Birthday Girl

laughing at us for thinking a book would help...


playing dress-up (still a favorite occupation)



sleeping (not a favorite occupation for many years, but she's good at it now)



first school picture

Almost

Mariah was almost born in 1990. We thought she would be; everyone said so. Her due date was January 8, then it was January 5 (I never understood why it changed, but it did), and everyone said first babies were late, and we were heartily sick of the 80s (the ME Decade, right?), so we thought that was fine. (Later we realized about the tax deduction, but that was later.)

So 18 years ago today, I went to the doctor for my 38th-week of pregnancy checkup. I'd had my appendix out at about 29 weeks and had been briefly reclassified as a "high risk" pregnancy, but I'd healed nicely and was back with my regular doctor at the regular time. He checked me out and all was well. He left the room at one point--maybe the checkup was over and I was supposed to be getting dressed? I don't remember--and when I stood up my water broke.

And that was that. Someone got some towels, someone else got a wheelchair, and I was headed to the OB ward to have a baby. Never mind that I wasn't in labor; this was a big fancy teaching hospital and they didn't let people break their water on their premises and then just leave. (The doctor was a resident who saw me in the family clinic in the basement of the hospital--and yes, it was just as nice as that implies. Still, for grad student health care, it was pretty plush.) I was whisked through the emergency room and up to OB...to wait. We made a few phone calls, noted that OB was a nicer place when you weren't there for an emergency appendectomy, and waited some more.

And about 15 hours, plenty of drugs, and one blown-up surgical glove later (Mark drew a face on it to amuse me), Mariah arrived. And tomorrow she'll register to vote.

Happy (Almost) Birthday, Mariah! Welcome to adulthood!

After

This was before: the tree, the presents, the coffee cake on the table. Pajamas until noon, a slow start and lots of oohs and aahs as we moved through the packages, one by one by one.After, it's quiet. There are boxes strewn on the floor, still, but the presents are in neat stacks or have already been carried up to bedrooms, the study, the dining room. Nick has finished one book; I've got songs loaded onto my shiny new iPod nano. Mark made it out for a Christmas day paddle, enjoying the peace out on the river. Dinner was quiet, just the four of us, and it was Thanksgiving redux since we weren't here for Thanksgiving and missed out on the leftovers. Then in the evening we participated in a local tradition : a showing of It's a Wonderful Life on the big screen, preceded by a Christmas carol singalong accompanied by the mighty Wurlitzer organ. Hipsters and grandparents, middle-aged couples and teenagers, sat side by side and sang along to "Jingle Bells" and "Rudolph," and then sat quietly, rapt, through Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed on the big screen. (OK, I did hear a baby or two being carried out screaming, but most of us were quiet.)

Today has been rainy and gray but it brought a lunch with friends, a babysitting gig, a tae kwon do class--easing back into normal life bit by bit, but still relishing the break. It's good to pause.

Merry Christmas!

Amaretti

I mentioned these cookies last year and made them again on Wednesday; they are quick, easy, and tasty, and they have the added advantage of using up the three egg whites left over from making the basic butter cookie dough that is the basis of both mocha butter balls and jelly bowl cookies. (I've also tried the raspberry hazelnut triangles, which are a lot of work but very tasty.) I've altered this recipe somewhat from Donna Hay's original (in Modern Classics 2), mostly because of the size of the bag of almonds I had--it seems pretty flexible, really.

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Combine in the food processor:
1-1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 10 oz. bag of blanched almonds (about two cups)

Process these two until the almonds are roughly chopped, then add:
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
3 egg whites
1-1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Process until the mixture starts to clump up on the blade. Roll the mixture into small balls (about walnut-sized) and place on a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Flatten the balls slightly. Bake for 13 minutes or until the cookies are starting to firm up and brown on the bottom.

The recipe should make about 3 dozen cookies, maybe a few more. They are chewy and quite sweet, and I'm thinking about cutting the sugar by about 1/4 cup next time, though they are great as is dipped in coffee.

more baking

A couple of days ago someone sent me an e-mail holiday recipe exchange. I love getting recipes, and I almost always play along when someone tags me for these. This one was easy--I sent along the spice cookies recipe that I always bake this time of year. In searching for it, I came across my holiday baking list from last year, which reminded me of several other things I wanted to bake. I haven't yet reached last year's heights, but so far I've baked (and given away) both brownies and espresso cookies, and then gone on to bake spice cookies (of course!), jelly bowls, amaretti, bourbon balls (my recipe came from the Joy of Cooking, but this is exactly the same), and parmesan shortbread (ooh, a ringer! and a savory one at that!). I also have the beginnings of speculatius and mocha butter balls ready--one needs to chill, the other to come back up to room temperature, before I can do anything else. I'm also planning a few more--probably pumpkin rocks again, and biscotti, and maybe some good old chocolate chip cookie bars. And then I think I'll be done; I'll let you know the count when it's all over.

Time to bake

I made brownies and espresso cookies yesterday to give to Nick's teachers. (Yes, the brownies were still warm when I put them on the plates, but they were done!) I put crushed-up candy canes in the brownies and they are delightfully fudgy and pepperminty--why have I never done this before?

Then before breakfast (!) I had a batch of spice cookies in the oven. I've got lots to do around the house and it's easier to clean when the house smells like cookies. Or that's the theory. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Shifting Focus

So it really wasn't that bad a day yesterday. The computer, modem, and router are actually not broken, for example, even though it took six hours, eight phone calls (two to India), and much hair-pulling to determine that. Here was the dialogue at one point:

[Me]: But everything worked yesterday with the set-up I had. Why are you telling me to change it today?
[Him]: Well, sometimes things just don't work any more.
[Me]: OK, but then why would changing the settings help?
[Him]: The settings you had shouldn't have worked. These are the right settings.
[Me]: Even though the old settings worked yesterday.
[Him]: Yes.
[Me, tearing my hair out, ready to slam the phone down]: Well, thanks, then, I guess.

Actually the old settings were the right ones. The new ones caused all kinds of problems. But they are, um [knock wood], fixed now.

Moving along. It is also a good thing that the new couch for the study/guest room was delivered, so I will ignore the fact that we have not yet moved the futon out of the room and that therefore the study (where I spend most of my time these days) is both crowded and somewhat dingy-looking. I will assume that the new couch will look fabulous in here once things are cleaned up.

It's also a good thing that I didn't have to drive to Petersburg yesterday to deliver a choir dress to Mariah. She called soon after arriving at school to say she needed it for an unexpected performance, so I went and found it in the laundry basket (no comment), along with appropriate shoes, and readied myself for the drive, but then she called to say they decided to perform in street clothes instead. Thus I was able to spend that time talking on the phone to people in India. Let's not discuss which was more satisfying.

It's a very good thing that we had choir rehearsal last night, always a high point in my week, and even more that we went just before rehearsal, a small group of us, to sing at the convalescent center where one of our members (along with his wife) is recovering from a devastating car accident. They--and others who gathered when they heard the music--were so appreciative, it made the singing really matter.

As I said, really not a bad day at all. It's just a matter of perspective.

Photo Meme

Sam tagged me for this, and I was going to do it, and then I had computer problems, and they lasted all morning long. And into some of the afternoon. And in the end when everything was undone that had been done all morning long, everything worked again (I am just keeping quiet and crossing my fingers about that) and none of the chores I meant to do are done but I do have time for this. So here it is.

The idea is to post the first thing (or one of the first things) that comes up in a google image search when you search for the listed item.

1. My age at my next birthday2. Where I'd like to travel

3. My favorite place (one of them, anyway)
4. My favorite objects (yes, I got books and yarn into one picture)


5. My favorite food(s)
6. My favorite color
7. My nickname

8. Where I was born
If this seems like fun, consider yourself tagged!

Another column

Although last week's snow is long gone, and it's warm and sunny out today (disconcertingly so!), I have still been thinking about Christmas and books...

Christmases in my family have always involved books. The packages telegraph their contents by their solid heft and neat rectangles--even the sloppiest wrapper can make a book look good under the Christmas tree. But just as Christmas often involves books, many books--both Christmas-themed and otherwise--also involve Christmas. My own list of "Christmas books" is idiosyncratic, no doubt; I recall not only the charming tales of happy families but also the clear-eyed evocations of loss and ambivalence. Together they make up my own personal Christmas reading list.

read the rest here...

Was it something I wrote?

Yesterday I was all about fall. Today, not so much.

Looking down from the balcony off my study:


Looking up from the backyard:

global weirding*

They may have canceled fall in New York**, but here in Virginia it's still going strong. In fact in many ways this was the most fall-like fall I remember spending here. It didn't start until November, which was a bit odd (October, as I remember it, we bounced around between summer temperatures and winter ones), but once it hit, it stayed. The last of the dull red burnished leaves blew off our dogwood yesterday; down the block there is a stand of gingkos still gloriously golden (pardon the alliteration), and vibrant red ornamental maples flame out all over town. The weather is crisp and clear--it gets cold overnight, and we've had a little rain and a lot of wind. All in all, it feels like mid- to late October in New England.

The fact that it's December is, however, deeply weird.

*I read somewhere recently that this was a better description of climate change than "global warming." I can't find the source now, though.

**I would swear I read a short, funny piece in the New York Times (or maybe The New Yorker?) about how fall is now being canceled after a very long run. But I can't find that, either.

"Greenwashing"

As if it weren't enough to feel guilty pretty much every time I shop--something I buy is likely to be trucked across the country, grown in an unsustainable manner, or bad for me--now I have to worry that even the "good" things are also bad. Still, I appreciated the tips here on figuring out what's really "eco-friendly" and what isn't. And I'm trying to remind myself that doing one thing better is better than none, so I'm trying to let go of the guilt and just be grateful that I have choices.

Today I bought some of this organic chocolate (yes, because I had read about it). I don't know if it was a good choice or a bad one, but it will be tasty, I'm sure. And I bought it from a small locally-owned store.

(I know I saw the "Six Sins of Greenwashing" on someone else's blog, but I can no longer remember whose...)

quick update

My laptop is back and all is well. No data lost, no (visible) problems.

(And now, another resolution to be better about backing up. I've been so lucky--knock wood!--with my laptops over the years that I have become rather cavalier about it.)

various

I am without laptop, which might fall under the category of things to be thankful for, or otherwise. At the moment it's feeling rather otherwise (I'm using an old slow one that doesn't have all my stuff on it, and I'm a little worried about that stuff), but I have to say, going most of the week without laptop was actually good for my back and shoulders. A fact worth remembering when the laptop returns. (I am still saying "when" and not "if.")

We are all just back from a great visit with my family--all the siblings, spouses, and kids under one roof. I think my parents survived the onslaught. They have (barely) enough room for us all--we are thirteen, plus two dogs, when we all get together--and the stove, oven, microwave, and dishwasher all held up.

I made the garlicky cranberry relish, crusts for two pies (Mom filled them: one apple, one hickory), sweet potato casserole (with hickory nuts rather than pecans), and this pear-upside-down cake (that was for Friday). And then I contributed to various other dishes; my sister and I are particularly good now at tag-teaming on whatever needs doing in the kitchen. I don't think it's bragging to say the food was great--it always is when we all get together.

And then there was some knitting, too. I finished this sweater, which has been my obsession all month--so now, I can work on Christmas knitting. I think I'll scale back a little from last year, when about half my recipients got knitted items, but I'll still work up a few things before the end of the month.


So we're home now and the laundry is already done and there was enough in the pantry to make these muffins (if you make them, cut the sugar in half, double the apples, and leave out the raisins and walnuts if your family doesn't like them), and it looks like I can manage dinner out of the pantry as well. So all in all I'm pretty thankful.

proud

I was away last week for a long weekend at a conference. As usual, I made a couple of calls home while I was away, checking in with everyone, but I didn't really get a chance to talk to Nick after the first night. So when I was delayed on Sunday, hanging around in the Minneapolis airport for more hours than I'd planned, I took the chance to chat with him again, knowing he'd already be sleeping when I returned home. He'd taken a tae kwon do test and finished up a science project over the weekend, so I expected to hear lots about all that. Instead I heard this--

"Mommy! Saturday morning, I made cranberry muffins from the Joy of Cooking! All by myself! They were really good and really easy."

Words to warm a mother's heart.

Daring

(cross-posted at Lessons from the Tortoise)

Today is the birthday of Astrid Lindgren, creator of one of the most daring girls in children' s literature, Pippi Longstocking. So it seems a fitting day to be talking about the new Daring Book for Girls, by Andi Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz. (Full disclosure: I worked with Andi on Literary Mama, and, after reviewing Miriam's book for LM, have corresponded with her as well.)

My copy of The Daring Book arrived a couple of weeks ago and I put it on top of a stack of things to take care of later, as I (far too often) do. Nick (10) saw it first. "The Darling Book for Girls?" he asked. Then he corrected himself, but I thought the misreading was telling. Does he think girls are darling rather than daring? (Um, in a word--no. Not yet, anyway.)

He started flipping through it, immediately seeing the similarities to The Dangerous Book for Boys, which he received as a birthday present this year. "Hey! We didn't get instructions for how to make a volcano! Why didn't we get that?" He continued to turn pages, noting how many things "they" got to do that "we" didn't. "And why does it say 'no boys allowed' on the back? Mine doesn't say 'no girls allowed'!" He's not really one to be put off by prohibitions like that, but I was intrigued by his response. He found stuff he liked, and he didn't like being told it wasn't for him.

But then it got buried in the stack for a while and by the time I pulled it out again he was engrossed in a science project and didn't have time to check it out for a full review. So I handed it to Mariah (17) instead. She started by getting annoyed with the book. Too many games and jump-rope rhymes. "A lot of this is stuff that people think kids don't know but they do. Like, 'how to have a sleepout"?" So, it's a bit on the--perhaps unnecessarily--nostalgic side. But once she got past the games, she found a lot more to like: interesting stories about real princesses, crafts (she wants to go back and do some of those), Spanish and French vocabulary, Greek and Latin root words, more stories about interesting women..."Did you know Julia Child was a spy?" This is the kind of stuff she loves. She was a bit annoyed by the science sections--not because she doesn't like science, but because she does: "this seems like they thought, 'oh, girls don't like science, so we should put it in,' but they didn't even make it interesting! I think the periodic table of the elements is incredibly cool, but they made it boring!" So, on balance, she found things she likes and would go back to, but found the whole package a bit condescending. Well, she's 17--everything seems condescending to her. (Including, no doubt, that sentence. Sigh.)

So now both kids have had a crack at it, but I haven't even turned a page! Now, I'm a sucker for narrative, so what I go for are the stories: queens of the ancient world, unlikely spies, explorers (alas, I'm still waiting for the fascinating Isabella Bird to turn up in a book for kids...). These are all nicely done: short, readable, and intriguing.

Like Mariah, I am less fascinated by the handclap games and the jump-rope rhymes; those things really are still passed down on the playgrounds in my neighborhood, and one of the great pleasures of them is learning them from other kids, not from adults. But they take up a small enough section of the book. The page (!) on boys is blessedly sensible, and seems to take on the comparable section in the "Boys" book quite directly: while the "Boys" book starts with the premise that girls are different (because, apparently, they "do not get quite as excited by the use of urine as a secret ink as boys do"), the "Girls" book reminds girls that the generalizations they know about girls tend not to hold up, so the ones about boys are likely equally suspect. Nice work on that one, women.

Of course therein lies the essential paradox of this book: it exists only to demonstrate that it doesn't need to, trying to send the message that there's no reason girls and boys couldn't be equally daring and dangerous. I'm happy to read the message, and to shelve both books next to each other for both my kids to consult. And maybe, just maybe, we can look forward to a second, combined edition that dispenses with the particularity altogether.

Roasted Vegetable Soup

I haven't posted a recipe in a while. It's been busy, and it's also hard cooking these days with one almost-vegan in the house when everyone else is an unrepentant carnivore and certainly unwilling to give up dairy products. Sigh. Still, my most recent vegan recipe is easy, delicious, and very very healthy. (No, Nick won't eat it, but he pretty much doesn't eat soup so I don't even stress about it.)

This is so easy it's hardly a recipe. Indeed, it's hardly soup. When Mariah and I were eating it the other night we decided that it's really glorified baby food. Though no baby food I ever tasted was so delicious.

OK, here's what you do:

Preheat your oven. Somewhere around 450 is probably pretty good. You could do it lower, but then it would take longer and I am an impatient cook.

Now peel and cut into roughly 3/4 inch cubes:

2 sweet potatoes
2 white potatoes
2 large carrots
1/2 large butternut squash

(Note: I usually don't peel potatoes or sweet potatoes when I roast them, and you could certainly leave the peels on in your soup, but your puree will be considerably lumpier. You decide.)

If you don't have one of these just sub in more of another.

Spread the cubes out on two rimmed baking sheets (like a jelly-roll pan) and pour a glug of olive oil over it. (That would be 1-2 tablespoons.) Peel some garlic cloves and throw them in, too. I used about six.

Now roast your veggies until they are soft inside and brown outside. I generally set a timer for ten minutes and try to turn everything over every ten minutes; they will take 20-30 minutes in all. You don't really need to cook them all the way through, but you do want everything soft enough to puree.

If you're not sure how your eaters will respond to garlic, remove one or two of the cloves before proceeding.

In batches, puree the roasted vegetables with veggie stock. There are several very tasty organic ones on the market; I used Swanson most recently, but I also really like Kitchen Basics. If you are more ambitious than I, you will have your own home-made veggie stock for this part.

Put the pureed vegetables and stock in a large stockpot and heat gently, adding enough stock (I used five cups in all, but six or even seven would be good, too) to make it all soupy. Ladle into bowls and enjoy! You can serve six easily from this recipe, or serve three one night and then refrigerate. Add more stock when reheating and you'll get six more lunches out of it, seriously.

You can also add other vegetables at the roasting stage--onions, other kinds of squash, and mushrooms would all be tasty. I'm sure cream or butter at the final stage would be nice if you weren't serving vegans, but you really won't miss it. This is a thick, hearty soup full of all kinds of delicious nutrients.

My ghoul

Last year Nick was this very scary headless wonder; this year he went the purchased costume route but he was still plenty scary. Unrecognizably so, in fact. He went out with a bunch of kids from the neighborhood and they were gone almost two hours before they came back, dragging their stash with them. One or two complained that they didn't think they got that much candy, but I didn't hear any complaints out of Nick. Here's what it looked like this morning, after he ate as much as he wanted* last night and put another piece in his lunchbox this morning.











*Nick is a hoarder. He ate maybe three pieces last night, maybe four; the rest he will dole out parsimonously for a few weeks, then he will forget about the rest--or hide it, and then forget about it. Around Christmastime I will throw away any I haven't eaten--unless he hides it, in which case it may take until Easter. Don't laugh--we just found this past year's untouched Easter candy!

[edited to add: handing out candy was less of a chore this year than I'd feared; there were far fewer uncostumed ones--kids or adults--and there were plenty of cute little ones in a variety of super-hero and princess costumes. I particularly liked one rainbow-wigged clown, and I was dismayed by the number of SpiderMen (boys? some were girls, too!)]

Here we are again

Apparently every two years I blog about Hallowe'en; I'm not sure what happens in the intervening years. But I do know my feelings haven't changed much. It's not really my holiday, and I think my attitude is rubbing off on the kids. We still don't have pumpkins (they're on my list for today--think I can get them at half-price?), and Nick was so casual about his costume that it wasn't until a night or two ago that I realized he actually was expecting to go as something, not just pull a "costume" (ninja warrior, anyone? We've got the uniform!) together at the last minute. Which is why I found myself browsing the racks in Walgreen's Monday night, where I found a black grim reaper/ghoul robe for him and some face paint. So that's done. I also did actually remember to buy candy, though increasingly I don't like handing it out--after the first onslaught of cute babies in pumpkin buntings and toddlers dressed as princesses and bunnies, it devolves into teenagers without costumes and, saddest of all, uncostumed young moms pushing uncostumed babies in strollers who silently hold open a bag as if to say "this is my dinner." I always hope it isn't.

I'm also feeling slightly out of sorts because the weather has changed but the time hasn't. Does it really make a difference to energy usage for us to push the shift back to Standard Time so much later than usual? It will still be dark when the kids come in from trick-or-treating--it may already be when they go out, in fact--and it's dark in the morning when Mariah and I get up. All I know is I'm looking forward to that "extra" hour of sleep this weekend.

Reading Meme

Caroline tagged me with this a while ago and it's taken me until now to get to it. I'm too busy procrastinating drafting working on a paper to be delivered in mid-November. But I have been working through a few novels lately, so I thought I'd give you a taste of the variety of my reading lately.

First, here are the rules:
"Open the book you’re currently reading to page 161, and post the fifth sentence on the page, then think of 5 bloggers to tag."

OK. I read Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go over the weekend, but I'm including it here to prove I do, on occasion, read books for adults. Though I must say, the premise of this novel is scarily like Nancy Farmer's The House of the Scorpion, published two years earlier as a children's novel. And, for what it's worth, I bought the Ishiguro novel used at Plato's Closet, a YA hangout if there ever was one.

Here's the fifth sentence on page 161:
"Well, she never got to make that decision because of what happened next."

Also in progress, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. This one's because I have a student working on an interesting honors thesis on female orphans in children's lit. Rebecca isn't technically an orphan--her mother's living--but she fits the template my student is working with so I'm re-reading the novel.

Page 161 only has four sentences, though, so here's the fourth:
"I wish you could take things easier, child; I am fearful for you sometimes."

(Side note on Rebecca: I'm reading an old paperback I picked up used, but it is one of several books available in the Charming Classics series, packaged along with a necklace. My student and I are amused at how many of the books she's writing about are available in this series: A Little Princess, The Secret Garden (the pendant is a key), Heidi, and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, at least--there are many more in the series, though.)

I'm also slowly working my way through Little, Big again. I first read this in college, when I had a chance to interview the author by phone (one of my first bylines). It's a lovely book, and I'm not quite sure why I'm going so slowly through it this time, but doing so makes much clearer to me all the intertextual references (to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, especially) that I missed the first time through.

Page 161, sentence 5: "I mean," Doctor Drinkwater said, reappearing beside him, "that every Christmas seems to follow immediately after the last one; all the months that came between don't figure in."

Nick and I are also working our way through Daniel Pinkwater's Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars (in his Five Novels). We took a little break for the World Series, but we'll be getting back to it soon.

Page 161, sentence 5: "In Alan's case, they would be so grateful he wasn't there, they weren't likely to look into the matter."

Finally, also on my bedside (along with an ever-growing stack of New Yorker magazines) is Jane Yolen's Take Joy: A Writer's Guide to Loving the Craft. I haven't gotten very far with it yet, but I am enjoying dipping into it occasionally. Here's the fifth sentence on page 161:

"I responded: "Every time an editor wants to talk about plots and depth, they bring in the old onion." Now doesn't that make you want to read more?

As for tagging five more--Life in Scribbletown already did it, even before I did; if you're reading it here, feel free!