Date Night

Marty and I go out to dinner every Friday night. We call this Date Night. Dates aren’t what they used to be. Date Night includes dinner out, then we come home around 9:00, I put on my jammies, and Marty heads to the man cave. Whatever happened to dates that involved candlelight and heavy petting?  If we are feeling frisky, after dinner we head to our local gourmet grocery store and peruse the coffee aisle, where barrels and barrels of toasty coffee beans are offered. They have an olive bar we like, and sometimes we even buy lunchmeat. Fancy!

Each Friday, we take turns selecting the restaurant. He picks a lot of Mexican; I like Thai. Sometimes we try new places out of town. It’s a nice time to be together and chat without distraction. Many times at the end of our meals, we are asked by servers, “Do you want separate checks, or is this together?” It took me a while to figure out that this doesn’t happen as frequently to other married couples. I suspect that the servers ask us this because we are interracial and therefore assume we are not married.

I understand that it’s human nature to assume that people usually marry partners of (1) the opposite sex (2) the same religion and (3) the same race. But this is not always the case. In fact, it is less and less the case. I understand and accept why these assumptions are made, and make plenty of assumptions of my own. It might even be that some servers ask everyone how many checks they want, but it’s amusing to me.

The next time we are asked if we want separate checks, I think I will respond with, “Yes. Separate but equal.” For now we’ll stick with Marty’s favorite reply: “Just one. She’s paying.”

Mom Chimes In: Bake Sales Beware

Mom contributes the following:

Last week I finished off some strawberries that I am sure were way past prime, and even mixed in with my 2 week expired yogurt they tasted a little strange but edible. Then I realized my orange juice had fizz to it when I drank the last little bit from the carton but since I usually have a T of vinegar in my juice each morning (supposed to help my joints!) I did not realize it was fizzing. So this week I am mixing some questionable raspberries into my yogurt. Just can’t throw out food! So I decided to look around at my food cupboards and inventory my food items. Came to the conclusion that nearly everything I have is expired. Hope I don’t expire eating it! I had promised I would make something for the Bake Sale so I got out an expired cake mix and made cupcakes and iced them with expired frosting and one good thing about Bake Sales -- you don’t have to put an expiration date on the item. I think I will be signing up for a lot more Bake Sales!!  Bon Appetit!!

What Did You Call Me?

I’m middle aged and I’m not sure how I got here so quickly. I swear just last year I was 25 and sun-kissed, basking in the joys of youth. Then one day, things changed. I reached the point in life where strangers stopped addressing me as Miss, and started calling me Ma'am.

Middle Age, just like Middle Earth, is an odd and fantasy-filled place. I am living out those middle years, the underwear years, between diapers. These are the years when I am too old for a spaghetti-strap sundress, and too young to wear slippers to the store. My fantasies of being swept off my feet are replaced with finding a good podiatrist, and staying awake past midnight on New Year's Eve is a real drag. This is Middle Age. This is Ma'amhood. I have arrived. There's no turning back.

Natural Disaster Etiquette

What a thunderstorm we had last night! I hate them. I feel like thunderballs live in the attic and want to burst through the ceiling and kill me. The flashes of light outside make me flinch and I can't relax until it is quiet. Sometimes I slip down to the basement Man Cave to escape. It's dark, stinky and safe down there. Hopefully Marty will throw his body over me to protect me from a tornado. But given our history with natural disasters, I'm not so sure.

It was 1999, and we experienced an earthquake that scored a 7.1 on the Richter Scale. I was visiting Marty when he lived in Joshua Tree. Around 2:30 a.m., southern California SHOOK. I learned later that the quake lasted for 35 seconds. While 35 seconds doesn’t sound like much time, it’s a lifetime when you are experiencing sheer terror. When the earthquake began, I shot out of bed and ran for the sliding glass door at the back of the apartment. Here is a tip for you. Don’t sleep naked. Ever. Nudity will always prevent a dignified escape. At any age. So instead of escaping, I wisely took cover next to sliding glass doors. Death by jagged shards of flying glass didn't occur to me in the moment. I crumbled to the floor, huddled on my knees and covered my head. I expected the roof to collapse, but at least the doors held fast.

During those next 30 seconds, I huddled, listened and felt. What I heard were car alarms, barking dogs, glass breaking, and Marty, shouting my name in panic. He sleeps like the dead, and by the time he woke up, the waterbed was sloshing so violently he couldn't get out. He later said that it felt like he was white water rafting. Here's another tip for you. Never own a waterbed. For many reasons.

The most prominent noise was that of the quake itself, like a moving locomotive, with me in the runaway caboose. When the quake ended and blackness settled around us, Marty stepped free of the River Wild and we frantically embraced each other. We walked into the living room to find a flashlight and assess the damage. The problem now was, although clothed, we were barefoot and the flashlight batteries were dead. Of course. We lit candles because open flame in the aftermath seemed like another wise decision. The living room looked ransacked, and several of Marty’s drinking glasses had shattered right there in the cupboard.

The phone lines were working, so I called my mom. It was 6:00 a.m. in Philadelphia, but she answered the phone like a good mom always does. I told her there had been an earthquake and I was certain that California had snapped off from the continent and was floating out to sea. She turned on her TV. The quake had been felt from Las Vegas to Phoenix to San Diego. Joshua Tree was only 30 miles from the epi-center. An Amtrack train had derailed, but nothing was floating to sea. Damage was minimal because most of the area is underpopulated desert and everyone was in bed.

Hopefully Marty and I could apply better sense to a Carolina Tornado Emergency than we did during the Quake of '99. Honestly I don't even know where the flashlight is, and I'll bet its batteries are dead. Would he throw his body across mine to protect me? Maybe. If he's awake. I can't help remembering that during the quake, I was the one who abandoned him entirely and ran for the door. I hope he doesn't expect me to throw my body across his - you're on your own, Sucker!

Joshua Tree National Park, 1999. We have better photographs (pre the digital age) but I didn't feel like searching for them. Maybe later.

Tigress in Spandex

I took up running when I was 43. This would have been easier if I hadn't taken up 20 extra pounds at 42. Needless to say, it's been a year and I still work really hard at being able to maintain endurance for a 5k. What a chore.

First is the mental piece. I have to tell myself all day that I am going to run after work, because otherwise I'll be in the break room eating doughnuts. Several times. Before lunch. One must not run with a belly full of fried dough and sugar glaze.

Second, I have to gear up. Sports bra first. All hooks hooked? Check! Velco fixtures firmly affixed? Check! Nipples aiming the same direction? Emergency rip cords and flotation devices in place? Check, check, check! Amen, these jugs are not going to budge. Pull on tiny, unflattering spandex shorts, lace up the shoes, and out the door I go.

Next, I drive to the trail, start up the tunes, and start plodding along. If you didn't know how old I was, after one glance at my playlist, you would know: Counting Crows, Bell Biv DeVoe, Bjork. I'm out of breath by the 5th stride. Oh my God, when is this OVER?  The first 10 minutes are the worst. The only thing I can think about is what I want to eat later. Today the sports bra might be a little snug with the monthly bloat, and I can feel an overhang of backfat jiggling with each step as it oozes fearlessly out the back of my racerback tank. I feel fat. I feel old. I feel out of shape. This is torture.

Then my body finally takes over, and I get my groove on. My blood is pumping - sha lalalala la, it's Mr. Jones and me, and we are INVINCIBLE, baby! My stride is rhythmic, my breath is confident. My backfat has dissolved into a sheet of lean muscle, and before I know it, my run is over. I walk it off, a sweaty tower of endorphins. I am a tigress! I am an Olympian! In the car on the drive home, I extend my arm out the window, palm open, fingers splayed like a starfish. I feel like I am shooting magic energy from my fingertips into the universe - hold on. WAIT! WHAT IS THAT IN THE REAR VIEW MIRROR?!? It's my upper arm skin, unfurling and flapping like a flag, oscillating in the wind. And just like that, my magic is gone.

Literally

Yesterday morning, my husband Marty said, "I might grill later."  So in the afternoon, thinking I should start marinating and skewering stuff, I asked if he decided whether or not he was going to grill. He responded, "I guess so, maybe."  I stared at him. What does that MEAN? Can't he just give me a yes or no? He says stuff like this all the time. I decided to marinate meat and hope for the best. It wasn't worth an argument - been there, done that. I planned to make corn on the cob and asked him how many he wanted. He responded, "One or two."  Sigh.

My sister accuses me of "being too literal" so I try to remember that. Maybe it's less a matter of others failing to be clear, but a matter of me not being able to interpret properly. I wonder if how we interpret and how we communicate have more to do with the way we think or the way we listen.

I listen literally. I can't help it. My brain is bad at translating. I won't even mention the horrifying things I have done to song lyrics. At one point, I asked my doctor to check my hearing. It was fine.  My favorite example is when Marty and I were dining out. He ordered for dessert, what we nickname a "Chocolate Bomb." This is a general term we use to refer to any warm chocolate brownie or chocolate cake smothered in hot chocolate goo and a scoop of vanilla ice cream melting all over it. Anyway, at the end of our meal, the server delivered Marty's Bomb and said, "Mexican plate?" Marty smiled and agreed. I stared intensely at his melting chocolate shit pile while he ate, desperate for my brain to translate. I knew I misheard something, but couldn't figure it out. Marty read my face, and I confessed. "Why did the waiter call your Bomb a Mexican plate?"  Marty said, "Oh my God, he said 'MAKES IT COMPLETE'." Say that with a Southern accent (like the server), and you'll see my point.

Photo from foodnetwork.com: Almost-Famous Molten Chocolate Cake

Food Safety is a Myth

I am living proof that food safety is a myth. You name it, I have eaten it either on purpose or by accident. I have a stomach of steel and the discerning food sense of a billy goat.

I find it amusing and disturbing how people are so preoccupied with ‘sell by’ and ‘expiration’ dates. It’s all a hoax. I know someone who threw away a bag of baby carrots because they were ‘expired.’ I’m thinking, can’t you tell by looking if a carrot is rotten?  Was it juicy, stinky, moldy? No? Then eat it, don’t toss it. I was embarrassed for her. But she was probably embarrassed for me when I asked her, “You gonna eat this?” in reference to her yogurt, a month expired, in the fridge at work.  It was scrumptious. Just this week I used salad dressing that she would have tossed 14 months ago.

I thaw frozen meat (sometimes clearly freezer-burned), on the countertop overnight. I use a germ-ridden dishcloth instead of disposable wipes in my kitchen. I leave a stick of butter in the butter dish on the table without refrigeration, always. I’ve never poisoned a guest, and I’ve never been poisoned either. Maybe I've just eaten so much rancid crap that I am immune to food-bourne bacterias. Kathleen informed me this morning that a bunch of people got salmonella poisoning at a local restaurant. This is why she checks restaurants’ health department ratings online before she goes anywhere.

My friend Kathleen is obsessed with food safety. She can’t tolerate the fact that I don’t refrigerate my lunch at work. I bring it in a thermal bag, and it sits on my desk until I am ready to eat it. It could be leftovers, fruit salad, cheese – anything. I like to email her things like: “Turkey sandwich with mayo and week-old potato salad. Unrefrigerated for 5 hours. So tasty.” Her reply? “Why do you do this to me?” Kathleen gave me pink grapefruits last month. She received them as part of a Harry & David Fruit-of-the-Month Club two months earlier, and they had simply been around her house too long for her comfort. They were perfectly ripe and tart-sweet-delicious. Mmmm! She considers me a human garbage disposal for her outdated fruit. BRING IT ON! I also scored a pineapple, and became an instant advocate of fruit-of-the-month clubs everywhere.

Kathleen might stroke out if I told her that mom recently sent me to her basement freezer to retrieve black walnuts she shelled. The containers were labeled 1974 and 1978. She shelled them alright - during the Ford Administration. Regardless, we had fun baking a delicious black walnut cake, and nobody knew the nuts were as old as disco.

What's with the Squirrels?

Mom badly injured her hamstring.  She slipped in the wet grass, did a split, and wrecked her leg. No surgery needed, but major recovery in store for her. That's her story. The short story.

BUT what I found out was this:
Dad was shooting squirrels off the birdfeeder from the second story bedroom window. He hit one, but didn't kill it and it was flopping around in the yard, half its head missing. Mom was like, "I'll take care of this, you ass," and charged out the back door. Mom couldn't stand the poor beast suffering - she was upset that the squirrel was badly hurt and unable to run away. So she grabbed a piece of firewood from the porch and marched purposefully toward the squirrel. In her haste, she slipped in the mud and fell.  Firewood went flying and mom did a split. Then she too started thrashing around, badly hurt and unable to run away.

Meanwhile, dad is still hanging out of the upstairs window, cracking up at all this. From his perspective, watching them flail about together in the mud was a comical sight. Mom finally gets up, covered in mud, and limps in the back door. Dad sees the limp, stops laughing, and goes down to help her strip out of her filthy clothes. She tells him that she is seriously hurt.

I hear all of this from my brother, who is dying to tell me because dad specifically told him not to tell me. Dad thought I would be upset with him for shooting squirrels. The truth is, what I find even more upsetting than my dad thinking it's okay to hang out of the upstairs window like a crazy man shooting rodents in a residential neighborhood, is that my mother has the capacity to bash a squirrel to death with a stick of firewood.

As if that's not bad enough, my sister's husband shoots squirrels from his birdfeeder too. Except he dresses his victims in miniature items stolen from the Christmas ornament collection.

Dear Mom

Dear Mom,

Today I was reminded of you. I was walking down the hall in the medical center. I turned a corner and immediately noticed the new wall paint. It was exactly the color of black raspberry ice cream, which was always your favorite flavor when we were growing up. What a terrible color for a medical center. But I smiled about the black raspberry ice cream and was thinking of you as I walked. Then I thought how last week I thought of you too. Jo was telling me how her kids love the books I gave them, especially the one about the hippos. I remember the hippo book, and how you used to read it to me. It had the word species in it, and I asked you what species meant. You said, "kind" and I thought how smart you were to know a fancy word like that. So I crossed out species and wrote "kind" above it - hippos were a unique "kind" of animal. And you know I treasured my books and it was a big deal for me to deface one. I loved when you read to me, and I sat closely or in your lap and had you all to myself. When you read to me, your breath always smelled like coffeestink. And the smell of your breath was a comfort to me because you were my mom and you knew what species meant and you read to me.

Then I thought about your mother. One of my favorite things about going to her house when I was small, was playing with those million-keys-on-a-string because some of the keys were blue and I had never seen blue keys before. From her estate sale, I got the skeleton key from that string and put it on my own key chain for years. And at dad's mother's, I remember the blue toilet water because that was the first time I had ever seen blue water in a toilet. I spent a lot of time thinking about why her toilet water was blue, but at our house it was clear. Or yellow. What would my grandmothers think if I told them this is what I remembered them for? 

So the point I am making here, is you can try all you want to "make memories" with your grandkids and take them to Hershey Park a million times, but they are probably going to remember you for something stupid like coffeestink or toilet water.

The General

   One of the many joys of my aging experience is interrupted sleep. My middle-aged boobs slide into my throat and choke me if I lie on my back, and when on my side, boobs from all directions pool onto my upper arm, cutting off circulation in the middle of the night. Add to this bed, pre-arthritic hips, a thrashing husband and an obese cat and you’ve got yourself a daily nightmare that you’re wide awake to enjoy.

     What caught my eye in the store one day was the Peaceful Sleep Ultra-Pampering Body Pillow, 100% soft cotton, $19.99. The picture on the package was a perfectly-coiffed woman in lip gloss, sleeping peacefully while snuggling her Body Pillow. That could be me! Surely this was the Ultra-Pampering answer to my problem. I lifted one from the caged display and tucked it under my arm.  It was 5 feet long and flapped like a giant quilted cod as I bounced to checkout.

Night #1:  I stripped it of its plastic sheath and admired it. Behold my downy relief! Here lay the imposing 5-foot conquerer, like Napoleon himself. I named it The General. When bedtime arrived, I positioned The General under the sheets with care. I crawled in beside it and clamped my knees around its midsection. Like the woman on the packaging, I hugged the upper end, and snuggled. My feet? Okay, there you go. Readjust. Better. Re-snuggle. What’s that? The “under penalty of law do not remove” tags are crinkling beneath my ear. Really? Roll out of bed like a turtle on her back, flip The General around, tuck it in, re-enter bed, clamp knees, position feet, snuggle. Aaaahhhh!!

~ 3 hours later, I turn over. With much effort, I lug The General with me. Reposition, snuggle, etc. etc. Husband thrashes and turns over. Resume sleeping.

~ 3 hours later, the cat is looking for his nightly nesting spot against my neck, but The General is in his way. He begins to scratch at The General, 4 inches from my face, until I shove The General southward to make room for him. Cat curls up. Purring. Loudly. The General is creating odd bulk at my feet. Husband’s CPAP machine droning on. Resume sleeping.

~ 2 hours later, it is daylight. I wake up and stare at the ceiling. The General has me in an anaconda-like grip and the cat is asleep in my crotch.

Night #2:  I position and snuggle The General, careful to leave cat space at the top, with the tags I forgot to remove bunched up at the bottom of the bed. Cat curls into place. Aaaaahhh!!

~ 3 hours later, husband comes to bed. I awake to see that the cat is sprawled across his side of the bed. He shoves cat. Cat crosses over me and curls against my back. Husband crawls into bed, and starts shoving at The General who has also poached his space. I finally roll over, dragging The General with me, reposition, snuggle etc.

~ 3 hours later, I awake. I’m sweating. The General is making me hot. Cat is snoring; CPAP is hissing. I roll over, kick leg out of the covers, reposition, etc. etc. etc. Cat clings to edge of the bed and resumes snoring.

~ 2 hours later. Husband is in the guest room, cat is sprawled and snoring on his half of the bed. The General is tangled up in my legs, immobilizing me in a full Nelson. I wrestle it out of the bed and throw it on the floor. Ultra-Pampering is the pits.

Postcards

     I love postcards! When I was in high school, my friend and fellow camp counselor, Heather, sent postcards to me during the school year. I saved her cards, and many more since then. They now live in a Keds shoebox in the basement.  Recently I dug through them. I think the favorite of the bunch, by far the most sentimental, was from Nicholas. He lived in my neighborhood for a short time when I was in high school. His mother paid me $5 every Wednesday to help him with his schoolwork for 2 hours. She was Hungarian, and English did not come easy. The postcard is from Budapest. His message:  I am having so happy a wonderfull time with my Grandparents and cousins. I am so happy to see them. I miss you see you middle of august or september Love Nicholas. As I read it now, my failings as a tutor are clear.
     I especially love tacky postcards. When I see one, I frown and say "Ghastly." Then I buy as many as I can. My friends have learned to return the favor. One card in the Keds box shows a black and white picture of a male patient's shock at finding a huge lizard on his torso staring at him in the face.  It touts, "Harold's doctor had failed to warn him of possible complications resulting from his vasectomy."  The message on the reverse is this: This card made me laugh and the first person I thought of was you (don't you feel lucky). I really miss talking to you and screwing around with you. School is not the same without you!  Shawn.  So my thrill of the tacky was alive and well in 1993. I can't say I remember much about Shawn now, except he was Canadian and kept cartons of Marlboro lights in his campus freezer. But we did have great times. And despite what the text might suggest, always with our clothes on.
     This love extends to greeting cards. Greeting cards of the tacky variety can be difficult to find. Make no mistake, it can be done. Cole and Kevin, my beloved gays, are really good at it. I received one on Valentine's Day last year. The outside simply says, "I love you like a back alley hooker loves crack." The best part is, THEY MEAN IT DEEPLY and it touches me. I will treasure it always. My sister sent one with a forlorn little farm girl on the outside. The inside simply stated "Amish you."  She did not write on the inside, thinking I could re-use the card. I promptly signed it and sent it to Lynn in Minnesota, who kids me about my "Amish" heritage and has showered me with countless tacky postcards since 1989 when we first became friends. My favorite postcard from her is a picture of the parking lot of Bob Verchota's Railroad Pass Casino with "$1.95 Dinner Buffet" blazing from the marquee.  "Howdy from Nevada" it says. On the back she wrote: Only the best for you. 

     One does not always have to BUY these lovely items, of course. One can MAKE them. And make them I do! Mom, Jo and I sometimes craft together. During one such visit, Jo and I decided to put together a lovely card for Candi. The outside included a lacey Victorian background and a bunny in a dress holding a bouquet of flowers. There were ribbons and shades of pinks and purples to behold. Sweet, yes? The inside included a simple message in Halloweenish letters: W H O R E.  We rocked the kitchen with laughter while Mom furrowed her brow and expressed her concern over ruining a perfectly good card.  This did not stop Mom, mind you, from making a card boldly emblazoned with nut-bearing squirrels for Jo's husband.  The interior message was "Sorry for Your Loss."  The occasion?  His vasectomy.

Introduction

     I was born third of three children in a nuclear family comprising parents of Pennsylvania German Mennonite history - "Pennsylvania Dutch." I grew up between Lancaster County and Philadelphia, and once had an Amish friend named Linda. Yup, Linda.  Not Rebecca, not Sarah, not Rachel, but Linda.  I have often wondered if she was the only Amish Linda in the world.  I have a garrulous, extroverted, artsy fartsy sister who lives in haughty New England. My introverted, dry, analytical, anxious brother lives in the Deep South. His two children are amazingly perfect despite the chaos of their household. I would say I am a blend of my two siblings. I am analytical, enjoy people, but prize my alone-time. My humor is left of center, to the delight of some, the perplexity of others. “Refreshing” my mother calls it.  I am refreshing.
     I conduct research at an academic medical center in North Carolina. I work for two incredible women who doctor sick children, some of them terminally sick; a job that makes me cry at home at night sometimes, at my desk, or even in meetings where highly trained medical personnel speak a little too frankly for my sensitive ears. Crying in meetings under fluorescent lighting – and getting caught doing so – is not my idea of a good day at the office. I realized quickly that children die every day.  Not something that crosses the minds of average people.  On the other hand, sometimes I get to meet adults who survived cancer when they were small.  Surviving cancer is one thing, but surviving the treatment is another. These adults are often physically damaged goods, with large, eternal patches of hair loss, stunted growth, prosthetics, orthopedic hardware, chronic pain and God knows what else.  Despite this, they charm me with their cheerful tones, and thank me for taking their blood and shoving them through an MRI machine for the sake of research that might help another living soul. I’m not sure I could be that gracious. When healthy people complain to me about their lives, that their cars keep breaking down or their jobs are low-paying, I want to grab them by the ears and shout to their faces, “Be glad you don’t have a 4 year with brain cancer, douchebag!”
     To keep myself reminded of life’s ridiculousness at work, I drink my hot steaming coffee from a mug displaying the Bristol Stool Chart. I sent my friend a Bristol Stool Chart t-shirt to wear on the Boston subway, but apparently she does not delight in pooh. She does not think I am "refreshing."