this is good food

After a brief flirtation with true autumn weather, the first part of the week turned back into late summer, with temperatures calling for bare legs and whatnot.

Which was really harshin’ on my soup-mood mellow.

But yesterday I togged up, tossed Kira in her Halloween costume and then in the Burley, and headed down for a stint of Trunk-or-Treating in the preschool parking lot.

As I headed out the driveway, it became apparent that it was — can you guess? — raining.  Not hard, but enough to qualify as a drizzle. 

Of course it was.  Not that I’m paranoid or anything, but I’m just sayin’ it seems like this year that as soon as I cinch up my cycling shoes, an alert goes out to the gods of precipitation.  Seems it’s their equivalent of tones dropping at a fire station: Everyone starts hollering, and then they promptly drop whatever else they’re doing, slide down the rain barrel and run to crank up the cloud machine.  And I get to sport yet another set of grime lines.

I’d teamed up with another mom, and she brought the trunk, not to mention the majority of the treats. Me, I brought some Smarties and my winsome personality. And sitting there, passing out treats to adorable preschoolers in precious costumes, my dampness turned to chill and then to cold and I decided two things in quick succession:  1.  Bail on ride; do yoga instead, warm and dry inside.  2.  Make soup.

Back home, with #1 accomplished, I turned to #2.

I collect soup recipes the way some women accumulate accessories: There is no such thing as too many lentil-soup recipes, or black pumps.

All those recipes, but I only had eyes for one.

Around here we call it Sarah’s Soup, but I think she calls it Farmer’s Pot.  Regular readers may recall that Sarah’s the one who brought us, and thus you, Lentil-Chickpea Delish. Short Long hours later she brought Baby Sam into the world, but that’s a different story.

I had to stretch my “local” definition for sourcing, because summer squash is long gone, but I didn’t suffer much over it.  How can you possibly feel bad about this many veggies together in one place, after all?

Farmer’s Pot, a la Sarah

Use a nice big heavy pot for this.

Saute in a couple swirls of olive oil, until onions are translucent:
2 med onions, chopped
4 large carrots, in bite-size chunks
3 celery stalks, cut on diagonal

add and saute 1 min more:
3 cloves garlic, chopped fine

add, and bring to a boil; boil about 10 minutes:
1 bottle spicy V8 (46oz)
2 c broth
1 large (28oz or so) can whole tomatoes
1 can tomatoes with green chilies
1 can stewed tomatoes

Add and continue boiling for 15 or so minutes:
head of broccoli, chopped (about 3c)
head of cauliflower, chopped (about 3c; I used frozen)
2 zucchini, in bite-size chunks
2 yellow squash, ditto

Add and boil 10 minutes more:
4 c cooked dark red kidney beans (or 2 cans)
2 c cooked cannellini beans (1 can)
2T dried oregano
1/2c or so fresh basil, chopped
couple shakes cayenne
1/2t spicy seasoning (Mrs. Dash)
1/4t nutmeg
2t sugar

Sarah says: Don’t worry if it looks awfully thick to start with. Once the veggies cook up, it will be just right.

A caution: the above makes a colossal amount of soup and a perfect opportunity to invite friends over, or stock your freezer. A nice sourdough, or really any good bread, complements superbly.

Not to mention a glass, or two, of Shiraz.

superstar singalong

Do you have certain music that you can listen to over and over without getting tired of it?

Because Kira does.  And her current favorite, which she requests now every time we get in the car, I have only myself to blame for.

I have loved the music from Jesus Christ Superstar for about twenty years.  I own the soundtrack from the movie and know most of the words to all of the songs. However, there are a number I won’t attempt to sing along with because even to my own ears, in my own car all by myself (or with an uncritical small audience), my voice isn’t anywhere in the realm of doing justice to them.  Mr. Webber writes some tough tunes.

One of those that is out of reach of mortals is “Gethsemane,” sung by Jesus (Ted Neeley).  And that, my friends, is Kira’s passion.  “Play the man with the poison, Mommy!” (That would be the lyric, “Take this cup away from me/for I don’t want to taste its poison.”)

I thinks she likes it because he, literally though musically, screams in it.  And she gets to scream right along.  On key, thankfully.

I love the song myself.  But I have to confess I have found myself grateful lately that entire days go by when we do not get in the car, because the only thing more wearing than hearing the same song for an entire trip is hearing it requested for an entire trip.

On a whim I went online yesterday, thinking I should really go see it live sometime, hello.

Woe was me when I saw that it played just a few hours away back in March ‘09 (how did I miss that??), but I’ve decided it might just be worth a longer trip to see Ted Neeley himself perform as Jesus. I bet he’s got it down pretty well: he’s been playing the role, off and on now, for about 40 years.   And while I wouldn’t necessarily bet on it, who knows? This might be his last tour.

time to relocate

Along about last spring, we became aware of a constant, odd pittering noise coming from the front of the house.

It turned out to be a squirrel who had decided that the little seed buds on our dogwoods constituted a fine mealtime buffet. What we were hearing was the empty pods, hundreds on hundreds of them, being cast aside and hitting the stone and concrete steps of our front stairs.

We learned to walk carefully, cos those little pods are sharp and, en masse, a little slippery.

Then began the foraging in the garage. Safe neighborhood and all that, it must be said (I know, people, I know I KNOW) that we were in the habit of leaving the door up, along with the windows open in the car.

What the squirrel apparently discovered was that floor of the car was a total bonanza: a delightful, delectable repository for stray cheerios, pretzels, and such. To the point where last summer it GNAWED THE RUBBER off the window seal on the MPM’s car when he — most inconsiderately — put them all the way up, thus denying easy access.

We learned to close the garage door. Mostly. Though I did come upon him rummaging about in MY car one day and, I confess, I screamed.  I mean, I really screamed.  I’m no girly girl but the daggone thing STARTLED me.  Kira still talks about it.

So. Here it is, autumn. Here are our lovely Jack-O-Lanterns that I carved with the girls on Sunday.  They dictate the design; I am old-fashioned and lazy and carve freehand with an old paring knife.  Feel free to judge harshly my creativity and finesse, however.

Oh, wait; no.  Fact is we don’t have a photo of how they appeared on Sunday. What we have is our Jack-o-Lanterns as they appeared on Monday, in a state that Kira termed “different and more scarier” — indeed, note the gruesome effect wrought by That Damn Squirrel:

And both the others lost their teeth.

Hear me now, Mr. Squirrel: we do not begrudge you the natural abundance of the dogwoods, nor even the occasional breakfast cereal. But defacing Jack-o-Lanterns? Is just that one step over the edge. Operation Rodent Relocation will commence at dawn.

thousands saved!

Words, that is.  Because each of the following photos had at least vague intention of being a dedicated blog post.  And, as always, I cringe at the quality of the pictures, and resolve that Santa should bring me a groovy new camera this year.

We had a lovely Labor Day treat staying with Kate and her family at their fab cabin in NC:

First day of school. Note the single top tooth, shifted to center. I pleaded to pull it the night before, but to no avail:

Guy-camping at a local campground, a late-summer tradition:

If you closed your eyes after looking at Megan’s outfit on this day, you could still see the color contrast on the inside of your eyelids. She got a LOT of compliments/comments, and so did I:

Sisterly silliness. This Chicco train has logged enough miles for a transcontinental crossing. Definitely one of our best toy investments ever:

Okay, that’s all she wrote took. For today, at least. Hope you enjoyed the “less is more” theme.

street village

We live three blocks from the elementary school entrance. Most mornings, the MPM drops Megs off on his way to catch the commuter bus, with a firm 7:30 departure. When he’s out of town, as he is yet again this week, I bundle Kira up, still in her pj’s, and we three careen out the door and down the hill in the jog stroller usually at about 7:40.

This morning, lordamighty, Megs was up and dressed and breakfasted by 7:20. Never happens. However, Kira was still sound abed, which is equally rare.

I decided to wait until 7:25 and then call the next-door neighbor, mom to Megs’ dear friend, and ask if she would mind taking my girl too.

At 7:22 the phone rang. It was NDN, saying she’d slept late, her little one was still asleep, her husband was out of town, and would I be able to take her big girl with me?

I laughed and said Sure, and how bout you can do tomorrow?

After hanging up, realized an even better option lay in another call:

And indeed, both girls walked with the up-the-street neighbor and his kindergartner. Voila, a village.

And Kira slept until almost 8a.m. which is pretty much a record for her, and woke up even happier than usual, which is sayin something.

It was a good start to the day.

wit and witches and suchnot

My love affair with Halloween is, fundamentally, about two things:  candy corn, and costumes.

Regular readers know I feel eating locally and seasonally is important. I consider candy corn seasonal to October and, like cherries in June, I do my best to consume enough during their short season to tide me over the long months between.

I think my delight in the costume aspect comes from time dating a clown.  To be sure, I dated a number of men who could qualify for the title, but only one who made a portion of his living at it.  Frankie T, aka Crossroad the Clown, was a great entertainer and an inspired costumer.

Every now and then I got to join in on one of his gigs, and I thought it was honestly about the most fun you could have with your clothes, or rather someone else’s, on.

Nowadays I only do it once a year, but I haven’t missed a Halloween in ages.  Somewhere in a shoebox is a collection of photos over the years, and someday maybe I’ll track it down and give my brother, the tech gadget king, the opportunity to run ‘em through his groovy new ultra-tech scanner so I can share the love and the silliness.

There was the classic “Madonna with Child” — or perhaps not so classic, involving as it did a diapered baby doll and coned Blonde Ambition Tour bustier.  My date was, naturally, the Holey Ghost.  (A woman of paralyzing Catholic faith hissed at me, “That’s not funny.”  Um, au contraire, Your Righteousness.)

Marge from Kissimmee Florida, complete with dyed red hair, 30 extra pounds stuffed into her capris, and spectacular cankles.

Miss Conception, whose one-piece bathing suit showed off her baby bulge (aka my bike helmet).

Gritty the Thru-Hiker, with full facial hair and a blonde female companion of astonishingly ugly persuasion (that would be the MPM).

The list is long, and without photos I won’t bore you further with my self-proclaimed cleveritude.

So indeed, I’ve been to a lot of Halloween parties over the decades. But I have to say, none even close to holding a candle to the one that we’ve found ourselves lucky enough to be invited to the last couple years.  There are easily a couple hundred attendees, and nary a one sans costume.

And not any old lame costume, either.  As with ‘Ween parties everywhere, you can’t swing a bloody ax without hittin cleavage, of course, but there’s also plenty of wit and style, not to mention time and effort. Honestly, you might think you were in New York or L.A. rather than little ole backwoods small Southern city us.

The house decorations are nothing short of incredible, the hosts are prodigiously generous with their food and bar offerings, and I’m thinking it’s entirely possible they imported the DJ from a much bigger city.  He worked his boyscout-uniformed behind off and the dance floor was packed the entire night.

Costumes and liquor drinks are a dangerous combination for me, as is, admittedly, dancing and liquor in most any form.  Long after Cinderella had taken off in her pumpkin coach, I’d worn out the MPM and resorted to a sturdier companion:

that robot can dance!

And in case you’re wondering what the heck kind of costume is THAT, Miss All-About-Halloween, this may clear it up:

achoo!

When you lack cleavage of illustrious proportion, you gotta go with the wit.  What a fun night.  (Thanks to Katie, aka Glinda the Good, for the photos!)

OMG:  I just Googled “Crossroad the Clown” and found a video about him and his son, and his 30 years’ volunteering with Camp Good Days & Special Times in upstate New York.  It’s not great, but I had to include it.  Just because.  My friends used to refer to him as “The Voice.”  20-some years ago he had, let’s just say, a lot more hair on his head (and a lot less on his ARMS??!!?), but the voice, yes The Voice, is the same.

OMG, Part II: Through the power of Facebook… I bring you Crossroad the Clown, 2009! What a riot.

fun factoid

I learned something new last night, and it was the kind of fun fact that just needs to be shared. Aren’t you excited? I am.

If you participate in running races or large-scale organized bike rides, you probably know that a common technique for route marking involves small symbols spray-painted, often stenciled, on the road. I’ve seen scads of them over the years, often just running or riding along and realizing I’ve stumbled onto the course for some past or future event. Some are stylized for their particular event, but many are generic, a circle with a line or an arrow, indicating straight, left, right.

What I learned last night is that those little marks have an actual name. Who knew?

Check this out: they’re called Dan Henry Arrows, or just “Dan Henrys,” and some sources indicate they’re used world-wide, though I don’t personally have any knowledge of such and won’t state it as firm fact until I return from my upcoming grant-funded continent-spanning journey undertaken to confirm precisely how widespread their use is.

Sheldon Brown’s exhaustive online Bicycle Glossary tells us that Dan Henry was a very influential cyclist in the ’50s and ’60s, most famous for the “‘Dan Henry Arrow,” an arrow painted on the roadway with a stencil or a spray can.

It goes on to share that Mr. Brown was also known for roller demonstrations, where he would perform a strip-tease while riding on rollers.

I find that vastly amusing and might even pay to see footage of it. Mostly because anyone who’s ever attempted to ride a set of rollers can tell you that just staying upright on the damn things is something of a trick all on its own.

Courtesy TourDePeaks.com

That little glow you’re feeling right now is no doubt the sign of a life more fulfilled.   Aren’t you glad you clicked?

measure of affection

One of my treasures happens, because I’m lazy and forgot to put it up, to be sitting about 8 inches from my right hand at this moment.

It’s petite, but it has a sweet heft. I keep it in a kitchen drawer, where it is handily available for minor measuring tasks. Its residence there is a source of occasional exasperation to the MPM, who gets annoyed that 72 inches is too often too short once he gets to measuring.

But I refuse, no matter how many times he rolls his eyes and sighs audibly, to let its spot in the drawer be usurped by some Taiwan-made plastic-encased 10′ Craftsman.

Not only do I savor its hand-feel, but I know that that tape — a “Mezurall,” manufactured by the Lufkin Company in Saginaw, Mich., heaven knows how many years ago — is the finest token of a man’s appreciation as I could ever have.

It was given to me long ago with the words, “This was my grandfather’s. I want you to have it.”

I was reminded of the depth of its meaning when reading this excerpt, from Rick Bragg’s remarkable memoir All Over But The Shoutin’. Speaking of his maternal grandfather, he says:

“My brother Sam still has his old carpenter’s tools. He hung them, like a shrine, on the inside of his shed. He said he just likes to look at them sometimes, and doesn’t have much more to say on it than that…. I believe that to him those rusted, pitted hammers, rasps and crowbars not only remind him of the first grown man who ever treated him with any kindness and love, but also represent a simple, basic principle of a man’s worth, one a man can live a whole life by.”

It’s quite a book. I’m not done yet, but it isn’t as if there’s a suspense ending; it’s about the writing, and the writing is superb.  Recommended.

iso comfort

Monday was a gorgeous day, sunny and 70ish. We took advantage of it, heading back down to the playground at 5:00 with bikes and friends and a hodgepodge picnic dinner of fruit and summery fare.

And then the rest of the week led straight into autumn of the chilly damp gray sort. Notice how my concept menu, drafted Tuesday, directly reflects same:

Chickpea-Lentil Delish (Tues)
Lentil-Barley Stew* (Wed)
Beans and Rice (Thurs)
Colcannon* (Fri)
Saturday Date Night, WooHoo!
Pot Roast (Sun)

How about you? What meals do you crave when it’s gloomy and gray outside, or in?

*I really must post this recipe. Someone remind me, okay??

spell check

October marked the beginning of homework in Megan’s 1st-grade classroom. She came home last Monday with a ziploc of cut-out words and a daily chart of tasks to accomplish. Monday: Sort words into three categories; write them out. Tues: Sort words; alphabetize; write out. Wednesday: Sort words, write 10 sentences using words. Thursday: Do a mock test to prep for Friday’s classroom test.

It’s spelling, but they are all about the patterns. Yet another well-meant though futile attempt to impose some pretense of order onto English word construct.

Megan, bless her lil rule-followin heart, was THRILLED to have homework. But along about Thursday she said, “Mom, it’s boring. I want harder words and more categories.”

I wrestled with myself. And finally, because she had verbalized exactly what she wanted, I sent off an email to her teacher. Who has, btw, 22 students and no aide. “At the risk of pegging myself as a helicopter parent… hope to keep her engaged… let me know what I can do… totally understand if it’s too much to ask….”

Got back a prompt reply email saying “No prob. I’d be happy to give her different words.”

Wow. Cool. To quote the girl herself, “Goodie!”

So today, Monday, she comes home with this week’s words, 24 of ‘em. They seem like they’re right about in the ballpark. She has new and improved rules to sort by. And a whole little tic-tac-toe grid of homework choices. She tells me she has to choose three tasks, and include the center (Written Pattern Word Sort).

She began sorting. It took awhile. Then she coughed and the freakin little tabs of paper went shooing across the table. Re-sort. Then she alphabetized (Task 2), and wrote them out in order. A half-hour and two tasks down.

Next she picked the option to choose two words out of each category and, using a newspaper or magazine, re-create the words using a ransom-note approach. The other options were equally daunting, including looking up and writing down definitions for 10 words, or writing 10 complete sentences using all 24 words.

A tad dismayed, I fetched the newspaper and scissors. The breadth and scope of this undertaking became immediately clear to me as teeny snippets of 8-point type began covering the table. “I’m going to cut them out and then sort them.” I stepped in. “See what letter you need and THEN cut it out. And let’s use headlines.”

Time passed. d-e-c-a-y, snip snip snip. The neighbor girl gave up waiting and went home. a-g-a-i-n, snip snip snip. Dinner harkened. a-w-a-k-e, snip snip snip. Kira complained of hunger. m-a-y-o-r, snip snip snip. Darkness fell. c-r-a-y-o-n, snip snip snip. c-h-o-c-o-l-a-t-e, snip snip snip snip snip frickin snip. Gimme those scissors: ch-oc-o-late.

A faint flush of panic welled up in me. See what I get for asking to challenge my child? Dear god, we’re talking 2 hours of homework a night. Is this some sort of sadistic teacher revenge, an attempt to ensure no one ever asks for exceptions for their child? Do I suck it up?? Do I cry uncle?? I have to cry uncle. I have to. I can’t do this to Megan OR to me.

I send an email: She’s very excited about the homework. Perhaps she could choose to do TWO tasks? And btw, we worked together on the ransom notes cos dinner was imminent and it was a new concept. Hope that’s okay. Hover hover hover, love and kisses.

And then, this evening, after the MPM arrived home and I was sharing about the day and pulled out the tic-tac-toe grid and actually read the instructions, rather than taking Megan’s word for it?

“Complete 3 activities for homework each week.”

Each WEEK.

Oh.

Well. It’s always nice to get your homework out of the way early, right? Like Monday.

a spot of fall cleaning

A couple weeks ago Becky over at Suburban Matron, whom I read religiously — and frankly far, far more often than I attend church — did a post about loose ends. You know, how you post about something, and then it just kind of goes away, and your readers sometimes wonder: What ever happened to… with…?

Yeah, I’ve got a few of those untidied spots here at Fraught. Mostly because I have lots of untidied and unfinished things in my life in general, due to life in general interfering with completion of tasks and such. But here’s the rundown, in reverse chronological order cos that’s how I roll:

1. I did indeed fulfill my personal Challenge via Kate at BookNook, and went to bed every night by 10 for that whole week. Or at least 10:05. It was pretty great. Since then… oh, not so much. I’ve made it a few times, but they have been more than outweighed by the 10:30 and 11:00s, and yikes, I think I saw 11:30 at least once too. On the upside, I actually won Kate’s giveaway on her blog from that challenge and scored some groovy bath salts. Not that I’ve had time for a bath or anything, but it’s always good to have bath salts on hand. Just in case.

(And fyi, Kate swears that her drawing was not rigged, even though the cynical-minded might remember she had only recently herself won a Fabulous Prize in Fraught’s First-Ever Giveaway.)

2. I still haven’t made Richard’s Blueberry Scones. But I have every intention of doing so. And I do have about 35 pounds of blueberries in the freezer.

3. Yes, my road rash healed up quite nicely. As in, I don’t have any noticeable scarring, which is pretty remarkable really. It was my first time using Tegaderm, and I will never treat asphalt abrasion with anything else again. The stuff ROCKS. It ain’t cheap, but it is worth every penny.

4. We went ahead and called for several bids on the screen porch project, with an eye to moving quickly and enjoying fall evenings out there, overlooking as it does a streetful of deciduous trees. And then one evening, Kira was sloshing about in the main-floor tub and I heard a rather ominous noise, and then I heard a tremulous, “Mo-o-m-mmy?” and walked in to see that when she used the circa 1959 tiled-in soap dish to raise herself out of the water, she had pulled it plus about a dozen more rotted tiles clean off the wall and kerplunk into the tub.

Happily none of them crashed down onto her toes, and she was only startled, and muy puzzled, not hurt. But the immediate result was pretty clear: tile situation trumps groovy porch. I spent way too much time and energy contemplating, researching, and expensing options from a plug-in tub surround re-do (“A New Look For Your Bathroom In A Single Day!!”) to a complete reno of the bathroom (“cha-ching cha-ching cha-CHING!!”), which is a project I have little love for.

And I suppose the truth is I could probably rustle up some love for it if I could have the cashflow for it AND the porch AND the complete transformation of the upstairs bath that I really, REALLY fantasize about. But in the scheme of things, give me a $300 patch job and I can live with the pink tub, grey tile, vinyl floor and crappy vanity for another half-decade. Or more, because I am good at that kind of blind eye. And ultimately we decided to go with that: a simple and inexpensive patching of the existing tile.

All of which means the porch is still on the table, figuratively speaking. Though not in time for autumn color appreciation. Dogwood blossoms, perhaps.

5. Although I don’t know if it qualifies as a loose end, Megan did eventually come to a place where she would generally tidy her room when requested to do so.

And more than that, I know that I write most often about the challenges of her intensity, so I want to say that over the last months the vast majority of the time she has been overwhelmingly wonderful.

She is an incredible soul, tender and sweet and astonishingly complex, and there are so many times when I am overtaken with delight as I marvel at her tenderness and loving nature. Though it’s clear that she and I will never be free of a certain power dynamic, I am learning that she has a depth of sweetness that I hadn’t guessed at. It is a joy in my life, as is she.

Now. Is there anything I’ve forgotten, anything in my life you’ve been wondering about, anything at all? Just let me know. I’ll be happy to catch you up.

time to do a little grilling

At this point in my life, not for any real reason but just cos that’s how it is, I eat very little beef, and almost no hamburger; I leave the ground stuff for the kids, who are little carnivores. Megan in particular would eat her some animal every day, given the choice.

But every once in a while I do get to craving a burger out. I have been known to make a stop at Wendy’s, and I am the first to enjoy a backyard burger off someone’s grill. And there’s a place in town that makes a Texas Chili Cheeseburger that I get a jones for about twice a year, minus the onions please.

But a piece from Monday’s New York Times may be the end of all that. It begins by highlighting the incredible destruction wrought on Stephanie Smith, a healthy 22-year-old, by ingesting hamburger contaminated with E. coli bacteria.

The article uses her story to reveal, in depth, a serious problem in food safety. I challenge you to read it without it changing your attitude about this most American of staples.

Just to tempt you to read the full article, I’ll give you this snippet: Stephanie’s mother, for a Sunday family dinner, grilled “…frozen hamburgers …made by the food giant Cargill …labeled ‘American Chef’s Selection Angus Beef Patties.’”

Bring on the ketchup and pickles! That is going to be one tasty burger. It sounds like something, well, premium. American! Chef’s Selection! Angus, that’s some good meat, right?! Fire up the Weber, dads!

But, while the name may invoke the vision of an old-timey butcher in white apron grinding up a hunk of prime steer to make those patties, things are, in fact, done a little differently these days:

“…confidential grinding logs and other Cargill records show that the hamburgers were made from a mix of slaughterhouse trimmings and a mash-like product derived from scraps that were ground together at a plant in Wisconsin. The ingredients came from slaughterhouses in Nebraska, Texas and Uruguay, and from a South Dakota company that processes fatty trimmings and treats them with ammonia to kill bacteria.”

Um. So much for premium. So much for chefs selecting a damn thing. So much for American; for god’s sake, scraps from Uruguay?? And Angus? That’s, what, the name of the guy whose job it is to dump the ammonia in to kill bacteria?

There’s more. Five pages more, in fact. I will warn you, it is not an appetizing read.

Another disturbing quote: “Ground beef sold by most grocers is made from a blend of ingredients, industry officials said. Agriculture Department regulations also allow hamburger meat labeled ground chuck or sirloin to contain trimmings from those parts of the cow.”

So, word up: if you want your ground beef to be just meat, no “trimmings,” about your only choice is to buy a chunk of sirloin or chuck and ask to have it ground right there at the store. Who knew? I mean, really: who KNOWS this? No one tells you; it is not on the label. It is hidden information, and it is distinctly unappetizing.

Come time for me to make dinner, despite the fact that the ground beef in our freezer came from a cow that spent its whole life about a half-hour down the road, somehow I just couldn’t get too excited about tacos tonight. Go figure.

But on a brighter note, I had a moment of inspiration and pulled up the recipe for Lentil-Chickpea Stew and let me tell you, it hit the spot. Highly recommended for a day when you spend several hours on a field trip to a farm, a day when you foolishly believe the forecast for “near 70″ and dress accordingly; a day when the the sun never breaks through the gray damp of early fall and the breeze off the ridge goes right through your denim jacket, and finds your bare ankles too.

Read that whole article here, if you’ve got the stomach for it.

madhouse moment

Oh, I am so going to cheat.

Kate’s blog carnival, with a dozen or so regular or irregular players, runs on Wednesdays.

I am way, WAY behind, because not only is it not anything close to Wednesday but I am just getting around to reading some posts on the topic of like two weeks ago: “The Scariest Moment.”

I haven’t had many of those sort of heart-stopping moments, but in reading Lisa’s post, I experienced the same flood of emotion, sitting right here in my kitchen, that I remembered from an event of my own last summer.

And remembered that I’ve already blogged about it. So, cheating. But hecks, there are so few of you who have been along for the ride since the beginning that I find I just can’t work myself up a great big guilt over a reprise.

So, with my deepest apologies to my dear Jude, who has read every single word I’ve ever written and gets a wee bit miffed when I pull this stunt, I take you back to July ‘08:   Some Rules Aren’t Meant to be Broken.

land ho

It’s been a week, oh, it has.

Which is why it’s been almost a week since my last post. With the MPM out on the west coast, I have been round the clock captain here at the Good Ship Fraught, and I am not conditioned to the rigorous demands of the solo crossing.

Although I have to say, there’s the upside of no major dinner production. Am I right?

Because you all know that on the average Thursday I’m whipping up, oh, Barbecue Rubbed Scallops with Creamy Sauerkraut Soup as a light starter to New York Strip and Fall Vegetable Roast with Mustard Cream Sauce, leading up to Chess Pie with Blackened Pineapple Salsa and Caramel Sauce for dessert.

Oh, all RIGHT. But even if it’s just black beans and rice, it takes thought, time, and energy to pull together a meal. And I can throw together something for the girls in about twelve minutes, and as for me, I’m perfectly happy to browse the fridge or, truthfully, stand up sit down with a bowl of popcorn and a glass of wine cereal and milk after the girls are in bed and the evening wears on.

The fading of the day brings me to the greater challenge of the MPM’s absence. I can wrangle the bedtime routine solo, mostly because I know to start it a full hour ahead of lights-out. Contending with requests for lights on or off or water or a special pillow or a different venue?  Again, child’s play.

But once I head to bed myself, I’m beset with a dazzling number of sleep-reducing pitfalls, in addition to all the standard ones that make me such a damned sorry sleeper.

One, I have to get back up to run around in my jammies and lock all the doors, because that is Not My Job and I never remember until I’m already in bed.

Two, I can’t put in my earplugs, because I’m on solo watch and it doesn’t seem prudent, and I am not used to having to hear all the noises of the house and children breathing in adjoining rooms and such when trying to sleep.

Three, when I’m cold, and the evenings lately have had the chill of fall, I have to get BACK out of bed to go find socks instead of warming my feet on the toasty calves of my beloved.

Four, at  exactly deep-dreaming-thirty I am woken and must get up to fetch Kira, who is whimpering and wants to “Be in Mommy and Daddy’s bed.”

Five, lacking the MPM as buffer, I am subjected to her floppings and flounderings in the bed, which go on for a good hour and a half.

Six, I have to be sure to be awake to make sure Megs has been woken by her alarm. And with that subconscious awareness of needing to be awake, I jolt upright in a panic at about 5:45, a full hour before her alarm goes off, and the resultant adrenalin puts paid to any hope of drifting back into slumber.

So along with everything else, I’ve found myself a tad fatigued here as I pilot the course.  To the parents who do this 52 weeks a year: I bow to you.

And to the MPM: hurry home. I miss you.