Purple Wax Perfection

I admit that I am somewhat of a cross-country skiing geek.  I'm not anything like some of those lycra-ed guys with the yellow lenses in their goggle/glasses (...jon...cough...) but I do know my kick waxes.  I am starting to feel like I am one of a dying breed of classic style skiers as everyone around me converts to skating, and I do skate ski when classic is impossible, but I try to stay true to my 17 year old pair of waxable skies.  I can walk outside in winter, take a sniff of the weather and tell you what wax would be best on your skies.  They come in a range from white (polar!) to the warmer tones in the rainbow- the reds and purples.  Each wax has a corresponding temperature range and if you put on the wrong wax  your ski turns into either a slip sliding dangerous flailing, or a sticky grudge with no glide whatsoever.  So you have to get it right.  Most waxes have a range of 10-15 degrees, but then there's the purple.  It is from -1 to 1 degree celsius.  There are not many purple wax ski days.  But when one rolls around, I hate to miss it.  Yesterday was a glorious purple wax day.  The sun was high and almost felt hot, there was no wind, and the snow was in top condition.  I didn't have time to sneak away to the woods somewhere so just bolted down to the golf course for an hour, but it was a lovely hour indeed.  In November when winter is just starting up, it's hard to believe that you would ever venture outside at 31 degrees in just a long underwear top- but indeed I did.  And I got sweaty.  Love that. 

Today looks like it will hit the purple zone in an hour or so, but by afternoon warm right over into the red zone.  I stay away from that- that red wax has the consistency of bubble gum and once it is on your skies you find it everywhere- your coat, your boots, your hair, your steering wheel. Plus, once we hit the red wax it means the snow is starting to melt, which hurts my heart.  Just checked- it's 25 and rising.  I have five degrees before go time!

Tooth Fairy Declares a Snow Emergency

So last weekend in Minnesota we had a full on blizzard.  There was so much snow in the cities that the school districts closed both Monday and Tuesday- even though the snow came through on Saturday.  That is unheard of and I do believe that school officials got us confused with somewhere like Kansas for a while.  But I must admit it was fun.  And in the middle of it Eli bit down on some candy and popped out a tooth.  This one came out whole, unlike the half tooth he spat out a week earlier, and he quickly tucked it into an envelope and stashed it under his pillow.  Where he found it the next morning.  And the morning after that....  It took 3 whole days for the tooth fairy to get here and claim it.  Seems as if she too declared a snow emergency that weekend.  And then there must have been an awful backlog of teeth to collect because it sure took her awhile to get over here.  Theo did thoughtfully point out that our windows were frozen shut after that blizzard, which he happens to know about because we tried to open one so we could jump out of it and into a gigantic drift during the storm, and maybe that was holding up the poor fairy.  Whatever the case, it seems that she is back on schedule now and probably ready for any other teeth that might go missing over the holiday break.  Whew. 

International House of French Toast

We suddenly became the proprietors of a youth hostel last night.  The blizzard that struck the cities actually shut the buslines down, which in turn stranded Ildar and 5 fellow foreign exchange student friends at the Mall of America.  We had several phone consultations, and at one point the 6 teens were going to try to stay overnight at the mall.  But then they learned everyone was getting kicked out by 9, regardless of if they had anywhere to go.  Or that was their understanding.  So we needed a plan B.  Our car was snowed into the alley and there was going to be no getting it out, but Jon happened upon a lovely neighbor who was up for an adventure.  The two of them took about a half hour to get the two blocks to Snelling Avenue, but from there were in the clear.  So I called Ildar and told the crew to hop a train to the 46th street station- which it turns out they did, only they shot right past the stop and had to get out a ways down, run across the platform and jump one coming back south.  But on pass number two they all got out and trudged through the hip deep drifts to a Walgreens where they huddled until Jon and Pat drove up in an SUV.  All 6 piled in and they made it back here with only having to get out and push twice.  They came in relieved to get out of the cold, and a bit damp- so we dug out sweatpants and socks for all takers and threw a load into the dryer.   We were able to find enough sheets and blankets and blow up mattresses to get them all mostly comfortable so that after a game of monopoly and a movie they were all able to get some sleep.  Except Theo- who was so keyed up to have a houseful of teenagers that he had real trouble turning it off for the night. He was right in the middle of their game, abusing power as the banker, attempting to give secret loans to his new best friend from Ukraine. 
In the morning we burned through 3 (small) loaves of bread at the International House of French Toast to feed the troops and then we were able to find enough winterwear to outfit our own private shovelling corps.  The five guys tackled the snow with much vigor, helping several neighbors and pushing out lots of stranded cars.  I think they enjoyed themselves.  I would have been out there too, but the boy from Yemen was wearing my boots, the Ukrainian was in my mittens, and the Moldovan was wearing my snowpants.  That left me and my boys, plus a Ukrainian girl, inside getting some tea and cocoa ready.  By noon they had all been picked up and our house almost echoed with the silence after being inundated with teens for the past 18 hours. 

All in all, it was great fun to have them here.  Even if they did demolish almost all of the four dozen cookies I had made just that afternoon!  I suppose that when you look at the hours of shovelling help we got out of the deal this morning, we got off easy.  Eli summed up the experience by saying, "Well, I guess you just never know what you are agreeing to when you say you will host an exchange student!"  But after watching Theo basking in the glow of his six new best friends, I'd say that it still seems worth it.

Kato is in the house

Last night when Eli slipped into the bathroom before bed I took the opportunity to sneak into his room and hide under his covers.  He has one of those huge comforters and I was hoping that he would not notice that I was under there.  Sure enough, he came in, leaned over on the bed, resting his hand on my covered face, in order to turn on his reading light and didn't notice a thing.  He left again to find a book and when he returned sat on part of me.  I got the serious giggles so couldn't really attack him like I had planned, but I still was able to procure a pretty good scream.  Ildar never knew of this chain of events because he was downstairs talking with Jon.  But somehow he got the same idea.  Tonight the boys were all hanging out in the living room and when Eli came in to help me with some biscuit making Ildar burrowed under the couch cushions and some blankets.  Five minutes later when Eli returned to so some more reading, Ildar pounced. 
I don't know what it is about Eli that elicits this desire in people, but the good thing is, he doesn't seem to hold a grudge.  Which is good, because I'm heading up to get under his covers right now.

Of fresh snow, brotherly love, and eyeballs

This past Saturday we woke up to a fresh snowfall and Jon and I could not resist getting the boys out on their skies.  So we trundled off to the highland golf course.  Nothing was groomed yet, but there were quite a few real nice 'citizen tracks' going off in all directions.  We hopped into a few and enjoyed a real nice ski.  Until the end.  Eli fell going down this little incline and ended up in a position that was apparently real hard to get out of.  He was all tangled and got a little frustrated, but was still giggling at his plight.  Until his brother crashed into him.  Theo kept his balance and was standing behind him.  Eli lashed out with his pole and struck a glancing blow of of his brother's face. Eli couldn't see from his position what kind of damage he might have done, but was wise enough to realize (after the fact) that striking out with a ski pole and having the sharp end connect with your brother's face is serious and he better get contrite, fast.  He did, apologizing a blue streak.  And then he went to lower his pole so that he could continue his quest to get up.  But I yelled, "NO!  STOP!  Don't put your pole in the snow, your brother's eyeball is on the end of it!"  And for a second he believed me.  And then I didn't know who was in more trouble, me or his brother.  Good thing it took him another 5 minutes to actually get up, and by then he had blown off most of his steam so his attack on me was half-hearted.  But I do want to believe he learned a little lesson in that brief second where he believed he had shish-ka-bobbed his brother's eyeball.

Limiting his horizons

I know, I really do know, that as a parent I should not limit my child's horizons by telling him what he should not set his sites on in terms of a future career.  But today I did.  It's just that we were in the car and when Theo gets in an enclosed space he tends to start to move.  Faster and faster- his little body seeking out anything that he can sense would not like to be bothered right then.  Usually this is limited to his brother.  But today he was even reaching up between the seats and bugging me.  I was thinking about how small spaces and Theo do not mix and before I knew it I had gone and told him that I really hoped he never considered a career as a submarine crew member.  Just picturing him there in those cramped corners with so many others- I know that it would get ugly, and fast.  And after I told him I thought he should avoid this he was actually quite crushed, like this was just the career he had been thinking about and I had dashed all hope.  Feeling bad, but really, it's for his own good. 

Impressions

Ever since Ildar arrived in the US he's been growing his hair.  Or rather he has been choosing NOT to spend money on getting haircuts.  At one point he hatched the plan to get his head shaved on New Year's Eve, so that he could start the new year with a new look.  But then his longish hair got on his last nerve and last Saturday night I returned home from an outing to see the light on in the basement.  Through the foggy window I could make out Jon all set up in his barber station, Ildar on a stool in front of him.  I went to down to find them in the middle of not just cutting his hair, but creating a mohawk.  This was new territory for Jon, but I think he did a fair job.  Ildar mentioned that this type of cut would NEVER be tolerated at his school back home, and he thought he would give it a whirl. In his words, Why not? If he didn't like it, they could shave it right off.  When Jon finished, Ildar bounded up the stairs to check it out in a mirror and pronounced it ok for the time being.  The next night we had the foreign exchange holiday party for the P.I.E. students and their host families.  Ildar departed from his usually strict stocking cap policy in order to slick his hair up.  This was kind of a meet and greet for Jon and I since we were late to this hosting game and had not attended any social events in the fall.  As we circulated amongst the other host families people would cheerfully ask us who we were hosting and after we said, "Ildar, the one over there in the striped sweatshirt....and the mohawk," we would get these sympathetic looks and then in lowered voices the inquiry, "Oh.  And how's that going?"  The answer, despite the fact that his current hair may symbolize rebellion, or angst, is fabulous.  It amused me how family after family assumed that he might be someone who would be pushing buttons or boundaries.  Which he might someday, but we've not seen any evidence yet.  And then when the word got out that it was Ildar's very own host dad who gave the haircut, well, that produced a whole different reaction. 

For the record, Ildar has scheduled another haircut for this weekend- his flirtation with the mohawked life is over after a week. 

Getting comfortable

When Ildar first moved in with us, I wondered how long it would take before he really was a member of our family and we felt totally comfortable with him in our house.  I figured it would take us all different intervals of time, due to our personalities.  Theo, it took about 5 minutes.  Jon seemed good from the get go as well.  And while I admit I may be more restrained still with some things, say farting, it has become pretty natural for me to have this third boy in the house. And I think everyone is glad for his presence if it does continue to restrain some of my less mature behavior.  But Eli, he can be slow to show his true colors. But I think he's finally there.  Here's how I know:  Last weekend when we were putting up our Christmas tree, Eli marched around the house singing christmas carols at the top of his lungs.  For hours. And Ildar seems to be comfortable here as well- at least comfortable enough to comment, after I took a picture of him putting an ornament on the tree, "Why do some people take such bad pictures?"  He then rolled me through a couple examples of good pictures (his and Jon's) and then mine and asked me if I could see the difference.  I could, I admit, but that didn't stop me from giving him a hearty punch in the arm first. But then we had a retake session and I got his blessing.  Apparently I can learn new things. 

Personality Test

Last night things at dinner got a little wild.  I can't remember what we were talking about, but one of the nice things about having a new temporary son from Russia is that all of the old stories are new again.  Anyway- we were telling tales and laughing (ok- I do remember one topic- it was how people change through time and we were using old Uncle Tim as an example.  Jon and I might have brought up Tim's star turn in the church youth musical when his one and only line was "And Myrrh" and that might have been about 25% of the words he spoke throughout his high school career. He was a quiet guy, which might shock some who have met Tim as an adult....) So we were telling these tales and the boys kept laughing harder and harder and harder.  After dinner was over they were still hyped and at some point Jon picked Eli up by the ankles and held him upside down.  Which would have been fine, but he was wearing kind of loose pants and somehow they slipped right up to his ankles (he was upside down, remember).  So there he was hanging from his ankles in his boxers and I thought to myself in the split second before cracking up, "Which way is this going to go?  Here he is nearly naked not only in front of his family, but Ildar too....Is Eli going to laugh or cry?  Or punch?"  And the good news is the response he decided to go with was to laugh harder than any of the rest of us.  It made me confident about his future.  Other parents might look for different signs to prove to them that their kids are going to be ok, but me, my fears are calmed when I know my boy doesn't take himself too seriously and can have a real hard laugh at his own expense.  Because we sure were laughing and it was nice to be doing it with him, not at him. 

State of the Art Dining Facility!

A few weeks back my fellow director of the Croixathlon, Amy, and I found out that our beloved little race has landed in Minnesota's top five most popular multi-sport races.  And before you start tut-tutting and thinking that maybe there are only 6 such races I will let you know that there are over 70.  So yeehaw for the Croixathlon.  It's great for this little fundraiser to get some good props.  We work hard to create an event that is fun, challenging, and raises great money that gets kids out to camp in the summer.  And we might work even harder to encourage people to vote.  We don't tell them who to vote for....exactly.  We might just send a little reminder about the potato chips and the warm from the oven chocolate chip cookies.  And then a link that says "Vote Here for the Croixathlon".  No pressure.
But anyway- where does this get us?  Well, first of all, it got Amy and I to buy a table at the annual Tri-Night Banquet so we could thank our lovely corps of volunteers.  And soon it will get us into a room out in Minnetonka with a bunch of triathletes.  Which has got me a bit scared.  Triathletes are a weird crew.  They wear a lot of spandex and are real detail-oriented- two things I try to avoid.  And the info on Tri-Night keeps mentioning a 'state of the art' dining facility which really has me wondering.  What makes a dining room state of the art?  Amy thinks their will be streamlined forks, aerodynamic waiters, and synthohol.  I totally agree.  Triathletes demand nothing less.  Just think of the calories saved by using a state of the art fork!  My next morning workout will see my cardio/fat burn ratio peaking on a much earlier interval than if I had used the fork in available in my kitchen. Thank god.   
I must admit I'm looking forward to the event despite my general uneasiness when surrounded by people who surely have heart-rate monitors on under their evening wear.  It will be unveiled that evening just which race is number one in Minnesota, and while Amy and I are pretty sure the little Croixathlon will not elbow out it's larger competitors, we have managed to gather a pretty hilarious crew of friends/volunteers to join us at our table.  And while we may have a lower lean muscle mass average than the table next door, I dare say our laughter might help us burn more calories.  And with a crowd full of serious athletes, there just might be more desserts for me! 

Losing some Amish envy

Today on the back page of the paper was a huge ad for a FREE super high quality heater!  There were these pictures of wholesome Amish lads creating the 'mantles' for these heaters with smiles on their faces.  The ad had tons of text with the word FREE in caps and huge font over and over.  All I had to do was call a toll free number at 8:30 this morning and if I was one of the first 9,484 (why 9,484???) people I would get a heater for free!  I am naturally suspicious, even of the Amish, so I read the vast amounts of fine print to find the catch.  And there is one.  Right in the middle of 24 paragraphs (I counted) of text it says: You just can't find custom made Amish mantles like this in the national chain stores.  That makes the oak mantle a real steal for just two hundred ninety-eight dollars...  Man did that take the wind out of my amish sails.  Those sly dogs.  I expected more from them.
I might have expressed my indignation and disappointment to the boys as they were eating breakfast.  Theo asked what I was going to do about it (he does listen to me!! This is what I say to him whenever he starts to amp up his victimtude), was I going to write a letter to the editors?  I thought about it, then said, no, the Amish enjoy such warm feelings that if I was to say something against them I would be villain-ized in the American media.  The boys took it from there.  They wondered if anyone would do a little research and find out about my membership in the so-called Amish Envy Club and what they would make of that!  And once that got out it would just be a matter of time before we would find anonymous black buggies parked inconspicuously down the block.  Men dressed in black lurking around the yard with slingshots bulging under their wool sweaters, stuck in the straps of their suspenders.  Their fantasy (and I do think the thought of their mother being hunted down by angry Amish was a real fantasy for them) ended with me encased in a wooden jail cell, one with high quality crafted bars of course, rotting away in the back of a barn somewhere in southern Minnesota.  But here's the good news- they continued on to craft an escape story for me.  It involved me getting some benefits for being a good prisoner and being granted time with my lovely pets- the ever hungry rabbits.  The boys would have taught the rabbits to chew more quietly in the interim, and under the cover of darkness Penny and Gunnar would gnaw me to freedom.  All in all it made for a lovely breakfast conversation.  All enjoyed while eating my work of art chocolate chip pancakes.  Today I made a traditional smiley face, then branched out to a peace sign, and ended with a pickle.  It took some imagination to see the pickle in the pancake, but the boys had proved to me already this morning that they did not lack creativity. 

Washing Machine

Have you ever thought about what a dull name we have for the machine that washes our clothes?  I've never thought of it without picturing this fabulous labor saving device in my head and therefore not really focusing on the words- just the image.  Believe me, after living for two years without one and having to wash everything by hand, when I think of a washing machine, it's always with a warm glow of loveliness. But this week as I was doing some searching for specs on the damn things it struck me how dumb the name is.  Washing Machine.  I imagine that it was perhaps one of the first 'machines' available to be sold to individual consumers and was named such because machine had such futuristic, tech-y, connotations.  What would have happened if that trend had continued and we put our bread in the 'toasting machine' and then poured our morning beverage from the 'coffee making machine'?  It kind of cracks me up.  Which is a good thing because nothing else about the breakdown of our once trusted machine is too funny.  Especially the bill for the new one.

Ok- there is one other funny thing..... How it all happened.  I was home unexpectedly from work to care for a slightly ill Theo.  Only he wasn't really needing any tending so I decided to get something done that I had been putting off for a long time gave the bathroom a deep clean.  I threw the plastic shower curtain and bath mat in the washing machine.  Like I have done many times (although not nearly as often as I should).  Once it hit the spin cycle it clearly got out of balance and started knocking around so loudly I could hear it from the second floor.  I ran down, redistributed the load and then restarted the spin.  I decided to wait around to hear if it would get off balance again.  As I stood there, leaning on the machine, my mind drifted.  The spin started and then just seemed to get faster and faster and faster- going like I have never heard it spin before.  Instead of taking any action, I got lured into a daydream, wondering if this is what it sounded like to hear a helicopter take off.  From inside my basement.  I came out of it when the screeching, whirling noise hit a crescendo with a loud pop.  Then complete silence.  I admit that it made me chuckle.  Ok,enough for today, I need to go and get myself some water out of the refrigerating machine. 

Amish double header

Two Saturdays in a row have been devoted to ye olde Amish Envy Club, and while I admit that I went into this Amish double-header with some grumbling and stress about all the things being neglected on the homefront, I came out with no regrets.  We spent the Saturday of the slush storm over at Amy and Jeff's- working to remake a laundry/office room into a bedroom as they try to find room in their house for their own exchange student who arrives in January.  We arrived after a harrowing drive through the slush to find 7 kids in the front yard, in various stages of winter wear, pelting each other with the wettest snowballs I have ever seen.  Within 5 minutes of arrival both of our boys were drenched.  We let the kids continue their Lord of the Flies unsupervised morning outside while we got busy ripping up linoleum.  After lunch Shannon and I walked the crew of kids over to Como Zoo.  I was getting all uptight because none of them could resist the temptation to lie down, to lick, to roll, to throw the snow.  I was thinking about how hot and humid it is in the conservatory at the zoo and how they were going to be steaming.  But they weren't thinking about that.  They were thinking SNOW and they were loving it.  So I let it go.  When we did arrive, they were literally steaming as we walked through the different rooms, but no one mentioned their soggy condition once. 

Here's what I love about the chitlen:  Of the nine, seven are boys between the ages of 5 and 11.  One of the girls is right in the middle of the boy pack and she holds her own.  I dare say she could kick all of their butts if she wanted to, and sometimes I think she wants to...  But the other girl is only 2.  And each and every other kid loves her dearly and looks out for her.  As we tromped through the zoo with 9 kids and two adults, all of us in dripping snow gear, little Harriet would fall behind.  She's of that age where when encased in snow clothes she is wider than she is tall and mobility is severely limited.  But she'd fall a little behind and without a word amongst them, one of the boys would fall out, wait up, bend down to alter some piece of clothing and then hustle her back up to the crew.  It was never the same kid- they just all had their eye out for her and stepped up when it was needed.  It actually got me a little teary.  Or that might have been the steam from my clothes.

Something less cute about the Amish at the zoo- each and every room we went into a volunteer was instantly at our side.  The sight of 9 soggy kids with only two adults apparently made people nervous. But we were mostly in control.  Harriet would have only fallen into two of the ponds if she hadn't had a boy bodyguard by her side. 

That first Amish wrapped up early because the NeskeMoens had to light out to the big city for an evening engagement.  That and the storm cut out their power.  Cutting subflooring by hand saw did the pseudoAmish in.  Eli was the one who pointed out the irony of an Amish gathering ending early due to a power outage.  We had to take him out into the yard and give him a serious whitewash in the slushy snow for his blasphemous attitude.

The second Saturday of Amish togetherness was at Jason and Shannon's were we put up drapes, painted a bathroom and put in a new floor in their upstairs.  There were no poignant teary moments for me this time, but I did laugh to the point of crying more than once.  The crew is funny, if not always completely focused and productive.  

Independence

It just keeps happening.  This weekend Eli's friend called to see if he could play.  We could have driven him over, but before we knew what was happening, Eli had a map, had talked over the route with us, taking the described turns around the dining room table, and then he was off.  Biking to Simon's, some 2 miles and a couple of very busy roads away.  At the same time Ildar set off to take the bus to the Mall of America.  We had also shown him a map, told him to remember to get a transfer and hoped he got on the train going the right direction.  But off they went- one biking, one busing.  We weren't sure we'd ever see either of them again. 
But they made both made it there, and back.  When I was telling my mom where Eli had ridden too and said he was 'really' proud of himself, he corrected me and said he was not.  Really proud.  Just semi-proud.  That seems like the perfect amount.

Hanging out with Max

My three year old nephew Max did not have preschool today so I got to hang out with him for the morning.  We walked his cousins down to the corner where they jump into the walking line to school and realized we were halfway to a pretty great park.  It was 9am on November 9 and surprisingly toasty out, so we decided to make an outing of it, spur of the moment.  Max was really into what he could smell or hear while we were there.  There's a lot of road construction going on just out of view of the park and every time we heard a rumble Max would stand stock still and yell, "What was that?!?"  I would say it was a truck, and he would say, "No.  I think it was a cement mixer," or some other specific piece of heavy machinery, something he knows way more about than me.  But about the smells- he had pretty unique descriptions of the things he was smelling.  One that sticks out in my mind is the wooden post that 'smelled like it had a whole bunch of bees living in it.' There were several others in that vein and then I saw him with his nose up to his sleeve.  I asked him what that smelled like and he gave me the most blank stare and said, "A jacket."  Like there was no way I should expect it to smell like anything else...
The park was populated with monsters this morning- they were flying by our space shuttle, they were hiding in the garden, they might have been on the top of the slide- but Max vanquished them all.  Then we were walking home along Randolph in the sunshine and some homeowner had a construction sign up on their fence.  For Monster Construction.  You should have seen Max jump when he caught the picture of the logo out of the corner of his eye.  I almost died laughing.  Once I assured him it was ok, of course.  But the way he jumped and shrieked is something I will chuckle about for quite a while into the future.
Back here he got me giggling over his very serious requests for me to contact Mr. Von Flugel (the aviator from Richard Scarry) to see if he could babysit Max for the afternoon.  I was to hurry, because Mr. Von Flugel was surely going to leave work soon and we didn't want to miss him.  When his real babysitter (a lovely girl-really, a young woman, damn I'm getting old- named Misha) showed up at the door he was disappointed with me for not arranging an afternoon in BusyTown for him.  But then as we were walking to the door I somehow stepped on his sock which pulled it off of his foot and he went tumbling down.  We both could not stop laughing over that one.  He walked out the door, holding Misha's hand, still giggling.  Love him.

Still digging out berries

It's November and we still have a good deal of berries in our freezer.  This morning I made the boys some Swedish pancakes and we dug out a bag of Lake Namakon blues to roll up inside them.  We didn't defrost them all the way- the hot pancake wrapped around chilly wild blueberries with just a touch of sugar sprinkled over the top.  That's one heck of a way to start a Friday. 

I am getting out my summer 2011 calendar right now and penciling much time for berry picking.  I thought that I might have over done it last summer, but we're already nearing the tail end of our crop.  We still have a couple smoothies, maybe some waffle topping, and at least one more small tart before the well will run dry, however.  They will brighten some dark winter mornings, I am sure. 

Making the most of our CSA veggies

Jon and I have been members of a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) off and on for the past 15 years.  When we first started, back before Eli was born, we split a box three ways and still could not finish off the veggies most weeks.  We ended up with some good results from our experiments on the shelf life of beets and rutabagas.  Over the years we have gotten a little more adventurous and have learned several ways of pounding the always abundant beet crop into submission.  We can now also identify a few more greens and roots. 
But it wasn't until this year that we reached the point where we could consume everything on a weekly basis. Sure, there were some stressful Wednesdays as we tried to use up the last of a week's harvest before the new load appeared.  And having two rabbits as fellow housemates did indeed help- but they mostly ate the tops of the radishes, beets, and carrots- although I know a serious cook would have ingenious uses for those as well. 

Here are my highlights of CSA cooking this year:

Butternut Squash Bread.  It took a little effort to bake the squash, then puree it, then start the bread making process, but I do declare it worthwhile!  The whole family enjoyed this one, which has not always been the case with my experiments.  I have very high hopes the butternut squash ravioli I plan to make tonight with the left over puree.

Roasted Vegetable Sandwiches:   This was more of a hit with Jon and I, but the boys gamely ate there's and only 'accidentally' knocked a few of the harder to identify vegetables off of their sandwiches on the sly.  I am on to them. I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by the rutabagas and turnips in this one.

Beet Burgers:  When you get 6-10 beets a week, you have to get creative.  My family would only eat the beet/arugula/feta salad so often.  Beet burgers were a mess to make, but I made a load of 15 at once and we are still pulling them out of the freezer and roasting them up in November.  They are a nice alternative to a veggie burger every now and then.

Chocolate Beet Cake:  I didn't tell my boys that there were beets in this cake before they ate some.  And they never knew!  Yeehaw.  Of course, there was also at least 3 pounds of sugar in the recipe as well.

Carrot Cake:  I've never made one before, and Ildar proclaimed my first attempt as the 'Best American Carrot Cake' he has ever had.  It was his first American carrot cake, but I'll log that praise in my little book anyway.

American Borscht.  As I have mentioned earlier, our Russian expert insisted that this soup was good.  But it was not borscht.  Oh well.  It was my first attempt at a beet based soup (but not the last, I am sure) and I think it came out ok.

I'd call it a successful harvest from our perspective.  From the farmer's newsletters I know the season was a struggle with heat and too much water, for a change, but they managed to get a pretty bountiful crop to our table.  We will miss it as we settle back into the store bought groove for the next 6 months or so. 

The harvest is over, I fear

Last night it really froze hard.  The basil that had been bravely blowing in the wind over the past few chilly days is now shriveled and dead.  Luckily I have a freezer full of pesto to remind us of summer in the months ahead.  One of the last things we pulled out were our carrots.  I am never good at thinning my 'crops' to the suggested spacing intervals.  I always feel like more = more even though I do somewhat understand the concept of crowding and such.  So our carrot harvest is always a surprise.  We get a few that run straight and true and look like something you might buy at the store (but taste SO much better) but most of them are short stunted little fellows.  This year we had one whopper of a surprise when we pulled up this mammoth mother of all carrots.  It was not really the length that was inspiring- but its circumference and just general heft.  I think it could have made a pot of carrot soup all by its lonesome. 

Spy Master

One of our first stops during our weekend blitz of Washington DC was the International Spy Museum.  It was a hoot.  Upon entering you are brought up to a room where you 'select a cover' and then throughout your visit you use little computer terminals to answer questions about your 'cover' and are given new segments of your mission.  And the whole time you are learning really a massive amount of information about the spy trade throughout history.  The only thing wrong with the museum is that I fear it might inspire my boys to jobs that I would really in the end hate for them to have!  Being the mother of a spy can not be easy. 
When we left the museum we practiced the techniques of espionage we had learned and spotted dastardly spies on almost every street corner.  Luckily they did not spy us, due to our incredible ability to blend in....

Surprising myself in Washington DC

If there is ever a time that I have to come up with a few adjectives to describe myself, patriotic is not one that comes to my lips right away.  It's not that I'm anti-American at all.  It's just that in my travels around this lovely planet I have at times felt a little sheepish about how others perceive us.  This feeling probably peaked back in the nineties when I was living and working as a teacher on the small Caribbean island of Antigua.  The experience most Antiguans had with Americans was when scantily clad tourists right of the cruise ships would rush by in taxi's, video cameras panning the countryside from open windows.  Anyway- back to our trip to the Capitol.  As we toured around at all of the sites I found myself getting teary with some frequency.  It happened when we were hearing about the incredible valor and bravery of those first rebels, when we toured the vast library of congress, when we watched old video footage of the astronauts stepping out onto the moon, when we gazed up at Abe Lincoln.  But the experience that moved me most was while we were standing in line on the bottom floor of the white house, waiting in the endless stream of visitors to weave our way up the steps and get a glance at just a corner of the famous estate.  As we waited in the line we moved past photo displays of life in the white house over the years.  Every large frame had pictures from different eras- and I was incredibly moved by the sight of Michelle Obama and her family looking out from the sea of otherwise white faces.  It struck me again what an amazing thing our country did back in 2008.  We elected a man because of his qualifications and talents and charisma and smarts, and didn't let the color of his skin trip us up.  If I could sum up the essence of DC that touched me it was just the outstanding evidence of bravery everywhere you looked.  It re-warmed my heart toward this old country of mine. 

High Praise

Last week while the boys and I were sitting in the airport waiting for our flight back to Minnesota, Eli was trying to get his math homework done.  There were a lot of challenging new concepts and he had neither textbook nor teacher handy.  He was getting a little frustrated and testy.  Lucky for him he was trying to figure out how to graph lines and write their equations.  This just happens to be one of my favorite math topics.  I was a math major for the first half of my freshman year of college, after all.  Then I bailed for a major where I could sit around and read books, but I put in the effort for a while there.  And at Avalon I am often called upon to help with algebra and geometry homework.  Kids know not to ask me for help once they hit the imaginary numbers.  I never got that.  Anyway- back to me and Eli and his math.  At first he was a little snippy with my because I was trying to explain the process in a way his teacher had not discussed.  I asked him if he wanted my help or not.  He thought long and hard about that and then conceded that yes, in the end, he would like my help.  So I gave it and I saw the little light bulb go off in his head- which was pretty exciting to see because what he was working on is really the crux of Algebra and if you get that, so much more becomes clear.  After he worked through a couple problems without my help he put his pencil down, looked me in the eye and said, "You know mom, I guess you are pretty proficient in math."  The woman (mom) reading a book in the seat next to me took a pause, looked up, and smiled.  I told her I was going to write that comment down and cherish it as we move through the years ahead.  So here it is.  According to Eli, in the month of October in the year of two thousand and ten, he has proclaimed that his mother is indeed proficient in math.  I will be reminding him of this statement often, I think. 

Feral brawling revisited

Last fall we took the kids down to the pizza farm on a September evening and the boys loved it- they ran around in the dark playing tag, chasing kittens, running wild.  When we returned and got snuggled into warm beds Eli said something along the lines of how much he loved it and how it made him feel like a feral brawler.  He admitted that the did not know what the term meant, just that it seemed to fit the situation.  Of course it did.  We took some city kids to the country and released them into the ultimate childhood pastime- running free in the night. They reveled in the freedom of it, felt the release, and at some point started rolling all over each other in their enthusiasm.  Hence the brawling.  We returned to the pizza farm again this fall, with a smaller group, and the results were the same- maybe a little less brawling this time, but as soon as the car stopped in the glowering dark, the boys tumbled out and were hotfooting it after a pack of kittens.  It was, once again, lovely.   It's just kind of far away, and only open on Tuesdays- so not super accessible.

Today we did the next best thing- we took the kids out to Camp St. Croix on a beautiful fall day.  Our boys, plus the three little NeskeMoens, had the run of the camp while the parents helped split wood.  They all have spent a good number of weeks out there as day campers, and some of them have now graduated to overnight campers and their level of ownership is pretty lovely.  They jumped out of the car and were off- playing on the A-field, creating structures in the woods, laughing and playing and without (direct) adult supervision for about 3 hours.  They returned to us when we called at the end of the afternoon- dirty and tired and grinning.  I don't think there was any brawling today, but I definitely saw something feral about them.  If I remember correctly, the definition of feral is to 'return something to it's more natural state'.  I love our city home- I love walking to their school, biking to work, being close to the dentist and doctor and grocery and farmer's market and park- but the kids need the time away from others, in the woods, without adult planning and supervision.  They need this time so that they can grow straight and true and tall- full time citified life makes you feel a little stunted every now and then.

Perspective

Today as we were heading out to Camp St. Croix for a log splitting jamboree, Ildar (the russian son) asked me when the snow melts in the spring.  I did a little calculating in my head, and in an attempt to soften the blow for him a bit I said, well February- mostly in February.  Which is almost true.  I just failed to mention that March is often our snowiest month.  This kid could have been sent anywhere in the US and he got Minnesota.  I was trying not to depress him too badly.  But then he did his own calculating, looked at me with a big grin and said, "So, your winters are pretty short then!".  He is from the middle of Russia, afterall.   

Lucky me

So I still work part time.  I think both Jon and I thought that once the boys both got into school full time that I might start working five days a week again.  And I've thought about it, but I just can't make the jump.  Because if I did I'd have to give up moments like I had last week when I was working with a small group of Eli's classmates over in the library of Expo.  Our task was to read and analyze two poems by Maya Angelou which had been made into a sort of graphic novel.  We did a lovely job, I like to think.  But then the kids wanted more.  So I found another Angelou poem online and brought it in to the group.  We read it, analyzed it, and then I sat back as this group of three girls and three boys worked together to create their own graphic novel of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.  The listened to each other, gave respectful feedback, helped each other out when someone was stuck, and had some hearty laughs.  And I just got to sit there and listen.  Lucky me.

A little tidbit

I was in the back of Eli's classroom the other day doing a little work for the teacher while all of the kids were sitting up front listening to her mini-lesson about plot in writing.  She asked a few questions about the difference between the plot of a picture book and that of a novel.  The students were all mostly involved, answering questions, asking their own.  Then the teacher asked, 'What about poetry?  Does poetry have plot?'  Eli raised his hand and was called upon.  "Well, it depends, something like an epic poem, say like the Illiad by Homer, that definitely has plot..."  And I'm in the back wondering how in the world he knows about the Illiad.  I'm and English major for goodness sakes and have yet to read it.  I knew from the start of this parenting business that at some point these guys would pass me by in math.  I was not prepared for it to happen in about 2nd grade math with this dumb new lattice method of multiplication, which I just do NOT get, but whatever, I knew the day would come.  But I thought I would have a little more leeway with English.  Wishful thinking, I guess.

Sounding Off

The news lately has been full of tragic stories of teens taking their lives, most in response to being bullied for being gay, or perceived as being gay.  I work at a school where the GSA (Gay Straight Alliance) is strong and proud, and really mostly made up of straight allies who are standing up to support their peers.  They have no agenda other than to create a safe space for themselves so that they can turn their attention to learning, rather than focus on mere survival.  And they've done it.  The other day a student announced at the All School Meeting that it was "National Coming Out Day" and then explained that this was a chance for people who have had to live closeted lives to step out and start to live as who they are.  It is the custom at Avalon that all announcements are met with applause.  Even when I announce that there will be a high stakes standardized test in the afternoon.  They clap.  They are nice that way.  After this student made his announcement I held my breath for a second, wondering what kind of response he would get.  I will point out that announcements about the activities of the GSA (protests at the capitol, a school dance, a booth at a festival) are made often and greeted with respect, if not always enthusiasm.  I should not have worried- maybe it had something to do with the news of suicides and the tension around this issue, but the applause was thunderous and went on for a quite while.  Here was a diverse group of kids from all corners of the twin cities and they were taking a moment to say (with their hands) stop the hate, stop the madness, give everyone a chance to learn and live in a safe environment.

This same student was recently quoted in a StarTribune article on the subject and today a letter penned by him (and his GSA compatriots) was published in the 'point/counterpoint' section of the editorial page under the heading:  What does it take to make a school safe for learning?  The counterpoint to our student was written by Tom Prichard, the president of the Minnesota Family Council.  The comments on the page have been a mixed bag of support, questions, and a bit of hate-mongering.  I hate to read those.  All this young man is asking is that schools are safe for all.  We work hard to do this at Avalon, and I see the payouts.  In a conversation with his mom last week she said that what she loved about Avalon is that her son's main force of energy is NOT spent defending who he is or keeping out of the way of bullies, but rather on investigating the local food movement and getting intimate with the details of organic farming.  He is learning and growing in ways that were not possible in other environments and she is thrilled.  So am I.  Here's a link to his article.  It may not be perfect, but it's honest and it's brave, and he signed his full name, unlike many of the hateful people leaving their comments below it.  Go Ben.  Strib Article

School Pictures

It's school picture day today.  Jon and I tried to make last minute hair cut appointments for the boys last night, risking them going down in history with a bad cut, but it wasn't to be.  We couldn't find an opening for them.  They were thrilled, of course, and in their relief from avoiding the cut, they promised that I could throw them both through the shower this morning and then actually take a brush and perhaps a blow dryer to their hair. Eli is no problem.  He has relatively short hair and it sits how its going to sit.  There's not much managing needed or possible.  But Theo.  His locks are long right now, and after a few minutes under the influence of my blow drying prowess he came out looking a lot like....Andy Gibb.  Don't know how I came to be the mother of Andy Gibb, and I'm not sure I like it.  But Theo does.  I will take a picture of him soon so we can do a comparison.

Covert Operations

Last night after dinner we realized that we were in fairly desperate need of hay for the rabbits.  Not that the rabbits were showing any signs of desperation- they never show many signs of anything.  But the hay was gone so I convinced Eli to ride his bike down to the pet store with me.  The only glitch in the plan was that it is October in Minnesota, and although our temperatures have been summery lately, the sun goes down ever earlier each night, and by 7 it was pitch black out there.  I suited up our bikes with a variety of lights, including cool green glowing boomerang shaped things that stick in the spokes, and reluctantly put on Jon's sweat-smelly reflective vest.  At first I was going to have Eli wear that and I was just going to wear a white shirt and hope for the best, but then I saw Eli's school guard vest and I thought Aha!  He can wear that. 

Not so fast.  Apparently part of becoming a guard these days includes signing a blood oath that you will not wear the vest in vain.  Or so Eli led me to believe.  I did manage to convince him that protecting his life while we went on an emergency hay run was not using it flippantly.  He countered with, "or we could drive."  I didn't buy it.  I manhandled him into the vest and took off down the road.  He followed, but he kept glancing furtively left and right, looking for undercover traffic cops (which may be the romantic branch of traffic copping, if it exists) who might arrest him on the spot.  As our friend Tim mentioned, we made it through the dragnet unscathed. 

It turned out to be a lovely ride with hardly no traffic on the back roads we traveled.  And the whole way down the hill into the village we were guided by the most lovely banana moon I've seen in a while.  I said, "Oh, it's reminding me of old Wild Bill" (my grandfather who shared a banana moon connection with me and who passed away a few Octobers back) but Eli wouldn't let me elaborate, I was making him sad.  But at least that distracted him from his fear of being caught out in the vest.  He will be most mightily upset if he knows that I am about to post a picture of him all vested up.  Sorry Eli.

Borscht

So yesterday I looked around the kitchen and found myself staring at quite a supply of beets and cabbage and potatoes from our CSA.  These are not ingredients I use every day so I entered them into google to see what kind of recipes might pop up.  And sure enough the first 468 entries pointed toward borscht.  I have nothing against  this Russian soup- it's just that I have never made it before and I was a little nervous to have my debut taste tested by a real live Russian who happens to be pulling up a chair to our dinner table every night.  But it couldn't be avoided.  So I made it and awaited the verdict from Ildar.  He came in, looked in the pot, asked, "What's this?"  "Borscht."  He raised his eyebrows.  He gamely took a bowl and sat down for dinner.  I watched closely as he tasted the first spoonful.  He smiled and then said, "It's good, but it's not borscht."  I guess I'll take that as a positive review.  Right?  It got the rest of my dumb family laughing and pretty soon all of them were making plans as to how I could open up a stand in Russia selling "American style borscht."  Ildar added several points to the marketing plan, including this conclusion, "I think you should plan to take your stand to a new city every month, because maybe most customers will only come once and then not return, so you will have to find new customers somewhere else."  Hmmmm.  Well, I guess I don't know how to feel about the borscht, but it made it clear to me that Ildar is feeling downright comfortable in our household.  I like that.  But I don't think I am going to be making anymore borscht here for a while.

Status Update

So our new 'son' has been here for just over a week and I think we've all pretty much fallen in love with him.  He's a delightful kid.  I'm completely surprised how quickly I've come to think of him as part of us.  I know that we're going to lose him at the end of the school year, that he's really just a visitor passing through our lives- but I'm feeling pretty lucky that we get him for the duration.  Two weeks ago when this hosting of a foreign student was first posed to us I had some real misgivings about how it was all going to work.  And I admit that I was less than generous in my thoughts when I came to realize that this was going to translate to extra laundry, more meal prep and clean up, and some random expenses.  But that was when it was for some unknown kid.  Now that Ildar is in the house and we know him, of course I can toss his laundry in, and he is a great help in the kitchen, and I'd love to help him experience as much of the St. Paul life as he can, so a little extra expense is no big thing.  I do realize that we are only about 10 days into this and there is much time left in the year, but so far all is good.  Until he finds out that I sometimes write on a little blog and that he might end up as a topic!  Awkward.

This New Generation

Last night some neighbor kids were over hanging out.  A newly minted 5 year old stepped up to the piano to play us a tune.  She sat regally on the bench, flounced her hands out a little, then turned, eyed the 'crowd' and said, "Do any of you have cell phones???  Turn them off!"  Here she is, just a couple of hours into being five, and she's got the new drill down.
It reminded me of something that happened on our canoe trip down the Namekagon this summer with 8 of my most favorite kids.  We spent much of our time on the river tackling ye olde '2 minute mysteries'.  If you don't know what these are, they are kind of like glorified 20 questions.  Or gorified.  Because they almost all contain a story of death or dismemberment.  For example, the person in charge of the mystery might give out the line, "The music stopped and she died".  And then the solving crew has to ask yes or no questions to try to figure out how she died.  In this case it just so happens that she is a blind circus performer on the highwire and she knows that she is at the other end of the wire when the music stops, but some jealous co-worker wants her out of the picture and so stops the music early, she gets confused, stops, and falls to her death.  That is seriously the answer.  And the thing is that the questioners will get there.  It never fails to amaze me.  Another one starts with just these facts: "A man goes into a restaurant, orders an albatross sandwich, takes one bite, then jumps up, runs outside and kills himself."  Solve.  And they do.  Once you get into the groove with these you know what kind of questions to ask to get you to the (often grisly) conclusions.  But here's the thing about this new generation:  they have a whole new set of questions that they think to ask.  Such as, "Were there weapons of mass destruction involved?"  or "Did he use biological weapons?"  These questions, when posed by an innocent looking 8 year old lounging in a canoe in the middle of a fabulous wilderness, can be disconcerting.  And NO!  of course there are no WMD or biological whatevers, there are only ice cubes and shipwrecks and circus workers.  These mysteries were connocted in an more an innocent era, when murders were accomplished with icicles or umbrellas.  But now I feel like I've given too much away.

How are you people so calm???

On Sunday we were expecting our new foreign exchange student son to show up around 7:30.  Theo covertly kept a close eye on the front street starting around 6:15.  He'd walk by and do a sweep up and down the street, looking for the van with the "P.I.E." (pacific intercultural exchange) sticker on the side.  As the minutes ticked by he was amping up a bit, getting a little more touchy, and by 7 he was into his climbing mode- standing on the arm of the couch and then launching himself on unsuspecting parents as they walked by.  At 7:30 he finally broke, coming up to the windows, scanning, then turning toward me, grabbing my hands, looking in my eyes and yelling, "How are you people so calm?????"  Of course, I wasn't, I was also freaking out about this impending new development in our lives, but I wasn't brave enough to admit it like Theo.  But I didn't tell him that.  I just smiled and continued my own covert reconnaissance of the street.

Luckily Ildar arrived before 8 saving us all from nervous breakdowns.  And our first impressions make us think we are pretty darn lucky- he seems like a keeper.  And no rabbit allergy issues have surfaced as yet.  Of course, he's only been with us 24 hours, and has been gone at school and a volunteer gig for much of that- but still, it's looking like it might work.

Power Tripping

Our man Theo, at the tender age of 8, has been deputized as a crossing guard.  He has been issued all of the equipment- the orange flag, the velco-adjustable vest, the promise of hot chocolate on cold days.  And he is in love.  With the power.  And the perceived esteem increase he can leverage with this new position of power.  He was issued all of these items last Friday, the day of the big training with a real live cop.  Or at least a traffic cop- are they the same thing?  I always think of traffic cops as the junior varsity, but that might just be my own bias.  Anyway- when Jon's family came over Saturday for some celebratory birthday cake (Jon turned 41 and maybe almost looks 30 these days) Theo greeted them at the door, suited up, armed with the flag.  And I do mean armed.  It was lucky everyone left with all their appendages intact.   Look for him on a corner near you soon!

New brother on the horizon

No, Jon and I are not having another child.  But I think we just committed to hosting a foriegn exchange student for the rest of this school year.  I'm not real sure how it happened.  A woman who ferrets out homes for students in the area got our name somehow (no hard feelings, Amy....yet) and called late last Friday.  There's a kid from Russia who needs a new placement because he has allergy issues to the pets in the current home.  They need to place him somewhere quickly.  Can we do it?  I don't know!  Jon and I have never parented a 16 year old.  But we better figure it out soon because he will be here by Saturday.  In the meantime we need to convert our office to a bedroom and find places to shoehorn all that stuff into other corners of the house.  I did warn the woman that we do have rabbits and they do cause reactions in some people.  She said his allergies were only to cats and dogs.  Oh, and birds.  I suggested that he go to his local petstore and hug a rabbit or two to see if anything happens.  I don't think she passed this piece of advice along to him- so his stay here might be shortlived.  Because I did promise my boys that if he does turn out to have an allergy to the rabbits, we will work to find him a new home and will not foster out the rabbits.  Unless they keep chewing up the bookshelves- in which case I might reconsider.  Because even though I know very little about the parenting of a 16 year old, something tells me it will not have to include trying to train him away from chewing on the wood furniture.  But we shall see.  And soon.

Spreading his wings

Eli just returned from his annual backpacking trip with his dad.  The two of them tackled one more small section of the Superior National Hiking trail.  They apparently returned while I was out picking up Theo from a birthday party.  We pulled up behind Jon's car and saw that it was still loaded with all of the camping equipment.  I thought that Jon and Eli must be in the house- they must have had to go to the bathroom real badly or something.  But the door was locked and no one was inside.  We had no idea where they were.  It turned out that they had stiffened up on the drive home and got right out once they got home and went for a little stroll to loosen the muscles.  And to help Eli get his bearings in our neighborhood.  For some reason the week before was when Eli (finally!) started paying attention to where we lived in relation to other important landmarks- in Eli's eyes this means libraries or bookstores.  Apparently he and Jon spent much of their walk through the woods discussing how Eli would walk from our home to these places, sometimes stopping to make maps in the dirt with sticks.  And now that he was home he was eager to walk around and make sure he knew which way was what.  So that he could take off for these destinations on his bike.  Alone.

He was so eager to try it out that we said, sure, go ahead.  But first describe to us how you are going to get there.  He said, "Well, I'm going to go out to Snelling, then I'm going to go sideways for a little while.  Then I'll cross at that one street and go straight straight straight until I see the bookstore."  Ok, sideways then straight at that one place.  I'm feeling confident.  But we suited him up with a phone, he grabbed a few bucks in case something caught his eye at the store, was reminded to put on his helmet, and off he went to the garage.  A little swagger to his step if I must say. 

At that point I needed to call my mom for something else and I mentioned that Eli was off biking on his own.  She reacted immediately.  Notice I did not say OVER-reacted.  I am not one to judge.  But she brought up every possible danger- he's riding into the sun!  It's setting! (in 2 hours!)  The twins game just got out! Does he have a lock?   Oops.  We had set him up with everything else but a lock.  She implored me to hang up and get out there and follow him, on the sly if need be!  Jon and I talked it over and decided that Jon should meet him at the bookstore with a lock, but that Eli could return alone if he wanted.  He wanted.  And he did return, all in one piece even.  And he's eager to do it again.  The next time I won't call my mom....

Odd

Today I was down in the bowels of the Midway Y, in the over heated women's lockerroom, trying to change as quickly as possible from my work clothes to workout clothes so that I could squeeze in 30 minutes on a cardio machine before rushing off to release Granndma Sherry from the clutches of my children.  As I was sitting in the bathroom stall I could hear a woman on the phone that is attached to the wall next to the lockers.  It is not a dial phone- it is push buttons- but it is old fashioned and has an actual cord that connects the handset to the base.  Anyway- the conversation struck me as odd because she seemed to be doing some kind of travel agent type job.  She was asking for the spelling of someone's name and then talking about destinations.  I thought the women's lockerroom at the Y an odd place to be making some of your business calls, but I let it go.  Until I got out of the stall and saw that she was standing there at the phone, making her call, completely naked.  Except for her running shoes.  Now, it is warm in that lockerroom year round, but who ever finds themselves just in a pair of running shoes?  I mean, aren't shoes the first thing you take off and the last thing you put on, at least in most scenarios?  Even if there was some odd situation that would leave you just wearing your shoes and nothing else, what would cause you to decide to initiate a phone conversation on a public phone while in this state?  And what's more, this woman had no little notebook stashed anywhere so I don't know where she was taking her notes on the spelling of the name or the destinations desired by who I assume was a client on the other end.  The whole scene made me think that there must have been a candid camera crew around the corner.

I got home for dinner and told my boys about my odd sighting in the lockerroom.  Now, they are not so comfortable about talking with their mom about nakedness, but none of us could stop laughing over this women in her running shoes, doing a little business from the basement of the Y. 

"And I'm thinking to myself..."

Eli and Theo spent last week at daycamp out at St. Croix.  Eli is now old enough to be invited to sleep over on Thursday evening.  Thursdays are the 'parent nights' when families come out for a cookout and to watch the skits.  Despite the risk of being labeled a cynical bad parent, I will go on record as saying the parent nights are never my favorite.  Oh, I love seeing my kid on stage, but I can confidently say that those skits have been performed for well over 30 years.  They were already old when I was doing them as a camper.  And the cookout does have potato chips- but the rest of the fare is very uninspired.  When I was a counselor the family nights used to be potlucks and we looked forward to them all week!  Families brought much better food than that produced in the camp kitchen.  I still remember the spread of desserts with fondness.  But now we're so scared of litigation in case some gets food poisoning (this is a theme for me lately) that potlucks are becoming a thing of the past.

Anyway, back to Eli and his overnight.  On Wednesday evening over supper I was asking him if he knew anything about the upcoming overnight.  Here's his response:  "Yeah, they told us that when everyone leaves camp we will set up our tents, then play some games, then make s'mores.  And I'm thinking to myself, 'Malnutrition!  What kind of dinner is s'mores?'"  Then he broke out in a grin and said, "Clearly I forgot that it was family night!"  I kind of love the fact that his first thought, when faced with the prospect of s'mores for dinner was 'malnutrition!'.  My first thought was yum. 

Gretty Crocker learns some lessons

I was all swelled up and pleased with myself for cooking up some lovely pasta sauce and freezing it for the winter.  Until my plan to freeze it in glass jars backfired on me.  A friend, when trying to talk me through my distress of my love's labor lost, casually pointed out that glass and freezers are not usually close companions.  Straight away I remembered the coke bottle explosion from my youth.  Now, in truth, only one of my 8 jars exploded, and it wasn't that much of a mess because the sauce had already gotten real cold and solid.  But still, it was the largest jar and it hurt.  I was all for peeling the broken glass off of the frozen sauce and keeping it.  The sauce, not the glass.  But Jon convinced me that ingesting broken shards of glass might not be the best way to spend a quiet winter evening.  So I tossed it.  The other 7 jars remain untouched in the freezer.  I think that they have made it past the window when explosions are most likely, but time, I suppose, will tell. 

Role models

We once again vacationed at Camp DuNord this summer.  At some point Jon and I did actually discuss doing something different, but the kids rioted at the thought.  We would ruin their lives if we didn't go back!  So in early August we packed up and headed toward Ely.  We stopped, as tradition dictates, at the fancy Italian hotspot, Sir G's, for dinner before heading out to camp.  Our pals the Neilsens met us and the laughter began.  Dinner was dominated by a Q and A with Pete Neilsen, the newly minted 14 year old who had just completed a 14 day Widji trip in the BWCA.  As he regalled us with his tales of adventure, I noticed that he was sitting tall, shoulders back, looking confident and proud.   And why not?  This kid just went on a 14 day wilderness adventure!  Without his parents!  He sterned, he portaged, he cooked, he grew.  Later, Wally and I were chatting about the changes in Pete- about how he idolized his counselor, how he had become steeped in the religion of the 'widji way', how he came off trail and begged his parents for two things:  fresh fruit and a good book.  Sign my kids up!  I'm thinking if you can get your boys 14 days in the wilderness with a college student who reads the campers good literature, kneads bread dough on the bottom of the canoe (not while it is in the water!) and talks about his yearnings for fresh fruit, well, what's the problem with a little idolization?  I saw the trickle down effect while we were at DuNord.  Apparently Pete's counselor carried a backpack at all times- equipped with a good book, a bottle of water, and other small necessities.  So now Pete carries a backpack.  By day 2, Theo was strutting around with his own bag on his back.  And Eli was asking quiet questions about widji, planning out his own route up through a couple trips at St. Croix and then onto the intro widji expedition.  The only problem with this plan, if they follow through on it, is that we better start saving money now! Those widji trips are not cheap.  But what kind of price can you really put on confidence, self-realization, and maturity? 

The appliance anniversary

Over the course of the summer our fridge has gone on the fritz, the dishwasher refuses to clean anything that hasn't been pre-scrubbed, and the dryer is only drying loads of 3-7 socks at a time.  For the moment we have only chosen to replace the fridge, but there is more appliance shopping on the horizon, that seems a sure thing.  Luckily our 17th annivesary approaches.  How do you think Jon will feel about a big old gift certificate to ApplianceSmart?  Or perhaps Sears is more sexy? 

Gretty Crocker

I am seriously getting in touch with my inner homemaker this summer.  I haven't yet gotten up the guts to actually try canning my overflow of produce (botulism postively petrifies me!) but I've done a lot of cooking up and then freezing.  The feeling of contentment i get as I spoon the pizza sauce into the jars and toss them into the freezer is well worth the time spent stirring the pot on a hot Sunday evening.  And I am already looking forward to cracking out a potent little parcel of pesto for some hectic mid-winter meal and sniffing my way back to these lazy summer days. 

Hands on!

Theo has always been a child who needs to touch, to move, to connect.  Every single dinner ends with Theo swallowing his last bite, pushing his plate back, looking for the nearest parent, thowing open his arms and saying, 'Snuggle?'.  This is adorable in the winter, but when it's 92 degrees and there's no breeze, I'm not such a fan.  Although he is hard to resist.  I usually have to make him wash up first because eating for Theo is a very hand's on experience.  He likes to feel that food- a fork is way too much separation between his touchy greedy little fingers and the wonderful textures of the offerings on his dinner plate.  But he does wash up real well. 

What I've noticed this year, as Theo ventures out more often on his bike, is that this touching moving feeling thing doesn't translate so well to biking under his own power.  He does firmly plant his hands on his handle bars and keeps them there, but something must be just vibrating through his nervous system as he rides.  Every thing he sees, or feels, or thinks, seems to translate into a movement in his arms, which are, of course, connected to his handle bars, which steer his bike.  So his trip down to the end of the block is nowhere near a straight line.  He is veering left and right and sometimes swings right back around the way he came.  All of this movement seems to go unnoticed by him, but for the parent behind him it's nervewracking.  The other day when we rode to the DQ I was sure he was going to plow into several parked cars, but luckily his most violent swings seemed to line up with empty road, or better yet, vacant alleyways.  One time we were riding along to the south when all of the sudden he jerked to the left and was 10 feet down an alley before he came to a stop.  I called out, 'What's up?' and he answered, "I don't know!  My armpit itched!  I seem to have itchy armpit disease!"  Then he laughed, turned around and headed back my way.  Sort of.  I've really never seen anything quite like it.  But here's the key- it doesn't seem to bother him so much.  He teeters this way and that, careening down the road with a grin.  And it does seem that maybe, just maybe, the veering is settling down a little the more he rides.  I just hope that he gets this under control before he is behind the wheel of a real live automobile, or we are going to have to find ourselves some seriously good insurance. 

Rites of passage

I teach a seminar at my school on rites of passage. We look at cultures throughout history and throughout the world and examine how they have moved young people to adulthood. The conversations in this class are usually lively- the kids I'm talking with are either going through some sort of passage or they're not, and in either case, it's something they really want to talk about.   Part of our discussion is always about how these rites of passage are often hard for their parents- not only are the kids changing, and changing into something that at first seems a little more dangerous, a little less controlled, but everytime a kid goes through some sort of passage, why then, so does the parent.  And most usually this means that there is some self-relization about that inevitable, never-ending, aging process.  For the most part, I have been able to have these discussions with my teenaged students and mentally flash back to my own experiences as a teen in the 80's.  I usually have been able to identify with them, not with their parents.  But that time is coming to an end.

Here's how I know.  We were up at Camp Dunord this August and we spent quite a bit of time in canoes.  For the first few days Eli was eager to try out his paddling, from the bow. But then one day he saw his cousin Sam trying out the stern and he got the crazy idea in his head that he'd like to try that.  And try it he did.  And not only did he get it, but he liked it.  And while that is fabulous and great and cool- it's so neat to see him back there in the stern, taking a little control, being in charge of our route, it's also hard, because to see him back in there in the stern I have to twist around from the dang bow!  I hate the bow.  I always thought that it was just less comfortable (you can't rig up a lounger from the bow so easily) but now that Eli is actually in the stern and I am pretty sure that I am never going to be welcome back there again as long as he is in the canoe, I see it from a whole new angle.  I hate the bow because you are not in control!  This here is a big self-realization for me.  Some of you others may be thinking, finally, she figures out that she is as much as a control freak as her very own dear mother.  Sorry Mom.  But it took Eli moving from the bow to stern for this to sink in.  Not only am I not in control, but Eli, my child, is.  Help.  And so as I prickle up with pride to see my first born become capable and strong and comfortable in the stern, I find myself a little uncomfortable up here in the bow.  And then I get to thinking, this journey has really only just begun.  This is only one of the very first small steps toward his move to eventual (or so we hope!!) adulthood.  And even though now he's still at the stage where he will take some coaching from the bow and he really doesn't quite notice when I sneak in some steering-type strokes from the front, as we travel further down this path I think my input will be asked for, and maybe required, less and less.  And I'm not sure how I feel about that.  Actually, that's not true. Right now I'm pretty sure I feel quite uncomfortable with it.  But I know, from my teaching experience, that this is actually how I am supposed to feel.  I just wish that made me like it more.  I know I know I know that I shouldn't get all hung up just because Eli moved into the stern during a little canoe trip across a bay at Burntside lake.  But to me it marks the beginning of his passage into eventual adulthood, which I admit would be a problem if he never made that leap, but it made me come face to face with the fact that I'm moving on to something else here too.  Something that starts with the word middle and ends with the word aged.  I can not bring myself to bring those two words any closer together for the time being.  The good thing about these transitions is that if they are done right, we have some time to make adjustments along the way.  And so far, Eli seems very content to have me in his bow.  There might be a day when he wants to throw me right out of the dang canoe.

Thea

One night on our river trip, a few of the girls (Mary Beth being culprit number one!) got the idea to fashion up some new hairdos for Theo.  In the end, I don't know who was more pleased.  Theo took quite a bit of delight in being temporarily re-christened 'Thea'.  I don't know if this is going to be a reoccuring element in Theo's 'new look'.  Time will tell. 

The Dutch Invasion

So, when our dutch friends came to visit, we thought, hey, the challenge of finding places for all of them to sleep and eat and live in our house seems too easy.  Let's also try to completely outfit them for a trip into the wilderness.  Luckily we have a lot of family and friends who like REI.  And so outfit we did, and then the 10 of us, plus another family of four, headed out for 3 days on the Namekagon.  Was it delicious.  And I'm not just talking about MaryBeth's penchant for 5 course camping meals, I mean the whole dang trip.  One would think that heading out with 14 people, 5 canoes, 4 tents, and 48 tubes of sunscreen would be a bit chaotic, but this trip flowed as smoothly as the river itself.  By the time we were rounding the first bend from our put-in, Eli was in the water floating alongside.  Soon most of the other kids joined them.  To hear their whoops and giggles as we passed through shallow ripples or deep channels was a delight.  And the adults all quickly figured out how to rig up a kind of lounging situation in the sterns of the canoes.  When it got too hot, I could simply roll off my lounger and into the refreshing waters.  It did, admittedly, take more effort to get back into the canoe, especially from mid-river in deep water, but I got pretty good at that as well. 

We spent the next 3 days floating, swimming, eating, and solving two-minute mysteries.  The weather was on its best behavior and the bugs seemed mostly to be on vacation elsewhere.  We didn't spot as many sturgeon as last year, but just seeing one was enough to put me newly in awe of these relics from the age of the dinosaurs.  Our Dutch pals, fresh from living with 23 million friends and neighbors in Shanghai, were amazed by the solitude and beauty just two hours from the cities.  It proved to me once again that it is worth the effort to dig out the stove, the gas, the PFD's, the sleeping pads, to dust them off and to get out there!

Flashforward to the teen years

This past July we had to do some changing up in the house in order to make room for our favorite family of six from the Netherlands.  Despite the fact that not one but two of the blow up mattresses we procured seemed to pop, all things went mostly according to plan.  What was a surprise to me was how much my own two boys would take to being temporarily relocated to the basement.  I was just going to have them sleep on the futon couch down there and call it good, but in the days of prep before the dutchies arrived, Eli got in on the act.  When I was off trying to locate spare sleeping bag number 5 and 6, he got busy in the basement.  By the time I returned he fashioned up a labyrinth of extension cords to plug in the CD player he had dug out of the Goodwill bag, an old discarded desk lamp he had duct-taped to overhead plumbing pipes, and a clock (pilfered from my bedroom!), all without diverting power from the air hockey table or Wii console.  He pulled an old side table into duty as a headrest and found my grandmother's silverware box to use as a tissue holder.  Kleenex have never had it so good, residing in a velvet lined case.  He then dug through our rack of CD's, popped in some vintage U2 and declared the 'room' his for the foreseeable future.  When he started talking about plans to move the bookshelves down from upstairs to make his walls I had to put a temporary stop on the remodeling process.  And here I had been worried about how he would feel about being relocated from his room for the week.  I never once imagined it would jump-start the teenage years.  But now the Dutch pals have returned to China (because even though they are our very favorite family of six from the Netherlands they did come to us from their home in Shanghai) Eli has returned to his upstairs bedroom.  It might have been the spiders, or the constant creaking hum of the dehumidifier, or maybe just the general gloom of the unfinished basement, but whatever the case, I'm glad to have him back.  He did not leave his penchant for redecorating in the basement, however.  He somehow talked his brother into switching beds with him, and once in possesion of the bottom bunk he quickly got out his favorite roll of ducttape and fashioned up quite the cave using spare bedsheets.  But so far no extension cords, cd players or old school U2.  The teen years seem to be back on hold for a bit here.  whew.

Developing his new look

For awhile now our little man Theo has been growing out his hair.  And it is nice hair, it should probably be grown out.  I just hope that he settles on some hair style that doesn't require the constant head flick to get the hair out of his eyes.  There are some boys at my school who have a pretty constant tick which I think spells lots of chiropractic care in their future.  This brings me to my prediction that there is a whole generation of boys who are going to need therapy a few years down the road for hip/knee problems.  How those saggers have to walk to keep their pants up can not be good for the body long term.  I know, I know, that fashion before function is the name of the game for teens, and I myself would have to sit down and undo 37 safety pins before I could get out of a pair of jeans back in the 80's, but I don't think that silly fashion did any long term damage to my body....  But I digress, back to Theo.  I had him in for his yearly physical earlier this summer and he was chatting with his doctor, the lovely Sandy Sackett.  I love how they interact- he can be a little shy with some adults, but he just bares his soul to Sandy.  During this visit she asked him if he had many of the same teachers that his older brother had.  He said yes.  She then asked, "Well, do they ever get the two of you mixed up?  Accidentally call you Eli?"  To which Theo responded, "They used to, but lately I've been growing my hair out and developing my own look."  Sandy did an excellent job of surpressing a giggle, raised her eyebrows at me over Theo's head and said, "Are you now?".  Yep.  Yep he is.

Kitchen Confidential

Today I spent about 6 hours in the kitchen, trying to get a handle on the outstanding produce before we head out to DuNord for awhile.  I made:
3 jars of salsa
1 big jar of cucumber refrigerator pickles
1 ice cube try of some seriously potent pesto
6 loaves of zucchini bread
and a big tray of my mom's infamous 'no-bake bars'

Ok, there are no vegetables in the no-bake bars, only sugar. 

I found that the ingredients I was working with really did not go well with a little wound I have on my finger.  First vinegar, then hot peppers, then onion, garlic, tomatoes, lime juice.  I was suffering.  But the bounty in my fridge and freezer make it all worthwhile.

And here's the confidential part of this little tale.  The wound- it's from when I sliced off a little piece of my finger earlier this week while making pasta salad for a neighborhood potluck.  Not a lot of my finger, just a teeny little fatty section next to the fingernail.  But I never found it.  I was chopping onions at the time and it just got mixed in.  So my potluck dish was probably not 'vegetarian' as I claimed.  Don't tell the neighbors!

Check out those femurs!!

A couple years ago I tried to make the switch from regular old pedals on my bike to those fancy clip-in shoes.  I went to a local shop, talked to someone briefly, bought some shoes, clips, pedals and then took them home, rigged everything up (ok, Jon did that, not me) and then sat out in the back yard clinging to the tree while I tried to get my feet in and out of those clips.  I couldn't do it.  Could not do it.  I never even got my feet in the clips once.  So I took everything back off the bike (or Jon did) and trudged back up to the store and returned it. They were not pleased with me. 
So yesterday after my shoelaces got stuck in my pedals for the 976th time, nearly tossing me from my bike into traffic, and I decided it was time to try again, I was nervous.  But I stopped by NOW sports (a different store from last time) and had a chat with a lovely young man.  I told him I had tried and failed once- I needed their easiest set up and some coaching.  He was enthusiastic- but told me I had to come back with my bike- they were open until 8 and they would not let me leave the store until I had mastered the technique of getting out of my clips.  I gave him a brief overview of my tree hugging failure and he said that he could stand for a little overtime if it took longer than 8pm.
I wasn't able to return until 7, and I was nervous.  But then I walked in and the first guy I talked to put me entirely at ease.  The whole evening became a laugh fest with three employees eventually helping me, all of them making minor adjustments to my bike as we went through the stages of fitting me out.  They kept telling me that I needed to get my bike tuned up, but by the time I walked out the door we all agreed that I no longer needed to schedule one- they had all taken turns tweaking this or lubing that, and by the time I rolled out my bike was gleaming, and silent- far different than the creaky screecher I had ridden in on. The highlight of the evening was when they had me up on the trainer and one guy stood in front of me yelling "Don't look down!  You can't look down to click in- you'll hit a parked car!"  Then he looked down and said, "Whoa!  That bike is not sized correctly for you.  Your seat is way to low.  Wait- look at those femurs!  Bob!  Hey Bob!  Come over and check out her femurs!"  So Bob came over and checked out my femurs.  I suppose I should have been flattered- long legs are a positive thing on a woman, right?  But they were talking as if these femurs were freakish, and sure enough before long they had out a little measurer and were getting the stats on the femurs.  My femurs!  But we all had a laugh, they got my seat positioned correctly, and I finished up my lesson.  When I went to the register to pay they told me the tune-up and 'mini quick fix' were free, but I should return for the real deal sometime soon.  I will.  They have won my return business.  I rode out the door confidently just before 8.