Holiday Whirlwind!

Here are the results of our holiday whirlwind, with photos and video!

Thursday, December 12th, 5:15 pm. Visitors' Day, Tap Class.

Rosie's Advanced Tap Class had a "Visitor's Day." The class pretty much went on as it typically does, only parents are not allowed to observe; this is the only day of the year we get to sit in and see their progress in class.

Rosie and her class got to show off her excellent tap skills while performing to music, such as "King of New York" from the musical, "Newsies."




Same Day, 6:30 pm. Holiday Concert at School.

Immediately after tap, we ran home  to get Rosie in her outfit for the Winter Concert: white top, black bottoms, black shoes. We were late. Thankfully, she left her cello at school because we probably would have forgotten it. Somehow, I managed to still get a seat in the second row of the audience (thanks to a friend). Here, Rosie's intermediate strings class (5th grade) plays "Jingle Bells."



I was surprised to see Rosie join the chorus group to sing during the choral program. She didn't sign up for chorus, and her name wasn't in the program for chorus! What she explained to me later is that her entire class signed up for chorus and if she didn't go, she would be alone in the classroom. So she just went, and enjoyed herself!



After the concert was over, I left immediately for my dance class — it was our last practice together before (foreshadowing...) our Holiday Performance on Sunday. 

Saturday, December 14, 10:30 am. Tae Kwon Do Belt Test.

We were invited to the Tae Kwon Do studio's Holiday Party on Friday afternoon, but were already feeling harried after all the driving around on Thursday. We took Friday off from all the hectic festivities, but were back on for Saturday.

At 10 am, I drove Rosie to the dojang to practice before she started her belt test at 10:30. I was excited for her especially because this would be her first time breaking boards at a test. She was testing for her Blue-Stripe belt (between green and blue).

There were some rough points for her test, and a bit of stress and handwringing on my part, but she did pass. Her best parts were her forms, which she performed beautifully, and the boardbreaking, shown in this video.


After the belt test and lunch (the test was over two hours!), the kids packed their suitcases for an overnight at Auntie M's. Always a fun time. It's an hour and a half drive, round trip, so by the time Monkeyrotica and I arrived home, there was just enough time for us to get showered, primped, and coiffed for...

Same day, 6 pm. Company Holiday Party.

 Monkeyrotica and I had RSVP'd yes to my new company's holiday party. I have been working there a few days shy of exactly one year, so I missed the prior year's fête by a slim margin. Attire was "cocktail" and the venue a suave tony nightclub in DC, so we dressed to the nines. In our own way. Monkey's idea of cocktail, or at least party attire is his black leather blazer and pants, black turtleneck, and motorcycle boots. We looked pretty good, anyway. I loved the colored glass chandelier!

I had fun with my favorite coworkers in the photo booth!

I was the designated driver, since I needed to be sharp for the dance performance the next day...

Rosie's 11th Birthday: The Party

Dash's 6th birthday, Party people

Along with yesterday's photos of the food, here are some fabulously well-framed and lit photos taken by our friend Mark Zimin at Dash's birthday party back in July. Someone ought to hire him to photograph and/or DJ their wedding. He's that good.

Gina, her son Brian, and me in the kitchen

Monkeyrotica, Dash (Let me tell you something...), and Finn in the backyard

Janna, ready to conquer any comers

Brent found Dash's raygun!

Me, adding candles to Dash's birthday donut tower

Singing "Happy Birthday," a lesson in delayed gratification

Finally, the donuts!

Andrei and other children in the foreground, Ken, Kelly & I in the middle ground

Elizabeth and Weegee make friends.

Seeing our guests on their way, party's over! Bye, Geoff, see you soon.

Rosie's Rainbow Birthday Cake (part 2 of 2)

Rosie told me that she wanted a "rainbow cake" for her birthday months ago, and I had it all planned out, I did my research and was ready. But really, you can only know what you got yourself into once you've done it yourself. The ultimate result was a lovely (if a bit fragile) cake that looked almost exactly like I thought it would. See, the birthday girl was happy with the results and that's all that matters.

Happy birthday, Rosie!

To make the cake, it required two boxes of mix, oil, egg whites and water as directed. I bought special "food paste" at Williams and Sonoma to get the vibrant colors. Keep in mind if you use these to color your food: a little red goes a looooong way. My red and orange look pretty similar, but that's not for lack of yellow in the orange!

There was about 1.5 cups of mix per layer. The indigo/violet looked a lot more violet in real life instead of the gray it looks on camera.

A few of the layers stuck to the pans after cooling and I was a little inaccurate getting the layers to line up as you can see in the photo of unfrosted cake above, but after two entire tubs of frosting were applied, it all smoothed out!

The happy birthday song was sung, the candles blown out... (oh, hey, there was bowling, too)

and we cut open the cake! 

Much fun was had by all.

I think I'll need a clone come November 13th.

(Stricken text taken from Leonard's tattoos in the 2000 movie Memento.)

Never answer the phone. How will I keep track of all this?

Fact 1. Male. November 13th is Rosie's 8th birthday. She has invited a select group of her friends, mostly from her 2nd-grade classroom, to go ice skating (thankfully, outside the home).

Fact 2. White. The ice skating party falls squarely over the lunch hour, so I'll be catering lunch as well as cake for the party. Solution: Pizza delivery services will help with this one, and I've asked a party guest's parent to make the cake.

Fact 3. First Name: John or James. Dash's karate class and his dance class will both be overlapped by the birthday party. Solution: We will do a make-up class later on for karate and a parent of one of Dash's playmates will deliver him to dance; Monkeyrotica will pick Dash up.

Fact 4. Last Name G___. Monkeyrotica has a dental appointment that overlaps Dash's karate and the beginning of Rosalie's party. Um, yep. And I scheduled it, I sure did.

Fact 5. Drug Dealer. Monkeyrotica's birthday is tomorrow (if you read my blog and you feel like it, wish him a happy day on 11/5!) and we are ALSO having a party for him (with his select guests) later in the afternoon on November 13th (yeah! two parties on the same day!!). Monkey will be prepping barbecue for it starting the night before, before and after the dental appointment, and all the way up till his party. I'll drop Dash off at his playmate's house and head to Rosie's party after he leaves for the dentist and will be back to help two hours before it starts.

Fact 6. Car License Number SG137IU. Um, I think I need to take Friday, Nov. 12th off! I'll be delivering birthday cupcakes to Rosie's classroom that afternoon and will very likely need the whole day to get the house ready and obtain supplies for the weekend.

I'm disciplined and organized. I use habit and routine to make my life possible. Between now and then, I'm planning to unpack the basement, make Rosie and Dash each a Totoro doll (already started), and maintain the entire house in a presentable state for guests. I keep telling myself:

"I can fit it all in! Of course, it'll all work out in the end and everyone will have a great time."

I'll be repeating that mantra in my head all the way until 11/14.

Food porn—Jan 31 BBQ

Monkeyrotica's back at the grill again! He just told me that the three slabs (pictured below) will be NC pulled pork, Memphis ribs, and TX brisket. Will be taking more pics as we go along. Stay tuned. Pics are here!

Backstory: A friend of ours has been teaching in Korea this past year. He came into town last week and mentioned that, even though Korean barbecue is fabulous, he's been craving the American variety. Monkeyrotica decided to step in and give the man a cross section of southern BBQ. All the recipes were pulled/modified from Raichlen's BBQ USA book, which is heartily recommended by the Strings. Our friend seemed to have brought his Korean weather to DC as the temps barely rose above 28°F and there was still a sheet of ice on the deck.

On the menu: Carolina pulled pork with Lexington vinegar pepper slaw, Memphis wet ribs, and Texas brisket. Sides were Mexican charros beans cooked with jalapenos and bacon, mac and cheese, and collard and turnip greens cooked in chardonnay.

Monkeyrotica's preparation narrative: The 8lb pork shoulder was seasoned only with salt and pepper. This went on the WSM at 6pm Friday over applewood and some generic Homelife briquettes from the local Target. Not much ash production, but it burns a little faster than Royal Oak briquettes but not as fast as Kingsford. This hit 190 internal around noon Saturday. Left to cool for an hour, pulled half, chopped the other half.

Twelve pounds of brisket went on at midnight, seasoned just with salt, fresh pepper, and cayenne. Since the applewood chunks had burned down, I threw some soaked hickory on, so the brisket would get full hickory, but the pork shoulder would get half hickory, half applewood. Wrapped at 9am, pulled at 1pm. Cooled and sliced.

The two full, untrimmed racks of ribs were seasoned with brown sugar, kosher salt, black and chipotle pepper, garlic powder, and half a cup of Old Bay. They hit WSM #2 around 9am over applewood chunks: 3 hours smoke, two hours wrapped. After five hours, I pulled the water pan, stoked some more coals, and sauced them for about an hour at 325 dome temp. Everything (barely) fit in a warming oven until guests arrived around 3ish. There were no survivors, by which I mean leftovers.

I've cooked in snow many times before, but it was a little unusual to have to crack open my soaking wood chunks with an icepick (it was cold!). Still, it was worth watching the inevitable meat coma feeding slowdown an hour after everyone started eating. We sent everyone waddling home with their own Ziploc bag packed with meat.

Photo gallery from the party:

Office Christmas Parties Past

This past Sunday, Monkeyrotica and I took Rosie and Dash to a Christmas party at our friend Kathryn's apartment. She served Jul Glögg, a traditional Swedish Christmas punch, and the guests trimmed the tree. Or, to be more accurate, my kids (they were the only under-20 contingent) decorated the bottom half of the tree by themselves and several other guests added ornaments to the upper half. We had a lovely time, catching up with friends we haven't seen in forever, like Ed (been staying on the down-low), or Carri and William (down from NYC). The glögg was tasty, but I preferred the champagne cocktails; Monkey, can you get that recipe from Fritz?

Even though the setting was nothing like Christmas parties from my childhood, it nevertheless felt familiar. I remember holiday parties with my dad's coworkers, all researchers and scientists at Argonne National Labs, where my sister and I were virtually the only kids there. The parties would be very casual and open-ended. We would be mingling with intellectual adults, listening in and attempting to keep up with their conversations (my, aren't your children precocious, Jim!), playing pool (there was always a billiards table), sampling from the buffet, and there would always be the singing!

Back then, it was the '70s and folk music was king, but today I don't know anyone who brings a guitar to a party and gets everyone to sing along, do you? At those parties, a couple of those scientists would bring along lyric sheet copies (mimeographed?), start strumming away, and we would all carol our hearts out. M. and I were fair singers at the time (or at least our parents liked to volunteer us) and occasionally we would sing a duet of a favorite tune we'd learned in grade school for the group.

Ok, there wasn't any singing at Fritz and Kathryn's party, but just the same, the kids were the entertainment, with an audience of adults watching them, carefully, with focus and enthusiasm, perform a creative task well. They were complimented on what a good job they were doing, hanging those tiny, delicate ornaments, and how well behaved they were! I'll see if I can get some photos of K & F's tree and post later! It looked gorgeous!!

I want my Friday evening date-night back.

So, last Friday. The kids had a great time! They spent the eventing at Auntie M's new house where she has set up an entire room for them. Their special room-at-auntie's is outfitted with sleeping bags, new toys, games, craft supplies, and books. I picked them up at around 11 p.m. Friday night and they were sweet and sleepy—Thank you Auntie M, for taking care of Rosie & Dash! I piled them in the car and headed home and all were abed before midnight.

Auntie M was babysitting so that Monkeyrotica and I could attend a party. Mr. Monkey's car battery was dead, so he spent his day thusly:
5:30 a.m. leave the house for dealership to beat Beltway traffic.
7:00 a.m. dealership opens, wait for hours on end, listening to gawdawful Xmas tunes
12:00 p.m. leave dealership and spend a few hrs grocery shopping among foul-smelling denizens of NoVA, head home to pack up car with kid-entertainment items
4:00 p.m. pick up son, pick up daughter, travel the Beltway for 90 minutes.
5:30 p.m. obtain food for offspring, drop them at Auntie M's, spend 45 mins in tollroad traffic
6:15 p.m. pickup wife, inform her that going to a party is the last thing he wants to do after driving around in traffic since 5:30 a.m.; wife ignores Mr. Monkey, she looks party-fabulous and ready for fun!

[UPDATE: I had to add here, that there are no photos of this event. It's my own fault, as I couldn't find our camera anywhere that morning. I texted Monkey before he left the house and asked him if he knew where the camera was. He replied yes, he did know. There you go.]

Here's where a series of weird, annoying things happen in which steam blows hard and heavy out of Mr. Monkey's ears. We get to the party at the appointed time, check in, but the bars don't open until 7. We check our coats. A fire alarm blares and we are directed to leave, so we uncheck our coats and go outside for 20 minutes. By the time we get back in and re-check the coats, the bar is not quite open and we really need drinks. waaaait...Bar Open! A friend orders a Southern Comfort from the hotel lobby bar. The bartender doesn't know what that is (or a few subsequent drink orders) so we all order vodka tonics, just because she knows that one (don't bartenders need to be licensed?). We sit for a while, because the ballroom doesn't open until 8, but boredom sinks in and we wander the lobby. Since Monkey and I arrived in separate cars, neither of us plan to drink heavily.

At 8 p.m. we are all allowed to enter the ballroom, a.k.a. the refrigerator. All the ladies promptly don their date's jackets. I find a seat, then reach for my condensation-beaded water glass which shoots out of my fingers and sprays water and ice all over the table. No servers in sight. There are a few speeches and lots of clapping. 9 p.m. comes and goes as some servers start mysteriously arranging and rearranging trays around the room. A D.J. starts spinning some holiday music. Monkey continues to clench until Dave Brubek's Take Five plays, which relaxes him a small bit.

At 9:30, a server comes to our table with a tureen of soup. Did I mention that our place settings have no bowls? No mind, she pours fishy-smelling soup into the charger plates. I ask, "Excuse me, what kind of soup is this? My husband has a shellfish allergy." The server answers, "Soup? Yes." Another server comes to take the soup-on-plates away, as others are bustling around with bowls. Monkey doesn't get to eat the lobster bisque. There's a mildly funny interlude in which Monkey gives her back his bowl several times and she keeps handing him fresh bowls of bisque. "I can't eat this!" and "Severe shellfish allergy!" are not in her vocabulary. There is no beverage service (if you need a drink of any kind, you must leave the ballroom and find the bar out in the lobby).

9:45, the salad course is served: mixed greens, with strawberries and candied walnuts (if you're lucky—one person at our table only got the greens). We wait, and wait, and make awkward conversation about how hungry everyone is and how nobody thought we had to wait until 10 p.m. to eat on a Friday. One tablemate threatens to leave and get food at McDonald's if the main course doesn't show up soon. At 10:10, covered platters are spotted, emerging from the catering area.

10:15 p.m. Our surf and turf plates arrive! The two jumbo prawns feature grandly atop every item underneath. Oh, wait. Monkey can't eat them either. Suxxorz!! Ignoring the flames pouring out of Monkey's ears, I sacrifice my mini-mignon filet, take his prawns and we scuttle out of the ballroom as soon as we are full.

Bust. At least we didn't pay for a sitter? Next time Monkeyrotica tells me that he really, really wants to go home and that going out will suck, I promise to be a better listener.

Rosie's birthday recap, in photos

Many of Rosie's friends designed and illustrated their own cards!
And they look awesome, check it out.




















Here's the cake I baked, almost destroyed, flipped around, and then covered up broken chasms with vast amounts of frosting. Turned out okay, if I do say so myself!






















Everybody's favorite part of the party: getting all sugared up!! Mmmmmm.






















Now that we're full of sugar, let's all go crazy on Rosie's bed!! AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!





















All within screaming distance, but separate enough to relax, the parents hang out in the kitchen. Monkeyrotica, Kelly, and Todd are pictured here.




















Brian and Nestor stay close to the smoked pork shoulder.




















Lovely Liz enjoys some snacks.






















Even Weegee came out to join the party; he was so happy when I brought him out! Weegee used to be our party game before we had kids. We passed him around and showed off his "tricks" which are kind of lame, but funny when you're drunk. He made a new friend in Nestor.




















But, hey, where was Dash? And Thea and Liam? Well, we made the mistake of having movies going during the party and the hypnotic glow was too alluring to some of our little movie-watchers.
















Everybody had a blast!! Thanks friends! It was a great party and I wish you all could have been there.