fox in the snow’s Neighborhood

With a noise like the last half inch of milkshake, Sherbert slurps off my boob, grunts happily and lies back on my lap to gaze at me in wonder, a small dribble of milk running down into his chins.

"Look at him looking at you!"  clucks my mother, "He loves his mummy!"

"Nah," says my brother, "He's just wondering why that boob's got a head."

Last night I discovered that if I take extra thick Jersey cream, as well as chocolate with added cocoa butter, plus butter, and mix it all together, I do not end up with nice truffle mixture.  I end up with a split, greasy mess.  Fortunately Big Boy's working from home today and has agreed to make batch number two ready for the truffle preparation tonight. 

Last night I also dreamed rather a lot about cake.  Chocolate cake, chocolate brownies (£150 a cake apparently).  No misc other, just cake.  I really could do with some cake. 

Next week a friend who I haven't seen or spoken to in ten years is coming to London.  Suggestions for topics of conversation so far include:

1. So, ten years, you've grown!
2. How's the PhD going? 
3. All about my PhD (til she gets bored)
4. What's brought you down to London?
5. Sorry I didn't invite you to my wedding or get in touch when your mother died. (scrap this option)
6. Um... So shall we go and get drunk?

I'm nervous, not least because I'm not the most talkative of people at the best of times and it's been so long, but I really am very much looking forward to seeing her.  Is she going to ask me why we lost touch (which was down to me)?  I hope not, and I kind of wish we hadn't. 

I'm antsy because I've forgotten how to blog.

And because I had a crappy lunch out.  Sprog weed all over the floor and Sherbert pooed on my friend's leg.

And because I have a friend coming round for a coffee and both children are asleep and I can't be arsed to put trousers on and make conversation.

And because we're waiting to hear about a job thing for Mr S, but the inconsiderate git is on site all day so not checking his emails so there could be an email sitting in his inbox RIGHT NOW but I have to wait until he gets home to find out.  This is killing me.  Further details to follow if I remember how to blog.

 

This post started life entitled 'the yin and the yang of lunch' and was marginally funny, then it became a full report of the job thing, now it's this.

This week has been testing to say the least. S has been really ill and off work for three days, meaning that I have been looking after both him and Jacob and not getting a minute to myself since Sunday (normally S takes him for a bit when he comes in after work).  Then our boiler broke and we spent one day with no water at all and two without hot water.  The boiler man is finally fixing it today so we can all get clean.  Having said that I washed yesterday like the 'olden days' with buckets of hot water heated on the stove.  It was ok, but the novelty wore off fairly quickly!

Today S is much better and is looking after Jacob so I can lie down and blog and have a nap.  Its bliss.

I took this last week - look at the little water baby - so so cute.  He smiles at me now, I'm in love.

 

So basically since the hot (or balmy) weather is driving me crazy while I'm awake, I'm left to dream about other things for once.  Thankfully my subconscious allows me a short break in thinking from all of the [*** fluffy rabbits, bouncing through fields ***] stuff in the day.  Which basically means crisps.  I've been dreaming about crisps again.  Last week I was actually quite smug because I realised that my crisp dream had involved my almost buying them then putting them back uneaten.  I thought this was progress.  Last night I dreamed about plain crisps again, which brings the total to:

salt and vinegar crisp sandwich (dream one)
plain crisps on ham sandwich (dream two)
cheese doritos (the old favourite - my big downfall in the glory days) eaten for breakfast (dream three)
Misc unidentified crisps put back on shelf (might have been chilli flavoured) (dream four)
More plain crisps eaten (dream five).

But actually I think that for someone who remains addicted to the crisps she can't have, five dreams in six months isn't too bad going.  I wonder if it's this hard to give up gak.  I'm also quite amazed that I haven't dreamed about wine at all since I've cut it down dramatically and shot my booze tolerance, or about sticky toffee pudding, but I probably keep myself just topped up enough on those to stave off the dreams.

There I go again.  Boring, boring, boring.  My preoccupations are so very few.  Still don't want any cake today, despite the obvious temptation of working near a Konditor and Cook.

I've been so boring lately.  Since - uh - well ever really, but especially recently.  I've been boring everyone's socks off since January when I started my diet (what, you haven't heard?) and recently - alas - I had a birthday.  I'm still not 30, so it's all okay.  I'm still younger than a whole ton of people around me.  My birthday was last week and I was building up the excitement for at least the previous four to six weeks.  It's still my birthday week now because I haven't had all of my presents.  I also haven't had a chance to buy rose petals to go in my first ever sorbet in my new Kitchenaid ice cream maker attachment, which is another boring thing that preoccupies me.   Oh and today I don't fancy cake. 

The only things that have been going through my head most predictably recently have been these, as well as the fact that I'm still (GAH!  GAAAH!) waiting to hear about my funding application that could decide my future, whilst the hot weather has turned my mind to less tracks than usual - right down in fact to one.  Am I thinking about food constantly?  No.  Am I thinking about sleep?  No.  It's the other thing.  Constantly.  This doesn't bode well for summer.  This could be a long, long summer.  Hot dang.

I'd say that I'm so boring that I'm boring myself, but that's not true.  I'm boring everyone around me - including the readers of my blog - but I remain quite excitable. 

Did I mention it's another 51 weeks until my next birthday? 

Last night I dreamt that Runner Girl and I went on holiday together but because of some mix-up we had to stay in our hotel room for the whole time.  We had loads of boxes of chocolates; the kitschy chocolate boxes with kittens, cottages and red ribbons (do they even make those any more?).  I was cramming chocolates into my mouth as fast as my little paws could pick them up and RG ate precisely one chocolate from her box.  This is the sort of dream I used to have when I was giving up smoking but substitute the fags for the chocs.  Complete and utter fear of losing control I suspect or fear that I've already lost control. 

My optician today:

Sie tragen Brille sehr schön  (You look great in glasses)

 

We're home from DC and what a great trip we had! If you remember, I had originally planned to go on from DC to Philadelphia, NYC, Boston and Montreal. Then I thought again. I was seriously burning out in my semester when I was thinking about that summer trip and I think it gave me something to look forward to. Then summer came and I wanted to do exactly nothing. Frankly, the kids are lucky we made it as far as DC. I decided that all those other cities can wait; we'll enjoy them more if we don't see them on top of each other. Besides, I had to get home because I have like 5000 things to do on the house before we head to China and school starts again.

So! Washington DC was fantastic! That is one cool city, and seeing it with family made it even better. I think we've taken more vacations with my sister-in-law Brette and her kids than any other family member.

To sum up, we saw/went/did/ate:

The Lincoln Memorial

The Vietnam Memorial

Korean War Memorial

World War II Memorial

 

Ate at Five Guys Burgers

One day I'll write the story of how we drove around for an hour and went to three different Five Guys restaurants before we found parking and then, after standing in line and finally getting our food, I dropped the burger right on the dirty floor. Oh, I guess I just did.

Tour of the White House (no cameras allowed!)

The National Gallery of Art

Tour of the Library of Congress (didn't get to see the President's book of secrets, dammit)

The National Museum of Art Sculpture Gardens

 

The "Cool Globes" exhibit at the United States Botanic Garden. Jesse saw the Cool Globes last year in Chicago but we didn't seen them yet. They were very, er, cool.

The National Museum of Natural History

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing -- again, no photos but one of the best things we saw, I think, especially for the kids.

The Washington Monument

The Museum of Air and Space ( which didn't really do anything for me)

The Holocaust Memorial Museum, which can only be described as powerful and disturbing and overwhelming and also definitely worth going to.

 I have more photos on Flickr, most of them marked as "family and friends" so if you want to see them, add me.

 

 

On Saturday we went to Steve and Janie's for the night. We met Gary, Kelly, and Jenny (I'll come back and link to all those names when I'm less lazy). Gary made seriously the best steaks ever -- their reputation is deserved. Libby caught a frog in the pool...

and, truthfully, I kicked butt at SingStar. Yeah, I said it.