The Wounded And The Whole

It's been a busy sort of month, in case you hadn't noticed by my lack of posts. Not a constantly working sort of thing, but more of a can't seem to catch up sort of thing, which is good in a way. This past weekend though, we just sort of putzed around...

First of all, we had a long overdue garage sale, which are always fun. In case you haven't seen our attic, we have an impressive amount of crap... and I don't mean "wow, you have a lot of stuff up here" amount of crap, I mean a Collyer brothers amount of crap. You could grease yourself up, dive into a pile, and find yourself in a Plymouth Valiant... or perhaps in the living room of a smaller family that set up shop in one of the mounds... Anyway, we scraped off the top layer of one of the piles and carried it down to our front lawn on Saturday morning, and when all was said and done we'd made a couple hundred bucks, and I only had to carry up half of the stuff I brought down... plus, I discovered two things -

1. My kids are natural salespeople. "Customers!" they would whisper to each other every time someone walked down the road, and then they would start their pitch. "Are we selling these books dad?" Sam would say, "These are good ones, especially the gorilla one, remember that one Lily?" and she would chime in from the background, "Oh yeah, those are good..." and the dance would begin. "Have you seen this rocking horse, mister? I used to love this..." Worked like a charm, I tell ya. Fools and their money...

2. People are crazy. Case and point - the forty something year old guy that came as soon as we opened and zeroed in on a cardboard box filled with black and red balloons, some paper Chinese fans and lanterns, little containers of bubbles with Chinese lettering on them, and some new Chinese take-out containers. "Is all this being sold together?" he said, "Well sure", I answered, "it's Chinese New Year in a box" (Sara's name for it, can't take credit...).

... and four dollars later, he was happily strolling away completely prepared for an exceedingly lame Chinese New Year party eight months early.

Next up, a white van from some plumbing company pulls up, and an unshaven wifebeater-wearing plumber (I assume) hops out and starts foraging through the box of kid books.

"Any Curious George?" he says, "No", I answer, "we had a few in there, but someone just came and scooped them all up."

"That's a drag. I'm really into Curious George right now."

Luckily, my inner salesman managed to stop the "what the fuck?" that was on the tip of my tongue, and instead went with "You might want to try Eric Carle, he's a pretty good read..."

Armed with our new-found wealth, we saddled up the kids and went to the Devon Horse Show on Sunday, and immediately felt like some of the poorest people on the planet. There's lots to do there, so we didn't need to know anything about horses (or even watch the show for more than two minutes), but did learn one thing... The amount of money you have is directly proportional to the size of your hat. We didn't even have any hats, and there were people there who had extra chairs in case the weight of their hats became unbearable... some big hats, is all I'm saying.

Since then, I've just been staring at Sam's pre-k graduation picture. Up until we got it, I wasn't paying much attention to the whole graduation thing - because really, he's just moving on to kindergarten - but since we got the pictures back, I'm pretty freaked out. Every time I look at it I see him confident, happy, ready to move on... and every time I see it I just feel old... crap...

Oh, by the way, I scanned this picture into the computer through my printer... looks pretty good, doesn't it?

The Watermelon Code

Another year has rolled by, and another art show gave me the chance to screw around a bit. Last year was the pirate ship, which I couldn't see doing again lest people start to wonder if I was just a one trick pony. For the life of me, though, I couldn't figure out what to do. I spent a few days cooking with a garnishing & fruit carving book sprawled out in front of me, turning the pages when I had a free hand. Nothing really caught my fancy though, and the night before the show I was eating dinner in front of a watermelon... a plain, uncarved melon, just sitting there... mocking me. Anyway, long story short, I realized that I was only thinking of some sort of sculpture type thing, and had completely ignored the obvious. Why whack apart a perfectly good melon?

I thought of Picasso's "The Dream" first for some odd reason, but when I looked up a picture for reference, I scrapped that idea pretty quickly... plus, I thought it might be a better idea to go with something that everyone would know. By eleven that night I was putting on the finishing touches and shaking out my hand cramps from holding onto my little Global bird's beak peeler like grim death.

I figured out that what I like most about this sort of thing is the fear. Halfway through, there's no telling what it'll look like - could be something great, could be a big piece of scratched fruit. It's the same thing with catering, but on a smaller scale. I did an auction last week that was a solid week of prep, and the day of the event was fifteen hours of ten people in constant motion. Halfway through that too, you can never tell exactly what will happen. A hundred things to do, and every time I give someone a job I have to reorganize and re-prioritize the list in my head so that everything can get done when and as it should... and there is always a brief moment of sheer panic about three hours before start time when everything falls to pieces in my head... which, oddly enough, seems to coincide with the time when I usually start getting pissed at everyone who isn't moving fast enough. With a watermelon, there's still the fear, but I always figure if it gets really screwed up, I'll just eat it.

Anyway, without further ado, some crummy pictures of a juicy and delicious Mona Lisa.

On Being Immortal

I learned a lot of stuff in college, both in and out of class, and to be honest, I've forgotten a good chunk of it. Took a class in Russian history once, and don't remember a thing. Sociology, meteorology, communication, etc., etc... bits and pieces, sure, and I can usually pull up relevant bits of info when the occasion calls for it... but most of it has long since drifted out of my head and been replaced by what I'm certain is dumber bits of information. I've held on to most of the stuff from my English classes though, even irrelevant tidbits of trivia like the fact that the TA in my Victorian Lit. class was a bartender at J. August's during the week - a bar that I never even went to... I had a creative writing class my last year there, and at one point the professor was talking about writing for a living. "There are only a handful of ways to become immortal," he said, "invent, contribute something that changes the world, or write." Of course, there are other ways that you can make an impression that will last forever. I'm sure I have emails floating around out there in cyberspace that will come back to haunt me years from now. One day there might even be a wing of the Smithsonian called "The Wing of Joe" where people will look at some of my old emails and think "eeeeew... I can't believe we named our library after him. I feel so dirty..."
What the hell was I saying? Oh yeah, changing the world... Small steps for now I think, maybe there are a lot of things I can't change about the kid's daily lives, but we can make little steps. As a wee little group we scratched a cooking show together to try and get them used to the idea of eating different things. Plus, the ten minutes you'll get to see came out of a whole afternoon of messing around and getting covered with flour... picking out vegetables... forgetting to push the off button and taping 10 minutes of Sara's chest while she cradled the camera in her arms and waited to tape the next scene... and eating some damn fine scraps.
A quick word of warning though - it's damn funny to me, even though it might not be to you, and it's ten minutes long... so get comfortable, turn your sound down a little if you are at work, and have at it. Without further ado, Cook-A-Nation...

Some Thanks, And A Bit Of Exercise

Really goofy post here. We started uploading videos yesterday from our new camera, and I thought I would share a quick few. First and foremost, a long overdue thanks to Amelita from Sam for all of the candy she sent from Australia. We're still picking through the stash, and it occurred to Sam yesterday that she might not know what a Peep is, so we thought we could give her a quick look into the majesty that is American Obesity.

Of course after you ingest ridiculous amounts of Peeps, what better way to work it off than with a spot of exercise? What we lack in exercise equipment, we make up for in dog bones and scrabble boards...

Cook-A-Nation

I don't know if your kids (or kids you know) actually eat anything, but mine don't. Not literally, of course, but their diet consists of about ten things, shuffled around from day to day so they don't have exactly the same meal twice in a row. I know that this is a very parent-y thing to say, and I hear the same thing from other parents we know... but it is especially frustrating for me since I try to eat anything that isn't bolted down or walking away. Sara and I have had a lot of conversations about how to fix it, and a couple of things have worked a little bit, but nothing we do seems to make them try new food. For a few days I was actually convinced that the kids would rather wither away and die than put something new in their mouths. Since we can't have them withering away (and thought that someone would eventually contact some child service agency) we've just been trying to wear them down.

Out of the blue, my wife had a brainstorm of sorts... "What would you think," she said to Sam and Lily, "if Dad and I took videos of you guys cooking dinner, and we posted it on the internet so you could have your own cooking show?"
... granted, it was a good idea. Wish I thought of it, as a matter of fact. The kids were totally into it, and Sam even came up with a name for the show, Cook-A-Nation. Unfortunately, I had just seen Sweeney Todd the night before and all I could think of was cooking the neighbors, but once I got the image of simmering human flesh out of my head, thought it was a good idea.

We started slowly on Sunday, just taking pictures until we get a new video camera and letting them make something we were pretty sure they would eat, but all in all it was a rousing success. Sam and I rolled out pasta and made ravioli... even though it had eggs and ricotta cheese in it, neither of which he eats. Meanwhile Sara and Lily made chocolate chocolate chip cookies in the kitchen, and aside from the fact that Sara thinks I talk to Sam like Gordon Ramsey, the meal was stellar from start to finish.

On a totally different note, you know what I can't see happening? Cutting myself on a meat slicer, and trying to Google what to do about it. You know what else? I don't really want to know what cobra shit looks like... but oddly enough, these are just two of the Google searches in the past couple of weeks that pointed their way to this blog. Although I hope both of these people were entertained, I'm a little concerned that the guy who typed in "first aid procedure for finger sliced on a meat slicer" wasted valuable time reading the blog... and the person who Googled "poop cobra"... I think you should really see someone. Seriously.

Charleston Chew

You want to hear something shocking? I don't mean, like, "ooh, that's shocking", I mean like, "WHAT?!?!" sort of shocking... I had, get ready, an almost perfect vacation. Seriously.

Take a minute to absorb.

Here's the deal - Got up early last Saturday, drove down traffic-free 95 to get to a waiting shuttle at the parking lot. Walked in (keep in mind, on a spring-break Saturday morning) to an almost empty airport, checked in at the counter with a real live person and was through security all within 10 minutes. Boarded first, rolled into Charleston 75 minutes later, and was in an upgraded rental SUV and driving to our hotel with all of our luggage 20 minutes later... with a free 'no need to refill it' tank of gas, I might add.... and on and on, it just didn't stop the whole week. We even rolled out of Charleston after lunch on Thursday and were eating dinner at home that night. Crazy. The only hiccup in the whole week wasn't even that bad... When we got back to the car, the battery had gone dead for some reason or another, but as soon as I called the parking lot guy from my cell, he rolled out and gave us a jump while the kids were watching a movie in the back seat. I don't even think they noticed... I don't even know what to say... kids did a great job on the trip, we saw some cool stuff... I'm at a loss...

Ok, I'll focus. For one, Charleston is a city like any other, there are good and bad parts. We stayed in the historic district though, so it was pretty upscale... and the good parts of Charleston were amazing. Every place we've gone has beautiful parts that stick in my head - like the olive groves in Umbria, the cobblestone side streets of Dijon at night, caves in New Mexico, the water in Costa Rica, the comforting plumes of smoke and cardboard ash that billow out of the drums lining the streets of the Italian Market, etc., etc. - but the grounds of the Magnolia Plantation were unparalleled. We spent almost three hours walking around the grounds and it felt like the blink of an eye, with every turn of the path bringing something that was literally breathtaking. Sweeping Magnolia trees draped with Spanish Moss were everywhere, and framed every picture we took... fantastic.

Blah, blah, blah, scenery was lovely, whatever. The food, ahh, the food. Let me just say, I had grits every single day we were there, and on some days, for more than one meal. Grits with hot sauce, grits with shrimp, grits with lobster broth and scallops, grits with tasso, grits and eggs, and my favorite, grits with extra grits. The grits were so good, I was ashamed that I ever made grits at home because they weren't nearly as... I dunno... gritty. On top of that - red velvet cupcakes and pecan pie, jambalaya, handmade walnut and spinach ravioli, honest to god fried chicken and collard greens - it was heaven.

It was the kind of vacation that made me think at least a few times every day, "I should blog about this..." and now that I'm home, there's just too much to write about, so you'll just have to imagine from my picture-rich post.

oh god I almost forgot... the icing on the cake of this perfect week... I got so much done while we were away. Sent our tax stuff out to the accountant before we left, sent the amp plate from my subwoofer off to Polk to be fixed, and dropped my beloved espresso machine off at the shop to have a few things done. Now that I'm home, everything is shiny and new again, and after installing a new water filter and letting the boiler warm up for a few hours I had a perfect shot to end a perfect week.... heavenly...

Words Of Flesh And Bone And Leaf And Flower

We've been doing the back and forth thing lately, Sara and I, caught in this odd cycle of work. For a few days I worked late, and to catch up, when I was finally home with the kids she would stay late. Funny thing is, everything seems amplified when we live like this... In some sense it's harder (especially the 12 hour days, one after the other, that keep me on my feet cooking like mad until I sit down in the car for the ride home), but in a way, I like the pace. Days like these my legs and arms ache with each movement, everything I do seems timed to the second, and I hang on each bite people lift up on their forks... waiting to see how their face changes, if they snap into focus.
Days like these I'm taut like piano wire in the kitchen, but when I walk in our front door aching and burned, home is a fairy tale. Past our front door, I can hear the kids padding around in their socks upstairs, and can almost feel them in the air... and for a while they're perfect... telling me about their days so fast that each word spills over into the next. If it's anywhere after eight o'clock Sara is, of course, lying in bed with her laptop at the ready... but on days like these with the goofy hood of her pajamas pulled up tight she still has the same smile that knocked me over when we met eighteen years ago. Tired as I am it's days like these I'm electric, and when everyone is asleep I want to write like Beryl Markham (or at least her husband) and have every word that's typed out be true and worth the telling. I want to start lifting again... I want to buy a duck press even though I have never had the need to press a duck... and want to learn how to play the Sitar on the off chance that someday someone needs a Sitar player, or marijuana is legalized, whichever comes first.
Then there are the days when she's late, and for a few brief shining hours the kids are just mine, and I can mold their little brains in ways that Sara would never put up with. This week, for example, I played "Are you gonna be my girl?" at an absurdly high volume often enough for Sam to learn all the words (and Lily a good chunk of them), and played old Underdog cartoons on YouTube until long after the point when they should have been getting ready for bed. Plus, we put whipped cream on a few foods that never, ever, should have whipped cream put on them. A noble experiment, sure, but believe me, not something we'll repeat.
When it comes down to it, I like these weeks a bit more every now and then. Sure, I'm tired, sore, and bitchy - but all of the effort makes the rest of my life shine a little brighter when I walk back into it. Plus, I get paid...
And to top off a week like this, I couldn't have asked for anything better than the enormous package I got from my new friend Amelita. A while back we started talking a bit about this and that... food stuff, for the most part... and she suggested we swap a few goodies and start a little USA-Australia food connection. I sent a package a couple of weeks ago stuffed with a few fun things from work, some spices and quinoa, some Tastycakes, etc... and lo and behold today I got a box in the mail absolutely stuffed with TimTams, dried mushrooms, jams, spices, chocolates, pink salt, raspberry tea, jelly crystals, olive oil... and almost every other category of food you can imagine. An entire dining room table full of stuff as a matter of fact. I restrained myself and waited until the kids were home before I opened it, and let our little Australian cornucopia spill out in front of them so that we all could root through it. Plus, she sent along a book of photographs of the town and beaches of Townsville, where she lives, for us to flip through while we munched our way through the box. Perfect end to a perfect week....

Kid Gloves

It's really strange how things work sometimes. I've catering small dinner parties every now and then, and to be honest, they're a little bit stressful. When you think about it, it makes some sense though... huge raucous parties don't really have a single focus, but when you set plates in front of six people, you can bet that everyone is taking a moment to size you up. Plus, I'm always sizing myself up a bit more too. With a few plates sitting in the kitchen, every flake of pepper out of place stands out like a sore thumb.
On the other hand, I has a fundraiser on Friday that was a whopping 420 people, and it was hands down one of the easiest things I have done in a while. The number of people was a bit overwhelming, but the menu was a simple buffet, and since it was a fundraiser, we had a dozen people volunteering to help with the dinner. The hardest part of the whole thing was wrangling the volunteers - they're great, don't get me wrong - but they aren't really going to stick their neck out too far if something goes wrong. Running low on salad, roast beef, rolls, etc.? As wonderful as they are, bet your ass they aren't going to run down to the kitchen to tell someone or get more... it's much more likely they'll say, "oh, sorry, looks like we've run out of roast beef today..." Jaded, you say? Pshaw, realistic is more like it. So Friday was easy, but most of my time was spent running around behind the tables, checking on this or that to make sure everything was flowing the way it should, and filling in the gaps when volunteers would randomly disappear to go to the bathroom or wander the hall... or go home... Believe it or not, the best of the bunch were the high school kids we had, because they're easy to psych up. Joke around with them a bit, make fun of them a little, tell them they are fantastic, and you're set.
Afterwards, of course, no matter how straightforward everything was, it helps if you look slightly frazzled, and say "whew!" under your breath as much as possible... that way, all of the people organizing the event say, "wow, you really pulled it off! 420 people! I don't know how you guys do it! Do you cater private parties?" Good times...
Did I say too much?

Blog Pimp Hand

We're in a slew of birthdays over here - mine, my mother's, Sam's is today, and Lily's is on Thursday. It hasn't been a sea of parties though, mine was pretty mellow, and the kids birthdays are more controlled chaos than anything else. There were some highlights though... for one, I was left alone on my birthday weekend (for the most part) which is what I really wanted, and all that I can really ask for... we got Sam a new computer (which I'm typing on now) so that he'll stay off of mine (so it really was a present for me anyway)... and we had a tear-free Little Gym party for Lily which was fun to watch. The best part, I have to tell you, was when she called me over at the end. "Dad!" she whispered really loudly, "come here!"... and then whispers in my ear, "you know what? This is the best party I've ever had." Fan-freakin-tastic. Love that chick.
OK, blah blah, love my kids, yadda yadda, lets get to the meat of the post. On Thursday night I was making something for Sam to take to school for his class. He wanted me to come in and make juice with our juicer, but since I didn't feel like hauling our 50 pound juicer (seriously, it's huge) into his school, I had to come up with something else. So after wandering around the fruit section for a while I left with a few melons and made a mini watermelon pirate ship chasing a honeydew two-masted schooner... added a ton of fruit to make the sea, some bowls of melted chocolate for dippin', and we were good to go. Right in the middle of the process though, I was cutting some bamboo to make the masts, my serrated knife slipped... of course... and I sliced through my right index finger. It was a pretty good slice, and within a few seconds I had a fantastic stream of blood flowing. In any first aid procedure, step number one is to bend over and grimace for about a minute, which I did... and since that didn't do any good, I got a paper towel, wrapped my finger up and went upstairs to get something to hold my finger together. When I got to the bathroom, Sara was getting Sam ready for bed and I had to squeeze by them to get to the medicine cabinet. Of course, since my wife is a wonderful person, as well as a caring and thoughtful wife, as soon as she saw the bloody rag she said, "Oh my god, did you get that all over the fruit?"
and then there was a this little pause as she read the balloon with those words in it coming out of her mouth, and then she said,
"oh my god, please don't write that in your blog"... which of course, I would never do. Except now, but only to illustrate the power of the blog. Go ahead, my friends, say whatever you want.. oh, I'll write about it. I will. Go on... say it...

Career Day

It worked! I can't really believe that a Chia Shrek actually grew... I'm shocked... It was the kids that made me do it (aside from the fact that I've always secretly wanted a Chia Pet of my very own... and a lava lamp, but I'll get to that later...) and for weeks before Christmas they were walking around the house singing "Chi chi chi chia!". It has filled out some since I took the picture too, and is starting to look a bit like a young Gabe Kaplan. Fantastic stuff, the Chia. I'm kind of wondering what else we could grow off of the head... which of course, makes me wonder if in colleges all over the country, kids are trying to get Chia-weed to grow. Note to self - put together marketing proposal to the Chia people - "Chia-Rasta".

In the midst of a somewhat tumultuous week at work (annoying personnel issues) I had these little moments of unexpected shenanigans that made for a few spots of fun. Fridays are typically the day when we catch our breath a bit... we actually feed more people on Fridays, but the menus are pretty simple, and we tend to blow through the day without having to put too much thought into it. I was in a groove this morning - coffee, knife, etc. all in place - when someone rolled into the kitchen in a bit of a panic. "Joe", she said, "the Headmaster needs to see you upstairs right now." Since I couldn't actually think of anything I did wrong (today, anyway) I thought it was another annoying chapter in our personnel problems, and scuttled upstairs. Since I'm trapped like a veal in our little kitchen for most of the day, I forgot about the career fair that was about to begin, and stepped through the lobby doors into a sea of students, alumni, and presenters jostling to get to their tables. In the middle of the mess was the Headmaster, who smirked as he told me that the Chef they had asked to come was nowhere to be found... and, long story short, I spent the next hour and a half giving groups of students the rundown on culinary school, the restaurant industry, etc., etc... It was fun, actually, and most of the people who had signed up to hear a presentation on culinary arts as part of their morning didn't even seem to notice that I was just making it up as I went along. Plus, a lot of them had some really good questions, and I think might have actually come away with a somewhat realistic idea of what the industry is like... even the girl who asked me if I had ever seen someone cut their finger off... which I have, by the way... but just part of it, I assured her, and last time I saw it, it still looked pretty much like a finger, so no worries.

On a completely unrelated note, we have new cleaning ladies. Our old one was a bit of a nut, and we never knew if the house would be clean when we got home, or if everything would just be shiny. I don't know how she did it, but even when things were obviously left dirty, they had a pleasant shine to them that sort of fooled us the first few times... and on top of that, she liked to mop our wood floors with a vinegar solution that left our house smelling a bit like a deli. Anyway, we have two women now that are just dreamy. First of all, they're cheaper than our old nutjob, and they actually clean everything. It's awesome. Plus, they re-hang all of the towels (bath, hand, kitchen, etc.) with this neat little fold in them... and even better, they make the top tissue in the box into a little fan, AND THE TOILET PAPER IN TO A LITTLE ROSE! It's freakin fantastic. I'm so excited when I get home I poop just so I can be the first one to use the roll. They're coming again on Monday, and already I'm thinking I should set aside the weekend's Parade Magazine, complete with a Heath Ledger interview that went to the presses sometime in December, for a little light bathroom reading....

Winks & Rags

I had a long time to think about a holiday-type post (I'm sure some of you might have noticed the insanely long gap between blogs) but to be perfectly honest, I wasn't quite sure what to write about. Things were fast and furious in December, as I'm sure they were for everyone. Between work, catering, holiday parties, and scrounging for gifts, the first three weeks were a blur... and the mad dash of the time I had off made December go by in a flash.

On the plus side, I got to see my sister for a while, which doesn't happen that often... and on top of that my nephew gave us all a new expletive (Rags!) that he muttered under his breath when things went sour... and of course, I can't stop saying it. It's really satisfying. Try it, it's helped me out a lot so far this year. Stub your toe? Rags! Sour milk in your cereal? Rags! Called for jury duty? Rags and more rags! Seriously, I have to curse under my breath all the time, and now I can just yell out 'Rags!' willy-nilly, and people just think I'm an idiot... which I'm fine with.

It might sound odd, but the best thing to happen to me this past month was Lily learning how to wink. Most of the things that the kids learn, they repeat until I'm ready to tear my hair out. Knock-knock jokes, new songs, dance moves, etc., get worn into the dirt until they pick up something else. The cool thing is, Lily doesn't hand out winks all that often, but slowly doses them like they were precious cargo. Every once in a while, Sara can get her to do it on command, but for the most part, it just comes as a surprise. This morning, in the hustle and bustle to get out of the house before eight, the kids were eating breakfast and I was putting on my boots and checking my email - when Lily poked around the corner with her crooked smile and knocked me out a wink before she disappeared again. Why did she spring out for a morning wink, you ask? Well, how the hell would I know? She's two... we have little pretend tea parties, and she serves me coffee with salt in it... I have no idea what goes through her mind half the time. What I do know is that when she doles out a wink for no reason, I feel like silk inside all day.

Sensory Overload

Ok, if your Thanksgiving was anything like ours, chances are you're still full. Speaking of which, chances are if you hit the 'Next Blog' link at the top of this page, you'll land on something Thanksgiving-related, so I won't bore you with the details. Suffice to say, for the eight of us, we had approximately 70 pounds of food (pre-cooked weight... seriously, I figured it out) which is close to the weight of both of my kids combined... or say, my two dogs and my son... or half of my wife.... or 266.667 Loverboy albums (on vinyl, without the jacket), which are enough Loverboy albums to burn one every weekday for an entire year, if I took off a few holidays.... that'll 'Turn You Loose' you son of a bitch, and your leather pants too.
Sorry about that. Little pent-up hair-band anger.
...and yes, I did indeed get up at four in the morning to go shopping for one of those 'doorbuster' day after Thanksgiving sales. I'm finally one of those people, mock me if you must, laugh if you want to cause chances are I won't be able to hear you while I'm sitting in front of my big-ass new plasma TV I got at four in the morning for less than half price. So there.
We spent the rest of our long holiday weekend doing goofy weekend stuff. Sam had his first playdate with someone from his class, we spent some time at the park and the library, watched a few movies - and the coolest bit of all, took the 'Santa Train' into the city. For those of you who aren't on the SEPTA R5 line, the Santa train is a once a year ride that takes you from the suburbs into Philly on a regular commuter train all decked out with Christmas decorations, roving elves making balloon animals, and a three piece band complete with a tuba roaming up and down the aisles (I only mention that because it is really funny watching a guy playing a tuba trying to walk up and down the aisles of a train filled with kids and balloons while playing an enormous tuba). I have to admit, after getting up at four in the morning, I wasn't really looking forward to a train ride into the city with the kids. Once we got on the train though, I had a really good time. Big goody bags kept the kids occupied, and everyone singing and laughing every time the tuba got stuck on a luggage rack made for a pretty cool ride... I was almost jolly.
One thing we discovered over the weekend - both of the kids are bad at times, but there is one little difference. Most of the time, both of the kids are pretty well behaved. When Sam has his moments, he is bad because he is in a crappy mood and lets you know it... but when Lily is bad, she is just so damn funny it's hard not to laugh at her. Trouble, I tell ya, we're in for trouble.

Frankenstein, the Butterfly Princess, and the Cephalopod

Ok, so lets see... barrels of stuff has happened since last I blogged. Am I going to tell you about it? No. No I'm not. Why, you ask? Well, for one, I don't have that much time on my hands... and two, most of it just isn't funny.

We did have a pretty freakin cool Halloween though. I have to tell you, I love Halloween. Loved it when I was a kid just for pure candy sake, but now it's even better. The kids are hysterical to watch (we had two different Halloween parades to go to, and a Halloween party before we even got to the trick-or-treating part) and I still get candy out of the deal. Neither of them like nuts, so during the mass candy sorting at the end of the night, Sara and I will go through the pile and pick out anything nutty - including the supreme ruler of all candies, the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. My secret plan is to never EVER let them have one until they move out of the house... that way, they won't realize the pure majesty of the Cup until long after they can't take them out of my secret Cup stash. In case you haven't gotten it yet, I really love those things. Some candies come close, but the Cup has no equal... I've actually written in my will that before I am buried I would like to be encased in sweet peanut butter, and sealed with a thin layer of chocolate complete with those sharp little ridgy edges. To sum up, Halloween - hysterical. The Reese's Peanut Butter Cup - delicious.

Oh, yeah, I was so consumed in the Cup I forgot to actually write about Halloween. Since my sister wrote a total of FIVE blog posts about Halloween (yes, you read that right - 5) I don't actually think I can capture the magic like she did, so I'll just tell you - Sam was Frankenstein, complete with neck bolts... Lily was not a butterfly, not a princess, but a Butterfly Princess, which apparently makes me a Monarch. (ha! I've been waiting years to use a sovereign ruler / butterfly joke...) Sara had a big egg costume, and I had a bacon suit (I've also been waiting years to dress up as bacon) Good times...

Jump forward a couple of weeks, and you know what occurred to me this morning? Don't really care what you do, my job is occasionally better than yours. Why you ask? This morning I spent about half an hour cleaning octopi.... sweet. Writing it, sounds a bit odd, but really, if I'm ever in a bad mood, throw a pile of octopus at me and it'll fix everything. Love em... almost as much as the Cup... really. It's therapeutic, cleaning the 'pus. Plus, I get to pick at them after they've been cooking for a while, right when they're perfect... right when the water turns to a dusty rose, and the tentacles that for a while curled up as fierce as they were when they were alive start to relax... mmmmm... lovely.

Oh, and a little bonus photo, a shot of the kids walking ahead of me in the mall.... flippin' adorable...

All Things Culinary (sort of)

Sorry it's been so long since we've spoken, some times I just need an extra 25th blog hour in the day. Not a whole heckofa lot to report here, just repeating the daily grind over and over. Do have some some cool foodie notes though - for one, I bought a few new knives for work. A Global Slicer and Global Bird's Beak, which are really nice and just glide through anything they touch. Although they look pretty cool, they aren't my favorite knives. Work great, very light, look funky... but don't fit my hand as nicely as the old Wusthof. On the other hand, I bought a Chroma Type 301 10" Chef's Knife and Chroma 301 Filet Knife... and let me tell you, I'm in heaven. Really... drooling, wetting myself, heaven. Ordinarily, I wouldn't blog about something as boring to the rest of you as my knife purchases, but let me just say - holy shit. I actually try to think up dishes that have more stuff to prep just so I can use them more often. A few days ago I brushed the tip of my filet knife against my finger by accident, and didn't even know that I did it until I saw the blood pooling up on my steel table... awesome.... I'm so in love I'd sleep with them if they weren't so damn pointy.

Plus, I finally got around to sending in my membership dues to Slow Food USA yesterday. I'm what you might call an 'afterthought' member. Love the idea of it, and I really do want to be involved, but I join and then get swallowed up by life, and things like Slow Food just sort of hang around the edges of me... I found a Slow Food book at the library book sale a week or so ago, and walked back into our house where we are in the middle of curing some green olives, have a fridge of homemade jams and sauces, drink espresso from beans I roast myself, etc, etc... and I thought, "oh yeah... membership dues..." Anyway, inspired by foodie type stuff in general, I made some grilled frog legs with a jalapeno peach sauce to put on the salad bar at work today... which were lovely, but I got some evil looks from a group of third graders and their vegetarian teacher after my offhand "if I can catch it, I'm gonna eat it" remark. Plus I threw together some little almond tuille napoleons with cardamom cream and raspberries to snack on (don't get too excited, all of the bits and pieces were left over from some catering stuff - I didn't spend my morning constructing dessert instead of actually working).

And to top off a kickass day, while we were finishing up dinner tonight Sara taught Sam the words to Bob Marley's 'Three Little Birds' as it blasted out of iTunes while Lily danced to it in the background... and I thought to myself - man, if I could just bottle them up right now, give up everything else in life to keep them right here, right now, I would do it without a moment of hesitation. As long as I could bring my knives, of course... that goes without saying...

Stanley Kowalski, the Hippo's Balls, and a Cobra Pancake

We have two dogs, for those of you who don't know - Satchmo, a Boston Terrier that we got as a puppy 13 years ago; and Stella, and Jack Russell/Pug mix that we got as a puppy about a year ago. Satchmo was always pretty mellow, and has chilled out even more in the past few years. These days his primary responsibility is table-scrap-clean-up, and farting on my pillow when the situation calls for it. Stella, on the other hand, has decided that in addition to her regular dog-related responsibilities she will attempt to eat everything on the first floor... actually that's not really fair, she doesn't seem to have any taste for things like the DVD player, or my espresso machines, but everything else is fair game. She seems to have a real penchant for small plastic animals (leopards, in particular... I tried one, and must admit they have a nice smoked duck finish) but has an adventurous palate, and her gastronomic adventures have included our phone antenna, the filling from a couch cushion, a red Sharpie, a 1 liter seltzer bottle, and a chunk of the yellow pages from 'Contractors-General' to 'Landscaping', and most recently, about half of the little white balls included in Sam's Hungry Hungry Hippo game. Most of these indiscretions end up being sort of funny - she'll just eat the head or feet of something, or make it difficult to find a contractor - but the balls from the hippo game kind of suck. It's really not all that challenging to race like mad to get the majority of the eleven remaining balls, and most of the time is spent with hippo necks flailing wildly trying for the last two that aimlessly roll around the center depression. It is sort of funny to see a mangled hippo ball randomly find its way out of Stella when I'm walking her, but in case you were wondering, I'm not ambitious enough to clean and put them back into play... now if there was some sort of Kopi Luwak effect, and the game was somehow better after passing through her digestive tract, that would be a whole different story... I was thinking of spreading some peanut butter on some of our credit card bills and whatnot though, instead of putting them through the shredder... seems like a very energy conscious sort of thing to do... Plus, if someone really wanted to steal my identity bad enough to somehow piece together my social security number after Stella has digested them, they probably deserve my money more than I do.

Oh yeah, one little last bit of ridiculousness... Usually, on weekend mornings we have an absurdly large IHOPish type breakfast, which serves a few purposes - If we have pancakes, fruit, bacon, sausage, eggs, hash browns, bagels, and yogurt, for example - the kids will sit down and eat a long leisurely breakfast with us (which we never do otherwise), we have plenty of breakfast scraps left over that I can pick on during the week, and I get to mill around in the kitchen drinking espresso all morning while I cook without anyone bothering me. Plus, a secret little hobby of mine is pancake art... It started out pretty simply - a snowman pancake, and the occasional happy face made out of three little pancakes - but over time has become an obsession of mine. I can make almost any simple shape, and gotten pretty good at hammers, butterflies, writing the kids names, and even the occasional Taj Mahal. After a good deal of caffeine, I can even make a pretty decent Golden Gate Bridge, complete with traffic, jumpers, and Alcatraz in the background.

When I work on Friday or Saturday nights, things usually run pretty late, and I have the occasional catering gig that keeps me out till three in the morning or so. Anyway, a few weeks ago I was out pretty late, and Sara was nice enough to do the whole breakfast routine and let me sleep in. Unfortunately, Sam and Lily are a bit spoiled by my Richard-Estes-like pancake creations, and Sara was prodded into whipping a few designs out. When I came downstairs, I was presented with her crowning achievement, the jewel in her pancake tiara if you will... the trickiest of all the pancake animals - the elusive king cobra... and now, for some odd reason, every time I eat pancakes I feel a little dirty inside.

Safe at Home

For the first time in about 5 years, we actually went on a trip... just Sara and I... without the kids... the pauses are for dramatic effect, by the way... Really, five years. Everyone I tell this too seems shocked, but for the life of me I can't figure out why. Sam is four and a half, Lily two and a half, we don't have Michael Jackson throw-around money, and we just haven't been able to manage it. My parents came over on a Saturday afternoon and we quietly skulked out of the house, into the car, and drove to New Hope all the while praying our cell phones wouldn't ring. Thankfully, the kids didn't throw up or rob a bank, so we spent the weekend like a couple of giddy newlyweds - getting massages, going out to dinner, having drinks, staying up past nine, it was crazy. My nerves were pretty frayed before we left, and it turns out a couple of absolutely perfect days was all I needed to de-strung-out myself. I occurred to me as I was writing this, I don't think that I thanked my parents enough. We thanked them, of course, but if they had any idea how much I needed to go away, they could have asked for pretty much anything in return and would have gotten it. In the end, we thanked them... and they just took off when they could have even taken my firstborn in return ...
Right back into the swing of things though... and the last shimmering glow of relaxation from two weeks ago was swept away today after work. Had a crummy day in general - plus I have a cold whose only symptoms seem to be congestion and enlarging the section of my brain that controls 'grumpy'. Picked up the kids and felt a bit better even though Sam got in trouble at school, and then got a call on the way home from daycare from my friend Kathy...
Our friend at work has a daughter who is a doctor, newly married, who was in the Army still paying off medical school. A week and a half ago, she came down to the kitchen to tell me her daughter was shipping out to Iraq that day, and then on Wednesday she came down to tell me that she had finally gotten a phone call from her, and she was settling in and getting to work out there. Kathy called because today, right after I left, an army officer showed up to tell our friend that her daughter had just been killed. Gone, in ten days. Just like that.
She asked me to call two other people and tell them, and I had to sit down for a minute on the kitchen floor while the kids were watching TV to get myself together first. It was funny though, because I couldn't even get the words out. When I called, Kate was on her way to IKEA and laughing because her friend was lost, Jen was in the middle of teaching a piano lesson, and I just couldn't get my lips to make the words, like if I didn't say it, somehow it wasn't true.
Tonight all I see in Lily is someone else's daughter, like I'm watching a ghost. I keep thinking that there was a time when her daughter rubbed icing on her face like Lily did tonight, grabbed onto her leg like Lily grabs onto my leg when I'm trying to walk, and held her hand with the same gentle determination that Lily holds mine. Funny thing is, the thing that I see every night on the news affecting families all over the world has just lightly brushed by me, and still has shaken me to the core... today we're safe at home, and she is gone.
Just like that.

Nine Years, Give or Take...

Quite a crazy week, out here in suburbia... I started up at the school again, which was interesting... usually, the first week back is pretty cool, because it is just faculty and staff, so we're only cooking for about a hundred people, and can make whatever wacky things come to mind. As usual though, work is chock full of wonderful challenges (can you feel the gentle ooze of sarcasm?) and we were greeted with a kitchen minus a floor because of a mildew problem they discovered right before opening up for the year. Unfortunately, since I haven't perfected the ability to levitate, we had to quicklikearabbit roll a refrigerator into the hallway, a worktable into the storeroom, and gather up all the equipment we thought we might need and drag it out of the kitchen before they started working... and spent the whole week cooking like Anne Frank, hidden away in corners and storerooms. 'Course there weren't any Nazis, but we did get into the habit of whispering to each other, and I kept a diary that I think will still be as touching and relevant 50 years from now as it is today. One of the highlights of the week was a party that Kate and I catered on Tuesday night, it was a short notice thing for 100 people that we scraped together using one table, a grill, and a few microwaves. About 5 hours and a lot of cursing later we turned out filet mignon, citrus shrimp, eggplant parmesan, antipasto, chicken with marsala cream... and a handful of little appetizers. Good times... Oh, and on top of that it was our anniversary on Tuesday, so I left early in the morning, and didn't get home until Sara was already in bed, not exactly the most romantic moment in our nine years of marriage. Luckily, we found out on Wednesday that Tuesday wasn't actually our anniversary, Wednesday was. After a short discussion about why neither of us can ever remember whether it is the 28th or 29th (and a brief, scolding lecture from my sister who set us right on the date) we actually had nice anniversary after all...

Amidst all of the hustle and bustle around here, we've been doing a fairly decent job of keeping ourselves sane by running the kids ragged. For our long four day weekend we've been all over the map, and walked them to the point of exhaustion through the Tyler Arboretum yesterday. We saw some cool stuff - a butterfly house packed with caterpillars and butterflies; some cool trails and a meadow maze; and more frogs than you can shake a stick at... and best part of all was that everyone in the house slept like rocks afterwards.

Oh, on a totally unrelated note, Sam has started dressing himself. It's great, since we don't have to coax him into getting dressed in the morning, but he needs a bit of fashion advice. I certainly don't want to discourage him, but its hard to leave the house when he comes downstairs wearing Spiderman pants and a ruffled periwinkle tuxedo shirt. I have to admit it does add a little spice to our lives though... it's fun sitting downstairs in the morning waiting to see which one of the Village People the boy will come down looking like...

Party Like Rumspringa

Well, we're back... and aside from the ground-in Lancaster dirt on everything that we own, we made it back in one piece. Turns out that camping was a pretty cool trip for the kids, and they survived relatively well without modern conveniences for a couple of days. Of course, we left the campsite to take them to an amusement park right in the middle of the trip, so we did cheat a bit. As opposed to my sister Julie (who I'm pretty certain only takes along a blanket, flint, and 4 ounces of water for her whole family when they go camping on a sheer rock face of Mt Rainier... and now that I'm thinking of it, my sister Jeanne who would rather poke her eyes out with a fork than go camping at all) we had a pretty substantial load of stuff to bring with us, filled up most of the Xterra, and had a few things on the roof rack for good measure.

Sam, at four and a half, wants to help me with everything. Every tent stake that went in; every piece of firewood we collected; and every mattress, chair, lantern, blanket, toy, and scrap of food that came out of the car was supervised by the boy. I swear, its a miracle I can go to the bathroom without him sticking his head in and asking "hey dad, you want some help?". Lily, on the other hand is perfectly content to run in circles around the campsite and giggle... which is actually about as helpful as Sam, so I can't complain... To be honest, it was camping for beginners. We were right outside of Lancaster, PA - which is the home of endless Amish-style smorgasbord restaurants, retail outlets, farm markets, and really really large people... and I don't mean garden variety large, which wouldn't be worth mentioning... I mean large, like, we could have used them for ballast on an oil tanker large. Being rather portly myself, I felt wee in comparison, so it was a nice change of pace... like being a tourist in Brobdingnag. Sure we slept in a tent, made dinner over an open fire, and had smores, but we were steps away from rescue if things went screwy. We were even next to a playground complete with a huge wooden pirate ship which was pretty cool... and Lily, who is usually pretty reserved, immediately made a friend named Emma - a four year old girl who had a "Future Dumptruck Driver" t-shirt on and bare feet... and kept trying to share her Diet Coke in a sippie cup ("just have a couple of sips so you don't get too wired" she kept saying to Lily). Turned out to be a cool kid though, and Lily and Sam both had fun hanging around with her for a bit.

Sara, on the other hand, said she had a good time, but I'm not altogether sure I believe her. We used to go camping all the time in college, and would venture out miles away from the nearest bathroom or outlet for days at a time - and I don't really ever remember her complaining about a thing, although it's quite possible I was drunk. This trip, however, she managed to maintain a weak smile for most of the weekend as long as she kept her hands washed at all times, and actually seemed to be having fun for short spurts... almost by accident..

All in all, it was good but hectic rushing around with the kids and keeping them from jumping into the fire. By the time 10:30 rolled around I was exhausted, and didn't even notice that my mattress wasn't inflated all the way. I almost forgot why I missed camping so much until I woke up at some point in the middle of the night. Cold air, almost overwhelming dull hum of insects and wind, and the smell of grass and soil... and I'm asleep again. Perfect.

... and as the final two parting shots - the kids helping me deflate the mattresses, and Sara - cold, damp, dirty, and "enjoying herself".

Chain Gang

For the last couple of years, Sara has been pestering me about re-doing our driveway. It was a gravel driveway when we bought the house, and slowly has succumbed to the elements... by mid summer this year, looking for a piece of gravel in the driveway was like searching for fishing bait. By last Monday, weeds had completely taken over and I'm pretty sure I saw a palm viper hiding in there, and I was forced to admit it had gotten a bit out of hand.
So I took some measurements, calculated, screwed it up, called a stone place and had them calculate it, and bought 15,000 pounds of stone. Really. 15,000 pounds. Just for a little perspective, that's the same weight as say.... 15,000 things that weigh about a pound. Seriously, think about it. The deal is, there is a big truck that backs into your crappy driveway, tilts up it's huge bed, and pulls forward so it spills the stone over the length of your driveway. As luck would have it, my phone and cable companies decided to run the wires into my house at just above waist level, so the truck backed into my driveway, lifted the bed and pulled forward about four feet, and stopped to avoid ripping down any wires.
So all in all, two lessons were taken away from this experience - 1. it takes about 4 hours for me to shovel somewhere around 5,000 pounds of stone into a new spot, and then give up and decide to finish on another day... and 2. if you shovel stone for long enough, even your ass starts to hurt. I hardly even remember moving my ass, and it hurts. Odd.
To top off the weekend, we're taking the kids and my sore ass camping for the first time... which is one of those things in life that has no grey area - it'll either be loads of fun, or spectacularly disastrous... I'll let you know....

Seven Years of Bad Meatballs

You know what I really miss? Mad Libs. Love 'em, but since I'm 37, I don't often get asked to participate in a Mad Lib session. I'm thinking about starting a club.

Anyway, we're back from Seattle, and yes, I did overhear a snippet of the cousins filling in some Mad Libs, in which someone was doomed to seven years of bad meatballs. The funny part was, at that moment I thought "holy crap, I think I've been sentenced to seven years of bad meatballs..."

All in all, the trip was cool - we went on a starfish hunt with the kids - and found dozens of them that were as big as my head, as well as some sea anemones, decorator crabs, moon snails, turkish towel, cancer crabs (which we ate), and all of the regular wacky sea life you might expect. We had some great seafood, took a ferry to Bainbridge Island, went to the Pike Market (as every good tourist should), and had some kickass coffee. Most importantly, the kids had a great time, and we all got to sit down to dinner together as a huge extended family a couple of times, which hasn't happened in god knows how long.

Funny little sidebar - every time we ask Sam what his favorite part was, he'll say "making masks with Julie and Antonia" or "having the potato races with Jeanne"... which is great... but we could have saved a couple of thousand dollars by buying him potato and a paper plate in Pennsylvania.

(I'm just kidding everyone, calm down...)

On to the meatball part - We tried to leave for Seattle Saturday morning on a 7:30 flight, which was ok with me, because waking the kids up early means there is some possibility for nappage, which is like gold on a cross country flight. As meatball-luck would have it, our flight was delayed because the flight crew needed their mandatory 8 hours rest and the plane was late the night before, so we stared out the window at our empty plane for three hours before they were ready to go. Not so bad, really, because the kids were pretty mellow. Finally, we were allowed to board, and after sitting on the tarmac for 45 minutes, we finally took off. (are you ready for the fun part?) In 15 minutes or so, the fasten seat belt sign went off, Sam and Lily started their movies, and all was right with the world...

Until the Captain's voice came over the loudspeaker, "Uh, folks, we seem to be getting some warning lights in the cockpit, so as a precautionary measure, we're going to turn back to Philadelphia. We should be back on the ground in about 15 minutes." ... which was a little disturbing, because we didn't really want to delay our trip, and he didn't say if we would be back on the ground in one, or many, pieces. People were shooting around some nervous glances, and my mother had turned completely white, but all in all I was just pissed at that point. Then, as if the pilot could sense that some people in the cabin were not tense enough, the loudspeaker pops back on. "Good morning again folks, your Captain here. Just so you know, when we land you'll see fire trucks, ambulances, and some other emergency vehicles on the runway, as well as escorting the plane to the gate. This is just a precautionary measure, it's required every time there is a landing like this, so there is really nothing to worry about." At this point, my mother actually turned clear, and I could plainly see my wife (who had now become a sort of greenish-blue color) sitting on the other side of her. He then mumbled something about a smoke warning light coming on, but in my head all I heard was "...if you haven't made a commitment to one particular religion, my copilot and I suggest you do so now. Also, feel free to kneel in the aisles if you have to confess anything important; you're welcome to join the mile high club if you wish; and all the alcohol is free, courtesy of Mr. Crenshaw in seat 9B. Our flight attendants are passing out a short pamphlet on the five stages of grief - Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. Currently, my copilot and I are in the Acceptance stage, although I must warn you, some of our flight attendants this morning are still in the Anger stage, so we suggest you do not speak to them, or look them directly in the eye. The weather in Philadelphia is a balmy 78 degrees this morning, and the local time is 12:38. We know you have a choice in airlines out of, and directly back into Philadelphia, and we thank you for choosing US Air." So we sat on our doomed plane and waited for 15 minutes to land, and did indeed see all sorts of rescue equipment as we finally rolled in - and just to put a little icing on the US Air experience, we had to wait for over four hours to get our luggage and car seats off the plane, and wait until Monday to get another flight... good times...

Once we got back home from Seattle and things calmed down a bit, I was actually able to sleep for the first time in weeks (why couldn't I sleep? no idea) and thought the bad meatball karma might actually be in my head... and yesterday, I was downright chipper. Until, of course, I heard a terrific crash from upstairs, followed by a scream from my wife. (don't you just love using 'terrific' in a sentence like this? It's so 'black and white movie'...) I dash up the stairs faster than any chubby guy has dashed before, only to see my daughter's feet sticking out from an overturned dresser, like the Wicked Witch of the West. Apparently, in an overzealous attempt to help find Sam's pajamas, she decided to scale the drawer-pulls like Sir Edmund Hillary and pulled the whole thing on top of her. She was fine, but needless to say, everyone else was really freaked out. So this morning, first thing, I went to the hardware store and bought 3,142 brackets that are used to secure I-beams together, and securely fastened everything in the house to the nearest wall, floor, or ceiling. It's been a bit of a hard day, getting used to living in a house where nothing actually moves (It's like we're living in one of those Amish farmhouse museums in Lancaster) but I figure if we can't crash land, and nothing can fall on top of us, we'll be ok. Oh, and by the way... I've been nominated for a Blogger's Choice Award (see the little baloon-y thing at the top of the page?) in four different categories (I won't tell you who nominated me unless you ask), so please take a minute and sign up to vote... you guys are the best...