Flying Cheesy Dogs and the Art of Perfection

Makes you wanna cuss. And, I don’t mean “curse” in that polite and grammatically correct way. I mean cuss. In the vernacular.

The other night (seriously) I made “cheesy dogs,” the quintessential kid-friendly dinner composed of hot dogs stuffed with cheddar cheese and wrapped in crescent rolls. The parts are out of their respective packages and on the table with presto combined deliciousness in under 20 minutes flat. The pervasive opinion of the preschoolers in my house is that they are best accompanied by tator tots. No, preparing them probably doesn’t actually constitute cooking, and they don’t have much true nutritional value. But, they’re popular, and they can be a Mommy’s salvation after a long day of work.

So, last Friday I took full advantage of my own need for a quick fix at the end of a busy week. I made cheesy dogs. Eight of them. They were fresh out of the oven, and I was prying them from the pan with a spatula in my usual “grip with the pot-holder and scrape with all you’ve got” method. They always stick for some reason. The first one is the hardest to remove from the cookie sheet because of the close quarters produced by eight wrapped hot dogs arranged on about 180 square inches. Plus, the melting cheese always eliminates any space left between them.

I was holding with the pot-holder. I was scraping with the spatula in the upside-down position that almost always works. Almost. Before I could say “beefy jumbos,” cheesy dog #1 flew off the pan and onto the tile floor.

I told you. Makes you wanna cuss.

Don’t you just love the best laid plans? The table was set. Little Drummer Boy and Bug were in the living room announcing “I’m hungry!” I don’t remember, but I’m sure Baby Girl was on top of the coffee table. The week of a thousand heart-filled preschool parties was finally over. Tator Tots were on the table and ice in the glasses.

Just to recap: Cheesy dog #1 was ON THE FLOOR. And no one else was in the kitchen. So, what did I do? NATURALLY, I picked up #1 from the tile, blew it off and gave it a prominent location on the yellow serving plate. I popped those other seven suckers off the cookie sheet in short order, and “Dinner is served.” (Please send Martha Stewart Living subscriptions. Quick. And, Mama, just forget you read this.)

The bad news: Sometimes things just don’t work out the way you planned. The good news: No one has ever keeled over from a little grit on their cheesy dog. Honest.

Life isn’t perfect. In fact, perfection is an overrated and hopelessly flawed pursuit. And although I hate to play the role of the realist, realistically, a life lived in whatever moment of perfection I might enjoy is perhaps a life spent waiting for the other shoe to drop (or the other cheesy dog, as the case may be.) Perfection just can’t be maintained. And, TRYING to maintain it can be a nerve-racking, tension-filled, white-knuckle attempt. It’s simply not sustainable.

Sustainable perfection implies that the people achieving it are perfect. It assumes that those folks will always make wise choices, that they will always take into account and avoid the pitfalls (and clumsy spatulas) of life. It means they will never make mistakes, or at the least, they will always learn from their all-too-brief mistakes immediately and completely. Funny, I don’t see that person when I look in the mirror. I don’t know ANY people like that. In fact, the reality of those traits is pretty much universally disproved by the popularity of Wiley Coyote, don’t you think? Yeah, or at least by flying cheesy dogs.

Now, if you’ve never experienced your own cheesy dog epiphany, let me assure you that it’s coming. It’s a fact, and there is no fruit in denying it. The lesson learned from my own cheesy dog experience was that I can really shift my body a little to the left to block that whole flying off the pan thing, and this: Real life happens in the grit.

Thank God for the grit. It’s the stuff that lets us know we’re human just like everybody else, bound in a commonality of error. It’s the dust that reminds us of our own inherent needs, our own blessed short-comings. It’s the crunch that protects us from the trap of arrogant assumptions and exclusive palates. It’s the road-worthy flavor that ensures we are flexible and patient and willing to change and aware of the unexpected and able to embrace a surprising life.

Sure, plans are better made. They’re better laid with the best of intentions and wisdom and effort. They’re worth thinking about and following. But, from the poster child of plan Bs, let me just say that into every life a little cheesy dog must fall.

Blow it off and bon appetit!

The Perfect Cookie

A couple of weeks ago, I spent the evening making cookies for Little Drummer Boy’s preschool “tailgate party,” one of the perks of living in a college town. This particular Mississippi State Bulldog affair warranted some sweet combination of maroon and football. I decided round cookies would suffice since we don’t have dog bones or footballs in our cookie cutter collection. (I can’t believe those have escaped us somehow.) So, on Wednesday night, I baked the cookies without much fanfare. Yes, I used a cookie mix for my dry ingredients and the cutter-less prep meant that I could just drop them on the cookie sheet rather than rolling them out. Baking was accomplished in short order, and I saved the icing for the next night.

Faced with relatively round cookies and the need for some Bulldog spirit, I decided the best route was to ice them in maroon and pipe little football shapes on top. Ok. So, Thursday night was icing night. This time Little Drummer Boy was enthused to help every step of the way. He planted himself on his little chair right next to me with a “what are you doing now?” with each new activity. Icing footballs had won out over Miss Piggy, Lightning McQueen and even a few tractors and firetrucks. That’s tough competition for a half-homemade cookie.

He called it brown. It looked like the 80s favorite “dusty rose” to me–most definitely not maroon. They were not even close to the perfectly round, perfectly smooth, Bulldog-topped numbers you see at Kroger around these parts this time of year. The football shapes, piped with one of the only two remaining screw-on tips I could find, prompted a “what’s that” from LDB, and the gray “laces” were a little spider web-like. (To my credit, the gray was spot-on. I didn’t go to art school for nothing.) But, with my little enthusiast contributing, every explanation was met with a “those are cool” as he was pasted to my side during the whole process. The experience warranted more than one “these are for MY party” with all the joy of knowing Mommy was making something just for him. Fueled by a four-year-old’s staunch belief that Mommy can do anything, we pressed on. Two and a half dozen cookies later, Little Drummer Boy’s encouragement through the process was undaunted regarding what could very charitably be described as pink cookies with spider web-covered ovals on top. And then, the lure of helping to take out the garbage pulled him away.  We were done. Perfection in all its flawed glory.

The naysayer in me said “just go pick yourself up a clear plastic container from the nearly-fresh bakery section.” But, you know, my mother never bought decorated cookies. You couldn’t buy decorated cookies in those days — at least not at the Kwik Shop where we grocery shopped. I remember Mama’s cookies as being perfect. I’m sure in reality they were far from it, but the illusion in my mind isn’t tarnished with age–only more wisdom from my own motherhood. You see, even then, the perfection was in the moment, not the cookie. It was in how fun my Mom made it to get down the plastic cookie cutters, to add food coloring to the ready made icing. To toss the sprinkles or red hots or whatever confection she thought would give them that special touch. Even to do something else while I knew Mama was making cookies for my party was fun. The painstaking yellow triangular Jack-o-lantern eyes, the snowmen’s colorful scarves. The process created a perfectly sugared up, worn out, flour dusted, counter cluttered moment–and some pretty good cookies, too.

Perfection of the kind that produces NCAA regulation football shapes is highly over-rated. And more and more these days, I’m finding satisfaction in letting perfection slide. I want to spend my energy building the perfect moment, not the perfect product or the perfect person. The perfect moments of standing with Mommy at the counter, stirring the bowl, licking the spoon, proudly presenting the blue plastic platter filled with cookies to the class–the moments will be remembered far longer than the mauve-colored icing that should have been maroon. Perfection is in the process and the joy of effort, the imperfect outcome of moments spent on what matters. Yum.

The One About Hot Dogs

This past week was a busy one, made more complicated internally by changes to Quiver’s work situation and changes in our familiar routines. Over the weekend I had been feeling rather overwhelmed and generally behind in so many of the life plots (and attitudes) I need to be cultivating. It seems an odd time to be writing about hot dogs, but here we are.

Sometimes just a little change of plans, tossed with a pinch of spur-of-the-moment can create a much-needed shift in perspective. At some point during the middle of the afternoon (probably about the time I was reading and making mental notes for tomorrow’s final Geek episode of MeMyBook&Eye) I decided to ditch the leftover dinner plans and opt for more of a celebration mindset.

Celebration hasn’t really been at the forefront of our thoughts this week. We’ve been dealing with the emotional and physical ramifications of Quiver shutting down a business and beginning a new job. We’ve been busy with extra responsibilities beyond the normal routine. We’ve been challenged by some of the boy’s growing pains. We’ve been playing catch-up after new strides (quite literally) in Baby Girl’s growing independence. We’ve been cooking and cleaning and bathing and writing and laundering. We’ve been impatient with one another, with ourselves and with circumstances.

So, I decided an impromptu party was in order to lift our spirits and right our vision.

I realize that the word “party” conjurs up lots of different images. To adequately understand our version of a “party,” I’d better explain that we have family parties for just about anything. Usually the standard criteria for a party at the Montgomery house is a pretty sparse list: 1) something to laugh or jump up and down about; 2) something edible; 3) some form of decoration, be it new placemats, party paper plates, construction paper cut-outs hanging from the “chandelier”, table cloths, candlelight, etc. That about covers it.

Yes, I decided that tonight was an excellent time for our third “grill party” of the month–no time like the present. The plans made for extra excitement because we decided to have it in the BACK YARD where we could eat the whole meal OUTSIDE. Big fun. With catsup on top. The trappings of this party? Here’s the abridged version:

8 hot dogs + buns
1/4 bag charcoal + requisite lighter fluid
1 bag Cheetos
Sundry condiments
1 highly portable Pack-n-Play
1 blue checked tablecloth
2 $1 styrofoam airplanes
2 funky plastic things that spin and light up when you push the button
1 happy beagle
5 large marshmallows
1 coat hanger
1 bag mint chocolate cookies (in lieu of graham crackers and Hershey bars)
1 yellow lightning bug
4 “Lighting McQueen” party plates
Napkins (enough)
Giggles (uncounted)
2 tricycles
1 pink pair of pants (size 9mo)
2 porch lights
1 quick trip to the bathroom
The first “touch of Fall in the air” night this year
4 people I love (so much I can’t stand it)

Somewhere in between squirting mustard, fending off puppy paws, responding to the 637th “Mommy, watch this” and strategically planning my last bite to include part hot dog AND part bun–somewhere in there–I recognized again how much I have to be thankful for, how good I really have it.

Hot dogs with a side of renewed perspective. Who knew?

Morning Luxury

It’s funny how luxurious a morning routine can be. Over the past four years since our morning rituals began to involve a third (and fourth and fifth) party, our schedule has changed periodically. We’ve tried all kinds of permutations to discover a working combination of showering, ironing, dressing, eating, hugging and driving to get the work day started. Typically each trial and error session has given way to the next coinciding with new skills, or stages (or children) in our lives.

I discovered this week that we’ve been living in the lap of morning luxury, Quiver and I waking up with the daily anticipation of barely awake giggles, groggy hugs and more “help” getting to the car than we can handle. We divvy up the jobs, but still, there’s a perpetual full house participation. We’ve both had the opportunity to be involved in waking our children, getting them dressed for preschool, enjoying the plethora of voices and sound effects and conversations that so often are the backdrop of brushing teeth and eating poptarts. Each morning we’ve had the opportunity to double-team locating each child’s favorite tag-along stuffed animal and juicy cup, and to share the buckling tasks of three car seats.

Every day we’ve enjoyed a sometimes challenging, but familiar full family trip to daycare, a parade of little ones bearing nap mats or bottles or just the gusto of life as boys and a smiling Baby Girl. We’ve ALL traveled to each preschool classroom giving tandem hugs and kisses and “good days”, often distracted from signing our names to acknowledge arrival–first Baby Girl, then Squiggle Bug, and finally, Little Drummer Boy. Quiver and I have waved and blown kisses and eased ourselves into the transition of clients and offices with smiles on our faces and “spit kisses” on our cheeks, pulling out of the parking lot in different directions in preparation for the day’s work.

This week was different. I was reminded again of the blessing we have in just how much we do things together. Quiver has a new job with a local landscaping company that has meant some long hours and a few early mornings out of the house, meaning that he couldn’t participate in our normal AM routine–not so easy for a family man. At least not one from our kind of family. It’s odd to some, but we’re just the kind of folks who like to do things together. It’s not that Mommy or Daddy can’t adequately accomplish the morning requirements by themselves. It’s just that it’s so much more fun when we do it together. Anticipation of the change made us start missing Daddy during p.j. time the night before. And, we couldn’t help asking while pulling on the Transformer underwear, “don’t we wish Daddy was with us this morning?”

Tomorrow morning IF it’s raining–if he doesn’t have to leave the house at 6:30am–I don’t think I’ll complain about how long it takes him to put on his shoes, or the mud he’s tracked across the carpet. I don’t think I’ll insist that Little Drummer Boy go back to the table while I dry my hair or cut short his morning hug so I can hurry through blush and eye shadow. I don’t think I’ll tune out Squiggle Bug’s play by play of Old McDonald’s menagerie or rush him through the slow climb into the tall extended cab back seat. I think I’ll gladly take all the big brother help I’m offered for carrying Baby Girl’s diaper bag, or choosing a “cute” dress or providing some changing table entertainment (volume 10, and all). I think we’ll slow and take a closer look at the road construction crews and the pick-up trucks we pass. I think we’ll look for a front-end loader or a digger. I think I’ll linger with the good-bye kiss just half a second longer. I think I’ll crawl up into the lap of morning luxuring, sit a spell and smile.

Confessions of a Nest Builder

I spent the last two days desperately needing an oxygen mask. I’m on a staycation at Myrtle Avenue for part of this week, and I have been anxious to bring some order to a few areas of our house that haven’t seen it in the last couple of years. One laundry room, one utility room, one walk-in closet and about a dozen boxes and trash bags later, I have the contented self-satisfaction of creating a place for things that have been left wanting and letting go of the unnecessary. I’ve waded through dusty boxes, papers, piles of oh-I-forgot-we-had-that and other allergy inducing stacks of what have you. I’ve sweated, washed, climbed up and down ladders, vacuumed, swept and lugged around giant garbage bags. It’s been a great two days! The only thing that would have made it better is if I had been able to do all that while also hugging my little ones. Alas, daycare was the better option so that the piles and I could have a little alone time to work through our differences.

I’m one of those domestic engineers who is in perpetual nesting mode. There is almost no feeling I relish more than the peace of enjoying my own home when everything is in order. I don’t know how it is for the rest of the human race. I only know that for me, an ordered environment leads to an ordered and relaxed mind. It leads to refreshment and fresh thinking. So, despite the inevitable sweat and sneezing, I can find simple pleasure in creating a place for everything–a beautiful and colorful, yet quirky place–but a specific place nonetheless.

I know what you’re thinking, and I’m perfectly willing to own my obsessive tendencies. It’s not that I have an incessant need to constantly tidy up. The 2 or 3 years it took to create the piles I’ve been ordering rules that out. But, I do “need” a positive environment. I have a coping threshold for how much clutter I’m able to live with while maintaining my good humor and the ability to think rationally. It’s just a fact I’ve come to recognize. Also, I have clear criteria for what constitutes a home rather than simply a house. Part of that criteria includes being surrounded by the pattern and texture of beauty (at least to my eye) and the layered trappings of memory.  Feathering my nest puts me in the perpetual process of denoting memories, articulating preferences, stimulating peace, contentment and refreshment through the surroundings that have most come to signify our “place.” In her book, Creating a Beautiful Home, designer Alexandra Stoddard said:

“It is human to want to give physical expression to that which we hold sacred, and to define ourselves–through light, color and texture–by the spaces we inhabit… Home gently and subtly forces you to face the reality of your unique qualities and to mold, contour, adapt, build and change the things that don’t support this truth.”

Making a home out of a house is a gratifying and worthwhile pursuit. After having children, the pursuit has been made even more poignant with the thought that this specific place, which for so much of their early lives is the very center of their world, is the place that will build their assumptions about life and about home for future generations–whether what to emulate or what to avoid. Like it or not, THINGS, the trappings of life and activities and relationships, are often the tangible expression of those abstract, unspoken values and emotions we hold “sacred.”

By “things,” I don’t necessarily mean the latest and greatest from the catalogs, HGTV and Toys R Us. No, those things can sometimes make an impression, but regardless of trends or popularity, it is so often what we do with “things” that infuse them with their power of place. It is the wonder and excitement of my children seeing a Mickey Mouse gumball machine, purchased when I was a child and unearthed from the boxes of personal ephemera. It is the anticipation of filling it with M&Ms for ready snacks where the fun lies in scooping them from the slot. It’s the lamp and hand-me-down lampshade set on a chest to light a darkened corner in the reclaimed entry space. It is realizing I just created Buddy the Cat’s new favorite napping spot isolated from the curious hands and squeals of toddlers. It is an old Valentine I made for Quiver found in a box and hung in a newly cleaned and appointed office bathroom. It is blessing him with a convenient way to clean up during a hot August day of landscaping work. It is speaking an unexpected reminder of all we hold dear.

In my nest building, another of Alexandra Stoddard’s descriptions equally motivates and encourages me to declutter each moment and take good care of it:

“For me, home is the coming together of my past memories and experiences, of my love for my children, husband and friends; my love of nature and beauty; my love of life and belief in continuity; my optimism tangibly expressed in life-enhancing ways–room by room–and of the tender appreciation that no matter how much of myself I put into this home, I, like everyone on earth, am a temporary guest.”

A temporary guest.