It's raining, it's pouring . . . I LOVE it!
I thought I sounded kind of drippy about the vacuum store. So I do want to correct that and say that my serviced vacuum is so shined up all brand new and sweet smelling. They do SUCH an excellent job going over every little bit of it, and I appreciate it because I am an overly thorough person. Born like that. My mother has a wonderful friend, I call her GAD for Gorgeous Aunt Dolores. She's my friend, too. We've known each other all my life. When my brother was a baby she could make him laugh himself silly, just by looking at him with funny faces. They had a connection. Anyway, she suffers from perfectionism, too, and she says we may as well not try to do anything about it because it's just the way it is. I take solace in that. But still, perfectionism is a demon of sorts. Especially playing the piano. Finally, my choir director told me, You will drive yourself crazy if you aim for perfection because it is not going to happen. I liked that tip. It's a whole mindset. If I begin with the idea that there WILL be a bad note or two, then that kind of takes the pressure off, makes me shrug my shoulders. Besides, aiming for something that's unattainable makes me freeze up, and that's the surest way to guarantee a far worse performance than a bad note or two. In fact, relaxing about it is very likely to produce - SURPRISE! - a better performance. But, I generally forget to tell myself these things. Honestly, I start over from scratch each time, it's so annoying. I need to do like they did in the Old Testament. Write important things down and wear them in a little box strapped to my forehead or something like that. Then I could take it out and read it as a reminder of how I wanted to think. But I'd have to remember to do that. Do you think wearing a box on my forehead would make me remember? Maybe at first.
Okay, so we got invited to a baseball game tonight and a Beach Boys concert following. This is why I have to post so early today, as opposed to my usual 11:59:59 PM time slot.
Farewell,
KEM
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Friday, September 4, 2009
How are you? I hope you're doing swell.
This afternoon at the last second I decided I should invite my parents for dinner. I made Sophia Loren's spaghetti, our very most favorite. Except not my Dad's favorite because the recipe is, to him, glaringly meatless, but to me, gloriously so. Therefore, I assuaged my Dad's fear of a meat omission (he knows me, and I know him) by frying up some Italian sausage on the side. We didn't mention it was chicken sausage, and so he was quite satisfied. Also today I was checking out an AOL skit on what ingredients you can skimp on and still come out ahead - in taste and money. This wasn't anything I researched on purpose, it was just one of AOL's daily flash-ups. And guess what the girl was making for her mother? A pasta dish. And it had 4 ingredients as opposed to Sophia's 6 ingredients. All the ingredients matched except Sophia has garlic, basil and salt and AOL girl did not but had balsamic vinegar, which Sophia does not. Well. That interested me. The tomatoes, olive oil and sugar were the common ingredients. Okay, so I could have said that a lot simpler, but it's already said. So OF COURSE when I made mine tonight, I had to splash in some balsamic vinegar (lemon juice is good, too, when I think about it, which has been once, so far). When I tasted it out of the pot I thought b vinegar added a nice punch. But by the time I sat down to eat it, I forgot I had ever added b vinegar. Because you know when you are the cook and you FINALLY get to sit down and eat, you are too exhausted to know anything, much less taste anything. I made a green soup the color of Spinach Cocktail, but it was the chilled zucchini soup, aren't you relieved? I added some cucumber because two of my four zucchini were weird and I zinged them in the trash. Their flesh looked soaking wet in spots, there were some brown streaks and the cores we SPONGY. I could press my thumb right through the 1/2" sliced rounds. GROSS! Don't you hate it when your produce lets you down like that? Honestly. This soup has lots of basil in it, too, hence the favoring of spinach green. We ate baked custard from the old-fashioned Better Homes and Garden New Cookbook, p.200. I guess in 1950-something it was "new" because Better Homes seems to go WAY BACK. I love that cookbook, most ladies do, I understand the very old copies get snatched up at flea markets. I personally own two of those, one from each of my grandmothers. But the pages are brittle, they literally crumble in your hands and that's not very good, is it? So when the 1950ish vintage version was reprinted, I snatched it up so fast. Also got a reprint of Betty Crocker's Cookbook for Boys and Girls, from which I use the meatloaf recipe my stepson is so in love with. Also have Better Homes Junior Cookbook for the Hostess and Host of Tomorrow. I think these cookbooks are perfect and if I had no other responsibilities, I would spend every day leisurely perusing them and preparing fabulous dinners, just like Aunt Bea. I so love a dependable family dinner. Once my brother and I and some others were watching a Father Knows Best (or some such show) episode and the family sat down to dinner. I fell into a trace of bliss and I LOVE DINNER slipped from my lips quite by accident. I sort of uttered it in an airy, reverential tone, emphasizing each word. My brother, who was THE FUNNIEST PERSON I EVER MET IN MY LIFE, went into a fit. He howled with laughter and started imitiating me, I LOVE DINNER, I LOVE DINNER. And he, Michael, never let me live it down as long as he lived, which wasn't too much longer. He was the type person who could get you screaming with laughter in 1.3 seconds. He had natural comedic physical expressions and used them liberally since he thrived on creating hilarity. It didn't matter what the subject matter was, the world and everything in it was his comedy stage. His props could be an ordinary pair of salt and pepper shakers on the table, and he'd work them so fast you'd be on the floor rolling around in pain. And he'd keep going. There were times I'd be laughing so hard that I literally could not breathe. I'd clutch my throat, and with what was nearly my last gasp cry, Stop, Stop. It saddens me greatly that he only lived to age 32. A lot of laughter died out when he did.
Speaking of family dinners, my mother did that. She was a naturally good cook, nothing fancy, but she had a knack. Especially with meat. Her meatloaf, pork chops, fried chicken, yummy! She also made the baked custard a lot. And gelatin salads. But her Signature Dish, which made frequent appearances at the dinner table, was 4 ingredients, and also very, very tasty. You won't believe it when I list the 4, but it's true. Ground beef, onions, green pepper and a can of kidney beans. Have you ever? Bang for buck. My Dad said when they were first married her Signature Dish was boiled yellow crookneck squash. Ev-a-ree night. Boy, he can't hack yellow squash anymore - loathes it. It's a good thing meat entered her recipe repertoire, eh? Oh, and her other Signature Dish was baked beans, recipe also courtesy of the good old Better Homes and Garden, p. 300. She took those beans in her blue covered casserole to the annual neighborhood Easter Egg hunt/pot-luck and to picnics at the beach. I was telling my friend about my Mom's good beans, and my friend jumped in and rattled off the ingredients - turns out her mom made the same recipe. I guess everyone's mom did . . . brown sugar, dry mustard, ketchup, bacon. Do you ever long for the simple past? But maybe every kid grows up and longs for his simple past because when you're a kid you just don't get it yet.
Yesterday I was not happy at Gorilla Vacuum Repair. Had to know what became of the gorilla on the roof, and the desk man said, See those two gorillas out front? Yes (and added in my mind, Those puny little imposters). Those are all we've ever had, he says. He acted like there was never a gorilla on the roof. WHAT?????? But now that I'm thinking about it, I think that man is wrong, even if he is the store owner maybe. Maybe I was so discombobulated to hear there was never a giant gorilla on the roof, that I missed something he was saying. But if there ever was a gorilla on the roof, it was definitely one of those two out front. They are human-sized, I went up and examined them closely. They are really only mannequins with a gorilla costume. I could tell that because one of them, who was wearing a lei-like necklace, had the head part of the costume detatched at the neck and it needed to be pulled down, his fake fur face was in danger of blowing off, you could see a couple inches of white plastic neck. Honestly, the least they could do is dress their gorillas well. I'm going to have to call back over there and get them to run this story by me one more time. I need to pin them down because I know I saw a gorilla on the roof at some point, and it's going to take A LOT to convince me otherwise. He did tell me that the kids who stole the gorillas were college girls. They thought a gorilla would look extra good in their dorm. Also, when I asked the repair man how often I should change the bag, he said, When it looks full. I thought that was insolent.
Gots to go,
KEM
This afternoon at the last second I decided I should invite my parents for dinner. I made Sophia Loren's spaghetti, our very most favorite. Except not my Dad's favorite because the recipe is, to him, glaringly meatless, but to me, gloriously so. Therefore, I assuaged my Dad's fear of a meat omission (he knows me, and I know him) by frying up some Italian sausage on the side. We didn't mention it was chicken sausage, and so he was quite satisfied. Also today I was checking out an AOL skit on what ingredients you can skimp on and still come out ahead - in taste and money. This wasn't anything I researched on purpose, it was just one of AOL's daily flash-ups. And guess what the girl was making for her mother? A pasta dish. And it had 4 ingredients as opposed to Sophia's 6 ingredients. All the ingredients matched except Sophia has garlic, basil and salt and AOL girl did not but had balsamic vinegar, which Sophia does not. Well. That interested me. The tomatoes, olive oil and sugar were the common ingredients. Okay, so I could have said that a lot simpler, but it's already said. So OF COURSE when I made mine tonight, I had to splash in some balsamic vinegar (lemon juice is good, too, when I think about it, which has been once, so far). When I tasted it out of the pot I thought b vinegar added a nice punch. But by the time I sat down to eat it, I forgot I had ever added b vinegar. Because you know when you are the cook and you FINALLY get to sit down and eat, you are too exhausted to know anything, much less taste anything. I made a green soup the color of Spinach Cocktail, but it was the chilled zucchini soup, aren't you relieved? I added some cucumber because two of my four zucchini were weird and I zinged them in the trash. Their flesh looked soaking wet in spots, there were some brown streaks and the cores we SPONGY. I could press my thumb right through the 1/2" sliced rounds. GROSS! Don't you hate it when your produce lets you down like that? Honestly. This soup has lots of basil in it, too, hence the favoring of spinach green. We ate baked custard from the old-fashioned Better Homes and Garden New Cookbook, p.200. I guess in 1950-something it was "new" because Better Homes seems to go WAY BACK. I love that cookbook, most ladies do, I understand the very old copies get snatched up at flea markets. I personally own two of those, one from each of my grandmothers. But the pages are brittle, they literally crumble in your hands and that's not very good, is it? So when the 1950ish vintage version was reprinted, I snatched it up so fast. Also got a reprint of Betty Crocker's Cookbook for Boys and Girls, from which I use the meatloaf recipe my stepson is so in love with. Also have Better Homes Junior Cookbook for the Hostess and Host of Tomorrow. I think these cookbooks are perfect and if I had no other responsibilities, I would spend every day leisurely perusing them and preparing fabulous dinners, just like Aunt Bea. I so love a dependable family dinner. Once my brother and I and some others were watching a Father Knows Best (or some such show) episode and the family sat down to dinner. I fell into a trace of bliss and I LOVE DINNER slipped from my lips quite by accident. I sort of uttered it in an airy, reverential tone, emphasizing each word. My brother, who was THE FUNNIEST PERSON I EVER MET IN MY LIFE, went into a fit. He howled with laughter and started imitiating me, I LOVE DINNER, I LOVE DINNER. And he, Michael, never let me live it down as long as he lived, which wasn't too much longer. He was the type person who could get you screaming with laughter in 1.3 seconds. He had natural comedic physical expressions and used them liberally since he thrived on creating hilarity. It didn't matter what the subject matter was, the world and everything in it was his comedy stage. His props could be an ordinary pair of salt and pepper shakers on the table, and he'd work them so fast you'd be on the floor rolling around in pain. And he'd keep going. There were times I'd be laughing so hard that I literally could not breathe. I'd clutch my throat, and with what was nearly my last gasp cry, Stop, Stop. It saddens me greatly that he only lived to age 32. A lot of laughter died out when he did.
Speaking of family dinners, my mother did that. She was a naturally good cook, nothing fancy, but she had a knack. Especially with meat. Her meatloaf, pork chops, fried chicken, yummy! She also made the baked custard a lot. And gelatin salads. But her Signature Dish, which made frequent appearances at the dinner table, was 4 ingredients, and also very, very tasty. You won't believe it when I list the 4, but it's true. Ground beef, onions, green pepper and a can of kidney beans. Have you ever? Bang for buck. My Dad said when they were first married her Signature Dish was boiled yellow crookneck squash. Ev-a-ree night. Boy, he can't hack yellow squash anymore - loathes it. It's a good thing meat entered her recipe repertoire, eh? Oh, and her other Signature Dish was baked beans, recipe also courtesy of the good old Better Homes and Garden, p. 300. She took those beans in her blue covered casserole to the annual neighborhood Easter Egg hunt/pot-luck and to picnics at the beach. I was telling my friend about my Mom's good beans, and my friend jumped in and rattled off the ingredients - turns out her mom made the same recipe. I guess everyone's mom did . . . brown sugar, dry mustard, ketchup, bacon. Do you ever long for the simple past? But maybe every kid grows up and longs for his simple past because when you're a kid you just don't get it yet.
Yesterday I was not happy at Gorilla Vacuum Repair. Had to know what became of the gorilla on the roof, and the desk man said, See those two gorillas out front? Yes (and added in my mind, Those puny little imposters). Those are all we've ever had, he says. He acted like there was never a gorilla on the roof. WHAT?????? But now that I'm thinking about it, I think that man is wrong, even if he is the store owner maybe. Maybe I was so discombobulated to hear there was never a giant gorilla on the roof, that I missed something he was saying. But if there ever was a gorilla on the roof, it was definitely one of those two out front. They are human-sized, I went up and examined them closely. They are really only mannequins with a gorilla costume. I could tell that because one of them, who was wearing a lei-like necklace, had the head part of the costume detatched at the neck and it needed to be pulled down, his fake fur face was in danger of blowing off, you could see a couple inches of white plastic neck. Honestly, the least they could do is dress their gorillas well. I'm going to have to call back over there and get them to run this story by me one more time. I need to pin them down because I know I saw a gorilla on the roof at some point, and it's going to take A LOT to convince me otherwise. He did tell me that the kids who stole the gorillas were college girls. They thought a gorilla would look extra good in their dorm. Also, when I asked the repair man how often I should change the bag, he said, When it looks full. I thought that was insolent.
Gots to go,
KEM
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Interesting things happened today, but I can't write about them until tomorrow. Blogging is a very exhausting enterprise, or life is or something is. I can only write just enough to say I really wrote something today, since that is my dadblamed objective - to write every day. Boy, is dadblamed a word? Seems like I've heard it somewhere in the very distant, murky past, it's sloshing around in my memory, I can sorta make it out but not grab it.
So, I had a little perception, and I mean little, after my blog of confusion yesterday. I think my hang up with that 'wisdom of life' quote is that most things in life are truly nonessential, in the purest sense of the word. Let's face it, if it's not spinach, pineapple juice, a sarong and a thatched hut, then it probably is not THAT essential. We could survive on those, eh? We might get a little sick of Spinach Cocktail, but hey, we eat all the spinach we can. But then, I say it again, poor longsuffering you, nonessentials can pose as essentials. Like reading that interesting newspaper. For Pete's sake, I had a history teacher in high school, dear, sweet, no nonsense, I-expect-great-things-from-you-make-me-proud Mr. Allison, my very best teacher EVER. Guess what he did? He gave Current Events quizzes ev-a-ree day. This was not fun since prior to Mr. Allison, I thought Current Events were who made cheerleading, what's for dinner and which boy did Faye Ellen Foster (BILLY FOSTER'S FOR MAYOR sister) conquer today (wow, she was a marvel and so was her name, say it out loud and you will see). But Current Events was really a bunch of boring stuff WAY outside my orbit of interest. Mr. Allison, he could act so put out with us. WHAT?, he'd holler. You don't know what's going on in the world?? This is history in the making, you are part of it. How can you be so apathetic?? You all are completely pitiful. Then he would purse his lips, hang his sorrowful head and shake it grimly, to let us know how fathomless we were, how it wasn't possible to descend any lower as human beings. His sheer disgustedness was frightening to behold and left no room for interpretation. Which meant we were left with no option but to get off that rotten school bus, run in the house, right past the Twinkie platter (who can bother with sustenance at times like these) and make an honest stab at devouring the newspaper, first thing - middle thing and last thing, too. In other words, (I love other words) an urgency, if not a genuine enthusiasm, to master Current Events squeezed our souls in a viselike grip. I can promise you I was overwhelmed, it was all just too much, to try to begin absorbing the whole wide world at large when you were used to only your own little block. Those quizes were an ongoing dreaded nightmare, let me tell you. I started wearing black hair ribbons, black socks and black lipstick - I stopped just short of dying my uniform black. Current Events hung over me like an ominous black thundercloud, and living in the Sunshine State suddenly meant absolutely zip. But Mr. Allison was one of those neat teachers who commanded respect. Catching his reluctant grin if we got an A on the quiz was reward enough. We loved and adored him, coveted his praise and aimed to please. I think I'm still aiming to please to this day, hence the newspaper clutch. If Mr. Allison drilled into us the essentialness of reading the newspaper daily and thoroughly, who is little KEM to buck that? NO ONE, that's who. NEWSPAPER READING VERDICT: ESSENTIAL.
Same basic idea for those interminable piles of piano magazines, a problem peculiar to me, maybe, but do I attempt continued education (essential) or do I own defeat, seeing my life as ebbing by in a river of regret (nonessential)? But hey, knowing when to give it up IS essential, too. Unless you become a nun or a monk and go live in a convent - if you make that decision then all the other decisions seem to be made for you. That would plunk the 'non' smack back on essential, wouldn't it?
It the above paragraph made ZERO sense, then get used to it. When I get excessively tired my thoughts come out even more distorted and peculiar than usual. One last comment and this subject is laid to rest, like loose hair. My final conclusion is that I am going to go by INSTINCT when deciding what is and is not essential in my life, since most things strike me as essential and nonessential all rolled together into one. (I'm positive I just contradicted myself.) Oh, well. INSTINCT is a valuable natural resource, I think it's a blend of life experience to date plus a good feeling plus intuition. So, that shall be my new operating force, with pleasure, and that lousy mystery quote, yes, the one I formerly loved, has finally been solved.
My very first exercise in instinct is going to be telling myself that I don't have TIME to read the newspaper (even though I might MISS SOMETHING, NOOOO!, like the GORILLA STOLEN OFF STATE VACUUM ROOF story). And I mustn't WORRY (Fret Queen) about it and to rather TRUST (really?) myself, Mr. Allison notwithstanding. The PILES of papers in the dining room that don't go away (history lesson) + the RELIEF of giving myself permission to let go (feels right) + my gut telling me I'll be perpetually drowning in a sea of paper if I don't lower the axe (intuition) = NEW NEWSPAPER READING VERDICT: NONESSENTIAL. There. That was so easy.
Did you know my friend invited me over to lunch today at her house and I brought the lunch. Guess what I brought? Spinach. But it's official title was Spinach Salad with Blue Cheese, Warm B . . Well, that's all that printed of the title, off the Internet (why?). But I can tell you more . . acon. Cause it had warm Bacon in it. But I'm thinking it was going on to say Warm Bacon Dressing and it could have even gone on to say 'and Pepperidge Farm Whole Grain Caesar Croutons,' because they were in there, if we want to get fussy. I have a confession to make, I don't understand if periods and commas go inside or outside of quotation marks and parentheses. I Googled it but it's just one of those things I will never comprehendo. Like in college I couldn't "get" where the apostrophe went when making plurals possessive, FOR ANYTHING. It made no sense to me. My roommate Genie would say, like there was nothing to it, Children would be n apostrophe s. And I didn't see why it couldn't just as likely be s apostrophe. She'd say People's, and I'd think what's wrong with Peoples'. Picture a math wizard matter-of-factly stating the answer to a word problem to someone who still counts on their fingers. These gifted people think the answer is SO OBVIOUS that anyone requiring an explanation would be just plain silly. Well, they haven't heard of me. This all started in the third grade, you know when I got shipped on a bus across town to a new school. The teacher would ask you to answer a question, she asked you in front of the whole class. She asked me. I think it was on deciding if a word was an adjective or an adverb. But I didn't know. Heck, my brain froze up so badly I didn't even know the question. But she stood over me for the longest time, waiting for an answer when no answer was forthcoming. It was pure, unadulterated torture. All I could think to do was roll my eyes. Not one roll, but continuous rolls, like a car tire in motion, like those little plastic wiggle eyes they use in crafts. Then guess what? The teacher imitated the eye rolls for the entertainment of the rest of the class. I'm sure it wasn't premeditated and malicious on her part, but I felt absurdly mocked and shamed with every fiber of my small being. And I remember feeling so desperate because I really hadn't the vaguest notion how I was EVER going to grasp what apparently the rest of the class already had. Same as when I started piano lessons and was introduced to note reading in the John Thompson Primer. I would sit on that bench in front of those keys and stare at those musical notations as hard as I could, staring a whole straight through them. I think I was waiting for them talk to me and make friends. But all they were to me a half hour later, day after day, were the same little black dots on the page, interesting looking but utterly devoid of any meaning. Wow, it's really scary to be a little kid and NOT GET SOMETHING, not get it SO THOROUGHLY.
I think somewhere along the line I was telling you about spinach salad. The recipe spelled the Blue in Cheese just like that, B-L-U-E. Why did I think when it came to cheese you spelled Blue, B-L-E-U? Our little dog, Jazzi, has had upset tummy the last couple of days. She's been throwing up and it dries on her mustache and doesn't smell real pretty. Driving to my friend's house, after I'd composed the salad, I realized my hands still smelled of Bleu Cheese. Then I thought, These Bleu Cheese hands smell exactly like Jazzi's mustache. Not a real encouraging thought.
Guess what today was? The Big Thursday to drive over the bridge to Tampa and retrieve my serviced vacuum cleaner at Gorilla Vacuum Repair. But something appalling happened, and I'm going to let you guess. I will give you choices A and B only because there are too many choices in this here world and it's so overwhelming and humans are not especially equipped to handle deciding between multiple multiple choices. We really max out over just picking between A and B. I certainly do.
Directions: Circle A or B. (Hint: You will NEVER guess which one.)
A. My vacuum was discovered to be on it's last wheels, and they sold me a new one.
B. I found out my Gorilla-On-The-Roof story was manufactured, by me.
Since I didn't have anything to say tonight, nothing at all, I think I'll go eat a bowl of my favorite cereal, from the health food store, gluten-free: ORGANIC GORILLA MUNCH. I kid you not.
KEM
So, I had a little perception, and I mean little, after my blog of confusion yesterday. I think my hang up with that 'wisdom of life' quote is that most things in life are truly nonessential, in the purest sense of the word. Let's face it, if it's not spinach, pineapple juice, a sarong and a thatched hut, then it probably is not THAT essential. We could survive on those, eh? We might get a little sick of Spinach Cocktail, but hey, we eat all the spinach we can. But then, I say it again, poor longsuffering you, nonessentials can pose as essentials. Like reading that interesting newspaper. For Pete's sake, I had a history teacher in high school, dear, sweet, no nonsense, I-expect-great-things-from-you-make-me-proud Mr. Allison, my very best teacher EVER. Guess what he did? He gave Current Events quizzes ev-a-ree day. This was not fun since prior to Mr. Allison, I thought Current Events were who made cheerleading, what's for dinner and which boy did Faye Ellen Foster (BILLY FOSTER'S FOR MAYOR sister) conquer today (wow, she was a marvel and so was her name, say it out loud and you will see). But Current Events was really a bunch of boring stuff WAY outside my orbit of interest. Mr. Allison, he could act so put out with us. WHAT?, he'd holler. You don't know what's going on in the world?? This is history in the making, you are part of it. How can you be so apathetic?? You all are completely pitiful. Then he would purse his lips, hang his sorrowful head and shake it grimly, to let us know how fathomless we were, how it wasn't possible to descend any lower as human beings. His sheer disgustedness was frightening to behold and left no room for interpretation. Which meant we were left with no option but to get off that rotten school bus, run in the house, right past the Twinkie platter (who can bother with sustenance at times like these) and make an honest stab at devouring the newspaper, first thing - middle thing and last thing, too. In other words, (I love other words) an urgency, if not a genuine enthusiasm, to master Current Events squeezed our souls in a viselike grip. I can promise you I was overwhelmed, it was all just too much, to try to begin absorbing the whole wide world at large when you were used to only your own little block. Those quizes were an ongoing dreaded nightmare, let me tell you. I started wearing black hair ribbons, black socks and black lipstick - I stopped just short of dying my uniform black. Current Events hung over me like an ominous black thundercloud, and living in the Sunshine State suddenly meant absolutely zip. But Mr. Allison was one of those neat teachers who commanded respect. Catching his reluctant grin if we got an A on the quiz was reward enough. We loved and adored him, coveted his praise and aimed to please. I think I'm still aiming to please to this day, hence the newspaper clutch. If Mr. Allison drilled into us the essentialness of reading the newspaper daily and thoroughly, who is little KEM to buck that? NO ONE, that's who. NEWSPAPER READING VERDICT: ESSENTIAL.
Same basic idea for those interminable piles of piano magazines, a problem peculiar to me, maybe, but do I attempt continued education (essential) or do I own defeat, seeing my life as ebbing by in a river of regret (nonessential)? But hey, knowing when to give it up IS essential, too. Unless you become a nun or a monk and go live in a convent - if you make that decision then all the other decisions seem to be made for you. That would plunk the 'non' smack back on essential, wouldn't it?
It the above paragraph made ZERO sense, then get used to it. When I get excessively tired my thoughts come out even more distorted and peculiar than usual. One last comment and this subject is laid to rest, like loose hair. My final conclusion is that I am going to go by INSTINCT when deciding what is and is not essential in my life, since most things strike me as essential and nonessential all rolled together into one. (I'm positive I just contradicted myself.) Oh, well. INSTINCT is a valuable natural resource, I think it's a blend of life experience to date plus a good feeling plus intuition. So, that shall be my new operating force, with pleasure, and that lousy mystery quote, yes, the one I formerly loved, has finally been solved.
My very first exercise in instinct is going to be telling myself that I don't have TIME to read the newspaper (even though I might MISS SOMETHING, NOOOO!, like the GORILLA STOLEN OFF STATE VACUUM ROOF story). And I mustn't WORRY (Fret Queen) about it and to rather TRUST (really?) myself, Mr. Allison notwithstanding. The PILES of papers in the dining room that don't go away (history lesson) + the RELIEF of giving myself permission to let go (feels right) + my gut telling me I'll be perpetually drowning in a sea of paper if I don't lower the axe (intuition) = NEW NEWSPAPER READING VERDICT: NONESSENTIAL. There. That was so easy.
Did you know my friend invited me over to lunch today at her house and I brought the lunch. Guess what I brought? Spinach. But it's official title was Spinach Salad with Blue Cheese, Warm B . . Well, that's all that printed of the title, off the Internet (why?). But I can tell you more . . acon. Cause it had warm Bacon in it. But I'm thinking it was going on to say Warm Bacon Dressing and it could have even gone on to say 'and Pepperidge Farm Whole Grain Caesar Croutons,' because they were in there, if we want to get fussy. I have a confession to make, I don't understand if periods and commas go inside or outside of quotation marks and parentheses. I Googled it but it's just one of those things I will never comprehendo. Like in college I couldn't "get" where the apostrophe went when making plurals possessive, FOR ANYTHING. It made no sense to me. My roommate Genie would say, like there was nothing to it, Children would be n apostrophe s. And I didn't see why it couldn't just as likely be s apostrophe. She'd say People's, and I'd think what's wrong with Peoples'. Picture a math wizard matter-of-factly stating the answer to a word problem to someone who still counts on their fingers. These gifted people think the answer is SO OBVIOUS that anyone requiring an explanation would be just plain silly. Well, they haven't heard of me. This all started in the third grade, you know when I got shipped on a bus across town to a new school. The teacher would ask you to answer a question, she asked you in front of the whole class. She asked me. I think it was on deciding if a word was an adjective or an adverb. But I didn't know. Heck, my brain froze up so badly I didn't even know the question. But she stood over me for the longest time, waiting for an answer when no answer was forthcoming. It was pure, unadulterated torture. All I could think to do was roll my eyes. Not one roll, but continuous rolls, like a car tire in motion, like those little plastic wiggle eyes they use in crafts. Then guess what? The teacher imitated the eye rolls for the entertainment of the rest of the class. I'm sure it wasn't premeditated and malicious on her part, but I felt absurdly mocked and shamed with every fiber of my small being. And I remember feeling so desperate because I really hadn't the vaguest notion how I was EVER going to grasp what apparently the rest of the class already had. Same as when I started piano lessons and was introduced to note reading in the John Thompson Primer. I would sit on that bench in front of those keys and stare at those musical notations as hard as I could, staring a whole straight through them. I think I was waiting for them talk to me and make friends. But all they were to me a half hour later, day after day, were the same little black dots on the page, interesting looking but utterly devoid of any meaning. Wow, it's really scary to be a little kid and NOT GET SOMETHING, not get it SO THOROUGHLY.
I think somewhere along the line I was telling you about spinach salad. The recipe spelled the Blue in Cheese just like that, B-L-U-E. Why did I think when it came to cheese you spelled Blue, B-L-E-U? Our little dog, Jazzi, has had upset tummy the last couple of days. She's been throwing up and it dries on her mustache and doesn't smell real pretty. Driving to my friend's house, after I'd composed the salad, I realized my hands still smelled of Bleu Cheese. Then I thought, These Bleu Cheese hands smell exactly like Jazzi's mustache. Not a real encouraging thought.
Guess what today was? The Big Thursday to drive over the bridge to Tampa and retrieve my serviced vacuum cleaner at Gorilla Vacuum Repair. But something appalling happened, and I'm going to let you guess. I will give you choices A and B only because there are too many choices in this here world and it's so overwhelming and humans are not especially equipped to handle deciding between multiple multiple choices. We really max out over just picking between A and B. I certainly do.
Directions: Circle A or B. (Hint: You will NEVER guess which one.)
A. My vacuum was discovered to be on it's last wheels, and they sold me a new one.
B. I found out my Gorilla-On-The-Roof story was manufactured, by me.
Since I didn't have anything to say tonight, nothing at all, I think I'll go eat a bowl of my favorite cereal, from the health food store, gluten-free: ORGANIC GORILLA MUNCH. I kid you not.
KEM
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Hello friends far and near,
On Wednesday nights my stepson comes for dinner. Isn't that nice? It gave me the opportunity to exercise a change of mind. At first I was going to really impress him and fix Julia Child's beef stew. Then I canned that and was going to fix his favorite, meatloaf and mashed 'taters. Next I decided to fix roasted chicken and mashed 'taters because that sounded good 'n easy. But what we finally ended up having was grilled deli roast beef and cheese sandwhiches, spread with Dijon mustard and mango pepper jelly. You can see the succession of ideas was on a downward spiral, from ambitious to familiar to quick to a cinch. Nevertheless, these little sandwich babies are tasty, with lots of butter. I got the idea from Williams-Sonoma catalog. You know how they show off recipes and then also offer the fancy, priceless ingredients required to fix them? In this case they wanted you to buy marmalade sandwich spread. The picture of the sandwich looked so good I almost ate it. But the marmalade sandwich spread was a mere $30 for a little jar. I think. I'm pretty sure. Don't go quoting me or anything. Well, I don't have $30 begging me to spend it on a little jar of marmalade sandwich spread, do you? No matter if it's the most delectable food item ever concocted by man. I mean, all my Williams-Sonoma money went for my new dashed blender. So, I just decided some kind of grocery store jam would do nicely, and it certainly did. Then we had spinach. Sauteed. I still had a bucket of spinach I wanted to use up because on the box it says, For freshest taste use within 2 - 3 days after opening. Well, I take that very seriously, I want 'freshest taste', don't you? So, today was day 3 and I didn't have pineapple juice for Spinach Cocktail. (In case you haven't noticed, I am typing Spinach Cocktail at every available turn, it has such a ring to it.) Have you ever noticed, of course you have, how a truckload of spinach, when cooked, suddenly, and I mean suddenly, reduces to a tiny speck of a heap that would barely fill a thimble? Aunt Charlotte used to say, Vegetables cook down . . . ya think? It's ridiculous. Too bad human ladies can't reduce like that. Wouldn't that just be so handy for us? Sauteeing our bulk off in the blink of an eye, or maybe we could sashay it off (I mean, we are humans and not spinach, after all) in the course of ordinary living, with no discernable effort?
I've decided on an item that is NONESSENTIAL. Reading the newspaper. Now, this is not funny. Reading the paper is THE BEST activity I know that lets you pretend you are doing something useful, important and intellectual when in truth you know you are just entertaining yourself. I'm generally in a kind of a glaze when I read it because I do it a night when I'm too worthless to do anything besides, can't even gather the gumption to get ready for bed. Well, I shouldn't speak for the world, but that's how it is for me, I have spent A LOT OF TIME I shouldn't have scanning the headlines. I just have. I know it intuitively, I know I'm banking tons of useless mind calories (because selectivity is another gene that bypassed me, I mean, do I REALLY want/need to inform myself about a three-headed donkey that dropped out of the sky into someone's living room in Iceland or that poor Michael Jackson is still alive? I didn't think so.) but I persist. In defense of newspapers and journalists everywhere, you guys are addictive and I HAVE found FABULOUS, PRICELESS things in the paper, pretty much daily. But what I am saying is that I don't know when to say, ENOUGH! So the problem is entirely mine. I'm obviously confused again on essentials and non. Maybe I wish I'd never seen that quote?
I'm on a time crunch, lucky you. DTD came over to print a paper and show off her new cell phone cover, lime green. She's all smiley and happy about something and is only letting it out in dribs and drabs, she rations her news very deliberately. Anyway, she only had one snappy comment, well, maybe two, tonight. My favorite was when Mike, in an attempt to flatter me (it doesn't work), mentioned something about my being charming (he's losing it). DTD pipes up, Charming might be pushing it. Well, at least she left the door a smidge cracked for debate on the subject. I'll take what I can get, don't you?
I have an essential item I have to take care of TOMORROW. Thank you notes for my birthday. I cannot concentrate on expressing myself on my blog until I pay my debts of thanks. Balance, which my Granny preached, Whatever you do, try to keep a balance in life, is not my forte, I seem to know nothing of it. Granny had lots of good ideas and so many hopes for her grandchildren. We shan't give up.
KEM
On Wednesday nights my stepson comes for dinner. Isn't that nice? It gave me the opportunity to exercise a change of mind. At first I was going to really impress him and fix Julia Child's beef stew. Then I canned that and was going to fix his favorite, meatloaf and mashed 'taters. Next I decided to fix roasted chicken and mashed 'taters because that sounded good 'n easy. But what we finally ended up having was grilled deli roast beef and cheese sandwhiches, spread with Dijon mustard and mango pepper jelly. You can see the succession of ideas was on a downward spiral, from ambitious to familiar to quick to a cinch. Nevertheless, these little sandwich babies are tasty, with lots of butter. I got the idea from Williams-Sonoma catalog. You know how they show off recipes and then also offer the fancy, priceless ingredients required to fix them? In this case they wanted you to buy marmalade sandwich spread. The picture of the sandwich looked so good I almost ate it. But the marmalade sandwich spread was a mere $30 for a little jar. I think. I'm pretty sure. Don't go quoting me or anything. Well, I don't have $30 begging me to spend it on a little jar of marmalade sandwich spread, do you? No matter if it's the most delectable food item ever concocted by man. I mean, all my Williams-Sonoma money went for my new dashed blender. So, I just decided some kind of grocery store jam would do nicely, and it certainly did. Then we had spinach. Sauteed. I still had a bucket of spinach I wanted to use up because on the box it says, For freshest taste use within 2 - 3 days after opening. Well, I take that very seriously, I want 'freshest taste', don't you? So, today was day 3 and I didn't have pineapple juice for Spinach Cocktail. (In case you haven't noticed, I am typing Spinach Cocktail at every available turn, it has such a ring to it.) Have you ever noticed, of course you have, how a truckload of spinach, when cooked, suddenly, and I mean suddenly, reduces to a tiny speck of a heap that would barely fill a thimble? Aunt Charlotte used to say, Vegetables cook down . . . ya think? It's ridiculous. Too bad human ladies can't reduce like that. Wouldn't that just be so handy for us? Sauteeing our bulk off in the blink of an eye, or maybe we could sashay it off (I mean, we are humans and not spinach, after all) in the course of ordinary living, with no discernable effort?
I've decided on an item that is NONESSENTIAL. Reading the newspaper. Now, this is not funny. Reading the paper is THE BEST activity I know that lets you pretend you are doing something useful, important and intellectual when in truth you know you are just entertaining yourself. I'm generally in a kind of a glaze when I read it because I do it a night when I'm too worthless to do anything besides, can't even gather the gumption to get ready for bed. Well, I shouldn't speak for the world, but that's how it is for me, I have spent A LOT OF TIME I shouldn't have scanning the headlines. I just have. I know it intuitively, I know I'm banking tons of useless mind calories (because selectivity is another gene that bypassed me, I mean, do I REALLY want/need to inform myself about a three-headed donkey that dropped out of the sky into someone's living room in Iceland or that poor Michael Jackson is still alive? I didn't think so.) but I persist. In defense of newspapers and journalists everywhere, you guys are addictive and I HAVE found FABULOUS, PRICELESS things in the paper, pretty much daily. But what I am saying is that I don't know when to say, ENOUGH! So the problem is entirely mine. I'm obviously confused again on essentials and non. Maybe I wish I'd never seen that quote?
I'm on a time crunch, lucky you. DTD came over to print a paper and show off her new cell phone cover, lime green. She's all smiley and happy about something and is only letting it out in dribs and drabs, she rations her news very deliberately. Anyway, she only had one snappy comment, well, maybe two, tonight. My favorite was when Mike, in an attempt to flatter me (it doesn't work), mentioned something about my being charming (he's losing it). DTD pipes up, Charming might be pushing it. Well, at least she left the door a smidge cracked for debate on the subject. I'll take what I can get, don't you?
I have an essential item I have to take care of TOMORROW. Thank you notes for my birthday. I cannot concentrate on expressing myself on my blog until I pay my debts of thanks. Balance, which my Granny preached, Whatever you do, try to keep a balance in life, is not my forte, I seem to know nothing of it. Granny had lots of good ideas and so many hopes for her grandchildren. We shan't give up.
KEM
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Whew, today was extra busy. Our city had it's mayoral primary, to shorten the list of ten candidates to two. Of course I voted for Billy Foster. On all his campaign signs it says BILL FOSTER FOR MAYOR. Even the ballot said BILL FOSTER. But I used to ride the school bus with him, for miles unending because our school was on the total opposite side of town from where we lived. We rode that yellow, giant, noisy inferno (remember, this ain't the Sunshine State for nothin') for YEARS, and I've always wished someone had logged the miles because without a doubt we'd have circled the equator 8 million times if you strung it all together. But Billy Foster, who was three grades behind me, will always be Little Billy Foster to me. BILL? That's so utterly foreign and ridiculous. Hello, Mayor Billy Foster, do you remember me? Lots of people posted his signs in our neighborhood, and I have had lots of fun saying "BILLY FOSTER" everytime we see his sign while driving down the streets. At some points there are many Bill Foster signs all in a row and I almost get tongue-tied trying to say BILLY FOSTER, BILLY FOSTER, BILLY FOSTER fast enough to keep up. Good thing DTD isn't in the car when this happens. Every time we pass my old elementary school, North Ward (sounds like a prison), and DTD is in the car, I say, with great enthusiasm, I went to first grade HERE (and point to the southwest corner of the building) and second grade THERE (and point to the northwest corner). Mom, you've told me this ten thousand times. You say it EVERY TIME we go by. Well, I can't help it. I have lots of memories, the good, the bad and the ugly, and I think DTD should realize that the fact that I attended first and second grades HUMANIZES me. Don't most people go to first and second grades? I am a people, too. Anyway, it was beginning in third grade I had to start riding that dern school bus. In the good old days (meaning first and second grades), I walked to school, just like Beaver Cleaver and Opie Taylor (as if a parent could allow that these days). I wish I could have stayed at North Ward because it was an old-fashioned building and even as a kid I loved old-fashioned. The building has a big sweeping staircase to the second floor where all the BIG KIDS went to class. We little pee wees couldn't wait until we were old enough to be in the BIG grades so we would get to climb those stairs that led to regions unknown but daringly contemplated. Instead, I had to suffer motion sickness for 8.5 years riding that dern school bus. I am a traveling WIMP. You DO NOT want to take a trip with me. I was born motion-sick, and my parents discovered it when I cried for three solid days when I was a baby on a road trip to Michigan. Imagine the fun of that. One or more years the afternoon school bus route passed by a bread factory. I'm already totally bus sick. Kids, all of them, would hang their heads out the bus windows and deeply breathe in the "delicious" scent, ooohing and aaahing. I would hang my head down around my lap, hold my breath and try not to give it up. It has occurred to me that the bread factory manager was a sadist and somehow knew about me and would deliberately time his baking so that the loaves were removed from the oven just as the bus rattled by. Oh, here comes that sick kid, everyone position yourself by your oven door! Well, I don't really mean that. Anyway, BILLY FOSTER FOR MAYOR!
Tonight we had to have spinach salad again. I buy this HUGE tub of spinach because it is such the better deal than the miniature box, even though we're only two small people, and then you are forced to become Popeye. I learned how to make a Spinach Cocktail (before I gave my Magic Bullet to DTD), mainly because I came across this recipe, but also because I always have gobs of fresh spinach to choke down somehow. I have to get resourceful and engage my imagination for how to spend my spinach. It will be so much easier to make Spinach Cocktail with my new broken in blender. You stuff spinach in the blender and add pineapple juice. Press WHIR. Boy, it's good, you hardly notice it's spinach, even though the drink is a nice shade of spinach green, a tad paler, naturally, what with the pineapple juice toning it down ever so slightly. You can pretend the texture is pineapple pulp instead of spinach pulp. I'm telling you, there are all kinds of tricks for enjoying Spinach Cocktail. I suggest if the color is a turn-off that you just close your eyes when you drink, you will think you're drinking pineapple juice with a little added something you can't quite put your finger of (figuring you're brain-dead, of course). Pretend you're on a Hawaiian beach and have just been served a special tropical beverage. There, that's more like it. I always feel smart and healthy when I drink my Spinach Cocktail, and you will, too. But tonight I was so happy to realize that I didn't have to suffer the Crouton Drill again. I remembered we were OUT of croutons, because I actually remembered I had used them all up the other night, remember the Crouton Mini Meltdown the other night? OKAY!, so we all remember! But still, I could IMAGINE what it would have been like if I HAD NOT remembered we were out of croutons, it would have been way worse than before because I would have gone through ALL THAT and there really wouldn't have been any croutons to find. That would have been so sad and futile . Tonight I threw in corn chips instead, and it was very tasty.
I'd better talk about that quote before I have to press PUBLISH POST, which I have to do every night before midnight, in keeping with my goal to write every day for a year (scary). Last night I think I pressed PUBLISH POST at 11:59:59, shaving it quite close (scary).
Well, as a refresher, the quote is:
"The wisdom of life consists of the elimination of nonessentialis." - Lin Yutang
I love that, it sounds so . . . so non-fussy, so wise, so no-brainer, so easy-breezy. I do have a question though. Okay, so what is nonessential? I DO know some ESSENTIALS - showering twice a day, having my Spinach Cocktail, Bible and prayer. Oh, and supposedly my back exercises. Yes, I need to practice the piano and do laundry and dishes. Fairly essential, wouldn't you concur? I sneak in vacuuming the bathrooms and kitchen and giving the bathrooms a quick Windex squirt every night, too. Speaking of Hawaii, Mike took me there six years ago and I'm still operating on Hawaii time, meaning I stay up all night and sleep all morning. Somehow I never switched back to EST. I guess he'll have to take me to India or somewhere now, to reverse my internal clock. He sees it as a problem, but I don't, not particularly. My mother says I'm like a baby, I have my nights and days mixed up. My nephew can't believe I have the nerve to vacuum in the middle of the night while he's sleeping, he thinks I'm nocturnal. My mother-in-law is the only one who gets it. She says her mother used to do her housework at night. So there. Of course, I'm not so sure my MIL appreciates that I do this, she goes to bed at 7:30 PM, but at least she is familiar with the concept, which is more than I can say for most people. Speaking of vacuum, I took it in yesterday, Monday, and the man said, We'll have it ready for you on Saturday. I am no actress, never have been, so I'm sure some kind of shock registerd on my countenance, because that's what I was, shocked. Because I just can't survive without my vacuum for four solid days. With the economy and all, I didn't foresee that everyone was running to line up at the Gorilla Vacuum Repair. But I politely and sweetly asked, If it's ready sooner, could you please call me? He replied, Well, we can have it ready for you on Thursday. Okay, I say, but if it's ready sooner, could you please call me? (Tuck chin, tilt head, tip lips, bat, bat.) But he didn't promise anything before Thursday. Shucks. I told him, I use my vacuum EVERY day. He smiled. And for the most part, I do, because again, it's all about that loose hair that cannot be humored. Can't have them (loose hairs) scampering about and getting bold and brazen due to sheer power of numbers. Been there, done that. So, of course I vacuumed right before I took it in, and tonight and tomorrow I will have to hand vacuum or hand scoop, well, what it really is if I'm peppy enough is taking a damp cloth and doing a mop job on hands and knees, but that's okay, 'cause I don't mop very many times a year. And it's very interesting to see what a damp rag will collect, it brings back the Rainbow concept . . . in a very diminshed way . . . water, hair and dirt. PLUS, it allows me to see just how many hairs I really do vacuum each day, which is mind-boggling, believe me. Just regular vacuuming doesn't highlight these things. You just vacuum gingerly away and whistle and have no earthly idea what's really happening in the hair-on-the-floor department. I should perform a scientific study on it, because I've never heard of one and really, I've read that hair never disintegrates. Talk about accumulation! Somebody come to the rescue! Billions of people have been losing MUCH hair, that never disintegrates, for many thousands of years, on a daily basis. So . . . WHERE DOES ALL THIS HAIR GO? The city dump?, which ours is called Toy Town? With all the hair, where's the room for the other garbage? Birds' nests? My mother used to comb the hair out of our brushes and toss the loose balls of hair out in the yard (if you can toss something so weightless without it blowing right back in your face, which I personally don't care for the idea of sucking up a human hairball, for lack of a more fitting term). Mattress filling? Now there's a thought. I'm telling you, the human species loses TONS OF HAIR EVERY DAY. And we tend to grow it right back, to exacerbate things. Okay, I promise not to talk about this again for a while. I know I'm the only person in the world who could possibly be interested in this subject. Every day I also take a masking tape lint roller and roll our bed sheets. And it comes up hairy. Okay, now you know how weird I am, so someone please tell me something weird about you so I can feel a little less freaky. I'd appreaciate it. Thank you.
Okay, WHERE in the world were we? Yes, so those were my essentials, plus emailing. Does this require all other activites to fall by the wayside, as in the dead-end category of NONESSENTIAL? For instance, I have PILES (do you detect a theme in my life?) of piano magazines to read, from way back when. Not long ago I did read some of them, and boy, I really learned a lot of very valuable concepts and tore out some of the articles, which was a mistake, of course, 'cause now what do you do with all those lose pages besides wind up with them scattered hither and yon, never to be runited again in original sequence? SOOOO, do I give away the rest of my magazines or do I hope to read some more some day, even though that thought smells burdensome? But so does donating them seem drastic, I'm so conflicted. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME? I've dreamt of buying a little beach lounger chair and going down by the bay and sitting under a palm tree in the breeze, with lemonade and Twinkies and HoHos for companions, soaking up the surf and important piano content (delusional, I know). I'm obssessive/compulsive, unfortunately, so the very idea that there might be some more little gems tucked in those pages (and 1,000% there are), wow, it's really hard to just say, Okay, I will never have time to peruse you, so nice knowing you, now go make someone else happy . . . or likewise miserable.
I'm obiously confused, I should have all this figured out by now. But I still love that quote and maybe one day I'll have the courage of my convictions, which I'm afraid goes against the grain of human nature, to carry out one's convictions, that is.
Today MTM's (Miss Teenage Muffet) new phone came by FedEx. She sends things to our house since she's never at her apartment when the delivery truck is. I immediately texted, Ur phone came. Yay!!, she texts back. Before that we had texted about changing her dental appointment at my childhood friend's dental office where I worked for one week and checked A on the application. They wondered if she could move up her appointment and come in several days early, as in three hours from now they had an opening, and she would get a 5% discount. She said, No, I'm at work all day :( I texted back, I'm working, too. You work? She's incredulous. Sure, I write a blog, texted with attitude. That was the end of that texting conversation. But right on the money MTM appeared shortly thereafter on a break between shifts to pick up her phone. She was so excited, but I put the dampers on instantly by saying, Just because you got a new phone doesn't mean you can text and drive. MTM: Do you enjoy wasting your breath? So I tried a new tactic. Now we can talk person to person again instead of texting only. MTM: Maybe my old phone was a good idea. She and Mike got busy talking tech, but eventually something came around I understood. He said, You should get a phone cover for it in case you drop it. MTM: You mean WHEN I drop it - but I only dropped my old phone three times and that was near the end (maybe that's why it WAS the end?, thinks I, but I keeps that little pearl to myself, I'm not always entirely lacking in good judgment and self-control. I also resisted piping up with, Oh, I drop my phone, too, how sweet, like mother like daughter. Hold the applause, please). Then I walked over and saw her phone on the table and I wanted to hold it, it was calling for me to reach out and touch it, overtly, but I knew that would illicit drips of sneers. So I kinda snuck (hey, that's a word now, I found it in the dictionary of all places, it didn't used to be a word, did it?, I remember getting reprimanded in school for saying 'snuck', I like sneaked better, the former proper word, but, whatever, I'm probably aging myself here) my hand around her, like a kid sneaking (no such word as snucking, thank goodness) a cookie. MTM: Don't act so weird. Mother: DON'T TELL ME I'M WEIRD, THAT IS RUDE. MTM: Don't act weird and I won't have to tell you. Well, you can see this little interaction was going nowhere fast, so I patiently ceased and desisted. I know those two words mean the exact same thing, but I used them both for EMPHASIS and not mere mindless redundancy. If you know how MTM and I used to carry on, you would give me a lot of credit, you really would. During one especially classic volley, my stepson laughed his head off and said, I can't believe I have to go back to college and miss all this. It had something to do with MTM conveying that I was an embarrassment to the human race in general and to her in particular, what else? (All mothers with similarly dispositioned daughters, are you relating? Of course, I'm not saying I was/am the smartest mom on the block when it comes to these things, far from it.) So I said, Wow, MTM, why don't you start a club at school called MOMS STINK. You can be Prez since you hold fast the opinion that you have the stinkiest mom in the Universe. So, believe it or not, we've really come a long way since she moved into her apartment. On last Mother's Day she wrote on her beautiful handmade card, which was attached to her hand-decorated gift bag, I'm so happy we get along so much better since I moved out. AMEN, Baby. I know I tease about all this, but really I am SO BLESSED by my daughter. Thank you, dear Lord, for MTM.
It's time to press PUBLISH POST!
KEM
Tonight we had to have spinach salad again. I buy this HUGE tub of spinach because it is such the better deal than the miniature box, even though we're only two small people, and then you are forced to become Popeye. I learned how to make a Spinach Cocktail (before I gave my Magic Bullet to DTD), mainly because I came across this recipe, but also because I always have gobs of fresh spinach to choke down somehow. I have to get resourceful and engage my imagination for how to spend my spinach. It will be so much easier to make Spinach Cocktail with my new broken in blender. You stuff spinach in the blender and add pineapple juice. Press WHIR. Boy, it's good, you hardly notice it's spinach, even though the drink is a nice shade of spinach green, a tad paler, naturally, what with the pineapple juice toning it down ever so slightly. You can pretend the texture is pineapple pulp instead of spinach pulp. I'm telling you, there are all kinds of tricks for enjoying Spinach Cocktail. I suggest if the color is a turn-off that you just close your eyes when you drink, you will think you're drinking pineapple juice with a little added something you can't quite put your finger of (figuring you're brain-dead, of course). Pretend you're on a Hawaiian beach and have just been served a special tropical beverage. There, that's more like it. I always feel smart and healthy when I drink my Spinach Cocktail, and you will, too. But tonight I was so happy to realize that I didn't have to suffer the Crouton Drill again. I remembered we were OUT of croutons, because I actually remembered I had used them all up the other night, remember the Crouton Mini Meltdown the other night? OKAY!, so we all remember! But still, I could IMAGINE what it would have been like if I HAD NOT remembered we were out of croutons, it would have been way worse than before because I would have gone through ALL THAT and there really wouldn't have been any croutons to find. That would have been so sad and futile . Tonight I threw in corn chips instead, and it was very tasty.
I'd better talk about that quote before I have to press PUBLISH POST, which I have to do every night before midnight, in keeping with my goal to write every day for a year (scary). Last night I think I pressed PUBLISH POST at 11:59:59, shaving it quite close (scary).
Well, as a refresher, the quote is:
"The wisdom of life consists of the elimination of nonessentialis." - Lin Yutang
I love that, it sounds so . . . so non-fussy, so wise, so no-brainer, so easy-breezy. I do have a question though. Okay, so what is nonessential? I DO know some ESSENTIALS - showering twice a day, having my Spinach Cocktail, Bible and prayer. Oh, and supposedly my back exercises. Yes, I need to practice the piano and do laundry and dishes. Fairly essential, wouldn't you concur? I sneak in vacuuming the bathrooms and kitchen and giving the bathrooms a quick Windex squirt every night, too. Speaking of Hawaii, Mike took me there six years ago and I'm still operating on Hawaii time, meaning I stay up all night and sleep all morning. Somehow I never switched back to EST. I guess he'll have to take me to India or somewhere now, to reverse my internal clock. He sees it as a problem, but I don't, not particularly. My mother says I'm like a baby, I have my nights and days mixed up. My nephew can't believe I have the nerve to vacuum in the middle of the night while he's sleeping, he thinks I'm nocturnal. My mother-in-law is the only one who gets it. She says her mother used to do her housework at night. So there. Of course, I'm not so sure my MIL appreciates that I do this, she goes to bed at 7:30 PM, but at least she is familiar with the concept, which is more than I can say for most people. Speaking of vacuum, I took it in yesterday, Monday, and the man said, We'll have it ready for you on Saturday. I am no actress, never have been, so I'm sure some kind of shock registerd on my countenance, because that's what I was, shocked. Because I just can't survive without my vacuum for four solid days. With the economy and all, I didn't foresee that everyone was running to line up at the Gorilla Vacuum Repair. But I politely and sweetly asked, If it's ready sooner, could you please call me? He replied, Well, we can have it ready for you on Thursday. Okay, I say, but if it's ready sooner, could you please call me? (Tuck chin, tilt head, tip lips, bat, bat.) But he didn't promise anything before Thursday. Shucks. I told him, I use my vacuum EVERY day. He smiled. And for the most part, I do, because again, it's all about that loose hair that cannot be humored. Can't have them (loose hairs) scampering about and getting bold and brazen due to sheer power of numbers. Been there, done that. So, of course I vacuumed right before I took it in, and tonight and tomorrow I will have to hand vacuum or hand scoop, well, what it really is if I'm peppy enough is taking a damp cloth and doing a mop job on hands and knees, but that's okay, 'cause I don't mop very many times a year. And it's very interesting to see what a damp rag will collect, it brings back the Rainbow concept . . . in a very diminshed way . . . water, hair and dirt. PLUS, it allows me to see just how many hairs I really do vacuum each day, which is mind-boggling, believe me. Just regular vacuuming doesn't highlight these things. You just vacuum gingerly away and whistle and have no earthly idea what's really happening in the hair-on-the-floor department. I should perform a scientific study on it, because I've never heard of one and really, I've read that hair never disintegrates. Talk about accumulation! Somebody come to the rescue! Billions of people have been losing MUCH hair, that never disintegrates, for many thousands of years, on a daily basis. So . . . WHERE DOES ALL THIS HAIR GO? The city dump?, which ours is called Toy Town? With all the hair, where's the room for the other garbage? Birds' nests? My mother used to comb the hair out of our brushes and toss the loose balls of hair out in the yard (if you can toss something so weightless without it blowing right back in your face, which I personally don't care for the idea of sucking up a human hairball, for lack of a more fitting term). Mattress filling? Now there's a thought. I'm telling you, the human species loses TONS OF HAIR EVERY DAY. And we tend to grow it right back, to exacerbate things. Okay, I promise not to talk about this again for a while. I know I'm the only person in the world who could possibly be interested in this subject. Every day I also take a masking tape lint roller and roll our bed sheets. And it comes up hairy. Okay, now you know how weird I am, so someone please tell me something weird about you so I can feel a little less freaky. I'd appreaciate it. Thank you.
Okay, WHERE in the world were we? Yes, so those were my essentials, plus emailing. Does this require all other activites to fall by the wayside, as in the dead-end category of NONESSENTIAL? For instance, I have PILES (do you detect a theme in my life?) of piano magazines to read, from way back when. Not long ago I did read some of them, and boy, I really learned a lot of very valuable concepts and tore out some of the articles, which was a mistake, of course, 'cause now what do you do with all those lose pages besides wind up with them scattered hither and yon, never to be runited again in original sequence? SOOOO, do I give away the rest of my magazines or do I hope to read some more some day, even though that thought smells burdensome? But so does donating them seem drastic, I'm so conflicted. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME? I've dreamt of buying a little beach lounger chair and going down by the bay and sitting under a palm tree in the breeze, with lemonade and Twinkies and HoHos for companions, soaking up the surf and important piano content (delusional, I know). I'm obssessive/compulsive, unfortunately, so the very idea that there might be some more little gems tucked in those pages (and 1,000% there are), wow, it's really hard to just say, Okay, I will never have time to peruse you, so nice knowing you, now go make someone else happy . . . or likewise miserable.
I'm obiously confused, I should have all this figured out by now. But I still love that quote and maybe one day I'll have the courage of my convictions, which I'm afraid goes against the grain of human nature, to carry out one's convictions, that is.
Today MTM's (Miss Teenage Muffet) new phone came by FedEx. She sends things to our house since she's never at her apartment when the delivery truck is. I immediately texted, Ur phone came. Yay!!, she texts back. Before that we had texted about changing her dental appointment at my childhood friend's dental office where I worked for one week and checked A on the application. They wondered if she could move up her appointment and come in several days early, as in three hours from now they had an opening, and she would get a 5% discount. She said, No, I'm at work all day :( I texted back, I'm working, too. You work? She's incredulous. Sure, I write a blog, texted with attitude. That was the end of that texting conversation. But right on the money MTM appeared shortly thereafter on a break between shifts to pick up her phone. She was so excited, but I put the dampers on instantly by saying, Just because you got a new phone doesn't mean you can text and drive. MTM: Do you enjoy wasting your breath? So I tried a new tactic. Now we can talk person to person again instead of texting only. MTM: Maybe my old phone was a good idea. She and Mike got busy talking tech, but eventually something came around I understood. He said, You should get a phone cover for it in case you drop it. MTM: You mean WHEN I drop it - but I only dropped my old phone three times and that was near the end (maybe that's why it WAS the end?, thinks I, but I keeps that little pearl to myself, I'm not always entirely lacking in good judgment and self-control. I also resisted piping up with, Oh, I drop my phone, too, how sweet, like mother like daughter. Hold the applause, please). Then I walked over and saw her phone on the table and I wanted to hold it, it was calling for me to reach out and touch it, overtly, but I knew that would illicit drips of sneers. So I kinda snuck (hey, that's a word now, I found it in the dictionary of all places, it didn't used to be a word, did it?, I remember getting reprimanded in school for saying 'snuck', I like sneaked better, the former proper word, but, whatever, I'm probably aging myself here) my hand around her, like a kid sneaking (no such word as snucking, thank goodness) a cookie. MTM: Don't act so weird. Mother: DON'T TELL ME I'M WEIRD, THAT IS RUDE. MTM: Don't act weird and I won't have to tell you. Well, you can see this little interaction was going nowhere fast, so I patiently ceased and desisted. I know those two words mean the exact same thing, but I used them both for EMPHASIS and not mere mindless redundancy. If you know how MTM and I used to carry on, you would give me a lot of credit, you really would. During one especially classic volley, my stepson laughed his head off and said, I can't believe I have to go back to college and miss all this. It had something to do with MTM conveying that I was an embarrassment to the human race in general and to her in particular, what else? (All mothers with similarly dispositioned daughters, are you relating? Of course, I'm not saying I was/am the smartest mom on the block when it comes to these things, far from it.) So I said, Wow, MTM, why don't you start a club at school called MOMS STINK. You can be Prez since you hold fast the opinion that you have the stinkiest mom in the Universe. So, believe it or not, we've really come a long way since she moved into her apartment. On last Mother's Day she wrote on her beautiful handmade card, which was attached to her hand-decorated gift bag, I'm so happy we get along so much better since I moved out. AMEN, Baby. I know I tease about all this, but really I am SO BLESSED by my daughter. Thank you, dear Lord, for MTM.
It's time to press PUBLISH POST!
KEM
Monday, August 31, 2009
Hi, I have good news. As of one hour ago my migraine F-I-N-A-L-L-Y subsided. The turning factor being my wonderful neighbor across the street calling me at 8:15 PM. So I lounged in the recliner for an hour, in the duskiness, and mostly listened, even thought the content of her stories was somewhat cream curdling, like her cat Lucky had to be put to sleep unexpectedly. He looked like he'd just gained weight, but it turned out to be some problem with no fix. Lucky was a great black cat, we always knew when he came to visit because he dug little holes in our mulch driveway, they were peppered everywhere, he was a busy big guy. He always loved to be petted and rub on your legs. I'm so happy, I mean that my friend made my headache go away, not about the sad stuff. I'll really miss poor Lucky. He was the kind of cat that was everywhere at once. Oh man, I might cry.
Mike DID have to do my little job this morning, and I never got out of bed until afternoon. And I still felt super crummy, so I said, I'm going to take my vacuum cleaner for service to the vacuum store in Tampa that has the giant gorilla on the roof (because you can't sit around forever doing nothing, migraine notwithstanding, and that sounded tame enough and my vacuum was due). I bought my vacuum there 12 years ago (the Rainbow had long before bitten the dust) and it was a fancy brand and I loved it. Except the motor burned up right off. They "fixed" it a couple times, but it was no use, it kept getting frighteningly overheated. So I took it back to the store and in an unusual act of assertiveness (because I am of the shy, retiring, faded, demure violet-on-the-wallpaper variety) I stated, You need to please give me a new vacuum cleaner. THIS one is a lemon. They looked kind of surprised, but by golly if I didn't walk out of there with a new vacuum. I read in the paper a few months ago (probably years, I so lose track of the time) that someone stole the giant gorilla off the roof, which was a huge disappointment, because he was the main attraction. It was then reported returned, turned out it was a prank. But today I only noticed two lousy little imposter fake fur gorillas flanking the entrance. They cock their heads and wave and smile, without moving, as cars go by on one of the busiest streets in Tampa. They look silly and definitely cordially invite you to come on in and browse and buy a fancy new vacuum. But the giant King Kong gorilla that used to be on the roof, I think he rotated, or at least some of his limbs did, I think he really waved, and he had a marvelous smile, well, no one can take his place, and it's a sad state of affairs to try. Unless of course these two other gorillas have always been there, and I never noticed them because I was focused upward, like on top of the Empire State Building. UH-OH! I think the store really is called, State Vacuum. Okay. So it only took twelve years for this to dawn on me?? I can't believe it. I'm serious, this is truly happening as I type. How dim-witted can I GET?? PLEASE don't mention this to DTD, as it will just be one more piece of ammunition for her artillery. Oh well, if nothing else, I have learned that all good things come to an end. And you have to go find new good things.
So, I did go find a new good thing. It's called a blender. I save thousands of recipes. I have so many TASTE sections saved from the newspaper that I will probably have to host a city-wide wienie roast. But last week's TASTE section was still languishing on the dining table. The front cover showed big hulking athlete boys, and the inside was going to tell you how to keep them fed. So I thought, I'll zip through this edition (I mean, I don't have any hulking athlete boys to feed). But there was a recipe for cold zucchini soup. When I read why the lady wrote her cookbook, to calm her soul after she learned her husband had cheated on her, she learned this after the poor loser died, well, I just had to support her by trying her recipe. Since I cooked a lot last week for my mother-in-law, I just so happened to have most of the key ingredients for this soup. Well. Let's go for it. Except I don't have a blender, which you need to puree the soup. I had given my Magic Bullet to DTD. Well, lurking around in my purse was a big fat juicy giftcard for Williams-Sonoma. And lurking near the Gorilla Vacuum Store is a Williams-Sonoma. Heh, heh, heh. So, I spent my entire card and came home all happy with my beautiful new blender, courtesy of my fabulous, tidy sister and brother-in-law. I had to get it out of the box. They make it such a tight fit, for crying out loud. So, I opened one end of the tall rectangular box and then set that end on the floor and shimmied the box off. Next you remove all this plastic and Styrofoam packing jazz. So, then you get your paws on the prize, and what do I do as I lift it up to admire? I DROP IT. You heard me. BIG TIME. ON THE FLOOR. ON THE TILE FLOOR. THE HARD UNFORGIVING TILE FLOOR. Pooh, pooh, and double-pooh! The motor base hit with a scary thuddish clang, and the pitcher part flew one way and the lid another, scuttering across the tile and gritty grout with great clamor. Silence. I stood there frozen with a glazed expression, like the two small gorillas, trying to absorb this small-scale tragedy, pretending it was an hallucination courtesy of Migraine, and if I stood there long enough, all the parts would magically reassemble in the box and I could start all over. Listen, this could only happen to me. I promise you. I haven't even gotten the thing situated from the box to the counter and it's RUINED!!!! You ask, Why did you do that? 'Cause it's so cottin' pickin' heavy, that's why, and I wasn't prepared for that. I'm used to cheap plastic numbers, not real metal machinery, for Pete's sake. It just . . . slipped . . . out of . . . my . . . weak . . . little hands. And I was in a hurry, too. FOR ONCE I was getting things done in short order, I even stopped by the store and had just enough time to set up my blender and make this soup before Mike had to get to a cappella choir practice. OH BOY, I WAS SO TICKED!!!! And whoever said Haste makes waste, sure got that right. I've been afraid to examine it too closely because I can't face the damage, little wimp that I am, the scratches and dents and bruises. This has to be a record for breaking, literally, something in, I tell you. So, the wind was totally blown out of my sails, but the blender still works, I guess, and the soup was really, really good - one of those recipes where you get a lot of bang for your buck (big taste, no effort, unless you drop your blender, there's your bang). But I would have been better off eating a bowl of rotten cherries for dinner, which I happen to have in my refrigerator :((
That's not the first thing I've ever dropped. Well, the cell phone. But once, because I'm overly meticulous whenever I do clean, which we've established is never, but once I was trying to jig the TV around to dust really well beneath it. It was on a desk and it was a TV from the old school, weighing a couple of tons easy and swallowing the room. Well, it was front heavy, for which I also was dazzlingly unprepared, and when I tipped it forward to reach further underneath, it came crashing down to the hard, stupid tile floor. Miracle, thank you, Lord, that it didn't land on my bare feet. That would send DTD over the edge for sure, to have a footless mother. A piece of plastic whizzed across the room, but that's all that appeared to break off. I was afraid to turn it on, figuring it would blow up or worse. And it was way too heavy for me to lift back to the desk, but hey, guess what? The thing works. DTD has it. Now this would never happen to a Normal person. A Normal person would figure no dust could worm its way under that monstrosity and would let well enough alone. And with the cell phone, a Normal person would have zipped her purse. Or at least had a pretty protective cover for her new cell phone. And a Normal person would have cherished her new blender, at least for the first 24 hours. Oh, rats. Well, once my piano teacher had just bought a brand new grand piano. It was delivered and IMMEDIATELY that evening she scratched the finish with her fingernail. In a nonconspicuous spot where no one would ever notice? OF COURSE NOT. We know better than that. She scratched it right where it said, BALDWIN, dead front and center. I forget if she was turning a page of music and was overly beside herself with excitement for her brand new piano, or what. But it was enough of a scratch to shrink her spirit. It took her WEEKS to grieve over that disaster. Another adult student and I grieved right along with her. WE UNDERSTOOD. The other student was 50ish, adorable and had an authentic Southern accent and she kept saying, It's because it was NEUW that that happened, because it was NEUW. So that became our mantra. So this is why this happens to my brand spankin' new blender, 'cause it's NEUW. Well, it ain't NEUW anymore, and now I don't dread the day I stain it, scratch it, drop it, or otherwise pulverize it, 'cause, well, it ain't NEUW anymore.
I forgot to say that yesterday I was making spinach salad and throwing in anything that appealed (meaning, anything I had). I KNEW I had croutons. I stood in front of our closet pantry and cased the joint. Where were they? I looked again. My brow furrowed. Looked more carefully. Frowned and got annoyed. Looked everywhere. Downright scowled. Looked at each individual item. I was on the verge of a temper fit because I KNEW I had those croutons and where for Corn's sake were they?? I asked Mike if he'd eaten them. Naw. I thought maybe I stuck them in the fridge or freezer by accident. The laundry room maybe? How 'bout the bathroom? I was having a Male Moment. You know how men can't ever find ANYTHING??? ANYTHING AT ALL?? Even when you describe the exact location and what the product is wearing? Even when the item in question is engaged in a staring contest with them? We all know this. My Granny used to tell my Grampa he couldn't find a towel in the linen closet if it were eating him. I'd have to say that about sums it up. Well, it happened to me. FINALLY, I found those croutons, stale by now, in a basket in the pantry, and they were in a bag, not a box, thus the reason for my discombobulation. I was studying all the boxes mainly. Well, I've learned that a spinach salad tastes so much better when you put it in a huge bowl and pour the dressing around and then mix it all up energetically AND THEN place it on plates and everything is coated so attractively with high-calorie dressing. We are not civilized, we don't put serving bowls on the table, I usually just scoop up the plates in the kitchen. At boarding school they stressed couth. But my couth has long since been laid by the wayside.
Okay, tootles, I got carried away, which is my norm, so back to our marvelous quote tomorrow,
KEM
PS My new blender really came out of this smellin' like roses, it was spared. I forced a somewhat thorough examination in the end.
Mike DID have to do my little job this morning, and I never got out of bed until afternoon. And I still felt super crummy, so I said, I'm going to take my vacuum cleaner for service to the vacuum store in Tampa that has the giant gorilla on the roof (because you can't sit around forever doing nothing, migraine notwithstanding, and that sounded tame enough and my vacuum was due). I bought my vacuum there 12 years ago (the Rainbow had long before bitten the dust) and it was a fancy brand and I loved it. Except the motor burned up right off. They "fixed" it a couple times, but it was no use, it kept getting frighteningly overheated. So I took it back to the store and in an unusual act of assertiveness (because I am of the shy, retiring, faded, demure violet-on-the-wallpaper variety) I stated, You need to please give me a new vacuum cleaner. THIS one is a lemon. They looked kind of surprised, but by golly if I didn't walk out of there with a new vacuum. I read in the paper a few months ago (probably years, I so lose track of the time) that someone stole the giant gorilla off the roof, which was a huge disappointment, because he was the main attraction. It was then reported returned, turned out it was a prank. But today I only noticed two lousy little imposter fake fur gorillas flanking the entrance. They cock their heads and wave and smile, without moving, as cars go by on one of the busiest streets in Tampa. They look silly and definitely cordially invite you to come on in and browse and buy a fancy new vacuum. But the giant King Kong gorilla that used to be on the roof, I think he rotated, or at least some of his limbs did, I think he really waved, and he had a marvelous smile, well, no one can take his place, and it's a sad state of affairs to try. Unless of course these two other gorillas have always been there, and I never noticed them because I was focused upward, like on top of the Empire State Building. UH-OH! I think the store really is called, State Vacuum. Okay. So it only took twelve years for this to dawn on me?? I can't believe it. I'm serious, this is truly happening as I type. How dim-witted can I GET?? PLEASE don't mention this to DTD, as it will just be one more piece of ammunition for her artillery. Oh well, if nothing else, I have learned that all good things come to an end. And you have to go find new good things.
So, I did go find a new good thing. It's called a blender. I save thousands of recipes. I have so many TASTE sections saved from the newspaper that I will probably have to host a city-wide wienie roast. But last week's TASTE section was still languishing on the dining table. The front cover showed big hulking athlete boys, and the inside was going to tell you how to keep them fed. So I thought, I'll zip through this edition (I mean, I don't have any hulking athlete boys to feed). But there was a recipe for cold zucchini soup. When I read why the lady wrote her cookbook, to calm her soul after she learned her husband had cheated on her, she learned this after the poor loser died, well, I just had to support her by trying her recipe. Since I cooked a lot last week for my mother-in-law, I just so happened to have most of the key ingredients for this soup. Well. Let's go for it. Except I don't have a blender, which you need to puree the soup. I had given my Magic Bullet to DTD. Well, lurking around in my purse was a big fat juicy giftcard for Williams-Sonoma. And lurking near the Gorilla Vacuum Store is a Williams-Sonoma. Heh, heh, heh. So, I spent my entire card and came home all happy with my beautiful new blender, courtesy of my fabulous, tidy sister and brother-in-law. I had to get it out of the box. They make it such a tight fit, for crying out loud. So, I opened one end of the tall rectangular box and then set that end on the floor and shimmied the box off. Next you remove all this plastic and Styrofoam packing jazz. So, then you get your paws on the prize, and what do I do as I lift it up to admire? I DROP IT. You heard me. BIG TIME. ON THE FLOOR. ON THE TILE FLOOR. THE HARD UNFORGIVING TILE FLOOR. Pooh, pooh, and double-pooh! The motor base hit with a scary thuddish clang, and the pitcher part flew one way and the lid another, scuttering across the tile and gritty grout with great clamor. Silence. I stood there frozen with a glazed expression, like the two small gorillas, trying to absorb this small-scale tragedy, pretending it was an hallucination courtesy of Migraine, and if I stood there long enough, all the parts would magically reassemble in the box and I could start all over. Listen, this could only happen to me. I promise you. I haven't even gotten the thing situated from the box to the counter and it's RUINED!!!! You ask, Why did you do that? 'Cause it's so cottin' pickin' heavy, that's why, and I wasn't prepared for that. I'm used to cheap plastic numbers, not real metal machinery, for Pete's sake. It just . . . slipped . . . out of . . . my . . . weak . . . little hands. And I was in a hurry, too. FOR ONCE I was getting things done in short order, I even stopped by the store and had just enough time to set up my blender and make this soup before Mike had to get to a cappella choir practice. OH BOY, I WAS SO TICKED!!!! And whoever said Haste makes waste, sure got that right. I've been afraid to examine it too closely because I can't face the damage, little wimp that I am, the scratches and dents and bruises. This has to be a record for breaking, literally, something in, I tell you. So, the wind was totally blown out of my sails, but the blender still works, I guess, and the soup was really, really good - one of those recipes where you get a lot of bang for your buck (big taste, no effort, unless you drop your blender, there's your bang). But I would have been better off eating a bowl of rotten cherries for dinner, which I happen to have in my refrigerator :((
That's not the first thing I've ever dropped. Well, the cell phone. But once, because I'm overly meticulous whenever I do clean, which we've established is never, but once I was trying to jig the TV around to dust really well beneath it. It was on a desk and it was a TV from the old school, weighing a couple of tons easy and swallowing the room. Well, it was front heavy, for which I also was dazzlingly unprepared, and when I tipped it forward to reach further underneath, it came crashing down to the hard, stupid tile floor. Miracle, thank you, Lord, that it didn't land on my bare feet. That would send DTD over the edge for sure, to have a footless mother. A piece of plastic whizzed across the room, but that's all that appeared to break off. I was afraid to turn it on, figuring it would blow up or worse. And it was way too heavy for me to lift back to the desk, but hey, guess what? The thing works. DTD has it. Now this would never happen to a Normal person. A Normal person would figure no dust could worm its way under that monstrosity and would let well enough alone. And with the cell phone, a Normal person would have zipped her purse. Or at least had a pretty protective cover for her new cell phone. And a Normal person would have cherished her new blender, at least for the first 24 hours. Oh, rats. Well, once my piano teacher had just bought a brand new grand piano. It was delivered and IMMEDIATELY that evening she scratched the finish with her fingernail. In a nonconspicuous spot where no one would ever notice? OF COURSE NOT. We know better than that. She scratched it right where it said, BALDWIN, dead front and center. I forget if she was turning a page of music and was overly beside herself with excitement for her brand new piano, or what. But it was enough of a scratch to shrink her spirit. It took her WEEKS to grieve over that disaster. Another adult student and I grieved right along with her. WE UNDERSTOOD. The other student was 50ish, adorable and had an authentic Southern accent and she kept saying, It's because it was NEUW that that happened, because it was NEUW. So that became our mantra. So this is why this happens to my brand spankin' new blender, 'cause it's NEUW. Well, it ain't NEUW anymore, and now I don't dread the day I stain it, scratch it, drop it, or otherwise pulverize it, 'cause, well, it ain't NEUW anymore.
I forgot to say that yesterday I was making spinach salad and throwing in anything that appealed (meaning, anything I had). I KNEW I had croutons. I stood in front of our closet pantry and cased the joint. Where were they? I looked again. My brow furrowed. Looked more carefully. Frowned and got annoyed. Looked everywhere. Downright scowled. Looked at each individual item. I was on the verge of a temper fit because I KNEW I had those croutons and where for Corn's sake were they?? I asked Mike if he'd eaten them. Naw. I thought maybe I stuck them in the fridge or freezer by accident. The laundry room maybe? How 'bout the bathroom? I was having a Male Moment. You know how men can't ever find ANYTHING??? ANYTHING AT ALL?? Even when you describe the exact location and what the product is wearing? Even when the item in question is engaged in a staring contest with them? We all know this. My Granny used to tell my Grampa he couldn't find a towel in the linen closet if it were eating him. I'd have to say that about sums it up. Well, it happened to me. FINALLY, I found those croutons, stale by now, in a basket in the pantry, and they were in a bag, not a box, thus the reason for my discombobulation. I was studying all the boxes mainly. Well, I've learned that a spinach salad tastes so much better when you put it in a huge bowl and pour the dressing around and then mix it all up energetically AND THEN place it on plates and everything is coated so attractively with high-calorie dressing. We are not civilized, we don't put serving bowls on the table, I usually just scoop up the plates in the kitchen. At boarding school they stressed couth. But my couth has long since been laid by the wayside.
Okay, tootles, I got carried away, which is my norm, so back to our marvelous quote tomorrow,
KEM
PS My new blender really came out of this smellin' like roses, it was spared. I forced a somewhat thorough examination in the end.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Oh boy, I still have this debilitating migraine. You ever get those? Well, I certainly hope not. I had to set my hot pink roses my husband gave me for my birthday outdoors just now, because even the faintest scent makes you feel even worse, if that is possible. Once he had given me THE MOST GORGEOUS bouquet of mixed flowers I'd ever seen, but they had bad girls in them . . . lilies. You ever smell a lily? You really don't have to try very hard, you'd have to be in a coma to miss their distinct and overpoweringly frightening odor. Actually, if you waved a bunch of lilies under the nose of a comatose person, they'd probably snap right out of it. So I was getting ready for my students' piano recital and I was getting sicker by the second - as in throw up sick, and the recital was going to start in a couple of hours so I was just short of panicking. Finally, I thought, It might be something in the house. Then I started sniffing around and my nose led me to a room, and the bouquet was in that room and I could smell those flowers, and upon closer examination, the lilies stood out. Reminded me of when someone had done something bad back in the days of the Israelites wandering around the wilderness, how God would tell the leaders to gather all the tribes and then pick one tribe, and then pick one clan from the tribe and then one family and then finally one person, who ended up being the culprit. Scary. Those flowers went out on their hiney, too, but at least I could see them through the French doors. But, seriously, migraines are ridiculous. I had a friend who had them ALL THE TIME. Even her husband so much as rattling a bag of potato chips sent her into orbit whenever she had one, which was most of the time. She had to just lie down in a dark room with a cool washcloth on her face, bless her baby heart.
So, I have to pass on this great quote I came across a few years ago. It was so great I locked it away into my memory forever. And I pull it up at suitable intervals to reinspire myself. My friend had given me a Calendar for Too Busy Women. That must have been a best-seller, as every Woman I ever heard of on the planet is Too Busy. So every day, of course, there was an inspirational message, or verse or quote . . . something to keep you on the straight and narrow . . . one . . . more . . . day, because, of course, we're all gasping for our final breath by the minute and need to be defibrilated. But a quote will do instead. Are you ready? Here it is (and I like the second half of it the best, which is the part I committed to memory):
Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials. -Lin Yutang
Isn't that MARVELOUS? Can't you see how that particular arrangement of words is a gust of fresh air to fill those lungs? I don't know who Lin Yutang is, but he or she is brilliant! Hey guess what? My middle name is Linn. By the way, you can see I write as I organize - not very. Hold on, DTD just breezed in to print something off the computer. Be right back.
Well, DTD stayed an exorbitant length of time tonight as she was viewing cell phones online. Almost two months ago her cell phone broke down, part-way due to overuse. She could still text (she's so spectacular at texting that I want her to enter that speed texting contest and win $10,000, because she would win), but the good old-fashioned voice to voice speaking had ceased to function. It was annoying at first; she adjusted but now she is OVER IT. Anyway, she came in announcing she had just signed up for NetFlix, did I say that right?, and we could use it sometimes. I said, Oh goody, I've been wanting to do that. Then I said, How does it work? and I did a little hip wiggle and squat, with perky eyes. She gave a withering glance and drolly replied, If you act like that, I'm not telling you. So, we moved on to Blackberry talk. My husband, Mike, helps her out a lot with all these tech things, 'cause I'm certainly no help, rather a hindrance. DTD said, If you buy a Blackberry now, you get a second free one. I piped up, Oh boy!, I get a new Blackberry! Droll teenage daughter (DTD, you know), shrinks me down to size with her sneering expression and says, You don't even know what it is. True. But I still want it because I think it's kind of like a cell phone and I just got a new cell phone recently, the free kind, but it was new and slick and shining and I liked it and right off the bat it dropped out of my unzipped tiny, stuffed purse, kerplunk!, onto a cement walkway and it got all chunked up. So now every time I go to use it, I think, Oh darn, my new cell phone isn't pretty anymore, it's all chunked up. That takes up a lot of brain space to say that each time, so I need a new one. Our computer is in the kitchen, so I'm doing dishes and get to eavesdrop. They are reading customer reviews, which is a futile effort. The first one will say, BEST CELL PHONE IN THE UNIVERSE . . . EVER. And the next one will say, RUN AWAY AS FAST AS YOU CAN IF YOU KNOW WHAT'S GOOD FOR YOU. But one of the phones in question, the first person said, LOVE IT, LOVE IT, LOVE IT, so we were knowing the next one would say HATE IT, HATE IT, HATE IT, but instead it said, GO GET IT . . . NOW! So, what do I know? Mike says, Blackberry is for people who like to email a lot. I say, I like to email, I could email you all the time, DTD. Who says, You just talked me out of it. I persist, Come on, I want a Blackberry. Mom, you are not getting a Blackberry, forget it. After a long time she finally leaves, but not before she thumbs through Sunday newspaper coupons, another item that keeps her coming by the house. (I am very generous, she doesn't know it yet, but coupon talk will be saved for another day.) Mike, thanks for all your help, she sweetly says. I said, I helped, too! Well, I DID help, too. After she narrowed her phone choice to two she asked me which one I liked best and when I pointed and said, I pick this one, she said, Perfect, I'll take the other one. Out the door she goes, disdain and eye rolls wafting behind her.
Well, I have to go for now, I have a little job in the morning, but Mike might have to do it for me if Migraine sticks around. Two weeks ago I had to leave my little job early, thanks to Migraine. I just ate four Heaven Scent Vanilla Angelica cookies. They come individually wrapped in a bag, well four wrapped individually together, is that still individually? So, once you open the nice plastic, you have to go ahead and eat all four. Three in a sack like that. That's 28 cookies, 2.33 sacks a week. They are the ultimate. I offered one to DTD, who pierced me with "the look" and said, I'm on a free-free-free diet and you offer me one of those? Oops. She does think the diet is helping, at least. Her stomach is better. I should probably cut out everything in my diet, kind of like getting rid of all personal possessions to tame the housecleaning beast. If I don't eat anything, I KNOW I will feel better. For a while anyway.
Okay, tomorrow I have to elaborate, no problem there, on the above mentioned dazzling quote.
See you then,
KEM
So, I have to pass on this great quote I came across a few years ago. It was so great I locked it away into my memory forever. And I pull it up at suitable intervals to reinspire myself. My friend had given me a Calendar for Too Busy Women. That must have been a best-seller, as every Woman I ever heard of on the planet is Too Busy. So every day, of course, there was an inspirational message, or verse or quote . . . something to keep you on the straight and narrow . . . one . . . more . . . day, because, of course, we're all gasping for our final breath by the minute and need to be defibrilated. But a quote will do instead. Are you ready? Here it is (and I like the second half of it the best, which is the part I committed to memory):
Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials. -Lin Yutang
Isn't that MARVELOUS? Can't you see how that particular arrangement of words is a gust of fresh air to fill those lungs? I don't know who Lin Yutang is, but he or she is brilliant! Hey guess what? My middle name is Linn. By the way, you can see I write as I organize - not very. Hold on, DTD just breezed in to print something off the computer. Be right back.
Well, DTD stayed an exorbitant length of time tonight as she was viewing cell phones online. Almost two months ago her cell phone broke down, part-way due to overuse. She could still text (she's so spectacular at texting that I want her to enter that speed texting contest and win $10,000, because she would win), but the good old-fashioned voice to voice speaking had ceased to function. It was annoying at first; she adjusted but now she is OVER IT. Anyway, she came in announcing she had just signed up for NetFlix, did I say that right?, and we could use it sometimes. I said, Oh goody, I've been wanting to do that. Then I said, How does it work? and I did a little hip wiggle and squat, with perky eyes. She gave a withering glance and drolly replied, If you act like that, I'm not telling you. So, we moved on to Blackberry talk. My husband, Mike, helps her out a lot with all these tech things, 'cause I'm certainly no help, rather a hindrance. DTD said, If you buy a Blackberry now, you get a second free one. I piped up, Oh boy!, I get a new Blackberry! Droll teenage daughter (DTD, you know), shrinks me down to size with her sneering expression and says, You don't even know what it is. True. But I still want it because I think it's kind of like a cell phone and I just got a new cell phone recently, the free kind, but it was new and slick and shining and I liked it and right off the bat it dropped out of my unzipped tiny, stuffed purse, kerplunk!, onto a cement walkway and it got all chunked up. So now every time I go to use it, I think, Oh darn, my new cell phone isn't pretty anymore, it's all chunked up. That takes up a lot of brain space to say that each time, so I need a new one. Our computer is in the kitchen, so I'm doing dishes and get to eavesdrop. They are reading customer reviews, which is a futile effort. The first one will say, BEST CELL PHONE IN THE UNIVERSE . . . EVER. And the next one will say, RUN AWAY AS FAST AS YOU CAN IF YOU KNOW WHAT'S GOOD FOR YOU. But one of the phones in question, the first person said, LOVE IT, LOVE IT, LOVE IT, so we were knowing the next one would say HATE IT, HATE IT, HATE IT, but instead it said, GO GET IT . . . NOW! So, what do I know? Mike says, Blackberry is for people who like to email a lot. I say, I like to email, I could email you all the time, DTD. Who says, You just talked me out of it. I persist, Come on, I want a Blackberry. Mom, you are not getting a Blackberry, forget it. After a long time she finally leaves, but not before she thumbs through Sunday newspaper coupons, another item that keeps her coming by the house. (I am very generous, she doesn't know it yet, but coupon talk will be saved for another day.) Mike, thanks for all your help, she sweetly says. I said, I helped, too! Well, I DID help, too. After she narrowed her phone choice to two she asked me which one I liked best and when I pointed and said, I pick this one, she said, Perfect, I'll take the other one. Out the door she goes, disdain and eye rolls wafting behind her.
Well, I have to go for now, I have a little job in the morning, but Mike might have to do it for me if Migraine sticks around. Two weeks ago I had to leave my little job early, thanks to Migraine. I just ate four Heaven Scent Vanilla Angelica cookies. They come individually wrapped in a bag, well four wrapped individually together, is that still individually? So, once you open the nice plastic, you have to go ahead and eat all four. Three in a sack like that. That's 28 cookies, 2.33 sacks a week. They are the ultimate. I offered one to DTD, who pierced me with "the look" and said, I'm on a free-free-free diet and you offer me one of those? Oops. She does think the diet is helping, at least. Her stomach is better. I should probably cut out everything in my diet, kind of like getting rid of all personal possessions to tame the housecleaning beast. If I don't eat anything, I KNOW I will feel better. For a while anyway.
Okay, tomorrow I have to elaborate, no problem there, on the above mentioned dazzling quote.
See you then,
KEM
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