28 July 2004

Robin does a happy dance when he's eating ice cream that's really outstanding. So do I, actually. Mine is more of a groove (even though Lydy says I'm not old enough to use that word) and his is more of a bop, but still: the dance.

He also danced for the dill dip and the berries. It was a good night to be an Auntie Mrissa. His language is just exploding. Every time we see him there's something new. We just saw him Sunday. Still, new stuff.

I just love that kid so much.

I love his parents so much, too, in case you were wondering. Even if they never look up at me and say, "No, Missa, put on odder doooo!"

I liked eating out on the sunporch. It was a very good use of that space. We were using the old church table from Great-Grandpa, though, and a cobbled-together collection of chairs (our kitchen table chairs, our folding chairs, and a couple of director's chairs my mom has offered to do new canvases for but we haven't actually done yet). The problem is that I haven't found any furniture I don't hate for that room. It's not even that we can't agree on furniture we don't hate for that room. It's that we hate everything they're selling in the stores we've looked at so far.

I have to admit that furniture shopping has not taken top priority, since we aren't in absolutely dire need of new furniture and have been in absolutely dire need of work time and rest time and basic house/yard maintenance time, and furniture shopping doesn't fall into that category, and have enjoyed friend time, and furniture shopping doesn't fall into that category, either. But we do need to make time for more of it one of these days.

I got a Swiffer Wet-Jet -- don't know if I mentioned it at the time -- and it worked better on the sun porch floor than on the kitchen floor. I think this is because the porch was dirty, whereas the kitchen mostly had had us wiping up spills etc., so the big thing was that two people with long hair use it every day. Our Dustbuster, acquired for the purpose of quieter, more portable hair removal than our stupid loud vacuum cleaner, seems to have died. It does not seem to be recharging in its happy little wall recharging unit. Harumph. I am loath to buy another if this is how they work: going for a year or so and then deciding to quit. Any of you have advice for a hairy-but-clean household?

I'm wearing one of my birthday skirts, and it's really cute, but it's fullish and slightly below the knee, it comes in a red and white flower pattern, and I'm wearing it with a demure sleeveless shirt, so I feel like I'm playing 1950s dress-up. It's amusing to me to feel this way, because it's not overt costuming, and yet in my head it is. I feel like I should have a pitcher of lemonade to serve people on the sun porch with this skirt on. In wicker furniture. I hate wicker furniture. But I like lemonade and this skirt. But the only pitcher we have is the one Sarah made us, which is more my usual style.

Got all that? Right then.

Anyway, I've started reading Paula Volsky's The Grand Ellipse, which I started before picking up Hugo nominees at the library. I'm enjoying it so far, sort of, but the adjectives are getting at me, and she's doing it to me again. Like the others have. "Her angry color was still too high, for even now, despite advancing age [25], she had never fully mastered that troublesome temper of hers. Her lips were too red, as if painted, and too noticeable. Her wide eyes of pale, pure aquamarine, still ablaze with emotion, glared out of her sun-bronzed face like coach lanterns. The density of long lashes and the arch of strong brows several shades darker than her hair only heightened the objectionably obvious contrast. The general effect, despite the sobriety of conservative dark-blue garments, was arguably...garish."

Okay. Aside from the coach lanterns -- coach lanterns? Whoever wanted to have eyes like coach lanterns? "Your eyes, like coach lanterns; your breasts, like a second-story balcony waiting to be climbed; your fingers, like tea sandwiches...." -- anyway, aside from the coach lanterns, which just should not have been there, is there a word of that the reader is not supposed to take as "hot, hot, hot?" Are we sitting here thinking, yes, precisely, I think lips should be unnoticeable. Should have to wonder if a woman has a mouth at all. And eyes: definitely no contrast there, eyes should be similarly invisible." Bah. So far no one is treating her as unpleasant-looking, either, and she doesn't act as though she thinks she is.

Those of you who are writing books: don't do this to me. I'm serious. I hate this. Just don't.

But industrial fantasy adventure racing books, those are all right. That you can do.

Now that we have that settled, go forth.