Shannon Phillips

I think I’ve mentioned before that we’re in a so-called transitional neighborhood—to the north and west of us it’s really nice, but to the south and east it gets pretty dodgy. So I’ve spent some time trying to analyze what sets the nice neighborhoods apart from the sketchy ones. Part of it’s obvious—in the good areas, people keep their houses in good shape and they take pride in their gardens and lawns, while in the bad areas there’s graffiti, and trash in the lawns, and boarded-up windows, or windows that have bedsheets hanging over them instead of curtains. Some of it’s a little less obvious and I can’t tell whether it’s cause or effect: the nice neighborhoods have a lot of “greenscaping,” big trees shading the streets and planted medians and so forth, while the bad neighborhoods are all concrete.

And some of it’s really counter-intuitive. So, part of the obvious problem is that in the really bad areas there’s no shops aside from liquor stores. In the good neighborhoods there are commercial districts: the one closest to us is the Laurel district, where we go to have brunch on Sundays or take Robin to his toddler dance class (which I really need to describe in another post). The Laurel has lots of restaurants: Italian and Thai and Chinese, a burger joint and a diner and a couple of fast food outlets. It has clothing stores and a toy store and a barbershop and a laundromat and a great little independent bookstore. It has the Kids ‘N Dance studio, and a gym, and two grocery stores, and a bunch of other stuff. The farmer’s market where we pick up our veggie box is there. In short, we go there all the time, and we wouldn’t have bought this house if it wasn’t convenient to the Laurel district or something like it. In and around the other shops, there’s a couple of bars, which is so completely normal that I wouldn’t have mentioned it, except:

There are other commercial districts to the south and east, but they’re abandoned and derelict. Drive around in that direction and you find no restaurants, no grocery stores or produce stands, no clothing shops, no bars or lounges or nightlife of any kind—nothing but liquor stores. Frequently there are knots of young men standing around outside the liquor stores, drinking.

The only thing you’ll find open in these neighborhoods, other than the liquor stores, are the churches. There are a ton of churches. Churches in the old single-screen theaters, churches in what used to be a boutique or a tailor’s shop, churches hastily built up on the lots left when other buildings are knocked down. We’re talking like five churches in a block. There are really a lot of churches, so many that Sam thinks some of them must be fronts for something else. I just think the churches flourish in areas where the people have given up. I was talking this over with my dad and he had a great quote which I cannot remember exactly, but it was something about looking heavenward when all hope of material recourse is gone.

In conclusion, bars are a sign of a healthy neighborhood. You want bars. You want places where people can go to have a drink and be social in the evenings, as opposed to drinking out of brown paper bags in the liquor store parking lot. You want venues for nightlife. And you don’t want churches, or at least, not too many of them. The people should not be living on prayer. So when I think about what east Oakland needs, that’s where I start—fewer churches, and more bars.

Last night we bought a bottle of prosecco and set it to chill, lit a fire in the fireplace (for the first time!) and made plans to have ourselves a cozy, romantic New Year’s Eve after the kids were in bed.

Then we fell asleep at 10 pm. I guess we’ll save the prosecco for some other occasion.

Happy New Year to all! I hope the upcoming year is full of luck and splendor.

I think it’s absolutely heartbreaking that there’s even a need for educators to argue in favor of letting small children play. This is so freaking obvious. How have we lost our way so far that we expect kindergartners and first graders to spend their time filling out worksheets? It’s sick.

So, we all picked up colds on the plane back from Arkansas—Robin was the first to succumb and the first to bounce back, and Sam recovered quickly as well, but Davy and I have been dealing with lingering congestion and low-grade fevers. This morning when I picked up Davy I saw that he had what looked like snot coming out of his ear. We took him to the pediatrician, who confirmed that the poor little dude has an ear infection. It’s pretty common for colds to trigger ear infections in children—as the Dr. Sears website explains, “The middle ear space is also connected to the back of the nose via the Eustachian tube. In infants and young children this tube is much shorter and is angled. It is therefore much easier for bacteria to migrate from the nose and throat up into the middle ear space.”

The buildup of mucus and pus in his inner ear actually caused a perforation in Davy’s eardrum, which is why the grody stuff was coming out his ear. This is common too, and the doctor assured us that his eardrum will heal. In fact, he’s probably feeling a lot more comfortable now that the pressure in his ear has eased. So he’ll be on antibiotics for the next ten days, and we’ll see the doctor again in two weeks.

The next Samuel L. Jackson vehicle?

Internet, I want to know: Should I let Robin play with his food?

Currently he’s leading a troop of plastic dinosaurs through the primordial landscape of his afternoon snack (banana and raisins). The dinosaurs are smooshing the banana, but he’s being careful to lick them off afterwards, and he seems to be admiring the tracks they leave.

On the one hand, it’s messy and it interferes with the project of learning good table manners, so maybe I should make him stop. On the other hand, it’s self-directed and imaginative, and there’s something very charming about his little-boy focus as he creates this intricate play world. You’re only three and a half once, so maybe I should let him enjoy his childhood innocence and not squelch his delight in this creative endeavor.

I’m genuinely torn. What’s the right thing to do here? Probably I should try to redirect him into a more appropriate activity (using playdough with the dinosaurs, maybe, instead of banana?) but then I’d have to make some playdough and it would take a while. And he just got the dinosaurs today.

Update: Never mind, Internet. In the end I let Robin play with his food for exactly as long as it took him to come up with the bright idea of fetching his trains and running them through the mashed banana. Now he is playing with his dinosaurs in the bath, I am cleaning up the table, and I am planning to stick to a food-is-strictly-for-eating policy for the forseeable future. On reflection I think it unlikely that this will crush his budding artistic spirit. But I’m still interested in how other parents, and maybe especially the grandparents, would’ve handled this situation!

Update the Second: Wow, as I was clearing the table of Robin’s mashed banana, Davy (who had been happily observing the show from his high chair) began issuing an increasingly urgent series of hoots as the banana migrated closer to him, and when I picked it up for disposal he let out an earsplitting wail. He didn’t use a single word but I don’t think the message GIVE ME THAT BANANA could possibly have been communicated with more clarity. (I gave him the banana. He dropped most of it on the floor, but he seems satisfied with the banana flavor he was able to lick off his fingers.)

My brother Bob took this photo in Fayetteville, when we were visiting last week. I love the way it shows off his starry eyes and long eyelashes. It also kind of looks like he’s playing a guitar!

Tonight I was reading Robin a bedtime story, and instead of going for one of his usual favorites, I decided to pick a book we hadn’t yet read together. This handsome board-book edition of “Peter Rabbit,” which someone had very kindly given us as a gift some time ago, looked like just the ticket:

So I started reading, but…as I turned the pages, the book seemed wrong. The pictures were right, but the text seemed dull and lifeless. It wasn’t the charming story I remember from my own childhood. I flipped it closed and took a closer look at the cover. And then I noticed, as I had not at first, those tiny little words at the bottom—based on the original and authorized edition.

Based on the original? BASED ON THE ORIGINAL??? They re-wrote Beatrix Potter? For the love of all that’s holy, why? I just about started screaming. I flung the book down and went to find my own little well-worn copy of Peter Rabbit.

Here’s how the original starts:

“Once upon a time there were four little Rabbits, and their names were—
Flopsy,
Mopsy,
Cotton-tail,
and Peter.
They lived with their Mother in a sand-bank, underneath the root of a very big fir-tree.”

“‘Now, my dears,’ said old Mrs. Rabbit one morning, ‘you may go into the fields or down the lane, but don’t go into Mr. McGregor’s garden: your Father had an accident there; he was put into a pie by Mrs. McGregor.”

Now here’s the bowdlerized version:

“Once upon a time there were four little rabbits, Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail and Peter. They lived with their mother under the root of a big tree. ‘Now,’ said Mrs. Rabbit one morning, ‘you may go into the fields or down the lane, but don’t go into Mr. McGregor’s garden.”

Firstly, the charming specificity of detail has been wiped away. Instead of the picturesque “in a sand-bank, underneath the root of a very big fir-tree” we are left only with the bland, straightforward “under the root of a big tree.” Secondly, the voice of the original—the musical, sing-song cadence of the language—has been lost. Beatrix Potter’s writing tugs at us like a nursery rhyme. She obviously took great care with the sound of the words and the rhythm of their placement, and it’s an important part of why her stories work the way they do. The new version is plodding and graceless.

But thirdly, and most terribly, the plot has been eviscerated. In the original, we know what the stakes are. Peter Rabbit faces death if he’s caught by Mr. McGregor. In the new version, Mrs. Rabbit gives no reason at all for her prohibition. As a result, the story makes no sense. We don’t know why Peter is supposed to avoid the garden, and we don’t have any reason to care about whether or not he manages to escape Mr. McGregor.

The rest of the story is butchered in a similar fashion. Compare a passage from the middle of the tale:

“Peter was most dreadfully frightened; he rushed all over the garden, for he had forgotten the way back to the gate. He lost one of his shoes among the cabbages, and the other shoe amongst the potatoes. After losing them, he ran on four legs and went faster, so that I think he might have got away altogether if he had not unfortunately run into a gooseberry net, and got caught by the large buttons on his jacket. It was a blue jacket with brass buttons, quite new.”

In the board-book version, this becomes: “Peter was very frightened. He rushed all over the garden and lost both his shoes. Then he tripped and got caught in a net.”

I kid you not. I mean…I can’t even.

And I am so sorry, generous gift-giver, whose exact identity I no longer remember, if it seems that I am ungratefully railing against your thoughtful present. You would have had every reason to assume that a book titled The Tale of Peter Rabbit and attributed to Beatrix Potter was, in fact, the book that Beatrix Potter actually wrote. I think you were swindled and I am outraged on your behalf. But mostly I’m outraged at the idea that significant numbers of children might be fooled into thinking that this drek is Peter Rabbit. Because a parent who buys this book when they wanted “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” has been cheated out of some money: but a child who gets this instead of Beatrix Potter has been cheated out of something truly precious.

I read Robin the original version, of course. He was not in the least alarmed by the allusion to Peter’s father’s “accident.” He was a lot more interested in the fate of Peter’s shoes.

My holiday fruitcakes are in the oven right now, filling the house with their deep, rich, spicy aroma. I love fruitcake. When I was growing up, my mom’s aunt Louise sent us a wonderful, intense, rum-soaked fruitcake every Christmas, and it was always received with great delight. A few years ago I set out to try and make similar fruitcakes of my own (the dry, storebought versions with their lurid cherry toppings in improbably day-glo colors are no comparison), and I found Alton Brown’s recipe, which is entirely satisfactory. I’ve made it every holiday season since.

Now I understand that there are people in this world who like to scoff at fruitcake, but I’m pretty sure that these people have simply been eating the wrong fruitcakes. The real thing is fantastic.

Meanwhile, Robin is on his stomach watching his toy train (an early Christmas present from his Uncle Bobby) going around our tree:

Our stockings have, with all due care, been hung by the chimney:

Our advent calendar (a gift from Robin’s Nonna and Pappy) is up-to-date:

And generally we are feeling pretty festive. We’re just back from seeing Pops and Mo and all of my siblings except for the boys’ Uncle Jesse (who was missed) in Arkansas—it was a lovely visit, although unfortunately we all developed the sniffles on the way back. Stupid plane germs! But even that’s not all bad—Sam stayed home sick today, and so was able to perform Valuable Cuddle Services while I worked on my holiday baking.

This risotto with cabbage and ham recipe (from Cook’s Illustrated) makes a filling meal for cold nights. You dice up an onion and a small amount—2 to 4 ounces—of pancetta, deli ham, proscuitto, or cooked sausage. Heat up three tablespoons of olive oil in a big heavy pot or Dutch oven over medium heat, and sauté the onions and meat for a few minutes. Meanwhile shred half a cabbage and throw that into the pot too. Cover your pot and let the cabbage cook for about fifteen minutes (or until it is limp and beginning to brown), stirring every now and then.

When your veggies have softened, add about a teaspoon of salt and two cups of Arborio rice. Stir it up and add a cup of water along with two cups of chicken broth. (Home-made chicken stock will make this recipe drastically better.) Turn up the heat until the broth mixture starts to boil; then keep it at a simmer, stirring occasionally, for eight to ten minutes, or until the bottom of the pan seems dry when you stir the rice. Add a half a cup of dry white wine or vermouth and stir that in; when it’s absorbed, check your rice. If it’s not fully cooked, keep adding water a half a cup a time until the risotto is creamy and al dente. Meanwhile grate a half a cup of Parmesan. When the rice is done, stir in the cheese, check if it needs more salt (it will, everything’s always better with more salt), and serve hot.