grown ups are like that....

15 minutes by Kelly Myers

2012-01-21T11:37:00.000-08:00

My dear friend Kelly Myers took on Sarah Cedeno's writing challenge! Please take a minute to read and comment on her guest post, below. She is a great writer and should really start a blog, too. My response to the challenge is here.

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I've got a school bus coming home in 15 minutes bringing me 3 rowdy, excited-to-play-in-the-snow seven year olds. Here's all that 15 minutes will get you.

My desk. It's huge, heavy, wooden, and it was FREE!! We got it from an associate of Dennis' who was pulling up stakes and abandoning his office with furniture inside. He just couldn't take it with him. Why yes, I'd love that big, wooden professional desk with oodles of drawers. I sit at my desk in the "living room" of my house. I can't imagine people before me living in this cozy ranch house using this as their only living room. Thankfully, they added on to the house in the 80's and put on a huge family room. This room has never been our "living room." We call it the "front room." I used to have my office in here. Just a desk and some other random furniture that rarely got used. Then it had 3 babies' cribs in it. Much different! Someone go back in time and tell that pregnancy crazed hormonal lady that painting the walls a deep, deep red would take about 13 coats of paint and aggravate her husband to no end. Once the cribs moved out, the room was our therapy room. We added a kid height school table and chairs. My son had 3 years of in-home therapy here - ABA, speech and OT. Fabulous ladies who loved my son and his siblings just as much as we do came here. They became part of our family. Once the kids started school full-time, my old "desk" came back in the room. I was just a ramshackle piece of MDF board with folding table legs attached. Some homemade make-do on a budget piece of furniture that we whipped up back in college, when we were still babies. This new, fancy, free desk makes me feel grown-up.

I don't have time to talk about all the drawers. This desk has drawers for miles. I love them and reorganize them with glee on a regular basis.

Up on top, we've got a big ole' box of tissues. Then, a cordless phone and charging station. Then, one of my set of two speakers, for requisite rocking out while I pay the bills. I've got my tiny purple iPod shuffle charging away reminding me that I haven't been to the gym since before Christmas. A pencil with a broken tip. I was going to sharpen it this morning, but decided to leave it for one of the kids to sharpen because they get such a thrill out of the electric pencil sharpener. Under my monitor sits 5 cash envelopes that came from the bank. They've got Christmas money inside for each of my 4 kids plus Dennis and I - all from my great-grandma who will turn 102 years old in just 6 weeks. She saved all her life so she'd never have to go without. The envelopes have handwritten names of all us scrawled on there by her daughter - my great aunt. She's in her 80's and I'm sure she never imagined her mother would live so long. We sometimes worry about my great-aunt and my grandpa (her brother) and their worsening health conditions. No one in their 80's expects to be outlived by their 102 year old mother.

Damn, the school bus is here. Hmm. It would suck to stop in the middle of a story.

Little people are home and they've been reshuffled. Dennis shoveled the whole driveway, the boys are playing in the snow, and Gillian is reading a book. I ate a bowl of turkey chili. Aren't you a better person for knowing that?

Back to the desk. Under my monitor is a sensory skin brush. The OT gave it to me over a month ago. We don't use it too often, but it sits there waiting to be pressed into service. Then, there sits the sparkling blue box, covered in faux jems. Hidden inside the little tin box is a tiny, colorized photo of Joseph Gordon Levitt. Hi Joe! Tech tools include my wireless keyboard and mouse, and my headphone used for quieter rocking out. Nearby, my mousepad is guarded by my Dexter bobblehead, bloody knife and all. My kids asked a bunch of questions when he came home. Am I warping their sensibilities? I hope so, just a little. Gillian ran off and got her Hello Kitty bobblehead and plopped it next to mine. She said they could be buddies. A serial killer and a Japanese cartoon character, besties? Of course they could be, Gillian.

Over towards the other side of my desk I've got a quart sized mason jar full of a hundred slivers of plastic. We cut up our credit cards over a year ago and I've kept the carnage hanging around. I like the visual reminder that we're being frugal and that paying bills is actually fun now. It's a game to see how much we can save and how much debt we can pay off. Tucked inside the jar is a mini American flag that the boys and I got when we welcomed the WWII Veterans home from their trip to DC last October. The grownups cried that day. Can't wait to go do it again.

Beyond that sits 3 unopened Pinewood Derby Car kits. We haven't even started them and the derby is in 8 days. No problem. Last year Doug's car beat out the other 5 boys in his age group. He couldn't have been more thrilled. Eric cried that day. He cried a big, ugly, snotty cry that lasted too long and embarrassed the heck out of me. He hates to lose. Perched at the very edge of my desk is a new-to-me metal sculpture of flowers - might be cherry blossoms. I found it at the local Savers goodwill shop and I had a coupon. It made me think of Springtime, and now I don't want to put it away and "save" it for a spring day. Why wait?

I've already evangelized today about my ScanSnap pro on my Facebook page. Gillian wandered past my desk today when she got off the bus and whined a tiny bit. She was disappointed to see some of her schoolwork from yesterday in the recycle bin, that crafty, observant girl. I told her - don't worry. Not only did I read it, I thought it was so cool that I scanned it in and emailed it to Dad so that he would read it, too. She and I talked about how I'd save the file until she was a teenager and we smiled about it.

Don't forget that thin layer of dust covering the back few inches of the whole desk. Once in a while I blow really hard and watch it scoot away and fall behind the desk. Ha, Ha. I'm Betty Homemaker. I don't look at the dust, too often, though. I like to look out the window. Yesterday and today I've been watching the birdfeeders. I've seen house finches, starlings, chickadees, male and female downy woodpeckers and yesterday we saw a giant red-headed woodpecker. This is the biggest window in the house and I love the view. The school bus pulls away at 7:30am each day and I get to watch the sunrise over the neighbors trees while I check my email in the morning.

Now I think the boys are finally wet and cold and about ready to come back in from the snow. That was probably about 45 minutes if you subtract out my chili break. Phew! Thanks for visiting my office.

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Thanks Kelly!

45 Minutes

2012-01-06T06:20:00.000-08:00

Here is the prompt (Originally from an article by John Smolens in The Writer) taken directly from Sarah's post which you can find here:

1. Focus on where you write (45 minutes).

Write for a minimum of 45 minutes, describing where you are as you write, how you are writing (using pencil and paper, computer, etc.) and why you have chosen this particular time of day to write, Simply describe your physical location, what about it makes you comfortable–or uncomfortable.

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Start, 9:25 am, January 6th, 2011.

Here I go. I'm a little nervous that I don't have the complete details of the prompt, but I'm too eager (always a problem for me) to get started. I don't have a subscription to The Writer, so I'm going on just what she posted at her blog.

In any case, I suppose I'll start by describing where I am and any random thoughts that enter my mind as I go.

I'm in my study with orange walls, three aloe vera plants, a conch shell, a jade plant, and some other succulent plant that I have no name for. I'm listening to "Falling Slowly" on my ipod which is making me feel melancholy.

There is a plate in front of me with LOTS of crumbs from the early morning tortilla chip snack I just had. Who does this? Who eats chips at nine am? I do, I suppose.

Right now I'm fighting the urge to clean up the mess on my desk. Notepads, a pea green binder, and some advil (kept close in case this week's migraine makes a return), some mini-wallet size pictures of the kids that I need to send out, and a hand out from the speech therapist.

Ok, ok, I'm moving on with the exercise. . . in the little cubby hole right above my computer screen is a collection of little crystals and gem stones. My favorite is a flat, transparent opal. It isn't sparkly like most opals you see in jewelry. Instead the color is luminous and liquid, and I often hold it in my hand when I am day dreaming. It has a particular name, this type of opal, but if I look it up now I'll just get distracted.

The room is cold. The heater just kicked on, so I'm hopeful it will warm up a bit. Besides, the sun is shining brightly, and that will help warm things up, too.

Here's another favorite nick-knack that sits in one of my many little desk top cubby holes: It is a candle shaped like a cupcake. The "frosting" is pink and sparkly, and there is a fake candy mint on top and fake little gumdrops around the edge. I seriously love this candle. I've never burned it, because it would break my heart to watch it melt.

It still smells like incense in here. Santa left some incense in my stocking, so I've been burning it in the morning when I meditate. I'm still not sure if I like it or not. The scent is heavy and reminds me of my college days and dorm rooms and late nights and stale cigarettes.

Van Morrison has come on the ipod now: "Into the Mystic." I think Van is the only artist that I can listen to over and over and over and never get sick of his songs. I used to think this about my beloved Cowboy Junkies, but after a while I do get a little bored with them. Unless, of course, I'm listening to the Trinity Session. Should I post some videos with this blog later when I spell check? We'll see.

Twenty minutes left. I'm starting to think that this will end up being a really, really boring post.

There are two desks is in my study. The one I sit at now is a computer desk. It's "Mission Style" with a dark chocolate stain. I pretty much love it. The other desk, behind me and to the left, is a large teacher's desk a friend's father gave to me. I use it for my crafts and projects. Well, I am not actually very crafty, but I like to pretend I am. I have a large box from Big Lots that contains hundreds of pieces of scrap paper, though I don't use it for scrap books. I use it to make homemade cards and little hand sewn books. I usually don't make time to cultivate this craft.

The phone is sitting here, just in case. I'm expecting an important call, and I have the feeling that the phone will ring right in the middle of this exercise or when I get in the shower. Oops, I guess that means that I've just admitted to not having taken a shower yet. I'll get to it.

I keep looking over at the peach wing backed chair just to my left by the open closet door. It is covered with a piano blanket that I bought about sixteen years ago now. It looks old fashioned and eclectic, all reds and golds and muted greens with fringe rimming the edges. It would be great to say that I picked it up at an antique store and that the owner told me a wildly romantic story about the famous pianist who once owned it. But I can't. It would also be cool if I could tell you that I found it in my grandma's attic buried under dusty quilts and old photos in an ancient steamer truck. But neither of these stories are true. I bought it at J.C. Penny. I thought it would add some flair to my boring grad school apartment. And you know what? It did add flair. It really is pretty.

Ten more minutes.

It is still freezing in here, and I would love a cup of tea to warm my bones. I suppose I can wait ten more minutes.

On the wall above my computer is a framed collage of pictures that my mother made for my grandmother in the 1970s. There are lots of great pictures of my family. My two favorites: 1) A head shot, from the side, of me at about three years old. I'm wearing a simple, white Easter bonnet, and my face is raised to the sun. My eyes are closed and I have a little, gentle smile on my face. 2) A picture of my childhood dog, Prince, as a puppy. He is a white puff ball (he's a Samoyed) under our Christmas tree. A disembodied hand (probably my father's) holds a ball in front of him. The hand is sightly blurry as if the person holding it was waving it up and down just as the picture was snapped.

I just realized that I have five candles in this room. I am an obsessive candle burner. Except, of course, the cupcake. I pick it up and sniff it. It really does smell like vanilla cake! It is even sitting in a little foil cupcake tin that one could easily pull away if you wanted to take a bite. I'm now thinking that I want to spend some time on-line shopping for more cupcake candles. Maybe they make them in other scents and colors. Chocolate with peanut butter frosting, perhaps? Red velvet with cream cheese frosting, maybe?

Now I'm hungry.

Stop, 10:10 am, January 6, 2011.

Big Things

2012-01-02T15:59:00.001-08:00

This post was going to be about my New Year's resolutions, but then I remembered that in 2010 a psychic told me that 2011 would be "My Year." She said that "Big Things" were coming my way, and that I would have a stellar twelve months to look forward to. So instead of talking about what I plan to do in the year to come, I want to look back at 2011. . .

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I visited my amazing mother, who I miss so very much, in Idaho.

I saw my adored sister and sweet and treasured childhood friend in Missouri.

I saw my beautiful cousin marry the love of her life in Colorado.

I stood at the edge of the ocean in Prince Edward Island and climbed mountains in Vermont.

I saw Broadway shows and ate New York cheesecake at midnight in Times Square with two of the most wonderful and dear women I know.

I met new friends, grew closer to old ones, and dreamed of those who have passed on.

I laughed at birthday celebrations and wept at funerals and held the hands of those working through grief and pain.

I lost my last grandparent, my cherished and beloved grandmother.

I became an aunt again (A niece!).

I gathered with my soul sisters to share our dreams and turn the wheel of the year together.

I celebrated ten years of motherhood and cried thinking about how fast it all went.

I had some of my work published in a new book as well as in a couple of my favorite literary journals.

I mended a rift with an old, dear friend, and sent quiet blessings and love to those no longer in my life.

I had food on my table in abundance and clothes on my back.

I had a warm house to share with my brilliant and handsome husband of fourteen years and the family we created together.

Big Things? No, but I'd say that overall 2011 was filled with love, good fortune, and, most of all, good people.

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My wish for you this new year. . .

I wish you an abundance of love, a surplus of happiness, and a bounty of peace. May the Spirit (however it is shown to you) shine on you and in you and bring you a thousand blessings.

May 2012 bring you Peace, Love, Light, and Joy.

The Conch

2011-11-10T04:04:00.000-08:00

For a friend who is having a hard time loving her body today ....

Sometimes we are like conch shells. We see only our bumps and sharp edges, the rough surface. We feel these "imperfections" and think of ourselves as weak, ugly, wrong. Unlovable.

But if you pick up a conch and look at, hold it in your hand and really study it, you'll notice that it has a lovely symmetry and a beauty unique among the other shells of the sea.

It has been tossed and churned in rough seas yet remains strong and resilient.

Inside the conch there is a perfect satin-smooth pink sheen that will whisper the secrets of the ocean into your ear.

You are beautiful. xoxo

What's in a Name?

2011-10-29T05:03:00.001-07:00

When I was pregnant with my second child I would wander the cemetery looking for baby names. My husband and I already had a boy's name picked out, but a girl's name still eluded us. So I would wander up to the unkempt and lonely cemetery a few blocks from our house. It was always empty, and I liked that I could stand in front of the graves of long dead women and pronounce their names aloud without being observed. I felt like I was actually chewing on the words, tasting them in big, noisy gulps.

Pearl- I liked this one, and I came back to it often. It felt smooth and concise and rolled easily between gums and teeth and cheek. Yet it was also a bit cold, and I ultimately spit it out.

Sabrah had an edge to it, but I liked it. It felt strong, and I pictured a long legged wild-child of a girl fighting with me at every turn. I tossed it out like an apple with a bruise on its shoulder.

Llewlla simple had too many L's for its own good.

Addie was sweet but lacked any crunch, so that was set aside, too.

Finally we settled on a name that I never saw on any grave and that we thought was simple and lovely and perfect: August Rose.

Then we had a boy.

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We wander that cemetery as a family now. We do simple grave rubbings, pick black raspberries from along the fence, and just sit and watch the clouds roll by. My children are not afraid of those who rest there, and we almost feel as if this is "our" cemetery now.

My kids, too, have become interested in the unusual names that can be found on the crumbling gravestones. My daughter always brings a notebook with her on our visits and has lists and lists of names carefully copied from the stones or grave rubbings. What was it like, we think, to walk around wearing Eleazar, Waterman, or Oneida as a name? Did the name feel heavy like their layers of Victorian clothing? Or did it fit as comfortably and easily as one of today's common names (Jennifer, Hayden, Hunter)?

Some of the most intriguing names keep us talking long after we've returned home and brushed the fall leaves off of our coats and had our tea or hot cider . . .

Wealthy Payne--Was this a hope her parents set on her shoulders at birth? Or was she the little gift that made them feel like rich and and lucky parents?

Silence Babcock-- Did her parents truly prize this virtue? Did she end up being a quiet child, or did she rebel against her name and become raving and loud, shouting to the heavens?

Azubah Carpenter--Was this an ancient name from the bible? Or a family name from a time long before his birth?

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Halloween is coming up, and like many people I will take this time to think of those who have passed on from my life. Because of distance I cannot visit my father's grave or the graves of my grandparents or my friends. Instead I will gather the children, and we will walk to our little cemetery and honor, in our way, those who rest there. We will stand in front of the graves and say the names of the dead out loud releasing them into the air like ether.

Birthday

2011-10-03T05:22:00.000-07:00

She was between houses.

One was sold and the other not yet ready to occupy. But she had friends and family who opened their arms to her and her husband as she waited for their first born to arrive.

During a routine visit to the obstetrician she announced that her baby would enter the world on Monday October 15, 1973.

"No, you have plenty of time, and I have a golf game," said the doctor.

But she was wise and words are powerful, and Sunday her water broke.

She labored with no food or drink and confined to a bed.

Early Monday morning they separated husband and wife, and she gave birth to a baby daughter that did not cry.

Her husband brought her roses and a box of candy so large that she shared her sweet gift with the nurses.

More than a week later she left the hospital with her Monday's child in her arms and her love by her side.

They stayed, for a time, with her mother. She needed mothering herself, and the house was not yet ready.

When it was time to go the three of them moved to their house near Pike's Peak. The mountain watched as the little family made the bare bones of the new house a home.

The Tender Years

2011-10-01T07:11:00.000-07:00

A couple of dear friends came over last night, and we talked at length about our memories of kindergarten. What we remembered from those early years varied considerably. While my husband could remember many small details (the color of the walls, the assorted toys, etc.) another friend had no memories whatsoever.

I remember quite a bit of that year. A few particular memories stand out.

I won a small glass giraffe as a prize at school. It has a rainbow swirl of colors twisting through its body, and I am instantly in love with it. Days later I drop the little animal behind the dresser in my room. I reach my tiny arm under the piece of furniture, but I cannot grasp it. I strain and struggle, yet I simply cannot will my arm to stretch any further. I can see the giraffe tilted on its side just beyond my fingers. Its rainbow colors are muted and dull in the dark space under the dresser, and it feels as if my heart is about to break.

I'm sitting in the classroom, crying, in the arms of my teacher. The rest of the students are outside at recess, and I can see them through the open back door of the classroom. The teacher is soothing me, trying to help me stop crying. What she doesn't understand is that I cannot help it. I simply do not know how to stop. The anxiety and sadness I feel has no explanation, thus it has no cure. I am a despondent little thing, and the tears flow freely.

Everyone in the class is settled down for nap time. No one sleeps, though. We are a group of squiggly, wiggly, giggly worms. But we try. We really do, because if you are quiet and still and good the teacher may tap you gently on the shoulder. This muted signal lets you know that you are chosen to play in the toy kitchen. I am desperate to be picked, because I want so badly to play with the little plastic eggs in the tiny ice box. They nestle sweetly in a plastic carton and when you "crack" one open a perfect yellow center is revealed. I need to play with those eggs, so I struggle to be as still as I can. I squeeze my eyes shut, and I know in my heart that I will be chosen any minute now. But when the lights go on, and I open my eyes I see that I was not special. I had not been chosen.

I am sitting on the front step of my house. It is a beautiful, sunny day, and I am enjoying being alone and quiet. Suddenly, my mother steps out with a tray in her hands. On the tray is my white plastic tea set. She gingerly sets it down beside me and shows me that the tea pot is filled with Kool-Aid, a treat we rarely if ever have. I am delighted beyond words. I fill a cup with the drink and carefully walk to our snowball tree. The boughs are heavy with flowers and they hang down in such a way as to create a perfect little room under the branches. I sit there watching the world through a gauzy white veil.

Kindergarten 1978

Angel Mine

2011-08-19T06:28:00.000-07:00

My new baby boy.

One year.

Two years

Three Years.

Four Years.

Five years.

Six Years.

Seven Years.

Happy birthday my Angel Boy.

Stillness

2011-08-18T10:29:00.000-07:00

I'm hunkering down.

I hide in the house and avoid the phone. I shuffle the kids into the car and drive somewhere far for the day in order to avoid any familiar faces. I walk around the village but only along quiet paths or at odd hours, so that I won't be disturbed by small talk.

I don't want to see anyone.

I live in a small town and have many friends, and soon others will notice this avoidance and wonder.

I don't have any good reason for my behavior. I'm not depressed. In fact, I feel very peaceful and content in a way I haven't ever felt before. I'm a very social person by nature, and I usually need to be surrounded by people to feel uplifted, whole, and complete. But lately I need my space and my solitude.

No storm is coming, but there is a scent on the wind that tells me to stay in, keep my loved ones close, and be silent.

True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment. ~William Penn

Holding Her Hand

2011-07-18T10:47:00.000-07:00

Won't you please come visit me over HERE? I'm blogging at the Democrat and Chronicle today.

Nostalgia

2011-07-14T05:40:00.000-07:00

I recently spoke to a dear friend about the spring birth of her first child, a sweet little boy with ginger locks and a winning smile.

When I first heard the good news I was beyond excited. This friend had been a pivotal figure in my life during my pregnancy, delivery, homecoming, and the first two months after the birth.

On the day my daughter was born she came to the hospital and patiently waited in the maternity room hallway until I delivered. She took the very first, beautiful pictures of my baby girl with her father. She sat with me after the c-section, along with a couple of other friends, while I waited for the nurses to reunite me with my daughter who was in the nursery with her father. She was also among the several people who came back the very next day bearing smiles, flowers, and gifts.

Later, when I returned home, she helped my husband prepare the house for my return. She knew that my mother, who I missed so dearly and needed so much, was not due to arrive for a few more days. She lent us a much needed hand on that first nervous day back at the house.

So when I heard that she delivered a healthy son in May I felt not only joy but also a sweet nostalgic pang for that day, ten years ago, when she witnessed my transformation into motherhood.

Good luck to you, my dear friend. Kiss your sweet boy and tell him it's from his Auntie Christine.

Kindred Spirits

2011-07-12T08:17:00.000-07:00

Last week we visited friends who had moved from Brockport to Oneonta. Our two families just "click", as they say, and we all settled into an easy, comfortable routine as soon as we arrived. There were late night conversations about everything under the sun, after dinner dips in the pool, breathtaking hikes, campfires, and wonderful meals.

Perhaps the best part of the trip, though, was seeing our two sons re-connect. They were best buddies before the move, and they picked up right where they left off as if it had only been a day or two since they were last together. They worked for hours with teeny-tiny legos and discussed the ins and outs of being a spy. They played hard from morning until late in the night when they collapsed in a heap exhausted from the joy of being together.

On our last night there, we all took turns checking in on the soundly sleeping boys. They looked so sweet and small, and beads of sweat sparkled on their smooth, unworried brows.

"They look like twins," my friend said.

My heart lurched a little knowing that the next day we would have to leave and that the boys' dream-like state of play would come to an abrupt and sad end.

When we left I fought hard against the tears, and I think my smile seemed cheerful as I said good bye. But in my heart I was sad to have to leave my friend, and even sadder to watch my son leave his true bosom buddy behind.

I hope it won't be long until we see them again. But until then, I know we will all hold each other in our hearts.

"True friends are always together in spirit." Anne Shirley

The Canal

2011-07-04T08:05:00.000-07:00

Please come on over the Her Rochester and read my new Post: On the Erie Canal.

It's all in my head. . .

2011-06-19T16:41:00.000-07:00

It started with my knee many years ago in high school. It would ache and smart and generally bother me until I, finally, sought help through physical therapy in college. Unfortunately, I did not get any relief. A few years later I hurt my shoulder while doing archaeological field work in graduate school. The pain, like my knee pain, never resolved itself despite treatment. Then, a few years ago, my right leg began to hurt terribly from my hip to my foot aggravating my knee and an old injury to my calf. The pain forced me to stop running despite the fact that I had grown to really love it. A few months ago I hurt my left shoulder, and the pain was so intense that for a while it kept me up at night along with the pain in my hip, knee. leg, and right shoulder.

I finally had enough when a few dear friends encouraged me to seek help. I've seen my family doctor, a chiropractor, an acupuncturist, a reiki practitioner, a yoga therapist, a physical therapist, an orthopedic surgeon, and a back specialist. I've had countless x-rays, blood tests, three MRIs, two cortisone shots, and several courses of anti-inflammatory medication. Now all the test results are in and the results show. . .

Nothing.

I have some inflammation in my right shoulder and runner's knee (a term which really means: "your knee hurts and we don't know why"), but that is it. There is nothing damaged whatsoever.

Of course I'm immensely relieved to hear this, but I also feel. . . foolish and embarrassed.

The pain I've been feeling for years has no source and therefore no cure.

I've exhausted and annoyed my caregivers. The orthopedic surgeon finally told me (kindly, but firmly) after a long discussion about my knee and right shoulder that he didn't even want to discuss my left shoulder. He said that there was basically nothing to be done except perhaps more physical therapy. The physical therapist has not returned my call, but the last time I was there I could tell that she was frustrated with my odd array of issues. The back doctor left a message today that said that there is "nothing to explain your right leg pain."

Nothing.

Nothing is wrong. Nothing in my physical body is broken. So, if every aspect my my person is completely healthy then where does the problem really lie? The answer, I'm afraid, is difficult to admit.

Why am I writing about this in such a public forum? Because I, like my doctors, am exhausted, I am tired of hearing myself talk about it, and I fear answering direct questions regarding my situation now. I simply lack the energy and courage to say these words out loud to those who are bound to ask. So I've written about it here to head off any questions that may come my way.

I need to close this chapter and deal with this all in my own way now. I'll be working with my yoga therapist and my friend who is schooled in natural healing. I'm going to work on understanding the mental and (if there are any options left) physical origins of my pain and work on alternative ways to heal my mind and body.

I'm going to thank the universe every day for a sound body with no diseases or serious injuries plaguing it. I'm going to work on finding a way to make myself understand that I am in control of my body and my pain.

I'm going to move on.

Because everyone likes to read a post about my medical issues

2011-06-14T04:56:00.000-07:00

Discussion with receptionist at doctor's office:

Me: Can I leave a message for Dr. X?

Receptionist: He is swamped right now. Can't it just wait until your appointment Wednesday afternoon?

Me: It's not an emergency, but I would like to touch base with him before then.

Receptionist (giving me exhausted and somewhat haughty look): He's swamped.

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Excerpt from a note written to Dr. X.:

"Wednesday morning Dr. Z. wants me to have an MRI of my back. If you think an MRI of my knee is necessary at this point can it all be done at the same time? This would help me avoid further scheduling problems as well as save me significant money in co-pays."

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Rough outline of conversation with Dr. X, yesterday:

Dr X.: So your knee hurts worse now than before the cortisone shot a couple of weeks ago, and you want to know about an MRI?

Me: Yes.

Dr. X.: That's sounds reasonable.

Me: So do you want me to have one?

Dr. X.: Well, if the shot didn't work an MRI might be something to do.

Me: So. . . do you think I need an MRI?

Dr. X.: That sounds reasonable.

Me: Um. . .

Dr. X.: The insurance usually wants you to have a course of physical therapy before they will approve an MRI.

Me: I already did two months of PT at your request with no improvement at all.

Dr. X.: Oh, uh, yeah. . .ok. My office staff will call to set up the MRI.

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What I imagine is written in my medical records at Dr. X.'s office:

"Patient asks a lot of questions. She also complained about the two hour wait at her first visit. Man, she sure likes to bitch. She asks about "natural" remedies, supplements, and yoga all the time. WTF? She tends to think she is smart and capable of doing her own research, and prefers to sit in a chair when we talk rather than the exam table. She also calls me and leaves messages and notes. Doesn't she see that I have other patients with bigger problems?"

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Maybe Dr. X. is really more concerned about my care than I give him credit for. Maybe he, like so many of us, is simply overwhelmed and tired and is really just trying to get through the day minute by minute, hour by hour.

But maybe, just maybe, I deserve to fight for the focused, thoughtful, and open-minded medical care that I deserve.

Her Rochester Moms Blog

2011-05-28T17:03:00.000-07:00

I'm blogging over at the Democrat & Chronicle's Her Rochester Moms Blog!

Mother Musings: New Website

2011-05-24T05:42:00.001-07:00

Come on over to Motherly Musings!

Choose You

2011-05-17T13:08:00.000-07:00

I'm over at the American Cancer Society's Choose You Blog today. Special thanks to Julie at the Using My Words for asking me to share my story.

May Day Musings

2011-05-05T05:13:00.000-07:00

I've just created a new blog called May Day. My goal is to feature posts by writers and artists who wrote about or otherwise expressed their personal feelings after bin Laden's death on May 1st.

If you'd like to participate please send me a short bio with a link (or full text) to your post, poem, essay, letter, video, music, art piece, or article .

May Day

2011-05-02T12:22:00.000-07:00

On Sunday the kids grabbed their toys and gear, and we headed outside to enjoy some family time. In less than ten minutes, though, helmets were ripped off and the skateboard and scooter were abandoned and left upended on the concrete, wheels spinning.

My daughter had begun to pick wildflowers--tiny daisies, minuscule grape hyacinths, and the smallest purple sweet peas--to toss, one by one, into the canal. She was watching them float lazily away when my son came upon the remains of a crayfish. We poked and prodded the shell and teased each other with the tiny little claw.

We found a bird's nest, empty, nestled in the grass.

I told the children that it was May day, and my girl began to dance round and round a flag pole on the edge of the canal. The forsythia tangled around its base and the damp, cloudy air was heady with the scent of freshly mown grass and ozone.

The rain soon drove us in with the bird's nest cradled gently inside a skateboard helmet. A small bouquet of flowers was left idly among a circle of stones.

I will always remember my children that day as they danced and laughed around a flag pole that flew no colors.

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"Heaven help the roses when the bombs begin to fall." -- Ron Miller

Head Over Heels

2011-04-28T12:56:00.000-07:00

I'm featured over at Story Bleed Magazine today! Hope you enjoy my post, Head Over Heels.

xoxo

c--

Ten

2011-04-24T09:51:00.000-07:00

Waiting for you. . .

Just after your birth. . .

One year old. . .

Two years old. . .

Three. . .

Four. . .

Five. . .

Six. . .

Seven . . .

Eight. . .

Nine. . .

Ten

I love you, my girl. Happy 10th Birthday.

Powder Blue

2011-04-14T07:21:00.000-07:00

I am in my living room in my childhood home sitting cross-legged on the floor and looking at old family photos. I pick up a Polaroid of a blue Ford Pinto. I instantly recall sitting in the backseat, my little legs stuck to the leather on a hot day. My parents have told me that they owned the Pinto when I was very, very small. So small, in fact, that I shouldn't remember ever riding in it much less ever having seen it.

But I am not convinced, not entirely anyway. In my mind's eye I am speeding down the highway in that car with my family, my mother’s long hair flying in the wind. None of this ever happened, of course, but as I hold the picture in my hand I really believe it did.

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The Polaroid Pinto is Powder Blue. The fact that it is Powder Blue (and not Royal Blue or Navy Blue or Steel Blue) is important to me for some reason. It makes the only-in-a-photo car more real, more present somehow.

Powder Blue.

I like the way the words feel as they pass my lips. I can almost taste them on my tongue, soft and chalky. But of course there is nothing in my mouth. The taste is a phantom one, an imagined one, like the false memory of a family car ride down a sunny California highway

-------------------------------------------------------------------

This post was first published on this blog in 2009.

growing up

2011-03-23T09:59:00.000-07:00

"Management position open! No experience necessary! Come to the following address at noon today dressed for success!"

This wasn't the exact advertisement in the paper that day, but it was close. It promised the world, and to a naive young woman of eighteen, it was a chance at some easy summer money.

That day there were well over thirty young people stuffed into the generic little office in the generic little strip mall in Silicon Valley. No one was over twenty-one. No one older was dumb enough to come.

We all stood in our nicest clothes with neatly applied lipstick and freshly shaved faces. It was mid June and school was over, and we were ready to fill our pockets. I'd done the mall thing. The baby sitting thing. The temp thing. The receptionist thing. I knew that the money (for a young kid like myself) was in waitressing at a chain like Chili's or Spoons, but it scared me. The mall was hard enough for me since there were so many people, strangers. I was too shy and nervous and pretty much desperately feared the fast paced work of food service. No, a quiet office, a private home, the receiving end of a telephone. . .those were what I wanted, needed.

We were herded into a small room adjacent to the waiting area. We sat nervously in front of a large dry erase board. McDonald's fast food sacks were lined atop a table off to the side, and the smell of Egg McMuffins and fresh coffee wafted our way. The the presentation began. A slick looking guy with greasy hair and a greasier smile started writing on the board about sales and strategies. We were all confused, to say the least. When he noticed how bewildered we seemed he began to explain that we were all hired. On the spot. He told us we were perfect for the job.

Oh, and what WAS the job?

Selling perfume.

Door to door.

He started passing out the food before we could start stampeding toward the exit. Then a woman rose and began telling us about her experience at the company. She had apparently made quite a bit of money in just a short amount of time, and she was making more and more each day. Her advice: "Don't pass this up! Why, you could be rich!"

We took the bait. Every. Single. Person.

The next morning we would be split into sales groups with an experienced leader, but for now we should go home and sell some of their imitation designer perfume to our parents. And neighbors. And friends. The person who sold the most would get a prize in the morning.

So, with idiot stars in my eyes, I went home. My parents looked at me sadly and then sweetly forked over the cash for two bottles of the wretched stuff. They knew what I didn't--that this would all go sour and no one was going to make any money and that I would hate it. They also knew that I'd have to figure that all out for myself.

The next day everyone showed up early and eager. The young man who sold the most indeed got a prize--more McMuffins.

How underwhelming.

There were five of us in our group that day. Our leader was a woman who was half African-American and half Japanese-American. We were sent out in a van with a box of their finest (trashiest?) perfume. We parked downtown and went with our leader for a lesson. The first store we entered was a florist owned and run by a Japanese family. My leader suddenly, and seemingly out of nowhere, had a strong Japanese accent. I think she sold one bottle. Soon we came upon another store. This time my leader's voice took on the tone of the streets--the hard core loudness of a tough cookie trying to earn a decent living. I can't remember if we sold anything there.

Now it was our turn. We spread out at a gas station like fleas on a dog. The young Latino girl I was with lied to a man paying his gas bill when she told him that she was a single mother with no money and desperately needed to make a sale. I shyly approached a successful looking business man pumping gas into his black sedan. As I pitched my sale I must have looked horrified or scared or stupid or all of the above, because he turned and looked me squarely in the eye and said, "You must be pretty desperate to do this. Pretty damn desperate. " I told him that I was not desperate. Only dumb.

At that moment I aged. I knew what a pitiful and disgusting scam it all was, and I knew I was a sucker.

In the van on the way back to the office another young woman confided in me that she hated this job and wanted to quit. She and I went into Mr. Greasy Hair's office. I did all the talking, which was strange for me. I usually faded into the background, nervous and small. But I told him in no uncertain terms that this job was a load of crap, was parasitic, and was designed to trap naive young people into making the company loads of money while the salespeople themselves went home empty handed. Except, of course, for a hot McDonald's breakfast.

The girl next to me cried.

He told me how disappointed he was, and how he had seen such potential in me. He felt that I could have gone far. I laughed and left without looking back. He did, though, convince my new friend to give it another day.

This was one of the first times ever that I stood up for myself. My wallflower days were beginning to fade, and fast.
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And you dear readers, what was the worst job YOU ever had?

Dogs Bark & Sisters Call

2011-03-15T03:53:00.000-07:00

De over at Ob-la-Deidre wrote a piece called "Dogs Bark Jingle Bells." This piece was inspired by my piece, "Sisters Call" and Rick Moody's "Boys." Go on over and check it out.

We would like to challenge you, too, to write a piece with a repetitive opening phrase (boys enter the house, sisters call, dogs bark, etc.). Leave a link to your post in the comments if you take the leap.

Sisters Call....

2011-03-08T05:25:00.000-08:00

Sisters call their parents in Europe from a phone at their grandmother's farm house in Missouri. They try not to cry but the little one, only three, can't help it. Now there, calm down, it's ok. I need a red ribbon she says, her curls bobbing as she sobs. The grandmother climbs up to the musty dusty attic to find a perfect red bow.

Sisters call their grandma from California. We miss you! Come soon! Their small hearts ache for this far away grandmother. They already know that many people will not understand that you can send love across telephone wires. They learn early that distance cannot diminish affection.

Sisters call California from Missouri again, this time they are years older. It isn't really that bad, they say. Just a few stitches, Mom, really. But their mother knows that it is more than a simple scrape. She can hear the quiver in her youngest child's voice as she assures her, I'm fine, I promise.

Sisters call boys and their school friends and always want to be on the phone now that the teen years have come. They carry the giant cordless phones from room to room and their parents discuss a second line just to avoid hassles and arguments.

Sisters call each other only occasionally now since the older one has moved away to college. They are occupied with school, work, and friends, so it's only now and then they talk. In fact, the phone takes on an increasingly smaller and smaller role in both of their busy lives.

Sisters call a little more often after they become separated by an entire country. One now lives in the east and the other remains on the west coast. Still, they are busy and only talk occasionally when time allows.

Sisters call often now to discuss wedding plans. But you have to choose a color, the youngest tells her older sister as they plan for a September wedding. Ok, ok, um, blue. Just pick any blue dress. I wish Daddy could be there to walk me down the aisle. He will be, she tells her, I know it.

Sisters call constantly now that a baby is on the way. On the day of the birth the youngest calls the hospital in a worried panic about the delivery. She's ok, everyone is ok. It's a girl! Can you be her godmother? You'll be her tia, her nina, her special auntie.

Sisters call and text:

I'm on the bus and this guy I am sitting next to looks just like your husband! LOL

Are you watching the presidential debate? I mean who is this bozo?

I'm so jealous that you are at the beach again! I miss SF. xoxo

I think I'm pregnant.

Sisters call because texting about babies and pregnancies just isn't enough. I can't wait for you to be a mommy, too! I love you and I'm so happy, she says, to her no-longer-a-baby-sister. I love you so much. Forever.

Sisters call each other sobbing with worry about their mother who is in the hospital so far away. They ache with worry and love and curse the miles, because while the distance doesn't weaken the love they have for each other and their mother it does make everything so damn hard.

Sisters call and hand the phones to their toddlers and small children screaming, Say hi to your tia! Don't press the buttons! Just sing that song you learned at play group for tia and your cousins, please. They ask for advice about teething and homework and laugh and cry about how crazy and hard and wonderful it is to have these little people in their lives.

Sisters call and say, I miss you. Come back to California. Come to New York. I miss you. I love you. I miss you.

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This essay was inspired by Rick Moody's short story entitled "Boys." I was intrigued by the repetition of the phrase, "boys enter the house." I wanted to see if I could create an essay with a similar pattern to each segment. If you haven't read "Boys" yet, you really should.

Sylvia

2011-03-02T03:58:00.000-08:00

What I remember most about my grandma, perhaps, are her hands. Many say that the eyes are the windows to the soul, but I tend to disagree. The hands, I believe, can tell stories of a life like nothing else can. Grandma’s hands told stories of work, love, and loss, and I will forever miss holding them in mine and feeling her soft yet firm touch.

I can see her hands now, pinching the edges of a piecrust or working a batch of cookie dough. I can see them reaching out to touch my baby daughter, for the first time, full of love and tenderness. I can feel them, too, tissue soft, caressing the back of my hand as we sit together quietly on the sofa. I can even catch a whiff of the Chantilly Lace that scented the hankies she often clutched.

Her hands were tough, gentle, and strong. They were no nonsense, midwestern, hardworking hands of a farm girl used to work. They were the hands that crafted rockets at a war plant during WWII. They were hands that guided her son through the doors of the house she worked tirelessly for when she was raising a child, alone, in the 1940s. They were the hands that crafted stories from cotton and thread and wove love and devotion into every quilt she ever made. They were the hands that held the strong hands of her loving husband, my grandpa Oscar, for forty years. They were the hands that brought meals to her neighbors and planted seeds in her garden. They were the hands that snapped hundreds and hundreds of pictures over the years in order to capture the fleeting moments of life before they were gone. They were the hands that trembled with shock and sorrow when her only son left this earth before she did.

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross said that:

"The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen."

Sylvia Mechling Joggerst was one of those beautiful people. But, like Kubler-Ross said, she did not just “happen.” She struggled and fought her way into her beauty and along the way touched the lives of everyone she met. She worked hard, played hard, and loved hard and we are all privileged to have known her light.

So today, in honor of my grandmother’s memory, reach out and hold the hand of someone you love. Memorize its feel, its scent, and its strength. When you touch that hand infuse it with love and peace and warmth and think fondly of Sylvia.

the feel of color part 2

2011-02-23T00:00:00.000-08:00

There is nothing as wonderful as a brand new box of crayons. I bought the big ninety-six pack last summer, and it came complete with a built-in sharpener.

"They are for the kids," I told myself.

Yet I couldn't help but feel a little excited as I brought them home. I longed to open them, breathe in their scent, and make that first waxy mark on a blank sheet of paper.

My son was fascinated by the sharpener. We had to dig around in the junk drawer and the back of the craft box for some old worn down nubs of crayons to test out the new contraption. We soon had several very tiny, perfectly sharp and paperless little bits of color in front of us.

Next it was time to look over the new crayons themselves. "Mauvelous" was his favorite. I searched to make sure "Burnt Umber" was still there like when I was a child. It was.

When our examination was complete, we moved on to the coloring books. Once empty spaces of black and white began to burst with color. My daughter came in and joined us, and we spent the next few hours working on our pages.

When everyone finished I dove into a new task: color organizing. As a child I would arrange all the crayons, markers, and drawing pencils by color. I spent an inordinate amount of time sorting, categorizing, and subcategorizing by hue. Of course it didn't last. Within a week the organization I so meticulously created would crumble, almost literally. Crayons would break and their wrappers tear. The pencils would be out of order and the tips of the markers would fray and dry out. So of course, it wasn't long before the new box of crayons I had purchased for the kids became a mess of broken pieces scattered at the bottom of the craft box.

I was bothered to no end by this disarray, so a few weeks ago I purchased a set of colored pencils to use in my mandala coloring books. I guarded them carefully from the little fingers who would, I knew, beg to use them the minute they got wind of a new art supply in their midst.

I think the perfectly sharpened tips and organized color scheme lasted about one week.

"Please, please let me use them! I'll be careful I swear."

And so the seal was broken and now my lovely, colored pencils are scattered all over the dinning room table next to a stack of construction paper and a roll (my last) of Scotch tape. At first I felt angry.

"Those are mine! Can't I have ONE thing in this house that no one else touches?"

I felt like I needed to snatch them away, hide them, and protect them from those little people grasping at everything I have.

But the feeling passed quickly, because, really, who can horde color? How selfish would it be to keep "Cerulean" hidden away from those I love? What right do I really have to shove"Lime Green" or "Orchid" in drawer for no one to experience but myself?

After all, color is a shared joy. No one should be allowed to smother a rainbow.

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You can read the original "feel of color" here.

Copyright Brockport

2011-02-16T14:23:00.000-08:00

I'm featured at the Democrat & Chronicle's Brockport blog today. Please go check it out. And thanks to all of my friends for your loving support. I'd especially like to thank Caurie Putnam for writing such a sweet, thoughtful piece.

xoxo

Winner!

2011-02-14T15:31:00.001-08:00

Trisha Johnson won a handmade book!!!! Thanks for reading everyone.

Blank Page

2011-02-09T05:56:00.000-08:00

Recently, I took a sewn book making class with two friends at a local art gallery. I was very excited, but even more than that I was scared. Of what? It was just a three hour introduction to a basic craft. What was so intimidating about that?

The class got going, and I felt so damn jittery. What was wrong with me? What was I so afraid of? But I dove in (over?) eager to learn everything and to absorb as much as possible.

As the class progressed I thought, "I am good at this," and I suddenly decided to make one for practically everyone I know. In my head I began picking out colored papers and delicate jewels for the spines. I mentally budget for beeswax and colored linen thread.

A few weeks goes by, and the three of us gather again to make more books, share supplies, and chat. My friends talk about their teaching jobs--one is a creative writing professor and the other an artist and instructor at the art museum. I listen to them talk about classes, about the pieces they are working on.

I push the needle and thread through the paper--stab, pull, tighten.

The scissors make a zip, sip, zip, sip sound as I try desperately to keep my lines straight. I don't want to waste the pretty and expensive paper we are using.

I look at my girlfriends, and they are so beautiful sitting there sipping their wine while I munch snacks, and I am grateful to have their warmth and beauty gracing my life.

It is late, well past midnight, so we close up shop and clean up scraps of paper and bits of thread. We examine what we have made and feel proud, good. I set the wine glasses in the sink, and put away the leftover snacks. My artist friend hands me an unopened bag of chips as she goes to leave.

"Nine pounds to lose, still, I say," as I decline the offer.

I brush food crumbs off of my baggy sweatshirt as we say goodbye.

I've made books non-stop since that evening. Some I've already given away, and a few I am saving for Valentine's Day presents. They sit in a colorful stack on my shelf waiting to be presented to their new owners. Their pages are blank and empty, begging for a story to be written.

*Leave a comment on this post, and I'll enter your name in a drawing for a hand sewn book. Drawing will be held February 14th.

Portrait of Noelía.

2011-02-03T09:51:00.000-08:00

Please see the aaduna June 2011 issue to read this post. Coming June 6!

Ritual

2011-02-01T13:36:00.000-08:00

Please see the aaduna June 2011 issue to read this post. Coming June 6!

post cards

2010-10-11T18:45:00.000-07:00

Dear Mom,

Last week we decided to take the kids to visit our friends back in Virginia where we went to graduate school. As you know, the school is located in a town which is a very popular tourist destination, so we have decided to go all out on this trip and see as many of the attractions in the area as possible.

But it is odd, surreal even, to be back in the place where, in many ways, I grew up. In 1995 I came here to graduate school as an incredibly naive young woman of only 21 with nothing but a couple of suitcases and a bicycle. I left many years later with a master's degree in one hand and a baby in the other. The baby is almost ten years old now. The diploma is buried under other papers somewhere in our study.

Lots of love,
xoxo
c--

-------------------------------------------------
Hi Nadine,

I had to ask for directions to the visitor's center today which was all at once frustrating and embarrassing. I should know this for Christ's sake. After all, I lived and worked here for years and years. But despite feeling that I have come home I also feel utterly lost. I blamed it on the development that has exploded around the edges of the town as more and more retirees are moving to the area in recent years. Road signs have been changed here and there, and new houses have sprouted everywhere. But in my heart I know that my feeling of being lost has little to do with the changes that have occurred in my absence and more to do with the fact that, despite missing my freinds here in Virginia, I utterly, and completely, closed the door on a life I will never go back to.

See you soon,
"Lost in the 'Burg"

----------------------------------------------

Dear Michelle,

We went to see the R. Charlton's, a reconstruction of an 18th century coffee house, today. As we waited for our tour to begin, I told the kids about the day 14 years before when everyone in town stopped work to see the 19th century house that had stood for a century atop the ruins of the older coffee house moved out of the historic district. People lined the road and watched as the enormous yellow house paraded down the street to its new destination. It did not go quietly or easily, though. That old Victorian put up a fight as it tore down tree branches and threatened to to topple passers by on it's way out. Left behind was nothing but a rough scar of dirt and brick.

B. seemed only mildly interested in the story. She perked up a little, though, when I mentioned that our friends here in town were the very archaeologists who excavated and researched the coffee house. She laughed with me when I told her of the day that I, too, was pulled from the archaeology lab, grumbling and grouchy, to finish up some work at the site one cold fall day before winter set in halting out door work until spring.

E., though, was only interested in getting in out of the unusually hot October sun and tasting the hot chocolate that would be served. I expected the drink to be bitter and strong, and I worried that the 18th century treat would not be to the liking of this very picky six year old. But he loved it, probably because it is actually not at all like the colonial chocolate that would have been served over 200 years ago. Instead it was a spiced dark confection created by the Mars Candy Company to appeal to the many tourists who frequented the tour.

Maybe we'll just go to Elizabethtown next time. haha

love ya,
c--

P. S. I bought you a little gift today.

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Dear Anne,

So today we visited the Governor's Palace, which was pretty impressive. Can you believe that Paul lived here all these years and never saw it? Anyway, you should have seen the interpreter. She was very into her role as an 18th century woman of privilege and her over-the-top enthusiasm made me chuckle.

After the tour we explored the gardens, and I later discovered that I lost my admission ticket in the hedge maze behind the palace. As I ran, annoyed, back and forth trying to find it, I was suddenly overcome with the memory of the last time I was lost in this maze about 15 years before. Except instead of a warm October morning it was a dark, humid summer night. The memory of it stopped me in my tracks. Remind me to tell you about it sometime. It was quite a little adventure and a sweet, nostalgic memory, really.

Oh, in case you were wondering I did find my ticket, so we were able to see the rest of the attractions that weekend.

Miss you tons. Let's have lunch sometime when I get back.
love, love, love,
c--

------------------------------------------------

Hi Lisa!

Thanks so much for hosting us last weekend. We had such a wonderful time, and I miss you so much already. Yesterday E. was in the bath crying his little head off. When I asked him what was wrong he said, "I just want to go back to Virginia!"

I asked him what he missed most about the trip, and his simple and emphatic response was: "LISA!!"

That little boy just fell in love with you, my friend. But how could he not? You are just so dear to us. It was so hard saying good-bye to you, Kelly, and Mark, and I hope to see you all again very soon. I'm going to spend some time with the kids showing them the e-map you created, so that they can remember all that we saw.

But for now we are home where I won't get lost or feel out of place. Our feet are firmly planted here in Western New York, but you know a little bit (ok a big bit) of my heart is down south in Virginia.

Missing you,
c--
---------------------------------------------

Six

2010-08-19T17:05:00.000-07:00

My, have you changed my angel boy.

We love you to pieces.

Happy sixth birthday.*

* photo courtesy of Canal Town Photo

Hands

2010-08-16T10:04:00.000-07:00

1.Lawrence Welk conducts a waltz on the television as I sit next to my grandma, my hand in hers. Her skin feels like tissue, and she smells of Chantilly Lace. I lean my head on her shoulder and she squeezes my hand.

2. My Nana's long, red nails pick up the warm tortilla and flip it so it cooks on the other side. "This first one is for you, mi hijita," she says as her brown fingers reach for the butter knife to spread margarine on my warm treat.

3. The strong, young hands of my mother rub Ben-Gay into my weary legs. Growing pains plaque me, and I often wake late at night calling for her to ease my pain. She comes, no hesitation, to soothe me, rub my legs, stroke my hair. She is my savior, my hero. "Don't leave, don't leave, " I plead.

4. I stand in the jewelry store with my fiancé as they measure my ring size. I notice my nails are shaggy, short, and rough. My hands are calloused and dry. But once the ring that had belonged to my mother is on my finger my hands grow lovely. The diamond sparkles as I turn my hand back and forth under the fluorescent light.

5. They are the first things I look at as they give her to me after birth: her hands. They are so small, dimpled, perfect. I am struck by how delicate they are when suddenly she grips my finger with a strength that shocks me. I am breathless with the joy of it all.

not mine

2010-07-07T15:19:00.000-07:00

please contact the blog author for permission to read this post .

for an angel.

Happy Birthday

2010-04-22T10:50:00.000-07:00

Waiting for you. . .

Just after your birth. . .
One year old. . .

Two years old. . .

Three. . .
Four. . .

Five. . .
Six. . .

Seven . . .Eight. . .
Nine. . .

I love you, my girl. Happy Birthday.

head over heels

2010-02-16T19:26:00.000-08:00

I was a feather of a girl for a while there. I could stand on my head in the middle of the living room floor for what seemed like hours. My mother would peer at me from the kitchen nervous that I would fall, but she did not scold or ask me to be sensible. She simply let me be.

She knew, I think, that those days were fleeting. She knew that someday the weight of many responsibilities would sit on my shoulders and my easy lightness would be replaced by a heaviness that would keep my feet firmly planted on the ground.

I've tried now, cautiously when no one was around, to spend some time upside down again. But I can barely lift my legs into the air, and my feet feel like lead weights. I've tried, too, in yoga class with plenty of prep and lots of help from the instructor, but I always freeze up. Fear washes over me and I convince myself that I will fall and break a leg or embarrass myself in front of the entire class. So I quietly move on to something else: a nice, firm warrior pose or a quiet, safe child's pose.

But I see the others do it and wonder at the ease with which they seem to turn their world topsy turvey even for a second or two. I see them and I remember those sunny childhood afternoons I spent with my feet in the air and my heart easy. There was no fear, just action, as I swung my legs upwards toward the clouds. Then there was a calm while I watched the world pass crazily by as I stood on my head, motionless and quiet.

My son seems to be taking after me these days and spends inordinate amounts of time with his feet above his head. I watch him as he hangs upended on the couch, his small, perfect feet drumming a rhythm on the wall as he watches Scooby -Doo, and I envy the carefree flexibility of both his body and spirit.

I should, like my mother before me, let him be. I should let him hang there upside down among the cushions where he is happy, free, light. But I feel compelled to turn him right side up, tell him to stop before he gets hurt. I earnestly warn him that he could fall at any second. Even as I stand there scolding him, hands on hips, I know I shouldn't. I should listen to the little voice telling me,

"Don't fret. He isn't about to fall. . . he is about to fly."

Neverland

2010-02-16T16:12:00.000-08:00

Last night I dreamed of Italy. I was sitting in a small movie house watching a Fellini film while a rickety fan buzzed in front of an open window. Later, after the movie, I walked back to the small room I was renting on the second floor of a crumbling stone building in Rome.

I've never actually been to Italy.
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Last week, my dreams also brought me to Scotland.

It was nothing more than a small bit of land, really, surrounded by azure waters and covered in palm trees. It seemed more like a tropical paradise than the crisp, Celtic isle of lore. I drove around its perimeter several times in a sporty convertible with a girlfriend who has been absent from my life for years now.

I have never been to Scotland, either.
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Once I dreamed of riding a train through a forest in Thailand. I ate spicy bowls of soup as I watched the lush greenery of the forest pass by in a blur. My sleeping car rocked back and forth as the train lumbered on towards an unknown destination.

I've never traveled to any part of Asia much less to Thailand.

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I don't know why I dream of these far off places that I have never been to. Perhaps it is because the day to day dullness of the upstate winters wear me down and leave me hungry for something more, something different. Or maybe it is because I know that I will never actually visit these places in real life so my mind tries to comfort me somehow by creating these clear, colorful, almost lucid, night time dream trips.

I usually awake excited as I recall the details of one of my never-journeys. But the excitement always quickly fades and is replaced by a steely bitterness as I hear the scrape of the snow plow, and I realize where I really am.

Featured

2010-01-18T05:23:00.001-08:00

I'm feeling all blushy today because I'm being featured over at Blog Nosh! Check it out. :-)

The Beach

2010-01-17T17:00:00.000-08:00

She wore a white dress but decided, as she took one last look in the mirror, that she needed more. Something bright. She saw the vase on the nightstand and grabbed a single orchid. Her fingers trembled as she pinned the purple blossom to her loose braid. Shoes seemed just silly, so she kicked off her sandals and stepped outside. The sand was warm beneath her toes as she walked gingerly toward the shoreline so as not to step on a shell or jagged rock.

When she reached where he stood waiting she uttered simply and with conviction,

“I do.”

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This was a challenge by Velvet Verbosity to write a 100 word story based on the word "nervous." Go check out some of the other entries.

12 days of christmas music

2009-12-17T13:39:00.000-08:00

I love Christmas songs. LOVE. THEM. I love them a little too much for my husband's taste. But, I tell him, singing along to "White Christmas" at full volume is part of my charm!

Anyway....I thought that I would share some of my favorite Christmas songs with you through the magic of You Tube. I'll spare you the sing along.

White Christmas is the best Christmas song ever. Do not argue with me, because you will never convince me other wise.

Now this is a classic, of course. Care for a chestnut?

Another classic by Judy Garland. I am cracking up right now because yesterday my mother lipped synced this song on Skype to my son. HAHAHA!! Trust me it was funny. Yeah, you had to be there.

This song reminds me of a friend in college who made me soup and bread and copied The Charlie Brown Christmas music to a cassette for me, which I have since lost. I hope she is well now and is still making warming, yummy soup for her friends.

This one gets me right in the heart. Ever since I moved East, away from my friends and family, I can't hear this song without bursting into tears. Oh no, here come the waterworks...

Now the King will croon...

I used to listen to this song as a kid and dream about life in The Big City.

I remember listening to this song on my tiny clock radio while wrapping Christmas presents for my grade school friends. I don't remember what the gifts were, but I can guess that they may have been florescent socks or big plastic earrings. I was probably wearing stirrup pants.

This one is for my son who when asked what the most common winter holidays are said, "Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice, and Feliz Navidad."

This one is all about nostalgia for me. I remember learning this song at school when I was very, very young maybe 1st or 2nd grade. I hear it now and instantly feel like a small girl eagerly awaiting Santa's arrival.

This one is for my daughter who thinks this is the greatest Christmas song EVER.

Another one that reminds my of being a little girl....When I was young my parents had lots of Christmas albums, but the album I enjoyed the most was the Perry Como one. I loved to sit by the tree with his record on softly in the background.

So there you have it--12 songs for the 12 days of Christmas. Have a joyous holiday my friends!

secret society

2009-12-02T04:36:00.000-08:00

It's like a club. There isn't a secret handshake or a special password, but there is a unique look, a shifting of the eyes, a softening of the mouth, that will give you a clue. You'll be talking to someone, and when the word "father" comes up in conversation you'll see it and know before they say the words:

"He died."

Oh yes, you understand. You step a bit closer and ask, "When?" The answer is different every time, of course.

"Last year."

"In September."

"When I was in high school."

But you know in your heart that it doesn't matter how long it has been. You are all lifetime members of the same, sad society.

There are rituals, of course. On Father's Day, you may run into a fellow member in the store or on the street. A squeeze of the hand or a simple, "How are you?" takes on a special meaning. You don't need them to respond to know that they miss him today.

The birthday ritual and the passing date ritual are, of course, more private. Everyone has their own specialized routine. For some it is quiet prayer in church. Others crawl into bed and have a good cry. Some look at old photos or wear his old flannel work shirt around the house.

But you don't have a particular rite that you perform. Some years you simply think of him in passing and go on with the day as planned. Other years you are floored with grief.

So you write.

You write private thoughts into messy journals that no one will see. Or maybe you pen a birthday letter and share it with the world, your family, your friends. Sometimes you write thinking it will make it hurt less. You write and pretend it isn't real.

But no matter what you do, write, or say, you can't terminate your membership in the club. You may smile and say to the world all around, " I'm fine," but it is a lie. You are not fine. You have no father.

Your daddy is gone.

So you turn to the members of the club and wordlessly plead to be understood. They know you want to be heard but that you don't want to talk. They will let you feel what you have to feel without pushing you to share or heal or move on. Knowing they are near, that they will be there to hold you up when you just want to crumble under the sadness, buoys you.
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for Karen, Barb, Veronica, Lorraine, Sue, Sandy, and all of the daughters out there without fathers.

by christine green, member for 15 years

when all else fails post a recipe

2009-11-24T10:37:00.001-08:00

I am having a hard time finding my words right now. I look at the blank computer screen and panic because nothing comes.

Nothing.

Part of it is sheer busyness. I am just whirling in circles with the kids, work, volunteering, etc. I hardly have time to breath much less write. Part of it, though, is simply self doubt creeping in. I see wonderful writers and artists around me every day. They are writing brilliant blogs, penning novels, winning awards, and publishing.

And I am not.

I know, I need to just get over it. If a writer's life was what I really wanted I should have aimed for a degree in English rather than Anthropology. But I didn't take that route, and I have to live with my choices.*

So to fill the space and to make me feel a little more accomplished I will post a recipe. Here is my favorite Lemon Pie recipe, adapted from the Fannie Farmer Baking Book.
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1 9-inch pre-baked pie shell
1 cup sugar
6 tablespoons cornstarch
2 cups water
1/2 cup lemon juice
3 egg yolks
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter
grated rind of 1 lemon (both white and yellow)
whipped cream or cool whip for topping

Blend the sugar, cornstarch, and water in a saucepan. In a separate bowl beat the egg yolks with the lemon juice then add to the sugar mixture.

Cook over medium heat while stirring constantly. The mixture will become translucent and thick. Cook three minutes longer while continuing to stir.

Remove from the heat and cool for at least one hour. When the mixture is cool spread in the pie shell and top with whipped cream or cool whip

Refrigerate if not serving immediately.

Enjoy!

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*Please, please, PLEASE don't leave {{hugs}} and "I get it" or "You're a great writer!"in the comments. Just say something about how yummy this pie looks. Or, better yet, tell me what your favorite pie recipe is.

Thanksgiving

2009-11-23T05:47:00.000-08:00

*Holiday traditions, for many people, revolve around food. My family is no exception. Every year at Thanksgiving we make this recipe. It is perhaps the best cranberry bread I have ever tasted. Rich with butter and tart with fresh cranberries, it makes the perfect breakfast on any winter holiday. We tweak the recipe just a bit. . .we substitute fresh cranberries for the raisins, and we don't bother chopping them at all. The recipe also makes delicious muffins or mini-loaves. It is best served with whipped cream cheese.

The recipe is originally from the book Cranberry Thanksgiving by Wende and Harry Devlin. I still have the copy I had when I was a young girl in California. This is my favorite passage:

"What a great full dinner that was--with everything cooked with crisp edges and tender centers.
'How delicious!' said Maggie.
'How exquisite!' said. Mr. Horace.
'How about some more?' said Mr. Whiskers."

from Cranberry Thanksgiving, page 15

I can only hope that the holiday meals I prepare this year will meet with the same, loving praise.

*originally posted November 2008

the winner is...

2009-10-13T15:58:00.000-07:00

Kelley at Craffing Out Loud! She won a copy of Mother Muse by leaving a comment at my last post. I very scientifically wrote each name on a piece of paper then had my son draw a name out of a hat. :-) And when you have a chance do go read her blog--she is is a lovely writer and I so enjoy reading her blog.

I am battling a cold and a very busy week, so I don't have much more to write today. I promise to get a real post up next week. Until then enjoy the musical interlude....

penmanship

2009-09-22T09:05:00.000-07:00

Lynda Barry is really asking me to work now. Last week I listed ten cars from my early life and wrote about my memory of just one of them. The exercise continued this week with other topics: other people's mothers, pets, houses, etc. It doesn't sound terribly difficult, but it is hard work in that she 1) asks you to do the exercises by hand, and 2) that you do it without stopping for seven straight minutes. Sounds easy enough, right? But in this day and age of computers and texting very few people write by hand any more, and I found it challenging in surprising ways.

First, I scrabbled to find lined paper among the plain, white printer paper. After I found some and got started, I found my forearms tightening up and my back tensing. I was constantly thinking about how legible my work was (not very) and if I should be using a pen instead of a pencil. I couldn't believe how much physical effort was going into this.

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When I was in college and grad school, I wrote all of my formal papers by hand before typing them into the computer. I had to have a large yellow legal pad and several sharpened pencils, though a pen would do in a pinch (ball point, not felt). My friends thought I was crazy, but writing like that felt good. It allowed me to write anywhere at any time. It was a primitive laptop, I suppose.

And I was a letter writer. Oh, I loved to write "real" letters to my many far away friends. For years my grandmother and I wrote to each other constantly. One friend and I wrote to each other at least once a month. We'd swap long rambling stories about my grad school work and she would tell me crazy tales from law school. Then we wrote to each other about getting married, then about our babies, and now. . . nothing. We are "facebook friends." We just leave quick comments on each others status updates, but we no longer send hand written letters except at Christmas.

Yet despite the fact that I rarely write letters anymore I still collect stationary. I have a large treasure chest shaped box filled with it. I love to open it and breathe in the papery smell of envelopes and note cards, post cards and thank you notes. But for the most part they go unused.

I also used to have several very nice heavy pens. They were given to me as gifts when I graduated from college. I can't find them now; they seem to be long gone. I suppose I don't really need them much anymore since I do most of my writing and correspondence on the computer.

As I sit here thinking of stationary and pens (with the computer screen glowing in front of me and "qwerty" spelled out on the keys beneath my fingers), I feel sad. I miss writing by hand. The act of writing by hand, I have realized, is quickly becoming a lost art.

In What It Is Lynda Barry says that there "is a state of mind which is not accessible by thinking. It seems to require a participation with something. Something physical we move like a pen, like a pencil" (page 106). I think of this as I remember back to the days when "real" letters and hand written paper drafts were the norm for me. The whole act of writing wasn't simply a cerebral activity. It was a whole physical and mental practice. Writing required not just my mind to be active but also my body. That is, I believe, why so many people can do their best thinking while walking or running. When we move our arms and legs and ask our bodies to physically engage in the act of writing and thinking then we literally get the creative juices flowing. Blood pumps through our veins invigorating our hearts, air fills our lungs as we quicken our breath to match our movements, and our muscles contract and stretch while our pens fly over the paper or we think through that problem that has been plaguing us.

Yet for so many of us (particularly those in the academic world) writing and intellectual thought is completely disconnected from the physical body. Our bodies get in the way of our "work." We have to stop to eat, use the bathroom, or stretch the kink out of our neck. We have to schedule time to work out so our bodies can be healthy and thin. The body is a block to creativity and intelligence rather than a tool that can be used to achieve higher levels of thought. Rarely do we move our bodies in conjunction with mental thought processes and intellectual pursuits. Our fingers sweep over a keyboard, or we walk from one class or meeting to another, but in general physical movement and intellect are often unconnected.

Our society also often has a hard time believing that those who do physical work can also be intelligent.* We have all heard the term "dumb jock." There are many people in the world who look at their housekeepers or nannies as "just" maids or babysitters. When I became an aerobic instructor, two of my dearest friends actually laughed at me. They openly confessed to thinking fitness instructors of any ilk must be unintelligent.

(*Classical dancers and artists are often given a break by the intelligentsia. I say classically trained because street dancers and self taught artists are often not considered "serious" in the academic community.)

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The work Lynda has asked me to do this week has made me re-think how I write and made me re-focus on the link between my body and my mind. Maybe I'll get out some of the old stationary and try and find another sturdy pen. Do they even sell them anymore? Are they next to the cellphones and lap tops? Or are they by the ever shrinking stationary aisle?

Powder Blue

2009-09-15T17:12:00.000-07:00

I've neglected my work with What It Is by Lynda Barry for far too long, but I jumped back in again. This time she asks the reader to think of ten cars from early in life (page 143-147). She then instructs us to give a detailed description of that car. I've played a little fast and lose with the assignment, but I think (hope?) she would approve.

*******************************************

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Powder Blue.

windows

2009-08-30T14:54:00.000-07:00

these are memories that i carry with me and that i will remember when i am old and tired. these are windows into my heart, my soul. thanks goes out to jen at sarah for asking.

1. the moon shines bright on the river where we swim, and the water glistens on our bare skin. we are just a year or two into college and we have traveled what seems like a world away from our homes to work for the summer under the hot southern sky. but when night comes we relax and and play and swim in the dark waters of the James.

2. lawrence welk conducts a waltz on the television as i sit next to my grandma, my hand in hers. her skin feels like tissue and she smells of chantilly lace. i age a bit this hot midwestern evening because i know it won't be like this forever.

3. my kindergarten year is hard on me, being shy and small, and a bit young. but to my surprise i win a little plastic giraffe in class one day. it is multi-colored but also transparent, and the effect is one of rainbowed oil on water: shimmery and changing. it slips behind my mattress and i can just barely see it. i am reaching, reaching under my bed and yet i cannot grasp the little toy.

4. my boyfriend paces back and forth while talking on the phone with someone from my home. why won't he give me that damn receiver already? suddenly, i know: a death announcement waits on the other end of the line and i fight the urge to flee into the breezy december night. instead i clutch the arm of the couch and wait.

5. my son is barely two months old and i decide we need an outing to the mall. my daughter, three, behaves well and because of this i decide to buy her a burger king lunch. i look at her with her paper crown askew eating french fries while watching a trapped bird flit around the ceiling of the food court. for some reason my heart floods with a fierce love mixed with a sort of grief that overwhelms me. she is growing too fast. she will be gone in the flash of an eye.

6. about a dozen red deer raise their heads as i run by. behind them a snow capped mountain peak juts unexpectedly into the warm and cloudless morning. i look at them and know that i am the only one to see this. i am the only one here to witness a moment so lovely yet so fleeting and i am excited to know that i alone will have this picture in my mind forever. no one else will share this serene irish image, and i am fine with that. this is all mine. all mine.

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and you, dear reader, do you have a a memory, a window, you'd like to share? leave your reply here in the comments or if you write your own post let me know and i will post a link to your story here. make sure you link back to jen, sarah, and myself.

journey to wonderland

2009-08-29T15:42:00.000-07:00

A dear, dear friend has a brand new blog. Please go give her some love. . .

Down the Rabbit Hole to Wonderland

visions

2009-07-10T13:53:00.001-07:00

i.
I first got glasses in high school when it was getting increasingly hard to see my friends across the courtyard and in the halls, and the chalkboards grew cloudy. I wouldn't wear them much at first, only in class. But soon enough it became clear that I needed them all the time. I begged contacts out of my parents and suddenly the world was clear.

A couple of years ago I decided I would save a buck or two by getting glasses that weren't made with the fancy thin-lens material. The optical guy laughed, and basically said I was nuts. My silence told him that I had no idea what he was talking about. He showed me a lens that would be my prescription strength without the fancy plastic. I was horrified at the thickness, the weight, the weird yellowy color. I went with the thin lenses.

At night if I get up to go to the bathroom I put on my glasses. The bathroom is only feet away.

If I take my glasses off now the keyboard would look fuzzy, the monitor a blurred mess.

ii.
When I moved into my house I could not stand the idea of white, colorless walls. Every room was instantly painted in a splash of deep color. I don't remember all of the names from the paint chips, but I know the greenish color in my bedroom is called "Bunch of Cloves." Something about it always makes me think of Casablanca. Like Humphrey Bogart's room would have been painted with this strange , cool green. My kitchen is a sunny yellow, as is my daughter's room. My son's room is purple and the living room a deep brown called "Common Ground." Like dirt. But it is vivid, and I love it next to the classic red in the dining room. We have no white walls. To me it would be like drinking luke-warm water to have to look at Cream or Antique White or Eggshell. I need a little ice, a slice of lemon, a spring of mint. Every wall is food for the eyes.

iii.
My house is filled with pictures. On the walls, the tables, the kids rooms. I have stacks of photo albums. I don't scrap book, but each album is carefully labeled with the events and dates of the pictures. I am obsessed with my photo albums. I regularly take them out and mull over the old friends, the big parties, the little moments. I so often want to dive into the scene, make it happen again, re-live that moment. I cannot look at my pictures enough. And I take new ones all the time. Even the digital ones are carefully uploaded and stored on-line. My photos have always been tremendously important to me, even if they aren't particularly exciting to anyone else.

iv.
My dreams are so vivid I can remember patterns from dresses, the color of someone's eyes, the position of the furniture. My dreams are literally like vivid color movies. The best ones are ones in which I am swimming or flying above water. The water in these dreams is so blue. So blue. I can see for miles either from the air or from the body of water in which I float or swim. The horizon is endless.

But I always wake up feeling for my glasses, disappointed that my daytime eyesight is never as clear as my nighttime visions.

What It Is part 5

2009-07-01T11:39:00.000-07:00

"Once upon a time I had a little rabbit. . . ."

Lynda Barry (What It Is page 87) says that you can start any type of story with this one line. A mystery, a romance, a a thriller, etc. could all potentially start with this simple beginning.

Though not very "meaty" I am going to tell you a real life tale of a little rabbit.

----------------------------------------------------

Once upon a time I had a little rabbit that had been found outside of my dorm. The big lop eared bunny was nibbling grass in the quad and my suite mate scooped up the furry friend. The idea was that we would care for the rabbit until we could find a proper home for him. I suppose I liked rabbits well enough, but I wasn't exactly thrilled to be living with one, even temporarily.

You see, I was the Practical One. I drove everyone home when they had too much to drink, and I was the one who held back long hair while a roommate leaned over the bowl the next day. I straightened the common room and set up study sessions. I kept my room clean, and called home just about daily.

So I guess you might say I was also the Good Girl.

In any case, there was a rabbit to deal with right in the middle of finals. A rabbit who crapped everywhere and hopped almost faster than it crapped. Of course, pets were not allowed in the dorms, so this little guy had to be carefully hidden if a resident assistant came by.

One bright afternoon, the housekeeping staff came to clean the common bathroom, and I had to hide the rabbit under my desk. I had no idea how much rabbits liked to chew, until I saw the cords to my little Mac Classic power chewed to bits.

Stupid bunny.

What It Is Part 4

2009-06-19T13:58:00.000-07:00

I've read more of What It Is by Lynda Barry, and it continues to be rich with color, texture, and image. As before, she asks the reader question after question in order to get their thoughts flowing and encourage them to think about their past, particularly the childhood years.

There are many, many questions put before the reader, but this week I would like to focus on one in particular:

"When did you first notice you were bad at something?" (page 74)

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To be honest I can't recall the exact moment that I felt like I was truly bad at a particular task or skill, but I do recall the first time someone made me feel bad about myself, my abilities.

I was in second grade and we had been assigned a book report, and we could pick a book from the library about an animal. I was in my "I'm gonna be a marine biologist" stage and carefully chose a book about whales.

I worked tirelessly on my paper, and I felt proud to put it in a little blue report cover.

When the teacher handed back the graded papers to everyone I was shocked to find, "Next time don't copy!" scrawled in red across the back page.

It stung more than any other insult had up to that point in my seven years. There was no anger at the assumption or indignation at the accusation. I only felt sadness that I was presumed a liar. I hadn't copied anything. I simply was a good little writer and a good student with a clear understanding of the subject. My teacher, whom I loved, simply couldn't believe that I was capable of what I had achieved. And it hurt.

I had thought that paper was good. I thought it deserved recognition and praise. After that, though I continued to work hard, I never expected to be congratulated on anything I had written. Even through college my A's were always a surprise. When I left an exam confident, I soon became deflated and despondent believing that it was only a matter of time before I was called a fraud or a cheat. Compliments of any sort are hard for me to digest now, and though I may smile and politely thank a person for their kind words, I never truly, really believe them.

I am not blaming my adult lack of confidence completely on my second grade teacher, but her actions, her work of a moment in red ink, did leave a mark on my self esteem. To this day I guard my writing carefully, sharing it only with those who truly love me and will give constructive advice and loving suggestions. This blog was a step that was difficult to take. I am putting my writing out there in the world, and it has been interesting to see the different reactions I've had since creating it. Some friends read it and comment or talk about it with me. Others comment here or email me their thoughts. Most ignore it completely, which hurts more than it should.

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Visit Rachel and give her some blog love, my friends.

2009-06-10T10:21:00.000-07:00

I'll will postponing my work with What It Is for a week as Rachel is out of town and I am preparing to leave for a long weekend away.
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I'll leave you with an old favorite. . .

What It Is Part 3

2009-06-05T10:53:00.000-07:00

It is week three of my exploration of Lynda Barry's What It Is, and like the first part of the book, she asks the reader a multitude of questions interspersed with brief tales from her childhood. Her discussion of fairy tales, myths, toys, and play all inspired me not to write but to create something wholly different. Please forgive my digression, but this week's post is not in the form of words. . .

Go visit Rachel and read her post about What It Is.

What It Is Part 2

2009-05-29T11:14:00.001-07:00

"Is a dream autobiography or fiction?" (page 21)

This question starts the second part of Lynda Barry's What It Is. The questions come hard and fast after this. . .

"What is an experience?" (page 22)

"Where do we keep bad memories?" (page 23)

"Do memories have mass? Do they have motion?" (page 36)

In between these questions about image and memory she discusses her childhood which was a lonely place illuminated first only by the glowing television and later by fairy tales and books, and, of course, her blinking cat.

It is images like that of the cat, images of what never-was, that I want to explore further in this post along with "What is an imaginary friend? Are there imaginary enemies?" (page 29)

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When I was a little girl I had both an imaginary enemy as well as imaginary friends. My innocent, loving imaginary friends came into my life first. I cannot recall at what age I first started to play with Larry and the Two Kids, but I was very, very small, perhaps about three.

I can see him clearly. Larry wore a yellow shirt and at his sides were two small children--one boy, one girl. On there faces there was just a skein of flesh colored blankness, like a Little People doll with the features rubbed off. The picture seems disconcerting, but it really wasn't. As I picture them in my head the feeling that washes over me is that of peace, protection, love.

They traveled with me everywhere--in the car, to the store, to restaurants. They were my constant companions. My friends that never-were.

I do not remember when Larry and the Two Kids left my life, but their exit was painless, easy, natural. Not like the entrance of my imaginary enemy.

This man, this never-was dream phantom, was not faceless. Indeed his scarred, terrifying face loomed large in my childhood dreams. I was older, perhaps about ten, when he first came to me. Unlike Larry, he only visited in the night, in my dreams. He was a spiffy dresser, this haunting character. He usually wore light color clothes--tan, beige, cream colored, old fashioned suits with high collars and bow ties. He wore small, round spectacles and had gleaming, perfect white teeth. The skin on his face was a shiny, tight red as if he had been burned or slashed across the face and gruesome scars replaced true flesh.

I can see him now in a long ago dream (one of many): He is walking into an old fashioned school house. Alone in the countryside, the little school stands white among green meadows. The sky is steel gray and crowds of children push by him to enter the building. Books in hand and freshly washed, they are eager to start the school day. He stands tall and ominous above them. I know, just know that he will enter that school and hurt every child in there. No one will escape whatever evil he is about to do. He turns toward me and flashes a toothy grin as he shuts the door behind him.

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Come back next week for more light hearted fun and frolic with the Blog of Seriousness and Doom when I'll be talking about the next section of What It Is. ( I promise not to scare you further with creepy nightmare men :-)

Check out Rachel's place, too, for her discussion of the second section of the book.

What It Is

2009-05-21T14:55:00.000-07:00

What is an image? When is the past? What is memory?

These are all questions Lynda Barry asks the reader to explore in her book What It Is. The book is designed as a creative tool or workbook for anyone interested in writing or exploring their past. The text is a mix of handwriting and typeface on legal paper and is illustrated with collages, sketches, and photos. The pages are literally saturated with color and texture.

They are, it seems, alive; alive with pictures and words that grab you, haunt you, humor you, and push you to dive into your own mind and thoughts.

The first part of the book has to do with, as noted above, notions of memory, the past, and image. Right off the bat she delves into the connection between imagery and memory. She begins by telling us of a game she played with her dolls as a child. In the game she pretended to be as still and as silent as the toys and pictures in her room so as to be privy to their secret world. In this world they could move, talk, breathe. . . live. She clearly remembers seeing a picture of a kitten on her wall blinking its eyes as she watched.

"Why," she asks "would an image of something, which never happened, travel with me for all these years?" (page 12).

This leads into bigger questions about the nature of images themselves and how the images we live with in our minds are products of a past that may or may not have ever happened.

For me, dream and imagination have always worked together to create memory both real and exaggerated:

I remember driving though Napa valley one spring night chasing a brilliant moon.
Was the moon really full?

There was a face on my wall as a child. The face looked at me with a crooked, ragged smile and winked at me every night.
But wasn't that only a pattern of cracks in the plaster?

I held my father's hand as we walked to a carnival in downtown San Jose. I can see his white shirt and feel his hand in mine.
But wasn't that actually a dream I had once?

Was any of it real? Or, more importantly, does it matter?

To me these images are alive. They are as real to me as the keyboard I am typing on right now or the glasses perched on my nose. Only that crazy enemy of creativity, logic, makes me question their true, living nature as images that speak of and to my life.

They are "Alive in the way thinking is NOT, but EXPERIENCING IS, made of BOTH memory and IMAGINATION. . ." (page 14)

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Come back next week for further discussion of What It Is. And go over to Rachel's place and read her take on the first section of the book.

prom night

2009-04-29T10:30:00.001-07:00

on the porch steps,

swaying, iridescent flowers

orange
yellow
teal
silver
blue.

bees lap at the nectar
as they flutter around the bouquet.

the night is spread out before them

waiting for their heady scent to fill the dark air.

bobby's birthday

2009-03-26T05:49:00.000-07:00

This is the story of an ordinary man with an ordinary life. A simple story but a good one.

Bobby was born on March 27, 1941 to a young farm woman who had moved to The Big City when she married. His father was the cheating type, and he was long gone by the time Bobby came along.

Bobby and his mother lived a hard but good life in St. Louis, she working in a war plant while he spent the days with a kindly neighbor in the same apartment building. Later, when he was in school and the war was over, she took a job as a secretary in a flower seed company.

Like all boys he grew and explored and learned, and by the time he was old enough to deliver a paper he was working, too. Pet shops, the Steak & Shake, the green grocer's. . .the list goes on and on. He was never idle.

Yet, he always had time to read. His mind could not rest, and many of his leisure hours were spent among books.

Bobby grew up and became Bob, and he left home to go to college and to explore the country and the world. His travels eventually took him to Denver where a long haired waitress with gorgeous eyes and a beguiling dimple won his heart.

Bob's heart was full when his first born, a girl, came into his life in 1973. He bought a 10 pound box of chocolates for his wife which was so huge she had to split it with all the other new mothers in the maternity ward.

Time moved on and a second girl was born, and his heart swelled with love and pride once again. Like daddies across the nation, and indeed the world, he danced with his precious daughters in the evenings as they watched the fading light of sunset. Patsy Cline, Hank Williams, the Mamas and Papas, and Glen Miller all played softly from the old reel to reel player while each lady in his life took turns dancing with him, faces buried in his shirt so that Old Spice scented the dance.

He was a engineer now, working on satellites and computers in an age when few even really knew what a computer was. Yet, his love of reading never fell by the way side. Books were piled beside the bed and under it, they were in the family room and in the garage. They littered the foot wells in his car and were stacked next to the wires and electronics on his office desk.

His girls grew and life marched forward. It was when they were teens, they think, that he began to write. A Short Story was published in a magazine once. Innumerable notebooks were filled with short hand, his novel in progress. His greatest piece though, in his oldest daughter's eyes, was a letter he wrote to her when she went away for a week on a high school retreat. Too precious to share with others, it sits neatly in a wooden box he made for her once upon a time a million years ago. She only takes it out on occasion, when her heart feels strong and she thinks she can handle it.

Often she cannot. The words, as sweet and full of love as they are, remind her that he is gone.

Gone because he left this world at the young age of 53. He collapsed from a fatal heart attack at a book store, clutching a novel by Edith Wharton.

At least, they tell themselves, he was in his favorite place.

Happy birthday Bobby.

March 27, 1941 - December 2, 1994.

paper flowers

2009-02-26T06:03:00.000-08:00

There are no crocuses poking green sprigs through the soil yet. There are no snow drops blinking white eyes as we stride by. The earth has yet to give up it's first spring shoots.

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To bring a little spring to our lives we make coffee filter flowers.

You'll need: white, flat bottom coffee filters, water based markers, a spray bottle with water, various pipe cleaners

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When I was in second grade I made my first communion,and my parents threw a huge party in my honor. I was very shy so the attention was hard for me, and I spent much of the party hiding on the side of the house avoiding the dancing and presents and cake. I remember that my mother made beautiful tissue paper flowers to decorate the fence in our yard. They also decorated the lattice work arch under which folklorico dancers entertained the guests who ate enchiladas and beans and Mexican rice.

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Have your child draw various designs on the filters then spray one or two sprays of water on each one. The colors will spread, tie-dye fashion, into hazy, water color patterns. Lay flat to dry on cookie cooling racks or hang on a clothes line with wooden clothes pins.

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Once my family drove to Tijuana on a whim while visiting Southern California. After quickly discerning that it wasn't really a family friendly area the we drove to, we turned around without ever getting out to walk around. A multitude of vendors approached us as we waited in our hot, steamy car to re-enter the U.S. We bought a large bouquet of colorful tissue paper flowers, a souvenir of a not-quite-vacation.

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After the filters dry pinch the middle of one and twist to form a flower. Wrap the very end of a pipe cleaner around the nub of tissue to create a flower. Repeat with the remaining filters and pipe cleaners until you have a full bouquet.

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Once, when I was a teenager, my out of town cousin sent my Nana (my mom's mother) a box filled with flowers made from blue Kleenex. My Nana treasured these sweet mementos from a far away grand child. When she passed away we found them safely tucked away in a shoe box in her bedroom closet.

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Take the finished coffee filter flowers and decorate your house, give to friends, or pin them behind your ear. Spritz with a light perfume, if you like. Scent, they say, helps seal a memory.

Christine's Coconut Banana Bread (for Rosa)

2009-02-23T14:17:00.000-08:00

I've recently discovered the yummy goodness of coconut oil. If you haven't tried coconut oil you really should. Make sure, though, that you by only virgin, unrefined coconut oil. Unrefined coconut oil retains a lovely coconut flavor and a pearly white color and is excellent for cooking, baking, skin care, and hair care.
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Cream:
1/4 cup coconut oil with
1/4 cup brown sugar (dark is best)

Add:
1 beaten egg
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Then mix in:
1 cup of raw, rolled oats
5 mashed bananas

In a separate bowl sift together
1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour
1 tablespoon ground flax seed
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup shredded coconut (unsweetened is best, but sweetened will work, too)

Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix just until combined. Pour into a greased loaf pan and bake in a 350 degree oven about 1 hour or until it tests done. Cool on rack before slicing.

This is great with cream cheese or a little coconut oil spread on top.

Hearts

2009-02-13T07:07:00.000-08:00

We are sentimental fools around here.

Valentine's Day requires candy and hearts and flowers and cards in my house. Commercial? Yes. Forced upon us my the greeting card industry? Absolutely. But I've come to the conclusion that life is short and often dreary, so a little extra celebration in the most difficult part of winter is fun and even necessary.

Every year my husband makes True Love Coffee Cake. His mother made it for him when he was a child, and I imagine his grandmother made it as well. This sweet, moist breakfast bread will warm any heart this February 14th.

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Paul's True Love Coffee Cake

Combine:
1/4 c. warm water
1 c. warm milk
1/2 c. sugar
1/4 melted butter

Add two packets of yeast to this mixture and proof

when cool add:
2 eggs, slightly beaten

Combine:
1 tsp. salt
4 cups flour

Mix the liquid and dry ingredients together to form a soft dough and let rise one hour. Punch down and form into two parts; rest for 10 minutes. Roll out into rectangles and spread the following mixture over each one:

1/2 c. powdered sugar
a few drops of red food coloring
1/2 soft butter (more if needed)

Roll up each rectangle, cinnamon roll style, then shape each log into a heart. Split tops and let rise another 1/2 hour.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

2009-01-24T08:17:00.000-08:00

Enchiladas

2009-01-01T10:02:00.000-08:00

Enchiladas are one of my favorite dishes from my childhood. They are a bit time consuming, but worth it.

Sauce
2 Tbs. butter or shortening (butter really is the most flavorful, I think)
2 Tbs. flour
prepared veggie or chicken broth
chili powder (New Mexico Style is best)

Combine butter and flour in a large sauce pan to make a roux. Slowly add broth (about 3 cups, maybe--it isn't an exact science so you'll have to just feel when it is the right consistency) and simmer. Add chili powder until you have a nice, thick sauce and the flavor suits your taste. Add a dash of cumin or cinnamon if you like. Keep sauce warm on the stove top while you prepare the tortillas.

Enchiladas
about 20 (more or less) corn tortillas
shredded cheddar cheese though I suppose Monterrey jack would be nice, too
diced onions
whole black olives

Put a ladleful of sauce in the bottom of an 8 x 13 casserole dish and set aside. Prepare the tortillas by either frying in hot oil or microwaving a small stack with a wet paper towel covering them until soft and pliable. When you have a small stack of warm tortillas ready dip one in the warm sauce and lay it on a plate. Fill with cheese, onions, and one olive (this is where you can get creative--try adding spinach, sauteed sweet potato, shredded chicken, etc.) Roll the enchiladas and lay them in the casserole pan. When the pan is full, ladle remaining sauce over the enchiladas and sprinkle with cheese.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes or until heated through and bubbly.
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I have so many memories of eating enchiladas with my family over the years, but my favorite memory is from my early twenties. It was the morning after my engagement party and my mother, my girlfriends, and I sat in lawn chairs in the back yard. We each had heaping plates of leftover enchiladas and rice from the previous night's party. We felt happy and girlish and excited as we talked about my upcoming nuptials. To this day the taste of enchiladas makes me think of being young with the future full of possibilities and the sun warm on my face.

the feel of color

2009-01-01T08:14:00.000-08:00

As I reach my hand into the bottom drawer of my desk I pull this out:

rice candy
sun room
honey bear
autumn spirit
october leaves
fall song

and this:

blue overtones
a few brave men
movie star
stonewashed
independence day
ozone

Paint chips are some of my favorite little objects in the world. I love the matte, powdery feel of the sample. Like just sanded pine. Soft and smooth, their book mark shape fits comfortably in the palm. The one (and I have many) labeled with names such as submarine, swamp fog, and fizzle has maroon crayon marks all over it. I can close my eyes and feel the transition from chalky pigment to waxy, bumpy lines. I can sit for hours running my fingers over these bits of color that please not only my eyes, but my fingers, too.

In this same drawer I have a small wallpaper sample book from 1978. Like the paint chips, the pages are not just food for the eyes. These sheets are rich with texture. The page called Williamsburg Fruit is durable and thick. They even suggest taking a hard brush to the orange and green fruits "It's Scrubbable!"

Some are so heavy and the designs raised so much that they actually feel like linoleum rather than wall paper. Maria is a favorite of mine with big pink and yellow posies that look like they are made of tissue paper on a creamy background. The texture is not of embossed flowers, though, but of raised little goose pimples all over the page. The kind you can''t help but run your fingers over again and again.

Barkley is the absolute best, though. It is a traditional decorative floral pattern that is almost Victorian in its ornate quality. With a milky background the pattern itself is a greenish gold. Every time I touch it, though, I am a little sad. It looks so much like a wallpaper that hung in our hallway when we were children. But the wallpaper of my childhood was velvety to the touch. Remember those funky types of papers? I loved, loved, loved this paper and to me it just felt rich in the way pure cream is rich. Or decadent the way strawberries are in January. Completely too much and out of place, but also very, very right. And fun. I look at Barkley and I want to feel that richness again. I want to run down the hall with my hand trailing the walls behind me.

Mexican Wedding Cakes ( AKA Russian Tea Cakes)

2008-12-19T05:17:00.000-08:00

This year I made over 300 Mexican Wedding cakes. They are really quite easy for such a tasty little cookie. This recipe omits nuts, but finely chopped pecans or walnuts are delicious additions.

I highly recommend rolling the cookies in powdered sugar twice--once right out of the oven and again after they are cooled. You can also roll the cookies in cinnamon sugar. If you chose to coat the cookies this way roll them in the cinnamon sugar before you put them in the oven and then do it again right out of the oven.

Enjoy!

food for thought

2008-12-17T08:47:00.000-08:00

Cooking soothes me.

The measuring, the stirring, the planning--they all serve to ease my mind, calm my nerves, control my breathing. So during the hustle and bustle of Christmas parties and shopping, holiday cards and stocking hanging I turn to baking and cooking to ground me when the chaos of the season threatens to overwhelm.

Unlike many people I don't see holiday food preparation as a chore. I eagerly scrawl lists and peruse cookbooks, magazines, and the internet for recipes and ideas. I spend countless hours in front of open cupboard doors just thinking, scheming, calculating. I lay in bed and literally dream of food that I plan to prepare for the ones I love.

For if the gifts are a flop or the weather is bad, if colds have invaded or unexpected news arrives everyone still has to eat. Through tears or joy we absolutely must eat, and I believe very sincerely that my job, my absolute duty is to feed you.

Over the next couple of weeks I will be posting some of my holiday recipes here. Most are cookies, but a few other goodies will also be thrown in just for fun.

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Santa Fe Trail Mix

2 cups corn chips, Frito style (you can replace this with cereal if you like)
2 cups unsalted peanuts
2 cups pretzel sticks (we use small, bite sized ABC pretzels)
1 1/2 cups crispy corn cereal squares (we also add some cheerios)
1 cup pumpkin seeds (I've uses sunflower seeds in a pinch)
1/3 cup corn oil (canola also works fine)
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon chili powder or to taste
1 teaspoon garlic salt or celery salt or to taste

Mix your dry ingredients in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl whisk together spices and wet ingredients. Pour the wet mixture over dry ingredients and stir well to coat. Pour mix into a large crockpot and cook on low for about 3 hours. Stir occasionally. Spread cooked mixture on baking sheets to cool. Store in an airtight container.

This is a big favorite in our house. You can easily substitute different cereals and nuts depending on your preferences and what you have on hand.

adapted from Robin Robertson's Fresh From The Vegetarian Slow Cooker

making a list....

2008-12-15T05:41:00.000-08:00

Every year holiday gift giving becomes a little harder. Not for my children, of course, their lists are miles long with easily obtainable toys and books and games. But the adults in our lives, myself included, are voicing that there is very little they really need or even want any more in terms of gifts. More often than not teachers are sending home letters asking parents not to buy them gifts but instead to buy a book for the class or donate money to a local charity.

These sentiments, I believe, are not scrooge-y in nature, but rather just a realization that rushing around the mall and stressing over shopping is yet one more hassle in an already hectic season of celebrating. Instead of getting Uncle John another jelly of the month subscription or grandma Betty another Christmas themed lapel pin, maybe it is time to think outside of the box, as they say. Get creative with your gifts and make your buying (or non-buying) a little more creative.

Here are a few ideas that, I hope, do not sound preachy or Oprah-esque. These are just some simple, different ways to give gifts that benefit not only the receiver but others in the community and world.

1) Regift. I'm not just talking about giving the hideous scarf you got for your birthday to someone else to save a dime. I mean really look at the things you have and think about whether or not you know someone who could use something that you no longer have a need for. Could your young cousin in college use those old but sturdy dishes gathering dust in the back of the closet? Sometimes regifting can be all about the sentiment attached to a certain item you own. The sweet lavender sachet my mother pulled from her drawer and pressed into my hand after one tearful Christmas good-bye means more to me than any other gift that she had given me that holiday.

Regifting can also help those in need in the wider community. My local MOMS® Club chapter (see link on right) recently sponsored a free toy "Giftaway". Our members and friends in the community gathered used but good conditioned toys and offered them to families in need. This event gave my children the opportunity to give to others by donating their old toys while also being an excellent example of recycling. Wouldn't you rather see that old toy farm delight another child rather than end up in a landfill?

2) Home made gifts. If you crochet, sew, sculpt, etc. this is the time to put your skills to action! It may sound cliché but I honestly believe a gift made with one's own two hands is so much more meaningful than a store bought item. Gifts made by children are great for grandparents, of course. An internet search for "homemade gifts" will lead you to various sites with craft idea, but baked goods, jams, trail mix, and the like are always favorites.

3) Charity donations. Obviously this isn't a new concept. People have been giving donations to charities during the holidays for years. But charity gift giving can seem out of reach for many of us saving money or living on a limited income. Search for charities that are appreciative of small monetary gifts. Heifer, Intl., for example, offers shares of a bee hive for only about $10. You can also shop at sites such as this Unicef site. The money for your purchase will go towards a good cause and you will have an interesting gift to give. Consider, too, exchanging charity donations instead of actual material gifts. Aunt Sue might love the idea that the local food bank was given a donation in her name more than she'll love another pair of slippers.

4) Gifts of time. Perhaps giving monetary donations of any kind to a charity is not an option. Try, instead, to donate your time. Volunteer at a soup kitchen or at the local nursing home. Spend some time helping your child's teacher out in the classroom during a special project. Shovel your neighbor's sidewalk just because. Homemade gift certificates for babysitting, housework, gardening, etc. are also popular no cost gifts that only require a bit of time on your part and the desire to help a friend or family member.

I hope that some of these ideas inspire you this gift giving season. For more wonderful ideas about charitable gift giving visit Aliki's post here.

Yes Chrissy, there is a Santa Claus

2008-12-08T04:46:00.000-08:00

Dear Chrissy,

I heard from a friend about your purse being stolen. It's terrible to think that someone would do that, especially during the holiday season. We can only pray that their need was greater than ours.

I can't replace your personal things, but I hope the enclosed will replenish your Christmas shopping money. (And maybe your faith in others) If you have a chance maybe you can do the same for someone else.

You gave me the chance to play Santa,

God bless you & Merry Christmas,

A friend,

PS I have enclosed cash, I hope it reaches you ok.

I was seventeen years old when my purse was stolen from the cafeteria at my high school. I had worked, like many teenagers, at the mall to earn money for Christmas. I scrimped and saved my paychecks and my allowance until I had the great sum of $80 set aside to buy presents for my family and a few friends. With great excitement I brought my money to school with me so that I could hit the mall after classes. But I was careless and foolishly left my purse behind after lunch. I never saw it again. I was still young enough to be stunned that someone, one of my fellow students no less, had stolen my purse just a couple of weeks before Christmas. There was no time to earn more money, and I would not be able to buy presents this year.

A few days later I received the above letter in the mail. The letter was typed with no signature or return address. Enclosed were 5, crisp, new $20 bills. My Christmas cash was more than replenished, and I would be able to buy presents after all.

To this day I have no idea who sent this special gift my way, though I do suspect it was one of the teachers from my high school.

I keep this letter, neatly folded, in my Christmas stocking, and every year I pull it out and read it again and every year I cry, just a little, to know that someone would do such a kindly thing with no need for thanks or recognition. Since my children have been born, it has become a sort of tradition to carefully unfold the letter and read it aloud to the family as we decorate for the season. I tell the children that Santa does indeed exist and this letter is proof of his gentle, giving spirit.

Yes, Chrissy, there is a Santa Claus.

ghosts

2008-11-27T15:15:00.000-08:00

this post has been removed by the author

Beet Bread

2008-11-27T15:07:00.000-08:00

Yes, I said beet bread. Hey stop gagging! Or laughing! Or running away! It's good. Really.

My kids have never been terribly picky eaters. Of course they have their quirks, but it is nothing really serious. For example, my daughter will stuff piece after piece of vegetarian sushi down her little gullet but won't even go near macaroni and cheese. And my son will eat raw carrots until he is blue (or orange) in the face but will never let another type of vegetable pass his sweet lips. All in all I don't worry much. They are thriving and healthy. Yet, I still want them to have that little extra, you know?

Since my girl was very small I have been sneaking stuff into her food to give it an extra nutritional boost. Flax seed meal is tossed into every baked item in this house. Or wheat germ. We bake with whole wheat or white whole wheat when it suits the recipe (FYI pie crust made with whole wheat flour is YUCKY.) I have been adding vegetables or tofu to her food since she first ate solids. Silken tofu blends easily into most pureed baby food. And zucchini added to brownies is down right luscious. I swear. Pureed white beans can thicken a creamed soup nicely.

A few weeks ago I made molasses drop cookies with pureed prunes. No, it wasn't gross. And I've made a heavenly chocolate cake with pureed beets. Of course carrot cake just wouldn't be carrot cake with out, well, carrots.

But my crowing achievement was my beet, applesauce, zucchini bread. Everyone in the house turned their noses up. Everyone was a little scared. But it was heaven and they quickly saw the light. Here is the recipe:

2 eggs
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup applesauce
1 cup pureed beets
2 tsp. vanilla
2 cups grated zucchini
1 1/2 cup sugar (or to your preference)

mix the above
then sift together the following in a separate bowl:

3/4 tsp salt
3 cups white whole wheat (or plain white) flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder

combine wet and dry ingredients and pour into two well greased loaf pans
bake for one hour at 350 degrees

Now don't get me wrong here...I do believe children should be offered vegetables with every meal and should be encouraged to eat them as they are. But adding a little extra something to the foods they already love never hurt!

3 handbags: a study

2008-11-27T15:05:00.000-08:00

One: Made of a smooth satin, this purse is a fuchsia and forest green with embroidered orange flowers and a delicate butterfly. It's funky and different and stands out without being garish or overly flashy.

Hipster women with stylish vintage clothing and tinkly, long earrings often stop and ask where I got it.

"Chinatown, San Francisco, $8."

It use it on nights out with my husband or the girls, or to book readings and cocktail parties.

Basically, I use it about once a month. If that.

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Two: The receipt for this olive green, canvas purse read: "hobo bag, sale, $5." It has a long shoulder strap, four big zipper pockets, and several leather buckles.

When my son was younger I kept it stocked with diapers, wipes, baby Tylenol, cheerios. It was a sort of mini diaper bag that could take a beating. I still use it now for outings to the park, the store, play dates.

A cross between frumpy and functional, it is easy to hide behind.

My mom purse.

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Three: The tag for this one says Kate Spade, but it's a fake. Tall, with short leather straps, it has pink, black, and white stripes.

This one is cute and perky and sweet, with a single little leather bow on one side.

Flirty, some might say.

But often it just feels silly, like I'm carrying a big, ridiculous, pink candy cane. Sometimes, after I fill it with my wallet, keys, sunglasses, etc., I find myself dumping everything back into the handy hobo bag.

I'm just "Mom" again.

Safe.