28 October 2010

Hobbits

Are curious creatures, and I am beginning to understand how they feel in their manner of living. That would be because, I am indeed, living in a hobbit house (that sort of roles off of the tongue doesn't it?)

Husband and I recently moved into a rather small apartment. Although Chesley has been know to be compared to hobbits (if you have not seen this reference click here) I had never really fostered my desire to live like them. I am now regretting that negligence.

Someday I will tell my children,"Your father and I once lived in an apartment with three little hobbit doors, and a little hobbit bedroom where we could only kneel on our knees because...well, although we have done many amazing and spectacularly adventurous things that we can only tell you about in stories because it all happened before you came along, we have never been hobbits!" And they will pelt us with questions about this amazing time in our lives, and ask us to tell them the story again and again.

And we will. It will always begin like this....

Your father and I once lived in an apartment with three little hobbit doors.....

25 October 2010

Dining with the Donovans at Christmas time...

The broccoli cheese chicken soup sits sputtering happily on the stove. Taquitos, chicken nuggets, and other various foods of frozen goodness start to sizzle on the pan in the oven. The cheese ball of amazingness has been purchased from Kent’s Supermarket because everyone knows that their green onion cheese ball blows all other cheese-balls away. This is the tornado of cheese-balls. Assorted crackers have been beautifully arranged on the very old and underused cracker platter. They look so much more appetizing in a pretty circle than they do coming out of the box.

Mom moves the soup to a hot pad on the table. I have already laid out bowls and spoons, and my stomach gnomes are starting to vehemently protest the fact that they have been neglected for hours now. Family comes. Family sits. We bless the food.

It is as if the next three seconds are three minutes. My little brother sees the bowl in front of his place at the table. He looks at the spoon. He raises his head to the pot of soup sitting innocently next to my mother.

Kade: “NO!”
Mom: “Uh….is there are problem son?”
Kade: “You’ve ruined EVERYTHING! It is CHRISTMAS EVE! We can’t eat soup! It isn’t finger food! How could you ruin our tradition like that!
Mom: “So don’t eat it.”

Kade stares at his plate, and eats only with his fingers. He keeps a frown on his face, and doesn't raise his head. He is showing his extreme disgust at all of our willingness to forsake our traditions without a second thought

I try to make the situation seem less tragic to him by explaining that it could indeed be counted as finger-food because you do, in fact, hold the spoon with your fingers, but alas, it gave him zilcho, zip, nada, yes , zero comfort.

Traditions have been rudely disregarded, and the day has been ruined for him....Until we get out treats, and his smile slowly returns. Then somebody farts and his brothers and father burst into laughter, while Kim and I try not to laugh, but fail as the laugh bubbles find their way out of our throats, and mom is says something about having grown up in a high class family.

07 October 2010

Composure....yeah. I have that.

9:24 am: I walk innocently and intently toward the Library at Logan High School to meet with my professor concerning my Teaching English Methods class. The floor is slick. The bottom of my right shoe is slick. It is a good thing I am flexible. I am pretty sure those high school students were really amazed to see a teacher doing the splits in the hallway laughing hysterically. I did not appear insane at all.

11:24 am: I walk into the Taggart Student Center listening in a very concentrated way to how one of my heels clicks on a distinctly different tone than the other one does. I open the door to the employee entrance of the bookstore forgetting the slippery nature of my right shoe's belly. I do a slick little dance with a grand wave of my arms for those, my comrades, in the hallway.

11:29 am: I hold a bowl of steaming chicken fried rice in one hand, and walk heavily to my office. The cement floors should be safe and not slippery. I reach to open the door and my mischievous little shoe slips and I see all of my rice fly up into the air. Luckily, my much more reliable and highly favored left shoe kept me on course, and I caught all the rice again in the bowl in an extremely ninja like fashion.

Needless to say my good left shoe walked the rest of the day heel toe heel toe proudly and sturdily. My right, rather naughty shoe was punished with heelTOE heelTOE heelTOE. I may or may not have received pitiful looks from passersby pitying the fact that I clearly have one leg shorter than the other, but I am pretty sure that darn dirty shoe learned its lesson.