2009 August

Son of a Son of a Sailor

August 31, 2009 By 8 Comments

Some teachers spend the end of their summer vacation getting their classrooms ready for the new arrivals:

(in this scenario, I’m 8 months pregnant and have thinning hair)

Some spend their last bit of free time before the real work begins by catching up reading and planning curriculum:

(Note: not my actual summer reading or curriculum…I think even I would draw the line at Chelsea Handler’s Horizontal Life)

Some might choose to spend their last hours of freedom finishing up that pesky last minute back-to-school shopping for themselves and their families:

Well, my classroom is in disorder, I’m already behind in my work and school hasn’t even started, and I have nothing to wear tomorrow, but I still think I made the better choice about how to spend my last day of vacation:

I tried to convince my crew to keep sailing south and not stop until the Exumas, but they weren’t having it.

And so it goes. See you on the other side.

Filed Under: WRH

Well, Smack My Ass and Call Me Judy

August 28, 2009 By 8 Comments

One of the best lines in Nelson DeMille’s novel Plum Island is this: “The problem with doing nothing is that you don’t know when you’re done.” Or something like that. DeMille must have been pretty fond of that line himself, as his protagonist, John Corey, actually repeats the line in a later book. *

I usually spend the last week of the summer vacation before I go back to work at the beach in North Carolina. Our plans changed this year, so we went earlier in the month. This past week, I’ve been haunting my own house like some baggy t-shirted spectre of despair. I couldn’t fall asleep at night, so I’d sleep late all day then drag myself through whatever activities were mandatory – like occasionally bathing and ~~throwing cereal down the stairs to the tv room~~ feeding people, but I didn’t do a whole lot else. I was absolutely annoying my husband, the kids were getting ticked when the novelty of unlimited access to the fridge and the remote control wore off, and I was starting to get on my own nerves, too.

In a moment of Ben and Jerry’s induced clarity, it hit me: It’s Not All About Me. What’s that you say?? That’s right. It’s not all about me. My desire for summer to go on forever so that I don’t have to go back to the daily grind of lunches, laundry, homework, soccer practice, not to mention my ENTIRE JOB is really pretty irrelevant. Not only is the end of summer vacation not about me, but all of summer is not about me. In fact, while there are a few (very, few) things that are decidedly about me, most of my life is not about me at all.

So. Huh. Yeah.

Remember summer when you were a kid? Seemed like paradise, right? Swimming at the pool until your fingers were completely pruned and your hair was chlorine-crispy? Sleeping late? Mealtimes became more flexible? Big gatherings of families and tons of new kids to meet and play with? Riding bikes around the neighborhood behind the mosquito spraying truck while I was growing up – it’s lucky my kids weren’t born with flippers and vestigial tails? The food groups of summer morphed to include the Popsicle Group and the Hot Dog Group? Your parents had a tendency to ~~sit on the porch and drink beer~~ be more flexible about bedtimes?

My summer vacation was coming to an end, but so was my kids’ vacation. One of them is starting kindergarten and both are nervous about what the new year will bring. As I think about all of this – me, my kids, summers past, I hear it in my head like a mantra, “It’s not about me. It’s not about me.”

On Tuesday night I told my kids that they had to go to bed early because we were getting up early on Wednesday to go on a surprise adventure. When they begged and pleaded for clues I told them that they’d need work gloves and heavy boots because we were spending the day moving rocks up a mountain and cleaning dog poop up off the streets. They repaid me for my sarcasm by agreeing to go to bed early and then rocketing out of bed and around the house at five minute intervals until they dropped, like exhausted puppies, at around 11: 15.

I woke them early, took them to breakfast at a local diner, and we set off. I gave them little clues until they guessed, hesitantly, “Amusement park?” It was a long drive, but it was worth it. And aside from the fact that I expected the name tag on every single ~~sideshow carny~~ employee in the place to read, “Cletus, the Slack Jawed Yokel,” the day was perfect. **

Knoebels is an old-fashioned family amusement park in the mountains. It’s inexpensive (relatively speaking, but you don’t ever feel like you’re being ripped off) and small enough to be manageable but big enough to be exciting. You can look it up yourself or click on the link I provided, but where we went is sort of beside the point.

We had so much fun. The kids were adventurous, even daring, about new experiences – like solo rides on roller coasters and log flumes, they were cooperative, they were joyful. At 9 o’clock at night, after 10 hours of playing, riding rides, and swimming, as we rode high up in the sky and looked out over the flashing and spinning lights of the park on our third ferris wheel ride of the day, my two ~~babies~~ big kids cuddled up on either side of me, I felt like I’d had this meaningful and happy summer experience that both filled me right up and made me feel light as air. I was ready for the jump into the school year, and I could deal with the fact that it wasn’t all about me – regardless of the season. And really, I was as happy as I’d been all summer, maybe more so.

Turns out, ”NOT all about me” is all I really want and all I really need. So I guess, in a way, it is all about me.

*OK. So it’s not really highbrow intellectual literature, but we’re not snobs, are we? Yeah. You’re right. I am. But I really like these books.

**As if to prove a point about the aforementioned snobbery, let me just interject here that my children and I were the only people there who didn’t have tattoos. Not that I have any objection at all to tattoos, it’s just that I didn’t know that people could get tramp stamps for their toddler girls. Maybe it was a fake tattoo on the small of that two year old’s back, but judging from the giant rhinestone dangly earrings she wearing, however, I would be reluctant to rule out the possibility that these parents had tattooed their baby girl.

Filed Under: Parent of the Year, WRH

You Are What You Eat…Apparently, I’m Everything

August 21, 2009 By 9 Comments

Wednesday Spaghetti is good and good for me. I know this because as opposed to saying that I’m not going to clean my house but really picking it up pretty thoroughly, wiping down the bathrooms, and sweeping and mopping the hardwood floors, now I say I’m not going to clean my house and I actually don’t. In fact, I go the extra mile and do things like break plates and blow out u-bends in kitchen sinks within an hour of everyone’s arrival. Also, I didn’t move the mice from their cage which has been on the kitchen counter next to the ~~exploding~~ ~~spewing~~ sink for a month even though I knew that people were going to be completely skeeved by the notion of mice living in my kitchen, INVITED no less. OK. I was going to move them, but then my friend Adelle reminded me that I was trying to live the Wednesday Spaghetti rule I made for myself which is, It’s Not A Party, It’s Spaghetti, so I left them there. Then all night people had to try really hard to not sound incredulous and appalled when they asked me to confirm that there were, in fact, mice living in the kitchen, INVITED no less, and I had to try not to sound like an ass when I explained that yes, there are mice in the kitchen, INVITED no less. Interesting discovery: the more you try to explain something ridiculous, the more ridiculous it sounds. Lesson learned.

please feel free to admire the dried angel hair pasta stuck to the broken plate

little known fact: The World’s Greatest Husband is TWGH
for lots of reasons including his willingness to do plumbing
repair within moments of arriving home from work

And by everyone (which I said way up there in the earlier paragraph, but upon revision now the first “everyone” and this “everyone” are really far apart so it doesn’t really make sense, but I sort of need the transition so instead of doing something more subtle and elegant, I’m just explaining), I do mean everyone. Except for half the people I invited who couldn’t come, which is a good thing because as it is people were eating dessert off saucers after we ran out of plates, paper and unbroken regular plates both, about 3/4 of the way in. Which is another sign that Wednesday Spaghetti is good for me, because not only did I not care that we’d run out of plates, I didn’t even know because I was in the backyard drinking wine and making googly eyes at other people’s babies.

This was an expanded Wednesday Spaghetti because I didn’t have a big summer party like I did last year. I was sort of expecting a hurricane or something to compete with last year’s thunder, lightning, and tornado, but I had to make do with the threat of a major storm that didn’t ever materialize and relative humidity of approximately 723%. It was great to have the regular neighborhood people over, and even the older kids, the teenagers, are feeling comfortable dropping in with friends to grab a bite before they go on their merry ways to ~~get high or pregnant or whatever it is they do~~ finish their summer reading and go to bed early. But I loved having people I don’t see so often over as well…like this one and her lovable brood and her husband who says wonderful things like, “You should absolutely let your hair go gray because it’s natural and beautiful and you are who you are but also your white stripe is kick-ass,” even though she is behind him going, “Hellz no, I’m not letting my hair go gray either and your white stripe does kick-ass.”

Spaghetti-ish food for 50, with some left over for lunch (and dinner but we went out because you’d be tired of pasta by now, too) on a wicked hot summer night

Fusilli with red sauce from a jar but make sure the sauce is on the side because half the kids in the house will only eat noodles and butter:

If you need instructions for this you are sad and my heart breaks just thinking about you. Seek help.

Summer cold pasta:

Angel hair pasta – lots of it, like three boxes I think, but I can’t remember. After the sink exploded, I stopped paying attention to much of anything but the rising tide in the kitchen.

The freshest, tiniest grape or cherry tomatoes you can find. Four pints – cut them in half.

Tear up some fresh basil.

Toss it all in olive oil that’s had garlic soaking in it for a day.

Refrigerate for an hour before serving.

Noodles in spicy peanut sauce:

Whole wheat spaghetti – lots of it, read note above about my cluelessness.

In a blender, whirr up a lot of peanut butter, half as much sesame oil, as much red chili oil as you think your peeps can handle, some soy sauce – but not too much, because YEEP, about as much red wine vinegar as the sesame oil, a few tablespoons of freshly grated ginger – don’t muck around with this as it’s pretty crucial, smashed garlic and I think that’s it. Taste it before you use it and adjust by adding whatever of the aforementioned ingredients you think you are missing. You should mostly taste peanut, but not peanut butter and there shouldn’t be any discernible peanut butter stickiness to it.

Toss noodles, peanut sauce, and veg – I use the big kind of bean sprouts, tons of cucumbers, 1 inch or so pieces of cold asparagus, scallions, and sometimes edamame or lightly cooked peas.

Refrigerate an hour before serving.

I’d show you pictures of the food but I forgot to take any shots of the table before we all had at it. I was in the yard drinking wine, but you already knew that because you were paying attention earlier.

Filed Under: Mama Like, WRH