Wee Bunny

A few weeks ago my sister and I decided to do some sewing. We went to the Wee Wonderfuls website and found a bunny pattern. So cute! My bunny's mouth came out crooked, but that's cute too...

Lost my reason to get up in the morning

Many of my friends know that I LOVE Count Chocula cereal. Really really love it. The chocolate crunchy cereal parts, the marshmallows that stay firm in the milk, the dark brown the milk turns by the end of the bowl. And the layer of brown powder that lines the bowl after the milk is gone--there's so much chocolate I can't even get to it all! There are so many chocolate molecules trying to stay afloat in the milk some of them perish to the bottom of the bowl!

So around April I noticed that C.C. was missing from the shelves of my local Stop & Shop. I tried another store, thinking that Stop & Shop must have lost its mind, but Star Market didn't have it either. Had General Mills discontinued Count Chocula? Why not give Trix the ax instead?

I turned to a new chocolate version of Lucky Charms. Not as good. Then I tried a box of Pirates of the Carribean cereal. It was like Coco Puffs with marshmallows. The only good thing about it was the picture of Johnny Depp on the cover. Sigh. (Actually, the caption made me think. I never bothered to think about the shapes of the cereal...how clever to recycle Coco Puffs and call them Black Pearls!)

Well, the other night Patrick and I went grocery shopping, and there were all my old friends! Boo Berry, Frankin Berry and --yes-- Count Chocula! Though with a new look (see pic). I bought two boxes.

What a mistake! With a new look comes a new formula. The marshmallows fall apart the instant the milk touches them. The milk itself turns only a light tan, an indication of the lack of chocolate-y flavor. Why? I'm going to try to return the second box tomorrow. And write General Mills to complain! You should too: Give 'em an earfull...

WAM

For the past month or so Patrick and I have been involved with a group here called Window Arts Malden. Here's the link: www.maldenarts.com

The organizers, Kelvy and Naomi, are pairing 40 Malden-based artists with 40 businesses in downtown Malden for a two-week exhibit of all types of art. The result is a kind of free, open-air museum. It's been amazing to see the project grow in scope and detail--the PR material is beautiful, the have lots of participants and support from the city. They're having a launch party on Saturday, the 16th which, unfortunately, Patrick and I won't be able to make because we're going to a wedding.

My job so far has been to organize the distribution of posters around Malden and the surrounding communities. This means hitting the road on my bike with a roll of tape. I'm pretty good at chatting up store owners and convincing them that these posters are totally innocuous, so I've had a respectable success rate.

Where to start?

So, there have been times in the past when I've tried to keep a written record of what was going on in my life. All of these attempts failed. I never managed to keep a travel journal during any of my trips, never documented my junior high heartaches, never wrote down funny happenings or sayings.

Part of the problem was that I never knew where to start. How to you just start writing about a life that's already been around for 12 years, 19 years, or, now, 29 years? Do you need to start with a backstory? A bio? A cast of characters?

Lately I've been feeling very disconnected to some people in my life. I've lost touch with friends that I only just recently saw on a weekly or nearly-daily basis. Some friends I haven't communicated with in years (hello Elaine--you're getting married?). In part, I'm thinking about starting this blog in order to keep in touch with them. Do you ever do this--think about calling someone you haven't talked to in a long time, but then you think it will be too awkward to call because it's been so long since you called? And you'll have to fill them in on all the stuff that's been going on in your life that really you should have told them about much sooner? Yea, its like that.

So, in a nutshell, I have a lot going on in my life :) Patrick and I bought a house in Malden (hence the blog title), we got married in May, I'm trying to buckle down and finally finish my thesis so I can just graduate already, I need to find a job, and I've started gardening. Actually, this is the calm after the storm of the wedding/purchase/finals crunch, but I'm still feeling a bit drained.

Anyway, I thought I'd start keeping track of this sort of stuff, for my own sake. I think it should be kind of fun to write about my job search, my attempt to understand Malden, and the problem of what to do with the kitchen. Maybe you'll find it fun to read.