Mom, Mom, Hey Mom...

Danger, Will Robinson, Danger

This post was supposed to be yesterday's post.

This post was supposed to be about my trip to Washington, DC.  I was going to talk about how it felt to be doing sciency, bird-type stuff for the first time, and how that layered over my big-city, capital-of-the-country culture shock, which leaves me still floating two inches off the ground today.

This post was supposed to be about so many positive things that happened last week, but alas, this post is about something completely different, and not in a Monty Python, dead-parrot, men-in-drag kind of way.

This post is about Bubba and the Great Homework Debacle.

Hardcore Harmony, or How Dr. Dre Turned Me On to A Capella

Anyone who knows me knows that I've got decidedly wierd, uh, I mean "eclectic" taste in music.  I love showtunes, Motown, kid tunes, Wierd Al, alternate, pop, you name it.  But most of all do I loves me some rap, the more hard-core, the better. The beats and ferocious sentiments appeal to my darker nature, and the humor of seeing myself, a middle-aged mom, singing about having a good day because I didn't have to use an AK-47 on someone is just irresistable.  My iPod is confused, but I'm delighted.

Enter YouTube.  I was essentially blind to this Internet phenomenon until I got my iPhone.  The YouTube button is a part of the default setting, so naturally I clicked and went on an amazing journey.  Imagine my surprise when I saw free and full-length music videos mixed in with videos of fat guys using a broom as a light saber.  Score!  I'd be able to listen to songs all the way through before commiting to them over at iTunes.  So I started sifting through all the old Dre and Snoop hits...

...until I stumbled over these two videos.  First I saw one of Ben Folds remaking a Dre hit called "Bitches Ain't Shit."  (Obviously, it's not something to listen to in front of the kiddos.)  This appeals deeply to my sense of humor - a classical and wistful arrangement of one of the most mysoginistic rap songs out there.  So I investigated covers of this particular song and found this.  And was entranced.

Things I Like to Cook - Recipe ?

Sinus infections suck.  They're painful enough to make me not care about what number recipe I'm currently on.  Or that I just ended a sentence with a preposition.

Being sick and pitiful has only two cures - drugs and cookies.  Legally, I can only give you the recipe for the latter.

Things I Like To *hack* *cough*...*sigh*

Spring Break for Bubba and Snow brought me no break at all. And Easter/Passover weekend brought me a fever and sore throat. So give me until tomorrow to pull it together. I'll post a recipe then, along with a regular Tuesday post.

152

I get very inspired by other blogs out there.  Sometimes, they give voice to an issue I cannot name nor scratch, making me go, "Hey, that's right!  Me too!"  Lately, there have been several postings on body image, the mommy muffin top parts 1 and 2, and those wierd little hairs that appear to be the prize at the bottom of the motherhood box.  In keeping with the spirit of these posts, and pushing the self-acceptance envelope even further, I will talk about my weight.  In excrutiatingly exact numbers and details.

I weigh 152 pouinds.  Saying that out loud usually provokes two responses.  There is either the eyeroll accompanied by the thought, "I should be so light."  Or there is the tongueclick that says, "Girl, you have let yourself go to a place I will *never* visit."  But both responses are followed with the folded arms, cocked hip, and deadly Frown of Shunning.

Enough.  Just stow it and listen.

Things I Like to Cook - Recipe 5

Yay!  I've recovered from my 137-species bird exam!  This whole late-in-life college experience has turned out to be a double-edged sword.  The good  edge - I'm extremely focused, which leads to a kickass GPA.  The bad edge - when I stay up late/get up early several nights in a row, it takes at least three days of 10+ hours of nightly sleep to recover.  Oy.

Anyway, here's yet another 2-for-1 casserole recipe.

Testing...testing...1-2-3...

Dude.

I have a serious case of birdbrain right now.  Tomorrow morning at 8:30 am sharp I have a test on over 130 species of birds.  Many of them have up to 5 different plumages.  And each comes with its own family grouping, order grouping, and status (how long it is in Florida during the year).

Oy.

And who makes up these scientific names?  The Double-crested Cormorant has a family name of Phalacrocoracidae.  Come on!  The Black-necked Stilt's family is Recurvirostridae.  And the American Oystercatcher is in the Hematopodidae, which means "blood foot."  This for a bird with no red feet.

But truly, it's the statuses that are killing me.  One family of birds can have some that are permanent residents, some that come here only in the winter, and still others that only summer in Florida.  Same type of bird, yet they have totally different schedules that make no orderly sense.

So, yes, don't count on a regular blog post until some time tomorrow afternoon.  For right now it's all birds all the time...

Ciconiiformes...all the herons and egrets...don't forget about the white morph of the Great Blue Heron...twitch...

Things I Like to Cook - Recipe 4

OK, back to the casseroles, I think.  It's been quite the busy year so far for all of us, so who couldn't benefit from a casserole of goodness just waiting on your pleasure in the freezer?

Aside - remember the movie Steel Magnolias?  During one scene involving the Daryl Hannah character, she is toting a Dutch oven full of some concoction to another person's house in a time of trouble.  (This is a instinct in Southern families, because what makes a funeral more festive?  Green bean casserole!)  She remarks that she chose the recipe specifically because it came from the "Freezes Beautifully" section of her cookbook.  I own over 20 cookbooks, and there is no such section to be found.  Whyever not?

So, this casserole is a little naughty. what with the heavy cream in it and all.  But it's only a drop, I swear!  It's like the previous Chicken Tetrazzini recipe in that it makes two casseroles - one for today, and one for later on. 

Unless, of course, you are an idiot who leaves the second casserole out to cool then doesn't remember that it's there until FOURTEEN HOURS LATER when its cream-laced awesomeness is only fit for the bacteria surely colonizing it at that very moment, forcing you to throw away the dinner you had planned for Thursday night, meaning you've got to figure out some other dish to shoehorn in between homework and soccer practice...

Ahem.  On to the recipe!  

I'm a-comin', I'm a-comin'...

Soccer and football and baby shrikes and birthdays and sewing presents and headaches and STOP FIGHTING! and prepping a review of 124 birds...

Yeah, tune back in tomorrow.  I need a break from my weekend.

Falling in Love

One of my favorite bloggers is the very pretty Mir over at Woulda Coulda Shoulda.  She has a weekly tradition called "Love Thursday" in which she dedicates that day's blog post to something wonderful in her life.  Considering what a curmudgen I am, it seems like a good thing for me to do as well.  Here I go with the happy...

As detailed exhaustively in this blog, I did not feel an immediate connection to my son for reasons out of both of our control.  As he's grown up, it's become apparent that he shares some personality traits with me, which leads to more head-butting than is found on Pike's Peak during mountain goat mating season.  But we still are mother and son, so we struggle to find a connection whenever we can.

In yesterday's post, I detailed my "prizes," the bird sightings that were the highlight of my day.  As much fun as it was to see my first male Painted Bunting, that wasn't the apex of the entire trip.  Instead, it was the sight of my son pointing at a White Ibis in its juvenal plumage and excitedly saying,"Look, mom, that ibis is coming into its adult feathers!  Cool!"

My heart melted at that moment.  I was so proud that he had correctly identified the bird.  I was so excited that *he* was excited at seeing the birds.  I was amazed that he had remembered our conversations about the birds I had learned about in class, and had applied the lesson perfectly to a real-world situation.

Mostly, though, I was in love with the fact that he was also in love with birdwatching.  Here we were, the rock and the hard place, enjoying the peace of the swamp, the wonder of the wild animals, and each other's company.  I have this new passion in my life, and I get to share it completely with one of the neatest kids on the planet.

My heart was like one of those Glade oil candles, all heat and light and warm goo, in my chest for the rest of the excursion as I listened to my son exclaim over each sighting, both exotic and prosaic.  It was the best three hours I have ever spent with Bubba.

Happy Love Thursday, y'all.  May you find yourself falling in love all over again with the thing or person you cherish the most in this world.