Entry #53

Entry #53

Sunday, April 2

4:30 p.m. I am so glad to be home and out of my car. Not a good car-ma day, so to speak.

While driving on the freeway, a pickup truck nearly sideswiped me. I was driving on the left middle lane of a four-lane freeway when I noticed a big black truck veering straight towards me. I had to swerve and beep for him to get out of the way. I can see how I might go unnoticed if I were driving our wee granny mobile, but a minivan? It's basically a large metal rectangle.

While trying to find parking, a girl in a crunched turquoise beater was headed straight towards me. “Sorry,” she said, “At least I was driving slowly.” She was also going the wrong way. Poor Izzie nearly flew through the windshield.


After these near-misses, I wanted OUT. But I'd promised our friend who'd visited for the weekend that we'd bop around while the kids were in art class. So when a parade of people crossing the street stopped traffic for a few minutes, I was actually relieved. Hundreds of people were leaving church, all holding some sort of greenery. At closer look, I saw they were palm fronds. It took me a little while to realize that it was Palm Sunday.

Seeing the kids’ artwork after class made the whole crazy drive seem worthwhile. While it’s too bad that the classes involve little more than sitting on metal stools copying a still life for two hours (Aidan said they're not allowed to talk), the kids have managed to create some wonderful art pieces. Their creations are, in fact, my primary source of wall décor these days, a fine alternative to taxidermy.

On the way home, we passed a billboard advertising an Easter buffet at the Aquarium. This made me wonder, would fish be on the menu? If so, which ones? Perhaps it would have been easier to have a Passover seder there. No one would really care which species were used to make the gefilte fish, as long as the patties were uniformly beige and served with plenty of horseradish.

Tuesday, April 3

9:30 a.m. I took Izzie to the dog park today, despite my better judgment. I hoped this time would be different (than the last half dozen), that there would be some sweet dogs for Izzie to play with, perhaps some like-minded humans, too.

Things actually started off okay in the first minutes, with the dogs chasing balls, frisbees and the like. Then the dogs simply wandered around sniffing as I listened to a group of people casually chatting about their dog’s park-related injuries. 


“You see that bare patch on his side?” said a woman pointing to her Weimaraner. “He just came home one day after my husband took him here and there wasn’t even any skin there—nothing to sew up. I don’t know how it happened.” The owner of a young Visla piped up, “My dog got bit in the back of the neck...I guess the other dog just wanted to show his dominance.” These folks were so nonchalant, they made it sound like getting mauled every now and then was just part of being a dog.

A few minutes later, the Weimaraner went after Izzie. “Oh, you’re being too rambunctious!” said his owner. I quickly put the leash on Izzie and called it a day. I didn't want to wait and see if she would be the next pup inducted into the Open Wound & Bloody Bite Mark club.

11:30 a.m. A friend from New York asked me if I was able to find Passover goods in The Woodlands. I told her there were slim pickings. Thus far, I've encountered one five-pack box of matzoh (a brand that I’ve never seen before), some macaroons, matzoh meal and Lipton-brand matzoh-ball mix (labeled "Not Kosher for Passover"). There were no individual boxes of matzoh to be found, let alone any Ring Gels, chocolate-covered pink marshmallows, or sugar-coated, rainbow-colored fruit slices. Where’s the fun in that?

5:00 p.m. Today marked the arrival of the first HomeSweetFarm delivery at the kids’ school, and while I was really excited to get farm-fresh, organic produce, I was left wondering how I was supposed to cook the collard greens. It seems like something I should do, being in the South and all. Most recipes, however, call for some sort of pork part.


I was curious as to why these large green leaves became so popular in the South. Here's what I learned:


With the arrival of the African slaves to the southern U.S. colonies came the Southern style of cooking collard greens. Like many foods that originated at the time, this way of cooking greens grew out of a need to provide food for their families and satisfy their hunger with the scraps that were thrown their way from the master's kitchen. They would be given ham hocks, pig's feet, and the tops of greens and would turn these leftovers into a meal that created the famous southern greens. But they would keep at least one tradition from Africa - drinking the juice, called pot likker, left over from cooking the greens.

There are some superstitious traditions associated with collard greens as well. Every New Year's Day those who believe in the tradition, or just like to play along, will serve up collard greens with black-eyed peas and hog jowl for a year of good luck and good finances. Others might hang a fresh collard leaf over their door to keep bad spirits away, and a fresh leaf on the forehead is said to promis a cure for a headache.  (Yahoo!)

8:00 p.m. I can now say I’ve officially cooked and consumed collard greens. I can't say I cooked them like a real Southerner, however, not having used ham hocks or pig's feet or hog jowl. I did braise them for a good long while after sautéeing a chopped onion and mushrooms in plenty of butter. I figured I could stick some old socks in that concoction and it would still taste good, so it would be a safe bet for bitter greens.

When David tasted them he said, “You could’ve cooked them a little bit longer. They’re kinda chewy.” I told him they’d been cooking for more than 45 minutes. “Oh. Well they still taste sort of like seaweed,” he said. Noah braved a taste and noted that they tasted “interesting,” politely declining an actual serving (though he ate the mushrooms). Aidan declined to taste the limp, greenish strands altogether.

Wednesday, April 4

1:30 p.m. I finally took Izzie for a walk through the park just beyond The Woodlands Parkway, a place I’ve only recently learned how to access. After parking at The Cove, I walked toward the park and met a woman with two enormous Leonbergers. “I’m taking them for a walk before it gets too hot,” the woman said, wearing a Leonberger Association of U.K. zipper jacket. They made Izzie look like a pipsqueak, though she didn’t seem intimidated by this large, drooling duo.

After walking through a wooded path (that separates bicyclists and pedestrians from the adjacent six-lane roadway), I got to see the birds up close. I’ve never seen vultures casually hanging out with pigeons and ducks before. This is truly the ornithological mecca of The Woodlands—Great Blue Herons, Great White Egrets, Muscovy and Mallard ducks, black vultures, swallows, grebes, sandpipers, and songbirds seem to cohabitate peacefully. The only bummer was all the garbage washing up along the shore, if you can call the shallows of a man-made lake a “shore.” Regardless, it was indeed a (feathered) feast for the eyes.

On the way back I counted 23 vultures, some of whom were standing around the periphery of the garbage can—really an odd sight. There’s so much roadkill around here, I can well understand why so many vultures congregate in The Woodlands. It might also explain why they’re so low to the ground. They’re just too full to fly any higher.