Comfort Food

Is it the overcast weather?  Is it the post-holiday quiet?  The mounds of post-holiday chores that are piled up?  Whatever it is, I am craving comfort foods.  I bought my favorite bread, Jack Spratt's.  It's the best toast there is.  It's crunchy and it holds up to lots of butter.  This is the bread my parents bought when I was growing up.  Fat free, organic, locally baked from sprouted wheat and delicious.  Not good with 100% natural peanut butter, though, unless you're trying to glue your mouth closed.  I'm also sipping cranberry juice and it tastes just like it did when it came from my grandmother's fridge on a hot summer day 30 years ago.

Every cloudy day makes me want to pack a crock pot with something savory and enjoy as the house fills with promising aromas, even if it is 80 degrees and muggy.  I hope whatever I put in there tastes as good as it smells when everyone gathers home from being out in the world.  It's this time of year, too, when I start mulling over our fall schedule.  It will have to run like clockwork to get homework, practicing, all of our various responsibilities and commitments accomplished.  We'll want our family time to be peaceful and plentiful, and that can only happen if our house is in order.  So the planning starts now, accompanied by a few slices of Jack Spratt's with butter.

What are your plans?
What are your comfort foods?

Chinese

 "Mom, Lilly's mom looks like Chinese."

"Yes, Lilly's mom is Asian like you, but she is from Korea.  She is Korean."

"Oh.  Then who was Lilly's mom when Lilly was born?"

"Her mom was Jin, just like now."

"Oh.  But I had a different mom."

Then Xanthe didn't have any more questions, which was good, because I didn't have any more answers.  I wish a part of me were Chinese...for Xanthe.

Freestone's Baptism

 No, Freestone wasn't baptized into the Brotherhood of the Yogo Togoteers, but all of life's celebrations must be validated with a whipped-cream-and-toasted-coconut-topped cup of frozen yogurt.  After all the preparations were finished for the big event yesterday, Scott and I stole Freestone away for a few quiet minutes where we could give him his scriptures and talk.  It went something like this:
"Freestone, do you understand that when you're confirmed, you receive the gift of the Holy Ghost?"
"Whoa!  Look at this popping boba!  I'm squishing it!  Aaggghh!"
"Free, did you know that even Jesus was baptized, and he was already perfect?"
"What if I had all the popping bobas in the world in my mouth and they popped?"
"Free, how do you feel about being baptized today?"
"Horrible."

So that's Freestone for you.  But deep down, under all the kidding and craziness, there is a tender little boy who understands the significance of this important day.  We always knew Freestone was coming to our family.  Three girls beat him to it, but we knew he would eventually arrive, and when he did, we knew he belonged right here with us.  Freestone is a one-of-a-kind person.  His personality encompasses everything from compassion to thoughtfulness, but it's hard to see all that when he constantly kids, dreams and talks nonsense.  Just now, I asked him what he liked about his baptism yesterday and he said, "What do you mean?  I didn't do anything yesterday."  Weird,  but wonderful child.

 Freestone's very own scriptures at last!

 The three cousins who got to share this experience together, Collin, Jake and Freestone

 And Ptolemy!  He says, "I be in a pictures!"

 The Mothers in Zion

 Scott, ready to baptize and confirm his son.

 The meeting was great.  Lexie and Ruby both spoke, and Golda, Ruby, Araceli and Lexie played a musical number that turned out really good.  Ari's part on the cello was far more difficult than the others, and she practiced a lot to get it right.  Thanks, Ari!  Michelle read a beautiful story that she wrote about two cousins, John the Baptist and Jesus Christ, and three cousins following in Jesus' footsteps today as they enter the waters of baptism.  It was a tear-jerker!  Bruce conducted the meeting and the other two grandfathers, Felshaw and Reid, were witnesses.  Two grandmothers, Marlene and Ann, gave heartfelt prayers.  Scott, Ryan and Bruce expressed beautiful sentiments as they confirmed the boys.  I'm grateful for these three handsome little boys.  I sure love them!

 We had a lot of fun planning the dinner.  We (the three moms) chose each boy's favorite color for the decorations and ended up with red, purple and lime green.  Coco and I were in charge of the decor and went with puprle sand buckets on top of cute lime green place mats, stuffed with red and green tissue and tied with a balloon.  I wish I had better pictures of it, but you get the idea.  The room looked cute with the three fun colors and the balloons floating high above the festivities.  (Thanks, Mom!) Michelle and Nikki pulled off an incredible cupcake buffet of 200 cupcakes in rainbow flavors and colors.  It was quite a feat!  Jennie organized a delicious buffet with Collin's favorite, turkey sandwiches, and a whole host of salads and side dishes, brought by all of us and all the family members who came to share the day with us.  Everything turned out perfect, thanks to Jennie's organizational skills and everyone's contributions.

 Fun colors, huh?

 Ignore the sticker!

 You have to enlarge this picture to appreciate the fabulocity!

 Dinner was delicious!

 Uncle Ken and Marlene

I thought this picture was so funny.  Everyone was cleaning up and Xanthe was still working on her second plate of food.  It's hard to believe little Xanthe will be the next to be baptized in our family, in less than two years!  It will be another joyous celebration to add to our family's history, just like Freestone, Jake and Collin's.

Fast Cars

 The High Priest annual car show is one of the best parties of the year.  It's a great social event for some of the men in the neighborhood who aren't LDS, to be included in something that seems to be a universal manly interest:  peering under the hoods of cars.  It's surprising how many classic cars there are in our neighborhood.  There is a Cougar that's one of only 25 made, and it's in mint condition.  There are restored trucks, pristine sedans from the '60's,cool sports cars, and of course Jim's Model A, the oldest car in the show.  My dad brought two cars to the show, the MG and the Jag.  The MG just got an overhaul after not running for awhile, and it was fun to see it up and running. 

After everyone had admired  the engines and talked about mileage, provenance and model numbers, Coco drove my vintage minivan home and Scott and I took the Pumpkin (the MG) for a spin.  Just the smell of the interior and the roar of the engine brought back memories of tooling around town in high school, driving to school and ballet.  The Pumpkin is a good little car, even if it runs about as often as you'd expect from a British sports car.  My parents bought it on their honeymoon in Germany and drove it to Switzerland, where they got married.  (Yes, the honeymoon started before the marriage.  Any questions?)

Scott and I had a few minutes to feel like reckless teenagers before we drove down our street and were greeted by 9 kids.  I took each and every one of them for a spin around the block before retiring the Pumpkin to Dad's garage.  My neighbors mock me for driving up and down our street non-stop, so it probably didn't even bother them that I made nine round-trips, and the kids loved the ride.  Prestie was the only one who put her head out the window and stuck her tongue out, thank heavens!

New Girl

Who is this gorgeous girl with new braces and a cute new haircut?  Don't those freckles make her green eyes pop?  I didn't think Araceli's eyes were green until today.  Maybe they change colors!  She sure is a creative, wonderful soul.  And don't forget about the new laugh.  Nortorious, this is for you...enjoy!

Our friends Stefania, Juan, (my students) Samuel, Sofia (Golda's flute student), Ana and Araceli

The G-parents

Fiddling class

 Thanks for the Yogo, Bill and Coco!

We can't let summer go by without sitting outside and listening to music.  It's part of what summer is, along with crickets, lemonade and swimming.  Last night was our favorite concert, the Summer Strings performance, because we knew one of the cellists!  Aside from the blistering heat, the concert was a lot of fun.  Ari participated in the fiddling class, the intermediate orchestra and the intermediate-advanced collaboration.  Fiddling was definitely the most fun.  In fact, Ari said she just suffered through orchestra so she could take the fiddling class.  But the two orchestras joined for a really exciting piece, one that was written by a grad student.  The composer conducted the piece in the concert.  Wow!  Ari probably doesn't care, but it's pretty exciting to play new music, especially when the composer is there.  When I was in college, we had orchestra every day, and part of it was to play new music, mostly written by grad students working on composition degrees.  Some of it was amazing, some didn't really work, but it is exciting to be part of something brand new that is nevertheless a continuation of a very old tradition.

I don't think Ari got all that.  She just had fun hanging out with her crazy orchestra friends.  I like that she has friends who also have to practice every day, and who share in her orchestra experience.  It's dangerous, though, because music people, even little ones, can be weird.  Ari and her little friend Sara developed a chuckle/giggle/hysterical choking sound that they thought was perfect for use in daily life.  At Yogo Togo, we ran into some friends and Ari decided to try out her new chuckle.  HEEEHHEEEEHHHHEEEGGRRLLLHHEEHE.  A couple of people were ready to perform the Heimlich on her until I slapped her on the back and she stopped.  In the car on the way home, Golda said, "Ari, let's not use that laugh unless you're at orchestra, OK?"

Not to worry, the next orchestra has already started rehearsals.  Concert July 28 at 11:00 at Cherry hill if you're around!  You might get to hear The Laugh. And you'll get to see Freestone struggle to move his bow like everyone else's in order to earn a Hex Bug.  But that's another story...

Do I Look Enough Like Felshaw King?

On Fathers Day,  I got to spotlight my dad in a church (Primary) singing activity.  We have different shirts for the kids to see, we give clues, and the kids guess which dad or grandpa the shirt belongs to.  Last year, Scott offered a pink and yellow paisley button-down.  Nobody had any trouble guessing that it was Brother Dopp's shirt.  Very few men are macho enough to pull off paisley.

This year, I went with my dad to his closet to look for the perfect shirt.  He went straight past the idea of dress shirts and casual wear to his shelf labeled "Running."  I spotted one of my favorite shirts, a race shirt from the Baer Gutsman (here are pictures), a grueling race that goes straight up, then straight down a local mountain.  My dad ran that race every year.  When we pulled out the faded blue shirt, it was clean and washed, but it still had a race number pinned to it, from a different race years later.  I could not have chosen a more perfect shirt to represent my dad, and he has a lot of good shirts.  He is known as an impeccable dresser.  Just last night at a wedding, a neighbor was wearing a linen shirt and dress pants.  He told me that he asked his wife as he dressed, "Do I look enough like Felshaw King?"  My dad shines his shoes every day, but he looks equally good in his old running shirts.

My brothers and I used to sleep in Dad's running shirts.  It was part of our ritual, after our baths, to go to Dad's armoire and select "one of Dad's running shirts" to wear to bed.  He had dozens of them, and we each had our favorites.  My favorites were definitely the Baer Gutsman shirts because  I knew it was a hard race.

In church as I gave the kids the clues about my dad, I painted a picture of a man any child would do well to emulate.  I said his favorite things are his family and his profession.  He is proud of and devoted to both.  he likes to run, exercise and read.  He loves to crack open a book or look something up online to get an answer to a discussion question.  He will sometimes bring pages of information that he has printed up to one of the kids, regarding a conversation they may have had days earlier.  Just being around my dad makes you smarter.  I wish being around him made me more athletic, but - alas! - his running gene skipped me.  I did learn from Dad's love of running the discipline he has for it, and I try to apply that in other areas of my life.  I observed Dad putting in the hours, logging his miles in his running book, watching his diet, never missing a day, and I learned that only then, after giving his best, did he reap the benefits of his efforts.

Thanks, Dad, for teaching me through example.  I bet you didn't even realize I was watching.  Or maybe you did.  In any case, I was watching, I am watching, and like our neighbor, I ask myself, "Do I look enough like Felshaw King?"  Not only in dress, but in character.