Rocking Chairs and Banana Bread
I’m in a worrisome way folks. It’s because I created a baking disaster. The kind of baking disaster that makes you think about your own mortality.
What? You know you do this too. And if you don’t, I don’t want to know about it.
So there is this quote. An adage, if you will. It’s in a movie I didn’t see and a white dude who made first a pile of cash for his athletic prowess and then by motivating folks apparently said it. The thing is, he’s wrong. And I feel pretty confident in saying that not simply because he was sentenced to 7 years for a pyramid scheme. (It always comes down to following the money. Every dang time.) Read more…
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Two Truths and a Lie
Yesterday I was goofing around on Twitter (I know, big surprise there!) and I started tweeting the hashtag #2truthsandalie. I’m not going to lie, it was a hoot. Have you played this classic “ice breaker” game? The rules are simple: tell two truths and one lie about yourself and the rest of the group then has to guess which one is the lie.
The trick is making the lie so plausible that your audience can’t tell which is the truth and which is the lie.
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A Good Day for Lemon Meringue
Today is many things in addition to when we literature fans celebrate William Shakespeare’s birth. That seems like as good of a reason to eat lemon meringue pie as I can come up with right now. Of course, there are others. Such as:
- Today is my sister’s first wedding anniversary. Which means that one year ago today, I got up a tad earlier than usual and made her a lemon meringue pie. It was their “bride and groom” celebratory slice as they had pies for their wedding reception rather than cake.
- Lemon meringue pie is a lovely striation of yellow and whites and hues of creamy tans. Always reminds me of sunshine and the beach.
- Lemon meringue pie is both sweet and sour. Rather like life, don’t you think?
- A lemon meringue pie isn’t terribly hard to make but it looks exotic and rarely graces our “everyday” table — it is saved for what seems like special occasions.
- If you do everything right and follow the directions perfectly, the meringue just might weep and pull away from the crust anyway. It will taste exactly the same even if its appearance may seem disappointing. It is a good reminder that sometimes what matters most is not what we see with our eyes but with our other senses.
- Ask any lemon meringue pie eater about what lemon meringue makes them think of…the stories are beautiful and filled with people who made a difference in their lives.
- When the sun shines, like it is today, lemon meringue pie is like sun beams on your tongue.
Wrinkles, Botox, and Magic Tape
Last fall when I dragged my sagging hiney to the eye doctor, I fully expected to be prescribed a pair of reading glasses. Or, to put it another way, I entered the building and wailed, “My eyes are broke, my eyes are broke!” Instead, my contacts prescription moved a bit closer to the “oh my gods you are visually impaired!” and I missed out on getting a pair of glasses hanging around my neck on a beaded chain.
Now I know, I should be rejoicing in this last gasp of youthfulness that my still-unadorned neck gives me. But I can’t. Because I’d totally rock that “reading glasses as an accessory” look more than what I’ve got going on right now.
Because what I’ve got now are…wrinkles.
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Having Hope. Or Why I Love Working with Teens
I spent the weekend at a retreat for teens that focused on The Hunger Games and the role of YA (young adult) dystopian texts in our current world. And while it was a bit exhausting to prepare for it, it was exhilarating to be at it. As anyone who likes working with teens will tell you, teens are filled with the kind of energy that when around a collective body of them, you can’t help but absorb some of it. If they were modern pop-culture vampires, we’d all get contact sparkles from them.
My resume reads like I am precisely the sort of person who likes working with teens. All but one job I’ve had since turning 19 has involved working with teens. And like most of my peers, I do not work with teens because of some need to revisit my own teen experiences and years. In fact, nothing could be farther from the truth.
I work with teens because they give me hope.
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Losing But Gaining
There is a magical collection of milestones people like me amass. They provide testimony of time’s passage and the gifts of that time. For me, that collection includes many, many Ziplock bags of teeth. Those plastic land-fill-unfriendly bags containing bits of enamel and DNA will outlast me and any baby book I may have intended to complete. What I hope for is that the once holders of those teeth outlast me too.
Littlest lost his first tooth the other night. It’s been wiggly for days now, perhaps a bit more than a week.
Wiggly. Like five year olds with their first loose tooth.
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Working Relationships
Over the weekend, we had a guest in our home. His name is Cooper and he is my sister-in-law’s miniature Dachshund. You might remember from other posts here that I have a dog, Charlie. And you might also remember that Charlie is a mix of Boxer and Greyhound. The thought of having two such similar and yet polar opposite dogs in my home made me smile. What can I say, I like Mutt and Jeff scenarios. I really was hoping that they would be a match made in heaven, albeit a doggy-tail-wagging one. Alas, as all veterans of the playground dynamics know, mere proximity alone is not all that is needed to create a meaningful and lasting relationship. Relationships take work.
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Missives posted on Mondays and Fridays. Unless the coffee and chocolate run out...
Copyright © Kristina Martin and Ten Minute Missive, 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Kristina Martin and Ten Minute Missive with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
