Photos From Hanukkah

Here are a few photos from this year's Hanukkah. Maybe next year we will get to celebrate with more family members (love to you sweeties in Spain and New Zealand!). Hope your Hanukkahs were wonderful too.

Candles burning on the sixth night. Baked butternut squash and fruit juice dressed up in a fancy glass in the background.

The side of the dreidel everybody wants with Hanukkah gelt (chocolate coins).

First potato latke of the evening! Mmmmmm...latkes...

The very last candle of Hanukkah 2010 is about to go out.

Good News

Yes indeed, good news. The CT scan was clear. I had a lovely night celebrating Hanukkah with my family and am now having a glass of champagne with my parents and husband. Life is so beautiful.

CT Scan Tomorrow (Wednesday)

The fact that there has been barely mention of this over the weeks leading up to now makes me think that I've been nervous for a while. I have a CT Scan tomorrow. I have not been sleeping well for 4-5 nights. I woke up Captain Obvious with my tossing and turning last night. I am nervous. And now I'm on steroids, which makes me jittery and nervous and hyper and talkative.  I take prednisone to prevent an allergic reaction since I am allergic to IV iodine, which is the dye I get injected with in addition to the one I drink for the CT scan.

This afternoon I was stuck in a traffic jam. Seeing as I was trying to get home to cook dinner for my parents, son, and husband, I was rather unhappy. This was just at the beginning of sunset, so the sky is darkening and I see such beautiful colors reflected on the clouds. The moon was out too. A bright sliver of a crescent with the full circle just visible because it was a bit more luminous than the dark sky behind it. I found myself admiring the moon and sky and thinking that the darkness of the sky

Sure am glad my parents are here. Sure am glad Captain Obvious is taking the day off to go with me. Sure am glad there is another night of Hanukkah to celebrate tomorrow night.

Good Memory

Lately I've noticed several examples of Capt. Adorable's excellent memory. Or, to think of it another way, my very bad memory. (I know that chemo affected my memory while I was on it and I am convinced that I am still not back to the way I was before chemo.)

If you ask Captain Adorable to remind you of something, he will actually remind you! Or he may remember something you told him that you have forgotten (like my earlier post about the egg nog). Yesterday he really surprised me. I considered making butternut squash galette for dinner last night but decided not to after looking at the recipe and realizing that I did not have any lemon juice, nor did I feel like going to buy some. Instead I decided to just bake a squash. When Capt. Adorable asked about the galette I told him that I'd decided to wait till the next night, when Oma and Opa would be there. In the late afternoon he asked me if I needed that special juice. I had no idea what he was talking about. After a few questions I realised he was reminding me about the lemon juice I had mentioned that morning!

Another example: I was taking a shower yesterday afternoon while Capt. Adorable watched television (Dinosaur Train) downstairs in the family room. While in the shower, I heard the bathroom door open. Capt. Adorable came in and asked me for gum. I told him that we "ate it all up" already, that we had the last pieces the other day. He said no, there was still some of that gum we had on the plane. Now, the gum he was talking about was what we had on the plane on the way to Florida for Thanksgiving on November 21. I repeated aloud that it was all gone...but then remembered that yes indeed there were a couple of pieces left but I had no idea where they were and that he'd have to wait for me to get out of the shower and find them. He left. I finished my shower and was drying myself off when he reappeared, hauling my heavy purse with him. A light bulb went off in my head--oh yeah, that cinnamon gum package was in the outer pocket of my purse! He was very pleased to get the gum and carried the purse away. It was back exactly where I left it when I came down.

I wonder if he will remind me to look for a CD of wolves howling and/or a DVD of a baby wolf next time we are the library. He's into wolves lately.

Happy Hannukah!

Tonight is the fifth night of Hanukkah. So far our Hanukkah has been fraught with problems. Among the cooking trouble I've had, on the second night I started the latkes too late and then made it all worse by mistakenly thinking my food processor was broken which required me to grate the potatoes and onions by hand because I had no time to waste, seeing as I was already late getting started. The other two dishes were over cooked by the time the first batch of latkes was ready. It was a bit of a pitiful dinner, with only one parent at the table at a time. Captain Obvious cooked 90% of them and then I cooked the last few. His were better. (For an Irish boy he makes a mean latke. Oh, and falafels, too. And a great grilled pizza. Could he have been blessed with a recessive Mediteranean-cooking gene from somewhere a few generations back?)

At first, Captain Adorable was not been digging his presents. Look, there are 8 nights, so that's a lot of presents. We do one small one per night with maybe one bigger one on one night, usually towards the end. He's been expecting the stars and the moon and been getting little toys. If you know what I mean. :) He likes the gifts and has played , but is disappointed by them at the time he receives them, although he does play with them later. Ah, well. I finally decided to just tell him pretty much what the present was in store for that evening. I was trepidacious (not sure that's a word, sorry) about dropping the surprise element, but it is better this way because his expectations are more realistic and his appreciation of the gifts has become much greater.

But I have been enjoying Hanukkah with my son. I've learned some things while teaching him. Plus we've had a great time watching The Maccabeats sing Candlelight on youtube. I have a feeling I will know the thing by heart soon. 6 times today (all I would allow)! I love watching him pick out the candles for the menorah by himself. Last year I got some really beautiful candles on sale (similar to these if you are curious) and he enjoys being the one to pick out the colors and put the candles in the menorah prior to lighting them. I used be the one to pick out the candles and I loved doing that so of course I love to see my son loving the same thing.

My parents are coming on Tuesday and I am really looking forward to seeing them. I am planing two types of latkes (potato and apple) and contemplating a third (carrot latkes). I also look forward to their help in the kitchen and celebrating Hanukkah with them. Too bad we missed Sinterklaas. Next year.

By the way, I was thinking about something: in one week I called my son Shug (short for sugar of course), spoke Dutch to him, and celebrated Hanukkah. Am I just communicating my personal experience growing up the American South  with a Dutch mom and a Jewish dad? Or am I a mish-mash poseur?

Snorkeling

I was never all that keen on snorkeling (which I did for the first time when I was 23 or 24). I have only been a few times, both in the Florida Keys long ago and in Hawaii more recently. In Hawaii I got scared because I was so breathless and felt panicky about my ability to swim back to shore. I never went for long.

However, my dear little son, at the age of 3, not quite able to float on top of the water by himself yet, has just learned to snorkel. That life vest we bought for the boat was key for this experience. His father and his great-uncle taught him while we were in Florida celebrating Thanksgiving. Check it out!

November 24, 2010

Egg Nod

In the grocery store this afternoon, Captain Adorable stands by the dairy case insisting that I stop shopping and listen to him. He says I promised to buy him "that stuff with sugar in it." I have no idea what he is talking about. I certainly did not promise to buy him anything with sugar. Then I remember, oh, perhaps he's talking about chocolate milk...but no, he isn't (and we just opened a container of it this morning). Then I suggest he means the low sugar juice drink I get him (not sweetened with sugar, but it is a sweet drink) but no, that's not it either and he's getting upset now. He is calmed by the fact that I am talking to him about what he wants but he is disturbed because I am turning the cart down the aisle in the other direction and he's still tugging on the handle of the dairy case.

Finally I realise that the only thing he could mean (being simultaneously sweet, located in the dairy case and not chocolate milk) is egg nog. Ah yes, now I remember that I did promise to buy egg nog! Once I suggest this, he happily agrees, "yes," nods emphatically and says, "egg nod." I put it in the cart.