Who Lights Up My Life?

I'm an ambivert, with strong introvert tendencies.

So, when The 52 Lists Project asks me, "Who are the people who brighten your day?" my immediate response is "No one." 

Hmmm. Let me re-position the question for an introvert. How about this: "When I want joy or comfort from another person, to whom do I turn?"

Okay, THAT'S a question I can answer. 

Always and forever, there are two people on my list:  

1. My husband, BMG

2. My mother

Neither of these people are *always* able to provide me with the comfort and joy I'm wishing for, but they always try. And even when they don't get it right, I'm left with the feeling that they love me. (And a feeling that I need to be better at both knowing and articulating my needs.)

There are also three more people, or groups of people, who I frequently find myself wanting to connect with on the rare occasion I want to share my stories of aggravation or triumph. They are: 

3. My three sisters 

4. My gal pal, Dillard57

5. My gal pal, @lardito

Typically, when I want to reach out to these people, it is because something big has happened that I need some sort of response to, either to validate my experience or to help me sort out a problem. But, I've had to learn that I can't always reach these loved ones because they have busy lives, balancing work, children, spouses, community.

So maybe I'll send a text, or a tweet, and hope for a response.

And, because I have great coping skills, when that doesn't work, I tend to turn to Twitter. There I might share what I originally wanted to say to a loved one. Or I might do a search to find people, tweets or news stories with a similar theme to my own news in an effort to find that validation I seek.

I'm curious, when you need to connect with another person, to whom do you turn to light up your life? Who gives you hope? 

Favorite Foods

Hello! My name is Clownface and I'm a bulimic.

I think of my bulimia like many people think of alcoholism. While I've been in recovery for more than 20 years, my eating disorder will be with me for my entire life.

I actively and regularly binged from age 16 to age 21. It was only after I finished college and was living on my own that I figured out the magic of purging. I stopped purging at age 25, at the same time I stopped living by myself. I knew I couldn't keep my behaviors a secret, and because my shame about my behaviors was so great, I knew I couldn't bear being confronted about them. So I quit. Cold turkey.

Twenty-one years later, I can read my emotional triggers when I start to crave my favorite binge foods. These were:

• Anything from McDonalds or Burger King: I used to drive home from my part-time job in college, motoring through every drive-thru window along the way, eating a complete meal. In the 20 minutes it took to get to my house, I'd easily have consumed at least 2,000 calories. One of the few memories of my dad involves him bringing home McDonald's for family dinner. I've since come to realize that the McDonald's binge is about daddy. 
  
  
  
• Cookies: When I was a little girl, I thought people who ate store-bought cookies were rich. (We always had homemade cookies.) Nevertheless, my mom would occasionally have a secret stash of Oreos or other store-bought treats. As soon as I figured out where they were, I'd have my way with them. And at Christmas time, my mom always made more Christmas cookies than one family needed. She'd store them in weathered holiday tins in our front vestibule, which was so drafty that it functioned as sort of an icebox for us. I used to sneak into tiny "room," sit down, and eat. As an adult, I love to bake but I also know I need to get the food out of the house as quickly as it has cooled to remove any temptation to binge. I've since come to realize that the Oreos binge is about my longing for my mom and the feelings associated with material goods being out of reach.
  
• Ben and Jerry's: In college, I could toddle down to the on-campus convenience store, purchase a pint of Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream, and eat it all within 10 minutes. All of it. Several times a week. Luckily, I'm now lactose intolerant. Unluckily, Ben & Jerry's dairy-free ice cream is as good as the real stuff. When I want ice cream now, I know this means something is up on the feelings front. 
  
• Ground turkey mixed with mushroom soup and white rice: This was an easy and quick family dinner we called "glop." In my early twenties, I would make and eat an entire pan of it in one sitting - pound of ground turkey, two cans of soup, heaps of rice. I've since come to realize this binge is about longing for family. And I still make this recipe. But, when I crave it, I'll restrict myself to 1/4 pound of turkey from the butcher, a dairy-free soup, and I'll add green beans instead of rice, making a comforting mash-up of "glop" and green bean casserole. 
  

Bulimia will always be with me; I definitely still feel the urge to binge today. On the rare occasion, I give myself permission to this, I try to control the caloric intake by eating things like popcorn, salted, steamed vegetables (e.g., broccoli, carrots), or raw cucumbers. 

This week in the 52 Lists Project, BMG and I are blogging about our favorite foods and treats. What are your favorite foods and treats? Let me know in the comments section below. 

"Almost 60"

This week's blogging prompt invited me to make a list of the things I'd like to be doing in 10 years.

 

"In 10 years, I'll be 56. What do I want to be doing when I'm 56?" I mused.

 

After two minutes of thinking, the answer came to me. "I don't want to think about being 56. About being almost 60."

 

Yup. I don't want to make this list, because it makes me anxious.

 

I'm not typically a "hate my age" person. I love celebrating my birthday. I have an annual ritual of reflecting on the year I've left, and thinking about my goals for the next year.

 

But I don't want to think about being 56. Why not?

1. I'm a late bloomer who is just coming into her own as an adult today, at 46. Thinking ahead to almost 60 makes me anxious about all the adulting I want to squeeze into the next 10 years.
2. I still feel like a (nearly) newlywed to a husband who is (a) five years older, and (b) managing a chronic disease. Thinking ahead to almost 60 makes me anxious wondering how much of our lives will be taken up by the evolution of his condition.
3. I am grateful to still have my mother with me on this earth, although I am nearly 350 miles away from her. Thinking ahead to almost 60 makes me anxious wondering about her overall health and capabilities when she is 10 years older.

Until I get into right relationship with my almost 60 year-old self, my list will remain blank.


What is on your list of the things you want to be doing 10 years from now?

 

Why I'm Wearing Red to Work on Friday, February 5, 2016

My maternal grandfather was dead at 47 of a heart attack.

My paternal grandmother was dead at 54 of complications related to heart disease.

And my mother? She had triple bypass surgery in her early 60's, which I am certain prevented her own early death.

My family history puts me at higher risk for heart disease. This, combined with my educational and professional background in public health and medical care, helps keep me very aware of the signs and symptoms of heart disease in women. I keep an eye on my blood pressure, talk with my primary care doctor at least once a year about the state of my heart health, and strive to eat a healthy diet balanced by regular exercise.

Unfortunately, many people are not as aware - either of their own risk profile,  or the indicators of coronary heart disease and its relatives.

So, in recognition of the American Heart Association's National Wear Red Day, I will be wearing red all day on Friday, February 5, 2016.

But I'm not stopping there. The #pinkification of America has taught me that wearing a certain color isn't enough to make change. So I'm also helping to organize #GoRed activities at my workplace, like free blood pressure screenings, and I will be sharing content about heart disease and how it has touched me via my @GLKinder account on Twitter.

I invite you to wear red on Friday, February 5th in honor of all the men and women who have fought - or are currently fighting - heart disease. Please also consider taking a moment to explain to the people around you why you are wearing red on this day. Wearing red is great. Explaining WHY will help raise just a little more awareness about the need for better heart health care, which is even better.

I gotta fever...

I have taken my temperature no fewer than half a dozen times in the last 35 minutes. Because I need to know if I have a fever. Because having a temperature or bleeding from the head are the only legitimate indicators of illness.

I learned this quick and easy set of diagnostics as a latchkey kid growing up in Central NY. My single mother's work schedule as an underwriter for a regional insurance agency meant that my four siblings and I got ourselves off to school AND handled the after school routine sans adult supervision.

And if we didn't want to go to school? Or we wanted to get out of some afternoon obligation? Or wanted a little adult attention? Or maybe one of us genuinely felt sick? Well we'd start calling mom at work. Incessantly. And she'd start to get in trouble with her supervisor for the constant interruption. So, on the 5th or 10th call to mom at work she'd hiss into the phone, through clenched teeth, "Unless you have a fever or are bleeding from your head, you are not sick. Now STOP CALLING."

Therein lies the extent of my medical training.

And now, nearly 35 years later, I'm almost nearly obsessed with taking my temperature.

Today I feel sick. Laryngitis, sore throat, stuffy nose, headache, ear ache - a generic upper respiratory infection manifesting itself in multiple ways. But I haven't yet registered a fever. So I can't stay home from work. But I'll keep taking my temperature. A girl can dream, right? Crazy, fever-induced dreams.

Saying "yes" to a dress

My older sister was helping me try on wedding dresses yesterday. Three of the four sides of the cramped space was dripping with puffy dresses in puffier bags. We were day two into our dress shopping experience. My mom, and each of my three sisters were with me, on our own version of a Kleinfeld's tour across Syracuse.

"How am I supposed to know which one is the 'right' one?" I asked her.

I had tried on everything from chiffon bridesmaid dresses to heavy taffeta gowns with 4' trains. While I had never had wedding dress fantasies as a child, I came into the wedding dress shopping experience with a very clear image of what I wanted my dress - and the celebration of my wedding - to be. I wanted to wear a dress just like the one Elizabeth Taylor wore in the film "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." - short, casual, flirty, non-traditional. No strapless (I'm too busty), nothing too traditional (I had never planned to have a wedding anyway), and nothing too expensive (I'd rather spend the money on travel). If I couldn't find a dress like this while shopping with my family, I was going to buy it online for $130.  

And now, after trying maybe 20 dresses of all different sizes, most of them for the fun of it, I was confused.

"Well, from everything I've read and seen on tv, you just know," she replied.

So far, on this appointment, my 6th stop of the weekend - I had worn a tea length, satin dress with a ruched bodice, a full length white cotton gown with a modest ribbon tie at the waist.

I slipped on a full length, sheath style-white gown made of a bold cotton lace that gave the appearance of being covered in white roses. I stepped into the crowded, mirrored hallway, where the rest of my family waited. I looked at myself and said immediately, "NO! This is terrible." Everyone agreed.

Back in the tiny dressing room my sister said, "So, now you know how you can tell which dress ISN'T the right one."

Next I slip into a antique ivory, strapless, beaded, organza, tea length gown with a tulle underskirt. It has a slightly vintage energy. I stepped out of the dressing room with my older sister and grinned.

My mom said, "There's the face! The giddy face."

Yup, I felt giddy.

We walk across the rows of dressing rooms and families towards a large bank of mirrors. I look at myself. I feel beautiful.

My "bridal consultant," Miranda, slips a large ivory cloth rose into my hair, pulling it slightly away from my face. I turn and look at my family now 30 feet away from me. They are all smiling.

I walk towards another bank of mirrors, conveniently located in the shoe section of the store. My sisters follow and dig out a pair of lace covered, peep toe pumps. I slip them on and look at myself in the mirror.

I say out loud, "This isn't the dress for the wedding BMG and I have planned," I think. "This is so much more formal. I can't wear funky shoes with this dress (it would be too busy), and I don't look anything like Elizabeth Taylor. But, I really like it."

My sister helps me return to the other tea length gown, the plainer one that WOULD allow me to wear funky shoes and jewelry. I emerge from the dressing room and the women lining the halls, waiting for their brides to emerge from their tiny changing boxes, say, "Nope, go back to the other one. THAT one is special."

Miranda approaches me and says, "I have seen many women try on the other dress. And no one looked as fabulous as you in it. You might think I'm bull shitting you to make a sale, but I'm not. The other dress, the beaded dress, that's your dress."

Still wearing the plainer tea length gown, I finish the short walk to where the rest of my family waits, near the bank of mirrors by the shoes. And I start to cry. "I miss the other dress. I want to put it back on," I say. My older sister hugs me and says "This is how you know which dress is the right dress."

Spinach Balls

For at least 30 years I've enjoyed my mom's recipe for Spinach Balls, a "back of the box"-style appetizer that combines frozen chopped spinach with cheese and packaged stuffing mix into a delicious cocktail party snack.

While my mom was visiting over Thanksgiving, we made a triple batch of spinach balls, which I promptly froze. Every time I'm invited to a party where I'm due to bring a food to pass, I defrost a ball of spinach balls for the appetizer table. And every time I bring spinach balls to a party, I am assaulted by guests with chopped spinach dangling from their teeth mumbling, "These are delicious! Can I get the recipe?"

So, here's the recipe.

1. Heat the oven to 375-400 degrees.

2. Mix together:

• 2, 10 oz packages of chopped frozen spinach, cooked & drained well
• 1 cup of grated cheddar cheese
• 6 eggs, beaten
• 3/4 cup of stick margerine, softened
• 1 box of cornbread stuffing.

3. Form into bite sized balls.

4. Bake until golden, about 15 minutes.

5. Enjoy!

They can be baked and frozen in advance. Consider vaguely undercooking them if you plan to do this (so they don't dry out when you reheat them).

There is nothing healthy about spinach balls. Except maybe for the fact that they'd be even less healthy if made with meat. Which is why I'm thinking about adding chopped, cooked bacon the next time I make them.

Yum.

The Art of Partnership

Are you good at negotiation? I'm not. And it seems as if no one in my personal circle is either.  Let me share two examples from literally the last four hours of my life.

In scenario one I'm planning to head to NY to visit my family, including four fantastic nieces and nephews. It has been two days since I've sent a potential schedule of activities for my short trip to the four adult members of my family - after several days of cajoling from them. In my note to them I suggest on the first night the kids might head to my hotel for picnic and swimming. Getting no feedback from anyone, I then text a sibling to suggest that maybe a picnic that first night at her kids' favorite playground might be better. Eight hours later, still nothing. (Eight hours is a long time to respond to a text given the speed with which people communicate nowadays, particularly when the other conversant is one who was eager for "a plan.") So then I call. This is how it goes (excerpted to reduce boredom).

Me: Did you get my text?
Sibling: Yeah. It has been really busy at work. I can talk a few minutes now.
Me: So what do you think? About picnic in the playground?
Sib: Well, I'd already told the kids about the pool (me - didn't really we had decided that - it was a suggestion) and they're really excited to see their cousins.
Me: Would your kids like some one-on-one time with me?
Sib: They're pretty excited about the pool and their cousins.
Me: So they don't want one-on-one time? Okay. And if they want to go in the pool we need to figure out how to do it so they aren't trooping in and out of our room. BMG has to do a three-hour conference call that night.
Sib: Well, I guess we can go to the park. I'll have to talk to the kids about it to adjust their expectations.
Me: I didn't say they COULDN'T go in the pool. I just said we'd need to do it in a way to prevent trooping in and out of the room.
Sib: They've never done that. (me - we once spent an entire day at the hotel pool, trooping in and out of the room. I've had her wet kids in my bed. not an issue, just not for this trip) I just want to talk with the kids before responding to you. I'm sure we can go to the park.
Me: Sib, are you listening to me? The pool is fine provided that BMG's call isn't disturbed.
Sib: OK.

In scenario two I'm following up with BMG on an offer he made to do very easy video editing for me at work; I need to have a title page and end page added to a video produced by colleagues at work. I've given him the movie file and asked him to try to get to it within the next 36 hours. I've moved on in my life, made dinner, washed dishes, started laundry, had a glass of wine, chatted with the neighbors, watched some TV. I've come back into the living room after being in the basement. The TV is on mute and BMG is staring at his computer (his usual pose).
BMG: What did they do this video in? Three frame, four frame?
Me: Huh?
BMG: This video what did they do it in?
Me: Are you talking to me? (I seriously thought he was video chatting with the guy who is his partner in a nascent - and awesome - video production company.)
BMG: YES! I'm talking to you. What did they do this video in?
Me: I don't know. Are you working on this now?
BMG: Yes. Come look at this.
I sit down.
BMG: So what do you need?
Me: Branding at the beginning and the end. I didn't know you were working on this right now. I can get you the stuff you need.
I head to my computer, six feet away.
BMG: So what do you want it to say?
Me: Are you typing? Didn't I just say I'd get it to you? I need a minute to get my head in the game. I didn't know I was going back to work right this moment.

In the first scenario both my sister and I assume at different times that simply because someone made a suggestion that suggestion needed to be the decision. This is so frustrating to me. In most cases I crave  discussion about things like family plans. I crave the discussion because I want to hear what makes the hearts of my sisters, brother, mother, nieces and nephews go pitter pat. And I want to find a way to make the most people the most satisfied with our family time. To have one person's suggestion become the plan - sans conversation from others - means I (a) miss out on learning more from my siblings, and (b) we don't find a way to try to get what we all want. A child of divorced parents, I know I felt as if I had to do whatever my mom wanted me to do in order to keep her from leaving the family too. So my modus operandi is "Do whatever the other person says, no matter what. The risk is too great to counter with a different idea." Pretty sure other siblings operate the same way.

BMG knows this about me. And he has a very dominant personality. Not a classic alpha male, but he takes up an enormous amount of space - usually joyfully. But the second incident is a classic between us - he is ready to do what he wants to do right now and I (a) need to know exactly what he's doing, and (b) ready to ask "how high" when he says "jump." So my family background is great for him.  In the midst of pulling the video content so he could finish his quickie for me (for which I am grateful), I actually sat at my desk and whimpered.  I wished BMG had said, "I want to work on this now. I need X, Y and Z from you to get this done. When can you get this to me?" And then I could have said, "You're awesome! Thank you so much! Give me 20 minutes to pull it together starting right now." Instead, I was caught off guard, felt as if I needed to rush because the video editing boat was going to leave without me, and, worse of all, was jolted back into work mode when it is SO hard for me to wind down.

I crave a feeling of partnership with all of my loved ones, a feeling of collaboration that comes from a spirit of adventure.

So...what would you advise to help me get to this place, besides taking a daily dose of Xanax? Seriously. I need help here.

How to spend a windfall (or yet another way my childhood shaped my life)

My best friend and next door neighbor from childhood, Cindy Scott, and I practically shared a birthday. Mine is June 4 and hers is June 6. We also shared friends, so it was natural that we'd share birthday celebrations.

What we didn't share was socioeconomic status. I was raised by a practical and powerful, single mother. My father was the prototypical deadbeat dad, and our financial situation fluctuated wildly. By contrast, Cindy's parents remained married until her mom's death in 2005, and they were solidly middle class. Her family had Oreos, and bought cold cuts from the deli counter, which was proof to me that Cindy's family was in fact, rich.

Which leads me to my story.

One year, right after Cindy and I turned eight, we were going through our birthday loot. Me? I got $5 in a card from my Gramma. And Cindy? More like $20. In the spirit of continuing our shared birthday celebration, Cindy's mom offered to take us both to the local K-Mart to spend our birthday money. My mom agreed and told me to buy socks. Little did she know that Cindy had generously agreed to share her money with me. So, in 1978, with $25 and our eight year old desires, we headed to the Big K. And we came home with Sean Cassidy posters (dreamy), giant DIY color by number posters with lux markers, and handfuls of other impulsive and age-appropriate shwag. I remember feeling unfettered pleasure and the sense of having everything I could ever want.

But the feeling did not last long. Because I got into trouble for squandering my windfall on something I wanted rather than something I needed. (My mom would say she was trying to teach me responsibility rather than introducing me to self-denial and guilt, which, nearly 35 years later, continues to dominate my financial life.)

And now my current dilemma.

I recently won a $50 gift card to my favorite store in the universe, Wegmans.

So what do I do with it? Spend it on a treat, or save it for something I need?

What would be a treat? Take out from one of their on-site restaurants for me and my friends, a fancy cake and fixings for a nice dinner for my upcoming birthday, or a flower arrangement for myself.

What are more practical uses? Snacks and supplies for my next family gathering in upstate NY, supplies for baking and wrapping Christmas cookies this year, birthday and other cards to have in hand for sending to loved ones, or supplies for the house after the renovations at completed.

What would you do?

10 things I learned from my mother

I didn't shower today. I spent the day in my gym clothes; I cleaned the house and and went for a hike. At about 8:00 PM I headed into the bedroom to fold clothes and remembered it was clean pajamas day. And then I realized I could NOT put on clean jammies without first taking a shower. I learned this from my mother. Saturday was the day we changed sheets in my childhood household, which meant we all got baths on Saturday, so we didn't crawl into our fresh sheets with dirty bodies.

Here are ten more lessons I learned from my mother:

 1. It is a waste to throw away moldy food or bruised produce. Try scraping the mold first or cutting out the bad part before sacrificing the food.
 2. Sticking your finger in hot candle wax is a federal offense, because it can burn off your fingerprints. And everyone is required by law to have fingerprints. (This is similar to the "Swallowed gum is never digested; if you continue to swallow gum it will eventually pile up in your body and pop your head off" lesson.)
 3. One isn't *really* sick unless one has a fever or is bleeding from the head. And then it is SERIOUS.
 4. Snickers are the most delicious of the commercial candy bars.
 5. Conformity is not admirable (neither are ostentatious displays of wealth).
 6. Charity - real or perceived - is admirable.
 7. Never pack a cooler for a day trip. Lunch meat, cheeses and other items get unappetizingly soaked.
 8. Be conscious of what underpants you are wearing under what article of clothing; patterned panties under light clothes is tacky.
 9.  Polite slang for a penis is a "horn." (You interpret this. My mom can't explain it.)
10. Homemade cookies are more delicious and virtuous than store bought. In fact, homemade anything is more delicious and/or virtuous than store bought.

#Fail (or my 2012 flower buying adventure), by Clownface

For sentimental reasons, BMG and I decided to send flowers to his mother for Valentine's Day this year. (We picked out the flowers BMG's dad gave to his mother last Valentine's Day, which was their last Valentine's Day before he died.)

I gullibly decided to take advantage of the WBUR offer to make a donation in exchange for having Winston's long stemmed roses sent to BMG's mom. I haven't donated to this public radio station in a while, so it seemed like a win-win.

After four failed attempts to make a donation through the radio station I quit. Instead I ordered flowers through my credit card shopping portal. 1/2 the price, and zero the hassle.

Here's how it went.

Try #1 - Thursday night, on my computer at home
I enter my "MIL's" address into their portal to validate it - a required step in the donation process. Alas, I make a mistake (unbeknownst to me) and they won't validate the address. Although I am given the option of proceeding anyway, I am afraid the flowers wouldn't get to their final destination so I abandon the process.

Try #2 - Friday night, using 3G in a restaurant bar
I pull up the radio station's web address on my iPhone, using the Safari browser/app. I am directed to their news portal immediately. No obvious link to their "Support us" portal on the mobile site. At the bottom of the page, in tiny print, I find "Switch to full site" link. So I switch to the full site. I find a "Support us" button and am redirected to a portal where there is no option to order flowers through the radio station. I abandon the process.

Try #3 - Saturday morning, using my wireless iPad at home
I click on the radio station's app on my iPad. I click the "Support Us" button and am redirected to a page promoting their Fall 2011 pledge drive. I abandon the process.

At this point I remember the radio station send me appeal letters to the home I share with my boyfriend of five years, addressed to me and my ex-boyfriend. Afraid, through the power of databases, that the flowers sent through the radio station to BMG's mom might come "from Clownface and her ex-boyfriend" I decide to call the radio station to make the pledge/place the order. "If I talk to a person I can make sure my name is changed in the database," thinks I.

Try #4 - Saturday morning, using a telephone
After nosing around the public radio stations website, I find a phone number (again, small print). I call. The phone room is noisy and the person who answers has an accent indicating she may not speak English as her first language.

She asks for my name.

I say it.

"Would you like to spell that for me?"

"No, but I imagine YOU would like me to spell it for YOU."

I spell my first name - eight letters. She reads it back using the military phonetic alphabet. Two errors (25%). I correct them.

I spell my last name - six letters. She reads it back using the military phonetic alphabet. One error (18%). I correct them.

Realizing this interaction may not have the desired results of efficiently placing the most correct donation/pledge, I abandon the process.

And then I visit my credit card's shopping portal. In under 10 minutes I browse several arrangements, choose two dozen pink roses, and complete the order online. The cost is 1/2 of what the radio station donation would have been, I get an extra benefit on my credit card, and I feel good about the gift for BMG's mom.

Sorry public radio. Sorry philanthropy. Your ability to meet my needs using four available technologies all failed.

Recipe Box

I have a tin recipe box, given to me by my mother when I was a teenager. The original gift came with a set of recipe cards that I promptly filled up with favorites from my mother's recipe books and my grandmother's memory. Over time the box became bloated with recipes torn from the newspaper, sloppily copied down on post-it notes, and printed from emails sent from friends.

I love this recipe box. It houses my mom's recipe for baked beans, written in a shorthand only I can understand. Two copies of a scone recipe that I first learned while on a hiking trip in the White Mountains of NH. I have recipes for Copper Pennies (aka carrot disks cooked with brown sugar) written in my grandmother's spidery script, along with all of my family's Christmas cookie standards. The box continues to grow. Over the summer I added the recipe or BMG's mom's curried rice salad.

Back when I started collecting recipes I did so with the intention of turning to the recipe box as my source for cooking inspiration. I now use the Internet as my primary source for recipes, along with the small collection of interesting recipe books I've amassed over the 25 years I've been cooking.

When I thumb through the recipe box, crowded with little slips of paper filled with delicious (and largely unfulfilled) intention, a pragmatic part of me says, "You've never prepared that recipe for Italian chicken stew you clipped out of The Washington Post in 1990; recycle that slip of paper!"

I don't think of myself as a particularly sentimental person. Except, apparently, when it comes to my recipe box.

Waste not

Our refrigerator crashed last night. Two attempts to reboot it were fruitless, so, at 7:30 this morning I started tossing food that was too sketchy to be recovered. In the tossed pile?

• Three sodden TV dinners


• One nearly full gallon and three partially eaten pints of ice cream


• 1.5 packages of gyoza


• A gazillion pounds of industrial grade hamburger patties


• 1/2 pound of sliced turkey


• 4 slices of Canadian bacon (eh?)


• 1 pint of sour cream


• 1 quart of fat free cottage cheese


• 1 mostly empty bottle of fish sauce, and


• 1 mostly full canister of fat free whipped cream.

I'm proud to report that, with the materials we recovered, we made the following:

• Succotash - 1/2 bag of frozen lima beans, 1/2 bag of frozen corn, and turkey bacon (with Old Bay for flavor)


• Curry chicken salad- 2 pounds of boneless, skinless chicken breasts, poached and tossed with lo-fat mayo and Key Lime juice (+ a bunch of other stuff)


• Mashed cauliflower - head of cauliflower, boiled and then mashed with leftover fresh parm, plain soy milk, and onions and garlic cooked in (turkey) bacon fat, and


• Spanish rice - 1 bag of frozen peas, (rice), 1 jar of salsa, 1 jar of sliced Spanish olives, and leftover cooked hamburger and crispy pork belly

We also cooked 4 steaks, and are hanging on to toaster strudels, all of our eggs (Europeans don't refrigerate eggs, why should we?), 5 pounds of hot dogs and one pound of hot dog minis (don't ask), three types of block cheese, veggie burgers and a host of cookies and spices in the freezer. I steamed green beans for salad, and have roasted asparagus leftover from a nice dinner out that will also be added to salad. Today BMG ate a bag of salami and 1/2 pound of cheese to help with the "eat down."

We could have thrown everything away. A new (to us) fridge comes as early as tomorrow, and as late as Wednesday. We don't have sufficient cold storage, save for the vaguely cool fridge. And every time we open the fridge we lose a little of the cool to the warm air. So, keep food - even cooked food - is a giant pain in the neck.

But...

I hate wasting food more than almost anything else in the world. There are people in the world who are literally dying of hunger and malnutrition. While I know I'll never send my uneaten dinner to the starving kids in China (or Ethiopia, or Boston), I do want to feel like I'm not contributing to the problem by throwing away perfectly good food just because I am inconvenienced by not having a fridge for a short period of time.

PS: Want to see what our fridge used to look like? Take a peek via our 2007 posting on Fridge Watcher.com.

Hello 42!

You've heard the question before, "What would you do if you knew you could not fail?" Or, "What are the first things you would you do if you won $700 million in the lottery?" Both are variations of the now popular "bucket list" idea. You know, where you make a list of all the things you want to do before you die?

I welcome the start of my 42nd year on this planet tomorrow. Birthdays always put me in a reflective mood - considering how I've grown in the past year, and who I want to be in the next year. The start of my 40s was filled with excited anticipation, and the prospect of being free to really dig into my "bucket list", which includes:
1. Live in NYC and/or Paris for at least six months
2. Learn to speak French
3. Successfully grow a giant pumpkin
4. Carve a giant jack-o-lantern
5. Hike Mt. Kilimanjaro
6. Provide some sort of service work (e.g. Peace Corps, NPS VIP Corps, etc.)
7. See as many of the US national parks as possible
8. Be a more diligent biker or kayaker
9. Do "the" road trip across the US
10. Water ski.

At first blush the last year has been a disappointing one because I haven't come substantively closer to achieving any of these things.

No one WANTS to be disappointed with themselves. Well, at least I don't. So I dug a little deeper. How would I characterize my 41st year?

One of the most significant changes is the evolving sense of peace I feel in my relationship with my mom. A light bulb was turned on and I realize that, while I am fundamentally different than she is, this doesn't preclude our having hundreds of ways we can appreciate and enjoy one another.

"Coming to peace with mom" isn't on my bucket list. But it probably should have been. Not only because being at peace with one's parents is a noble endeavor but also because, for me, the energy I put into my psychic wranglings with my mother (my childhood, my (mis)perceptions of my adult capacities) kept me from feeling the confidence I need to take bold steps towards achieving my goals.

I'm one year deeper into my life, and not outwardly any closer to crossing anything off my short list of aspirations. But inwardly, I'm ready for year 42 to begin.

Grocery shopping like my daddy did

My mom, in my experience, places high value on efficiency - in shopping, planning and home making. She has literally hundreds of bars of bath soap stored on the stairs to her attic - all different brands based on what has been on sale, and all faithfully unwrapped - exposing the soap to the air which allegedly hardens it and makes it last longer. Buying up lots of soap when it is on sale and storing it in such a way to maximize the longevity of the soap would earn high marks in her book. Daily shopping, in my mother's opinion, wastes time, wastes gas, and wastes money by not maximizing sales and succumbing to impulse.

I have memories of my mom disparaging my dad, from whom she was separated and then divorced very early in my childhood, because he appeared to go to the grocery store every day as part of his household management strategy. He apparently was not organized enough to know his 5 mostly estranged kids would be visiting on the weekend and therefore he'd need to buy Cheerios and milk for our breakfast. He couldn't do advance menu planning to determine that when we'd visit we'd eat hot dogs with mac and cheese on Friday night and meatloaf with instant mashed potatoes and frozen peas on Saturday night.

I write this as I prepare to head to the grocery store for the second time today - this time to buy ingredients for dinner tonight. I went earlier to run a favor for a friend. I, in fact, was not organized enough to know what I would want to cook for dinner at 8:30 this morning, when I was off to buy newborn-sized diapers and People magazine to give to GPA, who had her first daughter on Friday (congrats). So now I plan what is, in fact, my third trip to the grocery store in less than 24 hours.

I'm okay with this. I love the grocery store. When I'm feeling uncentered I know that visiting a beautiful grocery store perks me up again. I love visiting markets in foreign countries, to experience grocery shopping as a cultural exchange. I'm also at peace with being a little unorganized. I have the resources to buy what I want to buy - which is usually the store brand which is cheaper than the brand brand even if it is on sale. I'd rather carry three bags into the house once a day that carry 10 bags into the house once a week. I believe it is reasonable to want - even need - to compartmentalize my life in order to manage it (e.g. separating the gift shopping trip from the food shopping trip). I like being whimsical and instinctive in my meal planning. The daily shopping has a European flair to it, where I am driven by what looks or sounds good to me on any given day - rather than having to make do with what I have in the fridge. Today is a chilly, cloudy spring day and I'm inspired to roast a chicken. The trip to the market is to buy fresh poultry and the ingredients I need to complete the recipe from my cookbook.

I have no idea why my dad shopped daily. I know that I do and, it often reminds me of one small way in which I am more like my daddy than I am like my mom.

#3 or "If I knew then what I know now"

CAUTION: This is a scatological - and mildly humorous - blog post. If poop stories aren't your thing then feel free to stop reading here.

*****

I recently headed into the bathroom at my sister's house, immediately after one of her kids exited the room.

As I turned the door handle I received the following warning. "Aunt Clownface, I wouldn't go in there right away. I just did some #2 and #3."

"#3? What is #3?" I asked.

"Diarrhea. You know, #1 and #2 mixed together."

Deep breath. "Uh, diarrhea isn't #1 and #2 mixed together." Then I explained what diarrhea is.

Affronted the child responded, "THAT'S what diarrhea is? How come no one ever told me?"

*****

One of my sisters used to carry a very tiny chip on her shoulder that our mom never "taught her that she needed to rinse conditioner out of her hair." My mom claims that she didn't want to point out my sister's greasy hair (which was made so by the unrinsed hair conditioner coating it) for fear of making her feel bad about what my mom thought was an unfortunate, temporary and unavoidable aspect of puberty.

Hearing my niece complain about never having been told what diarrhea is made up of reminds me that you can never predict what your child "needs" to know in order to live a fully informed life.

Good luck parents.

The perfect gift for your favorite paranoiac!

Does your mother sleep with a knife under her pillow to attack bad guys who might sneak into her home while she's sleeping?

Is your brother-in-law actively preparing his family to fight back in the event of a zombie apocalypse?

Does your partner maintain a list of things to worry about online?

If so your family is JUST like mine. And that's why I recommend that you consider purchasing the Zombie Table. This solid and attractive table features a small, circular table top almost impossibly cantilevered on a center leg resting on a reflective pedestal. The Danish modern style table will add to the decor in any home. And...when bad guy, zombies and bees strike, the table can be converted in two quick moves into a solid wooden shield and a bat that you can use to defend yourself and wound your enemies.

Consider buying one to give it to your mother to use as a bedside table so she can put away the knife and immediately reduce her risk of stabbing herself in the brain by 100%!

How about buying two for your brother-in-law to put by the front and back door to his home so he is ready should zombies ring the bell before they break in?

And increase the peace at home by buying one for your partner to strap to his scooter so he is ready for whatever perils the world has in store for him.

Tables are ready to be shipped immediately. Some assembly required, and the table comes with a helpful zombie fighting training video.

Search for "zombie table" online and get yours today.

Breaking the cycle

My mother lost her father to a heart attack when she was 14.
I lost my father to divorce when I was 14.
Coincidence? Maybe. Maybe not?

My grandmother became a widow when she was 40.
I'm turning 40 this year. I'm so glad I'm not married because there is no way I can become a widow when I'm 40.

This is how I'm doing my part to break the cycle of family tragedy.

"Do you ever miss Santa"

My nine year-old niece asked me this earlier today when I was telling her that I was at the mall to buy my brother a gift for his Christmas stocking.

"Wait a minute!" she declared after half a beat. "Why are YOU filling Uncle TK's stocking. Doesn't Santa do that?"
"Santa only fills the stockings of kids. He has his hands pretty full taking care of children all over the world, so at a certain age he stops giving people presents."
"How old were you when Santa stopped bringing you presents?" she asked in a quiet voice.
"Twenty-one or twenty-two," I swiftly replied. (I hope Santa reads this so he knows how long he is on the hook with the present giving.)
"Do you ever miss Santa?" she asked, in an even quieter voice.

Of course I miss Santa! I'm also grateful that the spirit of gratitude, surprise, and fulfillment can be experienced through buying gifts for my family, populating my online registry with things I've found online, and quietly contemplating Christmas lights that bathe the front of my home, the homes of neighbors, town centers, and many businesses.

Where do you find the spirit of the season - whether you observe Christmas or Hanukkah, Kwaanza, Solstice, or New Year?

Memories of Halloween

"Halloween was always a struggle for me," my mom said to me on the telephone earlier today. "364 days a year I taught you NOT to take candy from strangers, and then, on one night I was supposed to dress you up so you were unrecognizable and send you out to beg for candy from strangers. I never understood it."

To her credit, or perhaps in homage to my naivete, I had no idea my mom had such anti-Halloween feelings. I have very fond memories of the creative costumes she made; and our costumes were always homemade, never store-bought. One year she made me a bumble-bee costume, with the body made of poster board hung sandwich-board style on my body with and styrofoam wings. I remember the bubblegum machine costume she made for my brother - a clear garbage filled with small colored balloons and a little hat with a fake nickel coming out of it. As a kid I loved the creativity involved in thinking up a costume and finding a way to construct it. I remember being an angel, a zombie, and a fisherman.

I also loved trick-or-treating. We went out for what felt like hours, unsupervised. (I learned today the unsupervised part was because my mother refused to go candy begging with us.) We lived in a densely packed community filled with children, the bustle of kids and lights and doorbells was intoxicating. Mr. Schenk, one of the 6th grade teachers at my elementary school, lived about a mile from us, up through tony Twin Hills, and we'd strive to make it to his house before he ran out of the full-sized candy bars he and his wife allegedly gave away to the kids who legitimately lived in their neighborhood. I remember an old woman who lived in a pink and strangely foreboding house at the start of the fancy street that bordered the local park. She always gave away creamy Life Saver pops, but only after you did a trick like recite the alphabet backwards or sang Yankee Doodle. Every year we'd draw tiny strips of paper out of a glass bowl to discover the trick we needed to do to earn our treats. My siblings, and, as I got older, my friends, and I would wander the streets for hours, careful not to miss a house with the lights on as we weaved from one street to the next for blocks. There was never a clear line of demarcation that told us we needed to stop and go home. We walked and rang and laughed for as long as we possibly could. I remember being out so late that many neighbors would leave their candy buckets out on the front porch so they didn't have to answer the door anymore.

When there were no more houses with lights on, my five siblings and I would troop home and eagerly dump our plastic pumpkin-shaped collection buckets on the floor. And then we would sort the candy into piles for favorites, piles for things we'd be willing to trade, and always, one or two Snickers bars for mom. And then we'd start trading. I'd give away Good and Plenty, boxes of Dots with two or three of those faux jujubes in them, Tootsie Roll midgies, Butterfingers, and hard candy. Chocolate caramels, Twizzlers, Peanut Butter Cups, and Baby Ruth were among the candy bars I eagerly sought. When we were done sorting and trading and counting, the candy would go back into our buckets and I'd carefully dole out one or two or ten pieces a day for my lunch bag or snacks I'd try to sneak at school.

As an adult, I actually have no great fondness for Halloween. While I enjoy the sweetness of seeing young children excited by their costumes and the novelty of getting candy, I generally find this holiday to be disconcerting. I feel unnerved by, and disingenuous around adults in costumes. I've dressed up only once in the last 15 years, at a Halloween party hosted at the commune where I once lived. (I felt like an idiot in my rented green sequined mermaid outfit carrying a tinfoil covered pitchfork intended to look like a trident.) I don't understand why some people want to trick out their houses in order to seem spooky or dangerous or pagan. And the greediness that I embraced as a child is now a little gross to me. I was at the mall earlier today during the "trick or treat" hours, and the place was teeming with kids and their parents trying to angle for the best treats. "Let's hurry up and get to Godiva. They better be giving out something good," was a frequently heard exclamation as I dodged and weaved to avoid the crowds.

We do have a jack-o-lantern on our porch, carved with enthusiasm by me. And a plastic cauldron, courtesy of the neighborhood "Phantom", sits by the front door filled with white chocolate Kit-Kat bars (dyed orange), boxes of Nerds, and those hateful Midgies. It is 5:15 now. And I imagine in the next 30 minutes or so we'll start to see the dozen or so neighborhood children begin to trickle through the neighborhood, nervously prodded by their parents onto strangers' porches, to ask for candy. And BMG and I will "oooh" and "aaah" over the costumes and make a big show out of the generous handfuls of candy we toss into the brightly colored receptacles carried by the princesses, robots, and medieval knights who roam our suburban street. I do this because I remember how much fun this was when I was a kid and I want to do my part to offer this same delight to the little people who creating their Halloween memories tonight.