Top Chef Dinner

We ate at Absinthe tonight. Jamie from Top Chef is the executive chef. I am a Top Chef fan. I can't help myself. I was so, so sad it was not better. French onion soup was sweet. Romaine salad was over dressed and too fishy even after taking the anchovies off the top. We sent the salads back. The wild mushroom risotto was hot, saucy, smooth and tasty though.
Anyway, M. was slightly out of sorts. She started the croup cough last night and oh lordy does that stress me out. She started to nod off eating french fries which took me off guard. I took her to the bathroom to wake her up and she seemed to snap back into form. We sit down and she has something to say.

"Mommy, did you know my belly has four buckets?"

"No, I did not"

"Yes. Each bucket is in my belly and has room for food! One bucket for breakfast. One bucket for crap food, One bucket for lunch and One bucket for dessert. They are all in my belly!"

"Wow" I say.

The crap food category may seem extreme. Most likely it is. I got D. a box of donuts for his birthday breakfast. He loooves donuts. I never buy them. But for a special birthday breakfast I made an exception. M. took one look at the box, drew a long breath in and said "Do I get to eat crap food for breakfast like Daddy?" Yes, I say. "You mean, I don't have to eat my growing food breakfast, Mommy?" No, you don't I say. Growing food is all things vegetable, protein, fruit and fiber. We talk a lot about how the food we eat can make our bodies get strong, grow and run fast. I try to stick to the mantra growing food first, crap food second.

Dinner is over, we go outside to catch a cab and M. decides to hug the big green garbage can in front of the restaurant as we scan the street for cabs. Her hug turns into a kiss and all of a sudden her mouth is all over the garbage can. I yell. At her. She jumps and I recoil, lamenting on how much damage I have done to her from my own germ phobia this instance and since she was born. It gives me a stomach ache thinking about it. Tremendous guilt. Awful guilt. Everyday I try to do better. Everyday I will try to better, I say to myself. I hug her and let her hail us a cab.

When seagulls attack

M. and I are at the zoo. Things are going fine. We decide to eat our sandwich first thing after arriving. I'm thinking lets get fueled up before we dig into the real fun. The cafe at San Francisco zoo overlooks the flamingos and has always been a favorite spot for us to eat. We sit down on a bench, and I unwrap our turkey cheddar on light rye. I notice very big seagulls are hanging around the area, but that happens every time we are there, and the zoo is across the street from the ocean so it does not seem weird. But, a two year old girl comes walking over towards the flamingos and a seagull swipes the bread right our of her hand. She is shocked, starts crying, and her grandmother runs over scoops her up. It starts to focus on us, the closest people to it with food. It is sitting about 3 feet from me, staring us down. I am doing the odds in my mind whether it might really try to grab food out of our hands, but I am no two year old and I am sitting next to M. so I think we are safe. Still, I go on cautious alert. I am not giving up my scenic bench spot because some seagull is giving me the evil eye. About 5 seconds later the seagull is dive-bombing me from above going in for the strike. I scream, and throw my arms up to shield it from grabbing my food. I am up in an instant, grabbing M's hand realizing this is causing an instant scene, and all the other people sitting outside the cafe are turning around to see what is happening. While we are trying to make it inside the cafe the same seagull swoops in, grabbing M's sandwich out of her hand and we get swarmed by about 1o gulls. She starts crying, and I am focused on just getting us inside the cafe. Inside she is talking really loudly trying to process what has happened which consisted mostly of "STUPID SEAGULLS MOMMY!!" over and over again and I am trying to calm her down and compensate for the fact that our lunch has been hijacked. Soon we are sitting at the table eating french fries and she is commenting that all the people outside she can see from our table are getting attacked just like we just did, which they were not. "Look mommy, see that lady, she is coming inside because the seagulls stole her lunch too." I have had enough of the cafe at this point and we start our walking towards the children's zoo. She looks over at me, and says "Mommy, did you notice I said stupid?" I say "you mean about the seagulls honey?"
"Yes Mommy, I said stupid instead of saying fuck, shit or dammit like you do!"

muck

Does anyone feel like any making a big change in their life is like wading through muck? The momentum requires a vast amount of energy, confidence and patience without knowing if you will get your hoped outcome? Without knowing if you actually have the confidence required and basically becoming consumed with the fear you might fail, so just don't try at all?
This is what I am feeling everyday when the thought of a career pops into my head.
In fact, I am so paralyzed by this thought I cannot even type out my career idea on this blog, because then I will somehow be held to it, and that alone is too much pressure.
When I was a teenager, I wanted to be an astronaut. Remember the movie Space Camp? That was a real camp that I dreamed about going to at Cape Canaveral growing up. I would go, and like a model being discovered at the 7-11, somehow become an astronaut. The first time I saw The Right Stuff, you know the movie where the astronauts train to go to space, I was a changed kid. And it continued with Buck Rogers tv show, ET, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and so on and so on. I did not become an astronaut, obviously. Good thing, because the thought being an astronaut now brings on an instant feeling of panic. What if you get the flu in space, or run out of oxygen, or get a sudden case of claustrophobia? Yeah, that would not work for me and my germ issues now. Not at all.
Last night I cooked pork pot roast for D. birthday. Pork butt was on sale for $1.99 a pound and I wanted to see if I could do something with it. And since I did not get to making dinner until almost 5:30 and still had to finish washing the dishes, clean M. mess from the day and frost the cake I started to eyeball my pressure cooker. Instead of 3 hours to make a roast, it would take 30 minutes. Oh joy. I literally dumped dinner into the big pot. Carrots, potatoes, onions, garlic and a big piece of pork. I topped with mustard and capers. After calling my mother-in-law to get specifics on cooking times, I closed the lid and let it do its magic. 30 minutes later I am spooning out yummy pot roast onto our plates. But wait, the pork looks pink. Is it really cooked through? And here is how it went in my head.

Oh no, the pork may not be cooked.
It has to be cooked, it was in the pressure cooker dumbass
What if I get us all sick on D's birthday dinner?
Yeah, tapeworms and trichinosis
I will take it out, cut it, then sautee it more to make sure
Panic
More Panic
Oh, it is cooked, don't worry
Of course it is cooked, only you would worry about this.
It is cooked
I hope so, lets just pretend everything is ok

This was what happened as I stood at the stove, silently dealing with dinner. D and M oblivious, playing wild horse in the living room. I served it, we ate it, I said a silent prayer about it.
I am happy to report my digestive tract is doing ok today too, a good sign.
This is why I did not become an astronaut. I saved the world some grief. Definitely.

A wee bit of cuteness on a Monday

Just a simple smidge of cuteness I saw on Design Sponge today. It brightened my day. Art that kids and families can participate in. Never know what you might encounter when you round the corner to go up the stairs.....

More!

After a small bit of research online I have found this is quite a blogger topic. (see below post to catch up) And a dear reader brought to my attention that resale shops might not be affected by this new law. So I dug this up:

The new law requires that domestic manufacturers and importers certify that children’s products made after February 10 meet all the new safety standards and the lead ban. Sellers of used children’s products, such as thrift stores and consignment stores, are not required to certify that those products meet the new lead limits, phthalates standard or new toy standards.

The new safety law does not require resellers to test children’s products in inventory for compliance with the lead limit before they are sold. However, resellers cannot sell children’s products that exceed the lead limit and therefore should avoid products that are likely to have lead content, unless they have testing or other information to indicate the products being sold have less than the new limit. Those resellers that do sell products in violation of the new limits could face civil and/or criminal penalties.

Does anyone know about this?

How uber-cute is that girl's skirt? It is one of my favorite ETSY stores called Kinchi. I go to that online store and marvel at how fun her kids clothes are. It is like Boden clothes, except waaaay cooler. The woman who runs the online store lives in Holland, and makes clothes on the side while staying home with her kids. She searches for vintage 70's fabric to make funky clothes. My kind of gal. I have not bought a skirt yet from her yet, but was thinking I would, and give it to M. for her 5th birthday. My daughter has a love, and I do mean love for dogs. I am venturing to guess this is the kind of skirt M. would wear and people might stop and ask where we bought it. Then I can say "oh, I bought it on the ETSY website, from Holland, this woman hand-makes clothes from vintage fabrics." and that is how things get spread word of mouth in mom-world. Before you know it Kinchi has new sales and her family is supporting itself from her creative efforts. And we all live happily ever after.
No, wait. Not today.
I went to Kinchi's ETSY store today and she said after Feb 11th she was no longer selling clothes to the US and is most likely closing her ETSY store because of it. And here is why...

I have been hearing rumblings from my friends who craft about Congress passing the CPSIA. That would stand for Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. Passed by Congress, going into effect Feb 11, 2009. This act does three things
1. bans lead and phthalates in children's products
2. mandates third party testing and certification for lead and phthalates
3. requires manufacturer's of all goods for children under the age of 12 to permanently label each item with a date and batch number
When they say all goods, this means toys, books, clothing, art, educational supplies, bicycles etc. This also means that it will be illegal to sell or donate to charities. The government is requiring all items be destroyed or thrown away that do have certification.
So lets discuss this for a minute. In an effort to make products for kids safe, this law has passed. And, I think many would agree the products in question are manufactured overseas in places like China, right? You know, big companies. The ones making a gazillion dollars, who can afford to comply with these rules. They are not going to suffer very much because they have the financial resources. So far so good. But, for all the wonderful crafters, small businesses and generous people giving clothes and toys away to charities and selling small amounts of merchandise, it does not sound so good. No, not at all. In fact a store in my town has been telling its customers that it is going to close because of this. A wonderful mother/daughter consignment shop I frequent cannot comply with this law because it would cost them thousands of dollars to do so. And while browsing on ETSY I found shops that are closing, no longer making their handmade children clothes, wool diaper covers, hand carved wooden toys all because this law has passed. How many children in low income neighborhoods are going to affected by this law? If I cannot donate M's old toys and clothes to charity, where are they going to end up? In landfills? And what resources are mothers who cannot afford to buy things at retail price going to have? And what about school fundraisers? Holiday craft fairs? Handmade dolls moms make at night to sell for extra money for their family? My community is heavily invested in careers with mothers making crafts and selling at fairs. One of the best presents ever given to M was from a man who carves animals out of wood and puts little wheels on them from North Carolina. What is going to happen to him? Or disabled people working in little shops making toys on a small scale in some city somewhere. Or a woman making handmade baby quilts to sell at local stores. How will they afford the cost to have a lab test their products for safety? Well, they won't. And, meanwhile the factories in China making plastic crap toys will continue, humming along, making a gazillion dollars.
Today I am asking myself, WTF?

Angus the Dog

Angus the dog. He lives in North Carolina with my in-laws. He is very loved, and extremely sweet. M. loves him too. A lot. Maybe too much? Angus weathered our visit really well. According to follow-up accounts he recovered from our visit over a two day period. I am happy to report there were no nips, bites or other dog self-defense moves while we were visiting him. Yes, Angus is cool. Very tolerant. More tolerant than I would be if I were a dog up against a 4 year old with an agenda. M. was in his face for 10 days, sneaking jabs, prods, kicks and of course kisses and hugs. Thanks Angus. We love you.