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Free To A Good Home

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

Chemo Break Week – it’s like Spring Break without the alcohol, loud music, sunburn, and strangers trying to touch your butt. 

I’d love to say that day one of my off-week was incredible. I’d love to say that I won the lottery even though I didn’t play. I’d love to say that I can eat any food without it going straight to my thighs. You get the picture. Just be thankful you weren’t with me last evening/night. It wasn’t pretty. But enough about that. 

We’re spring-cleaning this week, while I have a little more energy. First, I do my daily writing sprints. Then, we work on cleaning up, cleaning out, and moving on. It’s a task my therapist recommended, something I dreaded, to be honest. But we’re finding it less difficult than I had expected. I guess we’ve gotten a clearer picture of what matters most to us. 

I know we could sell things but mostly we’re giving them away. That’s not some sign that I’ve received terrible news or anything. It just means that we want our living space more energizing and don’t see a reason to sell what can benefit others if freely given. 

In other news, my eldest son just finished developing a tabletop RPG that’s going to be included in a game bundle. All proceeds from the sale of the bundle will go directly to an LGBTQIA+ children’s shelter. I’ll give you all the details when the game becomes available. The entire bundle will cost $5 and will include somewhere around 500 games. Yep – that’s approximately $0.01 per game. Watch this space for the details if you’re interested in supporting an at-risk community and a great bunch of indie game developers.  

Tomorrow’s a big day – my round 1 chemo check-in with my oncologist. We have lots to cover – results of my latest bloodwork, the origin testing – gene tests that help determine if there’s something about my cancer that warrants special treatment, my delightful chemo side-effects, and … my weight loss (GULP). Should be a fun day. Might need a nap after.

Much love.

Free To A Good Home

How Do You Calculate …?

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When I was 17 and nearing high school graduation, my beloved paternal grandmother, Myrtle the Turtle Traffic Light (I’ve talked about her before) was nearing the end of her life. She had cancer that she’d hidden from us for reasons she didn’t, perhaps couldn’t, explain. We didn’t find all this out until she called my mom for help with pain that she could no longer endure silently. 

It was 1984 – there were no PET/CT scans for cancer detection yet so Grandma Myrtle was admitted to the hospital for exploratory surgery that determined cancer was consuming her body. There was nothing they could do but try to keep her comfortable. She had a stroke while her body was healing from surgery. It took her voice, though she was able to gesture and listen to my chatter. The second stroke took her awareness. As I sat beside her bed, holding her hand, I could see that she had already left her body. But still, I held onto her until her last breath left. 

My sister and I had spent significant time with her as young children. She was busy, charismatic, active in her community, a widow for 15 years before she died, and a bit of a mystery to me. Nothing phased her. She could organize bus trips for seniors, run her local political chapter, take walks with her granddaughters, and teach her apartment neighbors how to play crazy bridge. 

How could anyone as strong be bested by illness? There was a lot of death in my childhood but somehow, perhaps because she was so easy to love?, her death hit harder. I worried about how she had endured the painful months leading to her call to my mom. When we cleaned out her apartment, we discovered dozens of empty liquor bottles in her storage. She managed the pain with alcohol. This, with the mental acuity of hindsight, is exactly the sort of pragmatic, low fuss solution I would expect of my grandmother. 

I’m halfway through week two of my first round of chemo. Have I explained the chemo pill treatment before? It’s simple – four pills twice per day for two weeks, then one week of no pills, then four pills twice per day for two weeks and on and on through the end of August. 

Last night, for only the second time since starting chemo, I was hit by a nausea brick. One moment, I was talking with my daughter. The next, I was standing, ready to race to the bathroom but deep breathing in hopes of preventing the forceful return of the single lemon Oreo I had just eaten. This is not a critique of Oreos. They are – aside from some of those misguided new flavors (pop rocks? In an Oreo?) – the perfect blend of crunchy cookie and creamy center. A lemon Oreo had seemed like a good mid-afternoon snack. Turns out that it was, instead, the day’s regret. 

While I was deep-breathing, my daughter was grabbing the Compazine. It helped enough that I was able to eat a very, very light meal (rice, just rice) so I could take my next round of chemo. That’s the important thing, you know. If at all possible, the chemo should continue. And so it does.

Next time, how about a story of my daughter’s cat, who waits for my middle-of-the-night bathroom visits to grab me around my ankle and attack? Every single time. Since he’s all black, he blends in. I’ve convinced myself that I could, otherwise, dodge his attacks. He’s a kitten and faster than the speed of sound. I definitely will never dodge his attacks. 

Much love. 

How Do You Calculate …?

Humans Only Have One Ending

Deb Zuroski, , , , , , , 1 Comment

I was working on a day-in-treatment blog post, thinking it might be useful to someone on the interwebs, but it was so boring I didn’t finish, deeming a nap more interesting. 

Instead, you’re getting a detailed retelling of one of my epic post-surgery dreams. What I remember is that I was sitting …. Yeah, no. I’m not doing that. I HAVE had an incredible number of seriously epic dreams in the last month, which seems to be very common after major surgery. By epic, I mean, they’re like whole-ass movies, even though they’re actually rather brief. I’m not sharing them, though, because dreams suffer in the re-telling. 

Disappointed that you won’t be getting dream stories? Sorry. They’ll cool and all but we need to talk about something important. Are you ready?

Even though I told you not to, you’ve Dr Googled my diagnosis. You’ve seen the survival rates, haven’t you? Don’t try to deny it. I can tell. I too know the survival rate is in the teens because I got my biopsy results a full week before my follow-up appointment. Do you know what it’s like to sit with that kind of information – keeping it to yourself – for a full week, probably longer, while trying to interact in a normal way with the people most important to you? You probably don’t. 

The truth is that I read the biopsy report late at night, sitting in the broken down old recliner – my husband’s favorite chair – where I slept because I couldn’t yet lie flat. And yes, my heart sank a little when I saw “carcinoma.” I immediately searched the word, struggling to spell it correctly. I wanted to know what cholangiocarcinoma was. The 17% survival rate seemed to shout from the laptop that couldn’t yet rest on my lap because, even now, I have tender, healing robot holes. 

I have cried exactly once since I first saw the liver lesion on my MRI results. It was December. I was walking to the coffee shop to work and had to take a break on a bench down the street so the tears could fall unseen by the baristas. I didn’t cry for me but for my children who were going to be devastated if I had cancer. It’s the only time I have felt like crying because Dr Google only tells about 1% of the story. It’s useful for advocacy and for support but it can’t tell you what my doctors know.

The difference between us is important: you have a web browser and a search engine, whereas I have those AND a care team. Until you have the latter, you don’t have the whole story. 

Some of you have been in those oncology conversations, just as I was with my husband. Oncologists don’t sugar-coat. They don’t talk in percentages and they are straight shooters. We knew at our first appointment that Ken was terminal. Guess what I did NOT hear? Yeah, I did not hear that I’m terminal. 

I’ve told you all before that I, too, will give you the straight truth and I am. My doctors are absolutely delighted, smiling and excited about my prognosis. I don’t currently have any cancer in my body. My chemo is preventive. It might become a regular feature of my life. I don’t know and won’t know that for at least six months. 

There’s a lot that none of us know: how I’ll respond to chemo (since I’ve only been on it for seven days); who will win Lord Stanley’s cup; how many temperature records we’ll break this year; when each of us will die. 

So, that being said, my friends, stop being weird. I am exactly the same person I was last year at this time. I could drop over dead tomorrow or celebrate my 90th birthday or anything in between. There is no terminal diagnosis. Someday there might be. And if there is, I’ll tell you. 

Believe me; I appreciate you and your well-wishes more than I can say. It’s still a huge journey and the risks are great. That said; if you talk to me like I’m a walking corpse, I will make fun of you.  

Now, how about a few pieces of news? I’m back to working on my latest book. It had to wait a bit until I could sit up comfortably, stay awake, keep my brain working, hold a laptop, etc. I need to get it done before chemo brain fog sets in but I’m at somewhere around 60,000 words so that’s absolutely do-able. 

I’ve been walking with my daughter and our dogs as the weather has improved. The dogs are more tired than I am afterwards and we’re all appreciating warmer days. I’ve finally finished two of my medications. And after weeks sleeping in a chair, I can lie flat to sleep and have moved back into my bedroom, two steep flights of stairs (approximately 44 steps) from the living room where I spend most of my day. 

These accomplishments may seem small to you but I remember that first attempt to put on my shoes, touch my toes, pour a glass of juice for myself. And I’m delighted to be exactly where I am right now.

Much love.

Humans Only Have One Ending

A little rain under the robotic knife

Deb Zuroski, , , , , 5 Comments

Life is so crazy some days. And then others, you’re sitting on the side of the road in Texas waiting for the police officer to issue you a warning for doing absolutely nothing.

My paternal grandmother, Myrtle the Turtle Traffic Light, as my sister and I use to call her before dissolving into the sorts of giggles produced only by very young children, was the kind of woman who would absolutely have been a rule-breaker, a flapper, a radical feminist. She was a little bit wild, an assertive leader, who received surprisingly naughty letters from her future husband. Those letters have changed me (what is once seen cannot ever be unseen) in ways that are probably not for the better. I think I’d have preferred to see her letters instead of his but apparently men of that era were less inclined to keep love letters tied in a bundle.

Many years ago, probably in the late 1970s, Grandma MtTTL took my sister and me to see a version of The Ink Spots perform at The Brown Derby, a long-ago restaurant in Erie. We were the only children in the audience and those elderly men were absolutely delighted to introduce us to the music that has influenced so many musicians who came after. 

The Ink Spots profoundly proclaimed in one of their songs “Into every life, rain must fall.” No one, in the history of forever, has been more right than they were in that song. 

There’s a thing – it’s not X, Y. or Z. It could be an anomalous A or a blah, blah, blah. It’s big and it’s on my liver. By the time most of you read this, I will be in robotic surgery, after which I’ll rest in some high-monitor unit of a hospital. I’ll be lighter by 20% of my liver and grumpy. Neither of these would be normal for me; nor were they on my bingo card for 2024. See the above paragraphs for pithy wisdom about predicting your future.

Why am I telling you mid-event? Why am I telling you at all? Why me? (Why not me?) There are no good answers to these or many other questions. I won’t have access to technology for a few days and then I’ll be using my initially limited energy to finish a project I’ve been working on. I will check in, though, to let you all know about life with less liver.

Don’t worry about me. I’m in good hands and in good spirits. And I’ll have a cool scar to add to my collection. Maybe, if it’s worth it, I’ll write a blog about the experience. 

Life is crazy some days. 

Much love. 

A little rain under the robotic knife

A Scoop of Birthday Cake Ice Cream To Go

Deb Zuroski, , , , , , 2 Comments

I’ve been working on a blog post for days. DAYS, I tell you. Something hasn’t clicked though and all of those words, thousands of them, have gone to the digital trash heap in the cloud. (IYGIYGI)

Recently, I got into a … verbal altercation … with someone. This is unusual for me. I am not the kind of person who invests in that sort of drama. It shook me, if you want to know the truth. The woman, unfortunately for me, works at a store that I go to relatively frequently and now I’m debating whether I can return. I may be leaving the country and changing my name.

Technically, I was not at fault, as she started it. Nonetheless, I have gone over my own behavior (a post-mortem, you know) and I think I could have handled the situation more effectively. Blergh. There’s nothing to be done other than to determine whether I can bring myself to go back to that place again. Conflict sucks.

I’m at the coffee shop, working on a book. Up until today, it’s been going well, making me laugh, though this afternoon I spend most of my time reflecting back the light of a blank screen or pressing delete to erase badly constructed sentences. I sigh and look up to see a couple in line to get drinks. They’re turned toward each other, laughing, bits of their bodies touching in that way that couples sometimes have. It’s as though their whole beings are slightly magnetized so that if they’re close enough, their bodies automatically make contact – two fingers, their shoulders, even their hair. It’s so lovely to watch the dance of their connectedness.

The day itself is sharply melancholy in that way a day can be. It’s beautiful – warm with the crisp scent of spring and the bright light of a cloudless sky – but all of the things that make it beautiful are things that, in the coin flip of daily life, also create the perfect conditions for melancholia.

Groups of people gather, their chatter incessant, almost boisterous. A couple sits at the window, their hands clasped on the table. As they get up to leave, she takes his arm and snuggles into his shoulder before he slips his arm from her grasp and, instead, takes her hand, twining their fingers together. They walk out of the shop smiling at each other. 

Someone asks to take the extra chair from my table. I’m alone, of course, so it’s empty and available to them. I nod and they slip the chair into place at another table, one that already has six chairs stuffed around it. Now those people sit around the tiny table. It’s so small that their ring of chairs creates a moat of knees encircling the table. They too are loud with the found joy of their togetherness, sipping lattes, hot teas, espressos, and a loan Americano.

Enough of this mood. I head home and make my youngest a meatball sub for dinner. He’s delighted by my attempt to alter the energy of my day but I still haven’t accomplished that. Fine. I can do better. I text my daughter and offer her and her roomie free ice cream. I defy anyone to feel gloomy with handmade ice cream. 

They meet me at the ice cream shop. It’s called Treat, apropos for an ice cream shop. I get a scoop of salted caramel, though the lavender raspberry was a very close second. My guests get mint chocolate chip and a combo of creamy peach and lemon drop custard. It’s all great, honestly. Unfortunately, it is also unsuccessful at releasing me from this funk. Ridiculous. If even a scoop of ice cream enjoyed on a shady bench can’t brush the dour mist from my gaze then it might be smarter to just start again tomorrow. 

There’s no point in continuing to write comedy when the words flowing from my fingers lack even the wit of the grave.

Hoping that tomorrow brings me counsel and you delight.

Much love.

A Scoop of Birthday Cake Ice Cream To Go

Socks and Soothes

Deb Zuroski, , , , , 2 Comments

I’m procrastinating this morning. I *should* be perfecting chapter one, now that the novel is done. Instead, I am doing anything that will enable me to avoid working on that damn chapter. And by anything, I really do mean ANYTHING, including writing the book review that I have tried to write three times previously. I hated the ARC so much that I’ve been writing my feelings. That’s a bit like eating my feelings but fewer calories, more mean words. 

It’s been weirdly beautiful in Pittsburgh which doesn’t seem fair since the AQI was 223 on Friday and above 150 yesterday. Shouldn’t Mother Nature send us apocalyptic imagery to warn us of danger? Instead, she’s been giving us glorious clear days with warm temperatures to entice us outside to be poison  …. Hold up. Nice play, Mother Nature. Well done, you.

I’m working on a craft article – also a procrastination strategy except for the money aspect, of course. Writing about writing is difficult because the advice will always be the same. If you want to be good at anything, including writing, you need to dream about it, think about it constantly, and hope. No, no. Sorry. I was thinking about something else. If you want to be good at something, you have to do it over and over and over again. That’s it. 

You won’t necessarily become good by practicing a lot but you’ll definitely get better. I, for example, will never be an opera singer but I can get better at singing by singing. My youngest son knows this because I do it all the bloody time and he is … unsympathetic to my goals. Also, I haven’t improved much, to be fair. That won’t stop me, though, because you should not ever let external voices stop you from trying to reach your goals. 

Socks, the puppy who lives a few doors down from us, likes to hold his own leash when he walks every morning at about the same time that we leave the house. Yes, that’s right. A golden retriever puppy – maybe three months old? – goes for a walk on my street every morning and holds his own leash. I don’t know why but that feels like the external realization of my life goals – doing what I want and holding my own leash while I do it.

My therapist retired. She told me that I’m the client she has known the longest, which should be awesome but feels like it is probably depressing. I don’t feel depressed about it but I suspect that if I were to talk about it, other people would give me that look, the one that says “god damn, you’re actually crazy.” Shouldn’t we spend our lives working to be better, healthier versions of ourselves? God knows that I’ve had the kind of life where that sort of work should be a constant. 

Thanks to the toxicity of our healthcare payment system and our social rhetoric, mental health is viewed as something taboo or dangerous. By having a therapist, I’m telling the world that there is something wrong with me. Well, there is something wrong with me and you should all thank me for trying to reduce its impact on you. HA

Many, many college students frequent the coffee shop where I am now. Coffee shops didn’t really exist when I was a student (before the time of the dinosaurs). My college had a very smoky, basement dive where I could get a crappy sandwich except that I was dead broke 100% of the time, so, instead, I brought PB&J to eat while I sat there and did homework. It was my favorite hangout but before I discovered that place, I was close with another student. We went to high school together and had the same major for a bit. I had four different majors in college so it wasn’t an extended closeness but memorable. We used to study in the library together, near a table of engineering students. I didn’t realize until much later in life (yesterday) that engineers in the 1980s rarely saw women in their classes. It explains a lot. 

One day, I was walking to our usual table and the guys stopped me. They wanted to know where my friend was. Now, you know, I’m a fairly mouthy person. It might even be safe to say that my personality is BIG MOUTH. This is an important point because, as a 20 year old, I catered to these cute boys for months, flirting and the whole deal, and what did they say when I showed up on the second floor of the library without my bestie? “Where is SHE?” 

If life were a movie, my rage would have caused them to disintegrate. Instead, because they were 20-something boys, they were just confused by my frustrated response, my ‘80s version of “seriously?”. It’s worth noting that those are the men who post on Reddit now talking about how completely clueless they were in college. Yes, yes, you were. Stupid men. 

As far as I know, my friend from those days had zero interest in those boys. She was brilliant, had a full ride and is massively successful these days. I, on the other hand, had a partial scholarship and no idea what I wanted out of life. Still don’t honestly. I did know, however, that I was very interested in one particular boy at that table. I don’t even remember his name, have no idea where life took him, but I do remember that feeling, most particularly that feeling of not being the one he wanted. 

After I told them all to go to H-E-double hockey sticks (I didn’t swear back then), I moved on. There was a super-cute rugby player. Need I say more? He was also a genuinely nice person and I hope that he too is massively successful at whatever he ended up doing.

What did I learn in college? I learned that rugby > engineering. 

Much love. And sorry for the title. I couldn’t help myself.

Socks and Soothes

Little Green Umbrella

Deb Zuroski, , , , , 1 Comment

Give me the confidence of a woman who talks to strangers with the justified expectation that her conversational gambits will be successful. She jumped right into a conversation with me by pointing to my umbrella (stuffed into my backpack because it isn’t raining.) and telling me that it reminds her to buy a little one to carry around with her. 

I took my headphones out and responded to her. It took a minute, actually, to pull me out of my work and figure out what she meant. I’m so used to the little green umbrella tucked in the outside pocket of my bag that, at first, I didn’t realize that was what she was pointing toward. 

She told me that no one carries good, small umbrellas anymore. She’s got big umbrellas but they’re a pain to carry around and she forgets them. The little ones break as soon as there is a stiff breeze and what good is that. Honestly, she’s not wrong. 

From there, somehow, we ended up in a discussion of the loss of local shopping options. She doesn’t like malls and hated when Kaufmann’s was sold to Macy’s. Apparently, there were lots of good stores downtown at one point. My favorite was Kaufmann’s – good sales, good clothes, great bakery. It was 11 delightful floors of fun and I miss it, even though I would probably never go there these days. 

Downtown shopping led to a lengthy critique of communities – she mourns the loss of sandwich shops in the community where I’m sitting right now. There really aren’t any good sandwich shops in the area. Hmm. Another good point from my new friend. I see her at the coffee shop every time I’m here and I’ve never considered talking to her. Just busy, you know. Who else has something to share? Who else just wants someone to talk with for a bit?

We chatted for maybe 30 minutes and then she left to catch the bus. She rides public transport from the North Hills community every day to come to this coffee shop because she knows the owner. Also, she likes Millie’s ice cream and would like them to open a store here because there’s no good ice cream in our neighborhood. (She’s also right about that.)

I just turned down my music so I could eavesdrop on my table neighbor. He spends a couple hours here every day, working on a project that seems to be life-changing. It probably isn’t but who doesn’t think their projects are life-changing?! Anyway, he received some bad news today about the project, slammed his computer shut, cursed under his breath for a few minutes and then left. SAME, brother. SAME.

Can we talk about the creepy coffeeshop regular who touched me — very creepily — the other day? Actually, I don’t want to talk about it. Any woman reading this already knows EXACTLY what I would say. Any guy reading this — if you even THINK for a blink of a moment that it was an accident, I hope you get cramps in your calves every night about 15 minutes after you fall asleep for the rest of your life OR until you realize that men don’t run their hands along other MEN’S backs accidentally. Weird coincidence, that.

Lots of stuff – shorts and poems – out to sub right now and the novel in revision. I wish I could type faster to get everything done that I’m trying to do. I have absolutely the most hilarious idea for a holiday novella. I just can’t wait to get to it but I also have two new novels in planning. It’s raining ideas and I don’t have an umbrella…oh wait. I’ve got that little green one in my backpack.

Much love.

Little Green Umbrella

The Bennet Daughters

Deb Zuroski, , , , , , , 2 Comments

I rehomed a wolf spider yesterday but I missed her this morning. She’s been getting herself trapped in the bathtub every day for almost a week. 

Every morning, before my shower, I rescued her and put her on the bathroom floor so she could find a good spot to build her web, safe while the bathroom door is closed. My house is a dangerous place for spiders. I have two cats and three dogs, and four of those five creatures like to eat spiders. 

My kitchen already supports two wolf spiders – Jane and Elizabeth. They catch the flies that occasionally get in when the dogs leave the screen ‘door’ open. It’s a hanging screen, split down the middle, that closes with magnets. Sometimes the dogs push through the screen too enthusiastically and the magnets attach themselves to the door latch. It’s like a big, flashing WELCOME sign to all the neighborhood flies. 

Jane and Elizabeth are very efficient and enthusiastic housekeepers. Sometimes I have to explain them. People think cobwebs mean I don’t clean my house (it’s definitely not my strongest skill but I do clean … occasionally). I like to think that the cobwebs are a sign that I support the broader community of beings who live in my house – except flies and mosquitoes. I am an unwilling fly and mosquito landlord. 

When I first discovered Lydia in the tub, I had already turned on the shower. She was clinging to the no-slip mat, already soaked and terrified. (Do spiders get terrified? I can’t think about that. I’ll start having nightmares about frightened spiders running away from my murderous cats.) 

I didn’t name her that first day. I put a towel down in the tub so she could climb up and out, onto the floor. Usually after that initial rescue, they don’t return. The basement, where this bathroom is located, is a spider wonderland. They’re great residents, controlling the inevitable population of pill bugs and other damp-loving bugs. It’s a Pittsburgh basement, what can I say?

On day two, being a thoughtful landlord, I checked the tub first. With no wolf spider in residence, I turned on the water. It wasn’t until the rinse cycle of my shower that I realized there was a wolf spider very reluctantly taking a shower with me. She was on the wet lid of the facewash, getting splashed every time I turned to rinse some other part of my soapy self. Poor baby.

I turned off the water, put her on the bathroom floor, and named her Lydia. Technically, her name should be Kitty but this spider is clearly a Lydia – always acting without thinking, getting herself into situations, and charming people into doing things for her. 

Mary is a house spider. She lives next to the bathroom door hinge and manages the tiny bug population for me. She’s kind of a loner. We don’t really interact. In fact, she hides whenever I clean the bathroom. I know she’s there because of the little carcases she leaves for me to sweep up.

Finally, when I found Lydia in the tub again yesterday, for the fifth time, I picked her up and took her into the unfinished portion of the basement. She’ll be fine there, well-fed and productive. 

Like I said, though, I looked for her this morning, knowing she wouldn’t be there. She put a smile on my face every morning for five days, a gift really. Thank you, Lydia; take care of yourself. Stay away from the cats. 

The Bennet Daughters

Saturday Market

Deb Zuroski, , , , 1 Comment

Farmers markets are bountiful in Pittsburgh. There’s at least one every day, except Friday. My favorite is the Saturday Market in the Bloomfield neighborhood. If you aren’t very familiar with Pittsburgh’s many neighborhoods, Bloomfield is one that you might overlook for its wealthier and more popular nearby neighbors, Lawrenceville and Shadyside. 

Bloomfield is a little rough around the edges, a beloved out-of-print book with a cracked spine and creased pages, oh and a coffee cup stain on the cover. A true city neighborhood, most of the houses sit shoulder to shoulder with occasional, narrow, shared-access walkways between. Tiny backyards are the only lawns for many residents since the houses abut the extensive, also rough-around-the-edges, sidewalks.  

Like most city neighborhoods, treasures abound in Bloomfield. There are houses with beautiful front flower gardens using upcycled objects like old wicker chairs, shelving, tomato sauce cans as the pots. You can spot delightful artwork on some old storefronts but you have to be paying attention, which really requires a slow walking tour rather than a drive. I highly recommend the paintings of the boxers but I won’t be telling you where to find them. The fun is in the exploration, the treasure hunt.

So, you want ice cream and Millie’s is too far away? Scoops doesn’t make their own but they have probably 35 different flavors of popular brands and they make MALTS. Gryphon Teas has a store front and they attend the Saturday Market with coffee and a different shrub – here a nonalcoholic sugar, fruit and vinegar drink – every day (today’s was citrus rose). My favorite shrub is their strawberry lavender. It might sound weird but it’s delicious and refreshing.

White Whale Books does local author talks. If you’re looking to mix it up with some brilliant and eclectic people, the Big Idea Cooperative Bookstore is run by a bunch of liberal hippies – my people – who have weekend events and a wonderful food pantry outside that’s always accessible. Some of the folks there are anarchists and they’re great for a chat, if you’re looking for something to do on a weeknight. Even if they’re not open, reading the handwritten signs in the window is an experience.

If you’re a meat lover, Tessaro’s, in lower Bloomfield, grinds their own beef to make the most ridiculously good burgers you’ll ever have. It’s an old family restaurant whose matriarch, when she’s feeling up to it, works as the hostess. She’s terrifying, like you’d expect an elderly Italian restaurateur to be, plus she can’t possibly be more than 4’10”. 

The weekend dinner wait at Tessaro’s is an absolute nightmare so you should visit on a weekday or have an early dinner. Trust me. We’ve waited on the curb for over an hour to get in. It’s worth the wait but if you plan well, you won’t have to. 

In upper Bloomfield, there’s a business owner, Rocky, who runs at least two storefronts. Three or four days a week, he runs Rocky’s Cafe. If you’ve ever seen My Cousin Vinny, it’s a little like the diner in that movie with a slightly wider selection of breakfast items but no other options because it closes at noon. Those hours might be to allow him to hustle over to Rocky’s Tailor and Cleaners to open the doors. 

Rocky is kind of famous in the neighborhood for being … abrasive is the most tactful label I can offer. The food’s pretty good. It’s cheap. And the chatter is quite an experience, especially if you sit at the counter.

There are several great boutiques, the kind with windows you stop to look at. My mom would have called it window dressing unironically. An early evening walk through Bloomfield is the best people watching if you want a weird mix of young and old – rich and poor. It’s humming with activity and all the grumpy old guys are out, sitting on their front stoeps to watch the world go by – and sometimes bitch at it.

Anyway, back to the Saturday Market. Tangy cherry season is over – and you have to be willing to throw hands if you want to get them while they’re in season. The crops are always small but worth selling at least a smidge of your soul to get a taste. I confessed my undying love to the Sturgis vendor when I got a quart but he’s in a relationship so I’ll have to stick to the cherries.

Today there was a barrio pop-up with a huge line so I didn’t eat but the smell was incredible. It was slightly down the way from today’s busker, a banjo player. He writes his own songs, which are much less stereotypical banjo than you’d expect, softer, gentler, a little melancholy. 

The gyro vendor was throwing lamb scraps to the gazillion puppers. Like many of the vendors, he also keeps a bowl of water in the shade for his furry guests. One time, a huge mutt curled up under the table at his stand, probably because it was shady and smelled good. I’d have joined him there but I don’t actually like lamb. 

There’s an Amish vendor, too, but the young women there can’t do simple math to make change. I refuse to spend my money there, in protest to their inadequate education. They have a right to their beliefs and I have a right to refuse to fund them. 

Right across the way is a locally famous family business, Freedom Farms. They had a reality show in the 2010-ish timeframe. The nine sons are pretty well known but you shouldn’t google their show, Farm Kings, or their website – because objectifying people is wrong. I’ve provided the URLs informationally only. They, uh, put on a great corn festival in the fall. And the men work it. Just sayin’.

Much love. 

Saturday Market

Gothic Poems?

Deb Zuroski, , , , , , 1 Comment

There’s a lot of poetry floating around in my head (mostly the kind that one would submit to Okay Donkey or Sad Goose Coop – corny, weird stuff – you know the type) but I’m busy, too busy to focus on poetry at the moment. That isn’t, as you’ve undoubtedly noticed, preventing me from writing the blog entry. I’m busy but still procrastinating of course. 

It’s been more than a month since I last chatted with you. Hey! How are you? How was your July? Mine? Oh my gosh. Thanks for asking. Crazy. It was crazy. I hardly had a moment to sit and contemplate. I’m not even sure what I’d be contemplating but that’s the point of contemplation, isn’t it?

I’m so close to being finished with the latest novel. It’s like when you see an image in the distance and watch it form gradually as you draw closer. I know what’s going to happen and I know how it’s going to happen. Now, it’s just a matter of putting the final few thousand words on the screen. Sometimes, that’s the hardest part. It’s so easy to start writing but what if I can’t finish it? What if I can’t write the ending that I envision? The first 60,000 words roll off the fingers but the last 10,000 arrive one letter at a time.

I’ve been thinking a bit about grief lately. More than usual? Probably not but perhaps with more awareness. This month would have been my 30th wedding anniversary. I know I’ve mentioned before that we never really cared about marking particular days and even missed our actual anniversary date more than once. But now that there’s nothing to mark, I’m more aware of the date approaching. 

This has made me consider the changing face of grief. I’ve seen a bit, in my half century (plus). Life and therapy have encouraged me to understand my own grief and trauma, without comparing it to others, without why me-ing. But there are times when I feel the weight of it more. 

Trust me when I say that is NOT a plea for sympathy. 

As most grieving and traumatized individuals would tell you, after the initial event, we don’t really want people to sympathize. Learning to sit with – acknowledge, if you will – our experiences, talk about them, accept them, is part of the process of changing. 

It’s not like emerging from a chrysalis. I’m pretty sure no butterfly has ever thought, “if only.” It’s more like becoming fluent in a language. Initially, there’s a lot of struggle, trying to figure things out. Then, as we become more experienced, we recognize what things mean but we can’t always communicate. Over time, we get more fluent, but we still forget and still communicate poorly on occasion. 

The changes we experience are things that no one who hasn’t gone through it could anticipate. Unless you’ve lost your partner, you probably won’t understand those days where partnered people seem to surround you. While we were driving home from treatment one time, Ken pointed out all the old people we passed. There were so many. His unspoken message was clear:  why won’t I grow old but all these other people have? 

As his end was approaching, I was looking at my future. He saw a lot of people who had already achieved an age he never would. I saw so many silver-haired single women, sitting in groups at the coffee shop, alone together. 

Colin Hay’s song “I Just Don’t Think I’ll Ever Get Over You” captures the experience particularly well (which shouldn’t be surprising because this is a man who knows grief). “I still find pieces of your presence here” is exactly what my life is like. 

It’s not just that sometimes I open a drawer and find something that I can picture being held in Ken’s narrow, long-fingered hands. That definitely happens but sometimes it just makes me laugh, like when I stumble across the yellow, banana-shaped, banana slicer – I think I told the banana slicer story in an earlier post.

It’s also that I am as likely to find pieces of his presence in a moment, a memory, an image from a movie, or even in words that I write. His presence is inside me, not captured in an object or a place. That’s lovely and difficult, not something for sympathy so much as understanding. 

Anyway, because you now think I cry myself to sleep every night – what an exhausting thing that would be – I’ll point back to Hay’s song – “I don’t want you thinking that I don’t get asked to dinner.” 

Yeah, that’s not a weird announcement that I’m dating. No thanks. But I am living joyfully because I should. Otherwise, what’s the point? A slog of sorrow and a lonely death? Not for me, though I do think ‘A Slog of Sorrow’ would be a delightful gothic poem or maybe an Irish drinking song. 

And on that note, it’s time to wrap this up. I’m going to breakfast with friends this morning. What are you up to today? 

Much love.

Gothic Poems?