It's not like I'm a crazy food hippie or anything

I swear. But yesterday I clicked over on a certain ad that freaked me out.





The ad was for cloned milk. As in, milk from cloned cows. And I just died a little bit inside. And in case you think I'm kidding...I'm not.





Apparently the FDA has approved the use of cloned animals for meat and milk. Which. Fine. Weird, but fine. I don't really see the benefit of it, because it's going to cost more to produce AND you have to convince people that it's not creepy. Uh, I'm not going to be able to jump on a bandwagon of people thinking that cloned milk is somehow better for you.





Meanwhile the rest of the world is trying to get away from "the weird." Even regular milk from Wal-Mart for example even says that it doesn't have the growth hormones in it. Not that the hormones were actually an issue to begin with. The hormone debacle didn't bother me.





The cloning thing does. It's not like there's a shortage of cows.





Oh and one more thing. On the clony cow website, in their FAQ:

I would say, actually there are some ethical issues about cloning and while they may or may not apply to your cows, they certainly do exist.

Just one more thing I'll probably never make again

not because they aren't tasty and super yummlicious. But because good Lord, that's too much damn work, even if they are super cute.

Cake balls a la Bakerella.

I'll probably make cake balls again one day, but I'll just be dipping whole balls in the candy coating and not doing the bottom part.

Actually I make something with a bag of oreos and cream cheese that's very similar, and I was just thinking as I sit here and stare at the 60 or so boxes of girl scout cookies that I currently have in my office - I could totally make a minty truffle by using the thin mints and cream cheese instead of oreos. Or a peanut butter one with the peanut butter sandwich (do-si-dos) ones.

Whose toy is that?

When we picked out this toy, we didn't realize just how far the track went, or how far the cars went past the end of the track. Nor did we take into account that we don't really have a door with that kind of distance of carpet beyond it.

And I don't think Clinton realized it would mean having someone sit on his head for an hour straight either.

We settled on putting it in his room, where the cars launch off the end of the ramp and we hung one of his quilts in the window sill to cushion the blow to the walls.

It's a strange world, my friend.

So, about a week ago I was driving home from work when I spotted this guy.

Maybe you can't really tell, but he's wearing a bee keepers headdress - net - suit - thingy.

And my initial reaction was "OH MY GOD THERE ARE KILLER BEES OUT HERE! WHERE ARE THEY? WHERE ARE THEY?!?!?!"

I instinctively made sure all my windows were rolled up and my doors were locked - you never know what skills those things have, they might be able to open my door.

I actually looked around for them, under the overpass, to see if they were swarming in a store in the shopping strip.

It wasn't until I was considering full fledged panic when I noticed the guy wasn't moving much. Or at all. Nor did he have shoes one. And holy crap, they tricked me with a mannequin.

On Beyond Bovine #15, #16, and #17 – Tomatillos, Red Onion, and Lime

Oh, I bet you know where this is going, right? With those ingredients? I made tomatillo salsa.

So, to begin, despite what some people might think (like a cashier at a regular grocery store), tomatillos are not just green tomatoes. They’re completely different.

They have these husky outer leafy things that you start by peeling off. And the insides are different too.



As for the red onion, well, you've all met a red onion before.



I don't have the recipe with me today, but I'll try to wing it. On a baking sheet (we wrapped ours in aluminum foil for easy clean up) I placed 12 quartered tomatillos, 1 large roughly chopped red onion, and 3 jalapeños (the recipe said 1-2, and also didn't mention whether to seed them or not - so I seeded 2 and then decided to add 1 with seeds - probably could have done without one of the unseeded ones or half the seeds of the third or something). And 3 cloves of garlic. Drizzled with olive oil and salted.

(Picture is pre-jalapeños and also I forgot the garlic and had to roast it separately while I waited for the main stuff to cool.)

I put it in the the oven at some temperature for some amount of time...I know I'm totally giving you a great recipe here. And it looked like this:


We scooped and poured everything into the blender.



At this point we added some heavy cream, some honey, some salt as needed for taste.

And squeezed in the juice of 1 lime.

I poured half into a container, and then we added 1 cup of sour cream to the rest - giving 2 very good but slightly different sauces.



Clinton and I both agreed that the jalapeño choices we made were not great - the one without the sour cream is much hotter than your average green sauce. But they're both very good.

Bonus, I used the hotter not sour cream sauce to make guacamole and it was awesome (mashed avocado + salsa of your choice = quick guacamole).

His Grandpas are going to be so proud

Clinton did a quick tune up on my car last weekend, new plugs and a belt. Landon, of course wanted to help. So I set him up with a nut driver and 3 screws halfway screwed into a piece of wood. [Full disclosure: I screwed them all the way in and then half way back out, so he could either screw them back in or out and it would be just as easy.] He worked on that for quite a while, and he did actually manage to free 2 of the three screws.

Working hard, or hardly working

Yesterday I had a meeting 8 am to 3 pm (it was supposed to last until 5, but thank god they let me go early.) I did get a lunch break because I had already set up a drag-up lunch with a friend whose last day is Thursday - I told them when they scheduled this meeting that I already had a lunch meeting and would have to leave. If I hadn't, I might have poked my own eye out just for an excuse to get out of the room - they had brought lunch in, so there would have been no escaping. I thought I got out of it for today, but apparently not, I have just been informed that it was pushed back to 8:30 instead of 8.

Landon had his first day of transition to the next classroom yesterday. This week he's spending an hour each morning in the room next door, next week he'll spend the bulk of the day over there (something like 9-4) and then on the 30th he'll start going there full time. It's nice that they do that. He's also not alone, there are three boys in his class with October birthdays, and they're all transitioning together. Which is nice. Plus he'll know most of the kids in the next class over, since they were all in his current class at some point during his stay.

He seemed to do well with it. I happened to be on a 5 minute break when they opened the door and let him in the room, and he walked right over and picked out a book to read.

And now blogger won't let me put a picture on this post, so the whole point of posting quickly and not getting calls from various people about why I didn't post any new pictures is ruined.

Airplane

A week or so ago we had dinner with Clinton's mother at his aunt Brenda's house.

Between the 2 sixteen year old girls and Brenda herself, we discovered, what people need when they have a toddler is not another baby, but another adult or teenager to entertain the toddler.

Our first anatomy lesson

Landon: Mommy hab a penis?

Me: No Mommy doesn’t have a penis.

Landon: [Grabs his crotch] Me hab a penis?

Me: Yes, you have a penis, it’s what makes you a boy.

Landon: Daddy hab a penis?

Clinton: Yes, Daddy has a penis.

Landon: Oh. [Pause] Mommy no hab penis?

Me: No, mommy has a vagina.

Landon: A gyna?

Me: Yes

Landon: NO GYNA!! NO GYNA!!

Planting

Ice Cream Truck Club

Ideally, you're hangin out in the house and you hear "The Entertainer" playing away outside. It's far enough away that you have time to find some money, but close enough that you don't really have time to put on your shoes, so it's easier to just pull your socks off.



You're going to need some cash.

Make sure it's real money, they don't want those counterfeits on the Ice Cream Truck.

You pick out your preferred ice cream, you might say you want "chockit." So your mom asks for a fudgesicle and then she gets herself a teenage mutant ninja turtle.

Your mom might casually mention that it's your first ice cream truck experience, at which point the driver says, well, put him up on the counter and take a picture. But you're not so sure about that, what if they drive off with you! Never once thinking about all the ice cream you'd have at your disposal. I guess staying with mom trumps going with ice cream. Good instinct kid, hold on to that.

Luckily, grandpa is there to save you from the torture of sitting on the ledge. You head back into the house to eat your ice cream, and as you are walking in, your mom might open up your fudgesicle and her teenage mutant ninja turtle and you may be over come with jealousy and STEAL her ice cream from her. Because it's more colorful or something. Or maybe you're mean.

And then you just keep taunting her and taunting her.

And no, you can't ALSO have the fudgesicle.

On Beyond Bovine #13 - Fresh Coconut

Guess how you don't open a fresh coconut?

You do NOT open a coconut by whacking it with the blade of your favorite chef's knife. Just because they do it in the movies like that, doesn't mean you are capable. Or maybe it's because your machete isn't readily available. Maybe you left it in the back 40 after, uh, clearing some brush? I dunno, just don't do it, because then you'll be able to see the ding in the blade of your knife and you will want to leave a dinged blade shaped impression on the person who said to do it and that your knife would be fine. Not that anyone I know is in that exact predicament. Ahem.

So, on to the how to. You're going to need a hammer, a towel, a nail or awl, and a cup.
See the 3 little dots? They are in bowling pin hole formation.

Drive your nail or awl through each of the three dots to make holes. The website may claim that's enough, I have to wonder how freaking big their nails were, maybe they used railroad ties. We also had to poke a hole on the other side to let air out.

Drain the water from the coconut completely into the cup.

This is the part where the person who read the website should fill you in on stuff like "they said you might want to be on the floor or outside, because you have to hit it really hard." Before they try to dismantle your countertop. Wrap the coconut in the towel and take the towel outside. Bang it with a hammer.
The inner white meat and the brown thin skin that comes with it is entirely edible. Although, when grating, you may want to take the brown stuff off, because it will look funky.

Clinton: [Takes a small piece and pops it in his mouth, chews for a moment] It’s like a tasteless carrot.

Me: I'm pretty sure that's why they sell sweetened coconut in the store.

Clinton: [ Now chewing for 15 seconds] Ok, now it's getting papery; it doesn't take long to start tasting like dried crap.

Me: It didn't have much flavor, the juice seemed to have the most flavor. Maybe if we dipped it in sugar? Like sweetened coconut might be. I don't have confectioners' but I think we could try regular sugar.

Clinton: [dunks a chunk of coconut in a bowl of sugar, and places it in his mouth] [GAG, HACK, WHEEZE] That was worse! Too sweet.

Me: [Tried the same thing] Ehh, not that bad.

I continued cleaning up the coconut pieces and sent Clinton to figure out how to make sweetened grated coconut from the internet. He came back with a recipe that was basically, add some sugar to the liquid and once you grate it, pour it over the grated coconut, then allow to dry.

He added the sugar and asked me if it was enough. I tasted it, I don't know.

Landon showed up about this time to find out what we were doing.

He tasted the sweetened coconut juice. "Mmmmm, dat's good."

We grated the coconut.

And spread it, poured the sweetened juice over it and let him taste it. "Uhhh, me no like it."

I don't think we added quite enough sugar, I tasted the final product and it didn't have the sweetness that I normally get from the packaged coconut. I gathered it up after a while and froze it. I don't use a lot of coconut, but we'll see.

Baseball

Mock a Pissa

Landon watched an episode of the insufferable Caillou early last week some time. In which Baldy (as we so lovingly refer to him in our house) made pizza with his friends.

Caillou got mad that his friends didn’t like mushrooms and were making their pizzas different from his. Because he’s weird and doesn’t get that other people feel pretty strongly about mushrooms. Although, maybe he was onto something because the same kid who didn't want to put mushrooms on his pizza because he "didn't like them," totally traded a piece of his pizza for a piece of Caillou's.

He was outraged that they might put less sauce or more sauce, or less cheese or more cheese, or carrots and broccoli on their pizzas. Thereby "ruinning" their pizzas. Total disgust with them for not conforming to his pizza liking standards.

Landon has been bothering me for a week to “mock a pissa.” So when we went down to LJ on Saturday I got my parents to indulge him. And he made his very own pizza.

He didn't spread the dough, but he did spread the sauce.

He prefers cheese only, thank you.

And lots of it.

And it came out pretty nice.

But someone, doesn't really like to be photographed with their mouth full.

Just pick a dang time and stick to it.

You know how I don't like it when the clocks change?

Yeah. I hate it. I don't like change. I will now be throwing myself on the floor tantrum style. What? It works for some people.

Quitter

Over the past week I have been talking myself into quitting. I’m not a quitter. I hate quitting. Because to me, quitting = failure. And I am scared of failure more than anything ever. You know what though, it’s a personal issue and it doesn’t transfer to other people, because it’s not like I see people quitting things and think they’re failures, so I don’t know what it is. I just have really high, possibly unrealistic standards for myself. So while I go around telling people that they should quit things that make them crazy, I keep on with the crazy making in my own life because I don’t want to be a failure.

One time in college I took a class called differential equations. And if you ever have to take a class with a name like differential equations, I highly recommend doing it at a community college if you can. For one thing, you can make a C and when it transfers to your college of choice, it’s pass/fail and doesn’t effect your grade point average. I had been burned previously by teachers with accents I couldn’t understand, so I chose a Dr. Wilson for my differential equations class – thinking he’d be better suited for my understanding that a Dr. Chen or Dr. Too-many consonant-and-not-enough-vowels would. Well, Dr. Wilson sucked and for the record he also had an accent, but it was Austrailian or something. He sucked hard. He sucked so hard that even as I struggled through the course, I was headed for an F, not a D or a C, but an F. I had to do what’s called a Q-drop. Where Q=quit. And I felt like I was walking around with a giant Q on my forehead for the next week or so.

Well, as it turns out, Dr. Wilson HAD sucked so hard that out of a class of 24 people. 19 Q-dropped. 19! 79% of the people in that room had decided that this guy sucked so hard at teaching that rather than sludge through and teach themselves and make it out the other side, they’d consider the money spent on tuition as a lesson learned and try again with someone else. And of the ones left? Half made Ds or Fs, which in my major would have meant I had to take it over again anyway. I had made the right decision, but at the time it felt horrible.

And that’s what I’m doing right now. I am deciding not to take the home inspectors test. I have been looking over the practice stuff I have, and it is just too detailed and too code-specific for me to adequately study for the test and pass by the 18th. What was originally the optimal answer to my problems has become a much less sensible choice. So I'm giving up. I quit.

Monthly Newsletter #29

Dear Landon,

As you age, you are going to find that some months in your life really drag and some just fly by and the next thing you know, it’s a month later. It something I’m pretty sure you’ll study in physics. Anyway, this was one of those fast months.

You finally have a steady set of teacher at school. Well, kind of. The older women seem to be constant, and the younger girls don’t last long. We had yet another change in the younger girl a week ago and I asked what was up. Apparently 2 year olds make young girls crazy. And also it’s not just 2 year olds. Apparently they have a lot of turnover of the younger girls in the classes between infant and 2 ½ year olds. And it’s because you guys are wobbly, and you keep falling for no reason and they have to call your mom and tell her you fell if you hurt yourself, and they don’t have an explanation and they seem kind of stressed out about it. That’s okay, they can rotate a younger girl through every so often if they can keep the main teachers from leaving, that’s the main thing.

You have figured out how to melt my heart. You’re practicing it a lot, and seeing exactly what it will get you. The answer: a lot. Until you use it 14 times in a row, and then the answer: nothing. You have taken to saying “I miss you, Mommy.” And giving me a hug. Which is so cute when I pick you up from school and not so cute when I’m dropping you off for school. And this past weekend, I got you to say “I love you , Mommy.” I don’t think you know the meaning behind it yet, it took a little prompting to get you to say it. But you said it, and I’ll take it.

Apparently they talked about your home last week at school. One of the topics was what chores you do at home. And you do feed the cats, but a few nights I ago, I was trying to cook dinner and I set you up with a laundry basket and had you empty the dryer. And I think we’ve found your new chore! You were just slow enough at it, that it gave me time to finish up dinner, but not so bad at it that I wouldn’t have you do it again. It probably wouldn’t have taken so long if you hadn’t been so excited to see each article of your clothing. My personal favorite was the interlude where you found the rockstar shirt and came to show it off and do a little rockstar dance.

You had your first ice cream truck experience. You probably wouldn’t have been so patient waiting for the truck if you knew what we were waiting for. And since you stole my teenage mutant ninja turtle ice cream with the gum eyeballs, you also had your first gum experience, where you spit it back out on the plate and looked at me like “what’s the point of it if you just spit it out?”

A few months in day care and a few months maturity and now, you’re able to play alongside Zoey. Not necessarily WITH Zoey, but near Zoey, while she plays with something else. Which is excellent news. It means if she needs to be babysat, we can totally do that!

Somewhere in the midst of the illness last month, your schedule got screwed up and we’ve been hard pressed to get you back on it. You are staying up much too late in the evenings and that’s not good for anyone. So that’s what we’ll be working on this month.

Love,
Mama

No Paparazzi

When Landon has enough of the picture taking: