Mental Faculties

People keep asking me how I'm dealing with the lack of sleep necessitated by a newborn.  Truthfully, except when I am actually prying myself out of deep sleep at 3 in the morning, I feel okay.  However, there are clearly subtle effects, detectable upon close observation.  Let me tell you a little story to illustrate.

One of The Pit's coworkers stopped by for a visit the other day, and brought a lovely bouquet of flowers.  I carefully trimmed the stems, added the plant food, and put the flowers in the vase.  The next day however, the flowers looked a little...droopy.

"Weird," I said to myself, and continued about my day, moving from bed to couch and back again, baby draped all over me.  The next day, there was definite wilting in the vase - and yet it still didn't hit me that I might have forgotten a critical element in the equation.

The following day my mom came to stay with us, and delicately asked me who had placed the flowers in the vase.  I told her it was me, and she carefully didn't make any follow-up observations.  Later in the day, I noticed that she had combined the flowers with another, older bouquet, and that things were looking alive and cheery once again.

"Those look much better," I pointed out.

"Well, water does tend to help," she replied.

So err, yes, apparently the lack of sleep is affecting me, although thankfully I am merely starving well-intentioned gifts, and not Fuzzy.  His chins are in no danger, although he remains ever vigilant.

I should note that after three days with us, my mom is also starting to feel the effects of Fuzzy's round the clock care.  This afternoon, The Pit went to drop some scraps in the compost pile.  When he returned, he asked me why my mother felt the need to compost a wooden spoon.  I was at a loss, and when the question was posed to her, she couldn't answer either, having no memory of this horticultural experimentation.

To Be or Not to Be...Peed On

Because Fuzzy's arrival came via c-section, I have a hard time with some positions, including bending over and sitting up.  Consequently, The Pit has taken on the majority of diaper changing duties since Peach Fuzz was born.  Considering that prior to the blessed event, The Pit had never changed a diaper, I think he's doing splendidly.   However, there is one aspect to having a boy that he clearly did not anticipate.  I refer, of course, to the...err...golden showers.

It first happened in the hospital room, when The Pit was changing an exceptionally dirty diaper.  Fuzzy was being rather uncooperative, and in all his thrashing around, poop was getting everywhere - the Pit, Fuzzy's feet, Fuzzy's shirt, the bassinet, the extra blankets, etc.  I actually pulled myself out of bed to help out, because the situation looked to be deteriorating rapidly.  Just as I got there, Fuzz decided his parents needed an additional challenge, and launched a stream of urine in a high arch toward the two of us.  Well, c-section stitches or no, we both managed to dodge out of the way, laughing hysterically. 

The Pit, as it turned out, would not be laughing for very much longer.  Over the next few days, Fuzzy managed to hit him once during a diaper change, and several times while sitting innocently on The Pit's lap, as the pee overwhelmed his diaper and soaked through The Pit's shorts.  The Pit got to be quite bitter about this state of affairs, once going so far as to remark that life did not seem fair, as I had remained both urine and feces free for almost a week.

Of course, shortly after telling me this, The Pit found an urgent reason to make a trip to Home Depot, leaving me to manage both feeding and changing on my own.  This situation very quickly changed from this idealic scene:

Fuzzy heard the call of nature, and I put him down on the changing table.  Naturally, I forgot to cover a certain critical anatomy fast enough, and once again witnessed a high yellow stream heading my way.  This time I was not so quick, and both myself and the floor got a good soaking.  However, as we were about to learn, changing your shorts and cleaning the floor is not really the worst thing that can happen in this situation. 

The next time Fuzzy attempted this trick, he was...err, how to put this delicately...pointing in a different direction, and managed to nail himself right in the face.  There was a moment of stunned silence, followed by hysterical wailing from the baby, and rather uncharitable laughter from The Pit and I.  I'm sure he'll get us back eventually, but in the meantime, diaper changes have been pretty quiet around here.             

Hello Again

Well, its been almost two years, and I think it might be high time to resurrect ye olde blog, as The Pit and I are moving into a phase of our lives guaranteed to be rife with bloggable moments for the amusement of my audience of dozen. 

Introducing Peach Fuzz, currently 5 days old, and already justifiably concerned about our parenting skills:

And Back!

So, what have we been up to since my last post?

Being Touristy:

Shortly before my job started, The Pit and I took a little weekend trip to the Shenandoah Valley. Our bed and breakfast experience was only so so, but the natural wonders of the area made up for it. First of all, we saw a bear climbing a tree. I took some incredibly blurry pictures, which I won't even bother presenting here, since there is no way to actually determine from my photography what the brownish smudge in the middle of the greenish blur actually is. You'll just have to take my word for it, bear in tree = awesome.

We also toured the most amazing giant mile-long cave. I can't believe this place isn't more widely advertised as the the best landmark in Virgina, because it's definitely worth the drive and the price of admission. The pictures we took really don't do it justice, but Luray Caverns was absolutely spectacular.

Shortly after our underground adventure, Rob came out for a visit, and we drove up through Annapolis (eating at deli puzzlingly named a delly) and over to the Eastern Shore of Chesapeake Bay. There we stopped in a little town called St. Michael's, where we took a boat tour of the bay, complete with oyster dredging and exciting archeological finds. We also saw some bald eagles, which was pretty neat. I guess I'm a bad American, as I didn't realize they even lived on the East Coast. After our trip on the good ship Krenz, the boys had an enormous table full of crabs for dinner. I wish I could show you the picture, but somebody (ahem Rob) has failed to upload his pictures to the web.

To make up for my poor knowledge of our national symbol, the next weekend The Pit and I made our way to Mt. Vernon, the home of our illustrious first president. And to call this a home would be a rather large understatement. Apparently Mr. Washington was filthy rich for his time, and owned a giant plantation and mansion on the shore of the Potomac river. Today some historical ladies society operates a small portion of the old fields, and the best part of the trip was taking a picture with huge donkey named Moose. Behold:

I believe this concludes our touristy summer travels. Next post, I will update you on our new lives as hip urban professionals. We've been out! To the city! I didn't even die!

Employment!

A job a job a job I got a job! That's right, in a somewhat surprising turn of events, I've actually been employed since Thursday, when I was called in for something called an 'offer interview,' which turned into an offer, which turned into my first day.

Of course, this development meant that 'blogging' moved even further down my to-do list, behind things like 'buy food' and 'get more work clothes so people don't think you're a hobo.' But, you have now been officially updated. Also, I clearly will never write all the posts I promised you, so to tie up any loose threads:

1) I am an amazing wife because one Monday I came home from OL's and made The Pit Coq au Vin, despite the fact that it takes hours, and includes both bacon and mushrooms so I don't even eat the finished product. Also, I discovered in the initial stages of cooking that the trash needed to be taken out, and when I had accomplished this chore, I found about 6 inches of beer at the bottom of our now empty trashcan. How did this happen? Beats me, but I'm pretty sure I didn't do it. However, let me tell you that cleaning up that much of somebody else's beer from a difficult to reach location really doesn't put you in the mood to cook a crazy French dish that you won't even eat. Nevertheless, I persevered, and lo, my husband was pleased.

2) Money may not buy happiness, but it buys a certain amount of marital bliss. Due to various idiosyncrasies on both my and The Pit's parts and a grand total of 4 spoons in the household, we were forever grumbling at each other over silverware and the proper washing thereof. Then came the wedding and lots of lovely gifts, and now we have more silverware than we could possibly use in a week. Our supply of other kitchen staples (cutting boards, mixing bowls, etc) that previously caused friction has also increased, and a low-level but constant annoyance has been completely eliminated from my life.

Okay, now I've got to run or I'll be late for my very first Monday at my new job (!!!). I love you all and aim only to please, but if I were you, I wouldn't expect a ton of new material here for the next little bit.

Cucumber and Zucchini Soup

When it was a thousand degrees here a few weeks ago, The Pit just about came unglued. He collapsed on our bed and sulked at the general ghastliness of weather that was not only over a 100°F, but also hovering near 70% humidity. Didn't I know he was made of manly northern stock, meant for snow and ice and howling wind? I tried vainly to cheer him up, offering the coldest foods I could think of for dinner. Unfortunately, we'd already eaten all of our watermelon, and he rejected ice cream as inappropriate for a main course. Finally, I suggested trying cucumber soup. He perked up, and I went off to the kitchen to prepare said soup while he took a restorative nap.

I started off with this recipe, but quickly discovered that we were missing some of the main ingredients. Erm, yes, I had in fact suggested cucumber soup without checking our actual cucumber supplies. It turned out that I had approximately one and half tiny Persian cukes in the vegetable drawer (half of one was all wilty and slimy). But cucumber soup had been promised, and so I had to improvise. I found green and yellow zucchini originally purchased to make some pasta, and decided that cooked and blended, there wouldn't be much difference between these and cucumbers. I had to make a few other substitutions (never heard of farina, had no red wine vinegar, don't keep margarine in the house, like dill better than tarragon), but the soup turned out absolutely delicious.

What you'll need for about 6 bowls:

• 2 Persian cucumbers (or one regular cuke)
• 1 green zucchini
• 1 yellow zucchini
• 2-3 stalks green onion
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 4-5 cups of chicken broth (or vegetable broth for a vegetarian version)
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar (or red wine vinegar)
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
• 1/2 cup sour cream

• optional: 1 small red or yellow potato

Steps:

1) Peel and roughly chop the zucchini . Roughly chop the cukes (peel if not using the thin-skinned Persian variety). Peel and dice the potato if using (I've now made this soup twice, once with potato and once without - as far as I could tell, it didn't make a whole lot of difference).

2) Dice the green onion. Sauté the onion in butter at the bottom of a large stockpot.

3) Add the zucchini and sauté for 2 minutes. Add the cucumbers and sauté for another minute.

4) Add the vinegar and broth. I think part of what made the soup so good was that I used some home-made broth left over from making chicken soup, including little bits of garlic, onion, and chicken floating at the bottom. If you're using store-bought, I would suggest seasoning it a bit (salt, pepper, garlic & onion powders, thyme, rosemary, and Vegeta if you have some).

5) Put a lid on the pot and simmer for 20-30 minutes, until the zucchini (and potato if using) are soft.

6) Turn off the heat, add the dill to the pot, and use an immersion blender to puree the soup. If you're not lucky enough to have an amazing officiant at your wedding who also gave you an an immersion blender, transfer to a regular blender and puree.

7) Whisk in the sour cream. Although we originally intended to chill the soup, we ended up eating it kinda warmish, mostly because we didn't have the patience to wait for it to cool down all the way. As it turned out, this was a good decision, as The Pit had some leftovers cold the next day, and reported that the soup was better at about room temperature.

AWOL

I know I know I know. I've been derelict at my post. There's been a bit of writer's block, plus Nikole came to visit and distracted me. So er, yes, blame Nikole.*

However, although I have not, in fact, been blogging, I've been thinking about blogging. Thus, there are several posts percolating around in my head, which you may or may not see actually written in the near future. Possible topics include:

• the fact that money can indeed buy happiness.
• reason #15 (to pick an arbitrarily large number**) that I'm an excellent wife.
• a really delicious cucumber soup recipe.

---

*Do not actually blame Nikole.

**I'm pretty sure that was a shout out to Rob and/or Caren, but hell if I can remember whose joke that is. Remind me, should you happen to read this post.

Radishes with Herbed Butter

Growing up, my mom always had a Tupperware container with cleaned radishes sitting in the fridge. My father would breeze by, pop a few in his mouth like candy, and then move along to wherever he happened to be going. Unusual, perhaps, but The Pit is also a radish fan, and occasionally takes a little baggy-full with him to work as a snack. Apparently his co-workers mock him, but I bet they wouldn't if they got a taste of this preparation. I modified the original recipe slightly, and oh man, did this turn out delicious. I made a main course too, but The Pit and I basically shared a buttered and be-radished baguette for dinner last night.

What you’ll need:

• 1-2 bunches of radishes (or about 8 oz cleaned up in the little bags), sliced
• ¼ lb unsalted butter, softened
• 1-2 stalks of green onion, diced
• 2-3 teaspoons parsley, diced
• 2-3 teaspoons dill, diced
• 1-2 teaspoons lemon juice (a few squeezes from half a lemon)
• ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• 1 French baguette (or Trader Joe's Par-Baked Ficelle)

Steps:

1) Take the butter out of the fridge and leave it on a sunny windowsill to soften up.

2) Slice the radishes and dice the green onion, parsley, and dill. I went a little overboard with the parsley and green onion, and ended up using only about ½ of the amount shown below. On the other hand, I didn't have enough fresh dill, and supplemented with several shakes of the dried stuff.

3) Bake a par-baked Trader Joe’s baguette and slice. If you haven’t tried these yet, I highly recommend – you get two ficelles in a bag for $1.59, and they can sit in the fridge for weeks if need be. Then, when you have a craving for fresh hot bread, just pop one in the oven for 12-14 minutes. So good. If you use a regular baguette from the grocery store, I would slice and then toast the pieces slightly.

4) Mix together the butter, herbs, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. The original recipe recommended a hand mixer, but I had no problems with just a spoon.

5) Spread the herbed butter mixture over the baguette slices, and top with radish slices. Sprinkle with a little more kosher salt and freshly ground pepper.

6) Stuff your face.

Progress

So, no discernible progress on the job front, but people, I got up at 7 AM yesterday and went to the gym. Not only that, but I've in fact been to the gym every other day since I stated it as one of my goals a week ago. I mean, granted, that means I've now been to the gym five times total this calendar year, but I still feel that's an improvement over zero times.

In other goal-fulfilling news, long time readers might recall a pledge I made last year, to witness the full glory that is Rolling Thunder. The magical day was May 30th, and as it was supposed to hit 90 degrees, The Pit and I originally planned to take a short walk to an overpass and look at the motorcycles streaming by beneath us on the highway. We were almost out of the house before we realized that the overpass closest to our house is actually an underpass, and would therefore provide little in the way of viewing pleasure.

At that point, there was nothing to it but to hoof down to the Pentagon (2.5 miles away) and view the entire assembled throng in person. The walk there was hot but bearable, and you can see me holding up quite well in the following picture. Assembled behind me in one of the Pentagon parking lots are approximately 30,000 riders and motorcycles.

We then spent a half hour resting on a grassy hill, watching representative members milling around and getting perilously close to heatstroke. Behold a representative member below, with the Pentagon in the background:

Sadly I chickened out and didn't ask for pictures with any of the really picturesque specimens wandering around, but be assured there was plenty of leather, bandannas, facial hair, metal studs, and mullets in evidence. Also a fair number of cowboy hats, and I witnessed one dude strolling around in really awesome fringed leather chaps. How these people managed to survive the heat of the day wearing so very many layers of denim and leather is still puzzling to me. I mean, I wanted to die walking back home, and in fact presented such an alarming sight that passersby kept offering me water and/or sunscreen. I grew tired of explaining that it wasn't sunburn, just the normal tomato red color of my face when I'm feeling a wee bit exerted.

Bringing this post full circle, I'll reveal that my face turns this color not just when I'm about to collapse of heatstroke, but also after approximately 10 minutes spent exercising. I was not built for such strenuous physical activities, but I shall attempt to persevere.

Balsamic-Walnut Roasted Green Beans and Onions

As previously established, I am not now, nor have I ever been, an adventurous eater. However, I’m currently Andrew Zimmern in comparison to my childhood diet, which consisted almost exclusively of bread, fruit, raw vegetables, and fried pasta with cheese. When I was feeling really adventurous, I’d have some mashed potatoes. Seriously, it was a banner day in our household when I agreed that McDonald's fries were edible.

Because I hated cooked veggies, and also because they aren’t really a Russian staple, I was never exposed to green beans at home. I loved fresh peas straight from the pod, but while superficially similar, when seen in restaurants, cooked green beans looked about as far from appetizing as you could get.

In just the past year or so however, I’ve occasionally and very tentatively tried a green bean here or there, and they aren’t nearly as repulsive as they appear. Not particularly flavorful, mind you, but sort of mild and neutral tasting. The other day, I saw some green beans for sale for $0.99/lb, and thought that my husband(!) might enjoy this novel (for my cooking) vegetable.

Once I brought them home however, I realized I had no idea what to do with them. Searching my favorite recipe website yielded two potential options: Green Beans with Walnuts and Green Beans with Almonds. I had all the ingredients for the walnut recipe on hand, so I decided to go with that one, and am so glad I did, because this dish turned out delicious, although mostly due to the onions, walnuts, and coating involved, and not so much because of the beans.

What you’ll need for 2-4 side-dish servings:

• 1 pound green beans
• 2-3 yellow onions
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 1 teaspoon fresh thyme, minced
• 2-3 cloves of garlic, sliced

• 2-3 handfuls chopped walnuts (probably about 1/3 to 1/2 cup)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Steps:

1) Preheat oven to 450°F. Line a baking sheet with foil.

2) Wash beans, then snap off the stem ends, taking off as much of the string as will come off with the ends. Below are my beans, lovingly and individually washed just as my OCD dictated.

3) Cut the onions into wedges, like you would to caramelize them.

4) Apply the tablespoon of olive oil to the beans and onions, and make sure they are evenly covered. Most people just chuck everything onto the baking sheet and use their hands to coat, but I hate getting the oil all over myself, so I threw the vegetables into a gallon size zip-lock bag, poured in the oil, and then sealed and shook before dumping everything on the baking sheet.

5) Sprinkle the ½ teaspoon of salt over the oiled beans and onions, using either your hands or tongs to coat, and make sure the vegetables are distributed in an even layer.

6) Roast for 10 minutes. While the beans and onions are roasting, mince the thyme and slice the garlic. In a small bowl, mix together the balsamic vinegar, honey, thyme, and garlic. Add in a little more olive oil if the mixture congeals around the honey.

7) After 10 minutes take the beans and onions out of the oven and drizzle with the mixture, using tongs to coat everything evenly. Put back in the oven for 12 more minutes, so that the onions have dark brown spots and the beans begin to shrivel.

8) While the beans and onions roast, toast the walnuts for a few minutes in a small frying pan. Stir frequently so they don’t burn, and take off the heat when they smell delicious.

9) When the beans and onions come out of the oven, grind some pepper on them, season to taste with more salt if needed, and then use tongs to transfer to a serving dish and sprinkle with the toasted walnuts.