A Little Bedtime Story

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This is an important disclaimer: I love bugs. They’re fascinating, beautiful, and remarkably effective at their lives, probably, if we’re being honest, way more effective than I am at my life.  

There is one – and only one – bug that I despise with the fire of a thousand suns. I have to give myself pep talks to deal with it. “Okay, Deb, after you remove this bug, you can have a nice cry and a cookie. Two cookies. An entire roll of Thin Mints.” 

No. I am not going to tell the entire internet which bug gives me the shivers. I may be a chronic over-sharer but I’m not crazy. I know that one of you bastards would immediately order me an insect lore grow kit and I’d have thousands living in my space. 

Now, the reason for the disclaimer: 

I was all tucked up in bed last night, reading a new-to-me book (The Bookshop Around the Corner by Jenny Colgan–excellent so far). Admittedly, it was after midnight and I was starting to feel a little sleepy….just go with me. It’s going to get really spicy in three, two, one

I roll over and … HEY, there’s a spider dangling an inch or so from my nose. (I wear contacts and can only see about to the end of my nose without them … thus my very accurate measurements of spider distances.)

As we’ve already covered, I have no fear of spiders. However, what I discovered last night is that I am easily startled by bugs dangling in front of my face while I’m lying in bed. 

The unfortunate result of my scrambled leap out of bed – the spider was attached to my arm – is that I accidentally flung the spider, who was evidently as surprised by the whole situation as I was. 

So, let’s, for just a moment, revisit the point I made about how poor my vision is when I’m not wearing my contacts. It’s after midnight. I am blind as a bat – blinder than a bat since I have no working sonar. I have just flung a spider the Lord alone knows where but definitely in the direction of my bed. 

What now? Do I CLIMB INTO BED? Well, yes, yes, I do. Because I am not afraid of spiders. It’s not like I can burn the house down … it’s full of sleeping kids and pets. So, I just climb into bed and curl up. 

I did text one of my kids though, warning him that I would likely be spider detritus by dawn, Arachnophobia-esque. He was remarkably unconcerned. I guess he’s not afraid of spiders either. 

A Little Bedtime Story

Coffee Shop Life

Deb Zuroski, , , 7 Comments

I’m at the coffee shop again, working. (Am I really working if I’m writing a blog post?) There are two friends sitting in front of me and they are giggling like 5 year olds. Their hair is fully gray, their cheeks patterned like wrinkled tissue paper. And they’re talking like they’ve known each other their whole lives. 

That’s one of my favorite things about the coffee shop, one of the things I missed the most when these places had no tables and we were all sitting at home, hoping to wait-out the pandemic. It’s a weird stranger connection, that feeling that you don’t know anyone and yet you know them all.

And just now, a woman shopping for an aluminum coffee mug knocked one over with a loud clang and the domino effect happened, three or four falling, though it sounded like thirty. 

She looked up to see if any of us had noticed. Yep. We all had. But I pretended like I hadn’t. Because who hasn’t experienced that (completely unnecessary) feeling of mortification?! 

Whoops. She just dropped a ceramic mug which, surprisingly, did not break. I wouldn’t give it a second drop though, just to test it. And I think she should probably stop touching things for a bit. Third time’s a charm, you know. 

A woman with a baby stroller is at the register with her entire family, husband, young child, new baby, and the grandparents. She looks tired but is wearing the best dress, striped pink, orange, blue, green, and white. Just looking at that dress makes me a little happier. And I’ll bet it makes her feel a little less tired. 

The giggling ladies have left, replaced by an older woman in a woolen shawl and a beautiful Gibson Girl hairstyle. Oh my gosh. She’s the mom of striped-dress woman. I did not see that coming but her fabulous style was definitely handed down, mom to daughter. 

Sometimes I eavesdrop on conversations but today I’m wearing headphones. Lizzo, right now, but it’s a playlist. The chair dancing will likely be replaced by something weepy in 5, 4, 3, 2, … 

Ha. I was wrong. It’s Devil Devil by MILCK. Dark but not weepy. 

The rush has slowed for the moment, a perfect time for aluminum-mug lady to come out and dust. Yes, she works here. I didn’t realize that initially, though it makes sense since she was doing a lot of stuff-touching. 

This is the coffee shop with the garage door that is opened when the weather is warm. The door is all glass so I can people/puppy-watch even when it’s chilly, like today. 

Every time I’m here I see a man who wears a big, very bright, knit cap over his locs. I’ve never seen him without the cap but I’ll bet his hair is long because the cap sits straight up on his head, ala The Cat in the Hat. 

Back to chair dancing: the song is 35 by Rob Ruha. Yes, people look when I chair-dance but I figure they’re people-watching, too. Might as well give them something to look at, right?

A young woman just entered and I am absolutely certain I know her. She’s probably my daughter’s friend but I’m damned if I know what her name is. She hasn’t noticed me or else she’s playing the long game, texting Haley to ask if I’m here. That has happened before but my darling girl always gives me a head’s up so I don’t accidentally ignore someone. She’ll even text me a picture so I can find them and say hello (like I’m cool or something). 

Last week, a young man was interviewing for a job at a table near me. He was so sweetly earnest and excited to show off his portfolio. It seemed to be going well but like all coffee shop interactions, I’ll have to write my own ending since I won’t know what really happened. In my story, he definitely got the job. Maybe even now he’s writing a social media post that I’ll interact with later on Twitter. 

Sad song time. You Were Meant For Me by Jewel just started. I know all the words because I used to sing it to Tristan when he was little. I remember singing, holding him in the dark in the middle of the night, the week after my mom died. “Hearts are broken every day.” I don’t think it will ever not be a hard song for me to hear.

But we are a tapestry, each of us, made up of all the threads of our experiences, right? That’s what people say. There are some threads I’d like to pull but that’s not the way our tapestries work. Thus, I listen to Jewel and think of my mom and how much she wanted to still be here with me and my sister, even as she hoped and occasionally tried to die. Life is confusing. 

There’s a big line all of a sudden. The waves of coffee-buyers are unpredictable. I looked up from my screen and watched the line develop. Then an older man walked in, got into line, looked at his watch, made a surprised face, and ran out the door. 

What’s his story? Forgot to pick someone up? Parking meter expired? Late for an appointment? Had a sudden urgent need to buy a sticky bun at the bakery across the street? (Yes, there’s a bakery directly across the street and yes they have delicious sticky buns – at least, so I’ve heard. I only look at sticky buns. I never eat them. Of course. Because that’s exactly what one is supposed to do when one encounters a sticky bun in the wild.)

Two young people just left – a very pretty girl who is majorly crushing on a hot-as-fire young man. Phew. There are still flames on the floor where he walked. I think she might come back in to touch them as they spark and expire. He looked at her as she turned away for a second and I’m pretty sure the feeling is mutual. It’s really obvious that they’re not currently together. I hope one of them says something. Life is too short to miss these opportunities.

Power and Purpose by Joseph Trapanese just started playing. I love how it builds to a crescendo. A little too powerful for a coffee shop afternoon though. I should be striding through the woods like Mary Oliver, scribbling words into my notebook with my number two pencil. She said that she could really only write if her body was in motion. Of course, she had a horrific childhood so the woods were also a true safe space for her. The coffee shop is safe enough for me, at least at the moment. 

Line out the door right now. I love the vibrancy of this community. There’s a young girl sitting at a table playing with a little feathered chick – the kind that hop when you wind them up. She’s so proud of it, holding it in her cupped hands as she sits there. Then, gently, she puts it on the table and it hops around, making a quiet clicking sound. (The sound was temporarily obscured by Macy Gray belting out I Try. But now I can hear it again.)

There’s a man on crutches waiting for his coffee. I’m watching discreetly to see how he’ll handle the coffee and the crutches. It doesn’t seem like a viable combination, at least from my crutch experiences. Then again, I have been known to nearly fall over while crutching along and overbalancing so I’m probably not the best judge of coffee-crutch skills. 

Bob Dylan is singing his portion of End of the Line by Traveling Wilburys. I don’t love Dylan but I do love him on this song. Tom Petty is my favorite of the group but honestly the whole collaboration is genius. How could it not be?

Well, crutch-coffee man nailed it. He put both crutches under his left armpit, coffee in his right hand, and slow-walked his booted-foot self to a table. Should I have offered to help? Maybe. But I was busy admiring his balancing skills. I would probably have knocked over my unlidded iced tea if I’d tried to help him. And honestly, he’s got boss-level skills

There’s a woman sitting by the garage door right now. She has red hair that is absolutely gleaming gold in the light and I suspect she doesn’t have any idea how glorious that mane looks. I’ll never understand people who don’t see the beauty of red hair, with its golds and russets and oranges and variegated reds. 

On the other end of the color spectrum (is it really though?), the young woman next to me has blue hair. Sometimes I think about dying my hair or getting a tattoo. Hair dye is a lot less painful so that might be the way to go. But I’d kind of like to get a tattoo to represent the WHO I’ve become as I’ve worked my way through enough trauma for the lifetimes of a few people. 

It’s nothing like the trauma of watching an army attempt to destroy your home but we don’t measure our traumas against other people. Trauma is trauma. It doesn’t need a scale to validate it. 

I’ve been singing a phrase for weeks now. After finally getting really annoyed because I don’t have any idea where I picked it up, I asked Ms Google for an assist. Turns out it’s from Fly Me to the Moon. I don’t listen to Frank Sinatra and I’ve never seen Squid Game … so why in the world am I singing that phrase (“in other words, hold my hand”) over and over again? I have concluded that the problem is – my brain no work right anymore. 

Time for more chair dancing. Everybody Everybody by Black Box. A banger. Even corpses in the ground tap their toes to this one. 

In case you think I’m still not working, I beg to differ. I have opened my scrivener app and stared at the screen for more than two hours now, occasionally changing a word or typing and deleting a sentence. #WritingLife #Progress

Okay, now I have six hundred, thirty-nine words. HA. And my battery isn’t quite dead yet. 

Someone is missing their vanilla iced coffee. Did you order and then accidentally leave without it? Please, go get it because they’re convinced that shouting louder will cause the coffee to get picked up. And it doesn’t seem to be happening.

I’m listening to Disturbed’s version of Sound of Silence. It’s pretty great. Better than the original and I was almost alive when the original came out, proof that I am not suffering from OG contamination.

And as I’m watching the shop fill up again, Sober by Lucy Spraggan starts playing. 

It’s gray outside now and the dynamic in the shop has changed. The customers, mostly women, are working on computers. One is on a zoom call. I see three close-up faces on her screen. This is why I don’t like zoom calls. When I’m sitting with someone physically, they are nowhere near as close as their face on a zoom call. 

There’s a quiet spell at the counter. The three employees are looking at someone’s phone – pictures of hairstyles, I think – and they’re giggling as one of them tries to describe something, maybe a haircut they want? Corporate office would probably disapprove but I love that they’re smiling. 

Welp, the chat is over. I swear a soccer team just walked in. Okay, slight exaggeration, it’s just a big friend group – they aren’t loud but they’re young. You know how that is – vibrant, almost buoyant, with the promise of life. 

The battery has just reminded me that it will be dead to me (pun intended) in about 15 minutes. That’s good timing. I’ve reached my writing goal for the day, plus this blog entry. And I have some research to do. Time to walk the hill home. It’s a daunting prospect but very satisfying to reach the top. Is that a metaphor? Maybe. It’s also just a walk. 

Much love.

Coffee Shop Life

Five Years

Deb Zuroski, , , , , , 2 Comments

It’s five years last Sunday. Five. Every year, as the anniversary of Ken’s death approaches, I vow to have a normal day. If success is measured by survival, every year I have succeeded but if it’s measured in tears? Well, that’s a different story, isn’t it?

BUT … a couple months ago, I saw a billboard announcing that Colin Hay would be doing a show in Pittsburgh on March 30th and something about that just felt right. So, I bought myself a single – five rows back from the stage! – and went to see him last night. 

The show was at the famous Carnegie Music Hall in Homestead. It only seats about 1,000 people and the acoustics are wonderful. Maybe 8 years ago, Ken and I went there with friends to see Joe Jackson – probably the last performance Ken saw live actually. And Joe was wonderful, of course. Older than I expected but then again so am I.

The same is true of Colin Hay. If you look closely, you can see the 80s music icon in the grizzled older man. He’s funny and surprisingly Scottish for a man who has spent more years away from his birthplace than in it. 

According to Colin, most of the world is unfamiliar with his music post-Men At Work. When he mentioned a particular album and the audience cheered, he joked to us that everyone who had bought the album was apparently in the audience last night. Personally, I think his newer stuff is better than his last Men At Work album, more thoughtful, less glory-seeking.

I wasn’t expecting him to talk about grief and loss but discovered last night that most of his music is rooted in his childhood and his grieving. Dour Scot, right?! But it resonated with an audience of mostly graying fans. He told a story about carrying the ashes of his parents and his sister around with him for years and as someone who has two sets of ashes in my house right now, I totally feel that. 

And eventually he sang “I Just Don’t Think I’ll Ever Get Over You” – a song I happen to know very well – and I cried and missed Ken so much. Why couldn’t I be seated next to him instead of the overly chatty stranger (poor man just didn’t know what to do about the grieving woman next to him). Awkward but it was dark and I’ll never see him again.  

I am equally glad that I won’t see the very amorous couple who was seated to my left. Talk about inappropriately Barry White-ing a performance … though it does make me wonder if Barry White ever had any problems with his audience. If only I’d gotten my concert neighbors’ names.

Colin Hay got a standing ovation at the end – after he finished his callback song. It was lovely. He kept bowing and putting his hand on his heart and smiling so wide, even though it was obvious how tired he was. Finally he gestured that he was leaving, but the audience kept applauding until the venue brought up the house lights. 

Much love.

Five Years

Hooray and Up She Rises

Deb Zuroski, , , , 1 Comment
Tristan gives our pooped doxy a lift. Shadow loved riding in the sling pack.

Have you seen Fisherman’s Friends on Netflix? It’s fantastic, charming, corny, eccentric, entertaining, everything a good movie should be. In brief, it’s a story about Cornish fishermen who sing sea shanties as they work. 

It just so happens that one shanty in the film is a personal family favorite. I sing it frequently – badly and incorrectly – while I’m driving, cleaning, cooking, annoying my teenager … you know. It was also one of Ken’s favorites. 

About a million years ago, in 2013, we took a family vacation to the Finger Lakes. The trip itself was relatively unremarkable but it had some brilliant moments. The five of us were packed into our 17-year-old Subaru Legacy wagon, with all of our camping gear and our 13-year-old dachshund, Shadow. 

The car was so jammed with stuff that my husband, who hated to drive, insisted on driving for the entire 6-hour trip. There was no way he was going to stuff himself into the back with the dog, two bickering children and a case of potato chip snack bags that some jokester had dumped all over the back seat of the car. 

Anyway, at some point on our trip, Tristan and his dad, both sitting in the front, started singing sea shanties. If you know Ken, you probably heard him sing – he sang frequently – but you might not know that he and Tristan could harmonize perfectly together. 

Whenever I hear the song, I travel back in time to that vacation, sitting in the Subaru on a sunny summer day, listening to Ken and Tristan singing ‘hooray and up she rises’ so beautifully it still sends a shiver down my spine. 

Anyway, go watch Fisherman’s Friends. And maybe raise a glass to Ken when they sing “The Drunken Sailor.”

Much love. 

Hooray and Up She Rises

Sweet and Salty Girl

Deb Zuroski, , , , , 2 Comments
Salty sits in judgment on her favorite window seat.

My beloved Salty – queen of cats – has, at the age of 19(ish), crossed the rainbow bridge. This post is an homage to the best and most difficult cat I have ever known. 

Salty was a striking Abyssinian, with the characteristic long legs, small face, and big ears. Christened Jessica and later given a name that better suited her personality, she was a gift from my husband to his mom; but honestly, cat and human struggled to find balance. My MIL was a cat lover but Abys are a difficult breed. They make aloof cats seem like your best friend. They make angry cats seem neighborly. They make smart cats seem like doddards. It’s impossible to keep up with their deviousness.

Even in sleep, those claws are ready.

Mom-in-law used to complain that Salty would wake her up (in a non-snuggly way), knock over her treasures, and steal her food. All of these complaints are true. I have both witnessed and experienced Salty’s diabolical pleasure in disruption, destruction, and theft.

One of her favorite activities – until we finally grew wise(r) to her antics – was to steal our socks, gloves, yarn projects (and other items as we started learning to hide things). She would chew on these items until she had damaged them just enough to make them unusable. For example, Salty would chew a hole in one finger of a single glove or bite through the elastic at the top of a sock. 

Usually, she struck in the middle of the night and would leave the evidence for me to find as my day started. Sometimes, she’d leave her sock or glove “kill” in the shared cat food bowl. If you know anything about cats, you know how remarkably finicky they are. A sock in the food bowl is an absolute cat-astrophy. (Couldn’t help myself. Sorry! Or am I?) Our other two cats would stare at the food bowl and meow for assistance, refusing to eat until the carcass had been removed. 

Salty was well-known throughout the neighborhood. Although she was ultimately an indoor cat, when she and my MIL first moved in with us, she worked deviously at finding ways to leave the house and once free would return only on her terms. She had a chip and collar but never got lost (until her recent walkabout). Usually, she’d visit the nearby college campus and scam food from lonely freshmen. 

How, you ask, do I know that she scammed food from college students? Well, Salty had a … quirk. She was our security cat. Whenever we went for a walk, usually daily during nice weather, she would follow us, walking about 10 or 12 feet behind us. We knew she was there. She knew that we knew she was there. This was all deliberate. She intentionally went with us on our walks. 

When we walked on campus, students would point out that there was a cat following us and would say things like “hey, that’s the cat I gave chicken to yesterday.” And we’d explain that Salty was our security detail. Everyone thought it was super funny and our sweet girl stayed slim and healthy so we never told the students to stop giving her snacks. It wouldn’t have worked anyway. Salty could scam anyone out of chicken.

Eight or nine years ago, she stopped leaving home. Instead of regularly slipping out the front door or leaping over the 7-foot fence, she started preferring to sit in the sun in our backyard. Eventually, she even got pretty snuggly, though never in a polite way. 

As with everything else, she’d put herself where she wanted to be. If she wanted to be on my lap, my choices were to accept gracefully or continually put her on the floor until one of us gave up. (It was usually me. She could wear down a diamond.) 

I hope that I’ve learned a few things from her: persistence, assertiveness, defiance of convention, how to relax on a summer day. I hope too that wherever my sweet and Salty girl has gone, that there’s a spot of sun on a warm wooden deck where she can snooze. 

Good-bye, little Salty. I will miss you forever.  

Sweet and Salty Girl

Palentine, Galentine, Valentine?

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Happy Galentine’s, Palentine’s and Valentine’s Day!

My husband was renowned for giving perfect, thoughtful presents, sometimes funny, always purposeful. As I’ve mentioned before, he really disliked events that compelled gift-giving but that didn’t reduce his gift-giving game at all. He was at his best when he could give gifts for no particular reason and in my opinion, those “I was thinking of you” gifts are the absolute best gifts to get. My favorites of all of those are a poem he emailed me and a candy necklace he dropped on my desk, still in a little brown bag.

And this brings me to our first Valentine’s Day as a couple. I was as broke as a church mouse, still surviving on ramen (7 for $1) and peanut butter sandwiches. So, I made him a little paper Valentine’s card. I still have it somewhere. It was red and pink and I wrote a little note – something silly or punny, not passionate or deeply emotional. 

He was horrified. I had given him a handmade card and he had nothing for me – nothing. The king of sweet and silly gifts had nothing to offer. 

I didn’t care. I swear it. I didn’t cry, make a fuss, get mad. I swear it on my mom’s grave. I really had no expectations. Seriously. We hadn’t discussed Valentine’s Day, no dinner plans, nothing like that. I just wanted to give him a little card, you know? But he was so horrified that he left my apartment without saying a word. Not in a mad way, just flustered. He was often unpredictable so I just went back to whatever I’d been doing. No big deal.

A couple hours later, he returned. He had left my place to get me a gift. Flowers? Candy? A card? Nope. Car mats, really nice car mats, maroon to match my little maroon car. 

My favorite Valentine’s gift ever. 

I missed Palentine’s lunch with friends last week. I was really looking forward to it but life intervened, as it does sometimes. Over the weekend, though, I was very lucky and got to brunch with two of my favorite Palentines. It was lovely, even though the water glasses were only slightly larger than sippy cups. 

Today and everyday, I hope you too get to share loving connections, however you define them.

Much love.

Palentine, Galentine, Valentine?

Clean Sheets & Dirty Books

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The clean-sheet feeling is fantastic, isn’t it? I don’t get to experience that feeling very often because cats and dogs like clean sheets too. 

Most nights I reluctantly share my bed-for-one with at least one animal. This is not of my choosing but as I’ve mentioned before, there is no door to my bedroom. Doorlessness is both invitation and mandate to cats. My husband’s Maine Coon often sleeps upstairs. He’s the loudest snorer you will ever hear, worse – by far – than Ken ever was. He’s also a blanket hog, a trait he definitely learned from Ken. 

My daughter’s rescue cat also likes to sleep on my bed. She makes bread for at least 15 minutes every night while she purrs loudly. Then, she cleans every single piece of fur on her very furry body – also loudly. After that, she circles around like a dog, making her bed, and then sleeps like the dead for hours, until, that is, I disturb her by getting up to use the bathroom.

Like the cats, the dogs are not invited guests but when they’re not kenneled, they occasionally sneak to the third floor for a snooze. The doxies can’t make it onto my bed directly; but like crows, they have mastered rudimentary tools, such as jumping to the bed from a nearby futon or footstool. The pitbull needs no assistance and is often the instigator of bed-ageddon. (In case there’s a question, the bed is the good guy in this battle.)

First, the dogs get on the bed. Then, they unmake the perfectly made but de-pillowed bed. The littlest doxy – the runt of the litter – likes to crawl between the sheets to nap. The furry doxy likes to build a blanket throne and climb up to snooze. The pitbull prefers pillows, thus my daily de-pillowing efforts.

By the time the dogs have been discovered on their illicit snuggle island, the bed is a wreck. Unmade. Dirty footprints on the blankets and sheets. Dog fur everywhere. Sometimes there’s slobber too if the pitbull has decided that one of “her puppies” needs to be cleaned. Perhaps because it is still technically standing at the end of the battle, the bed generally wins but oh the cost. 

Tonight, after I diligently foiled every effort by the dogs to sneak upstairs, I am tucked between truly clean sheets. And it is delightful. I’ll only have it to myself for a brief span. My daughter’s cat is on the futon, waiting for me to finish typing so she can jump on the bed. She abhors typing (though she loves to sit on the warm keyboard).

Today’s success against the dogs was not without its own price tag. The pitbull was so mad at me this afternoon that she refused to look at me. She sat on the sofa for over an hour, grumbling, which sounds a little like the noise an angry toddler makes while sitting in timeout. 

She knows – as do I – that tomorrow is another opportunity to sneak onto the bed. Since she regularly outsmarts me, I’m determined to appreciate the luxury of clean sheets. So, even though it is 19F outside, the windows are open and I’m pretending that a balmy spring breeze is rustling my curtains. (I don’t actually have curtains and the breeze is anything but balmy.)

I’ve been working on a blog post about the current round of book bans in schools. The anger and disappointment I feel are currently getting in the way of productive words so for now, I will just challenge you to read some of the books on the ban lists. You can be sure the people who are advocating book bans haven’t read these books. Knowledge is most threatening to the un- and ill-informed. 

The frustrating thing – as I’ve posted elsewhere – is that book bans hurt the most vulnerable children, those who don’t often see themselves in books, those who can’t buy books, those who aren’t safe at home. My kids have library cards, ready access to the public library a 10-minute walk from our house, and a parent who will buy them any book they want.

That’s privilege and that’s part of what this book ban is about.

My beloved husband would be so angry about these bans. He would have bought copies of all the banned books and driven to Tennessee or Texas or even Ohio to offer free copies to students. It’s not a viable solution for a lot of reasons, but there are advocates with reach who could make free books available to these kids, these kids who need to know that we care and that we’re not sitting by while the book bonfires are being lit. 

Maybe you are one of those advocates ….

Be safe. Be loud. 

Much love.

Clean Sheets & Dirty Books

2020 – [Take] Two

Deb Zuroski, , , , , , 4 Comments

It’s January, which means a new 30-day yoga program (Move) from Yoga With Adriene. Ken never understood it; but for me, yoga is about self-acceptance, really self-love. When I “get on the mat,” as Adriene, from Yoga with Adriene, would say, all the self-criticism, all the self-doubt is silenced for that 30 minutes or so. And if I consistently do yoga, I start hearing inside my head those words of self-acceptance, instead of the self-beratement that I learned very early in life. 

“Meet yourself where you are” is such an encouraging statement. If I can only briefly hold a pose, if I fall during crow, if I stay on my knees during plank, that’s all good because it’s where I am in that moment. That lack of judgment can feel pretty weird at first, pretty unbelievable, because we are taught that no matter how good we are, we are never enough. 

What if, in fact, you are enough … actually enough, just as you are? Something to think about.

I read something recently that has stuck with me: “I walk down memory lane because I love running into you.” It sounds lovely, doesn’t it? But of course it’s not really true. Walking down memory lane is a very bittersweet experience. 

You all have memories that run on repeat through your minds, right? And some of them are triggered by objects or pictures or even smells. I have a blanket – it turned 25 years old in early October. How do I know that, you ask? Because I remember the day Ken and I bought it. Every time I see that blanket, the event comes back to me. 

We actually bought two identical blankets on a Friday in October, 1996. We were going to a sleep concert, this sleep concert. We weren’t really prepared – I had no idea what a sleep concert was – and Ken had mistaken the day, a thing he did consistently because he never really cared what day it was. 

So, we drove there on Friday, discovered that it wasn’t until Saturday, looked at the venue (a gymnasium floor) and realized that we needed blankets and pillows. We called my MIL to make sure she’d be okay watching our son for another day (she was thrilled), found a hotel for the night, and went shopping for supplies. 

We got to the venue early and picked out our spots on the floor in front of Robert Rich. Yep, THE Robert Rich. He had a big, amazing, crazy setup and was already there testing his equipment. Ken, of course, went over to introduce himself – a thing Ken would absolutely do and I would decidedly NOT. 

Robert was gracious and thrilled to hear that Ken was a huge fan. They chatted for a long time while I fussed over our sleeping arrangement – it was really just two blankets and like 4, maybe 3, pillows tossed on the floor. (It’s a good thing I was young then. When I think about that setup now, all that runs through my mind is how incredibly uncomfortable it must have been to lie prone on a gym floor for 8 hours.) 

Of course, I couldn’t really tell you what it’s like to spend an entire night on a gymnasium floor, because I had a horrible, mucousy cold. It was the worst. I could only sort of breathe out of my mouth, when I wasn’t coughing, of course. By Saturday evening, I was a toxic waste site all on my own. 

In case you’ve never gotten the opportunity to attend a sleep concert, let me explain. It’s a very lengthy concert experience with live music, some from albums but lots of improvisation. Concertgoers attend with the intention of going to sleep. Noise at a sleep concert is beyond criminal. There’s no rustling, no snacking, no snoring, no whispering. It’s really and truly silent, except for the performance.  

Most attendees do sleep, at least for a bit of the concert, especially as the music gentles to an ambient, atmospheric, spacey sound for a portion of the night. Some people doze or go into what they describe as a trance-like state. As the next day dawns, the music becomes more vibrant to intentionally but gently wake the audience. 

Thanks to my terrible, drippy, disgusting cold, unlike the rest of the attendees, I stayed up the entire night. Initially, I would lie down for a few moments, sit up to sneeze and then lie down again, occasionally tiptoeing out of the room to blow my nose heartily before returning – very quietly – to my little sleep spot. 

Eventually, Ken furiously whispered that I needed to go away because I was disturbing the vibe  – a fair comment. It’s hard to settle in for an ambient sleep music experience when your neighbor keeps sneezing.  

So, I left the gym and sat on the hallway floor listening to the concert until Robert Rich himself invited me to share his picnic table. (There was a literal picnic table placed in the hall directly outside his performance space.)

I accepted his invitation after warning him about my putrid condition. He didn’t care and encouraged me to watch his entire concert up close. Every once in a while, he would take a break and sit at the table with me, chatting about the nothing things that strangers talk about in the middle of the night. It was ridiculously lovely. 

Ken and I attended other similar events throughout our lives together. All have great stories to go with them, of course. One of these days, I’ll dust off the story of the time I wore khakis to Projektfest (black tape for a blue girl – and absolutely nothing sleep concert-y about that experience!) at the Vic Theater in Chicago.

I think I still have the tshirt from that one, though I left my ego on the ground outside, somewhere behind one of the many groups of goths in spike collars who made fun of the only girl there in a button-down shirt and khakis.

I’m not sure if there’s a lesson here regarding memory lane – maybe it’s to be careful how long you linger, though while you’re there, you can wear whatever you want.

Happy New Year. 

2020 – [Take] Two

Do You Want The Recipe?

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My daughter has a friend – possibly the nicest, sweetest person you could hope your daughter would be friends with – who, years ago, would offer to cookie-taste whenever she came to our house. To be honest, I was not baking much back then, though I sometimes had a small batch of chocolate chip cookies or the occasional pan of brownies. 

But she spurred a ritual for me. I started baking more so that, whenever she was coming over, I would have something there for her to try. Peanut Butter Blossoms. Buckeyes. Shortbread. Oatmeal Scotchies. Fast Fixin’ Cake. Nothing outrageous but her interest made me want to try.

My daughter got into it and would start telling me as soon as she knew that her friend was stopping by so that I could make something. I also started freezing cookies for her and would give my daughter treats to take to the friend’s house. (Last weekend it was Nonna’s Cookies with citrus glaze and a batch of vanilla meringue cookies.)

At some point, I realized that I wasn’t just doing it for this wonderful friend. I was baking again for my community, sharing treats with the next door neighbor, taking treats to our friends at the local diner. 

Maybe Ken’s illness is to blame. He stopped liking food and sometimes even hated the smell of food which drove me to be more of a cooking minimalist. I’d make whatever sounded good to him, no matter how weird. And often the rest of us would make do with sandwiches or a bowl of cereal for dinner.

Jello? He got it, in every flavor. Sliced avocados with hummus. I’d go to the store and buy out the hummus flavors he liked. Some weird dish a friend at work mentioned. I made that, too. Most of the time he’d take a few bites and then reject it. It was frustrating to see him struggle and watch his weight drop. I collaborated with the oncology staff to find foods that would taste okay. We tried every nutrition shake on the market. I made smoothies, milkshakes, puddings, anything and everything.

But that didn’t leave a lot of emotional energy or time for creative meals for the rest of us and so, gradually, I stopped baking, except for holidays. Even then, we didn’t have any celebrations or real togetherness because he was just too sick. And frankly, when you’re watching someone dying, it’s hard to live.

And here’s where I type the pithy lesson. But I don’t really have one. Gradually, with Haley’s and her friend’s encouragement I’ve regained my enthusiasm for baking. I’ve tried so many new recipes – some complete failures, some in regular rotation now. And even though I’m struggling to like gluten free flour, I tried a new recipe today that I think might be fantastic gluten free. 

Yesterday, I picked up my mom’s 1950s Good Housekeeping cookbook and looked for cookie recipes specifically with her handwritten notes in the margins. When I touch those margin notes, knowing that she wrote them for herself, probably long before I was born, I feel that continuity, that connectedness, like handing down the family recipe to the next generation as you stand in the kitchen, teaching them how to make it. 

So, anyway, I owe more than a cookie’s debt of gratitude to Haley and her friend. Maybe I would have picked the baking back up again at some point but Haley’s friend encouraged me, probably without knowing it. And my daughter embraced my weird enthusiasm, as I started pushing cookies into the hands of every individual who visited our house.

Haley’s friend reads this blog sometimes  … Yes, darling girl, it’s you. Duh. … so, thank you. 

Next time, I’ll share some cookie recipes. Today’s baking exploration was Corn Cookies which I saw in a cooking TikTok from @bdylanhollis. It ended up being a lovely cookie and I’m going to try making it gluten free. But first Haley’s friend has to try it.

Much love.

Do You Want The Recipe?

HONK

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

I did not find the gratitude I was searching for last week. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to read that, Hallmark-movie-like, I awoke on Thanksgiving morning with a full resilience bucket and an abundance of … thankfulness?

Ah, to be so blithely happy. To find joy in the simple pleasure of feeding my family. 

It’s not so easy as all that. For anyone, if we’re being honest. 

I do find joy in putting a well-executed meal on the table, particularly on a nicely set holiday table. And our day together was lovely. A few bumps occurred, as expected … in particular the meringue crust for the chocolate cream pie but that edifying story will have to wait for my bitterness to fade to a mild astringency. Suffice to say, the meringue did things meringue is not supposed to do, namely expand during cooking to fit all the available space, and I do mean all.

As anyone who cooks with egg whites knows, meringue does not expand, does not spread, does not change its shape during cooking. In fact, it simply hardens, creates a lovely, crisp, outer crust, a shell if you will, that gives way to a chewy, flavorful center. The great thing about meringue is that it is as consistent as Greenwich Mean Time. Usually.

ANYWAY … since I’m clearly not over the meringue crust, we’ll be moving on now.

The thing about grief — which shows up as weariness, anger, lachrymosity, sometimes simply the absence of gratitude — is that it’s not linear. It’s not predictable. It’s not rational. It’s an emotional game of pinball. 

Sometimes, you sit in a kickout hole, racking up points while the chimes ring out your success. Sometimes, you bobble a popper and …. drain. It doesn’t matter how well you play, how much experience you have, this is the game and you get the lane that the plunger sends you to. Period. 

For those of you asking, yes, actually, I did play a lot of pinball when I was a younger version of myself. Now, I mostly play open world video games or tabletop RPG like DnD or Pathfinder. In video games, I’m the character who meanders all over the map, doing all the side quests, finding all the treasure chests, while the NPCs beg me to do the boss battle and save their villages. 

“Hurry, Thimul.” (that’s my current character’s name). “Our village needs you.” Yeah, yeah. But first, I need to find out who stole Remi’s chickens. Oh, and I need to return Froki’s bow. And I still haven’t figured out who is selling skooma in Riften. Your villages will be fine. I’ll get around to that boss battle … eventually.

When I play tabletop RPG, I am that player, the one who is a little too into her role. GooseGoose, my current Pathfinder character, is a goose bard. Yes, you read that correctly. I play a talking goose who travels from town to town singing for money. And yes, I do sing all the time in the game — as I do in real life, to the abiding chagrin of my youngest. (MOM. You’re singing “Elmo’s World” again.) 

Also, yes, in game, I honk a lot. It’s something I’m less inclined toward in the real world though, which honestly is disappointing. I’d like to be the person who walks through Target occasionally issuing a gentle honk but it would feel performative so I just don’t do it generally. 

Wow. How did we get on this topic?  I remember. I was avoiding talking about grief. Oh no. And now we’re out of time. We’ll have to postpone the grief talk to my next post.

If you have an Audible membership, consider listening to Tim Curry’s narration of A Christmas Carol. I listened to it while prepping the Thanksgiving meal and it’s honestly quite delightful.

Much love.

HONK