Month: April 2013

On the Spectrum

/ Shane / 4 Comments

A while ago, Sara and I were listening to a story on NPR about a guy who discovered he had asperger syndrome. What was interesting was that Sara and I were having totally different reactions to the same story. The whole time I was listening, I was thinking, “Ugh, this is so annoying. I can’t stand it when regular, normal, everyday people claim to have some affliction that makes them different from everybody else. This is clearly an average person who wants to feel special.” Meanwhile, listening to the same story, Sara was thinking, “Oh my god I can’t believe what a weirdo this person is.”

This all came to light during a particular segment of the story. The man’s wife was describing how she was giving him a test to see if he had aspergers, and she came to a question that said, “Do you think about making traps?” She was absolutely convinced it was a typo, because the question didn’t make any sense, but her husband immediately answered, “Yes!” Everyone on the program had a good laugh over that one.

“This is so stupid!” I exploded. “Who doesn’t think about making traps?”

Sara looked at me in bafflement. “You think about making traps?”

“Of course I do.” Now it was my turned to be puzzled. “You don’t?”

“What kind of traps? Like for trapping…people?”

“No. I don’t know, any kind of traps,” I said. “Like how they work and if you could make them, or like if you were out in the wilderness if you could actually outsmart an animal and catch it. I mean, I don’t think about this all the time, but it crosses my mind.”

“I…do not think about making traps.”

“Not ever?”

“Not ever.”

This got me thinking that perhaps I was a weirdo after all. Obviously, however my brain worked would seem normal to me, so maybe I was a little asperger-y too. Maybe I identified with this guy a little too much.

A couple of days later, I was working with my brother in the garden.

“Do you ever think about snares?” he asked. “Like, how they work? I can’t really figure out how you could build one that would actually catch an animal.”

“Just a minute,” I said. “Hey Sara, could you come over here for a minute?”

Sara came over to stand with us in the garden.

“Nathan, do you ever think about making traps?”

“Yeaaaah…” he said suspiciously. “That’s what I was just asking you about.”

“You guys are unbelievable,” said Sara.

At this point, we started to speculate that maybe this was just a difference between men and women. Maybe some hidden hunter-instinct, long buried in men’s psyche, caused us to think about traps.

“No way,” said Nathan. “Rachael definitely thinks about traps.”

I decided to follow up on his hunch. It did seem highly likely that our sister had spent some time thinking about traps. I don’t know if this makes sense, but it somehow seemed like it would be in character. If so, maybe it’s familial rather than gender-based. I called her up.

“Hey, I’ve got a question for you. Do you ever think about making traps?”

“Traps?”

“Yeah, you know. Do you ever think about them?”

“What kind of traps? Like for trapping…people?”

“No, I don’t know. Any kind of traps. Just for trapping things.”

Rachael was decidedly suspicious about this line of questioning. “Why would I think about making traps?”

“This definitely counts as a no!” shouted Sara in the background.

“No reason, I was just curious,” I said, and hung up.

So what’s the deal? Are Nathan and I on the spectrum? Is it a male/female thing? Do you think about making traps?

Quote Monday asks you not to notice

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Ollie, noticing we live in a brick house: “Hey, we’re pigs!”

I guess he’s also never noticed the dirty dishes piled in the sink.

::Ollie flossing naked in the middle of a crowd of about 10 people::
Ollie: “This is *not* how mama flosses.”

::Ollie coming out of his room in the middle of the night::
Ollie: “I need bacon.”

Ollie: “Every time I sit down, Nala starts giving me a haircut.”

Me: “I don’t think I would lick a stranger.”
Sara: “Oh, I’m sure you’ve licked a stranger.”

Russian Yogurt Pancakes

/ Shane / 1 Comment

The first Friday of the month is reserved for recipes. You can see additional First Friday Food posts here.

The Reason:

“Wait a minute,” you’re saying. “This is not the first Friday of the month. Is there something wrong with my calendar?” No, you’re right. But I have so many food posts queuing up that I need to clear out a little inventory.

And it’s been far, FAR too long since we’ve had a pancake recipe on here!

The Journey:

These are yogurt pancakes, and as such, they take a lot of yogurt. I highly recommend making your own, which is cheap and simple. In fact, you can even use old yogurt that is starting to go bad!

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These are some of the most amazing, moist pancakes that I’ve ever had. The texture is absolutely perfect. Usually my pancakes are a little on the tough side since I use only whole wheat flour, which tends to be a little denser. The downside is that these are a little hard to work with in the pan; they are very tricky to flip. It’s well worth the effort though, and who cares what they look like anyway!

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My advice to offset this is to make very small pancakes. They’re easier to flip, and you can pretend like you’re a giant who needs to eat 80 pancakes for breakfast every morning.

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The Verdict:

These are so amazing. They’re moist and the yogurt gives them a buttery flavor, so you don’t need to put extra butter on top. The original recipe says you can top them with something savory instead of sweet, which I could totally see. And you can even use up yogurt that’s going bad! No downsides on this one. This is in our regular pancake rotation.

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The Recipe:

Recipe from A Girl’s Guide to Butter.

  • 4 cups plain yogurt (going bad OK)
  • 3 eggs
  • 4 tablespoons sugar
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 teaspoons baking soda
  • Enough (whole-wheat) flour to make a medium-thick batter (one that holds its shape but is still a liquid rather than a paste). I use a little less than 2 cups.
  • oil, for frying (we use coconut oil)
  1. Mix all the ingredients together except for oil, and beat until smooth.
  2. Heat the oil in a cast iron skillet over medium-high heat until almost smoking.
  3. Using a large tablespoon, spoon the batter into the pan in the form of small oval pancakes.
  4. Fry on one side until golden-brown, then flip, reducing the heat to medium, and cook until the other side is golden-brown as well. Be sure to add more oil if your skillet becomes dry.
  5. Remove to a platter and top with any of the desired toppings.

“The Double Belly Fluffle” – A Documentary in Three Parts

/ Shane / 2 Comments

A couple of years ago, a new sport took the world by storm. That sport was pillow juggling.

Athletes from around the United States competed in fierce competition to determine who would be the ultimate pillow juggling champion. But to understand the the true appeal of the sport, you have to go back to its roots as a performance art in the streets. Of course, every artist needs his tools. The most important part of the competition is the pillow itself.

Let’s go to the video. Here, some dedicated pillow artists discuss the craft:

After a quick warm-up, the competition starts to heat up:

Finally, the advanced moves start to show up:

Across the country, in houses, in the streets, and soon in arenas, pillow juggling is coming to you. When this becomes an Olympic sport, just remember that you saw it here first folks.

Get your pillows and start practicing.

The 3rd Annual Oliver’s Birthday Play

/ Shane / Leave a comment

A few years ago, at Ollie’s first birthday party, a spontaneous performance of the Wizard of Oz broke out. Longtime readers of the blog will be quite familiar with the fact that Evie loves nothing more than a performance of some kind, and she quickly turned this into a yearly tradition.

As the tradition has grown (and as she herself has grown), the play has turned into more and more of a production. This was the first year that she has taken it into her mind to really “direct” the play as well as star in it. She had very firm ideas about who would play each part, what the costumes would look like, etc. She has been preparing for four or five months.

This year she decided to perform “The First Christmas”, after her successfully reprising her performance as an angel. She had a line to speak in the play, so I was not surprised that she wanted to include that line in her play. What I did not realize was, Evie being Evie, she had also memorized *everyone else’s* lines in the play. Keep in mind she participated in the play in December, and it is now April. This is what she dictated to me for her play:

Fear Not, for behold I bring you good tidings of joy which shall come to all people.  For born this day, in the city of David, there is a savior which is Christ the Lord.

And this will be a sign to you; you shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.

And suddenly with the angels, there was a multitude of angels praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth, peace.”

Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing which has happened.

I don’t think it is exactly word for word, but I still think it’s pretty good for a 5 year old who heard something 2 times 4 months ago.

When writing the script, Evie was VERY specific. Who should go first, what they should say, where they should stand. She had me write:

Silent Night (2 verses)
A little bit of silence
Angels We Have Heard on High

I will spare you the video, but Evie’s directorial debut more or less went off without a hitch, and she successfully shepherded (no pun intended) a dozen actors through their roles. Don’t mention it to her though; like any true artist she was ultimately disappointed despite her success. I think she was mainly disappointed because she wanted it to last longer (specifically, she wanted it to last an hour).

In Evie’s exuberance, it is easy to forget that it was actually Oliver’s day. She graciously allowed him to be Baby Jesus. However, Oliver insisted his baby should be Baby Jesus, and he himself would be a “manger”. Of course, Baby Jesus needed to “lie in a manger”, so he originally planned to lay in the crib with the baby on top. That wasn’t quite comfortable, so he ultimately settled for hiding in his magic box, popping out for the big birthing scene, and then sitting next to the crib holding the baby’s hand.

I’m sure Evie has already begun planning for next year. It’s a good thing, because we’ll probably need the entire year to prepare the costumes and scenery. Anybody know what union scale ought to pay?