With the recent infusion of sun things lighten up, a little, at work. My Monday meeting was filled with more zings and ready laughter than I’ve heard in a while. Something is bubbling up and out from this wet ground.
I spent my morning coffee break taking a short walk outside. Squinted into the chilly wind I reveled in a single thought: winter is almost over.
_____
Dinner Line Up: Kedgeree & Spinach Salad
Currently Reading: The River of Doubt by Candice Millard
Reading with Naomi: The View from Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg
Personal Soundtrack: What I Got (Sublime)
Recent Goodness: Seeing my friend, Jennifer, take every available news outlet by storm to urge Lincoln to Vote YES on the Haymarket Arena project.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
Birthday Cake
Naomi's birthday was last week. With McKibbin's switch to a new, but no less convenient, schedule the first round of chocolate cake baking fell to me. I suppose you could say we're long on cakes around the McKibbin house.
There's the cake we eat at Naomi's birthday party which is always a stunning display of my husband's culinary skills. There's also the small cake the three of us share after dinner on the night of her actual birthday.
To be honest: I'm not huge with desserts. After dinner I'd enjoy coffee with cream as much as a chocolate custard or raspberry cheesecake. Through marriage I was charmed and a little coaxed into eating more desserts, though. McKibbin's creations are quite convincing. So baking this chocolate cake came with some amount of pressure.
I used that recipe you find on the back of the Hershey's metal box. Complete with homemade frosting and dotted with Ghirardelli Chocolate chips on top.
Naomi asked for a small second helping. And I realized I didn't have to suddenly love cakes to bake a good one. I just have to love the person I'm baking the cake for.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Leprechaun Trap
Just before bedtime on March 16th Naomi insisted on constructing this leprechaun trap in her bedroom. Cut and taped the whole thing together in a flurry of inspiration. Tried to use a magic marker create "gold" coins as bait at the base of the trap. Then she giggled and plotted under the covers having a hard time falling asleep. Sadly the trap stood empty on St. Patrick's Day morning. Naomi sighed with a heavy, defeated sigh saying. Genuinely disappointed she said, "I just wanted to prove that leprechauns were real."
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Just By Looking
Naomi was wandering around our cold house without any socks or slippers. My foot empathy factor was just going berserk. I kept asking over, and over: don't you want some socks or something? She'd decline. I'd grow more insistent.
Finally, I flung some clean socks at her head without further instructions. She put them on and shot me a look.
Me: So that's the 'Mom, you've-gone-crazy-with-this-preoccupation-with-my-feet' look?
Naomi: No.
Me: No?
Naomi: That was the "I-could-see-perfectly-well-those-socks-were-headed-my-way-thirty minutes-ago. You-could-just-walk-them-over-to-me, you know. No-need-to-toss-them-at-my-face' look.
Me: That's a lot to say in a look.
Naomi: It is. But I'm pretty good at saying what I mean just by looking.
Finally, I flung some clean socks at her head without further instructions. She put them on and shot me a look.
Me: So that's the 'Mom, you've-gone-crazy-with-this-preoccupation-with-my-feet' look?
Naomi: No.
Me: No?
Naomi: That was the "I-could-see-perfectly-well-those-socks-were-headed-my-way-thirty minutes-ago. You-could-just-walk-them-over-to-me, you know. No-need-to-toss-them-at-my-face' look.
Me: That's a lot to say in a look.
Naomi: It is. But I'm pretty good at saying what I mean just by looking.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Introductions
As far back as my memory serves I’ve considered myself an environmentalist. My affinity for the natural world has influenced my coursework, several major life decisions, casual reading lists, weekend itineraries, and steered my career path. I’ve made no secret about it and nobody would be surprised to hear me say I’m an environmentalist.
Last week, however, I was asked to introduce myself and the word environmentalist lay dormant in my mouth. And I wondered if it's a shoe that still fits? I'll occasionally have these crises of conscience having decided to work in the electric utility industry rather than as an activist.
I considered whether environmentalism isn’t more of an ideology and whether I drink from its camp kool-aid. Certainly I ascribe to a creed of ecosystem protection, moderating more fervent consumption of the world’s resources, seeing a person’s rightful place in the world a rather small (hopefully) insignificant part of a much larger system.
Occasionally, though, I sink with the pulpy conversation surrounding environmental issues. The way political rhetoric and lofty ideals rarely sully themselves with the details. The inherent value of the goal can't simplify the mechanics of how to get from here to there.
My stumbling over the word environmentalist came as I sat in a group of environmental professionals. You know, the people tasked with carbon management, complying with clean water standards, or raw material and waste process balancing acts. Nobody quoted Edward Abbey or boasted about their habit of recycling both glass and plastic at home.
Instead this was a group that calculates the emission control factors. Defines drinking water pollutants by congener. We agonize over the complicated benchmarks and metrics. The variables we occasionally can neither explain nor more fully understand.
The table conversation might have lent well to cynicism, actually, or making sport of belittling other perspectives. And, yet, it never did.
It was there that I realized I could still consider myself an environmentalist. In realizing I hadn't grown tired nor cynical in the face of unsimple, often frustrating, environmental issues. In another setting I'd use the term to describe myself. Environmentalist. In this one, it was a given.
Last week, however, I was asked to introduce myself and the word environmentalist lay dormant in my mouth. And I wondered if it's a shoe that still fits? I'll occasionally have these crises of conscience having decided to work in the electric utility industry rather than as an activist.
I considered whether environmentalism isn’t more of an ideology and whether I drink from its camp kool-aid. Certainly I ascribe to a creed of ecosystem protection, moderating more fervent consumption of the world’s resources, seeing a person’s rightful place in the world a rather small (hopefully) insignificant part of a much larger system.
Occasionally, though, I sink with the pulpy conversation surrounding environmental issues. The way political rhetoric and lofty ideals rarely sully themselves with the details. The inherent value of the goal can't simplify the mechanics of how to get from here to there.
My stumbling over the word environmentalist came as I sat in a group of environmental professionals. You know, the people tasked with carbon management, complying with clean water standards, or raw material and waste process balancing acts. Nobody quoted Edward Abbey or boasted about their habit of recycling both glass and plastic at home.
Instead this was a group that calculates the emission control factors. Defines drinking water pollutants by congener. We agonize over the complicated benchmarks and metrics. The variables we occasionally can neither explain nor more fully understand.
The table conversation might have lent well to cynicism, actually, or making sport of belittling other perspectives. And, yet, it never did.
It was there that I realized I could still consider myself an environmentalist. In realizing I hadn't grown tired nor cynical in the face of unsimple, often frustrating, environmental issues. In another setting I'd use the term to describe myself. Environmentalist. In this one, it was a given.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Soup Club
Several years ago I formed a soup club habit. I had always winced at the thought of winter. The post holiday season feeling of isolation that draws out well into March. So instead of wincing I started to invite a clutch of friends over to swap soups.
Our soup club met again yesterday and I arrived, giggling, with the sense this was some red-carpet equivalent. My imagination flooded the scene with a zillion blinks from flashbulbs, and the shallow sort of E-Channel soft questioning.
I shook off the image until the group responded to the sound of the door with a loud bellowing cheer. Unwrapping from my coat and scarf someone asked after the type of soup I sported that day. The question, in my mind, comparable to “Who are you wearing?” I batted my eyelashes, struck a pose, and found a sultry voice to announce my companion as pumpkin soup with rosemary and lime zest.
The group swooned openly and I blushed under the gaze of open flattery. The warm air of the apartment was stinging against my cheeks. There is no cold winter, no pervasive sense of loneliness these occasions couldn't help remedy.
Our soup club met again yesterday and I arrived, giggling, with the sense this was some red-carpet equivalent. My imagination flooded the scene with a zillion blinks from flashbulbs, and the shallow sort of E-Channel soft questioning.
I shook off the image until the group responded to the sound of the door with a loud bellowing cheer. Unwrapping from my coat and scarf someone asked after the type of soup I sported that day. The question, in my mind, comparable to “Who are you wearing?” I batted my eyelashes, struck a pose, and found a sultry voice to announce my companion as pumpkin soup with rosemary and lime zest.
The group swooned openly and I blushed under the gaze of open flattery. The warm air of the apartment was stinging against my cheeks. There is no cold winter, no pervasive sense of loneliness these occasions couldn't help remedy.
Monday, March 1, 2010
March Forecast
This morning was the official flip. I flipped the calendar page to the month of March.
Woah.
Three birthdays, several major project deadlines, the Storybook Parade at Prescott, midterms, three out-of-town trips, the Science Fair exhibit Naomi wants to pull together on orangutans, and a change in McK’s work schedule.
Clairvoyance isn't a skill I possess. Though I would wager the coming month will involve late nights, hotel-sized shampoo bottles, and lots, and lots of cake. Any monthly forecast that involves an ample supply of birthday cake just can't be all that bad.
Woah.
Three birthdays, several major project deadlines, the Storybook Parade at Prescott, midterms, three out-of-town trips, the Science Fair exhibit Naomi wants to pull together on orangutans, and a change in McK’s work schedule.
Clairvoyance isn't a skill I possess. Though I would wager the coming month will involve late nights, hotel-sized shampoo bottles, and lots, and lots of cake. Any monthly forecast that involves an ample supply of birthday cake just can't be all that bad.
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