loss

Aisle 10: Between Cackles and Loud Sex

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Much love.

Aisle 10: Between Cackles and Loud Sex

Welcome to May

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Much love.

Welcome to May

Scanning The Future And Maybe The Past

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Much love.

Scanning The Future And Maybe The Past

April Arts and Flowers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Much love.

April Arts and Flowers

All This And Poppy, Too

Deb Zuroski, , , , , , , 1 Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Much love.

All This And Poppy, Too

Don’t Look Unless You Want to See

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The coffee shop is quiet today, except for the woman telephonically negotiating her dance team’s performance schedule. No complaints; it’s a fun view into a world I’ve not previously experienced. Apparently, there’s an issue with one of the mom’s being pregnant. I’m not entirely sure how that impacts the schedule but I’ll admit to an unhealthy amount of curiosity.

Unfortunately, I’ve moved seats; I was sitting next to an outlet and someone needed to plug in so I volunteered to change tables and lost the thread of the discussion. Now, I’ll never know what they decided to do about expecting-mom. 

I made a terrible discovery today when, for the first time in weeks, I visited the diner across from the coffee shop. It’s a shocking story so get yourself a drink and a comfy seat. I’ll wait until you’re settled.

Okay. Are you ready? Here we go. I may have mentioned before that I always give a massive quantity of cookies – dozens each of 10-ish different varieties — to the diner staff in December. I’ve been doing this for 6 or 7 years. I’m not really sure how it got started, an impulse probably that was popular enough that I just kept it up. 

In 2024, my son left his job at the diner but the head cook – everyone calls him Fresh – asked me if I’d continue to make the cookies. Of course I said yes. The day I delivered the treats, Fresh was not working – get this – because he objected to the way my son was treated in his final days at the diner. It’s a whole thing that we don’t need to get into. It’s sufficient to say that my son was treated poorly by *name redacted*, Fresh objected vociferously and got suspended. 

I didn’t know this until I delivered the treats and got all the hot tea, as they say. The servers promised that they’d save cookies for Fresh. Today, on my return to the diner, I found out that he never got any. Not a single cookie. I know. I know. It was naive of me to think that cookies would survive the swarm of locusts, I mean cooks and servers. Nonetheless, injustice must be addressed. Fresh is getting a personal selection of valentine-themed cookies to enjoy with his wife, Tish. I may not be able to control the actions of Congress but I can make some cookies, damn it. 

Speaking of Congress, I called and talked to an aide to my Representative, Summer Lee. It felt good to have someone listen to my concerns. It felt like action, though I was, sort of, singing to the choir since she’s a pretty loud voice aligned against giving access to our social security numbers to an immature billionaire. You can make your voice heard, too, by calling the Capitol switchboard and asking for your Senators and Representatives. It might seem intimidating if you’ve never done it before but it’s actually easy and doesn’t take very long. Note, however, that it’s not anonymous; if you are calling, I suggest you use rational arguments rather than invectives, no matter how mad you are about threats to the department of education, DEI, social security, deportations, Guantanamo, USAID, NLRB, Kennedy Center, your family’s LGBTQIA+ members, grocery prices, etc. 

And hey, if you’re happy with what is going on right now, you should, at least, not be surprised that I’m unhappy about the current administration’s deliberate and dangerous cruelty. I’ve been pretty clear here that I believe life should be centered in kindness; thus, I feel compelled to remind readers who did not actively vote against this, that there are no voters “safe” from harm under these new policies. Tariffs will increase everyone’s prices. Eliminating the NLRB will impact all union members, not just people who voted for Harris. Also, do you really think we’re going to annex Canada, Mexico, Gaza, and Greenland? Why would we want to? And why would those countries allow themselves to be annexed? SMH.

Honestly, it’s strange to me to think that some people believe a billionaire – I’m referring to Musk, here – is the best judge of whether or not children should receive free school lunches. (Have you ever seen anyone waste money the way Musk and Bezos do? Seriously, does anyone think they could manage if they suddenly lost it all? Ha.) Don’t even get me started on the deadly impact this administration is having on cancer research; seriously, don’t let me talk about it. It’s bad for my otherwise good blood pressure. 

The furnace is making a noise. It just started yesterday. I’m not sure what it means, other than $$$$$. I’ve learned that noises always mean something expensive. The technician will be taking, at minimum, one hundred of my dollars, my precious, precious dollars, tomorrow. Any guesses what’s causing the noise …? I’m betting that there’s an acorn stuck in a mechanism. No particular reason for that. It just amuses me to envision a squirrel thinking, “Here’s a good place for me to hide this tasty snack.”

Yesterday, a chimney specialist came in to check out our four fireplaces. I’m trying to reduce my homeowner’s insurance but in a situation surprisingly reminiscent of my MRI, when they look, they always find things. Damn it. One of my three chimneys is actively collapsing inward and I now have pictures to prove it. Sigh. Both of my options – removing it entirely or repairing it – cost significantly more than $1.29. My next door neighbor very helpfully – if I had a time machine – told me that he got his chimneys repaired when he got his roof replaced. Too bad I didn’t have that suggestion a year ago at this time, during preparation for my own roof replacement. Now, I’m going to pay a second time for scaffolding – which, alone, is estimated to cost approx $2,000. If I ever buy another house, it is going to be a single story (shakes fist at the sky). Who am I kidding? I have so many books that I’m never moving again.

The tree trimmers will be in our backyard this afternoon, trimming the 20-foot honeysuckle that has become sentient and is taking over the entire yard, plus part of the neighbor’s yard. We were going to remove it entirely but the tree guys laughed when we suggested that. Literally. They laughed and said that I should totally remove the honeysuckle if I want a zillion individual honeysuckles rising from the ground in rebellion. 

The neighbors will be very happy with the trimming. They’ve been complaining for several years now that it’s blocking their view of the climbing gym two yards over. LOL I’m just joking. They’re actually more upset that it’s endangering my rhododendron, which is, astonishingly, one of those massive creatures that gives giant blooms every year. It’s one of the weird but lovely things about city living – the neighbors actively care about my yard and gardens at least as much as they care about their own. 

Since I’m actually supposed to be editing my latest manuscript today, without a pen because I forgot to bring one (SMH), I’m going to get back to, at least, reading the darn thing. It’s far too long but funnier than I expected, given that I wrote most of it while I was on chemo – I felt very funny but not very amusing at the time. (HA)

I saw a quote – sorry, I don’t know who said it – that applies to our current world: history shows us that no one who has ever banned books was on the side of good. Reading and writing have always been acts of resistance. Now, more than ever, reading banned books, educating yourself on why someone else has decided which books children shouldn’t read, helping to make banned books available in your community are simple ways to stand against the thought police. Charlotte’s Web is a dangerous book. I recommend that you give it another read. 

Much love.

Don’t Look Unless You Want to See

Scanning for Fear or the Fear of Scans

Deb Zuroski, , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

I allowed scan-xiety to get the better of me. 

Most cancer patients – in news that will surprise absolutely no one – experience some level of scan-xiety. We remind ourselves not to worry. We deep-breathe before our appointments and sweat out the wait for our results. Some of us have nightmares. Some don’t sleep well for days before their scans. We bargain with ourselves and our gods, hoping against rational thought that our pleas will ensure that this latest scan will be clear. 

For a variety of health reasons that are not cancer-related, I have had many scans over the past 20 years and never really worried about them, until that first time, in December, 2023. Since then, I’ve had five or six additional MRIs (and that’s without counting the extra two I got in September). I’ve sort of lost count from the monotonous sameness of the experience, though, if I cared to, I could go back through my electronic record and count the results. 

The facts show, without elaboration, that I don’t currently have cancer. My liver resection and chemotherapy eliminated it. So, how did I allow scan-xiety to take over, to control my waking hours, my sleepless nights, my infrequent dreams? I honestly don’t know, though, clearly, I’m not alone in that experience. 

Part of me wants to blame my VeryBadCancerTM with its high (70-80%) recurrence rate but that isn’t fair to the many people with more common and more treatable cancers. They, too, experience the gripping anticipatory grief of scan-xiety. We’re a large and growing population of individuals who both hope and dread those quarterly, semi-annual, or annual scans. 

Every single time I get an MRI, I analyze the technicians’ behaviors, even knowing that they are not foreshadowing my future. Why, I ask myself, did the tech tell me that they hoped I’d feel better soon? I feel fine. Oh my god. What did they see on the scan? TAKE CARE? Why did they say that? It’s back, isn’t it? They’re wishing me well because they saw another growth. 

It’s relentless – the imagined pity, the casual humanity turned to sympathy by my overactive brain. It wasn’t so bad in September. Having just finished chemo, I assumed that the cancer would be, at least temporarily, beaten down. Something about these most recent scans, though, took hold of my psyche, shook me to my essence, encouraged me to dread, instead of hope.

Again, my scans were fine. I’m still hanging in, cancer-free, but it – the scan-xiety – cost me this time in a way that I need to remember. It cost me moments of joy and peaceful nights. It cost me in snapping, anxious words and absences when I should have been present. 

I am determined not to pay that high price again but it is so much easier to profess that goal than to apply it. The strategies are all in my scan-xiety avoidance toolkit: yoga, mindful breathing, therapy, exercise. The problem, you see, is that, like most people, I, and so many other cancer survivors, have a lot to lose. The difference between us and the average healthy person is that we have experienced the real possibility of an earlier than expected death. But, to quote Cordelia, “I think I like this little life, this silly little life.” 

It isn’t just the pain and discomfort of surgery and chemo and possibly radiation that frightens me. I’ve done that before – well, not the radiation. I know what to expect – even from the radiation, having watched my husband endure it – and I know I can do it again and again, even the vomiting, if I have to. It’s not the words that could be in any of our futures: incurable, inoperable, terminal, palliative. 

It’s the pain to be endured by my children, my extended family, my found family and friends – but most horribly AGAIN by my children – that really makes me fear my scans. My (adult) babies are strong and they love each other deeply. I know that, if, through some future scan, I receive my ‘notice to quit’, my children will support each other, will be ‘okay’ but I would give a lot to prevent them from enduring another parental cancer death. 

It’s a lot to ask and I’m not sure who, in fact, I would be asking since I’ve been, previously, very clear on my uncomfortable relationship with the possibility of an all-powerful deity who occasionally pops down to help you find your pen but allows a lot of kind, gentle, loving people to die of cancer every year. 

With all due respect to your beliefs, please miss me with the “God needs them” and “they were called home” business. I hope those thoughts comfort believers but they offer nothing to me when compared to the idea of my children having to stand by my bed, watching cholangiocarcinoma turn me yellow and poison my blood. I don’t know if God was present in the room when my husband gasped out his last. 

I do know, though, that my children were there, at Ken’s beside, and they suffered – and still suffer – from the experience of watching their father die after watching him fight to live. Since none of us know what the future holds for us, I am determined to embrace the lesson that this scan’s anxious moments taught me – I need not die before I’ve finished living. 

Much love.

Scanning for Fear or the Fear of Scans

31 Gratitudes at the End of an Infamous Year

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

I’ve been thinking recently about gratitude. In particular, I’ve been pondering what gratitude feels like, how we express it, what it means to be grateful. Initially, I planned to write some profound thoughts. In a year absolutely packed with grief, sorrow, anxiety, and hope, thoughts are plentiful, if not actually profound. The ability to write them down is oddly absent. As such, in place of those pithy thoughts, I have made a list (who doesn’t love a list?!). 

I am filled with joyous gratitude for:

  1. My family and friends, biological and found
  2. Healthcare workers in all their various and lovely forms
  3. Butter toffee cashews
  4. High-top converse
  5. My 90-something neighbors
  6. Being able to compliment others
  7. Sunny days, warm and cold
  8. Hugs
  9. Fall leaves
  10. Spring blooms
  11. Dogs
  12. Cats
  13. Richard Armitage’s voice
  14. The rest of Richard Armitage
  15. Whoever wrote Hot Frosty
  16. Time spent beside a crackling fire
  17. Laughing until my sides hurt and my eyes are wet
  18. Walking 
  19. Noah Kahan
  20. Acorns
  21. Hummingbirds
  22. Corny tshirts
  23. Yoga with Adriene
  24. Crochet
  25. Community
  26. The coffee shop
  27. Writers
  28. Books
  29. Homemade cookies
  30. The neighborhood fox 
  31. Homemade hot cocoa with fresh whipped cream

What’s on your list?

Much love.

31 Gratitudes at the End of an Infamous Year

7mm From Free

Deb Zuroski, , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Fall in Pittsburgh – foggy mornings, brisk sunny days. Walking to the coffee shop again is like putting on fluffy socks as the temperature drops. Much about the store itself has changed but not the customers. Every day, I see someone I know and we share a smile, sometimes a few words. Community, my friends. 

A quick health update: scans show no evidence of disease in my liver. That 7mm spot in a pulmonary lymph node – found in my December 2023 scan – is still there. We’re calling that a watched spot, lol. Next scans in January. So far so good. 

There’s a group behind me talking about sourcing materials. It’s a very serious discussion, almost presentation-like. Reminds me a lot of standing in front of a client, pitching our enrollment tools. That’s an experience I don’t miss at all. One time, many years ago, when I was responsible for creating the health plans that self-insured clients purchased, a potential customer approached us about creating a policy that did not cover pregnancy. We had a lot of internal conversation about that and as was often the case, I was the only woman at the table. Of the six or eight men in the room with me, only one agreed that it was grotesque to even consider that request. Luckily for me, having to write that coverage, and for the women who would purchase it, the man who agreed with me was the vice president of sales. We didn’t write the business. 

The coffee shop is bustling, lots of people enjoying the weather. A child – early teens, maybe – has just come in. They have that tentativeness of the teen years, when you think everyone is looking at you and you really want to act normal, whatever that is, or really cool, again however that looks. Their money is folded in their hand. They have to unfold the little square of bills to pay. 

After a few moments, they’re handed a large mocha with a mound of whipped cream and a drizzle of chocolate syrup. It looks delicious. Apparently, it’s not quite ready to drink, though. They head to the coffee bar, use a straw to stir the whipped cream into the drink and then pour in a bunch of cream. A taste of it confirms that it needs even more cream. A second quality check confirms that perfection has been reached. The lid is snapped on; their remaining money is carefully folded and tucked into a pocket, and off they go into the sunny afternoon. 

I just finished reading Demon Copperhead. Oh Lordy. Was that a journey of a book. It took me a couple weeks to read because it is stark, filled with trauma, making it one of those novels to be read in short sessions. I have to say, though, that it deserved the Pulitzer. Barbara Kingsolver has written a protagonist whose voice is so powerful I can still hear him talking in my head, days after I finished the book. 

Recently, thanks, I think, to all of the death in Demon Copperfield, I had a dream about my paternal grandmother. She died when I was 17 – cancer, plus two strokes – a particularly bad death. She was dying again in my dream and I was going to see her one last time. It doesn’t make sense – do dreams ever? – because in the real world I was with her when she died. It was, in fact, the first time I watched someone pass away. 

My sister and I had a challenging childhood. Grandma made things better. I felt closer to her than I can express; she only had two grandchildren so she lavished all her attention on us – not money as she had virtually nothing that wasn’t provided by my parents. We didn’t need to have expensive adventures. Sometimes we’d walk through the mall and buy a Friendly’s junior milkshake and fries to share. We’d guess how many steps it would take to walk the neighborhood and then we’d count as we walked and cheer whoever had come the closest. She taught us how to play Crazy Bridge and we taught her and her friends to play Uno.

Losing her in my teens was as inexpressible as re-losing her in my dreams. She already spends a not insignificant amount of time in my head. I can picture her clearly, a tiny woman with a huge personality, assertive, mouthy, fearless → except for cancer. She didn’t even tell us she was sick until it was far too late. 

When she eventually called my mom (rather than her only son!) and went to the hospital, it was her final trip. Doctors did exploratory surgery and concluded there was more cancer than body. It was the early days of hospice care. Grandma stayed in a regular hospital room surrounded by all the normal hospital noises. The care team did all they could to keep her comfortable while we waited for her to die. Just a few days after she was admitted, Grandma had the first stroke. She lost the ability to speak but could gesture to me that she wanted to roll onto her side (her left side because it was her favorite sleeping position). 

None of this reality occurred in the dream. Instead, she was sitting upright in a hospital bed and talking, her candy floss mass of white hair curling all over her head. I, on the other hand, was struggling to get out of bed, frantic to get to my last visit with her. What cruelty are dreams. I’d give a lot to dream instead about her driving us to Dunkin Donuts where we’d get honey sticks and the plain donuts with the dunking handle, the kind my mom liked to dunk in her coffee. 

Much love.

7mm From Free

Walking a Razor-thin Wire

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

I’m at the coffee shop again, the second time in months. It actually feels a little uncomfortable today, though I can’t articulate why I feel out of place. It’s as pleasant as ever on this edge-of-fall day. The big garage door is open, a cool breeze rustling the napkins and my chemo curls. I usually shave my head with a #3 razor but lately, defying the chemo thinning and chemical damage, I’ve let it grow out a bit. It’s a touch silver now with a little flip at the ends, slightly flattened by the baseball cap my daughter insists I wear in the sun. 

The sidewalks are quiet today. Schools are back in session but since projects aren’t yet due, the students haven’t settled into seats at the back of the coffee shop to work while they talk in hushed tones about their assignments and the cute student in chem class. 

A few minutes ago, a young woman, early 20s I’d guess, came over to my table and asked me a question. It was somewhat hurried; I’m somewhat hard of hearing. I asked her to repeat her question. She said, with a touch of pink on her cheeks, “Do you have wired headphones I can borrow?”

I don’t, my friends. Like most of the 21st century, I use bluetooth headphones. We all know, however, why she asked the silvery-haired lady. I’m pretty sure she just generalized that I, being of an older persuasion, would still be using wired headphones. Next, someone will address me as ma’am and I’ll have to acknowledge that only mentally am I still 17 years old. 

There’s a couple just seating themselves next to me – 70s or early 80s, I would guess. He leans a little forward as he walks, his hands slightly behind him, knees bent like he’s learning to ice skate. He’s on his way to the counter where he’s to order his (probably) wife a small coffee. She emphasized the size to him, as though he regularly brings her a 20oz cup. Now, while he awaits her order, she sits quietly awaiting him, her sky blue sweater flattering the stark white bob of her hair. 

I’m splitting my time today among a synopsis for a novel I’ve been working on for months, a creative nonfiction piece, and this blog. Occasionally, I’ll stop for a moment to look at my peeling nails and wonder about the year’s journey. Mostly, I put it aside but every now and again, I’m struck by the difference between my expectations and the year’s reality. I spend a few anxious moments reminding myself that the cancer was all removed and sometimes touch my tender scars as reinforcement. As much as I disliked the constant poking and prodding, the pills and the appointments, I sometimes now feel like a tight-rope walker who is performing without a net.

The scans that I’ve been anticipating for a month are next week and then the usual wait begins. I’ve been working hard on addressing my scan-xiety but it’s there, despite my efforts. I tap my chest where that 7mm mass is located (right under my breast bone) and remind myself that I’m feeling better, more energetic and less sick. That must be a good sign, right? But that argument doesn’t really work for me since I felt fine while there was a cancerous tumor growing on my liver. I guess the point I have to learn is that the only thing I can control is how I respond to the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.”

For a time, I obsessively googled cholangiocarcinoma, looking for miracle cures, hope in statistics, comfort for the fearful, perhaps. What I found was statistics that you wouldn’t bet against (my cancer has a recurrence rate above 70% and is terminal in something around 87% of cases). Since that kind of searching did nothing to appease my anxiety, I decided to stop looking for hope in those searches. Instead, I try to remember to spend my free time relishing the moments I have, sitting on the deck with my daughter, teasing my sons with terrible dad jokes, playing with my dogs. I won’t – I hope – waste whatever time I have pining for options that I may not even need. I could be one of the 13% who survive past the five year mark or I could get hit by a bus on my way home from the coffee shop. 

I may have mentioned that I broke another toe about two weeks ago. It’s still swollen as a grape, not an image you necessarily wanted implanted in your brain but … hey … it’s already in mine so why not share with you?! I finally decided to call the doctor today because my walk to the coffee shop was painful. Can’t have my activities restricted by a stupid broken pinky toe. Unfortunately, I probably reinjured my plantar plate, which would be a bummer, but I’ll wait for yet another doctor appointment instead of opening up google to do more anxiety-causing research. The doctor asked if I got my foot x-rayed. HAHAHAHAHAHA Like I went to a doctor.

Two people just walked by with bouquets of flowers from the flower shop, Toadflax, just down the street. They hug and separate just outside the coffee shop entrance and one of the people comes in for a drink. The bouquet she brings with her is tucked into a little bag reminiscent of a flower pot. I want to take a big whiff of her flowers but I know they’re from a hothouse and have no scent. Still, the pink paper wrapped around the blooms complements the overall color scheme and adds a delicate air of elegance to this brick and wood establishment. More importantly, she’s clearly delighted with her purchase and isn’t that charming?

Much love.

Walking a Razor-thin Wire