So have you all seen the website This Is Why You're Fat? It's simply a collection of photos of some of the most unhealthy foods known to humankind, most of which have been deep-fried. It's equal parts fascinating and revolting.
It inspired a weekend recipes post, though, in which I'm going to share a few of the reasons why I'll never be a size six again: foods that are terrifically fattening and unhealthy, but, to me, deliciously irresistible. If you know me at all you'll be unsurprised to learn that they're all chocolaty.
The first is my current obsession, homemade chocolate peanut butter cups. They're pretty easy to make, and incredibly difficult not to eat all in one sitting. Way, way better than Reese's. Oh, but a word of advice: if you think this will be a fun project to do with the kiddos, you're wrong, unless you think chocolate messes and sticky hands are fun.
Next up, homemade peppermint patties, which I made for Christmas gifts this year. Not as easy as the peanut butter cups (figuring out how to coat the patties in chocolate without making a mess was a little tough) but very tasty anyway.
Next we have chocolate truffles, which are very easy to make, fun to decorate, and actually not a bad candy project for kids. I think I've done these for Christmas presents as well. And do I need to mention how delicious they are? I'm sure you can imagine.
Lastly, another recipe that's become a favorite around our house: the best chocolate pudding. I will never make chocolate pudding from a box again. I first made this as the filling for a chocolate cream pie over Thanksgiving, and it was a big hit. Since then I've made it a few times just to eat plain, and it's remained good despite various improvisations on my part (using skim milk, part soy milk, cocoa powder instead of bar chocolate, brown instead of white sugar). I've never used a double boiler to make it, and I've never strained it, and it's still one of the finest desserts I've made.
So there you have it, some of my favoritest unhealthy foods. What are yours?
28 February 2009
weekend recipes: this is why you're fat edition
27 February 2009
friday photos: january edition
It's been a while since I posted any Friday photos. I mentioned before that our camera had been broken for a while, and it also has some crazy issues with the image quality, so I don't actually have very many photos from the last few months that are both in focus and in realistic colors all at once. So there are not many photos here representing January, but at least there are a few good ones.
I made a hat for Evan. It's supposed to be a crab, but he wouldn't let me round out the top, so it's a square crab. Or, alternately, just some kind of square red monster with beady eyes and claws.
We've done a lot of sledding this winter; the weather has been just perfect for it. Greg and James at one of our favorite sledding hills:
James' birthday occurred during my not-posting phase, and while I did manage to write the annual birthday post, I didn't post many photos. So here are a few extra birthday moments.
First, James putting together the Lego ship he got from Grandma Kathy and Papa. (SO! EXCITING!)
With the finished craft (for a moment there I was almost disappointed with myself for not remembering the name, until I remembered that I don't really care), which he put together all by himself:
One of the treats we had instead of a real birthday cake was a birthday sundae. Candlelight is really not adequate to illuminate the staggering amounts of sugar on top of the ice cream in that bowl. It was truly impressive. And naturally he ate every bite.
The photos don't show it well enough, but it was a pretty good month.
25 February 2009
catching up
Looking back through my recent posts, I realized that I haven't written much about our lives in a while, so I thought I'd write a brief (though probably not very brief) post about what we've been doing over the last couple of months.
I'll start with Christmas. I wrote about our ridiculous holiday travel experiences, but then completely neglected to write about our actual vacation. We were at Greg's parents' house for about ten days, and it was wonderful to spend so much time with his family after a full year without seeing most of them. We did all the usual holiday stuff -- played games, watched movies, lazed around, ate a LOT -- but probably the most remarkable thing about the vacation was snow. Snow! In the Pacific Northwest! As someone born and bred in upstate New York, spending seven Christmases in green, snow-free Washington state never felt quite like Christmas. But the Pacific Northwest got hit with some unusual weather this winter (luckily, not affecting our travel on that end at all), and we were able to play in the snow, to build snowmen and have snowball fights and go sledding in a place with real hills.
It's always hard to say goodbye to Greg's family, knowing we won't see them again for a long time, but this year we're hoping to visit again in the summer, for the first time in three years, thanks to the travel vouchers and frequent flier miles the airline gave us after all the trouble we had. I didn't realize how long it had been since we'd been to Washington in the summer until the boys and I were watching an episode of Blue Planet about tidal areas, and James, when asked, told me he can't remember exploring tide pools in Washington. I had to stop and think that the last time we were there, he was four, so he probably wouldn't remember much about it. Hopefully that will change this summer.
I say hopefully, because the biggest thing going on with us lately is that Greg is in the final stages of writing his dissertation, really pushing to finish it within a month or two, so by the time summer rolls around, hopefully Dr. Schmidt will be employed. And hopefully whoever employs him will be willing to give him a little vacation time over the summer. We could all use a vacation -- with Greg trying to finish, he's working ridiculously long hours, and we don't see him nearly enough. I've been feeling lonely and overworked on the domestic front, and the boys are even losing out on weekend playtime since Greg is going in to work most Sundays. To give you an idea of how things are, today is Wednesday and James hasn't seen Greg since Sunday. We'll all be glad when graduate school is over and done with.
James is still enjoying first grade, as much as he can enjoy doing a bunch of work that's too easy for him. He brought home another perfect report card a couple of weeks ago. Evan and I are going to more community classes for preschoolers, and we're looking into real preschool for the fall. Last week was winter break, in which the boys and I spent waaaay too much quality time together, which made me incredibly grateful for public schools and birth control.
There's not much else to tell -- we're all healthy (most of the time), we're all content. Pretty boring sometimes, but nothing to complain about.
24 February 2009
oh, right, i have a blog.
Hello, blog readers. You may not have noticed, but I haven't blogged in a while. I don't really have a good reason or even a decent excuse for not blogging. When I tried to pull the "my camera is broken" excuse on my sister, she was quick to point out that words can actually be posted on a blog without accompanying photos. And now that Greg has fixed the camera, I can't even use that weak excuse anymore.
So I guess it's back to blogging, if I can remember how to do this. I'll ease back into it by posting a video. Evan has been composing adorable zombie songs all morning, so I'll share the best one I managed to catch on video.
That's all for now, but I'm hoping to return to regular blogging, so I'll be back soon!
18 January 2009
2008 in books
Time for my annual book post! I managed to read a lot of books in 2008, and any of you who are my friends on Goodreads already know what I read and liked last year, but I like listing them all together and choosing my favorites and least favorites of the year.
I want to mention a couple of things before I get to the list itself. First, for the first time ever, I'm abandoning my literary pretensions. I read some good serious literary novels, and some heavy non-fiction books, but I also read a lot of popular fiction, the kind of stuff I'd usually consider trashy. And I've reached a point in my life where I'm not embarrassed by that.
Also, for the first time ever, I'm listing the children's books, young adult books, and graphic novels I've read. I'm not going to be embarrassed about those anymore, either. I'm being selective about the children's books, sticking to those I sought out for my kids to read rather than everything I read with the children, or that's pretty much all this list would be.
Below the fold, the entire list, with some commentary and awards at the end.
1. Persuasion by Jane Austen
2. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
3. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
4. The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke
5. Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
6. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke
7. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
8. We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories From Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch
9. Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman
10. Dearly Devoted Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
11. Dexter in the Dark by Jeff Lindsay
12. The Sisters Grimm, Book 1: The Fairy Tale Detectives by Michael Buckley
13. The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch
14. The Willoughbys by Lois Lowry
15. And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
16. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
17. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
18. The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by AJ JAcobs
19. Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife by Mary Roach
20. New Moon by Stephenie Meyer
21. The Sisters Grimm, Book 2: The Unusual Suspects by Michael Buckley
22. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin
23. Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer
24. Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer
25. Persepolis 1: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi
26. Mirror Mirror: A Novel by Gregory Maguire
27. Pride of Baghdad by Brian K. Vaughan
28. The Sisters Grimm, Book 3: The Problem Child by Michael Buckley
29. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver
30. The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander
31. Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return by Marjane Satrapi
32. Embroideries by Marjane Satrapi
33. The Black Cauldron by Lloyd Alexander
34. The Castle of Llyr by Lloyd Alexander
35. Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach
36. Taran Wanderer by Lloyd Alexander
37. The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell
38. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
39. Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde
40. The Well of Lost Plots Jasper Fforde
41. Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde
42. First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde
43. In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez
44. Ghosts in the House by Kazuno Kohara
45. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
46. The Sister Grimm, Book 4: Once Up on a Crime by Michael Buckley
Best Underrated Jane Austen Novel: Last year I set a goal to read all of Jane Austen's books. I nearly succeeded: I read 5 in 2008 and am currently working on the sixth. I did so much Austen over the last year that I'm giving her her own category, and because Pride and Prejudice is universally acknowledged to be her best novel, I'm awarding a prize to the best Austen novel that isn't P&P. In my opinion, that's Persuasion, narrowly beating out Sense and Sensibility.
Best Adult Fiction: In the Time of the Butterflies wins this category easily. It's a beautifully written novel about four sisters and their involvement in political events in the Dominican Republic in the 1960s. Based on real people and events, but fictionalized by Alvarez in a moving, engrossing way.
Worst Fiction: Mirror Mirror. Maguire could have stopped with Wicked and been in my good graces forever. Nothing else I've read by him has been nearly as good, and this was the worst yet. It barely kept my interest, and annoyed me in many ways that I can no longer recall because there are far better uses for my brain cells than to remember this completely blah, lackluster book.
Best Short Stories: Smoke and Mirrors. I'm adding this category despite the fact that I only read one short story collection in its entirety last year, mostly because I want to point out that Gaiman's story Snow, Glass, Apples is a far better retelling of the Snow White tale than Maguire's book. Some stories in this collection are only so-so, but Gaiman's plays on fairy tales and other works of literature are really fun to read, and I think the short story is his best medium, so it deserves a mention.
Best Adult Fiction Series: Nominees, for those who aren't sure which books above are part of a series, are Jeff Lindsay's Dexter series (on which the TV show was based), Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series (on which the current film, and the national phenomenon of teen girl hysteria are based), and Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series (on which, sadly, nothing is based, to my knowledge). Fforde wins, because he's the best writer of the bunch, and tells the most original and clever stories of three. The Thursday Next novels blend sci-fi, mystery and literary appreciation in such a fun way, it was hard for me to put any of these books down and I zipped through them all.
Worst Fiction Series: Dexter. It's pretty much unheard of that I would recommend a TV or film version of a story over the print version, but the television show has so much more detail, character development, better side plots, better pacing, better writing, that if you're at all interested in the story of the serial killer who kills only other serial killers, I really recommend going with the show and skipping the books. Season one follows the plot of the first book, but successive seasons abandon the books for their own plots, and with good reason. We just finished watching the third season of the show, and it was excellent, but I was hardly able to even finish the third book, it was so bad.
Best Guilty-Pleasure Fiction: The Twilight series. These books are really easy to make fun of, and there is a lot to criticize from a literary perspective in terms of the writing style and quality, the characters, the plot, the too-simple resolution of a lot of plot elements... basically everything, but these books are SO addictive. It's irritating how easily they suck you in, yet I devoured them.
Best Historical Non-fiction: A tie between Team of Rivals and We Wish To Inform You... Team of Rivals took me longer to read than anything I've ever read in my life (about 8 months, on and off) both because it's lengthy, and because it's dense and requires a lot of attention. It is a really thorough portrait of the Lincoln administration, very well-written. We Wish To Inform You... also took me a while to read, though this was entirely due to subject matter. It's the story of the Rwandan genocide of 1994 and it's heartbreaking and devastating to read, but it's a story more people should know about.
Best Historical Non-fiction, Runner-up: The Wordy Shipmates, which is not Vowell's best book (that would be Assassination Vacation) but is still a good read. It's a brief history of the Puritans, focusing on their appreciation of education, and Vowell writes in a really accessible, humorous style.
Best Science/Nature Non-fiction: Mary Roach's popular science books are fun to read, but I'm giving this award to Animal, Vegetable, Miracle because Kingsolver's memoir of the year her family spent producing as much of their own food as possible, while contrasting traditional farming with the industrial farming methods used to produce most of the food in the US, was both educational and inspiring. Plus, it has recipes, some of which are delicious.
Best Graphic Novel: Persepolis, both volumes. Looking strictly at artwork I might have chosen Pride of Baghdad, which is much more visually rich and interesting, but Persepolis has a far better, more developed story. It's a memoir of Satrapi's childhood in Iran during the revolution of the '70s and '80s, so her personal story is told within the context of larger political events. They're quick to read, but a lot of depth is packed into simple illustrations and text.
Best Children's Book: Ghosts in the House. This book is so cute. I love the orange, black and white art, and the story is simple and cute. Evan, who loves anything Halloween-themed, adores this book. If you go to the Amazon link I posted above, click on the photo to look inside the book, and click on "Surprise Me" to see some random pages and get an idea of the style.
Best Children's Books, Runners-up: And Tango Makes Three is a sweet story I've written about before. The Paper Bag Princess is great; it's a reversal of the typical story of a prince saving a princess from a dragon. And though they're not on the list, I wanted to mention the picture books of Kevin Henkes and Brian Lies, which we've been reading lately and which are all wonderful books for preschool aged kids.
Best Young Adult Fiction: Cornelia Funke's books deserve mention, because she is a wonderful author (she also writes some great picture books for preschool aged kids, which usually feature little-girl heroines) but my favorite was The Willoughbys, a parody of older children's novels featuring genius orphans outwitting the dim adults who wish to do them harm, which were the sorts of books I loved to read as a kid. Quick and funny.
Best Children's Fiction Series: Tie between Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain, and Michael Buckley's Sisters Grimm. The Prydain books are wonderful fantasy adventure stories, reminiscent at times of The Lord of the Rings, featuring a headstrong hero who learns, via his friends and his adventures, all about friendship and bravery and right and wrong. The Sisters Grimm books are incredibly clever and often funny (I read these with James and he adores them; thinks they're hilarious and great fun). They're about two sisters who are the descendants of the Brothers Grimm, and who live in a community secretly populated by familiar characters from fairy tales, nursery rhymes and beloved works of literature (including Alice in Wonderland, and even Shakespeare). They're full of mystery and adventure. We're taking a break at the moment because they've grown a little mature for a 7-year-old as the series has progressed, but we will certainly read the remaining books before too long.
And that's it! If you want to know more about any of the books I didn't mention specifically in the awards, you can click on the Goodreads box in my sidebar to go to my profile and check out all my book ratings.
What have you read lately? Got any recommendations?
11 January 2009
evanisms
Evan says so many funny, ridiculous, and unexpected things that I can't help but share them. He constantly makes me laugh.
A few days ago we were playing a game where he was sitting on my lap, and I was wiggling my legs, throwing off his balance, and saying, "Oh no! Don't fall!" Evan slid off my lap and landed on the floor on his feet. He stood up, looked down and said, "Well. It's a good thing I have legs."
This morning we were playing a high-five game. You know, up high, down low, in the middle (pull your hand away), too slow! Evan likes to say "Too slow, Joe!" at the end, but this morning I said, "I'm not Joe. You're not Joe." So the next time around I try to slap in the middle and he exclaims, "Too slow, Hobo!"
Lately he's been saying "No way, Jose!" all the time. A day or two again I said something to him and he thought it fitting to reply, "No thanks, Ho-zanks!"
He's recently learned the word privacy. Not the definition, though. He will insist on having privacy in the bathroom... right up until he needs someone to come wipe him up. Nor does a need for privacy prevent him from parading around naked after a bath.
When he's surprised, Evan will exclaim in an incredulous tone, "What the?!?" Sometimes he adds on a little something: "What the holy cow?!?" is common, and we've also heard "What the holy mustache?!?"
And he still has a flair for the melodramatic. It's pretty common in our house, once the kids are bed, to hear little footsteps running around upstairs, and for Greg or me to yell up the stairs, "Back in bed!" A couple of nights ago Greg was putting Evan to bed and told him to stay in bed so we wouldn't have to yell at him. Evan burst into tears, crying, "You don't love me anymore??"
He keeps us laughing, alright.
08 January 2009
happy birthday to james!
Dear James,
You're seven years old today. Seven years old! It hardly seems possible. But it's true; you're growing up. Things are changing in your world. You're slowly growing away from being a little boy, and starting to make your way to adolescence.
7 mini Dutch babies for a 7-year-old boyPhysically, you continue to grow up and up and up. Just last week we sent you to get ready for bed and you returned, totally oblivious, wearing your little brother's pajamas. Sure, they were short in the arms and legs, but they still fit you, you insisted. It wasn't until I really looked at the photo above, taken this morning, that I realized your face is growing up too. I think it's because your grandmother just trimmed your hair to allow us to see your face properly for the first time in months. Now, looking at that photo, I can see that all traces of chubby babyfat cheeks are gone. I don't know how this is possible when you're already out-eating me much of the time now.
You still look exactly like your dad, and you behave like him more and more as you grow older. You like to tease, tell jokes, play pranks. You are agreeable and cooperative. Anger and moodiness can often be cleared away in a matter of minutes. You're as curious and inquisitive as ever, always wanting to know how and why. Thank goodness your dad is a scientist with endless patience. He's been teaching you multiplication as well as some scientific principles that I would have expected to be too advanced for a first-grader, but you've proven me wrong.
Old age hasn't yet diminished your cheerfulness or optimism. When we were stuck in airports for so many hours over the holidays, you were the optimist. You were sure, every time, that we'd be on the next flight, that any minute now we'd be boarding an airplane. You played games with your brother, you befriended other kids waiting in the airport, you made your own fun and continued to enjoy yourself and boost our spirits when your dad and I threatened to get too disgruntled. You were tired, but you kept going, so excited about going to see Grandma and Papa for Christmas. When we left the airport after that first day of unsuccessful travel attempts, you were so surprised and disappointed that it hadn't happened. It was heartbreaking.
I feel like we don't see you much anymore these days -- you're at school all day long, and when you get home, most days you play outside until sunset. We get to see you for dinner and bedtime, with a little play in between, sometimes a bath, some homework,some chores, some reading. Your days are full and busy, but you don't seem to miss us much. I don't notice it most of the time either, how little time we're really spending together, until weekends or vacations when I get to spend entire days in your company and I'm reminded of how much fun it is to play games, to cook, to read, to snuggle with you.
I love you, darling boy, my sweet baby James. Happy, happy birthday.
22 December 2008
surviving a vacation at home
Today is Day Three that we were not supposed to be at home. Remember that 6am flight Monday morning we were supposed to be on? Canceled yesterday at noon. Waking up this morning to mountains of snow and more coming down, I can understand why. Hopefully the weather will be clear enough to fly us out tomorrow. Otherwise we might miss Christmas, and here's how we feel about that:
(Those are sad faces, if it's not obvious.)
We haven't been home for Christmas since before James was born, and we haven't had this much snow in a couple of years, so we are trying to make the most of our unintended vacation and have as much fun as we can.
On Saturday we went sledding, and while we have no photos of the actual sledding, we have happy smiles of kids playing in the snow:
(I think we need a new camera; the color quality of our photos is going further and further downhill.)
When not playing outside, my kids have been spending a lot of time with video games. They're still hooked on Spore, and they got Lego Batman from my sister and her husband for Christmas, so it's hard to tear them away sometimes. Ordinarily I try to keep the video games to a minimum, but really, I can't bring myself to care lately. We're supposed to be with their grandparents right now. If video games make them a little less sad about that, so be it.
I've been baking a lot, because what's Christmas without baking? So we have pumpkin muffins and granola bars and peanut butter cups, and an apple strudel for breakfast this morning. The snow has been heavy enough to intimidate us from going to the grocery store (that and the thought of all the terrible drivers on the road) but it's amazing what you can make from odds and ends in the cupboards and the freezer.
The best, though, is the gingerbread house my friend Sara brought over yesterday. Here's what it's supposed to look like, per the package:
And here's how ours turned out:
When we opened the package, we found a lot of broken pieces that had to be repaired with frosting. Most of the little figures were broken as well, though the frosting couldn't glue them back together. So our happy holiday gingerbread house evolved into a sort of Christmas House of Horrors. The hunchback was the perpetrator (at least we think he/she/it is a hunchback -- a little hard to tell with these candy people): the little boy is strung up on the side of the house, and the little girl has been decapitated in the front yard. We contributed to the depravity by committing cannibalism once the house was finished.
Here's a close-up of the poor little girl.
So that's how we're filling our vacation days. Hopefully tomorrow we'll be off to the west coast, and hopefully we'll make it in time for Christmas. I'll keep you all updated.
20 December 2008
hahaha, did i say hiatus?
...because the Fates had other plans for us. Or maybe I should say Northwest Airlines had other plans. Alternate post title: air travel sucks, especially when there's no travel involved.
Today finds me at home with two wide-open days to fill, so I thought I'd use my new-found wealth of free time to blog about how I got all this extra time. Any of you who follow me on Twitter or Facebook may have read my disgruntled updates yesterday, so now you can get the full story. I'll try to keep it brief, but no promises, because I might get ranty. Read the whole saga below the fold:
Friday, Dec. 19
3:30am: Alarm clock jolts us out of sleep
3:55am: Taxi arrives to take us to the airport
4:05am: Standing in line at Northwest check-in counter
4:20am: NW employees begin to arrive
4:30am: Check-in counter opens and we proceed to check in and check 3 large suitcases
5:00am: Checked in and through security, waiting at the gate
5:30am: Boarding begins for 6am flight to Detroit
6:00am: Airplane backs out of the gate to prepare for flight
Around this time, our pilot makes an announcement: the weather in Detroit isn't looking so good, and we may have to reroute to either Pittsburgh or Minneapolis. We cross our fingers for Minneapolis, since that's our layover between Detroit and Seattle. They are adding extra fuel to the plane in case we are rerouted.
5-10 minutes later, our pilot makes another announcement: the extra fuel has pushed our airplane over the weight limit and they are looking for nine volunteers to get off the plane. No one moves. Plane returns to the gate.
5 or so minutes later, flight crew makes an announcement: NW has another plane headed directly to Minneapolis, and anyone who gets off our plane can be rebooked on the Minneapolis flight. Greg goes to the front of the plane to speak to the NW representative.
Greg returns to me and the kids and says we can get off and go straight to Minneapolis on another flight instead of going through Detroit. We exit the plane with 5 other passengers who have the same plan.
7:00am: We are told at the ticket counter that the NW flight to Minneapolis that was used to lure us off the plane has no extra seats. We are issued travel vouchers and meal vouchers and rebooked on a 12:15pm flight to Detroit.
7:30am: Muffins, bagels and coffee at Dunkin' Donuts, courtesy of NW meal vouchers.
8:30am - 11am: We set up camp next to the children's play area. Kids run and jump and play while Greg and I amuse ourselves with the laptop and the Nintendo DS.
11am-ish: Head back to gate to check status of our new flight. Flight is delayed. Snow has started falling in earnest.
12pm-ish: Find a quiet, unoccupied gate to settle in and wait for flight status updates.
1pm-ish: Lunch at Subway courtesy of NW meal vouchers.
2pm - 5pm: Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Repeated flight delays. We are told that a flight headed to Rochester was rerouted to Syracuse, and our flight is dependent on that plane getting to Rochester from Syracuse. We also learn during this time period that our luggage has arrived in Seattle. Thankfully our toothbrushes are in our carry-on bags.
5:00pm: Another Detroit flight begins boarding. There are extra seats on this flight but the line of standby passengers is too long for us to get on board. At this point our 12:15pm flight is expected to leave at 7pm.
5:30pm: Detroit flight that has just boarded is now deboarding. I mention this because for the second time in one day, a NW flight is over the weight limit and passengers are asked to leave. This time, however, all passengers must exit the plane because one of the random passengers who was asked to get off refused and argued, and caused this flight to miss its window of opportunity to take off.
6:00pm: The same flight to Detroit begins reboarding.
6:30pm: The flight to Detroit is boarded, but by this time, so many passengers have missed their connecting flights and rebooked new flights for other days that there are 8 available seats.
Around this time, the flight crew is trying to determine how many more people they can take while staying within the weight limits. A pilot approaches us and asks if we are headed to Detroit; when we say yes he tells us he'd like to get us on the plane because our children would help keep the plane under the weight limit.
Then this pilot disappears and is never seen again.
The NW agent at the check-in counter begins letting standby passengers onto the flight. Greg inquires at the counter and we are told we can't get on this flight. The woman tells us that there is some feature of their computer system that won't allow her to change us to this flight, despite the fact that it's going to our destination and there are seats available, because we are still booked on the 12:15pm flight.
7:00pm: Flight to Detroit that we were not allowed to change to takes off. We are told that the plane we are waiting for from Syracuse is on its way and is expected to arrive at 7:30pm. We buy snacks to wait, still using vouchers. At least they were generous about that.
7:30pm: NW agent tells us that the plane from Syracuse is no longer listed as in the air, and our flight time has been moved back to 8:30pm. The kids are starting to get stir-crazy and continually ask when we're getting on the plane to go see Grandma and Papa.
8:00pm: At this point there are eight people left waiting: the four of us, a college student, and a couple with a 17-month old baby. We are all trying to get to Detroit to transfer on to other locations. I send NW a complaint through their website, detailing our saga.
8:30pm: We are informed that the plane we've been waiting for for over 8 hours has had a mechanical issue and our flight is canceled. We are all in tears of exhaustion, frustration and disappointment by this point.
9:00pm: We are rebooked for a Monday morning flight, 6am. We are told that there are no flights available on Saturday, and there is only one flight on Sunday, but it is already overbooked by 15 people, and there is another winter storm due on Sunday anyway. We are given additional travel vouchers. Evan asks if we're getting on the airplane now and I laugh and cry at the same time.
9:30pm: A friend picks us up at the airport to take us home.
10:00pm: We watch A Muppet Family Christmas while I make pasta for my starving children, who are too tired to eat more than a few bites despite how hungry they have been for the last couple of hours.
10:45pm: My children fall asleep, one on the couch and the other on the floor, and I carry them to bed.
11:00pm: Greg phones NW's Baggage Services to find out what is going to happen to our luggage. The employee he speaks with at first argues that our luggage can't be in Seattle, because it should have been taken off the flight when we got off the plane, despite the fact that more than one NW agent told us over the course of the day that our luggage was in Seattle. Then the customer service rep tells Greg that he will have to return to our airport to file a claim with the NW baggage office there. Greg, bless his little heart, argues with the woman for 5 minutes before she relents and checks the damn computer to find that yes, our bags are in Seattle and we can pick them up when we arrive there. Which will hopefully be on Monday.
Today we woke up late to a beautiful day, sunny, with fluffy white snow everywhere. We were dismayed to remember that our kids' boots and snow clothes are in our luggage, but luckily I found some slightly outgrown and some slightly too big items in the basement that will suffice for going sledding today. We have enough canned and frozen food to save us from having to go grocery shopping. We are planning to enjoy our extra two days of vacation even if we're not where we wish we were. We're just hoping that the snow that's expected on Sunday both here and in Seattle will be over by Monday morning so we can just get to our family for Christmas, damn it.
If you've made it to the end of this, thanks for indulging my self-pitying rant. I would advise you to steer clear of Northwest Airlines, but honestly, I don't trust that the others are that much better. The quality of our experiences with air travel has been steadily worsening over the last few years, regardless of which airline we're on. And they don't have to care, because we don't really have any choice.
Sigh. Hope everyone out there is having a better time than we are. And hopefully I won't have anything to blog about any time soon.
17 December 2008
hiatus
Thought I should drop in on the ol' blog to say that I've been way too busy with holiday stuff (and a little bit busy with practicing my laziness) to think about writing any blog posts, and in two days we're leaving for a two-week vacation at Greg's parents' house. I expect that once we're there I'll still be busy with holiday stuff, as well as catching up with the family and playing Rock Band, to do any posting any time soon, so consider the Jungle to be on temporary hiatus.
I don't know whether I've officially mentioned it here, but I'm on Twitter now (see sidebar). I will probably Twitter while I'm away, since that doesn't require much time or effort or thought, so you can still check in here for my Twitter mini-updates, or follow me on the Twitter site if you're eager to know how lazy and/or indulgent I'm being over the holidays.
I hope the next couple of weeks are fun and happy and healthy for everyone, and I'll see you back here in January!
05 December 2008
friday photos: thanksgiving edition
I forgot to bring my camera to my mom's house for Thanksgiving, so I'm stealing some of my sister's photos to post. I spent a lot of time hogging her sweet camera, so it's pretty likely that I took these photos anyway. These are, by the way, photos of three of the things I was most thankful for over our Thanksgiving vacation.
James has been experimenting with a ponytail lately, and this is his samurai impression:
Those of you who know Greg will not be surprised when I say that he was the instigator of the frosting war paint:
Amazing turkey cupcakes that my sister and her husband bought.
Okay, so I'm kidding about cupcakes being one of the top three things I'm thankful for, but seriously, look at the detail on that frosting. That entire thing is edible, and extremely rich and delicious. And we all know that Thanksgiving is about cramming yourself full of desserts that singularly exceed your recommended daily intake of calories. Besides, it's not as easy to take photos of the things I'm truly thankful for: love, good health, prosperity, safe travels, family togetherness, and all that good intangible stuff.
04 December 2008
bankrupting ourselves with holiday travel
Okay, I mentioned in my last post that I wasn't going to complain about airfare prices, among other things, but this is less of a complaining post and more of a startled observation. With math.
Get Rich Slowly linked to an interesting site yesterday: Cost To Drive. You put in your starting point, destination, and what type of car you're driving, and it calculates your estimated fuel costs. The site finds the lowest prices for gas along the way, so it's really more of a minimum cost, but it's still fun to play with.
So this morning, as I was playing with the site, I dusted off the seldom-used math part of my brain and did some additional calculations. Because the site uses the lowest prices, I rounded up (waaaay up) to reflect potential fluctuations and the fact that one might not always find the lowest-priced gas around. I learned that, even with my rounding, our plane tickets for Christmas break cost more than five times the price of fuel for a drive across the country and back.
Then I figured that if we were to drive from New York to Washington, even if we were to stay in decent hotels and eat out, we could easily do the round trip for less than half of the price of our plane tickets. By driving, we save ourselves at least 4 days of travel (assuming that somehow we'd be able to drive pretty much non-stop), which means that we are spending at least $250 a day for those four extra days with Greg's family. Ouch. Not that they're not worth that, of course, but still. Ouch.
03 December 2008
three and a half
I have been feeling, shall we say, rather negative lately. I have been tempted to write posts complaining about the price of airfare, or the insurance annoyances we're having lately, or about James' various illnesses, but I thought I'd make an effort to be more positive and write a post instead about Evan, who is nearing 3 and a half years old, which is, despite its challenges, an endlessly amusing age for a child to be.
Evan talks pretty much all the time, narrating everything, and I've started writing down some of the funnier things he says. There are basically two categories of Evan-speak: the definitions, and the narration.
Some recent Evan definitions:
"Mom, remember when Dad’s taco was all fludged over? Fludged means that something’s dirty or yucky."
Evan: My nose hurts.
Me: What did you do to your nose?
Evan: Maybe I skicked it.
Me: What does “skicked” mean?
Evan: It means you hurt your nose, or maybe bonked it on a door.
Me: Did you bonk your nose on a door?
Evan: No.
Evan: I’m gonna whip-notize you. (while swinging his “whip” [i.e. the belt of his bathrobe] around.)
Me: Hypnotize me?
Evan: No, WHIPnotize.
Me: What does that mean?
Evan: It means someone is going to put a banana on your head. Or a fish.
Me: Who's hitting my stomach?
Evan: Oh, I thought that was a hitterang.
Me: A hitterang?
Evan: A hitterang means something you can hit.
And some classic narration:
[While jumping on the bed and practicing his moves in front of the mirror] "You know what this attack is called? Punch! Hit! Chop! I do the dance of punch! Hit! Chop! I do the dance about punch! Hit! Chop! And then I jump and then I punch! Hit! Chop! Jump! Hop! Punch! Hit! Chop! Whack! Jump!"
"Mmm. Goody. When I say goody, that means I like this dinner. Mmm, goody. Hot hot! When I say hot hot, that means I need a drink. Hot hot! [takes a drink] Soupy! When I take a drink I say soupy! [drinks] Soupy!"
He still has his moments as far as tantrums go, but he makes me laugh at least twice as often as he makes me cry, so I'll take it.
21 November 2008
friday photos: first grade update edition
Last week we had James' parent-teacher conference. We suspected that the conference, like all previous conferences with James' teachers, would be fine, because he is bright and, with the occasional exception of talking too much, generally well-behaved.
Also, I had heard a funny story from our neighbor a week or two earlier after his conference with his daughter's teacher. Neighbor Girl and James are in different classes this year, but still play together every day after school. NG's teacher was asking NG's dad about what NG does outside of school, and NG's dad mentioned that NG plays with her neighbor James a lot. NG's teacher said, "Oh, you mean Smart James from the other class?"
So, knowing that other teachers in the school know our son as "Smart James" had us feeling pretty relaxed going into this conference.
We love James' teacher this year. Mrs. M. is friendly, enthusiastic and experienced, and best of all, she loves James to pieces and couldn't say enough about how well he is doing in school. The only issue that came up at the conference was when we told Mrs. M. that James thinks school is too easy and he would love to have more challenging work (something he's told us on a regular basis since school began this year). Luckily Mrs. M. realizes how bright James is, and that he could benefit from more challenging work, but unfortunately it seems she has little flexibility to provide him with more challenges. Because of the requirements and structure of the first-grade routine, Mrs. M. doesn't have time to work individually with James on advanced material. And it certainly wouldn't be fair to ask her to put in extra work for a kid who's already excelling when she probably has her hands full trying to keep some of the other kids up to speed with regular class work.
So we're trying to spend some extra time working with James at home. Last weekend I bought him a 320-page workbook of second grade skills, which he is currently flying through with little trouble. He is perfectly content to sit down and fill out worksheet after worksheet of spelling and math problems. Good practice for his handwriting, too. And we're currently reading Beverly Cleary's Ramona books, which James is enjoying just as much as I did at his age.
I never realized when James started school that it would be so much more work for us, but the older he gets, the more fun we are all having.
Oh, and a word on Evan: I discovered yesterday that he can recognize the numbers 1-9, when I thought he didn't know any of them. Smart kids!
07 November 2008
friday photos: end of autumn edition
One of the nice things about renting is that you don't have to do any yardwork, but you do get to enjoy the fruits of the maintenance crew's labor. They recently took a leafblower to some areas of the complex, and for about a week my kids have been eying a particularly enormous pile of leaves near the end of our street.
We've had gorgeous weather this week, but both Greg and I have been fighting off some kind of vague undefinable illness for a few days, so it wasn't until yesterday that I felt ambitious enough to actually take the kids to the end of the street to play in the leaves.
And this leaf pile, oh my gosh, the kids were tunneling through it, they were swimming in it, they were at times completely buried and lost from sight. They had an absolute blast. And good thing, too, because this morning some workers from the town came by and took away all those leaves.
04 November 2008
election day
Happy Election Day! I hope you're all going out to vote today.
James has the day off of school today, so after breakfast all four of us headed down to our town hall to vote. No voter drama here -- there was one couple ahead of us in line, voting went off without a hitch, and the poll workers gave my kids their own "I Voted Today" stickers. Then we headed to Starbucks for our free coffee (we don't have a Ben & Jerry's near us, and I didn't know about Krispy Kreme in time or else my children would have been in a sugar coma before lunchtime).
I have to say, regardless of political affiliations or opinions, Election Day is so exciting to me. It was so nice waiting in Starbucks and seeing almost every other person wearing wearing an "I Voted Today" sticker, and conversing with fellow voters. Evan finally changed his mind about McCain and was chattering happily about Obama, to the delight of other customers. We overheard one pair of customers telling another pair to make sure they vote today, because their employers have to give them time to vote.
I've been seeing a lot of inspirational stories in the news lately, about people waiting in line for up to six hours to vote early, about elderly people registering to vote for the first time in their lives because of this election. I know several people who've donated their time to help campaign during this election. James came home from school yesterday shouting excitedly that his school had elected Obama.
Election fever, it's everywhere.
And I have heard stories about voter fraud, about sneaky measures to impede people's right to vote or to disenfranchise people, rumors that the election will be stolen by one side or the other. Obviously there are some problems with our voting system. But to see people's hope and optimism and excitement and patriotism in the face of these challenges is just so heart-warming to me. I feel so happy to be an American today, to be able to be part of this process, to voice my opinion, to be part of something so much bigger than myself.
Please vote today. And feel free to share any interesting election day stories!
02 November 2008
31 October 2008
friday photos: halloween edition
No photos yet of the kids in costume, but we've been getting in the Halloween spirit in other ways.
Chocolate Mice:
(Not a great photo, I know, but I swear to you those delicious little mice were impossible to photograph!)
Spider Deviled Eggs:
I made some nerdy Halloween decorations:
And another jack o'lantern masterpiece from Greg: a skeleton/snowman jack o'lantern.
Happy Halloween, everyone!
29 October 2008
i have failed as a parent.
Somebody's been reading right-wing propoganda behind my back:
Evan: I'm voting for McCain!
Me: Oh? Why are you voting for McCain?
Evan: Because he has a better plan.
Me: Really? What's his plan?
Evan: To save the world. And Obama's plan is to destroy the world.
20 October 2008
the political post
I don't write much about politics on my blog. I don't keep my views a secret -- I have my tagline and my "Obama Mama" button (thanks, Jessica!) in plain view on the front page -- but I don't often write about it, in part because most people who read my blog already know or can guess my views, in part because I get really worked up about certain political issues and, for the sake of my mental health, it's best to avoid getting into them too frequently, and in part because I would mostly be preaching to the choir here.
But I can't refrain from doing just one political post this year. There are a lot of things I could complain about, in regards to both presidential candidates, but there is one issue that's been coming up a lot recently, in the debates, in speeches, in election ads, that is driving me crazy: taxes, especially as they relate to economic class.
McCain and Palin have spent a lot of time criticizing Obama's tax plan, arguing (falsely) that it will hurt Joe Sixpack and Joe the Plumber and anyone else named Joe in the middle class. Palin has mocked Biden for saying in his campaign speeches that it is an act of patriotism to pay taxes. McCain has, since the last debate, spent a lot of time deriding Obama's plan to "spread the wealth around." They're hinting that an Obama/Biden administration is the first step on the path that will lead the US to socialism.** Under a McCain/Palin administration, however, good old free-market capitalism will ensure that everyone will make as much money as they possibly can, and hold on to every last cent. No need to share your hard-earned money with any free-loading poor people, or those soulless bloodsuckers in Congress! Sounds nice in theory, doesn't it?
My opinion on taxes is pretty well summed up by former Supreme Court judge Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr: "I like to pay taxes. With them I buy civilization." Republicans seem to have forgotten what taxes are actually used for. Presently, I'm not a fan of the large percentage of taxes which are being used to fund an ill-conceived and mismanaged war, but I would happily pay more taxes if it would ensure that every person in America had access to health care, that every child in America had access to a solid, well-funded, free education (including college), that the war would be ended, that more money would be invested in funding alternative energy sources and scientific research, and that failing infrastructure would be improved -- to name just a few.
The problem with arguing that your money should be yours to keep because you've earned it, is that you're ignoring all of the taxpayer-funded factors that contributed to you being able to earn that money. Were you educated in public schools? Do you drive a car that meets safety standards down a paved road equipped with traffic lights? Have you ever taken antibiotics that were tested for safety and approved by a federal agency? Can you call 911 and expect that police, fire, or ambulance will be dispatched to your home or the scene of an accident? Do you have mail delivered to your house and business almost every day of the year, free of charge? Heck, do you eat food or drink clean water?
Without taxes funding all of these aspects so necessary to daily life and to help our society flourish, you might be making more money, but you'd be spending more from your own pocket to make up for the shortfall. It is in the best interest of a society -- it is essential to the growth and prosperity of a society -- to protect public health and safety, to promote law and order, and to educate its citizens. Taxes may fund some things you don't personally approve of, but they fund many more things that we, as a society, require for our continued improvement.
What about Biden's patriotism angle? I guess that depends on your definition of patriotism. Personally, my patriotic relationship to my country resembles my relationship to my children. I love them, I am grateful for the things (both tangible and intangible) that they give me, I am proud of their accomplishments, I am occasionally disappointed in their bad behavior, but ultimately I want to see them succeed, and I will, to the best of my ability, help them achieve success. Part of that necessarily involves spending money to help support them. It is because I love America that I am happy to pay taxes to support all of the things that make this such a nice place to live.
I mentioned economic class above, and here's where that comes in: so far, all I've heard any politician talking about is the middle class. How do we help the middle class keep their homes, how do we help the middle class send their kids to college, how do we help the middle class afford rising gas prices? It seems like such a long time ago that I was a supporter of John Edwards, but before the primaries he was my top choice, in part because he was willing to talk about poverty, and how to help eliminate it. When he dropped out of the race he was congratulated on making poverty a priority for the Democrats, and Clinton and Obama both promised to keep talking about how to reduce poverty. And now... when is the last time you heard any politician mention poverty? The problem with focusing on housing, or college tuition, or gas prices, is that you're ignoring the people who don't even have homes and cars, and whose children will not be going to college no matter how cheap it is.
I wrote above about all of the societal benefits that are funded by taxes. We pay taxes collectively in order that all citizens might share in what these taxes pay for. That some people have managed to enjoy these benefits while building a great deal of wealth is incredibly fortunate. It doesn't happen that way for most people, and not because of laziness or stupidity, but because there is a lot of arbitrary unfairness built into our economic system. Personally I believe that the work I do raising my children to be educated, responsible citizens is, in the long run, a greater benefit to society as a whole than the work that a professional baseball player does. Yet somehow our free market has decided that a man who gets to play games for a living should be compensated more in one year than I will probably make in my entire life. I'm not asking for pity -- certainly I've made a choice here -- but it's a good example of how skewed our values as a society are. I can obviously see that some jobs require more skill, more training, more education, more time, more physical effort than others, and should be compensated accordingly, but in general the disparity in income between social classes is far larger than is reasonable, and I'm all for Obama's plan to "spread the wealth around" and make things a little more equitable.
McCain has also criticized Obama's proposed tax credits for people who don't pay income tax. Something I never hear mentioned in discussion of these tax credits is that these people who are not paying income tax are not paying because they don't even make enough money to live on, let alone be taxed on. Right now, we are one of those families. We pay no income tax because a graduate student's salary is not enough for a family of four to live on. Without tax refunds and credits, we would be bankrupt by now. Maybe this will sound hard to believe, but I actually look forward to being able to pay taxes, because it will mean 1) that we have enough money to live on with some to spare and 2) that we will be able to repay the government for the benefits they've given us over the last few years.
My family is on the threshold of becoming middle class, and if we ever do get up above Obama's proposed $250,000 cut-off (which was not chosen randomly or arbitrarily, but because the people who earn more than that in a year make up the top 5% in the US), I really will be happy to pay taxes to help the 95% of Americans who are not so fortunate. Especially those closest to the bottom. I don't have any complaints about paying taxes. I might disagree on how those taxes should be spent, but if I have some extra money that could be used to teach a child to read, to clean up environmental waste so that people have clean drinking water, to give someone a new kidney, to rebuild a bridge that collapsed, well, why wouldn't I give that money? Why wouldn't anyone want to contribute to making our neighborhoods and cities and states and our country clean and safe and healthy?
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** There's a good article in today's New York Times that explains just how hypocritical it is for McCain to accuse Obama of socialism.
