Category: BC (beloved child the elder)

feed the tree

feed the tree

Posted on by wrekehavoc

now that i’ve firmly entrenched myself as a mean and instransigent mom, i may as well go all the way with it. in short: what the hell is up with picky eaters? specifically: whatever happened to people being guests and not giving a giant list of what they eat versus what they don’t eat?

let me backtrack here for a sec. BC can be miss picky-picky when it comes to food. in short, the list of foods she likes is a lot shorter than the list of food that she does like. she can be a royal pain the patoot come dinnertime when she refuses what’s on her plate. and there was a time when i lived out my dream as a short-order cook, making one meal for us and another for our lady of macaroni and cheese. but once child #2 came along, all bets were off. i had no time, no inclination, and no interest in making a third meal (considering the baby needed his own substances, something which i obviously couldn’t begrudge him, considering he was a baby and all.)

so the new rule went into effect. i try to make at least one part of the meal that i know missus will eat. the rest, though, might be something she likes, and then again, it might be something she loathes. if she doesn’t like it, well, to borrow from john belushi — she goes hungry. tuesday night is kid night, aka chicken nugget and macaroni and cheese night. but otherwise, it’s chef’s choice. and, 6 out of 7 nights (at least) je suis le chef.

ego crustulum , proinde ego sum. (i cook, therefore i am.)

(have i mentioned before that i’m a terrible cook?)

well, i get an A for effort in terms of trying to introduce my kids to different foods, foods that usually involve veggies, chicken or vegetarian protein sources, and fruit. and G-d bless jools — when BC isn’t around, he usually is quite complimentary… like last night, when i cooked a mild tandoori chicken. M I L D. like i actually sought out the recipe based on reviews that said things like lacks spice and real tandoori fans should look elsewhere. jools and BS liked it. and i made jasmine rice and peas to go with it, knowing BC would at least eat those things.

and she hated the chicken.

BUT, i digress. per usual.

i am trying desperately to train her so that when she is a guest at other people’s homes, she tries her best. she doesn’t get rude. she’ll note that she can’t eat pork or meat with cheese, but beyond that, she gives it a try. if she doesn’t like the food, she should just leave it and deal with the consequences of being hungry until she comes home and can fix herself a peanut butter sandwich or eat a cheesestick. (and hey, if she’s a guest at anyone’s house and she is a PITA about the food, i want to know about it so that madame and i can have a friendly little chat about being a guest.)

so i continuously get amazed when young playdates visit and tell me what is acceptable and what is not acceptable in my pantry. i always ask about food allergies, of course, as i don’t want anyone getting sick. i am willing to give whatever i have. but i have what i have. i still remember when i was a teen and a friend of mine from out of town stayed over my house. (a BOY. not my BOYfriend. actually, i think he was my aforementioned friend wah’s boyfriend at the time. but i digress. again.) i still remember him walking up to my mom and asking her whether she had a certain brand of frozen pizza. the look of shock burnt onto my mom’s face was priceless.

i think we were so shocked simply because everyone else who visited was so polite about food. as i was, of course. i knew that if my mom heard that i was being rude to my host, we, too, would have a friendly chat. so it’s a shock to me when people of a certain age tell me that my food is unacceptable. like i can do anything about it at that time? one word, one word i share with a sympathetic smile.

sorry.

home(school) is anywhere you hang your head

home(school) is anywhere you hang your head

Posted on by wrekehavoc

here comes ms. misery.

i promised a rant on homeschooling, and i must make good on that promise, though i’ll try my best to be calm. i expect a giant learning experience of children, organized by their ardent moms, at my door, screaming that homeschooling is the best thing since sliced bread. (just let me know in advance so that i bake enough brownies for the kids.)

on the one side, i must show my admiration for those parents who want to take on the monumental task of educating their children to the current state and local education standards. i don’t believe for a second i could undertake such a mission. i don’t believe i possess the patience. i don’t believe i possess the pedagogical skills. and while i am one smart chick with the IQ test scores to prove it, i don’t believe i will be doing my kids a favor when they need to learn higher order math skills (READ: anything beyond algebra) or other topics where i am currently not up to snuff. and no one, and i mean NO ONE, will be dissecting any animals in my kitchen. (that one’s for YOU, hellboy, who’d probably voluntarily do that deed right now at age 4.)

parents who want to homeschool their children apparently have these reasons for homeschooling, according to the national home education research institute:

· teach a particular set of values, beliefs, and worldview,
· accomplish more academically than in schools,
· customize or individualize the curriculum and learning environment for each child,
· use pedagogical approaches other than those typical in institutional schools,
· enhance family relationships between children and parents and among siblings,
· provide guided and reasoned social interactions with youthful peers and adults, and
· provide a safer environment for children and youth, because of physical violence, drugs and alcohol, psychological abuse, and improper and unhealthy sexuality.

i suppose i could understand wanting to pull my kids from the public schools if i lived in a terrible place with terrible schools. i would certainly pull my kids if i thought they were going to get killed during the school day. (of course, then i’d get the hell out of the area, if it took the last cent i had.) but sometimes, when i am at local playgrounds with jools on his home day, i marvel at the women and their tribes of homeschooled children playing at the playground. our school district is one of the finest in the nation, and yet these people, who CHOOSE to live here, pull their kids out of the public school. it’s mystifying.

there’s something very isolationist and elitist about homeschooling, as if parents fear the very tainting of their children through their interaction with other children, the media, or, most horrifyingly, with alternative ideas. it’s as if homeschooling parents are building a giant bubble for their children, and only they know everything in the world that’s best for their kids. parents should make decisions for their children when they’re young, but as they get older, one of the most important skills i think kids need to learn is how to make decisions — smart ones — on their own. i wonder how willing homeschooling parents are to give up control.

and homeschooling is all about control. control of ideas and who delivers them. control over who gets to interact with the children. control of the environment. in short, i think some of these people had some toilet training issues in their past and they are taking them out on their kids.

why would anyone want to be with anyone 24/7? if your mom (or dad!) is your teacher, you, the kid, have no escape. from school. from pressure. from HER. i get to be the bad cop enough when it comes to discipline. i don’t want my kids to see me and think, oh G-d, i didn’t do my homework/my project/my whatever. i’m so busted. kids need a break from school. parents need a break from kids. when home is school and school is home, there is no division.

do the parents make conscious and deliberate attempts to ensure their kids meet other kids from different racial, religious, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds? (i can see it now: let’s meet the JEWISH kids today on our field trip, children! and next week, we go visit the GHETTO!) i suspect not. probably only other kids from their church, kids who share their values and world views, need apply. (oh, except for those days when they do some church-sponsored community project. oh, how weird if your only interaction with other ethnicities is through some service project. then you get to assume that “all of them” are like that. so wrong, so dead wrong.)

what i want to know is what happens when these kids go to college and subsequently enter the real world. i am not impressed by the dearth of research on this topic (and i am a little suspect of the national home education research group, anyway). do the kids have to stay on the narrow, little path their moms and dads have made for them in order to lead a decent life? what happens when they don’t understand any of the cultural references of their peers? are they ostracized? how do they tolerate lines of inquiry that don’t have a ready answer? (do they build an answer with G-d in it instead?) do they expect the world to be a neat and tidy place, just like their home school, with all of the answers provided?

i am the child of a teacher, a niece 0f a teacher, a relative and friend of teachers galore. i’ve been a student of education policy. my bias is obvious here. i believe firmly that there is a certain level of pedagogical training, a certain level of knowledge necessary, to truly lift all boats for all children. i’m not naive enough to think that our public schools are churning out 100% success stories, 100% of the time. please.

but i like to think that my kids are getting taught by people who usually have their best interests at heart. (obviously, not always or else we would have avoided last year’s trauma.) and i intervene when things go seriously awry. that’s my job as a parent — i am my child’s advocate.

and i like to think that what they learn by going to public school — with children who may not be just like them, who may eat different foods and celebrate different days and who may have more money or less money than we have — is how to live in a starter microcosm of our big and diverse world. one lesson at a time. i can’t give them that if i keep them in my cozy, sheltered home. and i need them to learn how to cope with situations, how to become increasingly responsible for their own learning and lives, and to discover that sometimes, life is incredibly ambiguous.

and that’s ok.

i don’t want my children to be dependent on me for decisions and answers. i don’t want them to necessarily be dependent on assuming that G-d has all the answers or even IS the answer. i probably will never be able to teach them much beyond how to treat people and how to bake a mean brownie.

but i damn well know how to guide them to the places and the experiences which will help them grow. and guide them i will. toward being independent, forthright, unsheltered and open-minded citizens of the world.

doledrum

doledrum

Posted on by wrekehavoc

oh, no. don’t go down to doledrum.

yesterday, i was in a foul, foul mood. i was getting a nose and ear infection. while in conversation with BS, i had a random nosebleed, which made me burst into tears (i don’t really have nosebleeds, and the last time i had a big ol’ burster was when my platelets were in the toilet. the proverbial damn broke, and there was nothing to stop the bleeding. it was scary.) my platelets can’t possibly be in the toilet, though, as i got some terrific numbers back last week on them. time for that deep breath…

anyhow, the icing on the cake: i dealt with an hysterical son who didn’t want to go to sunday school and who felt like i wasn’t listening to him even though i told him countless times i was (repeating his words, even), but that the answer was still the same. you try to teach your children to use their words, and they do. but then, there’s lesson #2 — sometimes, you use your words, but it doesn’t mean you will get the desired result.

believe me, i hated hebrew school. hatedhatedHATED it. the best part was running races in the front before class and hiding out in the toilets. which i did. all through third grade. cos the teacher and her long, pointy, chewed-on nails terrified me. but after being bat mitzvah’d, i felt like i had accomplished something. i had learned something. i want that for my kids. i don’t care if the very next day after the bat/bar mitzvah, BC decides to become a hare krishna and jools decides to become a satan worshiper. halleluyah to both of them. but i just want to share a little of their culture with them. after all, you can’t reject it if you ain’t got it in the first place, right?

jools ended up having a wonderful time at hebrew school. he made me a cardboard tree in honor of tu bishvat and planted a little parsley seedling (the dirt kind of shifted upside down on the car ride home, so we’ll see whether there’s any parsley for the seder.) he told me that trees give us air. maybe i need to stand closer to a tree and breathe in, as it drives me insane that this child has the short-term memory of dory from finding nemo. he always has a great time, but then he forgets and carries on for the next time. and i just don’t know how to get him to remember.

ah well. the day improved. i raced with jools and played in the backyard with both kids. BC asked if we could finally make the pinecone feeder treats for the birds, the project i’ve been stalling on. see, normally, i cringe thinking about the mess this project (peanut butter and bird seeds, anyone?) would make. but i thought, aw hell. let the kid take the lead. you’re not doing a very good job with your day, so maybe this will improve things. and it did, with us covered in peanut buttery-seedy goodness. oh well. have sink and broom; will travel.

then, after we hung the pinecones in the tree, i took a deep breath again and let jools out on the street under BC’s watchful gaze. i have a hard time letting the kids out without supervising them. (it’s so different from when i was a kid and i would just leave the house and roam the neighborhood without anyone worrying i would end up in a bad place.) the two were going to see whether anyone wanted to come out and ride scooters on our dead-end street. after ten minutes of angst, i looked outside to see 6 kids, two parents, and a dog. in short, my kids started a little impromptu neighborhood scooter party. which i joined. (BC even was permitted to walk said dog. she shoots, she scores!)

my kids nearly send me down the proverbial rabbit hole sometimes, but they always know how to find me there and pull me out.

i just have to open my mind and let them.

how to be a millionaire

how to be a millionaire

Posted on by wrekehavoc

BC and i are talking just before bedtime as we always do. usually, she demands that i tell her a story from my life, or a story from someone in my life’s life. i’m full of stories (among other things, an impolite but probably accurate person might say), so after some prompting, i conjure up a tale.

but last night, after imagining what BS and i looked like on our wedding day, it is BC who launches into a mini reverie.

mama, i know what daddy should dress up like for halloween next year!

what, i reply.

daddy should dress up like a millionaire.

intrigued, i pursued. and how, darling, do millionaires dress?

well, daddy could wear a white suit, with a white top hat, and a golden sash around it. his suit would have gold buttons on it.

is that how millionaires dress, honey?

yes, she replied.

do millionaires ever dress like daddy and me? i ask.

no. a very definitive no from our lady of macaroni and cheese.

oh well. there’s no hope for us, i guess.

wait til i tell BS he needs an october costume that’ll make him look like a cross between the monopoly man and a pimp.

jesus of suburbia

jesus of suburbia

Posted on by wrekehavoc

recently, i TIVO’d jesus camp, an indie movie documentary that lost out in the land of oscars to an inconvenient truth. i thought it would be something BS and i would watch at some point; however, when BC got hold of the TIVO and found it, she asked what it was about (evangelical kids going to evangelical summer camp! wheee!) and whether she could watch it. i told her that the only way she’d watch this was if i watched along with her, and voila! we watched this amazing documentary. (not the mother-daughter experience i was envisioning — little women is also on the TIVO — but no matter.)

hey — you out there — you citizen who reveres the separation of church and state. the charismatic christians in this movie will make you bark at the moon. you first meet some of the children at a children’s christian conference in missouri. one child passes out pamphlets while at a bowling alley (after praying to jesus to help her bowl well. no, i am not making this up.) one child wants to dance to christian heavy metal — she’ll dance not for the flesh, but for jesus. (the subject: go-go boots. the question: what would jesus do?::snerk::) and another child wants to grow up and be a preacher. you see kids crying, speaking in tongues, squirming uncomfortably. i was especially shocked to see parents in there, just standing by, letting their children undergo uncomfortable and upsetting experiences with no guidance and little support. i felt like i was watching parents throwing young christians to the lions.

most of the kids, by the way are — SURPRISE! — homeschooled. G-d forbid they actually have to interact with people who believe in things different from the beliefs touted by their church.

[note to self: the day will come when i will rant a HUGE, SUPERCOLLOSAL RANT about homeschooling. but not today.]

anyway, you end up at camp in ND, at a megachurch in colorado springs (which looks more like a concert venue — with diamondvision), and driving around scenic missouri with the camp organizer, pentacostal minister becky fischer. oh, and lest we forget washington, DC, where the children have tape on their mouths with the word LIFE scrawled across it as they pray outside the supreme court. (they wanted to make sure judge alito replaced sandra day o’connor. which, unfortunately, he did. today, a justice. tomorrow, abortion rights.) for me, the film is punctuated with occasional bouts of sanity from radio host mike papantonio, who even duels with fischer on the air over how children should be learning, not indoctrinated, at young ages.

anyway, i tried reallyreallyreally hard to keep myself quiet and available to BC should she have questions. we ended up talking about abortions, we ended up talking about heaven and hell, we talked about creationism. i carefully pointed out that this is a specific group of christians, that not all christians are like this. i did my duty for Dog and Country. (you’re welcome.)

but girlfriend couldn’t help but be creeped out by it all. mama, she pointed out, these people are terrorizing the kids! they’re making them scared and they’re making them cry! why are they doing that to kids?

because, i replied, it’s kind of like brainwashing. you have to break people down and then build them up again — but this time, with your ideas getting planted in their brains. they want them to not question the ideas but to just believe them. and then, make everyone else believe them, too.

we were both horrified. it’s one thing for parents to teach kids about their religion, to share their core beliefs. i support that 100 percent. it’s another thing to train them to be soldiers for G-d. these kids are not learning about tolerance. i’m not christian, but i always thought jesus was a pretty tolerant kind of guy — he hung with people like mary magdalene, right? i wonder how many of these people would go within ten feet of her now?

and when they started praying for george w bush… and when they started to smash mugs, which represented government, with hammers — well, my bullshit detector went off. i could barely stand this. hello, division of family and youth services? anyone out there? anyone home?

you don’t have to be a grownup to realize just how effing perverse this all is.

breaking the girl

breaking the girl

Posted on by wrekehavoc

it has happened yet again. BC loves to go over her buddy ella’s house to play. apparently, it is more fun to go there than for them to come here. why? because ella has a dog. they spend a lot of time playing with the dog, which, for animal-loving BC, is heaven on earth.

BC (AKA the girl who would be a vet) has asked for a dog at least one hundred zillion times. unfortunately, the answer is always the same: i’m allergic. i love animals, too; but when i get allergic reactions to pets, i have trouble breathing. when i have trouble breathing, i often end up with an infection. and the rest, as they say, is history. i do fine visiting most pet people’s houses (unless they have massive animal hair covering everything), but i draw the line at living with a shedder. to her credit, BC has pointed out that there are animal breeds that work better for the allergy sufferers of the world. that well may be, but i have enough health issues to warrant my not adding yet another potential source of joy.

so today, i had to tell her for the umpteenth time: no dog. she was getting a little frustrated with me. the feeling was mutual; and finally, blearyteary-eyed, i said to her: do you really think i feel great about not being able to do certain things because of something i can’t control?

don’t you start crying again, mama. i think she was trying to make me laugh. it didn’t work too well. it’s hard to explain to your child why she can’t have a dog; why she needs a flu shot; why all sorts of things just are, simply because your mom is built the way she’s built: goofy in the mind department and not exactly perfect in the health department.

sigh.

new year's meme

new year's meme

Posted on by wrekehavoc

it just seems like a good thing to do.

1. What did you do in 2007 that you’d never done before?


  • start monthly IVIG therapy. i never would believe that i would voluntarily sit for 5+ hours with a needle in my arm every four weeks (for the rest of my life). i hatehateHATE IVs. but you do what you have to do, especially when you’re a mom. and staying alive and healthy is what it’s all about for me now.
  • take ice skating lessons. i know how to skate, but i never learned, for example, how to stop. i learned other things, too, which led to another question answer…

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?


i started to until i was derailed by a knee injury, thanks to the new ice skating lessons 😉 but i did lose a little weight. not all that i wanted, but a little. and that’s better than nothing.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?


nope. not a one.

4. Did anyone close to you die?


sadly, our little friend mason died. but he lives on in our hearts, and every time we pass key school, we think of him with his cool bike, his batman paraphenalia, and, of course, a soccer ball.

5. What countries did you visit?


grand cayman, mexico, and the republic of new jersey. oh, and the happiest country in the world, disney world. (does that count?)

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007?


  • better health
  • happier, rested children and spouse
  • time and focus to write

7. What was your biggest achievement of the year?


getting a short story published for the very first time!

8. What was your biggest failure?


allowing BC to linger in a class where she was not only not learning enough but where she was terrorized by a person in authority. i will never forgive myself for this. ever.

9. Did you suffer illness or injury?


ha ha ha. very funny. besides the usual panoply of sinusitis and bronchitis, let’s see:

  • a torn PCL
  • a torn meniscus (both leading me to arthroscopic surgery)
  • CVID diagnosis
  • a gallstone
  • a request by my doctor to elect to have my gallbladder out (this will be a 2008 experience. i can’t have all the fun in one year)
  • and lest we forget the zillion CT, HIDA, and other scans i had this year, plus endoscopies and the like.

on the bright side, my platelets remained stable the entire year, which is more than i can say for 2006… ;-P
10. What was the best thing you bought?


hmmm. a year membership to the thomas jefferson community center. the workout equipment is ancient, but the people-watching is priceless.

11. Where did most of your money go?


chocolate. mortgage. computers. money market funds. probably not in that order.

12. What did you get really, really, really excited about?


springsteen going back on tour. the who going back on tour.

13. Compared to this time last year, are you:
 a) happier or sadder? 
b) thinner or fatter? 
c) richer or poorer?


a) happier

b) thinner (but not by much)

c) probably dead even.

14. What do you wish you’d done more of?


exercise. get my kids to read instead of being read to. spend more time and attention on my kids. write.

15. What do you wish you’d done less of?


house cleaning. hands effing down.

16. What was the best book you read?


the tale of despereaux. a children’s book, but an awesome read with BC.

17. What did you want and get?


tix to see springsteen.

18. What did you want and not get?


perfect health. i’ll never get that. but i am going to keep trying anyway 😉

19. What kept you sane?


my friends. my BS. my parents. and even sometimes my kids. see, my kids have a way of driving me crazy, but sometimes, i realize how incredible they are (especially when i see other kids in action.) sort of like my parents and husband, now that i think of it 😉

20. Who did you miss?


my gram and gramps. but i always miss them. i miss amy and jen-jen, and i never see them. i always miss my family in NJ. always always always.

but they're cousins…

but they're cousins…

Posted on by wrekehavoc

we’ve been having a wonderful visit with my BIL, his wife, and their two DDs, one an extremely sweet girl a few months older than BC and the other a seven-year-old firecracker. they were finally asleep in the living room, the three girls and jools, at their second slumber party of the weekend. last night, BC stayed with them in their hotel room. jools was mad because he couldn’t have a sleepover like the girls. and PRESTO! four kids in the front of my house.

[the night before last, little miss firecracker apparently drove her sister and everyone nuts and ended up sleeping in her mom and dad’s room. she drove her sister crazy enough to make her sleep on a couch! so tonight, i knew we would take no prisoners.]

welcome, as i might say, to auntie wreke’s police state 😉

seriously, though, i had no fears about people getting to bed. see, today, we took them on a walking tour of the National Mall. we walked through FDR’s memorial. we walked through the WWII memorial. we walked through the jefferson memorial. we walked all the way over to mr. lincoln’s place. we did the whole circuit, which, for the uninitiated, is quite a feat, especially if you’re jools and have the 4.5 year old shorty mcshortshort legs to go with it.

after a whiny (jools) cup of hot cocoa and chats about why you shouldn’t touch the water in the fountains (answer: they’re sadly places where homeless people sometimes bathe) and bird shit (all the kids were freaked out about sitting on chairs with tiny blobs of white), we walked back to the car. we had a nice lunch, dropped off my poor BIL, who needed to rest because he has a terrible cold coming on, and spent a few hours letting the kids run around the house while i had a nice chat with my SIL. (BS hid out in the office on the computer.) we then fed the kids and packed everyone in the car for the light show at the national zoo, an incredibly lame light experience. all the lights were sponsored by businesses; all the treats cost ridiculous sums. i don’t know why we had to pay for tickets for this underwhelming extravaganza. i sure hope the national zoo earned some money outta this one.

and then back for brownies and ice cream. BS stopped and bought vanilla ice cream (plus cookies and cream) because the sweet girl doesn’t care for chocolate. why can’t we have chawwwwklit? cried jools, who has been raised by a mama who knows no other flavor. why are there white chocolate chips touching my brownies? cried little miss firecracker, even after i surgically removed them, leaving a faint white (unacceptable) trace. BC, bless her pointed little head, has never met a chocolate product she didn’t like. she ate it all gladly and taught miss firecracker about the wonders of cookies and cream ice cream (the other aforementioned flavor BS actually purchased for himself but which of course ended up with the kids. my poor Beleagured Spouse.) and then bed. a fold-out couch. an aerobed. and a blow-up sleeping bag that jools adores and which is ripping apart.

my sweetgirl niece got homesick and went back to the hotel with my BIL and SIL; BC is sleeping in her room because the living room is apparently too dusty for her. so the talley in the livingroom now stands at jools (in the blow-up sleeping bag) and miss firecracker, who has the entire fold-out-couch to herself. i just hope she doesn’t freak out in the morning when she sees her sister AND her beloved BC are not there with her.

we’ll see.

for jewish girls who've considered suicide when christmas cooking was enuf

for jewish girls who've considered suicide when christmas cooking was enuf

Posted on by wrekehavoc

with apologies to Ntozake Shange.

some friends are coming over for christmas eve. i’m pretty excited, as i have not yet hosted either family over my house. it’s kind of amusing, really, that the nice jewish girl is hosting a christmas eve ‘do, but i just consider it another occasion for celebration. as i said so sweetly to BS this morning as he was getting cranky because of cleaning duties: get ahold of your holiday spirit, dammit.

it’s clicheed, but it’s true: my dream of christmas day has always been a movie followed by chinese food. for the many years of our marriage, i went without those, deferring instead to BS since this annual trainwreck holiday belongs to him and i wanted it to be as he would want it to be. i love to see his face, all happy and thrilled 🙂

but last year, i got my dream of chinese food: to be clearer, crappy, overpriced, but still chinese food. we were surrounded only by dressed-up chinese people who all seemed to know each other and who ordered stuff emanating from animal parts which i, a borderline vegetarian, probably don’t want to contemplate. this year in jerusalem, BC would like to have vietnamese food instead. BS and i (embarrassing history geeks who should no longer be allowed to watch the history channel) have already spent actual time contemplating whether certain southeast asian nations have had significant numbers of christian missionaries invading (thailand? india? cambodia?), as this might determine whether they would actually be open on christmas day. do normal people talk like this? i don’t really know. [note to self: just call the damn vietnamese restaurant tomorrow to find out whether they’re open and forget about seeing whether the history channel has an answer for you. they won’t.]

consequently, i have no earthly idea what one eats on christmas eve beyond the cookies and carrots one’s child has dutifully left out for st. nick. (oh, and by the way, for any of you kids out there reading this — auntie wreke wants you to know that those are only the cookies and carrots that santa and his reindeer left behind. they get kind of full on christmas eve, you know.) so we’re going with modified thanksgiving. i can hardly wait to taste the brined turkey that kellyo is bringing over; and i’m full of thanks that nylonthread’s AJS has something with which to actually carve the bird — and he’s not afraid to use it.

i found a recipe for sugared cranberries. heaven knows why i decided this, but i’m making said cranberries, which apparently create a lovely sugar syrup that’s appropriate for mixing with vodka. i added some orange peel to steep in there — i like my cranberries with orange whenever possible. i’m not entirely sure what the hell to do with this, but kellyo assures me that she does. i think i might welcome that sort of drink after the cleaning and cooking i’ve been doing.

additionally, i’m making ginger-orange carrots (a modified tzimmes, for you red sea pedestrians out there), some sort of garlic mashed potatoes, plain peas (because there will be 6 kids there), hummus, some sort of challah rolls (haven’t decided yet, but i guess i better get on the stick) and dessert. one dessert has turned out well — red velvet cupcakes topped with white chocolate peppermint cream cheese frosting (say that 10 times fast). in fact, the kids helped me decorate many of the cupcakes with lots of colored sugar and frosting, so if people haven’t started out in a diabetic coma, they will definitely end up nearing one.

dessert #2? well, that’s a different story. the gingerbread in question started out life with a different purpose. (a special purpose.) i made gingerbread cupcakes from an online recipe source and was all set to make the lovely frosting to go with it. people swore up and down, 5 stars, amazing recipe. so i made it. only, too bad for me. the cake, while delicious, ended up quite fragile and fell. the batter was quite thin. no way in hades would this stuff stand up to a stiff wind, much less frosting. i had to come to plan b.

or, in the words of my hero, winnie the pooh, think, think, think.

and sha-ZAAM! it came to me. a trifle. when G-d gives you lemons, make lemonade. the cake tastes fine; it just won’t be a pretty thing. i found a recipe and i’m modifying it by using my gingerbread. if nothing else, people might like pumpkin pudding, which tastes fine.

so what have we learned, boys and girls? stick with recipe sources where you can stick it to them via the letters to the editor section, if need be.

and when all else fails,we’ll always have kung pao chicken.

explaining homosexuality to a 9 year old

explaining homosexuality to a 9 year old

Posted on by wrekehavoc

BS left a Time Magazine on the top of the toilet as he always does. he’s always weeks behind on his quality reading, so this issue must be at least a month or so old. one headline that screams from the cover: Yep, He’s Gay.

BC and i were in the bathroom at the same time, she washing her hands and me drying mine. it was one of those slow-motion moments where i saw her eyes leap to the monosyllabic words, words she can easily read. and i knew hilarity would ensue.

mama, girlfriend said, what does that mean?

what?

“gay” she said. duh, mama.

attempting to be as matter of fact as if i were discussing butter or baseball, i replied, gay is when two people are in love with each other and they are both men or both women.

i saw girlfriend processing this one. she made an uneasy face. i wanted to head it off at the pass.

you know, buzz (one of her nicknames), i added, in this world, you are lucky if you can find someone you love who loves you back. it doesn’t really matter whether it’s a boy or a girl.

that finished it. we were both satisfied.

fin.