On playing G-d

Very bone-chilling. A patient in persistent vegetative state actually had normal brain activity all along. Can read about it here. As a side note, those whose feeding tubes are removed die of dehydration, IMO very far from dignified death, even if not slow and painful as some doctors claim.

Thanks to Moshe for the link.

Klingons don't lie

Maybe because it was a really good parody, or maybe because the original I watched was really bad (I do not recommend) or maybe because it was 3 a.m., and everything is a lot funnier at 3 a.m. than during normal hours. Regardless, I found this absolutely hilarious.

On teaching Hebrew first

Found this among DD's scribbles on Friday - bold big red letters.

KRAP

Then I remembered that she had asked me to spell "park" the night before. Phew. just to think that the child of mine wouldn't know how to spell such an important word.

With friends like these who needs a climate change?

Last week I did something I normally don't - I bought kids chicken nuggets. They were on sale, kids don't eat normal chicken anyway, and it would make dinner preparation for a few nights much easier - so why not? Well, I THOUGHT I was buying chicken nuggets. Instead I picked up a pack of chicken cutlets shaped like dinosaurs. How I have made that mistake is still a mystery, but really, who cares because it was really for the best.

As I was baking those cutlets, DS, who is currently in love with all things dinosaur and at that particular time very antsy in anticipation of eating a DINOSAUR, picked one frozen cutlet out of the bag and started playing with it. I had done something else I normally don't do - I let him play with food. He was very cute about it, but got bored after about 10 minutes or so. He came over to me and said, "Mommy, I don't want to play with him any more. I will put him on my plate. But I will not eat him because he's my friend." Yep, once you play with DS, you are pretty safe from being eaten. At least that night.

Well, it would be funny in itself if were the end, but... As DS and DD were settling down to eat the finally cooked cutlets (and DS repeatedly reassured that he wasn't eating his new friend), DD pretended to bite DS's dinosaur. DS took his cutlet, mumbled something about "tail booboo", kissed his dinosaur's tail "to make him feel better" and within seconds bit off dinosaur's head.

Well, as long as it wasn't his friend, right?

Peculiarities of the toddlerese cleaning

I have come up with the list of pros and cons of teaching your 3 year old the basics of tidying up the room.

Pros:

1. It teaches the 3 year old how to tidy up the room. Better him than you.
2. Hopefully, since you are starting early, it will develop into a lifelong habit. Unless you have done it all wrong, pushed too hard, nagged too much and he started despising cleaning at a very early age thus developing a lifelong hatred towards this activity. But we are discussing pros.
3. Maybe he will think twice before trashing the room if he knows that he will have to clean it up. Maybe not.
4. Few things warm up this mother's heart like her son's offer to clean up the mess he didn't even make. True story! It could happen to you too!
5. He actually does a decent job doing it.
6. Even though you don't really know what happens to half the things he picks up (trash can? laundry hamper? some forsaken drawer? the space between the wall and the crib? - stay tuned, the answer might surprise you!), at least they are not in the plain view and no longer an eye sore.

There's only one con on the list, but for most it might outweigh all the pros:

1. Unbeknownst to you, the cleaning genius in training decides that the best place for all of the dirty clothes he can get his little hands on is your purse. You discover this little factoid upon trying to pay for your morning java at the coffee stand and must rummage through a pile of dirty socks and underwear that includes a pair of your own undies in order to get to the wallet, all in front of the cashier and 37 people standing in line, 7 of whom are your co-workers... Not that it ever happened to me, just saying... But it could happen to you too...

To brie or not to brie - Update

I know, you folks couldn't sleep at night without knowing what happened to my brie. Hence I present you with this update.

As of the time of this post, I still have a square inch of brie left in my refrigerator. No, I did not enjoy it in the least, but I have a thing about throwing out food. Brought up by grandmother who had survived an artificial famine in 1930s and the World War II, I simply cannot throw out food that is at least somewhat edible. To be eligible for trash can, food has to be unquestionably poisonous, resembling science experiment, covered in fungus - or preferably all of the above. (Before I scare off some potential guests and such, 1) I do not serve or consume food that hasn't quite reached this awful state; I patiently wait for its inevitable demise. I know, I should just toss it once it becomes questionable, but it's a psychological issue over which I have little control. 2)I do take poetic license.)

The problem with brie, though, is that it will never satisfy my strict requirements for being tossed because it already satisfies them. I know, confusing, but bear with me. As far as I am concerned, brie in its fresh state already resembles a food experiment gone terribly wrong, tastes poisonous (and unlike Windex doesn't have a warning or a Poison Control phone number printed on the back). And, unquestionably, it has already grown fungus, which Google advises us not to cut off. The only way to get the darned brie out of my refrigerator was to eat it.

So I did. And did not acquire that elusive taste for it in the process.

To brie or not to brie

For some time I have been passing by fancy cheeses that all of a sudden appeared in our local kosher supermarket thinking that I should give them a try. I am fairly adventurous when it comes to food; as long as it's kosher I'll give it a try. Unless it has carrots in it. Or sweet potatoes. Or it's waaay too spicy. On the second thought, I guess I am not that adventurous. But for someone who grew up on meat and potatoes diet, I have come pretty far (read: tofu).

But back to cheeses. A few years back SubHub and I have been talked into buying some blue fancy cheese by the store owner. Once we came home and unpacked our precious (very, very precious might I add) cheese, we ended up both looking at each other and wondering whether we have to eat THAT or eat around it. On the second look, there was not eating around IT. We both concluded that if we had an ear infection, pneumonia, syphilis or any other ailment requiring penicillin, we would be immediately cured upon tasting that cheese. We both bravely took a bite, both spit up in unison and swore off trying food that had the word "blue" in it.

Fast forward a few years, and my adventurous spirit was taking the better of me once again. These fancy cheeses, inconspicuously thrown in between mozzarella and a strange concoction commonly known as American cheese (an oxymoron, really), were calling my name. A few times I reached for them, but the price tag stopped me. Eventually I remembered that upon my untimely (it always is, isn't it?) demise I would be held accountable for every permitted food I could, but haven't tried. Could I possibly go to hell over not trying some stinky cheese? I couldn't think of any other reason that would cause this unfortunate turn of events, and I was not going to let this happen. Next time as I was passing by the cheese section, I decided that while paying kids' tuition is a noble ideal, it is definitely not noble enough to miss out on the wonders of heaven. So I took the plunge and bought brie.

I couldn't wait to open it and give it a try. Once the kids were asleep and the house in reasonable order, I opened the brie. Upon inspecting it and not finding anything blue, I noticed that it had rind. I immediately called my parents for advice and was given their standard response, "Google it." While I was searching for the answer, Mom said that they were told to eat the rind. She eats it, but Dad refuses to. Finally Google confirmed that Mom was right, I hung up, cut myself a wedge and took a bite.

What came next cannot be described in any words normally associated with food. I can assure you that I have never participated in urinotherapy. Nevertheless, I felt absolutely certain that what I had just eaten tasted and smelled like very concentrated urine. Or maybe Windex, mixed with urine. The mushroomy goodness promised company's website was neither mushroomy nor good. The released ammonia was so strong that I felt as if I was punched with it in my nose.

"It's an acquired taste," said Mom. I am persistent, so I tried again and again, with and without rind. The feeling that I was eating urine did not go away with subsequent consumption of rind-surrounded cheese. Without rind, brie tasted like bad cream cheese. SubHub wisely refused to even try.

But I do not give up. Next week, Camembert!