The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

Frog Legs

Bill and the kids went camping for a couple of days right before school started back up this year. I couldn't go because of work, but Bill had promised Julia they'd go, so off they went. Not too far - about 45 minutes away.

We didn't talk or text much, partly because camping isn't about electronics, and partly because they couldn't plug the phones into a tree to recharge, so they tried not to waste the batteries.

They had a great time. And yes, I enjoyed a couple evenings of peace and quiet.

The first day, despite the self-imposed restrictions on phone usage, Bill sent a picture.

It was of Julia, and she was holding up something that looked about as big as a deck of cards and seemed to be brown.

Turns out they were - you guessed it - frog legs.

Just the legs.

Yeah.

And yes, they got cooked and eaten. Julia's idea, per Bill. Well, she's been eating fish eyes since she was two, so it's not a huge surprise. I wasn't sure how I felt about it all.

I also didn't have much of the story. Didn't get the rest until everyone was home and Bill and the kids were filling me in on their adventures.

I guess that first day they were joking around and exploring. They checked out trails and ponds, and there was this marshy area teeming with all kinds of frogs. So they tried catching them. And letting them go.

But Bill said Julia was much more determined to catch the frogs than he and Alex. She went after the big ones and was genuinely upset when they evaded her.

Eventually she got one. And she told Bill she wanted to eat it.

Now, we catch fish and crabs and dig for clams. My kids know these all start out as living things and when we catch them we kill them in order to eat them. So while it was an unexpected request, Bill reluctantly agreed. He killed the frog quickly, removed the legs, and they grilled them for part of their dinner. (They tasted like fresh water fish, only firmer, in case you wondered.)

Bill still didn't know where Julia had gotten the idea to eat frog legs, but he didn't pursue it at the time. At home Julia told us it was because of Bill. Apparently he's mentioned in some forgotten conversation that frog legs were yummy. And because we fish and all that, Julia just thought Bill (and I) had caught the frogs that we ate.

We hadn't.

But her assumption made sense.

Anyway, after that was clarified, Bill reiterated that he didn't enjoy killing that frog and wouldn't have killed any more if Julia had asked.

Julia told me after Bill killed it "it still tried to jump!" I explained that all the shaking and twitching happened because even though the frog was dead, it takes a bit of time for the nervous system and muscles to catch on, and these are involuntary twitches and spasms.

Julia looked at me and asked "Did Grammy do that?"

And while Bill jumped in to tell Julia that it was upsetting to me because it was my mother she was asking about, I laughed.

I laughed for a while. I reassured Julia that I wasn't upset. At all. And no, Grammy didn't do that because hers was a different kind of death.

And I kept laughing.

It was the timing of her question. The out-of-the-blueness of it. The innocence. And the absurdity of the image that naturally popped into my head.

And I know, I am SO positive, that Mom would have laughed too. We have that kind of sense of humor, the women of this bloodline.

Mom liked frog legs, too. With butter and garlic. I wish

Well, there's no point to finishing that sentence.

Anyway, I like to think Mom was somewhere listening to our conversation.

And laughing.

Little Good Things

 

More thoughts of Mom….

We’ve been decorating cookies!  I baked a ton of regular sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies, in assorted shapes, and on Saturday I brought my awesome niece, Natalie up to the house and she and Julia and I (and Alex, but not as much) hung out decorating cookies.  Natalie made the most, and unfortunately I forgot to get a picture of all her mini works of art.  Julia made a lot, ate some, and then yesterday, while I was at work, she decorated some more.

The house above is one of them.

I asked her if we could keep it.  Maybe I can dip it in shellac or something to preserve it. 

Last year I didn’t bake cookies, or if I did, I didn’t bake many of them.  I don’t remember.  Too much going on with Mom.  I didn’t have the energy.  I didn’t have the enthusiasm.  I wanted to.  I felt I should.  But I finally gave myself permission not to.  It’s hard to do what’s best for myself, but I scraped together some sense and did it.

Anyway, the reason I want to keep this house is because it made me smile and it made me think of my mother.

When I was little I loved to draw.  I guess I did pretty well.  My mother told me that, anyway.  I took after my grandmother, Mom’s mother, in the artistic department.  Mom, however, would tell us she couldn’t even draw a straight line.  (Years later I pointed out that drawing a straight line had nothing to do with artistic capabilities, and that she was creative and artistic in plenty of other ways, if not with a paper and crayons.) 

Anyway, to prove her point, Mom told me that when she was little and in school – kindergarten or an early elementary school grade – she was drawing a house and her teacher pointed out that she was doing it wrong.  I know teachers weren’t always as kind as they usually are these days, and I imagine my mother was sensitive to any sort of criticism, which is why this memory stayed with her.

The teacher pointed out that she’d done the bricks in the chimney wrong.  Instead of staggering them like she was “supposed to,” my mother had drawn them in a grid. 

Like Julia’s cookie.

~~~

Here’s another little post from a year ago…

MotherDaughterDaughterMother

December 9, 2013

 

It’s happened before, not just recently, though it’s happening more frequently now.

Sometimes when I look at Julia, color fades and my vision slips backwards time-ways and I am looking through my mother’s eyes at my child self.  I see how she saw me, or at least how I imagine she looked at me.  It doesn’t last for long, it’s almost like a shimmer for a few seconds, and I feel my heart spin back and forth as I am me, then my mother, then me-the-child, then me the adult again.

I am hugging my children harder now.  And I hug Julia hardest of all.  Not because I love her more than my son, but because she is a daughter, as I am a daughter, and when I am holding her I am holding myself from the past, and my mother then, and my mother now.

And maybe myself now as well.

~~~

One of the things my mother, my sister and I have/had in common was our sense of humor.  I don’t know how to describe it, but there was always (and still is, with Mere and me) a love of physical humor.  Falling is funny.

There’s a scene in the movie “What’s Up, Doc?” – well, many scenes, but this one is the one that I think of first – that could get my mother laughing before it even happened.

There’s the scene where Judy and Howard have taken all the bags (and if you don’t know this movie, well, I’m sorry, but you’ve got a big gap in your movie-watching history) and are running from everyone.  They end up in a Chinese dragon, which goes careening through the streets of San Francisco, leaving havoc and chaos in its wake. 

Part of this chaos involves a man walking down the sidewalk.  There is a white fence to his left (our right, as we watch).  Suddenly, large metal trash cans come rolling down the hill behind him.  He glances back at the sound, then looks back again in disbelief and starts running.  The trash cans continue to chase him, and finally, in a desperate attempt to escape them, the man leaps over the fence.  The camera cuts to the other side of the fence, where a peaceful and genteel afternoon luncheon is taking place.  The man flies over the fence and SITS DOWN HARD on a little table, his head flinging back as the table falls over and people are jumping up from their seats in surprise.

Such a little scene, but so perfectly done and so FUNNY in its absurdity…well, Mom would start laughing before we even saw the man walking down the sidewalk.  Real, from the belly, laughing. 

~~~

My grandmother was the artistic one.  And the musical one.  Natural talents, with, I’m assuming, a little instruction at some point in her youth.  The talent skipped down to her granddaughters – my sister got the music and I got the drawing/painting – and my mother got the frustration of not having the same innate abilities as her mother along with having a mother who couldn’t understand why her daughter couldn’t just play the piano easily, by ear.  My mother had to practice and practice.  It must have been so frustrating to have to practice and practice to become not quite as good as her mother, to whom it all came so easily.  It was also frustrating to recognize a piece of music but not to be able to remember the name of it.  My grandfather, while possessing no musical ability that anyone was aware of, loved music with a great passion.  “Emma, play us a tune” was a common request he would make of my grandmother.  And she would sit down at the piano and play all sorts of things.  By ear.  From memory.  He loved classical music.  He loved opera.  He wanted my mom to be able to play the piano like her mother did, but she didn’t have that ability.  I don’t know if he ever realized it, but she was so much more like him than she was like her mother.  She couldn’t just sit down and play a tune, but she could listen with great joy, eyes closed, a dreamy smile on her face.

~~~

Here’s another little post from last year….

Small Mercies

December 12, 2013

 

I woke up at 2:30 this morning and struggled to not struggle to go back to sleep. Please, I need sleep. I finally must have dozed off, only to wake up to my alarm with the detritus of several odd and moody dreams smashing against my eyes.

I stopped at the nursing home on my way to work, about 5:30, and I was afraid I would get to her room and she would be gone. Not gone like in another room. gone gone. It's always there, that fear. It's not going to leave me. And it gets bigger every day. I think it feeds on my nightmares.

She was asleep, and I was relieved, but it's so painful to see her like this: Old. Tired. Frail.

I started this neglected little blog as a place to vent about all the insanity and frustration that comes with having an alcoholic parent. I was probably angry at the time. I've been angry a lot over the years.

And now...now I am heartbroken at what will never be again. I miss the mother I remember from the first half of my life. And, yes, portions of the second half. But alcoholism is greedy. It just takes and takes and takes. And now, there's not much left to take.

But.

When I look in my mother’s eyes now, she is there again. I don't know how long it will last, and it probably won't be very long at all, but for this precious little bit of time, I have my mom back.

Time

This is another post from a year ago.  I just lifted it from the original post – I thought of going through and tidying it up a bit, but no, I’m just going to leave it as-is.

I’ll make sure to let you know when I’m posting about stuff to do with my mother…in case it makes you sad or uncomfortable or anything like that to read it.  I’m not sharing this for reaction as much as I’m looking back at that time a year ago that I barely remember except for a handful of specific episodes.  I may fill in some of the gaps, too, with explanation or other stories.  I just feel like I need to do this – share it, remember it all, think about all that happened, both after her diagnosis and before. 

I’m typing this on a laptop that belonged to my mother.  She wanted it – in addition to the desktop Dell they had – so she could tote it around and write stories from her family. 

But she never did that.  She had the laptop for several years.  I don’t think she ever typed a thing on it.  I found a legal pad with a bit of personal history, but that’s about it.  I have been having moments lately where I try to remember something about my grandparents or some other portion of that side of the family, and for the splittest of seconds I think “I’ll ask Mo-“ and then I’ll stop.  I feel a flare of anger and a flare of sorrow.  Or maybe it’s one flare in two colors.

Anyway, this piece below is exactly a year old, to the day.

 

Time

Mom had an appointment with an oncologist this week.  I worked half the day, then met her, Dad, my sister, and the guys who transported mom from the nursing home to the doctors’ office.

We were crowded into the small exam room – Mom on her industrial gurney (designed for transport in a vehicle), strapped in like Hannibal Lector only without the bite mask, and Mere, Me and Dad on chairs.

I filled out some paperwork that was supposed to have arrived at mom and dads house, contact information mostly, and consent to treat her.

The doctor went over mom’s information…carefully.  Not sure, I think, of how much we knew or what we understood.

She said, a few times, that she didn’t know that chemo would help, that, in fact, it might make mom feel worse.  She had done a bit of an exam, eyes, throat, felt her abdomen, looked at her legs, which were swollen, down at the ankles.

She reiterated that a couple of times.  And it gave me the feeling that there was more she wasn’t saying.  The doctor.  I felt like the prognosis was more bad than good, not that there was a whole lot of good anyway.

She said a biopsy would tell them for sure what type of cancer it is, and that would determine what type of chemo and/or radiation would be best to use.  Radiation was still a possibility because it wouldn’t have the side effects of chemo and it might slow down the tumor growth.

Cholangiocarcinoma is very aggressive.  Who knows how long it’s been growing.

Anyway, it was weird, Mom turned to me a couple times and asked what I thought she should do.  I handed that back to her…it’s her life, her call.  She’s always said she didn’t want heroic measures…and that’s where it stands now.

She’s still scheduled for the stent replacement on the 23rd, and when they do that they can do a biopsy and we can maybe have some radiation done.  Chemo, in addition to possibly not working and making her feel sick, would also involve at least weekly trips to the hospital for the injections, and frequent follow-ups with the doctor.  A lot of travel.

So that was that.  Oh, no it’s not.  She also brought up hospice, and we might want to get that in place as well.

Another little moment – the Dr brought up mom’s alcohol use (or misuse, or abuse, take your pick) and mom said, very confidently, that she hasn’t had any alcohol in ages.  Ages.  Mere and I both called her on that.  We’re the cranky Greek Chorus in Mom’s life of denial.  Anyway, it’s two months, not ages.

So on the way out we shook hands with a woman who’s kind of a liason for patients and the office and families.  Mere talked to her more than I did, only because they spoke the same language – medicare and related stuff.  She – I don’t remember her name – was extremely nice, warm, on top of things.

The whole office was like that.

There are so many good, kind, warm people out there.  There are idiots too – case in point, that annoying doctor from the other office – but a lot of wonderful people as well.  The guys who transported mom – just nice guys.

Anyway.

We all went our separate ways, mom back to the nursing home, dad to his house, mere and I back to work.

And I just kept feeling like there were things unsaid.

So on the way home I called the oncologist’s office and asked for a call back, to discuss the unsaid things, like prognosis.

Dr. P called back a couple hours later, and I went outside to talk because I haven’t told the kids yet.

And she said what I kind of knew, based on what I’d read – that at the outside, with no complications, Mom’s got maybe six months.

But she’s got a lot working against that.  She doesn’t eat much.  She’s anemic.  She doesn’t exercise at all – and this has gone on for YEARS, the fight to get her to walk, to do her PT, to MOVE.  It’s been such a losing battle.  So there’s that.  And the swelling in her legs…the possibility of a blood clot forming and traveling to her heart…the possibility of infection – maybe from bedsores, or from the current stent…the stent could get blocked again, or the next stent could get blocked, which would mean another stent would need to go in.  More procedures – more invasive procedures.  She could fall into a coma.

She could have as little as a month left.

I called her oldest friend – one of her only remaining friends – that night to update her.  It was a hard conversation to have.  She said she’d call me back soon.  She’s thinking of coming up.

I have a few other people to call, I think.  But, sadly, over the years Mom has shut doors on long-standing friendships.  There are only a couple of people who still call the house to say hello and to check on her, on dad.  They get in touch with me if (like recently) there is something wrong with the phone at mom and dad’s house.  Two people.  Interestingly, both were nurses.  That’s not how she knows them – one she’s known since they were five – a lifetime friendship.  The other was married to my dad’s uncle, so she’s sort of a relative that way but not by blood.

But I digress.

One minute I’m fine, the next I’m not.  I have times where I can talk about all this matter-of-factly, without emotions spilling over.  And then other times I can’t even get a word out without my voice cracking.

Last night was the elementary school christmas concert.  alex was in it.  During most of it I was annoyed at this tall kid who showed up late and stood next to his mom and IN FRONT OF ME and a shorter older woman.  I kept glaring at him.  He’s in the eighth grade according to alex, and he is growing a mustache…much like the one his mom has.

Anyway, I fought off my short-person rage, moved to a different spot, and focused on watching Alex and listening to the songs.

And then, out of the blue, during the last song, which was about drinking hot cocoa, I suddenly felt tears welling.  I don’t even know why!  Hot cocoa?  But then, why not?

It’s my mother.  And mothers are everything.  Every little bit and piece of my childhood, just about, connects to my mother.  So why not hot cocoa?

I’ve got today off.  It’s a paid personal day.  I need it.  My boss thought I needed it.  I need time by myself.  Time to be kind to myself and not take care of anyone else.

Time to cry if I need to.

Maybe I’ll go make some hot cocoa.

Some Things I’ve Been Doing

I crocheted this little guy today.

He’s a little tiny elephant wearing a hat.  You can’t tell from the pictures, but I used this sort of sparkly white yarn that I bought last year to make snowflakes.  I’d planned to just leave him all white, but Julia wanted him to have a hat like the one in the pattern I was following (He’s Percy the Elephant, and you can make a female version with a little bow on top instead of a hat, if you want.  If you crochet.)

He took a while to do, mostly because I’m not really all that experienced crochet-wise, but I enjoy it enough to unravel my mistakes and try all over again, so I think that’s a good sign. 

Anyway, yesterday I made this one:

The pattern for Meimei the baby elephant can be found here.  I used a multi-hued purpley chenille for the ears and feet, and a soft heathery gray for the body. 

Julia loves the two new elephants.  I think she has about a thousand stuffed animal elephants.  Maybe not quite that many, but it’s a lot.  And here I am, adding two more to the collection.

Can’t help it.  They’re cute. 

I also crocheted a couple of little baby hats, for practice and for any babies that might be coming along anywhere.  (NO, not me.  I’m all done with that business.)

Speaking of being all done with that business, I’m really enjoying – reveling in, even – my kids at this age.

Sometimes I think back on when they were babies, or toddlers, and I do miss aspects of that.  A lot of aspects.  But you can’t go backwards.

And I don’t miss diapers.  Or having to feed them, and then clean all the excess food out of their hair, off the high chair, off the walls, the table, the floor, and my own entire self.  I don’t miss sleeplessness.

I miss all the little milestones.  The smallness of them.  The little tiny voices. 

But I digress.  And I become nostalgic. 

Right now, there are lots of good things.  They are old enough to be responsible about a lot of things.  They aren’t always, but their average is good. 

They don’t get along all the time, which is fine, and normal, and can be a headache.  But when they do get along, when they are doing stuff together without being aware that I’m gazing at them with a goofy look on my face (sort of like those dreamy expressions you’d see as the opening theme song would play for some old tv shows and they’d show an actress and put her name under the image, and she wouldn’t be doing anything, she’d just be LOOKING somewhere slightly away from the camera pointed right at her.  I remember being able to mimic all the facial expressions of cast members of various favorite shows.  A long time ago.  I don’t do it now.

ANYWAY…so my kids.

Alex, as you know, has played baseball since birth, or five years old, somewhere in there.  Julia played a year of T-ball when she was five, but has been “doing gymnastics” since age three.  I think she loved the physicality of it, but was never interested in the competitive or artistic aspects of it.  Suddenly last spring she announced that she wanted to quit gymnastics and play softball now.  Now and forever. (And I just noticed after typing “now.  Now and forever” that I am still – OH THE HORROR OF IT – pressing the space bar twice after a period.  I know, that is not the way to do it.  But very old habits die hard, and when I learned to type back in the first half of my sophomore year in high school (ON A TYPEWRITER!!!!), we had to put two spaces after a period, or any other end-of-a-sentence piece of punctuation.  And I pride myself on my speedy mad typing skillz.  I swear – no disrespect to any of my other high school teachers – that typing was one of THE most useful classes I ever took.  My husband never learned to type – he does the ever-so-annoying Two Index Fingers In Search of the Next Key form of typing, and if I’m in the same room when he’s typing something I either offer to type for him or I have to leave the room because slow typing is painful to me.

Probably just like too much space after final punctuation is painful to other people.

But I love my husband, so I don’t slap his fingers or push him out of the way.  Because I know he can’t help how he types.

Just like I can’t help but type two spaces after a period.  Or an exclamation point!  Or a question mark?  See?  It’s like breathing for me.  So please don’t slap at my fingers or push me off a chair.

I digressed again, didn’t I?

My kids.  So we let Julia not go back to gymnastics and this fall she started softball.

She’s been part of the picture whenever Bill has taken Alex to a field to practice his hitting or fielding or pitching for the past bunch of years, mainly because I’d be at work and she was too young to stay home alone.  But over the years she’s picked up a few things, and she’s always had a good, aggressive swing.  (I maintain that she mostly just likes to hit things.)  And while softball and baseball have definite differences, like, why use such a huge ball for little girls with little tiny hands, and that crazy underhand pitching, there are plenty of similarities.

So now that Julia’s on a team, Alex is much more likely to ask her if she wants to go play catch or practice hitting – without Bill being involved. 

Over the summer, once Julia had said she wanted to play, yes, really really wanted to play, Bill started working with her.  He bought some softballs, we sent her to a softball camp for a week, and Bill worked with her on fielding.  With his (and Alex’s) coaching and encouragement and, sometimes, frustration, Julia made up her mind one day – and it really was as abrupt as that – to stop being afraid of the ball coming at her.  That was it.  She just stopped.  And that’s huge.  Balls hurt when they hit you!  Softball, baseball – if it’s thrown or hit hard enough and it hits you, it hurts.

But she’s not afraid.

And she’s so much fun to watch at her games and practices.  She is fearless.  She is naturally athletic, and she’s so HAPPY to be playing.  She beams. 

She’s been playing shortstop, and then last weekend she asked her coach if she could try catching.  He let her.  And she looked like a natural. 

I told her after the game that I was so proud of her and she did great, and she told me she was shaking the whole time because she was afraid the bat or a ball would hit her.  But she loved it. 

And she got to catch again today.

Alex was impressed.  He doesn’t get to all of Julia’s games because sometimes his practices or games are at the same time.

I took this picture earlier in the game – Alex was giving Julia advice or feedback on something in between innings.

I love this.

I love their interactions.  I love them sharing a love of a sport (or two very closely related sports).  I love how kind he is.  I love how she is so much more confident and proud of herself. 

They are so different in some ways, but they have so much in common, as siblings do without even trying.  They drive me crazy at times, and they amaze me all the time.  They make me laugh and they make me gaze off, dreamily, like a sap.  They are fascinating.

I love these two people.

~~~

And I guess I’ll stop here.  I’ve rambled all over the place, and while I’ve probably got more to write about, I figure this is plenty for one evening.

Good night.  Sleep tight.  Don’t let the bedbugs bite.  (My mom used to say that when she put us to bed.  Glad I never really thought that there were such things as bedbugs, and that they really might bite me.  I’d have slept in a chair.)

September: A Time of Blood and Harvest

But we’ll talk about the harvest part first. 

I picked 3 purple tomatillos the other day.  I feel like I’ve waited SO long for them to turn purple – I deserved to see how they looked on the inside, now that they’re properly purple (well, these three) on the outside.

And this is how they looked.  Some purple, some green.  I’m wondering if they’d become purpler on the inside as they age.  I think they would, just because that one on the right, the most purplest of all, was more purple inside than the other two.  But not by a lot, so who knows.

Anyway, since there were only three, and it was Taco Night (postponed from the previous night, which I’ll get to in a minute), I made a little bowl of fresh salsa using these, a bit of onion, a bit of jalapeno, and three White Tomasol (tomatoes).  And some fresh cilantro.  Everything but the onion came from the garden. 

The jalapeno had this cute little curly thing sticking out of its skin.  A curly jalapeno skin tag.  Just thought I’d share.

Here’s the salsa:

Delicious and colorful!

~~~

We’re also picking tomatoes – mostly cherry tomatoes.  Sadly, our larger tomatoes have lagged far behind.  They’re starting to ripen now, but I’m not sure how many we’ll get before it’s too cold.

~~~

We grew beans this year – two kinds – the kind you eat now, and the kind you let dry out so you can use the dried little beans to make soup or baked beans or something.

And sometimes they blend into one variety, like when you totally neglect your red noodle beans and they get way too big to enjoy – too fibrous – so you dry them out instead.  Not sure if we’ll cook them or just save the seeds for next year. 

The other beans in the picture below (besides the fading red noodles) were grown for drying.  We’ve been picking them as they dry, and we’ve got a jar in the cupboard where we collect the dried beans.  Eventually we hope to have enough for a single batch of…something.

AND – I’ve saved the scariest vegetable for last -

ATTACK OF THE RUTABEGAS!

I’ve got today off, and I’d told Bill yesterday to pick any root vegetables he wanted me to roast today.  We’ve got a few beets, some kohlrabi, and, now, THESE.

The picture doesn’t do them justice.  They’re huge.  And a few minutes ago I moved them – this basket and the peacock tailfeather leaves – from that counter to another spot in the kitchen, and they were HEAVY. 

Julia was terrified.

Not really.

~~~

So that’s the harvest part.

No – wait – one more picture.  I just took this one – of the roots. 

There.  I’m done.  Well, Bill picked a bowl of tomatillos, too, but they’re the green ones, so…eh.  No picture. 

~~~

Now for the blood.

I’ve got one incident, one story, and one STORY.

Incident first – yesterday Julia was rollerblading and she fell (she was long overdue), and got herself a huge raspberry on her thigh.  She cried, Bill managed to bandage it up with what we had (nothing that big), and she was eager to show it to me by the time I got home from work last night.  It’s a bit stiff today, but it’s not deep at all, and there’s no gravel or anything embedded in it. 

She’s fine.

~~~

Now, the story.

Friday night was supposed to be Taco Night.  I made the salsa after work, and Julia and I went to the store to get a few more things while Bill went to watch the last part of Alex’s baseball practice.  We’d probably eat around 7:30 or so, but that was okay, it was Friday and I was the only one who had to work in the morning.

Julia and I pulled into the driveway and I was surprised to see that Bill and Alex were already back.  They’d just arrived a few minutes before us, and Bill had that somber look on his face that he gets when one of the kids has a scrape or cut or any sort of injury.  Turns out Alex hurt his thumb.  Well, no, first he got hit in the side of the knee, and that hurt, but some time after that, Alex was playing third and (shortish version) the kid running back to third (in a pickle between third and home) knew he wasn’t going to be safe anyway, so he didn’t slide.  He ran straight into Alex.  Alex had caught the ball thrown from home and had his glove hand up, ready to tag the other kid.  The kid ran into his hand and bent Alex’s thumb waaaaaaaaay back.  It must have hurt so much…

Alex put his glove back on and finished the inning.

He held back the tears til he and Bill were on their way home.

You know, because there’s no crying in baseball.

Anyway, I took a look and the whole thumb was pretty swollen.  Bill kept looking at me with his funeral director face, and he’d hover there, asking “so what do you think?” every minute or two.  Alex couldn’t bend his thumb at all, so – field trip! – off we went to the emergency room, to make sure it wasn’t broken.

Two hours later we were heading home.  No break, according to the x-rays.  Alex had a splint on and was told to ice it often and no baseball for a few days.  And if it wasn’t better by Tuesday, we should see his regular doctor.

It’s funny, but Alex and I have a good time hanging out in the ER.  We’ve been a couple of times over the past bunch of years.  The other times were asthma issues.  We talk.  He’s nice to talk to.  I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s just nice to know that we have a good little mother/son relationship.

And he told me he was glad I was there with him.  I think he said something like “Moms are more caring…” – not that Bill isn’t caring.  I think Alex meant nurturing.  Or something along those lines.  I try to be calm and relaxed and keep an “everything’s going to be all right” tone.  Bill’s is more of an “Oh my GOD!  That looks like it HURTS!” kind of caring.  So it’s best I do the ER trips.  Plus I like medical stuff.

Anyway, that’s that story.  Alex is on the DL for a bit, and we’re going to see the Dr today because his thumb is still pretty swollen and while I have a feeling it’s still just a sprain, I figure it’s best to be sure.

But basically, he’s fine.

~~~

And now, the STORY.

**  A word of caution:  If you don’t like to hear about blood, skip this one.  **

Okay.  So you know how Bill’s been on a crabbing mission lately?  He’s brought home I don’t know how many crabs now, and we cook them up, eat what we want and freeze the rest for some future meal.  Well, a few weeks ago or so, he and Alex went crabbing/skipjack fishing at one of their spots.  They were using both chicken legs and skipjack carcasses for crab bait, I think, and the technique was to tie the bait to a piece of rope, toss it out into the water and let it sit there til a hungry crab scuttled near and started feasting.  Then they’d gently, gently, ever-so-gently pull the rope (and feasting crab) closer and at just the right moment, blindly (the water in this spot is kind of murky) scoop down into the water with the net and hopefully catch the crab.

Got all that?  Good.

So this one day Bill and Alex went crabbing and fishing.  I think they were fishing near a marina…off a dock.  I think they came home with a little of both – 5-7 crabs and about the same number of skipjacks.  Or I could be off on the number of fish.  I don’t remember – sometimes it blurs together.  That part isn’t important to the STORY anyway.

Anyway, during this whole adventure, Bill needed to jump into the shallow water, I think to go after a crab that had eluded his net.  He doesn’t like it when they refuse to be caught. 

The water, as I said, was pretty shallow there, but the mucky muddy sandy surface below was very soft and mushy, and when he jumped in, wearing his flip flops, his feet sank down deep.  When he took a step, he lost his footwear. 

That was unfortunate, but he also had to walk in the muck, which was littered with rocks and bits of shell and probably broken glass.  He found a large rock he could stand on, and had Alex fetch his junky sneakers from the truck.  He’d already felt some cuts to his feet and he didn’t want to risk any more.  Somehow, balancing on the rock, he got his sneakers on, and crabbing continued.

When he got home, he showed me the catch, but, more importantly, he showed me the life-threatening injuries he’d sustained.

There was a nasty cut on one heel, and on the other foot, a cut right on top of his big toe.  I told him to clean them both and put some Neosporin on.  And I went back to whatever cooking I was doing at the time. 

We were both busy for a while, he pulling things from the garden and putting together his crab boil seasonings, me…cooking something.  I don’t remember.  But we were both in the kitchen.  And both walking around barefoot – the norm for me; rather unusual for Bill.

Anyway, he said he noticed the floor seemed wet, but figured it was water from the various food-related goings-on.

Until he looked down.

And saw the puddles – of blood.

Yes, blood.  He gently brought it to my attention by shrieking.

His toe, which he’d slathered in antibiotic ointment, was…leaking.  I figure the cut wasn’t able to scab over because of the ointment…so it had been spilling blood as Bill walked around the kitchen.

I looked down at his toe and yep, blood was pouring down on each side, kind of like a gentle volcano.

And then blood SPURTED out of his toe.  Yes, SPURTED.  Right out.  In a graceful red arc. 

And I shouted “Cool!” as my husband expressed more concern and shrieking.  Okay, not shrieking.  More like “Aaaah!”  In a terrified tone of voice.

And my first impulse, as I watched the intermittent Monty Python sketch-like spurting of the blood from my beloved husband’s toe, was “I need to get my camera!”

Yes.  I thought it was cool, and I wanted to take a picture of it.

These thoughts, combined with my husband’s pale, horrified expression, triggered wave after wave of, yes, laughter.

Just for the record, I didn’t grab my camera, so there are no images of the event.  (I also, all in the space of a nanosecond, realized I’d have to take a series of pictures in order to (hopefully) get a decent mid-spurt shot, and that such callous behavior might not do my marriage any favors.)

I did, however, spend minutes and minutes just now to create a life-like artistic rendering of the spurting.  Julia was my technical critic and she gave the picture its title.

Here you go:

Okay, his heel isn’t that pointy.  But otherwise, it’s pretty accurate.

Now, lest you think I am completely heartless, I did tell Bill to sit down, I applied pressure, elevated the wound, cleaned it up and bandaged the toe.  No amputation necessary.  He looked nauseous at one point, so I urged him to look away.

I couldn’t help the fact that I kept laughing the whole time. 

I tried to stop, really I did, but…well, I’d never seen anything like it before.  Bill was the one who made the Monty Python reference.  It just looked so…fake. 

I think I was still giggling when we cleaned up the puddles.

Bill has recovered from his injuries and should finish up toe rehab in another week.

Family Movie Night: Les Miserables

Yeah, you read that right.

Last night after dinner, I made popcorn and Bill and the kids and I settled in for a couple hours of song and death.

Let me back up a bit.

These Eyes

After a rather sudden and fast-moving illness, Softie is gone. 

She passed away Tuesday night, in our living room/basement.  The kids were asleep.  I think Alex suspected, though.

I sat with her.  First I held her, but when that seemed too uncomfortable for her, I laid her down on the carpet and stayed down there with her. 

She rested her head in my left hand, while I petted her non-stop with my right hand.

And all the while I looked into those eyes of hers. 

I told her over and over that I was sorry, so sorry, and that it was okay…I’m here…I love you….

She looked at me but sometimes it was as if she was looking through me, and that is the image, one of them, that has stayed with me, haunting me, squeezing my heart inside my chest and forcing new tears to my eyes. 

Sometimes it seemed to me she looked at me with reproach.  Why couldn’t I do more for her?  Why wasn’t I saving her?  That’s what I’m supposed to do.

I’m sorry.  I’m sorry.  I’m sorry.  So sorry.

Bill and I were both sitting with her when she exhaled for the last time.  Scratchy was nearby.  He knew something was wrong.

I wrapped Softie in one of Julia’s old baby blankets.  It has tiny rose buds along the binding and I’ve always liked it.  Then I put Softie in a plastic box – no lid – and tucked the ends of the blanket around her.  She’d have looked like she was sleeping, only we couldn’t figure out how to close her eyes.  So…she was resting.  Bill put the box in the downstairs fridge.

~~~

Two days later Bill and the kids dug a hole near the garage.  There’s a really pretty blue hydrangea growing there, so we thought it was the perfect spot.

When I got home from work, they showed me the hole (very deep – the kids stood in it to show just how deep), and I brought Softie up from the refrigerator, and we held her funeral.

The kids – no, all of us – picked flowers from everywhere in the yard and placed them in the cinder block that Bill had placed on top of the dirt so no animals would try to dig her up. 

We cried. 

Julia played her recorder.

We cried some more.

And then we went inside.  Alex changed into his baseball uniform, and we headed to his game.

Life goes on, of course.

But frequently, still, I see her eyes from that final night, and something squeezes my heart.  Hard.

~~~

And that’s about all I want to write about this right now.

Catching Up

It’s been so long, I don’t even know where to begin.  In fact, that’s what’s taken me so long to write a post – so much to write about and where to begin?

The Day Has Arrived

We are officially a four neti pot family!

Savory Baked Eggs

Or solitary egg, in this case.

When I was a kid, my mother used to make this dish sometimes on Sunday mornings.  It’s a slow-morning kind of breakfast, and Dad’s photography business was closed on Sundays.

I haven’t had savory baked eggs since that time, and lately it’s been on my mind.  So I asked my Mom for details recently and here we are.  The ingredients are simple – onions, butter, salt and pepper, eggs, cheese.  The end result is so simple and incredibly yummy, I’m kind of annoyed with myself for not giving this a try years ago.

FisherMan

Bill took the kids with him while he dug for clams today.  Julia was content to just float around in the water near where Bill was digging.

Alex fished.

Becoming a Man

Alex and Bill went skipjack fishing the other day.  They brought home 12 nice-sized fish. 

Alex has become a good little fisherman.  Bill said he waded out up to his chest (Alex did) to be able to cast into the school of fish as they moved farther away from shore. 

When they returned home, Bill gave Alex a lesson in filleting a fish.

Just before the lesson, Alex said, with a bit of a swagger, “Yep, I’m a man now.”

When he says things like that, I have to chase him around the house for a bit.  Man or no, he’s a very ticklish little boy.  Reminding him of that is my job.

Anyway, I was going to share all the pictures I took during the fillet lesson…but I like the one above the best, and I think it says everything that needs saying.

Cooking Notes from Saturday

My niece, Natalie, and her friend, Justine, came over yesterday to cook.  We made (Bill, me, and the girls – Alex and Julia were too busy playing outside to cook with us) an assortment of Chinese dishes:  Cold Sesame Noodles, Homestyle Bean Curd, General Tang’s Chicken, and Egg Rolls.

The egg rolls were my favorite.  I ate five.  Yes, five.  There, I admit it freely.  Five.  But they were really yummy and I was helplessly in their thrall… or just really hungry and weak of will.

Anyway, I didn’t take any pictures.  I know, I’ve become the Queen of Slackerhood around here.  But my camera needs repairing and until that gets taken care of, I’ve been kind of avoiding picture-taking.

But I can still tell you about the egg rolls. 

We used second-harvest kale from the garden, first of all.  We tend to leave our kale out in the garden through the winter, even after we’ve picked the last of the leaves.  Why?  Well, the first time it was because we were lazy, I think.  But now, it’s because come springtime, we get a second harvest.  The leaves are smaller, and they look kind of like the original stalk wants to shoot out baby kale stalks.  But they’re kale, and edible, and good.  So the other day Bill picked all the leaves and he and the kids (plus a friend and his two kids) used the long, curved, denuded kale stalk for a rousing game of Kaleball.  Yes, the kale is the bat.  It’s lots of fun.  Alex hit a couple of balls over the house.  I think they use whiffle balls, though.  Or tennis balls.  Regulation baseballs would do a number on the kale bat.

Anyway, the egg rolls began with a chiffonade of this kale.  Well, that was the first part we prepped.  I minced garlic and ginger, sauteed them in some oil with a little Sriracha and a drizzle of sesame oil.  I let those cool, then mixed them with the kale, some scallion trimmings from the garden, and shredded sweet potato.  Yes – raw shredded sweet potato.  Looked like carrot.  It added some crunch.  Oh, and I also used up the last of our dehydrated wood ear mushrooms, which were julienned in the bag and then rehydrated before I added them to the mixture after it had cooled. 

So that was the eggroll filling.  And, as I said earlier, it was really good.  I’ll make them again. 

We had two egg roll wrappers left after all the filling was used up, so I wrapped slices of ham around two asparagus stalks from the garden, then wrapped them in the egg roll wrappers, and fried them up, too.  Very tasty. 

My sister came up for the meal, too, and it was such a nice evening, just hanging out and cooking and eating…

Oh, and dessert!  I melted some brown sugar and butter together, brushed them onto slices of pineapple and grilled them, then I sliced them into smaller pieces, added them (still warm) to vanilla ice cream, and topped with crispy chocolate-covered Chinese noodles.  Okay, the Chinese noodles are probably totally American, but they were crispy and worked really well with the other components.  All the dessert plates were cleaned.  Well, except Julia’s – she didn’t like the pineapple.  But still – 6 out of 7 dessert bowls is still good.

That’s about all I’ve got time to write at the moment. 

Eight Point One Miles of Love on a Windy Evening

It’s been one thing after another.  For a long time.  One of those just when you think things have straightened out, something else comes along. 

I know.  Life’s like that.

So we’ve got a truck and a car.  We use the car for longer trips because it has better gas mileage, and we use the truck for big loads of mulch or big pieces of cut-down trees because it’s a truck and that’s what trucks are for.  It’s an older truck, so the gas mileage isn’t ideal, but it’s our truck and it’s paid for and we love it like family.  Like hard-working family that doesn’t complain.

Til now.

And it’s not like it was even complaining, really.  It just…wasn’t feeling well.  And we asked it to hang in there just a little bit longer and then we’d bring it to the truck doctor and take care of it.

I’m the one who’s been driving it mainly because Bill’s job is farther away and the other car is better on gas.  So I’ve been the one begging the truck to hang in there and just…oh…get me to and from work this one more time, please?…thanks, hard-working-truck-that’s-like-family.

It’s been a hold-your-breath (and-overuse-hypens) kind of month.  Good things on the horizon, but we’re not quite there yet…just a little bit longer…just a little bit farther…just keep going, we’re almost there…oh, and pleasepleaseplease don’t let the truck die.

Well, it didn’t die.  But it went into cardiac (sorry, bad pun) arrest last Friday when it decided, when I asked it to back out of the driveway, that it couldn’t possibly do that any more.  In fact, it kept rolling forward.  Sigh.

So the poor, ailing truck was dragged gently up onto a tilt-bed flatbed and hauled to our mechanic.  I almost took pictures, but I couldn’t.  Too painful.

It’s the transmission.  Of course.  Which we weren’t anticipating until a week or two ago when the worst stuff started going on with the truck.

But it can be fixed, and will be fixed, and we’ll be back to both vehicles again. 

But for now, we’re making do with the one.  Which mostly is okay, but last night I had to work AND Alex had baseball practice that had originally been scheduled for a different day but changed.  Anyway, Bill and the kids dropped me off, then headed to the field for Alex’s practice.  I’d call them when I was ready to be fetched.

But then, a couple hours later, when practice was done, my husband and kids showed up.  They’d brought me the car.  And after a little dinner break, they left – without the car.  They’d left that for me, so I wouldn’t have to call them for a ride later.

And they walked home.  2.7 miles.  At dusk.  In the cold.  And in the crazy, extremely strong winds that were blowing all of yesterday.  No hats.  No gloves.  No whining.  No (major) complaining.  An adventure, of sorts.  It took them about 45 minutes. 

Now, yes, it benefited them, too, because no one would have to come and get me later.

But still.  It was so cold last night – a huge change from the summer-like weather we had last week. 

It was such a nice thing for them to do. 

I am blessed.

It’s Cherry Blossom Time in DC

And aren’t these the prettiest cookies you’ve ever seen??  And I’m not just saying that because the cookie artist (and baker) is family.  Fabulous job, Bobbie!

Sweetheart

First we did the nails.  She wanted colors to match her dress.  And then stripes…

Fried Mozzarella and Make Your Own Salad Night

Tuesday is becoming our “Make Your Own Salad” night.  We all look forward to it, and we all participate in the preparation.   I look on it as a little kitchen class for the kids.  They get to use sharp knives – great fun!

Anyway, here’s a look at last night’s culinary adventures…

Sushi Lesson

A few weeks ago my niece, Natalie, texted me and asked when we could cook together again.  

If you’ve been reading here a while, you’ve probably seen some of my other baking/cooking with Natalie posts…we’ve made Chocolate Pound Cake, Fresh Mozzarella, Dorie Greenspan's Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrownies, and also Dorie Greenspan's Chipster Topped Brownies.  (Can you see the chocolate theme that flows, river-like, through out baking adventures?)  Bill and I also went down to my sister’s house and taught Natalie (and my sister) to make Chiang Mai Soup, which features Thai red curry paste.  Natalie’s very adventurous in the kitchen – I’m sure she inherited that from me diagonally across the genetic pool.  Or something like that.

Anyway, I figured the school break in February would be most convenient for everyone involved, and asked what she wanted to do. 

“Sushi.”

Four Cooks, One Fondue Pot

Ever had oil fondue?  If you haven’t, you really should. 

And last night – for the first time in this home – we did.  What a fun meal we had!

Make Your Own

We had salad for dinner last night. 

All four of us.

Salad and some leftover rice Bill had made the other night.

That’s all.

And everybody loved the meal.

I feel like I need to say “even the kids,” except that I don’t have that problem, for the most part.  My kids like their vegetables.  Most of their vegetables, anyway.  Enough so that if they dislike one or two, I don’t worry about it.

I know.  I’m lucky.

He Doesn’t Talk About the War Much

My dad enlisted in the navy during WWII before he was old enough to be drafted and placed where he didn’t want to be. 

I’ve seen pictures of him in those days – so young.  A skinny, smiling, dark-haired boy, either shirtless, cigarette dangling, relaxing with shipmates, or so handsome in his dress whites that my eyes prickle with tears right now, just thinking about it.

He was a boy.

Nearly all of them were.

Ten years older than Alex is now.  Not even that.

So young.

Boston Baked Beans

I don’t know why I haven’t made these until now.  So simple, so warm and sweet and savory and yummy.

The recipe is part of a collection of family-and-friend recipes my mother put together before Bill and I were married.  This one came from Bill’s mother.  Actually, from his mother’s mother-in-law.  And who knows where it came from before that. 

Someone in Boston, presumably.  Heh heh.

Firewood Camp – or – What Mom and Dad Forced Us To Do On Our Summer Vacation

While Mommy slacked off inside pretending to make beef stock and other nourishing foods, plus do laundry and dishes – OR SO SHE SAID – Julia and Alex were pressed into service as Firewood Transportation Specialists.

Thank You, Dad, For Not Poking My Eye With the Scissors That Day

When I was in the first or second grade I rode the bus home from school.

I was a very shy child – I remember being terrified going to Nursery School for the first, oh, 180 days – and so when a fight broke out between two boys in the seat in front of mine on the bus that day, and the boys were hitting each other with their metal lunchboxes, I just sat quietly in my seat, you know, like you’re supposed to.

And when one of those lunchboxes (this all happened within seconds – the bus driver did, in fact, intervene, but she probably had to pull the bus over safely to the side of the road first because we didn’t have bus monitors riding shotgun back then) hit me right between the eyes, I did my very brave best not to cry and make a scene, because I didn’t want all that potential attention.

Mozzarella with Natalie and Mozzarella with Basil

Yesterday afternoon the kids and I went to my sister’s house.  I was helping Natalie with a cooking project for school, and after we did that, I showed her how to make mozzarella! 

Crashing on the Sand

Sometimes when I’m driving around I’ll write parts of posts in my head.  Or I’ll have conversations with various people, either as a rehearsal or as a “if only I’d said it THIS way” rewind kind of thing.  Sometimes I have conversations with myself.  Sometimes the conversations I think I’m having in my head with other people are, really, just more conversations with myself.  Because, after all, the words coming from the “other” people in my head are really just me with a different voice.

Sometimes I wish they’d all – me included – shut up.

So there’s that.

Another Year Already?

About 5:30 this morning I heard a bedroom door open…then silence…and then a pair of small, bare feet scurried down the stairs. 

I was still in bed.  Bill was trying to be asleep for a few more minutes before getting up and ready for work.

I heard the bare feet traipse through the main floor, and then down more stairs to the basement.  A few moments later, those same bare feet hurried up both flights of stairs and headed toward our bedroom door.

The doorknob turned and a little girl crept into the room.

“Mama?  There aren’t any presents!”

Amazing Cake

Just want to point you all in the direction of my future niece-in-law’s blog today.  She is an incredible cake- and cupcake-maker/decorator, and this weekend she competed in the National Area Cake Show Competition in DC.  (Besides THAT fabulousness, she is also an inspiring and tough athlete.  She’s quite awesome.)

If you’ve been reading this blog for at least a few years, you might remember the adorable cupcakes she made (and brought with her on the flight to RI) in response to this unfortunate incident at our house that same summer.

Anyway, her blog is Bertie's Bakery, and you really need to go read her post about the cake decorating competition. 

You really, really do.

Go.

Go NOW!

Father and Daughter

Last night was the Father/Daughter Dance. 

Telling the Kids

I wrote the post yesterday while the kids were still at school.  I wrote it out, I cried when I needed to, and then I made some rye bread.  Because life has to go on.  Bread needs to be baked.  And, later, children get out of school.  And then they have to be told.

I was dreading that.

Wearing the Green

When my sister and I were kids, we didn’t have any green clothes.  I remember her giving me a rather odd look one day when I was old enough to go shopping for my own clothes.  I brought home a green and white striped shirt.  The horror should have been because the stripes were horizontal, but no, it’s because half the stripes were green.

Apparently my mother wouldn’t buy us green clothes because her father was Scottish and English and he wouldn’t have approved.

When the Rose Colored Glasses Broke

When my sister fell on her bike while riding over the train tracks at the other end of our street, our friend Dolores thought she was being kidnapped.

I guess Mere, my sister, must have screamed or yelled or something from just out of view, down in the dip of the road where the trains used to run, back before the town removed the tracks and made a bike path. 

And Our Numbers Increase

No, I’m not pregnant.  Two is Enough in this house.

Two human charges, anyway.

But that doesn’t seem to apply to other forms of life.

We’ve got the three cats, as you know. 

And Cricket-Catcher, the Cuban Knight Anole.

And a tank of assorted tetras and catfish and swordtails and other stuff down in the basement.

And we’ve had a series of Bettas (Siamese Fighting Fish) over the years.  First Reddy, then ReddyII, then Bluey, and most recently (and briefly), Fire, who was overtaken by a rogue fungus of some kind.  Very sad.

Well, two things have happened since I last wrote about the pets.

Day 4 – Attitash and Driving Home in a Blizzard

Our original plan for the trip was to spend the last day either at Black Mountain or at Attitash.  Attitash won.  It was five minutes down the road from our condo, for one thing, and Bill wasn’t all that happy after the broken lift at Black Mountain, so the decision was made pretty easily.

Day 1 – The Drive North and Bretton Woods

Early Tuesday morning of this week we got in the car and headed north for New Hampshire.

A Visit with Auntie: Chickens and Haircuts

These are my cute, but rather shaggy children.

Or, rather, these were my cute, but rather shaggy children. 

Well, they still are my children.  And cute.  But the shagginess is no more.

And no, I have no idea why Julia is making that face.  She’s six.  That’s all the explanation I’ve got.

So yesterday, after Natalie and I baked the pound cake, we trekked down to my sister’s house to return Natalie and her share of pound cake, to bring snacks to the chickens, and to tame the crazy hair on my kids’ heads.

As always, it was entertaining.

Chocolate Pound Cake with Natalie – Part 1

My awesome niece, Natalie, is here today, and we’ve selected a Chocolate Pound Cake as our Chocolate Baked Good of Choice.

With Julia’s Approval

On Wednesday we had yet another snow day.  No school for Bill or the kids.

Actually, snow day isn’t quite accurate.  More like sleet/freezing rain/yuck day.

Definitely not a day to frolic and play outdoors.

Scrabblephobic

Alex received Scrabble for Christmas (from Santa), and at dinner this evening he suggested we have a family game night – and all play Scrabble.

Opinions Requested

I am, of course, way far behind in sending out Christmas cards.  But I’m determined to get things going in that department.

Now, in the last bunch of years, I’ve sent out those picture cards, usually with just a picture of the kids, because they’re cute, they change yearly, so it’s good for far away relatives who don’t read this blog, and, I know I’m biased, but my kids are cute.  Well, they can be.

Anyway, instead of the usual photo of the kids, I was thinking it was time we had a family portrait done, and I thought we could use that for our Christmas card as well.

So, what do you think about this one?

Brrrrrownies with Natalie

The last time Natalie was here (not this most recent time, but the time before that), she’d found a few recipes she wanted to try, but either we didn’t have enough time or I didn’t have all the right ingredients.

Anyway, when plans were in the works to have a weekend of baking recently, Natalie asked if we could make brownies.

So we did.

Sunday Notes

 
~  Bill took the kids trout fishing early this morning.  They didn’t catch any trout, or anything else they could keep.  I’m just happy they weren’t mistaken for turkeys – it’s huntin’ season.  Yes – they were all wearing bright orange, just in case....

Baking with Natalie

I was extremely fortunate yesterday to bake with my fabulous niece, Natalie.

48 Ears of Corn

When my sister and I were kids, my mom used to put us to work at various points throughout the summer helping her prep vegetables for freezing.  She used to do a lot of canning, originally.  Probably before we came along, or before we were big enough to help.  Or before she and my father bought that really big stand-up freezer and put it in the basement.  I think it maybe just became easier to pack things in the freezer in plastic containers than to can them.  I don’t know.

All I know is, my sister, me, and our friend, Dolores, if she was at the house, became extremely cheap labor. 

It Was 48 Years Ago Today...

 

A few tidbits...

Apples and Peaches and a Tarte Tatin

We were going to dig steamers yesterday, but with all the rain, we figured shellfishing would be closed locally, so we headed out to pick apples instead.

In the past we've always gone to orchards in the northern part of the state.  This time around, Bill suggested we try the place we'd seen the signs for on Route 4.  Yes, that's exactly how he put it.  Didn't even know the name of the orchard - we just knew they had signs up, and that, in addition to apples, they had peaches.

Peaches! 

So off we went....

Feasting on Seafood

First there was the pork-fest, and then there was the seafood extravaganza.  Bill's brother, Ray, came back up for a couple of days after he and the rest of them headed down to CT to visit with Nina's part of the family late Sunday.  Ray arrived Wednesday afternoon and helped with the installation of the Anniversary Toilet, and he, Bill, Alex, and Julia went out for sushi while I was taking pictures at the beach class that night.

On Thursday, while I was being tortured fearing for my life drowning in my own saliva losing feeling in my fingers from clutching the armrests so tightly having a root canal done and a new core put in, Ray, Bill and the kids went down to Galilea, to the docks, to get some lobsters for our dinner.  They got 3 pound-and-a-half lobsters, 3 culls (lobsters missing a claw) and a dozen crabs, too.  When they returned, I was sitting on the couch reading and slurping ice cream on the side of my face that wasn't numb. 

A Recap and a Suggestion

For any of you interested, you can read my nephew's recap of swimming/biking/running this year's RI Ironman 70.3 here.

It's pretty cool to get the scoop on what was going on for him during the whole race, and he's a very informative and entertaining writer as well, so it's worth reading the whole post.

And speaking of DC Rainmaker, over at the top of the right column on my little ol' site here, there's a button to click on to help get him sent to Antarctica.  The deadline for voting is September 30th, so there's still time to get your vote in.  Voting doesn't take long, and I can't think of a better person to have blogging such a fabulous trip.

So go on!  VOTE FOR DC RAINMAKER!!!! 

 

NOW!

(Sorry to be bossy.  I have to go have a root canal in an hour and I'm stressed and cranky.)

Some Images from the RI Ironman 70.3

* My brother-in-law, Ray, borrowed my camera and shot all the swimming and cycling pictures and some of the first few running pictures.  I'll indicate when mine begin.

** One other thing - because my nephew, DC Rainmaker, refers to his AWESOME girlfriend as The Girl, and he has not (as of this posting) put up any pictures of her (except one of her skiing, and she's about a hundred zillion miles away and pretty much resembles a dot on skiis), I feel honor-bound to also refrain from posting photos of her here.  I will just say, then, in lieu of photos, that she's an amazing athelete and tremendously inspiring.  Julia, in particular, adores The Girl, and at times she refers to the two of them as "The Girl and her boyfriend," rather than "Cousin DC Rainmaker and his girlfriend." 

In fact, I have to broaden the topic here and say that ALL of these triatheletes are inspiring.  I was close to crying more than once as I watched these phenomenal men and women run past.  I am in awe of each and every one of them.

Okay, enough talk.  Time for pictures.

 

*And here's where I took over.  Can you tell?

 

We Like Big Butts

Especially when they're about ten pounds...of the pork variety...rubbed and injected and then slow-cooked (12 hours of indirect heat) on the grill/smoker, with plenty of hickory and cherry smoke.

Why, what kind of butt did you think I meant?