A wasted inspiration.

I guess looking back I should have known that taking cooking advice from the New York Times might not be the best idea. And on top of that from a guy who calls himself The Minimalist. But, boy did it look good on the web. Or maybe it was just because I was hungry at the time? So here is how it unfolded. I watched a video segment about how to make short ribs braised with chilies and coffee. What got me hooked was that he said that it was the dish he makes when he wants to tell someone that he loves them (I really hope they have low cholesterol or no plans for the rest of their lives). So, with Valentine’s Day coming up he had my attention. But it was the closing line that really took the cake – Chocolate is for wusses. I thought it would be the perfect dish since my wife relies on chocolate for survival and I am very impartial to meat. So I got inspired, and I chopped those onions like I’ve never chopped before. And what a waste of five hours it was. What’s worse, is the total waste of a valentines day dinner, with built up expectations and the perfect behavior of our daughter, who let us “enjoy” the ribs for as long as we could stand chewing the fat (and I mean the real cow fat, nothing proverbial here). So reserved to sour cream and onions Pringles (my wife Valentine’s present for me) to get of the taste of braised fat.

I have to take some blame though. I think I violated one of the most basic rules of cooking – start with good ingredients. I should have gone to a butcher store and got short ribs with meat on them. Or better yet bought a pound of rich creamy chocolate – if you are going to clog up your arteries at least you don’t have to wait that long. And that is what we are about – instant gratification.

Oh, yeah, I just realized that there was nothing about my daughter – well she is still cute.

Who's really done?

Disclaimer: To best enjoy this post open links in a new window.

We've been watching this commercial with Brady Quinn, where he is supposedly working out with very dramatic light, but at the end he says into the camera Now I'm done.

Well, we really did not think he looked all that Done so Maya directed and acted out her own

Now I'm really done!

She does not stop amazing me

I was flipping through the channels and came up on the Matrix playing on American Movie Classics channel. It has a certain sentimental value to us – we met the weekend Matrix was released. I tuned in at the point in the movie before the Dojo fight and so, excited, I looked over at my wife and said “You know what’s coming, right?” Without missing a bit she replied “Jesus?”

Theatre

I realized that one of the things I can do while walking around with Maya in a sling while I am trying to put her to sleep is to talk into a voice recorder on my mp3 player. I have not succumbed to the iPod infestation and am personally using the French dinosaur Archos – a mean looking square thing that can be used in hand to hand combat due to its weight, but also has a capacity to store up to 20Gb of crap on its hard drive. I think I bought it back when some morons started saying Freedom Fries to show the world how they felt. I, on the other hand, bought a French mp3 player. I would have bought a Renault too, but first it is too much of a hassle to import, and second, do they really need all those letters? I am sure Jean Reno would have never been cast in Ronin if he used that spelling. When I bought the mp3 player I really did not think I would be using it as a dad.

So here I am walking around my house talking into a voice recorder reflecting on the news on the dad front. Recently Maya and I started doing a little theatre. She now has more and more time that she is awake and is not pissed off and screaming and so naturally I am trying to take advantage of those moments to entertain myself. So what we do is a little singing and dancing. I sit on the floor (the lower I am the less she’ll fall in case of “holy crap”) with my back against a wall or a couch, bend my knees up to create a “V” and put her in that “V” facing me. Sometimes her feet get cold because she is still not down with the whole shoes and socks thing, so I have to hide them under my shirt. And then I usually do the singing like the responsible parent I am, but since I feel like she should do something to participate I let her do the dancing. And when I say that I “let her do the dancing” what I mean is that I move her arms for her. Charlie Harper on Two and a Half Men (the best writing on TV) said that while dancing “the more you move your arms the more stupid you look” but I am sure it does not apply to 5 week old babies having their arms moved for them while they are trying not to spit up on their fathers. And it looks comical enough to satisfy this twisted mind of mine. Sometimes we even try to do the “Wave” and so far there were no dislocated shoulders. The latest piece we have been working on is a version of Joe Cocker “You are so beautiful” that goes like that (try to sing in the strained falsetto so adored by children)
You are so beautiful
To me
You are so beautiful
To me
Can't you see
I made you out of spermies
I mixed a little egg
You are so beautiful
To me.

Note that this song states clearly that I had a lot to do with the Maya being born. Damn, I provided both parts and labor. Dads rock!

Porky baby

To alleviate another round of concerns about our daughter’s development we went for a weight check. The doctor said we could “come to use the scale at any time” but my wife, in accordance with her German genes, wanted to make an appointment. And so we did make an appointment. I guess the difference is that I wanted to come to use the scale while the medical staff thought that like every appointment this one will have to start with 40 minutes of waiting. Interestingly enough, my wife did not really care about the wait – they had some books in the weighting area, and some were pretty thick so she was happy. I, on the other hand, just like Inigo Montoya, hate wait, and the cute receptionist can keep my ADHD under control for only 8 seconds. But enough introduction – the nurse finally came out and called us in. Well, she did not call us, she came out and said “Maya T?” I did not really expect Maya to answer it (and not because she was strapped in her car seat with a pacifier in her mouth) so we had to improvise. I like how they emphasize that Maya is the client in the pediatric establishment. Bottom line – we did get to use the scale. And the answer is … (drum roll, please) she gained 24 ounces in 17 days! And we were worried she is not eating enough. My baby is right on schedule to join the rest of the American children in a fight for childhood obesity – funny how an anxious mind can switch an object of worrying in one second. The truth is she would have gained 24 ounces if we did not have to wait so long because while we were waiting Maya moved three of the ounces into her diaper (I am sure you can figure out how two nerds like us know the exact weight of the diaper). But since we had to wait the official weight gain is only 21 ounces. And in my book it is still pretty porky. Clearly we are very happy with her getting bigger and my wife says we have more of her to love – only blood diamonds come in small packages.