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Permanent Vacation

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 22:17:21 -0600

Hey you. I’m going on permanent vacation from this blog. But don’t worry, I’m going to be blogging over at http://www.malleycats.com Over there you’ll find my husband, Captain Awesome, has also been doing some blogging. So add it to your google readers or whatever you do to make sure you’re keeping up with the MalleyCats. Now there’s even a place for comments. So comment. Or something. Hopefully I’ll see you there!

Nudiecorn

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 21:34:33 -0600

Last night while sitting around the dinner table Chanel asked each of the kids, “If you could be any animal, what would you be?”

Lincoln: “A bat”
Chanel: “Why?”
Lincoln: “They can fly”
Bennett: “A chameleon”
Chanel: “Why?”
Bennett: “They can protect themselves by changing colors”
Lincoln: “Wait, should I be a chameleon? Or a Dragonfly? I don’t want to be a bat by myself. I want to be a chameleon too.”
Bennett: “He always wants to be what I am!”
Chanel: “That’s because you’re the big brother, and he thinks everything you do is cool.”
Eloise: I want to be a NUDIECORN !

I dare you to ever hear or say the word, “Unicorn” again without automatically thinking and/or saying, “Nudiecorn” instead. You’re welcome.

The Pu-Pu Platter

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 09:08:58 -0600

The year was 1991. Hammer pants were on their way out, and flannel shirts were on their way in. Whatever fashion I was currently sporting, it’s safe to say I probably looked ridiculous. The place was Manchester, New Hampshire and I was a sophomore at West High School, where things were “wicked awesome”. A group of friends and I embarked on an adventure one afternoon that would leave us all confused....and full. This is the tale of the Pu-Pu Platter at Hunan Garden.

After school one day a group of friends and I decided that we wanted to go get something to eat since lunch at school was wicked early, and generally left us starving by the end of school. After some debate we all agreed that chinese food would hit the spot, and so Hunan Garden was chosen as the location for our early-bird dinner.

Wednesday at 3:30 in the afternoon is, as you might imagine, not exactly a bustling time for a restaurant. In fact, when we walked in we wondered if they were actually open. We stood there for a few moments surveying the completely empty dining room, not a soul in sight, and turned to walk out the door when we heard a voice say, “Herro?” A tiny old Chinese woman emerged from behind a lattice wall that separated the dining room from the kitchen area. “You eat?” she asked. “Yes please” we all replied. We were then seated at a large round table and a few moments later a younger Chinese guy emerged to fill our water and give us menus. When he returned like 12 seconds later we told him we’d all like to share a Pu-Pu platter. If you’re not familiar with what a pu-pu platter is, it’s a huge appetizer sampler where everything is on skewers and you cook it over a little fire burning in the middle. As we waited for our food to come, we sipped on ice water. Each time one of us would take a drink, almost instantly the waiter would be there refilling our glasses. Then he would disappear only to reemerge seconds later to fill our glasses to the top again. At first we couldn’t figure out how he could see us to know we had taken a sip or not, and then we realized that he was watching us through the lattice wall from which the little old lady had emerged when we first arrived.

When he delivered our pu-pu platter we all thanked him and dug in. There is something inherently enjoyable about holding food on sticks over fire. Even if it is in a deserted chinese restaurant. As time went on we noticed the fire in the middle starting to die out and someone commented softly, “oh, the fire is going out”. Within the blink of an eye, our server was at our table, taking our platter away saying, “Mo fwame”? We didn’t understand what in the world was happening. There was a guy taking our food away and we weren’t done! So Kimberly reached out to grab it, and a wrestling matched between the two ensued. “We’re not done!” Kim gasped. “Mo fwame?!” He answered back. They went back and forth a few times before I said, “OH! You mean more flame?” To which he quickly replies, “Yes, more fwame...you know...fiyuh!” Kim released her ninja death grip on the platter and he rushed away only to return seconds later with a raging inferno burning in the middle of the plate.

Soon after that I started getting the sense that we were being watched...and not just by our server. I tried to discreetly turn around to look at the lattice wall, but when I did I was met with what seemed like dozens of eyeballs staring back at me through the lattice. I snapped back around and whispered to my friends, “Oh. My. Word. Don’t look now, but I think we are being watched.” With all the subtlety high schools girls could muster, everyone turned to look at the wall, and confirmed what I had seen.

Thoroughly freaked out, we used the eavesdropping to our advantage this time and said casually (yet loudly), “ Oh that was good! We should go now though....” and as if on cue, our server magically appeared again and handed us the bill. We all produced our money and made a little pile on the table and then stood to go to the door. It was then that I realized that with all the water refilling going on in that joint, I reeeeeally had to go to the bathroom. So I told my friends to go ahead and wait in the car, and that I would be right out. They hesitated, unwilling to leave me in there alone. I assured them that I was just using the bathroom and that I would hightail out of there as soon as I was done.

I did my bidness, and as I walked out of the bathroom I heard the same woman’s voice as when we first walked in. She called out to me saying, “Ah herro. Ah excuse me....how taw ah you?” I took a few steps closer to her as she leaned out from behind the wall. I was still trying to process what she had asked, so I asked her to repeat the question. She motioned me forward some more and asked, “How taw ah you?” This time she raised her arm up by my head to indicate my height. “How tall am I?” I confirmed. She nodded and pulled my hand towards her... now just inches from the wall. My heart was racing as thoughts sped by a million miles an minute like, “Don’t take me behind the wall!” and “How could a little old Chinese lady be a threat to me? and “Oh man I’m going to end up IN a pu-pu platter.” It all happened so fast that before I knew it I was standing behind the wall looking at a huge Chinese family all sitting at tables folding napkins into swans. They greeted me with smiles and waves, and the old lady continued to pull me by hand until I was standing in front of our server. Then she said one more time, “How taw ah you? We think you ah tawwer than Jimmy!!” And then she pulled us both around so I was now back to back with Jimmy (who was about a foot taller than everyone else in his family....making me a giant by their standards) as they all crowded around to determine who was taller. I finally answered the question and said, “I’m 5’11” at which point Jimmy pulls out his license to show me that he, too, was 5’11”. Dear sweet Jimmy apparently didn’t know you can actually lie about those things on your license. He probably had his actual weight on it too.

Now I was surrounded by tiny little Chinese chatterboxes who were trying to teach me how to fold napkin swans. I kept trying to excuse myself, but they seemed to so darned happy to have me there that I couldn’t seem to find a way to leave. By this point of course my friends thought I had been abducted and were planning to stage a rescue when Jimmy noticed them peering through the lattice from the other side. “You fwiends ah hewe....you go?” I stepped out from behind the wall to see my visibly relieved friends huddled together with wide eyes. They were beyond confused as the grandma hugged me and everyone waved and said goodbye.

Shortly after that my family moved back to California, so I never did have the chance to return to Hunan Garden. But I think of Jimmy and the gang fondly from time to time, especially when I have a hankering for a pu-pu platter.

Snowed In

Sun, 30 Jan 2011 12:49:26 -0600

So maybe you heard... Chicago recently experienced Snopocalypse 2011. It was the 3rd largest snowstorm in Chicago’s recorded history. And for a city that has seen a lot of snow, that’s saying something. So when one storm in particular gets a title like, “The Blizzard of 2011” it’s probably something blogworthy. We all know I’ve blogged about much less....so here is the full report on how the MalleyCats got snowed in!

We all knew the storm was set to hit sometime Tuesday night, but when the snow started coming down in a major way by 2:00 pm I was worried about Bennett making it down the block from the bus stop at 3:30. Thankfully everyone made it home before the actual blizzarding began in time for us to hunker down and watch the craziest storm I’ve ever seen. In addition to all the snow, the wind was blowing at gusts up to 70 mph, along with lightning. The news reported schools were to be closed Wednesday and Thursday--and there haven’t been school cancellations since 1999! Coverage showed hundreds of abandoned cars on main streets that were impassable. It shut the city down.

I’m not sure if everyone’s reaction to being snowed in is to cook, but it certainly is mine. so we snacked on chorizo dip (if you haven’t been cooking Mel’s food on melskitchencafe.com, you’re seriously missing out) played the wii, and hung out while feeling incredibly grateful for the warm and safe house in which we were holed up. We wondered how in the world people survived storms like this in log cabins, or tents, or anything without central heating, and why in the world the first inhabitants of the Chicago area stuck around in winter on purpose. I have to think the first settlers showed up on a lovely summer day and thought, “let’s stick around.” And then winter came and they were like, “S#!%, now we’re stuck.” And then they died in a blizzard. Well at least that’s my take on history.

The next morning we woke up to this:

This is the view from our front door. What you can’t see are the stairs and porch that are normally there.

This is Seth trying to dig us out. There were drifts 4 feet high against the garage, so it took a lot of work just to get out the driveway. Now let’s check out the backyard...

At first glance it may look like Bennett is just walking along a normal amount of snow. But look at the little gray things poking out of the snow behind him. That’s the top of the fence.

Seth and Penny are kind of stuck.

And this picture has nothing to do with the snow. But holy cats! Oliver is cute. Look at those eyes! He’s wearing like 14 layers of clothes and then some overalls over the top, because this kid has no snow clothes. He was packed so tight with clothes that when he tripped in the galoshes he was wearing he couldn’t even bend at the waist and so he dropped to the ground stiff as a board. It was possibly the funniest thing I’ve ever seen, and I cried I was laughing so hard.

So along with fun-time in the snow we cleaned the whole house, did haircuts, ate cinnamon rolls, watched Alice in Wonderland and Groundhog’s Day, ate some German Knodel--which we haven’t had in years, decorated for Valentine’s day and had an all around fantastic time. I love being snowed in. Which is good...cuz the kids are out of school again today, and we are still in our pajamas at 11:30. What’s not to love!?

Closure

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 19:56:47 -0600

To quote Garth Brooks (who, let the record state, I don’t normally make a habit of quoting) “Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers”. For two weeks now I’ve been praying to be able to miscarry our baby naturally. My body was not getting the memo. Everything I read, and my discussions with my midwife indicated that my body should be able to take care of this, and that there was no danger in just waiting it out for a little bit. I wanted desperately to avoid the hospital--knowing that women are often given D&C’s that aren’t necessary and can have some potentially dangerous complications down the road. It was really weighing the lesser of two evils: Was it worse to wait in this limbo knowing my pregnancy is over, but not gone? Or was it worse to have a surgery that involved a longer recovery and may affect our chances of having another baby? After two brutal weeks of having my life on hold, and pouring out my heart to the Lord, I finally decided that the time had come and we needed to move forward more than we needed anything else.

We met with the very kind Dr. White, who offered us another solution: Check into the hospital and be induced. It was less invasive, and provided us the best chances of having a complication free pregnancy in the future. After making a few arrangements with Chanel (and seriously, what would we do without Chanel?! I never once worried about my kids because I knew she was with them, and everything was fine) Seth and I went to the hospital to have another ultrasound (awful), some labwork (12 vials of blood they took...12!) and check in. It was at that point things really started to sink in. We were there in a birthing suite, me in a gown, all the same things we’ve done every time we’ve had a baby. Even the nurses used terminology like, “when the doctor delivers the baby” and “postpartum visitors”. Then came the dreaded hand I.V. Oh man, I hate that thing. I swear it hurts worse than having a baby. And we tried to tell the nurse that my veins are super difficult to find, and the last time I had that I.V. they tried 4 different times to locate something that would work. This time she only tried two different times. And I swore a lot.

Eventually Dr. White inserted the medication that would start the contractions. The plan was to give one dose, and then wait 8 hours. If nothing was happening, then another round would be inserted and we would wait another 8 hours etc. Luckily we never had to get past the first dose. Around 1:30 in the morning the cramping/contractions were very painful, and shortly after that my waters broke and I delivered a perfect, tiny little baby. After that it got a little complicated. The placenta had detached and would not deliver on it’s own. The Dr. had to get all up in my lady business with all sorts of tools to extract tissue and make sure the ol’ baby maker was ok. The entire experience was really scary, and I can’t imagine what I would have done if I had miscarried naturally and would have had to deal with that at home alone. As I lay there in a great deal of pain while the doctor worked on me, all I could think of was the phrase, “When we replace worry and doubt with gratitude, it makes our journey brighter”. It really is amazing that in the midst of great sadness I was able to feel such immense gratitude--gratitude for being where we needed to be when this all happened, and gratitude for the blessing it was to carry this baby, even if only for a short while.

I have such amazing and loyal people in my life who have stood by me through all of this and have brought meals, taken care of my kids, sent love in the mail (edible arrangements really do say “love”) , brought flowers and offered comfort and support. It is through others that the Lord really does answer our prayers. And in some cases, it is through others that the Lord sees fit not to answer certain prayers. I’m equally grateful for both.