An Avocado is a Fruit

Avocados may be the most utensil intensive fruit on the face of the Earth.  Compare it to an apple.  You don’t need anything to eat it, but if you’re really fussy, they make a neat little coring tool to cut it into convenient, bite sized slices.  One utensil, max.  What about oranges?  All you need to enjoy one of them is an orange peeler or some long finger nails and a little determination.  How about a pomegranate?  It needs a knife to cut it and a bowl of water to work in, along with fingers and way more patience than should be required to eat a fruit.  And only one of those is a utensil.

But the avocado.  The avocado first requires a knife.  But no ordinary butter knife will do; a steak knife is needed to slice its leathery peel.  Once split, you need a spoon.  This tool works amazingly well separating the peel from the inner fruit.  You could try using a fork here, but the spoon fits the curve of the peel so well.  As an added bonus, it is quite effective at scooping out any unwanted brown spots that may be marring your otherwise beautiful fruit.  A fork would butcher this job.

Now I know it’s completely possible to stop at two utensils, reusing the knife to slice the avocado.  But I’ve found the best uses of an avocado require a fork.  An avocado slice on a salad pales in comparison to a chip dipped in fresh guacamole or avocado spread across toast.  Both are utterly divine.  While I admit I’ve never tried mashing an avocado using a knife and/or spoon, the fork does the job wonderfully well.  Smashing, mixing, spreading, the fork does it all, except of course for the above mentioned cutting and scooping.

Avocado toast is worthy of some additional details, as its rather bland moniker doesn’t do it justice.  I’m talking about ripe avocado mashed with a dash of lime juice, spread thick on toast, then lightly dusted with cayenne and a crackling of sea salt.  Absolutely amazing!  I was first introduced to avocado toast in Hawaii.  Yes, I’ve been lucky enough to go to Hawaii.  It was all sunshine, beaches, waterfalls, volcanos, pineapple, and, of course, avocado toast.

But then, avocado toast wasn’t the most memorable food I was introduced to on the Big Island.  We asked about local cuisine and were directed down a road South of Captain Cook to a small establishment that could best be described as half food place, half house and garage.  Following our directions to a T, we walked up and ordered Lau Lau.

Lau Lau is pork and butterfish wrapped in lu’au leaves and inedible ti leaves.  This particular establishment, I had heard, steams the wrapped delicacy for multiple days before serving it.  I’ve tried other Lau Lau, but nothing else has come close.  Amazing doesn’t begin to describe it.  Avocado toast can be accurately summed up as amazing, but avocado toast is not a reason I would willingly fly back to Hawaii for a single meal (not that I can afford that).

And of course, Lau Lau only requires one utensil to eat.  Unless, of course, you count the airplane and multiple cars needed to get there.

Electrical Outlets

It’s been over a decade since I’ve bothered to write anything on here.  Why did I stop, you may ask?  Keeping up with my blog had become a chore.  I was setting deadlines, then struggling to find enough nonsensical text to post.  On top of that, I had just gotten a new job working for the State and I wasn’t sure how much I was able to divulge about my work.  If I said too much, would they fit me with cement shoes like they had threatened at the new employee orientation?  Wait, they said headset, not cement shoes.  And to think I’ve spent the last decade worrying I’d end up meeting Mr. Hoffa.

I had always wanted to write about my new work environment and the hazards of navigating an endless maze of cubicles.  Tall ones, short ones, even medium ones, all subdividing a series of never-ending dead ends.  It was maddening.  It is maddening!  A decade later and I still find myself wandering around, getting lost, and not knowing where the light switch is.  And the sad part is I’ve been working at home for the last 10 months!

But you and I know that’s not why I’m up writing tonight.  Well, you didn’t, but now you do.  Please do try to keep up.  

It’s about The Girl.  I’m pretty sure I haven’t blogged this story before, seeing as the girl is 11 and this feels like an older-than-a-one-year-old story.  If I’m wrong, then I hope you enjoy a second telling.  At the least, you haven’t heard it in over a decade.

Like I was saying, it’s about The Boy.  I’m a firm believer in "corporal punishment."  Not the over the knee ***-whoopin’ kind because you spilled my beer.  More like the reasonably firm hand slap to impart understanding that a dangerous action may cause pain.

I walked into Andrew’s daycare and was chatting with the teacher.  (I may have told this part of the story before.) 

“You know, Andrew is the only kid in here who doesn’t play with the electrical outlets,” she remarked.

“That’s because he tried once and I slapped his hand.”

Andrew always was a quick learner.

But like I was saying, this story is about The Girl.  The Girl is what you may call a free spirit.  An independent free spirit, if you will.  An independent, lives by her own rules in her own world, free spirit (I mean that in the best way possible.  If you’ve met her you probably understand).

She was the second kid.  I’d done parenting good before.  I knew how to raise a kid.  So, when my roughly two-year-old not surprisingly reached for an outlet one day, I firmly told her “No” and slapped her hand.  I’m pretty sure it was the first hand slap she’d encountered because she pulled back, sitting up with a startled expression on her face.  I could see the gears in her head turning, processing this new concept.  I waited for the tears to fall, for the lesson to be learned.  Instead, she raised her hand and slapped me back.

I don’t think she thought it was a game.  I think she wanted to let me know she wasn’t going to put up with being told what she could and couldn’t do.  She’d survived the NICU, she could take care of  her own damn self.  She needed to teach me a lesson.

Anna was never one to back down from a little discomfort, a challenge, or the brunt force of reality.  She learns lessons through exploration and discovery.  A hand slap never taught her to fear some greater danger; those lessons only took hold when accompanied by a look of disappointment on Daddy’s face.  That brought her crumbling to the ground.  Which was great, because then I could grab her up, hug her tightly, and lovingly explain whatever lesson I thought she needed to learn. 

It is taking me a while to learn the lessons my daughter has been teaching me.  Learning often requires a little pain and a little disappointment.  I guess they both take after me.