Domestic Psychology

bugs

// April 17th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // flickr

Stir Fry Cafe

// January 5th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // food, local

I am more than a little bit infatuated with Stir Fry Cafe. For less than 10 dollars, I can have a dinner of miso soup and Brooklyn rolls. Just before New Year’s Eve, I got a cell phone message promoting sushi and drink specials at, well, I don’t know for certain where because there was no restaurant in the text ad. Since the only restaurant I have invited to send me phone ads is Stir Fry, I am guessing it was Stir Fry that had sushi and drink specials. For Stir Fry’s sake, I hope that they include their NAME in future ads. Last week, Doug and I took Tommy to Stir Fry as a special treat before Tommy left for school. Okay, maybe we went because it’s my favorite restaurant right now, but we’ll just pretend it wasn’t my selfish choice of location. During our meal, we were constantly swatting away gnats. Halfway through the meal, Doug realized it wasn’t just three gnats, but a dozen gnats clustered on the wall over our table. We pointed it out to the waiter, thinking he would clean the spot or move us to a less gnat populated table. The waiter sympathetically agreed that it was kind of gross and noted that the gnats used to hang out on a different wall. Umm, ew. I’m thinking that as much as I love this particular Stir Fry location, it might be time to try a Stir Fry in one of the other areas of town. Either that or wait until spring to return and have our meal in the patio area. The bugs have never bothered us on the patio.

Wall-E tree

// December 16th, 2008 // No Comments » // teenagers

Sarah’s free Wall-E tree came in the mail and she was thrilled. She wanted to immediately plant the tree in a temporary planter to help it last through the winter. Instead of waiting for me to find some potting soil, she went outside and dug up a shovel full of our front yard. I didn’t mind the hole in the yard and was quite relieved she didn’t accidentally dig up one of the outside cat’s gifts that Doug removed from the front porch and buried in a shallow grave. Doug was the first person to point out that she had more clay than dirt and the tree would still need to be re-potted. Tonight, I asked Sarah to please water her tree while she was waiting for Dad to get a bag of potting soil. She poured a cup of water around the tree that I don’t expect to survive the winter indoors and immediately shrieked. “There are WORMS! Hundreds of baby worms in my Wall-E tree. Ew! That’s the most disgusting thing ever.” I looked in the planter and pointed out several other living creatures that had come out to drink the water. I don’t think she wants to claim the Wall-E tree as hers any more.

bugs like cheetos

// October 24th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // food, home

I brought the houseplants in for the winter and after drooping, dropping and playing dead (ingrates), they are finally starting to perk up. I knew that they had become home to a variety of outdoor critters, but I dislike pesticides and have been deluding myself that the bugs will stay inside the flower pots. While watering the plants yesterday, I found a single cheeto hiding in one of the plants. It was covered in roly-poly bugs. I tossed the cheeto outside and thought about what I should do next. I decided to put a fresh cheeto in the plant. Eventually they’ll all be on cheetos. Right?

e-vil cicadas

// July 23rd, 2008 // 4 Comments » // local, summer, TN

After a summer of being a quiet background hum, this week the cicadas cranked up their volume to eleven. That probably means they have doubled their population and are now invading homes, like a bad horror movie. I like to believe that they are just telling us goodbye as they vanish for the winter. I am not a fan of the cicadas and their alien singing. Doug thinks they are groovy. He likes to open the windows and listen to them. It feels me like a white noise machine has broken inside my head. My mother likes to pick the cicadas up and wax poetic about them. This is clearly insanity she suffered from being part of a generation that wore bug themed jewelry. I could run screaming whenever she did that when I was a child. Now, she’s showing the nasty bugs to my children and I have to feign interest so that I don’t inflict my “issues” on the children. “Oh, it’s so very, um . . . shiny.” I have never been anywhere near New York and must therefore base my knowledge of New Yorkers on movies and television. With that excellent wisdom, I am guessing that there are no New Yorkers in East TN right now. If there was, I would hear them screaming at the cicadas. Probably in Italian. Instead, all I hear is that eardrum piercing whistle. One of our neighbors likes to throw firecrackers at birds to keep them out of his garden. I wonder if smoke bombs would make the cicadas go away. Or at least make them be quiet.

fun with fireflies

// July 7th, 2008 // No Comments » // play, summer

Fun for everyone: Catching fireflies.
Fun for children: Letting fireflies go free in the house.
Fun for nobody: Forgetting to let fireflies go free.