Traditions: Saturday Salsa

DSC_0822It’s a bunch of tomato-y goodness: peppers, onions, tomatoes, tomatillos, serranos, cilantro. …

But it’s more than all that.

It’s tradition.

It’s fall, it’s football, it’s baseball, it’s beat-up-coffeetable, it’s watching TV from the floor, it’s Sunday brunches, it’s gold bowl, it’s Saturdays, it’s Sundays.

It’s Superman’s salsa.

He’s been making this concoction since we got married or so. He started putting it together himself, then kept adding and refining until he got it just right – just the right number of Serrano chilis, just the right amount of El Pato tomato sauce. And now it’s perfect.

He makes it every “big game day.” So he’s been making it a lot lately (as our Angels are in the playoffs, our UCLA is playing again, and pro football is back on every Sunday).

He gets up on Saturday mornings, throws on some shorts, runs across the street to the supermarket and gets a million of those little vegetable baggies and fills them up with all the secret ingredients. The supermarket checkout lady knows him, and knows he’s the guy who buys tomatillos, because no one else is sure what tomatillos are used for. Continue reading

Sunday Drives

100_36632Ah, Sunday drives. If you can find two words in the English language that more abruptly call to mind gargantuan Cadillacs, clean-cut hair styles, and slow cruising, let me know.

 

Sunday drives were a big part of my growing up. I spent countless weekends in the backseat of some Pontiac or another, sliding around with my brothers on the vinyl upholstery, listening to Karen Carpenter on the radio and smelling my mother’s Jean Nate.

 

My parents were both from Ohio. They grew up there, trudging through the snow (uphill, both ways, of course) and working at various gas stations and five-and-dimes throughout their teens. But about a year after they got married, my dad jumped at a great job offer in the aerospace industry and they moved to California. They drove the 2,500-or-so miles when I was 6 weeks old – two young 23-year-olds, eyes open wide, amazed that they were permanently in a land of squawking seagulls and 70-degree temps. And their amazement at the west coast ultimately resulted in regular weekend awe: every chance they got, they’d get out their maps and explore.

 

All through the late 60s and early 70s, we drove. My parents and I, then later my two brothers, would drive to Newport Beach in a Pontiac Catalina and watch the waves crash on the jetty. Continue reading

Kids: Becoming ‘Beautiful in the Heart’

Every time I open my top dresser drawer, I see it. It pokes out from underneath a red bra I hardly ever wear and a plastic baggie filled with my kids’ baby teeth. Sometimes I push these things further aside so I can see it better. It’s a simple frame, with a card inside – decorated pastel brushstrokes around a single quote:

“What is important is that my children grow up to be beautiful in the heart.”

Beneath is a line and attribution to “an African Nyinban woman.”

Now, I’m not sure who the African Nyinban woman is (or if it’s really some grizzled white-haired writer at Hallmark), but I’m thankful for the simple words, which have brought me comfort for upwards of 13 years.

I received the card from a coworker when I was pregnant with my second child. I sometimes wonder if she was struck by the simplicity of the statement too, or if it was just the first card she saw when she was rushing into the market to buy a half gallon of milk and a bag full of apples. Either way, though, I’m grateful she found it. I’m grateful she connected me with such a powerful concept.

The sentiment isn’t complex, nor does it seem particularly profound when I see it here now. But I know it struck me as profound when my children were born. Continue reading

Countdown to the Super Bowl

football-hashmarksSome people may shake out their Steelers jerseys. Others may scan the position breakdowns. Others may scour sports blogs or review point spreads. But I do none of these things. I have more important things to deal with: like what type of chips I should bring and whether I should chop or mince the onions for the artichoke dip. …

 

Here’s my own personal Super Bowl countdown:

 

  • 4 days before: Review complicated process for buying betting squares; discuss with coworkers; decide to buy two squares, even though my money would probably be better spent on the artichoke dip.
  • 3 days before: Double-check with sister-in-law about what she wants me to bring to the party. E-mail Lauran from the book club to get the mac-in-cheese recipe that I will probably be asked to bring.
  • 2 days before: Pick up brother-in-law at John Wayne airport. Note that he misses Christmas; he misses Thanksgiving; but he never misses a Super Bowl with his brothers.
  • 1 day before: Scour the e-vite sis-in-law sent to find out who the players are. Skip names like Kurt Warner and Ben Roethlisberger; look instead for party guest names. (Did you really think I cared who the quarterbacks were? Stay with me, here, people. …)
  • Day of: Ask my son (for the fourth time) who exactly is playing again? File into brain the fact that the Phillies is a baseball team, not a football team. Stand in kitchen with brother-in-law while he makes gumbo and manage to not bring up once that I don’t even know what state the teams will be playing in. Scoop up chip bags, artichoke dip, mac-and-cheese, and gumbo into car with hubby/ kids/ bro-in-law and head toward fun guests and great conversation at Super Bowl party. Have great time. …

 

What about you? What does your big countdown entail?

 

 

Be-yoo-ti-ful

“Wow,” says my little guy as I come downstairs, “you look be-yoo-ti-ful, Mom.”

I clonk down the last few steps in my high heels. Adjust my work blouse. Blush. “Thank you,” I tell him. And then I go in the kitchen and calmly revel.

My son just turned nine, although he’s very small and I think of him as younger. Plus he’s the youngest child, which sticks him with a certain “baby-state” status, I suppose.

I listen as he goes back to his morning program – Full House or something – and stir my oatmeal. I add the blueberries in. Put down my spoon. Revel again.

“Be-yoo-ti-ful.”

Deep sigh. …

I figure I have another five or six months of such gushing. Maybe eight, maybe nine. I recall fifth grade as being a huge turning point with my older son, so I’ve got about eight months until then.

My oldest son used to think I looked like the Columbia Pictures icon. When he was about three, we’d all be sitting on the couch, watching City Slickers or some such thing, and the Columbia music would come on. The iconic goddess would fall into her place – looking a little like the Statue of Liberty, or something, only with redder hair. Now I guess this would be a good place to mention that I – under no circumstances whatsoever – look like any kind of goddess, red hair or otherwise. I don’t have stature. I don’t wear robes. I don’t carry a torch. And yet, to a 3-year-old who loved me, I guess I did. “It’s Mommy,” he would say, pointing to the screen, looking to his father for verification. My husband always had the decency not to laugh.

So this morning I make oatmeal, stirring the blueberries in. And I think about my boys, and how I get to be a goddess for a few short years – maybe eight, maybe nine. …

You spend all of your teens, and even some of your 20s, hoping a handsome man will tell you that you look beautiful. But no one tells you that the comment you’ll hang onto forever – the one you’ll start to mourn – is the unsolicited one coming from your little guys, four feet tall, when they’re missing eyeteeth and have cowlicks in their hair. …

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