Boy Wonder Is 10

Boy Wonder recently turned 10, and we celebrated his big move into double digits (10!) with an overnight visit to Gatlinburg.

Birthday pancakes at The Pancake Pantry, oh yeah.

We jumped on the hotel beds, visited arcades, and played laser tag.  Laser tag is surprisingly fun, you know.

Daylong birthday amnesty by usually testy older sister.

For that matter, so is Gatlinburg.  Despite its reputation as a tacky tourist destination, I rather enjoyed it.  I am seriously mellowing in my old age.

The gaggle.

We had four hotel rooms, and I was awakened near dawn by whoops and thumps from the boys' room next door.  There are worse ways to wake up.

My BFF and her sleepy boy.

We headed directly to The Pancake Pantry, then to the arcades.  There was a pause for pizza, then back to the arcades.  And of course, we didn't miss an opportunity to visit Kilwin's, an old-timey candy and ice cream shop.

Posturing tweens.

Whoopee cushion-related merriment.

It was a very fun day, and we were glad to be able to celebrate it on a day off from school.  Happy Birthday, Boy Wonder, we love you!

Dumpling Fest with Dom Perignon

We recently received a pricey bottle of champagne, and so combined our annual Chinese dumpling fest with some high-class bubbly.   Good champagne is fine, light, and refreshing, very different from much of the champagne I've imbibed over the years. And of course, we were glad to share the Dom with some of our besties.

As in past years, we almost ate our body weight in Chinese pork dumplings, handmade and carefully fried by the Big Genie.  The kids were ecstatic to have access to unlimited numbers of dumplings, a contrast with our experiences in restaurants, where a small number of dumplings must be split and haggled over so that each person has an equal share.  A good time was had by all.

Cheers!

Mountain Goat Kids

Grandfather Mountain

Racquetheads!

Memorial Day 2012

Thankful

This past weekend found me in the North Carolina mountains with four people I am lucky to count as friends, and we had a blast. We had heart to hearts, laughed ourselves silly, drank whiskey sours like real grown-ups, ate fancy cheeses, relaxed over lunches, made fabulous chicken Marbella, and turned a blind eye to calories associated with donut muffins and homemade granola. Did I mention there were no alarm clocks? No schedules? The beautiful weather? The tempting proximity of both discount and boutique shopping?

A big shout-out of thanks to my girlfriends and family: My girlfriends for providing yet another weekend of tear-inducing hilarity and shopping enablement, and my family for putting up with my being gone for three days. I am truly grateful.

Pig Pickin'

You know how locavores are advocating closer involvement with our sources of food? Well, we were eyeball to eyeball with our food sources this weekend at Chez 500Jerk, and I mean that literally. Advance apologies to all the vegetarians out there, but we roasted a 40-pound pig over a firepit Saturday, and HOT DANG WAS IT GOOD.

The Spouse and a friend got crackin' early and sandwiched the wired-on butterflied pig between two large circular grates. They invited me to have a look at their creation ("It's like Lord of the Flies out here!"), then covered it with tin foil and flipped it every few hours until it roasted to a fine crisp.

All the women and children ran inside screaming when the pig came up from the firepit. Boy Wonder declared he was a vegetarian for the day. But the men were swelled with admiration.

Fire. Meat. Beer. Good.

Although there was a surgeon AND a vet at the pig pickin', yours truly dissected the beast. We had three platters filled with pulled pork and cracklings, Carolina vinegar sauce topping it all off. Plus, an amazing assortment of sides and desserts brought by friends. It was quite a feast.

Skipping the pig part of the meal didn't seem to hurt the twenty or so kids who ran around until dark playing football and flashlight tag . Maybe the gigantic marshmallows helped with that:


Although we sent guests home with bags of pork, we're still pretty covered up on the pork front. I'm predicting pork burritos and tacos this week. Pork and eggs, pork and beans, maybe even pork chili. Really, there are endless ways to recycle pork, and the leftovers may hold us until the next pig pickin'.

So, instead of turkey, guess what we're doing for Thanksgiving?

Shannon

See that blonde-headed woman to my left? She made me laugh for a solid year when we were seventeen years old at The Williston-Northampton School. Laugh so hard that I couldn't get any homework done. Laugh so hard that I would fall down in public places. All I remember about eleventh grade is how ridiculous it was and how my stomach muscles ached all the time. It was she who taught me the trick of wedging a paper cup full of shaving cream under a closed door, then stomping on it to hose down the room's occupants. Also! The unlovely hilarity of a tightly Saran-Wrapped dorm toilet. We stayed up late, swore like sailors, drank like fish, and just generally egged each other on all through Williston. It was a blast, and I am eternally grateful to her.



As you can see, we've birthed a new generation of clowns. May they be so lucky to find equally excellent friends and comrades in mischief! May they, too, laugh so hard they remember nothing from high school but how unremittingly funny it was. May they all find friends who do not allow them to take themselves too seriously.

And may they always, ALWAYS be wary of dorm toilets.

Running

Due to my deteriorating right knee, I'm looking for a form of exercise other than running. It's a hard act to follow. Although I've been an off and on runner since high school, running has been my saving grace since having children. In the last five years, I've gotten in shape, regularly decompressed, and connected with the outdoors as a result of running. I've run road races and seen neighborhoods and countrysides at a slower, more appreciative pace. Running has challenged me, mentally and physically. I've run in Iowa when it was in the single digits, and I practically crawled up a hill in Walland, Tennessee during a July road race in the 95 degree heat. But most importantly, I've established great friendships with fellow female runners. We've laughed and commiserated and celebrated, all while jogging around Knoxville, sometimes on pitch black winter mornings. Many of my runner friends are voracious readers like I am, so we discuss what we're reading during our runs and later swap books. We never jog too fast that we can't have a conversation, and on weekends, we sometimes follow our run with a covert, strictly social trip to SKCUBRATS (my husband can't read backwards). Running has been a great social and physical outlet.

But my right knee is not having it these days. I've given it a break and I've switched my shoes, but nothing has worked. I'm not giving up entirely, but branching out seems to be in order. So this weekend, I tried to swim laps at the CourtSouth pool. With my goggles slowly filling with water, I flailed up and down the lap lane, hoping I wasn't attracting too much concern from the tan, annoyingly lean lifeguard. As I hung on the wall panting after each lap, I realized how solitary swimming is. (And really, how exhausting and boring.)

I just don't think swimming's going to do it for me.