Oskah!

Oh the happiest day of a girl's year. It's Oskah 2007!

It's time to summon the Oskah crew, eat yummy treats and lose the betting pool.

This year we're featuring kimpira gobo inari, vinegared Japanese mountain potato with shiso, tobiko sour cream with chips, and ahi poke.

Mr guy has buffered the red carpet and will keep us happy and commercial-free until it's time to order pizza :)

Faxing in their votes: mr and mrs middleguysis. In attendance: ms scandwaiian, mr guy. At large: tinybutmighty.

Trebek! The game is afoot!

Cruft

I opened the dryer the other day only to have my entire youth spill out. All of the shirts with groovy patterns, the shirtwaist dresses, the schmattes with brand names like "Step n Go," were all getting a final wash before being sold. Mr Guy is cleaning the garage.

Every day there is a new pronouncement about the progress. Today I joined in, and pitched boxes and boxes and boxes of belongings that went with rooms we no longer occupy and people we no longer are. Mr Guy took the clothes to the place where I bought many of them twenty years ago and miraculously most were bought back. He's on a roll.

Vally Day

I don't think I can really remember an important v-day before Mr Guy. I have a sweet stack of valentines from my mom and dad, but nothing really from the previous administrations. I do recall that the SSOS got roses on our last vally day, not from me. They were black and from a secret admirer, his future ex-wife.

I got lucky. That all passed and I met Mr Guy, and I've never really cared about Valentine's Day so much ever since. If you're with the right person you don't need a special day for love.

Some years we decide at the last minute to celebrate the day. One year we ate at the cafe at Ikea and then shopped. Once we wandered from restaurant to restaurant, turned away at each, until one of us realized we had Garden burgers in the freezer. So we went home and were perfectly happy. Another year we went to an Indian restaurant and had the second silliest Indian dinner ever. The owner's nephew was filling in as a waiter. He spilled water on us, drenched the table with beer, lost the bottle opener on our table and then served us our dinner in round copper bowls that bobbled around like tops on the table because they didn't have enough bowl warmers to go around. The uncle came out of the kitchen to tell us what a disappointment the nephew was, a thoughtful touch that made our evening more romantic.

Last night we made reservations in advance, quite unlike ourselves, and sat at the sushi bar. I have learned that I prefer a table, and don't go to a sushi restaurant that has only two sushi chefs when you know the restaurant will be full. But Metallica and some dude from the Houston Oilers love the place.We'll go back on a slow night and pretend it's Valentine's Day again.

Mummies

Happy Birthday, You Little Jerk

Little girls love Kate Greenaway. It's the law.

And when I found a beautiful little book called Kate Greenaway's Birthday Book for Children, with poetry by Mrs Sale Barker, the little person in me had to have it. Someone had grown up with this book, annotated the pages over the years with people's names and birthdates, and loved it to tatters. It's beautiful.

And a little disturbing. If you were born on February 7th, would you want to be greeted every year by this verse?

A kite, one day, flew up in the sky,
To try and reach the sun;
He failed, and he fell with a broken string,
And sighed, "It can't be done!"

And woe to those born on the 3rd of June who have this to enjoy on their special day:

This weak little girl sheds a tear
She quakes and she trembles with fear;
But it's only a fish, though not in a dish,
So she need not display such great fear.

Mrs Grandguy says the verses reflect real life, but I'm going on record as saying that a year full of verses about infirmity, fatness, fear, rebuke and broken chairs is not what I had in mind when I exited the womb ☺