Category — Show and Tell

Show and Tell is wasted on elementary schoolers. Join several dozen bloggers weekly to show off an item, tell a story, and get the attention of the class. In other words, this is Show and Tell 2.0. Everyone is welcome to join, even if you have never posted before and just found out about Show and Tell for the first time today. So yank out a photo of the worst bridesmaid’s dress you ever wore and tell us the story; show off the homemade soup you cooked last night; or tell us all about the scarf you made for your first knitting project. Details on how to participate are located at the bottom of this post.

Let’s begin.

I love They Might Be Giants. I was a counselor at a summer day camp when Flood was released and we took the kids on a camping trip. I shared a tent with my friend, Tate, and we stayed up sharing the two ear buds from a Walkman, listening to his copy of the tape. When we got back to the camp, the headmistress yelled at us because male and female counselors were not supposed to share tents on trips. I remember being really stunned by this news and said, “but I shared tents with boys all the time back when I was a camper here.” And she snarled, “it’s a different world now, Melissa.” And I always associate that moment with the album, Flood.

I love They Might Be Giants so much that they were one of the sole tapes (Apollo 18) I listened to during my walk to campus every morning my freshman year. I set out down Langdon to “Dig My Grave” and when I hit the all-girls co-op house on the corner, it changed to “I Palindrome I.” I was at Le Chateau for “My Evil Twin.” And then at the Union for “Mammal.” And then I usually was in the throng of people near H.C. White in the middle of “The Statue Got Me High” and I was at my first anthropology class right around the beginning of “The Guitar” and almost always got to the psych building afterwards for “Dinner Bell.” I could tell if I was running late if I wasn’t hitting my buildings at the right song.

I just really wanted to proclaim my love of They Might Be Giants.

This song is probably my favourite song; maybe due to my love of water and the boat imagery or because I get all emotional thinking about population explosion.

What are you showing today?

Click here or scroll down to the bottom of this post if this is your first time joining along (hint: link to the permalink for the post, not the main url for your blog and use your blog’s name, not your name). The list is open from now until late Tuesday night and a new one is posted every week.

Show and Tell is wasted on elementary schoolers. Join several dozen bloggers weekly to show off an item, tell a story, and get the attention of the class. In other words, this is Show and Tell 2.0. Everyone is welcome to join, even if you have never posted before and just found out about Show and Tell for the first time today. So yank out a photo of the worst bridesmaid’s dress you ever wore and tell us the story; show off the homemade soup you cooked last night; or tell us all about the scarf you made for your first knitting project. Details on how to participate are located at the bottom of this post.

Let’s begin.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the mystery gift I received in the mail. Last weekend, we threw it in my purse and hit the road. Before we departed for Shepherdstown, I gleefully left a status message on Facebook crowing about going out for afternoon tea. That didn’t happen.

You see, I really missed the point of the book which was to travel outside my personal norm and not pack expectations. And while I claimed I didn’t have any plans in place once we got to Shepherdstown, the truth was that I assumed we’d have a light lunch at the Thai place and then go down to the river for a bit and then end the outing with tea and cakes. But when we got to the town, almost every business was closed because it was a holiday. The one coffee shop that was open didn’t have anything I wanted to eat. I ended up trying not to cry because we rarely get out there and we finally had this chance and the trip was ruined.

Sadly eating a chocolate croissant at the coffee shop when my heart was really set on tea and cakes

I left Josh and the twins in the coffee shop and went over to the public library where I googled surrounding towns and jotted down some directions.

Before we left, we tried to get down to the river, but a few wrong turns brought us to this bizarre little memorial for the inventor of the steamboat. While looking at this view of the river…

We found this tiny path behind the memorial. We decided to see where it led. At the end there was a message.

Not entirely sure what it means, but as we stood there, Josh reminded me that so few people in the world know about this tiny spray painted sign and that was surely more special than tea and cakes.

Also, mysteriously spray painted on an adjacent fence were inexplicably the words “Only in America.” It felt like another clue to a puzzle.

We got in the car and took the long back roads to another favourite town in West Virginia, Berkeley Springs. The Wolvog fell asleep on the ride, so when we got to the town, Josh and Wolvog remained back in the car while the ChickieNob and I walked over to a little store on the corner. “There is something in here for the mystery gifter,” I told her.

“How do you know?” she asked.

“Because, I can just sense it.”

We walked through the store and picked up many items and we both kept shaking our heads. Finally, we were about to leave when we both spotted the same box at the same time. We ended up purchasing three of the same item and there is a little story behind that too, but that will have to be a different Show and Tell.

I never got my cup of tea until I got home, though I ended the trip on a much happier note.

What are you showing today?

Click here or scroll down to the bottom of this post if this is your first time joining along (hint: link to the permalink for the post, not the main url for your blog and use your blog’s name, not your name). The list is open from now until late Tuesday night and a new one is posted every week.

Show and Tell is wasted on elementary schoolers. Join several dozen bloggers weekly to show off an item, tell a story, and get the attention of the class. In other words, this is Show and Tell 2.0. Everyone is welcome to join, even if you have never posted before and just found out about Show and Tell for the first time today. So yank out a photo of the worst bridesmaid’s dress you ever wore and tell us the story; show off the homemade soup you cooked last night; or tell us all about the scarf you made for your first knitting project. Details on how to participate are located at the bottom of this post.

Let’s begin.

I have to start this off by saying that we don’t live in a particularly Jewish area. I mean, there are Jews around here, but it’s just not a Jewish-ish town like where we used to live.

Every Purim, we make packages of candy and cookies and send them to friends and family. Some people live in town and we drive around packages for drop off a few days before Purim. But some need to be mailed and we do those in three big batches. I also tend to be a bit scattered and unorganized with this whole undertaking so there have been many times that I have filled and labeled the packages while at the post office. Since I take over a corner of the post office to do this, I explained one year that it was for a holiday called Purim and everyone’s eyes sort of glazed over. A few years ago, I started making one extra package for the post office as a thank you for humouring me as I took up all their counter space.

I went to the post office with the first batch this week (and yes, I know it’s really early). When I set down my box in front of one of my favourite postmasters, he got this huge grin on his face. “Is it Purim now? Does this mean you’re going to be sending cookies and candy again? Do we get a package again this year?”

I really love that our tradition has made post office lore history. That this group of Christian postmasters remember it and look forward to this every year. That we’re Jewifying our little town. Who knows–maybe someday soon they’ll join me in a rousing version of “Ki Va Moed” as they hand me my mail. The postmaster helped me price out every packaging option and found the best one for us financially and timewise. He even set me up with boxes and labels so I could fill them at home and just drop them off at the post office.

As I was leaving, the postmaster reminded me that he really doesn’t like the poppyseed hamantaschen (nor do I, sir, nor do I) but they do enjoy my coffee or tea-infused toffees. Just wanted me to know. And if I was doing those sea-salt caramels again this year, they’d like a few of those.

What are you showing today?

Click here or scroll down to the bottom of this post if this is your first time joining along (hint: link to the permalink for the post, not the main url for your blog and use your blog’s name, not your name). The list is open from now until late Tuesday night and a new one is posted every week.

Show and Tell is wasted on elementary schoolers. Join several dozen bloggers weekly to show off an item, tell a story, and get the attention of the class. In other words, this is Show and Tell 2.0. Everyone is welcome to join, even if you have never posted before and just found out about Show and Tell for the first time today. So yank out a photo of the worst bridesmaid’s dress you ever wore and tell us the story; show off the homemade soup you cooked last night; or tell us all about the scarf you made for your first knitting project. Details on how to participate are located at the bottom of this post.

Let’s begin.

A few weeks ago, I went to the ChickieNob and Wolvog’s school to talk about candy-making and allow the kids to make royal icing alphabet letters. I brought in one of my travel boxes of equipment and spoke about sugar art and showed them some of my tools as well as some burn marks on the back of my hand from a recent lollipop incident. I felt like a freakin’ Willy Wonka. One child begged if she could just sit on my lap to be close to me and another told me that he really really really liked the ChickieNob and Wolvog so was he invited to their birthday party this year?

Truly, I wanted to tell the kids that this should be a lesson in life: treat everyone as if their mother could be Willy Wonka because you just don’t know if they’re an ordinary person or the source of extraordinary candy.

I especially loved the part in each session (I did the same activity twice) where the kids shouted out things and asked if I could make it out of sugar or icing or cake. And then the asker would fall over screaming in ecstasy when I’d reply, “yes, I can truly make anything out of sugar.” A firetruck? Yes, I can truly make anything out of sugar. My teddy bear? Yes, I can make it out of sugar. A sleek, 29-gauge Follistim pen? Yes, I can make it out of sugar.

Now, when I walk down the hall to drop them off at school, it’s like the kids are seeing a rock star. “That’s her,” I heard a girl murmur to her mother as I helped the ChickieNob with her coat. “That’s the lady with all the candy.”

You would think that my kids would get more sugar, but alas, they just get better sugar in the same small amount as everyone else.

I made a few sample flowers to pass around the room along with lollipops and caramels. Here’s how they looked before they were crushed in a preschooler’s death grip when he refused to relinquish their sweet goodness to the next child in the circle.

A bag of sugar flowers, by the way, will be included in our Purim baskets this year as part of our overall theme of rebirth-renewal-reflection. Think of it like party-in-a-bag.

And yes, I will soon do my Purim giveaway. I am just getting some pictures together this week as I do a few early baskets.

What are you showing today?

Click here or scroll down to the bottom of this post if this is your first time joining along (hint: link to the permalink for the post, not the main url for your blog and use your blog’s name, not your name). The list is open from now until late Tuesday night and a new one is posted every week.

Show and Tell is wasted on elementary schoolers. Join several dozen bloggers weekly to show off an item, tell a story, and get the attention of the class. In other words, this is Show and Tell 2.0. Everyone is welcome to join, even if you have never posted before and just found out about Show and Tell for the first time today. So yank out a photo of the worst bridesmaid’s dress you ever wore and tell us the story; show off the homemade soup you cooked last night; or tell us all about the scarf you made for your first knitting project. Details on how to participate are located at the bottom of this post.

Let’s begin.

I am completely stealing this from Julie from A Little Pregnant. She started (I think she started?) a new list called 15 Things about You (get it, instead of 25 Things about Me). Since it would be sort of impossible to click around and guess about blog readership, I’m using my Facebook group to compile my list of 15 things. If you want to join me on Facebook, make sure you include your blog name in your friend request since I won’t accept people I don’t know at all.

1. 5 of my Facebook friends have their name on my Ketubah (a Jewish marriage contract).

2. I always imagine one person on the list as a cigarette-smoking Barbie even though I now know what she looks like.

3. One friend lived in the same building in Sunderland, MA but we didn’t know each other back then.

4. I had a secret crush on one friend back when we were in school.

5. One friend is the greatest travel partner in the world. Er…I mean, after Josh.

6. One person on the list stole my ring when we were five years old.

7. I was with two people on the list the night A.W. lost her virginity in the next room.

8. When I was 8 years old, I ran through the wishing tree at camp (you were granted one wish by the wishing tree each summer). I wished that when I grew up, a certain boy at camp would kiss me. I took this photo after I told my friends about my wish. They all told me I was stupid and wasted my wish because that boy was never ever going to kiss me because he was so much older than we were.

I didn’t see him again for eight years and we didn’t keep in touch. One day, we ended up back in the same place at the same time and he kissed me while we were sitting on a rock in the river. He didn’t remember me, though I put together who he was about 3 minutes before he kissed me. I tell you this story now because he is a friend of mine on Facebook.

9. One person on the list made me a gorgeous ceramic pomegranate necklace.

10. One person on the list knows the nickname my husband had for me on his old blog.

11. 6 people on the list visited the twins when they were in the NICU. 5 of them are family.

12. 5 people on the list made me love Tina Turner.

13. One person on the list was on the cover of the Onion because I didn’t feel like having my picture taken that night and she was overseas and therefore couldn’t protest. The photo I chose of her was taken a few seconds after she fell through the cushions on our trick sofa. Our friend at the Onion needed a picture of an angry-looking girl.

14. One person on the list is the reason I went to BlogHer last summer.

15. One person on the list has a defunct blog that I miss greatly. Sometimes I click over even though I know she has stopped updating it. I hate it when blogs close.

What are you showing today?

Click here or scroll down to the bottom of this post if this is your first time joining along (hint: link to the permalink for the post, not the main url for your blog and use your blog’s name, not your name). The list is open from now until late Tuesday night and a new one is posted every week.