Four weddings, but only one sacramental marriage. That was the tally by the time Rob and Shannon made their vows to each other 18 years ago.
Rob and Shannon are not their real names. The couple is not ashamed of their story, but they do not like to dwell on it, either; and it is complex enough that they have not told their own children all the details. It is a story about mistakes, pride, fear and hope, growth and grace, and love and canon law. It is a story, in short, about what makes a valid marriage in the eyes of the church, and how church leaders and structures respond when a marriage is not valid.
For such a theologically dense topic, annulments are a perennially popular topic of discussion and debate among Catholics. They are also perennially misunderstood. Many Americans speak of “getting an annulment” as if it were just the Catholic version of divorce, and many Catholics leave the church when they discover that there is more to it than that. There are persistent stories of rich or famous Catholics who supposedly bought their way out of undesirable marriages; and armchair theologians are quick to offer their pronouncement on whether or not a stranger’s marriage is valid based on a few online comments.
But the problems surrounding petitioning for decrees of nullity go deeper than rumors and misunderstandings. In 2015, Pope Francis made some reforms, aimed at lowering the costs and expediting the process. He opined in January 2021 that these efforts were being stymied by the desire for money.
But some canon lawyers believe a different kind of reform is necessary, anyway—the kind that takes place on a more personal level, where couples begin their lives together with a better understanding of what the church means by marriage, and are supported during inevitable times of struggle.
What does the church really teach about this widely misunderstood process, and how does it play out in the lives of ordinary Catholics? What does it do to their emotional and spiritual lives to encounter a doctrine that works in the space where law meets love?
Happy Friday! Or whatever! Tell me it’s any day at all, and I’ll believe you. Tell me it’s the 34th Throosday in Blorgvent and I’ll believe you. It’s been the kind of week where I’m literally dreaming about sleeping. I seem to have two weeks of What’s For Suppers to catch up on, so I’ll just hit the highlights of last week:
Two Fridays ago was ramen with shrimp, broccoli, and soft boiled eggs. I’m sharing a pic because I so infrequently manage to actually soft boil eggs. I always go hard.
The shrimp was tasty. I think Damien sauteed it in sesame oil and garlic and then squeezed lemon over it, or something along those lines.
Another fine meal was toward the end of Chanukah, when we had Potato latkes and homemade applesauce, smoked chicken thighs and homemade barbecue sauce
but when you’re making a lot of them, it’s a problem to know how to manage all those potato shreds ahead of time. Normally, peeled potatoes discolor very quickly, and I usually solve this by keeping them in water until I’m ready to use them; but if you’re going to fry several batches of them, it’s a hassle to get all the water off first so the hot oil doesn’t spatter. This year, I tried something new: I shredded the potatoes in the food processor, and then I just rinsed the shreds thoroughly in very cold water, left them in the colander, and covered them with plastic wrap. Guess what happened? THEY STAYED WHITE.
Amazing.
Now, the absolute truth is that, when I added the eggs and flour and salt and pepper, the potatoes ended up giving up so much water, they were pretty wet anyway, and I still ended up having to squeeze the mixture pretty vigorously before putting the latkes in the oil. But I still got a little thrill because at least they weren’t brownish purple.
The latkes turned out well, crisp on the outside and tender and mealy inside. It’s dark as heck and after all these years, I haven’t figure out how to rig up some good indoor lighting to take good food pictures during winter, so here you go:
We had them with sour cream and homemade applesauce, which I made in the Instant Pot. I peeled and cored a few dozen apples and put them in the IP with about a cup of water and cooked them on high for maybe eight minutes, twelve minutes, I don’t know. Then I drained off what turned out to be too much water and added some butter, vanilla, and cinnamon, and gave it a little stir, and that was it. Hot damn, homemade apple sauce is just the best thing in the world.
I was astonished at what a lovely rose color I got even without the peels.
I don’t think I added sugar, because these are still local, in-season apples and the flavor shouldn’t be tampered with much. I used Cortland, Macintosh, and Granny Smith, which are all on the tart end of the scale.
Damien made his wonderful sugar smoked chicken thighs out on the grill, and he used the same spices to made a homemade barbecue sauce which turned out a little spicier than expected, so he served it for dipping, rather than brushing it on.
Man, it smelled good in the house, with the smoked chicken, the warm apple sauce, and whatnot. A strange meal, but hearty and tasty. I never know what to make with latkes! The only thing I can think of is chicken soup, which we have at other times, and brisket, which I remember from my childhood with loathing.
Then I squeaked in a bit batch of rugelach on the very last day of Chanukah. I do love rugelach, and I give you my blessing to make them for Christmas, because they are delicious and not hard to make and they’re adorable. (And you can take advantage of my brilliant ooze rescue method.)
I ended up with four varieties this year: Cinnamon honey walnut, ginger walnut, cherry, and blueberry. Lovely, lovely. They ended up a little fluffier and less flaky than normal this year, for reasons unknown, but I did not mind.
Last Wednesday was Benny’s birthday and she requested Damien’s delectable basil chicken cutlets with homemade red sauce and provolone. He uses this Deadspin recipe and it has never been anything but excellent. Juicy chicken in a fluffy breading with a basil leaf tucked under a slice of provolone, served with a scoop of hot red sauce over it, so the cheese melts and melds the whole thing together.
He made so much, we had it the second day, layered into a casserole dish and heated up like a giant chicken lasagna. So good.
Over the weekend was her birthday party, which we managed to have almost entirely outdoors, because NH is all ate up with Covid again. We had a pallet bonfire, and the kids whooped it up on the trampoline in the dark with glow sticks, and then we came in for presents, went outside to set off fireworks, and came in for cake. Some party photos on Facebook here and here.
We decided to make bonfire cupcakes, which are very easy to make, but are pretty impressive. Chocolate frosting, broken hazelnut Pirouline wafers for the logs, shredded coconut with green food coloring for the grass. We put a bunch of Jolly Ranchers in a bag and smashed it with a hammer, then spread the chunks in a parchment paper-lined pan in a low oven for a few minutes until the candy melted. Then we let it harden into a sheet, then cracked it into little “flames.” Stick a few in between the logs, sprinkle on some gold sugar for embers, and you have little cupcake campfires.
Top each one with a mini marshmallow on a toothpick, and it’s just cute.
I did toast each one with a butane lighter because my life was ruined anyway.
And that was last week! This week, let’s see.
MONDAY Carbonara
A sweet Facebook friend sent me three pounds of most excellent smoked bacon from Tennessee, with a warning not to attempt to eat it straight like breakfast bacon, because it’s powerful stuff. My dears, I’ve never had such bacon. Such an intense, earthy, smoky flavor. It was really exciting! I really get the best mail and have the nicest readers. I didn’t get very good pictures because I was in a bit of a hurry to start gobbling it up.
If you’re not familiar with carbonara, it may be the most cheering, flavorful dish you can make with the fewest number of ingredients. Just pasta, bacon, eggs, pepper, and parm. Well, I guess that’s five, and maybe not so surprising that it tastes so good, but it really is wonderful, and you should make it soon.
and put some chicken thighs in it for several hours. Then I broiled it, turning once
and served it with pita pockets and yogurt sauce, and a little salad. Pretty tasty with very little effort.
I served it with grape tomatoes, baby cucumbers, black olives, red onion, fresh parsley and dill, kosher salt, and olive oil.
We also had some kalamata olives, which I ended up serving on the side, thinking they had pits in them, but they did not, oops. And some hunks of feta cheese.
It was a really good meal, and I liked it a lot. Fresh squeezed lemon juice in the marinade on a Tuesday! Freshly pressed garlic in the yogurt sauce! Two kinds of fresh herbs! I’m making a fuss because NOBODY ELSE DID, which for some reason still bothers me even at this late date after all these years. Oh well.
WEDNESDAY My birthday!
The kids had chicken nuggets and Damien and I ran away to Luca’s, where we haven’t been for many a year. I went ahead and ordered the garlicky escargot, because I’ve never had escargot, and if not when your husband has offered to take you to a Rather Expensive Restaurant, then when?
They were . . . fine. I don’t know why you would have escargot if you could have seafood, though. They were just kind of chewy and muddy, kind of like if someone was trying to somehow reconstitute mussels or oysters from scratch but had only heard them described. So now I know!
Then, after surreptitiously looking up how to pronounce “tagine,” I ordered the Moroccan lamb tagine, and that was a good idea.
The lamb was braised tenderly in a lovely, slightly spicy broth, and it had carrots, fingerling potatoes, apricots, and pistachios, and I forget what else, served with a yogurt sauce. Very pretty, warming, and interesting to eat. I also had a couple of delicious cocktails made with pear vodka, ginger liqueur, and nutmeg on the rim, and the whole meal was extremely pleasant and autumnal.
Then we saw West Side Story, which Damien and I both loved. The older kids and Damien got me excellent, thoughtful gifts, and the younger kids made me wonderful cards. (The middle kids acted like I was some sort of vaguely familiar insect who was late picking them up, but what are you gonna do.)
THURSDAY Korean beef bowl on rice; sugar snap peas
Always tasty, even when you run out of brown sugar and have to use honey, and don’t have red pepper flakes and have to use chili powder. I did put red pepper flakes on the list right away, though. We felt that loss more keenly than the brown sugar part. Although it was a bit dry, because we didn’t have the sugar melting into a sauce. Being hungry helped. Write that down.
Serve with sour cream and/or apple sauce for Hanukkah or ANY TIME. Makes about 25+ latkes
Ingredients
4lbspotatoes, peeled
6eggsbeaten
6Tbspflour (substitute matzoh meal for Passover)
salt and pepper
oil for frying
Instructions
Grate the potatoes. Let them sit in a colander for a while, if you can, and squeeze out as much liquid as possible.
Mix together the eggs, salt and pepper, and flour. Stir into the potato mixture and mix well.
Turn the oven on to 350 and put a paper-lined pan in the oven to receive the latkes and keep them warm while you're frying.
Put 1/4 to 1/2 and inch of oil in your frying pan and heat it up until a drop of batter will bubble.
Take a handful of the potato mixture, flatten it slightly, and lay it in the pan, leaving room between latkes. Repeat with the rest of the mixture, making several batches to leave room in between latkes. Fry until golden brown on both sides, turning once. Eat right away or keep warm in oven, but not too long.
Serve with sour cream and/or applesauce or apple slices.
Mix dry ingredients together. Rub all over chicken and let marinate until the sugar melts a bit.
Light the fire, and let it burn down to coals. Shove the coals over to one side and lay the chicken on the grill. Lower the lid and let the chicken smoke for an hour or two until they are fully cooked.
These are tender little pastries for Chanukah or any time. Use whatever kind of filling you like: Jams, preserves, cinnamon sugar, nutella, etc. These are time consuming, but don't take much skill, and they freeze well, so they make pretty little gifts.
Servings80rugelach
Ingredients
dough
halfpoundbutter
8ozcream cheese
2cupsflour
1cup or moresugar, for rolling
filling
1/4-1/2cuppreserves or other filling
1/4-1/2cupfinely chopped nuts (optional)
Instructions
In a food processor, combine the cream cheese and butter until smooth. Slowly add in the flour and keep mixing until smooth. You can do this by hand, but it will take a while! The dough should be fairly stiff and not sticky when it's done.
Divide the dough into 8 balls. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for at least 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 400.
Prepare a pan by lining it with parchment paper, then spraying a baking rack and putting the rack on the parchment paper. Line a second pan with parchment paper, to which you will remove the rugelach when they come out of the oven.
Use the sugar to cover your work space, and use a rolling pin to roll a ball of dough into a round shape the size of a large plate. It should be thin enough to flap a bit when you give it a shake. If your rolling pin sticks, sprinkle more sugar on. You can turn the dough over to make sure both sides get sugared. It doesn't have to be perfectly round, as it will be cut into pieces.
Spread the jam or other filling over the dough, leaving an open space in the middle. If you're adding nuts, sprinkle them over the filling.
Using a pizza cutter, cut the dough into 16-20 triangles.
Roll each triangle up from the outside in. Place each rolled rugelach on the sprayed baking rack on the pan, with the skinny point down. They puff up a bit, so leave the space of one rugelach in between.
Repeat for each ball of dough.
Bake for ten minutes. If the dough isn't golden brown, give it another two minutes. These go from perfect to burnt very quickly, so be alert.
When they bake, the filling will ooze out and pool and burn on the parchment paper, but the rugelach will not burn.
When the rugelach come out of the oven, immediately use a butter knife to transfer them to another pan or rack to cool.
Once they are cool, they can be wrapped in plastic and kept in the freezer for weeks without harm.
Mix marinade ingredients together, then add chicken. Put in ziplock bag and let marinate several hours or overnight.
Preheat the oven to 425.
Grease a shallow pan. Take the chicken out of the marinade and spread it in a single layer on the pan, and top with the onions (sliced or quartered). Cook for 45 minutes or more.
Chop up the chicken a bit, if you like, and finish cooking it so it crisps up a bit more.
Serve chicken and onions with pita bread triangles, cucumbers, tomatoes, assorted olives, feta cheese, fresh parsley, pomegranates or grapes, fried eggplant, and yogurt sauce.
A very quick and satisfying meal with lots of flavor and only a few ingredients. Serve over rice, with sesame seeds and chopped scallions on the top if you like. You can use garlic powder and powdered ginger, but fresh is better. The proportions are flexible, and you can easily add more of any sauce ingredient at the end of cooking to adjust to your taste.
Ingredients
1cupbrown sugar (or less if you're not crazy about sweetness)
1cupsoy sauce
1Tbspred pepper flakes
3-4inchesfresh ginger, minced
6-8clovesgarlic, minced
3-4lb2ground beef
scallions, chopped, for garnish
sesame seeds for garnish
Instructions
In a large skillet, cook ground beef, breaking it into bits, until the meat is nearly browned. Drain most of the fat and add the fresh ginger and garlic. Continue cooking until the meat is all cooked.
Add the soy sauce, brown sugar, and red pepper flakes the ground beef and stir to combine. Cook a little longer until everything is hot and saucy.
Serve over rice and garnish with scallions and sesame seeds.
Last night, we saw Steven Spielberg’s new West Side Story. I grew up listening to the soundtrack of the 1961 movie repeatedly. My sister and I would put the LP on just for fun and dance around the living room. I know every second of the score by heart (and it took me many years to realize “Krup you!” is not an actual insult). I’ve seen the original movie countless times and the stage version at least twice.
So yes, I was a little nervous about how the new movie would hold up. I won’t keep you in suspense: I loved it. If you’ve never seen another production of West Side Story but you’ve seen the new movie, you have seen West Side Story. That’s how well they did. In many ways, they did better.
It’s not a slavish recreation, but it’s also not a daring new take or reinvention. What Spielberg did was make sufficient changes and adjustments and yes, improvements, so that a modern audience could understand and appreciate the show for what it always has been.
A warning: Plot spoilers here. (Guys, the show is 60 years old. You’ve had your chance.)
If you’re looking for some kind of incisive comment on racial tension that’s especially apropos for 2021 America, this isn’t it — unless maybe you’re an optimist who’s had your heart broken, and you’d like to see that portrayed on screen.
That’s what happened to Anita, played by Ariana DeBose, whose performance, sorry, has so much more depth than the beloved original Rita Moreno’s. She’s not just a fiery and sultry Latina; she’s someone who is working through conflict in her head. You see on her face and in her posture the struggle between the old and new, between tenderness and ambition. She starts out defiantly singing “I like to be in America” but ends up seeing who America has really been to her, and when she spits out the lie about Maria’s death, it feels like it’s been a long time coming. She’s suffered a lot and has stuffed down so much to try to make her new life work, and when she’s finally cornered, the least she can do is protect Maria and inflict a little pain. That was always there in the script, but in this performance, and in her betrayal in particular, you feel the deep tragedy of what has played out in these few blocks.
But speaking of Rita Moreno, let’s turn to one of the most startling changes in the new movie: The short song “There’s a place for us” gets sung not by Tony and Maria, but by Tony’s mentor, the Valentina, who, in this production is a Latina woman who long ago married a white man — and she’s played by Moreno. They’ve added some dialogue to flesh out the idea that such couples will always struggle.
What’s the effect of putting the doomed/hopeful song in the mouth of someone who has already lost? It adds another layer of real pathos, because her husband is long dead, and things have only gotten worse since her time (and there’s also the pathos, for those familiar with the old film, of seeing Moreno still beautiful but so very old. This is a tricky maneuver, but I think they pulled it off.)
Changing this song from a romantic duet to a tragic solo also does the service of making the show slightly less sticky. Musicals are always a little bit sticky, by which I mean there is going to be a certain amount of . . . well, couples standing side by side, staring up into the stars singing a duet about how much they love each other. This exact thing recently happened when Tony and Maria sang “Tonight,” and you wouldn’t want them not to sing it. That’s the show: It’s about gangs and stabbing and racism and attempted rape, and also ballet and rhythmic snapping and a lot of extremely graceful choreography on crumbling brick walls. People burst into song with trained voices and cleverly rhymed lyrics to express how they feel. If this is something that’s going to bother you, then please don’t watch a musical! Nevertheless, they engineered tweaks and tightenings here and there that modified how artificial the show felt, and made the whole thing make more sense emotionally. One such tightening was to have Valentina, in a reflective mood, musing on the past and the future, rather than having Tony and Maria interrupt their drama and sing about it.
Another change that I believe was intended to de-stickify the show: They moved “I Feel Pretty” back, so it happens after Bernardo kills Riff and Tony kills Bernardo, but Maria doesn’t know it yet. I’m pretty proud of myself for noticing they did this and figuring out why: The song was always a little too cute and clever, especially for someone who doesn’t speak English well, and it’s an adorable song, but it’s hard to reconcile it with Maria as a tragic figure. By shoving it right in the middle of the action, it takes your discomfort with Maria’s inane giggling and prancing and uses it. You feel slightly ill, watching the number, because you know there are two bodies on the ground. (I was gratified to see that this L.A. Times article backs my theory up.)
I love this change not only because it works, but because it’s completely in character with the show. There has always been a desperate shred of hope in every tragic song, and a heavy shadow of dread in every hopeful song. That’s the show; always has been. So this change is an improvement. Amazing.
The one change they made that I didn’t like was relocating “One Hand, One Heart” to the Cloisters. In the original, the couples improvise a bridal scene, and it’s very clear that, in their minds, they are in a church and are exchanging vows before God. It’s always been one of my favorite parts of the movie. The new movie locates them in a literal convent, and it’s just heavy-handed, which disappointed me. A small quibble.
One more improvement: “Cool” (the song that starts “Boy, boy, crazy boy”) makes so much mores sense in the new movie. In the new movie, Tony is going to Riff to try to retrieve the gun he’s bought, and stop the rumble. It takes place on some kind of ramshackle pier with gaping holes in it, giving Tony and Riff plenty of chances to leap precariously over and around the edges, daring and threatening and sweating and menacing each other. It emphasizes the tension and peril so much better than . . . whatever was in the original, which I can’t remember, which is telling.
I liked the casting overall. Everyone sang well. It seems foolish to have to say that; and yet we’ve all seen our share of musicals cast with people who seem to have been hired for reasons other than their voice. Maria (Rachel Zegler) is young and fresh and lovely and impatient to start her life.
Tony (Ansel Elgort) is a vast improvement over 1961 Richard Beymer, who essentially showed up and had big shoulders and hit his notes, and that was it.
Elgort’s Tony is a good actor with a fine voice and a slightly odd, interesting face, and you feel like he’s got something going on in his skull.
He and Maria come across more like a real couple and less like a couple of movie stars. This new Tony has a lot more to work with, because they rather daringly added significant backstory: He very nearly killed someone, only avoiding it by luck, and just got out of jail. He spent his jail time thinking, and wants to change his life. Voilà, a motive, other than a vague “he’s different from the rest.”
They also provided a bit more motive for why the gangs are so territorial in general, other than that one is white and one is Puerto Rican. There is some kind of urban renewal project going on in the neighborhood, which involves wrecking balls tearing down all the buildings these young men have grown up with. So it’s not just a slum, but a pretty explicit war zone, and so we understand better their fierce, furious desperation to hold on to the little scrap of something that that belongs to them.
An interesting point: The character of Anybodys has become not just a goofy tomboy, but an actual trans character who really suffers at the thought of being perceived as a girl. It’s not inordinately magnified; it’s just another character rescued from being a caricature in the new version.
To my relief, they don’t appear to have altered the choreography much (or if they have, they preserved the character of it very well). The dancers are wonderful, weightless.
The music was performed faithfully, which is another thing I was worried about. (In a few previews, they movified the music, for some reason; but they didn’t do that in the actual film.) The score is some of the greatest American music of any kind ever written.
The only scene I didn’t like was “Gee, Office Krupke,” and I don’t know why I didn’t like it. Maybe it just had so many dated references, it was harder to work with. As my husband said, it suffers from the same problems as “I Feel Pretty,” but it’s harder to know how to fix it. You definitely can’t take it out of the show, but it just doesn’t land right.
But oh my friends, this movie is gorgeously shot, every moment. The long views of the city streets with the crumbling bricks, just magnificent. The dance before the rumble is opulently heightened, the white students in blues and greens, the Puerto Ricans in reds and purples. When the two gangs approach each other for the rumble, there’s an overhead shot of their shadows mingling that’s pure abstract expressionism, just breathtaking.
And then later the shadows of the cops are shot from a different angle as they come upon the two bodies, and they’re so stubby and ineffective. There’s a little scene where Anita and Bernardo are making out in the morning sun behind some hanging curtains, and it’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.
Beautiful, beautiful work. But it stays true to the era. It doesn’t feel like an update or a reboot; it feels like you’ve returned to the original, but with new powers.
If you have a chance, do watch it in the theater so you can see it as big and hear it as big as possible. Bring tissues. BRING TISSUES.
All images are screenshots from embedded video, above. Correction: In an earlier version of this essay, I repeatedly referred to Bernardo as “Roberto.” The reason for this is that I am an idiot, sorry.
Today, I am be 47, which is fine. I’m sitting cross-legged on the loveseat next to a first grader doing phonics via Zoom, because school has come home for covid again. Every few minutes, I throw something at the dog to make him stop licking himself. Licking himself isn’t wrong or bad, but it’s my house, and I want him to stop, but I also don’t want to get up off the loveseat. I am 47 years old, and it’s my house!
Someone once described me as a typical American mom who doesn’t have any real problems, and is just discontented enough to invent stuff to write about. I imagine he also thinks the Paradisaea apoda is a bird that has no feet, because every time someone delivered one to his laboratory, they had removed the feet first. Silly bird, what a lovely life, wafting around on its pretty mom feathers. No feet, no problems.
I do have problems, but my feet aren’t one (well, bunions, but those Dr. Scholl’s cushions work fine). My physical therapist says I’m so much stronger than I was even five weeks ago, and I know I’m stronger than I was a year ago, or five years ago, twenty years ago. Part of this is because I have a giant heap of pallets out in my driveway, and whenever I feel like I’m going to go crazy and kill someone, I move pallets around instead, and those mofos are heavy. The other part is yoga. Go ahead and laugh. Yoga gave me the core strength to paint the ceiling and walls of the dining room, which I needed to do so I wouldn’t kill anyone.
My muscles are strong, but my other equipment is just plain wearing out. Don’t worry, I’m not going to complain about my ovaries. (They’re still working great, which is great. Just what I wanted at age 47, with a six-year-old doing phonics on the loveseat. Moar eggs!) It’s my eyes. My poor old eyes.
I spent a few years lamenting the lunacy of the publishing industry, and how they insisted on printing books in pale, wispy, uneven print these days. Unreadable! Insane! I lamented this trend as I stood beside a kiosk of reading glasses in Walmart, and then a startling thought entered my brain. Reading . . . glasses . . .
$4.88 later, and I could see everything again. What do you know about that.
The eye doctor says it’s very common for your up-close vision to fall apart almost overnight at this age. But that’s not all. Feeling very foolish, I had them check me out thoroughly, and they said I did have an unusual number of floaters, but they weren’t dangerous, and there wasn’t much to be done but get used to them. Then I took a nap and woke up with a floater so big and dark and central, I saw it before I even opened my eyes. So, feeling even more foolish, I went back again, and was checked out thoroughly again. I was right to come in, they said, and they said it was a bit unusual, but again, not dangerous. This squat, brown bug sitting in the middle of my world was just mine to have and to hold from now on.
I’m not sure whom to lament to about this. I am an old lady who swallowed a fly, and the fly won’t go away, but just sits there, buzzing silently around my field of vision, leaving a fly smear, a blear, a soil in the middle of everything. It’s like I’ve driven through a mud puddle and there are no windshield wipers. The equipment, as I say, is running down. It’s a good thing I believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting, or I might go crazy and kill someone.
I’m just a flightless little American mom with my yoga and my zoom meetings and my birthday campfires, and it’s just a little drifting blob of collagen, but I’m taking it pretty hard.
You know I’m mad about it because it’s something I can safely get mad about, unlike all the other things that have dislodged this year and are floating around with nowhere to go, and have gone so very wrong they are like a mountainside that suddenly let go and collapsed on top of me. And I can’t tell you about it, and I don’t know what to do, but do yoga and move pallets around.
All the moms I know have unspeakable troubles, things that almost nobody knows about, things that nobody can solve. Landslides. And we keep setting our alarms and scrambling eggs and pulling hair out of the drain and writing what’s for dinner on the blackboard and remembering to buy more push pins. It’s a good thing we believe in life everlasting in our middle age, halfway through the happiness dip. I go to the adoration chapel, and kneel down, and I pray, “Well . . . ” and that’s as far as I get, all hour long.
We had a bonfire last week, with some of those pallets I’ve collected, which is when my husband snapped this rather dramatic photo of me. When it’s night, with sparks and cinders flying everywhere under the stars, and the air is bent with heat and nails are bending in the embers, it really doesn’t matter how your eyeballs are holding up. We are going to the movies for my birthday, and we have made reservations at a nice Italian restaurant. Lots of people love me, which not everybody gets to say. Most likely I can just get used to that landslide feeling. But still, I think I might also have a small fire. I would like to set a small fire for my birthday.
Can I tell you about my week? Can I just tell you?
To understand what really happened — to truly savor the full robust flavor of the drink I am about to proffer you — you have to understand that, the whole time everything I am about to tell you is going on, I am driving. I am driving all the time. All I do is drive. Driving is what I am. That’s all there is to me, anymore: Drivingness.
The reason for this is that my husband and I decided, against our better judgment, that he should fly away on a business trip to the rather far-fetched-sounding state of Texas for four days. The reasons for this will become more clear as the story proceeds. He used to travel a lot, just about every week, back when our family was young and I wasn’t as good as screaming, “YOU’RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE” as I am nowadays. We didn’t like that kind of life at all, and we decided not to do that anymore.
But we did decide he should go, just this once, and I would take care of things back home, mostly by driving. This is because we have six kids who go to four different schools in two different towns, none of which are in the town we live in; and three of our kids go to college in another town, but live at home, and they all work part time in town. We do have one extra car, and one of our kids can currently drive it, so that helps somewhat. That kid would do his driving, I would do my driving and my husband’s driving, and it would be a lot of driving, but we could do it. That was the plan.
Then I took a look at my calendar for the week he would be gone, and o! What a clever woman I am. I saw that, on the week I was solo parenting, in addition to all the usual trips and errands and chores and obligations and side quests, I had scheduled physical therapy for my hip, and a neurological evaluation for one of the kids, and I had, as a long-overdue birthday present, bought tickets to see an off-Broadway show in the next state, and I had also, this is true, signed up to cook an Italian meal in honor of St. Clare for 35 youth group kids. And we also had a driving test for one of the kids. Which in theory would come in handy eventually, but which at the moment felt like seeing someone drowning and quickly tossing them the blueprint for a boat.Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly. (Subscriber content)
Because I’m friends with a lot of creative people — painters, poets, authors, poets, clothing and jewelry designers — there is a lot of talk about impostor syndrome, the deeply internalized fear that one’s accomplishments are all a sham. Even though they have successful careers, they routinely have to hush the little voice telling them have no business calling themselves a professional, and that either everyone is already laughing at them, or it’s only a matter of time before the great denouement begins. (I am also friends with a few people who *ought* to feel this way, but don’t. Somehow it’s always the genuinely talented and accomplished people who feel the most like phonies, whereas there’s no shortage of confidence among the fakers, hacks, and bums.)
So a little service my friends and I perform for each other is to point out the obvious: But you’re doing it. You’re making a living. People are paying you for what you do. Your skills are in demand. If you’re not the real thing, then no one is. The objective evidence proves you are productive and successful.
The task has been a bit different lately. Lots of creative people are in a bit of a rut. Can’t seem to come up with any ideas. Can’t seem to come up with any enthusiasm for expressing what they do come up with. Can’t seem to drum up a persuasive argument for why it’s worth while to try to express anything to anyone anyway, when everyone is so . . . well, you know. It was one thing when we were doing drawing challenges through a two-week lockdown to flatten the curve. Headed round the bend toward two years, and the flattening effect has become pervasive, and very flat indeed.
So the task becomes a bit different. Rather than persuade ourselves that what we produce really is extraordinary, really is above average, really is something special, my friends and I are busily reminding each other that we are valuable and worthy even when we’re not producing anything. And this is a steeper hill to climb.
But it is a time that will come to all of us, sooner or later. Night, when no man works. The hour when the clock has run out, one way or the other, and we will no longer be able to point to our busywork as evidence for our worth.
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Very simple concept. Someone reads a prompt from a card, and everyone (including the reader) has to pick words from their collection of word magnets to express what is on the card. Then everyone reads their entry aloud.
I dearly wish I had taken more pictures, but here are two entries for the prompt “Summarize the Star Wars movies:”
and
I mean . . . yup, that’s Star Wars!
Once everyone has read their entry, a judge for the round is randomly chosen, and he decides whose entry is funniest and best, and that person wins the round. Everyone replenishes their word magnets and they play another round. Whoever wins five rounds wins the game.
What I liked about the game:
It’s simple and flexible. Very much designed to be played by a bunch of people who are laughing and shouting and possibly drinking, and who aren’t going to get hung up on counting or nitpicking or other minutiae; but it could also easily be played by a more sober, thoughtful crowd. The play moves along quickly, and there are lots of ways to adapt it. It’s a game that’s designed to be flexible.
The magnets seem reasonably sturdy, and the little metal boards on which you arrange your thoughts are pleasing. They are like miniature baking sheets and I just liked them. You can also add in your own collection of word magnets, if you happen to have some. The whole game comes compactly stored in a small, deep box.
Every round was amusing, and some were hilarious. Some of the answers were downright brilliant, and it was so entertaining to see different players’ personalities expressed in their answers as they read out them out. Delivery also played an important part in how the responses were received.
The game is structured so there’s not one person who’s “it” and has to sit out the fun. They also stipulated that whoever is judge of the round may chose his own answer as the winner, but it had better be awfully good; and the other players can unanimously overrule him, if necessary. Some of the funniest answers were just a word or two.
Overall, it’s very obvious that they tested this game thoroughly with lots of players, and crafted it well for real people to play. They even thought of details like reminding you to stick your word magnets to the side of the tray without a lip, so it will be easier to scrape them off into the pot when the round is over.
What I didn’t like:
The suggested time limit of 90 seconds per round is too dang short! We ended up just giving everyone as much time as they needed to come up with an answer. And by “everyone” I mean “me,” because I am old and have lost my brain sparkle. Although I think I wasn’t giving myself enough magnets. Here is what the recommended number of magnets for a round looks like (“three pinches,” or about 75 magnets):
There are also some prefixes and suffixes in the mix, that didn’t happen to make it into this collection.
The major quibble I had was that they were trying a little too hard to steer you toward a naughty game experience (and yes, it does say it’s for ages 17+.) We didn’t come across any really R-rated words (I think we found “boob,” “genital,” “panties,” and “bitchy” and a few others at that level), but there were a lot of words like “secrete” and “bedroom” and “flesh” which are not inherently sexy, but it felt like the word selection overall was weighted in that direction.
Regular readers will know I don’t have a problem with racy humor! There was just a slightly forced, smirky feel to it, and I wish they had just chosen more neutral words, and let the double entendres arise more naturally, because they’re funnier that way. I like deciding when I want to make a dirty joke, rather than getting buffaloed into it because we’re at a party and that’s how you have to act. Possibly I am overstating this issue, because I am a mom who was playing a game with several teenage daughters, and I may have been on high alert.
A few of the cards pretty explicit (“Walk us through the masturbation process,” for instance, and “Ask your boss for a promotion in exchange for sexual favors”). It’s easy enough to just toss any cards and magnets you don’t want in your game (the FAQs say about 15-30% of the cards are not PG), but it’s something to know about ahead of time, depending on who’s going to play.
Here’s a selection of cards I drew randomly, to give you an idea of what kind of prompts you might encounter:
So you can see it’s kind of edgy, but by no means always sexy.
In general:
We played with kids ages 12 and up (younger than the suggested age). In theory, you could play with younger kids, but even though the play is simple, it can be surprisingly mentally taxing (unless some inspiration jumps out at you), and I don’t think younger kids would have understood the point, or had fun with it.
It comes with six little trays for words, and says it’s for 3-6 players. I suppose you could play with more people, and just find something else to stick the magnets to, but it might get cumbersome if you add too many players.
Overall, a clever, funny, successfully-conceived game, and we laughed a lot, and we played a full game in under an hour. We’ll definitely be playing again. It has lots and lots of cards, so you won’t be repeating phrases anytime soon; and there are enough magnets that you should keep coming up with fresh combinations. I anticipate expansion packs.
This Christmas vacation, all 10 of my kids were are under one roof! I don’t know how many more times this is likely to happen; but while it lasts, we’re going to enjoy it. One thing we like doing is playing games — video games, certainly, and board games, sometimes. But my favorites are the ones we can play without any equipment except our own goofy brains. Here are some of them:
STINKY PINKIES
A rhyming riddle game that you can play at all different levels, with kids who just barely know how to rhyme, to people with complex and mysterious brains. My seven-year-old loves to play this in the car. One person thinks of two words that rhyme and have the same number of syllables, and supplies hints, and everyone else has to guess. Whoever guesses correctly first gets to think of the next riddle. If the words have two syllables each, you say you have a stinky pinky. If they have three syllables each, it’s a stinkity pinkity. Four syllables, a stink-inkity pink-inkity; and so one. One syllable word pairs are a stink pink, of course.
A simple example: A stink pink that’s a container for an orange animal with a big tail. The answer is: Fox box.
A more complicated one: What’s a wild, irresponsible string of pearls? Answer: a reckless necklace. I asked my son this one, and he guessed “unruly jewelry,” which doesn’t scan right, but is pretty good! I also gave him the hint of something that fastens pants and goes upside down, with “zipper flipper” in mind, but he guessed “suspender up-ender.”
EXCUSES, EXCUSES
Charades mashed up with ‘The Office’ can entertain the whole families for hours.
This one involves getting out of your chair, unfortunately. It’s good for ages 6 to adult, and it’s very easy to drop in and out of, and is very entertaining to watch other people play.
The set-up: one person is the boss, one person is the employee who is late for work, and one person is the co-worker. The boss faces the employee, and the co-worker stands behind the boss, so the employee can see him, but the boss cannot.
The boss barks at the employee, “Why were you late?” The employee starts to make his excuses — but he has to describe what the co-worker is miming. Remember, the boss can’t see him.
So the co-worker is marching, dancing, swatting imaginary flies, being strangled, fighting invisible gorillas, etc., and the employee is narrating it.
Then the boss, at any point he wants to, whips his head around to and yells at the co-worker, “What are you doing?” And the co-worker has to instantly come up with a plausible, office-appropriate explanation for whatever he was caught doing. If he was acting out “killing a bear with my teeth,” for instance, he might say, “Oh, I was just eating one of these crullers. Thanks for the crullers, boss!”
If the boss likes the excuse, he says, “Okay,” and the game resumes. But if he doesn’t, he says, “You’re fired!” and the next person gets to be the co-worker
FICTIONARY
Okay, just for this one, you do need some equipment, but I had to include it because I love it so. You will need a thick dictionary and a bunch of paper and pens. It’s best for players at least 8 years old and up, and you need at least four players to make it fun. More is better.
The person who’s “it” finds a word that no one is familiar with, and he writes down the real definition. Everyone else writes down a fake definition. The person who is “it” reads them all out loud, and everyone but “it” has to guess which one is real.
Then “it” reveals the true definition. You get a point if you guess the real one, if someone votes for your fake one, or if you’re “it” and no one guesses the real one. Everyone gets a turn being “it” to complete one round of play.
Proper nouns, foreign language words, acronyms, and abbreviations are out. Spell and pronounce the word for everyone, and say what part of speech it is. If you’re “it,” you can simplify the real definition a bit, as long as you don’t significantly change it. Read all the definitions over silently to make sure you understand and can pronounce everything before reading them aloud. Be sure to shuffle them before reading aloud, so there are no clues about who wrote what.
You can’t vote for your own definition. The person who’s “it” does not vote. If there is one person who is head and shoulders above all the others when it comes to guessing, that person can vote last, so as not to influence the others.
The brilliance of this game is the psychology that goes into it. You have to use your knowledge of the people involved, not just your knowledge of language. And there’s always that one person who doesn’t care about the score and just wants to mess with people.
GHOST
A spelling game, but it’s more fun than it sounds, and also involves more psychology than you’d think. A group of people spells a word out loud together, one letter at a time. The goal is to draw the word out as long as possible without being the one who says the last letter. So the person who starts will say, for instance, “R.” Then the next person will add the next letter — say, “E.” Then the next person will say “S.”
The hard part is, you have to supply a letter that doesn’t spell an entire word; but you have to have a real word in mind, that you’re working on spelling. The idea is to force someone else into ending the word. So if I am thinking of the word “restaurant,” and I supply the “T” when it’s my turn, then the round is over, because I’ve spelled “rest.”
But if someone supplies a letter that doesn’t spell a word — say “A” — and you can’t figure out what word they could possibly be working on (“‘Resa?’ What word starts with ‘resa?’” you’re thinking, because you keep thinking about “reservation,” but of course the word is “resale,” silly) you may challenge that person to reveal what the heck kind of ridiculous word they’re thinking of.
If they’re bluffing and it’s not a word, but they’re just trying to make it difficult for the next person with the letter they’ve chosen, then they’re out; but if they’re actually spelling a word, then they win.
GET DOWN, MR. PRESIDENT!
This is a game that only works if no one announces that you’re playing it. It replicates the experience of being a member of the secret service whose job it is to protect the president. I know you guys have a prime minister or whatever, but work with me, here. One person begins by holding two fingers up against his ear as if listening intently to some intel coming through an earpiece.
If you notice someone is doing this, you will realize that the game is in session, and you must silently begin to also hold up two fingers against your ear. One by one, everyone in the room begins to realize what is happening, and stifles giggles while exchanging significant looks. When there is only one clueless person remaining who hasn’t noticed what is going on, then that is the president, and everyone else can simultaneously shriek, “GET DOWN, MR. PRESIDENT!” and tackle that person to the floor.
It’s so much fun, and hardly anyone ever dies of terror. Note: Husbands generally don’t care for this game, so act accordingly.
IN THE MANNER OF THE ADVERB
One person thinks of an adverb, and everyone else has to guess what it is, by watching him do things in the manner of that adverb.
For instance, say I’m thinking about “bitterly.” The other shout, “Make some biscuits in the manner of the adverb!” so you commence muttering resentfully about the stupid butter not being cold enough, and how everybody else has a pastry blender, but you have to get along with two pathetic butter knives, and how you certainly hope they appreciate how much trouble you went to, but it doesn’t seem likely, and so on. And they shout out words like “Resentfully?” or “Angrily?” until someone guesses it. This is a good game for finding out whether or not your kids really know what an adverb is, or how biscuits are made.
JEBRAHAMADIAH AND BALTHAZAR (also called “Master and Servant”)
Another role-playing/narrative game, but you can sit down for this one. I am not sure why my kids call this one “Jebrahamadiah and Balthazar,”except that (a) it has something to do with the Jeb! flyers we kept getting in the mail when Jeb Bush was running for president, and (b) they are weirdos.
One person gives orders, the other person explains why he can’t carry them out. The answer has to be part of a consistent narrative — you can’t just make up a new excuse for each command.
Here is an abbreviated example. The longer you can draw it out, the funnier it gets:
Jebrahamadiah! Go get me a glass of water. I would, but I just broke the last glass.
Then go get me a cup of water. I would, but when I broke the glass, I cut my finger, and I can’t use my hand.
Well, use your other hand. I would, but when I was searching for a Band-aid for my one hand, I slammed the medicine chest door on my finger, and now both hands are useless.
Then call an ambulance. I can’t, because, if you’ll recall, my hands don’t work.
Then use the speaker phone. I would, but when I slammed the medicine chest door, some nail polish remover fell on my phone and now the speaker doesn’t work.
Then just shout out the window for help. I would, but the neighbors saw me wrecking my phone, and he’s a big jerk, and laughed so hard that he drove off the road and now he’s in a coma.
Well, shout out the other window on the other side of the house. I would, but when the other neighbor drove off the road, he knocked a utility pole down, and a live wire landed on the house on the other side and now it’s on fire, so I don’t want to bother them.
Well . . . okay, fine, I’ll get my own water.
SHATNER!
This one can be played all day long, while cooking, while setting the table, during the meal, and so on, until you put your foot down and tell them to knock it off or you’re going to strangle somebody.
THE RULES: Life goes on as normal, until someone shouts, “Shatner!” — and then everyone has to do what they’re doing as William Shatner.
I actually stink at this game, but my kids are horrifyingly good at it.
8a. Companion game: DUCHOVNY
The opposite of Shatner. You respond in such an understated way that people have to fight the urge to check your vital signs.
PLURALIZE
You sing a song, except everyone in it becomes two people. Thus, Moana’s cri de couer:
We are some girls who love our islands
We are some girls who love the sea
It calls us
We are the daughters of the village chiefs
We are descended from voyagers
Who found their way across the world
They call us
We’ve delivered us to where we are
We have journeyed farther
We are everything we’ve learned and more
Still it calls us
And the call isn’t out there at all, it’s inside us
It’s like the tide; always falling and rising
We will carry you here in our hearts you’ll remind us
That come what may
We know the way
We are Moanas!
GREG
This one benefits more than others from either having a few glasses of wine in you, or being eleven years old (I cannot recommend both).
THE RULES: You sing songs, but instead of “I,” “me,” or “mine,” you say “Greg.”
There’s “With or Without Greg” by U2; “Amazing Grace” (How sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like Greg); and who can forget that sentimental ballad from The Music Man, “Till There Was Greg.”
Extra points if someone in the house is actually named Greg.
Our summer library reading program ended not with a bang, but a howl, then a whimper, then ice cream, and then more howling. It was an unfortunate combination of overtired kids, high expectations, generalized raffle anxiety, and a hideous game which I don’t know who thought was a good idea, where you tie balloons to your ankles and run around getting stomped at by bigger, faster kids. I guess there was a bang and a whimper for that part, come to think of it.
There were also some bad feelings among the other moms when I stepped forward to claim the grand prize (two movie tickets and a pizza dinner) on behalf of my two-year-old, who won fair and square by having some books read to her. Too bad! The kid has really been looking forward to a night out with her husband, but she just can’t justify it in the budget right now. Fair’s fair.
There was one good thing, though: one of my kids won a card game called Snake Oil, and the whole family has been playing it steadily all week. Yay, no glowing screen!
One person is the customer. He chooses a customer card and announces his profession or state in life: nurse, billionaire, cheerleader, zombie, plumber, witch, etc.
All the other players get six word cards each. So you might get: death, balloon, burp, button, lightning, water; or flag, coffin, glove, cheese, leg, regret. From these, you must pick two words to invent a product that the customer would want to buy. Everyone makes a persuasive sales pitch
to the alert, bright-eyed customer
and the customer awards his card to the person with the best product. (Pardon the rubble in the background; I am halfway through painting the living room!)
My kids are good improvisers, and huge hams.
The teenagers like playing, too, and so do I. It says “ages 10+” but it’s pretty easy to let the illiterate ones be “partners,” so really everyone can play this game, and the older ones are so full of ideas that they are willing to help out the little guys.
I can imagine it being fun for all adults, with enough liquor in them. And you can do a full game in about twenty minutes! And best of all, we now have a new running joke to carry us through the next few months, courtesy of my slightly morbid eight-year-old daughter, who was hawking Water Snakes to a grave robber: “Pop! Out comes the corpse!” (She won that round.)
“Comfort, give comfort to my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,” it begins. And what form will this tender comfort take?
Oh, you know. Valleys leveled. Mountains getting blasted flat. The glory of the Lord flashing out over the world like a scythe, mowing down everything in its path. And all human flesh like grass, withering and wilting when the breath of the Lord blows upon it.
This is part of a series of daily Advent reflections, including the authors’ favorite Christmas hymn, recipe, tradition, and more.
ETA: My apologies, I had forgotten that the Advent reflection series is only available to America digital subscribers!
