Conversations

I. Conversations with Owen
"Ah wahn ah-dee."
"You want...Daddy?"
"Umm...no. Ah wahn ah-dee."
"Candy?"
"Nooo! Ah nee' ah-dee."
"Potty?"
"Ummm...No! Ah-dee. Ah-dee, Mahmmy, ah wahn ah-dee!"

II. Conversations with Clowns
Wendell is a nonogenerian friend to the boys at my church. He is rather frail and mostly deaf, but he always waves hello to them and asks about them when they aren't there. Last Sunday I brought them into the sanctuary in the fifteen minutes between the end of my rehearsal and the beginning of the service so that they could each have a piece of "nah-ee." (Candy) They picked out tootsie pops, marveled at the big Christmas tree, and then set about rolling around under the pews and smearing sucker gloop all over their mouths and hands.
Wendell walked over and sat down beside me on the pew. He told me how well behaved they always are, and about how he used to get kids to laugh when he was a clown. And I smiled and asked, "You used to be a clown?" And then Wendell told me ALL about being a clown. About how his costume was blue and yellow and he had it specially made, and he donated all his old toys to the church and they were probably still in storage, as far as he knew. And how he taught lots of other clowns, but there was some fierce competition to see who the best clown was. And how his biggest rival was a clown called "Apples," and that Apples loved to see his picture in the paper and that was why Apples knocked him down one time when Wendell was visiting a sick girl in the hospital and a newspaperman tried to take a picture of Wendell the clown and the little girl, and Apples didn't even like kids and called them "little bastards" when they weren't around. (James and Owen were still rolling around underneath me.) And then he told me all about driving down to Florida for a clown competition and how all the clowns were dancing in a circle, at least 90 of them (this is the point where J would be desperately trying to wake up from her nightmare) and he had forgotten his clown shoes on top of the car, but Apples was still bounced out of the circle ahead of him, and that made him cry because Wendell was still in even though he wasn't even wearing his clown shoes.
Then the service started, and the boys asked if they could have more "nah-ee" afterwards.

I. Conversations with Owen, continued
"Ah-dee, ah-dee!"
"Abby? You want to see Abby?"
"Ooh, Abby! No! Ah wahn ah-dee!"
"Umm...an apple?"
"No, no apple. Ah-dee."
"Adding?"
"Ah-dee."
"Ah-dee?"
"Yea, ah-dee. Pee ah' wahn ah-dee?"
"I don't know what it is!"

III. A different conversation with Owen
"Okay, we're going to go upstairs and turn on the TV."
"Oooh, yea!!!"
"It's almost time for the Bills game! Do you want to watch Buffalo?"
"Buh-buh-bo! Buh-buh-bo! Go buh-buh-bo!"
<sudden inexplicable sad face>
"No puh-ing."
"No punting?"
"Yea, no puh-ing."

I. The original conversation with Owen
"Ah-dee! Ah-dee! Ah wahn ah-dee!"
"Daddy? Are you sure it isn't Daddy?"
"No, ah-dee!"
"Owen...I have no idea."
"AHSS...."
"Ice?"
"DEEEE..."
"Oh, ice cream?"
"Yea!!!! Ah-dee!"
"Ice cream! That was it!"
"Yea, ah-dee!"
"Yeah, no. No ice cream."
"AHH!!!!"

Thanksgiving Week

I.
James turned five yesterday. It was a very James birthday. He laid in bed until we came in to his room at 7:30, I suspect hiding under his covers and grinning for a very long time. Then he charged down the stairs and didn't say anything in the first person for about five minutes, but just let "George" talk about how excited James was to open presents. He opened a bicycle, talked about how it was his favorite color and how he would ride it, and then choked back tears when he realized it was the only present. Then he got over it and immediately began arguing with Owen over who would get which box. (The bike came in a big huffy box, which was delivered in an even bigger Amazon box.)
He had his favorite cereal for breakfast, helped me put the bike together, then got on, chickened out, got off, then worked up the nerve to get back and ride it again when Owen started trying to climb onto it and rode it throughout the the downstairs. (We moved our dining table into the library, or as James has started calling it, the "third room.")We went out and shoveled the driveway, then came in for more biking and Owen joined him on his scooter, and they basically rammed around all morning until Nama and Papa arrived for lunch. James showed off his bike to them and sat down for his favorite lunch--fried chicken with ketchup, peas, and chips and guac, followed by chocolate ice cream and chocolate cake. He did kindergarten (his idea, not ours) and wrote sentences in his writing book about what he'd done on his birthday so far. Then he brought the bike with him upstairs during his book nap, so that he could look at it while he "slept." Then he came back down after nap and rode the bike around some more. He asked for a peanut butter and jelly for dinner until I reminded him that he could request whatever he wanted. (i.e., a chicken pizza from Salvatore's) and he decided that was, in fact, a better idea. He and Owen both freaked out when I brought it back inside, and James exclaimed "I hope there's a house inside!" He always gets excited by the little white plastic tripod spacer that the pizzeria puts in the box to keep the pizza from moving around or getting squished. He calls it a house, and insists that he hold it. This has been a thing for as long as he's been eating take-out pizza. We opened up the box, and, per our request, the pizzeria had made a big number "5" with a couple dozen "houses." He ate his pizza and loved it, and Owen was so messy that we had to change his outfit completely. Just like we did at lunch. And at breakfast. We've got to housebreak this kid. When my student arrived, James greeted him and his Dad simply by walking into the living room in proud silence and holding up five fingers.

II.
A Greek poem on a snowy afternoon

Inscribed on a Coan lady's statue of Aphrodite

E Kypris ou pandemos. Hilaskeo ten theon eipon
ouranien, agnes anthema Chrysogones
oiko en Amphikleous, o kai tekna kai bion eiche
xynon. Aei de sphin loion eis eto en
ek sethen archomenos o potnia. Kedomenoi gar
athanaton autoi pleion echousi brotoi.

This isn't the popular take on sex. But when you're
trying to do right in matters of love, remember the spiritual.
This statue is from Chrysogne, the faithful wife
of Amphikles and mother of his children.
First they did right by each other in bed, as the goddess would
want, and ever increased their happiness through the years.
For those who take a concern in what the gods would want
are better off for it themselves too.

Updates

I.
James' birthday is Monday. He received some birthday cards in the mail yesterday and decided that he would wait to open them until his actual birthday. Then he decided that he wanted to open them right away, after all. But then when I wouldn't let him, he said it was okay to wait until Monday, but was Monday the next day?
"No," I told him "tomorrow is Saturday, and then Sunday, and then Monday is after that."
"I know. But I wish it was next day."
While we were all apart last weekend I wrote him a letter and told him that he was going to get a special surprise for his birthday. He's been asking about this surprise a lot.
"I can't wait to get a present for my birthday!" he says
Owen says: "Me toooo!!!"

II.
"Owen, how old are you?"
"DTWO!!!"
"That's right, you're two years old now!"
"Yeah, dtwo! 'Ow you, Mahmmy?"
"How old am I? How old do you think I am, Owen?"
"Fahv!"
"Oh, you think I'm five?"
"Yeah."
"Owen, how old is Daddy?"
"Uhh...Fahv!!!"
"Oh, okay."
"What about James, how old is James?"
<Owen looks at James>
"Demsh i' DTWO!!!"
"He's not two, you goofball."
"Owen, I'm not two!"
"Yeah, Demsh DTWO!"
"Owen, how old are you?"
"Ah'm FAHV!"

III.
James came down the stairs this morning carrying a dump truck. Inside the dump truck were George, Steven, and a toy garbage truck.
"Mommy, I need some breakfast."
"Remember your manners, James."
"Mommy, I--OHH NOOO!!!!!"
He put the dump truck down and bent over, discovering a hole in the toe of his right sock.
"Mommy, can you get another sock for me?"
"I'm getting Owen breakfast, go get one from your dresser."
"But I need you to get for me!"
"You can do it, James. You know where your socks are."
"Daddy, can you get me a sock."
"You heard Mommy, just go get one from your dresser."
"But if I step on the wood floor--" <begins to cry>--my FEET are going to get COLD!!"
<Collapses on the carpet beside his dump truck and begins wailing in earnest.>
"PLEASE, Mommy, PLEASE go get me a sock!"
"Go upstairs and get one. Just go quick!"
"I NEED YOU TO DO IT!"
"James, just go over to the pantry and grab one from the mismatch bin if you don't want to go upstairs."
"But my feet will get cold that way TOO!"
"Well, looks like your feet may need to get cold."
"I am so HUNGRY for breakfast."
<cries, briefly stops, looks up to see if anyone is paying attention, resumes crying>
<eventually stops crying, picks up dump truck, loads in George, Steven, and garbage truck, walks upstairs>
<comes back downstairs still carrying the toys, wearing a new sock>

The Yule Ball

Here's how much JK Rowling gets done in one chapter, the chapter which happens to be the midpoint of the middle book of the series:
-She changes Hermione from a girl to a young woman in one event, and does a brilliant job astonishing Ron and Harry along the way.
-She somehow exactly captures what an actual evening of dancing his like--how there's a lot of fun and people look forward to it, but for Harry it ends up being awkward and socially tedious, and how painful it is to not be particularly good and the dancing and small talk.
-She introduces the Ron-Hermione-Viktor triangle storyline
-She brings in Percy and uses him to carry on the Barry Crouch storyline while also keeping him present as an important secondary character
-She reveals Hagrid's parentage and sets up the wizard-giant storyline that's important in books 5, 6, and 7.
-She introduces the Room of Requirement very subtly, which is enormously important to books 5, 6, and 7.
-She continues to play up the Karkaroff plot line as a foil to Moody/Barta Crouch Jr.
-She uses Snape to introduce the Dark Mark
-She uses Viktor to teach her reading audience how to pronounce Hermione's name

Bye Week

So I'm finally off on a Sunday afternoon, and of course it's the Bills' bye week. With no one else home, therefore, I'll provide my incisive football commentary on the Broncos-Saints game. Actually, I don't remember whether I ever made my 2016 predictions. I expect a call from Roger Goodell as the season winds down so that he can figure out what everyone's records are supposed to be.

Saints start with a punt, and their punter was hit and injured. Apparently the league just isn't going to protect kickers anymore. Perhaps, with the increased need for quarterback protection, the league decided award those protections which would have been used for kickers and punters to pocket passers. (But not mobile quarterbacks, of course.)

Trevor Siemian is on the field. I should feel some loyalty to him as a fellow Northwestern product, but I can't say that I ever went to a football game while I was there, or to be honest, noticed that they had a football team. I'm not sure that even the football team noticed that they had a football team. They might have thought their Saturday afternoons were a particularly violent form of astronomy lab.

The Denver running back is Capri Bibbs. I would have thought that capri bibs were a sort of toddler napkin that was slightly more form-fitting and only about 3/4 length of a regular bib.

Delvin Breaux on the tackle for New Orleans, 2016 winner of most-New-Orleans-name. He might just geaux to the Preaux Beauxl.

There is very little to like about Odell Beckham, Jr. I don't like his attitude, or his hair, or the fact that he's probably better than Sammy Watkins, or the fact that even if he's better than Sammy Watkins, he isn't nearly as good as A.J. Green or DeAndre Hopkins or any number of other receivers who are consistently more dominant but don't have the good fortune to live in the New York/New Jersey market. But here's the thing that's least likeable about him--he's made his entire media fortune based on one spectacular catch. The one handed catch comes up in all of his advertisements and gets shown ad nauseam in NFL ads. But the New York Giants already HAVE an amazing franchise-defining one handed catch moment. Tyree's helmet catch in the Super Bowl was just as amazing a play, and guess what? The Giants won that game. Beckham's catch came in a Sunday night game that the Giants lost to the Cowboys. So yes, great catch, Odell Beckham, Jr. But that catch means exactly as much as the Aaron Schobel sack reel vs. New England.

This Denver defense is a thing of beauty.

Looks like about one hour is my attention span for non-Buffalo football..

James' Dresser

With the kids gone this weekend I've been deep-cleaning the house as hard as I can. All the books have been resorted, all the toys have been put away, and I can mop the floors without anyone driving a dump truck through it before it dries. I was upstairs cleaning James' room this morning, and I couldn't help but smile at his dresser. It is exactly the random assortment that you'd expect from a four-year old's dresser. He'll probably be upset at me for touching anything on it, as his dresser alternates between being "Radiator Springs," the tire shop in Radiator Springs, a Christmas scene for his stuffed animals, and carefully tracked but extremely messy dumping ground. Among the treasures:

Four wooden figurines with a wooden rooster, a wooden fire department, and wooden church. I have no idea where these came from and had never seen them before today.

The plastic top to the toy garbage bin that goes with the toy garbage truck Nama and Papa gave him for his birthday. Upon receiving the truck from them, he immediately took the top off the bin and declared that he didn't need it. I put it with his stuff, and he (I think deliberately) left it behind as we were about to leave. Nama brought it back out, and he apparently chucked it on the dresser. He loves the garbage truck and brought it to Pennsylvania with him. But he wants no part of that garbage bin lid.

Buffalo Bills sunglasses from the preaseason game we went to this August. James likes sunglasses in theory, but it bothers him to wear them in practice. I'm hoping the fact that he's holding onto them because he actually DOES like the Buffalo Bills. He's recently been saying that he likes the Steelers, but I think this is just because Owen is so overtly into the Bills, and James feels like he needs to align himself with J's team to provide some family symmetry.

A pair of black dress shoes that I've never seen him wear.

A Lightning McQueen birthday card from Grandma and Grandpa Davis on his 4th birthday card. It declares "Rev It Up," and has a picture of Lightning and Mater with monster truck tires on the front. It used to play a song when you opened it, but the battery is long gone.

One felt bootie that Great-Grandma Davis brought up for us when James was about three. Apparently Grandpa Davis used to wear them when he was a little boy, and they were already too small for James at that point. We held onto them, and apparently James liked the felt horse on the side, because now one of them is on his dresser.

A picture of George playing tee-ball that Aunt Melissa painted for him two Christmases ago.

Two sheets of smiley-face stickers from when we were potty-training him.

Deep Fish, the blue and yellow paper fish that we taped to the ceiling above his bed back when we lived at Clover Park, and then taped up again when we moved to Harwick Road. James has had Deep Fish since before he could talk, and on the several occasions when we asked whether we should throw him out when his tape failed, James insisted that no, he needed to lie in bed and look at him while falling asleep.

A shark bath toy.

A deck of Animal Rummy cards.

A plastic yoyo from his last visit to the dentist which he was never able to get to work (it's pretty cheap) but which he remains fascinated by.

A number of plush stuffed animals which aren't important enough to be in the royalty of his imaginary friends, but which remain important members of the court, including a Ty praying bear, a small white polar bear whose nose is coming unstitched (this is a different bear than Steven Bear), a Pete the Cat, a white polar bear holding a treble clef pillow, a big bullfrog, a blue elephant, and a moose.

A black comb which he regularly loses, then finds again, and immediately uses to comb his hair down as flat as it will go, no matter when his last bath was.

His name written in his own handwriting on a piece of printer paper over a big block question mark that he must have also drawn.

About half a deck of time-telling flashcards.

Two DNIs

We haven't given up on DNI, but life hasn't made it easy either. Our family is currently in three states, and I am the only one at Harwick Road for the weekend. My plan for the weekend has been to clean the house, do all the laundry, leave the heat turned down to cave temperatures (I can always put on another sweater), and play my concerts. It was starting on this blog that broke me on the heat issue. I can't feel my fingers anymore, and my left hand won't properly type on the laptop. So now the heat is on.

Yes, we HAVE had two DNIs. October was "Breakfast for Dinner." Back when I was an undergraduate "Breakfast for Dinner" meant "another instant oatmeal packet for dinner," and I probably tipped it into my mouth and swallowed it without the luxury of water while on my way to go practice.

This meal was considerably better.

Blood Orange Screwdrivers

Blood oranges, like blood pudding or mincemeat pie, are one of those foods that have such an off-putting name that you might never voluntarily try them. Really though, it's a delicious fruit--not quite as acidic as your run of the mill Florida orange. (Is that an orange orange?) Ashley called them "more floral." Their juices ran redly. (Actual English word.) As a cocktail, it's pretty simple..just shake with some vodka and ice and serve. There was an option to add orange blossom water, but we declined that option, since we couldn't find it at Wegmans.

Homemade Sausage Patties with Roasted Apples

Making the sausage turned out to be way easier than I'd thought, once you were over the "fingers-in-raw-meat" bit. There was a lot of garlic, sage, thyme, and mustard that went into the mixing bowl, but the real stars of the sausage were the roasted fennel seeds. It was the apples (tossed with thyme) that added the most overtly autumnal flavor to the plate.

Baked Eggs with Spinach and Gruyere

That's all gooey, Gruyerey goodness atop that ramekin. One of the best parts of this DNI was the excuse to buy some more ramekins (a 6oz set to use with the 8oz set we make oatmeal in every morning), and this egg dish flavorful at every layer. You see the Gruyere on top, and then the egg underneath, but underneath the egg is a sauteed layer of spinach and tomato mixed with heavy whipping cream, garlic, oil, and spices.

Homemade Sugar Coma Croissant French Toast with Brown-Butter Maple Syrup

Everyone loves French toast, oui? So how can you make French toast better while simultaneously making it even more French? By using a croissant, of course. The syrup (mixed with brown butter and salt) is possibly even more decadent than the heavy cream batter that you dip the croissant in. I wasn't kidding about a sugar coma, either. I actually don't remember anything that happened that evening after eating this. Would very much recommend this to anyone who likes food and does not have any bloodwork/doctor's appointments in the next 30 days.

An Elegant Classic
This maybe was not our best DNI effort, in terms of fidelity to the book and recipes. At some point last week J mentioned "we ought to pick a night for our November DNI." Then followed a depressed silence as we looked at the calendar and she bleakly said "I guess it will be Tuesday or not at all, huh?"

We did manage, on Monday morning, to somehow cram two boys, their two largest books (because they have to bring the very biggest books they own), a beet, a fennel bulb, a head of endive, a potato, two oranges, two pears, two bags of spices, a tub of mushrooms, a tub of olives, a bottle of capers, a bag of golden raisins, a bag of gummy worms (n.b.--the gummy worms were not for DNI purposes), and a box of frozen puff pastry into the double stroller on our morning run.

We were going to get out to the liquor store for Apple brandy, Benedictine liquer, and a Muscat wine as well, but between all the lessons and rehearsals it just didn't happen. Because we didn't have the appropriate alcohol, the cocktail for this month (an Apple Flip) and the dessert (Poached Pears in Muscat) didn't end up happening. At some point in the next few weeks we'll make both of these and report back to you on how they tasted. I'm sure they would have been delicious.

In preparing everything else, I was not able to be as helpful as I like to be for DNI days. In fact, I was not particularly helpful at all. I was gone all morning for a rehearsal, gone most of the afternoon for another rehearsal, and then immediately went to go stand in line to vote when I got back. Yes, this DNI was on election night. And yes, the food tasted much better BEFORE we found out the election results. Everything has sort of tasted like ash and despair since then.

I was able to work on roasting the onions when J went to vote, and we had everything in the oven by about 7:30, so we munched on the crudites as an appetizer.

Fall Crudites with Creamy Olive Tapenade

I think my favorite part of the meal was this olive tapenade. It wouldn't have been quite the same with crackers, so the vegetables were a good choice. It had real mayo, dijon mustard, capers, and olives. Very complex, very creamy, absolutely delicious dip.

Roasted Red Onions with Golden Raisin Gremolata

There was a time when I detested onions. I regarded onions the same way James now regards black beans--with suspicion, bargaining, and tears. I haven't been particularly keen through must of my adult life to put raw onions on a burger or to over-flavor the potato salad with too much onion taste. I don't particularly care for onion rings. But these onions were pretty good...after spending an hour and a half in the oven soaked in orange juice, honey, and vinegar, you can tell that they were onions at some point, but now have changed into something entirely sweet and different. The topping that we put on them (golden raisins and orange zest) added some nice sweetness as well.

Chanterelle Pot Pie

The name here is a little misleading, because we couldn't actually find chanterelle mushrooms. We ended up buying a mix of shiitake, cremini, and portobella mushroom pieces, and we used turned out just fine. The filling also had heavy cream (of course,) peas, carrots, and celery. There was an option to make our own puff pastry, but you've already heard about how we didn't have time to do anything properly, so the Wegmans puff pastry worked just fine. J prepped another one of these and left it in the fridge for me before she left town. It was a very good supper last night.

Wegmans Cake
This recipe was actually very simple. Instead of making the DNI dessert, which we didn't have the ingredients for, we picked up some slices of Wegmans cake. It was a sweet end to the last meal that we shared together before America elected Donald Trump to the presidency. So...yes. There's more to be said and written about all that. But that conversation, just like the missing Apple Flip and Poached Pears in Muscat, is going to require a trip to the liquor store first.

Proper Full Sized-Blog

My dinner tonight was a thruway station burrito
.
I'm not saying that this has been a bad week or that this has been a good week, but if you're trying to sum it all up then that 7:30 PM tin-foil wrapped mess of slightly brownish guac and who-knows-how-old chicken needs to be taken into consideration.

Some things have been going rather nicely, actually. Owen's birthday went well, and J's parents were up to celebrate with us. We converted his crib into a toddler bed, and so far he hasn't crawled out and wandered into anyone else's room in the middle of the night, although I do think he's fallen out of bed at least once. We also turned around his carseat and in so doing discovered at least some of the source of that funny odor in the backseat of J's car. Her parents brought up the top half of the bunk bed in James' room, and he's excited (whenever we can find another mattress) to move up to the top bunk. The boys had a nice time at the Halloween party at Pearce, at least for about the first three minutes, after which Owen insisted on "moe" candy and James, reaching his point of social saturation, laid down on the gymnasium floor and repeatedly asked to go home.

Today was a full day for me. I had two concerts in Buffalo this morning, then drove straight to Fredonia, taught for six straight hours, got in the car, and drove two hours back, picking up said thruway burrito along the way. I ate it in the dark in my car while listening to an old episode of The Bugle podcast and spilled some burrito fluid on my second best pair of suit pants. Some things can't be helped.

And now I'm home for the night, and wondering if we'll have a babysitter for tomorrow night or not. (J has choir rehearsal, I have Carmina Burana in Syracuse.) We'll have tomorrow morning together though, and that means a long run outside, which is all that I wanted to do today while I was teaching. It will mean a trip to the grocery store, so that next Wednesday I can pack an actual lunch for myself and don't need to stop at the Angola Service Plaza Moe's. We might even stop at the liquor store and get some scotch, though one of the podcasts I listened to today (all about how important it is to start saving for retirement early) dampened the idea of another expensive bottle of single-malt.

Mostly though, I'm hoping to read tomorrow. I've been in a bit of a reading funk. Last week (14 service week between all three orchestras) was basically spent entirely either in driving, playing the trumpet, or collapsing into bed. I had started re-reading I, Claudius, but then I lost my copy of it in the basement and didn't find it again for several days. Then I started re-reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but I lost my copy of that at some point while looking after the boys, and I haven't yet rediscovered it. J recommended the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, and I thought the first couple chapters of that were great, but then she hadn't finished reading it yet and wanted it back, so that was the end of that. And last night I brought the first Harry Potter to bed, but I decided to turn the light out early and go to sleep.

And then I didn't fall asleep until 1 AM. I had a bunch of emails sitting unanswered in my inbox about scheduling lessons. I kept on thinking about how I needed to fill out the paperwork to renew the Star Application, and which documents I needed to upload to our health insurance application. And I owed my Gates choir sub a check. And my car has a check engine light. And we need a babysitter for tomorrow night. I googled information about trumpet mouthpiece throat sizes, and then I googled my own name plus "trumpet," and found my own blog page. And then I laid in bed some more and tossed and turned, and then it was after 1 AM and I decided I probably ought to cancel the 5:30 AM Latin reading with Calvus. (So sorry about that...the extra hour and a half of sleep was the right choice, though.)

And now I'm back home, and I still smell like that burrito.

J and I were sitting on the front step the other day having coffee and watching the boys scooter back and forth, and she sized me up. She told me I have more than a few gray hairs.

This is one of those weeks where I can't quite wrap my head around the fact that this IS in fact adulthood...and apparently adulthood is eating a thruway burrito in suit-pants and wondering if you have enough money while listening to other people legitimately argue that Donald Trump might be a good president while driving in the dark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ug0PYot-mE

Posted on James' Door