Janie Two-Half (and oth­er sum­mer adventures)

Well, you turn two and a half only once! When my lit­tle sis­ter Jill was two and a half, and I was, gosh, eight? she had a set of best imag­i­nary friends. The leader of the pack was Dar­cy Two Half, who lived on a cloud, and got down by means of a lad­der that land­ed her on the deck out­side my par­ents’ bed­room. Being a much more adult, mature child, I of course had no imag­i­nary friends, but I was pret­ty close to the social cir­cle woven by my sis­ter’s imag­i­na­tion. So this sum­mer, since we fig­ure it will be awhile before we’re in town for the actu­al Feb­ru­ary birth­day of my niece Jane, we decid­ed a two-and-a-half birth­day was per­fect­ly wor­thy of celebration.

Sad­ly, hav­ing to go back to the city, Anne and David weren’t able to come. And they deserved a reward for com­ing across the road on Sat­ur­day with paint­brush­es to help us paint the Nev­erend­ing Fence! Oh my good­ness, that job last­ed all DAY. Joel and Jane came to help, and at first it was fun, lis­ten­ing to Jane say, “Oh, Aunt Kris­ten, thank you for invit­ing me to help you paint your fence!” But after we had all five slaved away for two hours and found that we had fin­ished only one bay of per­haps 14… aargh! Amaz­ing­ly, at around 3 o’clock a truck pulled up by the pine tree and out hopped a strap­ping young man. “I’m Mark, your neigh­bor up the road, and I can’t help but think you could use my paint sprayer.” Hal­lelu­jah! He ran home and came back with a machine that sim­ply paint­ed the fence all by itself. “I love this thing!” John shout­ed. Of course it paint­ed the grass as well, but we fig­ure that can be cut off. Ran out of paint with four feet to go! But gor­geous, and today we’ll fin­ish it.

Anne and David came back for din­ner, and we hung out late into the evening, feast­ing on my favorite scal­lop recipe and rasp­ber­ries in a splash of Grena­dine syrup and lemon juice (the per­fect sum­mer dessert).

So the day for Jane’s par­ty dawned misty and grey, and I raced off to the local Hall­mark store for bal­loons and stream­ers, then to the gro­cery for all the par­ty food. We had no soon­er tied the last bal­loon to the fence (the white fence!) and waved Anne and David off to the city, than up pulled Jane in her car, hands wav­ing, very excit­ed. From then it was off to all the things a small girl might want to do with four dot­ing adults and a niece-wor­ship­ing near­ly 11-year-old. Round after round of “ring around a rosie” on the tram­po­line, Jane insist­ing she knows how to turn a jump rope, a vis­it from Rol­lie with some semi-dead gera­ni­ums and wilt­ing herbs that he thought I could bring back to life. There’s noth­ing Rol­lie likes more than not throw­ing some­thing away, and he sees in me a kin­dred spir­it. “We can still use that for some­thing!” John and Joel report that he told only about a dozen sto­ries that they’d already heard, so it was a typ­i­cal Rol­lie visit.

Then a lunch of hot dogs, plus a small mile­stone: Avery used a real knife for the first time! Not a knife at the din­ner table, but a real-live butch­er knife, to cut lit­tle ham sand­wich­es into tri­an­gles (crusts removed, of course!) for Jane’s lunch. Only French’s yel­low mus­tard, of course, and we all felt very tri­umphant that Jane accept­ed them and ate four! I found yet anoth­er use for left­over sweet corn, but I have added some bits that will make it more inter­est­ing for you.

Then it was on to the nas­ti­est cake ever, bought from the super­mar­ket. “I think the sug­ar is get­ting to her,” Jill said, as Jane’s eyes start­ed to glaze over. We had for­got­ten the incred­i­ble capac­i­ty of a two-and-a-half year old to REPEAT things. “Did you fin­ish all the limeade, Dad­dy?” “Yes, sure did.” “Show me!” Out comes the emp­ty bot­tle, and then Uncle John bursts into tears. The first time, Janey was quite dis­turbed, but she quick­ly fig­ured out what a nut her uncle is. They must have gone through the rou­tine six­teen times. I have to say: she is a ter­rif­ic sport as far as her uncle’s teas­ing goes, even recov­er­ing pret­ty quick­ly from his growl­ing when she start­ed to eat her water­mel­on. “The water­mel­on did NOT say that, Uncle John!”

Then ice cream in real cones, with sprin­kles, and final­ly a nap. Poor Jill had to dri­ve all the way to work for a half-hour meet­ing (such are the demands on an ESPN exec­u­tive!). It is amaz­ing to me that she man­ages to do it all, and I must say she and Joel are the cham­pi­ons at treat­ing Jane like a real per­son. No won­der she’s so fun­ny to be around.

While Jane slept (and John too, I must tell you, took a nap), Joel kept me com­pa­ny while I made the mari­nade for the pork fil­let for dinner.

Pork Fil­let with Lime and Sesame Oil
(serves four adults and two small girls)

2 pork ten­der­loins (they come togeth­er in a vac­u­um pack)
zest of four limes
juice of 2 limes
2 tbsps sesame oil
sea salt and pepper
4 cloves gar­lic, minced
1‑inch knob gin­ger, minced

Mix all the ingre­di­ents and place in a ziplock bag with the ten­der­loins. Squeeze them around until all sur­faces of the meat are coat­ed, and keep squeez­ing the bag every few min­utes until it’s time to cook. The meat will grill best at room temperature.

Grill in a hot grill (400 degrees) for about 25 min­utes, turn­ing occa­sion­al­ly (about once every time you take a sip from your gin and limeade). Let the meat rest for about five min­utes before slicing.

As soon as Jane (and John) woke up, it was off to Rol­lie’s farm to see the new baby calf! She was thrilled to ride in the 1967 Land Rover we dri­ve around in when we’re at Red Gate Farm (named Quin­cy). “Why does this car make such a loud noise? Our car does not make this noise. Whoa!” was her run­ning com­men­tary in the five min­utes or so it took to go around the hill to see the ani­mals. She was a bit skep­ti­cal of the calves’ lick­ing her hands as they did Avery’s, but was quite cap­ti­vat­ed by being held at arm’s length and watch­ing. “Where are the pig­gies?” she asked Young Rol­lie, but he shook his head. “We don’t have pigs, sor­ry,” and she learned instant­ly from this to phrase her next ques­tion dif­fer­ent­ly. “Do you have any sheep?” Yep, sure enough, there were sheep and lambs. “Where are the dog and the cat?” And just then Judy came out of the house with Max the gold­en lab and Mr. B the grot­ty old white tom­cat. Heav­en. Typ­i­cal John tor­ment­ed the dog by pre­tend­ing to throw the nasty drip­ping ten­nis ball for him, and final­ly Jane insist­ed that he throw it for real.

Home to pork roast, mashed pota­toes and aspara­gus in olive oil, choco­late chip cook­ies, and final­ly it was time for Jane to go home. Waaah, we all want­ed to keep her.

Well, what else has been hap­pen­ing? I had a fab­u­lous lunch in the city with my dar­ling Alyssa, at our old haunt Roc. Just my luck: Roc­co him­self was there, kiss­ing me on both cheeks and ask­ing, “Are you putting ‘indeed’ at the end of all your sen­tences yet, my dar­ling?” Some­times all you want is to go do the same old thing, at the same old place, with your best friend. John was so nice and took him­self and Avery off to lunch on their own, so Alyssa and I could spend a cou­ple of hours just gos­sip­ing and catch­ing up. She’s work­ing so hard on her new com­pa­ny Mom­cierge, busi­ly mak­ing sug­ges­tions for their clients on how to find a sum­mer camp, plan a bar mitz­vah, find stuff for vis­it­ing rel­a­tives to do in New York, you name it. I would high­ly rec­om­mend a vis­it to their web­site if only to see their “Sum­mer Read­ing Sug­ges­tions” in the July 31 newslet­ter. Sign up, why not?

Why do we have so much fun? Well, part of it is going back 8 or 9 years togeth­er, with all the mem­o­ries of our lit­tle girls being tiny togeth­er, and expe­ri­enc­ing the same sto­ries of their preschool years, count­less birth­day par­ties and bal­let lessons and all the years they have spent dye­ing East­er eggs and hang­ing Christ­mas orna­ments with us, and all the Rosh Hoshana and Passover din­ners we’ve had at their house, and end­less games of drei­dl. And famil­iar semi-mali­cious gos­sip and dis­ap­proval for what var­i­ous oth­er moth­ers are doing and say­ing, I’m ashamed to say. Part of the fun.

Off to meet Avery and John for a shop­ping spree at the sum­mer sale at Tribeca Girls, com­ing away with some real­ly cute stuff for almost noth­ing (espe­cial­ly com­pared to Lon­don prices, ouch).

Home again to Red Gate Farm, where our next project is the… Red Gate. It looks awful, so I’m about to head out and scrape all the nasty bits off and get it look­ing nice enough to go with the fence. It’s beyond hot and humid here, so I’m think­ing a trip to the pool will be our reward. Oh, our friends Chris and Mar­la have inspired us to think about putting in a pool here, if it would­n’t be too off-putting for our South­bury Land Trust col­leagues to look at when they dri­ve by. What an unbe­liev­able lux­u­ry that would be! Although I’d feel a lit­tle pang for the sweet Bal­lan­tine Pool where we go now. We’ll see. Enjoy your Tuesday…