Christmas Jackation 2009

Jack’s Two Week Vacation started today. We’ve taken to calling it to Jackation. It’s pretty big news around here. Jack isn’t quite sure what to think about a break from school… The big kids at his school were so enthusiastic about “no school for two whole weeks!” but the kindergarteners (or at least most of them) were somewhat confused. Why would anyone be excited about missing school? School is fun.

We’ve almost got him convinced that the next 14 days might be fun without his usual routine. He and I are making plans for Monday when Robby is at work and Jack and I have the whole day to ourselves. We might make cookies or wrapping paper or go secret shopping for Daddy. There’s a long shot that there would be snow but probably not.

Tonight’s kick-off included a mini-marathon of Christmas movies (all of Jack’s choosing): Rudoph the Red Nosed Reindeer, The Story of the First Christmas  (or, as it’s known in JackWorld, The Camel Story), and Santa Claus is Coming to Town. There was a little A Very Brady Christmas thrown in there, too, until Jack demanded, “This is different!” (The recasting of Cindy freaks me out, too.)

We pulled the sleeping bags down from storage and promised Jack we could sleep near the Christmas tree… and he is. Has been since 10:13 p.m. Robby is, too. They are both snoring with Philbin. Hildy’s asleep, too.

There isn’t too much outside of this room that I really need. Except for the box of meringues Momma brought back from France. They’re calling my name for a nice, midnight snack.

And then back to making plans for the rest of Jackation. Stay tuned.

13 more days of being grateful

Here’s the other half of this month’s Things I’m Grateful For… (Nos. 1 through 17 are already covered…)

I Am Grateful For:

18. Travel. Anywhere. Anytime. Preferably with husband and small son in tow– but I’ll take it where I can get it…

19. The end of November… because November is a ridiculously busy month for us. There’s a Museum conference, Thanksgiving holiday, and the Remembrance Day hoopla in Gettysburg to see… so by the end of the month I’m ready to hole in for a while.

20. Jack’s sense of humor. And his ability to crack himself up.

21. Candy canes. I refuse to eat them until the day after Thanksgiving so that they are a joyful sight at this time of year.

22. Happy surprises. Like my sister being able to make caramel corn last week or finding a $5 bill in a winter coat.

23. Soup on the stove on a cold day. I made french onion soup last night that filled our bellies with its warmth and will again, tonight, as well.

24. Wrapping presents… if I could only parlay this into a career. I dearly love to wrap presents. It makes me sad when people talk about it being a chore.

25. Really good movies. Like the BBC Jane Austen movies or the Cranford movie or Elf.

26. My fountain pen. Robby gave it me years ago for Christmas and it makes me happy everytime I use it.

27. Photographs of Jack and the places we’ve been and the friends that are too far away.

28. The drive to school each morning when Jack and I play games or sing to the Johnny Cash CD. It’s a nice 8 minutes.

29. Hope.

30. The comments some of you make when I blog. It’s nice when it’s a conversation.

There. Now I don’t have to be grateful until next November. Just kidding.

 

Jack plays nice.

Last night we went to a dinner party. There were pre-dinner aperitifs and an elegantly-laid table… A decorated, coordinated Christmas tree and a multi-course meal promised. The room was full of adults conversing about adult things.

It was all a recipe for disaster with our little five-year old in tow. Robby and I surveyed the room and saw all the potentials for accidents, breakage, and other mishaps…

Jack, however, behaved beautifully. He was very tolerant and polite with all the adults asking him questions. And he was enchanted with the little knight and knight’s horse that Uncle Nat brought him from New York. We’d packed him his own supper– most five-year olds aren’t too fond of french onion soup, prime rib, bluecheese potatoes, salad, or poached pears. (Though this 39 year old is.. Yum!) When we sat down to the table Jack was seated across from me and next to his Dad. He had Aunt Dorrit on the other side so he felt safe. And he quietly munched on his strawberries, chips, and grilled cheese sandwich and drank his milk out of a miniature brandy snifter. When he finished (as we were tucking into our delicious soup) I slipped him my iPod and he sat quietly watching the Sesame Street I’d downloaded. During the main course he played with the lace-a-letter kit his grandmother had found him. And, while we lingered over our poached pears and sparkling wine, he watched Ratatouille on my laptop.

Let’s all say a little thankyou prayer for technology.

By the time we left– 3 hours past his “late” bedtime– Jack was still polite enough to say goodnight to the grown-ups and sweet enough to snuggle us both when, back at the cottage, he was pajamma-ed and put to bed.

Such a good boy. (And such a good dinner!)

Julie & Julia & Terri & Trisha (part 2)

I'd meant to stage a pretty, pretty shot. I'd intended to have some of the Boeuf Bourguignon perfectly plated. Maybe garnish it. And then, in the frenzy of finishing it up and dishing up plates for Trish, Keegan, Maddie, Robby, and myself I forgot. So here's a picture of a very, very happy husband and his nearly empty bowl.

So, apparently, being trendy has its rewards. (At least, in this case, eating my words is delicious…)

I didn’t like jumping on the “I’m going to make Julia Child’s Boeuf Bourguignon because I saw the movie…” bandwagon but I’m glad I did.

Turns out its worth the effort. The meat soaks up all that yummy wine and stock as do the onions and ’shrooms. It’s a rich, rich dish yet not heavy or cloying. Trish declared it “a good summer time pot roast” or “an anti-gravy pot roast.”

Robby lapped it up, too.

Julia recommends serving it with noodles. We thought that sounded rather shrieky. She also suggested boiled potatoes– but we all like mashed better. It was a good combo. I tried to make some braised carrots because Julia’s recipe is pretty scant on carrotage… but I was distracted by the Just Home From School Jack’s antics and nearly turned the carrots into charcoal. Next time I’d add more carrots in at the beginning. You can’t have too many cooked carrots. Especially when they are in stock and wine.

I’m putting Mastering the Art of French Cooking on my radar. Hopefully a nice hard cover copy will turn up at the library sale this fall?

Bon appetit Julia. Thanks for a great dinner.

Julia & Julia & Terri (Part 1)

The “lardon” which is the oh-so French way of making bacon sound elegant.

Slicing the vegetables and cubing the meat. Fun! Fun!

At the half-way point. The big red thing in the middle would be the rind of the bacon I had to slice off… That was super fun. (And yes, read that sarcastically…)

I’m not a trendy person. I do my best to avert them. Step around them whenever possible. Like goose poo on the walking path at the park.

I didn’t read The Bridges of Madison County when the rest of the world was swooning. (I did read it several years later because my coworker’s philosophy of life at the time was somewhat based on whether the annoying female protagonist should have gotten into the truck of the equally annoying male protagonist. Let me save you the three hours it took me to read it. It ends. Then ends again. Then ends yet again. There aren’t words to describe how excrutiatingly I wanted to run both of them over with a truck.) I didn’t hairspray my bangs against a wall in the late ’80s. I didn’t memorize the soundtrack of The Phantom of the Opera (which, much like Bridges of Madison County  is terrible.)

I don’t like doing the thing everyone else is doing.

And today I eat those words.

I’m attempting Julia Child’s Boeuf Bourguignon recipe. I read Julie Powell’s Julie & Julia a few years ago– it was an enjoyable read that made me put Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking on my List of Books I Should Read. This week my sister and I went to see the movie version with the endearingly made-homely Amy Adams and the Meryl Streep in easily one of her best portrayals ever. Julia Child’s Boeuf Bourguignon is another character in the movie. And it looked amazing. The burned version looked amazing. Trish and I could imagine the rich aroma…

None of us had the cookbook and I was prepared to hit the library for a copy but found it on google. The good people at Julia’s publisher, Knopf, posted it. (The moment in the movie when Julia recieves word that Knopf will publish the book is precious. She squeals. She jumps. She and her sweet Paul celebrate. And they wonder how you pronounce Knopf– is the K silent? or pronounced?)

Julia’s cookbook was prefaced that it was for the American cook. The American servant-less cook. But apparently it’s for the American servant-less cook that has someone else doing the laundry and cleaning and childcare because french cooking is proving, today, to be pretty intense.

I’ve used two cutting boards (I should have used three), four knives, a vegetable peeler, a wooden spoon, two spatulas, a slotted spoon, four bowls, three measuring cups, measuring spoons, three skillets, and a Dutch oven.

It required a trip to Meijer, the butcher shop, the farmer’s market, the grocer, and my garden.

So far so good– my kitchen is smelling amazing. My sink is full of the fall-out.  And I’m about half-way through the process…

At least there’s a little chianti left. Stay tuned.

I’m moving to England. And back two hundred years.

I’m watching Sense & Sensibility (BBC) again. It’s probably about the 14th time I’ve seen it. It’s exquisite.

Elinor has great clothes in it– nice and plain and dark colored gowns. Sensible. The little cottage in Devonshire is perfect– as was the grand Norwood in Sussex. Edward is swoon inducing. And this little Margaret is enchanting. Not annoying or cloying like some other versions. I like the world they live in. I like measured Elinor. And her gorgeous coats. I like their tea cups and gentle manners and the green, green countryside.

It’s been a rainy, gray, and gloomy day. This is the perfect background accompaniment to the rain and to the work I’m rushing to get done.

Jack Logic

I mentioned that Jack played with his friend Kathrine’s Star Wars action figures this weekend.

Kathrine is completly fluent in Lucas-ese. She’s got down even the obscure background droids and creatures. (She was not impressed with my pigeon-Lucas. I can name Luke, Han Solo, Leia, C3po… I peter out with Lando.) Jack liked the little shiny droid-man. He was silver. I don’t recall his name now. (Jack doesn’t either.) And, somewhere in Ohio, little Kathrine just yawped in frustration.

There was a little roboty thing that looked like R2D2 (spelling on that? I’m not looking it up. You can.) but wasn’t. Kathrine explained that it was R4-something. She rattled off the specs, etc.

Jack: He’s R5. Not R4.
Kathrine: Actually, no. He’s R4…
Jack: Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy Birthday! Happy Birthday! Happy Birthday to you! Now he’s R5.

Yeah. We’ll hold off for a while on the movies… Robby’s pristine collection circa 1977 is safe for a while yet.

Thanksgiving

A snowman called "Georgia"

I overheard my sister once, in a quiery about her growing girls, respond that this was her “favorite age”– she has said that at each stage of their childhood. Each new phase passing along new adventures and new advantages so that she never really mourned the loss of the old phase.

When I overheard her Jack was a tiny babe. He was nestled in the crook of my arm and I thought, “Oh! but how, how could anything be as wonderful as this?”

Four year old Jack is darn near perfect.

Last week was his little preschool’s Grandparents Feast where he was sufficiently feted over by his Grumpa, his GrandLady, and his AunT (who stood in for his Momma in France). Our holiday table now has a wobbly little paper turkey with feathers and featues glued carefully on by Jack. (He loves to glue.) And on Tuesday, fighting the cabin fever that came about by way of all of us being sick, Jack and I escaped to the afternoon movie. We watched Madagascar 2  and shared a ginormous and full-priced popcorn (who knew that Tuesday is Bring-Your-Own-Container day???) He’s a good movie date. He’s still small enough to sit on my lap without impeding my view.

This weekend we’ve come up to The Lake where a blanket of perfectly sticky snow allowed Jack and his Daddy to make a magnificent Snowman. His name is Georgia, if you’re interested.

Last night, after a huge Thanksgiving Feast that left 13 people dazedly fat and happy (Jack, no. 14, ate Fruit Loops), the smallest pilgrim was ready for bed. Dressed in his footie jammies and yummy smelling from his bath, he snuggled up against me and whispered, “Mommy. I love you most more.”

Four year olds whisper about as subtlely as a Belle Tire ad. The addition of the “most more” comes from a little thing he and I do where I say, “I love you, Jacky” and he responds, “I love you, too, Mommy” and then it’s a matter of “I love you more/I love you most/I love you most more/I love you most most” and on and on until we give up for giggling.

And then it was on to playing spider. We make little spider hands and sing “Itsy Bitsy Spider” which segues into a weird little adventure for Mommy Spider and Baby Spider or Jack Spider where they eat breakfast, get dressed, go to school (enter Mrs. Brown Teacher Spider), and run errands… Jack delights endlessly in the Spiders going to the Doctor Spider because, inevitably, the little spider will need “pokies” in his legs and that will set Jack off on either acting very brave or crying out on his little arachnoid alter-ego’s behalf.

Because we aren’t at home– but in the great white north for the Thanksgiving weekend, we are, Robby, Jack, Philbin, and I, in one big bed. The little spider game is indicative of this rare treat– and I am, at the end of a really great Thanksgiving, most grateful for this little exchange between my too-quickly growing son and me.

I’d freeze him at Four Years Old forever except that I’d hate to miss out on what Four And a Half and Five bring.

My sister, for one brief shining moment is right. Yikes.

Sisterhood of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

My nieces and my sister had a grand plan to go to the midnight showing of Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants last night. I went along for the ride– the first movie was cute enough and I don’t get to spend a lot of time with my nieces.

Today I feel like the floor of the movie theater– slighty sticky and tread on.

We drove to a theater about 35 miles away. Our local theater wasn’t showing it at midnight. My sister has a Toureg. [You might remember that it was MY dream car first... but God, laughing, put me in a Tracker and my sister in a sweet VW Toureg. Sigh.] She “let” me drive. Maddie, at 15, has her permit and normally would tackle anyone with keys for the chance to drive– particularly on the highway which better suits her lead foot. (It’s an inherited lead foot.) Maddie begged off on account of her leg being in spasms. She and her sister, Keegan, are in ballet camp all week. Ballet camp, by the way is more akin to time trials for ____ [insert grueling sport of choice here]. At the end of the week the girls that are still able to stand on their toes get into the Company. The other girls, I presume, take their ability to stitch on ribbons to shoes to some sweatshop.

At the theater I realized that my ticket said “12:05.” It was 11:13. The rationale, my sister explained, was that it might be a packed theater and at first-come-first-serve seating we might end up with crummy seats. Oh. Yes. Falling asleep in a good seat would be much better. We joined a queue that was, predictably, all female. My sister kicked herself for not being as smart as the two girls wearing sweats and pajamma bottoms. They looked comfortable. We’re dumb, we agreed. (On the other end of the spectrum was the trio that came in costume– one in a dress as Lena, one as Bridget, one as Carmen. We aren’t sure what happened to the Tibby portrayer. Maybe she had a boyfriend and was, therefore, in the line on the opposite side of the lobby for “Pineapple Express”..?)

Occasionally a knot of men would infiltrate the Sisterhood line… One pair was particularly amusing in that the boy in front barreled ahead in a man-like way of not wanting to ask for directions or notice his surroundings… while his friend, lagging behind had the dawning suspicion that the weren’t in the right line all over his face. One boy actually belonged in the line– he had a girlfriend. I’d have felt sorry for him if he wasn’t so obviously gay. He bore a striking resemblence to a young Jimmy Osmand. Lots of white teeth. He seemed more excited than the girl.

We finally got into the theater– Maddie’s big purse opened and our snacks were distributed. Maddie’s purse is her schoolbag. She’s kept it with her– on her– all week. My theory is that there is a severed head in there but she insisted she was just trying to get used to having a schoolbag again. High school pressure– does it never end? I had Twizzlers, by the way. And a ginormous tub of salty popcorn to share with Trish and Maddie. Keegan and her pal, Bryn, had large tubs of Coke Zero. (Bryn, by the way was so quiet I’m not sure I even knew until the point that we were picking seats that she was even with us. I like Bryn. Out of all Keegan’s pals she’s the nicest to me.)

Maddie and Keegan set up my new cell phone with T9. Supposedly it will make texting easier but since it took three of us 10 minutes to get the word “me” typed in (and then with the “ab” function and not the T9) I’m not so sure.

The theater filled up with females. Loud, chattering groups of females. Trisha and Terri aren’t kind to movie talkers. We shush them. So, as the movie started, our worst theater nightmare came true– dozens and dozens of yakking girls saying things like, “Oh my GAWD!” and “I love that dress she’s wearing– oh my GAWD it’s so cute!” Sweet Moses. Shut the America Ferrera up!

The movie itself was better than the first one– all of us agreed to that… a nice little chicklet flick… It would have been better without the laugh-track from an early 1980s sitcom (complete with gasps at the cute boys/ interjections of “Awwww!” and “OMG!”, etc.) Trish gave bonus points to the audible sobs from the twits next to us. I can’t remember why they were crying. Maybe our respectful theater behavior was distressing them?

My only beef– and it’s my fault because I only read the first book. Maddie had it with her on a trip we all took a long time ago– was that it ends with SPOILER ALERT the damned pants being lost. WHAT? Well, link arms, girls and sing “Kum By Ya”– Lalala, We lost the pants… HUH?

I guess that rules out a sequel.