They had his cake and ate it too

For 45 years my sainted mother in-law has heard the story of my husband's pitiful three-year old birthday.
My children and, someday, their children will recount the tale of a cold February day in 1967 when our young birthday boy took a pre-party afternoon nap and woke to find that his siblings had eaten his entire cake.
I'm not sure what the statute of limitations is on gobbled up goodies, but poor Grandma Mary Jane has spent nearly half a century making amends.
Over the years she has tried all kinds of cakes -- ice cream, chocolate, homemade, store bought and, a couple of years, two different kinds. One year, when she chaired the neighborhood Girl Scout Cookie drive, she let him eat his weight in Do-Si-Dos.
Still, the story haunted her.
Since then, she has faithfully celebrated the birthdays of every single member of the family, which is no small task given that Grandma Mary Jane's immediate family now numbers 29, with a 30th ready to join in April.
Along with a card, she sends a generous check in an amount that honors the recipient's age.
I have long admired my mother in-law, who raised nine children with good sense, good humor and a whole lot of love.
Yesterday, my appreciation for her grew.
Along with a check in honor of his 48th birthday, my husband received a card with a special note from his mother.
"If you didn't have a three-year old birthday, then this is your 47th birthday," she wrote. "So you owe me a dollar."
Brilliant.

That's my husband Vince in the lower left corner. He was
the seventh child his parents had during their first eight years
of marriage. They look like a nice enough bunch, but they ate his cake.

Here he is at five-years old, rocking the striped T.
These are his last days as the youngest child. Later this year,
his sister Nancy was born, ending his reign. Three
years after Nancy, Jimmy came along. They really
are a great family.

We celebrated Grandma Mary Jane's 80th birthday this year and
she still looks fantastic. The birthday boy doesn't look so bad either.

Tamale and Me

Armed with a three-word Spanish vocabulary, our daughter Katherine traveled to a tiny Mexican town one summer determined to teach Shakespeare to the children there.  In the six weeks she spent in Bocas, she cheerfully learned to hunt (but not eat) rats, produced A Midsummer Night's Dream with a troupe of shy little ones who had never seen a play before, and learned to appreciate authentic Mexican food.
Last weekend, she taught us how to make tamales, comfort food with a spicy kick.
We all enjoyed the process as we sat in front of the fire in our north woods cabin and twisted corn husks around tender chicken and batter.
Tamales have been around for nearly 8,000 years and their recipe has not really changed at all, though, ironically, we received it and some helpful tips via text message from Katherine's tamale mentor, Berta Sosa.
It's quite a privilege to dip your fingers into a batter that has been around since 6000 BC. Some meals and the banter they inspire transcend taste and nutrition and become genuine events. Our lazy Saturday at the cabin developed just that way.
We look forward to more tamale afternoons when we can take a few hours to hang out, chat and wrap up tasty treats.
And now we can add two more words to Katherine's Spanish vocabulary: muy deliciosa!

Tamales

Spices: red chile powder, cumin, garlic powder or fresh garlic, pepper,salt and onion.

Chicken
Masa (batter)
Salsa Verda
Corn Husks
 
1. We added these spice to eight chicken breasts, covered them in water and cooked them on low overnight in the crock pot. Katherine used a teaspoon of each spice and the whole bottle of salsa verde, but you can add the spices to your own taste. Shred the cooked chicken, drain it and set it aside. You will use the extra liquid in the batter.
2. Make the Masa. Use the broth from cooking the chicken and add it to 2 cups of Maseca Dough for Tamales. (You'll need 2 cups of liquid so if you don't have enough broth, add water.) Add 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 2/3 cup vegetable shortening. We added chile powder as well.
3. Soak corn husks in water until they're softened.
4. Spread batter in a corn husk, top with shredded chicken, roll corn husk and tie.
5. Place husks in a colander suspended over a pot of boiling water. (This is our little invention and we were quite proud.) Cover the colander with a cloth towel and then cover the pot. Let steam.
6. Steam for 45 minutes or so until the husk can be pulled back and the batter and chicken are cooked through.

Here they are all wrapped and ready to steam.

These are the ingredients for the Masa. We added broth, but
you can just use water as well.

Chicken and salsa verde cooked all night.

We covered the husks with water, a plate and a heavy cup so
they would soak easily until they were soft.

On their side of the table, Katherine and Molly rolled tamales sweetly.

Katherine demonstrates the proper technique.

My side of the table, which also included my nutty sister Jenny,
may have gotten a little competitive.

Molly enjoys chopping cilantro.

Here's our little tamale judge.

We steamed the tamales inside a colander that rested above
a pot of boiling water. We covered the colander with a towel and topped
the whole thing with the lid of the pot.

Katherine whipped up a delicious dish of Spanish rice.

When you go owling...

In all honesty, Molly and I don't know the first thing about owling. Once, we accidentally treed a porcupine and effectively pinned ourselves on the path that led underneath it, but we've never coolly shined a flashlight on an owl in the night sky.
Of course, that doesn't stop us from trying.
I'm not sure who was more excited this weekend in anticipation of our latest attempt -- Molly, me, or my little niece Erin, who is just five years old, the perfect age for owling.
When you go owling, you have to be brave.
We began the outing with a ceremonial reading of one of the best children's books ever written, Owl Moon by Jane Yolen. Bundled up in her pink and purple snow gear, Erin looked exactly like the little girl Ms. Yolen describes.
Then, Molly, Erin, my sister Jenny (Erin's Mom), Katherine, Vince and I headed out under a sky that held a thousand stars…but no moon.
We trampled through the soy bean field adjacent to our cabin and turned right to make our way into the woods.
One perfect cabin night last summer we all sat around a camp fire under a similar night sky and listened to coyotes howl. I thought about that as we made our way deeper into the woods…and then I quietly asked Katherine if she had remembered to bring her pepper spray. A confirmed urban dweller, she answered with a quick chin nod and confident pat of her right front pocket.
We followed turkey tracks past tall pine trees and empty blackberry bushes and each of us hooted as the book suggests.  
I'm pretty sure I heard a hidden turkey snicker at us as we hooted and crunched along.
When you go owling you don't need words, or warm or anything but hope.
We did not see an owl Saturday night even though we know at least one stubborn owl lives there. We can hear him hooting in the evening and, one day, he landed on the dirt road that leads through our woods and refused to budge even though Vince, who was driving through, honked at him.
We didn't even see a moon.
But we breathed some of the cleanest air we remember, we saw constellations we had only read about and, in Erin's giant blue eyes, we saw hope that we'll spend another crisp, winter evening searching the woods for an elusive owl.
We're big fans of hope, the hope that flies on silent wings under a shining Owl Moon.

Katherine reads Owl Moon in preparation for our adventure.

Molly and Erin head out.

And their giant shadows precede them.

After Erin and Jenny head back to the cabin,
Katherine treats us to her famous Blair Witch Project rendition.

Resting up after our adventure. She's a cuddly one.

Here's the porcupine Molly and I ran into last summer. Even though
Molly calmly assured me that porcupines don't throw their quills, neither
one of us wanted to walk underneath it. Like any self respecting
adventurer, I whipped out my cellphone and summoned help.

We love Jane Yolen. She autographed this
book for Charlie in 1991 and, when Molly
emailed her a few years ago, she wrote back to
Molly the same day.

Ring out a hoya!

 I have no idea what a Hoya is, but I'll ring it out with the best of them.
My husband and I graduated from Marquette 25 years ago and, still, when we step on that campus we feel like we're still 22. The trick is to avoid mirrors and to surround yourself with similarly aged and like minded people.
Our phalanx last Saturday included four friends and fellow Marquette alumni, two of whom were Vince's college roommates. As a bonus, I literally ran into one of my college roommates as we made our way into the Bradley Center to celebrate National Marquette Day.
In some ways, we went to Marquette in the golden age of Milwaukee sports. In the four years I spent there, I frequently hopped a city bus to County Stadium for Brewer games in the spring and Packer games in the fall.
As a freshman in 1982, I joined the throng of Brewer fans who streamed out onto Wisconsin Avenue in an impromptu parade to Lake Michigan when the Brewers won the American League pennant.
That year the Packers also made the playoffs and my friends and I sat in County Stadium and saw them win all three of the games they played there. The 1982-83 Bucks finished first in the NBA Central Division.
In addition to providing cheap entertainment, those activities helped us bond. When conversation lagged, a simple mention of Robin Yount's motorcycle ride around the infield picked it right back up.
My first job as a professional sports writer was to cover the Milwaukee Admirals (which was cool because ladies in the locker room weren't that common back then and hockey players wear a lot of clothes).
Oh sure, there were classes to attend, papers to write and truly meaningful masses to attend, but when I think about my four glorious years as an MU Warrior, I am very grateful for the sports…and the guy I met when we both covered them for the Marquette Tribune.

Here we are warming up for the big game. In 1982 I interviewed
Vince's roommate Guy, a hammer thrower, during my brief career
as a TV reporter. That's Guy on the far right and I still have the tape
of that interview. 

Ran smack into my college roommate Teri on the way into the game.
That's my doppelganger trying to horn in on the shot.

I bet my mom, a proud UC grad, on this game and scored a case
of Graeter's ice cream. The magnificence of Graeter's ice cream
requires a whole separate post.

We took Molly on a campus tour because she is our last hope
to sport the gold and blue. This is one of my favorite spots on campus.

That's Vince and me with our own Brew Crew in 1982.

A sweet, sweet holiday

Cupid, with his chubby cheeks and cherub-who-ate-the-bon-bon smile, would have approved of the way Molly and I celebrated Valentine's Day this year.
Molly set the tone by whipping up a batch of cherry pie cookies for her friends and generously offering Vince and me the misshapen but still tasty leftovers. Breakfast.
I picked her up from school and we headed over to the-little-shop-that-every-neighborhood-should-have, Wilmar's Chocolates. We picked up a Valentine treat for Molly's piano teacher and enjoyed a double chocolate meltaway because the sweet lady holding the sample tray said we could. Then we caught the eye of our good friend Rose, who left her post on the busiest candy store shopping day of the year to give us each a white chocolate covered pretzel and a little chocolate heart. After school snack.
After Molly's piano lesson, we cruised over to the-little-bakery-that-every-neighborhood-should-have, Simple Simon. There we chatted with the cheery Marion, a 78-year old marvel of energy. She slipped three chocolate cherry cookies into our order of mint chocolate chip brownies. Dessert.
We'll throw a little extra energy into our workout this morning as we digest all of those tasty treats. And we'll smile.
Because, while we salute a holiday that features chocolate, we know Valentine's Day means a little bit more. It gives us the opportunity to celebrate all kinds of love -- the kind you feel when you open a homemade card from your daughter, unwrap a bunch of tulips from your husband, read a kind Facebook message, hear a meaningful tune, hug an old friend, savor a sweet memory and taste a chocolate candy.
You have to love a holiday that's all about love.

Rose's heart really is this big!

Our neighborhood candy store. I was all hopped up on chocolate,
or I would have adjusted my flash. Bummer.

Marion is nearly 80 and her energy exhausts us.

Wander into this place and they'll offer you a
chocolate truffle. I promise.

Molly's cherry pie cookies. They were pretty difficult and she
swears she'll never make them again, but we enjoyed them.

Vince and I split this cast off. Delicious.

What so proudly we hailed

On four occasions a performance of the National Anthem genuinely, memorably moved me.
The first happened in 1991, ten days after the Gulf War launched. A Black Hawk helicopter flew over us as my sisters, my Dad and I made our way into Tampa Stadium. The well publicized fact that this would be the first Super Bowl to take place during wartime left my dad uncharacteristically cautious and he pointed out the nearest exits as we took our seats.
Then Whitney Houston's powerful National Anthem swelled through the stadium and took away both our breath and our fear.
Nearly 10 years later, in honor of my dad, our daughter Katherine sang the National Anthem at Lambeau Field during the opening game of the 2001 Packer season. My dad's number 77 jersey hung past her knees as she sang sweetly and with great concentration, an innocent 12-year old in the waning days of an equally innocent time. Two days later, 9/11 soberly ushered in a new era of patriotism and suspicion.
Katherine sang the National Anthem at Lambeau Field again five years later. She, like the nation she represented, had grown older and far more aware. Tightened stadium security made the experience more somber, and an adjusted NFL pregame routine meant the players stayed on the field for the song. The intervening years had brought respect for the anthem and the struggles it represents to a wary, proud nation.
Last year, my son Vinnie and fellow members of the Appleton North varsity choir sang the National Anthem before a high school football game. Players, fans, band members and statisticians gathered from all corners of the stadium and they sang in unison, young men on the cusp of military eligibility.  
All four of those versions of the national anthem resonate for their purity of purpose and honest interpretation of some powerful words and images.

12-year old Katherine sang during the season opener in 2001.
(Photo courtesy Daniel Kramer)

Same song, same jersey, but a grown up singer and nation.
.

Pre-game at Appleton North in 2010.
Photo courtesy Mike Panzer

From Burns with love and lang syne

Molly and I received our first fan letter yesterday and it came to us all the way from Burns, a small logging town in Eastern Oregon.
The town is named for national Scottish poet Robert Burns and we have visited it twice because Molly's Aunt Sharon, who wrote us the letter, lives there.
While we've had the pleasure of visiting Sharon and her husband Dennis in Burns twice in the past few years, we don't get to see them nearly enough. Fortunately for us, Sharon has developed a rare skill in this age of frenetic updates and text messaging.
Sharon writes letters.
Molly and I both enjoy the immediacy and wide reach electronic communication offers. We cheerfully cede countless precious hours to cyberspace and we post, chat and tweet fairly regularly.
But we also genuinely appreciate the printed word. And when it's hand written, we like it all the more.
Robert Burns is famous for his written words, especially Auld Lang Syne. When I first met Sharon 26 years ago, I found it fascinating that a girl raised in a cosmopolitan family right in the heart of Chicago would find a home deep in the Oregon woods.
Having been to that beautiful part of the country, and having grown to know and love the kindest member of a family that leads with its heart, we've seen that Burns, Oregon is the perfect home for Sharon.
And we'll take her cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne.




Here are six of Molly's aunts, two of her uncles and her dad.
I've seen this picture many times in the past few years
and I just noticed that they are in birth order. Deep breath. And...
JoanDonnaCarolSharonSteveElaineVinceNancyJimmy

Molly is lucky to have 11 aunts. Here is a picture of six of them,
with Sharon on the far right.

Molly, me, Katherine, Grandma Mary Jane, Aunt Donna and Sharon.