How to Make Cornbread

A Picture Essay from Richard and Miranda's Kitchen 

It took me a while to figure out what was keeping the sugar soft.

This is my second favourite picture of the whole set.

And this is my favourite picture of the set.
Mmmm to cornbread and chess.

The Johnson Snow Fort

 

New Rubber Boots

Betty and Alice got new rubber boots.
Betty wants everything to look like foxes, including rubber boots.
She has a foxy dress, a foxy blanket and a foxy stuffy.
Now she has foxy boots.

Here Betty is wearing her foxy boots with her foxy shirt.

Alice's boots used to be plain black boots as well.
Now she has a ladybug on one boot and a butterfly on the other.

Photo Credit: Mary Johnson
Boot Artist: Miranda Johnson

Richard Misses his Kids

... Alice, Betty and Richard on a Shuswap Trail walk ...

Richard was wondering which is the better parenting split – to be working in the city from 7 am to 7 pm, or tending the kids near the forest and the water 24 hours a day.

A hard call.

He said that every year, what he knows about parenting changes.

Last year he had a 7, 5 and 3 year old. Now he has an 8, 6 and 4 year old but there doesn’t seem to be any carry-over.

Each child is in a new age and what worked for one four year old, isn’t working with another.

and speaking of love
... a forester leaves a love note on the trail ...

He is still on a high parenting curve.

Every year, he says, he learns something about an age group he thought he had nail, but now there is something new that he hadn't anticipated.

Only one thing seems to be unchanged, he says.

The sooner that a parent learns that having children is just like living with a very messy room mate, the sooner good parenting can start.

Arta

The Decorations

Michael with an enormous fold-out Chinese Zodiac

Wyona’s decorations are ½ artistic and the other half geared to educational purposes.

When she was giving me a box of decorations to use at my own house she reminded me that what seems like an excess of decorations is really the left-overs from a teaching career with Developmentally Delayed students.

“The board doesn’t care about the content of the curriculum as long as these kids are getting a chance to learn basic skills, and I just found it easier to teach those when they were tied to the seasonal current holidays that they were celebrating.”

And that explains why so much of the material has been laminated and still looks wonderful for presentation.

The Money Pillow

All want to try sleeping on this!

One of the first of these is a big circle, all of the animals being pictures around the perimeter and pie shaped wedges going to the centre, into which are all of the years that are associated with that animal.
This beautiful fold out begins with the year 1928 and comes forward to the present, and on to 2040. The numbering changes closer to the centre.

“Bonnie McLoone gave this to me when she finished teaching school, and I added the years going forward,” Wyona said.

ttetty playing with a mysterious object
made of mails that keep impressions, even of faces

Both of us talked about how the past is written on us – although we haven’t seen Bonnie Edna Rae for a long time, she was present at the party for us in what was a piece of educational material, but in something that was almost close to art.

I doubt the Zodiac circle will be used until 2040, although perhaps someday someone will be pulling it out and telling a child, “This is the Chinese Zodiac from a party I went to when I was young.”

Betty, happy to stand by the decorative fireworks.

In the party Wyona and I had the day before, the Pulling-Out-Chinese-Decorating party, she came upon a place mat from a restaurant.

“I don’t even exactly remember where I got this,” she said, “but when I saw it, I knew it was too good to leave behind.”

I started to read the items on the menu that day, but in the back of my mind I was thinking about prep-time, how long it takes to know material that any teacher is getting ready to show students.

... Kalina studying a Chinese menu ...

I have been thinking lately about my own invisible knapsack (thank-you, Peggy Mackintosh) of fables and nursery rhymes that are captured in music.

Until I came to live beside the little Johnson Kids next door came along, I thought I had put those songs in the attic of my life, but I find myself opening the knapsack that holds them daily, sometimes hourly lately.

That is why the day before the Chinese New Year’s Party was so much fun for me.

I was looking into Wyona’s invisible knapsack of ways to teach children about China.

Now that I am taking a minute to write about the party, I am flooded with why I have memories of objects that might not have made it to this blog post.

Wyona with her 2 grand-daughters 

For example, she pulled out a white silk wall hanging onto which was finely stitched with embroidery a typical Chinese scene: mountains, hills, and some scene of people going about their daily business, either carry burdens on sticks or working in rice fields.

I asked her what she is going to do with that piece; it seems a shame to refold it year after year and pull it out of the box for less than five minutes of viewing.

Her own walls are already filled with art. This piece should go to the framers.

... Teresa with her red placemat ...

Rolled into a scroll between two pieces of tissue was a red piece of paper, also cut into a fine Chinese scene. “I daren’t open this much more than taking a peek at it,” she said. “Just the breath of a small gust of wind would ruin it,” she said.

She laid it aside.

The next day at the party it was still on the table.

A pair of scissors was nearby.

I was idly sitting there when I saw Betty come along and pick up the scissors.

 I could see by the look in her eye, that the tissue paper was calling to Betty to make a few more cuts. I slipped those scissors out of her hand, directing the hand to go take another piece of candy out of the myriad of candy bowls that were out at the party.

And I felt a small rush of superiority, knowing that I had just saved that roll of artwork in fine tissue from a few more cuts, though they would have been random.

Michael, half in the dark when studying Wyona.
Which of her words are jokes and which are true?

I am never going to get to what happened at the party if I keep describing the decorations.

It will be enough to say that there were numerous paper hanging Lanterns, a wire birdcage that held a lucky bird, fire crackers to scare away the evil spirits,

Laminated cue cards were spread on couches on low footstools: how to say Happy New Year in Chinese, the reason for firecrackers during this holiday, the reasons for hanging lanterns, the reasons for red envelopes filled with money, so many reasons to go to google which is the modern way to flesh out information alluded to in all of these decorations.

Arta

The Two Grandmothers

Moiya and Wyona spent some time during the holidays together.

.... just when I think I have one of everything that Wyona has,
I walk around her house and find that no, 
I don't have one of everything ...

First of all, the Woods stayed with the Bates during the December 16 – 19th LaRue vs Robertson Court Case (pluse days on either side for preparation.

Then Moiya and David came back after Christmas for May Way’s Wedding and they stayed with Wyona again..

On one of those days Moiya and Wyona made a three-way call to Betty Johnson, the first time she has ever spoken to two people on the other end of the line.

They sang for her in a post-modern way, one of them singing just one semi-tone and one half of a beat behind the other – which takes a lot of work on their part since singing that way is not their default.

During the rests in the music, the long rests, they told her they were having a party and could she come over.

She said yes and when.

... decorations for the Chinese New Year ...

They said to each other, “Whoops, how are we going to back up on this, especially when Betty told her mother that there was a party and she was invited over."

They told her that the party would be later and then they laughed, knowing they had to make good.

Moiya left town.

Wyona is leaving for Ottawa and then on to Kelowna for a couple of weeks.

So Wyona announced she was going to have her party – A Chinese New Year Party.

... whose house already has Chinese words
painted on the front room walls? ...

Answer:  Wyona

She made a second call to Betty January 5th, telling Betty that the party was the next day, at lunch, wear red, bring your mom and grandmother, and your siblings are invited, but only at your pleasure.

Betty always wants her brother and sister with her.

Wyona invited Kalina and Theresa to attend as well.

As well, all of the Pilling second-cousins were invited, but the timing was bad for them.

And that was the guest list fot the party initiated by "the two grandmothers", according to Betty.

Arta

Preparing for Remote Access to my Computer

... Splendor at one side of the table. 
Also a game of Uno at the other side of the table...

I needed to have some long distant secure remote access help when I was figuring out how to set up my new-to-me computer.

When that kind of assistance is given from a Help Desk there is a statement read, one principle of which is that you can stop the session at any time, and you are warned that the person coming in remotely can see what is on your computer.

... Michael prepares to beat his grandmother at Splendor ...

The last statement wouldn’t bother me, since I lead a quiet life with nothing on my computer that I couldn’t show anyone.

So in the person came, and as their cursor was moving around my desktop I saw a file that was called Torture Files.

I couldn’t remember what it was that I might have put in such a file, but I determined to look deeper into its contents when the session was over.

So here is what the contents were: pictures of me playing board games.

... Alice's hands control the cards ...

Yes.

Torture to me.

But I am drawn to board games since they present an excellent way to interact with my grandchildren.

I watched Doral’s friend, Pam Dirk, this summer.

When the games with children began Pam dove in with all of the excitement of a newcomer about to have the best moments of the day ahead, rolling the die and making her moves with such joy.

... a meal first and then cards ...

I am trying to follow her model.

But I can’t quite do it, can I?

I am at about 98% able to show excitement.

... Betty with her cards laid out in front of her ...

It is just that little 2% in me that has to label the file “Torture”.

Arta