Happy Birthday America

Let the Bedazzler Smackdown commence!

(Have a safe and joyous Fourth of July, everybody.)

Totally Not Dead and Feeling Much Better Now

The masses are beginning to move in preparation for our annual Fourth of July cabin trip (a.k.a. Beastie’s Bedazzler Smackdown).

Just last night I put the finishing touches on the patriotic T-shirt for my sister-cousin Kerry, and I must admit, it is a masterpiece. I did not end up having to use power tools as I anticipated. No Bedazzlers were employed, either, because the video of Tana from The Apprentice drove me screaming away from the Official Bedazzler website before I could order one. Nevertheless, through ingenuity and the creative application of industrial-strength Velcro®, I have constructed a T-shirt that I am convinced Kerry will would rather die a slow, painful death than wear in public on the Fourth of July. And that is exactly how I know it is perfect.

It is tacky. It is sparkly. It has attachments and moving parts. I can’t say any more than that at this point, but you have my most solemn promise, there WILL be photos.

This year, for the first time, the sisters and sister-cousins have planned a menu, delegated shopping duties and assigned cleanup detail, in an attempt to keep everything as fair and stress-free as possible. This is no small feat, considering that there will be about 15 people to feed and clean up after. Sister-cousin Tiffany, who, like me, is much more an enjoyer of food than a cooker of it, just e-mailed me the following from Seattle:

From: Tiffany
Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2006 10:07 AM
To: EverydaySuperGoddess
Subject: Cabin Menu

I have never before made a grocery list that starts out "32 eggs."

Tiffany will arrive in Minneapolis tonight, and I’ve been so preoccupied by being sick and trying to get everything wrapped up at work and organized at home that I completely forgot until just now that she will come bearing a very special box of very special somethings, just for ME.

Because a few weeks ago, when she wrote and asked if there was anything I’d like from Pike Place Market (she is kind and good and generous and thoughtful like that), I wrote back and said, “Never mind the Pike Place Market. I want CUPCAKES.”

Cupcake Royale is a Seattle institution that I did not have a chance to visit in person when My Ho and I were in Seattle last summer, but I did sample several of their little nuggets of buttercream heaven. Since then, it seems like I’ve been reading about Cupcake Royale all over the place, and for months, I’ve been pining for cupcakes. We may have finally rated a Trader Joe’s, but to date there is no such thing as a gourmet cupcake bakery in Minneapolis. It’s tragic, really.

Suddenly, I’ve forgotten about being sick, and about all the packing I have to do. None of that matters any more, because tonight, I will have a Ballerina and a Dance Party with Holly Hobby, I’ll have the Classic and the Kate and the Lavender, and I’ll have the Ultra Violet and the Barbie and both flavors of the Mo Fro. Maybe I will share. Maybe I won’t.

Cupcakes make EVERYTHING better.

Note to Self:

Next summer? At the Pride festival?

Stay the HELL away from the chicken gyro stand, you idiot.

I so do not have time to be sick, but apparently my lower intestine did not get the memo.

Oh, that's okay. Don't worry about me. I'll just be right over here, wishing for death.

It's just... that I've been so very busy...

So, okay, it’s been a tiny bit more than "a few days," and I apologize for that. A number of blog-worthy things have been going on, which I’ll get to later (really). But today I am sunburned and little bit weary after my second Pride festival in the Mother Bear Project booth.

The DemiGoddesses were with their dad over the weekend, so I was on my own this time, much to Mother Bear Amy's disappointment. We managed without them, but the event was simply not the same without the mad bear-sponsoring skillz the Demis have demonstrated on many an occasion.

Fellow Batling Infield (of Third Base Line), along with her mom, stopped by our booth for a lovely visit on Saturday.

And I owe a special shout of thanks to my most excellent knitting/blogging/writing friend Amy (of Knit Think), who stepped up and spent much of yesterday workin’ it alongside me and the bears.

You, my friend? Are AWESOME.

I was also priveleged to meet Amy’s delightful knitting/blogging friend Chris (of Stumbling Over Chaos), who graced us with her presence, and also with her camera. I have shamelessly stolen Chris's pictures from her site so you can see for yourselves the photographic evidence that these days I have been neglecting you, my small but inexplicably loyal posse of peeps, have not been entirely wasted:

Vacation All I Ever Wanted

A long, painful work week has finally come to an end, and Justin Morneau was good enough to give the Goddesses a two-run walk-off homer to send us off to the north woods with happy hearts. As I listen to the next few games on My Ho's satellite radio (no elecricity at the lake), I will recall fondly the image of my darlings en masse, jumping up and down on home plate in the bottom of the 12th inning.

How I do enjoy the celebratory man love.

(Disappointing, though, that it denied us The Return of The Lohse. Er, not.)

The Goddess is on vacation. I'll be back in a few days.

Boofed

It appears that I’ve been tagged by Mr. BergBlog (who is not Mr. Bonser , although that would have been okay, too…). And because I’m still reeling from the shocking jump in hits I received from Batgirl’s site yesterday, and, also, in honor of Mr. Bonser (who is not Mr. Bergblog) starting against the Mariners this evening, I’m going to go ahead and bore you all with a list of five things about EverydaySuperGoddess:

5 Items in My Fridge
A Brita Water Filter Pitcher
Two Bottles of Harp Lager (The remains of the six-pack I bought for St. Patrick’s day. The Goddess is not much of a drinker.)
Chile Morita Fire Roasted Salsa
Leftover Macaroni and Cheese (Made last night by DemiGoddess the Younger)
Four Pounds of Butter (Costco rules!)

5 Items in My Closet
A Radke Jersey (Very Dusty and Possibly Still Cursed)
A Santana Jersey (Defnintely not touching the Radke Jersey)
A “Ron Gardenhire is my Boyfriend” Shirt
Many, Many Dairy Queen Cap Night Twins Caps
Two Cartons of Chocolate-Covered Marshmallow Eggs (What’s left of my carefully rationed Easter stash)

5 Items in My Car
Walking Shoes
A Whole Foods Re-Usable Grocery Bag
Two 40 lb. Bags of Water Softener Salt (That I haven’t had the will to haul down to the basement yet)
A Blue Mynci Stuffed Neopet (From a Long-Ago McDonald's Happy Meal)
My Earbud Radio (For use while running, walking, or when the DemiGoddessess have choir concerts while the game is on.)

5 Items in My Purse
Tissues
Bigelow Mentha Lip Tint No 1136
12-Hour Sudafed Tablets
Gum
Lots of Receipts from Trader Joe’s

There. Now you know ALL my secrets.

And, because no one likes to suffer alone, I’m tagging Amy, Meghan, Melissa, Angelica and Joe.

Somebody, Please, Get the Woman a Fork

Happy Birthday, Batgirl!

Love,

EverydaySuperGoddess

(a.k.a. TwinsGoddess)

Scattered

A lot is going on lately. I haven’t written about it because between all the details and the heavy-duty allergy meds I am taking so that I don’t go after my own flesh with a power sander, my brain is all over the place and I can barely string together a coherent thought, much less a passable blog post.

The good news is that my kitchen is finally done. The cabinets are back in place, and everything is so clean and pretty that I’ve almost forgotten the tears and sweat and swearing and handfuls of ibuprofen that got it that way. I want to move my bed into the kitchen so the lovely lavender walls and fresh white cabinets, illuminated by summer sunshine, will be the first thing I see when I wake up every morning. I’d totally do it, too, if not for the ants.

My house is no longer leaky, thanks to the new roof that my insurance company was kind enough to pay for, even though I didn’t ask them to since I didn’t know I needed it. The dripping skylights are gone, but the rest of the sunroom remains unfinished, and I seem to be having a lot of trouble reaching the contractor who came to look at it two weeks ago—the contractor who is supposed to be replacing the original contractor, who started the work last March but quit some time during the weeks while I was waiting for the snow to melt so the insurance adjustor could climb up and inspect the roof that I didn’t know needed replacing.

My mom had a birthday (happy birthday mom!), so the Goddess sisters had a birthday dinner and gift to plan and organize. And, of course, the Demis have only a few days of school remaining, so all sorts of wrap-up activities are going on as well.

A day after they finish school we’re heading to Upper Michigan to the lake, meaning that a case of cabin fever is severly compounding my scattered-ness. I’ve been compulsively writing and revising packing lists and menus, shopping for groceries and acquiring my requisite stash of trashy magazines.

Cabin trips are the only time all year when I’m willing to pay actual money for Us Weekly and People, and it’s all I can do to leave them unread until we get to the lake. Which makes it that much sweeter once I survive the drive, get the car unpacked, and can finally kick back on the porch, gaze out at the lake, sigh contentedly, and then dive headfirst into those pristine pages of glossy celebrity gossip. With a cold beer to wash it all down.

I’ve been to London and I’ve been to France, but there’s still no place in the world more beautiful than that.

Love Note

Every Memorial Day weekend there is an enormous AA roundup (“with Al-Anon participation”) here in the Twin Cities. Literally thousands upon thousands of AAs and Al-Anons and Alateens pack into a local Sheraton from Friday night until Sunday morning. Speakers come from all over the country to tell their stories, and meetings go on pretty much all day and all night. There’s a lot of food, mobs of people, literature and tapes for sale, and program speak at every turn. It’s kind of a three-ring circus of twelve-step recovery.

The first time I went to this roundup was in 1997. I’d been doing the Al-Anon thing for not quite a year at the time, and I was completely blown away by what I saw and heard there. By Sunday morning, I was physically, spiritually, and emotionally exhausted (in a good way). I picked up several speaker tapes that weekend (this was back before I had a CD player in the car), including one, totally at random, of an Al-Anon who had spoken at the roundup a couple of years before. Her name was Blanche, she was from Texas, and her story was so smart and sassy, so touching and funny and wise, that I ended up listening to her tape over and over again. Every year after that I would attend the annual roundup, secretly hoping that she’d be on the schedule so I could meet her in person. I heard lots of fantastic speakers, but Blanche never appeared. Somewhere along the line, I heard that she had passed away.

Lately, my Al-Anon program has become pretty halfhearted, for a number of reasons. My main focus this past Memorial Day weekend was to finally get the doors back on my kitchen cabinets, and on how I was going to work that in around the barbecues the DemiGoddesses and I were invited to. When a friend called to see if I wanted to meet up with her at this year’s roundup, I couldn’t believe I had forgotten all about it. I said I’d meet her for the Al-Anon speaker on Saturday afternoon.

The speaker’s name turned out to be Stephanie. She was from Texas, and like most people who get invited to speak at these events, she had been in Al-Anon for a long, long time. Her story was smart and sassy, touching and tragic, funny and wise. As she talked about her background, her family of origin, her marriage and her children, I identified with many of the things she said. She talked about how she got to her first Al-Anon meeting, and the ways in which the twelve steps had made life better for her. And she talked about finding her Al-Anon sponsor, whose name… was Blanche. The very same. Stephanie had been at the hospital holding Blanche’s hand when she died.

I don’t usually go out of my way to meet speakers, but afterwards I waited in line to meet Stephanie. I wanted to tell her how glad I was that I’d come to the roundup to hear her speak. How much I appreciated her telling her story, and how even though I’d never met Blanche in person, that I’ve often thought of her and many of the things she said. That Blanche had impacted more people than she knew. I yammered on and on, trying to spit out the words to express what I wanted to say, but there were people waiting in line behind me, and so finally I just said, “Thank you so much for being here.” Which, really, didn’t even come close.

I don’t know if I’ll ever attend regular meetings again, or if I’ll ever get back to working a 12-step program the way I used to. I can’t even say for sure why I stopped. I’d never claim to be completely “cured” of the things that got me there in the first place, although, certainly, a lot of them are much, much better. I guess, deep down, I suspect that someday life is going to serve me up a curveball that will get me back in with both feet. And when that happens, I’ll know where to go.

Because that kind of thing? Those chance encounters that maybe aren’t so random after all? I used to call those “love notes from God.” And they seem to happen a lot around those crazy 12-step people.

Wednesday is Bath Day

ESG to a Demigoddess who shall remain nameless:

"You know, if you put those stinky feet on the couch, the couch will smell like feet."