Chef Bones

Bones has informed us he wants to go to Culinary School and be a chef. We are not telling him no. As a matter of fact, we've been telling him he could be the SINGING chef. He rolls his eyes.

First, college is not for everyone. If he wants to be a chef, we'll gladly help him go the route he needs to go. He may change his mind and decide to go to college, but if this is the route he still wants to take after getting out of high school, so be it.

Second, if he wants to go to culinary school, as he gets older he'll probably start cooking at the house and I'm not going to say no to that. I could very well not have to cook in the next couple years.

I'm always thinking ahead.

And last, funnily enough, I've been looking into cooking classes for him and I have a couple girlfriends who have volunteered to go with him and be his partner if I can't go. "Bou, I love that kid! Let ME go with him..." I'm not sure they want to go to learn to cook, but for the sheer entertainment factor of being with Bones.

Bones is completely addicted to the Cooking channel. I think he's seen every episode of Chopped.... multiple times. He has favorites (Alton Brown?) and those he does not like so much (Paula Dean), and some in between. There is some young chicky girl he likes to watch, but I think it's more of a case of he thinks she's hot.

He watches all the competition shows. I forget their names. It's crazy. I think he gets caught up in the drama as much as he does what they are cooking.

In the last week we now have a fridge full of some sort of cinnamon honey butter and a pitcher of Italian lemonade has been made. It has basil in it. My fridge smells like basil.

Tonight he asked to cook dinner or rather to learn to cook one of his favorite dishes I make, Chicken Divan. I sauteed the chicken and steamed the broccoli, but he made the cheese sauce.

I'm thinking if I play my cards right, I could very well get out of cooking in the next couple years... and that's not a bad thing. We could also end up having to order a lot of pizza as well... this could be interesting.

Sometimes... Changing that One Letter leads to Trouble

A brief cast of characters for this story: I job share my job with another female engineer who I will call, Tabitha. We have an engineering aid who I will call Eve.

I've known Tabitha for 25 years. She was my mentor out of college. Eve has been our assistant for the past 7 years. She is about 15 years older than Tabitha and I (we're two years apart) and is kind of the mother of the group. She keeps all of us unruly engineers in line, barking at us about deadlines, and shaming us when we stray out of process. Which happens. When we're under stress. Too often.

Eve is a DEVOUT Catholic and Tabitha is a Presbyterian. I threaten to join Tabitha's church often. Cool people.

So Glowing St. Gerard is at my place of work. I kept him. I got attached.

To a piece of plastic.

A piece of glowing plastic.

Really, I decided that since he is the Patron Saint of Motherhood, and since I'm a mother, and since there are times my job is so stressful I think I surely must be in the depths of hell and I therefore need some protecting, that he should stay on a shelf on my credenza.

Someone said to me, 'Do you think he'll scare the cleaning men at night?' to which I replied, "Hell no, they're all Latin."

And I kept him because the twisted side of me cannot not quit laughing at the thought of this 8" statue glowing all night in the middle of an aerospace building.

Today I brought him to his new home. When I got to my cube, Eve was in Tabitha's cube talking to her. Tabitha sits right behind me.

I grabbed Glow in the Dark (GitD for now on) St. Gerard and said, "I'm putting him on my shelf. Do you think I'll get in trouble for that?"

Eve, taking it from my hand: Oh! Look at this! Nah, I think you'll be fine.

Tabitha: So you decided to keep him here? (I brought him in on Friday for her to see.)

Me: Yup. I think he's going to watch over both of us. We're Moms. We need it.

Eve: What is up with him?

Me: We emptied Joe's place and I found him. *excitedly* He glows!!!

Eve is now stroking him with her hand, as he's very textured with his cross and rosary: He grows?

Immediately, Tabitha's eyebrows shoot up and she and I lock eyes.

Me: Um. NO. He GLOWS. That's 8 inches you have in your hand there. He ain't getting in bigger than that...

Tabitha: However, he's probably glowing now!

And the cackeling commenced and my Tech Lead walked by, stopped, looked in Eve's hand, looked at the three of us and said, 'I. Do.NOT.want.to.know...' and he kept walking.

I can't look at my 8 inch GitD St. Gerard the same way anymore. Good grief.

HB, Mr. T

Today is my second son's 15th birthday. I was ready when my eldest turned 15, but this one feels... really weird. I can't figure out what it is. And I do think part of it is that he's getting his learner's permit to drive in the next few weeks, meaning I will have two drivers in the family soon.

In the last two years, I went from the 2nd tallest person in the house to the 2nd shortest and Bones is catching up quickly.

I was teasing T today in the kitchen. I was pretending to cry, "Ohhh... booo hooo hooo, you are 15... boo hooo... what is happening to me..." and as a joke, I flung myself at him and my head rested on his shoulder and I thought, "Crap. He really is taller than me now."

This has been an odd year for T and not necessarily in a good way. And odder still... I didn't see it coming.

Age 12 was a particularly brutal year for Ringo. We ended up in therapy. It wasn't until recently that I confessed to him that we ended up in therapy because I was afraid I was going to punch him in the face. He was in private Catholic school and the kids he went to school with were nasty. It was uncool to be smart. They were mean spirited and to say it toughened him up is an understatement.

I never knew who was getting into my car, Dr. Jekyl or Mr. Hyde. I was always stressed. High School was a complete relief for him.

But T? He was very popular in middle school and the kids in his class were really fun and great. It's not to say there weren't problems, but it was a small cadre. The vast majority were smart and good and they were a close knit group of kids. As a matter of fact, T still hangs out with them in high school whereas Ringo is only friends with ONE kid at his high school that he went to middle school with and even he is no longer a close friend.

It's not that T went from the king of the hill to the bottom of the heap. Quite the contrary. He completely fits in high school, hangs with great kids, and is learning a lot.

He just... does not love it. I'd not say he's depressed, but he's not happy either. He spends a lot of time wondering if he should be somewhere else, feeling trapped that he is where he is, wondering about his future.

I can tell he has insecurities about his looks. He was always my beautiful Celtic son, but he confessed to me the other day that he wished he looked like his Dad and his older brother. "Italians just look... cool, Mom." He wishes he had the dark skin and dark eyes of his half Italian heritage. He wishes his shoulders were broader and that he was just... not him.

And we ALL go through that. We all do. Growing up is learning to accept and to love what we bring to the table. One day, some little girl will tell him how much she loves his bright blue eyes and quirky smile, and he'll realize, that what he has is just as beautiful.

What we realized this year is... Mr. T doesn't handle change. It's not that he's in a bad place, at a bad school, or anything, but that it is just NOT what he had before. He doesn't like nor receive change well and having gone to the same school from K-8, it's not something we realized until now. It gives us a heads up about college. I realize now he'll have huge transition issues we need to prepare for in advance, that Ringo will not have. Ringo goes with the flow. He's laid back.

T is the opposite. He's uptight and likes continuity.

And I think we're realizing, he is going to be a small college kind of kid. He'll apply where he applies, but I suspect, in the end, he will thrive in a smaller school than one of the large ones...

... which is sad since he is such a HUGE Florida Fan. He loves Gator football, yet even he knows, it would not be a good fit.

How much of a fan is he?

I was in Joann fabrics with Bones and Bones said to me (pay attention to the wording...) "Mom! Mom! MOM! I know what WE should get Mr T for his birthday! WE could use this Gator fabric and WE could make him a quilt!"

Notice that we? That is used... a lot?

Later I got, "MOM! WE could use a Broncos fabric for the back. WE could order it online and WE could make him a quilt with Gators on the front and Broncos on the back."

I love that. WE.

But... I did it. (It was a simple venture. Notice I didn't have to piece together the top. It was laid out for me to just sew over.)

Here is T with the Broncos side.

Here he is with the Gators side.

He is happy. I'm still sewing the binding. I hand bind my quilts. And can you tell he loves Tim Tebow? The running joke now is that if Tim gets traded, I have to change the back of the quilt. Right.

In the end, T will be fine. He'll find his way. He's just in the bumpy part of his journey and there will be many bumpy parts. It's all about how you handle the bumps. Do you grow or do you allow it to paralyze you?

He's a good kid with a good heart and a knack for numbers.

And to my second son, Mr. T, on his 15th birthday I say, "Happy Birthday my 2nd son. Should all the children be so blessed to be as loved as you are… for if they were, I suspect the problems of this world would be so very different… We love you so..."

Mr. T with The Great Flambina (who is turning 3 next week, by the way)

Funky Mary

So, Latch Hook Rug Jesus is staying. The WTF is an old coffee roaster and the family wants to keep it. I am asking them to ask Joe about it. I'm taking pix of some things to send to DDP and...

... I think there is one last story.

I was standing in the parking lot to Joe's condo, talking to his niece. We were loading the religious paraphenalia into my car when she said, "And then there is this..."

It was something that had been 'domed'. A round piece of wood was in her hand with a small statue attached to it, off to one side. The glass dome was in her other hand.

'I'll take the glass dome and recycle it,' I replied. "What... IS that?"

Her husband took the bottom of the round base and she said, "Well, there was a St. Gerard, but he came off. There is only this little Mary now..." and she took hold of this funky little Mary, like she was going to pull a carrot from the ground, and she moved it to see if she could see how it was attached and... *SNAP* it popped off into her hand.

She stood there looking at the funky little Mary and her husband was looking at her with raised eyebrows.

"What?! What do I do with her now?" she exclaimed.

Her husband shook his head.

I replied, "Well, if you give her to me, I'm throwing her in the trash, 'cuz I'm not Catholic..."

Her husband took funky little Mary and I suspect... that's where she went. But I'm not sure.

Meanwhile, I was not sure where the St. Gerard went; why was it still not on the base?

I went through the items in my car today and there he was... I think he must've snapped off as well at some point.

And... I am realizing now why little Mary seemed funky.

THEY FRICKIN' GLOW! I took St. Gerard into a dark room and he glowed green. Holy crap. We have glowing religious plastic statues.

So I'm trying to figure out, who buys a glow in the dark 8 inch plastic St. Gerard and a smaller glow in the dark plastic Mary positioned on a small wooden platform, to be covered with a big glass dome, obviously for display, that can be seen night AND day?

Who?

I'm keeping glow in the dark St. Gerard. I can't give him up. Seriously, I'm filing him under "you can't make this stuff up". I'm just pissed that glow in the dark Mary is now glowing in a garbage can somewhere.

We broke up a set.

Dammit.

He GLOWS!

For the record... my husband isn't finding humor in any of this. Meanwhile, I'm LMAO.