Hola, Casita
Steve, explaining to Tadpole why he can’t pack a giant marble run for vacation in Michigan: “Buddy. Don’t walk away! There are a few rules about what we can bring. Hey, listen! There are parameters before you can proceed with design!”
A dear friend got married last weekend, and it was a very sweet small backyard wedding with tacos. At various points in his life, Tadpole has been cared for by the bride, the bride’s mother, her aunt, her cousin, and one of the guests. I picked up a baby who was shoveling a beef taco into her tiny mouth and ruined my shirt, but it was so worth it. Tad wore a dress shirt and a straw hat and played his harmonica; get this kid a gig at Preservation Hall.
We’re in Michigan to see old friends and celebrate my grandparents’ 70th wedding anniversary. Pura unsalted vida; I get emotional when I see the big lake, and I’m going to have a #12 (no sprouts) from Jimmy John’s even though I know I’ll regret it.
Stuff I’ve Bought That I Love
Dissent Pins’ public health pins are excellent. Get yours and 50% of proceeds go to the my heroes at Voices for Vaccines, which has been doing the hard work since way before it was cool. (I’ll be wearing mine at an upcoming family reunion because passive aggression is a love language in the Midwest.)
Static Nails polish is the TRUTH. The color goes on vibrant in two coats and the top coat makes it wicked shiny. It dries fast, lasts longer than any other polish I’ve ever tried, and the colors are fantastic: My summer colors are Sweet Peach, Unforgettable, and Watermelon Stand. I even tried their pop-on manicures for funsies and they lasted longer than I wanted — I build sandcastles and garden too much to be a comfortable long nails person, but I was impressed at how natural they looked. Go easy on the glue unless you’re down for two weeks of wear; they’d be fun for events and they’re awesome if your kid likes having his back scratched at bedtime.
Read This
Cassidy Hutchinson: Why the Jan. 6 Committee Rushed Her Testimony
NYT Guest Essay: Why Codependency is a Toxic Myth in Addiction Recovery
“When someone is ill with any other disorder, relatives are not shamed for obsessively caring or rearranging their lives to help. Instead, those who abandon suffering loved ones are stigmatized. But when it comes to addiction, parents are told that their loving kindness is pathological because they somehow benefit psychologically from keeping their children addicted.”
This distillery is turning crabs into whiskey? Witchcraft. It used to be that too much whiskey gave people crabs? 😎
Eat This
Tadpole likes to bake on Sunday mornings, and this Moroccan orange cake is easy peasy orangey squeezy.
We Love a Good Print
Poemies for my Homies
Relax
Ellen Bass
Bad things are going to happen.
Your tomatoes will grow a fungus
and your cat will get run over.
Someone will leave the bag with the ice cream
melting in the car and throw
your blue cashmere sweater in the drier.
Your husband will sleep
with a girl your daughter’s age, her breasts spilling
out of her blouse. Or your wife
will remember she’s a lesbian
and leave you for the woman next door. The other cat—
the one you never really liked—will contract a disease
that requires you to pry open its feverish mouth
every four hours for a month.
Your parents will die.
No matter how many vitamins you take,
how much Pilates, you’ll lose your keys,
your hair and your memory. If your daughter
doesn’t plug her heart
into every live socket she passes,
you’ll come home to find your son has emptied
your refrigerator, dragged it to the curb,
and called the used appliance store for pick up—drug money.
There’s a Buddhist story of a woman chased by a tiger.
When she comes to a cliff, she sees a sturdy vine
and climbs halfway down. But there’s also a tiger below.
And two mice—one white, one black—scurry out
and begin to gnaw at the vine. At this point
she notices a wild strawberry growing from the crevice.
She looks up, down, at the mice.
Then she eats the strawberry.
So here’s the view, the breeze, the pulse
in your throat. Your wallet will be stolen, you’ll get fat,
slip on the bathroom tiles of a foreign hotel
and crack your hip. You’ll be lonely.
Oh taste how sweet and tart
the red juice is, how the tiny seeds
crunch between your teeth.
Joy Division
