Spring break, our way

Monday, February 23, 2015

Oh, who was I kidding…I really don’t do anything besides dress myself in well-worn knits and cook food all day. That trip to the Farmer’s Market that I posted last week? Aliens abducted me, bandaged my eyes with banana peels and forced me to walk, one foot after the next, until I reached the outskirts of my block. Which was terrifying and exciting all at the same time, but it’s nice to be back on the home front again.

Becauuuuse, it was Spring Break this week! Woohoo! And unlike my friends who surprised their children with trips to Disney, etc etc, I surprised my kids with this: “pack your bags kids, we’re heading up to the lake. Again.”

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School weeks are tiring enough without having to race around town getting prescriptions refilled and purchasing mini toothpaste sets. Who’s with me? Why travel when you can have fun in this glorious snow?

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Besides, we didn’t just have snow over Spring Break. We had days upon days of record-breaking lows. Which, mind you, when you’re situated right upon a lake, results in lows much lower than those horribly bad lows. These are the kind of lows that keep you trapped inside all day (win!) but that freeze your pipes (:(((() For the record, that was a quadruple frownie face, and until they replace my keyboard with emoji, we may have to put up with more of those.

This wasn’t a total destruction on par with last year’s freeze. Fortunately, just the kitchen pipes froze and eventually thawed. Which for 3 days meant no dishwasher, no running water (kitchen only), and a mounting pile of dirty dishes in the sink.

So let’s focus on what we could do last week. Because my glass is half full with the lemonade that I made out of those Spring Break lemons.

First up: Christmas.

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Savory

Greek-style peppers with lamb, feta and mint

Sunday, February 15, 2015

I’ve been sitting here for the last 30 minutes, staring at my computer screen, wondering what to write. For the record, you’re more likely to spot Sasquatch than see me struggling for words. I usually have what amounts to some kind of brain purge syndrome where my posts fly from brain to fingertip in a matter of minutes, leaving me depleted, hungry, and questioning what country I’m in.

Speaking of countries, the topic today is Greece. And the reason that I’m so confounded is that Greece should bring back memories galore. After all, I’ve been there not once, not twice, but thrice. I’m not liking that word, but I’m sticking with it. It’s like a combination of “throw” and “rice”. Which is what I did once in Greece. At a wedding. So maybe I’m getting somewhere with this Greek business after all.

Our visit to Greece was the first major trip that Rodney and I took as a couple back in 2001. We returned several years later to re-visit Mykonos and Santoroni and tack on a few more islands (Rhodes, Corfu, Crete). We even did the completely optional/somewhat frightening several-day visit to Athens. Generally speaking, I should have Greek memories, and lots of them.

The problem with Greece – and perhaps it’s less of a “problem” than a “challenge”, is that much of your waking time is spent drinking Mythos (daytime) and Ouzo (nighttime). So what I do remember from our visits is patchy.

There I am, bawling my way through the last few pages of War and Peace on Ornos beach. (My copy, for the record, is still buried there, unless the department of sanitation scooped my treasure out of the sand and hauled it off to the dump.)

There again you’ll spot us buying strappy leather sandals in a street market in Rhodes. I should say ME not WE; Don’t ask Rodney how he feels about man sandals. Or Tevas. Or short haircuts on women, which he thinks that women tell each other are “really cute” but men strongly do not prefer. (By the way, we argue about this point constantly; maybe I’ll cut my hair short one day just for spite.)

Oh look! Now we’re easing our way along busy roads on a moped in Santorini. On a mission to find the one winery on the island. Not an adventure for the faint of heart or anyone over the age of 25. Mum, I survived, please don’t worry about this anymore.

I do, however, have strong memories of the food. Whether we were sitting down to a fancy dinner in the heart of the Old Town in Mykonos, or beachside at a little taverna, I recall a freshness and simplicity that still influences my cooking today.

20 comments

Family

Days of love and endless snow

Monday, February 9, 2015

If you’ve read my recent post about Valentine’s Day, you’ll know that I’ve vowed to keep things PG-13 this year. And let me clarify before you get any ideas about this blog – I’m still talking food and beverage.

There will be no mass consumption of alcohol, no next-day apologies…no questions as to whether I’m still technically part of the family.

I’ve pledged to do more of the Valentine’s Day activities that you’d expect from a mother of three. Baking? Check. Handwritten cards? Check. Chocolate? Yes, please, all of it.

This’ll be a new thing for me. I’m never one to pre-plan for Valentine’s Day. Christmas? Different story. I once ordered presents in August, just to get a jump start on my wrapping. A summer babysitter once innocently asked what all the boxes were for, and when I responded “Christmas”, I could see furtive glances towards the nearest exit.

But Valentine’s Day always surprises me. It takes up a small amount of brain space during the month of February – in the form of “I think it’s coming up soon.” And then, one day, the kids’ backpacks come home with a bulky mound of candy and Hallmark-emblazoned paper with rickety signatures, and gosh darnit, you’ve missed it again.

In an effort not to be the Valentine curmudgeon of years past, I visited our neighborhood Michael’s to pick up some supplies. By the way, have you been to Michael’s? I know that the prospect of visiting a big box retailer may be less thrilling for those of you living in suburban areas, but they just opened one up in Chelsea and it’s like Disneyland. For crafters. I’m definitely not a crafter, but I can get sucked into the moment if I’m in the right place.

There were multiple aisles of Valentine’s day gear from stickers, to heart-stamped tape, paisley-printed cardboard, and plastic jewels to tack onto your love notes. I’m embarrassed to say how much I spent, but I’m comforted by the fact that we’ll have Valentine’s Day crafting materials until my youngest reaches Middle school.

So that’s what we did this weekend. For 15 minutes. Just until the novelty wore off, prompting me to subtly remind {nag} my kids for the rest of the weekend that each child in the class needs a card, not just close friends.

And those reminders were just for the girls. Sam took one look at the heap of pink and red construction paper and decided that he’d prefer to build Ninja stars.

Apologies, friends of Sam. There won’t be Valentine’s Day cards this year. I hope that you’ll forgive me; it wasn’t for lack of effort.

45 comments

Family

Winter storm Juno

Monday, February 2, 2015

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“Why are there handcuffs on my kitchen counter?”

[silence]

“Guys, this room is a mess, can you help me clean up?”

[silence]

“Does anyone want some hot chocolate before I pour my booze into it?”

Just a few of the conversations that happened over a very long 36 hours that was, according to Twitter, Instagram and all of the hashtag-using entities: #snowmageddon #winterstormjuno and the #blizzardof2015

Also known as….just your average Tuesday….or most hopefully, Chad Myers’ swan song.

Although it would be sad to see meteorologist Chad Myers go. I eagerly turn on CNN whenever we’re in the face of an impending storm. Simply to see him wild-eyed and foaming gently at the corners of his mouth, talking about Arctic highs and barometric drops. And, I might add, sourcing every other word from World Wrestling Entertainment. With all of the slamming, rocking, and pummeling, we could alternatively be talking about a Guns ‘n Roses concert or a fracking expedition in North Dakota.

So who hangs out with me couch-side when I’m watching these Emmy-worthy performances? That’s where it gets complicated.

Every television show needs its own tactfully-chosen viewing partner. It’s best to watch the tube with someone who’s properly attuned the show’s comedic vision. For ABC’s “The Bachelor”, that viewing partner is my husband. Some of our finest moments as husband and wife have been on the couch, glass of red in hand, voicing suspicions about who’d illegally snuck into our bachelor’s tent after hours. If I were to prioritize, watching these television moments together rank lower than the birth of our children, but might top our trip to South America.

For CNN – and yes, CNN does have a comedic vision…it just doesn’t know it yet – that viewing partner is my Mum.

Rodney, despite his strengths as a Bachelor accomplice, doesn’t think that CNN is funny. A wind-whipped newscaster plunging a yardstick into 3 inches of snow isn’t funny. Don Lemon riding around in the “Blizzardmobile” through the night, investigating a most unstory of stories, isn’t funny. Chad Myers yelling at his fellow newscasters and spiking his script on the ground, isn’t funny.

My Mum, bless her heart, thinks it’s hysterical. Which is why when a storm bears down on the East Coast, we swap phone calls and exchange notes – “did you see the woman with the giant thermometer?”

We’re lucky when we get to watch CNN together in person, which doesn’t happen as often as we’d like these days. So we’re forced to chat virtually; the silver lining of our phone conversations is that she doesn’t have to wonder whose handcuffs are lying on the kitchen counter (let the record state that they belonged to Sam) …or witness the mess that our living room becomes after 36 hours indoors. Or, heaven forbid, see with her bare eyes how much booze gets poured into my hot chocolate.

Some things are better left private. Others…well I’m happy to share a few moments from our experience with Winter Storm Juno last week:

The actual storm before the storm…
(Really, if there was a storm, it happened two days before Winter Storm Juno. Don’t ask me why this storm didn’t get a name…. Weathercasting is confusing even before you even start talking about divergent models and barotropic systems)

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Family

Into the fog

Monday, January 19, 2015

When I was in my mid-20s, my (then) fiancée, (now) husband & I applied to business school. We applied all around the country, knowing that acceptance rates were low, and hoping for the best: that we’d both get into the same program, and could move to our next city together.

We were lucky, as UC Berkeley just outside of San Francisco, accepted us both. It was off to Northern California, right across the bridge from his hometown of Marin.

Moving from the East Coast to the West Coast is an adjustment. Seasonal weather, leafy trees, and gothic architecture were quickly replaced by fresh crab, lemon trees, salty air and fog. Lots of it.

That’s what stays with me the most. More than the farmer’s markets, the vintage bookstores on Telegraph Avenue, or the classes themselves. Summer fog, winter fog, day-long fog and morning fog. They just don’t manufacture fog the same way on the East coast.

The Inuits have 50 words to describe their snow: “aqilokoq”:“softly falling snow”; “piegnartoq”:“the snow that is good for driving sleds”; I imagine that Northern Californians have a more intimate understanding of fog. Pea soup, black fog, dry fog, killer fog, sea mist, and valley fog; all names of fog, all unidentifiable to me, even after two years of living there.

“How”, I thought as I wandered out of the lake house one morning recently: “would the Northern Californians classify this?”