A point for Gryffindor

Always one to eschew a bandwagon, I’d managed to evade Harry Potter mania for the better part of thirteen years. But last year, after repeated [failed] attempts at trying to entice the Gort into reading Little House on the Prairie with me, I gave up and pulled out a used copy of the Philosopher’s Stone instead.

For a week or two we’d gather in my room before bedtime while I read one chapter aloud. Usually with the two younger boys bouncing on the bed or talking loudly while the professor dozed, soothed by my excellent reading voice.

Less than 90 pages into the story, I abandoned Operation Hogwarts; finding it impossible to read with the littlest two hanging around or carve out time to read with just the Gort.

Nine months later, I dug the book out of the recesses of my closet and we picked up where we left off. [Harry hadn't even made it to the School of Wizardry yet.]

I read a chapter or two with just the Gort….and then we moved to house number three and poor Harry still hadn’t made it to Hogwarts. A week passed and I vowed to finish the book once and for all. So we read another chapter together, and the next morning I walked into the kitchen and found the Gort sitting at the table with the book in front of him. I guess he’d done the math and realized – at the pace we were going – that the book wouldn’t be finished….until Percy turned 8.

Three days later he’d achieved mission impossible and finished the book-that-could-not-be-read. I assured him I would find a copy of the eleven year old movie, because I’d said all along that he could watch the first Harry Potter movie when he turned eight (after he’d read the book). I don’t really know why I’d said eight, but I did and he’d been asking me and reminding me for nearly a year. Even the Hen was in on it: ‘when Gaga turns eight, he can watch Harry Potter.’

And then, on the appointed Saturday night, I suddenly remembered that I had two other not-eight-years-old children and what was I going to do with them while my firstborn and I watched a movie?

So I did what I’d vowed never to do – I let the younger siblings have the same privileges as the oldest sibling, with no regard for age or hierarchy. [Am I the only one who harbored bitterness because my younger sister and I had the same curfew when we were still living at home? Really, what is the benefit of being the oldest sibling if the younger ones get to do everything you get to do with far less life experience under their belt?]

The four of us sat down and watched the (rather long) movie despite the fact that two of us did not meet the minimum age requirement and had not made any attempt to read the book. (In fact, it could be said, they’d actually sabotaged the reading of the book.)

We got to the scene with the Quidditch match between Slytherin and Gryffindor; when the Gort’s enthusiasm for all things Hogwarts reached new heights. ‘Ten points for Gryffindor!’ he crowed enthusiastically, as though he had a personal investment in their success. This did not escape the professor’s attention as he toiled in front of his laptop. ‘How come you won’t watch sports with me, but you get all excited about a game that isn’t even real,’ he complained from his kitchen office.

Finally, after enduring trolls and unicorns and Voldemort hiding underneath Professor Quirrell’s turban, the movie ended. The Gort was not happy. ‘But I wanted to see the part where Harry goes to the Weasley’s house,’ he protested, feeling cheated by the movie’s omission of such a ‘critical’ scene.

‘The movie is never as good as the book,’ I delivered the bad news.

Several days later, the eight year old stomped in through the back door after a disagreement with the Coach-Professor, during a round of soccer drills at ‘Coach Jason’s Soccer Academy’.

‘He’s meaner than Marcus Flint,’ the boy wailed unhappily about his coach-father. ‘Who’s Marcus Flint,’ I asked, suppressing a smile at the suspected literary reference. ‘He’s the chaser for Slytherin,’ the boy reminded-explained.

It was the ultimate insult.

The Art of Kijiji

House number 3, our latest in a string of Calgary abodes, is lovely in many respects. A nice backyard for the boys to run around in while screaming at the top of their lungs – much to our new neighbours’ chagrin, I’m sure. There is sufficient light in the house so as to allow me to take pictures of the boys when they’re doing ‘adorable’ things like filling the bathroom sink with water and using straws to blow bubbles.

But, and there’s always a but, there’s a teensy drawback: the large basement is entirely without storage space. No closets, no shelves, just one long skinny room with greige carpet. Ta-da.

‘Do you need me to help you unpack,’ one friend asked; mildly horrified by the state of the below – brown boxes everywhere, some open, some empty, some with contents spilling onto the floor. ‘There’s nowhere to put the stuff,’ I explained, hoping to convince her we weren’t candidates for an episode of ‘Hoarders’.

I turned to Kijiji, in the hopes that somebody, somewhere in southwest Calgary, was hoping to part with an assortment of storage solutions for the winter gear, books, office knickknacks and bins of Christmas decorations we seem to bring with us wherever we go.

There wasn’t, as it turns out.

Within five minutes of searching, I learned two things about this website where other people always seem to get great things at great prices. First, I’m convinced there are people who do nothing but stalk the website all day long, hitting refresh every 2.5 seconds and pouncing on any advertised bookshelves or other semi-attractive storage solutions. That cute red bookshelf that was listed ‘less than 12 minutes ago’? Gone. Snapped up by a Kijiji hawk. No shelf for you, unmotivated person who refuses to sit in front of a computer for days on end until the right item appears.

Second, Kijiji is the internet’s version of Lake Wobegon: ‘where all the furniture is like new, where nothing has been used more than a handful of times, and everything is valued at 90% of the original price paid.’

Even if the item in question was bought…six years ago. One woman advertised her two year old IKEA sofa with the line: ‘has only been sat on twice.’ Literally. Two times. In two years.

Even if the statement was remotely accurate, I do not wish to pay 90% of the original sales price for any used items from that blue and yellow warehouse. If I’m buying IKEA, I’d rather buy it brand new with the hopes of somewhat extending its no more than four years shelf life.

So I gave up, after scouring ten pages’ worth of advertisements for leather couches and dining sets. But not before my eye landed on a picture of a small velvet sofa for the low, low price of $20.

I’ve been on a velvet sofa kick for a while now, faithfully pinning pictures of other people’s adorable vintage couches to my Pinterest board; swooning over airy Brooklyn apartments with exposed brick walls and green velvet encased sofas as featured on Design Sponge.

So I emailed the seller of the $20 sofa, and he said I could have it, and I dispatched the professor to load the two-seater into our rusty Venture. The professor, who rolled his eyes at my impulse buy, muttering about how he thought ‘we were looking for shelves, not sofas.’

He brought the brownish beige gem home with a frown upon his face. ‘One of the legs is broken,’ he announced-accused when he walked through the door. ‘It cost twenty dollars,’ I reminded him, my mind clouded with visions of the couch transformation I would oversee: re-upholster in a dusky blue velvet, remove the old-fashioned skirt around the bottom edge and add a pair of chic new legs.

Never mind the fact that this would set me back considerably more than the initial $20 outlay. And by ‘considerably more’, I mean: the price of a brand new couch.

Pastry Night

I’d stopped at a local Mexican grocery store last week to buy some tortillas. As luck would have it, I timed my visit to coincide with empanada night. I’d had the bison spelt empanadas on a previous occasion and couldn’t leave the store without a little to-go container of bison spelt goodness. When I got home, I sat at the table to tuck into my snack and the ghosts of dinners past gathered round. ‘I want some, I want some, I want some’ they chorused in triplicate.

My two not-exactly-huge empanadas dwindled into a few measly bites for me. The thing I found interesting is that these empanadas were spicy – made with chipotle peppers, burn your mouth spicy. ‘I need water,’ the Gort gasped and alternated taking bites of the bison filled pastry with long drinks of water. ‘My mouth.is.on.fire.’

Still, they ate my empanadas and that’s how tonight’s dinner was borne.

I had ground bison in the freezer. I looked up a recipe for empanadas. I bought butter and canned chipotle peppers.

Ta-da.

It required a little bit of work, of course. I’m not sure what it is about the prospect of making pastry dough, but I dread it much like I might dread an annual medical check-up. Once I throw some flour and salt and butter in the food processor, it’s fine, but to get to that point I have to spend hours fixating upon the ‘horror’ that awaits me.

I was still in the midst of dreading making the empanadas, when it occurred to me: I was going to be dabbling in pastry anyway, why not make some homemade pop tarts while I’m at it?

I’d seen an adorable version on Pinterest, complete with heart cut-out and ever since I’d had my mind set on making pop tarts. Even though I’d choose chocolate over fruity pie-like creations most days.

When you spend the bulk of the day preparing dinner, it tends to be ready….early. So at just after 5pm, I gathered the Johnson boys and we sat down at the table for my slightly less spicy version of bison empanadas with cilantro cream and guacamole.

They were pretty tasty if I do say so myself. Percy, the two year old, finished one plate, then another. The Gort and the Hen each ate theirs without complaint. The professor choked down a couple. ‘I would have eaten more,’ he confessed, ‘but I didn’t want to be a pig.’

With dinner out of the way, it was time to make pop-tarts. I was in the middle of rolling out the dough when the phone rang. ‘Have you eaten dinner?’ a friend asked, ‘because I made extra and thought we’d invite you guys over.’

It figures: the one night of the year that I’m on the ball with dinner, I get an impromptu invitation to dine elsewhere.

It was just past 6 when I pulled the pop-tarts out of the oven. I tasted a warm one and nearly kicked myself for spending so much time making something that tasted so…..meh.

Since the tarts were piping hot, the professor suggested a walk around the block – Goldilocks-style – so that we could ‘earn’ our dessert: aka not having to listen to the boys ask every.two.seconds ‘are they ready yet?’

After the longest walk-around-the-block in history, we arrived home and I passed out a plate of pop-tarts.

Apparently hot pop tarts are meh. But luke-warm pop tarts with homemade strawberry icing drizzled on top?

Delicious.

Raising the Tabernacle

When I picked up our once-in-a-while babysitter on Friday night, she got in the car and said: ‘I’ve babysat for you three times and every time it’s in a different house.’ I made some crack about how we were in the witness protection program and drove her to – what I shall call – house number 3. [For the four month period of December 30 to April 30.] To be fair, the Gort reminded her she’d actually babysat for us four times, so the situation is not nearly as outrageous as she suggested.

As we were hauling things out of the garage at house number 2 in preparation for the move to house number 3, a friend looked upon the tree house the professor had built. The same tree house that had taken up the entire garage…..while our car languished in the driveway for three months, gathering snow and sleet and a million of those tiny red berries.

‘This is, like, a mini Tabernacle,’ the friend declared as he gazed upon the canvas covered structure. Before hoisting it onto the back of a truck for its five block odyssey…..to house number 3.

The Tabernacle was placed upon the semi-dead grass in the backyard and, though I wondered to myself ‘isn’t that going to decimate the grass,’ I said nothing, because I had bigger fish to fry. Like figuring out what happened to my juicer. Seriously. How is it possible to move an entire household of objets and lose one juicer?

Meanwhile, feeling guilty after my mother had asked ‘what are you reading’ and I’d replied ‘nothing’, I’d gone to the library and picked up a book. [Though personally I believe the 'we just moved' excuse should preclude one from any and all sorts of things for at least two weeks. Three weeks. A month.]

I’d just finished reading the first few chapters, in which a young engineer from the turn of the 19th century describes the atrocious bridge-building practices of the time; including the deaths and ‘decompression illnesses’ among the people building the Brooklyn Bridge.

My horror was momentarily interrupted by the Gort. ‘Uh, mom, I think maybe Dad needs a hand.’ I glanced at the backyard and saw the Tabernacle, two sawhorses, and several wooden planks. Judging from its Pisa-like appearance, it seemed the professor was trying to raise the Tabernacle on to a three-foot-high wooden base….using an undeniably dangerous method of diagonally placed planks and a couple of sawhorses.

I ventured outside – keeping my distance for fear I’d be felled by a toppling wooden structure; watching as the professor pushed one side of the Tabernacle and adjusted the sawhorse before pushing on the other side and adjusting sawhorse number two.

I feared two things: (1) someone might die or at least be severely injured, and (2) it would take two days to inch that structure towards the base.

So I lent a hand, fully prepared to jump at the first sign of disaster. (Joan of Arc, I am not.) Before the sun set (entirely) the base was reunited with its canvas-sporting sister. And the boys were happily reunited with their play house.

The purple job

A friend of a friend classifies certain tasks according to the gender of the person who’s historically-slash-traditionally-slash-stereotypically been responsible for performing the task. ‘That’s a blue job,’ she might call something like drilling holes in walls. ‘That’s a pink job,’ she might label making dinner or doing laundry.

For better or worse, I subscribe heavily to the notion of blue jobs: taking out the garbage, assembling furniture, that sort of thing. I’ve been known to say to the professor ‘that’s why I got married’ when he questions why the very full garbage bag is spilling out of the trash can.

My witticism has backfired severely because now he’s started retaliating with equally charming things like ‘well, you need to start ironing my shirts, then, because that’s why I got married.’

Touche.

Seeing as I iron clothing once every three years, it’s highly unlikely I’m going to start draping shirts across my mini IKEA ironing board on a regular basis.

The Gort came home from school with a note last week. They were finishing up their science unit on buoyancy and each student needed to bring a boat to school by Tuesday. I filed it under ‘blue job’ and ‘father-son activities’ and went on with my weekend.

And then it was Sunday and the professor vanished into a deadline black hole. He went to work at 8.30pm and stayed there for the better part of twenty four hours.

Which means it was Monday night and time for the boys to go to bed and no boat had been made and I reached the unfortunate conclusion that I was going to make a boat before the night was over.

So the Gort and I stood in the kitchen and surveyed the cardboard box bearing our recyclable materials. Because the note had specified two things: (1) use recyclable materials and (2) the student should take the lead. Meaning, overbearing, overachieving parents should back off.

Noted.

We had a selection of small, green San Pellegrino bottles, various depleted energy drink containers, a large plastic olive oil bottle, and an empty box of orange juice.

‘We could just rinse this out and put a mast on it,’ he suggested, pointing to the rectangular oil bottle. I considered his bare-bones suggestion….for a nanosecond. ‘I think we can do a little better than that,’ I insisted, my head filled with visions of the Gort arriving at school with the worst boat in grade two history.

‘Well, maybe we could use these two green bottles,’ my oldest relented, warming to the idea of ‘upping’ his game slightly, ‘but we’d need to seal them. I don’t know why you guys always throw the lids away,’ he chided; our roles suddenly reversed. ‘I guess we could tape the ends shut,’ he sighed.

I remembered I’d thrown a roll of black electric tape in a suitcase right before we moved. Against all odds I managed to find said roll of tape in less than two minutes. A post-move miracle.

I found a couple of wooden disks to cover the openings and we taped over and around until it seemed leakproof. Ish.

‘We’ll have to glue the bottles together,’ the boy instructed-reminded. I surveyed our selection of glue. It seemed highly unlikely that two glass bottles would stick together with the help of Elmer’s Glue or preschool-friendly glue sticks. ‘We don’t have the right kind of glue,’ I concluded, ‘but we could try rubber bands,’ it occurred to me. And I began rummaging through the ‘craft cupboard’ to find the three blue rubber bands I’d seen days before.

So he held the bottles together while I carefully wrapped the blue rubber bands around them. With a piece of electrical tape thrown in for good measure.

‘We need a mast,’ he decided. And I gave him the option of a bamboo skewer or a straw; buoyed by my own resourcefulness. ‘Let’s use the skewer,’ he decided. ‘We can just stick it through the tape.’ I added a rectangular sail from my scrap fabric bin (which I, coincidentally, ironed on my mini ironing board – can’t have a wrinkled sail, after all.)

We surveyed our handiwork. It was a bit…..dull. ‘We could add a keel,’ my budding scientist suggested. Having never heard of the word keel, I did my best. We improvised and used a plastic easter egg with a magnet inside. Part keel, part ballast tank?

I hadn’t heard that word either until the professor came home and we tested the boat and realized the easter egg had a hole which filled with water rather quickly.

A little electrical tape patch, and my blue-pink job was done.

The next day, I took out the garbage.

Credit to my friend Leo for coming up with the phrase ‘purple job’.

Monotony

If you were to ask me, ‘Nicola, what’s your least favorite board game?’ I would say, without hesitation, Monopoly. Trouble (if it is, in fact, a board game) is right up there, but it has in its favor compactness of size and the possibility of ending before I turn 40.

Monopoly has neither of those.

First, a question-thought: Why is the Monopoly box so big? Bigger than any other game known to man (or at least of the games we have), and here’s my beef: it.does.not.fit.inside.a.moving.box.

Perhaps in one of those gynormous wardrobe boxes. But certainly not in one of the ordinary ones.

Maybe if you’re one of those ‘regular’ people who move once every fifteen years and only to a bigger house down the street, it’s really not a big deal. But if you’re something of a serial mover, the oversized Monopoly game is a problem. It doesn’t fit in a box, so it’s inevitably moved ‘as-is’ in the backseat of the car or what have you and then, amid the sea of brown boxes in your living room, there will be a Monopoly game box. And your children will, less than 24 hours after you’ve dumped said boxes on said floor, ask you to play…..the most tedious of tedious games.

And you will, because you feel enormously guilty about all the movies they watched in the course of a day while you schlepped boxes and cleaned. (In Percy’s case I should say ‘movie’. Because he literally watched Cars on continuous loop for the better part of two or three hours, until his little head drooped onto the table and he fell asleep.)

So the cherubs and I sat down yesterday and played Monopoly. The Hen – who is 4 – bought everything he could get his hands on. The Gort spent most of the game in jail – morosely throwing dice in the hopes of getting the coveted though elusive ‘doubles’ to free himself. And I, banker slash peacekeeper, sat on the floor with numb feet and knees; losing to a four year old.

Two hours later, with no end in sight, I begged for a reprieve: ‘we need to get dinner, how about we play again tomorrow….after school?’ So we set the in-progress game aside on the lone cleared surface. The professor surveyed the money/property card stacks, lingering on the stack that had a pile of money but no property cards. ‘Who’s the cheapskate?’ ‘Ah, the Gort spent most of the game in jail,’ I explained, ‘and the Hen bought everything.’

We continued our marathon this afternoon when the Gort got home from school. I, the Kofi Annan to the likes of Syria and Libya. A rather shouty Kofi, I should clarify, because – frankly – when you have an overzealous oldest brother and a fiercely independent ‘don’t do it for me’ younger brother, sparks fly. Continuously.

It was really rather ridiculous, playing with the Hen. I felt like jealous Jan Brady, silently chanting ‘Henners Henners Henners’ while he collected piles of rent money and picked up all the good Community Chest and Chance cards: collect $100, pass Go and collect $200….’I'm lucky!’ he crowed. ‘Yeah you are,’ I replied somewhat glumly.

Eventually, in the third or fourth hour of the marathon, the Gort was ousted from the game for unsportsmanlike conduct and the Hen and I put the in-progress game aside; to be continued after breakfast.

‘I’m leaving!’ the eight year old vowed-threatened. ‘I mean, I’ll be back for dinner and stuff, but I’m leaving.’

Fine. But take the game with you. Please.

It’s all fun and games until somebody cracks an egg

It was Friday night and I was sitting all alone at the dining table doing my best to burst a blood vessel in my brain. Some prefer to call it ‘blowing out eggs for decorating purposes’ but that does not adequately describe the horrific tedium that is using a needle to poke two tiny holes in an egg and forcing out its contents….using your mouth.

But it’s Easter weekend and I have children, and I already feel a sense of duty to try and maintain some sense of normalcy while the brown boxes stack up and every time they turn around more of their possessions are ‘missing’.

Though, according to the Gort ‘we really haven’t packed that much,’ which is what he told his grandparents today. Part of me felt outraged that he hadn’t noticed all I’d done. And the other part of me felt pleased that, to him, it seemed like his home was still fairly intact. It is, after all, what I was trying to do: pack up our belongings while making it look like I wasn’t really packing up our belongings.Sort of like a movie set.

But this was about my rocking Friday night, sitting at the table with a dozen eggs in a cardboard box beside me; forcing a stream of egg yolk through a millimeter-wide opening. I watched a movie to pass the time. [Am I the only who, upon reading the notes at the end of the movie, wondered if the main character had done any good at all?] And, after an hour, when I’d managed to empty twelve eggs, I was so tired I watched another movie. Which – in my depleted-of-oxygen-to-the-brain state – I confess I liked. Afterwards, I scoured the French credits to get some details about one of the songs in the film.  [Which, much to the boys' chagrin, I played at least five times today.]

For reasons I can’t explain, all four of the Johnson boys are rather enamored with the coloring of Easter eggs. Which, I suppose, is the reason, I keep risking brain damage year after year. So this morning I covered the table in newspaper, set out containers of blue, green and orange dye and various add-ons like kosher salt, crayons, glitter glue and white glue.

Roughly two point three seconds into the process, we had a crier. ‘Someone’ had opted to cover their egg in glue without realizing they’d have to wait for the glue to dry. Gratification delayed. No coloring for you! (Not now, anyway.)

But after that initial hiccup (err, fifteen-minute-screamfest), things progressed rather smoothly.

Aside from young Percy’s newfound obsession with coloring eggs – with the professor’s assistance he dipped every single egg in at least three colors. He started out with lovely jewel-toned eggs which gradually turned into mossy greenish blue eggs. And also, he was doing his two year old best to steal everyone else’s un-dyed eggs. Which went over a treat with his older brothers.

We managed to get through the experience without spilling food coloring onto the beige carpet and without breaking any eggs. Though the Hen did knock one of his eggs onto the chair and there was a slight cracking sound and that’s how we knew it was time to call it a day.

Afterwards, I made strawberry shortcake. It’s one of the professor’s favorite desserts – (really, any kind of bread-base with fruit and (ice) cream topping) and I figured it was sort of Easter-y. And since the boys would spend the bulk of Sunday emptying plastic Easter eggs of their sugary contents, it made sense to make (and consume) the dessert the day before.

I am remarkably skilled at justifying the consumption of dessert. As is, young Percy. Who ate his entire portion, yelled for more and – upon being told there was no more –  chased after his father.

Who had run off into the bedroom/office with the last helping of dessert.

The School of Hard Knocks

As I was stuffing my earthly belongings back into cardboard boxes for the second time in three and a half months [aka moving, again] I thought about the futility of higher education. The four years for a Bachelor’s Degree. The two years for a Master’s Degree. Which translates into six years of sitting on piano benches and pretending to understand quantitative methods whilst wearing cheap ‘power suits’ and attempting to look professional.

Or was that just me?

There’s not one useful class among the forty or so different ones that appear on my transcripts. Where, for instance, was the ‘how to move’ class? And I’m not talking about anything from the physical education and wellness departments, I’m talking about the art of dumping your belongings into brown boxes in an efficient and organized manner. So as to minimize breakage and/or spending weeks going ‘where IS……’ during the inevitable post-move chaos. When boxes are strewn across your new home and you find yourself hard-pressed to find ‘the right place’ for that 24 x 48″ roll of cork you’ve been schlepping around since 2005.

Hypothetically speaking, of course.

But in all seriousness, I’ve moved close to a zillion times now (or at least a dozen) and a moving class would have been all sorts of useful. [In addition to courses on how to keep your minivan free of decomposing produce, how to remember to pay your bills on time, how to maintain your composure when your two year old screams bloody murder in the library and every.single.person is staring at you because how can they not.]

I was standing in my closet today, an open brown box poised to receive all the clothes I never wear. The same clothes that I’ve picked through at least six times in the last four years; each time setting aside a bag full of the least desirable items for Goodwill, whilst hanging on to the other moderately undesirable items – for reasons unknown.

So I folded shirts and skirts and dresses into neat-ish piles and placed them in the box, and I was about to tape it shut (now that would be a useful class: ‘how to operate the freaking tape dispenser without maiming yourself on the sharp edge or unwittingly using three times as much tape as needed’) when I stopped myself.

No more. I was not going to cart a box full of ill-fitting, uninteresting clothes to the next house - just so I could have something to hang in my closet. I dumped everything on to the floor and made hard and fast decisions. The sleeves are too short, it barely covers my belly button, the sleeves are too short, the sleeves are too short, it’s covered in fuzzy sweater-pills, I will never wear that ever again, I should never wear that ever again…..

I ended up with more clothes on the floor than in the box. I taped it shut, suddenly nervous that I might literally be wearing the same shirt and jeans for the foreseeable future. [Until such time as I can go and buy more ill-fitting and uninteresting clothes at Target or the Superstore.]

The ‘good’ thing about all this moving is that if we keep going at our current pace, purging  a tenth of our belongings every time we switch addresses, we will soon be able to move our entire household…..with just the rusty Venture.

Squash: It’s what’s for breakfast

Sunday was one of those days.When every minute seems to end with somebody in tears. When, after the third or fourth round of crying, you look at the clock and realize ‘it’s not even 9 yet!’ and you can’t help but think the rest of the day is going to suck. A lot.

At one point, fearing the house was going to float away on a river of tears, I summoned the Hen to my room. To discuss the matter of his displeasure.

He began listing his beefs with the world; all the things that had made him mad in the course of an hour and a half of being awake. I nodded sympathetically until he said: ‘and the cereal Dad gave me is gross and I don’t want to eat gross food for breakfast.’

I mentally inventoried the contents of the cereal cupboard. There wasn’t anything in there that he hadn’t eaten in the previous days without complaint. I chalked it up to the four year old’s fickle palate: one minute something tastes good, the next it doesn’t; and continued with my morning.

Several minutes later, I ventured out to the kitchen area to remind the boys to get dressed and there at the table sat my two youngest boys. A plate of the squash, onion and feta tart I’d made the previous night, before them.

‘Gross cereal’ indeed.

‘You gave them squash for breakfast?’ I shouted to the professor who had sought refuge in the shower.

To make matters worse, I noticed the other boys had pieces of the [much more palatable for the Johnson men] bacon and roasted tomato tart I’d also made the previous evening. I say ‘worse’ because the Hen is currently suffering from acute awareness that he is a ‘middle child’ and is prone to bouts of extreme displeasure when he does not get exactly the same thing another brother gets at exactly the same time the other brother gets it.

A few weeks ago, the boy jumped up in the middle of a bath and yelled ‘I don’t want to be second’ after the professor lifted young Percy out of the tub first. A few nights later, as I carried glasses of milk to the table during dinner, he asked ‘why do I always have to be last?’ When I served his brothers milk before handing him a glass. ‘Because I can’t carry three glasses at once?’ I answered-asked in an attempt to assure him that my action had been entirely without motive.

All this to say, a serving of squash tart when everyone else got servings of bacon tart seemed like a recipe for middle-child-itis. So I sat down with the lad and traded his uneaten squash for some bacon, and then he realized he actually liked the tart and ate an entire slice of the cause of his unhappiness.

The professor explained later that he had offered the bacon tart to everyone, but our Hen had opted to boycott all things tart; refusing to put a bite of anything with a crust in his mouth. Even if it was laden with bacon.

If, however, you aren’t suffering from a bout of middle-child-itis and would enjoy a slice of savory tart, then do give this recipe a try. It’s somewhat time consuming but people will think you’re fancy. But whatever you do, don’t serve it for breakfast and certainly not to your children.

[I got a little obsessed and made three different tarts in the same weekend. One with squash, bacon and caramelized onion; another with bacon, basil and roasted tomatoes and another with squash, caramelized onion and feta. Instead of vast amounts of eggs and whipping cream, I somewhat-followed this recipe and used a combination of sour cream and whipping cream to mimic creme fraiche along with 3 eggs. Most likely it's a case of tomato-tomahto since neither version is what you might call 'healthy fare'.]

The Arc D’Or

Before continuing with today’s instalment of nine years ago sisterly travels, I’d like to dispel a few myths about Parisian food. (Or even Italian food, for that matter.) I feel there’s this [misguided] belief that by merely setting foot on Parisian (or, Italian) soil, you will ingest delicious food.

*Cough*Sonottrue*Cough*

I’ve been to Paris four times and I believe I’ve had exactly two decent meals there. Everything else was either of the smelly-brasserie ‘worse creme brulee than you can make at home‘ variety, or sandwiches and crepes. Which are almost always good, but how many sandwiches can a person eat?

If you’re walking along the main Parisian boulevards and duck into one of the thousands of dining establishments with the chairs on the sidewalk, odds are you’re going to get mediocre food. And, if you’re anything like me, you’ll bite into whatever it is and think ‘I’m eating this, in Paris?’

Yes, unless you’ve done a bit of research and maybe even made a reservation (or two), you will likely eat an un-delicious meal.

I offer this rambling preamble in defense of the food treason I committed in the City of Light, back in 2003.

29 March 2003

It’s around 6 or 7pm and my feet are killing me. I suggest going to the movies – we saw The Hours advertised on Blvd de St Germain. We take yet another metro and stand in line at the theatre. Sister announces she’s feeling irritated because there are so many people there.

So we begin the dreaded ‘find a restaurant’ walk. We’re both sick of sandwiches but the options aren’t too plentiful. Many stale French brasseries, but I’ve had a few too many gross meals in similar places. Finally, I announce I’m tired and can’t walk any more. And then our relationship has a serious meltdown.

I, horror above all horrors, suggest we eat at McDonald’s, since none of the other 10 places we passed appealed to either of us, and I don’t see the point of spending money on crappy food.

Thus we eat cardboard burgers - in silence. I reckon I’ll be hearing about this for some time to come. Afterwards, we stop at Haagen Dazs for cappuccino. And we head back to the hotel, in silence.

McDonald’s: 7 euros

Haagen Dazs: 5,50 euros

Getting back in Sister’s good graces: priceless