2003-05-28 - 3:19 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: "Blue Bayou", Linda Ronstadt

This morning on my way to get the truck, three little brown birds were ahead of me on the sidewalk. As I got closer, I noticed that two of them were tiny and fluffy -- still babies! By the time I was three feet away, the older bird had flown up in a nearby tree, but the two babies were sitting there, stupidly, since they were too young to know to be afraid of me. I crouched down and took a good look at the one, who sat there silently while his sibling cheeped loudly off to the side. The parent flew down to the sidewalk again, about 6 feet away, and hopped up and down but didn't come closer. What kind of parent is that? Obviously a parent who hasn't seen "The Birds". Standing idly by while I could have picked up a baby and eaten it. Good thing I'm nice.

So, Poindexter has finally admitted that he is, indeed, a shut-in, and is using this as an excuse not to do ANYTHING anymore. Example:

Evelynne: I'm running to the market. Wanna come with?
Poindexter: [looks aghast at the very idea] I'm a shut-in!

However, while IMing with Darling John earlier today, I realized that perhaps I'm being unfair to Poindexter in my portrayal of him here. I'll try to elaborate.

He and I are both homebodies. Our idea of a good weekend is one in which we never leave the house. We like each other SO MUCH that we prefer each other's company to anyone else's for a large portion of the time. For Poindexter, this portion is somewhere around 90% (outside of work and family). For me, the portion is more like 80%, largely because of LJ and the fact that I have more friends locally (his friends are in AZ and CA). Add to this the fact that I run most of the errands (since I like walking around), and you have a man who appears to be a shut-in.

So, the 10% difference is what you're seeing here. The truth is that I like to stay home just as much as Poindexter does, but there are a just a few more things that I'm willing to leave the house for. This makes the people I leave the house for think that my husband is a shut-in, and he's certainly not trying too hard to dispel the notion. But you don't need to think that I am forlornly doing things allllllll alonnnnnne. I'm perfectly happy to stay home with my husband when I want to hang out with him and then go do stuff alone when I want to go out.

As it is, I'm very used to doing stuff alone. In college I noticed that everybody else always brought someone with them everytime they went somewhere, but I was quite used to shopping alone, eating meals alone, etc. It wasn't that I couldn't get company if I wanted it, I was just fine with eating meals alone between classes or whatever. Here in the city I shop alone all the time, and go on neighborhood tours alone, and right now today I'm contemplating going to the Art Museum alone, although I think P might actually come along for that one. I've been comfortable with my own company since I was a little kid, and having a husband hasn't changed that. It just means that there's somebody whose company is ALWAYS just as good as my own. :)

Actually, I'm so used to doing stuff alone that I got panicky when Renee and I first started browsing the stores (see below). I wasn't sure how to shop with another person. I was all, "How am I going to know when it's time to leave?!" She solved that problem for me by announcing, not long after, "Okay, I'm done; how 'bout you?" :)

So, yes, Renee came to visit a couple weekends ago. This was a blast. Shopping -- as in browsing crafts and antique stores -- is one of those rare things I prefer to do with another person, and Poindexter sure isn't gonna do it with me. So it was great to have her company. We went to South Street and walked all up and down and the next thing I knew it was about 8pm. Someday Perhaps 10 years from now, when I have no big projects planned for our savings, I'm going to decorate my house with some of that cool stuff I saw.

We stopped in at the infamous Condom Kingdom -- where I also went with Kit and Mark -- and decided to split the cost of a bottle of up some overpriced glow-in-the-dark bubble bath stuff. I tried it this past weekend, and once it's diluted with the water it glows only very, very, very faintly. I think perhaps one needs to use a whole bottle for it to really glow much. What a pisser. I'll still give the rest to my nieces. They might be amused by the faint glow.

The weather was completely crappy, which put a damper on our people-watching plans. :( But we did go to a couple of open houses on Sunday, and then to Rittenhouse for lunch at the Devon Seafood Grill. Gotta love those little sidewalk heater thingies. We sat right by an open window and it was pouring heat down on us from the sidewalk. Verrrrrrry nice. Next time she comes to visit we'll have to plan it for a sunny weekend so we can shop at Rittenhouse and people-watch.

Gardening update:

Renee gave me four herb plants!!!! I was SO EXCITED to get them. I was originally planning to try to start them from seed, but this saved me the trouble. She got me parsley, cilantro, tarragon (which we need for our new Blueberry Chicken recipe from Poindexter's mom) and a delicious-smelling pineapple sage. I can hardly wait for them to grow so we can eat them. I got them planted this weekend. Now if the freakin SUN WOULD JUST COME OUT so they'll grow.

As I mentioned in an LJ entry, my morning glory seeds are germinating. I put them in peat pots so I could just stick them into the six-foot-by-six-inch trough on the back wall when they get big enough. I was going to sow them directly into the trough, but was worried that the squirrels would dig them up and kill them, hence the peat pots.

I am flabbergasted at the whole seed thing. You stick a seed in some dirt, water it, and a plant comes out. And it grows and grows and grows. LIFE IS AMAZING. It's even more amazing to think that human beings are made much the same way. You start with a couple of seeds, merge them, it sticks itself into the uterus, and a baby grows and grows and grows. It's FREAKY, MAN!

In other news, my neighbor mentioned how pretty my fuchsia was and that she was surprised no one had stolen it, including her husband who also likes it, and then told me about some hundred-pound planter of hers was stolen years ago. Hello, paranoia. The fuchsia is now in the backyard under the branches of the same neighbor's tree, which overlaps into my yard. The fuchsia was wilting in the morning sun, anyway, back when we ACTUALLY HAD SOME SUN. So she can still enjoy it and I can sleep at night.

Or maybe not. Last night I dreamt that someone snipped off all the individual branches of my fuchsia and stuck them into all the neighbor's pots, so I had nothing left but a few dying branches. I think I cried.

Skin care regimen update:

After trying everything everyone recommended in various combinations over the last two months, and having beautifully soft skin that I loved but STILL WITH THE PIMPLES, I finally decided to try salicylic acid. (Clearasil's benzoil peroxide wasn't doing much.)

Well. That solved THAT problem. I'm still amazed that I look in the mirror every morning and my skin is STILL CLEAR. It's not the most perfect skin ever, and never will be, but the improvement is amazing. What few zits I get are tiny and go away in a day or two. I still have a few scars which are slowly fading. If the stuff continues to work for me, in a few months I might actually have a spot-free face. *crosses fingers*

BTW, I was madly in love with how that St. Ives apricot scrub made my skin feel, and Poindexter was calling me "My little apricot beauty". But it was making my face itchy and giving me little red bumps on my cheeks. What a pisser.

The current regimen, which I have pared down to the minimum possible, is the following:

- Wash off eye makeup with Neutrogena Fresh Foaming Cleanser
- Wash face with Clean & Clear Oil-Free Pore Something Cleanser
- Apply thin layer of Clean & Clear salicylic acid stuff
- Apply CVS sensitive skin moisturizer

Other things I do are: Hands off face, clean towel designated for face only, and washing pillowcases more often. That last, along with chucking the comforter for spring, also seems to have eliminated my dust mite allergy problem, so I'm not taking Alavert anymore. I'm floored. Where would I be without LJ people making all these suggestions for me?! Still pimply and sneezy, I guess.

Housekeeping stuff:

My wedding dress (also my mother's) is in a box-within-a-box, and I took it out to look at it this weekend. I'm trying to figure out a way to display it. The mannequins on Ebay are too wide in the shoulders and bust, so I'm thinking just a pretty hanger on the wall and some stuffing in the dress to fill it out a bit. I need to figure out how to deal with dust and sunlight, short of a plastic cover. But damn, I love the dress, will never wear it again, and I'm not gonna just let it sit in a box.

I finally got the boxes emptied and cleared out of the theater room. Go, me. Now if we can just organize the office closet -- which stalled because we have to rip out the existing shelves and put in new ones, and there's already stuff on them, which means total chaos when we do this -- maybe we will finally be all unpacked.

The gratuitous photo for today is an old one, expressly for Kit's mom, although I think Darling John will also appreciate it, if he missed it the first time:

Not "loud" pants. FUN PANTS!!

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