Community Canning

Some friends of our live about two blocks away. You’ve seen them here recently with the bounce house and pool party. We’ve never been incredibly close, but that has been changing lately which makes me happy. Just recently, D&F’s mom decided to get into canning a bit. Not knowing what she is doing, she called me to help out. So, we packed up the wagon with two water bath canners, some pots, jars, lids, tongs, and rubber gloves and set off.

The first night, we did oodles of salsa. The second night, we made jalapeno pepper jelly. Since then, she has gone crazy and did pickled beets and bought a half bushel of peaches. She has caught the bug. I see this becoming a regular event, and I couldn’t be happier.

She and I cut, chop, stir, and boil while the four boys run around together and wear each other out. The boys are becoming better and better friends every time we visit.

So much fun!

It was during the salsa night that the neighbor and I got talking about the process of canning.

Bub hates it. It’s too tedious for her: the peeling, the chopping, the seeding, the stirring. She loves to cook, but this is a whole new level of torture for her. This is fine with me.

For me, and I’ve said it here before, it is a practice in meditation and remembrance. It is a time for preparing and ensuring that our family has plenty of healthy food in the pantry.

It is also a time of honoring the commitment that my mom made to us to keep us fed (which was hard sometimes). I managed to not cry as I described to my neighbor the last time that my mom and I canned something together, just one month before her death. It was cherries from our tree, and mom taught me an awesome trick for quickly pitting them as we sat on the back porch for hours that night. The last gift that she ever gave to me was my black water bath canning kettle and THE BIBLE (The Ball Blue Book of Canning).

Finally, I was just like one of the aunts or neighbors that used to come to our house when I was little to put up the fall harvest. Mom and I talked and laughed and gossiped. I think that we both realized that it would never happen again, but it was only in the very furthest reaches of the back of my brain. I know now that she knew. I was still holding out hope that her cancer hadn’t spread and that her liver would last for five years so that she could be put on the transplant list. So unrealistic and naïve I was.

I miss her every time I seal a jar, every time I open something from my pantry shelves, every time I see fruit on a tree just waiting to be picked.

All dressed up and nowhere to go

Ever since last Halloween, the boys like to get dressed up – in their dresses – and play once in a while. I’m sure that some people are going to read that and have a complete fit. Fine. Do it. I don’t give two shakes.

What this means is this: nothing.

It’s playtime. It’s imagination time. It’s fun.

In their world, I dress up for work, but Bub never dresses up in dresses. In fact, she shops in the men’s section of every store often with the boys in tow. They have seen Halloween pictures of Papa as a cowgirl, Uncle as a hooker, and cousin as Cher. When we see people dressed differently at the mall or downtown or where ever, they don’t even look twice (although Bub and I certainly do). To them, it is just another way to look. It doesn’t mean that they are gender benders or gay or strange.

But you know what? We wouldn’t care if they were any or all of those things.

Yes. It’s hard to be gay – especially in Utah – but the times are changing. As long as they are healthy, happy, and kind, then we don’t care.

I will say that they have learned that it’s hard to play trains and run around in a dress. Good lesson. All of us girls learned that way before we were five years old.

They haven’t, however, learned that other people can be cruel when you are different. While on this walk, four different adults truly thought that they were girls with really short hair. However, the boys stopped and talked to a couple of 8-10ish year olds, a boy and a girl. We talked about Meatball’s stuffed dog and Peanut’s trains. The other kids didn’t talk much at all… until we turned to leave. Luckily, neither boy heard the older boy say to the girl “gawd, they are so weird” as they walked away laughing.

And, it saddens me to admit that even though I just typed a great speech about how we don’t care if they are considered strange/gay/etc., I did try to get them to change their clothes before this walk precisely because I didn’t want them to be hurt by the cruel words of others. And, when that boy was laughing at my kids, I wanted to pound his 10 year old ass; I really did. I wanted to cry “why can’t you just accept difference?” I wanted to shield the boys from reality. Luckily, they were busy doing something else entirely and didn’t have a clue. But, soon, they will.

Parenting. This stuff is hard!

Daybreak sleepover

A couple of weekends ago, we had a sleepover with some friends (David and Charlie) who live in the Daybreak community in the southwestern part of the Salt Lake valley. These guys are the BEST, and although we had only seen them on and off in the past few years, being with them was like not missing a day. They are warm and friendly and nice and funny and generous. And, they love to feed people.

Seriously, every time we turned around, we were being offered fruit or pasta or cheesecake or salad or drinks or ice cream or suckers or or or or…..

We started the weekend with a tour of their “house.” It’s enormous. It’s even bigger than the in-laws home (which is saying something). It’s just the two of them in this house that has seven bedrooms and 4 ½ baths. (Yes, they hope to sell it when the housing market recovers. I’m sure that they will sell it to a family with oodles of kids. We have plenty of those families here in Utah.) It is decorated and landscaped beautifully, and they take great pride in how wonderful it looks.

Then, we had lunch.

Then, we had dessert. After lunch. We never do that unless we’re at a birthday party or something.

Then, we went to the community lake. It’s about three miles long, and is stocked regularly with trout, catfish (eeewww), blue gill, and crappie. We just spent time wading in the water and playing in the sand and the playground.

A side note: This community is very well planned. This is just the first portion. It consists of about 3000 homes right now, but it will eventually be around 20,000 homes when it is all finished. It is built for families. Each section has its own elementary school, and each neighborhood has its own pocket park and community garden plot. It is created and laid out in a way that strongly promotes neighborly contact and interaction. The town center (of which there will eventually be three or four) has loads of shopping from grocery to fashion. They host weekly festivals where locals can compete for “the iron pig” cooking award. They have local bands play at the festivals or sometimes karaoke or other performance art – all free. If I actually wanted to live in “the city” again, I would consider this area. I really would.

Anyway, after the sandy beach and playground, we returned to their house where the boys took a bath (in the tub that looks like a great big sink, mom!), and we had a snack. Then, we played outside while waiting for Granny and Grandpa to arrive for the barbeque. After dinner, we went to the weekly festival, Fizz Fest, where we played in the fountain, checked out the toy store, listened to the band, decorated our own ($0.25) cupcakes, sat inside the fire engine, and shopped for home décor. While doing all of this, we ate mint brownies, cheesecake, and some other puffy pastry filled with sugar.

Then, we returned to the mansion and popped some popcorn so that we could watch a movie and drink cocktails.

Finally, after falling into a food-induced stupor, we went to bed looking forward to fishing the next morning.

But, who can fish before breakfast? Apparently, not us. So, we had biscuits and gravy, eggs, hashbrowns, fruit, milk and juice.

THEN we went fishing. Bub caught a catfish. BLECK! They are so damned creepy. If you are one of “those” people who are convinced that catfish is great if you prepare it properly, then I invite you to our house to prove it. I haven’t had it work out for me yet – restaurant or home cooked, it all tastes like dirt. Anyway, they are creepy buggers, and Bub was very happy that it managed to wriggle its way off of her hook so that she only had to hold it long enough to huck it back into the water. Ben caught a tiny blue gill. Yes, I know that they are small fish, but his was very small. And, let’s be honest here. “Caught” is probably a generous term. It was more like “the-fish-happened-to-be-at-the-wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time” scenario since he refuses to leave his line in the water for more than, oh, I dunno, 22 seconds. So, he just happened to snag this fish as he was wildly reeling in for the 6 time in as many minutes. Poor little Meatball was the only person to not catch anything. He was pretty bummed.

It was pretty breezy, so we headed out to Herriman to their little local pond where we were skunked again. (However, on the way there, we were able to see the “UP” house. It’s built, painted, and decorated exactly like the house in the movie, UP. Adorable.)

After not catching anything in Herriman, we played in the playground for a while where Peanut surprised us by climbing the “rock” wall. He’s climbed the little walls before, but this one was pretty big. The guys really got a kick out of the fact that this freaked Bub and I out.

Then, we returned for lunch, more movies, more time at the beach, and dinner again!

Bub literally didn’t eat anything at all the next day. I ate incredibly sparingly (an apple, a piece of toast, and an egg, I think). Holy food frenzy! Oddly, I didn’t gain any weight the entire weekend!

We had a blast, and we met some new friends while there.

We can’t wait for Halloween. This place must be a gold mine for sugar and sweets!

The best part? We were told several times how well-behaved and polite the boys were. And, they were, too. We were very proud of them all weekend long.

The oddest part? Although the house is stunning, I found it odd that there were 22 clocks in it. Bub and I have two, which is probably on the low side, but 22? Silly boys.

Stitches - our first (but probably not the last)

Well, it was only a matter of time before someone got very, very hurt. And, it just so happened to be Meatball at Granny’s swimming pool.

Bub took the boys to see Granny and Grandpa on their first Wednesday off from school. (They attend every other Wednesday when in kindergarten.) I was, of course, at work and missed all of the excitement.

Peanut was jumping in at the 4.5’ mark – just enough that he can’t touch the bottom, and they can’t swim THAT great yet. So, Bub was waiting for him to jump in. She told Meatball to wait for her. And then she told him not to jump so close to the edge – something that she had been warning everyone all day long.

Well, he turned around to jump in backwards (WHY?!?!), and didn’t jump out far enough, and WHACK! He smacked his chin on the edge of the pool.

Screaming and wailing ensued – and rightly so. With the help of a friend, she managed to make sure that Peanut didn’t drown, get a towel on Meatball’s face, and get everything gathered up. Then, her friend drove everyone over to Granny’s where they put a temporary bandage on it. She popped him in the car and headed to the instacare. That’s when I found out about the whole thing.

That’s also when I had to make her turn around and go to a different instacare because she was headed to one that my insurance didn’t cover. (She was not pleased, by the way. I don’t blame her. I wasn’t the one with a bleeding and crying boy in the back seat.)

Then, just like that, it was over. They numbed him with spray or cream, then they gave him a shot with numbing solution, then they gave him five stitches and a bandage. “See, mom? They didn’t even have to use a needle.” They obviously draped one of those sterile napkins over him and hid the needles from view.

Six days later, those five stitches were out, and he’s no worse for the wear.

And, he has an awesome scar to show the chicks.

Pool party and bounce house

Oh, here are just a bunch of fun pictures of some cute kids at a birthday party. We’re so happy to be friends with D & F. They just live around the corner from us, and are the only kids in the neighborhood that we know. OK. They are the only kids in the neighborhood, period. We always love F’s birthday because it happens in the middle of summer, and that means WATER!

Bub turns 50!

After much bellyaching and whining and a general bad attitude about it, Bub’s 50th birthday came and went. Just like I “warned” her, she felt the same way the day before and the day after, and the world did not, actually, come crashing down around her.

“Oh, you just wait until you turn 50,” she tells me…..

I resisted ordering the coffin cake. It was really hard because I REALLY wanted to get it. But, I erred on the side of pity. I had a moment and felt sorry for her and the emotions that she was going through, so I bagged the idea of the coffin. Sigh.

Her actual birthday was on Friday – the same night as the meet-and-greet at the boys’ elementary. I think that this sort of bummed her out at first. For all of the bellyaching and moaning and bitching about her birthday (and being SO OLD), she really did want the day to be all about her. But, she gave it all up for her kids, and this is nothing new.

On Thursday night, the boys and I made a cake – angel food – from scratch. I’ve never made one of these from scratch. Here’s the thing: beaten egg whites GROW in a serious way when you add hot simple syrup. Like, out of the bowl growing. It was hysterical. We finally got the cake in the oven, and it was time for the boys to go to bed. I stayed up and frosted it myself.

I decided to go in to work late on Friday morning so that we could serve her breakfast in bed. The boys got up early enough that we could decorate the cake. Bub doesn’t like a ton of sticky sweet, so we decorated it with blueberries (which she loves) and strawberries. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a photo of it. We also made eggs in a basket (toast with a hole), bacon, and coffee. Yum!

After I got home from work, we had to get ready for back-to-school night, but not before giving her some presents: a new cake pan (since she broke the last one) and a Lady Gaga CD. Then, we enjoyed the meet and greet with the boys teachers.

After school stuff, we took her to Apple*bee’s. I know. Not glamorous, but the swank, ritzy place in town that was supposed to be the site of the party had closed the month before. So, a local, noisy chain restaurant had to do. We had an awesome server, and the boys were generally well behaved. It was COLD, though. I think they did it on purpose because of her menopause. Bwah-ha-ha-ha. “Just wait until you turn 50!” she reminded me over and over. I had 50 candles on the cake, but the server couldn’t get them all lit at once without burning her hand. I’m not kidding.

On Saturday, we went into the city early so that we could play a bit. We went to Granny’s, we did a bit of shopping, and then we went to Sugarhouse Barbeque where some of her friends met us. We had a boatload of great BBQ (with plenty of sides for the vegetarian). There were the requisite “over the hill” gifts: black this and black that. There were no black balloons, however, because there was no helium to be found due to an explosion at a helium plant on the east coast. So, actually, there were no balloons at all!

I made sure to give her at least some of what she needs as she ages: vitamins for women 50+, nutrition shakes (which the boys love), a neck chain for her reading glasses, sticky notes because she forgets everything, and adult diapers, of course. Typical Bub, she opened the undies and put them on over her pants for all of the restaurant patrons to laugh at. We had a great time with great food and great service.

Here’s her other cake. It’s not the coffin cake that I wanted, but damn cute, nonetheless. In case you can’t tell, it’s like a spinner for a game. You spin the arrow and it lands on a section. “Bub is older than King Tut.” “Bub is older than dirt.” Etc. Hysterical.

Then, while the boys went for a sleepover at Papa’s, we went to the bar. We knew that we would be early, but we didn’t think that we would have too wait long for people to arrive. We were wrong. We were the only people there for about three hours. Gawd – what a waste of time. Finally, some of our friends arrived. Unfortunately, a lot of her friends flaked out. I’m still kind of pissed about that. She managed to have fun, anyway. (I did not. Seriously, in order to actually enjoy THAT music, a person has to be drunk. I was expecting new stuff – which I don’t really like that much but can tolerate. Instead, we got “Footloose” – which is only good if you’re watching Footloose or sitting at a Kenny Loggins concert – “Jesse’s Girl” – which was never really any good – “Come On Eileen” – which is only good if Eileen is sitting there – and etc. I even asked if it was oldies night, but it wasn’t. Horrible music. Plus, it was all mixed in with gangsta’ rap which, let’s be honest, just does not work at a lesbian bar. So, back to ME – I was sober because I was driving. The music was bad, the service was awful – I bussed our table all night long – and the patrons were slutty dumbasses. Thank god for Sid, Jackie, and Geri!)

I managed to get her in the car by 1am, and we went home and crashed.

“Just wait until you turn 50….” Finally, I had to let her in on a little secret. Turning 50 isn’t going to bother me that much. Why? Well, my response to her was finally this: “I will turn 50, but you’ll be 58!!!” At that point, she shut up about it.

11 things about me today

1). I am ridiculously behind on blogging. Ug! I'm sure that my two readers are devastated.
2) I do not like reclining seats on the bus (or airplanes, for that matter). Unless you are enormous or you have a medical condition that requires you to tilt back an additional two inches, I think you should just suck it up and sit up straight like that rest of us. Unless, of course, the rest of us also recline in a domino fashion to allow for your comfort.
3) I am fascinated with shows on religion and religious communities (Amish, Hudderite, Etc.) even though I am not religious or even very spiritual, for that matter.
4) I am incredibly skeptical of ghosts and spirits and the like, but if I'm ever in New York again for any reason whatsoever, I'm totally making an appointment with Long Island Medium. Just in case. Plus, she cracks me up.
5) Fall in Utah is even shorter than spring. I'm expecting it to snow any moment and completely ruin any color that is left on the trees.
6) I'm convinced that given 500 acres, some plants, and a few chickens, I could be the world's greatest homesteader. Not that I have any real experience, AND I'm the only Utahn in 2012 that failed to have a bumper harvest of zucchini. I'm just sure that I could do it. I don't know why I'm nuts enough to think that. Doesn't hurt, though. The chance of getting 500 acres (or even 5) is so amazingly unrealistic.
7) I can't stand Las Vegas. It puts me over the edge. I don't know why. Something to do with the human trafficking, the sleaze, the constant litter, the over-the-top consumerism, the spectacle. But the gelato is awesome.
8) I don't spend nearly as much time with my dad as I should.
9) I'm bottling squash soup this weekend. I'm overly excited about this. Bub told me that it smells like feet. Shit. What does she know? It tastes awesome.
10). Looks like this is the weekend to tear out the rest of the garden. Boo hoo!
11) yesterday, I scheduled a dentist appointment to fix a BROKEN TOOTH on Monday instead of the appointment that they had open today. Why? So that I wouldn't miss weight class. Who the hell have I become?