la femme follette

this old thing

Hi, yes, many things -- ballet, recipes, marital secret-keeping, knitting, homeschool redistribution of rights + resources, and I'm still holding out on Mental Hospital.  Totally!  Yet, I hope you came with yr Faygo Red Pop & a bag of Bugles, because this is where I am today.

1. I confess herein that when I read this story about the $300ish rent-controlled (huge!) apartment in the Village, my only & immediate reaction was What steps do I have to take to get married to that dude?  Because a rent-controlled lease conveys.  I would lock that shit down, honestly.  And if you know anything at all, you know it would be an Anna-Nicole level probate battle. 



2. Lana Del Rey:  I love her.  It is funny because the "Video Games" single started getting radio play at the end of November, and I thought it was being warbled by someone much older, more worn down, rode hard, put away wet.  Then I saw the video & was amazeypants at how young!  Which was something of a topic already afoot here in our house vis à vis Adele & her really off-base cover of this song how she has this gorgeous, rich instrument of a voice which she mostly uses to belt out a lot of chirping (she is the beltiest chirper!) about Facebook misunderstandings.  Additionally, the realization upon her death that Etta James was 22 years old when she recorded "I'd Rather Go Blind" and wow.  22!  Ok.
   
   
3. Because three different people have asked -- three being a holy number -- regarding the late, great Etta James:  I was in fact subjected to "Sunday Kind of Love," endlessly, vituperatively + yodelingly. 
   
   
4. I went with Jolie to a Fancy Town estate sale on Saturday morning.  I was kind of into it, but was mostly along for the ride.  Then I saw this bag, behind a neatly-organized Imelda-style pile of stuff inside of a closet.   
   
   
   
   
   
   I have always wanted a Louis bucket.  Always.  Mostly -- and this I think maybe only Charlie will recognize -- so I can pull that Upper West Side powerplay of What, this old thing? when necessary.  OK, but a good girl reared all Franciscan-y in the Midwest can not avenge herself in that way with a bag for which she paid full-price, even as that is the spirit of the manuever.  (If you would like to split the hair wherein a Franciscanette from the homeland should not avail herself of the wordless clawing in the play, I say to you: When in Rome.) 
   
   I took it to the sales directress & told her, "I will take this for $12."  I had the bills in my hand and I was ready to deal.  She was aghast and gave me the once-over.  Ok, so speaking of when in Rome, I was outfitted Rome-ly, mostly just by straining under the heft of my left ring finger, but I bring it, a little. 
   
   She said patiently, as a person who is surely used to dealing with skinflints, "I am afraid $150 is the best price I can give you for that." 
   
   
   The fact is, this bag is no longer in production. The one that is, its closest cousin, is almost 10x her best price. Whatever. 
   
   I gaily explained to her that I could give her $25. "It's a purse," I finished, calmly, as if she were a sister who had fallen under the spell of a powerful cult leader. 
   
   She countered, explaining to me in a kind of brittle tone that it was a Louis Vuitton.  I held up my hand while my mouth dropped open a little.  I gasped.  Not so fast, it all said.  "This purse has a tag in it that says it was made in America."
   
   
   
   
   
   It does!
   
   If you know, than you know that little paper tag is the most authentic authentication a Louis Vuitton handbag can have.  She did not. So she apologized, briefly, and told me in a hurried way $12 was fine.  Can I just say that Mari has no idea what this all means, except that obvsly for once I was charged the true value of a handbag.  Lord.
   
   
5. Let's talk about teevee: 
   • Mad Men.  Due to some knitting willingness since the summer, we have finally watched the entire first season and a couple of epis of the 2nd.  Why is it so slow, this show?  This show is like the guy at work who is always like, yk, "Oh, man!  How was yr weekend?  Oh, I had a great weekend!  Pret-ty great weekend.  Oh, you had a great weekend?  Whoa, maybe you don't know from great weekend, brother.  Wow, etc," zzZzZzzzzz all to get you to say, What did you do this weekend, which you do not because you do not care.  It is just like that!
   • Weeds.  I started watching Weeds however many years ago that I first found it on DVD at the library, maybe 4?  I am just now on Season 3, is it?  Where U-Turn keels over & his pal smothers him.  I described that episode (who knows why?) to Mari & it is now a joke between us to stand in our new lexicon for crocodile tears.  U-Turrrrrn!  one of us says, to the other, melodramatically.  Ha, ha-ha.

For some reason, writing about crocodile tears reminded me of my senior-year English teacher who had the hots for me -- we were an entire classroom of girls all agog at his condition, like, "Dude!  Seriously!  Jailbait!  We're all wearing douchey uniforms!"  I mean, he never touched me or said anything pervy ... he would just stop talking in the middle of a sentence sometimes and everyone would look up & he would be staring at me.  My yearbook is covered with references to my mind-control powers.  He was the one who had me do the presentation of "The Miller's Tale."  God, I totally wonder what happened to that guy.     

 

lifted

When the girls returned from Winter Break, the letter went home with each of them. The En Pointe Temps are upon us.

 

 

It takes some kind of time to be fitted for your first shoe.  There is an HR-traning-like portion of the endeavor for the child.  We took it easy today & sauntered over.  I mean, after a to-do & a trip & parking & some lunch.  The store is well-known to us by now, all these years later.   I have always loved the way the store is just a warren of pointe shoes.

 

 

The family is venerated for their fitting-superiority & its second generation -- retired dancers -- are the truest ad-hoc counselors on this ballet kinda stuff we have ever had.  I can ask them anything, and they will give the best answers.  Like bartenders, but without liquor.  I totally appreciate their counsel; today I showed with a box of sea-salt caramels in tribute.

 

 

Fifille is super excited and sat in the living room for a long time tonight, trying them on & admiring them.  They don't even have the fasteners sewn on yet; the classroom demonstration of fastener-attachment is not for 3 weeks. 

 

 

I had not realized she would be able to go up on them right away.  All of this is such a mystery to me.  I know, it wouldn't be if only I would read Agrippina's book.  Yk, those shoes are mostly just papier mâché.  Someone should make an English country waxed-satin version!  Yes!  Bisous!

differences

In a departure from my usual methods, wherein I let my husband preserve his schema in which everything for sale in the world costs $27.99, I alerted him to the impending cost of a pair of pointe shoes.  Yes.

Yesterday was kind of a day like no other, and I am not a weather-baby, but tromping around rain-wise is different.  In yet another departure, I skipped the gym this morning and slept until 10.  Yummy. 

Also yummy:

 

This delicious kind of quinoa-oat porridge lately.  I love it, in spite of the fact that I mostly hate quinoa. What I do not like about it is that it is so granular in the mouth; the way you have to chase it around with yr teeth to chew it.  Stay together, quinoa!  But this is pretty good.  Whole grains and protein! 

 

I finished a book today, finally -- Emily Rapp's Poster Child.  It was really well-written, but the whole time I was totally distracted by her current predicament and the reverberations of her past in her present -- her mothering and her own mother's mark on her.  Man.  It took me so long to finish the book because ... man.  What is her soul here to learn?  Bless her.

Ordinarily, when I finish a readable book which is not too taxing -- and it has been years, I hardly read books anymore -- I forward it along to Lillo.  This time, I will refrain, since his girlfriend is obvsly out of her mind.  Mari & I are waiting in a grim silence for that to run its course, same as we did with the last.  She is certainly doing her level best to hasten its end (much the same as many of the last).  I saw a teevee show like this once, so shhh.  I would hate for him to fall through some ice somewhere far from home. 

 

I let the kids make some kind of terrible-seeming brownie from January's Everyday Food which used black-bean puree in place of some of the butter.  They turned out fine. 

 

Every day that I need to wear my waxed-canvas jacket, I love it more.  Yesterday, I decided I might need a waxed-canvas bag.  You know, it rains & then you need, yk, gear.  So I am shopping for that.  Expect the search to be terribly pinteresting.    Update:  most boring shopping ever.  I googled & this was a steal, so now I'm done!  Mari will not be impressed by its low, low cost, because why would it cost more, ever?  All the purses cost $56.  Except the ones that are $27.99! 

 

more of life's unsolicited tips

But first, more pancakes. 

 

 

You see?  The Molly-at-Orangette Pancake is a gateway pancake.  I saw these at Deb-at-Smitten-Kitchen's spot & then --  finding them too floury -- of course I had to fool around with them.  They are progressing into something altogether different, I will keep you posted.

 

If you want to try to figure out when in the near future you have an appointment, but for whatever reason do not wish to call up like a fathead and admit to not having any sort of an idea about being able to keep your gdmf appointments straight, here is what you can do:

Hello.  This is Femme Ininité calling.  I have an appointment for an Aspercreme Rejuvenating Desolarizing Jetsonista Far-Out Facial tomorrow, and I am so terribly regretful, but I have to cancel it.

Then you will talk about what time the appointment is.  Be very certain when you say, "10:30," but then when the administrator can not find it, weaken and admit it could be, yk, 1:30?

You will eventually get to her searching by yr name, at which point she will tell you that yr appointment is actually next Thursday at 4 and then you will be both bewildered and relieved, plus glad to hear her good news, for you do not have to cancel at all! 

Can you see the subtle difference here?  Calling to find out when yr appointment = asking her for something.  Calling to cancel and finding out you don't have to is allowing her to give you something.  It's small, but mighty.   

Be profuse in yr thanks to her good news, and laud her as a hero.  Write down the appointment and stop trying to keep everything on little slips of paper, plus also order the gdmf Filofax insert for 2012 + smite anyone who tries to tell you about their grimy, fingerprintsy, kludgy iPhone.  Yes.   

 

I still love this song as much as the first time I heard it.  I think it's the bridge that makes the whole thing so big to carry you away.

great and small

I have not the energy to write about this, but it makes pretty good oratory, The Pile of Cross-Cut Clear Up to Your Shoe-Tops, if you're so curious.

 

 

Remember our range issues?  When the thermostat broke last summer & I refused to replace it, citing an inability to participate in the shopping required of one for a major appliance?

 

Right.  So, Mari replaced the thermostat.  That was the second time he replaced the thermostat in the appliance, the third overall.  (The first time, a repairman took care of it.)  It was a $89 part, and the repair takes a half-hour, maybe.  There was a lot of grumbling last summer about my replacement-resistance, but I was not listening. 

Part of it was that major appliances bring out the -- what does Kowalski call it? -- Depression-era farm wife in me.  I am going to suck the marrow out 0f them.  Also, the stove & I have a unique relationship -- it is all mine, really, and I know a little something about how it works.  Not a lot, but enough.  Also, I keep it really, really, really immaculate, and if you know me, you know how I value this proof of my tenacity. 

 

 

If you look closely at the hood, at the front aspect of it, you will see where I once -- when we first bought the house from the slattern from whom the range conveyed -- scrubbed at it so hard that I wore away the paint.  This was not the first time I scrubbed something so hard the paint came off, but I know you already knew that.  But it was always kind of a bummer and a remonstrance ("Use ammonia, girl!").

We had a blip of semi-inspired "shopping" for the new range in the fall.  We were, separately or together, in stores for some other utilitarian thing -- Sears after my blowout; The Home Depot for [whatever]; Lowes for [whatever else], etc -- and would stop & look at the displays and then I would say something like, "Yup!  Those are gas ranges!  Look, they sure are for sale in the world!  Can we go?" 

I knew what I wanted:  white, mostly.  And also, very much, I wanted the electronic function of "Timed Bake" or whatever it is called, where you can put, say, 6 potatoes in the oven at 2, set the timer so the oven comes on at 5, and then arrive home from ballet at 6 to baked potatoes to accompany yr slow-c0oker soup?  Yes.  We had this feature on our wall-oven in Maryland, and man.  It was really convenient. 

That concluded my list of demands.  But I c0uld not bring myself to go out & participate in the commerce of it all.  Meanwhile, the stove still ran 50 degrees cooler than the dial at temperatures less than 400, the left-burners' igniter was snapped off by Mari in 2009, and at the v end of 2011, the front right burner started firing in an amorphous, globular way, instead of a round of neat spikes under the pot.  I started to disassemble the burners to investigate, but realized maybe this was the time to bid adieu.

I was on the phone with Kowalski, merbling about this very (interesting!) thing, and he asked me to refresh his memory as to how I came by the major appliances for the doll's house. 

Oh!  My God!  Our service guys!  They also deal appliances!  Wait!  I never thought about it because with the doll's house, I had some serious space constraints and I gave it over to them wholly -- Please bring the thing that fits and doesn't suck.  They were heroes in this matter!

Mari & I were in Ballet Town last week when my phone rang.  I went light-up (on -duty) and chattered for a few minutes about my list of demands, then dug the index card with the measurements from my pocket.  I chattered gaily for a few more minutes and rang off.

Mari asked, almost rhetorically, who had been on the phone.

"Rafe," I told him, still cutiepie.  "From Rafe & Bill's."  (Blink.  Blink)

"Honey," he was so resigned to my tactics; I was so in love with him.  "Did I really hear you tell Rafe that he would be able to be just like Santa Claus?"

"Yes!"  Because I am irrepressible!  "Honey, almost every guy wants to be a hero, but there is no one who doesn't want to be Santa."

There was mock-groaning.  I reminded him that I share everything with him.  It is like the last time we were at Sal's and his tub trap sprang a leak & flooded his first floor --  I was there so I oversaw the whole day's-length repair.  I also had the plumber replace the kitchen faucet with one I scooted out to get while he fixed the tub.

The kitchen faucet replacement was an add-on I had wanted for a long time in that house.  So, I had it taken care of  & added on to Sal's bill.  Reviewing the invoice with him, I told him that, yk, as long as the guy was there, why not? 

"Now," I told him archly, and more than a little put-upon + weary from the Flood, "you know what it is like to have a wife!"

Sal kept reviewing & asked what a parts charge was, down near the bottom.  

"Oh," I told him.  "Your sink line was all mucked-up with deposits and he couldn't get it back together.  All the plumbing in the under-sink cabinet is new, but he didn't charge for labor, just the parts."

"Now, Sal" Mari announced from the edge of the dining room where he had been all day, jockeying his laptop in his Frette robe, "you know what it's like to have Elle for your wife!"

Not quite Sal doesn't.  Mari told me today on the phone, "When I get home tomorrow, I want you to be in the bed: naked!"

I paused.  "Oka-aay," I told him, before I paused again (the wind-up!).  "Who with?"

Ahahahaha!  I won that one.  Ahaha!

 

 

Anyhow, the new range!  Yes!  It has the timer thingy+ also 2 hot-like-the-sun burners up front & one pianissimo burner in back.  Also, if you feel like we need to do the scales of math in repair cost v replacement costs -- which we ladies sometimes must do -- you should know for yr files we could have replaced that thermostat 9 times more.  But I would not have a new hood.  À bientôt!  

sleepy

Mari has been home since Thursday, hanging around.  I have been mostly lying around, usually in bed, knitting.  We went to a hockey game on Friday & again on Saturday.  Overtime periods galore.  

 

 I am not sure if this scoreboard is a message about the Mayan prophecy or maybe something regarding Lunar New Year, or even perhaps the Father + Son & Holy Spirit.  But I took a photo, just in case we need to refer back to it. 

 

Mari & the kids were supposed to go to NYC yesterday, but just could not extricate themselves from the cocoon of our home & all of its food in the fridge.  Yawn.  I thought he was going back to the office Wednesday, but he said he goes back to the office, yk, sometime.  Like in the olden days.  Yum.

 

I took some of my knitting time to work on a sampler-stitch swatch for the Granny Square Knit-Assembly.  An actual swatch is being knitted.  I mean, I think this is the first time I have ever swatched.  No, wait: I swatched a long time ago for Kowalski's first pair of socks, because I was not sure how the yarn would knit up in the round.  I wound up not using that yarn, nor that pattern.

Usually, I just start knitting the thing & then check the gauge when there is a fat lot of fabric.  If the gauge is off, I rip it back.   I know I am not the only one.  But this time, with the pieces and parts & all the sewing, I want to make sure that I know how many stitches to cast on for my finished size. 

Valentine's Day is out there, on the horizon.  I am longing a lot, as is normal & usual & well-documented at this time of the year.  At least no one has almost died yet in 2012.  Jesus. 

I was doing the holiday cards in December & Mari said to me, after watching for a while, "Are you really going to write a personal note on each card?"  (There were 75 cards.)  

I said, "Yeah, I'm sending a card, right?  It's personal, honey."

He shook his head and rifled through the pile of already-personalized cards.  "You have really got to send valentines."  He just can't let that go!

 

After a slow & grating beginning, I am loving Pinterest.  So much, yes. 

 

Mrs Israeli & my Favorite Youngest Son are on their way to Tel Aviv right now, so safe travels to them.  Bisous for you all.  2012!        

amber waves

When we were in Washington again, I can't even remember when ... I guess it was the time before Christmas; the mental-hospital/Holocaust-Memorial times (irony!), we took another quick pre-closing look at the National Archives' exhibit, What's Cooking, Uncle Sam?

Eucalyptus can just grow in the ground in North America? Why do we not have koalas?

It was really, really good.  We saw it right after in opened in June, and wanted a second look (because we did not just see the shit out of it the first time), but by then it was Summer in Our Nation's Capital and ugh, no.  Long lines!  Horrible people!  Bleargh! 

Anyhow, one morning while we were lying around, practicing our layabout, life-of-leisure moves, Garçon said, suddenly filled with purpose, "We should finish seeing that food exhibit, Mom!  It's going to close pretty soon!"

Because obviously, you see, he belongs immediately in a locked psychiatric ward.  Oh, am I talking about that?  No, not yet.  Shh.  Shhhhhh.

We set out right in that next few minutes to walk over & do just that.  It was a really good exhibit, really carefully-curated, and not to get into too much endless narration, but the second trip had really high yields.  We had walked the entire road of the exhibit, but there was so much, and we wanted to go back, yk, to absorb.  I like to apply the SQRRR method to museum-going & the children do, too.

Anyhow.  There was no photography allowed, otherwise I would have blogged the shit out of it months ago. 

Why am I writing about this?  Oh!  Right, yes.  Sorry.  (tap-tap-typing-tap-tap)

 

So, Garçon wanted the exhibit catalog (danger! to society!), and also the cookbook.  I demurred the cookbook, ultimately, because I have enough cookbooks; please understand I am in danger of becoming a cookbook hoarder, especially antique cookbooks.  Plus, this cookbook was $30 and I did not want LBJ's corn-dodger recipe that badly.  But!  Perusing the book to judge its worth, I saw there were two WWI pamphlets credited in every recipe that appealed.  They both came from the Office of Food Administration and were, obvs,  of keen interest to me:  "Wheatless Wednesdays" and "Potato Possibilities."

This is what the Library of Congress is for, and lying so conveniently between the Archives and Sal's house, too!  Wonderful!  God Bless America!

 

This is the bread called Oaten Bread.  The recipe is: 2c ground oats, 4tsp baking powder, 1tsp salt, 1cup milk, and one egg.  Mix dry, mix wet, mix together, let rise for 30 minutes, greased loaf pans in a moderate oven for 35 minutes.  I took this to mean a hair over 350F and also used one loaf pan for the whole thing.  I also, the third time I made it, cut the salt in half to no bakering effect.  It was way too salty before. 

It does not suck; it is not pretending to be anything it isn't.  Also, bears a mighty strange textural resemblance to cornbread, I think.  (It's been at least 5 years since I have had cornbread.  I should ask Mari or Fille, which had not occurred to me.)  It is the perfect vehicle for jam, nut butters, and possibly egg salad.  Definitely alongside soup, slathered in butter.  Or with 2 poached eggs and the last of the boczek from Christmas.  Yes.  À bientôt.

wpa

Remember the Granny Square Times?  Yes.  They have been piled in the guest-room closet for 5 years, or however many. 

 

A couple of years ago, Anthropologie (I think), had a throw that was part-knitted, part-crochet -- it might have been granny squares, it could have been hexes, I forget -- and it made me think that patchwork-texture of  patchwork-craft might be a way to deal with those boring old grannies.

 

This month's Living has a blanket featured.  It is knitted, but in pieces, and there is a schematic, so it was pretty easy to think ab0ut assembling squares into blocks and then putting them alongside blocks of garter-stitched rectangles.  So that is kind of in the hopper. 

It is more exciting than this.

 

Way more portable, too.  xo 

vroom

I made cookies Monday. 

I used Elana Amsterdam's chocolate-chip/cranberry/walnut recipe, but subbed in cherries.  I put aside a half-dozen for my celiacky next-door neighbor, but our ways parted before I could give them to her.   

So, it's just me & these six cookies.  Staring each other down, revving our engines.  Hm.

Holiday undecking free to commence, finally.  As already written elsewhere on the internet, on Boxing Day when there were still three more nights of Hanukkah, I was like, OMG, get the fuck out of here, Winter Holidays!  Shoo!  I could have dismantled everything on Dec 29, too, by avoiding this real-life Christmas Day exchange with the children:

"Excuse me, children," then they came on their little floor-slapping feet.  "Why is everyone congregated in the stable with the Holy Family?  With camels, and trunks of precious resins and metals?"

 

(All of the animals were always there, and the Kellies with their hot cocoa were a gray area.  Fille said they were serving in a midwifery capacity, and being a proponent of things-Marian, I let it go.)

They hemmed & hawed, reaching no accord, then shrugged at each other.  Garçon spoke for them both & told me they just put everyone in for Christmas.

You know, I could just take a vow of silence and it would be just about the same to the knowledge base of everyone who lives here, big & small. 

"The Baby goes in on Christmas Eve.  The Wise Men do not get there until later.  Why do you think it is called Three Kings Day?"

Fille wriggled forward toward me like a balletic Arnold Horshack.  "Oh, I know!  Because they were there for the brit!"

It did, as the Israeli would prognosticate when I told him this story, break my heart a little to tell her she was wrong.  But I did get to give them the lowdown on the history of the Octave Day (nerdout Mariology!).

 

Also from the out-of-the-mouths file:

Femme (serving a second lunch to Garçon):  Ok, here it is, but I re-heated it in the microwave, so now it has been irradiated & is devoid of all nutrients.

Garçon: Er, Mom?

Femme: I know,  I know (!), you don't believe that.

Garçon:  Yeah, no, I don't believe that, Mom.

Femme:  And that's fine!  You like machines!  But as your mother, I am obligated to tell you when I believe I have served you food that is void of nutrition. 

 

That is more of an out-of-my-mouth anecdote, you know.

I have been looking for a copy of My Life & Hard Times for Garçon for most of the last few months.  I think he will love it, but no bookstore has it.  And I only met one bookstore employee who even knew who Thurber was.  You either know how this is not a non sequitor or you do not.  Bonne chance!  Do not let me begin the endless narration.  À bientôt!   

 

 

reformation

We had oatmeal pancakes for the first time in a long time for New Year's breakfast.

I am notorious in my pancake-hatred; it is as nearly renowned as my ketchup-hatred.  My instant appreciation of these made the rounds fairly quickly, with some pretty significant people rushing to their griddles to find out what had wooed me thus. 

They are not a pretty pancake.  In fact, the greatest feedback I received was complaints over their failure to turn, their breakableness, which led to v many a-ha moments with old friends regarding an invitation to consider their ideal coloration of a cooked-pancake.  It was one of those things that lingered with me for a while, this kind of knowing about a guy's ideal pancake.  It stood there, taunting me, a testament to a thing I had long tried to sidestep and sidle by.  Anyhow.

Anyhow, we like them and they meet our needs.  Mari made bacon to go alongside for the two of us, but meh.  Pancakes are enough already.  Now oatmeal + bacon:  that is breakfast high-rolling. 

À bientôt, j'espère.  Also:  Fuck 'em, Bucky.  xox

liege

2011 started off extra-strong with not having to secure babysitting to attend a rock concert.  Let's look at that again.  I'll make it bigger.

 

2011 started off extra-strong with not having to secure babysitting to attend a rock concert.

 

It was just that huge, that first time.  I mean, we would leave them to go to the supermarket or the post office, but to go out?  At night?  Not until that day.  It is still pretty trippy, every time we do it.  Bye, love you.  Don't use the stove, no fighting, no biting. 

Wow.

Then, yk: kittens, growing; kittens, facing mortality.  Then whatever to all that cat stuff because Kowalski's mother was dying, and there were the unyielding reports filed, every night, many mornings, there were a lot of confessions and solemn agreements made. 

By the late spring, my favorite + best, the Israeli, wandering in the haze of the untreatable, was promised a way out and that was resolved in its entireity and whoa, so many people are happy.  It was touch & go at the start of recovery's road, but for months now he has been so great and I am so glad. 

We had a great trip home & I no longer -- if ever I had -- believe that old saw about how you can't go home again.  You can, and it will still be every moment the right hometown for you.  I am still glad not to live there, but never for the reasons people think.  It is my secret. 

Things reached a head in our family dynamic this summer, and 2011 is the year of useless pediatricians, but now we are going to turn the page on every single one of them.  It is so strange, because, yk, we talk to people, we are processors & confessors and I am a confider in a few people, and every time, with the twatty health-care providers, I have had to review -- am I making something where there is nothing? -- and it's always, "No, no, their behavior is outrageous." 

Although, the Israeli did say, very recently, when I called him about Mental Hospital Detail, limply putting my metaphorical self into his metaphorical hands, "You know, cookie, when you go to a carpenter, they generally use a hammer."  Ah. 

So who knows where that will go in the weeks and months to come.  I pretty much still feel very whatever-y about him, but he is my son and not my husband, so I do not actually have to work it out.  Take Michael and Fredo, right?  Shake it up with Fermina Daza.  Shoot! See?  Snake-eyes.  Yes.  He is a lovely child, until you ask him to do something.  But on travel, anywhere?  He is fine.  So, we will just never be at home again.  Or, more likely, I will simply bribe them more with trips to get what I want when we are home.  We no longer have pets in our care, so E-Z. 

We were in NYC yesterday, site of much delicate-lounging during 2011, to go to MoMA.  You have to know that I was going to perish if I did not see the de Kooning exhibit.  It was so good.  So! Good!

 

(So crowded!)

There were no photographs allowed in the galleries, so there are none here, but it was such a grand scale.  It was completely thorough, and Fifille was excited about a lot of process discussed in the curatorial exegesis from the audio tour.  I love the MoMA audio-tours.  I am not really an audio-tour person, but anyhow.

Also, at the de Kooning exhibit?  Stanley Tucci.  He was taking a photograph of the two women with him flanking the canvas of de Kooning's Two Standing Women, which I had just admired before doubling back to see another thing again. 

He had his camera right out!  Using the flash!  Even when photographs are allowed, flash is never!  In no museum!  I sidled past him & said, whispery-y -- if you know, you know exactly how this came out -- "You are going to get into trouble!" 

He was wholly conspiratorial in response, "I know, I am, shhh, I have to hurry!" 

Mari, of course, was all, "Did you just chide Stanley Tucci?" 

I did.  Know why?  He was doing bad behavior.  Duh.  But he is really very handsome.  Also, as with many people from the audiovisual world?  Smaller than you'd think. 

Then we had dinner in the 2nd-floor museum cafe, naturally.  Flourless chocolate cake is back on the menu, bliss, and the coffee is still pretty good.  Garçon had been at a portion of IFC's Studio Ghibli revue with Algren, but they turned up toward the end of dinner for the hand-off. 

Then we all went to the Diego Rivera exhibit. 

I was flattened.  There is really not v much more to say about it.  His work has a reach & a relevance thematically that I feel is really something to see at this moment, in particular, so there was that, but also -- Rivera is never really highlighted as an innovator, or a problem-solver, in his work.  He is almost always presented as the leading North American Communist who was a muralist and  who was sought out to diversify the human collections of people like Ford and the Rockefellers, who refused to take any shit off of anyone.  And, yk, dayenu, but then to find out that he constructed a way to make his work, murals, portable ... it just blew my mind.  Man.    

In conclusion, before we can all look forward to a 2012 full of sports-journalism blogging, I offer the traditional 8tracks thingo of my favorite tunes from 2011.  I think I try to keep it to 10, but last year I could not whittle it down at all, two years ago, there was an A-list and a B-list, and this year is 11.  Or 12.  I think.  I LOVE THEM ALL. 

This is a pretty-exciting piece of media from 2011, also.

I pronounce 2011 pretty great, even as (especially as?) it ends with my total-laryngitis, which harkens back to so many ways in which I try to improve my self -- with the needing to ask & the reliance and the willingness to be helpless, but also the shutting up the endless yammering.  Like now.  Have a safe evening and a restful pair of holidays, whether you are near to me or far.  xox

 

serendipity. synchronicity.

If you might be taking your sensitive child along to see Guy Ritchie's new Sherlock Holmes endeavor, work in a trip to fully take in the Holocaust Memorial Museum's special exhibit on Nazi propaganda a few days prior. 

 

Because Moriarty's casual sadism has got nothing on the designs of Hitler, Himmler, and Goebbels.  I looked over at her during a scary part -- when Holmes was in a bad way & Moriarty was being super-madman -- just to check in, and she was enraptured -- totally secure in the knowledge that this was made-up.  Superb.  Phew.

 

Hanukkah is just somehow going the fuck on and on -- practically to the New Year! -- and it is getting me down.  Then it was on Christmas (unrelenting!), and I had some cake-issues -- two cakes went down the Nigella road.  We can get back to that, because I love to talk about fucking it up.  But, anyhow, in spite of the elation of fucking it up endlessly, I decided that I could withstand any kind of disappoinment and so I tried again -- for the first time in many years -- with the Hanukkah doughnut.

 

I grew up with latkes being on the periphery -- fried dough was the main event.  Just plain yeasted doughnuts -- bimuelos -- and when I met the Israeli, my eyes were widened to the jelly doughnut -- sufganiyot -- which are way less intensive than a bunch of grating of potatoes, with a bigger payoff, obvsly. 

I tried to adapt a doughnut our first gluten-free holiday, and it was te-he-herrible.  Not even filled with jelly were they edible.  When I made pão de queijo in the summer, it got me thinking.  Pão de queijo batter is, mostly, just pâte à choux, I mean, in its bones.  The oil, the eggs, the whirling.  Hm.  I substituted tapioca flour for all-purpose in the boilerplate pâte à choux sketch.  Et voila. 

 

I felt like Louis Pasteur.  You have no idea.  No idea. 

 

What happened with the cakes was too much sugar, two times.  I did not take a photo of the actual failing, but it looked just like the last time this happened, with a volcano of cake.  Blech.

The first time, I thought it was that I had subbed in blanched almond flour for the wheat flour.  That was some of it, because in the second cake I used starchier flours and it was at least cake-like in its crumpled-up way, if not an actual cake.

 

The problem was mostly too much sugar.  I had subbed -- besides the flour -- granulated sugar for brown sugar 1:1.  No.  Down with cooking by volume!  Brown sugar weighs 6 ounces to a one-cup measure and granulated sugar is 8 ounces.  So, I used a third more sugar than the recipe called for.  Now I know.  Live & learn. 

But: doughnuts!  Dude!

blabbity-blob

I'm not actually blogging because I do not actually feel like the endless narration.

The black cakes came out great, if in need of a little breathing/evaporation of the post-baking brushing of rum.  After the last trip to the pasticciera -- I am not being insufferable using the Italian, it's just that otherwise, in our house, if I just say Going to the bakery! there needs to be qualification, but if I say On my way to the pasticciera! I am only speaking of one place. 

 

Or maybe it is insufferable, for example, if one is illiterate.  But in that case, you were neither invited, nor are you valued generally as reader of this space.  Capisce?

 

Anyhow, after the last trip to the pasticciera, I could hardly stand firm against the wrapped-up cakes anymore and even though I was saving every single one of them for a Dec 24/25 experience, I caved.  It's fine, the lapse in discipline.  I am happy about chewing through a slice, now & then, with a hot cup of tea.  I see the need for the peel I chose against; it's awfully sweet & peel would bring it up in flavor.

See, how the endless narration just slips out?!

Let us cling to the lifeboat of a list, ok?

• I think I could take the contents of all the neighbors' recycling bins and strew them through our house, on the floors, and my children would never notice.  Or, if they did notice ("Jesus, what a dump"), they would never reach down to place anything into a refuse container with their own hands.  OK.
• I settled on $75 for the children's guitar instructor, attending a heartfelt note commending his meritorious attentions to my son, in particular.  Mari still frowned at me, while I was assembling my heartily-overthought denominations into an envelope.  He choked similarly when I gifted Fille with a crisp $20 bill for a perfect-perfect dental checkup.  Honey, I told him then, rolling my eyes.  $20 every 6 months is comprised of a nickel every time she brushes.  This is a similarly-cumulative payout, less than $1 per lesson.  Everyone is happy.
• Am listening to Christmas radio, wondering how "My Favorite Things" became a Christmas song when the context it attends is not and also, trying to work out what would happen if Joe Jackson came upon Katherine Jackson in a clinch with Santa, in fact.
• The psychologist -- we like to call her Dr Vajazzler -- conferenced with us about her report in the first week of December, still recommending immediate inpatient admission for Garçon .  The following day, I went through a long list of every psychiatric facility with a pedes ward in the region and every one of them replied to me -- kindly & filled with the weight of their credentials -- by saying, essentially, This is an inappropriate recommendation for the child in this report.  What the hell?  I called Dr Vajazzler & said, "So, everyone says no to your recommendation & can you reconcile your urgency & their apathy?"  She railed at me for a long time, extremely defensive, super-bitchy, and that was the last I heard from her or anyone in her facility. 
  
  Until I sent an email yesterday which asked, essentially, once you cut through all the duplicitous civilizations of it, Does my kid need acute psychiatric intervention or not?  Are you totally unprofessional, or are you just completely incompetent?  Check 1 for yes, 2 for no.  Write me back!  Then the reply-to-all shenanigans commenced.  If you know, or if you are a close reader in this space, you know that these missteps were like the suediest handbag ever.  There was actual glee, with tiny, mincing, clapping.  Also, squealing.  Then I proceeded to fuck with them.  They must have figured out they were all emailing me in error, because today there is total radio silence.  Wankers.  Also, WTF about standards of care?  We recommend surgery!  Oh, well, but the surgeons don't, so ...  So I still recommend surgery!  I do!  Surgical!  I'm right!  This is your fault because you homeschool!  What?

Oh!  Accidental narration!  A spill!  Argle-bargle!

 

Mari found a sweater in a put-away pile of winter clothes I never wear, up in the attic.

"Is this Fille's?" he asked, reasonably. 

"It's mine!"  I said, snatching at it.  Then I inspected it closely.  It is a Michael Kors half-alpaca, half-merino sweater & I adore it, but have never worn it because it is never cold enough here to have even thought about wearing it.  I must have clutched it to my heart in the store without looking at it, and then somehow purchased it without realizing that it would only fit me if I were to keep my breasts in my pocket.  But my child is cold all the time and we have a similar kind of severity in our fashion aesthetic (french cuffs on the wedding gown, people), so alors.  Bonne chance, pretty girl.

I guess I should get back to comporting myself as a person who operates on a Holiday Open House paradigm, baking & procuring & all.  Hm.  I miss sports-journalism blogging already.  À la prochaine. 

spoonful of sugar

No one will turn you away if you have dangling from your finger by its string a bakery box filled with Italian cookies.

 

Further, if you develop a reputation for being the girl who fetches a pound or two of Italian cookies from the county's best pasticciera to bring along to every gathering, you will find yrself invited to everything, even if you are not particularly nice and/or do not exactly cultivate people.  Every now & then you should appear with a rum sponge -- or for more intimate gatherings, a tray of cannoli -- just to keep people aiming higher.

Last night on Prairie Home Companion, Garrison Keillor put words to something I know to be absolutely true, but for which I never had the words.  He was saying that [Midwesterners] are proud of winter, that it is embarrassing not to have winter, that we need winter to feel invincible.  Yes!  I can't believe I never looked at it so simply before.  Yes.  If you know that & you know that all I miss about a public, Catholic observance is the privation of Lent, well, then, you might know all there is to know about me.   

Invincibility is a pretty cool power.  It goes right along with the white box of cookies and the can of gasoline.  Oh, and Mari says it doesn't hurt to have big, googly eyes and long, long giraffe's eyelashes.  Hm.  We'll catch up about all that soon, I hope.  Gros bisous.     

boozy smoothie

I have been trying all day to get this cake made. 

See, it isn't just twittering!  I was actually zesting a lime.  Menial!  I am glad that I did not gut it out and try to bake it any of the other days I bonked the project because it is just that time-consuming to me.  There would have been real tears, particularly if Mari had been here to dry my eyes. 

 

Also, I have to say that my opinion of the KitchenAid mixer is very poor.  Why?  Well, because it performs poorly.  You can do what you like, but I am pretty sure my $60 Sunbeam/Oster stand mixer from 16 years ago was finely & regally cloaked in ermine & silks, while this buster is naked!  Whatever about that.  I will make something more within my ken than royal icing or black cake before I pass this goes back to the manufacturer for total dissatisfaction judgment.

This is all the placemarking for which there is time; the frozen almond flour should be a little malleable by now & God knows I can not have the children down in the kitchen eating huge mouthfuls from the muck of kirsch-rehydrated fruits. 

Ok, Wednesday.  Yes.