Pancakes

I tried a new and very easy pancake recipe the other day, and I am posting it now, so that 1) You can enjoy it too if you like, and 2) I'll have it handy if I want it when I'm in Texas.

Blend in a blender:

• 4 c. water
• 3 1/2 c. oats (old-fashioned or quick)
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tbs. maple syrup

That's it.  Then you let it sit for five or ten minutes until the oat bits absorb the moisture, thereby making it thicken up.  You can cook them on a non-stick griddle without oil on medium.  They take a while to cook on each side, but they come out nice and thin and crepe-like.  They claim it makes twelve servings, but given my eating prowess right now, I think it's more like two or three servings.  Maybe they meant it makes twelve pancakes...

A Love Story

...it's about a love seat.

Once upon a time, in a state far away (Ohio, that is), my roommates and I got a call from a family who had some old furniture they were giving away.  We drove east out to their home on Petrovitsky Road, and picked up the love seat and loaded it into my roommate's van.  We brought it home and put it in the living room of our lovely 1910's apartment with wood floors, picture molding, and a fireplace.  It was happy in its home.  One evening, two gentlemen were over to watch a movie.  There was a big bowl of popcorn.  The two gentlemen sat on the, let's just call it a mini-sofa, and the three ladies of the house sat on other things (perhaps a spare mattress and a bean bag?)  The two gentlemen found, alas, that the sofa was a bit well used and they kept falling toward each other in the middle of it.  Eventually, they discreetly put some pillows between them and clung for dear life to the arms of the sofa.  One day, not long after, my roommates acquired a new futon, thus sending the dear love seat to find a new home.  And find a new home, it did.  My friend Jared had just moved from a shared duplex to his own apartment and had only a bed, a chair, and a desk to his name, leaving his entire living room unfurnished.  Jared was out of town for a couple of weeks, and had left the key to his new place with me.  Beth (my roommate) and I loaded up the old love seat into the back of her SUV and drove down the hill to Jared's building.  It was a bit tricky to get the thing in.  We had to get someone in the office to allow us to use the freight elevator, and the only parking at the building was of the 5-minutes-unloading-on-a-busy-street sort.  Neither of us being extraordinarily brawny meant we were not having the easiest time getting this thing out of the back of the SUV, but at that time, a fellow student happened by who lent us a hand.  So the unloved love seat found it's new home on the seventh floor of a Cleveland apartment building, where I frequently visited it, sitting upon it to eat dinner and to rehearse the Kodaly Duo in excruciating detail.  A year later, its latest owner packed up his belongings in a UHaul and took off for Rochester to attend grad school.  The love seat was taken up the freight elevator to a little studio apartment on the seventh floor of an old, decrepit hotel, which had once hosted pretty much every famous person who had ever visited Rochester.  (And it turns out there were quite a lot of them.)  The summer following, Jared married me, and we moved into a larger, one-bedroom apartment in the same building, the love seat following.  It was back in my possession after I had so unceremoniously dumped it two years before.  That love seat saw the addition of Gregory and Black Bean to the family.  After four years on the third floor, it moved with us to Huntsville where it also saw the addition of Feathers and Nutmeg.  Then it moved to Birmingham where it played host to Ran.  And then it drove cross-country in an ABF trailer and has since graced our Kent living room, where it also hosted Roy.  It was my middle-of-the-night nursing destination with baby Anne before we figured out how to do that in bed.  It has been the scene of many naps.  And has been sat upon by parents at lessons day in and day out.  How can I part with it now?  Yet, it is old and weary, and later this morning we have a newer love seat coming to us.  I don't want to toss it in the dumpster, because I think I might cry if I do.  It has been advertised on freecycle in the hopes that someone nearby who does not have any furniture (and I think there must be such people) would love to welcome it into their lives.

You can see it in the background here of this picture Jared took of the day we brought Anne home from the hospital.  This is it's better side.  There are some bits the cats have worked on, and the fact that the whole thing is rather saggy....

Knitting Knitting Gig Blog

Ok, we've gotten down to the week before we head to Texas, so I am now getting super organized.  For example, I made a list of everything travel/holiday related that needs to be done and put it on my calender.  And in all the spare moments (ha!) I'm knitting on Anne's Christmas dress.  I'm woefully behind, but I haven't yet given up hope of getting caught up.

Today's list is:

• make a pack list
• make a task list and put it on the calender
• call the shop about renting a cello in Austin
• pack the gift box to send to California
• advertise my sofa on freecycle
• blog

Tomorrow we're getting a new sofa.  That's a separate blog post and it's on the list for tomorrow.

This blog is actually about what we did yesterday.  See, I'm supposedly a professional musician.  And last Christmas I had NO, that's ZERO, Christmas gigs.  Which is sad, because those and Easter gigs are my favorites.  This year I was offered two.  One was an offer to both Jared and me to play the Christmas portion of the Messiah.  But we ended up turning it down, because 1) it was two hours away, 2) it didn't justify leaving Anne with a sitter for that many hours given how clingy she is right now.  The other gig was for Christmas Eve just down the street here, but we're going to be in Texas.  So anyway, they hired a very capable student of mine instead.  But I was pretty annoyed about not having ANY Messiah gigs in particular, two years in a row.  So I took matters into my own hands and with the use of google, I found a family-friendly Messiah opportunity.  St. Michael's and All Angel's Episcopal Church in Issaquah has an annual play-along/sing-along Messiah to benefit Issaquah Community Services.  So we just showed up and played.  I was the standing member of the orchestra (as opposed to seated).  There wasn't enough music to go around, so I stood off to the side of a stand of first violins and read from a distance.  Fortunately I have practiced the hard parts before and have them close to memorized, so it was ok that I couldn't see every note.  Anne rode in the back pack for about the first half, then she got down and played at my feet, and I occasionally stopped to service her in some way.  But we made it through the Christmas portion and the Hallalujah Chorus.  And I had fun.  And all the sing-along-ers wanted to come and talk to Anne afterward.

I am waiting for a knock on the door at any moment.  Maintenance dropped off four toilets by the W building on Friday evening, and I expect they will be back to install them as it's now Monday morning.  I kinda think they're waiting for an inopportune moment.  Like when I take a shower.  (Which I'm about to do since the baby went down for her nap.)  Or maybe they'll wait 'til Jared and I both have students here this afternoon, so we can have a lesson in the living room, and lesson in the piano room, the cats quarantined in the bedroom, and the maintenance dudes in the bathroom and hallway.  That pretty much covers all of our rooms except the kitchen.  But that's where the stroller and cello cases will be.

Gifts

I was at lunch with some people I'd just met on Tuesday.  And this being December (just about my favorite month, in case you were wondering), a topic of discussion was our favorite gifts to have received and given.

People, I love gifts.  And it was so hard to narrow it down.

Some gifts I've treasured:

• A beautiful, green millefiori necklace from Italy my student Anna gave me right before I moved away.  I enjoyed her so much, and it is a reminder of her.
• A bonzai shrub from my student Eboni.  It's still alive, and every time I see it I think of her.
• My violin and my CIM education, curtosy of my parents and grandparents.  My six years in school were an amazing, intense, and formative time, and I am so glad to have had that in my life.  I also made some friends there, including Jared, who have been such a blessing to me over the years.
• Gregory and Black Bean - kittens I begged Jared to let me get one summer and told him they could be my combined birthday and Christmas present.  He relented, and we were both so happy to have them with us.
• The complete Calvin and Hobbes.  My parents gave it to me for Christmas, and I have read those three tomes through on more than one occasion.
• A crazy pink and green abstract top my mom got me once - it dresses up and down, and when I wear it, I feel more confident and powerful.  I've worn it for concerto competitions (which I didn't win...)  and for numerous other occasions as well.
• This list could go on and on and on, because basically everything I have is a gift, and maybe that's why I get so sentimental about "stuff".  [Upcoming blogpost about my decrepit sofa...]
• But far and away the best gift is getting to be the mom of a healthy, curious, exuberant little girl who loves life and smiles and giggles her way through each day.  That tops it.

Gifts I've given.  I enjoy giving gifts, although lately I've felt more like a taker than a giver...  When I was much younger (and had fewer responsibilities), I spent untold hours creating rather elaborate (and mostly useless) gifts.  Here is an example:  I once made a "fish tank" for my sister.  The tank was a large glass jar.  I put sand in the bottom.  And then I outfitted it with "fish" and other accessories, such as a pirate's treasure chest made out of wood, then painted, then wrapped in saranwrap to keep the water out (a bit gimpy, I know).  Then the thing was filled with water and a lid put on.  Also, I once spent months writing some little piano pieces for my middle school friend Alexi's birthday.  Alexi had just started piano lessons, and I have no idea if she stuck with them long enough to play the pieces I wrote her.  In college I once gave a surprise birthday party for both of my roommates at once AT our apartment with about fifty guests. The elaborateness of planning it and pulling it off was enough to make one's head spin and cause one to not sleep for a week while carrying out strange activities in the middle of the night.  On a slightly more useful note, in Birmingham I baked bread once or twice a week, and I usually made two loaves and gave the second away - to a neighbor, a friend, or a coworker.  It was fun to think of who to surprise with it.

In the end though, I knew exactly which gift was the best I'd given, because of what the recipient told me afterward.  And that was letting Roy be part of our family for three months.  It almost a year ago - December the 18th to be exact, that he arrived at the airport with only four days warning.  He slept in a sleeping bag in our second bedroom and was a regular member of the household until the week before Anne was born.  He took three lessons a week from me and participated in our group class, where he was the star, both because of his abilities and because of his infectious personality.  He practiced umpteen hours.  He went off to audition at US colleges.  We got to show him snow for the first time.  He made friends with various people.  The day he left, he wrote up a detailed life history of his nineteen years and read it to us at breakfast.  It was then that I learned just how important this gift was to him.  

Ok, happy December.  I think my little girl has awoken.

A dishwasher and the short side of eternity

We asked maintenance a couple of days ago to come look at our dishwasher, because, yes, nasty mold or something of the sort is growing in it.  A very nice new fellow named Matt came to have a look.  Unfortunately, he told us what we feared.  It's an economy dishwasher, and basically our solutions to the problem will not involve management fixing the problem, but will involve: 1) Scrubbing it out ourselves, 2) Running an empty load every couple of weeks with some vinegar, 3) Loading it only about half way so that water gets better distributed, 4) Turning on the hot water at the tap for several minutes before starting the washer to get a hot start, and 5) Making sure the dishes are thoroughly washed before we put them in.  So, not the awesome solution I was hoping for...  However, Matt saw my Bible lying on the kitchen table while I was in the other room, and he and Jared ended up getting into a mutually edifying discussion of application of a Bible doctrine.  It was a nice connection.  Also, apparently Matt and his family eat the same brand of rice we usually do, which is to say Lundberg Short Grain Organic, which is what we get at Costco.

Two weeks ago we heard a really memorable (in a good way) children's story during the church service.  (Sometimes we hear memorable ones about the boy who disobeyed his mother and as a consequence got his leg run over by a train, or the little girl whose horse died in the tornado and they found it lying in a creek...  Are we feeling old-school German or something?  Max und Moritz?  Yuck!)  Anyway, this good children's story...

The man telling the story had a large ball of string, and he asked for two children to help him.  One stood at the front of the church and held the end of the string, and the other child held the ball and walked about three-quarters of the way down the aisle, leaving the majority of the ball yet to be unrolled.  The first ten or twelve inches were colored, and the rest was white.  So the story teller started at the end and pointed to various places along the string as he walked his way up the aisle telling the story:

...Here's where you're born.  Here's where you learn how to walk.  Here's where you start school.  Here's where some friends are mean to you.  Here's where you get your driver's license.  Here's where you lose a job.  There are some good things happening and some bad things happening.  Oh, here's where you come to the end of the colored part.  What happens there?...

[One little kid says, "You die!]  The story teller continues:

Actually, I was thinking that was where Jesus comes back.  Then what happens?  Here's where you get to fly all the way to heaven.  Here's where you get to talk to angels.  Here's where you get to see all kinds of amazing animals.  Here's where you see your friends and relatives who passed away.  Here's where you get to ask Jesus some questions you always wondered about.  You're not even still thinking too much about that colored part are you?  No, there are some many amazing things you're doing now, you almost forget about that little part of your life....

Anyway, I enjoyed the sweet reminder that this life isn't all there is, and there is much beauty and wonder to come.  Thank you story teller!

The week after Thanksgiving

It's been something on the order of a week since I last wrote.

Tidbits:

• We're having several cold, clear days where we can see Rainier from home.  Anne got to view her first snowfall from her stroller on Monday evening.  Don't think she was impressed.  But I was excited - but not quite cold enough to stick that time.
• Had a lovely several days in Oregon at Thanksgiving, hanging out with Jared's parents, big celebration at Aunt Julie's, a visit from good friends in town from Alabama, seeing Jared's grandparent's new home, and collecting some retro baby clothes from Jared's and siblings childhood.  Anne is trying out some late '70's through mid-80's styles.
• Decorated for Christmas yesterday to the extent I plan to - a wreath, a string of lights, and some centerpiece-y things on the table.
• Knitting away on Anne's Christmas dress.  Nowhere near done.
• Learned from my dentist that toothpaste isn't strictly necessary.  Good flossing and good brushing with water is perfectly functional.  This is amazing, people.  Amazing.  Because I hate toothpaste with a passion.  
• Jared made a pumpkin pudding type thing the other day for dessert, and we let Anne try some.  I've never seen her love a food so much - begging for the next bite!
• Enjoying a new 20-something violin student.  I asked her to come up with syllables for the Twinkle Variations, and I noticed her age specially when she came up with "Exhibition Showtime" for the first one.  
• Been switching outgrown baby clothes for larger ones today.  Bittersweet.
• Cat food is now relegated to the tub so that Anne doesn't make a beeline for it.
• A week ago, Nutmeg walked into the room, and I said, "Hey, Kitty."  Then Anne said, "Hey Kitty."  The week before that was proceeded by her saying something that sounded suspiciously like "kitty cat" repeatedly.  But since then we've heard no more of this, but instead a whole lot of "abababababa".
• Teeth numbers seven and eight have arrived.
• Our neighbor girl proved herself very trustworthy with the cats while we were gone.  We've used her for cat sitting before, but now I feel that I really trust her well.