Opening Ceremony

Last night's opening ceremony was so spectacular, I had to change my vote in this week's poll.

Nothin' But Net

Ben's First Day of Middle School

Believe it or not, Ben started Middle School today. He was really pretty calm about it. He wanted me to come in with him, to find his hall (they live by the hall, apparently), but when we pulled up, the principal directed me into the traffic flow. I asked where I should park if I was coming in, and she smiled real big and said (as nicely as anyone has ever said this to me) "You can't come in." So I turned to Ben and said "Looks like your on your own."

And he was fine. It was a half-day, so I picked him up at 11:30 and we met Mark for lunch at Fuddies so we could both get the low-down on Ben's first day. He has two friends from elementary school in his homeroom, and one of his best friends is on his hall. One friend from church is on his hall as well, but she's in 7th grade. His homeroom and math teacher is a guy, and apparently really cool. His language arts teacher gave him five "style points" for his Yankee jersey. He also reported that his new school had the top test scores state-wide in three out of four subjects, but he said he would pull their social studies scores up. :)

I think he's going to have a good year. We're excited for him. It's hard to believe he's just entered a world where I will become less cool, and other girls will become much cooler. He'll start talking about dances, and school sports, and lockers, and detention (hopefully, not too much about detention).

Several of my friends knew I was taking him to school today, and asked if I would cry. Funny thing - I don't ever really cry with Ben. Ben is my trailblazer. Whenever he does something, it's a brand new adventure - it's exciting, and kind of scary, but never sad. Daniel, however, is a different story. When he does something, it affects me in a whole different way. It's the LAST time we do this thing. It's like I feel a door closing to a place that I can never go back to.

But for today, doors are opening. Life is good.

Different Strokes

Four, to be exact. Ben shows off the new strokes he learned this summer:

What's That Smell?

What's for Dessert?

Chocolate Pizza!

To cap off our last official day of summer vacation, we made a chocolate pizza for dessert. I got the idea from Paula Deen a few weeks ago. I made my standard pizza crust (except I used white flour, not wheat) and then covered it with chocolate and white chocolate chips. I topped it with three different toppings: marshmallows, M&Ms, and melted peanut butter. Then I put it back in the oven to get nice and gooey.

Delish!

Last Day of Summer Vacay

Ben goes back to school tomorrow, and D's school had a teacher inservice day. So I took the day off, and we invaded the neighbor's pool to practice some sweet dives.

Product Endorsement

I wanted to take a moment of your time to plug a product worth its weight in gold: the Barnes and Noble Classics editions. Just like Bantam, Penguin, and so many others, Barnes and Noble releases the all the great classics in their own line, called the Barnes and Noble Classics. I have read a great many of the classics from these editions, and they are awesome. They provide the most helpful footnotes I have ever seen. These notes explain colloquialisms, historical elements, and other information that would have been well-known back in the day, but not so well-known in the here and now. It makes reading a dated book much, much easier.

I say this now because when I bought my copy of A Tale of Two Cities, I failed to drive across town to get the B&N edition, and settled for another version. This version was not remotely helpful in explaining some of the more difficult passages, and was only mildly so in the Afterward.

So if you, or someone you love, must undertake to read a literary classic in the near future, go to your local Barnes and Noble, or visit them online, and buy the Barnes and Noble Classics edition. It will make for a much more enriching experience.

Thank you for your time.

A Tale of Two Movies

The boys have been dying to see Hancock. I, myself, have not. So the four of us went to the movies today, the menfolk saw Hancock, and I saw Mamma Mia.

I'm sure Daniel will give his review of Hancock on his blog in a day or so. Mark's only comment was that it had excessive profanity. Not exactly two enthusiastic thumb's up.

Mamma Mia was good. Movie musicals are never as good as the live show, and this was no exception. It lacked the fun and energy I remember from the show. But the setting was awesome, and it was well cast. Meryl Streep was good, but she was AMAZING in two scenes. The first was Slipping Through My Fingers, a song which never fails to make me cry - it was very well done in the movie. Better than I remember it done in the show, in fact. And The Winner Takes It All - wow. She made the movie with that one scene. I know she's Meryl Streep and all, but I was still blown away.

Pierce Brosnan, by contrast, was awful. Horrific even. I don't see any more musicals in his future.

The music didn't play out just like the show - they left out a few of my faves - Knowing Me, Knowing You was one. (Of course, Pierce Brosnan would have had to do that one, so maybe they just thought better of it.) Under Attack and One of Us were missing as well. It ended with When All Is Said and Done, which was not in the show, but worked well I thought.

So maybe not two thumb's up for the whole movie, but definitely two thumb's up for Meryl. And apparently better then Hancock.

What I'm Reading Now

Sadly, I'm still reading A Tale of Two Cities. Had I known what my work schedule was going to turn into, I would never have started it when I did. I'm observing a training class for three to four weeks, and it's taking the entirety of my day. On a normal day, I can usually get some reading done on a break, or at lunch, but not so here lately. I'm doing almost all of my reading right before bed, and with a book like this, one or two pages a night when I'm sleepy isn't cutting it.

But I'm sticking with it, and I am liking it. Not my favorite Dickens, but still good and Dickensy. It reminds me a lot of Les Miserables, mostly because of there's a father-daughter story, there's France, there's poverty and revolution, there's France, there's some prison, there's some France....you get the idea.

It is definitely hard to read - possibly the hardest of Dickens novels that I've read. I read one chapter three times, and am still not sure if it involved one character or two (kids, when they talk about vague pronoun references in school, pay attention). This may also have something to do with being unusually tired when I read it, but I shouldn't have been unusually tired all three times. I have done fairly well with keeping up with who everyone is - Dickens loves to mention some random person early on, then have him or her come back and be a major player later on in the book. A lot of this character revelation is going down right now in the book, and I'm following it alright.

I hate it when people do this, but I'm doing it anyway: I'm pretty sure I know what's going to happen, and have known since early in the book. I'm about to wrap up Book the Third, so I guess I'll know soon.....

UPDATE: Monday night - I've just finished it. While I was right in my prediction, I could not have predicated how powerful it would be. Wow. And, of course, lots of plot twists that I never saw coming made it good, too. This is one that I will likely read again, sometime when I have lots of time and can focus my attention better. Really good book.

Mothers and Daughters

I have many, many blessings in my life. One that I am constantly reminded of is my relationship with my mother.

I work with so many young women who complain and complain about their mothers. Their mothers tell them they're too fat, or they don't keep their houses clean enough, or they married an idiot. My mother is so solidly on my team that I can't even relate.

This morning, during our standing Saturday morning phone call, mom and I put the finishing touches on a weekend mother/daughter trip we're taking this fall. We haven't had a "just us" trip in ages. We used to go to Charleston for a weekend every year. Then we started mixing it up a little, but we always went somewhere together.

We mixed it up a lot and went to NYC in 2004. That was a great trip. I remember going to this restaurant where mom had this big disagreement with the waiter over what she had actually ordered. It had something to do with semolina, only she kept saying salmonella, which didn't help matters. To top that off, we were crammed into this tiny space right next to another couple who were obviously on an early date. He was older, she was younger. He was telling her in great detail about his open-heart surgery. I wanted to lean over and say "Dude! What are you doing?!" We laughed about that meal the whole trip.

Some parents don't make the switch from young child to adult child. My mom made it seamlessly. In fact, she models the way I want to be with my kids when they grow up. I hope my kids look forward to spending time with me as much as I look forward to spending time with her.

What's For Dinner?

Shrimp Scampi with Linguine. (Technically, it's spaghetti - I'm not sophisticated enough to have linguine in my pantry.)

I use a Barefoot Contessa recipe that I LOVE. If you like the sound of it, you can find the exacts in Barefoot Contessa Family Style, and probably on foodnetwork.com as well.

Boil your noodle of choice. Meanwhile, melt butter and olive oil over low heat. Saute nine cloves of garlic, finely chopped. Add shrimp, salt and pepper, and cook until the shrimp is done. (Shrimp jumps up and screams "I'm done!" like no other food I know.) Remove from heat and add noodles, lemon juice, lemon zest, lemon slices, parsley and crushed red pepper flake. (I added more red pepper flake than usual this time, and it rocked.)

Excellent, excellent stuff.

While I was chopping the garlic, I was reminded of a story my sister-in-law told me about why she doesn't like garlic. At some point during her formative years, her sister experimented with a recipe that called for nine cloves of garlic. Her sister didn't quite grasp the difference between a clove of garlic and a head of garlic. She guessed poorly. You can imagine how it turned out.

Problems in the Blogosphere?

I can't seem to get to three of my favorite blogs - Ferdlings, Tighty Whitey, and APFM. I get this:

Any ideas what's up? I can get to other blogs just fine.....

What's For Dinner?

OK, I took a picture, but it didn't turn out very well. And now all the food is eaten. So you'll just have to imagine.....

Brined a flat iron steak, grilled it lightly on both sides, and finished it in the oven. Thin sliced it. Delish. Everybody loves it.

Roasted some asparagus with a little olive oil. Grated some nutmeg. Never done that before - the nutmeg, not the asparagus. Quite good. Different.

Finally - and this was really neat - fingerling potatoes! I have seen them on the Food Network forever, but never saw them in any stores around here. Until last weekend. I bought a small bag of assorted colors - white, red, and purple. Yes, purple. Bright purple all the way through. I boiled them in a shallow pan with salt, pepper corns, and a bay leaf. Served them with margarine. Tasted just like regular potatoes. If it had been dark, I would never have known they were purple potatoes.

And here's something interesting: I can't say "fingerling potatoes." It comes out "fingerling pertatoes" every time.

The Goat Story

I have been asked to share the goat story referenced in my post about our hike on the AT. Don't ever say this blog isn't for the people, by the people.

High atop one of the balds, to the left of the trail if you are traveling north, was a large pin of what I thought were sheep. To the right of the trail was a wide expanse of desolation, with nothing but a ton of woody stems sticking up.

On the return trip, same deal, only this time there was a man there passing out brochures. Turns out, they were not sheep, but angora goats. Their mission: to eat away at this particular low-growing bush that had overgrown the grass on the bald and killed it all. Apparently, these goats will eat away at these bushes till nothing remains but the woody stalk. This allows the grass to get a little love from the sun and the rain and grow back. At least that's the plan of the brochure man. He's a botanist who's living up there for the duration of this project. He said he has no watch - he just stays in his camp and keeps an eye on the goats. (And occasionally visits the AT Sir Speedy to print up brochures he can distribute, apparently.)

The goats had just completed their eating frenzy on one side of the trail and had moved to the other. Don't know if the grass is coming back, but they sure did eat the heck out of those bushes.