Blogzac 4: Rexodus

Note:  Eglentyne has not yet returned from New Mexico, but right now, she’s driving back home  across the desert in a van with her Partner and three children under nine years old.  Likely she’s wishing for caffeine and ready to choke them all, but we hope there will be good pictures when she gets back and gets them developed.  And we also hope that the digital camera will be fixed soon.  

Breakfast-for-dinner has been common for us recently.  For one thing, breakfasty food seems to use up less fresh food and more pantry food (handy in the lead-up to vacation).  For another, cooking breakfast food seems to heat up the kitchen less than cooking more conventional dinner food.  That’s probably just a psychological difference.  Maybe.

We made french toast to use up a loaf of bread, and the recipe I usually use calls for Cinnamon and Nutmeg.  Browsing through the cupboard, I knew I had Nutmeg stashed in a can.  I love Nutmeg, especially off the—hm, is it actually a nut?—nut, grated fresh.  Fills the kitchen with great smells.  But as I was fiddling my fingers across the spice jars, contemplating, I stopped at the Cardamon (which I am forever, for some inexplicable reason, confusing with Coriander).  While this jar of ground Cardamon doesn’t offer the same pungent aroma of freshly rasped Nutmeg, it did offer the potential for something different.

I sniffed.  Could Cardamon and Cinnamon work together?  I couldn’t remember the last time I’d used the Cardamon.  In the breading for fried chicken maybe?  No telling.  But I decided to give it a shot, using it in place of the Nutmeg.  

It was great.  Subtle, almost peppery notes were added to the french toast sticks.  So much did I like it that I used it in oatmeal cookies in place of the cloves, and lo, it was good there too.  

Next time (hopefully): the return of the feckless blogger.  

Blogzac 3: The Anniversary Edition

Note: Eglentyne is still in NM.  Many of you probably wish she’d never come back.  Right now, the Sonars are probably scaling rock walls, and she and Partner are probably plotting ways of moving to NM permanently so they can soak up the sunshine and the very cool manana vibe that permeates the state, especially on hot summer afternoons.  She might even be wearing the smoking hot Hawaiian print dress she made for herself back in Texas before the trip.  Or maybe she’s not wearing it anymore.  

Partner and I were married eleven years ago.  ELEVEN!  If we’d had our druthers, it would have been eleven years and one day, but the very funny, frizzy-headed lady who married us was already booked for the Fourth of July.  Who says that Independence Day isn’t romantic?  

I’m not sure I’ve ever done anything else for eleven years.  Even better, we’ve actually been together for THIRTEEN AND A HALF years.  Weird.  

But they’ve been a really charmed 13 years (family craziness notwithstanding), and I wouldn’t walk any other path for any other prize in the world.  

Blogzac 2

Note:  Eglentyne is still on vacation.  She wrote this post before she left, and because she is still unable to predict the future, she has no idea what she’s actually doing in Albuquerque right now, but she’s sure it’s fun, and she wishes you could join her.  It probably involves sunshine.  And maybe green chile.  And probably beer.  

Partner remembered this punchline, or at least what he thought was a punchline:  “The piccolo player is a motherf***er.”  I had never heard the joke that I could remember.  The world being what it is, I googled (warning: explicit content) the line.  

Whenever Sonar X8 has a bad dream or has trouble turning off his brain to get ready to go to sleep, I always tell him this joke:

What did the fish say when he ran into a wall?  Dam!  

Apparently we’re all foul-mouthed around here.  

Blogzac 1

Note:  Eglentyne is on vacation in New Mexico right now, but decided in a fit of vacation-preparation procrastination to schedule blogs to be posted in her absence in an effort to prove that she could blog more often while away from the computer than she does when at home. This week’s posts are the equivalent of elevator music.  Blog + muzac = blogzac.  

After a new-music hiatus during the early years of my children’s lives, I have now returned to the land of exploring new music.  In the years since my departure from music consumption, the industry, the method, and the content has changed dramatically.  Which is sort of weird.  I didn’t realize how completely I had checked out of popular culture until I checked back in.  

My favorite song this week:  

“Charity” by Gnarls Barkley.  In fact, I just love the entire Odd Couple album.  I defy you to Not move a little when you hear it.  

And I know this one isn’t entirely new, but I love “I Wish I Was a Punkrocker” by Sandi Thom.  The combination of thumpy, jangly, melodic and nostalgic feels good.  

In fact there are a lot of amazing female voices out there now (Ileana, Sara Bareilles, Sandi Thom, Brandi Carlile, Ileana, Amy Winehouse [emphysema notwithstanding], Ileana).*  And I really like all those Emo boys.  I have faith that if I were a teenager now, that’s the music I’d be immersed in.  Plus Modest Mouse.  

*Full disclosure:  Ileana and I went to Cleveland Middle School together about 800 years ago.  Help make her famous.  Give her and her beautiful voice and words a little love.  While in Albuquerque, we will meet up for the first time since I had only one child.  I’m looking forward to it.  :)

Packing

We are about to pack ourselves and our children into the Eurovan and drive 900 miles through the desert.  I would not necessarily say it is the bleakest drive in the world (that stretch along the border through El Paso is pretty bleak, but we’re not going that way this year), not is it the most monotonous (SharpSticks wins that one for her drive through the wheat fields of, hm, Alberta was it?), but it does have a certain featurelessness that is typical of much desert driving.  

Just to make things interesting, we’re taking a hard right at Fort Stockton, Texas, detouring from the Interstate this year and going through Carlsbad and Roswell in New Mexico.  

For those of you unfamiliar with NM geography, Carlsbad has what are among the most famous caverns in the world situated nearby.  Aptly titled, Carlsbad Caverns National Monument.  (I love that web address.  The simplicity.)  And Roswell has made itself famous for association with extra-terrestrial life.  Our terminal point in this grand tour is Albuquerque, city of my childhood.  We are still deluding ourselves that we will make it there in one day.  

We are two drivers, and the drive from here to there is 14 hours, not counting pee breaks, leg stretching, dinner, and stops to appreciate the cultural/ educational/ social/ geographical/ historical/ silent and/or childless significance of any given place.

So today we are deciding what to pack into the van with us and the three Sonars.  So far we have packed two audio books and a bucket of car-appropriate crafty/fiddly things.  Oh, and need I say there will be a bucket of legos and a kilo of stickers?

Perhaps clothes and sunscreen would be wise additions?  And of course, some knitting.  I can’t decide between a very weird sock (I tried to link directly, but it was weird… it’s the Conservative sock, which will be decidedly unconservative in some actual colors) or a sweater for Partner (The Hacky Sack Hoodie from Son of Stitch and Bitch—though I tried to talk him into the totally hot Messenger sweater with the skull on the shoulder).  Go ahead and laugh.  Oh yeah, sure, ‘take the sweater,’ you might say, wiping away a tear of hilarity, ‘to knit in the 100+ degree (Fahrenheit) New Mexico desert.   Good plan.’  But I will need some knitting to wile away the hours, knitting that isn’t too challenging, so that I can follow the pattern over the wailing and gnashing of teeth (‘My butt hurts’ or ‘I know we just stopped ten miles ago, but I will not pee in a cup!’).  

So, what must you have with you when you go on a trip?  Sedatives?  A travel guide?  A nanny?  Earplugs?