Shoes, Ships, and Sealing Wax

To carry on

Anyone who'd read my blog for awhile knows that when events make me think about death, I get maudlin and overwrought. I've rejected the faith in which I was raised for reasons that started out political and became more philosophical (once I started questioning, I ended up questioning it all, and none of it made sense any more), but I sure do miss that crutch when it comes to dealing with dying.

On the way home tonight, the internal jukebox played BS&T. I can swear there ain't no heaven but I pray there ain't no hell. I kinda go the other way...I don't think there is Hell. I don't think there is a need for Hell if there's a benevolent Someone. Plus, as torture goes, life here should be generally sufficient. But I'm really not sold on the idea of heaven. It just smacks of wishful thinking.

It's wishful thinking for me, because I want it all back...every friend, every relative, every goldfish. And if we can't sit around together on clouds for eternity, the next best thing would be to be constantly recycled, and still have the chance to bump into the old beloved souls. Maybe next time I'll be the goldfish, but that's cool, as long as we still have that bond...

But as the song says, only my dying will tell.

I can't remember who the person was, but as some point when I was a kid I heard about someone with ALS who was described to me as trapped in an unresponsive body. Ultimately, that is my greatest fear, worse than dying...to be completely enclosed in my own body and unable to communicate with others. Even degenerating, knowing that I was losing it slowly, would be horrible, but to hit bottom and no longer be able to express my thoughts...that, to me, is the worst torture imaginable, my Room 101.

So that's what I'm telling my health care proxy. If I'm not expressing anything, pull the plug, the tube, whatever. Watch my eyes for Morses code for a bit, give the experimental electroshock a few weeks to work, but when I'm vacant, let me go. If I am still aware at that point and I can't find a way to make you know it, I'm ready to take my chances on the other side. It won't be worse.

Just let me go naturally.

And I do want to be cremated, for the record. And I'd like my cremains (and this is so totally out of line for a serious post, but the word "cremains" makes me think of Craisins, which is sick as hell but now I'm giggling. So mention that at the funeral) mixed in with some dirt where something is growing...a tree or some daffodil bulbs. If nothing else, let the elements that were me return to the earth, and don't let embalming fluid and a steel box slow that down.

And speaking of the funeral: lots of booze and lots of music. My friend Ben has a mix tape I made in college that would probably be good. I think it even has Blood Sweat & Tears.

As rambling and pointless as a regular post, but illustrated

When I got home this afternoon I opened up the drapes on the back door to give the seedlings a little more light. I'm actually kind of excited about these guys, especially the peppers. I'd given up on them, since the tomatoes are an inch high already and the germination periods were about the same; but just yesterday I saw tiny green sprouts:

After opening the drapes, I noticed that my next door neighbors have the hookah out. Which doesn't thrill me, because this probably means a big loud party under my bedroom window tonight. And because a hookah on the deck of a suburban townhouse still strikes me as incongruous, I stuck my head out of the bedroom window and took a picture of it:

Now with Jefferson Airplane going through my head (And if you go chasing rabbits / And you know you're going to fall / Tell 'em a hookah smoking caterpillar / Has given you the call / To call Alice / When she was just small) and the camera in my hand, I remembered that RP had wished for a picture of the asparagus pie. Well, it isn't as nice looking after 24 hours in the refrigerator, but I do still have a leftover piece (leftover leftovers, that doesn't sound good at all.):

Then the dog alerted me to the fact that Victor was home...the sound of his car wakes her up and she gets very excited:

When I get home, she doesn't even bother coming downstairs. I think it might have something to do with Victor's arrival signaling dinner time.
And while the dog ate, I decided to take a few "before" pictures of the ugly kitchen:

And the ugly floor. Honestly, I can scrub this tile for an hour with solvents I steal from the lab, and it won't look clean. But I did realize, after the corner of this tile broke and I saw what was underneath, that it could be worse. The picture doesn't do it justice; it's much more orange in real life.

I took photojournalism in college. I did not get a very good grade on my photo essay project.

Leftovers

At work I manage a database...2500 records, I'm not sure how many fields per record, but since each record's report prints out 5 pages, let's call it a boatload. After being out sick for a week I'm behind in verifying the data people have entered, and since I dump the data for paying customers at the end of each quarter (like on Thursday), last Friday I told the staff not to add or edit any records for the rest of the quarter so I could catch up.

Today I noticed that there was a record edited on March 28. I took it to the guy who entered it, and asked what was going on. First he said he hadn't entered anything, because "You said not to." Obviously I did effectively communicate that. So I pulled up the record and showed him the date and his initials (which are typed in, not automatically logged.) Again he said no, he was sure he hadn't entered anything. So I pulled the paper file and lo and behold: the written record of his edits in his handwriting. His explaination: "I must have done it unconsciously."

As a supervisor and as a database manager, this fills me with dread...

And it put me in the mood for comfort food. Usually for me that's a trip to a local restaurant: the Salvadoran place up the street, or the hamburger place, or Italian...someplace with red wine. (I am comforted by polyphenols; what can I say?) But I am mindful of the fact that when the kitchen is torn up I'll be eating out a lot, so I really ought not overdo it now.

So for dinner we had the Easter leftovers, in pie form. Not quiche...pie crust requires a measure of baking talent, and custards are delicate, or so I remember reading in some highbrow cookbook. Nope, I went the Betty Crocker route, which seems more appropriate for using leftover Crock Pot ham cooked in soda.

The "Impossibly Easy" whatever-pie mix is 1/2 a cup of Bisquick, 2/3 cup of milk, and two eggs. Grease a pie plate, put in your leftovers (tonight: diced ham, aspagagus, and shredded swiss cheese), pour the Bisquick/milk/egg over the solids, and bake for 30 minutes at 400 degrees. And as comfort food goes, this is not bad, especially paired with the leftover pinot noir.

(Oh, and the ham: The universal reaction seems to be skepticism. Honestly, this is what I did: I put a 3 pound ham in the Crock Pot and poured 16 ounces of soda over it, then cooked it on low for about six hours. I've found if an old southern lady tells you how to cook something, you really can't go wrong following her directions. [Well, I did use Coke instead of Pepsi...don't tell her.])

And Elizabeth was pondering why she blogs today. (This is actually all one train of thought, I swear.) I was pondering her pondering, and I had a little flashback to when I was a kid. My mother, and most of the other women in the neighborhood, were stay-at-home moms, as was typical of 1972. In the afternoons we'd go to the park, and while children played, the mothers would sit on benches and talk. I don't know all of what they discussed as I was zooming around on my Big Wheel and playing "What Time is it, Mr. Fox," but I'm guessing it was about their families and stuff that pissed them off and current events and plans for their futures and gossip and what they were making for dinner.

In short, they discussed the stuff we blog about. This is an electronic park bench and we are virtual neighbors.

(Or maybe I'm the virtual wino on the electronic park bench shaking my fist at the sky and mumbling to myself. I won't rule that out either.)

Last minute Easter dinner

I knew when I started seriously considering a kitchen renovation that I'd have some time with an inaccessible kitchen. I wasn't particularly worried. We have restaurants. Restaurants have coupons. It will only be a few days.

I talked to a kitchen planner on Friday, and he pointed out something that I hadn't considered...to make a Corian counter, you need to have the cabinets in place for the template, then you need to wait for the actual fabrication. So my time without counter, and sink, and dishwasher, will be more accurately measured in weeks, not days.

As it happens, my mom is re-doing her kitchen right now, though on a smaller scale and doing much more of the work herself. She mentioned to me Friday night that because she's packed up all her cooking stuff, she wasn't making Easter dinner.

Last week I was still in the recovery stage of that stomach flu, and I was following the doctor-recommended "low residue" diet. "Low residue" means "nothing I normally eat." Instead of whole grains, I was allowed white bread, pasta, and rice. Instead of fresh vegetables and salad I could eat soft canned vegetables and fruit cocktail. Thursday I looked at my plate...meatballs in gravy over egg noodles with canned peas and canned carrots...and said "Dinner, circa 1955." I was dying for real food.

Saturday night I declared myself healed and decided I could make Easter dinner, so I invited my parents and then went shopping. I had not thought this through. Easter is...whatever the grocery stores have displayed in abundance. I grabbed a ham, and recalled Victor's grandmother telling me years ago that the easiest way to cook a ham is to put it in a Crock Pot and pour a Pepsi over it. I added asparagus and carrots (fresh!) and cauliflower with cheese sauce (frozen, because I could only steam two vegetables at a time anyway.)

I love to dye eggs. When we were kids, we used to dye three or four dozen, then we'd dye napkins and whatever else we could get our hands on before mom threw the dye away. We made our dye with food coloring, not those crappy little dried pellets, and one of the color suggestions on the box of food coloring was "toast." I loved that color, although really it just looked like brown eggs. That in mind, and because I was getting a late start, I got some brown eggs and hard boiled them. A few cracked, so I made them them into deviled eggs.

My dad's still supposed to watch his sugar intake (pre-diabetic), so I got a box of Splenda brownie mix and made it with a can of black beans. (It sounds revolting, but it makes remarkably good brownies. Puree the beans in a blender, blend in the mix, pur it in a pan, and bake.)

My mom brought That Fruit Salad with Those Little Marshmallows and pinot noir. We also had a box of Peeps that somehow never got opened. Dinner, last-minute though it was, was a complete success, and I was able to get my parents to invite us over for dinner with them when I lose my kitchen sink.

Jim and the Giant Peep

****

I have PINs for each of my three bank accounts. I have a code to get my voicemail at work, and another code to place calls. I have a phone code for my cell phone. I have a number to get into the locker room at my volunteer job and one to get to the rest room at the office. I have a combination bike lock. Every time I get a new code, I think: this is too many. Someday these numbers are going to be gone from my memory. I'm overloaded.

Well, today was that day. I pulled up to the ATM, put in my card, and as soon as I poised my index finger over the keypad, I said "Shit."

I blanked. No clue what my number is. If you'd had a gun to my head, I wouldn't have been able to come up with any of the codes.

Luckily the bank was still open, so I went in. The teller said "No problem...what is your account number?"

Hahahahahahahahahahaha.

Yeah. Well.

She looked it up by my name.

Good Friday

On my way home from work I pass a church (Methodist, I think) with a large wooden cross out front. On Good Friday the cross is draped in black, or it has been every year for the previous twelve I've worked where I work. This year it wasn't draped. I felt cheated out of a ritual.

My other Good Friday ritual is to read the gospels for the week, the story from the Last Supper to the crucifixion. Even when I was a kid, before I really thought about what or whether I believed, the readings from Palm Sunday through Good Friday were what got me. Easter...eh. I never was moved. But betrayal and murder...that spoke to me, and not in a sensational way. I always knew I could be Peter just before the cock crowed, and I was uneasy about the thought that I could probably be Judas. And even if I haven't shouted for Barabbas, I've stood at the edge of the mob without doing a damn thing.

Come to think of it, I will take the veggie chili

Fingertip Found in Wendy's Chili

A woman said she bit into a partial finger served in a bowl of chili at a Wendy's restaurant, leading authorities to a fingerprint database Thursday to determine who lost the digit.

See, this is why it pays to play with your food. Push it around with the fork, take a good look before you scoop up a big mouthful. Just in case.

I was actually fine reading this until I got here:

Health officials said the fingertip was approximately 1 1/2 inches long. They believe it belongs to a woman because of the long, manicured nail.

Lord, won't you buy me...

Hearing a luxury car commercial on the radio on the way home tonight, I realized...luxury car commercials completely turn me off of luxury cars. I don't care if I win twenty lotteries, I will never drive a Lexus or a Mercedes or a Jag-u-ar.

(For the record, I roll in a 2000 Ford Focus station wagon. Yeah, baby...I have hand-crank windows and an FM radio. High style, that's me. Though I do have a dream car. And I love these tail lights...)

My Peeps

Tag, I'm it.

Ted has passed a meme my way, which I appreciate, because I am a little short on ideas myself today. It's a book one:

You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?
I had to think about this for a bit. I assume it means which book would I want to memorize for posterity, not which book I'd burn? The Great Gatsby.

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

I can't say that I have. I'm trying to think of who might have even had crush potential...maybe Meyer, Travis McGee's economist buddy from the John D. MacDonald books. Or Phillip Marlowe. Oh, I know: Nick Charles! But I'd hate to steal him from Nora.

The last book you bought is:

According to my Amazon records, there were three in my last order:

Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker: 200 Recipes for Healthy and Hearty One-Pot Meals That Are Ready When You Are By Robin Robertson (Only tried one so far, but it was gooood.)

Inside the FDA: The Business and Politics Behind the Drugs We Take and the Food We Eat by Fran Hawthorne (I was a bit apprehensive about this, expecting it to be kinda muckraking, but it was actually pretty even-handed. I recommend it.)

The Boys of Winter : The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team by Wayne Coffey (Yeah, yeah, I'm stuck in the past. And it wasn't really the untold story. But it was a great book to use up a few bed-ridden hours last week.)

The last book you read:

Watership Down by Richard Adams. (It was a re-read, but the last time was a good twenty years ago. And I like kids' animal allegories.)

What are you currently reading?

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. I didn't get it finished during my sick week. I may never finish it.

Five books you would take to a deserted island.

This is tough. My five favorite books? I'm not even sure what they are. Keeping in mind the cartoon I linked to the other day, I'm inclined to go for practical, like a field survival guide or something. Or maybe I should just take Les Miserables and finally get it done.

Ok, my five:

The Bible. This is probably a funny choice considering that I've pretty much rejected the idea of being Christian, but the Bible has a lot going for it...lots of characters, lots of stories, some poetry. And in case I'm wrong on the whole religion thing, perhaps the Big Guy would look kindly on me because of it.

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. Another classic I have never read, and it seems situationally appropriate. I like to read books that match the terrain: when I lived down south I started reading Faulkner. I took Studs Terkel on trips to Chicago.

The Norton Anthology of English Literature. I'm going for volume.

If I had to pick one favorite, it would be The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck. (And it's time for my annual re-reading of that, too.)

And um...um...ok, I'll just pick the last one quick: Catch 22 by Joseph Heller.

I'd also want paper and a pen so I could write my own book.

Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why?

Victor and Mama Karen, because I know them in real life and sometimes they do things I ask them to do. And...I don't know a third. I'll thow it out to anyone reading this, like a GMail invitation. Wanna pick up the meme? It's yours!

--

I wrote this in 10th grade:

There are no strict constructionalists in ideological foxholes.

March is Nutrition Month

Of course the month is three-quarters over and I'm just now getting around to noting it, but the American Dietetic Association has designated this National Nutrition Month.

There are a million more authoritative places to get nutrition information, so instead of information, here is a cartoon that made me laugh out loud.

You can guess which kid I am, I'm sure.

Day and nightshade

Deadly nightshade. Atropa belladonna, from the Greek fate Atropos, who cut the thread of life, and the Italian for "beautiful woman." Mark Anthony's troops during the Parthian wars

chanced upon an herb that was mortal, first taking away all sense an understanding. He that had eaten of it remembered nothing in the world, and employed himself only in moving great stones from one place to another, which he did with as much earnestness and industry as if it had been a business of the greatest consequence. Through all the camp there was nothing to be seen but men grubbing upon the ground at stones, which they carried from place to place. But in the end they threw up bile and died, as wine, moreover, which was the one antidote, failed.

The effects come from the alkaloid constituents of the berries, plant, and roots: atropine, hyoscyamine, and scopolamine. They are highly toxic chemicals.

They are also highly useful medicines if, say, you are exposed to nerve gas. Or if you have the flu for a week.

Last night I was able to eat (and retain) half a tuna fish sandwich and some soup, and who knows: maybe today I'll build a rock garden.

Life and death

I've been totally self-absorbed this week (as opposed to those weeks where I'm only moderately self-absorbed, or perhaps the rare day when it's down to maybe 25% self-absorption), but I just noticed skimming headlines that there's yet another reversal in the Terri Schiavo case.

This has been like a ping-pong match, and in no way do I mean to take away from the gravity of it by saying that. The whole thing is so horrible, I struggle looking for something good. (The one thing I can find, maybe, is that people will realize the importance of writing down their wishes and appointing someone they trust as a proxy for medical decisions. This shouldn't happen to another family ever again. I found forms for medical directives for Maryland online; I'm sure other states have them as well.)

I have a thought, a question, that may seem irreverent, but it isn't. I honestly don't understand this from a religious/faith persepective. Why is it so bad if Terri Schiavo dies?

I really thought the whole point of Christianity is that the good part is what comes after we escape this mortal world. I understand not killing...I'm not saying sending somebody home to Jesus justifies taking his life...but if the circumstances leave you unable to survive without extraordinary measures, wouldn't it make sense that Heaven might be the more desirable alternative?

I can understand that a family's grief and desperate hope of a miraculous recovery might make them say no. I wonder about the motives of some of the others, though.

It's my blog and I'll cry if I want to

I get really testy when my blood sugar gets low, and despite the fact that I've sipped 14 glasses of Kool-Aid through the day, I strongly suspect my blood sugar is in the negative right now, seeing as the last food I was able to hang onto long enough to metabolize was lunch on Sunday. So in addition to feeling lousy, I'm testy.

On Monday Victor called my doctor to see if I could take Benadryl (in addition to it being an antihistamine, it is an antiemetic.) They said no. They said to drink clear liquid and eat soft bland foods, and if I wasn't better in three days to call back.

So today I called back.

Oh, first I waited until the 90-minute lunch hour was over, then I called.

I got put on hold. I got disconnected.

I called back.

I got put on hold. I got transferred.

Somebody took a message and said that a nurse would call me back "in a little while."

Two hours later, I called back.

I got put on hold. I got transferred. I got put on hold. Then somebody came back and said "The nurse has your message from before and will be calling you back."

I said "Great. When?"

I could hear the annoyed sigh...imagine that puff of air emitted by a teenage girl as she rolls her eyes, just before she tells you that you are clearly the most ignorant moron on the planet...and she said "When they are finished seeing the patients." Duh.

This freaking practice employees seven doctors, three PAs, and I don't know how many nurses (a heckuva lot of women in scrub suits, from what I have seen). They have three exam rooms. Seems like they could have one medical professional available to take phone calls during the day, especially if they are going to recommend that one call them. Which is what they said Monday: call if you aren't better in three days. Not "Make an appointment," but "Call."

So I said "Listen, you snotty little bitch, I happen to be a patient too, I just happen to be a patient too sick to grace your waiting room. But if that's what it takes for me to get 60 seconds of medical advice, I will find a way to haul my diseased ass down there, and you will see that I am sick, and I hope you are the one who has to scrub the carpet."

Ok, maybe I didn't say that. But man, I wanted to.

Relapse

I guess the chicken noodle soup last night was just too much too soon.

I was up at 4 am, and I'll spare the nasty details. Suffice to say I did not get to the office. We got a two-day extension on the PFH deadline, and by e-mail and phone I've been more or less handling things, or mostly, deferring them. I'm getting some reading done, because as long as I sit still and just drink Kool-Aid, I just feel really weak and unsettled, as opposed to when I go wild and try to eat a piece of toast, when I...well, I'll spare the nasty details.

Luckily I have about forty packets of black cherry Kool-Aid here, although I might run out of sugar. And I can feel my teeth rotting.

I can't remember the last time I've been this sick for this long. I was out a week when I had knee surgery a few years ago, but other than that, I'm thinking it was when I had the chicken pox when I was 7. I don't know how to be sick for this long.

My dog does not bark

She doesn't...and she's a beagle. Well, actually, once in awhile...if she really, really, really wants a walk or a cookie and you look at her and don't respond, she'll bark. Once. But as a watchdog, she would be utterly useless.

I came home early today, because my dehydrated self was not up to eight full hours of "oh, and while you were gone..." crap. I had some plain grilled chicken and went to bed. When Victor got home, he called in the front door "Nic, what time did you get home from work?"

I went to the top of the stairs, and could see somebody else's feet on the front walk. "Why?" I asked. I was filled with dread...was I so out of it driving home that I hit somebody?

Turns out it was indeed a police officer outside, but he was investigating a burglary in the house directly behind ours. I was of absolutely no help, but of course it led to the dinnertime conversation...so, should we get a security system?

We first talked about it when Liz had her Super Bowl evening adventure. The neighborhood police blotter has been getting longer lately, but...but.

I don't want somebody taking my stuff, but it's just stuff.

But what if I get home from work early one afternoon and walk in on somebody taking my stuff?

I dunno. It isn't like I grew up in a small town where we never locked our doors (though we were very lax about locking them, a habit Victor has finally cured me of), and it isn't like this neighborhood is crime alley. And the next door neighbor has a dog that barks.

I dunno. It's hardly a life-changing, monumental decision (like getting XM radio...I go back and forth on that one way more), but I still don't like even considering it.

A very quick rant

Isn't anybody bothered by the idea that giving 200 people prophylactic ciprofloxacin for four days because they might have been exposed to anthrax is only going to increase antibiotic resistance?

Applesauce

I had a very good day: I successfully ate applesauce.

So yesterday morning, during that long stretch between 2 and 10 am, when there was no sleep at all, not even fitfull sleep, I had Ode to Billy Joe going through my head. You know what has always bugged me about this song? The line And Mama said to me "Child, what's happened to your appetite? I've been cookin' all morning and you haven't touched a single bite."

Her friend has just committed suicide and you morons are prattling on like you are discussing the weather. I might not want the black-eyed peas either. Sheesh.

I tried to get Ode to Billy Joe out of my head by thinking of another song, any song, but my internal jukebox was jammed. The best I could do was another southern ballad, The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia, probably because it bugs me in a similar way.

You see, Andy didn't have many friends, and he just lost him one.

Might Andy's inability to make and keep friends have anything to do with his sleeping with their wives and then gossiping about it at the local bar? And I won't even get started on the lack of ballistics testing and why Little Sister never came forward...my assumption has always been she had a thing for Andy and was pissed at her brother for not keeping his wayward wife in line, so she let him hang. I do wonder, though, if her gun was the only thing Papa had left her, or if maybe she inherited her piece from Mama. It just seems like they were that kind of family.

Sometime midafternoon I did actually sleep, and I was most relieved, and felt on the road to recovery, when I awoke and realized the song going through my head was Stevie Wonder's A Place in the Sun.

Monday, Monday

What's worse than going to the office on Monday to work on the Project from Hell?

Not going to the office on Monday to work on the Project from Hell.

I have "the virus that's going around." It got here at 2 am yesterday, and for 28 hours I left the bed only to crawl across the hall to the bathroom and back. Every time I moved my head even a micron, my brain did a barrel roll in one direction and my stomach in another. Victor stayed home and took care of me, bless him, because I am a giant baby when I'm sick.

I feel 100% better today than yesterday, but that's still 200% worse than normal. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'd rather be at work.

Hazy shade of winter

We lost a rat yesterday, our old man Calle. He was just a week shy of thirty months old, quite elderly for a rat, and he seems to have died in his sleep. Friday night we actually gave them all special treats for Leather's "birthday;" it is easy to say, you know, when I'm old and feeble, if I can go to a party with my family then die quietly in my sleep the next day, that wouldn't be a bad way to go.

But I can't say that; I'm too messed up and maudlin. The usual post-death senseless ramblings are in the extended entry so that nobody has to see them if they don't want to.

If you are in a frame of mind to look for signs of death, there are plenty along a country road. Dried brown leaves, fallen trees, the bloodied carcass of a deer that didn’t make it to the other side. The gray and crooked headstones in the church yard. The fading spray paint and strip of caution tape left over from the accident investigation, and the white and upright cross of the roadside memorial.

As you might expect, considering my dysfunctional disposition on death, I’m mildly obsessed with roadside memorials, even the ones I pass every day. There are two on the way to work, on the same road. The newer of the two is from last summer, when a young man, speeding, lost control of his car, crossed the grass median and hit a van. I believe the driver was the only fatality, though there were serious injuries among the passengers in the van. The morning after, a Sunday, I passed by on my way to the bank. First I saw the spray paint. Then I saw a small cluster of people with candles on the grass next to the shoulder. Coming home from the bank, the people were gone but there was a wooden cross and flowers. Over the next few weeks the simple white cross was replaced with a larger stained wood cross that seems to be inscribed…it has the look of a careful basement shop project, and I’ve not stopped to read what it says. The flowers are changed seasonally, and in December there was a nativity scene. Someone puts a lot of effort in to keeping the memorial. Every day I pass it and notice, sometimes just for a moment, sometimes it occupies my mind all the way to the office. I have a million questions…who keeps it up? Does it help their grieving process, or is it holding back the healing? Do they live here and see it several times a day, or do they have to make a special trip? How do the people who love in the neighborhood feel? Do the accident victims still pass the site?

Further up the road, if you know where to look and look carefully, you’ll see what is left of flowers and stuffed animals and signs attached to a tree trunk with duct tape. A few years ago some high school boys were drag racing on this road one afternoon, and the tributes were left by friends of one of the drivers who died. I imagine the mourners there as teenagers who are now nearly through college, people who have moved on and wouldn’t think to clear away the weeds and vines that have almost obscured the site.

Back on the country road, I’m not looking for signs of life. The sky is a hazy shade of winter, to borrow a line from one of my favorite songs. But here and there I do see clusters of spring bulbs pushing up, not pale and tentative whisps of growth, but dark green, substantial leaves. In my present frame of mind they look like fingers clawing out from a grave, and I wonder if that’s not an apt analogy…last year’s daffodils have died, decayed, returned to the dirt and dust of the earth.

It isn’t apt if I think of death as nothing, the cessation of life, of change, of movement. The bulbs weren’t dead, through the winter they soaked up the minerals from the decayed foliage, and probably the decayed deer as well. The decay itself still moved, the breakdown of chemicals, the return of the elements. In this sense, reincarnation suddenly seems obvious to me, at least the reincarnation of carbon and hydrogen and nitrogen. I’m less secure in the idea that there is a soul to recycle, that somehow the fundamental individual is more than chemicals and won’t break down and scatter. And that’s what pains me, that I won’t ever meet again the childhood friend who died at 17 or my grandparents or my dog, and that all it would take for there to be no me tomorrow is for me to inadvertently pull out in front of the path of a drag racing teenager on the way to the bank this morning.

The perennials are a comfort up to a point. The daffodils return every year; they aren’t the same flowers I saw last spring but they came from the same source, they continue. I suppose it is the height of arrogance to think that I matter so much in the universe that I should continue beyond my allotted time, but I want my friend and my grandparents and my dog to be here…there…somewhere. Is that somewhere only in the minds of the living?

Ahhh, seasons change with the scenery
Weaving time in a tapestry
Won’t you stop and remember me
At any convenient time

The kitchen of my dreams

That I even have a dream kitchen still surprises me...I grew up figuring I'd be the type of person who kept only beer and leftover take-out in the refrigerator and used the oven as storage. But somewhere along the line I fell hard for Corian, to the point where I'd go fondle the samples in the kitchen section every time I had to go to Home Depot.

This morning I filed my taxes and was approved for a home equity loan (that's one thing I can say for this insane market...I got equity) so I went to pick out my dream elements.

Cabinets...plain white:

Counter...blue with flecks:

Floor...bluish-tanish-grayish:

I still haven't signed or ordered anything, so this is still largely theoretical. And oddly, re-doing the kitchen seems like a bigger plunge than buying the house was. But I'm taken aback by how much I really want this.

When I got home from the hardware store I planted my tomato and pepper seeds in the little peat moss cups, visions of making fresh salsa in my beautiful kitchen dancing in my head.

I can dream.

From one loss to another

smacked Portland last night.

Listen to a basketball game at the office? Me?

I wonder if anyone would be suspicious if I have a two-hour "conference call."

Home improvement

I hate my house.

I think I've mentioned that before. And having said it again, I do admit that I appreciate my house, and the fact that I even have a house...too many people even here in my community don't have that luxury.

But the fact remains, I hate my house.

I hate the black peg-board basement with the broken cold water faucet on the washtub. I hate the windows that don't shut completely and I hate the $180 electric bills.

I hate the flocked wallpaper and the gold-flecked sink in the bathroom.

I especially hate the dark walnut cabinets and the drawers that stick in the kitchen, along with the brown burlap-print laminate counter and the blue country-cute stick-on floor tiles that have gapped. God, I hate it.

It's funny, when I talk about how much I hate my kitchen and how my kitchen hatred leads me to hate being in the kitchen, whether cooking or cleaning, women nod in understanding, and men look at me funny. Are men unaffected by surroundings?

Anyway.

You may be thinking now, all those things are cosmetic, why don't you just fix them?

I've been pondering the fixes for years. And pondering the cost of the fixes. (And spending the money on more substantial fixes: new roof, new heat pump, plumbing, major appliances.) And during a recent conversation with my mom about how I could refinish the cabinets, I had an epiphany.

I hate home improvement, too.

Painting, caulking, tiling...I hate it. I suck at it, too. I'm a slob. I'm impatient. I hate how, when painting, I have to get down and move the ladder, so one time, cutting in between the wall and my parents' cathedral ceiling, I leaned over too far and fell off the ladder. The ladder landed on my sister. I landed on my ass. The paint can made a graceful arc across the room, spreading a swatch of paint across the living room window. Mom ran to the window with rags to clean the glass before the paint dried, them took us to the emergency room. This may or may not have anything to do with my hatred.

When I do complete a project, I feel no sense of satisfaction. Every time I sit in my living room my eye is drawn to the spot where I got pink paint on the white ceiling. I hate myself for doing a crappy job and I hate the wall for...being. In the dining room I know where the wallpaper stretched funny and the pattern doesn't quite match and of course I hate it too.

Every time I mention the idea of hiring someone, my mother says "Oh, but you could do that." And my parents always did, and do, their own home projects. As did my grandparents. I'm pretty sure my grandfather is spinning in his grave at the notion that I would hire someone to replace the washtub faucet, much less paint.

People who like, or don't mind, working on their houses don't get it. People have been telling me that painting if fun, or that plumbing isn't that hard. I don't care. I hate it.

Some people like hockey. Some people like to knit. Some people like home improvement, and I ain't one of them.

(I'm going to try to learn to like writing checks.)

Then again, maybe not

Sometimes on the way to work I'll notice that the person in the next car is talking to himself. It's not singing along with the radio...you can tell singing from talking.

It finally hit me that people weren't talking to themselves, they were using hands-free headsets for their cell phones. Though it did seem a little odd that so many people had somebody else to talk to in the pre-dawn hour during which I drive...but less odd than the talking to themselves idea.

Then again, maybe the commuters I see are like Ted.

Wanna go out to dinner?

Thursday night, D.C. and the 'burbs:

Dining out for Life, to benefit Food & Friends.

Triumph of hope over experience

Yeah, I'm gonna try it again:

A garden.

Except this year, instead of blowing a bunch of money on plants, I'm getting an earlier start and blowing a bunch of money on seeds and little peat moss cups.

I'm sure I'll regret it, but the lure of fresh tomatoes is too much to resist.

Reliving my youth

Last weekend we went to see a friend's daughter's school play: Les Misérables. Apparently the kids just loooove this show. I read it in high school (or rather, parts of it...it's the only book I was ever assigned where I skipped huge chunks and relied on the Cliff's Notes to keep up) and hated it.

Now, I'm not a big fan of musicals, especially musicals that are supposed to be serious. When I told my sister...ex-high school/community theater person...that I...high school disdainer of all things theatric...was going to see Les Misérables, she just laughed. And laughed. And laughed.

(Actually, the kids did a very good job with the production, and I enjoyed it...because I'm close to twenty years removed from high school. Watching the stage crew kids and the drama kids and the friends-in-the-audience kids brought back such memories. I had some friends in the drama club and the band, so I and a couple of other friend-in-the-audience kids used to crash the cast parties. Inevitably there would be some romantic betrayal, shouted accusations and proclaimations, alliances, clusters of sobbing girls, clusters of boys trying to keep another boy from punching through somebody's parents' rec room wall...and we gate crashers would sit on the sofa drinking their beer saying "These drama kids are so...dramatic." [When I was in high school, the drinking age in DC had just been raised from 18 to 21, but 18-year-olds were grandfathered in. One of the older kids in the class would just go down Connecticut Ave. to a liquor store over the line to buy beer and wine coolers for parties. Times were, as they say, different then. For one thing, it was cool to drink wine coolers.])

Anyway, watching Les Misérables made me realize...I got nothing out of that book. It is known to be one of the great works of western literature, and I could only remember the mere outline of plot. I had no recollection of theme and no impression of emotion. There were other books I read in school that I didn't love...A Death in the Family by James Agee comes to mind...that I re-read later and appreciated a great deal more. It actually took three classes where I had to read The Great Gatsby before I got it.

So I picked up a copy of Les Misérables.

I'm on page 139.

I'm thinking of ordering the Cliff's Notes.

TGIF

On the way to work today I had a burning compulsion to pull into the diner and spend the day there, drinking coffee and reading the paper, instead of going to the office. I should listen to my burning compulsions...at the office I ended up with a three week project due in two weeks. And I got this assignment during a lunchtime meeting, which impaired my reading of the Carnival of the Recipes #29.

So I've not followed all the links yet, but you know I just couldn't pass by lazy pierogi! I mean, what are the chances, lazy pierogi the same week I made lazy golabki? Soulmates, as Be points out. Wow.

Whose grandma, is the question...

There is a recipe in here for Mogen David pork chops. Somehow that doesn't seem...kosher.

The casserole princess rides again

Tonight's casserole is a take on one of my favorite appetizers, spinach-artichoke dip.

I guess I could just eat a boatload of spinach-artichoke dip for dinner, but somehow a casserole seems more respectable. (A bit dowdy, perhaps, but respectable.)

2 cups of pasta (I like a short, twisty kind), cooked and drained
1 onion and 1 clove of garlic, chopped and sauted
10 ounces (1 box) of frozen spinach, thawed and drained
14 ounces (1 can) of artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
10 ounces (1 tub) of Alfredo sauce (the refrigerated kind)
White cheese...Mozzarella , Parmesan, Reggiano, Monterey Jack...you get the idea

The easiest way to mix this is to toss the pasta through the sauce in a big bowl, put on gloves, and mix it up with your hands. Then layer the mixture in a baking or casserole dish with the cheeses of your choice, ending with a layer of cheese.

Bake until hot. Casserole recipes almost always say 350 degrees for 45 minutes, but since I usually make the actual casseroles a few days ahead refrigerate them, it's usually more like 375 for an hour.

Headline of the day

The story itself is no big deal, but the headline cracked me up:

Nude Man Covered in Nachos Gets Probation

Casserole Princess

My mom and my uncles used to call my grandmother "the casserole queen." I don't think they meant it entirely as a compliment. I, however, think casseroles are nearly the perfect food (the sandwich, of course, being the perfect food)...all your food groups...or what we used to consider the food groups...in one dish, and one you can make ahead and bake later.

I try to make one or two every weekend, because it makes work night dinners so much easier. I am nothing if not lazy.

And speaking of lazy...I really like golabki (Polish stuffed cabbage), but stuffing cabbage leaves is a pain. At least I think it's a pain; the hot cabbage leaves burn. You can probably guess where I'm going with this:

Golabki casserole (unstuffed cabbage...meat or vegetarian)

About 3/4 pound of ground beef or mushrooms (cremini, which I think are the same as "baby" portobellos)
Olive oil
One onion, chopped
One clove of garlic, minced
1 cup of cooked rice (I prefer brown rice)
1 can of condensed tomato soup
~1 teaspoon each of oregano and basil
~1/2 teaspoon thyme
Salt and pepper
Shredded cabbage (I use a bag of cole slaw mix...you need a bit less than a pound)

Brown and drain the ground beef, or, if you're doing the vegetarian version, chop up the mushrooms.

Saute the onion and garlic in olive oil until soft, then add the meat or mushrooms. (If you happen to have a nearly empty bottle of red wine sitting next to the stove, throw in a splash.) Cook until the mushrooms have softened. Mix in rice, seasonings, and soup.

Let that simmer while you spray a casserole or baking dish with cooking spray (makes cleanup easier), then put the cabbage in the dish. In a 9 x 9 baking dish, I fill it about 3/4 with cabbage. Pour the meat/mushroon/rice/soup mix on top, cover, and bake at 400 degrees for about 45 minutes.

Serve with pierogis.