bflynn

A cheerful day

Yesterday I spent 2.5 hours in the dentist’s chair telling them they didn’t have enough novocaine in place and being drilled. In the last month, I’ve replaced every single metal filling in my mouth — and I had a lot of them. I think altogether I had maybe 12 fillings replaced?

Not even novocaine can dampen my Christmas pleasure.

I had dinner with a friend (where I ATTEMPTED not to drool too much — I didn’t get feeling back in my jaw until the dessert course), was back in time to put Grey to bed, and spent the evening consulting with Santa on plans for the most fantastic Christmas morning EVER.

Grey went out to buy my present last night, and he was nearly vibrating with gift-giving excitement and the world’s worst sneakiness “Mom, there aren’t any secrets so you don’t need to think about what Christmas present I’m giving you.”.

My husband and I snuggled under the glow of our Christmas tree and made goofy jokes.

Thane crinkles his nose at me in the world’s most goofy grin and said “Car” this morning.

I’ll pick the boys up in an hour or two and we’ll go home and make cookies and wrap presents and wait with our whole bodies.

Tonight we’ll go to our church’s annual Christmas pageant. Grey will understand it, I think, for maybe the first time. The magic and mystery and solemnity will touch him.

How wonderful life is!

The other side of advice columns

I read a lot of advice columns. I love them. I’m not sure why, but I regularly read five or so advice columns a day, and have a few weekly ones I look forward to. One of the universal tropes of the advice column (and, I suspect, hard-to-solve problems humans generally experience) is what to do in a relationship that isn’t working. For example, perhaps there’s a friend who never pays their share of dinner, or is a complete downer, or says racist things. Often there is a two step solution: give them a chance to know what is wrong and change, and then if they are unwilling or unable, end the relationship. If the relationship in question is a family relationship, there’s usually a three part solution: warning, cutting down on exposure and cutting off. If there’s any abuse, the advice is pretty much always “leave now”.

I always wonder about the other side of that advice. I don’t know many people who know they are bad people. (Actually, in fairness, I don’t know many bad people at all.) But I suspect that these other people — the mooch, the depressing, the racist, the abusive… that’s not how they see themselves. Instead, from their point of view, they might be the clueless, the one the world treats unfairly, the funny joker, the person who others have always wronged who has to be careful not to get hurt again.

For example, recently Annie had a couple write in asking why no one ever came to their parties. “What is wrong with other people that they don’t come?” the message implies. For the next 2 weeks, nearly every column has run a list of reasons: out of control pets, out of control children, messy homes, unlikeable personalities, racist jokes… this person is on the other side of countless advice givings that ask “Why do you spend time with people you don’t enjoy?”

This raises two conundrums for me. First, what do I not know about myself? How often have you told someone why you REALLY don’t see them anymore? “I’m sorry, but you’re too negative and you get me down every time I’m around you” isn’t something we say. Or “Every time I’m with you we end up gossiping and I feel ashamed of myself later”. Or “With everything you say about everyone else, I wonder what you say about me”. Or “Your conversation is equal parts awkward pause and awkward discussion.” Instead, we’re busy, or take too long to get back to someone. But I happen to know for a fact that I am not perfect (I know! Please, moderate your surprise.) What do my friends put up with anyway? What encourages people to keep ME at arms’ length that I do not know about and might not be able to control if I did?

The second issue is what happens even if you are self aware. Imagine that you’re 30 or so, intelligent and perceptive, and just not fun to be around. You look deep inside, and discover that yes. You are not a fun person. People don’t enjoy spending time with you. You get in fights with people a lot and end up hurting feelings. So you have tried to change… but it’s almost impossible to act contrary to your nature all the time. You get tired, under pressure, tempers run high and you can’t be who you are not. And things blow up. What then?

The essay I wrote, lo these 15 years ago, to get into college was a discussion of my finite right to be proud of who and what I am. I am as much a product of my genetics and environment as every other human: the jailed drug addict, the self-centered jerk, the runaway prostitute. To the degree their responsibility for their current lot is mitigated by their circumstances so, in fairness, is mine. I got lucky. I didn’t screw it up, granted, but I got really lucky in order to be who and what I am. It is through no merit of my own that I don’t seem disposed towards depression, or get along well with people, or can follow directions. I think I’ve done a decent job in those circumstances where my free will stood me in front of two paths, but there’s always been a good path I was capable of following.

I’ve never come up with a satisfactory “then what”. I try to remember this, when I deal with the congenitally unpleasant — especially when it seems like they are trying their best to make the most of the hand they’ve been given.

What do you think? How do you deal with people who just aren’t fun to be around? Do you suspect you’ve ever been on the other side of this dynamic?

BONUS:
For your reading pleasure, here are the regular advice columns I read

Dear Abby the archetypal advice column, in its second generation. Expect to see lots of PSAs, advice to go to counselling, and horrors about modernity.
Annie’s Mailbox is almost identical to Dear Abby. One of my favorite moments was when they simultaneously answered two different sides of the same dispute.
Carolyn Hax is a more modern, informal style. She tends to ask more questions, and has a slightly longer format, which is nice.
Since You Asked the writer is currently on medical leave for cancer treatment. I usually only read the problems (which are largely unedited and novella length) since I find his answers wishy washy and annoying.
Dear Prudie is probably the best of the lot. She has enough space (unlike the news paper columnists) to really address issues, rarely goes down the “talk to a qualified professional” route, and usually has an interesting perspective which I may or may not agree with. There’s a fun chat on Mondays, a weekly advice video, and a column on Thursdays.
ETA:
Advice Smackdown. How could I forget it? I love everything Amalah writes. This one goes between serious, important, and makeup-related. She would totally be my choice for moisturizer conundrums, but is the sort of writer who can make moisturizer hilariously funny.

Am I missing any good ones?

Quietly glorious days

It’s funny being in the middle of the times you know are the golden ones. Things are pretty quiet in my life. I am mostly done with my Christmas shopping. I’m terrible at stocking stuffers, so I’m sure that could be improved but eh. My Christmas cards are sent and done, which is one of my major projects of the holiday season. I’m now watching my wall fill up with other people’s Christmas cards. There’s snow on the ground and a bite in the wind.

My sons are healthy, growing and delightful. Grey is SO MUCH FUN these days. He’s incredibly aware and alert and always putting things together. He’s getting better and better control over his temper. He’s kind and loving to all of us. He’s started yelling “Grey attack!” and then smothering us with a bevy of hugs and kisses. He is an unfurling flower of delight.

Thane is harder. It’s a stage of life thing. I was telling my brother that children take turns so you never have a favorite. Right now, Thane is communicating by way of ear-splitting screeches. But he’s the silliest little dude. For MONTHS now I’ve tried to get him to say and point for “nose”. This is one of the first things I did with Grey. It’s a very concrete word, “nose”. Pretty easy to say. And cute as all get-out to watch chubby little fingers pointing. For months now, Thane has ignored my attempts to teach him to say “nose”. He just refuses. I start to wonder… is he having some challenge learning? Perhaps his ear infections have affected his hearing?

But the other day the cats were attempting to scavenge some tasty chicken scraps from the garbage and I “tsked” at them. He looked at me, fascinated, and then spent the next five minutes doing the most adorable “tsk” imitation. What? That’s a VERY HARD SOUND. You really have to coordinate teeth, tongue, palate and wind speed. Not like nose, which is easy. But, unlike nose, he’s interested in it.

Anyway, our house is full of music and chaos and bouncing and little toy cars.

The back yard has, in huge letters visible from the fourth floor, the word “MOM” written in snow by my son and husband while they were playing during the big storm.

In the morning, my husband will bring Thane into the bedroom where I’m trying to eke out the last minutes of sleep on our comfy, comfy, warm bed. Thane curls right up to me and sucks his thumb as he snuggles. It lasts for about 5 seconds, but what a sweet way to start your day.

Everyone I love is on the ok or great spectrum (well, with prayers for my godfather to make a complete recovery). We’re all working, in relationships that work, in safe circumstances, in our normal degree of health.

There’s even been “me” time. I’ve gotten to bring my character up to 10th level in Torchlight. I read the first quarter of a fantasy novel. We’re playing Deadlands tonight.

The best times aren’t glamorous, or news-worthy or even, heaven forfend, blog-worthy. They’re busy, and silly, and look a lot like the day before or the day after. They’re the nights when you order pizza and watch a movie together, or go for an after-dinner drive to look at Christmas lights when you teach your son to say “Bah Humbug” and discover that he knows all the words to your favorite carol.

So I don’t have much to say, other than that these are the small times of great delight, and I know it, and I’m grateful both for the delight and for the knowing.

Grey tries to talk me into letting him watch Willow

What Santa is packing in his sleigh

My son is four years old this Christmas. If you are old enough to find your way to this blog, you’re probably old enough to be told the truth. I was four the year I found out that Santa isn’t quite as corporeally real as we pretend. When I was three, many years prior, I had a desk that had gotten left behind when my parents packed us into a station wagon and drove from Atlanta to California by way of Canada. Mom and dad were never too keen on that “Fastest way between two points” stuff. I digress. I yearned for this desk. (Full disclosure: I STILL yearn for that desk in some tiny part of me and am working very hard not to buy Grey a desk-like-object because the four-year-old in me wants that desk.)

Anyway, it was made abundantly clear to Santa (and daddy) that I wanted a desk for Christmas. My sister and I shared a room in our small house with the walnut trees outside. Christmas Eve came, and two very excited young girls gabbled and bounced sleepless in their beds. I had nodded off when my sister woke me up. A sound of thumping was heard through the wall. “He’s here. Let’s sneak a peek.” And so with infinite subtlety, we snuck open the door and poked rumpled blonde heads out to see the Man Himself.

And there was my poor father, nursing a stubbed toe from placing my desk under the tree. We understood immediately. The door was quietly closed, and we retreated to discuss strategy. We agreed on a pact of silence.

I don’t know how old I was when my PARENTS figured out that I had figured out what the game was. It never made it any less fun to play, but I’m glad they didn’t pretend any harder than they did. I would’ve known the lie. Because I wasn’t really looking for inconsistencies, I hope my parents didn’t have to work too hard. (No buying special “Santa” wrapping paper, for example.)

I’m thinking of it this year, of course. Grey wanted to know if he was sitting on the REAL Santa’s lap. I assured him without hesitation that he was. He announced to me the other day that he’s figured out his goal career. He wants to be one of Santa’s Elves and make presents. He’s ok with the uniform constraints, but admits that he might miss me every once in a while. (All humor aside: it was surprisingly well thought out with the data he had. He had considered quite a few consequences and outcomes of this decision!) We are at the very height of Santa-joy: old enough to make cookies, young enough to not consider the physics of Christmas eve flight.

I’m also doing the last minute planning for the presents. I probably need to do a present-review and see if I’m sadly lacking in any category. You know, are there books, crafts, obnoxiously noisy plastic toys, stocking stuffers, and most of the items on his and Robby’s Christmas lists? In future years, I’ll need to make sure I have present-parity between the boys.

One of the things I’m doing for both boys this year is new-to-them toys. Thane will be getting, wrapped up, some of the toys I set aside years ago from Grey’s room. Why not? The only difference between those and a new toy is packaging. Grey will be getting his first real Legos. We have roughly 30 – 40 POUNDS of Legos from my husband’s childhood. Seriously. A huge duffel bag and a big plastic garbage bag FULL of teeny tiny Legos. At current market prices, that quantity of Legos would cost thousands of dollars. (Seriously, have you SEEN Lego prices lately?) I got overwhelmed by them, and just picked out a nice pile for him.

The more I think about it, the more I think I’d like to give the boys all their presents without packaging. In our culture, packaging marks the difference between “New Presents I Bought For You” and “Presents Of Unknown Provenance”. When my mother-in-law scores a real find for me in thrift stores, she’ll often say, “And it still has the tags!” since that proves that it’s new. When we give gifts we use that packaging as a marker of newness. It actually gets in the way of the gift experience, though. “Wow, a truck! OK, now give mommy 20 minutes with wire clippers and you can play with it!”. It also conditions our kids to think that proper gifts come with original packaging and proper gifts are new.

I don’t want that. If my son was holding out for new Legos, he’d get about 15 of them for $30 bucks. (Seriously, this set has under 300 pieces for $150 bucks and is not that unusual pricing-wise.) By being ok with pre-loved Legos, he’ll get a big bag for, um, free. I would like that to hold true as my sons get older, too.

I think I’ll make it a point for things that are unlikely to be returned (no sizing issues) to remove the packaging before wrapping it. Yes, it means my sons won’t know when the toy they’re getting is new. But hopefully it means that they’ll evaluate their toys on whether or not it’s fun to play with, and not whether anyone’s ever played with it before. In some tiny way, perhaps that will help dial back the commercialism of Christmas.

What do you think? Do you always keep new toys in their new packages? How hard to you work to maintain the Santa mythos? How old were you when you found out? How did you take it?
Grey's letter to Santa

Battle Lines and Blind Side

Sunday night, an hour or two miraculously appeared after the boys were in bed. As my husband finished the story-reading, I delved in our well-stocked game cupboard for a new offering for the evening. After sorting through various boxes “The claim that this game plays with two is a lie” “Why do we even own games that have a 3 hour play time?” “I don’t have the 2 hours we’d need to assemble this game”, we settled on Battle Line.

It’s a lightly themed logic and planning game. It incorporates significant elements of poker (to my disadvantage — I’ve never played) in terms of winning card combinations and card counting. You also can gain an advantage by having a poker face, or being able to read your opponent’s intentions. However, there are six “suits” up to 10 cards, and a deck of “break the rules” cards which kept play interesting and unpredictable.

We both loved it. We split two games. We’re champing at the bit to play some more (although if your partner is, like mine, an optimizer, this might be an appropriate game to break out the play-timer for). It’s a small, light game, which means that it just shot to the top of our list for travel. I think it could be even more compact if you replace the “flags” with regular playing cards (they’re simply place holders). This is also the rare game that I believe will be able to handle numerous repetitions of play. There are lots of games that are fun to play 2 or 3 times, or once or twice a year. There aren’t as many games (like chess) that have much higher play potential — that can be different every time you play them, even if you play them for a year.

Then on Tuesday, a second Christmas miracle occurred. We had a free night. And we had a babysitter. I know, I know. Astonishing. Seriously, I think our last evening out together was late September. ANYWAY, I’m a sucker for a heart-warming story, so I’d really wanted to see “The Blind Side”. Ah, friends! Go see it! It is a story of radical hospitality and courage. It is a story about small and great kindnesses. It is a story about the best of people. And, most of all, it is a true story. Mom, this one is rated “K”. I was inspired and warmed by this increasingly rare vision of people behaving with love towards each other, in a family full of kindness.

I also see the movie as a challenge. I wish I had her courage and compassion.

It was awesome to spend time with my dearly beloved, and to have the time so rich. Nothing is so disappointing as making all the effort to get out, and then have your meal/movie be a total dud. These two were the opposite of dud-ish-ness!

My son is trying to kill me

The other day I picked up a two year old girl. I’m quite accustomed to picking up young children, since one (not naming any names THANE) walks wonderfully well, but not in the directions I want him to go. Therefore, traipsing between engagements, he gets carried. So when I picked up this little girl, I thought I knew what I was doing.

I nearly threw the poor child into the ceiling, she was so light. Featherlike, even!

My son is not. No, not he. Not Mr. I’m Wearing 2T Clothes at 13 Months. Not Mr. I Eat More Than My Four Year Old Brother (Please Pass the Cheese).

We’ve decided to call him Mr. Moon, actually, because 1) he is entirely made of cheese 2) he weighs as much as a huge lump of rock.

I digress. That sweet child is attempting to kill me, his loving mother.

Friday when I went to pick him up from daycare it was slippery. I had just gotten my young son from Abuela and had given him his first 20 “I missed you” kisses on the cheeks and was walking down the stairs to the car, holding his massive weight in front of me. Now you think you know what’s coming, but you’re wrong. I can’t blame the fact that there was one more step than I expected on the slipperiness. I just plain missed it. I tumbled to the ground, using my body in ways it was not intended to be used in order to keep my baby from hitting the pavement. Better yet, Abuela was still watching from the door. If my body is going to already have to take a hit, couldn’t my dignity at least be unblemished? But nooooooo. FYI, he’s heavy and has a lot of inertia.

Yesterday I had a less than delightful day and was glad to be trudging home. My husband was doing aikido until about 8:30, so I was on my own with the boys. Grey was just telling me how his preschool teacher was unhappy with his attention span and filling me in on exactly which joke drove her nuts during Circle time, while I carried Thane to the car through the snow.

Flash back a million years to college. One year for Spring Break about 10 of us rented a condo and went on a ski vacation. This was possibly the most exciting vacation I’d taken without parental supervision, although we were the tamest, most polite bunch of college students you’d ever want to meet. (Except for the home made pudding. Don’t ask.) The very first day, my boyfriend (now husband) took me on my very first ski trip. We spent an hour or so on the bunny slope. I was doing well. Then we went down our first real run.

I made it the rest of the way down the hill in the back of one of those ski patrol sled thingies. That was the first and last time I ever went skiing. I didn’t walk properly for about 6 months. As a permanent reminder, I have a torn meniscus in my left knee.

You actually need your knee ligaments for less than you might think. I live my life quite happily without it, most of the time. I backpack and play raquetball. I hoist my kids around. But every once in a while my knee is in some position where it needs the support of ligaments it no longer possesses. When that happens, I crumble to the ground in blinding pain.

And so it happened. I took a step. My knee collapsed into agony and so did I, once again holding Thane and attempting to keep him from hitting the ground with me. For a very, very long five minutes I was kneeling in the dark in the snow next to my car trying very hard not to cry while Grey (oblivious) whined about why I hadn’t opened his door and Thane squawked protest to my death-grip on him. And what can you do, so vulnerable, in pain, responsible? You pull yourself together, attempt to stand, buckle people into their car seats, and call various members of your family to complain.

My knee is very achy today. If experience is true, it’ll be sore and stiff for a week, and gradually get back to normal.

I’m hoping my “bad luck in threes” was actually fulfilled this morning. Right in front of me, a driver failed to notice the slowing traffic and plowed into the car in front of him, making a nice 4 car pileup that I had front row seats for. A state patrol officer was right there. No one was hurt — I pulled over to see if they needed my eye-witness report which they didn’t.

I do hope that there isn’t another fall ahead with me holding Mr. I Put Lead Weights in My Diaper, because I’ve been very lucky so far to only hurt myself.

Wish me good luck trying to avoid his next assassination attempt!

Little innocent me? Never. You don't have any cheese, do you?

Ernie

On Sunday, Grey and I went caroling with our church. Our first stop was an assisted living facility our church has a relationship with. Grey was the youngest of the carolers by a good two decades. Faced with a room full of the pale elderly, my tired son demanded that I pick him up hold him. He shyly waved his jingle bells, his back turned to the foreboding crowd.

As I sang the old songs, I thought about my relationship with the aged, or, as they were known in my youth, “old folks”. Frankly, I always loved old folks. You want someone to pay attention to you, go to a nursing home as a cute young thing. When I was an adorable kid, I quickly discovered a great affinity for these folks. They had wonderful stories, kind faces, and lots of positive attention to devote to me.

I’d like to now, publicly, apologize to my parents for a deed I did in my youth. Here’s the story.

I wanted money to buy candy. Bonanza 88 actually had things you could buy for 88 cents, and coins represented true value. I, sadly, was lacking in coins and being 7 or so years old, also lacking in the means to earn them on my own. (Sometimes I helped worm-pickers harvest worms on the practice field behind our house, but this summer day was apparently short on worm-pickers.) But I, a budding entrepreneur, thought I saw a way out of dilemma of no-candy. I sat down and drew 8 or 10 very fine pictures, took my portfolio, and went door to door with my best friend as an art saleswoman.

Some of the houses had no one there. Some of the houses had shy Mexican immigrants, who peeked through the tightly-held door and shook their heads at us. But a goodly number of the 20 or so houses on the block had my target audience: old folks.

I remember sticky ribbon candy, “healthy” popsicles, linoleum floors, antimacassars in dim living rooms, and kindly old ladies offering a quarter for a drawing.

The last house I remember visiting on that sunny day was the best of all. It was in that house I met Ernie. Looking back, I suspect Ernie was a WWI vet. He was at least 80 back when we became friends, in 1985 or so. His house was a wonder and a delight, and so was he. He always stayed put in his arm chair, weighted down by age and frailty. But somehow he remembered and knew where every single thing in his house was. He sent me downstairs to gape at the mounted trophy buck head, the hand-cranked light-bulb, the medals and odds and ends that were the remnants of what must have been a fascinating life. He sent me upstairs for the popup books of gnomes and giants, and cluttered guest rooms that must not have known his tread for years. He gave me tigereye stones and spun the age-old tall tales about how these would prevent tiger attacks (I believe his version contained details about his journeys in India – God only knows whether they were part of the trope or true accounts). I wandered through a week of my childhood fingering the stone in my pocket and looking for the warded-off tiger attacks, as is right and good. Ernie and I had a fine old time.

It goes without saying that when I got home with my $2 in small change, flush with the afternoon of delights I’d experienced, my parents were, um, less than pleased. I believe I got quite a lecture on talking to strangers and inviting myself into their homes, selling my wares, eating their popsicles and scavenging their basements (although I must’ve managed to convince them that Ernie wasn’t a stranger because I knew him now! At least, that wasn’t the LAST time I visited him!). And of course, with the poetic justice of childhood, it was hardly a week or two later that I badly injured myself a mile from home and insisted on accepting no grownuply help from the kind folks who noticed as I trudged past my bloody, weeping face because “I wasn’t allowed to go to strangers homes” to call for help.

Did I mention, mom and dad, that I’m really sorry? And I’m sure I’ll get what’s coming to me?

But I still smile and think fondly of Ernie. With no pictures, or other folks in my family who knew him, my memory of him is dim, as if a dream. I remember his chair and some of the marvels I saw. I know I went to visit him several times, to hear the stories and have adventures. He must be gone by now — I know that 7 year olds tend to underestimate how old people are, but he was truly quite old.

I find I miss old folks. I’m much less irresistible to them now than I was then. Sadly, no one could describe me as waif-ish, and I have that bustle that parents seem to accrue to themselves. I simply don’t have a ready supply of old folks to delight. I certainly hope my sons will discover the delight of the company of the lonely and slow-moving. There is a great joy in that relationship between the very young and very old, that we middle-life-dwellers have either forgotten or do not yet know.

I hope my sons find their very own “old man” to tell them the traditional lies and spoil their dinners and to show them how to brighten lives.

No-knead wheat bread

My husband’s recipe for wheat bread was called for after my post yesterday, so here I am being obliging.

We have some dedicated gear for this. My husband makes it in batches of two, so we have two large Rubbermaid containers for rising it in. I apparently lack the vocabulary to force Target.com or Amazon.com to disgorge the exact version, but it’s kind of circular, tallish, has those snaps on the side, maybe 3 quarts, and has a red lid. That should do you. We also have two dutch ovens (they’re expensive, but I got one for Christmas last year and another one at Costco for cheaper – I bet they’re a dime a dozen at yard sales).

He usually makes the dough in about 15 minutes at night, and then bakes it on his work-from-home day so he has fresh bread for lunch. Tough life.

It makes FANTASTIC pressed ham sandwiches and toast. Also, for reasons that are unclear to us, the whole wheat version of this bread seems to stay soft and tasty much longer than the regular version. This bread is a rock-star with a good soup. Enjoy!

No Knead Bread
Ingredients
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 cups bread flour
1/2 Tbsp salt
1/2 tsp active yeast or bread machine yeast
1 cup very warm water
1/2 cup beer (I use Budweiser, Sam Adams light is also nice)
1 Tbsp White vinegar

Instructions
Whisk together dry ingredients and then stir in wet ingredients until all ingredients combined and a shaggy ball of dough forms.

Leave in a large, airtight container in a warm place to rise for 8 – 12 hours (I leave it overnight).

On a lightly floured surface form dough into a ball and knead 15 times.

Shape into a ball, spray surface of dough with oil, and leave to rise on a piece of parchment paper. While rising, put a large pot with lid (I use a cast iron Dutch oven) into oven and preheat to 500 degrees for 30 minutes.

At end of 30 minutes, reduce heat of oven to 425 degrees. Slice shallowly through top of dough and, picking it up by the ends of the parchment paper, place it inside the preheated pot. Re-cover pot and replace in oven.

Bake for 30 minutes. Remove pot lid and bake uncovered for an additional 20 minutes.

Remove bread immediately to wire rack to cool.

Note: if you want to make this recipe without the whole wheat flour, replace it with 1 cup of bread flour and reduce water to 3/4 cups.

Foodie identity

Yesterday’s post on hospitality actually started out as a foodie post. On Tuesday, as we have done so often since the week my husband brought me home as a blushing bride, we gamed. And as we have since that August of 2000, I made dinner for the gamers.

When I first got married, I couldn’t cook. I was both proud and defensive of this fact. I recall joking at our nuptials that I picked my husband so he could cook for me. This was entirely untrue. I really picked him so that I’d have someone else to get up with the kids in the morning. Anyway, suffice it to say, I had very little practical experience in the kitchen. My first job out of college was as a telecommuting programmer. Ah, 2000! What a time you were! This left me home alone a lot, with practically no responsibilities. Out of boredom and cheapness, I started cooking. The weekly arrival of other people at a game provided a motive and opportunity for me.

Looking back on those early meals, I flinch. I recall one attempt at alfredo where a guest pithily asked if I had just poured a jar of mayonnaise over some noodles. I couldn’t blame him for wondering. But gradually, I got better.

I now have an extensive collection of well-thumbed cookbooks and collected favorite recipes. I have fallen head-over-heels for America’s Test Kitchen and everything they’ve ever written. Their Best 30 Minute Recipes was an exceptional find for my lifestyle. (Note: Just plan on buying fresh thyme every time you go grocery shopping.)

I’ve branched out from those early days. I specialized then in, er, mostly cheap meat slowcooked for long enough that you didn’t notice it was cheap since non-cheap meat can’t stand up to that sort of treatment. I still almost never serve dishes where a cut of meat stands alone. I’ve come to revel in the breadth and depth of casseroles — the housewife’s delight. I also make a lot of soups, that go delightfully with the chewy no-knead bread my husband makes once or twice a week.

Tuesday night was a culinary masterpiece (in addition to a role-playing gem). I made this Pork and Prune dish from the 30 minute recipe book. It sounds… unlikely. I would not have eaten it 10 years ago. I would not have made it 5 years ago. It was gobsmackingly good. Even Grey offered a hesitant compliment. (It was so good I have every intention of making it again tonight. Yum!)

A while ago I served a meal to my family and looked at what was on the table:

Main dish: home made from scratch
Bread: Adam’s no-knead whole wheat bread
Butter: produced from Grey’s whipping cream experiment
Jam: the plum I put down this summer
Veggie: from the farmshare

Stepping back to look at it, I marveled. How did I end up being this and doing this? I survived entirely on pizza pockets my senior year of high school. When did I decide that food was so important? I don’t have time to read books for fun, but I produce 3 – 4 meals a week that would’ve been past my ten-years-ago best effort. I make my own jam. We almost always have home made bread on hand. I have a jar of homemade pomegranate molasses in the fridge, and recipes to use it in. My slowcooker gets more use than my Wii.

I’ve started to wonder what role this all plays in my identification of myself. For example, I don’t consider myself a foodie. This could be because I don’t know what a foodie is, but I do know that I still enjoy Arby’s and Pizza Hut on rare occasions, and therefore I can’t be one. I seek novelty in the dishes I eat and serve, but I am by nature a novelty-seeker. (It took my FOREVER to realize that not everyone was.) I take pride in what I serve guests, and am glad to see my sons eating what I cook. On the other hand, once every week or two I look with despair at my recalcitrant 4 year old and food-tossing baby and wonder, “Why the heck did I put this much energy into feeding THEM this tasty stuff?” Or worse, I get knocked back significantly when a recipe doesn’t work out, especially when I’ve invested heavily in making it. And obviously, not all recipes work out.

What do you think makes a “foodie”? How do you feed yourself or your family? Do you eat out? Have prepackaged meals? Do you cook simple things? How often do you cook complex things? Is it the same stuff regularly, or do you love branching out? What’s your favorite source for new recipes? I’m not sure I know what “normal” is for feeding a family!

Hospitality

When you, dear reader, think of Christian values, which ones do you think are at the top for importance? I’d forgive you if you said sexual purity — some days it seems like all you ever hear from Christians in the media is talk about sex and how it’s bad. But no. Jesus says hardly anything about sex.

Some of the values I see most when I read the New Testament are:
– Being loving to all, including yourself
– Not being a hypocrite (especially not a religious hypocrite – for an example, Matthew 23:13 “‘But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them.”)
– Sharing what you have
– And today’s topic… hospitality.

As I understand it (and it should now be noted that I != Biblical scholar), hospitality was a critical virtue in the ancient world in which the Bible was written. There were few inns, and pretty much no restaurants, quickie-marts, C-stores, or even cars to take shelter in. The earlier you went, the rarer the inns were. So if you had to go anywhere, you relied on hospitality and that hospitality was a sacred rite and obligation.

For example, in Genesis 19:6-8, Lot welcomes two angels into his home: “Lot went out of the door to the men, shut the door after him, and said, ‘I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. Look, I have two daughters who have not known a man; let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please; only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.’” Lot’s obligation as a host here trumps his obligation as a father and caretaker to his daughters (harsh, huh?).

Throughout the New Testament there are stories of hospitality. Jesus’ very first miracle (by tradition — this miracle is only recorded in John) was helping a groom out of a predicament when the wine ran short at his wedding – a failing of the expectations of hospitality. Jesus then goes on the ACCEPT the hospitality of the unacceptable. He sits down with and eats meals with sinners, prostitutes, soldiers, tax collectors (who were probably as popular as drug dealers are for us), turncoats and traitors. When the disciples go out to spread the good news, they are told to shake the dust off their feet from any town which does not offer them appropriate hospitality.

Hospitality is harder than it was, because we’ve lost the habit of it. We don’t invite the homeless to come eat dinner with us because they might be sociopathic kleptomaniacs who will sleep in our front lawns for the rest of our lives if they know where we live. Strangers to our land, the aliens who also populate the Bible, do not expect a welcome to our homes. Instead they book rooms in Motel 8 and buy food from the “Excellent Mart” we’ve never been to; and we glance away across the gulf of culture at each other on the rare instances our paths cross.

I think about this imperative to welcome and nurture when I set the table for company. We do sometimes feed others, although it is usually friends. I wish that I had more courage to be more outrageously hospitable, and welcome the too-talkative, the kind of weird, the left out, the unknown to share a meal with my husband and I, and our two screeching sons. I meet people in those few margins of intersection, and I wish it was ok for me to say, “You look cold. Would you like to come in and have some dinner? There’s plenty.” I’m afraid to. I’m afraid that they will be offended. What if they’re perfectly well off and see my offer as pity? I’m afraid of the disruption in my tightly slotted life. I’m highly cognizant that culture is constantly telling me to be more afraid than I am. I’m supposed to teach my four year old “stranger danger” and it’ll be all my fault if he’s abducted by a dangerous pedophile because I never taught him that people he doesn’t know are enemies until proven otherwise.

Still, I’m haunted by the hospitality I don’t offer. There was the man and his two children, trudging up the hill our house sits on too late at night. Where was he going? Did he have a place? He seemed so quiet, and they so subdued. Would he have welcomed some warmth in the darkness, or was he just going on an evening constitutional?

There was the other man with the Santa beard — his name is Hal — at the grocery store. He was there the entire time I was. I bought $175 worth of nutritious produce, milk, meat, cereals — a veritable bounty. He, after looking in the scratch-and-dent section and walking all through the store… he bought a jar of sauce. Was he lonely? Bored? Hungry? Broke? Did he have a place to go? I wish I had the courage to ask him to come home with me, and I would fix him up a nice dinner and we would talk and he could be filled with company and food.

Did you know that is simply not done? And as a woman and a mother, it is particular verboten for me to do it. Risking my self (and my sexual purity and property) is bad enough. Exposing my sons to such risk, and my husband to such inconvenience? Keep it to a smile and small-talk. Even that, I’m told, is risky and only marginally appropriate.

I’m afraid to even pray for the courage to offer hospitality, because what if that courage arrives? Never ask the Holy Spirit for gifts you will not accept.

I don’t know how to end this rather rambly essay on a snappy note. I will say this, however. If you tire of the tropes of Christianity, why not pay attention to a different virtue this holiday season? Instead of being sparkly pure and blameless, like I know you are, why don’t you try to be courageously hospitable? Risk a little in the cause of kindness. Whether that’s eye contact where you would usually look away, or asking the homeless person you see what their name is, or even inviting someone to share your meal with you, tell the tsking voices to be silent for a moment.