InsomniMom

RECIPE: Game Day Ranch Snack Crackers

2009-07-14T12:13:00.002-05:00

Well, okay, the games my husband is watching right now feature the Cincinnati Reds rather than the Cincinnati Bengals, but the sentiment is still the same. The only problem is that those Reds play a whole lotta games, where the Bengals tend to confine themselves to Sundays and Mondays and some other day. Thursday? Well, whatevs. Anyways, snacks are called for in the summer as well as in the winter.

These snack crackers are just unaccountably delicious. I mean, oyster crackers are the main ingredient, and what could possibly be more boring and tasteless than a dry, salt-free oyster cracker? This recipe jazzes those little buggers right up. You just wait.

This recipe makes, like, a ton, because I always send some to work with my husband, or over to the next door neighbor, or divide into little snack-sized plastic bags to take to the pool. They are a universal favorite of young and old, but please be warned: Your breath will be capable of slaying vampires all by its ownself, with no help from any crucifixes or hastily decanted holy water you might happen to have around.

RANCH SNACK CRACKERS

3 10-12 ounce bags oyster crackers
1 6.6 ounce bag Pepperidge Farm goldfish crackers

1 cup light olive oil or canola oil
4 packets ranch seasoning mix (in salad dressing aisle)
2 teaspoons dill weed
4 teaspoons garlic powder

Pour the crackers into a large bowl with a tight-fitting lid -- I use a Rubbermaid cake carrier. In a small mixing bowl, whisk the ranch seasoning, dill weed and garlic powder together with the oil until combined.

Stir every ten minutes for one hour. Serve with a toothbrush and toothpaste on the side, or at least some gum. This makes A LOT, so you can cut the recipe in half if need be.

Just one of the best "gotcha" songs ever

2009-07-13T21:46:00.002-05:00

Since I posted Jim Croce's acoustic and bluesy "You Don't Mess Around With Jim" earlier today, I thought about different songs talking about people who've got their comeuppance and this one popped into my mind, "Evil Woman" by the Electric Light Orchestra.

Like many of the songs I post here, it's another one that featured largely in my childhood and teen years at the White Estates pool, only this song has a little extra memory attached.

You know how Jeff Lynne and the backup singers do that thing that sounds like "Eee-eevil woman," giving the word an extra syllable? Well, I wasn't too bright when I was in my early teens and one day, I was over at my friend Emily Clarke's house, sitting on her canopy bed, just singing along with the radio. Only I was substituting my own invented syllable and singing "Medieval woman."

"Med-iiiii-eval woman!" I yodeled. "Med-iiiii-eval woman, such an evil woman...."

Emily looked at me incredulously. "What are you singing?" she asked.

"This song," I said nonchalantly. "You know, 'Medieval Woman.'"

This caused Emily to roll around on her floor, laughing hysterically. I was absolutely mortified. But also thankful that I'd made this error in front of Emily, who was my nicest childhood friend, second only to Jennifer.

I guess my lyrical lapse just goes to prove that I was a history geek even at thirteen.

You don't mess around with Jim. Or Slim.

2009-07-13T11:08:00.003-05:00

We heard this song at the pool yesterday and I had totally forgotten how funny it is. I couldn't help but notice as I looked around how many other people were humming, singing or tapping their flip-flop clad toes. I used to love Jim Croce (crying over "Operator" when I was about twelve), who was yet another great singer who died too soon in a plane crash. Ugh.

Anyway, "You Don't Mess Around With Jim" is a great little bluesy tune sung here live by Jim himself.

RECIPE: Chocolate-Cinnamon Sheet Cake

2009-07-13T10:13:00.005-05:00

This is just one of the best cakes in the world. So deliciously chocolatey -- if you like that sort of thing, Kayte -- and it's big. So it goes well with a family gathering. I took one to CousinFest so that we could just munch on a piece whenever we wanted. Susie ended up having some neighbors over for an impromptu party after the fireworks, and it fed everyone who wanted a piece and there was still a little bit left over for guilty snacking. By the end of the four days, it was gone.

This is a big one at family reunions, parties and, er, funeral dinners, plus it featured largely at James Whitcomb Riley Elementary School back in the 1970s as their featured Happy Birthday cake for each month of the year. It's known in some places as Texas Sheet Cake and in other places as Picnic Sheet Cake, but it's known everywhere as y-u-m-m-y. There are several variations on the recipe -- some call for buttermilk, some call for sour cream, others for more or less cinnamon -- but this recipe is from my cousin Cathy.

The most important part of this cake is the pan it is baked in -- a jelly roll pan, which is 10 1/2 x 15 1/2 x 1. That's what'll give you the nice, big cake.

The second most important part of this cake is the icing -- the velvety, scrumptious, home made icing. I dare you not to lick that spoon.

CHOCOLATE-CINNAMON SHEET CAKE

2 cups flour
2 cups sugar

2 sticks of butter (I know, I know....)
4 tablespoons cocoa
1 cup water

1/2 cup sour cream
2 eggs
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400^oF. Combine sugar and flour in a large heat-proof mixing bowl. In a medium sized saucepan, bring the butter, cocoa and water to a rapid boil. Pour into the flour-sugar mixture. Stir in sour cream, vanilla and cinnamon, eggs and baking soda; pour into an oiled sheet cake pan and bake for 20 minutes.

ICING

1 stick of butter (yes, I know)
6 tablespoons milk
4 tablespoons cocoa

1 teaspoon vanilla
1 pound powdered sugar

1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts, optional

In a saucepan (preferably the same medium-sized one you just used for the cake) bring the butter, milk and cocoa to a boil. Add vanilla and powdered sugar and stir until velvety smooth. Pour over hot cake as soon as it comes out of the oven. You can sprinkle the cake with nuts, if desired.

Allow cake and frosting to cool completely on a wire rack before cutting. Icing will set and be firm.

Happy Birthday, Granddad!

2009-07-12T09:33:00.003-05:00

My Granddad -- teller of stories, buyer of ponies -- is eighty-nine years old today. We're going to have lunch in New Castle with my family, then going over to the assisted living center to see him and bring him a card and a balloon.

Here's one of my favorite memories of Granddad, from when I was about nineteen or twenty years old, a year or two after Ma passed away:

*************************

Granddad, who was still unretired from his executive job at a business in Muncie and was younger than my dad is now, had somehow managed to hurt his back. I don't know how or where, but his back was hurt and he was making a whole lot of noise about it. It was summertime and I wasn't taking any summer school classes at Ball State, and he indicated that my presence would be very welcome in his home for a week or so while he recuperated. You know, to fetch and carry and do everything that Ruth, the housekeeper who came in a few times a week, wasn't doing.

Which, you know, didn't sound like much. Mostly, I thought, I'd be sitting around reading and dragging a sun lounger out back and tanning. But I didn't figure on Granddad's enormous level of spoilage and his constant need for attention. He was raised, you see, by a doting granny and his Aunt Ruby, both of whom thought the sun rose and set on him and his three brothers, and he never got over it.

So while I was bowing and scraping and dancing attendance and bringing trays with sandwiches and potato chips and glasses of ice water and the occasional beer and cooking large dinners, Granddad sat in his recliner like a sultan, magnanimously telling me that that ham sandwich would have been perfect if I'd just put a little more Miracle Whip on it, and hey! How's about a Pepsi? In a glass? With four ice cubes.

The second evening I was there, Granddad told me regretfully that he was very, very sad, but he wouldn't be able to mow the lawn the next day. The big lawn. The GREAT BIG ENORMOUS HILLY lawn, out there in the broiling sun on the riding mower. I didn't mind driving the riding mower, but mowing on even a slight incline has always made me feel very oougey in the stomach region. But I was committed to helping him out, so I got up very early in the cool of the day and warily approached the riding mower, a piece of machinery which I tended to treat like a skittish horse. One that would buck me off and then slice and dice me while I was prostrate on the grass.

It started up grudgingly and we chugged down the hill to the road on our first swath; I wheeled it expertly to the right and continued on, feeling a little better this scary job. It was a beautiful day out there in the country, with all the flowers and birds and trees. I made it all the way back to my starting point to begin the second swath -- and saw Granddad, up and walking briskly, loading his golf clubs into the trunk of his big fancy Oldsmobile. He was wearing his jaunty straw Panama hat and a brilliantly colorful Izod-Lacoste golf shirt, a complete contrast to the pajames he'd been clad in for the past two days while he lay groaning pitifully in his chair.

I cut the engine on the mower off at the top of the hill with an abrupt snap of the wrist. "Excuse me?" I called sharply. "Where exactly are you going?"

He turned to look at me, all innocence. "Why, I thought I'd go to the golf course. It is Saturday, you know."

"What about your BACK?" I asked menacingly, climbing off the mower.

"It feels fine, thank you for asking," he said, slamming the trunk lid and giving me a big jolly smile.

"So when will you be home? Will it be at a time when you can safely assume that I have finished mowing the lawn?"

He had the grace to look guilty. "I'll be back around noon. Maybe earlier."

"And will you be taking me out to lunch somewhere very nice?"

"Oh, yes. Somewhere very nice."

"And what about all the nursemaid duties? Will I be required to bring you a thousand sandwiches and an ice bag for your back and glasses of Pepsi with four ice cubes, now that your back is healed?"

"I will make my own sandwiches, but I would appreciate a cold Pepsi if you're getting up to get yourself one," he said with dignity.

"Okay then."

"Okay!"

"Have a great time golfing."

He brightened. "Oh, I will! Great day, isn't it? Perfect weather! Have a good time....er--...."

I crossed my arms. "Yeah. I'll have a great time. And a GREAT LUNCH."

****************

Happy birthday, Granddad!

Mineral bronzing powder betrays me

2009-07-11T03:52:00.002-05:00

Because I grew up in a generation that recklessly tanned between the hours of 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m., using nothing but tanning oils that you could also have probably used to make pancakes or popcorn or fried chicken, I now have patches of sun damage on my face that make me very unhappy. Girls of today, be ye not so stupid. Because someday, you will be forty-something and looking in a mirror and disconsolately saying to yourself, "I did this to myself on purpose? Plus I smelled like a Mai-Tai without the benefits of actually drinking one?"

So now when I go to the pool, I always wear SPF50 sunscreen, plus huge sunglasses, plus a big hat. I look like the World's Largest Celebrity, but that's okay. Everywhere else, I usually wear SPF3o all summer long. This creates a discrepancy between the color of my head and the color of my rest of me. I even my facial skin tone out with a slightly darker foundation than I use, say, in January, but I also have experimented with bronzing powders in the past and have achieved limited success.

I bought a new bronzing powder a few weeks ago, having used up my previous one, which lasted for something like four summers. I bought it at that really fancy cosmetics boutique, the name of which escapes me at the moment. Oh yeah. It was Wal-Mart. Anyway, I can't remember the brand name of it because it is upstairs in my makeup bag and I am downstairs and it is five o'clock in the morning and if I went upstairs to do my proper research for a product review, I would wake my husband, who does not wear bronzer and would understandably be annoyed at being awakened so that I could find mine, so whatevs.

Anyway. I've been using this bronzing powder, applying it carefully with a big, fluffy brush, but I haven't really been all that happy with it. When I look in the mirror, I can't decide if I have a suntanned glow or if I just look dirty.

This is a probem with bronzing powders, I find: there is a very, very narrow margin between that healthful sun-kissed look and significant glances from strangers indicating that you look like you've been dumpster diving.

Here's an article I found on E-How that gives some tips for using mineral bronzers.

Wimzie POOPED IN THE VAN

2009-07-10T17:55:00.003-05:00

Thankfully, she's a small dog, but you'd be surprised -- I mean, like, SHOCKED -- at how bad three little turd nuggets can smell in the interior of a minivan.

Aisling and I drove Meelyn to her new job today and took the dogs with us. Wimzie the Jack Russell terrier got a little excited when Meelyn got out of the van, probably because I neglected to fill out a form in triplicate requesting her permission for a family member to leave the nest. She already has a hard enough time dealing with the fact that my husband goes to work every day, so she was unprepared for Meelyn to venture off with no word of explanation. It caused her bowels to seize up and squeeze out those three little noxious balls, which I think may be my patriotic duty to inform the CIA about. They could totally use these things to bring Osama bin Laden out of that cave in Afghanistan. Even if he's already dead. No one wants to stay in a confined space with that smell.

I was saying goodbye to Mee and the smell hit me, causing me to wrinkle my nose and go "Wha--??" about three seconds before Aisling yelped "OH NOOOOOOOES!!! HAPPY NUGGETS!!!!"

Then, of course, the frikkin' beast-creature jumped onto a seat so that she wouldn't have to remain on the floor with her stench. But then she jumped DOWN again, of course stepping right in the poo. She's an agile little thing, so we tried to catch her to keep the mess contained, but she slipped from my grasp and rocketed to the back of the van, leaving a trail of poopy pawprints behind her. I began to wonder if dog would taste good roasted on the grill. And if I could maybe make a smart winter chapeau out of her furry hide.

"Good luck with that," Meelyn said hastily and ducked into the restaurant where it smells deliciously like grilling burgers.

Just in case you wondered, that's not how it smelled in the van. I kept kind of gagging and my tongue got that really thick feeling, like you're holding an oven mitt in your mouth.

Aisling and I cleaned up the poop that was dotting the interior of the van and cleaned up the dog and then went home, dropped off both dogs, and went to the car wash that has upholstery shampoo and spent nine dollars vacuuming, shampooing, re-vacuuming and then washing the van.

So here is my dictum:

NO MORE DOGS IN THE VAN. NONE. NEVER. And this time I mean it. If I have to take them to the vet, I'll rent a little U-Haul trailer.

You can't do it all

2009-07-09T06:21:00.004-05:00

There comes a time in home schooling where mothers are so full of joy at the freedom this method of educating one's children offers that it's way too easy to overschedule the kids in an attempt to fit in every single activity the world has to offer. Unfortunately for me, that time has never really left and I am still all twitchy and weird about this and inclined to try to register the girls for workshops on textiles in the United States (where they would have the opportunity to weave their own cloth and make a dress) and tours of every historical marker in Marion County.
I say "try to register" because, as the girls have gotten older, they've become much more savvy about my sneaky ways of getting them signed up for things before they know I've done it.

"Mom," says Meelyn, tapping her foot on the floor, arms crossed. "I see that you have registered Aisling and me for a aqua kickboxing class at the Y that meets at 6:00 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, November through January."

My eyes shoot guiltily around the room. "Uh....uh....uh....I have no knowledge of that event."

Meelyn puts her hands on her hips. "Mother, DO NOT PAY THAT FEE. There is no way we're going to be want to get up that early and get in the water when it is freezing cold outside."

Grumpily, I say, "Well, fine. But you're going to wish later that you'd learned to kickbox in the water! Someday someone might be swimming around under the water wearing goggles and you'll think, 'Gee, I wish I'd taken that class so that I could make that prevert stop looking at my rear end, but you won't be able...."

"Mom," she says, "I am perfectly capable of stopping someone from looking at me under water. Without taking an aqua kickboxing class IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT. In the WINTER."

"Well then," I say, brightening up, "how's about taking a biology workshop where you'll dissect earthworms, cow's eyeballs, frogs and fetal pigs? It meets just after lunch at the public library in Oaklandon..."

But then I find I'm speaking to an empty room.

Anyway, I say all this because I am very sad, but we're not going to be able to do 4-H this year. I should have had the girls start their projects about a year ago, like, the second last year's fair ended, but I didn't and this summer thus far has been crowded with family activities including Kieren, Dayden, Carol and Susie, and I wouldn't subtract a single second from any of those. But driver's ed and CousinFest did detract from the time they could have been using to get their projects completed, so they lost some time there, even though none of us can bring ourselves to regret it. Plus, Mee is starting her new job. Plus, the girls will be gone to Florida with Nanny, Poppy, Pat, Angie and the kids during the entirety of the 4-H Fair this year.

So no 4-H in 2009, in spite of the fact that it is one my my favorite, favorite activities for them to do. Sad, but you just can't do it all. I know. I've tried. And all it does is stress everyone out and make them mad at me. I have learned this from painful experience.

The movies we watched: Mamma Mia, The Sex in the City Movie, Slumdog Millionaire

2009-07-08T06:53:00.004-05:00

Susie had to make about a thousand different phone calls in order to get a new bulb in the projection machine in their theater room; it turns out that this one company, while they were very anxious for Susie to purchase the (expensive) bulb, they weren't all that fussed about coming out to her house to actually install it. So she had to call a different home theater company, who told her that something more needed to be done other than just the bulb, but they were polite and respectful and there, so they fixed things up and were just leaving as Carol, the girls and I arrived. We wanted to hug both guys, because movie watching has become an integral part of the CousinFest experience.

Here's what Susie ordered from Netflix and my ratings of the same out of five stars:

Mamma Mia *

This musical movie starts out in a dicey manner with the 20-year-old soon-to-be-married Sophie reading her mother's diary from two decades back. She greets her two bridesmaids at the dock of some island in Greece where her mother, Donna, has a little hotel, reading bits of Donna's diary out loud to them as they posed adorably on rocks and next to trees. Where is the proverbial sniper on the grassy knoll when you really need him?

As it turns out, nobody knows who Sophie's daddy is because her mother has had what the diary coyly refers to as "dot, dot, dot" which just in case you're brain dead or haven't otherwise clued in by the third time Sophie says it, means "sex" with three different guys in the same month. To the tune of Abba's "Honey, Honey," the three chippies all rhapsodize on how romantic it is that Sophie's mamma has been a great big slut back in the day, and that's where Carol and I both looked at each other, puzzled.

"I thought you were supposed to be embarrassed if your mamma was a ho," said Carol.

So did I. Anyway, we made it through about fifteen more minutes so that we could see Donna (Meryl Streep) and her two friends Rosie and Tanya, all of whom were straight out of central casting: Donna, the bohemian free spirit; Rosie, the tough, smart alecky bestselling author; and Tanya, the serial-divorces, high-maintenance society queen. It was just like The Big Chill without the funeral and St. Elmo's Fire without Judd Nelson's hair and The Breakfast Club without the teenage angst and how in the world was this stinker ever nominated for all those awards?

"Do you hate this movie?" I asked Carol hopefully.

"I do. I really do," she said. So I went downstairs and asked Doug if he could make it stop.

"I knew you wouldn't like it!" he said triumphantly.

Susie wasn't at home when Carol and I started watching Mamma Mia. By the time she got home, we were already watching the "Sex in the City" movie. She was very disgruntled that we disliked Mamma Mia and accused us of not truly appreciating the music of Abba, which is a terrible thing to say to people who went to high school and college in the 70s and 80s. We were chastened, but unrepentant. Mamma Mia went unwatched.

The Sex in the City Movie **

We did watch this one all the way through, but since Carol and I had neither one ever seen the HBO series "Sex in the City," our lack of appreciation for the trials and triumphs of Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda -- and good grief, doesn't anyone have friends who are just named "Lisa" anymore? -- made Susie a little edgy. Carol and I kept talking irreverently during scenes that Susie felt were important, so she kept stopping the DVD and scolding us, filling us in on the backstory so that we would watch with a more respectful attitude.

My first problem with this movie is that I hated Miranda, who couldn't even interact with her own child long enough to sit through a spaghetti dinner at a restaurant without the nanny there to run interference. My second problem is that I hated Samantha, after whom I would never sit on the same toilet seat unless I had a sandblaster and a vat of bleach because from the way she described her own sexual experiences, there is no telling what is crawling around up in there, if you know what I mean. My third problem is that I found Charlotte a bit smug in her own version of happily-ever-after and only the fact that she poughkeepsie'd in her pants after accidentally opening her mouth and allowing shower water to go in while in Mexico made her more tolerable.

I liked Carrie, though. She was okay. For all her feminist stylings, I found it very strange that she was willing to allow her boyfriend of TEN YEARS to buy a penthouse apartment for them to share, until one of her friends pointed out what a vulnerable position she was putting herself in. She went ahead and did it, though, and it bit her in the rear end, just like you might imagine.

Here are two points, though:

1) I live in Indiana and I just can't make myself care all that much about Prada or Manolo Blahniks (Susie's friend Liz calls them "Vanilla Colonics," which I thought was the wittiest thing I'd ever heard) and although I can appreciate the style and beauty of a Vivienne Westwood wedding gown, I can't imagine myself worshipping it.

2) I am a Church Lady AND a Girl Power type of person and I couldn't believe that Carrie was willing to be dated for TEN YEARS and have an apartment bought for her without any type of meaningful committment other than a custom closet. Where I live, we still say things like "Why buy the cow when the milk is free?" and darned if that very concept wasn't played out, right there in this movie! I felt extremely vindicated.

After ten years of dating Mr. Big, Carrie suddenly begins to realize that by moving into (his) penthouse (not theirs) and giving up her own apartment, she's putting herself in a potentially devastating situation. So she cajoles Mr. Big into a half-hearted marriage proposal that could have put frost on a January radiator. When he jilted her on their wedding day, forcing her to leave their wedding venue in her gown, I don't think Carol and I were surprised at all.

When they finally were able to talk via cell phone, Mr. Big asked Carrie why she hadn't been answering her pages -- I don't know where he thought she was supposed to be carrying her phone -- and then meweled like a sniveling little nancy-boy, "Will we still be us if we get married?"

WHERE is that sniper on the grassy knoll??!!

Carrie tried to tell him that they were, indeed, going to still be "us," trying to reassure her gallant groom that they weren't going to turn into Pamela Anderson or Britney Spears or one of that ilk and whoever they're with right now and have drunken fights that ended up with new tattoos all around and naughty videos posted on the internet. To no avail! Mr. Big wasn't big enough and it all just goes to prove that if he was that in to her, he would have asked her to marry him about nine years ago.

The Carrie went ahead on her honeymoon to Mexico, but her friends came along and took care of her and it was very sad, but very sweet.

During all this, there was a lot of shushing by Susie and a lot of peremptory commands to "pay attention because something important is getting ready to happen" and Carol and I teased Susie mercilessly.

There were a lot of subplots that involved some characters maybe getting a divorce and others splitting up because the female partner wanted to be free to have all the unrestrained sex she desired -- I would rather poughkeepsie in my pants myself before using the toilet after that woman -- and a new baby. Some of it was nice and some of it was just downright awful, including a number of extremely graphic sex scenes that caused Carol and I to shriek and hold sofa pillows in front of our eyes.

"You mean the title of the movie didn't clue you in that there were going to be sex scenes?" said Susie incredulously.

At the end, I was horrified -- horrified! -- that Carrie went on to marry Mr. Big after experiencing ten years of dating, one half-hearted marriage proposal, and the cruelest and most selfish rejection possible, all because he got down on one knee and proposed to her in her custom closet, when she went to the penthouse to pick up a pair of Vanilla Colonics she'd left there. There wasn't even that much apologizing or 'splaining or couples therapy, or anything.

I just didn't get it at all. From the literary standpoint, it was kind of like an ancient Greek drama where the plot has become so hopelessly tangled that they playwright uses the device of the deus ex machina to descend from the heavens and say, "I am a god! And I declare that everything is now better! Because I have said so in a god-like manner!" From the modern screenwriters' standpoint, I suppose it was more of a thing about "This movie is already about six hours long, what with all the gratuitous sex scenes and the shots of Carrie wearing quirky yet haute couture-y outfits, so we'd better wrap this thing up. I know! Let's have them get married!"

Although this movie had its nice parts, the bad outweighed the good for me, especially that acquienscent Girl-of-the-Eighteenth-Century ending. I suppose it would have helped a lot if I'd seen even one episode of the series so that I could have connected with the characters more, but I didn't have the opportunity to know their history. I appreciated the depth of their friendship and how they were willing to care for one another, though, and since that's how I feel about Carol and Susie, that was one thing I connected with completely.

Slumdog Millionaire *****

This movie was extremely engrossing -- I really can't say "entertaining," because that word implies a light, frothy sort of attention that one might pay to a movie like, oh, just to pull a title out of the air, Mamma Mia. Anyway, engrossing. As in "unable to look away from the screen, even when I wanted to." It was a painful movie to watch, but it really raised awareness of how hard life is in some places of the world. I mean, I already knew something of the plight of the poor in India due to reading about Mother Teresa's great good works, but oh, my goodness. Just seeing the searing poverty on film makes me feel sad for ever complaining about eating tacos and spaghetti over and over again last winter.

Just in case we didn't understand things, Susie explained the plot in detail to us as things went along. Here's what I took from the plot:

The story is about three little musketeers, orphaned brothers Salim and Jamal and their friend, the girl Latika. Salim and Jamal are protective of one another and they take on the care and comradeship of Latika after the anti-Muslim attacks in 1993. The three children survive on the meanest streets possible through the craftiness of Salim -- it's obvious early on that his shrewdness is going to land him in a sticky mess somewhere along the way, and sure enough, it does. But not for about fifteen more years.

Jamal loves Latika from the very beginning. They're maybe about seven or eight when the movie begins, but his devotion is unswerving. The two children are separated by events that transpire, find one another and lose one another again in a series of circumstances that is very painful. Sometimes, you just feel like your heart is going to be torn in pity.

But then Jamal winds up on India's version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire and he is brilliant at answering questions. He answers questions based on the experiences he's had in his life, most of which have been things that would have killed a lesser man like Mr. Big. Naturally, the producers of the show can't figure out how this uneducated "slumdog" knows the answers to all these difficult questions, so they resort to punishment to get Jamal to confess his cheatin' ways.

Since everybody in the world has apparently seen this movie except for me and Carol, I'll say that things turned out well both in terms of the money and in Jamal and Latika's loving, loyal friendship, which had turned into something more. It was a blissful ending, and when the whole cast assembled in the train station after the credits to sing and do the Bollywood thing to the song "Jai Ho" (which means "Victory to Thee"), your heart just melts in happiness.

It was a hard movie to watch, but the action was non-stop, the story was excellent, and the ending was the stuff all good romances are made of. No half-hearted proposals and wishy-washy last minute cold feet from Jamal -- he was a pure-hearted, uncompromising beloved who could move any woman's soul, maybe even witchy Miranda's.

Better than the way we had

2009-07-07T10:03:00.003-05:00

Just because my last post reminded me of how fabulous and cool this song (and Joe Walsh) are. This is a nice live version from a concert in Dallas, 1977.

And we don't need the ladies cryin' 'cause the story's sad
'Cause the rocky mountain way is better than the way we had

Sing it, Joe!

If there were a typed word to express my feelings....

2009-07-07T09:23:00.005-05:00

Yesterday, being the first day back from CousinFest '09, was a busy one. Morning and afternoon were taken up with a number of activities, none of them all that fun. So when Meelyn, Aisling and I finally got to go to the pool late in the afternoon, I was ready to siddown.

We arrived at 4:00 p.m. and I spent the first hour immersed in the water up to my shoulders, reading my Jeffery Archer thriller propped up on the cement deck. I didn't have to worry about splashes because lots of people had gone home by then and the whole place was delightfully depopulated, which makes things very restful and serene. The snack bar was also still open, which made the whole experience close to heaven on earth.

Then I got out of the pool to sit in the sun for awhile, still with the book. I was just getting myself situated when I was approached by someone I know, a person who is not the kind of someone I would describe as a friend. You know what I mean? One of those people it's just better to stay away from? Like, in another hemisphere if you get the chance?

That person wanted to explain to me, in enormous and painstaking detail, her motivations for doing something she did last year of which I highly disapprove. I was in a position that I felt was somewhat precarious, because the very bad thing she did was in retaliation for a very bad thing that someone else did to her, and frankly, I'm hard pressed to say which person scandalizes me more. My ideal would be to put as much distance as possible between me and the two of them, but unfortunately, we're all members of the same swim club. That kind of rules out moving to Jupiter.

The other person has had the great good sense to just stay away from me, although we have exchanged hellos and such. I don't want to get involved in their....thing. Which we can all only hope and pray is possibly the last in a pattern of mean and destructive things they have been scratching out of each other for the past seven or eight years.

So if there were a typed word to express my feelings at being hijacked by this person for THREE HOURS, yes, THREE HOURS, at the pool yesterday, the place where I went for peace and serenity, even though I was able to tell her some things that I felt she really needed to hear about her relationship with the other person and my decision to remove myself from the middle of it*, it would look like this:

HHHHHHHRRRRRRAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!

I write all this to point out something that may be obvious to many of you reading this: There are times in life when you'll start to get to know someone and maybe another someone along with them, and you notice little red flags in the way they interact with one another and other people (and then, incidentally, with you), and if you stick around like an idiot, they will try to involve you in their web of drama and hatefulness. If you don't want to be drawn into that hot mess, pay attention to the red flags.

I don't know why there are some women like this. More to the point, I don't know why there are some women like this who walk around wearing big cross necklaces. It's a real puzzle to me and I've often been confused as to what the proper Christian response is to women like these two. Do you stay with them and try to mediate? Do you just quietly leave the "friendship" and pretend you never knew them? How quietly you leave probably depends a lot on how long the friendship lasted, because if it's a relationship that's lasted several years, your absence will be noted and some difficult questions may be asked. How you answer those questions without sounding judgmental -- that's a word that often gets tossed around like a volleyball any time you're negatively commenting on someone else's faults -- is something I don't know the answer to at all.

I think that part of the response to toxic female friendships may just be a realization that there are some people in the world who couldn't be fixed by a tag team made up of Oprah, Leo Buscaglia, Pope John Paul II and Dr. Phil. Recognizing that fact will save you a lot of time reflecting on why eighth grade was your least favorite year of school. But it would be better to be alert for red flags from the very beginning and just never getting started with such people in the first place.

This is a sad thing.

*As I spoke to her about the two of them and their mutual strong tendency toward an aggressively pushy and domineering choleric temperament and how they've spent years going through the cycle of battling out who is going to be the queen bee in their friendship -- also about how one of the major weaknesses of the choleric temperament is an inability to self-analyze their words, thoughts and actions -- she repeatedly said, "Oh, I can so see that about her. But I'm not like that at all."

Of course you aren't.

Pfffffft.

And I simply cannot stress this enough....

2009-07-07T06:30:00.002-05:00

Down a couple of posts from this one is the Ziploc Omelette recipe that Carol brought to CousinFest '09, courtesy of her friend from church who owns the bed and breakfast. Susie and I agreed that this is a brilliant way to cook a number of omelettes at the same time -- they turn out of their plastic bags perfectly cooked and perfectly shaped.

I was so impressed, I decided to make them for our dinner yesterday evening, our first dinner post-Fest. A trip to the grocery for the week's food supply was necessary anyway, and say what you will about Aldi being kind of charmless and grungy-looking (I won't even try to deny it), they have some pretty good deals on produce. I bought a bag of Vidalia onions, a carton of lovely mushrooms and two robust and fragrant green peppers for about four dollars. Those items, plus cheese and some lean ham were destined for four two-egg Western omelettes topped with hot salsa.

I also bought quart-sized freezer bags at Aldi, a necessary requirement for the boiling part.

I made a couple of modifications to the recipe, including three tablespoons of milk and half a tablespoon of melted butter to the plastic bag, but other than that, I did everything just like Carol's friend's recipe instructed: put in eggs, smoosh to scramble; add ingredients, smoosh a little more; remove as much air from bag as possible; place bag in boiling water for around eighteen to twenty minutes, turning the bag over in the water at the halfway point.

Except for one thing.

I ever the thrifty cheap-o, DID NOT BUY ACTUAL ZIPLOC FREEZER BAGS. That box of bags at Aldi said "quart-sized" and "freezer" and I thought, well, there you go!

It turns out that you should also look for the word "Ziploc" if you ever intend to make this recipe. Unless, of course, when you remove your Ziploc omelettes from the pot of boiling water, you'd like to consume them with a garnish of melted plastic bag along with them.

So last night, the girls and I had to go into warp speed mode, chopping more green peppers, mushrooms, onions and ham -- thank heaven the cheese was already shredded or I probably would have lost my mind -- and I got out more eggs and scrambled them fast. The veggies didn't really have time to cook properly, so we ate our eggs with crunchy vegetables, which gave me a stomach ache later.

Ziploc. Ziploc. Ziploc.

The long way home

2009-07-06T08:41:00.002-05:00

CousinFest '09 had to eventually come to an end, so Carol, Meelyn, Aisling and I said a tearful goodbye to Doug and Susie yesterday at about 1:30 p.m., with me thinking we'd have a regular, uneventful five hour drive ahead of us. It turned into about a six and a half hour drive because of a massive bottleneck of holiday traffic south of Louisville, but who's counting? Besides me and Carol, that is.

The was one event during that wait on the freeway that provided us with some entertainment. During one particularly loooooong period when we were at a complete halt, a young college age guy got out of a car about four ahead of us and loped over a couple of lanes and down a hill on the verge to a clump of trees -- he was obviously in desperate need of a bush stop. He looked over his shoulders, chagrined at the idea that the entire northbound lanes of interstate travelers in his immediate vicinity were avidly interested in watching him pee (you just can't look away from something like that; Carol and I tried, but failed) but managed to get things going. Unfortunately, so did the traffic. We began to roll forward for the first time in about ten minutes, picking up speed.

The guy looked over his shoulder again, noting the fact that the car with his three friends in it was beginning to move away, although they were trying to go as slow as possible (haha, I just made an error in the word 'possible' just now and struck the i key instead of the o -- that's a pretty funny typo) and he finished things off, zipped up and began to run frantically. The problem was that the faster he ran, the faster the traffic began to roll.

"Oh, f-------------------!!!!" he yelled as the three lanes sped up. His friends were in the far lane and I couldn't imagine how the poor guy was going to be able to dodge traffic in the right and center lanes to get back to his ride, where two other guy were hanging their heads out the windows watching for him with anxious but amused expressions. The driver was rolling along as slowly as he dared, but the people behind him were getting a little terse: Their lane was going much, much more slowly than the center and right lanes.

As we passed their car, we called out, "HE'S COMING!!!!!!"

"THANKS!!!" they bellowed.

"Poor guy," I said sympathetically to Carol. "You know he probably sat there, holding it as long as he could before he felt like he was fixin' to bust." (I always adopt a slight southern accent after a few days with Susie.)

"I bet he'll never travel without an empty bottle again," she replied.

We got back to Carol's and shifted over a mountain of luggage from her car to ours and the girls and I took off for home without even going in for a pee pee break ourselves. Other than the fact that Aisling tried to read a thick Arbonne catalog aloud to Meelyn and me all the way home, the trip was uneventful, although I did have to threaten to stuff her into the trunk if she didn't stop rhapsodizing about skin care, spa treatments and cosmetics. I mean, I like the Arbonne products too, but that doesn't mean I want to hear a fourteen year old twittering on about them for hours on end.

On the other hand, Aisling is going to make an amazing, top-notch consultant someday. Susie may end up with that white Mercedes solely because of the white-hot heat of Aisling's enthusiam. It almost burned up that catalog.

They're making me crazy

2009-07-04T21:52:00.002-05:00

Susie and Carol are making me watch the frikkin' Boston Pops fireworks and singy-song, complete with awwwwwwwwwwful country music. Make them stop. I am the baby cousin. I should always get to do what I want to do and they should let me because they are much, much older.

Recipe: CousinFest Omelettes

2009-07-04T10:30:00.003-05:00

Carol has a friend who owns a bed and breakfast, and this friend uses this recipe to cook made-to-order omelettes for her guests. It's a great way to make a number of omelettes at the same time.

Ziploc Omelettes

Ziploc freezer bags in the one quart size (they must be freezer bags, not regular)

Omelette stuff like crumbled bacon, diced Canadian bacon, diced cooked potatoes, shredded cheese, chopped onion, etc.

Large pot of boiling water

Instructions:

Each person takes a Ziploc freezer bag and breaks two eggs into it - you can add a sploosh of milk or water and salt/pepper if desired. Smoosh the eggs around in the bag until "scrambled." Add the desired fillings to the bag and shake. Remove as much of the air from the bag as possible; shake.

Place the plastic bags in the boiling water and cook for fifteen minutes if you like your eggs "juicy." If you prefer well-done eggs, boil your Ziploc bag for twenty minutes. If your water pot is big enough, you should be able to cook 6-8 omelettes at a time.

Remove the bags from the pot CAREFULLY. You might want to carefully dry the bag off on the bottom to avoid getting water on your plate. Open the bags and the omelettes will roll out easily, shaped like little logs or loaves.

Later that evening....

2009-07-03T20:03:00.005-05:00

I have judst had a gret big peach fuzz buzz, so plleze excuse ny typimg.

Hahahaha!!! Just kidding, Mom!!! It was only big, not great big.

Carol just got back from a Corvette ride with Doug and Susie's neighbor, Tom. Tom has a very red, very shiny, very convertible-y Corvette. It is, as the girls would say, hawt. (Frankly, so is Tom, who is married to the sweet and hilarious Liz. Liz used to be Snow White at Disney World - isn't that the cutest thing?)

We are getting ready to eat cedar plank grilled salmon, roasted new potatoes, grilled asparagus and some other stuff that sounds really good, but I have been released from KP duty (did dinner last night and lunch today) so I am sitting inside in the air conditioning tapping away while everyone else is sweating like a hog outside by the grill. The grill, just in case you wondered, is bigger than my entire house. It has an outside refrigerator and sink, too. Plus a long counter made of unpolished granite. The house, I believe, may possibly be bigger than my entire city, and with more bathrooms.

We spent the entire day ouside by the pool. Carol brought this pool toy consisting of two round Velcro-ed catcher's mitt-type things with a Velcro-covered tennis ball and we had a great deal of fun playing Monkey in the Middle with Summer, the golden retriever, playing the part of the monkey. She is the funniest thing you have ever seen, swimming in the pool.

By the time we'd spent four hours outdoors in the breeze and the sun and the chlorine and the heat, I looked like something that had just climbed from the primordial ooze in one of the golf course's water hazards. I had problems that even Arbonne was going to be pressed to resolve. It took me way over an hour to fix my face and my hair and Susie kept coming up to my suite and saying, "WHAT'S TAKING SO LOOOOOOOONG?!?!" It's hard to explain ugly to someone who does beauty products for a living.

Aunt Peg is here to join us for dinner and fireworks and she is impatient that we haven't yet eaten dinner and the fireworks are supposed to start soon. It is getting a little darkish outside. Hmmm. We may have to slam all this delicious food straight down our gullets in order to waddle over to Tom and Liz's to watch the display.

We have to watch one of our Netflix movies tonight. Slumdog Millionaire? Mama Mia?The "Sex in the City" movie? Which will it be?

Live from CousinFest '09!

2009-07-03T08:39:00.002-05:00

It is 8:30 in the morning and I am sitting here in Susie's living room looking out at an absolutely gorgeous morning complete with SUNSHINE, which was notably absent in Indiana last week. The big windows at the rear of the house look out on a golf course and a golf cart just whizzed up to the green beyond Susie's pool and several happy looking golfers got out, chaffing each other.

Susie jus came in from a shower combing her wet hair. She has to teach a yoga class at 9:30 and Aisling (and I think Meelyn) are going to go with her. I asked her if we were going to have breakfast after yoga because I didn't think they'd want to eat breakfast before getting all bendy; Susie just replied -- no kidding -- "Yes, but I did have a little breakfast anyway....I had a brownie and a cup of coffee."

That's my girl! Combining healthful exercise with calories, fat and caffeine! Now if she could just cut out the healthful exercise......

Carol just came downstairs with wet hair and a comb, looking for moisturizer. That shouldn't be too hard to find here since Susie is a crack Arbonne consultant. I have never used such luscious bath products as I used this morning n my own shower. Arbonne love!

We got here at around 11:30 a.m. yesterday and Susie made us a fabulous grilled chicken salad with leafy greens for lunch, only Carol wouldn't eat one bit of lettuce that she said looked "hairy." I just mentioned this to Carol and Carol said dismissively that it looked like something Susie picked out of the yard.

Susie is cajoling Meelyn to come to yoga class (the one Susie teaches) at the club's fitness center. Meelyn is unconvinced, having gone to yoga with Susie and Aisling last night. Susie said, "You need to get stretched out and blah and blah and blah..." I'd like to tell you what else she said, but I blacked out when she began speaking of exercise.

Susie said, "Now, we can get a rolled towel to support your neck and a rolled mat to support your knees and you don't have to do anything you don't want to do, so go upstairs and get dressed."

Meelyn replied, not unreasonably, "Well, then, I don't think I'll go."

This went back and forth for a while and it was finally determined that Meelyn would not go and that Aisling was Susie's favorite little cousin.

Last night I made a thick, garlicky ragu for dinner with whole wheat pasta and bread with garlic butter. Carol made a spinach-artichoke dip that was packed full of cheesy goodness -- we're back on the cheese again this year. Of note: Susie had a cream cheese and green chili spread ready for us to snack on. It looks as if again this year Susie will bid us goodbye with a kiss and a colon cleanse tablet.

The only sadness of the whole day came when Carol and I were home alone while the others were yoga-ing and Carol, who was making strawberry daiquiris in he blender, somehow managed to take the blender's pitcher off incorrectly, allowing strawberry daiquiri to flow, like, everywhere. We found out that strawberry daiquiri is not very fun to clean up.

Carol scooped some into a teaspoon and held it out to me. "It was going to be really good," she said, crestfallen. I opened my mouth and she tipped the mixture on the spoon into it; she was right, it was really good. Only I'd been oping for, like, a glassful.

Neither one of us had the brains enough God gave a goat to figure out how to put Susie's very expensive Cuisinart blender back together, so we had to remain dolefully unbuzzed until they got home. There was cussing involved. We explained to Susie that we'd broken the blender and Susie said, "Ohhhhh nooooooooooooes!!! Howwwwwwwwwwww????"

Carol held out the pitcher. "This came off and it won't go back on."

"It won't go on," I elaborated. "It came off."

Susie gave us a strange look, performed a split-second twisting motion with the pitcher and he blender base, and whooaaaaaaaaa!! There was the blender, magically restored!

Carol and I won't be applying to Purdue University's engineering program anytime soon.

Lunch today is birdseed salad and more bread and a veggie pizza to snack on. Grilled salmon for dinner! Swimming and sunning this afternoon! More later!

I love it when things work out this way

2009-06-30T05:24:00.004-05:00

Yesterday afternoon, Aisling and I were at home together while Meelyn was at her work orientation; Aisling was at the dining room table doing algebra and I was sitting here at the computer ~~playing Collapse~~ improving my mind by doing technical research on web page design.

Aisling seemed disconsolate, which is only what one should expect of a person doing algebra in late June, I thought, but I soon became aware that there was something else bothering her.

"I feel like I don't have any friends," she finally said sadly after much prompting on my part.

I am really sympathetic to this. This is, in my opinion, a symptom of summertime, when we aren't doing any school activities like Shakespeare class or trips to the art museum. But it's also one of the negatives of the homeschool experience: there's never as much time to spend with friends as there would be in traditional schooling, but there's also less opportunity to make friends.

I feel for my girls, I really do. Meelyn has a lot of friends, but unlike her public school counterparts, her friendships aren't in a basic geographical area that tends to be within a few square miles of our home; her friends are scattered all over the greater Indianapolis area. Aisling's problem is somewhat different in that, while there are a BUNCH of girls in our homeschool group who are Meelyn's age, there aren't so many who are Aisling's. It's for that reason that I decided to join an additional homeschool group for this coming year. It only meets once a month, but it is based on social activities and there are quite a few girls who are Aisling's age, many of whom she already knows. As she develops relationships with those girls, we can pick up some extra time with them from there.

Anyway, my heart just melted in pity for poor Aisling. Fourteen can be a hard age. You feel kind of grown-uppish, but there's still so much you can't do, if you're our daughter, anyway. Like, we won't let her go and roam around a shopping mall or go to the movies without chaperonage. We won't let her glue herself to a screen large or small and do either instant or text messaging. We won't let her do MySpace or any of that other online social networking stuff. In short, our house rules make it very hard for her to even communicate with the few friends she does have, and I hate that, I really do. I'm probably the only mother in the world who actively encourages her teenage daughters to call their friends on the telephone.

Aisling has one friend who lives about half an hour away and she asked me if I thought it would be okay to invite that friend over next week when we get back from CousinFest '09. Could her friend come and sleep over and go to the pool with us?

"But I haven't talked to her for about a month," Aisling added sadly. "Do you think she even remembers me?"

"Of course she remembers you," I said. "You call her up. If she can come, we can go pick her up and bring her back home. Half an hour isn't very far at all." I said this with a slight interior wince, remembering that my dearest high school friend Jennifer, who often comments here at InsomniMom, lived about ten minutes across New Castle from my house -- before we could drive, it wasn't a big deal to get together. Poor Aisling. I feel like a sucky failure of a mother for not really working to make sure that she sees or at least talks to her friends on a regular basis. I'm so secure in my own wealth of friendships. Have I been selfishly lazy in not providing opportunities for my girls to make and keep their own friendships?

Oh, I'm so afraid the answer is yes. So sorry.

So the day went on and pretty soon, it was about nine o'clock and the dishes were done and we were all tired and ready to drape ourselves over the furniture to watch an episode of Buffy. The telephone range and my husband answered it and lo and behold, it was the very friend whom Aisling wanted to invite over next week! And she was calling to invite Aisling over to an impromptu party for today, from 11:00 until 3:00!

"Mama, can I go? Will you drive me?" Aisling looked at me with such bright eyes, such hope, that I had to clear my throat before replying "Yes! Of course I can" because all of a sudden, I felt like I'd swallowed a marshmallow, one of the big kind you use for s'mores, not the little kind you use for hot chocolate. My beautiful girl.

So today, Aisling is going to a party. And also today, I am going to turn over a new leaf: I am going to MAKE SURE that Aisling talks to and sees her friends more often. Sweet Meelyn, too. Hold me to it.

First job

2009-06-30T04:12:00.003-05:00

It hardly seems possible that Meelyn is old enough to have her first job, but yet all we have to do is take her work permit to the local high school to be signed by someone who I don't know who he is, as Aisling would say -- state bureaucracy hoops to jump through; I wearily told Meelyn to get used to it -- and then turn that form in to her employer, and she will be put on the schedule to work at the cash register of a local chain restaurant. Where she has assured us and her new boss that she will greet customers with a smiling face and not act, as so many fast-food cash register people do, that you are gravely intruding on their personal time and should be punished for approaching them in need of your lunch.

Knowing Meelyn, she will pull this off admirably.

We had to obtain a pair of really ugly black shoes for her to wear; she looked at them doubtfully and said, "I'll pay for these, Mommy," but I just couldn't make the child fork over $25 for something so unattractive. So her dad and I picked up the tab for the shoes, but she said she'd buy the blue jeans and the black belt to complete her uniform -- the restaurant supplies the shirts and the....*gulp*...hat.

"You have to buy a black belt?" I asked, intrigued. "Why is that? Does the management think you'll have to go all Jackie Chan on somebody? Like, 'Hey. You tried to get a senior discount on that coffee but that's only for people 55 and over, but you don't look a day over 54, so hiiiiiiiiiiiiyaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!!!!"

She looked at me.

"I thought you had to work for a black belt. If I'd known you could just buy one, I would have shown that kid who called me 'sir' a thing or two. I would have come across him with a waaaaaaaaaaachaaaaaa!!! And a hi-hi-hi to the head and kidneys."

"Very funny, Mommy."

But you know what she didn't think was funny? When we told her about taxes, that's when. She was explaining that the four hour orientation session she went through would be paying her about twenty-seven dollars and then my husband said but you have to figure how much federal and state taxes will subtract from that. And she said state and federal whatsis? And we told her about how taxes work and that she'd probably end up with around $20 - $22 out of that twenty-seven dollars and she said that seems like a lot and we told her: VOTE REPUBLICAN, girlie.

Stephenie Meyer: Now with more of the hating!

2009-06-29T13:53:00.003-05:00

I was reading a couple of articles about the Twilight series at Decent Films ("Twilight Appeal: The cult of Edward Cullen and vampire love in Stephenie Meyer's novels and the new film" by Stephen D. Greydanus) and at National Review Online ("In Love with Death" by Gina R. Dalfonzo) and wound up at Meyer's official website, where I read this absolutely enchanting message by Steph herself:

**************************************

"There are those who think my stories are misogynistic—the damsel in distress must be rescued by strong hero. I emphatically reject the....accusation. I am all about girl power—look at Alice and Jane if you doubt that. I am not anti-female, I am anti-human."

*************************************

Okaaaay.

Stephenie, I kind of hate it that you've put me in the position of having to EXPLAIN YOUR OWN NOVELS TO YOU, but I'm going to point out a couple of things about Alice and Jane.

1) Alice is Edward's sister and she colludes with him on keeping Bella under house arrest in the Cullen home. She enables Edward in his role of the insanely jealous boyfriend/stalker/abuser. If Alice was a strong female character, she would have told her brother to BACK OFF and, I don't know, maybe driven Bella to a women's shelter?

She's also a pushy twit who has absolutely no respect for Bella as her friend: When Bella says she doesn't want a big graduation party, Alice throws one for her anyway. When Bella wants a simple wedding, Alice goes all-out. Alice knows that Bella is uncomfortable with the idea of wearing sexy lingerie on her honeymoon (Bella's more of a t-shirt sleeper) so what does Alice do? She fills Bella's suitcase and closet at the vacation home with sexy lingerie. In short, Alice is constantly trying to make Bella over into someone different. This was Alice's underlying message: If you would just submit to me, you could be as cool and pretty as I am, Bella. You are so lucky to have me to guide you out of your geeky, unattractive ways. Because I am sooo adorable and cute and you are so....not. But your blood does smell really good, so I can see why my brother likes you.

2) Jane is a psychotic vampire, a young girl, who has an unusual supernatural power: She can torture people using the power of her mind. And so she does, and delights in it, relishing the pain and terror of her victims. Now there's some real strength of character. I know when I look for role models for my teenage daughters, I bypass people like St. Catherine of Siena or Helen Keller or Condoleezza Rice or Venus and Serena Williams or even -- God help me -- Hillary frikkin' Clinton and GO STRAIGHT TO THE CRAZED SADISTS.

If this is your idea of strong female characters, Stephenie, then you're even weirder than I thought you were. You live in a strange, strange world, lady.

"I've been thinking lately..."

2009-06-27T18:36:00.002-05:00

Watching this video and Cat Stevens' sweet face, I can just....I don't know, feel the love and the hope. It may just be me, but watch it and see if you feel the same. And pray for peace. In our homes, in our country, in our world.

Buffy vs. Edward -- maybe the best YouTube vid EVER

2009-06-27T06:18:00.003-05:00

I've been watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer with the girls for the past few weeks, Buffy being one of my personal guilty pleasures. I am well aware that my devotion to the series is more than slightly ridiculous because I am, after all, MIDDLE AGED and a Church Lady of no mean stature.

I've mentioned here before that I am an ardent fan of the vampire genre in movie and literature, although I never could connect with Anne Rice's vampire series for some reason, and I seriously wish I had never read Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot, which I just hated. When I finally became aware of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series, three of the four-book series were already available and the fourth was published within two weeks of my starting the first book, named Twilight, of course.

I was really, truly offended by the Twilight books, not only for Meyer's breathless, fan-girlie, gothic-y prose, but also for her barely concealed hatred of women. Yes, I went there. And I believe it: Stephenie Meyer, in my opinion, has an inner loathing of women that she expresses in so many ways throughout her four novels, beginning with Bella's mother, Renee, a mental midget who chooses her new husband, Phil, over her own daughter; to Bella, who is soppily, ridiculously accepting of Edward's abusive behaviors that would have raised a red flag the size of Kansas in anyone with a brain; to werewolf Sam's girlfriend Emily with her ruined face and her homemade biscuits; to the spiteful, jealous Rosalie; to the bitter, vengeful Leah, Stephenie Meyer has given the young women of this decade a group of the weakest, most pathetic characters I've ever seen. My only comfort is that the male characters aren't much better, and I'm looking at YOU, Charlie, Edward, Sam, Jacob and Billy. Carlisle is not enough to redeem you.

Meelyn and Aisling were very disappointed that my husband and I wouldn't let them read the Twilight books. So many of their friends have read the books, after all. I wrestled with this last summer, even giving the books to my husband to read (he made it until the first pages of the fourth book and said, "For the love of God, please don't make me read any more of this crap," only he didn't say "crap") because I thought maybe I had the Twilight series pegged wrong and I was allowing my inner Church Lady too much freedom -- sometimes he helps balance me out. I felt that my instinct was correct when his final assessment of the four novels was, "I can see why teenage girls would think these are good stories, but as a parent, I have to say that these are truly horrible books."

So the books were out. But I can remember how I felt as a teenager when everyone else was allowed to listen to the Eagles and Aerosmith and my mom and dad wouldn't let me buy records like all my friends did -- I used to visit my friend Lisa and feel sooo envious of her stereo and her Peter Frampton albums. That was such a sore spot for me as a teenager that I remember it well to this day: it did not improve my relationship with my parents and led to a resentment that was somewhat alleviated when I went ahead and bought records anyway. So when the Twilight movie was released early last winter, I was hoping that we'd be able to take the girls to see it; that maybe it would be somewhat toned down and less objectionable, or at least that it would provide me with ample opportunities to point out Edward's glaring personal flaws and Bella's marginal intelligence, not to mention the Greek-tragedy type triangle that exists between Bella, Edward and her dad, Charlie.

The movie Twilight proved to be more acceptable than the book so we let the girls see it, which went a long way in fostering happy interpersonal relationships here in our home: Meelyn and Aisling no longer felt like the only teenage girls on the planet who hadn't seen the movie or read the books. We watched it together once in silence, and a second time with me adding editorial commentary that was extremely biased, one almost might say prejudicial. Heh. Because I am a mother and I am allowed to do that.

And then I began to lay some careful plans.

Summer began, and with the cessation of schoolwork came the gift of free time. Only, what to do with all that free time? Gas is expensive and Anne doesn't have a working air conditioner anyway, so none of the three of us was motivated to go anywhere; we hadn't yet paid our dues for the swimming pool, and Kieren was here after his driver's ed class was over for the day.

"There's not much to do," the girls sighed.

"We could watch some television," I suggested brightly.

Meelyn and Aisling looked at me suspiciously. After all, am I not the person who limits their "screen time" and insists they go off with a book?

"I was thinking," I said with elaborate casualness, "that maybe we could watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

"What the heck kind of name is 'Buffy'?" said Meelyn with scorn.

"It's supposed to be ironic," I answered. "You know, 'Buffy' suggests kind of a powder-puff of a girl, someone who pouts if she breaks a nail and uses aromatherapeutic linen spray on her sheets every night."

Aisling rolled her eyes. "Sheeesh, what an idi-- Hey!!!!!" she said indignantly.

"Actually," I continued, "she is anything but that kind of girl. Buffy rocks. She kicks butt and takes names. She would dust Edward's whiny, angst-ridden tushie in about three seconds flat."

"'Dust'?..." asked Meelyn.

"That means 'stake through the heart.'"

"I thought Edward was like marble, impenetrable."

"That's only because Stephenie Meyer is a big, fat cheater and she will not be forgiven for totally reinventing an entire genre of literature to suit her own lame, fangirl agenda," I said heatedly. "'Oooh, Edward, I love your sparkleee skin in the sunlight! Oooh, Edward, I love your sharp, venomous teefies, even though you have no fangs!!!!! Oooh, Edward, I love the way your family can cook Italiano using lots and lots of garlic; you're all so awesome, I bet you serve filtered holy water for drinking in a Brita pitcher!!!!" I sing-songed in a mocking voice.

"Okay," said Aisling in a resigned manner. "I guess we can try it."

So we did. There's a lot to teach kids from Buffy's tightly woven plots. I know that all parents certainly would not agree with me and I admit that using a series about a vampire slayer is an avant-garde method of teaching morality to teenagers, but please remember that it isn't my only method. In the meantime, the girls and I are enjoying the shows, analyzing the plots and talking about the themes presented in each episode and throughout each season's story line.

While I was doing a little mild research for the final two episodes of season two ("Becoming," Parts One and Two), I stumbled across this awesome video on YouTube titled "Buffy vs. Edward." It is a bit of comedic genius and explains EXACTLY what I feel about Twilight, the book, the series and all the stupid movies.

Then the rest of the week happened....

2009-06-26T21:40:00.004-05:00

Last Sunday was such a slow and boring day, I thought I would just fossilize from boredom. Things were so dull, I spent about two hours watching different music vids from the seventies and eighties on YouTube and ended up getting all maudlin and weepy over "Peace Train."

Then I went to bed and woke up on Monday morning and whoooooooaoaaaaaaa, here it is Friday! How did that happen? I started writing about four different posts which never got finished and are forlornly waiting in my drafts file to be published. But on the other hand, Kieren is now finished with driver's ed class and the teens, Dayden and I went to the pool twice and to Nanny and Poppy's house once; I made a new kind of cookie from Dorie's cookbook (Baking: From My Home to Yours), Meelyn had her first job interview and I mortified the three teens by giving them a looooooong Church Lady talk about premarital sex after watching the episode titled "Innocence" from Buffy the Vampire Slayer's third season DVDs. Meelyn got the job! It was an eventful week.

The best thing yet is that CousinFest '09 is coming up NEXT THURSDAY. There are lists to make! Suitcases to pack! Lemon bars to prepare! Busy, busy, busy!

A little "Loco-Motion" on a slow Sunday

2009-06-21T17:16:00.004-05:00

Here's another great, great song, Grand Funk Railroad's cover of "Loco-Motion." Lots of bands have covered this song, including that Kylie Minogue baggage; actually, there was even an original by Little Eva in 1962. But none of them ever did it the way Mark Farner and Grand Funk Railroad did. I had the 45 version of this song and I played it over and over and over again on my little record player. Love!

My favorite part of this video is when security has to take down a deranged fan, who'd had all of Mark's swingin' hips she could deal with and made the unwise decision to rush the stage and propose marriage to him without a proper introduction. Like two hyenas on a gazelle, it was. But they hustle her away before I could....I mean, before anyone in the audience could yell "DOWN IN FRONT!"

This is from 1974 when I was all of eleven years old, with buck teeth and pig tails and mosquito bites. I loved Mark even then, more than twist cones from Tastee-Freez, if you can imagine.

Technical difficulties

2009-06-19T13:57:00.004-05:00

I've been at my parents' house in New Castle this afternoon so that the three teens could earn some money by mowing, digging and washing windows and the cars and it seemed like an opportune time to sit at my mother's computer and type up my reviews of this week's episodes of So You Think You Can Dance.

So I was doing that. In fact, I'd been doing that for about an hour and a half when, having reached the end of a page of my handwritten notes, I reached out with my left hand to turn the page over. In doing so, I hit some unknown button at the bottom left of the keyboard. Suddenly, everything I'd typed completely disappeared. I wasn't kicked off the internet, you understand. I never even left Blogger. It was just the post that went poooof! Gone in the blink of an eye!

I was not too worried. Blogger has a featured wherein what you're typing is saved, something like every thirty seconds. So I opened up another tab, went to my blog and guess what? The post wasn't saved. It was gone.

What IS that button I hit? And doesn't it seem impractical to have a button capable of doing so much damage right there near the edge of the keyboard where your hand might accidentally touch it? And why wasn't there that nudging message that popped up reading:

ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DELETE EVERYTHING YOU JUST SPENT THE LAST NINETY MINUTES TYPING?

POSITIVE?

SERIOUSLY. YOU REALLY WANT TO DO THIS?

IF SO, CLICK "YES."

DOOFUS.

Nothing like that at all. So! I want to go back and re-do it, just because I'm the kind of compulsive person that cannot have a gap in my reviews of this show. I don't know. Really, I don't. Sometimes I think medication would help.

At any rate, I plan to get right on that as soon as I've eaten breakfast and colored my hair.

I wonder if my computer has one of those buttons? What a dreadful thought.