Tunes

May 5, 2015

Music I discovered today that I can't stop listening to:

Brandi Carlile, The Firewatcher's Daughter

It's something else, especially "The Eye".

"Save Part of Yourself" and "Hard Way Home" on her Bear Creek album = :)


And this one is a gem from an earlier album:

http://youtu.be/EjlLQSsWVv4



Listen soon...

It's Not Rocket Science

May 5, 2015

Yesterday I put a grill together by myself.  I realize I’m a 41-year-old woman with a master’s degree (in a completely unrelated subject) and this isn’t rocket science; but for a gal who is mechanically disinclined and a tad impatient and a tad more accident-prone, what we have here, my dears, is a miracle.  I went to the store, bought it, loaded all thousand pounds of it with my brute strength into the back of my mom-mobile, drove that sucker home, unloaded it piece by piece from the back of said mom-mobile, and read the slightly cryptic directions.  Sure, I may have cussed myself a few times for my general idiocy.  You can bet I sat down at step 20 or 30 and reevaluated this particular choice.  But no one saw that nonsense (so why am I now admitting it?).  All anyone is to see is this masterpiece of a grill that WORKS.  It works.  When all was said and done, all screws tightened and prayers said, the burners lit and the food cooked.  And the house didn’t burn down.

I’d hate to dislocate my shoulder patting myself on the back, but I can work a grill (kind of).  Okay, I can grill a piece of salmon into delicious complacency which has made salmon one of my son’s favorite foods (and was such when he was just a wee tot).  In fact, when I do plan to make a meal out of this offering from the sea, I will greet Drew in the pick-up line at school with “guess what we’re having for dinner?”  Salmon is the answer he offers up without hesitation. Of course, that might have something to do with the fact that there is little else I make that is nearly as edible…

Cooking is not the gift God gave me at the point of departure from the we-aren’t-quite-human-yet heavens to in utero.  Maybe they were short on culinary skills in the supply room that day but they had plenty of sarcasm and a tendency to be just a smidge critical to pack into my DNA. Hey, you get what you get.  And you can be bitter about it if you so choose.  I have chosen to glean what I can from the master chefs in my midst:  my Aunt Diana could kick Paula Deen’s (allegedly) racist ass any day of the week.  And her sister, my Aunt Judy, is especially gifted with the sweet stuff.  My Nanny made a spaghetti that I can still taste (of course, she could also heat up a Swanson TV Dinner like a champ).  My Mimi made cinnamon rolls that we all fought over and hoarded.  My mother-in-law can kill a cow and make it into dinner in one fell swoop. My stepmother knew twenty ways to jazz up a potato, as this starch was the requirement of every meal at my father's table. And they all made it look easy.  As a child, I just ate every bite until my elastic big-girl pants couldn’t take it anymore.  Then I grew up a little and begged for recipes and instruction.  The results were some very flat cinnamon rolls and a host of attempts at recapturing the morsels and the memories that shaped my digestive childhood. Trust me, though, the women in my life with all the skills have been gracious and giving.

But I tried, and I try still.  Now that I am no longer employed “outside of the home,” donned in pearls and heels each day, I keep trying to develop into the domestic goddess in the kitchen that God meant me to be, had the supply room been amply stocked.  I would say that my attempts to impress my hungry family with new and exciting creations have been successful, but the truth is quite the contrary.  Oh, they eat it and they are kind.  But the night I threw a package of Knorr teriyaki noodles into a pan of boiling water and presented it at the familial table and they gobbled it up and pronounced it the best thing I had ever made, a little part of me died.

I suppose the silver lining is that I live with some folks whose standards are low…or just processed, canned, frozen, or best met in a drive-thru.

Anyhoo, now I have a grill that seems to recognize the difference between high and low and may just do me proud.  If it stops working, I doubt very seriously it will have anything to do with the fact that there were two screws left over at assembly’s end.  It better not stop working.  My ego is on the line.  And I think I’m out of Knorr noodles.

May 4 Nugget 2

May 4, 2015

In Four Weddings and a Funeral, Matthew loses his partner in life, Gareth, to a sudden heart attack. Gareth was larger-than-life and outlandish, with a great capacity for joy.  At his funeral, Matthew quotes this poem by W.H. Auden. There is no clearer expression of pure grief:

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

May 4 Nugget

May 4, 2015

On Saturday Night Live's most recent Weekend Update, this report was filed:

"It was reported that students in a school district in Tennessee were served meat that was six years old, which raises the question, where's Tyler?"

;);):););););)

😂😂😂

My Boy of Summer...updated :)

May 3, 2015

Eleven years ago my daughter was two.  Time was ticking by, but I wasn’t sure if there was enough of me to go around as it was, let alone with another little cherub to love.  The nagging (and somewhat cliched) fear that I could never love another child as much or that the newbie would pale in comparison to the amazing Grace was also alive and well.  But I knew there was a patch of my heart that would surely run dry without another wee one to crawl in and make it whole.

Ten years ago we got our answer in a little guy we named Drew.  The world got a fellow whose heart is bigger than most:  he is uniquely sensitive and has an acute radar for anything that is even a tad amiss in those he loves. As a baby he was mostly fuss-free, which was an absolute thumbs-up from God to me and visa versa.  Babies terrify me, quite frankly.  Their volatility and inability to reason is scary.  I considered Grace a walking time bomb back in the day even though she was really a cinch, in retrospect.  While I’d weathered the minefield of the potentially explosive infant the first time around, I never underestimated any child in my care:  at any moment anywhere, things can go horribly wrong.  And when they do…oh…sweet Jesus...

But Drew was always along for the ride.  No big deal.  When he was two months old, I had to travel to the national debate tournament in Philadelphia for a week with nearly a dozen of my top debaters.  As the week approached I became more convinced that one of us (actually, just me) would crumble under the weight of a week’s separation.  My hormonal and heartfelt emotional spasms resulted in my husband flying Drew to me in Philly mid-week.  Darin was there for less than 24 hours:  he graciously delivered my prize, kindly participated in an evening of debate coaching tasks, and returned home.  I rejoiced in my low-maintenance 2-monther and a 15-passenger van full of teenagers.  Where I went, so did Drew.  I have a picture of the two of us atop the “Rocky” steps one afternoon.  He is wearing a blue hat and is oblivious to our famous surroundings and happily snuggled up against me.  Later that day he stayed with one of my school kiddos in the balcony of the theatre housing the awards ceremony.  Two of my students had placed 3rd in the nation and I needed to be with them on the floor of the auditorium.  I kept looking up at Sam, bracing myself for Drew to finally rebel and cry with me powerless and away from him.  He did no such thing. He snoozed.

Drew has continued the trend of being a low-maintenance champ ever since that smooth trip to Philly.  He has also continued the trend of being my faithful companion.  He’s my guy.  When he stood no taller than our mattress, he would toddle into the bedroom with his shock of bright-blonde hair and climb in.  I remember holding my breath sometimes, wanting to freeze the look of him bounding in to be with his mama.  I hold on now to every shard of attention and need.  It is just the absolute best to be loved by him.  I’m self-deprecating about a lot—but not about how much he loves me.  It’s a powerful force, the bond between a son and his mother.

These days this mother is a spectator to the life Drew eats, drinks, and sleeps:  baseball.  He plays competitive, traveling baseball.  He loves sports more than anyone I have ever met…except for my father.  Drew and his Papa are birds of a feather, breathing in ESPN and and exhaling the latest on the St. Louis Cardinals.  As a very young little boy, Drew would watch Sports Center with his breakfast and could digest the crawler of scores at the bottom of the screen well before he was literate.  In fact, his understanding of scores and statistics littering any sportscast was deceptive.  He would sometimes have to be clear:  “now, you know I can’t read,” he explained. Eh, no big deal.  That would come later.

Now I watch Drew play the game to which he is wholly devoted:  he pitches, plays first base, plays outfield.  We returned just today from a tournament in Arkansas.  My fellow moms and I are watching these boys of summer morph into young men before our eyes, though none of us dares say it.  On the mound, on base, behind home, they are so very adult:  committed to a craft and its rules, they are tough and serious.  But I know that before the warm-ups and after the post-game sermon from the beloved coach, my boy and his cronies will be the silly little farting and laughing darlings God intended them to be at 10.  The differences on and off the field are fascinating. 

Some people hear our schedule of games think us crazy to be so committed to so much this early.  But he loves it.  He craves it.  

I love baseball because of what it means to people I love.  The sport itself I have found painstakingly slow and snoozy for much of my life.  My father was an incredibly successful collegiate coach when I was young, but I was more concerned about how many pieces of bubble gum I could cram into my 8-year-old mouth than the strikes and balls being thrown.  Dad refers to the shenanigans of my brother and me at the ballpark during that era as a perpetual game of “grabass” while we threw dirt bombs at each other.  My son, however, doesn’t even like to bring friends to watch games with him because he doesn’t want to risk being distracted by some bit of ridiculous conversation.  I’ve learned to love a game I barely understand because, well, how can you not love something that makes that face light up?

This is a belated happy birthday message to my glorious little boy.  My Drewdlebug.  He may read it someday and roll his eyes and possibly get a little ticked at this last bit.  You see, he still climbs in bed with me before bedtime or sometimes first thing in the morning.  And if no one is watching, he lets me give him a smooch.  And I still hold my breath.

May 3 Nugget

May 3, 2015

“Sometimes I don’t know whom I’m most in mourning for, Matthew or the person I used to be when I was with him.”

--Lady Mary, in Downton Abbey, after losing her husband 

May 2 Nugget 3

Julia Child married the love of her life, Paul, when she was 36.  

The result was a marriage I have long admired—from reading Julia’s autobiography to watching (for the hundredth time, to be sure) Nora Ephron’s last film, “Julie and Julia,” in which Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci portray the soul mates.  Paul describes falling in love with Julia:  “We were having dinner as friends.  And it turned out to be Julia.”  

At one point Julia describes a butter mixture to her sister.  Paul chimes in, explaining, "it's tangy."  Julia looks at him,  then at her sister. Her face, her whole being says, "do you see?  He gets me.  He understands."  

Julia transformed herself from a non-cook into the legend.  The fascination for me, however, is how Paul’s adoration of and interest in his wife propelled her passion.  They understood each other.  From their understanding sprang the most authentic love and a culinary empire. In the final scene of the movie, Julia’s finished masterpiece of a cookbook comes in the mail.  She opens the package to discover the fruits of her gifted labor and hoots with amazement and delight. Paul laughs from his belly at her utter joy.  I cry every time I watch that scene.  All I see is love.