anniversaries, vodka and Irish blood

celebrating
one full year as a Massachusettian (if that's the right word?)  i love it here.  the people first.  the weather second.  the beautiful, moody, never-ever blue skies third.  and Bertucci's fourth.  yes!  that shows how much i loooove the people here (did i ever mention EVERYONE here is Irish with blue eyes and sweet hearts and they look at you with the kind of familiarity that makes you feel safe and warm and like you're finally home at last after 17 years stuck in the desert with nothing but dry sandy ground to attempt to sink your awfully homesick roots into)

thinking
it's kinda awesome that our fridge chinks with all the glass bottles of alcohol when you slam the door now.  this officially makes us grown-ups (kind of)

dying
to go to Costco for more of the above... teenage years: i'm back! (that's what i mean by kind of grown-up ;)

going
to drink more water today.  Aaron says it will fix my head.  which i'm extremely doubtful about, but hopeful ;)

wondering
if it's wrong to bribe the dentist with a chocolate bar, to use gentle hands...?  yes, i'm going back (but NEVER EVER AGAIN) 

going
to Joanns today.  urgh.  though in the Joanns here they encourage you to use a 40% off coupon for every single item - because we are all family here :)

not going
to lunch today - it's probably for the best given how many Laffy Taffys i ate yesterday (190 pieces is now about 52 rejects.... but i did leave all the banana ones for the kids' unsophisticated palettes ;)

reading
Morrissey Autobiography.  yes, finally, the mail lady finished reading my copy and actually delivered it!  omg it's like melted Cadbury's chocolate for the Irish Blood English Heart's weary soul.  we are reading it together (rather, i am lying with my head in his lap while he reads to me and i'm correcting his pronunciations from American to proper English :)  Morrissey writes (and he uses many words when one would do;) about record stores in deepest, darkest Manchester i forgot i ever went in (that he actually WORKED in!!)... soap operas that i barely remember but remember every actor's name and face and voice from his vivid descriptions....painfully long bus routes, dark cobbled streets, Marc Bolan being a jerk (i didn't doubt it), taking his Nanny's cat Blackie on the bus in a paper bag (no way - my Grandma had a cat named Blackie too!), greasy cafes where the only thing edible was chips, AND my beloved Kendals rooftop cafe, moving to California with it's ever-optimistic blue skies, David Bowie (he sounds jerky too ;)... this book is heaven.  and i don't even like books!  but i do love being read to and sitting bolt upright because "I'VE BEEN THERE!!!! i thought i dreamt that!!" over and over and over :)

off to the dentist, Mars Bars in hand - back later (or maybe not....)

a week in pictures and very few words

aww i love it here too!! (and someone has quite a way with words to come up with that :)

Plainville, Mass (it's not coffee stained in real life...)

 we went on a tour of the fire station 

there were no cute firemen and this one didn't even know why

airport firetrucks are yellow (seriously)
also: a firetruck costs $430K

 it's not really OK, but what are you going to do...?

 omg i want to devour this baby whole :)

 we went to the dentist (everyday stuff like this excites me!)

 his just-polished-teeth smile (yeah, it gives me the shivers too)

 this also gives me the shivers

he makes a cute hamster

a huge chuckling baby hugging a tiny president (nightmare-inducing...)

 also creepy

 orange is the new black (in which they wear beige...?)

 

 a huuuuuge bar of chocolate lasts just long enough for one 'orange is the new black' :)

  dear Angela i hope you are all better xoxo

   Megan pretending to be a cut-out cat eating our cut-out bats and rats

 i love the sky here (one year on and i'm still in love with the clouds and shadows)

 this is Patriot Place - i know, huh????!!

 the cub scouts hiked and learned a lot about fishing (yawn)

 heat seekers (i have no clue how to turn on the heating...)

 i'm on page 3.  BUT i've already looked at all the pictures :)
he has a way with words... but Manchester really wasn't that bad ;)

 our pretty street, much prettier in real life, not through a dirty windscreen

 this is his 'book report: complete' pose :)  horray!!!!
also: i really need to figure out the heating...

Oprah, Jeffrey Osborne and Obama's portuguese water dog

missing

Oprah.  kind of.  not often but every once in a while.  i miss shows about people with insurmountably unsolvable, shockingly awful, gaspworthy problems and she was the queen at finding people like that :(  i miss that self-assured, warm-ish feeling of watching really truly hopeless cases every day at 3pm while i contemplated simple things like what to make for dinner and whether i should paint my nails blue or green

dying

a slow painful death from toothache.  i had my "small filling" today to address the Martha's Vineyard incident - and omg it bloody hurt like the dickens.  or i'm a huuuuuge chicken with a very low pain threshold....?  but either way: i am never ever ever having another filling :|  like E-V-E-R :|

still waiting

for that Morrissey book to come. it's never going to show up, i just know it - i should just fly home and get it myself, it would be quicker (but admittedly more expensive than $14......) and i bet the day it arrives, it will become available here.  and that's the defintion of irony, Alanis (i think....? or maybe it's just maddening)

hating

live versions of songs.  i only have one word: WHY?????????  i hate drunken cheering and missed notes and entirely forgotten lines and applause.  more than life itself :|

listening

to Universal Mother by Sinead.  i really wish she would just block out the awful trainwreckness that is Miley Cyrus  - because if you wrestle with a pig, you'll both get dirty but the pig will like it ;)

dreading

reaching episode 13 of "Orange is the New Black".  because: what are we going to watch then????! it's the kind of fascinating, witty, addictive viewing i haven't seen in forever...

yuuuuuuuuuuuuum!!!  please just consider making Fall year round Trader Joe....... at least here!

 i always wondered if it was THE Jeffrey Osborne - it is!  i love Providence :)

also: i loooooooove going for Indian food in Providence

though i bit my cheek 7000 times during lunch, thanks to the dumb filling :(

 the dentist was SO AWFUL i had to get a shellac manicure 

(which was very hard to casually work into a selfie :)

 the sky was crazy tonight - Danny said someone important must have died :|

 this is our neighbor's dog: the very same dog Obama has

so we live next door to the Obama's dog's possible second cousin (and that's cool!)

books, granola and spotify

embracing
the Monday morning rumble and reversing beeps of the schoolbus with joyful open ears.  it's been a looooooong weekend of reading and nagging and deep breaths and bribes and threats and crossed arms (and it wasn't even a long weekend last weekend ;)

waiting
for my NEW order of the Morrissey Autobiography to arrive.  because the person who i ordered if from last weekend says she doesn't even have a copy to ship.  hmm.  and this is why i don't own a gun :|  (also because i hate loud noises and i don't want to admit my real weight :) 

noting
that English people's apologies are so much more sincere and heartfelt than American's... even if i had a gun and wasn't afraid of loud noises and weighed within a healthy range for MY height, i couldn't possibly shoot someone who says they apologise (with an S) for disappointing me on this occasion.  that's OK, Linda, i understand, but seriously, i'm stranded in a barren bookless wasteland here - just go and buy another copy if you can't part with yours :|  seriously.

wishing
for the first time EVER i had a kindle.  pffffft...

neeeeeeeeding
pumpkin spice granola from Trader Joe's - i love hard raisins in granola, Tracy :)

procrastinating
still about making that blurb book.  and still on page 4 ;)

hoping
i'm not a total spotify hog and apologising sincerely if i am (?????)  because i'm sure i am.  when i play it, it pauses Aaron's playlist and when he pauses mine, i press play again and it's world war 3 all over again.  i need to have music wherever i go...

 

 

 

loving you hating me

loving

when Danny calls acorns "eggcorns"... i only very halfheartedly want to correct him ;)

loving

that he knows Morrissey's lyrics quite word perfect (o.m.g. he looooves him and wants a quiff :)

hating

the Cure. dear Aaron: it's not up for negotiation ever.  it's a North/South thing ;)  

loving

Friendly's.  i know it's gross and sticky and all the customers smell like laundromats (which i guess is better than dumpsters...?) but between the heaven that is their coagulated toasted sandwiches, the blue cotton candy soda and the icecream cone clown with reese's pieces for eyes and hot fudge hair, that place is just my wildest dream come true :)

hating
third grade book reports.  they don't mention weekend-murdering crap like this in "What To Expect..." for good reason :|  in fact they miss a LOT of essential information out of that book... like you'll never ever drink a cup of coffee at the correct temperature ever again.  and you'll never eat an entire bar of chocolate without having to share 2/3 of it (grrrrrrr)  and an hour in Target alone will feel like a year long vacation.  and you will never ever ever ever ever ever stop buying food/cooking it/feeding your children.  and if you don't feed them, you will go to jail (which i'm deathly afraid of: see below;)  and there will NEVER be any toaster studels left, no matter how many boxes you buy...   
loving

that "orange is the new black" is our new "weeds" (which jumped the shark many seasons ago)

hating

the iPhone 5.  i hate it.  i really hate it.  like really really reeeeeally haaaaaaate it.

hating
how crappy every single wide angle lens i ever tried is.... they have all failed to meet my not-even-that-high expectations.  i need an L10mm f/1.4 with IS.  if it even existed :(    

hating

the Mexican food on the East Coast.  pizza = good.  donuts = completely awesome.  Mexican food = warm poopy diaper of inedibleness 

 

Friday night on the Cape

 a reaaaally long hike in the dark into the woods to photograph the full moon

(only to find a perfect spot only to find we forgot the 'big camera' ;)

 the cranberry bog behind our old house (sigh, we miss it.....)

 Borderlands, Saturday