Wonky Bloggy

After not a lot of soul searching and really very little thought, I suppose I might as well migrate this blog over and keep it alive for at least the near future. So this blog may be unavailable for a bit, because I've got to move it to a blogspot account, then move it to a hosted Wordpress account, and then migrate over to my own Wordpress. And if you know anything about me you understood that you were to read that as "Adam has got to move it to a..." But the short version is this site may be wonky for a bit. But it'll happen soon, as the big flashing message I get on Blogger is telling me I have till Saturday to get my ass out of Blogger.

I'd post some pictures in the meantime to amuse you, as we had a very busy, very amusing week last week, but I just migrated over to a new (Mac!) computer, and I have no idea how it works. Meaning I send the pictures into my computer, but I don't know how to get them back out. Hopefully that too will be fixed by Saturday.

So, bye bye Blogger. I'll see all of you on the other side in Wordpress.

Allergy-Free Post

My father, Peter, likes to complain that I don't post enough but considering that 1) I don't see him offering to come up and relieve me of some of my responsibilities (babysitters are always welcome!) and 2) where are his blog posts? I say to him a big fat thpppppp.

Today was one of those days when my greatest achievement was not killing my children. I have officially turned them over to Adam and I'm sitting her drinking my chardonnay, too lazy to get up and turn off the Miley Cyrus, which means tomorrow "Party in the U.S.A." will torture me on my morning run.

Not related to my children's monster meltdowns: After school today, I was sitting outside with my neighbor Beetle while Tab and Doodles played in their "clubhouse," aka the bushes outside Tab's house.

"So," Beetle said. "Doodles has to wear all green tomorrow to school?"

"What?"

"He has to wear all green tomorrow for school."

"For his play?"

"I don't know."

I yell to Doodles, "Hey, Doodles! Get out here!"

He lumbers out. I ask, "Why does Beetle know you have to wear green tomorrow, but I don't?"

I get the mother of all "duh" looks. "Because I told her!"

Of course. Tomorrow all the first graders in the school are celebrating an African festival. There will be a play. My son will be playing the Boa Constrictor. There will be music on drums they made themselves. There will be a feast. Provided by the parents.

Another parent and I were assigned to make Benne Cakes. Of course, allergy-free Benne Cakes with Ener-G Egg Replacer, which I've never had much luck with. She starts first. I get a call. "These things are absolutely flat. Completely unusable." In my cocky Martha-Stewart way, I assured her that I'd make mine and let her know how they were, fully confident that they'd be great. I made them. They're flat. Completely unusable. And dark. And weird looking.

So I do a little Web research on Benne Cakes. Only to discover that benne means... sesame seed. Which we aren't using. Because of allergies. So these things I'm making? My African Benne Cakes aren't African and aren't cakes. Yum!

Now I get to stay up late making more non-African, non-Benne, non-cakes. Lucky me!

So, Peter. You were saying?

From the Mouths of Babes

Today in the car:

Doodles: Mom, I think the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus are related.
Me: Well, yeah. They're both Christian.
D: Yeah, I know.
Me: You don't tell people that they're not real, do you?
D: No.
Me: Good.
D: Although...
Me: Yes?
D: I think the Easter Bunny is real.
Me: Really?
D: Yeah.
Me: Well, why didn't the Easter Bunny bring you anything?
D: Because we're not Christian.
Me: But you still think it's real?
D: Yeah.
Me: Um. Okay. What about Santa?
D: He's not real.
Me: All right.
D: You know, I think that maybe the Easter Bunny is Santa's pet bunny.
Me: Wait.
D: Yeah?
Me: If Santa isn't real, how can he have a pet bunny?
D: Well, maybe Santa is a spirit and the spirit of Santa has a bunny.
Me: Oh. Hey!
D: What?
Me: How is it that you can believe in the spirit of Santa but you can't believe in God?
D: I'm just weird like that.

State of the Union

Dear Readers. Having fun. Wish you were here. Love, Jenny

No seriously, I know I haven't been posting as much lately. It's just with the beautiful weather and the holiday and all the other good stuff, I've been out doing instead of home computering. I need to do some construction on this site (and by "me," I mean "Adam" and by "construction" I mean, "I have no idea what I mean"). For the past 8 1/2 years (gasp!) that I've kept this blog, I've FTP'd it to Blogger. No biggie. Although they're now doing away with FTP support, which means... well, something. Apparently my main choice is to go to Wordpress, if I want to keep my own domain, and it's these gorgeous, beautiful weeks that make me wonder if I really will. Maybe it's time to let the blog die a natural death before my son, who can now read everything I write figures out what I'm up to and starts to protest his innermost quirks being broadcast to the world at large. Something to think about...

Anywhos... What have I been busy with? Well, there's Pesach (and I love how every time Pie says, "Pesach," to my father, she quickly adds, "That's Passover," as if my father has no idea what Pesach is. Which he does. And he doesn't. So she's not completely off). We hosted a seder for 18, which was lovely, but a little busy. As she's at a Jewish preschool, Pie had off last Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday for the holiday. And then Doodles had off Friday for Good Friday (and I tried explaining Good Friday and Easter to him, but boy did I mangle it. I tried to end on a joke--"Do you know, Doodles, how we'll know who's right?" "How?" "Well, when the Messiah comes, if he says, 'Nice to meet you,' we'll know that we [the Jews] were right. If he says, 'Hi. Good to see you again,' we'll know the Christians had it right."--but somehow that only made it more confusing). And then Pie had off again this past Monday and Tuesday for the end of Passover. And yet I survived. Did I mention that Adam's in London? Still surviving. And having fun.

So first night seder was at our house. We did seder bingo. Kids did the four questions beautifully. Ate too many desserts. Done by about 8. The second night we had seder at our rabbi's house. Now that's a seder. The kids loved it, although Pie petered out at 8:30. Doodles and I made it till the midnight end and he was enthralled by it. So the next day I let him play hooky, and Doodles, Pie, and I went to see the Egypt Tomb 10A exhibit at the MFA. (Get it? It was Passover? So we went to see about Egypt? Clever, no?)

I had to fit all of my week into Thursday and then on Friday, Doodles and I rode bikes, went to see How to Train Your Dragon, and then hung out outside. It was truly a perfect day.

The beginning of this week, Pie wanted playdates so I used the time to clean. I mean really clean. I finally got my office organized, and over the weekend, Adam had built these lovely shelves in our closet's closet (yes, you read that right: our closet has a closet), so I moved all our CDs in there and then repurposed the original shelves in my office and the house is so lovely and beautiful! The house was fully cleaned today and I feel this urge to put police tape all over the door and make a huge sign that reads, "No Medroses Allowed" because the instant one of them comes in this house, there goes all my beautiful clean house. Sigh.

There's more I've done. And more going on. But I don't feel like writing about it. Children want to be let in. So I need to go guard my beautiful house. Because I can see the gleam in their eyes. The gleam of destruction. Sigh.

The Fashionista

Today is Red Sox day in the boy's classroom. Yet he said to me, "I have nothing to wear."

I pointed out the spread of shirts from which he had to choose. An Ortiz. A Pedroia. A Matsuzaka. Even a Garciaparra . Plus two with no names on them at all.

"I only want to wear Varitek."

To which Adam cringes. Because apparently Varitek sucks. And is on his way out. (As I would not know or care about these things.)

The boy is locked in his room at the moment. We all wait with baited breath, to see what he's going to wear today....

It Was 70 Years Ago Today...

Imagining a parent as a child is hard to do. My parents were pretty young when I was born--22 for my mom; 27 for my dad. But they always seemed old to me. I was recently watching with my kids a video from 1974 and it's shocking that my parents were actually, truly young. In 1974, my father was seven years younger than I am now. When I was the age he was in 1974, I was a newlywed, no kids. He had two kids, a mortgage, college savings accounts, and an ugly car (really--I don't know what that car was in the video, but it was ugly! For some reason "Cougar" comes to mind. Was that the car?). I knew him when he was 34. I remember when I was a teen, he once said to me, "You know, I may be in my forties, but I still feel like I'm sixteen." I didn't get it then, but I get it now.

Lately, though, I feel like I've had a sense of my father as a kid. Because I look at Doodles and I can suddenly picture my father. In his insolence, in his single-mindedness, in his stubbornness, in his antsy energy, I can see my father, and it's eerie.

My dad turns seventy today. We all know that I don't get mushy on this blog--it's just not my thing--but if I were ever going to get mushy, it would be here. 'Cause, you know. He's my dad. And I love him.

Happy birthday, Peter!

Fish Heads, Fish Heads, Rolly Polly Fish Heads

It's the saga of the fish. Who knew fish would give me such headaches. Tomorrow night is the first night of Passover, and I'm hosting, as I like to do. Out of all the Jewish holidays, Passover is my favorite. I love the story, I love the Seder, I love the food. Doodles, even, is incredibly into it. He came home from Hebrew school today, saying it he loved class today because he learned the fourth question and he got to take home his own Haggadah. He's been practicing the four questions and can't get enough of listening to our Passover c.d.

I've been cooking up a storm. So far I've made: horseradish, Moroccan carrots, Sephardic salad, orange cake, Passover brownies, meringues, candied walnuts (for the haroset), chicken soup, and salmon pate. Tomorrow I make the potato latke "muffins," scarlet chicken, balsamic roasted veggies, and matzah crunch.

But the fish. The fish has plagued me (the famous eleventh plague). I need whitefish, carp, and pike. Basic gefilte fish ingredients. I heard on one of my e-mail lists that the Newton Whole Foods would grind fish for you. So I called it last week. "I hear you grind fish!"

"Yeah," the guys said. "We can grind fish. But we're out of fish."

"Huh?"

"Out of fish. Completely out of fish."

"How are you out of fish?"

"Out of fish. Try next year."

I called all around. Tried everywhere. A different Whole Foods assured me that they could order me whitefish. Yea, whitefish! Except he called back the next day. "I called everywhere! No gefilte fish fish!"

Frantic web searches came up with a single recipe that called for tilapia. So I decided to make my fish (a fish loaf from the New York Times Passover cookbook) with tilapia. And I bought the jarred stuff. As a back up.

For some, it's next year in Jerusalem. For me, it's next year in whitefish. Chag Pesach Sameach.