the busy heart

that it is possible to hiccup while you sleep? Sam was sleepy. Very sleepy. Sam had hiccups. The mean, painful sort. I gave him water. Salty crackers. Nothing helped. Sam fell asleep. Sam snored. Sam snored, then hiccuped loud like a seal, then snored some more. Repeat. Ultimately, the man slept, snored, and hiccuped on the couch.

This morning I was trying to convince myself to get up for church. Sometimes (Okay, all the time.) it's sort of hard to get up because it's so early and Sam is still sleeping and he's wrapped up in our yellow blanket so he looks like a big human-banana and I just want to stay next to him and be a banana, too. But anyway, so I was trying to convince myself to get up, and found myself listening to the sound of my eyelids opening and closing. (Do your eyelids make a little sound when they open/close?) I was half asleep, so the sound sent me back to the first time I found out they made a sound: in an old boyfriend's car, after a movie, in the parking lot where we sat for several hours because his car wouldn't start. We were sort of snuggling, but not really, but close enough for him to say, "What's that noise?" When we figured out it was my eyelids, I think it really freaked him out. I mean, in my memory, I think he made me sit on the other side of t

Here's Sam and yours truly in front of the Bunker Hill Monument. Here are pretty trees above a cemetery in the North End. And here is Tadzio, Sam's kitty. He did not like the new young kitties showing up. He could tell as SOON as they walked through the door, and he started up the hiss-fest. But, actually, now, he's pretty chill. Meatsock hisses and hisses him, and he just waits for him to shut up so he can get by and get the cat food. Also, and here's the real bonus: he likes me more now. I must be the least of all the recently-added evils, but suddenly he lets me pet him and he'll sit on the bed when I'm in it and just generally doesn't give me evil eyes like he's always done. This is a miracle. These are my kitties. They did not like the airport. Meatsock peed on himself, which made the ride home in the car REALLY fragrant and fun. And he pretty much cried from the time my parents left the house until Sam got done scrubbing him down with a hot and s

My parents are currently in New York at JFK airport. They've been there for six hours, and counting. Worse still, they have my cats. Because we wanted Sam's kitty to have a chance to stake out his territory before my cats arrived, Sprouty and Meatsock stayed with my parents. They're happy there, showered with attention: my dad lets them attack his feet while he reads, my mom feeds them seaweed (which they LOVE, oddly enough), and they get to play in the backyard and catch birds. (Then they bring the birds inside to show my parents, and get even MORE attention.) So the plan was for my parents to come out and visit and deliver the creatures. This morning they flew from Salt Lake to New York fine, but the flight they were booked on from there to here was cancelled. They were standby for a 7pm flight, but that didn't work out. So they are stuck there until 10:30. My parents are frazzled and bored enough. Imagine my cats. They're stuck in these little bags; they haven

Sam and I took a wee walk today, around a reservoir near our house. I've gone there a few times, and for some reason, that place feels more New Englandy than any other place I've been. So I always end up walking around, chanting in my head, "New Englandy, New Englandy, New Englandy." Which inevietably leads to remembering a principle of linguisitics that Sam told me about, which is that it's nigh unto impossible to actually say New England, with a real E. Our tongues blend the words together so that, despite our best intentions, we say New Wingland. Try it. Bet you can't say Eng. So this time I took some pictures, because the fall colors are really starting to pop. Pretty, no? We're liking this place more and more. Especially since this week has shown us temperatures that hovered around 70. Didn't Utah get SNOW today? Bless your frosted hearts. My favorite building on the path--an old waterworks building, which is now a museum. It was sunny, so Sa

Found a recipe for "healthy" cookies on 101 Cookbooks . No sugar, flour, butter. It calls for coconut oil, so it's not 100% healthy, per se. But apparently coconut oil is all the rage, now? It's supposed to be good for you in all these significant ways, which is different than I'd heard before. But it's pleasant and ever so slightly nutty and actually doesn't really taste coconutty, so I plan on trying it in other stuff, too. It took me about two weeks to find all the ingredients. We went to Whole Foods for them. That place happens to be the closest grocery store to our house, and also happens to be this uber-snoody, pricey, gorgeously wonderful place. And it was shaping up to cost me about $30 bucks for the ingredients. When we were at Whole Snoods for the cookies, it had only been a week since I'd run in to just get a few things, and came out with a FEW things and a fat, horrifying amount at the bottom of my receipt. I can't even mention that nu

In news that has nothing to do with the slacks, I can hear a big flock of geese out my window, honking, announcing their flight South. And yesterday, the Sam and I went to the Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plains. Pretty pretty. Some pictures. The first one represents our best attempts to take a picture of ourselves. Notice all the trees we managed to include ... Now, the fiasco: This morning Sam tried to wear a pair of black pants to work. He prefers jeans, but a while back I bought him a nice shiny new pair from Kohl's and I've been whining a little that he hadn't worn them much, especially since they've caused a fair bit of hassle. (No, they aren't actually shiny.) What happened was, I bought the pants. And they were on clearance, so I got the NICER pair, because my bargain hunting sometimes frightens Sam. I brought them home and presented them triumphantly, like a caveman presenting his woolly mammoth kill. Now. When I get new clothes, even when I'm the one w

What am I supposed to be doing right now? Deciding what to say to my 2:30 class, that's what. But I can't. I won't. I ... can't. Today is a no-good teaching day. Tried to teach Whitman this morning and had nothing to say. I mean, what is there to say? He's my dead boyfriend. I love him. His words are shiny objects that feed my soul. And you want me to like, say something about that? Why? Why can't we all just read and smile and giggle and swoon and bask in the loveliness of it? Sometimes, school, as a thing, seems so lame. I stood like a moron at the front of the room, flipping throught the pages, begging God to supply me with some brilliant question to ask that would fuel discussion for another 45 minutes. The heavens were closed. Nothing arrived in my head. It was awful. AW-FUL. It triggered all sorts of who-am-i, what-am-i-doing-here, how-did-i-get-this-job, i-sucksucksuck feelings. I'm brimful of self-loathing. But tonight, Sam and I ar