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Driving Ambition

Truth Thursday

We have just finished two days of Passover seders in our house – two days of my standing on my feet cooking, all day long, and then sitting down to recount the story of the Jews' exodus from Egypt. Two days of being with good friends and enjoying the rituals that herald spring and rebirth.

The overriding theme of Passover is liberation. And while my two younger kids are still enchanted by the stories of the plagues (frogs jumping everywhere) and of the parting of the Red Sea as the Jews escaped from Egypt, my teenager had a different form of liberation on his mind.

He was thinking about driving. He turned 15 years, 9 months old several days before Passover began, and in Maryland, this is the age at which he can apply for his permit.

He spent the two days of seder studying the manual, so help me Pharaoh. And he didn’t just study the manual quietly in a corner. He came to the seder table with questions, much like the four children in the Passover story.

Commodifying the Pale Blue Dot

Image via Wikipedia

Technology Tuesday

Pale blue dot. I have loved that phrase as a description of Earth since I first came across it years ago. It refers to an iconic image of earth we've all seen and Carl Sagan used it as the title for one of his books (probably referring to the image to the right, as opposed to th more famous blue marble image). (Here's the wikipedia description of that book and the wikipedia description of the photo.)

Al Reinert wrote up a short history and discussion of the blue marble image over at The Atlantic recently.

It was the first photograph taken of the whole round Earth and the only one ever snapped by a human being. You can't see the Earth as a globe unless you get at least twenty thousand miles away from it, and only 24 humans ever went that far into outer space. They were the three-man crews of the nine Apollo missions that traveled to the moon between 1968 and 1972, six of which landed there successfully (three men went twice). But only the last three saw a full Earth. In order to see our planet as a fully illuminated globe you need to pass through a point between it and the sun, which is a narrower window than you might think if you're traveling at 20,000 miles an hour.

There's an ongoing dispute among the astronauts on the mission as to who actually took the picture. Rienert points out that it doesn't really matter:

Both men are certain they snapped The Blue Marble Shot and can't believe the other won't admit it. They can get rather snarky about it and that's a shame. They each deserve to be remembered better for their uncontested moments. Schmitt discovered volcanic rocks that proved to be the oldest samples returned from the moon, while Cernan was the last man to walk there, an exit he dignified with humility and grace we can all be proud of. It doesn't particularly matter who took the picture as long as we have it.

The photo itself is lovely.

Humble Pie: Cheese Quiche Recipe

Meal Monday

Pie is the latest obsession in my house.

When my oven is done preheating and the buzzer goes off, my boys exclaim, "pie!" If I am working in the kitchen and the oven timer goes off, Zeke shouts, "Mommy's pie!"

And it's not because I'm baking so many pies. In fact, I am pretty sure they've never even tasted pie. But they have a toy kitchen/diner, which came with two slices of pie. One slice has been M.I.A. for some time now. The other resides in the oven. Thus the connection.

This brings me to last week, when I extended a last minute dinner invitation to a friend. As I surveyed my sparsely populated fridge and pantry, I was about to reach for my delivery menus when a pie crust, eggs, cheese, and half of a zucchini caught my eye. I had the makings of a quiche. A "cheese pie," if you will.

Down the Drain

Fatherhood Friday

Having grown up in a home where (a) my mother cooked dinner every night and (b) we didn't have a disposal, I would discard my dinner scraps in the garbage. Not so my wife, she grew up putting EVERYTHING in the disposal. 

Over the course of our relationship, I've learned what a wonderful tool a disposal can be, and even use it every once in a while. Nonetheless, it has been a minor source of tension between us. I will put my scraps in the garbage still, but rinse off the little bits in the sink. My wife will put EVERYTHING in the sink/disposal.

Our conversations tend to go something like - Me:"Think you should put those banana peels, chicken bones and old sneakers in there all at once?" Her: "Its okay, I do it all the time and we've never had a problem."

Last weekend's conversation was a little different - Her:"Uh-oh." Me:"What happened?" Her: (Sound of grinding metal and gurgling water in the background) "Nothing. I'm sure it will work itself out." 

Turns out that we had overcooked our asparagus that night and the wife discarded them in the disposal. All 24 pieces. At once. Seeing as I can barely tell a wrench apart from pliers and her grandfather was a plumber years ago, we thought we were well-qualified to solve the situation. But when turning the disposal on and off a few times still didn't do the trick we realized we had exhausted our skills.

Fortunately, when we moved into our house about eight months ago my wife remembered one of the neighbors mentioning that he likes to fix stuff around the house. So we gave him a call on Saturday afternoon and he cheerfully came right on over. 

This guy was great. He took apart the disposal. He took apart the plumbing under the sink. He had lots of tools. None of it worked. No matter what we did (okay, no matter what he did) we couldn't unclog that sink. He had a couple hours of grime on him to show for it, too.

Just when we were about to throw in the towel and shell out some bucks for a plumber he got one last idea. He took out a wrench that was bigger than my two year old son, went into the basement and found a really big pipe that the kitchen sink goes to. He started using that wrench on it and next thing we knew, out came a ton of dirty water and sludge (but no asparagus). All over him.

Rather than get upset about it, he was probably happier than I was that he had figured it out! My wife was happy, because he concluded (I'm still not sure how) that the issue probably wasn't the asparagus and was more likely just years of build-up.

Whatever the cause, I'm glad to report that my wife has been much more judicious about putting orange peels, apple cores and the like down the drain. And we learned we have one awesome neighbor.

 (Photo credit: www.knoxvilleplumbinginc.com/wp-content/uploads/food-in-disposal.jpg)

A Little "Glee" in Our Own Backyard

Truth Thursday

Show of hands – who out there auditioned to be in their school play? Who was stage crew?

I think the world is divided into two distinct subgroups – cast or crew. The two years that there was a teacher at my high school who was willing to mount a musical, there was never a question – I was crew.  Stage manager, in fact. Although for the life of me, I don't really remember my job.

All I remember is the feeling of being part of something extraordinary … something bigger than me and my adolescent angst … something beautiful and communal … with music!

To this day, I remember every song from "Bye Bye Birdie"  (not so much "Teahouse of the August Moon" - whose idea was that?)  And I remember those days and nights of being on stage crew with incredible fondness and gratitude to the teacher who took it … and us … on.

I love Broadway musicals. And I love school plays. So it has been with great anticipation that I have waited for my daughter to start middle school and join the school play, something she had indicated great interest in as well (for I would never force her into doing something that was my idea. At least, probably not.)