Who's your daddy?

In the last post, it was very obvious that Lena is my child. This past week, I took a series of photos of the girls, and there was no denying to whom Livia belonged.

What do you think?

In other news, we had a surreal experience on the last day of school. Ariel and I went to pick up Lena, and the headmaster came up to inform us that our daughter had won the Singing Cup (it itself does not sing). I had to ask, "Which daughter?" It turns out that Lena won the award this term for her amazing singing. I'm still a little bewildered by this. She must get extra credit for enthusiasm. At the end of the summer term we have to give it back, but Lena's name and the year will be permenantly engraved on the base with the previous winners. The cup was first awarded in 1958 to S.J. Drabble. I have all of his albums. Even the Christmas album.

In church each Sunday, we get comments about the girls' singing. You see, we sit near the front, therefore facing very few people; and yet, the whole of the congregation can hear them -- for every hymn. It's worse on days like today when they happen to be sitting next to each other as then they try to out-sing each other. By the end, they are louder than the whole assembly and the piano. The Bishop is visibly laughing at the front, and I'm blushing furiously. It's best (worst) during the Sacrament Hymn, as we prepare to take the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. This is always a solemn and contemplative hymn, and yet it is belted out by the dueling mezzo-sopranos. Our only consolation is that by the end, at their loudest, the words have taken a triumphant turn, and their volume connotes the choirs of angels. Legions of angels.

But this one looks a little devilish. Just like her Daddy.

Glorious Titian Mane

The title of this post comes from a comment from another mother at the school pick-up the other day. Since my hair is more auburn than red, I demurred that "titian" was a little inaccurate. But I'll take "Glorious" any day. Pictured is a Sunday shot that I made Ariel take when my hair worked out perfectly with no combing or further primping. I then promptly cut it.

In England, red-heads are called "Gingers" and there is actually a great deal of discrimination against Gingers in this country. I am also not really a ginger, but our chicken of the same name is.


Every Friday, Lena's class has Assembly. It's a lot like show-and-tell, but it's taken to the next level. It's a presentation with 10 minutes set aside for the assigned child, and last term when Lena's turn came up, she tried to convince me that it was okay to bring in a live animal for her Assembly -- the Thursday night before. This time, we had lots of notice, and I was able to talk to her teacher about the logistics. I brought the three girls (2 human and 1 avian) to school and sat in the back of the class as Lena made her presentation. It's nice to see the kids at school. The little hellions that have come over for sleepovers turn out to be well-mannered and pleasant people. The daughter that bounces off the walls and makes up crazy stories so ridiculous that she can't tell them for laughing so hard turns out to be focused and well-prepared. She stood confidently at the front holding Ginger securely but gently while she taught her classmates about the joys of having hens. She resisted the goofy questions, called on only the people who were raising their hands (even to the point of ignoring unruly friends), and generally proved that she knew her stuff. I was (and still am) terribly proud of her. My only regret is that I got so caught up in watching her that I forgot to take a picture.

Finally, despite a mild winter, we've been oppressed by Mother Nature on all sides here. In late February, we had an earthquake, epicentered in Lincolnshire (in the north). In true form, while everyone around us experienced it, we managed to sleep through it. It wasn't long before someone managed to trigger one of my favourite pet peeves: seeing anything catastrophic as a sign of the End of the World. Sure enough, Sunday morning, someone mentioned it and Matthew 24:7 (earthquakes in diverse places), and Ariel and I just had to smile since England has had earthquakes of similar magnitude about once every decade for the last couple of centuries. But the epicenters have been in diverse places around the island, so prophecy should not be discounted quite yet.
Ariel and I had a meeting at his office building on a glorious, sunny day and in the 15 minutes that we were inside, the clouds moved in and dumped a thick layer of sleet all over the place, then cleared away as if nothing had happened. This went on a few more times (stealthy sleeting) and at home, it fell straight down the chimney (where we have no flue) and knocked creosote all over the white carpet that's in our living room. This was actually better than the swallows that are building a nest at the top of the chimney which keep dropping their twigs and crap down into the living room (and once flew straight into the room, much to everyone's surprise).
We've had horrific flooding and winds so fierce that I had to go collect the compost bins which were being thrown against the house. The day was the kind you stay inside for, and I used the time to finish a cloud-study painting I was doing. The funny part is that you can tell how windy the day is because everything in the picture is slanted as if being blown from left to right. There's even more visual weight on the right as if it's all been pushed there by the force of the gales. Otherwise, it's trite, but I enjoyed how much reality influenced my little exercise.
But none of this weather has made me want to flee the country. Last Thursday, I was thankful that I had a friend over when I received a terrible call: our flight is booked for Heathrow to Dulles, July 28th. We're officially going home. Or leaving home. However you want to look at it. Even the cat is booked.

Hostage to Fate

Now that a week has passed, I'm calm enough to blog about this experience. Thursday last, we had some coworkers in from the US, and we took them to dinner. We parked in Brackley (our closest town) and needed to cross High Street to get to our favourite restaurant. Livia ran ahead about 40 feet in front of us to the crosswalk, pushed the button, and waited for the light to change. As soon as the light changed and the Green Man appeared, Livia began to cross. And from our distance we watched as an on-coming car continued full-speed towards the crossing despite the red light. We yelled to Livia and had only the ability to watch as she froze in the headlights; and at the last minute this car slammed on the brakes, the sound of squealing tires drowning out the crossing bleeping.

The car stopped within mere feet of my baby.

We all ran up, swooped her along (by this time the Green Man was flashing that our time to cross was almost over), and hurried away. I didn't feel anger towards the driver, only sheer terror. The agony is that Livia did everything she was supposed to do. We can teach our children everything that they need to be safe, and then there will be things that we and they can't control.

We tried to make excuses: "Livia this is why you can't run ahead," and "These are the things we've warned you about for when we go to Mexico." But at dinner, I had to lean over and whisper this horrible truth, "You were right and the driver was wrong, but that isn't enough."

I have the privilege of teaching Sunday School this Sunday, and one of the points of the lesson is the concept that even after all that we can do, it is still only by grace that we are saved. From an eternal perspective, this is comforting and awesome.

But in this temporal sphere, the phrase goes more like, "Even after all that we can do, it is only by luck, fate, chance that we are spared excruciating sorrow." And that scares the hell out me.

"The person you love is a hostage ~ a hostage to fate." --Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Hot and Cold

It's amazing how quickly time passes.

The girls' break was outstandingly fun. The weather was sunny and gorgeous. Just what I needed. The fence between us and our neighbors had blown down, freeing the chickens to grow fat and delicious on their perfectly kept garden and then be eaten by the fox. So it was good that the weather was so fair as that gave the girls no excuse to not go out and play with the chooks who were otherwise kept locked up.

We were carless. Actually, Ariel was carless, but that meant that he stole my car since we didn't have anywhere to be. After two days with only one car, when the mechanic called with an (astronomically high) estimate to fix our old car that we're only going to need for another 5 months, I said, fix it. I was already miserable being in a one-car family. I know that I'm spoiled. Tough. Ariel took a sunny day off and we went to Stowe Gardens, a lovely expanse of parkland filled with follies and monuments. However, the weather was so nice that it never occured to us that it is still winter and therefore the park was closed. Wolfe's Obelisk and some summer house are not in the enclosed part of the park, so we walked to them and harrassed the National Trust sheep that reside in the surrounding fields.

The following week, winter returned, and one morning we were faced with the magical freezing fog. I've mentioned this before, but it works like this: the air temperature is below freezing, and there is a fog. When the fog passes through something (like trees), the moisture condenses, leaving the thing all frosty and encapsulated with ice. It's nice because everything looks all wintery except for the roads which remain clear.

With nice clear roads, I had no reason not to go work out at the gym. I always shower at the gym because A) I run errands there on base when I'm finished, and B) the shower stall is at least 3 times bigger than the one at home. The water pressure is mediocre and the water temperature is lukewarm, but there's something luxurious about being able to pick up a bottle of shampoo without having to shimmy down with your bum squeaking along the shower wall. I use the back locker room where no one goes, and after my workout, I found the room very cold as all seven high, unreachable windows were open. I didn't care too much because I was hot and sweaty. Then the lukwarm water seemed very chilly with the artic breeze coming in and I hurried to get out and get dry again. When I applied my face, my liquid foundation was sluggish coming out and then crunchy going on. It had ice crystals in it. After I finished, I returned to the shower to collect my toiletries, and when I moved the shower curtain, the shower spray flaked off of the curtain onto my feet, leaving them covered in an indoor snow. It had frozen in a matter of minutes.

After this, I went shopping at the commisary, parking next to a big SUV. I happened to notice that in the passenger seat were stacked many crates of Girl Scout cookies. I haven't had GS cookies in years (not counting the ones I had gorged myself on the week before at Liz's house), and I wondered if this person parked next to me would return to find her passenger side window smashed in. When I went in, there she was, selling GS cookies. I rarely have American dollars on me, but I dug through my purse and was able to come up with $25. I thrust it at her and like a maniac told her I'd take as many boxes of Samoas as $25 gets you. That would be 7. With .50 change. Best purchase in a long time. Then I hid them. It was another week before I admitted where they were hidden and allowed Ariel to open a box.

To close, here's Ginger the Ice-Skating Chicken.

Break Time

After a busy week, Half-Term break has begun! The sun is shining, we're not scheduled to have any snow, and we have a week of mostly rest, relaxation, and a change of the normal routine. The girls are finally old enough that I actually find them enjoyable to talk to, and I've been really looking forward to this week.


The final days of school were spent being busy, and I came to the door one afternoon to find an ominous shadow lurking outside.This turned out to be my new compost bin. The second image is of a Dalek -- Doctor Who's equivalent of the Borg (from Star Trek). The scariest thing in this picture is the little Spaniel holding the "Welcome" sign in his mouth. Yes, that's really my front door. I collect concrete animals. Especially cute ones. Even more especially cute ones holding little signs (especially cute signs) in their adorable little mouths. Trust me -- you only try disgutedly kicking this thing once before you remember it's made of concrete.

LittleMan has grown fat and has now been put on a diet. This causes him to sit at the breakfast table each morning (in a chair) and expect that someone will put a bowl of cereal in front of him. He loves cereal-milk, and his favourite is Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch milk. Notice that he'll even let Livia pet him for the chance of cereal-milk.

Almost finally, the beauty of having children is making them allowing them to do the jobs that I might find menial and tedious. Here I have them gessoing 25 artboards for me to paint on later. They should just be glad that I don't need any ditches dug. L&L did a great job with Livia splattering only one chair and somehow managing to poke herself in the eye with the brush handle.
Here's a last little bit of fun to enjoy. Livia likes to dance, with or without music. She volunteered to be recorded after I caught her dancing to the sound of her father reading about pigeon-guilded missiles (not making this stuff up). Though I've added music later so you won't hear me laughing, the only music she hears is in her head. (The air guitar is my favourite part).

All-Lemming Synchronized Swimming Team

Well, it's nearly February, time to look back on all of last months New Year's resolutions and feel like a loser. I don't normally make resolutions, but this year I decided to make an exception and try a new direction. I have made New Month's Resolutions. I figure, if it takes 21 days to make/break a habit, that gives me an extra week to really make it stick. Then I move on. So far, January has been "Let the tidy person trapped inside the lazy person's body out" month. I was tested on this this week. I mistakenly believed that our twice annual house inspection from the property manager would occur on the 29th and had planned to clean accordingly as she is a cleaning Nazi and has even remarked in the past on the grass being a few inches too high (having been cut only a few days earlier). Ariel called late Tuesday to say that I had the date wrong and that they were coming the following day, first thing in the morning. The old JennyB would have run around screaming and frantic at the thought of this woman inspecting the closets and <gasp> seeing the dumping ground that we call the garage (some people have a junk drawer -- we have a junk two-car garage). Fortunately, New JennyB has taken over, and all I did was spend about 15 minutes collecting the recycling and sweeping in the garage. The next morning, after loading the dishwasher, I went to the gym, and left Ariel sick on the couch to entertain the property manager. There was no other special cleaning done in anticipation of this visit. Ariel reported that the PropMan remarked how well-taken-care-of the house was. Score!

There is no actual list of resolutions, just something running around in my head in case I want to practise one early. Going to the gym has been fairly successful so far though getting into a pattern is mind-numbingly difficult but absolutely necessary for my success. February is the gym's month.

Another floating resolution has been "do art with enough frequency to justify the zillions of supplies you own." This has been a terrible failure, so far. Back in September when my mum and bro were here, Ross and I each bought these blank postcards at the Tate Modern, all full of inspiration and promises that we would decorate them with our amazing brilliance and send them to each other. I have now sent one. Of a shrimp. After I inked the little tasty morsel (for he is cooked, as you can see), I scanned him and then reprinted him on 200 gsm watercolour paper. Our printer has issues with normal cardstock (120 grams per square meter), so you can imagine how much coaxing I had to do to get it to take it. When we bought the laser printer, I was so excited since it prints waterproof, so I would be able to mass produce paintable inkwork. This is the first time I have been successful in the operation. Anyhow, I practised the painting a few times before I was ready to commit to the postcard, so I'm left with multiple little painted shrimp here. I liked how Ross's shrimp turned out, but I'm disappointed with the boring background colour. I despise watercolour. Watercolour painting is like coaching the all-lemming syncronized swimming team -- it's easy to get them in the water, it's getting them to swim the way you want and not drown that's the hard part. Exasperating. Here's a little picture I did of my chickies as a gift for my neighbor. Just to tidy up.

Holiday Wrap-up

Ah, the lovely joys of those magical days between Christmas and New Years!

Sunday, we had friends over for dinner to celebrate. Eight years ago, when we moved away from South Carolina, I thought I would never again have reason to say this, but alas: this dinner was to celebrate a friend's new set of teeth. Yep, Karen had most of her teeth pulled (a common solution to many things in English dentistry), and we promised her and her family a steak dinner when her dentures arrived. This dinner was cursed. When we arrived home from church the house was cold and dark as the power was off. We rearranged the menu to things that could be either made/baked on the grill or cooked on the gas stove that's also outside on the grill. The electric company said that we'd have no power until well into the evening, so we dug out all of out candles, made the place festive, and made do with what we had. Of course, 2 minutes before the family pulled into the drive, the power came on, showing the carpet that we hadn't been able to vacuum and all the mess in the kitchen. The fun of eating by candlelight was ruined, but dinner was delicious anyway.

The day before, I had made this lovely yule log/ bûche de Noël which is made entirely of chocolate ganache held together by chocolate cake (actually, as you can see, the ganache is holding the cake together as I broke it when unrolling it). The thing I love about ganache, other than it's the tasty main ingredient in a chocolate truffle, is that ganache (and therefore this cake), though made mostly of cream, doesn't need any refrigeration. It won't go bad. This is because there is so much fat and sugar in ganache, that any bacteria that might eat it develop type 2 diabetes and die immediately.

We had this much cake leftover today (Wednesday, when I took the picture) because A) it's a very rich cake, and B) L&L have been terribly digestively ill since Sunday night. You know they're sick if they won't eat my chocolate cake. Taking care of the girls, especially Lena who's been vastly more ill than her sister, has been like a return to the days when they were babies. Yesterday, I spent the day in the daze of a parent who has been up every hour with a crying child. This morning I awoke elated that my baby had finally slept through the night. Then I fixed Lena a bowl of oatmeal which I had to feed to her, and immediately I slipped into the old pattern of scooping the cooler outer edges from the bowl so as not to burn her mouth, and she would promptly open her mouth when she was ready for the next bite. If she hadn't occasionally spoken in complete sentences, it would have been just like she was little. It was dear and I enjoyed it. I also enjoyed it when she later put a load of laundry in the machine and went back to being my 8-year-old.

Hope that all have a warm and healthy New Year.

1 Comment »
melindatsura said,
3 January 2008 at 11:39 pm · Edit

The bdnoel looks much more impressive than the yangy chocolate-anise cake we tried to re-create from Maggiano’s several years ago. remember? we’ve not had good success with recipes found online. If you made that cake at our house, however, it would not have lasted to Wednesday. The platter in your picture would be empty because our kids gobble up all things sweet - especially ganache. When family sent goodies in the mail this holiday season - we had nary a taste - erstwhile our kids mouths and fingers were covered in crumbs, and gooey sweetness.

I’ve also exfoliated the house. LOVE post-holiday cleanup.

Merry merry to you all.