Indiana State Fair -- bring on the FOOD

I'm trying to arrange a before-we-all-go-back-to-school trip to the Indiana State Fair this coming weekend with the girls, my nephews and my parents. The boys are coming to stay and with the State Fair beginning on Wednesday, I was thinking that Friday might be a good day to go and look at all the winning projects, the animal barns and eat. Eat, eat, EAT.

I do love a good state fair.

Here are some tried-and-true offerings that we willingly sample. Oh, okay, let's be honest. We wolf them down like a pack of, well, wolves. Hungry wolves. Hungry, rabid wolves. Who were raised without any manners:

1. corn-on-the-cob on a stick, dipped in butter (also anything else that comes our way on a stick. Stick foods, we love 'em.)

2. funnel cakes

3. elephant ears

4. pork chop sandwiches

5. popcorn

6. milk shakes

7. frozen Cokes - although we give a brief nod to the calorie count of this whole endeavor and order frozen DIET Cokes. Why? Because overindulgence is just wrong. Push it too far and it becomes gluttony and heaven knows none of us wants to go there.

I've also heard about some new foods making their debut at the Indiana State Fair this year, to wit:

1. How about deep-fried Bananas Foster cheesecake on a stick? No, I'm not kidding. Check out this picture if you don't believe me. Besides, what kind of cruel person would joke around about something like Bananas Foster cheesecake? Deep-fried and on. A. Stick. You all know I'm not that way.

Would you believe it's served with a scoop on vanilla ice cream on the side? That's been drizzled in caramel sauce? No? Well, then, get yourself to the fair. Because this entry from Urick Concessions won first place in the 2008 Indiana State Fair Signature Foods Contest, they have an extra booth. Which is conveniently placed right outside the Grand Hall, across from the Pepsi Coliseum.

If you try to cut in line ahead of me, I will break both your legs with no remorse. So help me.

2. To help you down off that sugar high, Barto's Catering & Concessions is offering hickory-smoked pulled-pork sandwich with shagbark hickory syrup barbecue sauce. Okay, so the barbecue sauce is probably sugary - it still packs about a thousand times less of a wallop than the deep-fried cheesecake, so I think it seems like a sound nutritional choice. Don't you?

Speaking of sound nutritional choices, I was listening to 93.1 WIBC-FM, which is my favorite Indianapolis talk radio station, on the way home from taking my husband to work, and I was enraged to hear a woman from Clarian Health Network actually talking about the calorie and fat content of state fair food, right there on the air with morning personalities Jake and Terri.

What kind of sadist would come on the radio early on a Monday morning and tell you that an elephant ear has over 1,000 calories and 61 grams of fat?

As a healthy alternative, she suggested corn-on-the-cob on a stick, except she said that a "good food choice" would be to ask the vendor to HOLD THE BUTTER.

Wha-??!!

This woman can't possibly be from my beloved Hoosier state. Because if she were, she would know that an ear of corn without butter is simply not allowed. You know those police officers who walk around, being all polite and looking handsome in an intimidating kind of way in their uniforms? Well, they aren't there to direct traffic or to provide security detail. They're there to MAKE SURE YOU HAVE BUTTER ON YOUR CORN.

Ms. Bossypants Clarion also smugly announced the calorie and fat contents of a bunch of other foods and it was too bad I was driving, because I wanted to stick my fingers in my ears and sing, "Lalalalala-la-lalalaaa!!!" over and over again. I couldn't change the radio because my favorite classical music doesn't broadcast very far and rock music jars me unendurably in the mornings. She totally dissed the big turkey drumstick, just when I was thinking how thoughtful God was to provide us with a food that comes on a stick of its very own. She was even dismissive of host Terri Stacy's timid suggestion of an Indiana Dairy Famers grilled cheese sandwich.

If this woman had her way, we'd all be eating steamed cauliflour on a stick.

Her big offering, one which she was very enthusiastic about, was for everyone to come to the Clarion Healthy Living Pavilion and tour the giant, 40-foot long colon, complete with depictions of "healthy colon tissue as well as tissue with hemorrhoids, cancerous and non-cancerous polyps, Crohn’s disease, diverticulosis, ulcerative colitis and various stages of colon cancer." Gee, I can hardly wait. Treats like giant 40-foot colons don't come around near often enough, although I'm glad this one came with plenty of advance notice so that I can be sure to miss it.

Although I can see that this is the one place at the fair that my nephews, especially Dayden, would be immediately and irrevocably attracted to. I can't decide which would be worse: eating a bunch of fair food and then walking through the giant colon display (which will nauseate me, because I have a tender gag reflex) or not eating a bunch of fair food beforehand and then having no appetite after seeing late stage cancerous polyps displayed in fiberglass and as big as my head.

The exhibit, affectionately known as "Coco, the Colossal Colon," is free, by the way.

Although I kind of think that Clarion woman was a bit of a colossal colon, myself.




Click here for the Indiana State Fair website.

Here's some interesting history of the Indiana State Fair back when the fairgrounds were out in the middle of the country in 1892, instead of right there smack-dab on 38th Street at Fall Creek Parkway. I never get over the sight of all those livestock sheds there in the heart of the city.

Screeching in from the weekend with our hair on fire

I haven't posted a single word since last Thursday, and all I can say is, "Dude...what a weekend."

In the past few days, the girls went to a birthday sleepover with one of their friends, we were all invited to a cook-out, we spent a bunch of time with our nephews (who have to go back to school on August 12, which seems crazy-early to me), went to Symphony on the Prairie for my birthday (which was actually in June) and had our church's saint's day festival. Throw in a two hour music practice at church, hours of traveling time to various places in our now un-air-conditioned van during some of the hottest days of the entire summer, some frantic shopping for the birthday girl's gift and about a thousand trips to the grocery and you have our weekend.

Yesterday, when calm finally descended after the family and I put in our time at the ring-toss and the fingernail painting booth*, we packed up our stuff and headed for the pool. I took my library book out of my bag and walked straight into the cool, refreshing water and stayed there for two hours, moving nothing but my eyeballs and the fingers of my right hand as I turned the pages.


*My husband did not participate in the fingernail painting, by the way. He has no talent in that direction, although when it comes to tossing a ring over a 2-liter bottle of soda pop, he reigns champion. If the rings were being tossed over bottles of Michelob Light instead of soda pop, I imagine that he would be crowned King of Ring Toss. Or maybe King of Ring Tosspots, I don't know which.

OPINIONS?: Food processors

It has come to my attention, mostly through the subtle but determined prodding from Kayte, that I need a food processor. Plus there are those messy memories of whizzing about ten cups of my Whisk Wednesdays Leek & Potato Soup in my tiny food chopper to kind of nudge me in the direction of the appliance aisle at Target.

With a food processor, I'll be able to make homemade salsa, which is something my family would like me to do, because we can never find one that is tomatoey or jalapeno peppery enough for us. I could also make a pie crust, which would allow me to bake a Summer Fruit Galette from the Dorie Greenspan book Kayte peer-pressured me into buying. If you want to see why I should bake a galette, check out the pics from these Tuesdays with Dorie bakers and Whisk Wednesdays buddies: Kayte's site is Grandma's Kitchen Table and Natashya's is called Living in the Kitchen with Puppies. Sara's blog is The Wine-Maker's Wife and then there's Shari, our fearless Whisk Wednesdays leader, over at Whisk: a food blog.

Their photos will make you drool, so please cover your keyboard before clicking over.

Now can you see why I need a food processor? Because I am not a foodie and I can't even make the meager claim that I play one on TV. I don't have the mad skills necessary to "cut in" a pie crust by hand, and truthfully, I'm not even completely sure what that means. I do have a curvy thing with a handle that my mother told me was a "pastry cutter," but she's been using a food processor to make her fabulous pie crusts since I was about ten, so it could be a really small, handle-less sidewalk edger, for all she and I may know.

So anyhoo, I'm looking for a food processor and I can spend less than $40 on it. Does anyone have any recommendations?

You can post your opinions in the comments section or email them to me InsomniMom @ hotmail.com

READER ALERT: Day of Reparation Proposed After Professor Desecrates Host

Desecration of Host Not Seen as Free Speech: Confraternity Proposes Prayer Day in Reparation
JULY 30, 2008

HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania- The Confraternity of Catholic Clergy is proposing Friday as a national day of prayer and fasting in the wake of the desecration of the Eucharist by a Minnesota professor.

Father John Trigilio, Jr., the president of the confraternity, a U.S. association of 600 priests and deacons, sent out a statement this week asking Catholics "to join in a day of prayer and fasting that such offenses never happen again."

Paul Myers, a professor of biology at the University of Minnesota at Morris, says he desecrated the Eucharist by piercing it with a rusty nail, then he threw it into the trash.

The self-professed atheist wrote about the incident on his blog and posted a photo of the desecrated host.

The statement of the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy said it found the actions of Myers "reprehensible, inexcusable, and unconstitutional. His flagrant display of irreverence by profaning a consecrated Host from a Catholic Church goes beyond the limit of academic freedom and free speech."

"Attacking the most sacred elements of a religion is not free speech any more than would be perjury in a court or libel in a newspaper,"added the text.

Father Trigilio told ZENIT that the congregation is asking the faithful to make a holy hour before the Eucharist on August 1, the feast of St. Alphonsus Ligouri, and to fast in "reparation for the sacrilegious desecration of the Holy Eucharist.




Copyright (c) 2008 Zenit News Agency. All rights reserved.

Did it make good leftovers? Overnight Slow-Cooker Oatmeal

This morning when I got up, I was still hungry for the slow-cooked oatmeal, so I went in search of the leftovers. There wasn't much left, since all four of us had a bowl yesterday morning (well, Aisling had a bowl which she sugared and covered in milk and then put in the sink), but there was enough for a couple of bowls.

______________________________________________

RECIPE: Overnight Slow-Cooker Oatmeal

______________________________________________

As expected, the leftover oatmeal was gluey and unappetizing in appearance, but I was prepared to deal with that. I pried a hunk out of the fridge container, put it in a bowl with a glug of milk and microwaved it for two minutes. When the beeper sounded, I pulled it out and stirred vigorously to reconstitute it to yesterday's creamy lusciousness and sweetened it with one packet of stevia and a dribble of maple syrup. The crowning touch was a scant palmful of chopped pecans.

It was perfectly delicious. My husband, who slept in on this, his day off, trundled downstairs when I was about halfway through my bowl, with an interested look on his face. I offered to make him a bowl before he went out on his three-mile run in training for the Indianapolis Marathon in October (he's running the half-marathon), leaving out the pecans because he prefers a creamy texture with no chewiness.

He proclaimed it delicious, much better than the half an expensive protein bar he usually eats. I pointed out that it was about three times cheaper, too: the entire packet of organic steel-cut oats, which I figure will make about four or five crocks of oatmeal, cost about half as much as the carefully parceled out protein bars he and Meelyn consume in one week. Those things are not delicious, although they are a good protein source for the crazy people who insist on getting up early and exercising and running and all that kind of thing.

But not as good as old-fashioned, slow-cooked oatmeal!

Whisk Wednesday Assignment #13, Part 4 -- Bisque du Langoustine (Lobster Bisque)

Okay, I cheated. But I cheated with a purpose, and the purpose was to keep my husband from shouting at me with a crazy look in his eyes and then cutting up my debit card for spending our $90 per week grocery budget on lobster and cognac. Because I could have, you know? I priced cognac in a couple of different places, several different brands -- Hennessy, Courvoisier and Remy Martin -- and they were all in the $38-$44 range for smallish bottles. Boone's Farm apparently doesn't run to cognac.

And then there was the lobster. When I passed their tank at the grocery, I just turned my head aside and walked a little more quickly. I am SCARED OF FOOD that doesn't give you an actual cost, but instead offers the bone-chilling message on a little blackboard: "Market Price."

I bet you anything that the market price on lobsters flown from Maine to Indiana is not $2.09 a pound.

So I emailed Shari and begged off the Bisque du Langoustine for this week, but I did offer to make instead the Lobster Bisque recipe that I found printed on the label of my little jar of Superior Foods' Better Than Bouillon Lobster Base. This is the same lobster base I bought to use in the Seafood Enchiladas à la Chi-Chi's recipe I posted on July 8. It was good stuff in those enchiladas, so when I read that little tiny recipe, printed in a font so small I thought I was going to have to hire a fairy to come read it for me, I thought, "Hmm, that sounds pretty good. And easy! I'll have to try it someday."

This was the day.

First of all, this recipe scored huge points for me because it took all of ten minutes to prepare, HUGE. Secondly, it tasted delicious. Other than the absence of the quenelles, which are little egg-shaped bundles of puréed lobster, egg whites and a few other ingredients, basted and cooked with the bisque, I wonder if anyone would have known that this recipe came from a jarred base. A purist would have made the quenelles anyway, using lobster or crab meat or even shrimp, but I am very impure when it comes to that sort of thing. Look not upon me. I am not worthy.

So my bisque was just a mug full of creamy deliciousness of a gorgeous pumpkiny sienna hue. I really do think that this could be served as a first course to guests: it tasted that good. For lunch, a bowl would be very nice with a French baguette and some really cold butter.

LOBSTER BISQUE

2 cups heavy cream OR half-and-half (or milk, if you have to be that way)
1 cup water
1 cup white wine (a sweeter variety) or sherry
1 tablespoon Superior Foods' Lobster Base
3 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1/4 teaspoon paprika

All you had to do was throw all this stuff in a medium saucepan, give it a go with your whisk, allow it to come to the boil, and then turn the flame down to allow it to simmer gently for five minutes. Done!

I poured myself out that mug-full I mentioned and sat down for a quick taste. The texture was lovely and creamy, the color delightful and the taste completely delicious. I don't know who these Superior Foods people are, but their Lobster Base is darned good. At it cost me a whole $4.95 at the grocery, where I found it on the soup aisle.

Since I'm confessing things anyway, I'll add that I got some crispy golden butter crackers and naughtily crushed a few up into my bisque. I know this makes me sound about eight years old, but it sounded to yummy to pass up.

Next week! Consommé Madrilène (Chilled Consommé with Red Peppers and Tomatoes) pages 267-268

RECIPE: Overnight Slow-Cooker Oatmeal

One of my favorite cookbooks in the whole world is the one by Beth Hensperger and Julie Kaufmann titled Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook. It has a wealth of recipes that not only rise above my admittedly tacky and pedestrian Chicken, Broccoli and Rice Casserole, but also offer a variety that I'd never before associated with a slow-cooker. Like breakfast foods, for instance.

I was very intrigued by the hot cereals recipes in chapter two, which was delightfully titled "From the Porridge Pot." The very idea of "porridge" makes me go all Mamsie Pepper, but the problem is that I'd never eat it. Because, yuck. Didn't that little boy named Paul have to manfully choke down a bowlful of porridge every morning in order to please his old-fashioned grandmama in Anne of Avonlea? See, he didn't like it either.

But Beth and Julie had some recipes that honestly made me think that cooking some oatmeal for the family's breakfast would be a really smart thing to do. First of all, steel-cut oats are very rich in protein and fiber. Secondly, if you make them yourself, you control the amount of sweetner your children use in them. I mean, I don't want to offend that Quaker Oats guy, mostly because HE IS FREAKIN' SCARY, going around and offering chewy oatmeal granola bars to children and the only food character who could possibly be any more WRONG than the Quaker guy is the Burger King with that giant head, but the instant oatmeal? FULL of sugar. MOSTLY sugar. So much sugar, it's like having a bowl of sugar for breakfast with a few rolled oats sprinkled on top.

So last night, I got out my small slow-cooker and assembled what ingredients I happened to have on hand, and kind of cobbled this recipe together from several that the cookbook's authors had listed.

OVERNIGHT SLOW-COOKER OATMEAL

1 cup steel-cut oats (I used organic steel-cut oats from Bob's Red Mill )
4 cups lukewarm water
1/2 cup evaporated milk (Don't use fresh milk because it will turn caramel-colored in the slow-cooker, and this recipe is already slightly dark because of the oats themselves, and the spices.)
1/2 cup raisins
1 teaspoon apple pie spice OR 1 teaspoon cinnamon with a pinch of ground cloves, nutmeg and allspice

Spray a small round or oval slow cooker with cooking spray. Combine all ingredients in cooker and stir well. Set on LOW heat and cook overnight or for 8-9 hours. Easy-peasy!

When we woke up this morning, the house smelled absolutely divine. I ate my oatmeal with a dollop of milk and two packets of Sweet-n-Low (I understand that it makes little sense to buy organic oats and then muck them up with an artificial sweetner, but I have to watch my blood sugar and I forgot I had some stevia in the cupboard until it was too late.) My husband ate his with one packet of Sweet-n-Low and a tablespoon of brown sugar. Meelyn used some sugar and added some vanilla soy milk. Aisling, who is the family's champion oatmeal-eater, was nervous about an upcoming sleepover and couldn't finish her bowl, which I'm sure she regrets now that she's with her friends and having so much fun.

I look forward to making this oatmeal and trying dried cherries or cranberries instead of raisins. I look forward to smooshing half a banana into it. I like the idea of adding some chunks of fresh, ripe peaches or crisp apple to the pot in the last half hour of cooking. So many possibilities for a delicious, hot breakfast, full of proteiny goodness!

It was good the first time,, but how did the leftovers stand up? Find out by clicking here.

Plating

I've always been the type of cook who liked a plate to look nice. My mother was always a wonderful cook when I was growing up and she taught me the finer points of both nutrition and culinary aesthetics of not serving a pale, naked boneless, skinless chicken breast shivering on a plate next to some mashed turnips and a serving of wax beans. Her meals were always hearty and filled with color, if lamentably short on desserts.

But actual plating is something I've never really done until the double-whammy of Whisk Wednesdays and Top Chef hit me. All of a sudden, I'm enjoying little finicky details like a flat-leaf parsley and grape tomato garnish, or a sprinkling of paprika and dill weed across the top of a potato salad. (I know the paprika thing is hopelessly stuck in the 1950s days of casseroles baked with chicken, noodles, cheese, cashews, pimiento-stuffed green olives and two cans of cream of mushroom soup, but I can't help it. Just be thankful that I don't make that casserole.)

Tonight we ate a simple dinner of Mexican chili, which the girls and I dished up into our faithful old Pfaltzgraff rimmed soup plates. We laid a slice of Colby-Jack cheese on the top of each bowl, threw a few corn chips on it like a group of little seafarers perched on a life raft in the middle of a bumpy red sea, and topped it off with a sprig of the aforementioned parsley. It looked very pretty, and my husband was appreciative of our efforts. Which made me sigh in relief, because he's a pickier eater than he thinks he is, and I was trying to disguise the fact that we'd run out of our usual cheddar cheese.

I'm also teaching the girls some little niceties of the table, things I left behind me from my mother's training when I had two little ones "helping" and just getting supper on the table took the organizational skills of General Patton. For some time, I've been just throwing bottles of ketchup and mustard out there, along with chips in a bag instead of a bowl, sometimes with a big plastic jug of milk acting the part of a centerpiece. It used to drive me batty when my mother put mayonnaise in a tiny dish and pickles in a tiny dish and croutons in a tiny dish. It made so much extra stuff to wash. If it had been possible to put my frayed nerve endings in a dish, it would have taken a big one.

But tonight, Meelyn, Aisling and I did what we've been trying to do and put jalapeño peppers in a tiny dish and slices of Colby-Jack on a little plate and corn chips in a medium-sized bowl. And decorated everything with parsley, because if you're going to serve your family a cheap dinner like chili made from canned ingredients, the least you can do is make everything pretty.

My husband nodded approvingly and said that everything looked very nice and congratulated me that the girls aren't growing up like wild animals with no manners. He seems to believe that all problems with child rearing can be solved by everyone's sitting down at the dinner table in the evening. Although I could tell him some stories about throwing a buttered biscuit at my father that might change his mind about that.

My personal theory includes flat-leaf parsley.

And plating.

Tuesday Toot! (July 29)

Here's my Toot for Tuesday, July 29.

I can do algebra! Anyone who reads here knows that I am not a math person. I am such a non-math person that I still count on my fingers and never can remember if 8 + 6 is thirteen or fourteen. Or, fifteen? No, definitely not fifteen, but anyway, I told Meelyn that I'd do algebra with her for moral support when she started ninth grade. We're using the Math-U-See program, which has the world's dumbest name, but turns out to be a really excellent way to learn math. We've been going through the lessons and both of us are actually doing excellent work. I'm getting A's and so is she!

There were so many times after I told her I'd do algebra with her that I wanted to kick myself. Kick. My. Self. But now I'm very glad I've stuck with it because, strangely enough, it has given me a nice boost in self-confidence. Although my family would argue that higher self-esteem is not something I should be seeking. But what do THEY know? Probably not algebra, like me!

PRODUCT REVIEW: Poo-Pourri

I just want you to hush up right now, because I can hear your incredulous laughter ALL THE WAY FROM WHERE YOU ARE. All I can say is, if you haven't tried it, don't knock it.

Because I have tried Poo-Pourri. And without going into too much indelicate detail, IT WORKS.

But maybe you haven't heard of Poo-Pourri? Then please let me tell you what it is.

Poo-Pourri (patent pending) is a bathroom air freshener, but it is an air freshener with a difference. It doesn't come in an aerosol can that you keep on the back of the toilet and then spray around the powder room after you've done your business, which we all can still smell, even though you've tried to discreetly mask the odor with the scent of apple pie or French vanilla or a tropical garden or whatever. And I don't want to be too bold right here, because it will bring my mother down on my head like a duck on a June bug, but all that spraying only makes it seem that you just did a poo in your grandma's kitchen, a Breyer's ice cream manufacturing plant or some botanical gardens in Thailand or similar. The aerosol sprays that come after the fact don't really work.

Do they? Let's be honest. We can do that because this is the internet and we can't see each other blushing. YOU CAN STILL SMELL THE POO.

That is the beauty of Poo-Pourri. Poo-Pourri is a liquid that comes in little spray bottles. It consists of natural, plant-derived essential oils in a citrusy blend of bergamot, lemongrass, grapefruit and more, according to their website. Their tag line is "Spritz the bowl before you go and no one else will ever know" and that's exactly what you do: Give the little bottle a shake, spray 4-6 sprays on the water in the bowl, and discover that the essential oils form a barrier on the surface that traps the, er-....odor of whatever you did when you....sat down.

Obviously, this product is a wonderful find for anyone who has to use, heaven help us all, a public restroom, but possibly even more useful for those who have to use a company ladies' room at work. (Poo-Pourri also makes a manly blend of essential oils called "Royal Flush" for the gents who don't want to slay anyone who enters the restroom after them.) Or when you're visiting friends and nature calls? Poo-Pourri has you covered. Literally. Tuck that little 2 ounce bottle in your handbag and you'll leave your hostess's bathroom with confidence. The next person who wanders in (or the next person walking down the hall, as the case may be) will think that you merely stopped by to powder your pert little nose and give yourself a refreshing spray of body mist.

Poo-Pourri comes in absolutely adorable little bottles in a couple of handy sizes, one to carry in your purse and the other to place near the potty in your house. Each bottle is decorated with a little bit of bling to make it hip and fun, which totally works for me because the clever packaging is what initially caught my eye. You can order it online or find it at a number of retail locations, nation-wide and internationally.

Image used with permission. Copyright (c) 2008 by Poo-Pourri. All rights reserved.

Drivers' education class complete!

Meelyn has completed her drivers' ed class with a B in the coursework and a B+ in the driving. She has a nice diploma-style certificate and some comment sheets from her teachers, who wrote glowing descriptions of how smart, nice and competent she was in the classroom and behind the wheel.

My husband and I are so proud of her and feel that she, with her cute hair and outfits and good attitude and attentiveness, scored positive points for homeschoolers in our community.

She is busy logging road hours in Applesauce Anne and drives us almost everywhere now. We did chicken out of letting her drive on the interstate yesterday, but other than that, I rarely have to bestir myself anymore, and felt slightly ill-used when I had to get in the van and TAKE MYSELF TO CVS the other day.

Blowin' through the jasmine in my mind

Yesterday was one of the best days we've had in a summer that has been hallmarked by nice days. Not only was the weather beautiful, but events transpired to make an already pleasant day even better.

We went to 10:30 Mass, which meant that my husband and I got to sleep in until 8:00 and the girls got to sleep in until 9:00. Which if you know teenagers, it is REALLY IMPORTANT that they get to sleep in until 9:00, or they walk around with beady eyes and snarled-up expressions on their faces, moaning about how ti-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-ired they are until you think you're going to go mad.

The church was hot, so we sat near the back, and although the cantor's music stand completely covered my view of Father, we did have the dual benefits of sitting in a cool draft from the air conditioning vent above our heads and being the first ones out afterwards. Receiving communion, as always, was a joy and a consolation and the highlight of the day.

Being as it was the last Sunday of the month, it was brunch day at my grandparents' assisted living center in New Castle. Despite what Grandad says -- soup too hot, eggs to cold, coffee too weak, oatmeal too smooth, meat too tough -- the food is delicious and we ate at two long tables with most of the family, including my aunt and uncle, a cousin, Pat, Angie and the kids, Nanny and Poppy and Mary Elizabeth's brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew. We made up quite a party and there was a lot of laughing going on.

While I was sitting there eating some mashed potatoes and chicken, I was inspired by a sudden idea: Since my family was planning to go to the pool after leaving the assisted living center, I thought it would be a snazzy plan to take Kieren and Dayden back with us to swim and eat dinner. (I wish we could take Kiersi, but she's too little for the big pool and Dayden is too big for the little pool and I can't watch both at once, so maybe next summer. It hurt her little feelings that the boys were going to come with us, leaving her behind, though. *sob!*)

Kieren and Dayden were pleased with this plan, so the six of us piled back into the van and drove home to change into our swimsuits and pack up more stuff that you'd ever dream possible -- the blue burrito and funoodles and a cooler and swim bags and towels and goggles and bottles of sunscreen.....We looked like a herd of pack mules from the Grand Canyon as we trudged our way across the parking lot.

The water in the pool was deliciously cool on our hot skin and we swam some races both with and without the funoodles, all of which Kieren won without any effort at all. We also played several games of Sharkey and enjoyed ourselves like dolphins until my husband and I were both waterlogged and slightly breathless.

The swim club's snack bar serves the best soft pretzels in the world -- all salty, with a side of hot pepper cheese in a little cup -- so all of us had one as a snack, except for Dayden, who preferred an ice cream. I happened to look at him as he was eating it, and he had a perfect circle of vanilla spread from the tip of his nose to down below his chin. I love the enthusiasm with which seven-year-old boys eat ice cream!

We stayed at the pool for three hours, which flew by like magic, and my husband called our favorite pizza place from his cell phone to order a giant pie. We took that home and I passed around the paper plates and everyone dug in, the kids at the dining room table and my husband and I lounging on the couch watching SportsCenter.

After supper, Meelyn and Aisling wanted to show Kieren Michael Jackson's Thriller video, followed by Billie Jean, which they think are the funniest things they've ever seen, especially Thriller, with the special effects that look like they came out of the seventeenth century. My husband and I did some amazing 80s dance moves for the kids, which practically had the three of them rolling about on the floor, clutching their sides with the tears rolling down their cheeks.

My husband's bony hip hurt my hip when we were doing the bump and I had to take some ibuprofen.

We had the boys home by 8:30 so that Dayden could be in bed by 9:00 - he has to get up very early to go to day care with Kiersi and apparently, he is not a morning person.

My husband, the girls and I prayed our rosary on the way back home and came in and put the dogs (who had gone with us to take the boys home) in their crates, water the flowers, and head upstairs to bed.

At some point in the night, I woke to the pleasant, cozy patter of summer rain against the windows and snuggled the sheet closer under my chin, put my feet on my husband's legs, and drifted back off on a cloud of sleep.