Another Sunday in Boston

Tags

Boston, Chinese food, hotel, postaday2013, Sunday

Another Sunday getaway for my hubby and myself. This time we aren’t in the heart of Boston, we are in the outlying town of Saugus near my hubby’s other offices. It doesn’t change the fact that we are still together near Boston and having fun. Jack and the baby girl, along with the baby boy, are holding down the fort at home. I don’t know who I worry about more, the children or the little guy Jack. My human babies tell me constantly that Jack is lost without me, he loves them and they know it, but according to them, Jack looks sad and looks for me while I’m away. I worry about my two feeding themselves, feeling lonely and alone and other silly things that mothers everywhere worry about no matter how old their children are, as in my case, two young adults.

I see from my own mother, that worrying about your children just simply never goes away, even when they are at the ripe old age of 46. It is just an inescapable part of being a parent, the constant worrying no matter how smart your child is and how responsible they are, you will worry and that is it, end of story.

I honestly believe that during high school they should offer classes on parenting and the permanence of the job and the responsibilities and emotional investment that do not expire after a certain date. The ties that bind do not get severed until the day you no longer draw breath in this life. I think that these classes would go a long way to decreasing the rates of teen pregnancy that we have in the country. I know that in our case at home, my best friend took my baby girl with her whenever she had to baby-sit her two granddaughters and that was a golden opportunity to teach my daughter exactly how difficult taking care of babies actually is, instead of romanticizing how cute and cuddly they are, she learned how long they can cry, how often they create smelly diapers and how easily your world is no longer your own and they must be the center of your attention and focus. That for a young teen gets old.

I owe my best friend a lot for her patience and kindness taking my baby girl along. She always says that my baby girl was so much help so that it was a win, win for everyone. If only more young people had that luxury.

No, thank you

If you could permanently ban a word from general usage, which one would it be? Why?

I don't know if I would ever ban a word, instead perhaps I would work really hard to ban prejudice and bigotry because I believe that it is emotion that gives power to words rather than the other way around. Once the word has been given power by that emotion than the word reinforces its power by the usage. The cycle is thus perpetuated therefore there goes my logic, ban the negative emotion and take away the word's power.

We don't need prejudice or bigotry, it doesn't do anything or anyone any good. We would all do so much better in this world if we could have a world with acceptance and gentleness.

Vanity at work once again

Tags

hair, postaday2013, straight hair, vain

That’s right, with my new hair cut and blow dried style, vanity has reared its ugly head again. Thank goodness it didn’t rain today because I seriously don’t think that I would have walked Jack for his usual two miles. My hair is still beautifully straight and sleek and this is something that I just don’t have the patience to do myself, so I am trying to keep it going on its own for as long as possible. So please don’t rain for just a few more days, I actually look civilized. I can tell that when my hair goes back to its natural wild state, my friends kind of miss the put together look. I have always let them know that I am too lazy and my arms get too tired blow drying my hair straight. It takes at least forty to forty-five minutes for a stylist to do it, so you can imagine how long it would take me blow drying my own hair, essentially backwards.

Vanity might be too harsh. It is a good thing to have pride in your appearance. I suppose that I am owning up to the fact that I like it when my hair looks nice and I wish that it wasn’t such a long and tedious process to get my hair straight without cooking my hair with the amount of high heat necessary. I experience hair envy, there I said it, I have hair envy. I would love to have hair that was manageable and wouldn’t get all crazy,frizzy at the hint of humidity.

Other than that, I have had a nice day doing not much of anything except for walking Jack, vacuuming the pool and watching Sherlock on Netflix, the one with Benedict Cumberbatch, it is such a good series. I guess that’s why I settled on writing about a subject as shallow as my hair and my hair envy, I got nothing else swirling around in mind.

Ha ha ha!

Tell us a joke! Knock-knock joke, long story with a unexpected punchline, great zinger — all jokes are welcome!

Knock knock

Who's there?

Jamaican

Jamaican who?

Jamaican something that smells really good!

hee, hee

My new color and haircut

Tags

hair color, haircut, postaday2013

Today I treated myself to the beauty salon for a haircut and some color. I was really excited about getting new color because I have been walking around with my prominent white stripe at my roots from the last coloring just this past March, boy does my hair grow fast! I never noticed before, but now that my white hairs are coming out in force, my hair growth is highly noticeable. Oh well, what can you do? I am very happy with the color and the hair cut. Sarah, the stylist, did an excellent job blowing my curly locks smooth and straight. I’ll be sleek and shiny until the rain gets me, which apparently with the weather report, will be tomorrow.

I tried to do the selfie, I haven’t gotten the hang of the eyes and where to look, the youngin’s know what they’re doing, I’m still fumbling trying to make sure that my fingers don’t get in the way.

Moment of kindness

Describe a moment of kindness, between you and someone else — loved one or complete stranger.

The relationship between myself and my mother-in-law was complicated; we got along most of the time but often it was due to my natural tendency to back off and back down. My mother-in-law was very similar to the character Marie in "Everybody loves Raymond" and I was a quieter Debra. However we did share many moments of kindness. One example was when I was living in the "house from hell" three houses down from her and when I was stuck without running water for a week and a half, she came over everyday with four or five 2 liter bottles of water to help out. My two babies were fine because my oldest was a toddler and my baby girl was actually a baby, so they were in diapers and were drinking milk. I needed the water to force flush the toilet from time to time and she was very kind and helpful, providing me with those bottles every day. That week and a half without water was a very long week and a half indeed, but knowing that she was there with her water made it bearable.

Cooking lessons

Tags

bonding, cooking, family, lessons, postaday2013

Yesterday, my hubby and the baby girl came together and made up a menu and we, the baby girl and I, went out to store to get the chicken cutlets, potatoes, fresh picked sweet corn and string beans. When we got back home, after unloading the car and putting the groceries away, aside from the dinner’s ingredients, the cooking lesson began. My baby girl has done a lot of baking because, honestly, baking is more fun. Her cooking experience lies mainly with heating up tortellinis and raviolis and making French toast. The menu consisting of chicken cutlets, string beans, corn on the cob and mashed potatoes was something brand new.

I wanted to show my baby girl that not only was the method of cooking important but the timing was as well. So the first step that I showed her was to peel the four Idaho potatoes and to prepare the string beans and while we were doing that, to put two pots of salted water on the boil. Once the string beans and the peeled potatoes were in their respective pots, I showed my baby girl how to split the chicken cutlets in half and then pound them thin, thereby making them even in thickness and tenderizing them at the same time. She wanted them to be breaded, so I showed her how to customize the bread crumbs in flavor.

I showed her how to gauge the cooking process by sight, feel and smell and I explained that it’s really by experience that you get more confident with your cooking. She mashed the potatoes and added the milk and butter as well as the salt and pepper and she decided when they were just right. I quickly showed her how I sauté string beans, a splash of olive oil, a few smashed garlic cloves and the par-boiled string beans and toss them together with salt and pepper. The only thing that was left was to put the shucked corn into roiling boiling water for a few minutes.

After all this, dinner was served and everyone was impressed by the baby girl’s efforts. She did an excellent job and we had a very nice time together teaching and learning. I seriously had a fun time, it’s always nice to be with her anyway, but when it revolves around cooking and food, it makes it even better.

Tagline

Often, our blogs have taglines. But what if humans did, too? What would your tagline be?

I am so not gifted with these creativity weighted questions. A tagline is another type of descriptive tool, so in essence the question is how do I see myself and how would I transmit it to the world.

I think that I would like to think that a tagline such as "the hopeful optimist" would be accurate. I know that the tagline is redundant but since I am not, in truth, always optimistic, it is a trait that I work to nurture and strengthen. So that is why I chose the word hopeful, I want to be the "eternal optimist" but I'm not there yet. There is a dark, sad side to me that if I gave in to it, I would wallow in and that isn't what I want. I consciously choose to be upbeat and hopeful and sometimes there are days where it is very difficult.

So there you have it, my tagline as the "hopeful optimist" I can't even think of another one, it isn't my forte but I think that I did fairly well despite what I think of my limitations.

Rhubarb: a new experience

Tags

canning, chutney, postaday2013, rhubarb

This morning I decided to do something with the rhubarb that I had still hanging out in my refrigerator, I was feeling guilty that my friend Bonnie had taken the time to hand-deliver it to me in addition to the handwritten recipe and I still hadn’t even touched it. I have to admit that I have been a tad busy, but still the rhubarb chutney wasn’t going to make itself.

Making the chutney itself was so easy, just follow the recipe and you are done in a half an hour. The involved part was the canning process; I had never canned before, so I did what any savvy cook does, when in doubt go to the Joy of Cooking. I love that book. Sterilization isn’t hard, just a little time consuming, and after forty minutes you’re done.

I don’t know how the rhubarb chutney turned out, according to the recipe you need to store it away for a year. So I have it labeled and hopefully next year I will remember it and serve it with a nice piece of sautéed foie gras.

Daily prompt : The 21st century

Tags

21st century, belonging, century, postaday2013

Do you belong in this day and age? Do you feel comfortable being a citizen of the 21st-century? If you do, explain why — and if you don’t, when in human history would you rather be?

I’m happy to be in any century as long as I am upright and relatively healthy. I love to being a productive member of the 21st century but I do feel just a tad let down in the technology department. I remember watching the Jetsons and seeing what the creators vision of the future was and ours falls short. I also remember seeing the future of the world exposition at amusement parks and they promised great things which hasn’t materialized as of yet. I am talking about Rosie the robot housekeeper or the flying cars or the renewable energies even Star Trek promised us more.

As I said above I would be happy anywhere as long as there was indoor plumbing for the restroom and the bathing room. I would not be very satisfied with any permanent living situation that involved outhouses and no running water. That’s just my requirements for happiness in a comfort related way.