love on a brick red couch

Winter: it ushers in important celebration days, one after the next. We have names for them all of course -- but at the core, they honor the same thing: the love of being together, eating together, sharing, playing, talking, watching the kids do their amazing thing.

Sunday nearly always has family in it, but today, it is rich with little guys and big guys, right from the wee hours of the morning.  I'm up very early. At least it must be early because no one is stirring. Not even Primrose who typically is up with the sun. Well okay! I have lots of cooking to do!

I begin with Meyer Lemon bars. I'd worked on the crust yesterday. Now I just make the filling -- lots of eggs, lemon juice, lemon rind, sugar. Add a little flour and you're done. Into the oven it goes. Oh! here comes Primrose to help!







Somewhere in there I take a pause to have a bowl of oatmeal with my daughter...






And then the house gets really full, really lively, really jovial. Snowdrop comes with her family and initially, she jumps into play with her toy babes, but she quickly abandons them, because today, there are so many real ones to keep us busy!






You already saw baby Primrose. Here's baby Sparrow!






I want an update of the photo I have of my girls with their kids. Okay! The newest version!






And now it's brunch time. Shakshuka with eggs, back by popular demand.






This is Primrose's first taste of a tart baked by grandma. We thought she'd pucker her face at the lemony taste. Nope. She likes it!






Snowdrop loved playing the Orchard game at Christmas. She is thrilled that we can play it again now.






Primrose may be too young for the game, but she is not too young to play music!






Sparrow is impressed.






Eventually, after food, naps and games, the Chicago family packs up to leave. Little girl, keep doing what you're doing -- it's thrilling to watch you grow!






In the late afternoon, there is an hour of quiet at the farmhouse. I'm glad it doesn't last long. It's too tough to go from three kids tugging at your skirts to complete quiet. I am so happy to be fixing dinner, the regular old Sunday dinner for the Madison guys!

Snowdrop and her dad...






Sparrow and his mom...






Shrimp with veggies in green mole, with taco shells ...





More lemon bars, fruits, one more new game to play and then it's done. Weekend behind us, beautiful memories remain.

Looking back now, I think how much this weekend really did belong to the kids. It's no surprise that I want to end with an image of the awesome threesome.  Here's one of my favorite shots of them from today: they look like they really are on the same team!  

We few, we happy few, we are a band of cousins!





Love, on a brick red couch.

birthday, continued

If you remember, last Saturday, Snowdrop celebrated her 4th birthday. It was a wonderful day and she was one happy little girl, but it was low key. I mean, terrific activities with parents, then cake with Ed and me. As I said -- low key. The kid party and the presence of her Chicago family (and indeed the presents from her Chicago family) were saved for this weekend.

And so today is a crazy busy day.

But first, there is a calm breakfast. Look who's joining me today!






And now I spin forward! Must start baking for a family brunch tomorrow. Hurry. Crack eggs, sift flower, cream butter. Mix, roll out, put aside. It's time to go party!

The Snowdrop's birthday bash is at the place where Snowdrop  dances every week -- Storybook Ballet. For a small sum, they'll do a party with you! (I do so love the entrepreneurial spirit working to support the arts and young parents at the same time!)

And here's an important part of the day: the Chicago clan arrives! Including cousin Primrose!






(The two babes with the two dads -- they can't be part of dancing group, but they surely can have a fill of all the chaos and colorful commotion!)






Snowdrop is allowed a dozen friends and though her playmates at school are mostly girls, those outside of school are a goodly mix. The boys were warned that this would be a ballet dance party, but Storybook Ballet is really about interpreting stories through dance and so there is room for everyone's expressive movement. 






There's dress up too.







There aren't very many kids that do not enjoy putting on costumes.






Happy girl... happy kids, all of them!






The grownups (and babes!) mingle in the waiting area, munching on snacks easily provided, as there is a grocery store just above the ballet studio.

(Primrose, loving the treat bag pinwheel!)







After the dance, the kids get their sugar high, presents are opened, songs are sung...






It's a wonderful way to celebrate the birthday of a girl who loves to dance,

(Hey, Primrose, I bet you'll twirling away too in a few months!)






Sparrow? Well, he needs his nap. His uncle provides a comfy resting spot.






And now it's time to go home.





For Snowdrop, the birthday song continues, because of course her Chicago family too wants to wish her great happiness and joy in the coming year.



At the end of it all, we exhale over a pizza.

And then all grows quiet. The youngest kids go to sleep, the middle generation goes out on the town and I baby sit. Or, you could say Ed and I baby sit, though if Primrose, who is sleeping at the farmhouse, would wake up with just him here, she may well have something to say about it.

My eyes are half closed by the time the young ones come home. Tomorrow is another full day. No birthdays that I know of, but still full -- of family and little ones and all good things that they bring to our lives.

Friday

Everyone has a way of expressing (or eliminating) negative emotions. You know what you yourself are prone to doing: maybe you get angry. Maybe you get hysterically mad. Maybe you fume, complain, say nasty things you don't mean. Perhaps you vent your fury to anyone who will listen.

None of these are  my goto coping mechanisms. I don't really get angry, I am not prone to hysterics and I don't lash out at others. But like everyone, I do get frustrated, bewildered, hurt, discouraged. When I feel harmed, I either turn inward and sulk, or I give in to tears. It's all pretty benign, except I do admit -- I carry these to the highest levels. The tears may be short lived, but they are wet! Real tears! And the sulk is so obvious. My kids would say -- mom has that look! Or, in today's case -- "gorgeous" has that air of the sulk.

There are very few times when Ed and I can't find a good middle ground for our profound differences in style. We are so much alike in essence, that the style can usually be laughed off and pushed aside as irrelevant. Usually. But when Ed is not feeling in top form, well then our styles clash. It's a silent clash, but a clash it is. He needs to be left alone to do whatever he feels is necessary to feel well. Typically that means sleeping. Hours, days of sleeping.  I'm okay with that, except when the bug has been bugging him for weeks and reverses course again and again. Then the worry sets in and the frustration builds. And Gorgeous starts walking briskly, head high, going about her business but exuding that air of The Sulk.

Since this pretty much describes our morning, you could say that it was just one of those Fridays that you'd like to forget. But this would not be true.

Snowdrop said something today that perhaps tells a better story for her, for me, for us all. I was picking her up from school and it was one of those tough pick ups because she had played hard outside and thus at nap time, she had fallen into a deep sleep. Typically when this happens, I stay with her for a few minutes and coax her back to reality. But today, a sub was filling in and not knowing the routines, when she saw me at the door, she shook Snowdrop to get her going. Getting nowhere,  she began to pull the mat from under Snowdrop to get her to wake up. Brutal stuff for the wee one and sure enough, by the time I got to her she was in a flood of tears.

In a few minutes I had her in the car, with promises of a snack and a book at the farmhouse. As we drove the ten minutes to the farmette, I asked her as I always do -- did you have a good day today?
And she answered without hesitation  -- It was the most perfect day in my whole life! She had clearly put aside the petty stuff, the tiredness, the rough transition and was, instead, remembering her romp in the playground and some apparently stellar moments in class.

And I feel the same way: forget the adjustments needed to the new normal (solo breakfast once again while Ed sleeps...)






It is a fine day! I feed the animals...






(... I note that another cat is lurking. Stop Sign notices it too. I'm not sure if she feels threatened or if it's a buddy. When I make my presence known, the "other cat," faintly visible from the kitchen window below, runs away.)





.. I shop for groceries, tidy the place a bit. Ed sleeps.


In the afternoon, Snowdrop has a lovely bunch of hours at the farmhouse...






... finishing off the day with a bead project which she proudly does all by herself. Her aunt had gotten her started on beadwork and now Snowdrop considers herself a pro.






Hey, look who comes to pick her up today!






So many smiles! How can you sulk when you have so much love all crammed into the little yellow farmhouse?

Ed is still in his restful mode, but we're in sync again. It never takes long. Eventually he looks up, asks about the cheepers, I tell him I nearly broke my leg putting them away and we feel cozy good once more.

floodgates

In law school, we learned about floodgates. It's a powerful word that can knock the wind out of many a good argument for legal relief. Is the plaintiff entitled to damages? A student would line up all the reasons favoring a substantial recovery. Someone would raise their hand: Yes, but floodgates! It's like sticking a pin in a balloon. Puff! Good reasoning encounters a major roadblock to recovery.

I learned about it early in my law school days. I had a newborn and I signed up to take a half load of classes. I could not be a full time student with a babe less than a month old. Thankfully, the law was on my side: the legislature had just mandated that every admitted student should be given a chance to go part time. They weren't worrying about new moms, they were merely trying to accommodate students who worked and went to school at the same time.Nonetheless, I pounced.

The law school wasn't quite ready for parttimers and things were a little wobbly at the beginning. For example, an exam in one of my classes required that you know something of procedure and analysis that you would have learned in another class. That is, unless you were me and hadn't taken that class. I fumbled, took guesses and got a mediocre grade. I petitioned to retake: it's not fair! I hadn't taken that class! The answer? We're sympathetic, but... floodgates!

Meaning, if you let one student retake, others will follow and very quickly you'll have a stampede.

Damn floodgates!

I thought of floodgates this morning. Brr!! It's a cold day. I really regretted not wearing gloves when I went out to feed the animals. Stop Sign is there, disgruntled at the offerings. I had  been giving him leftovers and now he is snubbing the regular cat food. I had taken him to feline gastronomic heights. Too late to erase those memories.






Inside again, I really want my milky frothy coffee. Ed is sound asleep after a restless night. I wait. And wait. The morning is moving very quickly toward the noon hour. Ah well, I'd eaten once before without him. Just last week! I should just do it again.

I eat alone.






He gets up thirty minutes later and asks -- are you ready for breakfast?

I'd unleashed the floodwaters of eating alone. I can vow, swear, resolve never to do it again, but each time Ed sleeps, I will ask myself: should I really wake him?


In other news, did you notice the new name?? As of January 10, 2019, The Other Side of the Ocean has shed the clutter of excess and morphed into just plain Ocean. As someone noted -- the simplicity and the touch of mystery (why does she call it Ocean. I wonder??) is appealing. Too, it helps those who continue to search the full name. (The change is, unfortunately, retroactive, so any past reference to the fuller title will leave new readers of old entries puzzled, but I have always been rooted in the present and the fact that there are oddities sprinkled throughout makes it all the more real for me: life is never completely logical!)

Sail away, you odd and sweet little thing! May you always navigate the choppy waters of the everyday with a chipper spirit and a hearty appreciation for all that's beautiful out there!


And in the afternoon, I pick up Snowdrop.

She made a kite in school. She wants to fly it. She thought to make a long string, so that it would go way up high!





It's too cold. And there is no wind.
She is so disappointed. Why, Gaga? It was so windy yesterday!
Maybe in Spring, when it's both warmer and windier! Offer hope -- that's all I can do.


From that moment, I feel she has shrugged off the beauty of winter. The rest of the afternoon, she spins tales about the wonders of spring.

But first, a taste of the cake the French teacher at her school has made -- it's a Galette des Rois, a very popular cake in France, baked mostly in January to celebrate the Epiphany. It's filled with fragipani and somewhere in the middle there is an almond. If you find it, you are king/queen for the day.

Snowdrop is very nervous about who should find the nut. So far -- no one.







Continuing from yesterday's play, she again takes the baby that is known to be the best behaved of the lot shopping. This means they go to the sun room and Snowdrop fills the basket with small items that she finds there. (My challenge is to retrieve those items later, when she goes home, and put them back where they belong.)






Then the story of spring begins...






... and continues until it is time for her to leave.






Birds, butterflies, flowers, kites! They were all with us today!






Is there anything I would possibly want to change about this lovely day? Well yes. Ed took a swing backwards with his stubborn bug. He is a lump on a log right now -- a rather big one at that. Here's hoping all that sleep today will finally do the trick for him. If not, I've threatened, well, a whole bunch of things. All pointless. Ed has no fear.

comfort food

What's the proper definition of comfort food? When I see those two words, the conjured up images are of mac and cheese, French onion soup, fettuccine alfredo. Warm, very warm and very cheesy. Possibly eaten with a spoon.

But those are not my comfort foods. I love cheese, but rarely use anything other than grated parmesan in my cooking. (I do use a lot of grated parmesan.) Pasta? Strictly for Sunday dinners. Never with heavy cream. So what's my comfort food?

It's seasonally determined, that's for sure. Summer is an entirely different kettle of fish. Let's stay with winter for now: warm, then. The food has to be warm. That, of course, narrows it down not at all. Unfussy! It needs to be unfussy, eaten with a spoon or fork, knife not necessary!

And did I mention warm?

You can see why hearty soups tend to win out here at the farmette. Taking out my big, well used and still very yellow Le Creuset pot is the first step toward that feeling of warmth in your gut. Anything cooked in that pot is comforting and of course, the smells are going to be fantastic. It's a given. There isn't a week in the winter season when I do not cook up two days worth of comfort in that pot.

But what? The worst thing that can happen to your menus is that you get stuck in the old favorites. Indeed, it seems I am always cooking our own version of chili (we add chicken brats... don't even ask!). Or a red lentil soup. Or a bean and kale soup with grated parmesan (see what I mean about the parmesan?).

So how do you save yourself from being trapped in the tried and true? Well now, here's an easy solution: do as I told you some months back. Subscribe to foodie newsletters and enjoy their weekly ramblings on what to cook right now, say for a "gaggle of gays" over in LA (that's in this week's newsletter of the Amateur Gourmet), or what soup to add to your repertoire (that's over at the Smitten Kitchen of Deb Perelman) when, like me, you're searching for new and delicious comfort foods.

This introduction is quite related to my morning. After breakfast, with this guy...





... I spend a cozy set of hours revamping my menu for next week. I'll be trying for a whole week of new stuff. Comfort foods, because, well, it's January and the daylight hours aren't quite long enough to catch us up to Tampa.


And here's another bit of news (if you can call "deciding on new foods" news): I'm changing Ocean's name! At some important moment this month, The Other Side of Ocean will become... something else. I am somewhat committed to keeping the word Ocean in the new banner because, well, the other day I again ran into an older Ocean reader who always greets me in the grocery store with the words "Hi, Ocean," possibly because he doesn't remember my name, but most likely because he so associates me with Ocean. But, "the other side" stuff has to go. I came up with that name in five minutes, back in 2004, because it seemed somehow fitting: for everyone here, in America, it seems that I come from over there, on the other side, and for everyone there, say, in Poland, I seem to come from here. Profound, right? Needless to say, I haven't really liked it much since. It always sounds to me like a terribly dramatic love story, the kind you find in grocery stores, written by someone with a fake name.

I have no idea what name to take on (keeping Ocean does limit choices), nor what consequences this will have for anything, but hey, you can still call me Ocean when you run into me at the store! Just please, not "The Other Side of the Ocean!" I mean, what was I thinking?!


In the afternoon (and it is a very cold, if sunny afternoon!)...


 



... I pick up Snowdrop. (Did I mention that it is a beautifully sunny day?)






(I had given her a snow globe of a Degas dancer; in sunshine, the golden flakes are truly magical!)






Today she is up for one of my favorite games: we sit across the table from each other and we take turns telling something that happened to us on this day. I try to stick to truthful vignettes, but over time and after many, many rounds, her recounts stray toward the fantastical. Here, she is explaining that she had to go to work; there were many phone calls and many discussions but eventually, it appears that her work forces her to travel to Australia, where she met up with her daddy (who does, in fact, like travel to Australia) and they spent some time taking care of a handful of koalas. Curiously, the word "like" has crept into these daily recounts. I never use it. I doubt that anyone at home uses it. Yet there it is:  in the week of Australia, I caught sight of daddy and then, like, we rushed quickly to the house... The delay in her narrative, just a hint of swagger, the litter of "likes" -- where did all this grown up patter come from? She is four now... I'll never know. I just smile. And smile.







(Random photo, taken while rinsing the dishes: the sunlight in the late afternoon touches the mishmash bouquet by the kitchen sink. Magnificent!)





Ocean Ripples? Ocean Stories? That's misleading. That Place Across the Ocean? An Ocean Away? This is going to be tough!

daylight

The sun sets today in Madison at 4:40. On a sunny day like today, it seems that it sets later than that (and conversely, on a cloudy day, it seems like darkness comes earlier). To the person, everyone I've talked to about the lengthening days is thrilled with the slide toward more daylight. But of course, just within the continental United States, that lengthening of the day varies. The sun sets today in Tampa Florida at 5:51. In Madison, we wont get to 5:51 until February 24! By then, Tampa's sunset will be at 6:27.

Hey, did you notice something? Whereas now, Tampa's sunset is one hour and ten minutes later, on February 24, we will be a scant 36 minutes apart! And of course, ultimately, we will beat that darn Tampa! Indeed, on May 12, which this year is a Sunday and Mother's Day, we will have caught up! Sunsets in both Madison and Tampa will be at 8:10 p.m. then. Thereafter, our days will be longer!

We are a curious lot: we are competitive, possibly a little vengeful ("that darn Tampa!??" really, Nina?), but on the upside -- ever full of hope.

And what did I do with those extra 15 minutes of daylight (because on Madison's darkest day, in December, the sun set at 4:25)? Honestly, I loved just gawking at the wind playing with the farmette trees. It's sunny today and still a bit mild, but I am not pushing myself to be very active just yet. There's a lot of couch time in the morning. That is, after the animals are fed...






And breakfast is behind us.






In the afternoon, I pick up Snowdrop. A little tired, a little surprised by the strong winds outside, a lot more inclined to read many many chapters of books, with an occasional burst of playful energy...






And always, with her lovely, generous smile coming through to warm the heart and brighten the spirit...





Tomorrow we get a taste of winter. Tonight, I'm just glad we have had fifteen more minutes of daylight.