Fries with Gravy

Since I can't tell you how many shirts I have had destroyed by splattering grease and whatnot, I have taken to wearing aprons while cooking.  Even in trackpants and a $6 Target t-shirt, I feel completely June Cleaver-ish while wearing an apron - I might as well be wearing heels and pearls...ta da! 

I could *win* this apron courtesy of a contest at Smockity Frocks which makes it all the more succulent...nevermind the darling strawberries and sweet red gingham. 

Go!  Buy aprons!! :)

If you don't have a love of the game, you're gonna think I'm a crazy woman - guaranteed.  My Ravens made the playoffs.  No big surprise there - we're a solid team with some bigtime players.  I remember the moment over the summer when I heard that Steve McNair was coming to Baltimore...*sigh*, it was then that I knew we'd very likely get to this place in the post-season.  Then, a mere month later...meeting him at the restaurant where I worked (for something like 3 days) felt like some kind of serendipitous occasion.  Barring serious injuries, I never doubted the Ravens' appearance in the playoffs this season.

Now that it's here, I am beyond excited.  What I *am* may not even be considered a positive emotion.  Yay - my football team is doing great but why am I so anxious?  So nervous?  So terrrrrified?  I spent the morning in the minivan, listening to talk radio.  Baltimore has Ravens fever and everyone has an opinion.  They've got in the bag!  Oh God, they're gonna lose their asses.  I can't handle hearing it all, but then I can't change the station over to plain ol' music because OHMYGOSH, someone could be talking about the Ravens and I'll miss crucial insight regarding this week's matchup.  And where would I be without knowing up to the minute facts about point spread and the health of Jonathan Ogden's toe??

Have I mentioned we play THE COLTS this weekend?  The headline on today's paper said something like "MOST IMPORTANT SPORTING EVENT TO EVVVERRRRR COME TO BALTIMORE".  If that's not enough to make you need Prozac, well...I just can't confirm what is.  I mean.  The COLTS.  Commercially celebrated Peyton Manning who has choked in the post season every year thus far when he's supposedly the greatest QB in the league.  The COLTS.  Same ones who left Baltimore back in '84 via a notorious Maytag truck.  "Like thieves in the night", we've heard told time and again.  They left us and took their records with them... our beloved Johnny U now appearing under Indianapolis's section in the NFL Hall of Fame. 

Baltimore caught a lot of heat for the way the Ravens franchise was obtained back in 1996.  Cleveland wasn't building the Browns a new stadium, their franchise was losing money and the longtime owner wanted out of the city as a result.  He moved to Baltimore, leaving the Browns' colors, history, records and saga in the city of Cleveland.  They were rewarded with a new team within 2 years.  Baltimore started from scratch, building the Ravens.  I've always felt like we were a team that induced a sneer among the NFL elite - it was particularly sweet when we won the SuperBowl in the 2000-'01 season with straight up defense, the way we had to be.  That year was destiny.  This year... to be determined. 

All I know is I'm in deep.  We just can't lose to those dastardly Colts.  Some days I wonder if I'll ever really be able to detach myself from this city and this feeling.  No matter how sick it all makes me.  :)

Happy 2007, yo.  I rang it in with a bang...working and watching the Twilight Zone.  Watching the ball drop with poor ol' Dick Clark.  What I was really looking forward to were the gossip blogs the day after.  Britney passed out!  Jessica slobbered all over John Mayer!  Sadly, I love that stuff. 

Resolutions...bah.  All I want in 2007 is to be able to string my Christmas lights from a Palmetto tree.  :)

Happy Birthday, Duggie. 

Shopping, wrapping, working, having a sinus infection.  Not baking.  Definitely not blogging.  *sigh*

Merry Christmas to all!!  Fries With Gravy will be back as soon as possible. :)

1. How long have you been a Mom?
The oldest turned 8 in October

2. How many children call you Mommy/Mom/Mama?
Technically, 3.  My nephew calls me "Momma, Momma" and then gets a good look at me and corrects himself to, "Deena, Deena"

3. Girl? Boy? Both?
Boy, Girl, Girl

4. Did you know what you were having?
Yes, I'm impatient and curious and had to know how to decorate.  Classic Pooh for the boy (how I loved the idea of English Christopher Robin) and some pink and green Waverly coordinates for the girls.  

5. How old were you when you became a Mom?:
24

6. How long were you in labor?

After a seemingly sucky pregnancy with toxemia and a month of bedrest, I was (finally!) induced at 7am for Seth and he was born at 3:16pm.  It was easy and I pushed for exactly 15 minutes. Claire and Grace were born by c-section, 9 weeks early.  No labor, but more worry and pain than should ever be considered natural.  Awful pregnancies, easy births.

7. What’s your favorite thing about being a mom?

"Because I said so! bwahahahaha!"  I'm also pretty fond of making pigtails.

8. What’s your least favorite thing?
Company in the bathroom.  ahem.

9. Do you want more kids?
Nope.  I think one day when they are all teenaged and surly, I'll want to adopt one.  But then I might just want a Winnebago and some time to hold an actual conversation with my husband.  It depends.

10. Do you plan on having more soon?
That is so not in the plans. 

11. Does daddy change diapers?

Of course he did.  Otherwise, terrible, terrible things.

12. How many times have you been peed on?
At least a few. 

13. Barfed on?
Claire was on reflux meds from minute one.  Enough said.

14. Is your child named after anyone?
Claire's middle name is Kathryn after Doug's mom.  Grace's first name is Sarah after my mom.  Seth is lucky he has a name besides "Baby Boy"  because it was that much effort. 

15. How did you come up with their name(s)?
We were altogether disagreeable on names except for Claire's.  Seth was a compromise between Heath (his) and Alex (mine).  Seth sounded soft and cultured yet masculine and potentially quarterback-ish.  We both loved Claire.  Sarah Grace was an answer to a prayer - poor little dear weighed 2.5 lbs. when she was born... Sarah was my mother and she died right before I found I was pregnant.  Grace was simply God's gift. 

16. When your child gets in trouble, who is the bad guy?
I am the bad, bad guy.

17. And who is the good guy?
Daddy.  Pfft.

18. What is the longest you have been away from your children?
Went to Charleston, SC in 2005 for 3 days.  Went to Berkeley Springs, WV in 2006 for 3 days.  Hey...6 days total.  Not counting the NICU stay for the twins when they were born - that was 6 weeks.

19. Bedtime routine?
teeth brushing, a book, prayers all the way around & turning on the music.  Daddy sings a crazy amount of songs that I just can't deal with because MY GOSH, I'm done, aren't I??

20. Are your toes painted?
But, of course.

21. Last movie you saw in the theatre?
Um.  Um.  Curious George?  Nacho Libre?  WAIT!  Devil Wears Prada?

22. Last time you had a date?
A couple weeks ago we snuck out to Chinese food by ourselves.

23. One thing you will not give up just because you’re a mom?

Painting my toenails?  Sex?  Beer? 

24. One thing you did give up now that you’re a mom?
Career

25. Best mom perk?
Track pants?

26. Snack you sneak bites from your child?
Yeah...all of them. 

27. When the kid is napping, you are?
As if they napped in the past 3 years.

28. Where is your child now?
Asleep.

29. Favorite place to buy maternity clothes?
Target.  And Motherhood.

30. If I could do it over, I’d do this differently:
Milk pregnancy and it's aftermath for all that it's worth, claiming pain and ineptitude at every turn.   SERIOUSLY.

31. What is the craziest thing you have said/done/taught since becoming a mom?
It varies by the day.  I'm pretty crazy.  Santa has a hidden camera in the ceiling fan.  Be good. 

my oldest child turned eight, I became addicted to Friday Night Lights, I watched the Country Music Awards no less than four times and OHMYGOODGRAVY, Britney Spears filed for divorce.  It's been a good ten days. 

The birthday party went off without a hitch, even with a daring venture into Mexican cooking.  And how about my ingenuity at incorporating Thank You notes into handwriting practice?  Am I homeschooler extraordinaire or *what*?  Yeah, I'm not...but sometimes I keed. 

Friday Night Lights is such a fabulous new show that if you're not watching, my friend Sherry will hunt you down and make you turn it on because it just better not get canceled, dammit. 

Britney, I am so proud of you, sugar.  That fool (FedEx, lol) has embarrassed you enough. 

I can't get enough Josh Turner.  I thought Faith Hill was just kidding in her self-absorbed, pretentious way of course, but kidding all the same.  Maybe she wasn't.  Either way, she's kinda dumb.  But I just can't get enough Josh Turner.  *le sigh*

A positively (or negatively? hahahaha) hysterical song/video from the archives of my misspent youth. I play it annually at Halloween and crack up at the me who actually went to a Type O Negative concert.  They don't mean to be campy, which is the very best part.  The fellow concertgoers were the scariest group of humans (using that term very loosely) I've ever spent two hours bumping into.  Most had...fangs.

Best lines of the song:

"Oh baby, Lily Munster ain't got nothin' on you"

"Yeah, you wanna go out cuz it's raining and blowing.  You can't go out cuz your roots are showin' - dye 'em black."

And who can resist the charm of a songwriter who senses that you really CAN'T go out cuz your roots are showing?

We're selling our house.  Well...we have our house up for sale.  There's really no active *selling* going on at all.  If you know anyone who is in the market for a poorly designed split foyer (you can only see half the backyard from the kitchen window! And you can only see that if you're standing on tip-toes...just, ugh), circa 1973...with yellow aluminum siding, even...well, gimme a call.  I mentioned that we're in a seriously inflated real estate market, right? 

Well, anyway - I have a point here.  The point is that having your house on the market just SUCKS.  There is no eloquent way to describe the process.  You de-clutter.  And you clean.  Then you clean some more because it can't be too clean.  You employ your husband to shampoo carpets after the kids are in bed and can't traipse across them.  You spend Friday afternoon frantically scrubbing the bathroom to a sparkling shine only to come home from work exhausted at midnight to discover that someone has apparently bathed a litter of piglets in the tub.  The conversation went something like this:

"My GOD.  What was in the tub?"

"Huh?"

"Husband! Come and look at this tub that was formerly white.  And sparkling!  Tell me what has been in it. Swamp Thing, perhaps?"

"Uh, I gave the twins a bath." 

"Had they been playing in the coal mines?"

"Huh?"

"THE TUB IS BLACK.  I CLEANED IT TODAY. JUST WONDERING WHAT GIVES."

"I guess I forgot to wipe it out.  Sorry." 

"I guess I forgotten that we were raising young swine."

Who really knows what these children get into.  They disappear from vision (and it's easy to do, given the kitchen window situation) and reappear moments later covered in grime and filth.  They are the type of children who leave a wake of toys in their path, no matter how often I have head-spinning incidents explaining that someone could walk through the door at any moment and declare their want and financial qualification for our home, save the 4 beanie babies (in dresses) on the stairs, the Barbie on the toilet seat (?) and the heap of Pokemon cards on the kitchen counter.   You can argue that all children do these things...leave wayward pillows and blankets and markers and paper, livers and appendixes (appendi?) all about the house - it's simply the nature of children, you suggest.  Ha!  But these other children do not have a mother who really wants to get out of Maryland, do they?  Who really just has a yearn to sit in a chair at the kitchen table and gaze upon her children (out the window! that she can see them from!) stringing their beanie babies from the palmetto tree in the very lush, very Southern back yard.  My children must comply with the rules of house selling... They do not include:

*Dirty rings in the tub.  Stay clean, young ones.

* Not flushing the toilet. 'Nuff said.

* Beanie Babies or the like.  Anywhere other than the bins in your rooms.

* Putting your HANDS ON THE WALLS.  PLEEEEASE stop putting your hands on the walls. 

* Drawing pictures, asking for tape and making murals. 

So much more I can probably think of.  I just find myself walking room to room on this Saturday when we have signs posted all about the town - HOUSE FOR SALE!  OPEN HOUSE!  COME SEE HOW DIRTY THREE KIDS CAN MAKE A PLACE THEIR MOTHER HAS SPENT ALL WEEK TRYING TO SCRUB! - having minor breakdowns each time I stumble upon another little volcano. 

And the next line is:

"Can Maddie come in the house to play in my room?  We promise we won't make a big mess!"

I feel another gray hair making its' wiry way to fruition.

I'm kinda wild about Sally Field.  For a while, she was one of those actresses I'd roll my eyes over because she was someone my mom liked...ohmigosh, I'm way too bershon (oh, you just HAVE to go look it up - click the links! - you'll get all nostalgic over Guess jeans and crack up at the thought of some old picture of yourself) to like SALLY FRICKIN' FIELD.  But now I'm old and don't care and forget to comb my hair before I go to Target, so there.  I am wild about Sally Field. 

I have NEVER been wild about Calista Flockhart.  After I moved out of my parents' house at *sigh*, 21, my mom got all hip with the remote and started watching Ally McBeal, which I refuuuused to ever glance upon.  Aw, look...a quirky little lawyerette in a short skirt.  Yeah, well she didn't rock those skirts quite like Amanda Woodward.  And Calista is so skinny and agh, I mentioned quirky?  I just haven't ever liked her that much.  Plus the Harrison Ford thing - I mean, we all had our Han Solo fantasy but Calista and I were 7 or so back when Harrison was still looking like Han. 

You know what though?  Calista doesn't annoy me on Brothers and Sisters.  Even as the uber-Republican! ;) Her character, Kitty Walker is a talking head on a political talk show and has had a "thing" with her liberal-minded mother (Field) for years.  After years in New York, Kitty returns to California and resumes living among her family and with her suddenly widowed mother.  The cast is rounded out with Ron Rifkin, Balthazar Getty, Rachel Griffiths (looove her!) and Dave Annable, who plays the supercute youngest brother who has a drug problem and shares the fierce loyalty of both mother and sister Kitty.  Good stuff - all the siblings have interesting setups and unique relationships with the mother.  There is also a family business to run and a few of the siblings along with their uncle have their hands in that. 

I read this morning that ABC picked up Brothers & Sisters for the full season, despite declining ratings in the last couple of weeks.  I'll be interested to see how it grows - so far, so good.

Flashback to 1982 - I'm 7 years old and making the car trip to visit my grandparents in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  My brother probably groans as we are close to Grandma's house but we're stuck behind a slow moving Amish buggy.  My dad is probably inspired to tell us about an Amish farmer he worked for as a teenager, how clean and methodical their farms were...how peacefully and respectfully they've lived in the County for hundreds of years.  My mom was probably envisioning quilts or handmade jelly cabinets. :) I was definitely catching the attention of the children who peered out of the back of the buggy.  Waving, smiling girls in dark dresses and bonnets fascinated me beyond words.  I was a product of Little House on the Prairie love (tv and books) and to me, those little girls were living a modern day Laura Ingalls life.

A misconception that I think a lot of people have is that the Amish live in a completely sequestered community.  The truth though (at least as I've always experienced it), is that they do mingle with the "English", their term for modernized Americans.  They are farmers who employ young boys when the fields are ready, they are proprieters and they are neighbors.  My grandfather spent many an hour of his retirement "carrying" Amish friends in his car when they had business or doctor's appointments that were out of the way of where their horse and buggy might comfortably take them.  Though they aren't permitted to own cars, they didn't decline riding in them when the opportunity arose.  Grandpa would get a kick out of playing music for them on the radio as well.  When both of my grandparents passed away, there were Amish friends at the funeral home and there was plenty of Amish food at their house when we returned.  They were separate from the world in their dress and their lifestyle but very much a part of it when it came to community.  In all the time that I'd spent in "Dutch Country" and all the people I'd known who had ever discussed the Amish (and they all will gleefully discuss the Amish), no one had ever had a rude word to say about them.  Kind, generous in spirit, gentle, plain.  Treat their animals well.  Take their children everywhere with them.  Keep their homes and farms clean and in impeccable order. 

I've spent the last week in abject shock over the Amish school shootings.  While the Amish don't live unto themselves entirely, it seems like there is indeed something that separates them from the rest of the world.  Their teenagers aren't influenced by rock or rap music and they don't have to fret about a daughter who comes home with a belly ring or a tattoo on her ankle.  Their children aren't subject to violent cartoons and video games.  Certainly, none of us who do allow Nickelodeon expect to send our kids off to school to be shot either...but the thought of it happening in an Amish schoolhouse is beyond my comprehension.  The idea that someone who lived in the Lancaster community, who interacted with Amish families as he picked up milk from their dairy farms, who was himself a father... tied up those little girls and shot them in their heads is just something that I can't wrap my brain around.  I've read every article in the newspapers that outlines the killer's confession that he sexually molested young relatives 20 years prior, and that he had thoughts of doing it again.  He showed up at that little schoolhouse with SIX HUNDRED rounds of ammunition.  What exactly were his intentions?  How long did he plan to keep those girls hostage?  The Amish community states that they have forgiven him and they have even set up a fund for his family - an amazing act of grace in the face of such an unbelievable tragedy.  I suppose they find solace in the fact that he didn't have time to molest the girls - fortunately the teacher was able to escape and run to a nearby farm that thankfully had a telephone.  It all seems so pointless and horrifying - driving home the fact that children aren't safe in their schools, even when the children are sheltered from society and pop culture, even when the schools are little, rural Amish schoolhouses.  The scariest thing to me is that there are human beings out there in this world who are so dark and twisted that they can't see the beauty and hope in the face of a child...that some urge to be perverse and hateful is stronger even than the peace that pervades the Amish community in Lancaster County.  It makes me feel like we are all so incredibly vulnerable.

I want a GMC Yukon Denali.  Black?  Eh, everyone gets black.  But I'd feel like such a rap star!  But everyone wants to feel like a rap star.  And black is hard to keep clean.  Navy?  Navy's kinda classy.  Red?  It's not a bright red so I don't think it looks cheesy on a truck.  Bright red is for sports cars.  But the GMC red is kinda hot.  Not white.  I'm tired of white.  *sigh*  I just can't decide on a color.  That is exactly what prevents me from driving home in a brand new one.  Nevermind the fact that it would mean a practical 2nd mortgage.    I'm such a gearhead.

While I don't ever recall seeing it at a carnival (the prizes I remember were feathered roach clips and Motley Crue mirrors), I've always admired carnival glass.  My grandmother had a few pretty pieces and my mom was notorious for dragging me around to various estate sales and antique shops when I would have much rather been watching MTV.  My mother tried to lend her appreciation for shaker style furnishings, but I was always drawn to the gaudiest trinkets in the store; God bless it if it were multi-colored and opalescent.  My mother could never decide if my grandmother (paternal, btw) had something genetic to do with my dramatic flair or if I had just inherited the Hon-ness of our native town.  I'm sure she wanted to blame it on my father's side.

I've since inherited my grandmother's collection of carnival glass and have added a few pieces here and there.  I also collect Avon Cape Cod glass and whatever else strikes my tacky fancy.  I packed it all away a few months ago in an effort to de-clutter our house, but I swear if this place doesn't sell soon, I might have to dig around in the mountain of boxes in the basement in order to get a shiny object fix.  Either that or I'll be sweating the credit card at the antique stores. 

And dag...if you're gonna be exasperated about my reviewing television (gasp!) shows when I could be cleaning litter from the streets or bottlefeeding abandoned baby stingrays, you probably don't want to continue reading.  I am addicted to certain television shows, indeed.  I really do spend a fair amount of time considering the plight of Meredith Grey.  I also feed my kids and water my plants, so don't worry too much. 

So, here we are at Season 3 of Desperate Housewives.  This show had a glorious first season and was followed up with a universally panned season two.  The addition of the lovely Alfre Woodard proved boring and it sucked that they killed Rex VanDeKamp and had Bree hook up with crazy George and then that weird sex addict guy.  Right when we found out that Rex was a bit of an S&M fiend, he was gone and poor Bree was relegated to people even weirder than he.  So...how does Desperate inject some life into this new, make it or break it season?  Why...by giving Bree a *new* whack-job lover!  Hooray - I would have never seen it coming.  Pfft.  At least it's Kyle MacLachlan and he's fabulous if only for his former credits on Sex and the City and oh, it pains me to type it...Twin Peaks.  But could we possibly have another type of storyline for our adored, insane redhead?  I want to see her crazy son Andrew come back and wreak more havoc - there's certainly more life in that story.  And I'm sure her daughter is duly traumatized after finding out last season's puppy love was a murderer.  Let poor Bree rest on the sex/love front - it's so obvious that she doesn't enjoy it anyway.

I guess I'm ok with Mike having been in a coma for six months.  As long as he wakes up next week. 

I'm definitely not ok with the reduction of Carlos scenes!  I say if the Solises must divorce, let Carlos have the house, baby and Housewife status.  We won't mind at all if Gabby just mails a check from Madrid every now and then.

I'll be glad when Lynette finally gives Tom's ex-lover a piece of her mind in a big way.  Y'all know that's coming!  Tom is sooo non-confrontational.  That's a good storyline and about the only one that has me wondering what's going to happen. 

Hoping this season gets juicier!  I want to see what has become of Zack now that Paul's in prison.  Will he come back for Julie?  I seriously think I should be writing this show in order to satisfy my viewing needs...haha.

Oh, woe to the mother whose child possesses a Doodle Enemy.  Last year it was Doodle Bears for the girls' birthday and I thought once those markers were lost (read: thrown away), we were finished with the endless tattooing and subsequent laundering of these stuffed creatures.  At Christmas, the boy child had a Doodle Monster on the brain, but fortunately I couldn't find one anywhere (seriously!) and we averted another encounter with the insolent creatures.  He forgot about wanting one.  Last week was another twin birthday and lo, unsuspecting as I was...these "gifts", they hailed from the sister-in-law whose two year old might now be getting a DRUM SET FOR CHRISTMAS - the wee little twins plucked DOODLE GIRLS from matching gift bags.  Gah!  I've washed them four times in as many days.  Because I *needed* more laundry.  What the heck kind of toy is that anyway?  I protest.

The season opener of Grey's was a little disappointing, I gotta admit.  Maybe because I spent the entire summer thinking, Yeah...I'm having fun ripping down this wallpaper, or better...standing in line at the amusement park but I really can't wait until fall to see what Meredith is going to do to get herself right with this McDreamy sex situation.  And Izzy! Poor Denny!  And Cristina! Poor Burke!  I mean, I was really ultra-excited about this show starting back up. 

It starts with Meredith being whiny that her friends elect her to go pry Izzy from the bathroom floor.  She's President of the Crappy Lives club...whaaa.  Good stuff, with her cooking because "that's what you do when people die".  Cristina talks about the Jewish tradition of shiva, even though Izzy is Catholic and later makes the parallel that you don't have sex, shave or.. wear clean clothes.  Since Izzy is still on the bathroom floor in her prom gown and all.  OK...still good stuff.  Very Grey's and I'm excited.  So. excited.

Then everything gets all convoluted and crazy... which is Greys-y in it's own regard but HELLO?  Season opener?  This is not what I want from you!  I want answers to last year's questions and leaving McDreamy quarantined in a locker room with George because there's a plague at the hospital while at the same time there is a premature baby of questionable teenage parentage found stuffed in a school trashcan and at the same time, the chief's wife (who should still be at least a little touched over the prom he threw for their niece in the last episode) is threatening to leave him if he doesn't retire, just isn't giving me what I want.  This isn't really the time to mess with a woman who spent a month brushing her teeth in the kitchen while the bathroom was under construction.  I just wasn't caring whose baby it was, whether Omar's wife died from the plague (the plague?! SERIOUSLY?) and whether the chief got tossed out on his ass.  There was just too much information.  Which made all of the information seem rushed and not given proper time and attention.  I mean, we (the viewers) marinated that McDreamy/McVet dilemma all summer long.  We thought about Burke's trembling hand.  We couldn't forget Alex holding Izzy.  Holding her!  Give us more than just a bit of what we fancy.  Slow down on the over the top medical situations - it's entertaining stuff, sure...but how much of it needs to be thrust in one episode?  The one episode that we awaited with such McBreathy anticipation.

Best part of the show was Addison pinning those panties to the bulletin board.  I hope we get at least 10 minutes of play out of that maneuver next week.  Then, I'll be sated.