Cooking Class

Velveeta Loaf. One of the finest names in cheeses, and a snap to prepare.
Directions: Unwrap cheese, Insert fork. Display. Feeds: 6 refugees from a war-torn country of your choice.



Meat Plate. Your party will be a smash with this as its centerpiece!
Directions: Arrange raw meat on plate. Admire the beauty of many disparate cattle and piggies, come together in death as they never were in life. Dream of their melodic lowing and oinking as they meet one another within this circular ceramic heaven. Feeds: The Party Pony's meat-loving family.



Grape and Homemade Play-DOH Surprise. This delectable mix will have your guests clamoring for more.
Directions: Ask a parent to split the grapes in half with a knife, as they will present a horrible choking hazard for the unwary.
Smash in Play-DOH and stir vigorously. Feeds: one younger sibling.

The grease a-poppin' in the skillet

I've heard of blogs slagged for naval-gazing, and whoever did such slagging is a bore. What could be more infuriating and intriguing than the borders of my own little mind? And my mind is, a la the subject line of this blog post, rather...busy. Whoever has a handle on this meditation thing needs to contact me posthaste and give me some pointers. Lessee...sit in a comfortable position, let thoughts flow by, let them go and...attach to thought! Graaaa! Attach to thought like an angry dog and worry it like a bone!

While cutting down on one anti-anxiety medication in order to start a brand new one, I decided to try a clever experiment a few days ago. Just stop taking the stuff! (I told you it was clever. I am infinitely wise.) This morning, lying in bed, I began to recognize why I take it in the first place. My thoughts leap around like jumping beans held over a scorching flame. Something like this:

"I hope our bathroom turns out well since we are spending a lot of money on it and what time do I need to get the boys ready this morning and i wish i hadn't insulted that girl gabriella when i was ten years old she probably still remembers and if osama bin laden is still out there what is he plotting and how horrendous will it be and what will i cook for dinner tomorrow night and i had better call my parents what if i fail to call them and one of them DIES before i can call them and maybe there are some questions i ought to ask them before one of them DIES and why is it so hot in the room does that mean i am experiencing pre-menopause but gosh i am too young for that although i will be rather old on this next birthday and i had better start planning my son's fourth birthday and not let down the poor wee mite of course if I DIE that will be a big let-down for my children and they will weep hot tears and if I don't complete my book my husband will divorce me and why do i keep seeing incredibly vivid movies of wildflowers growing and enormous bees and brussels sprout plants and skyscrapers and cartoon characters whenever i close my eyes and what if one of the cartoon characters i see when i close my eyes gets squished under the wheels of a BUS that i also see when i close my eyes? What then? What then?"

Eyes shoot open. Morning light is creeping around the window curtains, and I hear the groan of a truck.

It all felt alarmingly familiar...alarmingly ME. Ah yes, I remember this. The sleepy morning mad-panic thoughts running wild and aimless while I lie as still as if I'd been dropped from a great height. There is a comfort about this familiarity, actually. It's a known quantity. Not so awful, nor was it accompanied by hyperventilation, lightheadedness, vertigo, and pain. Nevertheless, I shot down to the kitchen and gulped down a brand new Effexor pill. Yum!

I am also susceptible to something known as The Placebo Effect, which means that within an hour after taking the new pill I felt serene enough to drive on the highway. (These pills are supposed to take 2-4 weeks to really "work.") I felt darned good. I thought of all the fine times I've had and all the fine people I've known and decided that, well, I'm not going to die anytime soon, but even if I do, I've had a life to beat them all. I thought about running across the fields at Cragged Mountain Farm and the sun setting beyond the hills and the children, arms crossed, singing "Taps" around the flag, and all the times I've jumped into cold, clear lake water and swam out below the full moon. And heard the shouts of others, out there in the water while the campfire sputters in the wind and shoots mad sparks skyward. One night we tossed glowsticks to one another, and our glasses were tucked in our boots on the shore, and we were all but blind in the dark water of Round Pond.

Yes, my thoughts are prone to run wild; well, let them scatter in the good places.

Lexicon of Cute Toddler Food Names

In the " so cute" category. Herewith, my lexicon of healthy foods prepared for toddlers.

Purple Crunchies: Red Cabbage
Sunshine Sticks: Carrots
Dinosaur Trees: Broccoli
Bunny Food: Lettuce
The Pea Family: Peas on a spoon
Sunshine Nubbins on a Stick: Corn on the cob
Little Red Balls of Fun: Grape Tomatoes
Baby Trees: Asparagus spears
Turtle Shells: Halved brussels sprouts

AND

Pig circles: Pepperoni
Pig-circle pie: pepperoni pizza
Pig strips: Bacon
Mister Nuggets: Any free-roaming chicken, avec feathers
Gobble Meat: Turkey
Moo-Moo Cow: a burger
Flat cow: a steak
Silence of the Lambs: Mutton
Dead cow in the clouds, with the pea family in an exploded zeppelin: Shepherd's pie
Purple Crunchy Pig Strip Surprise: Red cabbage and bacon

Once, at a child's birthday party, Esteemed Husband went to the "adults' table" to suss out the sandwich offerings. He returned and announced :"Yeah, honey, they have turkey and cheese or PIG CIRCLES." People near us were visibly and deeply offended.

And the other night we were reading "Baby Animals on the Farm" (aka "Baby Animals on Your Plate") we asked our elder child, "Does it bother you at all that chicken nuggets come from chickens?" He said, "Mmmm, chicken!". When we explained that the chicken did not lay the nuggets like eggs, he got a funny look on his face. Hrhrmm. Not so much.

Then: "Mmmm, chicken!". Baby is an omnivore!

Bathroom Fun-o-Rama

Bathrooms are weird. We were shopping to renovate our bathroom and we noticed a toilet called the Swisher or the Swoosh or something like that. What this toilet does is remarkable. It dispenses with your fecal matter AND as a bonus feature, it also cleanses your nether regions much like a bidet! I don't know about you, but I don't want these things to happen within the same unit. I feel they should be kept reasonably separate. Even in the same room seems too close. The same UNIT is just much too close. What if the thing should backfire and shoot items formerly deposited up yer wing wang? How sorry would you be then? I will pass on the SWASH.

The fact that it is featured in Home Expo as an innovative new device just goes to show that we are obsessed with anything that seems to save time and/or space. If this is so, why not install terlets at the dinner table? Or, we could retire in private to feast all we liked and then poo in a convivial fashion in a party-like setting, with toilets arranged in a circle. The going-in of food is such a social event, but the coming-out of food...not so much.

Speaking of Not So Much, I would like to lay claim to this phrase here and now. Many months ago, my elder child coined this statement. He would say of a birthday party with creepy strobe lights and wailing children "Um, not so much." Or of a dish didn't care for: Not so much. Now, the phrase is in constant usage, and where are the royalties?

About the younger child, a prediction: He will be a soccer star. He is the most deft two-year-old with a soccer ball that I or any of my acquaintances have ever seen. He is starting to handle and dribble the ball and now shouts "goal!" as he kicks it into the goal we bought him for his birthday. It's just plain weird, especially since soccer was not one of daddy's sports and I am more inclined to twist an ankle while kicking than actually move the ball anywhere. Baby Pele isn't fazed by this uninspired genetic history. He kicks that ball with an unparalleled glee. To watch him go is like watching a real athlete revel in the glory of the game; when you just gape at the sheer physical prowess of the person. He gets red-faced and sometimes screams with pleasure as he moves the ball down the field. I am wondering if pee-wee soccer is available for a two-year-old, and if shin guards come in size xxxxs. Do you know what this makes me? A soccer mom. Fark! Do I have to move to the midwest now and drive a mini-van?

3 Previously Unknown Facts, One Regarding Alec Baldwin

The book I am reading now, The World Without Us, is just mind-boggling. I would recommend its purchase. Do it! Do it now!

One of the interesting facts I have learned from this book is that something exists called the Pacific Garbage Patch, which is roughly the size of Texas. It's a gyre of human refuse and flotsam, spinning in a less-traveled area of the Pacific. Most of it is plastic, which has a half life of about 66 billion years. Don't it make you wonder how much plastic we are ingesting through the food chain, and what it might be doing to us? I estimate that I am .66 percent plastic already, and by the time I reach 5% my face will have frozen a la Nicole Kidman.

And also according to the book there are these crazy Caves in Turkey that are riddled with homes and secret underground caverns and even a hotel! I didn't know about these caves. Apparently they will last quite a while after Manhattan crumbles and topples and is overrun with weeds and flowers. Who knew? Have I been living under a ROCK?

But best of all was this quote I discovered today, courtesy of Alec Baldwin. (This was not in the book, but A World Without Us certainly includes no member of the Baldwin family.) Of his wife's divorce lawyer, he stated: "She's this 300-pound homunculus whose face looks like a cross between a bulldog and a clenched fist." How infinitely perfect and delightful is that quote? He can get as drunk and surly as he likes. Those words are worth 1,000 pictures of the awful creature. I wish I had said it. I'm a-gonna save it up and say it someone someday. I have a certain peevish coworker in mind, who may not have the requisite 300 pounds but of whom could be said "I've seen better legs on a piano." She is often sighted with a surly grimace, lumping around on those great, stodgy legs and dreaming of power-mad schemes to drive us all crazy. Her face? Perhaps an omelet with eyes and teeth, gone awry when it got tipped from the pan. With a wig slapped on it.

Grrrraaak! I challenge Alec Baldwin to an invective-off, during which I will threaten to wallpaper my latrine with my enemy's pelts.

Calling all Artists

Are you an artist? Or do you just style yourself as such to get chicks and men? It doesn't matter! We here in New Rochelle, NY, will accept you, and all your hairy, unemployed brethren. Just think, here you get:

Unlimited wireless access!
Meals at the finest fast-food establishments!
Homes in great neighborhoods: cheap! cheap! With loads of character and big, high ceilings and lots of light whereby you can paint your masterpieces. And granite and maple and corian, all words which, according to the book I just read, Freakonomics, will make your new home worth a mint!
Old homes that were built to withstand surging seas or strange fluctuations in the housing market
Occasional squirrels
The chestnut harvest in fall (thems make good 3-D art! And good eats. Ouch.)

Brooklyn and Tribeca are so overdone. Populate our neighborhood with your interesting self and your weird art and you will find a home worthy of your talents. Plus, we don't have any of those peculiar artist's rules for living in Tribeca that demand you prove yourself. New Rochelle was once home to many a famous artist. It has several characteristics that will make an artist feel at home:

1. The smell of the sea, and the cry of errant seagulls (yes, think of your soundscapes/stinko-thon installation)
2. Older architecture that may feature in your "quaint city streets" paintings
3. Passersby who will add local color and verve to your sculptures
4. Lotsa liquor to fuel your creativity
5. Annoying rich people to mock and call "the man" in your invective treatises
6. Fresh veggies, to keep you alive
7. Fresh construction on which to spray-paint your so-called "graffiti art"
8. A fine library green for your impromptu guerilla dance interpretaion
9. Shopping carts in which to wheel your unwanted art about the area
10. New Ro's #1 blogger, rated by the critics (see below), as a local resident!

The Critics Rave:

"The Party Pony (not to be confused with the simple "Party Pony" of Canadian fame) seems to be behind the 25% uptick in property values around the area. Take note, investors, and get in before it's too late."
--Jay Marwillack, New Rochelle Financial Quarterly

"This is all very confusing to me. Are the drug addiction stories here for humorous purposes? Dialing your number now."
--The Party Pony's mommy, via email

"I frow food at you!"
--Wolfgang, younger child of The Party Pony

"That's easily the best thing I've read in a long while--well, of course you're preaching to the choir, as I am predisposed to look at this with a firm and flashing eye, thinking "Well, now we're past all the masks and into the pith of eternity, the plinth of heaven, that place where the north wind carries voices, that hard-to-find place where burly DeHavilland Beavers and puny Piper Cubs take you, the paradise on earth that you must walk or paddle to, as no funicular is going to make that voyage, now we're going home in this piece of writing, all of us, the funny-lookin' and the pretty, the writer is taking us, she saw it all and she remembers, all of it, all of us, all of us and all of love is going home--or rather, finding the home in ourselves." But even given my proclivity for this sort of thing, I was deeply, deeply touched to read this. This is the kind of people I always suspected we were. Nice work! Reads good! I loved it!"
--A famous military historian

Beached on Plymouth Rock With a Lobster in my Craw

For some reason I seem to be a curse to motorboating. I have had motors conk out on the way to Point o' Woods on Fire Island, off the Isles of Shoals in NH as we floated ominously toward the rocks, deep at sea in Costa Rica (a story in itself), and lastly this past weekend in Plymouth Harbor on a boat called the "Lobster Tales."

Thirty-plus souls were aboard the boat, which pitched about in the chop while we waited for the Harbor Master to come to our rescue. The adventure would have been sweeter if I didn't have my toddlers aboard, shivering in the wind in borrowed sweatshirts that more resembled straitjackets. I took one to the head during the wait, where I discovered a brig stocked stem to stern with liquor of all varieties. Fortunately, we were saved before I had to start screaming "every man, woman, and child for himself" while tossing liquor bottles hither and thither.

To pass the time, the captain introduced us to the various sea creatures he had dragged up in a lobster trap, which included female crabs that had a sort of "trap door" in their undersides which could be pried open to reveal eggs and then snapped shut again, no harm done. A nice little evolutionary trick! The male crabs also had the image of a phallus on their underbellies, which he referred to as a "rocketship" for the sake of the kiddies aboard. He also brandished a couple of lobsters, who looked at me with their beady, black eyes.

We were in Plymouth for the big extended family reunion of my husband. Many of the participants did not even share our last name, since the male line has effectively dwindled away through a profusion of daughters--my two young sons being the only remaining male bearers of the name. As such, there is a certain gravitas to their existence. Why this should matter to me, a female, I'm not sure. Maiden names get buried and lost, generation after generation, and become traceable through old documents only. Their lineage is covert. Even on the monument to the forefathers in Plymouth the Mayflower wives don't even get a name--not even a first name. Their children do, however, male or female. Some of those names: Love, Wrestling, Remember, Oceanus. And we think baby-naming conventions now are odd! Apple and Moses would have fit in quite nicely.

While we were up there we visited a graveyard in Cohasset, where many of the gravestones were tip-tilted and worn with age, many from the 1700s. My elder child ran from stone to stone, demanding that I intone each name, while the younger squealed with delight and hid behind monuments and shrubbery. I thought briefly that I should tell the little one to respect the area, but instead I said, "Carry on, it's what they would have wanted." As we went from gravestone to gravestone, my older one clinging to my back, I spoke each name aloud--as many names as I could. Some of the smaller stones had first names only: Lulu, Baby, William. He didn't understand, but it was a good thing to do. Does speaking the name aloud--or having it chiseled on a rock--make the person's life any more meaningful? Does the relative anonymity of this blog make the sum total less? Names may not matter in the hidden history of the world, but speaking them aloud seemed to be a small blessing to the dead. Children ran down to the water at the setting sun, and shadows were cast by lichen-covered stones.

I find graveyards very peaceful. Some people won't buy a house next to one, but the neighbors don't make any noise. Memento mori, indeed!

On a lighter note, I will soon tell the story of the Cruise del Sucque off the coast of Costa Rica, March 2003. A broken engine, beating sun, diesel fumes, and a pregnant passenger (myself).