DIY

Sky Blue Eyes

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

I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of agency. One of the things I’ve struggled with the most since I lost Ken is my own agency. At first, after he died, I lived within the construct that was already established, long established, during and by our relationship. 

Over time, though, that construct started to crumble. I’ve mentioned before that a few months after Ken died, a doorknob fell off a door. (Apparently, Ken tightened doorknobs regularly and I just didn’t know or didn’t notice.) Instead of reacting as things happened to me, I needed to start acting — making choices and decisions about where to spend time, where to spend money. 

Maybe that’s a big DUH moment for all of you but for me it was both endlessly freeing and terrifying. Children in abusive households choose their survival strategies … stay with me here. I’m saying that, as a child, I had to decide whether to capitulate or fight. That wasn’t a conscious choice obviously and it wasn’t a single event. I usually chose to fight, which is probably not a surprise at all to people who know me well. And it’s not some bullshit humble brag either. Choosing violence in a violent household is a survival strategy, not a Tiktok video made to gain followers.

Anyway, the point is that AGENCY, the ability to act independently and to choose freely, is not something emphasized in abusive households. Since my husband was also raised in an abusive household, I think we probably unconsciously just leaned into each other’s survival strategies. Therefore, I didn’t have to learn to think and act independently until my husband died. GULP.

So, here I am, older than sliced bread, learning to make decisions for myself. I am living proof that old bitches (I will not call myself a dog and I will own the use of bitch as applied to myself and it’s amusing that it’s a bit of wordplay — HA!) …  can learn new tricks.

I’ve been sitting on the porch steps, listening to the baby birds in the nest above our back door. The parents were so discreet that we didn’t even realize we had bird neighbors until we heard the babies yelling at dad — more food please! — yesterday morning. Now, there’s a cardinal calling. I can’t see it — it’s perched in our enormous honeysuckle — but its call is loud and clear, standing out from the cacophony of early morning tweets and chirrups and cackles. 

The gift of our little backyard — watching a bird slip into its nest in the neighbor’s eaves, listening to the squirrel scolding the dog barking next door, sitting in the silent peace of a sunny afternoon — is a pleasure that makes me hope fall never comes. 

Yesterday, the sky was so intensely blue that looking up was like looking directly into my mother’s eyes (I looked up into my mother’s eyes the depth of the morning sky). My daughter was snoozing in the shade. My neighbors sat under their umbrella listening to pop music in another language. I could tell that it wasn’t English but I don’t hear well enough to know what language it was. They’re Scottish and Syrian so it really could be anything, including Donna Summer, Five For Fighting (yes, even THAT song which is a little surreal), classical, opera, folk music (mostly middle eastern). 

A couple weeks ago, they were listening to French pop music, deliberately loud in order to drown out my other-side neighbor who is also HOH but does not use headphones for her Zoom calls. Until Isla and Dan put on the French pop, we were all listening to a very explicit discussion of treatment options for a high-risk pregnancy. 

I wouldn’t say that I like listening to French pop but I like it a lot better than listening to analyses of transvaginal ultrasounds. Nothing against transvaginal ultrasounds other than that they’re extremely uncomfortable to receive (speaking from experience) but it does seem intrusive to listen to doctors talking about someone else’s. You know?

In other news, this week, we’ve been exploring lavender — lavender sugar, lavender lemon cake, lavender cream (in coffee). I don’t drink coffee so I can’t comment on that but the lavender lemon cake was delicious. And there’s an added bonus that the whole house smells great.

My saucy protagonists found something disturbing on their walk yesterday. They’re still processing it (and so am I) but it seems likely that they’re going to need to be very clever to get out of this situation. I left them in the middle of the woods, panicking, so I think I should get back to terrifying those teenagers now ….

Be kind today. 

Unclench your jaw. Relax your shoulders. Take a deep, SLOW breath. Find something to laugh about … if nothing else, here’s a mental image for you of my 10 year old Maine Coon learning to wear a collar with two very loud bells. He hates it but the birds and I are very happy that he jingles with every step he takes. 

Much love.

Sky Blue Eyes

Contractor Blues

Deb Zuroski, , , , , , , 1 Comment

I’m going back to bed. If you need me, I’ll be in my blanket burrito. 

The very, very, very worst part about adulting? Hiring contractors. I’ve had discussions with a gazillion (a flexible mathematical term that currently means six). Four of them said some version of “Yeah, I can’t help you. I only do this one thing and it’s not the thing you need. Why don’t you try X contractor? They definitely do that thing you definitely need.” 

The job itself is hardly unique. Our front steps are pulling away from the house. Mudjacking — I find it hilarious that I know what that term means — won’t work because the concrete is deteriorating. But no one, it seems, wants to demolish and rebuild our front stoop. 

One contractor said he’d come out but then didn’t. He did, however, email me a quote, possibly based on a picture from Google maps, that clearly showed he didn’t listen to anything I said to him on the phone. He actually quoted wrought iron railings to replace my brick handrails. 

First, I don’t hate myself enough to sign up for years of nearly annual railing painting. Second, if I change the railings, as I told him, I’ll have to file with the historic society for permission. I’ve never hated anyone enough for the double-whammy of wrought iron railings AND filing for approval from the mysterious and super secret historical society. I mean, what if I have to make some sort of animal sacrifice in exchange for iron railings? 

That contractor’s bid is also the physical proof of the “get three bids” advice. It’s so far above the other bids that it’s clear he thought “I don’t really want this job unless she’s stupid enough to accept this quote.” A second contractor came out last Friday and was great — helpful, enthusiastic about the existing design, and interested in improving things. He even pointed out an error in the original design that I never noticed and now will never be able to unsee (so thanks for that). Unfortunately, even the lowest bid was higher than I expected by a solid $3,000. Should I be surprised that things cost more than I want them to?!

I like to do a lot of the work myself, as you may know from past posts, but I’m not pouring concrete or trimming trees, which is the next project on the list. All but one of the trees are upwards of three stories tall and I dislike agonizing pain too much to dangle from a large tree while I saw off a limb — that we don’t know right now whether that limb would be human or tree just underscores what a bad idea it is. 

The tree trimming is essential. I personally saw squirrels carrying their suitcases across the tree limb bridge to the attic and I am not living with any more squirrels. They are the worst tenants I’ve ever had: playing some weird middle of the night hopscotch, chewing the loudest kettle crunch SOMETHING at 5AM, inviting more squirrels to move in even though their rental agreement limits residency to two squirrels, forever trying to pay their rent in acorns. They’re just the worst. 

On top of that, my next door neighbor, who, as I’ve mentioned before, is in his 90s, climbed out onto his roof to clean off the leaves left behind by MY tree. I spent a solid 15 minutes trying not to panic-watch him, as though somehow watching him will prevent a tumble from the porch roof. He did not fall, but I managed to make myself an anxious mess.

Someone will read this and ask why I don’t volunteer to clean the leaves off his roof. You could only ask me that if you’ve never had an independent 90-something neighbor. I made the mistake once of shoveling his sidewalk because I was outside already. He came out and scolded me like it was this past February in Texas and he was melting the snow to flush his toilets. So, instead of offering to clean his roof, I’m going to the source of the problem. HA 

Moving on …. There was a man painting a house — not painting a house (“miners, not minors”) — on our street during one of the nice weather spells recently and he wants to paint ours. He doesn’t need permission, of course, but I suspect that it’s less weird to talk with owners before setting up your easel in front of their houses. I imagine that can get kind of awkward. 

Anyway, the artist was painting the castle house the day he and I talked. It’s three doors up the street from us and has a round room with a turret. Yes, a turret. It’s a big stone house with a wrap-around stone porch and a three-story turret. The owners are really nice, genuine people who occasionally throw very loud parties to which the neighborhood is NEVER invited. (Isn’t that a violation of the neighborhood rules?) 

Apparently, they don’t know how much I want to see the inside of that turret! (I suspect that if I asked, they’d take me on a tour but I will not, in this lifetime, be that nosy. My sister’s lovely, long-suffering husband would disagree but I actually do have boundaries.) I did ask to see the finished oil painting and it’s just lovely. 

In other news, a lot is happening with my YA story. I usually write linearly but this time I wrote scenes in no order at all. Now, I’m sewing these individual events together, kind of like a quilt. It’s a lot of work without the very satisfying endorphin boost from a significant increase in word count but I can really see the story forming, which is fun and, honestly, a big relief. What if, after all this writing, I couldn’t figure out how to pull the story together?! Yikes. 

Thankfully, that’s not the case. Of course, there’s a lot more work to do before draft one is finished and after that, I’ll need to do a full read-through to see how well the story holds together, where I need to fix, enhance, delete, etc. I already have a bunch of notes about correcting things I changed. For example, I added a dog to the story a solid 10 chapters in which means those first 10 chapters have to change.

Did you recognize the “miners, not minors” reference? If you did, you probably read it in the incomparable Alan Rickman’s voice. The movie is Galaxy Quest, a wonderful homage to Star Trek and the entirety of the cosplay world. It’s funny, sweet, tender, and hilarious. 

Are you vaccinated yet? If not, please talk to your healthcare provider. For someone in your life, the world is a better place with you in it and the vaccine will increase the likelihood of you staying around a bit longer. Get vaccinated for them, if not for you.. 

Please remember that some people will keep wearing a mask. And you know what? That’s okay. Be safe. Be kind. 

Back to my blanket burrito ….

Contractor Blues

Sea Turtles, Butterflies, and Brownies

Deb Zuroski, , , , Leave a comment

Years ago, my husband replaced our key locks with keypads. It was a convenience thing mostly. We didn’t want to leave the ubiquitous key under the doormat for our kids in case they forgot their keys and we didn’t want to give out keys to people who inevitably need to get into the house. The keypad unlock codes are easy to create and just as easy to delete. It was one of those true perfect systems. 

At some point, we got a little sloppy with the code distribution and one day, unfortunately, my daughter woke up to someone in her room. I still get a sick feeling in my stomach when I think about what could have happened but the person who came in was a friend. My daughter had overslept. When she didn’t answer her friend’s call, the friend was understandably concerned and entered the house by a keycode we didn’t realize she even remembered/knew. Still, it was a big wake-up call for me and I deleted all the codes, created new codes for us and swore to never let that happen again!

Anyway, earlier this year, the keypads started to fail. I reset them, fiddled with them, replaced their batteries, took them apart, etc. They’d start working again temporarily, only to fail after a few days or a couple weeks. One evening, Haley and I came home a bit late from an outing. We were trying to solve a particular home repair problem … hours walking the hard floors of DIY big box stores, UGH. We had drive-through Wendy’s in the car and a few small packages of screws and bolts and … you know, STUFF. 

You saw it coming, didn’t you? Both keypads had failed again. We were locked out of the house. The temperature was below freezing. Ian wasn’t answering his phone. What could we do? 

Eat ALL the Wendy’s … no, no, that isn’t the answer. 

Break a window … wait, break a 125 year old window? Are you crazy? Those are irreplaceable. That wasn’t the answer.

Get the ladder out of its storage spot and climb onto the second floor …. NO. First, the ladder isn’t even tall enough to reach the roof. Second, that’s exactly the kind of thinking that leads to broken bones and hospitalizations.

So, what did we do? We banged on the door until we (or perhaps the hysterically barking dogs) woke Ian up and he let us in. A simple, noisy solution but it worked. And Ian got a share of the Wendy’s too.

Oh, and I’ve replaced the keypads. The hardest parts: finding keypads in the right colors and waiting for a somewhat warm day so I could work with the door open. The job took me about 45 minutes but mostly because I made a couple false starts, nearly removing stuff that didn’t need to go and … possibly … putting something on upside down. Anyway, they work great! 

Ian had a birthday recently. Since we’re not 100% vaccinated, it was another quiet one. As the birthday boy, he chose the meal — chicken fried rice with my own chocolate syrup brownies for dessert. Ian said that we weren’t allowed to sing so I did a brief spoken word birthday poem that made him say, “MOM.” Haley sang an aria and Tristan said, “Sorry, bud” and patted him on the shoulder. You’d think, after 15 years on this planet, he could have seen our responses coming.

Ian and Haley played a beautiful game of chess as part of the birthday entertainment. It’s the kind of game he excels at because, like his father, he’s actually good at playing three or four moves ahead. Haley is new but she’s also very good, especially at the end game. The outcome was inevitable because Ian has much more experience but it was a pleasure to watch. And the trap Ian set for Haley was one that Ken would have been proud of.

The recent cold spell delayed our butterfly release. Today is the big day! It reminds me of a trip we took in 2014 to Padre Island, a National Seashore, completely natural, with — literally — no phone service, and facilities only at the visitor center. We camped a mile from the access road, on an empty stretch of beach. It was quiet, windy, and amazing. Poor Ken, who hated being warm, hated sweating, and hated sand, was pretty miserable but he endured it for our sakes.

It was so hot on the beach that we got up at sunrise, not just because it was beautiful but also because the tents became unbearable within about 40 minutes after the sun came up. The water was so warm you could walk right in. Dolphins — and sharks — made regular appearances, following the schools of fish. They never came close enough to scare us out of the water, though small tropical fish sometimes tried to nibble my pink bathing suit. 

Anyway, one morning, we got up even earlier than usual in order to attend a turtle release. The Park Service has an extensive volunteer program to identify nests and ensure that the eggs are protected until it’s time for the hatchlings to be released. Because the island is deliberately untouched, there are many turtle predators — we had frequent close encounters with snakes, coyotes, and lizards. Alligators are also common in the marshes though we didn’t see any, not even from our kayaks. 

Sea turtle babies walk into the ocean toward the sun as it rises above the horizon so you have to be at the beach early to watch a hatchling release. We stood there for over an hour, as the temperature climbed from the chilly 60s into the 90s, watching turtle hatchlings about the size of a silver dollar crawl slowly toward the water, eventually getting picked up by the tide and swept out of sight. 

As we prepare to release these nine butterflies, I’m thinking about those turtle babies. Did any of them make it? Did they return as adults (many do) to lay their eggs on Padre Island? Will our butterfly hatchlings lay eggs in our butterfly garden? Will we see future generations of the butterfly cycle at work? At a minimum, we’ll give these little ones a fighting chance by releasing them when our pets are inside the house! 

Time to get back to work:  My protagonist has added another wrinkle. She still has feelings for an ex-boyfriend from high school. He’s a cutie with dark eyes and a teasing grin. What’s a girl to do? What’s the author to do? She needs to do some healing, focus on some self-care, not get involved or re-involved with someone. But will she listen to me or herself? She’s a teenager, so that seems unlikely.

Take a deep, slow breath: in through your nose, out through your mouth. 

Stay safe. Wear your mask. Get BOTH of your shots (unless you got the J&J, in which case, please only get one shot!).

Much love.

Sea Turtles, Butterflies, and Brownies

DIY Faucets, Switches and Pizza

Deb Zuroski, , , , , 2 Comments

One of my kids had an IN-PERSON appointment today. I’m sitting in the waiting room looking at their artwork and wondering who thought it was a good idea to hang a very large picture of an angry man looking straight out of the canvas. I’m feeling very judged in my jeans with the hole in the knee! But too bad. I love these jeans and also, I’m very happy that we arrived early and freshly showered. One has to celebrate the little things.

As is the nature of home-ownership, as soon as I got the dishwasher humming along, the faucet in the kitchen decided that 10 years was long enough. I disagreed and disassembled it to see if there was something clogged. It’s one of those spray faucets, which look cool but aren’t super easy to disassemble. The internet suggested several options. I have now tried all of them, including soaking the spray head in vinegar overnight. None of my efforts have improved the situation. In fact, the faucet continues its campaign to retire and I am slowly coming to the realization that perseverance may not get me anything but very, very slow running water.

I’ve replaced faucets before so I suspect that it won’t be more than the normal amount of annoying. The worst part of faucet work is how tired my arms get as I lay under the sink, applying putty and tightening bolts … and occasionally feeling the water drip in my hair or on my forehead, running down into my ear. 

Last weekend, a light switch mysteriously stopped working. The light is now permanently on. Since it is not a bedroom light, it’s slightly less important than a non-working faucet but it’s definitely on the honey-do list. I’ve replaced light switches before (yay, two things I know how to do!) but since electricity scares the heck out of me, I have to turn off all the electricity to the house in order to do the work. That’s annoying and requires coordination with family members who don’t like it when I spontaneously (to them) shut off the electricity. Yes, I know there’s a better way but since I haven’t killed myself yet, this clearly works for me.

My daughter is in spring-cleaning mode and yesterday she pulled up the carpet in her closet. We have mostly hardwood floors in our house except for those darn carpeted stairs (see previous rants about vacuuming stairs!) and the floor of some closets. (I’m not really sure why people carpet closets and apparently neither is my daughter.) The good news is that she found a beautiful hardwood floor underneath a hideous green pile carpet of indeterminate age. 

It’s not that much of a surprise. The previous owner told us that he had covered the hardwood on the second floor with laminate (why would anyone do that?!) but we’ve never checked because, honestly, we’ve had other things to do. 

The bad news is that, now that I have confirmation that the original floor is intact, I have to fight my inner beast. She-who-roars (inside my head) wants to rip up all the laminate right now to expose the original flooring. We don’t need to do that now. We don’t need to do that now. We don’t need to do that now…. Any bets on whether the inner, impetuous problem-creator or the outer, sensible problem-solver will win this battle? 

I just finished reading a young adult new release (and NYT best seller!) called Wings of Ebony, by J. Elle. It’s about a powerful Black girl who discovers she has root magic. She is caught between her origins in Houston and her ORIGINS. There’s some graphic violence, a lot of grief, complex and sometimes hard to follow magic, and a good bit of anger over colonization. If you enjoy reading YA fiction with strong female leads, it’s worth your time, even with its problems (which I hope she is able to solve with book 2). 

Wings of Ebony is only one of a bunch of children’s books worth picking up. If you still think Dr Seuss is the epitome of children’s lit, you haven’t looked in the kids’ section of a book store in a long time. 

About Dr Seuss I will only say this: many of the people we admire are not wholly good. Geisel created racist imagery. That’s a fact. That fact doesn’t make The Cat in The Hat, for example, any less of a treasure but it does acknowledge that some of his books were and are hurtful. If you are having a panic attack about Geisel’s foundation stopping sales of material that is actively hurtful to huge portions of the population, it might be time for you to do some self-discovery. See also, Disney’s Song of the South ….

And that’s all I have to say about that.

As I was preparing the dough (recipe link below!) for tonight’s cast iron skillet pizza, I did a little mental math. We’ve used more than 80 pounds of flour since the start of the pandemic. That’s a lot of bread, pizza dough, (chicken pot) pie crusts, cookies! 

Skillet pizza is genius for us because we’re particular about our toppings. My daughter is from the school of you-can’t-have-enough-veggies. Ian prefers pepperoni and black olives. I like a meat-lover’s pizza, light on the crust, heavy on the cheese. I doubt that I’ll ever order pizza again, honestly, not when I can make it at home, exactly the way I like it.  We made three 10-inch pizzas and ate all but one slice. We even have enough dough left to make garlic knots to go with tomorrow’s “something and sauce” as a dear friend’s mom used to say. 

For those of you interested in a homeschooling update, Ian is about halfway through Earth Abides, a great post-pandemic story that, unfortunately, includes some painful stereotypes. We’ve had some great discussions about racism as Ian has questioned some of the language and descriptions in the book. 

We’ve started combining our current events discussions with some historical context. During the freeze in Texas, we spent quite a bit of time following the catastrophe, exploring their role in the Civil War, recent secession threats and how those align with their request for federal aid, as well as the history behind the devastating heating bills some of their citizens are now facing. (It takes a lot of after-hours research to make these conversations work!)  

Our first crocus bloomed — purple! — over the weekend. The sun was bright and warm against chilly March winds. It was cold again today but that’s just Winter’s final temper tantrum before it heads off to its room to sulk. Spring has arrived.

Here’s the recipe for our pizza dough. If you want the easy-peasy details for making skillet pizza, hit me up in the comments below.

Stay safe. Wear your mask. 

Much love.

DIY Faucets, Switches and Pizza

If You Give a Cat a Twist Tie

Deb Zuroski, , , , , 2 Comments

My elderly cat — she is 18 or 19 — has always had a penchant for bringing a little something to the food bowl. As a last resort, she’ll carry a stuffie or sock to gnaw on in between bites of cat food but her favorite item — far and away — is a twist tie. My next question, really my only question: where does she find the abundance of twist ties? Socks? Pretty easy to find. We leave socks stuffed inside shoes or drop them by the washer. Stuffies? The dogs leave them absolutely everywhere. 

But twist ties? I may not be the tidiest housekeeper you’ll meet but I can assure you that there are no twist ties just lying around for a cat to collect. Does she have a secret stash? Can she open the junk drawer to get one out? Does she have a twist tie radar that pings out the coordinates to the lone twist tie that somehow ended up under the frig? I expect that I’ll never know the answer, that I’ll go to my grave (or the crematorium) with this question lingering like the last hint of honeysuckle in the air.  

I have been thinking a lot recently about “what I’m good at” and “what I like to do.” For some, these are usually complementary concepts. With the exception of writing and making foods that I shouldn’t eat, I’m sorry to report that I can’t claim that level of compatibility. That’s okay, though. Instead of being good at things, I am learning how to do things. 

Last week, I installed a new dishwasher. Removing the old, broken one was the hard part, surprisingly. While it wasn’t heavy, it was … um, connected, tightly, with the screws inserted backwards. There was a lot of puzzling and out-of-the-box thinking involved in figuring out how to remove screws that couldn’t be reached and how to remove epoxy (don’t ask) and on and on.

Connecting all the bits and pieces and having the new dishwasher work was an extraordinary feeling … until I heard Haley say, “Uh, Mom. You need to come down here.” Water was dripping, paint was bubbling. The dishwasher was leaking into the finished basement, in exactly the same place I repaired after the old dishwasher leaked in 2015. Sigh. 

I’d like to thank the inventors of pipe dope and the internet for assisting me in figuring out that teflon tape was not the leak-proof solution I had expected. And yes, for those who will inevitably ask, I did test for leaks prior to running the dishwasher. To the dishwasher industry, I would like to suggest a product enhancement:  the addition of a leak frog to the underside of the dishwasher! 

Really, the greatest gift to myself since I lost Ken nearly 4 years ago has been allowing myself to learn, to make mistakes, to try with uncertainty. Yes, I will be checking the basement drywall for damage and yes, I’ll be repainting a wall where the paint bubbled but that’s okay. I learned that I can replace my own dishwasher and that I can fix mistakes in the process. The dishwasher has been working like a champ for a week now and I’ve chiseled away at another insecurity. 

A member of my writing critique group gave me the nicest compliment, saying that they could see their teacher-spouse reading my latest book to their classroom. I hope I find an agent who agrees with that assessment.

The weather is improving here. We’ve had multiple dry, warm-ish days and even held school outside today for the first time. It was lovely to sit on our patio while the birds chirped and tweeted and the neighborhood kids giggled and shrieked and the sun shone on the backs of our pets as they sprawled in the warmth.

Stay safe. Wear a mask. Get your Fauci ouchie.

Much love.

If You Give a Cat a Twist Tie