Baby Oil is my new best friend

The next time you’re cleaning up after staining fine wood furniture, or even cheap wood furniture, and you find yourself fresh out of mineral spirits, take heart, a solution is at hand.  Ahem.  

Today, with my hands covered in brown stain, and a brush in the same condition, I pondered clean-up solutions.  No mineral spirits, per stain label instructions.  I thought of the last time we needed to get off some of the sticky goop left behind by medical tape.  Rubbing alcohol required too much rubbing.   But baby oil takes off the adhesive very easily, and near a fresh wound doesn’t risk screaming pain.  

If you want to know why wood stain made me think of tape adhesive, well, it’s in the chemistry of it all.  The adhesive and the wood stain both have oily, or at least hydrophobic compounds in them.  

So.  I dug out a bottle of baby oil that is as old as at least one of my children, maybe more.   I doused both hands with the oil and rubbed it in.  Then I rubbed in a great glop of dish soap before putting them under the running water.  It worked better when I waited on the water.  And it worked great for my brushes too.  

The hydrophobic stain, bonded with the hydrophobic baby oil.  But that alone wasn’t enough, it merely spread out the stain in a more even coating on my hands.  When I tried to rinse that away, the water just sheeted off (because the water and the stain said, eek! water, get it off!).  So, I needed the magic of soap, which has both hydrophobic parts and hydrophilic (mmm,  water) parts and can form micelles that carry off…. what?  Too much chemistry?  

Ok, anyway, it worked really well.  And left my skin soft to boot.  Later, I took the baby oil and dish soap into the shower to get the spots off of my arms, shoulders, neck and cheek.  Take note, the baby oil and soap will not remove the bruise on your thigh that you got when the rocking horse runner slammed into it yesterday but you forgot about and thought was a splotch of stain that had soaked through your old (favorite) jeans, no matter how much you scrub before you realize it is actually just a bruise and not stain.  Do be careful though, the floor of the tub/shower will be slippery when you’re done.  Leave a note for the next person.  Or better yet, rub the floor of the tub/shower with a soapy rag.  

The stain was for the twenty-one (!), four-foot shelves that were cut, sanded and stained today (their supports were assembled yesterday and stained today as well), that will go on this wall of our living room.  

Or perhaps this one (if I move all of that other stuff).  Notice how for one wall I will have to move stuff but for the other one I won’t.  (Also, please notice on the back of the couch the two-tone blue afghan that my mother-in-law gave me for Christmas.  I love it.  Ok, maybe you can’t so much see it in this picture, but it’s lovely and she had to weave in a bazillion ends in the crocheted hounds tooth pattern, for which I think she is the most lovely person because I know how much work that can be.  Also notice our lovely antennae job, imitating speaker wire thumb-tacked on the wall and stretching across the room.  Oh no, wait, DON’T notice that.)  

Sending some love across the miles

Whoever said that food isn’t love didn’t know what he was talking about.  

This is a yellow ruler and a batch of my family’s Irish Soda Bread recipe.  I can’t account for the ruler, but the recipe has been passed down through who-knows-how-many generations of women, each adding, altering and tweaking to her preference.  Each woman (and, I can hope, a few men, perhaps) made up this bread to sustain, warm, comfort, praise, love, or generally provide for their families and friends and bake sale goers.  None of these people, apparently, thought to cut down the recipe.  

I am sworn to secrecy as to the exact recipe, but I must give you a general idea of the scale of it, just in case the picture doesn’t make it clear.  That is 12 cups of flour and 4+ cups of milk.  There is a pound of raisins in there, and a pound of butter.  Uh, and some other stuff (because that is starting to sound too much like a recipe and old Irish women are rolling over in their graves in preparation for haunting me).  But one of the other things is Caraway Seed. 

That’s it!  I promise not to say any more.  Settle down, Mumsy.* 

Anyway, I made a batch of this last night.  One regular bread loaf, one round in the cast iron skillet, a dozen regular-sized muffins, and a billion mini-muffins.  They make absolutely delightful accompaniments to tea, either at breakfast, or perhaps in the afternoon, or right before bed.  They are just sweet enough to sub as dessert, but not so sweet that they can’t be a hearty breakfast.  It freezes well, and keeps forever on the counter even without freezing.  Just add a dab of butter to bring it back from the brink of staleness. 

I learned this recipe from my mother.  So did my sister, though I have no proof that she has ever independently chosen to make up a batch.  As I was stirring the batter, which takes a lot of muscle, I was thinking of my mother.  This bread is all tied up with the best kind of memories of her.  I was remembering funny things, and tea, and being covered in flour ahead of St. Patrick’s Day, as we made dozens of loaves of bread for some reason or other.  Good memories.  

I was thinking of my step-father.  It was from his family that this recipe came to us.  He loved a slice of soda bread or a couple of muffins with a dab of butter and a cup of piping  hot tea (Red Rose, mostly, and he had the little figurines to prove it).  Also good memories.  

When the first bits came out of the oven (the minis, which bake in 25-30 minutes), I broke one in half and took a bite.  As the muffin touched my tongue, I had the most intense, reflexive, emotional wave wash over me.  That one bite of muffin made me weep.  Deep, soul-tugging sobs as all of these feelings just bubbled up and out.  

I’m fine.  It felt good to cry about those things that feel so far away most of the time.  

It was a heady reminder of the power of food, and of traditions, and of the things that connect us to one another even when we’re not together, or not even alive.  

So, like many women before me, I baked this bread with love and care, mixed and baked it as best I could, with attention to every detail and nuance of the recipe (I’ve doubled the baking powder and soda, as well as the vanilla; sorry Mumsy), to feed to my Partner and my children, of course.  But I made it with the intent to wrap it carefully (I used ziplocks and bubblewrap and a beautiful piece of fabric) to mail to my brother and sister, far though they may be this Christmas.  

I hope that it will last them from Christmas to the New Year.  The hardest time for remembering in our family.  

This New Year’s Eve, it will be ten years since our father died of a gunshot wound to the head.  His soul, I hope, is at peace.  The soul of our mother is more in question.  My brother and sister have been somewhat battered on the oceans of life since then, and in whatever way you send out messages to the universe, I wonder if you could send them a little bit of peace this year as they contemplate this past decade.  Perhaps we can all add to their bread in bringing them a little warmth and calm this year of all years.  

***

*Mumsy was my lovely Irish grandmother.  She would have a genuflection and some very colorful blessing to add to a reference to the dead.  How about this one: May her soul rest in the loving bosom of Jesus.  Yes I think we all need a loving bosom of one kind or another.  

Not Done Yet

Ok, so I really really hoped that I was done with Ike.  But Ike isn’t done with us yet.  Not by a long shot.  

Partner’s parents, northwest of Houston a couple of hours, experienced Category 1 winds and buckets of rain.  They’re fine.  Their house is fine.  They are among the lucky ones.  

They have been without electricity since early yesterday morning.  Their power company says it’ll be somewhere between five days and two weeks (weeks!) until their power is restored.  Besides lacking the obvious luxuries like fridge and air conditioning, the pump on their well is electric, as is the overflow on their septic tank.  So the less obvious luxuries of bathing and flushing are out for a while.  They can cook on a gas stove, but have no way to keep food very cold.  The local town does have electricity, and the roads are clear and stores and restaurants are open and functional.  We have nonetheless encouraged them to come stay with us for a while.  

Granddad works in the insurance industry, and will likely be busy for the next few… well, for a while.  

On a psychological front, I can’t let go of Ike yet.  I feel compelled to watch as the damage and casualties emerge, knowing full well that one of those splintered homes could have been mine but for a late curve to the north.  I feel compelled to grieve with those who have lost their homes, who may have lost neighbors and loved ones.

I am fine, and lucky, and I know that this second-hand grief will pass.  It will pass for me much more quickly than for those in Houston and Galveston and elsewhere in east Texas and Louisiana.  

I want you to do something for me.  Hug someone you love.  Call a friend you haven’t seen for a while.  Count your blessings.  Do something to help someone.  

Go Cook this

It’s fast (you really can have it finished in thirty minutes).  It’s easy.  It’s cheap.  And oh my, does it taste yummy.  

You might have to give up an email address to get to the recipes, but they’re both free recipes that were on America’s Test Kitchen on PBS recently.  In the show, they suggested that the garlic-shy could use as few as three cloves of garlic, but seriously, you want to use all six.  The house will smell fantastic for hours. 

Ziti

This one uses a bit of cream.  Which I did not have on hand.  So I used milk with a dollop of butter.  I also used 16 ounces of pasta and increased the water to four cups—in a bigger pan of course.

  

Ziti with Putanesca Sauce

This is a variation on the theme, using some anchovy and olive, and substituting red wine for the cream.  I’ll do this one next time.  Side note, I can’t read ‘Putanesca’ without thinking of the scene in the first Lemony Snicket book, where Violet, Klaus, and Sunny are forced to cook dinner for Count Olaf and his troupe of ‘actors.’  

You know you wanna.

As the Germ Turns

Partner has pneumonia. Sunday and Monday he looked like death warmed over. A chest x-ray from Monday afternoon shows that it was just *barely* pneumonia (is that like being a “little pregnant” I wonder?) and he felt fine though coughy and returned to work Tuesday.

Sonar X5 started to droop Tuesday night. We thought initially that it was also going the way of an upper-respiratory virus, but alas, took a turn toward multi-textured and -sourced digestive efflux during the night last night. Nothing like a shivering sobbing child in the tub in the middle of the night followed by nasty midnight laundry. After some dry-heaves this morning, this bug has settled back to mild cough, mild fever.

Sonar X3 started to droop last night, but has thankfully acquiesced to a naptime with actual sleeping. But first we had to do the daily banana rules.

Background first. Every day before what we have ceased to call naptime and now call quiet time (what with the general lack of actual napping), I chat or read quietly with each preschool Sonar for a few minutes. Each Sonar has developed a unique settling routine that invariably involves a personal script of silliness that is recited each day.

For Sonar X3 this includes a list of things to remember during quiet time, a.k.a. The Banana Rules, wherein we take regular things to remember and add the word banana.

1. Be quiet becomes Be quiet, banana
2. Get some rest becomes Get some rest, banana
3. I love you becomes I love you banana
4. Stay in your bed unless you need to use the toilet becomes Stay in your banana unless you need to use the toilet, or Stay in your bed unless you need to use the banana, which is giggling corrected by the Sonar to Stay in you bed unless you need to use the toilet, BANANA!
5. Don’t put your feet on the wall (he’s a wall-kicker) becomes Don’t put your feet on the Bananas, which is gigglingly corrected to Don’t put your BANANAS on the wall, in a surprisingly funny twist on preschool humor.

Funny kid.

Sonar X7 is healthy and competing in his school science fair today. Making the world a better place for toothpaste and hard-boiled eggs.

I am feeling a bit weary, so I’ll complain. Scriptfrenzy begins April first, but the detailed plan I had planned to make is so far nonexistent. I haven’t had a chance to Run in more than two weeks. These facts are combining to make me grouchy. In addition, Family—a sane, sensitive, thankfully unfastidious contingent—arrives for a four-day visit April fourth. I am looking forward to this visit, but, you know, there are things to get ready, and I want everyone to have a nice time. And these are good relationships, but they are relationships in repair after long-term damage, a some time source of anxiety.

On the bright side, there is an abundance of salad greens waiting to be picked in the back yard. The preschool Sonars and I harvested baby broccoli and cauliflower this morning to make some soup. And there is the most amazing bushy cluster of blooms and buds on our tiny avocado tree.

Now, if only I can keep myself from getting sick.