Johnny Appleseed and the Burnt Applesauce a/k/a Cooking Disaster #259

My first grader celebrated Johnny Appleseed's birthday today. They took a field trip to a theater where they saw a play about Johnny Appleseed. My son was one of a handful of kids chosen to go up on stage and participate.

This afternoon, I went to the classroom and helped with an apple "taste testing" party. Last night and this morning, I had peeled and sliced two pecks of apples (four little white bags of MacIntosh apples to be exact). It took forever even with my apple peeler. I washed, peeled, sliced and bagged five gallon-size Ziploc bags and carted them to school.

I was put in charge of the taste testing table. I washed and sliced six different apples for the 20 students to test and rate on a sheet of paper.

I was also put in charge of making applesauce in a wok sitting on a hot plate in the back of the classroom. I put one bag of the chopped apples in the wok, and they reduced down to applesauce. My fatal mistake was in not removing the first applesauce. I was in a hurry, so I simply added the next bag of chopped apples and went back to the taste testing table.

A few minutes later, I see the teacher run across the room as the smell of burning apples filled the air. I went over to the wok and started to stir the applesauce but the teacher informed me that the applesauce was scorched. However, it wasn't all that bad, and there was enough unscorched applesauce for each student to try. The teacher is going to take the other three bags home to make more applesauce there and bring it back for the kids. That way there wouldn't be any chance that I would f**k it up again.

I have set off smoke detectors with my cooking. I had to throw away pans when I tried to make homemade candy with a candy thermometer. I can't follow a recipe to save my life as witnessed by this old blog post.

My son saw what was going on, slapped his hand on his forehead and shook his head. All the kids had a good time even if the classroom smelled like burned apples.

I haven't been this embarrassed since last year when I lost a third grader at the Minnesota Children's Theater. I turned my back for a minute to get everyone lined up, and this little snot took off. I think I gave that teacher a heart attack.

Some mothers are like Martha Stewart. I am not. But one of these days a teacher is going to want to teach their class to knit, and then they'll come crawling back.

I'm going to my happy place to try and forget about this day.

The Time of My Life

"It takes an athlete to dance, but an artist to be a dancer." Shanna LaFleur

I will always love Patrick Swayze. He was the perfect combination of cowboy and gentleman. Whether he was portraying an outlaw, an outsider, a dancer, a motivational speaker, or an ordinary guy facing extraordinary circumstances, he lit up the screen, and I was mesmerized. No one was cooler. No one was more dangerous. No one could dance better or was more handsome. No one will ever replace him. I had the time of my life watching him.

I will always love Patrick Swayze.

"I wanna be the lady he loves with all his heart and soul. I wanna be the lady he keeps warm when the nights get cold. Yeah, cowboys are my weakness." Lyrics from "Cowboys Are My Weakness" by Trisha Yearwood.

The Cat's Throwing up on my Shoe . . . Tales of the First Day of School

And they're off. The bus just picked up my two kids. They are unleashed into the wild.

The morning went about as expected. They woke up early with the anticipation of going back to school. They ate breakfast with no complaints. They grew more quiet as the morning wore on. I made sure they each knew their lunch PIN number and classroom number. My daughter ended up writing her lunch number on her arm so she wouldn't have to worry about forgetting it in the lunch line.

There were some tense moments when we couldn't find my daughter's neon pink arm warmers. She argued about having to wear her glasses again. I reminded her that they are non-negotiable when she is in school. (I'll bet money that she walks off the bus tonight without having them on.) My son refuses to use his new Clone Wars backpack that I bought him. He insisted on using the same Pirates of the Caribbean backpack from last year. It has two holes in it and a stain from the last day of Y Camp this year when it rained all day. I was picking my battles this morning, and that just wasn't going to be one of them. The pirate backpack was reenlisted for duty.

All was going according to schedule when I heard a piercing scream from my daughter. "The cat's throwing up on my shoe!" Sure enough, the cat was throwing up near my daughter's new Rosy Hodgepodge Hi-Top sneaker shoes. The brand new ones with the crochet flower details. My daughter's favorite possession at the moment. I ran down the stairs to the front door where the cat was throwing up all over the floor. Evidently, she had the "first day of school nerves" also. Fortunately, the shoes managed to avoid the cat puke. I cleaned up after her, and all was well again.

I took their pictures. Together. Individually. With their backpacks. They didn't complain too much. Every year I take their pictures on the first and last days of school. It's amazing to see how much they grow each year.

Finally, it was time to be at the bus stop. We were there the requisite ten minutes early. The bus was right on time. The driver was the one from last year who had been hurt last winter when he fell on the ice. The kids were overjoyed to see him again. I stood looking at the kids getting on the bus. I smiled and told them to have a great day. The driver looked at me and grinned. He held his hand up, and I went up on the bus to give him a high-five. Then, in a great fit of grace and maturity, he and I both chanted, "First day of school! First day of school!" I laughed, gave the kids and driver one last smile and waive and went into the house.

It was quiet. The cat came and looked for the kids. I swallowed down the lump in my throat. I told myself it's just not possible to miss them already. I looked around the house at the reminders of the summer that has just passed by all too quickly. There is a Lego creation on a table. One of my daughter's drawing pads is in the living room. I feel like I'm perched on a precipice for some reason. I'm afraid to move. New beginnings don't upset me the way that goodbyes and endings do, but they make me nervous.

I'm sure I'll be nervous all day today and feeling like I'm inching my way around a steep drop-off. Every once in awhile I'll look at the clock and wonder what the kids are doing right this very minute. Are they having fun? Are they making new friends? Are they resilient enough to shake off any disappointments that may have happened? I may throw up myself.

I worry too much. I'm a Mom. And that's my job.

Sands of Time

"Life's like an hourglass glued to the table." Lyrics from "Breathe (2 AM)" by Anna Nalick

We took a family vacation last week. On one of the days, we headed to Rib Mountain State Park. We took in the scenery from the scenic overlook.

We climbed the observation tower. (96 steps to get to the top . . . just sayin'.)

The mountain is one of the highest elevations in the state of Wisconsin and is made up of shiny quartzite rocks. (Technically, an Archaean Supercontinent split 2.5 billion years ago. Erosion of the ancient continent produced sand that accumulated and formed sandstone. Subduction started to happen about 2 billion years ago, sweeping oceans and continents back together. The Penokean Mountains were formed. At this time, it is believed that the sandstone metamorphosed into quartzite. Then an intrusion of syenite incorporates various large blocks of this quartzite. The Penokean Moutains and some of the syenite in their roots eroded away between 1.5 and .6 billion years ago, revealing the quartzite zenolith of today's Rib Mountain. ) It's easier to say "shiny quartzite rocks."

I had been to Rib Mountain several times before, but I never took the time to read about how it came to be. I was fascinated that I was standing on something that had fully emerged sometime in the past 300 million years. I stopped at one rock formation and was amazed that you can still see some of the original ripples of the sand from the sandstone that had buried the quartzite. (You can see a photo here.) It made me feel small and insignificant. As my husband said, our lifetimes are not even a mere "hiccup" in the history of this mountain. I thought about all the history that I had ever studied in school, and how this mountain had been around for all of it. I wondered how many people through the ages had stood where I was right now.

We walked around the mountain on top of a spongy layer of several years worth of leaves from the giant oak trees that towered above us. Tiny acorns were embeded in the leaves, and I thought of the saying "Mighty oaks from tiny acorns grow."

At one point, we stopped at a concession stand near the campground and walking trails. When we bought our state park pass, we had been given a coupon for some free popcorn from the concession stand. We bought the usual souvenirs: a t-shirt for me, a hat for my husband, a bear tooth necklace for my son, a pink rabbit's foot necklace for my daughter, a bottle of water and, of course, we got our free popcorn. We sat at a picnic table under the oak trees and ate the popcorn. I sat back and listened to the conversation of my family. My son was getting over the disappointment of my not allowing him to buy a cheap plastic toy at the concession stand. My daughter was talking to her Dad about the rabbit's foot and how it wasn't "lucky" for the rabbit who lost the foot. Her Dad was trying to convince her that the pink rabbit had been out at a party and then inexplicably woke up in an alley on crutches without one of his feet. My son was wondering how someone got the tooth out of the bear to put on his necklace. At one point, the kids were telling us a joke, and the punchline was "under where?" Of course, the word "underwear" makes every nine and six-year-old laugh hysterically. My husband was laughing appreciatively at the very effective marketing technique of the coupon for free popcorn employed by the State of Wisconsin to get you to their concession stand where you will likely spend money as we just had.

And right then and there at a picnic table on a mountain of quartzite that had been around since practically the dawn of time, under a canopy of towering oak trees, I fell in love with my family all over again. I wondered if my kids would remember this moment from one of our family vacations. Would they keep the photos from this moment to show their children one day? Would they tell the story of this family vacation to them? Would some part of this moment on this day survive the generations like the ripples of sand on the ancient quartzite rocks?

And I felt sad, as I often do, that time goes by so quickly. My children are growing so fast, and time is passing by so quickly. It's like watching sand go through an hourglass, and I'm powerless to stop it. But I believe that the love we feel continues forever, starting like an acorn and growing into a mighty oak tree. And through the generations, our families help make us who we are. All of our experiences are buried within us like the shiny quartzite rock on the mountain. They remain inside us forever.

And I hope that one day my children will remember this early afternoon on a Monday in August on a park bench on one of the oldest geological formations on earth, and know how much I loved them.

"Nothing is built on stone; all is built on sand, but we must build as if the sand were stone." Jorge Luis Borges

Dreaming of the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Eighteen days and counting until school starts.

Here's a video brought to my attention by Mrs. DPM of the comments. What a hoot! I love how he's dancing on the cart at the end. I know how he feels.

The Elderly Couple in the Park

"Every day that will pass you by. Every name that you won't recall. Everything that you made by hand. Everything that you know by heart. And I will try to connect all the pieces you left. I will carry it on and let you forget." Lyrics from "Silent House" by the Dixie Chicks

Just about every night there is an elderly couple that sits in the park across the street from my house. They sit in silence, hand in hand, watching the children play, watching the older kids play basketball, or watching nothing at all.

I've said hello to them when I've been outside watering trees in the evening. The man always speaks to me. Sometimes the lady will smile, and sometimes she shuffles along with her head down, leaning on the man. I see them walk back and forth from the park to an assisted living facility near my house.

My husband took our son to the park one night, and he spoke to them. The lady suffers from alzheimers, and the man is her husband. Not long ago, he had to move her to the assisted living center since he can no longer care for her at home. He visits her every day.

I wonder what it must feel like to watch your spouse slip away bit by bit each day and not be able to do anything to prevent it. I wonder what must be going through his mind as he takes her hand and walks with her on one of her bad days when she shuffles along, leaning on him with her head down.

I wonder how horrible it must have been to have to move her out of their home and into a care center to be taken care of by strangers. I wonder how he feels each day that he arrives at the care center not knowing if this will be one of her good days or not.

I wonder how he will feel the day that she is no longer able to go for a walk. But mostly I wonder how he can stay strong while he watches the woman he loves slip away a little bit each day.

And I am in awe of the strength this man has. What a wonderful thing it is to have such a great love in your life.

"The human spirit is stronger than anything that can happen to it." C.C. Scott

Things That Make You Go Hmmmmm . . .

Why is it that:

1) There is a popsicle flavor just called "blue".

2) My kids can be in the water for hours every day, but my insisting that they take a shower is an abomination.

3) The best tasting raspberries are in the crazy neighbor's yard.

4) I sent my son to a very wholesome YMCA day camp, and he came home knowing dirty lyrics to the "Battle Hymn of the Republic."

5) Summer seems to last forever, yet it goes by waaayyy too fast.

Enjoy these last weeks of summer wherever you are.