Blizzard: Darkening Skies

The sky is a darker gray; the snow is coming in sheets. The tree limbs are thickly covered and reaching for the ground. Visibility is decreasing.  It definitely feels like the storm is picking up intensity.

But we are still cozy inside.  Sis and I made a very decadent dessert, Deep Dish Oatmeal Chocolate Cookie Bars--with 2 cups of brown sugar, 2+ sticks of butter, and a whole can of sweetened condensed milk!  While they cooled--usually we would eat them straightaway, but the recipe warned that the filling would ooze--we all watched some of Fantasia, with the Nutcracker Suite, the Sorcerer's Apprentice, the dying dinosaurs.  And I fell sound asleep.

Now we're downstairs, making vegetable soup (and later cornbread) and working on the puzzle.  And watching the snow that still falls.  It never changed to rain.  It's been snowing some 9 hours straight now.  And the most is yet to come!

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Deep Dish Oatmeal Chocolate Cookie Bars
We thought there was too much chocolate filling, so below I have halved the recipe from the original.



2 sticks butter
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 cups brown sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
1/3 cup milk
3 cups oatmeal

Mix the butter, eggs and brown sugar.  Add vanilla and milk.  Slowly incorporate the rest of the dry ingredients.  Mix well.  I prefer using a stand mixer since it's quite thick.

In a saucepan over medium heat melt together:

1/2 can sweetened condensed milk
3 tablespoons butter
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (typically one bag)

Then, spread 3/4 of the cookie mixture on the bottom of a greased 9x13 pan, pour chocolate mixture, then spread rest of cookie mixture on tops in spoonfuls (won't cover completely-but will leave cool designs.  Next time, we might do a 1/2 and 1/2 split of cookie batter). The top can tend to get done before it's completely cooked, so you can put aluminum foil over it for the last ten or so if it looks like it's browning too much. Bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees (it took ours closer to 40 minutes and a teeny bit of the middle still isn't totally cooked). Let cool, otherwise it won't set up and will just run when you cut into it.

Blizzard: A Few Photos Midday

Note the Scottish flag blowing in the wind.

Blizzard: Still Snowing

It's been snowing since I posted this morning, leaving about 2" plus behind, enough to level the Belgian block lining the driveway.  I hadn't expected this much snow until tonight and the rain mentioned in the forecast hasn't materialized, but it's only 1 p.m. so there is time for all of that.

It's beautiful outside and cozy inside.  There's a nice blanket of white on everything, which our dear backyard squirrel is surveying from his or her own comfy home in the knot of our big tree; Mama took a picture with her special camera which I might manage to download someday.  The kids are doing a 1000 piece puzzle with Mama, who was at work for a few hours this morning before they sent everyone home.  The kids have done some dramatic play with their penguin and bunny contingent, played outside including making thin driveway snow angels, played Minecraft on the iPod (with credits earned from being outside in the snow), and compile the valentines for their whole class--Sis had Hello Kitty with a notepad for girls and Phineas and Ferb with eraser for boys plus Kit Kats for all, while Bud had Clone Wars with mini glow sticks and also Starbursts for everyone.  No one liked my idea of hand-making cards, alas.  I've participated in these activities, made roasted chickpeas, helped Sis make a nice coffee cake for breakfast, and been reading my current downstairs book, Bill Bryson's At Home, a history of domestic spaces (upstairs, I'm ignoring a parenting book!).

We finished a foraging lunch--leftover Chinese from their outing last night, chicken sandwiches, mujadara plus hummus and chickpea salad for me--and are about to a). watch Fantasia, b). keep working on the puzzle, or c). have Mama play another computer game with the kids.

And it just keeps snowing.

Blizzard: It's Snowing!

The snow has started and will last the next 28 hours or so, with totals still mentioned near 15-25"!!

School Closed

No surprise here.   Even though not a flurry has fallen...but it will.  Let the fun begin!  After a little more sleep....

Just Keep Snowing!

via Maddy Lane on FB

In the Papers

Some recent good reads . . . .

Poetry and Cancer--here and here
Why the Boy Scouts suck
Bodies, gender, and popular culture--what to tell your children
Startling article on ADHD drug addiction
On King Cakes during cabbage season
Happy Birthday, Pride and Prejudice
Secret archives of the Warsaw Ghetto
Guy Fieri's recommendations of places to eat in CT
Tales of travel and vegetarian dining
A cat's trek home
Eat like a Mennonite, without plastic poisons
Darwin and the Cloud Forest
Jewish Life in a Muslim Empire
Walking around the World
Chinese in NYC essay
Protecting Your Privacy on FB

It's Official

Blizzard warning in effect until Saturday at 1 pm.  Accumulation:  18-24"!!!!!! 

Getting Ready

For those of you not getting the minute-by-minute updates of Storm Nemo (!) here in the Northeast, we are preparing for a storm of blizzard proportions.  Overly dramatic forecasts mention 20" of snow and 60 mph winds and 6' drifts.  But even if we get half of that, it will be an impressive storm.

So, with practice these last few years for Irene, Sandy, and other storms, we're getting ready.  We have all the batteries and flashlights, but if power goes out, illumination isn't our biggest problem--it's the loss of heat. Yes, we have oil tanks but they need the electric heater to warm the water for the radiators.  Knock on wood, we've never lost power in a snowstorm.  If I had to guess, I think we could stay in the house in freezing temperatures 24-48 hours before it became really or even dangerously uncomfortable.  But I'm not sure.  (Suggestions to stay warm without heat include:  stay only in 1-2 rooms which are well insulated at windows and doors with extra towels or blankets; lots of blankets; wear a hat at all times plus extra socks and layers; kids can sleep in little tents/forts to conserve heat; move regularly to get blood going; don't get damp or wet--change immediately if you do)

We have snow shovels, ice melt, and our big self-propelled snow blower that clears almost 2'.  Later today, I'll walk around outside to remove any projectiles that might alight in 60 mph winds.

And I just went to the store for food, both dry goods in case of power outage and several meals options:  vegetable soup, winter vegetable stew, chicken pot pie, Mexican feast (w/cheese quesadillas, tacos, maybe chili), Polish feast (pierogi, bigos, Breton beans), cavatelli or tortellini carbonara, chocolate chip cookies (or something), homemade granola, homemade bread or cornbread, rice pudding, lentil something or other (ooh, mujadara!), plus various chips/pretzels, dry cereal, dried fruits and nuts, cheese and crackers, sandwich makings--the possibilities are pretty endless.

I'm guessing there will be, at the least, an early dismissal from school tomorrow as the snow piles up; they might just cancel.  For the kids, we have valentines to make for school and family, plus all the toys in the house, arts and craft supplies,games and puzzles, etc etc etc.  Besides, such huge amounts of snow are their own entertainment--snowmen, snow angels, snow forts, snowball fights, sledding, snow painting.

And yes, I got two cans of sweetened condensed milk for our traditional snow ice cream.

For my Northeastern friends, what are you doing to prepare?

Waiting for the Bus

With the barest of flurries in the last few days, we found another use for the thin, shiny snow (since it isn't causing any school delays!):

Passages

My first hospice patient has died, which is a blessing for him.  As he was to me.  While I hadn't seen him much in his last weeks, and we only visited a few times, I will always remember our sparkling conversation about Brooklyn, Coney Island, and the Catskills a long time ago.  Still, it is a bittersweet milestone and I'm thinking of his widow and family.

Thoughts and Prayers

Sending thoughts and prayers to Mrs. S., whose aunt had a fall and is in the hospital.  We wish her a comfortable and speedy recovery.

Sending Love

Sending love to Lambeth, whose daughter-in-law has gone home from the hospital in the last stages of cancer.  Our thoughts are with Lambeth and his family at this sad and difficult time.

Tables Turned

Last week at my ENT appointment, the doctor, who has met Mama during our last several appointments, said my husband and I would have a great time at Harry Potter world.  I corrected him instantly, "Doctor, it's my wife!  You've met her."  And he apologized for making assumptions . . . and being forgetful.  It happened at my dermatologist check up again today, but I didn't bother to correct him, even though he's met Mama and treated our kids.  It doesn't bother me; if anything, I'm amused, but most of the time, I pay it no mind.

So I wondered what the woman whom I assumed was a lesbian at church on Sunday thought.  I've had several conversations with her in the previous months and, while I knew she had a somebody, she had never said who.  And she looked like a dyke (oh, as I type this it seems so retro)--slim, short hair, multiple piercings, always pants and a plain button down.  And she's a counselor, for heaven's sake--social work and psychology being big with lesbians of a certain age.  But on Sunday, she finally said a name . . . which I didn't hear because of this darned continued sinusitis and ear pressure.  So, I said, "What was her name?"

"Oh, his name is--."

I'd done it.  I'd assumed and gotten it wrong.  I laughed, waved my hand, apologized--should you apologize for thinking someone is gay?  Or straight?    She laughed and smiled, too, and we kept talking for awhile longer.

But my mind was turning.  Did she think I had only talked to her because I thought she was a lesbian?  Had I?  Would things change now that I knew she wasn't?  Why did it matter in casual conversation or friendship?  But doesn't sexual identity matter?   And, how had I gotten that so wrong?  Has that happened to her before?  Is she okay with being thought of as gay?  Is this kind of mistake something to be offended over?   How often am I wrong?  Or right?   Is this how all those straight people feel when they miss-guess about me?  How long do they think about it?  Do they worry I think they are prejudiced or whatever?  What's the best way to smooth over the awkwardness?    And shouldn't us LGBTQ folk come up with a special sign so that we can avoid all this?

It was definitely a teachable moment for me--the first time I think I've ever assumed incorrectly about someone's sexual identity outloud to that person (well, I've thought LGBTQ people were straight, but then that's not as uncommon because of the whole passing/closet thing; actually, my gaydar is pretty weak and I just usually manage not to misspeak or assume.  Can we even talk of gaydar in the 2010s?  It's not the butch/femme 50s.  Is it a post-gaydar world?).  I'm still working out what it means.

But I look forward to seeing her at church again.

A Very Unbirthday

The birthday invitation said, "girls only."  Even though the birthday girl was close friends with Bud.  How to explain then that his sister was invited to the birthday party but not him?  So we offered sushi as compensation, but he was still disappointed.  As apparently the birthday girl told him (I'll add "gloatingly!") he would be.  And when I RSVP'd for Sis, I told her mom as much.  A week later, though, the girl changed her mind and invited Bud.  And they all had a marvelous time at the party.

But this boy-girl thing is becoming more and more of an issue.  We knew that two lesbians raising a son would have it's challenges and we've tried to allay some of the difficulties.  As such, we're particularly sensitive to gender issues  We've always encouraged the kids to choose their own friends not based on gender but on similarity of interests; we've always let them choose their own toys, be it pink tutus (Bud) or Star Wars action figures (Sis).  But their friends are becoming increasingly gender-stratified, as is their world.  Gymnastics classes are separated by gender.  Scouts are girl or boy.  And birthday parties.  And sleepovers.  Bud, like Sis, would like to have a sleepover with his friends.  But his friends are all girls.  And I know that it will never happen.  Out of habit, I understand; boys and girls don't sleepover.  But why?  Surely it's rather innocent at 7 or 8?

It got me thinking.  Where does this enforced gender separation come from?  Do girls and boys themselves want the separation?  Sometimes, I think they absolutely do.  And developmentally and educationally, there are reasons behind gender segregation, I'm sure (as a feminist, I absolutely recognize the importance of female-only spaces, and by extension male.  But don't get me started on our school's new "Father's Club" meant as a counterbalance to the PTA, which is not in essence women only, so why the need for dads to be different?  I think it speaks to the comfort--or dis--of the genders communicating and working together.).   But I'm speaking beyond simple classes and playdates, about the instillation of the belief, through the ways we treat them (as opposed to the words we intone), that boys and girls have little commonality.

But are parents somehow culpable, too?  We tell boys and girls for years that they are different--pink and blue, tutus and action figures, ballet and football.  They must internalize this difference and really believe that they are somehow fundamentally different from the other gender.  Even when we pay lip service to girls can do what boys do--but why would they believe us?    And then, from second grade until junior high, we segregate them in after school activities and playdates, until with hormones raging, they seek each other again, with their heads filled with years of myths, assumptions, stereotypes, but little practical experience, etc of the "Other."  No wonder there is so much teenage agita over relationships and sex.  Or even adult discomfort--men from Mars, women from Venus; men like football, women like lipstick; men are silent, women talk incessantly; men have Fathers' Club and women have the PTA.

Surely we are all mature enough to recognize these essentialisms as inherently false?  How do these stereotypes really serve us?  And doesn't the separation of boys and girls do more harm than good?

It's a bit of a leap, but Nicholas Kristoff notes, in Half the Sky, that in countries where the genders are most segregated, namely Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, etc, there are the least rights for women and most violence, even terrorism, from men.  It makes me look at even our relatively innocuous gender segregation differently.

And my kids will be inviting their friends--not just a gender--to their birthday party.

Power On

UPDATE:  I have learned a bit more about Bud's spelling.  Apparently, I misremembered the word--it was "foowad" not "fuwad."  He wanted to add "woof" to "wad" and forgot that in Scrabble you can't go backwards and forwards like you do in word searches.  So, really, not so very odd.  But it has led to more chuckles over here.  Especially after the kids suggested to Mama during our game yesterday that she should add an "oo" to "lord," for "Oolord."  Who knew Scrabble could be so funny?

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Power and internet (which we lost about three hours ago) have just come back up.  In the meantime, we played a rousing game of Scrabble, among other things.   Bud played "sex"--after asking if that was a word!!--and I changed it into sextant.  Sis later played "sin."  No comment.  Lest we become to vain about their academics, Bud tried to play the word "fuwad."  We laughed about that til I cried, especially after we said we could call him "fuwad" and her "Dodo," to combat the proverbial evil eye of course (see bit above about parental academic snobbishness).  But, in his defense, Bud figured out 23 x 3 in his head when he was totaling up the family score.
Then, upon my announcement that Sis sold 334 boxes of cookies, Sis's teacher suggested that I ask her to explain how the 3s had more value than the 4.  "They're hundreds and tens," she answered without missing a beat.
Yeah, no pride at all.

Another Kind of Challenge

This challenge is for the kids!  My friend, Shelley, at Little Chickadees, is doing 28 Days of Kindness for February, drawing on a list from her children's school.  Check it out at her blog.  I'll have to see if we can add this to our month.

A Discovery

The scientists have confirmed it:  the bones under the parking lot in Leicester are indeed those of King Richard III!  I remember when the scientists excavated and were hopeful they'd solved the mystery, and with DNA, as well as corroborating evidence of the curved spine of the skeleton, the age, the protein-rich diet of a wealthy man, the skull wounds from battle, the date of the bones, the Greyfriars priory location confirmed by an historian--it's all mentioned in the NYTimes article.  I'll be equally fascinated to see the re-burial of the bones in Leicester Cathedral next year, as befits an English monarch, albeit a much-maligned and disputed one.

Weekend Off

Ah, well, I didn't quite stick to my challenges over the weekend.  Weekends are such a break in routine for me, not bad, actually quite good, just my 5-day week habits don't usually extend to Saturday and Sunday.  So I didn't meditate and I didn't write any letters.  Though, I did make up for the letter-writing today, putting two cards and a package in the mail.  And, while I did some short lovingkindness mediation this morning, I'll do my full practice later today.  As these challenges are meant to be fun and inspiring, I'm not that worked up about missing a few days, especially as I've picked right up again.

Singing the Family Canon

Two years or so ago, my sister gave me a book about singing with the family, All Together Singing in the Kitchen.  With my Goodreads challenge to read 52 books this year, I finally read it cover to cover, having previously skimmed the relevant bits that interested me.  As I posted before (here and here), the idea of a family canon appealed to me and so, after completing the book, I started to draw together a list of songs I both knew and could fairly reliably remember either the words or the tune, and sometimes both!  Interestingly, most of the songs are ones I've known since childhood--traditional or folks songs my parents sing, or songs from the Broadway musicals they love, plus Girl Scout camp songs and, more recently, spiritual songs from my chorus in Chicago and my UU churches here.  But almost none of the songs are what you would hear on the radio--I just can't sing Wham! or Wilson-Phillips, Lady Gaga or Beyonce on my own easily, even if I can sing along to them on the radio and enjoy doing it.

Reviewing the songs, drawing from hymnals piano music collections and our iPod, was great fun.  We had an 80s dance night (when I realized I couldn't sing those a cappella) and a sea shanty night (when I found I couldn't remember any of the words of any of those.)  Mama even got in on the fun and enjoyed helping me compile the list.

And it all came in handy the night of the windy thunderstorm.  The kids crawled into bed with us and were upset by the noise and lightening, so I started to sing.  If it hadn't been for the canon, singing wouldn't have occurred to me--I hadn't sung to them since they were preschoolers at least.  First some lullabies--"All the Pretty Horses," "Hush Little Baby," "All Through the Night," and our favorite LGBTQ lullaby about all kinds of families, Deidre McCalla's "Mama Loves Me."  And my own favorite medley, with "Cotton Fields," "Summertime," and "I Gotta Love That Man til I Die."  Mama sang with me on "Water is Wide." The singing had a somnolent effect but not completely.  On to Broadway:  "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning," "Memory," "Don't Cry for me Argentina," but I found that I wasn't remembering all of those words, so I switched to Girl Scout songs, at least the slow ones, "Barges," "Balloons*," and "Rose, Rose, Rose, Rose."  I remembered several rounds from my Artemis Singers chorus days and Libana CDs--"Now I Walk in Beauty," "Be Like a Bird," "River of Birds," "Ancient Mother," and "Earth, Air, Fire, Water."  By then we realized that the thunder had stopped and I told the kids that I'd sung the storm away; they played along but I understand they told a friend of ours that it hadn't really worked that way.  Still there is power in singing, to soothe us when there are savage winds and savage beasts.

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Here's our general list, which is now on our chalkboard wall to remind me what I can sing when the desire arises (and if I need help with words, so many of them are in the songbook Rise Up Singing . . . in no particular order, with and without title quotes):

Spiritual/UU

"Enter, Rejoice, and Come In" 

"Come, Sing a Song With Me" 

"Come, Come Whoever You Are" 

"I Hear Music in the Air"

"Where Do We Come From?  Who Are We? Where Are We Going?"

"Keep On Moving Forward"

"Walk in Beauty"

"What Could One Little Person Do"

"How Could Anyone?"

"Singing for Our Lives"
"I Have Peace Like a River"
"Blue Boat Home"

"All God's Creatures"

"Finlandia"

"Simple Gifts"/"Lord of the Dance" 

"For the Beauty of the Earth" 

"Morning has Broken" 

"This Little Light of Mine" 

"We are a Gentle, Angry People" 

"We Gather Together" 

"Amazing Grace" 

“Never Turning Back” 

Circle of the Sun 

"The Earth is Our Mother"

"Ancient Mother"

"Earth, Air, Fire, Water"

"A River of Birds"

"Be Like a Bird"

"Now I Walk in Beauty"

When I Breathe In

Peace, Saalam, Shalom

Water is Wide 

Lullabies/Children’s

"Mama Loves Me"

"Sleep My Child" 

“All the Pretty Little Horses” 

I See the Moon

Hush Little Baby 

De Colores

"Cotton Fields Back Home"

"Summertime"

 "Can't Help Loving That Man of Mine"

"How many colors are in the rainbow?"

"You are my Sunshine"

"Baby Beluga"

All I Really Need 

Folk and Traditional

On Top of Spaghetti 

She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain

Garden Song (“Inch by Inch”)

Kookaburra 

Puff the Magic Dragon 

Aikendrum 

CHICKEN

John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt

Skidamarink

There's a Hole in the Bucket

Green Grass Grows All Around 

There Was an Old Lady

Farmer in the Dell

Little Boy Blue

Grand Ole Duke of York

Don't Fence Me In

Silliest Song

Jeremiah was a Bullfrog

Silliest Song in the World

You Get a Line, I'll Get a Pole

Scarborough Fair

Buffalo Gals

I Gave My Love a Cherry (Riddle Song)

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, Thyme

Oh Dear What Can the Matter Be

Down in the Valley 

I’ve Been Working on the Railroad 

Mares Eat Oats

Froggie Went a Courtin’ 

Camptown Races 

Give My Regards to Broadway 

When the Saints Go Marching In

Frere Jacques

“Take me out to the Ballgame”

“This Land is Your Land”

“Take Me Home, Country Road” 

Candy Man

If All the Raindrops

I had a Rooster 

Shortenin’ Bread 

You Are My Sunshine 

Here Comes the Sun 

"Dixie"

Yellow Rose of Texas

"Deep in the Heart of Texas"

"Eyes of Texas"

"Roll Out the Barrel"

 "Darktown Strutter's Ball"

Home on the Range"

"Sidewalks of New York"

"Bicycle Built for Two" 

"Barrel of Money"

"Tell Me Why"

 "Down By the Old Mill Stream"

“New York, New York”

O, Susanna 

Drunken Sailor 

Mermaids

Jambalaya

School Days

This Old Man

BINGO

Hey, Good Looking

How Much is That Doggie in the Window?

Oh, Dear What Can the Matter Be

Johnny Comes Marching Home Again

Yankee Doodle

You’re a Grand Old Flag

This Land is Your Land

Home Sweet Home

Alouette

In the Good Old Summertime

Don’t sit Under the Apple Tree

Oh My Darling Clementine

My Bonnie

Pop Goes the Weasel

Girl Scout and Campfire Songs

Peanut, Peanut Butter 

Little Bunny Foo Foo

"Rose, Rose, Rose, Rose"

 "Noah's Ark"

"Titanic"

Grandfather’s Clock 

Barges

Balloons

"Buffalo Song"

Make New Friends

Brownie Smile Song

Baby Shark

Princess Pat

Sipping Cider through a Straw

Broadway/Soundtrack

Whistle a Happy Tune

Shall We Dance?

I Could’ve Danced All Night

Camelot 

Come to My Garden 

On My Own 

Tonight 

Memory

Don't Cry for me Argentina

I'll Cover You

Seasons of Love

Wash that Man Right Out of My Hair

"Let's Go Fly A Kite"

"Supercalifragilistic"

"Oh, What a Beautiful Morning"

"Kansas City,"

Oklahoma

"Do-Re-Mi"

Over the Rainbow 

Edelweiss 

Tomorrow 

My Favorite Things 

It’s Not Easy

When You Wish Upon a Star

Zip a Dee Doo Dah

You Can Fly

Once Upon a Dream

Spoonful of Sugar

Lavender’s Blue

Rainbow Connection

It’s a Small World

Miscellaneous

Turn, Turn, Turn 

Downtown 

*After years of checking intermittently, I just found the lyrics to "Balloons," the half-remembered song from my Girl Scout camp days. I had remembered it almost exactly, at least the first verse and chorus.  I'll include the lyrics here for my memory:

The Balloon Song

Green and yellow balloons make me happy,

The red ones they make me feel sad,

But tomorrow the red ones will make me feel silly,

And the next day balloons are just fads

Chorus:

Friends let me cheer you,

Let me sing you a song.

Let me tell you a tale of today.

Let me create a moment.

Let me make the world move on,

Let me live my life,

Just for today.

When you see out your window some rain,

I'll ask you to come out and play.

But you'll stay in your dry house and ask me to come,

But today I like rainy days.