tactfullyblunt

one of the best days ever

I love FedEx. Especially when they deliver a check of proportions never before seen.

circular

For the most part I seem to be doing fatally fine since the bluebarfy incident. The only thing that remains a little off is my tummy—which seems to be remarkably picky these three days later about what I put into it.

Last night, in celebration of a check which was supposed to be FedExed to me this morning (and wasn't), we went to the neighborhood watering hole for some salad. I'd eaten the same salad four days ago (prepuke) and enjoyed it immensely. This time I couldn't eat but four bites before I was f-u-l-l and feeling nauseated. The experience reminded me of one of my Dad's favorite stories about my childhood.

In many ways I think I was like most little kids and would eat just about anything that came out of a babyfood jar, off someone's plate, or off the floor, and lots of it. However, there were a few things that either I didn't like right off or developed a dislike for as I actually grew taste buds. When these things were put in my mouth, I'd make a sour face, get watery eyes and try to spit it out. If those things didn't work I'd call on the big guns and roll my eyes up in my head, simultaneously lolling my tongue outside my mouth with as much food as I could immediately jetison, gag dramatically, and bob my enormous baby cranium forward violently upon my twiggy neck.

Sure, great story, right?

What made it great, people, was the fact that I'd then look helplessly up at whomever was foisting this nastiness upon my gentle sensibilities, shrug my shoulders and say, "Mouff not laak iiit". In this manner, I was no longer responsible for refusal to eat whatever it was. If I could've talked more plainly, I'd probably have said something like, "Hey, Man, s'not my fault I can't keep this down. My mouth just can't handle this, and hey, we both know how rebellious that SOB is. Let's just agree between us that we're not going to try to fill any more beets in there, and maybe he'll be more amenable to those huge chewable vitamins you keep trying to get him to swallow, ok? I just can't be responsible for what he might do if you bring another spoonful of pureed liver near him—he's craaaaaazy."

blueberries make a nice stain

The "heat wave" in this area has really been playing havoc with my system. Since about Sunday afternoon (coinciding strangely with Pirates of the Caribbean), I've been battling a near constant pain in my right eye. Last evening found me in bed by 9:30, wishing that the world would stop moving the bed so much so that I could get comfortable. I blame the dreams I had in part to the movie, in part to my inner ear issues, and in part to the ginger granola cereal with fresh blueberries I had for dinner, because I certainly have zero desire to be on a ship in the middle of the ocean—ever. All of these things contributed to my spending the better part of the hours of 1am to 3am heaving my guts up.

Things I have learned:

ONE
Blueberries leave a nice stain

TWO
When exposed to gastric acid, ginger's atoms are rearranged such that they create a super acid that will eat all of the flesh from the inside of your throat, your eucstacean tubes and your sinuses in a nanosecond; this goes double for any place affected by splashback. Case in point: my right eye. Damn. Nothing wakes you up faster than blue gingery puke in your eye.

THREE
When vomiting up something that you really, truly enjoy on a regular basis, it's best not to remember all of the alcoholic beverages which you can no longer enjoy for the same reasons. I personally believe the definition of insanity is vomiting at 2:30am and having a conversation with myself that goes something like this:

"Wow, do you think that this will be anything like the time you drank Bud until you puked and could never wear Salon Selectives hair product again because the smell reminded you too much of vomit in your hair?"

Shut up! I want to keep liking blueberries! And I'm not giving up ginger granola either!

"Still, I wonder how pregnant women can just go on, heaving up their guts like this—oh, wow! That was some serious splashback!—and don't have any lasting effects. I bet they do. Great, something else to look forward to."

Shutupshutupshuppp!

FOUR
Why is it that there comes a point where the desire to not throw up is totally overwhelmed by plaintive cries emanating from deep inside your soul to "Please, Holy Spirit, wilst Thou visitest mine bowels and push these foul demons back into the sewer from whence they came! Only, in Thy divine mercy, I beseech Thee, please don't push them so hard that they go up my nose to burn me with a thousand flames of hell on their way out!"?

Every time I get sick I actually believe that if I can hold my head in the correct position that I will be able to puke without that burn at the end. Last night I actually thought "Alllll Riiiiight!" every time I chucked and didn't get it up my nose. Such hubris, because the next round was twice as badly up my nose.

Why am I writing about all of this? Because I'm thinking I'm going to have a reprisal this evening, and I'm hoping at least to have some new material tomorrow.

ageism

Yes. I've been away. I've had a lot on my mind in the last few months.

As the owner of a soon-to-be 1-year-old business, I've been busting ass and taking names so well that I've got more work than I can handle but not enough (this week) to involve someone else.

As a 2-yr-old wife, I've learned that every single family on the planet has their own dysfunctional SOPs, and fooling with that can quickly turn into a kick in the cherries. Even (and most especially) when you're behind the scenes doing all the right things. No good deed goes unpunished, as the old saying goes.

As a 35-year-old, I've been learning that my body has a lot of grievances against me that were never addressed, that it really doesn't appreciate my 2-year-old intense interest in its upkeep and lets me know by crapping out on me nearly every time I go to the gym. Currently the regime change is taking place in my ankle after this morning's long-awaited return to the gym. At least my body is nice enough to tell me which machines it harbors ill will against—I just wish it did it before, and not after, the fact. Like I said, my body's a spiteful, vindictive bitch.

As a 2-year-old in-ground gardener (my success as a container gardener left me naive), I have learned that when I put something in the ground it is no longer mine; it belongs to the rodentia in my yard. This afternoon, I decided to rescue the third tomato of the season (as they had stolen the previous two, take bites out of each of our cucumbers and have decimated my soy beans). For this, I had a very angry, barking squirrel fling squirrel poops at me as he hung upside down from the side of the tree.

And isn't that what the day-to-day living of life is, when you get right down to it? A whole bunch of love, hard-work and poop flinging that can snow you under with prosperity or have you doubled over holding your bruised fruit.

Today is my little brother's birthday. He's not really so little any more; he looks down at me and has to shave. I have a difficult time remembering how old I am most of the time, so my age never really occurs to me until I think about how old he is.

29.

I'd give anything to have those years back. It's not that I'm unhappy with my life; I just miss feeling like there was still so much more time to do everything I wanted to do. I'm not that much older than Robespierre--I'm just becoming more and more aware of the clock with every day that passes. Perhaps it's because I'm finally entering that age group where suddenly nearly everyone I know has at least one friend or loved one who is battling some kind of life threatening illness. That'll really wake you up to your own mortality right quick. It makes each day I don't make it to the gym even more of a pebble in my shoe; as if in my vanity I could keep myself from becoming "infected" myself.

When I was younger these thoughts didn't cross my mind so much. Sure, I had the whole artist's romantic notion of death--but I was too young then to really appreciate what the process of dying really meant because the bulk of my experience with it was a little more dramatic (car accidents, drownings, suicides). Now...now when I look back at my depressive youth, I can see that even while I was looking over the precipice, I was still biting, scratching and clawing my way back in the direction of life. It's a little humbling to me to think of it like that when just the other day I told a close friend that I didn't know if I'd have it in me to fight the way my mother did if I found out I had cancer. I guess you don't really know what you're capable of doing to hold onto life until you're out the other side and able to look back.

It's a better thing
that we do now
forgetting everything
the whys and hows
While you reminisce
about the things you miss
you won't be ready to kiss...
goodbye

The last few months have been quite a blur, but good, bad or ugly, it's all been the living of life.

the rutabaga connection

Today marks the first day I am cooking with a rutabaga. Since this is my first time, I had to google to see how to prepare it for cooking.

The very first link was from A&M.

Serendipity.

Later note: it was covered in a quarter inch of wax. Is this normal?

Happy Birthday, Monkey's Uncle in the J

Dear Mom,

I know you don't need a reminder, but it's been a year since you died. I figure the novelty of spying on your kids has long since worn off, what with your happy hours with JFK, Jimmy Hoffa, JP II and Peter Jennings and all, so I just wanted to share my knowledge bumps with you (in no particular order of importance).

No matter how many talks we had in the lead up to your "transition"--a year later and I still hate that cheesy word--the rest of the world remains unclear about exactly how I felt about you. The moments with the fahmalee have been bad enough, but far worse have been the totally insensitive and way off-base assumptions made by people outside the family. Unfortunately, people have willingly stepped into that vacuum to talk about shit they know nothing about, even going so far as to use our relationship as an excuse for their own poor behavior. This has been a bit of a challenge to me.

I suppose you'd think that would make me upset with you, but it doesn't. I'm pretty good at seeing exactly who is causing the upset, in case you didn't realize that before you died. Besides, if there is one thing I have learned this year, it's that far too many people take this life too seriously; so seriously that they're willing to use the dead to do it. I have done the best I can to bring humor to every situation, even at my own expense. I've dropped the ball on this quite a few times along the way, so I'm aiming for more humor this coming year.

Still and all, it's been a tough slog through the holiday season. It's strange how many people seem to feel it ABSOLUTELY IMPERATIVE to make comments about how they can't understand how anyone could be sad during the holidays (one person even said that it was rude!!). Even when I've casually pointed out (with not a tear in my eye) that some people have lost a loved one and that makes it a little difficult to plaster on a smile all of the time, I've almost always been met with a "get over it" type response. My knee-jerk response is to wish all manner of hateful karmic things on them, but when I come to my senses I often find myself praying for these people that they never have to have their childlike innocence stripped from them. After all, with such spoiled child behavior, it's obvious that they couldn't handle losing someone during the holidays.

As a person who already had a tendency to feeling low this time of year, the cosmic joke of your passing during the holiday season isn't lost on me. I've done really well this year but malls and Christmas decorations have made me a little misty a few times. I've introduced as many new traditions as I can as a way of dealing with your passage (including hosting a Happy Unbirthday party with the fahmalee as a way to mark the anniversary of your death). Most of them involve food and activities, so you'll be happy to know that I've gained back all of the weight I'd lost last December. I was looking fairly hollow there for a while, but there is no worry of that now, fo sho.

I'm sure you'd be shocked to know that overall, despite the times I've risen to the ugly behaviors of others with my own ugly behaviors, I've gained a lot of ground in the loving department. Without sharing too much of our recent private interactions with the internets, your family is tentatively poised for great growth this coming year thanks to a few carefully placed connections made over Christmas. It would be great if this time you gave your blessing and allowed these relationships to grow beyond what you were comfortable with during your lifetime. They are no longer a threat to you, and in fact, would be a great testament to the children you created.

Mostly I just wanted to say that while I've never been one for revisionist history, I've learned a lot about "us" this last year--I miss you more than most people give me credit. That and also somehow I feel like my New Year this year began on December 31.

Give my love to Sleeping Bear,
Jen

Measurements Be Damned

About five minutes after I wrote the previous post, I returned to the kitchen to discover that I was down to the 1/4 and 1/2 tsps. Where did they go? I have no idea, but it made continuing the baking for the family that much more difficult.

All is now well, as I went to the Target the afternoon of Dec. 26 to get myself some durned spoons. So now I have a set and a half. Something tells me that in a few weeks I'll have TWO 1/4 and 1/2 tsps, and nothing else.

Still, for now I'm marvelling at exactly how large a tablespoon really is. It's huuuuuuge. No wonder it took me so long to measure it out in 1/4 tsps.

Day 15 of Holiday Baking: My Kingdom for a Tablespoon

For those of you beyond me whom this might pertain to in the least, if you can't see the humor in this, then you have no heart.

Other couples get multiple blenders, mixers and toasters when they get married. This is ok because you can do what my parents did and just store them up until the one you're using breaks and, voila, you have an instant replacement, saving your marriage for yet another 10 years thanks to burnt up toast.

Bill and I, however, got measuring cups.

Three sets, in fact.

Being's I like to bake (and Bill likes to mix drinks), we weren't upset in the least. We have all three sets and, while we've not needed to rotate them yet, are confident that we are set should any baking need arise. Well, one of the magnitude that requires measuring cups.

On the smallest side, we are also covered, as Bill's mom gave us some cute little Williams Sonoma dash-bit-jigger thingies two years ago. I have yet to use them, but they are intelligent and fun.

On the smaller side (the one that usually accompanies the cups), we are at a loss. We had one set. One. And the Tablespoon has been missing, strangely enough, since my mother died last year. At first it was more of a crap moment that I stumbled over every time I went to bake something. I adjusted on the fly, learning that there are 3 tsps to every Tbsp. No biggie.

Until the last month and a half when I've been baking and cooking like a maniac. It really sucks moose dick to have to count out 12 teaspoons or, no lie, 36 1/4 teaspoons (the other, larger sizes were dirty) so that you can get the correct Tablesppon measurement. Especially when your husband is standing there like an ADD four-year-old asking ad nauseum when it's going to be done just because he thinks it's funny to make you forget where you are in the counting scheme.

You're saying, Why haven't you gone out to get a new set? It's not like you've not been in the store five hundred bajillion times since Wednesday--after your father told you 48 hours before Christmas Eve that you were responsible for the family Christmas shopping (argh!)--and you could've picked one up then. Is it that you like to complain? Is it that you're totally incapable of helping yourself get that damned Tablespoon? We're sick of hearing about it.

To you I say, shut the fuck up. You just made me lose my count again.

hello again, hello

Today I ate my lunch with your hair.

Not the crisp, grey wig you wear now.
Even after ten years, that wasn't ever really you.
No, I mean the hair you taught me to expect.

I never really noticed your brown teeth, green skin and
red-rimmed eyes, but each time I saw you it was like
my mind had to relearn: Her perfect hair is gone.

I saw your hair one other time, last January at the Home Depot.
It was bobbing along atop a bright green stadium coat,
With great, long, proud strides next to a tall, white-haired man
Who held out his hand.

That is how I want to remember your hair.
Not forever tied to Christmas at The Mall.