Curse you, Yudu!!

I had this great idea for holiday crafts. I found the Yudu screenprinting machine on sale. I would make loads of things! I would make four different prints for Mom, another for Boompah, one for Jenny, one each for Althea and Skye. Until I finally got my package open tonight.

I learned how to make a screen to print a design. And I learned that you can re-use the screen to make another design. Using... the emulsion remover, which is sold separately. Oh yes, and for each new design you want to make, you need a new sheet of emulsion. The machine comes with two. Additional two-packs are $15.95. The emulsion remover is $11. The transparencies are $5.95. It's not clear how many come in a pack (although I believe it's five). The ink comes in three-packs ranging from $16 to $20. At best, each time I want to make a single design, I am shelling out about $10. Obviously the thing to do is use the same design over and over again, but that wasn't really what I wanted. I wanted to make personalized designs for each of my friends.

I guess I should have researched a little better, but all I saw online were raves about how easy it was to use, how you could re-use the screen, how you could do multi-color prints, blah blah blah. No one mentioned the enormous expense you're pouring into this thing!

Bah, humbug.

Nutcracker Sweetie

This one's a bit long, but it's worth watching until the end for the flashdance and robot dance.

Giving Thanks

Brevity is the soul of wit. Also, it is something I am not good at. I'll do my best.

I am thankful foremost for my family. Without them, nothing else would be worth anything. And not just my beautiful daughter and loving husband, but my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws (who have become as much my blood as anyone born into my family), and all those second cousins and once-removeds whom I call cousins.... I love you all.

In hard economic times, I am thankful for my job. Not only does it pay the bills, but it gives me ample discretionary funds and great benefits. And blessings upon blessings, I actually do what I love.

I am thankful for the possessions that make my life so comfortable, like my home and car.

I am thankful for the beautiful art that fills my home, almost all of it made by friends and family.

I am thankful for the neighborhood I live in, with kind neighbors and many conveniences. I love the colors the trees are turning here -- it looks like a stained-glass interpretation of fire.

I am thankful for any good fortune that comes to my friends and family. In specific, I am happy to welcome to earth my friends Matt and CJ's new baby, and the 8-week gestation fava bean that will soon be a baby for my other friends who have been hoping for one for a long time. What joy!

I am thankful for change. Here's a special shout-out to two friends undergoing lots of change this year. MG -- I know you were hoping for a different outcome. But every change in plans leads you closer to the bright future I know is in store for you. Noodle, I know you, too, struggled with unexpected change this year. But look how much closer you have come to your true self and finding out what your dreams really are. I know you will achieve them.

I am thankful for good health.

I am thankful for food, music, books, and the other treasures that enhance our lives.

I just got up from nursing my baby to sleep, and I was thinking how grateful I am that those nearest and dearest to me have been respectful of my parenting decisions. I know of people who get constantly questioned and harangued and advised, and I am spectacularly lucky to have people in my life who trust me to make the best decisions for my kid.

I am thankful for having so many people to love me. I love you right back.

And just in case I missed anything specific, I know that I am unusually blessed. I look around at my life and I see an embarrassment of riches. I know it, and I appreciate it, and I am thankful for it all.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Ahhh, a holiday

How's it going, everyone?

The responses I got to my crafty vent were of the positive variety, and I have just finished one round of crafting and begun another. I enjoy it, really.

I am off for the Thanksgiving holiday, and I have five free days! Yay! We have plans on Thursday and Friday (and Saturday morning), but they are happy plans filled with friends and family and food, so I am looking forward to them.

The baby has been hysterical lately. We saw the neighbors in the driveway on Sunday, and instead of some more traditional greeting, like "Hi,' Zadie waved and announced "I'm beautiful!"

I'm going to have to stop counting words in her sentences: she had a nine word sentence today with a subordinate clause. (For the record, it was "Zadie read the book while I change your diaper." So she doesn't have a grip on pronouns yet, but whatever.)

Last night I was knitting* a hat for my great-nephew, who will make his appearance this spring. Zadie kept asking "What are you doing, Mama?" I would answer "I'm making a hat for baby Aidan." She answered "He won't like it." She repeated this several times, and finally I said "Zadie, you're kind of hurting my feelings. I really hope that baby Aidan likes it." I held it out so she could touch it and said "here, it's soft. Touch it." She stroked it for a moment, then said thoughtfully, "He will like it."

We went to a birthday party on Sunday for my cousin and Zadie had a blast. It was at an indoor bounce house-o-rama thing. I've never seen such bouncing. There were whole bouncy obstacle courses and bouncy slides. Zadie really wanted to go on the bouncy slides, but as far as I'm concerned, they're not really made for overweight adults. I climbed up four of five of them and was exhausted! Picture this: you're on an inflatable slope of about 70 degrees. On it, there are several "steps" made out of something like a PVC tube encased in slippery vinyl. Guess what happens? Your weight pushes the "step" into the slope, and the vinyl causes you to lose your footing and slip down (you have to wear socks). And of course, I was trying to navigate these things with a toddler under one arm who refused to be perched on top without me. But the plain old bouncy house was great fun. We bounced a lot. And then there was cake, and cake is awesome.

Hope you're all well. I'll do my traditional annual Thanksgiving post in a day or two. As always, I have a great deal to be Thankful for.



*I can't actually knit, but I have a Knifty Knitter loom, upon which I can make hats.

She's crafty

I'm questioning the wisdom of all the crafting I do for Christmas. In past years, I've made purses, tote bags, scarves, fridge magnets, soaps, candles, bath fizzies, bath scrubs and more.

With rare exception (like my mommy, who tries to spare my feelings) I never see anyone using this stuff. No one has ever come back a few months later and said "you know that bath scrub? That smelled great!" I've never seen a candle on display in someone's house or apartment. I've never seen a soap out in the bathroom.

And I admit -- some of the stuff I make sucks and doesn't come out as intended. Like the fridge magnets -- the pictures got so distorted you couldn't tell what they were (Mom displayed them anyway). But not all of it -- the soaps were good. The purses were (I thought) cute.

Every year I spend hours and hours (I don't even know how many) making this stuff and usually hundreds of dollars on the fabric, etc., and I wonder if I mightn't be better off just giving everyone a gift card somewhere.

I mean, I enjoy crafting, and theoretically it's the thought that counts. I typically put a lot of thought into things. Like, I chose the colors for one of my crafting materials this year based on what would look best with people's wardrobes and eyes and such. But if people receive this stuff, think "Oh, another piece of crap from Mockula," and promptly trash it, then it's not really serving them or me.

Any thoughts? And I'm not just looking for ego strokes. Be honest about whether this is worth my time.

Notes on risotto

I'm taking a vegetarian entree to Thanksgiving. I decided I'd test-run the recipe to make sure it was good. I searched a bit and found this one and made it tonight.
Pumpkin risotto.

Now, I don't know why it's called "pumpkin risotto" when there's no pumpkin in it, but whatever. What bothered me about it were two things.

First, Puck obviously loves having a staff of fucking people washing his dishes. For this recipe, you needed a cutting board and knife, optionally a vegetable peeler, three pots for the stove, a roasting pan, a food processor or immersion blender and bowl, a grater, a measuring cup, a ladle, a spoon... I think that might be it, but sheesh!

Second, the recipe asked for several steps I would not normally do in making risotto (and I have been making it pretty regularly for about 15 years). For example, half the butternut squash had to be diced and sauteed, and the other half had to be roasted and pureed. Normally, whatever veggies I put in, I just stir them in raw towards the end of the cooking time and they cook in the risotto. At the very least, why wouldn't he just sautee all the damned squash and puree half? There's no particularly amazing subtle flavor you get out of roasting the squash as opposed to sauteeing it.

The result? It was good, although not much better than my usual stuff. On Thursday, I might go ahead and take some liberties with the recipe. Oh, also, I used reduced-sodium broth and it really needed a bit of salt at the end.

By the way, Zadie just said "Mama is freakin' awesome." Yes, yes I am.

Two cute Zadie-isms

Today I heard a thump as Zadie was walking around the living room messing with things. I said "What are you doing?" She replied "I'm doing stuff." I said "are you doing good stuff or bad stuff?" She said "bad stuff."

Tonight I was trying to get her to sleep (incidentally, it's 9:08 and she's STILL not asleep) and I started telling her the story of how Sweetie and I met. I began "Once upon a time, Mommy and Daddy didn't even know each other." She interrupted, yelling "get married!" I told her that was at the end, and went on. I got to the part where we went on our first date, and she said "I'm getting married." I said "Oh? To whom?" She said "Daddy. I love Daddy, too."

She's asleep early - I can blog (while avoiding other tasks).

There's nothing monumental to write about, but I thought as long as I had a few minutes (and have schoolwork to avoid), I'd pop in here.

Z and I went to the Co-op this morning, and the plan was to go to Avid Reader afterwards. Her naptime varies, but she often doesn't go to sleep until 12:30 or so. I was cutting it close, but thought I could get her home in time. Nope -- she fell asleep pretty much as soon as we left the Co-op parking lot, but I went to Avid Reader anyway. There, I got her out of the car and settled into the sling with as little jostling as possible, and she pretty much stayed asleep. I got our book, walked around, ate a sandwich, and went to the record store before she woke up.

At home, she had a little lunch, then we went to the neighbor's birthday party. I was a little concerned she'd be overwhelmed by all the bigger kids and the noise, but she was perfectly happy. She found a doll-size stroller and pushed it around for about two hours. They had several sit-in-a-circle kind of games that she was uninterested in, so I kind of just kept an eye on her as she pushed the stroller, looked at the koi pond, shoved grapes into her mouth, etc. During "musical cushions," the kids were REALLY slow at finding a cushion to sit on, and the mom was encouraging them to "find a cushion to sit on, find a cushion!" So Zadie climbed back up the steps to the patio, walked by all the kids, and plopped on an empty cushion. She got to have a juice box at the party, so she was THRILLED. In fact, she didn't even seem to care about the cake.

Just the other day, my dad and I were talking about Zadie's "jumping" skills. She says "I'm jumping," bends her knees, and pops up, but rarely gets any air, or only lifts one foot off the ground. So I was surprised today when she started successfully jumping and continued to do so for several minutes.

Also this evening, she grabbed a pencil and Sweetie gave her some paper. She scribbled happily for a while, then said "I'm drawing Mama." A minute later, she turned the page, scribbled intently, and said "I writed! I writed my name!" Then she pointed to the scribble and read "Zadie."

I've been slacking on grading papers because I have so little quiet time to myself at night and I have several craft projects I really want to do. I made a hat for my teenage nephew, but when I finished it and asked Sweetie to try it on, I realized that that one is going to have to go to my little nephew and I have to start another, bigger one for the first nephew. Also, Sweetie's birthday is this week, and he's asked for no presents, so I'm trying to craft a little something he'll like, but my first version didn't work, so I only have a few chances to get that done, too. Plus, I'm excited about some of my other Christmas crafts (not to be described here, as some of my readers will be receiving them as gifts) and I want to get started on those.

Okay, off to (most likely) find more ways to procrastinate!

Take care,
CM

So proud of my little genius

Okay, maybe "genius" is taking it a bit far, but watch her sing Frere Jacques! Check her out as she recognizes shapes! Gaze upon her as she tells you what the doctor said when mama called the doctor!

I'm just crazy for this little girl.

Oh, incidentally, we are still nursing, and she regularly tells me "I need booby time." But I've been trying to not offer it to her and only give it to her when she asks. Two nights ago, I was wearing jammies with a zipper and I laid down with her in bed. I said "Do you want to cuddle?" She said yes. I was internally congratulating myself on not automatically offering the breast, thinking that I might just cuddle her to sleep, when I heard "zzzziiipp" and she helped herself to mama's booby buffet.

Today I...

Got up with the baby, sang songs, read books, started to make coffee, played on the internet, emailed auntie Maryam, asked Sweetie if he wanted to go out to breakfast (he didn't), started to toast a bagel, took a phone call from Jenny, who wanted to go to breakfast, and took the baby to breakfast with Jenny.

Then we...

Went to Trader Joe's, got a balloon, came home, tidied up, read the paper, nursed the baby to sleep, watched an online episode of "Community," played on Facebook, tried to lay the baby down and accidentally woke her up, fed her lunch, then packed a bag.

Then we...

Went to the park, went down the slide, picked up garbage, talked to our neighbors, swung on the swings, pointed at chalk drawings, admired a pink bag, admired a pink bike, talked to a baby extensively, then Zadie pushed the baby, so she said sorry, but then she kicked the baby, so we both said sorry and left the park, went to Corti's for sandwiches, stopped at Save-Mart for bagels, and came home.

Then we...

Read some books, snuggled, watered the plants with Daddy, stomped in puddles, changed out of our wet clothes, ate sandwiches, read a blog about Madeline Spohr that made me cry, watched Abby Cadabby videos, ate half a cookie, and picked out a few books and snacks to take to Grandpa's tomorrow.

Now I'm...

Trying to blog while Zadie crawls all over me insisting "No do things!" Luckily, she has gotten distracted by "riding the bicycle" (the arm of the couch).

Happy Veteran's Day. I know I have such a wonderful life in part because of all the brave men and women who've fought for it.

Her little mod dress.

IMG_0727
Originally uploaded by countmockula

Otra vez, en Español

Mom's been taking Zadie to Spanish classes. I think they've gone for three weeks. Apparently, she mostly wanders around the room and sits in all the other mothers' laps. Unlike the older kids, she has no concept of sitting down and listening to a teacher. So Mom was thinking, well, maybe she's too young, and we'll try again later. That same day, Zadie referred to her head as her "cabeza," mentioned a "calabaza" (pumpkin) and counted "uno, dos, tres." So she's getting something by osmosis, I guess.

She's so much fun right now that it's hard to imagine any period later on being better than this one. She is imaginative, talkative, cuddly... She told me "I'm a lady dancer" the other day, and has also informed me that she loves booby time. She wanted me to nurse her Sweetpea doll, and when I did, she looked at me like I was obviously missing something and said "Mama, pat her!"

She tells us "I'm helping" and "I'm doing stuff" and "I'm busy."

She has got SUCH an ear for music. I sing her a wide variety of songs, but there are obviously some I know more of the words to and thus sing more often. Among those is Joni Mitchell's "California." Today I had just gotten to the end of the first verse when she sang "Ooooooh, lonely..." (The chorus begins "oh, it gets so lonely.") Last night I was humming (not singing) Paul Simon's "Saint Judy's Comet," when she said "Little girl." (Although the lyrics are actually "little boy, won't you lay your body down," I have always sung it "little girl" for obvious reasons.)

We seem to be done with the crib and have completely moved to the big girl bed. It's been since last Sunday, anyway, and she's been sleeping really well and telling me "no crib!" At night, I have started laying with her in the big girl bed and cuddling her to sleep, then getting up. Well, if I don't fall asleep myself, that is. Several nights this week, I did, and I had like a 30 minutes nap before getting up again. I initially cursed the time that I lost, thinking of all the cleaning, baking, food preparation, essay grading, gym-going and whatnot I could be doing instead. But then I thought of how soon it would be before she didn't want me to cuddle her to sleep anymore, and how after that, for the rest of both our natural lives, I won't be cuddling her to sleep, and I decided that all that other stuff can wait.

Here's a video of Zadie, as she would say, "doing stuff."

Random venting about work

Feel free to ignore.

A kid emailed me about a paper that was due today. They've known about it for ten days, but I heard them talking this morning about who was up latest last night writing. Anyway, among his lengthy, polite request for an extension, was this gem: "Do you have your own personal reasons why you absolutely have to have them typed and on paper when class starts tomorrow?" My reply should have been "Why, thanks for asking. Indeed I do: it's the motherfucking due date."

When one organizes a field trip, there are four documents one has to turn in. But there doesn't appear to be a place in the entire world where it is written down which forms you need. My method, thus far, has been to approach the keeper-of-all-knowledge (i.e., the vice-principal's secretary) and attempt to submit part of the paperwork, only to be turned down. Once you can find out what forms are needed, some of them are available on the district's web site. Another of them appears to be, but the links are broken. Luckily, I have half a brain, because I was able to search the web site and find it anyway. Today I created myself a little folder with a checklist and all the forms. Do you suppose there's a reason that information wasn't available elsewhere?


I don't hate the 9th grade curriculum as much as I used to. I miss teaching literature, but I can see the benefit of teaching stuff the kids are into. But the dude who created them is long out of the classroom, and I think he forgets useful stuff. For example, the kids were given a timeline with blanks (5 pages) and a sheet of text that could fill in the blanks, listed by number. The kids are supposed to fill in the numbers on the timeline. But then the teacher's copy of the correct answers has the text all filled in, not the numbers. So if a kid says "hey, could you check this for me?" (which happens approximately twenty-thousand times), you have to see what number they have, see where it is on their timeline, look at your own timeline to see where the blank was, then look at the words (not the number), then consult ANOTHER paper to see if those words match the number. You have to have seven pages in your hand and flip back and forth between them. In a fit of pique, I edited it on the shared computer drive to include the correct numbers.

Another example? There's a thing called a "make and break," where kids get a piece of text, out of order, and have to put it in order. If the chunks were out of order on the original copy, you could simply hand the kids a pair of scissors, say "get going," and it would take them about two minutes to cut them out before they re-organized them. But that would be simple. Instead, they are in order, which means you, the teacher, have to cut them all out, organize tiny strips of paper into 26 separate piles (one per kid), and mix them up so the kids don't have them in order. But wait! If you cut them just once, the kids can match up the cut-marks and throw it together in about 20 seconds like the world's easiest puzzle. So instead, I cut each one TWICE so that they can't match them up. Two minutes of the kids cutting versus approximately 30 minutes of my time. STUPID.

We have a new grading program. It has several positive features, which I like, so I am using it instead of sticking with the old program. But it has several intensely annoying flaws. First, you can't "weight" a grade. In my old program, I could give a quiz with 7 questions, call it worth 50 points, and the computer would do the math for me. This new one won't.

Even worse, when you're entering grades, unless you view it one assignment at a time, you can't tell what assignment you're grading. If I try to grade several assignments at a time (like a packet of work), the only thing the spreadsheet will show me is the due date of the assignment and a little caret. If I want to know the name of the assignment, I have to scroll up to the caret and let my cursor rest there, and even then it won't tell me how many points it was worth or anything. I can't tell you how annoying that is.

And finally, if a kid transfers out of my class, I no longer have any record of their grades. Twice, someone has transferred out and another teacher has asked me for their grade or whether they have a deficiency notice, and I have absolutely no idea and no way to access it.

Furthermore, are there fixes? Ways to change those settings? Ways to work around it? Ways to retrieve the information on a transferred student? Who knows, because although I've tried both the phone number and the email address set up to assist us, I've gotten no reply.

And I think this is the last thing -- our district has banned certain web sites from our internet. Fine. Of course you wouldn't want students to be able to access porn, or those cheating "free essays" web sites or whatever. Or games. But they've also outlawed all blogs (even educational ones), YouTube, and Netflix. Well, last year I used Netflix several times to show movies that related to my content. For example, we were learning about Mount Everest and I showed "Everest: Beyond the Limit." As a Netflix subscriber, I can play it right on my computer, which hooks up to the TV in my room. But not anymore. Now if I want to show it, I'll have to remember to request it, send back whatever movie I've got at home, make sure I am prepared about five days in advance of when I want to show it, and not have a movie of my own to watch if I want at home. I know several other teachers used Netflix for the same reason. Why should that be banned? It's for fricking educational purposes! So I decided to do something. On the "blocked" page that popped up, there was an email link, in case you wanted to talk to someone who could unblock the site. I clicked it. Guess what came up? "mailto:insertemailhere." So they'd never even updated the page with the correct person's information. I emailed two other people, one on campus and one at the district office, to try to figure out who was the correct person to talk to about it. No one ever contacted me back.


On the brighter side, as I always say, 90% of my job takes place in the classroom with my kids, and that is the best part of my job. And I know that in this economy, I should be happy to even have a job. So my vent is officially over. But man, I had to get it out!

Zadie plays a spelling game

Just to orient you, she is sitting next to me using a game on my iPhone.

Dear "Cheftestants;"

I just watched this week's Top Chef, and I am so disappointed. The contestants were asked to create a "fine dining" meal for Natalie Portman, who's a vegetarian. They were given an absolute boatload of possible ingredients to use. Here's what they came up with -- some boiled leeks, some rolled-up eggplant, a couple bites of artichoke with fennel puree, a couple bites of eggplant, some mushrooms with kale, an asparagus salad with banana polenta, and a random mixture of vegetables including thinly sliced beets and a few fresh chickpeas.

They don't all sound like they'd taste bad, but my god, I'd be so hungry afterward! And did they forget about ingredients besides vegetables? I mean, I love veggies as much as (probably more than) the next guy, but fer chrissakes, I would like a carb or a legume, too! One of the judges asked the losing contestant what his protein was. He replied that the leeks were, like, simulating a protein. Huh?

So for the benefit of the chefs who were completely thrown by the vegetarian challenge, here are some ideas for you based on my favorite local dishes.

At Tower Cafe, they serve a chile relleno that is completely elevated by a couple things. First, instead of just cheese, they add currants and pine nuts to the filling. Second, they use a fresh pasilla chile instead of canned, and it retains its texture. Finally, they bread it with something like panko and deep fry it so that it remains whole and toothsome instead of a soggy eggy mess.

At Maalouf's Taste of Lebanon, they make a fantastic falafel sandwich. Fresh, steaming balls of falafel are stuffed in a pita with lettuce, tomato, and pickle spears and doused in tahini sauce. Maybe it's not fine dining, but try adding some fresh herbs, make your own pita bread (easy), and maybe play with the pickles and tahini... The show frequently asks contestants to make street food into fine dining. Why not try it with falafel?

At 33rd Street Bistro, they make a panini with roasted eggplant, roasted red peppers and cambozola cheese. It's a great combo.

At Paesano's, they have a penne pasta with kalamata olives, whole cloves of roasted garlic, and crumbled feta. I know pasta is the "easy out" when it comes to vegetarian food, but it can be sublime.

At Celestin's, they have a creole vegetable stew served with black beans and rice. On the side you can also get tomato-avocado salade, tostones, sweet potato fries, or corn cakes.

At the Sacramento Brewing Company (I haven't been in a while, but they used to have this) there's an eggplant napoleon with pesto, goat cheese, and a tomato sauce.

At any Indian restaurant (we go to Kathmandu Kitchen) you can get a samosa stuffed with potatoes and peas and served with a tamarind or mint sauce. Or what about a curry and rice?

At Tres Hermanas I get a big platter of fajitas. Again, perhaps fajitas don't lend themselves to fine dining, but think of how you could tweak it so they could. I know that at Mustard's Grill in Napa, I always get the corn tamales.

At Kamon sushi, they have several beautiful vegetarian rolls. My favorite isn't on the menu -- it's called the Mary roll, and it includes tenpura sweet potato and avocado.

At Ravenous Cafe, I had a terrific risotto with mushrooms.

Cafe Bernardo makes a grilled polenta with marinara sauce that's a great standby if I'm not getting a sandwich or pizza.

And that short list is leaving off things like Moroccan couscous with vegetables, various Asian foods like pad thai or "Buddha's Delight" or pho, Greek foods like spanikopita, tiropitas, and dolmas, and a bajillion more ethnic cuisines. I know I'm not a chef and as a home cook, I'm not under the same pressure that the potential Top Chefs are. No one's going to vote me out of the kitchen. But I manage to come up with filling, healthy tasty vegetarian meals about five nights a week. And I guarantee it's not going to be two chunks of boiled leek.