Gin from the Cat Dish

Every week I put 'write a blog post' on my list but unfortunately it hasn't happened very often. I've been writing a food memoir but have been keeping it kind of close for the moment. So when I think about other things I might want to write on the blog, I sometimes come up short. But as always, my niece Sinead, has inspired me again. I watched her and her sister yesterday. The girls were playing with a fork tied to a piece of string. I know, right? I imagine Fiona was holding a fork and some tape flitted by her and she was standing on some string and voila! a toy. That girl makes trinkets out of everything. I'll look away for a second and when I turn back she is handing me an origami cat. The girls were taking turns with the fork and string and throwing it at the tree in their front yard. It would wrap around a branch and then they would yank on it until it flew back at them. While they were engaged in this child-safe game I was filling their water bottles so ...

A couple weeks ago, Shaughn and I watched our nieces for an afternoon. After playing soccer in high heels and generally wearing myself out, the seven year old asked me to battle with her pokemon cards. I have tried to do this one other time and it made absolutely no sense. Basically I asked her how to do everything and then after some cards were flipped and she mentioned something about powers and damage she loudly declared that she was the winner. And I would say, "What? You cheated!" Wanting to avoid another proud moment of me calling a seven year old a cheater, I told her I needed to learn to play. So while I dozed on the couch she went through a tutorial online telling me to pay attention. And then we played, this time with me asking more pertinent questions than "Is it my turn?" It was actually pretty fun. The next time I saw her I asked if she wanted to play again and we played several more games, this time with her older sister helping me. She won eve...