NASA finally asks for my help.

Posted in deprivation, experiments, Humor, Motherhood, mothers, Mountain life, NASA, Parenting, Relationships, Survival, Technology, Virginia, women by Shelley Sackier

“Hey, mom?” (daughter, Chloe, in kitchen)

“Uh huh?” (wordsmith, me, at desk)

“Would you like to do an experiment with me?”

One of my eyes strayed from my computer screen and glanced toward her school workspace. The eye noted no test tubes or beakers. The eye reported back to the brain a thumbs up sign.

“You bet.”

“Great,” she said. “You and I are going to go without chocolate for one week.”

“Sure thing … ” (type, tappity tap) “Wait—what?” Both eyes scanned kitchen. Found kitchen empty. “Chloe? … Damn.”

This has happened to me before. I have answered yes to buying a pony, sleepovers that require train travel across two states, the shaving off of one eyebrow and a small down payment on a developing goat herd in Uganda.

They know how to get me. As long as I’m writing, I’m cognizant of nothing apart from the cursor on the screen and how bitter my tea is becoming.

How in the hell was I going to survive without chocolate for seven days? I looked around my desk. There was chocolate everywhere. Having it near me brings a balm of comfort and serenity to my writing space.

Chocolate (Photo credit: EuroMagic)

I’d have to get rid of it.

Out of sight, out of mouth, right?

I could do this. It was probably for the good of science on the whole. I bet I’d be part of some study for NASA. Good for me. I’d show my support for Chloe, and science, and … space?

It didn’t matter. I loved challenge.

Day One: I made it through breakfast. In fact, I just ignored breakfast and got busy. Better not to think about food in general. I left the house for lunch. If I wasn’t at my desk, things would be a heck of a lot easier. After dinner Chloe checked in with me.

“How’d today go?”

“Not too bad. This might be pretty easy. I’m going to bed.”

“Mom? It’s 7 o’clock. The sun hasn’t even set.”

“Yep. But if I’m sleeping, then I won’t want to eat chocolate, okay? Goodnight.”

Day Two: Rising at 4 a.m. is fine if I have to catch a flight to a tropical island getaway, but getting out of bed simply to avoid dreaming about chocolate seemed somehow wrong. I ate a lot of brown food.

Day Three: “Mom?”

“Stop shouting at me!”

English: A small pad of Post-It notes. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Day Four: Post It Note: Dear Mom, It’s okay if you want to quit. You’ve made it through three whole days and I know that’s a lot for you. You’ve done great. Love, Chloe

Dear Chloe, Really? You’d just love that now, wouldn’t you? I’d be the laughing stock of everybody else who’s a part of this study. Chocoholic Mom can’t hack three days of deprivation. No way! I’m not going to be the butt of some joke down in Houston.

Dear Mom, I don’t know what you’re talking about. There is no study. It’s just you and me. Have a brownie.

Chloe, I don’t want a brownie. I want you to clean out the damn cat litter!

Day Five: Dear Chloe, I am writing this note to you on your bathroom mirror with your all-time favorite pink lipstick left in the pocket of your blue jeans, which I found just before washing them. I have repeatedly told you what to do before throwing things down the laundry chute, but it appears yo— … sorry, I ran out of lipstick and I’m now using the perfumed soap you got from G-ma at Christmas. CHECK YOUR POCKETS!

Day Six: Text from Chloe: Mom, there is no study. U r off the hook.

Text from me: Not on your life, kiddo! I refuse to abandon my duty to civilization. I know you’re supposed to be reporting back about my behavior and mood swings, and you’re probably going to tell all the people at the lab that your experiment had to be aborted because of some instability issues. That is not going to happen on my watch—NO WAY!

Text from Chloe: Can Dad pick me up after school?

Text from me: NASA just called and wanted to let me know I’m doing great as a test subject. They were ENCOURAGING. Unlike the scientist conducting the study.

Text from Chloe: Mom, u r delusional. There is no study.

Text from me: CONSPIRACY!!!

Text from Chloe: U need rest.

Text from me: I’ll tell you what I need. I need a family that’s going to pitch in when I ask them to! I need a cat that’s not going to vomit hairballs the size of Long Island! I need a dry cleaner that isn’t going to send me back a dress with two more stains on it than before I sent it in! I need an endless supply of orange juice pumped out of one of the kitchen faucets and hooked up to a pipe in Florida because I can’t keep up with the amount your brother is drinking! I need you kids to start picking up the books you toss onto every surface and leave for me to pick—

Message from AT&T: You have exceeded your monthly text allowance.

Day Seven: I did not get out of bed on day seven. Not even to pee.

Day Eight: My bowl of cereal was half a bag of Ghirardelli’s 60% cacao chocolate chips with chocolate milk poured over them.

I feel a lot better. Especially since I helped NASA figure out something space related. I’m sure it will eventually be revealed in a Reader’s Digest article, or I’ll see my results reported on the Discovery channel. I’ll probably be part of a documentary.

It was worth it if it meant I’ve aided mankind.

And you’re welcome.

~Shelley

Don’t forget to check out what’s cookin’ in the Scullery this week (here) and what we’re all talkin’ about down in the pub (here)!

26Aug2012

Make a wish …

Posted in Astronomy, Autumn, History, Humor, Motherhood, Mountain life, NASA, Parenting, Relationships, Science, Teens, Virginia, Wisconsin by Shelley Sackier

laying down on the job, in the middle of the road – _MG_0236 (Photo credit: sean dreilinger)

In memory of Neil Armstrong … our hero.

As a child, the most magical moments of my life were experienced lying flat on my back in the middle of a concrete road.

It was always pitch black, the night air cool, but you could still feel the warmth of the afternoon’s summer sun radiating from the asphalt below. I used to think the road soaked in the rays of sunlight during the day and held tightly to them until I spread out on its surface, and then offered up that heat to counteract the nip of nighttime air.

I’d bunch my hair behind my head, attempting a makeshift pillow so I could roll around comfortably on the gravely floor beneath me. Even so, after a moment or two, nothing short of someone wrenching an arm out of my socket in an effort to save me from becoming road pizza would bring me back to the present moment; that of four kids and their dad stargazing through the soft, magic nights of a Wisconsin summer.

English: This is a picture of Aurora Borealis from canada. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Mapping out the constellations, spotting faraway planets and staring slack-jawed at the aurora borealis, we swore we felt the earth spin and convinced ourselves how easy it could be to slide off and find our bodies propelled into the dizzy mess of twinkling stars.

I grew up with a thirst for the stories behind those skies: the tales of a fierce warrior chasing sisters across a width of space he would never lessen, a deadly scorpion hot on his heels, a great bear seeking revenge, a dragon wrapped around the celestial north pole—forever spinning, addled and delirious, and a horrifying hydra, snaking its way through the heavens.

It’s one thing to be the child, bewitched and wide-eyed with little knowledge to draw from, but an entirely unexpected feeling to be the adult, still in awe, but from the truth rather than mythology. As alluring as my world of made-up fable and folklore is, my own daughter—drawn by an unquenchable thirst for answers—is determined to pull the thin veil from my fiction to reveal the facts.

The Eagle Nebula M16 Peering Into the Pillars Of Creation (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

At times, it’s been easy to resist, as attempting to wrap my head around the concept of dark matter, bits about space/time continuum, or even something as basic as gravity has made my head spin and sucked the joy from learning. Although, I will admit there have been moments when I was caught up in the heart-swelling, soul-stirring splendor of seeing the birth of new stars or solar systems caught on camera by the type of paparazzi that come complete with PhDs in astrophysics or aeronautical engineering.

I can’t even pretend to follow my daughter when she begins waxing lyrical about the transit photometry program she’s involved in and will sheepishly admit she lost me on the first sentence of her explanation somewhere just after the word The. And when she grabs my hand and drags me out into the dark, insisting that we can’t miss the August Perseid display, I feel relief wash over me after she points to the heavens and alters her words to “meteor shower.”

As we lie on our backs and wait for the unearthly concert to begin, the soft chirp of crickets is a constant murmur like an audience rustling their programs and shuffling their feet. The waiting is similar to holding your breath under water and viewing the liquid world; so foreign and seductive, but temporary because you must resurface. Likewise, while stargazing, one can only go so long searching and studying before you absolutely must blink.

And a blink can be the entire lifespan of a meteor.

Perseus and Perseid Meteor (Photo credit: Dominic’s pics)

We lie side by side, quiet, but expectant. I hear her breathe and wonder if she’s counting the minutes until she, too, can join the rest of her people—those who have long ago figured out the secrets of their home and have grown tired of living there. Like a pining teen who longs for the sweet taste of independence, this teen’s first solo abode would be elsewhere in the universe rather than elsewhere in a university. It’s the same, but different.

I treasure those moments of unfettered joy when a streak of light with a tail half the length of the sky shoots past us; a snowball in space determined to break new records for both speed and allure. I am bereft of speech and look to my daughter. There are no words to describe such visions.

Except the ones that come to her easily. Like stumbling upon a book of illusions, the secrets are exposed with revealing illustrations and strip you of future goose bumps. I try to see the science as she does: a language sweet as poetry to her ears. But I miss my warriors, my dragons and sisters.

Vincent van Gogh: Starry Night Over the Rhone Arles, September 1888 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The two of us view the same stars, the same sky, the same vast and wondrous world.

It’s the same, but different. And beautiful.

~Shelley

Don’t forget to check out what’s cookin’ in the Scullery this week (here) and what we’re all talkin’ about down in the pub (here)!

22Jul2012

Fun family road trips; dead ends, dead fish and finding out you’re dead wrong.

Posted in College, Family, Humor, NASA, Parenting, Teens, travel by Shelley Sackier

Family road trips.

They seem like such a good idea inside your head. Your husband is driving, you’re navigating and pointing out roadside America or quoting notable historical tidbits, the kids are in the backseat working diligently at car bingo, and collecting waves from sleepy truckers as they barrel past, and everyone has to pee at exactly the same time.

In reality, my fourteen-year old son has secretly programmed the GPS to avoid all major roads, in particular any that post a speed limit over 25 mph, both kids are plugged into their iPods, Netflix and the comedy station on Pandora, all while texting with such speed their thumbs are a blur, and I’m driving so that Sir Sackier can work on his laptop. This was how we’d spend the next three days doing a few college tours before dropping off my mini NASA scientist for her three week stint immersed in quantum physics and special relativity. I have no idea what any of that is; I only know that it’s incredibly expensive to study, and because of it, we can no longer afford airline tickets until the year 2017.

Currently, I am the only person seeing the magnificent scenery I championed as a bonus to car travel.

“World’s Largest Walleye” (Photo credit: jcarwash31)

They’re missing out.

Anyone interested in stopping by the world’s biggest bathtub? Or would you like me to snap a photo of you in front of the nation’s oldest septic tank? How ‘bout we drive through the giant Ukrainian sausage?

Lookee there, that’s the most Styrofoam anyone has ever used to make a walleye.

Did anyone see that house made entirely out of beer cans? I didn’t think so.

They’re missing out.

Who’s going to choose where we eat for lunch? And no, I swear, if anyone suggests The Cracker Barrel one more time they’re going to be running alongside the car for the next hour. I say we find someplace local and charismatic.

No. We are not eating at a place called Buns & Guns.

(Photo credit: kalavinka)

Sorry, I’m drawing the line at restaurants that use toilet seats as dining chairs.

You’ve got to be kidding me. You want to eat at a place with a name like Pu Pu Hot Pot?

Ah, Sir Sackier? Are you listening to any of this? Have you heard the lunch selections?

(tappity tap tap tappity tap) Uh … anything is fine with me. Whatever you guys want. (tap tap tappity tap)

Alrighty then, Pu Pu Hot Pot it is.

Finding a hotel should be super simple, and it is. But finding a hotel that’s not indexed on BedBugRegistry.com is a near nightmare. Throw in the small wish for someplace where a wedding, bar mitzvah or middle school choir tour is not nesting is near impossible. With all the slamming doors, white kid rap and weeping, unmarried, middle-aged bridesmaids haunting the hallways, the only way one might manage sleep is if … nope, I’m coming up blank here.

Chicken Little (Photo credit: damonj74)

One night I’d almost gotten lucky enough to be knocked unconscious by a small chunk of the bedroom’s ceiling.

“Oh my God, the sky is falling!” I shouted at my husband, who was fortunate enough to be one ceiling tile farther away.

“Can you still see?” he mumbled groggily.

“I have no idea! It’s pitch black in here.”

He grabbed the debris, flung it on the floor and reached over to sleepily pat my shoulder. “Well, at least you can still hear. We’ll check out your vision in the morning.”

Celebrating a teenage boy’s birthday on the road proved a little more challenging than I thought. Lugging the extra bag with his presents wasn’t too bad, but forgetting wrapping paper left me scratching the side of my head in search of creativity.

Hotel towels, restaurant napkins, my tie-died yoga t-shirt and public restroom toilet paper all managed to do the trick.

Tacky? No doubt.

Resourceful? You betcha.

aquarium (Photo credit: cuatrok77)

Dinner was sushi, smack dab in the middle of land-locked Pennsylvania—fish capital of the U.S.

Entering the restaurant was somewhat surreal with the sleek and shiny, mirrored surfaces and the miles of neon light tubing filling up any space not occupied by a fish tank.

“I feel like I’m in a giant tanning bed,” my daughter whispered, her face glowing greener than Al Gore.

The food was first-rate, but it’s hard to get a good feeling about the authenticity of an Asian restaurant that’s run entirely by a couple named Abram and Sadie Hochstetler.

Much of the dinner discussion revolved around the colleges we’d spent the day touring and compiling a lists of the pros and cons of each school. How do you advise your child as to where they belong? Where they’ll find fulfillment and happiness in pursuit of learning? Where they’ll suceed in the search for a fine life?

We left the heavy dialogue behind and crossed the street to a place none of us had ever been, but each of us had poked fun at. Friendly’s. Where ice cream makes the meal. Or maybe where ice cream IS the meal.

(Photo credit: Swamibu)

It seemed like a fine place to cap off a birthday celebration.

The menu was extensive, the wait staff, more than true to the restaurant’s name. How could people be that happy in a dead-end job, accomplishing nothing more than adding to the nation’s ever-expanding waistline? But it was hard not to notice our waiter’s genuine enthusiasm.

Before the bill came, we spent the last few minutes lecturing our children about the importance of a good education so that they’d have options and not be limited by low hourly wages.

Our waiter presented us the bill. Sir Sackier tilted his head and then pointed to the young man’s forearm. A Hebrew biblical verse was tattooed from wrist to elbow.

“That’s interesting,” my husband said.

The waiter pivoted to flash us his other arm. “I’ve another one here in English.”

“How come?” my son said.

The waiter smiled. “It’s a conversation starter. I like to talk about my faith.”

“Then why not go into the ministry?” I asked.

“I have. I’m a pastor, just like my father. I went to college to study religion and found I needed something more.”

My daughter looked at him and smiled. “And you found it at a Friendly’s?”

The guy beamed. “I sure did. Best job I’ve ever had. I really found where I fit in, but mostly, where I’m needed.”

I think we all left that evening humbled, but more importantly, we carried home a few valuable lessons:

#1. Hard work is not hard work at all if you love where you are and what you do.

#2. The Amish really know their sushi.

#3. You’ve truly not experienced life until you’ve driven through a giant Ukrainian sausage.

~Shelley

Don’t forget to check out what’s cookin’ in the Scullery this week (here) and what we’re all talkin’ about down in the pub (here)!

18Mar2012

Holy Cow

Posted in Cooking, Humor, Men, Mountain life, NASA by Shelley Sackier

Watching my husband cook is a little like being in a car with him as he’s behind the wheel. You’re never quite certain if you’ll be arriving at the intended destination. There’s a lot of closing your eyes to the sights in front of you and whispering prayers to any and all deities listening.

Walking into the kitchen while he’s hard at work will have you looking for the yellow and black tape, for the room should be partitioned off as a crime scene. Pots are upended, knives scattered across countertops, drops of unidentifiable liquid are splattered across cabinets and walls, and inevitably, several things gave up their life in the making of this meal.

That said, you are drawn in by the smells emanating from the nine or ten pots burbling on the stove where rattling lids spew a torrent of steam that would make a Turkish bath nod with approval.

On one occasion, after closing the front door and hanging up my coat, I followed strains of Bollywood music to the kitchen. The scene unfolded to reveal Sir Sackier with a wooden spoon in one hand and a martini in the other.

“What are you making?” I asked, looking around at the contents of my entire kitchen spread out on the counters like we’re having a rummage sale. I’ve always told myself not to panic at this point; keep a calm face.

“If it is pleasing you, I am to be making the salt beef,” came the reply in a brilliant imitation of Peter Sellers in The Party.

I looked at the glass in his hand to determine just how far into the martini he’d gotten. “How’s it coming?”

“Most fine it is, to be certain.”

Sadly, I was not.

I saw the prep work that went into the making of this salt beef. Yes, it had all the regular bits and pieces: brisket, bay leaves, peppercorns and garlic, but it had one extremely worrying component—something I’ve never used before, mostly because it should be outlawed. Salt petre. Also known as Potassium Nitrate.

Most folks don’t use it for cooking anymore—not because it’s ineffective, but rather because it raises a few red flags when purchasing. Not only does it help pickle your brisket, but if you have any leftover, you can make fertilizer, explosives or solid rocket propellants. The dream kitchen created by NASA.

I looked into the Crockpot. Yum, gunpowder stew.

Knowing how long this chunk of beef spent in a briny solution of salt, salt and more salt, I was fairly positive we would be sitting down to a dinner of a large brown salt lick with a side of carrots.

But holding a plateful beneath my nose, the smells of beef, onions, carrots, celery and aromatic spices pushed aside any misgivings I’d had. The taste was out of this world.

This was a dish only the perfect Jewish Englishman channeling another Jewish Englishman channeling a Continental Indian could pull off. Truly a miracle.

And just like Sir Sackier’s car journeys, which can only be likened to the psychedelic boat ride from Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, his culinary destinations land you in a place unscathed, converted and more than willing to purchase a ticket for the next time.

For Sir Sackier’s Salt Beef recipe click here or go to the Scullery and scroll down to British, Brackish Brisket.

~Shelley

Don’t forget to check out what’s cookin’ in the Scullery this week (here) and what we’re all talkin’ about down in the pub (here).

11Mar2012

Fake, Folly or For Real?

Posted in Architecture, Folklore, History, Humor, Mountain life, Nature, Scotland, Virginia by Shelley Sackier

For all my talk these last couple of weeks about the wicked wind and how it’s left my brain addled from its overzealous quest to uproot any unnecessary trees from the mountaintop, personal safety has never been an issue. As long as we stay indoors. In fact, I sometimes even get a little smug about it.

Picture the three little pigs and the big bad wolf. Look down the line from pig to pig until you see the porcine smile that I’ve come to perfect. It’s the last guy in the row. I’ve no snub-tipped turned up snout or floppy ears to frame my face. The thing we share in common—the thing that spreads the smirk of self-congratulations over our features—is that we both live in a pile of organized rubble.

Pig number three was, if you recall, a fairly suave fellow who chose to invest in the safety of his future. I’m not so sure we could say our choice to build the bastion we live in was so much a conscious one as it was one of opportunity. When we first investigated the land we hoped to build on, we all noticed the abundance of “unforgiving soil.” Using our available resources, building a stone house from the bedrock it would perch on seemed a very green thing to do, plus any locals we ran into who knew of our desire to build up here advised us to “build a brick sh*t house if we hoped to keep it standing.” Sound advice.

Well, when all was said and done, there were a few piles of leftover materials that I refused to have carted away. The look I received from most of the cleanup crew was akin to that when I tried to train my dog to sing in Spanish. Just a slight cocking of the head.

“You sure you wanna have all them there rocks pilin’ up round the place? You got youngins and them piles is like puttin’ up a big ol’ welcome sign for a mess a snakes. What you tryin’ to build up here—Gibraltar?” (Insert snort here.)

I smiled, knowing that whatever I said would never sound sensible enough. “I’m sure we’ll figure out what to do with the rocks.”

“Rocks? Them’s no rocks, them’s boulders.”

I nodded and watched all the trucks slowly leave with everything except them boulders.

Then for the next six months I heard my husband make little tutting noises every time we passed by the piles or someone happened to mention them, wondering what they were for.

For the next year after that, I didn’t exactly see any snakes, but I sure felt them writhe around in my stomach when trying to hatch a believable plan for their future.

Landscapers secretly gave me the ‘crazy lady’ label and would turn to my husband to make sure he knew that if we expected their company to move the stones anywhere on the property, it would cost the equivalent of a new section for International Space Station.

In truth, my husband knew what I wanted to do with them. He’d spent enough time with me in the UK to realize any trip to his homeland would be structured around as many stone circles as I could manage to visit.

Yes, I’m thoroughly besotted with them, mesmerized beyond any other great wonder of the world. Put me next to the Sphinx, Chichen Itza, or the London sewerage system’s original Abbey Mills pumping station and I can’t help but wish I was standing instead amid the fragmented remains of a few jagged rocks specifically placed for a purpose no one can be quite certain of today.

Sure the other grand structures are jaw dropping and eye popping, but they’ve all been figured out. Their functions were described in great details by wall carvings, cave paintings and city architectural plans filed in drawers labeled possible cures for cholera. Stone circles are a planetary puzzle. It’s almost as if every culture that ever built one of them tossed the instruction pamphlets away after a couple of years during spring cleaning because to them it was totally obvious what the formations were for.

One day, this conundrum that’s left so many folks either duplicating them in their back garden, or scratching the sides of their heads contemplating their purpose, will be solved by some young whippersnapper. He’ll make the grand revelation that actually these circles were simply each community’s recycling center, or chain coffee shop, or that here was the village’s last Truffula tree. Maybe it was simply a grand distraction from whatever people were not supposed to see. Who knows?

The things that are clear to me can fit into a tidy little list of Thing One and Thing Two.

I have to do something similar, create my own Stonehenge—albeit on a very very small scale because even though NASA’s budget is now akin to my monthly grocery bill, I still cannot afford some grand landscaping extravaganza.
The need to make some sort of stone arrangement is so strong and unexplainable it falls into the realm of curious. I can’t not do it.

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And maybe the architects of those ancient communities felt the same way. It’s a little like Alice in Wonderland once she fell down the rabbit hole. With or without the Drink me label, she’d probably have done it anyway. It was obvious and it needed to be done. Or just like the habit to both fish and foul the Thames, there’d be a giant “Aha” moment coming to somebody eventually. Until then, we’ll all just wait and make pretty stone gardens, hoping someone will discover the instruction pamphlet.

~Shelley

Don’t forget to check out what’s cookin’ in the Scullery this week (here) and what we’re all talkin’ about down in the pub (here).