Citrus Soup: Just Another Manic Monday

Having worked through part of my winter break, I took Monday off to have some fun with Karen and Jasper. Bad timing. The little guy was in rare form virtually all day. He fussed, screamed, belted out new guttural sounds at top volume, and he tried to perform every Olympic gymnastic event (requiring frequent assistance, considering his general immobility). Are we entering a new period, an early terrible two's? Or, is it just another manic Monday? (whoa whoa). As a precautionary measure, we picked up a case of Yuengling cans to hunker down for a long winter of discontent. (does he look all coked up to you?)


Over the weekend, Karen was up in DC helping her BFF Corbin give birth. They had it all planned out with a mid-wife and everything. First is was gonna be a home birth. But, after lots of timing issues, it became a natural birthing center birth. But, after Corbin hit an emotional and physical wall, it became a hospital birth with an epidural. (contrast those baby faces? What a difference 9 months makes - Jasper's age, yall)

Then, after too much time had elapsed and the baby officially needed to be gotten out of there, and maybe the baby's heart-rate slowed a bit, "it" became a 8.3 lb baby boy named Everette Maxwell Goldstein. Sounds like a lawfirm, don't it? Not like Jasper Diego, international playboy.


It seems Jasper was totally fascinated with his eventual playmate and wanted nothing more than to touch the little baby bundle. He made excited sounds when he saw Everette, kinda like he does with our pug, Frankie. But, Karen made Jasper keep his hands to himself, as he tends to claw the ones he loves and grab and twist things like ears and nostrils, lips, etc. I told you he's totally off the wall, right? (that's Barbara, Corbin's mom, now a new grandmother)


Just in time to deal with Jasper's spastic rage-aholic outbursts, we converted a corner of the living room to a freakin' awesome play area. All it took was a a trip to Ikea and about $150 or so. The big addition is that wood shelf with pull out plastic tubs. We expect he'll turn that angst into creativity in this spot, maybe learning to crawl. The pillows are there to keep him from knocking his head against the cast iron baseboard heaters. Can you see an outburst beneath the surface of this simmering pot of sour crab apples? Momentarily, Jasper will have all of the toys out of the drawers and alternating them in and out of his mouth.


Speaking of food, Karen decided to make a weird dish to go along with our weird day. This soup is a twist on your standard carrot ginger. It's also got loads of orange zest and yogurt in it. Before serving, she topped it with pickled ginger slices. It's from this evidently unpopular and out of print cookbook that we got from Marshalls, but I couldn't find the recipe online (this looks kinda close). To make matters more bizarre, we had this soup with sourdough toast topped with cheddar cheese. Ginger and cheddar is kind of a strange combo (on paper), but it was still delicious (I dunked repeatedly). After dinner, I tried to reward Karen for pacifying hurricane Jasper. I poured her a snifter with a couple glugs of brandy and a few drops of this homemade additive plus a bit of agave nectar. She liked it, but didn't finish it. I'm working on it now.


Jenny McCarthy warned us in her book, Belly Laughs. The chapter was titled, "www.ihavetostopbuyingbabyshit.com". Well, now we've got baby clutter everywhere. And that means storage (which, in turn means Ikea). You've seen the toy corner solution. Well, here's the everything else solution. Despite polishing off the vanilla brandy concoction, I managed to put this piece of Ikea furniture together after everyone else went to sleep. The shelf was $80, plus the baskets, and then these unfinished feet from Lowes were an unexpected expense. That box sticking out of the middle cubby contains parts for two really slick looking slide out drawers. The directions were just a bit more involved that I cared to attempt at midnight. But, at least I can tell Karen that I "put the drawers in." See? They're in.