humor

TIRE(D)

Deb Zuroski, , , 1 Comment

I’m in my car on the side of the highway, returning from a visit to not-my-Aunt G. Passenger rear tire blew. It’s 93F and I’m waiting for AAA. Could I change my own tire? Possibly. It would depend on how tight the lug nuts are. But it’s really hot. It’s an air quality action day – bad for folks like me who have asthma (thanks for smoking, Mom and Dad. Maybe that’s snarky but I’ve paid my entire life for their choices. A little snark seems minimally fair.). It’s smarter to call for help than to try to do this myself. 

The car rocks side to side every time a truck passes. It’s a busy pre-holiday Friday, which means the car is in nearly constant motion for over an hour while I await AAA. It takes that long because my AAA guy is coming from the town 20 minutes ahead of me and has to drive to the town 15 minutes behind me in order to get on the south side of the highway. All of that is fine. I’m lucky to be relatively safe in a car with working AC. 

Lou (his real name) arrives in a modified van with a yellow flashing light – good. More visibility on a breathlessly hot day during the drowsy hours of late afternoon. He tells me that a tow truck spotted me and called in my location to help Lou find me since I’m not stopped by a mile-marker. This makes me wonder how many kindnesses benefit us without us ever knowing. 

We chat as he gets right to work, handing me a clipboard with a form to fill out while he excavates in my trunk. Thanks to my recent tidiness vow, the trunk is empty of detritus. 

As he jacks up the car, Lou tells me how much he likes working holiday weekends. “People are more generous tippers,” he tells me. “Already today, I’ve gotten a bottle of whiskey and some fireworks.” 

Internal question answered, I dig through my pocket, readying the last of my cash. It’s so hot that Lou can’t hold the lugnuts in his hand and has to drop them in the grass. The tire is just as hot. Being the “learn by doing” sort myself, I burn my hand throwing it into the trunk. We joke a little about how lucky we are to have AC, even as we acknowledge that it’s going to escalate the speed at which humanity kills itself.

Lou tightens the still-scalding lugnuts on my tiny, brand-new spare and tells me to drive slow. I know this but appreciate the reminder. He suggests that I buy my replacement tires (because I can’t buy just one, of course) at the nearest town and even offers to escort me there. I’ve already had my bad luck though and plan to drive the rest of the way home on the spare. He laughs, pockets my $19 tip (since I don’t have any whiskey), and waves me back onto the highway.

Costco, not home, is now my destination. It takes me two hours of driving like it’s the 1950s but I arrive safely. The tire guy, Sam – a name I’ve chosen since I didn’t get his, is enthusiastic. We have to go out to the steaming parking lot because I’ve forgotten to note the size of my tires. I know I should have had this info but my brain has become the texture of the asphalt, too sticky to work properly. 

Sam doesn’t mind. He’s just looking forward to his sister’s barbecue this weekend and to having the 4th off. Costco is closed Monday because, he says, it’s a good company that cares about its people. Nice. I tell him that I don’t want to give my money to a company that treats people badly. “Same,” he says. We smile. Common ground is uncommon these days. 

My tire appointment is tomorrow. Sam says it will take awhile so I should get a strawberry smoothie at the Costco cafe and sit. He’ll find me when they’re done. Not going to lie, a strawberry smoothie sounds pretty good right about now but my youngest wants a Costco pizza (second best bargain they have IMO). I order one and sit on a cool plastic bench while it bakes. 

The store and the cafe are crazy busy. A young worker fills food orders with remarkable grace, spinning from counter to steam table to pizza oven, handing food to customers while also preparing the next order and calling out order numbers. There’s a rhythm to the work that I’ve never noticed before but there’s still an hour left on the clock. Will the worker or the work slow first?

“703,” I hear and watch a woman pick up her pizza. My number is lower so I walk up to the counter. “Hey, did I miss my order?” I ask. Yep. It’s sitting on the counter. Apparently, I’m even more tired than I thought, lulled, perhaps, into a dream by the music of their work. 

The drive home is equally slow but now the pizza fragrance reminds me that I haven’t eaten in nearly seven hours. Maybe I could eat a piece while I drive, I think. But no, I have a new, no-eating-in-my-car policy that I can’t break without someone finding out Mom’s a hypocrite. Besides, the tiny tire makes the car harder to drive. It’s really not safe to eat pizza when the car has a donut. 

Finally, I’m home. I haul the pizza box and my tired body into the house. The youngest may have requested the pizza but every (human) mouth in the house is now full of lukewarm, greasy goodness. Everything is far from right in the world but for a moment, we’re all, blessedly, okay.

TIRE(D)

BTW: I Didn’t Get Arrested

Deb Zuroski, , , , , 3 Comments

When I visited my not-my-Aunt G last week, she asked me if there were any sexy bits in the book I’m writing. Not-my-Aunt G is (was?) my mom’s best friend. They worked together as accounting clerks about a million years ago when they were 20ish and remained very close for the rest of my mom’s life. In fact, not-my-Aunt G married my father’s best friend. Their little group was tight. 

Anyway, not-my-Aunt G used to add scare quotes around the word aunt when she sent me birthday cards, possibly because we aren’t related but, in my opinion, more likely because she was terrifying. 

She’s still terrifying at almost 89 years old but also funny in a way I didn’t notice when I was a child. I laughed when she asked about the sexy bits but she really wanted to know so we talked about what I was writing. In case you are interested, the bits aren’t as sexy as she was hoping. And I can’t decide if I feel insulted but I probably should.

She’s been a widow for 25 years. Her husband died about 3 weeks before my mother. Can you imagine – though who would want to – the grief she must have felt losing her husband and her best friend within a month’s time? 

After my husband died, I asked her for advice on how to keep going but she didn’t really have any to offer. Apparently, in her mind, it wasn’t a feat to survive for more than two decades alone. Somehow, she just did it and didn’t seem to think it was worth remarking on. 

That was actually more helpful than she probably realized. When Ken first died, I felt like a newborn, not in a Star Trek III: The Search for Spock way. More like an “oh my god, I have no idea how to even feed myself” kind of way. Not-my-Aunt G just acted like it would all sort of work out if I just kept putting one foot in front of the other. And as with many other things, she was right. She did it. Probably, I could too.

So, anyway, when we got done talking about my novel writing, she asked me if I thought I’d ever marry again. I told her what I usually say to people who ask that. Well, actually, I usually just laugh and ignore them because … you know, people should mind their own damn business. 

But one doesn’t ignore one’s not-my-aunt. So I told her that I probably won’t ever marry again. And she nodded. “You find out, after a while, that you don’t actually need men for anything.” AND THEN SHE SMILED. You know what I’m talking about. It’s the smile that says “Yes, I do know what I just suggested to you and yes, I meant to suggest that.” Seriously, she might as well have winked lasciviously. 

My sister was there. She can attest to the truth of this. 

It made me laugh. Honestly, I’m still laughing about it. When I told one of my kids, he was horrified and told me to stop speaking immediately. And after I got done laughing again, I began to wonder what else not-my-Aunt G has said over the years that I just missed or blocked out because I was too young to appreciate it. 

I wonder too what my mom would have said if she’d been with us for the conversation. Mom was very … reserved is probably the best description. I believe she and I only talked about sex once, when she mentioned that my father was … hmmm. Well, let’s just say that it wasn’t a flattering comment and that I flatlined immediately after she said it so I don’t remember much of the conversation. 

But I’ve always loved the idea of “happily ever afters,” even though I didn’t have one. Right now, I’m reading an ARC about a woman who didn’t realize her college crush was also crushing on her. I’m having a hard time relating. Honestly I didn’t really have time to date in college. I had a work-study job (at the counseling center) and a full-time job (server at a country club), plus school, all of which pretty much consumed my time.

So, I didn’t really have college crushes. However, I did, weirdly, have a guy 20 years my senior proposition me on the day we graduated. We had lots of classes together – same major, you know – but I barely knew him. His offer, in my mind anyway, came out of nowhere. His last words to me, which I still remember all these years later:  “Does this mean we’ll never see each other again?” 

So far, the answer to his question has remained, “Correct.” And I hope it stays that way. I really, really hope I don’t ever see him again. In fact, Mike, if you’re reading this blog and wondering if we should reconnect:  No. We shouldn’t. We didn’t know each other in college and nothing has changed. Regardless of age difference, one should not proposition people.

That doesn’t mean, though, that I will discount the possibility that OTHER people HAD and missed out on connecting with college crushes. I’m assuming that the trope of college romance revitalization is based on real life. 

Obviously, it was not based on MY life. My strongest memory of college is actually the terrifying stress dreams I occasionally still have – you know, the dreams in which I miss the entire semester of class but go to the final exam. (Shouldn’t I just skip the final too? I mean, there’s no hope of passing, right? In these dreams, I apparently never even buy the textbook. But that’s the horrifying drama of dreams for you.)

Every time I visit not-my-Aunt G, she reminds me how terrible it is to be old and alone. Although she and not-my-Uncle George never had children, they were blessed with a large extended family who take remarkable care of not-my-Aunt G, visiting regularly, taking her to church and to the grocery store. Nonetheless, she’s gone to bed alone for more than 25 years now. And though she might not want me to remarry, she doesn’t want either of us to be alone. 

I don’t think there’s a readily available solution to alone-ness when I become elderly. Therefore, I have made the decision to move in with each of my children for a third of the year. They don’t know this yet so let’s make the agreement to keep it a secret until I show up at one of their houses.

When one child gets tired of my shenanigans, I’ll move in with the next one. We can rotate year around and the kids will bond over how horrible it is to house mom for 4 months of the year. I’ll promise to behave but at this point, I don’t see much likelihood of changing my core personality so I will probably still whistle off-key, sing (repeatedly) sections of song lyrics, adopt more animals than I should, and promise to clean without following through. 

The good news is that they all love me at least half as much as I love them (which is an infinite amount). And that’s close to how much I love my not-my-Aunt G, even when she’s in a grumpy mood and tells me to leave the butterfly cookie I brought her from Prantl’s Bakery on her stoop and hit the road because she’s not in the mood and isn’t opening the door.

Here’s to you, not-my-Aunt G, for teaching me that it is possible, probable, and entirely necessary to keep putting one foot in front of the other, even when you don’t want your butterfly cookie. (She did open the door for the homemade strawberry-rhubarb pie.)

Much love.

BTW: I Didn’t Get Arrested

In Case I Get Arrested

Deb Zuroski, , , , , 1 Comment

You’ll never believe what happened to me today so I’m just going to tell you. I mean, if you want, you can try to guess before you read the rest of this paragraph. In fact, I got you. This paragraph will not include what happened to me. 

This one doesn’t either. 

Okay, now, I’m going to tell you what happened. Let’s see how close your guess is:  

We have to get into the wayback machine. Are you settled? Seat belt on? Cool. Cool. Let’s get going …. About two years before my husband died, we started noticing some problems with our front steps. They were beginning to crack a little, not bad but you know these things don’t fix themselves. They’re just going to get more cracked and more cracked – a little like me, actually – until finally, it’s time to give up some of that lovely, lovely cash to take on the repairs. 

We might have been able to repair early for less cash but once sickness entered the house, other things left, including motivation and money for early repairs. Anyway, over a year ago, I finally called three companies for estimates. I had a cost in my head and was anxious to see how over or under the estimates came in. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Since the only solution for the steps was a total demolition and re-build, and the cost was A LOT, I put off the work for another year. Yeah, I know. Shut up. Don’t remind me that, with the recession and supply shortages, all I really did was shoot myself in the foot because this year, I couldn’t put it off any longer and the price for supplies went up. 

The most important part of the re-build was that the end product had to be identical to the original steps, regardless of cost implications. Why, you ask? Well, I live in a house designated as a historic landmark, in a historic district. It’s a big deal. In fact, it’s a little like living in Colonial Williamsburg. Except colder. 

And now, let’s step out of the wayback machine, back to today. With the demolition behind us, and the brick walls up and in beautiful shape, it’s time to pour the concrete. My crew is out front with an absolute monster of a cement mixer. The day is cool and overcast but there’s no threat of rain. It’s perfect. Or so you’d think.

Work has been underway since 7AM. The guys are joking now and again. Every once in a while I hear, “More water.” Everything is going as planned. Then, I hear louder voices outside, voices other than my very Jersey-sounding contractor, that is. I assume (wrongly, it turns out) that it’s my elderly neighbor. (He’s a retired architect – a little curmudgeon-y but still lovely – who likes to be involved in every project so he often stops by to kibitz with the workers.) 

Suddenly, there’s a loud knocking at the door. Just a heads up here: A knock at your front door is not normal when your front steps are missing or, you know, filled with very wet concrete. 

I actually ran to the door, concerned obviously, and found my contractor, we’ll call him Nick (because his name is Nick), calf-deep in the wet concrete (this part IS normal) on the top step and he’s FIRED UP. 

Now, a little side note about Nick:  He’s older than I am, shorter than I am, and much nicer than I am. Seeing him fired up was astonishing because he is kind to the workers, polite to the nosy neighbors, and an absolute treat to me. 

Turns out that one of those neighbors told our historical society that I am making changes to my house without permission. I know all my neighbors – at least, I know their pets – and I can’t figure out who wouldn’t just ask me what I’m doing and whether I filed for permission, etc.

And that makes me think that my other next door neighbor – not the elderly architect – is the one who turned me in. She’s been mad at me since one of our other neighbors (and yes, I do know which one but I’m not telling, ever) called the police one day to do a welfare check on her because her dogs had been barking for hours. 

I know what you are thinking and you’re right. We are, in fact, a microcosm of the NextDoor app. Most of the time, everything is fine but every once in a while, someone’s kid pulls the petals of someone else’s tulips and all hell breaks loose. 

So now, even though I am literally paying extra to make sure that my steps stay the same, I’m still going to have to go before the historical society board to prove that I didn’t make any changes. You know what happens if they don’t like what you’ve done? You guessed it, didn’t you? They make you undo and redo to their satisfaction. And that’s why Nick was absolutely RIGID with anger this morning. 

He told me that the board “would be calling me.” Since he’s got that Jersey accent, it sounded a little like he was saying that I should watch for a horse’s head in my bed. But since it came from a guy who looks a little like my grandfather, I’m not sure if I should be worried or if I should expect to receive a tin of Grandpa’s favorite butter mints. 

So, how close was your guess? Did you think I was going to tell you that I won the lottery? I don’t play so if I ever tell you that I won the lottery, I was either hacked or kidnapped. 

Hope your tomorrow is less eventful than mine will be …. What do you think will happen if I just don’t answer the phone when they call? Can they put me in irons? I wonder if they have a dungeon for disobedient homeowners. 

Stay safe.  

In Case I Get Arrested

Spring Speculation and Other Musings

Deb Zuroski, , , , , , 2 Comments
Queen Poppy with her dandelion crown

It’s been an interesting week and it’s only Tuesday. I don’t know if that means things will be calmer or more chaotic as the week progresses. Like all those Kentucky Derby gamblers who didn’t bet on Rich Strike, I’m not holding onto my ticket. 

Last Friday, it rained inside the car while I was bringing my deeply disappointed (and suddenly angry/wet) cat home from his vet check-up. (Just wait until he realizes he’s on a diet and has a bald spot on his butt.) Fortunately, he has a cat carrier and a deep loathing for activity so he complained loudly but sat quietly throughout our wet ride home. 

Sunday was a lovely, warm day. I sat outside and finished one of 6 books I read this week for research.. Reading other people’s work is fun sometimes but also stressful and occasionally hard on the ego. This reading is specifically to see how other authors are working with a specific trope. When writing fiction, there’s a line between pedantic truths and entertainment. Where and when is it okay to write something that doesn’t fit the historical truth but fits the fictional narrative? 

It depends on the story and genre, right? Can the author legitimately include cell phones in a story set in the 1800s? (I just read one and I’d say NO definitively but the cell-phone inclusive story is about to be published.) What about a story where a character from the early 1800s travels to the 21st century? 

Can you imagine popping into a world as loud as ours is, after growing up in a world with no electricity, no helicopters or airplanes, no cars, no leaf blowers, no air conditioners kicking on in the middle of the night? People leaving jail after decades-long sentences have difficulty adapting, why do we act like a 200 year difference would be so easy to manage? 

ANYWAY, moving on – The walk from the mechanic to the coffee shop goes by a school and this morning there were three separate spots of vomit on the sidewalk. I know it’s really weird to notice but I can’t help wondering if that was one sick kid or multiple. Did the vomiting occur on the way into school or during an emergency kid-pickup like many of us parents have experienced? These are the extra things that float around in my brain on the daily. It’s a wonder I get anything done.

Phew. I have to put my airpods in. The lady who just sat down with her friend is FIRED UP and it’s too distracting. Usually it’s fun to have lots of noise but she’s so loud I keep typing what she’s saying, like some weird 1950s dictation. Only there are a lot more F-bombs than I would have expected. 

Right now on the playlist: “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” This is a cover by Punch Brothers. I lived on the edge of Lake Erie when this song came out and heard it a lot growing up, especially around the anniversary of the wreck. Is this the experience of non-Great Lakes residents? 

And now, it’s “May I Have This Dance” by Francis and the Lights. It features Chance the Rapper who is occasionally brilliant. I love his line “your daddy’s discernment.” Such flow.

I’m having serious technology problems so today I’m using my son’s laptop. (Thanks, my dear!) This is an excellent illustration of how hard it is to change. I have experienced a lot of change in my decades on this planet. You’d think I wouldn’t mind doing something as minor as downloading Scrivener to another laptop but here I am, acting like a cat who just got shaved and coned. Pretty soon, I’ll tip over and lay motionless on the ground. 

The good news is that my laptop is under warranty. The bad news is that I have to PUT IT IN A BOX and send it away. What did you say? You want me to cut off my hands and send them where? I know it will be fine and everything is backed up and safe but … NO. I need the repair team to Geek-Squad it over to my house and fix it in front of my watchful, untrusting eyes. Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen. Maybe I can fix this myself … also NO.

“The Times They Are A-Changin’” by Keb’ Mo’ is playing now. Talk about a fitting song for life right now. My daughter, who is in her early 20s, asked me over the weekend how many more interesting times I thought her generation would have to experience. What possible answer could I give her? 

Uh oh. Who curated this playlist? (That would be me.) Woe, Is Me is now banging away in my ears. I really should create a writing playlist separate from my angry treadmill music, though angry treadmill music is great for writing the fight scenes. 

“Sober” by Lucy Spraggan is not on the angy treadmill list. It’s sad; and if you know (or are) a heavy drinker, there’s a lot in it to identify with. But that isn’t angy. Trust me. It’s just deeply grief-triggering.

I’m too far away from the entrance today to enjoy the beautiful weather. It’s annoying. There are a lot of dogs desperately in need of a petting. Last week, I met Frankie, a pitbull puppy rescue whose coloring is so similar to my dog’s that they could be from the same litter (9 years apart though). He’s so bad right now but super cute. Fun fact for those of you who don’t know pitties: They are extremely good at jumping straight up in the air, Tigger-like but without the tail-bouncing bits. 

Frankie greeted me like we were good friends – best friends, related, possibly long-lost siblings – and leaped straight up into my arms, where he proceeded to lick my face from forehead to chin. I was laughing, which is difficult to do while holding an underweight but still 25 pound dog and keeping your mouth shut so the dog you just met doesn’t lick ALLLLLL the way inside, if you know what I mean.

His poor owner was completely panicked but we got Frankie all sorted, until he grabbed the leash in his mouth and started playing tug with his owner – fully against the owner’s wishes.

Our sweet Poppy was completely out of control when she moved in. She didn’t know how to walk on a leash. She was terrified of buses, cardboard boxes, men in hats, and loud noises. She was so underfed the vet told us to feed her as much as she wanted. She’s without reservation the best dog I’ve ever had. And that includes the five doxies I’ve been blessed to know.

Spring Speculation and Other Musings

The Bookworm

Deb Zuroski, , , , , 2 Comments

Yesterday evening, after a terrible, no-good, very bad day, I watched Summerland and if that wasn’t emotional enough, I followed it up with the final episode of The Good Place. Chidi describing a wave … friends, I sobbed. And swore off Netflix for the rest of the night.

Tonight, two of my kids are at the Greek food festival with their friends and I’m watching The Lake House while I have dinner. Great movie – so much pining. But I should probably watch something light after this, like Toy Story 3 or Up.  

Anyway, today, I have a story to tell. A friend posted a meme on Facebook about shopping for books with a bookworm and it reminded me of a shopping trip with my MIL.

Many years ago, during the 90s era of the book desert, a Borders moved into the South Hills of Pittsburgh. The store was a new concept for us – a cafe, big comfy chairs, two stories! It was magnificent and we loved it. 

Ken – who was a bookworm’s bookworm – convinced his mom to go there with us. He knew how much she loved books and thought she’d really enjoy the luxury of a bookworm’s bookstore.

She did not. 

We were at least an hour into this particular visit, each of us lost in our pile of books, when she found me and said, “I’m ready to leave.” Now, it’s important to note that my MIL and I got along very well but … nonetheless … this was my MIL talking. So, of course, I said we’d wrap it up and get going. 

I hadn’t counted on Ken, though, when I promised we’d leave. I’m not sure how long he would have been there, ultimately, but after ANOTHER 45 minutes, Margaret said that she was going to the car, the locked car. And she did. She stood at the locked car, waiting, while I dragged Ken to the exit. 

When we finally got to the car, I expected fireworks, a battle scene out of Lord of the Rings. Nothing like that happened. Ken unlocked the car. Margaret got in. That was that. 

But there was no question who had won.

He didn’t take her to any more bookstores but over time he and I spent so many hours at various bookstores throughout the city. Nowadays, you are just as likely to find me and the kids in used bookstores. We seek them out on vacations too, especially the hole-in-the-wall kind. 

One time, on a trip to Kentucky, we spent most of a rainy afternoon at a dusty old bookstore that was full of lovely out-of-print treasures. The owner snoozed in a big comfy chair while we wandered through the store. And then when we took our books to the front, we had to wake him and he made us pay in cash because he couldn’t get the credit card machine to work. Since we were the only customers, I don’t think he tried very hard. And we didn’t mind.

The Bookworm

A Little Bedtime Story

Deb Zuroski, , , , Leave a comment

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

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

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