weekend report

When I was in college, my boyfriend and I would occasionally get fancy and go to this fantasic restaurant as a special treat. The food was pretty good, but what was most memorable were the MOST amazing fresh fruit tarts that they would bake to order, so that it would arrive warm, right out of the oven, sitting in a pool of the most luscious creme anglaise. It was so good that after we gobbled it down, we would try to scrape up as much of the creme anglaise as possible. And it was so good that after our spoons proved too inefficient, my boyfriend would pretend to use his spoon and just sweep the entire plate with his finger. I still dream about hot fruit like that.

I experienced deja vu this afternoon. Otis was introduced to America’s favorite condiment today, ketchup. He was eating some leftover french fries and he became intrigued by the pool of red sauce on my plate. I showed him how to dip his french fry, and he tried the ketchup. Hm, sour and sweet. When he tried to grab a handful of the ketchup, I stopped him. But when he wanted to dip the fry, I let him. Then while looking into my face, he took his french fry, pretended to dip it, and ran his finger through the ketchup with glee, sure that I couldn’t see it, then quickly replacing his finger with the french fry when I looked down. It’s enough to make a mother proud.

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The DWR warehouse sale was this weekend. Yes, it’s so unfair. We scored some pretty major victories, although we came up empty handed in the dining room table department, which was really supposed to be our primary objective. The best deals were yesterday, when everything was an additional 50% off. Although you really gotta be wary of the warehouse sale frenzy, when you become convinced that it’s OK to spend an obscene amount of money on something that’s in really shitty shape, because it’s so much cheaper than the crazy obscene amount it used to be.  But we’re older and (hopefully) wiser now, and much more experienced, and here’s some of our booty:

This fantastic play cave for Otis. It just looks like so much fun, and it’s already received lots of attention from the neighborhood kids. We’ll eventually put it in the backyard, after it stops being a weed farm. I probably also love it because it reminds me of this chicken coop that I’m obsessed with and want for our backyard. Can you believe I strapped this thing to the top of our car and drove it home? It’s bigger than it looks.

This kids’ sofa, which changes configurations and can be an extra bed for a friend or a fort. Lately when I lounge on the sofa and read, Otis will climb up and lounge next to me with one of his magazines.  He plopped down as soon as we set him on it for the first time.  We think it’ll be perfect for the one day when we finally figure out an affordable way to project movies on the wall.  Even F and I like sitting on it.  

We bought this great bed for when Otis is ready to leave his crib. We need to buy some replacement slats for under the mattress, but it was so inexpensive and I’ve loved this bed for some time now. Luckily it breaks down totally flat, so into the basement it goes for now.

Pretty good loot, eh?  Plus, we also got tons of modular carpet tiles and some freaking awesome file cabinets for my studio for, like, 1/20 of the original price.  Yay consumerist us!