Awesome Stepkid Ro has his first serious girlfriend. The boy has been in quite the good mood since Christmas, and we’re enjoying the benefits. Ah, the joy of a happy teenager.

She’s a cutie, and a good sport–the first time we met her, she agreed to come with us to see the Muppet Movie with the kids and didn’t even seem to mind when I couldn’t restrain myself from singing along to The Rainbow Connection. I’m a dorkstore, I know, but that song gets me every time.

She also likes the Beatles and comic books and Star Wars and Game of Thrones and–the kicker–the defunct series Firefly, which is awesomeness (ah, Nathan Fillion, how do I love thee?). She even admitted to Miss D. that she, too, cannot resist Taylor Swift. This girl’s a keeper. The only difficulty is that when it comes to food, she’s a leeetle picky. Doesn’t like seafood, not big on the red meat, doesn’t like vegetables of any kind. You know, sort of like my kids.

And this is okay with me, except sometimes I want to have her over for dinner, and I fret about what to make.  I don’t want to gross out the sweet thing, and although I still always serve a vegetable, it’s always as a side dish, so she doesn’t have to pick peas or carrots out of anything and feel weird.

She was coming for dinner the other day, and I was in a pickle. We’d already done fettucine alfredo, and chicken parmesan, so I had to come up with another fairly “safe” choice.   I pillaged my Leaning Tower of Food Rags and decided that this recipe was just the thing.

And oooh, it’s good. No worries about the alcohol, either; it cooks out of the sauce when you boil it, so I wasn’t going to get anyone tipsy.  The glaze is addictive–the next time I make this dish–and I will–I think I’ll double the glaze, so I can dunk my chicken in it, too, or save it to slather on shrimp or salmon, which would be brilliant, I tell ya.  It’s party food. Warm weather food. Impress cool girlfriend food.

Fire up the grill, folks. This one’s a keeper, just like our Sam, who thankfully, looks nothing like a Bratz doll, which was my greatest fear.  Plus, she’ll challenge me to try new things in the kitchen, which is a win-win.

Rum and Pineapple Glazed Chicken Breasts

from Fine Cooking

serves 4

For the Rub and the Chicken:

1 tablespoon firmly packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

1/2 teaspoon onion powder

1/2 teaspoon ground allspice

1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon cayenne

kosher salt and black pepper

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (6 to 8 oz each), patted dry

1 1/2 tablespoons minced garlic

2 garlic cloves, minced

For the Pineapple-Rum Glaze

1/4 cup salted butter

1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1/4 cup dark rum

1/4 cup pineapple juice

Make the Rub and Prepare the Chicken

In a bowl, mix all of the spices, along with 1 1/2 teaspoons of kosher salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Set the chicken in a baking dish and drizzle it with the oil. Rub in the garlic. Take the spice rub and rub it thoroughly on both sides of the chicken. Refrigerate for one hour.

Make the Glaze

Combine butter, brown sugar, rum and pineapple juice in a heavy saucepan. Boil over medium-high heat until syrupy, whisking constantly, about 7 minutes.

Grill the Chicken

Heat a gas grill or a grill pan and oil the grate. Grill chicken about 5 minutes, then flip and cook another 5-6 minutes or until chicken is done.  Remove from grill and drizzle glaze over chicken.

**Sorry if I’ve been scarce lately. The dreaded rotavirus struck the House of T last week and this week, and guess who was double-down? Moi, of course. I’m still on the BRAT diet, but on my way back. Thanks for your patience with me.

Hey, Mama, do you remember that year–that one Valentine’s Day–God, it was years ago…I think it was the year I’d just started teaching high school English, and was adjusting and single and trying so desperately to find my way? Do you remember that February 14, when, miles away, I sent you a card, and you sent me a card, and it turned out that we’d both picked the exact same Valentine card for one another?

Do remember the phone call? The way we laughed so hard at the fact that two women, miles away, studied seven overcrowded card kiosks and came up with the same “perfect” words to give to one another?

I love that. I loved that moment, opening the envelope and seeing that familiar verse staring right back at me.

I love that we can channel heart and mind and end up in the same place, although I will probably curse more than you’d like along the way.

Hey, Mama. Do you remember the walks? The long, three-to five-milers? How long did we do that–dang–5 years? 7? In blazing sun or crazy cold (remember the frostbite you got on your nose that one time when we decided that -4degrees wasn’t a big deal?), where I’d move my legs and open my heart about high-school angst, or you’d tell some crazy old family story, or if we were just soul-tired, we’d walk in silence, but together?

Everyone in the neighborhood knew us; if not by name, just by sight. “The Walkers.”

I love that. It was nuts, but I still love it. I also love that the few times my sister walked with you, you often sent her home mid-walk, alone, because she was so angry and so fractious, even though it’s mean of me to feel that way. Never, not once, did you send me home. We always returned to home base together. Sometimes exhausted, sometimes exhilarated, sometimes troubled, but always together.

Is it weird to send your mother a Valentine? Is it weird to walk beside her, year after year, no matter the weather? Seriously, I don’t know. That’s just what we did. It was our way, and I wouldn’t change a thing. Well, maybe the frostbite and the sunburns, but still.

This Mother’s Day, I’d just like to express my thanks. Again and over and over and forever. Wherever you are, wherever we are going, you will always be my True North. You will always be there, just like that Valentine card that we both knew held our hearts. You are always in mine.

One of MamaKat’s Writing Workshop’s prompts this week was: tell us the time when you really knew what this mothering thing was about.

Miss D. was born in December, in a town where I didn’t have any friends. I gave up a lot for love: my impeccably decorated condominium, a career that I loved, my comfortable city. But that man. Oh. How could any girl say no? So I left it all behind. My mother thought I was insane–who sacrifices everything on a whim?   But I just knew.

Marriage came fast. So did motherhood.  I got pregnant so easily I was stunned–was this really all there was to it?

Of course, first-born didn’t stay easy. She made me sick and peevish for five months, and on a day in December–on her due date, in fact–she came in the middle of a blizzard. My parents vowed to fight ice and wind to get there in time, even though it was folly to do so.

The roads were treacherous, just on the short ride to the hospital, and I called them from the hospital lobby, telling them not to bother, but I was alone, walking the hallways, trying to dilate.  The agony seemed excruciatingly fast and hard, and as I crouched in a corner near the telephone, urging my parents to stay home, I knew they wouldn’t. Because I was alone.

Hubs was nowhere in sight–he was back out in the snowy night, trying to find childcare for Awesome Stepkid Ro in a town we hadn’t been in long.

I was hunkered there, bent over and clutching my belly, propped against a lobby wall, when an enormous African American woman, with two adorable children at her side entered the hospital, took one look at me, put her hands on her hips and said indignantly, “Girl? Where is your man?” And suddenly, it really did hit me. I might have to do this all by myself.

What if Mama and Daddy got stuck in the snow, or worse, in an accident? What if nobody could care for a 7-year old boy for God-knows-how-long this was going to take? I would have to do this myself. I really, really, did not want to do this by myself.

I was in the bathtub, naked and fat, thrashing like a freshly caught trout when my parents arrived. Daddy took one look at me had to leave the room. Mama sat on the edge of the tub, watching me heave back and forth.

When the nurse came back, and took a look at me, she quickly got me out of the bathtub, took a peek and said, “OhmyGod. You’ve gone from a 3 to a 10 in, like, 20 minutes. I haven’t even called the anesthesiologist yet. Don’t cough, don’t laugh, don’t do anything.”  She ran from the room on her stocky legs.

She shouldn’t have bothered calling the anesthesiologist. That baby came down the birth canal like a Russian on a luge. My husband barely made it before Miss D debuted, pissed off  and wailing, small eyes rolling around the room, as if wondering, “Where the Hell am I and who is to blame for this?”

“Where’s the champagne?” I hissed at my husband–giving birth without anesthesia calls for champagne, dammit.

His eyes widened. “I’ll go get some.”  Wise man.

“This is a tiny one,” the nurse by the scale said. “A little over 5 pounds. Apgar’s good, though. Awww, look,” she said to another nurse. “She has a tiny mongolian spot on her butt.”

Then the bleeding began. And continued. And continued. The nurse wearing the new white Keds was not amused when my blood engulfed them. I apologized and promised to buy her a new pair.

“The placenta’s attached,” the doctor said harshly to my mother. “We need to get her into the ER now.”  She looked me directly in the eye. “I need to tell you that this usually requires a hysterectomy. I’m sorry.”

Inexplicably, I started laughing. “Well, this is the perfect time to tell me. Because I’m never doing this again. Go for it.” Mama looked stricken.

“Can I just hold her once before I go?” I asked.

For a brief moment, they put my little, warm monkey girl on my chest. And then she promptly shit all over me.

Motherhood had begun.

The damn pigeon that just won’t leave starts cooing at 6am, waking the little one, who walks into my room in order to tell me about “that annoying bird.”  I sit up in bed and sling my legs over; something has shifted in the night–instead of the big dark back of my husband next to me, I see a head of black curls and a Magic Treehouse Book.

I grab the little one’s hand and we step quietly down the stairs, especially on the third one, which is squeaky. My husband is already in his office, looking at x-rays and films.  The coffee machine is blessedly on.

I turn on Spongebob and the hear a loud “Argh!” and loud stomps down the stairs. Miss D.–the morning demon version–has arrived.

I immediately pour a cold glass of chocolate milk and hand it to her; she’s hypoglycemic in the morning and highly unpredictable. She grunts her thanks.

I pour myself a cup of coffee and realize that we’re almost out of milk. Shit.

The little one reminds me that we have to take a urine sample; there were traces of red blood cells in hers at yesterday’s doctor’s appointment, so we need to take another sample.

I grab the handly plastic “hat” and accompanying vial and follow the skinny body into the bathroom; she pees and then asks if she can poop in it too; I vehemently say “No!” and she quickly stands up. I remove the hat and attempt to cleanly pour the warm urine into the sterile jar.

As I do so, Miss D. yells from the other room, demanding french toast. “In a minute,” I yell and the pooper announces that she wants scrambled eggs, and that her tummy hurts because her “dump truck is empty.”

I wash my hands, label the urine sample,  and stash it in the refrigerator, which I’m not sure is the right thing to do but hubs doesn’t know either, so we just go for it.

I order D. to dress herself and make her bed while I make the french toast and that it’s jeans weather, so choose appropriately. Miss M. wants to crack her own eggs. I tell her to wash her hands again and then okay; she bungles it and I dig shells out of the bowl. The butter’s getting too hot; I lower the heat on the pan, dump the butter, wipe the skillet and plop another dollop in.

The toaster goes off; I remove the French toast sticks, cut add syrup and deliver them to D. I run back to the kitchen and check on the eggs.  I turn, remove, salt, and deliver.

It’s Teacher Appreciation Week; the students have been instructed to draw a personal picture with a message of appreciation for each teacher, including specials. Yesterday I bought five 10$ Starbucks cards and figure that if Miss D. can knock out one or two a day, we should be set for the week.

I grab paper and a colored pencils and tell her to get to work.  Hubs needs to leave; I grab his lunch from the refrigerator and then remind him that Miss D.’s moon project is due today and he needs to check it like he promised. He does so hurriedly but without irritation and I wonder how he does it, this evenness of temper.

D. announces that she, too, wants some scrambled egg, so I grab the mixing bowl again and turn on the stove. Stir, salt, deliver. Notice that Miss M. has taken zero bites of her plate of eggs, which are now cold. I take away the plate and dump the eggs in the sink. She demands cereal.

I look at the clock: 10 minutes until the bus arrives and there’s still D.’s bird’s nest hair to deal with.  I hack at her hair with smoothing creme and manage to wrangle it into a ponytail. I grab her finished card, stick it in an envelope with a Starbucks card and try to remember the name of her gym teacher. Is it “Jurgensen” or “Jurgenson?”  I decide to just label it: Mr. J.

I enter the bathroom, stick toothpaste on a toothbrush and hand it to D., who is twirling instead of getting her socks, shoes and jacket on as ordered.

Awesome Stepkid Ro. lurches down the steps, takes one look at my face and says he’ll take D. to the bus stop. As D. brushes her teeth, I wrestle her into a jacket. The shoes and socks go on.

She interrogates me: Did I sign her planner? Is her moon project in her backpack? Are her glasses in there? What did I pack for snack?

She gets her answers and is out the door.  Miss M. says she is bored.

It is 8:30 am. My hair is gray. My coffee is cold. I have urine to deliver. I am blessed.

Remember a few weeks ago, when I was having an identity crisis about this blog, and how sometimes I felt pressure to infuse wit and humor into “just a damn salad?”  Welcome to a Damn Salad post.

In a few weeks, when school is out, we are headed to Mexico for a (hopefully) peaceful vacation.  Okay, okay, start rolling your eyes and cackling now because you know something is going to go awry. It’s just a given that the Travel Gods have issues with the T. family. In short: they hate our asses.

If you recall, Mexico is home to Miss M’s favorite waterslide–the one that ripped the bottom out of my swimsuit on the last day of vacation. Good times, people. Good times.

I’m a little worried that I won’t be 100% yet, but that’s what Daddies and Kid’s Clubs are for, right? And if this old bag here needs a nap, that’s exactly where we’re going for rescue.

But you know what an upcoming vacation means, don’t you? Girly Man goes on Le Regime. He’s not as lucky this time around because I’m still not up for making dinner at least half the time, but he understands. He’s a keeper, that one, even when he goes through his athletic “episodes.”

I made this salad one weekend evening recently, and I was really unsure about doing so, because hubs isn’t the biggest grapefruit lover in the world, and I sometimes have issues with fruit in my salad. Two demerits, right there. But the picture of it looked so pretty, and it’s light and healthy, and heck…we’re still stuck in shitty winter fruit season, so I gave it a go.

It looked gorgeous on the plate. I mean, this salad is a stunner. The Scar-Jo of salads.

Unfortunately, (maybe like Scar-Jo…who knows) this salad was a little intense for my husband. I liked it fine, but then again, I eat a grapefruit every day during the winter.

So if you’re up for some tang in your salad, go for it. It’s very refreshing, and good on a hot day–which holy beejezus, we hit 88 degrees the other day, which is unheard of.  Miss D., the only girl on the flag-football team, almost melted out there, as did I.  We’re in for a cold front–heck, in our state, we can get snow in May–but if it’s salad season in your neck of the woods and you’re feeling adventurous. Give this one a shot.

Green Salad with Chicken and Pink Grapefruit

serves 4

slightly adapted from Sunset Magazine Best Recipes 2010

1 quart mixed greens or arugula

2 cups chopped romaine lettuce

2 cups shredded cooked rotisserie chicken

3/4 cup pistachios, pecans, almonds, whatever you like

3 large ruby red grapefruit

1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

2 teaspoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon each salt and pepper

Put all lettuces into a large bowl. Top with nuts and shredded chicken.

Cut the peel and outer white membrane from 2 of the grapefruit. Slice grapefruit moons between the membranes and add to salad.* If you don’t know how to “supreme” citrus, you can find out here.

Juice the remaining grapefruit into a bowl. Whisk in olive oil, sugar, salt and pepper. Pour mixture over salad and toss gently.

This piece of memoir comes via The Red Dress Club’s challenge this week to begin a narrative with the idea of “crossed arms.”

***

She crosses her arms and scowls at her younger sister, who is excitedly hopping up and down.

“M.,” I say, “Hold still for a minute, wouldja? I can’t brush your hair if you’re moving around like that.”

“Thorry, mama” she lisps through 4 newly lost teeth. “Ith just that I’m tho excthited!”

“I know you’re excited, but you aren’t going on your field trip with bird’s nest hair, so calm yourself.”

“Do you know that they’ve even thet up a thavenger hunt? Tho we have to find all the different dinothaurs?” She claps her hands in glee, and chants, “field trip, field trip, field trip!”

Miss D. uncrosses her arms and fiddles with the cereal in her bowl, now far past its prime. The scowl remains.

“Why does M. get to go on all the good field trips,” she mutters, pushing the bowl away in protest.

“You just went on a field trip last week,” I remind her.

“But that was just to watch the Senate,” she says with derision. “All they did was sit and talk and say ‘yea’ or ‘nay’. That is not a good field trip. Not like the Natural History Museum.”

Awesome Stepkid Ro sits on a stool in the kitchen, eating Cinnamon Toast Crunch. He looks at me and we exchange wry smiles. The girl has a point.

“You know, you’ll get some fun ones later,” he assures her. “Most of the cool field trips I took were in middle school. We even went to the circus once.”

“I had some boring field trips, too,” I say. “Every year, we had to go to the symphony.” I wrinkle my nose in distaste. “You had to sit still for a whole hour and just listen…but then there were some awesome ones like the Planetarium. That was always my favorite.”

The scowl remains firmly on D.’s face; she knows what we’re up to, and it’s not going to work. Not one bit.

She can’t even look as her little sister, backpack in hand, skips out the door for school, holding Awesome Stepkid Ro’s hand.

Suddenly, she erupts in tears. “Why is M.’s school so fun? I hate school! I hate 4th grade! It’s boring  and really, really hard–especially fractions–and we never do anything  fun. Last year was fun, and 2nd grade was fun.”  She blows into a tissue. ‘Why does school get so serious and boring?”

I sit on the couch next to her, patting her shoulders and back, which she barely tolerates; she clenches her jaw and endures the sympathy.

There’s so much I want to tell her, but I can’t bear it, because the truth hurts. And the truth is, that some point, they suck the joy out of school. They just do. For me, it also happened in 4th grade.  My teacher was thick-calved and humorless, and there were no more dioramas or raising crawfish or word searches. Bam! Just like that, the life gets sucked out of learning, out of school.

If she’s lucky, she’ll get a few future teachers who will try to spice things up, and tell little jokes, and make it not so painful. But those teachers are gifts. Rarities.

“Hey, D.,” I say. “We have a few minutes before you have to leave for school. Do you want me to paint your nails? I’ll use that really crazy, glittery kind.”

“Sure,” she says. “Okay.”

I hold her not-so-small-anymore hands in mine and paint sparkle onto nails. Two coats, for good measure.

“Thanks,” she says quietly when I finish. “It was just…I don’t know…I was feeling so prickly inside.”

That she can explain what jealousy feels like in such terms makes me realize how firmly she is sandwiched between child and adult.  Nothing works the way you expect it to–it’s like you’ve lost your compass.

She’s got so much to learn and face and grow into.

“It’s okay, baby,” I say, voice a little thick. “Sometimes I feel prickly too.”

So after this lovely, middle-aged-style surgery of mine, the doctors and nurses gave me strict instructions not to bend over or do any heavy lifting for 6-8 weeks.  I laughed so hard I almost fell off the gurney, and that wasn’t even the Morphine talkin’.

Ahem. Medical professionals: I have three kids living at home, and do you know how much bending and lifting it takes to get them fed, laundered, bathed, groomed and entertained?

I do believe there’s some athletic activity involved.

Try to fill a dishwasher or a laundry machine or, even worse, a clothes dryer without bending over.  Try to lift a heavy skillet* out of a cabinet. Try to force shoes and socks on a recalcitrant child who does not fancy going to the dentist today.  Ass Painus Maximus, that’s what it is.

My main men, hubs and Awesome Stepkid R. have been incredibly good about taking on these tasks for me. I mean, jaw-droppingly good. I envisioned them being solicitous for  a while–a day or two, perhaps–and then, like the sneaky little reptile men they are, they’d slither back into their comfort zone where lunch magically arrives and the Clean Underwear Fairy makes a tri-weekly appearance.

But not my guys–they saw me through. Although I must say, those lucky lizards had wicked backup. Mama and Daddy arrived bi-weekly for laundry duty and  emergency grocery store runs. It took a village, people. No reptile behavior in sight, unless you count me, wailing in my bed with my painkillers and People magazines.  Not a meal was actually cooked, but we were fed, and fed well. Thank God for sandwiches and Stouffer’s. Laundry happened. The girls arrived and departed to school on time–and, bonus points!–did so without looking like circus performers or the Artful Dodger.

I am so dang lucky I can’t believe it.

I do harbor a healthy suspicion that they were this competent because if they weren’t, I’d convince myself that I needed to do things on my own steam, because hey, I wasn’t really that out of it. I imagine them cringing at the image of moi, high on painkillers, screeching into the Kindergarten parking lot,wrapped in blood-crusted gauze pads, clad in shower shoes and sunglasses, blasting the Pearl Jam and hollering, “Yo, Yo, Miss Linda! Any signs of my Rascal in there?”

I think that’d put the fear of God and Social Services into anybody.

Whatever the cause, I’m grateful for my guys and my beautiful parents.  When I finally was well enough to enter the kitchen again, though, it was kinda scary. Note to self: don’t make grocery lists on painkillers. We had 7 boxes of sugary cereal, Kraft macaroni and cheese, chicken nuggets, mandarin oranges, and a drawer of veggies I’d forgotten about that were hearty enough to survive my convalescence.

I came up with this soup. It tasted pretty good after a few weeks of takeout Chinese and leftover pizza.

It’s also good for you, thanks to that magic potato vs cream addition that on paper, shouldn’t work, but it does.

Magically Creamless Cream of Vegetable Soup

serves 6 or so

1 onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, smashed and peeled

3 yukon gold potatoes, peeled and chopped (3 cups)

1/2 cup celery, chopped

1 cup broccoli, chopped

2 cups cabbage, sliced

1 diced tomato

3 diced carrots

6-7 cups reduced-salt chicken broth

3 sprigs fresh thyme or rosemary

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4-1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1 2-inch piece parmesan rind

Heat about 1 tablespoon oil in a large stockpot over medium heat. Add onion and saute until softened, about 3 minutes. Add garlic; saute another minute. Add everything else into the stockpot, crank the heat until it boils, and then turn down the heat to a simmer. Cook, partly covered, for 45 minutes.

Remove thyme or rosemary sprigs and the parmesan rind. Blend in batches, or use an immersion blender to blend until smooth. Taste for seasoning.  If desired, garnish with croutons (highly recommended), a dollop of Greek yogurt, and chopped parsley.

*God, I love  my Le Crueset skillet, but it’s a lethal weapon. If hubs ever really did something horrible, I could K.O. him in a minute with that thing.

Hi Readers! Did Momalom’s 5 for 5 wipe you guys out as much as it did me? I am roadkill, people.

Luckily, my wonderful friend Alex (you know her blog right? Late Enough)? Well if you don’t, you are missing out, because she is seriously awesome and funny and your life will be better with her in it.

Anyways, she offered to guest post for me today, and I’m ever so grateful, and I know you’ll love her as much as I do.  Please give her a warm welcome, and thanks Alex, for saving my sorry, exhausted butt.

*********** :Lumpy Fudge***********

When a parent decides to become a better cook, all recipes and cookbook bought by her should begin with the warning: DO NOT ANNOUNCE YOU ARE MAKING {insert sweet savory food} UNLESS YOU HAVE ALL THE CORRECT INGREDIENTS.

Let’s take the day I decide to make my friend’s easy-to-make fudge.http://www.mylifenotfinished.com/2011/12/lazy-mama-baking-and-candy-making.html I put the ingredients on the grocery list just before Christmas thinking this would be a fun project during our holiday break. By “listing our ingredients” I mean “writing white chocolate chips” because my son and I do not like milk or dark chocolate, and I forget to list the other main ingredient “sweet condensed milk.”

I notice my mistake the following week and stay quiet about the fudge. I also stay quiet about needing the can of milk and instead forget about the recipe completely.

In March, I notice this delicious bag of white chocolate chips and I think of my friend’s fudge. And then I say the vocal equivalent of digging my own grave: HEY KIDS! LET’S MAKE FUDGE.

YAYAYAYAYAYAY fills my home.

I pull out the chocolate and the recipe.  While my kids munch on the chips, my stomach sinks at the ingredients list. I scan my pantry for sweet milk in case a packet of sloppy joe spices made condensed babies with the walnuts.

I turn to Google for substitutes.

I am pleasantly surprised by how many recipes for a homemade version of sweet condensed milk exist until I realize every recipe calls for a can of evaporated milk. Guess what foodies? If I don’t have sweet condensed milk, I probably don’t have evaporated milk just hanging around waiting for its time to shine.

My kids are getting restless and plying them with chips is not enough. The drums begin: FUDGEFUDGEFUDGE.

I take matters into my own blender and decide to make sweet condensed milk with lowfat milk, sugar and hot water from my Keurig.

I mixed it all up, throw in the rest of the chocolate and pop it in the microwave then the fridge.

I announce: When you wake up in the morning, we’ll have fudge!

I should’ve ended that sentence in a question mark because at the 2-hour-refrigerated fudge time, the kids are asleep and the fudge is more like a frozen lake. One which is very unsafe. In other words, I have a single layer congealed on the top and liquid goo underneath. I made the global warming of fudge.

I stir and re-refrigerate hoping the kids don’t ask about the fudge in the morning.

Sadly, lumpy fudge actually is as good as it looks.

The next day, I determinedly dip some strawberries in it like I meant to make lumpy fondue and end up sick to my stomach.

The moral of the story is:

Don’t make your own sweet condensed milk.

or

Don’t eat my cooking.

or

Send fudge.

Probably the latter.

Hi Readers! I have an awesome guest poster tomorrow, so make sure you check in! It’s a good one!

Moderation Is Not a Negation of Intensity, But Helps Avoid Monotony

John Tagliabue

Will you stop for a while, stop trying to pull yourself
together
for some clear “meaning”–some momentary summary?
no one
can have poetry or dances, prayers or climaxes all day,
the ordinary
blankness of little dramatic consciousness s good for the
health sometimes
only Dostoyevsky can be Dostoveskian at such
long tumultuous stretches,
look what intensity did to poor great Van Gogh!;
linger, lunge,
scrounge and be stupid, that doesn’t take much centering
of one’s forces,
as wise Whitman said “lounge and invite the soul.” Get
enough sleep,
and not only because (as Cocteau said) “poetry is the
literature of sleep”;
be a dumb bell for a few minutes at least; we don’t want
Sunday church bells
ringing constantly.

Poetry month is almost over, and I will not let it go to waste! So let’s have a little sunshine today–whaddaya say?

Sometimes

Sheennagh Pugh

Sometimes things don’t go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost, green thrives; the crops don’t fail,
sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war,
elect an honest man; decide they care
enough, that they can’t leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best efforts do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you.