What I now know about pressure cookers…

image: http://www2.worldpub.net

They scare me.
I’ve always considered the pressure cooker to be the most menacing piece of kitchen equipment.  I understand the appeal of cooking something super fast, rather than leaving it to braise for hours upon hours, but I was always intimidated by their mystery.  This past week has only confirmed my fears.

They continue to make a contribution to contemporary life.
Last Monday’s events at the Boston Marathon added the verbalized request from my youngest child of “Please don’t get killed at your race on Sunday” to the terrorism dialogue I have had with my children over the years.  The opening statement in this conversation came in the form of question in September of 2001: “Why do the buildings keep falling down?” I don’t like having to revisit these acts of violence with my boys, and I am resentfully heartbroken about the necessity of these talks.  It sucks.

They boggle me with their capabilities.
I don’t understand a lot of what happened last week.  I can’t grasp that so much carnage can come from ball bearings, nails and other bits of metal.  I will never accept that an elected official could make a statement like this, and while I’m not beyond a bit of suspicion when it comes to my government (weapons of mass destruction,  anyone?), I really don’t believe there is any type of conspiracy theory worthy activity here, either.

They work quickly, but not necessarily reliably.
The media coverage was at least as explosive as an overheated pressure cooker.  The unsubstantiated information circulated was alarming and it was difficult to look away from my Twitter feed.  When those pictures of the two suspects were “broadcast,” it became impossible to ignore the immediacy of current news technology.  It was breathtaking.

I don’t ever want one in my home.

My youngest son is obsessed with John Lennon and related dilemmas

Image: @yokoono/Twitter

Quinn asked me to load some Beatles on his iPad recently and I finally had a moment to do it this morning.  He has been really into Here Comes the Sun and chose this song as our first tune of the day.  Not a bad way to start a Sunday, I’d say.

As the music was playing sweetly, Quinn mentioned that every day he thinks about George Harrison and John Lennon being dead and he gets angry.  Well, as he said, not really about George because it wasn’t his fault that he got sick, but the thing about John?  That made him really upset. Why did that guy have to shoot him?

Quinn asked me when John was killed – what year?  I’m sure that 1980 sounded like a million years ago to my boy, but I continued my remembrances of that time (freshman year of high school) by telling him that the man who shot Lennon was still in prison for committing that crime.  He was outraged – “Why wasn’t he executed, Mom?  How could he have done that to John Lennon?”

How do I respond to that?  How does one explain the precarious relationship between the emergence of sunshine, the death of an idol and a life spent behind bars?  Oh, Beautiful Boy, where would I begin?

I miss my neighbors and other random laments from the perpetually busy

image: http://blog.cleanenergy.org

It seems like a long time since I’ve kicked back with my neighbors and enjoyed a bottle or two of wine.  It must be our crazy schedules with multiple jobs and obligations because it certainly isn’t a lack of interest.  I find myself looking longingly out the window hoping to see their cars in the driveway when I have an hour to spare, but I know that spring is here now and summer with its long evenings, will be here soon.  Time to start shopping for rose’!

I need to start packing for the upcoming trip.  Quick joke: I actually thought I was going to visit friends in New Paltz this weekend.  No, really.  Of course, anyone who truly knows me would have been well aware that was never going to happen when I obviously need to be preparing for a holiday.  I’ve actually started my preliminary stack of selected clothing and intend to begin visualizing outfits and accessories.  I promise to limit myself to 2 pairs of running shoes.

I’ve been hemming and hawing about upgrading my iPhone 4 to an iPhone 5.  I don’t have any issues with my 4, but it would be kind of complicated to set it up to use in Europe and the price of the 5 was fair enough as an upgrade.  I had already forfeited my unlimited data deal when I upgraded Griffin’s phone last month, and Best Buy was offering some decent incentives via this week’s circular, so I went for it.

You know how you generally feel at least slightly screwed when you get a new phone?  Perhaps groped at a minimum?  Well, let me tell you, I think I got an awesome deal!  The phone was $199 and I bought the 3 for $50 accessory package which was a case, screen protector and car charger.  I was given $125 for my iPhone 4, a $25 special weekly promotion and a $50 reward for having registered my phone number a few weeks back via Twitter.  I used the $50 to pay for the accessories, so my receipt total walking out was about $230.  I also have a gift card worth close to $150.  So, basically for less than $80 I got  myself a new phone – and I put it on my Best Buy account for a month so I could earn rewards.  Winning!

So, there you have it – I miss my neighbors, yet am leaving them for a vacation but can stay in touch with my new phone.  What have you been up to?

Sad, mad and glad

image: http://bettertomorrow.sodexousa.com

Last week was a weird week in the news. I mean like the kind of week when I almost feel ready to abandon reading anything beyond cooking and fashion magazines so I have a prayer of staying in my happy place. Are they going to print those upbeat type of glossy publications on Hearst’s new press?

Ever since I saw this story on the TU website I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind.  I understand that these accidents occur with far too much frequency, but for reasons I haven’t quite grasped yet, this one has really had an impact on me.  My God, did you see the car?  It doesn’t seem possible that someone could have survived that crash and I’m left wondering what the future holds for the driver of that vehicle. How many times will he wish for a do-over, for the chance to take it back and do it all again differently?  As a parent, I’m tempted to begin printing out accident scene pictures and the related obituaries and start wallpapering my boys’  bedrooms with the consequences of bad decision-making. I’m scared and my heart aches for the families involved who both lost their children that morning, because I’m certain the young man who was driving that car will never be the same.

And how do you feel about the smoke story?  No, not the Pope Francis thing, this one.  Apparently, Assemblyman Steve Katz, an opponent of legalizing medical marijuana, has no personal problem with getting blazed and speeding up the NYS Thruway – at 10:00 a.m, by the way.  Perhaps he is anti-medical marijuana because he understands it won’t cure the severe case of hypocrisy he appears to be suffering  from.  What a jerk.  Throw him out of office and let him wake and bake on his own time.

If marijuana could in fact cure hypocrisy, maybe Rob Portman has been indulging in the wacky weed, too.  Seems that now that his own son is at risk of being denied basic civil rights because he is gay, Portman has had a change of heart in his consistently anti-gay marriage stance.  I don’t really understand why his son’s life and access to the benefits of marriage are somehow more important than the millions of other gay Americans who have been denied access to wedded bliss.  I’m sincerely glad he’s changed his position, but I’m even more glad that I could never imagine believing that my own child’s opportunities are somehow more valid than those of anyone else’s child.

I’ll go back to my Bon Appetit now.

International Women’s Day

Did you know my undergraduate minor was Women’s History?  In case my English degree didn’t make me marketable, I could always fall back on that, you know?  Ha!  Anyway, yesterday was International Women’s Day and here’s my Moms@Work post in recognition of that holiday.  I can’t say any of the facts really surprised me, nor did this post from Huffington Post.  Coincidence?  I think not…

Levels of exposure

Burned out

Things have been a bit odd lately,  to the point that I’ve been wondering about “being out there.” In recent weeks, I’ve been busy, almost exhaustingly so.  On more than one occasion, I’ve fantasized about getting that stomach bug everyone had so I could drop 5lbs and stay in bed for a couple of days. Pretty sad, right?  Or maybe you’ve been here, too?

There have been events in the past couple of weeks (in January, the “quiet” month we all need after the hecticness of the holiday season) that have made me concerned that my name and my face have been a little too present in the local news.  And, no, disappointingly enough, I wasn’t arrested at some meaningful  protest or anything. It started when I took some pictures at the Wine Fest and ended up, through no preference of my own, having a picture of me being featured on the TU website in that particular slide show of shots.  Ok, great, how vain do I look?  Whatever.

The following weekend’s tragic house fire kicked things up dramatically. First, there was the interview with the very nice, Lily Jaymil.  It seemed rude to not answer a few questions, and her attempt to extract something meaningful from me about the residents of the seriously damaged home was more polite than pushy.  It felt like only minutes after she left, when the doorbell rang again – this time it was Bryan Fitzgerald of the Times Union.  We had a quick conversation and I shared a couple of photos with him, which he included in his story, in print and online.

These encounters were, I felt, in the realm of what one could expect when there is situation like the one which occurred across the street from me.  The next couple of things, though, were beyond my comfort zone, both physically and mentally.  The news truck parked in front of my house, with its constantly running engine, was beyond disruptive.  The phone call I received at work 2 days after the fire, from someone seeking information about the identity of the person recovered from the scene, made me feel nervous.  Apparently, after seeing my name on the news, this person unleashed the power of the Google and tracked me down at the school district where I work.  His actions were born of innocent concern, but it still felt invasive and I was left feeling uncomfortable.

I accept complete responsibility for the extent that I share my “thoughts, experiences and adventures*” as a writer, but I do need to consider my comfort level, along with the perils of overexposure. Bear with me, ok?

*The DelSo blog motto in a nutshell.

Burning memories

When I was 18, our house burned down.  It was at a point in my life when I didn’t have much, but everything I owned, other than 2 laundry baskets of dirty clothes which had been in my car, disappeared on a beautiful summer day.  The memories of that day have faded, like the photos in the albums which were pulled from the ashes, but the lesson that will always remain me with is the knowledge that stuff is just stuff.  Replaceable, forgettable, unimportant.

My brother was home sleeping when the fire started, but thankfully escaped without injury.  I’ve always felt that he lost more than I did in the flames – he had an impressive collection of pewter figurines he had painstakingly painted which were turned into a puddle of metal from the heat that day.  He had albums and books and other collections that were important to him.  I had clothes, lots of clothes, outfits that I continued to miss for months, if not years.  I can’t tell you how many times I was drawn up short as I planned my evening’s outfit only to remember that I no longer had that dress or skirt.  I got used to it.  I moved on with the sense that none of it mattered all that much, and the knowledge that what I truly considered necessary in my life had been forever redefined.

This morning, I awoke to the sound of engines running.  I live on a small, narrow street and the noises weren’t going away.  Reluctantly, I got out of bed and looked out my window to see a street filled with emergency vehicles, yet still surprisingly quiet beyond the hum of the diesel motors.  I assumed it was a medical call until I picked my head up and looked directly across the street – to the house I will always call “George’s house,” and saw the flames licking the dark sky.

After putting on a robe, I went downstairs and outside where the temperature didn’t even register as cold, much less frigid.  I think I became aware of the extreme cold and the fact that I was crying, simultaneously.  Nearly three decades had disappeared in an instant – at a speed that surely rivaled the rate of that fire’s rampage through the second story of 12 Arcadia Avenue.  As the owners of the immediate neighboring houses were evacuated, we made contact with each other.  I invited them inside, offered coffee and a bathroom, a refuge with a bird’s-eye view of the devastating flames.  Texts were sent between other neighbors.  We connected and consoled each other with the fact that other than two dogs, the house was vacant at the time of the fire.

The firefighters were impressive – focused, thorough, professional and, despite the limitations placed upon them on such a narrow street, they battled the fire and contained it in a remarkably short period of time.  The sun rose and it was over.  But was it?  More vehicles arrived, vans emblazoned with K-9 Ashes on their side.  Police and more fire officials and some media.  Word started to spread – the loss of life wasn’t limited to canines, horribly a young woman’s life had been extinguished by the smoke and the flames.  Irreplaceable, unforgettable, important to those who knew and loved her, and always to be remembered, may she rest in peace.