Posts from — August 2010

R. Kelly – Trend Setter, Cultural Icon

My brother once told me that he and his college buds picked up a new slang term that was handy to use when you wanted to say “But seriously though..” or “In all seriousness…” and of course, it came from everyone’s favorite source of  slang terms: an R. Kelly song. Real talk, y’all, that is the best worst song on the internet.

For Every Weekend Still Shot, There Is A Just Out Of Frame Of The Weekend Still Shot Shot

Debbie left this comment on my last Weekend Still Shot post, and I wanted to take a moment to address it, as she is not the only person who has inquired about the apparent lack of clutter in my house. I feel as though I have somehow deluded the dear readers of Yestertime with my keen skills of framing a shot just so and my liberal use of the iPhoto “Crop” feature. After seeing her comment I decided it was time to clear up some notions about the state of my house, and so I immediately stood up, walked into three different rooms of my house and took the following photos, and am now presenting them here with no after-editing:

Real talk, Yestertime. There is clutter afoot.

Laugh Until It Hurts

Great Scott but the show was fun. I was a drunk Irish man! And then a person in a coffee shop! And then a lady in her pajamas! And then Wonder Woman! And several other things in between! It was exhilarating and challenging and exhausting and fantastic.  I enjoyed getting to know all the different people who took the class with me, and recall often what one fellow classmate said when asked on the first night why she was taking a sketch comedy class – she said, simply, “I want to be free.” Yes to that, ma’am. Yes to that.

But as freeing as the experience was, it was also, as it turns out, fraught with peril. In my great haste to accomplish quick changes from costume to costume I sustained several minor injuries, the most grievous of which involved being slammed into a wooden beam by the man in our group best suited in stature to play the roles of a giant grizzly bear and The Incredible Hulk. Yeow. Here is my gnarly bruise, which is actually much healed in this picture:

Sometimes I like to look down at my right thigh and squint and pretend like I have a tan.

Mr. Bear/Hulk felt incredibly bad about mowing me down, but I told him that it was not a problem, don’t worry about it, it didn’t really hurt all that much, anyway. But I was a little bit bummed, because geez, come on – now who was going to believe my performance as Wonder Woman? You think Wonder Woman is gonna let anyone get anywhere close to bruising her superheroic legs? Oh HELL no. In the end it worked out though because it just meant I had to dig that much deeper into the character and work hard to take the audience on that ride with me. Which, let’s face it, is a good thing, because while it’s true that Wonder Woman would probably not have a giant hematoma on her leg, she sure as HELL wouldn’t have post-multiple-baby muffin tops and a soft fleshy roll hanging over her golden belt, either. So a little extra effort at the overall pretense was certainly not a waste for anyone.

I Made This Cornbread With My Bare Hands (And A Skillet) And Lo It Was Good.

While we’re Real Talking, I do want to say that I probably lean pretty hard on the exaggeration side when describing my culinary skills, (or lack thereof) but what is really, sincerely true about me and the kitchen is that I do not usually enjoy my time spent there. And true to form I did not enjoy making this cornbread, because it was just for regular old dinner and my kids were feral and I was tired and etc. etc. etc., but even so, I say unto you DAYUM it was tasty. It almost made up for the fact that I accidentally left out three of the ingredients in the main dish.

And that is probably the first and last time you will see a picture of something I produced for eating on this weblog. Because Dear Cooking, I’m Just Not That Into You. Sincerely, Rachel.

(But, real talk? The outside was all crispy like a hush puppy and the inside was just the right amount of moist, and the butter melted in the little nooks and crannies and mmmmn;hashkafwebnpbbbbtttttt Homer Simpson voice mmmmcorrrrrrnbread now I’m hungry.)

Real talk.

Original WSS post with explanation here.

WSS collection (or most of it – still catching up on Flickr) here.

Tonight is the show! Which is exciting! And nerve-wracking! And exclamation pointy! And also the reason I have not been around here much lately. We’ve been in rehearsal every night this week, and therefore, henceforth, as a result, erGO….no posting. I am going to be snapping some photos tonight of the theatre and people I’ve been hanging around, and will have much to say next week about that and other various and sundry things.

In the meantime, please to enjoy this lovely moment from last weekend at my grandparents house. (Where we were to celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary.) Every once in a while something happens that reminds me exactly why I am so grateful for my camera and for the conscious decision I have made to try to keep it available at a moments’ notice. This was one of those times.

Not such an ugly duckling… from racher on Vimeo.

He Knows What He Likes

This whole Being in Kindergarten thing seems to be sticking. The days are being met with good humor, and first homework assignments have been (unsurprisingly) tackled with vim and vigor. The beginning of the year has not been totally without its challenges – Noah’s teacher missed the first three days of school because her mother was very ill, and about four days after that her mother passed away, meaning she was absent all this week as well. The teacher’s assistant in the class is great, and she has been the one constant, but there have been several different substitute teachers thrown at the class, and for five-year-old kids in their very first weeks of public education, that’s no small thing. But Noah barely even mentions it. He’s more interested in telling me who he played with and who got in trouble. “Most of the class was green today, Mom. But Nick spent all day on yellow! And then after lunch…..” He trails off, and then whispers seriously, “He got on red.” Once I asked where you went after red, but he couldn’t tell me. My guess is the clink. Kindergarten teachers are no JOKE, y’all.

For the first five or six days of school, I packed Noah a lunch until I had a better handle on the cafeteria situation, and every day, per request, I packed a turkey sandwich. The day before Noah started eating the school’s fare, we pored over the menu and talked about what he might like, and what might be new or different, just to get him more comfortable with being served lunch somewhere else and the (oh so yummy and delightful!) surprises that might entail. I was glad that eating at school meant a different option every day so that he wouldn’t just be eating the same old same old from home. What I didn’t realize is that the kids are given a choice of hot or cold lunch every day. (Also, their choice of milk. And this is where it all starts – they get their first taste of autonomy, and it tastes OH SO SWEET AND CHOCOLATY. Next thing you know, they’re dying their hair blue and calling you by your first name.) Every single day since I stopped packing his lunch Noah has chosen the cold lunch, and I am sure, since most of you are keener than I when it comes to objective observation of my kids, that you are not as surprised as I was to discover that the main course of the cold lunch is a turkey sandwich.

Also, his new Kindergarten classmate BFF? Is named Noah. Of course he is.

Lessons For Future Relations

Rosie has started carrying around a small team of compadres (a.k.a. plastic Candy Land pieces) whom she refers to as her “boys.”  She poses long babbly questions to them that usually end with an inquiry about whether or not they are going to “Go in nair?” And then answers for them, since they’re plastic Candy Land pieces.  “Yeah! Go in nair!”  And then they go in nair.

Sometimes they commit some sort of punishable offense (this is my educated guess), and have to Goin’ TAHM OUT. “No MA’AM,” Rosie tells the boys, lining them up against the wall. “Two minutes!” Then she walks over to me with a sober look. “Mama. Boys in Tahm Out.” I nod grimly, acknowledging the gravity of the situation. Later, she lays them on a box and covers them with a washcloth. “Go nigh-night, boys. Rub back. Go nigh-night.”

So loving, and yet so firm in her discipline. That’s my girl. You keep those boys in line. Being cute is no excuse for bad behavior.

Random, But Heartfelt

Seriously, if you live near me: come to the show!  Everyone has worked really hard to make it a success, including my own two kids, who are the only people I’ve got around during the day to run lines with. Their commitment to the moment is astounding, you guys. And you should see them do the Wu Tang Clan sketch! Noah kills as Method Man, and it’s like Rosie is straight channeling ODB. Everyone’s dedication has paid off, too – the show is hilARious, and totally worth ten bucks and an hour and a half of your time next Thursday or Friday. Do it. Come out. You know you want to.

WU TANG FOREVER.

I’m struggling a little this week just to get simple tasks done. Partly it’s because of the upcoming show, and partly it’s because I am solely responsible for planning my daytime hours during the week, and those hours should ideally be spent finding potential jobs and then applying for them. Have you ever spent weeks at at time doing this? It is, in a word, abysmal. And the process usually goes a little something like: sit down at computer to search for job, get up to get a glass of water, pass pile of unfolded laundry, start to fold laundry, find wadded up paper in pocked, call L to see if wad is important, throw wad away, realize trash has several day-old diapers contained within its coffee-ground and fish-from-dinner-the-night-before bowels, take trash outside to trash cans, go back in, wash unidentified sticky trash substance off hands, notice toilet paper roll is dangling from the roll with one square left on it, search for new tp roll, organize under the sink cabinet, and then finally get up to go back to computer except hey what’s that spot on the wall I think I have something that will get that right out.

Madness.

But you know what? At least the kitchen doesn’t smell like the men’s restroom at a fish-packing plant. (Anymore.) Small victories!