fun in threes, sometimes fours
Lots of rolls -- bank-and-roll, dinner rolls, credit roll, drum roll, sausage roll, Charles Rolls, bank roll, spring roll, barrel roll, Swiss Cake rolls, fat rolls, egg roll, shake-rattle-and-rolls, rock-and-roll,
But none of them can compare to this roll.
For the first time in ages, K and I slept in the dark last night.
No, not the "first time in ages." The first time in almost four months.
Since L's birth, we've kept a small red light on beside the bed. You never know when the girl's going to wake up in a pacifier panic, or spit up and need emergency cleaning, or any number of other horrid, life-threatening things.
But last night, K thought we should do an experiment -- open the blind to the window on her side of the bed and see if that provides enough light. And it did.
And so for the first time in weeks and weeks, I lay there in the dark, no red light filling the room with an oddly calm-yet-angry glow (red light is just really not all that pleasant at all), and it honestly felt as if it was the firs time in my life that I'd slept in the dark. It felt like going to bed without brushing my teeth, or coming home without hugging, kissing, and playing with the girl, or eating cereal with skim milk -- it just felt unnatural.
Next step -- get the girl to stay in her crib all night, even in the midst of needing a 1:00 a.m. feeding...
When I got a new toy as a kid, the hardest thing to do was to leave it at home every morning when I left for school. When I got back, I was so excited to be able to play with it again.
With L, it's the same, only the feelings are more intense, not to mention more significant.
The best part of it is the smile and the giggles I now get when I return home from work.
Unless she's sleeping.
Oh, that Papa is sly. A planned Easter visit across the mountain can be turned around (Let someone else do the driving for once!) by simply throwing one's back out. Then the parents can bring the granddaughter to the grandparents!
I'll have to remember that.
Of course, the one who spent the most time with the Girl was the old man...
If it weren't for the fact that Nana is so sensible, that girl would be so spoiled that she'd stink worst than durian.
Now playing at a YouTube near you: The Mobile.
A stirring drama about a little girl, a mobile, and the bond between them. With an all-star cast and a classic sound track, it's sure to become a classic.
Friday for Catholics often means no meat. Good Friday for Catholics means no meat. Period. What to do? What to cook? Seafood soup with migas.
First, the migas, because it has to sit around for a while and get soggy.
Cut the bread into thin, rather uneven slices. (I tore a lot of my slices up to create irregular shapes.) Then mix the bread, onion, garlic, and bacon together, spread it evenly in a pan, and sprinkle the water over it. Let it sit for at least half a hour. (Cooking it for Good Friday, though, I separated it into two different batches: one with bacon, one without.)
When you begin to fry it, you’ll need a mixture of garlic and olive oil:
Once the migas is migasizing, it’s time to start the soup.
Cook the onion, green pepper, and garlic together in olive oil. When soft, pour in tomato puree, clam juice, wine, broth, bay leaves, chile, coriander, basil, thyme, half the lemon slices, and carrots. Bring to a boil, then let simmer for about 20 minutes (until carrots are soft).
Add fish, clams, and shrimp and simmer until clams open and shrimp are pink.
Immediately after adding the fish begin to fry the migas. Brush a hot frying pan evenly with the garlic and olive oil mixutre, then spread about 1/2 cup of the migas mixture in the frying pan, pressing it down until it’s about 1/4 inch thick. Let it cook for about four minutes, then turn it. It will break apart as you flip it — it’s part of the idea, I guess.
Once the migas is brown and crisp and the calms have overcome their shyness, it’s time to serve.
It’s not for the budget-minded. The ingredients cost over $50, since all the seafood was fresh, fresh, fresh, and wild-caught. Halibut at $18 a pound and shirmp at $12 a pound does indeed add up.
But it was worth it. As a friend would say, fresh and honest.
It was warm enough Christmas Eve to sit out on the balcony and smoke a cigar.
Of course, Easter has to be frigid to make up for it.
The Girl likes just about anything that moves in a circle, I believe, but ceiling fans now seem to be a favorite.
We discovered this some time ago at a visit to Paw-Paw and Nana's place -- they have ceiling fans in almost every room, so L was probably fairly certain that she was in her own personal Seventh Heaven.
Growing up not celebrating Easter, I never got to paint eggs as a kid. I'm making up for it now, for K and I seem to have established an annual Easter Egg Painting party.
The adults usually have as much fun as -- if not more fun than -- the kids.
Last Sunday, through the afternoon and evening, friends and family filtered through and painted eggs, ate some traditional Polish seasonal Easter food, and generally relaxed and chatted.
The grandparents, of course, were the first to arrive.
BBC has a documentary on the Phelps family, of Westboro Baptist Church, "God Hates Fags" notoriety. A fascinating look inside one of the most vilely curious groups in America. What's most terrifying is how "normal" many of them are when they're not talking about God hating us all and sending us to hell. Well, not all of us -- they're not going to hell of course...
It's available on YouTube, but probably won't be for long.
Watch it.
Like most--probably all--parents, we have a mobile hanging over our little girl's crib. In keeping with the rest of the decor, it's a Pooh Bear themed mobile, with Pooh, Tigger, Pigglet, and Eeyore swirling around, looking down at usually-smiling L.
But that's very passive--lying there, watching Pooh and friends turn circles over your head.
Taking an idea from Baby Minds by Susan Goodwyn by Linda Acredolo (Amazon), we made it a more engaging--and thus, more educational--activity. All it took was the addition of a long piece of fabric loosely tied to L's left leg, with the other end end attached to the mobile. And voila!
It didn't take long for L to figure it out:
And with increased happiness came increased motion, until everything was a blur.
Now that she's got it, we'll change it, attaching it perhaps to her right arm--it will get her used to "real" life...
K and J went to pre-Easter confession last week. As with every single thing when you have an infant, it was well planned well in advance.
"Yet J doesn't speak English," I reminded K earlier in the week, when she told me about the plan. "How exactly is this going to work?"
"Well, I'm going to translate."
Some, when reading "This is supposed to between the priest and the individual", might have injected, "Um, no it's between the individual and God." More information about the Catholic view of forgiveness can be found here.
"Do you think the priest will let you? After all, this is supposed to between the priest and the individual, and anonymous at that. That's why there's all the elaborate screens and confessional booths and such." (I've never confessed -- my imagery of it is pretty much straight out of movies, and watching from a distance.)
"We'll see."
What actually transpired was a somewhat amusing solution to the problem. The priest instructed K, "Tell your mother to say what she needs to say in Polish, then give me a sign that she's finished."
J found it both amusing and touching.
Moderates' favorite Polish Party, Liga Polskich Rodzin (League of Polish Families, that most Catholic of Catholic Parties), has recently moved to rid Poland of a source of immorality and anti-Polish sentiment: the works of Jan Brzechwa. All reference to this Jew propagandist are to be removed. First step -- remove his filthy name (His real name was Lesman -- the horror) from street names in Wraclaw, then in all of Poland. Next, his ungodly, unpatriotic works are to be banned from school.
What kind of garbage was this guy writing?
On the bank of a sky-blue river
live many small sorrows.
The first is sad because
he can't play in the garden.
The second -- that water doesn't want to be dry.
The third -- that a fly flew into his ear.
And what's more, that cats scratch,
That he can't catch the hen,
That he can't bite the neighbor's leg,
and that it never rains sausages,
And the last sorrow is that
People travel by cars, and a pup has to go on foot.
But just give him a little milk,
and bye bye sorrows.
I know most are probably shocked that I would put such pornography on this site, but -- horror of horrors -- K even read it to L and we filmed it! How sick.
Those who read Polish can read the article here.
Fortunately, the LPR is going to save us. They have pointed out that Lesman's Jewish propaganda verse (let's just call a spade a spade) teaches kids to be lazy and to lie -- just like Lesman himself. And naturally, his works are not sufficiently Catholic and Polish, but what can you expect from a Jew?
All sarcasm aside, this is seriously happening in Poland -- a suggestion to ban a poet known and loved for his children's verse, essentially because he's Jewish. The League of Polish Families has ties to Radio Maria, a deeply anti-Semitic religious radio station in Poland. Additionally, Marcin Giertych, a Polish representative at the Council of Europe and an LPR member himself, wrote and published with EU money a book suggesting that all of Jews' problems throughout history are their own fault. He is the father of the current Minster of Education, Roman Giertych.
And so father and son are on a mission to rid Poland of any reference to those "godless Jews" and make sure Poland is a beacon of proper Catholic patriotism, all in the name of the most famous Jew in history...
The other day, I got a comment at another website that meant more to me most other comments I’ve received put together:
Hello! I want to say thanks, because you was (no, are still) very good english teacher… you’s lessons helps me very much, now I’m live in Ireland, and I m still learn… If you want to write me: [email and name redacted]: 1,2e ”zarzadzanie inf, terrorysci…”bye
In a class of “difficult” students (who, in retrospect, were angels), this young lady was one of the few students I could count on consistently. She caused any disruption; she rarely came to class unprepared; she rarely wasn’t smiling and happy.
Naturally, I wrote back. And of course I got this in return:
A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its recipients. This is a permanent error. t the moment you cannot send a message to [reacted], try again later 1: retry timeout exceeded
I tried again, knowing it was a futile effort. Still, the thought that it might not go through, and she’ll think my response to her invitation to contact her was, “Um, no thanks,” irritates to no end, so I tried. And yet again.
Which leads me to a question for all tech folks who read this (both of you): What could be causing a consistent problem with delivering email to Polish servers from a given account here in the States? I’ve asked tech support for my web host — they think I’m crazy. But consistently email sent from any address that uses the server this site is hosted on gets bounced back, or simply disappears. As in, “Did you get that email?” “What email?”
What I wouldn’t give, sometimes, for a return to consistent use of regular mail for correspondence…
At first she mastered control of her eyes. About the same time, she worked on controlling her head. The Girl has more or less mastered those skills.
Next come the hands. That's a little tricker -- they still fly around like she's a hyperactive orchestra conductor. But then, in calm moments, she surprises us all and holds her bottle.