Evil Witches Newsletter Vol. 4 |
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• (Holiday) Greetings • It was Christmastime, during my last few years of being child-free, when I first started thinking about having kids. I still shamelessly let my mom buy and wrap gifts “from Santa” for me but began to suspect this is for kids in a way that somehow led to actually making children. I actually found out I was pregnant with my first on Christmas Day, 2011. This particular Christmas seems like it got here much faster than last year. I just put all the holiday shit away and I’m taking it out again? I blame weird early Thanksgiving. But Christmas is, after all, for kids, not me. I’ll haul out all the gear and they will fight over the Advent calendar, and I’ll yell at them as they display craven greed and get frustrated by the post-present mess and piles and returns to make, and they will love it when they’re not being the worst. I bought the 3-year-old a Boden penguin sweater that features a pocket to hold a little tiny penguin doll and it’s the cutest thing ever. The tiny penguin is attached by a tiny ribbon to the pocket. I explained to the 3-year-old that he shouldn’t rip the penguin out of the pocket, but I sure as shit know he’s going to rip that penguin out. It’s just a matter of when, and it’s up to me to decide how to respond. That sweater is a metaphor for the holidays. So darling and sweet. But likely to end in some tears and yelling. It helps knowing others who can admit that, yeah, it’s nice to make the holidays fun for kids, and also kids can be such jerks around the holidays. Last year I asked my friends, “What’s the dumbest thing your kid has cried about over break?” Here were some answers: My 3-year-old cried because she hates fudge. After we played Clue for literally four hours, I asked my daughter to play by herself while I talked to her father, and she cried into a pillow. Mine got teary when I forced her to work on a puzzle with me. And yes, kid, puzzles are boring AF. I don't care, get over here. My kids received sleeping bags for Christmas. The 6-year-old cried because his brother’s “has a bottom.” (It was zipped.) My 5-year-old threw a tantrum because I wouldn’t buy her a toy at the store. The store was Petsmart and it was a cat toy. We don’t have a cat. 10-year-old and 7-year-old are alone in another room. 10-y-o starts screaming about something. Me: "What's wrong?" 10-y-o: "She was talking about me in the THIRD PERSON!" I wouldn't let her play with medicine: |
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As always, feel free to share the dumbest thing your kid is crying about this holiday season. And if it’s something dumb that you cried about, we've all been there. Keep your medicine close, witches; you’re gonna need it to get through the next month. ~ Claire |
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Recommendations • Technology |
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Some witches enjoy holiday shopping. Some witches don’t. For those who don’t, there is the miracle of the food gift. The goal here is to create something so delicious that nobody cares that--this is important--you didn’t fuss with artful decorating or cute packaging. For baked goodies, wrap in plastic, then tissue paper, and stick in a gift bag—kraft paper looks both “eco” and crafty-cute. For liquid treats you can get bottles from IKEA or Amazon, or reuse cleaned and sterilized liquor bottles for earth-friendly street cred. Just stay away from Pinterest. That way lies madness. Here are actual witch-tested food gifts, both sweet and savory, for your friends, teachers, postal carrier, hair stylist, weed dealer, etc: Smitten Kitchen’s Salted Brown Butter Crispy Treats. They’re just fancy enough that your recipients will notice and be impressed. Ina’s Ginger Shortbread: “These cookies are really easy and people think they're fancy because of the candied ginger!” Chocolate Bark. This isn’t a recipe. It’s an infinitely mutable concept that never fails to delight because it is so easy to customize. Buy a bunch of quality chocolate. You don’t have to get fancy, but you don’t want to go cheap, either (ALDI is a good source). Line a sheet pan with parchment paper. Melt some chocolate in the top of a double-boiler. When it’s smooth, pour it on the parchment and spread it around with a spatula. Then add… whatever. Nuts. Crushed pretzels. Crushed cookies. Dried fruits. Dried chilies. Don’t skimp: this is where much commercially available bark fails. If you’re making almond bark, go nuts with the almonds. Consider an upgrade to Marcona almonds. Use the good flaked sea salt. You get the idea. Once the chocolate cools, break it into nice, big slabs and keep it cool until you’re ready to gift it. Limoncello: “There are lots of recipes online, and they all boil down to flavoring vodka and adding sugar. People love sweet flavored vodka.” Mustard and Ketchup: Amaze your friends! Confound your enemies! Be the only person you know who gives condiments as gifts! Instant Pot Hot Sauce. This does require both an Instant Pot and the purchase of bottles, but “at the risk of being gender essentialist, this is an easy dude gift, because all dudes have to at least pretend that they love hot sauce.” It’s also a good gift for ladies who legit love hot sauce. |
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Kids • Cherish this • By A.V. in Chicago |
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My husband and I had barely learned to change a diaper when we started hearing it: “Cherish these days. They go by so fast.” Shortly after we adopted our 17-month-old son, I walked to the grocery store, the first time I’d left the house alone since we’d become a family of three. Sleep-deprived and still reeling from the (desired, anticipated) massive changes that had shaken my life, I passed a woman reading a book on her front porch and was surprised by a force of emotion—longing and jealousy and a sense I’d never, ever be able to do such a thing again. I did not cherish that day. It was not going by so fast. I felt uneasy about how the ideal of motherhood and my reality of motherhood did not exactly match, especially when juxtaposed with people insisting that I cherish every moment—as if the toddler days were the best days of parenting, and it would all go downhill from here. I rarely understood the idea of wanting to slow down time when I was dealing with this: • When the boy (again, 17 months old when we adopted him) would only nap—once a day for 40 minutes—while being worn in a carrier.
• Buckling a crying, runny-nosed, puffy-winter-coated child into a carseat.
• Being told I was mean three times in 15 minutes. • Being woken at 3:20 a.m. by somebody asking for a back scratch.
• The drawn-out negotiations over when to leave the playground. • That year at least one person in our family was sick for 10 out of 12 months.
• That time he shoved a corn kernel up his nose. • That day the temperature never got above 0 degrees and daycare was closed and I had to somehow fill 11 hours indoors with a two-year-old who didn’t really nap. • Getting the call that my kindergartener pooped in his underwear because he was too busy playing to go to the bathroom and could I please come pick him up? It’s on his shoes, too. My kid is 8 now, and I’ve gotten better about cherishing each age and stage—now that I also understand the reality that no stage comes without something you can’t wait to get through. |
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A Word From • A single mom who’s got it all figured out • By J in Toronto |
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Re-entering the dating world as a single mom is weird. All the rules are different. And the men are all awful. More than once, a divorced dad has told me with a laugh, “I don’t know how to cook anything because my wife made dinner every night the entire 15 years we were together. But I made breakfast!” I can’t imagine why she left you. I quickly realized I never wanted to live with anyone again and decided that the solution was to pursue flings with guys I would never consider in the long-term—the mixologist, the metrosexual, all of them more than 10 years younger than me. The pinnacle of this plan came this summer, when I discovered a subreddit called “Random Acts of Muff Dive,” for strangers hoping to give or receive cunnilingus. No, really. After much wide-eyed reading, I found a post from someone who intrigued me, for the following reasons: He didn’t live in town, so no embarrassing, unexpected encounters at the grocery store His posting history on Reddit didn’t reveal creepy tendencies or anger management issues He was 21 years younger than I am
I screwed up my courage and sent him a message. There is something freeing about talking about sex with a complete stranger who lives thousands of miles away. No judgment, no risk. After a few days of messages ranging from the risque to “Haha I can’t believe I’m doing this, are you sure you’re not a serial killer?” we met for a drink near his hotel. We chatted. I was anxious and awkward. He was calm and reassuring. Eventually, we went back to his hotel room for some of the best sex of my life—no names exchanged. And then the next day I picked up my son from his dad’s house like any other middle-aged mom. I have to admit, I feel excited knowing that all the people around me see an average middle-aged woman and would be shocked if they knew anything about my secret life. It’s not how I expected my 40s to be, but it’s not uncommon. A number of my single mom friends have chosen to pursue sexual fulfillment outside of conventional relationships. Think about that the next time you’re at a PTA meeting. |
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• End Credits • Thanks for reading Evil Witches. You can follow us and talk to us here. If you know someone who'd like this sort of thing in their inbox about twice a month, forward it their way, and encourage them to subscribe. Feel like you have something to put out in the witchiverse? Drop us a line. We don't pay but that may change someday. You never know. This issue is brought to you by Christmas Eve feelings of divorce when your spouse looks at the carefully chosen presents under the tree that were painstakingly selected to coordinate with other relatives' gifts for the kids, decides the pile doesn't look magical enough and then goes out at the last minute wraps up a bunch of garbage to make it look like a bigger pile. Baby it is cold outside. And inside too. |
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