Here are our spoils from the beer store. We got a bunch of individual bottles. Yesterday was Laos night. This evening was a Canandaigua porter. We're old people who share a beer between us with dinner. My left turn signal is on right now, in fact.
Moving to the outside of the fridge, we have a precious gem from our special snowflake. I walked in to daycare one day and they had a bowl of fake fruit in the middle of the table and the kids were sketching it with crayons. I'm still giggling about it, but actually I was sort of impressed with the level of recognizability. Left to her own devices Dylan generally chooses abstract themes for her art, so when she occasionally brings home something like a drawing of our whole family with faces and limbs and everything it causes me to ask if one of her friends gave it to her.
That monkey from Kansas City keeps climbing back in the window. Speaking of Kansas City, we were supposed to use it to get to know the programs we're interested in, but Aaron used it to get to know Kansas City and has made his decision that that's where we should go. He's simple, that one.
Let's see. On the left here we have what looks like a disposable cup that is not disposable. It has been billed, in our house, as a Big Girl Sippy Cup, to assuage the existential pain that accompanies being too old to be allowed to use an actual sippy cup. Next is my lunch box because no one feeds me lunch on my current rotation, although I have taken to eating neither lunch nor breakfast and just munching all morning because I work better if I eat one bite per thought processed. Above that is a toy I rinsed off weeks ago and hung up to dry that has been hanging out there ever since. Moving right you'll see the masking tape I use to label Ollie's bottles every day. One day they came home with big red intimidating BREAST MILK stickers on them, but they did not supply me with any additional BIOHAZARD labeling items so I stick with the masking tape. In the middle of the counter you'll find the wegmans whole wheat pitas that I like to make pizzas out of. They have a ridiculous amount of fiber and you can taste it. I must keep getting them out of pure habit. Behind that are some CSA veggies I havn't gotten around to using yet. Adjacent to the veggies we have the toaster, which we have resentfully used for the several years since since the death of Toasty, our beloved toaster oven. You probably heard us wax rhapsodic about him if you visited the house circa 2005-2007. On the far right is a selection of vitamins that may or may not provide health benefits. Who knows?
Starting again on the left we find the microwave. Although purchased in the modern era, it takes up enough space to suggest a direct lineage from the early behemoths. The sippy cup in the foreground likely made its way to the counter after 70 repetitions of being thrown to the floor by Ollie and retrieved by me. Dylan told me I should just stop giving it back to him. Right on, super preschool nanny. Behind that is our Cookie Maker 3000. I don't know if it's ever been used for anything else. Wait, I do know. It has not. The silver cylinder thing is an olive oil micronizer from Nana that I use to correct family members as needed. One squirt for sass, two for impertinence, three for back talk. Impudence? That's a paddling. The plant is a cutting from an old family plant that I'm slightly successfully nursing back to health after a brief illness. The water bottle behind it is also in disrepair. The liquid soaps on the ledge have ingredients I don't like, yet I can't bring myself to switch before we use them up. On top of the microwave is the bottle warmer-upper that will only be in use for three more months not that anyone's counting. The same three months will also see the joyous retirement of like 800 other pumping and bottling supplies. I am weary of my milk processing duties, although once we cut out the middleman I don't mind it. I nursed Dylan for a full year older than this current baby is now. Good lord.
The key elements to notice here are: 1)the cloth wall hanging I brought back from South Africa in 2005 that I'm still in love with, 2)the child's menorah, ready for use at a moment's notice, 3)the box of cheerios that I use in a steady stream to appease ollie, who starts yelling urgently the minute he sees the glint of yellow box, and 4)the speakers that Aaron wired into the kitchen to allow me to feed my npr habit at all times. Good on you, Aaron.
You know I could keep going, but I'll spare us all. Last up we have the High Chair Bandit. He'll steal yer cheerios just as soon as look at you. I caught him doing this himself but I was too slow on the draw so I had to recreate it.
