Conversations and a cure

"Conversation" courtesy of bensonkua.

Most conversations with my kids are an exchange of words aimed at keeping the family unit humming along. I'm talking about communication currency, a little give and take, and the table gets set, the laundry gets folded, and everyone goes to the library. But sometimes, there's a hiccup in the family action that allows for an actual conversation with one of my kids, and a chance for me to peer into their growing minds.

Such an opportunity came last night. I'd curled up on the couch, nursing the baby and a new cold, when another son snuggled next to me to renew a conversation about his lack of friends and the dilemma it will cause at his next birthday. And as I listened, I began to pick up a few eggcorns, a linguistic term for when a person substitutes a word or phrase for a word or words that sound similar or identical in the speaker's dialect. For example, for all intensive purposes instead of for all intents and purposes. Here are a few of my 7-year-olds':

"When we play tag, they run around like bunnies being chased by a dog. They're just custling around."

"Their eyes just burgled out when they saw my lunch, and I said, 'Noooooo, this is not a hot pepper.' "

When my son's schoolmates aren't "burgling" or "custling," they're recreating scenes from the video games they play. And since my kids' computer time is limited to a half-hour each week, they just don't share their peers' obsessions, though they know how to talk-the-talk.

"Daniel didn't go to school because he caught Wiiitis," my son told his dad.

"What? What's Wiiitis?"

"I don't know. Probably when you hurt your arm or your leg."

"How do you know he got Wiiitis?"

"His mom said so."

Apparently, the cure for Wiiitis is a couple ibuprofen and a day off from school. The cure for my cold? Chicken soup and pizza bread. Here's my comfort food when I'm sick:

Chicken soup

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Pizza bread

In the bowl:

Lipton chicken noodle soup

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On the side:

pizza bread

Pizza bread recipe

serves 12

1 loaf of sourdough bread, sliced lengthwise.
1 large can of tomato paste
4 cups cheddar cheese, grated
1 bunch of green onions, chopped
1 small can of black olives, chopped
1/4 cup olive oil

Mix tomato paste, cheese, onions, black olives and olive oil. Spread over bread. Bake at 350-degrees until bubbly. Feel free to modify ... like cheddar? Add more cheese. Doesn't seem squishy enough? Add a bit more oil.

A fish out of water

"Swim day" courtesy of smohundro.

Usually, my exercise is a solitary walk with my sleeping toddler, but a few months ago I started swimming, and immediately felt out of my element. There's a good mix of people who spend their lunch hour swimming laps at the university pool: The strong, young swimmers whose arms slice through the water like knives, the old professors whose bodies can't take anymore joint-jarring jogs, and then there's me. During one session, I was flanked by two men who created giant waves that tossed me like drift wood and left me gulping water. Another time, I shared a lane with a woman whose strong, smooth strokes ended in a beautiful underwater flip turn. When I tried it, I ended up thoroughly irrigating my sinuses with chlorine.

I admire the vigor of those college students, but my inspiration comes from the skinny, old women, with their basketball bellies, curved shoulders and raisin skin. The other day one of them asked me to save her lane while she dashed back into the locker to shower. Upon her return, she adjusted her bathing cap, eased herself into the water and thanked me.

"It's another beautiful day!" she beamed, and swam away.

Chivalry

"Through a world turned upside down" courtesy of sandcastlematt.

I know of a modern-day knight
who every day gets up and fights
exhaust-spewing dragons,
of mincemeat they'd make him,
were it not for his quick steed, the bike.

My husband's round-trip commute: 9.5 miles.

The time it took him to rescue me when I locked myself and the baby and a cart-full of groceries out of the minivan: 15 minutes.

Level of his annoyance on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being extremely irritated: 2

His favorite piece of gear: Dinotte road light 200L-AA-S and battery charger.

The price: $160

My favorite piece: The balaclava.

The price: $15


Photo courtesy of Libby.

Why we won't buy a second car: For God, king and country, of course.

Just horsin' around

A site for everything you never wanted to know about "The Black Stallion."

There are horse-girls who plait the hair of their My Little Ponys and trot about the playground. There are horse-women who shovel manure and tame Mustangs. I'm not one of them. The nearest I've ever come to understanding this infatuation was when I raced through the Black Stallion series as a girl. The closest I've come to comprehending this love as an adult is when I make Santa Anita Race Track beef stew.

A race track throws together the blue-collar and the blue-blood. When I slice leeks and cut potatoes, I like to imagine the classy and the common savoring the same stew as the horses thunder by. (For an illustration of this, check out this clip from "My Fair Lady.") Anyway, who can say naaaaay to a steaming bowl of equality?

Santa Anita Race Track beef stew

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King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking's maple cornmeal biscuits

In the bowl:

Santa Anita Race Track beef stew

On the side:

KAF Whole Grain Baking's maple cornmeal biscuits

Clipped from a newspaper by my grandma; the notes are hers.

The explorer

Sam!

I like to wander
around my brain and find things,
he said, sleepily.

A short catalog of things he was searching for at bedtime:

• Do you believe in magic?
• How do birds fly with such tiny bones?
• Do trees have brains?

An inventory of his pockets:

1. Small spiral notebook.
2. Stub of a pencil, sharp.
3. Padlock.
4. Lego pieces.
5. Various rocks containing tiny crystals.

What he's reading:

• The fantasy series "The Secrets of Droon" by Tony Abbott.
• "The Knight's Castle" by Edward Eager.
• The graphic novel "Benjamin Franklin, An American Genius" by Kay Melchisedech Olson.

Steal my heart

Chocolate pancakes + whipped cream = A decadent breakfast.

I hope your Valentine's Day was just as sweet!

Chocolate pancakes
recipe torn from the pages of an old Sunset magazine

Makes 8 pancakes; 4 servings

1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 egg
1 cup milk
About 3 tablespoons oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips

sweetened whipped cream
sliced strawberries (original recipe calls for raspberries or bananas)

In a bowl, stir sugar, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Add flour and mix. In a small bowl, beat egg with milk, oil and vanilla. Add egg mixture and chocolate chips to flour mixture, stir until evenly moistened. Spoon onto griddle. When finished, top with whipped cream and strawberries.

Primordial soup

Finch painting courtesy of merwing✿little dear.

My fingers paused on the keyboard and my eyes darted to a flash of feathers. Just beyond the computer and on the other side of the window pane, were a half-dozen playful finches chattering and fluttering as the stole seed. These birds, small enough to cup in my hand, are symbols of the genius of Darwin.

The world commemorated Charles Darwin's 200th birthday this week with town celebrations, a one-man show, and a wealth of diverse news articles highlighting the peculiarities of this man's life. What I found fascinating in this flood of information was how Darwin balanced his professional and private life. He seamlessly merged his insatiable scientific curiosity with the demands of his family. Darwin's specimens were found in the family vegetable garden, his laboratory included a sandbox and swing, and his children helped him with his experiments. But his pragmatic approach to his work didn't develop in response to parenting. As a young man collecting and studying animals and plants on the HMS Beagle, he regularly ate the specimens he collected.

"Young Tortoises make capital soup — otherwise the meat is but, to my taste, indifferent food." -- Charles Darwin, October 9, 1835.

It's fitting to honor the man who contributed so much insight into our primordial soup with a pot of my own. But not just any recipe would do. I wanted a soup that tasted of that balance Darwin achieved and I'm trying to strike: a soup infused with the flavor of the garden, loved by children, quick to make, yet could evolve into a more complexly flavored dish.

You'll find that recipe below. And while the potatoes bake, why not celebrate Valentine's Day by listening to a beautiful story of love within the Darwin family. It can be found here.

Baked potato soup
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toppings

Vintage poster
courtesy of atomicjeep.


In the bowl:

Cottey College's baked potato soup,
courtesy of one of its alumna, my sister Kyna Moser.

On top:

Anything you'd put on a baked potato,
such as cheddar cheese, sour cream, bacon bits, chives ...

Baked potato soup

Serves 4

6 ounces butter
2/3 cup half-and-half
1 1/3 cups milk
2 tsp. salt
2/3 cup flour
3 1/3 cups vegetable broth
pepper
4 baked potatoes, peeled and cubed

Melt butter. Stir in flour until smooth and cook for 1-2 minutes. Add broth while whisking. Add milk and half-and-half. Broth will thicken. Add potatoes and heat thoroughly. Serve.

This is a rich soup, but can be easily modified without harm. In lieu of milk and half-and-half, I've used powdered milk and water. I've eliminated the salt and used chicken bouillon as my broth. I've sauteed onions, celery and carrots in the butter, and added clams and clam juice to make clam chowder. You get the idea.

Collisions

"Bubble Love" by jurvetson.

The other day my daughter walked into the kitchen as I washed dishes and announced:

"I've started puberty."

"Oh?" I said, pulling hands out of soapy water.

"I have hair growing under my arms," she explained.

"Oooh. Well, congratulations!"

This girl is terribly excited about growing up. On her last birthday, she received the American Girl's "The Care and Keeping of You," and read it cover to cover. She discovered "It's Perfectly Normal" on the bookshelf and spirited it away to her room to study the pictures in private. "The Period Book" still sits on the shelf, but I bet it'll disappear soon, now that she's taking sex-ed at school.

"Mom, what's AIDS? Capital A-I-D-S," she asked, as I snuggled with her in bed last night.

"It stands for Acquired Immune Definicency Syndrome," I said. "It's a sickness that attacks you're immune system so your body has a hard time fighting off other illnesses."

"Will I get it?"

"Probably not if you use a condom," I said, then explained what a condom was and how it worked.

"Eeeeew. Gross!" she said. "I bet it's uncomfortable for the woman. Can they break?"

"Naw, they're actually pretty strong."

And I told her the story of how, when I was a little older than she is now, my brother and I found condoms in my dad's dresser drawer. We blew them up like balloons and tossed them through the air, our hands slick with lubricant.

"They never popped," I said.

We giggled, and our laughter floated up and bounced against the older memory.

Hurried haiku

Ivan!

Silky smiles smirk,
as he giggles, runs. With brush,
I chase happy hair.

Life as hard as rocks

"Rocks in still life, early morning" by cobalt123.

Nowadays, I'm nervous. My friend lost her home, my brother-in-law lost his job, and I know we're just a stone's throw away from their situations. Trying to keep my jittery nerves in check isn't easy. I plumb websites like The Simple Dollar for tips on frugal living. I listen to public radio's Marketplace regularly for its excellent economic news. I'm trying to beef up my resume after 10 years of mommyhood. And I cook more soup.

"Worries go down better with soup." -- A Jewish proverb.

Do you remember the story "Stone Soup"? The gist of it is this: Once upon a time some tired soldiers straggled home to a village empty-handed, in a land destroyed by war. They were hungry, but the villagers didn't think they had food to share, and slammed their doors. The soldiers pulled out a big pot, filled it with water and put it on a fire to boil. Then they added a large stone to the pot. The villagers peeked out of their doors.

"What kind of soup is that?" they asked.

"Stone soup. You can have some when it's ready," said a soldier, "though it would taste better if we had an onion or two."

"Well, I have that," grumbled one old woman, coming out with a shriveled onion and tossing it into the pot.

And so, one vegetable at a time, the villagers added food to the pot, and everyone feasted.

During the Great Depression, people placed a large, porous rock in the bottom of their soup pots. On days when they had food, they believed the stone absorbed some of the flavor from the soup. On days when there was no food, they boiled the stone, releasing flavors and making a weak broth. Nowadays, there are groups of friends who make soup together, always with a small stone at the bottom of the pot. The person who finds the stone at the bottom of her bowl plans the next soup gathering.

"A soup like this is not the work of one man.
It is the result of a constantly refined tradition.
There are nearly a thousand years of history in this soup."
Willa Cather, "Death Comes for the Archbishop"

As I poured over cookbooks for tasty bowls of soup, a plan simmered. As I counted the people lining up at the doors of a neighborhood church to receive free groceries, a plan simmered. As I thought about that fable of cooperation amid scarcity, a plan simmered. As I reminded myself how fortunate I was to have a steady income, a warm home and a pot of soup on the stove, a plan simmered.

And now it's ready to share:

Firstly, I'm going to cook more soup. Sometimes I'll take a picture of the soup and share the recipe with you. Secondly, I'm going to buy twice the ingredients needed for my soups in order to regularly donate half of it to the church down the street.

Soothing. Simple. Sustenance. Sharing. Stone soup.

Florentine white bean
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polenta

In the bowl:

Food Made Fast: Soup’s Florentine white bean

On the side:

The Barefoot Contessa Family Style’s rosemary polenta

Excerpted from Food Made Fast: Soup by Georgeanne Brennan

Serves 4

2 tbsp. olive oil

3 ounces pancetta or bacon, chopped

1 small yellow onion, finely chopped

2 carrots, finely chopped

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1/2 tsp. dried oregano

1 tbsp. tomato paste

4 cups chicken broth

2 cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

2 cups spinach, chopped

salt and pepper

2 tbsp. parsley, minced

rind from Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (suggested by The Splendid Table’s Lynne Rossetto Kasper.)

Fry bacon until lightly browned. Add onion and carrots, and saute until soft. Add garlic and oregano and cook for a few more minutes. Stir in tomato paste, add broth and beans and bring to boil. Lower heat, toss in the Parmesan rind (loaded with umami) and simmer. Add the spinach shortly before serving and cook until it is wilted but still bright green. Season to taste with salt and pepper and ladle into your bowl. And don’t forget to fish out the Parmesan rind and set it aside for your next soup!

Hungry bellies

Children line up for free soup and bread during the Depression.

At 8:50 every Wednesday morning, people bundled against the cold and burdened by their belongings form two lines along Fourth Street. One line is a group of neighborhood children cocooned in their coats and carrying backpacks heavy with homework. The other is made up of adults standing outside a movie theater-turned-mega-church.

"What are they waiting for?" my daughter asked.

"Food."

"You mean, like communion?"

"No, just food. They're hungry."

The New York Times reported this week that despite the recession, the number of people on welfare rolls remained at or near the lowest in more than 40 years. Eighteen states cut their welfare rolls, even as more people received food stamps. (Nevada wasn't among those. It actually added people to its program last year. For a state-by-state comparison, click here.)

"This clashing trend," the Times reported, "suggests a safety net at odds with itself. The program’s structure — fixed federal financing, despite caseload size — may discourage states from helping more people because the states bear all of the increased costs."

To help cash-strapped states deal with the needy, Congress is considering subsidizing the welfare rolls. The economic stimulus bills pending in Congress would provide matching grants to states with increased caseloads.

While politicians debate and bureaucrats react, more hungry people are lining up on Fourth Street. Outside the doors of Sparks Christian Fellowship, more than 100 people gather for their two grocery bags of non-perishable food they're eligible to receive six times a year. Across the street, Greenbrae Elementary School also gives away food. More than two-thirds of the students receive free lunches, and some of those children eat breakfast and dinner there, too.

These are today's soup lines, and they're in my neighborhood.

Cake confession

The Levy children celebrate their sin-free souls.

Saturday we celebrated the kids' First Reconciliation with a sinfully delicious chocolate cake topped with gobs of gooey marshmallow frosting.

The cake recipe, originally published in Gourmet magazine, is Epicurious.com's most popular recipe, receiving more than 1,000 reviews. The frosting recipe, also from Gourmet, was one I had made before with great success.

But, apparently, the devil was in the details. The middle of my cake fell during baking, (perhaps because I didn't make an altitude adjustment). And my mixture of egg whites, sugar and corn syrup refused to whip itself into a mountain of fluff.

An emergency trip to the store for a jar of marshmallow creme saved the cake, and I don't think even God would've tasted the difference!

Jesus in a tortilla*

Yesterday, my three older kids and I attended a retreat for children preparing to make their First Reconciliation. By volunteering to shepherd five second-graders through the sessions, I enjoyed an hour of knitting and eavesdropping.

Below is a snippet of a conversation between a boy and his teacher, who was explaining the story of the Lost Sheep. She asked if any of the kids had ever been lost, and the boy piped up that he once had been lost in a grocery store.

"How did you feel when you were lost?" she asked.

"Scared."

"Who found you?"

"Nobody. I found my mom."

The teacher went on to explain how the story is a parable: We are the lost sheep and the Good Shepherd is Jesus. We become lost from Jesus when we sin, she said.

"How do we find our way back to Jesus?" she asked.

The same small boy raised his hand.

"I would run up and down the aisles looking for him."

* Based on the alleged siting of Jesus Christ's face in a tortilla in 1977. For more information about the Shrine of the Miracle Tortilla, click here.

"Winter" by Sam

Today I'm featuring a poem written by my 7-year-old son Sam. It was found in the bottom of his backpack among the wad of crumpled school work.

"Fiore D'inverno" by Shock2006

Winter looks like hot cookies.
Winter tastes like hot chocolate.
Winter smells like cookies.
Winter feels like a rainy day.
Winter sounds like soft pillows.

Elusive heat

"Simplicity" by suvodeb.

Once upon a time there was woman who woke one morning and couldn't get warm.

She drank two cups of coffee. But she was still cold. She drank a cup of black tea. But she was still cold. Outside snow fell. Inside, her cold fingers tapped on the keyboard, and she shivered thinking of the laps she'd committed to swim at noon.

"How shall I convince myself to stick a toe in the water?" she asked.

Then she remembered a small cafe called the Aroma Club that served hot chocolate spiked with chili. The drink was sinfully thick and surprisingly spicy, with each sip making love to her mouth and leaving a slow burn in her throat. For weeks afterward, she tried to recreate the experience.

She melted an entire Lindt chili chocolate bar in milk. But it was much too bland.

She bought a box of Ibarra's "genuine Mexican chocolate" from the Latino market down the street. But it was much too sweet.

She became a cooking chemist, combining cinnamon and chili and coriander with cocoa. But it was much too spicy.

However, the woman wouldn't despair. Instead, she packed her swimsuit, goggles and a promise. And when she finished her laps, she cranked up the heat in her car and drove across town to the cafe where, she knew, they got it just right.

Unraveled

I hauled myself out of bed, pulled on my purple bathrobe and walked right into one of my sons.

"Mom, what's for brefkist?" he asked.

"God, I don't know. Give me a few minutes to wake up."

In the bathroom, I pried the retainer from my teeth, brushed them and popped a thyroid pill. My kids' belly thoughts dominate their mornings -- and their evenings, for that matter. It's the first question asked as they shuffle into the kitchen, rubbing eyes and squinting in the light. It's the last question posed as I tuck them in at night.

"What's for brefkist?"

"God, I don't know. We just ate dinner."

Then from each bed come three different belly prayers:

"Can we have Dutch baby? We haven't had that in a loooong time."

"Please, don't make oatmeal again."

I toss kisses on their foreheads and head for the door, eager to close it, to put to sleep the mama part of me, even for just a few hours.

"Can we have pancakes with chocolate chips?"

"We'll see."

But this morning's request that I serve as short-order cook was unraveling the young day. My mutterings turned to lecturing as I made my coffee. The lectures rose in pitch as I banged a pot onto the stove and measured out the oatmeal. And before I could catch myself, I was yelling at everyone and threatening to go on strike over packing lunches.

In desperation, I grabbed my knitting bag and headed for the couch with a warning that people needed to leave me alone. After five minutes of purling and knitting my husband ventured into the room.

"I'm trying to find my good mood," I said.

And after five rows, I did.

Inspirations

Photo courtesy of i:tzharr.

Dragon puffs of warm air rose from our mouths this morning as I walked my children to school. The cold, gray days of January have returned after a false spring, and I kicked mulch over the moss phlox that had been tricked into opening a few pink blooms.

"Go back to sleep," I tell it.

I'm mentally hibernating this winter -- stoking ideas, dreaming up possibilities, weighing changes. Some of my mood is triggered by the recession as I watch the corner gas station shutter its windows, and the food line lengthen outside the neighborhood church. My husband tinkers with our budget in order to squirrel away a few more dollars against a pay-cut. I buy more beans, and imagine squeezing freelance writing into my child-dominated days.

But my hibernating also comes from discovering silver threads of age in my hair, of the strand of fear that twisted itself around my excitement while sledding, of the stiffness I feel when I climb out of bed in the morning. Given family genetics and age, my life may well be half-lived, and this realization has me seeking inspiration from late bloomers like Cezanne, whose greatest work came late, and Mark Twain, who published "Huckleberry Finn" at forty-nine.

But it's not just the dead and famous who inspire me. During my holiday hiatus from this blog, I found things online that warmed my imagination -- whether with beauty, irreverence or plain yumminess -- some of them created, not for money or fame, but for the sheer joy of creating.

Here's what's got me happily hibernating:

You Won't Remember This Either.
My toddler's fascination with dogs.
Indecent Haiku.
Pumpkin pancakes recipe.
This Joy Ride: poetry+photos+inspiration.
These wine glasses featured in a video of the Wall Street Journal's wine columnists.
Late Bloomers.
The Indian Magic crabapples we planted this winter.
The hat worn by Aretha Franklin during the Inauguration. Oh yeah!

Poetry and pineapples

As Barack Obama sat down to the traditional Inaugural Luncheon, I arranged rings of pineapple in caramelized brown sugar and wrote a limerick to our new leader. I hope you do something to make this day special.

On this wintr'y day I bake
a sweet inaugural cake,
to celebrate a new prez,
a black man, no lez!
Of hist'ry, I happ'ly partake.

Here is the recipe from "Chez Panisse Fruit," with my modifications: Melt 4 tablespoons butter with 3/4 cup brown sugar in a cast-iron skillet. When the mixture starts to caramelize, turning a darker shade of brown, remove from heat and let cool. Arrange slices of pineapple rings evenly in the bottom of the pan and place a maraschino cherry in the center of each ring. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 350-degrees.

To make the cake batter, sift 1 1/2 cups flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1/4 teaspoon salt in a bowl. In a large mixing bowl, cream 1/4 pound (1 stick) butter and 1 cup white sugar until pale and fluffy. Mix in 1 teaspoon vanilla. Add 2 egg yolks, one at a time. Gradually add the dry ingredients and 1/2 cup whole milk in stages.

In another large bowl, whisk together the egg whites and 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar. Beat until the whites form firm peaks. Fold the whites into the batter in two batches. Pour the batter over the topping in the skillet and bake until the top is slightly brown and the cake pulls away, about 50 to 60 minutes. Let the cake cool for 15 minutes. Run a knife around the edge of the pan and invert the cake onto a serving plate. Serve with lightly sweetened whipped cream.

Ouch!

Vintage postcard of "winter sports near Reno, Nevada."

We took our family sledding at the foot of Mount Rose this past weekend. Again and again, we hiked up the hill, and screamed and whooped our way down it. Our sleds careened into willows, bounced over berms and sent us flying. Some quick thinking kept one son from hitting a tree, and some quick steering kept another from crashing into a giant snowball, but our list of injuries is evidence of how hard we played:

One bruised elbow.
One fat lip.
Two welts on two cheeks.
Some bruised ribs.
One sore neck.
Two bonked heads.

If you dare to challenge the mountains on your own sleds, I suggest you bring a can of Sterno and the ingredients for s'mores. They're delicious in the snow.

Smoking

"Ignition 2" courtesy of Tambako the Jaguar.

The flue was open, the newspaper crumpled, the firewood angled just so, but there was no match. Not one. I rummaged through the junk drawer, rifled through the jar of coins and rubber bands, peered into the bottom of the bag of charcoal. No match.

"What the hell," I mumbled under my breath.

I twisted a piece of newspaper into a small stick, laid it on the electric stove and waited as it smoldered, filled the room with smoke, then finally burst into flame. Carrying the burning paper, I quickly walked from the kitchen to the fireplace and lit the kindling. The kids ran around opening windows to let the smoke escape into the cold winter night, giggling with shock and delight.

"Don't ever, ever, under any circumstances, do what I just did," I told them as we snuggled around the crackling fire and toasted marshmallows.

All that's left of that night is the lingering smell of a campfire in our living room and some ashes, but my mind has stayed clouded and smokey. How, I asked my husband, do I air out my brain after a month crammed with parties and packages and (at the tail-end) puking? How do I spark smoldering ideas? As usual, his response came as an emailed link to a great little video on ideas and a warning that it was "nothing the kids should watch."

So I watched it one night and it worked. Thinking about smoking ideas like brain crack reminded me of my long winter in Moscow, Idaho in 1993. I was working for the Daily News, living in a converted chicken coop and playing with fire. On most Friday nights you'd find me sitting on a bar stool in John's Alley, flirting with the Nez Perce bartender and tucking away Heinekens in honor of my long-distance and half-Dutch boyfriend (who may as well have been half a world instead of half a state away).

I closed the bar with the bartender one night and brought him home to my coop. He leaned against the wall and I sat on top of my furnace and we talked until he leaned down and kissed me. As our mouths touched and my fingers reached up into his hair I wondered and weighed the moment: Was this worth losing what I loved? His mouth opened and he tasted of ashes and smoke, of passions burning and dying. I pulled away and sent him home.

Then I brushed my teeth.

Which got me thinking about another fire, older and fainter, that burned in our trailer's potbelly stove when I was a girl. My dad made the hottest, most raging fires in that stove hoping, perhaps, that waves of heat would lap the edges of the room I shared with my two sisters. But our bedroom never thawed though the stove's metal glowed red as an ember.

So there I was at the frozen end of the trailer, shivering as I slipped into my flannel nightgown, teeth chattering as I brushed them. Then I'd sprint down the hall to the potbelly stove. I'd scooch as close to that glowing wall as I could and let the heat burn into my skin. Still cold, I'd sandwich myself in heat by inching my body between burning stove and radiating wall until my mom would tell me to step back because my nightgown was smoking.

"Don't do that," she told me.

But later I noticed that her own nightgown was toasted brown.