Next Month! (or Maybe the Month After That)

My nephew is due August 19th. My niece was due in February but was born March 1st. I would greatly enjoy hearing your "post-due-date" birth stories---particularly if it led to the baby being born in a different month, but ALSO if it didn't. (Though I don't wish it on my sister-in-law, I do find the idea of a September 1st nephew appealing, for symmetry's sake. Birthdays exactly 6 months apart!)

Taco Meat & Bean Dip With Bell Pepper Scoops and Two Mother-In-Law Anecdotes

I have solved a meal situation, and it has been such a successful solution I can hardly keep myself from publishing a cookbook with just this one recipe in it. It's something I came up with in several parts to handle several different issues, and I think it's finally perfect. And this is going to be a long story because I'm so! enthusiastic! about all the steps along the way. (If you feel pity at this moment for anyone unable to just skip to the end to find the part that looks like a recipe, you could spare a moment for Paul. Not only has he heard each issue explained in its turn, and each part of the solution explained in its turn, but he's had to hear the entire thing REVIEWED with each installment.)

It STARTED because one of my favorite meals is leftover taco meat heated up, with salsa and cheese on top, eaten by scooping up bites with bite-size tortilla chips.

But! This is one of the times I appreciate Paul's careful use of the word "nutritious" (as opposed to "healthy"): it is fine to have tortilla chips, and I plan to have them on many occasions, but they are not a particularly NUTRITIOUS part of the meal. And also, I take them as-needed out of the bag rather than measuring a serving, and I don't WANT to measure a serving, because I don't want "a serving," I want "exactly as many as there are bites of taco meat." (And also because I don't really want the "how many chips I'm eating" information, if it isn't going to change anything anyway.) But what can replace tortilla chips? NOTHING.

MEANWHILE, while I was mulling this issue, Paul and I were ALSO trying to figure out a way to have MORE leftover taco meat: as a family we were using a large amount of ground turkey (seasoned with a taco seasoning packet) for a taco meal and there often wasn't any leftover for me to eat. SADNESS. When my mother-in-law was alive, she told me roughly a million times (most often while standing over me as I cooked up some ground turkey) that what SHE did to make meat go further was to "add a canna-corn to the hamburg" (she called this a way to get children to eat more vegetables, too, but...corn is a grain, right?). She thought that was a very clever way to save money on meat, and indeed it is, and it would also be a good way for a family who wanted to eat less meat total to decrease their meat consumption.

But there were several problems with this idea. To start with, Paul always hated his mom's meat-mixed-with-corn. For another thing, neither of us are keen to remove something we consider quite nutritious (the ground turkey) in favor of something we consider less nutritious (a starch). (Your nutrition equation may vary. Nutrition is a CRAZY PLACE. I state our own current inclinations for it so that you can see the problem we were trying to solve here, which could have been just as nutritiously stated in the opposite direction for a family with different nutrition goals: for example, "trying to replace animal products with whole grains.")

Then one day I was contemplating the Taco Bell menu items that are made with refried beans, which I dislike but Paul and Rob like them. So I thought we could add refried beans to our taco meat (legumes are another area of unknown nutrition, but we are currently tentatively assuming nutritious), except I don't like refried beans. But I DO like chickpeas! So...I could grind up chickpeas and add them! And I did it, and lo it was delicious and the children didn't notice, so, score for adding variety and for making the meal more filling so there was more left over for me.

Then we were out of chickpeas but still eager to experiment and so we tried a can of black beans. With the chickpeas I'd used the larger-size can, drained (I remember reading long ago that the soak-water for beans should be removed to decrease some of the, er, "musical fruit" element; I have no idea if this was/is actually true, but the tip has stuck with me regardless, and also the bean water typically looks/smells gross), added water to make it blenderable, and used about 1/3rd of the resulting puree for each 1.3-pound pack of ground turkey. Our opinion was that we could have divided it among two batches instead of three [note: later we tried this and decided no, dividing into three is better with the big can of chickpeas], so with the black beans I used the smaller-size can, drained, mixed with about 3/4 cup of water and 1 packet of taco seasoning mix right in the blender (the taco seasoning needs to be mixed with 3/4 cup water anyway, so this combines the two tasks), then added the whole amount to the meat. It was beanier, and it LOOKED grosser (darker, burned-looking---the chickpeas end up more of a warm terra cotta color with the seasoning), but Paul thought it tasted even better, and the kids noticed the appearance this time but still weren't bothered by the taste. I liked it better, too, but I think that was because I used the spicy taco seasoning instead of the regular: I'd thought the chickpeas had soaked up too much of the spiciness.

Then I had my third idea, the one that brought this whole thing together. In my eternal quest to try to eat more vegetables, I'd impulse-bought a yellow bell pepper and an orange bell pepper (memory digression: my late mother-in-law, laughingly to Paul, in front of me, after I'd set out a dish of colored bell peppers and dip with lunch: "Swistle's the only person I know who spends extra on the pretty colors!" Me: "...They...taste different? than the green ones? I don't like the green ones raw---but the orange/yellow/red are sweeter? and milder? and I like them raw?" My late mother-in-law: "Whatever, I've just never known anyone who would spend so much extra money just to get the pretty colors! *merry derisive laughter*" Me, in my head: "AND YOU STILL DON'T, AS I'VE JUST EXPLAINED"). And I was thinking about how I should eat those peoppers before they went bad. And that is when it occurred to me that they might, MIGHT, considering how much I like them, be adequately crunchy and yummy to be sometimes used instead of tortilla chips.

I was nervous to try it, but did it anyway for lunch one day. I heated up leftover ground-turkey-with-black-beans-and-taco-seasoning with some salsa. I added cheddar cheese on top. I cut up the orange pepper. I used a segment of pepper to scoop up some meat and took a tentative bite, and....YUM. Very, very yum. A different meal than with tortilla chips, but wonderful in its own different way.

It was so good, I wanted to eat it three meals a day for awhile.

I feel odd even saying this, but I left out the cheese the next time I made it. Normally I think of taco meat as REQUIRING cheese---but something about the sweetness of the pepper made the cheese taste a little weird and out of place to me. I know, I know, but it did. If you try it, put cheese on the first bite and see if you agree. I ended up scraping it to one side.

Second attempt, with the yellow pepper and no cheese this time
(this is with chickpeas)

So, to sum up. Before: taco meat/seasoning, cheese, salsa, tortilla chip scoops. After: taco meat/seasoning (SPICY seasoning), beans, salsa, bell pepper scoops. Very different meals, but BOTH YUMMY. Success!

Stress, Galore, Swimming

I continue to feel surprisingly upset and stressed by Elizabeth needing her tonsils out. I use that adverb "surprisingly" not because of the being upset and stressed, but because my upset/stress is out of proportion to the event in question. I've tried reasoning with myself, because I DO KNOW that this is likely to be no big deal, but perhaps you've noticed over the years how reason can be quite SEPARATE from emotion. The reasoning-with-myself can be comforting, but it's not like I think "Oh, my feelings are unjustified? Now that I've realized that, they've magically vanished!" (This was continually surprising to my psychologist, back when I was seeing one. He kept thinking that if he could just make me UNDERSTAND that my anxiety was IRRATIONAL, it would then automatically DISAPPEAR. Problem: I already KNEW it was irrational, which is what prompted me to engage the services of a PSYCHOLOGIST.)

I think the only thing that's going to help is getting through it. We got a call yesterday from the hospital, and they gave her the earliest possible appointment, which is August 15th. I'd thought I'd feel better once the date was set, and in some ways I do because now that's settled, and in other ways it's worse because now I have a new thing to fret over (it's so close to the start of school! she'll miss a week of swimming lessons!) even as I try to reason with myself about it (how nice that it's before school starts! and she'll only miss one week of swimming lessons!).

Well. I'm coping by shopping (that's a Milk and Cookies post on some of the recovery gifts I'm buying her), and by eating Dove ice cream bars (have you tried the new peanut butter ones? OMG).

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I just finished reading Galore, which falls into the category of Books I Have No Idea If I Recommend Or Not.



The first few pages, I was thinking it was definitely not my style: folkloreish, plus really hard at first to follow who was who and what was happening (I had to read the first couple of pages several times), plus the whole "impoverished fishing village" thing that can be so depressing. Plus I almost never like a book if it starts with a family tree, and plus the dialogue was done with double dashes instead of with quote marks.

But before I knew it, I was almost ENTRANCED by it. There was an appealing element of magic/mystery (the aforementioned folkloreishness) combined with the appeal of a survival situation (the same thing that appeals to me about apocalyptic novels), combined with for the most part the author letting us have the whole story: that is, even when he was abandoning a story line, he'd often first flash-forward all the way to the end of that person's life. There were only a few people I was left wondering what happened to them. And I really NEEDED the family tree: the novel covers several interconnected generations, and I was frequently thinking, "Wait, WHOSE daughter is she, and WHOSE son did she marry?" On the other hand, I hated the way the family tree was an instant plot-spoiler.

********

Yesterday after the kids' swimming lessons, we stayed at the pool and I swam around with the little kids. It was kind of stressful because I had to watch all three of them every! second!---but it was worth it, especially since I suffer in the hot sun during their lessons. They had a good time, I had a good time and ended up cool and fresh instead of hot and cranky, and we all went home pleasantly tired and with that faint bleachy smell.

I hate wearing a swim suit, of course, but I'm lucky that at our pool is a very nice mix of women in swim suits: a nice approximately-representative sample of humankind, including women much thinner and much plumper than I am. I psych myself up by reminding myself that I feel nothing but relief and even a wave of AFFECTION if I see someone else's jiggly thighs or soft tum or lumpy rear. I also take a lesson from the lifeguards, who are not all Baywatch types and who nevertheless walk around in their bathing suits as if it is perfectly acceptable to have the bodies they have.

Bug Bites, Pride, Teenage Stupidity

I paid $3.50 for a tube of Kids' After-Bite bug-bite cream on a friend's recommendation, and neglected to examine the ingredients. I now see the only active ingredient is...baking soda. This could have been less expensive.

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I vote for "proud to be an American" to be changed to "glad to be an American." Applicable to all citizenships, of course. I would say that the word "proud" implies accomplishment, and works in situations where the accomplishment could be placed in either a "I'm proud that I ____" sentence OR an "I'm proud of you for ___" sentence. Math medal works: "I'm proud that I got that math medal" and "I'm proud of you for getting a math medal." Grades work: "I'm proud that I got an A on that test" and "I'm proud of you for getting an A on that test." Heroism works: "I'm proud that I helped put out that fire" and "I'm proud of you for helping put out that fire." Military service works: "I'm proud of my military service" and "I'm proud of your military service."

Things we're born with do not: "I'm proud of having brown eyes" and "I'm proud of you for having brown eyes." Citizenship does not: "I'm proud to be an American" and "I'm proud of you for being an American." It totally works to be proud OF MY COUNTRY and all it has gone through to become and remain a country---but it doesn't work to be proud OF MYSELF that I managed to be born here. It's inappropriate to pat myself on the back for that, even if I pat my country on the back all the day long. (This is of course a different story for people who had to work hard and jump through a lot of hoops to become an American; I'm talking only about those of us who accomplished it via being born to or adopted by American parents---which, as some of us reminded our parents frequently during our teen years, we had no choice regarding.)

(Even "glad" has its problems, implying as it does a gladness NOT to be citizens of other countries---even though those countries might be very nice places indeed and we wouldn't want to imply otherwise! Certainly not! But my guess is that other citizens of other countries would know what we meant, as long as they were likewise glad to be citizens of their own countries. "Liking home" is a sympathetic feeling.)

********

There were a bunch of kids hanging out in the library parking lot being stupid in exactly the way kids hang out in parking lots being stupid. Characteristic example: one of them lit up a cigarette (which, they looked pretty young for that, but I remember there were freshmen in my high school who already smoked, so) and another one went SHRIEKING across the parking lot without looking to see if she'd get flattened, saying in a baby voice "GIMME ONE GIMME ONE GIMME ONE!!" and then when the other kid said, "You JUST had one" she did massive flouncy pout and said, "NUH UH NUH UH NUH UH!!" and then started screaming that she was "F**KING PISSED!!" and flouncing back across the parking lot, and everyone involved was talking way too loud and with high awareness of putting on a performance. Stuff like that. Plus: skinny jeans and silly hair.

And anyway, after witnessing that, I find I now feel depressed-in-advance about my children's teenage years---and really about EVERYONE'S teenage years. This mood took a huge additional swoop downward when I came out of the library and Ms. Screamy Flouncy Baby said "HEY ROB!!" to Rob, and it emerged that she JUST FINISHED SIXTH GRADE, WITH ROB. She is smoking, and screaming obscenities in parking lots, and she is the same age as my firstborn. I was fretting about this to Paul, and Rob called out in a bored tone of voice from the living room where he was reading a book on the recliner (sprawled as if he'd been dropped there from above), "Think of it this way: I wasn't one of them." Well, yes. Not YET. It's just that the Krazy has not yet infected his brain. I've told him over the years that the teenage years are dangerous because teenagers are temporarily insane but THINK they're COMING INTO sanity. A few escape, but not many.

Ponytail, Tonsils, Breakfast

My hair is finally long enough to technically fit into a runty little 2-inch ponytail, with about half the hair gradually falling out of the ponytail during the day because it's not quite long enough to be held firmly! Rejoice with me!

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Elizabeth needs her tonsils out. I'd been pre-fretting that it was going to be one of those Huge Stressful Hassle Money Referral Phone Call Situations where I would first have a huge stressful hassle of referral forms and insurance stuff and phone calls, then drive far away to see the specialist and pay a $35 copay, only to have him say, "Hm, why don't we first have her come back in three months so I can look again, and then I'll start a bunch of tests and trials that will require referrals and long drives and childcare arrangements and copays and phone calls and surprise after-bills from your insurance company but that in the end will give us no conclusive answers?"

So it was kind of good that he took one look and said, "Oh. Yeah. Those should come out. I mean, I get a lot of referrals where it could go either way, and so I have people come back in 3 months or try a bunch of other things first, but these are filling her whole throat." And then he just launched into instructions for post-surgical care, including details about HORRIBLE PAIN and WET SCABS that...I mean, I was standing there with hands clenched in front of me in Classic Anxiety Pose, and he's telling me that if I can't force her to take fluids afterward I'll need to check her back into the hospital for an IV drip. His frankness was both alarming and reassuring: evidently these horrors are completely routine.


I DO know this is a pretty routine procedure, and if one of you were worried about it I would be empathizing with your anxiety and telling reassuring stories of my own childhood tonsil-removal: "I mean, I didn't want the greatly-anticipated ice cream and popsicles afterward because I felt too crummy, but other than that it was fine." I wouldn't be promising it would be fine with your child too because what am I claiming, that I can see the future? that by speaking the words with the tone of a prophet, I can make them true? BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO SOME PEOPLE, even when other people state confidently that they won't. But I COULD say that it would LIKELY be fine---because it WOULD likely be fine. Statistically, bad things AREN'T likely to happen.


So I'm thinking all those things for myself, too, and also feeling glad that it's apparently a clear-cut case and I don't have to struggle much with the decision, but I'm also thinking that SHE COULD DIE ON THE OPERATING TABLE. Or they could make a mistake and she could end up losing her voice permanently. Or it could turn out later on that the key to longevity, cancer avoidance, and avoiding anxiety disorders is held in our tonsils. And also she will CRY and maybe be SCARED. And I will cry because I will see my tiny girl in a tiny hospital johnny going into the operating room, and it will feel like an episode of a medical drama and that sort of thing always makes me immediately burst into tears---but I will need to NOT cry because if I cry that will alarm her.

And anyway, I am a little stressed, even though I know it will likely be fine and that nothing on that list is likely to happen except the parts with the crying, and while she's in surgery the medical staff will shoo Paul and me to the hospital cafeteria and I love cafeterias. And Elizabeth is greatly looking forward to the ice cream and popsicles, just as I was as a child...UNTIL I WOKE UP.

NOTHING CAN HAPPEN TO HER, is the problem.
NOTHING.

Anyway, this and another couple of stresses (glimpse of future with teenagers; second glimpse of future with teenagers; fretting about Edward's SHRIEKING FLAILING SOBBING during swimming lessons; cat coughing up hairballs which I thought was summer shedding but now I see several large almost-bald patches; over a month late now to have Henry's 4-year photos taken) were threatening to send me into A Grim Mood. There was a twinge here and a twinge there, and then more twinges, and it's kind of like wondering if you're coming down with something or not: "Is that just a sneeze, or is it the first of many? Is my throat a little sore because I slept with my mouth open, or am I getting a cold? Is that little flash of 'what's the point of any of this, really?' just a little thought in the thought soup, or is it a portent of mood to come?"

When I realized a Spiral of Grim was indeed forming, I tried to nip it in the bud. Coffee seemed called for, but SPECIAL coffee. I had espresso discs for the Tassimo, but I didn't want one of the creamer discs. So I microwaved a cup of milk, then brewed the espresso into THAT. Meanwhile, I put in some toast, because I wanted to eat some Nutella. Then I realized I'd forgotten to sweeten/flavor the coffee milk, so I sprinkled cinnamon sugar on top---if "sprinkled" means "kept shaking until I couldn't see milk."

Good call.

Unfair

I just had a total FIT about feeling like I spend so much time cleaning up (1) messes I didn't make, which (2) I would get blamed for. That is, if someone came to my house and saw all the CRAP all over the floor, they'd be like "*raised eyebrows* Not much of a HOUSEKEEPER, is she?" And yet---did I make those messes? NO I DID NOT. So which makes more sense: blaming ME for not cleaning up the messes? or blaming THE PEOPLE WHO MADE THE MESSES? It is intolerably unfair.

Catchy! Happy! Music Video!

This song is DOMINATING MY MIND:

(Click it now so it plays while you're reading. That way if you're bored by it and/or don't like it, you haven't wasted any ((additional)) time waiting for it.)

And now it's okay for me to like it (despite several nauseating phrases in the lyrics), because now I know it's NOT Justin Bieber singing it. I don't know WHY I thought it was Justin Bieber, but I was SURE of it, so I must have heard a DJ saying it about the PREVIOUS song or something. Anyway, every time I heard it I found it so catchy and cheerful/sweet-sounding---and yet listening to a 16-year-old sing about "only having tonight" and "the way you make love" made me feel like barfing. Then I looked the song up and found it was not by Justin Bieber but by The Plain White T's. Now I still cringe at such phrases, but it makes such a big difference that everyone singing the song is LEGAL and doesn't look like one of my son's middle school classmates. (And as Annabelle pointed out when I complained about it on Twitter, such songs are WAY IMPROVED if you think of them as "long-distance relationship" songs rather than "one night stand" songs.)

Plus, watch the video a few times and see if you can figure out which band member is cutest. I change about every 10 seconds. Like, Tim Lopez (lead singer on this one) has a really excellent smile and is the obvious choice even though I am usually not drawn to blond guys and even though he TOTALLY looks like a guy who'd be successfully singing his one-night-stand love song at every stop on the tour. Mr. Eyes in the background there (Tom Higgenson) is another possibility with cute-Beatles-type charm (plus the aforementioned good eyes), and then Dave Tirio (blond back-up singer) looks like a sweetie but doesn't get enough screen time for a good analysis, and we barely see De'Mar Hamilton (drummer) or Mike Retondo (guitar, hat, beard) at all. Well, it's hard to choose. We'd need to join that fun-looking beach party (refreshingly low on beer-commercial-type people---it's not that there are NO long-haired girls in bikinis, but there are also a ton of cute vintage tops, cardigans, hats, flower pins, skirts, headbands, and hair that looks like it could go into the water) and give each one a chance.