Summer To-Do List

1. Lift weights

2. Clean the 

This is bullshit. No.

Pioneer Days

Spring -- the season of field trips, class parties, and mandatory paperwork concerning same -- is here.

At a recent parents' meeting, I learned that the third graders' spring was kind of a big deal. In May and June, they would learn to swim, re-enact olden times at a historic mansion, dress up on certain school days ("Pioneer Days") for role-playing games, and perform an original musical play about -- if I heard this correctly -- "biomes."

My memories of third grade were of an orange-haired old woman shushing us while we tried not to punch each other and/or wet our pants. How things had changed! Third grade was now a magical journey through the elements and Time itself.

Busy practicing a series of throat-kicks for a martial arts tournament, my son took this in stride. He was accustomed to a certain amount of educational razzle-dazzle. When I mentioned I'd spent third grade sitting alone on a stump, reading library books about The Boxcar Children, he was like: "That's sad, Mom. Can I borrow your phone and go watch YouTube now?"

Well, I for one was jazzed about all the upcoming opportunities!

First, I volunteered to be a driver for the field trip to the historic house. Putting aside disturbing memories of last year's spring field trip -- when, blinded by eye-watering allergies after a farm tour, I had to drive three boisterous boys back to school ("Be quiet! I can't see!") -- I indicated on the form that I could take three kids. No problem!

Next, I began plotting to secure the best job offered to parents that day: churning butter. Oh, how I wanted to churn butter and not be stuck in some "barn scavenger hunt" nonsense! The hell with the barn! We'd all seen a barn! Perhaps if I arrived in period dress, it would give me an edge?

Third, I considered killing two birds with one stone and getting married at the historic house. Dave could take the day off work, and we could do it in a flashmob. Just let me put down this churning stick and -- hey, Mom! glad you could make it! -- stand before these splendid columns while I recite my vows . . . Then I imagined my son's eyes pleading me not to embarrass him with a flashmob wedding, but just to show up, take my post in the barn, and hand out snacks like all the other moms. Oh, all right!

After the field trip came the pioneer party. On a yellow posterboard on the classroom wall, I signed up for the task of making corn cob dolls for two hours on party day.

Two hours! It was one thing to make a corn cob doll (how hard could it be?), but quite another to guide a rotating cast of nine-year-olds through the process until my hands blistered from cobbing.

One thing was certain: After two hours dressing corn cobs, I would be a master of the form. Increasingly, I would sneer at the children's pedestrian efforts ("That's a very derivative cob, Dylan. I've seen that one a thousand times!") while pushing out in bold new directions.

My cob dolls would start out insipid -- buttons for eyes, a scrap of calico -- but soon evolve into Impressionist cobs, Cubist cobs, Dada cobs, cobs that problematized the arbitrary and oppressive binaries of male/female, black/white, and corn/carrot.

Meanwhile, the third graders would be grubbing around in my bucket of cob bling. No! I must have peace!

From across the room, I would summon my son for a private chat.

"Can you get these kids out of here? I'm working on something -- not to brag, but -- I think it could be pretty important."

"Sure thing, Mom."

Biome performance? I got nothing.

I don't even know what that word means.

(Image: Churn by Pearson Scott Foresman [public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)

Mjolnir

As anyone with a nine-year-old boy knows, Mjolnir was the name of Thor's hammer, and Thor was the hero of Asgard, a celestial city of Viking gods.

He fought giants and rode in a carriage pulled by two magical goats.

His sometime enemy -- or "frenemy" -- was his half-brother Loki. They battled for control of Midgard, which sounds like a women's undergarment but actually was Earth. Thor's beautiful wife Sif could stir things up between the brothers, but mostly she just brushed her gold (literally, it was made of gold) hair.

Though I know a lot about Thor, the idea of owning a hammer never excited me. That all changed a few weeks back, when I came upon the perfect hammer.

It was a meat hammer, silver and brilliantly gleaming like the moon.

* * * *

I was doing my Saturday morning lap around the Fancy Grocery Store, where I buy hand-rolled sushi, organic chicken, saffron threads, and highly-specialized kitchen gadgets made by the Swiss. (This is followed by a trip to the Inexpensive Grocery Store, where I round out the week's shopping with white bread, canned soup, Cheetos, and a Kardashian-themed tabloid.)

My plan was to make chicken parmesan and do it properly: with uniformly flattened chicken.

That's when I saw THE HAMMER. (Technically, a meat tenderizer.) As the kids say, it was sick.

For a while, I carted it around the store, admiring its heft and weight.

Then I posed it on a stack of raisin loaves, took a picture of it with my phone, and texted it to Dave with the message: "Check out this bad boy."

The hammer made me feel vital and powerful, like I was finally going to cook meat, for real. I feel like men must feel when they fire up an outdoor grill the size of a small car, with a pile of raw steaks and a giant fork at hand.

Eyeing the chicken breasts -- which had lived a wonderful, expensive life somewhere in Napa County -- now in my grocery cart, I thought: You are GOING DOWN, my friends. You will be [evil silent laugh] UNIFORMLY FLATTENED with my SILVER HAMMER.

Once home, I rinsed the hammer and peeled off the tag. It was ready to fly!

* * * * 

Did I mention I have been eating a lot of chickpeas lately?

As it turns out, chickpeas in an Indian simmer sauce are delicious served over jasmine rice. Cucumbers are good on the side, or oven-roasted cauliflower with a sprinkling of cumin and chili powder.

And almond milk actually tastes better than real milk! It's crazy.

Halfway through pounding four raw chicken breasts, the obscure and idiosyncratic figure we'll call my conscience piped up. There was a piece of pale flesh on the counter, and I was banging on it -- pretty hard! -- with a large metal hammer. The chickens were long-dead: defenseless. And here I was, mutilating their corpses!

The chicken parmesan was good and flat. But chewing it, I experienced a certain ambivalence . . . (Lesson: NEVER OVERTHINK MEAT. Just eat it and don't think about it!)

The silver hammer makes a fine addition to my kitchen tool set. I'm sure I'll use it again, or Dave will, while my conscience covers its eyes and whistles.

In the meantime, I will sadistically run zucchinis through the Spiralizer. Maybe I'll pulverize some chickpeas and make hummus!

You just never know.

Lunchbox

A few years back, global capitalism glitched or broke down, and the above product appeared on the shelf of a Northern California Target.

No American kid wanted this item. They wanted Frozen, they wanted Spider-Man, they wanted to blend in with the crowd and not be kicked down a flight of stairs to the sound of mocking laughter.

And what kind of mother would buy this lunchbox for her (presumably loved) child? "Good-bye, darling! I'm off to the office in DKNY and a salon blow-out. But here, you take this hideous thing designed by a thick-fingered halfwit and made in a third world chemical plant for fifteen cents. Have a great day!"

Because my kids have two houses, one lunchbox each is not enough. At any given time, half their possessions are "probably at Dad's." So I was excited to find an extra lunchbox marked down to $2. The store would just about pay you to get it out of there, as it was bringing down the tone. Sold!

Honestly, my reaction to this lunchbox was love at first sight. And because I think in hashtags: "#globalcapitalismfail"

* * * * 

Quickly, the lunchbox became a test of the love and character of those close to me.

After a series of leading questions, my son agreed that it was funny. He was willing to take it to first grade once in a while in a spirit of hilarity, and to please Mom.

My daughter was stuck in full-day preschool. Every afternoon found her on the swings, singing Frozen songs at the top of her lungs in a fugue state until I finally showed up to rescue her. The lunchbox was amusing, sure, but the salient issue was that I did not pick up her up at noon like certain other mothers. If I thought a cheap-ass lunchbox could bridge the chasm of this betrayal, I was mistaken.

Dave and I had not been dating very long when, one morning, I packed up some leftovers for his work lunch. Handing him the Leering Abomination, I explained that I loved it, but he didn't have to take it. I could put his lunch in a paper bag, no problem.

"Are you kidding? I would be honored to take this lunchbox to work."

Well played!

A few months passed, or maybe a year. At lunch-packing time, Dave gently expressed his preference for a paper bag.

"But I thought you were honored to take that funny lunchbox!"

"I was honored. On that day."

The lawyer in me respected this carefully-parsed answer.

Sadly I put the Mistake That Should Never Have Seen Daylight back in the cupboard.

* * * *

The other day, it was in the backseat of the car. Of poor quality to begin with, it was now smelly and stained.

Inside were the remains of a peanut butter sandwich and a bag of carrots. That was all it could hold. Even a juice box would have split its flimsy seams.

Yet its primitive, electric-blue face was perky as ever. It seemed to be calling out to someone, saying: "Hello, friend! Remember me? I'm not a dinosaur, or any identifiable creature, because the person who designed me was too stoned or insane to give me any features besides two vertical slits for eyes and a gaping red mouth. Ha ha! How 'bout that? Friend? . . . Bye, friend!"

I washed it out and put it back in the cupboard for next time.

Best lunchbox ever.

In Memoriam

If you can possibly avoid it, don't be pregnant in San Francisco.

Every able-bodied man on the evening train will remain seated and looking at his phone while you stand in the aisle, huge on swollen feet, for thirty minutes.

If you fall down while crossing the street, a sea of young professionals will part around you and keep walking while a homeless person offers a hand up.

In public discourse, you will be described as a "breeder," and people will deplore your horrible child -- ruining restaurants! airplanes! -- even before it's born.

Your only consolation during all this will be -- what else? -- the food.

Thus at lunch, I would often end up at the Miette patisserie in the Ferry Building, mentally working out how many cupcakes I would need to survive the day.

Between stress and prenatal hormones, I was turning into a hoarder: I could eat one cupcake now, but what if -- back at my desk -- I wanted another one? And what if, after that one, I desperately craved another one? I had better get three. But what if . . . ?

"Four chocolate cupcakes to go, please."

Even now, years later, I am occasionally seized by the instinct to collect as much food as possible, like the industrious ant in the fable. This explains why, the other day, I found myself ordering an entire pizza topped with tater tots and bacon.

Arriving at Whole Foods at 10 a.m. ablaze with purpose, I was informed they no longer served breakfast pizza by the slice: It was "not popular."

Turns out, the kombucha-buyers at Whole Foods were not too keen on breakfast pizza: everything on a Denny's menu baked on a thin, crispy crust.

As I struggled to recover from this news, the nice young man behind the counter offered to make me my own breakfast pizza for pickup the next morning. Would it have tater tots on it? 

It would.

Would it have bacon, scrambled eggs, cheese, onion, and bell pepper? 

Yes, of course, whatever I wanted!

I glanced over at Dave, who had the distant, slightly troubled expression of a man watching his future wife order a 16" tater tot pizza.

Fifteen minutes later, we were playing Scrabble after a non-pizza breakfast. A terrible clarity descended on me: I was no longer hungry and could admit my folly.

"I need you to go over there and cancel that pizza I just ordered."

"Sure."

Even the counter boy seemed relieved: Both of us had been temporarily caught up in a swirl of madness. Tater tot pizza?

Back in San Francisco, the other thing I loved to get at the Ferry Building was a spicy beef curry, served daily over white rice at a Japanese cafe called Delica. I owe a lot to this curry, which many days was the only thing standing between me and a mind-shattering insight into the pointlessness and misery of human life: "I just can't possibly. . . It's just too . . . Wow, they have once again achieved perfection with this curry. Bravo!"

I can't say a slice of breakfast pizza ever helped me out of a tough spot, per se.

But I will always remember it fondly.

(Image: Baby Shower Cupcakes by Clever Cupcakes from Montreal, Canada [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons)

Rough chop

I've been cooking more lately: chicken parmesan, egg custard, shrimp scampi, roasted broccoli and pancetta, shepherd's pie, and chocolate-cherry muffins.

It's pleasant to putter around the kitchen while the kids are in screen heaven, recovering from the school day and the demands of reality in general.

My signature move is the rough chop: hacking things into large pieces, throwing them in a pot, and describing the resulting dish as "rustic."

With spices, I am generous and imprecise. (A quarter-teaspoon's worth doesn't seem worth the effort.)

I carefully time and monitor the oven. I am afraid of BROIL and avoid it.

My favorite ingredients are pre-washed vegetables in a bag.

I enjoy assembling simple things, like a decaf chai latte with a slug of Irish whiskey, a few drops of vanilla, and a cinnamon stick. (So delicious that once you try it, you will kick yourself for all the wasted years . . . )

Cookbooks are like the Internet: With no particular plans, you flip through them until something catches your interest. And the Internet is a like a cookbook: Recipes for every imaginable food are a Google search away.

Always looking for ways to alleviate the boredom of winter nights, I'm glad to have hit upon cooking as a minor hobby.

Plus I'm so new to it that, every time I take a rustic, Internet-sourced casserole out of the oven, I feel like I'm being amazing.

"Am I amazing you, kids? Are you amazed that your working, single mother has lovingly prepared this meal for --"

"Can I be excused, Mom?"

"Me too?"

#stillamazing

Lowbrow

It's the middle of winter, and all our standards have gone out the window.

In other seasons, we bike, read, swim, and play Sudoku.  But in February all we want to do is curl up on the couch, in the flickering light of some trash or another, with a bowl of pretzels.

Here's what we're staring at, slack-jawed, on any given night:

1. Animal Crossing. In this video game, the player (my son) is the mayor of a town of animals. He walks around, buys and sells things, and decorates his house. For a long time, I  tried to figure out the point of all this. Then it dawned on me that there is no point: The player is plunged into an existential nightmare of terrifying inanity, and that is all.

Heads bobbing, the animals interact with the mayor by chirping frantically, like gerbils on speed. The mayor goes from house to house, buying baubles from his constituents. To pay off six-figure debts, he is reduced to selling fish, insects, and his own clothes. On the upside, his house contains a jukebox, a bubble machine, and a replica of the Statue of Liberty, and the animal mafia have not (yet) broken his kneecaps for outstanding loans.

That my son can play this game for hours is perhaps the most disturbing development of my adult life. And yet, I'm hardly one to talk, because . . .

2. Married At First Sight. Three seasons into this "groundbreaking social experiment" -- in which couples are blindly matched by relationship experts, meet at the altar, and remain married for six weeks before deciding whether to divorce -- I've learned a lot about the dos and don'ts of marriage.

It is helpful to be a burlesque dancer who falls for a fireman on sight and instantly devotes herself to being the best wife in the world.

It is unhelpful to maintain a contemptuous expression at all times and then sign up for a TV show in which you are paired with a male stranger who will, inevitably, repel you.

For men, it is unhelpful to be (1) a psychopath, (2) a guy who, honestly, wants to keep living with his parents, and what's wrong with that? and (3) on this show, because unless you are the specific fireman mentioned above, your marriage will crash and burn faster than Bart Simpson in a soapboax derby.

Each season, the relationship experts -- one from Harvard! -- achieve the impossible, turning hopeful newlyweds into bitter divorcees in six weeks.

Almost every contestant would be better off getting a dog. Which brings me to . . .

3. Beverly Hills Chihuahua 3. If you put the worst dog in the world in the worst town in the world in the most unnecessary sequel in the world, you get Beverly Hills Chihuahua 3: Viva La Fiesta!: a film suitable only for seven-year-old girls whose families are in February Neglect Mode.

Passing through the living room to get a snack, I try to neither see, nor hear, nor speak of Viva La Fiesta!, though it's in its sixth or seventh run, and my daughter seems to know all the words. These days, Papi and Chloe may be more real to her than her own brother (off selling his shoes to a chipmunk for a candelabra) or her own mom (deep in a fug of schadenfreude).

I have resisted the knowledge that these dogs and their litter are now living at the Langham Hotel, and that Papi has been relieved of his homeschooling duties. I have blocked out the snooty chef and all the talk of one pup's Quinceañera -- though I have wondered whether my daughter could have a Quinceañera. If a talking dog can do it, doesn't that open the door, culturally, to anyone? Any human at least, who isn't just turning 15 in dog years?

In March or April, we will all peel our brains off the floor and resume living.

Until then, we're drawing the shades and hunkering down.

Don't call us. We'll call you.

(Image: Duck Hunt Video Game by tympsy (Flickr) [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons)