Sneaky Is Best

My parents, as we all know, are from the Holy Land. This means I can understand a heck of a lot of Holy Land language - I can't read (except at the level of a first grader), can't write (not even first grade level) and I can speak as long as you don't care too much about grammar. What I CAN do is understand a vast majority of spoken Hebrew. A number of times in my life this has come in handy, most notably this morning.

Picture this. A whole crowd of cheffie students waiting outside a classroom for an exam to start (I ACED it, but what else is new?) The characters are:
- Me (looking cute in my chef's whites)
- Nice Israeli Guy from my class (NiceGuy)
- Other Israeli Guy who I only know in passing (OtherGuy)
- Asshole Israeli Guy who I don't know at all (Asshole).

For the record, NiceGuy knows I understand/speak Hebrew, and OtherGuy will find this out shortly. So here's how the convo went:

[Asshole walks past us]

OtherGuy (in Hebrew): Whoah ho ho, who looks like a pretty cheffie then?

Me (English): Well, yeah, except for the shoes! (which, it should be noted, are snakeskin black cowboy boots with very long and pointy toes and so NOT cheffie like but clearly Asshole like.)

Asshole (Hebrew, with nasty look on face and nasty inflection): Who is this elephant? (meaning moi).

Me (IN HEBREW): This elephant understands Hebrew, so if I were you I'd shut your freakin' mouth.

Asshole: [cowers in corner]

Me (in English): Next time you decide to insult someone, it's probably best if you do it in a language they don't understand.

I (and NiceGuy, who is killing himself laughing, and OtherGuy, who suddenly 'gets it') flounce into classroom to kick culinary ass. Asshole? Well, who gives a flyin' you-know-what about his snakeskin-boot-wearin' self. I didn't name him Asshole for nothing.

Conspiracy Theory

My parents are convinced that there is some big, evil, awful SECRET in my life which I am not telling them about. I'm hiding something. Something which, clearly, is making me secretly upset and miserable but I am choosing not to tell them about it. Why do they think this? Firstly, because I never seem to have time to call them back. They leave messages, and I don't call back for two days. (*shock* *horror* It's called having a life/husband/kids/job/house, people!) The second reason my life must be in secret turmoil is because, when I DID call them back (and left a message), they thought I sounded like I was crying. Hmmmm. Now here's the thing. I rarely share major news with my parents. It's not that I don't love them, it's that their communication sucks. They are loving, wonderful people who really only want what they think is best for me. But on the listening front? Fuhggedabouduit. It's not just my parents, my siblings (who I adore) are also like this. On Monday I'll tell BigSis about feeling like I need a new challenge at work, and by Tuesday morning my Mom is calling me in a panic asking me why I have quit my job. I tell Mom she's wrong, and I explain what I meant. Wednesday my Dad is calling me from his office to tell me I need to get a Real Job and to 'cut out the bullshit' and tell him the real reason why I quit so suddenly. On Thursday morning my brother is txt'ing me to say "What's with you quitting your job?" By Friday I am ready to pull my hair out as they send me job ads from Los Angeles. See? There is just no point in telling them anything major - because by the time that something major has blown over, I might as well spare them the coronaries in the meantime. Next time I do have something to tell them about (in a major sense. and I would only do this if I were close to death in the first place), I think I'll call my BigSis on Monday and say, "Hey, BigSis? I've got this runny nose..." I figure by Friday they'll work it out for themselves that I am suffering from the world's first terminal case of CryingOnAnsweringMachinesForAttention Syndrome.

Toast, Toast, Toast

Over the years I've developed a number of coping strategies for dealing with the kids. Some of these are simple (chocolate) some more difficult (our upcoming vacation), but all of them have worked to make my life easier. Often these coping strategies are great studies in logistics mnagement - a job for which I think I was born. I was thinking about this recently, about how DH and I do things other families find easy - bath time, meal time, getting to kinder on time (okay we fail this one regularly), going out to eat, getting everyone dressed or undressed - simply by virtue of good logistics and (we hope) a mimumum of yelling. Let me give you an example. I went for a job interview when the kids were about a year old. Somehow the topic of the kids came up and they asked how I cope with getting them to creche on time - presumably a thinly disguised question about how the hell was I going to get to work on time myself. Because, of course, parents of triplets are incapable of being punctual, efficient, productive members of the workforce (who? me? bitter?). Anyway, so when they were a year old the procedure was like this:

Starting point: parent dressed, fed, watered and ready to do battle. Car unlocked.

Step 1. Least resistant child dressed, then the other two in order of least to most resistant. Kids dressed ALL the way to shoes. Care factor if their clothes are mismatched: None.
Step 2. Kids sat down to eat breakfast, while parent throws pre-packed backpacks and pre-packed lunches into the back of the car, and makes sure that their own briefcase/backpack/bag of random crap is in there too.
Step 3. Toast gets made and buttered (or vegemited, or jammed, or honeyed.)
Step 4. Kid who finishes brekky first gets put in car, strapped in, and handed toast (for distraction purposes).
Step 5. Kid two, same as above, toast.
Step 6. Kid three, same as above, toast. This time parent takes key and locks door behind them.
Step 7. Kids in car, parent in car, quick look to check: yup, toast, toast, toast, we're all good, let's hit the road.

So you see? Getting out the door in the morning, following the toast, toast, toast plan - well, frankly, it worked then. It works less well these days because each kid wants a different breakfast, their resistance to getting dressed is a bit like Luke resisting the Force (powerful, but defeated in the end), and neither parent is as sprightly as they used to be. This whole post just sums up my parenting philosophy. At it's most basic: you cope in the ways you have to, in order to make your life easier, and more pleasant. Dummy/no dummy, bottle/no bottle, co-sleep/no co-sleep, potty trained/not potty trained, TV/no TV, matching socks/not matching socks: WHO THE FUCK CARES. Do what you need to do to keep your life, and your kids' lives, pleasant and with a minimum of shouting. It's not that hard, people. (Okay, it is, but that was a good ending line so I'm leaving it there.)

Oh, and I didn't get that job I applied for - and I think it's because the BossMan was terrified I'd shove him into his office chair with a piece of toast.

Quick Update

For those who have wondered where I am (and how I am), life this week has been plagued by, well, life. DH has come home in one piece, I've started back working again (it's nice to afford to eat), the trio are their usual chaotic selves, and supposedly our net provider is upgrading our service. "Upgrading" in this case seems to translate into not working at all for several days now. It's times like these you long for the old fashioned days of a "like-lightening" web connection rather than a "faster than lightening" connection! (ahhh, the good old days...) So rest assured, I am well and a new RAOS recipe is coming your way shortly, as is a more detailed update about how things like me are. At the moment I am sitting in a vegetable risotto balls fugue: I had to cook over 400 of those little fuckers today. Nice to eat, crap to wear. More coming soon.

Not Fair

When I was a kid I wanted to marry this guy... even though he was much older than I was. Now he's gone and ruined my fantasy because he married someone who is 25 years old. That's right, 5 years YOUNGER than I am. *sigh* Sometimes life is just not fair. Okay, so he's fatter and balder and has had a few trips to rehab...but at the end of the day, he still rocks.

Tastes Like Chick-en!!

Sometimes kids just say and do things which make you laugh so hard, you pee your pants (an unfortunate side effect of carrying them in the first place). Their latest party trick is reciting lines from movies they've seen, in paticular the movie Robots. In the very last scene, Big Weld is talking into a microphone with an in-built echo. So the conversation goes like this:

BW: Ladies and Gentlebots
M: Bots..bots...bots...
BW: I came all ths way
M: way...way...way...
BW: (talking to microphone) Woud you cut that out? It's very distracting!
M: Oh. Sorry...sorry...sorry....

Listening to five year olds do this is hysterical, as they've got the inflection down pat, and they've got the funny voices, and their comedic timing is often funnier than the real thing. Their latest scene stealer is when Fender says, "Tastes like chick-en!" and then lays an egg and says, "Oh. I didn't know I could do that!" So the kids have been running around saying, (in a Rodney/vaguely black American voice), "Tastes like CHICK-EN!" They've started applying this to everything, and I will admit to getting in on the act. This afternoon I gave DD#2 a kiss on the nose and said to her, "Know what? Your nose Tastes Like Chick-En!" This, of course, ensued in five year old humour where absolutely everything Tastes Like Chicken. It was all fun and games until one of them said, "Penis! Tastes Like Chick-En!"

What, exactly, was I supposed to say to that?

Single Parenting Update

The good news is, only 2 sleeps until DH comes home. The bad news is....well, there really is no bad news! The squids have been amazingly well behaved these past few weeks, which can only mean they are saving up their most irritating behaviour for when DH gets home. That is fine by me, because I can use the "but I was on my own with them and I coped just fine!" excuse that mothers use to make fathers feel inadequate and clueless. This post is short because I have actually gotten off my butt and done some household chores, and I need to keep going while the momentum is there. I figure another 14,572 loads of laundry between now and Tuesday night and I should find DS somewhere.

Child Bride Marries Old Dude

9 years ago today, this child bride married what her sister referred to as "some old dude." For the record said sister now adores said old dude more than she likes me, so I don't think she did too bad in the deal! I've already spent an entire entry waxing lyrical about how wonderful, fabulous and all around totally lovable my DH is, so I won't do that here (even though he'd like to hear it.) I will, however, reflect on our 9 years of marriage together. When I met DH, I was a junior in college, and I had set up for myself a very complex future. I was going to be some totally hotshot publishing executive with a super way groovy cool apartment in LA, single, thin (because when you're single you have gym time, right?), cultural (because single people have time for loads of classes in shit like pottery and jewelry making), and I would be the most fantastic auntie on the planet to my sister's kids. You know, the one who lets you sleep over and eat nothing but junk food and stay up late to watch movies your mom won't let you watch, who then lets you sleep in but gets up to make you French Toast and coffee (like a grown up!!) and when you're with amazing auntie , she curses like a sailor and in general is the most fabulous person in the universe. Better than your Mom because there are NO RULES other than the rule of having fun. So this was my plan, no house, no husband, no kids, no responsibility other than turning up to pottery class on time.

Then I met him. You know. DH. Or the person soon to be known as DH.

DH's plan for himself was as follows: house in the Jewish suburbs, nice wife, three adorable kids, good job, holiday once a year. In short, your typical boy-meets-girl suburbia story. He had, however, reached the ripe old age of 36 without having achieved any of these things.

Then he met me. You know. DW. Or the person soon to be known as DW.

He is now:
Married to nice wife. Check.
Living in Jewish suburbia. Check.
Parent to three kids (adorable). Check.
Good job. Check.
Holiday once a year. Check.

Now anybody reading this tale might think, "Wait a minute! He got everything he wanted, but you got nothing you wanted!" Here is where you (and I) are totally, totally wrong. The plan DH had was based on a lifetime of seeing his amazing parents raise their sons, and wanting for himself the same sort of family life they had built. My plan was based in self-doubt and lack of confidence - I'd built this amazing plan for myself on the assumption that nobody would want to marry me. My fantasy world was one where I was so fiercely independent that I just didn't need anybody else. I could be happy without a husband. I could fill my life with that damn pottery class, nieces/nephews, and gym visits and be fulfilled and happy. My only problem would be fending off my well meaning but annoying parents asking me to join some Jewish singles scene. Now I don't know if that would have been true - maybe that's exactly what would have happened. I could, right now, be hosting the opening of my brilliant one-woman pottery show (and the canapes would have been FAB, let me tell you). It didn't happen, though - fate intervened and I met, and fell in love with, DH. I have spent the last 10 years in the company of someone who (while occasionally supremely dorky and irritating) has taught me the importance of family, of togetherness, of facing a difficult world with someone at your side who loves you unconditionally. That last one is something he not only says he does, but he actually does: he loves me when I am the one who is dorky and irritating, when I am not nice to him, when I look like shit, when frankly I don't even like myself very much. DH is always there, quietly loving me. He has been an integral part of my growing up - because that's what I've done since I've been with him. I grew up. The most important lesson of my growing up is this: It's true what they say about the 'best laid plans' ....and I'm so very, very glad.

Dear reader, you'll also be heartened to know that DH & I are, truly, the most cool Auntie and Uncle that ever lived. Just ask Miss H and Master M, who adore us. As an aunt and uncle, we totally rock.

Some blogging musings...

I've been thinking about this whole blogging thing and I have two ideas for you to ponder. Please leave a comment below or email me and tell me what you think. First, starting a blog just for my RAS recipe and cooking-related stuff. This started life as a supposed foodie blog but ended up as a mommy blog. So should I move the recipes to another location? Secondly, I want to start a group blog (with several contributors, like here and here). Specifically a blog written by people in "mixed marriages" - Australians married to Americans. Something I've noticed over time is that even though we speak the same language...well, we don't. There is a cultural divide between the two countries, Krispy Kreme not withstanding. I thought it would be interesting to have a blog about North Americans living Down Under, and vice versa. Because I didn't grow up here, there is so much I've learned along the way - including how totally horrible the milkshakes are (sorry, Louisa, I had to mention it) and how totally wonderful the people are. I am sure that is also true for the Aussies displaced to the US. So - anyone out there think this is a good idea? I'd have to recruit some people to contribute (and they would have to be witty, entertaining, and generally as fab as moi). So - what do you think? I even have a clever name picked out! Leave comments/opinions/good quotes/rantings below - see that little lit up comment on the bottom right corner? Click on it.

What's Mine is Mine, and What's Yours is Mine, Too

Possession, they say, is 9/10ths of the law. Clearly whoever said that didn't live in a house with triplets, where posession is ALL of the law. It is one of the grossly unfair things in their lives that they have no choice but to share. Everything. They share a room, a closet, a birthday (even a birth minute), clothes, our attention, plates, teachers, toys...everything except of course a car seat but let's not go there again. So it stands to reason that when you share everything in your life, you might sometimes resent that. You might get a little posessive of your stuff, what little stuff you can actually claim as your own. To approaching enemies you might scream very loudly "That's MY TOY and DON'T TOUCH IT!" You might even be forced to, on occassion, yell things like, "MUUUUUUUUMMM!! He's TOUCHING my THINGS and I DON'T LIKE IT!" Those sorts of declarations of independance are often followed by out and out war. As a person who is self-proclaimed selfish and self-centered, I understand the need to have your own things. Make your own mark, play with your own toys, define your uniqueness at every possible opportunity - just once in a while say that this is all about ME. I get it. I really do. These kids did not choose to be born together, after all. Now while I could carry on about the benefits of being born in a group, that's not what this post is about. This post is about me trying to figure out the twisted minds of 5 year olds. All this sharing as made them masters of posessiveness - anything they can claim as their own, they can and DO claim (the purple cup/first bath/smack from Mom is MINE and not YOURS and you can't HAVE it.) The same five year olds who spend so much time guarding, hoarding, secreting away their own stuff....desperately want the stuff of others.

All. The. Time.

So what is it about their sibling's stuff which is so appealing? Is it just a case of the grass always being greener? Is it a way to practice your attention-seeking and dramatic death scenes? Should I be teaching them that "thou shalt not covet your sister's stuff"?

Let me set the scene. One kid is in theplayroom reading a book (and littering books for a 10 mile radius, but the ability of kids to spread stuff all over is another post.) One kid is in the kitchen, "helping" me to do something domestic (and making a mess for a 10 mile radius...) and the third kid is playing with some cards, also in the playroom but nowhere near the book flinging kid. Card playing kid looks up, sees book flinging kid, and simply HAS TO, in that VERY moment, get up and snatch the not-yet-flung book out of book flinging kid's hands. If card kid doesn't have that EXACT book, on the order of RIGHT NOW, then card kid will DIE a sad, lonely, tortured, drawn out, screaming and hitting and crying death on the playroom floor (while checking surreptitiously to see if Mom is watching). While card kid is working on an Oscar performance, domestic kid wanders in to see what the fuss was about. She idly picks up the abandoned cards and starts to play with them....which further enrages dying card playing kid AND book flinging kid (because card kid takes book in question with them to the scene of the card crime). This then leds to Supremely Irritated Mom coming in and asking Stupid Question #1: "Why can't you guys just leave one another alone?!?!?!" (Duh, Stupid Mom, where is the fun in that?) This results in three loud voices describing in full detail the injustice of the crimes committed - and since Supremely Irritated Mom can't hear any of it clearly, she just nods her head and asks Stupid Question #2: "How hard is it to just share? Can't you guys share?" There is of course only one answer to this: "We can't share. We HATE sharing." The title of this post says it all: what's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine, too.

Slacker Mom

As DH will tell you, I'm very demanding. In my defense, I'm demanding of him but I am also very demanding of myself. Since I knew he would be away for quite a while (and thus unable to put forth an opinion or 'help') I had a whole list of home projects I intended to finish. You know the ones - things you put off until you have 'free time', things you should be doing regularly but you don't so they build up and then become too time consuming to deal with, things you just plain ignore because they are boring. Closet clean-outs, office paper filing...the boring but important detritus of life. I am taking this post to admit that I have not crossed a single thing off my list. For those who know that I am obsessive compulsive crazy overachiever girl, (COG), you will know that crossing things off a list is, for me, like the world's best orgasm and calorie-free premium chocolate ice cream all rolled into one.

I have become a slacker Mom on so many levels....and...*confession time* I am loving every single minute of it. DH and IL's, feel free to read the following but brace yourselves and try to contain your horror.

Those great meals I was going to cook for the kids each night? Ummm, no. Dinner is a selection of cereals or sandwiches, to which the kids say, "AGAIN?" The closets I was going to clean? Still full of clothes which have not fit since the kids were babies. My girls keep wearing long sleeved shirts which can best be described as cut off tank tops with cap sleeves. My son tried to put on socks that were so small, he could not get them over his toes. The laundry pile is threatening to spill out into another (several) rooms. I don't think we have enough toilet paper to last the week. The fridge is quite, quite bare (as in, even the condiments are running low.) I've been wearing the same clothes for 2-3 days in a row (as are the kids) to reduce the laundry demands. The office still looks as it did on the day DH left - which is to say, a fire hazard of paper and stuff which has no other home. Only difference is the number of dirty tea cups littering the desk. I get the dishes done...eventually...or I just throw everything in the dishwasher and turn it on and pray nothing breaks. Under normal cicumstances, I'm a terrible housekeeper but I maintain minimum standards. My minimum standards have gone to hell in a washing basket. The beauty of it is, I could care less. I cannot remember a time in my (adult) life that I just let everything go. I'm very BAD at relaxing. I'm bad at having nothing to do. I always multi-task, write lists, volunteer for more stuff, and find something which needs doing right this very second. What I've discovered is that there is an enormous amount of freedom to being Slacker Mom. It's BRILLIANT, and I should just let go more often. Sure, my house could probably be condemned - but the kids and I are having loads more fun, and they are behaving like angels. The fact that Child Protection Services might cart them away for neglect...well, we had fun while it lasted. On the weekend DS (Dear Son) made a great spider out of a toilet roll, a bunch of straws and miles upon miles of sticky tape. DD#2 came downstairs today, dressed and ready to go to kinder, with nary a whine or complain or fuss. For her this is nothing short of miraculous. DD#1 has coped beautifully since DH has been gone (she is his #1 fan), and tells me about 600 times a day that she loves me. They get to kinder (mostly) on time, they go to bed with mimimal fuss, and so far nobody has gotten lice or died of starvation - not even the fish! I could definetly get used to this - I figure even our bills are smaller since I can't be bothered food shopping.

Life as a Slacker Mom is great, and I have no intention of changing my ways until the few hours before DH comes home, when I just might be forced to do something about the chaos. This whole slacking thing is new to me. Who would have known that slacking as a lifestyle is such great fun? However, as I said, I'm demanding. If the tables were turned, and it was DH being Slacker Dad - I'd kick his ass to kingdom come. "What do you MEAN you didn't get around to it? I leave for three weeks and you can't even be bothered to have clean underwear? What the hell have you and the kids been living off of, peanut butter sandwiches?" Hell hath no fury like a woman who could have done it all better, by herself, with one hand tied behind her back. In this case, as I know DH is reading this blog while he's away, I know he's going to forgive me for the mess. Actually he's so freakin' fabulous, he'll probably say, "So what? You enjoyed it. You finally took some time off from being crazy over achiever girl? About time!" This, dear readers, is why I love my DH. Those reading this post who know me intimiately will recognise how totally out of character slacking is for me- I am not one for slacking even when I am on vacation. I was telling a girlfriend about my slacker ways and she said, "Did it ever occur to you that you NEED to do this?" She's right. I needed to learn how the other half lives...and now that I know, it just might be hard to get back to my COG self. On the other hand, imagine what a GREAT lists of "stuff which needs doing" I'll be able to make...

Stop the Insanity!

It's freezing outside, raining cats and dogs, I'm parenting without DH (and thus cannot fob kids off onto him), and I've got three kids who desperately need to blow off some steam. Hmmm, what to do, what to do...I know! I'll shlep across town to an indoor play centre we've never been to! That's a great idea! Note to self: great ideas are rarely great. The end result is that the kids did burn off some pent-up energy, stayed dry, and we left with only one pair of eyes in tears (quickly resolved with a promise of real food at home and inane Hi-5 music at full volume for the car ride home) . I've decided that indoor play centres are really just large rooms full of evil, and here's why:

1. You have to mortgage your first born child to get in. It cost me, wait for it, $27 to just get in the door. Yes, they charge the ADULTS to go in, not just the kids. Frankly, I'm quite happy to pay them the $8 per kid, and LEAVE the kids in there without me. I can go hang out in the warm car reading the paper and loving the quiet...but guess what, that's not allowed because 'children must be accompanied by an adult.' Okay, there's plenty of adults in there who paid the admission fee. THEY can accompany my kids. Unfortunately it doesn't work like that. So even if you only have one kid, it costs you $11 just to walk in the door. You have not had one iota of fun and you're already in debt. This is the part where you pray to god that more than an hour goes past before your kid starts whining that they want to go home. "I paid 11 bucks, dammit! Now go out there, get run over by a bigger kid, and HAVE FUN."
   
2. There are far too many "if I ignore my kid they will go away" parents in there, all of whom are drinking overpriced coffees (and pretending like they're not eating their kids chips). It's like they take their kids there and forget the kids exist. Now, I myself am guilty of this but only in small bursts. Every couple of minutes I actually LOOK UP from my self-centered world and I scan to find my kids. ALL of them. If I can't find them, I get up off my fat arse and check on them. As in, SEE them or TOUCH them and make sure they are alive and have not been killed by the asshole kamikaze kid who hurls himself into other kids at 85 kmph with nary an 'excuse me'. Every single time I get up, I find a kid crying their eyes out, laying on the brightly-coloured floor or the recent victim of a stampede of six year olds. Is there a parent to be found? Nup. So I hang out with said kid, trying to calm them (and remember I don't do kids so this is an effort for me) until some responsible looking adult comes looking for their kid. Do you KNOW how many times I have picked up kids I don't know (by the hand or whatever) and gone looking for their Mum? Too many to count. People, a slide is not a babysitter. Indoor play centres are not an excuse to dabble in a bit of child neglect.
3. The birthday party thing. Ooooh, I get it. Stuff in a small room forty kids, aged between 3 and 5. Let them run totally riot, then sit them down in the small room again and stuff them with fries, cordial, birthday cake, and other high fat and high sugar things, and then send them out there to MOW DOWN my kids. Lovely. While the birthday party kids are out there burning off the 4,000 calories of sugar and hysteria, the parents sit around pretending not to eat the leftover cheezles and party pies. This immediately makes them the parents I describe in #2. The birthday party kids then leave, leaving in their wake the debris of chips, wrapping paper, and a dozen kids with head injuries....and then in another half hour the whole cycle starts again in the Rainbow Room.
   
4. Food in general, since we're on the topic...actually, in their defense I have to say lots of indoor play places have decent menus, with healthy food options available and the price is not too unreasonable. Usually. Today, however, when I went to order DD#1 a cheese sandwich (a bargain at $2), they told me it would be a 30 minute wait. BUT, I could have chips/cookies/candy/fried anything in less than 3 minutes. You can just imagine the look on my face. Actually I have a confession to make. I spent $3 and bought the trio a bowl of fries to share, in order to stop the "I'm hhuuuunnnggggyyy" whines. They ate them, went off to play, and half an hour lady a waitress person brought me another bowl of fries. I did actually tell her we'd already gotten our ordered bowl of fries and sent her away. She spent the next 30 seconds looking around, totally lost, carrying this bowl around. I put her out of her misery and said, "Why don't you just leave them here?" - which she promptly did. So we got two bowls for $3. Hey, I'm nothing if not a) practical and b) opportunistic.
   
5. When you are on your own (as I was), other people think this therefore entitles them to a) take all the chairs at your table away (good thing I was sitting on one otherwise it too would've been snatched), leave dirty dishes on your table (which they cleared from the table they had been stalking for the last 10 minutes), and in general act as though you do not exist. It makes you glad you stole someone else's chips.

These places are just ....ooohhhh, sooooo painful. In the end it was well over $30 for the kids to spend less than 3 hours there and me to rescue 2 kids who were not my own. This works out at about $10 an hour, or $3.33 per kid, per hour. A bargain? Well, some might think so. Personally I think it's an exercise in parental hell, fuelled by sugar, fat, and rainy day hysteria. Tomorrow's brilliant rainy day activity is the library...I figure there at least it's quiet.

RAS Recipe of the Week

I think it's been more than a week since posting a RAS recipe, but forgive me, will you? Here is this week's recipe for super moreish macaroons (and generally I hate macaroons, but these have none of that horrid coconut so it's okay!). This can be made into Passover cookies by substituting the plain flour for super fine matza flour. I know it uses a food processor again, but you already dusted it off last week, so why not keep the trend going? (Confession: I whizz the almonds in a mini chopper.) These are so good you might consider not sharing them - but the whole point of RAS is sharing, so double the quantities so you can indulge and make the world a better place.

Almond Macaroons To Die For

1/2 lb (about 2 cups) lightly toasted almonds
1/4 cup plain flour
3 eggs whites (at room temp)
2/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
Dash of salt

Note: To toast almonds, spread on a baking tray and bake for about 10 minutes in a 180/350 oven until lightly browned.

Preheat oven to 325/160. Process the almonds until they resemble a coarse meal. Beat the egg whites until stiff. Beat in sugar, vanilla, cinnamon and salt. Gently fold in the ground almonds. Drop by tablespoons onto a bake paper lined cookie sheet. Bake for 15 minutes or until edges are golden. Remove from the sheet carefully as the macaroons will be soft but will firm upon cooling. Store in an airtight container (but put some paper between so they don't stick to one another, these are quite soft macaroons.)

100 Things

So I've been looking at other blogs (when one has all this free time, one has to use it in some meaningful way, right?). Lots of them seem to have this '100 Things' list, which is just a big ol' boring list of stuff which is supposedly interesting about the people who write the blogs. You know what? I don't really want to know 100 things about ANYONE. Those lists lose me around the #23 mark....when the person writing them kinda lost the plot about it (and got bored themselves) and they resorted to things like "No. 28: In the morning, I always put my left sock on before my right sock. No. 29: After my socks I put my pants on, one leg at a time." Give me a break. Why is this stuff interesting?! However, in the interest of getting to know your friendly neighbourhood blogger, here are some (less than 100) interesting (well, okay, interesting to me, possibly boring to you) facts about emzeegee:

1. I nearly never laugh out loud. If I read comics in newspapers, a funny book, see a live comedy show, watch a sitcom on TV...I don't laugh out loud. I might find something funny, but it's funny in my head and nowhere else. The only times I really laugh out loud are when I'm in active conversation with someone and they say something funny. I hate going to comedy shows because there is this expectation that you will laugh out loud. I don't DO out loud laughing, guffawing, chortling, or any other laughing synonym good vocab word you can think of.
   
2. I don't like children. There are a very, very small number of kids who I actually like and can interact with. I'm not a natural mother (actually work hard at being "maternal"), I have never ever felt 'clucky', I don't ooh and aah over babies, and I don't find conversation with a nine year old stimulating. I adore my kids, and with them I get along and interact and blah blah....but overall, kids kinda annoy me. The list of kids I like is pretty well limited to my kids, my sister's kids (because they are frickin' cool) and a child of a friend of mine (who is so scary mature it's like talking to an adult anyway.) I'm nice to other kids, but I don't fawn over them. I just don't do fawning. Strangely when I tell this to people who know me they think I'm kidding. I'm not, so please keep your snot nosed kid away from me. Thanks.
   
3. I harbour feelings of self-doubt and a constant worry that I am not doing enough, achieving enough, earning enough, and in general doubt my skills. Again, this is one of those strange things which people who know me don't believe. Outwardly I am one of the most confident, self-assured, and frankly self-centered, arrogant people you would ever meet. The reality of it is I need constant reassurance that a) I'm not crap at being a Mum, b) not crap at being a pastry chef, c) not crap at being a daughter/DIL/sister/friend/wife d) not crap at giving of my time or skills to worth causes and e) just plain old not crap. Ask DH. He'll tell you how much time he spends telling me I'm not crap.
   
4. I worry that if I keep posting about such serious stuff, all my loyal readers will stop reading this blog. (So I promise to be funny again, truly I do... *grin*)
5. I really, really hate wearing bras which are any colour other than white. In a pinch I'll wear 'nude' coloured ones, but it makes me feel kinda wierd all day.

So there you have it. Five fascinating, insightful things about myself for you to enjoy. For those following the job saga, I'm employed! I've got a great job with a shmancy catering company, working casually for them doing both general chefing and pastry chefing. I've decided to do the chefing course now since it's very part-time and basically, gives me yet more marketable skills. Besides which I actually do want to know how to bone a fish properly and how to make a kick-ass bechamel. So yours truly will be qualified as both a pastry chef (which will be my first love) and a commercial cookery chef. Yay me! Being casual this new job will work around my school hours and pay a ridiculous amount of money, plus give me experience in both areas. Win-win situation really. As for the single parenting - the squids and I are doing great - better than I expected. We all miss DH, but they and I are getting along with a minimum of whining on their part (and mine.) We're nearly halfway through our time without him, and thus far it's been smooth sailing (missing cheese sandwich being the one exception.) What can I say, I guess there must be a maternal bone in my body somewhere.