Hep Cat Daddy-O

Staying home, watching Sponge Bob

2008-06-23T19:28:00.004-06:00

This afternoon, Sarah had to go to the social security office to try and figure out a problem we are having with her student loans. There is some problem with the name on her ss card not matching up with the name the student loan application. edit (the Federal student loan application had Sarah's name as Williams Sarah, it was probably my fault)

E. wasn't feeling well so I stayed home with her. We layed on the couch watched Sponge Bob. I'm sorry E wasn't feeling well, but this is one of my favorite things to do; watching cartoons with the kids.

For a few weeks in when C. was five, every day when I came home from school, we would lie on the couch and watch the Lion King. It may not be long until I am the only one in the house watching cartoons, but until then, its nice haveing this time with them.

Grills and Hula

2008-06-17T00:57:00.005-06:00

The kids bought me a grill for fathers day. Simon picked it out. It is the same round kettle type grill that my own father had when I was a kid. It was nice of them.

Today I made everyone hamburgers. I haven't done much grilling lately. We had a grill in Phoenix but it was left behind when I went back to school. And besides, my old grill was a propane and didn't require as much finesse as cooking over coals. Most of my experience in cooking with fire has involved cooking things at the end of a stick, or rehydrating a foil packet beef stroganoff food when I go backpacking.

So, it took some practice. A third of the meat fell through the grill and burned up on the coals; a third became charred, but the rest was pretty good. I know that food cooked over coals is full of carcinogens, but I do love the taste of a good burger and mmm-mmmm. That was a tasty burger.

While I was cooking diner, Sarah and the kids were making hula hoops out of lengths of irrigation tubing. Sarah, saw a guy at the farmers market selling them and was inspired to make some herself.

Sarah is learning relearning the technique, but the kids are naturals. I offered to count how many times C., my youngest, could hula. She finally stopped at 540 when she needed to scratch and itch on her arm.

-Hep Cat

And a Marshmallow Runs Through It.

2008-06-16T02:30:00.006-06:00

I'm starting this blog on Father's Day. Well, 1:30 in the morning after father's day. My daughter E. woke me up with breakfast in bed. Soon afterwards C. and S. came in with some homemade cards.

It was a good day. I love my kids, and it is fun to watch them grow up. I am fortunate in having three kids who are already better in me in many ways. It is easy to be proud of them. As they get older they are developing tastes and styles that are uniquely their own, and not merely copies of what their mom and dad like. This really struck me a few weeks ago when I took my kids up my family's cabin.

My Grandparents bought a cabin up the canyon from Oakly, Utah in the late '70. It has only three rooms, a fireplace, running water, and a porch that looks over the river. There isn't a TV, and internect connection, or even a cell phone signal. The kids and I go up a few times a year. So far we only have two traditions, cooking hot dogs over the fire and making smores. And lately, my son has become somewhat of an artist.

Just last year, every time the kids put a marshmallow near the fire, it would instantly erupt into a ball of flame followed by shrieks of joy, frantic waving of the stick through the air, and a joint effort among the three of them to blow it out. Within seconds all that was left was a piece of char with a sticky center. I tried to show them the proper way to do it; but through mouths full of ash and goo, they assured me that this was the way they liked it. So, I returned to I focusing on ensuring that they didn't set fire to the house or eachother.

With time, S. developed his own style. At first he would slide a piece of chocolate into the middle of the marshmallow, and then toast it over the fire. The result was a confection of toasted sugar with a hot, melty chocolate center. Before, the marshmallow often didn't get hot enough to melt the chocolate in any meaningful way, but this was delicious. I began to follow his example.

This last time we went, Simon focused on perfectly toasting his marshmallow. It took some practice, but he developed a technique for perfectly toasting every side. I usually get tan spots on one or two sides of my marshmallow, this was beyond that. Some how he had managed to develop a thick, chewy, golden crust on every part of the marshmallow. The inside was just this smooth molten liquid.

After eating a few, he offered to make me one. He brought it out to me on the porch, and we sat on the swing and listened to the river.

As I ate the best piece of food involving a marshmallow I had eaten in my entire junk food swilling life. He said, "I think people who like smores just don't know how to toast a good marshmallow."

In Norman Maclean's book "A River Run's Through It", the author talks about the sense of pride and awe that he felt when he saw his brother break away from his father's "Presbyterian" method of fly fishing to developer his own style which he called Rainbow Casting. He said that at that moment he knew that his brother Paul was an artist.

Roasting a marshmallow may not seem like art, but I think it can be, and this is just the beginning. I can't wait to see what they do over the next few years. It's going to be fun.