Category: Uncategorized

I posted this on Facebook earlier: I went to bed early with chills, and Thor came and climbed in behind me. I asked, “Are you coming to keep me warm?” Thor said, “Yes, Mama. I am that little thing that will always keep you warm.” And suddenly, I wasn’t cold at all. ♥

I could picture me 80 years old, Thor at my side, arm around me to knock off the chill, loving me for who I was to him, and still warming my world.

He has no idea how right he is. Oh my word. That child is the light, the heat, the good in my world. I am constantly amazed at how overwhelming my love for him is. Takes my breath away and brings tears to my eyes.

And he is a good, sweet boy.

I walked to pick him up from after-school care today, for various reasons, and we walked home by the canals. Ducks and geese were everywhere. Thor, gentle as a lamb, crept over to the edge of the water, calling, “Hello, little ones. Hello. Aren’t you nice little ones? You are. You are.” And the ducks swam over and quacked at him. Two got out and shook their tails toward him, then quacked some more. He was delighted, praising them and telling them what good ducks they were.

He’s mine. I am prejudiced; I know. But, I see this whole other person where my baby once was, and this person is kind, and considerate, and is someone I really like. He is smart, and curious, and he has proven that he understands counting the cost before taking action (and weighs out the pros and cons of doing what he wants, versus what I want–sometimes he chooses unwisely, but he never complains about the punishment. He knew it was coming, and he made a conscious choice.) He is stubborn and he is sweet, and he is just an interesting human being.

There is a peace about him. He is largely untroubled. I know the world will wear against that, but it’s sure a good place to start.

And, he is that little thing that will always keep me warm.

Thor and I made it out to the grocery store today, and he only slipped once, and I only lost control of the car once in an empty parking lot, so we were successful in our quest to obtain Soy Sauce. That means I cooked Fried Rice.

To make my Leftover Fried Rice, you will need: Rice. Soy Sauce. Olive Oil. Salt. 3 large eggs. 1/2cup finely chopped carrots. 1/4 cup finely chopped onions. 1.5 cooked pork chops, cut into thin, small strips.

I hear that the drier your rice is, the better your fried rice will be, but I never think about it until I want to make it, so I just deal with the level of wetness as it comes. I did remember to make my rice early in the afternoon, so it was much drier than I am normally working with. I used Jasmine rice because that’s what I have. I’m no purist, obvs. I also hear that shorter grain rice is better.

I had half a bag of baby carrots left from last night’s dinner, so after cutting them all into rounds, I remember I have a small food processor. I used that to chop them down into wee little pieces. Harder for Thor to dodge them that way. I also chopped up the remains of my onion.

All of that went into the skillet, over a medium-low heat, with a tbs of olive oil, and the fatty remnants of the pork chops leftover from last night. I thought that would give my carrots and onions a nice flavor. It did.

When I was happy with the tenderness of the veg, I removed the fatty bits and added the pork chops, cut into thin, fine pieces. I cooked that for about another minute.

I only have the one skillet, so when I finished with the pork and veg, I moved it to a plate, then went to work on my eggs. In a bowl, I scramble up my raw egg with about a tsp of salt. I put about a half tbs of oil in the skillet (after washing and drying it), and scramble my eggs over a medium heat. I like my eggs to be dry and chopped into small pieces, so while the eggs are cooking, I use a spatula to flip them and chop them. No wet goo in my eggs. No.

When those are finished, they go into the plate with the pork and veg. You all know what scrambled eggs look like, right? Good. I forgot to take a picture of those.

I washed out my skillet again, added a tbs of oil and heated it, then scooped in about 3 cups of white rice. Use whatever color you like.

I let the heat suffuse the rice, then I pour in my soy sauce. You’ve got to do this to taste. I turn my rice from white to light brown.

Then, you fry the rice. I like to pack mine down, let it fry, listening to the sizzle. When the sizzle is slowing, I use a spatula to flip a chunk, working my way around until it is all flipped. I repeat the sizzle listen. Then, I mix it up to get the middle bits, until I am satisfied all my rice has been properly heated.

At that point, I add in the pork and veg, and eggs. Then, I stir in a little more soy sauce, cook until all the ingredients are the same temperature, and serve.

Thor ate about a full cup of it. He was not happy about the carrots, but he couldn’t avoid them, so he ate them. Judging from the way he tucked in, he really liked the dish.

So why can’t I sleep tonight? Highly likely that it is the lack of physical movement. My body has been in near hibernation mode for two days, and that means it isn’t really tired. Taking care of that tomorrow. I have already planned a walk for Thor and me.

We lived in Colorado when I was a toddler, and frequently, Mom and I would walk from our row house on base to the BX. For the uninitiated, a BX/PX is your Base (Air Force or Naval, which house Marines) or Post (Army) Exchange. It’s something like a Target, and it’s where you do most of your shopping. There is also a commissary, and that’s where you do your grocery shopping.

One particular day, when I was about three, Mom and I headed out to the BX in a light flurry of snow. Halfway there, the light flurry became a blizzard. We managed to make it in to the store, and Mom bought what she could to bundle me up to face the storm going home, got what she needed, and we started out again. Major effing blizzard.

We were on the sidewalk, trying to make our way, when we hit some ice. My feet went flying out from under me and I went down flat on my back, knocking the air out of me. Mom went down on top of me, landing on her elbows and knees to keep from crushing me, but I got a little smushed in the process.

The last thing I had seen before falling was a parked car, and I was convinced that car had hit me. You could not tell me that car hadn’t run over me. I remember it like it just happened. I was bound and determined, and rather hysterical about having been run over by a car. Mom tried and tried to explain to me that she was what had fallen on me, not a car, but I would have none of it. She even showed me that the car was still parked and had not moved. This shook my resolve somewhat, but I just knew that car was what had knocked me down in the first place. Fortunately, right about then Dad drove by, saw us, and took us home in the car.

I was thinking about that as I picked my way over ice to our mailbox today. It’s funny how the brain works.

Another blizzard story.

Boom, Grandma and I were driving from Dallas to Colorado Springs to visit my Aunt Becky’s family one year. I was twelve–I remember this because I had just had surgery on my big toe, and my cousin James, then just a toddler himself, kept stomping it. I love you, James.

We were doing fine until we hit Oklahoma, and a blizzard came out of nowhere, dumping snow like someone had just opened up the sky. I was fine with it, sitting in the back seat with Oscar, their boxer, to keep me warm. I had my Donkey Kong game, and played that until Boom told me it was going to drive him nuts. Then, I started writing and reading aloud my awful, twelve-year-old poetry about the landscape, between spurts of talking to bored truck drivers on the CB radio.

As I recall, Boom was very tense, trying to drive through the weather, and Grandma was unusually cheerful. My grandmother was rarely what you would call merry. On this drive, she was so chipper, had I known the word, I’d have called her manic. As she would tell it for years to come, “Having Laney in the backseat was all that saved me from going crazy. I wanted to claw my way out of that car, but I knew I couldn’t scare Laney.” I always found this amusing because she could have clawed her way out of the car and it wouldn’t have upset me at all. Boom was driving. That was all I needed to know. If John Young was driving the car, I was safe as houses.

I did think about that the other day when Thor and I were walking.

I don’t like tunnels. I think it’s a touch of claustrophobia, and a touch of having watched one too many thrillers where people meet awful fates in tunnels that add up to my sense of unease whenever I’m in one. And the echoes freak me out.

Thor, on the other hand, has never seen a thriller, so he thinks tunnels are awesome. He also loves making echoes. So, we take the tunnels. Sometimes. Sometimes I can’t bear it, and we take the stairs. Sorry, little guy.

On our way home the other day, I had miscalculated the time, and we arrived at the last tunnel at dusk. This meant a nearly pitch black tunnel, save for the light at the end of it. And this was a tunnel we had to take. Not. Happy. Thor was even a little nervous. I thought, “We’ve got to get through here, and I can’t let him know how scared I am.” And I thought of Grandma and that blizzard.

So, we focused on how cool the lights on Thor’s shoes looked in the dark, and I wondered aloud how fast they could flash, so he ran and I ran with him. And we came out laughing. Well, he was laughing, I was what you might have called a little manic.

Totally hit the jackpot with Love in a Headscarf, by Shelina Zahra Janmohamed. This is the story of Shelina’s search for a partner, through customary Islamic arranged marriage. She studies her perceptions of love and romance, against what her faith tells her about the partnership of marriage, and the respect she owes herself, a partner, and what a partner owes her.

We were strangers but we had to talk deeply and intimately about our futures. Syed didn’t need to explain to me in words how little he would really value his wife and how he would fail to respect others. I saw it in his actions. His words would have only told me what he wanted to believe about himself and what he thought he was like.

I began to ask myself the same difficult questions. Were my beliefs about myself at odds with my actual behavior? Or had I managed to achieve integrity between my words and desires? After my experience with Syed it was very clear to me that just because you are meeting a potential life partner, it does not excuse a lapse in character.

This is a woman who is clearly in love with her faith, and reminds me a great deal of how I wrote and spoke at the sweetest point of my conversion. It is a lovely reminder that the Islamic hijab is not shorthand for a series of oppressions and evils, any more than uncut hair and long sleeved dresses of the more modest Protestant denominations are, but that there are hearts beating with feeling, brains pulsing with ideas, and they belong to living, breathing women. And, the way Shelina explains her choice (yes, her choice) to wear hijab, and her desire to marry a man who is happy for her to wear one is enlightening, and makes it easy to understand why a woman might make that choice.

Islam is not my world, and will not ever be, but I appreciate hearing it spoken of by an intelligent, thoughtful woman. I appreciate learning what she believes of her faith. And, just like I am horrified by violence done in the name of the Christian church, it is very interesting to read what she, her friends and family felt during the attacks of 9-11, and what life has been like for them (as practicing Muslims) since.

I am so glad I picked this up!

Janmohamed, Shelina Z. Chapter 4/Waiting. Love in a Headscarf. Boston: Beacon, 2010. 93-94. Print.

Since Gwyneth Paltrow did her “Day in the Life” on Goop, I’ve been thinking about mine. So here it is. A day in Lane’s life.

4:00am, Thor bolts through the door like something is on fire and scrambles up into my bed, scooting up close and grabbing a handful of my hair before settling down to sleep again. I rearrange myself and hit snooze on my brain.
5:20am, B’s alarm starts going off. Apparently, his alarm is set to wake up my bladder, so I’m up and out of bed for a trip to the loo.
5:23am, back in bed, but not before turning off my 6am alarm. I probably won’t fall back to sleep anyway, but if I do, I have another alarm set for 6:30.
5:30am, B gets up to take a shower. I stretch out across bed.
5:50am, B gets back in bed, meaning I have to move over again.
6:05am, I get up.

I spent the next half hour making and drinking my cup of coffee while reading my favorite webcomics, checking email, and looking at Facebook, then I start waking up Thor.

Most mornings, he wakes easily. I get him up, and situated with breakfast, and an episode of Andy Pandy, which he watches while I roam around working in the kitchen and making beds. I get his clothes for the day and have him dress, then I get dressed while he brushes his teeth. I manage those things for myself while he is looking for his shoes.

7:30am, we walk out the door and head to school.
7:40am, kiss Thor goodbye and watch him run inside, then walk back home.
7:50am, am back at home.

From 7:50 to 8, I look at the internet.
From 8 to 8:30, I put on makeup and fix my hair while watching the news.
I am out the door by 8:45, and in my office by 9.

I spend the hours of 9–5 in the office. If my boss is in town, it is a working lunch. If she is out of town, unless I am meeting a friend, I do something quick and read a book. I never know what time lunch is going to happen, though.

I leave at 5pm and pick up Thor from after school care around 5:30pm.

We are home by 6pm, and I start dinner while he watches his one allotted cartoon.
By 6:30pm, he is whining to watch another, and we do that dance. He goes upstairs to play.
B is usually home by 6:30, and dinner is around 6:45pm.
I have become psycho about my dishes being done before I can enjoy my dinner, so most of that is finished before I eat.
7:30pm, we might watch some tv, or play on the internet a while, laundry going simultaneously.
7:45pm, bath time.
8:00pm, Thor gets the 30 minute bedtime warning.
8:30pm, Thor goes to bed.
8:45pm, I start writing, or brainstorming to write, and that goes on until I have bored myself thoroughly.
I am usually in bed between 10:45pm and 12:15am, though sometimes I am in bed as early as 9:30pm.

It all starts again around 4am, unless Thor comes visiting earlier.