Recipe: Idyllic Father's Day

Two fathers
Three sons
Five Thomas the Train engines
Tons of blue track
One too few switches
One bridge
One tunnel
Two stations
Five engine sheds
One turntable
Three yellow cupcakes with chocolate icing and sprinkles

Arrive just before youngest son's naptime. Bring train boxes upstairs from the basement. Get every male working on a different segment of track. Mix them all up. Let the engines run. Alter segments of track. Man the switches. Keep the trains from running into each other. Put back on track when necessary. Share cupcakes with the cousins. Pick up the train track and engines. Crash on the couch right after uncle and cousins leave while Mommy fixes supper.

Beautiful balloons

In February, my son brought home two balloons from an uncle's and aunt's joint birthday party. We spent days batting those balloons back and forth. They were a great way to relieve pent-up energy without destroying the house.

An idea formed. I could release some of the pent-up energy of my five kindergarteners and teach them Hebrew at the same time. I put the five Hebrew letters we were learning on different balloons and devised a game of batting, catching and freezing -- at which point someone had to announce what letter they held and say a Hebrew word that began with the letter. The kids had tremendous fun.

My son brought home a big yellow balloon from preschool last month. He shared with me a game of catch they had played at school. He'd smile brightly each time we caught the balloon.

Last week, Grandma Edna sent him a whole package of balloons in the mail. We blew up several and have been playing a game where we each use one balloon as a bat with which to keep other balloons up in the air. Some of these balloons are shaped like birds, snakes and caterpillars. We even decorated a long skinny orange one like a carrot and gave it to Grandpa Cook to not put in his garden for Father's Day.

Sacred moments

We enjoyed our Shabbat dinner, a light meal of grilled salmon and asparagus with parmesan, on the back deck this evening. (Could summer actually have arrived?)

After dinner, my husband whispered for us to join him at the railing that overlooks our two ponds. A robin hopped from rock to rock, dipping his various body parts into the water until his bath was complete.

"I like him," my son said, each time the bird did something different. I could hear his appreciation for the beautiful bird with the bright orange breast and yellow beak. Eventually, the robin flew. We fed the fish.

And now, it's bathtime for you, I told my son. Yes, it is, he agreed.

Running on empty

I'm not a big fan of cereal. But the other day, I had to be out the door early. Plus, I didn't feel like cooking breakfast.

I emptied the dregs of Great Grains with raisins and pecans into my bowl. That wouldn't be enough to fuel my morning. I weighed my options: add some of my husband's Grape Nuts, open a new box of Great Grains with cranberries and almonds. I decided to use the last of my son's Cheerios, a mix of plain and yogurt-coated.

Done. With full bowl of cereal in hand, I reached into the refrigerator. The milk jug felt awfully light as I removed it. Sure enough, about six drops were left.

On the bright side, my cereal stayed crunchy to the last bite.

Dream work

I had a dream about the newspaper the other night. It's one of many I've had since the layoff.

Most often I have these dreams after encountering a former colleague, hearing news of another layoff, or explaining my current job status to someone in the community. I believe this particular dream was prompted by the news that one of my favorite former editors had left newspapers after 30+ years for a different line of work.

Almost always, the dreams focus on me working on some task that has no end or some problem that has no solution. Sometimes, they involve me being treated badly by supervisors I thought respected and appreciated my work. I always wake up exhausted.

This dream was different: The DNT pressroom sat in a separate building on a hill directly above the DNT newsroom. I was the senior newsroom manager on duty, leaving for the night. I looked up as the electronic sign broke away from the pressroom building. A janitor stood outside, also watching the sign fall. Sparks flew. I could see flames in the pressroom windows. I frantically called 911 on my cell phone and the publisher, a former publisher who had just returned to the paper. My desperation to reach the publisher grew as I watched firefighters trying to rescue the workers in the newsroom, which now also was on fire. I felt I should run in and save my former colleagues, but to do so might cost me my life.

I shared my dream today with a former colleague. We laughed as we started to consider all of the potential hidden meanings behind the dream. My thoughts sobering, I commented on the fact that the former publisher, in real life, recently died.

Moving on, or still spiraling downward?

Two great movies

My husband brought home a couple of movies he had considered showing to his Mandarin Chinese class but deemed too mature for middle schoolers once he watched them. I highly recommend both.

Eve and the Fire Horse is about a young Chinese-American girl whose older sister discovers Jesus. Eve's mother decides that having another god in the house can only increase the family's luck, so she allows the girls to attend Sunday school at the Catholic church. I was delightfully surprised by several scenes, especially one that involves dancing. To say anything more, might spoil that moment.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is an engaging movie -- and book -- about two boys who are exiled to a remote mountain village for re-education during the Cultural Revolution. I especially enjoyed the scene where one of the boys plays Mozart on his violin for the village chief.

Hiking checklist

It never fails. My exercise buddy and I get out on the trail and find ourselves wishing we had brought along ___.

Of course the blank changes depending on our locale, activities involved and the weather, but I promised to develop a checklist so we can at least consider our gear needs.

1. Camera -- To enhance my "out of doors" blog posts and so we can go home and identify creatures like those lavender butterflies that followed us on a recent hike along Amity Creek.
2. Field guides on birds, butterflies, trees, rocks -- Our packs could get quite heavy, though, and we don't want to slow down to look up everything we see. After all, the goal of our outings is exercise.
3. Water bottles.
4. Wrist pocket, fanny pack or backpacks -- Size dependent upon what all we need to carry with us on the trail and how big the pockets we're wearing are.
5. Lunch, wine -- This thought has occurred a couple of times, when we hit a particularly nice vista on a trail right about lunchtime.
6. Sunscreen -- Applied before we leave home.
7. Hats -- Consider wind, weather conditions before selecting.
8. Binoculars.
9. Rain gear, warmer layers -- Judging what's going to be just right can get tricky when we're making that call from our homes nearer the lake.
10. Lightweight gloves.

OK, exercise buddy, what am I forgetting?

The purist in me

On Memorial Day weekend, I tasted my first s'more. I roasted the marshmallows while my sister-in-law doled out the chocolate and graham crackers, and everyone assembled their own.

Some guests at our backyard barbecue were surprised I had never eaten a s'more in all of my 40-plus years. My brother-in-law theorized that it was because, well, you start eating the graham cracker or the chocolate and you just never quite get around to making them.

The real reason is that when it comes to treats, I'm a purist.

I like my pumpkin pie without whipped cream. I like my ice cream without toppings or sprinkles. I prefer my graham crackers dipped in milk and my marshmallows floating in hot chocolate. Dark Hershey's kisses are the only chocolates I cannot live without.

Don't get me wrong. The s'mores tasted good. My 4-year-old son and 3-year-old nephews loved them. I may even eat another one in my next 40-plus years.