Le Monde de Fromage de Kate

I decided to tease you with one little morsel:

What is it? How can you ask??? Cannot you see that it is the worst picture ever taken of the mighty Mississippi River (from a toll bridge with a camera phone inside a moving car with the window up)? Yes, indeed, it is. But I think I read somewhere that every famous photographer started out their career by taking really ghastly pictures of the Mississippi River through the rungs of a toll bridge on a camera phone inside a moving car with the window up. If that is the case, I am destined for greatness.

I’ve been out of town (I’ll be vague for now, hoping that it sounds more impressive than it really is), so I’m sure that everyone has wept tears of loneliness in a vain attempt to fill the humongous, empty void that was left by my droll prose. But don’t cry, my wee ones, here I am to provide you with… with… Okay – here I am to provide you with my usual crap.

Here’s a little tidbit just in time for Mother’s Day:

You can get a 20% discount on any orders placed at IdealCheese.com from May 6 – 14. AND Cheese of the Month Plans and Gift Baskets make terrific Mother’s Day gifts.

MMMMMMMMmmmmmm. Discount cheese!!!!

Yes, I sent Monkey Cat #2 to the Prom with a “wrist” corsage I’d concocted that weighed approximately as much as a healthy newborn baby. I’m very sorry about that…

Just NINE Roses…

She looked absolutely beautiful, anyway. Sarah looked gorgeous, too. I will post pictures later (with their permission).

Leif spent slept over for a few days last week; very festive indeed! He got to use his inflatable Batman “ready-bed” for the first time, so THAT was an occasion in and of itself. Other important activities included:

Perusing the Morning Paper

This was something of a surprise to my Mother and I, as Janet and Erik don’t take a daily paper, as far as we know, and perhaps more importantly, Leif cannot yet read. Nevertheless, while we were watching Robots, Leif excused himself and said he “needed to get something.” He came back in with the paper, sat down, opened it up and scanned it like an expert. After a while he offered sections to my Mom and myself, and also pointed out features he found especially interesting:

When You are Four and a Half, Upside-Down Works, too

When he was finished reading his morning paper, Leif watched some more of the movie, and abruptly declared at one point that “Aunt Fanny,” voiced by Jennifer Coolidge, “has a BIG booty.” This is, indeed, true, but we didn’t think it was vernacular with which Leif was familiar. And perhaps he is not entirely clear on the concept, because from his further explanation it seems he was might have been mixing up “boo boo” with “booty” – the character is always running into things with her super-size posterior. Who knows.

After playing with MY train, it was colouring and drawing time. There was a little fiasco involving my search for some of my drawing implements in one of the downstairs storage rooms and the hurling of a box (I was putting it AWAY) that knocked out a light bulb and I was barefoot and Leif had to rescue me by bringing me shoes so I could traverse what I thought would be an area strewn with glass shards – and what do you know – the bulb came out of its metal threading IN ONE WHOLE PIECE, but still sans the potato…

Anyhoo, this is when I got it straight from the proverbial horse’s mouth as to which crayon is, indeed, Nincompoop Green. I showed Leif the two main contenders, Asparagus and Olive Green:
AND

Without hesitation he chose the Olive Green crayon. Then (as I AM a scientist), I coloured two items next to each other, one with Asparagus and one with Olive Green. So there you have it, Nincompoop Green = Olive Green.

Then is was time for check-ups by Dr. Leif. He is very serious about this activity, following, the “check-up” check-list item by item and making a careful check-mark (in green – NOT Nincompoop Green, but green nonetheless) beside each item. Here he is making a very careful assessment of my Mother’s blood pressure:

“It’s good,” he said.

Take a look at the prescription and you’ll see he already has “Doctor Writing.”

Eat your heart out Doogie!

Throughout his visit Dr. Leif gave a check-up to anyone who would hold relatively still long enough. I was not present, but rumour has it that Shirleen was a VERY uncooperative patient (medical residents actually take classes on such “Difficult Patients”). In exasperation, part way through her examination, Dr. Leif informed her, “You are SICK.” Even my Father, who evidently had no audible heart “beep” (couldn’t bear to “correct” that one – it’s too cute), was not “sick.” Very interesting.

We do NOT have a potato (or, if you’re feeling a little “archaic,” potatoe) large enough to remedy the light-socket mishap I caused the other day. Any other time we’d have an enormous bag of spuds growing eyes as tall as daffodils (or as long as garden hoses – I wish I was kidding).

And why is it that if I can find my gardening gloves (a superb pair of Foxgloves, incidentally), I cannot find my secateurs? And if I locate my secateurs my gloves are no where to be seen. And, at the moment, since it’s the secateurs I really need, I readily located my Foxgloves.

This has CONSPIRACY written all over it.

I have mentioned the life and death of Simon Craig Vodosek numerous times on this site (take a look at my In Memory Category). I just received word that Brighton Ski Resort is going to name a ski run, the “easiest,” after Simon. Let me quote Simon’s Mother, Mary:

We are thrilled about this meaningful tribute to Simon. In 2004, Simon skied on this same hill during his brief one-season career as a skier. The little run, rated “Easiest,” will be accessible to all levels of skiers–a fitting tribute to our son, who was six when he first skied and seven when he died of neuroblastoma, an aggressive childhood cancer.

On this Friday, April 14, 2006, Simon’s Way will be dedicated at 2:00 p.m. Here’s a prototype of the sign:

Please visit Simon’s Place to see pictures of Simon sking. More importantly, on this page you can find out how to purchase an all-day pass from Simon’s Family that will benefit the Children’s Neuroblastoma Cancer Foundation.

One last word from Mary:

If you can’t join us, please think of us as we make this happy step in our mourning of Simon’s death and our celebration his life. For years to come, we will all be able to ski past the sign and know that we are traveling “Simon’s Way,” remembering a little boy who lived a joyous life.

As a preamble, I’d like to say that my wanton and sometimes fickle use of the “u” in “colour” and other such words may annoy some people. They may find it pretentious; at the very least it is probably confusing. But here’s the bottom line: I do not really care. It’s not affect or snobbery; I just like it. And this may sound absolutely ridiculous, but somehow I feel with each little superfluous “u” I am a little closer to a portion of my Euro-Mutt ancestry (a large portion, if you add up all the British Isles people and their predecessors and derivatives from both sides of the family – all of them from delightfully contrasting stations in life – I have no doubt that some of my ancestors oppressed the others and then those ancestors, perhaps, revolted against the the tyrannical ones – it’s festive!!). Oh – and I have a great fondness for Canada, Eh?

Speaking of favourites, today my Mom and Leif were colouring. He turned to her and said, “You can use the nincompoop green.” She asked him which crayon that might be, and he carefully looked through the pile until he found a sagey-green one. This, evidently, is “Nincompoop Green.” And what do you know – it is one of my most FAVOURITE colours (anyone who’s ever lived with me will attest to the preponderance of this colour in my decorating). I’ve used varying terms for this colour over the years, but I am thrilled to know that it its true name is “Nincompoop Green.” Oh – and in case you were wondering – “Nincompoop” is not a phrase that Janet and Erik use in their household. As a matter of fact, Janet wondered at first if there really WAS a crayon labeled “Nincompoop Green” and how Leif had managed to read or know that. In other words, it’s not a part of their vernacular. It shall be, however, forever more the proper and accepted name of one of my very favourite colours. LONG LIVE NINCOMPOOP GREEN!

Kitten Children do NOT like getting their temperature taken (at least BeBe doesn’t). Perhaps it has something to do with the RECTAL THERMOMETER.

I maintain that RECTAL THERMOMETER is just one of those phrases that should always be capitalized. RECTAL THERMOMETER. See?

“And a REAR-END thermometer, too.”

Click here and HEAR! Thanks for the sound byte, “Me.”

Who knew.

My Parents returned from a trip the other day (I won’t get started about the odd itinerary – BFE, Kansas and Atlanta, Georgia, and Catonsville, Maryland – they called it a business trip “bookended by my brothers”). The spent the bulk of their time in Atlanta at the 2006 American Chemical Society National Meeting. Yes, 13,000 chemists (and chemical engineers, I must specify for my Father) converged on Atlanta. The mind REELS at the sheer number of pocket protectors, cheesy jokes about the good ol’ days of the slide rule and those boxy eyeglasses with the double metal nose-piece (sorry Dad – those are the eyeglasses of SCIENCE, not FASHION). When I find the magazine I’d saved for my blog I’ll tell you the story of how I about had a heart attack when I inadvertently turned right to the page in the Chemical and Engineering News that featured the 2006 ACS Award for Team Innovation winners (five retired Pfizer scientists who invented Zoloft® – my family eats that stuff like CANDY – yum!) and I looked right into the eyes of Dr. Albert Weissman. He’s evidently a very talented chemist and probably a nice person, but his publicity photo is enough to scare the bejeezus out of anyone. My Mom took special care to see him in person and said he looks JUST LIKE HIS PHOTO.

They had a great time at the meeting (my Mom said that as painful as the jokes were, some of the addresses were fascinating) and seeing a handful of the Atlanta sights. They stayed in the tallest hotel and went on the longest escalator (which only goes UP – what’s with that?), went to the largest aquarium, and, much to his IMMENSE delight, my Father got to read fake news from a teleprompter on a tour of CNN – something concerning The Simpsons, which is SO ironically satisfying, as he just does not GET The Simpsons AT ALL.

Anyhoooo, what I set out to say (and could have articulated in a mere two sentences – ha), is that “Peach” truffles from Atlanta MAY be made in New Jersey. Moreover, they may not contain ANY PEACHES WHATSOEVER (they might even be HAZELNUT!). This is, at any rate, the case with the little box of truffles my Mom gave to me. Gotta give them this – there was a PICTURE of a peach on the box.

No offense to my Kitten Children (I’d probably fall prey to that urge to cover their tiny eyes again if they were in the room), but I had thought that I’d name a human infant or two (MY children, not random youngsters off the street) in my life. Coming to the sober realization in the past couple of years that I may not have that opportunity, I gave my second Kitten Child one of my favorite baby names (Fiona) and I hope my someday erstwhile and beloved Mother-in-law either hasn’t noticed or isn’t offended that I stole her name for one of my CATS (Fiona MAURA MacArthur). Oh – and MacArthur is an ancestral family name I like (and I thought it went so nicely with those Celtic names). Besides, I have saddled NEITHER of my Kitten Children with MY last name. BeBe got the whole Italian thing (her human Mom was Italian – I stole her name, too – Beatrice ALLESSANDRA Gatto – the MIDDLE part, not the “Gatto” part that means “cat” if you didn’t know already). But none of that’s the point, really. (SURPRISE!!!).

On Friday I got to see a couple of dear friends who suggested ONCE that they might actually move HERE, but instead have crossed me RIGHT OVER from Colorado to California and then to a different area in California. FIE ON YOU, I SAY!!! ISN’T IT ALL ABOUT ME???? Sorry – no good medication for narcissism yet. Anyhoooooo, Morgan and Amber were here visiting her Parents and her Sister and Sister’s family (who DID have the good sense to move close to me – I really should visit THEM more often). There are some potentially serious medical problems being investigated, so everyone send good thoughts or prayers (whichever are your prerogative) to Amber’s Parents, who are damn fine people.

Despite the worrisome circumstances bringing them here at the moment, I was thrilled to get a chance to see Kendyl (who is turning FOUR – I’m old, I’m OLD) and have birthday fun, and best of all, I finally met the delightful child who I shall presumptuously refer to as “my namesake.” AND SHE DIDN’T CRY WHEN I HELD HER!!! I’m telling you, when you meet a child less than a year old, WEAR FLEECE. Then you are not frightening, you are just a big teddy-bear-blanket surrogate – except that you are even warmer (and in my case, more squishy). Yes, Morgan and Amber have BEAUTEOUS children. I didn’t have anything but a camera phone with me, so I’ll use pictures that they sent to me – taken a month or so ago:

Kendyl, Almost Four

Emmry Kate

I realize I neglected to explain how I helped name a human child. If you haven’t guessed WHICH child I helped name, I’ll give you a big FAT hint: Her middle name is VERY, VERY close to my name. Oh wait – it IS my name! When I heard Amber and Morgan were using Kate I was secretly or openly VERY delighted (I don’t remember which). BUT, as it turns out, I ALSO inadvertently provided the inspiration for her first name. I had mentioned to Morgan and Amber, prior to Emmry Kate’s birth, that I had a new favorite family name: Emerett. Emerett was one of my second great-grandmothers. Not only do I like the name “Emerett,” but I get a kick out of the fact that her maiden name was “Funk.” Yes, I come from a line of “Funks,” and other such festive relations. Anyhoooooo (I usually limit myself to ONE “anyhoo” per entry, but it’s officially Spring, and I should celebrate somehow), Amber and Morgan remembered that conversation, liked the name, and came up with “Emmry.” And HUZZAH!!! Their youngest now has an absolutely BEAUTIFUL name (Kendyl is a lovely name, too – and she’s wonderful – but she can’t read yet so I can say that “Emmry Kate” is one of the BEST NAMES EVER). Thus, through completely unintentional means, I helped name a HUMAN CHILD.