Livingston, I Presume

Raw

I'm pretty sure that I would not be able to read Sophie's Choice if I picked it up right now.

I started thinking about it last night when Yellowstone Public Radio broadcast a new opera based on the William Styron novel. (If you haven't read it or seen the movie, I don't think it will be too big a spoiler to tell you that the story involves children and Auschwitz, and God knows that never ends well.) I remember reading it when I was 14 or 15, the age at which bearing children was more a threat to keep horny teenagers out of backseats than it was any kind of reality that could someday happen. Even so, the novel left an impression on me, and as I often re-read books throughout the years to get a different perspective, I imagined that I would someday pick up Sophie's Choice again. Truthfully, I don't think I could handle it.

It was at about the same age--14 or 15--that I can remember being flabbergasted to see my mother crying while we were watching TV. One of the kids on one of those eighties family sitcoms was going off to college. I could not for the life of me figure out why some fictional kid going off to a fictional college could upset her, especially since I was three years away from doing the same thing. (But to a real college. Fictional colleges don't give good scholarships.)

I get it now, Mom. I get it all. Once you have kids, there are no more "fictional" children. When you see a tragedy--or even a "joyful" event, like a new life phase--involving a child in a book, a TV show or movie, a blog post, a newspaper story, an obituary...it's not theoretical. It's right in your gut and it could be your child. Dear God, it could be my child. And then you want to go throw up.

Just a few weeks after we had Connery in Prague, we started watching Six Feet Under. In one of the last episodes of the first season, a three-week-old baby dies of SIDS. I can still see the way they filmed it, as if from the point of view of the baby, and it still makes me want to hurl. I don't think that either Chip or I slept the night after we saw it. Probably Connery didn't sleep a wink, either, since we spent the whole night running in and out of his room, checking his breathing. I remember thinking, then, "How on earth am I ever going to survive motherhood? How do people live while being so fucking afraid all the time?"

I'm still trying to figure that out.

Of course I'm not that keyed up all the time; it's not always that raw. The absolute terror portion of things does lessen as children get older and life gets routine and you finally fall over from the utter exhaustion of the terror. But it doesn't take much to trip the fear or, more often now, the twinned wonder and sadness of watching them get bigger and more independent. You can hastily switch off Grey's Anatomy any time you see a wide-eyed child, but that doesn't mean you won't get blind-sided by something unexpected.

True story: On Saturday we were eating at Buffalo Wild Wings, and I looked over at Connery, who happened to be wearing a Burger-King-crown-style hat with little cardboard buffaloes on the side, and I felt tears pricking my eyes. The hat was pushing his hair down on his forehead and his eyes were so blue next to the yellow hat and all I could think was, "He is so not going to be willing to wear one of those for very much longer."

There are days when parenting seems to go on forever. When Emerson won't nap or Connery won't listen or you put your foot down on a Lego and it hits right in the middle of your arch. And then there are days when your baby wrinkles her nose at you and you realize that her mannerisms will be completely different by this time next month. Or when you just get totally pwned by your firstborn in a hat celebrating spicy chicken parts. It's sometimes hard to know which is more painful.

Updated blogroll

In a little housekeeping, I've taken some moribund blogs off the roll and put some on that I should have added a long time ago. The new links are, in alphabetical order:

The Blythe Spirit: Written by a native Montanan who moved to Germany and recently moved back to the United States, The Blythe Spirit has a little of everything and a lot of cute pictures of her young son.

Making this Home: Written by a native Montanan who moved to Germany (sensing a theme here?) and bought a teeny tiny apartment that she and her Euro husband are renovating, Making This Home offers "creative inspiration for an eco-savvy and simple home".

Molly Severtson: A native Montanan who has not moved to Germany at any time I'm aware of, Molly is very creative and has a beautiful and well-written blog. Molly and I worked together in Residence Life at UM and used to live across the hall from each other in mirroring, "cozy" (read: teeny tiny) apartments in Turner Hall. Credit Facebook for getting us back in touch after years and years.

The F-Word.org: To my knowledge, Rachel is not a native Montanan and may never have even visited. She has, however, put together an excellent blog and resource for anyone interested in eating disorders, fat politics, or just plain interesting writing on an important topic. And she has awesome hair.

Enjoy!

Favorite Recipe Friday: "Muffin Virgin" edition

(That title really ought to ramp up my search results. But probably not in the way I would like.)

This choice is inspired by real-life friend and fellow blogger Sher, who wrote me a quick email this morning entitled "muffin virgin needs you". If that's not the best email subject ever, I don't know what is. She was asking about a muffin recipe that I included in a little friends-and-family cookbook we prepared a couple of years ago. Being a Scot, she had never prepared muffins before, so she had some questions. I called her and we ironed out the details, and that got me thinking about the recipe for Refrigerator Bran Muffins.

The basic recipe is taken from a great column that used to run in the Prague Post. You can make these muffins in the time it takes to shower and shave, and you can keep the batter in your fridge for up to a month. I usually add flax seeds, oat bran, and fruit and reduce the amount of sugar in my mix, but feel free to develop your own customizations. The (cooked) muffins can be made at once and frozen or baked a few at a time for a fresh, hot breakfast.

Refrigerator Bran Muffins

(Makes 18-24 muffins)

1/2 box (250 grams or approx. 9 oz.) Raisin Bran
1 1/2 c. sugar
1 1/2 c. unbleached flour
1 c. whole wheat flour
2 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. each cinnamon, nutmeg, and ground cloves

2 eggs
1/2 c. vegetable oil
500 ml./17 oz. buttermilk
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Mix dry ingredients gently in a medium Tupperware container with a lid. In a separate container (4-cup Pyrex measuring cups work well), measure out the buttermilk. Add eggs, oil, and vanilla and mix with a wire whisk until eggs are incorporated. Add liquid ingredients to dry, folding gently. Do not overmix! If adding fruit or nuts, fold in now.

Refrigerate batter overnight for best results.

When ready to bake, preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Fill muffin tins 1/2 to 3/4 full. (If making only a few muffins, fill remaining muffin cups with water.) Bake 15-20 minutes.

OMG WTF SNOW

As if this weren't enough:

I am now hosting inadvertently obscene snow sculptures on my porch. Look away, delicate readers!

Stupid "springtime" in the stupid Rockies. *grumble*

Not taxing

Unless you're living in a yurt in Mongolia, you know it's Tax Day in the United States. Seriously, folks, the whole world knows when taxes are due in the United States because we're such a bunch of whiners about paying Uncle Sam. Get over it already!

Why are we so nuts about taxes in this country?

The way some people act, you would think that Americans pay excessive taxes or that we get nothing from our investment. Neither is the truth. The typical American taxpayer pays less than the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development average, and those taxes pay for such frivolous things as roads, schools, fire departments, and national defense. (Try pulling yourself up by your bootstraps without any roads to drive on, asshats.) Taxes are part of being a civilized nation, and I actually feel a little patriotic when I finish filing mine.

This idea that the United States is made up of 300 million or so completely separate individuals who have no obligation to anyone but themselves and maybe one or two close family members (but don't push it, Uncle Frank, because you totally should have seen that layoff coming) is destroying our society. Not gay marriage. Not abortion. Not latte-swilling, Volvo-driving, church-eschewing liberals like me. It's individualism on steroids that is taking us down. We have responsibilities to each other, and we're welching on them.

Since the "Reagan Revolution" we've been told that poor people are to blame for their situation and rich people got that way entirely through their own hard work and are therefore entitled to keep all but the tiniest sliver for themselves. That healthcare is a privilege, not a right. That money spent on yachts and fifth homes will eventually reach all of us. That "welfare queens" cost taxpayers more money than tax-dodging corporations do. That ketchup is a vegetable.

No. No. No. No. No. And for the love of condiments, no.

What Barack Obama is trying to do with his tax reforms does not remotely qualify as the road to "European-style socialism", as some of these stalwart faux-conservatives have tried to characterize it. At its most extreme, it is an effort to return to earlier days of less inequality. Hardly the stuff of Rand-ian nightmare. (Confidential to Tax Protesters: You'll know that socialism has arrived when we all get four weeks of paid vacation, single-payer healthcare, universal access to affordable childcare and university, and guaranteed parental and family leave. God help us, because that does sound dreadful.)

All of which is a very longwinded way of saying that I am not protesting on Tax Day. I'm not even bitching about it. I paid my taxes and did my part, and that feels good. Much better than teabagging, in fact. But, you know, to each his own.

On school holidays

I should preface this by saying that back in MY day, we didn't have any stinking "Spring Break". (Furthermore, we had to roll our Easter eggs uphill both ways through the driving snow and make our own chocolate bunnies out of twine and mud.) The Great Falls Public Schools gave its pupils a couple of days, maximum, for what was then called "Easter Break". We generally got Good Friday off, and sometimes--if we were very lucky--Easter Monday. The school year contained but one extended break, Christmas, and even that seemed woefully short.

Ah, how times have changed. First of all, the breaks are longer. Even K-12 students now get a "spring break"--though the length of it varies from district to district. But the bigger change for me is that no break seems short anymore, let alone woefully so. Connery's Montessori has been closed since the afternoon of April 3rd and will not reopen until tomorrow, and that, Internet, is a problem. Because guess what doesn't go along with school breaks? Why, adult vacation time, of course!

This year, we dodged a major bullet. My parents offered to take Connery for all of last week (thus explaining my blog silence as I lolled about the house in a single-child stupor), since they had been planning a trip for him and his cousin Hannah at the end of the week anyway. He stayed with them in Great Falls by himself for three days and then they all went to Fairmont Hot Springs for a few days. On Friday, the traveling caravan came to Livingston and dropped him off. He had had a great time, and we had solved the "Oh, shit, what do we do with Connery for a week while both of us are supposed to be working!" dilemma that crops up every time there is a school break. Nana and Papa to the rescue!

Then, Grandpa Rick and Grandma Linda showed up yesterday from California, and Grandpa Rick really wanted to catch the last day of skiing at Bridger Bowl, so the Ritters three headed off to the ski hill this morning. Last day of vacation solved!

So that's one spring break down, just...um...18 more to go?

I never realized growing up just how good I had it. My parents were both teachers, so when school was closed, chances are they were home as well. There were exceptions, of course, but for the most part, they were on the same schedule I was. And that turns out to be pretty damned important once your kids get into school.

I have great memories of Christmas breaks and summer holidays, sleeping in and having no schedule and generally doing all the things a kid is stereotypically supposed to do on such pauses. The trouble is that, until this spring break, I don't think Connery has ever gotten to have a real vacation of this sort. Chip and I still have to go to work, which means that he has to come with me to work--which is not in any way fun for either of us--or I have to swap around my work schedule and try to work extra before the break so that I can be off with him. Neither option results in particular relaxation, let alone the kind of unstructured holiday that I can remember so well. 

And I'm one of the lucky ones. None of my work necessarily has to be done on a strict schedule and much of it can be done from home, but it's still stressful every time I see how long we're supposed to be occupying Connery and working at the same time. I don't know how people who have inflexible workplaces handle it.

I don't begrudge Connery's teachers--or any educators--the breaks they need to stay fresh. But even so, it seems that this is one more area where the American work-life balance sheet is totally off. How do you handle it when your kids have vacation and you don't?

Favorite Recipe Friday (on Sunday): Veggies au gratin

It's the first Sunday after the first full moon of the vernal equinox (a.k.a. Easter), and that means chocolate and ham! And what goes with chocolate and ham but things with cheese? Normally, I would say cheese potatoes all the way, but we decided to go with roasted veggies instead. It was a new recipe for me, adapted from Cooking Light, and it got rave reviews.

Roasted Veggies au Gratin

1 head broccoli (in florets)
1 head cauliflower (in florets)
olive oil
salt and pepper
2/3 c. panko
2 T. butter (melted)
2 T. fresh chives, minced
1 c. shredded cheese (I used sharp cheddar; the recipe calls for gruyere--I'm cheap.)
1 T. butter
1/2 onion, minced
1 clove garlic, crushed
4 T. flour
2 c. milk
3 T. fresh parsley

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Prepare a baking dish with cooking spray or butter. Toss broccoli and cauliflower in a little olive oil, salt, and pepper. Roast for 30 minutes or until almost tender. While the veggies are roasting, prepare panko topping. Add melted butter, chives, and 1/4 c. cheese to panko. Set aside and prepare cheese sauce. Saute onion until translucent, about 4 minutes. Add garlic and saute for about a minute. Add flour and whisk constantly for 1 minute. Add milk, slowly, stirring constantly. Bring almost to a boil and hold there for 3 minutes or until thickened. Remove from heat and add remaining cheese, parsley, and salt and pepper to taste.

Turn up oven to broil. Assemble dish by mixing cheese sauce and veggies, topping with panko mixture. Broil for 3 minutes.

Car-mic difficulties, please stand by

NB: This column originally appeared in Business to Business, a publication of the Bozeman Daily Chronicle.

I’m a big believer in driving cars until they just won’t go anymore—and sometimes a while beyond that. In college, I drove a 1978 Peugeot for several years, and the last nine months I had it, the transmission was on its way out. Reverse was the first gear I lost. A word to the wise (and broke): It is possible to drive in Missoula with a car that cannot go backwards, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

The fact is that I would rather spend my money on almost anything other than a car. New cars are shiny and pretty and smell nice, but I just don’t have the hunger that some people do to replace one perfectly good automobile with another. It’s never been a priority or, really, an option. I am, in short, the car industry’s worst nightmare.

That doesn’t mean I neglect the cars I have—far from it. I want them to last as long as possible, so I make sure they get the routine care and maintenance that makes longevity more likely. Unfortunately, all that care and concern are worth nothing when your minivan hits a deer at 75 miles per hour or when someone hits you in an intersection. It’s almost as if someone out there doesn’t want us to keep driving our cars forever. (Lee Iacocca? Is that you?)

In both cases, nobody was hurt and thank heavens for that. Both accidents had the potential for serious injury—or worse—so I concentrate as much as I can on that small miracle. However, both accidents also resulted in insurance companies—first ours, in the case of the deer collision, and the other driver’s in the second—telling us that our cars were so decrepit that they didn’t merit repair.

Not to us.

Our minivan, a lovely, late 1990s lilac Chrysler Town & Country, was judged a total loss, and the settlement the insurance company offered us wasn’t even enough to pay off the loan we had on it—let alone give us a down payment for a new (used) car. After a little haggling, the offer improved slightly, but the out-of-pocket costs for that accident ran well into the thousands of dollars, and we had to again depend upon the gracious help of family to bail us out. I sure would rather have spent that kind of money on something else. (Although, in hindsight, it’s probably better I didn’t invest it in a college fund or something. At least we got a car that runs most of the time out of the deal.)

In the more recent accident, the other driver’s insurance company also wanted to total our beloved Saturn—which we have had since 1997 and actually stored for the four years we lived overseas because we liked and trusted it so much—but we balked. For what the insurance company was willing to give us for the car, we would barely have been able to afford a Yugo. Instead, we turned it over to the body shop we trust—believe me when I say that I never, ever wanted to be on a first-name basis with the owner of a body shop, but here I am, and thank goodness for Dalen—and are paying extra to have the car repaired.

By fixing our car, we know better what we’re getting. Even in this age of Carfax and other electronic record-keeping, there’s no substitute for personal knowledge about what a car has been through. And after having mixed results with the new (used) car we bought after the first accident, we knew the pitfalls of buying someone else’s problem.

Once we get the Saturn back—good as new, Dalen assures us—we can continue to take care of it and hope that it will last us a good long time, deer and dodgy intersections notwithstanding. Sorry, Mr. Iacocca.

Want to know more about the columns I write? Visit this post on my professional site.

Favorite Food Friday: Southwest White Chili

Before I start, I should say, "What in the hell happened to the last week?" One minute I'm writing about hummus and the next a week has passed and I have to come up with another recipe. Time flies when you're waiting for car repairs to get finished and children to be nebulized, apparently.

This recipe is one that I cut out of a magazine probably 10 years or more ago--from a McCormick spice ad no less. That it remains in my binder is testament to its basic goodness, although I do not follow the recipe as written. Garlic powder--while sold by McCormick and therefore part of the purpose of the recipe--is not permissible in my house except in very rare circumstances (Greek dressing being the main exception), and dried cilantro leaves have roughly the taste sensation of flaky green air, hence my substitutions.

(I find it a little depressing to be sharing chili recipes with you in April. But the snow is still flying here, and that makes chili still fair game in my book.)

Southwest White Chili

1 T. olive oil
1 1/2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into cubes
1 onion
4 c. chicken broth
1 can (4 oz.) chopped green chiles
2 cans (15 oz. each)* cannellini beans
2 green onions, sliced
2 cloves garlic, crushed and minced
1 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. dried oregano
1/8 tsp. ground red pepper
Fresh cilantro, minced

Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onions. Cook 2-3 minutes or until slightly softened. Add chicken and brown. Stir in broth and all other ingredients except green onions. Bring to a boil and then back off heat to simmer. Let simmer for 15-20 minutes. Serve with green onions and fresh cilantro.

*I know the food industry isn't trying to deny the downsizing of its food offerings anymore, but this 10-year-old recipe is certainly a testament to that process. The original recipe calls for a single, 19-ounce can of beans. Not even available anymore, bitchez.