It Is Your Destiny

to throw the best dang Darth Vader birthday ever.

Being now a veteran of some years' standing with respect to children's birthdays, I think I prefer boy parties to girls. Girl parties are fun to plan, but there's about a 50-50 chance that some of the girls won't buy in to whatever you're doing. More natural cynicism, perhaps? Not sure. But boys...boys dive in head first and require no cajolery. They just buy into the fantasy, right off the bat.

So this year, in spite of the fact that my boy has not actually seen Star Wars (too scary), we threw a Darth Vader party. It's what he wanted, even if he really doesn't know who Darth Vader is. So I went to the party supply store and bought some light saber-shaped water pumpers for $1.50 each, a soccer ball pinata, some Darth Vader party blowers and Star Wars stickers and confetti. The party ware was just plain red or yellow stuff -- plates, napkins and cups. We splurged on a Darth Vader mylar balloon for $8, but tried to use generic colors for everything else 'cause that trademarked stuff is expensive.

I carefully peeled the black tissue soccer ball pattern off the pinata and spray painted the whole thing silver. Then I glued on a 4" circle of paper over the fill hole and painted that silver as well. I painted a black equator around the middle and concentric circles on the round bit and voila! the Death Star, all ready for little boys to bash with the power stick of doom. Or whatever.

The cake was a little problematic, in that Target wouldn't sell me the cake art topper unless I ordered a cake to go with it. Soooo, we went and found a Lego set with Darth Vader in it (the only thing in the toy dept. we could find with the big bad guy in it) and used that instead. My son was pleased with the result, and I have to say it was the easiest cake I have done in ages.

We ran off pictures of Darth Vader and some Imperial Storm Troopers and covered them with clear contact paper before nailing them to a few of our trees. When the boys got their water pumpers, this is what they shot at before they started really getting into it and shooting each other.

The whole party lasted an hour and a half and it was perfect -- just long enough to get everything in, but not so long that anyone was saying "what else are we going to do?" Little boys were running around the yard yelling "I'm light saber man!" and "Come on Jedis!"

It was awesome. As my son said while he was refilling his pumper, "this is the best birthday ever!"

Mother's Little Helper

I love this mug.

I know it's ugly, but it holds almost 24 ounces of Hot Liquid Kick-in-the-Pants, otherwise known as coffee. It's the reason I am able to function in the morning. It's also the reason I am able to function in the afternoon. It is occasionally the reason I don't go to bed before 11 p.m., though usually I am pretty responsible about my caffeine intake. For instance, if I somehow get sidetracked and can't get my afternoon whoopdeedo until after 3:30, I usually forego it entirely to be sure I won't be spending the evening with Conan and Craig.

Today I was determined not to cave in to that desperate need for a pick-me-up at 2 p.m. Caffeine, I reasoned, should not be necessary in the afternoon if I can find some way to keep myself occupied. I guess I was hoping to distract myself from needing it.

I failed.

And I actually tried the best distraction of all -- I napped. I mean, sleep should cancel out my need for something to cancel out my need for sleep, right?

Wrong.

So I had a nap and a big cuppa joe, and now I will most probably find myself reading at 11:29 p.m. instead of blissfully dreaming. It's a vicious cycle, really. The only way I see to break it is to go away for a week and actually get the sleep I need. Naturally I will have to go without the kids.

I think I can handle that.

Wonder Pets, Wonder Pets, We're on the Way!

And let me tell you, I need some rescuing.

My youngest has developed some sort of mommy-radar that tells her when I'm trying to take a shower. This is her signal to levitate, from wherever she is in the house, to the space right outside my bedroom door and commence screaming and crying. And not just garden-variety screaming and crying, it's rabbit-being-torn-apart-by-wild-dogs screaming. She seriously sounds like someone is skinning her.

It would be more heart-rending if it hadn't happened every morning for the last 5 days.

She does seem genuinely upset, and clings to me like velcro when I finally open my door. I have tried being callous, just letting her wail on and on, occasionally drowning her out with the blow-dryer, but I can't do it indefinitely.

So today I went to Target and bought a Wonder Pets DVD in hopes that I can get just enough time for a shower tomorrow. I figure if it works, the allure ought to last for about a week, so I am basically paying $12.99 for a week's worth of showers. And I'm both bribing my toddler and getting her to watch more TV at the same time. Talk about your Faustian bargains....

But hey, I gotta have nice hair.

More Musings

Yesterday we scored some early-evening childcare, so we did the most romantic thing we could think of after 11 years of marriage. We went over to our old (still unsold) house and tidied up the yard.

Naturally, the garden was lush, overflowing with massive peonies, poppies, 4ft tall columbines, and the first of the roses.

Don't believe me about the columbines? They were a self-seeded batch of "black" Barlows and they've never been that tall before. Don't know what got into them this year.

It was so beautiful and so depressing, I came home very blue -- the kind of blue where you either have to sit down and place a major order with a plant nursery, or you have to eat a lot of ice cream. Since we have no money and no ice cream, I was up a crik, as they say.

What I have right here, in my new house, is chicken scratch compared to what I had at my old house. And I know that that garden is 9 years old, that it's evolved pretty extensively, that it was made at a time in my life when I had lots of disposable income and no children to keep me from doing what I wanted to do, at least from a gardening perspective.





This is a hastily cut bouquet of Abraham Darby (middle top), Mary Rose (left) and Sydonie (2 right bottom). Sydonie is one of the ones I couldn't take a cutting from last fall and I'd so like to take one now, but am not sure I have room for it -- it gets about 5 feet tall with branches that arch over and make it about 6 feet wide. So pretty, all covered with blooms. The bud is Comte du Chambord, which is finally looking excellent after 9 years of sulking. Naturally, it outdoes itself the year I move.

I have been moping all day, missing my garden and all the little maintenance tasks that I so liked doing -- pruning and dividing and deadheading and otherwise fussing over everything. I think I just need to get started here, do something to give myself a feeling of hope that this garden can be at least as enjoyable as my old one. It will never be the same, and I probably need to find a way to just let that go, but it's hard when you've poured so much sweat into a place.

I need to just take hold.