Shhhh! Please Don’t Tell my Parents!!
For the first time in your life, your parents are away. They leave their home, the home they raised you and taught you right from wrong, in your trusted care while they take a long overdue romantic vacation for just the two of them.
You know where this is going.
The Party. It’s the right of passage for every American Teen. At least it seems that way in the movies. As the weather warms up, think of all those teen movies that ended in a springtime house party bash. Some that come to mind just from my generation include Risky Business, Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, and later, Mean Girls
When I was growing up on Staten Island, it was rare to find a house that was not an attached townhouse. For those of you in suburbia, this means a house that shares at least one common wall with one neighbor. Or maybe your house was flanked by townhouses on both sides. The walls that separated one home from another were exceedingly thin and provided no sound proofing.
How thin? We could say “God Bless You!” when we heard our neighbors sneeze. When there was a birthday party, a family fight, or when their coo-coo clock went off at all hours of the night, you heard that too.
So, the first time – the only time – I had a party the summer between my freshman and sophomore year of college, I did the right thing. I let my neighbors know that I was going to have a few friends over. Just a few. And, we might get a little loud. And, would they mind if we put some beer bottles in their trash the next day?
My neighbor, Dom, a man in his late 60’s who played Frank Sinatra on his backyard transistor radio all summer and who introduced me to my first grilled Italian pepper, said it wouldn’t be a problem.
I was a good kid. Really I was. Still am. Even though my teen daughter now views me as irresponsible because I caught mono in my sophomore year of college after a weekend of parties. So, when planning my first keg party, no I was not of age, but my friends and I were all right at the cusp. We were all turning 20 that year. That’s why we had the party, it was for a friend, a girl who received all honors in high school and was studying economics at SUNY Binghamton. She was turning 20 that weekend. We did the responsible thing by asking my friends’ of-age boyfriend to buy the beer.
My underage friends and I were responsible for hiring the DJ. He charged $75 for the night and three of us each chipped in $25. We cleared a spot in my basement where he could set up and play. We didn’t want to set up outside because again, I was trying to be considerate of my neighbors.
More importantly, I was trying not to get caught and get in the worst trouble of my short 19-year-old life.
The party was a success! It was a beautiful night and we would have gone swimming in the pool if there weren’t so many damned mosquitos. (Another thing about Staten Island. No matter how small the backyard, everyone managed to have a pool. It may have been an above-ground pool, but it was wet and cold in the hot New York City summer, that is what mattered most). I remember dancing and lots of kids coming, most invited, some, who barely spoke to me in high school but oh look who’s having a party and decided now they wanted to be my friends.
My friends had their boyfriends with them. A friend of mine became a friend with benefits.
Most importantly, no one got too drunk and no one got hurt. And, my considerate party goers didn’t stay or make noise too too late into the night and my college roommate even mopped the kitchen and bathroom floors when it was all over.
Only one household possession was broken as a result of the party. The kitchen clock came crashing down. That was because one of those previously mentioned mosquitos got in and my brother tried to kill it when it landed on the clock.
My brother…..
Now, my parents are very wise. Later, they told me that they had their suspicions that I had a party whether or not they found a letter on computer print-out paper (the kind that came in a stack with holes on the sides to feed it into the printer. Remember, this was the late 80’s). The letter was written by my brother, an impressionable teenager at the time who had just written a letter to his friend that “my sister had a wild crazy party at our house and there was beer and everything!”
Yes, that was a very dark week in the Cooper household. My parents felt betrayed by me and my good girl friends that never got in any trouble in high school. There were tears of guilt and apology later that week in my parents’ living room among all the guilty. But I’m 43 now and I’m not grounded anymore and I still love my brother.
So, why do I bring this up now?
Now, after 20 years of being away, it is my parents who are the retired empty nesters living on the other side of the wall from a family with three teenagers. Last weekend, the parents of these teenagers went away for a vacation. Last weekend, it was my parents who were the couple who could not get to sleep because of a teen house party that went deep into the night.
The next night, my parents pulled into their driveway after spending the evening with friends and were greeted by all three of the kids next-door. With a big plate of home-baked, shamrock-shaped cookies.
“We baked these for you. We are SO sorry that we made so much noise and kept you up all night,” mom told me over the phone, and we laughed as she described how this girl pleaded for forgiveness.
Sure, they were sorry about the noise. But they were more worried about getting potentially ratted out to their parents. That was the main reason for the cookies.
At this, my mom took the cookies and laughed. “No problem. Been there. Done that.”
So, Happy St. Patrick’s Day, everyone. And keep the music down after 1 a.m., will ya?”
What to do when you are the “not-quite-Out-of-Town guests?”
semi-finals at a Bat Mitzvah Hula Hoop Contest. How long can she spin 12 hoops at once?
To anyone reading this who lives in a BIG metro area like Los Angeles, New York City, Toronto…. let me ask you this:
If you are invited to a wedding/Bar Mitzvah/christening/fill-in-the-blank life occasion across town with a religious service in the morning and party at night,do you get a hotel room for the weekend?
I didn’t think so.
If you are the planner of a big life event occasion and invite many out-of-town guests, do you pull out all the stops in providing them with extra special treatment: (reserve a block of hotel rooms, extra dinners and brunches, goodie bags in their hotel rooms)?
Of course you do, they are the out-of-towners!
This past weekend, my whole family was invited to the Bat Mitzvah of a friend my son made in Camp Ramah. My daughter is friends with the girl’s sister, and our two families have developed this great Camp Ramah connection over the years. We were very honored to be invited to this happy occasion as a family. There are too many sad occasions in life that we juggle our lives to attend,so why not do a little schlepping for the happy ones?
As a kid growing up in Staten Island, I remember going to weddings and bar mitzvahs, and later on youth group dances “out on the Island” – in this case Long Island. My dad had a special name for this stretch of suburbia that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean. It didn’t matter where your destination was on the Island. Any trip from SI to LI was to a place called “all the way out” on the Island.
I remember the traffic as we traveled and my dads angry muttering at the wheel. There was traffic on the Belt. The BQE. The LIE. And the GCP. (If you don’t know what these stand for, you are not from NYC.) It would take what seemed hours to get anywhere. And still does.
In reality, the distance in miles was only 40 miles or so, but it was the traffic that made the journey take hours. But never did my parents think about getting a hotel room or consider staying overnight. Because LI was still considered “in town.” I remember drowsy drives back to the other island, Staten Island, when my brother and I would fall asleep in the back in our party clothes, my parents singing doo-wop oldies tunes to their heart’s content in the front seat.
Drive over an hour in the New York Metro Area, you are still in the New York Metro area.
Drive over an hour in Rochester, you are in Buffalo
So, at the beginning of the weekend, when we parted with friends at a Friday night dinner and announced to our Rochester friends we were headed to Buffalo for a Bat Mitzvah, they actually said to us “Have a nice trip!”
When you are transplantednorth, traveling an hour to go for a visit is nothing. Staying at a hotel overnight was out of the question.But the question remained, how were we going to pull this day off?
The day came with logistical challenges. We left our house very early Saturday morning to get to the synagogue in Buffalo**. We had to pack two extra sets of clothes for each family member, one casual outfit for hanging around the hotel, and then more formal attire for the evening party. Plus bathing suits because the kids were invited to swim in the hotel pool, so that meant toiletries too, but where to shower?
When we got to Buffalo, we sat through a very nice warm service and at the luncheon reception, known as the kiddush, we made fast friends with several couples who all were from out-of-town to bring their children, also campers, to celebrate their friends’ Bat Mitzvah. I told them we were “from” Rochester, but as conversations went on, our native accents revealed themselves.
As we relaxed that afternoon in the hotel lobby, one of the dads spoke up and asked my husband and I: “You didn’t grow up in Rochester, did you? Where are you really from?”
That night, after eating and dancing to the sounds provided by a DJ company called the Bar Mitzvah Boys – who are from Rochester – we didn’t get home until 1 a.m. For my husband and I, it was now our turn to stay awake and sing while the kids slept in the back all the way home.
**Yes, we drive on Shabbat. Conservative Judaism has a decree that allows one to drive if it is to worship at a synagogue. There was some irony to all this, because once we arrived in Buffalo, we had nowhere to go and nothing to do but read and chat with some real “out-of-town” guests who invited us to spend the afternoon at their hotel. So, we did drive, but in the end had a very relaxing Shabbat.
Sorting through cans of food at Foodlink and layoffs at Kodak
Last week, my family got a very small taste of what it would be like to live with food instability.
But not really.
Our refrigerator was on the frizz for a week because of some delays with repairs. For one week, my family had no reliable source of refrigeration. We used the snow and the sporadic cold of this very mild winter to keep our milk and produce fresh.
For a few days, it was like camping. But after a while, it was no fun having to go out into the snow and cold every time a member of the family wanted a drink of orange juice
or a pat of butter.
It was demeaning and demoralizing to live like this. Milk and eggs spoiled. Lots of food had to be tossed. As bad as it was, I realized this was for my family a temporary problem.
After all, we still had money. We could keep our food stability because we could – and did- go out for every meal for a few days.
But for many in Monroe County, food instability is a very real thing.
In Monroe County, where Kodak is bankrupt and has for the last decade shed thousands of blue and white collar jobs, food instability is increasing.
Last year, The Children’s Agenda in a report called Decade in Decline that found that
- Children attending pre-K classes are on the rise
- 96 percent of the county’s children have health insurance
- the number of children found with high levels of lead in their blood dropped by 80 percent
However:
- 22 percent of the county’s children live in poverty.
- 44 percent of children in Monroe county in grades K-6 receive free and reduced lunch in public schools
- 2,494 families in the county were placed in homeless shelters in 2009, up from 1,566 in 1999
There are many in our midst who live with real food instability every day. Kids who live in homes where they may not get much on the weekends after receving food assistance at school all week.
This week, over Februrary break, my kids and I got a better understanding of what it takes to keep people out of food instability and on the road to self sufficiency by volunteering at a vast food distribution center serving the poor by distributing this food to hundreds of food pantries within 10 counties in Western New York.
Together with a few of their friends, we worked a shift at Rochester’s Foodlink in their brand new facility in the northwest part of the city. Foodlink is a food distribution center that provides food and meal assistance to agencies and food pantries in 10 counties in Western New York. The new location moved operations from four floors in a warehouse near Corn Hill to one on Mt. Read Blvd. No longer did millions of pounds of food need to be carted up and down in a 100-year-old elevator. Just across the highway from Foodlink’s new digs are the huge but emptying buildings and factories of Kodak, the company that was once the backbone of our city.
Foodlink is a great place to volunteer. In fact, thousands of people in Rochester volunteer each year to help end food instability within the 10 county area that Foodlink services. In fact, it is so good at the efficient way it mobilizes its volunteers to distribute food to the hungry and to lead the hungry and poor onto paths of nutritious self-reliance, it was named by the New York State Commission for National and Community Service to:
- help individual volunteers find service opportunities with local non-profit agencies within the region;
- support the development of an on-line statewide network of volunteer opportunities;
- measure the local impact of volunteer activity to share through a formal New York-specific study;
- deliver training and technical assistance to support local volunteer organization
This is my second time volunteering at Foodlink with my kids. The volunteer coordinators are friendly and have a great hands-on training program to teach volunteers like us how to sort through and rescue the many truckloads of food donations they receive from private and corporate donors like Wegmans Food Markets.
Some rules on sorting food:
- Food that has an expiration date that is older than six months must be disposed.
- Cans with bulges or dents with sharp edges or any dents around seams or lids must be disposed.
- No baby food can be accepted. Not even sealed and labeled. It was painful to put baby food jars and formula on the discard pile. But we were assured that is why the state has a WIC (women, infants and children) program to assist mothers with young babies.
- Nonperishable food bags with tears in an inner plastic lining must be disposed.
Finally, volunteers must be at least eight years old. This qualified my youngest, who loves sorting things in general and said he “had the best time and could sort food all day long”.
My older kids and their friends were having a good time too. How fun is taking off food from a moving conveyor belt, after all?
The hardest item I had to put on the discard pile was a torn 20 pound bag of sushi-grade rice. I knew that had to be expensive and it was probably okay. But I knew that sushi rice is not cheap and it nearly killed me to have to toss it.
“Believe me, it kills us all the time, we see food like this all the time we have to toss,” one of the workers told me.
But not all this really goes to waste. Much of the canned food is taken from its metal containers and composted and used at local farms. Food waste is also used by another local business and converted into clean-burning ethanol.
How close are we to food instability? The news of Kodak’s demise make all of us here in Rochester a bit shaky.
As a friend and I sorted food, she told me some very hard news. Within that impersonal number of 3,000 to 4,000 people to lose their jobs in the latest round of Kodak layoffs was her boyfriend. He spent most of his adult life working there.
Suddenly, the joyful energy I was feeling felt as crushed as some of the many dented cans we were tossing away.
My Life as Cosmo Kramer: Day seven of living with No Refrigerator
Kramer loved his life with no refrigerator. But he didn’t have three children to feed
“Kramer: Ahh, no, no, no. You got me all wrong buddy. I am loving this no refrigerator. You know what I discovered? I really like depriving myself of things. It’s fun. Very monastic.
George: Well what do you eat?
Kramer: It’s all fresh. Fresh fish, fresh foul, fresh fruit. I buy it, I omniga nominga, I eat it.”
Remember that episode? It was funny. But to live a life in the 21st Century with nowhere to put your milk and eggs and cheese, that’s another story.
Thanks to the wonderful folks at Sears, again, I wait for the refrigerator repairman.
For the third time. The right parts, this time, have also been waiting in my entryway for the past two days.
But still, no repairman.
I’ve gotten pretty good at working out a system though.
Every day, I buy the smallest possible container of milk.
Instead of stocking up for a whole week, I buy a maximum of 10 pieces of fruit.
It’s a good thing I live up north, because the weekend’s snowfall provided me with cold stuff to pack into my cooler.
I plot out every meal plus snacks like cheese and yogurt for the kids to take in their lunches.
I have learned that most sources of protein and calcium require refrigeration. I go buy these in small quantities each day as well.
I keep all my produce outside in my cooler. Like this:
Think about this:
How many times a day you go to your refrigerator to eat a piece of fruit, drink a glass of milk or prepare a meal?
Every time I need to do this, I need to put on my boots first and let in the cold air.
But even the Rochester cold is not cold enough to keep my strawberries from rotting or my milk from going sour after a day.
So, it’s almost 11 a.m. now. I’ve been waiting six days and .. three hours for refrigeration. It’s like waiting for Godot.
Sears, do you really think you are doing a good job by letting your customers, those who paid extra for a service contract, to live with no refrigeration for seven days?
Thank goodness red wine does not need to be chilled.
Courageous Transplants
Bryson gets help from his cousin. Photo by Kris. J. Murante/D&C Staff Photographer
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of meeting two transplants to Rochester from North Carolina and one all the way from Taiwan.
They came to be nearer to lifesaving healthcare resources. They came here for family and for love.
These transplants found all that in Rochester. What they also found was a community on ice.
Before I share their story, think about something you’ve complained about today.
Maybe you had an ache in your back. Or the winter weather makes you not want to get out of bed. Or your co-workers, siblings, roommates, spouse, etc., is driving you crazy. Keep your problems. You really don’t have any problems. Instead, count those blessings.
Thank you to Amanda, the courageous single mom of Bryson. Thank you for calling me to make sure I had everything for my story while Bryson was once again in the ICU. Amanda was apologizing to me for not keeping in touch.
When I told her not to worry and how instead how sorry I was that Bryson was back in the ICU because of complications related to his CP, she just said – “That’s okay. That’s just how it is.”
I saw Amanda and Bryson about a week later at a routine checkup for my son’s asthma. Amanda gave me a quick hello, thanked me again and said she had to run, she had six other doctors appointments for Bryson.
Sadly, Bryson died about under two years from the time this piece was published in the Democrat and Chronicle. I am glad I was able to have written this to preserve his memory.
There is a little ritual performed by Gliding Stars students each time they take to the ice at the Webster Ice Arena. Each skater is escorted onto the ice with one or two volunteers as a straight line forms across the center of the rink. Some stand independently while others use the support of walkers and arm braces. At the cue of their skating instructor, they chant a cheer: “Can we skate? Yes we can!”
With the help of his family, friends and the larger community in Webster, this can-do spirit lives within the tiny body of 6-year-old skater Bryson Sparrin.
Bryson, of Webster, was born prematurely at 27 weeks with cerebral palsy. In 2010, he contracted hydrocephalus, or fluid on the brain, and had to have shunts placed within his brain to relieve the pressure. Already coping with speech delays caused by cerebral palsy, the shunts further curtailed his speech development. He can carry on a conversation and express himself with short sentences, gestures and with the help of an iPad application.
In spite of it all, Bryson wants to be like any other boy his age. Getting on the ice with Gliding Stars is one more way Bryson feels like the rest of his peers.
Gliding Stars was started in Buffalo in 1994 by a figure skater who wanted to make the sport accessible to people with physical, mental or emotional challenges. The Rochester Chapter, which meets weekly in Webster, currently enrolls 35 skaters and meets each Sunday afternoon from November through April. The season culminates with a choreographed ice show where the students can show off their moves.
According to Rochester Gliding Stars co-coordinator Christie Leszczynski, also of Webster, ice skating provides Bryson and other disabled children with many benefits. Physically, it helps strengthen muscles and improve stability. Children who are otherwise confined to wheelchairs or have limited ability to walk get a great sense of freedom when their legs can glide over the ice. Emotionally, skating and making friends through the program boost the child’s self-esteem.
It costs $700 for each child to skate to cover insurance, equipment and renting ice rink time. Gliding Stars makes the program as financially accessible as possible to students by charging them only $140 per season. The rest of the tuition is offset by grants, community fundraisers and the dedication of volunteers.
As a skating instructor, Leszczynski modifies skating moves to match students’ capabilities. Some children master basic skills such as alternating feet and skating in a circle with a group, while others learn basic figure skating moves like spins and jumps.
The Sparrins moved to Webster in 2010 from Ashville, N.C. Here, they discovered a welcoming community, support from family and a dedicated team of 10 doctors at Golisano Children’s Hospital at Strong to treat Bryson.
When one of the doctors recommended that Bryson try out Gliding Stars, his mother was initially hesitant.
“I first thought, ‘There is no way Bryson can ice skate.’ But the first time he tried it out, I saw a huge smile on his face. Now, skating and being with friends on the ice is the thing he looks forward to most each week,” said Amanda Sparrin, a single mother.
Bryson gets around in a powered wheelchair. He is unable to stand or walk on his own. But because of specially designed ice skates and a walker with a sling seat provided by Gliding Stars, Bryson can skate. His beaming smile shows the sense of satisfaction that brings.
Accompanying Bryson on the ice is his cousin, 9year-old Ruby Salamone, a fourth-grader at Schlegel Road Elementary School.
Ruby, who was adopted from Taiwan by Amanda’s sister in October 2010, came to the ice with her own challenges of adjusting to a new family, a new country and a new language.
The skater-volunteer relationship has been mutually beneficial for Bryson and Ruby. Bryson looks up to his new cousin as a role model, and Ruby gains self-confidence at being able to help her cousin while making new friends, said Amanda.
“Ruby really understands Bryson’s nonverbal cues. When they are on the ice, she monitors his mood to help him feel successful. Having that family connection of his cousin skating with him every week is a big bonus in Bryson’s skating. They really love each other,” said Amanda.
After spending the first 86 days of Bryson’s life in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Amanda knows the ins and outs of what it takes to care for premature babies. When Bryson was released from the NICU, Amanda had to be trained how to change Bryson’s feeding tube, operate a breathing machine and manage his seizures.
Amanda said she remains in close contact with the nurses who cared for Bryson. Now, to make that support come “full circle,” she is studying at Monroe Community College and hopes to work as an NICU nurse to care for premature babies and their parents.
“For those parents now dealing with babies in the NICU who are living through those first days knowing their child has a life-altering disability — I lived that. I know what they are going through, and I want to become a nurse because I can
give them hope,” said Amanda.
Just the Facts, Mom! I’m studying for midterms.
My daughter came down from her bedroom to talk to me the other night.
No, this sentence warrants a six-column headline:
My daughter came down from her bedroom to talk to me the other night
That’s better.
After all, she is 15. Aside from emerging for meals, school, and showers, she lives in her room.
In another astounding development, my brilliant, confident and extremely disciplined daughter came down to ask me – her mom (!) to help her study!
She asked me to help her study! She still needs me!
Fantastic!
This week marks her first set of high school midterms. I admire her extra efforts for studying for them. Math and science is dad’s department. But current events and English, that is my domain. We began to review for her social studies exam. But as we started to review the material – and please – JUST the material – the thought-provoking documentary Race to…
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Just the Facts, Mom! I’m studying for midterms.
Can you name this world leader?
My daughter came down from her bedroom to talk to me the other night.
No, this sentence warrants a six-column headline:
My daughter came down from her bedroom to talk to me the other night
That’s better.
After all, she is 15. Aside from emerging for meals, school, and showers, she lives in her room.
In another astounding development, my brilliant, confident and extremely disciplined daughter came down to ask me – her mom (!) to help her study!
She asked me to help her study! She still needs me!
Fantastic!
This week marks her first set of high school midterms. I admire her extra efforts for studying for them. Math and science is dad’s department. But current events and English, that is my domain. We began to review for her social studies exam. But as we started to review the material – and please – JUST the material – the thought-provoking documentary Race to Nowhere came to mind.
As she crammed the names and positions of 40 current world leaders into her head, was she truly gaining an understanding of current world events? I am a news junkie, so I couldn’t help but wonder – she was memorizing names with faces, but was she learning?
My daughter thrust into my hands a four-page study packet that had 40 mug shots of leaders of North America, Asia and Europe. Also included in the lineup were that week’s Republican candidates who were vying for the nomination for this November’s presidential election. We started with those:
I asked: “Can you name the candidates who are running in the Republican primary?’
“Sure: Gingrich. Romney, and, um — Santorum!”
Great, she had them down. And Perry had just dropped out. But for me, these answers aren’t good enough. After all, in by the time the 2016 Presidential election comes around, she’ll be old enough to vote. So I press on:
“Who is this Newt Gingrich and what position of government did he hold in the past? What was he known for doing in this position?
“I don’t care, mom, that’s not on the test! Just names and positions, Mom.”
I could in some ways empathize with her. The Social Studies midterm was just one test in a slew of tests she will face this week. She still had to conjugate lots of verbs in Spanish for another test. And tackle some tough algebra problems for yet another. Names and faces of world leaders, that’s plenty to know. But is it?
I pressed on.
“Who is the secretary of state?”
“Easy. Hillary Clinton.”
I couldn’t help myself: “And what does the secretary of state do? And what was she before she was secretary of state?”
“Not important, it won’t be on the test! Next leader, please….This is why I like to study with dad more than you!”
“Who is the leader of Venezuela?”
“No problem, Ces, Chavez…. he has a mustache!
“Yes. Now, which other world leader is he getting into bed with and why is this a problem?”
“Into bed with?!?”
“It’s just an expression. It means getting buddy-buddy with.”
“I don’t know! Who cares, it’s-“
“….I know it’s not on the test. But he is getting cozy with a leader in the Middle East in a country that starts with an I-“
“Okay, I know this one, the president of Iran is Ahmadinejad.”
I personally hope she won’t have to spell that one…
“And why is this a problem? What do these countries both have a lot of that we depend on?
“I don’t knoooooww, mom! Sugar? This will not be on the test!”
“Oil, honey, they both have oil and they are both consider the US as an enemy. Oh, and what other country does Iran consider an enemy?”
“This is not on the TEST!”
But she knows. She knows the leaders of Iran want to wipe Israel off the map. She knows this because it’s what we discuss at home. Just like she knew the leader of Israel was Benjamin Netanyahu before she got that study packet.
So, how many world leaders or members of the US cabinet can you recognize or name? And does rattling off these names make our high school students any more knowledgeable on current events?
On a final note, my daughter invited a friend home to study and have dinner with us tonight. Another source of midterm stress: the English composition.
“This could be on ANYTHING, mom. We just won’t know what we are going to have to write about. I mean, the topic could be: What are the social implications of when Neil Young walked on the moon?!”
How Not to do your kid’s elementary school take-home project
My son came home at the beginning of November with his first serious take home project in his academic career. To thoroughly research and display a natural landform.
Cry me a River.
If you have elementary school-aged children, you have been presented with the following scenario:
Your child comes home with a project assignment. They must research a topic and then display their findings in a creative way. Suggestions included making a diorama, a puppet show, a video dramatization. The project instructions come with a rubric so the child knows just what the teacher will be looking for in the research, delivery of facts and visual presentation before giving the grade.
In true tradition of thinking in terms of our achievement and perfection driven culture, as demonstrated in the film Race To Nowhere, I initially got it into my head that this was not my third grader’s project, but it was mine. It would have to be mine if I was to make sure my son got the highest grade possible. I couldn’t just let my eight year old go it on his own, could I? Because other parents in my highly competitive school district wouldn’t just hand off their kids project, would they? If I let him do this on his own, would I seem neglectful? Would I come off as apathetic mom in a tiger mom school district?
Right away, I approached the project – Rivers – like the 40something I am and not like the eight-year-0ld child that my child is. As far as the research, I would visit three different library branches to take out every children’s nonfiction book on rivers in publication.
The research went well and with much enthusiasm, my son, with some direction, came up with vocabulary flashcards with river terminology like “mouth” and “source” and “delta”. He also created about six flashcards with facts on the world’s longest rivers and New York State rivers. To top it off, he wrote the flashcards showing off his latest 3rd Grade skill: using cursive letters!
Next came the all-important presentation of Rivers. Should we create a video? I had the FlipCam ready. We could go off to the Genesee River with the University of Rochester in the background …..we could script a newscast and dress him in outdoorsman clothing….what would he say? … Or, we can go in the über diorama direction. It would have to include mixed media like clay and pebbles for the river embankments and shiny cellophane for the river. And, some parts of it should be relief sculpture and for artistry’s sake, there must be perspective and depth to show a river’s origins far away and its mouth up close…
All these ideas were shot down during the design conceptualization meeting with my son.
“I really just want to color, mom.”
Really? Just Color? Would there be an initial sketch? How would a sense of scale and perspective be achieved?
“MOM! I DON’T WANT TO MAKE A SCULPTURE OR A DRAFT. I’M JUST GOING TO COLOR! IT’S MY PROJECT, OKAY?”
The more suggestions I made, the madder he became until he started to cry.
Remember, this was supposed to be an enjoyable project to be completed at home.
So I backed off. And this is what he created: 
Three days later, he came home with his final grade: Outstanding. Well, good for us.
I mean, good for HIM!
Pareve Pumpkin Pie
photo found on marthastewartliving website
Everyone in my nuclear family loves LOVES pumpkin pie. And for only the second time in 12 years, my pumpkin-pie eating little family of five will not be going over the NY Thruway and through any tunnels or bridges to New York City. Nope, as much as we love seeing the family and sitting in 10 hours of traffic, this year, we are staying put.
When you are Transplantednorth, there are some disadvantages of being a nuclear family in a town where it seems you are surrounded by friends who all have extended family in town. Come holidays like Thanksgiving, you once again become the disappearing transplant.
I’m not complaining, really. This was my choice to stay “home.” But can a place be home where there are no extended family within 300 miles? The rest of the year, Rochester indeed feels like home. Come holidays, without aunts, uncles cousins and grandparents around, it can feel like how the Ingalls family must have felt on the wild, windblown frontier.
But this is a story about pareve pumpkin pie.
One small advantage of staying put (okay my kids will think a big advantage) is that at our Thanksgiving table, we’ll have pumpkin pie.
As much as she has tried to like it, my mom does not like anything pumpkin. My kids, however, can’t get enough of the orange stuff. I put it in breads, waffles and pancakes. I even made a pumpkin challah just so I can make pumpkin challah stuffing.
But, most of you know that pumpkin pie calls for milk, cream, condensed milk, or some other dairy ingredient. This poses a challenge to Jewish families like ours who observe the dietary laws of keeping kosher.
There are ways to get around the dairy dilemma by finding pareve ingredients.
What is pareve? Not many know. It is so esoteric, the word does not appear in the WordPress spellcheck.
It’s a term meaning food that is neither meat or dairy. It’s neutral. Like Switzerland. Does it taste as creamy and delicious as real cream? No. But, I’d rather have an imitation dairy dessert any day than serving a Tofurky at my Thanksgiving feast!
Here is the recipe. I based it on a recipe used from Martha Stewart Living, I just replaced the dairy ingredients with some stuff called Coffee Rich, found in the frozen section of most grocery stores. For those of you in upstate New York, I found this chemical-laden substance at Tops, and not Wegmans this year. But I still love you, Wegmans.
All-purpose flour, for surface
- Pate Brisee for Traditional Pumpkin Pie
- 1 can (15 ounces) solid-pack pumpkin
- 3/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
- 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 3 large eggs
- 1 Cup Pareve Nondairy Creamer, like Coffee Rich
- Ground cloves
- Whipped cream, for serving
Directions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
On a lightly floured surface, roll pate brisee disk 1/8 inch thick, then cut into a 16-inch circle. Fit circle into a 9-inch deep-dish pie dish, leaving a 1-inch overhang. Fold edges under. Shape large, loose half circles at edge of dough, then fold into a wavelike pattern to create a fluted edge. Prick bottom of dough all over with a fork. Freeze for 15 minutes.Cut a circle of parchment, at least 16 inches wide, and fit into pie shell. Fill with pie weights or dried beans. – Buy a premade Pareve piecrust. Bake until edges of crust begin to turn gold, about 15 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack, and let cool.- Meanwhile, whisk pumpkin, sugar, cornstarch, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, vanilla, eggs, creamer, and a pinch of cloves in a large bowl.
- Reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees. Transfer pie dish to a rimmed baking sheet, and pour pumpkin mixture into cooled crust. Bake until center is set but still a bit wobbly, 50 to 55 minutes. (If crust browns too quickly, tent edges with a strip of foil folded in half lengthwise.) Let cool in pie dish on a wire rack. Refrigerate until well chilled, at least 6 hours (preferably overnight.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Buy Daughter Skis, Feed the Chickadees, Mendon, NY
Ever since my daughter started high school, I don’t see her that much. She doesn’t talk to me that much either. She is either in school, at practice, or up in her room studying, texting or skyping.
So, when she starts talking to me about taking on a new challenge like cross-country skiing, even though it’s a language almost foreign to me, I had better listen.
I tried to downhill ski, once. It was in California on a weekend away with my husband’s grad school buddies. Long ago, on a bunny hill somewhere in Lake Tahoe, Calif., I decided that strapping waxed wooden pieces to my feet and then surrenduring my body to the mercy of gravity was simply a horrible idea.
I was better suited for a flatter, more level playing field. So, the next year, I attempted cross-country skiing. I thought, how hard could it be? There are no hills to hurtle down and cause bodily injury. There are no ski lifts to try to jump on. Again, my new husband and I headed to Lake Tahoe for the weekend. It was a perfect, fresh-powdered blue-skied day to take my first five-mile trek on cross-country skis. I could run five miles at a time, so how much harder could skiing it be?
Much harder. Much.
Any ability to get my poles and my arms in rhythm with my feet in my skis completely escaped me. As soon as I would get any momentum going, I’d topple over into the snow. After falling over for about the 72nd time (I’m not exaggerating), I just sat there and wept in frustration. I took off my skis, walked back to the lodge and had a hot chocolate while the others effortlessly glided along the lakeshore.
So, when my daughter came to me with those big blue eyes sparkling with the promise of a new challenge, I was not going to put my failure on the slopes and the trails on her. But how much was this going to cost us?
We head out to a ski swap and sale at a middle school surrounded by farmland. This is one of the biggest ski swap and sales in the area, and the gym is packed with parents like us shopping from the area’s ski retailers. Thankfully, the high school ski coach is there to teach us the lingo (Classic skis, Combi skis and boots, Poles, Bindings.) and show us what we needed to buy. We need skis that she can use for both disciplines.
No, the two disciplines are not scary downhill and frustrating cross-country, as I thought. There are actually two disciplines of cross-country: classic and skate. About 40 minutes, — and hundreds of dollars – later, she had what she needed to hit the trails.
On the way home, we stopped at one of our favorite places to hike, Mendon Ponds Park, where my kids have been hand feeding the chickadees since they were little. It is one thing they still like to do and each time a bird lands in their hand, I get a glimpse into the past, see the little kids my big kids once were.
My daughter brings her poles along for the 2 mile hike, just to get a feel for them. Then, out of nowhere, my daughter wants me to give them a try. I listen to her and slip my thumb in the proper hole, adjust the velcro secure around the rest of my hand. Bend my elbows just so. And, in one final hike before the snows fall, my daughter and I take turns with the poles along the trail. Together. Side by side.
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Stacy Gittleman 