Category: Uncategorized

What’s for supper? Vol. 131: Paint with all the colors of the food!

Lots of pretty summer food this week! Here’s what we had (carbs at the end). I struggled mightily with the photos in this post. If they turned out sideways or upside down, it’s because WordPress is evil, and no other reason.

SATURDAY
Burgers, chips, salad

No pics, but mighty tasty, cooked on the grill.

SUNDAY
Grilled clams in wine sauce, grilled chicken, grilled corn; ice cream and berries

This was a glorious meal. Damien went out for chicken and corn to grill, and discovered that clams were a dollar a pound, so he bought many pounds.

Here cleaned the clams, then made this sauce:

Coarsely chop a big onion, and saute it lightly in a little olive oil and a small pinch of red pepper flakes. Add salt and pepper. Once cooked, add a 1/4 bottle of white wine and two sticks of melted butter.

Then put the clams on the grill and let them cook, without turning them, until they pop open. Then put them in a bowl and cover them with the sauce.

You guys, they were so good. I’m predisposed to any kind of seafood, but the flavor of that sauce was out of this world.

The chicken was also fabulous! A sweet char on the outside, juicy on the inside, and the combination worked well. Really good outdoor food.

Here’s the rub he made, for 20 chicken thighs:

1.5 cups brown sugar 1.5 cups
.5 cups white sugar
2 Tbs chili powder
2 Tbs garlic powder
salt and pepper

Then he grilled it all!

 

The corn, you can grill right in the husks until they’re charred, and it comes out so very sweet and juicy.

We buttered it and sprinkled it with chili lime powder.

Look at the carnage. Look at that lake of butter and wine! I completely shamed myself with the number of clams I scarfed down.

We had it with cans of Narragansett Beer, Made On Honor.

Dessert: vanilla ice cream with blueberries and strawberries. Oh sweet, sweet summertime (almost).

MONDAY
Pulled pork sandwiches, apple-cabbage-broccoli slaw, steak fries

This meal looked nicer in person, I promise. I put a pork shoulder in the crock pot with a can of beer, half a jar of jalapeno slices and juice, some minced garlic, and salt and pepper. Possibly an onion.

I really wanted to use my new used food processor, but all the recipes for broccoli slaw that I found online started with “take one bag of broccoli slaw,” and people who write stuff like that should feel bad about themselves. I guess they can follow up with a cake recipe, with first ingredient: cake. Then they can mentor some young people and advise them that the best way to find a job is to make up a resume in which they describe their current successful career. Bah!

So I took slaw matters into my own hands and made this:

I fed into the food processor:

Half a head of red cabbage
one pound of broccoli, stem and florets
two cored green apples with skin on

Then I mixed that up with:

1/3 cup mayo
1/4 cup lime juice
1/4 cup white sugar
chili lime seasoning
It didn’t strictly need the sugar, with the apples in there, and I’ll probably skip it next time. I thought it went very well with the pulled pork, and Damien liked it, too. The rotten kids wouldn’t even try it, even though I told them about the sugar.
TUESDAY
Sausage, mushroom, and cheese omelettes; hash browns

Normally, I can make omelettes. The trick is not to turn it too soon, but the real trick is to have a decent pan, either nonstick or stainless steel. Then I go through a stage of self-recrimination where I demand to know why I thought it would be quick and easy to whip up twelve omelettes to order. But normally, I can make omelettes.

Well, not today! The damn things just wouldn’t hold together. This was the very best one I made, and it’s a tough little beast:

Then Damien came home and had pity on me, so he made his own. Guess what? This is how his turned out:

I think it was the eggs. I think they froze and then thawed, and they turned against us. We need this entire generation of eggs to die out before we can ever have omelettes again.

WEDNESDAY
Pork ramen

Chicken ramen with sliced pork, mixed vegetables, sriracha sesame seeds, soft boiled eggs, and a little dulse (seaweed), with crunchy noodles. Good stuff.

I took some boneless pork chops and sauteed them in olive oil. When they were almost done cooking, I gave them a good dousing with soy sauce, then finished cooking, and sliced them thinly.

THURSDAY
Chicken drumsticks; homemade tortilla chips with corn and bean salad

We had to be out around dinner time, so I made the food ahead of time and served it cold. The drumsticks, I just drizzled with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and roasted them.

 

I still have a ludicrous backlog of tortillas, so I cut them into triangles, tossed them with olive oil, and sprinkled them with chili lime powder. I spread the triangles in shallow pans and baked them for . . . I dunno, a while. A good idea, but the execution left something to be desired. These really need more room, and more shuffling around, then I had time to give them. Still, not bad. I made them as a delivery device for this pretty corn salad I made:

I mixed together:

12 oz sweet corn
a can of black beans (1.5 cups)
a bunch of chopped cilantro
a 10 oz Ro-Tel diced tomatoes with chili, lime juice and cilantro
1/2 small red onion, diced (1/3 cup)
plenty of salt, pepper,  and chili lime Taijin seasoning
and probably 1/4 cup of lime juice
and set it to cool in the fridge for a few hours.
I thought it was really good! Lots of flavor and crunch, and a refreshing way to eat vegetables. Sweeter than I expected. I would not be ashamed to bring this to a potluck, either.
FRIDAY
Tuna noodle casserole

Shh, don’t tell the kids. We’re making steaks and eating them all by ourselves, in honor of the Sacred Heart.

Here come the carbs!

HAMBURGERS:

hamburger: 0

ketchup 1 Tbs 5g
mustard: 0
pickles:0
bun: 23
15 chips: 16
mixed greens: 1

PULLED PORK:

pork: 1

1/2 deli roll (L’Oven Fresh center split deli roll): 19.5
10 steak fries: 36
ketchup 2 Tbs: 10

OMELETTES:

2 Season’s Choice hash browns: 42

ketchup: 2 Tbs, 10
eggs: 0
butter: 0
sausage: 0
1/4 cup cheese: 1g

RAMEN:

1 package Top Ramen, chicken flavor: 26
Pork cooked in olive oil and sesame oil: 0

soft boiled egg: 0
1/4 cup mixed asian veg: 2

CHICKEN, CORN SALAD:

chips:

2 medium tortillas, 16 chips: 48

olive oil: 0
Tajin seasoning: 0
drumsticks:
chicken, oil, salt, pepper: 0
bean and corn mix:
12 oz sweet corn: 64
black beans,1.5 cups: 72
cilantro: negligible
10 oz Ro-Tel diced tomatoes with chili, lime juice and cilantro: 15
1/2 sm red onion (1/3 cup): 16
salt, pepper: 0
lime juice: 0
Taijin seasoning: 0
Makes about 4.5 cups;
64 + 72 + 15 + 16 = 167
18.55g per half cup

TUNA NOODLE:

1-1/4 cups dry egg noodles: 38
tuna: 0
cream of mushroom: 1/2 c : 11
1 oz chips: 16
1-1/2 cups corn flakes: 39

mayo:0
ketchup,  1 Tbs: 5
vinegar: 0

In which I answer anything, Vol. 2

You’re too generous! I had to save about half the questions for next time.

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Q. Who was worse – Samantha Bee or Roseanne?

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A. This is like asking which is worse, the color of the carpet in the Hindenburg or the color of the barstool upholstery in the Hindenburg. There may be a legitimate answer, but on the other hand, KA-BLAMMO.
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 Q. Why a duck?

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A. According to Wikipedia,

The duck is a recurring reference throughout the Marxes’ and especially Groucho’s career. His signature walk was called “the duck walk” and on Groucho’s television program You Bet Your Life a stuffed duck made up to resemble Groucho would drop from the ceiling to give contestants money if they said the day’s secret word. Ducks are the only animals that perform lines in the song “Everyone Says I Love You” in the Marx Brothers’ fourth film, Horse Feathers. Their fifth film was called Duck Soup. 
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Though scholarly, this entry fails to mention that ducks are just intrinsically funny, and that’s why. Wikipedia also notes that the article contains original research. I also have my doubts about the construction of “Marxes’.”
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Q. You’re stranded on a desert island with your children. There is no food. Who do you eat first?

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A. Anyone without a summer job.
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Q. When you see FB requests for prayer, what sort of prayer do you offer up? I usually say a Hail Mary, but that’s if I stop scrolling…
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A. A Hail Mary if it’s a “stop everything and ask for a miracle for this person you know well.” Otherwise, probably a “Lord, have mercy, Christ have mercy” or “Jesus, so-and-so needs your help right now,” plus a mental note that this person is officially included in my evening intentions, whether I remember it then or not. I’m lazy, but I work with my laziness, rather than thinking I should be less lazy and then not doing anything at all.
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Q. Re: the yogurt marinated chicken with chickpeas recipe. Did the chickpeas actually get crunchy when I cooked it? There was so much chicken drippings that most of the chickpeas were soft and oily and none of them got crunchy.
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A. Occasionally they do, and I don’t know what kind of garbanzo voodoo that is. Usually I serve chicken and softer chickpeas to whoever’s hungriest, and then put the rest of the chickpeas back in the oven for 7-8 minutes to crisp up. We don’t even all fit in the dining room at once, so we have sort of a rolling dinnertime most nights.
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Q. Three men in a cafe order a meal the total cost of which is $15. They each contribute $5. The waiter takes the money to the chef who recognizes the three as friends and asks the waiter to return $5 to the men.

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The waiter is not only poor at mathematics but dishonest and instead of going to the trouble of splitting the $5 between the three he simply gives them $1 each and pockets the remaining $2 for himself.

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Now, each of the men effectively paid $4, the total paid is therefore $12. Add the $2 in the waiters pocket and this comes to $14.

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Where has the other $1 gone from the original $15?

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A. Well, friend-o, my SAT scores were as lopsided at a nursing mother whose baby doesn’t like the left side of the bed. I can divide grams of carbs by the current dinner ratio, and then I hit a wall. Luckily, I don’t care.
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Q. How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
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Q. Where do you bury your Soros money?
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A. Directly under my altar to Bamophette, goddess of toxic feminism. Around it I keep a little mandrake root garden, which I water with the blood of gentiles once a year on Chuck Norris’ birthday. I got the idea on Pinterest.
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Q. Can blondes wear yellow?
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A. This is what my kids call “physically illegal.” They say this because (a) they don’t know what words mean and (b) they are trying to be annoying, so don’t listen to them. If it makes you feel awesome, then wear it, as long as your ass cheeks aren’t hanging out. That’s just stupid.
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Q. I have three kids. My mental health is taxed out anyway, and parenting as you know is hard. I’m remaining open to life out of obedience to church teaching, not a sense of love or internal belief. How do you remain open to life in such a real way, and what’s your advice for folks like me?
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A. Parenting is hard. I would say that doing something out of obedience is very much like doing it out of love. At any rate, you’re sure not going to get any closer to loving the Lord if you start out with disobedience; so you’re on the right track.
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As far as being open to life: As long as you’re not using artificial contraception, pursuing abortion, or abusing your spouse, your marriage is open to life. Being open to life doesn’t mean “hoping and praying to have more and more and more babies.” It means being honest about what sex is, acting accordingly, and making your choices according to the true needs of the people in your family. Very often, that looks like having three lovely, exhausting children.
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Q. What is the average air speed velocity of swallow laden with a coconut? (Both African and European)
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A. Same number as the odds I’ll ever do an AMA and not get this question.
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Q. What would you do for a klondike bar?
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A. I would buy two packs of them if they’re on sale, but my involvement ends there, as chocolate is a migraine trigger.
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Q. What are your favourite desserts?
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A. Make it with lemon or lime and I’m all over it.
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Q. What was the best online criticism of your work that you ever read? Not something crazy or mean but something that caused you to think “That person has a point. I will adjust accordingly.”
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A. I gave this question its own whole essay! Stay tuned.
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Q. Do you agree with Pope Saint John Paul II calling abortion a holocaust?
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A. I don’t feel strongly about it either way, and I have little patience for proxy arguments, which I think this one usually is. Many of those who object to the word “holocaust” are really objecting to the idea of being unequivocally pro-life; and many who defend the use of the word “holocaust” are not so much pro-life as they are anti-pro-choicers.
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Q. How do you get an almost-one-year-old to let you brush his brand new teeth, that took eleven months to cut?
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A. As a bad mother, I don’t bother. These things do get easier once you have a good supply of older kids for the younger ones to imitate.
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Q. Do you think we will eventually colonize Antarctica?
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A. It never occurred to me to wonder. I did recently find out that “arktos” means “bear” in Greek, and that’s where Antarctica got its name: by not having bears. I follow this same policy.
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Q. Scotch, Bourbon or Irish?
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A. I’m just not a big fan of yellow booze. If pressed, I’d have to choose bourbon, but never again will I drink bourbon out of a plastic Arizona Diamondbacks cup. Brr.
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Q. How do you convince/teach an 8, a 6, and a 4 y/o to not terrorize each other?
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A. You could try making the aggressive kid be the victim’s slave for half an hour, which redirects their energy. But really the only way to attack this problem is to address it consistently every single time it happens, no matter what else is going on, until the rotten kid gets the message; and once you start making headway, you should expect relapses.

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Q. Also, how do you teach an extremely curious 8 y/o with low impulse control to stop breaking everything?

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A. Sorry, I have no idea. Maybe start helping him to notice when he’s getting that “must mess with stuff” feeling, so he can do a self-intervention, and instead choose a pre-planned alternate activity, like popping bubble wrap or something? That sounds kind of lame. But I’m a big believer in teaching kids to be aware of what they’re doing and to get in the habit of making choices, rather than just giving them consequences afterward. It’s a lot of work, though.
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Q. Will you please pray for my children?
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A. Of course.
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Q. Any suggestions on how to help shy children actually play with kids other than their siblings? We’re starting regular playdates, but is there anything else I can do to help her?
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A. It’s not so terrible to be shy. If it’s making the kid unhappy, it’s okay to help him practice lines to say, like, “My name is Charlie! What’s your name?” or “That looks like a fun game. Can I play with you guys?” but if the child is happy on his own, and is not being rude to other kids, I say let him be.
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Q. Summer ideas that don’t require mom’s participation for the “I’m bored” crowd. Also, my kids…read too much. There. I said it. It’s still a form of passive entertainment & I want them to have a broader experience of summer that doesn’t require me to be an activities director.
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A. I cannot acknowledge this as a real problem. Reading is not passive entertainment, unless it’s a truly crappy, worthless book. It engages and nourishes the mind. Just think of the difference between being interrupted at scrolling through Facebook, and being interrupted while reading. It’s a totally different sensation, the difference between working in the sun and lying under a sunlamp. Unless their bodies are becoming unhealthy from too much sitting, let the kids read!
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Q. How the heck do you live with a three year old, without constantly giving in to tantrums, or making the kid basically live in his room?!? Asking for a friend.
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A. Four is better. That’s all I got.
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Q. Does Soros still pay by paper check or does he do direct deposit yet?
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A. He used to issue checks made from human skin, but then hipsters made that kind of passé, so now he transmits digital funds directly into the pleasure center of my brain, which gives me the confidence to demand credit, which I won’t have to pay back because I’m also working on hastening the apocalypse. He also sometimes sends JiffyLube coupons.
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Q. When my cat used to lick my arm, was she grooming me, or tasting me?
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A. Almost certainly not grooming. When my oldest was about three, she noted that she tasted like sour cream and onion. I always meant to mention this to the pediatrician.
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Q. Every time I bake a whole chicken or turkey, even though the bird tests done, when I lift it out of the pan, this gross, bloody-looking liquid drains out of the cavity. That can’t be right. What am I doing wrong?
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A. I have solved this problem by resolving never again to cook a whole chicken. It’s one of the most thankless tasks known to mankind, and I’m calling bullshit on the whole thing. That being said, you can probably just tip that sucker out, put it back in the oven for eight minutes, and when the smoke alarm goes off, tell your family that you did your best and you’re going to go lie down now, and you don’t want to hear anything about who gets the effing drumsticks.
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Q. Did you ever have issues being confident in your parenting choices? If so, how did you deal with it?

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A. Confidence has less to do with knowing you’re doing the right thing, and more to do with accepting that of course you’re sometimes doing the wrong thing, but you’re doing the right thing often enough that it’s okay; and plus you’re smart enough to change if it becomes really obvious that your current plan is a bloody disaster. Anyway, I’m drinking more.
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Q. How to earn a living from blogging about religion and philosophy.
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A. Expect to work for free for a long time, build up a loyal audience by being honest and interesting, and then put ads on your site.
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Q. Do you ever feel like you’re faking this whole adulthood thing?
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A. I’ve only met a few people who don’t feel that way, and they’re generally about to get sued for horrible behavior, and they’re the only ones who don’t know why.
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Q. What should I ask you?
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A. Reminds me of this:

 

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Q. If you could have any guest on the podcast, who would you get?
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A. My mother. I tried to interview her several years ago, and she felt her mind was already too far gone, so she backed out. She would have been good, though. Interested in just about everything. Except cooking.
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Q. why is it so so SO hot here in Eastern Ontario today .. like I know I shouldn’t complain, but I’m overweight and I have knockers so sweat is a real and uncomfortable reality.
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A. Nobody knows why anything is the way it is in Ontario, but if they sell Gold Bond Powder and Body Glide in Canada, I’d start there.
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Q. What are your favorite cocktails other than gin and tonics?
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A. If forced to branch out, I could go for a margarita (just a regular margarita-flavored one; no chocolate or watermelon nonsense) or a Long Island iced tea, even though I don’t like iced tea. It’s a puzzler. Dark and Stormies are also very fine for summer parties. I was into mojitos for a while, somewhat after everyone else was into mojitos, but then I got tired of them, just like everyone else. Here’s a bit more.
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Q. Should I get a cat?
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A. No.
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A. Who killed JFK?

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A. The cat. Actually he just bit JFK a couple of times, then stunned him, then bit him again, then lost track of him, then fell asleep on top of him, and then let America find him on the bath mat in the morning, with bare feet.

Podcast #58: Thank you, Chachi!

Who can even say what’s in this podcast? What isn’t in this podcast? Not Chuck Norris, that’s who!

And not a poem by Donald Justice.

Photo by Carlos Killpack via Flickr (Creative Commons)

Podcast #58: Thank you, Chachi!
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Theology for Beginners is blowing my mind

This past Trinity Sunday, also known as Casual Heresy Sunday, I thought I’d dig up Theology for Beginners by Frank Sheed (affiliate link) and read the kids a few passages of Real Theology™  to correct some of the dumb things we heard that day.

We had tried reading it several years ago and got terribly bogged down. The kids were just angry and baffled, and we couldn’t make any headway, so we quit.

I remember thinking, last week, that I knew a lot more about what the Trinity isn’t than about what it is, and this is certainly still true. But after reading only a few chapters of this book, I discovered we also can know a lot more about the Trinity than I ever imagined, and it’s blowing my mind.

So we’re making this our new project, and keeping on reading, a chapter or part of a chapter at night several times a week. We often stop and re-read a paragraph, sometimes more than once; and we keep looking up the beginning of the Gospel of John. It would not be unreasonable to read each chapter two or three times before going on to the next, but I want to keep moving, because we have such a poor record of finishing books.

I’ve been so desperate for something like this — not just for the kids, but for myself. Sometimes your spiritual life is flat and uninspired, and you just have to keep the faith and power through; but sometimes there really is something you can do about it. There may be things you didn’t know about God that you will be very glad to know! Going to Mass, making the sign of the cross, praying a Hail Mary . . . it all feels new and exciting, almost perilous! In a good way. There’s just so much there, and I’ve been so casual about it all.

Are the kids getting much from the book? I’m not sure. Their various responses seem to be more about personality and type of intellect than age. My nine-year-old is completely on fire about it. Damien and I are agog. Even some of the more jaded can’t-we-just-get-back-to-Mario-Kart kids have questions. And I do think that there’s value in seeing that other people are excited about the Faith, even if you aren’t feeling it yourself right then.

At very least, this book puts to rest for good the idea that you can plow through the Baltimore Catechism for First Communion prep and then you know all there is to know. Not by a long shot, hot stuff.

This book is a tremendous gift. Some people think that, when we call some article of faith a mystery, we mean that it’s just too huge and weird, and our brains can’t even handle it, so we just need to let it be. Instead, mysteries are, as my husband says, a deep, deep pool. You can dive in and never get to the bottom, but that doesn’t mean you should just linger on the shore, feeling thirsty and hot like a dummy. Sheed says we have an obligation to try to understand more about the God we worship. Why would we not? What are our brains for, if not that?

I bought the paperback and then the Kindle edition, too, because we managed to lose the physical copy but we need to keep reading. The concepts are incredibly dense but the language is crystal clear, and it doesn’t come across as dated. If you feel that your faith is stuck at an elementary level, I cannot recommend this book enough.

 

Still fat, still running, still bugging you to do Couch to 5k

A little over a year ago, I told you how great the Couch to 5K program is. I describe why I started the program, exactly what it entails, and how it helped me physically, mentally, and emotionally. Here’s an update in our transformation from sad blobs to happier, somewhat more toned people with some blobby aspects.

It turned out that having a built-in babysitter was the lynchpin for regular physical fitness, and once those babysitters left for college, it got super hard to keep running regularly. We did try. We ran separately, and it was lonely. We tried running at night in the winter, and that was horrible.  I also tried these marching workout videos, and they were pretty good, but I slacked off after several weeks. In January, I consoled myself by writing a satirical news story about how I was fooling myself, but that only takes you so far. Then we got a Y membership so we could stow the baby hobbit in childcare and run around the track, but man, it is not the same. You have to make twelve circuits for a mile, and the air is dry and weird, and you can’t have loud, panting conversations about NFP when you’re running at the Y. And then some lady runs right in front of you wearing bright pink running pants with a thong-shaped pattern on it, as is her constitutional right, and you get mad your husband, which isn’t fair, but that’s how it is.

So, with less and less exercise, I slid further and further into blobby despond. Our whole household is terribly sad over the winter anyway, so it was not a good scene. People were making caramel popcorn with entire sticks of butter before 11 a.m. We were scrolling through Facebook with our noses, because it was too exhausting to move our thumbs.

Then the college kids came back home, and . . . now we can go running again. And that’s how it is! We’re running anywhere from three to seven times a week. To our delight, we didn’t have to start from zero, even after taking so much time off.  We’re not as fit as we were by the end of last summer, when we were topping four miles sometimes, but we’re well on our way, and can easily do two+ miles.

The kids, age 9 and up, will be starting Couch to 5K when school gets out in a few weeks. I highly recommend it!  And do get outside as much as possible. I’m glad we used the treadmill when we first started, because it was better than nothing, and I know the track at the Y kept us from losing too much ground; but being outdoors is fantastic. I’m trying to learn more about the ever-changing flora and fauna that surrounds us. So far, we’ve identified a pretty little friend called an arctic starflower

By Jason Hollinger (Arctic StarflowerUploaded by Amada44) [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
we’ve brought home, looked up, and abruptly threw away some fascinating, luminous objects called spongy oak apple galls

which look like magical seed pods, but are made by gall wasps out of oak leaf tissue to cushion their developing larvae. Eek!

. . . and, with the help of friends, discovered that that weird sound that almost sounds like an alien toy, like one of those plastic tubes you whip around in a circle over your head, is actually the song of a hermit thrush:

We see wild turkeys, just birding around, and meandering deer, and flame-red salamanders. I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to figure out what weed produces that intoxicatingly wild, dusky, spicy smell, but I can’t get enough of it. Best of all, Damien and I have regular time together that’s just for us. That’s my favorite part of my life right now.

I still eat too much to be losing significant weight, but getting regular exercise does so much to put food back in its rightful place, as fuel rather than hobby or master. I’m much happier with my shape, my posture, and my energy levels and confidence than I have been in many months. I bought a frickin’ two-piece bathing suit yesterday. Even if I never wear it, the fact that I thought I might is a big deal!

My blood pressure is great. I have zero back pain and haven’t had a single migraine since we started running regularly. Since my migraine meds were messing with my heart, this is a relief.

I’m not a great runner. I’m very slow, and my form is inefficient and silly. It’s hard to start, every single time, and I generally feel very strongly that the first 1/8 mile is bullshit, just bullshit. But sooner and sooner in each run, I’m hitting that moment where I feel strong, competent, and optimistic, and that feeling sometimes lasts for hours.

So if you’re feeling bad, this is me pestering you to try Couch to 5K. If I can do it, you definitely can. You guys know me. I’m not a go-getter or thing-achiever, but I’m telling you, this program changed my life.

 

Five pieces of advice for pastors (and a thank-you)

Last week, a priest responded to the article “Five Rules for a Royal Bride” with a humble request: “I wish Catholics in the pews would write us new pastors and new ordained priests advices like these! Y’all help us to be men of God, men for others, and men that have joy in their lives! Send me your five advices before I become pastor . . .”

Can do.

Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly.

Image by photographer Matthew Lomanno, part of his visual essay North Country Priest. Used with permission.

Whataboutism isn’t just a fallacy, it’s evil

Back around 2003, I had a conversation about abortion with a liberal friend. She couldn’t get her head around the idea that I, a pro-lifer, sincerely cared about some inconsequential cluster of cells that happened to be human, happened to be technically alive. She wasn’t a cold or cruel person; she just didn’t understand the point of even mustering up a thought for a person you can’t even see.

What kept her up at night, she told me, was the thought of an Iraqi mother scrambling around in the bombed-out ruins of her house, calling out the names of her children, fearfully searching for their bloody remains. That’s the scene that brought a lump to her throat and made her feel panicked, made her feel the urge to rescue, to change things. Not abortion.

She knew I supported the Iraq war at this time, so that’s why she brought it up. Mercifully, I can’t remember how I responded. I hope to God it wasn’t some kind of hawkish, utilitarian garbage about how collateral damage is a shame, but it’s inevitable in wartime. If that’s what I answered, I’ll have to answer for it on judgment day.

If someone gave me a chance to respond to my liberal friend today, I hope that I would say something like what Fr. Martin tweeted out the other day, after the news served up two kinds of tragedy at once: The repeal of Ireland’s abortion ban, and the news that parents who approach border guards seeking asylum will have their children removed from them, to be “put into foster care or whatever.”

Here’s what Fr. Martin tweeted, in quick succession:

As several friends pointed out, the message calling out pro-lifers got tens of thousands of retweets, but the one calling out social justice activists got mere hundreds. But don’t fool yourself that this is evidence of liberals once again refusing to be self-reflective. If Fr. Pavone (for instance) had tweeted out similar paired messages to his audience, you would have seen the retweet numbers reversed, with pro-life conservatives cheering on the jab at liberals, but nervously ignoring the jab aimed at them. Left and right are equally guilty of this silly game. We love it when our enemies’ oxen get gored, but we want our own pet oxen to be left alone.

I believe Fr. Martin knows this, and that was part of the point of the tweets. Not only did he demand that each group inspect its own consistency, he demanded that we see that these two questions must go together. These two groups of people, left and right, must go together. Don’t we see that we both want the same thing, overall? Don’t we see that we’re not, in fact, enemies?

All humans deserve justice, whether they exist inside or outside the womb. It’s all right to put your emphasis more on one form of work than the other. It’s all right to be called mainly to advocate for the unborn, or to mainly advocate for immigrants, or some other vulnerable group.

But it’s not all right to believe that, because your work emphasizes one kind of work for justice, then work that emphasizes some other kind is foolish, trivial, misguided, or even evil. We can say “X is important to me” without proceeding to “. . . and therefore, Y is stupid, and if you care about Y, then you’re stupid, too.”

Love is generous; love overflows. This is the hallmark of love: It wants to expand. Love always helps us see more and more good in more and more of humanity, not less. We may not be called specifically to devote ourselves to fighting abortion or to fighting social injustices of various kinds, but if we have scorn for those who do, then our work is not motivated by love. We should stop and ask ourselves what it is motivated by.

The Lord never gives us a Sophie’s choice. If we find ourselves making a choice like that — saying “my cause is so vital that your cause can go to Hell” — we can be sure that we are not doing the Lord’s work.

We hear a lot about “whataboutism” as an increasingly popular fallacy these days. “You say you care about that microscopic little embryo,” my liberal friend might have said, “But what about the grieving mother searching for her actual born child that she knew and loved? What about him?”

Or, “You say you care about a bunch of dirty illegals busting into our country uninvited,” my conservative friends will say, “But what about the tiny child torn limb from limb before he even has a chance to see his mother’s face? What about him?”

But whataboutism isn’t just a logical fallacy, it’s a message from Hell. Hell always wants to diminish. Hell always wants to reduce. Hell always wants to narrow your point of view, divide your affections, sequester your heart. Hell wants you to believe that there’s only so much love to go around, and so you better parcel it out carefully, divvy it up without allowing in distractions like compassion, gentleness, mercy, or humility. Hell wants you to feed your sheep by stealing food from the shepherd next door. Hell isn’t satisfied with seeing you do wrong; it wants you to insist that you’re doing it out of love. Hell doesn’t just crave suffering; it wants to drain joy dry.

I am pushing myself to reject this kind of thinking. It is not from the Lord. I can’t work and strive for every good cause at once; but if zeal for thy house makes me bulldoze my neighbor’s house, then that’s not zeal at all; that’s just another name for damnation.

***
Image via Pixabay (Creative Commons)

Good singer, rotten song: 12 inexplicable musical crimes

Today, I’d like to indulge in two of my favorite hobbies: music, and complaining. Specifically, I want to talk about singers who are normally great, good, even excellent . . . until that one song. What the hell were they thinking, with that one song?

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We’ll start with some low-hanging fruit: David Bowie’s “The Laughing Gnome”

Ha, ha, ha, hee, hee, hee indeed. My son points out that Bowie was young when he made it. Well, when I was young, I made poo poo in the potty, and that poo poo was a better song than “Laughing Gnome.”

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And now for some high-hanging fruit: “Perfect Day” by Lou Reed, 1972

Fight me! It’s a bad song and it sounds bad. When it comes on the radio, I want radio never to have been invented. They will want you to believe that, just under an intentionally deceptive veneer of deftly-sketched urban optimism, this song quietly smolders with despair. But actually, it’s just a dumb little song that doesn’t make sense, sung unpleasantly by someone who has a very particular talent and definitely isn’t using it here. Nice violins, though. Geez. Fight. Me.

-3-

Honorable mention: “New York Conversation,” also on Transformer:

I loves me some Lou Reed, but sometimes he needs to stop.

-4-

Now back to something we can all agree on: Paul Simon’s inexcusable “Cars Are Cars”

It’s like a Paul Simon song that he forgot to put any Paul Simon in. It’s like when the recipe calls for  heavy cream and you use reconstituted Coffee Mate granules, instead. It’s like when my daughter woke up in the middle of the night because she had thought of the most amazing invention in the world, and it was going to change everything, so she wrote it down and went back to sleep, planning to dominate civilization in the morning. When she woke up, it said “bag of bees.” We’re not sure where all that confidence came in, but mistakes were made, Paul.

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Next: I don’t know if Pat Boone counts as a singer who’s normally good and great and fine. I mean, I do know. We all know. Nevertheless, I absolutely had to include “Holy Diver,” one of many gems from his mind bogglingly ill-advised album, In a Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy:

I chose this one because of the video.

-6-

Hey, here’s a steaming hunk of faux-hippie feculence: The Rolling Stones’ “Ruby Tuesday.”

What an absolute turd blossom of a song. It’s pure poetic justice that this song has a bland, pointless, pandering American food chain named after it. Ruby Tuesday is the microwaved mozzarella stick of the rock and roll world, and I’m glad that, whenever I think of the Rolling Stones, I think of Ruby Tuesday, because the Rolling Stones are jerks.

-7-

How about “Obladi, oblada” by the Beatles?

It’s not actually structurally a terrible song, but why was it made? And what about when Desmond stays at home to do HIS pretty face, eh, eh? Blows your mind, don’nit, you PLEBE? Allegedly, this is the song that made John want out for good.

-8-

Honorable Beatles mention: “Run for your life”

Not a bad song musically, but, like many of my peers, I’m over the whole “let’s have another chorus of domestic violence” thing. Pass.

Of course the Beatles also put out a lot of absurdly self-indulgent nonsense toward the end, but they were trying to be terrible and daring you to be so un-stoned that it bothers you, so that doesn’t count. I’m also not including anything by Paul McCartney or John Lennon’s solo careers, because Lennon + McCartney = genius, but  McCartney alone is frosting without a cake, Lennon alone was just a whine in a bottle.

-9-

Now for a song that brings out my inner murderer: “My Ding a ling” by Chuck Berry:

I’m going to start my own country just so I can make a law against this song.

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And just because I want to make some friends today: “Man in Black” by Johnny Cash.

Every time he says, “I’d like to wear a rainbow everyday!” I shout “NO YOU WOULDN’T!” He wore black because he liked to look awesome and cool and scary, and also very much because it’s harder to see ketchup stains on black. Nothing to do with the poooooor, or the hundred fine young men who died. Please. It’s actually a decent song, of course, because it’s Johnny Cash, but the penetrating, smarmy insincerity of it makes me want to get up and dismantle things with my teeth.

-11-

Ready to really suffer? Here’s the execrable “Delilah” by Queen

This song is new to me, and now I feel so envious of my past self. That pulsing synth makes me feel like I’m in a car with a flat tire but there’s nowhere to pull over. I guess it’s about a cat? Why doesn’t that make it better? I am filled with horror.

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Finally, here’s a song that, in a just world, would have been taken out and shot: “Dancing in the Street” by Mick Jagger and David Bowie.

Now, I was actually around in 1985, and I remember how everything came ready-made with that “destined for a cheap car commercial” sound to it, but this song manages to stink so much harder than the rest because of how effortlessly these two shucked off their talent and integrity in favor of floppy clothes and loathsome hair. Oh my gosh, those prancing sneakers. Oh my gosh. There should have been a machine gun at the end, just as a palate cleanser.

In case you haven’t seen it, here’s a little bit of cosmic justice. Oh, internets.

How I wish every song on this list got the same treatment. Then I could die happy.

Now tell me what this list is missing, and how wrong I am about Perfect Day, and also how the tone of this post has you concerned about all my secret cancer.

What’s for supper? Vol. 128: My love language is pork.

We may be sabbages, but we’re sabbages who eat like kings. Here’s what we had (carb counts at the end): 

SATURDAY
Chicken burgers, tater tots, salad

I have no memory of Saturday. Oh wait, yes I do! I went to pick up the final kid from college. Hooray!

SUNDAY
Oysters, banh mi, grilled peaches with ice cream

Mother’s day! What a wonderful day I had. When we got back from Mass, we did some food prep, and then went for a hike in a nearby gorge. How I love gorges.

Did I mention all the kids are home?

I was showered with thoughtful gifts and attentions all day long. And gin!

For banh mi, we use this Serious Eats recipe, using onions instead of shallots – and, obviously, pork instead of steak this time. If you’ve never made banh mi before, there’s no way I can prepare you for the horrendous smell of the meat marinating in fish sauce. I sealed it up in a ziplock bag as fast as I could, but not before much gagging and groaning. It also stinks when you’re cooking it, so moving this show outdoors was a good plan.

We have always heretofore made banh mi inside in the oven, and I was a little concerned that thin slices of meat would fall through the grate, so I took the pork loin and hasselbacked it, cutting it into thin slices 3/4 of the way through, before marinating it for several hours.

It cooked up so nicely. Damien wrapped it loosely in foil and let it cook for a long time off to the side, not right over the coals, with the cover on and the vent open, until it was cooked all the way through

and then unwrapped it and put it right over the coals, and let it develop that gorgeous glazey finish.

Then it was easy to separate the meat the rest of the way into individual slices for the sandwiches. It was so moist and tender!

While it was cooking, I sliced some baguettes into thirds and toasted it. I had also made some pickled carrots in the morning (slice carrots thin, set to pickle in vinegar with a little sugar mixed it) and sliced up a bunch of cucumbers (I didn’t pickle them, because I wanted something cool in the sandwich) and chopped up a bunch of cilantro, and set out mayonnaise and sriracha sauce. I forgot the jalapenos, but the flavor was sufficiently intense and exciting. Just a wonderful sandwich, a real mouth party.

While we were waiting for the meat to cook, we had ourselves some oysters.

My husband bought enough for the kids to try one and reject it

and then we got to scarf down the rest in peace with tabasco sauce, horseradish, lemon wedges, cocktail sauce, and beer. Look at that blue, blue sky.

And check out the fancy nubbly ice! I picked up a hand-cranked ice crusher at a yard sale last year. I’m basically a Proverbs 31 woman, what with the yard sales and the pickling. Damien also pronounced his new oyster gloves and knife (affiliate link) the best $15 he spent all week.

For dessert, I had my heart set on grilled peaches. It’s truly not peach season, and the selection of peaches reflected this fact, but my husband dutifully hunted some down. I split them in half and dug out the pits, and then set them to macerate in a mixture of melted butter, sugar, and cinnamon. I thought this might help them ripen up or something, I dunno. Then, after dinner, my husband grilled them over the coals

until they were lovely

and we served them with a scoop of vanilla ice cream topped with chopped pecans. Someday, I’ll serve this again, but I’ll make a bourbon caramel sauce, and I’ll candy them pecans. For lady reasons I can’t explain, I had mine with Greek yogurt instead of ice cream.

It was good! The whole day was so good.

MONDAY
Pizza

Two pepperoni, two black olive, 16 inches each. I’m ready to face the fact that, with the college kids home, we’ve graduated into a five-pizza family.

This has nothing to do with food, but here was our morning at the pediatrician’s office.

They are contemplating all the poor sick people that are likely there today.

TUESDAY
Hot dogs, chips

On Tuesday, I gave a speech in the morning, and then we had a concert in the evening. Here’s the grouse I’m still cherishing: I dislike wistful pop songs about the glories of childhood and the misery of being a weary, cynical adult. I despise such songs all to billions of pieces when actual, current children are made to sing several of them in spring concerts. I’m still cranky enough about this to mention that the choir director position in our school is sort of like the drummer position in Spinal Tap, so maybe next year they children can sing songs written for children, rather than for people who spend their lives smoking weed and then wondering why adulthood is so disappointing. Bah!

There was cake after the concert, and I prepared by buying a lovely bakery cupcake for Lucy, so we’d know how many carbs there would be, and she could dose accordingly. Well, the label that looked like 31 carbs in the supermarket turned out to be 81 carbs right before she dosed up. Sheesh. I think that, before a kid gets diabetes, they should have the mom take a test that says, “Can you read? All the time, or just sometimes?” and if the answer is “sometimes,” then the kid should not be allowed to get diabetes.

WEDNESDAY
Southwest chicken salad

I wanted to recreate this excellent salad I got from McDonald’s. I did hear myself say that, and I stand by it.

Mixed greens, grilled chicken, avocado, shredded, spicy cheese, corn, black beans, red and green peppers, cilantro, fresh lime, and toasted tortilla strips, with a spicy ranch dresssing. Hooray, another pretty and delicious salad meal!

I always have a ludicrous backlog of tortillas in the house, so I was happy to take a ton of them and hack them into pieces. I mixed the strips up with a drizzle of olive oil and plenty of salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Then I put them in a single layer in shallow pans and toasted them at 350 for about 25 minutes or more. I think the time has come for me to start buying chili lime powder.

For the corn, I intended to buy a few cans of ¡Mexicorn!, because it makes me giggle, but I came across a bag of frozen “Chipotle corn,” which comes with the beans and peppers and some kind of honey sauce. Easy peasy. I just let it defrost and set it out in a bowl. This meal is definitely going in the rotation. You can make everything ahead of time.

Oh, and I accidentally bought “taco cheese,” which I thought was cheese destined for tacos, but it’s actually seasoned with taco spices. You know what? It tasted good, so I’m going to buy it again, so there.

THURSDAY
Miso soup, brown rice with egg and pork floss, asparagus

So, I had these foods. Kyra sends me foods. I had this miso paste, which I definitely wanted, and then also this pork floss, which . . . I was reserving judgment about.

Pork floss, also known as “meat wool,” is pork that has been transformed into a sort of savory, gritty lint. So I says to myself, I says, you’re never too old to stop learning! Why don’t you look up some authentic recipes and find out how deliciously this gritty meat lint should be prepared in a way that, with a slight tweak of cultural expectations, will open broad new vistas of culinary delight?

Well, most of the recipes were like, “My grandfather used to put a scoop of it in some Wonder Bread and then ball it up, and then he would shout at me if I didn’t eat it in one bite” or “I guess maybe with porridge?”

So I settled for cooking some brown rice, sprinkling it with pork floss, and topping it with a fried egg.

Boy, it did not taste good. It tasted like pork in the same way as I look like my wedding picture: Clearly the same subject, and yet the alterations are undeniable, troubling, and profound.

I did feel a little well of schadenfreude bubble up in my arid soul. Ooh, ooh, Asian cuisine! Ooh, it’s so delicate and exquisite, so what do you know, you great cloddish westerner, with your big chomping face and your gurgling cheeseburger stomach?

Yeah, well, pork floss is Asian, and it’s garbage. It was like in Bonfire of the Vanities (RIP Tom Wolfe, by the way) where they’re so thrilled to discover their intimidatingly flawless nanny is a flaming racist. Phew!

We also had miso soup, which I love, and which you can tart up in all kinds of ways, but it’s really supposed to be simple. Exquisite, if you will. So I boiled some water, added some dulse (I don’t know what dulse is, either), mixed the miso paste with hot water and added that, then threw in some cubed tofu. If it hadn’t been a hot, muggy day, it would have been a great soup. As it was, it was a little bit challenging.

I also had some asparagus, which I steamed and served with lemon wedges. Guess what the kids ate? That’s right, bagels.

FRIDAY
Mac and cheese

Probably gonna use this recipe doubled or tripled and top it with buttered bread crumbs.

And there it is.

***

Here come the carbs:

Banh mi, oysters, and peaches:

pork:0
2/3 cup fish sauce: 74

g 2 tbs minced garlic: 6
8 Tbs sugar: 100
1/2 cup onion: 8
_____
total pork and all sauce: 188, but of course you’re not eating all the sauce.
If she eats 1 tbs, that’s 11.75
bread: 1/3 baguette: 56
pickled carrots: 7
cukes: 1
———-
64
peaches: 7 per half peach
2 Tbs sugar: 25.2
1 Tbs cinnamon: 6
1 stick butter: 0
dash of salt: 0
olive oil: 0
31.2 divided by 12 = 2.6 per sauce on each half peach
pecans: 1/8 cup, 2 carbs
ice cream 1/2 cup, 15 carbs
_____
half sauced peach with 1/2 cup ice cream and 1/8 cup nuts: 26.6
102.35 total meal including dessert
***

pizza:

portland pie pizza dough beer 20 oz: 208
1/2 cup Reggano sauce: 13
3 cups shredded Happy Farmer mozzarella cheese: 12
olives: 0
Pepperoni: 0
—–
Total pizza: 233
1/4 pizza: 58.25

ice cream cone: 39

total meal: 97.25
***

Southwest chicken salad:

1/4 an avocado: 2.15 g
Season’s Choice Chipotle corn blend (corn, black beans, red peppers, poblano peppers in honey butter sauce): 3/4 cup 24 g

tortilla strips with olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic powder, 1 sm tortilla: 19
chicken with olive oil, salt, and pepper: 0
spicy ranch dressing Tuscan Garden: 2 Tbs, 1 g
2 cups green leaf lettuce and baby spinach: 2g
Happy Farms taco style shredded cheese: 1/4 cup, 1g
1/4 lime: 1.75
cilantro: negligible

***

Miso soup meal (amounts are not scaled to serving size, because Lucy didn’t want any of it, so I stopped calculating)

Tbs miso: 5.3g

Maine Coast Sea Vegetables dulse: 1/3 cup, 3 g; whole bag: 24g
scallions:
Nasoya sesame ginger tofu: 8g per 8 oz package
Simply Nature quick cook brown rice: 3 cups uncooked: 408g
fried egg: 0
T&T dried pork floss: 6 Tbs, 11g
asparagus: .6g per spear
lemon: 5g per lemon
***
Mac and cheese:

3 lbs macaroni : 1008
Burman’s hot sauce: 0

6 Tbs butter: 0
3 Tbs mustard: 0
3 c milk: 39
1 lb Happy Farms pre-shredded mild cheddar: 16
24 oz Happy Farms aged New York sharp cheddar: 0
Total without breadcrumbs: 1063

Optional:

Hannaford Italian style bread crumbs: 1 cup, 80 g
butter: 0

Total with breadcrumbs: 1143

How long can you avoid summer employment? A quiz

Have you finally turned 16? Have you run out of excuses for spending the summer lying on your neck and building Minecraft volcanoes to throw your chickens into?  If you are in the middle of a job hunt, here are some questions you can ask yourself, to predict your chances:

1. Your mother says, “Hey, you have a half day today. It’s a perfect opportunity to go pick up some applications.” Do you 

(a) Say, “You’re right. Thanks. Let’s go.”

(b) Say, “But me and my friends were going to . . . never mind, let’s go. Hey, can we get pizza while we’re out?”

(c) Say, “Bu-u-u-u-u-u-u-ut I have to finish my science project that’s due tomorrow, and I haven’t had a chance to even start it yet because I was too busy doing the thing! Oh, and I need a square foot of silk, some denaturized borax, and a sheet of titanium/ Also, can you give me a real quick synopsis of what Shakespeare is about? And I need $450 for a yearbook — and please, Mom, cash this time. The pictures on your checks are so lame.”

2. Your father says, “So, have you filled out those applications yet?” Do you

(a) say, “Yes! They’re in this manila envelope so they don’t get lost or creased. Can you proofread them for me?”

(b) Say, “Yes! Well, mostly. Well, a few. Well, I started one. Well, I was about to. FINE. Can I borrow your pen?”

(c) Go into a long tirade about the crushing of the human spirit that is inherent in the request to distill personhood into little boxes and columns. For instance, your interests encompass the entirety of humanity, but I suppose that wouldn’t go over well with these corporate overlord tools, would it? I mean, what is even the point? Am I supposed to start off my journey into the adult world with a big, fat lie? Is that what you really want from me? Because I can do that, if that’s what you want. I’ll do it, and you’ll see.

3. You get up to the part that asks for references. Do you

(a) Have a wide selection of prominent community members from which to choose, but finally whittle it down to the chief of police whose puppy you saved from drowning, the nursing home director whose grant from the governor you secured, and the governor, who is your uncle.

(b) Come up with two people who are rooting for you and one who doesn’t wish you any particular harm. Ehh, nobody reads these anyway.

(c)  Assume that most adults are too dumb to realize that the number you provided is your home phone, and the reference they’re speaking to is your dog.

4. You have a bunch of applications in your hand are are headed out to turn them in. Do you

(a) Stride in with confidence and cheerfully offer them to the person in charge, planning to follow up in a few days if you don’t hear back

(b) Politely but awkwardly turn them in and get the heck out of there before you trip again.

(c) Realize that you are the proud owner of eleven different but generic applications, and that you have no idea which one goes to which business. Also, they are wet with what we can only hope is that horrible Japanese melon soda you pretend to like. But other than that, you’re a shoe-in, champ.

5. You land an interview! Do you

(a) Dress nicely, speak clearly, answer truthfully, and generally project confidence, courtesy, and a willingness to work

(b) Answer some of the questions a little too honestly, but come off as reasonably ept.

(c)  Forget to change out of your “Fools, I’ll destroy you all!” t-shirt. But they probably didn’t notice, since that infection in your eyebrow ring is all anyone can seem to look at anyway.

****

IF YOUR ANSWERS ARE . . .

Mostly (a), You’re done for. Soon you’ll be earning a check and building a resume. Thanks a lot, jerk! Now all the other kids are gonna be expected to get jobs, too!

Mostly (b), you are perilously close to actually landing a summer job. With any luck, your math teacher will need it more, though, and you can spend another summer at home.

Mostly (c), Hey look, one of the chickens got out of the volcano! BURN HIM.

Image via Pixabay (Creative Commons)

This post originally ran in the Register in 2014.