why I love my brother (part I)

Because he looks up award-winning cupcake recipes. And then, he makes them. Unlike his sister (that would be moi) who looks them up and emails herself the recipe, however, the cupcakes never grace the counter. These red velvet molten lava cream cheese frosting cupcakes* were waiting when I got home today. Such deliciousness. What a guy.


*Not their actual name, but the cupcakes sort of collapsed in the oven (thank you high altitude), leaving this gaping hole just begging to be filled with cream cheese frosting. A rather brilliant solution, if you ask me.

Nights at the Round Table

Today for work N and I went to look at tables. At one store we saw a round table with a long linen tablecloth that nearly reached the floor. What a tablecloth, we both thought. N began to design accent runners while I imagined making a secret hide-out underneath, perfect for pirates and princesses or an afternoon camp out on a rainy day. Regardless of its purpose, we both thought the cloth to be beautiful and filed it away in our minds for future use.

We have a round table in our kitchen at home. Dad built it at the family shop. It's been in all three houses we've lived in and I suppose life wouldn't be the same without it. It's the perfect size for two to sit and share the newspaper and serves as an impromptu music stand in a string rehearsal if someone has forgotten theirs. (I used to shift my violin music from stand to table just for a change of scenery and a chance to look out the window.) It's the place to perch in the fall to watch the crab apple tree turn brilliant shades of golds and reds just outside the window and in the springtime birds eat breakfast while we do the same. At Christmas it's where we put the Swedish starters like the goat's cheese and the limpa bread to be eaten before Swedish dinner. It's where the angel stands suspending the star and singing praises to the heavens announcing the birth of the Baby Jesus. It's where Mom likes to put the latest high school pottery masterpieces. Currently Rich's creations reign supreme. His brightly colored five-in-one vase is there round the clock. Anyone who comes to visit gets a mini history lesson on Chard's magnum opus.

Upon the table's belly are lovingly plotted purple and green Crayola marker doodles from a day at the red brick house when my sister and I were feeling mischievous. It served as the canvas for play dough sessions on summer afternoons. Once my brother made a big salt dough pretzel and set it out on the table to dry in the sun, all curled and crisscrossed. Upon pretzel removal, like a child's shadow outlined in chalk, was the outline of a pretzel, branded into the wood. I used to trace the lines with my finger when I got bored.

In line today at the store N and I professed our love of round tables to each other, and then bought a square one, but the space calls for square. Round tables foster conversation. They look visually pleasing in a square room, and are easy to cozy up to with a large crowd. And, if you throw a large tablecloth or giant sheet over the top, I'm certain they're the perfect framework for a pretty awesome fort.

thursday edition

I'm sitting at a partially-cleared kitchen table, but for a plate of fresh apples slices and half-full glasses of water. It's 15 minutes post-dinner and my 17 year-old brother is sprawled out on the family room floor, his hands behind his head. He's leisurely taking in the evening while I edit his seven page research paper on global warming. His shoes (which we've all managed to trip over our way to the table) are directly in the path of traffic leading to the deck doors, which he's left wide open. Just as I start in on the importance of knowing who your writing audience is, he asks me for the 150th time to call out the the door for the dog. (After nine years, she (the dog) has developed quite the selective hearing.)

Five minutes later, minutes more leisurely for some than others, my brother looks up at me. "Did you know Chewy's (the dog) theme song for life is that song by Michael Jackson, that goes...He starts singing the lyrics to "Bad." "Because she's a bad dog (she's not) and because she's both black and white." I lift the pencil from the page and stick it behind my ear. "Huh? And more importantly, that's not how it goes," I inform him. I sing the correct lyrics, as he ignores me and skips up the stairs, still singing the wrong words. (I hate it when people sing the wrong words.) I focus my attention back on the paper, circle a sentence where there's a dangling participle, and have a flashback to the day when Mrs. Lake used her red pen to write "d-e-f-i-n-i-t-e-l-y" around the entire page of my essay, her teacher tongue-in-cheek way of making sure I never forget that an "i" follows the "n." Not an "e." Worked like a charm. Haven't spelled it wrong since.

Rich bounds down the stairs, ipod in hand and buds in his ears. He's snapping his fingers and singing the lyrics, word for word, or so he says. I told him I needed proof; he needed to share his earphones so I could confirm that I was indeed right. I reach out my hand for an ear bud. Ignoring me, he heads for the cupboard and comes back with the karaoke microphone. "I know this isn't the most convenient way, but it will work," nodding reassuringly. He grabs the mic, sets one ear bud on the table, and leaves the other in his ear. He puts the mic up to the bud on the table and before I knew it it was like the King of Pop himself was moon walkin' right there in our family room. As for the lyrics, turns out we're both right. And to think I thought I had him.

I step down as the Bad Lyric Expert, and resign to the task at hand: global warming, leaving my leisurely brother break dancing. Siting the paper I tell him that I don't know what it means that congress wants to put caps on companies regarding global warming; that he needs to explain what caps are. "Why?" (This is his brilliant retort to any critique I suggest.) Because I'm only a partially informed audience, I tell him. I know that global warming is an issue, but I am not informed as to what is happening to stop the progression. "So I should say that caps are..." "Yes," I tell him, after he's given me a brief oral explanation. "Write that." A few pages later, I read him a sentence about the involvement of China's global warming efforts with the U.N. I tell him to write out the words United Nations, to which he replies, (are you ready?) "Why?" Then he says, in his signature I'm-17-and-trying-to-be-annoyingly-cute-and-sarcastic voice, "So do I have to explain China, too? Do I have to say 'China is a country with this really long wall...'" he trails off. (I was going to tell him he had to start with Pangaea, but...) The ear buds go back in his ears.

Out of my periphery, I see Rich shaking his hips, ever so slightly, elbows bent, hands in the air, fists bopping with the music. I know he won't stop until I acknowledge his Elvis-like swinging, so my head turns in his direction and I pretend I'm amused. "Go sharpen this, " I say, handing him my pencil. And, as he marches off to the study towards the pencil sharpener, I look out past the deck onto the lawn where the dog has settled on the green grass (which we should be grateful for because, you know...global warming and all.) I replay the events of my day, enjoying the brief moment to myself as the (correct) lyrics of "Bad" run in a loop through my head.