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.

How to Have a Responsible Midlife Crisis

September 6, 2007 | Midlife,Reds

1. Schedule breakdowns to occur after all the children are fed and bathed and the house is reasonably clean
2. Drive fast around town but only when there are no small children present.
3. Buy clothes that make you feel sexy and young, yet are comfortable and not restricting (hard to feel sexy while your jelly roll is lopping over your belt)
4. Swear loudly and often (and if possible, not around the kids).
5. Get in touch with your inner lioness by taking up kickboxing, or watching it on TV
6. Watch the L Word (what is it about hot lesbian sex that just makes me proud to be a woman?)
7. Make friends with other women who *also* want to have midlife crisis.

Hell, there’s a “Future MILF” club, why shouldn’t there be a “Midlife Crisis” club?

Pilgrim Souls

September 3, 2007 | girls girls girls,Love Love Love,Reds

My favorite poets, writers, bloggers all have one thing in common: they are all seekers… after truth and beauty, after peace, love, joy, and understanding. They are standing there open-hearted, looking up at the sky and smiling or crying their questions out to the universe. Those who seem all fixed up.. prim and together don’t seem as lovely or artful as those with little cracks where the light shines in.

Perhaps that’s why I love a good potty-mouth mama, a woman who isn’t afraid to talk about what’s really going on in her soul, in her dreams (outside of who is potty-trained and who isn’t sleeping through the night), in her heart.

It is these open, brave people who help me walk truly in my own shoes.. who give me the courage to chase after the biggest dreams, the biggest love, and not just settle into my spiritual easy chair and snooze.

To all of you peppers out there, this one’s for you:

WHEN YOU ARE OLD

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

–W. B. Yeats

PEPPER GIRLZ RULE

***

Today at Babble, the heartbreak when your child is left out, bullied, or otherwise mistreated. Ouch!

Family Math.

August 11, 2007 | Reds

I’ve downshifted again. This time fundraising and writing (mostly from home) as my dots make ready for Kindergarten and preschool, respectively. Having given up working in offices (for the time-being) in favor of chumminess I’m often doing the math in my head during the day.

Mom home + kids = happier?

Intellectually stimulated enough + kids happy enough = me happier?

Ultimately it comes down to

Me + them + every day = Easier than me working in an office.

Ultimately, when my daughters treat me like wallpaper, regular gasoline on the highway pit-stop, then. Then I know I’ve arrived at that right combination of Mommy + self + their happiness. We’ve become an imperfect loud smelly soup of “us.”

We’ve become a family.

Sweet Adelina.

August 9, 2007 | Reds

My daughters (all 800 of them) like to talk about “baginas” and as a child of the 70s this makes me at once proud, and a little embarrassed (especially, when “baginas” are yelled about during gymnastics).

We know what’s what in my house and we’re not afraid to call a spade a spade.

Once in awhile, however, I do long for a more lyrical and poetic discussion of the matters of the body (and of the heart?). And the question I sit with often is: What is that right line between words and heart? Between poetry and descriptive literalism?

When does “No not there, you silly” give way to nonverbal cues and shifting hips.

And this from a girl who clearly doesn’t often know the difference between calling out about the naked emperor and keeping her own counsel about his lack of clothing.

***

In other news, I’m in the Seattle P-I today sounding like an anti-breastfeeding meanie.

***

I’m blog sitting over at Pundit Mom today.

blogher bound

July 26, 2007 | Reds

Flying to Chicago to meet the nice ladies who I will love and hug and squeeze.  Kisses to my sweet babies and my sweet husband. Thank you for letting me fly away from home for awhile.

Channeling a Teenage Boy

July 22, 2007 | Reds

“Mommy those are cute boobs.”

-Bubbles, Age 2 1/2

Welcome to Redsy… Just Me.

July 12, 2007 | Reds

Welcome friends. I’m starting Redsy and leaving behind CrankMama to put more authenticity back into my writing.

I’m marking this new endeavor with a countdown to BlogHer 2007, that fabulous event only a few days away where I’ll get a chance to meet some of the wonderful people of the blogosphere that have become friends, confidantes, and laugh out loud revolutionaries in my living room each night.

So… welcome… and make sure to send me your blog links again so I can put you on the pretty “Reds” list.

You’ll still find me writing at Babble and contributing to Imperfect Parent. Those columns will now be written by Redsy, but it’s still me

Warmly,

Rachael

Role Play

April 17, 2007 | Reds

The people. They’ve finally taken over. Mommy is down with buggy bugs and has handed over home rule to twin five year olds. Unsure of their intentions, but it’s not looking good from the couch. Send help.

Auction THIS!

March 7, 2007 | Reds

This morning at 7:30am, my boss came and asked me to edit the auction catalog and make a variety of font, writing, and picture changes, so that it could be ready to go to the printer tomorrow morning.

In came my co-worker a few hours later who took one look at what I’d done and then burst into tears. She was crying her heart out there at her desk because she thought it was her project and here I’d taken it over. It didn’t take long for me to dissolve into tears too, which brought up once again the joys of NOT working in an all-woman environment any longer.

We’re all patched up now, she and I, and all is relatively well. I’m always surprised when something so everyday is cause for a crying jag. Crying and work simply do not go together. Frankly, I”m not a huge fan of crying at all. Sometimes, I wish I was someone who could bottle it up inside and be a cool cucumber. A Mommy with nice nails and a clean shirt. But alas, that ain’t me.