Garage Band

The Boy (and I) had a party of sorts, to celebrate the Summer Solstice (and the fact that I'm on vacation this week). He invited two friends, and I invited The Author, and we set up the Rock Band in the garage, creating an instant Garage Band. We spent the early part of the day shopping and baking, and cleaning/setting up. We all had a very good time, but there were a few flaws in the evening: The time got away from us and there was little actual cleaning done in the garage. Not a big deal, because we certainly had fun anyway, but we all ended up a little dirtier than I would have liked. Also, we were going to have grilled pizza, but we couldn't because I gave it cancer.

I mixed two batches of dough to make eight pizzas for the five of us, and put the olive-oiled balls into the oven to rise, like I always do, pleased that it would be ready for whenever I could pry the boys away from the garage for a while and get them to eat. (Speaking of eating, I had set out baskets of chips and stuff, and a tray of veggies with dip, and do you know those good boys actually ate the vegetables? I didn't touch a single one.) Anyway, The Author brought some frozen appetizers with her, and we decided to get those ready when we started to get hungry . . . and without thinking about what was innocently (deliciously) sitting in the over, I cranked it up to 450-degree for about fifteen minutes. I believe I may have uttered a curse word or two when I opened the oven door, expecting to shove in a tray of cheese sticks, only to discover two lightly baked lumps of bowl-shaped dough--with plastic wrap melted into the tops of them. I don't know about you, but to me melting plastic into your dough is tantamount to giving it cancer. "Scatterbrained Pizza Dough--now with the cancer baked right in!"

We ended up ordering pizza once the boys gave in and admitted they were hungry enough to stop playing for ten minutes, and while I was slightly heartbroken, no one else really seemed to mind.

It was a very good evening, even once it started to rain and we had to move the entirety of the party into the cruddy confines of the garage (the whole thing could only have been rendered more trashy if I'd filled the cooler with Meister Brau instead of Coke and Sprite, tossed around a few bags of Cheetos, and maybe threw in a pack of Newports for good measure). There are few things better than spending a breezy summer evening laughing and singing.

Speaking of singing, The Author earned a Rock Band 100% on vocals with her turn at Bon Jovi's Wanted Dead or Alive. What song did I earn my 100% on, you ask? Molly Hatchet's Flirtin' with Disaster.



I am able to do a fairly good job of emulating the man on the far left, and I'm not sure I can be very pleased about that. I had no idea Southern Rock was one of my strengths.

Better Late than Never; A Tale of the Wildly Lazy and Apathetic

I have lived in my apartment since February of 2004, and in all that time my bedroom door hasn't latched properly. I never even really noticed it, in fact, until I got the cats and tried to sleep without them digging into me with their kitten claws in the middle of the night. I closed the door, got into bed, and they pushed it open, waltzed in, and commenced filleting.

Did I do anything about the door? No. I gave it a cursory glance, noted astutely that something wasn't right, and then endured the cats' claws because I knew it would pass.

I didn't think about the door again until recently, when one of the cats developed a bladder infection--suddenly there were little bursts of cat pee everywhere, and I really didn't want cat pee on our beds. I closed the door to The Boy's room, no problem, but mine . . . what to do?


The cat on the left is the pee cat, but I am hopeful he won't be for much longer.

The Boy solved part of the problem by hooking a bungee around the doorknob and attaching it to the closet, so it couldn't swing into the room and open. Ha! Humans 1; Kitties 0. But how to keep the door closed from the inside? Why, put something heavy in front of it, of course!

This worked well enough until about 3am the other night, when Thing 1 and Thing 2 decided that they really needed to get into my room, and so proceeded to throw themselves at the door, like two small bettering rams. The noise was quite something, especially in the still of the night, and I lay in bed fearing that my stronghold might not be so strong. At last, desperate to keep my bedroom a pee-free zone, I took my comforter and pillow and slept on the floor in front of the door. I knew there was no way there were going to be able to kick me out of the way, and either I was tired enough to get used to the noise and sleep, or they gave up. Humans 2; Kitties 0. I lasted there on the floor until about 5:30, and then slid gratefully into bed for another 30 minutes.

To say the situation was untenable is kind of an understatement. What did I do? It finally occurred to me to grab a screwdriver and try taking the little plate off the door frame to see if it was preventing the latching. Guess what? It was. The door now latches firmly, and the cats won't be able to get in unless they learn how to turn the knob. I added the extra touch of closing a polar fleece sock into the door jamb, and now there's no room to rattle. Humans 3; Kitties 0.

I am now sleeping in peace, knowing that no creature without opposable thumbs can enter my bedroom without my consent and assistance. And it only took about four years.

Movin' On Up

School’s out. There was a brunch yesterday for the fifth-graders and their parents, and then the Moving Up Day ceremony at which The Boy received a medal for winning the Math Olympiad (my kid’s a math-lete!) and a certificate for his News Bowl team’s 2nd place finish in the state’s current events competition. He’s officially out of the Lower School, where he spent the seven years from pre-K though 5th grade, and into Middle School, where he will change classes, have study halls and electives, play on the school soccer and basketball teams, and get to go to dances.

He’s excited and apprehensive about Middle School, but he’s also sad about leaving 5th grade. He has his first male teacher this year, and he loved Mr. S. (a totally cool and very traditional Pittsburgh guy, who happily wore Steeler ties with his short-sleeved button downs and always seemed to need a haircut) more than he’d loved any teacher since the sweet, cozy ladies in pre-K. The Boy is also sorry to be leaving Mr. R., the accelerated math teacher. I still have no idea how the man with the incredibly soft, soggy handshake was able to light such a fire under the math kids, but they thought he—and, by extension, math—was super-cool, and that’s good enough for me.

The Boy spent the second half of the year learning about immigration. Here's a photo of him as his immigrant character, Pol, who I believe came to America from Latvia (he wanted to be from LatVERia, like Dr. Doom, but the teacher wasn't having it).



Please note Pol's face, because, in The Boy's words, "Immigrants always look miserable and sad in those old photos." Nice touch with those turned-out pockets, too. Because, you know: Poor.



This is from yesterday, when the kids all got their final papers, after having completed their immigration procedures. Nice purple hat (which was of course tossed in the air after the ceremony), and NICE HAIR. But he loves the hair. Whatever. We'll see how much he loves it after a hot, itchy, shaggy dog summer.

He's with his grandparents until Friday, being petted and feted and generally treated like a prince. Being their only grandchild has its advantages.

How I Spent My Summer Vacations

I had some very, very good summers as a kid. My parents put in a pool the year I was nine—nothing fancy, just a 24-foot circle of clear blue water that sat in the backyard—so from that time on my sister and I would wake up, put on bathing suits, do whatever chores were required of us, and head for the pool. I can’t count the number of hours we spent playing games, choreographing elaborate water performances, perfecting back flips off the deck, and making whirlpools. As long as there was an adult around to make sure no one drowned, we were never, ever bored.

We only ever went into the house to eat and to watch The Price is Right. My mother complained about having wet towels everywhere, and of water tracked in a trail to the bathroom, but she loved the pool as much as we did. My dad, on the other hand, saw it as a waste of water and money, and rarely ever got in it. His loss, I say.

I developed my love for poolside reading at an early age. I read floating on rafts. I read walking around in the center of an inner tube, with my booked propped on the edge, resolutely avoiding splashes. I read on the pool deck with my feet in the water, or standing in the water with my book on the deck. Sometimes, when it was chilly, I’d go out to the driveway, make sure the car’s windows were up, and read on the backseat until I got too hot to breathe, then I’d run for the relief of the cold pool water.

It’s an understatement to say my sister and I were very tan—we’re of Slavic and Italian peasant stock, and were seemingly meant to absorb sunshine with never a burn and rarely a freckle. Sunscreen was unheard of in our corner of the world, although we were happy to slather ourselves with Ban de Soliel (for that St. Tropez tan, of course). My sister tanned to a deep gold, but I turned brown, brown, brown. Like a nut. Like a bean. Like I will never do again, because I’m afraid of looking like a baseball glove. (Happily, though, our mom was super-tan then too, and she has great skin now. Let’s hope we follow in her footsteps.)

The summers weren’t all pool, of course. We played girls’ softball, and endless games of softball in the yard with neighbors (and ghost runners), and I forced my sister and the two younger neighbor kids to play school with me when we were all pretty little. (I loved playing school, and spent a full winter making up standardized tests [complete with instructions, bubbles to fill in, and an answer key] on reams of graph paper, in anticipation of playing school the following summer. My sister and her friends were not pleased, to say the least, but I made them take the tests. Because I was the eldest, and the biggest. So there!)

There was a Presbyterian church up the road from us, and one summer the mothers got it into their heads that they were sick of us (this was pre-pool) and decided to stick us all into the church’s Vacation Bible School. I have to say that our small group of Catholic school kids was flummoxed by some of the songs we sang, like the one about how we had the joy, joy, joy, joy down in our hearts, and that if the devil didn’t like it he could sit on a tack. What? Sit on a tack! WHAT? Sit on a tack. I remember all of us looking like we thought that should NOT have been going on in church. I also remember making a tiny wishing well out of an empty baby food jar, disassembled wooden/spring clothes pins, and popsicle sticks. The experience wasn’t unpleasant, but I remember being relieved to be done with “those Christian people”.

Anyway, the only thing that I really longed for over my long kid summers was to be able to take classes (or even just one class) at the community college. I wanted to take a foreign language, creative writing, or a science or math class, and I BEGGED, but my mother would never go for it because her work schedule varied too much to be able to commit to getting me there and back. Plus, I think she was suspicious about my wanting to go to school in the summer. She was certainly suspicious (at the same time she was sort of proud) of all my reading. There was lots of, “Get your head out of that book and go play.” I loved going out and playing, but I loved being a Smart Kid™ too, and I really, really wanted to be smarter.

I guess it didn’t matter. When I finally got old enough to drive myself to the community college, I got busy with boys and jobs and cheerleading practice, and lovely trashy novels, and I let the idea of summer classes go. In fact, I would have been embarrassed about taking any kind of school in the summer by then—I still liked being smart, but it seemed much, much more important to figure out how to be cool.

But still. Maybe I’d have known better if they’d have let me take those classes.

I've Got Spirit, Yes I Do!

I am not a sports fan; I am a cheerleader. This is not easy to admit, but here's some evidence, scanned in from my high school yearbook:



I'm the first one, left front. (One of the yearbook boys liked me. And no wonder--I had no idea then, but just look at those cute legs! Also, since I'm coming clean here, note that I am wearing my class ring. Which I still have for some reason. Want it?)

Anyway, I like to play sports, and I can appreciate athletic grace and prowess, and sometimes I can admire strategy. I know most of the major sports' major rules, and am able to define terms like icing, offsides, traveling and holding, and can usually recognize them when they're happening on the field/ice/court/playing surface.

I really like the TV show Sport Science, because I love seeing the way the human body functions in terms of athletics.

I like the stories that get told through sporting events (not to be confused with the mini-dramas about the athletes Bob Costas narrates to fill time during the Olympics). I love the emotions on the players' faces.

What I like most about sports, though, is the community aspect of it all, and I think this is where my cheerleading history shows through: I love the home team. It embarrasses me to admit it now, but I was one of those dorky kids who always had school spirit. It only makes sense that I would grow up to have a hometown spirit too, I guess, and like the Penguins as representatives of the city more than I like hockey.

I used to fight the sports things entirely. My first feminist inklings showed up in high school, when the stupidrottenhorribleeviljackass of an athletic director wouldn't allow the cheerleading squad to be listed as a team (which would have given us money for things like uniforms) despite the fact that we competed. You know, against other schools. Like all the other teams did. Then, when we raised our own money and kicked ass at some competitions, that same AD wouldn't let us put our trophies in the trophy case (where the football, baseball, and wrestling trophies lived), because of his decree that cheerleading wasn't a sport (our trophies got stuffed into corners in some of the administrative offices). It didn't matter that we ran and lifted weights, or that many of us were great gymnasts or dancers (who had no dance or gymnastics teams to join, because our school didn't have them). All that mattered was that he decided we couldn't be called athletes.

I still really dislike that man.

Anyway, the whole thing was an exercise in being a second-class citizen, and I resented the reality that the football players (some of whom where very nice guys and good students, and some of whom were the kind who would happily punch girls) were clearly seen to be more important than I was.

I blamed football (because we were indeed an All About the Football school), and turned my back on it and the whole of organized sports for a long time. And then, a few years ago, I watched Friday Night Lights (the movie, not the TV show), and it all came rushing back. I missed it so much! I missed the drama and excitement, and the earnestness of sports--I had grown up with it, and it was a part of me, and I'd have to figure out how to reconcile the idiocy and the money and the bad behavior and the big business, because sports can be a lot of fun.

I suppose it helps that I have a son, and that he's become a sports fan and is growing into a capable little athlete, but I hold his sports experience (as a player, not a fan) as something different. I watch him play and practice soccer the way any parent watches her kid play a sport or dance in a recital or act in a play--it's not at all the same as paying to watch strangers or acquaintances play.

Anyway, the joy of sports for me is in the way the whole city gets behind the Steelers or the Pens, and even the struggling Pirates. I love seeing everyone out and about on a game day, grinning at one another as they take in each other's black and gold regalia. In Pittsburgh, at least, it doesn't matter if you're a big fat middle-aged mom or a skinny little geeky guy; all you have to do is sport the black and gold, and people are friendly--because for a while, anyway, we all have something in common: we're supporting the home team.

So while I can't quote you any stats on shots taken versus goals scored, I can tell you that I'm really pleased the Penguins have gone from looking to move to another city last fall to being four games away from bringing the Stanley cup back to Pittsburgh. And I believe that pride and pleasure is all that's required of me to be able to unabashed when I say Let's Go Pens!

I am a Rock; I am an Island

I am neither rock nor island, really, but I am all alone. ALLLLL alone. The Boy is on his way to West Virginia for the Big Field Trip. He's so excited, and I'm excited for him--but I am going to be on pins and needles until his bus pulls back into the school parking lot Wednesday night. He literally has never been this far away from me, and he didn't take his phone because there's no service there. Do you realize what this means, people? It means that for the first time since he was born--in December of 1996, I am going to spend more than 48 hours without any communication from my kid. He's of course not bothered by this AT ALL: I didn't even get a hug and kiss goodbye. Ingrate. Macho. Sigh.

Honestly, I'm not worried about him or his safety once he's there, but I am worried about the bus trip there and back. I fully admit that I am a paranoid freak, but I might call the place late this afternoon and just make sure the bus made it there. Then I can breathe until Wednesday afternoon, when they start to make their way back.

Yes, I am a worrier. I deal with it, and I do my honest best to keep The Boy from knowing just how much I worry, but . . . there really isn't much I can do about it.

In other news, I sold an old bed frame on Craig's List, and the guy came to pick it up at the crack of dawn Saturday morning. Since I was up, The Boy and I went to the big neighborhood yard sale, where I spent $30 on a big bag of books, a bike to replace The Boy's crashed one, and a bike rack for the car. Sounds great, right? But . . . (of course there's a but) we immediately put the rack on the car, hooked the bike to it, and drove to MP to see my dad. We were planning to go in anyway, to see if he could fix the pedals on the crashed bike, so we figured we'd take the new bike for him to go over and make sure it was safe.

So we drove to MP, and got there to discover that the front wheel had fallen off the bike on the way. UGH! I actually did the old, I'm Shocked! move of clapping my hand over my mouth. We retraced our route (just as far as the turnpike) to see if we could find it, and of course could not. Then we went to Wal-Mart (ugh) to see if we could buy one, but they only sell whole bikes. By the way, there *is* a bike shop in MP, and of course we went there, but it's CLOSED ON WEEKENDS. Isn't it amazing that everyone in MP is able to fulfill their bike needs between from 9-5, Monday through Friday?

It was too late to go to the local bike shop by the time we got back home, so we went yesterday when they opened at noon. The cheapest wheel, tire, and tube set the guy had would have cost $75, and he was very, very reluctant to sell it to me because he said the bike was a piece of junk and that it would be a waste to put such an expensive tire on it. And then he brought out a used bike that had just come in that day, which The Boy promptly fell for . . . which I agreed to buy for $120. It will have a full tune-up, new tires, and new brakes. And supposedly the bike would have cost about $600 when it was new.

The Boy's thrilled, but I don't know whether I did the right thing. Suddenly the $15 yard sale bike has cost a whole lot more. On the one hand, The Boy will have a good bike that he'll be able to ride and keep until he's pretty much a grown-up (or able to fork over for his own damn bike). On the other hand, I'm probably a chump.

And I am SO SICK of thinking about it!

Happy Mother's Day

I will preface this by saying that I had a nice day, because I got to spend it with my kid, whom I love a great deal. BUT, I had to drive to Indiana (PA, not the state) in rain and gusty-blowing-the-car-off-the-road winds, to arrive at the soccer field in a hail storm, and then stand around for a half-hour while the refs waited for enough lightening that they felt they had to call the game. We hung around for a while longer and then drove right back home in the rain.

But, like I said, it was still a good day. The Boy is an excellent car companion, and never fails to entertain. He fashioned a lovely rain hat from a a deflated beach ball that had been stuffed under the seat. "You can't say I'm not resourceful." You're right, Boy. I can't. But I *can* say you probably shouldn't wear that thing outside of the car.

In Mother's Day gift news, I scored a sweet card, with sentiments of The Boy's love preserved in his own handwriting and drawings, AND a basket for the front of my bike. Woo! I'm seriously happy about the basket, because I want to be able to carry more than what I can fit on my back.

So, yes. A very nice day, indeed.

Yesterday was nice too. I took a huge (for me) bike ride, got to see my mom for a while, and then P came over for grilled pizza, MST3K, and Rock Band.

Look at the pizza!


Not only does the dough NOT sag down through the grill rack, but it gets bubbly and crispy.


A side gets crispy in two or three minutes, and then you flip in and add the toppings, and Bob's your uncle.


Ta da!

Here's the recipe for the dough:

1 envelope active dry yeast
1/2 tsp sugar
2/3 cup warm water
2 cups flour
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp pepper
2 TBL olive oil, plus more to brush on crusts

Combine yeast, water and sugar and let it get foamy. I combined the flour, salt, pepper, and olive oil in my food processor with the dough blade, and added the yeast mixture once it was ready, and then ran it until it turned into dough. I gave it a little bit of extra time to knead, and then put it on a bowl coated with oil, turned it, covered it with plastic, and let it rise for about an hour and a half. It's a weird, heavy dough, and I was very suspicious of it, but it turned out just fine.

After it rises punch it down and divide it into four pieces. Roll them into pizza crusts that are about 1/8-inch thick, brush both sides with olive oil, and grill.

Once the dough has risen, the whole process is really quick, and it's pretty fun to do. The crust is super thin and crispy, and tastes kind of smokey, like pizza from a place that uses a brick pizza oven.

Good stuff.