Bookshelf
- "A Drop of the Hard Stuff," Lawrence Block
- "I am Half-Sick of Shadows," Alan Bradley
- "The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag," Alan Bradley
- "A Red Herring without Mustard," Alan Bradley
- "The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie," Alan Bradley
- "One of Our Thursdays is Missing" Jasper Fforde
- "Swamplandia!" Karen Russell
- "The Art of Fielding," Chad Harbach
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Pete, looking at the “Wookie Cookies” cookbook: “What’s that caterpillar’s name again?”
“That’s Java the Hut,” says Poppy. “You know. From ‘Star Wars.’ “
- Today, it was time to clean the litter box. Although in truth, it was time to clean the litter box on Monday, which made it 1,000 times worse today. Or possibly only a little bit worse. Either way, it was today’s first Disgusting Thing.
- The washing machine has been smelling odd lately. It isn’t one of those fancy front-loaders with their fancy mold smells, though. It’s a very old washing machine that came with the house. It probably isn’t older than me, but I’m guessing I was still watching “Strawberry Shortcake” when it came off the line. (And now I’m watching “Strawberry Shortcake” again! The circle of life!) So anyway I thought I’d try to clean it by running it with a bunch of vinegar in it. Before I started it, though, I removed the heavy-duty agitator (this kind, not this kind), and by the hammer of Thor, it was disgusting. I soaked the agitator in bleach, which cleaned it up pretty nicely. The vinegar didn’t do all that much for the funk in the drum (coincidentally, also the name of my new jazz fusion album, which drops next Thorsday), so I had to scrub it out.
- “There’s something crunchy in my chicken,” said my child as he ate his chicken nuggets for lunch. “I think it’s a chicken beak.”
- “Mama, Marsha threw up again!” said my other child as she tried to go downstairs but was stymied by a cat and her vomit. “And now she’s eating it!”
And friends, it is not even 3pm yet. That’s enough gross for today, Universe! Thank you!
 I finally marked “Grow My Own Vegetables” off of the Mighty List yesterday. Our little garden has been growing nicely, but yesterday was the first time we really harvested anything out of it. (Pete and I have been grazing for a week or so, but that didn’t count.)
Yesterday Rockford went out in the rain and picked a salad for dinner. It was the most delicious lettuce I’ve ever had. Seriously. It was super tender, and it didn’t taste like plastic. I think we’re going to expand our produce empire next weekend with some strawberries, watermelons, cucumbers, eggplants and pumpkins. Unless it’s too early to plant those things. I haven’t really looked into that, yet.
My hope in starting a garden this year was that Poppy would finally yield to the experts who say if you involve your kids in cooking they’ll eat vegetables. We started with Letting Her Pick The Veggies At The Store, then moved on to Letting Her Help Cook The Veggies. Neither worked, so we thought we’d try Let Her Grow And Harvest The Veggies. She very much enjoyed planting the seeds and watering the garden, but she won’t so much as touch the lettuce, much less eat it. Oh well. More salad for the rest of us, I guess.
- Monday: Subway
- The children have been asking when we could go to Subway again. Tonight we have some out-and-about busyness to attend, so they’ll get their wish.
- Tuesday: Spaghetti
- I think I may be in a pasta rut.
- Wednesday: Birthday dinner
- We’ll be celebrating a fourth birthday with a friend. I hope there’s cake.
- Thursday: Zatarain’s Jambalaya
- I fell for one of those Buy This Thing and Get a Bunch of Stuff Free Meal Deal things at the grocery store a few weeks ago. So we’re going to give this a shot!
- Friday: Baseball food
- We’re going to a baseball game, so it’ll probably be hot dogs or nachos.
You should make this. Right now. No, really.
Southern Living’s Lemon Icebox Pie Ice Cream
3 to 4 lemons
2 cups half-and-half
14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
3/4 cup coarsely crushed graham crackers
Grate zest from lemons to equal 1 tablespoon. Cut lemons in half; squeeze juice from lemons into a measuring cup to equal 1/2 cup.
Whisk together half-and-half, sweetened condensed milk and lemon juice. Pour mixture into the freezer container of your ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer’s directions. Stir in graham cracker crumbs and lemon zest; transfer to an airtight container. Freeze two hours before serving.
Perry Mason deserves a World’s Best Brother mug. He brought his friend Paul Drake to my house for the weekend so they could build this:
What’d I tell you? I guess all those years of torturing him paid off after all.
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