Tempus Fugit

Was it really 30 days ago that I posted Carole King's The First Day in August?  Wow.  And here it is, the last day in August.  Tempus fugit!

Having spent over 2/3 of my life in a public school system, the dread of the aftermath of Labor Day weekend is hard-wired in my brain.  Even after I retired, I was still subject to eleven more years of my kids having to return to school at the end of the summer.  All these years later, I still have to remind myself that summer does not end the day after Labor Day.  There are still two or three more weeks of summer on the calendar.

Wait.  What?  Two or three weeks?  That's it?  Yikes!  Why is it that just at the point that I am ready to finally relax and enjoy summer, it's over?  I feel like I spend nearly all of it getting ready for it.  The lawn, the gardens, the mulch, the plantings, the weeding, the watering . . . my daily to-do list, every day, is too full for relaxation.

And now here we are, September knocking at the door.  Tempus fugit!

Yes, time flies.  I swear, there is a warp in time as we know it.  Days and weeks stretch out forever when we are young, but they speed up as we age.  It's true.

So what am I in love with today?  Certainly not the idea that time flies!  How about this?  I do not have to return to school on Tuesday!  Yes.  That is indeed worthy of my love!

My Neighbor the Pig

Meet my neighbor, Arnie.  You can see that he is in the car.  Poor Arnie was headed to the Cornell Companion Animal Hospital in Ithaca, NY, and he is still there now.  But his person, Sheila, is optimistic that she can bring him back home tomorrow.  So I am sending out lots of love to Arnie right now, because he is not feeling well and he is missing Sheila.

Arnie is eleven years old.  Sheila bought him for $75 from a local farm when he was a mere piglet of seven weeks.  As you have probably guessed, Arnie is a pot-bellied pig.  Pot-bellied pigs are intelligent, readily trained, affectionate, curious, playful, clean, generally quiet, odor free, and usually non-allergenic. You may have also guessed that he was named after Arnold, the pig from Green Acres.  What you might not have guessed is that Arnie can do tricks.  Sheila has taught him to sit on command, and he can also give you his hoof.  But the best trick is one that Sheila might play on you!  When Sheila wants Arnie to come out of her closet (where he sleeps), all she has to do is open and close the freezer door.  Arnie knows where the ice cream is kept!  So Sheila has convinced visitors that she can call Arnie through mental telepathy.  Meanwhile, she unobtrusively opens and closes the freezer door, and of course, Arnie comes to her! 

In mid-July, Sheila started noticing that Arnie wasn't quite right, and so began the arduous task of trying to get to the root of the problem and treat him accordingly.  After investing a helluva lot of money into his treatment, Arnie wasn't improving, so off to Ithaca went Sheila, Arnie, and Sheila's mom (who gets the Mother-of-the-Year Award as far as I'm concerned).  Turns out, everything checks out okay with Arnie . . . except he's constipated.  To quote Sheila:  "I just spent a million bucks on a constipated pig."

A nutritionist is going to evaluate Arnie and suggest a diet that might alleviate the problem.  I think the sooner he is able to come home and be with his family, the better.  So if you are reading this blog, send out your love to Arnie, okay?

The Diseased and the Dead

This year's garden was a challenge.  It began with a colder-than-normal spring and progressed to a grub infestation.  Shortly after, blight took center stage.  As an organic gardener, I had to roll with the punches, harvest what I could, and make promises for next spring.

Today, I cleaned out the remains of my tomato plants.  I started with about 70 plants, but blight eventually claimed them all.  Nonetheless, flowers and fruit persisted, so I do have some sauce, soup, roasted tomatoes and sun-dried tomatoes to satisfy me throughout the winter.  Still, it was sad to yank the diseased and dead plants.

Always looking for metaphor, I am thinking about the diseased and the dead.  Seems they are always being yanked from us.  And what does that do to us?  Leaves us feeling sad, screwed, cheated, and empty.

Aha!  But they always leave something behind!  I have been busy using whatever fruit my diseased tomato plants have left for me and turning them into sustenance for the coming winter. 

 
So ask yourself this:  what have your diseased and dead loved ones left for you to harvest?  Figure it out and get busy.  Preserve those memories, those lessons, those adages.  Store them in a safe place and call them up when needed.

There is love in what remains.  Find it.

Magenta

Magenta ain't a colour.  So says Liz Elliott on http://www.biotele.com/magenta.html Go ahead, click on it.  You will be treated to some pretty fascinating optical illusions.

I googled the word magenta once I decided that the color was falling-in-love-worthy.  I had no idea I would find such fascinating information!

Magenta is an “extraspectral” color. Sir Isaac Newton noticed that magenta did not exist in the spectrum of colors from white light when he played with prisms. But when he superimposed the red end of the spectrum on to the blue end, he saw the color magenta.

When I was 15, I had a magenta mohair sweater.  I loved magenta then, and I still love magenta now.

Anyway, Jenna was getting rid of some clothes recently, and I happily went through all of it to see if I could find any treasures.  Sure enough, there was a magenta T-shirt with a couple of paint spots on it.  Perfect for days when I am doing projects!  Today was one of those days, so I donned the T-shirt.  At a point where I needed a break, I went out to the garden to sit in the remaining sunlight.  Within minutes, a dragonfly landed on my boob.  Yes, that's right, on my boob.  I stared at him, talked to him (in baby-talk, of course), and tried to contain my excitement that an exuberant dragonfly was perched on my chest!  Lo and behold, another dragonfly, which looked like a twin, landed on my arm.  So there I was, sitting perfectly still, while two dragonflies contemplated the universe while resting on my person.  This has never happened before, so I considered that it must be the color of my shirt.

Break over, I returned to one of my projects, which was using up all those garden tomatoes in sauce to freeze.  I was filling zip-lock bags and setting them to cool on the counter when splat! one of the bags tipped over and splashed to the white tile floor.  In truth, the radiating splash was more red than blue, but I thought about magenta as I stared at the mess I now had to clean up.  Like magic, the red blob began to morph into magenta.  Yes, this is what love can do, people.

Continuing my google search, I found this:  The color magenta is one of universal harmony and emotional balance. It is spiritual yet practical, encouraging common sense and a balanced outlook on life. 

Um, yes.  That would be me.

Apartment-hunting

Yeah, you guessed it . . . another one that I need to talk myself into falling in love with.  Here we go.

Jenna and I drove up to Brattleboro, Vermont (and environs) today to look for housing for her, as she begins her new job there in two and a half weeks.  It's a four hour drive there, so we headed out early.  Still, we were only able to look at three places before we needed to head back home.  We would have looked at more, but people weren't returning Jenna's phone call inquiries.  (This is the new normal.)

What might actually be the thing I could fall in love with is getting a chance to see how other people live.  Of course, that could also be the thing that might depress the hell out of me.  Either way, it's an eye-opener.

Place #1 was very recently remodeled, and although it was small, it was certainly a plus that a new tenant would not have to deal with someone else's stains and smells and damages.  A little pricey, too, but I guess there's a price to be paid for privacy.

Place #2 was a complete disaster . . . in a gorgeous setting!  This was a basement apartment, priced way too high, and the current tenant made no bones about how terrible it is to be hearing every word that is said on the floor above.  Although her clutter was disconcerting enough, we appreciated her honesty in telling us what was wrong with the place.  (But outside?  It was beautiful!)

Place #3 was somewhere in the middle.  Larger, in-town, quiet . . . but old, rather ugly, too expensive for what it's worth.

So we did not find the perfect place.  But we got to see how other people live.  If nothing else, it makes one (or me) appreciate what one has.  I also paid attention to the fact that I have a certain standard that is not necessarily shared by everyone else.  I've lived in some less-than-desirable places in my younger days, too, but that was so long ago, I cannot even conjure up what I thought was acceptable about those places.  My digs now are not luxury digs, but they are basically clean and inhabitable and rather pleasant, if I do say so myself.

But you know what?  If Pete were still here with me, I would live in squalor, just to be with him.  So I guess it's not so much about the aesthetics of a place as it is about the inhabitants. 

I am in love with the idea that Jenna will find her place . . . in more ways than one.

Movement

Less than a week away, and already September is so full, I am overwhelmed.  But wait . . . it's all GOOD stuff!

First of all, my Jenna landed a job!  So she will be moving to Brattleboro, Vermont, in the next couple of weeks.  This is all good and exciting and, well, stressful!  She has to find a place to live (one that will accept a cat) and furnish it within a very short time.  The search begins tomorrow when we take a ride up there to house-hunt.

At the same time, my very dear friend will be moving in here temporarily.  She has sold her house, but still needs to maintain her teaching job at least until the end of December.  So she will be moving in here within the next two weeks.

One moves out, one moves in.

And then I move on.  I am flying out to California to see my son, and he and I will embark on a ten-day road trip spanning northern and southern California.  This is very exciting!  We have a great itinerary planned, and I am in the process of booking motels along the way.  Mountains, coastlines, forests, redwoods, lakes, wine country, baseball . . . it's all good.

Movement.  If you aren't moving, you are stagnant.  Sometimes, you need to stand still; I will grant you that.  As for me, I love movement.  I am in love with the coming and going, the expected and the surprise, the ebb and the flow.  I want to keep moving as long as these old bones will allow.

As Warren Zevon so famously stated, "I'll sleep when I'm dead."  (But I bet he's still not sleeping!)

Belt Sander

So I thought I needed a new front door.  The existing one is a heavy solid oak door with some pretty glasswork.  Although I am fond of it, my dog had pretty much ruined the front of it, scratching to get inside.  And it wasn't tight; I could see daylight through a couple of spaces.  I figured my best bet was to start over.  So off to a local big box I went.

While the big box wasted time sending a guy to measure, then firing that guy's company, then putting me off because they had too many jobs and not enough contractors, blah, blah, blah, I started getting nervous.  A phone call to a different manager got the ball rolling again  Another guy came out to measure.

And he said this:  "This is a good door.  A really good door."  Me:  "But it's all scratched up and there are leaks."  The guy:  "You can refinish it.  And it just needs to be rehung.  That could save you a lot of money."

Now you're talking.

So today I set about with the refinishing project.  Now, if I could remove the door and lay it flat, sanding would be a much easier task.  But if I removed the door . . . I'd have no door.  So the sanding has to be done while the door is upright and attached.  Not so easy.

Belt sander to the rescue.

Bet you didn't know I had one of these, did you?  It could be an antique; I'm not sure.  Anyway, I got it out, plugged it in, and got to work.

I think I have a small idea what it must have felt like in Napa when the earthquake struck yesterday.  If harsh vibrations throbbing through one's body are part of the experience, then I'm right.  I put on some heavy duty work gloves to lesson the jolt, but it was still kind of like having your teeth drilled.  What I realized fairly quickly was that this project is going to take some time.  I will have to parcel out my belt-sanding sessions . . . or else end up with the mother of all headaches.

So I did a bit today.  I'll do some more tomorrow.  I'll keep at it until all of Mack's claw marks are smoothed over.  This could take awhile.  (He was a 95 pound dog.)  But thanks to the belt sander, my work should be done in half the time it would take me to do it all by hand without electrical equipment.  Gotta love that, right?

Potato Harvest

That title should probably read Potato Famine, judging by how many potatoes I actually harvested.  I looked back through this blog to see that on April 7, I was all excited about the seed potatoes I was going to plant.  I remember cutting and curing the seed potatoes . . . and then something, whether it was my memory or the weather or some other distraction, prevented me from getting the cured potatoes into the ground in a timely fashion.  Consequently, my potato crop is rather pathetic.  Here it is in its entirety:

Well, that's minus the "new" potatoes that I used for tonight's dinner, but it still would look pathetic even if those potatoes were in the mix.

Whatever.  I am going to fall in love with the potatoes I have, not the potatoes I wish I had.  And if tonight's dinner was any indication, these potatoes are worth falling in love with.  I took the tiniest members of the crop, sliced them thin, and sauteed them along with garden tomatoes, peppers, red onion, and chard.  Added some store-bought mushrooms and eggs, scrambled it all up, and voila!  Dinner!  It was to die for, trust me.

So there's a lesson here, isn't there?  Stephen Stills' song Love the One You're With is playing in my head.  Followed by the Rolling Stones' You Can't Always Get What You Want.  I'd hoped for a bumper crop of potatoes.  I got what you see in the picture.  But I made a delicious dinner out of my harvest, and I will make a few more.  And that will be good enough.

Good enough.

The West Wing

Okay, I know, I know, I'm like 15 years late for this party!  Why did I never watch The West Wing when it ran from 1999 - 2006?  It probably aired at 10:00 p.m., and that was half an hour past my bedtime in those days.  By the time I retired and could stay awake later, I'd already missed the first few seasons, so why bother?  (I think this was before Netflix.)

Anyway, I don't have cable TV anymore, but I do have Netflix.  I really don't miss TV at all, but when I climb into bed at night, I like to have a half hour or so of something to watch, something to help me unwind.  I've been through two seasons of The New Girl and all seven seasons of 30 Rock.  I watched the two seasons of House of Cards and loved it.  I needed something else, and The West Wing popped up.  Thirteen episodes in and I'm hooked.

I'm not really sure how astute I was on politics and the world stage at the turn of the millennium.  Given that I was teaching full time, raising three kids, and caring for a husband who was battling cancer, I probably didn't give a flying fig about what was going on in Washington, D.C.  But I have to tell you how uncanny it is that the issues that were presented in this fictional White House in 1999 are pretty much the same issues that are visited upon the real White House today.  Death penalty?  Gun control?  Drugs?  Unrest in the Middle East?  A Congress more intent on re-election than on solving problems?  It's still the same stuff, people, the same stuff.  And that could be pretty depressing.

But I'm not depressed.  I'm in love with this show!  I already feel like I know these characters personally.  Josh, Sam, C.J., Jed, Charlie, Toby, Leo, Donna . . . See?  I'm on a first-name basis with them!  (I will admit, I'm not crazy about Mandy.  There's one in every crowd.)

And here's a little something else about this show.  When a bat flying around my bedroom wakes me up between 2:00 and 3:00 in the morning, I flip on the lights and direct the bat outside.  And then of course, I cannot fall back to sleep.  Aha!  The West Wing!  I watch another episode until I am sleepy again.  Take that, you disruptive bats!

Larder

My daughters were big fans of Beatrix Potter when they were little.  And there were other animal-themed stories, like Jill Barklem's Brambly Hedge.  The lure of these idyllic countryside communities, populated by bunnies and mice and ducks, fascinated my girls.  In later years, the Hobbit tales had a similar effect.  Well, they did on me, anyway.  In reading these charming stories, there was usually a reference to a larder.  Simply put, a larder is a room or place where food is kept.  Or a pantry.  But it can also just refer to a supply of food.

I thought about that word (and its comforting meaning) today as I began preparing food for my own winter larder.  Yes, I was stocking my larder today.  Sexy, huh?

One of my most successful crops has always been green beans.  (Or purple beans.)  I could eat beans at every meal and still have some left over.  So I try to keep up with putting some beans up for winter consumption.  I prefer to do a large batch at one time, then freeze them in smaller portions.  It's a very simple process, really.  After trimming and cutting the beans, toss them in boiling water for three minutes, then immerse them in a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking.  (This is called blanching.)  Drain the beans, then spread them out on some paper towels to dry them off.  Put them into small zip-lock bags and freeze.  I think I have enough green beans to enjoy them three times a week for the entire winter.  And there are more to come!

I also dealt with the tomatoes today in three different ways.  I used paste tomatoes, green zebra tomatoes, and a few regular Rutgers tomatoes to make sauce to freeze.  (It's still simmering on the stove.)  I also tried something new with the yellow cherry tomatoes, and it's a keeper!  Olive oil, a tablespoon of raw sugar and 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt gets whisked.  Toss in a whole bunch of halved yellow cherry tomatoes and mix.  Spread out on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for about 50 minutes.  Oh.  My.  God.  Are these tasty!  Another new thing I tried is simply freezing more of those yellow cherry tomatoes.  They're spread out on a cookie sheet in the freezer right now.  When they are frozen, I will pop them into a zip-lock bag and toss them into the larder for sauteed veggie dinners in the depths of winter.

I ran out of time to deal with the black cherry tomatoes.  Tomorrow, I'll make a special sauce with them, and freeze it.  And this is only the beginning.  I will be able to make and freeze some basil pesto (although not as much as usual, thanks to the blight), and also freeze tomato and squash soups.  I'll make a few yellow squash casseroles and eggplant parms to freeze.  I can freeze shredded cabbage and carrots for future slaws.  

In essence, I will try to put up as much of my garden produce as I can.

I am in love with my larder!

Francesca's Baby

It was a sultry summer evening in early August 1983.  I'd just driven back from a residency in Montpelier and was on my way to watch Pete (whom I'd been dating for about a year) play soccer.  I remember this evening because I've attached it to having gotten the news that my best friend, JoAnn, had just had her baby.  (It is interesting to look back on this and wonder how I got the news?  There were no cell phones, no emails, no message machines then.  Maybe it was by carrier pigeon?  Osmosis?  Well, somehow, I knew.)  Anna Francesca LaVigna was born on August 4, 1983.  And she changed my life.

I was 33 years old.  From my twenties on, I'd convinced myself that I never wanted children.  Then JoAnn became pregnant, and I had to rethink everything.  Not only was JoAnn my best friend at the time, she was also my hero.  I admired everything about her, I emulated her mannerisms, I stole vocabulary words from her, I absolutely adored her.  If she was going to have children, maybe I needed to reconsider my position.

Two years and one month later, I was a parent myself.

JoAnn and I spent our "mommy years" on the phone a lot.  We lived an hour apart, but the demands of taking care of babies and toddlers limited our face-to-face time.  Our phone conversations were therapy sessions for the most part.  Between the two of us, we raised five babies, and I can tell you today that they all turned out quite well.

JoAnn died 14 years ago.  Francesca was 16 at the time.  And yesterday, having just turned 31, Francesca gave birth to a baby boy!  The pictures she sent me this morning evoked smiles and tears and something I cannot even articulate.  It's something about life and death and hope and sorrow and fate and injustice.  It's something about god and karma and the very random nature of this existence.  But it's also something about love.

I am in love with this baby I have not even met yet, and I am in love with the guardian angel watching over him.

Falafel

I am not in love with falafel.  At least not the falafel I made tonight.  And I made it from scratch, too!  And a yogurt/lemon/cucumber sauce.  And served it on garden arugula.  But, I don't know . . . it just didn't speak to me.  Jenna didn't think it was so bad.  We were eating on the front porch as the sun was setting, and I was moaning (as I often seem to do these days) about what-the-heck-am-I-going-to-fall-in-love-with-today?  I commented that I certainly would not be falling in love with falafel.  Jenna said, "Why don't you fall in love with trying new things?"

Hmmm . . . now there's an idea.  However, I think I will keep the title of this post Falafel because, you know, it just sounds better than Trying New Things.

So have I actually tried new things?  I suppose I have, although now that I think about it, probably not enough.  I did zip-line in Costa Rica and snorkel on The Great Barrier Reef.  Those were new things, and likely things I will never do again.  But the "new things" that we do don't have to be big-deal things.  I think it's more about the little things, like making falafel from scratch for the first time.

I planted garlic for the first time last fall and ate garlic scapes for the first time this spring.  I reupholstered a couch for the first time this past winter.  I am always trying out new music to listen to, new bands to see.  I learned how to inject my cat with insulin for the first time and didn't faint while doing so.  (Lucky for me, that treatment didn't last.  And the cat's still alive.)  For the first time, I gave up cable TV and discovered that I do not miss it.  I recently made a conscious decision to stop focusing on what I don't have and appreciating what I do have; that's a first.

And there are more new things to try ahead of me.  I would like to write a short story, make Pad Thai, drive with the crazies in Florida.  I want to binge-watch a TV series over a stretch of rainy days without feeling guilty.  I want to go up in a hot-air balloon.  I want to conquer my fear of driving in New York City.  No, wait.  Scratch that one.  I still don't want to do that.

I want to fall in love like the first time.

And just to legitimize this post, a picture of falafel:

Bar Pies and Bat Watches

BP and BW.  I am easily in love with bar pies.  I need to work a bit on the bat watch.

Jenna and I went to a local restaurant this evening to take advantage of their happy hour specials and to see a favorite bartender, Julie, who grew up down the street.  Besides half-price drinks, we also enjoyed a bar pie ($5.00) with spinach and mushrooms (extra).  It was all good.

As the sun was setting when we got home, we took up our stations on the side and back of the house to watch for bats escaping from wherever they spend their days.  I plopped myself into a porch rocker on the west side of the house, while Jenna took her rocker to the south end of the house.  We were both clad in hooded sweatshirts, Jenna in long pants and me with a blanket to cover my legs.

I shaded my eyes from the still-bright sky in order to focus on the porch eaves where I think the bats could emerge.  Within minutes, my hands began to itch.  Like, really, really itch.  While I was unaware of any mosquitoes chomping down on my exposed flesh, I hadn't taken into account the sheer determination of the common no-see-um.  I took it for as long as I could . . . and then I caved.  I went inside.  Within minutes, Jenna was inside, too.  Oh, well.

I have (so far) successfully prevented the bats from entering my bedroom.  They may still be in the attic.  As of now, that's an unknown, as Jenna and I failed in our mission of discovery.  Yesterday, I purchased a bat house, hoping to provide them with alternate housing.  But after reading up on the specifics for establishing a bat house, I realized I do not have the proper conditions.  I guess I will have to return the bat house to the store.

So what am I in love with?  Well, clearly, the bar pie.  It was really good.  But the bat watch?  Does anyone love getting eaten up by no-see-ums?  With any luck, the bats will eat up the offending insects, reveal their point of entry and exit, and move onto someone else's bat house!  (I can dream, can't I?)  If nothing else, I am in love with the idea of solving this problem.

Anniversaries

Bear with me.  This is one of those posts in which I am going to try to convince myself to be in love with something.  The title tells you that the subject is anniversaries.  The last wedding anniversary I "celebrated" was in 2002.  The subsequent ones have been an exercise in survival, as my partner-in-love is no longer here.  Today's anniversary seems to have added weight.  It was thirty years ago today that Pete and I married.  If it was 29 years ago or 31 years ago, I would be handling it much better.  But this is what we do:  we attach meaning to our base-ten system.  (That's probably not the right phrase.  Pete was the math teacher, not me.)  I like to quote Miles Dentrell of thirtysomething when he said, "The decimalization of time is so arbitrary."  But it's what we do.

So three decades ago, Pete and I got married.  It was a lovely day.

And it was a good cake.  Believe it or not, I still have the icing roses from that cake somewhere in the recesses of my freezer.  I guess we never got around to eating them on an anniversary.  And what do I do with them now?  It seems wrong to throw them in the garbage.  As I say every year, "Maybe next year."

But I want to put my sorrow aside and fall in love with this anniversary.  Earlier today, I recalled a poem that I wrote on our honeymoon.  (We put our dogs in the car and drove to the Outer Banks.)  I found the poem, and I am going to share it here in this post.  Because, after reading it, I fell in love.  With Pete, with poetry, with metaphor, and yes, with anniversaries.  Happy Anniversary, Pete.  I am still in love with you.

Pine Island Wedding

We toasted champagne the color of onions,

cooling our nerves in the back seat while

your brother sailed the macadam blade

that sliced black dirt like hunger.

The day was nervous but clean. Already

our vows hung like cumulus bulbs

in blue memory. The onion fields lay fertile.

I think we were laughing, recalling

our trembling voices, when the distant

face of a migrant worker framed itself

in my fleeting window and centered there

forever. The American Dream gives birth

to backache and pride, sucks

life into its dark belly

where layers of skin encase the heart.

We slice it into wafers,

serve it with prime rib and red wine

while some leatherskinned bracero

releases his sperm into another night

of resignation. We will have children

with skin as silky white as the membrane

between the layers. We will peel

their tender skin each summer by the pool,

keep them sweet in sunlight.

We'll give them anniversaries of taffeta

and cotton lace, feed them lilies

and yellow champagne. You can tell them

stories of Polish immigrants,

of the Pine Island marshes now earthy

and black. Tell them how cheap

labor is, how white is the color

of hope. Today, my sorrow

is as rusty as the most brittle

layer, the one easily shed

before the knife's inquiring blade.

Tonight, you'll peel

this ribbon of ivory satin

from my waist. Sweet,

the conjugal bed. Love reserves

a lifetime for hearts to bleed.

Cake

And that's all that's left.  Company this weekend.  I knew they were coming, so I baked a cake.  I'm thinkin' they liked it.

And this is not just any cake.  This is a zucchini cake!  Sounds healthy, right?  Well, it does have zucchini in it.  But you don't really want to know what else is in it.  Trust me.

The icing?  Homemade cream cheese frosting.  Again . . . don't ask.

Vanilla bean ice cream tops it off.

Oh, okay, I'll give you the recipe! I have to fill up this post with some love, anyway.

Zucchini Cake

2 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. cloves
3 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1 1/3 cups sugar
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 tsp. almond extract
1 1/2 cups shredded zucchini (drained)

In large bowl, mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and cloves.  Set aside.  Beat eggs, stir in oil, sugar, juice, extract, and zucchini; mix well.  Add to flour mixture, stirring just to moisten.  Pour into greased cake pan.  Bake at 350 degrees 40 - 45 minutes or until test straw comes out clean.

Cream Cheese Frosting

In a large bowl, beat together 1 stick softened unsalted butter and 8 oz. softened cream cheese with an electric mixer.  With the mixer on low speed, add 2 cups powdered sugar a cup at a time until smooth and creamy.  Beat in 1 tsp. vanilla extract.  Frost cake when cooled.

Fall in love!

 

Tomato Sandwiches

I am going to eat a tomato sandwich every day for the next month at least.  I don't even need the lettuce, although I could dig some up if I wanted to.  Mayonnaise?  I try to avoid it, but sometimes, there's nothing better on a tomato sandwich.  Hummus or avocado are better choices, but not always as readily available.

Hey, it's the tomato that matters.  At this time of year, I need to get my fill of garden tomatoes, because I will not buy those tomato imposters in the supermarkets in the winter.  I can roast, dry, and sauce my garden tomatoes for use in the winter, but a tomato to slice into a sandwich?  That only happens now.

As my Brandywine and Rutgers tomatoes are still a couple of days away from the perfect red color, I have been slicing my green zebra tomatoes for my sandwiches.  Once you can get past the color, their texture and flavor are the equivalent of any good red tomato.  My bread of choice is a rosemary focaccia, lightly toasted.

When I was very young, I was apparently allergic to tomatoes.  Can you believe it?  I broke out in hives after eating them.  For whatever reason, the allergy didn't stick, and for that, I am very grateful. 

I would post a picture of my tomato sandwich, but as you could probably guess, I ate it.  Right after I fell in love with it.

Itineraries

I am a planner.  I love calendars.  I love road maps.  I love researching hotels, tourist sites, restaurants, brewpubs.  And I am ready for a road trip!

My son headed out to California two and a half months ago.  In another month, I will fly out to visit him, and he and I will undertake a road trip.  Don't even get me started on how happy it makes me that my 22-year-old son is willing and happy to take a road trip with his 64-year-old mother.  Yeah, yeah, I know . . . Mom will pay for most of it, so of course he's willing.  Well, there's more to it than that.  Sam and I get along pretty well these days.  We like the same music, we can talk about anything, and we are both eager to see as much of this land as we can.  I am very optimistic that we can pull this off.

I worked out an itinerary today that I think nails it.  (This is the 5th or 6th itinerary I've done for this trip.)  There are mountains (Lassen, Shasta), bodies of water (the Pacific, Lake Tahoe), national parks (Lassen, Muir Woods, Yosemite), cities (Redding, Napa, San Francisco), small towns (Arcata, Mendocino, Big Sur, Wawona), wine country (Napa), baseball (SF Giants), and miles and miles of scenic highways.  We have a balanced combination of hotels, campsites, and stays with friends.  Oh, I'm getting excited just writing about it!

Itineraries are about dreams.  They speak of a future that's exciting and hopeful.  They are full of anticipation and curiosity.  What's not to love?

Black-eyed Susans

Might as well start with a picture, right?  So you can fall in love, too.

At the top of the slope leading from my driveway to my vegetable gardens, there's a large swath of Black-Eyed Susans.  Pete planted these many years ago, and they have flourished and spread joyously.  The Susans bloom mid-summer to fall.  When they die, I do not cut them back, as the birds like to hang around them throughout the winter.  Also, they make a stark contrast against the snow, which serves as a reminder that what once bloomed will bloom again.

I was curious how Black-Eyed Susans got their name.  A Google search told me that the name comes from an Old English poem of the post-Elizabethan era entitled simply, “Black-Eyed Susan,” written by a very famous poet of the day named John Gay.  Seems to be a love story of Susan and Sweet William.  Even though it’s not a native, if you seed wild Sweet William with common Black-eyed Susan, they’ll bloom beautifully for you at exactly the same time.  Because both are basically biennials, and her gold plus his bright reds and purples blooming together is a sight to gladden any gardener’s heart.

Well.  I guess I need to look into this Sweet William thing.

I mean, look at my lonely Susan:

Now, that's a face akin to a Golden Retriever's!  Rather sad, don't you think?

Ah, but my field of Black-Eyed Susans are not sad at all!  They are a sunny day personified!  It must be this joyous abundance that beckons them to multiply.  Susans have sprouted up all over the place, and I do not have the heart to pull them.  That's what love does to you.  You know that.

One more picture to secure the love:

Bats

I know that bats are good.  I know that they are threatened by White-nose Syndrome.  I know that one bat can eat 2,000 to 6,000 mosquitoes in one night.  And this, of course, is why I have fallen in love with bats.  There has been an increase in the mosquito population in recent days, and I am counting on my bats to take care of them.

My bats?  Yes, I have bats.  In the belfry and in my crawlspace attic.  This has been a problem for a couple of years, and I am still trying to solve it.

Many years ago, when my daughters' bedroom was upstairs, we would find mysterious droppings on the window seat cushion every morning.  Guano.  Bat poop.  Picture a ceiling where the roof peaks over a ridge beam.  See the little triangular space above the ridge beam?  That's where the bats were entering.  Pete discovered the solution:  he nailed bird netting over that little triangular space (on the exterior), but using nails only on the top of the netting, allowing the bats to fly out, but preventing them from flying back in.  Once he knew they were out, he caulked the opening.  Problem solved.

Well, Pete's not here to help me now.  For the past couple of years, bats have found their way into the crawlspace attic above the closet in my bedroom.  Occasionally, a bat finds its way into my bedroom!  There's nothing quite like waking up to a bat circling around your bedroom.  Believe it or not, I remain quite calm.  I turn on the bedroom lights, open the sliding screen door, and wait on the deck for the bat to exit.  Eventually, it will.

When my son was home this spring, we turned on the attic light when it got dark, went outside, and saw all the cracks of light indicating possible entry sites.  Sam caulked all those cracks, and for several months, my bedroom was bat-free.

Until the other night.  Same old, same old.

So last night, Jenna and I went outside with the attic light on, and sure enough, we found some light escaping.  Duct tape to the rescue.

No bats in the bedroom last night.  I slept like a baby.

A friend of mine is spending a lot of money to rid his attic of a bat population.  I'm still going to try to manage the situation by myself.  We'll see.  Meanwhile, I don't want the bats to leave my yard.  I want them to keep eating the mosquitoes!  And I want them to survive.  I am looking into a bat house.

It's always good to remember that things could be worse.  If this were Australia, the bat flying around my bedroom could be Pteropus poliocephalus . . . also known as a flying fox.  I saw a gazillion of these when I visited Oz in December.  Enlarge the picture and fall in love:

Innocuous Green Beans

My friend Emil was here the other day, delivering a used Gro-Light thingamajiggy that I bought from him.  We set it up in my greenhouse for next spring's seedlings, then sat on the porch with a beer to recover from our hard work in the hot sun and the hot greenhouse.  Before Emil left, I asked him if he would like some green beans from my garden.  No was all he said.

Then today, Jenna was telling me that she was going to visit her former lifeguard supervisor who has recently had back surgery.  I asked her if she wanted to bring him some green beans.  She said, "I don't know if he likes green beans."

"Everyone likes green beans!" I retorted.  "Is there a more innocuous veggie than a green bean?"

"Yes," Jenna countered.  "Carrots."

I suppose that's possible.

I have a boatload of beans.  This afternoon, I blanched, cooled, and packaged a couple of pounds of them to freeze for the winter.

My favorite thing to do with my frozen green beans is to put them right in the boiling water with the pasta, then serve with some homemade tomato sauce.  It's a quick and easy and very satisfying winter meal.

I don't know, I just can't comprehend how anyone could not like a green bean.  As for me, on the 200th day of falling on purpose, I am in love with them, of course.

(Postscript:  After posting this, I did look back to see that I fell in love with green beans on June 2.  It is getting harder and harder not to repeat myself.  Please forgive me and focus on the innocuous part of this post.)

Teachers

A morning scroll through my Facebook feed revealed a piece of unwanted news.  Of all the teachers who have taught me, guided me, helped me choose my path, one stands out as the most influential.  And he is dead.  Joe David Bellamy died suddenly on August 5.  I am trying to sort through my emotions on this one.  Bear with me.

Last week in the A&P, I ran into my 8th grade science and math teacher, John Sim.  Fifty years later, John still knows who I am and greets me with a welcoming smile.  We chat near the cheese display, maneuvering our carts away from the other shoppers.  John tells me that he hasn't been out in awhile because he's been too upset.  What's wrong, John? I ask.  A former colleague of his has died at age 67.  Whenever I run into John, our conversation seems to veer toward life and death.  John lost his wife a few years ago, and I think he is just waiting to join her.  Yet his wit and his appreciation for the people he knows keeps him smiling.

I go back in memory to 1964.  Beatlemania was in full force, the New York World's Fair was the place to be, Mary Quant was telling us what to wear, and hormones were raging in those of us who were turning 14.  This is what John was battling every day as he tried to teach us math and science.  We were terrible students.  But John was a kind man, and today we can joke about the pranks my classmates pulled, thinking we'd pulled the wool over John's eyes.  In truth, John knew what we were up to all the time, and resisted letting us know his amusement at our hijinks.  All these years later, when I think of John, I think of a man so full of kindness . . . although I've retained little of the math and science he so painstakingly taught us.

Joe David Bellamy was my writing professor in college.  My memory contains a snapshot of 20-year-old me in my mini-skirt and chunky shoes, sitting in the second seat in the last row, captivated by the handsome man in front of the classroom sporting a black armband.  It was the spring of 1970, and the protest was against Nixon's invasion of Cambodia.  The draft lottery system had recently been enacted; blue plastic capsules containing birth dates were selected from a large glass container to determine who had to leave his life to go fight in the Vietnam Conflict.  It was a difficult time on college campuses, and we were soon to be thrown further into chaos with the killings at Kent State a few days later.  In retrospect, I think this was the day that I woke up.  If this professor whom I admired so much could be this shaken by the events of the day, I knew I had to pay attention.

But for the most part, I remember Joe as a mentor.  It was Joe who convinced me that I had some talent as a writer, it was Joe who named me editor of the college's literary magazine, it was Joe who scolded me for "wasting my life" teaching in a small town in Pennsylvania, it was Joe who pointed me toward a graduate assistantship in an MFA program in Ohio, it was Joe who again, ten years later, encouraged me to complete that mission, this time in Vermont, and it was Joe who continued to advise me as my daughter decided to pursue the same degree decades later.  A constant friend as we communicated first through letters and phone calls, then emails, then Facebook, I was not prepared that one day, Joe would no longer be there.  (And if it were not for Facebook, I might never have known.)

So today, I am in love with the teachers who change our lives.  The beauty in that is that they don't know they're doing it.  Whether it's assignments, grades, wisdom, advice, or simple kindness that they are dishing out, those of us who are receiving their gifts are forever changed by the experience.  I am a better person / writer / friend for having known Joe.  I want to fill that empty space inside me with something, and this is perfect . . .

Joe was a runner.  The morning of the day he died, he went for a run.  He announced to his wife, "I had a great run."  And judging by the comments by so many of his former students on the Facebook announcement, he certainly did. 

The End of the Marathon

Here I come now
this feast of oxygen
the end of the marathon
the stadium in full view now
down the gravel runway
supporting the sun like an orange umbrella
the flags waving from its parapets
the TV dollies panning with me
the grinning cameramen
and the roar is starting, buoyant, incredible
all my blood is in my heart and limbs and lungs
my body rides free on a stream of blue air
at this speed
there is no strain to speak of
I stand still
and the earth moves
past me

Joe David Bellamy

Rest in peace, dear friend.  You mattered.

Mirrors

There's a story in the news today about a man, Lester Alford, who has filed a civil suit against the New Jersey State Department of Corrections over the three years he spent in solitary confinement, a result of his conviction on a murder charge.  This post is not about his crime or his punishment.  It's about a comment that he made:  They locked me in a cell behind a cage like an animal.  I didn't get to see my own face for three years.

Think about that for a minute.  Or more.  Take your time.

I just went through my house and counted thirteen mirrors hanging on the walls.  (Yikes!)  That's not counting small hand-held mirrors or decorative things with mirrored parts or mirrors that are sitting in storage for who knows what or when.  Thirteen mirrors for, at the most, five people who have lived here at the same time.  We all knew what we looked like.  We might not have ever seen our own faces, but we saw reflections of our faces, and that was good enough.

Have you ever seen a picture of yourself and thought that the part in your hair was on the wrong side?  You have (unless you don't part your hair).  Because you have only seen your reflection in a mirror, which is a reversal of reality.  The picture is true; the reflection is the reverse.  We're all backwards.

So today I am in love with mirrors.  Which is weird, really, because these days, I rarely look into mirrors.  I kind of like thinking that I still look like I did a few decades ago.  Looking into mirrors only scolds me for my fantasy.  Nonetheless, my morning routine always involves a mirror, if only to observe myself brushing my teeth.  Is that necessary?  Of course not.  And that's my point, I guess.

Do we need to know what we look like on the outside? Several years ago, I had MOHS surgery to remove a basal cell carcinoma on my left nostril.  They forgot to tell me that I would need a plastic surgeon.  Consequently, the left side of my nose is a bit deformed.  When I look into a mirror, I see that in all its blazing glory, along with the neon sign that points to it, screaming Look at the freak with the weird nose!  But the rest of the time, when I am not looking into a mirror, I do not think about my sad nose.

So why be in love with mirrors?  I guess because it's a way to make sure I am still here.  If I can make a reflection in a mirror, I am still on this plane.  I feel grounded.  And every once in awhile, I just need to check and make sure.  How about you?

The Barn and the River

You can tell by the title that I had a hard time choosing.  So why not both?

Early yesterday evening, I drove up Rt. 97, which follows the Delaware River through New York State.  I was on my way to my friend Matthew's house.  Matthew is seven miles from Bethel Woods (site of the Woodstock Festival in 1969) where we were to see John Fogerty.  Fogerty had not been back in 45 years!

I've written about Hawks Nest before, the area where Rt. 97 curves incessantly along the river; it's one of my favorite drives.  North of Hawks Nest, one just follows the river, catching glimpses of it when there is a break in the trees.  Those glimpses always astound me, as it is easy to forget that there is a river alongside me when I am paying attention to the road and trying to avoid hitting a deer.  (I knicked one this morning!  No damage done . . . to the deer or to my car.  Whew.)

Not all the accessible views of the river are as impressive.  But most of them are just peaceful.  There is something calming and reflective about following a river on one's journey.  In From a Window Seat, a song by Dawes, Taylor Goldsmith writes about the conversation between the rivers and the freeways and acknowledges that, as much as he resists it, he knows it's always there.  I pondered those lines on my drive home this morning.  What is the conversation about?  I suppose, in its simplest interpretation, it's a conversation about the duality of living in nature and the modern world.  I'm driving my turbo-charged VW convertible on a paved road while the river meanders lazily (for 419 miles) to its conclusion in southern New Jersey.  Consider the contrast.

I pulled over a couple of times on my drive home this morning.  The sky was clear, the air pure, the day beginning in a glorious fashion.  I was in love with it and I wanted to take it all in.

At one point on the drive, Jorma Kaukonen sang to me:

Well what are they doing in heaven today,
Where sin and sorrow are all washed away?
Peace . . . it flows like a river, they say.
What are they doing there now?

So peace.  Yes.  And that's where the Barn (in the title) comes in.  Matthew's barn on his property is one of the most peaceful places I know.  I can't articulate it.  It's just something you know when you're there.  Today, I am in love with the river and the barn, both of which give me a sense of peace that I would like to bottle.

 

Are you feeling it, too?

Windowboxes

I think I've mentioned before that now that I am over six months into this challenge of falling in love everyday, there are days when the question What the hell am I going to fall in love with today? just nags and nags at me.  I mean, the best days are when something just appears to me or occurs to me with no effort on my part.  You know, like when your cat leaves half a baby bunny on the floor.  But on the ordinary days, I have to be on the lookout, and as the day wears on, I begin to stress that I won't find anything!  Today is one of those days.  So I took a walk around my property, looking for something.

Here's what I discovered:  I love pretty much everything on my property!  Minus the wasps and weeds, it's all quite nice to my eyes.  But the trick with this blog is that I want to fall in love every day.  Already loving something isn't the same thing.  With this in mind, I continued my tour and found this:

 

And I fell in love.

The simple windowbox!  What an eye-pleasing adornment!  My front porch has five windowboxes on three windows (two of the windows are doubles) and they are planted quite simply.  Most years, it's impatiens or petunias with some ivy or vinca or spikes thrown in.  It's enough.  The petunias have lasted into December some years, believe it or not!  When I can finally clean out the boxes, I fill them with evergreens, boxwood, holly, red berries, pine cones and tiny white lights.  A cheerful welcome on a wintry night.

But it is summer now, and my windowboxes are full of blossom and exuberance.  They don't ask for much, just a watering every other day.  None of that suspicious blue miracle stuff.  They seem happy enough.

And they make me happy enough.  Like I'm in love.

ESTROG

No, I didn't forget the "EN" at the end.  I am in love with ESTROG:  Every Single Transaction Reaps Overall Good.

My dear friend (world traveler, business woman, mother and grandmother, credible Deadhead), Yvette, has started a company with a mission to help improve conditions in areas of the world where women are oppressed.  The vehicle for the mission is fair trade.  Yvette sells goods made by women in impoverished nations.  These are quality products, unique and well-made.

Yvette's business aims to "improve stressful conditions for women and children in developing nations / communities.  The feminine energy ascends at this time in evolution.  Women need support and a voice to honor this calling."  From helping land mine victims in Cambodia to alleviating the practice of trafficking girls in India to providing domestic abuse relief in Ghana, Yvette's efforts bring awareness to female oppression throughout the world.  What's not to love?

I visited Yvette at our local county fair / farm and horse show, where she and another friend, Korey, have a booth to market their wares.  Korey, another advocate for impoverished women of the world, works through The Sharing Foundation, an organization that supports, among other things, orphanages in Cambodia by selling silk purses, totebags, scarves, etc.

These two women are my heroes.  They work hard, they volunteer countless hours and amazing energy to causes which they believe in wholeheartedly. They are doing what they can to support our sisters in other lands who struggle to be heard, to be appreciated, to survive.

You can see Yvette's wares at www.estrog.com or visit her Facebook page.  Korey's organization can be found at www.sharingfoundation.org.  If you can share the love in any way, please do.

Yvette's mantra:  Hope for Peace.  Save the Earth.  Help Alleviate Oppression.

Yes.  It's about love.

Braconid Wasps

Last summer, I battled the Tomato Hornworm, which threatened to decimate my tomato plants.  These worms can be as large as six inches and they attach like Velcro to the tomato plants.  Their green color makes it hard to locate them . . . until after the damage is done.  Seriously, they look like hookah-smoking caterpillars.  Every day, I had to put on some heavy-duty gardening gloves, search diligently for the hornworms, peel them off the plants, and chuck them into the woods.  (I discovered that I do not "throw like a girl" when it comes to protecting my garden.)

Well, this year, blight got my tomato plants early on, and although I do have a small crop of tomatoes coming in, I figured the hornworms wouldn't bother with my pathetic plants, as they were losing their leaves to blight every day.

I was wrong.

Today, I saw the first evidence of hornworm presence.  One plant had clearly been compromised by some leaf-loving predator.  While the blight attacks from the bottom of the plant up, I saw damage on some upper growth.  I started looking for a hornworm, and sure enough . . .

So why did I sprinkle rice on top of that hornworm, you are wondering?  Well, I didn't.  What you are looking at are cocoons of pupating braconid wasps.  According to the Internet (in which everything is true), a natural predator of the tomato hornworm is a tiny beneficial insect called the braconid wasp. This wasp lays its eggs inside the hornworm caterpillar where they hatch into larvae that feed on the hornworm's muscle tissues, while leaving its heart and other essential organs intact until the larvae mature. This largely paralyzes the hornworm, which becomes merely a living fresh food vessel that sustains the wasp larvae. Once the braconid larvae mature, which takes about a week, they then exit through a hole they make in the hornworm's skin and build a silken cocoon on the outside within which, like butterflies, they transform into adult braconid wasps that then fly off to infect other tomato hornworms. 

Pretty cool, huh?  Well, sure, it's a grizzly way to die, but no worse than the way the hornworm tries to kill my tomatoes.  It's a question of balance, as always.  For me, I am happy to let Nature take care of the situation.  I will not pass judgment.  Just let me have tomatoes.

(But I am really, really in love with the braconid wasp!)

A Travelin' Band

At least one of my loyal followers is expecting a concert review, so I will not disappoint her.

Tonight at Jones Beach:  Jackson Browne and Jon Fogerty.  Let me repeat that.  Jackson Browne and John Fogerty.  As if one of them wouldn't be satisfying enough!  Add a perfectly beautiful summer night, a venue on the water, a couple of dear friends and my daughter, orchestra seats . . .

Interesting that Jackson "warmed up" for John.  You know I'm a big time fan of Jackson.  (Did I tell you about the time I sat on the other side of his piano at Levon Helm's house and he looked into my soul?  True story.)  Jackson has a great band backing him, including lead guitarist Val McCallum, a talented and powerful performer.  The only disappointment in this "warm-up" act was that it included only 14 songs.  Of the hundreds of titles in Jackson's catalog, 14 songs just are not enough.  Needless to say, we were a tad disappointed at the end of his two encores and hoped that he might return to the stage later in the evening.

And then, after a short intermission, John Fogerty came out.  The next couple of hours were pure energy and amazement.  Fogerty is 69 years old, but he can put performers half his age to shame!  Tonight, he entertained us with 26 songs.  Yes, TWENTY-SIX songs!  He relied heavily on CCR songs, but after the anger and bitterness he experienced when that band broke up and his subsequent refusal not to do any of those songs again (even though he wrote them), it felt like he was not only owning his work again, but celebrating it.  And sharing it.

And what a Travelin' Band Fogerty has collected!  His keyboard player, Bob Malone, might be a bit of a ham, but his skill and talent more than allow him to be so.  He brought the house down with his performance on Heard It Through the Grapevine.  And Fogerty's drummer, Kenny Aronoff, was drop dead incredible.  Fogerty introduced him as "the best drummer in the world," and I'm not sure I would argue with that.  Just powerful.  On a different note, I'd first noticed that one of the guitar players in the band looked awfully young to be playing with these accomplished musicians, and then, when the back screen was showing pictures of a young John Fogerty, I noticed a striking resemblance.  I was right . . . the guitar player is Fogerty's son Sean.  Fun to watch father and son duel it out on guitar solos.  Sweet.

My favorite song?  (As if one could pick a favorite!)  Hot Rod Heart.  Yes, it's my favorite road song.  We can put the top down, listen to the radio . . . 

Oh.  Did Jackson come out again?  Yes, but just for one song.  Early into the set and wearing his glasses (ready for bed?), Jackson came out to duet with John on The River is Waiting.  Beautiful.

Oh, it was a perfect night.

Om . . . elet

Well, I was going to name this post Eggs, but I'm at the point now where I have to go back and read every post title since January 25, just to make sure I'm not repeating myself.  (It's exhausting, mind you.)  And sure enough, on April 20, which happened to be Easter, I wrote a post called Eggs.

So today, you get Omelet.  But an omelet has to begin somewhere, so:

Here they are.

This is my older daughter's last night here before she heads back to Florida.  My other daughter is in the city visiting friends and taking in an Old Crow Medicine Show concert, so it's just the two of us here.  Dinner for two?  Breakfast sounds good.

I got the home fries going first, of course.  Then, some sauteed veggies:  mushrooms, tomatoes, peppers, onion, basil, and Swiss chard.  (All but the mushrooms came from the garden.)  Sourdough bread in the toaster, then add the eggs and cheese to the veggies.  Voila!  Breakfast for dinner!

It's a fitting "last supper" for my first-born.  After all, she did begin with an egg.  (Mine.)  The two of us are as mixed up as an omelet.  Bright colors, different textures, a little bit cheesy, lots of good stuff blended together into a delicious and satisfying necessity.  Yep, that's us.  Hold the (artificial) ketchup.

And now we're going to watch a movie.  After, I will have a hard time sleeping, knowing that she will be away from me again, living her own life, 1300 miles from here.  But we stick together . . . just like the omelet remains are stuck to the bottom of the pan.  And now, having really stretched the acceptable boundaries of figurative language, I will end this post, in which I fell in love with an omelet.

Owning It

 . . . whatever "it" might be.

I've heard myself repeating this phrase several times of late.  It's not a new phrase or a new idea.  It's been around for awhile.  For whatever reason, it has taken on new meaning for me, and I am in love with it.  I suppose it is just another path to acceptance, and I can embrace that.  I can own that.

Like most of us, I can bitch and moan about just about anything.  And I do.  I am not proud of that.  Some things need to be bitched about.  Littering, for instance.  But finances?  Politics?  Relationship status?  Bitching does nothing but make these issues seem more dire, more pathetic, more needy.  I am making a concerted effort to stop bitching about the things I can not change.  To own that, I have to accept truth and circumstance and karma.  I think I can do that.

Owning it takes effort and resolve.  But then, I think, it becomes second nature.  That is to say, once you own something, it eventually becomes a part of you, so you don't have to think about it anymore.  It just is.  This is my goal.

Perhaps an illustration would help?  I am short.  In my younger days, I think I topped out at 5'3".  I'm shorter than that now.  For more years than I can count, I wore "high heels" with one purpose in mind:  to appear taller.  Yes, I walked around on stilts, corns and callouses on my toes, pain in my arches, so that I could appear taller.   Why????  There are reasons, but none of them are good ones.  And judging by the footwear I see on many women today, nothing has changed.  In fact, I think it's gotten worse.

But for me, I was finally able to own the fact that I am short.  I think it was a year and a half ago that I had a wedding to go to, and I put on a pair of heels.  They hurt all evening long.  I have not worn heels since.  I am short.  I own that.  If you don't like me because I am short, oh, well.  It's that simple.

And here's what happened.  I no longer go around thinking about how short I am.  I am sometimes surprised when I see a picture of myself next to others who are taller.  Because when I am with them, I am not thinking about being short!  Am I making sense here?  Simply put, I am more than my height, my weight, my hair color, my shoe size, my IQ.  Take me or leave me.  I know who/what I am, and I own it.

In the spirit of lightening up this post, I am going to include a picture now:

Own it.