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| well that book about the dead bird has some backstory i guess. julia read it at the library and thought it was a beautiful book, and do you know, it really is. it made us all tear up, even ada, who is (according to her, anyway) SO TOO OLD for baby books.
i do not share a lot of what makes julia julia, because she worries me. i mean, i think she is beyond awesome, i really do. she's so funny, and so gentle, and so smart (i still laugh about bird bacon). she's also a little off. she's got, i don't know--obsessions? child washes her hands *constantly*. and wrings them. and flaps them when she's nervous, which is often. she pulls out her eyelashes. she will scratch at her skin until it's raw.
she spends so much time nurturing her *incredibly* rich inner life that the outside world doesn't exist. which leads to safety issues--she has almost no awareness of what's actually happening around her when she's thinking, so she will, for instance, walk into the street without looking for cars, or wander away at the park. she can't do chores or homework without constant direction. she'll just drift off if you don't repeatedly bring her attention back to whatever task is boring her.
she's not like the other kids at school, and they know it, and because second-graders are savages, they pick on her. some kid called her "third the nerd" when she lined up yesterday, and boy it cut her.
i guess julie had just *had it* last night, because when i went upstairs to tuck them in, she started to cry. i mean huge, racking sobs. i had no idea how to fix it. i just took her into my room and rocked her, you know, and then put a bunch of my expensive hand cream on her poor chapped hands and her raw scratches. i didn't even know how to talk to her about anything. it all came out in a jumbled rush, including the part about the little shit and his "third the nerd" crack. eventually she calmed down, mostly without my help. and she got super quiet, and then her eyes filled up again.
"what are you thinking about, julia?"
"i am thinking about a BIRD, and it's so sweet and so kind! and the bird isYOU, mom."
oh julia, what am i going to do with you? | | |
| BLOG TWO-FER WHUT WHUT!
wow! what a good day! probably because i am a touch manic from no sleeping, but still! i got a nice walk in today, to and from the girls' school. and chuck knocked off work early, and we went to the library, and we checked out about forty pounds of books.
highlights:
- chekhov short stories
- the dead bird--julia chose this for delia, LOL.
oh julie, never change. - roots (i have never read this!)
- a bunch of MFK fisher stuff
- a book about making your own lacto-fermented food like kimchee (can i get a hell yessssss!)
and of course a bunch of other stuff that i just picked at random. i look for stylish covers and hope for the best, which often works out better than following the NYT books recommendations. i have FINALLY gotten over my compulsion to read books all the way through, even if they suck so much. finally! so i am not married to any of these novels, they are just hook-ups. you know, no strings, no complications, i can read other books simultaneously. i am a bookslut.
and then we all went out to the park behind the library and went crazy, running around and hollering in the autumn twilight. i have not run around playing tag with the kids at dusk recently--fun and screamy! also the playground had one of those slides made of rollers? and we spent five minutes bumpity-bumping down that, just to keep the rollers spinning. STRONGLY APPROVE.
to top it off we had burgers for dinner. FUN FACT: i will be welcoming cap'n bloodsnatch sometime this weekend, and beforehand i get a terrible case of The Meats, where i simply want to set a herd of cows on fire and then eat them? so burgers were good. now that you have all the deets on my box area, i invite you to please sit down and enjoy your dinner. which i hope is not tomato bisque or cherry pie filling or whatever.
excelsior! if only my antidepressants made me feel this good every day!
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| hey, can you return a toddler that never sleeps? delia is pretty smart, OK, and spends lots of time thinking. and she stays up until 130 AM to do this thinking! and all night she processes her day via dreams--shouty dreams: NO ADA NO DON'T TAKE MY M&MS! GO THAT WAY RED PHANTOM (a zelda reference? i think?) MOM I NEED CHOCOLATE MILK!
and then up with the birds. the birds and an irritable, sleep-deprived mom. i want to carbo-load and then nap like a bear.
PS delia does not nap.
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| it's veterans day--thanks, veterans, and i sincerely hope that the experience of combat did not fuck your whole life up. hopefully we can avoid sending your sons and daughters off for some bullshit war that only enriches others, and chews through the poor like wow, but given our "plan" in afghanistan, and also human nature itself, the prognosis is grim.
yesterday i didn't blog, because the whole house took a mental health day. well, except for chuck, who is The Breadwinner, and Responsible, and who was Needed at Work. but the girls and i spent the day in our pajamas, and just goofed off. today chuck is home, and we are maybe going to a movie? and also food shopping, wootah.
what course are we on for our holiday meal? soup? or salad? to be honest i don't make soup or salad every year, because i like turkey, ok, and other stuff just gets in the way of the turkey. but maybe you just love side dishes? for a salad, you really cannot go wrong with either a roasted beet salad, or an autumn greens salad. i think maybe a lighter salad would also work--a shaved fennel salad with prawns would be simple--just shave a fennel bulb (on a mandolin or use the slicer blade of a food processor. or a knife! knives also work!) and let it sit in a spicy vinaigrette for a little bit, and roast some tail-on prawns that you have glazed with balsamic vinegar and a little honey. pile the fennel slices on a plate, top with a couple prawns and voila! you have made a salad! now go sit down.
 here's a grainy shitty picture of some fennel. at the supermarket, the fronds will be mostly cut off, and the butt-end of the bulb will be trimmed. wash the bulb (that white part) because sometimes it is dirty or has a couple of bugs jammed up in there. then, slice it thinly. it doesn't matter which way you hold the bulb, but it does matter if the slices are thin. so cut them thin, alright?
everyone makes butternut squash soup. which is, sigh, i don't know--it doesn't thrill me at all! i would choose minestrone, with kale and beans and veggies and NO PASTA, and i would cook it a day or two before the holiday, and reheat it. or maybe a mushroom and barley soup with more broth than stuff in it. i would NOT make a cream soup or a rich meaty soup, because you have such a large meal still to follow.
people who need more direction here can say so in the comments and then i will post official recipes. for now i am going to make like a baby and head out. movie time, yay!
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| ha ha gratuitous vulgarity. but "fuckballs" is pretty funny. to me.
well soon it will be time for THANKSGIVING, BITCHES. which is a holiday about thankfulness and selective historical emphasis where the colonizers don't look like such egregious assholes. "thanks, indians, for helping us to not starve in droves like they do it in jamestown! but don't think you're our equals!" it also is a day for church services, and eating and drinking to numb the effect of so many relatives in such a small area.
so! we need some appetizers and some booze! a veggie platter is so meh, you know, and the dish of salty nuts will be eaten really fast, and nobody really likes the gherkins in the cut-glass bowl or the matching bowl full of black olives. well, the kids like to put the olives on their fingers, but that doesn't help you, gentle reader. what you need is something savory and piquant; something not overly rich that will still hold up to booze--possibly a tall order! and also you want a cocktail that is easy to make yet tasty.
so, our app is very old-fashioned! BACON-WRAPPED WATER CHESTNUTS!
- 1 8 oz can whole water chestnuts
- 1/2 a pound of delicious, top-quality bacon (not thick sliced, though)
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 2T mirin
- 1 T sriracha sauce
- 1 T brown sugar
- mix the soy sauce, mirin, sriracha, and brown sugar together in a non-reactive bowl.
- drain the water chestnuts and dump them in the soy mixture. marinate them! they can sit in that marinade a long time, yes they can, because water chestnuts are flavorless and merely provide crunch. so let them sit! they can even sit around at room temp without going grotty, which is good when your fridge is full of other crap.
- an hour before you want to serve the appetizer, pull the chestnuts out of the marinade, and start wrapping the water chestnuts in bacon. roll about a third of a piece of your delicious swine strips around the water chestnuts, and secure with a toothpick. sometimes i will dunk the bacon bundles into the marinade. sometimes i don't. you do what you want--these are good either way.
- place the bacon-wrapped chestnut, seam side down, on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper. repeat for all the water chestnuts. bake off in a pre-heated 425 oven until the bacon is crispy and nice--say 25 minutes? check them, though, if things start smelling really bacony.
if you serve good liquor, you can let your guests make highballs and skip the work of making drinks. i put out a mix of liquors, flavorings, garnishes and mixes (don't forget to make up some simple syrup!) and print out a list of easy, classic drinks--whiskey sours, cuba libres, margaritas, manhattans, sea breezes--stuff like that. HOWEVER, if you want a good drink that goes with the bacon, a PEAR COCKTAIL is a classic, uh, pairing:
- 1 oz pear brandy
- 1/2 oz lemon juice
- 1/2 ounce simple syrup
- 4 oz dry champagne
- dash bitters
- fill a cocktail shaker with ice.
- add the brandy, lemon juice, and syrup, and shake until everything is chilled--count to ten.
- strain into champagne flute, and add champagne. top with bitters.
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