La Quinceañera

Today, Fiona gets on a bus and starts the two day drive to Mexico, where, along with a contingent of people from my sister Betsy and sister Cindy's church, she will spend a week working at the Casa Hogar Elim orphanage in Nuevo Laredo on the U.S./Mexico border. Here is the church's 2008 Mission Trip booklet, which includes pictures of the children and the orphanage and outlines what to expect on the trip.

Fiona's birthday is on Sunday, which means she will be turning fifteen just as she crosses the Mexican border.

Mexico, of course, like many of the other Latin American countries, makes a special celebration of a girl's fifteenth birthday, La Quinceañera. It seems to be a melding of Spanish and native cultures, perhaps even harking back to Aztec customs, and is both a religious occasion and a chance to throw a great party. Since there is a religious component (often a special Mass), the godparents are heavily involved in the celebration. Our next door neighbors are originally from Mexico, and we watched them prepare for months for their daughter's La Quinceañera.

The instructions for preparing for the Mexico trip included to bring a special outfit because the orphanage would be celebrating the La Quinceañera celebration for six girls while the group is there. I wonder if they will tell them that Fiona has just turned fifteen, so she might get a little honor, too. It makes me sad to be apart from her for such a milestone birthday, but I'm proud of the work she's going to do, and my wistfulness is leavened by the fact that my sister Betsy is also on the trip. She shares Fiona's March 30 birthday and was present in the delivery room at her birth, and she is Fiona's godmother. So. . . a godparent will be with her at her La Quinceañera.

La Quinceañera is understood by many to be an acknowledgment that a young girl is now becoming a woman. Last weekend, at Minicon, Rob was sitting by the pool with Greg Ketter (owner of Dreamhaven books). Greg watched as Fiona swam with the rest of the kids, cavorting in the water like a happy, lithe otter, utterly oblivious, no doubt, to the rather stunning effect caused by the intersection of her swimming suit with her blossoming figure. "You know," Greg said, turning to Rob and remarking in a deadpan voice, "you are in sooooooooooo much trouble."

Happy birthday, my darling Fiona, growing up so fast and turning out so beautifully. And I offer up, for what seems like the millionth time, a prayer of heartfelt thanks and gratitude for Dr. Loie Lenarz, who saved your life before you were even born (a million blessings be on her head). I can't imagine what my life would have been like without you to show me the many joys of motherhood.

Writer's Block: Sharing is Caring

Interesting. LJ publishes writing prompts every day. Might be useful.

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I can't imagine sharing my toothbrush with anyone else. Urgh.

Chocolate insanity

I usually have a small amount of dark chocolate every day. My habit is to have a smidgen right after lunch: one dark Dove square, for example, or four dark chocolate espresso coffee beans. Just having a small bit, but having it every day, usually keeps the chocolate craving entirely manageable.

Not this week. Oy. Yesterday, I ate lunch, and then overcome with mad cravings, went down to the Spoon River Restaurant, where I know that they have a take-out refrigerator near the register. Found a single serving Ben and Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream, bought it, and scarfed it down.

This was not enough.

Then I prowled over to Caribou Coffee where I purchased a tin of Bittersweet Chocolate Wedges (70% Cacao). Usually, one of these will last me over a week.

I ate the whole thing, 50 grams of dark chocolate.

The carnage didn't end there. When I got home, I fell upon the package of Dove Dark Chocolate Easter Eggs left over from the girls' Easter baskets. I blush to tell you how many eggs my inner Mongo devoured. And that still wasn't enough!

At 11:00 p.m., I wandered into the kitchen and cut a healthy piece of the (chocolate) pudding pie Delia had baked and put into the refrigerator.

Today, it has been half of a chocolate muffin. When I say "half," this means twice what you should actually eat; it's one of those hugely oversized chocolate-muffins-on-steroids, like something from Panera.

I must stop the madness somehow.

*Ponders.* It's cyclical, really; it's just particularly bad this month. Things should settle down in about a week. Well, taking out everything having anything to do with my endocrine system might help, but that seems a tad extreme.

It may also be a subtle indication that I'm perhaps just a wee bit stressed right now. Just a bit.

Domestic Delia

Delia has always been the much more domestic of our two girls. I mean, this is a girl who within one week of getting her iPod had discovered and downloaded all the Cook's Illustrated podcasts and soon was seriously discussing the relative merits of various brands of cookware. She loves to make cakes and bread (which reminds me: she's been complaining again that OMIGOD she is out of YEAST, which is a CATASTROPHE and if I know what's good for me I'll make sure we get that on the next grocery shopping list). She has been busily exploring all my various linens I got for my wedding and even the linens I inherited from my grandmother, and frequently over the past month I've come home to find that she has nicely set the table with a whole other set of place mats and matching napkins and plates that it hadn't occurred to me to use for ten years. Or she'll have the table set for tea, using my Nana's tea set.

She is sewing all sorts of things. She is making beautiful jewelry. She is knitting. One of her birthday presents for her sister was a knitted cell phone case which was just so cute I just about exploded.

Cooking, other than baking, is rather problematic. She is extremely interested in cooking, and goes through and marks up all sorts of cookbooks--but her tastes are whimsical when it comes right down to making things. One of the side effects of some medication she is taking, I think, is that things sometimes taste weird, and her appetite is unpredictable. She is, as we have previously noted, a supertaster, and she is also extremely sensitive to textures, and she'll reject something if it feels "weird" in her mouth.

She is leaning, again, to wanting to be a vegetarian. Her reasons are mostly philosophical (loves animals, doesn't want to eat them) and her revulsion for the texture of meat is growing. Except she still ALSO has revulsion for many cooked vegetables. We are having a great deal of trouble identifying protein sources which she will deign to eat, which has meant (esp. since she's as skinny as a rail) that she's been troubled a great deal by hypoglycemic incidents this spring, especially after intense karate classes.

Does any one know of a, say a cooking class locally (not too expensive) to suggest for say, parents of kids, when the kid wants to become a vegetarian? I know a lot, more than most parents about vegetarianism, but I must admit, I'm somewhat stymied by Delia's endlessly changing reactions to tastes and textures--trying to keep her nutrition adequate on a vegetarian diet that she will EAT is like trying to hit a swiftly moving target. Or does anyone know any skilled vegetarian cooks who might be willing to tutor an eager-to-learn kid who is, really, quite a good cook already, but just needs to be shown the ropes on vegetarian cooking?

I just found Compassionate Cooks podcast, a vegetarian podcast, and told her about it, and she's gone ahead and subscribed to it on iTunes. Other thoughts, anyone?

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