Condensed Powder

According to today's NYTimes, next month Sony TV is going to introduce the Minisode Network online that will run an entire episode of a Sony classic show (like TJ Hooker or Charlie's Angels) in 6 minutes or less.

“So in ‘Charlie Angels,’ they have a meeting, Charlie’s on the intercom telling them what the assignment is, there’s a couple of fights, and then a chase, and they catch the bad guy. Then they’re back home wrapping it up.”

Sign me up! It's like cotton candy in a click! I wonder if they will have Magnum?

Fighting Fires

Cookie Magazine mentioned this family's blog in this month's editor's note. http://www.princeliamthebrave.blogspot.com/ This little boy is close to my daughter's age and I believe they would be fast friends. They share a keen interest in cheese puffs, Curious George (who they both refer to as "George Monkey") and firefighters. This is his parents' courageous blog to update friends and family of his brave, and I believe winning, cancer fight.

As a believer in the power of prayer, I wanted to pass along their blog with hopes that more people will say a prayer for this little man and for his family. In their most recent post, they write:

"I know in my head that the medicine is working. I know in my heart that the prayers, positive thoughts, blessings, healing crystals, blessed figurines, good wishes and meditations are also working. A friend is making 40 loaves of Challah bread this weekend with a group of women from her synagogue in honor of Liam. It's an old Jewish tradition that brings good health to those in need. We are honored that they would make such a commitment of time for a child whose parents aren't a member of their community. But again, it takes a community the size of New York to heal a sick child."

I am so moved by people doing what they know how to do to effectuate change and lift people out of crisis.

As I child I remember visiting my grandmother (who passed away in 1995) and hearing her in the kitchen at 3:00 am brewing coffee to pour into thermoses and making sandwiches, wrapping each one in wax paper. It wasn't until morning that I learned that a furniture factory caught fire in the night causing chemical explosions and that fire departments from all of the surrounding counties had come together to fight the fire. My grandfather packed up her sandwiches and coffee and took them to the firefighters to eat during breaks to give them strength to keep fighting the fire all through the night.

It's such a vivid memory for me because I was so impressed by her ingenuity. She knew she could do something in her own way to make a difference and she did it without hesitation. She saw a need beyond the flames. Women in church basements and sewing circles around the world have done this for centuries. When everyone is scrambling, they are finding ways to solve problems, bring comfort, and organize the madness.

We're all part of the same community. If only we could each use our skills, even in small ways, to help each other. Perhaps it does take a city the size of New York to heal a child. But with the internet, a global community as big as the ocean, just think of the great that we could do for our children. 40 loaves of Challah bread to you and your children and good health.

Grand Women

Remember in Fools Rush In when Selma Hayek’s character goes to her great grandmom’s house in Mexico? Her Grand is this beautiful, Georgia O’Keefe, Eudora Welty type of gal and you just want to go to her house and quilt or make something fabulous to eat with tamales. I love that movie.

Or there’s the scene in An Affair to Remember when Cary Grant goes to his Grandmother Janou's house and she is beautiful and wise and she hugs on Deborah Kerr (who is sort of in need of some support) and they play the piano together. I love that movie.



My Grands, and the Grands I’ve adopted in my life, are (and were) those kind of girls: huggable, filled with experience, adoring women who walk into the kitchen and come out with something that tastes like every ingredient is the result of someone’s best day.

My husband’s Granny, who I have claimed as my own Grand too, makes mouth-watering apple pies that actually transform a cup of coffee. I’ve noticed they are usually made in celebration of a homecoming.

My 95-year old Grandmom, who has a “gentleman friend” because, as she told me, “he’s too old to call a boyfriend,” is still staggeringly beautiful and makes coconut pie every time someone she loves passes away. There was a time when people at her church looked for coconut pie as a comforting staple in times of grief. And no celebration is complete without her cheesy squash casserole with Ritz crackers and loads of butter.

The Farmer’s Market is starting up here again for the summer and I’ve been thinking about another one of those kind of girls, Diana Kennedy, and how we need to go get some fresh vegetables and try out a recipe.

Ms. Kennedy is this lovely, curious English woman who moved to Mexico with her husband Paul where he was writing for the New York Times. And then he died of cancer. But instead of heading home, she decided to live in Mexico and became sort of an anthropologist, traveling to remote villages and learning from the local people, cooking in their kitchens, quietly respecting and preserving their unique recipes. Her mission is to collect recipes that have been passed down for centuries, but have never been written down or published. I just love that.

She has built a solar-powered adobe eco-house where she grows her own vegetables. In photos, it looks like something from Under the Tuscan Sun.



I did some research and found out that she’s been traveling around Mexico for 47 years now. She asks these great questions from people about what something tastes like and then, before you know it, she’s in their home and they are cooking together. Now there’s a diplomatic approach I can get behind.

One website quoted her as saying, “I never travel in straight lines. The important discoveries in my life have always happened by chance.” Awesome.
Here’s a link to her work: http://www.powells.com/s?kw=Diana+Kennedy&x=0&y=0

Wonder In Uncertain Times

We get the magazine www.wondertime.com (thanks shishie!) which prints beautiful pages with suggestions of small, magical things about the world to share with your children. One article talked about how to make an adventure out of airline travel for your toddler. Another article shared one mom's experience of lining up all of her kids' toys in a parade during naptime to watch them re-discover some old friends when they woke up. Inspiring, adorable, creative stuff.

Wondertime has me thinking about how to make the most of these years when everything is new and when my daughter is discovering all of the fantastic things about living. Things like chocolate and sunshine, the sprinkler and sidewalk chalk, books and music.

She's been learning about the people of her neighborhood at school: fire fighters, police officers, postal carriers and doctors are this month's subjects. She has hung on to every detail about them and when we encounter one such individual, she is so thrilled to see them, waive, and tell them what she knows. During our regular Saturday morning bakery visit, she stands almost at the door greeting people as they come in. "Hi!"

After a day like today, I worry that I may be setting her up for disappointment later. The world is not safe. There are many days that are scary and devoid of any magic or wonder -- when the people of your neighborhood can't protect you. How I wish I could re-create a world for her that is more like the one I've been selling. I am beginning to think that as adults, we are in a constant battle to force our current experience into what we initially thought the world was supposed to be as children. Will it be more disappointing for her to learn over time that one by one, the things that she thought were shiny, safe and secure could have rusty, sharp edges? I suppose the child in all of us gives us the capacity to experience, remember and hopefully recapture joy: finding shapes in clouds, reveling in the miracle that plastic caplets can magically turn into sponge dinosaurs in the bathtub, that an empty shoebox is the perfect a stage set for a playdough snowman performance.

Maybe that's what we all need on a day like today. After we cry our eyes out and pray and get angry and challenge our faiths, maybe all that's left is to help our children, and in turn ourselves, find wonder in a scary world.

My prayer is for new moments of hope and wonder in a time, after another event, that is not representative of who we are as a people of the American neighborhood.

Storytelling

Storycorp (www.storycorps.net) travels the country collecting stories to be archived at the Library of Congress.
People sit down in a silver trailor in front of a microphone, put on headphones and tell a story from their lives. How brave. NPR plays one of their stories every Friday morning. It's so great, but I often miss the segment. I just learned that you can subscribe to the podcast for free. As Joan Didion's awesome new anthology reminds us, "We tell ourselves stories in order to live."
Here's the link:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4516989

Vacation Dreaming

This time of year, I start thinking about something like this:


When, in actuality, I should be thinking more along these lines:

That's right.

Real Simple Magazine has issued a special travel edition on news stands now.

I checked out a lot of the links mentioned and of them, this one seems most helpful: http://www.travelwithyourkids.com/

Some of the, "fool proof" suggested international trips make me both admire the parents who can literally (and spiritually) go the distance to get there, while simultaneously making me laugh Bridget Jones style (Aha. Ahahahahahaha...) at the thought of what it would entail for my little family to pull off such a trek. Either way, vacation is fun to think about.

Loveys

When A started her new school, they sent a list of what we had to bring each week. It was so endearing to me that they had this list of very practical things and at the top of that list was "Lovey" or "Comfort Object." I was so relieved to see that Bear would be welcome. (They do all sorts of great things to take care of the kiddos hearts and I just love them for it).
My nephew read from The Velveteen Rabbit at our wedding. We are a Lovey kind of family. I guess that's why this story on NPR appealled to me. I have not read the book yet, but it is definitely going on my list.

"Remember your favorite childhood companions? The stuffed animals you dragged through the mud, carried around by their ears, drooled on, dropped ... the ones now missing eyes or hair?

Although much abused and maligned, these companions — the blankets, teddy bears, stuffed bunnies and dolls — stuck by you day and night. Cheryl and Jeffrey Katz have created a tribute to these threadbare friends in their book, Dirty Wow Wow and Other Love Stories.

Below are two of Cheryl Katz's fuzzy favorites from the book.


A good rule of thumb when giving a gift is to choose something that you would want to receive. Even at three years old, Rebecca and her twin sister, Elyssa, had a sophisticated understanding of this principle. When their mother took them to the mall to choose a gift for their father's birthday, the girls chose Panda Brand.

Naturally, their father was thrilled with Rebecca and Elyssa's thoughtfulness, but admittedly uneasy with their request that he play with Panda and sleep with Panda. Every night. Not wanting to disappoint the girls or belittle their generosity, Dad honored their demands—until he developed a mysterious allergy to the bear. The girls, gracious as ever, offered to take care of Panda Brand for their father. And twenty years later, they still do.


Katie Kittenheart


When seven-year-old Alexandra spotted Katie Kittenheart in an upscale Pittsburgh toy store, she had to have her. Katie's startling blue eyes were hidden under an adorable puff of real white rabbit fur, so you could see them only by gently blowing on her. Though Alex didn't have a cat of her own, she possessed a modicum of understanding about feline grooming techniques, and she took to tidying up Miss Kittenheart with her own little human tongue baths. Small wonder that twenty-seven years later, Katie Kittenheart still looks alarmed."

Parental Teams

After seeing various interviews and the documentary, To Iraq & Back, featuring Bob Woodruff and his wife Lee, I was fascinated by Lee's perspective.

(BTW: The New York Times gave a glowing review of their book, In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing by Lee Woodruff and Bob Woodruff. It's still No. 1 on the NYT Bestseller Non-Fiction list).

I read somewhere that Lee was a writer too, so I searched for her prior work. I found this great article that she wrote for their University alumni magazine years before her husband's accident. I am amazed by her strength and her story inspires me to let go a bit. Here's the article: http://www4.colgate.edu/scene/may2002/lee_woodruff.html

A polished alternative to post-its

In my house, I find notes on the back of receipts and magazine subscription offer cards, but there's still as special place on my desk for correspondence. I am a sucker for good stationary. www.tinyprints.com has been my go-to for my daughter. But here's a new discovery for the taller people in the house.



I am crazy about these personalized stationary designs.
They make it look like you have your own marketing team behind you.
https://www.fabulousstationery.com/category/personal_notes/metropolitan/

Also, check out the “blush” styles (not pictured here) which the site describes as, “Sweet, sassy, and hip, with softer tones and floral themes. Think April in Paris.” I’ll say.




They can even make you a matching journal!

A Whole Teapot's Worth

Persephone Books of London
http://www.persephonebooks.co.uk/pages/complete_book_list.htm

Wow! On the outside, these editions look like sleek, organized notebooks. On the inside, they are lined with fabrics designed by women to refelct the date and mood of the book. The bookseller prints what they refer to as, "mainly neglected fiction and non-fiction by women, for women and about women. The titles are chosen to appeal to busy women who rarely have time to spend in ever-larger bookshops and who would like to have access to a list of books designed to be neither too literary nor too commercial." Awesome. The concept and aesthetic are so great.

Persephone promises, "The books are guaranteed to be readable, thought-provoking and impossible to forget." Pretty and brainy! Perfect.

Sparkly Snack

Sand-Pail Popcorn from Coastal Living Magazine


1 (3.5-ounce) package butter-flavored microwave popcorn

Prepare according to package directions. Open carefully; pour into a sand pail.
Cheese Popcorn: Add 1 (1 1/4-ounce) envelope cheese sauce mix. Toss well. Yield:about 10 cups.

Mexican Popcorn: Add 1 tablespoon taco seasoning mix. Toss well. Yield: about 10 cups.

Asian Popcorn: Add 1 (5 ounce) can chow mein noodles, 1 cup dry-roasted peanuts, and 1 teaspoon ground ginger. Yeild: 11 1/2 cups.