It's brunch right now, it will be lunch later.

I'm going to try and post some classic sesame every saturday, cause it makes me warm and safe. Here's to Lyle and Talbot!



That's Talbot's wife, Melissa.

ha ha ho. ha ha ho. haaaaaa ho!

The Sound of Stusic.

I brought Tim up to Janesville, WI last weekend to view a sing-along of The Sound of Music. We both needed a stop at Taco Johns as soon as we crossed over state lines (did you know they have a burrito with Fritos in it? Just think it over for a bit...doesn't sound so bad) so we arrived late and missed the costume contest, where one person reportedly dressed as Leisel's self esteem. Heh.

The Sound of Music sing along also encouraged several crowd responses to the action on the screen:

Barking when Ralph came on screen
Hissing at the Baroness
Booing any Nazis
Cheering for Maria
Swaying back and forth with a plastic sprig of edelweiss (provided for you)
Laughing at the seven grown-ups in sweatshirts with Do, Re, Mi, Fa (NOT FAR, stupid sub titles), So, La, Ti try to keep up with the Von Trapp children. Pretty funny.

Why did we go to Janesville for this? Our friend Liz invited us! Liz is a friend that has seen (and verbally repeated many times) me on my worst behavior, usually because she was encouraging or at least enjoying the same bad behavior. She has more student debt than you can shake a stick at, reads more books in a week than I do in a year, and will let you know if you owe her a phone call. She's one of the two people in my life that call me Ruthie. There are typically no surprises at this point of a friendship.

Which is why I was surprised that she loved the Sound of Music. We both tend to lean more toward Bikini Kill than musical scores, but apparently both Liz and her little sister Emily spent every Christmas at home singing along, dancing, and doing actions to the Sound of Music with their mom. So. Watching her and her sister sing along word for word on every song, and scream "Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" along with Leisel was a high point of 2010.

It was awesome. Thanks, Liz! And...sorry, Tim.

Sound of Music sing along from Ruth Meberg Stine on Vimeo.

Kid stuff.

Today I walked home from the train and when I got to our entryway mailbox, I had to dig in my bag for my keys. I only had so much room to dig, so I used my teeth to pull off my mitten and hold it delicately so my lips wouldn't touch it while my un-mittened hand dug for the keys.

Unfortunately, I was using a new bag with lots of tiny pockets for the first time, so the digging took longer than I thought it would. Before I could do anything about it, I was exhaling through my mouth, almost dropping the bag, almost dropping the mitten with my teeth...

So I held onto my mitten like it was a big, double stick popsicle, mouth closed, no hands. And you know what that mitten tasted like?

Winter.

Try tasting a season through yarn today in Oak Park:

Fuzzy Memories.

Before I realized pop songs are recyclable, I would get confused when I saw catchy songs disposed of on tv shows or in movies. This is one of the songs that I remember from Square One TV, a PBS math show from the early 80s. The end of the show was a spoof on Dragnet called Mathnet, and I've always thought that the red-haired guy was Ed Begley.


I was wrong. It's this guy. Also, James Earl Jones is the police chief?!



One of the first jokes in the show:

George Frankly: Martha loves that singer, Steven Stringbean. She has all his CDs.

Kate Monday: Martha has a compact disc player?

George Frankly: No.




Later in the same episode...

George Frankly: I'm barbecuing on Saturday night.

Kate Monday: What are you cooking?

George Frankly: Something Martha picked up.

Kate Monday: Sounds delicious. I'm not doing anything on Saturday, George.

George Frankly: I am. I'm barbecuing.


ALSO. There is a joke that the singer's next gig is in Mitchel, South Dakota at the Corn Palace. HA!