Category: me

no one of consequence

Shiner Doc

This is the shore of Lake Superior, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. People are at the beach sunbathing. Those are NOT whitecaps but ice flows. Brrrr!

There was that time that I gave the Best Man a black eye. But I get ahead of myself.

When people think about Michigan, top of mind is cars and cold. Most folks don’t realize that in addition to the mitten–i.e., the Lower Peninsula–there is another slab of Michigan. It’s on the other side of the big Mackinac Bridge, which spans the four or five miles where Lake Michigan and Lake Huron kiss. It’s the Upper Peninsula (UP). The hearty people who live in the UP are called Upers.

It’s crossways the 320 miles between Wisconsin on the west and a narrow river separating the U.S. from Canada on the east. To the North is the greatest of the Great Lakes, Lake Superior. You can tell it’s the greatest lake because it tells you so. Superior.

My friend’s brother went to school in the UP. I never quite knew how he got there from Milwaukee, but he went to Tech. He studied business at a mining college. Tech is way up north in the Keweenaw Peninsula. [I know, yet another peninsula. What is it with these people?] This Peninsula juts deep into Lake Superior.

Another thing you should know about Lake Superior is that it is cold. Average Keweenaw water temp–when it peaks in the summer–is still less than 60°F. It’s big. It’s cold. And it has a reserved, maybe even a foreboding, personality. If you stare at it too long, it will brush you off. It doesn’t care.

It was at Tech, on the Keweenaw Peninsula, strutting out into that cold, indifferent, arrogant, Superior lake, where the brother met a girl. She was an engineering student at Tech. She must have come from that Scandinavian stock that settled in the UP. The immigrants that set up the saunas in every deer camp that encouraged a naked plunge into the snow. Her long blonde hair cascaded over her shoulder like Upper Tahquamenon Falls. She had a quick smile and a smart wit that was punctuated by the wink of her cerulean eye. And legs for days.

She was from Hancock, which was the town across the bridge from Houghton. When she and the brother decided to make it official, the wedding was in her home town.

So the brother was getting married, and we were off to the destination wedding. Destination far. But we knew some people along the way. And we had bug spray. Fact: the mosquitos can be as big as birds up there on some of the inland lakes. I don’t think, though, they stood a chance off the frigid, Lake High-and-Mighty.

As was our modus operandi, we were late. I think that’s why I don’t remember the rehearsal dinner. It was likely embarrassing.

We were in Marquette for a few days before the wedding and likely slept in or decided on more coffee. There may have also been a side trip to someone’s childhood memories at a lodge purportedly haunted by a murdered doctor of John Dillinger. The purveyor of that story, however, was the step-father who was known to enjoy an acid trip or two and would tell you about his out of body experiences, even without you showing any interest. We didn’t see any ghosts. But I was scared to death when my friend told me about the wild dogs that were on the premises. This was an odd story, too, because the feral beasts were the spawn of a beloved bitch from his childhood named Penny. When I heard a howl or maybe it was a rustle of a bush, I ran back to the car. It might have been Penny’s mad babies. 

It wasn’t my family. And it wasn’t my affair. And I was along for the ride. So we missed dinner. But we did not miss the bonfire.

I knew my friend’s mom. She was awesome. I knew why he loved her so much. She was very kind to me whenever I was on a visit. And she would always bum a menthol off of me. She and her floating spouse smoked regulars. I don’t know if she preferred the mint of my Virginia Slims or just wanted a change, but she was always a little excited to take one out of my pack and light it between her lips. She was pretty, but like a mom. She was probably 44 at that time.

I think we were hungry, but, like I said, blew through any food festivities. There were literally no food options at 9 p.m. in Hancock, Michigan. The all-night diner closed by eight. I bet it opened at 4 a.m., though. For the working folk.

The young people, that would be us and my friend’s brothers and the friends of the betrothed, were on the move. We tried to catch up with them by downing a few cans of whatever cheap beer we drank then. It was likely a Wisconsin brew, since we were close to that border. Somehow I am thinking that we also ate cheese balls for our dinner, on the way.

We left the SuperBeetle behind and climbed in the back of somebody’s truck. There were trucks and vans and cars in the caravan headed to the pitiless and Imperious Lake. For a bonfire.

I knew the groom-to-be. He was super amiable. He and his fiancée were gracious and begged off from the ongoing celebration. They had a big day coming. They took their leave.

This was the first time that I had met the other brother. He was the family favorite.

I had heard his name many times. He was the eldest. The smartest. The chosen. The most charming. He was a medical student at a prestigious Jesuit university in the east. I never thanked him for my introduction to Washington, D.C., which I met on a trip for his graduation. The ceremony was at the Kennedy Center. I was much affected by our nation’s capital and vowed to return. Spoiler alert: I did two years later, for the duration.

There may have been a few dozen of us, with coolers full of beer and melted ice. My friend and I were grubby from the drive and the {mis}adventure of the day, but nobody noticed. The cars rolled up to the Super Lake. Lake Superior. We piled out, grabbed beers, and stood between the fire and the water. The bonfire of driftwood was going as strong as it would. It wasn’t big, but it was a fire.

The brother was in our transport. He was erudite. He was also condescending to my friend. Maybe it was their relationship, the older and the younger sibling.

I thought the brother was obnoxious. He wasn’t my favorite. No, not at all. He wasn’t like he was advertised by his family. He was tall, but slight. I thought that he was throwing me menacing looks. And me, buoyed especially by a few downed cold cans, threw barbs back his way. I may have been rude. I likely was rude. But I was thinking that he was not boss over me, I was not part of the family dynamic that excused his vainglory. To me, he was an ass. Not an asset.

He was peeved by my disdain, and I liked that. I dismissed him by turning away and taking another beer from a cooler. They were less cool now.

A few people were stepping into the ice water that was lapping along the sand. Some rolled up their pants. One stripped to skivvies and jumped in. I found that amazing. I was not that drunk. I don’t think I could be that drunk. And if I were that drunk, hitting that cold water would reverse any drunk that made me that stupid. But, I was from downstate. These Upers were made of this Superior Lake, of the pines around us, of the dark gray smoke from the damp driftwood. Maybe the copper was in their veins. Not mine, though.

I was ambushed from behind. Lifted above his head onto his shoulders. My swagger quickly displaced my shock. The brother started walking to the water, telling me matter of factly that he was going to toss me in. I was feeling the control leaving me as he stepped into the water. He didn’t even have his pants rolled up. I cursed him loudly, in my deepest strongest voice. He laughed. I told him that he was going to turn around–because now I was unable to leave his shoulders without having a dunk tank experience. He laughed again. That was when I took my fist, and I pummeled it into his head as hard as I could.

He stopped. He was very angry now. Too angry to humiliate me any further because he was being humiliated, too. He took the strides back to the shore, and I jumped off. I found my friend and we had another beer. The brother left in the next car. We left a little bit later.

I was ill-prepared for a wedding, and I was grateful that it wasn’t fancy. The wedding party dressed in gowns and tuxedos, but the guests were more relaxed. The bride’s sisters helped me with my braid, and my friend’s mother fretted over the use of the wrinkle cream she brought. None of us twenty year olds had any clue how to apply it.

The groom and his best man presented themselves to the mother. She screamed. Not loud, but not a little. The best man had a black eye. The pictures!?! I said nothing, but the story came out. And the mother was not a little angry with me. It was unfathomable that her favorite would have earned that shiner.

I, on the other hand, stepped away and lit up one of those Virginia Slims and felt very, very, very proud of myself. Almost, Superior.

 

Posted on by docthink 0

Sizing Up

Castle gate and wall. Imposing, no?

When I was a wee Doc we lived in The Old House. The house wasn’t especially old, but we called it The Old House to differentiate it from The New House. We moved to the new house just before My Older Sibling started kindergarten.

The New House was fully and completely new. It stood on what had been a part of a good-sized dairy farm that was subdivided into new blocks of varying sizes with twisty roads, half circles and a few cul-de-sacs. There were two very tall and very impressive trees. They were like Ents. The rest of the greenery was new sod and very young, very slow growing trees. When I left for college they barely provided shade.

The Old House, on the other hand, was surrounded by big old trees in the front and in the back. Indeed, the entire street was protected by limbs stretching and trying to touch their brethren across the street. Dappled gold and bursts of saffron would sneak through the small breaks in the big green canopy like specks of amber in hazel eyes. Closing my own, I can still see it, and feel it.

There were two very frightening things on the street with The Old House. First, the bees.

We were terrified of the bees. Someone told us that if they saw you move, they’d come after you and sting you. They were huge bees, the size of golf balls. No. Tennis balls. They would buzz back and forth among the flowers of the old lady down the street. We called her grandma. Her flowers were lovely, except for the bees that hung in front of the flowers. They looked like they were on wires that someone would occasionally move–either a small jerky up and down motion or a smoother left to right. We would spy them and very carefully, silently and slowly, holding our breaths, walk past grandma’s house.

Aa soon as we passed her property line we’d explode like a pinball out of the chute to our friend’s porch to play. I remember a bunch of cement steps to her porch. It was dark and cool, likely from one of those ancient elms. I don’t remember what we played, though. I think we launched ourselves off the steps.

The other terror was another neighbor’s dog. It would bark in a vicious manner. It was very loud. It’d throw itself against the fence to try and break through while full of snarl and howl to intimidate us as we walked by. And that monstrous dog was on the other side of the street. He really didn’t have to go to all that trouble. We weren’t allowed to cross the street.

One day I was walking back home by myself and the dog was banging against the fence. I was spying for bees and looking back over my shoulder across the street to see him break through. There was no worry and creeping past the bees. I took off as fast as I could to my house. The dog was gaining on me as I ran up the driveway through our open gate. I used all my strength to push the chain link gate closed, and it latched just as Cujo bashed into it. I lay on the ground for a second, catching my breath and watching the insane tirade of the evil dog. Worried he’d force himself through my barrier, I ran around the side of the house to the door and pushed my way to safety.

I was four when we moved. I don’t remember going back to The Old House for a long time.

The next time I saw the house, I was with my Dad. He was visiting our old neighbor, who was his best friend. It was maybe ten years later. I walked up our old driveway to the astonishing fence that saved me from that demon dog. Really, the fence wasn’t as astonishing as I was astonished. The gate that I remember breathlessly dragging to save myself from that ferocious canine wasn’t much more than two-feet tall. It would barely keep out a Jack Russell Terrier. So the dog that was chasing me was not a mastiff. Makes sense. Everything was bigger when I was smaller. I had a good chuckle.

I remembered this fence today. It came to me as I was thinking about fear. What are we afraid of? Do we let the objects of our fears grow huge before us? Or do we take a closer look and see them for what they are? Do we keep the images we had when we were most afraid, or do we gain perspective over time? Can we apply new knowledge to dissect and examine our experience and use that understanding to grow? Or do we stay stuck in that moment of terror, never to lift our heads again?

Posted on by docthink 0

Mine, With a Twist

chocolate and vanilla ice cream twist in a cone. i prefer a dish, tho.

After laying in a tube for 90 minutes listening to the worst, anti-rhythmic EDM while getting my pictures taken, and after a better than average but not quite good and certainly less than awesome overhyped fast-casual lunch, I decided to walk back to the office. And get some ice cream. Not really ice cream, but frozen custard. It’s a form of soft serve, I guess. But creamier.

I was actually pretty full after my eden bounty of flash cooked greens–broccoli and green beans and snow peas and zucchini and edamame and bok choy–with quinoa and a pair of nondescript sauces. Maybe if they gave you only one sauce they would have concentrated on making it more worthwhile. Doubling meh is like multiplying by one. You don’t get less meh. You don’t get more meh. Just meh. At least there was sriracha.

As full of green as I was, a frozen treat was still appealing. And, if I walked the 12 blocks from the hospital, I could both walk past the custard shop and mitigate my calorie lapse. Perhaps not a full win, but dangerously close.

It was super sunny and super breezy. So sunny that it was sizzling on the sunny side of the street and so breezy that it was chilly–like zip up your sweater chill–on the shady side. I criss crossed the street to regulate my temperature.

At first, I thought I was walking on H Street. The city blocks look pretty identical near the World Bank, but I caught myself before going off course. I did have to cross back to the shady side, though, since that’s where the custard store was.

Was is the operative word here. I passed by a dive bar that is mostly in the basement except for the bistro tables they serve under a big awning on the sidewalk. The bar smells better outside, for those of you tallying at home.

Usually, just past the tables, there’s a sandwich board. It’s more like a siren’s song, enticing pedestrians to the call of ice cream. No sign. It wasn’t there. As I approached the storefront, it seemed dark. Because it was. All of the interior counters, machines, sneeze guards and menu signs were gone. Inside there was wood stained medium-brown, a chalk colored linoleum floor and a random piece of plastic tubing on the ground. Lights out.

I felt like this was a little bit right. I really didn’t have much stomach space for ice cream, so it was good.

Although, it was sad. Sad that the store closed. The custard was really good. In fact, it may have saved a life–that day that a bunch of the most stupid people who had screwed up in the most avoidable fashion and blew my deadline without a recovery plan? Yeah. That day I just pushed my chair back to avoid cursing them blue-black and stomped to the ice cream store and cooled down. Inside and out. Everybody survived. Although the stupids were terrified of me from that day forward. That worked, too. All I had to say was, “ice cream,” and I owned them all.

I powered on, past the empty treat spot. I saw the food trucks lining the square and craned my neck on the off chance there was an ice cream truck. Nope. Just the standard rolled in a tortilla or in a like-a-tortilla fare. I thought I had given up on my sweet urge, but I guess I was wrong.

As I stepped into the street to cross the next block, I remembered the by-the-pound frozen yogurt store. This was actually what I wanted–just a little bit of desert. It’s self-serve soft-serve. I could totally regulate. It was only a few steps further. I walked in.

The store should be a mess, what with all the shitty tourists coming back from the White House pouring and heaping and spilling with their distractions that created inabilities to steady their bowls underneath the spouts, but the staff kept it fastidiously clean. So impressive.

As I walked in and scouted for a container to fill, a six foot four inch patron with steel toed boots wearing a kevlar vest and carrying an exposed, but holstered, weapon was on his way out. He had more than filled his twenty ounce container. Strawberry juice and slightly melted soft serve were seeping from underneath the clear plastic top clamping down the wreckage of fudge and maple syrup and blueberries and chocolate chunks and flaked coconut topping the cheesecake and mocha cappuccino froze-yo. I asked him if he had enough. He was sheepish. It was supposed to be for two, but he admitted that he was going to eat it all. And say that he didn’t stop to get any.

Emboldened by his display of abundance, I surveyed my choices. Skipping quickly past the sorbets I saw not only frozen yogurt, but a dispenser of custard. Vanilla and raspberry on the far side. There was vanilla and chocolate yogurt that could be twisted on the near side. The fabulous man who was keeping the store scrupulously clean was also sweetly friendly. “Can I help you?” was his earnest question.

“No thank you,” I said as I spied the paper bowl. I picked one off the top and stepped to the chocolate yogurt. I knew what I was doing.

Placing the container underneath the spout I paused with my palm on the handle, getting a quick feel for its heft and resistance. I wanted just a smidgen and a mishandling of the handle would deliver the thud of a huge glop. I drew in a breath and lifted and then almost immediately returned the lever. Perfect. Now to the far side.

My preference is always for a vanilla to chocolate ratio approaching 3:1. The buttery fullness of the vanilla is best when punctuated by the sharper chocolate flavor. And the chocolate is smoothed and delicious-fied by vanilla. I raised the cup very close to the spout, I wanted the custard to concentrate itself on top of the chocolate.

Next I went to the corner with the toppings. Most, frankly, looked disgusting to me. Not because of their presentation–again, kudos to the staff. I looked among the nuts–shaves of almonds, raw walnuts, goopy walnuts. No. No. No. In the back I saw a bottle with chopped salted peanuts. Perfect! I shook out a few. I glanced across the two dozen bins until I saw the smushed Heath bars. I teaspooned a bit along the edge. Done.

My cup was hardly filled. It weighed and costed out at $2.52. That’s way less than a frappuccino. And then I added two drips from the ladle of free hot fudge. Napkins and a spoon and I was back on my way.

I really love peanuts with ice cream. I laced my spoon through the vanilla custard to add a dab of chocolate yogurt with toffee. After two more blocks I realized that the ice cream had exactly no flavor. It was just a conduit for the toppings with no added value. I looked into my bowl with the melted edges of the frozen-yo puddling at the bottom toward my hand. I wiped my lips and placed the napkins on top of the milk product. Three more steps and I found a cement encased trash bin.

So done. Two more blocks and I’m at my building. Done with the hospital, lunch and dessert and ready to settle in for a short workday.

You might think that between the bad music, the average lunch and the taste-free ice cream that it was a disappointing day. But, you’d be wrong.

Between seeing my favorite tech who willed me strength when I had my first MRI, trying a new fun place that inspires my own bowl making and being able to control getting just a little bit of sweet to top off my day, it was far from disappointing.

It doesn’t always have to be a homerun to be a fabulous day. You can win on a base on balls. Like today.

Posted on by docthink 1

Countrywoman

Two roosters. Polish folk art.

“Do you know kielbasa?” She bewitched me and then owned me with her intense blue eyes. Eyes that were light and deep blue at the same time. Like the beginning of a night sky, with the lightest brightest blue at the horizon almost immediately becoming a deeper darker murkier and much more complex blue until it became black-blue.

I couldn’t look away. She reeled me in by calling out more food of our people.

“The haloopschi?” I didn’t get that one, but I told her I made golabki.

She held up her little Polacki hands and cupped them together. “The stuffed cabbage?” And then to the common translation, “the pigs in the blanket!?!”

I nodded. She never made them herself but her galaxy eyes lifted to the heavens to savor her memory of those cabbage rolls braised in tomato. She bored through the simple green in my own eyes and planted herself into the ethnic part of of the tribal part of my brain.

In unision we said, “pierogi.”

We both blinked and took a step back. Not because we jinxed, but because we knew that we were both–each of us–slicing through a buttery stuffed dumpling using our thought forks. We synchronously met that most pure, delicate and delicious victual in our now collective concentration. We were conjoined on the holy grail of Polish-American cuisine. You know it’s just that good when six of the items on the Buzzfeed list of Polish foods are pierogi, nos. 18-23.

Our sentences overlapped and intertwined. “My My mother aunt made them made them. So good. Oh my god!” We licked our respective lips. Hers more wrinkled at the edges than mine. Mine well on the way there, though.

She asked where I was from in the same paragraph without sentences that simultaneously shared that she was from Western Pennsylvania. I braided her words with mine, “Detroit.” We nodded, again. In unison, again. She returned to kielbasa.

“That Hillshire Farms, like what is that? Not like what we got, what we ate.” I know that we  were both cutting into the taut skin of the red sausage, of watching the fatty juices running out and of filling our nostrils with garlic forward porkiness. If porkiness is a word. But it definitely, especially when combined with smokiness, says Polish sausage.

This is the prototypical exchange of all Polish Americans. It’s always about our food and our church and our families.

“You Catholic?” I nodded. No reason to parse it out right now.

“How come you were to Ireland and haven’t been to Poland? You gotta go.”

She was a very slight woman. She was actually tiny.  A septuagenarian with a little thinning of her bleached hair that was short but wavy, especially at the ends. She made no mistakes on her makeup, not an overly and oddly lined eye, not a big pink blotch on her uplifted cheeks. Her spring sweater was a cream with a ribbon of gold around the neckline.

A newlywed, she met her husband on Match.com and was unsure about what she had done. Her partner of forty-eight years had preceded her and before he left this world, told her to be happy. She didn’t want to be lonely. So she accepted an uneasy ease with her first spouse, after spending the prior half-century with a different man.

She didn’t know her husband’s ethnicity, but he had lived in Europe for a few years, but maybe he was French? She wasn’t sure, but in her eighth decade after seventy-four years with the same name, she was figuring out how to go by a new married name. Six months into matrimony, she still went by her own name. She said she was going to change it.

In the meantime, she told me how lovely the Poles were and how her Jewish partner make the pilgrimage to see the Black Madonna of Częstochowa on his hands and knees, but her tour walked through. This story of his devotion delighted her, and me.

She took my card and said that I’d hear from her. I hope so. I hugged my new friend, she joined her delightful new husband, and we parted as the bellman opened the door onto the street.

Posted on by docthink 0

Whistleblower

Holly Golightly whistling for a cab. She surprised what's his name.

One day, when I was in my fourth grade gym class, I taught myself to whistle. Gym class was monotonous. I’d either stand waiting to get hit by a dodgeball or hang out on the sidelines after I was bounced out. This day, I filled my mental and physical time by trying to to use my fingers and my mouth to make a fife.

It took the entire hour, but I kept at it. By the end of the period I was dizzy and a little queasy from blowing out more than breathing in. And, this was the good part, I could shape my tongue under my fingers and emit a loud, powerful, high-pitched blast.

It happened gradually. I touched the tip of my thumb to my swear finger to make a ring. This was more natural to me than using fingers from two hands. I opened wide and stuffed my fingers shaped just so into my mouth, and I’d blow. At first, nothing happened. But I was bored so I kept blowing. Then, once, a rushing sound of air, not really a whistle but a sound that was precursor to a whistle materialized. I wasn’t exactly sure how it happened, so I kept blowing.

I had to take a break for a minute before I passed out.

Then, back at it. There was some particular way that my tongue curled just right under my fingers and a special way that I drew in the sides of my mouth, just a bit, to make the sound. Blow. Blow. Blow. A hollow and slight whistle!

More blowing and more contortions of my face and my tongue and my fingers. The sound was coming out more consistently and more whistlely. I didn’t know exactly what I was doing, but I started to conform my lips around the sound. My muscles were wired directly to a part of my brain that wasn’t consciously processing as much as spontaneously adapting. And it happened. Very loudly. More than once. I got it!

I surprised myself, and everyone else. Even the drunk gym teacher. A 65-pound kid put her fingers in her mouth and unleashed a sound that pierced an active gymnasium! I was able to repeat the technique the next day, and the whistle was–improbably–all mine.

Even at double those sixty-five pounds, folks didn’t think it was me. I would wolf-whistle my delight at concerts. I would cheer on my buddies at their important performances, recitals, sporting events and graduations. They knew it was me, but strangers would whip their heads around and past me to see who was making that most impressive noise.

I could stop a cab in the rain with that whistle. Sometimes the cabbies would see me and drive on. It couldn’t be me. I’d signal again and they’d make a u-turn and assess me with admiration.

I used it to call my kids. If they were away–in or out of sight–or we were in a crowd, I could reel them in with the sharp, and to them, familiar sound of my call.

I could get the attention of a noisy room, not just via the pitch but also because of its incongruence with the deliverer, with the locale and with the setting.

Mine was a signal of the working class. It was of my roots. I liked to shock with it. And I was proud of it.

Then, I couldn’t do it.

I had the right side of my tongue excised to get rid of these very stupid squamous cells that decided to grow there. It wasn’t a bunch of tongue, but enough. The missing part makes me talk a little funny, but I am grateful to my amazing speech therapist who helped to minimize my mumble. I’ll tell you one time how much we we worked on enunciating the word “dick.” My choice, not hers.

For a long time after my surgeries, I had numbness in my face and neck. Over the next eighteen months, the feeling came back around my mouth, then through my chin and eventually everywhere. There is still a slight droop on the right side of my mouth. Everybody says I’m crazy, but I can see it. I draw my lipstick on a bit outside of my lip line to perk it up.

My surgeon is very impressed at the flexibility of my tongue. I saw him last week. The scarring is almost non existent. He says it’s very soft. And that’s very good.

I can’t chew gum on the right side of my mouth because it gets stuck there. I can’t get my tongue to roll it back to the other side of my mouth. Also, thin spaghetti noodles. Fat ones work so I stopped buying the thin. That’s it though. Oh, and I can’t whistle.

Every once in awhile, I circle my fingers, touching the tip of my thumb to my swear finger and try to get the sound to come out of my mouth. Sometimes it’s close. And last week as I was walking home from the subway, for the first time in two years, the hoot of a whistle came out of my mouth.

I was VERY surprised.

I couldn’t get it to happen again. I found myself getting dizzy as I strolled home, blowing, blowing, blowing. I’m thinking that I’m going to get it back. Yeah. I’m getting everything back.

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Shoe In

A pair of worn out sandals. They were good while they lasted.

It’s summer today. Actually it became summer day before yesterday, but I was in the office that day. This is important because I don’t wear the same apparel during my off time.

I am not a fussy dresser. My working wardrobe palette consists of black, white, blue, red, green and a little khaki. These don’t represent a wide array of colors because there is a single shade of blue (sapphire), a single shade of green (emerald) and a single shade of red (ruby). Makes mixing and matching pretty much redundant. My working wardrobe style is classic. No frills. No lace. No prints. No stripes. I do have two items with polka dots, one black with white and one white with black.

I’m pretty simple on the shoe front, too. My shoes are black. My boots are black. I wear black shoes.

I’m no more fussy with my casual wardrobe, except I really don’t care much about what I wear. There may be a few more colors since there are t-shirts from shows and sweaters from the discount racks. I have a few pairs of jeans for fall and winter and some cropped pants and shorts for spring and summer. Cowboy boots for cold weather and sandals for warm.

This being my first day off of summer I rummaged around for hot weather wear. I had a coffee date at the farmer’s market and the temp was already in the red zone. I dug to the bottom of the other dresser to find a pair of shorts. I rifled through the back of the other drawer to find a tank. I was happy to skip the socks.

That’s when I realized that there were no longer any old summer shoes. You see, I wore them all out.

It’s a little odd that I have no well-worn shoes to start off the summer. I usually have an old pair of sandals and an older pair of sandals and some type of dilapidated slip on sneaker. Any given beginning of summer, I would have at least one of those at my feet.

Not this year, though. I remembered that the older pair of sandals got pitched last summer because I kept turning my ankle when I wore them. The Big Guy made a good case for my safety. This made the old pair of sandals the older pair. Turns out they were a wreck, too, as I discovered when I cleaned out the closet. I put them in the trash to extinguish any impulse to wear them this year. The sneakers had holes in the toes and no treads left. Also deep-sixed.

There were, however, a new pair of sandals. I bought them at the end of last year. I don’t really like them, to be honest. They aren’t very attractive, and they aren’t out of the box comfortable. I didn’t send them back in time so I was stuck with them. I put them in the back of the closet. There were also some new sneakers, purchased three weeks ago. They are attractive, and, I believe in my heart of hearts, they will be well worn and very comfy later this summer. Today, though, they are a bit stiff and rub on the joint of my big toe.

So, here I am, the beginning of summer with only shoes to break in. No old worn shoes to start my season. Poop.

I grabbed my big straw hat with the black ribbon that trails almost to my shoulder and started the work of transforming the new sandals into old sandals. They will be that way for two years before they become the older sandals. I’ll get a new pair to become the old sandals and then I’ll be back on schedule.

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Bone-weary and Bleary

A slinky (TM)

I am tired in my whole self. My whole, entire self.

My feet are so tired. I can feel every bone and bonelette in them. The bone along the outside, those fifth metatarsals, feels almost twisted. They aren’t. My toes are tired-sore in a way that they are almost sighing. My shoes were cute and comfortable today, but the feet could only take so much. The balls of my feet are piqued and a little numb on the outside.

My shins feel tired, too. I think it was from standing, but the thin coating on the outside of the bone, is it a skinny muscle? I don’t really know anatomy. Anyway the shin wants a massage and a nap.

My knees are pulled up on the couch so my legs can rest. Where my legs connect to my torso in the back, also known as my ass, is droopy and a bit haggard. I am slouched down on the couch and I don’t care. My shoulders are pressing into the back of the seat, their sharp angles cutting the slipcover to shreds.

The space between my shoulders, at the base of my neck, feels like a crooked slinky. You know how a metal slinky gets a crimp in it and then it’s not right? It will slink back and forth okay, but won’t flip down the stairs?  That.

My earlobes are tired. Seriously. They feel like they are almost pulling away from my head. They feel heavy and my left ear has given up on the day in total exhaustion. The skin around the outside of my face is done. It’s hard to smile, to pick up those corners of my mouth and pull the skin back from my eyes as they squinch up. Squinching is a huge effort.

My head, and that which is inside of it, is like I had two Pacificos to accompany the chicken with green mole. Those beers have accelerated the turn of the tilt wand, slowly and inexorably blocking out the day. My brain is so tired that when the atrocious word, inexorably, presented itself it allowed my lazy fingers to type it. We hate that word, but I have no energy to block it today. Apologies.

I am going to drag myself to the sink, forcing one foot in front of the next and, like the slinky, using that energy to pull the lagging foot up and ahead. I need to brush my teeth, even though my ivories are sapped of energy, too. There is only one cure for this tired of the whole. You know. I have to make it so and put this tired to rest.

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Morning Mist

When she breaks the dream mirror with her dreaming brain in Inception.

I dreamed about Hillary Clinton in one of those in between the snooze alarms hazy dream sequences. It was one of those dreams you remember because you were just awake and then almost awake but only in your head.

I was someplace doing something. Oh, now I remember. It was at my mother-in-law’s. The new puppy my spouse brought home just peed on the treadmill. As I was cleaning it up, the house suddenly–but without surprise–morphed into some kind of market. Someone was asking me a question, and it turned out on closer inspection (or maybe a dream-swap) to be Madame Secretary herself.

I found myself walking with her through the market. She stopped when she saw a stroller. She asked me how old the baby was. I immediately went into staffing mode to find out. I was struck, however, that Clinton was by herself. I wondered about her absent entourage. She didn’t appear to have any helpers or handlers or protectors. Perhaps the crevices of my mind were a safe space for the candidate.

I moved the stroller canopy up. There were two babies in the stroller. The babe in the front was maybe 15-18 months old. I saw another set of little hands around his waist. The baby was in the other baby’s lap. I looked up and saw the mom. And the dad. And maybe a friend of theirs.

At first I couldn’t tell  if they recognized Clinton. Hillary gave the mom a pen that had appeared in her hand. It seemed like she was giving the woman a pen so the woman could request an autograph. She asked about the family. The woman looked off-balance and a bit overwhelmed, but said “Thank you.” I don’t know what for.

There was a deli in the market. As people surrounded us, someone in a white apron walked up. Clinton ordered a serrano ham and manchego sandwich. The deli person offered something different, maybe their speciality? Clinton crisply repeated her order. I thought it was a cool sandwich to ask for and wished that I was as well travelled and versed as Madame Secretary.

As I got jostled in the crowd, I lost Clinton. I returned to my search for the puppy urine cleanup solution. I walked out of the market and spied our car with its trunk wide open. It wasn’t actually our car, but in the dream it was.

Some teenagers were taking the beer out of the trunk. Other people were looking in the trunk for goodies they could nab. I shooed them away, retrieved my stuff and locked the car. The car was pulled up next to a motel. There was a couch that appeared on a porch that materialized. I sat down. The mother of the beer stealers sat next to me. She was watching TV. The TV was inside a room just off the porch.

I realized that my sweater was on wrong. I saw the beer stealing teenagers around the side of the porch. They glowered at me. They saw their mom and, like a switch, sat down and became friendly, in that sweet way that young people can be curious and engaging.

Someone else asked me about the puppy who I now saw. He had been sleeping next to The Beast in this other unknown space.

The alarm sang again, interrupting the dream. I cleared the madness away, stretched my arms above my head, swung my legs over the side of the bed and started my day.

What a disjointed set of thoughts, I thought. I don’t think that they mean a thing.

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Orange Crush

Carrots. Baby carrots. Right size. Right color. WRONG!

It was so ridiculous. I ate a pretty big, and fairly late, breakfast this morning. I figured it would take me through the rest of the day. I was wrong.

It didn’t start until maybe 12:10 p.m. I was clicking through from Twitter when I was violently accosted by an awakening of sorts. Call it an urge, if you will. But by any name the results were the same. I suddenly and completely craved Cheetos®.

I immediately discarded this ridiculous thought. I checked my satiation scale. I wasn’t hungry. I returned to my computer screen. Only to be interrupted, again.

CHEETOS®! It was like I was the teenager that just had sex in the horror movie, and it was my turn to be lured out–to certain death–by the monster. It was just that dooming.

Nope. Nope. Nope. Not having it. In addition to not being hungry, if I had a bag at my desk, opened it and ate some, the orange Cheeto® dust would get on my keyboard. I wasn’t going to get started on that path. No Cheetos® everywhere. No Cheetos® anywhere.

I started back to work and my mind wandered to Baby Bear playing U-6 soccer. Some parents (okay, most) didn’t follow the guidelines requiring orange slices and water for games. They didn’t get that it was replenishment versus treats. So they’d bring salty snack bags and juice boxes. Bear would pick a bag of Doritos so I wouldn’t eat them. I hate Doritos. But he’d bring a bag of Cheetos® to me on the sideline so I would be happy. Stop! Out damn thought!

I pummeled the thought of salty-fatty-messy snack out of my thinking brain. But I couldn’t beat it out of my lizard brain. The part of me that imagined my chameleon-like tongue snapping a  Cheeto® out of the bag. Yeah. That. Couldn’t stop. Can I eat it now?

NO! I turned back to answering an email, still fighting through my consuming desire. I needed to check the possible dates for a meeting against my calendar. I switched between calendar and email and lost my place. Cheetos® were calling me, like a moth to the flame.

I looked at the clock. It was now 1:40 p.m., and I had been thinking about Cheetos® for 90 minutes. Literally thinking of nothing but Cheetos® for ninety minutes. Solid.

I grabbed my key fob and my wallet. I walked down the stairs to the lobby and turned into the little bodega. I knew that this wasn’t going to end until I ended it.

And, I did. Totally ridiculous.

Cheetos. Not carrots!
Cheetos. Not carrots. 
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Chop & Pop

tomatoes, avocado, scrunchions, secret cukes and lemon mint dressing.

I rummaged to the bottom of the vegetable bin. There were some of those cute Persian cucumbers. I don’t know why a recipe calls for English versus Persian cukes. They taste the same. They’re cucumbers. Especially from the grocery store.

There are six of seven left in the package. They are pretty skinny. I toss the one that is mushy and discolored in the center. I take three, trim the ends and quarter them before I run the knife up to the top, chopping into fairly even pieces. Kelly Clarkson is singing Since U Been Gone.

I stir the bastardized ropa vieja that I have on the stove.

Next up are the green onions. The recipe wanted red onions. I have them, but the scallions are more fragile, and anyway I like the crunch of the green parts. Same trim drill, but the tops of the onions are different lengths. It would barely waste anything if I cut them straight along the top, but I am in no hurry. I nip the bits of brown at the top. Before I chop, Pharrell and Daft Punk challenge me to Get Lucky. Dance steps ensue.

I’m interrupted by a friend who needs to go out. He really had to go so there was little time elapsed. I came back into the kitchen to a roaring Dave Grohl. He supposedly said Prince’s cover of Best of You at the SuperBowl was better than their original. I can’t help but think of Prince singing in the rain with that head scarf protecting his mane. I readjust my clip to keep my bangs out of my eyes.

The water comes out of the faucet fast. I am not sure why it sometimes comes out in an single stream and other times like a shower head. It’s shower head today. I soap up my hands to get back to my knife and wooden board. This playlist skips all the cursing in Gold Digger. I sing those words anyway.

I piled the onions next to the cucumbers in the white bowl. As I grab the plastic clamshell with the little tomatoes Shakira totally distracts me. I salsa back and forth through my kitchen galley, telling only lies with my hips. I wouldn’t even care if the neighbors saw, but they moved last week, so they can’t.

The first grape tomato gets sliced in half. They are very small, but I think that they look better if they are closer to the size of the other vegetables so I slice the rest in thirds. I pop one in my mouth. I pull out small handfuls, slice them and place them in the bowl. I keep going until it fills the space with enough red to break up the green. I eat two more and then slice two more.

I pulled out the large half-avocado. It was in better shape than I thought it would be. Sexy Back comes on. I cut around the pit. Someone said that it keeps better if you leave the pit in. It may have. I had a small whole-avocado, too. I didn’t think it was necessary.

My knife slid through the fruit. It was like a hot knife in butter yet still produced distinct squares that I piled between the tomatoes and the onions. The bowl was filled as Teenage Dream played. What a dumb song. I know it seems unfair to pick on this song versus the rest, but I don’t get Katy Perry. And, I get less why that cut allowed explicit lyrics. I woulda let Kanye finish.

There is a silly technique where you take a big pinch of kosher salt between your fingers and from a foot above the food “rain” it down. Somehow this distributes it better. I end up stirring the food anyway so it’s really unnecessary. I do it because it’s dramatic, and I feel like a celebrity chef. So I rained some salt and twisted some pepper.

I opened the cabinet literally above my head. I have to stand on the tips of my toes and really stretch to reach the mini-stainless bowl that sits on the top shelf. This prep bowl is well used, but in an inconvenient place because I don’t have anywhere else to put it in this barely functional kitchen. Taylor is whining about how We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together. I’m unconvinced. This was on her last country album, even though most of it was pop.

I take the EVOO–it always cracks me up when I see that on a menu. I want to find the pretentious menu author and punch them in their pretentious author neck.

I pour the exact amount, in that it’s exactly the amount I poured, if only measured by my squinted right eye. I don’t have fresh lemon but a fairly fresh bottle of lemon juice. I squeeze about the right proportion to join the oil. I pick up my super cute baby-whisk. I ordered this whisk from either Crate and Barrel or Sur la Table. They came in a pair, which is good because I wore one of them out. Speaking of worn out, that Lumineers joint comes on. Hey! Ho!

The recipe, that I am not really following in any meaningful manner, wanted me to add fresh cilantro. I don’t have that or the dill they suggested to swap. I go through the spice jars twice. I even go to the way back of the cupboard where I have the extra bottles of valencia orange peel and smoked paprika that I bought by mistake. Nope. No dill anywhere. So I go for some dried mint. Seems like a fresh substitute. After I added it I remembered that I have some actually fresh mint on the back porch. Went too fast there.

Here’s my favorite part. The whisking. I get oddly excited by how quickly that little whisk emulsifies the oil and lemon juice. It seemed exceptionally fast tonight–like only three or four turns and it was like melted caramel.

I’m not ready to dress the salad yet, but worry that the avocado will discolor before The Spouse gets home. I shake a few drops of lemon juice over the concoction. I take the cookie sheet lined with discs of polenta out of the oven and flip them. Whoa, that oven is a little hot.

Lil Jon comes on. Seriously. Right then. Turn Down for What? In this case, turnt down to keep dinner from burning.

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