We interrupt this Bonanno sale

to go to the REI sale and spend all our money, leaving nothing to spend on pretty sandals. Once again, practicality wins out over luxury at the House of Figs. Oh, well

But I have to admit, it all worked out pretty well.

I love REI for what they carry, hate them for their (almost complete lack of competent) custom service. And I really hate them during a large sale. Whereas they place bodies behind all available cash registers, you can still wait thirty minutes in the shoe department to have a box shoved at you. So I went after the sale catalog came out (so I knew what was on sale) but before the sale actually started. There was no one there, and I had all the bad custom service to myself.

I bought the sandals I had scoped out a few months ago (now on sale; these match the green bag I bought at REI a few weeks ago),

these hiking boots (not on sale, but the sale offered a 20% discount on a single full-priced item),



these shorts (on sale),



and these shorts (not on sale).
Then, I went back on Saturday during the sale (at least seventy people were waiting for shoes) with my receipt for what they term an adjustment. Adjust me, please!

And with my adjustment, I bought on the way out this snappy little camping end table



and some camp chairs (on sale: $13 each!).


These should be handy in the canoe we're borrowing from friends for our trip this summer.

Now that I've wrapped up my REI sale shopping, I can devote my full attention (or at least that I have reserved for our trip) to my concern about BEARS. Which is becoming rather significant. More on that later.

Anniversary celebrated; divorce postponed

Husband and I were married ten years ago at the ripe ages of 41 and 36, respectively. And thank goodness for the institution of divorce, or I'd probably be single still. A case of engagement cold feet was cured for me when a coworker pointed out to me "If it doesn't work, you can always get divorced." Alrighty, then! Maybe it was because I waiting so long to get married that I was particularly attached to the "options always open, anything possible" frame of mind. Maybe it's that I was marrying someone who did not exactly fit the picture of spouse I had carried for so long. (I dated a bunch of those pictures, some for quite a while; they didn't work out.) At any rate, I hurled myself into marriage feeling free, not bound. Free to embark on new adventures and free to relax into some relationship security. But also free to walk away if I needed to. Because in my mind, there's no point or joy in staying if it's because you have to.

Obviously I'm still here, and we've enjoyed laughing about my divorce fantasies: "So, do you want a divorce now?" "No, maybe later." "Would you like a divorce with that?" "Hmm. That might be nice. Let me get back to you."

And I think Husband was entertaining a divorce fantasy of his own when a year ago I suffered from a small spell of jewelry lust. I'm not really a jewelry person. In my ears I wear a pair of diamond studs that Husband gave me for our fifth anniversary. Around my neck I wear a silver chain with a locket holding Sophie's picture. My engagement ring is a platinum band with channel set (really teeny) diamond, and my wedding band is a plain platinum one. That's it, every day. It's not that I don't like jewelry; I love pieces I see on other people. It's more that it's part of accessorizing in general, which I'm too lame to handle. If I've got on underwear, clothes, and shoes, I think I'm doing pretty well. Jewelry, scarves, belts, and the like are just too much for me.

But a girlfriend of mine planted the idea of a more significant ring in my mind when she received a diamond engagement-type ring from her husband for an anniversary. How wonderful for her, I thought. Soon after, Sophie and I were window shopping down on Fourth Street, and I saw in the window a ring that I thought might be wonderful for me. So we went in and both tried it on. Just for yucks. When I floated the idea of an anniversary ring past Husband, he glared at me and observed, "You don't even wear jewelry." But Sophie and I made a habit out of visiting "my ring" from time to time. Then one day we went in to find they had swapped out the diamond for an aquamarine. Quite lovely and much more affordable. I floated the idea past Husband again. Again, no dice. And the next time Sophie and I went to visit the ring, the salesperson told us another couple had bought it. End of the ring visits.

Fast forward to last Friday night. Our anniversary is this Friday, and we have reservations to go to one of our favorite restaurants on Saturday. Husband insisted on taking Sophie and I out to our favorite tacqueria so we could "celebrate our anniversary as a family."

What a nice idea, and how exciting that Husband's favorite special, tamales, was on the menu that night.

But I noticed something was up with Sophie. We got our food, sat down, and she started tapping her fork on my beer glass. She had an announcement. She stood up and very formally began her speech, which she had obviously rehearsed: "Remember when we went to the jewelry store and the lady said another couple had bought your ring? Well, that other couple is sitting right here. It was Daddy and me."

She handed me a box.


My ring.

Really, our ring.

My husband. My daughter. My family. Ten good years, with more to come.

What's cooking: Anotherway to use all those greens

It seems that, except for at the height of summer when fruits, tomatoes, squashes, and green beans are in season, I struggle to use the massive amount of greens I get in my weekly produce box. Don't get me wrong—I love greens. Greens are good. I saute them, I add them to soups, stir them into curries, but it can get to be a bit much, and I start to stress if the box is coming the next day and I haven't used all the greens in my fridge.

This recipe is a variation of one from the newsletter that comes in my produce box. I can't even remember what the recipe was called, but I make it all the time. I'll call it . . .

PRODUCE BOX TZATZIKI

Here's how it goes. I take a 32 oz. carton of nonfat yogurt. This is pretty watery stuff and doesn't make a particularly creamy dip in it's original state. So in the morning as I run out the door, I dump it into a sieve lined with cheesecloth and set it over a bowl or pot and place it in the refrigerator.


By the time I get home, almost a cup of water has drained off. Toss this, and you've got nice, creamy yogurt without the fat.

Moving right along. De-rib each leaf of the greens and chop coarsely. I use whatever I've got: kale, chard, mustard greens. Cook for a few minutes until tender in salted boiling water. Transfer into a colander and run under cold water. Drain and chop further.


Squeeeeeeeeze chopped greens to get out as much water as you can. Mix into yogurt. Add enough olive oil to thin to desired consistency. Add some minced garlic. This time of year I have green garlic in my box, which is very nice, but regular garlic will do. Add a few pinches of dill. Some chopped fresh mint is nice too if you've got it. Salt and pepper to taste.


I made this the other night to go with Jen's chicken kabobs (not really: she's in CO and I'm in CA, but I used her recipe). I blop it on the chicken, stir it into rice, dip crackers or pita in it the next day, and eat it plain with a spoon.

Easy, tasty, and another bunch of greens down the hatch. Bring on the next box.

Good things come in fives

Blogger pal Kate tagged me for this a while ago, and I've been so busy ranting and raving about this and that that I'm totally late hopping on the wagon. If you're totally over this one, you're excused! Here we go:

Five thing under $10 I cannot live without
1. Kiehl's Lip Balm #1. There's a pot on my desk at work, by my bedside, in my purse, in my car, in the kitchen. No funny scent or taste. No petroleum products. Good stuff.

2. Trader Joe's reusable shopping bags. I like the red square-bottomed ones better for groceries, but I love the groovy pattern on these. They're perfect for carrying lots of heavy stuff, packing a picnic, or hauling camping food and gear. Best of all you can get them really grubby and either wipe them clean or hose them off. 

3. Mrs. Meyer's products. I love them all (kitchen, household, laundry, lotion and soap), but this is one of my favorite. Especially since the product it replaces (Comet) is particularly noxious. At the moment I'm into the lavender scent, but I also like the lemon verbena, and new basil is nice too.

4. Trader Joe's Lavender Salt Scrub. Actually smells like lavender rather than perfume. Here's everything that's in it: sea salt, apricot kernel oil, almond oil, green tea leaf, avocado oil, vitamin E, lavender oil. That's it. I made a salt scrub one time that had ingredients similar to these, and I spent way more than $10 for this quantity.
5. Tom's of Maine toothpaste. I like Cinnamint best, Sophie likes Silly Strawberry, and Husband favors Fennel. All natural ingredients, and no one dabs it into the eyes of rabbits to see if it stings.

Five favorite movies
1. Strictly Ballroom

2. Mary Poppins

3. Best in Show

4. Uh . . . 

5.  . . . uh

Five favorite girl names that I did not use 

How convenient that I have this list from nine years ago still on my computer.

1. Anna

2. Abigail (Abby)

3. Dale (a great grandmother's name)

4. Georgia (my dad is George)

5. Robin

Five favorite boy names that I did not use

1. (my last name)

2. Evan

3. Ian

4. Robert

5. Will

Five song I could listen to over and over

I don't think there are any.

Five things that stay in my purse at all times

Let's take a look.

1. lip balm

2. hand lotion

3. a bottle of water

4. a pony tail holder

5. my wallet

Five obsessions I have right now

1. rounding up gear for our summer camping 

2. nabbing the perfect powder skis at the end of season sale

3. SF Opera's summer season

4. spring cleaning

5. drinking more water

Five places I'd love to go

1. Alaska again, but not on a cruise (never again). Maybe in the winter to dog sled. In the dark!

2. The Alps (to ski)

3. Chile (to ski in the summer)

4. The Greek islands (to sit on my ass and eat olives and cheese)

5. Anywhere in Europe (I've traveled in Asia, north Africa, Mexico, and central America, but I seem to have missed Europe, except for half of Istanbul). We're waiting until Sophie's a little older. 

If you read this and would like to be tagged, consider it done. Happy May Day.

A school auction andthe breakdown of a volunteer

So backing up a little . . . Last weekend I endured the culmination of a five-month ordeal that left me happier than I think I've ever been to face a Monday: the auction at Sophie's school. A friend of mine asked me today at lunch what advice I had for her given that she had agreed to be president of her children's school's P.T.A. next year and was meeting with people to talk about their fall auction. "Just shoot yourself now," I said. And really, I wish I had. Not that our auction wasn't a successful event. It was, and I'm trying hard to focus on the positive. Here's a little photo log of it.

Sophie attends school as an interdistrict transfer to a three-room school in an unincorporated area in the midst of a beautiful redwood canyon. One of the families in the community has hosted our auction at their home for the past several years. It's the most amazing house ever. The owner founded and developed a very successful construction company, building for himself the most amazing house out of mostly reclaimed lumber. The column on the left is the elevator, which takes one to the main level of the house on the third floor. Very handy for hauling up the goods for an auction.


I was lucky to have my girl lending a hand in the morning as we put things together.




She never goes anywhere without a well-packed handbag. Her mom's girl.

The main room of the house has a soaring timber ceiling, with a view out over the canyon. No decorating necessary.


It's a very casual affair, and there are as many people there in jeans and t-shirts as dresses. Admission is a paltry $15 and includes the most amazing vegetarian feast you could imagine (no meat, no eggs per request from the homeowners, who are very devout Hindu converts).


We may not have a fancy ballroom or a gazillion cellophane-wrapped gift baskets, but we've got everything a good auction needs.

An auction dog.

Great live music. The 3-4-5 teacher grabs the mike throughout the night to add vocals.


A great group of parents staffing the check-out station.


Here's Husband nabbing the Sugarbowl lift tickets! Good thing since at that point in the evening I was stuck at that check-out station. His performance is a vast improvement over last year when every time I would catch a glance at him from behind a computer he was idly chatting, drinking wine, and not bidding.

Here's the dessert I contributed: strawberry tarts with an orange-scented marscapone filling. Last year I baked all the shells and we did this full-sized. This year, we cut ourselves a break and bought the shells, so all I had to do was pipe in the filling, add the berries, and glaze with a lavender syrup. I had wanted to find smaller berries that would fit the shells better, but large ones were all my produce market had that morning, and so I had to make do and halve them.




OK, so what's my beef? It's this: I am BURNED OUT. To a crisp. I was so exhausted the morning of the auction that I really didn't want to even go to it. But after putting in probably over a hundred hours (working on it since January) soliciting donations, logging them, producing a catalog, cranking out bid sheets, sending out numerous email message updating people on auction progress and begging people to put their damn names on the volunteer sign-up sheets, supervising all the other committee chairs, cooking at the school Friday evening (this was actually fun), logging last-minute bid items the morning of the event (thanks very much, passive-aggressive parents who ignored my pleas to get items in in a timely manner so as to not cause undue inconvenience to people [that would be me] processing donations), spending half of the event itself working the checkout station, and then cleaning up until 11:30 that night I AM FUCKING OVER IT. I just cannot take it anymore. Volunteering for my daughter's school has come at the expense of my caring for my daughter and being a present member of my own family. And it's just not worth it.

I'm not entirely sure how it happened. I know it started when two years ago I went to my first P.T.A.-like organization meeting and offered to take on the job of logging auction donations. I was happy to have a behind-the-scenes job, but I remember feeling at that meeting how like a little club that group was and how awkward it was to be a newcomer and started thinking how it could be different. Since taking leadership, I've tried to foster an environment where everyone feels welcome with whatever they have to give. It's been more my style to offer opportunity than guilt people into feeling obligation. My face hurts from smiling, and I'm losing my ability to encourage and reassure. I'm sick of asking politely. And if I can't get things done that way, I don't want to get things done at all. I want people to volunteer because they want to make a difference and show a commitment to their child's school. I do not want to have to threaten or beg. What I want now is to walk away. Maybe what the school needs is someone with a different style, someone who tells not asks. That someone is not me.

In the meantime, I need to focus my energy somewhere else. We have wonderful plans for summer camping through the Tetons and Yellowstone, up to Montana to celebrate my parents' fiftieth wedding anniversary. Sophie has the San Francisco Opera's Das Rheingold coming up. And the good part of school volunteering—trying my best, making someone wonderful friends—I can keep as I let the rest go. So I guess I'm glad I didn't shoot myself.

The Opera Mom is back

Because someone had to escort Opera Kid to a fitting this afternoon. Last year Sophie was a supernumerary (a nonspeaking, nonsinging role—often a member of a crowd scene) in San Francisco Opera's Macbeth. It was truly one of the most wonderful experiences of our lives. Countless hours of driving across the bridge to the city for rehearsals and performances, hanging out with the other parents in the Opera House basement, and watching from standing room left me with a kid who is exited about music, the stage, and the arts in general in way she was not before. She's as happy to listen in the car to a cd of Thomas Hampson's Verdi arias as she is the soundtrack to Highschool Musical (ok, I admit that we can't find the Highschool Musical soundtrack at the moment, and I know exactly where the Hampson cd is). So regardless of how this turns out, the San Francisco Opera has my undying gratitude.

Things have been a little up in the air this time. Since Sophie did Macbeth, she was on the list of kids called to volunteer for the summer season, which starts with Wagner's Das Rheingold. They want forty kids (we thought they were insane with twenty kids for Macbeth), and the Macbeth kids were the obvious place from which to start. I filled out the forms, sent them in, and then didn't hear back. Finally, after a few discrete inquiries, I learned that the casting department was concerned with Sophie's coloring. Apparently they want children with dark hair and complexions ("ethnic looking," they said) given that the children are to be Alberich's slaves, toiling beneath the earth to satisfy his greed.




A friend whose child was already cast insisted on our behalf (thank you!!!) that Sophie's hair is not dark blonde but medium brown with minor highlights. The door opened a crack: Would we consider a nonpermanent rinse to darken her hair? Heavens, yes. What could be more exciting than dying one's hair for the opera? Then we received word that based on a picture (this one right here from Macbeth) casting was concerned about her "rosy complexion." "Isn't that what makeup's for?" I asked. Turns out they're a week and a half away from starting rehearsals and still short ten kids, so they're inclined to agree.


Off to our fitting we went.


We're not out of the woods yet, but when Sophie asked the fitters "So am I in?" they said that they had assigned a costume to her and so assume she is.

I know that even if it doesn't work out, there will be other times. But it's hard to steer my daughter into a situation where she may face rejection, regardless of how objective it may be and how well I've tried to prepare her. It's not about you, I've explained, it's about the art. And I think from her last opera experience that she understands this. It's probably me who has more of a problem.

On another note, I feel brought full circle by recalling that Sophie's first opera experience was the impetus behind the start of my blog. Wishing to document and share her experience, I stumbled upon something I had not anticipated: a creative outlet and a community of friends as well as a way to document and remember. Here we go again.

Bonnano alert

Another sure sign that spring is here: The annual Sunfest Bonanno Sale is next week! Thanks, Vivian, for the heads up. (Sandals with their own blog—you gotta love that.)

The sale runs May 1–4 and is for $20.00 off every pair of Bonanno's. Here's what happened last time they had a sale:

I'm a flip-flops gal at heart. But I figured that if I'm going to wear flip-flops to work (this is California, after all) I should class myself up a little by substituting these for my standard rubber models. And while I concede there's no noticeable change in anyone's perception of me, I think they look nice. I'm wearing the ones on top today with jeans and this white tee I bought at Target last weekend.

These are my favorites, and if I get another pair at this sale they will be this style. Maybe black with white? I also think the white/shell combo. looks nice.

Even at $20 off, it's a pricey pair of sandals for me, but I really do think they're worth it. They are beautifully made and come feeling already broken in. And who can resist their interactive "customize your sandals" page? I have could played around with it for hours. Take a look at the customer picks on "popular color combinations" to get a better look at some of the colors. And since I saved all that money on the Target tee . . . Not a word to Husband, k?