Role Model


Well, November is here, and as usual it has brought out my melancholy side.  I miss my mom with sharper focus in November, the month of both her birth and her death. But this November in particular, I've been thinking a lot about my fabulous mother-in-law, whose birthday was also in November. I wish you could have known her as well as I did.



She was an excellent grandmother, a breast cancer survivor, a fiercely independent widowed single woman, a terrific friend, the best mother-in-law, and an adventurous soul who was up for anything.



She tap danced. She swam. She shepherded tourists around the Smithsonian as a docent at the National Postal Museum. She read The Washington Post from front to back every single day. She hated to drive, but had the Washington, D.C. bus and subway schedules memorized; she used them as she attended theater productions and baseball games and art exhibits throughout the city. She looked forward to and excelled at the competitive sport of bargain-hunting.



More than this, after her retirement from the U.S. Foreign Service and a career during which she and her husband raised three children -- while stationed in places like Cambodia, Libya, Bangladesh -- she traveled the world all over again. She took cruises throughout Europe, Northern Africa, and Canada. She rode a zip line over the Costa Rican rain forest. She went on a safari in Tanzania -- sleeping in the most glamorous tents I've ever seen. 



And then she was diagnosed with a brain tumor, almost two years ago. She was told she had a "glioblastoma multiforme." Your Google search will give you all the bad news about this kind of tumor. And you've probably been hearing about this particularly shitty brand of cancer in the news recently. 

I want to say so many things. But mostly:



First -- my religion (which was my mother-in-law's  religion too) teaches me that God's ways are not our ways. This is sometimes (but not always) comforting when I consider the ways cancer attacks us. I watched it take control of my own mother, and then of my dear mother-in-law. And to tell you the truth, both times it took control of my life, too. 




But second, this sucky disease gave me a great and good gift, too. My beloved mother-in-law's illness allowed me to take care of her. It allowed me to be with her at her most vulnerable, and it let me take the most intimate care of her. Ultimately, this brave woman let me and her other children be with her as she approached that ultimate journey -- her greatest adventure yet! It's funny -- nineteen years ago, when my own mother went through a similar ordeal with similar grace, my friend Susan said to me, "her suffering is a gift." Which totally pissed me off. Who would want this kind of present?! It certainly has never been on my Christmas wish list. But she was right (as she usually is). I am grateful that I was able to love them in this particular way, in addition to all the other kinds of love I had and have for both of them.




This is a thing I've come to embrace partly because of my religious beliefs -- but I think that my non-religious friends might have experienced a similar gift. I consider myself devout, but I don't think this thankfulness really has to do entirely with faith. It also has to do with our deepest connections to those we love. And, while I have the deepest sympathy for those who think that this is not a death they should have to experience, I look to both of my cherished mothers as my examples and role models. There are many ways to die with dignity.



Finally, as is often my way, I would recommend a book -- for anyone whose family has gone through something like this, or is in the middle of it right now. Shrinkage, by Bryan Bishop, is a wonderful memoir of his (so far) successful battle against an inoperable brain tumor. I first learned of his story through his fiercely wonderful wife's blog, and have cheered him on ever since. He writes with honesty, grit, and humor, and anyone fighting cancer will find inspiration and hope in his story.

Letters to Santa



A few weeks ago the sunny girl and I took a day trip (a l-o-n-g day trip) to New York City.  We took along her best friend, Teeny Tiny Taylor, and the three of us had a great day.  We saw a fabulous Broadway musical that none of us knew anything about -- The Mystery of Edwin Drood (in which Chita Rivera is still gettin' it done!).  Now it's one of our new favorite shows!


We ate lunch at an empanada stand -- spicy chicken for me, and gooey cheese for the two vegetarians -- plus a shockingly tasty cranberry apple empanada for dessert.


The hipsters rode the Ferris Wheel at Toys R Us, and were drawn like moths to the mesmerizing flame of the Disney Store. We went to the Discovery museum, where we saw a very cool exhibit of sets, props, and costumes from all eight Harry Potter movies  And:  Robert Pattinson?  Short.  Rupert Grint?  Not quite as short, but still.  Daniel Radcliffe?  Short, short, short.  Emma Watson? About the size of a miniature pixie.


And of course we hit Macy's. We strolled around the block outside the store first, looking at the pretty, pretty window displays.  Then we went inside and traveled  all the way up to the ninth floor.  Our mission was to ride the wooden escalators, and to find the Christmas shop!


As we made our way up and up and up, we discovered this letter writing station and made a stop, because Macy's is doing a cool thing:  Every time you mail a letter to Santa inside a Macy's store, the company will donate one dollar to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.


The urchins were all over that!

But listen to this tragic tale:  Teeny Tiny Taylor has never seen Miracle on 34th Street, so she didn't understand the special relationship Macy's has had for so long with Santa and with making sure his letters get to him.  How could this have happened in America?!  I can only tell you -- the sunny girl assigned the movie as homework!

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Our Advent calendar reveals this fun book behind today's door.  Inside are actual letters that can be opened and read, as the Jolly Postman tells about all the different storybook characters who have written letters to Santa.  Kids will also enjoy the games and puzzles that are part of the story. 

Flour, yeast, sugar, cinnamon, . . .dental floss?



So after the fact, I can tell you that the sunny girl and I sure did enjoy our bread baking adventure with the Girl Scouts.  And I can also tell you that you don't need to offer me any tasty rolls or slices of delicious pumpernickel bread.  I'm good.


The fabulous Girl Scouts embarked on their bread baking saga as the culmination of a "Journey," which is what the Girl Scouts call a merit badge.  Except it's not really a merit badge because the requirements are different, and the way you prove you've met the requirement is different, and the Girl Scouts keep changing the requirements, and keep changing the name of the stinking thing (it used to be called an "Interest Project," for example), and I really wish the Girl Scouts would stop being so defensive about not being Boy Scouts and just call the thing a merit badge, for God's sake.

But whatever.


The task at hand was this: each girl needed to bake two loaves of quick bread (the sunny girl made pumpkin bread and banana bread) and a loaf of traditional yeast bread.  The breads would all be donated to community groups in the area.


We make quick breads all the time at our house, so the sunny girl cranked this part of her day out pretty quickly (heh!).  But while she has watched her dad make yeast bread, she had never done it before -- so when her bread started to rise, she was delighted -- and a little startled. (Here, the Bat Mitzvah girl and her mom are kneading dough for a yeast bread.)



Actually, most of these girls were new to the baking process (we are raising a generation of slice and bake aficionados . . .), so throughout the day the girls would check on their dough, and we would hear squeals of surprise as they saw how big it had gotten.


The only frustration -- and these girls handled it pretty gracefully -- was that the kitchen we were using was not made for nine girls and their mothers to be using it at the same time.  As you may know, bread baking requires counter space to mix and knead, and then space in a warm spot to let your dough rise, not to mention oven space.  The timing of all of this requires some precision as well -- it was sad for some girls when their lovely loaves rose, only to fall again before they were able to pop them in the oven.  One more lesson about the baking process.


 The girls figured out how to work in shifts, and had meal responsibilities as well as dish duty to contend with, too.  When we were finally all done with all of our loaves (we started at 10:00 in the morning, and the last loaves came out of the oven at 9:45 that night), one of the rockin' mommies remarked to me, "I will never eat another slice of bread without really appreciating how much freaking effort went into making it!"


And here is a swell story in pictures -- a microcosm of our day:  Victoria and Tia Sally had never baked yeast bread before, but they bravely chose to make cinnamon rolls.  Check it out!


I missed seeing them roll out their dough and spread it with butter, sugar, and cinnamon.  Then they rolled it up into a log.  At this point Victoria was a little confused.  "How are we going to get rolls out of this hunk of dough?"  Silly Victoria!  Haven't you ever walked by Cinnabon in the mall?



Their list of ingredients included dental floss, which made all of us say, "What the heck?"  But we all (including Victoria and Sally) had a delighted aha! moment when we watched Victoria slice through the dough with the floss (you can see her hands in the background of this picture).




It's so cool -- the dental floss really did make a nice clean slice.  My Contractor noted that the technique is just like garrotting someone.  She reads a lot of murder mysteries.



The rolls looked beautiful  as Sally put them near the stove to rise.


But holy cow!  They really, really rose!  Victoria and Sally decided to divide them into two trays.



Fresh out of the oven . . .


 
. . . and here they are packaged for some lucky senior citizen.  How cool is that?!

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This little rhyming book, Who Is Coming to Our House?, is a sweetly illustrated story of the animals' preparations for the guest who will soon arrive.  Mary and Joseph are on their way, and will soon need a place to sleep.  All the animals hurry to tidy their home for their special guests.

Yes. There will be s'mores.


Well. so my sunny girl and I are off today on a Girl Scouting adventure. We are gathering with our sisters in Scouting to bake bread, and eat really tasty food, and act like goofballs, and eat some more really tasty food, and laugh a lot.  And I think there will be some more tasty food in there somewhere.

We are "camping" but not really, since we are staying in what the Girl Scouts call a lodge, and I call a building with all of the amenities except actual beds so everybody gets to sleep on the floor!  Yay!  And we are thrilled about sleeping on the floor because we are fifty years old and have a sprained ass.  Yay!

Pray for me.
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In other news, today we will begin our third annual Book Lovers' Advent Calendar.  This year, I shall roam the bookstores and catalogs to bring you the latest fabulous Christmas-y stories for youngsters and oldsters.  Knowing me, I suspect that I will also remind you of a forgotten story or two, as well.


Today I share with you a book that made me so happy as I read it.  A Bad Kitty Christmas made me laugh out loud, right there in the aisle at Target.  "T'was the night before Christmas, and all through the city / not a creature was stirring, except for Bad Kitty."  So stinkin' cute!  Bad Kitty learns that things are not what Christmas is about -- and a family gains a friend in the bargain.

Bring it, Sandy!


The sunny girl and I hit our local grocery store one last time before we began to seriously hunker down and wait out Hurricane Sandy.  We were already bored and stir-crazy, and felt the need to buy those last minute emergency supplies that would help ensure that we will make it through the storm unscathed -- staples like brownie mix, potato chips, and wine.

We did notice that our fellow citizens had emptied certain key shelves . . . .


While the store still had water in gallon jugs, there is no more individually bottled water to be had.


Do you need AA batteries?  You're in luck!  Also available:  AAA, 9V,  and C batteries.  But if your flashlights and lanterns take D batteries, you are so screwed.


And as it turns out, you are also screwed if you need tortilla chips.  Apparently nachos, and chips with salsa, are necessities for sheltering in place.  Good thing the sunny girl and I snagged the very last bag of Tostitos Scoops in the store.

Because that would have been a catastrophe.