Domestic Oblivion

Good news people!  I made it through the holidays.  I did not go postal, and I made it fun for the kids.  So there.

Tomorrow.  Tomorrow is a big day for the Star clan.  The clan shall hit the ski hill, en masse, for the first time ever.  Mason chose to downhill ski, Davie-O and the rest of the kids will be snowboarding, and I?  I shall wave sweetly from the lodge. And truly enjoy watching them all have a blast.  And enjoy a helping of ski lodge fries and chili.

No lectures people, please.  I realize how awesome winter sports are, I really do.  In my day, I was an amazing skier, who spent every single weekend of every single winter skiing as much as I could.  Then I tore the ligaments in my right knee.  After that I ripped up the cartilage in my right knee.  Some years after that, I tore the meniscus in my right knee, and had it removed, along with a lateral release.

And now, my  knee hurts when I engage in repetitive activities such as stairs, biking, walking down hills, walking up hills, and elliptical runners.  It hurts when I sit for too long, it hurts when it rains, it hurts when the weather gets super cold,  and it hurts when I swim.  Basically, I have a 700 year old knee, and it sucks. 

Adding to the suckage is the fact that I blew the disk at L4-L5 a few years ago.  I still have residual nerve complications in my foot, leg and hip.

So, while the Star clan is out ripping up the hill, I shall be either sitting in the lodge, warm and dry, or out snowshoeing.

I am, however, a tad worried about tomorrow. 

Davie-O asked me this morning if I thought he should do some exercises or something like that to prepare for tomorrow.  Umm….and yeah, he was serious.

Also, Mason?  He has been unable to accomplish anything, and I do mean ANYTHING,  without spending 15 minutes eating both before and after the task.  How the child will be able to do something for an entire 2 hours without eating is totally beyond me.

It appears that  everyone who knows me and wanted to get me a Christmas gift thought I needed a new cookbook this year.  I am not complaining about this, as they are really good books, it’s just sort of funny that I would receive 4 cookbooks on one day.

The kids picked out Victor Sodsook’s “True Thai:  The Modern Art of Thai Cooking”, in which the first 11 recipes are for curry pastes (I **heart** curry paste).  It looks like a lovely book from which I can’t wait to cook and learn; my only complaint here is that it does not have color photographs.

My sister sent a little book dedicated biscotti.  Mmmmm.  I love biscotti.

From Davie-O I received a “The Complete Guide To Indian Cooking”, which does include color photos and a glossary of Hindi words.  Mmmmm.  I also love Indian food.  He also picked up James Peterson’s “Splendid Soups”.  For those of you not deep into the world of cookbooks, Mr. Peterson was the one who wrote the little gem “Sauces”.  Yep, he was able to devote roughly 500 pages on the topic of  sauce.  I do not own that particular book, but have eyed it with envy many times.  The soup book is 600 pages, with just  a few lovely photos, with the goal of teaching the reader the chemistry of a delicious soup and how to make up your own.

What, oh WHAT, shall I make first?

The 8 year old has spent the morning wrapped in a sleeping bag, parked in the recliner, reading.  It always makes me really happy to have my kids lolling about the house, spending hours and hours engrossed in books.

What, you ask, is Bowman reading today?

Jules Verne’s “Journey To The Centre Of The Earth”.

Or, as Bow calls it, “Journey To The Cen-Tray Of The Earth”.

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Mason has recently added to his uber-geek status by watching subtitled anime.  And thus, has become somewhat obsessed with both the Japanese language and weapons of destruction.  More specifically, throwing stars.

Much to his dismay, his parents will not allow him to have a throwing star.  For very obvious reasons.

To his credit, he will not be daunted.

This morning, I was hit square in the forehead with a 4 pointed origami throwing star.

He definitely wins this round.

Slogging through the holidays.  Feeling a bit better because it’s almost over.  We here at Chez Starr have a few traditions, of course revolving around food.  This year I decided to change things up a bit and actually ask the people that live here what they would like to eat for Christmas eve and Christmas day.

Here is the list:

• Etouffee
• Salmon
• Caramelized Crepes
• Burgers
• Clam Chowder
• Nachos
• Fried Chicken
• Crab
• Beignets
• Pizza
• Cinnamon Rolls

Weird list, huh?  No one wanted turkey, or a ham, or a roast.  So by a vote of hands the final menu was decided.

Christmas eve:  fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, peas and home made biscuits.

Christmas morning:  beignets

Christmas dinner:  holiday nachos

‘Cause nothing, but nothing, says “Merry Christmas!” like a big old plate of nachos.

It is now 2:55PM, Mountain Time, and Christmas vacation has been in full swing for exactly 1 hour.

In that hour it has come to light that Mason has stolen and eaten all of Isabelle’s remaining Halloween candy.  I know.  It’s a completely different blog post, though, the fact that Isabelle still even has Halloween candy.  What really bites (ah ha) is that Isabelle had saved all the full sized candy bars, and now they are gone into the abyss that is a 13 year old boy.

The beauty part of this altercation/theft is the following:  Mason has somehow managed, in his adolescent brain, to make it Isabelle’s fault that he stole her candy.  That’s right.  It’s Isabelle’s fault that Mason stole her candy.  Why?  How could that be?  Well, apparently, it’s her fault because, wait for it, she still had Halloween candy left in December, and she had a lot of it.

I repeated the following phrase at least 10 times in the ensuing conversation:  Mason, YOU are the one at fault here.

We worked around the teen aged logic, and I believe we came to a mutual understanding that Mason was, in fact, wrong for taking something that didn’t belong to him and without asking.  Now, this is something that I’ve been teaching my kids since they were able to mostly understand English, but it appeared to be a new and weighty concept to Mason.

Once we all that worked out, I asked Mason how he intended to fix this.  His suggestion was to pay Isabelle for the candy and she ride down to the Mercantile and buy herself some replacement bars.  I told him that that was unacceptable, and that he would go down to the Mercantile and buy the replacement bars for her.

And his response?

And I’m going to quote for full affect:

“I don’t  see why I have to go all the way down there and buy the candy when she’s  the one who wants the candy.”

Holy crap.  Send.  Help.

So, my mom is trying very hard to make Christmas appealing.  The other day she said maybe I should just think of it as a Saturnalia* celebration.  To which I replied, “THAT is exactly what Christmas needs, Mom!  More sex!”

Long pause.

And then she said, “Yes, but the children…”

And I said, “Let them start early!”

And that was the end of my mom trying to get me to like December.

*Wikipedia has a really informative blurb on Saturnalia if you’re not familiar with it.  And by the way, I  do think we should bring it back.  How fun would that be?

I know there are a-holes everywhere.  But here in Id, there’s a  special breed of a-hole that I think of as the douche bag Idaho asshole.  You know, the by-God-I’m-an-American-and-I-paid-for-this-so-I-have-the-right-to-be-as-loud-obnoxious-and-rude-as-I-want sort of asshole.

Well.  I spotted another one last night on the way home, at the corner of Chinden and Glenwood.

Vanity plate proclaiming “WYZGUY’

Seriously?

Plate frame stating:  “JESUS IS LORD”

Off to the left?

Bumper sticker:  “PEACE THROUGH SUPERIOR FIREPOWER”

Really?  Do you have to be that big of an Idaho asshole?

THIS is a prime example of why I hate Christmas.

How is this at all Christmas-y? ‘ Cause nothing says “Happy birthday Jesus!” like a Vegas style light show in your front yard….

I do not like the holidays.  Don’t like them.   Haven’t cared for them for years.  Usually,  I try really hard to get into the festive holiday spirit, and do all the things that need to be done to have a successful holiday.  Sort of the fake it until you make it (or it’s over) approach.

This year, though, is different.  This year I have decided that I just don’t have what it takes to keep up the charade and that I really don’t care all that much.  I have, in fact, uttered “I HATE Christmas” out loud to other adult humans about 11 times in the past 2 days.  And I have to say, I am rather astonished at people’s reaction.

People do not like hearing those words. 

They take it really personally.  People who enjoy the holidays REALLY want other people to like it too.  I’ve been thinking about this for days now, and I simply cannot understand it.  See, I like Halloween.  I really like Halloween; I like dressing up, I like decorating, I like the candy and I love watching the kids.  But I don’t get distressed about the myriad of people that I know who roll their eyes hard enough to sprain them when Halloween comes around.  And it doesn’t make a difference to me one way of the other how my neighbors feel about it.

My mother is distraught over this.  My sister has called 3 times in the past 2 days.  Friends are calling to “make sure I’m OK”?

I find all of this weird. 

Why is it so important that I enjoy December?  As long as I’m not peeing in everybody else’s Christmas Wheaties, does it really matter how I feel?

Bowman enlightened us to the newest game he and his little buddies are playing on the football field at school during lunch recess.  Bow is excited about this new game, happily stating that “it leaves you with a lot of bruises on your shins and hips”.

Normally, he explained, they play football during recess.  For the past few days no one has remembered a ball.  But who needs a bass when you can just chase after each other and kick when you get close enough?

Those are all the rules.  You chase.  You kick.

It is officially called The Kicking Game.

I give you the brainchild of 3rd grade boys.