See Sam Drive
Sam bought replacement windshield wipers today and, just like his father used to do, decided that five minutes before it was time to go to work, he should try to put them on.
Mark drove me nuts with that. “Oh, don’t go to work just yet, I need to change the oil in your car,” and I’d be standing there in my high heels and blazer and wondering why after 20 years of knowing that doesn’t work, he still did it.
For Sam, it became an all-hands-on-deck operation and Michael managed to get them on well enough that Sam got to work on time.
When he gets home, we’ll see if we can get those little guards attached. Meanwhile, I’m hoping the drought holds out for another hour.
Love Letter to Steve Jobs
In 1990, Mark and I didn’t know anything about autism. But our little boy couldn’t talk and we feared the worst.
Sam was drawn to a simple, hypercard game, “Cosmic Osmo,” that came already loaded on our first MacIntosh computer.
As he played, we saw that even though Sam couldn’t speak, he could think.
We never got to thank you while you were here, Steve Jobs. Today, I’m sure Mark got that covered.
Comfort Food (recipe for majadrah)
Tonight I made a batch of majadrah, a Lebanese lentil and rice dish that Mark and I came to crave when we were living in Sacramento.
The woman who cooked at Juliana’s Kitchen would scoop a portion on the plate with falafel and tabouli. Sam was a toddler then, and he didn’t care for the tabouli or falafel, but he ate lots of majadrah.
I would ask her for the recipe and she would always refuse. I’m not particularly good at tasting and figuring out what another cook is doing, so it took me the better part of ten years to get it down. The key, I’ve found, is caramelizing the onions, adding the cumin into the oil and letting it get fragrant before stirring in the rice and coating it with the cumin-infused oil.
Anyways, I had 2 cups of cooked lentils and I hadn’t made this in years, so out came the old recipe. And with my first bite, I was back in Juliana’s kitchen with Mark and Sam.
When Sam came home from work, I told him I made some lentils and rice and it was one of his childhood favorites. He got a big smile on his face, and then put his nose to it when I told him I started by caramelizing the onions.
“Ooooo, carmel,” he said. “I’ve got to take a shower first, but I’ll try it.”
That’s huge. Sam hasn’t eaten beans since he was 3 years old. I’ll let you know how it goes. Meanwhile, here’s the recipe.
2 cups cooked lentils
1/4 cup olive oil
2 large onions, chopped coarsely
1 tsp cumin
1 cup long grain rice (white or brown)
1 cup water
1-ish cup chicken stock
1 tsp salt
Freshly ground pepper to taste.
Caramelize the onions in the oil in a Dutch oven. This can take 25-30 minutes. Once the onions are nicely browned, add the cumin and sauté another minute. Add the rice and sauté for a minute or two to coat. Add the lentils, water and stock, cover and cook, over very low heat, without stirring, until the rice is tender. If the liquid is absorbed before the rice is tender, add more stock. Sprinkle the salt over the top when nearly all the liquid is gone and return the cover to the pot.
Taste and adjust seasonings.
Overheard in the Wolfe House #134
Sam: Uh-oh, fluorescent lights. (pauses). Mom, where are …. ?
Peggy: Yes?
Sam: I was about to ask an inappropriate question.
Peggy: An inappropriate question? Oh, you mean you were about to ask where the light bulbs are?
Sam: I was about to ask where the light bulbs are.
Peggy: And you know where the light bulbs are?
Sam: I know where the light bulbs are.
Humbled
This is just about the nicest thing a peer has ever said about me … dunno whether it was Gayle Reaves, or Jeff Prince, or Peter Gorman, or another one of those tenacious journalists over at the Fort Worth Weekly who wrote this, but I’ve got tears in my eyes.
I’ve long respected and admired their work and have been jealous at times that alt-weeklies have more ink to accomplish what needs to be said. And the Weekly knows that when it comes to the Barnett Shale, A LOT more needs to be said.
Buh-Bye, PFY 478
I stood in line at the tax office for a reasonable amount of time, about 15 minutes, which was made merrier because Monte Borders came in halfway through the wait. Monte lights up every room he enters.
Then, I told Sam’s sad story to the clerk, handed over his registration sticker and $7 — again, not too bad — to get him on the road again without having his license plate pop up in every police scan he drove by.
This was something Sam could have done, but I didn’t want him to miss work and I’m just down the street. I’d already planned on spending the day addressing other people’s screw-ups (this means you, Bank of America), so I was ready to make a party of it today.
I asked the clerk whether this happened very often, whether she had given anyone else new plates because their plate number was in the warrant database. She said not very often, but it wasn’t uncommon either.
And she agreed, this was the best way to fix the problem.
Sam got a new 7-digit plate. I remember when California went from six digits to seven digits on their plates.
That’s about when we left California. Too many people.
Hmm.
Best. Rejection. Ever.
I was cleaning out some files and came along this little gem from about a decade ago, when I was first casting about for freelance work while in grad school.
This one was a real keeper.
Overheard in the Wolfe House #133
Peggy: Wanna go to St. Philips in the morning tomorrow, since you’re working tomorrow night?
Sam: Yeah.We’ll take your truck.
Auto Identity Theft
Sam got pulled over again in Flower Mound.
He tried to tell me this once before, that his car identity had been stolen. It made no sense to me. His car had caught that officer’s eye because he was in the wrong lane for a moment, so I thought the license plate story was getting lost in translation.
Kind of like the aphasiac talk in Diane Ackerman’s book, One Hundred Names for Love.
But today, he explained it well enough that I knew I had to make a call.
You see, the officer recommended that he just get new license plates. That kind of recommendation doesn’t get lost in translation.
I made a follow-up call to the police department and the officer who pulled him over set me straight. Someone got a ticket in Balch Springs and didn’t pay it. When they issued a warrant for her arrest the warrant went out on both her driver’s license and her car license.
What got lost in translation was that girl’s license plate being entered in to the database. Sam got his tags at the Denton County Tax Office in 2008.
Guess where we’re going Monday? We aren’t going to try to bother telling Balch Springs his are not the tags they’re looking for. We’re going to solve this expeditiously.
Well, as expeditiously as a human being can experience the tax office.
His Own Kind of Up
In training for my first half-marathon, as of this morning, I have run 193 miles. That’s about as far as Kent Couch flew in 2007, when he launched his lawn chair with helium balloons in his own version of “Up.”