Eleven Things

I was recently tagged in a blog about writers asking other blog writers about their blog writing (whew, say that three times fast).  Kind of a literary chain letter, if you will, but in this case no one has a better chance at the lottery or will risk losing their job.  Instead we answer 11 questions about ourselves and then ask 11 more questions of others.  So here is my "All You Ever Wanted to Know About Kristin Alvick Graf" in eleven easy questions

When I was growing up I wanted to be just like Jerry Lewis. I used to watch all the movies he was in with Dean Martin--on a black and white TV with rabbit ears and a knob you turned to change the channel--and thought he was hysterical. Now when I see those same movies I'm not sure what I found so funny. But I do like to occasionally yell "Lady! Hey Lady!" in my loudest, nasally voice (if only to embarrass my children).

If I could choose someone to write a song in my honor it would be Bonnie Raitt. Bonnie understands what it is to be an aging woman while maintaining your cool, tough chick demeanor. I'd give 'em something to talk about.

What am I really proud of being good at? The only skill that comes to mind is being able to sew.  Yes, I could make my own clothes if I had to, but I like to do my part to stimulate the economy (and Old Navy might worry about me if I didn't at least check in with them every once in a while).

If I won a $10,000 airline gift card, the first place I'd go is Italy. Italy appeals to me because it has a Mediterranean climate while being culturally rich. And the men are beautiful.

With $10,000 it would be first class all the way.

My oldest piece of clothing is a t-shirt I got on my honeymoon in Cancun 18 years ago.  Sometimes I look at it and marvel at where I was then as compared to who I am now.  Of course, I'd do it all again, but I'd spend less time arguing about dirty socks and more time travelling. 

I started writing this blog two years ago when I gave up Facebook for lent.  Unable to post my "witty" quips and humorous observations, I turned to blogging to pass the time.  Blogging is just like a really long status update, afterall.  With spell check.

I usually write at night after the kids have gone to bed and the house is quiet.  It's hard to concentrate when every two minutes someone walks into the room complaining about a sibling or asking for a ride somewhere.  All my blogs would be about how demanding and nerve wracking children are.  Once they're asleep it's easier to remember their good qualities, too.  When I finish a piece I usually want to post it right away, but have learned that I will spend all night tossing and turning, thinking about other ways to phrase what I've just written.  I need a cooling off period, kind of like buying a gun.

I never read poetry--for some reason I just can't get into it.  Unless it's Shel Silverstein, who I love with something akin to idolatry.   (Although my Grandpa Don wrote poetry and even did a piece about my father's phone in the bathroom.)  I just recently stumbled into Kate Atkinson's work, who is shelved with the mysteries of our local library. I don't normally read mysteries, but I am loving these.  I also finished the Hunger Games trilogy, because my daughter made me (and who quizzes me daily about my favorite characters and scenes).  I know you're all dying to know:  Team Peeta.

My favorite ordinary moment of the day is when the two older kids and my husband have left in the morning and it's not yet time for my youngest to get up.  The house is in a momentary lull and I don't yet have to start the business of my day.  I get another cup of coffee, check my emails, go onto Facebook and take a deep breath before the rest of the morning comes crashing through.  Ten minutes is all it is, but it's all mine.

The nicest thing any one's ever to said to me was when I was seven months pregnant with my youngest.  A woman I didn't know told me I didn't look pregnant from behind.  There is no nicer thing to say to a pregnant woman than she doesn't look like a beached whale who is about to explode.

So there you have it:  all you wanted to know about me, but were waiting for Kimberley to ask.  Now it's my turn to pose the questions...hmmm..."Have you, or anyone you know, seen John Edward's sex tape?"

Good News/ Bad News

Some days it seems that everywhere I turn there's more bad news and I can't take another story about a missing child, school shooting, or economic down turn.  There are several websites which focus on only good news:  miracle babies, heroic rescues and video after video of cute animals being unbelievably adorable.  Unfortunately, these sites are incredibly boring.  What is good news without a little bad news to spice it up?  So here, for your perusal, is my offering of a little yin and yang, a little bad with the good.

It was announced that John Edwards' sex tape will not be released to anyone anytime soon. This is indeed very good news.  It was decided that the video of him doing the wild thing with his mistress has no bearing on his upcoming criminal trial.  The bad news is the fact that such a tape ever existed.  Ewww--the thought alone gives me nightmares.  (Did his hair get messed up?  Was there a sound track?  I'm suddenly not feeling very well.)

The movie adaptation of the "Hunger Games" book has opened with a resounding success. World famous movie reviewer and seventh grader at Lakewood Middle School, Abbie Graf, having seen the movie opening weekend with her devoted mother and again the second weekend with her English class (escorted by her loving father) gave it two thumbs up and dubbed it her "favorite movie ever."  The bad news is these parents will now be barraged with endless discussion of movie vs. book, Peeta vs. Gale, et cetera and so forth.  (Also in the bad news arena:  several movie goers apparently tweeted their disappointment that the character of Rue was played by an African American girl.  This leads me to the conclusion that racists need to work on their reading comprehension, as well as their world view.)

A new study suggests that people who eat chocolate have a lower body mass index than those who don't.  Chocolate makes you skinny!  This is the kind of story that people like me dream of--right up there with winning the lottery or getting your own flying unicorn.  It seems dark chocolate may contain enough antioxidants to help balance your metabolism and a treat that is high in calories may produce a feeling of fullness sooner, thus causing you to stop eating.  The bad news is I and every other chocolate lover will undoubtedly use this as an excuse to overindulge.  Too much of a good thing is bad news.

My spend son will be turning 16 in a couple weeks and will be getting his driver's license. This is good news, as I'll have one less kid that needs to be carted around. No more waiting in a cold, dark parking lot when soccer practice runs late, no more trying to figure out how to get three kids to three different places at the same time. What will I do with all my free time? The bad news is now I'll have to invest way too much energy worrying if he got to practice safely, why he's so late getting home, and wondering if he's lying in a ditch somewhere.

As with the idea of yin and yang, the secret to a sane life is balance.  Lots of horrible things happen in our world every day, but lots of wonderful things take place, too.  Hold tight to the good stuff and try not to let the bad stuff weigh you down.  Some days I am clinging to the fantasy chocolate diet and my dream of a flying unicorn for dear life.

What Happens in Vegas

 My husband and I are planning our yearly anniversary trip to Las Vegas and I am positively giddy.  I'm not much of a gambler and my drunken revelry days are long behind me, but I love Las Vegas.  They say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but I wouldn't mind sneaking some of it home with me.

The first thing I'd cram into my carry on would be the sunshine, of course.  While the rest of the country is experiencing an unusually warm spring, we here in the Pacific Northwest are suffering through endless rounds of snow mixed with rain mixed with sleet mixed with hail mixed with crappy weather.  Even my kids have had enough of snow days.  I've been in Las Vegas in December when it was less than warm, and I'm sure I'd melt about mid-August, but late April/early May weather is positively heavenly. 

Next on my list of souvenirs would be clean towels with just a phone call, no grocery shopping and the whole host of people there to accommodate my every wish.  Yes, I know they're just doing their job (and may well complain about me when they go home at night), but there is nothing lovelier than having a whole city (okay, hotel strip) willing to take on all those pesky chores I drudge through everyday in my real life.  To the maid who replaces the toilet paper roll, the waiter who whisks away my dirty dishes and the janitor who vacuums the casino carpets I'd just like to say:  I love you.

Another Vegas aspect I'd enjoy taking home with me is getting to spend a few precious days of not being a mom.  I love my kids, I really do, but sometimes even the Virgin Mary needed a break. ("Jesus Christ, will you just clean your room?!") The Las Vegas Tourism Board has been trying to hype their city as family friendly, but I'd sooner spend my vacation at a glue factory than bring my kids to Las Vegas with me.  There may very well be all sorts of activities for the under 21 crowd, but I like to think of Las Vegas as a Disneyland for grown ups.  No responsibilities, no one complaining they don't have any clean socks (again!) and no bickering siblings.  Las Vegas is all about me, me, me.  (Okay, maybe my husband, too, but I know they really set it all up for me.)

While I'm looking forward to our trip, I find the closer it gets the less patience I have with my everyday life.  Oh Las Vegas, how will I get through the next month without you?  Can you Fed Ex me some 8o degree weather?  (And maybe a cabana boy with a fruity drink? )

Home Cooking

Let's face it:  my husband did not marry me for my cooking.  I will freely admit that I don't like to cook, I hate going to the grocery store and will quickly skip over any and all cooking shows on TV.  When I first went away to college and had to feed myself, lack of funds and little experience were responsible for such culinary masterpieces as "Mexican Surprise" and "Asian Surprise."  (The only difference between the two was chili powder or soy sauce in my Top Ramen.)  

My husband told me when we first started dating that he knew how to cook. I thought that, and love, would see us through. Unfortunately knowing how and doing are two different things.

When our oldest was in kindergarten his class created a "cookbook" as a Mother's Day gift, a recipe compilation, as dictated by 5-year-olds, of their favorite homemade foods.  My son's contribution was "Honey Toast":  toast the bread, add honey.  This, apparently, was his mother's signature dish.

Last summer our microwave broke and my husband was afraid the kids would starve. Luckily I learned you can cook frozen chicken nuggets in the oven, too.

The other night I was making dinner for my family and congratulating myself that it didn't involve fluorescent orange cheese-flavored powder or any ingredients that would need a chemist to decipher. 
I got to thinking, as I chopped and boiled (and did not use the microwave, thank you very much), how my mother still cooks certain foods when I visit because she knows they are my favorite.  What dishes, I wondered, would my kids recall fondly from their childhood (I mean, besides honey toast)?

There are a few things that I have learned to cook successfully on a regular basis.  My son will happily eat my lasagna any day of the week, a recipe I got from my father.  I think of this as "Norwegian Lasagna", as it calls for cottage cheese instead of something as exotic as ricotta; and my father is Norwegian.  Lasagna is one of the few dishes all three kids will eat without complaint, rolling of eyeballs, or muttering "Again?" with shear disgust.

My older daughter likes my recipe for chicken and black bean enchiladas, which I found in one of those "5 Ingredients or Less", ""One Pot Suppers", "Even You Can't Screw This Up" cookbooks.  Chicken (cooked in the microwave, of course), canned black beans, a can of green chiles, cheese and sour cream rolled up in a tortilla.  They were right, I can't screw it up.

My youngest has more unique taste buds--perhaps the only child to ever utter the phrase "Yum, broccoli!"  She won't eat cereal with milk on it, doesn't like hot chocolate, and has never eaten jelly with her peanut butter.  While her favorite dinners would include salmon and cooked peas (ewww), I know the one recipe she will cherish from her childhood:  Chocolate Chip Pie.

(Right now, all my siblings are smiling and nodding--Oh yeah, Chocolate Chip Pie!)

Chocolate Chip Pie is a treat that my grandmother used to make for us when we were little.  We thought this was Grandma Mabel's secret recipe:  Cool Whip, marshmallows and chocolate chips in a graham cracker crust.  As adults we each got a copy of it written out in our grandmother's handwriting and it is something I treasure.  A few years ago, however, I found the exact same recipe on the back of a graham cracker box.  I choose to believe Nabisco stole it from Grandma Mabel.

While my lack of cooking skills may have instilled less than perfect eating habits in my children (frozen waffles can be served for dinner), I like to think where I have failed, they will choose to succeed.  My grandchildren will perhaps dine on homemade stew and Chicken Parmesan on a regular basis.  And I will happily invite myself to dinner, bringing the Chocolate Chip Pie for dessert, of course.

And on the Third Day...

Three days ago I gave up Facebook for Lent.  This should be easy, I shouldn't be dependent on an internet social network, I can go 40 days without knowing who "likes" who or what.  But it's not, I am and I'm just a little curious.

For me, Facebook is a quick check-in with friends and family.  I spend a lot of time at the computer each day, so it's easy, between entering invoices or paying bills, to log into to Facebook and see what everyone's up to.  It reminds me of my college days when I shared a house with four other women and spontaneous group study breaks took place in the kitchen over a pot of cheap coffee.  You're still up?  Did you finish that paper?  What are your plans for the weekend?

The past couple of days have been mostly about breaking this habit.  Sometimes I find myself bored and restless, looking for something online to entertain me.  Yesterday I actually clicked on the article titled "Kourtney K Reveals Sex of Her Baby."  Yes, I have sunk that low.

But on the positive side, I have had bouts of increased productivity, undistracted by status updates or the new "Timeline."  Wednesday I completed all the paperwork needed for both our personal and company income taxes--this usual takes me several days, what with questions for the accountant and finding the right paperwork.  Done!  Yesterday I drove all the paperwork to the CPA, went grocery shopping, came home to complete the health insurance updates, paid bills and completed invoices. 

Then I found out Kourtney Kardashian is having a little girl.

Only 37 more days to go...

You Can't Make Me

"You can't make me", the four words most likely to drive a parent to drink.  Some children seem to come out of the womb with these words forming in their mouths, just waiting for the muscle control to make it intelligible.  My son is just such a child.  By the age of two we had to try all sorts of tricks to get him in the tub, putting pajamas on required stickers, and getting him to eat anything but peanut butter resorted to out right falsehoods. (I once told him the fish sticks were french fries--it worked for the first four bites.  I considered it a success.)

Now that my children are older (and taller than me), the dreaded phrase has taken on new meaning.  They are right--I can't really make them do anything; not physically anyway.  So I have had to resort to more devious tactics, akin to psychological warfare.

My son, now a sophomore in high school, has played soccer for years and years, and seemed to really enjoy playing on the school team last year.  Now, one week before the beginning of the season, he's announced he no longer wants to play.  Had he been busy with challenging classes and other sports up until now, I could understand, but he's been sitting on the couch playing Xbox and pulling C's in two classes.  I am not feeling very understanding.

It could be that he's decided he really no longer has a passion for the game and wants to spend his energy elsewhere (I just hope it's not getting the high score on Xbox "Modern Warfare").  He says he'd like to go out for track, instead.  But I suspect a large part of this is his "you can't make me" personality.  He likes to say things that he knows will push his parents right over the edge and then turn around and act like it never happened.

Which ever it may be, I have given him an ultimatum:  pick a sport, get a part-time job, or work like h*ll and get straight A's.  His father and I are pretty sure it won't be the last option.

My soon-to-be teenage daughter is proving to be much more pliable.  After a tough couple months with a hard-to-please, quick-to-yell band teacher, she had told us she wasn't going to do band in 8th grade.  The tension in class just wasn't worth it, so she and her best friend had decided to pick a different elective next year.  Again, it's hard to watch them just drop something they're good at and, up until now, have enjoyed.  So I broke out my rah-rah, when-the-going-gets-tough speech and laid it on thick to her and her friend.  I explained that if they wanted to be in band in high school (the high school music teacher is wonderful and the band goes to Disneyland), it wasn't a good idea to take a year off.  I told my daughter if she really, really hated, I'd let her quit, but asked her to think long and hard about it first.

Oh, I am good. 

A few days ago I asked her what she'd decided.  She said she and her friend agreed to stick it out another year with the difficult teacher so they'd be ready for high school.  "Oh," I said, "I changed your mind!"  No, it turns out her friend talked her into it.  Well, at least I'm very persuasive to other people's children.

A week will tell what my son has decided is or isn't his new passion.  Honestly, I really don't care.  As long as it's not Xbox.

Calculus

Our state governor just signed a bill legalizing gay marriage in Washington state, making some people happy and others very, very angry.  The whole thing leaves me a little perplexed.  If the people fighting for gay marriage really knew what marriage was like, would they be fighting so hard for it?  Why are those other people angry?  Do they need a law guaranteeing their right to marry?  (Wait, they already have that).  What the heck is going on here?  To help me understand this conundrum I will take the situation step by step and see if I can't figure it out.

It seems those fighting for gay marriage want to be able to marry the people they love.  Hmm, seems reasonable.  It seems homosexuals are people who get up every morning, go to work, pay taxes, and want to know that if the person they love gets in a horrible car accident,  they will be allowed in the hospital room to say goodbye.  So we have established that gay people work and love and die. ( Hey, just like straight people!)

For the record that I am pro-marriage.  When done right, marriage can be a very good thing.  I am also pro-sex.  Again, when done right, it can be a very, very good thing.  Apparently the stumbling block for some people is the "same" part.  I have to be honest and admit that I cannot fathom marrying someone of my own sex.  Living with a woman would drive me crazy (I don't know how my husband does it).  I really don't get the whole homosexuality thing, but I realize one thing:

Just because I don't understand something does not make it wrong.

Take, for example, calculus--I just never understood it (Imaginary numbers?  What?!).  Be that as it may, many people assure me that it really does exist. It's not just something they decided to try out because it was "cool." I also don't understand why God gave men nipples or why He lets little children die of cancer, but I trust He knows what he's doing. He made some people gay and some people straight.  I don't have to understand it--I just accept it and move on.

Many of those angry over this issue argue homosexuality is forbidden by the bible.  I don't know how many you have read the bible, but it is chock full of all sorts of things we're not supposed to do that plenty of church-going Christians do every day.  Putting aside the very obvious political candidate who has broken at least two of the Ten Commandments, all good Christians should refrain from eating pork (Leviticus 11), getting tattoos (Leviticus 19:28) or live in glass houses. (Or was that throw stones?)
Some say that allowing homosexuals to marry will threaten the institution of marriage. I am currently serving time in that institution and I don't feel threatened at all. This might change if another man wanted to marry my husband, but otherwise I feel pretty safe.  (Actually I'd feel pretty safe anyway--my husband doesn't understand calculus, either.  And he's used to my cooking.)

It seems to me that some people react with fear and anger to things they don't understand.  If they can't fit a something into the framework of their own lives (or holy books), they think that thing is wrong.  What they don't realize is that it's just calculus and no one else understands it, either.  It's just time to accept it and move on.

QED

(Thank you to the website http://www.11points.com/Books/11_Things_The_Bible_Bans,_But_You_Do_Anyway)