put that bloody cigarette out.

thanks to my dad for finding me these wonderful last words to stitch, attributed to the british writer hector hugh munro, whose pen name was saki. he was killed by a german sniper during world war I, reportedly just after uttering this sentence.

i'm guessing that in real life, it had more of a hushed exclamation point at the end, rather than a period. below, saki and joyce.

indoors

not that i'm one to dwell on the weather,* but it's. so. cold. i'm tired of being cold. lately the issue is the bright golden sunshine that deceives me again and again into thinking it'll be a little bit warmer outside than it was the day before. this is my white whine of the week, and now i'll stop. i suppose that pitiful introduction is simply to explain why i wander around the inside of my house taking pictures of things. there's some pretty light going on outside, but i don't feel like going out there.

this little man lives in my room.

this happened.

while i was making a vegetarian "chicken" pot pie last night. boy was i glad my toe wasn't right there. or my dog!

i'm on big love season two.

catching up on new yorkers.

still working on the freelance writing thing (i love it).

sewing labels in a new batch of spring time tees.

also watching downton abbey.

listening to yeasayer (one of isaac's current favorites).

drinking so much tea.

also watching boardwalk empire with mark.

i forgot to tell you we bought a new mattress! this is big news for the many readers of this blog who have slept on my lumpy old (approximately 17 years old, to be exact) futon. we got the absolute cheapest fake-memory foam mattress we could find. it's well reviewed online. to tell you the truth, the jury is still out on whether or not it's going to change our lives. our old futon is still on our bedroom floor, serving as the most luxurious dog bed minnow ever had, and simultaneously blocking my closet door from opening, so i've been wearing the same pair of pants every day for a week. the new mattress is returnable for 90 days, although how the hell we'd get it back to the store in our hyundai i can't even begin to imagine (it came folded into an impossibly small rectangle, in a box). anyway, i think it is a vast improvement over the horrible futon. come sleep over at my house and you can try it out for yourself!

*ha ha ha ha ha ha!

talk what you please of future spring

i suppose spring is coming -- the sky looks different, and the light in the morning and afternoon is warm. we had one really balmy day, as a little reminder that it's coming, and now the temperature is back in the 30s, as a little reminder that we live in maine.

this boy. here he is doing his h dubs (get it? homework? hw? h dubs?). he let me give him hugs yesterday.

the girl is hatching plans to leave india and go to china!

here's how to turn your computer screen into a game of katamari.

i made vegan chocolate-banana bread pudding, and not only was it delicious, but now mark knows that he does like bread pudding, despite its dubious name.

i've been watching the first season of big love (which i watched long ago, way back in the days of hbo).

i'm stitching something great.

my writing project continues for now, and i love both the writing and the excuse to sit here messing around on the internets all day.

i had the most fun dream ever.

giant rabbits.

unicorns are show offs.

sperm whales name their babies.

let's go on a rollercoaster!


see what i mean about messing around on the internets? in addition to that, i walk my dog friend, and i don't have to wear my snow boot shoes or shuffle like a little old man any more!

i'm here

robot love story --

a sweet and strange and touching
short film by spike jonze

magic

my magical neighborhood. more magical was the fact that at 6:20pm yesterday, the sun was still shining brilliantly (not pictured). spring will come!

in other news, i'm working on a freelance writing thing that i'm kind of in love with. it will be finished some time around the end of this month, but i wish i could do it longer.

isaac is a skier, for real. he had a wonderful time with the cousins in tahoe during winter break, and since he returned he's skied twice with his school ski club and once with a bunch of friends, using one of the lift ticket gift certificates he got for christmas. he also just parted with some of his savings to buy new ski boots that look like they're from the future. i can't even tell you how sad he is to observe the coming spring, the melting snow.

zoë returned from a silent five-day meditation retreat somewhere in the himalayas recently. she's taking a hindi class every day for a month, and max is searching out volunteer opportunities now that the tibetan new year celebration is winding to a close. by the way, according to my research, it's the year of the female iron rabbit!

the marc pease experience

i'm still wondering

if this sucked on purpose, or
accidentally.

things

new shoes, a $15 splurge. cause, stripes! espadrilles, n'est pas? i won't be able to wear them outside for months, but c'est la vie! it pleases me to look down and see them, all springy despite the thick gray tights.

lunching with two of my favorite ladies, a new monthly event to look forward to. i made these cupcakes in honor of emily's birthday. i was nervous about them because i can't find the soy milk powder that's one of the secret ingredients of the fluffy vegan creme filling, but i made an inspired substitution and they were delicious.

daffodils from emily, which opened immediately. aren't they the most optimistic kind of flower? kind of determined, i think.

and then, there's this: why can't i slip and slide on the sidewalk icy patches in silence? why do i have to exclaim, "wha!" or "yeeep!" or "gaaa!"?

i have wildfire stuck in my head, two days after it installed itself there.

speaking of which, i would not turn down the opportunity to ride a horse on a beach one day.

this book was so good. short stories, 80 percent of which i bitterly regretted weren't novels, i was so deeply invested in them.

if you invited michael k. williams over to your house to watch a movie and eat popcorn, what movie would you want to watch?

what mean?

searches that brought people to my bloggity blog recently:

*what mean to be mama?

*when i grow up shovel snow

*what share to google buzz mean?

*momma is maen (sic)

so, nothing too funny, except that now i have a vivid image of an adorable four year-old child typing with one finger, searching for answers to these questions and dreaming of growing up and being big enough to shovel snow.

the horse boy

treating autism

with mongolian horses
and lots of shamans.

himalayan

mark and i skyped with the travelers the morning! we were happy to hear they made it easily to dharamsala and found a hotel in mcleod ganj. the bus ride turned out to be much shorter than they imagined -- ten hours instead of sixteen. they don't even realize how intrepid they are. max's blog has his first impressions of this new part of india. they've already made a friend and bought warm clothes. they reported that there are a lot of hippies there and plenty of hippie clothes available to buy (and just then i could see a guy in a rainbow-striped sweater pass behind them in the internet cafe). max also got a few photos up on flickr. the picture above is the answer to our question, "what do the himalayas look like, max?"

adventurers

i chatted briefly online with these adventurers this morning. they were in an internet cafe in new delhi, after spending 36 hours on a train from bangalore. zoë reported that the trip was great, and that the time went by fast. they were in delhi for only about a day, and they'll be catching a bus any minute now to dharamsala. they'll spend sixteen hours on the bus, and then they'll be hanging out in mcleod ganj for a while. that's where the dalai lama lives when he's at home (which he is!), and it's home to many tibetan refugees. they will be looking up at the himalayas! it will be cold, or at least cool! the town is more tibetan than indian, so it's very much like going to an entirely different country. at least, this is what i've read about it -- i am pretty excited to hear their reports and see their photographs, once they get settled.

zoë made this gap year map that shows everywhere they've been so far, and it's kind of mind-blowing.


View Gap year trip in a larger map

rabbit rabbit

i'm remembering your vitriol last year on the subject of march. i can't help it, it just sounds better than february!