i really gotta get up earlier in the morning...

but as you can see by my absence that just isn't happening...

sigh...

anyhow, i have a rare few quiet task free moments so i thought i'd check in...

oh, and

happy autumnal equinox!!!

i was going to make pumpkin doughnuts in honor this first day of autumn (and the 2nd birthday of my lovely neice, the flea...but i didn't get *actual* permission to wish her a happy birthday blog style to i'm just slipping this in) this morning but i had to take wingman to the dentist...i'm going to make them later or tomorrow morning...

and this weekend we need to take a walk to gather stuff for our nature table...

i love fall...

so the duke of fun has become quite the fan of this particular band...they are whiny and annoying and trite but he's 9 so whatevs...

anyhow, he wanted me to look them up on the web so he could check them out...so we're on the site and we see that you can watch some videos of theirs...

now, we aren't the MTV generation around here...i mean sure, like in 1985 i totally rocked the MTV, but now i'm old and so is the lord of the ring and the boybarians are young so we have no relationship with the watching of videos...

i do know enough to know that a LOT has evolved (and i use that word lightly) in the world of videos...and that nowadays what you get on MTV is what you used to get on cinemax late night...

needless to say, i was a bit worried...so i say to the duke

"we can watch this, but if anything inappropriate comes on i want you to turn your head...okay?"

"okay"

so we click it on and are watching it and there comes a part wherein the band is in a car on the vegas strip...they are all singing and hanging out the windows of the car and climbing around and just being drunk and silly...

all of a sudden the duke shouts

"OH. NO. THEY AREN'T WEARING THEIR SEATBELTS!! TURN YOUR HEAD! TURN YOUR HEAD!"

can i tell you.

and so the parental mocking commences...i wondered how long it would take...

the worst part is he has the whiny song all stuck in his head and i have to live with him bopping about and singing it...

wingman isn't much better...today i was on the computer on one of the gossipy sites and there was a picture of mariah carey performing...well, for some reason she feels the need to wear a bra like top and boy shorts with a robe like thing while doing so...lordy...there are just some things that should be left to the imagination...

anyhow, i didn't know wingman was behind me until i heard him running away shouting

"duke! duke! mama was looking at girls in their underwear on the computer!!"

fantastic.

that's just great because then it was time to take him to school...i can only imagine...and it's probably "share day" too...

so after that bit of fun i was talking to my little sister on the phone and she was reminding me about a picture my grandmother had in a frame in her living room...

see my aunt had given her a frame for her birthday...and it had a fake picture in it that you're *supposed* to remove and replace with one of your own...

only my grandmother kept the fake one in there...when asked about it months later she said that since there aren't any good pictures of me and since the woman in the photo looked like me, she was just keeping it and thinking of it as me...

okay, so there are so many levels of wrongness to this whole thing it's going to be hard to know where to begin...

first of all, yeah, so i take a bad picture...but she was my grandmother!...she's supposed to not care...and second, hello!, the woman in the picture was 40 if she was a day!...

i was maybe 15...shit, i actually can't remember how old i was because i didn't even remember the incident until my sister walked me through it...gee...i wonder why it is i can't remember things...

this along with the relationship i have with my boybarians just further highlights how it is i have come to my current mental state...

no wonder i don't get up earlier than i do...

x.

dinner tonight

spicy red beans with coconut rice
salad

last week was the week of beef. it's what's for dinner. so i've been doing more beans and grains dishes this week...though the recipe says spicy, judging from the ingredients i don't think it will be too spicy for wingman...coconut rice is a favorite...of course it won't be cooked well because i'm cooking it, but with the coconut milk in the dish it doesn't seem to matter...

and in another matter all together, what to do with beets...sure they're good for you...but who really likes them?...good lord ever since that unfortunate canned beet incident in the second grade i really haven't had a moment's peace that included beets...ever...but then came the day that wingman was allowed to pull as many as he likes from the neighbor's garden...

oy vey...turns out he really likes pulling beets...

BUT!...beet risotto...oh. my. god...it's so delicious, and you can't even TASTE THE BEETS!...the recipe is actually beet and greens risotto from vegetarian cooking for everyone by deborah madison...so not only are there beets, there's also about a pound of greens...very healthy...very tasty...

even if you are not a vegetarian you should have this cookbook...it's amazing and the recipes are always delicious...