Welcome to Jenny’s PBS (Public Blogcasting System) Fundraising Drive. I promise not to bump regularly scheduled programming for a week. I know these are sucky times for many, many folks. But if you’ve been waffling and losing sleep over which non-nonprofit charity to support, may I suggest you save Jenny and Her Daughters this fall, [...]

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star bird this that

August 30, 2010 · 3 comments

From the creeping Ferris Wheel
I see stars in commotion,
wanting in on the action below

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I don’t know what I can say to you people anymore besides these 11 things

August 28, 2010

On vacation, I catch disappointment on one’s face, melancholy on the other’s. Just Mom, this time. I can’t be the two particular people that they so desperately want to be waving to them on the bumper cars. One at a time, they seem to be figuring out. It will always be one or the other parent, never both, not really.

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eat pray love divorce cry eat drink margarita watch Julia Roberts be pretty rant rant rant blog annoy muse laugh the thing with feathers

August 16, 2010

I try to console myself with the fact that I don’t need to change my name back to Mattern. And if I have any single friends left who like me enough to ask me to be their Maid of Honor someday soon, I can be a Maid of Honor again, instead of a Matron of Honor.

But I will still want to cover my upper arms with an unfortunate wrap. That’s just 40 for you.

Even Julia had some upper-arm jiggle going on.

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Protected: The Tragick Death of Sonnet 116 by the Dastardlie Hands of Route 8

August 15, 2010

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

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thank you for the waltz

August 14, 2010

There is not much to say at this point, except that I ate ROY G. BIV for dinner. Red onions, orangey-gold banana peppers, spinach, romaine, iceberg, Hattie’s blue dress, a purple poster over our low table. There were meats, too, cold cuts, animals that died to be pickled, salted beyond their comprehension or mine. The [...]

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Tooth Fairy crimes

August 13, 2010

Oh, crap.

Soph’s bleeding but happy. She’s managed to wiggle another tooth loose.

This is one of those times when it would really be nice to have a partner in Tooth Fairy crime.

I contemplated what to do. Was this a sign? Is it time to tell her?

I go to her room after mulling this over a bit.

She sits at her desk, composing a letter to the Tooth Fairy (including a line for the Tooth Fairy’s signature). Plans for an honest, if painful, discussion go out the window as I watch my firstborn happily crafting a little plastic showcase for her tooth from an empty earring box.

I exit her room, leave her to her cheerful work.

I attempt nonchalance in my room as I quietly dig through four old purses. Thirty-seven cents. This does not bode well for the Tooth Fairy, as the Tooth Fairy has been inconsistent at best with her sums, and the last tooth was worth an even $5.

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The fourth dog

August 12, 2010

“You’re going to have to be firm with her,” he says, amused.

“I know,” I say, as she nudges her nose under my arm, again. “Oh, I know.”

When I hang up, she nestles close and spoons with me, pressing her shaven spine against my soft belly.

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these are a few of my unfavorite things

August 11, 2010

I could go on.

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late summer rain

August 9, 2010

outside fat rain smacks
the bully AC. i rise
dog eyes plead not now

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