Happying | Bethany Bassett

Tag: Happying

Arugula Is My Valentine

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 4 Comments

Valentine’s Day makes me want to start a cooking blog, like right now. Even though I have only recently learned essential cooking techniques like brining chicken and putting arugula on everything, I still feel compelled to invite you to the party in my mouth! (Which I totally do not mean in the way you are thinking right now. Remove mind from gutter, then proceed.)

I already have the blog categories worked out:
~ Vegetables I don’t hate to the very core of my soul
~ Mythical children’s book concoctions (Ever tried Pineapple Butterscotch Ding-Dang-Doo? Or broccoli stew for breakfast, ew?)*
~ Unnatural disasters, part 1: When cakes join the Dark Side**
~ Unnatural disasters, part 2: When microwaves catch the flu***
~ Dirt, upholstery, canned lasagna, and other inedible objects enjoyed by baby girls
~ The proper humiliation of perfectly innocent beverages****
~ Calm down; that chicken’s already dead

***

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Growing up, I didn’t really learn much about cooking… at least not anything I want to remember. (Though if you want a recipe for Super Butter–which includes 3 parts organic grass and 0 parts butter–I can hook you up. Also in my repertoire: birdseed bread, sautéed grasshoppers, and chocolate meringue pie in which both the chocolate and the meringue are replaced by kidney beans. Feel free to gag with me.) In college, I mostly ate canned soup and chewing gum just because I could, and during our first year of marriage, I subjected my poor husband to plenty of microwaved chicken nugget suppers.

Fortunately, I’ve learned a few things since then. Some days, cooking feels like a chore, sure, but most days, it’s a creative outlet–a tasty form of art. Penne al dente melting with fresh mozzarella, grilled zucchini, and cured sausage… Leafy lettuce heaped with rotisserie chicken, yellow pepper strips, pine nuts, kalamata olives, and homemade garlic croutons… Chunks of baguette layered with slivers of prosciutto, hard-boiled egg, and ripe tomato… Strawberries wrapped in creamy white chocolate frosting, dipped in toasted coconut… Food that sings opera and food that plays jazz, food that raps and whistles and sings multiple languages. Food that, just… mmmm.

This isn’t actually a post to brag about my cooking skills because, honestly, they’re nothing extraordinary. It’s more a way of wishing Happy Valentine’s Day to taste buds and tummies everywhere. It’s also to remind you–if your chocolate mousse seems to be lacking that certain gourmet essence, try some arugula on top. It can’t fail.

7Feb

Mad Lovely

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(And really, how could I NOT fall madly in love with these two?)

5Feb

Q & A

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A: To remember.
To validate.
To appreciate.
To inspire.

I suck at talking, really. Just ask my husband, who usually has to pry my head open with a crowbar to find out what’s on my mind. I could quote someone eloquent and witty, like C.S. Lewis or House, M.D., and the words would still sound ridiculous coming out of my mouth. (Imagine a kindergartener who’s just swallowed a bottle of vodka and six helium balloons. Classy.)

When I write my thoughts down, though, I feel like they matter. I can actually convey my meaning without all the squeaking and the slurring and the drunken-five-year-old stammering. Often, I’m not even sure what I think until it slips out the ends of my fingers onto a page, and only once it’s written can I see its etchings on my personality… and then I feel a million kinds of validated. Maybe even a kazillion.

Writing does all sorts of lovely, warm, hot-chocolatey things to my emotional center as well. It makes me slow down enough to see the beauty in everyday life and scrapes calluses off my heart until I’m madly in love with everyone I should be madly in love with. I suppose it’s a way to both preserve and cultivate the precious pieces of my life. This might make me certifiably insane (that is, if I weren’t already, ::cough::), but I would take a day on a comfy couch with my laptop over a day at the spa. Or a day wearing plaid atrocities and hitting little white balls with sticks. Or whatever else real people do to relax.

I don’t really try to inspire–you should know by now that I consider myself as inspiring as Cream of Wilted Lettuce–but every once in a while, a bit of my heart on a page connects with a bit of someone else’s heart. Those tiny moments of relational electricity keep me buzzing for days. I’m learning to loosen up, to take personal honesty a little more public, and I love that it matters to others. Even at my most lettucesoupy, I want my words to matter to others.

Q: Why do you write?

31Jan

Voodoo vs. Violence

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This has been a weird week. I’ve woken up most mornings feeling like someone mixed together liver and onions in my soul and not even the largest tub of orange sherbet could alleviate the horror. (Not like we can actually get orange sherbet here… Excuse me while I weep.) I’ve tried blogging, but the High Voodoo Witchpriest of Blogger keeps sticking pins into a little model of my brain, particularly the part that controls EVERYTHING. Last night, some monkeys infected with rage escaped their lab and zombified everyone in England. Then this morning over breakfast, Natalie calmly said, “Mom, I don’t appreciate your singing.” (Weird, I know. I’m a wonderful singer! Which is why I don’t even sing in front of The Hubby, for fear of overwhelming him with my wonderfulness. Ahem.)

However, no matter how liverandoniony the last several days have been, they have been periodically jolted with a kind of happiness that voodoo can’t touch: Sophie grinning and kicking and exploding into little pieces of glittery happiness while she tells me all about her day (met a new boyfriend, learned the Riverdance, ate milk). Natalie spinning in clumsy, delighted circles, singing at the tip-top of her lungs about robots and slimy snails and how the writer’s strike should be over already and how she loves us. Dan walking in the door from work, smelling scrumptiously like his red leather coat, rain, and aftershave, his arms instantly open to wrap me up. That moment just before I crawl into bed when I peek into the girls’ room and hear them breathing in harmony, their precious little faces serene and dream-dappled. That moment just after I crawl into bed when I finally relax from the day, melting into my husband and knowing we’ll be tangled together in the quiet until tomorrow.

So. Glasses are up there in our leprous credenza. Champagne is in the fridge. We’ll give away the furniture so that more than 2.5 of you can fit in our kitchen and invite someone who knows how to make a touching speech, and we’ll all share a toast to happiness. Then we’ll infect ourselves with rage and take it out on the world’s liver and onions, because everyone knows gratuitous violence is the secret to happiness. Who’s with me?

14Jan

Part Two

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Q: What’s scarier than ‘fessing up to the inadequacies of the previous year?
A: This:

2008 is my year to experience the joy and creative sparkle of writing every day, even if the dishes go unwashed. (Anyway, dishes? Vastly overrated.)
This is my year to explode in Italian fluency.
This is my year to play with vegetables–try out new recipes, fix them in inspiring ways, have a tea party with them if necessary, and maybe even start to get along with them.
This is my year to throw out all remaining frump clothes from college and explore an edgier, more exciting look. (Yeah, sexy boots, I’m talking about you.)
This is my year to intentionally bond with my little girls, whether that means re-learning the fine art of pretend or including them in my daily chores or hugging them every five minutes or making eye contact when we talk about McDonald’s, isn’t McDonald’s amazing, can we go to McDonald’s for breakfast and lunch and supper and today and tomorrow and next week, were you aware they have toys at McDonald’s, let’s go to McDonald’s RIGHT NOW, McDonald’s has hamburgers, and why have we not moved to McDonald’s yet?!
This is my year to approach religion gently, asking my questions and opening up to the answers gradually, even if I can’t yet shed the crusty negativity built up over years of Christian misrepresentation.

And now the Beyondo part of Mondo Beyondo, the terrifyingly wonderful daydream material, the list of radioactive fantasy-goals that glow and pulsate and burn:
I dream of becoming fluent in multiple languages–Italian, Spanish, French, German, and maybe even Chinese or Russian or Icelandic or Aboriginal or duck.
I dream of writing books, publishing them, seeing my words printed and bound and carving out cozy little niches on people’s nightstands.
I dream of a future me who is confident, steady, and radiantly peaceful, always.

I feel incredibly precarious writing all this down, wondering if the limb I’m edging out on will support all my weight. But wouldn’t you know, the view from here…

…is spectacular.

5Dec

The Sexy Eyebrows Post

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As promised, the sexy eyebrows post.

I remember the exact moment enlightenment struck. I was staring at the tweezers I had brought along to college in case I got a splinter and was suddenly struck by the idea that sexy eyebrows might not be a mythological concept after all. In fact, they might even be attainable by mortal humans. Like, say, myself. And oh, look at that, I’m holding tweezers! I plucked all but my four sexiest eyebrow hairs and decided that even though I now looked exactly like Jennifer Aniston, I would stay in school. Shall we view the photographic evidence?

High school–mutant wild boar brows:

College–invisible Jennifer Aniston brows:

You may be [justifiably] horrified that I was allowed into college without knowing the true purpose of tweezers, and frankly, I am too. But in my defense, I was not taught the womanly art of good hygiene growing up. My mother had good hygiene but was far too proper to speak of it, for instance, out loud. I had to personally invent the concept of shaving under my arms, though I self-consciously pinned my arms to my sides for a few years until I realized other women did the same thing. I also had a secret stash of Teen Secret deodorant to replace the rock my mom gave me. (Note: No matter how religiously you rub a rock under your arms, it does not make you smell powder fresh. Possibly by virtue of being A ROCK.) I snuck black market shaving cream and non-organic toothpaste into the house and developed an illicit relationship with Herbal Essences conditioner, but I didn’t think to discover streamlined eyebrows until I left home. C’est la vie.

I also made the following realizations in college:
I can dye my hair beautiful colors, like oh, let’s see, blue!
Skin was obviously made for piercing.
Q-tips are.
You know, life would be that much better with eyeliner.

And it is.

7Nov

One Week Later

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One week later, I’m feeling closer to myself than I have… well, all year. Longer, actually. The last many, many months have dragged me across uncharted and incredibly rocky terrain, shredding my stability and grinding gravel into my view of the world. You know. Sort of.

But this morning? Not a single looming uncertainty on the horizon. Energy. Patience. An unexpectedly friendly number on the scale. Golden sunlight through golden leaves. Half-giggled conversations with Natalie. Sweet-smelling baby snuggles. Recovery.

Our sweet Sophie Ruth was born last Wednesday, already months old in size and awareness of the world. One week later, her peaceful little presence is filling in the blanks of our family, her spontaneous smiles and squeaks eclipsing even the stress of a dirty kitchen (::shock::). One week later, the four of us find ourselves meshing together, layers beneath our skin. One week later, life is full of the kind of mushy metaphors that will only sound butchered and Hallmark-y when typed out loud. But trust me, they’re true.

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