Minky & Me

Upon arriving home today Minky promptly sat down on the kitchen floor and took off her clothes and shoes. She wanted to be a nudie nude. I have a feeling that this will be the preferred outfit this summer.

Later she put her shoes back on the wrong feet.

What ever happened to the simple things in life?

I went to get Minky bubbles today at one of those big chain stores – the type that has uniformed employees who have no idea what, say, a lint remover is or where you might find lawn bags. They stare blankly at you and suggest you look in the dental aisle.

Half a mile from the toy aisles, I remembered I wanted bubbles. I hiked back to “seasonal” and found, holy smoke, an aisle filled with bubble products.
It was astounding. There were bubble guns that looked like squirt guns, bubble kits with a several different bubble wands, there were character bubble sets, no spill bubble bottles with teeny tiny wands and gallon containers of bubble liquid. I was, simply, overwhelmed at the plethora of products.

Here, I thought to myself, is another fine example of American gluttony. Where once you mixed some Palmolive and water to make bubbles now you can shell out $9 and buy a mega-Dora-semi-automatic.

This annoys me in the same way that Cheesecake Factory cheesecake annoys me. Cheesecake is meant to have either cherries on top or to be plain. Cheesecake should not contain pumpkin, mocha, cappuccino, or caramel latte. There are other things in this category too. Ice cream, for example, and bagels.

No wonder Americans are said to have no taste.

Thursday we spent quite awhile outside enjoying the 50 degree weather. Minky did two hysterical things.

The first was saying, “I’m mad,” when I told her I didn’t want her climbing on the cellar staircase railing.

The second was that she casually told Neil, our 5 year old neighbor, “I’m going to be a nudie nude,” and proceeded to take off her shirt. She has her own style when it comes to disrobing: she pulls each arm out of its sleeve through the neck and then pushes the neck opening down so that the shirt hangs around her waist. It’s quite a look.

Rocky sat in front of one of the drawers in our TV stand yesterday crying. His grimy tennis ball was in the drawer. When he gets too cucaracha – putting the ball on the couch, letting it bounce off and roll away, scrambling like Scooby Doo to fetch it again and again – I put the ball away. He had been crying for at least ten minutes when Minky walked over, knelt down low so that she was looking up into his eyes and asked, “what’s the matter, Rocky?”

I was asked that same question when I picked Mink up from daycare though when I was asked nothing was wrong.

Without waiting for an answer, she opened the drawer. I asked, “do you see something in the drawer of Rocky’s?” She pulled out the ball and rather than give it to the poor hound, she ran away with it.

This morning Minky climbed up onto the piano bench with her dad and began to play. She tickles the ivories in the softest, most adorable way.

She started into her number – one of my favorites: Old McDonald Had a Farm. When she got to the “and on his farm he had a…” part, she extended a finger and touched it to one of my fingers and said, “mommy.”

Let me start by saying that we are impetuous people. Once we make a decision to do something, we do it. When Layr asked me to marry him, for instance, we were engaged for two weeks before the ceremony. When he announced two weeks ago that he wanted a piano for our party this past Saturday, I wasn’t surprised. Since Minky was born he’s talked about getting one.

Rather than go along, though, I thought it was a crazy idea. We had plenty to do in our house without driving all over Massachusetts looking at pianos. Layr began searching craigslist constantly while I sat by saying things like, “I just don’t think it’s a good idea. There isn’t enough time. Even if you buy it it’s doubtful a piano mover can get it here before the party.”

Two weekends before the party he wanted to stop and see a piano on the way back from New York. He said that if it sounded okay he wanted to buy it. Luckily Minky was sick so we came right home.

Friday, the night before the party, Layr came home and announced that he had found the right piano on craigslist and that he was going to see it at 9 AM the next morning. I was sure that I had convinced him of his folly, but no, he had a bank check in his pocket and had already called the piano movers.

The next morning, he dashed out of the house with Minky and The Brawn at 8:30 AM. When my mother and I returned from grocery shopping at 11 AM, he was back. The piano was paid for and would be delivered in a few hours.

At 1 PM the movers called to ask if they could reschedule – the piano was in a building on a busy street and they needed the crane, which they had with them but were skeptical about using during Saturday afternoon traffic. Desperate now to have his piano for the party, Layr begged.

At 2 PM in they came. Four fairly burly guys with this beautiful Kohler & Campbell upright piano.

At 9 PM, the piano was played at our party.

That is the magic of Layr.

I belatedly celebrated my fortieth birthday last night. To a room full of people, accompanied by piano, I sang six songs: Back in Baby’s Arms, I’m Beginning to See the Light, You Fascinate Me So, Lovin’ Spree, The Girl from Ipanema and La Vie en Rose. Our friends heeded the “fancy dress” part of the invitation, much to our delight. Minky, we believe, slept through the whole thing though it was so loud at times, it was hard to be sure. It was a stellar evening.

This afternoon Minky and I stood, me holding her, at her bedroom window watching the kids next door play soccer. Then she wanted to stand on the window sill. For the first ten minutes I was happy enough to look on with her but then I got bored. I put her down and she instantly burst into tears because she is a little too short to see out the window. I went and got her Ikea chair. Once she was standing up on that she stayed there happily looking down at the game for ten minutes (in adult time that’s like two hours). She had some great commentary, too.

“He’s going to get it [the ball]! He’s coming back!”