Month: October 2009

A Perfect 10

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OK, it’s my birthday and I can be forgiven a little conceitedness, can’t I? For today, October 10, has the lovely and blessed 10-10 balance, something I’ve always thought makes me the perfect Libra.

Well, truly I’m not that taken with myself; I just enjoy the symmetry. And I’ve let it be known far and wide that today starts the countdown to THE most perfect of days, 10-10-10, which takes place one year from today. At ten minutes after 10 PM, of course. Well, considering that my partying years are long past, let’s make it 10:10 AM, OK?

We’ve been enduring these little date-celebrations for some time now; September 9 was the latest, August 8 the year before, and so on. Heck, even my husband and I got on the bandwagon; we got married on March 3. He claimed it would help him remember our anniversary forevermore and thus ensuring his Primo Husband status, something he dearly  hopes to maintain. Good man.

Not that I’m overly obsessive about horoscopes — honestly, I rarely pay attention to them — but there’s something magical, in a low-grade way, about being a Libra and having such a symmetrical birthday. Add the year ’10 to that? Nir-vahhhhn-na.

Balance has been in short order this week; Kristoff, as was previously documented, contracted and suffered through a bout of H1N1. And then we all watched and waited to see who would be coming down with it next. “Quarantine” was the Word of the Week as both older children chafed at being relegated to the upstairs as we tried to make sure the un-protected by Tamiflu Trassie stayed far away from predatory germs.

That goal seemed shattered at 2 am Friday morning, when said Trassie awakened with a fever; by morning I was convinced he’d been smote by swine. As quickly as I could, I made an appointment with the pediatrician, a new/old doctor that we already love. (He’d been my pediatrician 16 years ago with my first child; I was forced to leave his practice when my employer mandated use of HMOs and his practice didn’t accept them.)

So we all met Dr. Wilkes again, and are happy about our decision to switch.  It also rather threw aging into sharp relief; as we reconnected, he asked me how long it had been since we’d seen one another. He insisted that he looked just the same; of course I agreed, and said of course I did too. I reminded him that the LAST time he saw me I was in the throes of childbirth; the pediatric practice I had at the time shared on-call duties with his, and when Christopher made his entrance, a pediatrician was needed due to some meconium present in the amniotic fluid.  No, I’m not going into what that means; you know how to Google as well as I do.

He allowed as to how he didn’t precisely remember me on that auspicious event; after all, one woman in labor looks pretty much like the next, from the medical profession’s point of view. I won’t elaborate  on THAT point either.

But back to the reason we were there; Trassie doesn’t have swine flu; Dr. Wilkes pronounced him the possessor of an ear infection. Antibiotics? Check. But when his fever spiked later that day and he was hauled back to the tolerant doctor by Tras (I was at work because of my magazine deadline! arg!) he was found to be N-O on the H1N1 again, though beset with some virus or another. After a rather sweaty night, he’s much better today.

So birthdays, and aging, and the passage of time, have been on my mind this week, as I negotiated the hazardous waters of parenthood, illness, magazine deadlines and the looming of one’s late 40s.

Despite that — and the fact that they tend to be something you avoid dwelling on as the years start zooming by —birthdays are fun nevertheless, and I always enjoy mine. I’ve got a loving family — beset by illness this year though they may be — who like to indulge in mild festivities at any opportunity.

Perhaps I’ll make a loaf of bread this afternoon with my special honey-vanilla butter to thank them for the happiness they bring me.

And since it’s Saturday, there’s laundry to be done, floors to be vaccuumed, bathrooms to be cleaned and a week’s worth of clutter to be swooped up and dealt with before another week gathers strength and decimates whatever tidiness I’ve been able to bring forth.

But I’ve just been informed that a family dinner out is in my future, if everyone proves to be well enough by suppertime.

In the meantime, mark your calendars: Party at my house the next time this most Perfect 10 of days rolls around. Bo Derek ain’t got nuttin on me.

Sneaky eatie

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I like to cook. It’s not something I was born to; it’s more like Julie Powell, Miss “The Julie/Julia Project” who is now more famous than God. That is, it’s something that I found when I wasn’t really looking.

Christopher, my 12-year-old son who is currently stricken with The Dreaded Flu, isn’t around to comment this evening, quarantined as he is, but every night in the past oh six months or so when I’ve made something interesting, I’ve taken a photograph of it. Not tonight, however, and it’s a shame because this is the first time I’ve actually mustered up the energy to write about what I’ve cooked after I’ve gone through the arduous process of actually cooking it.

Christopher, or “Kristoff” as I like to call him. The poor Tamiflu-taking preteen.

He’s always giving me a hard time, this one, about taking pictures of food.

“WHY did you take a picture of the food,” he’ll ask, just as perplexed as he can be. Like, ‘why on God’s green earth did you waste valuable pixels on something as boring, unphotogenic and useless, photographically speaking, as FOOD.’

Not that he said that. But you could see it just oozing all over his face. Well, I’ll tell you why, Mr. Enthusiastic Eater of Mommy’s Cooking, I’m on the Internet and what we mamas do is talk about you rugrats, our sex lives and what we made for dinner.

Now see? Doesn’t that look good? And photographed nicely with plenty of natural light from yonder breakfast-nook window. It’s Chicken Bruschetta from Tasty Kitchen. I’ve submitted a coupla recipes there myself.

Doesn’t the fresh basil look nice, snipped from my own back yard?

At any rate, tonight I did a bit of on-the-fly cooking, such that Julie would never have attempted, wedded as she was to Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Hey I ain’t wedded to no one but Tras and if I wanna cook rogue, I do it.

Recipe Part A. Last weekend I had purchased some lovely onion buns. I probably buy them every two or three years; they’re delicious buttery yellow hamburger buns with scrumptious toasted oniony thingies on top. Oh it’s a good burger made with these babies.

Recipe Part B. I keep on hand, in the freezer, a vast quantity of frozen ground turkey; thank you Meijer’s. It’s appallingly cheap at the regular price, which I think is $1.69 a pound. Recently they ran it 10 for $10. So I use it exclusively for all my hamburger needs, which wax and wane as I make fizzled attempts to return to my natural, vegetarian state. Anyway, the ground turkey.

Recipe Part C. Squash. I love it. Tras loves it. The kids are sick of it. Heck, they never liked it much in the first place but me, I love to grill it. Grilled zucchini, grilled summer squash. And grilled eggplant. IT’S ALL GOOD. But along about June 23 of this year, I probably burned them out of it. I don’t care. I keep buying it.

Recipe: The Good Part. Here’s where I got devious and creative. I mashed the pound of ground turkey with an egg, a few bread crumbs, about a quarter cup of Kraft parm and my favorite spices: onion salt, ground pepper and Tony’s. It’s true. It’s. Good. On. Everything.

So I mash it all together, as I say, and then I am STRUCK. Struck by inspiration. I own a Cuisinart food processor. It turns anything into shredded nothing in two seconds flat. They won’t eat zucchini? Mu-friggin’ ha-ha-ha.

I do it. I shred that zucchini. I mix it into the turkey. I form patties. Down they go on the George Forman grill. Four minutes later, mon dieu! She is gorgeous and delicious, this turkey burger patty.

Then comes the devious part. The plating of the patty. The toasting of the bun. The application of the oh-so-desired Swiss cheese. The jauntily set bread-and-butter pickles. Poor Claire. She never knew what hit her.

When I got her plate back it was clean. Clean. She ate every ounce of her quarter-pound turkey burger, containing as it did, a quarter zucchini. It may be simple to you, but to me, it’s a victory to savor on par of the night I made “chicken” stir-fry. Ask my dear children how very very tender Mom makes her cubed chicken. Oh so delicious is that chicken<cough>tofu<cough>.

You never heard it from me.

I hope I dream of Boulder tonight

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Wow, I’ve got a terrific headache. My son Christopher got back from the doctor a couple hours ago. The diagnosis? H1N1. The flu. He’s upstairs right now, slurping down rice and broth and a nice smoothie I whipped up for him, as I do for every one of my family members who get sick.

Except, right now, it seems like everyone is sick. And I can’t get that song, “Baby Can You Dig Your Man?” out of my head. It’s like something from a dream …

… or maybe a Stephen King novel. It’s a real Captain Trips.

The poor lamb arrived home yesterday evening after spending the weekend in Virginia attending the wedding of his father’s cousin. He and his sister, Claire, had a great time; it was their first formal event as adolescents/teens and were dressed suitably for the occasion, and drilled diligently on their manners prior to their departure. Since I wasn’t going to be around for helpful correction to their behavior, I had to trust God, baseball and the American Way to pull them through.

What I didn’t expect, through, was them to return with the flu.

It’s probably not the fault of the weekend trip, though; Christopher could have contracted this now hysteria-producing virus sometime in the previous week at school. And since he spent the entire weekend with his sister, either in the close quarters of a hotel room or on the eight-hour drive (each way), she’s likely to come down with it too.

We’ve got our own little quarantine going around here now; Christopher relegated to his end of the hall upstairs, Claire to hers, with some freedom of movement, and me trying to keep the little one segregated downstairs with the two of us.

Ooogh. I’m getting tired. These typing fingers are slowing down. The words before me are starting to swim a little on the screen. What? What’s that you say? No, I don’t know any old black ladies, but geez I seem to be imagining things. I swear I just heard the sweetest little old lady said something about Boulder. Huh. I’ve never been there. I bet it’s really pretty this time of year.

Baby, can you dig your man?

Help with this post.

Score!

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Ok, well not really. But in terms of getting your kid to actually PLAY soccer, now that he’s signed up for soccer, bought the uniform, got the T-shirt, well, yesterday was a V-I-C-T-O-R-Y!

You remember two weeks ago.

No.Way
No.Way.

Well, all I’ve got to say is, never underestimate the power of bribery when it comes to effective parenting.

Saturday’s game was scheduled for 9:30 am and though I don’t live in an enormous city, it does take a good 20 minutes of driving to get from Home, point A, to kiddle soccer field, point B. And since Saturday is Major Sleep-in Day around our house, Little Mr. Sunshine had to be awakened. He immediately wondered what was the hubbub, bub?

“You’ve got a soccer game today!”

This, performed in an excited, hopeful and slightly hysterical chorus by both parents. It was greeted with just the enthusiasm you’d expect: explosive denial.

“I HATE soccer. I don’t WANT to play soccer. I AM NOT GOING TO PLAY SOCCER.”

Well. I’ve never seen a challenge I couldn’t meet. Overcome? Well, maybe not, but I’ll meet that sucker. So to work I went, stuffing reluctant boy into uniform amid unceasing complaints, packing up the snacks for the team (for indeed, this was our week to provide them). Loading Grumpy McGrumperpants into the car and finally, me and the mister making the trek to the frozen tundra, AKA, the kiddle soccer field.

Earlier that morning when I’d stepped outside to check the temperature, it was sunny and promised to be a warm, sunny and gorgeous day. Conditions were somewhat same upon arrival at our destination, except for the gale-force winds (OK, OK, a strong breeze) and SHADE. So, it was pretty polar.

If you’ve never been to a soccer “game” for this age group, it’s really a lot of fun. The actual game is somewhat secondary to the looking around, aimless joyous jumping and rushing pell-mell down the field and scoring a goal in the opponent’s team’s net. They’re mighty precious and everyone has a good time. The three guys who serve as coaches are all Daddies, and it’s evident: they’re in it to give the little ones a taste of the game. Nobody cares what the score is.

So everyone was encouraging, no one was pressuring, but Trassie was most definitely parked in his little fold-up chair, when the game began, cocooned in a blanket and determined to sit this one out. For our part, we sat, too: gritting our teeth, torn between the desire to bodily toss him into the game and the forbearance that tells you that even if you did, he’d come flying back in your face faster than a boomerang. Then, inspiration struck Tras. Neither of us can believe it took us this long to use The Parent’s Secret Weapon.

“If you go out there and play, I’ll buy you a toy,”

Truly, before the word “toy” was fully out of Tras’s mouth, young Trassie leaped; nay, did a completely convincing imitation of being launched into the air, throwing the now-bothersome blanket from his body with a giant sweep of his arm and in a voice audible to every one of his coaches saying, “I’m ready to play!”

He hit the field. (See those bundled-up people back there? I TOLD you it was polar.)

He saw action.

He completed the required amount of standing around and not looking toward the ball.

Would you please LOOK AT THAT SMILE?

And finally, he did what he was born to do, which is run, run, run down the field like the demons of hell were following him, but in all actuality, he hadn’t even put it into fourth gear yet.

And then, the most wonderful words an aspiring soccer mom could hear: “Mom, I LOVE this game! YOU WERE RIGHT!”

Ah, sweet victory.

Of course we knew he would enjoy it. He loves to run, he loves to kick balls, which all adds up to a future of loving to run up and down a field, kicking a ball.We made good on our promise; a trip to Toys R Us was accomplished and a trophy selected: a darling stuffed Pikachu, who makes cute noises when you squeeze his (her?) ear.

So it’s all settled then; we love soccer around here and it’s smooth sailing from this point forward. No more worries; it’s all fixed.

That is, until T-ball starts in the spring,I guess.