Mondays with Mariah

You know that old saying..."When life has you working on the weekends, make lobster salad!" No, not familiar with that one huh?

Too bad, because it's a good one.

Anyway, that's just what I did after my photo excursion with Ali and Alex in Scituate. What better place to score some crustacean critters then in a swanky seaside village?

Here's my recipe for Lobster salad, my favorite all time meal:

(4) 1-1/4 lb. lobsters

(have your husband murder them if you cannot do it yourself like me)

Finely chopped celery

The juice from one lemon

several tbsp, mayo

and... a squishy grilled bun

Now for the food part: dessert! In this case Rhubarb tart.

(Steal 6 stalks of rhubarb from your neighbors yard, get your husband to do this so you don't get in trouble)

1 1/2 cups sugar

4tbsp flour

(mix together ingredients above)

Make dough: 2 1/4 cups flour, 3/4 cup shortening, 6 tbsp cold water (cut ingredients together)

roll out dough, fold in half and fill with rhubarb mixture

bake at 350 for 45 minutes.

Eat before neighbor notices his rhubarb is missing.

Next I enjoyed the pretty flowers blooming in my yard..

Recipe for pretty peonies:

Buy peony plant

Watch husband plant the peony

Completely ignore peony bush while your husband waters it every day

Enjoy the fruits of your husband's green thumb

Speak of the devil... my husband, Don.

Recipe for finding your soul mate...

Don't settle.

Remember everyday what a lucky girl you are.

Don't be too bossy.

Don't be too fresh (working on that one).

Enjoy.

Mondays with Mariah

How do you process a moment that is adorable & joyous, momentous in an everyday kind of way, a moment that you know you'll remember forever but is over in the blink of an eye?

I don't have an answer to that question. I guess you could take a photo.

Vianne spent Saturday running around and riding her bike in these red sparkle shoes. It made me so happy I wanted to cry. She's a little girl riding her bike in red sparkle shoes, now that's a moment worth preserving. She gave me about 5 seconds to snap this photo of her feet in the grass with my Polaroid camera. Then she rolled her eyes and ran away because I was being annoying. I tried to explain to her that I NEEDED this photo, but she just got mad at me because I was interrupting her fun. Whatever! At least I got my photo.

Mondays With Mariah (a.k.a The Meanest Mom in the Universe)

Sometimes when you are a parent you have to draw a hard line in the sand. I am struggling with a classic parenting scenario right now. The sceanrio goes something like this...Boy sees dog, boy LOVES dog, boy begs mother incessantly for dog, mother denies boy the joy of having the dog, boy's heart is crushed, mother feels like crap. This is what you might call a no win situation.

Jacques is is in full blown dog obsession right now. He goes to the library and brings home books about dogs... for a while he was researching breeds of dogs. Then he found a gut wrenching book about shelter dogs who became heros by you guessed it... saving their families from fires, visiting sick children in hospitals, and overcoming things like blindness, deafness and in one poor pooches case, extreme ugliness. Well, Jacques is a giant soft mush bucket 11 year old boy, so as you can imagine he is positive that he should adopt a shelter dog. Okay, that's a noble thought... I agree. Now Jacques spends hours online pouring through photos of dogs up for adoption at numerous local shelters. He has his heart set on one dog in particular named Bubba. I guess something about Bubba's sweet, pathetic profile photo spoke to Jacques.

Here's a letter he composed on the subject:

It's not that I don't like dogs... actually I love them. I've had three dogs. I just don't want to take care of one now. The gerb (drool), the kacking (barfing) on the kitchen floor, the dog diarreah (don't even get me started about Christmas morning 2002), muddy paws, hair on everything, dog oil slime on the side of the couch, on and on and on...
I like to pet other people's dogs and then walk away while they are left dangling a steaming bag of poop from their leash. Still, I find myself feeling weak and sad when I explain these things to Jacques and he just stares at me, not crying but with big fat tears running down his cheeks. I was pretty impressed by his letter. I told him that and he said, "Yeah, well I stayed up all night writing it. I thought I really had a chance." Doesn't that just kick you in the guts?

Mondays with Mariah

I thought I'd post today about two of my favorite things...

I am absolutely obsessed with this book, Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Marquez is a Colombian author. He won the Nobel prize for literature in 1982. This book takes place in Coastal Columbia during the last century. It follows the life of Fermina Daza and the two men who love her. I am currently reading this book for the fourth time in a row. I am not in the habit of re-reading a book as soon as I finish it, but this time I feel compelled to read it again (and again and again.) It is extremely hard to describe the spell created by this book and the best way to describe it is to call it magical. Actually, Marquez's style of writing is called magical realism and he blends perfectly the every day occurrences of life with spiritual, mystical, and magical happenings that most people fail to notice. He has an unbelievable grasp on the emotions of love and this the best unconventional love story I have ever read. Something about this story really resonates with me, I haven't quite figured out what it is exactly yet, I guess that's why I keep reading it. It just seems like there's a lot of wisdom packed into it's 348 pages.

Another one of my favorite authors is the children's author Roald Dahl. My kids are insane for his stories such as: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, and The Fantastic Mr. Fox. I also love the director Wes Anderson who's movies are on my top 10 list... The Royal Tenebaums, Life Aquatic, Rushmore, and the Darjeeling Limited. So, imagine my happiness when Wes Anderson adapted the story of the Fantastic Mr. Fox! Basically Dahl's short story has become the second act of the film and the first act and third act are all Anderson.

I bought this movie for Vianne's birthday and we watched it last night. It is an absolute work of art. The characters are rich and flawed and lovable. The music is amazing and the sets are unbelievable. I am sure I'll have to watch this movie over and over to really appreciate the genius and the pain staking attention to detail that is required of stop animation films. Throw in George Clooney (my Hollywood boyfriend) as Mr Fox and it's a home run.