Today Hazel & Luca took turns crying to be held for two hours straight, and then half an hour before Angie got home from class they quit fussing and rewarded me with cute photos ops (and I didn’t even have my camera – had to use my phone). Kisses, cuddles, and repeated Luca-pushing-Hazel-into-the-wall-on-his-ride-on-toy-and-both-of-them-laughing-hysterically moments. The cute is too much to handle, and I am going to bed before midnight. The ratio of toddlers to energy drain is very obvious today…

…but man, are these cousins getting awesome.

This morning my mom told me that she would get me a puppy for Christmas. When I shared the news with Mikey, he replied – with a pout – “I thought I was getting you a puppy for Christmas.” the votes are in – I’ve clearly won this one. New campaign: Iafrate baby ’09!!

They might have to collaborate on the beag-let. Mikey doesn’t know how to get a dog or accessories. Either way, I will have a furry little bundle of joy SOON! And our apartment is going to be REALLY full.

Last night I was talking to Maggie, who, immediately after getting married this past summer, moved to Vegas “for the experience”. A quote from our conversation… Living here is an adventure, but so is a two-week vacation. I’ve had enough.

I also talked to my friend JK last night. Another mountain-mama who recently moved to Frederick, Maryland. A whole two inches from WV, but nonetheless she said I felt like I lost my spine and my identity and everything when I had to change the plates on my car.

I think there should be some compilation of leaving-WV-stories. I have several in my inbox from strangers who’ve seen photos of my tattoo and feel the need to share their story with me. Project! I can at least compile all of them and get actual books bound and printed from that Lulu company that will make you a book of any pdf that you send. Any suggestions for a title?

Tonight Michael and I ate a jar of my grandma’s green beans with our dinner, and it didn’t upset me. A month ago it would have. Maybe it’s only because I already cried about grandma food once today when I got an email from her which mentioned that she was getting ready to start making things for tomorrow’s dinner. I remember the first thanksgiving that Jess was away from home, we called her in the middle of the afternoon and I gloated to her about how I’d gotten the middle roll. I had no idea how traumatic it would be to be the one far away, who’d kill for even a scrap of an edge roll.

I will survive, as long as I keep getting cute emails like this:

Anytime ya’ll are ready to start our hippe commune and live off the land somewhere in middle america, I’m ready.  I’m sure Clint is too.  We can have puppies and babies and drive corn fueled cars.  Let’s go.

This is why – post Canada – I need to live near Jenn & Mario forever.

Things:

- There are tons of photos under this cut. Wedding and otherwise. Dialup users beware.
- Very good weekend. Very good wedding. Lots of crying and dancing and friends and pretend family.
- Mikey’s new baby cousin – Benny – is the most adorable thing ever. Samantha gave Mikey a lesson in feeding and burping. It was hysterical and I’d left my camera in the car.
- Two nights at the Campbells’ and lunch with four of the pairs on Sunday = I miss my friends ugh.
- I ate a mango earlier and contemplated what sort of tool I might be able to make from the hard piece in the center… then I remembered that I am not, in fact, living the LOST life.
- I still want a dog.
- I finally got the rest of those necklaces uploaded to Etsy, redid all of my shipping information to correspond with their new system, fixed photos that were broken after the total-server-update, and uploaded a few pairs of wintery earrings that I made today. Go see.
- At the wedding, more than once, someone on one side of the dance floor would yell “let’s gooooooo”……… and the opposite side would answer “mountaineers!!!!”………. I’ve never witnessed this at a wedding reception, and certainly not three or four times. It was so good.
- Yesterday on the drive north, we stopped at a burger king for some fries. I asked Mikey to buy me a happy feet toy. When we got to the window, a young kid came over with one each of three kinds – all hidden in their own big plastic egg – and asked which one I would like. I wanted to know what my options were. He ducked down to stare at me for a moment, then said “you know what? just take them all”, dumped them in the car window, grinned, and walked away. They are all amazing. Best fast-food toys ever.
- Last night just before I went to bed at two a.m. I checked my email, and after saying goodbye to lots of people all weekend with no crying whatsoever (okay, once), the following message from Dougie made me cry a lot. He always hunts on my parents’ land during thanksgiving week. I will not correct his grammatical errors, even though I want to:

Any thing you want me to tell the dogs, cats or horses?
I’m taking an apple for the horse. I know there is three but only one of them will come to the fence so he/she wins the apple. I’m sure the dogs will be inside, but i’ll take them some bologna at lunch time. And that cats, I’m not taking them anything cause I hate cats. Oh I need to go see the bullet hole too. See you later. Wish you guys were going to be there to fix me some coffee when i’m freezing my ass off.
Peace
Douglas P

photos………..

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Today it:
1.) was the ugly-not-refreshing kind of rainy, dark at 4:30 p.m.
and I:
2.) had the day off so I
3.) made some necklaces while I listened to Nick Drake
which is:
4.) the best / worst music for this kind of day.

Ace is mine. The rest are for sale on Etsy, even though they are still less than smooth-edged.

On Sunday my dad bought an old rifle – “you know, the cowboy kind” – and later at home sat in his rocking chair and loaded three shells into it while my mom talked on the phone. When she passed the phone off to him, she started examining the gun – not checking the action and unaware of what he’d been doing – aimed at the ceiling, and fired a round through the roof. My dad retells the story last night on the phone, gasping for air, laughing hysterically, as if delightfully unaware of his own mortality.

Arms are for hugging, kids.

and all the friends that you once knew are left behind
they kept you safe and so secure
amongst the books and
all the records of your lifetime
what will happen in the morning
when the world it gets so crowded that you can’t
look out the window in the morning?

Oh also, last night I had a dream that I ran into Ian Keplinger in a barn at a fair and one of his arms had been medically or otherwise amputated. I had to stop for a moment and think, “did he have this arm the last time I saw him? Would I look stupid if I asked what happened because I should know because he’s been this way for awhile and I’ve just forgotten?”…… I hate feeling stupid in dreams. Especially over something so obvious as Ian having his left arm or not having his left arm the last time I saw him. So in the dream I started thinking about the real-life last time I hung out with him, and I remembered that it was the night that Doug, Chad, and Ian found a bunch of half-inch wooden dowel rods in Mikey’s room as we moved him out, and then spent a good half an hour beating each other with them in the kitchen. I was finally forced to take them away (in real life) when Chad and Doug backed Ian into a corner and he was begging for mercy. I decided, in the dream, that Ian could not have dowel-rod-sword-fought two other grown men with only one arm, so he must have had both, and so I should ask him what happened. But then I woke up. When I woke up I thought about the dream and remembered my first memory of Ian (and Stefan)… they were in a barn stall at the fair, chillin’ with one of their grandpa’s hogs.

How’d a memory from 20 years ago and a memory from two years ago fuse themselves with the weird book I’m reading (involving teleportation and not making it back home with all of your molecules intact and thus having a weird deformity or missing limb) and make it into last night’s dream? I want to be a neurologist.

I have been absent for several days. I’ve been in seclusion mourning the loss of a fictional being. Just kidding.

Last week I got fun mail. My grandma sent us oreos / mister bee’s / cheese / lots of halloween candy. Amber sent more oreos and some photos of us, Toni, and Danielle, which made me cry a lot. And Maggie sent an issue of entertainment weekley with a 24 page guide to LOST, as well as an enlargement of a photo of the two of us with Adrian, Matt, and Josh from the summer that we watched Sistersville’s fireworks from the cemetery on the hill. It also made me cry. Here is her envelope decorating:

Yesterday Angie, Julie, and Tracie arrived around four. Angie, of course, being my SISTER, and some Iafrate-cousins who live in New York. They left around eleven today, and even though their visit was short it was great fun having someone here to see us. We were transported back to their younger years, and in less than twenty four hours there was a dance party…

an intense game of Clue….

and a pretend mass, with Fr. Michael, as always…

and pancakes for breakfast…

(Mikey’s wearing one of Dallas’s sweatshirts. aw.)

After they left I fell asleep reading, and then Mikey, John, and myself went to a late-afternoon showing of Death of a President. It was so good. It was certainly not a simple movie about a fictional assassination of our president. The shooting happened almost straight-away, with the rest of the film covering the aftermath, the trial, and the like. It was about what that particular event would be like in today’s america – a rush to blame a Muslim or a group of terrorists, a broadened patriot act, how our current war would factor in – and instead of using a fictional president, they just decided to use Dubya. They pulled it off VERY well. The only scene where a glaring flaw caught the eye of Mikey and myself (or at least the only one that we discussed… maybe he noticed more) was a shot of Colin Powell at the funeral… they showed him in a blue suit. They could have chosen a better clip for that. Him in a black suit at least, or, to be accurate, military dress. There was also a scene where protesters in Chicago were cheering when the news came out, and I seriously doubt that would happen. Everything else was pretty dead-on. I’m not saying that they made it seem “real” because it was easier or whatever… it was definitely an attention getting tactic. The whole “well here’s what your alternative – Cheney – would be like” storyline was really good, too. But it wasn’t just a pretend assassination story to make heads turn.

Tonight we seriously had to bundle up to walk to mass. And it wasn’t even windy or any other horrible weather things.

Fuzzy.

On the agenda this week: make things, make things, make things. Drink and play games for Cheryl’s birthday on Saturday night.

Reading: The Bad Place by Dean Koontz
Happy anniversary: Mama & Daddy

This morning before I left for work, I checked my email and had one from Mikey’s dad updating me on various things, including some bits of family news. In between “Samantha had her baby yesterday” and “here’s Dave’s new email address” was the following: I am sure you are in touch with Janet all of the time so I won’t repeat any of her news except to say that she was very upset last night when ___ died. (I deleted the name for the benefit of those who have not seen this episode)  …it’s like there was a death in our very own family. It’s comforting to know that others are mourning with me :)  I got a little ache in my heart today when I straightened our selection of LOST puzzles.

Cana has an email address now, at the ripe old age of seven, and we traded addresses at my grandma’s last Sunday. A few days ago I emailed her some photos from the weekend, and got the following reply:

I got your e. mail but i need mikey,s i forgot it

No name signing, nothing. Just that one line. I came to terms with the fact that my dear baby cousin loves Mikey more than she loves me long ago – and now it looks like Eden is headed down the same path… on Sunday she was hardly detached from his sweater sleeve at all. But whatever dude, rejection stings, even if I know it’s coming.

Today Mikey got this email from Cana.

Emily gave me your email address because i forgot it at ma ruth’s. and i love you.
Cana

Ouch.

I swear this is my last blog post today. I just wanted to share a bit of information with my beloved readers. I’m reposting a piece of writing by my cousin Danny, which I’m not allowed to call him anymore now that he’s An Adult. This really happened to him within the past couple of weeks. At first I thought, “this can’t be real… he just wrote a story.” And then my mom told me that yes, it’s real, and I was pissed off. Now, after reading it several times, I just laugh. Dan is only 20. It’s just too good. God bless america.

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Best mail day yet!

1.) Hand-knitted penguin from Rebecca. I named him Frodo. She can do anything… contact her for all of your knitting needs.

2.) Package from Virginia, including a note, sourpatch watermelons, and an item that she picked up for me in Morgantown. Thanks, VD! We’ll still be eating sourpatch watermelons when we’re 103 and all of our teeth have fallen out.

3.) The new issue of Mothering magazine. This was a nice surprise, considering I don’t have a subscription or children, and considering I LOVE this magazine so much. There was no giftcard enclosed, and I had no idea who to suspect, because not many people know that I am a diehard fan of this particular natrual-parenting publication – I read it cover to cover several times whenever I get my hands on an issue. So I called customer service……….. my lovely friend Kelly (fellow displaced West Virginian, Mothering Magazine devotee, half of Ella Bean’s parenting team) will be getting a thank-you phone call this evening. I’m very excited about this issue’s cloth diapering article. We’ll see how it compares to the lesson that Jessie gave me this past spring, which involved three or four different styles of cloth diaper and one teddy bear.

4.) A pamphlet advertising Mag & Robert’s Vegas resort…. aka, their apartment. It outlined all of the their favorite attractions, perks of where they live (pool, etc.), and photos of them with contact information for making “reservations”. It made me giggle (and miss Maggie terribly).

In other news, I trekked into the underground this afternoon to get some more yarn, and stopped in a dollar store that I’d not yet visited. They’re usually a goldmine of cheap craft supplies and odd things that can be hung from ear lobes. Not only did they have all of those things (some little ink pads for stamping, and glitter gluegun sticks – score), but they also had a HUGE DICE SELECTION. I spent a week looking all around, and there they were that whole time… right under my feet.

I also had my first-ever sleepwalking episode last night. Before I fell asleep, it registered in my brain that it was thunderstorming, and I’d better put the quilt on our bed before it cooled off. It’s so hot with the heat on that we folded our quilt up & set it aside, and we’ve had the window wide open and a fan sucking in the cold outside air 24/7. This morning I woke up, and I was underneath the quilt. It was still folded up, sitting on my stomach. I woke up in the night, got it, and just……… set it on myself. I have never, ever done anything like this. I’m creeped out.

LOST is on tonight!!! I’d forgotten the wonderful feeling that you get when a television show makes a certain day of the week a magical thing to be anticipated.

Listening: The Shins : Chutes Too Narrow
Reading: Mothering Magazine (!!)

More new things @ stick in the mud.

There is a cat or child or some creature upstairs that plays with a pingpong ball at all hours of the day. When I hear it bouncing quietly along the floor, I feel so sorry for whoever lives downstairs from us and has to hear our holy terrors ripping around all night long and slamming into things and jumping onto their ball track from an elevated surface and skidding four feet across the floor. The walls here are very thick, the floor/ceiling is not.  Sorry, downstairs.

Canadian thanksgiving is next Monday, and my grandma sent us a card (I hope everyone has grandmas like this). I’m going to make her homemade noodles (sans chicken broth) for dinner, becuase the Maxwells have NEVER had homemade noodles. I kept trying to explain the concept of a homemade noodle… and Drew just stares at me…. “what, like pasta?”. I told Erin this today, because I’m still in disbelief…. “WHAT?! that’s a SIN!”. It is, m’dear. Lucky for them, salvation lies in ME. Anyone else out there never had homemade noodles or even heard of them? I’m so ethnocentric. Not that Drew & Kathy are of a different ethnicity than I am… unless being from Phoenix counts.

Today I drove out to Mississauga to go to Michael’s. It took 20 minutes to get out of the city and 20 to get there, so I’m not going to be able to handle making frequent trips out there. I suppose this is a good thing, but today it was like seeing an oasis in a desert.

All of their findings were 50% off so I stocked up, because this is the thing that I’m usually running out to buy every week and a half. I also got a bunch of buttons for earrings, beads for a necklace for Virginia, and a sample of a new line of really awesome & expensive glass & shell beads. If I sell two pairs of earrings out of the 10 or 12 I’ll be able to make it will pay for each strand, but I can still hardly justify spending $6 on a strand of 20 beads. I also got two autumn scented candles. When you’re wearing a sweater & pants with birkenstocks, it’s time to bring out the pumpkin spice. There is no consumer-feeling like coming home with a bagful of craft supplies. Not clothes, not movies or music, not a car, not gifts for other people…. craft supplies. Just waiting to be manipulated. I called Mikey, who’s out getting a beer with Drew, and told him that he should get something to eat because I will not be cooking dinner tonight. I’ll be busy.

It’s starting to feel like home. I feel uneasy if the windmill is not moving. It doesn’t look foreign or gigantic anymore.

When I got home, Mikey had gone to the post office and left a package sitting on my table:

Cheese from Samantha!!! A couple of our favorites, plus an extra that she threw in… West Virginia colors! This might be one of the greatest things I’ve ever received in the mail.

Listening: Johnny Cash