Fun with Disney Princesses

When Ravenna turned four everyone decided to give her Disney Princess everything for her birthday. But since my kid has never seen a Disney Princess movie (by her own choice, I can't get her to watch hardly anything), we still can't name a lot of the princesses. This makes it difficult to play the Disney Princess Bingo game, because the spinner will land on a princess' face and then you have to say "B - Cinderella" or whatever the princess' name is. If you don't know the names you have to make them up. So we say things like "I - Brown Haired Girl" or "N - Girl with the Red Bow." My favorite though is one that Ravenna came up with..."Cheese Head Girl" named for the princess with the blonde hair whose tiara looks like a Swiss cheese.

Rice Krispie Treats

You may find this hard to believe, but Ravenna and I both made and ate Rice Krispie Treats for the first time yesterday. I'd always avoided eating them in the past, because I was suspicious of them and what exactly they might be glued together with. I had visions of Crisco and sugar melted into some gummy mass and mixed with the cereal. Ick. Turns out the truth of What a Rice Krispie Treat Really Is is only slightly less disgusting than that: the "glue"is butter and melted marshmallows.

Ravenna and I enjoyed watching the marshmallows melt down in the pan with butter. In true child fashion, she likes eating them more than I do. I find them disturbingly sweet and the butter aroma is kind of overpowering. But still, I can now say I have checked off one of those "mom" things.

O hai

Gosh, I haven't posted in a while. That was kind of intentional, as you might gather from my previous post. Taking a break from the internet for a week or two or longer really puts things in perspective.

See a long time ago, like fifteen to twenty years ago, if I wanted to have a social life it was easy. I could just stop by a friend's house and we'd talk. Now things have changed. I feel obligated to call, text or email first. And that's fine, but the trouble is, most people don't get back to me, and that makes me assume (wrongly I am sure in most cases) that people just don't like me. Logically I know that they are just busy or flaky. If you are one of them, rest assured, you are not alone. But don't let guilt keep you from communicating with me, mkay? I am one of the most patient and forgiving people you will ever meet. I think of you often, all of you.

Okay, that said, let me share with you what I did the past month. I basically went back to my teen years in a whole new way. Not by listening to Duran Duran or geeking out on typefaces or reading comics. No, I reread Tao Te Ching and started studying Buddhism again. And you know what, that stuff is really what shaped me growing up. Those philosophies helped make me the ridiculously calm, peaceful person I am today. But sadly, I had forgotten all about these ideas for nearly twenty years! My forgetfulness was at its peak these past few years when I was immersed in social media. I naively began to think that it was All About Me. Thankfully, I have now been reminded otherwise. Whew. My behavior these past few years has been embarrassing, in retrospect. So I am attempting to shelve my egotism in the round file where it belongs.

I have been stressing about my inability to motivate myself to do certain things. Then I just realized, it's because I am trying to do those things for the wrong reasons. This blows my mind. I'm still mulling it over, but if I can explain any clearer I will. Either here or on my LJ. :)

Peace out,

Gommy the Mommy

Taking a Break from the Internet

People are busy. I get that. I know people who are dealing with illness, children, aging parents, money problems, work problems and are just plain overwhelmed with how much there is to do and how little time there is to do it. I’m there with them; I get it. I drag myself to the end of the day and wonder how I only managed to do ten things rather than the fifteen I intended.

But here’s the thing. It pains me when I don’t hear from people. Maybe it pains other people when they don’t hear from me, I don’t know, they don’t tell me. I mean, I think I manage to return all phone calls and emails, but who knows? Maybe I read the email on my phone and forgot to mark it unread and it languished away, and you are sitting there waiting for my reply, even now.

I have the curse of Thinking Too Much. My imagination is often in overdrive, churning out scenarios. I think: Are these people failing to contact me because they are just busy? Or would they rather not have me in their lives? Either way, it hurts. Because I know it is all about priorities. You might not “have time” to contact me, but you “have time” to watch a movie or check Facebook. Right. I’ve been there. I’ve done that. And I sometimes avoid contacting people “for fear of rejection,” which I know is silly. And I certainly hope you are not thinking I will reject you. I often have extra homemade dinner food just lying around waiting for someone to eat it. I am here. You are there. Let’s bridge the distance, mkay?

I have blogs. Lots of ‘em. So many I am embarrassed to share them all. No one I know “has time” to peruse all of them. Which means no one knows all the sides of myself I choose to share with the world at large. And for some stupid reason, this makes me sad, because people who have decided I am not a priority don’t even really know me. We might have things in common that you never even knew about.

I love modern technology, but I hate it, too. I hate how it has brought us closer together yet farther apart. I can wish fervently that I could sit down and talk more about the things my friends have dropped hints about in social media, but I don’t “have time” to, because I have five other social media sites I “must check” before I go to bed. Ugh. Can you see why this is ridiculous?

I am not writing the post to try to make anyone feel guilty. I love you people. I can’t wait to hang out with you in the afterlife. It just saddens me that we may have to wait till we’re dead to have time for each other.

So with that said, I have every intention to take a break from social media for a while. You have my email address, or phone number, or you know where I live.

xoxo,

Alyssa

Four Nice Things That Come From Finland

Finland. You’ve probably heard of it, suspect it is up north somewhere and cold. You may associate the Finns with saunas, or Lapland or reindeer or something. But what else?

1. Angry Birds. You may not realize that the popular game is from Rovio in Finland. Put that your slingshot and fly, little birdie!

2. Xylitol. “Its dental significance was researched in Finland in the early 1970s, when scientists at Turku University showed it had significant dental benefits” (Thanks, Wikipedia). Not only does xylitol help kill the bacteria that cause tooth decay, if my theory is correct, it could also prevent colon cancer. My theory is based on the information that Fusobacterium has been found in colon tumors. Since Xylitol inhibits Fusobacterium, perhaps it could inhibit it help prevent colon cancer. Who can research that now, ah?

3. Paavoharju. That’s the name of a band of sorts. Now there’s lots of Finnish music, but this group is my favorite. I blather about them over here.

4. A kick ass educational system.

Gluten-free Baking (and Pancake recipe!)

I admit I’m a little cynical about gluten-free baking. Since a lot of the reason I continue the gluten-free diet is to be free of so many blood sugar ups and downs, it seems ill-advised to simply replace a wheat product with one that makes me just as jittery. Tapioca starch, potato starch, corn starch…all these starches are bad news, at least for a person like me who does better on a more caveman-like diet.

But then I got sucked into contributing to the school bake sale, and didn’t really want to bake something I’m not going to eat. I’ve offered to contribute some gluten-free goodies, so the next thing I know, I’m buying things like rice flour and xanthan gum. I will be a gluten-free baker, even if I have to be dragged into it via such methods.

On that note, I will share with you my gluten-free pancake recipe:

Gluten-free pancakes

We love the texture and taste of this. It makes the best pancake ever! This is a very forgiving recipe. You can vary it quite a bit and still get a decent pancake. The main things to leave constant though: a 2 to 1 ratio on the rice flour and corn meal, the baking powder (you can use a little less though, than the recipe calls for), and using the egg in the final mix.

Dry Mix (2 servings):
2/3 cup rice flour
1/3 cup corn flour or corn meal
1 Tbsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. cinnamon

When ready to make pancakes, take 1 cup of the dry mix and add:

1 Tbsp. canola oil (or your favorite oil)
1 Tbsp. maple syrup
1 egg
Enough milk or water to make a batter

Cook in a nonstick frying pan with a little oil. Flip over when bubbles form and cook the other side.

If you like this recipe and want to make it often:
I make a large quantity and store it in a big glass mason jar. Then when I want to make pancakes, I just take a cup full of the dry mix and add the wet ingredients to make pancakes.

Dry Mix (large quantity):
1000g rice flour (4 1/3 cups)
500g corn flour or corn meal (2 1/8 cups)
5 Tbsp. baking powder
2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. cinnamon

I love me some annoying music

“Alyssa always tortures me with her music,” my friend M said one time. I’ll side step the fact that years later, she learned to love the music of the very same band (Sigur Rós) whose music I was “torturing” her with.

The truth is, I enjoy some musical expressions that others would find irritating. The goal of this post is to share some of them with you. Provided you do not currently have a headache, please proceed to listen to each sound clip below, as much as you can tolerate. I love you.

First, I’ll tell you about Natural Snow Buildings’ 22 minute long composition, “Loki’s Trick.” (Available for free download here) One day I was overhauling the litter in the cat boxes and had this on in the kitchen. My husband came and switched it off, probably because any music that sounds like a wall of noise to him is not generally welcome in his aural landscape.

“Hey!” I protested. “I was listening to that!”

“You…were?” He gave me that look which says, “I question your sanity.”

“Yeah, I was waiting for the good part…the part where he screams.”

“O-Okay…”

So since 22 minutes is a lot to listen to, I’ll tell you that the song starts off as noise, then gets all pretty around 1:30. It builds and builds, till the screaming commences at around 20:20 or so. Enjoy!


The first time I heard Björk’s “Pluto” I thought it was pretty much unlistenable. Then I heard it a second time and it clicked for me. Now I think it’s great! Especially the screaming part, which comes it around 1:45.



Holy Fuck’s “Korock.” I adore this song, but it has this funky, discordant beat that prolly annoys those who are used to more standard fare. Then around 1:20 the beat dissembles into a different form and the fun really begins. They start taking the sounds and running them through some kind of fuzz grinder. This one almost doesn’t belong here in my opinion.


Next, a song that even I would call irritating, Drop the Lime’s “Doomsday Device.” It has this repetitive beat going, and that is fine, until you’ve heard it 200 times too many, and they start conveying it with the keyboard equivalent of a police siren on LSD. It creeps in at around 1:15 and intensifies till the guy intones the title of the track. There’s a blessed brief moment of calm…and then the demonic riff comes back! If you want to induce a headache, this is the song for you. Note: Dancing or hula hooping while listening to the track reduces its Irritation Factor considerably.

Now keep in mind this list is irritating songs that I actually like. There are plenty of annoying songs out there that I don’t like, for example, Willow Smith’s “Whip My Hair.” But who cares about them, ah?