The Gamble Life

Fun and Easy Science

 







Pretty self-explanatory too.  We just used some food coloring type liquids that had come in an art kit...they weren't paint, mixed with water.  We did use a lot because I let Gus do all the pouring and mixing.  We used old celery.  This last picture is after three days of osmosis.  Pretty cool!

(Sorry about the quality of the first three pictures; I'm not sure, but I think I was taking them with one hand and holding Abe in the other.  These are the best of them, believe it or not.)

Food Fail

Three new recipes that sounded delicious...two from The Splendid Table's How To Eat Supper...I'm not necessarily blaming the cookbook, but I am glad I got it from the library instead of buying it. 

This was some kind of delicious sounding frittata that I no longer even remember the main ingredients of.  It was very blah.  I have several frittata recipes that we love, one with meat and one vegetarian, so I do think this fail was the recipe.

This looks pretty good doesn't it?  A grape and onion tart on puff pastry.  It barely fed me and my two sons and was generally unsatisfying.  Nothing spectacular and a lot of work for what amounted to a finicky appetizer.

This recipe came from Smitten Kitchen, and I'll admit upfront I made some substitutions.  I've had really good luck with her recommended recipes before, but this was crummy.  This is pre-pasta, but the pasta didn't really improve anything.

I tried it because back when I was in law school my local grocery sold fava beans that you just eat as a snack.  They were out of the pod, but still in the inner coating thing but something had been done to them because they weren't raw.  They were the most delicious thing ever!  I loved them so much.  I have never seen them sold like that again and when I ask no one even knows what I'm talking about.  Anyway, I thought I'd try cooking with raw ones and see what I could come up with but it too was a big fail.  Oh well.

I followed up this week with tried and true recipes only!

Sweetest Picture Ever

I couldn't resist sharing this.  No matter how exasperating they can be awake (and he can be really exasperating!) they are beyond adorable asleep.

Towelhead (spoilers!)

So we watched Towelhead the other night.  I didn't realize until just now that it is an adaptation of a novel.  Interestingly, that sort of changes how I feel about the movie.

There are spoilers here, because there is no other way for me to write about it.  So don't read if you don't want to know what happens in the story.

The movie is advertised as a "coming of age" story, and I guess it is, but hopefully most girls' coming of age doesn't involve rape at the age of 13, followed immediately by consensual sex!  I just could not help thinking during the entire movie "does this story need to be told?"  It was well-done, the acting is excellent, the characters are believable, the story is believable (unfortunately).  I just didn't really care to see it.  I don't need stories of young girls being raped by their adult neighbors in my head (It isn't overly graphic.  The movie is really excellently done.) 

I'll admit that since becoming a parent I have a greatly reduced interest in any storytelling that involves children getting hurt.  I also was not as aware of how prevalent a theme this is, but man, babies and kids getting hurt and killed is everywhere on TV and in movies.  But even leaving that aside I think I would have had the same reaction.  Did this movie need to be made?  Is it worth my time watching it?  I was definitely in the "no" camp...until I learned it is an adaptation of a novel.

For some reason, knowing that the story is a novel first and a movie second has made me think it has more worth.  This same story as a novel would not have elicited the same reaction from me.  Because a book is so much fuller than a movie, because a book is words and not images, a book is free to explore more unpleasant topics, in my opinion, than a movie.  I would have preferred to have read this, rather than seen it.

What do you think?  Are there stories, no matter how true or excellent, that just do not need to be told? 

Part of me is just tired of our culture's (our world's?) obsession with young girls.  I know that all of us came into our sexuality as teenagers and so it makes sense that we love the young because we were all young when it happened the first time...but there's got to be some maturity in us.  We need to grow out of it as we age.  Not that I wasn't relieved to learn that Taylor Kitsch is officially an adult (28!  That's definitely adult age!). 

I'm very susceptible to movies.  I often have dreams (or nightmares, depending) incorporating whatever movie I've seen most recently so I try to avoid certain types of subjects, and wasn't expecting what I saw in Towelhead.  Have you seen it or read it?  What did you think?  

Face Painting

Our pool hires a face painter whenever they have a special day at the pool (like a holiday).  She's really great, Mimi the Clown, for anyone in the Durham area.  About a month ago at the pool opening party there was a lull in the line (We've waited in line for an hour before!  She's very popular.) so I snuck in and told her to do whatever she wanted.  I had a blast.  I haven't had my face painted since I was a kid and it's just as fun as it used to be.

Review: The Blue Sweater

The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World by Jacqueline Novogratz

This is a wonderful book! I really encourage everyone to read it. I am sure you will find it inspiring. The title comes from an amazing story of a sweater the author was given as a child that she improbably enough finds years later being worn by a small boy in Africa. That interconnectedness is the theme she carries through the book. Essentially a memoir of her working life (so far) Novogratz has done an amazing job of relating her successes and failures in international aid work in a way that is enlightening and inspiring.

I especially enjoy her approach which is grounded in the belief that you must treat all people, no matter how poor, as capable, smart, determined, and interested in providing for themselves. Her work has been focused on injecting just the right help, usually a loan, at just the right place so that a poor person with an idea can make their own future, their own business. This is not another rich person coming in with her ideas--she has worked incredibly hard to get to the ideas of the poor person, and believe me, she has faced unbelievable resistance. I know most of us would have given up at just one of the obstacles and downright hostility she faced early on.

Novogratz hasn't given up though and lucky for us she's written this book so the rest of us can learn from her experiences. It was enjoyable to read and inspiring. I don't have plans to move to another country or take up this kind of work, but her work and her attitude can absolutely inform the way the rest of us live and treat each other, right here.

View all my reviews.

Easiest Kid Activity Ever

That's right:  Rubbings!  No cemeteries required.  We have so much fun taking walks and doing rubbings on just about any surface you can think of.  Supplies are minimal, just paper, crayons and stuff out in the world.  (Snacks optional.)

You and your child will be rewarded with many cool rubbings.  Now I just have to figure out how to display or save them (or both).

Things are finally getting back to normal around here.  May was a completely crazy month for me.  I made my choice though--I turned down the job in Austin.  It was (is) a great job that I'm sure I would have enjoyed, but it is the wrong time for me and my family.  Abe is only one and none of us want to be separated from Chris.  So I'm very happy with my decision even if it did take some agony to make it.  And now I have big plans for summer!!!

I need some time to sit down and write about them, maybe tomorrow.  Until then, if you're bored or antsy, get out and do some rubbings!