Skipping school...

I'm not saying that the Mathews' children are truant regularly, but there have been occasions when I let my children be "home schooled" for the day.  Sometimes, the opportunity to do something special, like taking a trip to Cincinnati or Charleston or going hiking in the Red River Gorge will be more meaningful than what they might have done at school.  Every now and then, you just have to be a rebel.  We always make certain it's not a day when there's a test or something really important happening.  And usually, I make them write a paper about what they learned that day. 

Mary Rollins is reading "Knit your own Dog." 
I know you'll want to comment on that.

Mary Rollins had one of those days last Friday.   She'd had a lot of late night rehearsals for Firebird and was signed out of school for a school show performance anyway.  After her morning show at the Lyric Theater, instead of going back to school for the last few hours of the day, we decided to relax with lunch downtown at Doodles, some Third Street shopping, and a stop at Calypso and Black Market.  

We also found our way to the new Chevy Chase location of The Morris Book Shop.  As we perused the aisles and drooled over books like "Knit Your Own Dog," contemporary literature and Kentucky poets, it suddenly occured to us that Williamson girls really are geeks. 

What did you do when you skipped school on Friday afternoon?  We went to the bookstore... 

My backyard...an update

I swear this is true.  We have a Squunk.  That's right, a squirrel with a skunk tail.  And no, I don't have a picture of it yet but Will, Marc and I have all seen it.  It's a mutant squirrel with an extra bonus add-on white skunk tail.  Will told me about it and I sort of paid attention but didn't realize the incredible awesomeness of what he was talking about until I saw it myself on Saturday night.  We were having Marc's 96-year old mother over for dinner when it caught my eye through the window.  I was trying to explain its presence to Grandma but since she won't wear hearing aids all she got was that we had a squirrel in the backyard. 

She just smiled and said, "Oh, I used to have squirrels sometimes, do you have a lot of squirrels?"

"NO GRANDMA THIS IS NOT JUST ANY SQUIRREL.  IT HAS A SKUNK TAIL!!!"

"Oh, that's nice..."

She smiled some more.  We gave up.  I think she thinks we might be kind of squirrelly ourselves.

I love my backyard!

Speedy News of the Day

Sassy came in 4th place which is, in fact, "in the money".  Pretty exciting as she was coming off of a lovely summer vacation so in all, a terrific showing.  Connie thinks she'll be running again at Keeneland before the meet is over.

And in other racing news, my friend and old neighbor Lisbeth Kenyon won her 3rd consecutive world championship Iron Man title in Hawaii last Saturday.  There's so much I could write about this but I just sit in awe of her.   She's an amazing athlete plus she's a wonderful person and a great mom.  Her marathon time (after having just swum 2.4 miles and biked 112 miles) is still faster than my 5K time.  Okay, now that I say that, I'm wondering if she's actually human!

So, who wants to go running with me? The Iron Horse Half Marathon in Midway is next weekend -- let's do it!

Sassy's Dream....

Doesn't she look fast?  And pretty?

Sassy's Dream, our dear friends' partnership horse is running on Sunday at Keeneland.

So far in 2011 she's had eight starts and finished in the money four times.  She's got one of the best trainers and a great jockey.

Plus, she's super pretty and it'll make C & K really really happy if she wins as it helps pay for her oats and hay.

Speaking of hay, I was driving Will and his buddy Sam out to golf last week.  We were headed out a beautiful country road in Jessamine County when we saw some big round hay bales grouped together on the side of the road.  Sam says, "don't hit those big barrels over there Mrs. Mathews!" to which Will responds, "those aren't barrels Sam, they're big balls of yarn." 

I think I need to get these boys out in the country a little more. 

Pizza!

A Mathews Pizza -- there's that basil again!

 When I was little my mom used to pronounce pizza just like it's spelled with a short "i" and two "z"s.  It drove my brother Charles crazy.  We usually only had pizza on Sunday nights and it was the bad Totino's frozen kind which I'm pretty sure was the ONLY kind back in the seventies.  The pepperoni was cut into teeny-tiny little cubes and the crust could easily be confused with the box the pizza came in.  We loved it and thought it was delicious.  Usually, my brother Morgan and I ate our scrumptious frozen pizza in the dining room while watching The Wonderful World of Disney on a small black and white TV while my parents ate in the kitchen watching 60 minutes.  Back in those long ago days before Netflix or cable and any television reception came thanks to the wonders of the very large antenna on our roof, Sunday was the only night that we didn't all eat sitting together at the long kitchen bar with the nightly news on in the background.  Sunday nights were fun.

I still love pizza.  It's probably my desert island food but I am a little more particular about the pizza that I eat.  Well particular in that I like qualifying pizza as either "good" pizza or "bad" pizza.  I'll still eat "bad" pizza though if it's available.

I have a lot of favorite pizzas.  Pizzas are like friends.  I have lots of friends, they're all different and I love them all for different reasons.  If I had to choose a BPF (that's Best Pizza Forever is you couldn't figure it out), I'd probably pick Joe Bologna's.  We've been going to Joe B's my whole life -- decades before they moved to the old synagogue on Maxwell.  In fact, my brothers took me to Joe B's for pizza before I had my wisdom teeth taken out in 9th grade.  It was really sweet of them -- kind of a last supper. 

I also love Andolini's in Mt. Pleasant, SC.  I don't know that it's actually the pizza that I like so much there or if it's just how fun it is to go there without fail after the Cooper River Bridge Run every year to eat pizza and drink pitcher beer with abandon -- something I never do in my real life! 

Mary Rollins, of course, loves Goodfellas downtown.  It's part of her "urban artsy girl" style.  She and the ballet girls adore the whole idea of downtown life and pizza by the slice.  

I think Marc likes Miguel's in the Gorge the best.   Sometimes I question if he only likes to go hiking because hiking always includes lunch at Miguel's.  You can get anything on your Miguel's pizza.  Seriously, think of something, I bet they have it as a topping.

Lately, we've been having pizza at home more.  And no, not the Totino's frozen kind.  We've been making our own pizza.  I'll buy the Pillsbury refrigerated thin crust pizza dough and dress it up with whatever we've got on hand.  I rarely use a tomato sauce base (learned that at Miguel's) as typically I have leftover homemade Alfredo sauce, or ranch dressing, or pesto in on hand that I top with lots of veggies -- onions, fresh peppers, roasted peppers from the jar,  Kalmata olives, sundried tomatoes, a sprinkle of garlic and bacon or Italian sausage (I seem to always have Italian sausage links in my refrigerator, does everyone?).  fresh basil and now I throw on pine nuts, too, because what doesn't taste better with pine nuts?!  Will, who likes Little Caesar's Pizza (probably the only pizza I really dislike--bad, very bad) requires that one corner of the pizza be left veggie-free.  Actually, Will prefers his whole dinner plate to be veggie-free.  Then our masterpiece is topped off with lots and lots of CHEESE!  I hear we have a reputation for being a cheese loving people at the Mathews' house.

Maybe the best part of pizza (along with the cheese) is that I never seem to eat it alone.  It's such a celebratory food and food always seems to taste better when shared with someone else. 

What's your favorite pizza?

How the Hounds of Hell got a blessing...

Could you hear them barking on Saturday? This is the true story of how Cleo and Howie made a spectacle of themselves at Christ Church Cathedral's annual Blessing of the Animals for St. Francis Day.


I know that you probably think I'm exaggerating. I'm not.

It was slightly overcast this past Saturday morning in Lexington. Everyone at the Mathews house had something important to do -- MR to ballet, Marc for a haircut and and an errand with his mom, Will sleeping in, and me? I decided
those darn dogs needed a blessing. It's been a while for Howie and frankly, I've never taken Cleo to celebrate St. Francis Day. I typically regret taking them both anywhere at the same time because they're so horrible.  It's all that
Terrier-osterone or maybe they're allergic to other dogs.

Mary Rollins helped me leash up the dogs and I dropped her downtown at ballet and went round the block to park at the church. The dogs were so excited (you can tell because my passenger window has all kinds of nose prints on it). We parked, got out of the car, and from there things went downhill. I had about 30 minutes before the service started which was taking place at the farmer's market at the old courthouse steps. From here, I'll turn the story over to Cleo for a moment:


Cleo: "We saw some other dogs, did some barking, did some more barking, Hey, look at us! We're dogs. Let's wrap the leash around mom's legs and see if we can trip her. Hey, she just tied the leashes in a knot, now we can't get away from each other! Hey, let's cross the street here. This is exciting. This is SO exciting. Look another dog! Bark Bark Bark Bark. Hey, why is mom taking us around the block again? Bark Bark Bark bark bark bark.

Back to Gwen:

Yes, the Mathews' dogs were even more horrible than I could have imagined.  People stared.  Children pointed.  People laughed.  Dogs stared.  Dogs barked at them.  People shook their heads.  The service was lovely.  There were acolytes with beautiful banners and our girl choristers singing a hymn which was probably beautiful but I couldn't really hear it over the barking.  The Reverend Janey said lovely prayers of thanksgiving for all of God's creation and creatures.  She read very loudly so that she could be heard over the barking of Cleo and Howie who, too, are God's creatures and were probably just trying to say "Amen".  Janey, always the kind-hearted optimist, suggested that perhaps they were just confused about why she was on the steps and not down there with them.   She said they were calling to her and claims she was glad to know it was Cleo and Howie making all the ruckus.



That's Elizabeth -- she works at the Vet's office.  Her dog was very nicely behaved.

 

Here's Howie meeting the Garner's dog.  About two minutes after this picture, the Garner dog tried to bite Howie.  I'm pretty sure it was something Howie said.  It wouldn't be the first time that Howie's inflamed the anger of a yellow lab.

Here's Mother Janey with some of my Sunday School children blessing their cat.  I'm sure the cat was really excited.  Most of the cats looked really happy about being there.

And then there was Lilly the chicken.  Cleo and Howie weren't too interested in Lilly.  They were, however, VERY interested in Cadbury the bunny. 

Cleo, post-blessing was lovely.  I was holding her while Janey blessed her and she seemed to really understand what was happening.  She was also eyeing the basin with holy water thinking that she was really thirsty from all the barking.   Howie, also got his blessing and then made friends with a 19-year old Fox Terrier. 

Like little children after a big day, I had two pooped puppies on the car ride home.  They even curled up together for a few minutes.  Of course, they weren't good enough for me to get a decent picture of that.

So, how do I know I had the worst dogs there?  Even in church yesterday, people were talking about them.  People who didn't even know that they were my dogs were talking about the two Jack Russell Terriers.  Yep, those were our dogs.  I think most people thought they could have used an exorcism more than a blessing.  But, at least it made other people feel good about how well-behaved their own pets were.  (I think there's a corollary to parenting here).

It was a wonderful morning full of community, joy, laughter and barking. And, funny thing, as bad as the dogs were, I found myself thinking about what wonderful little dogs they were.  Even though Sunday's sermon featured a key lesson from the Gospel of Bob, a big black Lab with a more laid back approach to life than my little terriers, I'm confident that there's something spiritual to be learned from the persistent, tenacious, exuberant and joyful way in which Terriers conduct themselves, too.  But, maybe they don't need to make quite so much noise about it when out in public.