The RedMolly Picayune-Democrat

Tears of the Minotaur

Wouldn't that be a great, by which I mean awful, title for a fantasy novel? I think I'll write it, once I get done with the current (ha) one (ha ha). Which I did write almost 5000 words on yesterday, so shut up. (My new Cunning Plan: finish a book, sell it, make money from it, then be a stay-at-home mommy and spend some time doing genu-wine kid stuff, which sounds wonderfully tempting right now but would probably drive me crazy about three weeks into the actual endeavor).

It's been a rough few weeks here at Chez Newman, as I think I just typed in an e-mail to a recently-made-former colleague. Job loss, rain rain rain, Jim being asked not to come in yesterday because there weren't enough reservations to justify the presence of so many employees, a complete & total embargo on anyone ever calling me back about any job ever, and then as a capper I had to go watch 28 Days Later and Pan's Labyrinth in fairly rapid and entirely depressing succession. So now there are visions of Rage-infested Spanish Fascist soldiers dancing like so many blood-leaking sugarplums in my head. And I am sitting in a cafe working on a laptop computer with no functional battery and a keyboard that transmits signals about 4 seconds after I actually press the key, and there is an old deafish lady at the next table screaming "Memoir! MEMOIR!!" at her old deafish husband, which is a tiny shred of fabulousness in an otherwise grim outlook.

And now, an anecdote.

The place: Fisher & Rhys' bedroom, last night around 11 o'clock. (Bedtime, schmedtime.)
The situation: both boys are tucked into bed; Fisher is sobbing loudly, having just recently fallen down the stairs, barked his shin and gotten scolded for yelling "GET ME A F*CKING JACKHAMMER NOW!" at me. (Get it? Jackhammer... so he can destroy the offending stairs? Get it?)

Rhys (holding Fisher's baby doll out to Fisher): Look, Fisher, it's Dr. Fraaaanklin... coming to fix you up and make you all beeeeetter! (makes tickling motions with baby doll) Tickle, tickle, tickle!

Me: Rhys, I don't know if that's the wisest thing to do when you're sitting next to someone with that much clobbering power. (N.B.: "Clobbering power" is said in a sort of faux-monster truck announcer voice... think "Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!!")

Fisher: (sobs degenerate into throaty howls, from which he will not be dissuaded, and so he continues to hide under the covers and cry while the rest of us "tell the day," i.e., share our favorite parts of the day with each other)

Me: (rubbing Fisher's back) Sweetie, are you sad because your leg really hurts?

Fisher: No, because you said a mean thing... you said I have pummeling power and I DON'T WANT PUMMELING POWER!

Me: (massive maternal guilt wave) Oh, Sweetie, I'm sorry... I know you've been trying really hard lately not to pummel anyone.

Fisher (face pushed into pillow): I have! I've been trying so hard!

So after some reassurances and my warm glow that Fisher is apparently disavowing all forms of violence... yeah, like half an hour later I was back in there making Fisher stop forcing Rhys' face into the mattress while Rhys squeaked in terror. Pummeling, no... smothering, yes, apparently. Sigh.

Also, what should my parents name this concrete-colored cat who appears to have adopted them?

The kitties say hello

Jean, while she is at it, asks if she can eat your soul.

Apparently she thinks it would be yummy.

(And no, I did not Photoshop her tongue. It really is that bizarre color.)

Birthday Berry Benham Blowout

Seven years ago today, on a cold, dark night ...early spring morning... Rhys made his triumphant remarkably peaceful entrance into the world.

What's cool about his birthday being April 20, which day he shares with Adolf Hitler, is how completely and utterly his sweet and downright schnookumy personality gives the lie to the notion of any sort of astrological predestination. Suck it, star-gazers!

(Also, happy birthday, Amy!)

Birthday highlights so far:

• Adorable baby harp seal puppet from Grammy and Pa via the Audubon Society gift shop
• Easy Bake Oven from Grandma and Grandpa, complete with Rhys' blase face on the box
• More Legos than you can shake a stick at, really, from pretty much everybody
• Pirate Playmobil figures from awesome Nanny Eryn, who came over and helped us celebrate with her cute girlfriend Aubrey
• incredibly delicious strawberry lemon shortcakes: recipe below

Strawberry Lemon Shortcake
Makes 4 shortcakes, serving 4 to 8 people depending on how lavishly you wish to celebrate

Combine in a bowl:

• 3 cups halved and thinly sliced strawberries
• 2 to 4 Tbsp sugar, adjusting to account for strawberries' sweetness

Place in refrigerator and allow to macerate (hee hee) while preparing the rest of the recipe.

Combine in a largish bowl:

• 2 cups flour
• 4 Tbsp sugar
• 1-1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt

Add 4 Tbsp cold butter and cut in with two knives (or a pastry blender, should you be blessed with such an item) until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. This will take a long time and you will start to get annoyed. Persevere.

In a smaller bowl, combine

• 6 Tbsp half-and-half
• 2 egg yolks, beaten
• 1-1/2 tsp. lemon zest (Zesty!)

Stir this mixture into the dry ingredients; dough will be sticky. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead 10 times. (Ten shall be the number thou shalt knead, and the number of the kneading shall be ten. Eleven shalt thou not knead, neither knead thou nine, excepting that thou then proceed to ten. Twelve is right out.)

Divide dough into quarters; pat each into a pleasantly rounded, 3/4" thick form. Arrange on an ungreased baking sheet, leaving 2" between cakes.

Bake at 400 degrees for 8-12 minutes, watching to make sure they don't go from just-right to crispy in a precipitous fashion. Remove from oven, transfer to a cooling rack and allow to rest for 15 minutes while you finish the other accoutrements, which are:

Lemon Butter
Stir together 3 Tbsp softened butter and 1/2 tsp lemon zest. Set aside.

Whipped Cream
Beat 1 cup whipping cream to soft peaks. Add 1 tsp vanilla extract and 2-3 tsp powdered sugar. Beat until thoroughly combined.

Split shortcakes in half lengthwise (derrr). Spread each cut side lightly with lemon butter. Pile strawberries onto bottom half, dollop with whipped cream and replace tops. (Or, for a less profligate dessert, just serve the tops and bottoms separately, piled with strawberries and whipped cream.)

Dust lightly, if you like, with cinnamon or cocoa powder and serve it forth.

Oh, and in other news, here's Mean Jean making her Barack Obama face.

An Engineer's Guide to Cats

Best part: "corporal cuddling."

'k, that was totally whiny and obnoxious

...sorry about that.

Please enjoy this video about a cat instead.

You bring questions, I bring answers...

...you bring cake, I bring tea. And we'll all snuggle up together in the cloudy dark and, as promised, I will tell you about what you wanted to know, but maybe not enough of it, and maybe too much, and I might mention the wrong bits and leave the wrong bits out.

Anyway: it looks as though most of you are interested in hearing about homeschooling, and also about red wine, and even cats, and there was one oddling among you who wants to know what I'm wearing. (Doc: jeans and a long-sleeved thermal shirt with a black t-shirt over it. Socks, no shoes. Foxy!)

So, duly:

Homeschooling, our routines thereof, and our political opinions pertaining thereunto.
"Routine," unsurprisingly, is not a word upon which our family particularly thrives. We have really nothing resembling a daily routine, but we do have something of a weekly rhythm.

• Monday. Miss Eryn, our capable and game-for-anything nanny (Yes! We have a nanny! Two days a week! So Mama can work, and Papa can work too!) arrives at 10 a.m. sharp. This is the one day of the week when, without fail, the boys have some "book work" to do. Fisher works in Wordly Wise, a vocabulary development program that he doesn't seem to hate too much, and Rhys works in Explode the Code, a phonics-ish program that he actually seems to enjoy. Each boy does a little bit of math. Fisher usually has a puzzle, a brainteaser or a page of standardized test prep to work on. During the term at Village Home, Rhys has a few pages of homework for his Math Fun-damentals class. Once their workbook stuff is completed, they usually go to the park/the zoo/the coffee shop where Eryn works/for some other entertaining excursion. Sometimes they do science experiments. Sometimes they hang around and play with Legos. Eryn is here until 4 p.m., and after she leaves, the boys and I just kinda hang out depending on how much work I still need to get done.

• Tuesday. A day of flux and adaptability! Which usually means that I have lots of work to do, the house needs to be cleaned (Tuesday is sheet-washing day) and the boys are pretty much left to their own Lego-centric devices all day.
   
• Wednesday. Miss Eryn returns! Today, the boys have classes at Village Home: Rhys' are math and "Messy Science," Fisher's are Nature Detectives (with the indomitable Miss Misty!) and art. Afterwards, they pretty much always go to OMSI for a couple hours of science-based fun.
   
• Thursday. More Village Home, this time in the company of Mama! We listen to audiobooks on the way there and back again; right now, we are listening to (and thoroughly enjoying) Gombrich's A Little History of the World. I can tell the boys are paying attention because now they pretend to be such figures from history's great pageant as Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Spartacus and Nero. (Guess who always has to be Nero. I need to get that kid a fiddle... no, I don't think we need anything burning.) How come nobody ever wants to be Lao-Tzu? Each of the boys has a fantastic multi-age, multi-disciplinary class today; Rhys' focuses on countries of the world, while Fisher's theme last term was holidays & celebrations around the world. Fisher also has a drama class which involves indescribable amounts of silliness... but he loves it, and he's got to be silly sometimes, right?
   
• Friday. A day of jolly family togetherness! We usually go to the library on Fridays--usually to the North Portland branch, but sometimes all the way down to Central Library. The boys inevitably bring home stacks of Calvin and Hobbes books, plus oodles of nonfiction on whatever their current object of obsession is. (Currently for Rhys, it's Vikings and animals. For Fisher, World War I. For both boys, ancient Rome, especially Pompeii. We've spent the last couple months reading aloud the Roman Mysteries series at bedtime, and hey, who doesn't like plaster body casts and pornographic murals? No, we haven't looked at the pornographic murals together. That's for Mama and Papa only.)

• Saturday & Sunday. These days used to entail extra-jolly whole-family togetherness, but Jim is going to be working every weekend starting in April, so the boys and I will be left to our own devices. Whatever shall we do?

I realize, after writing this down, that our "rhythm" sounds remarkably loosey-goosey... and yeah, maybe it is. But one of the greatest things about homeschooling is the freedom it offers to put aside schoolishness and all that entails--textbooks, tests, attendance sheets and grades--and focus instead on learning whatever, wherever, whenever we choose. And we will wax poetic about all that stuff after the jump, 'cause there are lots of accompanying pics. Also some more stuff about cats and wine.

Compelled, yet uncompelling

It's Wednesday, I feel like crap and yet I feel compelled to blog about remarkably uncompelling things.

1. Sore throat. Ecch. How can having a sore throat make the rest of you feel awful too? I just want to go to bed, but I don't think that's an option. [Checks.] Nope.
2. Grey. Grey weather, grey mood; grey is the color of disappointment and I'm feeling remarkably disappointed today.
3. All I ask is one day of non-rain. One day when I can actually go outside. Even just for a little while. I mean, this is Portland, and I knew what I was in for, but still... WTF, weather?
4. Why am I listening to this incredibly freaking depressing music? ("Terrible Canyons of Static" by godspeed you! black emperor if for some reason you wanted to know. I'm at the part with the violin/xylophone/reverby guitar solo and I just feel like ripping my wrists open with my teeth. But my god it is beautiful.) But it looks like Teddybears is coming up next on the Party Shuffle (Everybody do the Party Shuffle! Take it to the left... move it to the right...) and that should take care of the whole depressing music thing.
5. I came up with a new beginning for The Book; not a completely new beginning, just a better opening. If only, if only I would write it. Not quite as straightforward, a little bit more imagery-ridden... hell, it'll probably suck but I should write it down anyway just in case.
6. Our book club's most recent book was Jane Eyre, which I was supposed to read in high school but managed to evade, and gosh darn if it wasn't actually a pretty freaking awesome read. Except I bought this edition (the Penguin "Red Classic"), with a creepy pink chick-lit cover and quotes from romance writers all over it, and it spoiled the vibe a teeny bit. Best part, though: the writeups of other "Red Classics" at the back which managed to make Wuthering Heights, Lolita and A Spy in the House of Love all sound kind of uniformly tripely chick-littish, which is awesome in its own marketing-department-on-steroids way.
7. I need an MP3 of the Smiths' "How Soon Is Now?". Does anyone have one to share?
8. What should I write my next photo column about? Actually, the next one will be on why you should be shooting RAW instead of JPEG. How about after that? Srsly, I would love to do one on Naughty Photos (for married people only, you evil-thinkers! Gosh!) but I think that idea will get ye olde editorial kibosh.
9. I was so good at our book club meeting. I had one, and only one, glass of wine--a delicious Kathryn Kennedy Santa Cruz Mountains 2004 Syrah--and it was delicious. I thought I was friendly but not overbearingly chatty. But I am still thinking maybe the two new ladies in the club did not like me so much, and I'm not sure why. Alas.
10. And now, for your viewing pleasure, a picture of the lovely Princess Ella von Smella Bella.
    

And how is your week?

The long, long, long, long and winding road

Well, it did at least eventually lead to our door.

When last we met, our intrepid crew was holed up in the Redding Super 8, where one of the few comforts (almost making up for the nonfunctioning remote control, but not quite) was the presence of free Wi-Fi.

(Lots of pictures, so you're going to have to jump.)

When bad cats do good things, but really they're bad

So Mean Jean has learned to fetch.

Her favoritest toy in the whole wide world is a couple of pipe cleaners twisted together. It seems to provide the exact blend of chewy texture, stringlikeness, wiry robustness and vague countercultural aura that she craves.

The boys stumbled upon this discovery after we'd had her for a short while, and for a couple of weeks she and "Toy" (we're very creative with our pet-accessory naming) were inseparable partners. Then Jean showed up with a woeful expression and sans Toy. Had Toy been lost in the cardboard-box wasteland of our basement? Stuffed down the heater vent? Abducted by aliens? There was no telling. Jean had lost her dearest companion.

Last week while we were at Last Thursday (totally my favorite Portland event), we stopped by Collage (totally my favorite Portland artsy store) so I could get a couple of charcoal pencils. I had already paid and was headed for the door when Rhys came running up to me. "Mama! Mama! Can we get these for Jean?" He held up a huge package of "chenille sticks" (dammit, they're pipe cleaners--call them pipe cleaners!).

"No, honey, they're three dollars and I'm not spending three dollars on pipe cleaners."

"What about dese ones?" Lo and behold, there was a smaller package of "chenille sticks" that only cost a dollar. I'm sure I could've found the same thing at a Big Lots or a thrift store for about forty-three cents, but he was so excited and hopeful... hell, you couldn't have said no to him either. So I gave him a dollar (I'm still adjusting to Oregon's beautiful lack of sales tax... things cost exactly what they say on the price tag! It's crazy world!), he proudly paid for the "chenille sticks" and we headed home to make Jean once again an 'appy cat.

Now, a week later, she's discovered that if she can find someone to throw "Friend" (we couldn't very well name it "Toy" when "Toy" is lost and dead... that'd be sort of grim, wouldn't it?), and if she picks Friend up and returns to the person who tossed it in the first place and drops it at that person's feet and makes her sad high-pitched little squeak-meow, the person will more than likely toss Friend for her again.

It's utterly charming, really, watching this indefatigable little cat go scampering around the house with a mouthful of twisted pipe cleaners. Or it is, at least, the first thirty-eleven times in a row she does it. By my calculations, I've been throwing Friend across the room roughly every twenty seconds for the last... oh, hour or so.

On the bright side, perhaps all this fetching will tucker Jean out so she'll be too tired to burrow under the covers and bite my toes tonight.

A cat-related public service announcement

Possibly the greatest aww-factor of anything I've seen in the last few months.

My parents' cat Cymru (she was actually technically supposed to be my cat, but you know how that goes) displayed somewhat similar symptoms... and she was, as Charley seems to be, an amazingly personable and good-natured kitty. Have you hugged a spasmo-cat today?