What Inning Are We In?

Ah, the Super Bowl. To me, it has always been a reason to have a party.We decorated the house in Giant's colors. I made the traditional Sunday sauce with meatballs, sausages and chicken cutlets and enjoyed the company of our friends to cheer the local team. It was a great game; four hours and I didn't understand one thing that went on in the game - again. I admit it. I am football challenged. I can't tell you how many times people have tried to explain the game of football to me; my husband, his niece, my son, various friends. It all makes sense when I am at the game. I walk away, and one week later, I'm at square one. I am hopelessly unable to get what a down is, why it is a good thing and know when it happens. Trying desperately not to make a jerk of myself, I scream with joy when others do hoping my cover up will not be discovered. My husband says I am like Hot Lips Houlihan in the movie version of MASH. Towards the end of the move, the MASH unit plays a football game against another MASH unit. Hot Lips is the head cheerleader. A gun is shot and she cries "Oh no, they shot someone". Colonel Blake replies, "That marks the end of the first quarter, you blithering idiot". I am the blithering idiot. Fine - I accept the role of the blithering idiot for the sake of comic relief. Now, I am on a mission. I have until my son's football season which starts in August, to figure this game out. I am making a plea to those of you who can educate me on this sport. If anyone is willing to comment with a written set of rules of the game of football (abridged version please), I will use it as a cheat sheet at my son's next game. I may even throw in a prize of a Sunday sauce dinner. In the meantime, I will be in the kitchen making the sauce. Good Going Giants!!

Skating Away

The winter can be brutal and unpredictable. It comes with freezing cold winds or snow that is only welcome when you are home safe and warm and not trying to get somewhere. But sometimes, amongst the bitter cold, you get a treat. It happened this week. The temperature was consistently around 20 degrees every day. I knew it would happen and it did. The lake froze to a perfectly smooth surface and it was ice skating time. I didn't have to go, I knew it was frozen. I recalled those times and wondered if the kids remember any of those days as fondly as I do now. The freezing of the lake for ice skating is like a lunar eclipse - a feat of nature. It doesn't happen every year but when it does, it is the best time winter can offer. Skating on perfect, clear ice without the restriction of going round and round as in a rink, well, there is nothing like it. I think it was my son Anthony who got us interested in skating. The year he was 8 years old, we all got ice skates for Christmas - including me. Me, who was and still is athletically challenged, can't ride a bike or swim, and hates to be cold. So in my 40s, I decide to ice skate. I think something hit me while watching the winter Olympics one year and Oksana Baiul. It just looked so graceful to be sliding on ice. Anthony went on to play ice hockey for the high school team for 4 years. Last year, I took a group of kids to the ice rink in Bear Mountain. Thomas skated rings around the other kids. I also got on skates - very wobbly at first but then I got the beat and skated away. It was good, but not as great as the lake. My skating is intimidated by my fear of falling. I am older and feel if I fall, my recovery will be too long to stand. I now watch with envy and remember. This Saturday, Anthony went out around 4 pm. A few minutes later, he called. "Hey mom", he said, "Guess what, the lake is frozen over and there are people out there skating. I'm thinking I'm going skating tomorrow". He had such enthusiasm in his voice. It was great. I think it would be safer if I lived a little through his enjoyment.

The 30 Minute Meal

It's Friday night. I call my kids and ask if they will be home for dinner. Anthony and Thomas say "yeah, sure". Christine says, "don't worry about me" (only to later come walking in the door hungry). I plan dinner for 4. Shop for about $60 worth of some special meat or fish, expecting to make something like broiled stuffed trout with broccoli rabe or fillet mignon with sauted spinach and roasted potatoes. I pick a wine for Tony and I and go home only to find out that I have 30 minutes to get the food on the table. The kids made plans to go out with friends, to a game, or whatever and are leaving at 6. It is now 5 and I know, if they do not eat at home tonight, like Cinderella, this beautiful, wine-worthy dinner turns into the leftovers which will shrivel up and die an old, slow, unappealing death in the refrigerator. So with determination and a focused look on my face that is translated to "get out of my way, I'm on a mission", I am now rushing around to serve a gourmet meal in half the time. Rachael Ray has become famous for her meals in 30 minutes. Well, I could turn chopped meat around in half an hour too, but I reach higher. It's my fault for two reasons:

1. I haven't learned to stop making things from scratch. I've never bought bottled salad dressing and sauce in the jar just tastes all the same to me - overly tomatoey.
2. I still cook as if all 5 of us are together at dinner, even though most nights, we are not. I still shop at Costco at least twice a month. I always think I should have more food just in case one of the kids invites a friend over for dinner. Truthfully, that hasn't happened since high school.

Old habits die hard. This Friday, I will plan a dinner with my husband, buy a nice bottle of wine and forget about the kids. Yeah right. I will probably do the same thing I always do and hope they will be there to eat.

Freedom

Her name was Azat. It means freedom in Armenian. She escaped from Turkey with her family during the Armenian genocide. She spoke 5 languages and was a very hard working woman. Her profession was being a dressmaker (an amazingly talented one) and of course, a mother - my mother. She was my role model. This is not the first time I have written openly about her. In fashion school, I used her as a model for a term paper about a fashion designer. Today is her birthday or would have been. I think of her every day. After she died, I found that paper I wrote among her belongings. Last month, my daughter did something that made me realize how much her grandmother meant to her. Not that I am fond of tattoos, but what can I say. I love my daughter too.

I'm Back

I have often been asked "How do you do it all? Three kids, a full time job, cooking, etc., etc." My stock answer is, "I don't". So these last 2 weeks, I didn't do it all. I'm sorry, but I couldn't get to the blog. Hopefully, you are all still out there - those who comment and the silent majority that comment verbally or through emails. I am here, officially back. Everyone complains that they have too much to do so I'm not going to go on and on about how the holidays put my schedule into fifth gear. I actually have no reason to complain. I didn't have much in the way of gift shopping. The only people I buy gifts for these days are my kids and a couple of others - not much in comparison to earlier years. My husband and I didn't exchange and used the weekend in NY to be our gift (I secretly had hoped I would get an IPhone but...). I didn't even decorate, Tony did it. Then I was off work for the week between Christmas and New Year's. A great thing when you don't have travel plans which, in my case, involves cramming whatever personal work I have to do in half the time and then there is the packing. I guess I will never learn how to be frugal in that area. How can I leave with less than 6 pair of shoes (it's true, ask Tony). I know that sounds excessive, but I like to have options. All this time, you would think I would have had time to write a small paragraph, a spot or posted a "Gone Shopping" notice on the blog. I didn't even tell you what a nice time Tony and I had New Year's Eve at a local restaurant. I danced with my son who had to work the restaurant that night (for the third year in a row). At his age, I would have died if I had to tell my friends I spent New Year's Eve with my parents. Considering the situation, he seemed to enjoy it too. So life is good. I started the new year dancing, and I'm falling back into the routine. Hmm, maybe I was better off dancing.

Just 17, you know what I mean

This Christmas Eve my youngest son, Thomas turned 17 which means, after a year of driving with a permit, he can now go for the driving test. His test was for 8 AM, we were there at 7. The fourth car in a line of anxious teenagers waiting for their turn to strike the first cord of emancipation from their parents. I knew what was going through his head. "Always use blinkers, don't go too fast, why does parallel parking have to be part of this anyway. How will I bear the humiliation if I fail". I failed my first time taking the test. Fortunately, I was out of high school so my friends didn't know. Truthfully, I didn't care much for driving. I did know I had to do this because my father was getting too old to drive and my mother never did get a license. The car my father owned, and that I was to drive, was his 1949 Buick Dynaflow. It looked like a tank, had no power steering and I needed a large pillow to see over the steering wheel. See why I didn't want to drive. When the two older kids needed a car, they would complain if they had to drive my mini-van. Ask me how much sympathy I had for them. But isn't driving what you had boyfriends for. Back then, boys drove and girls were passengers. Oh wait, things haven't changed in 30 years have they. My husband always drives. In the last 25 years, I can count on one hand how many times my husband has been a passenger with me driving and never for longer than a couple of miles. He can have this driving thing anyway, put me on the bus. Back to my son. It is 8 AM. His turn came. This nice gray-haired woman officer approached the car and got in. I went to wait in the building with all the other parents. We talked about how we felt. Some saw it with mixed emotion. I didn't. I saw it as another stage. Joy to the World - he passed. We went home, he called his friend. It is no longer, "Mom, can you drive me.... It is replaced by Mom, can I have the car." It starts today, and goes on from here - another rite of passage.

Christmas Traditions

In my house, Christmas was the holiday. On Christmas Eve,we just prepared for Christmas. Then I met this guy who eventually became my husband. He is 100% Italian and is quite proud of it. He has good values and very old fashion traditions some of which I had to get use to. For instance, he insisted on having macaroni (never called it pasta) every Sunday with homemade sauce. When we first started dating, he had me sit with his mother so I would learn how to make "the Sunday sauce". I should have guessed from that that that I was a keeper. My husband is Mr. Christmas. He loves all of this stuff. The food, the gifts, Frank Sinatra. The day after Christmas, he is always depressed that it is all over. After we married, he expected it to be my responsibility to make Christmas Eve dinner. I resisted. We went to his mother's. Then, my son Thomas was born, 8 weeks early - on Christmas Eve. All of a sudden, I am making Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas Day dinner. I did this for about 12 years and finally decided, it is too much. I stopped doing Christmas Eve about 3 years ago, much to the chagrin of my family (see posts from Christmas comes but once a year). Christmas Eve dinner, the Italian way, should be delegated to a grandmother or grandmother-in-law. A mother with 3 kids, a full time job and a blog should be exempt. The holiday requires making a marinara sauce, frying a lot of fish, soaking this fish that looks like cardboard (baccala) into a edible delicacy, all resulting in a huge mess. Number 1, who invented this and number 2, why would anyone want to do this? I protest. This year, however, we will have some tradition on Christmas Eve. Tony's mother has moved up and we will visit early on Christmas Eve . I am taking her food shopping Saturday so she can get her fish, her pasta and cook for her children and grandchildren. It is nice. Merry Christmas to me and to all a Good Night.