23 park street lane

my grandmother turned 87 last week, and so the lowells & poiriers (and collins) of vt made the mass exodus to our homeland, our mecca -- 23 park street, malone, ny. g'ma l. and uncle mark had made the 45 minute trip from potsdam and mom's turkey was pretty much ready to be sliced into when we all arrived. g'ma l., ever the practical one, as my readers already well know, doesn't accept gifts well. however, she didn't hesitate to take the remainder of her decadent triple chocolate mocha mousse cake home for the actual big day (we celebrated on sunday, 3/22; her bday was actually wednesday, 3/25).

with bellies full of turkey & mousse cake, and not much to do but sit around on the love seats chatting the hours away until we all had to make our mass exodus back to our homes away from home, the obvious choice was to see what treasures we could find hiding up in the attic.

(please notice new leg warmers)

baxter & paige have taken to fashion shows lately. mainly, i think it's their stalling technique for going to bed. they like to show off which pjs they've chosen for their nocturnal musings and they like there to be a rather dramatic unveiling. (i have no idea who started this ;). so, not lost on the 2 and 4 year olds was the concept of showing off an outfit, but the first items on display (see exhibit a), certainly were lost on baxter and paige. what do they know about '80s fashion? oh, what they don't know, margaret lowell could fill a book, or at least a unitard snowsuit! neon colors only of course!
exhibit a (above)

but the lowell sisters had some key '80s fashion style of their own that they were dying to reveal. i suspect that the youngest lowell sister had alterior motives (in order to secure the love of her beau, she needed him to see, understand, and accept her roots, however tafetta-laced & nylon-silked they are).

trying on old prom dresses is supposed to be fun. trying on old prom dresses is supposed to be fun? why, when i was 16 years old did i think i was fat? why, when those dresses zipped so easily up my back? and today? -- well, notice that those pictures are only taken from the front (exhibit b).

exhibit b:

(prom may '94 and rick, my very first love)

after the fashion show, it was time to look through our old halloween costumes and stuffed animal collections. and that's when B & P got in on the action (exhibit c). what's better than their mom's old tutus? their aunt's micky & minnie dolls and pound puppies!

exhibit c:

(they were already in their pjs for the ride home)

when my parents celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary, g'ma l. & g'ma t. got so into it that they unwrapped their mother-of-the-groom and mother-of-the-bride dresses and surprised us all by walking out arm in arm. g'ma l.'s zipped up, but she couldn't breathe, and g'ma t. wasn't able to show us her back. i've got to get to work if i am to wear that shiny burgundy bridesmaid dress for jennie & derek's silver celebration. the trip down memory lane felt a little melancholy to me. when i told g'ma l. that we had big plans for her 90th -- a cruise for the whole family -- she told me she hoped she wouldn't be around for it. my grandma is active and leads an enriching life -- she takes classes and plays bridge and still attends ski club meetings and ornament exchanges. she goes out to see movies and she reads and she loves suzy ormand! she has an opinion about just about everything and is not afraid to let people know how she feels. she goes to star lake in the summer and remembers all of our birthdays and is there for all of our celebrations. she's been on her own since my granfather died in 1999, but it seems to me that she lives a full life. i hope that when i am that old, i will take happiness in seeing my family grow up around me and that i'll feel frustration but fascination in seeing the changes in my world -- technologies and presidents and foreign relations. i suppose i might also feel lonely and bored, especially when my friends and siblings and loved ones are dying around me. maybe memory lane isn't that much fun when you are always living on it. i told g'ma l. that we want her to be around and that there's still so much for her to see and do. but if she doesn't feel that way, then what are we to do? i guess we continue doing what we do, which includes putting on silly old outfits and indulging her with rich desserts and the occassional gift that she doesn't really need and making her celebrate her 90 years with us on a cruise.

sweepin' the clouds away

i have a different ringtone for each of the very special people in my life. eva has the b-52's "the deadbeat club," julie and tim have flight of the conchords' "the humans are dead," mom & dad have "we are family," paul has jimmy buffet's "son of a sailor," and another ex has bright eyes' "first day of my life." danielle has beyonce's "single ladies," jess has a latin beat, and tracy has the sex and the city theme song. michael jackson's "thriller" is reserved for anyone work related. and the sesame street theme song is reserved for when the lowell/poirier household gives me a ring.

when i first showed off my new purple phone to my niece & nephew they were thrilled with the choice of their ringtone and sang along: "sunny days, sweepin' the clouds away, on my way to where the air is sweet, can you tell me how to get, how to get to sesame street!" now whenever they see my phone, they want to hear the ring.

for christmas i bought the lowell/poirier clan tickets to see sesame street live at the flynn. earlier this week, i caught their party of 5 in the lobby just as they were about to head to their seats. baxter had his ticket in hand and asked me if he had good seats. i assured him that i didn't work at the flynn for nothing, and that yes, he'd be able to see oscar the grouch up close and personal (row 4 -- thanks AJ). the show was full of dancing monsters and silly antics that had the 2-7 year old audience in an uproar. there were phantom fluorescent feet dancing on the black lit stage, and of course, there was cookie monster and elmo, big bird and grover, bert and ernie, and zoe and rosita.

a 7 pm kid show is a late show. to have an intermission at a kids show is cruel and unusual punishment for parents, and this intermission was particularly torturous. just as the curtains closed on act i, two men walked down the aisles carrying huge elmo face balloon bouquets that threatened to sweep the men to the rafters. not only did every child in the theater see these balloons -- every child in the theater wanted one of these $8 balloons! the oh so purposeful light-up twirly elmo hand-held gadgets were in high demand as well. somehow jennie and derek escaped the show with cash firmly in their pockets.

jennie called me later to thank me for the gift and said that the best part of the night was watching paige dancing in her seat, waving and screaming hello to elmo and cookie at the top of her lungs. it brought tears to her eyes, which in turn brought tears to mine.

the next day, a stray elmo balloon and a lost light-up gadget found their way into my office, another perk of my job. later that evening, baxter and paige were momentarily dumbfounded when a big balloon-headed elmo walked into their kitchen singing "la la la la, la la la la, elmo's world" until they realized it was merely their aunt suzie using a balloon for her face. paige's laughter couldn't be contained, and baxter commented on his good fortune that "that kid" lost his light-up toy.

ah, sunny days. those kids sure do chase my clouds away.

on social utilities

i've got writer's block. i've been thinking about this post on social utilities ever since my life turned upside down and inside out because of a blogger.

i tried this last week and it started something like this...

i've gone and dated myself. i haven't posted since last year (why does this joke never get old?) baxter & paige don't get it yet, but that didn't stop them from running to give me a hug and a kiss goodnight since they weren't going to see me till next year (which was the next day).

speaking of jokes, what do you get when you cross a white chicken with a black cow? brown chicken brown cow. say it really fast and it sounds like a bad '70s movie. bax & paige can deliver this one, but they still don't get it. what do you get when you cross a red chicken with a yellow cow? orange chicken orange cow? not quite.

so, social utilities. facebook, gchat, AIM, texting, twitter. i've been thinking about social utilities. and old people. and the way they used to do it in the old days. and about a recent frustrating conversation held between my father, his mother, and me.

me: look, dad, see, i am friends with our cousin, your aunt's grandchild. see, there's your aunt and your cousin, and their kid, and pictures of the race they ran back in september.

dad: oh, yes, i talked to muriel on the phone and heard about that.

g'ma l: wait, what? how do you have terin's computer on your computer? how are you on her computer?

oh boy.

later on my dad reads my blog outloud to my grandmother, not only like she is deaf (ok, she kind of is), but also like she is blind (he describes every picture), a 3-year old, and also an alien who has never visited our land before. well, maybe it sometimes feels that way to her. when i tried to show her how to toggle between 2 pages, she gave up and didn't understand how i was moving the little arrow. it does seem unlikely that running your finger across a flat pad would move an arrow...

this is the same grandma who was tickled to be able to purchase a cute pair of tennis sneakers over the internet. the same grandma who declared "no gifts" for her this past holiday season, which makes it a fun challenge to think of something that she'll actually deem useful and worthwhile. i still feel a personal triumph every time she mentions how much she loves the fleece blanket that i made for her. anyway, that was an aside, but thinking about it, i realize how happy i am that i still get to write "is" statements about my grandma.

someone once warned me that while a 2nd or 3rd life may be lived on the internet, the 1st one still exists. i wanted to heed the advice, i just didn't really understand what it was. i've heard from another person (not julie's ex-boyfriend, the stiff) that blogs are self-indulgent and a blogger's attempt to portray the image of herself that she wants people to see, not necessarily equal to her actual self. and i've heard from yet others that the only way they know what i'm up to is by reading my blog. i am vain enough that although i haven't written in over a month, i still check my blog counter daily. i apologize to those 15 something people who check my blog every day -- even this post is not going to really update you on what's going on with me.

anyway, my thoughts are nowhere near cogent, but what i'm trying to tell my readers is that i feel like a fake, and i've lost my voice, i've lost a friend, and facebook and blogging no longer hold the excitement that they once did.

my blogger boyfriend is now my ex-boyfriend and we aren't facebook friends anymore, nor are we allowed to comment on each other's blogs. i apologize to him and to others for going public on these so-called social utilities. perhaps they should be named social inutilities. communication is best face to face when what is real is right in front of you, not a fairy-tale dream in cyberspace.

see what i mean about writer's block?

like a virgin

madonna popped my cherry. um, i mean, i popped my madonna cherry. er, um, yeah, i mean, i saw madonna for my first time!

what was meant to be an outing for the ladies of leisure became a sisters plus brother-in-law/husband plus children/niece/nephew boston extravaganza (by no means any less or more pleasurable than an outing with eva and tracy).

because tracy was broke and eva has strict requirements for her viewing pleasure (see exhibit A),

exhibit A: we were seated in section 327, yellow, nosebleeds #9-12. eva ended up buying $$ tickets in montreal where she was seated around oh section j, blue, #17.

because derek has a list of artists he would pay inordinate sums of money to see (see exhibit B),

exhibit B: and because one day jennie was rocking out to borderline, and decided that she must see madonna too, jennie, derek, suzanne (me), julie, baxter, paige, and cocoa left for boston on thursday, October 16 right around noon time. (we were supposed to leave at 11, but the lowell/poirier clan wasn’t quite ready (surprise, surprise) and we had to rock out to a few songs from the immaculate collection before we headed out).

after a therapeutic stop at target (incredibly i only spent $50), we arrived at our posh suite in burlington, MA. i donned my madonna ensemble, made julie put on some girlie earrings, and made jennie put on an about-to-be-baby-mama cleavage-revealing top (sorry jen, the grey t-shirt was just not going to cut it for gussying up to go out to see the original material girl herself). derek even tried on the blue feather boa i’d brought for him, but opted not to wear it on the T. marta, super-babysitter (by no means any less or more superb than ashley, the super-babysitter), arrived, and the adult siblings were off!

what could have been a disastrous wrong turn and what was a deathly slow T-ride (hampered by a misplaced garbage can?), turned out to be fine, and we weren’t late! i was a bit grumpy (like the grumpy that a person might get when she is climbing up the steep steep, what seems to be perpetual, and actually is never-ending staircase, that is camel’s hump), until we were finally seated in our nosebleed seats (eva, you might be on to something – read her blog about her night & see her close-up pics here). we were to the side of the stage, and although screens were there for our viewing pleasure, the images that were being projected were backwards for us, since we were actually behind the screen. fortunately, i’m an excellent sdrawkcab reader. i was still feeling grumpy and like i’d been duped by citicard's promise that they had “special," pre-sale madonna sticky & sweet tour tickets. again, it all turned out in the end – we had a neat behind-the-scenes vantage point, got to see madge get her mic fixed, going down to the depths of the pit on her descending platform, and got to see her get in place and practice some moves before her rotating screen was turned toward the audience.

the show was one big ADHD-riddled person’s dream -- lights, music, videos, dancers, props, jump ropes, cars, pianos, ascending & descending platforms, costume changes, and of course madonna herself, who actually went from having no bangs to bangs. I don’t know how she did it (though magical bobbie pins could be the answer). madonna danced with an illusion of justin timberlake (i’d like to reiterate how grateful i am to him for bringing sexy back), sang with the piped-in vocals of kanye west, tricked us by switching her image with britney’s, and made a shameless plug for voting for obama, and I think kabbalah, though i couldn’t be sure because the 85 degree temperature (which she insists her venues keep the temp set to) was slightly frying my brain.

i could go on and on about how madonna jump-roped and double-dutched in high heel wedged sneakers, how she shook her fanny in old 80s style exercise shorts (see exhibit C), how her voice kind of trembled in a not-so-good way during borderline (i never said she was a good singer), how she is totally hot and buff and i’m not sure, but am almost positive that she’s had some plastic surgery, how we danced and danced and screamed (but didn’t cry), but i think you’re getting the picture (unfortunately, i can’t show you because they wouldn’t let me bring my camera in, though there were plenty of people who were filming with their cell-phones. you can be sure to catch those quality vids on youtube.)

exhibit C:

this was the set list with a few details from yours truly:

~intro/candy shop: this is where the stage rotated and madonna was revealed sitting in a queen’s throne holding a scepter and wearing white laced black f*ck me boots.~beat goes on
~human nature

~vogue: this is where we put our hands up to our face to make kind of like a picture frame around our heads.
~video interlude – die another day
~into the groove: this is where we screamed the loudest.
~heartbeat
~borderline: this is where i felt slightly embarrassed for madonna.
~she’s not me: this is where 4 different women rose from the platforms dressed as different madonna-era madonnas – there was the lacy white bride, the cone boobed voguer, the marilyn monroe hot-pink dressed, white-gloved material girl madonna, and the pin-striped suit, short-haired express yourself madonna.
~music
~video interlude – rain/here comes the rain again
~devil wouldn’t recognize you
~spanish lesson
~miles away
~la isla bonita/lela pala tutedoli doli (live interlude - romanian folk song)
~you must love me: this is when a piano rose from the floor and madonna was laying on it in a huge black cape that revealed itself to be lined in hot pink when she finally flung it off of herself. this is also when I asked julie if this was the song from that argentina movie she was in.
~video interlude – get stupid (about saving the planet): this is when she asked boston if they’d registered to vote and told them to vote for obama.
~4 minutes
~like a prayer: this is when she let us sing.
~ray of light
~hung up: this is when the building started bouncing.

~give it to me (finale): this is when she left and the lights came on. i can’t believe she didn’t do an encore.

so, i’m no longer a madonna virgin. the highlight of my night could quite possibly be when i was recognized as the material girl. one, of many, gay guys cat-called out to me, “it’s madonna!” I guess my outfit was convincing enough for him. i struck a pose.

it smells as sweet

suzanne spataro, suzanne potter, suzanne grant (as in hugh), suzanne perry, suzanne ripski, suzanne mcgregor (as in ewan), suzanne marco, suzanne benchly. all girls do it -- if they like the guy a lot, if they like the guy a little -- it's as reflexive as the literal rubber mallet on the knee cap.

i once told a friend (the future mrs. ripski's husband, in fact), that i wasn't sure if i would take my future husband's last name or if i would keep my own. women's lib aside or not, suzanne lowell does have a certain 30-year old familiar ring to it. mr. ripski scoffed at me and reminded me of my hopeless romantic self, and that if i ever finally did fall skull over achilles, i would most definitely, surely take my husband's last name. he was willing to bet on it.

the jury is still out on that one, as it is on the lowell/poirier child #3's name (ETA: 11/22).
never traditional, my older sister jennie (lowell) and her husband derek ("i'm not a manny" poirier), decided that should their first child be a boy, he would take my father's last name (because my father was one of two boys, and uncle mark has never married). i suppose they figured that baxter elliot could carry on the lowell name. i always meant to ask them why they thought their son, who would most likely be raised as liberally and non-traditionally as his liberal and non-traditional parents raised him, would pass his name on to his future wife (or husband...) -- wouldn't he follow their lead and match with a woman (or man) who was liberal enough to want to keep her (his) name?

(M.S. (mid script): my grandfather created the last name lowell for himself and his wife. slight anti-semitism in his neighborhood, paired with the inability of the town to correctly pronounce lowenthall, convinced one milton lowenthall to christen his young family, lowell.)

in jennie & derek's heads, if the first boy was to be named lowell, then the first girl would be named poirier. and thus, a poirier, paige elizabeth became.we are all waiting with bated breath to find out if the newest member of our family will be girl lowell or boy poirier. we're all just hoping it's a baby.

with all of these name possibilities flying around, i'm just glad that i get to be aunt suzie who is still searching for uncle suzie.

"always remember, there is nothing worth sharing
like the love that let us share our name"

"murder in the city," the avett brothers

happy birthday baxter

yesterday he was tree.today he is four.

p.r.p.s. (post run post script)

i'm lying in bed, freshly showered, feeling those 13.1 miles in my calves. it was a gorgeous day. derek made it in in less than an hour and 40 minutes, jennie was in in 2 hours 9 minutes, and i came in at 2 hours and 12 minutes (official results). julie was there with the kids to cheer us on, and paul rode around on his mountain bike handing us energy gus and cheering us on at various spots on the course. woo hoo!

weekend snow, ski, and sledding report

snow, glorious snow! we finally got some, and with a long holiday weekend ahead of us, julie, danielle, em, oli, ella, and i were ready to hit the white stuff.

friday, day 1: sugarbush. this fall, danielle and i decided we would dedicate our winter to skiing at stowe and we purchased season passes before the fall discount opportunity passed us by. we bought the "stowe 6," which meant that we just couldn't ski on saturdays and the very very fine print informed us that we also couldn't ski from 12/25-1/1. back in october we had seen this and scoffed: "oh well, that's when we'll go skiing at the other mountains -- we'll be getting in so much skiing at stowe, it won't even matter, and besides, we won't want to be there with the crowds anyway." well, with the globally warmed winter that we've had so far, danielle and i have yet to make it to stowe and felt ever so frustrated to have to pay $50 for a day at sugarbush. but pay we did because we just had to get in our skiing/riding fix. and we were lucky enough to have jules join us. it was a blast of a day. serious skiing/riding was done by all. so serious in fact, that to avoid the lines, we rode up as singles. a great suggestion by danielle, because not only did we get up the mountain that much more quickly to get in another run, but i also met a cute boy! despite said cute boy, a sunny day, new snow being made by the millisecond by alarmingly scary snowmakers, and warmly frothed hot chocolate by that machine that we all wish we had in our kitchen because no matter how hard you try, you just can't make hot chocolate taste as good as the machine does, by 1:30 our legs had had enough and we headed happily home for some apres ski napping.

saturday, day 2: cross-country skiing at lake iroquois. after our friday of down-hill skiing, jules met her friend emily in new hampshire (visiting her parents from nicaragua) and brought her to vermont for some winter fun before she flies back to the tropics. the snow was falling when we got up and continued all day. the temp was mild and we wanted to get the dogs out for a good run. we hit the cross-country trails kindly maintained by the lake iroquois recreation department. the cover wasn't the greatest and our skis might need a waxing, but huffing up those hills, screaming down those hills, and seeing the dogs joyously stretch their legs was well worth it. so nice to get fresh air in the middle of nature!

on a side note, later that night ella's hind leg seemed to be bothering her so much from her day's exertion, so i gave her half an advil, only to be reprimanded later by both sisters: "are you an idiot? that could cause renal failure and internal bleeding!" after which a frantic call to the vet was made and i was told not to worry -- i hadn't given her enough of a dose to cause renal failure, but i could make her throw up by giving her some hydrogren peroxide. poor ella! stupid me! but all is well, not to worry and she's walking fine now after a day of recuperation. next time i'll make her ride in the carrier for longer.









saturday, day 3: sledding @ the golf course. new year's eve day was another beautiful sunny mild day. i spent much of the day inside the flynn, greeting first nighters, signing them up for classes, and answering most of their questions with an "i don't know" when they asked me about particular first night events and venues that i had no idea about and luckily didn't have to authoritatively know any of the answers. a day of work needed to be rewarded with an hour or so of play and i desperately needed a kid fix as i geared myself up for my solo nye, so i headed to j & d's where the cuties were already getting suited up. (julie was meanwhile torturing oliver with a shock collar, trying to figure out how we were going to make it through nye without officially pissing off my neighbors -- more on that story and oliver's troublesome visit to aunt suzie's house to come in a future post). we headed to the golf course and took many trips up and down the hill. many other people had the same idea as the hill was crowded with merry red-cheeked sledders -- there was a shared happiness of getting to be young again in the air. baxter's laughter and screams of delight filled the air as well. that and paigey's chubby cold cheeks that i kept kissing and kissing refueled me for my evening of debauchery.

thank you snow. thank you sun. thank you snow playmates.

christmas 2006

to me, christmas just keeps getting better and better. perhaps it's that we're older now and don't care so much about presents and they are not so much our focus. or perhaps it's because mom has the routine of timing and cooking breakfast, hors d'oeuvres, dinner, and decadent tiramisu and peppermint cheesecake desserts to an exact science. or perhaps it's because the kids are now around to make the days that much more enjoyable. but mostly, i think it is because more and more i appreciate being around my family, relaxing, laughing, and reminiscing with them. sure everyone has their quirky (read: annoying) moments, but even that predictability can be endearing (sometimes).

just as we have our traditions (check out everyone in their christmas eve pjs), we also go with the flow and welcome new changes and additions. Extra special additions this year were grandma trani and aunt mj making the trip from skaneateles. they haven't spent christmas with us in years and they hadn't even met paigey yet! uncle mark was off hiking (wishfully skiing, but that didn't happen) in maine, so grandma lowell didn't have her normal chauffeur. she drove herself to us on early christmas eve, in the safety of daylight and spent the night in my old room. it was such a treat to have both grandmas in the house for both christmas eve and christmas night. so nice to go to bed and wake up with a full house (including the 5 pups!) not to mention that everyone in those beds had on brand new pjs -- even the grandmas. (poor mj -- guess santa didn't get the memo on her and only got her earmuffs. hmm... maybe try again next year mj!)

there's lots more somethingsomething about christmas 2006, just not enough time to write about it and sleep!

skump

i babysat for baxter and baby paige tonight while their parents had a rare night out. now, i don't know who in their right mind would have let me, or any other 13-year old, for that matter, babysit their child when i was 13 -- but that is indeed when i started babysitting. and i was scared out of my mind. i didn't know what to do with a baby! i was always worried that i was doing something wrong and that the parents would be very unhappy when they got home. many times i called my mother in a panic and she would come help stop a crying baby who had been crying for over an hour. those were the days.

but babysitting my niece and nephew is a different story. i suppose it helps that i am now 28, over two times older than i was when i first started babysitting. or possibly that i was in the delivery room when both of them came into this world and we share a special bond. but mainly it is that they are so damn fun.

these are some of the fun and silly things that were said and done tonight: skump instead of skunk over and over again until we were in a fit of giggles and until baxter finally got the "unk" right; playing peak-a-boo with baxter's feet and suzie's eyes; baxter saying in perfect english, "naya (danielle's dog) is getting old;" baxter telling us that his friend "f*ck" was coming to his party next weekend (not really sure what he was trying to say, but it sure sounded bad and also he was playing with a duck at the time...); baxter getting out of bed after i'd already turned off the lights and shut the door, playing with his bongo drum that lights up and makes music, and telling me that he was having a "dance party;" baxter farting and peeing in the tub; baxter seeing a mommy dog and a baby dog that looked quite like oliver (julie's dog) in his bedtime book and saying, "there's two olivers"...

the list goes on and on, but i have to remember that not everyone is as enthralled with kids or baxter as i am.

oh, and i guess the fun and silly things that were said and done, were mainly done by baxter. paigey is too little to be funny yet, but she is the sweetest niece i've ever had. she takes her bottle like a pro, bounces up a storm in her jumperoo, and falls asleep so peacefully in the crook of my arms. she's damn cute too.

they just make the world that much better.

FIRE!!!

i recently bought myself a condo -- hoorah! a very adult thing to do. i also recently broke up with my boyfriend -- boo! a very sad thing to do. the two are related, though not really, as you soon will see.

my new place has a lovely feature that sold me immediately -- a wood stove right in the middle, nicely sectioning off the dining room from the living room. it makes it so warm and homey, even when a fire isn't burning, and then when you add the smell of the wood fire, mmmm, how can you not imagine a hot cup of cocoa and curling up with a good book?

anyway, the problem is, i'm not so adept at building said warm, good-smelling, homey fire. in fact, i downright suck at it. some people are born pyro-wizzes; i somehow lack that gene (which i just know comes directly from my father).

so, i bring in help. person # 1: danielle, my sort of sister-in-law, helped me gather kindling today. we went to the patchen road dog park and did two loops around the trails. we gathered four armloads of kindling! got to get back there before it actually snows to stock up on some more. (plus it's great running and play time for ms. ella and her friends).

what i've been trying is this: i crumple up paper, i put kindling in, i get it going, and then i put the larger log on and i just suffocate it. ok, way to solve this problem: buy an axe and cut up larger log into smaller pieces that have rough edges. rough edges are key, apparently, to really get those flames ablazing.

person #2: derek, my brother-in-law (danielle's older brother, married to my older sister, jennie) comes over. being the good brother-in-law and teacher that he is, he does not show me how to do it, but he watches me do it and gives me pointers. everyone knows that the best way to learn is to do -- thanks D! but he did help using the axe (which is sharp & scary!). hooray!

warm, homey, comfy, good-smelling fire with flames warmed my new home as we (derek, danielle, baxter & i -- jennie was on-call and at the hospital) ate yummy broccoli mushroom pie. who doesn't love pie for dinner?

who doesn't love pie for dessert? as we were being entertained by baxter eating his chocolate banana cream pie (the kid had it all over his face and was sitting in the big boy chair, without his big boy booster seat, so his head just barely cleared the table. didn't stop him from shovelling it in though)... anyway, as we were eating, the fire alarm went off! beep beep beep. beep beep beep. beep beep beep. and baby paige was sleeping! luckily she went right on sleeping. unluckily, the fire alarm went right on beeping.

but there was no fire. no, it was smoke coming from the wax that had been candles that had been on top of my wood stove. bad move. very bad move.

we turned on fans, opened windows, opened doors, fanned the alarm (i accidentally whipped danielle with the towel), got on a chair and tried to stop the damn thing to no avail, took out the battery and it kept beeping! beep beep beep. beep beep beep. no quicker way than that to make your new neighbors hate ya -- "oh great, the new girl in #10 is using her wood stove..." all the while, paigey is still sleeping, and baxter openly admitted: "i scared. i scared. all done with pie." i mean, for that kid to turn away pie, it's got to be pretty scary. probably pretty scary too for him to see 3 of the adults in his life running around like crazy people.

finally finally, derek unwired the alarm from the electricity and the beeping stopped. though baxter had cutely picked it up down to the cadence and repeated: beep beep beep. beep beep beep.

crisis averted. smoke dissipated. derek and kids packed up to go. danielle stayed to continue writing her paper. and i was left to tend the fire. uh oh.

the fire had been blazing, but needed more wood! basically, all attempts to split the log were feeble and futile. the only thing i got was a knick on my knee from a rogue hammer edge and a cooling fire. however, i did discover something in my multiple whacks at the log -- while paul is no longer here to help me build a fire (which he and his manly self would have taken charge of immediately and i never would have had to worry about it), i can and will do this on my own. it might take awhile, but the whacks just make everything feel better, whether i'm imagining the log is a log or someone else...