friend A is bringing me to Persephone. She is a food editor and has been "invited" to a dinner there so I am hoping for all manners of swank deliciousness. And honestly, it all makes sense given the way my own life has been going lately: if I experienced lack in a bull market, why shouldn't I experience luxury in a bear one?

Why God, why?

First Rupert the muntjac and now Dennis the sea cow have broken my heart a little.

Whereas Rupert's adorableness factor was all doe-eyed wee-ness, Dennis' allure lay in something about the barnacles and flowy moss that grew on his back, combined with his snorty-snorting, then further combined with the way he moved...all oxymoronic blubber-lumbering grace.

I am inspired to write a haiku in his memory!

Great cow of the South...ah, screw it.

Dennis, you were blobby and covered in growths both prickly and soft. You made grumpy-sounding snorty sounds. You were the Wilford Brimley of the deep, only if I were diabetic I would heed your gruff warnings to check my blood sugar but not resent you for them. Also, I would have enjoyed giving you kisses.

Wilford Brimley, not so much.

President McP

I am now old enough to run for President. The country is saved! 35 dawned with a pile of kitty barf on the carpet and a cold that moved from my head to my chest but I saved the cards I got from my parents and my wonderful Aunt P and her kitty Dally Dallas and opened them right when I woke up, so I started the year off right. Have a wonderful day, everyone!

xo,
McP

It would appear...

...as though 34 is going to go out with an itchy, dry, sniffling, cranky, goo-in-ears whimper. I hate being sick! It is good that I live alone.

Neti neti bo-beti

Well I'm still feeling crappy and have too much to do. But I did use a neti pot for the first time ever today! I got a plastic CVS brand one because I had a coupon. Well actually I had a bunch of coupons, so many that I got 57 dollars worth of stuff for only 31 bucks. I could tell the clerk was impressed.

Anyhoo the neti is like a wee teapot for your nose. You fill it with salty water, stuff it in one nostril like a cork, then tilt your head and wait for the water to flow through your sinuses and out the other nostril. I messed up on my left nostril and now I have a stomachache. As every good Catholic knows, your left nostril is the nostril of Satan so I blame him.

Also I was forced to buy deodorant tampons due to what was on sale. I hope my vagina doesn't feel insulted.

Wicked Pissah

I have a cold, my gift from NYC, and tons of work, and I'm pooped so I'll tell you some stories tomorrow, maybe. For now, enjoy this little gem (but not on the job):

McPolack Takes Manhattan

Tomorrow at noonthirty I board a bus for the Big Apple. It's 35 dollars round trip and it's not the Fung Wah, or as I like to call it, the Fung WaAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Instead I am boarding the BoltBus and it has free wifi and outlets so you can work on the bus or watch porn or whatever.

L has a place in Union Square at the moment, owing to her job needing her to be there for three months. Saturday morning I'm getting up early to take a yoga class in a studio heated to 97 degrees (not Bikram). Then L and I are heading to Greenwich village for French pastries, coffee, and people-watching. Then, who knows? We're going to see the Waterfalls, probably bargain-hunt, definitely eat, eat and eat some more.

I come home on Sunday.

I'm very excited!

For thursday

I know they eat your garden, but look! Look how cute! So cute. Couldn't you spare this little fellow a lettuce leaf or two?