What Time Has Wrought

Note: This post was mentally composed and intended for publication several days ago, but the home computer is proving consistently recalcitrant and Michael's laptop distressingly unavailable during the day. We must buy that Mac this month.

Five years ago, at the end of April:

-I had a picture on my wall of the Canadians holding their gold medal from the Winter Olympics
-I was planning a trip to England for the summer
-I was helping several friends plan their weddings
-I looked forward to a full summer of conferences and horseback riding
-Marriage was not even on the distant horizon

Four years ago, at the end of April:

-I was freshly engaged and planning an August wedding
-Baghdad had been taken, the statue had fallen, and the war was going well
-I was getting pretty much no sleep, what with all the IM chats and phone conversations

Three years ago, at the end of April:

-I was settling into life in a new house
-I was looking for a job
-I went to the Blue Willow Inn for my birthday dinner (thanks to Janice for the cookbook!)

Two years ago, at the end of April:

-I was about to deliver my first child
-For the first time in seven years, I didn't wear my silk party dress on my birthday
-I quit my job

One year ago, at the end of April:

-I went to a Blue Angels airshow
-We were contemplating trying out for the summer musical Hello Dolly!
-I planted a garden (which promptly died)

And now:

-I have another precious daughter
-I own more butter than anyone else I know
-I'm going to make brownies, ice cream, and chocolate fudge sauce for dessert tonight

We all scream

Baskin-Robbins is hosting a $0.31/scoop night this Wednesday, May 2nd, from 5 to 10 p.m. Even if we all buy three scoops each (and I think Jane would need a little help with hers, at that rate) it would cost less than $3 total. Okay, so I know a half gallon of ice cream from the store could cost less than that, but you wouldn't get the variety of nine different flavours. Plus it's the experience.

I Was Mistaken

A few days ago I took the following pictures, intending to post them along with the caption ‘A Really Full Freezer’ or something to that effect. I thought I had really and truly maxed out the capacity of our little fridge-top freezer. I knew I was pushing it when I took out the ice cube trays to make room!

Right before our trip I had purchased eight gallons of organic milk for $0.99 each. Ninety-nine cents! I didn’t think I had room but I knew I would regret not snapping up such a bargain, so I bought all eight, pushed things around, made a bunch of yogurt, and somehow made it work.

Then, within the last week, I found bargains on 6 lbs. of strawberries and 10 lbs. of ground beef. Of course we didn’t have any room. But I would never get over it if I didn’t seize the day, so I pushed things around even more and somehow we found the room. I was so impressed that I took the pictures to prove what a totally-full-absolutely-no-room-left freezer looks like. Look ye and marvel:













Then. I was rushing past the butter aisle in Kroger, and happened to spot a sign: 2 lbs./$1. That can’t be right, I thought. But sure enough, REAL butter. One WHOLE pound. For FIFTY CENTS!!! You can’t buy margarine this cheap! I have NEVER seen such a price and I probably never will again. It would be the death of me to pass this one up, so I made several trips and eventually ended up with 102 lbs. of butter. Now, this is what a really, truly, absolutely stuffed-to-the-gills positively-NO-room-left freezer looks like:

Worthless movie log

On the flight to DR they showed us The Holiday. Owing to regulations on oxygen masks, there was a limit as to how many lap infants (non-ticket-holding passengers) could sit in one row, so Michael - with Jane on his lap - had to sit behind me the entire flight. This made for a complicated carry-on situation, what with passing snacks and diapers back and forth over the seats, but the real nuisance was that I couldn't nudge him and make sarcastic comments as the movie progressed.

When they first handed out the headphones, he declined a set. 'You'd better watch this movie!' I told him. 'If I'm going to watch this miserable, rotten, wretched flick, then I'd jolly well better have someone to talk it over with afterwards. But he resisted. So I am going to have to blog about it.

Well, you know the premise is that a rich LA movie producer and a British typesetter, both trying to get over broken hearts, swap houses for the Christmas holiday. The problem is that nothing in this movie is believable. There are so many cheesy sub-plots but you don't even care if they get wrapped up. One character is apparently unable to cry, and then realises she has just left the love of her life when she starts crying after bidding good-bye to him. Yeah right. One character is engaged to another character and then flies across country to persuade an old girlfriend to - what? He's still engaged, she knows he's engaged, and what sort of future does he envision for them? Another character, whom you just know is destined for someone, is inconveniently already with someone else, but because he's so patently a good guy who would never dump anyone, the movie conveniently has her go off and cheat with someone else so we can drop her from the storyline sans guilt or regret.

One of the most telling lines from the whole movie occurs early on, when a main character is breaking up with her live-in boyfriend because she suspects him of cheating. As she empties his drawers, occasionally pausing to hurl objects at him, she says something along the lines of, 'You know, this is exactly why I didn't want us to get married! I knew something like this would happen!' Oh. And so why did you let him move in with you in the first place, under such auspices? This is someone you will fall in love with, live with, etc., but not someone you will actually trust?

That's pretty much all there is to this movie. It's not about love, honour, decency, commitment, trust. It's all about self-gratification, personal happiness and self-discovery, the whim of the moment, and a fair dose of good luck. Just another shallow, forgettable piece of tripe. And now that I've sufficiently vented about it, I can forget it too.

Miss Potter (on the return flight) promised much better. I loved the styles and fashions, both of clothing and interior decorating, and I wish that I'd figured out the glitch in my earpiece a whole lot sooner so I could have listened more intently. At first, from the bits and snatches I was able to pick out, I was afraid it was going to be another tiresome feminist piece on the universal oppression of women in all circumstance prior to 1970s America, with the repeated harping by her parents on the importance of getting herself married suitably off. And the classic heroine rejoinder of self-assertion: 'I'm a published author. I have ample means, and I shall do as I please.' (clapclapclap.)

However, there came shortly after this speech of defiance a charming chat with her father and mother, in which the father says something to the effect that 'Whatever you may think, we have only your welfare at heart. We do not wish you to rush into an improper and ill-considered match. Let me therefore propose a compromise. Keep your engagement secret for now, and at the end of the summer, if you still wish to marry him, we will give you our blessing. If you truly love him, one summer will not cool your ardour. If, however, your mind has changed, we will give that our blessing as well, and there will be no scandal.' What a clever, wise, gracious path to take! I wanted to cheer. My earpiece gave out around here, though, so I have no idea how this story ended. She got on a train and went somewhere. Anyway, it's a fine movie.

Sometimes it pays to be behind the times

The advantage of waiting almost a full year to watch Pirates II is that you have only a couple of months more to wait for the finale.

Random political thoughts

-I find it hard to get enraged at Alec Baldwin over the angry message he left for his daughter, and think all the media attention the situation is getting is very annoying. Sure, it was a nasty message and involved a few nasty words, but we all know that these Hollywood types are pretty lacking in self-control in real life, anyway. Was anyone surprised when Russell Crowe threw that phone? It doesn't matter how nice/decent/genuine the characters they play on screen may be; these people are actors. They smoke and drink and sleep around and have bad marriages and poor parenting skills. (This is a sweeping generalisation, but it's true more often than not.) Aside from not leaving the country like he promised he would do, Mr. Baldwin hasn't really done anything that out of character.

-I still don't get the hoopla over Don Imus' firing. I never listened to him or liked him before, so it's no skin off my nose, but according to several articles, he's made nasty remarks and sarcastic, cutting comments about other people before. In fact, that's pretty much his shtick. Why this particular comment crossed the line is as puzzling to me as I'm sure it was to him. I'm not condoning his remarks, by the way, simply pointing out that it's rather hypocritical of whoever was listening to him before (I mean, for him to be on the air, there must have been a substantial market for whatever he was peddling) to decide that this kind of nastiness is suddenly not acceptable anymore. Kind of like if Howard Stern suddenly got canned for public indecency: one would have to wonder just which straw it was that broke the camel's back. And why no one warned him that they were suddenly changing the rules.

-I'm sure this VA Tech shooting is going to bring on another tiresome round of gun-control legislation, possibly banning whatever type of weapon it was that the shooter used, possibly banning a whole range of weapons. What such reactionary proceedings fail to take into account is that there were already laws against what this guy did, on several levels: there are obviously laws against murdering people, and there are already laws against having handguns on school property. Why do they think that another layer of legislation is going to stop someone from doing something wrong? If someone wasn't intimidated enough by the law against carrying a gun onto school property, is he suddenly going to be quelled by another, higher law stating that he must not carry even this type of gun onto school property?

-While I'm pleased at the decision of the Supreme Court to uphold the ban on partial-birth abortion (and frothing with rage at the spin the major media are putting on it: ''"so-called" partial-birth abortion'; oh, yeah, what else would you call it when a baby is partially birthed and then aborted?), it's a bit hard to muster the spirit for even a minor Hurrah when you consider the reasoning which allowed this decision to slip by: they got away with finding the ban constitutional - sans a health-of-the-mother clause - only because they pointed out that there are alternatives which do have that clause. It's a bit sad that the decision had to include the reasoning that, if all else failed, at least the fetus could still be dismembered in utero.

Words/phrases I love to say

But of course!
Yes, but still.
I think not. (Poof!)
Aha. So [delighted, perplexed] was I that I said it again, only backwards: Aha!
Ah.
Alas and alack.
We are not amused.

One of the Deadlies

It’s been my ponderation, on and off, whether we - as fallen sinners - are all susceptible to the same degree of accountability when it comes to the seven deadly sins. Obviously we are all subject to varying degrees of temptations, depending on what our weak spots are, but are we all equally culpable when it comes to any given action involving any given sin?

The case in point is gluttony. Now, this is not something I feel as if I’ve struggled with at all in my life, because I really don’t think I have any kind of eating/food/addiction problem. I eat a lot, I enjoy eating, and I don’t have any health problems resulting from my diet. I am very fortunate to have been blessed with a very high metabolism, which insulates me from the apparent consequences of my actions, in that I can eat pretty much as much as I want, of pretty much anything, without any adverse physical side effects.

So here’s the question. Am I or am I not subject to the sin of gluttony? If I didn’t have such a high metabolism, and I ate as much as I do, and didn’t exercise to compensate, then my weight would be a visible testament to my lack of self-control. So just because of my genes, do I get a free pass on this one? That doesn’t seem right. (I know, I know, life is not fair.)

'Twas the eighteenth of April in Two Thousand Seven

Cost of Living

So I’ve been thinking a lot about budgets recently.

The Iron Chef Mom’s Challenge really made me ponder the definition of frugality, because while I obviously respect these ladies and admire their ability to stick to a budget, I was surprised at the shock and awe occasioned by other readers at the ability of one of the challengers to stick to a grocery budget of $50 a week.

Of course, these ladies have more kids than I do. But then, we have people over for dinner and bring meals to families who need them, so it probably all evens out.

Also, they are accounting for more than just groceries: they’re including many household goods (tp, laundry detergent, personal care, etc.) because most of these things get bought along with the groceries. So I ran the numbers (which we have at our fingertips because we’ve been tracking our receipts with vicious accuracy for the past 2+ years) and found that our recalibrated totals, including all these household items, still beat out the experts’.

It’s delightful to feel really on top of one’s game. But after pondering what makes our food budget work, and why it seems so effortless to spend so much less on groceries than the average family, I decided that I have the personality factor in my favour. Quite simply, it’s easy for me to budget because I like bargains and I enjoy the things that bring our food costs down.

Therefore, it’s a personal fulfillment issue as well as a budgeting issue, and the quality of life is improved, not dragged down. If I didn’t enjoy budgeting and baking, then pinching pennies would merely be a drudge and a toil and I should probably resent the budget for its shackles and constraints.

The factor that enables me to keep our food costs down is the matter of convenience food. I really don’t rely on convenience food all that much, so in essence I am not paying someone else to do the work for me. I am not paying Betty Crocker to pre-mix my cookies for me, or Uncle Ben to strip down the rice to quick-cooking (and, incidentally, less nutritious) levels, or the instant mashed potato people to peel my potatoes for me, or Perdue to skin and bone my chickens for me. With a minimum of effort and time I complete these tasks myself, and thus save myself a lot of money in the process.

The fact of the matter is that I enjoy baking. I like to mix up recipes, and the two or three minutes that it takes to measure the dry ingredients is more than worth the dollar or two I save by not having someone else do it for me. If I hated the feel of flour on my fingertips, or detested touching a raw potato, then I might consider it worthwhile to hire someone else to do it for me. But that’s not my personality.

I could save even more money on our food budget by not buying, oh, cheese or mushrooms, or cutting way back on our butter consumption. But I like those things more than the money I would save, so I continue to work them into the budget.

There are obvious contrasts to this in my own life, which clearly illustrate the cost v. quality-of-life continuum: diapers and laundry. I could save a lot of money using cloth diapers, but I really detest the idea of washing them, so I spend a lot of money not to have to deal with that. Washing out diapers is not something I enjoy, it is not something that improves my quality of life, and it is not something I want to devote my time to. Hanging up laundry to dry would save a tremendous amount of money on the electricity bill, but it is not something I enjoy nor something I really want to budget time for. Therefore I continue to use my dryer even though it costs more money.

So budgets aren’t really about just scraping by on the bare minimum. They’re about seeking balance in a well-rounded life. Therefore I concluded that comparing budgets is so much more than contrasting the bottom line in dollar signs. Whatever your budget is, for whatever category, if you can afford it and it makes you happy, then embrace it and enjoy!

How Do You Spell Character?

On Wednesday nights we help serve dinner at our church. We enjoy the opportunity to serve people and say hello to everyone who passes through the line, not to mention the free meal afterwards. Generally I serve the kids’ meal and the salads (rocking Ella in her carseat underfoot) while Michael tends to the desserts, wearing Jane in the backpack.

Last Wednesday, as we were waiting for the rush to begin, I glanced down at Michael and caught his eye. He smiled back, so I wandered down and proffered my cheek for a kiss. ‘Hey, Little Miss Haughty,’ he whispered in my ear.

I was perplexed. I had indeed pointed my nose in the air to give him the best angle, but I couldn’t imagine that he would cast it up to me under such circumstances. ‘Well, I’m trying to be humble,’ I told him, thinking of some way to work it into a compliment, like adding, ‘Which is hard with such a handsome husband as you,’ thus heaping coals of fire upon his head.

Michael began to laugh. ‘Your Institute training is bleeding through! Who else would think I meant H-A-U-G-H-T-Y instead of H-O-T-T-I-E?’

Oh. Yes, that sounds much better.

A glimpse of the tropics

A Creature of Habitat

Jane is simply delighted to be back. She had a great time, and enjoyed all the attention from adoring relatives, but she was clearly overjoyed to be back in familiar surroundings. As soon as we arrived back home, she made a beeline for the dresser and came back with a pair of socks, begging us to put them on her hands (we packed only sandals, so she was a week without her socks). Clearly the glove obsession is still going strong.

She has recently begun to baby her toy animals, lining them all up in a row (in order of height!) sitting against the hearth. Or she will line them against the wall, face down (she still sleeps on her front), and kiss them ‘Nigh-night.’ We packed no toys for the trip, and yesterday she was simply thrilled to be back with all her beloved creatures. She runs around naming everything with delight. ‘Fridge!’ ‘Trash! Yucky, yucky!’ ‘High chair! Jane high chair!’

Yo Ho Ho And All That

Back from the Caribbean we are, and it’s just as beautiful as it was when Michael and I were there on our honeymoon. Warm sunshine, low humidity, cool tropical breezes, lush tropical fruits, and plenty of family to take a girl or two whenever we wanted to slip off for dance lessons on the beach. Pictures will be forthcoming.

This one's not so bad, either

What a cutie!

In like a lion, out like a lamb

So pleased were we with the success of our Indian dinner that we called for an encore, only this time we were determined to go entirely all-out with the inclusion of a mango lassi. I didn’t expect to find cheap lamb stew meat marked down again, but I did expect to at least find lamb. Alas, there was none apparent in the specialty meats section, so I settled upon some ground veal.

I told Michael about the change in plans.

Me: But don’t you think that ground lamb will be much the same as lamb stew meat? After all, after hours in the crockpot, the lamb was pretty shredded anyway. And this is very young lamb, hence very tender.
Michael: Veal isn’t young lamb. It’s young calf.
Me: What! I thought it would be young and tender lamb!
Michael: It’s young and tender all right, but it’s beef. Young lamb is lamb. Old lamb is sheep.
Me: So basically I paid a lot of money for very fancy, very tender, very expensive ground beef.
Michael: This is going to keep you up all night, isn’t it?

Off I scuttled, therefore, to the nearest grocery store to buy some genuine lamb. ‘Boy,’ I told Michael when all was said and done, ‘do I feel sheepish.’

Miss Rose’s Linguistics Lesson

Now today we are going to talk about a trendy little phrase that’s taken the colloquial mainstream by storm in recent years to express a sort of apology for one’s mistake: ‘My bad.’ As a gesture of accepting responsibility it’s not bad, and certainly it’s more polite to assume the blame in any way than to ignore the issue altogether. But is it entirely correct, grammatically speaking?

Ah. Let’s break it down into its two disparate parts, namely, the words my and bad. My is a possessive pronoun, implying ownership of or accountability for the object it modifies. So far so good. Bad is here used as the object of the sentence, which makes you think it is the main character, or in other words the thing being possessed. It could be something – anything – as long as it was indeed a thing, or in other words a noun. But alas, bad is not a noun; it is an adjective, meaning it can only describe a noun. An adjective is only a concept insofar as it describes a noun; it is not, in its own right, a real thing. Therefore you cannot own an adjective. You might just as well say ‘My green,’ or ‘My curious.’

This phrase always leaves us floundering in helpless suspense, wondering anxiously, ‘Your bad what? Yes, yes, but what is it you have that is bad?’

Ha. Can you tell we’ve been reading Lynne Truss recently?

Words which, we have noticed, are not so commonly used anymore

A pity:

Oblige
Shall
Should (as in, ‘I should not have thought of calling at so late an hour.’)
Fancy (as in, ‘Fancy an ice cream? Me too! Let’s go!’)
Hasty

A relief:

Gardyloo

Hurrah, it worked!

Apparently Michael's laptop was the key. Fortunately I've been saving a few of my posts in Word against this eventual development. Unfortunately the keyboard is different and long-term access is sketchy. Fortunately we'll be getting a new home computer soon and the browser problem (for such it appears to be) will be solved.

Any luck yet?

Let's try a change of location.