Salvation Amy

I spent a lovely evening at the theatre Friday, observing “What the North Wind Saw” at Charlie’s school. The play was student written, produced, and acted, with a few staff members in roles as well. Photos from the evening can be found here.

It was an adaptation of three fairy tales, the unifying theme of which was the inclusion of the North Wind. The North Wind was played ably by Nick, with just the amount of grumpy bluster that you would expect from the North Wind.

The first tale, The North Wind, the Pig and the Baboon, is the story of a pig and a baboon whose fighting so irks the North Wind, that he ends up blowing them to different parts of the earth, to stay for all eternity. Basically, the North Wind sends them to their rooms. They deserve it. The baboon was played by Charlie, and therefore, disclaimer, he was my favorite. The pig was played by Eneizah, who was sporting a pig nose and pink pig ears, whilst Charlie was decked in a large baboon mask, and a very purple bottom. Written by Hannah, this one act was simple, and to the point, and started the poor, poor North Wind, already in a very bad mood, off on his long, exhausting day.

Act two was the story of the Lad and the North Wind, and told the poignant tale of young Jack. Jack, (infused with kindness and determination by Mike), a young man clearly devoted to his aging mother (played by able knitter Emily), attempts thrice to procure grain from storage, and each time is thwarted by the blustery North Wind. I must mention that Nick, as the North Wind, seemed very much to enjoy his character’s mission of creating trouble for others for NO REASON AT ALL, and embodied a curmudgeonliness beyond his years. Jack, however, refuses to be daunted by the North Wind, and, when the two come face to face, it becomes quite clear that the North Wind’s gruff exterior belies a kind heart, and a soul which appreciates Jack’s bravery in facing him. The North Wind gives Jack a series of gifts designed to change his lot, which are promptly stolen by a greedy innkeeper and his wife, played with palpable avarice by Jens and Megan. Finally, the North Wind gives Jack a simple stick, played with just the right mix of rigidity, and, when necessary, bendiness, by John III, and all is set right.

The audience then enjoyed a lovely intermission, with refreshments largely provided by Margie and Debbie, I believe, and this writers’ family, pocketed one or two of those delicacies known simply around The New School as “Margie Cookies,” for the road.

The final act was based on a beautiful Scandinavian tale called “East of the Sun West of the Moon” with which I was unfamiliar. East/West tells the story of a poor farmer (John) with a large family (Lucy, Eneizah, Greg) approached by a large white bear (John III, in the less bendy of his two roles) who promises to improve the family’s lot in exchange for the hand of the beautiful Almira (played with aplomb and tinyness by the outstanding Hannah).

As you might have guessed, the bear is, of course, an enchanted prince, Almira’s tragic failure to heed the prince’s warnings leads to the jeopardizing of the breaking of the enchantment. The most horrible consequence ensues, and, the enchanted Prince appears to be doomed to marry the distasteful Troll Princess Yalda.

All is not lost, however, as Almira sets off to locate the castle, located East of the Sun and West of the Moon, in order to disrupt the nuptials and rescue her prince. In her quest, Almira meets a series of Old Women with magic horses and sparkly gold gifts. The old women, (played by Autumn, Autumn and Autumn) touched the childhood chord in me of wondering whether all mysterious strangers in fairy tales are actually the same person in disguise. The old women warn Almira in language that makes her quest seem hopeless, but still she charges on. Almira meets up with the South Wind, played by Jens with warmth and kindness, who takes her to the home of his brother, our friend, the gruff North Wind. The North Wind gives Almira a bit of a hard time, as he is wont to do, explaining that he is quite exhausted from dealing with the pig, the baboon and the overly trusting lad, but eventually relents, and takes her to the castle East of the Sun and West of the Moon.

Once there, sweet Almira encounters the wretched Princess Yalda, whose spitefulness was played with great glee by Tyler. Almira takes advantage of Princess Yalda’s greed, trading the gifts from the old woman, in order to gain access to her Prince each evening. Finally, with the help of a captive King and Queen, played with great elderliness by Joe and Stephanie, Almira and the Prince are reunited, and hatch a plan to disrupt the wedding.

At the wedding, the wicked enchanting step mother witch troll, played by Alex with cleverness and great witchiness, Yalda, and the trolls attempt to meet the conditions of the clever plan, to no avail. When Almira is able to meet the Prince’s condition for marriage, all the trolls implode, as trolls are wont to do, the old King and Queen are released, and living happily ever after ensues.

All three plays were well supported by set design and stage management by several students and staff, including Sam, Ian, James, Max and Melanie (and numerous others that I am sure I am forgetting). There was notable detail in the set design, including paintings, fireplaces, and fires, and the use of large black backdrops. The stage crew was unobtrusive, and swift, and the use of action to take the audience’s attention from the movement of sets was smooth.

Music was provided by John III and Joe, and sound was managed ably by Zak, and provided a lovely counterpoint to the action onstage.

Each play contained wonderful small moments of human (as well as pig, baboon and stick) connection and interaction. Most notable to me was the antipathy between the baboon and pig, reflected in their body language; the affection between the Lad and his Mother; and the warmth and love between Almira and both her Father and the Bear Prince.

I make an assumption here, that the costume design, which was spot on in every case, was largely the work of Tyler, as costume design is her passion, and also because Princess Yalda wore the most beautiful costume, despite her cold, cruel, troll-like heart.

Behind all of this delight was the amazing Chloe, who was the motivating factor behind the play, one of the three co-authors, and The Narrator. Chloe’s narration was performed with just the right blend of subtlety and emphasis, as is, in my experience, everything she does. It was very clear to this reader, throughout preparation that this event was, to some large degree, Chloe’s baby. It is a rare individual indeed, able to conceive of such a vast project, to execute it, and to provide such a wonderful opportunity to allow those around her to shine. Chloe is that remarkable individual, and she provided something of true beauty for her community this weekend.

If I have forgotten anyone, I apologize. You were all wonderful. Some of you I did not recognize behind your costumes, and makeup and embodiment of your character.

While goofing around the internet, and looking at a bizarro picture of a praying mantis, I found this site called Stumbleupon.  If you haven’t been there, you should.  It’s very very cool.  You install a toolbar in your browser, tell it your interests, and then hit a little button, and it takes you to random sites.  You tell it if you like the sites, or if you don’t, and apparently it gets better and better at finding fun sites for you to surf.

While playing with Stumbleupon, I found kiva.  Kiva is a non-profit, that matches entrepreneurs in third world locations to individuals willing to loan them money.  For example, you could loan Esther Usiosefe some or all of the additional $75 she needs toward her needed loan of $1,200 to buy inventory for her provision and foodstuff store in Benin City, Nigeria.  She pays it back over 8 months.  When the loan is repaid, you can either put it into a new loan, or get it back.  I think it’s a fascinating idea, and judging by the loans that have been made, I didn’t discover it, but I’m glad I know about it.

We made it home from The West a few weeks ago.  Things got busy at my Mom & Dad’s pretty quickly, and I had to stop posting.  (again)

The trip was really wonderful.

My Dad is that Dad that never really took much time off, never relaxed.  I think, in retrospect, that his idea was that he would work really hard and then, when he retired, he would have all the fun he’d put off.  In retrospect, I kind of thought "Fat Chance."

But damned if he isn’t doing it.  The family togethernessfest in Yellowstone was his idea, and his gift to us.  I had a great (albeit long) walk, that started out as a walk with Charlie & Scott & Mom & Bridget & Dane and Dad, that turned out to be a walk with Dad, 2.5 mile to a geyser that Mom wanted to see, and that we all missed actually blowing.  He told me stuff about his work, and about his retirement, and was as open and talkative and cool and wonderful as I’ve ever seen him.  Relaxation actually suits him, which, I guess, makes sense, given that he’s procrastinated it his whole life.

It was fun to see my mom, and to have Scott beat her more than once at Scrabble, which served her right for all the times she creamed me at Sorry when I was four.  She’s busy from dawn til dusk, attending to most everyone else’s needs.

My younger sister Kate is just plain kind, and a wonderful, doting Mom.  Sam and Ella have really distinct personalities, and she delights in them both.  I don’t envy her that little kid stage, but she just seems to thrive on it.  She’s married to the magnificent Dan the man, and through any ups and downs, they are a great match.  She is also very girly, and bound and determined to girl me up, as a care package full of dresses proved.  And, actually, I love them.  I do fear that the next care package might be makeup!  She invited me to go a-waxing before we hit Yellowstone, which, thankfully, having seen the results, I’m glad I declined.  Because ouch.

One of the high points was getting to know Will, Peter’s oldest, who, by now is five.  It was hard to get a good photo of him because HE DOES NOT STOP, but he let us take him out to dinner without his Mom and Dad, and he did come knocking on our door a couple of mornings, quite early.  Peter is raising him to be a phenomenal fisherman, and, of course, the one time my camera caught him still, he was fishing.   Speaking of Peter, I am blessed with a really terrific sister-in-law in Bridget.  She is as down to earth and straightforward a person as you could ever meet, and she is really great with her kids, and, totally due to her patience, Willy will eventually be able to be still long enough to have his photo taken.

Kenny, the little one, has the dryest and pointiest wit.  He’s fun to be around, and I won’t flash the picture of him in his long johns in reaction to his telling Kate that he thought they were the only two with fashion sense in our family.  Unless, of course, you want to look at my flickr page.  I’m worried, because he wants to go into the military, and I hate the military, and the war, and war in general.  And the military.  I wish he’d go to law school instead, but I guess a lot of people hate lawyers too. 

We stayed, in Yellowstone, near Old Faithful, and millions of geysers.  There was one that only blew in the middle of the night, and Charlie really wanted me to get up at 1 to see it go.  But I didn’t.  There was fishing.  Scott and Charlie went in a couple of rivers, and then we went up and met Peter and Dan and Bridget and the boys at a lake.

There were buffalo (a word Ella picked up on day one) all over, including in our camping area, and Charlie was fascinated with the marmot around.  Okay.  So was I.

Yellowstone did not explode while we were there, and for this, I was thankful.

Pete brought a grill and did much cooking for all of us.

Dad wore a cap and smoked a cigar which, with his beard made him look like Castro.

And it was all over too soon.

Every once in a while, someone has just the child they deserve.

When Kate was little, maybe two or three, I remember scolding her for something (as I was the older sister, and  knew all the rules).  Her reply: "That’s just the way I live my life."  It’s funny how people are who they are who they are who they are.  Were I to pick an epitaph for her, that would be it.

Miss Ella Bella Portabella seems to be cut from the same cloth.  Darling, and in charge.

It appears to be impossible to take a bad picture of Ella.

Like her brother, and, incidentally, her mother, Ella’s language skills appear unstoppable and advanced for her (15 month) age.  By the time we left on Monday, she was saying "Amy", "Scott", and "Charlie" appropriately, and with ease.

Scott and I went by yesterday morning to help Kate with some last minute errands (on accounta she now has zero hands).  When we got there, Ella was at the top of the stairs, and I helped Kate get her other foot into her pjs, and zipped her up while she squirmed into and out of Kate’s lap.  When we came down the stairs she bounced over and said "HI Scott!" before plopping herself into her car seat.

It’s just the way she lives her life.

Sam and Charlie share a sense of humor.  They played for quite some time, at sword fighting.

And decapitation:

The hardest thing about being so far away from my family is missing the day to day growing of the new human beings.  Since my last visit, both my sister and brother have grown whole new human beings.

I talk to Kate frequently, which means I get to talk to Sam frequently.  On Monday we went by Kate’s to see Sam, and meet Ella.  Kate was away having carpal tunnel surgery when we got there, and Dad was babysitting for her. 

When we first got there Sam was a little shy, Ella, not so much.  Finally I asked Sam if he knew who I was, and he shook his head no.  When I told him I was his Aunt Amy, his entire face lit up, and he said "I know you.  You’re my friend."

Then he reached into my chest, pulled out my still-beating heart, and stuck it in his pocket.

The most amazing thing about our trip so far is that we left on time.  I ended up driving through the night which earned me a lecture from my mother.  But it really happened quite logically.

When we got to Toledo, it was only 10:30, and I wasn’t really tired, and figured that I could make Saturday’s 17 hour day a little bit shorter by heading on to Elkhart.  But Elkhart was closer than I’d thought, and if there’s one thing I hate, it’s waking up in Indiana, so I pushed through to Chicago, to avoid driving through the horrible Chicago daytime traffic.

And then, of course, we aren’t going to pay Chicago prices for a hotel room, and, by the time we’re through Chicago, well, you might as well just drive through.

My mother’s lecture is impervious to the logic of this.

The sun came up over the Wisconsin Dells, and we were into my favorite part of the trip, where it gets a little earlier every couple of hours, and the landscape is always changing twisting morphing into something bigger than you are, something that makes you wish you could see the history of time in its proper perspective, and that if you could, you would know the meaning of life.  This is what South Dakota does to me, always.

Scott told us the things he knows about how the landscape is formed, and the Indians that lived there before we got there, and we wondered about the travellers from the east, seeing that landscape for the first time, and the people who were already there when they got there.

On Saturday evening we’d finally had it, and couldn’t make it on to Billings, like we’d hoped, and we stopped in Sheridan Wyoming.  Television in Wyoming is better than television in Delaware, because it includes a whole channel of guys riding the bucking broncos and television is always better if there is a chance, however remote, that someone might die.  There was one guy that got kicked in the head by a bull, and they showed that clip over and over.  Which would make football better, I think, if there were more replays of guys getting kicked in the head by bulls.  And the rodeo guys, they aren’t wusses like football players, because instead of helmets, they wear cowboy hats, which provide zero protection from getting kicked in the head by bulls.

Sunday we drove to my Mom and Dad’s, and even though it was a five hour drive, it seemed quite easy, in comparison.

   Maggie and I are up to no good at our new location - Treif

When I first met Scott he was not a reader.  Oh, he’d read every morning, "magazines," which, quite frankly, were actually catalogues.  When he and I were married, my mom got him a copy of Undaunted Courage for Christmas, and my husband, who actively hated both reading and history, was hooked.

This has opened up all sorts of present giving options for me, and he recently read The Omnivore’s Dilemma which I gave him last year for Christmas.

This turns one story into another, which is the story of how, when I first met Scott, I was trying to raise my family vegetarian.  This did not go well.  The first time Scott cooked for us, he made spaghetti, which, he pointed out, was "almost vegetarian." You know.  Except for the MEAT.

Anyway, The Omnivore’s Dilemma got Scott’s attention, insofar as the weird politics that go into food production, and when we talked about giving things up for lent, he was willing to try to go meatless.

This sent me, as all food inventions do, to Philadelphia’s most excellent Asian Food Stores.  There’s one I particularly love, on Washington Street, that is in an old abandoned supermarket, of some sort.  It reminds me a lot of living in Thailand, and sticking out like a big, ethnic sore thumb.  There are tanks and tanks of fish, lobster, and frogs, all the most wonderful cuts of head on meat you can imagine, produce that you can’t find anywhere else, and every spice or ingredient that you need to make any delicious recipe of your choice. 

Missing the cuisine of Thailand, as I do, I’ve been having a field day.  I’ve made dishes upon dishes of Thai food, and, at the end of the day, all I have to do is throw rice in the rice cooker, and we’ve got a meal.  OH! One of the best things at the market is fresh bamboo.  And fresh tofu.  Like maybe even made on the premises fresh.  In a big bucket.  With tongs.

Anyway - we’ve been having fun.  And in my quest to expose my family to the wonders of Thai Cuisine, I found this terrific foodie blog, with easy to follow instructions (not to mention conversions) and today I made this awesome Thai snack, which I have not had in 25 years.  Thai food is known for a perfect balance of (sometimes unusual to the Western Palate) flavors, and when I gave Scott one of these, he said, "Wow, I didn’t expect the scallions, but that was perfect."  I didn’t have the mini-pancake pan recommended, so I put a couple of tablespoons of the batter into the bottom of muffin tins, and baked them at 350 for about 10 minutes.  So mine weren’t as golden brown on the bottom as the ones here, and I’ll probably have to either look for one of the mini-pancake pans she describes, or something, but the taste is phenomenal, anyway.  Yay Appon! and thank you.  (The other thing is that the batter is way too thin to just cook like pancakes, if you know what I mean, but my version worked okay.

Best thing?  Charlie, who hates EVERYTHING, asked for seconds on the mini flan.  I know that scallions in a sweet sounds weird, but Charlie ate it.  I’m just saying.

Next, I mean to try to make these, and would have already, if I had thought to buy sticky rice flour and tapioca flour.  I’ll probably substitute a very firm tofu for the meat in this one.  I’ve been tasting these since I found this recipe, and I’m pretty sure that this particular delight is responsible for at LEAST half of the weight I put on in Thailand.