writing community

Saturday Market

Deb Zuroski, , , , 1 Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Much love. 

Saturday Market

Gothic Poems?

Deb Zuroski, , , , , , 1 Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Much love.

Gothic Poems?

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

Coffee Shop Life

Deb Zuroski, , , 7 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Much love.

Coffee Shop Life

Palentine, Galentine, Valentine?

Deb Zuroski, , , Leave a comment

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?