The Clam Rampant

Kasia May 18th, 2009

Thursday evening, Canuck and I went to visit with the DJs. (Yay!)

Friday evening, Canuck and I had a wedding rehearsal to attend. (Yay! ono two counts: one, that Peanut and Cletus got married, and two, that it wasn’t OUR wedding! Much more relaxing that way!)

Saturday morning, we went to the Rite of Reader at the Cathedral, then to Peanut and Cletus’ wedding. After the wedding we went to the hospital to see Adam. Then we went to the reception, had a lovely time, and got home…on the early side for a wedding reception, but quite late for us.

Sunday morning: 10:15 Mass, then a talk by a fellow parishioner, then errands and shopping. Canuck wanted to go down to Belle Isle (he’s never been) to do some photography, so off we went, then out to dinner.

Late last night, I found out that Adam died at 3:20 yesterday afternoon. I’m glad he’s not suffering any more, and while the Church doesn’t take a position without miracles and whatnot, with all he suffered I’m confident that he’s either with Jesus already or going to be very soon. But it’s still very sad, especially for his family and his closer friends. (HUGS!)

So now I’m waiting to hear about funeral arrangements for him…and then I heard that one of Canuck’s uncles (by marriage, but still) is in the hospital and not expected to live. (This uncle and aunt were unable to come to the wedding because of the uncle’s health…it’s been coming, we just didn’t know quite when it would be.) Prayers for Mac would be appreciated.

I will try to be back and posting later this week.

(Oh – and be sure to wish my beloved Canuck a happy birthday tomorrow! )

• Autobiographical ramblings , Busy-ness , Family , Friends and fellow bloggers , Prayer requests , Stuff I do
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Kasia July 20th, 2008

You may or may not know this, but I don’t really know how to cook.

I mean, I sort of do. I know how the stove and the oven work (though the microwave is a more commonly used appliance at Chez Kasia). I understand the rudiments of cooking. But if cooking is an art, then I am a philistine.

It’s not entirely my fault. My mother was an ardent feminist who thought cooking, cleaning and housework were drudgery. So teaching her daughters how to keep house was not high on her priority list. And sure – shared housework is a good thing, and most couples I know do share housework to some degree or another. But one still needs to know how to DO it!

My dad did most of the cooking and quite a lot of the cleaning, but he was also supporting us, and was consequently way too busy to teach me much about what he was doing. And I was too busy having tantrums and refusing to clean my room to care. (I was a difficult child. I really hope any children Canuck and I have take after him.)
My only memory of doing anything in the kitchen before age 10 or so, apart from loading or unloading the dishwasher, was fluting the edges of pierogi with a fork as my grandmother made them. I don’t doubt that she would have taught me more about cooking as I got older, but unfortunately, she died when I was 8.

When I was 10, my parents divorced. My poor dad was running himself ragged trying to support us and keep us halfway sane. TBS was helping him. But the house was a madhouse and we were all hanging on by the skin of our teeth. At that point, my level of expertise graduated to making my own lunch: a sandwich, a drink box/Capri Sun sort of thing, and some sort of Hostess dessert. (The Hostess was a HUGE deal – my mother NEVER let us have junk food. Come to think of it, the Capri Sun was a big deal too…)

I started doing my own laundry in sixth or seventh grade, because my dad’s rule was that it all had to be downstairs, turned, pockets checked, zipped and snapped, on Saturday morning so he could do all our laundry. A very reasonable rule. But I could never get it together enough to have it done at a reasonable time Saturday morning, so finally I asked someone to teach me to use the washer and dryer.

Around that time, I learned to make pancakes. And at some point in high school, my stepmother taught me to make “monkey bread” (YUM). Along the way, she taught me by way of correction, a fair bit more about housework than I had known before.

But really, I still hadn’t learned to cook. And when I was 23, I flew off to England for a semester. No dormitory cafeteria – a common kitchen. I was going to live off my own cooking for six months.

TBS, being possessed of great foresight, anticipated the problem and started teaching me to cook some basic things: hard-boiled eggs, rice, banana bread, Greek chicken. After my arrival in Britain, a couple of Czech housemates of mine taught me some additional lessons. Like Czech pancakes (which are basically crepes), and that outside of the U.S. and Canada, throwing away food is simply not done. (Quite a culture shock!)

I made it through that experience with a little bit of TBS-taught cookery, a little bit of Czech help, and probably more prepared foods than I ought to have eaten (I was especially fond of a garlic-butter baguette that Tesco sold). Oh – and with some care packages from home, including my dearly-beloved grape jelly (which I couldn’t find anywhere over there) and some boxes of Velveeta shells and cheese. You should’ve seen the one Czech girl’s face when she saw me making it…but I convinced her to try it and she marveled at how good it was…

All this to say: my domestic skills were, and to a great extent still are sorely lacking. (I scrubbed my first floor, with the help and instruction of TBS, at age 25.) I’ve improved, it must be said, thanks to FlyLady, Saving Dinner, TBS, the Canuck, my parents (even my mother, who for my 30th birthday gave me a copy of Cooking Basics for Dummies with the phrase “Girls Whose Mothers Neglected Them” P-Touched over the word “dummies”), and countless friends. But I’ve got a looong way to go before I’m up to my age standard.

So you can see why I’m excited that I had a little domestic breakthrough today.

Inspired by Jennie C., I decided that I was not going to make my this-week’s grocery run be another hot-dog-and-frozen-dinner-fest. No – I picked out three recipes and made a list based on them. The first recipe was from Saving Dinner. The second recipe was from a cookbook TBS gave me as an early wedding gift, called Quick, Thrifty Cooking. The third recipe was Jennie’s sausage & pepper sandwich recipe. And I figured out a few other things I needed, like milk and bread.

Well. I went to Kroger. And do you know, not only did I follow my list (though I did pick up a couple of things that weren’t on it because they were on sale and I wanted to stock up), and watch sales, but I mentally shifted gears several times, initially scratching off one recipe because I thought it wasn’t going to be affordable, but then going back, recalculating, and deciding to do it after all.

It was possibly the most enjoyable grocery shopping trip I’ve ever done. And not a hot dog or frozen dinner in the cart. (Not even a frozen lasagna!)
THEN, after I got home and unloaded everything, I debated whether I ought to heat up my last remaining frozen dinner – after all, it was 80 degrees out, my air conditioning doesn’t work, and I live on the second floor – or whether I should suck it up and COOK.

I cooked.

I used the stove. I used the oven. I used three pans and a casserole dish, baby! AND IT TASTED GOOOOOOOOD!!!

(I even washed a load of dishes after. I had to take a shower when all was said and done because it was so stinkin’ hot, BUT I DID IT!!!)

And now, the challenge becomes doing it again tomorrow. Or the next day, if my leftovers carry me through…

• Autobiographical ramblings , Domesticity , Family , Home , Stuff I do
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Kasia June 28th, 2008

…at the wedding reception. After all, it’s tradition!

Canuck and I have ordered our wedding cake, deposit and all. Half a dozen of us (me, Canuck, TBS, Jill, and my father and stepmother) traipsed out to Mannino’s Bakery in Sterling Heights (which I highly recommend to anyone looking for a wedding cake or just some yummy Italian-style pastries – based on what I’ve seen thus far, they’re about as good as the fabulous Bommarito’s over here in St. Clair Shores)  for a cake tasting. We tried four flavor combinations: chocolate cake with yellow custard, yellow cake with yellow custard, marble cake with no filling, and cassata (yellow cake with cannoli filling).

Now, I shan’t tell you which flavor we settled on (though they were all quite tasty!), but I will tell you that despite their all being very good and tasty cakes, the votes were unanimously for the agreed-upon flavor. And Mannino’s had an excellent staff member (a member of the family – she couldn’t have been 25 or I’ll eat my hat, but boy did she know her stuff!) helping us, and we came up with a combination of two designs that I think is going to be simply gorgeous.

What I found funny: my stepmother knows me too well. She knows I would have to be browbeaten into buying a pedestal cake plate for this (and if I did it I’d grumble the whole time about how it wasn’t really necessary) – heck, I’m being browbeaten into wearing a headpiece with my veil! – so she wrote down all the particular dimensions and is going to go shop for one and buy it for us. That way she gets the satisfaction of seeing it look “just so”; I get the satisfaction of seeing it look “just so” (even though I probably wouldn’t have missed it to begin with); and no one has to listen to me moan about it. Win-win-win. 

I think I may dream about that cake tonight…

• Family , Friends and fellow bloggers , My Beloved , Wedding
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Kasia June 25th, 2008

My beloved reminded me in the combox about Dogdini and DJ of a particular DJ story that just screams for its own post. What can I do – I aim to please…  

Several years ago, when my mother still lived in Detroit, TBS had a brilliant idea for Mother’s Day. And I mean it: it was really a great idea.

We had been in the habit of ordering Pizza Papalis (mmm…) for Mother’s Day. It was quite popular, but also quite expensive. TBS said, “Why don’t we cook her a nice meal for Mother’s Day instead? It can be less expensive AND more thoughtful.”

I thought that was a lovely idea, but there were two big drawbacks. One, we both lived in small apartments and didn’t really have room for guests. Two, I was even less proficient a cook then than I am now.

“No problem,” said my intrepid seester. “I’ll handle most of it. I’ll do the prep work at home, and the grocery shopping; and then you cut me a check for your share and help with what needs to be done at Mom’s.”

So she spent her weekend chopping and dicing and slicing and otherwise slaving over a hot countertop, and on Mother’s Day she came over with the lamb chops and the side dishes and whatnot, all ready for last steps. I came over with myself and my checkbook.

First TBS discovered we had to scrub out the broiler, because my mother (and you can bet this is where I get my propensity to do things like this) had apparently forgotten to do that the last time she used it.

Then TBS instructed me on how to start the broiler and put the lamb chops in. In all things, I am her sous chef. The most complicated thing I think I’ve ever done on a project with her is knead dough (which I think I’m actually pretty good at – I learned from my beloved) when we made stollen. Meanwhile, she’s bopping around the kitchen doing all sorts of kitchen-madonna type of things, and instructing me on something else to do after.

After a short time we notice an odd smell.

We wonder what it is, but dismiss it.

It grows stronger.

For some inexplicable reason, it occurs to one of us to have me check the oven.

There is a giant blue blob in the oven. I have no idea what it is. I shout, perplexed and frustrated, “Who left a candle in the oven?!?”

My mother comes running and looks.

It’s not a candle. It is the dishpan they keep their recycling in. The plastic dishpan they keep their recycling in.

Now, you may be wondering why my mother would keep her recycling in a plastic dishpan, much less put that plastic dishpan into the oven. That’s a fair question.

She kept her recycling in the dishpan because it was easily stored and moved to places where DJ the incorrigible Brittany spaniel couldn’t get to it and chew up all the recycling.

But she didn’t usually keep the plastic dishpan in the oven. (Of course not. That would be silly.)

She usually kept it in the microwave.

It was not in the microwave that fateful Mother’s Day. She had moved it out of the microwave to use the microwave for something, and we, her unsuspecting daughters, did not think to ask “Mom, is there, perhaps, some chance that you might have put it into the oven for safekeeping?”

In fairness and in hindsight, I should have checked the oven before turning the broiler on. I usually check the oven before preheating it; it just didn’t occur to me to do so when using the broiler.

In equal fairness and hindsight, it was probably not one of my mother’s more intelligent decisions to put a plastic dishpan into the oven for safekeeping, especially when she knew other people were coming over to use her kitchen.

The lamb chops had melted plastic drizzled onto them, but we scraped it off and finished cooking them on the grill. They were salvageable. The oven, on the other hand, was not salvageable.

We had to air out the house and put DJ outside (where he tried desperately to get at the grill with the lamb chops). The cats hid in the basement, so we had to hope and pray that they didn’t asphyxiate from the fumes before the house was fully aired.

Poor TBS. She worked like a maniac trying to make a nice Mother’s Day, and that’s what happened. She was…shall we say , less than happy? I felt awful for her.

By the time dinner was ready the house was not yet fully aired, so we ate al fresco at a card table in my mother’s back yard, to the sounds of neighbor kids playing basketball and neighbor parents good-naturedly asking why we were having an outdoor dinner.

The oven was ruined. My mother had to buy herself a new stove for Mother’s Day.

And all because she had a Brittany spaniel.

• Animals , Autobiographical ramblings , Domesticity , Family , Tales of holiday woe
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Kasia June 24th, 2008

About a week ago, I stumbled onto a blog that I’ve been enjoying. Maybe some of you have been clicking the link from the sidebar for Snarkolepsy? Those of you who haven’t, by all means check it out, though I will warn you that some of the language there is not safe for children’s consumption or for sensitive adults. Be ye thus advised. 

Anyway, I got sucked in by pictures of cute bunnies, and the next thing you know, I was reading a post about the neighbor’s dog, a.k.a. Dogdini, who has an uncanny knack for getting into the Snarkoleptics’ yard.

I’m reading, and I’m laughing, and I’m scrolling down. And then I saw the picture. And the pieces clicked together, and the heavens opened up, and there was a sort of a light and “LAAAA!” song by the angels…because I suddenly understood exactly what the Snarkoleptics are going through.

Their neighbor has a Brittany spaniel.

This may get confusing, because I have often referred to a friend of mine who frequents this blog as DJ, and his wife as Mrs. DJ. Forget that, for the moment. The DJ I am about to tell you about is NOT my dear friend with the awesome wife and the four great kids, three of whom are special-needs. No. Not that DJ.

The DJ I’m about to tell you about is a dog. A Brittany spaniel, to be precise; and as long as I’m working on precision, I may as well use the past tense. DJ was a Brittany spaniel. After a long, full life of raising Cain, he died and is presumably flailing against the gates of Heaven while St. Peter stares in shock at this dog who is actually going to scale the gates.

DJ stood for Dakota Jewel, which was his AKC name. My mother had fallen in love with a Brittany at a pet shop a scant week or two before getting a call from a friend, asking if she could take a rescue Brittany.

My mother knew nothing about Brittanies except that the one in the shop was beautiful, and so sweet and playful! She took the dog. And much as I loved that dog, many was the time each of us rued the day she took him.

Shortly after she adopted him, she took him to the vet to get him checked out and vaccinated. Her vet, a charming man with a fabulously dry wit, said “You do know that saying a Brittany is hyperactive is like saying Attila the Hun was assertive, right?”

On top of “normal” Brittany energy, DJ had been crated for most of his puppyhood. Crated during the day while his owners were at work, let out for three or four hours in the evening, then crated again overnight. That’s a recipe for trouble with just about any puppy, much less a high-energy, good-sized one. And they wondered why he was so frantic when he did get out of the crate. Gee, I wonder.

And Brittanies are seriously high-energy dogs. For a Brittany to be happy, you really need a high-energy person or set of people who will engage with it and keep it active. I mean taking it out for runs a couple of times a day, a lot of play and attention, etc. They’re unbelievably sweet dogs, but I have yet to see anyone really give a Brittany the attention and activity they need. And when a dog is bored, that excess energy is going to translate into inappropriate behavior.

With Dogdini, that inappropriate behavior seems to primarily manifest in getting into the Snarkoleptics’ yard (over a six-foot fence). With DJ…well, let me count a few of his more notable escapades…

1. He had a habit of getting into the kitchen trash. My mother started putting a luggage strap around it, which did confound him for a few years. Then one fine day he figured out how to get the luggage strap off the trash can, and all bets were off.

2. He ate cockroach traps. Seriously – those Combat things? Yeah. Chewed up a box. No ill effects that we noticed.

3. He ate the lion’s share of a wooden spoon, and chewed up a metal frying pan.

4. Like many dogs, he thought the street was part of his territory. So every time the mailman (or anyone else) would come, he would wail out the most unbelievable series of barks you ever heard, and hurl himself against the foyer door. The <i>leaded glass</i> foyer door. One day – you guessed it – the glass gave out and he crashed right through it. Not a scratch on him. When my mom replaced the door, she had to have the glass covered with Plexiglass.

5. I am given to understand that someone I know (neither TBS nor I, and no, not my mother either) left some quantity of a herbaceous controlled substance within dog’s reach. Nobody saw it happen, but the ganja disappeared, Baggie and all, never to be seen again. We can only presume that DJ was a very happy puppy that day…

6. Although his behavior improved for several years with shock-collar training (yes, shock collar – it was the only way my mother found to get him to behave, and she was on the verge of getting rid of him before she found what we dubbed “The Hand of God”), after about age 10 he started to regress. I think it was senility. One day he actually ate vegetables that were roasting in the broiler RIGHT OUT OF THE PAN IN THE BROILER. One might have thought that would shock his system, but apparently not…

7. What finally did him in, after fourteen years of insanity, was – believe it or not – cat food. He broke into the room where the animal food was stored, broke into the metal trash can that held the cat food, and ate about seven pounds of it. You know how dogs will eat until they pop? Well, he didn’t pop, but he did throw his stomach, pancreas, and various other organs waaaayyy out of whack. He was on chicken and rice for a month, was slowly recovering, and then had a stroke in the backyard one day.

I have to admit that I miss him. He really was one of the most loving dogs I’ve ever known, and to this day I can’t see a Brittany without asking the owner if I can pet it and telling them about DJ.

The few of you who knew DJ, please feel free to add in any other stories about him that I’ve left out in the combox. Those of you who didn’t know him, how about some other dog stories? I’m feeling doggy and nostalgic…

And say a prayer for both the Snarkoleptics and their neighbor, eh? I think they’ll both need it.  :-p

• Animals , Autobiographical ramblings , Family , Friends and fellow bloggers
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Kasia February 18th, 2008

A few months ago, The Big Seester sent me an article that reported that incandescent light bulbs are going to be phased out, until they are no longer available for purchase in 2012 or so. Maybe it was 2014. I responded with an only slightly facetious crack that I was going to start stocking up now.

She thought that was hilarious. But honestly, I hate CFLs. They look stupid, yes, but that’s not so much why I hate them (I would only hate them for that in my decorative fixtures). I hate them because I find their light depressing.

So she challenged me to try them in, say, my office for a while, and see if I still hated them. The result is a mixed bag. When I first turn them on, they’re sickly and weak and I inwardly curse whoever invented them. By the time they’ve been on 10 minutes or so, their light seems to become more robust (or perhaps I adjust to the pathetic light) , and my only real complaint is that they have a sort of an odd color to the light and the bulbs, which is probably the spectrum of the light.

My question to my readers is this: I keep hearing about full-spectrum CFLs, and CFLs that are supposed to be closer to incandescent lighting in their spectrum. However, if they do in fact exist and are not just an urban myth designed to keep those of us who like our light bright and strong from rebelling in defense of incandescents, then apparently they are not sold at any of the stores I patronize. The Canuck and I went looking for them specifically at a few different stores (local hardware store and K-Mart, at least), and no dice. Anyone have any luck finding these? (And while we’re at it, maybe we could find some that don’t look stupid for my decorative fixtures?)

I did the little DTE Home Analyzer energy assessment, and it congratulated me on using less energy than comparable homes in my area. I’m guessing it’s because my air conditioning is broken and I don’t have a dishwasher. That said, I’d still like to shave down my energy bills; and while I’m at it I might as well start to get used to these confounded CFLs. I’d just like them to be a little less of a penance.

OOH! THAT should’ve been my Lenten penance this year: change all of my light bulbs to CFLs!!! Maybe next year…

• Evil Utility Companies , Family , Home , Questions to readers
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Kasia February 1st, 2008

My mother moved to Las Cruces last spring. We’re still recovering. I still need to tell the story of the Poppytrail…but that can wait.

Anyway, she’s wanted us (TBS, The Canuck, and yours truly) to come visit since…well, pretty much since before she even left. I haven’t had the money for a plane ticket, so it hadn’t happened yet. Well, yesterday she e-mailed to tell us she’d found some great fares on Travelocity from Detroit to El Paso (which is apparently the most convenient airport for visiting Las Cruces), and would we please check and see if we could take advantage of any of them? She even offered to reimburse the airfare. So, in the spirit of honoring one’s mother, and with the additional benefit of an inexpensive vacation – ok, yes, I’ll be glad to see her, I admit it – The Canuck and I are booked to visit Las Cruces in April.

However, our trip runs over a Sunday. Has anyone visited Catholic churches in Las Cruces? I checked out masstimes.org and found there are quite a lot, but I’d prefer a recommendation if possible. Oh – and neither The Canuck nor I speaks Spanish, so an English Mass is preferable.

Also, if anyone has must-see recommendations for while we’re there, I’d certainly be appreciative. I’ve already asked my mother to think about the best way for us to visit Mexico while we’re there, since Las Cruces is so close to the border, so she’s percolating on that. Does anyone else have any suggestions, for either side of the border?

I will say that this was my worst experience trying to use Travelocity ever. I’ve used Expedia with a fair bit of success, and I think I’ve used Travelocity too, but for some reason I could not get it to change the number of adults when I clicked on the “book now” from the e-mail alert, and I couldn’t find the same fares when I searched for two adults traveling Detroit to El Paso. Then, when I called their customer service number, I had the singular delight of speaking to a well-intentioned but not particularly proficient non-native English speaker who began every sentence with “See, ma’am…” He tried – he really did – but when I finally managed to get through to him with what my concern was, his response was to tell me to call the airline directly and consider Travelocity for my future travel needs. Not exactly stellar customer service…but then, it may have been the only thing I could do – I don’t know whether he had the ability to help me (communication aside). As it was, I found the same flight seventeen dollars cheaper on the airline’s web site, so all’s well that

• Family , Travel , Vacation
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Kasia November 23rd, 2007

I have several nieces and nephews. Two of my nieces were at the family Thanksgiving shindig yesterday. One is turning seven in a couple of days, and the other is (I believe) five.

My stepsister was asking The Canuck and me questions about the wedding. The seven year old was in the room, and her mom said “You know that [Clam] and [Canuck] are getting married, right?”

“NO!???!”

“Yeah, they’re getting married.”

[shocked look] “I just knew they were ENGAGED, that’s all!”

I guess that’s a good object lesson in the importance of common vocabulary.

• Family , Words
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Kasia April 25th, 2007

And before TBS can ask, NO, there were no “special brownies” involved!  :-p

I dreamed I had a series of family encounters with Beloved-But-Obnoxious Cousin. For those readers who have not been blessed to attend a Clam family gathering…well, The Canuck can tell you how fortunate you are. Particularly a gathering of the maternal line.

However, more to the point, maternal Clam family gatherings tend to be punctuated by BBOC having a temper tantrum or three. In fairness, she used to be a lot worse; TBS and I once spent several hours listening to her screaming at her mother in an unfortunate homework-related incident. And to be honest, I was a tantrum queen myself, well into my teens.

On the other hand, she is now 23…

So anyway, last night I dreamed I had a series of encounters with her. In each one, she would start bemoaning something or other (as is her modus operandi), and I would respond with an only-slightly-dismissive-and-mocking “Waahh, waahh, waahh…” to which she would consistently respond by shrieking, sobbing, and running out of the room.

In my defense, each time I would try to override her shouting with loud explanations of what I was trying to convey. And also in my defense, this WAS only a dream.

Do I have to confess having enjoyed it?

• Dreams , Family , Silliness
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admin February 2nd, 2007

Deo Gratias!

I got word late last night that my aunt spoke directly with the owner of her company, who told her that she will not be laid off. Thank you, Lord! And thank all of you for the prayers!

Prayers would still be appreciated for Lily (Kheldar’s baby girl); Heather and Dale (who just miscarried); and my co-worker’s husband Gary, whose condition is worsening.

• Family , Friends and fellow bloggers , Prayer requests
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