RockTheDesert

Go #27

My son, Steven, will be 14 yrs old on February 4. He's nearly 6' tall and loves to play football more than just about anything. He's played on Pop Warner teams and NYS teams. For the past few years, we've had a chance to watch him play a lot of games. When we arrive at the field, we usually get to see the last part of the game prior to his game. A lot of times it's a team that's just a year older than his team. Each time, I look at the huge kids and vow that my son, my baby, will NOT be playing against those big kids next season. Of course, the next season rolls around and my son, my sweet angel, has grown to be the size of those big kids. Last year, in particular, the kids in the next league up from his appeared to be man-sized - I mean, they looked like they had full beards and possibly even drove themselves to the game. I truly didn't want my youngest son being maimed or injured by one of those big brutes. And yet, here we are again, watching Steven play winter football through NYS and Steven is the man-sized giant that all the mothers of the younger players fear. Go #27 - Go Outlaws!

Thanksgiving

Well, I decided on Wednesday at noon, while shopping for food for pre-Thanksgiving dinner with the family that night, that I wanted to roast a turkey, just so we could have turkey soup and leftovers. I guess I was craving a turkey sandwich on a yeast roll with mayo, salt & pepper, and cranberry sauce...So, I stopped by Sunflower Market and asked the boys at the meat counter if they had any 10 lb fresh turkeys. They brought out a free-range, super-cold "but not frozen" organic turkey. They gave me simple instructions: place it in the sink in cold water for two hours. It should be ready to cook by then. I gathered up all my purchases and headed home, first stopping by Alyssa's house to kidnap her for a cooking extravaganza in my tiny kitchen. We made Italian stuffing with spicy Italian sausage, cornbread, butter, pecans, dried cranberries, butter, onions, chicken broth, white wine, parmesan cheese and butter. It was extremely flavorful. And buttery. Then we made traditional stuffing with 5 different fresh herbs, celery and onion and chicken broth. And butter. Then we made The Pioneer Woman's mashed potatoes. They were fantastic - creamy and buttery. Meanwhile, I kept checking on the super-cold turkey in my sink. It was far more than super-cold...it was nearly frozen in the middle. I kept refilling the sink with cold water, trying to hurry up the defrosting process. At 6pm I finally pulled a couple of packages of chicken out of the refrigerator and started doctoring them up with the fresh herb/lemon lemon zest/butter concoction which I had planned to use on the turkey. I pan-fried them in olive oil and finally had dinner on the table by 7pm.

At 7:30pm I left the family gathering to go pick up Michael at Chick-fil-A (1 hr round trip). When I walked in the kitchen door, to my utter amazement, Alyssa had cleaned up the entire kitchen and was graciously serving pumpkin pie w/whipped cream to the family. We decided to watch some movies so we split up the family - boys in the living room with the big screen watching "Live Free Die Hard" - - girls in the lodge with the medium screen watching "What A Girl Wants".

Alyssa & Joshua left at 11:30pm. I checked on the turkey again - by this time I had moved it to the refrigerator to continue defrosting. It was still a little icy in the middle but at least I could pull out all the little bags of nameless innards and discard them. Then I decided to bake the turkey. So, I whipped up another batch of herb lemon butter. Got out the kosher salt and the pepper mill. Pulled together all the aromatics I could find for the interior of the bird - whole head of garlic, onion, lemons, whole thyme sprigs. Then at about midnight, I slid the whole masterpiece into the 350 degree oven for 2-1/2 hours. By 3am, I had fallen asleep with the TV on. Dan woke me up and asked me what the high-pitched beeping noise was. I emerged from my perfect dreamland and realized that the oven timer had been ringing for more than a few minutes. I dragged myself out of bed and rescued the turkey from the oven. It was perfect and beautiful. I covered it tight with foil and went back to bed. I DID remember to turn off the oven. In the morning, I carved a little piece of turkey - it was divine. Perfectly seasoned and juicy with a crispy, flavorful skin. Worth all the trouble.

At 10am, Dan, Michael and Steven headed over to the Bakalar's home for their annual Thanksgiving Day hike with Jeff. I stayed behind, boiling potatoes for more mashed potatoes, baking sweet potatoes for sweet potato casserole and making a gigantic mess in the kitchen. Pots, pans, dishes, serving spoons, mixer, butter - - the mess took on a life of its own, spreading, overflowing, spilling, until I finally finished cooking. I had to look away from the mess as I loaded up the car and headed over to join the rest of the Urban Tribe for our annual Thanksgiving Day feast. As usual, we had a wonderful time just hanging out, eating, talking, being the tribe. It was a beautiful day yesterday - not cold at all. It didn't feel like November. Nice breeze, lots of mild sunshine. At 4pm we squeezed in a few family photos by the pool.

Then we packed up and drove home. Dan and I changed into "youthful" attire - jeans & long-sleeved t-shirts, tennis shoes, sweatshirts draped over our shoulders. We were ready for the ASU vs USC game. We had awesome seats, courtesy of Jeff & Pam. 26 rows up from the field in the endzone area. The game started out great for both teams. Then gradually, with accelerating competence, USC pulled way ahead of ASU. We ended up standing for at least 50% of the game because all the spectators in front of us were standing. I had a tall, beefy man, a loyal USC fan, sitting directly in front of me. It was like being seated in front of a brick wall. I couldn't see anything unless I stood up. The game was really fun. Lots of team spirit on both sides. The ASU band played at half-time - special guest artist was Little Richard. Lots of fireworks. We didn't need our sweatshirts because it was probably only in the 70's. After walking to our car (seemed like miles), we decided we were still young and could go out and get something to eat real quick. Well, we didn't have much luck finding a place that was open that wasn't a full-on club or bar. So, we finally pointed the car toward home. Dan made some little turkey sandwiches on yeast rolls with mayo, salt and pepper, and little bit of cranberry sauce...yum, the things sweet dreams are made of!!!

Broken Bones

Yesterday was a busy day - Sundays usually are...I was at rehearsal for Carnegie Hall from 2-5pm. Dan was busy playing football with Michael, Steven, and a whole group of parents and students at CCL. I got home from rehearsal and was just getting ready to join the boys at CCL for The Stand (student-led church service) when Dan came in the side door, announcing that Steven broke his arm. Now, knowing Dan as well as I do, I was 100% certain that he was just joking. For one thing, Steven already broke his arm once this year - in April (I think). He was playing basketball and tripped over a kid and fell dead weight on his left arm, breaking the radius. 6 weeks later, the cast was off and he was as good as new. For another thing, we just changed health insurance companies. Our new monthly insurance payment is 50% less than our old payment...we barely sent in the 1st payment on Nov. 1 and received our insurance cards this week. And one last thing, they were playing touch football, not tackle. How could he possibly be hurt????? 

The following pictures were taken with my camera phone - they are pretty poor quality...I thought I had my camera with me in my purse, but Alyssa borrowed it at church this morning and forgot to give it back.

Well, Dan was not exaggerating or joking. He started digging frantically through the mail pile, searching for the brand new insurance cards. I grabbed my purse and phone and headed to the car. We went to Scottsdale Osborn Hospital. It was a great experience. Steven was registered, triaged and in a room within 15 minutes. He had an IV, ice pack, pillows, and a staff of nurses attending to him less than 2 minutes after settling into the bed. His favorite part of the entire experience, other than the TV mounted on a telescoping arm, was when they cut his clothes off of him. They gave him a little bit of morphine, took numerous x-rays, and monitored his vital signs until the orthopedic surgeon (they actually had an orthopedic guy on call in trauma) finished surgery and came to check on Steven. The x-rays showed that he needed to "reduce" the fracture - this means they manipulated the bones into better alignment then put a humongous temporary cast on his arm to keep it all in place 'til his follow-up visit next week. I have a feeling this procedure was pretty painful - they gave Steven an amnesia drug so he would feel & remember absolutely nothing about it. The surgeon was amazing. He's a fracture specialist, trained at Yale and abroad, numerous awards, and very professional, personable bedside manner. The attending ER physician was also fantastic as was nurse Sarah. Greatly exceeded my ER expectations.

Steven's friend Matt came with his dad to visit. He brought Steven a cool glow stick which Steven kept in the pocket of his hospital gown. His chest glowed bright red and green for 3 hours. Steven sent out a little text message to everyone on his contact list and received about 12 text messages back within about 3 minutes. Lydon and his dad came to visit today. They brought Starburst and funny stories.

One last thing, while playing football, Steven decided that his shoes were entirely in the way of his success as a football player, so he took off his shoes and played barefoot. I tried (unsuccessfully) to capture the filthy, dirt-encrusted toes with my pitiful camera phone, but this is as good as it gets. I actually gave him a mini-spa pedicure today, complete with Mary Kay products and a little pink nail brush. Don't let him tell you otherwise - he LOVED it!

Cable

We have caved in.

We have backslidden.

We have...Cable.

Our house was built in 1956. Other than a poorly built family room addition (circa 1973) , there have been zero improvements to the house. We called Cox Cable last week. We were dissatisfied with our previous DSL service and were determined to have Cox Internet since Dan and I both work from home and it is literally impossible to do our jobs without reliable high-speed internet. So they looked up our address and were surprised to discover that the house had never been hooked up to cable. They would be charging us an installation fee of $49.95. And while they had us on the phone, they explained the benefits of their package deal which included cable TV. And of course, the NFL channel had to be added on. At least 'til right after the Super Bowl. On Wednesday, the Cox trucks pulled into the alley behind our home and started running cable from the utility poles in the alley. 4 hours later, they were still doing the installation. During that time, Dan stayed home to supervise the workers and I picked the kids up from school, dropped Mike off at work, went to FNC for Burgers & Bible, ran a 45 min. rehearsal, raced off to Urban Tribe (small group), picked up Michael from work, then got home by 11pm and fell right into bed. Thursday morning, I raced off to work then picked up Michael at school and took him to work. When I finally got home, I pulled up to our house and noticed...Cable. Running from the roof, through the patio roof, down the front of the house, right next to the front door, disappearing into a hole drilled into our red brick trim and into the living room.

Next time Dan will be running the errands and I will be supervising the workers.

Football Season Is Here!

This is Michael putting away a huge nylon bag full of NFL-quality footballs. These get locked up in the equipment room after practices and games. Phoenix Christian played their first regular season game last night. They won - it was definitely an ugly win. They were losing the game until 3 minutes before the end of the game. Then they had a spectacular run for a score. Then the defense held the other team back from scoring. Then we had the ball with less than a minute on the clock. Then we started playing the game by micro-milli-seconds. Throw in a few timeouts from us and the other team. Then we finally punted the ball on 4th down with 7 seconds to go. The ball sailed high into the air then the clock ran out before it hit the ground. I could hardly watch. But we did it. Success & victory came at last. We sat in the front row, near the middle of the bleachers. I watched Michael out of the corner of my eye the entire time. He was always in motion, filling the water bottles, offering them to players, taking them out on the field when there was a time-out. He must have walked five miles by the end of the 2 hr game. He said he had fun. I'm really glad. It had to be at least 100 degrees in the stands. But it was fun to cheer on a team. Mike's team. Our team!