Category Archives: Diversions

The stuff that didn’t fit elsewhere.

menu plan Monday, Music, On the Road

Because I still love rock and roll

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What does Wilco have to do with my meal plan? Stick with me. We’ll get there.

I never thought I’d be the kind of girl who’d cash in all of her husband’s frequent flier miles to go half way across country for a musician. Turns out I was wrong about that.

Rockford and I were both psyched (yes: psyched) when we saw that my very favorite group, Wilco, was going to be playing an outdoor show in Columbia, Missouri, this year. We lived in Columbia for five years, and we made a lot of great memories there. Not the least of which were the four Wilco shows we saw there. So we bought tickets, booked flights and on Sunday we got up before 6am and were in CoMo by lunchtime. Which was lovely timing, because it meant we got to have lunch at Shakespeare’s Pizza with our friends B and Rachel. After lunch we went back to our hotel — also paid for with loyalty points! — for a nap before going downtown to wander.

I’d decided that as a responsible grown-up, I would be just fine if we weren’t directly in front of the state at this show. The front of the stage is for hip youngsters, not stodgy homeschooling moms. I would be fine near the back, where it’s less crowded and your ears don’t ring quiet as much after the show. And then we got downtown, and Wilco was doing their soundcheck, and we watched it from directly in front of the stage, and it washed away all of that responsible-grown-up business. As soon as the soundcheck ended I joined the other 10-or-so people who lined up at the gate to get a shot at the front row.

This was our 15th Wilco concert, and I’d rank it in my Top Five Favorite Concerts. It was worth the flight, all the points and sitting on the sidewalk for an hour.

However: All that jetsetting does not put dinner on the table. Nor does it plan dinner, which is why Tuesday morning found me still puzzling over just what we’d be eating this week. I’m afraid nothing on our menu this week is even a little bit rock ‘n’ roll, though.

Tuesday: Homemade Crunchwraps

We’ve tried this recipe once before, and it’s really tasty. I’m going to add some black beans.

Wednesday: Spaghetti & meatballs

This meal always raises the question: Will I actually make the meatballs? So suspenseful.

Thursday: Jambalaya

Zatarain’s was on sale for $1 a box this week.

Friday: Pizza

I’m still dreaming of the day I get a grill that’s up to the task of cooking a pizza. I stopped making my own pizzas because I got tired of setting off the smoke alarm every Friday night.
On the Road

An exhaustive look at our trip to Disney World

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I have been trying to take the kids to Disney World for about three years now. I’d browse the web site, we’d choose the dates, and we’d start saving money. And then inevitably something would come up and that money would have to go elsewhere and we’d be back at Square One.

The stars aligned a few months ago, though, when Rockford found out that he’d be attending a conference in Orlando the week of Poppy’s birthday. It seemed serendipitous at the very least, so we started planning the trip once again. And this time, it actually worked! I probably wouldn’t choose to go again in August — the heat was pretty terrible — but nearly everything else about the trip was just wonderful.

The view of Cinderella's Castle from the Swiss Family Treehouse at Disney World.
The view of Cinderella’s Castle from the Swiss Family Treehouse at Disney World.

Continue reading An exhaustive look at our trip to Disney World →

Reading

I finally read ‘Cloud Atlas’

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The preview for “Cloud Atlas” gave me chills. The movie looks big and grand and sweeping, and Tom Hanks is in it. He is my very favorite Famous Tom. (Sorry Jones, Petty and Cruise.) So after watching the preview I was 99 percent sure I wanted to see the movie and 100 percent sure I wanted to read the book, which was written by David Mitchell and published way back in 2004.

(How is it possible that 2004 was so long ago? Who sped up my years?)

Other people must have felt the same, because there was a rather long wait for it at the library. I eventually was able to check it out, though, and I started reading it almost before I got home. But not actually before I got home, because I was driving and driving and reading “Cloud Atlas” is probably illegal and if it isn’t illegal it should be.

“Cloud Atlas” is a big, sweeping book that takes place over a long, long, long period of time. It’s split into 11 sections that kind of form a Time Sandwich. The first and last sections are set in the 19th century, and the centermost section is set in some undefined distant future. The others are in the ’30s, the ’70s, somewhere around right now and in a not-quite-as-distant future. And they’re all connected. That’s all I’ll say about that, because finding out how they were connected was what I was most looking forward to when I picked up the book and I’d hate to ruin that for you.

I found myself unfavorably and perhaps unfairly comparing “Cloud Atlas” to David Foster Wallace’s “Infinite Jest” the entire time I was reading it, and not just because they were both written by guys named David. I was expecting “Cloud Atlas” to be both as challenging and as ultimately rewarding as “Infinite Jest,” but in the end I didn’t find it to be either.

(That sounds terribly jerky of me, but it’s true so I’m going to go ahead and leave it. Let’s just accept that sometimes I’m a bit of a jerk and move along.)

Ultimately I thought it was a well-written story with a clever conceit, but it left me feeling depressed. I’m still interested in seeing the movie, though, if for no other reason than to see how they bring the Story Sandwich to the screen.