experimentation

Misspent Youth, Pour-a-Quiche, Introducing Rosamunde Portsmouth

When I was busy misspending my youth–by which I mean everything from the day I quit piano lessons, through the summer I lived in the “International House” in Freiburg learning [card games] instead of German, up until I realized all my options had become limited–I often heard myself telling people I thought maybe I would write a book one day. I can’t imagine now when I supposed I’d accomplish it–while my children were playing out of doors or building dioramas out of found objects? It turns out what I tend to do, after I have finished doing their chores, while they are definitely not watching Austin and Ally, is an elaborate cooking project. Recently, however, like all responsible husbands, mine has set some limits for me—among them, a three-hour time limit for preparing dinner. “Not every meal is Thanksgiving,” adds a cheeky eleven year-old.

In the plus column, now that I’m limited to potted meats and Pour-a-Quiche, I’ll have plenty of time for Rosamunde Portsmouth, the heroine of my forthcoming series of novels. I haven’t decided what she does, besides a lot of unapologetic staying out late and then working in an office, where she often arrives rumpled. Very glam. She does NOT like to be called Roz!

Tattoos, Pets, Life Lessons

In a few weeks, my older child, a daughter, will be eleven, so I guess it’s time to start talking to her about not getting a tattoo. But you know, these days you go in for Restylane and Coolsculpting and your dermatologist asks if you want her to take off the tramp stamp while you’re in there. So maybe that’s not even a thing anymore?
I did bring up her changing body the other day–I mean, not hers specifically–God, she would kill me–and she really wasn’t receptive at all. So I think what I’m going to do to kind of check that box is to give her the talk about pet ownership. I’m not at all nervous about this one because I have given this talk to several of my newly married friends when they wanted to get pets either to “test things out” before they started having children, or just, I don’t know, travel less and spend their extra money on emergency vet bills.
Personal story: A long time ago I used to have a job. I won’t say what it is because that would be too personal a story, but I took both it and myself seriously enough that I believed the time was wrong for my dream animal, a German Shepherd (or similar).  So I got onto the dial-up internet and ordered some Burmese cats. (From Texas! Like I’m going to order cats from Burma/Myanmar.)  They are still alive. They have ruined most of my furniture because I used to be nice and I didn’t have them de-clawed and now the vet won’t do it.
It is much less humane to have two healthy cats removed than it is to have a cat tattoo removed, and, presumably, even more expensive, because of the discretion involved. Also, the vet bills, food, destroyed furniture and what-not add up. And if you get a dog, you can’t go on vacation. And you’ll stop liking it if you have a baby.

Next: Babies are also more permanent than tattoos.