BEEP!!

What better way to kill a chilly winter weekend afternoon than playing Operation?

Big Crash

This evening I was going thru email when I heard a strange, unnatural noise. It sounded a bit like a muzzled car crash. It was different from the screeching tire sound we often hear that wafts down Fillmore from Ridgeland Avenue. It sort of sounded like sound effects from a computer game. But then came the glaring red-and-blue lights of emergency vehicles and in a flash I knew this was real. This was the scene on Fillmore just east of our alley:

An SUV went up against Ted's parked Porsche Cayenne and lost badly. The fire department used the jaws of life to free the driver, and then they whisked him off to the hospital.

Lunch Lady

It occurred to me this afternoon that I am becoming a lunch lady. You know, one of those women who stays home, works part time, and lunches with her friends every day. Here's the proof:

Tuesday I cooked brunch for SuzyD
Wednesday I met P for pizza at Costco
Yesterday I was in China Town for dim sum with Mel
Today I lunched at Wishbone with W.E-D
Sunday I'm meeting S&P for lunch at The Depot

I can't remember the last time I ate lunch out with friends five out of six days. It certainly speaks to the massive amounts of cabin fever I've been feeling in this, the dead of winter. And since I've spent so much time catching up on my social life I'm going to need to work this weekend and play catch up but that's ok. Recharging my batteries with good friends is time well spent.

Dim Sum and Then Some

Today was my first China Town dim sum experience. I'm not sure how I've managed to live so close to China Town and be the occasional visitor all these years, and missed the dim sum. Today Mel and I braved frigid wind chills and headed to Three Happiness. Apparently this place is packed on the weekends, but at 10am on a Thursday morning, we quite literally had the place to ourselves. Instead of carts loaded down with options to choose from, we were handed a laminated card and an order form and told to make our choices.

From an epicurean perspective, Mel has never steered me wrong. She was the perfect person to guide me thru my first dim sum. We ate and chatted and ate some more. Everything was just incredible. Complex flavors danced in my mouth after every bite. Seven dishes and a couple of pots of tea later we'd had our fill and moved on to shopping.

Shopping in China Town is quite an experience, and it made me wish I knew just a little of the language. I picked up an assortment of candy to share with the family.

We also stopped by a couple of grocery stores. One of them had chicken feet on ice. Another had dried sea coconut. I was more intrigued by the sea coconut than the chicken feet. I bought a bit of the coconut, having no clue how I should use it.

I spent a chunk of my evening researching dried sea coconut. I've found that there's a gaping hole of knowledge of dried Chinese ingredients in the English-speaking world. It sort of reminds me of when Julia Child lived in France and was looking for a French cookbook in English. Eventually I found a great soup recipe that calls for dried sea coconut, but I'm missing about half of the other dried ingredients to go with it. As it turns out, I recall seeing most of those other dried items in bins right next to the dried sea coconut at the grocery store. Imagine that. It looks like I'll be heading back to China Town very soon to get those other dried ingredients for the soup. Stay tuned, I'll let you know how it turns out.

Sunshine!

YES! The sun made an appearance today...for all of two hours before it clouded up and started snowing. But it's ok, the obsession is over. And it was an obsession. I had started reworking Romeo & Juliet:

Oh Sunshine! Sunshine!
Wherefore art thou, Sunshine?
You've denied Oak Park
And refused to shine...

Yea, it's been that bad. But it's over now. I saw the sun, and I have the promise that there'll be more tomorrow and the next day before we "go dark" for awhile again. Spring is officially less than 60 days away and I saw sun today. Hope springs eternal.

Tomorrow

For quite awhile now, our weather has looked like this:

and like this:and even like this:

In fact, we've only seen this

one time since January 19th. I know I should be thankful for the thaw - temperatures have been above freezing - but I'm in desperate need of some sunshine. I know there are people who thrive on cloudy days but I'm not one of them and quite frankly I think they'll all a bit nuts. Honestly though, it's been too long since I saw the sunshine. There are promises that "the sun'll come out...tomorrow." I'm restlessly waiting and anxiously hoping.

What a party!

Erin has an envious social life. This evening she got to hang out at the historic Double Door for a big, private birthday party for one of her friends. How cool is that?

Drew's New Sport

This fall Drew joined the Little Huskies wrestling program. He's been spending Tuesday and Thursday evenings working out and learning the moves. He's doing really well in his first year. He's not won every match, but he's had a pin or two and he's got a winning record. We spent a chunk of today at OPRF where the Little Huskie Invitational Tournament was going on. It was the first time I've seen him wrestle. It gets pretty intense out there on the mat and it's tough on a mom to see her son looking like a contortionist at times. Drew loves the challenge. He's already starting to focus on staying in shape when the season's over so he'll be even better next year.

A Recovered Treasure

When Erin was three, she had two very special friends, JP and KD. They were high schoolers who taught in her Sunday School class. Erin adored them both and invited them to her birthday party. There are not many high school girls who would give up a weekend afternoon to hang out at a four-year-old birthday party thrown for a little girl not related to them. Both JP and KD came. JP gave Erin this book by Jamie Lee Curtis.


JP penned a special note to Erin on the inside cover, making the book extra special. Over the years, I read the book and JP's note countless times. There came a time, however, when Erin outgrew the book and no longer asked me to read it to her. Then a couple of years ago when she moved her room back upstairs, she wanted to get rid of the book. I took the book for her but I didn't give it away. I put it in a very safe place.


When we ate at The Walnut Room at Christmastime, we happened to see Today I Feel Silly out on display. Seeing the book again triggered lots of warm, fuzzy memories for Erin, and she pulled the book off the shelf and read it out loud to Kelsey and me. When she was done she said, "Mom, I really wish I hadn't given that book away."

"You didn't give it away. I took it from you but I saved it. But I can't remember exactly where it is. We'll look for it though."

In the busyness of the Christmas holiday, I forgot about finding the book. But thru the magic of Facebook, JP and Erin reconnected earlier this week, and Erin desperately wanted to find the book. It took some doing, since that very safe place was so safe I couldn't remember it. I was finally able to put my hands on the book, and here's how Erin said thanks:

I think I might be up for Mom of the Year for this one.

BIG F Friends

There are friends, and then there are Friends. Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich once wrote an article years ago about this very thing. Friends with a Big F are not social climbers who move on and never look back. They don't resort to gossip, name calling and character assassination when they're irked with you. A friend will act like a guest in your home and ask you for a drink when they're thirsty. A Friend will open your fridge and help herself to the beverage of her choice. She's also the one who stays after the party until all your dishes are done.

Big F Friends are few and far between, but they're the ones who've really got your back:

*They meet you at the ER in the middle of the night and stay with you until the crisis is over.

*When life gets hard they find a reason to call you every day to make sure you're ok...and they call until you pick up the phone.

*They bring you food when you're sick.

*They take your children on a moment's notice.

*They know what you need to hear, and they say those things tactfully and honestly.

*They bring you flowers, chocolate and music when you're having a particularly bad day.

One of my Friends called at just the right moment this morning and helped me thru a rough time. Then she brought me these beautiful pick-me-ups:

She also included a CD with music to soothe my soul.

I'm so blessed to have Friends in my life...thanks ladies...you know who you are.

How very generous

This country takes a lot of heat for being wasteful, arrogant and selfish, and I'm sure everyone can think of many times when this is true. In spite of our faults, we as Americans do one thing very, very well: we open our hearts and our pockets in times of crisis.

The recent tragedy in Haiti has been no exception. We took a special offering at church on Sunday. The local TV and radio stations held a pledge drive today, which raised $1.2 million in its first 4 hours. Allstate's matching donations to The Red Cross. And Percy Julian Middle School is sponsoring penny wars, with the proceeds going to relieve the suffering in Haiti.

I'm proud of my family for praying and donating; I'm proud of the local schools for getting involved, and I'm proud of the greater Chicagoland community for raising funds and welcoming Hatian refugees to this area.

We're by no means a perfect country, so it's good recognize when we get something right.

You can fight city hall

If you spend any time in Oak Park listening to the conversations of its citizens, you'll pick up on some common threads. You'll hear passion about politics. You'll catch some snippets of a volunteer group planning an upcoming event. There'll be some chatter about the local schools. Someone will bring up the arts. Discussions about carbon footprints and going green will be thrown in the mix. But no matter where the conversation starts, you can almost guarantee that given a few minutes, talk will turn to the bane of Oak Parker's existence: the parking nightmare.

If you live in Oak Park and drive with any degree of regularity, you know exactly what I'm talking about. "Step out of line" may be Oak Park's official motto, but "Park legally if you can, we'll ticket you anyway" is what it should be. Everyone here has a story about the nightmare of trying to find parking. It's usually followed by a parking ticket story.

Here's my story. There are exactly three legal parking spots in front of the high school, where one is allowed to park for a full 15 minutes without penalty. These legal spots are sandwiched in between handicapped parking on one side and driver's ed parking on the other. Last week I was lucky enough to score one of the legal spots when I went to pick Kelsey up for early release. Or so I thought.

I returned to my minivan to find a $250 ticket attached to my windshield, claiming I was parked in handicap parking. I had the presence of mind to take this photo with my cell phone before I pulled away from the curb. I called Village Hall's Parking Adjudication group and got an in-person hearing, which was scheduled for today.

I showed up at Village Hall and pleaded my case to the judge. She saw my picture and agreed I was parked legally. She dismissed the ticket. 45 minutes of my time, and $250 still in my pocket, along with the very smug feeling that I won. Victory never tasted so sweet.

Just a trim

This past summer, I mentioned that Drew had his head shaved on the last day of 2nd grade. He kept it shaved all summer and into the fall. After school pictures were taken, he started growing it back. We're now a couple of months into the growing back stage, and it's become apparent that Drew needed a bit of a trim around his ears. Erin was happy to oblige. Drew sat perfectly still while she carefully snipped his hair. The focus it takes for Drew to fully contain his boundless energy is apparent on his face. Siblings working together is a beautiful thing.

So Long, Farewell

I hate saying good bye to Christmas. While Thanksgiving Day is my favorite day, the Christmas season is my favorite time of year. I love the history, the tradition, the memories, the decorations, all of it.

As much as I love the Christmas season, I hate taking down all the decorations and saying good bye to this wonderful time of the year. So I hem...and I haw...and I procrastinate some more...and then I realize that it's the middle of January and things really need to come down.

Tonight Baird and I stripped the decorations from our live Christmas tree. This once proud decoration stood bare and tired for a moment before we pulled it out of the house and tossed it in the alley.

All good things must end. Good bye Christmas. See you in 11 months.

A Day Off

A typical work-from-home day looks something like this:

Get the kids up and thru their morning routine

See them off to school with hugs and kisses

Tidy up the house a bit (sometimes it's a lot of tidying up)

Laundry & Dishes

Check email

Lots of work phone calls

Handle some paperwork

Maybe run and errand or two

Do a bit of food prep for supper, if there's still time

Pick up Drew from school

and then the afternoon/evening rush sets in with homework, carpooling, dinner, etc.

Quite frequently, I sneak in a breakfast or lunch date with a friend on Thursdays. Today, however, I took the whole day off. I went over to my foodie friend Mel's house armed with fresh fruit and extravagant cheeses from Marion Street Cheese Market. Mel provided baked brie, chocolate and a little bubbly. We spent the day indulging ourselves with a grown-up play date, nibbling our way thru a beautiful platter of food, chatting about this and that, and watching the movie What's Cooking. Wrapping myself up in this bubble of warm friendship and fabulous food was the perfect cure for mid-January blues.

I know that it's back to reality first thing tomorrow morning, but this is a day I'll savor for a long time to come.

My Budding Food Critics

I grew up on a working farm in NE Iowa. My dad raised high quality hogs. Not the mass-produced, poor-quality pork that you find in the grocery stores. I'm talking top-of-the-line, great-tasting meat, the stuff that wins awards at the Iowa State Fair and gets sent to high-end restaurants. When we cooked bacon growing up, there was less than 1 tablespoon of fat that came off an entire pound of bacon. When turkey bacon first became popular because it was leaner than pork bacon I remember thinking, "How is that even possible?" But then I left home and bought supermarket bacon for the first time in my life. I cooked 5 pieces in a cast-iron skillet and they were drowning in grease and it was only 5 pieces, nowhere near a whole pound. When I called my mom to complain she remarked, "Honey, it's not your dad's bacon. Welcome to the world of commercial meat." All I could say was "Yuck."

It was also at that point back in the late 1980s that I decided supermarket meat was a waste of money, and I've been buying my beef and pork from the farmers I grew up with ever since. As a result, my kids have become bona fide bacon snobs. I usually don't even bother buying bacon from the store, but Erin had a big sleep over party last night so this morning I was quite literally making breakfast for a crowd.

I found this pre-cooked bacon dirt cheap at Ultra Foods and figured this was as good a time as any to give it a try. I should have known better.Erin took one look at it and knew it wasn't "Grandpa's bacon." She hollered out, "What is this? 'Cause it's not real bacon!"

After tasting it Drew remarked, "Eww! It tastes like I'm chewing on a shoe lace!"

Ok, ok, I get the idea.

Found!

There is something that my church and Irving School have in common. Each place has space dedicated to a lost and found. It's amazing to me how these two repositories seem to attract similar items. Clearly, one's ability to lose things crosses lines of culture, class, age, and yes, faith.

I'm pretty sure that over the course of the last decade, I've forfeited more than an entire day of my life to tracking down lost gloves, hats, coats, Bibles and textbooks between these two locations. As I'm rummaging thru one stack or the other, two thoughts frequently cross my mind. One is wondering what happens to all those single mittens and gloves? While I know items like coats and hats are donated after remaining unclaimed for months, can you actually donate single gloves, or do they somehow find their way to the Island of Misfit Toys?

The other frequent (yet unrelated) thought that crosses my mind is that perhaps I should duct tape every single item directly to my children to ensure they arrive home with whatever it is they took with them when they left the house.

Here's something else the two places have in common: in spite of dedicating significant cabinet/locker space to lost and found items, my family's missing stuff never winds up there. I swear that there's an invisible black hole that follows my family everywhere, and when one of us drops something the black hole quickly swallows it up. On super-rare occasions, the black hole regurgitates. For example, once I was going thru Irving's lost and found looking for a coat Drew had lost...and ended up finding one of Erin's favorite sweaters that had been gone for months and had somehow eluded my previous searches for it.

And, as many of you know, I teach Sparks (religious education) on Wednesday evenings at our church. A few years back I put my Bible on top of the coat rack while I got my coat on and helped the kids with theirs. I realized when we got home that I'd left my Bible back at the church. I thought if I went back first thing in the morning it would surely be there, but alas, it had been swallowed by the black hole. I checked everywhere - the coat rack where I left it, the lost and found, and every place in between - to no avail. I was heartsick...it was my favorite Bible, the one my parents had given me years and years before. I kept looking and kept checking...and six months later I still hadn't found it. I'd pretty much given up hope of ever seeing that Bible again. And then one day, more than a year later, I thought I'd just go and check one last time in the lost and found. Lo and behold! The black hole had regurgitated! There among 35 other Bibles that had been lost by one person but found by another was my beloved, long-lost Bible! How does that happen?

So when Drew came home from school on the last day before Christmas break with only one glove, I assumed the other was in the black hole. And had this particular glove been just a cheap $.50 knit glove, I probably would have never bothered to even search Irving's lost and found for such an item. But he lost his good heavy snow glove, and I really didn't want to replace it without at least a cursory search thru the lost and found. So this morning I went into the building and checked the lockers marked Lost and Found: gloves and hats and guess what?! Right there on the top of the heap of the very first locker I opened was Drew's missing glove! I couldn't believe it! It's the equivalent of a post-Christmas miracle! I mean, this never, ever happens to me. It's the first time since my kids have started losing things that I've retrieved something on the first attempt. Thank God for small favors. And it sure seemed like the Hallelujah Chorus was playing somewhere nearby.

Let's Go Hawks!

Tonight the Iowa Hawkeye football team played in the Orange Bowl against Georgia Tech. Iowa's had an amazing, nerve-wracking, come-from-behind-in-most-games season that made this game a must-watch. While the rest of the family came and went, Erin and I snuggled under blankets in the basement and watched the Hawkeyes take the lead early and never look back. I've always been proud to be a Hawkeye fan, but never more so than tonight.

Final score:

Iowa: 24

Georgia Tech: 14

I think I'm going to have to get one of these t-shirts in the very near future.

Way to go Hawks!!

Stop or I'll Sing!

It's been really cold these last few days - temperatures in the single digits with wind chills well below zero. Yes. I am aware it's January in Chicagoland. I get that it's supposed to be cold. But sometimes I forget exactly how cold, and I do silly things like step outside with no coat and just my socks to grab a box off the front porch. Then I come back in the house and I'm chilled to the bone for a really long time.

That's what happened today. I decided there was no better way to kick that chilled-to-the-bone feeling than to climb into my bed, pile on the covers, and read Garlic and Sapphires for awhile. One by one the kids found me and snuggled down next to me. Kelsey was on the outside corner, Erin was on the other side, and Drew was sort of bouncing all over the place.

It didn't take long for the silliness to set in and then Erin started nudging Kelsey and me ever closer to the edge of the bed. Kelsey was warm and comfortable in her spot and she wanted to stay there. Her pleas to her sister for mercy went unheeded, right up until she threatened, "STOP OR I'LL SING!"

Please understand that the Good Lord has blessed Kelsey with many talents. She's gorgeous. She's funny. She's smart. She's a gifted writer and poet. She's coordinated and athletic. But she is a terrible singer. I say that with love, since I can't sing either. The irony is that while 4 out of 5 members of the 5 Ring Circus are awful singers, we can all tell when someone's singing off key, and it drives us crazy. So when Kelsey threatened to sing the tables were turned, and suddenly it was Erin who was begging for mercy.

With most of the holiday stress behind us, it felt good to hold each other close in a warm house, act silly, and enjoy the day.

New Year's Day

Kelsey rolled out of bed about 1pm today, thirsty and hungry. As she was eating me out of house and home, we told her about our dinner conversation last night, and asked her what her "best thing" of 2009 was. We shared our guesses with her and while she admitted that everything we guessed would definitely make her top 10 list, none of us nailed her favorite thing, which was running track for Percy Julian Middle School in the spring, and playing spring soccer.

Just goes to show that no matter how closely you're paying attention to your teenager, she can still surprise you.

We're all looking forward to watching Kelsey play for the OPRF Huskies on the freshman team this spring!