Moderate Musings

BBQ

platonista — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 02:43:52 +0000

There’s a terrific place to get BBQ in Kansas City: Oklahoma Joe’s on 3002 W. 47th Ave! Wonderful ribs, brisket, and other things.

Are you anxious? Rest with the turtle.

platonista — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 05:45:13 +0000

Sea Turtle of the Day

Sweet Corn Teeth

platonista — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 05:35:41 +0000

August is the high season here for Sweet Corn, but it is also the time when three of the six-year-old’s teeth have chosen to come loose. Not until Corn season arrived did they really start to flop back and forth, hanging by that last thread that’s so hard to sever. I remember the first day I had to shave the corn off the cob for the wiggly-toothed girl. We were thrilled by all those fascinating rows of kernels, still stuck together like so many yellow keyboard faces! Her frustration at being defeated by corn on the cob soon gave way to a new preference for the little sheets that could be plucked out of the bowl in one piece–if you were gentle enough–and eaten with the fingers. As I saw the sensation flicker over her face I could feel precisely that moment of twenty-two years ago, watching my mom deftly shave off the kernels, amazed at how much corn piled up in the bowl just from one modest ear. I was sure my that my mom could do magic, and I was sure that her new way of serving the corn was part of that magic. She allowed me to believe that she invented the idea, of course. Annoying pieces still became stuck in the teeth, but I was enchanted. My daughter is enchanted.

We come from a long line of corn lovers. My great-grandparents and grandparents would boil great buckets of it each night, and my mom and her cousins would carry a whole basket down to their favorite picnic spot, to eat by the half-dozen. Why is sweet corn at its best here? I’m sure the partisans of each region would protest, but corn grows here like cigar wrappers grow in Cuba. No other place can do it justice–no other soil, or water, or weather could yield such perfection.

Note: when her first tooth was loose, we wiggled and wiggled it, applied a dab of numbing teething ointment, and then she yanked it out herself! A proud moment, and certainly the best way to lose your first tooth!

Pink Empire

platonista — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 05:19:17 +0000

I was that little girl who preferred pine green. Raised in a bright candy pink room, I demanded a repaint. The rule was “light colors only”, so I settled for a minty green shade. Now I live in a land of Pink, where the Empresses of ages six and two delight in anything pink, girly, fairy, or sparkly. Dressing often involves head to toe pink. The backpack and lunch sacks are pink. The milk cups are pink. The blankets and pillows and dollhouse and books and crayons and tea party set are all pink. I sort laundry into equal piles of Whites, Darks, and Pink-to-Reds. We had to paint their rooms yellow and lavender to provide relief for all of the pink contents. I still prefer pine green, but can’t help but laugh inside when seeing All This Pink!

Spiral In

platonista — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 05:11:39 +0000

A pleasant moment worth remembering: Tonight after giving two-year-old daughter her bath, we watched the remnants of soap bubbles spiral down the drain. First it made a long, skinny funnel like a white soap-sud tornado; then it opened up a hollow and became a tiny Charybdis. Images of vast, delicate galaxies, cake batters stirred in the bowl, and hurricanes on the weather map all flitted past one another in my mind as we watched, and my heart thrilled to her chortles of joy in observing this beautiful thing.

Pleasant Moments

platonista — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 04:48:55 +0000

This blog is dedicated to pleasant moments and other things I’d prefer not to forget.