THE City

To eclipse all other cities. U2 has a great song about the city on their All That You Can't Leave Behind album that I like to listen to on the train from the airport to my sister's place.

But you've got an unquenchable thirst for New York

New York, New York
New York, New York

In the stillness of the evening
When the sun has had its day
I heard your voice a-whispering
Come away now

New, New York
New, New York

Granted, I haven't seen all of the cities that the world has to offer, but NYC is THE city if you ask me, one of those places that I feel like I've come "home" when I get there. It is magical. Really, simply, magic.

I was in New York over the New Year holiday, with my two sisters for a few days. We had a great time. Mere words really aren't adequate for what I felt when the two of them called me and told me that they'd purchased a plane ticket for me for my birthday - stunned, and shocked, those both fit in there somewhere. Happy, excited.

The trip started out with me leaving my home at 3 AM. Yes, 3 AM. {shudder} That's an hour I don't really want to see, no matter if it is when I'm getting up or when I'm going to sleep. I didn't get more than about 5 miles from my house when my Blackberry rang with an automated call from the airline informing me that my flight had been cancelled and that they'd automatically booked me on another flight later in the day. The arrangements they made on my behalf were not satisfactory, and that's not just me being bitchy. The original plan was a direct flight from Pittsburgh, PA, to JFK airport in New York. Straight, uneventful, something I've done many times. The new arrangements had me flying from Pittsburgh to Cincinnati, Ohio, and from Cincinnati to New York, landing in NYC at 4PM instead of the 8AM originally planned. A near 300 mile westward detour to go to the east coast. alksdfjl;akfhakjlhg. WHAT? Who thought that was a good idea, really?

At 3 AM, there aren't too many customer service agents available at the world's largest airline. The first one I got when I called to protest this ridiculous re-arrangement was not helpful, or nice. I ended up telling her I'd have to call back when I was less upset, because she kept telling me that there was NOTHING that could be done, my only option, the ONLY option available was to do this 300 mile, 8 hour detour. C'mon. You're the largest airline in the world. That can't be the only option. (You'll note I'm not using the name of the airline here, but I suppose you could figure it out.)

I had stopped my car to talk to them on the telephone. I decided that the smart thing to do was to go to the airport and argue my point with someone face to face rather than on a phone while I was driving. So I did. The ticket agents were far nicer than the phone people, and they solved my problem in a matter of seconds, getting me on a direct flight that arrived in the city only a few hours later than originally scheduled. Deeeeeep breath....

The funny thing about my observation that the city is magic is that the realization of that usually comes back to me when I am in a subway station. Not the most beautiful places in the world, New York subway stations. Interesting places, yes. Beautiful, no. Not usually. But many of them have been around for a long, long time. Some of them have white tiled walls. White tile; laid by hand once upon a time. The original tunnels were dug by hand. Someone, somewhere, planned the routes and conceived the idea for this system, which has grown beyond that concept's wildest dreams. Someone now, today, right this minute is managing the routes the trains take; there are many routes that use the same rails as another route, and do you hear about subway trains crashing in New York City? No, you do not. Because it doesn't happen. Someone else plans the routes the buses take, plans for re-routing the trains when there is construction or a bottleneck. Sure, all of that is math, and some big, BIG brains. But it is also magic.

I've never heard the noise that the trains make anywhere else in the world. I've been on trains; Amtrack here in the states and SJ all over Sweden, even once in France. I've been in subway systems; Washington DC, Stockholm, London, Paris, Budapest, even in Pittsburgh, PA. None of them sound like the MTA. (Metro Transit Authority, the "real" name of the system. Don't believe me? Their website is www.mta.info.) That ka-thunk, ka-thunk sound that the trains make when you're riding in one, the screeeeeeching slowdown and halt at the station or mid-line to let an express train thunder by, the muffled and mostly incomprehensible announcements at each station that end with "Stand clear of the closing doors!", the peculiar smell underground, the relief from the wind in the winter and refreshing cool in the summer when you step on to an air-conditioned train...magic.

What did we do, where did we go? I think for once I'll be circumspect and keep my private life, well, private. I treasured spending the time with my sisters. "Sad" doesn't really describe the feeling when I have to leave them behind. I'm jealous, a very ugly jealous, of the time that the two of them spend together, and again, I'm not getting into detail here, but they get to spend more time with each other than I ever get to spend with each of them, and I'm super-jealous of that. When I say goodbye to them, I don't know when I'll see either of them again. And that? Sucks. *sniff*

Pity party for one, please.

OK, since I don't like to end posts on a downward note, I will end with a yarn story. I dragged my non-knitter sisters to Purl, one of the knitting world's super-star-stores. Not for the size - I think my dining room is bigger than that store - but for the amazing things they make from the yarns they sell (the blog is The Purl Bee). I'm working on an April Showers Scarf for myself and genuinely love the pattern (although not all of the stitching...knitting 4 stitches together every 7 rows is a MASSIVE hassle) and had decided that I wanted to make the same scarf for my sisters, with their choice of yarn color. So on the coldest day of the year (to date - it was January 2) we trudged more than a mile out of our way so that my sisters could sit outside on a bench in front of the super-crowded and VERY tiny store while I hunted down the yarns for their scarves. (This one and this one in a lime green for one sister and in an electric blue for the other sister if you're curious.) Near-pneumonia was avoided, however, by immediately hieing ourselves to the closest Indian restaurant in the vicinity for emergency infusions of curry!

Take the weather with you.

I'm all out of cute ideas, happy giving to strangers, finding serendipitous little things along the way. Today was a miserable day, in fact, it was a miserable weekend, complete with an irate "discussion" over the washing machine. Great.

The thing that I hate about Ohio when the temperature is cold is the grey, overcast skies, and the accompanying icy rain, which we had in spades. If it is going to be cold, it might as well snow, right? Freezing rain is the most miserable weather condition on earth, I'm convinced.

So after all that gnälling and grousing, where's today's mitzvah?

Much earlier this year, I got the idea in my head to make Limoncello. This Italian liqueur is intensely lemony, and until recently, it wasn't easy to find commercially made. If you were to raid the freezers of Italian bubbas along the Amalfi coast of Italy, though, you'd find lots of it.

I found recipes for it all over the interwebs, and took the best of all of them to make my own. Problem #1 was that most recipes call for 190 proof grain alcohol, which is not legal in Ohio. But it is legal in other states, and I knew that I'd find it somewhere. I found Everclear in Florida, and broke several federal laws by sending it home to Ohio. (Ooops.)

Limoncello takes a very long time to make. Months. It takes lots of lemons, and lots of liquor. Two bottles of Everclear. Two bottles of vodka. 40 lemons. A simple syrup made of sugar and water.

I zested the lemons back in July, and the lemon zest sat in the Everclear until just a few weeks ago. It looked like heavy, dark urine when I pulled it out of the dark, cool closet where it was hanging out since July. I was worried, because that certainly wasn't what it looked like in all the pictures I'd seen online. The pictures (Wiki has one) look like a neon yellow, something that wouldn't have been out of place on any 80s fashion plate.

So it was with a little bit of trepidation that I started straining out the lemon peels from the Everclear/vodka/lemon zest mixture. Once that was done, I added the cooled simple syrup, and as I stirred that in, the color changed from an unappetizing pee yellow to something that looks like there's a neon light inside of it. Pretty freaking cool.

For about the past 2 weeks, the limoncello has been sitting on my kitchen countertop, waiting for bottling. Inspiration hasn't struck yet for a bottling solution, although not for lack of looking.

I'm trying hard to give holiday gifts that are only hand or homemade this year, continuing a trend I started last year. The only exception to that 'rule' is the toys we have for my niece & nephew. I expect it will be a few years before they understand my intention there; but I'm teaching them. We make cookies together every year during the holiday season, and the memories I'm making with them are more precious than anything I will ever buy them.

Limoncello. Making my friends and family pleasantly intoxicated; that's a mitzvah, right?

Mitzvah, x2.

I'm counting this as a mitzvah, because, well, you'll see.

I've always been mildly interested in genealogy, and can rattle off the nationalities of my great-grandparents with ease. Beyond knowing that small fact, though, I've never put much research in to it. I did have an interesting conversation with my sole surviving grandparent - my paternal grandmother - a few years ago about her parents, but never really delved in to the tracing history part.

My most recent trip to Sweden, though, sparked some interest. Everywhere my team went, and I do mean everywhere, our hosts/tour guides/drivers/escorts asked us if anyone on the team had any Scandinavian ancestry. I know by the time we left, even the team members who don't speak Swedish knew exactly what I was saying when I was rattling off my pedigree.

And why, really, haven't I done the research? I can read the records in Swedish, and quite a lot of it is available on teh intertubes, it really ought not be so difficult for me to see where in Sweden and Denmark my great-greats grew up. I don't know why I've never been interested before; but I am now, and that's where this story really starts.

I got suckered in to Ancestry.com by those silly, sappy commercials they're spamming the airwaves with right now. When I had entered the information that I knew, it pulled up the actual pages in the register from Ellis Island that show my Danish great-grandfather and Swedish great-grandmother entering the country. They didn't come at the same time, but I think I've figured out how they met thanks to Ancestry.com. An early 1900s census report shows them boarding at the same house. That website turned up all of that information from me entering just minimal details. It is fascinating, and kind of exciting.

But, if you want real paper, and you want to see some facts that are not sitting in scanned pages on the web, the real work of genealogy research is done by paging through musty old ledgers of birth and death records. Fortunately (or...not so fortunately, considering I don't love Ohio) I still live in the same town where all of my grandparents were born, and where all of my great-grandparents died. So looking this information up doesn't involve anything more onerous than dealing with the county courthouse and vital records divisions.

When I worked for Ye Olde Evile Bank, doing estate work, I did a lot of running to fetch death certificates in more than one Ohio county. Now I know I'm getting older, and I know that the nuts-and-bolts details of what I did every day at the bank are no longer sitting in my memory, but I don't remember it being this much of a hassle. Ever.

On Monday this week, I went to the Vital Statistics office. It is currently located in a big building that housed a hospital, once upon a time. It still smells like a hospital. My Grandpa H died there; unpleasant memories assault me every time I go in there. I got through the rabbit-warren of county offices that now call the decommissioned hospital home, and found them with ease. I filled out the form, stepped up to the window...and saw the signs that they don't take personal checks as payment for death certificates. Nor do they take credit cards. Debit cards are likewise verboten. And Uncle State of Ohio has raised the fees; birth and death certificates now cost $23. Highway robbery!!

Cash. Period. That is the only form of payment they accept from walk-ins. I KNOW Ye Olde Evile didn't give me cash. The Estates & Trusts department didn't handle cash. We didn't have petty cash, we didn't accept cash deposits. So how did I pay for those death certs? (Which used to cost $7, BTW.) I don't remember how I did it; maybe I put it on my expense reports?

Anyway, I was massively irked. I came to this place that I don't like, excited about getting some new info (I was hoping for the names of my great-grandparent's parents on their death certificates, y'know, the Swedish and Danish ones) and I had to leave with nothing, because I didn't have $46 in cash on me. Grr.

I try really hard, really I do, to not be frustrated with clerks in retail stores or government offices, even when I'm at my boiling point, because it is never the "fault" of the person in front of you that you can't do what you want to; it is policy, and my own ignorance for not making myself aware of said policy that caused my irritation. I never want to be the customer that they talk about at the dinner table, or the customer that drove them to drink.

That said, I was pissed at the Vital Statistics office. And confused; the way the woman told me that they don't take checks or credit cards didn't make logical sense to me. She said, "We don't take checks or credit cards at the window." And I couldn't figure out what she meant. They only accepted cash? Really? Did I miss something and the world of ubiquitous debit cards vanished? Later, I understood what she meant; you can use a check or a credit card if you request your death certificates via mail or via their automatic telephone requisition. Duuuh. But standing there, in front of her, at that moment, I was mad and confused. I wasn't nasty; but it was clear that I was annoyed. I huffed all the way back to the car.

Today, I went back, sheepishly, with cash in hand and a request for just one death certificate; I only really want the one of my Swedish great-grandmother, especially at $23 bucks a pop. I had called their voice mail system, and the message says that they open their archives to the public - by appointment - and you can look at the records without giving them a cent. I'd like to have a look at all of them, the death certificates of my grandparents, my great aunts and uncles, even possibly the birth certificates of that generation who were born here in town. There's all sorts of tiny bits of info in that official paperwork, clues, like names and possibly birthplace names.

I know the woman at the vital statistics counter remembered me. I'm embarrassed that I was so irritated with her the other day. She took my $23, got me a copy of my great-grandmother's death certificate (with the names of my great-great-grandparents listed, woot!) and was really nice. Nicer than she needed to be. When she brought me the paper, she apologized for taking so long, because she couldn't get the first few copies to be clear, and she wanted to make sure it was legible for my research. Wow. Now I really feel like a heel.

So to make up for my idiocy the other day, I thanked her profusely. She asked a bunch of questions about my search, and I enthusiastically shared what I've found and what I'm still looking for. I told her some family story that made her laugh, and she thanked me for sharing. That's my mitzvah of the day. Making the vital statistics lady's day a little brighter, and maybe being the customer that she tells a happy story about at the dinner table, instead of the "OMG, you're never going to believe this idiot that I had today" story.

Cancer just sucks.

"Take time with a wounded hand, 'cause it likes to heal" 

sang Scott Weiland of Stone Temple Pilots in 1992.  STP were known for their metal-leaning hard rock.  I wouldn't have called myself a fan, necessarily, but I didn't turn the radio off when their stuff came on, either.

That line, 'take time....to heal' is something that's on my mind.

I wrote a while back about my hairdresser, and his struggles with cancer.  A battle that he was losing, slowly.  The beast won the battle just a few days ago, and the wound of his passing is still very raw.  

He and I had been playing a merry-go-round game of 'cancel the appointment' for a few months.  He cancelled on me because he wasn't up to cutting hair.  I cancelled on him when I had a miserable head cold, and knowing his immune system was weakened, I didn't want to expose him to the germs.  He cancelled on me again a week or so later.  We'd been having a game of phone tag, where I left him a message, he'd leave me one, and we hadn't talked for about 2 or 3 weeks when I heard of his death.

The last message he left me (which I hope I will always be able to remember) went something like this: "Lucy, its C.  I'm sorry about not getting to you, but I'm just not having a very good time.  We'll get you in before you leave.  I'll talk to you soon."  I didn't call him back, worrying that if I did, he'd feel pressured to....hell, I don't know.  I wish I had called him, because I didn't really have a chance to say goodbye.  Not that I would have known I was talking to him for the last time.  He wasn't keen on a big emotional scene, anyway.

I didn't find out about his death until 3 or 4 days after it happened, and I was not surprised that he had passed, but saddened that I hadn't heard sooner.  As I had known would happen, the job of telling both of my sisters (they of the opposite coasts) and my mother of his death fell to me.  I did not make it through even one of those phone calls without breaking down and crying.  The hardest was my NYC sister.  She had not heard either, and it broke my heart to be the one to break the news to her.

You might be reading this and wondering why so much sturm und drang over the death of a hairdresser; but he was so much more than that to me.  Friend, artist, teacher, fellow liberal, collector of off-color jokes, a real character.

After that last phone message he left me, I called someone else I know that cuts hair and asked her if she could trim my hair for me.  I had been putting off doing that, knowing if he called me on a day that he felt up to it, and I was to show up with my hair pre-trimmed, his feelings would have been very hurt.  I put it off by trimming it myself around my face, to keep it out of my eyes, even though cutting your own hair is generally not a good idea unless you know what you're doing.  I don't.  But I figured me hacking at it would be less hurtful to him than actually seeing someone else.

Two days after I heard of his death, I had the appointment with the someone new.  DH told me that he was surprised that I had someone else do my hair so quickly after his death, but I'd had the appointment for more than a week, and I'm leaving in 9 days, so I went.

No one has cut or colored my hair besides C in 15 years.  No joke.  

I spent the entire appointment with the new hairdresser blinking back tears.  Every thing she did, everything she touched, brought back memories of conversations I'd had with C, every discussion about cut and color and dyes and products reminded me of something else he'd done.  I always liked the way that C washed my hair.  Don't ask, I can't describe why what he did was different than any other hairdresser, it just was.  He moved through 4 salons in those 15 years, and never varied at all the way he set up his station, laid out his scissors, washed hair, put the color in.  My hairstyle and color changed drastically, and clothing styles altered too, techniques for coloring and cutting hair went on a roller-coater ride from grunge to highly styled in that time, but the methodical way he worked through each client was consistent.

He had a gentle voice for someone as tall as he was, and a very slight tinge of his native Arkansas could be heard every now and then in his speech.

I was looking for something upbeat to put as my Facebook status that also was meaningful, something that my friends would know I was still thinking about him, and I found something by Thomas Campbell that seemed to fit, and I will leave you with it.  (n.b., I have no idea who the bloody 'ell Thomas Campbell is, but I like the sentiment.)

To live in the hearts we leave behind is not to die.

He touched the hearts of many.  I will miss him something dreadful.

Grammar point: What is the plural of hiatus?

Hiatia?  

Point being that I am going to Florida for some much needed rest and time with my family for the remainder of 2008.  And then for the early part of 2009, too.  Hiatus 1 & Hiatus 2.  

Going from my home, where there are at least 4 operational computers at any time, to the parents house, where there is but one laptop, means I'll be feeling some withdrawal.  At least, I think I will.  Even with the diversions of BEACH. POOL. BOAT RIDES. DAIQUIRIS.  SIBLING SILLINESS.  I'm sure there will be a moment or two where I am wondering what is missing.  

But then again, I do have a blackberry, with teh interweb available 24/7, so I'm not particularly worried.

Semi-regular posting to resume after January 5th.  Have a happy or a merry, whichever suits your inclination, and I'll be thinking of you in the Sunshine State.  Today's forcast high is 84, just in case you were wondering.

*snip*

Further proof, if any was really required, that I am out of my mind.

Despite not being into the religious part of the holiday (heck, the material part isn't all that interesting to me either) I do enjoy the holiday season for a number of reasons: people tend to be nicer in December, my birthday is in December, I love finding unique presents for my friends & family, I enjoy the orgy of cookie baking.

For many years, I've sent a ton of Christmas cards.  Since I came back home from Sweden, it has been a way to keep in at least vague touch with a worldwide network of friends.  Because many of those friends are not Christian, I've always been careful to find a message that is kind of neutral as far as mentioning Christmas/Hanukkah/Eid, but I want to at least let these people know that they're in my thoughts. 

As the years have gone by, the list has changed, grown, expanded, and it now encompasses more than 70 names, in 4 countries.

People, this is insane.

I worked on the cards this week, and while it isn't an ordeal, it is a lot of work.  I cheat by NOT addressing the invitations by hand; you can't read my handwriting anyway, so what's the point? Usually, I order cards in August-ish, they get here in October-ish, and I send them out over Thanksgiving weekend.  When I order cards, I have them printed with a message from DH and I, and have our return address imprinted on the envelopes.  This year, sometime around April, I stumbled across a bunch of Product (Red) Christmas cards at a Hallmark store that were 90% off.  I bought all they had, figuring it was far cheaper than what I normally did and since I was working on commission at the time, it seemed like a good idea.

Amazingly, when it came time to send out holiday greetings, I actually remembered that I'd already bought cards, and was even able to find them in our storage room.  Wonder of wonders.  I could not find my pre-printed return address labels, but that's OK, I made more.  

I use a mail-merge to print out labels for the cards, and once this was done, they sat around for a few days until I got to them.  When I started slapping labels on the envelopes, there were more than a few names that made me stop and go, "huh?!".  These are people that I used to work with years and years ago, or old high school friends that I have not actually spoken to in years, or even in one case, the children (well, adult children, but still) of old neighbors of my parents.  Come on!  This is patently silly.

DH refuses to have anything to do with the holiday card insanity; he won't even sign the ones addressed to *his* family.  It is a fight I'm not interested in having, so I just leave him out of it.  But he always asks if I've remembered to send out cards to a few old friends of his and a business contact or two.  Yes, they're still on the list.  When I was going over the list with him, there were one or two people that he raised his eyebrows over; again, people we have not actually spoken to in years.

So in my infinite wisdom, I've decided that this is the last year for more than about 20 people on that list.  People I still talk to, fine, they're staying.  Relatives; well, can't leave out so much as a single cousin or there would be hell to pay, so they're staying too.  People that I have some semblance of a relationship with, even if it is just inside the computer, they're staying.  Old co-workers from 4 jobs ago: gone.  High school friends whose parents still live in town but they never bother to call when they're around: gone.  People that I sent cards to out of a sense of obligation (i.e., I sent one to their best friend, so I should send one to them, too) also: gone.  People that I send cards to that I don't actually like: gone.  

Wow, that was liberating!  Sad, too, but incredibly freeing.  

Heroes a little closer to home

This is a storytelling post.

News stories about the possible nomination of Hilary Clinton to the position of Secretary Of State in the Obama administration abound.  Senator Clinton, should she truly be offered the position, and provided that she accepts, will not have the distinction of being the first female Secretary Of State. 

That honor belongs to Madeline Allbright.

When I'm asked to list my heroes, she's always on the list, along with Nelson Mandela, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Ghandi, and a few other fairly predictable folks.  The unexpected people on that list (well, maybe it is unexpected for you, not to me) are my parents.

It wasn't until I was in my early 20s that I realized that they're both...words fail me here.  Amazing?  Brave? More giving than the average person?  Yes, all of those.

As a college graduation present, my parents and I traveled to Palm Springs, CA, spending a few days there before driving on to the Grand Canyon.  Among the many things we did there, one of the more memorable was a ride on the Colorado River.  Not through the famed Grand Canyon rapids, but rather from Page, Arizona, to the entrance of the canyon.  Billed as a "smooth water" canoe trip, it was peaceful, beautiful, sun-drenched.  

At the end of the river trip, the bus which had delivered us to Page picked us up for a return trip to our lodging at the Grand Canyon.

Our bus driver was a woman who studied the Anazai Indians, and had a deep love - and an extensive knowledge - of the Grand Canyon.  As she drove, she used the bus's PA system to regale us with stories about the native peoples of the area, information about geological formations, and what it was like to live in the housing the Grand Canyon (i.e. the national park service) provides for staff.  

I was sitting midway back, and had turned off my Discman to listen.  All of a sudden, the bus lurched to one side and then stopped.  I glanced up at the windshield, but all I saw was a cloud of dust far ahead of us at first.  As the dust settled, a horrific accident scene spread out in front of us.  An old lead sled, like a 1979 Monte Carlo, was in pieces on the road.  A motor home had its front mashed in, and there was wreckage everywhere.  

The bus driver asked that we stay in our seats, and asked if anyone had any first aid training.  She then asked for volunteers to help the injured.  Of all of those people on that bus, it was my parents who stood up, got out of their seats and volunteered to help.  As both of them got off the bus, they turned to me and in chorus said, "You stay here!"  Which made me smile a little in the face of such tragedy, because they're usually so much on the same page, thoughts in tandem.

The bus driver came back and asked if anyone knew emergency radio codes.  As DH (although then he was DB) was a firefighter for a very long time, I was used to listening to the scanner and familiar with the radio chatter.  So I sat in the driver's seat and directed the first responders to our location.

I don't remember how many people died that day.  All of the occupants of the lead sled.  The car disintegrated around them.  The people in the motor home survived, but with some injuries.  I don't remember what those injuries were; cuts, contusions, bruising, but not much that was serious as I recall.

While I talked to the authorities, a woman came to the front of the bus and began taking pictures through the bus window with her disposable camera.  I was deeply disgusted; people are such vultures.  I asked her, "Why in the HELL would you want pictures of this?  People died here."  Her response?  "It is a piece of history."  I glared, and snarled, "Lady, it isn't your history, and it is ghoulish and insensitive."  She sat back down.  Good thing, too, I mighta smacked her if she kept it up.

But the contrast in reactions to the accident is what has stuck with me.  My parents: got up and helped.  Other people on the bus: rubbernecked.  How could you not find that admirable?

In case I hadn't mentioned it lately: I miss them when they're off in the sunny south!

Seeded

I went to Church earlier this year. Now before you go gettin' all excited about my return to Christianity, this was a familial obligation. My niece had her First Communion, which the Catholic Church is starting to call First Eucharist. The title change annoys me, but then, there isn't much about the Church that DOESN'T bug me.

I won't go into the details of the family dynamics of the event, except to say that some of that side of the fam is Catholic and some isn't, so there's the usual back-and-forth Catholic vs. Protestant bullshit. Tangentially, I always wonder about the crappola that goes on between the different sects of Christianity. If they're all following the path of righteousness, where do they get off bashing one another's forms of Christianity? But I digress.

My niece is 7. First Communion (I flat out refuse to call it First Eucharist, its too cumbersome and strange-sounding to my ears.) at that age is about the pretty dress, the presents, and the little veil that you get to wear. The significance of accepting the body and blood of Christ, as Catholics believe the communion bread and wine are transformed during the blessing from bread and wine to body and blood, is largely lost on your average 7 year-old. Trust me. Been there, done that, have the pictures to prove it.

I haven't been to Church since my nephew's first communion, two years ago. At that Mass, I enjoyed myself hugely, but not for reasons of faith. Firstly, because DH was not raised Catholic as I was, and the subtle cues that indicate to the congregation when to stand, when to kneel, and when to sit are lost on anyone who doesn't have that doggerel pounded into their heads from birth. So he's half a beat behind, and each time the congregation moves, he rolls his eyes at me, as if to say, "What? Again? Why can't you people just SIT STILL?" So that makes it hard not to giggle through the Mass. A benefit of being with someone for nearly half of your life is the ability to telepathically communicate with them. 

Secondly, at my nephew's first communion, the priest had all of the children come up to the altar and sit down on the dais. He joined them, in his vestments, sitting down on the floor with them, and giving the homily to them. He ignored the rest of us, just having a conversation with the kids. I know it made them feel special and involved in the Mass, unlike every other Mass they'd ever been to in their lives.

The priest made an effort at this Mass as well to bring it to the kid's level. Might have even been the same priest, I'm not sure.

The communion song was about growing; a part of the refrain was

Seed scattered and sown
Wheat gathered and grown

I was thinking about English, and a few of the other words in English that sound like seeded; seated, ceded. As these words swirled around in my head, I was remembering so much of the dogma of my childhood. The Nicene Creed, a recitation of Catholic beliefs. At the end, it talks about Jesus seated at the right hand of of the Father. I can't tell you how many homilies I heard over the years about growing and gardening, seeds, seated....and how I've refused to cede my viewpoint that the Catholic Church wants women to be barefoot and pregnant, or nuns.  According to Pope John Paul II, the only two acceptable vocations for women:  wife AND mother (The two are NOT mutually exclusive; to be one is to be the other.) OR a nun.

Ladies, isn't that wonderful?  You can choose to become a member of a religious order, or you can get married and start popping out kids.  Y'all have fun with that....I'm not allowing them to plant those "seeds" in my head.

Replay

A comment left on the delightful Mrs. G's blog the other day made me giggle, and then sigh, because while clever, it made me realize that yes, I've got that little voice inside my head.  

Mrs. G had solicited comments from her readers for advice for her college-bound daughter.  One of the respondents suggested that Miss G listen to that little voice inside her head, y'know, the one that sounds like your mother?

I have a conglomeration up there, of my Dad, my Mother, my Swedish Mama, and my grandmothers, both of them.

My father despises fast food.  Actually 'despise' isn't strong enough of a word.  Abhors, that might come close.  When we were kids and traveling in the car (which we did often, from Oh-hia-ia to Florida and from Oh-hia-ia to northern Michigan, and back again.) Dad would never want to stop at Mickey D's, BK, Taco Bell, or any of the other zillions of fast food outlets.  On the very seldom occasions when we DID do a fast food joint, there was ABSOLUTELY no eating in the car.  We went inside.  Without fail, when we were done, Dad would wash his hands.  Every time.

My sisters and I thought that was hilarious.  As we moved to our teen-aged years, it was a reason to roll our eyes.  Vociferously.

And then.  Of course.  I have started to feel the same way.  I had a quick taco at Taco Bell the other day, and when I was finished eating it, I wanted to not only wash my hands, but I also contemplated a second shower.  Ugh.  Gross.  

I avoid fast food as much as I am able, but modern hectic life means that sometimes, that's what you do.  I try to make the best choices I can among the very bad options, minimizing my fat intake, and trying to keep my daily caloric count down, too.  But recently, I've started to feel that ugh-I-need-to-cleanse-myself-of-this-grease feeling after even just an Iced Coffee from Mc D's.  

Bleagh.  

Lead. Follow. Or GET OUT OF THE WAY.

It really frosts me that the older I get, the wiser my parents become. They actually knew what they were talking about when I was a teenager. Who knew?

The above title is something that was on the wall of my father's office, for as far back as I can remember. He clipped it out of the Wall Street Journal in the late 70s or early 80s, from a quasi-cartoon feature they had called "Graffiti." When he retired last year, that yellowed clip was put in a box with pictures of my sisters and I, and a collection of stuff he'd accumulated over 30-some years of running a business. He had pointed to it often, in conversations with customers, employees, vendors. He said it often at home, too.

Now *I* say it. All the time. The phrase means a couple of different things to me, but mostly it is this: it is time for SOMEONE to make a decision when I say, "Lead, follow, or get out of the way."

I know that as most people age, they hear the things that their mothers used to say, or a nagging grannie, and it horrifies us when we hear ourselves saying things we swore we'd never say. This phrase was never one of those for me, but I find I hear lots of things that my dad said coming out of my mouth. Dad-isms. Another favorite was "Everyone has 24 hours in a day." That one was pulled out in response to my sisters or I whining that we didn't have time to do something, and glorr-eeee, did that one annoy me. And now? I say it to people frequently, in response to their lack of time-management skills.

Ahh, time management. I feel like I've suddenly got lots less time, because I'm spending more time at work. As if someone has sucked at least 4 hours out of my allotted 24. I'm not writing as much as I'd like, nor am I exercising as much as I ought. I'm tired, quite a lot, and I know that'd get better if I could get to the gym, but it isn't so much happening. I set the alarm, and it goes off at 05.15 every morning; just about once a week I'm able to haul my butt out of bed to get to the gym. I did make it to a yoga class at another gym last week, at a very, very early hour, and felt great that day. It isn't as nice of a gym as my YMCA, but they offer about 10 times more yoga classes than the Y does.

Spending my days in an office means that an old shoulder injury acts up when I'm in a chair for lots of hours. I have excellent posture (if I do say so myself) so it isn't because I'm hunching over the computer screen whilst sitting at my desk. I try to get up, move, stretch often, but despite doing all of that, the shoulder tightens up and the only remedy that ever works is going to see Mr. Magic Fingers, the massotherapist. Which also cuts into my available time.

Vicious cycle!

I wish I could find that scrap from my dad's office, because I'd put it up in my office too. It was little, but it spoke volumes.

Vär har du varit?

Where have you been?

You might not believe me if I told ya. Here, there, everywhere, back and forth across the entire state of Pennsylvania, twice, as I drove to New York City to visit my sister and home again.


Ahhhh, adventures. This one came about in a random, backwards, hurry-up-and-wait fashion, but I'm so glad I did it.

I sent out a blast e-mail about two weeks ago to inform the world at large that I HAVE A NEW JOB (wooooooot!!!) and my Swedish Mama responded to my 3 paragraph English ramble by saying, "I understand the part that you have a new job, but WTH are you doing? Don't understand the explanation in English."

Of course, I popped an explanation på Svenska right back to her, but she got impatient in the meantime and called me to find out.

We had a lovely chat, and as we were wrapping it up, I said, "Oh, wait, before you go, I saw on Little Swedish Sister's Facebook page that she's coming to New York. When? Where in New York, does she mean New York City?"

Here's the part that irks me ever-so-slightly. BOTH Swedish sisters were headed to New York City, something that they'd planned several months ago and the first I heard about it was about 8 days before they got here. Hello??? New York is roughly 3,000 miles CLOSER to me than Stockholm is. Plus that pesky ocean isn't in the way. I adore my Swedish sisters, and would love any chance to see them, no matter how briefly, and will make every effort to get to wherever they are when they're on American soil, but I do need to know this information in advance.

Anyway. As we say in Swedish, skit samma.

I texted the girls, asking if they'd like to possibly meet up with me and my New York City sister over the weekend they were here, maybe dinner on a Saturday night? A flurry of Swedish texts back and forth followed with answers in the affirmative, plans were made, and I began searching for plane tickets.

There is a small regional airport here in Oh-hia-ia that has two flights a day to NYC, and often, tickets to New York can be had for about $60 each way. *If* you make those plans in advance, that is. I took myself over to the airline's website, and was both astonished and disgusted to discover that my $60 each way tickets balloon to the outrageous price of $234 each way when you want those tickets now, RIGHT NOW. That's just a weee bit beyond my price range, so I searched all the travel websites, from William Shatner's to much more obscure ones, and the bad news was that I couldn't touch a plane ticket to any of the three NYC regional airports for less than about $300. Ouch.

OK, Amtrack, then. I love trains, riding them, listening to them, and I've done the train to Penn Station. It can be fun. Unfortunately, the train tickets were $200, and would have involved a grand total of at least 18 hours transit time for the there-and-back-again journey. Hmm, not so much keen on that.

Driving it was, then. Even with gas at the ricockulous price of $4 a gallon, I could drive there for less than $300, and far quicker than 9 hours each way.

Now, the true dilemma was not getting to New York, nor was it really *IF* I would see my Swedish sisters once there. 'Course I would. The real problem was walking in to a new job on a Monday morning and announcing that you'd like to have Friday off, thankyouverymuch.

*wince*

Now, there are some words that I live by, and I think that Mark Twain was the sayer of these wise words, "When in doubt, tell the truth." But I really wasn't sure how The New Employer was going to react.

Over the course of several interviews to get the job, I had told them a few things that were honest, but not perhaps the best thing to tell a potential employer. Things like, "my family comes first, regardless of what else is going on." and when asked where my creativity comes from, I responded by explaining that I think time off, away from whatever you do for a living, is vital to being able to keep things rolling. The joke is kind of on them here: they hired me ANYWAY, in spite of that.

So in one of my very first ever conversations with my new boss on my first day of the job, I explained the situation, about how close my real sisters and I are, and how I've stayed in close contact with my Swedish family, even though it has been 17 years since I was an exchange student. (*wince* again...has it been that long?) And how NYC is closer than Stockholm.

I was pleasantly surprised when they said, sure, take Friday off. Have fun. Drive carefully. Oh, and take something with our logo on it to give to them, pens or what have you from the supply closet.

Excuse me? What? Could you run that by me again?

Have I mentioned how much I'm hearting this job?

New York was lovely, albeit fucking hot, hot, hot. Hot enough that whatever clothing you put on, it was sweated completely through before you reached the end of the block once outside. I hate the heat.

I managed to spend most of the day Friday with the Swedish girls, Saturday night we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge together (a MUST do, IMHO) and gabbed, gabbed, gabbed in Swedish. Ate 'en massor' of not-good-for-you food, and had a drink or three. I did some touristy things that I don't normally do in New York, which were fun for the sheer fact that I don't normally do them, hanging mostly with my sister and her friends in her Brooklyn neighborhood when I go there.

Now everyone is back in their respective homes, not without a comedy of errors happening along the way. Even though the weekend was hot, Friday evening was fairly cool, and I gave my Big Swedish Sister a shawl to wear to keep warm. Guess where my shawl is now? Stockholm.

I just might have to run over there to retrieve it, ya know?

Jolted

Someone that I work with has the same first name as the Auntie who passed away last fall. Over the months that I've worked there, surprisingly, I've never exchanged e-mails with this person until recently.

I get most of my e-mail on the crackberry, but the manner in which it displays on the crackberry is different from the way it looks in your in-box on the big computer. So when I signed in to the e-mail on the big computer at the end of that day, I had a quick shot to the gut when I saw the name in my inbox.

My Auntie never had e-mail, that I know of. I can still recite her telephone number from memory, but never exchanged e-mails with her.

More than six months have passed since she died. Time, they say, heals grief. Bullshit, I say.

Bull, because it still hurt when I realized (just a quick second after seeing the name) that the e-mail couldn't be from her. C'est impossible. Even if she had an e-mail account that I was unaware of, sending an e-mail gets a little bit tougher after you're dead. It hurt a little less than it did six months ago, but it still hurts.

I see dearies pushing their shopping trolleys (so much cooler than calling it a grocery cart or buggy, no?) in stores and think it is her. She didn't drive for at least the last 5 years of her life, and maybe longer, but I saw a car the other day and thought, 'oh, there's Auntie.' It wasn't.

Oooh boy, that tells you what a small place I live in, doesn't it?

I wrote the other day about waiting for something to happen, and how my tummy was doing involuntary rolls while I was waiting, sometimes happy swoops, sometimes oh-my-goddess-I'm-going-to-toss-my-cookies swoops.

These jolts of sudden grief are more like what I think a stab wound might feel like. Or what I know getting zapped with electricity feels like. Short, startling, sudden. Painful. Leaving me a bit breathless, and then it is gone.

I wonder if everyone thinks that they see a dearly departed from time to time, only to look again, and realize that there is no resemblance at all between the stranger in front of you and the person you're missing. I do, all the time. That second glance is enough to assure you it isn't them; I almost always roll my eyes at my own insanity and move on. And I hear the lyrics to a Jimmy Buffett song, which isn't even about grief...or isn't exactly about grief. It is about Hurricane Katrina, but regardless, it is good advice.

I bought a cheap watch from the crazy man
Floating down Canal
It doesn't use numbers or moving hands
It always just says "now"

Now you may be thinking that I was had
But this watch is never wrong
And if I had trouble the warranty said:
Breathe in, breathe out, move on

I'm trying.

Lage Nom Ai

Title of a Jimmy Buffett song. I have no idea what it means. I think it is Tahitian. Or Island Patios. Lyrics can be found here.

I'm not a patriot. Far from it. Nationalism, in almost any form, from anyone, bugs me. And yet, I continue to search for the answers to the following questions about America. What IS American? Who are Americans? What makes us different? (From one another, not from the rest of the world, I already know a laundry list of things that make us different from citizens of other countries. Some complimentary, many not.) What makes us the same? Does any one thing, outside of our citizenship, bind us together?

If I didn't know better, I might think that Southwest Florida was on another planet, forget being still part of the United States.

Naples, Florida, on the Gulf of Mexico, could not really be much more different than my Ohio home. The climate being the primary difference, of course, but there are many more. Warm when we're freezing, lush, green, and tropical when everything here is dead. Beaches, with sugary sand, while our beaches of Lake Erie tend more to small stones.

My grandparents moved there in the early 80s, when my grandfather retired. So I've been there quite a bit, annually or semi-annually since I was 8 years old. Much has changed there in the intervening 20+ years.

Naples is a playground for the insanely wealthy. Perhaps less fashionable than Miami's South Beach, or any of Maui's shores, but maybe inviting simply for that fact. I'd wager that many professional athletes or other celebrities have homes there, and other folks who are just rich, but maybe a little more.....discrete, shall we say? (Paris, dah-ling, I'm talking to YOU!) I've never seen any paparazzi there. Exclusive shops and restaurants abound. BMWs are at the less costly end of the spectrum as far as cars are concerned. There's an Aston-Martin dealership and a Bentley dealership that do a booming business.

And the McMansions!! Houses of unbelievable square footage {(10,000 sq ft is not uncommon) (that'd be about 930 sq meters, for you more sensible metric system folks)} are everywhere. Gated communities are more common than un-gated communities. In fact, there are gated communities WITHIN gated communities, which require you to pass through two secured gates to get home. Like airlocks for neighborhoods. When they first started appearing years ago, I thought that they'd become populated with lots of folks who think the government is shooting x-rays into everyone's head, the tin-hat crowd. I also thought that they'd be a passing fad. Don't ever look to me for predicting the future, y'all. Because they're EVERYWHERE down there.

I feel obligated to point out that while approximately half of my father's side of the family lives in Florida, Southwest Florida, to be exact, they live in cities and towns that are AROUND the outer rim of Naples, not IN Naples itself. The distinction is important, lest you come to the conclusion that I'm a trust-fund brat. Um, no. They all live in what my father laughingly calls "the cheap seats."

A hobby of the parents is looking at houses, checking property values, wherever they travel. Now that they live in Florida, I would have thought that they'd tire of looking at architecture, reading the real estate listings in the paper, checking out the occasional open house. I was wrong about that, too.

They showed DH and I house after house with asking prices of millions of dollars. Yes, MILLIONS. Anywhere from 1.2 to 10 million. Property values there are amazing. Development after development, bursting at the seams with homes that cost 3 million or more. They're nice, don't get me wrong. But pick up that 3 million dollar house and set it down in Ohio, you'd not get half that price for the same structure.

DH hadn't been in that part of Florida before, and each time we encountered another multi-million dollar house, my dad wondered aloud, "What DO these people do for a living?" Excellent question, especially considering that "high season" ends at the end of April, and already many of these houses have the hurricane shutters up, which is an indicator that they won't be back to the property until next year's season begins in January. So these 3 million dollar houses aren't even someone's primary residence. It is a VACATION COTTAGE. Or even a 3rd or 4th home. It is hard for me to fathom having so much money. Add 3 Porsche SUVs and a yacht (yes, YACHT, not a boat) to that 3 mil property, and with those things alone, you've got to have a net worth of at least 7 million, and probably much more than that.

What is even harder to wrap your mind around is that we're not talking about just one "rich section" of town. We're talking about pretty much the whole town. We're talking about a tax base that has so much money that the roads are in great shape, the streets are clean, heck, the main drags are landscaped within an inch of their lives with palm trees and exotic flowers. Imagine a city with the population of a city the size of Detroit, spread out over the same square miles as LA, populated with Ladies Who Lunch, and you're beginning to get a handle on the type of wealth I'm talking about.

All of this sounds like I'm full of disdain for the place. I'm not. I love it there. What's not to like? Two of my favorite cousins live there, with their adorable kids, an Aunt, my Grannie, and now my parents, the weather's great (it rains mostly only in June, gloomy grey skies are a rarity) the economy is booming due to the tourism, and I doubt that you'd be able to make your way through all of the fun boutique-y stores in one lifetime. If you were to tire of the beach (and I almost never do) you could find enough things to occupy your time.

And hey, bonus, it is close enough to Key West to make a day-trip out of the southernmost point of the United States, where it is but 90 miles to Cuba.

DH has been a Buffet fan forever, and Key West? Is the Mecca of all Parrotheads. Key West is another world entirely. I'm sure that somewhere along A1A, you enter a rift in the time-space continuum, and you're really on another planet there. I'm completely convinced.

Because I'm also fairly convinced that reading about someone else's vacation exploits are akin to watching paint dry, I shan't bore you with the day-to-day minutiae of What We Did On Our Winter Vacation.

But I *will* gloat for a second; DH got sunburned, and I, fashionable hat-wearer that I am, returned to Oh-hia-ia with the same color skin that I left it. Just to prove how incredibly fashionable I am, witness the hat-wearing spectacle.

Classy!

But when my sun-worshiping sisters are having melanomas removed when we're all in our 40s & 50s, I will be skin-cancer free. So yes, hat. I don't care if it looks silly. If I lived there, I'd never be without one.

Hm. The difference between residents of Florida and residents of Ohio? Hats.

Mise en Place

{French, for set in place. Used in American kitchens in reference to prep work for a recipe.}

I had a party the other night. I was doing prep for the things that could be done ahead of time, and thinking about taking pictures of all my little bowls set neatly in a row, but not in the proper order at all; dessert things next to the main course next to the aps. I was too busy to stop, find the camera, take the pictures, and scribble down a few notes as to what I wanted to say about each picture.

Part of my OCD manifestation is that I like organization. I like things set in rows, counted in even numbers, neatly laid out, color-coded if possible. While that is my preferred modus operandi, often in the lead-up to a party I don't have enough time to do this, or somehow the day of the event sneaks up on me without my awareness, and I'm left scrambling around willy-nilly at the last minute. Not this time; I had a menu set several days ahead of time, lists for everything. I laid out all of the things I needed, had notes.

A full dinner for 7, table set with my favorite dishes that are normally consigned to the 'look but don't touch' files. Wineglasses, silverware that is rarely used, wine bottles chilled in the fridge. I love all this stuff. I love pulling out all the stops, making things that are complicated, or full of unusual ingredients, things that wow my guests. I love cooking for people I like, having a houseful of friends.

We laughed so much that my face hurt.

Everyone left after 1 AM, and then the next day I hosted family for a big dinner. Yet again, a weekend ending with me needing major sleep.

Playing in Traffic

"You'd be better off playing marbles on the freeway than messin' around with me, pal."
~my father, frequently in my childhood


I love New York City. I love the crowds, the insanity, the fact that any and everywhere you go, there are 30,000 other people doing the same thing as you. I love the hustle, the small stores, the unbelievable traffic, the lines to do anything. I love it that the longer my sister lives there, the more familiar I become with the Brooklyn neighborhoods, the fact that I recognize names like Nostrand, Atlantic & Throop (Avenues), Bed-Sty (a geographic region). I have no sense of direction, so I still get lost. I expcet that this will be my fate my entire life, though, and don't stress overmuch about it. Whenever I'm with my sister, I simply follow her about, trusting in her excellent sense of direction and intimate knowledge of her own neighborhood.

Leaving either of my sisters behind to return home when I visit them is difficult. I feel each time as if some vital part of myself has been cut off, left bleeding and wounded, a pain that I fear sometimes will never heal. I spend so much time laughing when I'm with them, that perhaps it isn't all that odd that I feel such melancholy upon leaving them behind.

This was a super-short visit. I arrived in the big city late on Friday afternoon, rather than early in the morning as planned due to my own stupid fuck-up. I'd rather not admit to teh internets at large that I missed my 06.25 AM flight, so let's move on, shall we?

After visiting my sister's office, we went 'home' to Brooklyn, where we ate dinner at an Italian place my sister and her friends frequent enough that the host knows them by name, and caters to their preferences. The wine, the food, the company and the conversation were all very much to my liking.

We slept late on Saturday. Since I'd been up at 4 AM on Friday in order to miss my early morning flight, I was too tired to party and rock it out on Friday night. When we got up, we took a bike ride to my sister's old neighborhood, where it is my considered opinion that perhaps some of the best bagels in the world are baked. After a delightful breakfast, I tortured my sister by touring a yarn store on Atlantic Ave, called Knit-a-way, where I spent far too much money on yarns that are lovely enough to eat. Witness the color spectacle....

I took this pic with my phone. Not bad for a pic from a mobile phone, no? See how the yarn is organized by color? Feel how soothing it is when everything is color-coded and organized by size? Ahhhhh. It appeals to an obsessive's heart, it does.

We rode the bikes through miles and miles of city streets. If you are my mother, you shouldn't read the next paragraph....(hi Mom! *waves*)

My sister is a pretty fearless lady. Not much intimidates her, but we left Atlantic Avenue behind at one point, because, as she told me, "You're making me nervous. You're going to get hit by a car." This coming from the child for whom the term "kamikaze skier" was invented. I'm small-town enough that I'm pretty unaware of the traffic, and was therefore nearly killed on several occasions, just from watching where I was going and not who was behind me. Oops.

We had a small dinner party on Saturday night, where I cooked for a gaggle of my sister's friends. Paper-wrapped fish, a green salad, rice, for the main course, and shrimp cocktail and prosciutto-wrapped goat-cheese as appetizers....yummy. With several bottles of wine, of course.

Sunday, I left to head home, sobbing my way through the cab ride to the airport. 'Exhausted' does not even begin to describe how tired I was; my bed called loud and clear when I finally got back to Oh-hia-ia.

Sleep, and more sleep, and yet a little more, is on the agenda for the next few days. And a visit to the massotherapist; my back is KILLING me from the bike-riding.

Tvartom

adjective, Swedish for 'opposite' or 'the other way around'


I'm still pretty bitterly disappointed over the fact that the company down south didn't hire me on the spot. I know, it isn't the end of the world. Here's the thing; in addition to usually taking the path of least resistance throughout most of my life, I've also nearly never wanted for anything. Whatever I want, I've usually gotten. Note that I'm certainly not denying that I'm spoiled; far from it, I am, and I know it. Note too that I'm not suggesting that I've never had to work hard for anything in my life; I have, I do.

But I'm not sure if I've ever wanted anything as badly as I wanted this.

So that's been a pretty bitter pill to swallow, this fact that sure, I'm awesome, but they didn't want me right away. There is still lots of hope that they'll call, and I still have the chance. Patience, however, has never been my strong suit. Waiting 3-4 weeks to see what the final decision will be a bit like lying on a bed of nails for that entire time. Urgh.

Instead of moping and waiting around, though, I'm leaving the small town I call home and heading to visit my sis in New York, an opposite that I enjoy quite a bit. You can't get much more opposite from here than New York. The pulse of the city surrounding me, spending some time with my sis...it is a pretty nice escape.

Perhaps I ought to have titled the post att springa ivag which, of course, means, 'to run away'! Because that's what I'm doing this weekend. Running away from home, running away from the job I dislike, running away and saying "la la la la la, real life, I can't hear you! I refuse to deal with you. LA LA LA LA LA!" But I do like the way tvartom sounds...prettymuch the way it is spelled, TVART-ommm, a fun sounding word.

I'm not taking the computer to New York. Shocking, I know. My sister wants to go shopping; if you knew her in real life, you'd know that the shocker is that she wants to go to Bloomingdales. Seriously. Plus there's about seventeen bajillion other things to do in NYC other than surf.

I fly out at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning. I'm looking forward to it.
I'll be back to reality on Monday. Maybe.

A Dying Breed

While shopping with my mother recently, I was trying on shoes when I heard, from the next aisle over, "Ohh, I like them shoes."

I met my mother's eyes and ground my teeth, seeing my own expression mirrored on her face. Bad grammar! Ugh. We both laughed. "Y'know..." I said, "When you and Dad used to correct us, it drove me crazy. Now I want to smack people who don't speak properly."

"Nuh-uh," she drawled, too amused.

Among the many things we weren't allowed to say....'nuh-uh' was tops on the list, followed by 'yeah,' 'shut up,' 'dude,' 'ain't,' and 'like,' when used in the following manner..."so, I was, like, so tired and stuff, and she was like, no way!" Valley Girl-isms, 'gross' and 'totally' were verboten. (Yes, I grew up during the 1980s.) Swearing was out of the question, too. I never heard either parent swear until I was well over 21, and I never swore in front of either of them until long after I was married.

This insistence on correct speech was yet another square thing my parents did that made them so much stricter than my friend's parents, and lame, if you'd asked me when I was about 11. Now, however, I wish fervently that more people paid attention to good grammar and basic fundamentals.

I have to attend a business writing workshop, and I'm beyond annoyed by it; does it look to you like I needs help with my writin' skillz? A friend who is an educator pointed out to me that everyone could use a refresher course from time to time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if more people paid attention to the basics, this wouldn't be an issue.

I know that the 'rents laugh these days when my sisters and I are annoyed with bad grammar, poor diction, and the like. They chuckle to themselves, having proved to the sibs and I yet again that they knew what they were talking about.

Like, dude, that's totally annoying, fer sure.

I Can See California Sunlight In Your Hair...or why my baby sister is an amazing woman.

I can smell the ocean salt in the air
and I can see you, you're standing there washing your car
and I can see California sun in your hair

Its a winding road
I've been walking for a long time
still don't know
where it goes
and its a long way home
I've been searching for a long time
still have hope
I'm gonna find my way home

~"Winding Road," Bonnie Somerville, Garden State soundtrack

Here's a quick refresher course on Lucy's fam.

I have two sisters, Middlesis and Babysis. Middlesis lives in New York City, Babysis lives in California. I am insanely, irrationally jealous of the lives they're leading. Logic enters into this not at all. And I know that. But they're both doing amazing things.

Babysis has been on a 700 mile bike trip for the past few weeks, with the company that she works for, promoting environmentally responsible living and sustainability. (Can you see why I'm jealous? And why she's so incredibly cool???) They biked from San Francisco to San Diego, along one of the most beautiful stretches of road in the world.

There is a photographer that has traveled with them for portions of this amazing (and slightly insane) journey.

If you have access to it, hop over to my MySpace page, where I've posted two pictures that she has sent the family; one of herself and one of the whole crazy posse.

I am so proud of her; I can barely tell you how much I've realized in about the past six months that she's grown into an amazing person. She is about 9-1/2 years younger than me, so when we were growing up, we weren't all that close. Think about it; when you were 17, did you want to spend time running around with a 7-year-old? Not so much. In my friend's memories, she remains about 11 years old, much like my memories of their younger sibs. Sometimes when I think about her, that's what I think about, too, is the pesky kid she was to me in those days.

With the age difference, we're always going to be at vastly different places in life, looking sometimes at one another across a huge chasm of perspectives that don't match up. Which isn't to say that I can't relate to her, but....it can be tough to see things from her point of view from time-to-time.

One of the really silly things she and do I share is a dumb obsession with celebrity gossip. The first chance she gets to spend some time surfing the 'net, she'll catch up on what Perez and The Superficial and Go Fug Yourself are all talking about. We'll spend at least one afternoon sitting someplace in a cafe sipping chai or lattes and happily gossiping about what Paris and Nicole and Lindsey and Brit-Brit are up to.


The reason for this incredible bit of schmoopiness? She'll be home in a week. I can't wait to see her, to get my hands on her and hug her tight, to spend a few hours chatting about everything and nothing. Yes, she was home for my Auntie H's funeral at the beginning of November, but it was really a drive-by visit, and we were all so distracted with what was going on.

Time. The most precious gift we can give one another.

Att banta

When I was learning to speak Swedish, various things confused me as a non-native speaker. It made me appreciate how incredibly difficult learning English must be. I can never remember which is which, but homophones, homographs...you know, words that sound alike but are spelled different, or are spelled the same but pronounced different...how confusing that must be for someone to try to figure out. Then there are words that mean the same or similar things, like red and crimson. I can't remember what those are called. Homonyms, maybe?

One of the things that I love about English is its richness of vocabulary, the fact that there are hundreds upon thousands of words, the many descriptors available for your use, for free!

Yes, I admit it. I'm a grammar geek. I love all this stuff. No apologies for it either.

Swedish has these little quirks too. The words for ugly and drunk are both ful, but I can barely hear the difference between the two. (Context...so important!) In order to avoid having to say ugly, I would use the word horrible, so that I didn't mispronounce it. Again. Then there are the words for ice cream, glass (like in a window) and glasses (for vision correction), which all sound like the English word glass, but they're spelled differently. I think. I can speak it much, much better than I can read and write it.

Words that had similar meanings threw me from time to time as well. To diet in Swedish is att diet; but then there's this other word, banta, that seems to mean the same thing. My host father explained it to me like this; diet was the word you would use for what you were doing when you were trying to lose weight, but to banta was to just hold back. As best I can figure, banta-ing is somewhere in between leaving something on the plate so you don't feel gorged and starving yourself. Kidding!! OK, so not starving yourself, but not eating all that you want to, either.

Recently, I've officially reached a big number in my weight loss quest. 40. I am 40 pounds lighter than I was a year ago at this time. I had been at a plateau with the losing weight since about May or June. It seems after the death of my Auntie H in October that the scale has been showing smaller numbers, finally, and very slowly. We're talking initial changes in ounces. I've finally invested in a decent scale at home instead of relying on the gym's. I have no earthly idea what to attribute this resumption of weight loss to; I haven't changed anything that I've been doing for the last year in the last few weeks. It is a huge relief to see those numbers going down again.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving, and yes, even atheist-leaning agnostics celebrate Thanksgiving with their families. My Auntie G cooks twice a year; Thanksgiving and Christmas. It is an event not to be missed. Her stuffing? To die for. Better than your granny's or your mother's, I promise. Since I only have the opportunity to eat it twice a year, I tend to overload my plate with it.

Thanksgiving is a carb festival, isn't it? At least, it is for my family. In addition to the stuffing, which is bread-based, there's mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, rolls, corn...all starch-y, not good to overindulge in. Plus this is the Slovak side of the family, so noodles and butter with gravy are also on the table. Like haluski, without the cabbage. Don't ask why we do this, I couldn't explain it to you if my life depended on it. But trust me, it is good. Gooooood!

When people ask me how I've lost the weight, my answer is always the same: "The really, really hard way." Sweating my ass off (quite literally, hahahaha) at the gym, cutting my portion sizes, paying lots more attention to food labels, both for the nutritional value and for the actual ingredients, trying not to eat pre-packaged food, staying away from fried anything. Banta-ing, essentially.

I did not take the opportunity to overindulge yesterday. My attitude about food and relationship with food have changed so much in the past year. It isn't that I no longer derive pleasure from good food, it is that I don't need quite so much of it to be satisfied. One of my cousins, for hours after dinner, moaned about how overstuffed she felt, and I couldn't help but think to myself, "Why the hell did you eat that much, then? No one was forcing you to."

Did I eat the stuffing? You bet. Wouldn't miss it for the world. But there were more carrots from the veggie tray than there was stuffing on my plate. I even ate a little bit of the noodles. I passed on the mashed potatoes. If I eat those these days, it is going to be my own recipe that includes sour cream, cream cheese, garlic, and butter. But was my plate so full yesterday that I had to make a separate trip for a roll? Nope. Didn't eat one of those, either. The fat content and other icky preservatives that are in them aren't worth the taste to me anymore. (They were those rolls that come in the can, that you shape into little quarter-moons.)

Overall, I think my relationship with food and my attitude about it are so much more healthy now than they've ever been. Even when I was a size-0-wearing skinny little bit of a thing. I think about the word banta often. I ask myself all the time; Do you really need that much of that? I turn things over and check out the label, and if it has corn syrup (evil, evil, evil) or tHBQ (dude, two words...PETROLEUM DERIVATIVE!!!) in it, I put it back on the shelf. There's some magic number of fat grams that I won't go over on a single serving of anything. I don't really know exactly what that number is, but impulse buying of a candy bar isn't something that I do much these days. Not worth the calories and fat, and if I'm going to eat chocolate, it is going to be chocolate that has a list of ingredients that I can actually pronounce.

I don't suppose that I can go around answering the question "How'd ya lose the weight?" by saying "I banta-ed," and not just because the Swe-Eng nonsensical word won't make sense to people. I've changed my philosophy, my daily routine, my grocery-shopping habits, my cholesterol levels, my blood sugar, my number of asthma attacks, everything, to get where I am. Much easier to say 'the really, really hard way.' But my favorite upside of it all? Not the fact that I'm stronger and healthier, not the fact that my asthma is under control. Nope. As vain and shallow as it is, my favorite benefit is that in addition to the laundry list I've made of changes, I've changed my dress size, too.

Funerals. Definitely Hell.

So we all know that the rituals surrounding death are for the living and not the dead, yes? The dead don't care anymore. Wherever you believe the spirit has gone, it is no longer among our perceptions. Or at least it is beyond the perception of everyone who isn't psychic, which, unfortunately, includes me.

It has been nice to have my sisters around, even though it was for a funeral. They left Saturday, both of them need to get back to work. Neither will be home for Thanksgiving, but both will be home for a while in December.

Almost everyone was in town for the funeral. It is a shame that with the exceptions of funerals, weddings, and major holidays, I rarely see my cousins. There's a lot of 'em. On this side of the family, six first cousins, seven second cousins. The little ones get so big, so quickly. One of my cousins' sons is getting his driver's license in a few weeks. Last time I saw the kid and paid any attention to him, he was a pudgy, noisy, and badly behaved 8 year-old. He's taller than most of the family now, and a wrestler for his high school, thin and wiry. Quiet, too. I told his mother, "Your kids make me feel old." She rolled her eyes and said, "Tell me about it. I'm turning 40 this year."

Heartbreaking is the only way to describe the calling hours; the actual religious services surrounding funerals usually upset me. I don't know why clergy of every stripe and color find it necessary to talk about how their god is better than everyone else's during funeral services. It has happened at every funeral I've been at over the past 5 years. Catholic funerals, Methodist funerals, Presbyterian funerals...it makes me crazy. At DH's Methodist uncle's funeral, the minister, a learned fella with lots of letters behind his name, spent over 15 minutes railing about the Islamic faith. Inappropriate, people, inappropriate. Ever heard the phrase "a time and season for all things"? Funerals not the place to debate philosophical viewpoints, ya know? The minister for my Aunt's funeral service was no different, spending about 5 minutes on how Christians Are Better Than Everyone Else. Sigh.

As I've pointed out during this whole process, it is far easier to be pissed off than it is to be sad. Being irritated with the celebrant is one way that I get through funerals. I know it is a bit irrational for me to get so annoyed.

A friend of my parents told me that the hardest part of the whole ritual for him is the graveside ceremony. During Catholic funerals, that is tough. Or at least it seems more traumatic to me, probably because the Catholics can't do ANYTHING in less than an hour, and it is a long, drawn out process. But the hardest part for me of the whole ordeal is walking in to the funeral home the first time and seeing the person, family or friend, laid out in the casket. The death somehow becomes more 'real' to me at that point, the finality of it hits me at that moment, even though by that time I've known for a while that the person passed away.

The stress of the last two weeks has shown itself in a couple of physical manifestations I could do without. A tremor in my hands. My normally beautiful skin (nah, I'm not vain) broken out in hives and spots. A headache that wakes me up in the middle of the night and has sent me searching for the strongest analgesics in the house. The inability to sleep more than about an hour and a half at a time, which is worse than my usual bad sleep habits. The fact that she's gone hits me at odd moments, much like I imagine the pain of a phantom limb must feel, stabs and twinges.

One (more) thing that drives me nuts about funerals is the way people will remark to one another, "Doesn't he/she look good?" Dude, they're dead. It don't get much worse than that. But this time I had to agree with that inane remark, because my Aunt looked like she did when I was a little girl, when she was working full time and wore beautifully made suits, jewelry, great heels with purses to match, had hair and nails and makeup just so.

It hurts. It makes me dammed angry that she didn't take better care of herself and manage her Type II diabetes better. Things that would normally not bother me are magnified to heights of stupidity that could cause me to say something I'll regret deeply later. My meds are keeping me on a sort-of even keel, and I've needed to be strong for other family members. My DH has been the strong one for me, unflappable and telling me when I'm making mountains out of molehills. Time will make it easier. But patience has never been one of my virtues. Ever.