one is the loneliest number...

I think I'm down to one reader. This is what happens when you neglect a blog, I've brought it upon myself, all that. Fortunately, my one reader is a real person who comes over every so often, and he can berate me in person for my lack of bloggerliness, and apparently it has worked. A bit.
Here we are at the very end of spring break - a spring break that began with my first-ever writing retreat ('writing advance', my one reader kindly called it, and, while I would certainly like to think there was some advancement taking place, I'm pretty sure that for us writer-wannabes, advances are something different that involves money). I must say, as fabulous as the whole thing was, I am still recovering from all the silence. There was a time in my life when I was an abnormally quiet person. Okay, I'm still abnormally quiet, but once upon a time I existed in a near-constant state of abnormal quiet. Now I am a quiet person in a near-constant state of OH MY GOD PLEASE BE QUIET, and, as it turns out, life with all those Murray boys has reset my internal volume control such that when I find myself in a cabin, all alone, with no electricity and snow falling in huge blobs all around, I start feeling like my eyeballs are going to turn inside-out. Luckily the cure for the eyeball thing seems to be the same as the cure for the abnormal quiet thing, and it's the reason I was up there in the first place: write.
In other news, I read great books this month - two books by Adrianne Harun who is fabulous, and the new one - Ocean at the End of the Lane - by Neil Gaiman, from desperate adolescent nerd-crush on whom I have never recovered, and whose writing just keeps getting awesomer so I can justify the two-decade nerd crush - and also Drown by Junot Diaz, latest nerd crush. Sigh.

Celebrating a lovely evening run with a bowl of rocky road ice cream. What? That's the whole point, isn't it?

adventures in meatlessness

If you want to give a chef a heart attack, the quickest way is not a beurre blanc, a hollandaise, or some other cholesterol-laden sauce, oh no. Just come home from the grocery store with a package of vegetarian italian sausages (tofurky brand, no less)(totally crossing that off the bucket list). Happily, Ryan survived the shock (and he didn't even have to eat one. I cooked him the real thing) and I survived a dinner which prominently featured said tofurky product. It was very bad. Really exceptionally bad. You can probably tell I'm still working through this experience.
In contrast, just a night or two later we had dinner at our favorite Nepali restaurant and I tried something called Malai Kofta, and Sweet Hindu God of Vegetarianism it was lovely. Pretty sure there's a lesson around the juxtaposition and the reasons for it, but it will have to wait til I'm in a more ambitious frame of mind, or you can figure it out on your own. Coincidentally at the Nepali restaurant we dined near our friend Eric, who is one of the three readers of this blog, and who recommends the happy pills. In light of how much I have not flung myself into pursuit of my new sport, I'm not ruling them out.
On the bright side, while at the Nepali restaurant Isaac did not pull down his pants, destroy any furniture, or maim any innocent bystanders. It was a good dinner.

fake it til you make it.

It's no accident that I am squeezing out a post every two months this year - my writing-homework deadlines fall every two months, and immediately afterward is when I feel like I have time to putter for a couple days.
(disclaimer: food-themed navel-gazing ahead)
In the past couple of months, I have been experimenting with fake meat. TVP, seitan, tempeh, Tofurky ground beef crumble. I do not like it. I'm not even that wild about tofu, to be honest. 37 years of dietary habit are not about to be wooed away by masquerading soy product.
So now, Plan B, which so far consists of Ditching Fake Meat In Favor of Something Better.
Eggs? Eggplant? Mushrooms? Guittard 70% bittersweet chocolate? I don't know. Still working out the details. Incidentally, I'm pretty sure I'm not doing this vegetarian thing right. I find myself eating lots more garbage than I ever used to, because I feel hungry most of the time. But I'm telling myself that, like anything difficult, it's just a matter of doing it for today, and then doing it again tomorrow, and if I occasionally trip and a piece of bacon happens to accidentally land in my mouth, nobody is going to kick me out of the club. Right?

there was another holiday in there somewhere...

My Holiday Post Distress continues! And that's distress about holiday-themed blog posts, not post-holiday distress (or postal distress, or distress about a post), which is another thing entirely. This time, I've decided there's nothing to be done but dive in and admit, right here on the internet, that not only have I made New Year's resolutions, but I have made the most cliched New Year's resolutions possible for a female of my age group and demographic.
What, you don't believe me?
I'm taking up running. I, who make it a point to never run unless I am chasing one of my children, now own two pairs of running shoes, running tights, and funky-colored sports bras all in the interest of a sport I'm not entirely sure I'm ready to commit to. Understand that I'm dreaming loftily of being able to run a mile without dying.
If we're being really honest, readers, I'm hoping it will prove a viable alternative to my doctor putting me on crazy pills, but that's a topic for another post. In, like, ten years when this has all blown over. And I did say 'resolutions,' right? There's one more!
After thirty-six years of avoiding the inevitable, the inevitable has caught up with me, and I'm sort of taking a break from eating meat. Sort of. Except for fish sometimes, and the elk in my freezer, who at this point I would be doing no favors by not eating.

nerd heaven

OMG rediscovering The Westing Game with my fifth-graders. I love the crap out of that book. I'm totally trying to convince myself that I could pass it off as part of this month's reading homework, too...I'll let you know how that goes.
p.s. Not to rat anybody out, but my mentor admitted to not liking Passage to India either. And he's like a real writer and stuff.

Why I don't do this

See? Now I'm all stressed out about all the things I didn't include on my list at 11:47 last night. So stressed out that I'm stopping in the middle of cooking to come update. Like my Mom. Obviously I'm super-grateful for my mom. Possibly even more than my dog, though Daisy never forwards me articles on what kind of plastic I should not be using and where to keep my toothbrush so it doesn't get contaminated with E. Coli by people flushing with the lid up (news flash, Mom, I live with four boys. We've singlehandedly contaminated our entire block with E. Coli, and that's before lunch on a slow day.) And the rest of my family, who are awesome, and my in-laws, who are awesome, and I never really want to kill my kids and if I did I certainly shouldn't be posting about it on the interweb. And having a warm, safe home and a car that runs better when crusted with mud and goldfish crumbs than when not, and my dear, wonderful friends, and SEE? I've launched off into one of those Hallmark posts that I said I wasn't going to do. You'd probably be better off going to the last post and checking out the porcupine. This blog stuff is way too damn difficult.

Happy Thanksgiving. I'm going to go saute something.