The New Math

A day late, I went to the local bookstore to pick up the last in the Harry Potter series. I'm kinda of the camp that wants to see Harry cooked. Not that I don't like Potter or hope that in his imaginary world, he lives to see a ripe old age, but his doing in would be a true finality to the series. Come on, don't we all wish on some level that Rocky ate it after Rocky (the first movie)?

So anyway, my 6 year old daughter accompanied me on this mission. She wanted to get a princess coloring book but got completely sidetracked by a Klutz activity book on how to draw a cat and a My Little Pony sticker book. Tough decisions I know. Well, the cat book was about $10 and the pony book was $7 dollars. (I rounded up.) Anyway, she was using some birthday money and the frugal girl that she is, she wanted to know which one she should buy and still have the most money left over.

"The cat book is ten dollars and the pony book is seven dollars. Which one costs more?" I had seized on the learning moment.

"Well, I'll get the cat book because it costs less."

"Wait a sec, which is more, ten or seven?"

"Seven is more than ten, Mommy."

Not wanting to give her the answer, we went through counting all the way up to 10 and I asked again, "which one is less, honey, ten or seven?"

"Ten is less than seven." She was solid in her thinking by now.

"Let's think about it this way, if I were to give you just seven dollars or ten dollars, which would make you happier?"

She chewed on that one for a little while and then answered quite astutely, "I'd be happier if you gave me eleven dollars."

Turned out that she was getting confused because seven and eleven sound alike, but I thought that her answer was pretty good anyway. It was accurate to say the least.

She ended up getting the sticker book and has been pleased as punch. I have a feeling that I'll still have to look for a Barbie princess coloring book.

Back to School Shopping

This coming fall, I will be going to an RN Refresher course. After having been out of nursing for the past 10 years, I'm getting my license back. Thankfully, this state requires you take a refresher course if you've been out of practice for over 3 years. I'm glad for this opportunity because frankly, I'm terrified to go back without some kind of refresher. Things just have changed, that's all. They don't still use leeches, do they?

I have to say though, I am nervous about going back to school. I'm guessing there are a lot of people in the same boat as I am. My sweet husband has no worries about that. He says that even though I'm older, I'm still smart. Bummer though, I think that this time through, I'll have to get reading glasses.

But along with the granny reading glasses, I get to buy all new nursing stuff. Over the past couple of days, my doorstep has been receiving cool new gear. One day, 3 of my textbooks arrived. Okay, that was a bummer. I had forgotten how heavy these bastards are. I figure I can work out just by carrying my books around. "How much do you press, Tess?" "Oh, I've worked my way up from RN Drug reference book to the full Med/Surg textbook." The next day I got 2 sets of scrubs. I got some that look a little more updated, but still in that lovely ceil blue. I had never *heard* of ceil blue before shopping for nursing clothes. Lastly, I got my stethoscope.

I was excited to get my stethoscope because my last one had been stolen when I last worked. My mom had bought me a lavender Littman Classic II for Christmas. I had a tag with my name on it and everything, but it walked. So I was shopping, and while I loathe most things pink, I did buy a pink stethoscope. See, 3M was donating $5 for each of these pink stethoscopes sold for breast cancer research, and the stethoscope costs the same as all the other colors, so why not? I ended up getting it engraved with "Tess Haddon, RN" just in case.

My son was very excited to see my stethoscope and had a suggestion on its use.

"Mom, before you go use that on people, can I go listen to a tree?"

A lot of what he says to me just leaves me bewildered. And I think it will be that way for the rest of our lives together.

"No, Mom, you can hear the sap going up the tree. For real."

"What does it sound like?" I asked.

"I can't exactly describe it..."

"Does it sound like sucking on a straw?" I made a slurping sound.

"No. Just go listen to one, Mom. We did it in school."

I rolled my eyes at him. Another crazy idea. But now, after having shut him down, I'm feeling like a jerk. Turns out that it is possible to hear sap go up a tree trunk during Spring. You're supposed to pick a thin barked tree and listen very quietly. You'll be able to hear the sap going up the trunk to the branches and leaves.

I suspect that I'll be listening to our trees with my Breast Cancer Awareness Littman Classic II S.E. Stethoscope this coming Spring. I'll have my son show me how.

Baby Lizzie Borden

Cooking with a toddler in your kitchen is never easy. Yes, we have the cabinet locks on all the doors within reach. Yes, we keep the knives and cleaners high and out of reach. Yes, we have a pretend kitchen in one corner of the real kitchen so that she can "cook" just like Mommy can.

The one thing that she loves to do in the kitchen is wash her hands. I'll turn the water on a trickle and pull the stool up to the sink. The kid will play in that little bit of dripping for hours. If there are dishes or some spoons in the sink, all the better. She'll mix potions and explore how much water each container can hold, including the floor. Grins all around. The nice thing is that she's right beside me while I cook and I physically can stand between her and the stove so she can't get burned.

Last night I was cooking a dinner of pork tenderloin chops in marinara sauce served over whole wheat penne pasta. While keeping and eye on the pasta, the marinara and the pork chops, I had my back to the baby. She contented herself in the sink, which by this point in the meal preparation, was full of dirty utensils and dishes. She was having a ball. Every now and then she'd pat me on the back and I'd make a show of being amazed with how when she turned the cup of water over, the cup would suddenly be empty -- like magic! These interruptions were frequent but nice. I was concentrating on not overcooking the chops and stirring the sauce when I felt her scratching on my back.

"Just a second, " more scratching, "I just have to flip this last chop over."

And that second later I turned around to see my 22 month old baby with my chef knife in her right hand and my small utility knife in her left hand. It was like in Dungeons and Dragons where your half-human/half-elf chaotic good thief will equip a sword in her right hand and a small dagger in her left. And since the attack was from behind the target, she gets a bonus dice roll for damage. My baby had been scratching me on my back with my knives! Thankfully her XP (experience) level is so low, her agility is so low (she's got immature motor skills), and her damage penalty is so high for equipping 2 weapons at once, she did no damage. I guess I have some pretty good AC (armor class) in this cotton nursing top.

No babies or mommies were harmed, I want to assure you. I think these were in her reach simply because I was using them to prepare the food. They went back up on the shelf over the sink and out of her reach and I gave her a whisk and a spoon to substitute for the scary sharp knives. She was happy with those and I was able to pat myself on the back for remaining calm and nonchalant so as not to freak her out.

So Mom, and all the Aunties & Uncles out there, don't you freak out. We're all fine. Really. Well, mostly.

The perfect survival technique

My bald son and I were sitting on the sofa watching tv while I nursed my baby. He looked at me and asked, "Mom, have you ever drunk milk from yourself?"

I looked at him in complete bewilderment and thinking that I didn't understand the question he motioned like he was holding a breast up from his chest and sucking on it. Nice. Every parent of a 10 year old boy should experience a moment like that one.

I responded, "No."

"But Mom, it totally would be a perfect cycle. You'd make the milk and you'd drink it. I mean, you could go live in a desert."

Brilliant. I don't know how I didn't think of that first.

I think he does it just to drive me crazy

I truly wonder if all 10 year old boys are this way, or if I'm simply blessed with one like him.

Last Friday was the last day of school. To celebrate (and ensure that the kids will in fact not do any learning on this day), the elementary school has "Crazy Hair Day." I thought it would be fun to put my son's hair up in 2 dozen or so little ponytails. He looked like a porcupine.

Doing his hair offered me the very rare moment to comment to my 6 year old daughter on how she should be more like her brother. While I combed his hair and tied it up in pony tails, he cringed but didn't cry about how I was pulling his hair. He sucked it up and submitted to my ministrations. My daughter, however, would rather go to school with bed head instead of me brushing her hair. She will, in fact, pull out a hairstyle if I inadvertently pull her hair while fixing it. She did this once when I was french braiding her hair. I only had to put it in a rubber band but I pulled some hair while applying said rubber band, and that was it. Braid was out, girl was crying, mother was exasperated.

It was fun to watch my son walk out to the bus stop down the street to see the other kids. The hairstyle achieved the desired effect, and he was soaking it all up. People cooed about how cool it looked. Shoot, we woke up a full forty minutes early just to do the do.

After school, I waited for him to come home. I was excited to hear of how his friends reacted to the hairstyle and if other kids did anything crazy with their hair too. It was his last day in elementary school so I had wanted to hear if they had a fun send off.

What I was instead greeted with was a child whose head looked a lot like a soccerball. You see, he had come home and ran into my husband outside. He said, "Dad, this hairstyle hurts my scalp." My husband replied, "When you go upstairs, you can ask Mom to cut those ponytail things out." What he meant was that I'd cut the elastics out of the hair. My son, who hears about only half of anything said to him heard, "When upstairs, you can cut those ponytails." So that is what he did. He got my kitchen scissors, went to the bathroom, and proceeded to cut every little ponytail out.

When I finally did see him, I had so many emotions. You know, the usual ones.

Denial: "Oh hell no, you didn't!"
Anger: "What did you do?!?"
Blame: "What exactly did your father say to you? Did he tell you to do this?"
Bargaining: "Can you please just use your brains for once? Next time, could you please just talk to me first?"
Acceptance: "Fine, here we go again..."

So I got out the shears and shaved his head. The annoying part of it all is that he actually loves the hairstyle. He looks like his Uncle Norm which he thinks is pretty cool. He also asks if he looks like the kid from Kung Fu, which we've been talking a lot about lately. I told him he looks like a convict. But he doesn't really. I did get asked if he had lice, which was just so nice. Funny that I'd rather people know about his poor problem solving in this instance rather than even think we had a lice problem.

What I find interesting is that everybody that I tell this to laughs. I'm the only one who has yet to laugh. Really. Thankfully he is a boy. If my daughter did this, I'd need medication.

I should be a vegetarian

Last week had one of the lowest tides of the season. My friend Kiko lives right on waterfront and this being the Pacific Northwest, she has access to some pretty amazing clams -- right there in her backyard!!! Anyway, last year, after having watched an absolutely engrossing documentary about geoducks (pronounced gooey-duck, which means "dig deep" in a native language) I wanted to eat one. They showed how to butcher and sashimi these creatures. I was so curious to try one. So I asked Kiko to dig one up for me.

She showed up on my door with a large tupperware container filled with 3 clams -- one 3 inch shelled one and two 7 inch beasts. The inches refer only to their shells. The clams themselves are about 3 feet long -- each!. The little one was maybe a foot long.

A lot of people make fun of these creatures, saying they look like the horse's pecker, and honestly, when I get into the description of how to prepare these things for eating, you'll be hard pressed to believe that I really do like men and have no desire what-so-ever to go Lorena on them.

Kiko had brought the beasts to me in seawater, which allows them to spit their silt out and stay fresh and alive for when I kill them with my bare hands.

I searched frantically for a recipe or step by step instruction on how to prepare them. I found that most sites encourage you to cook them in boiling water for about 10 seconds, then quickly put them into ice water to shock them. This way the meat won't continue to cook and the clam will be killed with the heat treatment.

Consider that before I actually cooked them, I kept peeking in on them, and they all would spit at me when I opened the lid off the container. It was all very distressing. I'm used to my food being saran wrapped and served up inert. This eating stuff alive is very upsetting.

So I put my thick rubber kitchen gloves on and threw the first unlucky clam in the boiling water. And while I had prepared the sink full of icewater, I didn't think to get an implement to pluck the clam out of the boiling water, since I had used my gloved hands to put it in. I couldn't pull a Kwai Chang Kane and reach into the pot for the clam. So the 10 seconds passed while I rummaged around for some tongs and it probably got about 30 seconds in the pot before getting dunked in ice. That clam opened up, just like the websites said it would, and the disgusting process of cutting the creature out of its shell went uneventfully -- aside from the LIVE SANDCRAB inside of it. That darned sandcrab had no eyes either. My kids decided that the clam ate them off. But I digress... After removing the clam from the shell, you sever the siphon (long penis like structure which is more like the clam's nose than the clams schlong) from the body. I didn't want to put it on my cutting board at first because after it was out of the shell, I couldn't keep the clam together. Bits were falling off everywhere and there just was no integrity to the thing. There was the scary gelatinous straw looking structure that gave me the heebies. What IS that? Anyway, I held the siphon in my left hand and with my right hand tried to cut the siphon with a knife while suspended over the sink. This does not work people. Just so you know, it simply doesn't work. I had to opt for the cutting board, but I used the plastic one that can be sterilized in the dishwasher. After doing that, the clam's siphon needs to have the outer skin peeled off. One website said that it would come off like one would remove a condom. As if the phallic feel of the creature wasn't enough, I had to envision removing its condom! This is only like removing a condom if before you applied the condom to the penis, you used Liquid Nails construction adhesive instead of KY jelly. I had to skin it with a knife all the way up, and towards the tip of it, I had to cut off the end 3 inches or so. There were mussels, sea anemone and seaweed stuck to it and I just didn't have the heart to even try to scrape that off. With one scary clam done, I reached for the second with my knife and inserted it into the shell, at which point the clam shut tight, proving that it was still alive, and I screamed and ran for the arms of my husband, who said he would not enter the kitchen while I was performing these heinous culinary rites. It occurred to me later that I had simply not cooked it as long as the previous one. I already had tongs in hand when I put in the second clam. So it stayed only the 10 seconds and it simply wasn't long enough. Lesson learned. Plus, it was a bit larger than the first clam. So I boiled up some water, stuck that one in for at least another 20 seconds, then back into the ice water. Still the shell hadn't opened so I stuck it in the fridge and hoped that courage would return when I came back.

When all was said and done, I had about 2 cups of diced lovely clam meat. I did try some sashimi and it was heavenly. It tasted like a seabreeze. It was firm but not chewy. It was really beautiful white translucent flesh. The rest I chopped up and made a pasta with some shallots, herbs, and a white wine reduction. It was really quite good and I enjoyed it but I swore that I would never EVER butcher one of those clams again.

If I had to kill all the kinds of food that I eat, I would be eating beans and rice exclusively.

I have no idea if anyone will be interested in even reading this, but I figure that there is a market out there for our Island Haddon Yearly(ies). After printing out and then neglecting to send out our newsletter last year, here is a catch up post.