Wake County School Board Has Me Fired Up...and Worried

Our school board has bullied, bushwhacked, and axed a wedge clear through the county, and it reeks of party line politics. I'm up in arms, fancying myself an activist these days. Read on to see what has me so irate.

Here's a hint: Diversity isn't just about color.

5:00 Fridays

I love egg nog. This statement will not be a non sequitor in a moment.

Read on.


Merry Christmas!

Feliz Navidad!

Joyeux Noel!

Froliche Weinachten!

Ho! Ho! Ho!

We shared a lovely Christmas Eve by the outdoor fireplace with dear friends (who luckily enough, happen to be our neighbors). The children frolicked in noisy abandon as only children can. We stuffed our jelly bellies full of smoked salmon, fennel salad, steamed shrimp, crostini, apple/cranberry pie, and chocolate truffles. There was much merriment to be had, and Christmas spirit(s) flowed.

We all remarked how stress-free and footloose and fancy free our celebration was. As the kids get older the hovering gets easier. Bird and Deal know to stay in the yard, they can claw their way through tussles, and there are enough dart guns, remote control cars, and stuffed animals to go around. Lark was an exhausted little champ who happily retired to his crate to escape the onset of Kid-dom ruling.

After our friends went their merry ways we perched the boys at the kitchen table with a plate of smoked salmon and set to cleaning up. They then showered (must be clean for Santa!) and donned their matching plaid Christmas jammies. So cute it would melt the Snow Miser's frigid heart. We settled in under blankets to watch the old Rankin Bass Twas the Night Before Christmas and romped in the yard to sprinkle glitter and oat reindeer food.

Now that the boys are tucked in bed and sleeping (not even pretending!), Mac Daddy and I opened a beribboned gift from a neighbor. Lo and behold, my most favorite of Christmas spirits was there!

And so it is with an iced crystal tumbler full of this I toast you this Christmas. Merry Christmas to my delightful readers. I hope your season is so bright so you gotta wear shades. I know you're all so Hollywood like that.

Evan Williams Holiday Egg Nog

Da Bomb.

First of all, let it be known that I love me some egg nog. Our family friend Ty makes some killer homemade stuff that I cannot replicate to save my life. I settle for the grocery store brands and spike it myself. Then I get a work out just swallowing that gloppy thick stuff while I trick myself into believing it's the real deal.

Evan Williams does it all for me. And it's oh so good.

Not treacly sweet. Not fake. Not so thick you could condition your hair with it.

Evan Williams is the Avis of straight bourbon whiskey in the US. It's "extra aged," which I can totally identify with.

5:00 Fridays

My neighborhood enjoys a weekly tradition fondly called "Brown Liquor Night." I'm not even sure how this all started other than our resident fix-it man, crime watch extraordinaire, clever craftsman, and all around funny man needed an excuse to get all the y-chromosomes together in a way that didn't involve sports, gambling, sweating, or manual labor.

Brown Liquor Night was born.

Many of us have outdoor fire pits or fireplaces so we engage in porch pyrotechnics on a regular basis. Brown Liquor Night just begs for some rocks glasses clinking fireside. So far the drinks flit between whiskey on the rocks or bourbon on the rocks. It's high time to jazz things up a bit, no?

So for the gentlemen (and occasional gentle women who join the par-tay) here's my contribution to Brown Liquor Night:


Porch Rye

1 ounce Templeton Rye
3 ounces ginger ale
2 teaspoons basil simple syrup (or a tish more if you like it sweeter like I do)

For the simple syrup:
Stir together 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup torn basil leaves in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Stir frequently and heat until sugar is dissolved. Strain into a container and chill about 30 minutes. This should keep up to a month in the fridge, but I bet you'll use it up before then.

Mix all the ingredients together in a rocks glass filled with ice. Garnish with a basil leaf or two. If you are feeling particularly industrious, add basil leaves to an ice tray, fill with water and freeze. Voila, basil ice cubes! Go on and go all Martha Stewart on your friends.

And hey, as I write this, Mac Daddy is sipping some rye, wiping his upper lip dry, and sighing a satisfied "ahh" on a neighbor's porch somewhere up the street.


Sidebar:
I tasted Templeton Rye for the first time at BlogHer this year. I enjoyed Raspberry Old Fashioneds (or was it Manhattans?) with some bloggers whom I adore. My cool factor was exponentially upped just by getting my boogie on with them. Cheers to Whit, Matt, Kim, Shawn, and the other amazing writers who can get a groove on as well as they can write.

Fugitive Fear

We were awakened by shushing voices murmuring in hasty clips last night. There were distinct voices coming from the garage. Though we were, ahem, otherwise occupied, we were distracted by the voices that were right outside our bedroom window. Then the sirens started. Then the lights flashing. More sirens. More lights. Neighbors' dog barking. "We should get dressed," Mac Daddy and I said in a rather delayed, startled manner.

We checked the boys and worked our way downstairs to ensure everything was securely locked, silently acknowledging the recently added chain locks and motion detectors. The police cars kept coming. Sirens still blaring. Dogs still howling. Then out of the pitch black a spotlight shines up our front walk. Mac Daddy and I froze, he more brave than I, since I was literally hiding behind him, thankful for his 6'2 frame. Ding Dong. Ding Dong. We stood there, unsure what to do. Movie montages flickered through my mind. WWJLCD? That's "What would Jamie Lee Curtis do?" for you Halloween neophytes. Then the spotlight pointed straight through the (glass!) front door. I saw a face peering in, hands framing the eyes so he could see in. Eyes frantically flickering about. Right. Left. Right. Left. I didn't move a muscle, and had I not just peed, there would have been a puddle at my feet. Mac Daddy approached the door gingerly. As he got closer, the face was peering at us more and more intently. Not moving. Not talking. Just staring. Glaring. At us. Our little boys, asleep upstairs. Our sweet, innocent children curled up in their new Superman jammies, each clutching his teddy.

More montages played out in my mind. Damn, I wish I didn't have a slasher movie phase back in high school.

Mac Daddy flicked on the porch light in a hurry, and we jumped back a step, or four, or five. It was our neighbor, John, neighborhood watch dude extraordinaire, at the door. He had come to explain the sirens and ensure we were OK. That's the kind of guy John is. He's uber equipped for any emergency and would drain his own blood into a flask if it would save you from distress. John certainly had cause for alarm last night.

Fugitive on the loose! IN OUR PRISTINE NORMAN ROCKWELL NEIGHBORHOOD! I can honestly say that the word "fugitive" has never entered my vernacular, unless you count 1993 when my friend Pat made me see the movie.

Aw CRAP. This stuff doesn't happen in our parts. We chose a sleepy neighborhood in an inconsequential city for a reason. It was a nice change of pace from the paranoia of Chicago post-9/11. And while we are neither scared nor paranoid, we like it here, sleepy and inconsequential as it is.

Mac Daddy and I hunkered down and went upstairs to be with the boys, who were thankfully obliviously dreaming in a blissful slumber. They sure would have dug the police action though. When we heard a police officer shout, "Hands behind your head!" and "Cuff 'em!" we knew it was safe to peer out. That's the crap I expect to hear in a movie theater action thriller that my stepdad watches, not in my own backyard. Clint Eastwood and Denzel (who needs no last name) say stuff like "Cuff 'em!" A cuff to me is lovely arm candy, the perfect minimalist accessory to a simple tank dress in summer. I suppose that tells you that kinkiness is not my thing. Nonetheless, I don't think anyone has been handcuffed in my hood before, except for those who are into that sort of thing by choice. Oh, and I have my suspicions who those folks are!

It turns out there was a mega drunk driver pulled over up the road. He blew a .23, thrice the legal limit. Said drunk and menace on the road also had a revoked license. Imagine that. The idiot thought it would be better to slip away and run for it than face the music. Granted, he was not thinking rationally. He was apparently a fast bugger, running on adrenaline alone. Or maybe he had a case of Red Bull and vodka (GAG). After a 15 minute chase, weaving in and out of our yards, a cop tackled the guy. And off he went. Handcuffed. Sobering up pretty quickly.

Our neighbors don't need a reason to converge outside on a warm night, and we certainly don't need more conversational fodder. However, the fugitive of 5/31 still had us whopping it up today. That kind of excitement generally passes us by. And we like it just fine that way.

But you know what kept me up all night? The moms and dads who live in constant fear everyday. The nameless souls paying the price for irrational wars waged or policies and a social caste system stacked against them. The ones who can't afford to sleep with even one eye shut. What about the working folks in the rough neighborhoods of Detroit, St. Louis, and Flint, the cities bearing the title of most dangerous cities in the United States? What about war ravaged regions in Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Kashmir, and Afghanistan? Those children, who learn fear from a tender young age, go to sleep in a state of fright every single night. Safety is a luxury. I felt a heavy, heavy heart last night thinking what it must be to fall asleep worried for your children's well-being every night. During the most vulnerable hours of the day. Night time. When the world should be at rest. At peace. When dreams should wrest power from nightmares.

Last night I said a prayer for all the moms, dads, and children asleep in homes less comfortable, less secure, less stable than mine. I will continue to add those nameless families to my prayers. I experienced but a moment of fright last night. A life lesson no less.

Whispers

Lately there's been a gaggle of folks whispering, "So, have you met the new neighbors?" The seemingly innocent conversation starter has a whole host of dynamics attached. Gossip. Disbelief. Judgement. Novelty. Curiosity. I give my neighbor Chuck and Mac Daddy, a lot of credit for the genuine aplomb with which they responded to that very question yesterday. They were like, "Oh sure we met. They seem so fun and cool. We're really looking forward to seeing them once they're settled in." They were being honest, not making a statement, based on their bona fide candor. It's pretty easy to diffuse the situation when the instigator doesn't get the response he expected.

The hushed tones of such questioning are akin to that mother's whispering of unseemly words in St. Elmo's Fire. I find such behavior so irksome. You see, the new neighbors are two women. Who live together. They're not related. One is not the landlord and the other a paying tenant. No one is the caretaker of the other. They're not even roommates. Give up? They're gay for goodness sake. BFD. Not even newsworthy. Yawn. There's certainly juicier gossip than that in the 'hood. Hell, I'm potentially fodder for better grilling meat considering some of the stuff I write on this here very blog.

Are we so far removed from diversity of the population that a gay couple moving in two doors down is all that interesting? I recall a few years back when similar whispering ensued when Republicans moved onto the street. We were flabbergasted. Republicans?! Moving in here? What ghastly horror to invade our progressive little precinct! They'll ruin our voting records! Tell me it's not so! It turns out that more and more are sending moving announcements (on engraved Crane stationery, no doubt) from our zip code, but that's for another day. I'll have plenty to report on that divide once the election heats up. But I digress, as I so often do...

I find it more difficult to explain to Bird and Deal why someone has guns in his home than why two women live together or why one of Bird's buddies has two mommies. In fact, all the kids in class think it's pretty darn cool that this little boy gets to have TWO mommies. To these children, mommy equals love. I might be the only Indian in the world who's bad at math but even I know that this equation balances, no matter who the mommy is. Love, in all its forms, is infinitely easier to explain than violence or danger, or the potential for it, in all its many, gruesome forms. Love makes sense. It is indeed patient and kind.

The face of the American family isn't necessarily changing, it's just that the myriad forms of families are finally marching out from the under the rock we've collectively buried them under. Back in the 80s there was a whole lot of whispering going on among my friends' parents because my mom and dad were divorced. I was the only one whose parents weren't married, and in retrospect, the whispers and pitying looks I got all spelled: Gossip. Disbelief. Judgement. Novelty. Curiosity. To top it off, my brother and I lived with our dad. Not our mother. That's still practically unheard of, so imagine the judgement passed and speculation going on back in the day.

Times are changing folks, and let's keep up! No use staying shackled to closed minded ways that don't provide opportunities to teach our children (and ourselves, for that matter) about the diversity of the world. It's enriching to have the world open up to us verus closing in on us.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

I know my neighbors. Not just the folks on either side of my house. All of my neighbors on the street. And the next street. And the street after that. I know more than their first names and approximate time they leave for work. I know them well; they are my friends. It's a lucky life to count your neighbors as your friends. For one thing, it saves gas since we're literally a hop, skip, and jump away. We never need to schedule playdates. All we do is open the door and let the kids run amok while we grownups enjoy a glass of cabernet, Blue Moon with a slice of orange for the tang, or Moscow Mule, depending on who's bartending.

I have four lots but just one house. Of course there are neighbors' houses on those lots. We literally just swing open the door, and the kid radar starts beeping furiously. All the children, ranging in age from 18 months to 11 years-old, run among all of our yards playing old school games. Freeze tag. Hide n' seek. Hopscotch. Blissfully, no batteries required. Our toys belong to the neighborhood. As long as bats, balls, sidewalk chalk, and jump ropes make their way to a toybox somewhere, it's all good. Bird and Deal are lucky to live in a true neighborhood. I grew up in a similar place. My folks didn't cart us around to activities or playdates. We skipped rocks in the creek in our backyard, sang the tunes from the remake of Sargeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band using the retaining wall as a stage, and caught lightning bugs in jars handed out by Tracy's mom next door.

My neighborhood is a genuine neighborhood that invokes images of the days of yore. If you want to start a story with "Back in the day..." it's my neighborhood that your listeners conjure up. I'm not talkin' an artificial neighborhood with a faux town square clock tower. I'm talkin' a community with off kilter sidewalks, a little post office, an anti-Starbucks coffee shop, and privately owned local drugstore, replete with diner in the back. We walk to run our errands. We walk to the park. We walk just to see who's out and about when we get cabin fever. Bird and Deal benefit in so many ways. For starters, they're walkers, not whiners who act as if they're lugging 300 pound steel boots around like some suburban kids I see. They play with kids of all ages and learn to listen and respect adults who aren't mommy and daddy. They don't watch much TV. Their best friends live right next door. We even have Yogi the neighborhood dog who exhibits gracious patience everyday.

Why My 'Hood Kicks Ass (and why the subdivisions with their back decks don't):

We all have front porches. And we use them.

I have the keys to five neighbors' houses, and they have mine. Someone's there to feed the ornery cat when we're gone. Because she's so ornery we have to rotate the duty.

We literally go next door to borrow a cup of sugar, or a couple eggs, or a gallon of milk.

We cook extra meatloaf, spaghetti, turkey stew, or lambchops and share the wealth.

For 6 weeks after my kids were born neighbors signed up to bring us dinner. I'm talkin' home cooked (and sometimes home grown) extravagant meals, with dessert, wine, and a pair of arms to hold the baby so Mac Daddy and I could eat.

We have parties in the street. Lots of them. We even have a neighborhood lemonade stand that doubles as a tiki bar.

I know someone is watching my kids if I have to run inside to stir the chili, swap a load of laundry, or get ready for date night with Mac Daddy.



Since we don't have family in town, we rely on our neighbors for the occasional babysitting (like when I went into labor with Deal or the times we've had to take one kid or another to the ER in the middle of the night), an extra set of hands to move a desk upstairs, or for a few rounds of Yahtzee and beers. We take care of each other, and no one keeps a scorecard. Well, maybe the kids playing Mother May I do.

Tell me why your 'hood rocks.

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