I'm Feeling Lucky...
After watching Notre Dame's very close victory against Stanford today (we're not even going to discuss Texas' dismal performance against OU), we felt like celebrating the luck of the Irish with pancakes for dinner. The unconventional time for breakfast foods takes me back to my childhood, when my mom would make pancakes or french toast for dinner as a reward for making the honor roll or winning the big game.
So I head into the kitchen with pumpkin pancakes on the brain. I will admit, I used a box mix. Don't judge. I'm pregnant and looking to do the least amount of work possible for my food lately. There were two columns of instructions on the box depending on if I wanted 6 or 12 pancakes. Honestly, I wanted somewhere in the middle. But for six pancakes I needed one egg, while twelve required two eggs...it was quite the dilemma. How the hell do you come up with 1.5 eggs? Throw half of one out? It seemed wasteful, but in the end I figured it was less wasteful than tossing 4 uneaten pancakes, so I cracked the first egg into the bowl. Enter the double-yolked egg:
Not only did it solve my baking conundrum, but apparently this occurs in 0.1% of eggs and is seen in many cultures as a sign of impending good fortune. Considering we're celebrating the luck of the Irish with exactly 9 pancakes (requiring 1.5 eggs), we've decided that it MUST be a sign that our luck is changing for the better. We could use a win, after all.
I eat my pancakes and smile at our new-found good fortune. After dinner, I sit down with my latest read, Road Map to Holland. It's a reflection/memoir by a woman whose youngest son was born with Down syndrome. It's written with an honest intensity of emotion to which I can greatly relate. She learned that one of her twin boys had Down syndrome at birth and, as she embarks upon her journey toward helping her son while also meeting the needs of her other two, she learns a little about her own strength along the way. Reading her words gives me a sense of comfort and strength, too, as I live vicariously through her experiences. In the section I was reading tonight, she discusses a trip to the grocery store that ends up becoming much more:
Woah. It all just seems a little too coincidental to be anything but serendipitous. Surely this moment means something, even if it's just to recognize that it might mean nothing at all. The world keeps spinning and all we can do is hold on for dear life and pray for a little luck every once in a while. I can feel ours changing as I speak...
So I head into the kitchen with pumpkin pancakes on the brain. I will admit, I used a box mix. Don't judge. I'm pregnant and looking to do the least amount of work possible for my food lately. There were two columns of instructions on the box depending on if I wanted 6 or 12 pancakes. Honestly, I wanted somewhere in the middle. But for six pancakes I needed one egg, while twelve required two eggs...it was quite the dilemma. How the hell do you come up with 1.5 eggs? Throw half of one out? It seemed wasteful, but in the end I figured it was less wasteful than tossing 4 uneaten pancakes, so I cracked the first egg into the bowl. Enter the double-yolked egg:
Not only did it solve my baking conundrum, but apparently this occurs in 0.1% of eggs and is seen in many cultures as a sign of impending good fortune. Considering we're celebrating the luck of the Irish with exactly 9 pancakes (requiring 1.5 eggs), we've decided that it MUST be a sign that our luck is changing for the better. We could use a win, after all.
I eat my pancakes and smile at our new-found good fortune. After dinner, I sit down with my latest read, Road Map to Holland. It's a reflection/memoir by a woman whose youngest son was born with Down syndrome. It's written with an honest intensity of emotion to which I can greatly relate. She learned that one of her twin boys had Down syndrome at birth and, as she embarks upon her journey toward helping her son while also meeting the needs of her other two, she learns a little about her own strength along the way. Reading her words gives me a sense of comfort and strength, too, as I live vicariously through her experiences. In the section I was reading tonight, she discusses a trip to the grocery store that ends up becoming much more:
The spring plant section is set up in front of the store. An elderly man holds a tomato plant, inspecting it, turning it carefully, gingerly, as if his making the right choice is a matter of tremendous consequence. Farther down, a skinny woman with a long ponytail selects a bright orange marigold. She puts it back, and instead reaches for a yellow one. The bright pompon of the flower reminds me of an egg yolk, two egg yolks, twins. My babies. I'm struck by the moment. That life goes on...that everything moves forward with such beauty and tenderness and sincerity (Groneberg 194).
Woah. It all just seems a little too coincidental to be anything but serendipitous. Surely this moment means something, even if it's just to recognize that it might mean nothing at all. The world keeps spinning and all we can do is hold on for dear life and pray for a little luck every once in a while. I can feel ours changing as I speak...
