You'll Pay for the Whole Seat, But You'll Only Need the EDGE!*

Having moved from New York, hockey is not so much a novelty to us. However, there is something a bit different about being in a place where playing hockey is considered a human right. In the winter, our tax dollars help pay for temporary rinks to be installed in neighborhood parks. And throughout fall and winter you can find a hockey game to watch pretty much every day of the week. Us? We've been going to McGill matches with friends. They're cheap and the arena is small, so the seats are practically on the ice. This makes for great viewing when a fight breaks out. But don't worry, all of the players have to make up and high five after the game, just like you did in little league.











In between periods, younger kids often play mini-matches of hockey. The goals are usually placed closer together, and more often than not there are multiple pucks in play. We decided the kids looked like newborn kittens learning how to walk, wobbly, lacking direction, tumbling over each other in slow motion. It was absurdly cute.



*Katie recently reminded us of the wonderful days of the monster truck rally commercials, so all hockey discussions are usually preceded by exclamations like, "Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!" And, "BE THERE!"

Belated Halloween Photos

I was in New York for Halloween and spent that evening with friends John and Dana. We went to Inwood park for trick-or-treating. This is one of my favorite parks anywhere and is the only park in the city that contains still-wild native forest.


Parents and their kids gather in one of the fields, and the kids run up to adults and scream, "Trick or treat!" Then the adults give them candy. It's a good idea, I suppose, and keeps parents from having to lug their kids into and out of businesses in the city and means the children don't have to knock on the apartment doors of strangers in their buildings, but it was uncomfortable to me the way everyone just stood around, huddled in a group. We didn't really know how to join in without feeling awkward.


There were a couple of nice homemade costumes...


And one really questionable costume.


John and Dana's daughter says, "Power to the people!" Or pumpkins.


There was a haunted forest and bonfire...


And though the evidence is blurry, you can see Tim Curry even made an appearance.


There were black cats about.


As if to add to the eeriness, something happened to me Halloween afternoon that has never happened to me before in all the years I lived in New York, even when coming back from parties in Brooklyn at 2 o'clock in the morning. Around 3 o'clock that afternoon on the A train, I found myself all alone.


Earlier that day I hung out with Anna and Ben. Their daughter Saida dressed up as Oswald the Octopus, and Hilina went as a ballerina.


And just because, here's a photo of the kids on the tire swing, dressed up as a couple of cute kids from Brooklyn. Tire swings make me so nostalgic.

Somebody Gets It!

As if right on cue, I found this in the New York Times on Saturday:

Going Vegetarian for Thanksgiving

Forget garden salads, steamed broccoli or cooked carrots. The Thanksgiving table is crowded with creative side dishes that include stuffing, vegetable-and-rice combos, green bean or squash casseroles, and fall favorites like pumpkin and sweet potatoes...

Whether or not you have invited a vegetarian to join you this Thanksgiving or you are planning to eat turkey yourself, the holiday is an ideal time to celebrate vegetables. To help you discover a new vegetarian favorite, the Well blog will offer daily vegetarian recipes from now until Thanksgiving as part of our new Eat Well series.

In support of a more veg-friendly holiday season, I just posted one of our favorite vegetarian Thanksgiving recipes over on A Day in the Life of a (Mostly) Vegetarian.

Eat My Grits!

As promised, I posted directions for making grits over on A Day in the Life of a (Mostly) Vegetarian. If you live in the United States and want to try grits, I highly recommend ordering them from Nora Mill in Georgia. Their grits are by far better than anything you will find in the grocery store.

Holiday Priorities

I try not to rant too much on this thing, but with the holidays approaching, a certain pet peeve of mine is showing up more and more:

The meat-centered meal.

Where to begin? Xander and I are vegetarian. We don't eat meat. One day, when the kids are a bit older and we're settled somewhere, we'll probably look into purchasing free-range, organic meat from local farmers that we feel good about, because we don't want our kids to think of it as a forbidden food. But even then, we'll only have it a few times a year for special occasions. We want our kids to have respect for life, to know that when they eat meat or eggs or cheese that this was provided to them by animals. We want them to have some understanding of where their food comes from and how it is made. Our experiences have given us the impression that most people don't think about these things. Food comes from the grocery store or McDonald's. It's wrapped in plastic and cardboard. While we know sometimes we will need the convenience of processed foods, we nonetheless want our kids to understand that real food, good food, requires time and effort and care. This isn't an easy lesson to teach in much of America. It will take some effort on our part. But it's important to us.

Anyway, we're vegetarian. We don't eat steak or bacon or Thanksgiving turkey or Christmas ham. But we're not deprived. We eat really, really well. We eat very indulgent meals most weeks, and I cook almost all of them from scratch. I doubt anyone who came to live with us for a week would complain about the food. But most people have been trained to eat meat at nearly every meal. They've learned to think of it as a necessity rather than an indulgence. And even though this bothers us, even though we find the defensively cynical remarks made by uncomfortable omnivores both ignorant and rude, even though part of us wants to punch the next person who asks us about protein, we don't make a fuss about it. We don't lecture people over their sausage pizzas. We're not offended when we go out for dinner and our friends order hamburgers. We don't mind when someone invites us over for a party or a meal and serves meat. We don't expect people to be overly concerned about our dietary needs. But one thing we do expect is that people will respect our dietary restrictions when we are the ones doing the hosting. This means if you come over to our house for dinner, even Thanksgiving dinner, you need to be prepared for a vegetarian meal. A kick-ass vegetarian meal, mind you, but a vegetarian meal all the same.

So far we haven't had much trouble with this. Our friends, most of whom eat little meat themselves, are completely understanding of the vegetarian lifestyle. But some people struggle with it. We've heard stories from vegetarian friends and family of people showing up for dinner at their houses with their own meat in tow, because they just couldn't stand the thought of eating a single meal without it. We've heard stories of people refusing to come to Thanksgiving dinner at a person's house because there wouldn't be any turkey. We've heard tales of someone refusing to go out to dinner with friends because the chosen restaurant was vegetarian. I've had someone refuse to eat a meal I'd cooked because it did not include meat. After making a vegetarian meal, I've had someone comment, "This would be really good if it had chicken in it." (Note: In case you were raised by wolves, all of the things just listed are considered poor etiquette.) I often wonder if any of our family members will come to our house for the holidays after the kids come home, because what on earth would they do without their holiday meats?

I understand that many people like to eat meat and do so regularly. But it bothers me that some people view meat as so essential to a meal that it will actually keep them from enjoying the point of the whole thing, which for us is good company. This especially bothers me around the holidays, because isn't the point of Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's Day to get together with people you care about and share stories over a good meal? Is the need to put a very specific type of substance in your mouth, chew it repeatedly, and swallow it at the same time each year so essential that it's more important to you than the people with whom you're enjoying the holiday? It just seems so bizarre to me that, even though holiday propaganda indicates the holidays are supposed to be all about love and fellowship and happy memories, for some people they're really about ham and turkey.

The truth is, it hurts my feelings when people belittle our efforts to make a good meal, or more importantly to create an opportunity for fellowship, simply because the meal does not include meat. It's ridiculous, really, and I should probably tell them to bugger off if they don't like it. I think I'm going to have to get over feeling hurt by it, though, because it's really their weakness, and there's no indication that people will change any time soon. Besides, when should anyone ever feel bad for arranging a gathering for friends and family? I'm telling you, with guilt like this, I should have been born Catholic or Jewish. In fact, sometimes I wish I kept kosher, because people seem to be far more accepting of dietary restrictions based on religion than those based on health and conscience.

Of course, there are always people who will maintain that our version of Thanksgiving is not a real Thanksgiving, like this lady over at the New York Times. But what does she know? We hosted a fantastic vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner last year, no turkey whatsoever, and I doubt anyone left our house disappointed. We had sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, cheese grits, collard greens, several delicious salads, leek and carrot dressing, mashed potatoes with gravy, baked corn, savory pies, pumpkin cheesecake, chocolate maple pecan pie, and a few other things I can't remember right now. With all of that good food, who has room for turkey anyway?

Mix It Up Day

Today is Mix-It-Up Day, sponsored by a favorite organization of mine called Teaching Tolerance. 2878 schools signed up to participate.

Now if only there were similar programs for adults.

This Week in History


I remember one night as a kid hearing my dad say, "Alana, come over here. You need to see this." I sat down in front of the television and watched a mob of people jumping and cheering on top of a tall cement wall. Very soon, they started chipping away at the wall with whatever tools they could find and triumphantly waving small pieces of stone over their heads. I don't know how much I understood of what I was seeing, but I remember thinking it was really sad that these people had been kept separated from each other, that even families were divided. And I remember thinking it didn't make a whole lot of sense. My dad commented that he would give anything for a piece of that wall. (See? I'm not the only one in the family who likes to hoard old things.) I've never been to Berlin, but it's on my list, mostly because I really want to see the remnants of this old wall. I want to confirm that what I saw on television really happened. I want to stand where those people stood and think about what it felt like to tear down that wall, to think about what I would have felt had I been the one standing there holding a piece of it in my hand. I imagine it was a relief, like getting your hair cut...only better.

It's funny. I think the world has changed a lot in the last twenty years, and I think much of it has stayed the same. It seems that while some walls are coming down, others are going up. Nonetheless, I remember this one coming down with a weird mix of happiness and nostalgia.

But mostly I feel really glad the USSR never blew us up. I remember worrying about that occasionally as a kid. That would have been bad.

There's a wonderful interactive feature on the Berlin Wall over at The New York Times. Take a look.