Freezing

It is BRUTALLY cold outside.  It was -3F this morning, with a windchill around -29F something.

And guess what?  Lambeth, our pipes did NOT freeze!!!!

Mama had gone to great lengths to seal the basement and wrap various pipes, using the guidance of her new thermal camera attachment that shows heat gradients (which is also just fun in general--she's taken photos of the kids, cats, and even a boat of sushi!!)  It was very gratifying to discover that all of her efforts worked.  And we like having a working dishwasher and kitchen sink.

But the sun is out and the snow is beautiful.

Though, Gommie has taken to wearing her thermals 24/7 because, even with our turning up the heat several degrees, she is still just cold.

When we're not focused on the cold and snow, we're still having a great time:

• We skipped church yesterday because of the 45 mph winds and occasional white-outs from blowing snow, instead staying in jammies to play games and tangle;
• We did, eventually, go out to a hockey game yesterday, Gommie's very first.  Our local team isn't doing very well--we have lost several of the games we've been to and we're almost in last place--but it was still entertaining to watch.  Gommie was amazed by the force of the body checks and the speed of the game; she couldn't believe the seeming lack of control over the puck, which just went all over the place, quickly.  Surprisingly, there wasn't a single glove-throwing, helmet-removing fist fight, just a lot of heavy body checks and some fouls; it's the first hockey game we've seen without the proverbial blood on the ice.  Otherwise, I finally figured out how to spot offsides--and caught the foul along with the officials a few times!
• We continue to eat well, as always--take-out from the delicious Italian deli with eggplant parms, seafood salad, chicken cutlet sandwiches, chicken cutlet chopped salad sandwiches, pasta fagioli (soup), arancini, broccoli rabe, nutella wafer cookies, Orangina, and some kind of cooked pastrami dish; apple crumb cake, which we all loved but decided needed the filling doubled; and today, we will be going to Gommie's favorite seafood place;
• We have been playing lots of non-computer games:  Mama introduced Spit, which has proved popular, after Gommie had revived the interest in Solitaire.  They have also played Qwirkle, Rummikub, and Gravity Maze.  Mama has Ticket to Ride that we're hoping to play later.  (I say "we" when you know I mean "please, please, please don't ask me to play a game.  I still REALLY don't like games, especially when there is a lot of gloaty-snarky smack talk.)
• The tangling has slowed down in the wake of the game playing and today I'm thinking of crocheting some flowers.  But there are lovely drawings all around the house.  And also a porcelain owl that I decorated (photos later.)

That's about it.  Gommie is here until Wednesday and the kids are off school again tomorrow.

And we're expecting more snow tonight.

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Miss R's Apple Crumb Cake

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 eggs

1 1/2 sticks butter, softened

2 teaspoons baking powder

3 cups flour

1 can apple pie filling--she uses Comstock (frozen fruit doesn't work; We realized 2 cans would have been even better)

Preheat oven to 350F.

Mix all ingredients except apple pie filling and form into a dough ball. Divide ball in two.

Grease a 9x13 pan. Press one dough ball into pan. Spread apple filling over dough. Crumble other ball in teaspoon-size crumbs over the top. Sprinkle with cinnamon.

Bake for 40-45 minutes.

We served hot, with creme fraiche.

Miss R

Black Ice

We were supposed to go to the city today, to join family for a big meal in honor of Chinese New Year.  It's an early celebration, because Ma and Gong will be in Thailand for the real deal.

But the weather intervened.  Even with the temperature above freezing, there is black ice everywhere.  It took us an hour to go barely a town over . . .and then the highway closed.  So we stopped, ate a big pancake breakfast, and headed home.

It's foggy and rainy and slushy, perfect day for staying in.

We'll try to get together another time.

In related news:  ice is great when it's hockey, which we saw last night in a terrible blow-out game; we had fun anyway.

Our First Hockey Game

"Punch him!  Punch him!  The fights are the best part!"

We went to our first hockey game recently, with the tickets the kiddos won at Bingo Night in December.  And it was certainly entertaining.

The game was good, too.

The 10-year-old behind us liked fighting.  He liked it more than the game.  And rooted for it constantly.  More than he paid attention to the game.

His parents thought he was so cute.  "Oh," his mom tittered, "we should have taken him to boxing!"

"That's right, son," said dad proudly.

Thankfully, my kids didn't hear him at all.  They did notice the fighting, helmets and fists flying, especially because it made the highlights reel all three times.  They were upset by it. Confused, they asked why we didn't stand and clap like those around us.  "I can't clap for violence," I said, having just purchased a fundraising green and white "Angels of Newtown" bracelet.

It seems naive, but I have been so much more aware recently of how violence is very ingrained in the American psyche and culture and has been for hundreds of years:  the slaughter of Native Americans by colonists and later by cowboys; the Salem witch trials and various colonial tortures; tar and feather, burning in effigy, lynching; "meet me at the backstop after school;" the love of boxing and wild west shoot-outs and yes, hockey fights; the preponderance of guns; wars and weapons of mass destruction; our preference for punitive prison sentences and the death penalty; our pop culture obsession with violent epsiodes and people--Charles Manson comes to mind first--even the "true crime" section of the bookstore; the love of violent video games and horror movies; domestic abuse; gang warfare; the Steubenville rape; school shootings and mass murderers; "Law and Order," "CSI," "The Sopranos," "Dexter," in addition to the rarity of pacifists like conscientious objectors, Quakers, the Amish.  I'm sure there's more I could list.   We might like Mom, apple pie, and baseball, but you have to add violence.  And in that, we are different from most industrialized nations.  It's not that they don't have guns and we do, it's that we want our guns desperately and they don't as much.  And that speaks to something in our culture that all the post-Newtown commentary and Steubenville coverage that I've read hasn't really pinpointed.

But I could clap for almost everything else--the elementary-school students singing the national anthem, the fuzzy blue mascot waving the team flag, the "peanuts" playing hockey in the period breaks, the pop musical breaks between play, the way Bud danced and cheered, the return of the team after the breaks, the kids playing the karaoke game, the soldier in uniform who won a free dinner, to win a t-shirt in the t-shirt toss, and the shots on goal and the goals our team scored.  And when we won.

Sometimes I had a hard time following the game--it's like soccer at the speed of basketball with something smaller than a tennis ball.  It looked messy.  Which could have been me or them.  But the speed more than made up for my lack of knowledge in creating excitement.

I didn't cheer for one of my favorite parts, though:  the delicious garlic fries, cheese fries, and hot churros.

And I didn't cheer like the boy behind us.

But I would go back to another hockey game.