How to Host a Murder

Last week my family did a "How to Host a Murder," set France in the 40's. I was a haughty, tempestuous French princess and Wes was an American black market runner/hit man. We thought he looked just like Rhett Butler!

I had a french accent the whole time and it turns out I was the murderer. So that was cool.

I like seeing people "act" as someone they are not. I think it's fun to see people in different shoes. Wes had a good time too. I think that's why we get into Halloween. We love dressing up.

This year, Holden is going to be a bat. But we haven't decided what we should be yet. What accompanies a bat? I could pretend Holden is a vampire bat and go as a "bitten" woman. Haha, that would be funny. The first year I met Wes he was a vampire and I was a woman he bit. And Holden really does like to bite me. He hasn't yet drawn blood but that's not for lack of trying. :)

Anyway, do you have any ideas for what I should be? What are you going as?

Greatest Post-Season Comeback Team Ever Does It Again

I was "stuck" at the Fleet Foxes concert last night and was only able to watch the Red Sox v. Rays game 5 of the ALCS into the 5th inning. With the Sox trailing 7-0 in the game, and 3-1 in the series, it looked like the Rays would be moving on to the World Series for sure. But for the last 2 innings I was glued to the glow of my phone, refreshing the at-bats every 20 seconds. Papi (finally) came through for a huge 3-run homerun, and J.D. Drew woke up for a 2-run HR (both delivering in the post season like they did last year). Coco Crisp singled in the tying run (after an 11-pitch at-bat!), and when Youk managed to get on 2B after a Longoria throwing error, J.D. Drew, again, came through with a ground-rule double to score Youk for the win.
I guess there were a ton of Sox fans who left at the end of the 7th inning when the Sox were down 7-0. They should know better. Reminds me of when Payne and I were at Game 2 of the Jazz v. Warriors series when the Jazz battled back with under a minute to go (with D. Fish entering the arena in dramatic fashion) to force the game into OT where we eventually won. Sooooo many fans left when the Jazz were down 5 with under a minute. Jonathan and I scoffed at them all from our seats in a luxory suite - both because they were giving up on the Jazz, and because we were obviously better than them because of our VIP seats.
This was the greatest one-game comeback in post-season history, and what better team to do it than the Sox! I don't particularly expect the Sox to win the next two games (the Rays are absolutely for real), but this game sure felt good.

Seriously? Delilah?!

I mean, come on!
Does anyone with a shred of intelligence listen to her? I may be ruffling some feathers here (hopefully - I do love controversy!), but I can't imagine anyone with any kind of intelligent thoughts in their head turning on Delilah in the evenings and thinking, "Man, there's no better way to end my day than with lame, sappy, pathetic, smarmy love stories, partnered with history's crappiest soft rock! And the deep profundity of the insights offered by the radio callers is inspiration in its purest form. Wisdom and romantic perception, thy name is is 'Delilah.'"

And by all indications, this is really how Delilah is in real life. Check out her fluffy autobio on her website:


If you had the constitution to make it through that entire snippet without offering up your lunch to the porcelain god, I salute you.
I have the same overriding gripe about the schlock on her show that I do about the horrific indie/emo music that's polluting our airwaves: if you have to contort and manipulate your voice in an effort to emote, then what you have to say/sing is worthless. If your message itself isn't compelling or powerful enough to cause a genuine emotional reaction, it's criminal to try and force that emotional reaction by enfusing your own voice with faked theatrics.

Despite the fact that some of my best friends listen to Delilah religously (on Sundays I can't get Kevin Leggat to shut up about how "awesome" the previous night's Delilah segment was), I defy anyone to convince me how Delilah's show is in anyway defensible.

(If you're not familiar with the show, consider yourself lucky. If you're curious as to why the huge stink about a radio show, tune into COSY 106.5 any week night to find out. Don't get me wrong - I listen to COSY because I loves me some Phil Collins, Hall & Oates, Lionel Richie, and Christopher Cross. But when Delilah comes on, I stop my car wherever I'm at, get out, throw my keys into the night sky, and walk the rest of the way. Kevin will usually drive my car home for me at that point because he's always jonesing for a chance to listen to Delilah.)

My good little eater

I just wanted you all the share in our fun breakfast this morning. Wes and I just laughed and laughed - which, of course, makes Holden laugh and try to be even funnier. Holden ate loads of mush and toast this morning and loved it. He seriously ate more than I did. I love that he'll eat whatever I cook. He has a wider palette than most adults I know. And before you tell me that this will change as he becomes a toddler - save your breath to cool your own porridge! I know this may change but I'm going to revel in it while I can. It's so nice not having to cook two different meals every time we eat. I love it.

I don't know if this has anything to do with our food philosophy or whether it's just him. I guess we'll see in time. We never feed him baby food. The food in jars at the store just look homogenized and creepy to me. Roast beef that has the same liquidy texture as peaches grosses me out. So I actually never bought any baby food from the store. Right out of the gates at 6 mo he was eating table food just mashed up. I did blend up and freeze (in ice cube trays) a variety of foods to try out my own hand in making baby food but even that has texture that more closely resembles the actual food than the stuff you can buy at the stores. And this only lasted a few weeks because as soon as he got teeth, he wanted more to bite into. He loves all fruit, especially peaches and berries; all vegetables, particularly spinach and broccoli; he'll eat lasagna, falafal, shwarmas, musaka, hamburgers, any variety of pasta and any kind of Mexican food.

He doesn't seem to like yogurt. He loves tomatoes and anything salty or really sweet. He gets sick of chicken pretty quickly. And plain wheat bread bores him - he likes it toasted with butter.

Alas, I may be feeding him only PB&J's when he's a toddler but for now, I am truly grateful that he's so adventurous with food.

Midnight Snack

One of my favorite memories of childhood was getting midnight snacks. We actually never ate our midnight snacks at Midnight per se, but it might as well have been. To my young childhood sensibilities, eating after dark, right before bedtime felt as exciting and scandalous as staying up until Midnight. I loved those times - sitting at the table with my sister and sharing ice cream and cake with our mother or chocolate milk and toast with our dad. Food always tasted better at night. I think I might have passed this excitement down to Holden genetically - which would explain why he was so excited about eating a cracker at 10:00 PM the other night. We put him down for bed and he just kept crying for some reason. We thought he might have a tummy ache so we fed him a cracker and hung out with him the in the kitchen for a bit. He couldn't have been more pleased. Afterwards he went down easily and slept . . . like a baby.