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Television has changed a child from an irresistible force to an immovable object.
– Unknown
So here in Michigan, they have a place called Meijer. When David first told me about it – it’s where he worked through high school and college – I thought it was just a grocery store. Boy, was I wrong. It’s got everything. It’s kind of like Wal-Mart, but with wider aisles, better lighting, and better stuff. And everyone here shops there. I’ve been there three times in two days, and I don’t even live here.
When we were leaving the store after our first stop there, I saw this:
These are TV Karts. Put in a dollar and pull out one of these carts, and you can stuff your small child inside where he can watch “quality children’s programming” as you load up your cart. I’m not kidding.
Give me a break. You really need a TV Kart to entertain your child for the 45 minutes or whatever that you’re in the store? If that’s true, you have bigger problems than a TV Kart can help you with.
What is the world coming to where parents can’t manage their children for even short trips out without resorting to things like this? David and I saw a family out at a restaurant once – two parents and three kids, one of whom was a baby. The two older kids, probably twins about 3 years old, were watching a portable DVD player at the table while their parents talked and ate. I couldn’t believe it. If you don’t want your kids’ company, get a baby-sitter. In my opinion, you do your kids harm when you don’t teach them to entertain themselves without mindless electronics or when you ignore them rather than use the opportunity to spend time with them. Maybe that’s just me.
Anyway, I hope you’re all enjoying the post-Christmas lull. Michigan, although covered in snow, hasn’t really been as cold as advertised since I’ve been here, and for that I’m grateful. David’s family is lovely and welcoming, and I’ve enjoyed meeting them all. Maybe later we’ll go bowling and I’ll get to wear my new purple bowling shoes (one of my Christmas presents from David – I love them)!
“I’m talking about France, my queen. Don’t you want to see the Eiffel Tower, stroll along the Champs Élysées?”
“Is it so much better than Detroit?”
– from Polish Wedding
This is it! This morning we’re headed for the Great White North. Yes, I know that’s really Canada, but you almost can’t get any closer to Canada without actually crossing the border, and have you seen the Detroit weather reports? David has been torturing me with thrice-daily weather updates for at least a week – he knows there’s nothing I hate more than to be cold, and it is hella cold up that way these days. I’ve packed every sweater I own and about 12 pairs of socks, plus boots, my big winter coat, a scarf (maybe I’ll take two!), and gloves. I’m still going to freeze, I just know it.
The purpose of our trip is to visit David’s family for the holidays. Of course, this is my first time meeting his mom, dad, step-mom, and brother, so I’m a little anxious. He assures me everything will be fine, and I believe him. I’m looking forward to meeting them, and his friends. One of our old co-workers is also from the area and will be there with his wife at the same time we are, so we hope to meet up with them, too.
This is the first Christmas I’ve ever spent away from my family. I’ve tried not to dwell on that fact, but I might be a little homesick that day. The Conductor’s birthday is on the 3rd, though, so I’ll get to see everyone pretty soon after Christmas anyway, which is good.
We’ll be back next Tuesday, probably, after a stopover in Central PA at my parents’ Monday night. Perhaps we’ll start back Sunday instead, depending on the weather forecast along our route. And, I might actually really get to Canada – David told me to bring my passport because “going through Canada on the way back only adds 30 minutes, plus Customs.” So we’re maybe going to have lunch in Niagra Falls. If we do, we should swing by my grandparents’ outside Buffalo, but that may be too much to do in one trip, we’ll see.
I’ve got Pico all set up with plenty of food and water, and my downstairs neighbors will be checking in on him. I hope he doesn’t go too crazy while I’m gone. The plants are watered, the trash is taken out, and the heat is turned down. I’m sure I’m forgetting something, but I don’t know what. It will probably come to me about the time we pick up the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Whatever it is, I hope they sell it in Michigan!
You might get one more post before my return, but I’m not making any promises. I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas, if you’re celebrating (and a happy early birthday to Karen, a Christmas Eve baby); may Santa bring you whatever your heart desires, and may there be peace on Earth, at least for a little while.
Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them and try to follow them.
– Louisa May Alcott
Karen and I have nothing on this lady.
Don’t even talk to Jean Scardina about all the Christmas shopping and baking you have to do. She will humble you with the hand-knitted dog sweaters she made for her daughter’s rat terriers, gingerbread houses and marzipan figurines of Santa’s workshop she makes as decorations — oh, and the 6,000 cookies she bakes as gifts.
Wow. What else can you say?
The only gift is a portion of thyself.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Buying Christmas presents stresses me out. Not for everyone – the kids are easy and fun to buy for, my sister-in-law is so laid back and genuinely appreciative of even the smallest thing, my grandparents send lists of very specific things they would like and will use, and my mom is also generally pretty easy to please. I guess what I’m getting at then, is that it comes down to the men – my brother, David, and my dad.
Nate sometimes waits until the last minute to send a list of things he’d like, and I generally prefer to have my shopping done by mid-December, so that often means I’ve guessed on gifts for him, and I know he’s ended up with things I thought he’d like but that he’s never used. I hate that, especially because he and Molly are great at picking gifts for me – I always love what they choose. This year, I procrastinated on shopping so long – for various reasons – that I was able to get him gifts from his list, so I feel ok, but still worry that they’re a little impersonal. At least I know he’ll use them.
David is not really that hard to buy for, I don’t guess – he’s a gadgety, video game kind of guy – but those kinds of things don’t really seem to convey what I think a Christmas present for him should – Guitar Hero doesn’t really say “I love you more than ice cream.”
And my dad, god. The anxiety of buying for my dad far outweighs the anxiety of buying for everyone else combined, and it’s been that way for quite some time. I can’t remember when it started; maybe when I was old enough to notice when certain gifts got the obligatory once over and thank you, and then were put aside until they eventually ended up in the box for Goodwill (not just gifts from me, either). I hated feeling like I’d failed; I’d work so hard to find something he’d love (he’s a late list-maker too, if you can get him to make one at all) only to be disappointed in his reaction on Christmas morning. Last year I did great, at least on one gift, and the look on his face over such a small thing (a CD, actually) made all the fretting and anxiety worth it.
I’m the first to admit that this anxiety, particularly where my dad is concerned, stems from something deeper than just wanting to find the “perfect” gift. It comes from my need and desire to take good care of the people I love, it comes from my need for approval from others in nearly everything I do, it comes from wanting to feel like I have enough – so much, in fact, that I can share it with my family. This year that’s a very hard one for me; there’s seems to be not enough, and even though I know no one’s keeping score, I can’t help but feel a little like I’m letting people down.
And the thing is, I’m not at all critical about the gifts other people give me, I’m just grateful to be remembered. So why, when I know how I feel about receiving gifts, can I not ascribe the same feelings to people receiving gifts from me? I mean, practically, I know the people in my family are not counting presents, or calculating how much I likely spent on them, or mentally figuring out who they’re going to regift my item to, or any of that. So why is it so hard for me to just let all of that go and just relax?
Maybe that’s my problem in all of this – that my expectation of finding the perfect gift for everyone is unrealistic, or that I’m focusing on the wrong thing, that the gift doesn’t have to do all of the things I think it should – maybe I need to work on understanding that the gift is just a token, not a representation of the way I feel about the person I’m giving it to. So I’m going to work on that.
Also, I’m going to Michigan for Christmas this year – any suggestions on a gift for David’s dad and step-mom (i’m good on his mom)? I need something that says, “I hope you like me, since we’re going to be family one day, even though you don’t know it yet!”
“We saw a couple I had met when they first hooked up together seventeen years ago. The woman . . . had always been thin, and tense, and exciting. But after sixteen years of marriage, [she] had gained a good thirty pounds. And she was radiantly happy. So I thought, Huh — maybe happiness sometimes weighs a bit more.”
– Lank, in Crooked Little Heart, by Anne Lamott
I’m spending the afternoon cooking, making soup and a casserole to portion out, take for lunches, and freeze for later. This is something I used to do regularly after I moved to DC, but I have gotten out of the habit. I don’t mind telling you that, like many of my other healthy habits, this one went out the window right around the time David and I got together. It should come as no surprise, then, that in the four months I’ve been with David, I’ve gained about 13 pounds. This is not acceptable, and I’m trying to figure out why I let it happen.
The receptionist at my WW meeting, when I remarked during a week I gained that I was on the “I’m in love diet,” said, “Oh, well, now that you’ve got him, you don’t have to keep trying,” or something to that effect. I just smiled and didn’t respond, but I was floored for two reasons. First, the implication that I was losing weight in the first place to attract a man, as if no one would find me attractive unless I were skinny, or as if I weren’t choosing to lose weight for myself. Second, the idea that once you “land” a partner, you can just let yourself go because he loves you no matter what. The “loves you no matter what part” may be true, but the idea that you can just stop taking care of yourself boggles the mind.
What I’m getting at with this is that, for me, the fact that I’ve found the person I want to be with for the rest of my life is not the reason I’ve stopped taking care of myself. Whatever David may think of me, I don’t feel good about myself when I don’t take care of myself the way I know I should and the way I did pretty consistently for the first two-plus years after I started WW.
Being with David has certainly changed my life quite a bit, and I don’t have the routine that I had when I was single, which I think is the hardest challenge of all. Going to the gym after work, especially in the beginning of our relationship, came second to coming home and making and eating dinner together. I’ve gotten better about this lately, and he will sometimes come with me to the gym, but I need to be doing a much better job. Part of my problem, though, is that I like to be where he is, so I often choose not to go (by reaching into my rather large bag of increasingly flimsy excuses) or to go for less time than I ordinarily might, in order to spend more time with him.
Of course, we also go out to eat quite a bit, where I almost never did before. I think I’m still in the mindset that eating out is special so I don’t have to be as strict with what I choose because it’s not a common occurrence . . . only it kind of is now, and I need to start looking at it the same way I look at my everyday meals.
I think I’ve said this before, but I think the central challenge in any relationship is not to lose yourself. I spent a long, long time single, learning who I am, where I’ve gone wrong in the past, and what I want out of life. I’m lucky that way, because it allowed me to recognize in David a partner, and I have approached this relationship from a position of really trying to learn from mistakes I made in prior relationships, and it’s so different than my past relationships because of that. But I think it also made me so lonely for companionship that I’ve been willing to compromise things that are important to me in order to be close to him. I should make it clear that the idea to compromise doesn’t come from him at all – I’ve talked to him about all of this, and he always says, “Tell me what I can do to help you,” and “Do what is best for you, and don’t worry about me.” It’s me, because I’ve apparently decided that, right now, building this relationship or being with him takes precedence over just about everything else.
Ever since I started WW, I’ve had a goal, and I’ve worked pretty steadily toward it. It’s not about a number; it’s about being as healthy as I can be while still living the life I want for myself (and recognizing what’s realistic about the life I want – I’m never going to be the girl who can just eat whatever she likes, no matter how much I wish that were true; I need to accept that and work around it, not pretend like it’s not true and hope for the best). I need to refocus and remember how I got as far as I have, and figure out how to bring a better balance into my life on these issues. Being with David makes me wildly happy, but there are other things that I need to be happy, too, and I have to devote as much time to those as I do to my relationship in order to get all of the things I want out of life.
And today is as good a day as any to start.
I refuse to believe that trading recipes is silly. Tuna fish casserole is at least as real as corporate stock.
– Barbara Grizzuti Harrison
As promised, here’s the recipe for my favorite of the cookies Karen and I made last weekend:
Peppermint Candy Shortbread Cookies
Ingredients
Directions
Icing (this is the recipe we used, not the one that came with the cookie recipe – halve this and you’ll still have more than enough)
Whisk all ingredients together until smooth. Drizzle cookies with frosting and top with crushed peppermint candy, if desired (When I make these again, I’m going to skip the frosting step – it’s good, but I think they’d be perfect plain).
We had our work Christmas party today. There was a bake-off as part of the festivities, so I attempted the Death by Caramel bars that I was considering as part of cookie weekend. I couldn’t find dulce de leche in the grocery store, and I didn’t have time to go to the Latin grocery store, so I attempted to make my own by melting caramels with cream.
The recipe calls for the dulce de leche to be dolloped on top of the batter in the pan and then swirled into it to create pockets of caramel, which, in theory sounds heavenly. The batter was pretty thick, though, and I’m not sure much of anything could have been swirled into it, and if it could be, it wasn’t this stuff I cooked up. I ended up with a layer of caramel sauce on the top that just cooked with the rest of the batter and didn’t come out gooey at all.
The result was just ok, and I’m disappointed I wasted all of what it cost to make it on something that wasn’t anything special. I’m willing to try it again if I can find the dulce de leche, but I’ve still got nearly the entire pan of this batch left (it should go without saying that it didn’t win the bake-off). Boo.
I am still convinced that a good, simple, homemade cookie is preferable to all the store-bought cookies one can find.
– James Beard
So this:
Turned into all of this:
Six batches of cookies and two batches of fudge, and we did it all in 12 hours. I’m still exhausted, but it was a great time!
Oh, Karen’s cookies were Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies, Kissy Cookies (the peanut butter ones with the Hershey Kisses on top), and Peppermint Shortbread – I don’t know if that’s the official name of it, but it’s my favorite cookie of the six we made, and I’ll share the recipe if anyone’s interested.
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