Julia

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Food Blog?

I have been thinking about starting a separate recipe blog for a while because I find it very difficult with Office98 for Jerks to post those little HTML offshoot recipes on the sidebar and as for editing them... forget it. But I really like to talk about food and it has bothered me to not do so more often. Then, as I was writing and deleting my seventh post in as many days about my inlaws, it occurred to me that I could try to integrate recipes here by simply using the categories option for the first time. See down there? So you could search for this recipe under Chicken or Entrees or Balsamic Vinegar or Company or Mustard or... you get the idea. I thought we could use the comment section for you to post similar recipes or related ingredient recipes or notes if you make a particular dish and have thoughts on how to improve it. You'll be like Anatole, the most honorable mouse in all of France. 

So what do you think? Shall I do I more of these posts? Or do you want to hear what Steve's stepmother said to me that made me actually DIE (but I am ok now)? Or both?

Marinated Roast Chicken with Lemon Balsamic Rosemary Mustard

SERVES 4

2 bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts

4 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs

Kosher salt

5 large garlic cloves, crushed and minced with salt to form a paste

Marinade: 

2 t finely packed lemon zest

2 T fresh lemon juice

2 t chopped rosemary

1/3 c Dijon mustard

1/3 c light brown sugar

1/3 c balsamic vinegar

1/4 olive oil

Poke three or four slits into each side of each piece of chicken. Sprinkle with salt, then rub with the garlic paste. Whisk marinade ingredients together and pour over chicken. Refrigerate for at least 6 hours and up to 24 hours.

Preheat over to 400 degrees.

Let chicken sit outside of the refrigerator for at least twenty minutes while oven preheats.

Pour chicken and marinade into 10x15 inch Pyrex (IMPORTANT! if the pan is too small the chicken will steam and if it is too big the sauce will burn before the chicken is cooked. you can also use two 7x11 Pyrex if you like.)

Roast for approximately one hour, basting occasionally after 30 minutes.

Remove chicken from oven and tent with foil. Tilt pan and spoon off fat, leaving as much of the pan drippings as possible (within reason. no sense in killing yourself.) Add two tablespoons of water to the pan and scrape the sides and bottom with a wooden spoon, creating a lovely brown sauce that you will want to lick off your fingers.

Cut the chicken breasts in half and serve each person one thigh and one breast half, drizzled with sauce. Pass extra sauce at the table.

Note: I took this straight out of Fine Cooking  although I dropped a few of the fussier parts because I am lazy. I like it nice and simple with wild rice and a salad. Maybe some steamed asparagus. It is my all-time favorite easy company dinner because you do all of the prep work the day before and it can roast by itself while you drink wine and eat olives (the part where I say to baste it? take it from me, you don't have to.) I'd serve it with a pinot noir, I guess, but I then I drink cabernet with Cheerios so don't listen to me.   

Disjointed

Back to flourishing...

Here are the lower-case letter pancakes (you can see that the x is scarred, damn it.) As it is absolutely impossible to predict the quantity Patrick will eat of anything, ever, Steve makes a big batch and we refrigerate or freeze them as needed. I am pointing this out so that you do not think I have had pancakes on the table since yesterday. That would be gross. Pancake syrup, sure, but who doesn't.

I asked Steve to explain his letter pancake technique for you. I will wait while you grab a pencil. Ready? OK.

1. Make pancake batter

2. Pour batter into the shape of lower-case letters

3. Flip them

This is why I hate moving furniture with him. He always winds up yelling at me because I do not instinctively know that when he says, "Now ease the end around" he means "Drop your hands from the top to the sides at the bottom, then rotate your left hand 40 degrees while sliding your right knee under the corner halfway and leaning forward." Also, he and I painted the basement together which means he painted his part while I painted mine and then he went around and painted my part all over again. This has nothing to do with anything but I wanted to tell somebody because I still think he is crazy and when I told my mother she just said that perhaps I should be more conscientious in my work.

Patrick turns 4 on Sunday. We are having a party for him on Saturday morning. A few months ago I had planned on having it here with a few kids and a cake and a treasure hunt. I even went so far as to shop for little treasure chests and ponder what would go in them, M&Ms or jellybeans or both. Then Patrick sat me down and sketched out his expectations for the event. He wanted to have it at the jump place and he wanted to invite all of the kids in his class, plus some old communist playgroupers. I am not sure if he actually held his hand up to silence me (he does that sometimes. he places his palm up and says, "Enough". he did it to my mother's gentleman friend at the beach and I thought Papa Stan was going to have an apoplexy) but he clearly had no intention of discussing the matter further. The jump place, by the way, is this enormous suburban warehouse filled with huge inflatable whatsits, moonbounces and slides. We went there for a birthday party in March and Patrick thought it was the coolest. Why had he been living here like a sucker when such places existed was beyond him.

Since Patrick doesn't ask for much and it is his birthday... we rented the place and will be hosting fifteen children plus their parents and a few assorted siblings. Oh, and they do not allow homemade food so I also had to order a sheet cake and Patrick selected the Playful Kittens motif, which has colors on it most definitely not found in nature. Just so you know, I SWORE I would never throw ridiculous parties or ever invite more than 4 guests to a fourth birthday. I SWORE I would have simple parties with cake from scratch. Now that I have had my hand forced, though, I have to admit that I am thrilled. All I have to do is show up. I guess we can add this to the pile of things I knew I would never do:

Huh. The only other thing I can think of right now is pacifiers. Either I have been remarkably consistent or I no longer have any perspective whatsoever. Oh wait! Videos! I think I was pretty anti-video for a while there and now, go ahead, ask Patrick do perform the entire scene between the monkeys and the penguins in Madagascar ("Hey you, higher mammal! Can. You. Read.)

Whoa. I just had a vivid recollection of a conversation in college during the course of which I dispassionately declared that people who could not have children needed to simply accept that fact and not waste resources pursuing treatment because population balance blah blah asshole asshole. No perspective whatsoever, indeed.

I am really excited about starting injectibles in less than two weeks. I must sound like the biggest fool but I always think that one of these times it might actually work, despite all evidence to the contrary. And, what can I say, I think cycles are exciting. Like the tables at Monte  without all the dissolute aristocrats and foreign adverturesses.

Redirect

Steve made pancakes this morning. Normal blueberry pancakes for him, lower case letter pancakes for Patrick (blueberries on the side). Over the course of several months Steve has given Patrick all the letters, then the numbers 1 through 100 and now they are towards the end of the lower case alphabet. I might object to all this pancake-ification of the child but I would have to be awake to do so. Besides, pancakes have an egg in them and do you know how much iron there is in maple syrup? At least that is what I tell myself as I pull the pillow over my head and sleep some more.

This morning I staggered into the pancakewerks and found Patrick standing on a chair, supervising Steve at the griddle.

"Damn it!" Patrick tsk'd. "The x broke."

Steve agreed and fixed it with more batter.

"Your child seems to be swearing at you," I said to Steve, not wanting to jump in with the discipline but not wanting to let the casual preschool profanities slide, either.

"Not AT me," Steve replied, "WITH me."

Patrick nodded, "That is absolutely correct."

Then they went back to ignoring me.

One of the many things that occurred to me at random as I read your comments on the last post is that Steve and I divide parental tasks more than I think we do. I had literally never considered Steve as a work at-home father but I suppose he is. What with the fact that he works at home and yet, as I type this at 12:09 on a Wednesday afternoon, he and Patrick are outside building The Playset To End All Playsets. Granted, middle of the day breaks are not the norm but they do occur often enough that I would put our respective primary care ratios around 65-35. Although if you ask me what productive things I do with that 35% I have as free time I will never speak to you again.

Not that this has anything do with the discussion we are having other than the frequency with which people mentioned their own shared arrangements led me to believe that perhaps Ms. Hirshman is underestimating the role fathers/partners are already playing in child care when she asks where the men are.      

But

Not in the context that she is addressing. The more I read your thoughts on the topic the more my own ideas on the subject evolved. Whether it is "better" for children to be taken care of during the week full-time by a parent or by someone else was not the question here (well it was the question HERE, sort of- but it is not what she is talking about.) Ms. Hirshman doesn't give a unicorn's dick whether it is "better" for your child or all children or you or me to be at home or daycare or Mars. She is talking about Women and their Role in Society and the notion that the last generation worked their asses off to have the chance to be CEO and this generation is squandering that by not particularly caring if they become CEO or not. 

Once we define the argument that way it gets much tidier. I can ignore my knee-jerk "Bite me" response to someone implying that Patrick is not worthy of my undivided, 365-day-a-year hovering, and focus on whether my personal choices are doing a disservice to women who would like to make different decisions but may be pigeon-holed anyway because of the re-emerging notion that "women just quit to have babies."

Right? Right.

As much as we have all sat here and said, round-eyed, "Oh I TOTALLY respect your decision to (stay home/ work outside) despite the fact that (working outside/staying home) was right for our family" I think that is, forgive me, completely disingenuous. A load of crap, if you will. OK, sure, you probably do not think less of me for staying home with Patrick right now because it has absolutely nothing to do with you. But what if I decided to return to the workforce next year (not bloody likely) and my dazzling pedigree and connections allowed me to get hired as your boss? (imagine me with shockingly elite degrees and an uncle who used to be Chairman, ok? does that help with the visualization?) Here you have been working hard, juggling career and kids and life while I have been doing nothing but drinking gin at the playground and suddenly I make more money than you do? The very idea! It is UNFAIR. It is UNAMERICAN, damn it. Hard work is rewarded and slackness should not be.

So I return to the question of whether my tending my child full-time has any greater value. Not for me (I love it). Not for Patrick (he would probably thrive regardless). But for society as a whole. And I think that most people, men and women, would say no. They consider this time to be as self-indulgent as five or six years spent mastering the pan-flute. 

That, I decided yesterday, is the real center of the conflict.

The reason that it is difficult for women to return to the workforce after taking time off (thus creating an Either/Or conundrum which I am not sure I believe in but Ms. Hirshman apparently does) is because the men and women who never left the trenches think the returnees have been on an extended umbrella-drink vacation and resent the hell out of them. Ms. Hirshman (who has daughters and presumably raised them while working full-time) alludes to her own feelings when she describes "aggressive domesticity [coming from] a bunch of women who can't manage all the demands on their time." And there you have it. She did it, why can't you? And if you answer that you simply do not WANT to, the response is ah, but the woman standing next to you does and you might be hurting her chances. So it is sort of about feminism and sort of about gender equality, but largely about work ethics and definitions of what is Important and what is Fair. 

Not quite sure what to do about it, frankly, but I think I am right.

Resume. Resume. I Believe Both Pronunications Are Correct.

I was washing dishes when Linda Hirshman first entered the public eye last winter with her assertion that highly educated stay-at-home moms are wrecking civilization, so I missed all of the original kerfuffle. Fortunately, Steve was performing his monthly 5 hours of domestic servitude this morning so I was able to scrape the biscuit dough out of my hair long enough to catch her Op-Ed in today's Washington Post. And I am so glad I did because otherwise I might have gone to my unmarked, unlamented grave without ever reading the lines:

"...women who quit their jobs to stay home with their children were making a mistake... the tasks of housekeeping and child rearing were not worthy of the full time and talents of intelligent and educated human beings. They do not require a great intellect, they are not honored and they do not involve risks and the rewards that risk brings. Oh, and by the way, where were the dads when all this household labor was being distributed?"

Zing!

As a proud, one might almost say Xtreme, housewife with, you know, degrees, I think I should be offended by this but... meh. Not so much. If you take the time to wade through the original article without getting all shrill, I think she is actually making interesting points. Supposing one was truly committed to capital F Feminism (I am not. I consider myself more of an egalitarian humanist) you can see how frustrating it must be to have the most highly qualified women in the country declining their seats in the Star Chamber in favor of dispensing Goldfish crackers. Imagine the disappointed looks on the faces of Justice O'Connor and Maggie Thatcher when their hand-picked successors for the World Council of 12 (brilliant women, most promising) tell them they are going to have to miss the April meeting AGAIN due to swimming lessons and chronic ear infections with the new baby. It's enough to make the intelligentsia weep. I mean, if big girls cried. Which they most emphatically do not. 

My problem, however and small though it is, is with this statement: "child rearing [is] not worthy of the full time and talents of intelligent and educated human beings." As hard as I have tried to put my personal feelings for Patrick aside and look at it objectively, I just cannot get past this assertion. It makes children sound like a tomato plants. Do you know how hard it is to screw up a tomato plant? Very hard. Do you really need to just feed kids and water them and make sure no one backs over them with a mower? Isn't there more to raising a child than that or am I kidding myself? Toilets, sure. I can understand why the idea of a female PhD quitting her research position at the Mayo solely to clean bathrooms might be a societal loss, but should child-rearing and housework really be in the same sentence like that?

I like to think that I have a positive effect on Patrick. That the hours we spend together every day has had some role in creating the brilliant, polite, relaxed, funny kid that he is. More importantly, I like to think that he matters. Not just to me but in general. Would he be the same if I just sent him into the woods everyday? Did you see how hard I am trying not to slam daycare there by coming up with an absurd alternative to his being with me? Did I succeed?

I would like your views. Do you have children? If you do not but would like to, do you have a childcare plan? If you do, do you work (outside the home, I mean, jackassess. I know Mother's Work is Never Done)? Do you want to work or do you have to work or both? Do you like the childcare you use? Do you think there are ways daycare is better for the child than staying home with a parent (I can think of about ten. for both.) Do you consider yourself a feminist? Do you think women with specific training are obligated to use their skills for the greater good?

And here's another question, how long do children require full-time care? Five years? Eight, if you have more than one child? Why can't a woman take a career break and then come back? What is with the notion that once you become a Stay At Home Mother you have fallen into a bottomless pit never to return to the work force? My mother says that the nice thing about being a woman, if you play it right, is that you get to have all these different lives packed into one lifetime. Of course, my mother also says that nice girls never get so drunk they forget to take off their jewelry before collapsing face-first into bed, so what does she know? 

Added: GAK! GAK! GAK! I was not saying... I did not mean to imply... GAK! "Why can't a woman take a career break... " what I meant by that is why does Ms. Hirschman's argument center on a notion that one is EITHER a full-time doctor or a stay-at-home mother, why can't a woman do both, just at different times?

Added still later: I am feeling stupid about a couple things. First, in saying that I am not a feminist I meant... well I meant that I was not LIKE THAT. All hostile and judgemental and (one assumes) flushed with indignation. But I could have just said that. Saying I am not a Feminist in this context makes me sound like those women in the 70s who did not support the ERA because they had heard it would eliminate the possibility of alimony. I apologize.

Second, I have no idea at all what I meant about how long children need full-time care. I was trying to get to the point that you can do a lot of different things in life but I wrote it badly.

OK, carry on.

Weekends In The Country

Howdy. Every day is father's day around here so we don't celebrate it as such, but if you are grilling something somewhere in honor of 24 hours of acknowledged paternity I hope you are having a good 'un. I was in Target on Friday and we were right in front of the Father's Day card section so I thought, oh why not, and suggested that Patrick should pick one out for Steve. Which is when I discovered that my son is one of those annoying people who have to read every damned card on the rack before choosing one. Fortunately, he is only three and a half feet high so he was limited in what he could reach but it was trying. I am a grab-and-go girl myself; thus I frequently discover that I am giving birthday cards from the dog despite the fact that we don't have a dog.   

This morning Steve let me sleep until 9:30, then handed me a cup of tea and promptly departed with Patrick for a day of adventure amid playgrounds and small lakes. He even made the child a little lunch and remembered to pack both juice and a sun hat. To say I am stunned doesn't even begin to cover it. They have been gone for four hours and I have tidied the entire house, washed and put away all the laundry, written the week's menu, ordered groceries, made gazpacho, prepped dinner and brought the hanging plants back from the dead with equal doses of water, faith healing and MiracleGro. I am feeling zesty.

Which is 180 degrees from how I felt yesterday. Friday night Steve and I went to a dinner party hosted by friends in the village (I love that: "village". the town part of our town is called the village [the woodsy part where we live is alternately called "the hills" or "the forest"] and every time I say it I feel like dropping in on Miss Marple for tea and scandal.) My friend throws an excellent party and we had a terrific time. It was very elegant, what with the gravlax and sparkly crystal and help in the kitchen, but the veneer of sophistication didn't prevent us all from getting rather drunk. Rather quite drunk, actually, with much hilarity but so much so that I woke up on Saturday morning and discovered that I was fully dressed on top of the duvet and Steve was in a shirt but no pants with his feet on the pillow. Feel free to judge us in our wantonness. Patrick called my mother in Washington after he got up and told her we were still in bed and that we said "Ooof" when he jumped on us. My mother asked him to put me on the phone, which he did by tucking the receiver under my face. My mother icily said, "Get up, Zelda, and give that poor child some Cheerios." So I did. Painfully. The little squealer.            

Hmm, our reproductive plan. Yeah, I would not describe it as ideal, but what is, with us? We will give this IUI thing a try and see what happens. Personally I think the most likely scenarios, in order, are:

1. Cancellation. I had 23 and 21 follicles respectively in each IVF cycle, and that was on low dosages of Gonal-F. I think it is quite possible that I will produce more than four follicles and they will cancel me.

2. Nothing. No pregnancy. Success rates are not all that great for IUIs. 25% on the high end, maybe? Granted, I get pregnant rather a lot so we can assume that my chances might be better than that but still... no guarantees.

3. Pregnant with a singleton. Which will either be normal or not. Usual deal.

4. Pregnant with twins. We would do CVS at 10 weeks.

4a. If both are normal, huzzah. I doubt this will happen but it would be fabulous. I know that raising twins presents some challenges but, honestly, we should be so lucky.

4b. Both are abnormal. Well, damn it.

4c. One is normal, the other is not. We would do selective reduction, if necessary. We have only had one abnormal embryo make it past 11 weeks so I am not overly concerned about this. However, in theory, the normal embryo should not be affected by the demise (natural or induced) of the other one (or two I suppose). To be completely honest, this is the scenario that I think is the best-worst we can expect to face. And it is still better than #4b. Or the past ten losses.

5. Pregnant with triplets, all of whom are alive at 11-12 weeks. Um, I am having a really really hard time imagining this one. In fact, I am tempted to bring out the "reasonable person" standard applied in law. Would a reasonable person, looking at my specific history, believe this is a probable outcome? That we will suddenly conceive not just one, not two, but three viable embryos? Eh, I don't think so. Let's just say we will cross that skull-and-bones when we come to it.

6. Pregnant, quadruplets. See #5 but imagine me laughing and rolling my eyes.

My objection to PGD, by the way, is not well-reasoned. It is not as if I found a study that showed all people who use PGD are idiots. So no citations, sorry. I just know that the first time I did IVF they said here, these two embryos do not carry the translocation and I said great! And then I got pregnant and miscarried and tested the POC and it did carry the translocation. So I did IVF again and they said here, these three embryos do not carry the translocation and we said ok. That time it was blighted, true, so not the translocation but not normal either. My conclusion is that PGD is one of those things you need to get a little lucky with. You need a good cycle and a good lab and good luck. Since all we need is luck anyway I guess I just don't feel like paying for it again. I know that PGD is supposed to be more science than luck but... like I said, it is irrational.

Steve and Patrick returned a few hours ago (bearing pizza for dinner later- so much for my prep work but I do like to encourage such hunting and gathering efforts) and we have been mucking about outside ever since- Patrick watering everything, me weeding and murmuring encouragement to the verbena, and Steve building an extension for the birthday playset. Did I tell you about that? The epilogue to the in-law/swing set/birthday vow dilemma? I don't think I did but it will have to keep until tomorrow. Patrick is tangled in the hose.

I am having a delightful day. I hope you are too.

The Agenda

Google will tell you to expect to start a new cycle within four to six weeks of a miscarriage. As much as it pains me to disagree with google I feel compelled to do so in this instance. I mean, sure, go ahead. Expect your period as much as you like. I expect a house-sitter to be able to keep my hanging baskets of verbena and bacopa alive for seven measly days. I am just not overly surprised when it does not happen, and nor should you be when your body is all screwed up for much longer than you feel it ought to be.

Six to nine weeks is more accurate, in my experience, regardless of whether I have had a D&C or not and (surprisingly) regardless of how far along the fetbryo was.   

This time it took just under seven weeks to get my period after the D&C. It arrived in the middle of the beach trip and I was thrilled. No, really. I always have this fear that one of these times something will go horribly wrong and I will be left without any options at all. So I was pleased and relieved to be back to normal in a relatively short amount of time. Besides, all I needed was one cycle and then... it is my great pleasure to introduce Reproductive Agenda 712. Pick up your copy of the presentation from the tables in the back, help yourself to some water and please be seated.

First, let me tell you what we are not doing.

1. We are not giving up. Having a miscarriage does not lessen your desire to have a child. Having ten miscarriages does not lessen your desire to have a child. All it can do is make you want to never miscarry again. It can hurt you enough or scare you enough that you decide to pursue other avenues rather than risk another pregnancy loss. But you don't stop wanting a child simply because you didn't have that one.

Me, I am not scared of having another miscarriage. I admit that for the first time ever, right after we got the bad CVS results in April, I wavered. It hurt so much to lose that possible baby that I thought I really did not want to feel that way again. I seriously imagined just... stopping. But it did not feel right, even in my imagination. We will most likely never have another child and I am sad about that likelihood. A vasectomy (for example, off the top of my head) would seal that likelihood and just contemplating it made me nauseous. Crossing off one of two possible courses (never try again) left only one: try again.

Which is not to say that this does not make me feel stupid, it does. I am sure you all have your own ideas about what you would do if you were in our position. I can only imagine what the staff at my OB's office says about me. I think we can all agree that eleven miscarriages would be ridiculous (as if, um, what? five through ten weren't rather absurd.) And yet... here we are.

2. We are not doing IVF with PGD, although we spent a lot of time talking about this one. If you ask a reproductive endocrinologist what can be done with a balanced translocation they will say: IVF with PGD. And If you prod them for other suggestions they will slap you with a surgical glove and ask what part of IVF with PGD did you not comprehend, maggot? My friend Julie (oh you know Julie. everyone does. whitish-pinkish blog? about this high?) cannot understand why we rejected this option. In fact, we got into an argument over it that I am ashamed to admit degenerated into a pillow fight with hair-pulling. And I do understand her point. Statistically, the best chance for avoiding further loss while maximizing the possibility of a viable pregnancy is through pre-selecting an embryo that does not carry the translocation.

But

I don't know.

We did PGD. Twice. And I miscarried. Twice. We did not do genetic testing on the second pregnancy but the first pregnancy most emphatically carried the unbalanced arrangement for which they had screened. It might be illogical but I no longer have a great deal of faith in this procedure. And, to be frank, a cycle with PGD cost us $19000. That's, like, a quarter of a car (hahahahahahaha. I'm kidding. more like a third.) It isn't worth it to me. And by "it" I mean the chance for success. I do not mean "it" as a child. Why, I'd willingly pay TWICE that much for a child.

3. We are not adopting and we are not using donor sperm. Just insert an enormous sigh here and picture me waving my hands in Steve's direction. "Steve was adopted," I repeat like an automaton, "and Steve attributes his implacable desire for biologically related children to this fact." And, hell, I don't know, maybe he is right. I do know that he feels very strongly about this and I do not like badgering him about it. Not that I respect his intrinsic humanity or his right to possess what I consider to be irrational emotions or anything, I am just lazy.

Which brings us to...

Reproductive Agenda 712

IUI with injectible gonadotropins targeting three to four follicles, starting in three weeks.

Huh? you say.

What? you ask.

How the fuck is that going to help? you query.

Well, here is my logic. Sooner or later we will conceive another normal embryo (see: Patrick; see also: putative PGD results.) Given enough pregnancies I firmly believe that we would prevail. However, each failed pregnancy takes 6 months from beginning to end and I am rapidly approaching a more advanced maternal age (I will be 35 in October, nosy) at which point we risk compounding our existing genetic problems with still more genetic problems. So I am feeling a little short on time here. The point of a superovulatory IUI cycle will be to deliberately conceive multiples with the hope that at least one will be genetically normal. Also, it is completely covered by insurance. I like to think of it as Trying Again On Our Own, Turbo.

I will take that appalled silence for approval, thank you.    

Any questions?

Now With 100% More Sweet Tea

Shortly after Christmas my brother said, "Jules, we need to start planning the beach vacation."

And I said, "Ah. Yes. Beach. Huh. Well. The thing is... um. I think we are busy. Terribly sorry, rotten luck, couldn't be sicker about the whole thing but, no."

In truth, the last beach vacation en famille was exhausting. The group consisted of Steve Patrick and me, my mother, my brother and his family, my brother's wife's parents, my brother's wife's brother and his family, and finally my brother's wife's brother's wife's sister (ta da!) and her family.  Although we were scattered in different houses there was an ensemble dinner every night that had to be seen to be believed...  let us just say that I was damned if I was going to willingly immerse myself in that chaotic suckhole again.    

Two weeks later my brother said, "Jules, we need to start planning the beach vacation."

And I thought, well, that's odd. Didn't we just...? But I guessed that he had simply forgotten the conversation, so again I gently declined, citing conflicts like "summer" and potential problems such as my developing allergy to sand.

A few weeks after that my brother said, "Jules, we need to start planning the beach vacation."

What the hell? I said, "Listen."

He said, "OK."

I said, "We. Are. Not. Going. To. The. Beach."

"Ohhhhhhhhhh," he said. "OK."

A whole month went by before my brother said, "Hey Jules, we really need to start planning the beach vacation."

At that moment I understood. My poor brother. He was clearly suffering from some sort of degenerative mental disease. By the end of the year he would believe he was a soft-boiled egg. And all he wanted before that inevitable dark end was a beach vacation, a last hurrah with his beloved sister at his side. I teared up.

"Of course," I choked out. "Of course we do. We do need to start planning the beach vacation. I'll look for a house right away."

Which is how I came to not only agree to a week in South Carolina but assumed responsibility for organizing the whole damned trip. Mercifully, it was only my immediate family this time and I found a house that fit us all comfortably (behold the miracle of the enormous screened porch.) Shockingly, I had a fantastic time. See how tanned and relaxed I look? Still, there was the question of my brother's premature senility to be investigated.

Over wine one night, gazing out at the ocean as the waves stitched themselves into the sky, I delicately asked my brother if he was losing his fucking mind.

"FOUR TIMES you asked me about the beach. FOUR TIMES you forgot that I had said no already."

My brother grinned at me in what can only be described as a wicked manner.

"Ha!" he said.

Can you believe it? My own brother played me like a mah jongg tile. Now you know that all you have to do with me is repeat the question until I feel sorry for you (which actually explains a great deal of my early promiscuity, come to think of it....)   

We did have a great time although I missed you terribly. Where were we? Seriously, what do I owe you? Remind me what I have promised to write about and I will do my best to oblige this week.      

Quickie

First, permit me to extend my apologies to the fine, tidy people of Canada. I did not mean to imply that Canadian nationals are notorious for mispronunciations when I compared Patrick's insistence on "goh-thick" to that of a Son of The North. I meant to imply that Canadians talk funny. But! I can say this with love because I live in Minnesota where people talk even funnier. Not me personally of course (I have a rich-yet-lilting accentless contralto best compared to lark song warmed in butterscotch) but I know people. People who talk funny. And I think they are just swell.

Besides, Anne Murray.

Second, now honestly, what sort of freak would take a picture of her messy disorganized pantry? A photo essay of a clean, food group sorted pantry, though, that IS an idea. I will see to it when I get back.

Third, yes, sad. Not all the time. Not fatally. Just sometimes. And just... sad.

Fourth, if you need me I will be in South Carolina for a few days. Do you remember last year when we went to the beach with my family and I vowed Never Again? Great news! It has become an annual tradition.