Of Swedish Death Mustard, Snoop Birdy Bird, and Silly Names People Give Their Kids These Days (you know who you are)

Hej, hur skit ar du? That's Swedish for "Hey, how the crap are ya?" in honor of the lovely Swedish meatball salad we made for dinner. And of course, no Swedish meatball salad in the Green home would be complete without the usual homemade "Swedish death mustard." Wadsworths, if you're reading this, you might just remember what I'm talking about. Why we as Americans insist on continually taking these sorts of things into our bodies to prove our cultural connections ("Look at me! I'm guzzling an entire jar of habanero salsa like it was Kool-Aid! I'm so open-minded!") is beyond me.

So not a whole heckuva lot has been going on of late. We got a parakeet. His name (possibly her name, we don't really know for sure yet) is "Snoop Birdy Bird." You may be asking yourself in exasperation "Why, Ben? WHY?" like so many others have. Because it's funny, goll durn it. And don't you forget it, or there's gonna be a butt-kickin'. For the most part Snoop keeps to himself, although occasionally he will burst into song when Alyssa is playing her flute. He especially seems to like Leonard Bernstein. We also like to take him out of his cage sometimes and "mess" with him, although each time he gets harder and harder to catch. One time he got on top of the ceiling fan, so Alyssa turned it on so he'd fly off. He didn't. He stayed right there like he was glued. I eventually had to climb up and grab him myself, at which point he went Lizzie Borden on my thumb. Served me right.

Other than that, there's not much to talk about. I've joined a writer's critique group in Sandy, although I haven't been to any meetings yet, so I'll see how that goes. We finally got around to replacing the crappy plastic accordion "door" for our downstairs bathroom with an actual door; please don't ask us why it has taken us three years. We're still working on adoption paperwork so we can eventually go to China and pick up our daughter, hopefully in late summer or fall. We were thinking we liked the name "Christabel." Well, pretty much just me. Alyssa has dumped all child naming in my lap, on account of I'm the picky one who hates every other name I hear. I can't even go anywhere there are little children anymore because I freak out and tend to use all caps in my freak-out sessions. "EMERSON? For a GIRL? Are you freakin' SERIOUS?" Alyssa is more open-minded and would agree to name her "Sparkle Cupcake" if I said I liked it. The only name she says no to is "Hortense." Ixnay on the Ortense-hay.