It’s all gravy

This morning my nieces and my sister came over for breakfast. Our school system had a “late start day” so we all were able to sleep in and still get in a bigger breakfast than we normally would do in the middle of the week.

I made sausage gravy and biscuits. I’ve made it a couple of times in the past few months… I made it for Robby’s 40th birthday-surprise-brunch (or “The Meat Feast” as my sister refers to it) and I made a batch for us to reheat on a cold morning at family camp. My nieces don’t remember me making it before those times. Which surprised me at first– I don’t make it every weekend but it shows up on our breakfast repertoire here and there.

But there was a big gap in its appearance on our menu. When Robby and I were first married I made it more often. I learned to make it when I worked at Greenfield Village. One Christmas season I worked in one of the historic house kitchens most often with a girl named Lola. She and I both loved sausage and made everything associated with it we could. Hash. Gravy. Soup. Stuffed things. Our house was off the beaten path and on really snowy days we had a big window of time before the first visitor would show up giving us a lot of time to experiment. Neither of us were great cooks– but we improved quite a bit that winter. We figured out sausage gravy one morning and enjoyed it with batches of beaten biscuits. I still think of Lola whenever I make it.

Meanwhile, my Dad was going through chemotherapy and didn’t have much of an appetite. Or rather he didn’t have much of a tolerance to food– certain things still sounded appealing but the normal odors and aromas could turn him off before he was able to enjoy a bite. Eating breakfast at a restaurant was nearly impossible– by the time Dad would sit and order he was too nauseated by all the food around him to stand the wait until his own food came to the table. When he found out that I could make sausage gravy and biscuits we had several Saturdays where Robby and I would wake up at an ungodly hour to Dad calling us on the phone to tell us he and Momma were on their way. It was 77 minutes between their house and ours. Robby and I would jump up and start the sausage cooking and whip together a batch of biscuit dough. We got pretty good at it. It would be finished when Dad arrived– he and Momma would eat with us then escape the smells and drive back home. Robby and I would go back to bed.

It wasn’t just the food on those Saturdays– it was the chance for a homesick new bride/worried daughter to see her parents and a chance for Robby and I to, in the most miniscule way, repay some of the enormous kindness that my parents showed us. And Dad got to eat and run without anyone at the table thinking it odd.

I couldn’t help think of my Dad this morning when my kitchen table was crowded with Trish and the girls. It always makes me sad to think of my lovely nieces growing up without the Bompa that they both adored when little.

I also thought of Lola and wished she were here with some of her better-than-mine beaten biscuits. I didn’t want the pressure of making biscuits this morning so I used the refrigerator-tube kind.

 

17 Days of Being Grateful

Some of my facebook pals have been using November to post Things I Am Grateful For in their status. It’s a good idea. So I’ll try to think of 17 for the first 17 days of this month:

I Am Grateful For:

1. my husband. I’m glad I am not alone in life. I am glad that there are warm legs to warm my cold toes against in our bed. I’m glad that there is someone to raise Jack with.

2. my son. I am so glad that I get to be a mother. Apparently I’m not so good at the gestating a baby so I’m glad that Jack’s time in my belly was relatively normal.

3. Our furry little children Philbin (aka The Little Black Dog) and Hildy Guard Dog. As infuriating as the two of them can be when they do not want to play nicely together… or when Hildy decides that pooing inside the house is preferable to going outside… and as expensive as Hildy’s first shots have been… well. I’m glad that they are part of our lives.

4. our parents– my father, my mother, Rob’s parents, and Eric. They’re all good people who love us and take good care of us.

5.my sister and her girls. Jack loves few people like he loves his cousins.

6. Robby’s job. It leaves him sapped out on some days and some of his coworkers drive him batty… but we’re very grateful that he is gainfully employed.

7. our home. It’s an old house so there is a lot of things about it that frustrate us on a daily basis. But then, to compensate, there are the arched doorways and lovely, lovely dark wood throughout, and the windows that make me happy.

8. books and the ablility to read them. Watching Jack learn to read has made me so grateful that I can read and that I enjoy it so. I can’t imagine life without a book within reach. I like my tall bookshelves full of a mishmash of book genres. I love the glass window doors that protect the two “good shelf” books.

9. our health. We’re so lucky to be in working order.

10. our friends. Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I take a cue from Bing and Rosemary and count my blessings. Usually that comes in the form of our friends. Oldest friends and newest friends and far-flung friends and old-school friends and church-family friends and our parents’ friends and work friends and and and and and. We’re lucky. I wish that our best friends lived closer and that we saw the far-flung friends more often… but at least we get to know them and love them.

11. orange juice and chocolate. My favorite comfort foods are fresh-squeezed orange juice and really, really good chocolate. Lumpy mashed potatoes and gravy. Glass-bottled Coke. Good cheese. Cold Calder’s milk. Scones with clotted cream and jam. Jam tarts. My mother’s Texas Sheet Cake. My sister’s Scripture Cookies. My pot roast. Mrs. Nordmeyer’s soup. Horseshoes with Cheese Whiz. Biscuits and gravy and grits. Eggs in the Snow. Brussel Sprouts. Bacon. A proper sponge cake. Mallomars. Mommy’s Smokey Corn Chowder or Bean soup.

12. Tea. Properly made and perfectly hot tea. Or perfectly iced. A day without tea is a sad, sad day.

13. sewing and knitting. I like to make things. I like the quietness that comes about me when I can sew a long seam by hand and the soothing rhythm of knitting.

14. Lush. There are few things more decadent in my life than soaking in a Lush-y tub full of some yummy thing. Add in a Hello magazine, glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice, and a box of Mallomars and you’ve made for a darn fine evening.

15. our church. I’m really grateful for our church. We have great pastors and a wonderful music program. The church family is a good mix of old and new members, new people, old and young, and it’s getting more racially diverse with each generation. I like it there. We feel well-fed when we leave.

16. Jack’s school. After all the agony of the past year trying to choose just the right place for Jack to learn– we lucked into a great school. We’re so happy with his teacher. We couldn’t have imagined what a good fit that she would be for Jack. We should have– we’ve prayed and prayed about it– but it was beyond our hoping.

17. that it’s almost Christmas. I love Christmas. I love the trees and lights and cookies and music. I like the goodwill among men. And I love wrapping presents. So it’s all good.

Fifteen Year Anniversary

Fifteen years ago today Robby and I were married. It was a great day. We had a lovely wedding ceremony and a room full of our nearest and dearest for a reception. The cake was delicious. My Mom’s dress was perfect.

Like I said, it was a great day.

We’ve had some good anniversaries since, too. Before Jack, when it was just all about us, we celebrated each year in fine style– a trip, a present, flowers, champagne. After Jack came we haven’t been as pomped or circumstanced– we’re more practical. It occurs to us that we might need whatever money we’d spend on each other for Jack or the house or to fix a car.

So today has been pretty low key. Last night we snuck out for a bit after Jack went to bed– Lady came over with her knitting and an ear cocked for the monitor while Robby and I ran errands and then split a plate of chili-cheese fries at our old high school hang-out. Today we met for lunch, with Jack, at Sam’s Club because it’s very close to Rob’s office and, well, it’s cheap. And tonight? Well, tonight I’m going to a hotel but not with Robby. I have a Museum conference and so I’m bunking in with our pals Chris and Susan and their sweet boy while Robby and Jack stay here and “do man things.”

It’s not exactly the 15 year anniversary celebration we’d imagined in 1994. We imagined then that we’d spend days like this at the Aleyska Hotel or on the Great White Way in NYC or eating at our favorite french place in Chicago.

It’s made us both a little sad. And frustrated.

On the other hand– we couldn’t have ever imagined, 15 years ago, how wonderful an ordinary day like today can be. How much we’d appreciate a half-day of school so that we could eat lunch with our little son on a weekday. Or how nice it was, after our late night chili cheese fries to sit on the couch together with the little dogs and something good on TiVo to watch. (The TiVo, by the way, was an anniversary present several years ago. And Hildy is this year’s present to each other. We scrapped our plans to go to NYC to see the Christmas lights when my hours dwindled to ridiculously low levels at work. We bought the little pup instead.)

I wish today had more fireworks and hoopla but I’ll take this. Thanks for marrying me 15 years ago, Robby. I love you.

(Our) Bleak House

Yeah. So that Possibly H1N1 Flu Thing… sure was a miserable house pest.

We’ve had a pretty somber week around here. Robby was hit first– he came down with something and ended up at the urgent care clinic on Tuesday night. He had a nasty fever and fell asleep at the end of every 3 sentences. They did a chest x-ray and came back to announce, chirpily, that his flu may have moved into pneumonia.

This was curious since, after our long wait  to see the “doctor” (we’ll use that term loosely), we were informed that “we can’t test for the flu– we don’t have the tests!” This was also said chirpily. These people have been huffing too much Lysol. Why wouldn’t they post that on the door? Everyone in the waiting room was exhibit flu-like symptoms– not a fractured ankle or bloodied bandage in sight… so why wouldn’t they have just admitted that, “Hey! Don’t know what we’re doing here! Go on up to the ER!” instead of putting us through the wait? (At least I wasn’t sick at that point. I made Robby go out to the car so he could sleep while I sat in the Petri Dish of a Waiting Room for him.)

They sent Robby home with anti-biotics (including a delightful shot in his arse) and we went on to Wednesday hoping for the best. And it was a little better. Robby thought his fever was had broken (nope. Just on break. Eating a donut?) and imagined he would be able to return to work on the next day. I took Jack to Angel Choir at church and to the Wednesday Night Supper afterwards to give Robby the maximum time to sleep uninterrupted.

And then… 12 hours later… it hit me.

One parent can go down for the count with the Possibly Maybe Probably Swine Flu. The household still functions. But when two are down… chaos reigns. Luckily our mothers stepped in and took turns ferrying Jack to and from school and keeping him with them so we could crawl back to bed.

Thursday and Friday are blurs. I remember there was Jell-O and my soup I’d made for Robby warmed up for me. I was supposed to see my niece dance/sing/act in Godspell on Friday night. It’s a tiny theater and tickets were sold out every night. I reluctantly gave up ours and conceded that, with a fever and chills, I probably should stay in. (But I cried– Oprah Ugly Cried– for most of the night. I don’t easily miss something the girls do.)

Saturday and Sunday were quiet days. We slept and let Jack watch too much television and ate the food that my mom and Rob’s mom brought to us. We caught up on all our TiVo warehoused shows and movies. Robby played on the computer. I slept. I did get to Godspell on Saturday night– it was still sold out but my sister happened to sit next to an aquaintance who’s wife was out because of the flu– she scooped up her spot for me. I doped myself up and put on “real” clothes  and was so grateful to see Maddie. And then, like Cinderella’s coach, turned back into a pumpkin in my sweats by midnight.

Today we’re testing the waters. I took Jack to school. Robby went back to work. I’m trying to catch up on work and laundry and play with the pups.

Whatever we had– we don’t want it again. And there is only a very few people we’d wish it upon.

Now go wash your hands.

Noodle soup

The Husband is sick. Poor thing is miserable. Stuffy and fevery and achey. Nothing sounds good. Yesterday he picked at some Stouffer’s Mac & Cheese and a Jell-O cup.

So today I’ve rolled up my sleeves to get him to eat. A Slurpee. Fresh-squeezed orange juice. And noodle soup. I don’t like seeing him not hungry. And lethargic.

Let’s hope the soup helps.

Vocabulary Test

So here’s one for the homeschoolers…

Today my sister “sat on” Jack for me. Robby’s sick and I had a meeting so, after school, Jack went over to hang out with her. She took him to McDonalds and while they were in the line ordering she was teasing him a little bit– pretending she didn’t understand his order of “cheeseburger.”
Trish acted dumbfounded, “A treeburger?”
“A cheeseburger,” explained Jack.
“A pumpkinburger?”
She and Jack were laughing and teasing each other.

And then Jack dropped his little bomb. “I don’t have to take this sh–.”

Yes. My sweet five-year-old– sheltered from SpongeBob and Bart Simpson and most of the Cartoon Network line-up (they’re too sassy…) came out with The S Word.

My sister remained calm and acted on her vast resources of Parental Experience and asked Jack to repeat himself. (She was also hoping that it was a fluke. Something she’d heard incorrectly.) Jack annunciated himself clearly. Yep. There it was. The S Word. Again.

Further (and casual and still calm) examination of the situation revealed that it’s something he learned from his Seatmate M. (The same Seatmate M that told Jack he likes to say “naughty words” under his pillow at night. Nice.)

AunT handled the situation perfectly. And got me to laugh at it later. She had a discussion about how that’s not appropriate– those are adult words, etc.

There’s nothing I can do about it– other than pulling him out of school and homeschooling him. (Of course, he’d learn far worse words if I homeschooled him…) We’ve worried about Seatmate M before– his actions and comments are often fodder for conversation around our dinner table. Jack marvels at the lengths Seatmate M manages to reach even while he shakes his head with us that Seatmate M doesn’t always behave appropriately.

And that’s part of school and growing up– the sorting out of what’s right and wrong. Sieving Mommy & Daddy’s Rules through the World We Live In and vice-versa– two big colanders of Good and Bad… Do I wish that he would never hear phrases like the one he uttered today? Of course. But that’s not very realistic.

Unrelated to this most recent incident is the opinion of the good Mrs. R– Jack’s teacher– who says that our boy is a good influence on  Seatmate M (as opposed to the other way around). That Jack isn’t bending to Seatmate M so much as Seatmate M is bending to Jack.

And there’s the small relief that Jack doesn’t understand the negative connotations of the word sh–. There will be other words– some that he’ll learn closer to home– and some that will carry more weight than others. Hopefully we’ll be able to respond appropriately to the inappropriate.

Either that or that Seatmate M is going to get an earful. Might even teach him a new phrase or two…

Faith and Habit

Yesterday my Friend Wallis (this Blog’s Godfather) was ordained as a pastor in his church. Robby and I went to the ordination service after I’d gone out to hear Wally preach at an earlier service. Sandwiched in between was Sunday School with the teenagers of my church.

Somehow I’m teaching sunday school again. My co-teacher is the father of my oldest friend. We’re winging it a little bit– we couldn’t find a curriculumn that seemed to fit our group well that we could afford or access easily… so we’re looking at the mechanics of the church for several weeks. These are mostly kids that have grown up in the church. Their parents have seen to it that each Sunday they are in church and choir and youth group, etc. Most of them have been baptized and confirmed. We thought maybe examining some of the elements of Christian practice would be beneficial and interesting– the things they’ve learned along the way and now have become habit (albeit good) or rote and are at risk of losing meaning in the familiarity.

We started with the Apostles’ Creed. Looked at the 12 statements of faith in there and tried to get some discussions going about it. I’m having a ball with this– I didn’t grow up knowing the Apostles’ Creed and didn’t learn it until college. These kids have known it from their littlest days. We’re slowly trying to challenge them to really look at their faith and see what it is that’s there– what they believe vs. what they accept.

Wally’s ordination was largely focused, too, on belief. The process at his church involved a council and full day examination of his life and faith. Wally wrote (and subsequently published) a series of essays called The Ordination Papers. Robby and I read them on a long car trip. They prompted good discussions. Wally’s theology is closer to what I grew up surrounded by and what Robby has come nearer to as he gets older.

But what a contrast between the sunday school with complacent teenagers munching frosted cookies and shrugging at the statement for the forgiveness of sins and Wally, kneeling, while the (male) leadership of his church laid hands on him as he earned the role of pastor. My teenagers haven’t really tested their faith yet. Having been there– one of the good kids who had good Christian parents and a good church and a good adults– I know I can only try to give them the tools that they will need when they are tested down the road.

Does reading books to a 5-year-old count?

My pal Gail posted a NY Times piece about Nina Sankovitch reading one book-a-day for a year. Think about that– 365 books in 365 days.

I can’t always get in the local newspaper– now down to a pathetically few, few pages. The articles explains that the Nina is a wife, a mother, and a former environmental lawyer (I’m not sure if that really matters but neither does the fact that she has “piercing blue eyes”). She reads at night when her children are in bed and in the wait to pick up her kids– even at the US Open. (I take all that to mean that Nina carrys a book everywhere. I imagine that she, like me, chooses her purses based on whether or not they will carry a book easily.)

Her “close calls” came in the form of not starting the Christmas day book until 10 p.m.

So what does Nina have that I don’t? I don’t supposed it’s the household help that comes once a week… or the fact that she’s cut out certain activities from her daily routine: gardening, reading magazines, “wasting time” on-line, “ambitious cooking,”  “coffee with friends”…

She reads her books and blogs about them the next day posting a review. That’s more ambitious than I’m willing to be right now. I like ambitious cooking. I don’t do coffee with friends– but I do the occasional weekend with them. I like reading my magazines.

Nina’s also a fan of the television show NCIS. She mentions it as a non-reading pleasure. NCIS? Of all the things on television you’re going to watch NCIS? That’s like going to a Chinese restaurant and ordering the chicken fingers.

I’m jealous of you, Nina– for all the books you’re reading… but I’ll stick with my Jack-induced slower state of reading (See “READS“). And I’ll blame it on not having household help one-day-a-week.

And Hildy makes… 6

Hildy and Jack

We’ve added to the family.

First there was just Robby and me. Then we brought home the Little Black Dog (sometimes known as Philbin). Then came Jack. Jack’s presence begat Dorothy-the-Goldfish and Georgia Bear.

Yesterday we met and brought home a little shih tzu pup. She’s a small girl weighing about 3 pounds. We’re calling her Hildy. (We first heard about her while at the Hillsdale Co. Fair.) She’s a scrappy little thing. She desperately wants to play with Philbin who desperately wants to ignore her. (Though, as I type this, they are both in the big rocking chair with me… so there’s progress in them thar hills.)

It figures that the day– literally the 24 hours– that we first share our home with Hildy all is in chaos. Philbin is mopey because he hasn’t had a hair cut in a while and the groomer is backed up. Jack woke up this morning with a fever that has stayed with him most of the day. Poor little man is red-cheeked and dark-eyed and solemn. He’s uncharacteristically willing to stay under the covers. He misses school. I miss the sparkle in his eyes. Hildy had to get to the vet for a check up (all is well), Jack had to get to the pediatrician (all is not well… he has strep throat), and I had to get the newsletter done for work (thankfully my coworkers are nothing if not procastinators so no worries there).

Hildy seems to be adjusting to us just fine. And we’re absorbing her pretty well, too. It’s nice having a little one under the roof again. She’s making us all laugh. (Not that we didn’t laugh before– but it’s impossible not to laugh at a puppy.) And it’s another girl. Dorothy-the-Goldfish is referred to as “she” around here but who can tell. And the way “she” pops her surprisingly large mouth at me doesn’t seem very ladylike. I suspect that “she” is a he.

Progress Report

Jack brought home his first semi-official Kindergarten progress report on Friday. His teacher, the very good Mrs. R is sending home weekly reports.

It’s a simple report– five statements of classroom behavior/expectations with three possible evaluation choices: needs improvement, satisfactory, and fantastic.  Jack brought home two satisfactories and three fantastics! Hooray! We’re very proud.

And grateful. Every day we are reassured that we chose the right school for him. And more and more we are assured that our prayers (that Jack would be matched with the right teacher) were answered.

We celebrated this first week’s report with dinner out at the new Japanese place. Jack even ate cucumber rolls (inserting some of the carrot garnish in his) and tempura shrimp in addition to his usual edaname.

We’d grade the day fantastic.