Archives for March 2006

What’s a “charger”?

This is sort of how my end of the conversation went the other day as me and the many Martha Stewarts of my congregation were setting up for the women’s Relief Society dinner.

The previous Sunday:
They ask me to bring 8 place settings and a centerpiece, all focused on a Christmas theme. It would be sort of a birthday party and I would be setting the table for the people with December birthdays.

No prob. They want 8 plates and 8 sets of silverware. Done. I have 4 Christmas plates and at least 4 almost non-clashing Corel plates I can bring.

We have the most brilliant silverware Target has to offer. It is thick, sturdy and shiny. It is 100% genuine STAINLESS steel, not your cheap-o dollar store cutlery.

For the centerpiece, I deftly plan to bring whatever cute things are near the top of the first box of Christmas decorations I can find, along with the glow-in-the-dark ice cubes I snagged at last year’s post-Christmas grab-and-run sale.

A couple of days later, I get a call from one of the sweetest ladies I know, one of the event organizers. This is a lady you want to be like when you grow up. She always looks perfect. She is always kind to others and yet maintains a sense of humor and down-to-earthedness. Our conversation goes like this:

Me: Yeah. I’m pretty much ready.
Her: Have you got Christmas dishes?
Me: Yep.
Her: Great. Did they tell you we wanted salad plates now?
Me: No, but I have some plain white Corel plates I can bring.
Her: Okay. Wonderful. You know about the soup bowls, right?
Me: Okay.
Her: Alright. Oh, and goblets. Just bring 8 goblets too.
Me: Yes, goblets. (I know Target carries goblets. We can do goblets.)
Her: So what are you doing for the centerpiece? Do you have a poinsettia?
Me: No. I’ll figure something out.
Her: I know a couple of people with beautiful poinsettias you could use. Do you want their numbers?
Me: Nope. I can handle it.
Her: Okay. Great. How about Christmas napkins?
Me: I’m not sure I can find any this time of year.
Her: I’ve got some you can use. Do you want to use my napkin rings or do you have Christmas napkin rings you’d be more comfortable with?
Me: Thanks. I’d love to use yours. (Christmas NAPKIN RINGS? ACK!)
Her: Okay.

Sweet. The thing is, the majority of my friends are these amazingly put-together Martha Stewart center-piecing table-running people. When I agreed to set the table, I thought of my skills at…well…setting the table. I’ve been doing that since I was 3 and was given no end of positive feedback from my mom.

I guess I forgot what the table looked like at the little birthday luncheon my friends threw me last year with our two-year-olds present….

Aaanyway….when I arrive at the building to set up, I walk into something that looks like Simon What’s-His-Bucket-Fabulouso-British-Guy-From-Oprah has been there in a BIG WAY. The tables are outrageously gorgeous. Fine china everywhere.

Some of the goblets are gold and silver rimmed crystal (I’m guessing a bit pricier than the 8 for $10 version I brought fresh from the Tar-zhay). I even saw some gold silverware. Here I show my naiveté about things dish-related. If the silverware looks gold, what is it really made of? It’s not gold, is it?

I nervously make my way to the “December” table at the back and hope no one notices as I pull the mismatched dishes out of my cardboard box. I attempt to shine my “silver” on a stray napkin, realizing that it is amazingly beat up after serving 4 years of hard time in an unforgiving dishwasher.

It’s one of those moments where I remember vividly being in Junior High and showing up at school in Levi orange tabs, only to be viciously mocked. If they’re not red-tabs, you’re obviously a LOSER!

The difference between that world and this one is that instead of pointing and laughing, my new friends rip the red tabs off their own jeans and rush to sew them on mine.

In no time, I’m offered a full set of Christmas china (which I end up declining, going for the “cute mismatched on purpose” look), the napkins and decorative rings, some beautiful holiday candles and finally a set of chargers.

Her: You know what? It would add just such a nice touch of color if I lent you my red chargers to go with your place settings.
Me: Chargers? (I am being offered something for my pathetic table by the most well-dressed woman in the world, who touches anything and turns it into a fairytale castle of crystal bliss. I have no IDEA what a “charger” is, but it must be good if she’s offering it, right?) That would be great. I love chargers. I’d love to use YOUR chargers.

It turns out that chargers are like huge decorative plates that you put under the real plates to look cool. They are not used for eating. Who knew? Well, all these ladies knew and you probably did too, but just zip it, okay?

Now for some other words I had heard or read in books, but was too lazy to look up for WAY TOO LONG, but sort of got the idea from context:

Espadrilles — Nancy Drew slipped on a pair of subtle pink espadrilles and headed out to chase down the thief who had stolen Ned Nickerson’s car.

Chignon — She pulled her hair up into a messy chignon and searched for the perfect pair of ear-blings for her date that night.

Cicadas — As they danced on the boardwalk, under a flickering streetlight, the screeching of the cicadas reminded her that there were many things in life more annoying than sand between your toes.

My big sister was my best friend from the day I was born. Legend has it that when she came to visit me in the hospital and the nurse wheeled me back to the nursery, 2-year-old Heather yelled after the woman, “Hey LADY! You take good care of my baby!” For the first months of my life, she nearly smothered me with love and then she started taking care of me herself.

She played games with me. She helped me learn to imagine.

She was Leia. I was Luke. (I was younger and had shorter hair)

She was the Princess. I was the Prince. (shorter hair excuse again)

She was Sandy. I was Danny. (yep. Shorter hair.)

She was Mary. I was Laura. (This one I liked. Mary was always the boring goody-goody who cried all the time and threatened to go tell Pa. Laura was the risk taker, the one who could kick Nelly’s trash. Laura married a guy named Manly. On the other hand, every bad thing that could possibly happen to a person happened to Mary. She even went so far as to go blind and, as if that weren’t enough, the blind school burned to the ground.)

Okay. End of tangent.

She swung higher than me. I looked to her to teach me.

I was the “brave one” but she was the one who let me sleep with her until I was 12 because I was so scared of the dark.

She was the voice of reason and I was the mischief. She was ladylike and I liked to jump out of trees to see if I could break my arm and get a cast.

She read great books and told me the stories at night because I was too lazy to read them myself. Besides, I still believe she told them better than the original writers. Eat that L.M.!

We went on a game show together, lost (darn you blue team!) and still remained friends.

She did my hair like THIS for the first day of Junior High.

We were, and still are, silly together.

Although we went through periods where we divided our shared bedroom with tape and even occasionally with a cardboard wall, when we got to college we chose to room together. We graduated at the same time because she had taken 2 years off to serve as a missionary.

She spent the summer with me in Quebec and told me I had a great French accent. She translated for me when I needed help. One thing I know – If someone shouts “Vive Quebec!” on St. Jean Baptiste Day, you’d better shout it back!

She dressed like a tween with me and went to see the Backstreet Boys in concert because, “They’re so lame that they’ll break up any minute now. THIS MAY BE OUR LAST CHANCE TO SEE THEM IN CONCERT!” She was a High School teacher at the time and me a Librarian.

When I found a new best friend and moved out of our apartment, she celebrated with me, although I know it was hard.

She cried when she held my baby for the first time, so amazed that her baby sister had made a person and so instantly filled with love for Laylee.

When Magoo was born and my world fell apart, she got on a plane.

We’re learning how to be mothers together. I guess we’ve been learning for a long time. I do hope we’re nicer to our kids than we were to my brother. 🙂

When I describe Heather to people, I always say, “She’s a lot like me, only nicer.” And it’s true. She is the truest friend, the most loyal and compassionate person. She is talented in so many ways. She works hard and she is hard on herself. She is vulnerable. But her very vulnerability and her willingness to share her insecurities makes her more likeable.

And no, she’s not dead. This is not a eulogy. I just like her. (Besides, her eulogy would talk more about how wonderful she is and less about Laura Ingalls Wilder and the Backstreet Boys.)

One of the first times I read Chris’s blog, she was talking about a horror story that unfolded when her family decided to use their hot air popper for the first time. I laughed so hard at the way she told the story, but especially at the observations she made about the descriptions on the popper’s packaging.

Recently the Daring family has made some observations that I think are worthy of note.

While reading Hush Little Alien for the eleventy bazillionth time the other night, Laylee stopped me, appalled. “No mommy. That’s NOT RIGHT! That guy has THREE ARMS!” This exclamation was followed by a face that clearly said, “This is the most ridiculous children’s story EVER conceived by a nincompoop of a writer in the history of our universe.”

She apparently has no problem with the people being green, capturing astronauts to use as play-things, melting things with laser beams, destroying highly expensive government surveillance equipment, or the existence of the FOURTH arm.

Tonight Dan noticed the label on the Bubble Solution Collection and Storage Unit for our Battery Operated Wind Generating Bubble Gun. When we originally purchased this life saving device, we had no idea that besides being a boon to us, saving hours and hours of jaw-breaking, bubble-blowing exhaustion, the device was also “portable.”

All this for only $1.99? I’m so glad Dan took the time to read the labeling correctly. Now we know that if we’re ever on the go, we can take the BSCSU for our BOWGBG with us anytime, anywhere. It will always be there, like State Farm or AAA or the whining…. It almost brings a tear.

Dan made another interesting observation regarding this milk carton and the fact that someone must have failed their 3rd grade food group test.

I know the government recently came out with a “new food pyramid.” Did they really crown eggs and butter as the new staples of dairy-dom?

This little ad is on the back of all our milk cartons. Maybe they think advertising milk on a milk carton is redundant, but what about yogurt, cheese and ice cream? Since when did they become the redheaded stepchildren of the dairy group?

To come up with a better Babytalk Magazine cover photo than this:

I submitted it to the Evening Magazine baby photo contest, which was obviously run by people who are prejudiced against eyes. How could you possibly pass on that face?

Babytalk is currently running their cover baby contest and I would be so excited if one of you won. I’ve seen several of your babies and I know that one of us can nail this thing.

Speaking of Babytalk, if anyone has or will be getting an April issue, please let me know. I let my free subscription run out, but they’re doing a piece on mommy bloggers in which Daring Young Mom may be mentioned. I got an email from a fact checker, verifying a quote they planned to use from the site.

The quote is about how I let my children eat off the floor and I’m not highly comfortable with its grammatical correctitude, but whatever. It’s sort of exciting and I’d love to see a copy if my blog makes it into the final draft and I’m not left standing like Mike Wazowski from Monster’s, Inc with the logo in front of my face.

If you could send me the article, it would save me an unneccessary appointment to the OB/GYN to gank a copy.

Magoo has learned his first sign.

You say ‘potato.’ He says ‘blagooblablah.’
You wave ‘hi’, he clicks his heels and salutes ‘heil.’
Potato, blagooglablah, hi, heil
Let’s call the whole thing off.

Catchy, isn’t it?

To give him the benefit of the Nazi doubt, his stiff outstretched arm of greeting could pass for some sort of Vulcan Spockish thing if he could learn to get the fingers right. He also doesn’t have a mustache, a love of marching, the ability to sprechen sie anything, or have totally crazy hair.

He has started to grow the equivalent of old man eyebrows all over his head. You know the inch-long curly hairs that look like you could just brush them away but they’re actually growing out of his head, like a Chia Pet where a few of the holes have been doused with fertilizer?

He also wears gingerbread pajamas in the middle of March and pink bibs. What can I say? This kid’s no slave to fashion.

We are not necessarily talking about organization today, although a good organizational strategy will definitely help with this. Today we’re talking about the little things that make working in your kitchen easier, things like sending your kids over to the neighbors’ or buying that new disposable kitchen wrap that comes in the exact shape of your kitchen, throwing it over every surface, cooking to your heart’s content with the disposable dishes and utensils it puts out in place of your real utensils, and then balling the whole thing up and throwing it out when you’re done.

Seriously, are we not going a little crazy with the disposable cleaning products, disposable liners for EVERYTHING, disposable finger-cover tooth brushes? Pretty soon your whole house will be disposable. So your kid runs into the wall with her skateboard? Crumple the whole place up and head to Costco for more disposable house in a box covers.

Okay. Wooh! Now for some tips.

1. Fill the sink with warm soapy water before you cook and throw the dirty utensils in as you go.

2. Put ALL ingredients into containers with large enough openings for the largest measuring implement you will be using to fit in. Example — What’s the deal with salt? Everyone should have a small canister of salt, with an opening big enough to fit a tablespoon.

3. Get everything out before you start to cook. This way, you’ll know if you’re out of eggs before the recipe says, “add 2 eggs immediately and begin stirring constantly.”

Those seem really obvious when written down.

Obvious or not, I want to hear your tips. I’m sure you have great skeelz I’ve never thought of.

Who made the comment as “Dr John Gottman” on the marriage post? You must show yourself. This is driving me slightly mental. I’m pretty sure that it was made by one of my hilarious, wisecracking readers, possibly my brother.

On the other hand, I don’t know Dr Gottman but I know people who know him and in my mind there remains about 0.00005% doubt that someone forwarded my little “review” to him and he decided to have a little fun with me. He’s probably bored, now that all the scientific research has been done.

Reveal your identity please. It’s just one more woodpecker in the back of my mind, slowly chipping away at my sanity.

Also, I must ask. Did anyone see the beginning of the West Wing last night? We missed taping the first 10 minutes. Something apparently happened with Josh and Donna at the very beginning before the credits. Did they finally have a little smooch? A knowing look? What’s the deal-yo?

Just so you know….I’m currently losing my mind, in a house of baby diarrhea and refusal to drink liquids. Who sent my kids the memo that the drinking of all liquids is a form of torture and why was I not sent a copy of the memo first so I could proofread it and possibly light it on fire?

Since today is Sunday, a day of rest, I thought I’d dazzle you all with my amazing meme-o-licious, fill-in-the-blank writing skills.

I’ve been tagged by Sarah from Mothering on the Edge, who apparently thinks I’m worthy of inviting over to play. I hope my kids never stop saying, “going over to play” and never start saying “going over to hang out.”

Kitchen Day
1. How many meals does most of your family eat at home each week? How many are in your family?
We eat out about twice per month. DYD eats out for lunch every day because he just can’t get enough of that MegaCorp tomato soup. How many are “in” my family? Well, if we eat them, then I’d say they were ALL “in” my family…

2. How many cookbooks do you own?
Over 30. There are maybe 12 that I use on a regular basis.

3. How often do you refer to a cookbook each week?
What do you mean “refer”? I look at them a lot. They are pretty. They have pictures of yummy, nutritious and beautiful food. To make something, maybe 4 times per week.

4. Do you collect recipes from other sources? If so, what are some of your favorite sources (relatives, friends, magazines, advertisements, packages, the internet, etc)
Um…all of those things…and my fellow mammary-gland proprietors. I have become quite good at making an exotic milk dish that Magoo finds scrum-diddly-umptious.

5. How do you store those recipes?
I freeze them cryogenically so that in the year 2098, when all recipes have become extinct, I will still be able to wow my homies with pork-rind chili bean casserole.

Seriously, I put untried recipes in a folder to be tested. Once I’ve tried them and decided they’re a keeper, I type them up in a 5×7 format, print them off on cardstock and put them in a recipe box for everyday use. The electronic copy goes on my PDA so I can buy ingredients if I decide to make a recipe last minute when I’m already out and about.

6. When you cook, do you follow the recipe pretty closely, or do you use recipes primarily to give you ideas?
If you don’t follow the recipe exactly, at least the first time, “they” will come and find you. You know”—them”. And you know what “they” do. Yeah, everyone knows. So the second time around, “they” are a little more merciful. On the second time through with a recipe, I like to play around a bit.

7. Is there a particular ethnic style or flavor that predominates in your cooking? If so, what is it?
I have stated previously that I am ¼ Indian. If it weren’t so darned time consuming, I’d cook Indian food every day. As it is, my cooking is predominated by pasta because it’s easy. I suppose that makes me ½ Italian on the lazy side of my family.

8. What’s your favorite kitchen task related to meal planning and preparation?
Measuring. I like to measure things and count. Counting is fun. I especially like counting out 12 quarter-cups because my bigger measuring cups are dirty, only to have Laylee stand next to me and begin, 9, 7, 13, eleven-teen. That is the BEST.

9. What’s your least favorite part?
Grating. On my nerves, it is.

10. Do you plan menus before you shop?
Yessir.

11. What are your three favorite kitchen tools or appliances?
-KitchenAid
-electronic kitchen scale
-the atomic easy-clean kitchen button that I push as I walk out, run away fast and then NEVER look over my shoulder at the light, the blinding light, searing my eyes. Then all is spotless. That was a good investment. Don’t listen to those environmental nut-jobs. They wouldn’t know a clean kitchen if it ran smack into them in their tie-dyed bio-diesel hybrid refurbished recumbent bikes.

12. If you could buy one new thing for your kitchen, money was no object, and space not an issue, what would you most like to have?
Now that I’ve got that atomic clean-o-matic thing, there’s not much left on my wishlist. I think I’d settle for a red 7-cup DLC-2007N Cuisinart food processor, pronounced Queezenard.

13. Since money and space probably are objects, what are you most likely to buy next?
Jeans.

14. Do you have a separate freezer for storage?
My upstairs neighbors never use theirs. I know a way in. Yes, I am serious.

15. Grocery shop alone or with others?
Yes.

16. How many meatless main dish meals do you fix in a week?
Your mom. I don’t know. Stop grilling me with your endless questions. Who are you, some kitchen data research firm? Leave me alone and stop staring at my banana bread.

17. If you have a decorating theme in your kitchen, what is it? Favorite kitchen colors?
Red. I mostly use pomegranates and “meat juice.”

18. What’s the first thing you ever learned to cook, and how old were you?
I “helped” a lot when I was little. The first project I remember tackling on my own was soft cheesy pretzels, sometime in elementary school. I’ve always liked it cheesy.

19. How did you learn to cook?
Grammy. She was called “Mom” back then. Times change.

20. Tag 2 people to do this or their computers will burst into flames and your blog will be cursed with 30 days of heckling comments.
No.

Subtitle — I’m sorry but we are too immature to attend your lecture series.

Several friends and advisors have recommended the book Why Marriages Succeed or Fail by John Gottman. We’ve even been invited to attend the lecture he’s giving on his theories of marriage in Seattle later this month. He’s supposed to be a great speaker and quite an expert in the field. Besides, if so many people are recommending that we read “improve your marriage” books, maybe they all know something we don’t. Maybe the universe is conspiring to keep us together or something.

So we thought, “What the hay? Let’s save our marriage.” We decided to read the book first and then decide if we wanted to spend the $70+ it would cost to buy lecture tickets and pay a babysitter.

To start out, I should say that this book does not contain theories. Theories are contained in much less scientific books, books written by other psychologists and therapists who are relying only on their anecdotal evidence of what makes marriage last.

This is not the case with John “5 to 1” Gottman, as Dan has lovingly nicknamed him. No, John Gottman has spent 20 years researching couples scientifically to determine what makes a marriage last. He is like a surgeon or, if you will, a medical doctor. He’s sort of like a scientist or someone who conducts experiments in a laboratory. It’s like he relies on evidence scientifically rather than guess-work. He’s groundbreaking, like someone covering new territory that’s never yet been explored, like an explorer, embarking on new terrain scientifically. He is ecdotal, rather than those other people, who are anecdotal.

The preceding paragraph is a paraphrase of the first 30 pages of the book, scientifically. I have come to be a firm believer that psychology books should never be read aloud, especially by two people with warped senses of humor who analyze form neurotically.

Like most parenting, marriage, weight-loss, or other psychology or self-help books I’ve read, this one is extremely repetitively, redundant. In this case, the dude goes out of his way to the point of insanity to lay a foundation that his work is done scientifically.

WE GET THE POINT. We appreciate the point. We are comforted by the point. Dan is so convinced of the importance of the point that he begins sprinkling the reading with the word “scientifically” every few sentences. The funny part is, I can never quite tell when he has added “scientifically” or when John “5 to 1” Gottman has thrown it in to sound…well…scientific.

Moving on.

He then explains a major premise of the book. There are three types of marriages that can be successful. He explains how they work. He gives examples of how they work. The couples in the marriages work through their problems by saying things like “I see” and “hmmmm” and “but I really feel…” There are many examples given of each style of conflict resolution. You should read it yourself. We did and we are most definitely not getting divorced. We’ve decided to cleave, multiply and replenish. Thank you John.

Our favorite part of the book, the part that had us literally rolling on the floor laughing, came when he started to talk about the fact, scientifically, that marriages will only succeed if the couple maintains a ratio of 5 positive interactions for every 1 negative interaction. “5 to 1”. Okay. Got it. I am sure that this is true. I trust the scientific method that produced these findings.

But there’s more. It’s like if there were 5 good things in the marriage, there could only be one bad. To look at it from another angle, if you had 5 bad interactions with your spouse, you would need to fabricate 25 positive ones to make up for it. If you buy a bunch of grapes at the store and 10 of the grapes are rotten but only 48 are fresh, you can pretty much expect the entire bunch to self-implode in a matter of days.

Every time the guy would come up with yet another “5 to 1” analogy, we would both lose it. Tears, streaming down our faces.

We kept thinking he was done with that topic but then he’d give ANOTHER analogy. When he got to the analogy about the nutrients found in soil, scientifically in a “5 to 1” ratio, we couldn’t take it any more. Laughing so hard I could barely speak, I told Dan that it seemed to me the whole thing was kind of like worm sweat. If you have 5 particles of water in a droplet of worm sweat, you can only have one particle of salt or somebody’s gonna find that worm and run it over with their BMX. Dan fell to the floor on his face and began crying like a small child, scientifically.

Then we did some marital self tests. These are the kind of tests that use multiple negatives so by the end of reading a question, you’re not sure what “yes” actually means. They are the kind of scientific questions that you probably shouldn’t answer together, questions like:

-Is your spouse understanding and compassionate?
-Is love not important in your marriage?
-Do you think it is important for a married couple to care about each other’s feelings?
-Would it be not okay with you if your spouse did not find separate living quarters?
-Do you not think spice (spouse plural?) should not interact in any way or not throughout their marriages?

We didn’t not pass the tests and we found enough truth and were sufficiently thought-provoked that we are going to continue reading the book.

I actually think it’s a great book scientifically. We’re just too immature to attend a lecture where the dude may quote from his book, say “5 to 1”, use a double-negative or the word “scientific.” We’re like 14 year old boys with a penchant for flatulence who can’t get over the fact that their 7th grade science teacher’s name is mister McFar(t)land.

As we were kissing goodnight a couple of days ago, in a sincere attempt to incorporate what we’re learning, Dan asked, “If we kiss 5 times, can we slap each other?” Then the laughing and the snorting. We figured if we laughed 5 times, we should probably only snort once.

For show and tell today, we’re doing eyes. Mine is green. Yes, I only have one. I photoshop the other one in every time I post, lest you suspect I am from another planet. You don’t suspect, do you? Phew!

Much drama swirling in the air this week. Do you feel it? I told my grocery checker tonight that everyone I talk to is experiencing major trauma or drama or sickness in their life right now. He said he was doing okay. I thought I’d let you all know that. Dave is doing alright.

A big shout out to Grandpa Dave for being cheerful while checking out my groceries at 10:00pm.

In my personal circle, the drama seems to be subsiding.

I’ll be back up and running soon, perchance tomorrow.