Another Pizza Catastrophe

I am not a stupid person. I need to remind everyone before they read any further that at one point in my life I was offered a full ride to Yale. I am tolerably humorous and an excellent speller, and my total ignorance of the culinary arts ought not to reflect poorly on the arts in which I am competent.

Everything started with my attempt to practice in the kitchen while also being the lone set of eyes on James. It did not go well. Two of my mutes have dents in them, James knocked over all the music on my stand, bonked his head on my stand, stole my metronome, and dropped my B-flat trumpet on the floor, the third valve of which no longer works. By the time dinner came around he was in full-fledged mischief mode.

"James," I said "I don't think either of us want to eat minestrone soup."

I knew that James didn't want to eat minestrone soup. J made it last night, and he turned his nose up at it all night long. I ate mine because it was hot and good, and according to J, minestrone is one of my favorites. Except actually it isn't. I asked her last night what inspired her to make minestrone and she said "Because you love minestrone! Isn't this one of your favorite things that your mother makes?"

In her defense, "minestrone" does sound an awful lot like "chicken wings."

But I didn't say anything to her, because once you've been married for a number of years you learn that it's not a good idea to tell your wife that you aren't interested in whatever it is that she just spent the last hour and half preparing over a hot stove while looking after your hurricane-force son so that you can practice upstairs in your bathrobe. (Hint to newly married husbands: It's much better to tell her by letting her find out that you've written about it on the internet without saying anything at all to her.)

So there was leftover minestrone in the fridge, and James had stopped hurling books off of the bookshelves long enough to confirm to me that he was interested in what I was saying if there was some chance it might be about food.

"James, I think we both want a pizza, don't we?"

He nodded.

I should have stopped here. I should have remembered what happened the last time that I was home alone with James on a Saturday afternoon while J was at church and decided that I absolutely had to have a pizza even though I'd have to make the whole thing on my own from scratch with no help.

I thought through my situation. I knew that there was cheese in the freezer, and I knew that there was leftover sauce in the fridge. I would just need to come up with some sort of dough. It was already five o'clock, so it was definitely too late to attempt dough in the bread machine--besides, I wasn't eager to try that again after my last experience. What about flatbread pizza? I had flatbread pizza several times over the summer, and I thought it was very good. I looked through some recipes on my phone, and eventually switched to the idea of a "pita" pizza. The dough only called for four ingredients, and the internet guaranteed that it would be ready to eat in 20 minutes...that sounded great! It sounded just as good as those "one simple tricks that can reduce your car insurance to $.37 a day."

Meanwhile, James had tipped a glass of water all over the kitchen counter. I cleaned him up, mopped up the mess, moved away the chair that he'd pushed to the counter and told him to occupy himself in some non-destructive way while I made us a pizza.

To make a long story short, the dough ended up being a disgusting sticky mess about the consistency of Elmer's glue, only less tasty, that didn't knead, roll, cut, or do anything except stick and ooze to everything it touched. About ten minutes into the attempt I gave up on trying to roll out pitas and just dumped the remaining goo into a frying pan, washed my hands, and removed James from his perch on the chair that he'd scooched over the refrigerator, from which he'd removed every single magnet and picture and thrown it on the kitchen floor.

I managed to turn the goo into the world's ugliest pancake, and set James up in his high chair with green beans. I sprayed a pan, and stretched out the pancake as best I could, then went to retrieve the sauce and cheese. And when I pulled out the sauce, I found out it was leftover quinoa spaghetti, and not pizza sauce. Thankfully there was cheese in the freezer, so at that point I had ugly pancake with cheese on top.

In six years of marriage I am yet to figure out J's system of freezer storage. Every month she neatly packs our freezer full of groceries, and it shuts without any trouble. If I open the freezer and remove an item, I can put that item back in the exact same spot it came from only seconds earlier, and it either won't fit (how is this possible, since I was removing ice cream sandwiches from the container?) or multiple other items will shift and collapse, and then refuse to go back into their spots. So J, if you do decide to come home after reading this blog, be careful when you open the freezer. I only just managed to slam the door shut in time, and I'm quite certain that the next person who opens the door is going to take a bag of frozen peas to the foot.

I was feeling rather defeated as I waited for the oven to preheat. I was also feeling rather hungry, so I had a bowl of leftover minestrone soup. It was exceedingly delicious, and much healthier than pizza. James, who still thought he was going to get real pizza when I was finished, continued to express his excitement at end result. When the oven preheated I had no idea how long to bake a pizza that size, so I started with six minutes and then kept on adding an extra minute or two until the cheese looked brown. James was so excited when I took it out. I cut him off a few pieces, blew on them to cool them off, and gave him one. He chewed it thoughtfully, and then I asked him if he wanted another.

That means "I think you should eat it instead."

I did, and it tasted like undercooked Elmer's glue with cheese on top.

So here's what I propose: This blog is a national resource, often receiving extravagant praise from top critics. I've even heard that my regular entries are "the best thing on the internet since this." I'm asking you, if you're reading this, to support my blogging by donating gift cards to local pizzerias. All gift cards can be sent to "Fabricor Consonvs Pizza Drive" at 749 Washington Street, Spencerport, NY 14559. If you benefit from this blog in any way, please consider supporting it by making a one time gift card donation. And not only do we need one time donations, but we are looking for sustaining members of Fabricor Consonvs who would be willing to get us pizza on a regular basis. Whether it's weekly, biweekly, or even just once a month, your effort will be felt and truly appreciated. I'd also like to make you aware, if you're reading this, that for a limited time we have a matching gift. There is a generous and anonymous almost-two-year old who has pledged that he will eat just as much pizza as I do for at least the next sixteen years, so don't wait...send in your pizza pledges today.

Because seriously, James was really disappointed tonight.

Listening Exam

We listen to a lot of music in the Smith house. I'm always listening to multiple recordings of whatever is on the next concert, plus studying scores for any upcoming auditions and occasionally getting to put on a favorite tune just for the pleasure of it.

The development of James' musical interests has thrown a wrench in our normal listening life. For a long time, as many of you know, the only piece that would do was the Marquez Danzon no. 2, followed by many months of nothing but Stravinsky's Firebird Suite.

This morning I wrote down everything that we listened to (along with James' reactions) so as to fully document a few hours in the musical life of the Smiths.

James got up around 8 AM, and wanted to snuggle on the couch for a glorious 20 minutes before he started his day. I pulled a blanket around the two of us and held him close, but a few minutes in he pointed at the stereo and made his "please" sign?

"Firebird?"

He shook his head no.

"Uncles?"

He nodded. I turned the stereo on with the remote and selected disc three. The Flock of Uncles Christmas CD has been in the CD3 slot since last Christmas, and James hasn't given up listening to it yet. We had Christmas music on almost daily through the long Rochester winter, through spring, and through summer. But come December we'll save ourselves the trouble of having to put new music in the stereo, I suppose.

We listened to the Uncles (starting, as always, at track 3 and listening through the rest of the CD), and then James was down.

Next up was Overture to Die Fledermaus, by Johann Strauss, Jr. I can't confirm that this was the reason J left, but she wasn't seen for several hours afterwards. (Actually, she had a meeting downtown.) James thought it was great and asked for his baton to conduct, which he did with great enthusiasm. (Especially in the waltz.)

After Fledermaus we tried the Troika from the Lt. Kije Suite by Prokofiev, but James got a scowly face and shook his head no. When I didn't change it immediately he became insistent.

He's enjoyed Gilbert and Sullivan before (and with J out of the house, I knew it was a rare opportunity to listen) so I tried the Overture to HMS Pinafore. This was not approved either, and he began to fake cry.

Linus and Lucy by Vince Guaraldi brought about actual tears, along with frantic "please" motions.

By the time I switched away from Stravinsky's Fireworks, we were flailing on the floor. Sometimes I think that we are very nearly two years old.

It was the Marquez Danzon no. 2 that restored us to happiness. James stomped around the kitchen and conducted with vigor. We hadn't listened to this one in a while, and we were very happy to hear it again.

I tried Adventures on Earth from John Williams' E.T. Soundtrack after the Danzon, but that was also turned down.

James has been in a mood for Mahler recently, and the last movement of the Symphony no. 7 was a big hit. It's very brassy, and it brought out some excited conducting while I washed the dishes. I'd turn around from time to time, and whenever he heard timpani he'd stop and make a face that said "Ooooh!"

The first movement of Mahler Symphony no. 8 wasn't as big a hit. James, like many little boys, doesn't particularly care for operatic singing. He tolerated it being on, but gave up on conducting and played with his block for a bit.

Once we were back in the living room it was time to listen to the Uncles Christmas CD again.

And then once we'd listened to the whole CD, we needed even more Uncles.

We were outside for awhile after that--I couldn't take any more Christmas music, especially when it was littered with my own wrong notes--and then we were back in.

Something changed for James over the course of the morning, and we loved Stravinsky's Fireworks while we listened to it with a snack.

The next tracks were from Petroushka, and we took in the fourth tableau.

But it was Rimsky Korsakov's Capriccio Espagnol that got us really excited. We needed the baton back, and I was treated to a conducting showcase.

The rest of the morning was all Tchaikovsky. Tchaikovsky is always exciting, and it seems to fit James' spirit particularly well at present. We listened to:

The 1812 Overture

Marche Slave

The 1812 Overture again. (Steven conducted, which was very funny.

Marche Slave again.

and Romeo and Juliet.

And then it was time for lunch.

We have very full days.

Word Association with Moxie

I've decided to adopt M's very fitting moniker for our niece. We watched her and her baby brother yesterday afternoon and evening, which is why I'm so tired today. At 8:00 we finally had James in bed and Liam calmed down, but Moxie was still going strong. She was tired of reading books, and had decided to do some recreational high-pitched shrieking. I decided to play a game.

"Okay Moxie, I'm going to say a word, and you say the first word that comes into your mind. Do you understand?"

She did.


Flower.
That's me is a girl. Wheee!!!!

Shoe.
I tie my shoe.

Football
Throw.

Homework
I do it

Romance. 
Homance. Oh, no. Why did you say that word?

Taxes.
You keep saying funny words.

Dinner.
Can you just stop? Eat

Lucas
Is my uncle. I hope I love him.

Tractor
Fields

Hugs
I am gonna giving it.

Philosophy
Floss your teeth

Broadway
Umm...I can't say that word

Trumpet
You play the flumpet..she play the flute. Everybody plays instruments

Medicaid
I don't know how to say that. Do you know how to say lemonade?

Nama
Phaaa...no

Spongy
We clean with sponges.


And then she lost interest in the game.

A Back To School Blessing

For M in particular, and in general for all students and teachers who are older than the nonsense in which they'll be immersed until June...

May your weekends be like five days and your weekdays be like two,
May you never ride the morning bus unless compelled to,
May your classmates all remember to take showers and to groom,
May the boys prefer deodorant to noxious Axe perfume.

May your teachers be fair-minded and abandon all designs
Of useless power-pointing to explain the word "cosine."
May you never have a substitute who fills your wasted hour
By showing Stomp on VHS ere she locates the power.

May giggling girls in simpering cliques grow wiser now than old,
And let them cover decently before compelled by cold.
And when one opens mouth again of "boys" to loud complain,
May she be checked before she speaks by some small cell of brain.

May you wake alert each morning with warm woolen socks on toes
May your hair always cooperate and spare you girlish woes,
And when you walk outside the house and hear the willows lisp
May you smell the scents of apples and be charmed by Autumn crisp.

May the hard back seats seem comfortable, their bottoms lacking gum,
May lights fluorescent be withstood till sunlight next might come
May you find a friend in gym class for a partner in contempt
So you might tell tales of Dr. Who, from all games be exempt.

May your Mom pack homemade lunches and on each day of the week
May you shun the cafeteria and of it never speak
May your senior year with winged feet on hasten till next June
Endure the suff'ring one more year; College cometh soon!

Usury

I just finished a fascinating book of essays by Jacques Le Goff called Time, Work,&Culture in the Middle Ages that raised some questions for me about the medieval position on usury. As anyone knows who's read Merchant of Venice, the practice of charging interest was forbidden to Christians during the Middle Ages, and was one of the principal causes of animosity towards the Jews. (Who were allowed to lend money at interest to non-Jews.) Le Goff traces the change in attitude towards interest and relates it to the development of the mechanical clock.

It was Lewis Mumford who first wrote about the importance of the mechanical clock in Technics and Civilization. Originally conceived as a more efficient means of keeping the hours for prayer, the standardization of time allowed for time to be represented as a commodity which could be recorded, bought, and sold--basically making way for the modern theories of labor according to an 8 hour day. (Clearly the ideas about musician labor are pre-modern.)

Le Goff contends that the scholastic argument broke down with the invention of the mechanical clock. It had been argued that interest was unlawful because it represented the purchase of time on capital, and time belonged to God alone, and therefore could not be put to sale. With some casuistic justifications for the merchant's hazard (the lucrum cessans, periculum sortis, and ratio incertitudinis--the tying up of cash in long term undertakings, perils of fate, and uncertainty of success) arguments began to be made in favor of an interest-based economy.

There are also some interesting thoughts by Le Goff on the contrast between Jewish, Pagan, and Christian views of the nature of time, but I won't detail those here. My question for anyone who has stayed interested through the first three paragraphs is this: Do the scriptural prohibitions against lending or borrowing at interest ever concern you? How do you square them against the success of the modern economy? Are you aware of anyone who writes on the subject? I'd appreciate any thoughts...

Parental Preference

James is not happy with me.

Yesterday was my first morning back at LCS. I'll only be there Mondays and Wednesdays this year because of Symphoria, but yesterday we had staff training. I was up and out the door before James woke up, and I didn't get back until 4:00. This was a big change from our regular summer hours.

It's important to note how much James loved the summer schedule. He was so excited in June when I was there every morning to get him up that J began to feel a bit boxed out. I'd get him up from his crib at 7:30 or 8 in the morning, and he'd be bouncing with excitement when I came into the room. Picking him up, I'd ask "should we go wake up Mommy?" He'd shake his head no, because it was Daddy PLAYTIME! We'd go downstairs and eat breakfast together. James would have a banana before he climbed up on my lap to steal my spoon and work on my cereal with me, spreading it all over his front, the table, and the floor. Daddy found this funny. Mommy did not. Then we'd go play with toys, including some toys that weren't in regular use during the school year, like the broom, the jumper cables, and walls. (Where else can you bounce a ball?)

There were some heartfelt talks with J. Far be it from me to put words into my wife's mouth, but most of the conversations, if I had to summarize, went something like this:

J: blah blah blah, blah blah-blah blah, having fun is against all my Mommy rules and you and James are evil rule-breakers.
Me: I wish to be respectful of your feelings, and I sense that you are upset about something. It must be hard on you for your well-planned parenting structures to be altered by my constant presence. Please tell me about what's on your mind while I finish washing these dishes and put them away neatly in their proper places.
J: (sobbing uncontrollably to sad music) James doesn't love me anymore since you came home from school!
Me: (giving a tender hug)There there, why don't you use this time to relax and think about your hopes and dreams whilst I prepare dinner.
J: You're so wise and handsome, and it turns out that all of the new games you taught James are safe and age-appropriate! Make sweet love to me far into the wee hours of the morning!

That was "more or less" how the conversation went, and we came to find a new balance for most of the summer. James and I played a lot together, and we had a wonderful few months while I was hardly ever going in to work.

J told me that when she got James up yesterday morning he immediately pointed to his bedroom door, and when asked what he wanted said "Da-da." She brought him downstairs, and he set about looking for me in the living room, and the kitchen. I wasn't there, of course, nor was I in the laundry room or upstairs in the bathroom.

I arrived home at 4:00 just as he was getting up from his afternoon nap. I heard J asking him "Do you know who is home? Do you know who is here?" I stepped up to him and she said "Daddy is here!" in an excited voice.

He didn't react at all.

"Would you like Daddy to change your diaper?"

He shook his head no.

"Would you like to say hello to Daddy?"

He shook his head again and snuggled her shoulder.

I made an attempt: "James, I missed you today! I'm sorry I didn't get to see you before I had to leave."

He snuggled Mommy again.

J changed his diaper, and he didn't even deign to look at me until we went downstairs. He had been betrayed. When I gave him a bath that night he engaged in active protest. Bathtime is probably our most redneck time of the day. The stopper in our bathtub is broken, so there's no way to seal the water in the tub except by covering the drain with a thick piece of duct tape. James is very good about knowing he can't touch the duct tape, but tonight he ripped it off the drain as soon as I looked away. I chided him and tore off another piece, knowing it would be much harder to get it to stay since the bottom of the tub was wet. I managed to get a seal, but James tore it off again.

"Listen, squirt...you're going to take a bath with no water if you keep on ripping the tape off? Got it?"

He grinned and nodded.

I put on another piece of tape and started to fill the tub again.

Rriiiiippppppp.

And that's how James ended up being soaped up with no water in the tub, and then unceremoniously hosed off under the tap.

He softened up to me by the end of the evening, and he let me brush his teeth and do bedtime prayers with him. We prayed for all our family and said "Help me to be loving." And then, "thank you that Daddy has a job to go to, and help James and Daddy to find good playtime once he gets home."

A Henry Visit

“Vo-yitta ya va kyi da DZA?”

Standing in his crib, James held both arms out in his “question” gesture and waited for me to answer whatever it was he had just asked.

I studied him for a moment and took a guess.

“Are you asking whether Pax and Kylie are still here?”

He grinned, nodded, and rubbed his chest in a “please” sign.

“No, they went home last night after you went to bed.”

“Dah-wee dow. Eeeee”

He waved good-bye to them.

“But do you know what? Henry is coming today. Do you want to see Henry?”

Henry is the same age as James, and we watch him several times a month while his mother works at RWC. James was so excited to see Henry that as soon as got downstairs he stationed himself at the window to watch our driveway, forgoing breakfast and the usual morning tour of toys.

These two boys really enjoy each other’s company. So much so, in fact, that it’s rather hard to keep track of them. Last week when they were playing with chalk, James had us so distracted by his sitting in the chalk that we completely failed to notice Henry was eating the chalk. And later when one of them was eating stones in the driveway, the other got away with a nearly successful attempt at prying the license plate off the front of our PT Cruiser.

Today they played “who can fill the most poopy diapers?” They both won. We’d be in the living room, I’d smell something, and say “Who has a poopy diaper?” I checked Henry first, and of course he did. While I was cleaning him off, James managed to open the desk drawer and dump an entire bag of crayons onto the living room carpet. When I still smelled dirty diaper and took James up for a changing, Henry ate an orange crayon. I think they were planning their diapers together. A sort of coniuriato faetidae. My neck is still very stiff, and they were deliberately taking advantage. It’s hard to keep an almost two year old from throwing his toothbrush in the toilet when he knows that you can’t chase him or pick him up from a bending position. J isn’t any better—she tweaked her hip badly on a run yesterday, and has made a solemn vow to do stretches before any exercise we undertake this month.

I picked up as many of the crayons as I could find, but you always miss a few. When we picked up toys in the afternoon I found several under the couch—it is one of James’ great pleasures in life to look for lost items under the couch—and I also found some crayon scribbles in my Hebrew lexicon that weren’t there this morning.

Today was the last day of my summer vacation, and the weather was as mopey as I was. It was gray and rainy all day long, and the two munchkins didn’t appreciate being cooped up indoors. Fortunately there was an aunt who needed rescuing, and J loaded them into carseats for a trip in the PT Cruiser. (Which, fortunately, still has both license plates legally affixed.)

It was a babbly day for James. Sometimes he is quiet all day, sometimes he attempts to have conversations in his nonsense language (although you do pick up some English from time to time) and on days like today, he talks from sunup to sundown.

“Go be kwa ya HEE je dad da DOT DOT DEE! DEE!!! DEE!!! Ha hahaha! Do yay muh muh muh tay kwi kwi mo do.” (He pauses for dramatic effect and continues with emphatic gestures and a serious slow cadence) Da bah tzi YAH do kwi bo du! Du!”

And so on and so forth.

Henry isn’t as interested in talking, but he went along with James’ itinerary for their play pretty passively. They mostly shared toys fine, although it was easy to tell that balls and wheeled objects are of a much higher value than other toys. In monetary terms, those are the $10s and $20s. James has a bad habit of stealing Henry’s toys between visits, and we’ve tried recently to make a serious effort before he leaves to locate everything that came with him.

Last time we were very proud that he went home with a spiky yellow ball, only to discover afterwards that we had two cups, two toy trucks, and a construction block. It doesn’t even matter if you check very thoroughly under the couch. Today we found a tractor-shape in the secret compartment of the toy grain silo. James is sneaky.

The most precious object of all the day, however, was the golden star balloon that James got at the store yesterday. He always points at the helium balloons when we go the grocery store, and I bought him one yesterday in celebration of our anniversary and also as a bribe to keep him still in the cart. He was deeply excited to carry it around all day, to sleep with it in his room, and to pummel it within in an inch of its life whenever he could get his hands on it. James and Henry both “loved” it hard today, and it isn’t floating nearly as easily as it used to.

It’s upstairs in his room with him now as he sleeps, and it will be the first thing he looks for in the morning. Because when you’re an almost-two-year old, you love people and things with wild abandon. And when you’re an almost-two-year old’s Daddy, it’s nice to be loved with wild abandon.