Beatrice's Feast

q. shenaynay

Thanksgiving has always meant a big feast with our extended family, full of beloved traditions and annual rituals. However, with my third surgery for breast cancer coming up this Wednesday, it's imperative that I stay rested up and well right now, so we decided to stay home and have a simple, quiet and hopefully germ-free Thanksgiving day.

A couple of weeks ago, I began to ponder how to make the big turkey dinner happen in my current state of being. I'm recovering well from the bilateral mastectomy back in September, but since I'm in the middle of reconstruction surgeries and physical rehab at this point, it's just not my year for wrestling 20 pound birds. I knew Fa couldn't help, because she was slated to be in the midst of her first semester of college finals. That left Beatrice. I was not about to ask an alllmossst 16 year old to pull off Thanksgiving by herself.

Before I even broached the subject, my gallant Great Scot sweetly ordered the entire meal. (Well, except for the cornbread dressing; I'm pretty sure the earth would stop spinning if we didn't pay annual homage to the famed and ancient family recipe.) I was relieved. If our family ever needed a special feast for giving thanks, it's this year.

Little did we know that Beatrice had been quietly planning our feast for many days.

She already had it handled. Menu decided, recipes selected, shopping lists made, everything. She asked her daddy to please cancel the order. All she needed was my debit card and a ride to the grocery store, and she said she'd do the rest.

We were taken aback, to say the least. Lump-in-the-throat taken aback. But then, our children have surprised us in so many amazing ways during these four months since I was diagnosed.

Children grow up fast when their mother gets diagnosed with cancer. Naturally, I have worried a lot -- daily, hourly -- about my children having to bear up under this sort of strain. But I have grown so thankful for the comfort of knowing that I do not have to be the Holy Spirit for my children. As He comforts me, He also comforts them. In His infinite love and mercy and goodness, He can work through all things, even my battle with breast cancer, for their good. And thus He has surely done.

On one level, my children are understandably exhausted from the wrenching trial we've been through over the past four months. But in so many other ways, they have grown strong beyond imagining. Living with them day after day, I can feel the quiet but profound shift -- they are deeper people than they were last summer; they have older souls. They are braver, stronger, more compassionate and alert to the needs of others. They now get the urgency of living in the here and now, a lesson many of us need at least one lifespan to learn.

They keenly feel the foolishness of waiting for a better moment to say the words that need to be said, of holding back warmth and affection from the people you love.

Beatrice quietly expressed all of that this Thanksgiving by doing for me and for our family what I/we could not do.


Fa looks on as Beatrice sprinkles her roasted candied pecans atop fresh green beans tossed in a savory cranberry sauce. This was unlike anything I've ever tasted, and it was fantastic. We all devoured it. In the foreground is the famed ancestral cornbread dressing. Beatrice is now at least the fifth generation of my family to make this dressing. Welcome to the Dressin' Hall of Fame, babe. ;-)


Behold the mushrooms, above. Mushrooms love this girl; there's no other explanation for why they humor her this way. Maybe it's homage for all those umpteen times she read The Hobbit. She made this dish up as she went -- a small miracle rendered from fresh organic chicken & apple sausage, mushrooms, garlic, onions, red bell peppers and fresh herbs sauteed in a sauce that I suspect we might be served in Heaven. The red bowl to the right holds mashed potatoes with roasted garlic. Yum.


A big bowl of butternut and acorn squashes roasted with parsnips, maple syrup, fresh thyme and oregano. Unbelievable. I'm having it for breakfast tomorrow. The casserole dish holds the aforementioned green beans.

And of course there was turkey and pumpkin pie with whipped cream, sparkling apple cider, iced tea and fresh hot coffee. Amazing.

Beatrice has officially put me in deep retirement from all culinary responsibility at Thanksgiving henceforth and anon. I mean, what rational woman would ever cook Thanksgiving again after today's exhibit... only to have the feasters sit there reminiscing fondly about The Year of Beatrice's Feast? Nope, I'm done. She's in. Something else to be thankful for, no?

Quotable Lines

Great Scot

Last night, as we were cleaning up the kitchen, Beatrice and I got into a discussion of which movie had the most quotable lines (in a comedy context). I took the position that it was Monty Python and The Holy Grail. Beatrice argued in favor of The Princess Bride (which incidentally we had just completed watching for the nth time).

With memorable lines like:

"Bring out the Holy Hand Grenade"
"Inconceeeeeeivable"
"Bring out yer dead"
"Marriage is what has brought us together. That dream within a dream"
"Come back here and I'll taunt you a second time"
"He's been mostly dead all day"

how can you really go wrong.

I would be curious as to other suggestions on movies that are full of lines which, when said, immediately bring you into that moment. While many movies have one, or two, lines that you always remember, I am curious as to movies that are full of great one-liners. What do you think?

homeschool blog awards -- we're in!

Woo and indeed hoo!


The nominations are in for the 2007 Homeschool Blog Awards! The Beehive is in the running again, this time in the Best Encourager category. (Quick, y'all! Somebody post something super encouraging!)


Thanks to everyone who nominated us! It's quite satisfying to think our little corner of blogdom has encouraged somebody out there.


Annnnd... (insert drumroll here) our very own Beatrice is nominated for Best Homeschool Teen Gal Blog for her lovely solo blog The Heart of Flame Therein. Way to go, Miss B!

Voting begins December 3rd! Virtual M&Ms to all who... oh, umm, that's probably against the rules or something, huh? ;-) But do join the fun and go check out all the nominated sites.

she's asking for it.

q. shenaynay

Be hereby warned that I have discovered the real identity of my laptop. She is not the friendly, well-meaning Darling Dell she has always pretended to be. She is actually Elvira the Dreaded Vampire Laptop, who drains the life out of everything in her path -- battery juice, incoming email, video feeds, precious time, my patience. Etc.

Elvira passed out cold this afternoon while filtering my email into folders. Really, there is no excuse. I recently gave her a juicy new battery, but Elvira, you see, is a glutton. She is also prone to hot flashes, wheezes loudly in the key of G, refuses to play nice with YouTube, and lately shows less and less interest in committing to a long-term relationship with Sir Internet.

Just now I got her revived, and the sassy thing presented me with all those emails... but they are blank. Empty. Drained dry. Tauntingly, mysteriously, annoyingly, blindingly dead white with nary a squiggle of font anywhere. No clue who sent them either.

(If you sent me something in the last 12 hours, just know I didn't get it.)

(And tell me this: if we can clone sheep and keep track of housepets and parolees by satellites floating around in space without a powercord dangling back down to planet Earth, why can't we keep a tiny computer alive longer than a few hours? Can it really be so hard for all the techy ubernerds out there to come up with a supermondomegajuicy laptop battery?)

Not only do I not like getting mail I didn't get, I also don't like sending mail that I don't send. You see what I mean. Elvira is getting more uppity by the day about when she feels like sending email for me. She keeps sticking her sassy little pop-up hand up in my face, saying, "Nope, sorry, can't be bothered, now is just not a good time for me. Off the clock, babe. Try me again later." But then the emails she neglects to send are nonetheless marked as sent in my outbox, so I don't know who got what. Or not.

Elvira dares to mock the Queen. Elvira is apparently ignorant of the historical significance of such Queenly phrases as "Off With Her Head!" and "Shoot The Messenger!" and "Posthaste!" and "Make It So!" (Oops, sorry, that was Captain Picard.)

Anyway. We are not amused. Envelopes and stamps and wax seals are looking better all the time. Elvira should be very afraid.

At least they used to understand

Great Scot

Reading the following makes me embarrassed over the current state of our leaders:

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any other nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here died that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we do this.

But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall have not died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

- Abraham Lincoln
("The Gettysburg Address" November 19, 1863)

Every night in our prayers, Spuddy Buddy and I pray for God to watch over our soldiers and to provide comfort to their families.

Bustin' a Move

Last night here at the Beehive (at the Queen's urging) Fa and Beatrice were granted the rare opportunity to see yours truly bustin' his baddest disco moves to the git-down sounds of "Play That Funky Music." It was quite a sight, I am sure. It did lead to a discussion of the relative worth of The Village People, KC and the Sunshine Band, and "It's Raining Men." This was a worthy philosophical discussion.

I anticipate both of my daughters will require extensive mental health counselling in the very near future.

And on the subject of studying for government finals. . .

fa-so-la-la

. . . you know you're in trouble when the computer solitaire game becomes constantly, irresistibly tempting.

Although, ya know, there's a lot to be said for solitaire. I mean, in solitaire, activist courts never expand the definition of civil rights. There are no corrupt lobbyists. No political parties. No Jacksonian populists. McCarthyism has never been heard of. The value of the dollar has no significance. The 439 amendments of the Texas Constitution aren't even an issue. You just stack those cards in neat piles until they start bouncing all over the screen to tell you you've won. This is, perhaps, the clincher. I ask you-- do cards bounce around after government finals to tell you you've won? They most certainly do not.

Yes, my friends, it's a beautiful world, that world of red nine on black ten.

And yes, it's the end of the semester. But surely you couldn't tell?

AHEM.

Well, now. It would appear that a couple of nameless slackers characters around here think they will enjoy drinking their milk from a spoon.

::tap, tap, tap::

Meditations Composed Whilst the Author was Supposed to Be Studying for the Government Final

fa-so-la-la

I suppose the surest mark of an addiction to print is the desperate need to read whatever printed material is in sight at any given moment. I must admit to this problem. I read anything, everything, whatever is in my general area-- the backs of cereal boxes, soup cans, milk jugs, etc. It's especially bad in the shower. I've read the back of that stupid Finesse bottle I-don't-know-how-many-thousand times.

Which brings me to the point. As those of you who share my problem may very well know, the back of the Finesse bottle was obviously written by someone who should probably have been hired as a garbageman (oh, pardon, waste-removal specialist-- mustn't be gender-specific) or something equally menial instead. Because they obviously can't write. The back of that dumb bottle is covered in grammatical gaffes. I stare at them in helpless frustration every time I take a shower. I yearn to take a red pencil, scratch them out, and rewrite the blurb in a torrent of grammatically flawless eloquence. I long to be hired in the place of that hapless shampoo-bottle-blurb-writer, just for a day, that I might set right one wayward little corner of this universe and leave the world a better place than I found it. But, alas. Alack. I can't. I must simply stare in mute agony.

After years of enduring this trauma every morning, I have decided that the only way to deal with my angst is to express it. So here it is, Ladies and Gentlemen-- the back of the Finnesse bottle:

"True beauty is more than skin deep. But tell that to your hair.

The surface- the cuticle more precisely is where your hair's beauty

is more evident. Enter the Finesse exclusive silk and soy protein

formulas that smooth and improve the cuticle, strengthening every

strand to leave hair more soft and naturally shiny. For hair that's

irresistibly alluring to the eyes and beautiful to the touch."

That last sentence in particular really, really bugs me. It may be technically correct, but stylistically it's the equivalent of wearing white socks with black dress shoes. Don't they mean "beautiful to the eyes and irresistibly alluring to the touch?" It's so obvious. . .

Well. I feel better having shared that with you all. I think I'll go study Texas' 5th Constitution now.

Such An One

fa-so-la-la

Old Spud has been in Fine Form of late. Here are some recent episodes of his wit and erudition:

On being asked by yours truly to go out back and fetch firewood: "Will you come lady the door for me?"

---------------

One day the three of us sibling types were Out And Abouting with Elwood P. Dowd. We drove down our street to discover four cars parked in front of our house, whereupon Beatrice remarked, "We look like such Republicans!" Spud picked up the idea, echoing her statement with gusto. I was little surprised at the evident conviction he felt about the subject. I mean, yes: cars, Republicans, they kind of go together. But how would Spuddy know that, I wondered? Ha. Silly me. How could I doubt the pop-culture awareness of the child who knows all about Matt Damon? But anyway, being fond of using such opportunities to impart knowledge, I felt the need to inquire into this little preconception, and possibly even introduce the blighter to the world of political culture if the ensuing discussion went well.

Little Did She Know.

Fa: "So, why does having a lot of cars make you look Republican?"

Spud: "Because Republicans have a lot of parties."

Fa, surprised: "They what?"

Spud, wearily: "Republicans have lots of parties. Everyone knows that."

Fa, beginning to rethink the imparting knowledge thing: "Who said? Where did you hear this?"

Spud, with Knowing Air: "I read it in my President book. It said they have lots of Republican parties at the White House."

(Fa, Beatrice laugh explosively, parallel parking effort nearly goes awry)

Spud, persuasively: "Really, girls! It listed, like, eighteen of them!

novemberian quotidian bloggidiom

q. shenaynay


News has reached my ears a fortnight late that November is national-post-on-your-blog-every-day month or some such thing. This is infinitely less daunting than that swelling NaNoWriMo phenomenon, which prompts thousands of people all around the globe to write a whole blasted novel during November. Which, hello, is marginally insane. But a blog post a day? Let us all now decree in unison that this is a gauntlet well thrown.

Of course, there is one small glitch: the month is half gone already. Lo, notwithstanding, we are not afraid.

We've been rather undisciplined bloggers over the past quarter (and understandably so, all things considered), but our quasi-sabbatical should only render us all the more verbose. So, it being mid-month already, and there being four contributors up there in the Beehive header, I propose it's only fair we post twice daily the remainder of November. Heh heh heh.

So. GS, Fa & Beatrice, all hands on deck. These be the rules: Any shared observances of blogworthy Spuddyisms will be deemed first-come, first-served. Blog cheerfully or take the laptop outside. Payment in currency of one warm chocolate chip cookie per post authored, payable on the evening of November 30. Slackers must drink their milk with a teaspoon. Merely posting quotes will count, but only for half a cookie, and the quote must be good enough to make me go "hmmm." Must be present to win.

journalism bombs fall sharply at USA Today.

q. shenaynay

This is the lead headline on today's issue. I'm not kidding. Other people saw it, too.

Roadside bombs in Iraq fall sharply

You can click the link if you don't believe me.

Do people with real degrees actually get paid to write this stuff?


[Fa offers her recent fave, also spotted in a newspaper: "(Some performer whose name she can't remember and it doesn't matter because here comes the part we're after...) Finds Humor Among Hardship." Are there really professional writers out there who don't know how to spell "amid"?]

the 7 degrees of matt damon

q. shenaynay


Over dinner tonight we indulged in some shamefully fluffy and inconsequential chatter about current male movie stars. Yes, I know. Okay, you want specifics; I knew it. So here goes. Well, y'see, we had idly drifted into said conversation following a stimulating exercise in which Great Scot and I sought to culturally enlighten Fa and Beatrice about the now-expired fad game known as "The 7 Degrees Of Kevin Bacon" which was so wildly and inexplicably popular some years back. See, we've always sort of loosely held a rather brave philosophical position that our homeschooled offspring shouldn't suffer too much cultural naivete as a result of our decision to give them a home-centered upbringing, which explains why Great Scot has been known to do things like careen our Suburban toward the nearest truck stop without warning when he, in his Peppy Road Trip Dad persona, launched into "On The Road Again" only to discover to his woeful dismay that neither of his native Texan daughters knew who Willie Nelson is. (Anybody out there need a $4 cd of Willie's Greatest Hits? We're not above re-gifting. Really.)

So young Spuddy Buddy, who had seemed to be ignoring our insipid discussion, suddenly affected something disturbingly akin to world-weary pop-culture finesse, and somewhat authoritatively chimed in something or other about Matt Damon. Matt Damon?

We all paused our violent attack upon the Mexican chocolate bread pudding and stared at him in deflated wonder. Uhh, when did our young Spuddy Buddy, our sweet, innocent boy as yet so blissfully unburdened by celebrity awareness (beyond the world of major league baseball, that is) acquire cultural familiarity with the likes of Matt Damon? I mean, we haven't exactly been in the habit of plopping him down in front of Jason Bourne flicks. And he's homeschooled, for pete's sake. Aren't homeschooled eight year olds supposed to still be culture nerds? By definition? Aren't they supposed to chat over dinner about the psycho-social implications of the Trojan War followed by really festive guessing games about which of Henry VIII's six wives were beheaded? So how come he's turning out to be so hip and cool that he blithely drops Matt Damon into dinner conversation? I was determined to get to the bottom of this. Enquiring Minds Want To Know.

Me: Umm, how do you know about Matt Damon?

Spuddy: Everybody knows about Matt Damon.

Me: Well, I doubt that gross generalization, but the point is how do YOU know about Matt Damon?

Spuddy: Seriously, I guess everybody just does.

Me (trying a change in inflection): Okay, but HOW do you know about Matt Damon?

Spuddy: Oh, you know... from hearing people in stores talk about him.

Me: Honey, people in stores do not typically hang around talking about Matt Damon.

Spuddy (becoming ever more spudly about it all): Oh, y'know, a lot of times they do.

Me: Hold on a second here. I've been in more stores than I can count and I do not recall ever hearing any people in any store anywhere talk about Matt Damon. I mean, in what sort of store do people stand around talking about Matt Damon?

Spuddy: ::pause:: Well... there were a couple of gas stations in Alabama.


So now we know what people do at gas stations in Alabama. I feel sure this morsel of regional sociological data will prove useful at some point in your life.