My grandmother's latest poem

My grandmother (who is in her late 90's) writes poetry and has been published in magazines and elsewhere.

Her latest poem got shared around by family, and it's beautiful. Evocative. Heart-breaking. Joyful.

She gave me permission to share it with you here.

I’M SAYING GOODBYE TO MY BODY

I’m saying goodbye to my body,

long ago disdained

for size of breasts, shape of legs,

now nudging me downhill all the way.

I’m saying goodbye to my body,

ancient collaborator with

the smell of new-cut grass,

the thrust of arm throwing a ball,

the velvet feel of East New York’s slates

under my speeding roller skates,

the taste of June’s wild strawberries,

the pull of dancing à la Isadora, à la Martha,

the glory of May Day marching,

the sight of Jenny Lake in the Tetons,

of broom in bloom in the Luberon,

the sweet oasis of Shabbos,

the pride of menstrual flow,

the head-loosening orgasms,

the glow of babies suckling, the mindful heat of Emily’s poems,

the hug of Sons and Lovers,

the startle of “Sunflowers” hanging in a school,

the wake-up of Mozart’s G-Minor,

the movies subtitled, French and Soviet,

most of all, words, words, words,

jousting among us until 2 o’clock in the morning.

I’m saying goodbye to my body and

its first-time joys,

now recycled into memory.

I’m saying goodbye and thank you.

©Ruth Dropkin

June 2017

My grandmother's memoir of her oldest sister

My grandma wrote a beautiful memoir of her sister Emma. Emma was the oldest of four daughters born to a rabbi and his wife. They immigrated from eastern Europe in the early part of the 20th century.

Here it is, just as she typed it, with her hand-writing on it. Published as 5 jpegs with her permission and also the permission of my cousin, Emma's daughter.

Good old reliable NATHAN NATHAN NATHAN NATHAN NATHAN NATHAN DETROIT

Muffin Man is in Guys and Dolls at his Drama Camp. Guess which roll he's playing?



Go on, guess!

On the menu

We're switching things up here at Chez Mystery this year. Christmas dinner will be tomorrow evening. The Thanksgiving Feast will be served Christmas Day. Yes, I know I'm Jewish. Wanna make something of it?

Tomorrow's menu:

• Standing Rib Roast au Jus
• Yorkshire Pudding
• Mashed Potatoes
• Brussels Sprouts and Pearl Onions in a Horseradish Cream Sauce
• Green Beans
• Pumpkin Pie
• Strawberry Shortcake

Do you think that's enough food for three?

Say hello to Beast Boy!

This weekend was MarsCon, and we did it up in style. Muffin Man wanted to be in the costume contest again, and chose Beast Boy as his character.

Our inspiration

Since we won the Beginner's Division the last time we entered, honor compelled us to enter in the Advanced Division this time.

Which meant we had to kick it up a notch. Or, actually, more than a notch. This time, more than half the costume had to be hand-made. And nicely made at that. This is not a Thrifty, Non-Crafty costume, people.

Muffin Man worked hard practicing his stage routine, to a soundtrack Mr. Spock put together. And Mr. Spock and I spent about 40 hours over several months on the costume.

Mr. Spock does the sewing in our family, and he went above and beyond on this costume. The purple leotard, the belt (including the device on the belt), the cuffs and devices on the gloves, and the cuffs on the shoes are all completely hand-made. He didn't even use a pattern. Engineered from scratch, folks. All the grey fabric you see is that color because he dyed it, It was all originally plain white cotton. The black body suit is an Under Armor compression suit. Mr. Spock added stirrups to the sleeves and leggings to keep them smooth and tight.

I'm particularly pleased that Mr. Spock was able to design this so it wouldn't need a zipper to spoil the line front or back.

Beast Boy Front View

Beast Boy Back View

Beast Boy Side View

I was, as always, responsible for the make-up. Which included painting the boots. For this performance of Beast Boy, the boots are played by a pair of Rugged Outback shoes from Payless. These were darn near perfect. They've got beautiful outlines right where I needed them. We removed the laces, I taped over everything I wanted to stay black, and then painted them with grey and amethyst leather paint.

After several coats of paint, we glued on the Velcro straps. I do think they came out rather well.

After

Before

For Muffin Man's own make-up, I tested out the routine a couple of times at home, and found out that the ears and neck are tough spots to do, and that one should leave the nose for last unless one is going for a Rudolph look. Also, I realized I needed to brighten and widen the eyes, and that a base of chapstick on the lips does wonders.

First attempt at makeup. Including hair gel.

For the contest, we gave ourselves 90 minutes for hair and make-up. First, we pretty much swathed Muffin Man's body in plastic wrap, paper towels, and my own over-sized bathrobe to protect the costume. Then, I put gel in his hair to get that messy look. Next, I did his ears. I've never done prosthetics before, but I watched a lot of videos and did a pretty good job for a first timer!

Then, I used up a can of green hairspray, and deliberately got it on the ears and neck, see tough spots, above.

When I was satisfied with his hair, I began on his face. I used a base of Nyx green primer, all over his face and neck, covered by Mehron green pancake (next time, I'll try their liquid instead. The powder doesn't really last long enough). Because Mehron's green was a tad too dark for what I wanted, I did a highlight layer of Nyx green primal color (not eye safe), which is much lighter. Then I blended in the bright green on his ears with a mix of the two powders. When everything else was green, I put a thick coat of chapstick on his lips and then covered them with Mehron alone, to keep them slightly darker than the rest of his skin.

I used a Super Fat Eye Marker on his brows, and for that little crease between the brows. I brought his brow line out just a bit beyond where it naturally ends.

Through all this, I left his eyes alone. When I was happy with how the rest of the make-up looked, I used a green Jumbo Eye Pencil on his upper eyelids, and a thin darker green pencil next to his upper lashes, bringing the line out beyond his natural eyes. Then I used a white slim eye pencil on his lower lashes and a white jumbo eye pencil on his lower lid. Again, I brought the line out beyond his natural eye. I finished his eyes with a black Super Skinny marker just under where I'd drawn the white.

Then I put a boatload of transluscent fixative powder over the whole thing, and finished it all off by spritzing fixative spray over that.

Finally we unwrapped him and put on his gloves. And went down to be judged, and do the performance, and walk around getting photographed. Not necessarily in that order.

The Beast Boy team, admiring our handiwork

We didn't win the contest this time, but we sure got a huge amount of audience approval and people wanting to take pictures. It was a blast! Plus, we got to see a wee little Dalek (won Best Overall), the cutest little cosplayer EVER (she won the children's division), and a Steampunk Buzz Lightyear.

I'll post a link to the performance video once they post it.

I love Amtrak (which is something I might have mentioned before)

I love riding the train to New York or Vermont or wherever* and making friends with my seatmates and the folks nearby. My most recent two adventures led to long discussions with: a professor of English Literature (the Romantic period) from Scotland; a professional rock-n-roll violinist; and a woman who lives less than a mile from my house.

My conversation with the English Literature professor involved us talking about Noel Streatfeild, Frances Hodgeson Burnett, Jane Austen (of course), Georgette Heyer, Josephine Tey*, The Bronte sisters, Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy Sayers, George Eliot, Reginald Hill, and World War One. She's not on Facebook or Twitter, but she said she'd check out my blog. So here, my dear new friend, is a post for you, with links galore. Thank you for talking with me on the train. I hope you have a terrific time visiting your friend!!!

*More links to related content contained therein

Yesterday was blogging for LGBT families day...and I didn't know it.

But unrelatedly, Muffin Man came home from school with this poem he'd written, that he's going to read in front of the whole middle school later this week.

I'm so proud of him for standing up for his friends and the members of our family who are LGBT. I'm so proud of  him for already being the person I hoped he'd be when I imagined him as a grown-up.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get some dust out of my eye. Talk among yourselves. And check out Crunchy Granola's post from yesterday.

Yesterday

Yesterday was this blog's ninth birthday.

When I started posting here, my son was three. He's twelve now, and enough of a person that he asks me not to blog about his life - or conversely and much more rarely TO BLOG about his life. He emails his grandparents, he has his own phone.

When I started posting here, I was only involved in politics extremely peripherally. Since then I've earned the title of Doorbell Queen, been a candidate's spouse, and a candidate myself. I'm on the board of NARAL Pro-choice Virginia Foundation, and tweet politics daily.

When I first started posting here, I posted nearly every day. Well, that's turned into tweeting daily instead. Which isn't quite so nice for the blog, but it certainly fits into my schedule better.

I've written over 1500 posts, had over 60,000 visitors, talked about everything under the sun.

I don't know what will happen next, but I know that I love this blog even if I haven't maintained it well the last couple of years. I love the friends I've made here, some of whom I've met in real life. I love reading everyone else's blogs, too.

What I'm saying is, thank you for nine years. I hope to still be writing here, even if only on occasion, for the next nine.

New glasses prescription

Whoo! The world looks so wonky! But at least the floor looks level.

Oh, and my new frames are a BIG change.

So big that not one person has noticed that my frames are no longer brownish purple, but are now greyish brown.

Yeah.

Same shape.

Yeah.

But the world! It's fresh! It's new! It's shiny!

Random on a rainy Tuesday

(original title, "Random bullets on a rainy Tuesday" and then I read it over, and realized that the phrase "random bullets" has only one meaning now, and it's not "items in an unordered list that have nothing to do with each other.)

• Muffin Man won his classroom spelling bee last week. Which surprised me, not because he's not a good speller (he's a terrific speller), but because he'd told me a few weeks ago that he'd participated in a classroom bee and he'd done terribly. Turn out that other bee was geography. Okay then. His winning word was "necessary".
• This means he's now going to compete in the school spelling bee on the 24th. Not much time to study. I printed out the study guide from Mirriam-Webster, and he's pegging away at it.
• He's super excited, because if he wins the school spelling bee, he'll be joining his friend ReallyTheyCouldBeTwins*  at the county-wide spelling bee, since she won her school's bee a couple of weeks ago. The county-wide bee will include middle-schoolers, too.
• We brought banana cake to services this weekend. This time, I made a banana filling for it. Wow! Delicious.
• Speaking of services, Rev. Anya came over to our house to have a confab and I made latkes using a different recipe. The one I used to use was from Kosher Gourmet, and don't get me wrong, it was good. But the one I used this time was from this past December's Bon Appetit, and it was phenomenal. Oh. My. GOD.
• My left eye is itching. It's been two days now. What is UP with that?
• Everyone in my office is wearing blue today. Including me. So far as I know, there wasn't a memo.
• Even though the weather is gloomy, I'm kind of glad it's raining. It gave me an excuse to wear my silly rain boots and poncho.

*formerly known as "SheIsAlmostAsTallAsMe", which is an out-dated name. She's 5'4". Turning 11 next week

Just a brief note about Awesome High School Friend, his Awesome Wife, and their Awesome Children

You remember how, two years ago, Muffin Man was Aang for Halloween?

Same costume as for ChiCon. Different make-up technique on the arrow.

Yeah, well, that same Halloween, Awesome High School Friend's Awesome Daughter was Katara in a costume made by Awesome High School Friend's Awesome Wife.

That week, Awesome High School Friend and I started making plans to get our kids together for a play date. It took a little doing, what with the different time zones and all, but we finally made it happen.

ChiCon. Best. Play date. EVER.

Brief Bullets of Labor Day Weekend

• Muffin Man is awesome and has an award to prove it.
 

 
• We met someone who is also awesome and has TWO awards to prove it.
 
• I met up with an awesome high school friend, his awesome wife, and their two awesome kids. 
 



Steam Punk meets Air Punk, picture courtesy my awesome high school friend. Steam Punk outfits by his awesome wife.

 
• I met John Scalzi. And Neil Gaiman. John Scalzi was the one I got all tongue-tied and nervous about.
 
• I listened to Gardner Dozois, George R.R. Martin, Mike Resnick, Joe Haldeman, and Robert Silverberg tell stories of WorldCons past. And it was...AWESOME.
 
 
 
• And then we came home, and I did mundane things like being on TV and getting my ear repierced. How was your Summer vacation?

Blame it on Amalah

Amalah got this living in my head 24/7.



Pie and ice cream, it no phase me. But you got COOKIE!! So share it maybe.

Vacation Review and Wrap-up

I was away on vacation last week (sorry no notice, ever since I stopped blogging anonymously, I've stopped giving advance notice on absences).

We went to Great Wolf Lodge in Williamsburg, VA and to Hershey Park in Hershey, PA.

We went to Great Wolf Lodge on the recommendation of one of my best friends, whose daughter is one of Muffin Man's best friends, and it. was. AWESOME. The water park alone was terrific, but there was also a game that MM could play that was kind of a scavenger hunt throughout the hotel. MM completed the whole thing and now wants to go back to play the next level (I know, I know). His favorite thing at the water park proper was the Howlin' Tornado, which is basically a heart-attack on a raft. Fortunately, he found some kids his age who were happy to go on it again and again and again...

The rooms and food at Great Wolf Lodge were very good. We stayed in a very basic room, but there are rooms with log cabins in them, which I think would be fun if you've got more than one kid with you. The food was way better (and less expensive) than anything at Disney World. They had a buffet that was not just your standard kid fare.

Our original plan had been to stay at GWL one night, and to go camping the next (ready to go to Colonial Williamsburg the day after that), but GWL gave us a half-price coupon if we extended our stay...and so we did. We'll go camping one weekend in July instead, and we'll visit Colonial Williamsburg then as well. Great Wolf Lodge was just so much fun we didn't want to leave.

So after two full days at GWL, we drove up to Hershey Park to stay at the Hershey Lodge. Hershey Park itself was lots of fun, and the Hershey Gardens are beautiful, especially the butterfly house. If you're going to visit Chocolate World, be aware that only the virtual factory tour is free, everything else costs extra. Hershey doesn't let you visit the actual factory anymore, alas. The Hershey museum is lovely, and takes less than an hour to visit. They have chocolate tastings in the cafe there ($10.00 for six glasses of different kinds of chocolate.) MM's favorite things at HP were the Coal Crusher and the Trailblazer. We started out on the SkyRush, and let me tell you that it was really unpleasant. It goes very very very fast and is kind of painful. We did not go on anything that turns you upside down. The smokehouse has very tasty food.

We were all pretty impressed with how nice a guy Mr. Hershey seemed to have been. If you know for a fact that he was a huge anti-semite, or racist, or whatever, please don't tell me. I'd really rather not know.

On the whole, our family agreed that we would have been happier staying at GWL and maybe visiting Busch Gardens and Colonial Williamsburg while we were there. Next time, that's probably how we'll do it. Hershey was fine, but I think it might make a better day trip from Loudoun than an overnight stay (only a two-hour drive each way), just about the same as to King's Dominion.

Also, I read a ridiculous number of mystery books, most of which I've read before, and Muffin Man and I are reading Little House in the Big Woods, because I won a bet. He's enjoying it very much, I'm pleased to say.

This post has not been sponsored in any way. Our family received no compensation from either Great Wolf Lodge or Hershey, and aside from taking GWL up on their special deal to extend our stay, we paid full freight for our whole holiday.

A post to make you jealous about my lunch

Yesterday, when I got home from work, Mr. Spock and Muffin Man were in the kitchen and the house smelled terrific.

"What are you making?" I asked.

"MEATBALLS!" MM said quite proudly. "Did you know that meatballs are basically all the ingredients for veal cutlet, only you mush it all together?*"

"It smells fantastic. Can I help with anything?"

"No, we have this covered," he said nonchalantly. "You could set the table though, and you're going to have to clear the table ALL BY YOURSELF because you're the only one not cooking."

"That's the rule, all right."

So we had the most delicious and beautiful Swedish meatballs I have ever had in my life, served with noodles and Brussels sprouts.

And we're all having them again for lunch today.


*Muffin Man was in charge of measuring and post-egg-addition mixing. Mr. Spock rolled one meatball as a model, and MM did the remaining 35.
MS did all the heat-related activity since there were four things going on at once. And I am a bad, bad blogger because I forgot to take any pictures.

Persistence

This is a story about a project Muffin Man was assigned for Social Studies.

He had to create a time-line of events leading up to the Revolutionary War that:

1. Must include at least 2 sentences about each event.
2. Must include the date(s) of the event
3. Must be clearly placed in order of events.
4. Must be incorporated in a picture, collage, or diorama using a Revolutionary Theme.
5. Must be neatly done
6. Must show thought (can not look like it was done at the last minute)

Muffin Man had a month in which to do this project. He selected his events and planned what he wanted to incorporate into his illustration before we went to Puerto Rico, and got his teacher to sign off on those things...and then he forgot all about it until the Friday before the Monday that it was due.

When I picked him up from after school that day, he was SOBBING. "I'll never be able to get it done! I'll get an F!!

"No you won't. You have all weekend to work on it. I guarantee that you are not the only kid in your class who forgot about it and left it to the last minute. Daddy and I will help you with it. And if you work hard on it, I know that you won't get an F. You may not get an A, but you are smart, creative, and resourceful. You can do a good job."

His original idea had been to hand-draw a battle scene, with the time-line in clouds of smoke from cannons. I suggested that, instead of hand-drawing, he do a collage. He took that idea, and ran with it. He typed up the events in the time line. Mr. Spock helped find appropriate pictures on the internet. I helped cut out. Muffin Man did the layout (and we took this picture so that we could remember the placement), and we all helped glue. It took most of the weekend, but he got it done.

The Clouds of the Revolutionary War

His teacher gave him a 100.

My son got excited and made something for me

The best part is that he made it using something that his dad got excited and made. Yepper. A hand-made animation made with hand-made animation software.