A Short Story about Manners

I loathe it when the short people* try to order me around.

I was a babysitter for years before I had children and the little screams of "MILK!!" or "Give me _____!" drove me bananas.  So pretty much from birth, we've worked on "please," "thank you" and "wait your turn."

Elliot is pretty good about it all and is starting to have nice little manners.

But for the past few months, he's been saying "How are you doing?", which sounds an awful lot like "How you doin'?"

I'll say "Fine, thank you," then ask him how he's doing and he'll say "Yeh."

It drives me bananas.**

So we talked about how a much nicer answer is "Fine, thank you."  And he's been pretty good with it.

He gets the reasoning and the appropriate time to use the phrase, but lately he's been a little off in his elocution. ***  And it's fine with me because I talk to him all the time and understand almost everything that he says.  It all sounds pretty normal to my ears.

This morning, as I'm making Elliot's breakfast,**** Husband is walking through the kitchen as he's getting ready to leave for work.

Elliot says, "Mama, how you doing?"

I reply, "Fine, thank you," then I ask him how he's doing and he replies.

Husband starts laughing and asks if I am listening.

Apparently, to the untrained ear, Elliot's reply doesn't sound so much like "Fine, thank you" as it does "F@#@ you."

Oh well.






*By this I mean children, not midgets with bad manners.

 **Not only for the "Yeh," but also for the Jersey Shore-ness of it all.

***He's still little, not quite two.  So he still has a little trouble with some of the pronunciations.

****Putting waffles in the toaster. 

A Short Story Involving Magic

Yes, I have been absent for a long, long time, but it’s been busy in these parts, with lots going on.  I'm making new plans and I will rectify it all soon, but today I saw a little news item and it reminded me of this little short story…..

Once upon a time I was covering one of my very first events. 

A swanky four wheel drive kind of car company created an obstacle course on the top of a building in the lower west side of town, so semi-industrial, I am pretty sure it didn’t have a cutesy name yet. 

So, if you were one of the UES elite invited to the party, you had to navigate through a car showroom and then ride a cargo elevator to the rooftop. 

Then the guests had to wait an excruciatingly long time in an excruciatingly long line for quite possibly the stiffest free drinks ever poured on the island of Manhattan. 

Once they made their way to the bar, they would make their way over to the test drive area, crank up and fly over fake hills and giant puddles.*

It was a pretty beat event as those things go, celebrity-wise. There was an aging actress/model type who had once been ultra famous, with her much younger actor boyfriend.** I was working on a story about them and that was who I was there to interview. 

But there was also a middle-aged magic-type.  He was a “name” but also he showed up to everything. Every single event, ever.

And in the beginning, when I was pretty new to it all, I often got assigned the lower priority events,*** so he and I knew each other a little bit.  This was mainly because he would talk to me incessantly, clearly hoping to get some sort of quote in the magazine.

And on this particular evening, as I was waiting for my five minutes with the couple, he sidled up as he did.  And I gamely asked him a few questions, then waited for him to start telling me all about his next big trick. 

But on this night, he decided to take another tactic.  

He asked about me.  

And then started on that faux-deep sort of soul-searching sort of nonsense.  

He wanted to know if I believed in alternate planes.  Could there be things out there that ordinary humans did not understand?*****

After several long minutes of politely trying to deflect the conversation, he wasn’t letting me scoot past it at all.  

Pressing on, finally he said, “Just tell me, do you believe in magic? What would it take for me to make you believe?”

“Well,” I said, “I would absolutely believe in magic, if you could make a drink appear.”

He disappeared****** soon afterward. 

THE END

************************************************************************** 

*Yep, but that is not the point of my story.

**She was a cougar before it was hip. 

***It was excellent practice and fun, too. 

****Now, it’s not that I don’t believe in magic, that is also not the point of my story.  What I do not believe in are phony deep conversations that include equally phony soul-searching looks when I am in the middle of working at an event. Also, I did not want to insult his business or hurt his feelings.  He has been hugely successful at what he does, but do I believe that it is attributed to his connection with a higher plane or some special psychic talent? I just didn’t know. 

*****I am pretty sure that he did not count himself as the ordinary human variety.  This is someone who has made major, major giant things disappear. 

******Via his feet.

A story about The Olds, an Anniversary and Supermodels

It's been a bit since I've blogged.

It has been a bit overwhelmingly overwhelming in these parts lately with the moving and settling in, so I haven't had time to sit down and think on things.

But everything is shaking out and getting in place, so I will be back much more frequently.

On another note, a few weeks ago, I read a news story the blogging is for The Olds.**

**********************************

This morning I took our wedding cake out of the freezer.

In non-shocking news, we are a little late to the game.

Today is our second wedding anniversary and I am hoping we haven't missed all the good luck.

It's super pretty.

And if I remember correctly, on the inside are both vanilla and chocolate layers.

This was the one bite I got.

And, also, if I remember correctly it was really good. 

This is the way it looks today.

For the past two years while we were on our first big adventure, it sat cooling in BigD's refrigerator** freezer.

You're probably aware that most couple eat the top layer of their wedding cake on their first anniversary, but we couldn't work all of the logistics out in time.

But I just learned that the practice of saving the top layer comes from the 19th century when all cakes were mega, mega expensive.  And cakes were needed for both weddings and for christenings.

So, since christenings tended to come relatively soon after the wedding, they would just freeze the top layer and use it about a year later for their baby's christening.

This was from our first anniversary.***

 
Who knew we were so old fashioned?

In any case, as much as I tried to convince Husband to wear our wedding garb**** our to dinner tonight, he sweetly refused, but he did agree to our fancy rehearsal party get-ups.

Happy anniversary, sweet Husband. It's been a big two years and there's only more goodness to come.


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*This is not a deterrence, but this morning when I sat down to type, Andy Rooney and his eyebrows popped in my head.  He does not blog, but he does pontificate on things in a particular manner that seems (to me) to be a precursor to blogging. (Also, he does not even know exactly what a blog is, and he kind of hates what he does know about it, so by that logic it must be for The Youngs. Score.) If you are following this, that might mean you are one of The Olds, too.  If you are too young to get it, then "google" it like all the other young'uns.

**I can NEVER spell this word. No joke, I think it's one of the hardest ones in the entire English language.  Why isn't there a "d" in it?  I think there should be.

***Yeah it's a pretty horrid photo of me.  But in my defense, it was a rotten angle.  Even skinny people look gross from that angle.  Also I was 38 weeks pregnant.  Only celebrities and supermodels are cute then, and then only a few of them.  The rest of them go into hiding on their compounds only to emerge a few months later super fit and gorgeous to make everyone feel inferior.

****I loved my dress and think the whole wedding event happened so quickly that I didn't get to wear it long enough.  I wore it the next day in our hotel until we had to change to get to the plane.  Then when we got back from our honeymoon, I wore it again to eat a breakfast of boiled eggs with Husband and my sister.  I do not think this is weird.  On our tenth anniversary, we're going to do it all again.  Only eight more to go...

A Short Story Involving Cake*

Today is Husband's birthday.  

He is now a number that I cannot tell you, but it's a good round one. 

Husband is not an easy birthday boy.  

He half-heartedly pretends that he would rather than we skip it all together, but really does like it when we celebrate just a little bit. 

Four years ago today was the first time that we celebrated together.  He and I had a been dating about four months and we were pretty serious about each other, so of course I was going to do something to celebrate the day.**

I started with asking about what kind of cake he would like. I am firm believer that it is massively important to blow out candles on the actual day, for luck, one to grow on, etc...

He said it didn't matter.  And of course it did, so I asked what I thought were questions that would lead to the correct answer:

• What is your favorite cake?
• What is your favorite dessert?
• What did your mom make for you every single year for your birthday party?
• If you were starving and the only place to eat within a thousand miles only served sweets and all kinds of them, what would you order?
• If you were famous and I was a reporter for Teen Beat magazine tasked with writing your fan page, what would go into the blank space next to "On my birthday, I like...?"

All of these were met with blank stares, but he was thinking.

Finally he said, "I'd really like a chocolate loaf."***

Of course, having gleaned this bit of information, I was not going to comment on it at all.  I just promised  that on the appropriate day, I would deliver a chocolate loaf.  

But the thing is, there is no such thing***.

So I called Kathleen, who knows everything.  She cooks and bakes and really, foodwise, her only fault is that she is a vegetarian.****  

And we thought and thought and poured through her myriad cookbooks and scrawled notes and recipes lying about her kitchen.  

There was not one loaf cake anywhere.  

And no, I wasn't going to call (One Day Would Be) Husband and ask.  He made his request with such authority, that clearly it was a thing and we couldn't find it. 

So we kept looking. 

Finally, we decided that it must be another name for Chocolate Pound Cake, which is much more challenging to make than you would suspect.  And we didn't have all the exact ingredients nor did we have an exact recipe, but because dear Kathleen is a pro, we just decided to dump some chocolate into the mix.

In retrospect that may have not been the best idea because by the next evening, the chocolate loaf had hardened to a consistency closer to a rock than a cake.  

But dear (One Day Would Be) Husband chomped through several pieces and (pretended) to love every bite of it. 

It turns out that Chocolate Loaf Cake was another name for a familiar kind of cake.   What he really meant was a chocolate cake sans frosting, which, I suppose if you look at it in the strictest definition, that is exactly what it is. 

So the next year and every year since, that is exactly what he gets.

Tonight, we're going to have a little tiny family birthday party, which is exactly what Husband wanted.  

But this weekend, we were at the BigD's house picking up some things.  And she loves birthdays, so she planned a little birthday breakfast brunch for Husband and it went just like this...

Elliot and I played...

While Claudia rapped cooking instructions to BigD...

Elliot showed his toys to Bill...

Then it was time to eat...

Claudia sat across from me...

And Elliot and I sat across from Claudia...

Then we all sang and BigD cut the (cheese)cake...

And then we had a family picture...

Then Elliot and I took turns eating cake...

Mmmmm Mmmmm Good....

The end.

__________________________________________________________

*This weekend, I ran into a regular reader of this blog...And she said, "So when are you going to be blogging again." I started to explain that I had been blogging, a little.  She interrupted and said, "I know, I know, your stuff hasn't arrived, but that's not why I read you.  I read you for the funny stories, when will you post more of those?"  I was a bit stung and didn't even bother to explain while I've been feeling a bit funny lately, I hadn't been feeling all that amusing.  I told Husband about it and of course he made me feel better and got me thinking about things. And along with a few other thoughts, I decided that today I would try to post a funny story, because she's been one of my longest readers.  And she's not the only reader.  There is actually a pretty respectable number of people just like you who click here every single day.  And if you are one of the ones who comes around for the funny stories, I'm working on it. This is my best effort for the day and they'll be back again soon.  

**I've found that birthdays can be fraught with danger.  There is always a history of how things should or should not be done and that coupled with new(ish) dating can equal all sorts of conundrum-like situations.

***Oh my gosh!  I promise you that four years ago, these were not the answers I got from google.  There must have been a chocolate loaf trend since then.  No joke.  This would have made my life soooooo much easier. 

****I kid, I kid.  I do love some steak though.

Naw

We've been back in the United States for about six weeks now and (almost*) every single conversation I've had has started with, "So are you guys settled into your house yet?"

And the answer is, "No.  Thanks so much for asking, but we are not."

See this photo?

This photo was taken in the guest/man room in our apartment in Stavanger the day before the movers came to load everything into the giant container, which would then be put onto a cargo ship.  And then, one day, four to six weeks afterward, that ship would pull into a port in Savannah, Georgia, where then it would clear customs and then be put onto a truck and one day show up at our house in Atlanta.

That should have happened last week.

That did not.

Not one of those boxes in the photo in are in our house. Neither are any of the other boxes, filled with all our things that we thought were vital enough to send over to Norway and then send back to the United States.  Those boxes are in the country, still stuffed into the giant container that transported them across Europe and then the Atlantic Ocean.

But they are stuck in Savannah.

We've been flagged by the US Customs Authority for a random search.  Of. Every. Single. Box. And. Every. Single. Item. In. Every. Single. Box. In. Our. Container.

Much like the random searches going through airport security, we've been pulled aside.

And I am not against searches.  I was in New York when all of that happened, so (within reason) I am all for doing what needs to be done to keep everyone safe.

But, along with the annoyance of it all, pulling us for a random search does not make good sense.

Seriously.

First of all, Husband and I have been wracking our brains to think of what could have caused an alarm to the security force.  There's no contraband in the shipment.  We did not smuggle any explosives, pickled herring, dirt from a potato field or a live sheep from the meadows near the beach.  We claimed every piece of baby furniture and the vast majority of the clothes we bought over the two years.

Also, we did not pack it ourselves.  The goods were packed by a company, hired by Husband's employer, whose sole job was to pack our possessions securely while making sure all the international import/export/customs laws were followed.

And Husband called our relocation handler yesterday who said, "I have no information about why your container was flagged.  I also don't know when it will show up, as it might be a queue. And we shouldn't ask any questions.  Not only do they not have to give us any information, they don't like to be asked."

And again, I am not against any searches.  I really do believe that, within reason, the government should do what is necessary to keep us all safe.

I do question whether or not it is the best use of time and resources, man and financial to search a family consisting of a couple and an infant**, relocating from Norway***, completing an expat contract****, packed by a vetted moving company*****.

And no matter how I go over it, I am thinking, "Nope."

But that's how it is.  So, until the U.S. Customs Authority is done pawing through our stuff, we'll just be hanging out, with our six suitcases and giant new television.******




_____________________________________________

*My mom (BigD), my sister and my sister-in-law, along with a few others, do not ask this question anymore.  Also, I talk to the three of them almost every day. So there's that.

**None of whom have any sort of negative record, credit, criminal or otherwise.

***Not known to be a hotbed of insurgency.

****With one of the world's largest companies.

*****This is their bidness.

******Which is slightly trashy, if you think about it. We have practically no furniture(don't worry, we have some things from my old apartment, toys and several boxes random things) but we have a  television, not as giant as Wendy's who happens to have the largest television I've ever seen outside of a sports bar, but I love it all.  Really, it could only be tackier if we took the wheels off the cars and parked them in the front yard.

We're back and no H is not my middle name

It's been more than three weeks* since my last blog post, and to be fair that one was pretty weak.**

(This is currently how we eat dinner.  We have no table yet and the pizza is frozen.  We are hobos.  Hobos with wine*** and nice chairs, but hobos nonetheless.)

Yesterday the plumber came and finished the repairs.  Over the past few days, we've had most of the cast iron pipes replaced as well as all the piping in the kitchen replaced, the damage which was found by the crew replacing our furnace and all the dusty dusty ductwork underneath the house.

I mention that because while it sounds boring (and it is) those pipes and ductwork, I suspect, are our anniversary trip.  Yep, a first-time-traveling-sans-the-little-man trip to somewhere that does not allow children**** may now be stuffed underneath the floorboards in the crawlspace.

But things are getting done, but it's been a transition.

Right now, as I type this, I am sitting in what most likely (in the not too distant future) will be the man-room*****/office.

I am surrounded by boxes, many of which are labeled "BOOKS/PAPERS."

When we got engaged, things started moving ultra-fast, so we could get all hitched up and move overseas.

In the process, (almost)Husband went to Norway to start work for a few weeks.

I packed up my apartment and moved things.  We were in such a hurry (packing, wedding planning, etc...) that, instead of sorting through much of it, I just tossed it into boxes and put it all into storage, intending to deal with it when we moved back.

In retrospect this may not have been the best idea, at least not completely.

I really don't need all those paperbacks including that unread copy of The Tao of Pooh, given to me by suitor whose name has long been forgotten, mainly because after that gift, there were no further dates.  But also because I abhor the vast majority of cartoon characters and especially loathe ones that lisp.******

But I do have every single one of my reporter's notebooks******* as well.

And on the top of the pile in one of the boxes was one of them with the notes from one of my favorite moments, in which I was confused with a major deity.

It was late in the evening in a nightclub in New York, after an award show. My intended interviewee was a southern rapper redneck type, who is not actually one bit Southern, but has perfected the redneck act to a tee. At the time, he was rumored to be engaged to a large bosomed actress, who once favored red swimsuits and had always favored musician types.  My orders were to ask him about the wedding plans, to get any detail at all.

The club was dark and smoky.  The music was at top volume and every conversation varied between shouting and speaking close into each other's ear.  My target interviewee was well into his bottle and had commanded the deejay booth.********

I walked up and it went something like this:

ECD:  Hi

SouthernRapperRedneck:  Hey darlin.'  What's your name?

ECD:  I'm Elizabeth from NameOfMagazine. I just wanted to come over and say congratulations about your engagement.

SRR: Uh.  Thanks.

ECD:  (I am not quite sure exactly what I said here, I scribbled "Chatter about wedding, etc...")

SRR:  That's none of your f***in' business. Get the f*** out of here.

ECD:  Well, alright, thanks so much.

And I turn to leave. I asked the questions.  He declined to comment.  So at that point I consider that part of the evening done. Oddly enough, SRR does not. He grabs my upper arm, holding me tightly enough that I cannot move.

SRR:  Seriously, get the f*** out of here.

ECD:  I would sir, but you're holding onto me.

SRR:  Who do you think you are!!?!!  Jesus H. Christ!!?!!

ECD: No sir, I don't.

SRR: Smartass!  Seriously, get the f*** out of here.

ECD:  I would sir, but you're holding onto me.

SRR:  Who do you think you are!!?!!  Jesus H. Christ!!?!!

ECD: No sir, I don't.

SRR: Smartass! Seriously, get the f*** out of here.

This went on for a few minutes, in varying forms.

He got more irate, I got calmer and more amused.

Then his manager pried his fingers off me.

And while I did not get the details of the upcoming nuptials, I did have a hand shaped bruise on my upper arm for the next week or so.

And I had forgotten that until I just read it again and I still think it's funny.

So that's something.

_____________________________________

*Or thereabouts. I could figure out the exact number of days but that would require me to find a calendar, count the days, etc... and I just don't care enough to do that, and really, I'll bet you don't care enough either...

**Hilarious, but weak. 

***Dear PC Police, Let me explain. First of all, I think most hobos tend to have wine, so that's apropos. But I do not mean to be insensitive to the plight of legitimate hobos, both past and perhaps present, I merely mean to identify somewhat with the act of carrying around all of one's possessions on one's back, or in one's suitcase, if you will.  Sincerely, Elizabeth

****Listen, there's no offense meant and we adore our little guy (and also many of the children we know), but to be clear, we adore our little guy.  If we're going to spend some cash to go traveling without him for a few days, we don't really want to hang out with strangers' children.  

*****I suspect that if you are married and are reading this post, the term "man room" needs no explanation.

******Yeah, yeah, yeah...but even in light of this shocking fact, it's pretty likely that Elliot will have a pretty alright childhood anyway. 

*******Except for the drawerful from my last semi-fulltime job.  One morning I came in, sat at my desk, opened my drawer and found it completely empty.  The mail clerk, misunderstanding a request to clean out some old file cabinets, dumped out three of my key drawers, including files, notes, tapes, a calendar from that current month and all of my personal items.  I spent the rest of that day, not reporting, but climbing through the three dumpsters in the bowels of the AJC building.  No kidding.  It was two years' worth of notes and ideas, including loads of interviews I had conducted for upcoming stories.  It was a BIG deal. And so I dumpster dove, all in vain.  I did not find one of my own things, but I did find really interesting unshredded expense reports.  These did not make the experience worthwhile, but did make for some interesting reading.

********Hey, don't judge.  This was a publicity event.  The famous people who were there were mainly B-list and below and were clamoring for ink. Every single one of their publicists knew exactly which magazines were sending reporters and to a certain extent, what the content of the questions could be...And also, to be fair, I saw SRR perform at another magazine's celebration about a year later.  He killed.  No joke, it was an awesome show.  I did not interview him that time, so I cannot say for sure if he was still confusing reporters with deities or if it was just a one-time event.

Do these socks make my feet look fat?*

Over the past few weeks, I've also been asked:

"Now that you're heading back does this mean you're going to be shutting down or renaming your blog?"

The short answer:
No and no.

The long answer:
Striped Socks and Skinny Jeans was never really about stripes, socks, skinny and/or jeans.**

It's always been about figuring out how to navigate where I am---which right now has been Stavanger, Norway and soon will be Atlanta, Georgia.

I've written about gettting hitched up, being newly married, traveling and having a baby, as well as other weighty topics such as wombats, how not to be burgled, glitter and tobacco.

I've even had contributors.

None of this will change.

So I'm just going to keep on with what I'm doing.

Please feel free to stop back by anytime.  You're always welcome.


_________________
*Horizontal stripes are often not considered a great idea on most body parts unless you are very very brave.  I am not.  But stripes on feet?  I kind of like them.  They just seem friendly.

**The name came from my very first trip to Stavanger, which was not Husband's first trip.  (He's American, but had lived here before, moved back to the US.  Then we got hitched up and moved back to Stavanger for a few years.)

It was early in 2008 and as it often is in these parts, Stavanger was cold and rainy.  But being the optimistic sort that I am, I immediately tried to figure out how to make the dampness less annoying.  And I began with my feet, which if you've ever had really wet and cold feet, you may know that often that makes all the difference.

If you every happen to drop into Stavanger, and really most of Scandinavia, you'll notice that women tend to wear close-fitting pants or leggings, often jeans, tucked into knee high boots. I am convinced that it is less (or at least equal) a fashion statement and more of a practical one.  

On dark, dank days, the last thing you want to do is get the hemline of your pants wet.  Then not only will it eventually creep up your pants, but also will track into your home.

Which brings me to the next bit, the striped socks.  Unless it's a place of business, shoes are never worn inside.  Once you step over the threshold into your home, the shoes are removed.  And really, no one wants to see holey socks.

Also, I just like stripes.

A Short Story About Hats

Every single year, the International School in Stavanger celebrates Guy Fawkes Night* by building a bonfire and burning the poor guy in effigy.

We had a plan to meet up with several other families from our babies group.  We were going to visit, watch the bonfire and stay for the fireworks.

Elliot hated it.

And we're not quite sure if it's because of the darkness, the fire, the wind or AS's hat.**  But after a bit, it just seemed the nicer thing to scoot out early.

At least we missed the traffic.

___________________________________________




*In 1605, Fawkes was one of the leaders in a plot to blow up the Brit's Houses of Parliament.  It failed. So depending on how you feel about that, you can feel a bit sorry for him...or not.

**It was a furry one, kind of like a cartoon hunter's.  (I'm not cracking on it, really...It suited him.) And every time he leaned into Elliot's face to talk to him, Elliot wailed.  So I'm going with the hat.

Trick or treaters: Then and Now

So I spoke too soon on the Halloween evening...

I was hoping for trick or treaters.  I hadn't had any in years.  The last time trick or treaters came to my door, I was a sophomore in college and my roommate and I weren't going out until later, so we stocked up on the candy.

Right after the sun went down, our doorbell rang.

Standing at the door were two giant people both of whom were probably linebackers on their high school football team.  They had painted their faces with white and black makeup to look like ghosts.

When we opened the door, they held out their bags, which were not so much trick or treat bags as wadded up grocery bags from the local A&P that probably had held their illegally bought 40s of beer a few minutes before.

While my roommate and I considered the sight, in unison, they said, "Trick or treat," in these deep Barry White baritones.

So of course, we gave them every single bit of chocolate we had.

And that was it for the evening.

I've never had trick or treaters since.  My apartment buildings always had security doors.  And trick or treating isn't big in our neighborhood in Atlanta where our house is.

But I love Halloween and seeing all the children* dressed up and running about, so I was hoping for at least a few, even though Halloween is not big in these parts.

And I am pretty sure that it's not well understood in any case, but I still hoped.

And sure enough, while Husband, Elliot and the dogs were out walking, our doorbell rang.  While I frantically ran around the hour looking for our bag of candy, I heard the little footsteps going down the stairs.  So I threw open the door and said, "I'm here.  And I have candy."

Two little American girls, twins about eight years old, dressed in their ski gear ran back up the stairs, said, "Trick or treat," showed me their outfits and then said, "Thank you" before heading back down the stairs and on to the next house.**

About 30 minutes later, the doorbell rang again, so I grabbed the bag of chocolates and went to the door.  Standing in front of me were two little Asian girls, about seven and five.**

The older had on a witch's hat and the younger was carrying a devil's pitchfork.

They looked at each other, held out their bags, took a deep breath and yelled, "HALLOWEEN."

I was the funniest thing I had ever seen, so I gave them the rest of the candy.

______________________________

*And Elliot is a little too young to drag him all around the town on the slight chance for a photo-op, but for a 7.5 month old, that's all it is, really.

**Both the moms were standing at the street level watching.

Every single day

I plan things.  

So does Elliot.

Those two  plans do not necessarily mesh.

Asian fast food

Pre-Elliot, I would try a million different recipes.  I would tear them out of magazines, borrow them from  websites and hound BigD for directions of how to make whatever it was that I remembered from the dinner table when I was eight.

These days, while I will try new things occasionally, I have gotten into a bit of a rut. Along with a few surprises every now and again, our staples are Husband's favorite tacos, the BigD classic*, Jenny's wok recipe and crispy chicken wraps.  Most of these are not created from scratch.**

But even as my head is still clouded with Elliot-things: like getting to know each other and helping him learn important skills, I am slowly trying to get back to cooking meals that are a little more fun than what can be found on the packet aisle at the grocery store.

Last week, we ate lunch with a friend from Singapore.  She served us soup that was so good and so pretty that I asked for the recipe.  She said that it was "just Asian fast food."  That it was nothing special and that in Asia you could buy it on the street for just a few dollars, but it was special and a few nights later, I made it for Husband.

And it was good...

Here's what you need...adjust the amount of each ingredient for the amount of soup you'd like to make.  Keep reading...I think it will make sense...***

And, depending on your level of skill and time, you can create every single bit from scratch or cheat a bit and get it from cans and jars.****

Pork filet

Cha sui marinade, which is kind of like Asian BBQ sauce, sweet and a little tangy

Kernels of corn

Chopped green onions

Cooked udon Noodles

Medium boiled egg sliced in half

Miso soup

Marinate a pork fillet in Cha Sui sauce for a few hours.

Bake it in the oven at about 250 degrees C until it's done (flipping and spooning the sauce over it about every ten minutes or so).  Make sure it's still a little bit rare in the middle...the timing depends on the size of the piece of meat.

In the meantime chop the vegetables or pour them out of a can.

Boil an egg to medium (about 8 minutes)

When the meat is cooked, set it out and when it is slightly cooled, slice in disks.

Cook the miso soup to boiling.

Put noodles in bowl about 1/2 way, then pour boiling soup over top.

Add in slice of egg, disks of pork, onions and corn.

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*Awesome pasta with zucchini and squash. If you've ever eaten dinner at my house, you probably have had it.  It's one of my absolute favorites and no one cooks it better than the BigD herself.  But I try.

**I didn't know that "from scratch" was a good thing until I was about 25.  My elfin grandmother, who was not an elf, but was about the same size as an elf, was a fantastic cook (Her fried chicken is unparalleled to this day).  But she was sadly lacking in baking skills---with the exception of pound cake and chocolate cake...those were TASTY.  She was not aware of this and often would proudly present her brownies, proclaiming that they were "from scratch." We would take a bite, praying not to chip a tooth. For years afterward, I was certain "from scratch" was polite code for "tasted horrible" and would avoid it at all costs.


***There is a talent to writing recipes. I am pretty sure I don't have it, but hopefully you'll understand it anyway.

****Guess what I did?  And really, it's Asian fast food.  Also, I'm not in the business of judging.

Yesterday's yoga

So how did Baby Yoga go you may wonder?

In case you didn't read yesterday, Elliot had been running amuck.  All the other babies were calm and good.  I thought it was stressful and tried to turn in my classes to no avail.

So we went back.

And it was better, mainly because Elliot had an entire room to himself.  Seriously.  The yoga room is giant and L-shaped.  The class happens in one end of the "L" and the other part is supposed to be sort of off limits because the footfalls disturb a doctor who works underneath.

Apparently the yoga people were willing to make an exception for Elliot.  And it's not like he's all that noisy other than a few thuds and the occasionally LOUD babble.

They had even baby-proofed.  The electrical sockets were filled in, the heating coils were off.

I did have to go through the room and move all the giant loops of rope hanging from the wall.  Other classes use them when the students lie on the floor, then grab the loops to pull for leverage.  They were right at Elliot's neck level, but were easy enough to loop higher than his little hands.

And this time, I only had to get up five times during the class, which split over an hour, averages about once every 20 minutes and that may not seem like much, but if you consider that about 15 minutes was spent working with Elliot.  And also that the teacher took him and carried him with her for the last ten minutes, that's alot of popping up and down.

But we've (really meaning "me") has switched my attitude about it all.  I have given up any hope of yoga-ing myself and have decided to look at it as Elliot's play time.

Because Elliot loves it.

One of our friends and her daughter comes and he loves to see them.

He thinks the massages are the best thing ever and he laughs and laughs.

When I pop up to save him, it's big fun for me to come and play with him.

Sometimes, the teacher will pick him up and let him sit with her, so he gets a different view of the class.

And really, Elliot is my funny little love and any mischief he causes in only in the spirit of curiosity and having fun. And I cannot blame him a bit for it* and overall, think it is the best thing ever.

And, this time, the "worst" thing I caught him doing was leaning over another baby blowing raspberries in her face.  And, she loved it too.

Only five more classes to go.

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*He cannot help his gene pool.

One hearty bug

In almost two years in Norway, I've only seen one other bug.  This is the second.

May the Force be with You

Every single morning, at least for the last month or so, I wake up at about 5:30am when Elliot does. I feed him, put him back down and then go downstairs to make sure that he has enough milk to mix with his cereal and various food stuffs for the day.

This may sound super early and it is, but it's not so bad.

Not when you consider that he's been in bed since 7:30 or 8pm the night before.

Also when you consider it's a tiny bit of complete quiet time, all by myself, while I take care of the business at hand.

So of course, I do not spend it improving my mind reading classic novels or even watching CNN. I browse my favorite websites* for editor-selected chunks of goodness.

And this morning, I saw a quote on Jezebel.com about what Carrie Fisher had to say about what she writes.**

I love Carrie Fisher. I think she is funny and smart and honest and doesn't have any phobias about embarrassment, either. ***

When I was little, we lived in Southwest Georgia on a farm**** about 20 miles outside of an 800-person town (Or thereabouts...). And every summer, BigD would drive us to North Georgia (where I grew up the rest of the time) to Nana and Papa's where we would stay for a good chunk of the summer.

We would spend the days swimming at the local pool with our cousins and eating the very best fresh sliced tomato and Durkee's sandwiches, ever.

Every now and again, Nana would hand each one of us a sandwich baggie filled with multicolored popcorn, a few of the small individual Hershey's chocolate bars and a can of Coke. Then she would load all of the cousins into her giant yellow Cadillac and take us to a matinee.

Sometimes it would be Pippi Longstocking or maybe The Apple Dumpling Gang, but one summer it was Star Wars. Like the vast majority of theatergoers that summer, we LOVED it. We begged and begged to go again and again.

And that summer, we must have seen it about three times.*****

When we got back to school that fall, playing Star Wars was all the rage. The Middle County Elementary School had a playground with some swings and a concrete area for Four Square and lots of room to run, but occasionally we'd have recess or PE across the street on the baseball field. They'd just let us loose.

As you may guess, I was not one of the ultra-popular kids. I was usually hanging out with one of my best friends or maybe over in the corner, reading a book. But this fall, every now and again, BigD would roll my hair up into those giant buns and when we all played outside at recess, I would get to be Princess Leia.******

And really, who wouldn't want to be? She was a awesome princess. Yeah, she needed a little assistance rescuing herself, but she shot a gun and smack-talked and figured out how to send R2D2 and C3Po out for help.

Cut to almost three decades later:

I'm back in Atlanta, at the Georgia Aquarium and I'm on assignment. Jane Fonda is being roasted for her charity, the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention. And the room is full of the celebrity types, all looking swanky.

Early in the evening, before I started to work, I found a place and perched at the top of the staircase, surveying the crowd of pretty people. After a few minutes, the crowd shifted, and I felt a touch on my shoulder and a woman said "Excuse me."

I turned around to face Carrie Fisher.*******

I had collided with the ex-Princess Leia, and now, even cooler, a hilarious writer.

We both offered apologies and then chit-chatted for a moment about the night.

After a moment, she stared at me up and down and said, "You look great, but I think you need one thing."

Then she reached into her bag and pulled out a little spray bottle, said, "May I?"

She reached into my hair, poofed it out just a bit and sprayed.

"It's glitter spray," she said and tilted her head down. "See, I'm wearing it, too. And, really, everything is better with a little bit of glitter."

THE END

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

*Most of them are in the lists to the right. Good stuff, really.

**Scroll down to the bottom of the list for the quote and if you want to read the full Vanity Fair piece, click here.

***I am well aware I am no Carrie Fisher, for a variety of reasons. But if you count the good ones, she's a pretty good, even great example to have.

****Not a "momma go outside and pick up the eggs from the chickenhouse farm." It was/is a commercial farm where, back then, my dad grew peanuts and soybeans and corn. There was even some livestock in the back corner of the main field. (The livestock was really a bunch of pigs, but doesn't livestock sound less muddy?)

*****This was a VERY big deal. No joke. My grandparents grew up without much money and did not believe in wasting anything, not Christmas wrapping, not the crusts from the sandwich bread and certainly not money to see a movie more than once. But this summer, we did.

******They would also play Dallas. I wasn't allowed to watch soap operas, plus we couldn't get all channels on the tv at the farm because Big D thought satellite dishes were tacky.

*******No joke...she's not that tall. Neither am I.

Norway, please

Today was an Alexander* day.

It began with rushing about to get to Elliot's Heath Station appointment, which led to a crabbiness with Husband. The house was a giant "just-got-home-sort-of-from vacation" mess and I couldn't find what I needed.

Then it started raining.

All in all a bad way to start out a day.

Once Elliot and I left the house, it got incrementally worse:

A car darted out at a roundabout when it wasn't the driver's turn, narrowly missing us.

A group of people crowded the sidewalk in front of a bus stop (there was no bus there) and the vast majority, who were non-Norwegians, parted ways. Two teenagers, facing a bit away, stood their ground and there was no way for me to pass.

There was no way they didn't see the rest of the people move, yet they didn't.

I said "Unnskyld" ("excuse me") several times, each time with a bit more volumne. Then loudly cleared my throat. Finally, I reached way over and poked one in the shoulder and said, in English, "Excuse me!" Both of them gave me a rotten looks and laconically ambled out of my way.

Then, six men, all ranging from about mid-20's to mid-40's, all seemingly healthy, pulled together and fit, went past me as I was struggling to get Elliot's stroller through the swinging door and up the five stairs into the elevator lobby.

Not one held the door and not one offered to give me a hand to lift the stroller up the stairs. These were not the neighborhood crackheads or even unkempt. These were businessmen who should have better manners.

But that's the problem, I'm not sure they did.

As I've written before, I have been warned that I am too polite.

I say "please" and "thank you" on a regular basis. I open door for people and have been known to offer assistance to women and their strollers. And a few weeks ago, I let two people cut in line at the grocery. Each had one item and I had fifty.

These are not commendable acts. They are just the right things to do.

Or so I have been raised.

Also this is not a trait unique to the Southern US where I grew up. I lived in New York City for almost a decade. It happens there, too.

And, while I am not terribly well-traveled, I have been a few places and have noticed these stranger-to-stranger kindnesses all over, even in France. Even when they knew I was an American in France.

Here not so much.

This is not to say that there are no kindnesses.

There are and there are many.

Just in recent history, Elliot's pediatrician kept the office open after hours to see us when I called and said I was worried about his cough. Colleagues of Husband's have made an effort to befriend me and make me feel welcome and acclimated. A fellow customer at Ultra about my age, bagged my groceries so I could pick up a howling Elliot and pay the cashier.

And, just a few days ago when Elliot decided to be rambunctious on the plane home from Alicante, a group of Norwegian grandmotherly sorts talked to himand the oldest one of them all, who had a smiling face akin to a dried up apple, made him laugh until he lost his mind.

But on the streets, no one will hold a door. And at the airline gate, the crowd of ticketed passengers will press to get to the front. And be warned, you should watch the hell out in the IKEA corridors.

Most of the time, I just accept it as a cultural difference and go along my merry(ish) way.

But today, on a grey yuck day, it just made everything worse.

After Elliot's visits with the nurse and the doctor, which was fun and hilarious, I was still feeling out of sorts (and it was only 10am).

Back in the waiting room, I was getting Elliot back into his warm clothes and was standing next to another mother, a Norwegian woman about my age, who was unbundling her young daughter. We started chatting a bit and it turned out that her baby was one day older and that we lived in the same neighborhood. She asked how I was doing and if I was a member of a baby group. And I had just enough time to say "yes" before she and her baby were called to their appointment. They headed off in the direction of the nurses room, but turned around long enough to say "Ha Det Bra," which is a salutation which means, "Have it Good."

And it made me cry.

*The star of "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day." Fantastic classic children's book. No joke. If you don't know it, read it. If you do know it, read it again. His day wasn't so bad and neither was mine, really, in the big scheme of things, relatively speaking and all of that...but also, that doesn't make it good.

Not a Picture of Husband: Time Traveler

This may seem like a photo of Husband about to step on the train between terminals in the Chicago airport.

It's not.*

Look closely and you'll realize that it is really a photo of one of a species of people called "Time Travelers."**

During our time in the US, we saw many of these clustered in the Sacramento area, usually hailing from the year 1984. You can tell these by their crimped hair, acid washed jeans and electric blue eyeshadow. This specimen was on our plane from Sacramento to Chicago.

I don't know what happened to her after this.***

Into the wilds of the Midwest, I suppose.

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*Though I often blog in this manner (to wit: Strollers and Nice), I've never named it, but have now decided it's going to be a feature. Keep your eyes peeled for it....

**Also, this is not mean, in case you were thinking that it was. This Time Traveler was owning it. She did not care what year it was, her bangs were high and she was working it. It was really borderline awesome. Or, I suppose, "Rad."

***I do know what happened to us. We got home and have been sick and jet-lagged and generally discombobulated since. And by "we" I mean mainly Elliot, so that affects all of us. It's been quiet awhile around here, but there will be more posts, soon.