Late afternoon psychosis -not me!-, dresses to Half the Sky, desirous of wine

Hells Bells...my eldest son just morphed into a raving lunatic just as I answered the phone and was giving Verizon a real piece of my mind. I think the fact that I'm so hoarse and stopped up that I sound like a man really helped the FiOS guy take me seriously. J was going on so ridiculously that I actually had to ask the guy to call me back. We had just returned from an art-supplies date, and almost immediately I had to take them away due to psychotic in-fighting. Really burst the loving family experience bubble I was in. I finally got J to his room and was about to put dinner on the table for Oliver when he said with a look of great concern, "I feel sick, Mom. My bottom hurts." So we haul ass back upstairs and make it to his potty just in time. I tried to praise him endlessly while simultaneously trying not to look as my queasy stomach was lurching a bit. Ultimately, he seemed quite proud, and hopefully this will start a keep-the-potty-training-going-in-a-more-advanced-direction trend. Now they're chowing down; hopefully feeling sated will preclude any additional meltdowns before bedtime. If you think I am not wishing in a big effing way that I could have a glass of wine tonight, you are wrong. However, I am fully aware that this would be an unwise decision due to the previously described nasty-ass sinus infection that is currently plaguing me. Sigh.

I did get my dresses mailed off to Nick Kristof's Half the Sky repository, so if you do want to send anything to Jane, here's the address: Half the Sky, c/o Show of Force, 430 East 10th Street, Suite 3A; New York, NY 10009 If you don't have a clue what I'm talking about, Jane is a Kenyan woman about whom Kristof recently wrote. She was a prostitute for 5 years after her husband left her homeless and with young children. Then she came upon an anti-poverty organization and with their guidance and support has now started a sewing business that has enabled her to buy a home for her and her children and send them all to school. Click this link for additional information about this inspiring story.

Amsterdam-inspired appeltaart in the oven

I am really looking forward to this tart. I made a butter-based crust which I precooked for 8 minutes and then cooled slightly. Then, I slathered 1 cup of that gorgeous apple butter I made yesterday on the crust. Following that, I cubed 5 or 6 Ginger Gold apples (peeled half of them, cored all) and 1 Macintosh, tossed them with lemon juice, cinnamon and sugar, and poured them on top. Isn't this pretty? It's cooking now, and I'll let you know how it is.

I recall my weekly slices of appeltaart in Amsterdam with such fondness. Almost every time I indulged - €2,25 a slice was definitely a treat for us newlyweds - T was at work, and I had been doing French homework, reading or perusing the city all morning. Quite possibly it was cold and gray'ish outside, and that tart + some hot tea of coffee was a lovely, warming pause in my day.

I hadn't thought about that taart much recently and don't really know why it popped into my mind this week, but it's looking beautiful in the oven, and I hope its flavor brings me back to Amsterdam even more concretely.

Invention?

Don't y'all think it would be fabulous to have a chaise lounge that you could move up and down like a dentist's chair so that when you are cooking something that requires hours and occasional stirring, you could relax on your chaise, read, stir and assess what's cooking without moving much at all? I also think it'd be great for pedicure chairs to have hinged face covers so that if you wanted to close your eyes and put your head back, you could swing the cover shut so that you could veg out unabashedly and without fear of anyone seeing you make some unfortunate sleep face or drool or the like.