Rachel through the ages

I've seen this on a few other blogs (Marketing Mama most recently - thanks!) and on a Facebook profile or two (including my own Facebook profile now, thank you very much), and I just couldn't resist. Enjoy your pictorial journey through the decades, as told by my head:

Mimi Eisenhower had nothing on the Rachel of 1952:
The Rachel of 1966 looked frighteningly like her mother:
The Rachel of 1968 slept on soup cans to get her hair to look like this:
A decade later, the Rachel of 1978 had obviously let herself go:
But the Rachel of 1986 sported a jheri curl and a whole new flava:
Finally, the Rachel of 1992 worked the timeless combination of mall bangs and angora:
I have to also give a quick shout-out to the Mindy of 1964, who I hear looks an awful lot like the grandmother of the Mindy of 1964:
I'm not sure who the Mindy of 1990 looks like though:

The Dichotomy of our Neighborhood

On most days, I love our neighborhood. It's a wonderful ethnic and social mix of people; Matt and I are definitely minorities on our block. And I love all the kids and (most of) the dogs. Yesterday, as I was walking to our house, one of my favorite little kids said, "Do you live in the house with the brick on the front?" I told her I did, and she stopped short and said with a hushed amazement in her voice, "So...you live in...Barley's house?" Again, I told her I did, and she asked if Barley could come out and play.

A few weeks ago, that same girl came to our door with her little sister. I thought they were selling something for school, and I was more than ready to buy some popcorn, wrapping paper, magazines...whatever they were selling, really. Instead, she handed me this piece of paper:

As I was reading it, she said, "Will you do your part to help save the polar bears?" As a person who tried to start my own recycling campaign in our neighborhood when I was her age, I enthusiastically agreed. Since that day, I've kept her note on our fridge, and I've seen her picking up trash throughout the neighborhood. Kids like her give me hope that all will not be lost in future generations.

On other days, I don't love our neighborhood so much. For the last week, two perfectly good couches sat on the curb. They were in such good shape, in fact, that another neighbor poked her head out when Matt and I were walking by to ask if we would help her carry them inside. She acted like she was joking, but, in retrospect, I think she may have been serious. Yesterday morning, our garbage collectors loaded those two perfectly good couches into the back of their truck and crushed them down. Why our neighbors didn't offer the couches for free on Craig's List instead of sending them to a landfill is beyond me.

Unfortunately, this isn't the first time that a perfectly good piece of furniture has been left on the curb. We also see litter and food scraps strewn about, both of which were most likely dragged out of garbage bags by the stray cats that other neighbors feed with plates of take-out food. Matt's Buick had a dirty diaper under it for far longer than I care to remember.

I suppose it often takes a great need for change to inspire those with a conscience to take action. Maybe our young neighbor will win accolades for her environmental activism one day. She'll only have her wasteful neighbors to thank.

Progress

On August 26, 1920, American women secured the right to vote:

Exactly 88 years later, on August 26, 2008:

On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. shared his dream with America:

Exactly 45 years later, on August 28, 2008:

Back to School

I'm well on my way to a drastic pay decrease and a career in which I will garner significantly less respect. Yes, I'm officially one step closer to a career in teaching. I was accepted to College of Notre Dame of Maryland's accelerated certification program this week:

The best part is that the sister who signed this acceptance letter is one of my nuns. As if I needed another reason to love them!

Blast from the past

My awesome friend, Anna, invited me to a Tupperware party years ago when I was still living in Minnesota. Before I left for the party, Matt said, "Get one of those pickle-holder things." Alas, the party had several innovative Tupperware products, but none of the pickle-dispensing containers both of us grew up with and absolutely loved:

I've been to a Tupperware party or two since then, and I walk slowly by the Tupperware kiosk at the mall, just in case. But I've never been able to find the illusive pickle-dispensing container. Until now. We finally found these Tupperware-brand containers the other day, and we snatched them up:

The most ridiculous part of all this (aside from obsessing over a pickle and/or Tupperware product for at least five years) is how much fun we've had with it! I think we have pickles at or before every meal now. We rearranged the refrigerator so the pickle dispenser could have a prime location. We made a special trip to the grocery store to buy another jar of pickles so our dispenser could be full, and we lamented when we realized that we would have to wait until it was empty before we filled it again (waitressing 101: never put new on top of old).

There is a down side to all this, though. I like a good obsession to occupy my shopping trips. I like to be perpetually looking for a specific something, even if (actually, especially if) it seems unattainable. Maybe my research for a new obsession can be my new obsession for now.

Sweet success!

I baked a cheesecake about this time last year, and it's taken me that long to try to bake another one. My maternal grandmother is from New York, and her aunt (my mom's great aunt and my great-great aunt) had a cheesecake recipe that has been passed from generation to generation. I first attempted to bake the famous "Lapp Family Cheesecake" twice in as many days last fall.

The first time I tried it, I had the oven set 100 degrees warmer than it should have been. I blamed that on the old, practically illegible recipe card my mom had. The second attempt a day later, however, was even more painfully unsuccessful, mostly because I had only myself to blame. I used the wrong Kitchenaid attachment, and I ended up with so much air in my batter that the cake puffed up in the oven to the point that it overflowed the sides of the pan. I also used a springform pan that was too small, so an already precarious kitchen situation became an outright kitchen disaster. But it didn't end there.

Instead of scooping up all the bits of cheesecake that had landed on the bottom of the oven (and hardened, thanks to the "cook it for an hour and a half and leave the door closed and don't you dare open it for anything!" rule), I decided to turn the oven to "clean" the next day. I don't know if I thought that a self-cleaning oven actually scraped the chunks of stuff from the oven, or if I just didn't want to know. Either way, when I locked the door and set the oven to "clean," all those bits of greasy cheesecake went up like a bunch of Roman candles. Smoke was shooting out the back of the oven, Barley was barking at the stove, and at some point, there was a rather large explosion. I turned the oven off and tried to open the door to air it out, forgetting that the oven door locks for quite some time after being set to "clean." I opened windows and brought in auxiliary fans, but the smoke was too much. I took Barley to the basement, but it was still too strong. My eyes were burning and he was rolling around on the carpet, rubbing his face. So we went outside, where I contemplated whether to wait it out or call the fire department to bust into my oven and put out what was, in my imagination, a raging inferno of cheesecake. Ultimately, we waited it out, sitting on the front step and chatting with curious neighbors until the fire in the kitchen went out.

As easy as it is to laugh about it now, last year's disaster was more than just a culinary failure. This recipe was something I should have been born knowing how to make! I think it took me a year to try again not so much because I nearly burned down our house, but because I was failing a long line of Lapp women. I must've channeled them better last night, because the end product came out beautifully (as evidenced by the fact that half of it is now gone, though Barley played a hand/paw in that one):


Oh, what sweet, delicious success!

Olympic lexicon, III

In honor of this evening's closing ceremonies, I present one last installment:

During boxing...
"What was that? I feel like I just watched an Abbott and Costello routine, and I still don't know who's on first."

During women's speedwalking...
"Right now, she knows she's the best walker in the world." I think we had more fun laughing at this event than at the announcers (though that statement is pretty ridiculous). At one point, Matt asked, "What's next? Olympic speedcrawling? Do you have to be the best crawler before you can be the best walker?"

During rhythmic gymnastics (floor exercise with hoops, batons, ropes, etc.)...
Announcer 1: "After doing this routine in practice last night, this team was very happy."
Announcer 2: "And that's a very good thing, considering they all had ropes in their hands."

Bob Costas...
"And so, both the men's and women's 4 x 100 relay teams have laid a giant egg here in the Bird's Nest."

Free Spirits

Thanks to Mindy for sharing this great video with me:



I don't know if I love this because of the image of dogs catching a bus, or because I'm jealous of the great lives these doggies have.

The Olympic lexicon, II

More "Great Moments in Olympic Announcing":

During women's gymnastics...
"You can't fall on your face and be rewarded with an Olympic medal; there's no way."

During synchronized swimming...
"Our swimmers are going to tell a narrative about light that's like a science-fiction movie. It will be so complex that I am certain most of the people watching it will not understand."

Good Eats

Finally, some uplifting news from Baltimore City Schools!

WYPR, our local public radio affiliate, reported on a new program that not only feeds children healthy meals (made with real food!), but also supports local farmers. They've hired a new chef, Tony Geraci, who realizes that teachers can't do their jobs if their clientele is "jacked up on Lucky Charms, or worse, no food at all."

The root of so many of our country's problems is a lack of education, but that lack of education is a direct result of poverty and poor nutrition. I'm so proud of this initiative!

Click here to listen to the story.

It wasn't "just stress"

There was a rather distressing article in the "Health" section of this morning's Washington Post. For nearly two years, Karima Hijane, a mother in her early thirties, lived with menopause-like symptoms, accompanied by migraines and aching bones. She went from doctor to doctor, specialist to specialist, but no one could give her an accurate diagnosis. Doctors told her to exercise more or that her symptoms were "just stress." When the doctors and specialists didn't see an easy answer, they threw up their hands. Karima Hijane was later diagnosed with Primary Ovarian Insufficiency, a rare--but certainly diagnosable--disease.

I know this is a common story in the medical profession--patient goes from doctor to doctor for years with little or no explanation--but it seems especially true with women's health issues. The medical system in our country has hijacked so many of the choices that were once freely available to us: the right to see a doctor, midwife, PA, Nurse Practioner, you name it for our well-woman visits; the right to choose how and when we decide to become pregnant; the right to choose how and where to deliver our children. From doctors and nurses who criticize midwives and doulas, to well-meaning colleagues who ask, "So when will you start having kids?" the most sacred decisions in our lives are no longer solely ours. Stories like Karima Hijane's are the all-too-familiar byproduct.

Since her diagnosis, Karima Hijane has become the President/Treasurer of Rachel's Well, a nonprofit dedicated to the improvement of women's health by "raising awareness, removing barriers to care, and stimulating research."

The Olympic lexicon

Like so many others, Matt and I are hooked on the Olympics. One of our favorite spectator sports has been laughing at some of the bizarre comments from the announcers. These are a few of our favorites:

During women's volleyball...
Announcer 1: "The Chinese are trouncing the Japanese today."
Announcer 2: "Absolutely. The Chinese have, indeed, taken the Japanese out behind the woodshed."

During women's gymnastics...
"What a moment for her. Her spirit is literally rising." That paints an interesting mental image. No wonder she could jump so high!

During weightlifting...
"He is now lifting the weight of a refrigerator. And not one of those mini-fridges either. A full-size refrigerator. With food in it."

I'm sure more will come.

Barley has been FURminated

Sister Bernadette, the nun at work who takes care of our therapy dog, recommended this amazing product to me a few weeks ago. She said it was the best brush/deshedding tool she's ever used. Sister Bern doesn't usually lie (she took those vows, you know), so I got one for Barley.

Oh...my...gosh. I filled a plastic grocery bag with his hair! And Barley isn't a long-haired dog. I had no idea there was so much hair hiding underneath his topcoat! Hopefully, this will help with his perpetual itchie-skin issues. Hopefully, it'll help with our hair-on-the-furniture issues, too!

Check out the FURminator website to see it in action! Absolutely amazing.

November 4th is just around the corner.

If you're looking for a birthday gift for me, I think this game looks like the best thing ever. Maybe yesterday's post just has me in the mood to play around with some good (or not-so-good!) old fashioned opening sentences.

If I do get this game (I'm not sure if I can wait until November), I will play with anyone buy my mother. Sorry, Mom.

Theirs were dark and stormy sentences.

The winners of the 26th annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest were announced this week. Named for the author of the immortal--and often parodied--sentence "It was a dark and stormy night," the contest awards a prize for the worst opening sentence of a non-existent novel. This year's grand prize winner is from right here in the Washington area, and it's a true gem:

Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist, white breath through manhole covers stamped "Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J."

You can't get much better (or worse) than comparing love to a manhole cover made in New Jersey. The complete list of winners has more great entries; these are a few of my favorites:

Winner: Romance
Bill swore the affair had ended, but Louise knew he was lying, after discovering Tupperware containers under the seat of his car, which were not the off-brand containers that she bought to save money, but authentic, burpable, lidded Tupperware; and she knew he would see that woman again, because unlike the flimsy, fake containers that should always be recycled responsibly, real Tupperware must be returned to its rightful owner.

Runner-up: Science Fiction
Lightning flashed from the blue-black sky of this alien world and shattered the engines of the spaceship, destroying Reninger's last chance of escaping and reminding him of the time his sister returned from New York with the tips of her hair dyed blue, except for the part about the lightning and the spaceship.

Miscellaneous Dishonorable Mentions:
Behind his pearly white smile lay a Bible black heart, not like the Psalms with its, "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord," but like Revelations where God just smites people.

Her name was Mauve, like the color of paint, which was apt: not only was she "pretty as a painting," she was also "smart as paint," and certainly as thin (assuming sufficient solvents had been added); she was, however, Arnold discovered when she stepped from the shower, a lot more fun to watch dry.

Like almost every other post-Hegelian neo-hipster angst monkey at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Rene flatly rejected the labels society placed upon him.


One really has to be a good writer to write that badly! Kudos to all of this year's winners.

Barley, my hero

Matt flew in from Vegas last night, and Barley came along to pick him up. Ordinarily, we keep Barley confined to the back of the car, but sometimes I let him ride up front on short trips. I took the picture below on the way to the airport, and it's a perfect illustration of why Barley has lost his front-seat privileges:


But I'm so glad I let him break the rules last night! As soon as we drove up to the airport, one of those pesky airport cadets pulled me over. He looked like he was about 12 and probably weighed 100 pounds soaking wet. This is how our conversation went:

Cadet: Good evening, ma'am (starting with the old lady bit...nice). Did you know you have a headlight out?

Rachel: Yeah, I noticed that on the way over here. (Read: it's been out since at least March) Barley, sit down.

Cadet: Hi, doggie! Oh my, you're friendly.

Rachel: Barley, get off me. Go sit down.

Cadet: What a cute dog. He sure is excited.

Rachel: Yeah, he loves the car. Barley, no! Sit!

Cadet: So about that headlight. I can probably let it go. But do you have your license and registration?

Rachel: No, I don't have it on me right now. (Read: I have no idea where our registration is. I thought that was just something they asked for on TV shows) We live about 2 minutes from here. I just hopped in the car with the dog and left. Barley, go on! Get to the back! Back!

Cadet: Okay, I'll let you go. But make sure you get that headlight fixed, and don't leave home without your paperwork from now on. Can I pet your dog?

Rachel: Sure....

And just like that, I was off scot-free. I'm sure the 12-year-old cadet could've given me a ticket for speeding, too, considering he had his radar gun out and the speed limit is something ridiculous like 4 miles/hour through the airport. Add up all my violations, and Barley saved me at least $200.

My hero.

Still crazy after 35 years

35 years ago today, I wasn't even a glint in my parents' eyes. Fortunately, they were a glint in each other's, regardless of what future in-laws had to say about it.

Happy anniversary, Mom and Dad!

Please let me go to bed by day

It's barely 7:00, and I'm so exhausted from my trip to Minnesota that I can hardly keep my eyes open. I want nothing more than to go to bed, but I'm reminded that it's ridiculously early for an adult who's not sick or depressed to go to sleep.

It's reminding me of a poem that my mom taught me when I was little:

"Bed in Summer"

by Robert Louis Stevenson

In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people's feet
Still going past me in the street.

And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?

I remember hating this poem on those summer nights when I was tucked in at 7:30 to the sounds of birds and people outside (not to mention my mom reciting the poem, just as a friendly reminder that, yes, it's still light outside). Now, I wish someone would make me go to sleep. "I know the sun is still up and the kitchen is a mess, but it's bedtime."

O, Minnesota!

My home and native land! My trip to the Boundary Waters (which did include a very brief stop in Canada, the original "home and native land") was better than anything I could have imagined. My father-in-law said I wouldn't be able to handle it, but I had one of the best times of my life.

My crew of six kids, another adult leader and our guide paddled across some of the most unspoiled wilderness in the world. We carried packs weighing anywhere from 60 to 110 pounds; we hoisted canoes on our shoulders and hiked through miles of trails, including a winding, unmaintained trail, or "bushwhack"; and we spent countless hours lounging on the shores of our campsites. Our highlight was spending time at the campsite at the end of the bushwhack that gave us the view of the gorgeous sunset below (followed by the most glorious night sky I've ever seen; we could see the Milky Way).


I've always said that I like to vacation as God intended--in a busy city, preferably in a 5-star hotel with room service. But I have a new-found appreciation and awe for spending days at a time in God's glorious wilderness. I didn't wear deodorant, take a shower or even use soap for five days; I cleaned dishes with moss and dirt; and I hiked for hours at a time with packs and canoes that weighed nearly as much as I do. And I loved every moment of it.

Aside from the personal empowerment of the week, I also experienced a rare moment in the teenage world--the breaking down of social walls and the dissolution of cliques. The kids in my group couldn't have been more different. Three of them are too-cool-for-school kids and the other three are band nerds. They were thrown together as near-strangers, regardless of the fact that they've been in the same youth group for years. By the end of the week, the traditional high school social walls all but crumbled. They gave each other nicknames, invited each other to participate in activities around the campsite, and even voluntarily mixed it up when it came time to decide who would paddle which canoe each day. When all the kids said good-bye to each other at the airport this afternoon, the cool kids and the band nerds sought each other out for one last hug.

Off to the Boundary Waters!

When I was growing up, "roughing it" meant finding something to do when the cable television went out during a thunderstorm. This week, I'm off to the Boundary Waters to spend five days in the wilderness with 20 teenagers. At the time of this post, we're meeting at the airport. By 6:00, we'll be on our way to Minnesota.

See you in a week!

Your ironic thought for the day

Posted verbatim from an education web site: "She really is the epitamy of what good teaching is."

Book Mooching

A few weeks ago, I wrote about Book Crossing, an online service in which users share books and track books' journeys. While a nice idea, I was uncomfortable with the thought of leaving my books for just anyone to find.

Last night, Matt told me about a program with which I'd be much more comfortable: Book Mooch. Instead of just leaving books laying about, books are shared with readers who have a keen interest in the specific book. I'm also drawn to the points system they use to keep track of books shared and/or mooched. I'm a sucker for punch cards, frequent shopper programs, you name it, so this is especially appealing:

Action	Points
Add a book to inventory	+ 1/10th
Give away book (within your country)	+ 1
Give away book (to another country)	+ 3
Mooch a book (within your country)	- 1
Mooch a book (from another country)	- 2
Acknowledge receiving a book you mooched	+ 1/10th

The best part of the whole program has to be the option to donate points to worthwhile charities, including public libraries and a "books for prisons" program. I'll always have a hard time parting with my books, and it will be tough not to choose the home to which my volumes travel, but I could jump on the Book Mooch bandwagon.