Tacos!
Well, summer is here and my cooking schedule is the same as always except for doing more grilling. Most of our grilling happens on the weekend when Jon is home. So weeks are the same in that we spend the afternoons elsewhere (the pool instead of carpool) and arrive home ready to be fed but with me not wanting to launch into any great cooking endeavors.

Enter taco filling.

This is a great, freezable, kid-friendly (not too spicy) taco filling that I've been making lately.

We eat it on top of nachos, in taco salad and in tacos or burritos. It is so handy to have on hand for weekday dinner/Sunday lunch.

If you make it, may I recommend the Chipotle-Lime Dressing to go on top along with the cheese, onions, limes, tomatoes? Your taco will never be the same without it. And that is a guarantee.

Taco Filling
1 T. vegetable or olive oil
3 cups finely chopped onion (I do this in the Cuisinart)
6 garlic cloves, minced
1 jalapeno chile (minced and optional)
1 diced red or yellow or orange bell pepper (if you have it)
1 T. chili powder (I probably do more like 1 1/2 T.)
1 T. ground cumin
2 pounds lean ground turkey or beef
1 can (28 oz.) crushed tomatoes

Heat oil in skillet over medium heat and cook until onions are softened, about 5 minutes. Add garlic, jalapeno (if using), chili powder and cumin; cook, stirring, 1 minute.

Add meat. Cook until no longer pink (5-7 minutes) and then add tomatoes; cook, occasionally stirring until no liquid remains, 15 -20 minutes. Season generously (to taste) with salt.

Eat. Freeze for later. Enjoy!

Fishing
We went fishing today. We caught no fish. I took photos...here they are.



See this passel of males I take with me? I honestly never expected to be surrounded by so many folks of the opposite gender.



Jon is the fishing pro. He explains. I take photos and occasionally hold a fishing rod.



Here is my youngest showing his extreme focus. Right now, he imagining that the lure is alive and talking to him.



This face. I adore it.



Imagination still flowing....fishing still going.



The patience with fishing and not catching is starting to wane, here.

Then, my oldest son said, "Hey, look at that bird!" My oldest is the one who is possibly the most unobservant of all of my boys when it comes to nature stuff. Now, if you need to know about an obscure song in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, well he's your guy. The natural world is not really where his interests lie. I thought that he was talking about the hawk that was lazily circling in the sky until I heard Jon gasp.



Now, that is a bird. Look at the freaky, beautiful eye color. A black-crowned night heron, as we were informed by our 2nd oldest who had a running interest in all things avian a few years back.

All I know is that this bird should have its picture in the dictionary next to the word unflappable because it sat on a low branch next to the rowdy bunch of us for at least 45 minutes. In fact we left the lake and it remained. I think it did look at us on more than one occasion with a "this too shall pass" kind of gaze.

Not letting the Barlows inspire your hasty exit = one unflappable bird.

A Birthday and Cake!
I don't know how it is that my second son is 11, now. It seems like that shouldn't be possible, but it is.

This year for his birthday, I made this cake that I found on Smitten Kitchen's blog.

Oh. Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake. It was so delicious.

If you have someone in your family who likes chocolate and peanut butter, you must, MUST make this cake for him. Deb, of Smitten Kitchen, offers wonderful instructions and tips that really helped me. This is good since making cakes isn't my forte. Another bonus about this cake is that all of the ingredients are easy to come by. In fact, if you wanted, you could buy every single ingredient at Aldi -- except for the waxed paper you need for pan prep.


Chocolate Sour Cream Cake + Peanut Butter Frosting + Chocolate Peanut Butter Glaze = Yummola.





He has requested this cake for his next birthday and has talked his older brother into requesting it for his next birthday, as well.

He thinks ahead, that one. I just adore him, precious boy. What would I do without him?

New Household Inhabitants
We got a pair of these cute little red-eared sliders a few weekends ago.



Sorry, the image is blurry but the best we could get due to the moving of Jon (turtle handler), me (photographer) and the slider (squirmy reptile). Also the light wasn't good and our camera is nothing special.





Aren't they darling? Y'all should see them jump off the rock in their tank when someone walks by, bless them. Wish that I could explain in such a way to make that antiquated reptilian brain understand that there is nothing to fear but success wouldn't be with me.

Whoops!
Yesterday, since we had to leave pool after not swimming because of thunder and other stuff, we decided to return to swim after dinner.

So, we went back home to get stuff done (me) and play (them) while we waited.

The boys changed out of their swimsuits. I threw on my big apron over my swimsuit and got started on dinner. I should mention here that I don't really like wearing a swimsuit. Most don't have near enough fabric to make me feel comfortable. However, I got a new one recently that has sort of a high neck and also has a skirt. So, as far as swimsuits go, it is modest. I didn't change because I didn't want to be bothered with it and, knowing what a messy cook I am, I put on my biggest apron to shield my suit from the chili I was making for dinner.

So, after the chili got going, I decided to do some other stuff around the house. Then I figured that I should take out the trash and recycling and wheel it all to the curb for pick-up the next day.

The problem with all of this (and I'm sure that you saw it coming) is that, no matter how modest the swimsuit, a big apron will cover most of it up. So, my neighbor walked by and only saw the apron and the flip flops. He did a double take. I wonder what he was thinking....maybe that his neighbor is a closet nudist, or something? Of course, I didn't figure out the reason for the awkward look that he gave me until after I had turned around. Hopefully he was still looking -- at least so that he would know that there were other clothes involved, after all.

Ahhh, I love being such a dummy. It makes life so funny and interesting.

Not a Day for Swimming, Yes?

So, we head over to the pool today and our timing couldn't have been worse. Two of the three pools were already closed for defilement issues and the third one (the baby pool)was closed for the same reason less than 10 minutes after our arrival.

So we all got out. Not that most of us were in, anyway, seeing as the baby pool was the only one open.

And then it thundered. Which means a thirty minute wait.

It thundered again.

I start to wish that I had back the time that I took to sunscreen to my melanin-challenged progeny.

Then we had drama over leaving without even getting to swim.

I have one word for y'all:

Calgon.

Thank You, Coca-Cola

This world is an interesting place, y'all. Things sometimes fit together in curious ways.

An explanation:

I'm allergic to Missouri. But, Missouri, don't be down about it, because I'm allergic to Mississippi and Alabama, too. Mississippi and Alabama lead to bronchitis -- you just make my head hurt. And it's funny, every Spring that rolls around, you make my head hurt in a different spot.

Repeatedly.

So, thanks for keeping it interesting.

A few years ago it was my cheekbones. They would ache at certain times and I would feel like they were so heavy that they were going to actually fall off my face.

This year, you have decided to sock me right between my eyes. Right underneath the wrinkles that my youngest son so loves to look at. The wrinkles that look like a wonky eleven.

My sister, Deana, and I elect to call wrinkles ...wranks. Don't know when we started that -- years ago now. Not that she has any, the goose.

Anyway, one day I was driving carpool when I decided that I simply must pull into a drugstore and get something to take for for my headache. And, I didn't have anything to take the medicine with, so I did a very uneconomical thing. I bought a bottle of Cherry Coke to take it with. Normally, I would have just found the store's water fountain and waited until I could get home to get something else to drink. But I was slap in the middle of carpool -- so not getting home anytime soon -- and, dang it, I wanted something cold to hold against my forehead to take my mind off of the pressure zinging me right between the eyes.

I found out something interesting.

You may recall, a coke bottle is shaped like this:




And so, when I put it to my forehead, I found out that we were a perfect match for each other.



Even down to the little notches in the bottom of the bottle that are a perfect cut-out for my nose. I've pondered figuring out how to make a head band, of sorts, so that I can hold the thing on there while I go about my day.

Now, wouldn't that look glamorous.

So, if you see me, and my forehead wranks seem to have magically disappeared, don't assume that I've suddenly gone in for some Botox.

Nope, I've just frozen my forehead with a Coke bottle.

MeMa
Well, I must tell y'all that it by no means escapes my notice that on the day following my ranting post about a rude stranger I am here again to write about someone so diametrically opposed to him that she might as well have not inhabited the same universe.

My father's mother, Mema, passed away last night. She was 97.



Mema. What a lady, y'all, what a lady.

For my entire life, my Dad has told me that his mother had raised her 7 children without raising her voice. The older I get and the more children that I have the more I am awed by this. It almost seems too incredible to be believed. But all you had to do was to meet her and you'd believe it. And, even though I wasn't there, I would bet that not raising her voice was not an impressive self-control issue. For her I just think that she knew that it made no sense to raise her voice and so she didn't do it.

She was an exceedingly happy person and her sincerity ran all the way down to her soul. She truly delighted in simple things. She loved flowers. She loved hoeing in her garden. She loved putting up jars and jars and jars of her homegrown vegetables. She made delicious fig preserves. She just liked doing things. She never worried about anything. Negativity had no place in her mind. She just had a peaceful spirit. How many people are like that?

Growing up, I heard both of my parents say many times that Mema had "a lot of faith". Now, they weren't really talking about a Christian-type of faith here, although she did have that, too. It is hard to really describe this trait adequately with words, but I think that it can be summed up by saying that she was an optimistic realist who just inherently knew that most things in this life were not a big deal. Most people find out this little nugget of wisdom, eventually. She always knew it and she lived her life accordingly.

Mema was a very accomplished upside-finder. An marvelous, phenomenal upside-finder -- the likes of which most people will never know. Especially when you consider the challenges that she faced.

Since I've had my boys, I've found myself thinking about my Mema more and more. I think that the reason for this is that we share a kinship that goes beyond our DNA. We share the kinship of having a child with a disability. Her oldest son has cerebral palsy. My Dad said recently that my Uncle Buddy had been her baby for 76 years. She always took exceptional care of him.

Long before I knew of my oldest son's autism diagnosis I was telling some of my friends about my Mema and my Uncle Buddy. I told them how seeing their relationship and her service to him was like a gift to anyone who saw it. The gift of seeing them is even more precious to me now that I'm living it in my own way.

In the last few years of her life, Mema lived in a nursing home. Uncle Buddy moved there, too. Her mind was going and his physical needs were just too much to manage at home anymore. I don't know how long it has been since she recognized me -- years, I'm sure. And she hasn't known even her own children for awhile now. All except for Buddy, she always knew him.

And, now, I'm going to end my rambling with a story that my Mom told me a few years ago. Mom told me that most of Mema's children were gathered in her hospital room following surgery on her hip. Mema was recovering from the anesthesia and was looking around the room at people that she no longer recognized. As the time went on, she noticed that the light was falling outside and said to one of her sons, "Hey, mister, I don't know you, but I was wondering if you could give me a ride home?" He explained about it all...about how he was her son, about how she had just had surgery, about how everything was fine and she didn't need to go home. But that wouldn't do, for her. She knew that night was coming and she thought that she needed to be home. So she asked them again to take her home. And then she shocked them all by shouting at them, telling them that she really, really needed to get home. Finally, her voice breaking, she said to them, "Please, you don't understand. I have this son and he's handicapped, you see? I have to get home. Who's going to fix him dinner and put him to bed and cover him up? Who? I need to get home."

To me, that is just the sweetest story. It's the story of a mother's love and devotion that superceded every other memory. She did not understand about her own health. She did not remember her husband of over 50 years. She did not even recognize her children who were in that room at the time who were comforting her and telling her that everything was fine. All she knew, for certain, was that she had a son and that he needed her.

So, here is to Mema and to her life and how she lived it so graciously. There will never be another.

Dear Mr. Bohonkus

Well, Mr. Bohonkus, I hope that you're properly chastened. Though, you know, I would bet that you're not. Your bohonkishness runs pretty deep, I'd say. I'd also wager that you're not the self-reflective type.

So, on to what happened today. I know, you thought that you were being cute when you were messing with my youngest son who was trying to get a cart outside of the Aldi. Nothing comes between that child and his cart, but of course, you were too wrapped up in being cute to notice. I never quite figured out what exactly you were angling for, but I made sure that you did indeed have a quarter so that you could procure a cart for yourself and then I took my cart (the one my youngest had already put a quarter in) and entered the store.

I must say, you gave me the heebie jeebies. One thing that I never question is my heebie jeebie meter. I pay attention when that thing goes off. But never mind. We were on track to get our shopping done in short order and with little to no drama until my oldest son spoke.

He was standing there, eyeing you, Mr. Bohonkus, holding his Spiderwick book. "Mom," he said at full volume and pointing at you, "I don't trust that man." Then he looked at you again and said, straight out, "I don't trust you."

Well, Mr. Bohonkus, I'll tell you, this was an interesting situation for me, and not just because my son was talking in a way that he should not to a stranger. We're actually used to that and we're constantly working on getting him to not verbalize what he is thinking. Oh, the stories that I have of him asking inappropriate questions and saying zany things to people. But, he has autism, after all, and sometimes (okay, most of the time) he doesn't see the problem with being truthful. It's odd the trouble that honesty will bring.

I'll tell you what was so exciting to me about what he said. When he said that he didn't trust you -- well, I felt like cheering. Not because he said something inappropriate but because he is apt to be too trusting. So the fact that he picked up on your demeanor was just awesome, to me. It gives me hope for his future. If he can admit to not trusting someone at the age of 12 -- let's just say that it gives us something to build on. I don't want him to be distrustful in general. But, I don't need to ever worry about that because it will never happen. What I do have to worry about is him thinking that someone has all his best interests at heart just because they buy him a Coke, or something like that. So, that he got a bead on you today? I actually felt like giving him a hug or a high five -- or both.

But let's get back to your behavior. That is, after all, what this letter is about.

So, to be honest, I thought that our little conversation was over and was hoping that we could ignore each other and shop in peace. I went into the store with my boys and you followed a minute later to begin your shopping. But, as you passed us, it seemed like my son couldn't get past the fact that he just didn't trust you, Mr. Bohonkus, and he had to say it

one
more
time.

Then you got a little angry. You said that if my son ever came into YOUR store then you would say that you didn't trust HIM. And, let us be clear, once again, that you are a grown man. He is a 12-year-old boy.

Now, the nice folks inside Aldi didn't hear the exchange outside. So, they didn't know the whole story. But, when they stood there with their mouths open and pickle jars frozen in mid-trip between shelf and basket as you shattered the shopping environment of that little establishment with your bad behavior, well, they knew enough.

They knew that you are a Mr. Bohonkus.
Yes, that they knew for sure.


But, leave it to J. If there is a Mr. Bohonkus in the room -- he will find him.

You know, maybe that can be a career path for him.

I can just see the business cards now.....

J. Barlow
Detector of Bohonkutude, Extraordinaire

Sounds good to me.

I Love Ornch


Ornch is how my baby used to pronounce the color orange.

Isn't this a pretty Gerber Daisy? My 2nd oldest gave it to me for Mother's Day. Now that it has finished blooming I'm going to plant it in the ground with hopes of it coming back next year. And, I am going to remain optimistic about its prospects even though I'm the one who will be doing the planting. The only plants that tend to thrive under my care are those that are old and stubborn, like my ficus tree, or unkillable, such as the mint outside my back door. And, truthfully, I wasn't holding out hopes for the mint. It surprised me.

Now I've got to get myself together and get over to the grocery store and then to the pool by noon, so that I can get a chair today. Oh, the humanity at the pool. It really isn't the best place to be sort of germaphobe. But it is kind of helping the sanity-retention in other ways, so we shall sally forth.

How did it get to be the 18th of June? The summer has sprouted wings.

And that is a very good thing.

The Beignets...

from Saturday morning.



Did I put dark chocolate in some of them? Yep. Guilty.

My Buster
Oh, my quirky baby. Or, not baby, as he tells me, "I'm not a baby! I've got my own life now!"

Okay.

I think maybe I should call him my Buster instead of my Baby. That is a switch that I think I can make.

The child has never met a stranger. Never, ever, EVER. Last week at the pool, he talked and talked to one of the other moms who was there. At one point in their conversation she laughingly said to me, "He's so shy -- not!". A little later, he broke off talking to her to do some groovy dancing around the pool to the oldies music that was blaring from the speakers. (My Buster is an awesome dancer.) A few minutes later, I looked up from my book to see him getting a tutorial from one of the lifeguards on how to test the pool's water. The next time I looked up he had persuaded a teenaged babysitter to water him with the watering can that her ward had brought to the pool.

Never having met someone before is not a concept that matters -- to him.

Like the lack of shyness, he has also never been stumped. During the school year, he would tell his pre-k teachers elaborate, imaginative stories. They would ask him questions. He would always, ALWAYS have an answer.

This means, of course, that he would sometimes have to make up words. For example, the other day in conversation with me, he used the word inchoosinal. I know that you're dying to know what it means so I'll tell you. For E (who is 5) inchoosinal is defined as being something that is his size.

I wonder if he was using that word when he was talking to the lifeguard at the top of the 2 story curvy tube slide? (Buster was up there because he gave me the slip while I was giving some instructions to my oldest son.) Maybe he said, "Dude, this slide is totally inchoosinal to me, I don't care that I'm not as tall as you say that I've got to be. It's INCHOOSINAL, man!" That is what his body language looked like, to me, anyway. He finally descended the stairs with good grace but I'm not certain that I won't see him up there again soon, pleading his case with the lifeguard. Busters are not easily sidetracked, you know.

Anyway, one more thing about my Buster and then I'll be done.

He doesn't like flying insects. So, the other day.....

Buster: Hey get that bug! I don't like that bug. It's on my list.
Me: On what list?
Buster: On the list of things that I'm afraid of.
Me: Oh.
Buster: Yep. It's extensive.
Me: Your list is extensive?
Buster: Uh-huh. That means that it's really long.



What a buster.