Les Miserables

When I was a teenager, I was obsessed with musicals. In high school, we had a day called Enrichment Day. Every year, I picked to go to a musical on Broadway in New York City. Miss Saigon will forever be carved in my memory with the sight of a real helicopter coming down on stage. It may even have been the first theatrical production I ever cried at.

I  was a member of chorus and the Thespian Society (yes, my brother made fun of me with a play on words  for that one).  The soundtracks to Les Miserables and  Phantom of the Opera, as well as Miss Saigon could forever be heard coming from the stereo in my room, thanks to the public library system. I would borrow the records and record tapes of them before returning the records back to the library.

For my 18^th birthday, my parents surprised me with tickets for the whole family to see Les Miserables. Unfortunately, the night before the show, my mother had a heart episode, and ended up in thehospital for observation, so my lucky father got to take us himself. I’m sure he was “thrilled.”

Most people know that Les Miserables, the musical, is based on a novel by Victor Hugo. I will admit to never having read the book. Yet. I’m pretty sure my father never read the book either. Although I knew every song,  my 18 year old, very young and naïve self did not understand the play. I will confess that during the show, I was embarrassed to think to myself – this wasn’t what I expected, and I may have been a little bit bored with it. I felt bad that my father had to sit through it, considering he really wasn’t into the whole musical thing.

Fast forward to today. I do believe I watched the 1998 movie production of Les Miserables, but it didn’t have much of an effect on me, especially if I’m not sure I watched it! This evening, I went to the movies by myself, to see the newest production of Les Miserables, directed by Tom Hooper.

I have never been so moved by a movie. I am being honest. I know this is embarrassing to admit, but halfway through the movie it was suddenly revealed to me that this story is classic Scripture. This story is about Pharisees and publicans, about judgment, forgiveness and redemption.  Many claim author Dostoevsky opened their hearts to God through books like Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov. My eyes have been opened by Victor Hugo.  It all makes sense to me now. I am shocked that I haven’t seen the glory of God in this story before now. I can’t put into words how I feel, but my Kindle is already open to the first pages of the novel, and I bid you all to take the time to do the same.  Looking at my life so far, I see the work of God so clearly. Perhaps I saw it before, but today I look with more forgiveness and less judgment and I feel my life has been changed. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, forgive me a sinner. As St. Basil the Great said (in a nutshell), sometimes it is beneficial to read “pagan” (worldly) materials so that we may see God more clearly.

We Dream of a World

Last night we had back to school night. We sat in the auditorium and listened to the principal tell us about an assembly all the children attended during their first week of school. At the assembly, he said, they spoke about how each student can make the world a better place, and that even by just being a good friend, the world is made better. I thought that was really nice. As we walked to Daughter’s kindergarten classroom, we saw posters created by the students. The title of each poster was “We Dream of a World Where….” And the kids drew a picture and wrote an ending to the title.

Before I grace you with Daughter’s poster, I want to give you a sampling of the different endings the other children supplied:

We Dream of a World

• …where we clean the water
• …where there is love
• …where there is school
• And more, all of which were some kind of environmentally friendly message

And then, we saw Daughter’s poster hanging proudly in the bottom right corner of the wall:

Plans vs. Reality

There’s so much I want to do. In my mind, I make plans. I have so many ideas, and I have so many great things I want to do. As I sit at my desk, as I drive in my car, I think of all the things I could be doing if only I was home. I don’t know why I always have a "aaaah" vision of the evening when I get home from work. I’m thinking calm, cuddly moments, or the kids quietly playing as I tackle a project. I picture being super productive once the kids are in bed, when I can actually get a lot done. But reality hits when I actually walk through the door. While I’ve been planning my evening, the children have been waiting for my return. They’ve been waiting to greet me, to kiss, me to hug me, to tell me about their day, to show me all their accomplishments. So picture three mini tornadoes hurdling at my feet as I walk through the door. Picture those tornadoes producing not wind, but squawks of “Mama! Mama!” over and over and over again. I don’t know where to turn my head first, I don’t know who to kiss first and I don’t know whose question to answer first. So I do a sweep of all three and try to catch everyone in the biggest hug possible. In the two hours I have before the kids go to sleep, I run a marathon of juggling all the requests flying at me, and my accomplishments are generally the same every evening: nothing from my mental list. I am mentally torn into pieces from the moment I show my face to the moment the kids go to bed. Once the kids are in bed, I vaguely remember my mental list, and half-heartedly wish I had the energy to complete just one task on that list as I flop onto the couch with a book.

Maybe my problem is the mental list. Maybe I should write down everything I want to do, and feel that sense of accomplishment when I can cross off at least one thing off the list (for those of you who are like me, and like to cross things off, it helps to break down things into specific tasks so if you don’t finish the whole thing, at least you can cross off the steps leading up to the finished product). Or maybe I should write down all the things I actually did do that weren’t on the mental list, like eating dinner as a family, working with Son and Daughter to clean off the table (Baby also brings his plate to the sink), showing appreciation for the various crafts Daughter created while I was gone, and encouraging Son to tell me about his day. If we’re lucky (aka I’m not too tired), we work on our reading and math skills, and might even fit in learning a new note on the piano. Maybe I shouldn’t focus on all the things I didn’t accomplish and focus on what I did. Every family is its own unit, and every family works things out their own way. I need to stop comparing myself to other family units and nurture my own. I need to embrace the fact that we’ll have laundry baskets in our bedroom, our walls will remain unpainted, but at least our children will have memories of their mother dancing in the rain with them. Literally. My hair is still wet!

A Little Bit of Culture

On Tuesday, June 5, I ventured out with two friends to the ballet to see Onegin, a dramatization of Alexander Pushkin's Eugene Onegin. I've never read the entire novel, although we read excerpts of it in Russian school, I think in seventh grade. Also, my cousin used to watch the opera all the time, and all I remember of that was the scene where Onegin cries (sings) - I love you! and Tatiana cries back - Leave me alone! (Люблю тебя! Оставь меня!) So, before I went, I decided I should freshen up my memory of the story, and the book is now on my bucket list of things to do before I die for one reason only. I'm not going to be able to put it any better than what I found on Wikipedia, so here's a direct quote:

"Almost the entire work is made up of 389 stanzas of iambic tetrameter with the unusual rhyme scheme "AbAbCCddEffEgg", where the uppercase letters represent feminine rhymes while the lowercase letters represent masculine rhymes. This form has come to be known as the "Onegin stanza" or the "Pushkin sonnet."" 

How brilliant is that?! For those whom it hasn't clicked for: feminine rhymes and masculine rhymes refer to words of feminine or masculine gender. So not only did Pushkin have to think of a rhyme, but he had a pattern AND he had to find a corresponding rhyme in the same gender! WOW!

The ballet was beautiful. To be completely honest, I wasn't sure whether I'd be able to sit through the prescribed dancing without getting bored, but the staging was excellent and the dancers talented (of course- it was the American Ballet Theater!), so the story was felt throughout.
Here are a few images. I have to say that one of the most impressive things was the set of birches. I spent quite a bit of time inspecting them through my friend's binoculars.

 

Afterwards, we had dessert at Cafe Fiorello which is right across from Lincoln Center.

 We had the profiteroles, which were filled with vanilla gelato and smothered with fresh hot chocolate sauce.  Decadent, but the dough was a little dry, and the Limoncello tart, which was a perfect combination of sweet and tart.

A wonderful night over all; can't wait to do it again!

The Hunger Games

*SPOILER ALERT!

The Hunger Games sat on my Kindle for a few months before I picked it up. Although the description looked interesting, I kept putting it aside for something else. Once I started reading, though, the whole world fell away for me, the kids were fed all things convenient and watched countless movies, while I lived and breathed Katniss Everdeen for 4 days until I steamrolled through the trilogy.

It was interesting on so many levels. Of course, the love triangle grabbed me. Who doesn’t enjoy reading about the tension and indecision of young love? I was on the fence the entire time as to whom I thought Katniss should end up with. By the end, however, I was committed to one person. I believe that Katniss' decision was a testament to the fact that our choices shape us, our experiences change us. Although I did mourn what could have been, I am glad that the story exemplified how sometimes in life, we choose the path to follow, but at other times, we are placed on a path not of our choosing, and it all depends on how we choose to walk that path.

I loved how Katniss’ actions became larger than her, and inspired uprisings and the eventual fall of their government. The fact that her actions had a ripple effect is something we should all take into consideration. We are not alone in the world, and what we say, what we do, and what we do or do not accomplish affect our own lives, but also affect those around us.

On April 18, after much waiting and much anticipation, Husband and I watched the Hunger Games on the big screen. A couple of things. First, at the most superficial, although I loved [katniss’ character] , I felt she was too big boned to play opposite Peeta. Peeta looked too small and scrawny next to her. Honestly, I think Peeta was miscast. I don’t think they portrayed her internal struggle with decisions and choices well. Husband and I also felt like they left out key elements that made the story so heartwrenching. I can’t understand why they left out District 11’s gift of bread. I don’t know why they downplayed her friendship with Gale, and what it was based on. I feel like they didn’t need to focus so much on the administration of the Games and how they were manipulated, especially since all of that was fabricated. They could have spent more time on character development within the Games themselves. I don’t think people really got a sense that Cato was mentally disturbed, or that the girl from District 5 was really cunning. They glossed over the reason why Peeta hung around the Career pack. Husband and I also felt that they didn’t spend enough time on how much the presence of an overabundance of food affected Peeta and Katniss. Also, I felt they could have spent more time on the fact that children were dying in these Games. They glossed over the battles and deaths – perhaps to keep the PG-13 rating?

I stayed away from most of the media hype pertaining to the movie because I wanted to be surprised and uninfluenced going into the movie theater. I did, however, read a couple of articles on the obsession people have with the story. I especially liked this one blog post by Rev. Robert Barron, http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/294618/ithe-hunger-gamesi-prophecy-rev-robert-barron, which compares the Hunger Games to the short story, the Lottery by Shirley Jackson, as well as the Roman gladiators. He said that most people reading the books can’t imagine something like this happening in this day and age. I agree with him that the thirst for human sacrifice is not far away – today, although reality tv is not watching people fight to the death, people revel in watching other people’s misfortunes, and thrive on watching people fail. Reality TV is just a hair away from the next step. We may kid ourselves in thinking that we’re watching the positive outcomes, but what really brings people back time and time again is finding out who gets voted off, and hoping for their least favorites to be brought down. The Hunger Games can be seen as a satire, a parody of our own society. Where do we fall within the boundaries of Panem? Who do we most resemble?

A Few of My Favorite Things

My favorite spring flowers:

Crocuses

Lilacs - I have two mini lilac bushes under my kitchen window. My one disappointment is that the blooms don't last very long on it.

Early spring snowdrops are always a catalyst of my heart bursting excitement for spring.

 

 Lily of the Valley - this was my first perfume (Christian Dior's Diorissimo) and is still in my repertoire as one of my favorites. My bridesmaids bought me lily of the valley to put in my bouquet.

Snacks and Birthmarks and House Cleaning, Oh my!

Joy, oh joy, oh joy, oh joy! Today was the first day in my entire married life that someone came to clean our house!  Words cannot express the feelings Husband and I are feeling right now, walking from room to room, taking every detail in. This is the best present in the world, even if I gave it to myself.


So, I hate being told what to do. I think it runs in my family. The minute I am  told I "have" to do this or that, I immediately shut down and if I wanted to participate, I definitely don't want to anymore. That's how I felt at the beginning of the school year when we were told not to send any unhealthy snacks into school. That's right. No cookies, no fruit roll ups, no chips. It was so much harder to figure out what to send in for snack since all the easy options were out the window. Even for Son's birthday, I couldn't make cupcakes for the class! My rebellion was to make carrot muffins with a cream cheese frosting, and ironically, they were such a hit with the kids that I had to send the recipe out to all the moms.

Here's the recipe:

Carrot-Apple Muffins

2 cups (270 grams) grated raw carrot (about 2-3 peeled carrots)

1 large apple, peeled and grated

2 cups (260 grams) all-purpose flour

1 1/4 cups (250 grams) granulated white sugar

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon (3.5 grams) salt

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp ground allspice

3 large eggs

3/4 cup (180 ml) extra light olive oil

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

(I used 2 huge carrots and 1 large carrots. I didn't measure out 2 cups of carrots, and ended up overloading the batter with carrots. I added an extra egg to compensate)

Peel and finely grate the carrots and apple. Set aside.

In a large bowl whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and ground cinnamon. Stir in the nuts and coconut. Set aside.

In a separate bowl whisk together the eggs, oil, and vanilla extract. Fold the wet ingredients, along with the grated carrot and apple, into the flour mixture, stirring just until moistened. Evenly divide the batter between the prepared muffin cups and bake for 20 - 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  

Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack. After about 10 minutes remove the muffins from the pans and cool completely on a wire rack before frosting.

Makes 18 standard-sized muffins.

Cream Cheese Frosting:

1/4 cup (56 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature

4 ounces (1/2 cup) (110 grams) cream cheese, room temperature

3 tablespoons confectioners' (powdered or icing) sugar

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

(I just realized that I used 1/2 cup of unsalted butter instead of the called for 1/4 cup butter....oops! :)   )

Beat the butter and cream cheese until very smooth with no lumps. Gradually beat in the  powdered sugar until fully incorporated and smooth. Beat in the vanilla extract.

Place a dollop of the cream cheese frosting on the top of each muffin. (I piped a bit onto each muffin)

---------------------------------------------------End of Recipe----------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Last week, though, I suddenly realized that, as a family, we've really benefited from this rule. Instead of reaching for the cookies, we're reaching for the apples, the bananas, the grapes, even the pretzels with hummus for dipping.It enabled us to think outside the box to come up with more interesting snacks. I think I'm really starting to like this healthy snack rule!


I have something really superficial to share today. About a month ago, read an article in Good Houskeeping about a 50 year old woman who finally had a tummy tuck after wanting one for many years. Although she looked forward to it for such a long time, after it was done, she had a period of sadness, as if a piece of her was missing. I've had three children, and I know what it feels like to lose your body, and I sort of got the sadness part, but today I got to know it firsthand.


I've had a birthmark on my right hand for as long as I can remember. It's been with me from the beginning (I think), it's been the subject of jokes (hey, what's on  your hand; let me wipe that off...), but it's also been a worry to me as it increased in size over the years, and then another birthmark appeared along side it a couple of years ago. This morning, at a routine dermatologist appointment, the doctor recommended removing the new birthmark, and questioning the old one. I answered that it could come off, and before I knew it, off it came! No, seriously. I had no idea it was happening. I had my eyes closed for what I thought was the biopsy. When she said she was going to biopsy them, I thought it meant that she takes a little snip of it off, and sends it for testing, and that's what I thought she was talking about when she said I'd feel a little pinch. Instead, the little pinch (which was actually a bigger pinch) was the local anesthesia. When I finally looked down, I was shocked to see white circles on my hand, voids where my birthmarks once were. I don't care about the new birthmark, but I was suddenly overwhelmed with emotion at seeing my hand clean of the other one. A part of me is missing, no longer to return. I think if I had let myself go, I probably would have cried. Have you ever "lost" a part of yourself? Feel free to share!