There are two things in this world which always make me laugh. Maybe there are more, but these two are top of the list.

Number 1 : Hiccups ( I had to look up how to spell this).

I really cannot remember a time when I did not laugh when someone- could be me , could be you- had the hiccups, we are going back to Pamper time. And this drove my Mother – a very temperate woman- crazy.

We would be together and she would get the hiccups. And I would start hardy harr- ing away. She would ask me, very politely, to * hic* stop laughing. Now I am about to fall off of my chair, I am laughing so hard.

She is *hic* getting quite annoyed with me, perhaps she *hic* thumped her hand on the kitchen table.Now I am on the floor, rolling around, trying not to piss my pants, I am laughing so much.

I have made a lot of progress with this, for it is rude to laugh at people who have the hiccups, but deep in my soul, I find hiccups hilarious.

Number 2 is Rubbers

I am very old and very fortunate, for I came of age in that small window of time between the Sexual Revolution and the advent of AIDS. I had fun, I was lucky, this is a serious business, but the sight of a filled rubber has always sent me immediately to the floor, rolling around, trying not to piss my pants, I am laughing so much. If you think about it, this works as well as a rubber.

But it is time for someone here to have that secret stash in the wallet. It really is a serious health issue. But I can’t do it. This is really serious and the sight of a rubber makes me laugh, I don’t think I could keep a straight face. And I could never do the banana business. Do people actually do that, or is this some Urban Myth ?

I actually discussed this with The Girl last night. We are going to dump this whole business on The Boyfriend. And I asked her if she really thought that it had to be a Banana, could it be a cucumber ? I know that I can never do the banana business. We were having a serious conversation and she paused, thought about it and said that it has to be a Banana.

Babies are really cute, but what a morass we walk into , unaware.

I really cannot believe that whole banana business. And, if true, what are you supposed to do with that poor banana after education hour…nope, I’m not even going to think about that.

I wonder why I ever pause and think carefully about what The Boy asks me. He and I are sharing a computer right now, as his connection is down. He keeps changing my wallpaper or whatever it is to this. This is over the top trailer trash from Brabant. I asked him once how he would feel if The Baby would bring one of these dudes home : he would not like that at all.

I have asked him 4 times to get that off of my computer. He is becoming very intrigued by Karl Marx, so I thought that I would find Karl Marx as my background. But his eyes were twinkling far too much and he REALLY wanted to see my reaction when I saw my new…background.

It was a new photo of those dudes.

And here is what is so sad and why I am a worthless Mother : I play his games. Today, I have to look at these fools. The Baby is going to die, if I kiss one of them, she will live. Choose wisely, grasshopper. And I do it, I make a choice. What do I look like, Sophie ? He almost laughs his nuts off.

Why do do I ever pause and take him seriously ?

I wonder how many people would go through the bother of cooking if there was no one about to eat the results. This is up there with that tree in the woods.

I am trying to clean out the freezer, for we really do need to de-frost it. Use it or loose it. I had some spaghetti sauce there, 4 out of 5, red, ground meat, nothing Michelin is going to be pounding on our door about.

The Boy and The Father are sick, home, I am doing ER here on my own, lots of fluids, lots of rest, comfort food if you can hold it. I am very bad at doing ER.

And The Father pops up in the kitchen at 8.30 am, while I am reading the paper, after having gotten The Baby off to school. I really believe in being pleasant in the morning, but small talk is not my strongest side.

Why do I ask people what they want for dinner ? Excepting The Girl ( you know, Knorr), everyone likes this sauce fine. Now I push it, do you want spaghetti and meatballs or tortellini ? Ok, spaghetti and meatballs wins, I am not good at ER and trying to be pleasant. Do you want tagliatelli or spaghetti, you know, the skinny stuff. We agree upon the skinny stuff, because The Baby likes that best.

I put on my coat, get my shopping bag and trudge into town to get what we will need. They are sick, comfort food is important. Ice cream will work as well, upset stomachs…

Right before lunch, I have everything set up to make the meatballs. I dump the dishwasher ( 3 times a day) first, clean up before I make a new mess and line up everything that I am going to need. The only thing that I had not decided upon was what knife to use. I might be obsessive compulsive, who knows, but I try to avoid food poisoning, that has never happened here. And Ready, Steady, Cook drives me crazy.

I set up the table for lunch, give The Boy some Kangaroo, I am really trying to be a good nurse. And then The Father tells me that he and The Boy will not be home for dinner. Nope, they are going to Germany for some business meeting.

I put away the onion, the really good garlic that I found, put the hamburger in the fridge. The salt and pepper go into the cupboard. The sauce in the fridge, for tomorrow is another day. I forgot to put out an egg and some bread crumbs, but that does not matter now.

The girls here at Casa Kitchen had take out from the Turkish place. The Girl ordered. She is like some pop star, all she had to say on the phone was her first name, the owner of the joint stuttered and fumbled all over the place. She is too cute and she knows it. She always gets a discount and she managed a special order thing for me, no meat. I want The Boy to pick up the food next time.

But the bright side was that the Turkish place gave us a pile of sauces. One was Harissa ( stay away from that, girls), a garlic sauce which I think was made from drained Greek yogurt, and the third, I have no idea, but it was good. Red, lots of fresh onions, olive oil… and I do not know what else.

I have not had Harissa for years. That was the bright light of today.

I really should weigh about 500 kilos, I like food so much.

But only some food. And I never eat if I am not hungry or in the evening.

After years of being Elvis’ biggest fan, I thought that The Boy had moved on, retaining only his deep love of Gospel Music. To each their own.

But it still comes up, yesterday it was the pop quiz about what was so very different about Elvis and Priscilla and why did Jerry Lee Lewis face such a scandal. Same age women, same difference. Now that I have my wits about me, I think that the difference was that Jerry Lee hit on family.

And The Boy and I will never agree about Colonel Parker. I respect The Boy’s take on this, but I really dislike Colonel Parker. First of all, he was not a Colonel, his name was not Parker, he was a carny man from Brabant.

And I will never forgive Colonel Parker for not allowing Elvis to take second billing to Barbra Streisand in A Star Is Born. From what I have heard, Elvis wanted to do it, he would have been great in it- tweak the music a bit- and it would have given him a bit of self respect after all of those fool movies he made.

Why is Elvis Presley a part of my life ? Why have we been to Tupelo, to Graceland, why can I answer without a thought that Heartbreak Hotel is my favorite song of his ? Wait, it might be Suspicious Minds…

Is it because we have coddled The Boy, or is it because Elvis was just so beautiful and just so tragic ?

This is one of my favorite restaurants, and I have had my stomach dragged to a number of 3 Star Michelin joints. It used to be my Father’s hobby, he can go anywhere in the world and know within 30 seconds if we are going to eat well. Michelin or not.

It is a little beach shack, across from the free beach on the Viale Europa in Viareggio, you can walk there from my Parent’s old house.

But you have to have someone with you in the know, who can speak Italian and talk food, for the best things are what the chef feels like cooking that day.

But I do have a penchant for beach shacks and seafood. 3 stars mean prissy waiters, scuttling about. All of that starched linen.

It is nice to have sandy feet and good fish. I also like this place in Florida , which I oddly enough, found. If they have recovered from that fool hurricane. You can sit on the beach at a pick nick table with a Margarita or a Corona and a passel of peel and eat shrimp while you wait for a table.

My very favorite restaurant just closed down. I guess that the son could not follow the father. It was in Belgium, and we never missed the opening of the white asparagus season. We were there, rubbing our hands together in anticipation. I even liked their *Wild* menu ( you know, Boar, Deer, pate…I’m not going to say meow, meow,meow…).

I think that all of this snow ( yes, it is snowing again) makes a little beach shack sound like the place to be.

Why do I care about this and I know that no one else on earth cares about this, but I woke up this morning thinking, fudge, I have had great Polenta. It was at that little beach shack in Viareggio, the only place that I have had octopus ( it could of been squid) which does not have the texture of a rubber band. I could eat there every day of my life. We always go there with the Italian BIL and wife ( remember her, good food is better then good sex. And they always read the menu and order for us).

But part of the antipasti is this little piece of polenta. About 3 inches square, a cm thick, it seems to be slightly crispy. And piled up on top of it is what is now some trendy combo, perhaps tomatoes, olives, anchovies, maybe capers. I was too busy going yum yum to pay much attention. I love olives, I love fish, I love capers and I love vinegar.

I do wonder how polenta moved into Tuscany. And now I am going nuts trying to remember the name of that shack. I am going to send an email to my Italian BIL and ask him, it just is not on Google Maps.

And The Boy has been on my computer for an hour, trying to download , yup, Hava Nigilia as a ring tone. He downloaded an exe. on MY computer. This is simply not done. I no longer have Google as my front page. Nope. I now have MSN, or whatever it is. We need that computer whiz kid here. Soon.

I really do not like people going on MY computer.

I have always been envious of left handed people. A minority, they seem to be such a creative bunch, the dreamers who have changed our world. I wonder what it is like to have a brain that works differently then… the mob.

One can tell within a few months if a baby is left or right. The Father and I are right, so is The Girl. The Baby is left, The Boy, we are still working on this one.

How I wrung my hands about having a left handed baby : should I buy special scissors, a special mouse, Oh me, oh my. I immediately ran to people who have been very tolerant of me for at least 10 years, on line. And I followed their advice : unless Baby had problems, see if she can deal with right hand tools. She can. Excepting felt tip pens and those nib pens : she has to write from left to right, with her left hand and things get smudged. She wants her homework to be tidy.

And The Boy. There is some fancy name for what is going on with The Boy, but I loathe labels ( what would todays experts say about Einstein ?) and all that I can remember is that it is cross something. At 6 years old, he was tested because he could not connect 3 dots and make a triangle. The tests showed that every instinctual reaction of The Boy is left. But he writes right. He later told me that he decided to write right because he wanted to fit in. Well, that did not work and he went through years of low key physical therapy ( which he really liked) for fine motor control, he can no longer change.

But I do really wonder what it is like to have a brain that connects in a different way from most people. I will never know, all that I can do, as a Mummy Dearest, is to say that if everyone else is eating worms, are you going to do it ?

March to your own drummer.

I have never had fresh Salsa in my entire life. I have no idea what it should taste like, but this works on a Dorito. Salsa or not, I like this combo.

1 yellow Bell Pepper
1 red onion
1-2 cloves of garlic
1 lime
1 tsp salt
coriander
10 Romas

I de- seed and drain out everything. Except the lime, of course. Ok, I de- seed the lime. Everything is minced and while I am one of those people who finds coriander to taste like soap, this is just so fresh. What do you need for a Dorito ?

Today we had Paella. I do not do Paella well, but it works, 5 out of 5.The Girl even stayed home for dinner. The only time that I had real Paella was when I was about 10 years old and in Mallorca. We all got terribly ill. I make it with those brown Indian shrimp and salmon.

Today that fool rice worked. Usually, I panic and add too much water. I thought that it was too salty- and I wuv salt- but I am not going for a star, just trying to dish up dinner. And risotto, same sortof rice, why bother ? Hang over a pot for something that in the end, I just do not care for. I can do al dente very well, but this ?

And now I shall prove my ignorance by asking what is the difference between corn meal mush and Polenta ? Is this a language thing ? I don’t care what you put in Polenta, for me, it is corn meal mush. Even our dog would not eat that. Dress it up all you want, but it is corn meal mush.

Well, I”m just trying to feed the family.

I really do try to be a good mother. Really. So, I am trying to explain mirror writing to The Baby, you know Leonardo and all. Baby wrote in mirror writing for quite a while, she is also left handed.

And The Boy is singing Hava Nagila the whole time.

So I´m explaining all of the great ideas Leo had, the paintings, and I´m just hearing Hava Nagila.

I don´t mind Hava Nagila, but I am trying to explain to a 10 year old kid that she does not have dyslexia … been tested, not there. I am just trying to give a rather informative answer to a kid hit with the double whammy of being left handed and bilingual. How special left handed people are. To the tune of Hava Nagila.

I ask The Boy, why are you here, in the kitchen . Should you not be in the front room, watching football or Top Gear. Yup, Hava Nagila.

The three of us laughed so much. The Baby will never remember my comments about Di Vinci, she will only remember…. yup, Hava Nagila.

From Jo.

I keep cursing the changing weather. I’m not ready yet to switch to socks, turning the heat in the house back on and closing up all the windows. Windows that have been thrown wide open since June.

So good, so easy and yet another thing to do with that chicken.

We had this the other day for dinner, 5 out of 5 points. I found some decent garlic , but 2 potatoes, we are not even close. And I used about 700 grams of chicken breasts, not even close. We are total carnivores and this chicken is just so good…brown for flavour..

So, I have done my duty, this is saved.