Live and Let Di

Thursday Thirteen (Vol. 79)

Let's preface this with all the disclaimers. I love my husband. I love my children. I love my family. I love my friends. I know what's important. But try as we might to minimize the importance of "stuff," there are still:

13 Examples of "Stuff" I Like

 

 

1.  Brit Style Styling Paste - This is like the miracle goo for short hair. Squeeze it out onto your hand. Rub your hands together. Start rubbing it into your hair and shape your hair however you like it. As far as I can tell, you can't put too much on. You never have that "OMG-I have this huge clump of gel in my hair and I can't get it out" moment. AND...it smells like grapefruit!!!

2. Williams Sonoma Towels - After you have used these, you can never use anything else. They are absorbent, durable and look nice too. And at 4 for $18, I think they are reasonably priced given how long they last!

3. Life is Good T-shirts -  Or really anything from Life is Good. They express so much with so little. A couple words and a stick figure. The t-shirts are the perfect fabric and the perfect cut. A Life is Good T-shirt will become your own personal "golden boy," the one you put on as soon as it comes out of the dryer because it's the most comfortable T you own!

4. Callaway Golf Balls

5. And Callaway Fairway Woods with which to hit them!

6. Tervis Tumblers - I have mentioned these before, but in case you weren't paying attention, I'm repeating. These are the best drinking glasses ever. Plastic. Insulated so they keep hot things hot and cold things cold. They don't "sweat" so no need to fuss over coasters and napkins for drinks. And they are guaranteed for life. Really. I recently returned one that separated in the dishwasher and they sent me a new one, no questions asked! And there is a wide selection of motifs like college teams, etc. Or truisms like this one:

7. Oster Electronic Wine Opener - It goes without saying that I love good times with my girlfriends, drinking wine and laughing until we cry. This makes it easier and less messy...with no corks pieces in glasses. SAFETY NOTE: The Oster Electronic Wine Opener does NOT work with screw on tops!

8. Zyliss Rotary Cheese Grater - I have a cheese grater, but not this one. I like my cheese grater, but I like this one better. I've been coveting it since I saw the waitress use one so beautifully at Olive Garden with my son. I've dropped some hints that this might be a nice Mother's Day present!

9. My iPhone - it completes me!

10. OK...pretty much anything Apple!

11. The Newspaper - You thought I was going to be all about the latest technology, but I will be the last one to convert to all digital media and I will be clutching my newspaper until the end. Where I live now it's the News & Observer and the Fuquay Independent (if you look quick, my neighbor, golf friend and former elementary school principal, Marge, is on the home page!) but I've lived in the land of the Utica Observer Dispatch, the Miami Herald and the Palm Beach Post. I love the newspaper anywhere and everywhere.

12. Coffee - As my friend Pilar said at the Cantina last night, "Juan Valdez makes me hot!"

13. Books - duh. You can't go wrong giving me a book, taking me to a bookstore or hauling me to the library. I love books. (Oh...and book blogs...I've found so many good ones!)

 

 

Risotto with Edamame

***CLICK HERE TO WIN A HARDCOVER COPY OF THE STONE GODS***

My husband doesn't care for rice too much and eschews couscous (couldn't resist the assonance.) However, almost 10 years ago when we were on a ski trip in Crested Butte, one of the guys made risotto and my husband was impressed. Never one to rush into an opportunity to please him, I finally got around to making risotto last night. It's a little bit high maintenance with all the stirring and waiting for the liquid to absorb. But it was delicious and worth it. It made way too much for our family of four, so I would cut the recipe in half or plan to freeze half. I have no idea how it freezes.

The recipe came from one of my FAVORITE magazines, Real Simple. Real. Simple. Two qualities I love. Two qualities I aspire to. All in the same magazine.

Here is the recipe and the link to the recipe on-line:

Risotto With Edamame, Lemon Zest, and Tarragon

                           

                       

2

tablespoons olive oil
                    

1

large yellow onion, chopped
                    

2

cups Arborio rice
                    

1

cup dry white wine (such as Sauvignon Blanc)
                    

4 1/2

cups low-sodium vegetable broth
                    

1 1/2

cups shelled edamame, thawed
                    

2

teaspoons grated lemon zest
                    

1

tablespoon fresh tarragon, chopped
                    

1

cup grated Parmesan
                      Kosher salt and pepper
    

Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat.

Add the onion and cook for 4 minutes. Add the rice and cook, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes. Add the wine and cook, stirring frequently, until the liquid is absorbed.

Stir in the broth, 3/4 cup at a time (waiting until each addition of broth is absorbed before adding the next), and cook, stirring occasionally. It should take about 25 minutes for all the broth to be absorbed.

Remove from heat and stir in the edamame, lemon zest, tarragon, 3/4 cup of the Parmesan, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper.

Spoon into individual bowls and top with the remaining Parmesan.

Shortcut: To thaw edamame and other frozen bagged vegetables quickly, place them in a colander or a mesh strainer and run them under cool water.

Yield: Makes 4 servings

NUTRITION PER SERVING
CALORIES 656(26% from fat); FAT 19g (sat 6g); SUGAR 5g; PROTEIN 33g; CHOLESTEROL 26mg; SODIUM 903mg; FIBER 8g; CARBOHYDRATE 87g

Apostro-tastrophe!

***CLICK HERE TO WIN A HARDCOVER COPY OF THE STONE GODS***

Consider this an homage to TEAL!!!

I just hope this cake wasn't made for the English teachers to present to the Principal! Kudos for the correct usage of the apostrophe in "it's."

Di

***Photo credit goes to my daughter, Haley, who managed to snap this shot while talking on the phone and finding things for me at Harris Teeter***

Can't teach an old reader...

...new genres. I really tried. I had the highest of hopes.

The Stone Gods seemed like the perfect book to expand my reading repertoire. The description and reviews made me think I could branch out into Science Fiction. Words like "witty," "satirical" and "provocative" put this book on my TBR stack.

Unfortunately, I seem to be incapable of forging new trails in my reading world.

So, I am offering this book to a randomly-selected reader who already loves this genre or wants to expand his/her horizons to include a new genre.

Here's what you can win:

1. A hardcover copy of The Stone Gods by Jeannette Winterson shipped to you via the cheapest possible postal method. (Sorry. Live and Let Di is a self-indulgent, non-income-producing blog, so I can't afford to be crazily magnanimous with my postage.)

2. An invitation to write a review of The Stone Gods which will be published here on Live and Let Di.

Here's what you have to do to win:

1. Leave a comment. Get one entry for a simple comment like, "I want The Stone Gods." Get two entries for a more detailed comment like, "I want The Stone Gods because...[articulate, witty response here.]" Get THREE entries if you leave a detailed comment AND indulge me with some shameless sucking-up. FOUR ENTRIES if you do all of the above AND leave a comment on another post within Live and Let Di. FIVE ENTRIES (OMG, do the opportunities ever cease????) if you do all of the above AND link to my contest on your blog (You need to let me know if you've done this so I can click over and verify...I will click over anyway because that's just good blogiquette...you just need to let me know to look for it.)

That's all...carry on!

Di

Another winner, eh?

***CLICK HERE TO WIN A HARDCOVER COPY OF THE STONE GODS***

Perhaps it was the brilliant cover the publisher put on this book after Stephen King outed them for doing a lame job of book promotion. Perhaps it was my glowing, exuberant review. Perhaps it was Mischa Berlinski himself (click here to go to Mischa's site) sending me an e-mail AND commenting on my blog (sorry Mischa, you didn't win a copy of the book...however, if you  won I would have insisted that you send me back an autographed copy!)

Perhaps it was the fact that contest promotion blogs found here and here featured my contest. (I'm giving you the links because you might find some cool contests to enter, like a trip to NC's wine country (NC, it's not just cigarettes anymore!) and a trip to see the American Idol top three results show.

Whatever it was...we had 122 entries!

The lucky winner was Anne from Beautiful British Columbia. The British Columbian gals are very lucky this month. Rachel at books i done read, also from BC won Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading in last week's contest. I hope that all of my Canadian readers understand that if they win, the book might take a while to get there. I can't afford the postage to get it there quicker.

I'm going to be posting another contest some time today, so stop back. And if you are visiting from one of the contest promotion sites, please stop by even when I'm NOT running a contest...you might find something you like.

Di

Mac-ommendations (Vol. 3)

***CLICK HERE TO WIN A HARDCOVER COPY OF THE STONE GODS***

Do you sometimes find that your Mac trashcan has some stuff in it that seems determined to stay there? I had an "untitled CD" in there which contained a Quicken File from January. I guess I must have decided to start the new year right and start backing up my Quicken files just in case...

Because I am, let's say "obsessive," in the non-medical usage of the word, I was driven to find a way to get my trash serenely empty, if only for a moment. Command-Delete was not working...although that command works great when you are deleting a file and don't want that annoying, "Are you sure?" message to come up.

What I finally discovered was that if you double click on the trash and open a Finder window that shows you the contents, you must simply hold down the Option key while clicking the "Empty" button in the upper right hand corner of the Finder window. And just for an added bonus, it makes a cool, incinerating sound. The sound effect gives you an even deeper sense of satisfaction than the sublimely empty trash icon.

Please note that this does NOT seem to work if you hold down the Option key while selecting "Empty Trash" on the drop down menu next to the gear-like object on the upper left. You must use the Option key in combo with the "Empty" button. Also, since I'm running Leopard, I have no idea if this or any other shortcut works in Tiger.

Di

Trivial Pursuits

I live in a house with two sports-obsessed males. I’ve seen my husband throw his hat at the TV when Tiger failed to make a putt he needed to help my husband win his fantasy golf (yup, it’s for real) tournament. I’ve played golf with my husband people who are inclined to break clubs, curse like, well, um, golfers and make mournful entreaties to the Golf Gods who are so clearly picking on them. I understand competitive. But nothing prepared me for the experience of Team Trivia this past Friday.

I was on a team of eight people, cleverly named “8 for the Road.” These were all people that I knew and liked. Try to imagine eight, slightly inebriated, highly competitive people trying to agree on one answer AND agree on how many points to bet. The affable coach of the swim team, who has inspired kids to swimming feats they didn’t know they were capable of with his positive attitude and words of encouragement, handed out pieces of paper, warning, “Don’t say anything. People at the other tables will hear and take our answers. Write down all of your answers instead of saying them.”

The 10-handicap golfer who can smile after her ball has gone out of bounds and will tell you that being in a sand trap and showering yourself with sand is a good exfoliant, went into a different level of consciousness while trying to count the number of bunkers on our golf course. Yes, THAT was a trivia question.

And me? Would I be writing this if I was the model of Team Trivia etiquette? Probably not. I found myself ENRAGED when someone at our table QUESTIONED me when I asserted that University of Miami was a private university. It is, by the way. They never won an NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship, so the point turned out to be moot. But I was still ENRAGED.

The Crown & Coke-soaked MC for the night kept hinting that the Michael Jackson music that was playing before the game and in between rounds would end up being significant. So our team spent an inordinate amount of brain power trying to come up with the names of the Jackson Five. Michael. Jermaine. Tito. Marlon. That’s as far as we got. I tried to suggest Wayne, but then realized that was the Osmonds!

I don’t know if it was funnier playing in Team Trivia or recreating the questions later that evening for my friends who had not played. The “number of bunkers on the course” question spawned heated debate. “Are there two bunkers behind 16 or is that one big bunker?” The fact that our Head Golf Professional got that question WRONG just added to the discussion. As I posed questions, I realized the person we needed on our team was sitting in our friends’ garage less than a half-mile away.

We’ll get ‘em next time!!!

Di

p.s. Who is that fifth Jackson?

The Generation Gap

***THIS IS MY POST FOR TRIANGLE MOM2MOM...THE SITE FOR WHICH I AM A WEEKLY CONTRIBUTOR***

I just thought you might enjoy it and didn't want to make you click on a link to get there. It's Saturday after all.

When I was a young teen, I thought my Mom had it made. I mean, what a life of leisure!!! She had two live-in indentured servants to do everything. We washed dishes. We dusted. We vacuumed. At one point I remember Mom saying, "You know, it really would be easier to just do it myself." Ha! I laughed.

I am now a Mom of teens and I am here to tell you...she was right!!! It really would be easier to do it myself. It seems that there is a generation gap when it comes to household chores. If you went into my kitchen right now, you would see that the countertops are free of the detritus of our lives, lacking the items tossed upon it when we arrive home and bereft of crumbs and coffee cup rings. It's like that because I cleaned it. I know what clean looks like.

This is typical of how the kitchen looks after my daughter "cleans" it:

She sees it as "clean," I see it as justifiable homicide!

"Pick up the family room," the Mom said. A simple task. In my mind it clearly communicates that if something is where it shouldn't be, PICK IT UP AND PUT IT WHERE IT SHOULD BE! This picture was taken after my son theoretically "picked up the family room."

Clearly, no family room would be complete without an athletic cup, a gum wrapper and a pencil on the ottoman with the remote.

If you read last week's entry about my husband and Costco, you know that we have lots of back-up supplies of everything. So we don't really have to worry about running out. But somehow, it made sense to someone to return this to the refrigerator:

You really never know when someone is going to be thirsting for an eighth of a cup of cranberry juice!

What we have here is a failure to communicate. Or is it a failure to listen? I'm opting for the latter since I am nothing if not articulate.

Can anyone out there offer me some options that don't involve violence? Can someone tell me how to NOT take this personally? With every gum wrapper I find on the floor, what I hear is, "I can't be bothered to bend down and pick that up...Mom will do it." This may be the most demanding job I've ever had. It's certainly the most demeaning! And without a doubt, it's the lowest paying!

Di

Strong at the Broken Places

I loved Richard M. Cohen's Blindsided: Living a Life Above Illness because the author demystified some of the assumptions that we have about chronic illnesses, in this case MS AND colon cancer. Cohen, who is married to Meredith Vieira, wrote of being diagnosed with MS at 25 and dealing with that combined with colon cancer. Through it all, he struggled with the loss of independence and strength but had to deal with the impact of these illnesses on himself and his family.

Strong at the Broken Places seems to be Cohen's way of sorting through the impact of chronic illness on its victims and their families. How is it that people go on? How do they carve out lives for themselves in spite of their illness? Does the illness define the person or is it the other way around?

In preparation for this book, Cohen established relationships with Denise who has ALS, Larry who has Bipolar Disorder, Buzz who has brain cancer, Sarah who has Crohn's disease and Ben who has Muscular Dystrophy. When I hear of these illnesses, I wonder how anyone can live not only with the symptoms of the illness, but with society's ignorance and the stigma that goes with being not-quite-perfect.

Cohen asked the difficult question, probing beyond what might be considered polite. In doing so, he got the participants to confront their own realities and verbalize things that might have otherwise gone unsaid. It's clear from Cohen's tone that he is not writing impassively as a detached reporter. He is trying to sort out his own issues and solidify his own thoughts about his illness.

As I was reading this book, especially Larry's story of dealing with Bipolar Disorder, I thought long and hard about my own struggles with clinical depression. (If you want to know more, just click on the category "depression" to your left.) I have felt the ugliness of the stigma of mental illness. I have had to deal with my own guilt...which I probably would not have felt if I suffered from a more widely recognized physical illness. With most diseases, it is the disease, not the person, that is bad. Unfortunately, with mental illness the two are inextricably entwined and it is very hard for people to not attribute mental illness to some kind of weakness.

To me, the phrase "strong at the broken places," means being stronger than we normally would if we weren't struggling with a chronic illness. It's about NOT letting the disease define us, but instead using the illness to reach inside ourselves and find strength we didn't know we had. It's about taking every opportunity to be an advocate so that people dealing with illness have an easier road ahead.

I don't know what Cohen's objective was when he wrote Strong at the Broken Places, but in my opinion, he accomplished three important things:

1. He gave a voice to those marginalized by society. Who hasn't averted his eyes when seeing a person with a disability? Who hasn't assumed that someone who was slurring her words was drunk or stoned?

2. He illuminated the believe-it-or-not positive aspects of suffering from a chronic or fatal illness. Somehow Denise, whose incapacitation from ALS is a matter of when, not if, manages to empathize with Sarah whose Crohn's disease is probably survivable. Advocacy has given many of these people a new purpose in life.

3. He explored his own feelings about the nature of chronic illness.

The book left me feeling hopeful, not only about my own clinical depression, but whatever diagnosis might be waiting for me or my family in the future. I admire Richard Cohen for his strength in pursuing the goal of publishing his book despite the ravages of MS that have made walking and seeing difficult and driving impossible. He is a living example of living with disease.

Cohen has started a web site which he is using to collect stories about others struggling with chronic or fatal illnesses. You can visit it here: www.strongatthebrokenplaces.com.

Di

Unabashed Mom Bragging

I'm really posting this so that my husband, who is traveling in South America, can view it when he gets to a computer. He's not getting e-mail which means that we pretty much don't communicate...e-mail being our most effective means of communicating. But if you want to watch and feel vicariously the swelling of pride inside me, feel free to do so!

If you notice how my videotaping abilities fall to the wayside at the end of the clip, that's because I was busy taking the above picture.

I'm so proud of my son! Di