Sick Kids Watching Baking Kids

Two out of three Crisler children are home from school today, because Derek and I love them until they are literally sick.  Or something.

Lots of prone bodies and glassy stares in this house.

I am the consummate homebody, but even hermits have to escape their shell from time to time lest they start to say things like, "Wow, that relentless moaning you're doing obviously serves a terrific purpose.  It must be making you feel so much better because you've been doing it for forty straight minutes.  I also don't want to smother you at all."  Then Daughter begins to cry in self-pity, and I lock myself in my room to write a blog post.

I told Adelaide she was an over-achiever when this was her temp.  Unfortunately her sense of humor evaporates when she's sick.

It's not all whiney daughters and sarcastic mothers around here, though; I've been trying to make the best out of being stuck in this house for so many days running.  (Had the temerity to run to Wal-Mart this morning for some essentials.  School nurse called before I could even get out of my vehicle to walk into the store.)  I'm trying to remember that Derek and I don't have to make the tough choice as to which one of us has to miss work, or worry about losing my job because our family has been sick so much.  I'm allowed a small pity party, but only streamers are allowed; absolutely no piñatas.

I've been doing all the things I've put off doing, like making and trying out some new laundry soap-

Okay, so quick side note:  I've used the Duggars' recipe for the past couple years, and although I always added a ton of lemon essential oil, it was never strongly-scented enough for Derek.  I found this new recipe for a powdered soap, and it contains two whole bottles of those scent-boosting crystals, and after using it on ten loads of laundry in the past two days, I've been really pleased.  It's smelly enough for Derek, but not so smelly to give me a headache, which I'm prone to, because my olfactory sense is crap right up until it smells something too floral or perfumey, at which point it morphs into a diva and the head-pounding begins.

-switching out all our flannel bedding for something not quite so sweaty, hemming Caedmon's too-short pants into shorts for summer, then transplanting some of my seedlings that were getting too leggy for their tiny egg carton containers.

"Nice stems."

And then, because we all know what happens when you're all work and no play, the kids and I sat down to watch

and you guys, it is so good.  First of all, you get to see all these frighteningly competent children throw around terms like pâte à choux and watch them make things you've never even attempted, but they're still kids, so they're dropping things and helping each other and happily saying things like, "The ice cream's a little over-churned, but I'm just like, 'I'm eleven years old, I just made ice cream!'" 

The two hosts/judges- Duff Goldman and Valerie Bertinelli- are also quite well-cast, (yes, even Valerie), because they're so, so good with the kids:  Kind and encouraging but also honest when the food isn't what it should be.  There's only one season available on Netflix, and that's only four episodes, which is my sole complaint.  Yes, we tried the show because I thought the kids would enjoy it, but I'd absolutely watch it on my own.  Here's hoping they'll get over this crud in a jiffy and feel inspired to bake me something amazing.  (The only other downside to watching these kinds of shows:  You get real hungry and wonder why you don't have any lemon tartlets or an abundance of gruyère cheese in your house rightthissecond.)

A Sunshiney List

• As some of you know, I regularly treat Halloween as a competition with Ghosts of Kristy Past (Ghost of Kristys Past?  Ghost of Kristies Past?  I see a 'y' at the end and desperately want to turn it into a plural 'ies,' but as I've explained to countless people over the years THAT'S NOT HOW YOU SPELL MY NAME.  What is the proper plural of the Dickensian term?) to see who can spend the absolute least amount of money on costumes for our children.  With three costumes completed, I can happily report that I am winning.  Detailed, self-indulgent report to come.

• With the knowledge that glasses will soon be gracing the face of our daughter, I did what I do and turned to books and a beloved librarian for help.  You see, I had all manner of picture books featuring bespectacled protagonists ready for her when she was younger, the Arthur series and such, because I had no doubt that our children would need glasses, given the appalling eyesight Derek and I are in possession of.  But then they got older and older and had one astonishing report of 20/20 vision after another, and I grew a little lax in keeping a mental catalogue of "glasses in books for our poor, nearly-blind children."  Now Adelaide is, ahem, less than pleased about the idea of wearing glasses, and I have no books ready for her!  (The horror.)  Enter beloved librarian:  "CathyIneedyourhelpAdelaideandglassesandwretchednessandNOBOOKSPREPAREDandanguish!"  She, in turn, calmly reached out to ALL THE LIBRARIANS IN THE STATE and is even now compiling a list of books for me, because she is magical.  
• Note:  This is aaaallll aside from Harry Potter.  Of course I thought of Harry Potter with his glasses, but Adelaide has read all of those, so I need books in addition to HP.  Preferably a female character, who is not stupid, or insipid, or annoying, or too age-inappropriate.  Honestly, I don't try to be difficult to please, it just... happens.

• You would think that, after one particularly memorable night of watching rerun after rerun of Unsolved Mysteries years ago, I would have learned that there are just some shows that you don't watch alone when the darkness outside your windows is concealing God only knows what.  Last night, however, I decided that since I had some sewing to do and the kids were in bed and Derek wasn't home, it would be a positively splendid idea to watch an episode or three of The Twilight Zone.  I mean, I LOVE that show!  What could go wrong?

Sometimes I am a slow learner.

Many things, friends.  Many things could go wrong.  Granted, most of the wrong things were happening within the confines of my own brain, but as Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore said, "Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?"

So comforting.

A List

• I'm slowly starting the annual fall cleanup of our flower beds.  This essentially consists of pulling mass amounts of creeping Charlie and dead foliage out, interspersed with buckets of balls that have been hit into the hostas/lilies/everything else by certain children and then left there for me to find right about now.

I kid you not, the above is from right about four square feet of flower bed, so for once I was not being hyperbolic; when I am done I will literally have buckets of found balls, along with a sock or four that blew off while drying in the summer sun.

• Since Derek and I recently finished all of Midsomer Murders that Netflix has to offer, I took the advice of MomQueenBee and we gave Doc Martin a try, because when there is a BBC-shaped hole in your life, the only thing you can fill it with is, well, more BBC.  Three seasons in, I have three important things to share with you about our new show- a list within a list, if you will (HOW EXCITING!):

1. We rely heavily on closed captioning for most shows, but British television in particular; however, the person who did the CC for Doc Martin needs to be summarily FIRED.  It's awful!  If they're not taking the easy way out ("inaudible content" constantly shows up), they're just out and out wrong; I don't know how many times I've exclaimed, "That is not what he said!" during each episode.  This makes me a joy to watch tv with, by the way.
2. Derek did a google street view tour of the village where the show is shot, so when I'm not yelling about the incorrect CC, he's interjecting with comments like, "Where does that car think it's going?  There's a dead end around that corner!"  We might just be made for each other.
3. If for no other reason, you must watch the show for its insults.  The doctor (not to be confused with The Doctor) is a curmudgeon of the highest order, and rarely holds back his vitriol.  Last night he called a man an "unctuous, platitudinizing eunuch," which was so spot-on for the character he was lashing out against I cackled and then went running for a pencil so I wouldn't forget those words anytime soon.

• A while back I read a tip from Superstar Science Chef Person Alton Brown (I'm pretty sure that's his actual title), which advised you add a bit of salt to your coffee grounds before brewing to help cut the bitterness.  Well, I ground up my beans and put them in their basket filter and added some salt, but then when I tasted the coffee... I don't know.  I can't tell if I could actually taste the salt, or if I've gotten so used to bitter coffee, what my taste buds were reading as "salt" was really just a lack of bitterness.  I need someone's help with this.  I don't really know how you're supposed to help me, but still- help!

A List

• Due to the recent bedroom switcharoo, we've been doing some heavy-duty, soul-cleansing, beautiful, beautiful household purging.  So far I've sent twenty grocery sacks' worth of kid crap out the front door, destined for either the trash or Goodwill, depending on the contents.  I've also sold a number of items on our local facebook swap page, which involves taking a variety of photos and writing up a brief description of the item.  Evidently I've been doing this so much that, when Caedmon and I were scrolling through our recent photo uploads, he became alarmed when we encountered a picture of him amidst a big photo dump of stuff we'd sold.  He seemed torn between outrage and fear at this picture and turned to me to ask, "You're not going to sell me, are you?!"  It may be time to take a break from the purging, even if it does feel ah-mazing.

See?  Just trying to take a picture of him napping, but instead catching him mid- waking up stretch, NOT taking pics to sell our son.

• It's always interesting to me how you can attempt to read a book at one point in your life, put it down because it's obviously just not the book for you, only to pick it up years later and be enthralled.  Eight or so years ago I finally got around to reading The Once and Future King, or got around to beginning to read it, anyway, as I got about twenty pages in and gave up.  I remember it was so disheartening, too- I love fantasy!  This should have been right up my alley!  What was wrong with me?  It must be the book.

Spoiler alert:  It wasn't the book.  It was me.  My brain wasn't ready or I wasn't emotionally mature enough or my seventh moon was in my fifth house or something, because now it's everything I knew it should have been eight years ago.  Keep in mind I'm only halfway through it; I could come back in a week and tell you about OH MY GOSH THE WORST BOOK EVER.  Either way, the internet has come through for me and proven that it is not always an instrument for evil by providing me ready access to The Camelot Project from the University of Rochester.  I found this when I kept encountering strange words throughout this close-to-100-year-old book set in Arthurian England.  What the heck is a cocodrill?  Glassgallows?  And by "mountain dew" they surely don't mean some kind of pop, do they?  Nope:  "mountain dew" was Scotch whiskey, which I know now because of this amazing database!  

• This post was supposed to go up yesterday, but the dastardly MomQueenBee told the world (um, a week ago) about The Great British Baking Show, and rather than doing all the things I was supposed to be doing last night I instead watched the episodes she so cunningly provided a link to.  Not to worry, however; I vanquished that program by watching all the available episodes in one evening.  It's not my fault, though!  The people on that show are so lovely to one another and the hosts are possibly the most pun-happy people I've ever heard and everything is funnier when said in a British accent.  Not to mention the drama!  Will Richard's dough rise in time?  Is Chetna using too many spices?  How will Martha ever better her foe the proving drawer?  What is a proving drawer?

Three Things

• The other day Adelaide said to me, "It seems like a long time ago girls liked Elvis Presley the same way girls like Justin Bieber now.  And that's just not fair!  Elvis Presley is so much better than Justin Bieber!"  This was after we fell down a Youtube wormhole that started with videos of The Shirelles and The Platters and ended with Elvis Presley singing "Hound Dog."   Adelaide has a classmate who is just the tiniest bit obsessive about Justin Bieber, which has flummoxed our daughter since this girl first pontificated on the subject of her idol.  We also watched a 70's-era video of Elvis, and Adelaide was aghast:  "What happened to him?!"  I said, "DRUGS, Adelaide.  Drugs and a reckless lifestyle happened to him.  So just remember:  You can have all the musical talent in the world, but if you do drugs, you'll end up a laughingstock who dies on the toilet."  This seemed to horrify and amuse her in equal measure, which meant my motherly work was done for the day.

I feel like I'd be more likely to read celebrity rags if all the pictures were of celebrities eating sandwiches.

• My friend Paige and her herd of children came for a visit the other day.  The only thing wrong with Paige is that she moved to the other side of the state a couple years ago, and so I only get to see her a few times a year now.  Because of this, there is never enough time to say all the things we need to say.  It always feels like we're racing the clock, trying to cram as many topics into our short space of time as possible:  "Stitchfix-Sherlock-Harry Potter-Parenting-Books-Church-Peeing Boys-Guns-Blogging-Wait!  You can't leave yet!  I STILL HAVEN'T ASKED HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT THIS AND THIS AND ESPECIALLY THIS!"  Caedmon's already asking to go see "the Other Atticus"; he feels the same way I do on this matter.

• Derek and I are almost done with Midsomer Murders, which means we're about to be in need of another television show to watch together.  Suggestions?  Please?  We loved Sherlock and the aforementioned MM and Friends and Frasier and I can't think of what else.  I tend to be the tiniest bit difficult to please with tv, losing interest after only a couple episodes, whereas Derek's a Finisher to the bitter end- but still, we need help!  What program needs to be in our lives?

Where I Destroy What Little Credibility I Ever Had

You guys.  We got Netflix.  (Said in the voice of that girl who says, "I GOT BANGS!")

You know it's going to be an utterly vacuous, shallow post when the first sentence is about Netflix and Legally Blonde.  Just wait:  It's going to get worse, and by worse, I mean so much better.

We recently got rid of satellite, and I've discovered that it was easier for me to say self-important things like, "I'm not really much of a television person, I just read these little things called books," and other statements that no doubt made people loathe me, but as it turns out, I'm just really, really lazy.  I couldn't be bothered to search through aaaalll those channels you get with satellite (my life is just so cumbersome, you know?  It's like a Dickens novel around here), so I just never turned it on, except to watch the odd program here and there.

But two weeks ago, we joined the 21st century and got Netflix.  We're not sure how long we'll keep it (FOREVER), as we're currently just trying it out free for a month (FOREVER).

There's just one word you need to know to understand my new-found allegiance to Netflix, and it is this: DOCUMENTARIES.

That's right:  I love documentaries.
You see what I did there?  I made you think I was spurning the intelligentsia HAHAHA for a life of insipid television-watching, but no!  I love Netflix for its documentaries.

The first documentary I watched this month?  Bronies: The Extremely Unexpected Adult Fans of My Little Pony.  (Aaaaand we're back to the shallows.)

Now, I'm not going to completely ruin the whole feature for you, because I'm sure you've all been busy attempting to cobble 88 minutes of your lives together just to watch this jewel of a documentary, but, but, I just have to give you some of my own, personal highlights.  *Spoiler alert!*

• The part where one man drove past his local Wal-Mart in rural North Carolina and talked about the scarcity of "ponymerch" (that's Brony for My Little Pony merchandise) in his area.

• The part where two PhD psychologists talked about the psychology of Bronies and spoke at length about "the average Brony," who it turns out are "highly educated heterosexual males in their twenties who are most often very introverted," oh, except for a unique subset of extroverted Bronies whom they refer to as either "social Bronies" or "evangelical Bronies" (GUESS WHICH TERM'S MY FAVORITE?).  

• The ins and outs of BronyCon (this of course being a convention for Bronies, keep up, guys), which features appearances by the voice actors from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (and make no mistake, it is this newest incarnation of My Little Pony that they're all so obsessed with), tons of vendors of My Little Pony merchandise (PONYMERCH), presentations by the scads of Bronies who make online music, art, laser shows, etc, all inspired by My Little Pony, and, more than anything, it seems, the chance for Bronies to finally find their tribe and meet like-minded people.

I know I've just spent three bullet points sounding like I'm making fun of these people (possibly because I mostly was), but there really was something kind of heart-warming about watching all of these people find each other, and to be honest, there are lots of worse things they could be spending their time and energy and emotions on, and there were some unexpected stories in there, like the one of the young man with Asperger's who had trouble relating to other people, but strongly connected to the show Friendship is Magic and its simplified moral stories, went to a BronyCon, and made some new friends without his usual anxiety.

I do have some less, ah, brony-ish documentaries in our queue, not to worry.  Next up is Happy People: A Year in the Taiga- "explores life along the River Yenisei in Russia, where the industrious inhabitants of a rural village truly live off the land," It's a Girl- which seems to be about how much it sucks to be born female in so many parts of the world, both of which I will soon view unless I trip and fall and watch Jig- "Go behind the scenes at the fiercely competitive 40th Irish Dancing World Championships" (squee!).