Let's Review: Way Better

In the department of snacks, I am conflicted. On the one hand, I buy very little junk food. On the other hand, sometimes you just need a bag of Cheez Doodles. In my family, what you do is serve the Cheez Doodles in a blue enamel-ware bowl - just visualize those orange worms in a cobalt blue bowl - and call them Nassau County Snacks. Actually, you could say they were an homage to the Mets or the Knicks, but we were from Nassau County, and the county colors were blue and orange, and so...Nassau County Snacks. They must be the original Cheez Doodles. It must be an enamel-ware bowl.

I digress. The point is, I am not holier-than-thou, and I do eat chips (and Doodles) from time to time. But because I am conflicted, I was totally susceptible when a PR rep offered me the chance to try some "Way Better" chips.

Honestly? They're really tasty. They say they're laced with sprouted seeds, and while I'm not sure that I cotton to the idea that "sprouting provides increased vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, digestibility and nutrient absorption", who cares? They taste GOOD.

Besides, an ounce of Cheez Doodles has 150 calories and no dietary fiber, whereas the Way Better Simply Sunny Multigrain chips have 130 calories and 3 grams of fiber per ounce. Also, Cheez Doodles have MSG, several different artificial colors and so-called natural flavors. The Way Better chips have nothing unpronounceable - just corn, oil, salt and a mess of sprouted seeds.

Are they health food? No. Are they better for you than Cheez Doodles? Probably. Are they any good? Yes, actually, they are.

But they aren't ever going to take the place of Nassau County Snacks.

---

Disclosure: the chips were free, but no one paid me to talk about them.

Let's Review: All Of The Things

What kind of a blog do I have? I wouldn't really call this blog a review blog. In fact, I'm hard-pressed to come up with an "elevator speech" for it, because really all I do here is ramble on about whatever detritus is rattling around in my head, from the ridiculous to the sublime. Okay, then, it's a personal blog.

Somehow, though, I've ended up on any number of PR lists - either because I've stuck it out here since 2006, or because I've been to BlogHer, um, five times. I trash most of the pitches instantly (though I sometimes daydream about eviscerating the really heinous, useless, misguided products). But once in a while I get offered something that interests me for one reason or another, and within the week, a box lands on the doorstep.

Ooh, what is it this time?

It's a conundrum though. I - by the very fiber of my being - must be honest in my opinions. So, when something turns up that sounds good on paper but turns out to be not to my taste, what do I do? I can choose not to review it. But an absence of critical attention to a product is almost tantamount to an endorsement.

I remember, years ago, having an argument with someone about the Nielsen ratings. It was back in the day when I lived in a tiny apartment, and had a tiny TV with rabbit ears, and once in a blue moon I'd watch David Letterman, through the snow. TV wasn't something I did, or do - it's just not a part of my life. But, I came home one day and found the Nielsen booklet in my mailbox, along with a crisp dollar bill. And when it came time to mail that booklet back, I found that in fact I'd never turned on the TV that week. So I sent it back blank. My co-worker, with whom I then argued, thought it was wrong of me to have returned the booklet, since I hadn't watched anything. But watching nothing is as valid a response as watching everything. Yes?

Not too long ago, a PR firm sent me a sample of some cookies. I wanted to like them: the brand makes other really good cookies, and they contained no untoward ingredients*. But I didn't like them, so I sent an email back to the representative, explaining why I wouldn't write about them on my blog:

1. The package is either too small or too big. It's too big for a lunchbox - in fact, it says the container has four servings in it. Better if it were a single serving container. Better still would be a big box, to pull a snack-sized handful out to be repacked into a ziploc.

2. I love love love (redacted), and I like lots of oatmeal cookies. I didn't really like these - I found them too sweet, rather bland, and under salted.

Should I name names? Just because I think the cookies were kind of boring, and in an idiotically sized package, doesn't mean that you'd agree with me. If I name them, they're getting free publicity (well, free but for the box of cookies they sent me). Don't forget what Oscar Wilde said: "The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about."

My local newspaper is the New York Times. In the arts departments, they review dance, musicals, books, movies. Sometimes they rave about something, sometimes they pan, sometimes a review is mixed - the point being that they don't hold their punches. Honest criticism. I may not always agree with them, but I appreciate that not everything will be said to smell like a rose.

What to do, what to do? It's easy to review things that you love. It's fun to review things that you hate. It's good to review things, because it engages your critical faculties. Besides, if you want the world to be a better place, you need to speak the truth. Let's review all the things.

No, I'm not turning this into a review blog. No way, no how. But I think I'll make "Let's Review" into a more regular feature. Anything you want an opinion on?






* Wheat flour, butter (22%), wholegrain oats (22%), sugar, golden syrup (partially inverted sugar syrup), raising agents (sodium bicarbonate, disodium diphosphate), skimmed milk powder, salt.

The Idiosyncratic Librarian

Because we had the inside of the house painted, and many things had to be packed and moved and unpacked, I have been fondling my books, as one does. There's a stack to go to the daycare the girl attended, another for the library book sale (which isn't until June). There's a stack for my brother's little kids, and a box of children's books that I am constitutionally incapable of parting with. And as I shuffle, I reshelve. In some other lifetime, I may have been a librarian.

A couple of my Edward Gorey books had wandered off from their special shelf, and I decided to alphabetize them, though I had to leave out The Lavender Leotard (because it's staple bound, and has no spine to show.

Also, The Awdrey-Gore Legacy, which immediately precedes The Lavender Leotard, actually is a one volume edition of The Toastrack Enigma, The Blancmange Tragedy and The Postcard Mystery. I think it's okay that I filed it under Legacy.

What? You don't file books by noun? Where is your imagination?

Though I read them from time to time, I usually find books of collected letters to be rather tedious. But a couple of years ago, Pomegranate published a beautiful book of letters between Edward Gorey and a guy named Peter Neumeyer, called Floating Worlds. Gorey and Neumeyer had collaborated on a handful of little books for children, Neumeyer writing and Gorey illustrating. [Hmm, I have a copy of their Donald and the... - I need to find it and properly shelve it.]

Anyway, Floating Worlds is a delightful book: beautifully designed and full of reproductions of Gorey's envelopes to Neumeyer. Oh to have been his correspondent! He talks of going to the ballet, he's torn between life on Cape Cod and life in New York City. But I think I was completely won over and perhaps a little undone when I came to the letter in which Gorey makes a David Eyre's pancake, and includes the recipe. His addendum to the recipe is just perfect:

It is presumably Craig Claiborne who advises that one serve this while listening to Benjamin Britton's Ceremony of Carols.

And there you have it - my childhood writ small. George Balanchine, Benjamin Britten, Craig Claiborne, David Eyre and Edward Gorey.

No wonder I alphabetize by noun.

Annals of Construction

Text from husband:

"Day began with Clover sheet rocked into hole in kitchen ceiling. (The 9yo) saw it and was understandably FREAKED THE FUCK OUT. Good thing we stopped there before going to horse camp. Otherwise the cat would have been taped and spackled too."

Yes, we have been living amid chaos this summer. Someday, all of the work will be done. Someday.

Happily, both cats are accounted for and all holes in walls and ceilings have been closed up.

But I will be happy when there aren't construction workers trekking through the house before I've had that all important first cup of coffee, and when I can start putting the garden to rights again.

Simple Joys Of Work

I got a new stapler! It is chrome, and is heavy enough to be a weapon. My Chinese mermaid fairy likes it very much.

Also, a box arrived in the mail, from Taiwan.

Boxes from Taiwan are all well and good, but according to the customs form, this one contained wedding cake.

I was a little skeptical, but in fact, there really was cake inside, special Taiwanese wedding cake.

It got eaten before I could take its picture, but truly, there was cake in that sweet pink box.

Do you have any small joys to share?

Exit Through The Gift Shop

It wasn’t my idea. In fact, it never would have been my idea. But my sister proposed it, and when I figured out that JetBlue flies non-stop to Orlando out of the micro-airport that’s 10 minutes from my house, I signed on.

I packed a bag, on the sly, and loaded it into the obscured way-back of the car. My husband announced that we had errands to run, a light fixture to return, groceries to buy and we piled into the car before 10 on Saturday morning.

It wasn’t until we’d stopped in front of the terminal that she looked up and said “where are we going?” I merrily refused to tell her, and led her into the airport, and up to the observation deck. She kept asking, and I kept grinning, until I suggested that she open her backpack and try to guess. Out came her wand and Gryffindor t-shirt: “we’re going to a Harry Potter convention?!?”

Well, not exactly, but close enough: we went to what I like to call Harry Potter Land, that theme park formally known as Universal Orlando. Three nights and two days, many roller coasters and countless foot-miles. Me and my sister, and our four children. Some tears, a lot of screaming, plenty of laughter and nothing but mediocre food. Still. It was fun, and exhausting, and butterbeer was had, and I never have to do it again.

My child, my nine year old child, turns out to be a thrill-seeker, speed demon. After whimpering in my lap “I want to go on it, but I’m afraid of the corkscrew”, she gathered up her courage and climbed on the “Rip Ride Rockit”. Midway down the first drop, she screamed “I LOVE THIS RIDE”.

Travel is good. Travel takes you out of your routine, into a world that’s not your own. And even though a theme park in Florida isn’t exactly a visit to an Etruscan ruin or a trip to Paris, it has a certain something. At one point, I found myself sitting on a park bench in the shade, waiting for the others, facing a New York City street facade. Oh, that’s what the movie people think is the distillation of New York?

Is it always winter at Hogwarts?

And how can it be winter if there are palm trees right over here?

The last two books I read were about travel. One was “Heads In Beds”, a snarky delicious horrifying look at hotels, from the point of view of a front desk manager. Believe me when I tell you that it spurred me to tip more generously than I’ve ever tipped in the past, and to examine – very carefully – the water glass in the bathroom. The other was “A Week at the Airport”, a contemplative meditation of that liminal space where people come and go and never stay. The airport isn’t your destination, it’s not your home, it’s but a way station – unless, of course, you work there. I will sit on that bench and watch the people come and go, until it’s my turn to get up and go, and while there, I’ll entertain a certain curiosity about the inner workings of the airport and all that needs doing to get us from here to there.

Travel with a child is altogether eye-opening. The first words out of the girl’s mouth, even before we got to the hotel’s registration desk, were “can we live here?” Was it the high ceilings, the men in pith helmets, the burbling fountain in the lobby? Was it the huge pool, with the noodles and beach balls and poolside drink service? Was it the amusement park a water taxi away?

It’s also thoroughly frustrating. Healthy food options? Not so much. Why yes, I am the mean mama who orders the side salad instead of fries with those chicken fingers. Nearly every ride exits through the gift shop. How many times did I say no? How many times did she ask me to buy her something? No. No no no no no. No. Okay. I did have to buy her a new bathing suit because the one I packed turned out to have desiccated, crunchy elastic. She was out of luck on underwear though - I somehow completely forgot to pack any for her, so she was forced to borrow a pair from her cousin while I washed hers in the bathroom sink. If the hotel boutique had had underwear for purchase, I would have bought some in a heartbeat.

We flew back to real life, spotting near-home landmarks from the air: the high school, her elementary school, the bike path/rail trail bridge across the reservoir. Daddy met us at the airport, and we were home, home again. And even though I didn’t buy her everything she asked for, like the iPad mini in a Best Buy vending machine in the Orlando airport, I think she had a splendid time.

How To Do Customer Service Right

You know what's annoying about gift cards? You often end up with a tiny little balance that isn't enough to do anything with. Oh, if it's a card for Target, or a generic American Express gift card, you can figure out how to use the difference. Or Amazon, they just stick it in your account for next time. But when it's a really oddball small company? There's a handful of quarters down the drain.

Not so long ago, I had a gift card for a small company - given out by a bicycle store so that we could purchase a personalized ID bracelet. The bracelet cost a tad over $20 (with shipping), and the gift card was for $25. I was all set to lose the difference, because I wasn't going to be ordering more than the one bracelet, until I got to the end of the on-line order. There, there was a query: "Would you like to make a charitable contribution to one of these six organizations?" Hell, yeah, I'd like to do that. It was the perfect way to use up the $4 that was going to be otherwise left on the table.

As it happens, Ride ID has a pretty strong charitable impulse. From their website:

As a privately owned company, we are not forced to serve the profit hungry interests of outside share holders or investors. Rather, we maintain the luxury to serve those things that we deem important: our Customers, Employees and our Communities.

Road ID is proud to serve and support our local and national communities. Service is not a secondary obligation; it is a primary function of our business. Each year, Road ID sponsors and supports thousands of grassroots Running and Cycling events across North America. We do this because we believe these events are the lifeblood of active and healthy communities.

Additionally, "Road ID Gives Back" is an ongoing program where we donate a portion of every order to one of six excellent causes. This program allows each customer to specify which organization should benefit from his or her order. This program was launched in October 2007 and benefits the following organizations: Arthritis Foundation, Lance Armstrong Foundation, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, National MS Society, Susan G. Komen Race For The Cure and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), the Wounded Warrior Project and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF).

Why I am telling you this? Because it's great customer service, and we all know how much I like good customer service.

---

Nope, no one paid me to say nice things about Road ID, just like nobody paid me to vent about Joe Coffee.

Geekery with Images

A couple of weeks ago, I went to a Google seminar, Google 101 for Content Creators. One trick I learned is really cool. I've been looking for floating, shallow shelves to (maybe) use in the kitchen as spice racks. After some searching, I found an image of what I was interested in. But it was on a scraper site, and had absolutely no information about just how to buy the shelves. Aha! Google's image search feature lets you upload a photo (or enter a url) to search for that photo or similar photos. Bingo. Found a few buyable versions of the shelf I'd envisioned.

If you were concerned about unscrupulous folks stealing your own posted pictures, you could reverse search for them. It'd be time-consuming, but could be gratifying. Or infuriating, depending on your perspective.

To search by image, go to images.google.com and click the camera icon at the end of the search box. Then, either enter an image URL or upload an image from your computer.

Maybe you will find the spice rack of your dreams.

Joe Boycott

Here's the thing. At home, I drink my coffee black. We buy decent beans, and grind them fresh each morning, and drip perfectly hot water through the freshly ground beans, into a thermal carafe, and usually, two cups of that magic is all I need for the rest of the day.

What this means is that I only infrequently drink coffee out of the house. And for whatever reason, I almost never drink it black when I'm not home. It's just one of those things - if I don't know where the coffee came from, it needs milk.

There are delis all over New York. You go in, you ask for coffee/regular/no sugar, and you get a paper cup of coffee with milk in it. But, you go to some fancy place like Starbucks, and you ask for a cup of coffee, and they hand you a cup and expect you to put the milk in yourself. If you insist, the better establishments will bow to the gods of customer service and will, in fact, add the milk.

I have, by the way, complained about this before:

Well, if I ask for a cup of coffee with milk, put the milk in the coffee. Don't make me do it. Don't make me put all my bags down on the dirty floor, let go of my child's hand, wrench the lid off the top, locate the milk and unscrew its top, add milk (after spilling out some of the coffee), replace the lid, and gather up all my possessions.

And, lest you say that "everyone wants a different amount of milk", 1) you add the milk if I go through a drive-through, and 2) you put in the milk when you make a latte.

The other day, I was in Grand Central, heading for the train, and the need for a cup of coffee and a cookie swayed me into Joe. The woman behind the counter gave me attitude when I asked for milk, but did it, grudgingly, and then had the temerity to hand me a cup without a lid. This is a take-out joint, in a commuter rail station! No lid? Oy. The lids were across the shop, with the milk, and of course, they were organized by ounces - and the first one I picked up was the wrong size. I ask you, how am I to know how many ounces are in the cup and therefore which lid might be right?

When I finally got on the train, peeved beyond a reasonable doubt, I fired off an irritated tweet. I was, of course, hoping it would fall on gracious customer-is-always-right ears, but no! Snark was returned.

Bastards. Coffee with milk is in no way comparable to french fries with ketchup, and this attitude stands in complete opposition to their "dedicated to making flawless coffee served with warm hospitality" mission statement. There was no warm hospitality at all - either in the shop or on the Twitter.

I'm never going there again. Lord knows, a one person boycott isn't gonna do squat, but I can keep railing about it. Even if nothing happens, it makes me feel better.

Necessity Mother Invention

I've been on a flavoring-water-with-melon kick. If I'm whacking up a cucumber for a salad, I filet out the seeds and drop the slimy mess into a glass of icy cold water: instant refresher. A few slices of lemon or a sprig or two of mint bumps up the flavor, and it's even more refreshing. There's a new vendor at my farmers market - they muddle fruit and mint with a bit of sugar, shake it up and top it off with tea or lemonade. Their mojito one - non-alcoholic - is made with lime, mint and cucumber, and completely hits the spot as you meander through the market, fondling the peaches.

Inspired, I muddled up a watermelon cocktail. A fist sized chunk of watermelon, roughly chipped into a tall glass and banged about with a spoon. A good ounce or so of Rose's Lime Juice, an ounce or so of gin, a few ice cubes, and a fill-up with seltzer. If you're fancy, garnish it with a sprig of mint or a twist of lime. And it's just what you want on a sultry summer evening.

The Plastic In My Kitchen

We make bread often, but by the time we're towards the end of the loaves, they're usually at the shattering stage, and fit for nothing but breadcrumbs or french toast. In the back of my head, I wanted a bread box, but I didn't want a huge thing sitting on the counter, taking up space we don't have. Happily, one leapt out of the King Arthur catalog. It's clear plastic, so it takes up little room visually, and it expands and contracts, so that it's only as big as it needs to be. I love it.

But it's plastic.

My favorite measuring cup is a tapered two cup "beaker", marked in ounces, cups, pints, teaspoons, tablespoons, and milliliters. It's easier to read than the standard Pyrex measuring cups, and more useful what with all the different measurements.

But it's plastic.

I love a nice cup of herbal tea while I'm reading in bed in the winter, and my favorite tea is a loose tea that combines chamomile, mint and lavender. Because it's loose, it needs to be made in a tea ball, or the steeped tea has to be strained. A few years ago, I discovered a phenomenal one-cup tea device - it's got a valve and a strainer and you plop it on top of your cup, and the tea flows on in.

But it's plastic.

I try so hard to get away from the plastic in the kitchen. I prefer to store leftovers in glass, like the working glasses (which work as both food storage and big drinking glasses). I refuse to microwave things in plastic containers. I'd rather use a stainless steel water bottle.

And yet, my three favorite kitchen devices? All plastic.

What's a girl to do?

#HomeHer

If you travel in certain circles, you probably heard that there was a big blogging conference this weekend. I didn't go. I've been before, five times in fact, but I just couldn't get up the energy to buy a ticket to Chicago and find a hotel room and we're doing some not insubstantial renovations to our house and...yeah, I didn't go.

The bummer, of course, was missing some fabulous people that I haven't seen in a year. And I didn't get to stock up on Boiron's unpronounceable Oscillococcinum, which I like dosing my kid with whenever she doesn't want to go to school. "This will make you feel better" I trill, and it always works.

But I like to think that I made the best of it. After all, my (loosely-defined) weekend included a Google seminar - "Google 101 for Content Creators" - which was mostly how to search and how to find educational things on YouTube. For instance, here's how to extract the iron from your breakfast cereal:

The content was a little slim, but Google served up some really excellent donuts, from Brooklyn.

Also, I loved the art in the Google building's lobby - lots of old postcards of New York City, beautifully mounted.

That one in the middle is the MetLife building, which I can see from the north windows in my office building. I restrained myself from prying it off the wall and contented myself with a photo.

Friday afternoon, I took two fifth graders and a second grader on a press junket to Legoland. They loved it. Period, end of story. There was a 4D movie - complete with real wind and actual snow. The 4th dimension that they failed to exploit was smell-o-rama; given that one of the characters in the Chima movie was a skunk, who let loose a couple of times, Odorama would have been a natural addtion. In Miniland, there's a mess of iconic NYC buildings, all Lego-built - an instant tour. Here's the Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Guggenheim, all lined up like they aren't in real life:

And three little girls, engrossed:

Apparently, I'm a 14 year old boy, because the potty humor, at Apple's expense, on one of the "billboards" in the model of Times Square made me laugh:

Naturally, the exit is through the gift shop. The girl has spent the past 48 hours building and rebuilding a motorcycle kit, which I could have gotten cheaper on Amazon, but which wouldn't have gotten me any cool mommy points - things bought at the source are always more interesting than things that arrive in brown cardboard boxes by mail.

My weekend included no dancing, no drunken confessions in bathrooms, no inspirational keynote speeches, and no free food beyond some tasty samples at the farmer's market. I went to two swim meets, one swim practice, dinner at friends, and a shopping spree at a crazy new boutique in town.

#HomeHer. It's where the heart is.

But I might go back to BlogHer next year.

Wheels of Steel and Frozen Bananas

(Bear with me. I'm wallowing in nostalgia.)

You might well ask why I have two copies of the New York times Natural Foods Cookbook. Well, a close reader will note that one of them is "new".

And the old one has fallen apart.

The one that unbound itself had been my mother's, and there were two recipes in it that I remembered from my childhood. So, when I found the "new" one in a used bookstore one day, I bought it, thinking fondly about wheat germ snickerdoodles and wheels of steel. The wheels of steel are indeed a fabulous cookie, but the wheat germ snickerdoodles don't really do it for me anymore.

After we cleaned out her house, I brought home the old copy; I think its spine gave up the ghost on the journey. I was going to just toss the broken book in the recycling, but paging through it nostagically, I found marginalia, notes from my mother. And then, because I couldn't help myself, I read through the entire cookbook. Her notes are one thing, but oh what a mess of whimsical sounding recipes are in there. Consciousness III Pudding, followed some 60 pages later by Consciousness III Cookies? How about Bone Marrow Gruel or Mystery Fruit Thing? Definitely a product of 1971.

Upon consideration, I've decided that the blue ribbon winning recipe from the original New York Times Natural Foods Cookbook is this:

Simplest Dessert of All
1 Ripe Banana
Peel banana and freeze. Serve frozen and whole with napkin wrapped around the bottom, or sliced into serving dish.
Yield: One serving
Note: Frozen banana has the consistency of ice cream and tastes delicious.

Really? That needed page space and ink?

My mother doesn't seem to have made any of the really outlandish recipes; her notes show a tendency towards soups, casseroles and cookies. And chicken livers.

BORING:
Mushroom and Barley Soup
Cold Cucumber Soup III

OVERDONE, NOT CRISP ENOUGH:
Sesame Baked Chicken

Just a check mark:
Potato Soup
Raisin Cookies
Whole Wheat Fruit Cookies
Wheat Germ Snickerdoodles

GOOD:
Cracked Wheat Casserole
Potato Meat Loaf
Musart Sprouted Beef Loaf
Lentil and Barley Stew

BLAH:
Six-Layer Dinner

NO:
Luscious Chicken Livers

SUPER:
Chicken Livers with Sour Cream

OK:
Winter Casserole
Soybean and Vegetable Casserole

Starred, with a nice five pointed pentagram
Wheels of Steel
Ginger Cookies
Homemade Graham Crackers

Because this all started with the Wheels of Steel, here's the recipe. They're sort of oatmeal raisin cookies with peanut butter. Delicious nostalgia, worth making.

---

WHEELS OF STEEL (adapted from Jean Hewitt's Natural Foods Cookbook)

INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 t. vanilla
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup wheat germ
1/2 cup non-fat powdered milk
3/4 t. salt
1/4 t. baking powder
1/4 t. baking soda
3 tablespoons milk
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup raisins
3 tablespoons sesame seeds

DIRECTIONS

• Preheat oven to 375°F.
• Cream together butter, peanut butter and brown sugar. Add egg and vanilla.
• In a separate bowl, stir together flour, wheat germ, powdered milk, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Add flour mixture to the creamed butter/sugar mixture and mix well.
• Add liquid milk, oats and raisins, and mix well.
• Blob the dough out onto greased (or parchmented) cookie sheets. (The original recipe has you make nine enormous cookies out of the whole batch of dough. I like smaller cookies than that. Maybe I should call mine Poker Chips of Steel. Or, Floppy Disks of Steel.)
• Leave plenty of room for the cookies to spread. Sprinkle with each cookie with some sesame seeds.
• Bake 10-12 minutes or until done.
• Cool on cookie sheet for about 5 minutes and then transfer to a rack.

Kindergarten and Pre-School and How Old Are You Anyway?

Before I went to first grade, I went to half day kindergarten. And before that, I went to preschool. It was a progressive cooperative nursery school, run out of the Unitarian Church in the next town, and I remember learning how to make jello there. I think we also made Christmas tree ornaments out of Elmer’s glue and sawdust and we definitely had naptime every day, on little rugs brought from home. Mine was red cotton, with long twisty shags.

In those days, nursery school wasn’t the norm. I think only a handful of the kids in my kindergarten class had gone to nursery school. Why my mother thought to send us there, I’m not sure, but that’s what she did.

When our child was 20 months old, we packed her off to daycare. Certainly a good part of the reason for daycare was that both my husband and I were working and we needed a solution for childcare. Daycare, in a group setting, appealed to me more than the solitude of one on one with a nanny. It was also cheaper, and it afforded all the benefits of nursery school – it was childcare and preschool all wrapped into one.

Back in January, during the State of the Union address, President Obama threw his support behind universal preschool:

Study after study shows that the sooner a child begins learning, the better he or she does down the road. But today, fewer than 3 in 10 four year-olds are enrolled in a high-quality preschool program. Most middle-class parents can’t afford a few hundred bucks a week for private preschool. And for poor kids who need help the most, this lack of access to preschool education can shadow them for the rest of their lives.

Tonight, I propose working with states to make high-quality preschool available to every child in America. Every dollar we invest in high-quality early education can save more than seven dollars later on – by boosting graduation rates, reducing teen pregnancy, even reducing violent crime. In states that make it a priority to educate our youngest children, like Georgia or Oklahoma, studies show students grow up more likely to read and do math at grade level, graduate high school, hold a job, and form more stable families of their own. So let’s do what works, and make sure none of our children start the race of life already behind. Let’s give our kids that chance.

I’m wholeheartedly behind that.

But I’m confused about something. In New York State, where I live, children are not required to go to school until they’re six years old – unless they live in New York City, in which case they have to go to school at five as of next year. As you might expect in the United States, there is no national standard for compulsory schooling - states rights, they get to make the rules. In nine states, school starts at five. In 25 states, it’s six. In 15 states, you go when you’re seven. And in Pennsylvania and Washington, you don’t have to go to school until you’re eight. That’s not to say that kids don’t go to school earlier, it’s just that they aren’t required to go earlier. Another way to put it is that, in New York State, except in NYC (and Syracuse and Rochester), kindergarten is optional.

The change in the requirements for NYC is a recent development – it was passed a year ago and kicks in with the coming school year. According to an article in the Times at the time the bill was passed, roughly 3000 kids a year begin first grade without having gone to kindergarten. That’s about 4% of the school population – not a huge number, but not insignificant. Further, the change means that kids can’t be redshirted – if the parent agrees to put the kid in first grade in the next year, they can skip kindergarten – but they can’t start kindergarten a year late.

This is all very interesting.

But back to pre-school. How is it possible to expand preschool nationwide, if there isn't a national standard as to when a kid is supposed to start school in the first place? The cut-off dates are all over the place, and the starting age of compulsory schooling ranges from five to eight. If across the board all children had to begin kindergarten in September of the calendar year in which they turn five, wouldn't that be a good thing? Once that's codified, move back and offer a year of preschool for every child beginning in September of the calendar year in which they turn four. [Or change the cut-off to August 31 instead of December 31.] But make it consistent, states rights be damned.

---

Sources

State by State Compulsory ages: http://www.ecs.org/clearinghouse/01/07/03/10703.pdf

New York State Education Law: http://public.leginfo.state.ny.us/LAWSSEAF.cgi?QUERYTYPE=LAWS+&QUERYDATA=$$EDN3205$$@TXEDN03205+&LIST=LAW+&BROWSER=BROWSER+&TOKEN=47365689+&TARGET=VIEW

NYC Chancellor’s Regulation: http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/1CC25F63-74E8-41A6-8031-490F206F148D/0/A101.pdf

Annals of recycling

I'd bought a bottle of two-in-one shampoo and conditioner to leave in the pool bag.

Me: Are you using the shampoo+conditioner?

Her: Yes, and I'm using a lot because I really want the cap.

She's been obsessed with a YouTube video channel of craft projects for dolls, mostly made out of found objects, like the oblong cap from a bottle of shampoo.

So, if I find a craft project that requires toothpaste caps and/or toothbrushes, do you think she'll remember to brush her teeth all by herself?

Ten Cents for My Thoughts

You remember how I got all on the NRDC's case about how many solicitations they were sending me, and how many live first class stamps were stuck on the enclosed return envelopes?

They got their act together and I haven't gotten any mail from them in months. Huzzah!

I promised myself (and my husband) that I'd stop fixating on the mail, and I have, pretty much. In fact, I've gotten pretty good at dumping most of the mail in the recycling bin in the garage - before it even makes it into the kitchen.

Until today. Today, I got an envelope from the March of Dimes.

If you'll look closely, there's a dime in there. TEN CENTS.

And because there's a dime in there, I couldn't just toss it in the recycling, because we don't do mixed recycling in these parts. No, paper and cardboard go in one bin, and plastic/glass/metal goes in another bin. And last I checked, dimes were metal.

Oy. So on top of printing, and mail prep, and postage (and writing and design), the March of Dimes had to go out and obtain a metric ton of dimes to stick in all of their Annual Fund appeal letters. How can that be cost effective? I just don't get it.

Because I had to extract the dime, since it couldn't go in the recycling, I opened the envelope and in big type under the dime it said:

I know I've taken a risk in sending you this dime...There's a chance you might not return it to me along with a few dollars of your own.

Oh indeed. Of course, Dr. Jennifer L. Howse* thought the risk was that she wouldn't get the dime back. She probably never dreamed that I'd post a picture of her dime on the internet before I stuck that dime in my wallet and tossed the rest of the now metal-free package into the recycling bin.

What irritates me the most about this is that I know why I got this piece of mail. I've given money to the March of Dimes in each of the past few years because friends have marched in their March For Babies walk-a-thons. And I'm happy to have supported the organization, because they do do good work supporting "research aimed at preventing birth defects, premature birth and infant mortality". But when you give on-line to something like a walk-a-thon, there's no way to opt out of further solicitation by dime-encrusted snail mail.

And if people actually return the dime, along with a check for $10, do they get a contribution receipt for $10.10? And who's keeping track of all the dimes - the many going out in the mail, the some that might be returned to the mothership? If some dimes do get back to the mothership, do they get redeposited at the bank? If so, how does the bank feel about all the sticky dimes that the cash accounts clerk has to deposit? Because really, dimes? Dimes aren't worth that kind of administrative nightmare.

One of the scraps of paper that fell out of the envelope was a little flyer with "Five Tips For A Healthier Baby" on one side and "A Proud Record of Fiscal Responsibility". March of Dimes claims that they "spend your gifts wisely" - but, per their own materials, only 75.8% of their budget goes to program. The rest goes to management and fundraising, or, to put it another way, two and a half cents of every dime goes back to buying more dimes. It's starting to sound like a Ponzi scheme**.

But, if you check out the March of Dimes on Charity Navigator, you'll find that that only 65.9% of their budget goes to program.

It could be that the March of Dimes insert*** was relying on newer information than the 2011 numbers that Charity Navigator is, as of this moment anyway. No matter, it seems to me that they're spending an awful lot on fundraising, one dime at a time.

So, listen up, March of Dimes.

1) Stop mailing dimes to people. It's just annoying.
2) Lots of people support your marches and walk-a-thons. Don't add them all to your snail mail list. It's a waste of paper, postage, time and dimes.

Cheers!

---

* Jennifer's the President. In 2011, according to the tax return available on Guidestar, she earned more than $550,000. That's a lot of dimes.

** I freely admit that was kind of harsh. I've been reading a novel in which one of the main characters lost all of her money to Mr. Madoff, so naturally Ponzi schemes are on my mind.

*** It's dated 4/13 in micro type, so maybe it's using the 2012 financial statements?

Things Are Seldom What They Seem / Skim Milk Masquerades as Cream

Blech.

Shelf safe milk is real Grade A milk that doesn’t require refrigeration until it’s opened (no preservatives added). Single-serving cartons can be stored in the pantry for up to six months without refrigeration. It’s a convenient and healthy way to get the nutrition from calcium-rich milk on car trips, while camping, at the park…even at the beach. Freeze a few cartons the night before and toss into a sports bag, picnic basket or cooler, and it will be the right temperature when you’re ready to enjoy it. If your family doesn’t drink it all during the trip…just take it home and put it back in the pantry.

Um, yeah. That's a direct quote from an email I got from "Milk Unleashed" - the marketing arm of the shelf stable milk packaging conglomerate.

First of all, have you ever frozen milk? My mother used to do that, in her singularly frugal way. The milk, when defrosted, is gross. It separates, it develops grainy clumpiness, it's not something you want to drink, ever. Maybe you could put it in a cake. Maybe.

Second, I am mystified by the idea that the milk packagers are suggesting that the shelf stable boxes be frozen for enjoyment at picnics, because even Horizon, a company that packs milk in aseptic packages, says:

Freezing is not recommended for fluid milk, half-and-half or cream. Although freezing is unlikely to alter milk’s nutrition, it will change its consistency. Milk that has been frozen and thawed in the refrigerator can be used in baking and cooking.

And if you shouldn't freeze it in the first place, do you really want to return the unused but now-defrosted milk to your cupboard to save for the next picnic?

The one hand is not speaking to the other hand.

In our house, we have a thoroughly first-world milk problem. We've had a milk delivery service for some years. Every week, we get butter and eggs and four half gallon glass bottles of 2% milk, deposited in an insulated box at the bottom of the driveway. As a result, the child who lives in our house has become a milk snob. If we run out and have to get supermarket milk in a plastic bottle or cardboard box? She won't drink it. She won't drink the milk at school, because it comes in a cardboard container. Glass bottles for my princess, or no milk at all.

So, Tetra Pak? You were barking up the wrong tree.

Vacation Mere Miles From Home

Due to confusion, we did not go away for the weekend. Instead, we ended up at the H Mart, where we had way too much fun, and bought lots of unusual things to eat. It's like going far far away: a whole aisle of seaweed, another of soy sauce. Pork sliced thin and so precisely arranged.

A three pound bag of MSG:

On of the many variant packages of boiled royal fern (from the refrigerated food section):

And my favorite, frozen sliced cuttlefish, "family's happiness":

Well, maybe it isn't my *favorite*, but I loved that they got the apostrophe right.

Sometimes, all you really need to do is go to a different grocery store.

I Think It Was Puccini

Remember Wally? The guy who played the Mendelssohn at my wedding on the contra-bass clarinet? And who once jumped up and down on a peanut butter sandwich?And who wore an oak toilet seat with panache?

Wally just had his 80th birthday, and his family threw a big wonderful party for him. I got tapped to stand up and say something about him, so I told the story about the day he'd taken me to the opera.

I was in graduate school, without two nickels to rub together, and Wally called me up one morning. He'd just gotten out of a gig with the contractor for the Met Orchestra, and the guy had given him a pair of tickets to that night's performance. I said sure, and asked him what I should wear. Wally told me he was wearing his usual, which was (and still is) some variation on East German army surplus: head to toe drab with a lot of pockets. So I put on a black turtleneck and a pair of jeans - my usual - and met him for dinner at a restaurant near Lincoln Center. After dinner, at which he produced his own traveling peppermill out of one of his many pockets because you never know when you're going to need freshly ground pepper, we headed over to the opera house. We handed our tickets to the usher, we set off down the aisle, we got closer and closer to the stage. Ta da! Two seats in the third row of the orchestra. On a Monday night. Let that sink in - Monday night at the opera. Dress up night. Everyone around us was in tuxedos and sequins. We were ... not.

You know what? It really doesn't matter what you wear. The opera was divine even though the adjacent people thought we were déclassé infiltrators.

Baked Beans, or What The Hell Was I Thinking When I Started All These Draft Posts?

1) Apparently I was looking for a recipe for baked beans.

• Southern Slow Cooked Baked Beans
• Easy Slow Cooker Baked Beans
• Slow Cooked Boston Baked Beans

If I remember correctly, I cobbled together some nice beans using bits out of the three recipes I went so far as to drop into a draft post. This was, I should add, before Ms. Deen had her comeuppance.

2) Caitlin Moran is the bomb. Read her book: How to Be a Woman. And then buy a copy for everyone you know. It's a little too racy for my nine year old, but she'll totally need to read it when she's sixteen or so. If you don't want to commit to reading a whole book, read this HuffPo interview with her. It ends with this:

HPW: What impact do you hope "How to Be a Woman" will have?

CM: My ultimate aim would be that people will read it and go, “I agree with some of those things, but it made me think of this, and I disagree with it here. I want to write a book called No, How to Really Be a Woman or This Is Actually How to Be a Woman or A New Kind of Woman," and there would be a million more books like this. It’s a template that I want people to go off and copy. Tell me your story, go out and blog about this, because you need every single woman saying what it’s like for them to be a woman. We need every single woman saying, "This is how it is for me."

I don't know where I was going with the bits that got stuck in that draft post, but I did want to shout from the rooftops about how much I liked her book. Oh, and if you follow her on Twitter? She has a thing for Bruce Springsteen.

3. Masham: p 107. Also, magpies, earlier.

Yeah. I don't know what I was thinking either. Well, it was something about Mistress Masham's Repose, a most excellent book. And apparently he mentions magpies in there somewhere before page 107. But what happens on page 107? I have no idea and the book is in a box somewhere until the house is done and the girl's books get unpacked.

This is how it is for me.