Caturday!

"I've never got over it."

"You never forget it. Never."

In Flanders Fields

by John McCrae, May 1915

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep,
though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

A picture can paint a thousand words, but a word can paint your soul

It was a lazy late-afternoon, and the kids were tired of the wading pool. It had been hot and muggy, but it was leaning toward evening now, and decidedly cooling off.

"Who wants a popsicle?" I ask brightly. A squeal comes from my daughter as she jumps out of the pool. My son is a bit slower, but just as excited.

"Pahsickoo! Pahsickoo!" He climbs out, running toward me. I wrap a towel around him and he repeats again, slowly and with a lot of effort.

"Wan pahsickoo? Tony? Pahsickoo Tony?"
"Yes Tony, you can have a popsicle."
"I want blue!" His sister chimes in. She always wants blue. Red is only second best, you know.

I grab the popsicles out of the freezer and head back outside. They're on the swing on the back deck now, side by side in the waning summer sun, swaddled in towels with their wet hair still dripping down their faces. I unwrap the popsicles, handing first to my daughter, who thanks me nicely, and then turn to Tony.

"Pahsickoo!!"
"Here you go, Tony." I smile and bend down to hand it to him.
"Peez!" He squeals, breathless, his eyes on the popsicle like it's a glowing beacon. I ruffle his wet hair and hand it to him, watching him take a cautious lick before stuffing it in his mouth. Wow. He said "please". That's been happening more frequently these days.

"Tony, can you say "Thank You"? I ask. He's mute, to involved in the popsicle to say much of anything. I sigh. I sense the futility of this, but his teacher says we need to keep trying.

"Tony. Tony, look at Mommy." It's a game we play - "Look at Mommy". I say "Look at Mommy" and he does, then he squeals "Wook away!" and I do. He can play it for an hour straight if I let him, but it was a good way to teach him to make eye contact. I use it whenever I need him to focus on me, and it usually works.

"Tony, can you say "Thank you?"

He's watching his melting popsicle now, utterly involved in how the drips slide down the popsicle stick, splashing onto his bare leg or the towel. I'm not getting a thank you this time. I decide to just let him eat his popsicle in peace. It's pretty sad when a simple popsicle has to be a learning experience, but there it is. Life with Tony is all about re-inforcement, focus, getting him involved. Only sometimes a kid just needs to relax and have a popsicle, y'know? He's finished now and hands the stick to me.

"Finish." He wipes his sticky hands on his towel. Tony never can stand to have dirty or sticky hands. In that area, he's light years ahead of his sister, who would cheerfully wallow in her own filth if I didn't force her to bathe.

"Wuke...home." The words are stilted, but he's yanking on my shorts and working hard to get my attention.

"What honey?"
"Wuke! Wuke home."
"Oh! Luke is home!" I look at the neighboring yard, and see that Luke, age 2 1/2 is definitely home, and playing in the back yard. Tony has actually played with Luke 3 or 4 times now. Really played, I mean. As in calling his name and chasing him and making eye contact and interacting. They've lived next door since birth, but till a few months ago, Tony didn't know Luke existed. Now he looks for him, and I'm oh-so-glad when he does.

Tony runs down the slope between our yards, calling Luke's name and the two of them set off in a dizzying chase, with his sister in fast pursuit of the both of them. I smile at my neighbor Beth, and the shrieks and laughter roll around us as we make small talk about our days and the weather and the neighborhood. She remarks about how terrific it is for Luke to have a playmate, and how far Tony has come. The neighbors say that a lot, whenever they see him. I suppose it's true, but they see it more readily, not bogged down in the daily battle of getting to where we are with him. He has come far, though. Sometimes it's a tiring journey, but his road is getting more wide open every day, and the paths he can walk down are branching, forking, twisting and reforming with every "Peez" and every extra second of eye contact. So we keep walking, he and I, and here we are now.

Time to go. I need to get some dinner thrown together before Daddy comes through the door, so I call the kids in. Tony makes an awful noise - I can't even describe it - but it's his unhappy noise. He doesn't want to come in. I walk over to him, scooping him up as he fusses and telling him it's dinner time and we'll come back later.

"Say bye-bye to Luke, Tony."
"Bye-bye Wuke! Bye-bye!" He's rubbing his eyes, his lips pouting. Luke waves goodbye and I start up the slope as Tony continues calling out.

"Wuke! Bye Wuke! Bye-bye."
"Tony, we'll see Luke again, I promise. Maybe after dinner, OK? We have to have dinner first."
"Wuke!"
"Tony, it's time for dinner."

He's silent a moment, still staring off over my shoulder as I walk up the steps to the deck. Then faintly, so faintly I thought I imagined it, he said it. I stop in my tracks.

"Tony? What did you say?"

He points at Luke's yard.

"Wuke."
"I know, Bubby, but we have to say bye-bye for now."

He rubs his face, still pouting, then stares up at me, with those fathomless dark brown eyes. His father's eyes. And he says quite clearly:

"Fwen."

I stare. I thought that's what he said, but he's never said it before. Never had a context for it before. Never applied it before.

"Tony, is Luke your friend?
"Fwen. Wuke fwen."

I sat down on the steps to the deck, buried my face in his neck, and couldn't stop crying. He squirmed in my arms, so I put him down, wiping my eyes as my daughter walked up the steps.

"What's wrong, Mom?"
"Nothing honey. Nothing's wrong. Something's right. Tony's got a friend!"
"Did you hurt your toe or something?" She's looking at me like I'm nuts, but she's used to looking at me like that, I guess, because she tags her brother and screams to him till he follows her in the house.

I sat a moment longer on the stairs, watching the sun start to set, painting the sky orange and red and deep pink tinged with purple. It was like nature just invented a whole new color, just for me, and for Tony. He has changed irrevocably now, and for the better. With one word, he threw a door open to a beautiful world that he could only see through the window before.

He has a friend, and the wonder of it still floods my soul.

How NOT to make bread

Seriously.

Behold the power of Hug

Gunman Crashes Wedding Party, Leaves With a Hug

Kudos to the wedding guests for keeping their wits about them. If some guy jammed a gun into my daughter's head, I definitely wouldn't be that calm. Or nice. Yes, I'm "The Hug Lady", but if you threaten my kids, all bets are off.

What a freaky story.

Cool pic

When someone says they "Hung the Moon", maybe they really did.

This is how my mind works

So I'm reading the comments on Alli, the new over-the-counter weight loss pill, and I get a great idea for a new reality show.

They could call it "Alli - Ooops", and you could have contestants take the drug, eat a triple whopper and a Cinnabon, and put on some white pants. Then have comedians come out and do a routine. The contestant who keeps from laughing out an orange, oily streak wins a million bucks.

Whadda ya think?

Feelin' hot hot hot

Wow, is it hot here. Unfortunately, this is the week that my daughter goes to full-day camp, so she's canoeing and swimming and hiking in 97 degree heat with 90% humidity. She's actually getting kinda gypped because they're scaling a lot of that stuff back due to the heat. Oh well, she's having fun anyway and that's what I paid for.

So, it's hot and I'm not particularly inclined to write anything worthwhile, so here are some links for your viewing enjoyment.

Pinkies out when partaking of a beverage at Burger King, please.

Cheating Darwin.

From "America's Got Talent" - one great performance.

And finally, a puppy has been born with heart-shaped markings in it's fur. So what? I can top that. Last weekend, we went to a neighborhood party where my son drank too much soda and ate waaay too many hot dogs and cupcakes. We came home and he promptly barfed all over his sister's bed. I stripped it down, and the stain on the mattress was perfectly heart shaped. I called Mr. Hug in and said "Look at this!" and he said "Who says he doesn't tell you he loves you enough?"

Enough for now, kiddos. I'm outta here to find a cool drink.

Starry, Starry Night

She sits alone in the dark on the steps of our deck, knees under her chin, arms wrapped around legs, shoulders shaking and head down. I just happened to see her through the window as I finished putting away the clean dishes from the dishwasher. If she hadn't been wearing her white "My brother drives me bananas" tee shirt with the monkey on it, I might not have seen her at all.

Just a little while before, we were finishing dinner and her two best buddies along with an assortment of siblings and other neighborhood kids showed up at the door. She shoveled her pasta into her mouth in record time, jumped up from the table and and with a smile that blinded me said "Mom! The fireflies are out! Can I go? Please???" Of course she could. So she whooped and ran barefoot into our backyard which joins many others and none of us have fences so it's a great, open field for catching fireflies. She scooped up her firefly cage as she went, and I took a minute to savor the breeze through the window and the laughter of children as they ran chasing fireflies in the night.

Now she sits on the deck while the others are still running and shouting and laughing, and I don't know what happened. Stubbed toe? Finger to the eye? When you get a crowd of kids together, stuff like that happens. I sigh and wipe my hands on a dishtowel, then head outside to sit beside her.

"What's going on, sweetie? Did you get hurt?" She turns her tearstreaked face up to me, then throws herself in my arms.

"Oh Mom. They won't stop. I told them they had to stop and they didn't and they just laughed at me and..." She's sobbing again, so hard I can't make out any more words. I hold her close, wishing I could absorb the hurt and just diffuse it, sending it out into the night and away from her. I stroke her hair, waiting for her to calm. Obviously, it's her feelings that are hurt and not her toes, but that doesn't mean it hurts any less. No, that means it hurts more. After a while, I wipe her tears with my shirt and ask again what happened.

"We were catching fireflies and putting them in my carrier and then I went to put one in and they had taken some of them out of there."

"Oh, so they were taking your fireflies?" I say, nodding sagely. This indeed, could make a six year old cry.

"They were taking them..." Her voice breaks. "They were taking them and then they were putting them on a rock and smashing them. They smashed them all. I kept telling them no, not the fireflies, and they smashed them and they were laughing about it. They killed them all and smashed the pretty stuff that makes the light." She's sobbing again, and I hold her tightly. Right now, I want to rush out there and slice those kids open with the sharp edge of my tongue. How dare they! But the truth is, kids do that stuff. When all is said and done, fireflies are just bugs and kids sometimes like to smash bugs. Only a few, very special kids recognize the wonder and beauty of a bug - particulary a bug that can light up the night and match the stars with their radiance.

So I hold her instead, picking her up and taking her over to the swing on our deck, where we swing and swing, holding hands and just talking in the cool night air. I tell her that some kids don't realize that beauty is all around them, if you just look for it, and sometimes it's in really small things like fireflies. I tell her that sometimes kids - and adults, too - get so busy chasing one thing, that they ignore the little things that make their lives beautiful. I tell her that even if it only makes your life beautiful for a few moments, those moments are the things you look back on as you get older, and those are the things that stay with you. Nobody remembers what they had for dinner that night when they were six, or what they wore, or what time they had to go to bed, or what was on TV. But they will remember how those fireflies looked and what it felt like to have the wind in their faces and the cool grass between their toes as they chased them. I tell her not to stop looking for the little moments of beauty, and not to let the other kids stop her from looking, and savoring those moments. Then I ask her if I could catch fireflies with her. We jump off the swing just as her Dad comes outside.

"What's going on?" He asks.

I explain the whole story, watch his body stiffen and put my hand on his arm when he starts to head off the deck to verbally smite the kids that dared to make his little girl cry. He gives me a disgruntled look, sighs, then turns to kneel down by his daughter.

"Don't worry about them, Boo. They don't know what they're missing. The fun of catching fireflies is in letting them go so you can catch them again. You just catch the ones in our yard. We have a rule in our yard that no one is allowed to hurt a firefly, so if they want to catch fireflies the right way, they can come over here."

"We were going to catch some now, Daddy. Do you want to come along?" She points to her carrier, and slips her hand in his. He slips his hand in mine, and I call for her younger brother, who opens the door and joins us on the deck. Then we run down the stairs, into the cool grass and the clear night, running and chasing beautiful specks of magic only to let them go, our laughter carrying on the breeze as the lights dance all around us, blurring with the stars.

Don't ask me what we had for dinner, because I don't remember.

Recipe Corner

Have I mentioned that my husband is from a family full of Chefs? He missed his calling, because he chose a different profession. Still, cooking is a passion for him, and God love him, he and his family took me under their wings and taught me to cook, since I could barely boil water when I met him.

My Mother was an excellent baker, and decorated wedding cakes that she could have charged a fortune for (but never did - I think most of them she did for free). I'm lucky enough to have inherited some of that, and I can bake pretty well. Together, Mr. Hug and I are a great team when it comes to entertaining.

Anyhoo....I'm going to try to post a good, proven recipe every now and again and today we'll start with one of my all-time brunch favorites (although it makes a great dinner as well). This originally came from a firehouse cookbook that my sister-in-law was good enough to send me, and it's a hit every time I make it or take it somewhere. The recipe makes enough to feed an army, so if you're feeding a smaller group, half the recipe.

Green Chile Egg Puff

12 eggs
1/2 cup of flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 cups of cottage cheese
1 lb (16 oz) of grated Monterey Jack Cheese
1/2 cup of melted butter
2 4oz cans of mild diced green chiles (lots of flavor, but not spicy. Substitute chopped jalapenos if you're into heat)

Beat eggs until light and lemon colored. Add flour, baking powder, salt, cottage cheese, cheese, and butter and mix. Stir in green chiles. Pour into well-greased 9X13 baking dish. Bake at 350 for 35 minutes or until top is lightly browned and center is firm.

You can also make this ahead and reheat - it's just as good the next day.

Enjoy!