Dinner for 13

The calendar may say Monday is Valentine's Day, but tonight we had a traditional American Thanksgiving meal with the family of Chin refugees I have been tutoring in English. I would refer to them by their family name, but they don't really have those! Each Chin person I have met has a first, middle, and last name (and they tell you their full name every time if you ask their name, rather than just using their first name, but they say it so fast that it sounds like just one name). But the last names are not the same within a family. I really can't tell if there is any naming convention at all, or if perhaps names are simply chosen randomly or built upon the names of ancestors. So I just call them my Chin family.

Biak Cin Thang and Ngun Siang, along with their son Abahram, were the first people I began to tutor back in October. Then in mid-January, Biak's father, mother, sister, and three brothers arrived in Michigan from Malaysia, which is a stepping stone of sorts for the persecuted Chin minority as they work their way to freedom in America. Another sister remains in Myanmar (I presume she is married). Biak and his siblings range from age 24 to age 1, and their parents are 40 and 41. I found out today that his father and mother were married when he was 15 and she was just 14! They don't have the kind of weddings we have. If a man and woman (or in their case a boy and a girl!) want to be married, they basically just move in together and that's that. They're married.

From what I can piece together, Biak's father worked as a farmer in Malaysia for 15 years while the rest of his family stayed in Myanmar much of that time. He grew corn, rice, and pineapples. He can also build furniture and install ceilings in houses, apparently. When I learned this I started to wonder how he feels now, without work to do. I'm sure he is grateful to be back with his family living in a free country, but I have to think he will soon get bored or frustrated without a way to work. His children are catching on to English fairly well, especially his two middle sons who are 16 and 13. But he needs to learn more English in order to increase his work prospects.

Also joining us tonight was Amawng (far left in the white shirt), who has been in the States for many years. He was in the US foster care system as a young man and taught himself English. He speaks very good English now and helps interpret complicated concepts with our friends who are still learning. He interpreted some very nice sentiments from Biak's father, Za Uk Lian, who said that we were like parents to them, helping them understand a strange new country where they didn't really know anyone. He also said that the meal we served was like when people kill a pig in honor of a guest from a different town.

I think everyone enjoyed dinner, despite the fact that traditional American fare is a bit bland compared to the spicy foods of Myanmar. There was much animated conversation, in Chin and in English, and lots of laughter (which is the same in any language). I even saw Calvin feeding Abahram corn at one point and sharing his juice with him. I know I had a great time celebrating with my friends. My kitchen is full of dishes to do and my fridge is full of leftovers. Note to self: people from impoverished countries do not eat as much as Americans.

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Lydia at the Window

Lovely Lydia perches on one of my newly recovered dining room chairs in the evening light.

I moved all the chairs out from the table to vacuum the rug. We're having ten Chin friends over for dinner Sunday evening, so the house cleaning has commenced. In order to feed that many people easily and on a budget, I'm recapping the Thanksgiving-type meal I served for other Chin friends who came over in December. This time I bought a 20 lb turkey for a little over $9 (who knew turkeys were on sale for 49 cents a pound just before Valentine's Day?) and we'll be having corn, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, and pumpkin and apple pies.

Now, to find enough chairs . . .

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Evening and Morning and the Problem of Time

At 5:15pm last night I sat in the living room facing west, the setting sun streaming through the window into my eyes. This position was quite deliberate. I tend to seek out the sun in mid-winter. I'm happy to report that by this time of day last month the house would have been lit only by the streetlights because the sun would already have finished its evening descent.

Upstairs I had a sick boy napping. Poor thing had been coughing all day. We spent much of Wednesday afternoon at the doctor, waiting, waiting, waiting. He fell asleep in my arms in the waiting room. When we got home I put him in bed to nap and he woke up not long after crying about the doctor. Must have had a nightmare, though everyone at the doctor's office was very kind (if slow).

Days like these I find myself wishing I was a housewife, with nothing but laundry, cleaning, and cooking to do. No deadlines. No projects waiting for me. No emails piling up from people waiting for files. Then I could be fully and completely with my son and not have work things nagging me at the back of my mind.

Ah, to be home, truly home. I'd like to make real breakfast each morning for my guys and real dinner each night, with a homemade dessert, and have the kitchen completely clean by 8pm, ready for breakfast the next day. I'd like to feel like I am directing my household tasks rather than feeling that they are yanking me around and I'm stumbling along behind. Are these things possible when you work full time? Surely they are. How am I 31 years old and still unable to do this?

I read blog posts from women who stay home and I feel sharp pangs of jealousy. This may seem to make little sense, I realize, since I am at home almost all the time because I work from home. But working from home and not working are not the same thing, folks. When you work at home you have the rare privilege of seeing all the jobs you should be doing both at work and at home piling up at the same time because you don't really have time to do it all.

I had such good intentions on Monday and Tuesday evening this week to get all the laundry caught up since my husband was out of town. What a nice surprise it would have been to come home to every speck of clothing, every towel, washed, dried, folded, ironed, and hung in its place. Nope. Didn't happen. Though I was close to my goal until Calvin threw up on my bed last night. But I shouldn't complain, I guess, because I did spend some of my time working on my quilt, which I need to prioritize if it is ever going to get done.

There just never is enough time, is there? The sun comes up and the sun goes down and still things are left undone. It's funny that this post should come the day after my post about all my cleaning and home improvement projects. Slightly bipolar of me, I know. Oh, well. That's just February affecting my brain. I'm sure I'll be back on top this weekend.

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The Home Improvement Itch

It has struck. The cleaning/redecorating/DIY project bug has bit me, as it usually does around this time of year. My mind is starting to swim with all the projects I want to get done in the coming year. Here's my short list.

~ Finish bed quilt
~ Repaint bedroom to match new quilt
~ Roman shades in the dining room
~ Tiered garden beds in the back yard
~ New living room couch and rug
~ New window treatment in bedroom
~ Repaint front porch

 

The longer list includes, among other things, painting all the woodwork in the house, possibly refinishing the front door, getting new window screens custom made, refinishing the dining room table (which our cat ruined practically the first night we had her back in 2003 by knocking over a vase at night and allowing the water to sit there until morning), a new garage, and built-in shelves on the upstairs landing and in our bedroom around the window.

 

I also want to take everything out of my kitchen cupboards and drawers and clean every surface (Mom, I know you're itching to come over and help me with this—hint, hint) and reorganize. And our basement needs some serious purging, cleaning, and reorganizing. I wish I could take a month off and do all of this. But barring that, I can take it one project at a time as schedule and budget allow. And when I can't start a new big project, I can direct all that energy into cleaning my existing rooms and things.

 

I am encouraged by the extensive list of home improvements we have made since we moved into our house a little over five years ago. In that small space of time, we have managed the following:

• Painted all walls and ceilings (every single room)
• Redid family room ceiling and installed new light fixtures
• Built workshop area
• Turned family room doorway into media shelving
• Added light to living rm. fan
• Added lawn in back yard
• New mailbox
• Completely renovated main floor bathroom
• Carpet runner on stairs
• Added screens to roof vents
• New roof
• New gutters
• Made a rain barrel
• Custom window treatments in office and Calvin's room
• Built pantry shelves in basement
• New light fixtures in office and sunroom
• New stove
• Various and sundry landscaping improvements (ongoing)
• Recovered the dining room chairs

Not bad for five years, if you ask me. So I think in the next five we can manage a number of smaller projects. And I'm feeling energized and pretty jazzed at the moment (it might have something to do with my morning workout, the bright sunshine, and the coffee I've just consumed) and raring to go. Who cares if there is a foot of snow on the ground? It's never too early to begin spring cleaning! After all, the dog started to shed her winter coat the day of the big blizzard. She must know something we don't.

 

Well, maybe not.

 

 

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The First Song

Sunday morning when I went out to start the car to let it warm up before heading to church, I heard the first spring birdsong of the year. I'm fairly certain it was a tufted titmouse. To hear it, click here and play the little sound track below the photo. I stopped in my tracks and watched the little singer way up in the old sugar maple flit from branch to branch as he called out for a mate. This pause may have been part of the reason I was late to Sunday school that morning. But what northerner could tear herself away from such a beautiful sound?

I stared up at the sky with a dumb smile on my face, thinking of all the little springy signs that would follow this song. Soon we will have our February thaw, which will in turn cause otherwise sensible people to go around in shorts and no coats, despite the fact that it will probably not even get past 36 degrees. This won't last, as we will get snow again in March and likely in April (as always). But it will trick us into bizarre behavior, like trying to sneak the seeds of tender vegetables into the ground, thinking that maybe, just maybe we'll get a jump on our very short growing season. They'll all perish in the ensuing frosts, but I guarantee some overeager gardeners will do it just the same.

But I am a realist. It will be cold and fairly miserable during February and March. So let's just embrace it. Make some "transitional" garments and accessories.

This weekend I crocheted these wristers to go with my blue beret. They're alpaca, so they're warm, but the pattern is full of holes, so they're cool. They're perfect to wear while I'm out tromping around in the woods in March, searching for signs of spring to photograph.

Here's the pattern, if you're interested.

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Detroit

I didn't watch the Super Bowl because I couldn't possibly care less about professional sports. But I'm happy that through friends on Facebook I saw this commercial.




Detroit is part of my heritage. My mother and father are both from Detroit. Their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents? They came to America through Detroit. From Ireland, Scotland, England, Germany, and Canada, they came and Detroit was the welcome mat for everyone. Through the fabulous resources on Ancestry.com I've seen scanned copies of the passenger lists that name my ancestors as they crossed the river. They came and served the US as soldiers. They came and built cars. They came and became part of the fabric of that city.

Detroit has been beleagured for decades. It has been in decline for my entire life. And it has been hit particularly hard in the last ten years. It has become a byword, a case study in greed, corruption, and broken dreams. Much of the city is in ruins and the fleeing tax base makes it seem impossible to fix.

But Detroit will come back. Because the spirit you see in that Chrysler commercial isn't just for show. It's really how Detroiters are.

Want to help? Not just Detroit, but our country as a whole? Next time you're looking for a new car, don't buy Japan. Don't buy Germany. Buy Detroit.

Be part of America's solution.

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I was wrong . . .

Those scraps of yarn didn't want to become a scarf. They wanted to become another hat. I had to buy new to do the brim, but the rest were leftovers from my friend Kristin. The pattern was from one of her old Crochet Today magazines. Tres chic, non?

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Spring Green

My second knit shirt, in the color of the very newest spring leaves. Same pattern as this one, but I made it longer and with 3/4 sleeves. I'll wear it over an ivory tank and I need to make a flowy spring skirt to wear with it. It will be perfect for April.

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Odds and Ends

These odds and ends are begging to be a striped scarf to coordinate with my blue beret. Don't you think?

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Winter White

What a simply wonderful way to start February. A foot of snow and afternoon sunshine. I shoveled the walk and dug out the cars after my workout while Calvin was napping. We had a fire going all day and lasagna for dinner. Simply wonderful.

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