Foie gras!

That is Mister Bubby’s new flavoring word: “foie gras.” I suppose technically it is two words, not one, which would make it a phrase, but “flavoring phrase” is too much of a tongue twister. Does it really matter if something is a tongue twister if you’re only going to read it? Yes, to me it does. Anyway, I think for all intents and purposes “foie gras” should count as one word. Any-further-way, MB is going around exclaiming, “Foie gras!” in scenarios where a normal person might say, “Huzzah!” or “Victory!” or “Cowabunga!” or “In your face!” or “Hullo, what’s this?” It is his multi-purpose flavoring word. It has nothing to do with the properties of duck liver pate. That I know of. To my knowledge MB has never had foie gras. He only knows that it is his father’s favorite thing in the world to eat. And also, apparently, that it is fun to say. Like supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, only a heckuva lot less trouble.

I really want to revive this blog, but I have nothing to say. That reminds me of John Cage’s famous line, “I have nothing to say and I’m saying it.” Not quite as effective on the internet as in a concert hall. (Tangential aside: I just tried to find a performance of 4’33” on YouTube and one video had a note saying the audio had been disabled. O bitter irony! Or sweet irony in this case, I suppose.) How many times have I blogged that I have nothing to blog? So many times you are probably sick of it. I’ll change the subject.

I have to figure out what to make for dinner tonight. Sugar Daddy won’t be home, so I can feed the kids crap, if I like. What crap to feed them, though–that is the dilemma. It’s a really sad state of affairs when you’re contemplating which high-sodium, low-nutrient food to nuke for your children and all you get is a stupor of thought.

Elvis and Princess Zurg are off school today because their schools have parent-teacher conferences. I’m really unclear as to the point of parent-teacher conference at the middle school, since it is “student-led” and the teachers have nothing to do with it. Literally nothing. We walked into the room, PZ retrieved a folder containing samples of her work and evaluations, and she walked us through it. Then we left. I’m hard-pressed to think of a compelling reason to subtract two instructional days from the school year for this type of parent-“teacher” “conference.” But mine is not to question why.

PZ is bored and wants to have a friend over. I wish she had a friend I could send her to instead. I will add that to my list of things I wish. I wish Elvis had a friend I could send him to. I mean, as long as I’m wishing, why not shoot for the moon?

MB has his first real Boy Scout overnight campout this weekend. SD is going with the group. Or the troop. Is it the troop? Anyway, they’re both going. It’s going to rain the whole time. Better them than me.

Wow, I really do have nothing to say. Next I’ll be telling you what I ate for breakfast. (Frosted Mini-Wheats and pomegranate-blackberry yogurt. True to my word!)

I finally finished that book about the mentally ill girl and her family. It remained meh to the end. It contained some lovely writing, however. A very well-written book that simply wasn’t interesting. Does a novel count as well-written if it isn’t interesting? I think so, since the “interesting” part is subjective. And at least I could finish it, which is more than I can say for that book Oprah recommended. I think I’ve decided not to finish it. I hate not finishing books I’ve paid for, even if it was only 99 cents. You might ask me how much my time is worth. Isn’t it worth more than 99 cents? Well…technically, I don’t think it is. But sometimes, figuratively, in my mind if nowhere else, it is certainly worth 99 cents. I’ve paid more than 99 cents to save time before. I can do it again. And that is my last 99-cent Kindle book–on my honor! (Unless it is an artificially-99-cents Kindle book, like when I bought Life of Pi on Kindle for 99 cents because it was on sale the day after Christmas. See, sometimes it does pay to browse the Kindle bargain bin.)

Speaking of things that may or may not be worth it, our apple-cutter broke the other day. An apple-cutter is a kitchen gadget I never would have thought to buy for myself. A friend bought it for me a few years ago. She said it would make my life better. At the time I believed it to be true–that my life actually was better with an apple cutter than it had previously been without one. Over the years I can’t say I have always found the apple-cutter’s usefulness to be equal to or greater than the amount of space it takes up in the drawer, which is why I have been slow to replace it. Elvis, however, is somewhat fixated on the fact that we no longer have an apple-cutter, and in due time I may decide that not having to listen to his lamentations over the loss of the apple-cutter may be equal to or greater than the value of the storage space I’d be giving up by getting a new one. That due time may be as soon as tomorrow. I’m not going anywhere else today.

Except to pick the other kids up from school. That’s the problem with having only some kids home from school. You run the risk of forgetting about the ones who are still in school and you might forget to pick them up. I’m not saying this has ever happened to me. I’m just saying it so I remember that I have to pick the kids up from school.

I’m either not keeping up on current events, or there really isn’t anything interesting happening in the world these days. I just heard a soundbite from Bill Maher talking about Mitt Romney’s charitable contributions all going to the Mormon church–which I have no commentary on, but he also cracked something like, “Name one poor Mormon.” Which I thought was funny because, well, there are poor Mormons (unfortunately–it’s unfortunate when anyone’s poor), but they don’t tend to be famous. I mean, what are you going to say? “I saw a homeless Mormon once”?

I knew a homeless Mormon once. But that’s a long story.

Boy howdy, do I ever have a lot of laundry to do today. How many times have you read that over the years? I’m just saying what’s on my mind, hoping something interesting will shake loose. Maybe it’s time to quit for today. We’ll take this up again later, kids. This isn’t over yet!