There are no limits to my love of KEXP (which broadcasts online--check it out). As I was navigating my carpool into the parking garage at about 8:00 this morning, my devotion was rewarded when John-in-the-Morning slapped on Run-DMC, of all things: "It's Tricky."
Me: Oh my God! (cranking it to 11; busting moves wildly behind the steering wheel)
Darcy: ...
Me: I MET A LITTLE GIRLIE! HER HAIR WAS KINDA CURLY!
Darcy: ...
Me: What, are you not a fan?
What can I say...at those figure-skating events in the mid-80s that I mentioned? Sis and I sometimes frightened the other children. Or their stage mothers, for certain.
Friday, January 28, 2005
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
Same old, same old
Near the freeway exit I take for my office is a mattress store housed in a former bank. Their outdoor sign still includes one of those date/time/temperature clocks, half its bulbs burnt out. But this one has read "January 13" since...January 12, now (heh). It gives the daily commute an uneasy "Groundhog Day" vibe, certainly.
And gives rise to a question, actually...why are those clocks the domain of banks? I'm thinking of all the local ones I know, now, and I can't recall a single one that isn't outside a bank, or outside something that was originally a bank. What's up with that?
Ornate, elegant clocks-with-hands go outside jewelry stores, this I know--maybe to encourage people to buy watches? (Which...why would you, if the clock's right on the...huh...) But "digital" readout clocks = banks. Come on, Internet, I bet you know this.
And gives rise to a question, actually...why are those clocks the domain of banks? I'm thinking of all the local ones I know, now, and I can't recall a single one that isn't outside a bank, or outside something that was originally a bank. What's up with that?
Ornate, elegant clocks-with-hands go outside jewelry stores, this I know--maybe to encourage people to buy watches? (Which...why would you, if the clock's right on the...huh...) But "digital" readout clocks = banks. Come on, Internet, I bet you know this.
Monday, January 03, 2005
The Robertson
So said the sign at the end of their driveway. One of Barb's sons had made it--poorly--in wood shop, the letters slumped and crowding each other off the end of the board, no room for the plural. Whichever kid it was convinced the shop teacher that the singular was in fact the correct Scottish clan designation, no "S" required, and got a decent grade.
My family met Barb Robertson when I was about 13, the first year we were completely consumed with figure skating. So was Barb: in her early 60s, she'd decided she needed a new hobby. She signed up for private lessons and shared the ice with us, turning stately circles in her sweatshirt and knit tam o'shanter while little girls in lycra dresses hurled themselves aloft all around her.
Off ice, Barb was a doctor, and in her spare time had raised five grown children. She was accustomed to a crowded life, and welcomed us indiscriminately into it--kids, coaches, parents, champions and junior- hockey thugs, others who'd drifted into the sport out of love. She volunteered her services at local competitions, ministering to wrenched knees and bonked heads or the occasional nervous puker. On Saturdays after practice, she'd load us into one or another of her never, never, EVER-washed cars and make a pizza run.
We were always celebrating something with Barb: birthdays and graduations, exam results, pregnancies, promotions. Some time in the late 1970s she'd strung Christmas lights around the ceiling beams in her dining room...and then just never bothered to take them down. Flip a switch: instant party. Barb made enormous chocolate-chip sheet cakes and never ran out of ice. We camped out on her living room floor to watch Tentacles on the late-night movie. I had my first alcoholic beverage in Barb's presence, a closely-supervised glass of raspberry champagne...though I no longer remember what achievement had occasioned the event. Barb introduced my family to mu shu pork; she made a noble effort to teach me to drive a stick shift. At a certain point in my adolescence, I was entirely comfortable rummaging through her refrigerator for the soda or snack of my choice. As an adult, I think that's one of the highest compliments I can pay someone, really: I am at home in your home.
When you did open the fridge, you'd find at least a dozen little notes taped to the shelves inside the door, proclaiming "Happy Birthday Mom!" in crayon or marker. Her kids had started this one year and Barb never took them down.
The first check arrived in September of my freshman year in college. One hundred dollars, and a note from Barb, reminding me that I was minutes from the greatest city in the world and I ought to take advantage it. "Don't tell your mother," she said; this was between us; I didn't have to tell anyone what I spent it on, Barb included...though I think, I hope, that I did. I bought a full-length black wool coat with that $100, at Macy's no less, and thought myself hot snot on china. Barb sent me another $100 each month, for my entire freshman year...kept me in bagels and incense and cheap silver jewelry and MoMA posters that, properly framed, now hang in my home and my office. When I graduated, I got another check: $2700. The other three academic years, in a lump sum. "I thought you might need a nest egg, starting out," Barb said, and I did. I secured and furnished my first apartment with that check, bought a bookcase and a futon and the desk I'm typing at, tonight.
When she was diagnosed with lung cancer, Barb was philosophical: "I won't ever have to Christmas shop or go to the dentist again." But radical surgery, performed by an old colleague, spared her to endure those and other jolly annual irritants time and again: this was fifteen years ago. Her hair grew back, mysteriously chemo-altered into poodle-pouf curls; she shrugged and went back to the rink, even though her lung capacity was not what it had been. She lived to see a passel of grandchildren.
And I grew up, all the rink kids did...ended up with cars, careers, spouses or houses. In recent years, Barb and I had become primarily Christmas-card friends, though we'd still sometimes surprise each other at potlucks or restaurants--find time to catch up even as it seemed like mere minutes had passed. She came to one of my Christmas parties. When my grandmother lay dying in the hospital, I called Barb, for consultation and consolation.
When Barb's cancer improbably resurfaced this year, maybe autumn, after more than a decade of remission, she told no one but her husband. In her eighties, she didn't want to endure the rigors of fresh treatment, or wither tragically for months. She kept skating up until the first week in December, when her illness had devoured too much of her muscle tone for her to continue. She waved off worry, implied that a new medication was affecting her badly. She spent Christmas with her family...and stopped taking her meds on December 26th. On December 31st, the world grieved by candlelight for all those who suffer, and then faced forward, with fireworks and confetti cannons...and Barb slipped quietly out with the last of 2004.
* * * * *
When someone we love dies, someone who's been a touchstone and a role model and a savior, a one-woman charitable organization, a friend...I think it's our responsibility, our obligation, to smooth over that void with ourselves. To live for that person, and to play a part in the lives of others, as he or she did for you. In some way I can't well-enough describe, I'm glad I was at Darcy's when Barb died--another place where I feel confident enough to rummage through the fridge, surrounded by another family I've come to think of as mostly my own. We ate cheese fondue and chocolate-chip brownies and drank champagne; the Christmas lights flashed hectically and the kids staged epic, shrieking board games, wired and laughing and up too late. The calendar rolled over, with smooches and bottle rockets, and everything is possible and new.
Happy New Year. Come on over. There are pretzels, and cookies, and I've got plenty of ice.
My family met Barb Robertson when I was about 13, the first year we were completely consumed with figure skating. So was Barb: in her early 60s, she'd decided she needed a new hobby. She signed up for private lessons and shared the ice with us, turning stately circles in her sweatshirt and knit tam o'shanter while little girls in lycra dresses hurled themselves aloft all around her.
Off ice, Barb was a doctor, and in her spare time had raised five grown children. She was accustomed to a crowded life, and welcomed us indiscriminately into it--kids, coaches, parents, champions and junior- hockey thugs, others who'd drifted into the sport out of love. She volunteered her services at local competitions, ministering to wrenched knees and bonked heads or the occasional nervous puker. On Saturdays after practice, she'd load us into one or another of her never, never, EVER-washed cars and make a pizza run.
We were always celebrating something with Barb: birthdays and graduations, exam results, pregnancies, promotions. Some time in the late 1970s she'd strung Christmas lights around the ceiling beams in her dining room...and then just never bothered to take them down. Flip a switch: instant party. Barb made enormous chocolate-chip sheet cakes and never ran out of ice. We camped out on her living room floor to watch Tentacles on the late-night movie. I had my first alcoholic beverage in Barb's presence, a closely-supervised glass of raspberry champagne...though I no longer remember what achievement had occasioned the event. Barb introduced my family to mu shu pork; she made a noble effort to teach me to drive a stick shift. At a certain point in my adolescence, I was entirely comfortable rummaging through her refrigerator for the soda or snack of my choice. As an adult, I think that's one of the highest compliments I can pay someone, really: I am at home in your home.
When you did open the fridge, you'd find at least a dozen little notes taped to the shelves inside the door, proclaiming "Happy Birthday Mom!" in crayon or marker. Her kids had started this one year and Barb never took them down.
The first check arrived in September of my freshman year in college. One hundred dollars, and a note from Barb, reminding me that I was minutes from the greatest city in the world and I ought to take advantage it. "Don't tell your mother," she said; this was between us; I didn't have to tell anyone what I spent it on, Barb included...though I think, I hope, that I did. I bought a full-length black wool coat with that $100, at Macy's no less, and thought myself hot snot on china. Barb sent me another $100 each month, for my entire freshman year...kept me in bagels and incense and cheap silver jewelry and MoMA posters that, properly framed, now hang in my home and my office. When I graduated, I got another check: $2700. The other three academic years, in a lump sum. "I thought you might need a nest egg, starting out," Barb said, and I did. I secured and furnished my first apartment with that check, bought a bookcase and a futon and the desk I'm typing at, tonight.
When she was diagnosed with lung cancer, Barb was philosophical: "I won't ever have to Christmas shop or go to the dentist again." But radical surgery, performed by an old colleague, spared her to endure those and other jolly annual irritants time and again: this was fifteen years ago. Her hair grew back, mysteriously chemo-altered into poodle-pouf curls; she shrugged and went back to the rink, even though her lung capacity was not what it had been. She lived to see a passel of grandchildren.
And I grew up, all the rink kids did...ended up with cars, careers, spouses or houses. In recent years, Barb and I had become primarily Christmas-card friends, though we'd still sometimes surprise each other at potlucks or restaurants--find time to catch up even as it seemed like mere minutes had passed. She came to one of my Christmas parties. When my grandmother lay dying in the hospital, I called Barb, for consultation and consolation.
When Barb's cancer improbably resurfaced this year, maybe autumn, after more than a decade of remission, she told no one but her husband. In her eighties, she didn't want to endure the rigors of fresh treatment, or wither tragically for months. She kept skating up until the first week in December, when her illness had devoured too much of her muscle tone for her to continue. She waved off worry, implied that a new medication was affecting her badly. She spent Christmas with her family...and stopped taking her meds on December 26th. On December 31st, the world grieved by candlelight for all those who suffer, and then faced forward, with fireworks and confetti cannons...and Barb slipped quietly out with the last of 2004.
* * * * *
When someone we love dies, someone who's been a touchstone and a role model and a savior, a one-woman charitable organization, a friend...I think it's our responsibility, our obligation, to smooth over that void with ourselves. To live for that person, and to play a part in the lives of others, as he or she did for you. In some way I can't well-enough describe, I'm glad I was at Darcy's when Barb died--another place where I feel confident enough to rummage through the fridge, surrounded by another family I've come to think of as mostly my own. We ate cheese fondue and chocolate-chip brownies and drank champagne; the Christmas lights flashed hectically and the kids staged epic, shrieking board games, wired and laughing and up too late. The calendar rolled over, with smooches and bottle rockets, and everything is possible and new.
Happy New Year. Come on over. There are pretzels, and cookies, and I've got plenty of ice.
Sunday, December 26, 2004
Joy
Driving home from Darcy's around the lake, this afternoon, I saw at least four little kids, wobbling along the path ecstatically on shiny, shiny, dazzling new bicycles as their parents strolled beatifically along beside.
Aw, Santa, you old coot...you still know just how to get me.
Aw, Santa, you old coot...you still know just how to get me.
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
NotMe and Ida Know
Julius is demonstrably my Bad Cat. He eats the plants, he tips over his water dish, he torments his sister daily. He goes knickknack fishing when he tires of the vast array of designated kitty toys; I'm forever stepping on something unexpected in the dark of the night on the way to the bathroom. He surfs on the throw rugs and hysterically trash-talks the benign neighbor cat through the windows.
Tulip, on the other hand, is essentially an affectionate decorative throw pillow. With appalling cat fud breath.
So far, the cats have been largely indifferent to the Christmas tree. But among my decorations are little garlands of paper Scandinavian flags...and for about a week I've been coming home to find here a flag, there a flag, everywhere a slightly soggy chewed-off flag, all around the living room. Naughty, naughty Julius, I thought. I've been lightly scolding him for days.
You can imagine my surprise when, last night, Tulip (fresh from a nap) sidled up to the tree, snagged a flag and started tugging. SHOCKED, I tell you. "Hey! No no no," I told her. And she looked right at me, with huge glowing dilated crazy!pupils, and chomped down on the poor little candy-cane bear ornament, dangling adjacent. (He's already got only one eye--cut him some slack!)
Those who say that pets are not like people, let alone backstabbing, sibling-rivalrous children, obviously have none.
I should be relieved, though: check out the Very Bad Cats indeed Iris and Fern, decorating their own tree.
Tulip, on the other hand, is essentially an affectionate decorative throw pillow. With appalling cat fud breath.
So far, the cats have been largely indifferent to the Christmas tree. But among my decorations are little garlands of paper Scandinavian flags...and for about a week I've been coming home to find here a flag, there a flag, everywhere a slightly soggy chewed-off flag, all around the living room. Naughty, naughty Julius, I thought. I've been lightly scolding him for days.
You can imagine my surprise when, last night, Tulip (fresh from a nap) sidled up to the tree, snagged a flag and started tugging. SHOCKED, I tell you. "Hey! No no no," I told her. And she looked right at me, with huge glowing dilated crazy!pupils, and chomped down on the poor little candy-cane bear ornament, dangling adjacent. (He's already got only one eye--cut him some slack!)
Those who say that pets are not like people, let alone backstabbing, sibling-rivalrous children, obviously have none.
I should be relieved, though: check out the Very Bad Cats indeed Iris and Fern, decorating their own tree.
Monday, December 13, 2004
It's not Christmas until Poppy cries
I got to participate in another long-held holiday tradition Sunday morning, actually, when I attended a St. Lucia brunch. My mom's friend Cookie has been doing this as long as I can remember, hosting hordes of people for coffee and pastry to celebrate "the Swedish Christmas." When we were little, Cookie's daughter, DerDer, would play the role of the Lucia Bride, leading us into the dining room with the crown of candles on her head--tipped with gold foil, when we were very small, and thrillingly, fearsomely lit, when she was older. (Apparently battery-operated ones are now de rigeur.) DerDer married, last year, so the celebration has moved to her home.
There were a lot of new attendees this year, neighbors who didn't know the story, so DerDer and Cookie gave a little presentation. I didn't know much about the actual legend, either, it turns out. Lucia was an Italian saint, and it's not clear why the Swedes so fell in love with her. One story has Lucia, a devout Christian, refusing to marry a Pagan husband and putting out her own eyes. Another has her bringing bread to starving, persecuted Christians hiding in tunnels and caves; she wore candles on her head to free her hands and light the way. Yet another has her arriving in a harbor on a ship, bringing light, bringing food to the hungry.
When I was a kid, the processional part of the celebration seemed interminable--though I envied DerDer the attention, and her gripping role, fraught with danger. We'd gather around the table and listen to the traditional hymn--originally on a record, later copied onto cassette--a choir of children warbled verse after verse in Swedish or Latin or whatever, and some of the grownups would fumble along tunelessly, and all I wanted was to get it over with and get to the food. I was eager to line the pockets of my corduroy jumper with gingersnaps and start running up and down the stairs with DerDer and her three brothers, my sister and all the neighbor kids and cousins, shrieking and slamming each other's fingers in doors while the adults drank gallons of coffee and didn't notice when we kept slinking back to the table, keeping our blood sugar levels just on the frenzied side of a diabetic coma.
I don't know when it changed. I think it's partly Poppy's fault. DerDer's stepdad is legendarily, hilariously sentimental; he weeps at the proverbial drop of a hat, at Hallmark commercials and Notre Dame championships. When DerDer announced her engagement, Poppy cried for an entire year at the mere thought of walking her down the aisle. We mock poor Poppy, with great love...but even as we laugh, he has the power to get everyone else going too. (During the father/bride dance at the actual reception, my particular table of friends and family sobbed so hard the d.j. had to crank it to eleven to drown us out.)
So. This year, DerDer and her husband had actually burned the Sankta Lucia hymn onto a CD for her folks. This is close, but not quite the same version; you have to imagine it dubbed and redubbed off the original vinyl, with the pops and scratches, the needle hissing in the groove. DerDer pressed "Play." The introductory measures wavered across the living room. And...
...Poppy let out an audible, gulping sob and abruptly swiveled his Barcalounger to face the wall.
So. Yeah, we all giggled tenderly at Poppy. But it's a long hymn, and you have a lot of time to look at the tree, and the candles glowing, and the faces of family and friends and the babies they have now. You think about being kids, all in a sugared-up Christmas lather; you think of your Grammy, and DerDer's grandma KittyCoat, neither of whom are with us any more. And let me tell you, you harrumph and sniffle and blinkblinkblink HARD at the ceiling to keep from getting mascara face...
...and finally, thank God, it's time to eat. To laugh at yourself, and blot your eyes with an IKEA napkin printed with a little blonde girl in a fiery crown, and hug your own mom and your extra one, Cookie, and Poppy and DerDer, and then hit the smorgasbord. Cardamom bread, generously slathered with butter. Buttered lefse, rolled up with cinnamon and sugar or with summer sausage. Almond ring. "Spritz" butter cookies. Gingersnaps and coffee with cream and soft yeast rolls with butter. Did I mention butter?
It was so lovely. I really feel like the holidays can now get underway. Of course, I consumed nothing but pastry and coffee and red wine for the entire day, so I could possibly be just addled by my nutritional deficiencies.
I did realize that I was fully in a new demographic, staring down the barrel of 35, when I spent a considerable portion of the brunch in DerDer's kitchen, admiring her retro-look electric percolator from Target. It combines classic style with modern convenience!
There were a lot of new attendees this year, neighbors who didn't know the story, so DerDer and Cookie gave a little presentation. I didn't know much about the actual legend, either, it turns out. Lucia was an Italian saint, and it's not clear why the Swedes so fell in love with her. One story has Lucia, a devout Christian, refusing to marry a Pagan husband and putting out her own eyes. Another has her bringing bread to starving, persecuted Christians hiding in tunnels and caves; she wore candles on her head to free her hands and light the way. Yet another has her arriving in a harbor on a ship, bringing light, bringing food to the hungry.
When I was a kid, the processional part of the celebration seemed interminable--though I envied DerDer the attention, and her gripping role, fraught with danger. We'd gather around the table and listen to the traditional hymn--originally on a record, later copied onto cassette--a choir of children warbled verse after verse in Swedish or Latin or whatever, and some of the grownups would fumble along tunelessly, and all I wanted was to get it over with and get to the food. I was eager to line the pockets of my corduroy jumper with gingersnaps and start running up and down the stairs with DerDer and her three brothers, my sister and all the neighbor kids and cousins, shrieking and slamming each other's fingers in doors while the adults drank gallons of coffee and didn't notice when we kept slinking back to the table, keeping our blood sugar levels just on the frenzied side of a diabetic coma.
I don't know when it changed. I think it's partly Poppy's fault. DerDer's stepdad is legendarily, hilariously sentimental; he weeps at the proverbial drop of a hat, at Hallmark commercials and Notre Dame championships. When DerDer announced her engagement, Poppy cried for an entire year at the mere thought of walking her down the aisle. We mock poor Poppy, with great love...but even as we laugh, he has the power to get everyone else going too. (During the father/bride dance at the actual reception, my particular table of friends and family sobbed so hard the d.j. had to crank it to eleven to drown us out.)
So. This year, DerDer and her husband had actually burned the Sankta Lucia hymn onto a CD for her folks. This is close, but not quite the same version; you have to imagine it dubbed and redubbed off the original vinyl, with the pops and scratches, the needle hissing in the groove. DerDer pressed "Play." The introductory measures wavered across the living room. And...
...Poppy let out an audible, gulping sob and abruptly swiveled his Barcalounger to face the wall.
So. Yeah, we all giggled tenderly at Poppy. But it's a long hymn, and you have a lot of time to look at the tree, and the candles glowing, and the faces of family and friends and the babies they have now. You think about being kids, all in a sugared-up Christmas lather; you think of your Grammy, and DerDer's grandma KittyCoat, neither of whom are with us any more. And let me tell you, you harrumph and sniffle and blinkblinkblink HARD at the ceiling to keep from getting mascara face...
...and finally, thank God, it's time to eat. To laugh at yourself, and blot your eyes with an IKEA napkin printed with a little blonde girl in a fiery crown, and hug your own mom and your extra one, Cookie, and Poppy and DerDer, and then hit the smorgasbord. Cardamom bread, generously slathered with butter. Buttered lefse, rolled up with cinnamon and sugar or with summer sausage. Almond ring. "Spritz" butter cookies. Gingersnaps and coffee with cream and soft yeast rolls with butter. Did I mention butter?
It was so lovely. I really feel like the holidays can now get underway. Of course, I consumed nothing but pastry and coffee and red wine for the entire day, so I could possibly be just addled by my nutritional deficiencies.
I did realize that I was fully in a new demographic, staring down the barrel of 35, when I spent a considerable portion of the brunch in DerDer's kitchen, admiring her retro-look electric percolator from Target. It combines classic style with modern convenience!
It's not Christmas until the little baby angels cry
So saith Jacki, one of the regulars at the fifth (!) annual Ugly Christmas Cookie party, which I happily attended at the home of instigator Megan, yesterday afternoon. I'm sure she'll write about it eventually, but I'll tide you over.
I believe that the first Ugly Cookie Day was inadvertent, owing more to the artistic deficiencies of the participants. It was her college boyfriend's particular genius to make unattractive, disquieting, or downright offensive cookies the thematic intent. So every year now Megan and co-conspirator Erica spend a couple days cranking out dozens and dozens and DOZENS of sugar and gingerbread cookies, shaped like everything from trees and snowmen to cowboys and pumpkins. Megan hauls out her array of every food coloring and candy sprinkle known to mankind, and then a handful of us spend four or five hours drinking to excess and obsessively poking frosting around with toothpicks.
We CAN make pretty cookies, and we usually do--in fact, Megan brought a sampling of those that "met the HR bar" to the office today. But there's just something in our sick, sad minds that makes the little frosted horrors so, SO much more fun. Past alcohol-fueled inspiration has produced cookies iced to look like cat barf, eyeballs, poo (both Mr. Hankey and generic), little "ginger whores," cold-sore-spotted lips, far too many "yellow snow" jokes, and a "snowminatrix" in studded leather harness. (Those little silver "inedible"--heh--dragees really come in handy.) A rocket-shaped cookie cutter gets wildly misrepresented each year... ahem. We have made cookies in the likeness of Michael Jackson, Dame Edna, the Green River Killer (God help us all) and the complete GingerVillage People.
Yesterday did not disappoint. We had a tasteful diorama of the effects of mad cow disease. Ginger Martha-in-Prison made an appearance. (Martha, honey--you know we're just kidding. Stay strong, sister-friend!) I frosted a particularly bloated Jason Giambi, and the devil, complete with chocolate jimmies for his vertical pupils. There were Ginger Calendar Firefighters, with big yellow pants and carefully iced abs. This year's winner, in the category of "makes you gag a little even though you know it's just a cookie"? Loreal, the cosmetic-testing laboratory rabbit.
We are nice girls, really we are.
Anyway, I drank three glasses of wine and consumed enough of my "mistakes" to realize, as I do annually, that Ugly Cookie Day is its own punishment. It was 8:30 before I bundled up and started tottering the four blocks home with my own saran-wrapped plate of obscene baked goods. At the end of the block I passed a house blazing like NORAD with holiday lights; if you listened carefully you could hear the dial on their electric meter whizzing around. I glanced through the living-room window and saw...two trees? Crap, how much cabernet had I had? "Wow," I said aloud.
There was a guy having a cigarette in the driveway. "Hey," he said.
"Are there really two trees in there?" I asked. He rolled his eyes toward the house.
"Not even close," he said. "My mother-in-law loves Christmas. Guess."
I shrugged.
"There are FIVE," he told me. "One's in the basement. And they're THEMED!"
"Oh my GOD," I said. "Well...Merry Christmas!"
"YEAH Merry Christmas," he said, and grinned and stomped out his smoke. And I went on, armored against the cold by my flowered wool hat and fleece mittens, smiling, never wanting to see another cookie as long as I lived. Until about four this afternoon, when I slunk down to Megan's office and snagged an innocuous brown bear off the tray.
Dude, it's all about traditions!
I believe that the first Ugly Cookie Day was inadvertent, owing more to the artistic deficiencies of the participants. It was her college boyfriend's particular genius to make unattractive, disquieting, or downright offensive cookies the thematic intent. So every year now Megan and co-conspirator Erica spend a couple days cranking out dozens and dozens and DOZENS of sugar and gingerbread cookies, shaped like everything from trees and snowmen to cowboys and pumpkins. Megan hauls out her array of every food coloring and candy sprinkle known to mankind, and then a handful of us spend four or five hours drinking to excess and obsessively poking frosting around with toothpicks.
We CAN make pretty cookies, and we usually do--in fact, Megan brought a sampling of those that "met the HR bar" to the office today. But there's just something in our sick, sad minds that makes the little frosted horrors so, SO much more fun. Past alcohol-fueled inspiration has produced cookies iced to look like cat barf, eyeballs, poo (both Mr. Hankey and generic), little "ginger whores," cold-sore-spotted lips, far too many "yellow snow" jokes, and a "snowminatrix" in studded leather harness. (Those little silver "inedible"--heh--dragees really come in handy.) A rocket-shaped cookie cutter gets wildly misrepresented each year... ahem. We have made cookies in the likeness of Michael Jackson, Dame Edna, the Green River Killer (God help us all) and the complete GingerVillage People.
Yesterday did not disappoint. We had a tasteful diorama of the effects of mad cow disease. Ginger Martha-in-Prison made an appearance. (Martha, honey--you know we're just kidding. Stay strong, sister-friend!) I frosted a particularly bloated Jason Giambi, and the devil, complete with chocolate jimmies for his vertical pupils. There were Ginger Calendar Firefighters, with big yellow pants and carefully iced abs. This year's winner, in the category of "makes you gag a little even though you know it's just a cookie"? Loreal, the cosmetic-testing laboratory rabbit.
We are nice girls, really we are.
Anyway, I drank three glasses of wine and consumed enough of my "mistakes" to realize, as I do annually, that Ugly Cookie Day is its own punishment. It was 8:30 before I bundled up and started tottering the four blocks home with my own saran-wrapped plate of obscene baked goods. At the end of the block I passed a house blazing like NORAD with holiday lights; if you listened carefully you could hear the dial on their electric meter whizzing around. I glanced through the living-room window and saw...two trees? Crap, how much cabernet had I had? "Wow," I said aloud.
There was a guy having a cigarette in the driveway. "Hey," he said.
"Are there really two trees in there?" I asked. He rolled his eyes toward the house.
"Not even close," he said. "My mother-in-law loves Christmas. Guess."
I shrugged.
"There are FIVE," he told me. "One's in the basement. And they're THEMED!"
"Oh my GOD," I said. "Well...Merry Christmas!"
"YEAH Merry Christmas," he said, and grinned and stomped out his smoke. And I went on, armored against the cold by my flowered wool hat and fleece mittens, smiling, never wanting to see another cookie as long as I lived. Until about four this afternoon, when I slunk down to Megan's office and snagged an innocuous brown bear off the tray.
Dude, it's all about traditions!
Thursday, December 09, 2004
Am I getting enough sleep?
I just arrived at the office and blearily waved my coffee in front of the key-card reader. Hellooo? Let me in, you stupid--oh.
Better turn back and get one for each hand, I guess.
Better turn back and get one for each hand, I guess.
Tuesday, December 07, 2004
It's beginning to look a lot like OH FOR CHRISSAKE GOD DAMN IT!
Yeah, yeah, I know. That last post just hangs there, piteously comic, doesn't it? And I was gonna write about it; I had some prime material all lined up, me driving home despondent through the neighborhood streets of shattered pumpkins and dead leaves and waterlogged Kerry signs. I spun the needle on the Stages-of-Grief-Ometer more than once, with the denial and the rage and the what the HELL is the MATTER with half of you people? I fretted. I ate far more than my allotment of frozen yogurt. I wondered, what are we gonna do? What are we possibly gonna do for four more years?
Well, if you need a cause, as usual the writers I dream of emulating have done it better. I shall direct you to This Is Not Over.com. Okay then. Get busy. Moving on.
So. Those who know me well understand that I'm something of a Christmas dork. My birthday is December 22; my parents brought me home from the hospital on Christmas Day, and for many years I labored under the delusion that the holiday hoopla had something to do with me: I got ornaments AND t.v. specials AND cake AND presents AND carols AND pretty lights for, like, a solid month. A rented Santa from the Heart Association once came to my birthday party. You can maybe forgive my childhood assumptions.
I outgrew most of the megalomania (she blathered, on the Internet), and I eventually discerned some of the crap parts of having a birthday that close to Christmas, too, such as a) the "combo" present, and b) it's something like gloves. These days, I am typically too damn busy to celebrate the anniversary of my own earthly arrival. That said, I've still never quite gotten over the giddy glee of it all. I love to haul out the decorations. I love the memories triggered by each ornament. Here is the polar bear seated on an outsize candy cane, one of his eyes now drawn on with a pen, from when my parents were still married; here is the glitter-smudged styrofoam ball Sis crafted in Brownies; here is the brass partridge-in-a-pear-tree my friend Gwyn left on my document stand in first-period Typing I in the 10th grade; here is the tiny snowman from Holly's first year in Germany. Everything gets a spot on the tree--the heirlooms and the ugly ones. Hell, I've been known to purchase an ugly ornament on purpose, just because I think it's funny.
I love to feed people. I like to bust out the Johnny Mathis album, and whip up gingersnaps and peppermint bark and my grandma's ass-kicking rum balls. Okay, actually I don't like making the rum balls, with the Karo syrup and the stickiness and the rolling and rolling and rolling up those little bastards in a fog of rum-stink everywhere. By the time I'm done, I can't stand it. I can't eat 'em, myself. But I like to watch the faces of the people who do.
I love the tree. How it makes the house smell, when you open the door after a long day, darkness to darkness, at the office. How the cats are all "the HELL?" every year when you haul an enormous piece of Outside into the living room. How each tree is more beautiful than the last, when you finally get it trimmed to your liking.
Which is best done when you have managed to get the motherfucking tree crammed into the cheap-ass, worthless, catastrophically useless plastic stand from the goddamn Fred Meyer, and get it fixed in a reasonably upright position without tying it to the WALL, because the four flimsy bolts ROCK back and FORTH in the crummy plastic slots and the tree favors a jaunty 75-degree ANGLE, pointing accusatorily at the COUCH, and your hands are raw from cranking those screws with fucking PLIERS while your NEIGHBOR held the trunk, to no avail.
We used to tease my mother, for approaching Hulk-like rages while putting up the tree when we were kids. I remember her threatening to throw tree, stand, and lights off the balcony of our apartment; I remember her dragging us to that same Fred Meyer, incredibly enough, to purchase a completely new set of lights at about 9:30 p.m. one year. Good old Mommy--she came to the rescue last night, with a monstrous eight-pronged tree stand suitable for Rockefeller Center. That baby isn't going ANYWHERE from now to January 1. I think I could climb it.
"How did you do this as a single parent?" I asked her. "I mean, I know you used to get frustrated, sure...but how did you ever manage to put up a tree without help?"Our Broken Home trees were smaller, granted, but still .
"I don't know," she admitted. "But when we were still married, your father used to do it. And he would about lose his mind, and I wondered why."
So. Christmas made my parents get a divorce! Well...perhaps not entirely. But it was a contributing factor. I haven't even gotten to the story about their 3 a.m. toy assembly crisis, yet...or the one about the Nat King Cole Suicide Christmas album. Heh. I love the holidays, but they sure weren't kind to my folks' marriage, now that I think about it.
Well, if you need a cause, as usual the writers I dream of emulating have done it better. I shall direct you to This Is Not Over.com. Okay then. Get busy. Moving on.
So. Those who know me well understand that I'm something of a Christmas dork. My birthday is December 22; my parents brought me home from the hospital on Christmas Day, and for many years I labored under the delusion that the holiday hoopla had something to do with me: I got ornaments AND t.v. specials AND cake AND presents AND carols AND pretty lights for, like, a solid month. A rented Santa from the Heart Association once came to my birthday party. You can maybe forgive my childhood assumptions.
I outgrew most of the megalomania (she blathered, on the Internet), and I eventually discerned some of the crap parts of having a birthday that close to Christmas, too, such as a) the "combo" present, and b) it's something like gloves. These days, I am typically too damn busy to celebrate the anniversary of my own earthly arrival. That said, I've still never quite gotten over the giddy glee of it all. I love to haul out the decorations. I love the memories triggered by each ornament. Here is the polar bear seated on an outsize candy cane, one of his eyes now drawn on with a pen, from when my parents were still married; here is the glitter-smudged styrofoam ball Sis crafted in Brownies; here is the brass partridge-in-a-pear-tree my friend Gwyn left on my document stand in first-period Typing I in the 10th grade; here is the tiny snowman from Holly's first year in Germany. Everything gets a spot on the tree--the heirlooms and the ugly ones. Hell, I've been known to purchase an ugly ornament on purpose, just because I think it's funny.
I love to feed people. I like to bust out the Johnny Mathis album, and whip up gingersnaps and peppermint bark and my grandma's ass-kicking rum balls. Okay, actually I don't like making the rum balls, with the Karo syrup and the stickiness and the rolling and rolling and rolling up those little bastards in a fog of rum-stink everywhere. By the time I'm done, I can't stand it. I can't eat 'em, myself. But I like to watch the faces of the people who do.
I love the tree. How it makes the house smell, when you open the door after a long day, darkness to darkness, at the office. How the cats are all "the HELL?" every year when you haul an enormous piece of Outside into the living room. How each tree is more beautiful than the last, when you finally get it trimmed to your liking.
Which is best done when you have managed to get the motherfucking tree crammed into the cheap-ass, worthless, catastrophically useless plastic stand from the goddamn Fred Meyer, and get it fixed in a reasonably upright position without tying it to the WALL, because the four flimsy bolts ROCK back and FORTH in the crummy plastic slots and the tree favors a jaunty 75-degree ANGLE, pointing accusatorily at the COUCH, and your hands are raw from cranking those screws with fucking PLIERS while your NEIGHBOR held the trunk, to no avail.
We used to tease my mother, for approaching Hulk-like rages while putting up the tree when we were kids. I remember her threatening to throw tree, stand, and lights off the balcony of our apartment; I remember her dragging us to that same Fred Meyer, incredibly enough, to purchase a completely new set of lights at about 9:30 p.m. one year. Good old Mommy--she came to the rescue last night, with a monstrous eight-pronged tree stand suitable for Rockefeller Center. That baby isn't going ANYWHERE from now to January 1. I think I could climb it.
"How did you do this as a single parent?" I asked her. "I mean, I know you used to get frustrated, sure...but how did you ever manage to put up a tree without help?"Our Broken Home trees were smaller, granted, but still .
"I don't know," she admitted. "But when we were still married, your father used to do it. And he would about lose his mind, and I wondered why."
So. Christmas made my parents get a divorce! Well...perhaps not entirely. But it was a contributing factor. I haven't even gotten to the story about their 3 a.m. toy assembly crisis, yet...or the one about the Nat King Cole Suicide Christmas album. Heh. I love the holidays, but they sure weren't kind to my folks' marriage, now that I think about it.
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
Home on the range
All right, y'all, I know I don't have to tell you what to do. But I will: get your asses to the polls and send that raisin-eyed, simian, chuckling dimwit bastard back to the ranch in Crawford. I mean it. Move. Let's go.
Sarah Bunting says it better than I can; so does Cary Tennis. So, even if we don't win, take heart. Stick around for the fight.
But we'll win.
Come on, get excited! Democracy, woooooooo!
Sarah Bunting says it better than I can; so does Cary Tennis. So, even if we don't win, take heart. Stick around for the fight.
But we'll win.
Come on, get excited! Democracy, woooooooo!
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
If I was Mayor McCheese, I'd have the Hamburglar put to death!
According to the local news, several of the folks who helped collar Seattle's Lamest Mugger were given an audience with the mayor and little certificates of good citizenship or whatever. (Check the video links for "Citizen Heroes Capture Would-Be Robber," if you're so inclined.)
Sis must be feeling better, because she's pissed off: where is her commemorative plaque for administering the beat-down? Not to mention, the opportunity to sound off ON TELEVISION...dang! Plus, of course, the opportunity to, you know, thank all those other folks. Apparently she remains unidentified due to being CARTED AWAY IN AN AMBULANCE as intrepid reporters arrived. The cops did call and leave a message at her home, but too late for her to attend the ceremony. "Maybe Mayor Hoss Cartwright will give you your Special Award later," I said.
I am dying to know, however, what the certificates say exactly. What do they Hereby Proclaim?--that you are a member of the community in good standing? An ass-kicking , crime-fighting mutha? What? I hope it at least comes with a couple of Dick's gift certificates or something. That would be awesome. Thank you, Seattle Citizen Hero! Have a cheeseburger, on us!
Sis must be feeling better, because she's pissed off: where is her commemorative plaque for administering the beat-down? Not to mention, the opportunity to sound off ON TELEVISION...dang! Plus, of course, the opportunity to, you know, thank all those other folks. Apparently she remains unidentified due to being CARTED AWAY IN AN AMBULANCE as intrepid reporters arrived. The cops did call and leave a message at her home, but too late for her to attend the ceremony. "Maybe Mayor Hoss Cartwright will give you your Special Award later," I said.
I am dying to know, however, what the certificates say exactly. What do they Hereby Proclaim?--that you are a member of the community in good standing? An ass-kicking , crime-fighting mutha? What? I hope it at least comes with a couple of Dick's gift certificates or something. That would be awesome. Thank you, Seattle Citizen Hero! Have a cheeseburger, on us!
Saturday, October 23, 2004
You should see the other guy
The karmic dump truck continues to unload on my sister: Thursday, she managed to get herself violently mugged, at 9:00 in the freaking morning, at a cash machine on Broadway (a neighborhood renowned for its hipster squalor--junkies and students and street kids, oh my!).
Some background: A year ago last August, Sis was injured in a random freak accident that's an entire Whole Nother Story, so I won't get into it here; suffice to say she's had three surgeries so far on a badly crushed ankle. She's mobile, but not 100% recovered yet; she was in this particular neighborhood for the express purpose of consulting a new orthopedic specialist for a second opinion.
So. Some doubtless crack-addled fuckwit jumped out of his truck at the curb, and just grabbed her around the neck from behind. Had the shithead seen her limping? I don't know. But he chose her, got her in a headlock, demanded her money. It was so sudden, broad daylight, that at first she thought it must be a friend, someone she knew, goofing around. She said "No!" He tightened his grip around her throat, jerking her backward.
And she turned, twisting around in the circle of his arm, and punched the fucker twice, dead in the face.
Ladies and gents, let me introduce my baby sister, one bad. assed. bitch.
Because next, she hooked her foot--the bad one!--back around his ankle, and when he tried to knock her down, he fell too: she dragged the hapless dumbass down with her, punching and screaming and hanging onto her purse all the while. When her mugger (at the end, wailing "Okay! OKAY!" ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha) tried to get away, Sis actually had the presence of mind to wrap her legs around his and hang on, as other people fought to grab him. He did get loose, scooping up the cash dropped in the struggle, and ran...but a pack of concerned citizens gave chase, and by the time the cops arrived, a crowd had the guy pinned under a car, several blocks away. Boy did this guy make a bad, bad choice. "You did a good job today," one officer told Sis.
She was hurt in the fall, jamming her back and tailbone hard on the concrete, wrenching one finger back...whether in the fall or the fight she's not sure. Her boyfriend called me from the hospital; "Her Irene came out," he said of the battle--referring to our late maternal grandmother, a woman who slept with a nine-iron beside the bed and carried an ice pick in her purse, just in case someone was fool enough to mess with her...sort of the Bad, Bad Leroy Brown of the under-five-feet-tall senior citizen set. Anyway, Sis's injuries will heal...though she's pretty shaken up.
I don't know. I keep vacillating between seeing her actions as insane, over $30, in the please-don't-EVER-do-that-again-are-you-CRAZY? vein...and seeing them as heroic, because: girl is BAD. ASS. It got a write-up in the local paper; I was reading the article to her over the phone yesterday and she broke down, sobbing "Why did this happen to meeeeeeee?" And I can't blame her, of course. It's scary, it hurts, she's had a shit-shellacked 14 months already. Why did it happen to her? But I tried to impress upon her the complete bad-assedness of what she'd done, encourage her to see the good in it: look what you accomplished, look how pissed-off and tough and strong you are, in spite of your injury, in spite of feeling still "fragile" from the accident.
I mean, what would I have done? I'm a wimp. I imagine I'd have gladly surrendered my purse, my car keys, and my latte, if I'd had one--and did you need anything else, Mr. Mugger? Could I give you a ride, help you pick out some other weak-lookin' victims, maybe? Sis said that, had he shown or implied a weapon, she'd have reacted differently. ("No she wouldn't," chuckled Holly, later, when I related the tale. She's known Sis since she was nine.) But I don't know; who can tell how they'll respond, in the feverish swamp of adrenaline?
Thankfully, Sis later called me back, yesterday: she'd fielded about 20 "d'ja know you're in the paper?" phone calls, given her official statement to police, received flowers from work, and had at last consumed some sweet, delicious Percocet and was engrossed in an episode of Little House on the Prairie.
All's well that ends well, ain't it?
And I gotta say, I love her, the ferocious little shit.
Some background: A year ago last August, Sis was injured in a random freak accident that's an entire Whole Nother Story, so I won't get into it here; suffice to say she's had three surgeries so far on a badly crushed ankle. She's mobile, but not 100% recovered yet; she was in this particular neighborhood for the express purpose of consulting a new orthopedic specialist for a second opinion.
So. Some doubtless crack-addled fuckwit jumped out of his truck at the curb, and just grabbed her around the neck from behind. Had the shithead seen her limping? I don't know. But he chose her, got her in a headlock, demanded her money. It was so sudden, broad daylight, that at first she thought it must be a friend, someone she knew, goofing around. She said "No!" He tightened his grip around her throat, jerking her backward.
And she turned, twisting around in the circle of his arm, and punched the fucker twice, dead in the face.
Ladies and gents, let me introduce my baby sister, one bad. assed. bitch.
Because next, she hooked her foot--the bad one!--back around his ankle, and when he tried to knock her down, he fell too: she dragged the hapless dumbass down with her, punching and screaming and hanging onto her purse all the while. When her mugger (at the end, wailing "Okay! OKAY!" ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha) tried to get away, Sis actually had the presence of mind to wrap her legs around his and hang on, as other people fought to grab him. He did get loose, scooping up the cash dropped in the struggle, and ran...but a pack of concerned citizens gave chase, and by the time the cops arrived, a crowd had the guy pinned under a car, several blocks away. Boy did this guy make a bad, bad choice. "You did a good job today," one officer told Sis.
She was hurt in the fall, jamming her back and tailbone hard on the concrete, wrenching one finger back...whether in the fall or the fight she's not sure. Her boyfriend called me from the hospital; "Her Irene came out," he said of the battle--referring to our late maternal grandmother, a woman who slept with a nine-iron beside the bed and carried an ice pick in her purse, just in case someone was fool enough to mess with her...sort of the Bad, Bad Leroy Brown of the under-five-feet-tall senior citizen set. Anyway, Sis's injuries will heal...though she's pretty shaken up.
I don't know. I keep vacillating between seeing her actions as insane, over $30, in the please-don't-EVER-do-that-again-are-you-CRAZY? vein...and seeing them as heroic, because: girl is BAD. ASS. It got a write-up in the local paper; I was reading the article to her over the phone yesterday and she broke down, sobbing "Why did this happen to meeeeeeee?" And I can't blame her, of course. It's scary, it hurts, she's had a shit-shellacked 14 months already. Why did it happen to her? But I tried to impress upon her the complete bad-assedness of what she'd done, encourage her to see the good in it: look what you accomplished, look how pissed-off and tough and strong you are, in spite of your injury, in spite of feeling still "fragile" from the accident.
I mean, what would I have done? I'm a wimp. I imagine I'd have gladly surrendered my purse, my car keys, and my latte, if I'd had one--and did you need anything else, Mr. Mugger? Could I give you a ride, help you pick out some other weak-lookin' victims, maybe? Sis said that, had he shown or implied a weapon, she'd have reacted differently. ("No she wouldn't," chuckled Holly, later, when I related the tale. She's known Sis since she was nine.) But I don't know; who can tell how they'll respond, in the feverish swamp of adrenaline?
Thankfully, Sis later called me back, yesterday: she'd fielded about 20 "d'ja know you're in the paper?" phone calls, given her official statement to police, received flowers from work, and had at last consumed some sweet, delicious Percocet and was engrossed in an episode of Little House on the Prairie.
All's well that ends well, ain't it?
And I gotta say, I love her, the ferocious little shit.
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Ba-dum bum
Found this while looking up assorted Yiddishisms. So timely!
Four friends are sitting in a restaurant. For a long time, nobody says anything. Then, one man groans, "Oy."
"Oy vey," says a second man.
"Nu," says the third.
At this, the fourth man gets up from his chair and says, "If you guys don't stop talking politics, I'm leaving!"
Four friends are sitting in a restaurant. For a long time, nobody says anything. Then, one man groans, "Oy."
"Oy vey," says a second man.
"Nu," says the third.
At this, the fourth man gets up from his chair and says, "If you guys don't stop talking politics, I'm leaving!"
Nu, an entry
When I was a little girl, we used to go with my mom's friend Cookie and her kids to Matzoh Momma's, a deli in the funky post-hippie liberal enclave that the Capitol Hill neighborhood was in those mid-70s days. At first, the joint was hole-in-the-wall tiny, a space narrow as a bowling lane lined with deli cases and two or three rickety tables. The food, though...man, the food. Toasted bagels slathered in real butter--could you get a genuine, decent bagel, anywhre else in Seattle at the time? (You barely can, now; round bread with a hole in the middle doth not a bagel make.) Kosher dogs on poppy-seed rolls. A perfectly golden chicken broth, glowing as if lit from within, afloat with the namesake matzoh balls. Dr. Brown's Black Cherry soda, in bottles...I don't think it yet came in cans. I didn't know from "kosher"; my entire concept of Jewishness came from the All of a Kind Family books (and, thus, I also had a vague notion that New York City was still trapped in the early 1900s, with streetcars and tinkers' wagons). I remember puzzling over some of the Yiddishisms sprinkled through the menu: "Nu, a Sandwich" declared one section. But the food was classic comfort food, suited to a kid's palate, straightforward and pure without messing around. You could get the chicken soup with matzoh balls, or with pieces of chicken, or just a bowl of the plain, luminous broth...aw, man. Excuse me while I get a little verklempt and drool on the keyboard. The proprietor of the place was a big guy named Pip, with a huge, wildly curly black Jewfro. He knew us all by name, at the time. Cookie would call him up, when one of her kids was sick, and he'd deliver, actually appearing at the door bearing soup. I thought of Pip like a superhero.
Matzoh Momma's expanded into a full-fledged restaurant, later, with a full bar and live music. I remember sitting there with friends from high school, still eating that translucent soup and listening to someone navigate "Imagine" on the acoustic guitar, pining madly for the sweet stoner boy I loooooooved who sat beside me but had a girlfriend, not me. (Amusing: a little Googling reveals that Pip Meyerson was a Garfield alum, 1967. Not as amusing: further Googling indicates sweet stoner boy is a strapping, bearded Mac geek who thinks my employer is the AntiChrist. Oh.)
But eventually, the restaurant closed up shop, replaced by a Thai place, which is great because Seattle has only 800 or so to choose from, whew. I grew up and went to college, had to go all the way to New York (which was NOT populated with horse-drawn carts, it turns out) to get my grub on at a proper deli. For whatever random reason, the core group of friends I fell in with at Sarah Lawrence all happened to be Jewish; they assumed I was, too, until someone asked me in our senior year if I was going home for Passover. Nope, sorry--Norwegian-Scots with a multiculti palate, that's all. (I became known as The Honorary Jew for the remainder of our schooling. It's true that I would make an excellent Jew or Catholic, since guilt and shame are pretty much my life's breath.) I came home to Seattle, resigned myself to inferior bagels, occasionally missed matzoh crackers scrambled with eggs but not quite enough to buy a whole box and make them myself.
Today, driving across the bridge to work, I noticed the vehicle next to me: Matzoh Momma Catering. A white van with a logo on the side, a woman, a Momma, lovingly stirring a steaming pot of The Soup! I edged alongside, peering. The driver took a call on his cell, steering with one hand; his hair was steely gray and closer-cropped but still mad curly: Pip. Unmistakable. I nearly drove off the bridge, wanted to roll down my window, shout and wave: Pip! Pip! You knew me when I was in kindergarten! I miss you! I miss THE SOUP!
I didn't, of course. But you can be damn sure I wrote down the phone number.
Matzoh Momma's expanded into a full-fledged restaurant, later, with a full bar and live music. I remember sitting there with friends from high school, still eating that translucent soup and listening to someone navigate "Imagine" on the acoustic guitar, pining madly for the sweet stoner boy I loooooooved who sat beside me but had a girlfriend, not me. (Amusing: a little Googling reveals that Pip Meyerson was a Garfield alum, 1967. Not as amusing: further Googling indicates sweet stoner boy is a strapping, bearded Mac geek who thinks my employer is the AntiChrist. Oh.)
But eventually, the restaurant closed up shop, replaced by a Thai place, which is great because Seattle has only 800 or so to choose from, whew. I grew up and went to college, had to go all the way to New York (which was NOT populated with horse-drawn carts, it turns out) to get my grub on at a proper deli. For whatever random reason, the core group of friends I fell in with at Sarah Lawrence all happened to be Jewish; they assumed I was, too, until someone asked me in our senior year if I was going home for Passover. Nope, sorry--Norwegian-Scots with a multiculti palate, that's all. (I became known as The Honorary Jew for the remainder of our schooling. It's true that I would make an excellent Jew or Catholic, since guilt and shame are pretty much my life's breath.) I came home to Seattle, resigned myself to inferior bagels, occasionally missed matzoh crackers scrambled with eggs but not quite enough to buy a whole box and make them myself.
Today, driving across the bridge to work, I noticed the vehicle next to me: Matzoh Momma Catering. A white van with a logo on the side, a woman, a Momma, lovingly stirring a steaming pot of The Soup! I edged alongside, peering. The driver took a call on his cell, steering with one hand; his hair was steely gray and closer-cropped but still mad curly: Pip. Unmistakable. I nearly drove off the bridge, wanted to roll down my window, shout and wave: Pip! Pip! You knew me when I was in kindergarten! I miss you! I miss THE SOUP!
I didn't, of course. But you can be damn sure I wrote down the phone number.
Thursday, October 14, 2004
One foot in the grave
The other night I had a standard-issue anxiety dream about my high school. This happens periodically: I'm wandering the building, unable to find my locker, my classroom, the exit, as the halls and staircases go all M. C. Escher around me...and tomorrow, always tomorrow, the term paper's due or the final exam is coming, and I haven't studied or gone to class in, oh, SIXTEEN YEARS. Pretty basic. They've lessened over the intervening decade or so, thank God.
Anyway. Today I stumbled across Garfield's Web site, inadvertently, and for shits and giggles decided to look at their daily bulletin. Turns out that next week is Spirit Week, culminating in Homecoming; each day of the week, pep-minded students are encouraged to dress according to an inane theme. Hence:
Monday, 10/18—Sports Day
Tuesday, 10/19—Neon Day (I do not know what this means. Bright colors? Clothes that light up?)
Wednesday, 10/20—Twin Day
Thursday, 10/21—70s/80s Day
Friday 10/22—Purple and White Day
Hold up. 80s Day? 80s Day? What happened to the 60s day we used to have? That was plenty, right? Countercultural? All soul-hippie-freaky? So, next Thursday, the kids are going to dress...like we did every day. Because now I AM OLD. Old like MY PARENTS old.
They'll get it wrong, of course. No socks, girls--I don't care if it's October.
Anyway. Today I stumbled across Garfield's Web site, inadvertently, and for shits and giggles decided to look at their daily bulletin. Turns out that next week is Spirit Week, culminating in Homecoming; each day of the week, pep-minded students are encouraged to dress according to an inane theme. Hence:
Monday, 10/18—Sports Day
Tuesday, 10/19—Neon Day (I do not know what this means. Bright colors? Clothes that light up?)
Wednesday, 10/20—Twin Day
Thursday, 10/21—70s/80s Day
Friday 10/22—Purple and White Day
Hold up. 80s Day? 80s Day? What happened to the 60s day we used to have? That was plenty, right? Countercultural? All soul-hippie-freaky? So, next Thursday, the kids are going to dress...like we did every day. Because now I AM OLD. Old like MY PARENTS old.
They'll get it wrong, of course. No socks, girls--I don't care if it's October.
Friday, October 01, 2004
Now we are six
When I was leaving Darcy's the other night, her son, a newly minted kindergartener I'll call...Pancake, flung upon the door and hollered after me:
"Bye, Butthead!"
Oh yeah? "Bye, Stink-Pants!" I shouted back.
"Bye, Dork Face!"
"Bye, Freaknut!"
"Bye, Jerk-Freak!"
"Bye, Fart-Breath!"
And I got into my car grinning madly, joyous all out of proportion at calling playground insults across the night-dark, leaf-turning neighborhood street. Love that kid.
"Bye, Butthead!"
Oh yeah? "Bye, Stink-Pants!" I shouted back.
"Bye, Dork Face!"
"Bye, Freaknut!"
"Bye, Jerk-Freak!"
"Bye, Fart-Breath!"
And I got into my car grinning madly, joyous all out of proportion at calling playground insults across the night-dark, leaf-turning neighborhood street. Love that kid.
Friday, September 24, 2004
Friday, September 10, 2004
Your science minute
Earlier this week, at lunch, one of my colleagues introduced us all to the fact that, if you soak a gummi bear in water overnight, it absorbs the water and expands in size...sort of like those little novelty-shop pellets that turn into foam dinosaurs in the bathtub. I filed this knowledge away for future reference...
...until yesterday, when I was training our newest writer on all the tools and nuances of Our Exhaustive Documentation Process. He was sitting next to me to view my computer screen, but in such a position that he was not easily visible through the window next to the door. So he was even more surprised than I, when Colleague burst in announcing "Here's your entertainment for the afternoon!" and brandishing a gelatinous, four-inch-long gummi mutant, a-quiver on a paper plate.
So, it really does work! As do we, here at BigOlSoftwareCo, though you might not guess that at first glance.
...until yesterday, when I was training our newest writer on all the tools and nuances of Our Exhaustive Documentation Process. He was sitting next to me to view my computer screen, but in such a position that he was not easily visible through the window next to the door. So he was even more surprised than I, when Colleague burst in announcing "Here's your entertainment for the afternoon!" and brandishing a gelatinous, four-inch-long gummi mutant, a-quiver on a paper plate.
So, it really does work! As do we, here at BigOlSoftwareCo, though you might not guess that at first glance.
Thursday, September 09, 2004
Bink
Plenty of people call a pacifier a "binky," but it was the ELOML's baby word for "blankie" instead: binky, later shortened to bink. He still had his, a comforter his mother had hastily sewn into a basic red-white-and-blue sack. He called it "the sick bink," perfect for huddling under when you had the sniffles and were capable of nothing more than lying on the couch watching "Hunter" reruns on cable, sipping Theraflu. It had a matching pillow, too.
I'm kind of a fool for binks. I like quilts, know a little bit about the traditional patterns, even though I'm incapable of undertaking such a project myself--the biggest sewing task I've accomplished in my life was making kitchen curtains out of cut-up IKEA tablecloths, and that consisted solely of being able to pin and hem a few rectangles. I have a couple storebought quilts that I love, even if they were cranked out by some Pottery Barn wage slave...she might be somebody's grandma, after all. I have a Mexican wool throw in the back of my car, just in case I get caught in a meteorologically unlikely blizzard on the way home. I have a designated Hideous Pink Picnic Blanket that's impervious to stains, or at least looks none the worse for them.
In a sealed plastic tub under the bed, I have my bink...half of it, anyway. I couldn't be parted from it when visiting Grandma as a little girl, and at some point she cut it in two and bound the edges, ensuring that a portion of bink in each household would alleviate any sleepless nights. It's just a mass-produced, unremarkable quilt, strips of disintigrating blue-and-pink fabric barely clinging to the batting. The corners, however, are reinforced with tough squares of one of Grandma's old housecoats, due to my penchant for drifting off, mauling the blanket corners and occasionally sticking one into a nostril. If I washed the bink, I'm sure it would simply dissolve, its last molecules swirling out with the final rinse. It smells like Grandma's house, though, like Grandma. After she died, sometimes I'd just hold it and breathe it in, for a moment. Then quick, quick, stuff it back in the box, try to preserve that Grandma scent. I'm not sure it's working. It smells more and more like plastic tub, I fear.
A couple weekends ago I went with Darcy to Burnt Sugar in the Fremont neighborhood--what, funky housewares? fabulous retro purses? magnificent soaps? oh, all right, TWIST MY ARM--and there was...a bink. A magnificent quilt, made up of felted patchwork squares of old wool sweaters, in rich shades of rose and burgundy and purple. It had different textures, ribbed and smooth and cabled. It had lime-green rickrack around the hem. Rickrack! I stood petting it with my mouth open until the clerk swished up to me.
"Isn't that wonderful?" he said. "It's on sale." Marked down to $175 from $250. God. No. Must. Not. I looked at the lilac-bright blanket-stitched trim.
"Look--it has a little pocket," the clerk said. One of the sweater squares had a dainty breast pocket still attached; he wiggled his fingers in it, to demonstrate.
I put the quilt and my Visa on the counter five minutes of hemming and hawing later. "Look what you made me do!" I told him.
But we talked about knitting and crocheting and quilting, while the other clerk rang up the sale. About his grandmother, who specialized in tatting: cranking out lace doilies while smoking a Pall Mall and reading her Bible at the same time. "'I'm studying for my final exams!'" he quoted her.
So. I have a new sick bink. I'm eager for cold weather, though summer is dragging its heels outside. I can't wait for a bout of the flu. I'm gonna get on the couch with that quilt and both cats and a cup of tea; I'll put kleenexes in that little pocket. It's going to be wonderful.
I'm kind of a fool for binks. I like quilts, know a little bit about the traditional patterns, even though I'm incapable of undertaking such a project myself--the biggest sewing task I've accomplished in my life was making kitchen curtains out of cut-up IKEA tablecloths, and that consisted solely of being able to pin and hem a few rectangles. I have a couple storebought quilts that I love, even if they were cranked out by some Pottery Barn wage slave...she might be somebody's grandma, after all. I have a Mexican wool throw in the back of my car, just in case I get caught in a meteorologically unlikely blizzard on the way home. I have a designated Hideous Pink Picnic Blanket that's impervious to stains, or at least looks none the worse for them.
In a sealed plastic tub under the bed, I have my bink...half of it, anyway. I couldn't be parted from it when visiting Grandma as a little girl, and at some point she cut it in two and bound the edges, ensuring that a portion of bink in each household would alleviate any sleepless nights. It's just a mass-produced, unremarkable quilt, strips of disintigrating blue-and-pink fabric barely clinging to the batting. The corners, however, are reinforced with tough squares of one of Grandma's old housecoats, due to my penchant for drifting off, mauling the blanket corners and occasionally sticking one into a nostril. If I washed the bink, I'm sure it would simply dissolve, its last molecules swirling out with the final rinse. It smells like Grandma's house, though, like Grandma. After she died, sometimes I'd just hold it and breathe it in, for a moment. Then quick, quick, stuff it back in the box, try to preserve that Grandma scent. I'm not sure it's working. It smells more and more like plastic tub, I fear.
A couple weekends ago I went with Darcy to Burnt Sugar in the Fremont neighborhood--what, funky housewares? fabulous retro purses? magnificent soaps? oh, all right, TWIST MY ARM--and there was...a bink. A magnificent quilt, made up of felted patchwork squares of old wool sweaters, in rich shades of rose and burgundy and purple. It had different textures, ribbed and smooth and cabled. It had lime-green rickrack around the hem. Rickrack! I stood petting it with my mouth open until the clerk swished up to me.
"Isn't that wonderful?" he said. "It's on sale." Marked down to $175 from $250. God. No. Must. Not. I looked at the lilac-bright blanket-stitched trim.
"Look--it has a little pocket," the clerk said. One of the sweater squares had a dainty breast pocket still attached; he wiggled his fingers in it, to demonstrate.
I put the quilt and my Visa on the counter five minutes of hemming and hawing later. "Look what you made me do!" I told him.
But we talked about knitting and crocheting and quilting, while the other clerk rang up the sale. About his grandmother, who specialized in tatting: cranking out lace doilies while smoking a Pall Mall and reading her Bible at the same time. "'I'm studying for my final exams!'" he quoted her.
So. I have a new sick bink. I'm eager for cold weather, though summer is dragging its heels outside. I can't wait for a bout of the flu. I'm gonna get on the couch with that quilt and both cats and a cup of tea; I'll put kleenexes in that little pocket. It's going to be wonderful.
Monday, August 09, 2004
Are your ears burning?
Because, yeah, I'm talking smack about you.
Dear person who bashed the shit out of my car in the grocery store parking lot and then, apparently, sped off in guilty or oblivious silence: Fuck the fuck off, you cowardly cocksucker. Yes, it is not a fancy car, my 1996 Hyundai Accent, but I'd prefer that it does not look like a total piece of shit, which is difficult to maintain when you smack your ugly-ass blue vehicle all over the driver's side. Thanks a big bunch.
Dear guy at Starbucks, who when I picked your dropped $10 up off the floor and asked if it belonged to anyone nearby, blurted "That's mine!" and whisked it from my fingers: YOU'RE WELCOME, Rude-y McNoManners. Also? Wearing your sunglasses indoors makes you look like an even bigger jackass. Your mother called and said to tell you she's ashamed.
I am in serious need of a karmic top-off. Sigh.
Dear person who bashed the shit out of my car in the grocery store parking lot and then, apparently, sped off in guilty or oblivious silence: Fuck the fuck off, you cowardly cocksucker. Yes, it is not a fancy car, my 1996 Hyundai Accent, but I'd prefer that it does not look like a total piece of shit, which is difficult to maintain when you smack your ugly-ass blue vehicle all over the driver's side. Thanks a big bunch.
Dear guy at Starbucks, who when I picked your dropped $10 up off the floor and asked if it belonged to anyone nearby, blurted "That's mine!" and whisked it from my fingers: YOU'RE WELCOME, Rude-y McNoManners. Also? Wearing your sunglasses indoors makes you look like an even bigger jackass. Your mother called and said to tell you she's ashamed.
I am in serious need of a karmic top-off. Sigh.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)