All posts by Mush

About Mush

I want to be a veterinarian because I love children.

Spring Preview: Over

Yesterday it was spring and we let the fire go out. I looked for crocuses but didn’t find any.

Today there’s a fire going again, and it’s chilly out. I went to town for lunch and groceries and another visit to Dr. Crossland, and came home and made Mr. Brett a big pot of beef stew.

I dusted, tidied, did laundry. Did dishes. Made the bed. Yawn. Housework is so BORING. Shook out some rugs. Took out the trash. Folded, picked up, put away.

Love that Dr. Crossland, though!
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The Pussy of Fruit

Standing at the cutting board in the kitchen, I sliced off the sides of the mango along the flat side of the seed as I’d been taught, and scored the flesh so it could be bent outward and easily eaten. I took one side to my husband who was on the couch, and sat on the edge of our dilapidated La-z-boy recliner to eat my portion.

I put out my right palm so Brett could drop his peel into it, and stood. As I crossed the threshhold into the kitchen, I told him, “A guy told me once that mango is the pussy of fruit.”

I returned to my knife and sliced off the remaining chunks of the mango for Brett, and kept the seed for myself. I returned to the living room, and watching Deadwood on HBO, we finished off the fruit.

Brett followed me into the kitchen to dispose of his peels and said, “Yes, it is the pussy of fruit.” And as an afterthought, he added, “But you can do things to a mango with your teeth you would never do to a pussy.”

I eyed him, scowling a little. “I never said it was a perfect analogy!”

He laughed.
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iPodSync

Windows user? Yeah, well, me too. Now you can turn your iPod into a PDA and sync it with Outlook: mail, tasks, address book, and calendar on your iPod! Get iPodSync. It even puts weather on your pod! It works great.

Pssst

Spring is coming. I can feel it. The air today’s got a certain balminess, and the birds are coming back. Spring! It’s coming! I can FEEL it! Soon, very soon: LILACS. I’m telling you. Just wait.

Podcasting, anyone?

Download iPodder, the cross-platform podcast receiver A year ago, it didn’t even exist. Now I’m walking around with podcasts about knitting (of all things) on my beloved iPod mini. Information, it seems, often does want to be free!

Curious about podcasting? Read this. Want a nice app to help you get your podcasts? Here it is: iPodder.

Engaged!

Guess what! Ron & Amy are getting married. Congrats to them both!

(Also, Ron’s dog Prana had nine healthy puppies this week. I know because Ron called Brett and said, “How long will this LAST?!” while Prana was in labor.)

Things I Learned From My Mother's Mother

In the late 90’s, I lived at my grandparents’ house for six or seven months. It was wonderful – I’d never really grokked them before then, not really. But living with them as an adult showed me that they weren’t unemotional but subtle, they weren’t grouchy but outspoken, they weren’t scary but fun.

I learned a lot about myself and my family during that time. It gave me perspective; I hadn’t sprung whole from the ether. I was the product and result of a family in addition to being what I’d made of myself. A lot of my faults and strengths came out of my genotype… and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

I developed opinions I wouldn’t have had otherwise. For instance, I realized that I myself value a certain amount of emotional privacy and I don’t really think people need to spend untold hours in therapy delving through every single time they’d ever had their feelings hurt. I learned that I felt this way after my own mom came to the Hall’s house for a weekend, and left early on Sunday. When I asked her why she and her husband weren’t staying for dinner, she told me that she didn’t feel comfortable in her own mother’s house, that she felt her parents were both intolerant of emotionality and quite controlling.

I think that’s the day I realized that my mother had a relationship with her mother exactly the same way I had a relationship with my mother. It seems obvious, but I’d never really understood that before – I remembered childhood with my mom’s probably slightly synthetic rapture about “going to the grandparents’ for Christmas! Aren’t you excited?”. My mother had her own opinions and feelings about her mom! Wow.
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