new home

Hi all —

I’ve moved to a new virtual home! PLEASE come visit me and be sure to bookmark the new site and subscribe to the RSS feed. If you’re feeling particularly generous I would also love it if someone would please Stumble me… I put a link in on the new site.

Crazy For Trying

See you there!

Katia

clown bank

I can’t remember when I received this money bank… sometime in the late 1970s or early 1980s. This is another one of those childhood keepsakes which my mom unloaded on me. Before Mr. Clown made his arrival in Philly my mom spruced him up a little bit — a new red bow and a new flower in his hat!

gardening

I was able to spend some time in my garden yesterday afternoon! This makes me quite happy.

My cherry tree is blooming:

Do you see that yellow pot? The clematis from last year is coming back! Woot.

toothy

I was feeding Madeleine on Saturday, a yummy concoction of pureed chicken and rice, when I heard a distinct ‘clink’ when she closed her mouth around the spoon. My ears perked up. I gave her another spoonful… clink. AHA! I peered into her mouth… and sure enough, there on the bottom right was the tip of a little baby tooth. It took me by surprise because Maja didn’t get her first tooth until a week before her 1st birthday.

All I can say is: thank goodness I’m weaning her. :)

curing one illness with another

On Friday I came down with the sickness. It hit me practically overnight, but the weird part was that all I got was instant chest congestion. I stayed home from work in the hopes that early intervention would shorten the length of the sickness as well as spare my coworkers from having to listen to me hack up a lung every 5 minutes. My theory proved correct and by the evening I was feeling well enough that Richard and I decided to keep our date and go out for a drink.

We had a lovely time and each had a martini and shared an appetizer at the bar of a local restaurant. Then we each had a second martini and shared a dessert. By 10:30pm we were home. And let me tell you, I was d.r.u.n.k. It hit Richard too, and on Saturday morning we both woke up with the worst hangovers ever. I can’t remember the last time I’ve been hungover!

What I can remember with regards to hangovers, though, is when I had the very worst hangover I ever had in my life. It was the summer of 1995 (so, I was 22) and I was playing with the NYO of Canada. Now, you know what happens when you throw together a bunch of young musicians who do nothing but practice all day… we drink at night. So, we did just that when we arrived in Kingston. I do not remember getting back to my dorm room that night and I am eternally grateful that the group I was with ensured that I made it back to my bed in one piece. I woke up the next morning and my first thoughts went something along the lines of this:

[open one eye] Am I alive? Yes. Damn.  [close eye]. If I was dead I wouldn’t feel so sick. Am I alone? [open two eyes] Yes. Thank God.  [turn head.] Oh Lord, that hurts. [close eyes] I feel very sick. I think I can crawl to the bathroom. [exit room on hands and knees, survey hallway — it’s empty. Utter another prayer of thanks to God]. …

Anyway, you get the picture. I don’t think I touched vodka for YEARS after that. And now, after getting plastered and hungover from two little vodka martinis, I think I will shy away from the hard stuff for several more years. Ouch.

Well, at least my cough is gone.