it's been a lovely weekend with the boys home. . . saturday michael set up our new roku netflix b.jpg)
ox and we spent most of the afternoon watching documentaries and rockumentaries --the highlight of the direct download to the tv (the new releases and kids choices are pretty limited). and today we officially unplugged our cable and are looking forward to ejecting cox from our living room and as well as saving some cash and enjoying alternative couch time--this afternoon we listened to this fabulous podcast by the alliterative and hyperliterary fave stephen fry. and of course there's just snuggling up and indulging in late afternoon naps. . .
we also had a belated "holiday party" with molly & peter and while we indulged in ahi towers and french martinis at local infusion owen had his first night ever with a babysitter. stella & petra came over and owen had a blast at the "kid party"--i'm so excited to finally have a local and very sweet sitter and am looking forward to more date nights!
i should shut down as tomorrow we all trek out to riverside for a full work week--but it'll be a full family commute!
sunday night wrap up
protecting those jewels...
this "owenism" needed its owEn post. . .
while watching the magic school bus owen was doing that familiar peepee squirm and i asked if he needed to "pause" and go to the bathroom.
"umm, nope. not yet."
"but owen, why are you holding your pee pee like that?"
"oh. i'm just keeping it safe."
vintage owen
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i took this out on the patio the other day- i finally made my "charlie" shirts for owen and west over christmas and i just love owen and his attitude when he wears it!
funk
so michael comes home friday and i'm just looking forward to some relief from the "funk." it was supposed to rain but instead we have this bizarre tropical drizzle which sounds lovely and exotic but just makes you feel, well, funky. now i know all my cold and icy friends and family are grimacing at me, but i shouldn't be running the a/c in the "middle of winter" (source to follow) while its raining because it just feels so icky. the quarter's been a huge relief from the fall but i'm just over it, already, or just not quite into it. i have a stack (still) of 75 papers on my desk over there but instead spent my quiet time watching a week's worth of the daily show and some random good eats episodes. (my favorite "end of the era" quote from jon stewart though--the last eight years have been good, have been good, well, for this show..)
but that funk... with some carpooling gymnastic assists from nana & papa i bailed on my office hours, let my students get out a few minutes early and made it back out to south county for a dr. appt. long story short, i was convinced owen has had three months of mild ear infections and that it was affecting his hearing and causing everything from his pink eye to his phlegmy cough. so the nurse gave him a hearing test and after five minutes of what looked like rhythmic tapping on his knee owen says: ok, i'm all done with this game. i'm ready to go back in the other room where dr. k is. and the nurse says to me: look, i did every trick i knew and tested him at every decibel i had and his hearing is beyond perfect. (which, you know, i knew since i could whisper in the bathroom upstairs and he would hear me in the garage with the door closed while playing wii and still shout "mommy--why are you saying that? who? what?!!") then dr. k re-tested his ear pressure which was off kilter last month and now is pretty near normal and all his runny fluids are fine. and then of course the dr said: you know, we are in the middle of winter. and then i had to laugh. right, brrrr, this balmy misty winter. so we went home and i think we all jsut need to sleep off some funk--just in time to pick daddy up from the airport!!!
"we encounter each other in words"
. . .
Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.
A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Begin."
We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.. . .
the lines that stuck with me from elizabeth alexander's inaugural poem the"Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables."
Check out this article from salon: "How to Write a Poem for the President" on the joy of having an inaugural poem, the challenge, the history of "occasional poems" and why we'll hear echoes of Whitman, Brooks and Lincoln.
the life acquatic: 3.0
sunday we had a double date with bridget & west in dana point at the dana wharf. since jesse had stella we decided we'd get hands on and t
ake the boys out on an adventure and went whale
watching! the weather was amazing and we drifted among a few sailboats within sight of the harbor and scenic coast among a pod of grey whales.
the boys were amazing sailors and spent most of the time sitting up on the deck putting fish stickers in their notebooks and shouting out all the things they could see--nemo fish, an octopus, and seaweed.
(i love that they're best friends this way--it always reminds me of the charlie & lola episode when lola &lotta are both looking in the pond and imagine the goldfish is really sleepy and the other fish are singing really loud. a new girl comes along and tells lotta that fish don't sing. that's what reminds them that they're friends and then they have this amazing imaginative adventure swimming with the fish.)
anyhow, whether or not what he and west saw corresponded with what the rest of us saw--when asked how many whales he spotted, owen has consistenly answered 5. b & i saw at least a dozen whale spouts followed by fin flips (i'm sure there's a technical name for this) and i even managed to catch some on video--we got lots of great video footage for life acquatic 3.0!
afterwards we met j & s at jon's fish market for some fish and chips--the boys had "shrimpies" and i indulged in some scallops. i meant to go back and pick up some amazing looking smoked salmon, but got distracted by shark dances and a racuous game of hide and seek around the harbor. a perfect, perfect, south county afternoon.
we went to visit my grandparents yesterday--my grandpa's just moved to a full care home near my grandmother. the change has been hard for everyone, and my grandmother bluntly told me: cara, don't get old. it's just awful.
but awful or not, yesterday was one of those afternoons i'll never forget and am thankful to have had-- because owen sat on "gigi's" lap and read dinosaur roar, because after eating my mom's homemade apricot pie grandma sang the abcs while owen signed the letters, and because owen got to give grandpa a "smooch.".jpg)
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and this is why we need three year olds--to see that we're still young and beautiful.
norway vs. swedish beer
a tasty albeit hard-to-find Norwegian beer:
One noticeable difference between Norway and Sweden is the quality of beer that they serve. Call me a beer snob, but I really don't enjoy drinking the Norwegian pilsners available from Ringnes or Hansa, although I did enjoy the selection from Nøgne Ø, but you can't find that anywhere.
Luckily here in Karstad, there's a good place called The Bishops Arms that supplies beer from local breweries, and over the weekend, I found myself a new favorite IPA from Jämtlands Bryggeri AB.
tasty:
wishing for warmer weather
roughly about -9 C average this weekend, and it started snowing this morning... found this summer photo of the outside of the Vasa museum.
yes you can
freeze trader joe's 99cent whole wheat refrigerated dough. successfuly tested here at the fidfam house--but remember to put it out the night before and let it defrost in the fridge (hence sunday instead of saturday pizza night!). i'm stocking up!
"do you know the muffin man?"; or the banana crunch muffin adventure
so i'm a muffin or ahem cupcake kind of girl. it's just how i was raised and how i distinguish my best friends from mere acquantiances. we brunch. lunch? never. breakfast, always! and i'm not just talking about a muffin platter--what could be more complete or satisfying than an omlette? or its italian sister the fritatta? norwegian waffles? danish museli? fresh fruit smoothie? chocolate filled pancakes? but back to muffins. . .
owen has definitely inhereted this muffin gene--in fact, he's my favorite muffin accomplice. last night we decided to try ina's banana crunch muffin. i'd seen the brunch episode a while ago and thought--what's not to love? chock full of coconut, granola, walnuts and both mashed and sliced bananas owen and i were all over it!
from the start we made some modifications--2 sticks of butter?! i thought i'd try some of my cooking light tricks and pass up one stick for a mixture of buttermilk and sour cream. three cups of white flour? we substituted one cup with some whole wheat flour and for the rest used our favorite king arthurs' unbleached..jpg)
now it was cooking time. the entire counter was filled with our ingredients--and the batter was too delish (and massive)! owen kept poking his fingers in saying "oooh just one more taste!" and then with each addition of the "goodies" shouted "wait! there are MORE goodies!" as we poured generous cups of walnuts, sweet coconut and chunky granola. the Pièce de résistance? the dried crunchy banans we sprinkled on top. since we had sooo much batter we actually filled 24 muffin cups! i imagined a freezer stocked full of ready-to-go treats. . .
so, the verdict? not surprisingly my additions made for a flat topped muffin--ina advised to fill to the top and my cookiing light recipes always recommend 3/4 full. but they were amazingly moist and texture-wise i can't imagine more butter would have added much. but the taste. perhaps we were all battered out, but they were disappointingly if not surprisingly sweet. the recipe called for 2 cups of sugar--which i would have cut but my food science wasn't sure where to go with that.the suspect? the organics line maple walnut granola--it was cloyingly sweet.
but the adventure and the assessment was well worth it. we had a fun breakfast for dinner with a spinach omelette to balance it all out.when i asked owen what he thought he said "yeah, mom, that granola IS too sweet."
i think i love ina's philosophy but not necessary her palette. first and foremost food is love and generosity and a gift--this is why barefoot's one of my fave foodtv shows. i love that she makes thoughtful choices about what needs to be fresh and homemade and what is just as good from the jar and that she always takes a hot bubble bath before company arrives. further, her presentation adds to the dish and suggests the herb or flavor of the meal--she's big on "seeing" what it is she's eating. for this muffin dish i love that she uses not only mashed bananas but chunks so you really taste fresh bananas and the banana chips prepare your mouth for the morsels to come. i also love the chunkiness of it all--i'd definitely opt for a simple trader joe's (or even better--a homemade or simple simon's bag) of granola and i'm not at all sure the coconut added much in the way of texture. i think rather than play with this recipe i'll take her additions and add them to my already modified favorite banana-bran muffins in this go-to cooking light cookbook.
and now to sing muffin man from from our favorite new jazz cd. . .
tourist day - Stockholm
I wasn't going to do anything this weekend since the temperature was -13 C (+8.5F) on Wednesday, but it actually "warmed up" to a balmy +3 C on Saturday, so I decided to take a trip into Stockholm.
First stop: I went for a tour at Stadshuset or Stockholm's city hall. This is the place where they have the banquet for all the Nobel prize winners (except Peace prize, that is in Oslo).
(outside looking up at the tower)
(view of city from the lawn)
Next stop: National Museum. Very nice collection of Dutch, Impressionists with some bonus bronze Degas statues, and even Scandinavian design (furniture, kitchenware, etc.)
(outside in front)
(close by, a duck kickin it on a chunk of ice)
Next stop: Vasa museum. A museum demonstrating the not-so-mighty Swedish Navy. The Vasa is a warship from the early 17th century that sunk 20 minutes into a maiden voyage. It was just raised/restored and finished in 1988... it is very impressive up close actually.
extra: Subways. No good pics came from my camera, so I took the pic below from wiki, but each Subway station in Stockholm has some sort of artist theme going on. Here's a pic of one of the subway stops by the National museum:
sock puppets!
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we're still working on the puppet show but we had oodles of fun making these fuzzy sock puppets kim ordered for owen (and yes owen did take the "sock" part of sockpuppets literally or at least figured out how to deal with only having two arms )
week one
despite the fact that owen woke up with his right eye glued shut and we had to go to urgent care to get eyedrops and antibotics for pinkeye and a mild ear infection it's been a pretty good week back in the daily work and school routine. . ..jpg)
starting teaching at 9 am instead of 8 has made a tremendous, i mean insanely life changing, difference. really. last quarter i was always in this anxious panic that i was going to miss my class (and admittedly once i did) despite the fact that i would get up at 5:30 and have poor sleepy owen dropped off by 7:15 at nana's then go straight from the commute into the classroom. having that extra hour means i get to hit the snooze button (once) and actually drink my coffee in my office while going over lesson plans. plus, i'm teaching english 1a which is not only tremendous inspiration for my own writing (i've spent the week quoting didion and woolf and discussing simile in elizabeth bishop--soon we'll read obasan, one of the novels in my next chapter) but i've got labeled file folders on each assignment including journal prompts and lecture notes from teaching in an earlier life. on friday i took this picture because suddenly i was in the middle of an autumn wind storm--i couldn't quite capture the eddies of yellow leaves but it was amazing. that same morning owen and i ducked in and out of soupy, cotton candy fog and bright desert sun through the 241. now, of course the pressure has dropped and the humidity has vanished and we just have late santa ana winds.
but winds or no winds, when i picked up owen from preschool on friday he and miss sherry were sitting at the little round table (while the other kids napped) and she was laughing so hard her eyes were tearing while owen was reading, i mean performing, from a first grade primer in all manner of silly voices while he hiccupped and laughed and all the while gently held her arm..jpg)
then we brought these amazing red velvet cupcakes from jammin' bread (step back sprinkles--these were amAzing and the real-deal homemade) to our "janumas" party (belated birthdays and post holiday love) at bridget, west & stella's on the other side of the southland. we're exhausted, and you know, have icky eye, and of course, wake up each morning missing daddy on his pillow, but all in all, winter quarter week one was a good week.
happy happy joy joy!
we had some awesome new year's eve sushi and made our resolutions. . . owen mostly liked coming up with examples of resolutions but decided on trying a new food--purple carrots and going to a new place--a tree on a hill; michael wants to go camping and my resolution is to make realistic goals! happy 2009!
going to the getty!
there's a fantastic little "family fun" exhibit at the center--and what could be more fun than re-arranging a hockney or writing your own manuscript?
we spent about 7 minutes inside the center looking at impressionist paintings--and while we didn't get to do they monet haystack-hat trick owen did point out that there was only one white iris in the van gogh. that made mommy's day.
a gorgeous socal winter day--and we even got a picture of owen smiling at the camera!
