Japanese Vending, Jethro Tull, Special Peanuts

When I was very young and knew more about the world (or however Bob Dylan said it), I decided it would be a good idea to work in the travel agency at UVA, mentoring students who didn’t realize they could play beer pong in Europe or that Japanese vending machines dispensed pornography. One excuse I would like to offer for persuading one of my best friends to come work there with me for what seemed like about a year (do you care, LinkedIn?) sitting in a basement office listening to Jethro Tull, was that I believed we were going to end up doing a lot of jetsetting as soon as our IATA cards were approved by Head Office. I didn’t yet realize that being a travel agent wasn’t anywhere near as good as having an American Express Platinum Card for getting hotel room upgrades or imagining strangers admire you. It was all wasted on John anyway. I think he has always gotten things for free. Why is that?

It seems awfully linear to mention this, but only in the sense that I’m picking up a thread from my last post–it has nothing at all to do with the last paragraph, except insofar as the parties have met: It’s starting to look like I might not make it back to Concord Mall for hats before the weekend, when I have my next two birthday celebrations. If you are Katie or Stevie, and you love a surprise, you might want to stop reading this.
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So the good news is, even though, thanks to the snow, I will likely not be able to buy trucker hats for either of the above from Spencer Gifts–and I was kind of wanting to boycott anyway, because last time they were out of “I ❤️ the old Latin mass”–I was able to make each one a cupcake today. They are an homage to Christine’s birthday cupcakes from last week, with the same dark chocolate cake, chocolate ganache center, marshmallow buttercream frosting, and salted caramel drizzle (perfect for those avoiding sugar). I added candied peanuts this time, to commemorate the very special milestone birthdays we’re celebrating this weekend. Can peanuts be said to be wizened? No, no–I’m sure that’s not the word I meant to use.

Four Birthdays, Pfefferbeisser, Concord Mall

I’ve been learning to release my fascia, and I don’t think it’s my imagination that I’m becoming more open in other ways too. I’m finding, for instance, that with the right attitude, you can learn to enjoy other people’s birthdays just as much as your own. Tons of my friends have birthdays right now—what is it about, would it be May? June?–so I’ve been trying to think of creative ways to celebrate with them in this shitty weather. Damn it. I’ve been using too much unladylike language recently. I dropped a jar of whole grain mustard on the floor on Sunday, and what was going to be the perfect post-run avocado toast* ended up going limp while I cleaned up, so I said several of the best HBO words right in a row. “You know those are French words,” I told my children, but they had already learned them from their cousin.

When I was trying to feel Christine out a little bit about how she’d like to celebrate her birthday, she did this gently patronizing thing I’ve watched her do with other people, where she is so clearly not wanting to go along with whatever they’re proposing, but she lets them go ahead and give their whole pitch anyway. Ha! Chumps! Shoot, I didn’t know it could work on me, but I learned several days later that she really did not want to spend her birthday watching me sing karaoke. Anyway–and I’m pretty sure I had nothing to do with this, because if I had, I would have called ahead to order a whole suckling pig for the table–the next thing I knew we were all at Brauhaus Schmitz, drinking large beers and tiny glasses of fennel schnapps, and eating everything on the menu I thought I might enjoy trying to pronounce: Kartoffelpuffer. Apfelmus. Flammkuchen.

Oh, you know, now I’m remembering the non-fennel schnapps at the end of the night that no one else was enough of a German literature major to drink. One of Jay’s friends handed that to me, which reminds me that we were celebrating his birthday too, which is at least one of the reasons a big cool group of P.A.s showed up on their way out to [the discotheque?]. Yes, because I remember Jay was definitely not wearing the birthday hat we bought him at Concord Mall, but he will have plenty of chances. And now that I’ve been there, well beyond the shoeshine place, I’m thinking I might go back to Concord Mall for more hats. Because if you’re counting, you may notice I have two more birthdays to mention. TBC…

*trendy and delicious

Malibu Stacy, Almost-Contest II, A Milestone

Dear E.S.B., (identity protected,) I was kind of floored when you chose to go into statistics professionally, instead of lifeguarding, which seemed like such a natural fit for someone so pretty, with an unusual talent for not squinting. It must be the long, thick Swenson lashes. Oops! Anyway, I was thinking about you, because I have finally seen the appeal of statistical data, at least as it applies to my own blog analytics. I have nothing like the intimacy with my readership that, say, Facebook has with all of us, but I do know that I’m about to cross the 1600-view threshold. Real blogs–the kind with photographs, ads, and sincerity–get this kind of traffic in a week. Still, it thrills me, though I would never admit it. I wanted to get a 1600 on my SATs, once upon a time, only I didn’t care about statistics yet, and that was a problem, or several, maybe, and the answer wasn’t always B.

I was thinking about holding another blog-wide contest, to commemorate the 1600^th view. Two problems: 1.) WordPress will not tell me with enough specificity who’s reading it. 2.) What if the winning viewer turned out to be someone I didn’t know in real life, and the prize, cookies? Would that person even want to eat them? Maybe the prize should have been something inedible—I mean–not a food prize. A chance to be mentioned on the blog? Wow, who is getting a big head?

Misspent Youth, Pour-a-Quiche, Introducing Rosamunde Portsmouth

When I was busy misspending my youth–by which I mean everything from the day I quit piano lessons, through the summer I lived in the “International House” in Freiburg learning [card games] instead of German, up until I realized all my options had become limited–I often heard myself telling people I thought maybe I would write a book one day. I can’t imagine now when I supposed I’d accomplish it–while my children were playing out of doors or building dioramas out of found objects? It turns out what I tend to do, after I have finished doing their chores, while they are definitely not watching Austin and Ally, is an elaborate cooking project. Recently, however, like all responsible husbands, mine has set some limits for me—among them, a three-hour time limit for preparing dinner. “Not every meal is Thanksgiving,” adds a cheeky eleven year-old.

In the plus column, now that I’m limited to potted meats and Pour-a-Quiche, I’ll have plenty of time for Rosamunde Portsmouth, the heroine of my forthcoming series of novels. I haven’t decided what she does, besides a lot of unapologetic staying out late and then working in an office, where she often arrives rumpled. Very glam. She does NOT like to be called Roz!

Your Microbiome, Yusuf Islam, Not Learning

I try not to worry about all the antibiotics I’ve taken over the years having killed off my microbiome. After all, what can I do about it now, except take lots of probiotics, and, of course, eat very little, because the antibiotics have also killed off my metabolism. Don’t take my word for this–I have a terrible memory, and even if that is exactly what I read, heard or saw somewhere, you probably shouldn’t listen to me, particularly about eating lightly, because the latest recipe I tried for homemade marshmallows—it’s from Epicurious, so you can look it up–is very manageable, and, especially roasted, they melt beautifully in full cream hot chocolate. (¼ c Dutch processed cocoa, ½ c sugar, 1 c cream, 3 c whole milk; then if you have any leftover shards of Callebaut from your Christmas cookies, stir that in, and ¼ c of spirits to make Downton more fun, or a candy cane for Christine).

I was right to review The Accursed when I did. If I had waited until I knew the ending, it might have taken some of the joy out of, well, let’s say the journey of reading the book. If there is a parallel here to life, or to running, or to attempting a croquembouche, I hope you will ignore it. I try not to deal in morals. Do you hear me J.C.O.? In fact, I’m guessing it will be even better if I review the book I’m about to start, before it has been soured for me in any way.

Besides my indifference, at age five, to the Booker Prize, I can only explain never having read Midnight’s Children by admitting that back when I had nothing but time to read, and complain to my parents that I didn’t want to leave the car to look at paintings or state parks, I didn’t realize Salman Rushdie was interesting, and I was confused about whether he wanted to kill Cat Stevens, or was it the other way around? I understood Natalie Merchant had an opinion since she took “Peace Train” off In My Tribe, but my young adult life was full of so many preoccupations* that I didn’t give Salman Rushdie another thought until two of my favorite female role models, Padma Lakshmi and Terry Gross, rediscovered him—each in her own way. Review: I expect a bit of playfulness out of Midnight’s Children, because in his Fresh Air interview, Rushdie admitted an addiction to Angry Birds. Padma can’t have put up with much of that, though, so what was the attraction during their three-year marriage? I can only surmise that I am also in for a richly detailed history of post-colonial India, with a touch of Kaffir lime juice for balance.

*e.g. Garp got a fish hook stuck in his mouth, outside of normal vet hours, and was returned in a cardboard box (alive).

I Advise, Bitters, Spritz Optional

A recipe: Take all the citrus you have leftover from the holidays—lemons, limes, and darlin’ clementines that would otherwise get lost under something in your crisper while you were “cooking” apologetic non-meals on the coattails of your holiday labors—and add them to the leftover tart cherry juice you bought because you read it would help you sleep, or run faster, or remember things. Then pour those things into a much larger vessel and add as much bourbon as you have left after eggnog season, and/or fill the vessel to capacity. Serve over crushed ice. Add a spritzer, if you have the energy. Oh! Bitters would also be good. Add these to the mix before you stir, and certainly before you spritz. Did I say to stir it? For this preparation, I’m sure it won’t matter what kind of bitters you use, but if anyone is watching, do use the sort that come in a mysterious-looking bottle.

Vampire Novels, Grover Cleveland, Misunderstandings

One Christmas—one which I will place after the birth of our first child because I didn’t make all my cards by hand with thousands of tiny hand-painted hole-punches and a glue stick, but before the birth of our second, because I wasn’t yet sending around a cynical Family Christmas Letter–I bought a bunch of very pretty Christmas cards that turned out not to be Blank Inside. “Especially at Christmas, it’s always nice to think of you,” the cards read. Before they had been translated from the original language, the sentiment might have brought a tear to my eye. Unless it was Russian—then I wouldn’t have understood, since Ashley Alley only ever taught me to say “one of my breasts hurts.” One hopes—okay, I am the one hoping this—that being understood all the time isn’t the most important thing. For instance, I spent a very long time trying to memorize John 3:16 in Spanish one time from the Gideon Bible in my hotel room, and everyone thought I was talking about using an airplane seat to polish my spittoon. Unless I’m confusing several other useful Spanish phrases. Apologies to Jill, Billy, Samia, Anne, and any other Spanish language mentors I may be leaving out.

English is my Muttersprache, and even in this I think I tend to wander a bit, which is why I was so relieved to hear from a wise and reliable person that the author Stephen King–whose writing on writing, my reliable anonymous source and I agreed, is much less scary than his novels–has promised being misunderstood is okay. It is also a fine segue to the next thing I wanted to discuss, which is the book I haven’t quite finished reading, The Accursed, by Joyce Carol Oates. Stephen King reviewed it for The New York Times, but I will have a different emphasis, and a more curated readership.

I suppose I could have waited until I was finished with it to review this book, but I’m anxious to be known as a person who has a book in the hand that does not have a drink in it, or in the hand that is not putting the drink down for a moment, on a coaster, and tousling a child’s hair to soothe that child, or, more likely, to replace an unruly lock. There—now that I’ve used a word like lock, you will know that I am not making up the thing about reading a book. On second thought, I don’t think I’m going to write an entire review. You can read Stephen King’s review, if you enjoy spoilers, but I think I’d prefer you were surprised. Here is a taste: Woodrow Wilson has a stomach pump and despises Grover Cleveland, whose wife is a glamor puss! Anyone might be a vampire. Upton Sinclair is trying to join forces with Jack London. Why? Talk about a meat-eater! If you have finished this book, shhh! Alles hat ein Ende, nur die Wurst hat zwei.

Pancake Children, Famous Grouse, Goddamn Leftover Pizza

I’ve heard that sometimes when parents are dissatisfied with something in their lives, they will actually try to correct their own deficiencies by imposing on their children. Interesting, because this morning my breakfast tasted a little off—pre-grinding the flax seeds was probably the mistake, so I imposed buttermilk pancakes on one of my children to make up for it. This is the younger one—have I mentioned him? Man is he grumpy in the morning, and, even by my liberal standards, too young for coffee or cigarettes. It worked, though. It was the first day in months he didn’t grouse theatrically about his options, even though on a given morning I might offer several choices, including, say, a bagel with a schmear, a warm homemade soft pretzel with butter from Vermont, a bowl of cereal of the kind I would have been allowed only when my parents were away on vacation, or a slice of goddamn leftover pizza.

Transition [editor, please finesse]: I’m a third child, but–I am always telling him—I can relate! I remember being grumpy too. For instance, I was grumpy when I got up a few minutes early to have a little peace and quiet before anyone else was up grumbling about why there were no croissants or bacon, and then I made myself a really nice breakfast, but it had this off, fishy flavor because, I think, of the flax seeds. So, birth order: I have two older siblings and they are twins. Who knows what that means in terms of their psychology, except what I can tell you, which is very little of course, because they can beat me up. I did read recently about the “pancake theory” of birth order, comparing first pancakes to first children. I guess the idea is that they are similarly goofy, greasy and misshapen. Wow, it sounds like some well-meaning parent was trying to make a third or fourth child feel good, the way my parents used to look at an A- and reassure me that I might still become, if not a computer scientist or an academic, maybe an artist. In a way, I think I am one. My first pancakes are often just as pretty as the others.

The Humming Game, Shamanism, Feet

Running is just like life. In literature, we would call such a comparison iambic pentameter, because of the connection with feet. Or we may have called it that other thing—was it a Nagual? Although I was never offered an Echols Scholarship when I was at UVA, (please refer to my upcoming post about birth order,) I did manage to get a willy-nilly liberal arts education anyway. For instance, I could talk about Carlos Casteneda for hours if you and I were both on peyote. Or music—jazz or classical, but we would have to play the game where I hum something and you try to guess what it is (Mozart’s Piano Concerto 21 in C Major.) Also, I think I remember that my wrist is distal to my shoulder—if it isn’t, I have just fallen down some steps. Wasn’t I talking about running? Thank goodness, because I was getting out of my depth.

The thing is, how much do I really want to write about the ways in which running is like life? Because if you read Runner’s World or The Huffington Post or you yourself have ever been a runner or have sat next to a runner couple at El Diablo Burrito, you know running makes everyone philosophical. I get out there, and get high on endorphins, and I get a lot of big, stupid ideas. If I’m running with anyone else, I talk way too much. There is good photographic evidence of this starting around mile 16 of the New York Marathon, when Stevie puts on her headphones. Running is probably more like drinking. What would Caballo Blanco do?

Blessings, Bivalves, Blame

Some of my timing was off—I have only two ovens. But I think I came into the Thanksgiving meal as open-hearted as I ever am (period,) and I felt like I meant it when I told the family— both sides, all siblings, all parents— that they were welcome to offer a blessing of their choice before I started around with the platter of turkey, as long as they said it silently, so we could all live and let live, man. I guess I got flustered anyway—I mean, even though my intentions were honest—because I remember being heckled a little, and then, as a result, not allowing people time to be introspective or thankful, and then hearing myself say “amen.” Grandmother Shippy is scolding me gently from wherever she believes she ascended/went/is. But mostly for the texture of the chocolate silk pie—I can’t find her recipe.

Maybe I should have given a toast instead. Not the kind where I lose a $40 bet because Cookie always keeps his wits, and ten minutes is a long time to let a nice Malbec go untouched when you’re eating a hamburger. Probably also not the kind Pete Evans gives at the end of every episode of Moveable Feast by Fine Cooking. (If that is the official name of the show, they just got the extra strong opinions equivalent of the Colbert Bump.) It was hard to imagine why anyone would want or need a non-competitive cooking show not starring Christopher Kimball, but I DVR’d it because I heard Marcus Samuelsson was going to be making his yardbird, and I wondered if I could cut any corners next time. (No.) Pete Evans’ huge, relentless smile, Alex DeLarge eyes, and fake Australian accent make it infomercial-addictive. Well, the internet says he’s fair dinkum Australian, but he sounds like an Outback Steakhouse commercial, and I don’t mind saying something a little biting, because he thinks the Paleo diet can cure autism. After raving to Kay about this guy, and trying out my own Australian accent on her—it cuts in and out, but I can do “nice carrot salad” consistently—I went back to see if I was remembering him correctly. He must go on and off his meds–it seems unlikely his enthusiasm for San Francisco chocolate is simply 1000 times greater than his enthusiasm for New England bivalves. Then again, I suppose the imperative to misappropriate Hemingway at the end of every show was likely not his decision. But if there’s one thing the holidays and family remind us, it’s that it doesn’t matter whom you blame, just find someone close to you.