Girl Detective

Lenore Skenazy has a new book, Free Range Kids : Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry, reviewed at STATS (link from Arts & Letters Daily):

Skenazy shot to startled stardom when she allowed her nine-year old son to ride the subway alone, then wrote about it in her column in the New York Sun. Cue lights, camera, daytime talk shows. Skenazy was branded “America’s Worst Mom,” a title she now sports proudly, and one that has inspired her efforts to persuade other parents to give their children a taste of the freedom they had growing up “without going nuts with worry.”

Her central thesis is this: life is good, people are mostly good, and kids are both hardy and more capable than we think. In fact, she explains, we’re living in what is “factually, statistically, and luckily for us, one of the safest periods for children in the history of the world.” The problem is that everywhere we look, we’re told otherwise. Which is why, perversely, in the safest of times, we’ve become the most neurotic parenting generation in history.

I was thinking along these lines earlier this week. My 5yo son Drake is in a day camp, and one day a week the teachers take the kids to the neighboring water park. Drake’s been doing this for weeks, and loves it. Then a mother of a new kid wondered if there was adequate supervision. I had a brief moment of worry, then self correction–he loves it, there are teachers, and there are lifeguards. And, I like the break I get. Enough.

It’s hard enough to regulate my own tendency to worry. It’s even more difficult when other parents worry more, or when I get the stink-eye from other parents who clearly don’t think I worry enough.

I’m discovering a lot of life lately can be answered simply with, “Lighten up, already.” I’m trying to do just that.

Yesterday I posted about an experience I thought was ironic. Today, I told 3yo Guppy to take a nap while I tried to finish my chapter in Infinite Jest before taking my own nap. Guppy whined, cried, and made such an utter pest of himself, saying he wasn’t tired and just wanted to play quietly downstairs, that I gave in.

This is what I found on the couch when I came downstairs after my little lie-down:

Any idea how hard it is to read Infinite Jest, in general but the section about Eschaton in particular, while being pestered by a 3yo? For example:

Uninitiated adults who might be parked in a nearby mint-green advertorial Ford sedan or might stroll casually past [Enfield Tennis Academy]’s four easternmost tennis courts and see an atavistic global-nuclear-conflict game played by tanned and energetic little kids and so thus might naturally expect to see fuzzless green warheads getting whacked indiscriminately skyward all over the place as everybody gets blackly drunk with thanatoptic fury in the crisp November air–these adults would more likely find an actual game of Eschaton strangely subdued, almost narcotized-looking. (327)

And but so, I think Guppy’s nap is annoying, not ironic.

On the bus to 5yo Drake’s swim lesson, I’m irritated by the cell-phone conversation of a person behind me. I turn around.

It’s a Buddhist monk.

What’s more ironic? That I’m irritated by a monk, or that a monk is having a cell-phone conversation on a bus?

For those in the NE ‘hood, the converted church building on the NE corner at 26th and Taylor Streets NE is now a monastery, with three Tibetan monks in residence. The house has been repainted traditional Buddhist colors of gold and red, there is a Direct TV satellite on the roof, and I’ve heard talk about an open house this Friday, 24 July 2009, at 5 p.m.

My CSA is a half box of produce every week. Week four had a lot, and I wasn’t finished when the new box arrived, which left me feeling a little stressed. But with a batch of tabbouleh and some cucumber-yogurt soup, I dispatched the last of the previous week in order to face the new kids:

Cauliflower, scallions, snap peas, cabbage, garlic scapes, broccoli, cucumber, lettuce, green beans, yellow squash, and beets with greens.

First up was Braised Tofu and Peas in Curried Coconut Milk from Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian that used cauliflower, scallions, snap peas, cabbage and garlic scapes. Not only did it use five things, but it was delicious and pretty to look at. And the fry bread we made to go with it was pretty tasty, too. (Added later: Fry bread DOES NOT KEEP. It turns hard and yucky. Eat immediately, then throw out any leftovers. Another lesson learned.)

For the salad mix and cucumber, I went with Food Matter’s Thai beef salad and Super Natural Cooking’s shredded green beans,an easy, different way to prepare that staple.

On Sunday, though, I hit a wall. I couldn’t face making a stir fry using the broccoli, beets and greens. So we went to Black Sheep Coal-Fired Pizza. It was awesome.

That break left me ready for the stir fry. I peeled and grated the beets, so my hands looked like Lady MacBeth’s. The pan was a lovely contrast of red, orange, green and yellow (the latter only because the broccoli was beginning to turn, though)

before the beets turned everything red. Alas, it is their nature. As I expected, the kids wouldn’t touch the veggies (alas, it is their nature), and my husband G. Grod and I ate it because it was good for us and tasted OK. Thankfully there’s not too much left over, unlike last week’s barley with asparagus and green onion sauce, which is the thing that won’t leave.

Tomorrow I’ll make Super Natural Cooking’s Otsu, a soba noodle dish with cucumber and tofu, then that book’s Sushi Bowl to finish out the week and (I hope) this week’s batch before the next arrives on Thursday. I still don’t know what to do with the yellow squash; I’ll probably throw it in the sushi bowl.

My self satisfaction about being a thrifty home-economist locavore is waning, and we’re not even yet at the height of summer. The break for pizza helped, but I’ve got to keep my veggie mojo going or I’m going to be buried in greens.

And because I forgot to post it, here’s a shot of last week’s Creamy Cauliflower Soup with Pesto, from SNC. I know, I need to work on my food photography.

Wite-out on the floor
Dries quick, the shape of a fish
Curse you, Guppy boy.

Twice I’ve tried to make the Cook’s Country recipe for Black Bottom Cupcakes–chocolate cupcakes with a cheesecake-like filling. Both times the cupcakes burned. The first time I thought it was because I used foiled cupcake liners instead of paper. The second time I wondered if putting all 24 in the oven at the same time was was too much. Both times I was upset; I rarely burn a baked good. I felt like a failure.

Yesterday, I did some research. At Baking Bites, the blogger thought the recipe’s oven temp of 400F too high. She recommended 350. On Smitten Kitchen, I found a different recipe that also recommended 350. I tried 350, and I made a half batch of 12 cupcakes. It took at least 25 minutes for the filling to set, but the outsides did not burn. I am vindicated. The Cook’s recipe burns at 400, works well at 350, and making just one dozen worked well for me. Here is my adjusted recipe.

Black-Bottom Cupcakes, adapted from Cook’s Country

(Do not substitute regular chocolate chips for the miniature chips. Regular chips are much heavier and will sink to the bottom of the cupcakes.)

Makes 12
8 ounces cream cheese , at room temperature
1/4c. + (1/2c + 2Tbl.) sugar
1/8 + 1/4 teaspoon salt
1 large egg white, at room temperature
1 tablespoon plus 3/8 cup sour cream , at room temperature
1/4 scant cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips
3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1/2 + 1/8 teaspoons baking soda
2/3 cups water
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Line standard muffin tin with cupcake liners.

2. With electric mixer on medium speed, beat cream cheese, 1/4 cup sugar, and 1/8 teaspoon salt in medium bowl until smooth, about 30 seconds. Beat in egg white and 1 tablespoon sour cream until combined, about 1 minute. Stir in chocolate chips and set aside.

3. Whisk remaining sugar, remaining salt, flour, cocoa, and baking soda in large bowl. Make well in center, add remaining sour cream, water, butter, and vanilla and whisk until just combined. Divide batter evenly among cupcake liners and top each batter with 1 rounded tablespoon cream cheese mixture. Bake until tops of cupcakes just begin to crack, 23 to 25 minutes. Cool cupcakes in tin for 10 minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely. (Cupcakes can be refrigerated in airtight container for up to 2 days.)

I wrote last week about my 5yo son Drake, and our struggles with some of his behaviors that are typical of kids on the autism spectrum. At that time, I tallied three steps forward and two steps back. I might have known I was jinxing myself.

The day after, Drake found one of his digital watches and spent most of an hour singing tuneless nonsense words while he timed himself. I was surprised at this not because it’s a new behavior, but because it’s been gone for months; he used to do it frequently at home and at preschool. Additionally, he’s having more extreme outbursts of temper. If I tell him no, he will sometimes throw himself to the ground, crying and screaming at full voice, at home and in public. These are both regressions, and disheartening after the cautious optimism about progress.

When we saw one of his teachers the other day, he smiled, but would not speak to her. Later, though, he said, unprompted to a friend, “Hey, I want to introduce you to one of my friends. I don’t know if you know him.” Then today I got a progress report from school. He overcame some problems he was having in music class. But he never initiated play with another kid. It feels like every step forward is negated by one step back.

It’s silly to keep score, even if events were quantifiable. And it’s hardly useful for me to pin hope and despair on fluctuations in his behavior–he’s growing and changing all the time. So I’ll celebrate any progress, and remember it usually comes with a regression in something else, so I shouldn’t be alarmed. That approach typifies my sense of parenting, one I’m not always able to enact, though I do keep trying: Enjoy things when they’re good, and don’t flip out when they’re bad. Or, in the newly fashionable phrase, “Keep calm and carry on.”

My elder son, now-5yo Drake, was not a sleepy baby. Newborns are supposed to sleep around the clock; he didn’t. Drake was alert all the time. He slept rarely, and for short intervals. He didn’t sleep through the night until he got his own room at just over a year old. It was, as many can imagine or empathize, a source of stress.

I followed all the advice for Drake: bedtime ritual, warm bath, dark bedroom. Yet for the first six to eight months, I couldn’t put him in bed unless he was asleep. Even then, as I gingerly laid him in his co-sleeper, then his crib, I’d slowly back away, muscles tensed in a combination of fear and hope. About half the time, he’d start to cry and I’d have to go through the whole comforting/singing spiel again. So whenever I saw a movie or television scene of a parent going into a child’s room, stroking their head, and talking to them, I started to rant. That was ridiculous, unrealistic, romanticizing, etc. etc. Kids didn’t sleep that soundly. There was a reason someone advised, “Never wake a sleeping baby.”

When I heard Colin Powell’s comment upon hearing that President Bush was “sleeping like a baby” on the eve of war with Iraq. I laughed. Finally, someone had got it right.

I’m sleeping like a baby, too. Every two hours, I wake up, screaming.

But then, as so often happens, things changed. Around age two, Drake started napping for hours at a time, and sleeping soundly at night. With now-3yo Guppy it happened even sooner. I even sometimes find myself in the reverse dilemma from Drake’s infancy: I have to wake them, and it’s not easy.

I’ve made my peace, then, with the sappy parental bedtime scenes. I’ve had a few of my own. I _can_ go into their room, remove the books from the beds, kiss their heads, and pull up the sheets. When they’re lying there, abandoned in sleep with rosy cheeks, it’s easy to forgive a lot of the tumult of the day that went before.

Until the next day, that is, when the screaming and the hollering and the “MOM!”ing and the neediness starts all over again. But I’ve got most of a good night’s sleep to help me weather it.

Me: [snicker]

My husband, G. Grod: What’s so funny?

Me: A good line that mixes Austen and the Fantastic Four.

[Repeat. Repeat.]

Later:

5yo Drake: Mom, please take that book back to Big Brain!

Me: Why?

Drake: It’s UGLY!

If he thought the cover was ugly, I wasn’t going to show him the inside. In Fantastic Four: True Story, the FF jump into the world of fiction to save the world at large. The villain is so similar in looks and domain that he’d better be an homage to Neil Gaiman’s Morpheus, or lawyers are likely to be involved. This is a fun, funny story that borrows its theme from Jasper FForde’s Thursday Next series and delves into Sense and Sensibility, Last of the Mohicans, Ivanhoe, and more. Not only are there clever mash-ups of literature and comic book conventions, there are several meta moments when the FF are confronted as characters of fiction as well.

It is not good enough, though, to compensate for the terrible art. It’s clumsy, rushed-looking, and for the second half I couldn’t tell the difference between Sue Richards and the elder Dashwood sisters. This story is a lark for fans of FForde, Austen and other authors referenced in the book. But the art and story never connect in a memorable way. Disposable fun.

I recently returned from a week in Miami, FL. I was careful and wore sunscreen, hat, protective clothing, sunglasses, etc. Even so, I got a mild sunburn on the back of my legs where I missed some areas. Even so, I thought I did well for being a week in the sun.

Then I got back to MN, went to a party in the park on Saturday, and sunburned my nose, which is now peeling.

Miami sun: nearly nothin’. Minnesota: lobster nose, then snake nose. Nice.

At The Chronicle of Higher Ed, Geoffrey K. Pullum declines to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Strunk and White’s Elements of Style:

The book’s toxic mix of purism, atavism, and personal eccentricity is not underpinned by a proper grounding in English grammar. It is often so misguided that the authors appear not to notice their own egregious flouting of its own rules. They can’t help it, because they don’t know how to identify what they condemn.

I never quite “got” The Elements of Style. I was amused by its cranky-old-man tone, but still couldn’t fathom much difference between “that” and “which” except “which” is used after a comma and “that” is not. (Link from Blog of a Bookslut)

5yo Drake and 3yo Guppy’s 8th-grade babysitter had one of the lead roles in her middle school’s production of West Side Story. Drake’s love of music runs deep, and he’s become enamored of musicals (Sound of Music) and music from Musicals (Mamma Mia! and “What a Piece of Work is Man” from Hair) so I thought I’d give it a shot.

It went well. Drake enjoyed the music, didn’t seem troubled that he couldn’t follow the story (a good thing in my book), and we sat behind the orchestra, so he got to see that as well. I gave him the option of leaving at intermission, but he wanted to stay. The kids in the play did a great job, and Drake sat through his first full-length musical. (Less winning were the grandparents behind me who talked at normal volume throughout and had to wrangle an 18mo toddler. But their other grandkid was in the play, and this was middle school, not the Guthrie, so I didn’t ask them to keep it down.)

Soon after, I saw a flyer for another local middle school’s production of Harry Allard and James Marshall’s Miss Nelson is Missing. Buoyed by my previous success, I thought it would be good for Drake and Guppy. The play itself would have been about an hour, which is what I expected. Alas, in the admirable spirit of including everybody who wants to participate, there were musical numbers between EVERY scene, so the show lasted two hours. At the end of the play, the last of its run, there were speeches, and thank yous. And more speeches. And more thanks yous. Finally I grabbed my kids and tried to make an exit.

Guppy was not on board with this plan. “I DON’T WANT TO LEAVE!” he screamed as I carried him out of the auditorium. He continued to scream, plus hit me, as we made our way through the school and outside. I put him down, he threw himself to the ground screaming and kicking. By this time the play was finally over. Playgoers streamed around us. I put him on his feet and dragged him resolutely to the car. He continued to cry and scream, and refused to get in his car seat. Mothers in the parking lot gave me sympathetic looks. Elderly people gave me dirty looks. Drake screamed because Guppy was screaming. I waited a few minutes, then wrestled Guppy into his seat. He screamed all the way home, where I handed him to G. Grod and said, “He needs a diaper. And he’s been crying for 30 minutes. I’m going to lie down.”

G got him quieted within minutes, so my frayed nerves and I could take a nap. But not before I swore off middle school musicals for a while.

This Saturday past, my husband G. Grod was at a democratic convention to support a candidate for city council. It would take most of the day, so 5yo Drake and 3yo Guppy and I would be on our own.

We were basically just lounging about in our pajamas, until Guppy wandered in waving an empty gummy-bear vitamin bottle. One that had been at least 3/4 full that morning.

I grilled both of them. Denial, denial. So I called my dad, a retired doctor, to confirm what I thought I had to do:

Make ‘em barf.

Guppy seemed the likeliest suspect, so I corralled him and stuck my finger down his throat. Voila. Gummy-smelling barf. I had to do this several times, and then take a break, during which time he tried to hide from me. I tracked him down and did a second round to be safe.

In the meantime, I realized that neither boy could be trusted, and even if Drake hadn’t ingested the vitamins I might as well be fair to Guppy and possibly use this as a teaching moment. So he had his turn in the bathroom. Surprise; he barfed up a substance remarkably similar to Guppy’s.

I was very matter of fact, quiet and firm during all of this. Amazingly, neither of them bit me. They were screaming, crying, running. Kind of like Jurassic Park, where I was the velociraptor. After, though, I calmed them down, explained why too many vitamins were bad, and why they had to get them out of their stomachs. They didn’t seem to hold a grudge.

I, on the other hand, now know better than to buy candy-like vitamins for my kids. Both are lousy eaters. Drake would subsist on yogurt, bread and sugar if I let him. So the multivitamins were recommended by their pediatrician, and serving to fill in some of the gaping holes in their diet. Now, though, they’re on their own. Scurvy and rickets, here we come.

I wish I could use prose as witty and cutting as Jane Austen’s to describe how unpleasant I found Marvel’s comic-book adaptation of her Pride and Prejudice. If you want sparkling prose, I’ll refer you to the source novel. There is little I can say about the comic to its credit, other than it starts off with Austen’s famous introduction:

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighborhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.

From there the comic departs from Austen’s prose. It is a shame adapter Nancy Butler squandered such strong source material in the service of choices like a clumsy character introduction to the Bennet sisters. The art, though, is really where the offense of this adaptation lies.

The color palette is mostly orange and an ugly yellow. The panels on the pages vary wildly, but not in the service of the story. Tones are either dull or too bright, and the gloss of the paper detracts even further. The illustrations of the characters look more like stills taken from a movie than images that tell a story. And the look of the characters would be laughable if they weren’t so dear to me. They are shown with giant white teeth, exactly the same build, and the glossy glamour look is more B movie/soap opera than appropriate for Austen’s time. Marvel, meanwhile, adds insult to injury with intrusive, garish and inappropriate ads that interrupt the story.

The painted cover art, by Sonny Liew, is the one element I liked. (I also liked his work on Vertigo’s My Faith in Frankie and on Re-Gifters) The art style and colors are softer, and more suited to the story than that of the interior. Unfortunately, Marvel mucked up the cover trying to be clever with girl-magazine type headlines.

My only hope is that girls who buy this might be curious to check out the novel. Had Liew painted the interiors, if it used even more of Austen’s prose, and foregone those silly cover headlines, this could have been quite charming. As it is, even as an entry point, I can’t recommend it at all.

“Wheelhouse” is one of those terms that I figured out in context quickly. In someone’s wheelhouse means something they’d be especially good at. The term was used several times in Season 5 of Top Chef, but I kept forgetting to look it up.

According to Urban Dictionary and Word Detective, “wheelhouse” is a baseball term meaning the area of greatest potential for a hitter. More generally it means in one’s area of expertise. It likely originates either from a boat term for the elevated captain’s wheel room, or a locomotive term for the swinging power of the roundhouse.

When I asked a bookstore-manager friend why his peers might not have found my on-hold mix up funny, he sighed. Meyers is the current bete-noir of the used bookstores, he said. Teen girls and their moms are forever calling and asking for copies, when the few that come in fly back out again immediately.

So when Jessa Crispin got snarky about Twilight yesterday at Blog of a Bookslut, I was amused, and followed her link to a longer article by Jenny Turner in the London Review of Books. Turner read the books, saw the movie, and wrote about them well. I can now better justify my Twilight disgust without reading the books or seeing the movie. Thank you, Jenny Turner.

For more interesting, complex takes on the vampire myth, start at the beginning if you haven’t read Dracula by Bram Stoker. Then try Agyar by Steve Brust, Anno Dracula by Kim Newman and Sweetblood by Pete Hautman.

A few things that bug me:

Flap pockets on boys pants; they never lay flat
Milk chocolate
People who wear pajama pants in public
High fructose corn syrup
Kate Hudson
Garrison Keillor’s voice
Eliza Dushku’s non-moving forehead, and the non-awesomeness of Dollhouse

I am, perhaps, being unreasonable.

Edited to Add:
CROCS. I love Tim Gunn’s assessment: “they’re like colored plastic hooves.” I don’t care if they’re comfortable. Only for kids or home, IMO.

Twilight, Stephanie Meyer books, EW covers that feature Twilight stars Robert Pattinson and Kristin Stewart’s empty stares, or worse, Pattinson’s nipple–EW, indeed. See The TV Addict for a funny takedown of the last EW Twilight cover.

Me, that’s who. I’m a comics geek. I read Watchmen in 1990 and have been an avid comic reader ever since. That’s why I won’t be seeing Watchmen (2009).

Watchmen the book is brilliant. It exploded the boundary, then and perhaps forever, on superhero entertainment and the comics medium. So a faithful adaptation, as director Zack Snyder said he tried to do, misses the point, IMO. It offers superheroes and violence up as entertainment, without the irony.

Instead of investing almost 3 hours and $10 in the movie, read this interview at Salon with creator Alan Moore. (Can’t find the source of the link; sorry. It was probably Morning News or Bookslut) Read the graphic novel. Or go here for a hilarious imagining of what Watchmen might have been like as an 80’s kids cartoon, or to Slate for a parody of what other directors might have done. (Last two links from ALoTT5MA)

My husband G. Grod went to see it last night.

“How was it?” I asked.

“Exactly what I expected,” he replied. “That bad. Now I know.”

Rober Ebert liked it, but it’s clear from his review that he hasn’t read the source material. Part of what worked about recent comic-book movies like Spiderman 2, Iron Man, Hellboy II and The Dark Knight is that they were based on the larger legend, but eschewed existing stories in favor of ones crafted specifically for the movie.

TV critic Alan Sepinwall’s review confirmed my suspicions about the movie. I’ve not yet gone to see any adaptation of an Alan Moore project, though all the graphic novels–League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Swamp Thing, From Hell, V for Vendetta–are among my favorites. Movies and comics are different mediums. Sometimes one can bring something to the other than deepens the story. But with such rich source material as Watchmen, I don’t much see the point.

I thought this year’s Oscar broadcast was a big improvement over years past, and I enjoyed it a lot. I thought Jackman’s opening number was funny and well done. The later one was over-the-top, which I think even creator Baz Luhrmann knew, since he looked sheepish when Jackman thanked him and the camera panned to him at the end. But anything that features an extended bit from “You’re the One That I Want” is OK in my book.

TV critic Alan Sepinwall has some suggestions for further improvement, like going back to showing the film clips for the nominations and removing more of technical awards. I agree that they should probably remove the sound awards, though cinematography could stay. I also think the shorts should go, both animated and documentary. I know they’re important, but few people see them and the show is too long.

I have a few other ideas, too.

One, have stylists urge their clients to wear color dresses. Light silver, white with silver, off white with silver, light gold, cream, ecru, off white, white, etc. are not colors, they’re neutrals. Do you really want to look neutral? Outlier was Viola Davis in burnished gold. Wow.

Two, have stylists urge their clients to do their hair. Jessica Biel looked like she just got out of bed, plus her no-color dress looked like it threw up on itself. Her later switch to purple didn’t improve things much. And Phillip Seymour Hoffman, I don’t feel bad for you even if the announcer did get your name wrong, because anyone who wears a knit cap indoors deserves what he gets. Your haircut in Doubt looked fabulous.

Third, Reese Witherspoon, wha’ happened? Did you get bitten by brooding, soulless, vapid, teen vampire Robert Pattinson backstage? Your black and blue dress with matching(!) eyeshadow made you look undead, and you’re usually rocking the show.

For more snarky mayhem, visit Go Fug Yourself.

Often I feel like my life is one long struggle to be less annoying to others. So when someone annoys me, I tend to get righteous. Which is kind of meta annoying, and thus I make it worse. Sigh.

Last night at the movies the person behind me was talking. Not maliciously. Maybe not even consciously. Just saying what came into their head, like, “*gasp* he’s going to kill him!” during a suspenseful scene. But there are manners on both sides–for the talker and for the person bothered by the talking.

Here’s how I wish I would have handled it. Turned after the movie, part of a double feature, and said, “I was distracted by your talking, so I’m going to move. You may be distracting others.”

Not sure the last sentence is necessary.