On the Other Hand, Who Knows What I'll Do?

A list of things I have not done for Christmas

2011-12-25T00:28:00.002-05:00

1. sent out cards (yet)

2. wrapped everything (I have one gift left - ooops, 2)

3. finished the hat I was making for Lance (It's not so much that I failed to finish it. I have decided not to continue on it.) (BECAUSE IT SUCKS. THIS IS TERRIBLE WOOL TO MAKE A HAT OUT OF.) I am not as clever as I make myself out to be. I will apologize to Lance tomorrow.

4. Lance deserves a nice hat (not that he needs one, he has several, because he is a grown man and understands about getting cold.)

5. I myself do not understand about getting cold, though I am technically a grown woman, and am forever running from apartment to car, car to office, car to shop, car to school in a dreadfully underdressed state. I wore my crocs flipflops to the mall yesterday. [ITS A MALL, FOR GOD SAKE, ITS 80 DEGREES.] [until you have to walk around the overflowing parking lot looking for your car. Which is beige and subcompact. with your kid. who is freezing. just ask him - wait, don't ask him, he's already telling you. AND TELLING YOU. AND EVERYONE ELSE.]

Uh oh, I appear to have gone off track.

6. I did not print up cool artistic printable gift tags, which I thought I would get to. Instead, we wrote people's names in Sharpie on their presents. (On the paper. Not actually on the presents themselves.)

7. I did not talk to my son about Santa one way or another, except that when he asked, I launched into this long tale about the real Saint Nicolas until he drowned under all my verbiage and asked if we could listen to some music.

8. I did not give gifts to my co-workers. Most of my coworkers came across with a little something thoughtful for everyone. Not me, past queen of Christmas gifts.

9. I do not think I got anyone even one thing that they asked for for Christmas. Oh, wait, yes I did. Okay, I take that back.

10. I DID NOT F ANYTHING UP AT WORK TONIGHT. And neither did anyone else. There is no Christmas Tech Disaster to recount. It was a really wonderful service. Which gives me mixed feelings {like every other f-ing thing on the earth and especially} like everything having to do with my job aptitude and performance over the past year-and-a-half.

11. I did not bake my son a birthday cake, nor did I get him the traditional Baskin Robbins cake. We pushed his party into January, as so many of his friends were tied up for Christmas on his actual birthday.

12. I did not go to midnight mass at some little stone church with a boy's choir and a churchbell, as I threaten to do every year, since our service is early enough that it would actually be possible. Instead, we sat around and watched It's a Wonderful Life and then It's a Fabulous Graham Norton. And texted people Merry Christmas.

incidentally

2011-12-17T20:15:00.002-05:00

The easy listening all-Christmas-music station played this the other morning.

Years ago, I mentioned that this was by far the skankiest and least-pleasant Christmas song.
The intervening years have done nothing to disuade me.

It surpasses creepy to skin-crawly. It's Love American Style times Love Boat with a dash of Will Ferrell in a Hot Tub.

I was posting this video to demonstrate how icky this all was, (I had even typed YOU'RE WELCOME) but watching it....okay, still major, MAJOR ick, but there is something kind of winning about the byplay (man, that looks so wrong no matter HOW you spell it) between Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers. (Don't try to calculate their combined ages at the time. Just watch.)

Dolly at least is kind of adorable in this. Even in 1984 lycra ski pants.

Not Dead Yet,

2011-12-17T19:20:00.003-05:00

Though you might think so, based on my blog output.

Here are two things that made me very, very proud of my about-to-be-6-year-old.

1. My son has been attending karate class, weekly, for about 9 weeks. We're coming to the end of the term and thinking about whether to re-up him.

Thursday morning, we mentioned that it was karate night, and Ian blurted out "i don't like karate." We engaged him on it (at the risk of missing the school bus) - what don't you like about it? Is there a part you do like? The kids? The teacher? He was able to tell us that he didn't like all the yelling - the instructors aren't hostile or mean (in my perception) but we do spend a LOT of time reminding Ian how important it is to respect everyone, how he'll get more of what he wants if he's unfailingly polite and kind...nobody at karate says 'please' or 'thank you."

We talked about it a bit and then moved on. Off to school, work etc.

That night, Eric had a gig so I accompanied Ian to karate. I chatted with another mom while class went on (oddly enough, this is the first time I've talked at any length with any of the families) and colored Christmas cards that I had brought along. When class ended, Ian and another boy came over and colored cards while the same instructors drilled an adult class.

Ian had his shoes and jacket on, and we were getting ready to leave, when Ian nudged me and then took off at a run. From the look in his eyes (and the time of day), I assumed a bathroom trip, and strolled off in that direction. That wasn't where he had gone, though. I looked around and saw him on the gym floor, talking to the head instructor, an older gent who can be quite brusque. Terry was crouched down, eye to eye with Ian, and they both looked very serious. I went trotting over and interrupted. "What's going on, dude?" I asked Ian.

"We were just talking," said Ian. "About karate class."

"Yes," said Terry, "Ian came to me to ask why I yell so much - if I'm mad at the kids or frustrated with them."

I looked stunned.

"I was saying that the teachers use their aggressive side all the time." said Ian.

"And I was saying that, mostly, we spend our time just trying to get the kids' attention! That's why we yell and sometimes make fun, a little bit. We want you guys and girls to be great at karate," Terry said, turning to Ian. "We want you to do really well, as good as you possibly can, in your tests and tournaments, so you're always progressing. It takes a lot of concentration."

"And discipline," added Ian. "So you're just trying to get our attention, so we learn."

"I'm really glad you came and talked to me, Ian," said Terry, putting a huge hand on Ian's tiny shoulder. "I have never, ever had a kid ask me those things before. Or an adult. Humph. That was really good. I liked talking to you about it."

And then he went out to his car and got some toffee that he had made for the other instructors, and shared it with us.

!!!

So, to recap: My 5-year-old, completely on his own, respectfully approached the head instructor and started a conversation about his methods. And used active listening.

Something I couldn't do when I was in college.

I repeat: !!!

2. Another evening, we were in the car, listening to the Christmas music on the easy listening station. (It's an annual thing.) A song came on which I won't name, but many of you would recognize it, as it concerns a child buying a gift for his mother so she'll look "real pretty if she meets Jesus tonight".

This song is decidely not my sort of thing. But, not wanting to pass my snottiness on to an innocent child, I kept my opinion to myself, not even tsk-ing or sighing (or making fake barfing noises.) About 3 minutes in, we have this conversation:

Ian: That song! It's, it's....Agh! It's so bad!

Me: Yeah?

Ian: It's like...like snot on my ears! Blah!

Me: Well, I have to say I agree with you. It is pretty awful.

Ian: It's like....it SUCKS, Mom!

Me: Hey. I don't like that song either, but you know we don't use that word that way. We say "I don't care for that" or "I don't think that's very good." Young men should not say things suck.

Ian: BUT MOM! You could say "it's awful" or "it's terrible"...but it's so much worse than that! You'd have to say something more than that. It...it just...

Me: Yeah, I know. Don't say it again.

So, again, to recap:
Evidence of good taste and critical thinking skills
and
excellent grasp of expressive language.

fat girl issues

2011-10-09T20:01:00.002-04:00

This is a weird thing to talk about, but it happened today, and I want to record it for some reason.

This afternoon, some of my friends were kind enough to invite us to a picnic. It was elegant, with wine and champagne and delicious food, and the weather was wonderful, and we laughed a lot and it was just great. There were a couple of kids and babies - I got to use my patented method of making infants laugh, which is 100% guaranteed - and having my kid have someone to run around the fields on a Sunday afternoon with was a really big bonus.

Sunday afternoons are rough for us. I love working on weekends, and Eric loves working on weekends, but having a small child who no longer naps or, in fact, STOPS TALKING AND HOPPING ON ONE FOOT, makes it hard. Ian wants to play Uno. Ian wants to walk to the lake. Ian wants to ride his bike. Eric and I are usually exhausted and want to fall asleep in front of Redskins football with no one talking to us or hopping up and down on us. Sunday is the day we are most likely to give one another a hairy eyeball from across the room, to communicate the message "Ian needs attention. WHY aren't YOU giving YOUR CHILD some attention? Hummmph, grrrr, tsk."

So we were at this picnic, which, as I said, was absolutely lovely. I was sitting in the shade enjoying a glass of wine, and Ian was frolicking through the fields and most of all I was not at home folding laundry and watching Disney Channel and trying to convince an excitable child that sitting in the living room playing Qwirkle is a good substitute for playing on the monkey bars. Because it means I don't have to walk to the playground and risk falling asleep on the bench.

Ian, taking a brief break from frolicking, came and asked me if he could go to a playground he could see in the distance. No, dude, it's too far, I said. If a pack of wild butterflies attacked you, I couldn't get there in time to save you.

Ian said: Sure you could. You could just run.

I said: Oh honey. You know I don't run.

I meant it to sound funny, like Doctor Smith from Lost in Space or Edwina from Absolutely Fabulous. Like, goodness me, run? Surely you jest.

I also meant, dude, you know I cough myself hoarse from the exertion of getting out of the car; running across the field would make me cough up an entire lung, at least.

But the truth is, I don't run.

I'm not sure I could.

And I called this 'fat girl issues" because I think this is a substantively different feeling for a fat person than for an average-sized non-fit person. I felt a kind of shame when I said it that I haven't felt in a long time, hitting me like a surprise wave when you've turned your back.

I don't know quite what to do about this. I am unhappy with my level of fitness (which we could call 'negligible". At best.) My lungs, with this damn cough, seem unlikely to be much help. My kid's taking karate, and watching his first class made me want to move my body (but not get yelled at or made to do pushups or run laps, which the older class did.)

Hmmmmm.

2011-10-05T23:18:00.002-04:00

I was sitting on the floor in front of my closet - Ian's school is now, as well as assigning homework, assigning home-play, 60 minutes of physical activity per day away from school. I know this is good, really I do, but jeez...

Anyway, in the interest of physical activity, I was looking for my sneakers (still AWOL, incidentally.) Our closet doors are mirrored, so after determining where they weren't, I slid the door closed and was examining my hair. I was looking at the silvery bits around my crown.

Ian plops down beside me. "What are you doing, Mom?"

"Well, I was looking for my sneakers, and now I'm looking at my shiny silver hair. See?"

"OH MY GOD. THAT IS SO AWESOME." It's like you have mermaid hair."

Okay, aside from the fact that my 5-year-old says OH MY GOD occasionally like some tween...that's pretty cool.

Yuck.

2011-09-24T14:40:00.002-04:00

Okay, so here's the short update:

Ian started school in August, and I caught a cold. And I still have it. I have had a chest cold for a full month. Whine moan whinge, right? Blah blah blah.

And blah blah blah is kind of how I feel. I am sick of coughing, sick of tissues, sick of feeling exhausted and sore from the hacking. I've been through antibiotics and a short round of steroids. The doc assures me that this is not pneumonia or anything else dangerous, just the aftermath of an infection that's over. (Keep an eye out for our new feature, "Ask a Lifelong Hypochondriac"! Recurring theme - "I wasn't really worried about it being something dangerous until the doc assured me that it wasn't anything dangerous.")

Anyway, since school started, life has been kind of focused on basics - catching the bus, meeting the bus, homework, dinner, bedtime. Packing lunches. The occasional jigsaw puzzle. We're spending quite a lot of time together, which is very nice, and Eric has been quite - I don't know, agressive? that doesn't seem like the right word - about dad-ing. He's dad-ing up a storm, frankly, as well as working a lot, which is great. I'm finding that I actually have time to form a thought now and again, which continues to be mildly surprising.

Anyway, that's what's been going on on this end. We're reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland again.

I can't imagine where he learned that

2011-09-18T20:45:00.002-04:00

Ian is finishing up his homework at the kitchen table. Homework for the early weeks of kindergarten consists of coloring, cutting and pasting, and yet we have found a way to do some term-paper-level procrastination this weekend.

Me: I think I have some smaller scissors over here; would you like them?

Ian: No thanks, these are fine.

Me: Seriously, let me get you a different pair.

Ian: No. These are really okay.

Me: Because you seem to be struggling a little...

Ian, through gritted teeth: NO. THESE. ARE. FINE. THANK. YOU. MOMMY.

2011-07-30T00:28:00.002-04:00

so Ian and I stopped by the Indus market a day ago, for some stuff - tamarind, mango pickle, coconut milk to supply the summer-long fish curry experiments - and he asked for a frozen treat. I had never had any Indian or Pakistani popcicles, and frankly, I haven't had great luck with Asian desserts.

(Yeah, of course, sticky rice , and honey balls, and that space-ship looking thing at the Indonesian restaurant with the ice chips and the tapioca balls and the green layer that flouresed in the light....Sure, each of those things was great. Nonetheless, I approached the freezer case with mild trepidation. If nothing else, I didn't want Ian to get a bad taste and dramatically spit out the cuisine of another nation onto the floor of the market. In front of the proprieter. He wouldn't do it to be rude or gross, he just....you know, he's 5. When something bad is in his mouth, he gets it out.)

I shouldn't have worried. I am now pretty much obsessed with Kulfi, which is a frozen pudding popcicle that Indian kids eat (they buy them on the street from the kulfiwalla, no kidding, who I'm sure, incidentally, does not play "Turkey in the Straw" at wake-the-dead volume. The way our Blue Bunny Truck guy used to in our former neighborhood.)

It is about a thousand times more delicious and complex and wonderful than any Good Humor pop. Ian had a pistachio one, which he adored, and I had a white, pudding-y one with cardamom, cinnamon, rosewater, cream and sugar. And maybe some pulverized almonds.

There were several brands in the case, in popcicle and ice cream cup form. Ours were conical shapes in a translucent plastic container. I can't find the brand name.

So go and eat kulfi. It'll make your summer.

well, I was close.

2011-07-25T12:26:00.002-04:00

Since seeing the martial arts movement piece, Illuminate, in the DC Fringe Fest a week or so ago, I have had a number of conversations about martial arts. A couple of people have asked me what branch/style my friend Chris teaches, and what the cast based Illuminate on.

And I would say: "It's some kind of Korean style, like maybe Tes Too Do or something."

And people would nod and say, oh, yeah, I think I've heard of that."

Well, here's why:

According to Wikipedia, it's Tang Soo Do, the Korean pronunciation of the old way of writing (唐手道, "Way of the Chinese Hand")

This is Tang Soo Do.

And this is Testudo.

Why yes, I am quite the expert on every single thing in the entire world. Talking out muh butt. Again. Thanks for noticing.

Help!

2011-07-21T13:17:00.003-04:00

okay, so here's the deal.
I'm the 50-year-old mom of a kindergarten kid.

I got referred to as Grandma again on Tuesday.

It wasn't rude, like "here, don't forget you spicy nuggets, Grandma." Another parent was actually encouraging her kid to not interrupt Ian. "Can't you see," she said, "He's talking to his grandma."

I know there are many women my age who ARE grandmas, and they are active and involved with the kids and and vital to their families. There's nothing wrong with being a grandma. I would be proud to be a grandma, climbing around the Chik-fil-a playground with the kid.

But I'm not. I'm proud (as well as rather put-upon) to be a MOM climbing around with the kid, and I as much as I don't want the idea to bug me - it does. A little.

People who mistake me for something I'm not usually mistake me for a man. (I got called 'Sir" on Saturday at Artscape.) And sometimes people assume I'm a lesbian.

Neither of those bothers me.

And yet I am desperate to correct people who call me Grandma.

I have always been told I looked young. Younger than I am.

So help me, internet.

Is it the utilitarian clothes? (On tuesday, I was wearing a black t-shirt in a jersey fabric, and black shorts, hoop earrings, rings, and black flip-flops.)
(Is it the flip flops? Oh, good Lord, please don't let it be the flip flops, I can't go back to wearing shoes. I can't.)

The practical haircut? My color? (Current color - brown roots, bleached tips, daily pool abuse.) My hair's not grey, and I have an actual tan (for the first time in my life.) I have freckles, but not age spots or visible sun damage (see above, first tan of my life.)

If it's because I'm fat, well, I'll just have to live with that. I could be less fat, but I don't see my lifelong morphology changing anytime soon.

PLEASE make some suggestions. I want to look like me, and the me I picture is funny, active, curious about the world, artistic, and not old.

Help me, internet! You're my only hope!

Illuminate

2011-07-16T22:10:00.002-04:00

Some friends of ours had a very surprising show in the DC Fringe Festival - you'd expect friends of ours to have a magic show (and a couple did), a postmodern clowning sort of thing (also true), perhaps some sideshow or drag or burlesque or a dirty puppet musical (not this time.)

These friends would not have identified as theatre artists. They're a bunch of guys that we know through Chris, who's a dear friend we met through magic. His other love (along with philosophy, church history and bridge) is martial arts, and a bunch of his friends created this movement piece with enough pathos and humor - plus really excellent live original music - to be a play in the festival, playing to standing room only crowds.

It's all coming back to me now.

2011-07-16T21:30:00.002-04:00

Ian is stalling bedtime by dressing a large stuffed animal, a green-and-purple dragon, in swim trunks and a rash guard.

Me: IAN! I asked you to brush your teeth 10 minutes ago! Put that down and finish getting ready for bed. I'm not going to tell you again.

Ian: Sorry, Mom, but at this point, I have to do what's best for the dragon.

2011-07-15T00:55:00.002-04:00

Just finished watching The September Issue, about Vogue and what it's like to create a monthly fashion magazine. And what it's like to work for Anna Wintour, the editor in chief, widely known as the meanest woman in the world.

She doesn't come off as the meanest woman in the world in the film.

However, this lady up here, Grace Coddington, who is (oh, let me grab a copy that's lying around here somewhere) (Because if there's not a Vogue, a New Yorker and a cookbook somewhere around, it must not be my house.) Anyway, Ms. Coddington is the creative director, and the film turns into a meditation on her - her art, her eye, her history, the way she sees fashion. She comes across as a down-to-earth woman navigating a sea of laregly manufactured drama, an artist among merchants, a sensitive soul and an island of charm and good humor.

She clomps around in flat shoes, loose at the heel - the same shoes in every scene, with every utilitarian black ensemble - and walks like a truckdriver, as so many models do. She was raised in rural Wales, and won an amateur modeling competition in 1960, which led to her work at British and then American Vogue. She's marvelous.

The other thing I LOVED about this movie was the way it was shot, and the fact that, though it's documenting a project with deadlines (and in fact, communicating a sense of urgency is very much part of the filmaker's job here) , the film lingers wonderfully over a designer's process of creating a garment, and shows the beauty and excitement of couture showings in a really, really excellent way. Yeah, I'm a sewer, so a nicely-felled seam and an interesting pair of shoes really does it for me. But this is a beautiful film.

Comprehension is not an option.

2011-07-14T14:55:00.004-04:00

"Making it easy to understand is what got us into the mess the church is in today. The last thing we need to do is make it easier to rationalize. NO! It is time to make the Word strange, in the same way that Christ made God strange by dying on a cross and being born of a woman. Comprehension is not an option. Participation, however, might just open the human imaginary to a level of understanding we never dreamed possible."

I direct you to this essay not because I am scandalized by decisions of the CofE - none of my business, really, we have our own fish to fry over here - but because Billy Daniel expresses this quite beautifully.

before anyone from my community jumps in my stuff, let me be clear.

to me, there is a world of difference between living out the gospel message that the Kingdom of God is at hand, and "making it easy to understand."

Dinner tonight: F is for Flounder. Too.

2011-07-11T20:27:00.003-04:00

this came out just stupidly, ridiculously good.

Thaw 3 flounder filets (we got a pile of frozen fish at WalMart a couple of weeks ago, which has turned out to be a very good purchase.) Start that about 2 hours before you cook - the best way to thaw them is to seal the frozen filets in a ziploc bag and set them adrift in a bowl of cool/room temp water.

For this, you'll need 2 large frying pans and one medium saucepan.

Slice one small sweet onion and about half a pepper. (I had remnants of a red and an orange one.) Put your cast iron skillet on over high heat, give it a glug of olive oil, and sizzle the onion and pepper for about minute or two. Salt and pepper them. Then, in the interest of not having them get too brown, splash some water into the pan - not quite enough to cover everything - and keep the veg moving as it bubbles away.

Between stirs, put a saucepan of water on to boil, and put 2 dinner plates on the counter.

After the water in the onion pan has mostly evaporated, add a lot of chopped garlic - I used 4 cloves, and I could have stood another one or two. Lower the heat to medium high, keep pushing it around the pan.

Throw some orzo - probably 2/3 of a cup - into the boiling water in the saucepan.

Put your other frying pan over medium high heat, and let it sit. Cover one of the dinner plates with all-purpose flour and then sprinkle with Old Bay. Don't go crazy, you're not boiling crabs, but a little Old Bay is great with flounder.

Generously glug the latest frying pan with olive oil - more than a film, less than a quarter-inch - and when it's warm, dredge each filet in the flour and spices and start them frying.

Stir the onion pan; add some tomatoes (I used canned; you could use fresh. Either way, squish lots and lots of liquid out of them. It would also be great with sun-dried tomatoes, snipped small.) Turn the heat under that pan down to low. Add a tablespoon of capers. The stuff in the pan should be lumpy rather than soupy, but not all the way to dry.

Turn your fish once.

Test your orzo, and if it's done, turn off that burner.

Turn off the burner under the onion/tomato/pepper/caper mixture. Stir in a sliver of butter.

Remove your crusty, light brown fish to the other dinner plate that you put on the counter. (A heat-reisitant spatula us really good for this - a more rigid flipper could separate the crust.) Don't cover, it'll get soggy.

Peel an orange or a couple of clementines. Separate the sections, pull the pithy part out, and drop the sections into the tomato mixture. Stir, and let sit for a minute or two to let the orange warm up.

Plate each serving as a thrilling, messy pile.

I believe this will be even more amazing with more savory stuff in the veg - more capers, more garlic, a tiny pinch of red chili flakes, or a small amount of strong ripe olive.

But for a 20-minute, weeknight, just-got-home-from-the-pool dinner - dude, seriously.

It was hard for us to describe this without using the f-word. THAT is how good it was.

Stuff to Do When You Discover that you just don't give a shit.

2011-06-25T17:00:00.002-04:00

Several times a day, for the last week or two, my husband has gazed over at me and said "You okay? How're ya doing? Okay?"

It only took about 10 days for me to notice this - that this was happening repeatedly, and that it might mean something.

I tried to answer him this morning.

"How ya doin', sweetie? You okay?"
"Tell me why you're asking. Do I seem other than okay?"
"Yeah, you seem kind of...angry or something."

Well, that's just silly. When I'm angry, there can be no question. There's no "seem"-ing. Everyone knows.

But I took a second to think about it, and I started to say:
"I don't know, I've been feeling kind of..."

and then Ian broke into a spontaneous dissertation on the powers of various Mario characters. And I shot myself in the head. With my finger, but still.

Eric nudged me back on topic. "You've been feeling...what?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe feeling disconnected? Like nothing has very much to do with me."

This is potentially quite bad, since I have a job, a marriage and a kid that have very, very much to do with me, in which I need to remain deeply interested and intimately involved.

I may be having a little depression flare-up. I had one last summer, and I didn't recognize it, because I had never in my life been a LITTLE depressed.

So all day, I've been making a list, which I will now share with the internet:

Things to do When You Discover You Just Don't Give A Shit

1. Clean the kitchen. Nothing is fun or interesting anyway, might as well do those things that everything is normally more interesting than. Put away the laundry. Empty the dishwasher.

2. Gather all your clarity and focus and think back about what balls you might have dropped at work in the last 2 weeks. Go over your emails. Immediately reply to those ones you 'forgot'. Go over your calendar for next week. Perhaps make a more detailed 'to-do' list than usual.

3. Do not go bathing suit shopping. I really, really need a second, and, should I find one, a third swimsuit, since we go to the pool every afternoon and my one suit is aging ungracefully. Of course, the price of a decent suit is coronary-inducing, and of course the affordable suits at WalMart are no match for my pulchritude.

If by any chance you are in the market for an expensive but excellently-made and long-wearing plus-sized bathing suit, I totally recommend Junonia, which has great merchandise and great service. With God as my witness, I'm getting my surfing wet suit there...one day.

Anyway, I love shopping, but I recommend steering away from stores on that first day that you discover that you don't give a shit. Whatever size you are, it's wrong, and nothing looks good, and the merchandise is all ugly and shopworn. Don't do it.

4. Declare a moratorium on whatever the Endless Conversation is in your house. Whether you go in endless circles about Pros and Cons of Growing my Beard In or What Color to Paint the Bathroom, Volume 9000, or The Car Made a Weird Noise or Is Yoshi a Turtle, No He's a Dinosaur, No He's a Frog, blah blah blah blah BANG. We get 24 hours off from that. And if someone forgets, and brings it up, the clock starts over. Sorry. I don't make the rules. Oh, that's right, I do. Well, sorry.

4. Play cards with your kid. It's low-impact. And he'll lose interest before long.

5. Grocery shopping is okay. It might spark your interest. Not staple foods, though. Make someone else go for those. I went to the Indian grocery for chutney. They had 20 kinds!

6. Knitting is kind of boring, but getting something finished feels good. Make things in sprints.

7. STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM COMPUTER SOLITAIRE.

8. Get enough sleep. Tranq up as necessary.

9. Speaking of - if you happen to be a walking pharmacy, er, prescription med user, you might think back over your week and take a look in your medicine cabinet. This is a bad time to miss doses. You think it doesn't matter - I always think it doesn't matter - but apparently it does.

10. Watch cartoons. Bob's Burgers and Regular Show are a good fit for mild depression, and the Amazing World of Gumball and Adventure Time are nice when you start to feel a little better.

Dinner Tonight: Summer Salad

2011-06-11T20:10:00.002-04:00

It doesn't seem quite fair to post this recipe, as it requires advance prep - I made the garlic-infused oil last week for another dish, and I decided to cook the wheat berries this afternoon without knowing what I would do with them. Nonetheless, here what I did -

Cook some wheat berries. (The way to cook wheat berries is to combine 1 part wheat and 3.5 parts water in a pot, bring to a boil, cover, lower the heat and simmer for an hour. I cooked a cup, because that's what I had left in the bag in the freezer.) Let them cool.

Open one can of black-eyed peas. (Hum chorus of 'tonight's gonna be a good night' here.) Drain, rinse, empty into a huge bowl. I used Goya, 15.5 oz.

Chop into small chunks half a cucumber, half a red pepper, and half a yellow pepper. Core and squeeze the seeds and runny stuff out of 2 small tomatoes, and chop those also. Throw all that stuff in the bowl with the beans and grain.

Now it's flavoring time. Chop up about 2 tablespoons of something spicy. I had a new jar of hot gardeniara, which is pickled vegetables -green beans, okra, carrots, celery and peppers - in olive oil. (This product makes an annual appearance at our house on the Thanksgiving relish tray, along with the olives and pickled watermelon rind.) Fresh or pickled peppers or probably some hot sauce would also be good. You need to mince them up really small, though, so they get disbursed through the grain and beans. Throw that into the bowl.

Now give it a couple shakes of that cheap balsamic vinegar.

I was about to give it a tiny splash of olive oil, but then I remembered! A week ago, I had poured a small container of olive oil, and thrown in a whole lot of chopped garlic, basil leaves, rosemary needles, the end of a jar of capers, and some peppercorns. I had spilled about half of it, the day I made it, and had used a bit on pasta, but found it underwhelming. However, it was great today! I do believe I will be keeping a small jar of that brewing at all times.

So throw in a couple spoonfuls of that, making sure to scoop up some garlic and capers and leaves.

Toss, adjust seasonings. Some raw sweet onion would also be good, if you have some handy. It'll need flaky salt and fresh pepper.

We ate ours with crackers and sardines, as I was in a sardiney mood after listening to today's The Splendid Table.

Adorable knitted sardines via The Daily Green

Also this is quite delicious

2011-06-10T22:58:00.001-04:00

http://artsyville.blogspot.com/, a perfectly lovely blog
via Brady on Facebook.

The reason the internet was invented.

2011-06-10T13:34:00.002-04:00

1. @PeanutTweeter
via my brother. Random (they're NOT random, they're the funniest tweets in existence) tweets placed in the mouths of Peanuts characters. Not all work safe. Luckily, my kid can not yet read much.

2. The Vintage Collective's flickr photostream.

HUNDREDS OF PAGES of old graphics - illustrations, monograms, esoteric symbols, dingbats, plus some great contemporary designs they inspired. Plus photoshop tutorials. Heraldry! Ships! Insects! Scientific implements

just all sorts of ridiculously cool stuff, and most of it is covered by Creative Commons. This is an amazing resource. It's the personal collection of a gent named K. Sandberg.

A movie I loved.

2011-05-29T23:45:00.003-04:00

Semi-related thought (or stream-of-c0nciousness blathering) - didn't I used to love fiction? Didn't I used to read PILES of fiction? Didn't I used to write fiction, occasionally, and aspire to write fiction professionally? (Some of you haven't known me that long, but the answer to that is YES.)

I have 34 items checked out of the library right now. Aside from some animated videos, all of them a non-fiction. I haven't gotten a novel out of the library in perhaps 3 years.

This film, which I loved, is a documentary, short on interviews (short on talk of any kind) and long on concert footage and people staring out tour bus windows.

Whenever anyone asks me what my favorite film is, I answer Stop Making Sense, which I realize is nothing but concert footage.

I wonder what this means about me.

2011-05-28T21:35:00.002-04:00

This is odd.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1381464/Bunny-rabbits-compete-jumping-course-Dressage-set-world-storm.html

Microblogging on a full-feature platform.

2011-05-28T15:41:00.002-04:00

Opening day at the pool in our complex.
First family to visit the pool.
First people to swim in the pool in 2011.
First injury of 2011.

we are awesome.

Getting our stupid suits on and finding towels and car keys and things was SUCH A HUGE PRODUCTION that I spent the 1-block walk thinking mean thoughts about my husband and son. Weren't we just at the beach last week? Didn't we have a fabulously relaxing and agenda-free time? Why is it causing more stress to go to the pool for an hour than it did to go to another state for 3 days? Why is everything in the world such an enormous pain in my own personal ass?

And then it was time to cross the street. My stopped on the curb, took Eric's hand, and said "You hold Mommy's hand."
"She's carrying the towels, dude, she doesn't have a hand free for me to - "
but I shifted the bag to my shoulder and took his hand.
We crossed the street, the sun dappled through the leaves overhead.

Ian grinned.
"Look! A happy family. Just like I wanted."

When we got to the other side, Eric and I each laughed and apologized to each other for contributing to one another's grumpage.

And then Ian slipped on the pool deck and sliced his chin open.

awesome.

we're never leaving the apartment again.

Statistically Improbable

2011-05-27T22:14:00.002-04:00

Statistically Improbable Phrases used in our household today:

"Porcupine Mega-Zord!"

"enjoying the Great Zucchini"

Given recent history. I realize that a new blog post from me is also.

Look Closer.

2011-04-07T17:24:00.003-04:00

So there's this guy, right?

He takes pictures.

They are not precisely what they seem.

The guy isn't either, precisely.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/07/garden/07marwencol.html

In short - talented reprobate is assaulted, beaten nearly to death, lies in a coma for 9 days. When he wakes up, brain-injured, his drawing talent is gone, as well as his memory, his identity, and his addiction. Just one aspect of his old personality persists.

And this is what is grown up in its place.

This is by far the most interesting thing I have read in....maybe forever. PLEASE check it out.

And this one year, at puppet camp....

2011-04-02T00:06:00.002-04:00

Inspired by this TED talk, I decided to initiate a new Twitter feed focused on my summer job - puppetry. No, I am not kidding.

I'm the Director of Puppetry Arts for Mystery Academy. It's a company run by our friend Chris Bowers and my husband (Nepotism! YESSSSSSSSS. ) that creates content and teaches magic, circus arts and puppetry in camps and schools. They've been at it for several years - last summer was my first summer.

My very first paying job, when I was a teenager, was as a puppeteer. Years have passed, and I've followed the astonishing work of people like Julie Taymor (who was producing off-broadway avant garde puppet plays in the late 70s, about the same time I was flailing my arms wildly to novelty tunes played on a reel-to-reel tape player.)

Several years ago, I saw a beautiful exhibit of some of her creations at the National Museum of Women in the Arts...and I started to wonder. What if I had known that it was possible to make a living as a puppeteer? Obviously, people do. Okay, not many people, but a few. What if I had considered that as a real career, not just a pocket-change venture when I was a teen?

For one thing, I decided, I would have a much different relationship with my own body. I would be more athletic - partly naturally, from the work itself, and partly through training. I'd certainly have well-developed upper-body strength. And probably be fairly graceful. More integrated, I think. How would a professional puppeteer walk, I wondered? What would she wear?

(Obviously: black turtlenecks, beat-up jeans, bare feet. Suede boots when footwear was required. Earrings, and perhaps a nose piercing, to make up for the lack of rings and bracelets.)

And if my mind and body were better integrated - if I hadn't spent all those years thinking that my body was nothing but trouble, longing to be a brain in a jar - what would that mean for my relationships with people?

Plus, I'd be a full-time artist, designing and performing. (With maybe a little food service or hotel front-desk work on the side.) I'd be around other creative people all the time. There'd be a certain amount of whimsy in my work life, plus a decent slug of humor, both tender and bawdy. Lots of late nights. A modicum of couch-surfing. A good bit of cheap wine. Some grant-grubbing, which I would be great at because I'm so charming.

Sounded okay.

So that was the road not taken, one of many, and. good Lord, couldn't we use up what's left of our lives pondering the stuff we didn't do in the part that's already been? Romances we turned our backs on? Jobs we didn't get or turned down?

In that way, being the director of puppetry arts is a circle, a link with my past.

And there's another way.

In 1984, I had one of my life's true epic fails. I was a camp counselor, and I failed at it. Miserably. Historically.

When I was a girl, I went to Girl Scout camp every summer for many, many years. I imagined that I would grow up to be a camp counselor, maybe even a camp director, camp was such a natural and good part of my life.

When I was a college senior, and needed a job, I got a position at a girl's camp in Maryland. Being older than many of my fellow counselors, I was given older girls - 13-14 year olds, their last year of being campers. Some would be CITs the next year, but most would never be back.

It was awful.

I was sure that I would be spending the summer molding young feminist minds, helping some dear girls reach their full potential, raising their consciousness.

As you have undoubtedly figured out, these girls did not want their minds molded or their consciousnesses raised. Or otherwise interfered with. They wanted to play cassettes of "Purple Rain" and "Rio" and complain about things and NOT go swimming....you know. They wanted to be 13-year-old girls.

Apparently, I had forgotten about being a 13-year-old girl.

It was a bad match. My co-counselor, who did know about being a 13-year-old girl, was disgusted with me and had me, in effect, fired.

Except of course they couldn't fire me. So many of the other drama department staff had washed out (gotten mono, gotten fired, quit in the middle of the summer, left for the arts and crafts department) that I was actually needed as a teacher. They took me out of the cabin, moved me into staff housing (IT WAS LIKE DYING AND GOING TO HEAVEN) and had me teach double day-parts and take shifts manning the camp office instead of supervising cabin life.

So it was actually great. Plus I met one of my dearest friends, with whom I lived for many years.

Except I was a failure.

That failure has stung me for literally decades. I have shied away from teaching kids at church, volunteering with middle and high schoolers, because I was convinced that I just didn't have anything to offer kids.

But last summer, having way too much vacation accrued and way too little money, I decided to take on the puppet thing. Wrote curriculum. Designed projects. Gathered materials and books and dvds (Muppets! Giant agitprop puppets in the streets of Cambridge!)

and it was one of the best, most energizing, most rewarding things I've ever done.

So now, in effect, I am two things that I could have been but wasn't. I'm a puppeteer. And I'm a fucking great camp counselor.

And now I'm @PuppetGoddess.

all apologies.

2011-03-30T23:41:00.002-04:00

God, that was really boring, wasn't it? 2 months of nothing but videos? What was I thinking? That's just irresponsible.

Sorry. I wasn't myself.

until they sparked

2011-03-26T13:05:00.000-04:00

So we made the hard decision and we each made an incision
Past our muscles and our bones, saw our hearts were little stones
Pulled them out they weren't beating and we weren't even bleeding
As we lay them on the granite counter top

We beat 'em up against each other
We beat 'em up against each other
We struck 'em hard against each other
We struck 'em so hard, so hard until they sparked

oh, how I love this song.

2011-03-24T17:58:00.000-04:00

quoted without comment

2011-03-21T22:00:00.003-04:00

Ian shows me his 3 identical stuffed bunny toys.

Ian: "These are my two children. Their names are Glitter and Sparkle."

Me (taking one and cradling it): "Really? Which one it this?"

Ian: "That one's the boy. Glitter."

Me: "Oh! Hi, Glitter!"

Ian: "Oooh, no, that one's the girl. Sparkle. Or, um, wait, I think....no, no, I've got it now. That one's the boy. His name is GraveDigger."

through ups and downs of facing each other

2011-03-20T22:40:00.000-04:00

a video of an anteater eating cheez whiz

2011-03-16T22:06:00.001-04:00

apparently this is now a video blog.

2011-03-15T22:07:00.002-04:00

but I couldn't pass this up. You must watch it. I stumbled upon it today when I was looking for, yes, a Polyphonic Spree video to share with my boss. I have no idea how Jen, who is my actual friend in real life, even before she was a PBS blogger, award winner, famous blogger, heart-toucher, encourager of people all over the world, all that stuff she is now....anyway, I have no idea how her interview here is 'related' to the Spree, but it was a cool thing to find.

2011-02-14T15:24:00.001-05:00

Diana was my fav Project Runway contestant, those many years ago. I'm thrilled that she's still in the public eye. I got to her blog via A Dress A Day.

2011-02-14T14:09:00.001-05:00

Happy Valentine's Day!!

This is lovely

2011-02-07T13:36:00.001-05:00

Scott Schulman, my (and everyone else's) second-favorite photoblogger, steps in front of the camera for a change. Worth 7 minutes.

I DID NOT knit this.

2011-01-31T21:01:00.004-05:00

Yet. I really want to make one, but am a little frightened by the knitter who commented "The pattern is pretty easy until page 11." (In case you're curious, the pattern's free on Ravelry, called "In The Pink" and there are many breathtaking examples there. Literally, they were breathtaking.

I am looking at finishing the big knitting project I have working on since the day after Christmas. I had to look at this tutorial again which, next to Bible Gateway, is by far the most helpful piece of information of any kind on the internets.

My husband 100% RULED when he taught at a family entertainers industry convention this weekend. It's funny -he's been a professional performer, on and off, since the age of 11, and who loves to talk more than he? (Okay, besides me, I mean.) And he still gets really nervous about doing shows and especially presenting lectures! I find that surprising. And, in retrospect, adorable.

New Years Resolution:

2011-01-25T16:09:00.000-05:00

wear more hats.

check.

neologism

2011-01-25T16:05:00.002-05:00

Ian made up a new word yesterday: "flatterbrained."

Using it in a sentence: "I shouldn't have promised to bake the cake for that party - i just get so flatterbrained when people start complimenting me that I can't say no!"

sofi's crepes

2011-01-25T15:54:00.000-05:00

it's not a wall decoration, it's a site-specific work, called "choices".
new addition to the collection: museum gift shop

this might be it, actually.

fresh hot crepe with semi-sweet choc chips and marshmallows. Made a believer out of him. (I had 'the classic' - ham, gryere, dijon.)

I also badly offended Ian when I grabbed the remains of his crepe out of his hand - he was long since full and obviously uninterested - and popped it into my mouth. Just because he didn't want to eat it didn't mean I should.

For the love of all that is holy, why?

2011-01-04T22:03:00.001-05:00

via my brother.

Holiday Break

2010-12-17T11:18:00.002-05:00

yeah, like I haven't been on a break from blogging for most of the last 3 months.

Anyway, the family does have a joint holiday blog. I'm posting most of my bayberry-scented smart remarks over there at the moment.

In the past, we have found it nearly impossible to stop adding to/revising our 'Christmas letter' - so now we don't have to. We're saving trees. And stamps. And my sanity, which is in such short supply at this time of year.

Anyway:

www.mitchellhenning.blogspot.com.

Thanks for reading.

Recipe: Echiladas

2010-11-20T18:55:00.003-05:00

A friend was decluttering, and gave me a giant stack of Cooking Light magazines - maybe 4 years worth. So many that at least half of them are still stacked in my office at work. From the stack that has already come home, I was intrigued by this recipe from 2006.

I don't actually know much about enchiladas. I've never made them, I don't generally order them in restaurants, though apparently our fav place has good ones. But for some reason, I got weirdly fixated on the idea of making a pan of enchiladas.

I kept running out of this and that, and, happily, kept getting invited out to dinner, which I never turn down. But last night, having fed the kid his requested pasta, I decided to go ahead. We had 2 tortilla. We had a rotisserie chicken that was passing its prime. So, inspired by Cooking Light, I present:

Half-Assed Enchiladas

Preheat your oven to 350°.

Heat your cast-iron skillet, and squirt it with cooking spray. Cook a huge sliced onion for 5 minutes or more, until tender.

Add some cooked chicken, a couple cloves of chopped garlic, a small can of tomatoes, with their juice, and chilis.

The chilis are important. I had one can of pickled jalapenos, that looked like this:

they are tasty. They are HOT. This can is 11 oz; the recipe calls for 8 ounces. As you can guess, I used the whole can.

I recommend you use less than 11 oz of chilis.

Anyway, turn the heat down a little and simmer about 10 minutes.

Combine 2 cups milk and 2 tablespoons flour in a small pot with a little salt. Cook over medium-high heat about 5 minutes, stirring constantly. You're waitning for it to thicken, and it seems like it never will, but then all of a sudden it does. Take off the pan off the heat.

Lay a 8-inch tortilla on a plate. Spoon some of the chicken/onion/tomato/jalapeno stuff done the middle, add some shredded cheese (not much - a medium sprinkle.) You'll end up with 6 of these.

Roll each tortilla and line them up, flappy side down, in a baking dish. (if you only have 2 tortillas, like I did last night. you can use a pie pan.) Pour the milk mixture over tortilla lineup (you won't need it all if all you have is a pie pan.) Drop more shredded cheese over the top of everything, covering evenly. Bake at 350° for 20 minutes or more - until cheese is bubbly.

If the cheese isn't brown after 25 minutes, you can run these under the broiler for 2 minutes or so.

These were really really good. I was shocked, they were so good. They were sinus-clearingly spicy, and next time I make them, I believe I will use the recommended 8 oz. But we ate every bite and are anxious to make them again. Eric declared them "as good as anything I've had in a restaurant." So, half-assed pantry enchiladas for the Epic Win.

2010-11-02T14:01:00.001-04:00

The political trail may be littered with mud, lies, shouting, and personal attacks — but the polling place is sacrosanct. Here, we come to do our patriotic duty and exercise our precious right to vote. We don't come to argue, debate, or demean one another. Here, in hushed tones, we outdo one another in showing honor."

CANDACE CHELLEW-HODGE, Polling Place as Sacred Ground, posted on Religion Dispatches

God bless the election. (And God bless the election judges, on their feet for 12 hours and more, welcoming, helping, protecting, making sure. Polls here close at 8pm.

A Fabulous Story about my Glamorous Life in Vocational Ministry in which I am shown in the Best Possible Light.

2010-10-29T23:47:00.003-04:00

So, picture this scene. I'm at work, which is to say, church, on Wednesday afternoon. I'm just about on time to get out of the office and go pick up my kid, and as I run out the door and hop into the car, my phone rings in my back pocket.

I wriggle around, contorting to answer the phone. It's my husband. He has phoned me up to ask if I know where our duct tape is. Toolbox? Kitchen junk drawer? (His guess, as always, is as good as mine.)

Since I don't have much confidence in our ability to find what we need at the apartment, I slip back into the church building to borrow a roll of tape. It's in the sound booth, at the back of the sanctuary.

As I walk through the building to the booth, I continue the phone conversation with my husband. He told me why he needed the tape. As it turns out, a day or so earlier, my husband got himself a new prop for a magic effect. It is something handcrafted, rather technical, quite expensive, and terribly terribly delicate.

yes, indeed, it broke.

Joining him in his stress and irritation, I asked him a rhetorical question.

If you had overheard my side of the conversation, it would have sounded something like this:

"Umm hmmmmmm...

Ummm hmmmmmmm.... (punctuated with the slamming of cabinet doors and drawers as I search for tape in the booth.)

Really?

REALLY? Are you kidding me? And just what sort of fucking cheapass piece of shit is this, that breaks the very first fucking time one fucking rehearses with it?"

and it was then that I heard voices. Quiet, polite voices.

Prayerful voices.

Yes indeed, I was banging doors and snarling profanities into my phone while two people were holding a counseling appointment in the sanctuary. I didn't see them, and they didn't see me.

They certainly did hear me.

I stayed long enough to apologize to the boss. He, of course, thought nothing of it, and was very gracious, as he always is.

But dude.

2010-10-09T15:40:00.001-04:00

"For Halloween, I'm going to be a skeleton, except with spider legs, a lizardman tail, and the speed of wolves. And teeth."

2010-10-09T15:15:00.001-04:00

Ian's now showing his anteater to androgynous emo kid (skinny jeans, converse, dyed black shag.) He's making it talk to him/her. And expecting a response.

2010-10-09T15:06:00.001-04:00

Ian to stoner teens at the playground: "I have a Batmobile and an anteater. I also have a Spiderman comic with Doc Oc and of course his greatest enemy, Sandman"

recipe: pumpkin cookies!

2010-10-04T09:35:00.002-04:00

I made these pumpkin cookies last night. They are kind of weird - they have a texture unlike any other cookie I've ever made. They're soft and fluffy, only a tiny bit chewy around the edges, but very smooth. Someone on allrecipes compared them to muffintops, but they don't rise or have a bubbly crumb.

I added quite a lot of spices - ground cloves and ginger,allspice. Next time I make them (and I have most of a can of pumpkin left, so I imagine it won't be long) I think I'll try adding some fresh ginger and some walnuts. I'll report back.

What I Did This Week.

2010-09-21T23:03:00.001-04:00

upholstery -the after picture!
Originally uploaded by funky fat girl

I know I haven't been posting much lately. We're all moved in, though, tragically, not quite all moved out yet. We have about 2 weeks.

I do have a couple of accomplishments - 3 of these chairs, to start with. I re-covered the icky stained beige fabric seats on these chairs - you can see one to the left, with my staple gun on it - and I am so pleased with the way they came out, I can hardly contain myself. I want to carry photos of them in my wallet and show them to strangers.

I had planned to use a solid red twill on the seats; they would have played off the painted twine seats on the two ladderback chairs that I finished back in 1992, our first year in our old house. The ladderback chairs look really great in our new apartment, so I thought I'd continue the theme.

But when I got to the fabric store, this riotous print jumped into the cart and wouldn't get out. Hmmm, I thought, it has yellow - and the table and wall are pale yellow. (As you can see in the photo.) It has pale blue..and the walls in the kitchen are pale blue! Plus it has red! Plus...well, I mean, just look at it. On the bolt, it's obviously either a stroke of genius or an unmitigated disaster,

You may not believe this, but it was quite weird for me, unusually daring, to pick the print.

You know what else I did yesterday? I bought a dress.

And I wore it to work today.

2010-08-30T11:55:00.002-04:00

okay, enough with the suspense - we are moving. Across town.

We are in the midst of giving away about 50% of the stuff in our house. The Salvation Army is planning a new drop-off center just for us.

here's me

2010-08-26T22:08:00.002-04:00

created by internet champion Allie Brosh of Hyperbole and a Half.

my adventure is apparently coming in stages. This stage involves faxes and garbage bags.

Lots of faxes.

and LOTS of garbage bags.

Dinner tonight - sweet potato soup.

2010-08-17T18:00:00.004-04:00

Seriously, this came out really really good.

Cut the ends off a peeled Vidalia onion. Quarter it and then roughly chop it.
Peel a pretty big chunk - about the size of two thumbs - of ginger. Chop that.

Heat a cast iron skillet, film it generously with olive oil, and drop in the onion and ginger. Add a couple tablespoons of good curry powder (mine was hot) and turn the heat down to about 7. Give it a good stir.

Peel and chop 2 large sweet potatoes. (Take a break in the middle to stir the onion mixture so it doesn't burn.) Drop the potato chunks into the pan, stir everything together, let it cook for about a minute. Pour water into the pan, enough to mostly cover the vegetation, and cover the pan.

Leave it alone, boiling insanely, for a few minute. Even if the cover's tight, some steam will escape, so check back and make sure it doesn't boil dry. The stuff is ready when the potatoes pierce easily with a table fork.

Scrape the stuff from the pan into a food processor, and puree until very smooth.

Transfer to a saucepan, and warm gently, stirring in some skim milk. Perhaps some butter or salt. Or more curry powder, if you were timid before.

This will look troublingly like Jell-o brand instant butterscotch pudding. And it's a little washing-up intensive, with 2 pans, plus the processor, not to mention various knives/blades/boards/turner/ladle. But it's super, super fast, nutritious, and really delicious.

edited to add: here I had posted an extremely festive picture of some butterscotch pudding, which had been featured on the cover of the 1958-or-so cookbook, Gay Ways with Jell-O. But it isn't staying put. The Jell-O people must be having copyright issues. So sorry.

I've got issues.

2010-08-10T20:13:00.002-04:00

I wanted to spiff up the place, but recent "improvements" to Blogger have given me the choice of 'plain ugly' (which I have settled on for the moment) and "way way way too distractingly busy ugly" (which has been my theme for the past month or so, until tonight.)

I need to figure out how to get my old template back.

Thanks for your patience.

2010-08-10T19:41:00.002-04:00

Today is my first Godchild's birthday. Not her first birthday, which I celebrated with her. Her 17th birthday, which I celebrated 'with' her via Facebook.

Tomorrow is my blogiversary, which I celebrated by starting yet another blog. I guess, counting
my 2 LiveJournal starter blogs, Funky Fat Girl and Life With Sticky
my blogger blogs, this one, The Mulligan Years (On which i have not posted in more than a year and yet I keep thinking it's still a real blog), our "Christmas Newsletter" blog to which we post less than once a year, and now my hipster sell-out product recommendation blog, Extra-Fabulous...okay, seriously, why aren't I more famous?

Anyway, Happy 7th Blogiversary to me. And to you. Thanks for reading.

2010-07-18T12:04:00.001-04:00

Hello?

we should just quit now while we're ahead.

2010-07-18T11:56:00.000-04:00

Ian said this morning:
"Watching shows is boring. DOING shows is fun."

Dinner Tonight: beans and cornbread in the crock pot

2010-07-08T22:57:00.004-04:00

So we have this great crock pot, right? Actually, we have 2; for years, we've had a 1970 harvest gold one that belonged to Eric's family, and it still works fine.

But more recently, a friend of mine was upgrading to a more technical crock, and he gave me his excellent cooker. It looks like this:

(Well, said another friend, if you're ever called upon to make curry in a duck blind, or a tree stand, you're totally ready. )

Anyway, I made some really good beans tonight, and I wanted to tell you how to make them. I based them on a recipe in a magazine, and they're quite related to this recipe, but of course I had to do my own thing.

Place in slow cooker:
2 vidalia onions, sliced thin
2 peppers (I had a red and a yellow), sliced thin
Open a large can of beans (mine were Goya pink beans, 19+ oz) and rinse them really well, God only knows what that stuff in the can is. Add the beans to the pot.
Season with: 1 teaspoon cumin,
3 Tablespoons hot sauce,
as much leftover salsa as you have sitting around in jars in the back of the fridge,
frozen corn kernels (up to a whole bag),
2 Tablespoons brown sugar. Stir everything together and cook on low for 4-6 hours (or more.)

When you get home, check on the beans. Taste to adjust the seasonings - I added a splatter of ketchup and a small can of black beans. I also threw in a couple handfuls of greens. Stir. Turn the cooker up to high.

Now, mix up a batch of cornbread batter. I used Betty Crocker mix, which I picked because it didn't have trans fats.

While the batter thickens, sprinkle some shredded cheese on top of the beans. Then pour the batter on top of everything, spread it around, and cover the cooker. Cook on high until the cornbread bakes - it won't get fluffy, more like spoon bread than baked or skillet-ed cornbread - but it will solidify so that a knife poked into the center will come out mostly clean.

Not a low calorie meal, but meatless and very very satisfying. We loved it. I don't think I would have missed the cheese if I had skipped it, so no cheese next time.

2010-07-03T11:24:00.000-04:00

DUDE DUDE DUDE more random thoughts

2010-07-02T20:13:00.003-04:00

1. hey, my uterus - seriously, wtf?

2. One of my goddaughters has announced that, as regards the Twilight Saga, she is "Team Guy Who Tried To Run Over Bella With His Car." I say, go Maeghan.

3. I think "Your Baby Can Read" products would more honestly be called "YOUR Baby Can't Read, because of your cheapass Parenting FAIL, so SEND US MONEY resistance is futile give the fuck up already." To which I reply: Never!

4. Last Airbender cartoon FTW. Voice work, animation, art, story - all terrific.
That fact becomes even clearer as I watch Dragonball Z Kai for the first time. Lord, this is undefendible crap. Worse than Pokemon.

5. Ian ran into the kitchen this morning as Eric and I were having lunch.
Ian: Can I have the fighting, attacking Zhu Zhu Pets?
Me: Like the battling armored Kung Zhu hamsters?
Ian: YEAH!!
Eric: Maybe.
Me: Yeah, we'll see.
Ian: I want the one that's part of an angry mob.
Me: Pardon me?
Ian: The angry mob one. It has a pitchfork.

6. It's 8:30. Perhaps we should eat dinner.

EDITED AT ADD: Incidentally, taking a big plastic cup of shiraz to the playground = WIN.

100% guaranteed true

2010-07-02T18:37:00.001-04:00

Ian: When i close my eyes, all I can see is the dark.

Me: yep, that's to be expected.

Ian:....the dark, and the Crab and Lobster Army.

Mumford and Sons - Roll Away Your Stone

2010-07-01T00:14:00.000-04:00

tonight's dinner, an accident and an experiment.

2010-06-29T21:52:00.003-04:00

1. I'm so relieved that my laptop and wireless card have mysteriously begun working again that I am afraid to turn the computer off. Ever.

2. Tonight's dinner (you won't believe it):

wheat berries
stir-fried baby bok choy with garlic and peppers
marinated, grilled, sesame-crusted tofu.

a. wheat berries:

I took what I thought was a bag of brown rice from the freezer (I'm a freak, I keep all kinds of things in the freezer.) (you can see from the picture how I could mistake this for brown rice, right? ) Anyway, medium saucepan, 2 cups cold water, one cup "rice", boil over high heat and then cover and drop the heat until the water's mostly gone. You know, like you were making rice. I have no idea if this is the recommended way to cook wheat berries, but it worked great. I loved them. I never remember making them before, but there they were, in my freezer. But I like them a lot.

"They're very chewy," muttered Eric through the chewing. "Tasty. And chewy." Right on both counts.

b. stir fried greens:

(that would be what they looked like if you cooked them without chopping them up. )

slice garlic cloves, chop greens. Heat a frying pan (I have never gotten the hang of the wok, sadly, despite having had several over the years.) Film with neutral oil (like, vegetable rather than olive.) Cook garlic for 3-4 minutes until it starts to brown JUST A TINY BIT. Add greens. Keep stirring.

Note: Huge amounts of raw greens will cook down to nearly nothing. Plan on chopping a completely ridiculous amount, or your portions, though tasty, will be invisible to the naked eye.

Also Note: Please do a better job washing your bok choy than I did. It's kind of like leeks, in terms of grit retention.

c. Tofu.
(This is pretty close to what it actually looked like.)

Today, because it was on sale and because we are on this wacked-out vegetarian kick, I bought some tofu. It was pre-packaged, in the conventional white-people chain supermarket, two qualities that a Korean co-worker warned me against, but I bought it anyway. The label said it was made from sprouted soybeans, and was more nutritious. Whatever; it was packaged in a manageable-sized package (my health kicks are traditionally marked by a good deal of thrown-out tofu) and it was on sale.

It was much better, in flavor and texture, than the national-brand stuff I have bought in the past. Score one for the supermarket! (i almost said "Score one for the white people!" But that just seemed inappropriate, in some way I can't put my finger on exactly.)

I opened a package, drained it briefly but did not squish the fluid out as I usually do. I sliced it into patties and marinated them briefly (less than 10 minutes) in a mixture of Asian vinegar, honey, black pepper, soy sauce, ONE drop of fish sauce and about one drop of sesame oil.

When I removed the patties from the marinade, I dredged them in sesame seeds (which I keep in the FREEZER) and grilled them on the well-oiled George Foreman.

despite the oiling, this led to a lot of well-cooked sesame seeds stuck to the Foreman, which has surrendered its non-stick coating.

I boiled the left-over marinade in the microwave, hoping to reduce it (it didn't seem to reduce at all) and splashed some over the finished tofu patties.

This wasn't completely perfect, but I am pretty damned pleased with myself for making it up, completely off the top of my head, and having it turn out so well.

I squeezed a lemon over the whole plate.

Seriously. It was actually very good. Lots of different textures and flavors: the chewy, popping wheat berries, the crunchy and grill-marked tofu, the slippery greens with some still-crisp stalks, the brightness of the lemon, the depth of the soy and fish sauce...the seasonings need work, and Eric gave up on the wheat berries eventually (his jaw was tired), but definitely a worthwhile experiment.

The success of the experiment was helped by the fact that Eric had the Veria channel on in the background all afternoon, and had just seen an hour-long cooking show all about quinoa. I think this paved the way for the accidental wheat berries.

Eric is off to the natural foods market tomorrow, without me, so God only knows what we'll be eating in next week. I am encouraged and apprehensive in equal amounts.

two completely fabulous things I found on the internet today:

2010-06-28T21:10:00.002-04:00

That was tonight's dinner. That's her photo - our dinner was not as pretty, but just as delicious. I am a huge fan of Heidi Swanson's 101 Cookbooks site,and I think you should be too.

and

I am somewhat weirded out by the way Allie Brosh, in her blog Hyperbole and a Half, not only describes how I often feel but, in fact, ILLUSTRATES IT.

"[after a couple days of accomplishment] What usually ends up happening is that I completely wear myself out. Thinking that I've earned it, I give myself permission to slack off for a while and recover. Since I've exceeded my capacity for responsibility in such a dramatic fashion, I end up needing to take more recovery time than usual. This is when the guilt-spiral starts.

The longer I procrastinate on returning phone calls and emails, the more guilty I feel about it. The guilt I feel causes me to avoid the issue further, which only leads to more guilt and more procrastination. It gets to the point where I don't email someone for fear of reminding them that they emailed me and thus giving them a reason to be disappointed in me.

Then the guilt from my ignored responsibilities grows so large that merely carrying it around with me feels like a huge responsibility. It takes up a sizable portion of my capacity, leaving me almost completely useless for anything other than consuming nachos and surfing the internet like an attention-deficient squirrel on PCP."

Dude, seriously. That's my life. That's been my life for as long as I can remember, and I have never been able to tell anyone about it so clearly or completely. I've been able to let go of some of the guilt and regret about it in the last couple of years (I think I'm a lot older than Allie, and I think advancing age helps you say "ah, fuck it" more easily). But over the last year I've been learning things about myself that have helped me come to grips with that, that STUFF, the fact that the inside of my brain is what she puts into words.

so go read that.

still alive.

2010-06-18T20:14:00.004-04:00

Haven't been able to blog much lately, which may well be for the best:

computer broken (I think it's the wireless card AGAIN)

brain broken (by a summer cold, blah)

pre-schooler has broken into my toolbox, which will be NO END OF TROUBLE. Now I have to either padlock it, or find a new place to hide it.

garbage disposal has been leaking a little, and as of today is leaking A LOT. ick, ick, ick.

hung up the hammock today, and nearly killed myself getting into it. Apparently I have been knitting so long that the only knot I remember how to make is a slip knot. Pffft.

AND YET it must be said that, even though practically everything around me at the moment seems to be somewhat damaged, or at least in need a good wipe and maybe some hand sanitizer...

i am working on an adventure.

2010-06-06T22:30:00.000-04:00

jeez, I wish I had something to write about.
I'm knitting something kinda cool.
work's going okay.
Where are all those sites about which I said "Oooh, I should blog that!"?

Something beautiful

2010-05-28T14:47:00.002-04:00

It's never good news when you're in the bathroom shouting "Aim! AIM!!"

2010-05-17T22:33:00.003-04:00

we've recently convinced our son to start sleeping in his own room, rather than wedged in between me and Eric.

Tonight, he went down after 8, nearly without incident. A few minutes ago, I heard him crying quietly, and when he kept it up for a couple of minutes, I went upstairs to see what was wrong.

He was in one of those half-awake states, running in circles and crying, eyes open, slapping the front of his pajama bottoms. Ooops, I said to myself. I know what that means.

"You have to go, don'tcha, dude?" I ask, but he can't actually hear me. I take him my the arm and start to hustle him to the bathroom.

He decides he's already IN the bathroom and starts to remove his jammies.
I tug them back up and hustle with renewed focus.

When he has to go really bad, even when he's fully awake, he panics and forgets the procedure. I got him to stop hopping up and down, and got him positioned in front of the toilet. His aim, which is Olympic-marksman perfect under other circumstances, is a little off, and he sprays down the room before getting things under control. He's still crying softly.

After cleaning him up, I wipe up the floor and wall, and Ian starts to giggle. And I start to giggle. We sit on the moderately icky tile floor and laugh until we can't walk, can't stand up, can't breathe. He creeps into my lap and we cling to each other, trying to catch our breath.

He's asleep again before his head hits the pillow.

mother of the year

2010-04-30T18:54:00.002-04:00

Hi there. I'm at the New Wave IHOP, one of Laurel's landmarks, and the site of several very significant events in my life and the life of our little family. It was here Eric and I spent several of the hours of our first post-college date, here I wrote a journal entry that was the first writing I ever shared, here we celebrated Ian's first birthday and, I think, Sandy's 40th.

And right now, it's where Ian is sleeping. He is so completely laid out that I am tempted to hold a butterknife under his nose, to make sure his breath fogs it up.

I have finished my crepes (and a certain percentage of his 'kids eat free' pancake) and written in my paper journal. And now i'm thumbin' away on my Blackberry. Next: a few more rows on the shawl I started (and started over, and started over again.) Can I watch Hulu on this thing? If I can catch up on Glee while this waitress bring me iced tea, we may never have to leave.

My original intent was to confess what a crap parent I am, happy to let my kid sleep, sweat-pasted to a vinyl restaurant booth, while I people-watch and write and swill iced tea, possibly until well after dark.

Restaurants (inexpensive ones) (I'm actually guessing, my experience in fancy restaurants remains limited) are such an interesting study in family dynamics. Back when Eric used to do a call-in radio show, and sometimes meet clients afterwards, I spent many happy hours in the deli near the radio station. I'd munch on pickles and pretend to read a library book...and evesdrop. Perhaps this made me the neglectful mother I am today. Er, tonight.

The dad at the next booth is also thumbing madly, cradling his head in the other hand. His infant is awake, but can't do much.

And someone at a nearby table is digging into some unidentifiable entree that smells very unfortunate. I'm not sure the quality of peoplewatching is a fair trade for having to smell that. (This from a woman who routinely roasts a pound of Brussels sprouts for just herself.)

So to recap: evesdropper, cook (and enthusiastic eater) of stinky vegetables, helps herself to her sleeping child's pancake, loves indefensible 80s pop music, Mother of the year.

Good tipper, though.

corduroy

2010-04-29T23:30:00.000-04:00

everything has changed
absolutely nothing's changed

It's been a month. Have some cake.

2010-04-25T18:49:00.002-04:00

At the moment:
the kid is sick.
the husband is at the grocery.
I am covered with paint.
Also chocolate.

(I scraped a little something off my shirt and licked my finger a moment ago, not thinking that it might have been acrylic rather than cake batter. I lucked out.)

THIS is my favorite cake recipe, combining, as it does, ease, pantry ingredients, deliciousness and fanciness.

I found this in a La Madeleine cookbook that my brother gave me years ago. As near as I can tell, this book is not currently available (which is kind of a drag, because it's quite good and I can't find my copy, but it does make me feel better about putting the recipe here.)

Cake Tres Simple

Put some water on to boil, and preheat the oven to 400.

In addition to a cake pan and a couple of bowls, you'll need a large pan to use as a bain marie, some parchment or foil, and a spoon rest.

Put 2 sticks of butter and 9 oz of chocolate in a bowl. (I usually combine a cup of chocolate chips with 3 oz of unsweetened baking chocolate.) Melt this by nuking 30 seconds, stirring with a fork of a minute or so, and repeating until its completely smooth and liquid.

Transfer this to the bowl of your mixer, if you have one. Mix in:
4 eggs (one at a time)
then 1 cup of sugar (a quarter cup at a time)
then 3/4 cup of flour (also a quarter cup at a time.) Scrape down the sides and mix one more time.

To prepare the pan - butter a cake pan, and cut a circle of parchment or foil to fit the bottom of the pan. Dust the pan with cocoa (FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE, DO THIS OVER THE SINK. SERIOUSLY.) Transfer the batter into the cake pan - it's thicker than regular batter, you'll have to spread it in the pan.

When the oven is ready, put the larger bain marie pan on a middle rack, pour in about an inch of hot water, then gently place the filled cake pan in it.

Bake for 25 minutes, then start checking. The cake forms sort of a 'crust' on the outside, while the inside stays a little gooey (in a good way.) A knife or toothpick should come out mostly clean. It'll be done somewhere between 30 and 50 minutes.

Ideally, you would let this cool completely in the pan, and let it rest overnight. To serve, unmold it onto a plate, gently peel off the parchment, and dust with powdered sugar.

This is a serious cake.

2010-03-26T13:19:00.002-04:00

I can't get this funny thing to embed properly, so you'll have to go here and watch it.

Please do.

via @scottmccloud

2010-03-23T22:21:00.001-04:00

apparently I am procrastinating

2010-03-22T23:30:00.000-04:00

2010-03-22T21:18:00.001-04:00

You can read it in the Sunday Papers...

2010-03-19T15:10:00.002-04:00

So a blogger I enjoy, Alice, who writes Finslippy, now has a regular column in the women's magazine Redbook and at Redbookmag.com. Because I find her to be a stitch - does anyone say that anymore, to characterize someone who is witty? I bet not even old people say that anymore - at any rate, she's just a stitch, so upon seeing that she was writing for a real live magazine, I surfed right over to read her first column.

It made me laugh out loud, and was a fitting evocation of an experience I had all the time when Ian was younger, when, out of sheer exuberance and poor depth perception, he would routinely smack us. Really hard!! With no aggression or malice - more as a greeting! Or to say thank you! My dentist informs me that one of my teeth - the one that still tingles randomly, a year later - bears the marks of 'trauma'. Perhaps a head-butt. I can't even remember an impact from around that time, but it wouldn't surprise me one bit.

Dude, the day I have to get a root canal, that child had better be hand-puree-ing my food, fluffing my pillows and standing at the ready with the Percoset 24 hours a day.

Anyway, I'm an older lady now, and occasionally I need things like moisturizer recommendations and slow-cooker recipes, so I poked around the Redbook website for a few minutes.

Something I didn't know: Redbook is a veritable fount of, get this, sex advice. (They just don't put it on their cover like Cosmo does.)

I noticed this, since there's a block of links at the bottom of this page, and the first category is "sex and love". But the second link stopped me in my tracks:

"New sex positions".

REALLY? Are there really literally new sex positions? Are they new to the editors? New to (gulp) me? They might be, but I cannot imagine that there are actually any NEW sex positions.

And of course, being a new-wave girl, I now have Joe Jackson poundung in my head.

The volume's a little low on this clip. So, um, pump up the volume or whatever.

fainting from the lovliness:

2010-03-16T22:17:00.002-04:00

and if that wasn't enough:

via @knitthecity, via adfreak

Dinner tonight - a pretty, good salad.

2010-03-15T22:13:00.002-04:00

We went out to breakfast today, and Eric and I each ate a huge plate of SOMETHING NO ONE SHOULD EVER EAT - mine included cheese, bacon, sour cream, potatoes, and 2 fried eggs with runny yolks.

It was absolutely delicious.

I spent the day mentally running through the signs of stroke and cardiac arrest.

So for dinner, we had a really pretty salad.

Microwave a huge sweet potato for about 8 minutes. It should be cooked but not totally cooked.

dice a red bell pepper.

peel a carrot, discard the peels and then keep peeling, so you end up with wide, translucent ribbons of carrot.

Once the microwave dings, leave the sweet potato alone for a while. Then, holding it with an oven mitt, slice the peel off and carefully dice the sweet potato. Throw all those veggies in a bowl.

Make a vinagrette. Mine contained apple cider vinegar, olive oil, orange juice, salt, pepper, sugar, and a squirt of Dijon mustard.

Pour the vinegrette over the red and orange veggies in the bowl; add the green parts of 2 spring onions, clipped small. Let this sit for 5-10 minutes.

Open a can of chick peas and rinse and drain them.

Using dinner plates, plate some butter lettuce (mine was a Salad Express bagged mix, and it was really good!) Add a large portion of chick peas, and a couple serving-spoon-fuls of the red and orange mixture. Serve.

It's gorgeous, and a great mix of textures and tastes, plus it's a really balanced meal because of the chick peas.

How my life has been for the last 4 years:

2010-03-15T21:46:00.003-04:00

I sat down after dinner, in the comfy chair in the living room.
I closed my eyes.
40 seconds or so went by.
I could feel my son crawl up into my lap.

He crouched on my left thigh, and, very gingerly, with his thumb and forefinger, and pulled my eyelid open, so he could stare into my eye.

"Um, hi," I said.

"Hi, Mom." He said it in a heartfelt way, as if he'd been expecting me, as if I had just arrived to visit him at his apartment.

And I thought, there is it. There is my life, the last 5 years of my life, and presumably the next 15 or 20, all condensed into a single minute.

I was awful to him today - short-tempered, sarcastic, crabby. To be fair, he was pretty obnoxious too; as much as we enjoy cartoons together, he's picking up some phrases and inflections that are pretty unbecoming for a 4-year-old. I think we need to cool it on the animated smartasses.

I love him. I'm so proud of him, so fascinated by him, so astonished by him, and so so so so sick of him.

I'm embarrassed that I'm not more embarrassed by that. But not enough to backspace over it.

Confession Time:

2010-03-07T23:50:00.002-05:00

would you believe that I am fb chatting with my bff ABOUT CELEBRITIES STRETCH MARKS?

I am ashamed.

Jesus loves me anyway, but jeez.

2010-03-05T01:36:00.001-05:00

2010-03-05T00:27:00.003-05:00

I am now 48.

Or, as I said to Carl the other day, 18 - with 3 decades of experience.

Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come - just in the past 5 or so years, in fact - and I think that, including everything, I am probably the happiest I have ever been.

Tomorrow night - a movie, in an actual movie theatre! With my actual husband!

And then dinner! A dinner at which no one will offer us a paper placemat or a package of cellophane-bagged crayons. No juice boxes will be produced from my giant, magical carpet bag.

In fact, I will leave my tiger-striped Mary Poppins bag in the closet. I will carry a tiny clutch. With no plastic dinosaurs in it.

(and I will sit at a table in a restaurant, mooning over some stranger's baby. Just watch. I can practically guarantee it.)

2010-03-02T01:01:00.003-05:00

graphic c. 2009, core77, from here. All rights reserved, I'm sorry, please don't sue me.

My birthday's coming up this week, and I just wanted to commemorate this aspect of my life.

I started journaling in earnest - after a few false starts and assigned class projects in high school - on my birthday, 15 years ago. I don't write every day (by a damn sight) and I don't write in tremendous volume, but for the last 15 years, I have never been without a notebook to catch my most boring, mundane, totally-not-worth-sharing thoughts and feelings, sketches of outfits I've seen, designs for bags, sweaters, and completely unwearable tops, jokes, book titles (ones that I want to read and ones that I want to write), notes about great dishes I've eaten, indecipherable diagrams, sarcastic cartoons during sincere ministry meetings, and the fortunes from a hundred cookies.

I was about to write about how 'journaling has kept me sane."

But, since I filled my prescriptions today, I'm reminded that that would not be technically true.

Nonetheless, I want to say that there is something of inestimable value is honoring your story by writing it down, especially if you expect that no one else will ever see it. That, in this world, someone cares what you think - even if it's just you.

So this is my advice to you. Get a notebook. Get a decent pen. Carry it around. Write shit down. Process stuff on the page. Bitch about your spouse. Worship your dry cleaner. Write about your sex life. You don't have to be fair, and it doesn't have to make sense, not even to you, if you were to read it later. You don't have to read it later. Draw your terrible, terrible pictures that would mortify your elementary school art teacher. If you're really into it, you can carry colored pencils and a glue stick, like I do.

It really will make a difference.

2010-02-24T23:34:00.001-05:00

"I think that cheese might have died in that cottage."
I am obsessed with Fanboy and ChumChum.

2010-02-24T23:22:00.001-05:00

Testing my mobile blogger. Did a 'yoga for beginners' dvd routine tonight. Used to pride myself on my flexibility. Um, not now. Maybe again, but not now.

Unlikely and Awesome.

2010-02-22T23:10:00.003-05:00

Last night, I made the most awesome-smelling foodstuff I have ever made - a kind of garlic-basil pesto, which came about when I filled my mini-food-processor (YES I have 2 food processors. I got this little one, a cuisineart mini-prep, for making baby food; my brother gave me its big sister for Christmas a couple years ago.) Anyway, whiz up about 10 cloves of garlic, peeled, a big handful of basil leaves (I buy the fresh and keep them in the freezer). about a tablespoon of sea salt, about a teaspoon of peppercorns, and once all that dry stuff is chopped up, drizzle in 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil. It makes a thick, chunky pale green paste that smells better than any other food item I have ever made.

I made this to stuff into slits in a pork shoulder, before I unwrapped the pork shoulder and found that it was, um, had been in our fridge wayyy tooooo loooong. Geh! So now I have this little bowl of astounding yumminess and no meat to season with it. And...scene.

Well, tonight, after putting the adorable child to bed, I came down to the kitchen to hunt for some food. I was pleased to find some Brussels sprouts. Oh, how I love Brussels sprouts! And incidentally, that bag of sprouts had been in the fridge even longer than the pork shoulder had. But sprouts survive much better than The Other White Meat. Believe me.

So here's something really good to do with Brussels sprouts.

Wash and clear the gross-looking outer leaves from some sprouts - how much? Oh, I don't know, like 3 cups? Anyway, clean your sprouts, cut the stem ends off, and quarter each one.

Heat up a cast-iron skillet over high heat. Reduce the heat a bit (say from 10 to 8) and film the skillet with olive oil. Let that heat up for about a minute, and drop in a tablespoon or so of the chopped garlic stuff.

Stir it around, and drop in the sprouts. Leave them undisturbed for a minute or two, maybe pressing down on them with your spatula, to brown them. Stir, cook, press. Stir, cook, press. Once things are a showing a little brown, pour in a half-cup of water and cover the pan.

Stir occasionally. Cook until you can pierce the sprouts with a fork with a little effort. Remove the lid and keep cooking until the water evaporates. Sprinkle with a little salt and a little grated Parmesan.

Seriously.

I wouldn't even know I liked Brussels sprouts if not for Heidi Swanson's Golden Crusted Brussels Sprouts recipe on 101 Cookbooks. I love the photography on her site, and every recipe I've ever tried from it has been great.

expect an upswing in blog posts

2010-02-16T23:04:00.002-05:00

in volume, if not quality.

I am giving up knitting for lent.

I know, it's unbelievable, isn't it? Recently I have been rather productive in the knitting area - mittens, hats, a nice triangular shawl...but also a little obsessive. The other night, I was blasting away on row after row, and it was gorgeous and fast and worthwhile and not fiddley at all, and it occurred to me that if I wanted a challenging practice, I could give up knitting for Lent.

I laughed out loud when I thought that, but I also had kind of a sinking feeling. I have begun to suspect that maybe I think/read/sketch/work on my knitting a little too much, maybe at the expense of other things...like attention to Eric and Ian. Like sometimes, my knitting is a way of disengaging. I don't see it as a terribly unhealthy way, and I think it's good to have interests that are just mine, involving neither work nor Eric's work nor The Backyadigans.

But I'm giving up knitting for 40 days for the same reason I gave up blogging last year - because I love it, because I already miss it...in fact it feels a little tragic (melodramatic? Moi?) and I feel a little nervous, like whatever will I do with myself? Or like I'm putting a beloved pet in a kennel for a month. I've been feeling wistful ever since I decided.

(Why, yes, I am a very unusual person. How nice of you to notice.)

Anyway, before I go to bed tonight, I'm actually going to stash my stash in the sewing room. I usually keep a couple of projects, in baskets and cache pots, out where I can admire them, or pick them up and work a few rows while plastic dinosaurs maraud around the carpet. Tonight at the library, I intentionally didn't take out or renew any pattern books.

Seriously, this is going to be hard. That's why I'm doing it.

the windup

2010-02-12T09:48:00.001-05:00

IMG00195.jpg
Originally uploaded by funky fat girl

lazy Saturday

2010-01-30T17:16:00.002-05:00

Snow: 3 inches and still falling like crazy.
Husband: drove an hour to entertain at a one-year-old's birthday party in Frederick.
Entertainment here: Ice Age 3, the Emperor's New Groove.
Lunch: Avocado burritos
Also made: apple/cranberry cobbler - far from perfect (a little too wet, the topping isn't as crispy as I imagined, but hey - it's homemade cobbler. How bad can it be?)
and spicy Chai, in my seemingly eternal quest to make some as good as I get at Sorrettis for a dollar. I'm closer today than usual.

My son now - at nearly 6 - want to go out and play in the snow. I told him that would mean putting on a whole lot of clothes, to which he has in theory agreed. (I imagine he'll punt when he's about half-way dressed. I know I would. He has requested his 'turtletop'. (It's a long-sleeved knit shirt with that high neck...you call it something similar. We speak our own language here.)

Ooooh - I changed my mind. Buy me this instead.

2010-01-28T22:20:00.002-05:00

2 minutes ago, I had no idea these existed. Now I am devoting my night to acquiring one. And maybe some for gifts.

somebody buy me this

2010-01-28T21:27:00.004-05:00

just kidding, they're sold out. (But if they weren't, they'd be here.)

The Dude and I have been 'batchin' it' for a couple of days now, while World's Best Husband is off at a convention. EVERYTHING has gone completely to shit around here. Hygene, discipline, nutrition, housekeeping. Everything. We have to turn into the white tornado tomorrow (which means I will be whirling around cleaning and the Dude will be motionless in front of Fanboy and Chumchum, which is okay with me.)

I have been remiss at participating in the @platea knitting project. Haven't lifted a finger on that, either.

I did make Rice Krispie Treats tonight.

For dinner.

yeah, we recycled our tree too.

2010-01-16T19:30:00.001-05:00

via Sweetney.com

and speaking of knitting:

2010-01-16T00:43:00.002-05:00

IF you craft, you may think this is interesting. I do.

Basically, all over the world, a whole bunch of people will be making art (or perhaps just making stuff) at the same time, following instructions from people on Twitter. It's mostly targetted at knitters, and there'll be some knitting technical talk and especially abbreviation in the tweets, but the writer specifically mentions that it would be interesting to see how other art forms interpret the instructions.

Obviously I won't be knitting with my Blackberry in hand (right, picture THAT) for the entire duration of the 'performance piece.'
/DIGRESSION: In all probability, I will have no audience, so with my theatre background it's hard for me to think of this as a performance... but it is people all over the world performing an action, intentionally, at the same time. So that's what it's called. A performance. I am being held back by the old-fashioned art education, obviously./disgression/

Anyway, I can probably devote an hour a day to this, evenings, on the days it's happening (Jan 25-29.) I'll document it here. Somehow. I am fascinated by this idea.

off to retweet -

I said I would return.

2010-01-16T00:23:00.002-05:00

Or, maybe I didn't. I wasn't actually sure that I would return. I had a brief and mild stomach bug, which wouldn't be a big deal for a normal person but made me whine uncontrollably. (In actual fact, what I was doing uncontrollably was shivering. For HOURS.)

There is nothing like a couple of awful days to make you appreciate just how fabulous your regular days are.

I should have that made into one of those huge vinyl wall decals, and put it where I would see it upon waking up in the morning.

Anyway, speaking of knitting (were we? Am I ever not speaking of knitting?) I am in the middle of 2 projects at the moment -

a simple wool watch cap, which I have turned into a 2-month project by deciding it should be in 1x1 ribbing. It's part of a Christmas present - I made 2 people mittens for Christmas, and then decided at the last minute that they needed hats too. So, um, Alex? If you're wondering where your mittens are? They're standing at the bus stop, checking their watch, waiting for their matching hat. (And the Clock Said Four of Two.)

and

a huge rectangular wrap that's designed to use up all the millions of single skeins and half-balls or cheesy novelty yarn that I've bought over the years. It's got fuzz! It's got glitter! It's got slubs! It's got rayon rainbow wraps! It's got lace rows between the garter stitch rows! I love every single bit of man-made, faux-glamourous, falsely-economical yarn in the thing, and since I the colors I love fall into one of two families, so far (despite my disclaimers) it is actually not an eyesore. Yet. I keep waiting for it to fall over the edge into crazy-lady-land.

Anyway, the hat is in my bag, for working on in a quiet moment; the Thing is upstairs beside the bed in a huge bowl, where all the glittery fuzzy things keep winding into knots with one another. It's like Plato's Retreat for acrylic. I have no idea if this thing will ever be done.

Here's the other motto we should have lettered somewhere in our house - we used to have it on a piece of yellow legal paper on the wall in Eric's office:

Stop When You're Done.

Hmmph. It's been a while.

2010-01-07T21:53:00.002-05:00

but of course I barely have a moment to myself, between setting up my new blackberry and facebooking everyone's unmentionables and whatnot.

I am thinking about starting a monthly or more-than-monthly knitting evening at my house. This has only one advantage over the various weekly knitting meetings of which I am already a part -that I would not have to leave my house to go to it.

Plus it will make sure the house is semi-presentable at least a couple times a month.

A couple of local peeps on fb said they'd be interested. Hmmm.

And so, this Blackberry. I am handling it pretty well so far, setting convenience buttons and choosing from the AWFUL pre-loaded ring tones and wondering how many songs it will hold. I have exactly 3 phone numbers in it - apparently I have to go to the Verizon Store and have them install my card or download something or wave a chicken over their heads while they recite a secret incantation in order to get my phone numbers off the Razr and onto this thing.

I am pretty sure that I don't like getting email in my pants pocket. All day long.

Which reminds me, I have to turn off the cute little noise it makes when email comes in. It was cute when I set it last night, at least.

for the new year

2009-12-30T23:17:00.002-05:00

unwrap our darkness from jonny baker on Vimeo.

images: Jonny Baker
Text: Cheryl Lawson

just click

2009-12-21T11:53:00.001-05:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sgoralnick/4200349529/

Tonight's recipes:

2009-12-19T01:09:00.002-05:00

Curried Potatoes and Peas - this is tasty but a little spicy for me. Perhaps I was a little casual with the doubling of the spices. I used waxy potatoes - I think fluffier ones might have thrown off some starch and thickened the gravy. Still, popular and nice for a snowy evening and a worthy basis for further refinements.

Cranberry Relish:

Combine: 16 ounces fresh cranberries (that's one bag plus some) rinsed and picked over; 2 cups sugar; 1/2 cup fresh orange juice; 1 tablespoon orange zest; and a tablespoon of fresh grated ginger. Put all that in a sauce pan, and heat over medium heat until the berries pop open, about 10 minutes. Skim the foam off the surface with a spoon and discard. Cool to room temperature. Refrigerate, covered, up to 3 months. Apparently, you can freeze it too, though we have never tried that.

This is an adaptation of a Sheila Lukins recipe from Parade. It's really hard to screw up.

We buy cranberries when they're cheap and keep them in the freezer.

"Kalamity!" Kry Kiddies

2009-12-17T22:18:00.003-05:00

HOW DID IT GET TO BE DECEMBER?
HOLY LORD!

We are playing are annual Christmas game - no, not "Replace the Sound Operator for the Christmas Eve Service which is in SEVEN DAYS OH MY LOVING GOD HELP ME" - but instead, "Who Would You Cast in Miracle on 34th Street if you were making it This Year?" I always try to work in serious method actors like Daniel Day Lewis and John C. Reilly.

Every year, I suggest making the Shelhammers a male couple. Those refined, well-dressed men with their bow ties and hats, who speak so precisely and work in retail management - it's not much of a stretch. So I'm forever trying to figure out what man should stand in for Mrs. Shelhammer - you know, the lady whose husband has plied her with triple-strength martinis to get her to consent to have Santa move in? It's my favorite part. This year, I am stumping for Steve Carrell as Mr. Shelhammer who works at Macy's. I haven't decided who the other Mr. Shelhammer should be.

Eric always tries to cast West Wing people. Well, that's just silly.

As for me, I am a writing fool and a knitting fool, and tomorrow I will be a cooking fool as well. Oh - and a Cricut-ing fool, too, like last year. We (I) cut paper shapes, and people use them to make ornaments for the sanctuary Christmas trees. (Plus I cut a bunch of stars and snowflakes for our house.)

Last weekend, Ian seemed to have made HUGE leaps forward in terms of being not merely obedient but actually agreeable. This week, in response to all our praise and irrational exhuberance, he has made Barishnokov-worthy leaps in the other direction.

It's the most wonderful time of the year.

Some companies actually could benefit from random drug testing.

2009-12-12T17:00:00.005-05:00

Ian and I sat around in our pajamas all day watching TV (we're resting up for a party tonight.) (Ian is currently resting by smashing his forehead into my shoulder. Excuse typos.)

Anyway. ABC Family (which retains a decided lead in the wtf race, since just about every program, promo and even sponsor I see on the channel makes me say "WTF is your programming philosophy, mission statement, target demographic...i just totally don't get it." ) was running a slew of Rankin-Bass stop-motion Christmas specials, including Nestor the Christmas Donkey, Rudolph's Shiny New Year, and the bizarrely fascinating Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July.

Here is Wikipedia's plot synopsis. (You may be wondering if this is one of those instances when Wikipedia was pranked, like the person wrote that Senator Ted Stevens was 108 years old, or the Wonderpets! entry that is all about your mamma. Because that couldn't actually be the narrative of a children's program right? RIGHT? Maybe a Dickens novel (specifically Bleak House) or perhaps an unproducer Lars Von Trier screenplay.

Plot

Long time ago, the evil wizard king Winterbolt has caused havoc upon the people who have entered his domain. He is then punished by Lady Boreal when she places a spell that puts him in a deep sleep.

Years later, Winterbolt is awake. In her final act of magic, Boreal transfers the last of her power into Rudolph's red nose, which will stop glowing if it is ever used for evil. Winterbolt learns of this and plans not only to dispose of Rudolph, the only power capable of stopping him, but also to reclaim his territory from Santa Claus. To achieve this, Winterbolt plans to take advantage of Frosty and his family. At the same time, Rudolph's ice cream man friend Milton arrives and tells Rudolph and Frosty that he plans to attract the heart of Milton's girlfriend, the high-wire act Laine Loraine.

Winterbolt offers Frosty magic amulets that will keep his family from melting and enable them to attend a Fourth of July Circus in which Rudolph is to star, but they will only be protected until the end of the event. Santa agrees to pick up Frosty and his wife Crystal before the magic wears off, but Winterbolt has his ice dragons blow up a blizzard to prevent Santa from arriving on time. Winterbolt also recruits an evil, unintelligent reindeer named Scratcher to try to get Rudolph to turn, or at least appear evil in the eyes of his friends. With the blizzard keeping Santa from getting to them, time was not on the side of Frosty and family. When Scratcher arrives, he forms an alliance with Sam Spangles during the parade.

Scratcher, taking advantage of Rudolph's kindness, steals money from the circus and sets up Rudolph to take the blame. Rudolph agrees to appear guilty after making a deal with Winterbolt, to extend the powers of the amulets Frosty's family wears for an infinite time in exchange. Frosty's family, friends, and the circus' owner and Laine's mother, Lilly Loraine, are upset when Rudolph lies to them about how he stole the money and his nose stops glowing. Only Frosty knows the truth and wants to restore Rudolph's glowing nose. Winterbolt takes advantage of Frosty as well by lying and agreeing to do it in exchange for Frosty's hat, with intention to use the magic powers of Frosty's hat to create an army of snowmen. Rudolph manages to steal back the hat, and his nose regains its glow.

After Rudolph returns to the circus with Frosty's hat, Winterbolt attacks which ends with him turning into a tree when Lilly throws her iron guns onto his scepter destroying it. Once Winterbolt is vanquished, Scratcher has not been seen again, and Sam is arrested, all the spells he has cast are negated and Frosty and his family are in danger of melting once again. However, Jack Frost, the villain from the previous Frosty's Winter Wonderland (but in the "animagic" form from another Rankin-Bass special called Jack Frost), arrives on Big Ben, who's Rudolph's whale friend from the previous Rudolph's Shiny New Year, to rescue his former enemy and family as they are whisked back to the North Pole by Santa, but Rudolph stays behind to help the circus out of debt. The special ends with a rendition of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", sung by the entire cast.

Well! How was it, trying to follow that? That was a summary. The author chose not to mention that:

1. Milton the ice cream man delivers his ice cream from a hot air balloon.

2. Winterbolt the wizard learns of Rudolph's magic powers by talking to an ICE GENII, which is a mountain of ice with stelagtite teeth and glowing eyes.

3. Along with his fierce and deadly TWO-HEADED ICE DRAGON, which moves in slow motion (watching it brought to mind the earlier stop-motion animation in films like 7th Voyage of Sinbad)

some villianous personage (I assume the wizard, I was a little addled by this time) has at his command GIANT FLYING SNAKES which can fly over, warp around you, and then fly off with you in their coils.

4. Frosty and Rudolph sing an extended version of "Why Am I Such A Misfit?" There are a great many musical numbers to break up the relentless driving action.

5.The lady who runs the circus is Ethel Merman. In a cowboy hat.

Whales? Armies of Snowmen? Sam Spangles, who is in fact indistinguishable from Professor Hinkle, the magician in the animated Frosty the Snowman? Ian noticed that one.

Anyway, I sat there with my jaw on the ground, through this, and Rudolph's Shiny New Year, which features Ben Franklin and a cave man. By that point, I had kind of given up.

better

2009-12-11T22:15:00.002-05:00

everything is much better. Ian and I had a grand day at the art museum, although we spent so much time discussing Cyclops (the Greek monster, not the X-Man) and the Hydra that I am braced for nightmares. His, not mine.