Sunday Recipe Blogging

Things are better. I'm almost totally healthy, Mr. Squab's foot is on the mend, and the Hatchling and the Sprout are vastly improved. Plus, my team won today and I invented a really yummy soup. As a cook, I'd say that soups and casseroles are my forte - I'm a one-dish-meal kind of gal - but usually I'm working from some kind of recipe even if I alter most of the steps. This is the first time I've ever actually created a recipe from scratch, so I was quite pleased that it turned out. I loooooove pumpkin dishes, especially in the autumn, and I'm a sucker for a nice, hearty soup. Trust me, this one will definitely fill you up. Another bonus: it would be just as delicious as a vegan soup as it is with meat, so it's nice and versatile. See what you think:

Curried Pumpkin-Lentil Soup

8 cups broth (chicken, veggie, whatev.)
1 c. lentils
1 large onion, diced
1 1/2 c. sweet potato, diced (about 1 medium sweet potato)
1 1/2 c. carrots, sliced
2 15 oz. cans pumpkin
1 lb chicken breast, cubed (optional)
2 T curry powder
1 T powdered ginger
1 t garlic powder
1 T Sriracha or other hot sauce (to taste)
Sour cream for garnish

1. Put broth and lentils into a crock pot on high.

2. Saute onion, carrots, sweet potato, 1 T curry powder and 1/2 T ginger in the olive oil on medium heat until soft. Add to crock pot. Add both cans of pumpkin.

3. Toss chicken breast with remaining spices, garlic powder, and Sriracha. Saute over medium heat in the pan left over from the veggies. Add additional oil if necessary (I didn't need to, but I was using a nonstick pan.) When chicken is fully cooked, set aside.

4. Once lentils are soft, or an hour or so before serving, use an immersion blender to puree the soup until it is fairly uniform in texture. (If you don't have an immersion blender, use a potato masher - the soup will be chunkier, but that's OK. Or, you know, get an immersion blender. Seriously! They are awesome!)

5. Add chicken to pureed soup and reduce heat to low. Cook at least 1 hour or up to, I dunno, all day?

6. Serve hot with a dollop of sour cream and crusty bread on the side. SO. GOOD.

**Vegetarian/Vegan option: Use veggie broth; add all the spices and hot sauce to the onion/carrot/sweet potato mix instead of dividing them between the veggies and the meat, and if you're vegan, skip the sour cream or use a vegan substitute. Easy Peasy.

**Quick option: do it on the stovetop instead of in a crock pot - bring the broth and lentils to a boil, then reduce heat and let them simmer for about 20 minutes while you prepare and cook the veggies. By the time the veggies are done, the lentils will be soft and you can puree at will, and add the chicken as soon as it's cooked.

Clearly, we're having some karmic problems here

So I've been sick for basically the last three and a half weeks, much of the time the kind of sick where you're really only fit for lying on the sofa and drinking hot tea. (I'm still not completely over it, but I have returned to functionality.) Now, usually when I get sick, I like to cut myself some slack for a few days, rest up, push fluids and recover, and then get back into the swing of things. This works pretty well for your average 5-7 day cold. Not so much with a three week fucker of a virus. This past month, even when I've been feeling my worst, I've still had to take care of the girls, ferry people around to preschool and playgroups, run errands, teach classes, go to meetings, etc. I've canceled when and where I could, but my life is currently arranged such that there's not a lot of wiggle room for cancellations. I have, in other words, been "pushing through" and "soldiering on," even though I am really not a "soldiering on" kind of squab. More of a "civilian-ing off" kind of one, actually.

The unpleasant side-effect of this unwonted stoicism has been that I've been madder than a wet hen pretty much all month. I mean, ANGRY. Angry about everything. Angry that I can't get un-sick, angry that the weather is so damn cold and wet, angry that we don't have any money and the kids need winter coats and boots and none of my shoes fit since the baby and all my clothes are cheap and ill-fitting, angry that being tired and sick all the time makes me an ill-tempered and impatient parent, angry that I haven't gotten any writing done in weeks and months, angry that I don't get any sick days, angry that I feel like I'm half-assing everything I do, as a parent, as a wife, as a teacher, as a friend, angry that I'm being whiny and annoying all the time, angryangryangry. And I guess maybe anger is a better response to crap than depression, but not by much.

So as I usually do when I'm having a problem, after stewing on it unproductively and no doubt alienating my friends with my bitching, I talked about it with Mr. Squab. "I'm angry all the time," I said, "and I know it's not fair, because you're already doing more than your share, and I feel terrible about that all the time too, but I can't keep being angry like this." And we talked about ways that I could get some kind of break if I really need one, and things to do to make me feel less crazy, and Mr. Squab said all the things that truly superior partners say and I felt like, okay, I can make it through this. I can't be sick forever, and things will be all right.

The next night (Friday) Mr. Squab sprained his ankle trying to avoid stepping on the cat.

Saturday the Hatchling had a complete breakdown while we were at an out of town birthday celebration, and we spent two hours at a local urgent care clinic diagnosing a raging ear infection.

Today I woke up with the entire right side of my head stuffed up, and the Sprout is either coming down with something or teething.

Breaks. I would like one.

Friday Poetry Blogging

Halloween's coming ...

Macbeth, Act IV, Scene I
by William Shakespeare

The three witches, casting a spell

Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison’d entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights hast thirty one
Swelter’d venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg, and howlet’s wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches’ mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg’d i’ the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Sliver’d in the moon’s eclipse,
Nose of Turk, and Tartar’s lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver’d by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

I write letters

Dear Minnesota,

WTF, Minnesota? Really? Snow TWICE before the first two weeks of October are up? That's how you're gonna play it this year? It wasn't bad enough to have one of the coldest summers on record, you gotta fuck up autumn, too? You KNOW autumn is everyone's favorite season. Don't give me that look. You know exactly what you're doing. You like making me crazy, don't you? Last winter nearly killed me what with the pregs and the toddler and ALL THE FUCKING SNOW but I thought, hey, this coming winter is supposed to be mild! Surely this godforsaken state can give me a goddamn break just ONCE in the weather department. But no. You've made your position plain. There will be no breaks. There will only be cold. And snow. And freezing winds. And chilling damp. You don't want me to live here, do you? I'm getting your message, loud and clear: MOVE SOMEWHERE ELSE, BITCH. Well, you know what? Right about now, nothing would make me happier, but financial reasons prevent me from making it so. Also, I happen to have a lot of wonderful friends and family members here and a great moms-network and ties to the local theatre community and I will move on MY OWN TIME, not yours, you stupid arctic tundra of a has-been territory. So knock it the fuck off, or so help me, I will CUT YOU.

Sincerely yours,
The Squab

Friday Poetry Blogging

In honor of autumn:

These Green-Going-to-Yellow
by Marvin Bell

This year,
I'm raising the emotional ante,
putting my face
in the leaves to be stepped on,
seeing myself among them, that is;
that is, likening
leaf-vein to artery, leaf to flesh,
the passage of a leaf in autumn
to the passage of autumn,
branch-tip and winter spaces
to possibilities, and possibility
to God. Even on East 61st Street
in the blowzy city of New York,
someone has planted a gingko
because it has leaves like fans like hands,
hand-leaves, and sex. Those lovely
Chinese hands on the sidewalks
so far from delicacy
or even, perhaps, another gender of gingko--
do we see them?
No one ever treated us so gently
as these green-going-to-yellow hands
fanned out where we walk.
No one ever fell down so quietly
and lay where we would look
when we were tired or embarrassed,
or so bowed down by humanity
that we had to watch out lest our shoes stumble,
and looked down not to look up
until something looked like parts of people
where we were walking. We have no
experience to make us see the gingko
or any other tree,
and, in our admiration for whatever grows tall
and outlives us,
we look away, or look at the middles of things,
which would not be our way
if we truly thought we were gods.

Cats, man. Cats.

Two tewtelly ass-ome cat videos, introduced to me by my students.

Munchkin Cat. OMG teh cutes will killz u.


Kittens Inspired by Kittens. This is totally something I can see the Hatchling doing in about a year.


There. YOU'RE WELCOME.

Preventing sexual assault: Tips guaranteed to work!

Love this.

Please distribute this list. Put it up in your place of work, in your university’s library or wherever you think they might be read:

1. Don’t put drugs in people’s drinks in order to control their behavior.

2. When you see someone walking by themselves, leave them alone!

3. If you pull over to help someone with car problems, remember not to assault them!

4. NEVER open an unlocked door or window uninvited.

5. If you are in an elevator and someone else gets in, DON’T ASSAULT THEM!

6. Remember, people go to laundry to do their laundry, do not attempt to molest someone who is alone in a laundry room.

7. USE THE BUDDY SYSTEM! If you are not able to stop yourself from assaulting people, ask a friend to stay with you while you are in public.

8. Always be honest with people! Don’t pretend to be a caring friend in order to gain the trust of someone you want to assault. Consider telling them you plan to assault them. If you don’t communicate your intentions, the other person may take that as a sign that you do not plan to rape them.

9. Don’t forget: you can’t have sex with someone unless they are awake!

10. Carry a whistle! If you are worried you might assault someone “on accident” you can hand it to the person you are with, so they can blow it if you do.

Via. (h/t to my mom)

Bedtime Stories

Last night. Bedtime. Had battled various bugs in the bedroom earlier in the day and Mr. Squab had to get rid of a spider on the ceiling right above the bed just before we got in. I have a bug phobia.

Me: Can I snuggle with you? (Mr. Squab lifts arm to make the snuggle niche available.) Ummmm ... can you tell me a story?

Mr Squab: (rolls eyes) What are you, five? Why?

Me: I don't want to dream about bugs!! I need some other images in my head!

Mr. Squab: (pause) Once upon a time there was a little boy named Harold who liked to poop in people's yards ...

Me: (snorting with suppressed laughter) What the hell kind of story is THAT? I don't want to dream about poop, either!

Mr. Squab: You asked for a story.

Me: (pause; can't help self) Well, what happened with Harold? Why did he poop in people's yards?

Mr. Squab: If he liked you, he'd leave a log in your yard.

Me: But what did the neighbors say?

Mr. Squab: They didn't say anything. (long pause)

Me: But ... that's not a story! What happened after THAT?

Mr. Squab: Harold died.

Me: Of what?

Mr. Squab: Constipation.

Me: (nearly helpless with laughter, as is Mr. Squab) Oh, my god. That is the worst story ever. There is something wrong with you.

Mr. Squab: Sweet dreams.

Friday Poetry Blogging

There was a time, both on this blog and on past efforts, when I regularly posted a poem on Fridays. Cos I like poetry, and it's fun to share my favorites. I think I stopped from sheer inertia, but today I was going through some boxes of old stuff and found the book eWAC made for me for my 18th birthday, which has a lot of great poems in it, so I thought I'd maybe start up again. The poem below is posted in honor of our dear Governor Tim Pawlenty, who indicated in a conference call yesterday that he may invoke the 10th Amendment to prevent any of Obama's healthcare reforms from taking effect in MN. Glad to know you, Tim.

Go West Young Man
by James Laughlin

Yessir they're all named
either Ken or Stan or Don
every one of them and
those aren't just nick-
names either no they're
really christened like
that just Ken or Stan or
Don and you shake hands
with anybody you run into
no matter who the hell
it is and say "glad to
know you Ken glad to
know you Don" and then
two minutes later (you
may not have said ten
words to the guy) you
shake hands again and
say "glad to have met
you Stan glad to" and
they haven't heard much
about Marx and the class
struggle because they
haven't had to and by
god it makes a country
that is fit to live in
and by god I'm glad to
know you Don I'm glad!

File this under "Things That are Awesome"

Picked up the Hatchling from her second day of preschool this morning (verdict: still loving it), and as soon as the Sprout saw her big sister, her face totally lit up with a HUGE grin. Then they spend virtually the entire ride home just looking at each other and laughing, while the Hatchling kept saying, "I so glad to know you're here!"

Hoo. That's the good stuff. Now here are some cute pictures:

The First Day of School


She just at a lot of cookie dough. Sugar high?


I find that having two small girls on the counter is a real aid to cookie-baking


Here's a little video of the Sprout in her bouncing contraption. MAN, I wish they made these for adults.

Steal This Message

My friend J.B., father and longtime Democratic operative, is sending his kids to school tomorrow with the following permission slip:

"Despite the warnings of right-wing radio hosts, and fully cognizant that my daughter risks learning a lesson in civics, I, nonetheless, grant her permission to watch a televised address by the duly-elected leader of these United States, President Barack Obama, on the controversial subject of the importance of school."

I so wish my kids were old enough that I could steal this for them.

School Daze

The Hatchling is starting preschool next week; this week she visited her class and met her teacher on Tuesday, and today there was a 1-hour "practice" session so the kids could get used to getting dropped off and the whole class routine. There were lots of nervous/excited parents and a couple of freaked out kids, but mostly it was a festival of cute. The Hatchling was very excited to get there and seemed OK when I left; I took the Sprout on a little grocery trip, and then headed back to the school to pick the Hatchling up. Got there and the classroom doors were still closed, lots of parents milling about in the halls. The doors open, and the teacher (Miss Jenny) comes out and says, "normally we'll just send them out to you, but they're pretty overwhelmed today, so if you want to come in and get them, you can." There's a surge of anxious kids out the door looking for their parental units ... No Hatchling. The Sprout and I make our way into the class, and way over in the corner farthest from the door sits the Hatchling and a little boy in earnest conversation.

"Hi, Boo!" I say. "Whatcha doing?"

"Um, I'm just talkin' about dinosaurs wif my friend, Mama."

Well, OK then. After showing me the entire classroom and reluctantly agreeing to leave the dinosaurs and the magnifying glasses and the toy trucks at school, the Hatchling was persuaded to leave the room. On our way out, I asked Miss Jenny how the Hatchling had done. Miss Jenny rolled her eyes and laughed. "Oh, she's going to be FINE. Totally made herself at home."

That's my girl.

Funny. Gross, but Funny.

So the Hatchling is, for all intents and purposes, potty trained. Which: THANK GOD, because if I'd had to keep her home from preschool for still being in diapers, we both would have lost it. But I must say, it's engendered some interesting conversations. For one thing, poop is now, like, the funniest word/concept/joke EVAR. Asked what her baby doll's name was this morning, she responded "Poo-poo!" and laughed like a maniac. Oh, the hilarity.

And then there was this gem: she'd gone #2 in the downstairs porta-potty, so after we wiped and pulled up her underwear, I went to grab the potty so I could go upstairs and empty it in the toilet. The Hatchling, however, was not having any of it. SHE would carry the poop. Only SHE could do it. So, okay, we go to the stairs and I have several heart attacks as she precariously makes her way up, but she does it, and then she goes over to the toilet, dumps the poop in, leans over, looks down, and says, "THERE! Now you can swim!"

I don't even want to KNOW the mental process, y'all. I don't even want to know.

Well, there goes my mother of the week award.

You know how, when you have a baby, there are all these WARNINGS about things? Most of which involve never leaving your child unattended? Especially when they're infants? Because they might fall? But of course when they're newborns they can't really move at all so you sort of can leave them unattended even though you shouldn't, and maybe you kind of push that luck a little too long and your 5 month old thrashes around until she sort of slides/falls out of the chair you had her propped up in? While you were (arrrgh) checking your email!?!?!!

Yeah. That might have happened to me today.

(Good thing babies have such hard heads.)

Sunday Fluff

So something about the death of director John Hughes really feels like the end of an era for us Gen X'ers. I mean, the man's movies pretty much defined "cool" for most of us, and I can still personally quote entire scenes from Sixteen Candles and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. So I started thinking about other movies that significantly contributed to my ideas of what teen life could (or should) be. I limited myself to movies that were released before I graduated from high school (1989). Here are my top ten, in no particular order:

1. Meatballs
2. Caddyshack
3. Sixteen Candles
4. The Breakfast Club
5. Ferris Bueller's Day Off
6. Vacation
7. Say Anything
8. Dirty Dancing
9. Pretty in Pink
10. Grease

What's on your list?

Tab Dump

Some interesting stuff from around the interwebs, aka LazyBlogging:

This is the kind of thing I think the internet was designed for. Beautiful.

The Carnival of Feminist Parenting.

A beginning annotated bibliography of Doubt.

This is EXACTLY what I think about the Harry Potter movies.

Speaking of which, these are the best damn interviews with the Harry Potter cast EVER. So lovely.

This makes me so angry I could cry.

An online gallery for the British Library? Yes, please.

John Hughes' teenage pen-pal recalls his correspondence.

Tired.

Well, hello. Ahem. Anybody still out there? Soooo ... it's been awhile. I guess I needed a break or something. Actually, that would be "or something" because it's not so much that I needed a break from blogging (I mentally narrate my day in blog posts; it's sad) as it is ... other stuff. Part of it was the realization that many of my posts were causing concern among certain friends and family members as to my mental and emotional stability. I mean, I don't want to make people think I'm about to go over the edge, here! And part of it was the realization that lately I've been feeling a lot like I'm about to go over the edge, here.

My stock answer when people ask me what it's like, having two kids, is "It's kicking my ass!" This is said - and meant - semi-jocularly, but the fact of the matter is that it's also objectively true about 75% of the time. I constantly feel frazzled, stretched too thin, unfocused, inadequate, lacking direction, dysfunctional, and frustrated. In short, I am a BUSHEL BASKET OF FUN these days. Whoo. During one of my recent meltdowns, I explained to Mr. Squab that I don't feel like I'm living up to my own (dwindling) standards in any aspect of my life right now: I'm not being the kind of mother I want to be, I'm not being a good partner to Mr. Squab, I'm completely overwhelmed even by minimal housework, I'm not making any progress in my professional life, and god knows I'm not taking great care of myself. My inner honors student is appalled at my inability to Get. Anything. Done. And while cognitively I'm aware that this, too, shall pass, I've been spending too much time lately feeling hopeless and dissatisfied. Which, let's face it, is not the most fun way to be in the world. Also it is booooorrrrrriiiiiiiiinnnnnnggggg to talk about.

Mr. Squab, who I should say right now is basically a saint, pointed out that almost all of my funk can be traced back to one overarching cause: the lack of sleep. The Sprout, like her sister before her, wakes up every two hours all night long. Every night. Sometimes even more often than that. During the day, she takes wee naps in the morning and then a longer nap - as long as three hours, sometimes - in the afternoon, while the Hatchling sleeps. Which means that for the last five months I have not slept for longer than maybe three hours at one go ... uh, at all. When the Hatchling was this same age, I was also profoundly sleep-deprived, but at least I could sleep whenever she did all through the day if I was really out of it. No such luck with two! And as any veteran parent can attest, after a few months of completely inadequate rest, you start to get a little psycho, and the worst of it is that you're too tired to remember that fatigue is the source of your misery. I casually mentioned the Sprout's poor sleeping habits at my weekly playgroup recently, and everyone immediately offered sympathy, remarking on how rough it is, how much you lose your mind, how everything goes all to hell when you're so, so, so, so tired. It was like a revelation: Oh, yeah! That IS why I feel so shitty! Because I NEVER GET ANY SLEEP. It's not that I'm an inadequate person! I'm just an inadequately rested person!

This realization does not, of course, help me get any more sleep - that will have to wait for sleep training in a month - but it does make me feel a little bit better about being such a mess. Because, really, I'm doing fine: I have lovely children and a wonderful partner and a good support system and a roof over my head and enough to eat etc., etc. I'm just bloody tired, is all.

Preschoolers: adding surreality to every waking moment.

This morning, the Hatchling was playing with a friend in the friend's backyard, which is dominated by a very large maple tree. "Oh, wookit," said the Hatchling, gazing fondly up the enormous tree trunk. "Monsters."

"Wow, there are monsters in that tree?" I reply. "Cool. How many monsters are there?"

"Dey up inda TREE, mama. Wookit. Dere's some bones, and dere's some bodies, and dere's some healthy snacks!"

Status updates I have considered putting on Facebook today

Elise has really had it.

Elise swears to god, if she hits one more red light she is going to hurt someone.

Elise is reaching the end of her tether.

Elise would sell her ovaries for a kid who sleeps and/or does not scream at pitches just below what only a dog can hear.

Elise is about to pull a Nora.

Elise would just like to be able to DRIVE somewhere ONCE without needing EARPLUGS to block the SCREAMING.

Elise is DONE. DONE, I tell you.

Elise would like to know just who she pissed off, so she can tell them she's sorry already!

Elise is getting her ass handed to her on a plate by two girls who can't read or use a toilet.

Elise wishes she was handling things better. Or at all.

Love this.

via Shakesville.