Tag: Family

Sock it to me

Published on by NouveauSoileau3 Comments

I’m a fan of shoes; it’s a fairly well-established fact that I more or less view life through a high-heeled prism and any conversation you’re apt to have with me might either end, begin, or somewhere in-between contain the words “heel,” “sole,” “pointed,” “adorable,” “stocking,” or “boot.”

Or, perhaps, all six.

Given this information, it will come as no surprise to you that I also spend otherwise productive amounts of time ruminating on the subject of socks. They are, after all, devices which encase the feet — that alone gives them a leg-up on any other type of attire. The color, weight, thickness or thinness, appropriateness and compatibility with the various kinds of footwear … it’s all absorbing to me. As I strolled along the grocery aisle yesterday afternoon with my daughter, I engaged her in discourse on the socks I was then wearing — black, thick, servicable numbers that I generally wear with boots. Thick, as I say. Yesterday, I had crammed them into clogs that I usually wore with thin, stocking-like affairs with absolutely delightful results. Normally this clog made my feet tired after only a few hours of wear, but with the addition of thick socks, they were magically transformed into the comfortable shoes they should have been all along. I was delighted with my discovery.

“Socks,” said Claire. “Gotta love’em.”

OK so, while no one’s going to be tremendously bowled over by this vast philosophical insight, it did get me to ruminating on socks in general and the various problems and delights I have had with them over the years.

First and foremost — One Size Fits All.

Oh it so DOES NOT.

For most of my life I’ve worn a size 9 shoe — not tremendously big, but you know, a little bigger than average. I’m 5-foot 9, it’s proportional, right? In the last few years it has been brought to my attention by the expert fitters at a local running store that I actually wear a 9½ — so be it. But come on, sock industry, One Size Fits All? How could I possibly wear the same sock that Miss 5-Foot Nothing slips on her size 6 feet?

So it was with a great thrill, many years ago, that I discovered in the now-defunct McAlpin’s Department Store the existence of Tall Girl Socks. Oh yes. Socks which promised a heel that covered my heel and did not end up somewhere in the vicinity of my arch. An array of colors. Substantial, durable construction to stand up to even the most problematic of footwear. They were located on the second floor next to the escalator. I was a frequent shopper.

Yes, of course they were discontinued. Yes, of course McAlpins went out of business. Yes, now I buy socks that have no reasonable acquaintance with the location of my heels, or I get men’s socks, which are always, always, ALWAYS too big.

Problem #2 — Children

Yes, this heading could apply to so many things, but today we’re talking socks. The worst thing ever in the history of garment manufacture is baby socks. Just imagine: you’re the mother of a darling newborn, whose very existence is completely dependent upon you, the mother. You grew the thing in your womb; now you’ve got to feed and clothe it now that it’s emerged into the wild. It has tiny darling sweet little feet which, even in high August, are bitterly, bitterly cold. So as a conscientious mama, you sock those baby feet. Pow, the baby kicks them off. And why? Because people who manufacture baby socks apparently have never seen an actual baby and mistakenly believe that their feet are an inch and a half long. The heel of the sock hits Baby Foot around the end of the toes. If you’re a month-old infant, you have four jobs: eat, sleep, poop, and kick off socks. Bonus points if you can do all these at the same time, while crying.

Probably somewhere in the universe — more likely, on the Internet — are socks that would fulfill my every sock need. Perhaps I have even perused such a website (like a couple years ago when I got friends’ new baby faux lace-up sneaker socks, not unlike the Nike numbers pictured above). But as a consistent thing, life is punctuated with sock peril. They don’t fit, they flee from pairing. White socks get dingy, all socks get holey.

I shall continue my quest for the Perfect Sock — and since socks and shoes go together like peas and carrots, I foresee that this is a Destiny that I can cheerfully fulfill.

I have a theme

Published on by NouveauSoileau2 Comments

When you have a blog, there are lots of important things to take into consideration. Whether or not you can write should be high on the priority list, and since I’m somewhat able to string sentences together coherently, I suppose I qualify.

Then there’s this thing called appearance. What image do I want to project to the world? Blogging software allows you to pick many different themes, and none of them inspires me to write War and Peace, particularly. Since it’s already been done, I guess I don’t have anything to worry about. Mostly I’d like the thing to look pleasant, and sunflowers make me happy, so I usually art up whatever I’m doing with plenty of ’em.

So today I changed my theme, and things look different. I can always go back … or choose something else. I mainly would like the photos I take to look gorgeous, though I suppose that’s more up to me than it is to WordPress.

Anyway, this morning I traveled 67.8 miles on foot from the elementary school to the fire station with a teeming horde of kindergarteners.

You have never been anywhere until you’ve walked down a busy thoroughfare, through a quiet, tree-lined neighborhood, down a parking lot, and across three lanes of traffic with 47,837 6-year-olds.

They squirm and they wiggle. They tug and they pull. They skip, scatter, and flee and pick up pieces of gunk from the sidewalk. They are utterly charming.

So maybe we only walked six blocks. And maybe there were just 40 of them: two classes’ worth, including the one to which my own little urchin — front row right, in the jean jacket — belongs.

They met the nice fireman. They poked and they prodded him, and asked him penetrating questions like, “why do you have those Christmas decorations over there?” They were in the spirit of Fire Prevention Week, you see.

The walk back to the school was as eventful as the 4,000-mile trek getting there. A highlight: a funnel web, one of the three types of web we’d learned about in our recent spider studies and one as yet unobserved by us.

So if this week I have a theme, it’s that everywhere I go I’m surrounded by spiders — and the sticky hands of kindergarteners.

Say hello to my little friend

Published on by NouveauSoileau3 Comments

Deep in the mysterious depths of the fathomless jungle, there lies a fearsome creature. He goes by the name Argiope aurantia. He is yellow and black.

OK, maybe not so deep, maybe not so mysterious. This is our New Best Friend, the Black and Yellow Garden Spider (bet you didn’t see that one coming) and he lives off our back deck.

Spiders, not unlike insects such as bees, are a popular topic among the 5-year-old set at my house. For the last week, our nightly reading has consisted of I Can Read About Spiders, a book I picked up for my son Christopher at a yard sale years ago.

I brought it out a few months ago when spiders seem to strike terror in Trassie’s young heart. Education, I believed, was the best way to combat his fear of creepy-crawlies.

I am pleased to say this mission has been a success. We inspect all corners of the garage for other new friends. We discuss spiders’ two body parts: the cephalothorax and the abdomen (just ask him: he’ll tell you) as well as the animal family to which the spider belongs — arachnids. Tarantulas fascinate him. He has a great curiosity, mixed with fear and respect, of the brown recluse. We captured, for a day, a little Daring Jumping Spider I found on the wooden blinds a few months ago, and kept him prisoner for a day as we learned all we could about him — including all about his iridescent green jaws.

I don’t have any plans to bring in Argiope aurantia for similar close inspection; field observation, in this case, is close enough.

We never talk

Published on by NouveauSoileau2 Comments

Hi. Remember me?

I know, I know. I never write! It’s just that I’ve been busy — I know, that’s no excuse. We used to be so close! Remember all the good times we used to have, hanging out, talking about cooking and old prints that hung on our dads’ office walls? I know. Those were the days, weren’t they?

I mean, it seems like it was only last September when I threw myself out on the Internet and announced I was A Blogger. Wait. It was last September.

Well, it’s been a busy month or so. I have an excuse. SUMMER has arrived. Things have heated up ’round the old Soileau homestead.

For one thing, vermin have been eating my garden just as fast as I can plant it. I’m feeding several species of darling wild mammals here — mammals who are perfectly capable of supporting themselves, mind you … DO YOU HEAR ME, WILD MAMMALS?

Chipmunks: bah! You are dead to me, you sunflower digging-up little cretins. And bunnies. Bunnies! What could be cuter than bunnies? Well, listen you darling little things, I ain’t having NO MORE OF IT. Quit eating my Dianthus. And stop consuming the sunflower leaves that managed to poke their way skyward, despite the chipmunks. Go be cute elsewhere. There is no feeding trough here. I see plenty of clover out there, ready to become your sustenance. Stop it.

That’s funny. I didn’t know bunnies could chuckle.

And speaking of cute, would you look at this? Trassie is attracting flocks of girls.

Girls are appearing out of the woodwork.

OK, not the woodwork. But definitely from across the greenspace, the lush area behind my house which, I guess, supports an animal population of endless proportions. (Where are the OWLS, I’d like to know? I’m looking for Circle of Life stuff here — and the raptors crap out on me.)

But back to the girls: directly opposite our back yard live The Girlies: Allison, Lauren and Catherine. The first two are 8-year-old twins, the the remainder, a 5-year-old. Trassie likes ’em all. They jump on the trampoline, they eat popcicles. They tramp in and out of the house, gathering up Mario paraphernalia; they fly across the divide to THEIR home, amassing mermaids and stuffed floppy doggies. Piles of socks have appeared on the grass. Sandals and ponytail holders have sprouted on the deck. I’m having flashbacks to Claire’s girliehood.

We’ve also been doing yard work, which involved something I’m calling Prune Surprise.

Tras took the trimmers to the trees along the street which, as trees will do, have been growing and impeding Progress. This Progress is mainly mail delivery. The mailman got tired of fighting the limbs blocking the mailbox and finally one day got medieval on them. I found them twisted and broken — but certainly out of the way of the mailbox. Not wanting to inspire any more violent outbursts on the part of postal personnel, Tras himself went medieval on the very same trees, and ended up with a container full of trimmings. Here, Christopher poses with the container.

But let’s look a little closer.

It appears to have contained something more.

The old Prune Surprise.

Tras asked the rest of us, indivdually, to come outside and take a look at the lawn, and more or less scared the living daylights out of us when the container full of branches began wildly giggling.

If you’ve ever owned and operated a 5-year-old, you know they don’t tire easily. In our case, they don’t appear to tire at all — so the game was just as fresh by the time the last family member was fooled as the first.

So June has arrived and we’re all outside. It’s a light-filled, exciting time – one that leaves precious few moments for the deep introspection and quality philosophizing you’ve come to expect as the hallmark of NouveauSoileau.

Hey! Don’t tell me that’s the bunnies chuckling.