AND BIRTHDAY SEASON MARCHES ON

  

on thursday night we celebrated my birthday early with dinner at 'ino (per a friend's suggestion) ,followed by creme brulee at blue ribbon. it was such a lovely, quiet night with my two dudes, and the perfect temperature for a little village wandering afterwards.

  

  

happy birthday to me!

"LET THEM EAT STRIPES!"

i wear a lot of stripes. it's a sickness. one of these days i'll get sick of it, but i haven't yet. i get a lot of emails about my stripes. questions about where to get them, and what kind should they get? and not like i'm an expert or anything but i have spent quite a bit of time thinking deep things about stripes, and so. here we are.

"LET THEM EAT STRIPES!"

a deep and philosophical treatise on the finding of your own stripe-y soul mate
(click to keep reading)

ON BEING A MUSE

i just think it would be awfully romantic to be somebody's muse. wouldn't that be killer? 

it's just that i married an accountant. 

when we first started dating, brandon was not an accountant. he was a god. he wore women's shirts because he liked a slimmer cut, he climbed mountains on the weekends, spoke spanish like a latin lover, and his favorite shoes to wear around campus were birkenstocks that once belonged to his grandma. 

i never had any real interest in artists or musicians or other tortured types because i recognized at an early age the need for somebody to be a grown up and heaven forbid if that somebody had to be me. and that's why that guy in his grandma's birks was so perfect for me. a guy who'd give me his favorite chilean bracelet he's had since his mission and take me to see man of la mancha in cedar city and have really fantastic arm hair, but also know how to make solid decisions and not put up with too much of my bull crap. (he likes my bull crap, don't let him fool you.)

brandon is still a god. i guess. it's just that there aren't any mountains in manhattan, and birks are not elegant work wear. i miss those birks, i really do. i also miss his bushy red beard. (i'm on a mission to get that beard back! just you wait!)

but i like to imagine that when brandon looks at me he becomes inspired to craft up gloriously elegant spreadsheets, or write a terribly poetic memo. i suppose a real good spreadsheet is an art form worthy of my brilliantly off-key renditions of popular show tunes.

i suppose i am somebody's muse after all.

if huck had a muse these days, it would be pasta.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRANDON!

it's brandon's birthday! hooray! 

for brandon's birthday he requested dinner at p.j. clarke's. 

the three of us had a lovely time.

huck tasted his first sparkling water and wasn't very impressed.

afterward we got dessert to-go at epicerie boulud and ate it by the lincoln center fountain, the holbserino's most favorite spot in the city.

happy birthday, baby!

HUCK AND HARPER

huck: so, like, i can hold this tennis ball AND i can stick my foot in the air. are you super impressed?

huck: i mean, it's really pretty neat.

haper: oh, yeah, that's really super cool huck. um, i'm just trying to eat this banana my mom is feeding me, so . . . 

huck: yeah yeah, that's cool. bananas are awesome! it's just, have you seen how rad my foot is?

CONTEXT

recently, jose the doorman has taken to calling huck 'brandon.'

it is possibly the weirdest thing going on in my life these days and i am devoting quite a bit of thought to it. 

for instance: am i a terrible person for not correcting him? did something happen to jose and he has lost his short-term memory? should i be concerned? is he teasing somehow and i'm not getting it? is possibly jose's brain stuck in some kind of weird looping pattern?

do i worry too much about embarrassing him, and that's why i won't correct him? or do i just really hate small talk that much? 

because i am quite capable of telling a person my entire life story and each of my innermost thoughts, even when they are scandalously unthought-out, just so long as i don't have to make awkward small-talk later. oh bother. i am typing with one hand (nursing) and as such it is possible none of this is making any sense.

in any case.

today my sister in law sent us a package of cinnamon bears from the byu bookstore today. it was incredibly exciting, as you shall see.

and then i went to book club.

ON THE PLAYGROUND IS WHERE I SPENT MOST OF MY DAYS

we've been going to playgrounds a few times a week all summer with friends, though huck hasn't really big enough to do much of anything while we were there except look cute. (he's really, really good at it) plus we were always there with older friends, who he was content to watch and occasionally he'd try to put a leaf in his mouth.

the other day we decided to take the whole family to the baby playground up the way from our usual place and try out the swings. and the slide. take things at huck's speed. it was really funny to escort him around and try out all the slides with him. i can't believe how much fun kids have on those slides. they're terrifying! especially that rolling one, it hurt like a mother.

ouch.

(me and that cute girl are twinners in our overalls!)

does it really have to get cold now?? :(

FOR US EARLY AUTUMN BABIES

it is a little bit perfectly cold outside.

today is the last official day of summer.

our holbsypooh is turning thirty and four tomorrow.

it must be birthday season!

this year we are welcoming a new holbrook into birthday season. welcome sir henry!

here is how the holbrook house birthday season works:

1. the holbsaddy's birthday comes first. we're supposed to be happy that he was born, but NOT overly happy, and we are NOT to buy him extravagant presents, and we are NOT to throw him a birthday party, and we are NOT to make a big deal out of it, but also NOT make NOT ENOUGH of a big deal out of it. good luck to you with this. heavens knows i never get it quite right.

2. mama's birthday is next. you are to sleep in as long as possible, bring her birthday presents in bed, tell her she looks pretty at least once, and when you go out to eat you should order all the dishes she thinks looks good so she can taste all of them, because ordering at restaurants totally stresses her out. it's pretty simple. 

3. huck's birthday! eat lots of cake. and let mama fawn all over you and wistfully stroke your face and talk about when you were still so itty bitty and give her lots and lots of cuddles. and share your toys with your friends.

see? easy.

WELCOME TO BIRTHDAY SEASON, HUCK! 

(something tells me huck's birthday is going to trump all the rest of ours from here on out.)

birthday seasons past right here.