Monthly Archives: February 2012

I have always prided myself on being something of a ‘Foodie’.  I love food.  I haven’t missed a meal since sixth grade.  If the food network is on, I’m unavailable for hours, slack-jawed, drooling, feverishly writing down ingredients.

One of my talents is breaking down a recipe.  If I taste something new, I am really good at figuring out what is in it.  I can smell cumin a mile away.  I can detect the difference between Saffron and Tumeric.  I can taste the difference between Apple Pie Spice and Pumpkin Pie Spice.

I’m that good, friends.  That good.

A couple of days ago I bought a small watermelon for us to eat on Valentine’s day.  I didn’t get around to cutting it on Valentine’s day, and just did so this afternoon.  I thought it looked a little dry, and was not as pink as they usually are.

I tasted a piece.  It was unusual.  Maybe I had inadvertently picked up some kind of gourmet hybrid watermelon or something.  How cool is that?  A new flavor of Watermelon!  I got excited and started trying to mix it with other flavors.  I tried some with lemon juice.  I tried some with cut grapes.  I tried some with salt.   I tried some with orange segments.  I couldn’t get it to blend just right with any of them.

I love a challenge.  I kept working…sometimes feverishly…to make a super cool recipe from this new hybrid watermelon.

My Captain tried it.  My Captain eats just about anything.  Seriously.  LOW MAINTENANCE on the food front.

So he tries it, makes a sour face and says, “Uh, it’s rotten.” and pushed the rest away.

I looked down at the rest of the melon.  Come to think of it, it did look a little off.

Huh.

Maybe all foodies are boneheads.  Maybe gourmet is just the french word for “Bonehead who can’t tell a rotten fruit from a good fruit.”

Fruit Salad anyone?

My Captain and I have some interlopers.  Trespassers. Uninvited guests.

Mice.

They have chosen to take up residence in the wall directly behind our bed, under the eaves.

We have two cats. Two worthless furballs.  Two lazy, no-good, catfood-recycling balls of fluff and cat spit.  Sure, they are cute and cuddly, but they don’t exactly work for their keep.

So we have scratching.  And skittering.  And strange tapping noises in the middle of the night.

My Captain had had enough.

“I’m going to go buy some mouse-traps,” He declares.

“Don’t kill them!” I beg.

Holy Stinkin Moly….you should have seen the look on his face.  Consternation doesn’t begin to describe it.

“What do you want me to do?  Invite them to tea?”

I didn’t care for the tone in his voice.

“They’re God’s creatures too, you know.”  I was indignant.

I can’t share the rest of that conversation with you because it was muttered under his breath as he was shaking his head, walking away from me.   I have to believe it was something along the lines of, “My wife is so adorable the way she loves all of God’s creatures.  Golly I am lucky that she is mine.”  Yep, I’m pretty sure that was what he must have been saying.

A couple of days later, he came home with some live-trap mousetraps, and put them under our eaves in the wall behind our bed.  As I was climbing into bed that night, I didn’t hear the normal chew-chew-skitter-skitter-tap-tap-tap.  Instead, I heard a thump. thumpity. thump.  Weird.  My Captain was already asleep, so I girded my loins and went to check the trap.  (Can a woman gird loins?)

Sure enough, we had caught one of the cuties.

I took him down to the back yard and opened the trap door to release him.  He wouldn’t come out.  No sirreeeee.  I shined the flashlight in the trap and his little beady black eyes were SO dagnab cute, I couldn’t stand it.  And his wee little ears were at full attention in their round little way on his furry little wittle cutie cuddly wuddly head.  Oh he was adorable.

“There you go, little guy!” I whispered, gently putting the opened trap under a bush in the mulch so he could exit whenever it so suited him.

And I went back to bed feeling like I had brought good Karma to our house and our lives in general.

Tonight, My Captain went to reset the trap to catch another mouse.  Sure enough, he did.

“I wonder if that is a different one or the same one?” I asked. “Maybe we should paint a white spot on his head or something so we can keep track of that.”

“How on God’s Green Earth am I supposed to do that?”

“With a paint pen, of course.”

(PREGNANT PAUSE while he let that sink in.)

My friends, I cannot adequately convey to you the look of incredulity I received from the love of my life.  His perturbation was palpable.   He said something about some guy named Job having nothing on him….

I have to tell you, I don’t think he did it.  Just between you and me, I don’t think he painted that little guy’s head at all.

But in case he did, if any of you come across a wee little furry mouse with a white paint dot on the top of his head, he’s ours.

Get this, there are people…intelligent, seemingly healthy, psychologically well-balanced people… who actually enjoy volunteering their time to coach elementary school level basketball.  Can you believe it?  Why?  Why do they punish themselves so?  It boggles the mind.

I have watched my son and daughter’s coaches spend the better part of the last couple of months basically doing what amounts to herding cats.  I tell you, it’s better than watching the Comedy Channel.

There are kids running amok.

There are kids laughing.

There are kids picking their noses while running down the court.

There are kids screaming for the ball “I’m open!  I’m open!” when they are 1) NOT open 2) nowhere near the basket, and 3) don’t even know who they are yelling it to in the first place.

Sometimes there are kid’s crying, but never for very long, and never with great sincerity.

One of the coaches, Pat, who is a saint, as far as I am concerned, had the best…the best…line the other night.  He was bellowing at the top of his lungs (not because he was mad, but because it was the only way to be heard over ten 9-year-old boys dribbling (if that is what you want to call it) balls, yelling and laughing) about wanting them to throw the ball harder.  This is such a great line.  I’ll never forget it:  “This is 3rd grade basketball ~ we’re not playing Tiddly Winks!  Throw the ball harder!!!”  And he was serious!  How the heck did he say that without cracking up?

Pat’s co-coach, Doug, is a quieter man…very task oriented…I see him more often than not as a ‘safety sweep’ of sorts. He has to ride herd, really. For, in addition to teaching and coaching, it often falls to his lot to corral the stragglers on the court back to the task at hand.  I swear I see cats every time he does this.  They are herding the proverbial cats.  I think he might actually benefit from getting a couple of herd dogs.  Maybe some sheep dogs or collies or something.

Anyways, Doug, God Bless him, well, I’ve seen him cover his face with his hands more than half a dozen times during a practice.  I often wonder if he goes home and has nightmares about 9 year olds over-running him.

My daughter’s coach, Tracy…she is the embodiment of patience.  She voluntarily tries to make 10, ten-year-old girls grasp some semblance of an athletic mentality.

These are girls who are in the throes of prepubescence.

These are girls who are very, very concerned about whether or not their socks match to their hairbows.

Or if they have a zit showing.

Or if they remembered to take their favorite earrings out.

And they love to talk during practice.  Loudly and to anyone who might be in earshot.  Not necessarily about basketball mind you, but about anything that might pass through their frighteningly hormonal minds at any given moment.

And through all of this, Tracy doggedly strives to teach them the skills and strategies of Basketball.

Why?  Why do these people sign up for this torture?  Why subject themselves to the hoarse throats and headaches and exasperation during their resting, free hours?  What drives them?

Are they trying to make up for past sins?

Are they paying back some awful Karma that befell them?

Did they lose a bet or something?

Tonight, my son’s coaches were attempting to get the boys to pass the ball …. pass. the. ball. …. when they get close to the basket, instead of just willy-nilly hurling the ball somewhere in the vicinity of the hoop.  Over and over again they worked on a play wherein they had to pass the ball before attempting to shoot a basket.  They all did this over and over. and over.

and over….

like, repetitively….

again and again….

Except, of course, for my son.  He’s on a team of one, you see.  Team Critter.  He sees the ball, and sees the glory, and that’s all he sees.  He’s kind of good at it.  Not fantastic, but, he’s got potential.  This is actually not helpful, because it takes a fair degree of humility to be a good team player.  That’s a concept he has not yet mastered.

So at one point during this drill, Critter has the ball and is making his way towards the basket and I’m yelling, “PASS THE BALL!!” and the coach is yelling “PASS THE BALL!!”, and My Captain is yelling “PASS THE BALL!!”.  And what does Critter do?  He shoots the ball to the basket like he’s not supposed to.  And from ridiculously far away, too…he was just inside the three-point line. Impossible.  Ridiculous to shoot from there especially at his skill level and at his age!

But damn if that ball didn’t swoosh through that basket.

My Captain, laughing, yells out to Coach Doug, “Now HOW are you going to discourage that, Coach?”

And Doug’s face was in his hands….

Again.

Yesterday was a real hum-dinger.

I worked my butt off to make a memorable Valentines Breakfast for my family.  I dipped big, juicy, luscious red strawberries in chocolate.

I served petit fours with little icing hearts piped onto them, with bowls of red cherries, and red raspberries.

I made Sausage Gravy and Biscuits – From Scratch.  ( Oh BABY )

I decorated the kid’s placemats with baskets of Valentines goodies ranging from I LOVE YOU cards to chocolate heart boxes.  Troy’s place had a sweet mushy loving card and some freshly brewed coffee just the way he likes it….blacker than black. We had sparkling apple/cranberry juice served in a wine bottle. And, as tradition, I put the old valentine’s crafts the kids made when they were 3 years old on the table as centerpieces.  All of these things were lovingly set on the old valentine’s tablecloth I’ve used for 10 years.  You know the one we all have with obnoxious, multicolored hearts all over it.  Fabulous!

It was a lot of work…WHEW… but it was worth it because I want them all to feel special on this day.  Loved on this day.  Like they matter on this day (and every day!).  I knew to forget this day would be crushing!  After all, no one wants to be taken for granted or feel unloved or unappreciated!  I would show them how much they were all loved and appreciated!

But, I had a hell of a time getting anyone out of bed.

And they all bitched and moaned and took their time getting to the table.

And they were all half asleep to notice all the work (and love!) that had gone into the breakfast table.

And not one of them had put anything for me on my place.  No card.  No handmade cut out heart.  No nothing.  Nada.  Zip.

Look, I’m not looking for anything fancy, but even a hastily scrawled note on the back of an envelope would have been better than nothing.  Hell, I would have been happy if someone had just poured me a cup of coffee.

***sigh*** “Oh well,” I told myself,  “It’s about giving, not receiving, right?” Attitude is everything, right?

But wait, it got worse.

My son and my husband got into a pissing match about whether or not my son could open up his valentine’s candy before eating his sausage gravy and biscuit.

Which caused my daughter to leave the table in tears.

And then I left the table, exasperated, with a passing snarl to my husband and son and an unhappy cloud forming over my head.

After I got the kids on the bus, I went straight to my mother’s house to bring her a little Valentine’s breakfast.  After all, I wanted her to know how loved she is, too, right?  Well, she was still in bed, apparently nursing a cold.  I popped into her room, bearing Breakfast Burritos and Valentine Cheer on my face and her only words to me were, “Put it on the counter, I’ll get it later.”  ***Sigh***  She was sick, so I gave her a pass.

But I left with an even bigger, darker cloud over my head.

I came home and wanted to kick the dog.  But since we don’t have a dog, I yelled at My Captain instead.  All of my attempts for displays of  love had been thwarted, no one was cooperating, and I was pissed!  And dammit, why couldn’t my son have his Valentine’s candy for breakfast?!  It’s not like I put it out there on the table to torment him!  Snarl! Bark! Growl! Gnashing of teeth!

Oddly enough, the rest of the morning didn’t go any better.

My doctor’s office called to ask where the hell I was. Oh YEAH,…I had a check up.  So I hightailed it to Poolesville as fast as I could.  I hate hate hate being late for things like that. (Not that it doesn’t happen with regularity, but I still hate it.)

Cloud.  Over.  Head.  Ominously. Dark.

Then – duh duh duuuuuuhhhh! (that’s my trumpet call) –  a break in the growing gloom! I got to help at my kid’s elementary school with a valentine’s party! A bunch of fourth and fifth graders screaming and laughing and eating sugar can do wonders for a mood.  And I was right in there with them, baby!  In the thick of it.  In my element.  (Apparently mass hysteria, mayhem, and chaos are my element.)

I was refreshed when I got back home from the fun and sugar, and was determined to salvage the rest of the day.  I took a much-needed, attitude-adjusting 30 minute nap, and then set to work making a Valentine’s dinner to remember.

Homemade Welsh Rarebit over pumpernickel Texas Toast and Eggs as a main entrée, with Black Bean and Corn salad (dressed in homemade raspberry balsamic vinaigrette) on the side.  And, of course I had more chilled, sparkling Juice from a wine bottle to wash it all down.  I lit a romantic red candle, had soft music playing, and had flowers on the table.

And my daughter was the only one who willingly came to the table.  (She loves food, you see, like her mama, so it was relatively simple to get her to join me.)

My son hated the meal.  Wanted to get back to his Coloring.  Acted like I was trying to poison him.

My husband didn’t even join us for dinner. He went to his friend Rob’s house for much-needed man time, making a new Kegerator, and drinking homebrew.  For some reason men get uncomfortable on Valentine’s Day.  Especially the Manly Men who’ve been yelled at by their wives that morning. They’re weird that way.

So the day was nearly over, and still there were no paper hearts or even a card or anything for mama.  Nothing to acknowledge her.

The Dark Ominous Cloud Rumbled.

I tried to tell myself that I’ve gotten to the age where I’m not supposed to need visible signs of appreciation or affection like I did as a kid.  But I wasn’t buying it.  I can’t talk myself out of a bad mood; I can’t fool myself, you see, because I already know I’m full of crap.  That’s the way my subconscious works.  I try to give myself a peptalk, and then I blow that peptalk away with sarcastic, pessimistic, cynicism.  And the voice that does that is the same one that tells me I’m fat, my hair is gray, and everyone in the world can see those big black hairs growing out of my chin.  And it sounds a lot like Rodney Dangerfield, for some reason.

I know, I know,  Jung, Freud, and Nietzsche would have loved me.

The awful reality is that even at the ripe old age of 44, when a person doesn’t get affirmation, especially on the day when it seems like everyone else in society is affirming their loved ones, it feels awfully lonely.  I couldn’t wait to write off Valentine’s Day 2012.  (insert Pathetic Mumble.  Whine.  Whimper.  and small, teary, self-pitying sniff.)

And then it happened.

As I do most every night, I took turns laying down with each one of my kids to end the day with a warm snuggle.  I cuddled next to my daughter, listening to the clock tick in the quiet dark, silently wishing the day to hell, when she reached over, gently patted my cheek, and whispered, “Mommy, Happy Valentine’s Day.  I really really love you so much. Thank You.”

And all was right with the world again.  The nasty ominous cloud disappeared on the breath of a child’s whispered ‘Thank You’.

Mommies don’t need much, but we do need something on Valentine’s Day.  And my Varmint gave it to me, right when I’d given up hope that anyone in my family would.

*** A Post Script ***  My Captain DID show me he had plenty of Valentine’s love for me later, by not killing me for writing this story and posting it for all to see.  If that isn’t love, I don’t know what is.  He’s a great guy. And no, he’s not standing over me as I type this.

Happy Valentine’s Day, Dear Friends!

I appreciate you for taking the time out of your busy days to read my drivel!  I hope it brightens your days!

Love,

Mama Boe