Although we live in the city, there isn’t a whole lot of diversity in my neighborhood. The Ohio State University isn’t far away and there is an array of color and culture there, but I don’t make a habit of letting my kids walk around Big Ten campuses. Maybe MAC, but not Big Ten.

So yesterday afternoon I carted the kids off to the International Festival. We ate Chinese food (but, only because I didn’t see the Mediterranean booth, no offense to the fried-rice), we watched Irish, Indian, African and Russian dancers and looked at art and crafts from around the world.

Then my daughter and I got henna tattoos.

I have always wanted a little, teeny-tiny tattoo and I’m pretty sure that henna is the gateway drug of body art. I love this design on the inside of my wrist.

Even if it does closely resemble my living room rug.

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My son does everything slowly. Crawling, walking, talking, eating; it doesn’t matter what the milestone is, he hits it late.

He will be ten in May and just started wearing size six clothing and, up until tonight, he hadn’t lost either of his two, front teeth. Ironically, I suffered through watching Tooth Fairy with him just this afternoon. Dwayne “Rock” Johnson in a tutu. I won’t lie, it was painful.

As for my son, he’s pretty excited to know the tooth fairy is coming tonight. Also, shopping won’t be quite as tough this holiday season. I think I know what he wants for Christmas.

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We dressed up the kids and took them out to dinner tonight. After spending $1100 on our car yesterday, I was prepared to go to the grocery store and buy a supply of white bread and peanut butter, but my husband had a nice, big gift card to my favorite restaurant. We went out and pretended that we always order wine, calamari, filets and ginger-crusted salmon that melts in your mouth and tastes like perfection in a superb, pink package.

I digress.

My son ordered for himself off of the children’s menu, but instead of saying that he wanted, “crab cakes” he looked at the poor waitress and just said, “I want crabs”; which is something you pick up at an entirely different type of place.

But, other than that, he was on his best behavior and was quite charming.

And, that right there? Got the whole family free dessert.

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This is a table in the corner of our basement where my husband makes his own wine. It is a step-by-step process that I will, someday, outline here for all of the people who have asked. Probably right around the time that I take that trip to Tahiti. Which is to say, don’t go holding your breath.

Winemaking isn’t difficult, but it is time consuming. It involves letting very gross stuff happen to your fruit, then straining and wringing that gross stuff through a basketball jersey (WAY classier than cheesecloth and less likely to fall apart), mixing in sugar water, capping it and, as my father-in-law says, “letting it work” for a while. Months, actually.

See that sludgy looking stuff at the top of some of the jugs? That’s “working”. I promise that you don’t drink chunks of fuzzy fruit. Have you ever seen someone syphon gas? There’s some of that involved to separate the liquid. I don’t do that part, just in case those puffs of sludge travel through the tube. *shudder*

If you’re going to make wine, you have to be patient and not vomit at the sight, smell or feel of fermented fruit. This is why I will drink the peach wine, but I will not help make it.

My husband learned how to make wine because his parents taught him and every day they have a glass in the late afternoon. I love knowing that when my husband and I are their age, we can toast them with an old family recipe.

Of course, that one glass they have is equal to about three glasses of “regular” alcoholic wine. The homemade stuff is quite strong and I’ve had more than one batch that tasted like nail polish remover. But, boy do you sleep! Plus, you can just breathe on your nails and the polish comes off. Bonus!

We once had to walk a friend home after she had a few glasses. She will always be quick to say, “I walked TO your house!” but she forgets that she didn’t need help getting here. Every time my mom has half a glass of our wine, she starts to cry. So, we have that going for us.

I wonder if she has noticed that we keep “forgetting” to bring it to dinner.

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