David Leite's Milk Mayonnaise is amazing. Silky smooth like a tofu mayo, and completely a tabula rasa for adding scrumptious flavorings. I'm going to go a little crazy with this. An immersion blender is a must.
You're welcome.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Chypres, and guest posts
Group guest post yesterday at Perfume-Smellin' Things - go check it out! There's a drawing, too.
We divvied up the fragrance families for this post. Because I was checking email infrequently, I ended up being more-or-less assigned a family: chypre. (I did have a choice, but it was limited to things I mostly don't wear.) Unfortunately, I found myself neither tremendously knowledgeable nor very excited about any scent in particular.
Here's the deal: you'd recognize any other chypre as such after sniffing one and knowing what it was. They're classic "old lady" perfume: not heady, resinous, and spicy-sensuous like most Oriental perfumes, but complex, floral, and ladylike. There is a chypre accord that enlivens any fragrance in this family: top notes of citrus, a (usually blended or rose) floral middle, and a woody base with oakmoss, and possibly patchouli or musk.
This is not a combination for me. I don't like a lot of florals on my skin, because they take on narcotic, noxious, sickly-sweet overtones and have a lasting power that recalls the half-life of plutonium. Patchouli and musk make me cranky; oakmoss smells naughty, but male-type naughty, on my skin, and it wears me instead of the other way around. And every citrus smells like armpit on my skin. The result, on my skin, is "unwashed old lady who's been rolling around with a dockworker" and that doesn't spell success.
Chypres are not, in themself, disgusting. Pat loves them and finds them to be the epitome of femininity. The way L'Oreal lipstick smelled in the 80s? Chypre. Your grandmother's prettiest perfume -- the one she wore to church when she got all dolled up in her brooch and high heels? Yep. How you imagine Jayne Mansfield smelled? Probably a chypre.
So I hitched myself up by the bootstraps and decided to learn to love this genre. In so doing, I sniffed a lot of chypres that were new to me. I found one, "Hasu-No-Hana" by Grossmith, that is beautiful on me. It's a big scent -- like the archetypal great-grand-dame of chypres, "Mitsouko." But it's sexy and loaded with va-va-voom and if I'm going to wear something that isn't me, I might as well roleplay a bombshell. And hey, it's a fragrance from 1888 that has been reanimated by Roja Dove, a perfumer whose fragrances have fairly universally been masterpieces in my estimation.
Honorable mentions were Keiko Mecheri's "Iris Poupre," which is truthfully more about the rounded, rich iris root fragrance and less about the chypre; Parfumes MDCI "Vepres Siciliennes," which is like the floating scent of blossoms on the breeze, but which eventually gave me a headache as it remained rather top-heavy and piercing; and Domenico Caraceni's 1913 Eau de Toilette, which was angular, a little masculine, and sweetly fresh. Dizzy-making and too-heady or just I-found-'em-forgettable chypres included PG's "Querelle," PdN's "New York" (which I loved at first but turned to melted plastic and hot asphalt on my skin within a half hour and Would. Not. Wash. Off.), Tremlett's "Royals Heroes," and Tauer's "Une Rose Chypree" (predictably -- I hate rose on my skin) which were too rich for me, and Montale's "Chypre Vanille," which went on sexy but eventually made me very unhappy through its overgenerous patchouli and oakmoss and vanilla, and wouldn't scrub off even with laundry soap.
The big offender, which I hate passionately and would hiss at like a cat if I encountered it in the wild, is Vero Profumo's "Rubj." That's a shame: I really wanted to love it and I liked its kicky opening. But within moments it had turned into a horror show on my skin but painted a vivid picture: the overall cardboard-and-mixed-spices of an Asian grocery, the nag champa and cherry incense from a head shop, L'Oreal lipstick (back when it smelled like grandma's purse), and SWEATY MAN CROTCH. And it would not go away, and would not go away. I got it on the outside of the sample vial and now I can't handle it because aieee, it will never go away!
Also in the course of my journey of discovery into chypres, I decided to make one for my brother's birthday, just to get to know the style. But an eccentric one. I used lime, bergamot, and tangerine at the top (with other things, of course), lemongrass at the heart, and oakmoss and amber at the base to compose a chypre accord -- and it was wonderfully do-able! And then I loaded it with lemon, licorice, and leather scents (at top, middle, and base respectively) to give it substance and uniqueness.
I like it best of all. And Robert likes it, too, which is the best part.
Anyway, thought I'd rant a bit about what I've been sniffing, before I clear the sample vials off my desk. I'm listening to Fletch chatting with Pat over the baby monitor and am going to go get some snuggle time. Happy Saturday!
P.S. I really love "Mitsouko," but I didn't want to be lazy and phone in my usual choice -- I enjoyed the chance to do my homework and learn a little! I just wish I had never touched the vial of "Rubj." :)
We divvied up the fragrance families for this post. Because I was checking email infrequently, I ended up being more-or-less assigned a family: chypre. (I did have a choice, but it was limited to things I mostly don't wear.) Unfortunately, I found myself neither tremendously knowledgeable nor very excited about any scent in particular.
Here's the deal: you'd recognize any other chypre as such after sniffing one and knowing what it was. They're classic "old lady" perfume: not heady, resinous, and spicy-sensuous like most Oriental perfumes, but complex, floral, and ladylike. There is a chypre accord that enlivens any fragrance in this family: top notes of citrus, a (usually blended or rose) floral middle, and a woody base with oakmoss, and possibly patchouli or musk.
This is not a combination for me. I don't like a lot of florals on my skin, because they take on narcotic, noxious, sickly-sweet overtones and have a lasting power that recalls the half-life of plutonium. Patchouli and musk make me cranky; oakmoss smells naughty, but male-type naughty, on my skin, and it wears me instead of the other way around. And every citrus smells like armpit on my skin. The result, on my skin, is "unwashed old lady who's been rolling around with a dockworker" and that doesn't spell success.
Chypres are not, in themself, disgusting. Pat loves them and finds them to be the epitome of femininity. The way L'Oreal lipstick smelled in the 80s? Chypre. Your grandmother's prettiest perfume -- the one she wore to church when she got all dolled up in her brooch and high heels? Yep. How you imagine Jayne Mansfield smelled? Probably a chypre.
So I hitched myself up by the bootstraps and decided to learn to love this genre. In so doing, I sniffed a lot of chypres that were new to me. I found one, "Hasu-No-Hana" by Grossmith, that is beautiful on me. It's a big scent -- like the archetypal great-grand-dame of chypres, "Mitsouko." But it's sexy and loaded with va-va-voom and if I'm going to wear something that isn't me, I might as well roleplay a bombshell. And hey, it's a fragrance from 1888 that has been reanimated by Roja Dove, a perfumer whose fragrances have fairly universally been masterpieces in my estimation.
Honorable mentions were Keiko Mecheri's "Iris Poupre," which is truthfully more about the rounded, rich iris root fragrance and less about the chypre; Parfumes MDCI "Vepres Siciliennes," which is like the floating scent of blossoms on the breeze, but which eventually gave me a headache as it remained rather top-heavy and piercing; and Domenico Caraceni's 1913 Eau de Toilette, which was angular, a little masculine, and sweetly fresh. Dizzy-making and too-heady or just I-found-'em-forgettable chypres included PG's "Querelle," PdN's "New York" (which I loved at first but turned to melted plastic and hot asphalt on my skin within a half hour and Would. Not. Wash. Off.), Tremlett's "Royals Heroes," and Tauer's "Une Rose Chypree" (predictably -- I hate rose on my skin) which were too rich for me, and Montale's "Chypre Vanille," which went on sexy but eventually made me very unhappy through its overgenerous patchouli and oakmoss and vanilla, and wouldn't scrub off even with laundry soap.
The big offender, which I hate passionately and would hiss at like a cat if I encountered it in the wild, is Vero Profumo's "Rubj." That's a shame: I really wanted to love it and I liked its kicky opening. But within moments it had turned into a horror show on my skin but painted a vivid picture: the overall cardboard-and-mixed-spices of an Asian grocery, the nag champa and cherry incense from a head shop, L'Oreal lipstick (back when it smelled like grandma's purse), and SWEATY MAN CROTCH. And it would not go away, and would not go away. I got it on the outside of the sample vial and now I can't handle it because aieee, it will never go away!
Also in the course of my journey of discovery into chypres, I decided to make one for my brother's birthday, just to get to know the style. But an eccentric one. I used lime, bergamot, and tangerine at the top (with other things, of course), lemongrass at the heart, and oakmoss and amber at the base to compose a chypre accord -- and it was wonderfully do-able! And then I loaded it with lemon, licorice, and leather scents (at top, middle, and base respectively) to give it substance and uniqueness.
I like it best of all. And Robert likes it, too, which is the best part.
Anyway, thought I'd rant a bit about what I've been sniffing, before I clear the sample vials off my desk. I'm listening to Fletch chatting with Pat over the baby monitor and am going to go get some snuggle time. Happy Saturday!
P.S. I really love "Mitsouko," but I didn't want to be lazy and phone in my usual choice -- I enjoyed the chance to do my homework and learn a little! I just wish I had never touched the vial of "Rubj." :)
Monday, January 31, 2011
Five years
FIVE
Five years ago, I was in graduate school. I had just been on a Christmas cruise to Mexico with my mother, brothers, sister-in-law, and husband. It was my mom's first vacation in about a decade and the first time she hadn't taken a business call in more than 24 hours (maybe in more than 12) in all that time, and we enjoyed karaoke and running amok. It was the best time.
When I got back, my nose went to the grindstone trying to attract more committee members to my dissertation committee -- as had been my project for the previous five or six years. But by this time, I knew the situation was desperate; my chair was looking for a polished proposal and wasn't offering much helpful advice, and I'd been turned down by almost everyone who shared research interests with me. They were "too busy" or "on sabbatical" or "doing fieldwork" or "just didn't see the overlap."
In early autumn of 2006, my chair quit my committee, claiming no interest in my project. (That had been amply evident by her level of participation, but other profs were also disinterested in taking up where she left off.) I begged her to stay on-project, to just read what I had written for her. She would not. I broke down and cried in her office. I told her I had given up everything (children!) to pursue my career and that her departure from my committee would spell the end of my career, since I was well aware that I could not replace her. She told me to take up yoga or something. She told me she was concerned about my ... health. (She looked me pointedly up and down; I am fat, and since I was having a bad rosacea flare and had, at the time, pneumonia, I was red and wheezing after the three flights of stairs to her office.)
I alternated sleepless job-hunting, slumping in despair, and despondent WoW marathons for the next couple months. I didn't want to start over; I was too damn old and I had already given up absolutely everything I wanted (children!) for the dead end in which I'd invested myself. To start over would be to postpone fulfillment (children!) for several more years -- years that would claim my fertility.
FOUR
Four years and a couple months ago, we visited home for Christmas. I had been horribly stressed beforehand because I had not yet told my family that I had dropped out of grad school. But when I took my mom aside and sobbingly confessed that I was considering it, she was so supportive. Proud of me despite my crippling sense of failure. Loving. It was all I could do to keep her off the phone and to keep her from trying to take my ex-chair to court somehow. I told her I wanted to come live close to her and my brother again, and could she keep her ear to the ground to see if suitable jobs were available? Because they certainly were not available in Chicago... at least I had bad luck landing permanent work.
I was no sooner home than I got a phone call from Mom. Mom's good friend Stacy had an entry-level position opening. I applied, and Stacy was eager to have me aboard. She was simply worried that the entry-level salary wouldn't be sufficient. I told her that it was not, but if there was opportunity for advancement, I was in.
Four years ago tomorrow, I began working for Stacy. Her office was wonderful -- over a dozen of the loveliest people anywhere, working hard together. I caught on quickly and, three months later, was promoted into the most difficult position in the agency. I loved the work.
Shortly thereafter, Pat finally threw in the towel and joined me in abandoning graduate school. It hit him even harder than it had hit me, the sense of failure and despondency. His committee was absolutely unsupportive even face-to-face, and long-distance, it was impossible to proceed. He blamed me, but didn't mean to.
On our 19th anniversary, we went to the beach and watched people and birds and the waves, and we talked -- the tail end of one of those exhausting arguments where you just nibble at one another verbally for days and days, "talking it through" because there's nothing to fight about. I was bitter and hysterical. He was bitter and annoyed. And then, everything melted away; we managed to spark the wavelength that united us. We cleared the air about our negative feelings about leaving U of C and how we felt about one another's roles in the process. We were so wrung out we were clean and clear-headed. We finally internalized the lesson that life could be a journey and that we hadn't failed, we'd simply changed paths. I finally confessed that I'd hated the program for a really long time; I loved the work but hated the politics. He told me he felt the same way, but felt he had so much invested in it that he didn't want to walk away.
I wiped hamburger grease off my lips and put my head on his shoulder, holding his hand. I watched a toddler playing in the waves and told him that I felt the same way when we decided to put off having kids, and then decided against having them. All I had ever wanted to be before we were married (aside from some kind of Utopian commune leader, because I was a very New Age teenager and we were married right out of high school) was a mommy. And I didn't even know how I felt about having "made" that decision by enduring the slow and endless grind of grad school, forever deferring all decisions about our real future. Did we want kids? How would we know?
He watched the toddler, smiling. "You know what? I think I do."
I made him promise to take his time and think about it. But he didn't need time. He wanted children and he wanted them NOW. It took ME three days to decide I thought I wanted kids too.
A couple weeks later, I was at my annual ob/gyn appointment and mentioned casually to my doctor that I thought we might want to have kids. The doctor whisked away my IUD with the merest by-your-leave and told me to go get pregnant. Just like that. So that was how decisions worked in the real world!
THREE
It only took us three months to get pregnant. We told everyone. My mom was aglow. My dad was beside himself with delight. My brother looked at me as if I were sacred. My boss bubbled. Pat and I were giddy. But in the first week after the New Year, I lost the baby.
I have never cried like I cried then. I knew, just knew, that it would be hard.
I missed only one work day.
We miscarried five more times in the next two and a half years. We got pregnant easily, but couldn't keep it. I submitted to infertility treatments that seemed designed to wring out our pocketbooks rather than to increase our family. Sex became stressful. When pregnant, I would go hours without drinking anything because to pee was to have to check my panties for blood again; when not pregnant, I was thinking about how to get pregnant. It was unspeakable.
My senior co-worker's callousness started to get to me from right after the first miscarriage. She started watching me obsessively, asking nosy questions and lecturing me when I contacted Pat during my workday (on breaks); she felt I was out of line to use the phone or email to do so. The real tone-setter was when she threw a fit because I had a doctor's appointment two days after I lost the baby -- which would have been the first prenatal check-up. "Well, you don't need to keep it -- you're not pregnant NOW." (The doctor wanted to do an ultrasound to be sure I didn't need a D&C.) She wanted to take the day off in my place, so that she could give her dog some attention, as he had begun to escape her yard frequently as a result of neglect (requiring her to take off of work without warning to go track him down.)
I went to my boss. She was sympathetic and got me a little space from this co-worker (who had chewed through four unhappy assistants before me). But the bottom line was that the co-worker held all the cards and Stacy would not, or could not, do the only thing that would improve the toxic situation: disciplining or firing her.
When Pat surprised me with a 20th anniversary cruise to Alaska, it irritated my office manager and my boss that I had been absent so much. I had already used my nebulous quantity of work days on doctors' appointments and fighting colds without medication (lest I be pregnant and endanger the pregnancy with cold meds). I took vacation without pay, but it damaged my relationship with the office manager that the days off were not negotiable and that there was limited advance notice. Ah well. The vacation probably made me a thousand times more productive, and saved my sanity -- a shining moment of beauty and love, marred only by the depressing knowledge that I'd be ovulating sometime during the trip.
TWO
Two years ago, I continued to loathe my senior co-worker and to miscarry often. My job began to haunt me day and night. When the co-worker asked me to commit fraud, after a few stunningly fraudulent moments of her own, I gave up on ever coming to terms with her.
We quit trying to conceive and started enjoying sex, and our life together, again. We decided to adopt a baby. We researched it, traveled to information sessions, decided on an agency. We started thinking about the home study. We wisely decided to wait a few months before beginning the process so that we could relax a little, let go of our remaining grief about the whole infertility thing, and focus on each other. We felt wonderful and we started being enthusiastic again about life.
One and a half years ago, I quit the job. In this job market, it was an insane move -- but it made me happy and it made Pat happy, because I was so oppressed by the office situation. At any other time I might have weathered it, but under so much stress, no.
But I was happy again!
Right around Valentine's Day, we conceived. I didn't know. I had taken up new hobbies -- knitting (baby hats, for the eventual adoptee), spinning yarn, making sausage.
In April, I drove to the discount grocery in another nearby city to buy meat for sausage (hey, yes, their prices and products were THAT GOOD if you were buying 8 lbs. of meat). On the way, I decided that I was going to ask Pat for another year before we tried to begin the adoption process. Longer to get my perfumery business off the ground. Longer to become solvent. Longer to treasure just my darling partner. Even if we were never selected by a birthmother as parents for her baby, we'd be okay. We had each other; nothing had been diminished.
When I got to the store, I had a dizzy spell and lurched against the car. My breasts were sore.
I shopped. I came home, realizing that I felt nauseous. I knew I was pregnant. But I was coldly furious. I would be damned in hell if I would buy another pregnancy test -- I never wanted them in my home again.
A little voice in my head said, "you might still have OPKs laying around, and they work as ghetto pregnancy tests."
When I got home, I peed on an OPK. It turned two-lines-pink before I sat it on the counter. Positive-positive-positive. So I was pregnant. REALLY pregnant.
I jittered until Pat came home. I wasn't going to tell him, but when he got home I blurted it out before he had time to set down his keys, trying to keep my tone casual. "I just got a positive pregnancy test using an OPK. We're going to need a really ineffective pregnancy test to shoot this down with."
He was cool about it, but as unhappy as I was. We neither one wanted to weather another miscarriage. We didn't want a positive. We went to the store and bought the bluntest instrument of a pregnancy test we could -- a comparatively insensitive test with a text response, "PREGNANT" or "NOT PREGNANT." Unfuckupable. Uninterpretable. Unlikely to pop a false positive from hormonal fluctuation.
Before I had set it down on the counter, it, too, said "POSITIVE." I crumpled. We cried. We called my doctor. It was Friday afternoon (as it always is if you get a positive pregnancy test, by the way -- no joke, six out of six times). He told me to go get a lab test in 3 days. We waited to miscarry and cried in jags all weekend.
On Monday, I was still pregnant.
And at the end of the first (endless) trimester, I was still pregnant.
And at the end of the second (twitchy) trimester, I was still pregnant.
And at the end of the third (lightning-yet-bullet-time) trimester... I had Fletcher.
Heart's desire.
At last, at last. And someone who will join us on our journey, however far it takes us from our planned paths.
Today I embraced a new job opportunity and filled out an application to be a reserve agent for the same insurance company for which I was a CSR; here's hoping it embraces me back.
Five years ago, I was in graduate school. I had just been on a Christmas cruise to Mexico with my mother, brothers, sister-in-law, and husband. It was my mom's first vacation in about a decade and the first time she hadn't taken a business call in more than 24 hours (maybe in more than 12) in all that time, and we enjoyed karaoke and running amok. It was the best time.
When I got back, my nose went to the grindstone trying to attract more committee members to my dissertation committee -- as had been my project for the previous five or six years. But by this time, I knew the situation was desperate; my chair was looking for a polished proposal and wasn't offering much helpful advice, and I'd been turned down by almost everyone who shared research interests with me. They were "too busy" or "on sabbatical" or "doing fieldwork" or "just didn't see the overlap."
In early autumn of 2006, my chair quit my committee, claiming no interest in my project. (That had been amply evident by her level of participation, but other profs were also disinterested in taking up where she left off.) I begged her to stay on-project, to just read what I had written for her. She would not. I broke down and cried in her office. I told her I had given up everything (children!) to pursue my career and that her departure from my committee would spell the end of my career, since I was well aware that I could not replace her. She told me to take up yoga or something. She told me she was concerned about my ... health. (She looked me pointedly up and down; I am fat, and since I was having a bad rosacea flare and had, at the time, pneumonia, I was red and wheezing after the three flights of stairs to her office.)
I alternated sleepless job-hunting, slumping in despair, and despondent WoW marathons for the next couple months. I didn't want to start over; I was too damn old and I had already given up absolutely everything I wanted (children!) for the dead end in which I'd invested myself. To start over would be to postpone fulfillment (children!) for several more years -- years that would claim my fertility.
FOUR
Four years and a couple months ago, we visited home for Christmas. I had been horribly stressed beforehand because I had not yet told my family that I had dropped out of grad school. But when I took my mom aside and sobbingly confessed that I was considering it, she was so supportive. Proud of me despite my crippling sense of failure. Loving. It was all I could do to keep her off the phone and to keep her from trying to take my ex-chair to court somehow. I told her I wanted to come live close to her and my brother again, and could she keep her ear to the ground to see if suitable jobs were available? Because they certainly were not available in Chicago... at least I had bad luck landing permanent work.
I was no sooner home than I got a phone call from Mom. Mom's good friend Stacy had an entry-level position opening. I applied, and Stacy was eager to have me aboard. She was simply worried that the entry-level salary wouldn't be sufficient. I told her that it was not, but if there was opportunity for advancement, I was in.
Four years ago tomorrow, I began working for Stacy. Her office was wonderful -- over a dozen of the loveliest people anywhere, working hard together. I caught on quickly and, three months later, was promoted into the most difficult position in the agency. I loved the work.
Shortly thereafter, Pat finally threw in the towel and joined me in abandoning graduate school. It hit him even harder than it had hit me, the sense of failure and despondency. His committee was absolutely unsupportive even face-to-face, and long-distance, it was impossible to proceed. He blamed me, but didn't mean to.
On our 19th anniversary, we went to the beach and watched people and birds and the waves, and we talked -- the tail end of one of those exhausting arguments where you just nibble at one another verbally for days and days, "talking it through" because there's nothing to fight about. I was bitter and hysterical. He was bitter and annoyed. And then, everything melted away; we managed to spark the wavelength that united us. We cleared the air about our negative feelings about leaving U of C and how we felt about one another's roles in the process. We were so wrung out we were clean and clear-headed. We finally internalized the lesson that life could be a journey and that we hadn't failed, we'd simply changed paths. I finally confessed that I'd hated the program for a really long time; I loved the work but hated the politics. He told me he felt the same way, but felt he had so much invested in it that he didn't want to walk away.
I wiped hamburger grease off my lips and put my head on his shoulder, holding his hand. I watched a toddler playing in the waves and told him that I felt the same way when we decided to put off having kids, and then decided against having them. All I had ever wanted to be before we were married (aside from some kind of Utopian commune leader, because I was a very New Age teenager and we were married right out of high school) was a mommy. And I didn't even know how I felt about having "made" that decision by enduring the slow and endless grind of grad school, forever deferring all decisions about our real future. Did we want kids? How would we know?
He watched the toddler, smiling. "You know what? I think I do."
I made him promise to take his time and think about it. But he didn't need time. He wanted children and he wanted them NOW. It took ME three days to decide I thought I wanted kids too.
A couple weeks later, I was at my annual ob/gyn appointment and mentioned casually to my doctor that I thought we might want to have kids. The doctor whisked away my IUD with the merest by-your-leave and told me to go get pregnant. Just like that. So that was how decisions worked in the real world!
THREE
It only took us three months to get pregnant. We told everyone. My mom was aglow. My dad was beside himself with delight. My brother looked at me as if I were sacred. My boss bubbled. Pat and I were giddy. But in the first week after the New Year, I lost the baby.
I have never cried like I cried then. I knew, just knew, that it would be hard.
I missed only one work day.
We miscarried five more times in the next two and a half years. We got pregnant easily, but couldn't keep it. I submitted to infertility treatments that seemed designed to wring out our pocketbooks rather than to increase our family. Sex became stressful. When pregnant, I would go hours without drinking anything because to pee was to have to check my panties for blood again; when not pregnant, I was thinking about how to get pregnant. It was unspeakable.
My senior co-worker's callousness started to get to me from right after the first miscarriage. She started watching me obsessively, asking nosy questions and lecturing me when I contacted Pat during my workday (on breaks); she felt I was out of line to use the phone or email to do so. The real tone-setter was when she threw a fit because I had a doctor's appointment two days after I lost the baby -- which would have been the first prenatal check-up. "Well, you don't need to keep it -- you're not pregnant NOW." (The doctor wanted to do an ultrasound to be sure I didn't need a D&C.) She wanted to take the day off in my place, so that she could give her dog some attention, as he had begun to escape her yard frequently as a result of neglect (requiring her to take off of work without warning to go track him down.)
I went to my boss. She was sympathetic and got me a little space from this co-worker (who had chewed through four unhappy assistants before me). But the bottom line was that the co-worker held all the cards and Stacy would not, or could not, do the only thing that would improve the toxic situation: disciplining or firing her.
When Pat surprised me with a 20th anniversary cruise to Alaska, it irritated my office manager and my boss that I had been absent so much. I had already used my nebulous quantity of work days on doctors' appointments and fighting colds without medication (lest I be pregnant and endanger the pregnancy with cold meds). I took vacation without pay, but it damaged my relationship with the office manager that the days off were not negotiable and that there was limited advance notice. Ah well. The vacation probably made me a thousand times more productive, and saved my sanity -- a shining moment of beauty and love, marred only by the depressing knowledge that I'd be ovulating sometime during the trip.
TWO
Two years ago, I continued to loathe my senior co-worker and to miscarry often. My job began to haunt me day and night. When the co-worker asked me to commit fraud, after a few stunningly fraudulent moments of her own, I gave up on ever coming to terms with her.
We quit trying to conceive and started enjoying sex, and our life together, again. We decided to adopt a baby. We researched it, traveled to information sessions, decided on an agency. We started thinking about the home study. We wisely decided to wait a few months before beginning the process so that we could relax a little, let go of our remaining grief about the whole infertility thing, and focus on each other. We felt wonderful and we started being enthusiastic again about life.
One and a half years ago, I quit the job. In this job market, it was an insane move -- but it made me happy and it made Pat happy, because I was so oppressed by the office situation. At any other time I might have weathered it, but under so much stress, no.
But I was happy again!
Right around Valentine's Day, we conceived. I didn't know. I had taken up new hobbies -- knitting (baby hats, for the eventual adoptee), spinning yarn, making sausage.
In April, I drove to the discount grocery in another nearby city to buy meat for sausage (hey, yes, their prices and products were THAT GOOD if you were buying 8 lbs. of meat). On the way, I decided that I was going to ask Pat for another year before we tried to begin the adoption process. Longer to get my perfumery business off the ground. Longer to become solvent. Longer to treasure just my darling partner. Even if we were never selected by a birthmother as parents for her baby, we'd be okay. We had each other; nothing had been diminished.
When I got to the store, I had a dizzy spell and lurched against the car. My breasts were sore.
I shopped. I came home, realizing that I felt nauseous. I knew I was pregnant. But I was coldly furious. I would be damned in hell if I would buy another pregnancy test -- I never wanted them in my home again.
A little voice in my head said, "you might still have OPKs laying around, and they work as ghetto pregnancy tests."
When I got home, I peed on an OPK. It turned two-lines-pink before I sat it on the counter. Positive-positive-positive. So I was pregnant. REALLY pregnant.
I jittered until Pat came home. I wasn't going to tell him, but when he got home I blurted it out before he had time to set down his keys, trying to keep my tone casual. "I just got a positive pregnancy test using an OPK. We're going to need a really ineffective pregnancy test to shoot this down with."
He was cool about it, but as unhappy as I was. We neither one wanted to weather another miscarriage. We didn't want a positive. We went to the store and bought the bluntest instrument of a pregnancy test we could -- a comparatively insensitive test with a text response, "PREGNANT" or "NOT PREGNANT." Unfuckupable. Uninterpretable. Unlikely to pop a false positive from hormonal fluctuation.
Before I had set it down on the counter, it, too, said "POSITIVE." I crumpled. We cried. We called my doctor. It was Friday afternoon (as it always is if you get a positive pregnancy test, by the way -- no joke, six out of six times). He told me to go get a lab test in 3 days. We waited to miscarry and cried in jags all weekend.
On Monday, I was still pregnant.
And at the end of the first (endless) trimester, I was still pregnant.
And at the end of the second (twitchy) trimester, I was still pregnant.
And at the end of the third (lightning-yet-bullet-time) trimester... I had Fletcher.
Heart's desire.
At last, at last. And someone who will join us on our journey, however far it takes us from our planned paths.
Today I embraced a new job opportunity and filled out an application to be a reserve agent for the same insurance company for which I was a CSR; here's hoping it embraces me back.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Dessert to dream on: brandied figs in tea syrup
I got this idea from a cookbook, but noodled with it a bit and will probably noodle with it more. It's not that it's not perfect as/is, it's that I can't leave well enough alone. You know how it is.
Brandied Figs in Earl Grey Tea Syrup
3 cups of Earl Grey tea (normal strength or strong, but not bitter)
1 to 1 1/2 pounds dried figs (I used VERY dry calimyrnas, because that's what I had)
1 cup sugar
peel of one or two tangerines, in large, easy-to-remove pieces
3 or 4 inch cinnamon stick
1/4 vanilla bean
1/2 cup decent brandy
Add cinnamon, vanilla, and fruit peel to tea. Simmer figs in spiced tea until they are swollen, plump, and tender. Remove figs with slotted spoon to sterilized jars or your serving bowls (figs will be dark and dramatic -- color-coordinate accordingly). Add sugar to spiced tea and simmer mixture for a few minutes or until it behaves like syrup should, thickening slightly and coating your spoon. Remove from heat and add brandy. Pour brandied syrup over figs.
Serve over something not too sweet, with something crunchy alongside, four or five figs and a healthy belt of syrup to a person. I recommend Greek yogurt and waffle cookies or other dainty, wafer-like crispy cookies. But I am considering saturating a pancake or two with the syrup. Truly, this is swoony good and oh-so-sophisticated and, if you have it cold in the fridge, you can put it together last-moment without breaking a sweat and then socialize while you're still as glamorous and seductive and unruffled as Nigella.
One of these days, soon, I'll bundle homemade white cheese or ricotta into crepes and top it with this stuff. Magic.
I think this would be totally tits made with prunes instead of figs, but the deep-dark flavors are necessary with the tea and brandy, so I haven't thought further than figs and prunes. If you want something lemony light, for God's sake go make Emily's wonderful pudding cake. I've made it a half dozen times or more and every time, people just about faint.
(Hail Eris.)
Brandied Figs in Earl Grey Tea Syrup
3 cups of Earl Grey tea (normal strength or strong, but not bitter)
1 to 1 1/2 pounds dried figs (I used VERY dry calimyrnas, because that's what I had)
1 cup sugar
peel of one or two tangerines, in large, easy-to-remove pieces
3 or 4 inch cinnamon stick
1/4 vanilla bean
1/2 cup decent brandy
Add cinnamon, vanilla, and fruit peel to tea. Simmer figs in spiced tea until they are swollen, plump, and tender. Remove figs with slotted spoon to sterilized jars or your serving bowls (figs will be dark and dramatic -- color-coordinate accordingly). Add sugar to spiced tea and simmer mixture for a few minutes or until it behaves like syrup should, thickening slightly and coating your spoon. Remove from heat and add brandy. Pour brandied syrup over figs.
Serve over something not too sweet, with something crunchy alongside, four or five figs and a healthy belt of syrup to a person. I recommend Greek yogurt and waffle cookies or other dainty, wafer-like crispy cookies. But I am considering saturating a pancake or two with the syrup. Truly, this is swoony good and oh-so-sophisticated and, if you have it cold in the fridge, you can put it together last-moment without breaking a sweat and then socialize while you're still as glamorous and seductive and unruffled as Nigella.
One of these days, soon, I'll bundle homemade white cheese or ricotta into crepes and top it with this stuff. Magic.
I think this would be totally tits made with prunes instead of figs, but the deep-dark flavors are necessary with the tea and brandy, so I haven't thought further than figs and prunes. If you want something lemony light, for God's sake go make Emily's wonderful pudding cake. I've made it a half dozen times or more and every time, people just about faint.
(Hail Eris.)
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Ducklings
In 1998, we moved to Chicago -- a gorgeous, vital, friendly city which now warms our fond memories and wistful thoughts. However, we moved there from the Palouse hills in Idaho. There were less than 2 million people in Idaho. There are over 8 million in Chicagoland, packed tightly. We had some culture shock when we arrived there, towing our logging-road-enduring, planned-obsolescence-defying Geo Metro behind our U-Haul truck down the ruined tollways and urban residential streets, amidst copious homeless persons and obvious gang presence. We reclusive, bird-watching geeks were clearly not in our element. By the time we started unpacking our truck, we discovered the lovely side of the city: people watching the truck for us and scolding us when we left it unlocked because we "shouldn't trust people," the neighbors' bodybuilding Russian guest helping unload the truck and bringing us cold iced tea and civilized conversation, the friendliness of neighbors who wanted answers when they asked how we were.
Nonetheless, urban life brings its own challenges -- like neighborhoods completely lacking box stores or other retail outlets, and having to commute to get to grocery stores. So we picked a suburb pretty much at random, because it had lots of water near it in which there might be waterfowl, and drove there to go shopping and fool around. And there were geese and ducks and good places to eat and green plants in broader swaths than the parks that dotted South Chicago, so we kept coming back. Eventually we dubbed it "the Stomping Grounds" and did a lot of our shopping for things like electronics and Christmas gifts there.
In spring of 2002, we noticed a Canada goose snuggled down in a planter right in front of one of the box stores (neither of us can remember the store -- it was a discount chain right next to We-R-Toys and Bloodbath & Beyond). She was nesting there, supervised by a visibly anxious gander who strolled disconsolately up and down the parking lot, grumbling at passersby. She honked and hissed at all pedestrians, offering to bite those who stopped to admire her. It was probably the worst nesting site in the history of nesting sites. We dubbed her Crazy Goose and drove out there every other day throughout the whole nesting season to make sure the water pan a goose-bitten Samaritan had left her had been refilled. When we fed her corn muffins, she hissed us the whole time she gobbled them, and got a lump of them stuck in her throat that caused her to drool her water back out. We waited for the lump to clear before we would drive home to our apartment, abused the whole time by her cursing and grumbling, and nervously watching her gander try to decide whether he wanted to kick our butts or not.
We'd been watching her for almost two weeks -- walking right up to her to feed her and give her water -- by the time we noticed Quiet Duck.
Quiet Duck had clearly taken the advice of her crazy goose friend on nesting sites and just as clearly regretted it. She hunched silently in the bushes in the planter, head nestled in her burnished breast, eyes closed so not to raise a shine, Zen not-thinking to be invisible. She could have been a ninja. She was so silent and still that even after one had seen her, one could lose her position -- in broad daylight, exposed in a planter in front of a busy retail hub.
It seemed plain that Crazy Goose did not like sharing her water and food with Quiet Duck, even after she had talked her into nesting in a madhouse with her. We tried to feed Quiet Duck, who seemed unhappy to have been noticed and merely sank down more silently and sullenly and not-thunk all the harder, and Crazy Goose hissed and darted in to steal the crumbs from under Quiet Duck's still, hiding, sad little beak. There was nothing to be done for her, other than respect her desire to hide.
One day when we returned to visit the nesting waterfowl and refill the water pan, Quiet Duck seemed particularly bedraggled. We nudged a small, separate water bowl with a few shreds of lettuce floating in it to the duck. She shrank back in alarm, adjusting her wings, and finally standing up.
A full dozen little faces, yellow like dandelion flowers and enlivened by shiny, guileless bright eyes with a smudgy mascara stripe across them like a mask, popped up from around her. They wobbled prodigiously in the spring sunlight on skinny necks like fuzzy yellow-brown stems. Each and every one of the twelve ducklings began peeping softly and continued to do so, softly muffled, after their mother settled her glossy feathers over them again with a matronly plump and shimmy.
The next day, when we (irresistably) returned, she and her ducklings had wandered to safer territory... probably the cattail marsh across the street.
I have never forgotten these ducklings -- they were probably the most precious sight I've seen until recently. And now, my son, a golden and fuzzy creature with bright shiny eyes in a face like a flower, wobbles exactly the same way when he raises his head on his slender neck to peep at the world.
...and a postscript, just to tell you how great Chicago is. In 2003, Crazy Goose returned to her absolutely terrible nesting site, probably very close indeed to where she was herself born -- as female waterfowl will, generation after generation, regardless of anthropogenic changes to the landscape. Her dutiful mate hovered anxiously nearby. But rather late in the nesting season, construction crews started tearing down the building in front of which her planter was situated.
We were despondent. We were afraid she would defend the nest and be hurt herself, and were grief-stricken that her eggs -- already probably peeping with the life ready to burst forth from them -- would not get the chance to hatch. We worried about her gallant gander. I stayed awake late at night crying, and made Pat drive me back out there to see if there was anything we could do for her. (Yes, I'm as crazy as Crazy Goose.)
Impossibly, the gander was still meandering unhappily around the parking lot, looking defensive and slightly embarrassed. We approached the planter, which appeared to be filled with construction debris, with trepidation.
The construction workers had built her a little house, erecting bricks to either side of the nest and a sturdy roof atop it to keep out any falling brickbats from the rest of the deconstruction going on behind her. She hissed us merrily and bit my thumb when I checked the level of her water pan.
And there she stayed, in her little nest house, until she had hatched out the chicks and led them off to whatever zone she chose to raise them in. And I felt better about the world and positively in love with the construction workers (which is easy to do -- they're lovely to look at, aren't they?)
And that's a real-world happy ending.
Nonetheless, urban life brings its own challenges -- like neighborhoods completely lacking box stores or other retail outlets, and having to commute to get to grocery stores. So we picked a suburb pretty much at random, because it had lots of water near it in which there might be waterfowl, and drove there to go shopping and fool around. And there were geese and ducks and good places to eat and green plants in broader swaths than the parks that dotted South Chicago, so we kept coming back. Eventually we dubbed it "the Stomping Grounds" and did a lot of our shopping for things like electronics and Christmas gifts there.
In spring of 2002, we noticed a Canada goose snuggled down in a planter right in front of one of the box stores (neither of us can remember the store -- it was a discount chain right next to We-R-Toys and Bloodbath & Beyond). She was nesting there, supervised by a visibly anxious gander who strolled disconsolately up and down the parking lot, grumbling at passersby. She honked and hissed at all pedestrians, offering to bite those who stopped to admire her. It was probably the worst nesting site in the history of nesting sites. We dubbed her Crazy Goose and drove out there every other day throughout the whole nesting season to make sure the water pan a goose-bitten Samaritan had left her had been refilled. When we fed her corn muffins, she hissed us the whole time she gobbled them, and got a lump of them stuck in her throat that caused her to drool her water back out. We waited for the lump to clear before we would drive home to our apartment, abused the whole time by her cursing and grumbling, and nervously watching her gander try to decide whether he wanted to kick our butts or not.
We'd been watching her for almost two weeks -- walking right up to her to feed her and give her water -- by the time we noticed Quiet Duck.
Quiet Duck had clearly taken the advice of her crazy goose friend on nesting sites and just as clearly regretted it. She hunched silently in the bushes in the planter, head nestled in her burnished breast, eyes closed so not to raise a shine, Zen not-thinking to be invisible. She could have been a ninja. She was so silent and still that even after one had seen her, one could lose her position -- in broad daylight, exposed in a planter in front of a busy retail hub.
It seemed plain that Crazy Goose did not like sharing her water and food with Quiet Duck, even after she had talked her into nesting in a madhouse with her. We tried to feed Quiet Duck, who seemed unhappy to have been noticed and merely sank down more silently and sullenly and not-thunk all the harder, and Crazy Goose hissed and darted in to steal the crumbs from under Quiet Duck's still, hiding, sad little beak. There was nothing to be done for her, other than respect her desire to hide.
One day when we returned to visit the nesting waterfowl and refill the water pan, Quiet Duck seemed particularly bedraggled. We nudged a small, separate water bowl with a few shreds of lettuce floating in it to the duck. She shrank back in alarm, adjusting her wings, and finally standing up.
A full dozen little faces, yellow like dandelion flowers and enlivened by shiny, guileless bright eyes with a smudgy mascara stripe across them like a mask, popped up from around her. They wobbled prodigiously in the spring sunlight on skinny necks like fuzzy yellow-brown stems. Each and every one of the twelve ducklings began peeping softly and continued to do so, softly muffled, after their mother settled her glossy feathers over them again with a matronly plump and shimmy.
The next day, when we (irresistably) returned, she and her ducklings had wandered to safer territory... probably the cattail marsh across the street.
I have never forgotten these ducklings -- they were probably the most precious sight I've seen until recently. And now, my son, a golden and fuzzy creature with bright shiny eyes in a face like a flower, wobbles exactly the same way when he raises his head on his slender neck to peep at the world.
...and a postscript, just to tell you how great Chicago is. In 2003, Crazy Goose returned to her absolutely terrible nesting site, probably very close indeed to where she was herself born -- as female waterfowl will, generation after generation, regardless of anthropogenic changes to the landscape. Her dutiful mate hovered anxiously nearby. But rather late in the nesting season, construction crews started tearing down the building in front of which her planter was situated.
We were despondent. We were afraid she would defend the nest and be hurt herself, and were grief-stricken that her eggs -- already probably peeping with the life ready to burst forth from them -- would not get the chance to hatch. We worried about her gallant gander. I stayed awake late at night crying, and made Pat drive me back out there to see if there was anything we could do for her. (Yes, I'm as crazy as Crazy Goose.)
Impossibly, the gander was still meandering unhappily around the parking lot, looking defensive and slightly embarrassed. We approached the planter, which appeared to be filled with construction debris, with trepidation.
The construction workers had built her a little house, erecting bricks to either side of the nest and a sturdy roof atop it to keep out any falling brickbats from the rest of the deconstruction going on behind her. She hissed us merrily and bit my thumb when I checked the level of her water pan.
And there she stayed, in her little nest house, until she had hatched out the chicks and led them off to whatever zone she chose to raise them in. And I felt better about the world and positively in love with the construction workers (which is easy to do -- they're lovely to look at, aren't they?)
And that's a real-world happy ending.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Two things to do with Brussels sprouts
I got fancy with dinner last night, and made chicken in a mushroom thyme cream sauce, and leek and fennel risotto seasoned with fennel seeds and thyme and splashed with absinthe to make the fennel flavor pop -- and a Brussels sprout salad that knocked our socks off.
Brussels sprouts are Pat's favorite vegetable, and there are lots of ways to fix them that are utterly delicious. I'm going to give you my two favorites, but you can be madly creative with the little flavor buttons if you simply adhere to two rules:
1) They must be fresh, not frozen; the fresher, the better. You are looking for smallish sprouts without yellow wilted leaves or ooky black spots -- and this time of year you should be able to find a stalk of them, fancy for the holidays. They are really fresh when you cut them right off that stalk, provided they aren't all wilty.
2) You must absolutely not overcook them. Note that they are overcooked as soon as most people consider them fully cooked: you want them to retain a little tender-crispness, not to melt into cabbagey softness. Their texture is neat when they are soft, but they lose something in the flavor department.
So, last night's salad:
FEATHERY BRUSSELS SPROUTS SALAD WITH FENNEL (2 generous portions)
12 Brussels sprouts, shaved paper thin with a mandoline or a very sharp knife and patience (if you do this by hand, cut them in half so that they don't roll on the cutting board and then slice them fine)
1/2 bulb of fennel, pale part only, cored and shaved paper thin
1/3 cup or so of flavorful nuts (hazelnuts or almonds are wonderful)
2 tablespoons olive oil
juice of 1 lemon
salt and black pepper to taste
a few tablespoons of freshly shaven shards of Parmesan cheese
Mix all ingredients, withholding nuts and cheese if desired to sprinkle atop. I didn't; I mixed it all in with my hands and it was wonderful that way.
And my favorite sprouts recipe...
FIERY BRUSSELS SPROUTS
15 or 20 Brussels sprouts, trimmed and cut in half or in quarters
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon butter (optional - use more olive oil if preferred)
2 or 3 cloves of garlic, minced or cut into fine matchstick shapes
1/2 to 1 teaspoon of red pepper flakes
1/2 to 1 teaspoon of fennel seeds
salt and black pepper to taste
2 tablespoons pine nuts (totally optional and I most often forget them, but mmm)
Heat oil and butter over medium-high heat, and throw in Brussels sprouts and garlic. Stir fry until sprouts are very bright green and tender-crisp (you can hurry this up by adding a tablespoon or three of water and letting it cook off -- it will help steam the sprouts and keep the garlic from burning if you have other things going on). Add spices, stir and fry a few more moments, and serve. These are AWESOME with Italian food: alongside pasta with a red sauce, lasagne, or sausage and peppers on polenta.
If these two recipes don't blow your skirt up, I don't know why.
Brussels sprouts also love to be paired with: a spoonful of grainy mustard in a butter sauce, a squeeze of key lime juice and salt and pepper, flavorsome olive oil and a lavish last-minute splash of Vincotto, or fingerling potatoes and bacon.
Brussels sprouts are Pat's favorite vegetable, and there are lots of ways to fix them that are utterly delicious. I'm going to give you my two favorites, but you can be madly creative with the little flavor buttons if you simply adhere to two rules:
1) They must be fresh, not frozen; the fresher, the better. You are looking for smallish sprouts without yellow wilted leaves or ooky black spots -- and this time of year you should be able to find a stalk of them, fancy for the holidays. They are really fresh when you cut them right off that stalk, provided they aren't all wilty.
2) You must absolutely not overcook them. Note that they are overcooked as soon as most people consider them fully cooked: you want them to retain a little tender-crispness, not to melt into cabbagey softness. Their texture is neat when they are soft, but they lose something in the flavor department.
So, last night's salad:
FEATHERY BRUSSELS SPROUTS SALAD WITH FENNEL (2 generous portions)
12 Brussels sprouts, shaved paper thin with a mandoline or a very sharp knife and patience (if you do this by hand, cut them in half so that they don't roll on the cutting board and then slice them fine)
1/2 bulb of fennel, pale part only, cored and shaved paper thin
1/3 cup or so of flavorful nuts (hazelnuts or almonds are wonderful)
2 tablespoons olive oil
juice of 1 lemon
salt and black pepper to taste
a few tablespoons of freshly shaven shards of Parmesan cheese
Mix all ingredients, withholding nuts and cheese if desired to sprinkle atop. I didn't; I mixed it all in with my hands and it was wonderful that way.
And my favorite sprouts recipe...
FIERY BRUSSELS SPROUTS
15 or 20 Brussels sprouts, trimmed and cut in half or in quarters
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon butter (optional - use more olive oil if preferred)
2 or 3 cloves of garlic, minced or cut into fine matchstick shapes
1/2 to 1 teaspoon of red pepper flakes
1/2 to 1 teaspoon of fennel seeds
salt and black pepper to taste
2 tablespoons pine nuts (totally optional and I most often forget them, but mmm)
Heat oil and butter over medium-high heat, and throw in Brussels sprouts and garlic. Stir fry until sprouts are very bright green and tender-crisp (you can hurry this up by adding a tablespoon or three of water and letting it cook off -- it will help steam the sprouts and keep the garlic from burning if you have other things going on). Add spices, stir and fry a few more moments, and serve. These are AWESOME with Italian food: alongside pasta with a red sauce, lasagne, or sausage and peppers on polenta.
If these two recipes don't blow your skirt up, I don't know why.
Brussels sprouts also love to be paired with: a spoonful of grainy mustard in a butter sauce, a squeeze of key lime juice and salt and pepper, flavorsome olive oil and a lavish last-minute splash of Vincotto, or fingerling potatoes and bacon.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Thank you, state-sponsored insurance
The grand totals so far for Fletcher's birth: $144,475.94 was either discounted ("patient savings") or paid by insurance. That's 100% of the bill, for those keeping track -- and that doesn't count the lavish prenatal care that they already covered.
And suddenly I do not mind paying my state taxes, nor my insurance premiums.
And suddenly I do not mind paying my state taxes, nor my insurance premiums.
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