Author: Deb Zuroski

Eels On Toast And Other Curiosities

Deb Zuroski, , , , , , , , Leave a comment

The news is so dark these days that today I’m scrapping my usual rants to tell some funny stories about my day here in the Steel City. Let’s go!

This morning, I was walking toward the bank when I passed an older man carrying a pastry to an outdoor seat. The event itself was unremarkable except that the man said “Good morning,” to which I replied with a somewhat surprised “Hi.” Usually, I’m one of those annoyingly friendly people who bounces down the street greeting people with smiles and petting dogs (until I notice that the owners are desperately trying to continue their walks) but I was kind of daydreaming, not really paying attention. On my way back from the ATM, I spotted him sitting at a sidewalk table and commented on how delicious his pastry looked. I think I surprised him because he said, “What?” And I repeated myself. He nodded, considered for a moment, and said, “Yeah, it is.” We both kind of laughed and I came here, to the coffee shop. Some time passes, I’m sitting at the front window, in my favorite seat, when I spot him walking by. He spots me at the same time, we both grin, he gives me a finger wave, and the day moves on. Another hour passes, he’s walking back the way he came, looks for me, we grin at each other, share a finger wave, and our connection comes to an end. Sweet, though, right? 

Today is dental work day, not for me but for my dachshunds. Mina, the runt of the litter, has a not-fully-formed jaw which means more teeth than jawbone. She’s lost quite a few teeth over the years though it has never bothered her. When the pups had their annual checkup in June, the vet said that Mina needed to have several more teeth pulled because they are an impediment to her jaw and health. Not her food consumption, apparently, because she weighs an astonishing 15 pounds. She needs to lose a fifth of her body weight, which I could probably do as well. No treats for either of us for a while. Hehe

Mina’s sister, Freya, also needs dental work but mostly because she hates, with a fiery passion, having her teeth cleaned. We do it, of course, but she’s excellent at manipulating our emotions with her sad little cries of puppy distress. It’s ridiculous. She’s not in any pain, plus the toothpaste tastes like peanut butter (gross peanut butter but appealing to the dogs). Don’t feel sorry for her. She got herself into this dental mess by rejecting the back of the mouth tooth cleaning. The worst part – according to both pups – they weren’t allowed to have their daily bedtime dehydrated liver treats last night. They were heartbroken and cried like the spoiled babies they are. And yes, the dehydrated liver treats smell even worse than liver cooking on the stove, though the dehydrated salmon treats beat both of those on the stench meter. They must be tasty, though, because even the cats will beg for them.

On the way to the vet this morning, I spotted a friend cleaning a drainage grate for Allegheny CleanWays, a nonprofit that supports keeping garbage out of the waterways. It supports lots of other environmental waste reduction efforts to prevent dumping of difficult-to-dispose-of garbage like tires, microwaves, small refrigerators, and so much more that otherwise ends up on our hillsides and in our rivers. Rather than honk, I texted her later, one of those “did I just see you…” and we made plans to meet up next month. About an hour after that, I’m sitting here, at the window of the coffee shop, and I see her walk by. Yes, of course I ran outside to bellow hello because, damn, she’s a fast walker. 

We were still on the sidewalk chatting when Maestro, the Great Pyrenees, stopped to say hello with his owner. I’ve talked about them before. She has dementia and a great support group of neighbors and family that enables her to stay safely in this community, walking her beautiful baby. She was in a rage today because we’re losing the RiteAid, a surprisingly lucid complaint given her cognitive decline. My friend and I managed to convince her that there will be another similar store moving in here to fill the gap. There’s already a local pharmacy further down the street but it is not a convenience store. If something doesn’t move in to supply her small needs, she swore that she’d move back to Hershey (where she hasn’t lived in nearly 60 years). Somehow, I doubt that her son will allow that to happen.

A man just rode his bike down the street, which would not be remarkable except that he had a dog riding along in a pack, on his back, her fur blowing in the breeze. At the same time, a man walked by with his puli, a dog whose fur I would hate to have to care for. My long-haired doxie is difficult enough, particularly when slugs get caught in her fur. She doesn’t eat them. In fact, she makes the dog version of a yuck face when she pulls them gently out of her fur and spits them onto the floor. This is a near-daily event, requiring me to rescue and rehome slugs before they get trampled underfoot. That might sound gross but all of the creatures around us serve a purpose, even mosquitoes, which are a delightful meal for our local bats. And after several years of significant growth, our recently overwhelming lantern fly population has become a satisfying snack for several bird species here. It took a year, maybe two, for birds to recognize them as food but it’s helping tremendously to keep the number of lantern flies more manageable. 

I’ve set an unusual – definitely, I have no defense –  reading goal for myself. I am going to consume the entirety of Betty Neels’ book catalogue. You’ve probably never heard of her: she wrote Mills&Boon romances for approximately 30 years, beginning in the 1960s. Her books were also published by Harlequin. Almost all of the originals have fantastic hand-drawn covers of a pretty girl and a brooding man. Occasionally, they are embracing but usually she’s looking into the distance while he glares in a foreboding manner. Content-wise, I would describe them as adult Nancy Drew books, though obviously a different genre. 

You might ask yourself – as I have already asked myself – WHY have I set this goal? I have a huge TBR pile already. The only answer I can give you is that I read one of these as a 12 year old and recognized the title when I was doing some research on old romance novels for my current novel. The plot of the book, A Ring in a Teacup, came back to me in a flood of memory. I could picture the old library at my grandmother’s senior apartment building – for those of you who regularly read the blog, this is the apartment she moved to after the graphic sex scene. Lol The library was filled with romance novels that my grandmother encouraged me to read. They were all very low on intimacy, with sentences like “he kissed her firmly” and “she admired his tall, well-built frame.” 

Of course, they are deeply misogynistic. One of them even quotes that Tennyson poem – you know the one: “Man with the head, woman with the heart; man to command and woman to obey.” I think it’s from Tennyson’s Princess saga and in my humble opinion, well worth skipping entirely. But something about her books: her detailed descriptions of medical treatments (Neels was a nurse before she began her writing career), life in the 60s and 70s, and luxury cars like the Panther, Daimler, and Rolls Royce makes them remarkably readable. She also, having lived in Holland for 13 years, used that country as one of her primary story locations. I’ve looked up the pronunciation and meaning of many Dutch words since beginning my quest. 

If Neels is to be trusted, the English at the time never stopped eating. They had coffee and toast, then breakfast, then tea, then dinner, then tea, then supper, and finally coffee before bed. Crazy. Who had time to do anything else? The portions must have been tiny. Her food descriptions are fantastic and have also required much research, though I would suggest that she had too much fondness for eel on toast, which has made a regular appearance in her books. Also, I had never before heard of Gentleman’s Relish or Charlotte Russe as a dessert. You’ll have to discover these delights for yourself. You can also eat my share of Gentleman’s Relish and you don’t have to thank me for it. 

I just noticed the wording on the sign prohibiting “dogs or animals” at our coffee shop, not “dogs or other animals.” Does this mean that dogs are not what we traditionally think of as animals? I’m inclined to agree but it does leave open the explanation as to what, exactly, dogs are. Mystical beings, perhaps? Angels sent to succor us? The reincarnation of people who have passed on? 

Lunch is in the refrigerator at home so I bought a sandwich from the coffee store, an unusual, and surprisingly inexpensive, event. Now, as more proof that I should never eat while working, I have a keyboard absolutely covered with crumbs and greasy fingerprints. (The sandwich was a delicious pepperoni croissant for $5.) I regret nothing. 

With my parking meter about to expire, I will wrap up today’s meandering notes with a suggestion: be as kind to yourself today as you would be to someone you saw struggling. It’s really hard to give yourself the grace you might give another but you deserve it. 

Much love. 

Eels On Toast And Other Curiosities

UPDATED: Anyone Here Order a Slice of Alzheimer’s?

Deb Zuroski, , , , , , , , , , , 5 Comments

Pamela’s Diner, on the weekends, can often be a place to avoid. One of the great things about it, though, is the joyful noise of people finally together who often cannot be. The restaurant was full today but I mostly travel in a pack of one which makes it pretty easy to get a table. Melissa, one of the servers, sat a group of six women next to me at my tiny table (it’s supposed to seat two but one side of the table is broken like an accidental drop-leaf table). Those women looked so young to me, a familiar proclamation of the middle aged (she says in an unsuccessful attempt to make herself feel younger), and delighted to be together. There were three children with them, a charmingly self-aware 6 year old, a toddler discovering that they appeal to their neighbors, and a baby who was all id, hungry and, once sated, sleepy. 

Sometimes, as I look around the diner, I catch the eye of another people-watcher. There are two types: 1) looks away immediately, 2) smiles and continues people-watching. When I was younger, I would have been in the first group, shy and perhaps flushing with embarrassment, but now, older and a devout member of the we-do-not-care club, I smile and sometimes, depending on who it is, I’ll even wink. Very daring, perhaps, but it makes me laugh. 

I know most of the employees at Pamela’s. Sometimes, when I walk in, several of them will call out, “Hi, Deb,” which makes me feel like I live in that old television series, Cheers. Hehe I like to think that strangers whisper about the famous person and try to figure out who I am. That makes me laugh, too. If only you knew, my friends. If only you knew….

There’s a barista at the coffee shop who has the greatest hair color – it’s really a blend of several colors, a little purple, a little red, a little blue. Every time I see them, I say something about their hair and we talk about how complex it is to keep a color fresh. They always say, “Oh, I was thinking how bad it looks.” And I always say, “You can’t see what I can see.” This is not a statement about hair color. 

Also, as just an aside, why in the ever-loving, noisy-ass, shrieking, are we listening to Squid as background music? Even with my headphones in and my music UP, I cannot escape the screaming. It isn’t in my head, I swear. It’s coming from the speakers and I’m really getting an understanding of the psychological warfare we once engaged in against North Korea. 

Things in the US are about to get worse, when the House and Senate finish reconciling their “big, beautiful bill.” Whatever your party, your community will be devastated by the Medicaid and Medicare cuts that are planned. It is clear to me that the average person is so busy demonizing Medicaid “waste” – just as our “leaders” intended – that they do not realize how many people rely on it and just who, exactly, those people are. I’ll bet, if you queried people at YOUR local diner, at least a third of them couldn’t even explain the purpose of either Medicaid or Medicare. 

Do YOU know which states in the US rely most on federal funding of Medicaid? Six of the seven states receiving the most federal Medicaid funding voted for our current president. The most vulnerable in those communities will lose their coverage and they’ll think it’s a mistake that our president didn’t know about, not a strategy to fill the coffers of the ultra-rich. Hospitals in high risk communities will fail for lack of funding, not for lack of demand. 

Your first thought might be that at least all these former MAGA voters will definitely vote against Republicans next time but guess what? The bill includes a section that allows the president to cancel elections at any time, for any reason. When this bill passes and gets signed, there may not be an opportunity to vote him or our current representatives and senators out of office. Since he wants to be president-for-life (aka king), you should, in fact, assume that he will cancel future votes. Because he will. Of course he will.  Fact-checked into oblivion. Thanks, Crescent, for the keen eye.

I don’t know the answer to the dilemma we’re in. But I do know that generating fear and hopelessness are two effective strategies of the fascists currently in power. We the People cannot submit. 

Next soapbox:  This might seem to be about Mamdani. And it is, sort of. It is possible to care about multiple things at the same time. For example, people can abhor the human rights catastrophes in the United States, Ukraine and Gaza AND, at the same time, not be antisemitic. This is not a skill unique to me. You can all do it, too. Just because I don’t want Palestinians murdered does not mean I want the Jewish state destroyed. It’s weird how successful the oligarchs have been at framing this issue in a way that makes people afraid to speak up. I’m not antisemitic. I am, however, anti-murder. There are always solutions that do not require the extermination of any ethnic community. If you think the only answer is killing, you’re probably reading the wrong blog. 

Even though I don’t talk about it much, I spend a not inconsiderable amount of time supporting someone who is declining cognitively. It’s a world of contradictions – a verbal obsession with cleanliness and dirty dishes in the cupboard; paying bills incorrectly while also refusing support to make the process easier. And fear. So much fear and yet the keys are often left in the deadbolt. I struggle sometimes to figure out how to provide the necessary support. I have no trouble living in their timeline, whatever it is, but then they do something dangerous like leave the house without their phone. Sometimes, they know exactly where they are and sometimes they get lost going to the restaurant they’ve been to a million times. This makes phonelessness terrifying to those of us who are trying to provide support. 

Googling “is it ethical to sew wearable trackers into someone’s clothes?” provides all kinds of terrifying results. I know exactly what you’re going to say: tell this person that you’re putting wearable trackers in their clothes. My friends, I can text this person 16 times that I’m picking them up at 9AM for their doctor appointment tomorrow and I’ll still either get a dozen frantic calls before I arrive (at 9AM or earlier) OR they’ll have forgotten that they have an appointment, even though it’s written in their handwriting in their calendar which is RIGHT THIS MINUTE open on their dining room table. 

It’s easy, so easy, to tell someone in cognitive decline to ALWAYS TAKE YOUR PHONE but sometimes this person is living in the 1970s, when phones weren’t mobile. Sometimes, even though their phone is in their hand, this person runs out to the car as I’m about to pull away – instead of calling me – because they pressed the wrong button on the TV remote and screwed up the TV. (Don’t try to solve this rabbit-hole problem: there are already notes with arrows on the remote control.) I even have spare copies of their house keys because they have lost their keys in their own pocket. That’s not a joke, like ‘I’d lose my head if it weren’t attached’.

As an example, here’s a brief story of the terrifying world of cognitive decline: my friend, we’ll call them Sally because it’s as removed from their name as anything could be – you know I’m all about privacy! – lends their car to someone. That someone takes just the car keys and hands the house keys to Sally. When I arrive to pick Sally up later, they are in an actual panic because they cannot find the house keys in order to lock up. I remind them that the keys are loose because Sally lent the car. “Are they in your pocket?” I ask. Sally’s answer: “Now, I remember.” The keys were, indeed, in Sally’s pocket. 

My friends, they could put their hand in their pocket a dozen times and not realize those keys are the item they’re looking for. It’s not their fault. Half the time, when we’re in the house looking for something, they forget what we’re doing while we’re still looking. Sometimes, they’ll remember that we’re searching but forget that we’re looking for the bill that was due yesterday. One time, we were trying to figure out whether they’d remembered to register the car (which we have to do annually in our state). I was looking through their files, which are organized by the month in which bills are paid (don’t even ask, it’s a complete filing nightmare that we’ll fix LATER). They were wandering around the living room, picking up random pieces of paper and showing them to me. “Is this what we’re looking for?” None of the pieces of paper were what we were looking for. They had, in fact, forgotten to renew their car registration, which I was able to determine by checking the state website. We took care of that immediately but it might be time again. I’d better make a note to check with them. Anyway…IT’S NOT THEIR FAULT.

The first statement in the Bill of Rights of the Cognitively Declining should be “It’s not their fault.” It’s never their fault. Trust me: none of the cognitively declining people I’ve met intentionally lost their keys, forgot my name, burned their dinner. Their world doesn’t look like ours. And they are so AFRAID. 

I know that I’ve told the story before about pretending to make deli sandwiches with not-my-Aunt Ginny who worked at a delicatessen in the 1940s. Just a couple years ago, we made pretend turkey sandwiches, filled pretend jars with pickles, sorted pretend utensils. It might seem funny. Sometimes, you have to laugh or else you’ll cry. But the point is, she was worried, so worried, the entire time that we wouldn’t be ready for the lunch rush. Her fear was real, even though the pickles weren’t. 

Thirty-ish years ago, I met a woman living on the Alzheimer’s ward of a long-term care facility. Alzheimer’s wards, in case you’ve never visited one, are locked to prevent the patients from wandering off. If they walk or wheel themselves too close to the doors, an alarm goes off to give the care team a heads up that there’s someone potentially trying to make a break for it. 

I know I’ve mentioned this before so forgive me if you remember my story: I was at the facility with a team doing signage and space planning. We had to measure everything and I do mean everything: square footage of rooms, height of lights and doorknobs, depth of equipment. You name it, we documented it. This was in the days before technological support. We had measuring tapes and sketched room outlines to fill in with measurements. It was tedious and took days to complete. Yes, I’m a writer which makes this assignment a little unusual but it was a big job. All hands on deck, so to speak. 

We’re walking through the ward when a woman rolls up to me in her wheelchair. Just as you have probably seen depicted on television, patients use their feet to push themselves around the wards when they’re too unstable to be allowed to walk alone or with an assistive device. She’s holding a baby doll and tries to hand it to me. I attempt to refuse. Fred, who is working with me, is teasing me about becoming a new mom. I’m a little embarrassed because I’m young, so young, and at work, trying to be a useful member of the team. Also, the doll is clearly a treasured possession and I don’t want to be in charge of that. She insists, which might seem a strange thing for a wheelchair-bound, non-verbal Alzheimer’s patient to do successfully, but she did it. I have no other explanation than to say that she persisted more effectively than I resisted. I carried her baby for the rest of the day. She smiled every time she saw me as she rolled from long hallway to long hallway. And at the end of the day, I gave her baby doll to the staff at the central desk to return. 

So, what’s the point? Obviously, meeting someone with declining cognition sure does present opportunities to learn but also: it’s not their fault. Cognitive decline isn’t a failure of imagination or a personality flaw or a crime. Your patience and imagination and personal integrity are essential to work effectively with them but they can be frightened and angry and mean and confused and grateful and loving and FEARFUL. 

Sometimes, my not-my-Aunt Ginny is combative, particularly in the late afternoon because she has sundowners, which means that she gets more confused and frightened as the day closes. I don’t visit after noon anymore. It’s too hard on her. She used to cry when I left and verbally abuse me for refusing to take her with me, which upset us both, her because it was, in her mind, a betrayal of our relationship, me because it was awful to see her so afraid. “I thought I knew you better,” she’d say, deeply wounded because I wouldn’t take her home to a house that was sold over a year ago to pay for her long-term care. 

All this brings us back to the person close to me who has cognitive decline. Have you ever seen that old Will Ferrrell comedy skit, ‘The Landlord’? (“God, you’re mean.”) People with cognitive decline can be so damn mean. Even though IT IS NOT THEIR FAULT, it can still be very hurtful. Called out, they 1) didn’t say that, 2) didn’t mean that, 3) can’t remember what they said, 4) are already having a different conversation, 5) and so on. There isn’t a good answer. They simply no longer have the awareness or understanding to be accountable for their unkindnesses. Unfair, isn’t it? Because who doesn’t want to call out the instrument of their pain?! But there’s no point. It’s like shaking a child who’s crying. The child isn’t the asshole. 

Hurt feelings aren’t the worst part, though. When my mother-in-law began to decline cognitively, I was reminded of the most painful aspect of illness. “Grief has arrived…. Hello, old friend,” which I have borrowed from the poem, “We grieve but we do not drown,” by scar_poetry. We grieve those we take care of. They are becoming something different, something that doesn’t meet our notion, our understanding of who they are. We MISS the person they were and sometimes we don’t really like the person they’ve become. My mother-in-law frequently forgot my name, sometimes didn’t recognize me at all. She’d refuse to do the things I’d ask of her, like take a shower, change her clothes, eat the food I cooked. 

When we first got to know each other, many years ago, we had to work hard to find common ground. She didn’t like that I’m Irish. I didn’t appreciate that she saved every single, tiny sliver of soap, a holdover from her childhood during the depression. It drove her crazy that I didn’t eat much. It drove me crazy that she didn’t respect my food boundaries. But we figured it out. We discovered all the great things about each other. It took time and patience but it was worth the effort. We formed a friendship that lasted nearly 15 years.

Everything changed when she started declining. She sometimes hated me, not Deb, but me, whoever I was to her in the moment. Of course, she never meant anything she said and didn’t even remember it afterwards. I knew this then and I understand it now. Knowing that, though, doesn’t lessen the grief, the bereavement of missing a person who is still with you but also not. We are forced to care for them in their existing form while mourning the person that they are no longer. It’s a cruel torture. And it’s still NOT THEIR FAULT.  

Having closed the 35 open browser windows on a certain someone’s phone in order to figure out why there was an ad playing (at the loudest possible volume), I find myself thinking about this today and hoping for peace tomorrow. I know I won’t get it in my personal life or in Gaza or in Ukraine but I can and will persist. Hopefully, I’ll be a little more Elizabeth Warren tomorrow and a little less young me in that Alzheimer’s ward. 

Much love. 

Hey, also, if you have an interest in supporting comics by Black women creators, there’s this cool Midnight Mystics kickstarter. I’m not in any way affiliated, though I did back the project. Maybe you’ll want to as well. Check it out. 

UPDATED: Anyone Here Order a Slice of Alzheimer’s?

Aisle 10: Between Cackles and Loud Sex

Deb Zuroski, , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Why is “Blue Raspberry” the name of a flavor? Blue has no flavor at all. It’s literally a color. Another, possibly more important question: why do we add the color blue to raspberry flavoring, which, in its natural form, is decidedly not blue?

Find you a friend who makes you cackle like the lady sitting two tables over is cackling right now at something her tablemate said. Everyone should feel that level of unholy joy at least once a day, though I think, for most of us, it’s a pretty rare feeling.

I saw an old friend recently. He was sitting on a bench with another of his friends, someone I know by sight but have never met. I introduced myself and we got to talking about life and everything that goes with it. My friend asked about my kids and I did the usual age and activity update. At this point – and it’s necessary here to say that I’ve been laughing ever since – my new acquaintance says, “You must have been a child bride.” Friends, it is no exaggeration to say that I snort-laughed at that. Man’s got game. He’s 80 to my almost 59. I told him that I’m pretty proud to be an old bitch. 

My soapbox is in the shop so instead of talking about how society makes it a crime for women to age, I’ll just say that I looked down at my hands the other day and realized that they look like my mom’s hands: a little wrinkled, marked by age and life with spots and scars. It felt like a little gift to see her in me and I wouldn’t give it back for all the anti-aging creams in the world. 

Last time I was here, at the coffee shop, two hopeful sparrows hopped past my table, pausing as if to ask, “Got any crumbs for me?” I cooed at their charm and a young woman next to me expressed her worry that they might get trapped here. I reassured her that they are regular visitors, savvy city dwellers who know how to navigate the confines of this store. That young woman, my immediate table neighbor, was wearing an absolutely popping white peasant-style skirt, long and flowing. It looked cool on what was a hot, sunny day. I complimented her and she confessed that it was vintage. She just got it over the weekend. She was pink with happiness over her purchase and the compliment. In her turn, she complimented my bright red reading glasses and confessed that she’d love a pair of red glasses. I said, “Do it. Buy the red glasses. Make them a component of the art of your appearance.” 

It’s okay, you know, to go on living while we worry about our futures. It’s okay – in fact, essential – to cackle at a friend’s joke, to think about your outfit, to buy red glasses. It isn’t ignoring what’s going on to sip an iced tea at the coffee store – which tea, by the way, has increased $.50 due to tariffs. During WWII, people danced. It was an act of defiance against the people who would have us fearful, cowering at their pretend strength. 

This morning, I talked to a friend whose partner just started his second job. He works afternoons/evenings in the South Hills and then drives to the West End to work nights. She’s delighted that he’s off on Sundays and Mondays. Tell me again how lazy people are. Tell me again that Medicaid, SNAP, and CHP are full of waste. Explain to me why ICE has to go to stores and schools to steal immigrants from our soil. If they’re lazy and not contributing, why are they at work? Why are they graduating from high school and college? And why isn’t the so-culpable media calling out this obvious conflict with ICE’s story? 

Some days, when I’m supposed to be working on my story revisions, I’m so frustrated with the ill-behavior of my words that I find other things to do. I can be very disciplined but I can also be very UNdisciplined. These past few weeks, it has been far easier for me to write 10,000 words for a CNF piece than to work on the novel. I think it’s because I can be angry when I’m working on the CNF but I have to be funny in the novel. I can do funny, usually. Right now, though, I’m feeling angry and aghast and…well, ANGRY. It’s easy to be snarky when I’m angry but snarky isn’t necessarily funny, especially when it’s directed at another person.

I woke up thinking about my grandmother. She’s been gone for more than 40 years, though I think about her often and often. I don’t know what, in particular, I was thinking about her – she was simply on my mind when I returned to consciousness. So, indulge me for a moment, while I share a story that started with her and ended with an … experience. 

When I was maybe 10 or 12, my parents, sister, grandmother, and I went to my dad’s favorite fancy restaurant. We rarely – and I mean rarely – ate out. He always said that because he ate lunch out every day, he wanted to eat dinner at home. This was a disappointment for my mother, who, as a result, never ate out but always had to cook because … that’s what women did. My dad didn’t learn to cook until he had to live alone. And then, he became one of those people who thought they discovered cooking. LOL 

Anyway, for some very special reason that I no longer recall, we went to The University Club for dinner. It was one of those places – lobster on the menu, drinks before dinner, candles on the table … blah, blah, blah. NOT my scene, and I remember with a child’s clarity that, every single visit there, my sister and I hoovered up the crackers on the table because we were starving by the time the before-dinner drinks had been consumed. 

By the end of our meal, the adults at the table were a little tipsy, some more than others – yes, including the driver. We were all draped on the fancy sofas in the entry room – maybe it was a bar area, I don’t remember – waiting for bathroom trips to be over when my mother told me to follow Grandma into the restroom because Grandma was pretty tipsy from all the Manhattan’s she’d downed. (Grandma was MAYBE 5’ on tall days, in heels and standing on tiptoe.) 

Of course – because my mom had some weird sixth sense about things – about 10 seconds after I entered the restroom in my fancy childhood sandals, my grandmother fell and I had to run for my mother. Grandma’s necklace had caught on the toilet paper device – a weird accident that caused her to hit the wall, hard, and cut open her face. She went by ambulance to the hospital with my mother while my (inebriated – don’t tell anyone that I initially spelled that inebrie-ated, yes, like the cheese and then giggled aloud SMH) father dropped us off at Grandma’s apartment. This is where things get crazy. 

Let’s paint the scene – my grandmother lived in a fancy old, old, old building. She’d been there for, maybe, 5-ish years. I loved it, with its antique-y furnishings and funny smells. She wasn’t, probably, so happy there and even less so when Gannon University started using it for student housing. Do you already know where this is going? Believe me; it took me a LONG time to figure it out. 

For those of you who haven’t quite got it yet: I’m sitting in Grandma’s living room. I think my sister is trying to nap in Grandma’s bedroom. We’re there for what seems like days but is probably just a couple hours. There’s nothing to do. It’s too late for television because, of course, in those days, television went off the air. I don’t have a book so, basically, I’m just staring out the small, basement-apartment window when I hear a woman scream. I sit BOLT UP, wondering if I’d dozed off. It happens again. But this time it’s more like a cry or moan. Oh my gosh. Someone is dying. I run into the bedroom to ask my sister if she can hear it. Maybe she’s less naive than me because she doesn’t seem to care. I go back into the living room and – not realizing it – listen to two people having very loud sex, while thinking that a woman is in agony. I was several years older before I figured that memory out. Haha

Grandma was fine, by the way. She got stitches but didn’t even have a concussion. Unrelated to the injury but not to the loud sex, she moved out of that building into a new senior high-rise that she absolutely loved and ruled like a benevolent dictator, if that is actually a thing. She was quite a powerhouse who made everyone love her, at least from my very not-objective childhood opinion. I am pretty sure, in hindsight, that, like my father, one either adored her or absolutely despised her. Of course, I adored her. 

Perhaps it will not surprise you that this post is a meditation on the companionship of grief. Occasionally, someone new to it will ask me if “it” gets better. There’s a lovely poem, “We grieve But We Do Not Drown,” by scar_poetry that answers that question particularly well. I don’t know scar_poetry’s given name but you can find her on social media, particularly Instagram. I recommend that you listen to her read the poem, as her inflection is, itself, a gift.

Much love.

Aisle 10: Between Cackles and Loud Sex

Come With Me Or You’re Coming WITH Me

Deb Zuroski, , , 1 Comment

Why won’t the words stick to the page today? They keep flying off, possibly having made plans to do their own thing, much more interesting, I assume, than helping me tell this story I’m currently revising. I hate it when the words gain agency and start to do their own thing. 

I’m working in the house this afternoon. On Monday, I walked to the coffee shop, though I most definitely shouldn’t have; but after a weekend of air quality in the 120 range, I was desperate to leave the house. It would have been eminently practical to DRIVE there but nooooooo. I wanted to walk. Not a smart move, really, because after the walk I felt a little like Wile E. Coyote with an anvil on his chest. Eventually, I called my daughter for a ride home in exchange for a cold cinnamon latte, a deal I was happy to make, to be honest.

Last week, I bumped into a woman who is struggling. We’ve met before and I’m embarrassed to admit that I can’t remember her name. Usually, when I talk to someone who is unhoused or in difficulty, I introduce myself and ask their name. But it was extraordinarily hot. I was anxious to get back in my car. She began to tell her story, as is the usual practice when they want money. Generally, they don’t come right out and ask. I get that. Imagine yourself in a situation where you need to ask for help – the hardest thing many humans do – and the help you want is money. Could you go up to a stranger and ask for a few dollars? The change in their pockets? 

Look. I know all of the various opinions about helping the unhoused: that you should never give them money, that they work together and amass thousands of dollars every day, that they’re all on drugs, that they have diseases. Did you know that there’s a city in California that is considering making it illegal for the unhoused to refuse community services? Some of you might say, “That’s a good idea.” But is it? 

I have yet to talk to an unhoused or struggling person who didn’t know that there are community resources available. They aren’t stupid or infants or incapable. Some are mentally ill – who isn’t these days? Some are addicts – you personally probably know people who have substance addictions, even if you don’t realize it. (Also, to stray from the point for a second, I have never met an addict who wanted to be an addict. Never. But that’s not the same as being ready for assistance.) Some are terrible – I’m trying to think if I know of any terrible people…hmm. Stephen Miller?! Some are wary of “help” – for all the right reasons. Unhoused people are extremely vulnerable to violence. They don’t know who they can trust. And if I, for one, were told that I had to accept help or go to jail, I’d definitely be wary.

Anyway, back to my story: when I met this woman, I was in the process of dropping off a very large box at Construction Junction, a great place in East Pittsburgh to recycle cardboard and find something you definitely, absolutely need. The woman stood well back from the car – a safe distance for both of us – and started her patter. I listened while I got the box out of the trunk and then asked, “Do you want money?” (Of course, she wanted money.) She laughed and said, “Baby, I love you. Yes, I want money, if you can spare some. Also, if you can, I’d really like a ride to the church.” (Obviously, I’m paraphrasing here.)

It was so hot. I’ve given her rides before, though I know she doesn’t remember me. I said, “Sure. Get in and give me directions.” I started the car and turned the air conditioning on as high as it would go. She climbed in the passenger seat and sighed as the cold air hit her face. I told her to adjust the blowers. “Can I?” she asked. “Of course,” I said. She leaned forward and turned the vents a little so they hit her more fully. I gave her the $3 I had on me, which she accepted. She opened her hand and said, “Can you count this for me?” She had a wad of rolled up and crumbled bills. I took them, smoothed them out, and counted them. With my $3, she had $9. I folded them all together and handed them back. “Keep them safe,” I said. “It’s a dangerous world.” 

“You’re telling me,” she said and she laughed. She LAUGHED. Then, she said, “I’m so thirsty. Should I spend some of this on something to drink?” I had a bottle of water in the car. It was cold but open because I’d had a swallow earlier. I was embarrassed to offer it. Truly, I was. But, my friends, she took that bottle and drank the entire thing down in a few swallows. She apologized for drinking it all and then, she asked if she could keep the bottle so she can pee in it later…because there aren’t any safe public bathrooms. 

I drove her to the church, as she’d asked. She squeezed my hand where it rested on the gear shift and told me to be safe. And then she left. 

Many years ago, there was an elderly unhoused man – though can you really tell how old an unhoused person is? – who hung around Market Square in Pittsburgh’s Golden Triangle. I was so young then, maybe 26, and I’d see him every day when I got off the bus and walked through the Square to work at HealthAmerica in the United Steelworkers building on Boulevard of the Allies. It was probably 1994 when our friendship started. I was wary, at first, but he never got very close. He’d smile and I started to smile back. Over time, I started to watch for him. Eventually, I started bringing him treats and some change. He was particularly fond of a donut.

Sometimes, I’d go into Jenny’s, a bakery that used to be in Market Square, back in the old days, before the first renovation, when they tried to drive the unhoused from the area. I’d buy two donuts and offer them to him. He never spoke – not once in all the years I knew him – but he’d mime that he only wanted one. The other, he’d point, was for me. So, I’d take my donut out of the bag and then give him the bag. Sometimes, he’d eat his donut right there, with me. Other times, he’d fold up the bag a little and tuck it into one of his capacious jacket pockets. Who knows what else was in there?! 

I never knew his name and I never gave him one in my mind. He was simply the old man I saw almost every day. I often wondered where he stayed at night, what he did on the weekends when there were few people in town. Did he go hungry those days? Or did he save up his little treats to last as long as possible?

It was a few years later, 1997, when I saw him for the last time. I don’t know exactly what day it was. My mom had just passed away and I was walking through life in a haze of grief, not paying much attention to things, really, though I did continue to bring him little treats. And I really looked forward to seeing him everyday. I remember, in particular, that I bought two donuts one day and he wasn’t waiting outside for me like he had always done before. I took the donuts to work with me and saved one to give him later, though I had rarely ever seen him at lunch or in the evenings. And I didn’t this time, either. Then, the next day, he wasn’t there again. Or the next. And so on. I never saw him again. It was surprisingly to be devastated by his absence. I was, though, and I’ve obviously not forgotten him.

So, what’s my point? I think it’s multi-pronged. He had worth and it wasn’t measured by his bank account or clothing or house or car(s). He had worth and he didn’t have to justify it. He had worth because he existed. I doubt that the unhoused understand that. They don’t receive that message from our society. We criminalize their existence and forget that they’re humans. I doubt that they realize that they can have an impact on others – an impact that isn’t negative. But they do. I think often of the grace of that woman I drove to the church. And I remember that man I knew 30 years ago for his kindness, his eagerness to share humanity – and a donut – with SOMEONE, and his blue, blue eyes in that mass of tangled white hair and beard. 

Don’t let THEM convince you to “other” humans. We all have worth – even that despicable group in the White House – simply because we exist. 

Much love.

Hey, also, don’t forget: June 14th is the nationwide (possibly international?) No Kings protest. If you think we shouldn’t have tanks rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue, or babies being torn from their mothers’ arms, you might want to join a local protest. You can find information through the nokings.org website. 

Come With Me Or You’re Coming WITH Me

Still Coughing After All These Years

Deb Zuroski, , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Years ago, when a friend and I were discussing religion, my friend asked me, and I’m paraphrasing here: What’s the point? She was asking me what’s the point of life if one doesn’t believe in God. This, I told her, this moment is the point. This time that I spend here, each moment, is exactly the point. We all get these moments, whether we believe in an afterlife or not. Sometimes, though, we forget to appreciate them.

Recently, I’ve had quite a lot of time to reflect on that and a variety of other memories that have visited and then flown from my brain. It’s easy to find time for silence when you can’t, in fact, do much speaking. I’ve been sick for nearly two weeks now, bacterial pneumonia, again, to the chagrin of myself and my children. We’ll see if the treatment is effective this time. It hasn’t always been in the past, though I have a lengthy infection to thank for my quick cancer diagnosis and treatment. And for that reason alone, I would be loath to complain this time.

Coughing is the problem. I’ve got fairly broken lungs – as any CT scan will prove – and there’s nothing like a good lung infection to kick off an extended coughing journey, one that often lasts for several weeks. My mother-in-law, one of the nicest people you could ever hope to encounter, absolutely could not bear to hear me coughing. Her beloved older sister, Mary, died of tuberculosis when my MIL was just 10 or so. It was 1935-ish and their family of 10 lived in a tiny apartment in NYC. Mary was 19 and tuberculosis, although on the decline, was an epidemic in the poor, overcrowded neighborhoods of NYC. Treatments weren’t cheap. Margaret’s father, Giovanni, cooked in a restaurant kitchen for 12 hours a day to earn enough to pay for Mary’s treatment. Unfortunately, he put his trust in a shyster who took the money without treating the TB. Mary spent the last year of her life in the girls’ shared bedroom coughing herself to death and Margaret, my sweet MIL, sat at her bedside, powerless to have any impact. 

Of course, with that kind of experience in her formative years, it’s no surprise that my coughing – pleurisy as some of my friends jokingly call it – would send Margaret into a spiral of despair. She never, ever stopped grieving her beloved Mary and hearing me cough regularly made her cry. If she were alive today, she’d scold me even now, while I ingest cough medicine and antibiotics. “Bella,” she’d say, with a sigh. She called all of us bella. Most of her conversations were sprinkled with Italian phrases like scungilli or scocc (from scocciari), which Google would tell you are insults. Coming from Margaret, with a twinkle in her eye and her finger gently shaking at you, being called a sea snail or a pest was loving and we all knew it. 

Anyway, she’d say, “Bella” or “Bella girl. You work too hard.” It wouldn’t matter to her that I’ve been sitting in this darn bed for 10 miserable days now, leaving it only for two doctor appointments and one essential visit with friends. She’d still scold, tell me to eat – like Mrs. Claus scolding Santa on the days before Christmas, “Eat, Papa. Eat.” – and ask me to rest more. I can’t imagine what she must have experienced as a small child, listening to her sister cough until she wretched. 

My grandfather also had tuberculosis around the same time. He was, however, a well-educated man in his 40s, living in Erie, Pennsylvania, rather than a child of Italian immigrants whose knowledge of English was poor, at best. Grandpa – Charles Park, or just Park, to most of the world – was sent to a sanatorium, like the one in Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, although Grandpa’s was definitely less mountainous. 

My grandmother, Marion, became a woman of business, definitely out of desperation but also with a surprising acumen. Two relatives – I believe a great-aunt and my grandmother’s grandmother – moved in with my grandmother and her four children and somehow they made ends meet. My grandmother continued to work after my grandfather returned from the sanatorium. They needed the money. He was trained for the church, not much use if you’re trying to feed four young children, but he knew everyone, was kind and competent in his own quiet way; and he eventually found work making prosthetics and durable medical equipment. Because of his TB, he was never able to get life insurance, which they all laughed about because he lived into his mid-80s, far outstripping the actuaries’ expectations. 

My mother and MIL tested positive for TB their entire lives, though neither ever had symptoms. Perhaps their physical health wasn’t impacted but both of them lived with the emotional consequences of their encounters with TB. How could it not be so? Because of my own family history, I’ve been planning to read John Green’s new book, Everything Is Tuberculosis, but now doesn’t seem the most apt time for me to pick up a book about coughing. 

In other news, one of my darling nieces introduced me to a new song, “Word to the Trees,” from which I fear I will never recover. It is an absolute delight of a song, by whatever mike (yes, that’s the band’s name), and now has an important position in this girl’s writing playlist, though, so far, I’ve stopped writing to sing every time it starts playing.

It occurs to me this Memorial Day weekend that Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address should hold renewed meaning for us all as we, in this country, stand more divided than anytime since the Civil War. Perhaps, as we honor those who “…gave the last full measure of devotion,” now is a time to remember the rest of Lincoln’s speech and consider whether “…government of the people, by the people, for the people” can survive this current test of our own devotion or whether it will, inevitably, “…perish from the earth.”

Much love.

Still Coughing After All These Years

Welcome to May

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Maestro, the Great Pyrenees, just passed the coffee store with his owner, a very elderly woman who has dementia. She walks him nearly every day, sometimes multiple times a day, up and down Walnut Street. He’s a welcome sight for most of the pedestrians, a gentle giant of a dog with heavy white fur and a sweet face. His owner is equally sweet and fiercely protected by her son and her caregivers. I worried for a bit when she invited me and my daughter to drink wine on her porch. We don’t even know her name and thought that she could easily be taken advantage of. Our concern was needless. Her son takes good care of her in a way that allows her to continue her walks safely.

Things are gradually returning to normal after the catastrophic storm of Tuesday evening. I believe about 150,000 people are still out of power, down from the 250,000+ of Wednesday morning. The east end of Pittsburgh, where we live, was particularly badly hit, trees and lines down on nearly every block. Don’t worry, though. The wealthiest area was mostly unaffected. Their power lines are underground. 

Wednesday was a strange day in the community. I walked to Walnut Street, expecting that the area had power. Strangely, although some of the shops did, my preferred coffee shop did not. I went to Starbucks, a place I generally avoid because of their anti-worker policies. Apparently, when the going gets tough, I compromise my principles for iced tea and a place to work. 

The Starbucks was packed, forcing people, who definitely would prefer otherwise, to share tables. I asked a young woman if I could sit opposite her and she REALLY did not want to let me. Very reluctantly, she said, “Okay.” However, she did not move at all to accommodate my presence, which meant I had about 6 inches for my computer. That was not going to work so I waited for another seat to open up and took it quickly. My old seat was immediately snagged by a young man who did not tolerate her space-hogging. She left. I guess she wasn’t feeling the vibe. I can respect that. It’s like being a regular gym user who has to put up with all the new-years-resolution visitors on January 2nd. 

Last week, I bought a brand-new Ryobi lawn mower at auction for about $60, on behalf of another person, who shall remain a mystery. The mower arrived yesterday, still in the box, as expected. Unfortunately, once transported to its final location and opened, we discovered that it was missing a battery and charger. Auction items can’t be returned. They’re purchased as-is, where-is, which, in this case, turned out to be an annoying lesson learned. I immediately bought a battery and charger. Problem solved. Some of us easily moved on from the ‘trauma’. Surprisingly, it is I who have yet to move on. I feel so annoyed by the response of the recipient that I am questioning my urge to help, you know? I probably definitely need to chill. I would like to be a person who works for the benefit of the recipient, not for the possibility of praise. Good deeds are good regardless of recognition and perhaps more good with no recognition at all, particularly important to remember for those of us who don’t believe our good deeds are a path to heaven. 

Although I haven’t mentioned not-my-Aunt Ginny recently, I have been to see her. She’s well, if more crotchety. When I arrived last time, she was missing from the lunch table so I went to her room to persuade her to go to lunch and, when my persuasion skills failed to achieve their intended purpose, pushed her wheelchair to the lunch room anyway. 

She should have agency but often, as people slide into more severe dementia, it’s difficult to ensure that they are consulted and that their wishes are respected, primarily because their wishes are not necessarily beneficial to them. Not-my-Aunt Ginny prefers isolation, which is the worst possible thing for her. So, I took her to the lunch room. She had a great time. We lingered over her meal while I dodged her attempts to feed me and chatted with the other women at the table. They, by the way, are delightful: Older women whose minds are still intact as their bodies fail. They tease Ginny gently and talk to me about the lives they used to lead. It’s both significant and bittersweet. If I could be closer without moving there, I’d visit every week.

Much love.

Welcome to May

Scanning The Future And Maybe The Past

Deb Zuroski, , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Driving across the state at this time of year, the hills are dotted with color, white and pink blossoms and the soft green of spring. I left the turnpike around Carlisle, Pennsylvania and drove through small towns with remarkable names like Jim Thorpe and Zooks Corner and acre after acre of farmland, lush with early growth. The hillsides here are dotted with cows, sheep, horses, and the occasional goat. With my air conditioner issuing only an unenthusiastic whisper of warm-ish air, I’m relying on vintage, 4×65 air conditioning. It’s mostly effective, cooling, if also fragrant with the earthy smells of animals, not the least of which was the 18-wheeler filled with cattle, their large noses pressed through the grates like dogs hanging out the car window.

When I lived in Florida, my car didn’t have AC. I’d get in and, first thing, wind down the windows – yes, with a hand crank – before going anywhere. Even if I was driving the mile and a half to the Piggly Wiggly, the windows had to be down. It was so hot in the car that, no joke, my camera tripod handle warped and it wasn’t even in direct sunlight. The 4×65 air conditioning didn’t exactly work. The breezes were mostly warm, smelling of asphalt and fumes. My roommates laughed from their white, AC-equipped cars but I didn’t care. I was 20 years old and living the dream, as they say. 

Back then, I had only an AM radio but now I listen to audiobooks while I drive. This time it was Dragon Day by Bob Proehl, a fictional oral history by survivors of dragon attacks. It was immensely enjoyable, though its audible and goodreads reviews are rather middling. I joke – often – about reading books with dragon sex (yes, they exist), but I generally prefer my literary entertainments sans dragons. This, however, is worth a listen. 

My quarterly scans were this morning, scheduled early, allowing me to visit a favorite breakfast spot as a little post-scans celebration. The tests are a love/hate experience but the after-scans breakfast is a way to honor being here for another day, something I might not have except for that life-changing CT in December 2023. If this feels like a nudge, it is. YOU too probably need preventive care that you’ve been putting off. 

I’m writing this from another hospital, where I’ve spent my afternoon, acting as the patient support for someone getting their preventive colonoscopy. There was just a code O in obstetrics, which made me worry for strangers in the way one does at a hospital. As another patient once reminded me, very few of the people at a hospital are there for happy reasons but I always think of obstetrics as being one of the exceptions. Until that code O. 

An accordion-playing busker in Squirrel Hill has garnered much attention during his performances. He was good enough for me to cross the street to throw some cash into his open case. I’ve looked for him since and regret not asking his name. Buskers are frequent throughout the city but good buskers are rare. Years ago, there was a great singer, in our Oakland neighborhood, who could stop traffic. He busked in the late 80s, his voice deep and rich as he sang gospel, swaying to and fro on his flipped-over milk crate. I looked for him — a big, stooped-shouldered man with a tangle of black hair and dirty clothes — long after he stopped busking on the sidewalk near the McDonalds.

Much love.

Scanning The Future And Maybe The Past

April Arts and Flowers

Deb Zuroski, , , , 3 Comments

The coffee shop ceiling is decorated with massive paper flowers in bright hues. The flowers spin and sway gently with the breeze from the open garage door. It’s art festival weekend on Walnut Street, bringing an eclectic mix of shoppers – the wealthy older couples, young men delighted to find themselves holding hands with the person beside them, large groups of friends sipping their drinks while they study various offerings of the white tent stores lining both sides of the street.  

After days of cold, rainy weather, today is the perfect, balmy spring day that every shopper and seller hopes to experience. I probably wouldn’t be here, immersed in the sound and color, except that I forgot it was festival weekend. It’s not the most conducive writing environment but somehow, I’m not sorry. One of the most necessary things about community is the reminder that we are not, no matter how much it sometimes feels like it, actually alone. 

My eldest and I have been sharing Mary Oliver poems recently as he reads through a collection I lent him. It’s funny to me that the worst criticism people can level at her is that she’s “too accessible” a poet. SMH Craft that is incomprehensible to all but the most elite readers is a failure IMHO. It’s supposed to speak to us, to help us articulate our own thoughts and feelings, to make us feel seen. If it’s not understandable, how does it fill those critical gaps in the human experience?

I listen to a lot of music while I’m writing. In the course of doing some research, I discovered a Willie Nelson song that I hadn’t heard. That’s not really surprising since he has like 140 albums of material but I particularly like his really old and his really new stuff. I’m honestly slightly less a fan of his middle years, mostly because my father played Willie’s outlaw music ad nauseam when I was growing up. One of my favorite’s is “Last Man Standing” but you should check out “Oh What A Beautiful World,” the song I just discovered, which he performs with Rodney Crowell. 

Another great new listen is “Labour – the cacophony” from Paris Paloma. It’s seriously an anthem, though I suspect women will connect to it in a way that men can’t. No offense, gentlemen. Just facts.

Yesterday morning, I went to two estate sales, a thing my daughter and I often do together. But Saturday, I was alone, standing in a long line of people eager to get *things.* It was cold but is often too warm inside. I made the possibly foolish choice not to wear a jacket that I’d have to carry once I got into the house. Perhaps I thought the line would move quickly but it did not. I stood in the cold with several dozen other people for 45 minutes, awaiting my – exciting – turn to ENTER THE HOUSE. This might sound crazy but I am a very nebby person who enjoys viewing the lives of other people through the contents of their houses. 

It’s also an absolute delight to people-watch in line and to see what the people leaving the sale have purchased. The two ladies in line behind me – obviously lifelong friends – apparently felt the same and had a running commentary that was a treasure for me to hear. They pulled me into their conversation a few times – teasing me, a stranger, about my choice of a short-sleeved shirt and sweater – as the older woman complained that her gloved pinky finger had already turned black and fallen off in the cold. 

When the line stopped with me next to enter, I told them I could feel the warm air from the house and the older woman said she’d predicted that we’d freeze to death within sight of the door. That’s true. She had, just as they joined the line 45 minutes earlier. And when the staff person gestured for the next two of us to enter, I offered them my spot so they wouldn’t have to separate. But no. They insisted that I go in because I had dressed so unwisely. Lol

It seems, from my years of estate sale experience, that there are a few reasons to hold a sale: death, divorce, downsizing/moving, and misfortune. A few weeks ago, my eldest and I went to a sale that was clearly the latter. Being, again, a nosy person, I researched the house and discovered that the owner was bankrupt. The house was being foreclosed. Perhaps the sale was a Girl In the Green Scarf attempt to recover some money. I was there for a specific purpose – a desk treadmill, which I got – but walking through the foreclosed house felt icky. The children’s fish were still swimming around in a small fish tank. Their school supplies were for sale on the $1-5 table. The house was full – hoarding full – of Disney merchandise that the Disney-mad purchasers fought over vehemently. My son was, mostly, keeping me company but surprisingly was able to purchase a brand new, very high resolution, monitor for $40. It wasn’t priced so we took it to the check-out station just as an uglier-than-usual fight was wrapping up. The woman in charge gave him a big discount on the monitor – which costs $500+ NIB (New In Box, as they say) – because we were nice to her and she was pretty stressed by the Disney hoards.

Mostly, people at estate sales are respectful and conflict-averse but occasionally there’s a fight. One time, when my daughter was with me, two women got into it over an ottoman. It wasn’t pretty, and the sale staff had to step in before it turned into something more awkward. Over an ottoman ….

The second sale I went to on Saturday was the result of a death. The woman was an antique lover with many lovely treasures that she clearly took exquisite care of but my favorite find was a retirement gift from 2000, a handmade booklet of all the things a single woman of a certain age can do once she has a lot of free time. It was sassy and saucy and charming. And clearly she appreciated it because she kept it for the rest of her life.

Much love.

April Arts and Flowers

What Is It To Be Moral?

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The elderly man in front of me is reading a document in Hebrew on his computer. Beside him, at another table, a young woman is sketching on a tablet. I’m trying not to be too obviously nosy but from where I’m sitting, it looks like she’s drawing a nature scene. In front of the elderly man, at a window table, three young people are laughing. The very pretty young woman at that table is wearing charming blue Starface blemish stickers on her cheeks and forehead. I wish they’d existed when I was a teenager.

After a bit, the people move on and new customers take over the tables: the woman next to me humming a gentle tune under her breathe, an older woman with a cup of coffee and her phone, a young man coding on his laptop, another young man surfing the web, Reddit, I think. In an unsurprising turn of events, Elon Musk, the former golden boy of Reddit, has become extraordinarily unpopular on that site. This person, who craves adulation, could have been among the most beloved people in the world and instead chose to be among the most hated. An odd decision.

I dreamed last night that I was about to die, trapped in a hole, a huge drill blocking out the meager sunlight and closing in on my position. Knowing I couldn’t escape death, I tried to hurry it and awoke with a jolt, feeling an immense pressure on my chest. Weird dream, better than the one in which I purchased a huge mansion and spent $1.5M unsuccessfully attempting to repair the roof.  

My eldest son and I had a rhetorical discussion recently about morality in an amoral or possibly immoral construct such as the current government. He hypothesized that “good” people, i.e., moral people, would struggle to survive because they abide by a set of morals and mores that are disregarded by government leaders. Thus, in order to survive, one must also act amorally or immorally, a less violent “kill or be killed” argument. 

I took the position that it’s possible to stand against such a construct without becoming amoral or immoral, “good trouble” as John Lewis and, more recently, Cory Booker proposed. For example, I suggested that one could spam the Department of Education’s tattle tale email address that’s designed to flag teachers and schools for teaching topics the current administration has banned (DEI, gender, etc). (Do we really support the idea that an “Everyone is welcome here” poster is too dangerous to exist on a classroom wall? If it is, I think people should clearly articulate who is welcome. And why. Out loud. So all of us can hear it.) Spamming an email address could, theoretically, result in a DDoS complaint but could also have the beneficial result of rendering the email account unusable, which, I argued, is a moral response to an immoral construct. 

At one point, Trump’s proposal to annex Canada was raised. My son, far more game-literate than I am, reminded me that in the video game series, Fallout (which both of us have played), the US invaded and successfully annexed Canada in 2059. What would happen in today’s world, if Trump ordered an attack? Would it, we discussed, be immoral for the armed services to disregard such an order? In addition, would it be immoral for individuals drafted into service to serve OR to refuse to serve during such a war? If US citizens took up arms in defense of Canada would they be committing treason? What do you think? Would you resist a war against Canada? Or Greenland? If you have children of an age to be drafted into serving, would you advise them to resist?

Later, I had a similar discussion with my youngest, asking for his perspective as we were driving to an appointment. In brief, he said that morality is defined by the person and once defined has to be followed or else it is merely an ideal. Therefore, if one finds a construct such as a government to be immoral, one must stand against that construct, even if that resistance results in danger to one’s position or even one’s safety. Something to consider ….

Gus has joined the coffee shop crowd. He’s short. His hair is in his eyes. He’s very loud. And he loves pup cups. Do you think we could be friends? Also, his person tied him to a table and he pulled it over. She was embarrassed. Gus was not. Honestly, even though the table landed on me, I was rather delighted. 

Much love.

What Is It To Be Moral?

All This And Poppy, Too

Deb Zuroski, , , , , , , 1 Comment

It’s snowing, soft flurries floating on the air current, meandering to the ground rather than falling. It’s a temperature that, when I was a child, would be “too cold for snow.” Little me didn’t understand that and believed it was one of those things adults say to mask the truth. There are many of those statements – it tastes just like chicken, how will you know unless you try it, it doesn’t hurt, your skirt is cute, they’re just jealous – among them.

I’m editing a rom-com manuscript today and struggling a little because nothing feels very funny these days. Women are about to lose the right to vote. Trump has declared himself a king. The national parks have, again, been de-staffed. The new head of health and human services thinks people who take antidepressants (etc) should be moved to camps and that black children should be “re-parented.” And the Arab countries have finally realized that Trump actually does want to put slot machines in Gaza. This would be an SNL skit in any other world. 

A woman just walked by with her dog. The dog is not walking.

The bakery across the street is really pushing king cakes. In news that’s probably the least controversial you’ll hear today, I think king cake is dry and tasteless. Sorry to all those who look forward to the cake. You can have my piece. 

I’m drinking a dark chocolate mocha today, an unusual choice since I’m really not a coffee drinker but something about the dark chocolate appealed. Perhaps it’s just my body’s attempt to assuage the grief I’m feeling about all the ways this administration is attempting to hurt the most vulnerable among us.

A little girl sitting at the table next to mine said to her companion, “You’re so beautiful.” Isn’t that lovely? 

Last week, my daughter rescued some betta fish from a pet store. Half of the 10 fish in the display were dead. My daughter purchased the rest to save them from spending their remaining time trapped in little plastic cups. We own a very large (55 gal) aquarium and all the stuff – filters, heaters, lights, water plants, etc. – so all she needed was substrate and food which we did not buy from that pet store. Instead, we went to an aquarium specialty store in Monroeville (Elmer’s Aquarium). The fish are now happily swimming around, hiding amongst the plants, eating the brine shrimp Haley drops into the water every day. Who knows how long they’ll live but saving them felt like a little victory in our house last week. My daughter is, however, banned from ever entering a pet store again.

In honor of ‘Love Your Pet’ day (as if we pet owners actually need to designate a day to lavish unreasonable amounts of attention on our beloved pets), I am thinking of my sweet girl, Poppy. We rescued her in 2013. She’d been born into a terribly abusive home and came to us at about 12 weeks, emaciated, recovering from multiple broken bones, with various scars that puppies should never have. The vet told us to feed her as much food as she was willing to eat so we left a bowl of food out for her to nibble on at will and she began to fill out. 

She could jump as high as my shoulders and one time, jumped as I was bending to say hello to her. We collided. She was fine. I had a broken cheekbone. She was very, very sorry. Later in her puppyhood, she was playing with Tristan and bit through his eyelid. He came downstairs to tell me that he could see me when his eyes were closed. It was weird. A doctor glued it back together for us. She was sorry then too.

Shortly after she moved in, she bolted for the door as it was closing and caught a toe, breaking it. The vet said it would take a few days for her to get used to her pink cast. In less than an hour, she was running around the backyard, back to full functionality. 

When we took her camping, she was so afraid we’d leave without her that she sat by the car until bedtime the first night. She was happy, though, to climb into the tent with us, sure that we wouldn’t be able to slip away without her knowledge. Then, around 2AM, she finally had to pee so badly she ran out of the tent without her leash. When she was finished, she trotted back, pleased as could be, and curled up in her tent bed which she had apparently decided was our new home. (Also, our campsite was absolutely full of garter snakes but she didn’t even notice them.) 

Illustrative of her boundless enthusiasm and energy, when she was diagnosed with cancer, she put up with all the vet appointments and treatments without complaint, remaining as loving and enthusiastic as she had ever been. At one point, because she had fallen off the sofa, we made the decision to keep her on the floor. She complained – grumbling in the standard pitbull method – about the lack of petting until one of us sat on the floor with her at all times, giving her regular snuggles and pets. We also took turns sleeping on the floor beside her so we could bring her water or carry her outside to pee during the night. 

She’s been gone almost two months. We miss her most in quiet moments when entering a room and realizing she’s not there to thump her heavy tail, when we drop a random bit of food on the floor that no one wants (a lettuce leaf or piece of dry pasta) but she would eat to make sure the puppies didn’t get it, when we read the mail without teeth marks from her wrestling it to the floor, when lying on the sofa without her heavy body pressed on top, her head on our hearts. 

Wishing you the kind of joyous love that Poppy shared with us. 

Much love.

All This And Poppy, Too