Aselin

I'm not much of a girlie girl. Growing up driving a tractor and mucking our sheep pens quashed any vestiges of demurity that might have existed under my dirty fingernails. But, enough is enough. Even a dyed-in-the-wool tomboy has her limits.

We have this lovely picture window that looks out over the backyard. Every day for the last week I have removed a dead bird carcass from the patio. Apparently birds cannot distinguish between glass and open space. Subsequently we've had a daily magestical soar only to be cut short by a resounding thud followed by a flap, flop...expire.

It makes me sad and disgusted at the same time. I have been home to hear more than one of these 'thuds', and I always follow the distainful sound with fervent praying for the welfare of the bird. Although I have had a few miraculous successes, my odds are not great.

Yesterday was the last straw. Sitting in my office it felt like the whole house shook with what has now become one of the spring sounds we hear. I hurried outside, begging for the welfare of the gray dove I saw lying on its back. As I arrived on the scene the bird was gasping for air, and then expired in front of me. Not a pleasant event. This bird had hit so hard there was actually blood.

I had had enough.

I told hubby we had to find something tasteful to put on the window to stop the birds from flying into it. He nodded and went back to what he was doing. Which is what he usually does when I have a decorating idea. Since he had not been cleaning up the bird carnage he was not aware of the severity of the situation.

Wracking my brain I tried to come up with something that would work. Walking past Unnamed Child #3's room a huge lightbulb went off over my head. (It's still there I think) Last year for a school project, the class traced an outline of each of the children and then each kid colored a life-sized self portrait. I pulled the figure down from her wall and stuck it on the window. Standing back to admire my work I realized that I was not only a tomboy, but I also had decorating sense that fell somewhere on the continum below Redneck and above Cave Dweller.

For two days now, we have had no dead birds but every time I walk past the window I startle. Apparently I have the peripheral vision of a wombat since multiple times each day I think someone is standing in my living room. Lousy peripheral vision and the short-term memory of Dory the fish from Finding Nemo since I'm the one who put the dang thing up there in the first place.

Now the big test of who my true friends are comes when everyone shows up in the morning for yoga, and sees this:




Not very zen is it?

Recovering from the hangover of our Mother's Day celebration, it's hard not to take stock of my influence as a mother. The day is filled with gushing speeches, tear-jerking NPR memorials and awkward moments as handmade gifts wrapped in paper bags as shoved at you.

While the Mother's Day celebration my family put on was fantastic - tasty breakfast, lovely gifts, poetry and I wasn't punked at church this year. All in all I considered it a fantastic success. Yeah.

That was until unnamed child #1 excitedly came in to my room jumping up and down about the $1 pleather Miley Cyrus pants they had purchased at WalMart. Pleather???? Miley Cyrus??? $1???

All the approbation I felt at the amazing bargain shopping accomplishment - and buying pants for a dollar is pretty dang good - was quashed by the selection of the garment. I mean really, PLEATHER??? I thought we had gone over this: pleather should not be purchased under ANY circumstances... even for a dollar. Just as I started hyperventilating, the kid felt like driving the nail into my coffin. "I am going to wear them in P.E." they excitedly declared.

What kind of P.E. class are you taking? Pole dancing? Sheesh.

As I'm speed-dialing the principal the kid assures me, "We all got them, we're going to wear them together." Oh, that makes everything better. Now they have an entire middle school pleather army learning pole dancing. That makes me feel muuuuch better.

Really, how can this happen. I am a responsible parent who thought I had effectively imparted important wisdom to my progeny. Clearly, with the intrusion of this newest pleather garment, I have failed.

My kids are not normal. I suppose being raised by me they never really had a chance, which is sad for them, but hey, there is always therapy.

One of the areas they find themselves at odds with the general population is in their eating habits; they will eat most anything. Their wide palate has been exciting and a blessing. I am confident that when most families are trying to decide what they want to eat when going out, the youngest member of the family doesn't yell out - "Vietnamese!" They're good little eaters, and won't be cheap dates ordering off the kids menu.

One of their favorite restaurants is Tottie's Asian Fusion in Scottsdale. Our family goes quite often, and the kids share sushi, curry, shrimp and pork spring rolls and all sorts of stuff that doesn't resemble mac-n-cheese or chicken nuggets.

Last week, I ordered some take-out from Tottie's which was quickly devoured when I got home. It's nice to be popular with the natives. Tottie's famous spring rolls are a wonderful Vietnamese roll made from rice paper, vermicelli noodles, shrimp, pork and some veggies. They are fantastic, and we never order enough of them. This delicacy is served with a delicious peanut sauce my kids lick from their plates after the rolls have been inhaled. The peanut sauce is delicious, and sometimes, rarely, there is a little left which I store in the fridge.

Last week, I was working in my office when I heard screams from the kitchen. Since I hadn't been cooking that day, this time it wasn't my fault. The commotion escalated, there was yelling, banging, and all manner of hubbub. Weighing whether or not I should go investigate, I ran in to hubby, doubled over in laughter. The skirmish was still in full swing, but he had to let me know what I had missed.

Unnamed child #1 was still hollering in the kitchen. They had been eating some lunch, and found the peanut sauce left over from last week. Being a Neanderthal they stuck their finger in the tub, and scooped out a hefty sample. It didn't take long to realize that the tasty peanut sauce in fact was spicy oriental mustard. Not the mamby pamby yellow mustard most Americans consume, no sirree. This was the nuclear condiment variety. Poor Unnamed child #1 was snorting, coughing, gagging and in sizable discomfort. The audience to their pain was laughing, cheering and yelling "Do it again! Do it again!"

In our home, empathy is always trumped by entertainment.

I promised to share the details of my gems of wisdom so here's the first in this week's series.

Spring in Arizona is a spectacular time. Vibrant blossoms spring from prickly cacti, the song of birds drifts through the air, windows are open, neighbors greet one another - it's just like the beginning of the Christmas carol "Silver Bells" without the snow.

Living in a former commercial orange grove offers me some exciting springtime opportunities. One of those opportunities is the annual springtime fruit harvest. We have Valencia orange trees. Lots and lots of Valencia orange trees. One kid counted 47, another kid counted 52, I am too lazy to count so I usually tell people we have "about 50 trees" and hope my kids aren't so profoundly math challenged (the number of trees is greater than their fingers and toes) that we actually have only 23. The point is we have a lot of trees. Having a lot of trees means we have a lot of oranges. Having a lot of oranges means we can have a lot of juice. See, there is a logical progression to this story.

As I have been in the process of reaping all the springtime gifts that Arizona offers me my joy has been thwarted by a tiny vermin with awesome reproductive capabilities. Greater then the prolific rabbit, the Arizona Fruit Fly produces flocks that seemingly come from out of nowhere. Unchecked, these flocks can get so dense that more than one of my kids has run into the kitchen to excitedly tell me how much they love and appreciate me, only to be cut off by the inhalation and gagging on a cluster of chaotic airborne tidbits. It's tragic really.

Having fought this battle before, I immediately knew what to do - first, have the kid wash the bugs stuck in their molars down with a glass of juice. The combo of fruit fly and orange juice packs quite a protein-fiber punch. Second, it was time to put out "the traps." There are a lot of things in life which have important purposes, but unfortunate processes. Things like vaccinations, taxes and fruit fly traps.

The Internet has a whole bunch of ideas on how to eliminate the little buggers. Only one of them actually works: the oil and vinegar trap. Sadly, our flock of flies would require multiple traps - or me in a gas mask spraying malathion throughout the kitchen. So, for the last few weeks, we've had small bowls with vegetable oil and cider vinegar placed in strategic locations throughout the room. The good thing: they work. The bad thing: they ain't no scented candle. Each time I walk into the kitchen I cringe to think of what visitors to my home think.

The reality is that it there is a viable, wrestle able social decision between wanting people to contend with a flock of fruit flies, or be subjected to a gas cloud of cider vinegar. Seeing as how no one has come to visit for the last few weeks, I'm thinking I made the wrong choice.

I learned some new things this past week. I know, this amazes you but it is true! Each of these things has a story behind it, which I will share later, but I don't want to deprive you of the wisdom I continue to amass.

1. Vinegar does not make a good signature scent.

2. Peanut sauce and spicy mustard can be confused.

3. Kale and spinach actually make an edible smoothie.

4. I don't generally believe in "victimhood" unless it occurs during an "up-sell".

5. Boys can smell worse than you would think.

6. One can amass an entire army of strippers if one is very resourceful.

See, now how did you function without knowing these gems?

Those of you who are die hard fans of mine...(meaning my husband and my dog) know that I work very hard to maintain my style and image. This week, as I was making a rare public appearance I was so pleased at the snappy ensemble I had put together. Even my shoes matched, which is a big deal for me - often I don't even have shoes.

Wandering through our neighborhood Sprouts store, I was fondling the organic fruit, and scooping voluminous amounts of pumpkin seeds out of the bulk bins as people passed by admiring my flare. More than one person made pointed eye contact with me and gave me an approbatory nod. Ohh yeah, I was workin' it.

Hauling my stylish purchases to the check out line I chose the line with one person ahead of me. This person was a Sprouts employee who was purchasing two oranges and a bottled water. I figured they would go quickly. I figured wrong. There, beside the line for checkout moral support were two co-workers of Ms. Orange eater. As I stood behind them in the cue, I listened to the employee conundrum of the day: A customer, (said with derision) purchased a 50 lb. cut of meat earlier in the day. Said customer, (said with derision) returned the meat to the store, having removed parts of it. The customer, (said with derision) asked that the meat be re-weighed and then re-purchased the cut of meat at the lower price.

I admit, I didn't think this was an ethical thing to do. What got my goat, (yes, I have a goat) was the way these three employees spoke of customers, (said with derision) in general. There was a genuine disdain for those pesky customers, (said with derision).

Now I get, that customer service in general is a tricky thing, but these people went on and on and on, completely oblivious of me, a customer, behind them in line. Their language was tacky, and crude. Not classy like mine. Ms. Orange eater's uniform had a smear of some unidentified food product across the sleeve and her khaki pants were stained. Not at all like my stylish outfit that was getting style nods as I went through the aisles.

I kept listening to this tacky talk, getting more and more frustrated that these people didn't A) realize that it was us customers that ultimately provided their jobs and B) that there was no sense of decorum in all of this. I don't think I'm a primadonna, but I would like to be treated with a reasonable amount of respect - like if your going to talk derisively about my kind please go to the break room.

As the trio finally moved out of the way, the checker made eye contact with me - because I'm so classy, and then gave me a little nod. I smiled back and the checker again, got direct eye contact and then gave an over exaggerated nod downward while keeping eye contact with me. Suddenly I realized why I was getting so much attention.

By the way, once everyone in the store has noticed, it's pretty hard to zip up your zipper discreetly. So much for my public image.

Maybe us customers get what we deserve...

I stripped for six hours today. Seriously.

The mulberry harvest is on, and due to my genius idea to create an inverse skirt designed to catch the harvest as it falls, we have more mulberries collected on day two of the harvest than we did all season last year.

Persian mulberries are an interesting fruit. To eat them, or use them, one needs to remove them from the woody stem running down the middle. Since one of these mulberries is about the length of one of my fingers, stripping them from their stem is quite a process. Also, while they are quite tasty, they are not as aesthetically pleasing...

But catching the wily buggers is also a project.

Geometry was my best subject of all the math options, so I was in my element drawing the diagrams, sketches, calculating circumference, diameter and all sorts of mulberry skirt geekness. Usually I keep this sort of behavior confined to home, but imagine the looks I got as I, straight-faced, walked up to the cutting counter of my local fabric store and said " I would like 72 yards of this green tulle netting." Of course the clerk asks: "What for, my dear?" To which I answer, matter-of-factly: "To make a skirt for a tree." The cutter looked around hoping she could pawn me off on someone else, to no avail. There I stood, counting off yard after yard as I kept referring to my diagram - which I had displayed prominently at my side.

Carrying my bonanza to the check out counter, I paused only long enough to throw a mechanical plastic cow that pooped brown jelly beans, in the cart for my kids. I'm a giver if nothing else.


Starting the sewing part of my project, I soon found myself swallowed in enough green tulle that I felt like I was going to a giant leprechaun prom. Sewing 72 yards of tulle is totally disorienting. Multiple times I thought I was sewing the side, only to discover I was sewing the top, or the other side. Fortunately, botanical fashion is more forgiving than humanoid fashion. Even after strapping the thing on the tree, it never once asked me if it made it look fat. I will say, it takes a certain kind of confidence to carry off 72 yards of green tulle and this mulberry tree worked it!

So after hauling the giant bucket of mulberries to my kitchen, I settled in for the afternoon and began to strip. And strip. And strip. After an eon, I got through half of the bucket and have over 12 quarts of pulp. Stay tuned for the next few weeks of stripping. Then we'll move on to jamming.