Lime Juice

Day 7...I guess this is a little early in the NaBloPoMo to be running out of steam, and actually I've got some good post ideas but I just don't feel like spending the time tonight.

So this is the post where I simply tell you that lime juice is a miracle ingredient. I remembered that tonight while making fried rice. It's my secret ingredient. I make pretty dang tasty fried rice, and it's partially due to lime juice.

Naturally it's also really good in guacamole. And Indian food. In soups. And on tacos. And myriad other things I am forgetting right now. You can buy it in big green bottles right beside the lemon juice at the grocery store. 

That's all for tonight, folks! Lime juice. 

The Best Five Years...

...of our lives have been with this girl!

Not the best pic of the birthday girl (apparently, Josh tells me, I've been doing it all wrong telling our kids to say 'cheese'), but it's a good shot of her 'cake' this year. I didn't bake a full cake because I made muffins (http://allrecipes.com/recipe/apple-carrot-muffins-3/) to take to her pre-K class earlier in the day, and we took the leftover of those to playgroup at the park with us afterward, so we had just five remaining at home, which was perfect because T-E-S-S-A. Unfortunately, Josh is not a mind-reader and didn't know about my genius plan, and he came along and ate one of the muffins before I could smack his hand away. Luckily, we had one sugar cookie leftover from when we made Halloween cookies two days after Halloween (it had been on my fall bucket list so I still consider that a victory), so I frosted that lucky cookie and stuck the number 5 candle flat on top as a substitute letter S. Crisis averted and genius plan salvaged!

This is a good shot of the streamers I put up. They're so fun and festive, I may leave them up for good! Or, until Christmas at least. I'm not much of a decorator, but these are making me happy. Also, Auntie Lindsey stopped by at the perfect time on her way to VA from AZ...there she is in the background! 

Tess, about to open presents...meanwhile, George is dragging around the balloon he beat into submission.

Art project + MLP in one = heaven for this girl. 

We love our Tess! Can't believe it's been five birthdays already. I'm pretty sure this just happened last week: http://famalley.blogspot.com/2008/11/sleep-sleep-sleep-all-day-long.html

Solomon Northup and History on Film

The history major in me really wants to see the new movie 12 Years a Slave. I studied American history for my degree, with special interest in 19th century and African-American history, and according to all the reviews of this movie that I've seen, it's stellar. But...I'm a very sensitive soul, and I have an especially hard time with visual depictions of graphic violence, (of which this movie is full, naturally), so I'm not sure I'd be able to stomach it. It's upsetting enough to read about that era, but actually seeing the atrocities of that time played out...you as a viewer are sharing in the psychic trauma of that cruelty. And I realize that that is part of the point, that, at least in stories like this one, it's important to understand that these things really did happen to real people.

For me, that was the main reason I was drawn to history to begin with, for what it can teach us about empathy and its lack, and about the heights and depths of human nature, played out in the microcosm of individual lives. History is full of truly awful things, though, and reading about them, while disturbing, at least keeps them at enough of an emotional remove so that you can think about them without breaking down completely. Film, on the other hand, erases that emotional distance from the violence so you are right there, complicit as a spectator to whatever depravity the actors are portraying. Usually in historical films, the violence is of course depicted as wrong and terrible, but still, to me it seems...at least ironic, if not hypocritical, that at the same time the filmmaker is decrying such violence in his/her art, he/she is also inflicting a similar (albeit lesser) kind of violence on viewers by forcing them to witness such barbarity. (I am just speaking generally here - since I haven't seen 12 Years a Slave, I can't really comment on specific portrayals of violence in that film.)

Anyhow getting on to my other reason for posting about this: Even though I'm on the fence about the new movie I am actually already familiar with the story of Solomon Northup...because there is another film version from PBS. It's been at least 15 years, but I know I saw it at some point in my public school career...I am thinking it must have been in middle school. It's called Solomon Northup's Odyssey and it was made in 1984 starring Avery Brooks (of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine). http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088148/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 While there I'm sure there's no comparison to the acting and cinematography in 12 Years a Slave, the story is still powerful enough to make an impression. It certainly made an impression on me, because I remember a surprising amount about it for not having seen it for almost two decades. SO if you are a parent or teacher of older pre-teen or teenage children that you would rather not expose to graphic violence but would like them to know the Solomon Northup story, or if you are just an especially sensitive adult like me, if you do some hunting you may be able to dig up this old version of the story. I found a VHS listing for it in my county library system. Inexplicably, I also found it half of it on YouTube, but only "Part B." :( I don't know if Part A was deleted or never added. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHOb9yhobws

Of course, after all this rumination, if that's still too hard to find, you could just skip both movie versions and go straight to the source by reading his autobiography. (Or listening to the audiobook: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-ILc8W0P3Y) Reading FTW!

The Bleak Mid-Winter in the Beautiful Mid-Autumn

I'm not usually in the Christmas spirit so early, but in my choir group we are gearing up for our Christmas concert, so I've been starting to get into it. Also, someone on Facebook posted that there are only 7 Mondays between now and Christmas, which made my anxiety level rise a little bit, so I needed some seasonal music to get me excited and not just stressed. :)

I've realized lately that all my favorite songs tend to have some minor-key tonality, and that trend is continuing over into Christmas, I suppose, because my current favorite Christmas song is this contemplative beauty, "In the Bleak Midwinter," which is a poem by Christina Rosetti set to music by Harold Darke. Here is a link to the lyrics: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/238450. And here is a link to a performance by the King's College Cambridge singers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-9yB6t8Vl4. There is another version with music by Gustav Holst that is also nice, but I think Darke's tune communicates the emotional power of the lyrics better, especially on that last verse! The gorgeousness...it's too much for me.

Other slightly melancholy-sounding seasonal favorites are "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel," and "What Child Is This?" Feel free to share your favorite Christmas song too, if you're not opposed in principle to thinking about it before Thanksgiving. :)

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Goody Bag Grumbling

NaBloPoMo, Day 3:

We have a birthday in our family happening this week - Tessa turns 5 years old on Wednesday. Last year, we had a big birthday shindig at the park, complete with streamers and pinata and homemade cake; this year we are going more low-key; we will probably just take cupcakes (or healthy muffins, whatever is allowed) to school and playgroup afterwards and share with friends we were already going to see. Then we will have a family celebration at home.

Why no party this year? For one thing, party planning is a lot of work! We are still recovering from what will probably go down as the infamous pinata incident of 2012. (We homemade it with a giant balloon, because I am crazy, and it didn't really dry fast enough...it was nuts. It looked awesome though!!) For another thing, we don't want to set up expectations of an extravagant birthday bash every year. Both Josh and I remember having maybe one or two big birthday parties with friends invited while growing up. Now, yearly parties with friends seem to be the norm.

I have noticed that, at Tessa's school and at the preschools where I teach piano lessons, another phenomenon that seems to be the norm is bringing goody bags for all the kids in the class on the day of your child's birthday. Frankly I'm a little baffled by this phenomenon, and I suppose this is the part of the post where I reveal myself to be a cold-hearted enemy of fun and children's happiness. Because I hate goody bags.

Invariably, they are full of dollar store crap that is the bane of all parents' existence. Plastic whistles that don't work, cardboard keychains, flimsy toys that break immediately - all stuff that ends up going straight out of the goody bag and into the trash can. At least that's where it will go if you're having a good day and are on top of things. Because if it doesn't go there right away you will end up stepping on it 15,000 times before you get around to it (if you're me), and then after you finally toss it, you will cause your child to go into a state of loud, doleful mourning because of the emotional attachment she has supposedly formed with those tiny plastic toys she never gave a second's thought to before they hit the bottom of the can but are now suddenly her most prized possessions.

Do parents sitting at home assembling these things feel guilty about the bags of garbage they are gifting the other parents in the class? Not only is it a pain for the rest of us, but it is terrible for the environment. It enrages me that there are whole industries devoted to manufacturing and shipping and profiting from this junk that is filling up landfills and killing the planet.

I understand that the goody bag impulse is all part of wanting to share the celebration with all the other kids so no one feels left out, etc. I think that's great. Inclusiveness is a noble goal. And I understand that bringing cupcakes or other sugary treats to share is also problematic. So what's a parent to do?

I don't know. I am not opposed to goody bags in principle (I have also been on the recipient end of some thoughtful ones), just the ones that are full of junk. :) Maybe...fill your goody bags with actually good things? At least, things that will at least get some repeat uses? Here are a few ideas:

• tiny play dough tubs
• stickers
• crayons
• t-shirts
• bubbles
• granola bars
• Ghirardelli chocolates (to give to Mom only)

If you can't afford actually good things in your goody bags, just don't give them out. Keeping up with Joneses is dumb and children don't need to have the expectation of getting things for every minor occasion. Maybe just give stickers - kids still love 'em and they are much more cost effective. Plus, no assembly = less work!  

I Googled goody bags just now and found this list of ideas from Real Simple: http://www.realsimple.com/holidays-entertaining/entertaining/party-bags-good-bags-favors-gifts-00100000107985/index.html  Some of them are too expensive for a cheapskate like me to consider. But there are some good ones in there! Those miracle fish things are awesome. Still plastic? Yes, but at least it does a neat sciencey trick that you can show your friends again and again.

I also found this NYT feature about goody bag insanity: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/01/fashion/gifts-to-young-party-guests-irk-some-parents.html?_r=0 All I have to say about this is, people are nuts.

Anyway, happy birthday this week, Tess! We will be doing our best on your special day to keep your sense of entitlement in check and not pollute the earth. We love you!

xoxo, your mean Mom and Dad

Why I Believe in God

Day 2!

Oh, did you think I was going to start off this NaBloPoMo business with something cute and fluffy? Perhaps a heart-warming anecdote about my adorable children? They are adorable, it's true, but forget that, we're going straight for the heavy stuff, man. 

OK, J/K. I didn't intend things to veer off in a serious direction at all when I first started writing this, but then once they did I thought it would be funny to really oversell it in the title. (Here is also where I insert my Language Warning - read no further if you want to avoid a word that rhymes with "spit" - although I've made you think it now anyway so might as well keep going, bwahaha.)

I was brainstorming ideas of what to write about this month when I realized that neither Josh nor I ever recorded the story I'm about to tell. Possibly because we were still suffering from PTSD for months afterward, but it's still a shame. Because it is a pretty good story, in retrospect. At the time, it was hellacious. If you've heard it in person, my apologies, but I'm telling it again here so posterity can enjoy, too. :)

Once upon a time about five and half years ago, Josh and I went to Europe. We found out we were having a baby, panicked that our window of opportunity for childless fun was closing forever, and did the responsible thing, which was to blow invest a good portion of our money on a three-week-long international vacation. (Yes, yes, I know. But YOLO! Even before YOLO was a thing.) It was a shoestring-budget backpacking trip, hitting all the finest seedy youth hostels in England, Scotland, Ireland, France, and Italy. Some of them even had private bathrooms! Luxury!

Anyway, this is a story about our trip home from Italy, the final stop on our trip. We had spent a couple nights in Rome, and our flight out the next morning left about 6 AM. For our last night on the continent we decided to stay at a cute little B&B only about a mile away from the airport, which was way on the outskirts of the city, about an hour from the city center. Genius idea, right? Cut out some of the travel time in the morning! 

We asked the owner of the B&B about getting a cab to the airport in the morning, but he discouraged us, explaining that a cab would cost us about 40 euros even to go such a short distance. It really wasn't far at all, it was totally walkable, he assured us! Since we were already scraping the bottom of the barrel of our trip funds, all it took were a few charming, impassioned Italian arm gestures and we were sold on the idea. He even drew us a "map", if two perpendicular lines can merit that designation:

Looks pretty hard to mess up, right? We went to sleep without too much worry.

When we woke up the next morning about 4:00 AM, we woke up with a smidgen of worry because it was drizzling rain out. Our worry escalated another smidgen when the drizzle turned into real rain by the time we left. Not the best conditions for walking a mile in the dark. Too late to call a taxi now, though. Off we went.

When we came to what we thought was the intersection where we were supposed to turn right, though, we hesitated - it didn't look especially busy for a road supposedly leading to the airport. But it was at least paved and two-laned so it was plausible, and if we had continued straight, the sidewalk would have disappeared. Plus, look at that map! Is there any ambiguity at all in that map about whether or not to turn right? I submit that there is not.

We turned right and soon began walking with a little more urgency, hoping to see a sign for the airport that never appeared. Meanwhile, the rain decided to kick things up a notch to hurricane-level downpour. We had our trusty cheap umbrellas we had picked up in Scotland, but at this point the umbrellas were about as useful in this rain as they would have been in a swimming pool.

So, just to recap, here we are, on a remote road on the outskirts of Rome. Walking. In the wee hours of the morning. In total darkness. In a deluge possibly not seen since the days of Noah. Also we are carrying 25 lb backpacks. And our flight to London leaves in less than an hour. If we miss our flight to London, we also miss our flight from London back to America, and we do not have the funds to buy another set of plane tickets home. Not only are there no cabs out that we can flag down, there aren't even any other cars. Are you stressed out yet? Because my palms are getting sweaty just writing about it again. 

We were praying so hard at this point, every other thing out of our mouths was a "Please God...Please, Please God...Let us find a taxi." I have never prayed so hard in my life, it felt like launching a million tiny threaded missiles upward into a concentrated point of pure will. At the same time, I was sure my prayers were being rendered completely ineffective since every other other thing out of my mouth in between the prayers of "Please God, Please God," was "Oh shit...Oh shit, shit, shit, shit, shit."

In the midst of our urgent walking we finally stumbled into a residential neighborhood, where, by the grace of God, we found a working taxi. *cue Hallelujah Chorus* Did God inspire that taxi driver to be right where we needed him at that precise time? Did God have a butterfly flap its wings billions of years ago, setting off a chain of events that led to that taxi driver being right where we needed him at that precise time? Why did He allow me, if indeed it was something he "allowed", if not orchestrated, to find the thing I needed when I needed it, but not others in equally dire or worse circumstances? I have no idea. I don't "get" God a lot of the time. I believe he works through people, and people are terrible. The mystery of how and why and to what extent he operates in our individual lives is...well, a mystery.

What I do know is that I live in America still - I didn't have to cobble together a hut out of found objects and begin life as a squatter in Italy five years ago. And whatever the cosmic formula that led to that miracle - which I am happy to label as such - I am grateful for it. :)

Back to the story...once we got into the cab, we quickly discovered that our original "map" was lacking a few crucial details. 

It's fitting that the new map is an "F" shape, for FAIL. On the way to the airport we retraced our steps and passed the intersection where we originally turned right, where we listened to our instinct that it would be foolish to continue where there was no sidewalk. That instinct proved to be right as we soon found out that had we kept going straight, we would have been walking along the equivalent of I-95, or whatever interstate highway you live near that would be batshit *insane* to walk down.

In conclusion, what is wrong with Europeans? I know they walk a lot more than we do, and I wish it were different here, but down major (and majorly unsafe) roadways??? I will be charitable and hope that it was really just this one guy, our cartographer. He was clearly a little addled since he couldn't draw a map with more than two details, so I suppose I shouldn't put it past a person like that to walk into 60 mph traffic.

And that is the story of how Tessa almost grew up speaking Italian. 

THE END.

(I promise not all my NaBloPoMo posts will be this long-winded. *whew*)

NaBloPoMo!

Buckle your seat belts everyone, I'm doing NaBloPoMo!

What is NaBloPoMo? Well, the BloPoMo part stands for for Blog Posting Month, and the Na is for...Narcissistic? Nasty? Nap-inducing? There might be some of all of that in the coming days. The important part is - I'm going to be blogging EVERY DAY this November!

Lest you underestimate the magnitude of this undertaking, I should explain that I am not the kind of conscientious person who does things EVERY DAY. I am one of those freewheeling, frequently-in-her-own-world, loosey-goosey, go-with-the-flow kind of people that conscientious people find horribly irritating. I am the kind of person who unwittingly leaves kitchen cabinets open. (Seriously, it is hard mental work for me to remember to close them.) I have an allergy in my soul to routine. So the EVERY DAYness of this blog posting EVERY DAY is going to be a challenge. But I'm feeling ready for it!

And look! There's one day down already! Here's to fighting soul allergies.