Hamlet is dead. He was first killed in the reading of the play, and then a few minutes later he again croaked, “I am dead, Horatio,” but that time in the movie.

The kids’ reactions were hilarious. My daughter sat rigidly beside me while I read the closing scenes, her eyes round with incredulousness as she struggled to decipher the meaning of the words. And with each new death, my son shouted with riotous laughter at the outrageous turn of events. They both thought the closing scene, all the dead bodies littering the floor, was comical rather than tragical, which then made me launch into Polonius’s tragical-comical-historical-pastoral speech.

It tickles me to no end that my kids are old enough for Big Literature, the stuff that excites and challenges me. My guess is that they understand only a very small fraction of the play. They get the plot, yes, but the deeper meaning? No way. Heck, even I don’t get all of it. Even the little ones, despite being banned from much of the reading and watching (due to their disruptive behavior more than anything) managed to glean bits and pieces—out of the blue one day, my younger daughter informed me that Hamlet’s father’s name was Hamlet, too.

It wasn’t like they were all chipper-happy to sit still and listen to me plow through the play. If I give that impression, than I mislead you. My daughter fussed and bulked a fair bit, and my son’s mind wandered entirely too much, but I forged ahead, stumbling over the unfamiliar phrases and providing muddled (and sometimes completely wrong) explanations. It helped that we followed up our reading sessions with the movie version (skipping the incest scene).

Last night before heading upstairs to bed, the whole family gathered around the kitchen table to listen as the three of us flipped through the book and discussed our favorite parts. My daughter liked the part where Ophelia went crazy. My son and I both liked the “words, words, words” part. The ending sword fight was tops, too, of course. All four children raced to list off the names of all the people who died in the play, and the older kids wished they could’ve seen the part where Polonius died (that dang incest scene). We read bits of different speeches and then tried to memorize part of the To Be Or Not To Be speech—it’s a lot harder than it looks!

This fall, Hamlet is playing at the Blackfriar’s theater. I’ve heard it’s an incredible production. If we get there, and I hope we do, then we’ll have consumed Hamlet three ways in one short season.

This same time, years previous: my new baby, pear butterscotch pie

On Saturday, we all went to the annual Mennonite Relief Sale. It’s a big-time event, with a huge auction, lots of baked goods, ethnic food, fun stuff for kids, and so on, with all proceeds going towards Mennonite Central Committee, our church’s relief organization.

In other words, the more donuts you buy, the more you help the poor.

It seems kind of screwy to me, this type of do-gooderism. All the clapping and cheering when a quilt bid shoots up over the thousand dollar mark. The sugar highs, the bloated stomachs, the cheap toys that will soon find their way to a landfill. Is this really an effective way to alleviate poverty?

Yes, yes, it’s about community, I know. It’s about a bunch of people rallying for a common cause. It’s festive, kind of like a huge family reunion, and I haven’t missed the weekend for years.

It’s tons of fun, but still, it makes me feel funny.

Anyway, it was while I was standing outside the hamburger and hotdog stand waiting for my son to finish up his shift that I had an important conversation with my friend. It was about popcorn. (I think it’s safe to say that everything in my life revolves around food, yes?)

We were discussing kettle corn (which was being sold there, but of course), and she said her family had recently started making popcorn with maple sugar. “I pop the corn in coconut oil, and we add a couple spoonfuls of maple sugar and some cinnamon to the kernels. Then when it’s done, we add butter and salt, too.”

“Cinnamon?” I asked, not really paying attention. I wasn’t trying to be rude. It’s just that we were surrounded by hundreds of fellow Mennonite, and I was a little distracted.

“Oh yes, it gives it a nice flavor.”

“Mm. Maple and cinnamon, it does sound good…..” My eyes and mind were wandering again. I forced them to focus. “But don’t you have trouble with it burning?”

“No, we just shake and stir the whole time. The popcorn starts to stick together because of the sugar, so you have to get it out of the pan as soon as it’s done.”

“Mmm… Hey, who’s that woman over there?” I said, because I really can’t carry on a conversation and people watch at the same time. “Does she look familiar to you?”

By bedtime that night, the too-many-donuts-and-potato chips feeling had faded, but the passing popcorn conversation lingered. And as it lingered, it intensified, so that by the following night, after I had made a triple batch of sweet and spicy popcorn and a triple batch of regular butter popcorn (that’s three cups of kernels, eek), I grabbed the bag of homemade maple sugar out of the freezer and set the popper back on the burner for one more batch of popcorn.

And, wow! Holy kerpopping corn! Not only did my husband tell me he liked it, he made eye contact with me while saying so. And folks, when I get the eye contact, it means something is seriously good.

I made the popcorn again on Monday because we were having a rough day and because I wanted to do a post about it (the popcorn, not the day) and because I didn’t eat enough for lunch and supper wasn’t coming around fast enough (probably because I was making popcorn) and because I really, really wanted to taste that maple-y sweet saltiness again.

The melted maple sugar does this fantastic thing where it coats the kernels with a crust so faint and delicate that it disappears with the first bite. And the maple-cinnamon flavor is profoundly delicious but so mild that it makes you want to cram handfuls of the stuff into your mouth on the off chance you might capture more of its ethereal sweetness. But no matter how much you cram, the flavor remains aloof, more an essence than a solid taste. Such a tease!

Maple Sugar and Cinnamon Popcorn
As half-heard from my friend Kris

This is the first (and second) time I’ve ever made kettle corn successfully and it’s all because of my whirley-pop. I’m in love with my whirley-pop and I’m even more in love with it now that I know it can turn out such awesome popcorn.

½ cup popcorn kernels
1-2 tablespoons coconut oil
3-4 tablespoons maple sugar
1/3 – ½ teaspoon cinnamon
2-3 tablespoons butter, melted
coarse salt

Put the popper on medium-high heat and add the coconut oil. When the oil is good and hot, dump in the popcorn kernels, maple sugar, and cinnamon. Stir without ceasing until the popping has stopped. Immediately dump the popcorn into a large bowl and toss with melted butter and salt.

This same time, years previous: rustic cornmeal soup with beet greens, donuts, sweet rolls

I’m grumpy. Yesterday I was all cozy and happy and warm and today I’m bite-your-head-off grouchy. Frailty, thy name is woman! Bah.

A lot of it has to do with one child who refuses to stop with the snarky. She spews venom, calls names, and doesn’t do any of the things she’s supposed to do. After coming downstairs from one of my many attempts at reasoning with her, I picked up a stool and heaved it across the kitchen.

But only in my mind.

Instead I slapped together more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the masses and made a speech about how rest time would be extra long because I was going to lose my mind if I didn’t get some peace and quiet.

But enough about that. I’m sick of wallowing. So … how about I tell you about my latest money making adventure fail?

Saying “latest” in relation to making money is kind of slap-your-knee hilarious because I NEVER embark on money-making adventures. I am so not entrepreneurial. But a friend of mine, a couple actually, told me about how they made all this money donating their plasma, so I decided to try it.

It wasn’t a quick or easy decision. The donation center is 25 minutes from our house, and two trips a week would make a noticeable wrinkle in our calm (GROUCHY) home routines. I talked to a number of people about it, called the center several times, scrutinized the calendar, and then went for it.

The first time I showed up at the place, I didn’t even get passed the preliminary sign-in because I had brought the wrong ID. (I took “original social security card” to mean The Original Social Security Card. But apparently there’s the little problem of a name change?)

The second time I went in (with a large white envelope stuffed with every scrap of identification I could find, from several copies of our marriage certificate [in case the paper wasn’t the right thickness or something] to insurance cards to passports), I made it passed the identification station only to get hung up at the finger prick place. My hemoglobin was 36 percent when it needed to be 38 or higher.

On the way home I stopped at a pharmacy for some iron supplements, and over the course of the next two weeks I popped pills, suffered upset stomach and constipation, and contemplated the wisdom of this new endeavor.

The third time I went to the center I made it passed the blood prick place (39 percent hemoglobin, yay!), got to enter my name in a drawing for an ipod touch, made it through the 30 minute computerized questionnaire in which I signed my life away, passed my physical (and got a bag of fish crackers and a bottle of water), and finally, finally made it onto the donation table.

The nurse hooked up the bags and wires and slapped my identification stickers all over the blood draw tubes before telling me to make a fist so she could check my veins. She poked about for a minute before saying, “Let me see the other arm.” She poked that one for just a minute, and then, “I think I need someone a little more experienced.”

Someone A Little More Experienced came over and poked my arms for just a second before excusing herself. I could see her conferring with someone out in the hall. Then she came back and chirped brightly, “We’re going to have to let you go today. Your veins are too small.”

She must have mistaken my confused What The—? look for disappointment because she said encouragingly, “What I suggest you do is go home and do some exercises to enlarge your veins. You can do things like squeeze a ball while you watch TV—that should help. And then come back and try again in a couple weeks.”

I thanked her and calmly gathered my stuff, but inside I was busting up all over the place. My veins were too small? Vein enlarging activities? Good grief, and yeah right, whatever! I stick my neck out, try to make a little money, and bam, I get told my veins are too small. Ha!

So I’m out ten bucks for the iron constipation pills, another ten or fifteen for gas, several hours for time, and I have nothing to show for it except a bag of orange fish crackers that I already ate. And the new self-awareness that I have small (does this mean they’re sexy?) veins.

Of course, there is the off-chance I’ll win that ipod touch…

This same time, years previous: the donut party, part one