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My mind is many places today. It flits back and forth from work to the ickiness that I’m feeling (sour stomach and slight headache, most likely due to wine from last night) to Haiti and especially the family members of a friend of ours. He hasn’t heard from them yet. There’s also some stuff brewing at home. Nothing bad, just stressful, and hopefully I’ll be able to talk more about that later.

When I was in the throes of grad school, I would often “stress bake.” Things would get out of control and overwhelming, so I would bake so that I could control something, accomplish something. Even if it didn’t have anything to do with anything pressing in my life.

A few times a semester, I would show up to work and announce, “I MADE CUPCAKES!” as my face melted off. My co-workers enjoyed the fruits of my stress…or maybe they were just afraid to say otherwise.

So, in the interest of focusing myself, I want to tell you about a few food successes that I’ve had recently.

Remember when I told you about all of the stuff that I made around the holidays and how the batch of cranberry brownies that I made didn’t come out quite right? Well, I let the brownies sit out for a few days until they were nice and stale so that I could turn them into bread pudding.

Dude.

If there’s a Heaven and when I die the bouncer isn’t quite sure about letting me in, I will bring up this bread pudding.

I searched around for a basic bread pudding recipe and just swapped out bread for brownies and added some stale dinner rolls that were languishing in the fridge. But it got me thinking that something like stale brioche or challah would be really yummy in this, too.

After I made it, I actually found a recipe for brownie bread pudding and it was pretty much the same one that I used, so if you’re interested in trying it yourself, follow this.

The crew at MamaPop is doing a group weight loss/fitness thing and since I needed to eat a little healthier than I did over the holidays, I made some stuff that I can take to work for lunch everyday. One of the things that I made was a Hearty Winter Veggie Pilaf that I got out of the Rachael Ray magazine that consists of quinoa, brussel sprouts, dried cranberries, mushrooms, and parsley. It’s yummy and hearty, though I think it would do really well with a little rice vinegar.

I know that this is kind of a vapid post, but our continued lack of computer and internet at home has killed any regular posting habits that I may have had. And I don’t care too much about hits and whatnot, but when I glance at my sitemeter…yikes.

I just groaned imagining all of the times that that headline has been used for promoting or reviewing The Chief. But I’m unimaginative and I recognize this.

I bought the husband tickets to see the aforementioned one-man play about Art Rooney for Christmas. Because I am awesome, about two days after I purchased them, he spotted a billboard for the play and mused, “I’d kinda like to go see that.”

Our interest in the play went beyond the fact that it was about Rooney. The guy who was performing in the title role was Tom Atkins, a Pittsburgh native who has starred in a couple cult-ish horror movies, in particular Halloween III, Escape from New York, and The Fog, which are favorites in our house.

As we were heading to the theater last night, I realized that, despite the Steelers’ season ending in a whimper, there would probably be plenty of people wearing their jerseys. Well…not only were people wearing jerseys, but they were selling Terrible Towels in the lobby. (Sadly, no one twirled one during the performance.)

We sat in our seats and waited for the lights to go down and the theater piped in every popular song that was about or referenced or was even remotely related Pittsburgh, including Mister Rogers’ “It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” which made me tear up because I’m a sap.

Atkins is a fantastic actor, capturing minute mannerisms and rambling on with stories about Rooney’s upbringing in the North Side.

The play itself wasn’t the most staggering work of genius. And it seemed safe to assume that many audience members were drawn to the theater simply for the fact that the play was about Rooney. And the play was obviously written with a very specific audience in mind, designed and timed to hit certain pressure points. There was nothing universal about it. For a second, I thought that maybe this should bother me, but, as the husband so eloquently put it, “It’s Pittsburgh shit for people from Pittsburgh. Who gives a fuck about anyone else?”

At one point, Rooney shows the film of the Immaculate Reception. I whispered to the husband, “That’s kind of cheating.” For Steelers fans and for most native Pittsburghers, that catch is legendary, part of the lore handed down from generation to generation. It’s almost not fair to show it during a play, as it’s guaranteed to stir emotions in the audience. But watching it was just as thrilling as any other time and hearing “Rooney” describe how he fatefully missed the whole thing and how it sounded like a tornado had hit when the elevator doors opened and he realized that the tide of the game had turned was simply magical.

Near the end, Rooney’s emotions swell and he describes what the Steelers have meant to their fans. I’ve rambled about it myself many times. He described circumstances that were just as relevant today as they were 30 years ago. People out of work, clear skies but dark outlooks. But the Steelers, there, reminding us with every hard-earned victory and every crushing defeat, that Winning. Is. Possible.

Tears stung my eyes as I sat there, in the dark, next to my husband. We’ve been through a lot and we’ve made some mistakes and we’ve landed ungracefully. But it’s possible we can win. Still.

We exited the theater and scurried to the parking garage in the bitter cold, soggy snowflakes covering us. We needed to eat and tossed several options around before settling on Fiori’s, the pizza place near our house that feeds us at least five meals a month.

We sat and ate our cuts and our wings and talked about the play, laughing at some of the anecdotes that we remembered. Soon enough, we had to head back out into the cold to pick up our son.

I grabbed the husband’s hand as I teetered across the slippery cobblestone street that had been around since smoke from steel mills darkened the sky and the Steelers were still a punchline in the world of professional football.

Earlier in the day, I had been sad after hearing about a fantastic career opportunity in California. But I can’t go to California. I must stay here, where the job prospects are much dimmer, because this is my home.

Forget New York. If I can make it here, I’ll make it anywhere.

Dinner and a show, Pittsburgh-style, with football and pizza. When we pulled up to our, big, old, drafty house, I felt like Pittsburgh royalty.

It’s slightly pathetic how excited I am to be back at work. However, I have good reasons: a functional computer (well, sorta, my work computer is OLD), functional internet, one more quiet week to hunker down and get stuff done, and for the first time in years, I can work without having to stop and go to class.

Plus, the baby is back at school today and as fun as our winter break was, he was exhibiting signs of extreme cabin fever. After a day or so of non-stop (literally NON. STOP.) talking, we realized he needed to expend some energy. He went skiing with the father-in-law and played in the snow. We also went roller skating the other night and I am happy to report that our relatively frequent skating sessions have restored my long-dormant skills. Like, I can actually move both feet now instead of dragging along my paralytic left foot and making up for its dead weight by pumping my arms. This skating method is neither effective nor graceful and I do not recommend it.

When we were inside, I showed the baby this montage of Harrison Ford forcefully saying, “my WIFE,” or “my FAMILY” in at least 40 movies and he is now obsessed with it.

I hear him muttering, “my WIFE” every now and then and it’s a little disarming. It is now my favorite pop culture tic of his, with his impersonation of Aaron Eckhart in The Dark Knight crying, “RACHEL! RACHEL!” a very close second.

Also, and I’m going to abruptly end this post after this because…I don’t know, the engagement photos channel of Awkward Family Photos is absolutely mesmerizing. The pictures of people who look they were caught mid-dry-hump are the best. The husband and I never did engagement photos because a) we didn’t care and b) we’re REALLY not the type. In our wedding pictures, the ones that are posed you can tell that we’re stifling laughter and any other pictures that we have taken together end up looking like this:

Our home computer died and our wireless router crapped out weeks ago. Did I already tell you this? I can’t remember. Anyway, I’m tapping this post out on my phone, which is miraculous, technologically, I guess, but mostly a pain in the butt…er, thumbs. This morning, I trudged the baby through the snow to the library so that I could at least pay the bills and write my posts for MamaPop and We Covet. So my real live Internet time was perforated by, “Mum, I’ve looked through all of the cool books. Can we please go now?” and a sickening squirt every time the guy at the next computer spit his tobacco juice into his coffee cup. (I really could not believe the librarian was cool with that. I know I wasn’t. But then my Master’s is in Professional Writing, not Library Science and Tolerating Repugnant Habits.)

I will tell you more about Christmas and show you some pictures the next time I have some extra minutes online. For now I have to get back to cuddling on the couch with baby, the husband, and his ManCold and waiting for what seems like an acceptable amount of time before eating some of the brownie bread pudding that I made (oh my god SO GOOD). Stay warm!

There was this skit on Chappelle’s Show that detailed some historic gang war that eventually brought about the advent of crack cocaine, with one gangster, played by Mos Def, advising his minions to get some cocaine and some “buh-king soda.” I can’t find it anywhere but now any time I say “baking” it comes out “buh-king.”

Anyway, even though it is, as Amy correctly noted, incredibly pretentious to utter the phrase, “my holiday baking,” I’m going to tell you a little bit about My Holiday Baking. And I don’t really have any pictures because my various internet and computer situations are just stupid.

My friend Mary and I have several times made plans to do a joint baking blowout at her house since she now has that counter space stuff that I hear so much about, but we haven’t made it happen yet. So, this past weekend, I went to town.

Final stats:

- Two batches of Cinnamon Rolls – delicious as always. I made two batches because the husband always whines when I give most of them away. However, I fail to see how three people eating 50 cinnamon rolls is at all a good idea.
- One batch of Bittersweet Cranberry Brownies – I think i took these out of the oven too soon. Not sure how I feel about them. Will probably eat all of them anyway.
- One batch (two dozen-ish) of Eggnog Cookies – I don’t know where I got this recipe, but these are yummy cookies
- One batch of Mexican Chocolate Cookies
- One batch of Snickerdoodles
- One batch of Chocolate Crackle Cookies
- One batch of Eggnog Cheesecake Bars
- One batch of Pomegranate Chocolate Chunk Cookies

I also made the dough for Chai Shortbread Cookies, but haven’t baked them yet. Don’t know if that will happen.

My dining room table is covered with baked goods. I can’t say that I mind.

In less glamorous baking news, the baby’s school is having a Navidad Fiesta today and asked the parents to donate some food stuffs. They sent home a list of foods and recipes to use. I signed up to make banana bread and taco dip, figuring that many potluck type events are dessert-heavy and could use some balance.

I could have used my own recipes, but I can be a very by-the-book person so I used the ones the school sent home. The banana bread recipe was pretty basic. So was the taco dip, but it was one of those recipes that contains instructions like, “open…dump…spread,” which sounds kind of disturbing when you put it that way. This particular taco dip consisted of two packages of cream cheese spread in the bottom of a baking dish, topped with two cans of beanless Hormel chili and two packages of shredded cheddar cheese, then baked for 15 minutes.

As much as I’m a wannabe foodie, I also have a gigantic soft spot for the less sophisticated foods and I’m a big fan of canned goods. However, even this was a bit much. I mean, I really like canned cranberry sauce and while those ridges look downright charming on a tube of jellied cranberries, they look really disturbing on extracted chili.

Also also wik: I watched Julie & Julia last night. Loved the Julia part. Not so much the Julie part.

It’s been 10 days since I posted here! That ain’t right.

I’ve mostly just been busy at work and then busy getting ready for Christmas. I was getting ready to do some work just now, since our office luncheon ate up most of the day, but then I looked and saw that it was almost 4:30 and decided blogging would be a better way to spend the last half hour of work.

Plus, the husband tells me that our desktop has up and died and our wireless router died weeks ago so our only internet access at home is through our phones. It’s like we’re living in the mid 90s or the 80s or something prehistoric.

It’s particularly tragic because I want to spend my winter break staring at BeTaMaXMas. Really, I’ve had this weird craving to spend a day in my 8-year-old life. I guess it’s because the baby is at the age where Christmas (and Halloween and whatnot) really is just one of the greatest ideas ever. And he still hardcore believes in Santa so that’s pretty fun (and useful for bribes/threats). I want a taste of that, I guess. I want be in my living room, watching crap like this:

I remember that commercial so vividly. It’s kind of pathetic. Consumerism’s bitch: I am it. My mom and I always thought that the tree in that commercial was so beautiful. When we would decorate our tree, we would always get excited about turning off the lights and seeing it in all of its glory for the first time.

Just for a day, I kind of want to be in the moment of being a kid, and ogle our tree, and hope that I got the Barbie crap that I wanted. Before my parents’ marriage really went to shit, before I realized that inexplicable sadness was just something that I would have contend with the rest of my life, before I questioned my strength.

The other night we put up our tree and what will probably be the extent of our decorations. I don’t like to go overboard with decorations because, while they look rad, you have to take them down. In late December or early January. When you’re bloated and sluggish from eating 24/7 for two weeks. I anticipate my laziness, dig?

Anyway, after we got everything set up, I turned on one of those silly fireplace screensavers that they have on OnDemand now. We got some eggnog, turned on some Bing Crosby Christmas music, and turned off all the lights so that we could admire our tree. It was gorgeous and smelled amazing.

I glanced over at the husband and the baby and suddenly realized, “This is all I’ve ever wanted.”

With the Master’s degree pretty much over and done with (or, as I told my friend Jennie the other day, “It was time to put that bitch to rest,”), I am all set to dive into holiday stuff.

I have this emotional quirk that doesn’t allow me to enjoy things if I have some stressful thing looming over my head. So, even though I started listening to Christmas music weeks ago and busted out the It’s a Wonderful Life and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation DVDs embarrassingly early, I was really holding back my excitement for this time of year until Tuesday’s presentation was firmly in the past.

As I’ve mentioned, this year I’m really into Christmas because it means lots of time to hang out with my family and the end of a year that’s been kind of shitty. And I’m sorry to brag, but my family is rad as hell. So, this weekend, I’m hoping to finish some cleaning and decorating projects and perhaps get our tree.

Our celebration of Christmas is very secular. The husband is an atheist. I’m comfortably unsure, though definitely very happy without an organized religion. And the baby…well, the one thing that we feel strongly about is that he’s too young to really ponder the enormity of things like faith and existence, so assigning him our choice of religion (or lack thereof) is inappropriate. And so we’re kind of just waiting for him to ask us questions.

Anyway, all of this is to say that our version of Christmas marches alongside the traditional version and looks much the same, but we center it around different things. And, really, I think inventing new traditions, borrowing from what came before you and shaping it into something new and good is pretty rad.

In our sporadic discussions of religion, we’ve told the baby that we (or at least I) would be happy to explore options if he were ever interested. Last night, he asked us about the possibility of celebrating Hanukkah.

I was all for it, noting that we might need to get a few things and figure out generally what one does during the Festival of Lights. “I’ll look it up on Wikipedia,” I promised, knowing that I needed to fill in the holes of what I knew…dreidel…oil…latkes…8 days.

I knew that Hanukkah was coming up but I was kind of surprised to find that the whole thing starts tonight, leaving me literally no time to obtain a menorah and whatnot.

So, there’s us. Lapsed Catholics, failed Jews. Story of my life.

I think we might still improvise the whole thing, just to get a feel for it. Then next year we’ll firm it up a bit.

*A common exchange amongst speakers of Pittsburghese. Translates to: “Did you eat yet?” “No. Did you?” Has been adapted to become the name of a local eatery.

Things got quiet around here because a lot of stuff was going on. Things like my son turning 8, and a cousin’s baby shower, and me getting my Master’s. Also, I made cupcakes.

I couldn’t sleep last Friday night for whatever reason, so I puttered about making the cupcakes for the baby’s rollerskating party the next day and scanning pictures from when he was born. I wish someone could tell me how this:

becomes this:

Which isn’t to say, “How does this innocent baby become a red-eyed, knife-wielding psychopath who is shameless enough to wear a Steelers jersey on the day that said team loses to the Oakland fucking Raiders?” But rather, “How does that tiny squirt become this young guy?”

On Sunday, I went to a baby shower with my mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and grandmother-in-law that was very…Pittsburgh. It was in a fire hall (aka “fahr hawl” aka the event area of a VFW). The buffet featured fried chicken and rigatoni, which are staples of showers, weddings, and really any large gathering of people in Pittsburgh. And someone brought their Virgin Mary statue.

Mary just chilled in the middle of the table and I didn’t even think to ask why she was there, but apparently this particular Virgin Mary cries. So. I guess she was the entertainment.

Anyway, we went to my grandmother’s afterward and had a family birthday party for the baby. One of his favorite gifts was a “real” tie. He has several of the kid versions that zip up, but wanted the real deal.

Yesterday, I gave my final presentation and though I’m not officially certified yet (weirdly enough, certifying graduate degrees is part of my job so I’ll be certifying myself), I am done with my Master’s degree.

It was kind of anti-climactic, but my relief and joy is palpable. With the presentation successfully put to bed, I posted to Twitter and Facebook that I was done. The amount of heartfelt congratulations that I received made me cry a little, because everyone was so truly happy for me.

Calculating from the first day that I took a class until yesterday, I’ve been working toward this for 1,199 days. I honestly can’t believe that I made it. Around 10 a.m. this morning, right after I finished my informational exit interview, I suddenly felt very tired, as though I had been walking for many miles, or perhaps the abbreviated nights of sleep and weekends suddenly caught up with me.

I’m so glad that this accomplishment and celebrating another year of my son’s life comes at the end of a rather tumultuous year. After many months of mucking about, feeling broke and ineffective and unlucky, suddenly change seems possible. New year, new joys, new heartbreaks, new careers, new anything.

After we picked up the baby from school yesterday, we went home and I changed into sweatpants while the husband gave the baby his first lesson in tying a tie.

I made some macaroni and cheese and while the husband went to play basketball with some friends, the baby and I cuddled on the couch and watched the Food Network. We went to bed early, no reports to write, no research to conduct, no deadlines to meet. Just accomplishment and a moment to breathe.

One of my quirky pet peeves is inefficiency. Specifically, inefficient packaging. As insignificant as a concern as this may be, I think it will start to have significant consequences as people rely more on e-commerce and shipping in terms of costs, both financial and environmental.

So, for the baby’s birthday, I ordered (shh, don’t tell) this safety knife set because he always wants to help me cook and I want him to have 10 intact digits. Like I said, I’m quirky.

Today, the knife set and the other gifts that I ordered arrived and I gleefully set about opening boxes. I couldn’t quite remember what was due, so when I got to the biggest box, I wasn’t sure what was inside.

I offer my foot for scale, if that helps. I wear a size 8, 8 1/2.

Another shot of the impressive box, complete with my stained shirt. (My grandmother gave me four shirts for my birthday. I’ve worn three. I’ve also stained three. Eff my life.)

At this point, seeing the cooking.com tape, I’m figuring it’s the knife set, but I’m not yet concerned about the size because I didn’t check the dimensions when I ordered it. Maybe that makes me a bad consumer. I don’t know.

Ooh, looks enticing.

Dig, dig, dig. “Any minute now,” I say to myself, “I’m going to reach the gift. Sweet!”

Eventually, I reach China this:

I know what you’re thinking: SRSLY?

Srsly.

I estimated this to be 27 feet of Fill-Air. TWENTY-SEVEN FEET. All for this.

And, look, I get it. I ordered this around the busiest shopping time of the year. I can only imagine the fatigue that the shipping staff of cooking.com and amazon.com were experiencing and I’m sure they were experiencing packaging challenges that would make me barf. But this is really ridiculous. It’s inefficient and wasteful and frankly I expect better.

Hi. I’ve just returned from the ridiculously overpriced on-campus convenience store where I procured Pepto Bismol because things have gone all wrong in my stomach. I’ve been grappling with what I can only describe as extreme hunger since early this morning and the only explanation that I can come up with is that since I’ve spent the last four days eating (and doing little else), I’m on some weird new digestive schedule. If the Pepto doesn’t help, I may have to call my HMO to see if they will cover an IV of liquefied mashed potatoes.

I could tell that this mini-vacation was going to be rad when my son came downstairs Tuesday night looking like this:

And said, “Take my picture in this outfit and put it on Facebook!” Um, no. But I will put it on my blog. This is why I don’t really let him on the internet and as far as he is concerned, the series of tubes begins and ends at cartoonnetwork.com.

Wednesday, I got out of work early and the dudes and I went to the museum to see the whale exhibit, which features a replica of a blue whale’s heart and apparently blue whales are really big because the heart was the size of a Volkswagen. Kids were able to crawl around in it and the baby invited me in. Because I possess the ability to identify Spaces In Which I Will Get Stuck, I declined but stuck my head in to take a look. From what I could smell, someone in the recent past had not made it out of there in time to make it to the bathroom, which is probably the only instance in life where you could close your eyes and be unsure of whether you were on the bus or a plastic blue whale’s heart.

After that, we went to see Fantastic Mr. Fox, which was pretty great and then rushed home because I had pie-making and potato-mashing duties to tend to.

Thursday morning I made the executive decision to make 5 more pounds of mashed potatoes and this made the husband very nervous. But I don’t have time for girly-men when it comes to Thanksgiving, so I shushed him and we piled into the car and headed to my mom’s.

YES.

My dad and his cancer-free ass showed up to bring the appropriate level of cheer to the event.

If you ever wondered where I get my sunny disposition, look no further.

This portion of Thanksgiving went off relatively without a hitch, and I couldn’t help but think of one Thanksgiving in 2003ish, during which we got into a huge fight about I don’t even remember what and all of the pictures feature my red eyes and puffy nose because I don’t understand why you have to be such a bitch MOM. Anyway, the only tense moment was when I realized that my grandmother and I had both made pumpkin pies and my grandmother said something about passing the torch and I detected a note of bitterness.

Look at her giving me the stinkeye. Your applique sweater fools no one!

After we were adequately stuffed, we rolled out to my mother-in-law’s house for the second shift. That culminated in lying on the couch, groaning and farting, while watching The Godfather on AMC. This is a torturous activity because The Godfather is several hundred hours long as it is. When you add 300 commercial breaks, you begin to have the urge to shoot Vito and blow up Appollonia yourself just to get on with life.

I am pleased to say that spending time with my family and getting to visit with Frank over the past couple of days has greatly improved my mood. I’m still sad about stuff a lot of the time (which has had the fortunate side effect of a clean entryway), but our people really do rally around me and my little family and they’re not going to let us smack the bottom. They’ll at least help us to land softly.

The next week and a half is going to be an exciting one. The baby turns 8 (EIGHT!?!?!) on Sunday and then next Tuesday I give my final presentation as a graduate student. Effectively, I will be done with my MA a little over a week from now.

Also, I made the executive decision that the husband and I needed to re-watch The Wire from the beginning. I think he was a little surprised, especially since we just started watching Deadwood (a couple of years after the fact, but whatever), but he didn’t really resist. Being able to watch the whole thing over again is so fun. I highly recommend it.