Entries from January 2010
Lucy the 5-year-old has been talking about her imaginary friends for years. Recently she told us about Alice, and Alice has been around a lot lately. A few days ago: “Alice my imaginary friend is 1 month older than me. She’s 6 years old. She can’t hear you. And there are also different colored dots that I catch in my hand.”
This morning on our walk to school the sidewalk was crowded with all of her imaginary friends. There were 100 blinking lights in different colors everywhere all around us, and I learned that they go to space and back and they walk by blinking. Alice was also with us. She always wears same clothes, pink dress and pink pants, because she doesn’t have a home, and she doesn’t need to wear rainboots or a rainjacket because the rain doesn’t touch her. Even though she’s older than Lucy, she’s the same height.
All of these imaginary friends, Alice and the blinking lights, are allergic to grownups so grownups can’t see them. Even 9-year-old’s can’t see them because 9-year-old’s are almost grownup.
I asked Lucy if she was ever an imaginary person and she said, “I’m not a person. I’m 4 things – cat, shark, sloth, dinosaur, but not a person. My friend Oscar is a vampire. He’s not a person either, just a vampire. I’m a cat because I can lap up water out of a bowl and swallow it. I’m a shark because I can swallow an orange slice without chewing it. I’m a sloth because I can hang upside down without falling. I’m a dinosaur because my feet stomp loudly on the ground. I’m not not not a person. Sometimes I’m a person, but not today.”
Categories: kindergarten
Tagged: friends, imaginary
Here’s a cocktail I invented last year and was thinking of today. It’d be a good antidote for the cold windy rainy weather that has been assaulting San Francisco.
The Crispicy
2 oz Ginger Cardamon Vodka
1 oz Black Pepper Syrup
Juice of 1 lemon
Shake with ice and strain.
This makes a good batched and bottled cocktail to give to friends. Just mix up multiples of everything but the lemon juice and keep it in the fridge. Bottle it and gift it with lemons. Instruct your friends to fresh squeeze 1 lemon with 3oz of the mix.
Black Pepper Syrup
1 cup water
1 cup sugar – it’s nice with brown sugar for color & extra flavor
15 or so black peppercorns
Boil 5 minutes, cool, then store in a glass jar in the fridge. Splash in an ounce of vodka to preserve it if you won’t use it up in the next week or two.
Ginger Cardamom Vodka
20 lightly crushed green cardamom pods
20 slices 1/4inch thick ginger
750ml vodka
Combine in a glass container. Shake and check every day. I think it’s usually done (flavorful enough) within a day.
Categories: cocktail
Tagged: cocktail, vodka
38 seconds of Lucy stomping around
never ever ever ever going to school (463kb mp3 file)
“after tomorrow or after that day, or after that day, or after that day, or after that day, never ever ever ever going to school, not even once, so I’m not going to school, I’m not going to school, I’m just going in the car”
Categories: kindergarten
Today when I headed out to the grocery store I put $50 cash in my pocket and no credit cards.
My grocery list was cauliflower, apples, heavy cream, walnuts, cheese, and some snacks to eat at work.
I spotted a spicy chocolate sesame bar and picked up a few and thought “we probably need more butter” and then I was THAT annoying person in the grocery line asking the cashier to remove one thing at a time until the bill was less than $50.
Categories: food
Tagged: budget, grocery shopping
