la femme follette

pulsing

For dinner tonight I made the lentil salad from stupid June's issue of House Beautiful.

It was ok.  Fille & I had it each on a bed of romaine with a poached egg.  My son doesn't eat eggs. 

I had tea with Eve yesterday; she was somewhat harried & distractable.  The 4 of us traveled to The New Barnes on Monday & it is everything every other reviewer says it is:  lighted (also, somehow more distressingly full of screaming children, idk).  Sunday Fifille & I had a restful, provincial-NYC visit; it was lovely.

It had been years since I'd had such a small radius on a NYC run:  We came into Penn Station in the late morning to saunter over to show for our brunch reservations at Cookshop; the ballet was at The Joyce, which was 2 more blocks downtown, back over on Eighth Ave.  The company was Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet -- they were so fantastic.  On our way back to Penn Station, we stopped to avail ourselves of 30 minutes of reflexology -- which isn't actually as good as it sounds once you work out it is only 15 minutes per foot -- and we were home by 9. 

It was really great.  Now the pool club is up + running every day & nothing gets done.  I swim a million yards while the kids goof around, mostly so I don't have to talk to anyone about anything.  If you'd like to reach me, leave me alone.  Goes double for you.  Yes, you.

provisional

This is going to drive at least two of you right out of your minds, but I let Mr Fox feed me, like, all the time.  He presses food into my hand & I tuck in. 

Everyone is totally envious of Mr Fox, for one reason or another, except my actual husband -- the one who lives with me, etc.  Lillo interrupted me one day when I was ringing off with [this or that reason I had to go, pertaining to Mr Fox], saying, "Why doesn't this guy have a job?!?" 

Ahahaha!

Anyhow,  Mari & I were sauntering over to the playground Friday to catch up with our kids + Extra Girl when Mr Fox wheeled up alongside of us.  We three were talking while he pulled down a little spray of berries from the tree above us and handed them to me.

They are Juneberries.  Say what?  Also known as Saskatoon.  I made them verify this wasn't a trick, a hit job hired out by Mari (or anyone else, for that matter), and then made him eat three times the amount he had handed to me, scrutinizing him the whole while.

They are pretty tasty, reminding me of the "strawberries" in major mass-market ice cream.  Or something, idk.  Eating them gives me a sense-memory of Baskin Robbins Ice Cream "parlors," so if you happen upon them & have similar feelings well up inside you, whisper them to me, please.  Anyhow, I saw Mr Fox this morning & he was in fine fettle, so maybe I can sublimate my rhubarb thing into these growing-all-over berries. 

Fille & I are off to NYC tomorrow to get a little culture, returning home in time for Shavout. I do not anticipate any granola-girls' rooting-around, not least because NYC is killing people with its trees.  We went roller skating today & I feel lucky enough to be in one piece, and also, suddenly, I no longer perceive biking as the same certain peril I judged it to be this morning.  For one thing, no one says, "Oh, it's just like wearing a pair of skates!"  Guess what, there is a reason for that.

Please let me know if you forage anything extra-plus during this next couple of days, I will not hold it against you if  you only pluck it from the long buffet table. 

 

make and take tuesday

Memorial Day weekend is next!  You might be going somewhere & you might have to bring a thing!  I give you a traveling green salad.  Miracle!  It is also not hard.  Also, I think that we can make it right-side-up or upside-down, right?  Like rhubarb.  Yes. 

 

It hails from here, the idea.  We had two bunches of kale in our CSA share last week; Mr Fox was coming by for dinner, so I could not just lay out microwaved potatoes & frozen spinach.  I was not feeling like cooking the kale up using my usual recipe (sauteed; because it was 87F, I think),  when I remembered seeing this recipe.

I did not have squash, nor shallots, because it's May here, you know.  I used red onions and dates to substitute.  I felt like goddamn Louis Pasteur!  Seriously!  Then, to show off the top of my range, I used some hazelnut meal I had lying around, instead of fooling around chopping little weirdly-shaped nuts!  I did not add cheese, because by now I was test-driving and I wind up at a lot of potlucks where there are starving vegans, one of them v often my son.  

It was roundly received as a smashing success.  Then! It held until lunch the next day!  Get out of here!  Amazing.  It requires a bit more chewing than I like to allocate for a salad, but OK.   

Kale Salad with Roasted Dates & Red Onions

Whisk 1/4c lemon juice with 1/4c olive oil.  Preheat the oven to 400F.

Wash & dry a bunch of kale.  Set aside the thick part of the stems (don't get too into this distinction, ok?) and cut the leaves + remaining stems crosswise into 1-inch-wide strips.  Yr salad bowl (this is mine, to compare) should be full, with room left for assembly.  Toss with the dressing.   Set aside for at least 30 minutes.

Slice 3 red onions longitudinally at 1/2-inch intervals.  Toss with  a couple tablespoonsful olive oil, just to make them shiny; don't leave them in a pool of the stuff.  Put in the oven.  When they are soft and starting to brown, add 8-10 pitted dates, sliced into thirds, maybe.  Poke it around.  When the onions are browned, but not crispy (or maybe just a teeny bit crispy on the very edges), take them out.  Salt the whole thing.  Don't get carried away.

Toss the kale with 1/3c of hazelnut meal.  Toss & toss & toss.  When the dates & onions are cooled enough to handle, add them & toss, toss, toss.  Serve when you are ready, but try to give the fully-assembled salad a half-hour to meld.     

leave yr worries on the doorstep

We got up early to run over to the farm, Mari & I, to get rhubarb, yes.  I went to the farmers' market yesterday, completely willing to spend the $4 or whatever for a little 12-0z bundle, because I feel like our late spring is really too light on rhubarb this year.  2012: light on rhubarb!

When we got home and I started engaging it, I realized it was exactly a year ago I was fooling around with the distraction of rhubarb compote, fretting about my favorite + my best.  So I was wrong, and this is just the rhubarb beginning.  I have put brandy in it this year -- kirsch, to be precise.  It is really a lot better than lemon juice, just loads more delicious.

We stopped at the strawberry field across from the funny rows of afterthought rhubarb to pick a couple of quick quarts -- one for ourselves and one for the girls at the dollhouse.  It was hot and sunny -- already at 10 -- and I was not dressed to sit in the hay, like the time we picked four years ago.  I told Mari how I was remembering, while we sat there, combing easily through the plants for the ripe fruit.  I told him, yk, obviously the whole experience healed me. 

With yogurt, or ice cream, or just from a spoon.  Kind of a jammy relationship with toast, it could have.  Yes.

Remember these knuckleheads?  They might be at it again, the trying to miss, the requited regretfulness.  I am just saying.  But besides that, I say nothing.  This is a fine use of Algren's lips zipped emoticon.  :|     

blue who

We had blueberry casserole for lunch.  Any time we give a dish a pet name, it is True Love.

 

The given name is "Baked Oatmeal," from a not-too-too-long-ago issue of Martha Stewart's Whole Living.  I was going through a stack of magazines from Martha Stewart, looking for the recipes I wanted to archive, suffering page-turner's fatigue, you know, and my eye was caught by a closing/serving instruction to drizzle on with melted butter.  Wait, what again?  Go back.  Tell me now.  Yes.

On the night I sliced all those potatoes, Fifille & Garçon were going through Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian book to find a suitable recipe for a pile of thinly-sliced potatoes.  They were murmuring & reading and I heard Fille say to him, with a sad determination, "I could never be vegan."  I suspect it is about the butter.  I guess it could be about the cheese, but she has a cheese ceiling & no such thing exists for butter.  We are proud of her & so are many of you, I know.

When we were back home, at the legendary and yet prosaic Lou Mitchell's, we told her she could totally manage to spread her 2 pieces of toast on with 3 little peel-off cups of butter.  It was like a chug-a-lug contest.  You can totally get all three on there, we encouraged her matter-of-factly. 

She faltered for a minute when she realized the toast had been brushed with butter on the line.  I helped her out, explaining that was different butter.  "That was liquid butter, this is solid butter.  It's different.  Like ice in yr water."  I mean, fuck, right?  Seriously, come on!  Anyhow, she lathered on her 3 cups and there was a lot of high-fiving.  Just like a chug-a-lug contest.  Yes.   It was only an eighth-inch thick.  Fuck, I've seen people eat 10 times the butter piled on 1/3 the real estate, just because it was called frosting. 

OMG, butter.  How great to have a functioning, athletic, 11-year-old girl who eats butter at appropriate times, who is afraid of no food.  God is good.  Last week she said to me, while we were in the car, this:

All the girls in ballet class think their legs are fat because they jiggle when they jeté.

First, let us all clasp hands + thank God I was not operating the vehicle.  I was parked in the grocery-store parking lot.  Also, her father was there, in the passenger seat, not goading me exactly, but fixing me with a look.  A look that said, You're on again, baby.  Knock 'em dead.  But I was thinking, OMG, I'm so tired!  It was just last week we sat around for a long time, the 4 of us, talking about the NYT cellulite story.

 A long time ago, probably as many as four years ago, Fille saw a store-window advertisement for some Aveda product, the target of which was frizz.  Because some idiot let her learn to read, she asked me later, yk, what is frizz?  I told her it was a wide-ranging definition, but mostly it was marketing.  I reminded her of what remains after she brushed her curls smooth for ballet's bun, how when she let it down after class, she did not care for the resonant bigness of it (having v.t. issues, Reader, bonne chance), and that is what is demonized as frizz.

What came of that conversation, though, how I concluded it, laid the cornerstone for the place where I will dwell during these years she is entering, she with her friends. I told her everyone feels bad about themselves sometimes.  Everyone wakes up some day, everyone, and looks in the mirror & says, Omigod, it's me again! Even people who say, And omigosh with the perfect flawlessness, again!  It is fleeting for the strongest people, who move along from there.  But:

Any time you want to believe in a bad feeling about yourself, someone will be all too willing to help you, and they will take your money for something that they say will fix the problem the two of you have created.  So you have to decide how you want to live.   

We come back to that all the time -- constructs created by marketing, a culture holding fast to expectations no one can meet because people have bought into fantasy images, this kind of unquestioning devotion to unrealistic and unreachable standards. (Ophelia, breathe.)   

It was heartbreaking and insane to read about women in their sixth decade of life who were embarrassed by cellulite.  I mean, really?  The one woman who hoped to one day wear a bathing suit?  Even though Fifille was adorably puzzled & a little tart ("I mean, isn't she going to wear a dress at her wedding?"), I said to her, all grave & everything,  "This is where a woman can end up after a lifetime of believing in made-up problems marketers say she has."

So then, God, it was super-heartbreaking to hear about these 9-to-11-year-olds talking about their fat legs.  I swear to you, not one of these girls is fat, and they are not going to be fat.  We see their parents, their grandparents, all the time in school.  If we could grow them to their final statures today -- like super-speed --  they would all be between 5'8' and 5'10' and all wear a 4 or a 6, except 2 girls, one who projects shorter and proportionally more slender, and Fille, who is her father's child, you all know.

I asked Fille if her legs jiggled.  She said, "Yes! I told them, Legs jiggle because you have skin and ... legs!"  I asked her what they said.

"They said, 'Oh, Fille! You have the skinniest legs!  You're so skinny!'" she told me.  When she said those words, I placemarked the sentence by pressing my hand to Mari's forearm, and told him much later,  That is what I meant when she was 5 and I said no daughter but the one I have with you would dance ballet on my watch.

I reminded her what I told her about the cellulite ladies, about being long toward the end of a road.  I told her that at her age, they are all on the beginning of that road, yk?  Choose how you want to live.  Get your guns out.

Mari was less metaphysical, less bound-up in the deconstruction of patriarchy for sure.  "Tell them," he said, "that they aren't fat; they jiggle because they are weak.  Tell them to get strong."

Fille giggled righteously & said, "I know!" before I got involved, spluttering a little, telling her to tell no one that, and maybe if she does,  definitely tell no one her dad said to say that.  Good Lord.

It was a couple of weeks ago, we were talking while were on a walk, she & I.  It was before the cellulite story, before the heart-restorative story of this little girl, which also took up a lot of time, talking as we always have about the falseness of photographic images -- how the reason that one never sees women or men who look like the women or men in magazines is not because they live on some special island somewhere, it is because they do not actually look anything like that, because the images are not real.

The topic of our discussion, as we walked, was the outgrowth of a pair of jeans she was wearing.  They were already too short, and in my opinion, not enough room in the waist anymore.  She was resisting the latter assessment, which I wanted to address.

"You do know, honey," I started, somewhat gingerly, "you will not just get taller, but you --" I faltered, not wanting to say will get wider.  "You will grow in every direction." 

 "Yes," said she, confidently, excitedly, like a little girl who is still light enough to need to ride in a baby seat & wants desperately to pass that by. 

But then she said, in a still-excited, but more matter-of-fact tone, declarative, even, "I will become curvaceous."

The word she used! The fact that she already knew this! That sentence, when she said it,  blew away a whole raft of worries I had not even ever realized I had for her.  Expecto Patronum!  Yes.  So that was good.  This is a good life. 

Blueberry Casserole
(adapted from Whole Living magazine)

Butter an 8x8-inch baking dish.  Melt 3 tablespoons butter.  Cool.  In yr pre-heated oven (375F) toast 1.5c of almonds (I use pre-sliced ones, but you can do what you like, chopping later) & cool. 

While you wait, mix 2c rolled oats with: 1/3c granulated sweetener; 1/2tsp salt; and 1tsp baking powder.  

To the cooled butter, add one egg.  Whisk.  Add 2 cups milk + 2tsp vanilla.  Mix & mix.

Add half of your almonds to your dry oat mixture.  I have also always added 1/2c of almond meal, also, but you can skip that, I guess.  Mix & mix there, too.  

Pour about 2.5cups of frozen blueberries in the bottom of the baking pan (enough to cover it in a single layer, but x3).  Cover the berries over with the dry oat mixture, pour the milk mixture over the whole thing.  Scatter the remaining (chopped) almonds and another cup of blueberries on top.  Bake for about 45 minutes.  Or so.  You'll get the hang of it. 

I usually cut it into 6 pieces for breakfast, 8 for lunch.  Serve with a couple of teaspoons of melted butter per portion & then have some maple syrup, too.     

mat party

Lilies are just obscene. Honestly.

I don't care for them at all & am curious how I wound up buying a big bouquet of Stargazers. I think it was because they were paired with irises. Also, because the smell of lilies was pervasive in the shop & I wanted a cut flower that smelled. Well, these have opened since then & indeed!

In advance of Mothers' Day, Fifille went to Mari, seeking his assistance in making [some kind of fancy, idk] dinner for me.  Mari told me that he got down to her eye-level and told her, "That's very nice, honey, but Femme doesn't want that.  Femme wants a day where she doesn't have to talk and everyone does their chores."

Best husband.  Yes.

We were sitting at the table Sunday morning, he & I.  My departure was imminent, but I was enjoying my second cup of tea and paging through The New Yorker, looking at cartoons.  Mari was poking desultorily at a piece of toast with jam and asking questions about cartoons that looked interesting.  First, Garçon came in to ask me if he could make [some kind of unusual] porridge for breakfast.  I said, "I don't care what you do, I'm leaving."

A minute later, Fille came in to ask me if she could have fig preserves in her yogurt.  I told her the same as I told her brother.

I looked at Mari, who was just sitting there.  "Do they not see their other parent, right here?  This is why there is a day, honey!  A whole day!  Good-bye!"

I went to the sauna, which, ok, I got a little ahead of myself on the calendar, sauna-wise.  I was just there Thursday because the forecast for the weekend was in the 80s, and I did not want to get involved in a whole sweaty Betty kind of a thing.  But, I got hung up on Thursday morning, returning emails and texting and doing laundry, so I did not get there as early as I wanted to do everything I wanted -- scrub, massage + general sybaritic wallowing -- there just was not time before I had to come back to the kids in the afternoon, so I had the scrub and the minimum pre-scrub wallowing required there.  Alors.

I decided to go back because I felt like Ideal Getaway Mothers' Day involved a massage and a nap, which, obviously there is only one place to go for that.  Throw in snacks and a lot of luxuriant bathing and good.  Great! 

When I got there at 11, the first massage opening was not until 4.  "Ok," I said. 

The dude was confused by my compliance, "But I meant four o'clock."

Now I was confused.  "You mean four o'clock today, right?"

Right, see?

I was so excited to have five hours yawning in front of me, to dawdle and paddle and rinse and mask and unmask and rinse and re-rinse and do whatever I wanted with no one to bother me!  Yes!  There are five freaking ways to take a shower there!  Yes!  So I spent the time in a comfortable circuit of, yk, scrubbing, steaming, scrubbing, saunaing, rinsing, steaming, scrubbing, rinsing, drying, then lying in the warm clay room while I waited to get antsy/thirsty.  Then I would put 0n my sauna-issue tunic and relax on the sofa, reading the January 2011 issue of Elle and sipping water and/or green tea.  Then I would lie in the hot-hot room, get all sweaty, and start again. 

I had a hunk of Ossau-Iraty in my bag with some almonds, and a stupid apple, which turned out to be good thinking when I decided I did not want to fool around navigating the co-ed area just to eat beef.   

I did not get into any of the pools/streams, because there were a lot of newbies there (so much confusion + confrontation about how there are not bathing suits allowed, people clutching towels to themselves in the wet room, like, ok), and I idly witnessed one gal take her completely inadequate pre-pool shower & I did not want to be anywhere in the range of her miasma. 

OK, I mean, maybe it is weird to be told there is nowhere to change and then find out you can't wear your bathing suit and then get to the room with the showering and find out there is nowhere to hang yr towel because the people in here are all naked and bathing and no one really expected you to clutch yr towel, you, along with your mothers and their sisters and your best friend, ok.  But clean yourself up.  Scrub it off.  Use soap!  There are at least 36 shower nozzles on three walls where you can point the spray anywhere you want.  There are 2 shower areas with spraying from every direction! Yes.  Also:  just be clean because God, ew. 

But for all that I am going on about it, it was ok, because I don't care about the pools anyway.  None of them are the right depth, and sitting on the bench is too shallow and sitting on the floor is too deep, so it's fine.  I do like the standing-around, freezing-cold waterfall pool, I did that a couple of times, but it was just standing knee-deep, not awash in someone else's effluvia, and anyhow, I never saw Miss DirtyPants in there.

I ran my wet room/resting/reading-snacking/sweating circuit about 5 times before it was time for my massage and I do not think there is anything better -- no greater proof of total relaxation! -- than dozing off intermittently on a massage table.  So, that was good, and then only thing that could have made it better was a wheelman, but still it was pretty great. 

I came home long past dinnertime to find both children spent the day cleaning their rooms and the kitchen was clean, and my husband was somehow showered, but still in his bathrobe, but he is a grownup and OK to that.  The kids watched that Christian movie about the shark attack on the surfer while Mari & I watched Underworld: Mike Ealey (terrible! but only 88 minutes, so whatever). 

Today I am making a form that children in this house must fill out and give to me whenever there is an argument with their sibling.  No unauthorized arguments!  Allez!

cap times

Have a still life.  I just thought these crazy old beans were pretty in the light.

 

Omg, this thing with my in-laws is so exhausting.  Nitter-natter, blibber-blab.  I wrote about it a long time ago, obliquely:  Why, why, WHY do you not change yr tune in the face of my music?  Um, what?  Are you even related to me?

Kowalski is after me, always, to remember that there are people in the world not nearly as hardened to the notion of eternal refusal as I, that they are not as shrewd in their calculations of a relationship's tensile strength.  I remind him, often, that I am fucking benevolent.  Because BENEVOLENCE IS FUCKING FUN.  Mostly because I can lord it over you ... and still.  Still! 

Man, anyhow.

 

We finally saw The Avengers last night.  I did not think it would be good, honestly, but was not going to resist it, because it actually could not be worse than Iron Man 2.  Not possible.  Every time, I would get a little cranky because I just thought, "Oooooh, it just will not be good," then I would remember Mark Ruffalo was playing Bruce Banner & then I would be filled with zeal.  ZEAL.

But I was right, in that what I thought was going to suck about it did: murky villain development (also right about Ruffalo as Banner).  Actually, it was a whole murky villain story, really.  When they are in Stuttgart, and the villain is acting up?  That villain should have spoken to all of those people in German and the movie should have had subtitles.  Because that would have been truly diabolical.  Instead, he was just shouting English commands to a bunch of gapers, and I was just sitting there, thinking, This guy isn't even from Earth.  Why's he so wedded to speaking English? Ok, whatever.

Ok, so, whatever.  Too sad that [redacted] had to [redacted].  He was one of my favorite characterizations from the Marvel film adaptations.  Mari says [redacted] isn't really [redacted], that he is totally going to be in Iron Man 3.  I hope so!

 

If you didn't know, The Avengers is, like, the world's most popular film, which is fine, but it puts pressure on a family of people who like just the just-right seats and are willing to get there to camp out a little, but then are thrust into a situation where everyone is getting there to camp.  The four of us were in position to get our seats about 40 minutes before the movie started -- Fifille was stationed outside of the theatre with Garçon, finishing her between-activities meal, and Mari & I gave the kids their tickets & told them to come in when she was done.

Mari got a phone call from work right as he put his hand on the lobby door to open it for me & I waited about 15 seconds before I pressed his ticket upon him and walked away to go find our seats.

I mean, honestly.  Focus!

 

I got to the door of the projection room screening the movie.  It was closed, and there was a gaggle of students in a huddle about 15 feet before it.  I stood there for a second before asking them what was going on.  They helplessly told me they were cleaning the theatre ("or something") and so that was what was going on.  I stood there for about another 15 seconds before walking past them all to go in.  As I made my way, there was shocked murmuring about my breach, which, whatever, but let's come back to that.  I made it into the theater, gingerly, tentatively, walking the corridor quietly.

The cleaning crew was there, cleaning, with their flip-down dustpans.  One of the gals sweetly told me they were still cleaning & that was why the door was closed.  I told her, also sweetly, a little conspiratorially, that I was sorry, that the people outside had told me so, "But they did not seem like credible sources." 

Then I started doing my thing, you know, the reason I am assigned any task, because of the mind control.  It went like this, after my regretful, confused pause in realizing the kids outside had been right in their information & I was, in fact, in the way:

Oh!  There is a scene after the credits!  And the woman in the ticket booth told me every show has been sold out!  Oh!  The turnover, must be so high-pressure!  No wonder you had the door closed! 

Bingo.

The response was deafening.  Then we chatted, sororally, you know, while they were working.  I was digging in my purse, looking for a piece of gum ("Gum, anyone?  Ladies?")  They were wrapping up, I was being encouraged to go on up & find the seats, I said, "No, no, I can totally wait until you are finished sweeping, I'm digging in my purse for my stupid phone anyway."

Then a guy came in & I had to enchant him, too, lest he ruin it.  I looked up from pawing through my bag & said to him, sure of his hero status, "Do you have a flashlight?  I lost my stupid phone in this giant bag. [blink-blink-blink]" 

Then I waited until I was positive they were finished, in fact, until they had forgotten I was there, and I said, "Are you lovelies all set now?" I was encouraged to avail myself, et voilà!  I was the first one in the theatre with a prodigious headstart!  Fine!  Accomplished, alors!  I have a very special skill-set, you know. (You know.)

The funny thing about this entire way-getting vignette, which I told Mari when he finally arrived (after even our children! Work calls!), was that as I was bustling past the hallway-students, and they were murmuring, quoth one, as I wrapped my hand around the door handle, "She's just like my mother."

I turned to face them and said, with the kind of great satisfaction that I find is usually attended by some kind of button-pushing, That is because I am old enough to be your mother.

Which was great, and satisfying, really, but then dampened a little while I was digging through my bag by the realization that the edict was probably a teeny bit muted by them not realizing the absolute mathematical truth in my statement.  So maybe they thought I was just slagging on them for being pretend-babies, in that OH I'M SO MATURE AND YOU ARE SO YOUNG way, but no, really:  I am old enough to be any of their moms.  Their mothers are probably 15 years older than me anyhow.  I wrote about that once, too.  Oh, Ivy Leagues! 

 

When the previews started, I was served a heaping helping of crow, which was extremely satisfying for Mari, if you remember this. 

I could not shut up!  Whispering, Is this a dream?  It's a dream, isn't it?  Are they dreaming about dreaming?  [There was a football field, in some kind of distress]  That is totally a dream, I hissed.  [Another prosaic scene was exploding in some kind of chaos.] Dream!  [Joseph Gordon-Levitt showed his mug] Ooh, that guy dreams about dreams, honey, it is!  Then, JGL has a tense exchange with Anne Hathaway, after which editing cuts sharply to Christian Bale, darkly endangered.

 

I snapped to the same, rapt-yet-somehow-penitent attention he did on that long-ago day.  Oh, marriage!  This is why we have you!  xoxox

 

shaved

I have always wanted a mandoline, natch, and then I was leafing through one of the Bittman cookbooks where he says you could really think about having one.  Friday morning, I was at TJ Maxx and there was one, a Zyliss: not too spendy, probably not a piece of crap.  I bought it. 

I did not know what to make for dinner tonight, we were out late, the three of us, fooling around in the rain, getting the baby from her workshop in the car ... it was not the afternoon I had planned.  At 7, I realized I really did need to make dinner (this happens every year around this time), but what I really wanted to do was check out my mandoline in the process.

 

Garçon came downstairs.  "Mom, what are you going to do with all those potatoes?" 

I mean, what?  Couldn't he see I was checking out my new thing?  I wound up making Potatoes Anna and a stir fry from bok choy & some kinda green from the CSA box.  Not ramps.  It was so dark out by the time we ate.  I wish I had a cookie.  xox

still, life.

We went back, Friday night, to the museum to take in the van Gogh exhibit, and frankly, should have just gotten a room since the weekend was busy-busy bridge-crossy full of cultural events.  Alors.

Eve accompanied us to the exhibit.  It was nice to see her and everyone played together nicely.  The museum was open until the unthinkable hour of midnight, because the people of the mid-Atlantic region need to see van Gogh, and honestly, my pert complaining about their refusal to accomodate notwithstanding, there are no museums I can think of readily that just grin & bear it with 2nd-shift hours in the waning days of an exciting tour.

It was a nice representation of the work in the period bounded by 1886-1890, roughly chaptered into: Paris; The Wheatfield Era; Clumps of Grass; Sous Bois; Radical Still Lifes. The audio-tour's exegesis used a lot of van Gogh's correspondence, which was very interesting -- he is rarely portrayed as being sociable or having a successful relationship with anyone but his brother.

In the outset, a museum guard was after me to tell me that I could not have my cell phone out during the exhibit, as there were no photos allowed.  I knew there were no photos allowed, which is why I was using the MemoPad function on Mari's camera-less BlackBerry, which I switched with him because my BlackBerry is outfitted with all kinds of recording devices.  I gaily showed her how my phone had no camera and pointed to the notes I was taking on the screen. 

 

I took this photo during Wednesday's general admission in the regular galleries, where photography is, in fact, allowed.  This is extremely representative of what was in the exhibit; also, paintings here & here.

Still Life with a Bouquet of Daisies, 1886.  Oil on paper, mounted on wood.  Vincent van Gogh.  Philadelphia Museum of Art, bequest of Charlotte Dorrance Wright.

 

"I am just using it to take notes," I said. reassuringly, sympathetic to her rigor.  "It is the 21stc, so I tend not to have pen & paper."

She was sympathetic to me, but insisted I put it away.  I asked her, coyly, "Do you have a pen?"  Because I did have a Moleskine, but I did not have a pen.  She told me then that there were to be no cameras, no cell phones, and no pens or paper in the exhibit.  Um, ok, whatever then.  I mean, right?  We had entered the zone of OK now you're just making shit up to be on a power trip.  I mean, honestly.  I got a pen from Mari and took notes on paper freely through the remaining galleries with no trouble at all.  But be warned, because the ubiquitous cell phone has ruined things for compulsive note-takers all over.  I did have similar dust-up at the National Gallery's Gauguin exhibit last summer, though they backed off (reluctantly) when I showed them there was no camera.

Anyhow.  The curation was tremendous; it seemed as if the narrative around which they collected pieces was to put aside this idea -- widely promulgated -- that van Gogh was just a wild maniac who flailed in desperation at the end.  The exhibit ended on a really optimistic note, with this painting, which I had never seen, nor heard the story behind.  Until then, I'd had no idea van Gogh ever experienced even one single moment of joy in his adult life, none of the five of us had (3 of us adults, 1 with a baccalaureate in art history), so that was a really high note to end on, we all agreed.

Again, Garçon was somehow listless & self-indulgent + amiable & civilized, at once.  The same as the time immediately preceding this trip, I let it go.  Just, yk, Whatever, child.  I don't care about you.  Shhhhh.  And all was well.

Things are fine, really.  I read this book a couple of months ago, called Unhappy Teens.  The reason I read it, mostly, was because it was written by a goddamn M.D., not some Ph.D. pretending to have some vast clinical experience, which (as we have seen), means only as much as you are willing to let it affect you.  Also, my care & keeping of a teenager was imminent. The primary thrust of this book was to say this:  By the time your child is a teenager, they know what you expect.  Shut up about it.  They know it.  Every time you talk about the thing, you make it into a thing.  Let the thing go & watch the thing happen. 

Ok, so I have to say that there has been -- in all the years leading up to this one -- no lack of exposition in our parenting.  There is a lot of transparency in our work.  So I think that my child, even more than the mean, is well-equipped to know what the expectations are.  Then when he was 13, yk, I said, Fuck it, good, he can do it himself, I have done all I can.  So that is going pretty well.  Sometimes he tries to get in my face, as is his way, and I just don't care about him.  It's like, "Are you still here?  Shh.  I don't care about you.  I'm reading The New Yorker, you're in my light." 

It is also somewhat helpful to have the maniacal , clusterfucking sideshow of last winter still ringing in our ears, so that when I have to, I can say, "You know, this is the kind of behavior that you have that when we report it makes professionals say that you belong in a mental hospital.  Do you need a rest in the mental hospital?  Think about it."  Because honestly, I do not have the time.

One hilariously adorable thing about him this last few weeks:  Annie Clark.  My son, who cares about nothing, I promise you, was genuinely moved by the accomplishments of little handless Annie Clark & her penmanship award.  Why, just last week, we were talking about Miss Annie Clark, by way of Marcel Duchamp & his poor, shattered Large Glass. 

The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass), 1915-1923.   Oil, varnish, lead foil, lead wire, and dust on two glass panels.  Marcel Duchamp. Philadelphia Museum of Art, bequest of Katherine S. Dreier.

As we sat right here, Garçon was totally dismissive of my musings that maybe Annie took her inspiration from Duchamp's spirit of persistence and ascribed to her v realistic, logical, laudable steps toward a goal, the sort of which I had no idea he even realized existed.  God bless you, Annie Clark.  Seriously. 

Anyhow.  I miss you, little weblog, come back to me!  xox

              

time can do so much

Due to a confluence of factors, there was reveille en fanfare this morning featuring a medley of The Righteous Brothers and a piano sorely in need of a tuner.  I have been thinking of Ghost ever since.  Ghost, right?  I forgot about that movie!  Holy crap!  But I was enjoined to participate in my own bloggy project et voilà, ok.

We traveled across the river today, since I was feeling better than I have in weeks, with the intention of seeing a major van Gogh exhibit in its final days.  We could not, because I do not pay attention to all of the discrete member mailings & emails from every museum we patronize like I should.  Had I, I would have realized that the Philadelphia Museum of Art treats its members like the general public when it comes to special exhibits with timed tickets.  The Phillips, The Barnes, MoMA, all give the green light to members to go on in at their convenience, whatever, thank you so much for yr fat checks, but not this one.   But whatever, we will endure the drive again & today, we took on general admission ... alors là.

You know,  we are show-goers -- we have to be, to make best use of membership fees and the way in which we can avail ourselves endlessly of our proximity -- and it has been such a long time since we have just loafed around a museum, loafing.  It was really great.  Even though Garçon was kind of inert during the excursion, it was fun.  I actually started to let it get to me & then I remembered this time & yk, even if he is ... Jesus Christ, you know what: it's enough to bring him to the water.  And he is 13, so I have to not care more than ever. 

But even a loafer's agenda needs a little direction.  I decided we should make our way to Étant Donnés, and honestly, I stand by my assessment -- who the hell would ever think to look for it in grimy old Philadelphia?

It is a long trip to the end of one of the wings.  Along the way, yk, plenty of the late 19th/early 20thc.  Fun.  Loafy!

The Large Bathers, 1884-87. Oil on canvas. Auguste Renoir. Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Mr & Mrs Carroll S Tyson Jr Collection.

The Large Bathers is one of those canvases that draws me in every time we go here -- partly because of its location (location, location) in the corridors, but also because it is so replete with work and life.

Fifille mentioned today how you can see the girl underwater as you would in life.  Yes.  I mean, Jackson Pollack doesn't care about that kind of realism, but it is quite a thing. 

Cy Twombly would not care about it either.  I felt sad, today, knowing Twombly wasn't here in the world anymore. 

Fifty Days at Iliam, 1978. Parts 4, 5, and 6 of 10 parts. Oil, oil crayon, and graphite on canvas. Cy Twombly. Philadelphia Museum of Art, gift of Samuel S White, III and Vera White. 

 

I was happy, in fact, to move into a room of Ellsworth Kelly canvases & remember he is very much alive.  Also, to send a quickie MMS to my pal Alex. 

Left to right:  Barge, 1955, oil on canvas; White and Black, 1955, oil on canvas (Collection of the artist); Study for Atlantic, 1956, oil on canvas, 2 joined panels (on loan from Jack Shear).  Ellsworth Kelly.  Philadelphia Museum of Art.

 

Alex!  Speaking of you! 

Étant Donnés: 1. la chute d'eau, 2. le gaz d'éclairage ... , 1946-66. Mixed media assemblage. Marcel Duchamp. Philadelphia Museum of Art, gift of The Cassandra Foundation.

This is, you know, when you look through the holes in the door! 

I remember last time we saw this, at the special Étant Donnés: Bits & Bobs exhibit: the security guard was all up in our grills about how we should not let our children see this part of it.  He was nearly hysterical and we were utterly nonplussed, plus all Thank you, but we heard you, now myob, ok?

I mean, isn't everyone's elementary-school kid readied for a weird kind of a mixed-media roadside womanslaughter display?  No?  Then go to more fucking museums already!  Sure! 

But please, please, let us get to what is really important.

Becky!

These are things which are for sale.  I promise you, if the salmon-colored creamer pitcher had been in this inventory, nothing would have stood between me and it.  Or, the turquoise sugar bowl, whichever.  As it was I had to pry myself away from it all.

I hope you are all happy. À bientôt!

 

if I had a hammer.

I flipped the calendar page this morning to see Fifille wrote this.  Adorbs!  High fives to homeschool! 

 
I think she has union gains confused with Gen 2:2.

 

I know, you're like, "Wait, no.  That's not how it goes, honey.  You are usually much more  OMIGOD YESSSSSSSSSSSS HIGH-FIVES TO ME I DID IT!!! than this."

 

Right, but I was like that in January.  We were at Sal's, sacked out in front of his teevee, watching October Sky.  Fille asked, "Why does Homer have to work in the mine?  His dad got hurt at work." 

Then Garçon told her, "Because his dad was management, [Fille], not union."   OMIGOD YESSSSSSSSSSSS HIGH-FIVES TO ME I DID IT!!!

 And don't you just always love Chris Cooper anyway?  Hearts!

Yeah, but high-fives to homeschool, mostly.  Garçon was doing a theatre class with a mixed-age group from 10-14.  He told me that the instructor asked the kids, "What makes a good story?"

Garçon said -- I don't know how many kids answered before him -- "Well, a good story needs conflict.  Your hero needs to overcome obstacles." 

So, first of all, when he told me this story, I thought, Get the fuck out of here!  This child has listened to something I have said?!?  Because that is a stock phrase from my mouth & you know it.  The second thing is, I guess, the instructor was like, WHOA, DUDE!  TOO FAST!  Which made me laugh, a little.

The three of us then started talking about basic narrative conflicts --  Man v Nature, Man v Man, Man v Himself -- I was asking them to name books they knew that used one of these conflicts.  But every time I would say, "Man against Man," or whatever, Fifille would pipe up in helpful concert.

"Or Woman against Woman, or Man.  Or Woman against Nature, or Woman against Herself," she would say, over & over, with some increasing amount of insistence. 

This went on for some time, her interrupting & pedantically revising, before I realized: She has no idea that we generalize with the masculine.  Whoa!  That was some kind of mind-erasing shit for me.  Breathe deep, Ophelia!  Twirl!

So that's mostly what we're up to here, yk, Commies, dismantling the patriarchy.  You have a great night.  xox

quiet endings

We had a graduation thing to go to today, for a workshop session Garçon has been in, lo, these 8 weeks.  There was a paper that came home to me -- how many people, what would I bring, etc.  There was a Sign-Up to Bring Checklist, and I got flustered by it, then forgot about it.  Later, Garçon told me he signed me up to bring crudités + fruit salad. 

I thought that was weird, since the list had choices on it like cookies, brownies ... cheese & crackers, things that people would surely bring that he could not eat in their most common variety but which I could sub with none the wiser.  But, whatever.  Also, fruit salad?  What?  Why?!  Chopping?  Nuts?  Peeling?  Melon??  Still April, fruit salad!

Garçon said, this morning, while I was puzzling around the Costco, "Maybe you should just make the one with the blueberries and the oranges."

I was pert when I reminded him he can not eat oranges.  He said, "Mom, it doesn't matter.  You make so many good foods that people enjoy eating, and I can always eat more of yr cooking."

Flatterer!  Scoundrel!  This comes right on the heels of my bittersweet realization that every year both children are allowed whatever it is they want to eat for supper on their birthdays, and they have never ever asked to go out to eat.  I mean, we go out to eat, and even for special occasions, but for their birthday dinner they always present me with a long, handwritten list of homecooked favorites to eat all at once.  (sweet!) This is another way in which they drain the life from me. (bitter!)

 
 

But the salad is dead easy, definitely in the Make & Take file.  I do not even remember from wherever this knowledge was transferred to me.  Pour one pint blueberries into a bowl, add 1 can drained mandarin oranges.  Sprinkle over a heavy snow of slivered almonds, toss.  Sprinkle with a haze of sugar, maybe a little lemon.  It doesn't hold up for a long time, but it is good while it lasts.  It makes a fantastic summertime dessert.  Or, potluck fruit salad in April.    À bientôt!   

earth day. rainy night.

I bought these earrings on Friday.  A dangly clump of seedy, little, freshwater pearls.

On Saturday, I wore them when we met up with some friends who came up northward of their usual NE Corridor position to take care of  some obligations in our tri-state area.  It was really, really nice to see them.  Because it is great to see old friends right in front of you in this oft-tiresome digital age. 

Mari pulled me aside while the lot of us were rambling around, paired-off, adults freed-up by the magic of school-aged kids being nerds together.  He lifted my hair on one side & said, "I really like these.  Are they new?"  And that was nice, too.

 

Let's catch up soon.  I'll make the big bed with a million extra pillows & we can lie around on top of it.  After we've gotten a good bit out of chatter out of the way, we can read from the big pile of April's fashion/design/home-and-garden magazines and/or have a snooze. BYOB. xo 

glug

Pollen Count: Buried Alive! 

Man, how awful!  Monday I had a sore throat, which caused me some concern, but I did not feel run down or like I was getting ill.  Then it was 90 degrees and I was so miserable and sweaty because I did not know it was going to be so warm and there was driving and I had kind of a headache, which responded to 800mg of Advil, so I went to bed at the regular time & did not think about it any more.

 

I know, this is dull, right?  But seriously.  Today I woke up, yk, and felt ok for about 5 minutes, until I started taking the deep breaths of the horizontal people of the world.  Then, after calling Mari to regretfully alert him to my impending demise, and also taking a super (!!!) phone call from Lillo (fingers crossed!), I turned my eyes toward choosing between allergy remedies.

Is the active ingredient in Allegra part of what was in Fen-Phen?  Or Phen-Fen?  I could only find Allegra-D, Allegra-Baby, Zyrtec, and Claritin-24hr.  I just took the Claritin, even though I wanted a D so bad.  I tried to think about which neighbor I might know who could have crystal meth, because it's in there, right?  Anyhow.  Riveting.  Read on!

Once medicated, I laid down again and pretty much slept all day.  I think it was around noon that I considered the possibility that I had the flu, but no.  Just drowning in pollen.

In keeping with my new pledge to eat, I did force down some food.  I was resentful & cross about my stupid body, being so susceptible and then also so requiring of sustenance besides, hiss.  But when I thought about what I wanted to eat, I was so glad to know I had the ingredients downstairs.

I sent the Israeli a text.  Spreading the bread of affliction on with peanut butter.  He tends toward matzo literalism.  These gluten-free matzo can't even go on the seder plate.  Whatever, yum. 

I feel better tonight, but still pretty wiped out.  I have located the Claritin-D, so will make that switch in the morning.  It's a bigger pill, so taking it will be more satisfying to my psyche, anyhow.  I have high hopes!  xox

oh, a wiseguy!

Mari told me we were going to see The Three Stooges, sure, but that before the weekend was finished, I would see Wrath of the Titans. I could not believe his super-grouch insistence but whatever, yk, marriage.

Oh, he was driving us to the drive-in!  Surprises! The children did not remember ever having been to one, but Mari & I have not been to a drive-in since the kids were small enough to conk out in their carseats, which was a time that ended many, many years ago. 

When we were in Chicago, the kids had 115 channels to pick from & they were always watching the Stooges. I was so proud.

So most of us thoroughly enjoyed The Three Stooges, Mari saw Wrath of the Titans, and I went to sleep.  Fille & I just curled up together in the passenger seat & zzzzZzZzzzzzzzzzz.  Not at the outset, just after a while when it seemed like we could watch it better with our eyes closed. 

Everyone: happy!  Yk, marriage.  xox