In defense of the Ford Pinto

May 27, 2008 | awake,Be Merry,Because of God,Bite My Recipe, Pal,Every Mama Needs...

When we were in high school, my older brother and I shared a 1972 bright blue Ford Pinto. It had ferns growing in the backseat, and you could see the road through the rusted out holes in the passenger side floor.

My brother was extremely popular… One girl fanted when he graduated (I kid you not) and other girls pretended to befriend me just to be near him “Hi Rachael. I want to come over and hang out. Is your brother there?” His powerful beauty and charisma spilled over to the Blue Pinto so this car became cool by association.

I was a band-nerd who didn’t talk to boys until I was 19 unless it was about God, and unfortunately hanging out with my beloved (if at times indifferent) older brother did not have the same cool-by-association effect on me.

But the Pinto was different. It was an automatic and it could go zero to 35mph in under 30 minutes. It was a love machine.

I have a warm place in my heart for junkie cars that you can pay for with cash. I was raised in a series of beaters each given names like “The Blue Bomber,” “Mystic Sea,” and “Gloria.” These were cars you could really connect with… The kind you could talk to when they failed to roll their windows down properly. The kind even 12 year old younger brothers were allowed to drive around neighborhood parking lots.

The days of driving cars with more character than safety are long-gone… but the love lives on…

Yummy Mummies vs. Hot Pops

February 4, 2008 | Bite My Recipe, Pal,Boobies,hoo hoo hooo,Mensters,Midlife

By now we’ve all heard about moms going in for post-baby surgery (tightening of loose things, raising of lowered things, perky rather than paunchy, etc.), but what about all the daddies? Don’t they care about their post-baby bodies? Anyone who has heard of couvade can’t believe that women are the only ones impacted by pregnancy….

Over at Strollerderby, I’m imagining a world where dads would go under the knife and what those surgeries might be called….

**

On another note, I’m celebrating 4 months of sobriety this Friday with a trip to see my BFF from college, darling sexy Michelle, waaaay over on the East Coast (and her husband and her 3 babies). What fun!!

We Have Good Genes

October 29, 2007 | awake,Bite My Recipe, Pal,Fun Games,girls girls girls

I’m braving the world of cardboard, patience, and sugar-infused gratitude and have agreed (in a mumbly way) to make my adorable twin daughters Halloween costumes this year –because they are unfortunately of an age where I can’t just whip out last year’s Costco specials and convince them it’s all new again. Little buggers are getting smarter every day … while I appear to be losing braincells and beauty faster than a varnish-eating reptile.

Since all the costumes I can (theoretically) put together revolve around cardboard boxes, glue, and sharp kid-dangerous cutters, our options are somewhat limited to square things. To wit: robot, candy machine girl, square pumpkin, rabbit (also square). Won’t this be a delight?

I could drive over the Costco and spend $60 on 2 ladybugs and call it good, but this year I want something more. I want them to experience the fun and goofy frivolity associated with failed home craft projects. It’s in their genes, they might as well get used to it.

Besides, the glorious forgiveness and imagination of our children is absolutely the best reason to procreate in the first place… Stay tuned…

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Want to write for Strollerderby? Here’s how…

Grubbin’ Out: Delicious Lazy Meals in Under 3 Seconds, Part 1

September 12, 2007 | Be Merry,Bite My Recipe, Pal,Reds

3 Seconds is the new 5 minutes… As such, I’m putting together some quick and dirty (DIRRRTY) grub instructions for you self-professed lackluster chefs (you know who you are)… Instead of Rachael Ray, I offer you Grubby Grub for the Tired and Cranky Parent and you can be my bitches, ok? Here’s my first recipe. Follow along if you feel like it, suckas.

I call this one-bowl meal “O the Joys Delight”(cuz she lerves fiber), but kids like it when you call it “Magic Fairy Wings and Raisins”

• Pour 2 scoops of the RB* into a huge bowl
• Sprinkle sugar to taste
• Pour 2% milk over the top

Nutritional Advantages: Fewer calories than steak and potatoes, vegetarian, dairy, high in fiber

Mental Energy Advantages: Mommy unlikely to be resentful and intimidated by this meal … excellent offering after a long day at work.

*Raisin Bran

In other news, which celeb do you most parent like?? (or, how DEEP is my soul??)…

Bite My Recipe, Pal

September 10, 2007 | Bite My Recipe, Pal,Reds

Shelter magazines like Sunset and Real Simple and Better Homos and Gardners and Martha Stewart have always given me hives (the angry red kind). Like many parenting magazines I feel like they paint this unrealistic incredibly wealthy picture of the unremitting joy of cooking with dewy grass fronds, and “cheap” ($25,000) remodels. Oh and did I mention all the pictures of mostly white, skinny, happy people? If that’s cooking and domesticity, then count me fucking OUT.

To top it off, I was raised by a couple of Gloria Steinem juniors. I was more likely to be jumping off ramps on my powder blue skateboard than doing anything productive in the kitchen except fake karate moves.

Funny thing about kids and cutting back on work and slowing things down at home.. Cooking is harder and harder to avoid (Have you noticed?). Besides, even though I’m loathe to admit it in public, cooking makes everything homier.. I feel better about our nutrition (or at least less guilty about our occasional Happy Meals) better about our time together, and certainly notice a smaller food budget when I actually plan quasi-menus and make Martha for my sweet babies.

And seriously, she’s kickin and sassy and she cooks… and so does she… so you clearly don’t have to be a mindless vanilla drone to throw together grub for your peeps.

What I’d LOVE to see is a cookbook with some verve so I could feel like I wasn’t selling my soul to Stepford-dom by following(ish) their goddamn recipes… Here’s an example of the kind of recipe I’d like to see. Tonight I’m making lentil soup with sausage….

Lentil NOT GODDAMN VEGAN soup

• fry up some onions and garlic, motherfucker
• put in some meat (if it’s organic you won’t have to diaper your kids later when they develop Mad Cow)
• add dry sherry (after you drink some)
• spash in some tomato liquid substance (tomato paste, sauce, juice, whatever, hell ketchup even works)
• dump in some lentils

I know it sounds gross, but the soup actually tastes good… I added a bunch of other spices n’ things in there, but can’t remember what it was so you know.. you’ll have to fend for yourself.

If anyone knows of a FUNNY SASSY cookbook, let this mama know. By end of next week, I’ll be back to bacon and eggs unless I get some guidance.

*** Over at Babble today, I’m talking up Momsrising’s proposed “Peaceful Revolution” and David Beckham’s ass.

No Good (Leaving on a Trip) Mama Goes Unpunished

July 25, 2007 | Be Merry,Bite My Recipe, Pal

In preparation for my upcoming sojourn, I’m currying favor with members of my household by having slumber parties with each of the twins (sharp! elbows! talking! 2am!!) and making casseroles for the freezer so they won’t starve while I’m gone.

Kidding. Really just making sure the supply of peanut butter and jelly and cereal won’t run out.

Also wrapping up a huge project at work so I can start another project upon my return and woke up at 5am this morning to prepare for a 9am meeting.

This vacation is killing me and I haven’t even left yet. When I get to my fancy room, I”ll probably take one look at my two roomies (one spiritual-ly, one nekkid fitness-y) and the pretty clean quiet room, and fall into a drooling stupor.

The Secret Life of Celery*

April 2, 2007 | Bite My Recipe, Pal,Fun Games

Have you ever pondered the life of Celery? Come on, admit it, you know you have, you Saucy Minx! Celery is the shy herbaceous wallflower cousin to flashier ‘tables like arugula and cauliflower, with their showy leaves and spikes and flowering veggie nonsense. Deeply introspective wise Celery is often misunderstood. “Straight,” “dull,” “rule-following keener,” they call out as he stalks by. Poor Celery.

But what of the many lovely medicinal applications of this wondrous vegetable? Effective in treating rheumatoid arthritis, cystitis, and (in service to neurotic bloggers everywhere), nervous exhaustion.

Oh Celery, how oft you are misunderstood. Who but the fine poets have fully appreciated your grace?

***
Celery
by Evan Nagle

Sad water
in the cold wet Spring.
She chops the green celery
headless, footless.
The faucet’s shivering aqueduct.
I wake to the cutting
board’s clank, the smell
of butchered plants
on her fingers.
She licks the dislodged
veins that stick
to the knife. The white
plate: a watery
mess. Twelve chilled
bites, severed
from the stalk’s green limb.

*in honor of April, National Poetry Month.

Somebody Bring Me Some Pasta

March 27, 2007 | Bite My Recipe, Pal,Love Love Love

The Good News:
* Person at work says my skin looks “beautiful”
* Husband notices I look slimmer
* Eating more vegetables than humanly possible, am slowly becoming green pepper
* When not gnawing on my knuckle, I have more energy

The Bad News:
* Have another 6 days on Phase I of South Beach
* I see pasta everywhere.
* I see carbs everywhere
* Salads are highly overrated
* Being healthy and slender is also overrated

South Bitch Diet

March 21, 2007 | Bite My Recipe, Pal

For many of us, the difference between “curvy” and “chubby” is open to interpretation (and rather dependent on the beer goggles of the admirer). Enter the South Beach Diet. It’s healthy! And low in carbs! And fun! Veggies! At! Every! Meal!

So far, quite a contrast to the diet I have been eating (Carbs! At! Every! Meal! Wine!), and so I suppose it’s not surprising that I’m a little… well.. South Bitchy lately. I mean, do you feel me on this, sisters and brothers?

WTF does one eat vegetables at BREAKFAST for? Isn’t that sort of bad for the human spirit or something?

My usual fare (peanut butter toast, coffee, swearing, sugar sugar) makes me feel good on the INSIDE. This tomato juice and egg white omelet routine just makes me want to run around the house yelling “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Down with the man!”

Alas, I fear roller derby isn’t enough to get me back to goddess status, so I’ll stick with the FSB* for now. And I’ll be honest. I need to look hot for my trip to Atlanta…. Why you ask? Gold lame, baby. Gold. Lame.

*Fucking South Beach

Roller Derby Babes on Wheels….

March 18, 2007 | Bite My Recipe, Pal,Fun Games,Good Girlfriends Do...

I whooped and hollered when I read this piece in today’s Bellingham Herald and made a vow: I’m trying out for the Bellingham Roller Betties, our town’s all-girl roller derby team next Sunday at 7pm. Mark my words, friend.

I’m having a mid-life crisis anyway, and a violent, costume-rich sport is far healthier than a young Latin boyfriend and a corvette, don’t you think?

Move over Farrah, I’m getting some short shorts, fishnets, and puttin’ on the wheeeeeeels!!

**also wrote about this over at Babble****