Embroidery

Today's blog post is short. I have one million and one things to do today. And I can't really procrastinate on any of them because next week is really crazy. Next Monday my mom (who lives in the area) is having part of her spine fused. On Tuesday my daughter is having all four of her wisdom teeth removed. On Wednesday my son is having surgery on his tailbone to remove a cyst.

The most exciting thing today is that it's my grandmother her 93rd birthday. I embroidered pillowcases for her.

Okay, so the lighting's not great--the pillowcases do match. As I was working on these, my daughter fell in love with embroidered pillowcase when she saw these. I let her pick out a set that I'll make for her birthday. After I bought the set she liked, I noticed that they were really complicated. I've never even heard of some of the stitches involved. I guess it's a good thing that her birthday is in April.

Birthday Torte

 Today my oldest turns twenty.  How can he be twenty? I still feel twenty inside.  My outside doesn’t look twenty though. Hmm.  

Oh, well, the good news is that we get to eat chocolate torte. Everyone in the family gets chocolate torte for their birthday because:

1. It’s delicious. Of course, given that it’s made of butter, sugar, eggs, chocolate, and more chocolate, it would be hard to make it taste bad.

2. It’s gluten-free so I don’t have to make something different for Matt to eat. Not making two sets of food is so important to me that I don’t mind the fact that making the torte is the baking equivalent of the Ten Labors of Hercules. Melt the chocolate without burning it. Heat and chill a sugar syrup without crystallizing the sugar. Add beaten eggs to hot chocolate without having the eggs cook. Swathe a springform pan in plastic wrap and foil so that the water bath doesn’t melt the torte into a watery brown slop. (Aren’t you eager to make one?)

3. It lasts for days, theoretically. The torte is so rich and dense that I cut only thick slivers for pieces, which is perfect size for a chocolate fix. However, the kids are serious addicts and have discovered that if you wait about thirty minutes, you can eat another thick sliver. And thirty minutes after that, another. The torte doesn’t last long. But don’t worry, I’ll eat a piece for you.

Soda Out Your Nose

Matthew turned 13 this week. Now I have four teenagers in the house! This is why we have to buy 6 gallons of milk at Sam’s Club. The cashiers used to say, “Uh, do you make cheese or yogurt?” And we’d say, “Nope. We have teenagers.” (Although since Matt can’t digest casein, he doesn’t contribute to the 6 gallons.)

But enough about milk, Matt had a party this Saturday with a few friends. I asked him what he’d like to do with his friends beside eat chocolate torte (Matt can’t digest gluten either—so his “cake” is ultimate mix of chocolate, butter, sugar, and eggs.) But he didn’t want me to plan anything—they were going to play board games.

Just so you know, we are a family that lives on games. We have everything from Carcasonne to Settlers of Catan to Louis XIV to Bang!. But I bought a new game this summer that has become a major hit among the teens we know. It’s called Quelf. I actually bought it for Cal for his birthday, and we’ve played it as a family. Cal and I thought it was “okay,” but neither Luke, Ariel, Jacob, or Matthew can go to any friend’s house without bringing Quelf.

The object of the game, theoretically, is to win, although no one seems to care who wins. The real object is to laugh so hard soda spews out your nose. The source of the laughter? The bizarre, inane and embarrassing things your friends have to do. For example, Ariel got a card that insisted she had to find and wear a hat with a chin strap for the entire game—the only thing she could find was my Jane Austen chapeau. (Of course, it would have been funnier if one of the boys had had to wear it.) Then there was Matt who had to put five ice cubes in his pants and roll the die over and over until he got a five. Or there was Andrew who wasn’t allowed to use his arms for the entire game. And what about Luke? Every time someone rolled a four, he had to stand over them and act like a weeping willow and hum sad music. (He chose Darth Vader music—not my idea of sad music, but I guess if you’re Luke Skywalker…) And worst of all, David had to sing a love sonnet to…Luke. I could go on, but you get the idea. Yep, this is why they love it—humiliate yourself and your friends in five minutes or less. And we think Japanese game shows are weird…