december 31 2010

Moments left in 2010. After college, friends would travel to Chapel Hill for an annual New Years Eve party hosted (usually) by our friend Anny. She has been the primary host of the annual gathering for many years. I haven’t been able to attend the party for several years, but was looking forward to getting back and seeing longtime friends. The early years were complete blow-outs, but the festivities have mellowed greatly over the years as we got older and began to breed. In the morning, we have an annual brunch that is almost as much fun as the party. And we always have a group photo that is a wonderful testament of who is around and who is dating who. Girlfriends and boyfriends come and go. Sometimes the girlfriends become wives and the boyfriends become husbands. And occasionally they have become ex-wives and ex-husbands. The documentation of relationships is almost as enlightening as the documentation of hairstyles. Anyway, as I was in the grocery store this evening picking out the beer to take to the party, I got an email from Anny announcing that she was canceling the gathering due to illness. But my old friends Chuck and Mary, who hosted more than their fair share of these New Years Eve parties, offered to have me over and ply me with beer. So we stood around chatting in their newly remodeled kitchen with their friend Maria. One of the best lines was when Chuck blamed me for being the biggest corrupting influence on his life. High praise indeed. But please note that he is the one pouring the beer in this picture, not me.

And with this ends the great my2bigfeet blog project of 2010. A picture of my two/too big feet every day of the year, documenting the minutiae of my pathetic life. Every photo was from the day it claimed to be. I never missed a day, even though I may have been slow getting them posted. It was different from the great DailyPissPot blog project of 2009, special in its own way. But now it has come to an end. What does 2011 hold? Well, perhaps you’ll know where to look. Perhaps not. Either way. That’s it. I’m done here. My 2 big feet are walking out of here. xo

december 30

Eating lunch somewhere in southern Pennsylvania. We’re road-tripping it down to NC. Usually we do the drive in two days, stopping in Virginia at a hotel that has an indoor pool. But today we were going to Burlington instead of the mountains, which made the drive about 2 hours shorter. Plus we got off an hour earlier than usual. So it was right about here, at lunchtime, that we decided to go for broke and do the whole drive in one day. So we booked it down and managed to roll into Burlington at 9:30 pm. Which is right about the time we get the girls to settle down in a hotel room. Unfortunately, neither napped on the drive and couldn’t get to sleep until after 11 pm. But otherwise they were great travelers the whole day. Only one day left of this blog and if you’re interested in seeing the progression of the girls, just go back to January 10th and compare that picture of Barrow to this one.

december 29

This is what I do to discipline my kids. Whenever they give me any lip, I make them lie down on the floor under a chair for five whole minutes. Not really. This afternoon, Barrow came downstairs from her “quiet time” (while Strummer napped), pulled a chair into the middle of the room, lay down on the floor, and then slowly scootched her way underneath it until she got to the other side, in a kind of limbo-style. She didn’t say anything before or during. When she finished, she got up with this huge smile on her face and broke into a massive giggle fit. It was hilarious.

december 28

One of the things the girls got from “Santa” this year was the Candyland game. Now, I don’t think I had this growing up. But perhaps we had it when I was too young to remember. Anyway, this game rocks! It is such a great game for little kids. There is no dice you have to roll (Strummer still manages to chuck dice across a room and under the radiator). There are few parts or pieces to get lost or swallowed. You just have your gingerbread playing pieces and a color-coded trail from start to end. You draw a card and the card has a simple colored square (or two for double moves). You simply move your gingerbread piece to the next square of that color. Brilliant! Not only is this a game my 6-year old loves, but the 3-year old has a clear grasp of the concept. Even her pet giraffe understands the game. In fact, the giraffe beat me soundly this afternoon. But I swear it stacked the deck.

 

december 27

I haven’t been skating in a couple of years. The first time I went, I was already well into my 20s. I flailed around, smashed into the boards, and fell so many times I probably gave myself severe brain damage. The second time I went was in Oslo, Norway at this huge outdoor rink. Everyone was zipping right past me. Even the Norwegian babies who couldn’t yet walk were skating better than I was. I think (again, I’m not too sure about things because of the aforementioned brain trauma) the third time was a few years ago here in Geneva. I recall falling in a cartoon-like style, where my feet fly out in front of me, I become perfectly horizontal, even levitate upwards a good foot in the air, and then slam down on the ice with a resounding crash. All of this is just background information so you’ll appreciate that this time out on the ice I did not fall a single time. Not once. I still flailed around a good bit and hung close to the edge, but I did not fall. I even was wearing my bicycle helmet to avoid further brain trauma. Snicker if you must, but I was role modeling proper safety habits for the children (plus I had two friends get concussions last year from ice skating falls). And, yes, both of my kids skate better than I do.

december 26

Walking down the street with the girls and the beloved Laurel, who stopped by for a few hours with her friend John. It was Strummer’s first time out of the house in days, which was becoming apparent. Barrow and I went out on the afternoon of Christmas Day down to the corner store in order to buy eggs and lots of batteries (it appears that Santa, in his haste, forgot to get batteries and a memory card for the digital cameras he got for the girls. What a slack ass he has become). We even got to walk by our friend CG’s house. We were scheduled to go to CG’s this afternoon for a Boxing Day party but she had to cancel it because her house caught on fire Christmas Eve. The fire was on the roof, so most of the damage inside was just water damage. But a big chunk of the roof is burned away. Anyway, it was great seeing Laurel, if only for a few hours. And it is fitting that her feet should appear in the last week of this blog, since she and her feet were the inspiration for this year’s blog.

december 25

Christmas morning cuteness attack!!!! Opening stockings with glee. Such cuteness. And by far my favorite present I got this Christmas was a handmade book that the girls collaborated on. Earlier this week, they went into Anna’s office closed the door and wrapped their own presents for a solid hour. Most of what they did was wrap up their own toys to give each other and their own stuffed dolls. But they also made Anna and I little notes. But the book was the best. It is 8 pieces of paper stapled together with drawings by Barrow and the story dictated to Barrow by Strummer. It is so freaking adorable. I should have known it was going to be the best present ever based solely on the wrapping job. Here it is:

december 24

I’m on my way out to dump the compost (yes, somebody promised to take it out ‘in the morning’ and then forgot). At the end of the back deck, we have a ‘bird feeder’ that Anna got awhile ago. I use quotes around ‘bird feeder’ because I’ve never actually seen a bird feeding anywhere near it. I prefer to think of it as a ‘squirrel all-you-can-eat emporium.’ We put old bread out there and the squirrels descend en masse. We have the fattest, meanest squirrels in the neighborhood. Other squirrels have heard about our bread trough and try to stop by for a visit, but our squirrels chase their scrawny little asses back across town. Needless to say, birds don’t come anywhere near the feeder.

december 23

I’m not exactly clear on how or why it happened, but Anna introduced Alvin and the Chipmunks into our house a few days ago. Specifically it is the Christmas song about Alvin wanting a hulu-hoop. The girls freaking love it. This is an action shot of Barrow dancing around to it. Her dance involves hopping around like a chipmunk and spinning around as if she was doing a hulu-hoop dance. If that wasn’t cute enough — and it is — she has also memorized all the words to the song. Now, I didn’t know the song actually had lyrics. I thought it was just a bunch of high-pitched squealing.

december 22

I am slightly hesitant to speak ill of the US Postal Service, since there are several people we think very highly of that work in our local post office. But this morning, the charming and dashing Mailman Matt dropped off the box above. It was mailed to us from friends in Maine. If you are unable to tell from the photo, the box is completely and utterly smashed. Every side of it is marred and mangled. Someone at a post office somewhere along the route wrapped it up in plastic wrapping and stuck two stickers on it proclaiming: “Received in Damaged Condition.” Of course, it doesn’t indicate where those stickers were attached, as that would indicate where along the route it might have gotten smashed (eg: it leaves Maine in one piece, arrives in, say, Boston mangled. Thus, you’ve got a good idea where the tragedy transpired). Instead, this practice ensures that the USPS is not culpable for the damage. They seem to be saying that the USPS received the package after it was already damaged. As if our friends drove to their local PO, took turns kicking the living shit out of the package while in the parking lot, then carried it inside and mailed it to us.