I Voted!

I voted early this morning.

I was so excited and enthusiastic.  I literally squealed when I saw my name and signature in the electoral register.  I had had nightmares about my name not being in there because I became a citizen and registered so recently and was all prepared for requesting a provisional ballot.  Turns out the admin for voting runs more smoothly than most American bureaucracies I have had to deal with.

Five years of living in a country while not enfranchised to vote has been stressful.  I am raising my kids here and I pay taxes here and I intend to stay here so I am invested in this country.  Today I was relieved to be able to exercise my right and responsibility as a US citizen.

First Time Ice Skating

When we travel, we tend to be so busy from sun up to beyond sun down that we really only need our accommodation to provide us with a clean space in which to sleep.  Not requiring much out of a hotel room beyond it being clean and tidy allows us to travel on a budget and stretch a dime.  We, therefore, had little concern about choosing a super cheap room in a large hotel in Ocean City, Maryland.  The room turned out to be a good size and was clean and tidy. The hotel was a bit dated and could do with a lick of paint and polish but we can overlook such things when just treating the room like a dormitory.  The only real issue was that the walls were really thin and we unfortunately had super noisy neighbours.

As far as the kids were concerned, however, the hotel was a win because it not only had a larger than average indoor pool but also had an ice skating rink.  After filling up on breakfast at a local cafe, therefore, we headed back to the hotel so that our youngest two sons – aged 8 and 10 – could go ice skating for the first time ever.  They donned their ice skates and headed out onto the ice.  At first their legs were wonky and wobbly, like newborn deer, so we gave them some support frames so that they could get used to the required gait and rhythm without worrying about falling or even concerning themselves with balance.  After just a few circuits of the rink, however, they were ready to ditch the frames and skate unassisted.  They absolutely loved it, had a whale of a time, were excited to have learned a new skill, and experienced a sense of achievement as a result.

My First Rodeo

A couple of weekends ago, Mr Pict decided we needing to do something fun and different and spontaneously got tickets for a rodeo.  Mr Pict had been to a rodeo before, when travelling in either Wyoming or Montana, but it was a first experience for the kids and me.  I am always up for trying new things but the kids were not sold on the idea, not even the horse daft 10 year old.  It has been grotesquely humid and stinking hot here in Pennsylvania lately so Mr Pict had opted for the evening rodeo.  Partly the kids were aggrieved that we were having to go out for the evening instead of them playing video games or watching a movie but I was glad that we had because it was still pretty steamy out even as darkness fell.  For me, the only downside to the evening show was that I didn’t have enough light to take decent photos.

We started our jaunt outside the arena where there was lots of food, drink, and paraphernalia to buy.  My youngest son had to be dissuaded from buying a cowboy hat.  The boys love fairground food so they leaped at the opportunity to gorge on funnel cake and my 11 year old bought himself a massive pickle on a stick.  What is it about sticks that makes the food more festive?  I cannot say that I can even guess the answer.

We entered the arena and found a spot on the bleachers that gave us a decent view of the performance area.  Having never been to a rodeo, I had no notion of what to expect or how things worked.  I decided to treat the whole experience like an anthropological study since I knew I was going to be set apart from the action rather than being properly engaged in it.  The atmosphere reminded me a lot of the Redneck Festival we had found ourselves at three years ago.  I never even began to figure out how the events were scored.  Clearly an element of it was to do with time, how long each rider could stay on the horse or the bull, but otherwise it was all entirely obscure to me.

The first event was the one I always associate with rodeos: folks wearing cowboy gear riding on horses that are desperately trying to throw them off.  Not a single rider lasted for very long.  Each one was “blink and you miss it” fast.  I couldn’t really follow what was going on in any great detail.  To my mind, most impressive were the chaps who were stationed on horses ready to get into the fray and rescue riders and lasso horses.  They had real skill.  The next event involved riding on bulls.  Bulls that were annoyed.  Completely crazy.  Why do people do this for sport? Again, no rider lasted very long.  It was over even quicker than the horse riding.  One bull fell on top of a rider, which made everyone in the audience gasp, but the bull got to its feet and the rider limped off as if it was just another day at the office.  Seriously, why do people do this for fun?  While the bucking horses and bulls were ridden by all male riders, there was an event that was all women.  That involved riding horses at high speed around barrels in a specific order.  Obviously the quickest horse and rider were the winners.  If you can imagine a horse doing a skidding handbrake turn, then that was what was happening as the horses pivoted around the barrels.  The angle of the horse to the ground was pretty shallow.  It was pretty impressive.

There were “entertainments” between the events.  One of these was a Mexican cowboy who performed with a lasso while standing on a horse.  I don’t really understand how to make a lasso work at all so I couldn’t detect what was extra fancy or tricky about the things he was doing.  Folks in the crowd who did appear to understand, however, appeared to think his lasso jiggery-pokery was a bit special.  Then there was a clown who performed for the crowd within the arena.  There were clowns everywhere at the arena; it was teeming with them.  I have a lifelong clown phobia thanks to a dreadful early experience at a circus.  These clowns appeared to be members of the organisation holding the rodeo and fundraising for charity.  Despite their good deeds and honourable actions, they just made my flesh crawl.  My oldest son told me that rodeos are well known for having clowns and I should have expected it.  I hadn’t.  It was a shock.  Anyway, the clown doing the entertaining, however, was simply dreadful.  His patter was stilted and lame and from a bygone era, not one I am nostalgic for either.  My sons were aghast at the misogyny and xenophobia of the jokes.  At one point during a singing skit, my 10 year old had his head in his hands just willing it to end.

I think we all felt that the rodeo was an interesting experience and that we were glad we went in order to have that experience.  However, none of us are likely to be eager to repeat the experience.  It just wasn’t us.  At least now we can all say, “This isn’t my first rodeo”.  That’s something.

Lemonade Stand

This Labour Day weekend, my four boys got to experience an American tradition: running a lemonade stand.  They suggested the idea and we supported it.  This was not something they would have experienced back home in Scotland so we were keen to let them do something that their born-and-bred American peers have probably done.

They made a gallon of lemonade from scratch, all taking turns at squeezing the juice from the lemons using the citrus reamer.  I think they liked how aggressive they were getting to be with a kitchen utensil.  I am given to understand now that actually the American tradition for lemonade stands is to use a powder mix as the base of the drink but never mind.  They had never made lemonade from scratch before so that just added to the joy of it all being a new experience.  I also baked chocolate brownies for them to sell.

We left them to come up with the promotional posters and to decide on things like the price points.  We provided them with a float and showed them how to set out their income and expenditure accounts, a basic version of course, and then it was time for them to set up their stall.  A Saturday of a holiday weekend and with a storm predicted was always going to be slow going so I used the modern grapevine – Facebook – to send a message around the neighbourhood that they had set up stall and were selling freshly squeezed lemonade and brownies.  What was lovely was that so many neighbours stopped by to give them some support and encouragement, financial and verbal, but they also got some passing trade from cars driving through the neighbourhood and from our mail man.

It was, however, still pretty slow going and so they learned something about the boredom involved in certain retail ventures, about handling a rush period alongside stretches of inactivity, and finally about the math of determining profit.  They actually made a surprising amount for a couple of hours of work and were quite pleased with their earnings.  I think they had hoped to rake in much more, however, so it will be interesting to see if they wish to repeat the exercise next summer and – if so – what they might do differently.  It was fun to see them experiencing something new about America, something that is a tradition for many American families, but I mostly enjoyed seeing them work cooperatively as a team and having to interact with other people without having we adults hovering as a crutch.  I like to think they have learned some life skills from the whole experience.  They also got to eat lots of leftover brownies.

Scoffing Shane’s Confectionery

I have lived in Pennsylvania for just over two and a half years now and in that time I have sampled a few state foods.

Despite the fact that Mr Pict and the Pictlings love them and I go into school every two weeks to deliver them to the kids, I do not like pretzels.  I know I should be drummed out of the state for such an admission but I just don’t like them.  I can eat one if I have to but it is not something that I enjoy.  I did like Tomato Pie but I prefer more traditional Italian pizza than this twist on the theme.  I tried Tastykakes and was disappointed – as I had been by my first ever Girl Scout Cookie.  I do like Rita’s Water Ice and frozen custard and like that I can deploy it as a bribe / reward for my kids ever so often in the summer months.  I have mentioned several times on the blog now that I do not like American chocolate, despite visiting Hershey twice now.  The Pictlings have had no such difficulties adjusting their palates to American chocolate but the taste and especially the texture remains alien to my Scottish mouth.  In addition to visiting Hershey, we also did the Turkey Hill Experience to learn how this local ice cream is manufactured.  Ice cream I love; it just doesn’t love me as I am lactose intolerant.

Recently I tried a new local food in the form of some sweet treats from Shane’s Confectionary.  Having started operations in 1863, Shane’s claims to be America’s oldest continuously running candy shop.  It’s store on Market Street, Philadelphia, opened in 1911, when the business moved into retail from wholesale.  Having fallen on hard times in the post-war period, the candy shop was recently lovingly restored.  We will have to take a trip there with the kids some time.

We actually received some Shane’s candies as a New Year gift and, knowing they were special, I saved them for a rainy day.  We had some cherries that had been soaked in brandy and covered in chocolate.  These tasted divine and the crunch through the chocolate into the chewy, fruity centre was pleasing.  They also had a lilac metallic lustre to the chocolate coating which made them extra magical.  There were also some chocolate caramels.  The kids all loved those but, given American chocolate does nothing for me, I was not bowled over by those.

The boys also had a moulded sugar steam locomotive.  Apparently these clear candy toys  – brought to PA by the Amish – are a holiday tradition at Shane’s, with parents buying them up for their children’s Easter and Christmas gifts.  I have happy memories of going to an Edwardian style sweet shop with my Gran and picking out a variety of boilings which were plopped into a paper poke and treasured and savoured during shopping expeditions.  I completely understand the tradition and the element of nostalgia.  The train was literally just boiled sugar though and, therefore, would have been too bland for my liking.  Give me Kola Kubes and Soor Plooms any day.  There were no complaints from the younger sweet-toothed Picts, however.

So that is Shane’s Confectionery ticked off the list.  I wonder what my next experience of edible Pennsylvania will be.

Picking a Peck of Peaches

This weekend we decided to do something that none of us have done before: we picked peaches.

Pick-Your-Own was a staple of my childhood.  Scotland is renowned for its soft fruit growing so we would pick berries throughout the season, gorging on them until we swore we would never eat them again.  Other times we would head to the farm to pick up vegetables or to root around and find free range chicken, duck and goose eggs – fingers crossed for a double yolker.  Peaches, however, were not part of my landscape growing up*.  There were apple orchards and pear trees, plums and apricots but no peaches.  So peach picking was a new experience for us all.

We headed out to a farm near Pennsylvania’s border with New Jersey.  Once there, we collected some plastic bushels** and hopped on the trailer attached to a tractor to be taken out into the fields.  We were assured that it was too far to walk but actually everything was within easy walking distance and we ended up walking back even though we were carrying full buckets by then.  It was, therefore, possible to wander around and collect all manner of seasonal produce.

The kids and I are all huge devourers of peaches and Mr Pict is quite fond of them as ingredients in pies and cobblers so we devoted most of our time on the farm in the peach orchard.  As an aside, thanks to my husband being a Civil War nerd, I can never not think of body strewn battlefields when I see the phrase “peach orchard”.  Anyway, there were yellow peaches, white peaches and nectarines all ripe and available to be picked.  Our preference is for juicy, fuzzy, fleshy yellow peaches so we wandered far down those rows and started picking.  The fruit was abundant and easily plucked from the branches.  We were looking for peaches that had a nice red bloom on them but were not so ripe that they would need to be eaten immediately.  My 8 year old found some peaches were the silhouette of a leaf or of the curve of an adjacent peach had been caught on the red part of the skin which was quite interesting to see.

Having filled two bushels with peaches, we decided to head over to the vegetable patches.  My personal aversion to aubergine means that my kids have little or no experience of eating those beyond their appearance in ratatouille.  We, therefore, looked at two different varieties of aubergine (or eggplant as they are called in America), the regular bulbous ones and the longer Italian ones.  My 9 year old selected an almost spherical, deeply purple aubergine to try.  We then headed to the area where beans were grown and in no time at all we had filled an entire bucket with green beans and yellow wax beans.  I tried in vain to find the okra and the boys were beginning to melt in the afternoon son so I had to give up that quest.

We all thoroughly enjoyed our first peach picking experience and it saved us so much money to buy the fruit and veg through pick-your-own that we definitely think we will return to that and other farms again to enjoy collecting more delicious seasonal produce.  Now I need to go and make a peach cobbler.

 

* I believe peach trees can be grown in the UK but I have personally never seen them.

** We collected our fruit in bushels but I couldn’t resist the alliteration of peck for the title.

Rita’s Ice

We participated in a local Summer tradition yesterday evening thanks to a thunderstorm and torrential rain.  The storms and the related flood warning meant that Mr Pict arrived home from working in the city early enough to eat dinner with us.  He then suggested that we go out to Rita’s for dessert.  The male Picts have all munched at Rita’s before – last summer when we went to the Jersey shore – but this was a first for me.

Rita’s was founded thirty years ago in a nearby town.  It has expanded nationally since then but going to Rita’s in the summer months remains very much a local edible tradition – such as favouring Geno’s or Pat’s cheesesteaks and eating pretzels whenever the opportunity arises.  It only operates in the summer months but it feels like there are Rita’s shacks on most roads around Philly.  I learned this year that on the first day of Spring they give away free water ice but that was irrelevant to us this year as the first day of Spring involved a heavy dumping of snow and digging out the driveway.  Not really water ice weather let alone joining a long queue for water ice weather.

Water ice always strikes me as a tautology but it refers to a particular style of sorbet, fruit puree frozen as if it was ice cream.  It is definitely not like shaved ice or slushy.  Rita’s also serves frozen custard and gelati, which is a mixture of the custard and water ice.   The Rita’s shack had a menu listing all the day’s available flavours and toppings so we perused the board and made our choices.  Some of us kept things simple – I had a tropical water ice – while others went big style and had the gelati concoction with sauce, multiple toppings, whipped cream and a cherry.

This was an edible local tradition I could get on board with.  I have been past but never into either Geno’s or Pat’s because I don’t eat red meat so I am never going to eat a cheesesteak.  I also do not like pretzels.  I am not very taken with tomato pie either, much preferring traditional pizza.  My stomach might be deported from Pennsylvania.  Water ice, however, has saved the day.  I rather enjoyed it.  It was refreshing and light and flavourful.  Our evening trip to Rita’s was the perfect antidote to a muggy, steamy evening.

My First Tastykake

In the seventeen months since I landed on American shores, I have experienced a good few edible firsts.  There was my first munch of the legendary Girl Scout cookies, watching my kids eat Twinkies for the first (and last) time even though I think they are whipped bile, eating food from Wendy’s for the first (and last) time – all of which were entirely disappointing to my tastebuds.  On the upside, I had fun watching my kids review their Halloween candy, get to make delicious green bean casserole for Thanksgiving, have access to great diners and after over a decade’s absence from my palate I ate a whole pile of fried green tomatoes when we were in Florida in December.  Yesterday, I had another munching milestone: I tried a Tastykake donut.  Spelled “donut” rather than “doughnut”.

I actually had no awareness of Tastykake as a brand, none whatsoever, until a little over a week ago.  One of my sisters asked me if I had tried Tastykakes.  Blank.  Turns out they are a Philadelphia company who have been selling baked confections since 1914.  Over a century of flogging sugary wares and I had no idea they existed until last week.  So a bag of snack-sized Tastykake donuts was purchased and was designated as dessert last night.

So did the mini chocolate donut tickle my tastebuds and join the ranks of American foods that make me drool or did it add to my list of edible disappointments?

I am sorry to report that the Tastykake was neither a cake nor was it tasty.  It was in the disappointing corner and I did not even have high expectations.  The cake – or kake – was dense and too chewy and the chocolate covering was not sweet or smooth enough to elevate it’s substrate.  In fairness, my mouth has not acclimated to American chocolate but this chocolate coating was definitely at the waxier end.  As disloyal as it may be to my  new locale, I cannot, therefore, see myself consuming any more Tastykake baked goods in the future.  Sorry.

Of Sharks and Super Bowls

We Picts had a very busy weekend: on Saturday we went to the Adventure Aquarium in Camden, New Jersey, and yesterday we watched the Super Bowl – a first for the kids and I.

It was a very breezy and very chilly journey across the Delaware into New Jersey – with ice forming on the river – so we were all very glad to get through the doors of the Aquarium and into the galleries.  It has been a while since most of us visited an aquarium (Deep Sea World in North Queensferry, Fife, back in April 2012) but our 9 year old visited the Adventure Aquarium last year on a school trip and had been eager for the rest of us to see it.  I cannot say that it represented good value for money because, quite frankly, what aquarium ever is?  Along with zoos, they are always startlingly expensive for family days out.  That is one of the reasons why our visits to them are so few and far between.  However, this was a really very good aquarium and we really enjoyed our time there.

We started off our trip with the stingray pool.  We were allowed to stick our hands into the water and feel the rays as they swam past, their wings flapping in and out of the surface.  The kids were absolutely delighted and loved experiencing the texture of the rays, enjoyed their splashing, found their smile-like expressions charming.  The little rays sped around the tank and had to be touched and petted as they darted past but the large rays – including one patterned like a leopard – were slower and were, as a result, more interactive when they approached the children.

We had pre-booked a slot in the 4D cinema so that was where we headed next.  Normally we would not add on anything extra on top of such an expensive day out but our second grader is learning about dinosaurs at school at present so we splurged on some tickets to see a show about prehistoric sea creatures.  It was a particularly high quality 4D show.  There were puffs of air and splashes of water to co-ordinate with the film, of course, but what really made it so impressive was the rendering of the visuals and the educational content.  It followed the story of a trio of primitive dolphins – mother, daughter and son – based on the fossil record and showed their interaction with their environment and other creatures in their ecosystem.  The 3D elements were really well handled too which made it entertaining as well as absorbing.

After the obligatory pretzel break, we wandered into the hippo area.  I have never seen hippos in an aquarium before so that was entirely new and it was interesting to see how they responded to a more aquatic environment having mainly seen them in primarily land based enclosures in zoos.  How they behaved was to laze around in the water.  One was entirely submerged, just raising its nostrils out of the water for long enough to take a breath, and the other was floating just on the surface.  We could view them from above the surface level and also descend some steps so that we could see into the tank below the water level.  Doing so enabled us to see all the fish who were nibbling at the hippos, giving them a clean up.  I wish they had been a bit more active – secretly I had hoped for a synchronised swimming routine – but it was completely cool to see them.

Next up were jellyfish.  I have a thing for jellyfish as I find them very aesthetically pleasing and also very hypnotic to watch.  I actually draw jellyfish quite often because I find them so appealing.  Of course, I have never been stung by one.  That might change my view.  I could have stood watching the jellies in their tanks for ages but Mr Pict and the kids had moved on long before me and I had to catch up with them.  There were also tanks containing nautilises (nautilii?) and these armoured beasties that looked like giant slaters (woodlice) which were cool.  There was also an octopus who had his tentacles and their suckers pressed up against the glass so we could see how they rippled and moved.  His body was wrapped around a lidded jar.  Knowing that octopii are smart and enjoy problem-solving activities, I expect he had been given the jar to open as a stimulating exercise.  I should have a pet octopus so that he can provide assistance any time I cannot get a jar open.

The major feature of the aquarium is a massive shark tank.  It is absolutely teeming with sharks of several varieties.  Mr Pict was initially huffing about hammerheads having been used in the advertising but not being in evidence but then an adult and a juvenile hammerhead glided past and he was proven wrong.  I think he wanted to adopt the baby one.  There were also fish and two large turtles in the tank.  There was a short tunnel that led through the tank and allowed us to see sharks swimming over the top of us but better than that were just the huge glass walls where we could stand, transfixed, watching all of the sharks swimming around.  Whereas other aquariums we have been to had several small windows for spectators to peek through, the scale of the tank windows meant that not only could dozens of people view at the same time but that we could study the same shark moving for longer rather than just catching a glimpse of it as it drifted past a smaller aperture.  It was definitely the best shark tank I have seen.

Another area contained tanks filled with varieties of turtles and other reptiles.  The animals were all very active and we enjoyed seeing them moving around and interacting with each other.  There were also two massive alligators, one of whom was underwater and one standing on a platform out of the water.  The underwater one was right up against the glass so the kids could get up really close to it and study the detail of its skin, claws, eyes and teeth which was a pretty cool opportunity, especially so soon after seeing some alligators in the wild.  We also saw some really big lobsters, different varieties from the ones we normally see in tanks in supermarkets and restaurants.  From conversations my kids have had with the fishmongers in stores, they knew that these lobsters had to be pretty advanced in age.  There was also a tank containing seahorses.  I defy anyone to not love seahorses.  They are so peculiar, so delicate, so pretty and so adorable that it is impossible not to find them compelling and magical.  We watched transfixed as their little translucent fins vibrated to propel them from one piece of seaweed to the other, as their spiral tails grabbed and wound around the weeds as anchors and as they dangled, sometimes upside down, in the water.  Completely gorgeous.

Another touchy-feely tank provided the boys with the opportunity to interact with small sharks (dogfish) and horseshoe crabs.  The boys got a bit irritated that the sharks were determined to loiter in the middle of the tank.  They tried to think about what might tempt the sharks to come towards the side of the tank, inspire them to quit malingering, but I am sure those sharks are used to every trick in the book.  They did not budge.  So the kids had to content themselves with touching the horseshoe crabs who, unlike their shark chums, seemed to enjoy scuttling around the circumference of the tank.  They are fascinating creatures.  Living fossils.  Their carapace is like a shield and then underneath they are full of bits and pieces.  It is like lifting the cover off of a sleek electronic device and seeing all of the messy components underneath.  They are local to the Mid Atlantic shore so I would love to encounter them in the wild some time.

There was a final touch and feel tank on the top floor of the aquarium.  This one contained mainly invertebrates.  My 9 year old had been raving about sea apples since his school trip visit so his brothers loved finally being able to feel one for themselves.  It was more velvety than an anemone but still had that gelatinous quality to it.  The sea apple and the other sea cucumbers that formed part of the tank display were all very attractive, with bright colours and vivid patterns.  There were also shrimp and fish in the tank and our 7 year old was delighted when a fish swam onto his submerged hand and had a bit of an exploratory nibble at him.  In a separate tank, there was also a very large, powerful looking blue lobster that the kids could touch, as he had his claws banded, and another tank containing a type of lobster than just looks like a lobster tail.  Interesting evolutionary choice, to look like your cousin’s butt.  Must work though.  There was also a tank filled with scorpion fish.

Our trip finished with amphibians.  We saw Surinam toads which are entirely weird specimens and not very bonnie.  They look as if they have been hit with a mallet and then, of course, there is the fact that the young toadlets burst out of the skin of their mother’s backs.  I have given birth in different ways, none of them genteel or relaxing, but I am glad I was spared the fate of the Surinam toad.  There were also tanks containing large frogs with bulging eyes, bright green tree frogs, tanks of brightly coloured poison dart frogs and a tank containing a bright red frog so tiny he could have fitted on a grain of rice.  Isn’t the diversity of nature just incredible?  And there were axolotl which I love partly because they are such complete weirdos and partly because I just love the word axolotl.

While Saturday was all about going somewhere new, yesterday was all about trying something new.  The boys and I have never watched the Super Bowl so we decided to make an attempt on an American tradition.  I don’t like sport of any kind and – some Olympic events withstanding – never watch sport on the telly and it looks like our sons take after me in that regard rather than after my husband.  Nevertheless, we decided to suck it up for the sake of experiencing another slice of Americana.  For us it was all about the food.  I conducted some research among my American friends on Facebook and decided that traditional Super Bowl fare would include things like hot dogs, chips and dips and wings.  I actually made the hot dogs for lunch, except my 9 year old and I don’t eat hot dogs so we had off-theme vegetable samosas.  However, at some point during the first half of the game, our Super Bowl feast was ready to be devoured and it did indeed include chicken pieces tortilla chips and various dips.  Our telly is in the living room and I was nervous about letting the kids picnic in a carpeted room, especially given that they were drinking root beer as a treat, so warned and nagged them to be careful.  In the end, however, it was me who caused a cleaning commotion as I knocked over a bottle of beer.  Thus my kids were given the opportunity to evidence that they understood the word “irony”.

I was made to understood that part of the tradition was to watch the half-time show and commercials, that even people who stay away from the game emerge from other rooms to gather around the goggle box to watch the adverts.  I think maybe in my mind it had,  therefore, been built up to be a bigger attraction than it turned out to be.  I was underwhelmed.  I think also that I do not watch enough TV (and even when I do it tends to be streamed) so I am not familiar enough with the brands to “get” the gist of the advert or spot a recurring theme or understand an allusion.  I cannot even recall the majority of the adverts.  I know that there was an awkward Fiat advert involving a viagra pill which was witty but also challenging to explain to a gang of small children looking for an interpretation (“It’s a medicine that increases blood flow in parts of the body so it has made the car strong”.  Explanation thankfully accepted) and there was one from an insurance company I think that was all about childhood disease and death.  Bit of a buzzkill for a mob of small boys high on root beer and munching on chicken goujons.  None of us are Katy Perry fans, not at all, but I have to admit that the half time musical turn was watchable (maybe less listenable) for all its well-choreographed razzmatazz.

So that was the food and the entertainment.  As to the game …. well, it was a sports match involving kicking and throwing a ball about and trying to get more points than the other team.  I don’t understand the rules and nor did I care to engage enough to learn the rules.  My husband was able to explain to the kids that X was a good throw and Y was a bad tackle but it was all Greek to me.  Except even I could tell that it was a bad decision, in the closing minutes, for the Seahawks player to attempt a glory touchdown instead of passing off the ball.  And if even I can tell that then you can be assured it was a really terrible decision to make that play.  So I have watched a Super Bowl.  I can tick that tradition off my list now.  Done it.  I think that may have been not only my first Super Bowl but also my last.

 

The Nutcracker

Yesterday was a cultural milestone for the Pictlings as they attended their first ever ballet.  Given the festive season, readers will not be surprised to learn that the ballet in question was ‘The Nutcracker’.  There are several productions running in our area but we opted for a performance by Internaitonal Ballet Classique at the campus of Neumann University, to the South West of Philadelphia.  The very much more affordable ticket price sold us on it – given that we were testing the kids in new terriotory – but we also hoped there would be a much more relaxed atmosphere.  It turned out to be a sound reasoning and a good choice.

I have actually only ever attended one previous ballet performance.  That was ‘Coppelia’ at Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre some time in the late-1990s.  I enjoy classical music so I liked it well enough but have to admit that I miss the words.  I am just a verbal person.  I read, I write, I enjoy watching drama on the stage and on the screen.  I love words and so I miss them when they are absent.  I also cannot dance for toffee but we will stick with the love of words as being the reason for my being a ballet philistine.  So the kids were experiencing their first ballet and I was experiencing my second.

The great thing about ‘The Nutcracker’ is that the kids were familiar with most if not all of the music.  They like to listen to music as they go to sleep at night and sometimes that is classical music.  They also know chunks of Tchaikovsky’s ‘Nutcracker’ from watching Disney’s ‘Fantasia’.  We found that they were completely absorbed in the dance and the music in the first act as there was a discernible plot and direction.  Said plot is, to my mind at least, pretty bonkers and perhaps even sinister in parts but the story is easy to follow at least.  In the second act, however, they began to lose focus and were less engaged.  They sat nicely and quietly and still enjoyed the music but we could tell that they were pretty much over it at that point because the plot had pretty much disappeared to be replaced by a showcase for ballet performances.  As a family of non-dancers, we lacked the knowledge and familiarity with the art form to properly understand what we were viewing.  We could definitely tell that we were watching skilled performers and could recognise that some difficult moves were being displayed so we could clap along to show our appreciation but it was impossible for us to engage on the level that some audience members clearly were.  The adult performers were particularly impressive and the really small kids were just completely adorable.

I am not sure that ballet is something that will feature regularly in Pict family life but we were pleased to have been able to introduce the children to another of the arts and a different form of creative expression.  It was a lovely family outing, however, and certainly added to the festivities of our holiday season.