As you may or may not know, Claire was on soy nut butter sandwiches last year because of peanut allergies in the classroom. This year, no such restriction on peanut products, but she announced that she didn’t actually like peanut butter anymore. This has been a sticking point in a variety of contexts, most of them involving us wanting to offer her peanut butter or being somewhere where a PB & J would have been a lifesaver in terms of mood.

Last night, Claire was trying celery filled with various things, which of course was a disaster because the foods were touching each other (see below). So Carmen (bless her) suggested that Claire just treat the celery as a spoon of sorts – a yummy stuff delivery mechanism – until all the good stuff was licked out of the middle, at which point it could revert to food and be eaten. Snack saved.

And more to the point, Claire ate all the peanut butter ones, and none of the soy nut butter ones. Ha HA!

These are the things that sustain me, in the dark moments. Peanut butter back on the list.

Not actually a back-seat problem for us, having only one kid. (If it does start happening, as Cosby says, we’ll have a different set of problems.) Rather, this relates to a different aspect of Claire’s life – her food. She doesn’t like her foods to touch. When they touch, she doesn’t eat them. Because they’re touching. With the possible exception of soy nut butter and jelly sandwiches, she doesn’t eat things that are touching.

Have I said touch and its various derivatives enough?

That is why she positively lost her mind when she saw the lunch container from Klip It. It has three compartments, one for a sandwich, and two for crackers/veggies/whatever. Fits right into her lunchbox. It’s a win-win, really – none of her food touches, and we’re not using eight million ziplocks to ensure the non-touchingness.

I sound like an AM radio commercial, but I’ve been looking for a bento-style container for her lunch sack for a while now. There’s an easy solution, so long as you don’t already own a lunch sack, which we do. So this was a coup of epic proportions. The closest I had come was a hecka-elaborate thing that was originally constructed for diabetics or something, and that was way to complicated to fiddle with on a daily basis.

Test run tomorrow. Rawk!

We’re heading out for Danielle’s wedding this week and the fridge was full of delectables from a week’s worth of cooking lunches and whatnot at home (part of the New Austerity, but also capitalizing on the freaking incredible abundance at the Farmer’s Market right now…). So what else but an Everything Frittata? Stuff it included:

A spectacular cross, ball into the net, and a dominating performance in the first half. Then two (literally, two) chances for Charlotte, and they converted on both. The core truth of this season is the absence of that kind of game-changing power up front. We’re not making plays. We don’t convert like that. Not that we didn’t have the opportunity – we were seriously all over them, even down to ten men.

We’re left hoping for some serious voodoo math to make the post-season, at which point we will travel everywhere.

I dunno, it’s disappointing. We have such a solid midfield and (normally) effective backs. We just need to put the ball in the net.

Thanks, though, to Dietrich for the opportunity to hang out. Next year!

This has been percolating for a while, and after attending the inaugural Refresh Portland talk last night (and btw, go give Tyler Sticka all your money – dude is sharp), and some tweets/chats back and forth about the loss of OSCON, I thought I’d write out the manifesto.

What’s a klatch?

Specifically, a kaffeeklatsch? It’s German for, essentially, sip ‘n’ bitch. The idea is similar to a salon, with a little less emphasis on a topic. In my case, I just like the sound of the word. Salon sounds somewhat pretentious, and anyway Creative Commons has that particular “geeky gathering” definition space locked up. KlatchPDX could be a periodic uncon or perhaps a Shizzup, with loosely defined topic sets and the expectation that you come ready to pony up a relevant take on a topic or topics included in the evening’s roster.

Why do it?

I’m not sure – I feel like we’re missing the chance to get people with different backgrounds and experiences into a room for talks about stuff that matters. Even more, I feel strongly that cool chats are at least as useful as cool talks. There’s also the potential to record these and provide some additional shoutouts to the PDX tech/creative community.

How often?

Once a month? Yeah? More?

You are an evil genius, what can I do to help?

Obviously, we should meet for coffee and discuss. Leave a comment and let’s figure out a time.
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