Finger lickin' good

Tonight for dinner we stopped by the grocery store and picked up a rotisserie chicken. From the moment Ian heard what was on the menu, he whined "I don't want chicken!" We told him he was perfectly free to eat only broccoli and beets for dinner, but he thought he could get what he wanted - pasta, apparently - if he complained enough. So naive.

Ian kept up this refrain all the way until his plate was being set in front of him, despite our assurances that he'd had it many times before and scarfed it down. When he touched it, he found a new objection.

"It's wet!"

I think he meant that it was simply moist, as chicken should be. As opposed to the chicken I grew up with, which was cooked so thoroughly Julia Child suddenly needed a drink of water even from afar.

Ian finally relented and tried a single thin strand of meat.

"Mmmmmmm! You didn't tell me this was the good chicken!"

A steady diet of fauna

I'm in a listy kind of mood this week. Today I present:

Animals I ate yesterday

1) Cow

2) Chicken

3) Pig

4) Tuna

5) Salmon

6) Lamb

7) Squid

8) Shrimp

Also waffles.

Items I swept from under the couch last night

> Dust and cat fur, naturally

> Two socks

> Two slippers

> One pencil

> One Duplo-size Lego

> One seed pod that looks like this

> One toy car from McDonald's

> Two Thomas & Friends steam engines (Percy and Duck)

> Two Thomas & Friends cars (magnetic flatbed and circus cage)

> One stegosaurus from Dinosaur Checkers game

> Cardboard tube from roll of paper towels

> Four valentines

> One relatively fresh, medium-size yellow onion

I swear I just swept there a month ago.

What the devil?

A couple of months ago I was browsing BoingBoing and stumbled across the Egg Cuber, a device that can only be described as entirely pointless but immediately infatuating. With this amazing tool, a perfectly normal hardboiled egg can be turned into the most freakish of foodstuffs - something that once upon a time might have gotten you tossed into a pond in Salem.



Now cubic eggs are cool and all, but what good are they if you're not showing them off? And there's only one way eggs ever dress to impress: devilled eggs. When the thought of square devilled eggs occurred to me, I realized it addressed a couple of my (admittedly lesser) frustrations. On a normal dish, devilled eggs slide around and are hard to manage. You can get a special dish for devilled eggs, but that requires extra cupboard space, and I tend to dislike single-function dishes. Because really, what else can you do with a devilled egg plate, except maybe serve up some tasty Rocky Mountain oysters? A flat-bottomed devilled egg would stay in place while packing closer together on a standard dish - it's the best of both worlds. I'm ignoring, of course, the fact that the egg cuber still takes up cupboard space.

Especially if you buy three.


Why, you ask? Well, the egg needs to be put into the cuber while it's still warm, and it retains its shape best if it's chilled in the refrigerator. Making even a dozen devilled eggs would take all day with only one cuber, but three at a time is doable. Three can chill while three more cook, and they'll all be ready to switch around the same time. I found mine at thegadgetsource.com, but they can apparently be found in Asian markets for even cheaper.

For best results, place next to quality beer (or just enjoy one between batches):


Extracting the cubed eggs looks like so:




Try to gauge where the yolk has ended up, and cut in half accordingly. Odd shapes can always be masked with the filling, though, so no biggie.


The yolks in a cubed egg need a bit more coaxing than usual to extract, so I found that a fork was helpful.


For the filling, anything goes. I'm a minimalist when it comes to devilled eggs, so I just blend the yolks with mayonnaise, kosher salt, freshly ground black pepper, and cayenne. I might throw in a dash of horseradish for kicks. Pickle relish? Not a fan.

If you want to turn the geek level up to eleven, as I do, make a nifty little stencil for the paprika with two L-shaped pieces of paper taped together. When going with the square theme, it's best to overdo it a bit.



The resulting appetizer is a surefire conversation starter. The conversation might start with "What the hell?" But for me, that's par for the course.


There are a few more photos in this Flickr set.

Must be going around

I knew it was a bad sign that Ben only wanted one slice of pizza.

He ate a banana after that, so he wasn't full, but he declined to finish even what he had. Now Ben refusing pizza is like Paris Hilton turning away from the camera, so you can imagine my concern. Ian got sick at school last Friday, so I feared the worst. Sure enough, a couple of hours after he went to bed, Ben could be heard making sounds you don't make willingly, and we found him wallowing in the remains of his dinner. And Ian's, and mine, and Sarah's from the looks of it. Barf was everywhere: on his pajamas, his pillow, his sheets, his blanket, the floor, the walls, the cats, the toys downstairs, you name it. It's a testament to how far I've come with respect to disgusting parent duty that I didn't add to the carnage myself.

We replaced the sheets, changed him into fresh pajamas, and tucked him back in. Not an hour later he was awake again suffering round two. Fortunately we had yet another spare set of sheets and pajamas (a miracle in our house), so we got him clean and comfortable a second time. Poor Ben was exhausted by that point, and he kept lamenting that he didn't like throwing up. I hear ya, buddy. I'll take any sort of gastroinstestinal distress over vomiting; so long as the digestive process doesn't go into reverse, I can live with it.

The saddest part was when he became concerned that he wouldn't get better by Saturday morning.

"But I won't be able to eat waffles!" he sobbed.

He likes our Saturday-morning waffles. More than pizza, apparently.

So far I've managed to avoid the stomach bug this season, but last week I came down with something even more fun. It all started last week when what appeared to be a zit appeared between the knuckles of my right pinkie finger. Strange location for a zit - usually they pop up on the tip of my nose like an evil junior high flashback - but whatever. Within a day, though, it had decided to wage war, first incapacitating the entire finger, then most of my right hand. When I began to feel searing, burning pain all the way up to my elbow, I caved and went to urgent care. They were concerned enough to put me on IV antibiotics, so I felt validated in bucking my habit of avoiding doctors at all cost.

For reference, you can see a picture of my finger here. It was initially diagnosed as cellulitis, but a culture revealed it to be an antibiotic-resistant strain of Staphylococcus. Which explained why the entry-level antibiotics I had been taking were having little effect. They upgraded me to Cipro, the antibiotic that became a household name during the anthrax scare a few years ago. So if you're planning to launch another anthrax attack on DC, please do it this week - it'll save me a lot of hassle.

I'm apparently one of the lucky few among the general population falling victim to the latest evolution of infectious bacteria. They're not just for hospitals anymore, nosirreebob! Ever the trendsetter, I am. By the time everyone else catches up, I'll be all like staph infections were so much cooler back when it was just me.

Sound it out

Ben walks into the bedroom while I'm getting dressed, toting a book.

"Daddy, does this say 'president?'"

I look at the book, Duck for President.

"Wow! Yes, it does!"

"I sounded it out all by myself."

"That's fantastic, Ben. Great job!"

"Duck for President... What's a president?"

Must... bite... tongue...

"Well Ben, ask me again in a couple of years, and maybe I'll have a respectable answer to that."

A selection of Ben's latest drawings

Ben's drawings keep getting more elaborate. There is usually a narrative behind them, too, beyond what's easy to decipher. The concentric circles next to the stop sign? Those are fireworks. I'm not really sure why they're there, but I'm sure kids would be more enthusiastic about going to school if there were fireworks at the bus stop every morning.


He calls this one "How to Get Dressed":


More to come as I scan and upload.

4 going on 14

A few months ago Ben exhibited the first signs that he was progressing far more rapidly than we had ever hoped. I was expecting a few years of tranquility somewhere in his middle childhood, but no. He has decided to go directly from toddler to teenager without passing Go, collecting $200, or beginning kindergarten. He is, of course, still well under the height requirement to get on the cool rides at Cedar Point, but the seeds of petulance have already been planted.

Ben has always been sensitive. Nearly a year ago he came home from daycare upset about something, and finally confided to my mother-in-law that someone had been mean to him. Last fall, though, when I picked him up from his current preschool, he sulked over to me looking grumpy. I asked him what happened, but he just sulked. Trying to coax out a response, he hissed "I just don't want to talk about it!" That was Sign #1.

Peer pressure has also reared its ugly head earlier than I expected. It hasn't stopped Ben from wearing a tiara and carrying a purse when his class is playing dress-up, but some criticism is apparently registering with him. Yesterday he told me that his friends said the zucchini muffins we include in his lunchbox "look disgusting." Sign #2. Granted, his friends aren't wrong; they look nice and tasty when they're fresh, but after a day they turn a bit grey, and look like they've been in the bathtub too long. He still ate them, but it's only a matter of time before others saying they look disgusting turns into Ben insisting they taste disgusting, so he won't eat them. Then the only vegetable in his diet will be ketchup. Which might satisfy the school board, but not our Whole Foods ethics.

Now he's starting to get opinions. I'm not talking about infants and toddlers having a favorite toy or preferring jumping on the bed to sleeping in it. I'm talking about a kid electing to veto a decision that has already been made. This morning, as Ben was getting dressed, he announced that he didn't like the underwear I'd laid out for him, so he went back to his drawer and chose a different pair. Never mind that I had made sure his outfit was coordinated from head to toe - even where it didn't matter - and that his selection clashed mightily with his shirt. Nope, Ben had an opinion, and he was going to act on it, by golly.

What's next? Is he going to start picking out all of his own clothes? Is he going to object to wearing the same outfit Ian has on? Because really, there's a practical purpose behind that. If we're out and one kid goes missing, we can simply point to the other and say, "He's dressed just like that, officer!" And when he's found, we can prove he's ours because they're a matching set, and what are the chances of that being coincidental? We've tested this theory, and it worked flawlessly. Pretty soon, though, they'll start wanting crap from Abercrombie.

At this rate, things should get really interesting by junior high.

I need a larger bathroom

Sort of lends a whole new depth of meaning to "shaking the dew off the lily," doesn't it? For those who felt the need to elaborate on the metaphor, now you can simultaneously put the dew on the lily. I bet you can save time cleaning, too. "Oh that? Little spots of pollen." Not that you'd notice anything with that giant yellow whatever-it's-called erupting from the bowl. God forbid you stagger into the bathroom in the middle of the night and mistake the urinal for the toilet. Better mount that sucker high on the wall.

The best part? It's only $10,500! A pittance for a pisspot of such caliber.

Things that go bump in the night

Last night I tiptoed into the kids' bedroom after they'd fallen asleep to put away some of their freshly-folded laundry. Ordinarily I would have left it on the nearest level surface until morning, but I needed said surface for my laundry, so something had to move. I contemplated stacking mine on top of theirs, but I've been burned too many times by clothing avalanches. Hell if I want to fold things twice.

On the way out, I noticed Ben was precariously close to the edge of his bed. He was facing toward the middle, though, and he rarely falls out, so I decided not to risk waking the proverbial giant and let him be. Not two minutes later, I was climbing into bed myself when I heard a whump that was too loud to have been made by one of the cats, so I immediately headed back to check on Ben. Sure enough, there he was on the floor, sitting up but looking groggy, a bit like Senator John McCain at the State of the Union address the night before. Luckily, he climbed back into bed without fuss and was none the worse for wear.

Looks like it might be a while yet before we let one of the kids use the upper bunk.

Snow!

Ben's months of prayers were finally answered when it started snowing yesterday. Of course, watching it fall from the sky, he immediately asked when we could make a snowman. I'm sure our neighbors wouldn't have minded our collecting all the snow from their property in order to construct a single snowman, but fortunately Ben settled for rolling snowballs around the yard. I kept waiting for him to pelt Ian with one (or vice versa), but to no avail. Maybe next time.

Even an inch of snow can be crippling here. In Michigan, crews salt the roads like fast food joints salt their fries. Salt is ubiquitous and plentiful. It supports the automotive industry by rusting through metal and necessitating new car purchases. In DC, however, real estate is far too precious to waste under an enormous salt dome, and snowstorms are so infrequent that the city usually chooses to shut down rather than put up a fight. Government workers are fond of their numerous holidays, and one or two snow days during the winter are seen as an entitlement. Lobbyists for digital cable providers probably make a flurry of calls (Ha!) to Capitol Hill the night before inclement weather is predicted to arrive, urging them to shut the government down. Especially during sweeps week.

As luck would have it, we were out beyond the beltway when the snow started falling, so we got to see how drivers here react to slick roads and ice-encrusted wipers. And let me tell you, most do not react well. Michiganders are far from universally capable, but aside from a few twits who spend the warmer months forgetting what it's like to have no stopping power, the majority are passably competent. Here in DC, however, a good number think that if you're having trouble gathering forward momentum because a wheel is spinning on ice, the obvious solution is to spin that wheel faster. I saw a BMW apparently built before traction control came standard demonstrating that water can indeed go directly from ice to steam if you simply hit 5,000 rpm. Meanwhile, my midwestern experience and Subaru all-wheel-drive crept past them all, the patient tortoise to their overeager hare. A Camaro driver looked dumbfounded and bitter. Of course, I suppose that describes most Camaro drivers, regardless of road conditions.

Uphill both ways

One of Ben's Christmas gifts this year was an Adams Trail-A-Bike.


The Trek trailer we picked up a few years ago has been great for hauling both boys together, but it's also proved to be my most sensitive gauge of how quickly they're growing. I swear every time we went for a ride, they'd gotten heavier. A couple of hills out near the beltway actually had me in my lowest gear, which I don't think I'd ever even used before. I felt like a pansy until I did some mental calculations and realized I was hauling nearly 100 extra pounds back there. That's more than an entire Olsen twin! At least after the evening purge, that is.

Sharing the burden of child-towing with Sarah has been a double-edged sword. While I rejoice in how easy it feels with just one deadweight kid slowing me down, Sarah finally appreciates why I was so frustratingly slow sometimes. Now she's the one playing catch-up. Besides the added weight, the one disadvantage of the Trail-A-Bike versus a trailer is that kids' tendency to wiggle is far more noticeable on a single wheel. At one point last weekend Ben threw the two of them off-balance so often I started to wonder if I could make it home by attaching the Trail-A-Bike to my seat post, and the trailer to the Trail-A-Bike. I'd be like one of those extended trucks on the Ohio Turnpike, undulating as I hurtled along and striking fear into anyone wanting to pass. Might make for a good YouTube video, come to think of it.

In other news, Ben has been making quick progress in reading. He's halfway through his first level of phonics books already, allowing him to tell about the tan fat cat all by himself. At this rate, I figure he'll be blogging by first grade.

Legpit

Michigan was warmer than usual over the holidays, but that didn't prevent the boys' skin from drying out due to the cold. We've been slathering moisturizer on their legs and arms ever since we got home. Tonight Ben decided he was ticklish when I tried to get the backsides of his knees (not that I hold it against him - it's just that he wasn't ticklish at all yesterday), so he squirmed away and said "Stop! You're tickling my leg armpit!"

He thought about that for a second, then changed his mind: "You're tickling my legpit!"

Makes sense to me. I'm totally adding that to my vocabulary.

The Ubiquitous iPod

Sarah got her second iPod for Christmas, bringing our household total to three. We started with two Shuffles (the big ones - the size of a pack of gum - not the new ones, which are the size of a single Chicklet), and now we've added the Nano(RED). I love the PRODUCT(RED) campaign for the simple fact that it has turned altruism into an aspirational brand. I generally disdain the voracious consumerism that is pushed upon us nowadays, but if consumption can be focused to benefit The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, then by all means people, hit the malls. And so far, the campaign seems to be working.

At first I resisted the iPod phenomenon. I saw those little white earbuds as yet another way that individuals isolate themselves from their environments, to our collective detriment. Do we really need constant entertainment? Can we not enjoy the sounds of our surroundings, or take advantage of the quiet in order to ponder our existence? Or at least what to make for dinner?

That was before I flew to DC beside a talker. And not just any talker - a Vietnam vet who had lost his mind, but didn't seem to realize it. I adhered to the stereotype that Vietnam vets were scarred by their experiences and generally reticent about the subject. This guy, however, shared fond recollections of Saigon prostitutes whose services could be had for a quarter. "A quarter! Can you imagine that? It was great!" And the women received a bonus if they filled a teacup by the end of the day. Not with quarters, mind you. I'll let you figure it out.

I learned then that some situations beg for insulation from your surroundings. I looked across the aisle at the guy wearing the white earbuds, and I lamented the fact that my simple magazine offered so little protection. I was grateful that I had brought my Shuffle along on my flight back from Michigan Wednesday morning, when I sat next a woman whose job somehow involved raisin growers and NASCAR. My wackometer was heading into the red, so when she engaged the neighbor to her left, I immediately plugged in those earbuds and breathed a sigh of relief. I'll stick to my own form of madness, thank you very much.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

The weekend before last, we finally got around to taking the kids to the top of the Washington Monument. Ben had been talking about it since our first failed attempt, when I committed Parental Sin #1 (that being "making uninformed promises") by telling him could go before learning that you need to get tickets in advance, and they're usually all gone before lunchtime.

Fortunately, by December most of the tourists have their sights on far warmer climes than Washington, DC. It's amazing how quickly I came to view this as "my" city, where tourists are invaders rather than fellow visitors. Ben has yet to make that transition, however; when a park ranger asked where we were from, Ben said Michigan, not Virginia. Which prompted us to hurriedly explain that we're originally from Michigan, but now we live in Arlington. God forbid we be labelled tourists.

The 500-foot elevator ride to the top of the Monument is surprisingly fast. I swear the elevator at my prior workplace took longer to climb four stories, and all you got at the end was a view of the hospital helipad and a funeral home, so you could watch unlucky patients take their last flight and possibly their last drive, all from my office window. According to the guide (Elevator Ranger?), the Monument is the tallest free-standing stone building in the world with no structural steel. Which makes you wonder what holds up the elevator, and whether it's stopped Flintstone-style with your feet, or lowered gently by an underground dinosaur.

Anyway, the view from the top is pretty impressive, even through thick, narrow windows:



Here's the view to the west, including the Lincoln Memorial and World War II Memorial:



That bridge in the upper right corner? We drive that godforsaken thing every day.

This past weekend, I spent some time working on the car, hoping to rectify my failed emissions test. You see, the State of Michigan, being invested in its primary local industry, is far more interested in keeping its products on the road than keeping the air clean. Pollution in western Michigan is always blamed on Chicago, but where does the pollution from Detroit go? Lake Erie? Who gives a crap about Lake Erie?

Passing the emissions test has proven a greater challenge than I predicted. Not only is my car about ten years old, but without any requirement to keep it in prime running condition, I followed the path of least resistance (read: lowest cost) and let a few things slide. Like driving for about a year with my Check Engine light glowing. You know - the idiot light? Yeah, something like that. Now my tags are close to expiring, and the emissions gods have yet to answer my prayers. My advice for drivers subject to emissions testing? Test early.

Tomorrow we drive back to Michigan for the holidays. If the Thanksgiving traffic was any indication of what to expect, we'll spend two hours or more just getting out of the metro DC area. We might just reach the end of Toy Story before we leave the beltway.

Oh, and Santa? If by some miracle I'm not on your Bad list yet, I might need a new catalytic converter. Just leave it beside the bushes outside the garage.

Ian likes my shoes

Christmas Music

Okay, I confess: I like Christmas music. The day after Thanksgiving I whip out Volume 1 of A Very Special Christmas, and I only skip past the Pretenders. Take me to your winter wonderland, Annie Lennox. When you sing, Sting, I believe in angels. Maybe even Jesus. And few things made me prouder of Ben than his declaring "Christmas in Hollis" his favorite song on the CD.

I'm a sucker for the classics, too. Burl Ives will run through my head for an entire month and I don't mind. The only thing I can't take is when holiday music sounds like a funeral dirge. I got all excited when Aimee Mann released a holiday album, but if I were expecting her to make good on "I'll Be Home for Christmas" I'd put out a bowl of Xanax instead of marshmallows for her hot chocolate.

Even I get a little weary of listening to one holiday CD over and over again, though, so I set out to make my own compilation - something that would unite my Dr. Demento side and my Bing Crosby side without overindulging either. The best thing about this list is that each and every track is available at the iTunes Store, so you can download one or all. So here, for your consideration, is my Ultimate! Christmas! Mix!

"It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year"
by Andy Williams
from The Andy Williams Christmas Album (Remastered)

"God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen / We Three Kings"
by Barenaked Ladies with Sarah McLachlan
from Barenaked for the Holidays

"Sleigh Ride"
by The Brian Setzer Orchestra
from Boogie Woogie Christmas

"Run Rudolph Run"
by Bryan Adams
from A Very Special Christmas

"A Holly Jolly Christmas"
by Burl Ives
from Have a Holly Jolly Christmas

"Carol of the Bells"
by Celtic Woman
from Christmas Album

"Frosty the Snowman"
by Dan Tyminkski
from A Very Special Acoustic Christmas

"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"
by Diana Krall
from Christmas Songs

"White Christmas"
by The Drifters
from Clyde McPhatter & the Drifters

"Winter Wonderland"
by Ella Fitzgerald
from Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas

"Baby, It's Cold Outside"
by Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Jordan
from Ella & Friends

"Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer"
by Elmo & Patsy
from Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer

"I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas"
by Gayla Peevey
from Vintage Children's Favourites

"Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!"
by Lena Horne
from Christmas Classics

"All I Want for Christmas Is You"
by Mariah Carey
from Merry Christmas

"Greensleeves"
by Méav Ní Mhaolchatha
from Celtic Woman Presents Meav: A Celtic Journey

"Good King Wenceslas"
by Mel Tormé
from Santa's Bag

"The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas to You)"
by Nat King Cole
from Christmas Classics

"Silver Bells"
by Perry Como & The Ray Charles Singers
from Perry Como: Greatest Christmas Songs

"I Saw Three Ships"
by Sting
from A Very Special Christmas, Vol. 3

"Come On! Let’s Boogey to the Elf Dance!"
by Sufjan Stevens
from Sufjan Stevens: Songs for Christmas

"I'll Be Home for Christmas"
by Tony Bennett
from Snowfall - The Tony Bennett Christmas Album

"O Holy Night"
by Tracy Chapman
from A Very Special Christmas, Vol. 3

"Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)"
by U2
from A Very Special Christmas

YouTube

My test run of uploading video was successful. Apple's iMovie proved a cinch to use; the entire process of copying the video to our iMac, editing, exporting, and uploading took about fifteen minutes.

I couldn't think of anything in particular to record as a test, so I just set the camera on the desk and taped the boys watching the YouTube compilation "Funny Cats," which they ask to watch almost daily. The result is basically just a video of Ben and Ian laughing and offering some commentary, but all I wanted was to know what I could do and how. And who doesn't like to watch kids laugh, anyway?

Procrastination

Procrastination means you get to spend your birthday at the DMV.

Famous Last Words

The Pennsylvania Turnpike is bad enough when you have to watch your speed like a hawk to keep it within the range above 65 miles per hour deemed unworthy of attention from the state police. This is a small range, mind you. What counts as speeding on the Pennsylvania Turnpike is only just fast enough to avoid being tailgated on Michigan freeways, where Hemi engines roam freely and enjoy frequent exercise, eliciting little more than an approving grin from local law enforcement.

What's worse than the Pennsylvania Turnpike on an ordinary day? The Pennsylvania Turnpike on the last day of a holiday weekend, when it slows to a crawl as expat midwesterners make their way back to DC, Philly, and New York. After an hour of clutch-roasting stop-and-go, I wondered What could be worse than this?

Then it hit me. It hit Sarah about the same time. Then Ben. A certain familiar smell, which grew to a stench, which grew to a fog of war on our olfactory glands. Sarah and I exchanged knowing glances, then looked back at Ian, who remained stoically silent. "Aw, did you have to?" I said. We rolled down the windows to no avail. Ben started to cry, then to gag. I started to look for an emergency pull-off while wondering whether the car's hood would be too hot to act as a changing table.

As luck would have it, a sign appeared indicating an exit two miles ahead. I thanked the fates, then moved into the right lane. As I crept forward, I noticed something odd about the truck we had been following. Holes in the side. A glimpse of - what - a tail?

Cue enlightenment.

Then shame.

Then hilarity.

Ian just turned three, so I doubt he'll remember being scapegoated for the wafting odor of livestock. Heck, if we were lucky, it might have shamed him into using the potty. Alas, such was not the case. But at least we have another good story to tell at next year's Thanksgiving dinner.