Pogo Sticks & Roller Skates

Every morning I hear "co-chonk, co-chonk, co-chonk"!  It's the neighbor's little boy riding his pogo stick as he is waiting for his mom to come out of the house and take him to school.  I think he has excessive energy and needs to work some things out before he goes to school.  Or, he just really loves his pogo stick. 

I never had a pogo stick when I was a child.  It was probably for the best, as I would have probably cracked my head open trying to finagle the ways in which to achieve proper pogo-sticking. 

It always makes me smile hearing him "co-chonking" in the mornings.  It assures me that he is still around and is healthy and happy. 

His sister prefers her roller skates.  She has been practicing her roller skating skills for the past couple of days.  I had a pair of roller skates and I would skate all around the neighborhood.  I would even do the trick of holding a friend's hands while they were on their skates and swirling around in a circle.  Great fun!  I feel bad for pogo stick boy's sister because she doesn't exactly have the smoothest of sidewalks to skate down.  We technically live in swamp land and that makes the sidewalks shift, creating bumps in her road to exhilaration.  She is getting better each day she practices and it's fun to watch her figure out how to stop, turn around, and speed away down the street.

Oh the joys of being little.  You don't have a care in the world except for waiting for the next time you get to play with your new toy.  It is comforting to see these children playing with these "archaic" toys, rather than staying inside on the couch playing video games.  Not that playing video games is a bad thing. 

I just think that Calico Jack and I grew up in a simpler time where our moms made us go outside and play.  When the sun was going down, our moms would yell for us: "Come home!  Time for dinner!", and we would have worked out most of our super-child energy so that we would come home, eat, take a bath, and be ready for bed.  Plus you got your major workout in for the day since you ran around and played for most of the evening. 

When I see and hear the kids in the neighborhood playing, it kind of feels like I'm living in a 1960s neighborhood.  It's nice to see that parents haven't forgotten the joys of a stick with a spring or shoes with wheels.  Try jumping around for a little bit and see if you don't have a smile on your face.  I dare ya'!

Playing is fun.  Don't forget to play, no matter if you are 6 or 60.  It keeps you young.

xo

Dreams and Nightmares

So, I had crazy dreams last night.  Perhaps it was the pickle I ate before bed.  I dunno.  Anyway, I had this terrible dream that I somehow was burned on the left side of my body.  My arm and my neck and my back.  I think I was wearing a wedding dress and I caught fire and had to drop and roll to put it out.  Then I was left with these huge blisters that I put Cetaphil on, and it made it feel better. Totally not what you would do if you had actually had been burned.  I was with my mom and my dad and my family and they kind of didn't really pay attention to the fact that I had been burned.  Very odd.

That was always one of my biggest fears as a child.  I thought that our house was going to catch on fire and I would always make my dad come in and show me how to get out of our house in case that happened.  I am sure it was very tiring for him to have to come in and reassure me, but I was still terrified about that happening.

My dreams then turned into me going to a symphony conference and I was staying with this very odd group of people at this house very far away from the conference.  The dream started out with me staying with these people and really wasn't about a symphony conference.  The girls were really snarky and it felt like I was living in this big frat house.  At some point Dave Grohl showed up and was one of the people staying in the house.  Didn't make sense.  Then I ended up at the symphony conference, which was taking place in a South American country, and I had to drive (with my mom) to the location and walk.  She disappeared in the dream at that point and then the conference was over.  I was walking out of the conference and it was kind of like walking off a cruise ship when the cruise is over.  Except there were all these shops and I ended up walking through a Tiffany's store.  Lots of diamonds and pearls. 

After I had walked through the Tiffany's, I walked out this big warehouse part of the building and ended up running into one of my friends who was breaking down a musical set.  I tried to hug her, but she was dirty from working and didn't want to dirty up the dress I was wearing.  Then we went out to this open courtyard area and sat down to have coffee.  While we were having coffee, we watched this big blue bird that was the size of a dinosaur attack smaller birds and eat them.  I then realized it was time to go and had to figure out where I had parked the car and start driving a long way (like 3 hours) to get to the airport that I had flown in from.  Then I woke up.

I need to stop eating pickles before bed.

xo

Sounds of the City

We live in New Orleans (duh).  It's on the Mississippi River and we are surrounded by all these different sounds and sights and smells.  Calico Jack and I were talking last night while we were making dinner and we heard police sirens blaring a couple of blocks over.  He made the comment that it was comforting to hear those sounds and I agreed.  There is a police station just blocks from our house and this is not an uncommon sound.  Now while I know that police sirens are not necessarily a comforting sound, it goes along with the cacophony of noises that we hear on a daily basis and makes us feel at home.

I don't know if I could move back to suburbia again because I have become too accustomed to the sounds of a big city.  We have the wonderful church bells that chime every hour and play hymns.  We have the sounds of the boats on the water.  We even have the sounds of the street car.  And of course, people playing live music at the bar down the street.  It all comes together to make a beautiful symphony of our small space in the world. 

I think my favorite sound that I hear every day has to be the church bells.  There is a particular hymn that they play sometimes that sounds like a demented version of the "Itsy Bitsy Spider".  I know it probably doesn't sound that way to most people, but I was having a moment a while back and I could have sworn they were playing the "Itsy Bitsy Spider".  Except that they aren't.  They are playing a hymn, but I couldn't tell you what hymn because I have no idea.  I just know it's like Tim Burton's version of that children's tune.  I joke to Calico Jack that they are playing it again every time I hear it.  He just looks at me and rolls his eyes.  :)

When we lived in Dallas, TX, the apartment that we lived in had a big pond right across from our balcony.  It was pretty.  At night time there would be the sounds of the bullfrogs croaking their little froggy croak.  It drove Oliver CRAZY and he would take his little kitty paws and beat on the porch door.  I think he wanted to go eat the frogs, or perhaps he was trying to make them be quiet.  It never worked and he never had the opportunity to go and catch a frog.  Thank goodness because he would have been foaming at the mouth from that experience.

I can't imagine not being able to hear.  Right now, there are workman at the house (still) and they are hammering away and sawing things and doing the work that they do.  I have to confess this is NOT my favorite sound of the city, but they have a job to do and so I try to block it out as best I can.  It's not like they work much past 5 o'clock.  The walls are thin though, so it's hard not to hear every movement they make.

What are some of your favorite sounds about where you live?  Or do you like that things are quiet?  Do tell!

xo

Life and Such

I haven't blogged in quite some time.  After some encouragement from a friend, I have decided to come back to the old blog and give it a go - again.  We'll see how this works out.

Things lately have been kind of dull.  I am not working right now, but I'm in the process of finding a job.  I have to say, praise for all the stay at home ladies in the world, but I am finding it tedious and boring.  I just have to find some employer willing to say yes to me working there.  The economy is still in the gutter, so it is proving difficult to even get an interview.

I had an interview a couple of weeks ago and I thought it went pretty well.  I was one of four out of 60 applicants that actually got a phone interview.  I even moved onto the next round of interviews and felt pretty confident about what had gone down - then I got the courteous "Thank you for trying, but we don't want you" letter.  *Sigh*  Better luck next time.

There has been a lot of work going on around our house these days.  Our landlord hired a new contractor to fix things up - why she hired someone NEW is beyond my grasp of things, perhaps the old guy was charging too much money.  Anyway, they have been focusing on the two other "apartments" in the house we live in and haven't paid us any mind.  I would really like a new floor in my kitchen and in my bathroom, but I don't think that is a top priority in my landlord's book.  Who knows, maybe we'll actually get something as awesome as that in the coming months.  A girl can hope, right?

Calico Jack has been working his derriere off at the hospital.  He is in charge of making all the medicine for the babies and children, which means super small doses of things and compounding medicine (which means using a mortar and pestle) to make all these concoctions that I have no understanding of.  He had originally decided to not tell me about his day with the kiddos because hearing the stories about how upset parents were about their sick child was making me cry.  I guess it has to do with my struggles with my monkey heart and thinking about what MY parents went through when I was so sick.

They are threatening to cut down the giant 70+ year old oak tree that is outside our front door.  I am planning on making a huge scene out of things and may even go strap myself to the tree to keep them from cutting it down.  If you see a crazy red-head on the news refusing to let people do their job, it's probably me hugging the tree.  Send reinforcements so that I can get out of jail.

And on that note, I'll let you get on with your important lives.  Not much going on here - just thought I'd update everyone on the progress of things.  Hope everyone is well!

xoxo