Living with the Next Bobby Fisher

Sometime after Christmas, Moses started teaching Garion to play chess. Yes, Garion is five years old. And, yes, Garion completely understands how the pieces move and even has a rudimentary grasp of strategy. Which is more than can be said for his mother. Tonight, as he does pretty much every night, Garion asked Moses to play chess with him. Except that this time, Garion made Moses play with only the king and queen while Garion got the full assortment of pieces. When Garion lost, he looked around for easier prey, "hey, Mom! Want to play chess with me?" "
"Sure," I said. So I sat down at the kitchen table and the play began (just for the record, I was a little distracted and I was eating my dinner). Three moves later, Garion yells, "Checkmate!" And I of course say, "no, check again," thinking that maybe he's got me in check, but no way did he win. Moses comes over, "um, dear." I look at the board again. Holy Crap. That little snot (who is the apple of my eye) whipped my butt in three moves:

Shameless Imitation

The Washington Post has a great weekly feature called The Short Stack. Each week a writer or editor posts a lists of five books that fit within a particular theme. For the most part, I find these lists fascinating and I love the lists that readers post in the Comments. Since imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I am going to shamelessly steal weekly themes to provide you with my own short stack each week. Or at least I'm going to try for each week. If I'm feeling really creative, I'll even come up with my own themes! And, of course, I want to hear what's in your short stack too.

This week's theme: Books I'm Afraid to Re-Read.
(1) The Anne of Green Gables series by Lucy Maud Montgomery (forgive me, Anali). I loved these books when I was somewhere in the 12 to 14 age range. I'm afraid though that a re-read as an adult might ruin them. What if Anne's annoying? What if Gilbert isn't as cute? What if it makes me roll my eyes?
(2) Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls. Because I know it's sad.
(3) Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. Same reason.
(4) Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. I went through a period in high school when I thought that Ayn Rand was brilliant and the world should be run according to her philosophy. After growing up a bit, I came to see her way of thinking as stark and in many ways cruel, and realized her world isn't one I'd want to live in at all. I'm tempted at times to re-read her work as an adult because I think it'd be interesting to compare my more experienced perspective with my idealistic adolescent notions. On the other hand, I'm afraid to discover just how dumb I was.
(5) Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. This was a dark book and though I know I'd get a lot more out of it on a re-read, I'm just afraid to go back.

So let's hear it, what are you afraid to re-read?

Power to the People

Not that I'm such a fan of Miller, but I came across this video today on Kent's Bike Blog that warms the cockles of my bicycle loving heart.

Check it Out

One of my favorite environmental bloggers has started a non-profit to provide girls in underdeveloped countries with reusable menstrual products. The project is explained here:

I know that some of you (ok, I only know of one for sure) have shunned the vicious cycle of disposable menstrual products and I myself am a big fan of the Mooncup(uk). I think this project is a great opportunity to make a realistic, immediate, and sustainable difference in the world. So check it out!

The Money Shot

After we bought this house, we converted a large family room at the rear of the house into the master bedroom and turned a small bedroom between the (new) master bedroom and a bathroom into a dressing room/walk-in closet. We thought this was a brilliant idea. However, neither the real estate agent or the the professional photographer who did the virtual tour has included a photo of this dressing room /closet on the web ad. So here it is:


Would you consider that a selling point if you were shopping for houses? Or do I just have an inflated sense of my and Moses's cleverness? Regardless, now that there are some photos of this very clever use of space somewhere on the web, I feel better.

Winter Garden

Buy my house, it comes with food! Here are a couple of photos of this year's winter garden:
















We've got spinach, romaine lettuce, cabbage, carrots, sweet peas, and cilantro.

Bad Wife

On the way home tonight I accidentally forgot, um....my husband. I got home, saw our truck in the driveway and then wondered where he was when we got in the house. Then I recalled that--oh yeah!--I dropped him off at work this morning and I was supposed to call him after I picked up Garion. It's also 40 degrees and raining this evening. All this for the wonderful man who showered me yesterday with warm pajamas and a beautiful new sweater because he doesn't want me to freeze when we move to Flagstaff. I am a bad wife.
Why, you might wonder, did I not turn right around and go get him? Because of the circle swing. Garion took a couple of turns on swing this afternoon that his teachers put up in the classroom on rainy days. The swing swings in circles. Garion acquired a rather peculiar shade of green on the way home and told me his tummy "feels dizzy." So he's in bed sleeping it off right now and I'm sitting at the kitchen table feeling bad because my husband is schlepping through cold, rainy weather as we speak. I am a bad wife.

Okay, I Give

Nobody made an offer on our house today.....nobody even came to look : ( . So, I give. I obviously have no power to control the universe and the house sale will happen when it happens. I surrender, I waive the white flag, I relinquish control, and throw in the towel. Universe, do what you will, whenever you want. I trust you. (But seriously, sooner is better than later)
However, thank-you to everyone who put out the good vibes for us! You guys are awesome and will be the first to know when something exciting happens. Well, ok, probably the second or third, or maybe fourth, because first there's the real estate agent (1), who then calls Moses (2), who calls me (3), I then tell Garion (4), and I might have to call my mom (5), so, um, ok, you guys might be more like sixth. But you're definitely in the top ten.

Found Food

Earlier this month, some very good friends of ours moved backed to Australia (where they hail from). We met them when Moses went to grad school with the husband. Their first child is about six months younger than Garion and they were our traveling, camping, and New Years' Eves buddies. Before they left, they had about five days between when they needed to be out of their apartment and when the plane left for Sydney, so they came to stay with us. We had eight people in our house, four of whom were 5 years of age or less (thus re-affirming the fact that there will be no more little Milazzos from this branch of the family, ay dios mio). We had a wonderful, chaotic time, and played "how-fast-can-you-clean-the-house" every time the phone rang with a real estate agent for a showing.
As their last place of residence, our house also became the repository for all the little odds and ends that didn't make it into one of the (10!) suitcases or (10!) carry on bags. I have inherited a hot pink Nalgene-type water bottle, some new pieces of tupperware, a very nice rectangular basket, some cotton swabs, and new package of q-tips. Also some kleenex, a couple of odd dinner plates, a canister to put my coffee in, an Oral B electric toothbrush (minus the brush), and a chest freezer (score!). Oh, and a quarter jar of Vegemite--ack! But best of all, they left us a bucket full of Halloween candy, including Minties (a blissfullicious candy from Austraila) and a package of vanilla sandwich cookies, AND!....a half of a CAN OF PRINGLES!
Oh man, do I adore Pringles with all their trans-fatty yumminess! Oh, they are salty, and crunchy, and perfectly formed and neatly stacked in that tall, come-hither, red can in a way that totally appeals to the type-A aspects of my personality. You get a snack and organization to boot!!! It's like a little vacation, a respite if you will, from chaos, and crumblieness, and...... nutrition. How can I possibly prevail against this type of culinary marketing seduction? Answer: not at all. I ate the whole freakin' thing.
Accordingly, I will be out running tomorrow morning. In the cold. In the dark. While thinking about how much I will miss my Australian friends. And also wondering if maybe you can buy Minties over the internet?

New Plan

So, it appears the group project was....well....not as much of a success as I was hoping it would be. We put our house on the market two weeks ago and have not received an offer. *sigh*
However, we went on a hunting expedition in Flagstaff this past weekend and found a house. Yay! But it's going to be pretty hard to pay for until the Tucson house sells. Boo! Here's the story, because of course you need to know the details: A former co-worker of my mom has been plotting a move to Prescott for quite awhile now. When she heard we were looking to move back to Flag, she called my mom and said we should come look at her house. So we did. And it's a great house in exactly the neighborhood we hoped to live in. We made and offer yesterday, they countered today, and we're taking the counter-offer. The house has three bedrooms, two and half baths (or as Garion remarked, "a potty for each of us!"), a nice living room, a family room, and an enclosed sun porch in the backyard. I will be able to walk Garion to his new preschool (which we also found this weekend) and Moses will be able to cycle to work. The only drawbacks are that the backyard is small and the house is covered in wallpaper. (I swore when we started looking at houses that I would NOT buy a house with wallpaper, so of course that's exactly what we're buying, and by covered I mean I don't think there's a room in the whole house that doesn't have wallpaper). All in all, the purchase of this house has a nice, karmic feel to it.
Which leads me to speculate that perhaps I didn't to the visualization/universe bending thing, right and maybe the universe misunderstood what I was after? Maybe the universe thought "Kerry and Moses need to find a new house in their price range in two weeks" when what I really meant was "I need to sell my current home for a decent price in two weeks"? Maybe I just had too much of my energy focused on the new digs? Or maybe I asked and the universe just said no. I don't know. So, I'm proposing that we re-set the group visualization project deadline and re-double our efforts.
New Plan: visualize us getting an offer (meaning we SELL and someone else BUYS) on our house by February 14th. More specifically, I think that we should visualize some nice happy family traipsing through my house, falling madly in love with it, and proposing to it just in time for Valentine's Day.