Little Mr is 5, no school, jam and such

What a happy little buster! He has enjoyed spending the past few days turning 5, and we have loved helping him ring it in. I will say that yet another snow day today made us all feel a bit blue- Ol really wanted to see his pals, Jack needs to have more of a schedule, and I am so far behind on life now it's almost not worth trying to make it up. Serious sigh.

The pear preserves are in the waterbath canner now, and we've made great headway with all manner of thank you notes. I think I might work up some dashi in a bit so that I can make a soba noodle soup for dinner tonight. Sounds so warm and cozy and comforting. I love soba noodles- do you? The buckwheat is great, and I love how they slip-slide around any dish.

Schizo weather and good food

Schizo weather and good food have nothing in common. As glumly predicted, yesterday's sunshine gave way to snow this afternoon. Our yard looks ridiculous as just before the shower was to commence, I covered much of my garden's emergent-growth attempts with all manner of colorful plastic bucket and garbage bags. We'll see how things fare.

Meanwhile, I am still coughing and blowing to beat sixty. Apparently there is some respiratory virus going around that plagues many people for up to a month. A MONTH! Truly, I'm over it.

I'm also over buttercream frosting as I've whipped together five sticks of butter and nearly five cups of powdered sugar in the past two days. Why so much? Because after yesterday's party cake, I remembered that Oliver wanted to bring in chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting for his birthday treat at school tomorrow. Those are now done, Star Wars liners, sugar shamrocks and all.

It was with sadness that we said goodbye to my parents this afternoon. Jack just cried and cried, as he always does when they leave. I feel lucky that despite the distance we're all so close. On the way home from the airport, I swung by the market to restock our diminished stores. While there, feeling seriously crappy near the potato display, I was overtaken by a sudden yen for the comfort of mashed potatoes. Then I passed the rotisserie chickens, and a meal was made.

After dinner, T and I watched Real Time (Andrew Sullivan and Seth MacFarlane kill me) while I set another batch of Pear, Ginger and Black Pepper Preserves to macerate overnight. Alan Weisman, author of Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth?, discussed his book, and really, the combo of overpopulation, diminishing resources and climate change is a terribly grim equation.

Also, where is that Malaysian Airlines plane??? What an intensely weird tale; it's like Lost in real life.

Saturday night wishes

Friends, I would be psyched if a leprechaun laid a fire in my fireplace, lit it, gave me a foot massage and bolted out the door with nary a word. Sounds good, yes? If only leprechauns were real. Earlier, I had a somewhat lengthy meeting and then exercised before T handed the kids off to me in the gym lobby. We saw him briefly once he returned home but he's been at the office for the past five hours and is still MIA. During this serious amount of weekend quality time, the boys and I made Valentines, killed each other with Sith evil and sabers, took a walk to exchange Jack's roll of quarters for a $10 to find that bank was closed so now I have a heavy roll in my purse and Jack has my "crisp" and then, post-bath (theirs) settled into my bed to have Part 1 of The Talk which tonight was a lovely discussion about how girl and boy body parts differ. Bath-time to Sex Ed-time was actually a terrifically smooth segue being that J donned his scuba goggles in the bath to better study Ol's private area.

Jesus.

Finally, the night was mine, and despite the fact that I could have hit the sack then, I could not bear to let the beautiful filet of Chilean Sea Bass (Patagonian Toothfish, folks. Those marketers can't fool me!) that I bought yesterday go to waste. As such, I summoned the will to poach it in fresh whey and cinnamon, steam up some Carolina gold rice (also in whey) and roast some asparagus because surely T would be home soon. Alas no, and now this beautiful meal is growing cold on the table (though natch I ate while it was hot). Sad. We have been tag-teaming ships in the night lately; I haven't spent an evening with him since Wednesday and do miss him. Perhaps tomorrow night.

At the least Valentine's Day which is A) Friday, B) one of my three favorite holidays, and C) extra-amazing this year because my in-laws INVITED THE CHILDREN TO SPEND THE NIGHT THAT NIGHT!!!!!!!!! That's better than a damn leprechaun, people. So anyway, maybe I'll see T then.

Dinner was very good as, by the way, was breakfast this morning, aka 4 trillion hours ago: fresh ricotta (hence the whey on hand) plus the pear-ginger-black pepper preserves. That is a great recipe I tell you. They were a hit last night (served with Brie and toasted baguette) and I made more today.