A long explore July 6, 2009
Posted by philangelus in family, religion.3 comments
A little over a month ago I asked for help getting me back on a bicycle, and you guys did. (Thanks!) Since then I’ve been biking three or four times a week, usually taking Kiddo#2 for the first two laps around Angelborough Loop, then doing three or four more by myself, for a total of five or six miles per trip.
It’s been fun. I hope heaven has bicycles.
On Friday, my Patient Husband went for a Long Bike Ride, exploring alternate routes to get to his job, and when he returned, he suggested I go out. I’d had my eye on the trails at Angelborough Park, so I brought my bike there for “a long explore.”
1) I didn’t want to ride on the state route, even though it was practically empty, so I crossed on foot at the cross-walk, took the unpaved part of the road up to the park, and entered through the parking lot rather than the main entrance. Fortunately, my bike is a boy’s 24″ dirt bike rather than a bike built for racing or Teh Prettie, so it handled the dirt and the ruts with no problem. I meant to walk from the parking lot to the trail head, but I biked through the grass and discovered grass is stupidly tough to bike through. But I did it.
2) The trail is mostly grassed-over with a thin strip of dirt, which I was able to manage. When I exited the trail at the other side of the park (which I’d never seen before, by the way) I found myself on a road I know, just at a part I’d never been on. I turned north (away from home) and pedaled up to where it met a bigger road, and the bigger road took me…out on to the state route which I’d avoided before.
The busiest part of the state route. With about four inches of shoulder.
Well, there was nothing for it. The website on how not to get hit by a car says being hit from behind is the least of your worries, so I pedaled along on the white line and hoped for the best. No one killed me. When I reached the park entrance again (from the north side this time) I went back into the park, back to the trail head, and this time I took a different part of the trail.
3) when I reached the creek, I had to dismount. I thought about turning back, but I walked a little way, decided to press forward, and went back for my bike. I discovered it is stupid to try biking over tree roots. I was on the outer perimeter of the park again, and I could see the road, but there was a rock wall between us.
4) then the path veered off into never-never land, and I found myself facing deep puddles, mud, and plank bridges (which I walked the bike over.) The trees had overgrown the plank bridges in places, meaning I left the things alone and squished through less-muddy areas. And there were places the plank bridges really were the only way through, and they rocked like crazy beneath my feet. If I hadn’t had the bike to lean on in parts, I’d have gotten soaked.
5) I met a dog coming through the woods, wondered if he’d attack, and then the owner showed up. I asked, “Does this come out anywhere?” and he told me yes, just keep going. And shortly, yes, it did come out into the open, very near where I’d exited the park the first time.
6) I emerged back onto the familiar road, went south this time, took it to where it meets the unpaved portion of my home road, and took that home, avoiding all the ruts and terrible puddles until it was paved again.
7) And all along, I kept feeling, “This is your spiritual life. You don’t really know where you’re going, but you also know you aren’t lost. You can’t turn back. You know you’ll come out of it eventually. There are bugs that eat you if you stop, so you have to keep moving. You’ve only met one other person along the way, but he gave you directions. It’s hard work, but you’re doing it.”
My husband’s $$ bike would have sobbed at the punishment mine took without a blink. My bike with its thick tires, it’s smaller frame, and its shock absorbers simply took the road and held it. For all that I went over tree roots and through puddles and mud, I never tipped over. The bike did everything I could ever have asked it to.
It was very much an awesome bike ride, and I didn’t want it to end. I have no idea how far I explored, only that I can never do that route again because if I do, I’ll already know the way.
tasting the sacred July 3, 2009
Posted by philangelus in family, kiddos, religion.4 comments
The baby found one of my rosaries, just brown plastic beads and string, and he looked over it with his usual intense concentration. He’s clearly got his father’s NT tendencies.
Of course, right after he did that, he did the next predictable thing and tasted it.
It’s a joke after all these babies that “The world is a very big place — it’s going to take a long time to put the whole thing in my mouth.”
Kiddo#4 is at the tail end of learning-via-mouth, but he’ll still do it when he’s stumped, as clearly he was by this beady-stringy thing. Mommy holds it, so it must be wonderful, but what does it do?
As he did it, I found myself reacting opposite to the way I would have predicted. I didn’t leap for him in order to prevent him from desecrating a sacred object. Instead, I just had a sense that he’d actually just done an act of respect.
Isn’t that the way we are, even the adults among us? When confronted with something sacred, we examine it, turn it around, feel confused, and then try to learn about it. In his own way, the baby was being intimate with God, although he didn’t know it.
On Thursday, while cleaning, I found a different rosary under my bed, one that had been missing for weeks. I had to lie flat and stretch to reach it there, meaning I couldn’t have dropped it. I’m sure my sacrilegious cat took it.
Jerina is an overgrown kitten. The vet said she might be two, but I think she’s barely a year. She chases her tail and thinks feet under sheets are an irresistible temptation to pounce. She licks me when I pet her, either grooming me or tasting me. She comes when she hears me pick up the rosary because she knows that sound means I’ll be sitting for fifteen minutes. I’ve left my rosary on the bed and found her pouncing on it, batting it, and “playing” the rosary.
She is not reverent. I’m pretty sure she must have taken it in her mouth, tasting the white beads, then dragged it off the bed or off the dresser to savor it in private. The rosary survived unscathed.
Isn’t that the way we are too? We find something sacred, and not sure what it is, we play around with it, we drag it off to keep it in private. We don’t usually know what we’ve been given or what we’ve found for ourselves.
tasty fud July 1, 2009
Posted by philangelus in food.6 comments
Tuesday morning, I prayed the rosary with a sick baby in bed with me, two cats curled up on either side, and a strange bird singing just outside the window.
I’m not an ornithologist, but I recognize the commonly-heard bird calls here just from habituation. This one was new, more trilling. I can never see the birds that are singing, by the way. I look in their general direction and see, effectively, a singing tree.
Kiddo#1 came in to tell me Kiddo#3 “was lost on the couch” (ie, he’d fallen asleep because he’s battling being sick too) and heard the bird. Meanwhile, he started petting the cat.
Speaking as if I were Jerina, I said, “If you would let me outside, I would eat that singing bird.”
Kiddo#1 didn’t miss a beat. In a squeaky voice (which he also uses for the baby) he said, “It sounds beautiful, so it must taste wonderful.”
I said, “My fud has a song.”
I laughed. He then said, “Jerina, we don’t eat singing food.”
I said, again as Jerina, “It would not be singing by the time I eated it.”
He laughed. It’s good to talk LOLcat with your kid.
Would you walk a mile for a cinnamon bun? June 30, 2009
Posted by philangelus in food, weblog tour.9 comments
Hey, the weblog tour is back!
What’s the farthest you have traveled for food? Did you fly across the country just so you could have the perfect bowl of clam chowder? Did you cross the state line just for a scoop of ice cream? What was it, how far did you travel, and was it worth it?
I had to think about this, and I would say it was 20 miles, each way, for a Cinnabon.
I’m not clear on the details here. The circumstances are vague and I can’t find any evidence of it in my email archives because it was so long ago. However, I’ll do my best.
Angeltown had no Cinnabon. A great source of sadness to me and a great source of joy to my body, which didn’t need thousand-calorie desserts on a regular basis. My Patient Husband would pick up Cinnabons when he travelled for work, but only if they flew him through the right airport and the right concourse and he had a long enough layover.
I remember it was Wendy who sent me a Cinnabon gift card. I don’t remember why, but it might have been Christmas or my birthday, and I think it wasn’t too long after Emily had died. Meaning I was in a fog (which might explain my lack of details here.)
The nearest Cinnabon was at a mall twenty miles away. But I went for it. On a day I felt like garbage and my life was a nightmare, I went and had a Cinnabon and one of those huge coffees. And my life was good again. Well, as good as a cinnamon bun the size of your head, washed down with a gallon of caffeine, can make it. 
But no more–there are no Cinnabons within 40 miles of Angelborough. On Easter Sunday, because the Dunkin Donuts line was out the door, I learned how to make my own cinnamon rolls, and they’re really quite good. Interested?
Here’s the recipe. It’s from the Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook, 1995 edition, pages 442 and 444. The cinnamon rolls use half the sweet dough recipe; that half-recipe makes 12 cinnamon rolls. When you make the sweet dough, therefore, you’ll be halving everything.
—
SWEET DOUGH:
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3 packages active dry yeast
8 to 9 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups milk
1 cup butter or margarine
2 eggs
1) In a large bowl, combine sugar, salt, yeas, and 2 cups flour. Heat milk and butter slowly until warm; butter does not need to melt. (MY NOTE: I put it in the microwave for 1 minute; I discovered that making it too hot will kill the yeast). Beat liquid into dry ingredients.
2) Beat in eggs and 2 cups of flour. (MY NOTE: I hand-mix it. They ask for machine mixing.)
3) Stir in enough additional flour (about 4.5 cups) to make a soft dough
4) Turn dough onto lightly floured surface, knead until smooth and elastic; shape into a ball.
5) Turn over in greased large bowl to grease top; cover; let rise until dough is doubled, about one hour.
6) Punch down dough; divide into pieces as your recipe directs; cover, let rest 15 minutes.
—–
I go off-recipe for the cinnamon rolls, so I’m going to give you mine, which doesn’t have raisins and pecans (which would make my kids turn up their noses)
—–
CINNAMON ROLLS
1/2 Sweet Dough
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted
1) prepare sweet dough. Grease 9 x 13 baking pan (I use a pyrex pan and don’t bother greasing it). Roll dough into a rectangle about 18 inches by 9 inches.
2) Mix the brown sugar and cinnamon. Melt the butter, add to mixture. Stir into a paste.
3) Using a silicone spatula, spread the butter-sugar mixture across the dough. It’s going to feel like you’re painting it on.
4) roll it into a long tube, slice into 12 cinnamon rolls. Set them on the pan to rise for another hour.
5) bake at 400 for 20 to 25 minutes or until lightly browned on top
—–
SUGAR GLAZE
Option 1: Open a can of frosting; smear gobs of frosting everywhere
Option 2: In a small bowl, stir 2 cups confectioner’s sugar, 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, and 3 tablespoons water until smooth; smear gobs of glaze everywhere.
—–
My notes: this does take forever, it seems, because it’s broken up into so many parts. I make the dough before breakfast, punch it down after breakfast and a shower, roll it into the cinnamon rolls before church, let it rise again while we’re at church, bake it while we’re eating “church breakfast” (brunch) and then have it for dessert.
I freeze half of them after they’ve been rolled and cut. To thaw, have them sit overnight in the fridge, then rise/thaw on the counter in the pan for at least four hours before baking.
Enjoy!
Peekaboo! June 29, 2009
Posted by philangelus in family, kiddos.9 comments
At 15 months, the baby is very much into playing peekaboo. I’m not sure if the books say that’s the right age to play peekaboo, but he can’t read, so he’s initiating the games with us. He’ll cover his eyes or say “Bah!” and then we have to play it with him.
I know there are many variants of Peekaboo. In our variant, you cover the baby’s eyes or your own eyes with something (a blanket, a cloth diaper, the tail of the sling) and say “Peekaboo!” and then quickly uncover them while saying “Bah!” The baby then giggles.
I wonder if peekaboo is a human thing. I wonder if Mary played peekaboo with Jesus.
And because we’re a house full of wiseacres, my Patient Husband said, “Peekaboo: the board game by Hasbro.”
I replied, “Peekaboo: The Deluxe Edition.”
Him: Peekaboo: The Travel Edition.
Me: Peekaboo: The Collectible Card Game.
Him: That would be Peekaboo: The Gathering.
Me: Peekaboo: The Party Pack.
Him: Classic Peekaboo.
Me: Peekaboo Junior.
Him: Peekaboo expansion sets
Me: Peekaboo, Hunters and Gatherers.
Him: City and college variants of Peekaboo.
We managed to go on for quite a while in this vein. Which is why we’re married to each other, in order to keep the geekiness confined to one household.
But because I’m silly in addition to geeky, this is how he’d write up the session report on his own blog:
This morning we had a game of Peekaboo for me, my wife and Kiddo#4. We’ve modified the tournament-standard rules for in-house use, saying ‘Peekaboo!’ during the hiding phase and substituting ‘Bah!’ during the reveal phase. We find this keeps Kiddo#4 involved throughout play rather than waiting for his turn. We utilized various implements for the hide phase, experimenting to find which worked best. My wife initiated with the cloth diaper gambit, whereas I opted for the more versatile crib blanket. Kiddo#4 used either his hands or the bed sheet. Next time, I plan to use a handkerchief because it’s more sheer and will whip away easier. Kiddo#4 scored high on every round, anticipating the “Bah!” and clapping or giggling between turns.
Let me know when Peekaboo becomes an Olympic sport, because we’re going for the gold.
The ultimate show-stopper June 27, 2009
Posted by philangelus in music, politics.13 comments
On Saturday morning, I said to my Patient Husband, “If Michael Jackson faked his own death, that would be the ultimate publicity stunt.”
We’d been talking about how he’d been perfectly positioned in the early 1980s to become a mega-star, with the combination of talent, name recognition, a skill-set that matched the expectations of the era, and a sense of flair, plus the publicity machine from his previous endeavors.
I said that if Jackson wanted to make a clean break from his former life, this would be the way to do it: fake his own death, have plastic surgery again to change his appearance, and vanish to reappear under a new name as a corn farmer or a guy running a shoe repair shop somewhere in small town middle America.
My Patient Husband and I said it would be only a matter of time before someone called it a hoax like JFK’s death, so off I went to google, and sure enough I found a website.
I’m not saying I believe it’s a hoax. In fact, I don’t. MJ and pushed his body enough that an early end isn’t entirely unexpected; there were emotional issues and lifestyle issues that also could have contributed. Plus, he always seemed to take his stardom seriously, so losing the spotlight fifteen years ago must have been a blow.
I’ve seen statistics about how most young men who die of cardiac issues die from a first-time event (probably because doctors aren’t looking for cardiac issues) although I don’t have any on hand right now. In other words, while tragic and not something I would have predicted, it makes sense.
Remember that I grew up on a steady diet of conspiracy theories, though. The death hoax website made sense once I read it.
Why? Because they made a connection between Jackson and his emotional mentor, Elvis Presley. Who also died young of cardiac issues.
I said that to my Patient Husband, and his eyes got big. Because it made sense.
But let me tell you something that makes more sense: Jackson would have been aware of the cause of Presley’s death. It was in the back of his mind. And like many people who find an emotional mentor or a role model, he was charting his course after that person. I’ve read books about motherless daughters and fatherless sons, and both say the same thing: that a child who loses a parent at a young age subconsciously expects to die the same way and at the same age as the parent.
For someone whose imagination was power, and whose drive was the art of the show, that unconscious loyalty to his mentor might have been too much to bear. Someone who had trained and tamed his body for performance and through extensive surgery might have had that mind-body connection to unconsciously imitate in death the man he’d wanted to imitate in life.
Did he fake his own death? I doubt it. Did he plan it? Not consciously. But maybe in the heart, maybe there.
Sockses! June 26, 2009
Posted by philangelus in knitting.4 comments
Ivy wanted to know why I hadn’t been blogging about my knitting. Answer: because with all the writing, I hadn’t been doing much of it!
For Christmas, you remember I knit my husband a sock. *sigh* I finished the second sock in mid-January, and then I got to work on the sock yarn he’d gotten me for Christmas. He wanted me to make a pair of socks for myself for once.
Remember it’s impossible for me to knit for me.
Well, here it is, JUNE, nearly the end of June in fact, and I finally got the socks finished.
They’ve got beads. They’ve got lace. They’ve got ladders. They’ve got mistakes (including one very stupid mistake I didn’t realize until I was weaving in the ends.) They’re a little too big but that’s okay: I think they’ll shrink over time.
I’ve also got no yarn mojo right now. I’m working on finishing up a prayer shawl I started two years ago, but that’s more because I feel like I should be doing something rather than because I want to.
But really, I’ve got socks. Socks I made for myself.
God and his flower June 25, 2009
Posted by philangelus in sarcasm.2 comments
Please be gentle on me, okay?
First, here’s a flower. It showed up on my walkway and I had to take a picture of something so tiny I nearly missed it, so perfect, and gone so soon.
Secondly, about a week ago, Colleen Spiro had a post on her weblog about letting God love us. If you’ve been around here for a while, you’ll remember a little fracas in the comments box where everyone tried to insist that I can’t prevent God from loving me and I kept saying that this was exactly what I’d been trying to do. Well, Colleen gets it. So there.
Anyhow, part of what she wrote was this:
The priest directing the retreat told of how a woman once came to him, a little concerned about her “after Communion prayer.” She said she didn’t know if she was doing it right because she wasn’t using any eloquent or “holy-sounding” words. In fact, she wasn’t using any words at all. She told the priest that after she received the Eucharist, she would just sit there, and let Jesus love her.
I figured I’d try it, because it sounded just right.
Mass last Sunday was rough. Kiddo#4 was fussy and active and overdue for a nap. By the time Communion came, I was out of patience, out of energy, out of everything. I was standing in the foyer (hoping the baby wouldn’t disturb anyone) holding the baby while swaying, and I tried to imagine letting God hold me the same way: me being annoying and grouchy and him just soothing me. Sounds good, except I couldn’t get my head there.
I also tried to picture Jesus showing me to God the Father and saying, “Look what I brought you,” but that didn’t hold. I kept wanting to show God all the ways I’m broken and filthy, and I felt a little bit scolded: let God figure out how he feels about you.
And then I had that flower in my head, like the one above but with its petals more pointed and outlined with black. Jesus, as a twelve year old boy, lying on his stomach in a field, lifting a tuft of grass and exclaiming to God the Father, “Look! Look what I made, and I hid it here.”
And Jesus, admiring what he’d made, this tiny and perfect flower just where he’d put it, and the Father examining it and noting all the little parts of this flower, and the Spirit coming to explore it too, loving it and infusing it with beauty.
I shivered with the thought that they’d pick the flower off its slender stem, but instead they left it there, left it to grow where it belonged, where they wanted it, where they thought it could be beautiful.
The Communion hymn ended and the priest began the final blessing, and I looked up, shaken. The baby had fallen asleep.
It’s a hard thing to do. It’s hard to write about. It was a vulnerable, worried feeling. But it was good.
More on Kiddo#3 June 24, 2009
Posted by philangelus in sarcasm.13 comments
This is absolutely, totally my son:
see more Lolcats and funny pictures
I’m sorry, but with school vacation beginning and guests arriving today, I have no inspiration. That and edit hell and all. I’ll try and get a real blog entry up tomorrow. Or later on.
DangerBoy June 23, 2009
Posted by philangelus in family, how-to.9 comments
I was complaining about this online yesterday, but I’m out of blog entries and the one I want to write still feels too personal, so I’m going to gripe about it again.
Remember a while ago, we featured a guest blogger and her picture of her guardian angel, shaking and clutching a beer? I think Kiddo#3’s guardian must have really identified with that.
Kiddo#3 is five. He is a daredevil. He tackles life with an enthusiasm and an exuberance that would make a force five hurricane stop and say, “Wow, he’s got energy.”
In early spring, Kiddo#3 ran into a tree playing football in our yard, requiring eight stitches in his forehead. This is the same child who is currently grounded from playing in the yard without my supervision because he kept sliding down the deck railing (20 feet in the air.) He climbs on everything. He jumps off things. He runs (and I suspect this is how he ran into the tree) while looking backward over his shoulder at the people chasing him.
I’ve seen this child hurl himself into a brick wall, bounce off, and do it again. During the winter, after an ice storm that left me inching up the driveway at a speed even a snail would find embarrassing, he ran full-tilt down the brick steps on our front walkway–brick steps covered with ice.
Last summer, he pitched forward on his brother’s scooter and knocked one tooth out; the second was loosened. It looked like he’d keep it, but after a week (just as it was about to firm into place) he jumped on his sister to strangle her,and she punched him in the face, knocking out that tooth. (I wasn’t sure whether to punish her or to thank her, since the dentist wanted to extract the thing for $200.)
And last week, while at his sister’s baseball game, right after we told him not to play on the giant stone pipes abandoned beside the field, he climbed on the pipes, jumped, and came down on his face. He cut the outside of his lip, the inside, and made the other tooth wiggly.
We babied the tooth for a week. Lots of yogurt, all his food cut into tiny chunks. It began to firm back into place, but on Sunday night I looked and it had turned brown. Meaning, I guess he’s going to lose that tooth too.
Hello, orthodontia.
Has this new accident slowed him down? Well, the last time he was at the park, he and his sister climbed into a gazebo thing overlooking the playground. Kiddo#2 said, “I wonder if someone could jump off this wall?”
So he threw his baseball glove down to make sure it was safe. And then he jumped off the wall.
(No, don’t ask me why the glove’s safe landing would prove it was safe for him to jump.)
Right now, I need to close my eyes and wake up in fifteen years to see whether he’s made it to adulthood. I’m not sure this daredevil will survive. Or, if he does, if I’ll have survived too. One of the women who posts on my forum assured me that daredevil kids do, in fact, make it to adulthood. They just do it in a lot more pieces than the rest of us.
The other day, he said, “I want roller skates.”
I laughed out loud in surprise, the mental images too many to catalog. No. No. For your mother’s sake, no.
