arigatoo, for not noticing...

Joss Café & Sushi Bar might be my favorite restaurant. I am rarely so linear as to have favorite anythings, but Joss is certainly in the favored echelon. In fact, I recently gave it a 5/5 Yelp rating. (Yelp.com--log in, rate places, and see what other people think before you go.) I’m not sure about the 5/5. Nothing really deserves an unqualified 5. Joss, after all, is a bit cramped inside, and has the tiniest of entryways such that there’s absolutely no place to wait except out on the sidewalk if there’s not a table ready. But it’s cozy and charming, and the rustic French Provincial interior of the main dining area (from the days when the space housed La Crêpe Normande) translates pretty well into Japanese rustic, with the addition of a few samurai masks and a couple of Good Luck Kitties.

Still, I always feel like it’s pushing things a bit to assign 5s. I think part of the problem is, a 5 point scale just doesn’t allow for fine-tuning. Hence, I arbitrarily decided that if Joss--at the moment--is hovering at the top of my list, and the top of my list should be 5s, then Joss must be a 5. Or something. Scale subject to later adjustment, all rights reserved, etc.

Jeff and I ate lunch there yesterday. It was a more indulgent choice than our usual lunch, given that we usually order at a counter, choose a seat, and pay half as much. But I wanted a cupcake. And right across Main Street from Joss is “Nostalgia Cupcakes” where they sell...cupcakes. Honestly, I don’t know why they’re still in business. But the cupcakes are yummy.

I ate my usual teriyaki tofu and avocado salad, and drank a pot of oolong tea, while Jeff managed to keep his chopsticks right-side up and polish off a grilled salmon salad. Then I paid. You know how sometimes waitpeople will scribble “thanks, Betsi!” with a smily-face or something on the credit card receipt? Well, sometimes I’m inspired to write back, and yesterday I did, in Japanese, although I’m sure our waitress (whose name wasn’t Betsi, but was certainly something typically American) doesn’t read Japanese. So maybe she ignored what I wrote and never checked with one of the Japanese chefs for a translation. I can only hope. Because that way, no one will ever notice that I conjugated “oishii” wrong.

Here’s what I wrote: Gochisoosama. Oishii deshita! (Only it looked like this: ごちそうさま。おいしいでした！) Here’s what’s really dumb. This is exactly what I’ve been busily drilling myself on in semester 3 of Japanese. Conjugating adjectives. And I know perfectly well that oishii, being an “i” adjective, in past tense should be “oishikatta desu,” only--unfortunately--this did not dawn on me until I was halfway home.

Oh yes...here is a rough translation of what that means: “Thank you for the meal. It was delicious! I am a dumb American who cannot conjugate delicious!”

I do not score a 5/5. Not yesterday, anyway.

Bin there, done with that.

Lately, I’ve been buying my wine at Bin 201. Bin 201 sells only wine--no beer, no liquor--and they’re conveniently located just steps from Whole Foods Market. (Do I sound like a radio advertisement yet?) I do have an inclination that I should shop from the more local merchant--in our case, Dawson’s Liquors. Dawson’s is 3 stone throws from our house and carries an impressive collection of domestic and imported booze. But, you see, I think they hate me there.

It’s possible that my imagination is acting up, or that I’m simply neurotic, but I’m pretty sure I’ve earned--as far as the handful of men (plus the one short woman with heavy-framed spectacles and a permanent scowl) who run Dawson’s are concerned--some sort of uppity alpha she-wolf status.

It’s not something I do on purpose. In fact, I’m neither mean, uppity, rude, nor aggressive. But I do take Jeff almost everywhere I go. And I do guide him.

Jeff has an additional problem which complicates the others: He can only hear about half as well as most people. Here’s how this plays out in Dawson’s liquors: We walk in. A guy or two nods. I smile or say “hi.” Jeff stops, grins, and stands blocking the doorway and limiting another customer’s access to the checkout counter. I take his arm and say “this-a-way.” He forgets to look where I’m going the minute I let go, and heads down the Schnapps aisle. Then he realizes he’s lost me. I peek around an endcap (featuring the latest squeezings of some Hollywood director’s backyard vineyard,) and say, loudly enough for Jeff (and, incidentally, the rest of the store) to hear: “I’m right over here. Let me just grab a couple things.” I grab a couple things. Then it’s time to check out.

I place my two 750 ml selections on the counter, and indicate Jeff should do the same with his doublesize jug of Chardonnay. Then I pay, and the guy puts the bottles in a paper bag. Jeff holds out his hand for the bag. Sometimes I give it to him. Sometimes I say, “I’ve got it...can you get the door?” It all depends on the size and awkwardness of the paper bag. You see, there is a not-inconsequential chance that Jeff will a) grab the paper bag with one hand, effecting an immediate rip, or b) pick the bag up upside down. (The time this happened, remarkably only one bottle of the 4 that tumbled onto our brick walkway was impaired, and it was just a chink out of the screw cap. Which meant we opened that bottle right away.) But the take-home point is that people in public, such as the Dawson’s guys, observe a dynamic between Jeff and me that is a little strange if you don’t know he’s impaired. And I believe that they have concluded, despite the fact that I am neither mean nor belittling, that there’s something wrong with this picture. It’s just that they’ve guessed wrong about what the wrong thing is.

Once, I had to get Jeff to sign a state tax refund check, so that we could deposit it into a bank account that has only my name on it. So, he and I were standing on our side of the teller window, and I was trying to point to where, on the back of the check, he should endorse. As his pen tried several times to touch down in random places, I’d redirect him to the signature line. Task accomplished. Next day, my bro-in-law Gordon went to the bank. Same teller. She sees Gordon often, and mentioned that she saw his brother yesterday. Then she wondered aloud, whether his sister-in-law (aka me) is “a little overbearing.” (Gordon has dealt with this himself. He recalls helping Jeff buy girl scout cookies once by taking the money Jeff was struggling to count, and handing the right amount to the cookie mom, while she looked at him “like he had two heads.”) So Gordon chuckled and said, “Let me guess...he needed to sign in a specific place, and she was trying to help him?” Right. Gordon explained things to the teller, who has been very sweet to me ever since.

But nobody, apparently, has had an opportunity to explain things to the men who work at Dawson’s Liquors, and at least a couple of them really don’t like women who are in charge. Even reasonably pleasant ones. It’s a horrible vibe I get from them.

But not in Bin 201. At Bin 201, there are always women salespeople, they always deal directly with me, showing no sign that they find it wrong or odd that I’m taking charge, and they’re always very pleasant. It’s local enough.

kick in the pants

What I wish I had is a more outgoing personality type. I certainly like people--there's no question--but I like them on a very lateral basis. I must've been one of those little kids who played alongside other children, rather than with them.

All this is in recognition of my need to grapple with the #1 obstacle between me and a peaceful relationship with this house: Engage the Handyman!

So, yeah...I'll DO it! I'm going to do it. This week. I will call. (Why do I hate calling people?)

No doubt the water dripping through the kitchen ceiling this morning put the spark to my plug. (Incorrectly tiled bathroom floor--it's item #1 on page #2 of my "Maintenance Needs" notebook.)

Yeah, don't worry about it, I completely agree. The whining was getting on my nerves too.

it's not broken...it just has a great patina.

The behemoth icicle clusters, (one is pictured 3 post down,) finally fused into solid columns of ice, hooked to the roof at the top, and a frozen pool at the bottom. I’ve been worried all along, wondering if and when I should remove them before they release themselves. Afraid the support at the bottom they had now established would cause upward pressure against the soffit and the slate shingles, I decided to hack the leg off. It took a saw, a clean cut and a solid push to the stalagmite portion, but as we left to pick up Gabe from afternoon carpool, it appeared the remaining hanging portions would finally lose their grip. They did. And the one on the right took a couple half-shingles with it.

Clearly I made a wrong move, but there I was feeling newly overwhelmed by unfinished work, entropy, and an unfortunate dearth of resident handy people. I’m usually good at shutting up, and putting a happy face on it, but temporarily I wasn’t, and I lamented--out loud--that I didn’t know what we’d do, but I’d have to find a way out of maintenance that neither one of us is capable of.

Alzheimer’s is so weird. And so fraught with Catch-22s. If you haven’t done a lick of handy work in 4 years, and the last licks you attempted resulted in disastrous butcherings of door jambs and locksets, how odd that your brain still allows you to think you’re completely capable. I could do it said Jeff. A part of me still wants to apply reason rather than fib. You can’t, I said. You can’t, because the Alzheimer’s messed up the part of your brain that could do that work.

Of course he didn’t believe me. By corollary to the first conundrum, the AD-damaged brain will also not observe that walking outside in February without your coat, because you don’t like the point your wife attempted to make is not a particularly winning way to demonstrate that she’s mistaken about your level of function.

I am not kicking myself with much force. Faking that you’ve got it under control all the time is bound to fail. There will be holes in the fabric, and sometimes rips.

I have dispatched emails to two people who might know handymen-for-hire. And I’ve got a another phone number--someone my mom’s used--as another possibility. But maybe the trick is to save my money, and save the work until I can consider moving. Can I move Jeff? Will the house disintegrate around me? Am I whiny? (maybe don’t answer that.) I will think on it all, dream up a long term plan, and set the bellyaching dial to a very low hum.

a good house.

Unclear why I’ve been dancing on the hot coals of anxiety these last few days (especially given the cold weather,) but it’s been fun. I’m starting to seriously wonder whose bedroom I should co-opt for nights when the only thing that discharges the tension is pretending I’m on a “magic fingers” bed, delivering 200 nickels-worth of agitation, all at once.

I’m sure it’s a good policy--any time you’re in the midst of a “snow event” such as we’ve been experiencing this week here in the Mid-Atlantic--to postpone any hasty conclusions about your emotional balancing needs until, at the very least, the walking conditions have normalized. In the meantime, exercise indoors as possible, and do not eat too much of that strange orange cake you made yesterday--the one with the surprisingly light crumb, given that the layers are shaped like upside-down frisbees, and the overall morphology of the assembled and frosted confection resembles a squashed hat.

Well, I am afraid of the house, no question, and to a certain extent I always have been. It scared me at the outset when I knew Jeff was biting off more than he could chew--but we could talk about it, he had skills, and I could discharge into his buffering steadiness. It scared me when Jeff’s faltering brain left us with a half-realized work of architecture that I could neither fathom a way to complete, nor to escape from. Encouragement from Jeff’s siblings, and an arranged date with a contractor budged me from that rut, and I’m grateful. More was accomplished when we serendipitously stumbled upon our second team of renovators while walking the dog. Now it’s ok. It's the house I thought I could live in forever, when forever looked different from what it turned out to be. This house is about a partnership that no longer exists, and every detail reminds me. I can picture mustering enough resources to get the house in salable form, when needed...but why I’m so obsessed with getting out--seems like an impractical notion, doesn’t it?

Maintenance. I don’t want it. There’s too much. There’s a yard that needs clearing of overgrown, half-fallen cypresses and a fence in need of repair, and preferably, replacement. There’s a heat-system manifold, of boggling complexity in the basement, and a water heater so intricately linked to it that not just any HVAC man will want to take it on. There’s another HVAC unit in the laundry room--not in use. Never has been. The purpose for it disappeared with Jeff’s brain. As did the means to hang the arts & crafts light fixture which was destined for the family room ceiling, but is still living in about 8 boxes. There are wires sticking out of the wall, which would have operated it. Presently they’re capped with plastic wire nuts--a fetching color accent of orange and yellow against the white wall. The garage is partially framed in 2x4s which are now wobbly for lack of completing members. A bathroom wants tile repair and shelves where a platform of plywood still awaits.* I won’t go on. It’s boring.

Yes, I do get hung up on this stuff, and my imagination blooms with new things which could go wrong. My official stance, of course, (official being what I say to Jeff) is: “Everything’s fine here. There’s not really anything we need to do!” I say it enthusiastically, and I’m a great liar. Especially to a person who can’t read auxiliary facial give-aways. He would just fret, (albeit merely until it occurred to him to try to make coffee,) or state, forthrightly: “I can fix that!”

Then, like a moony teenager, I log onto FranklyMLS.com and ogle condominiums in Annapolis. It concerns me a bit that all the women in my ancestry named Emily ended up hermits in dark apartments. But I don’t mean to be a hermit. Or be in the dark. Or hide in my condo. So, while I hope I’m not destined for the Emily curse, I do think I am suffering a constitutional crisis where house ownership is concerned.

*(none of the remaining work is for my brother-in-law Fred, who has plenty to do at home.)

when not in use...

Gabe and I like the bathroom door to be left open when not in use. Allows for air circulation, and a fresher bathroom experience when it’s your turn.

Jeff shuts the door when he leaves. Every time. It has not always been thus, but has become--in the past couple years--a predictable habit. We see it shut, and push it open.

”Hey, Dad,” says Gabe, as Jeff exits the downstairs bathroom (which, in general, is the only one Gabe concerns himself with.) “Look. Look at this...see the door? Leave the door open.”

As for me, I have given up on two things: Asking Jeff to leave the door open, and reminding Gabe that his efforts will be to absolutely no avail. He knows better, but he keeps trying. “Hey. Dad. Leave the door open,” says Gabe. Jeff replies, “Oh, you like it open? Ok. I’ll remember that from now on.” Then he very dutifully pulls it shut behind him.

I’ll push it open next time I go down the hall. This is about as important as whether you prefer your bathroom tissue to hang toward the front, or toward the back. As in, it’s not important. (hint: front.)

Not quite ready for Hoth, but closer.

Today we ventured out, through the unplowed fluff and slush, because Jeff suggested--for the second day in a row--that we “go somewhere warm and dry and get some food.” Last night I dispelled the notion by pointing out that we were under full-blown snowfall, no plows would attempt our street until morning, and I doubted whether many local eateries were expecting customers. When he brought it up again this morning, I was more receptive--not because we didn’t have food, warmth, and dryness at home (we did,) but because I figured he must be missing his regular lunches out, and besides, I’d dispatched the final 2 inches in the driveway this morning.

So we rallied Gabe who--remarkably--had showered already, and navigated the messiness to Garry’s Grill, a local hash house. After a scintillating lunchtime description of Gabe’s various zombie-based dreams, we’ve returned to a house under full sun, with icicles melting in drips all around. Except for the ones which have fallen off altogether, such as these which apparently crashed to the ground while we were at lunch.

As of this extraordinary winter, I’m a full-on advocate for serious snow boots, like this excellent North Face pair which I acquired, with fortuitous timing, just before the pre-Christmas onslaught when the first 18” of the season hit us. The right gear, that’s all it takes for me to embrace my father’s haplogroup I, Nordic Y chromosome.

being where you are

These silly record snowfalls bollix daily tasks at every turn. You don’t think about it until you take an otherwise-well-rehearsed step and--bam--there’s another one. Well, to be completely honest, emptying the cat box should be quite a bit more well-rehearsed than it actually is, but yesterday it smelled essential. Unfortunately this meant plodding across crusted-over 2+ foot drifts in the back yard, until I could reach the composting zone over the back fence.

I have great snow boots. But I wasn’t wearing them. So, for the next 20 minutes mini snowballs tumbled from the inside of my jeans into my wool slippers as I puttered about the kitchen wondering whether to read a book or stare out the window.

Now it’s the garbage cans filling, and the recyclables collecting on the kitchen counter, as I’ve completely run out of space in the indoor bin. So, out I’ll go, crunching through the drifts the whole way, to yellow and green bins which will have to be shaken loose from the snow they’re 2/3 wedged into.

Yes, generally we manage these things around here, with a smile and the aplomb that goes with a novel type of mental stimulation coupled with the assumption that it will all end soon.

A broken fence, a trickle of water through the basement foundation, and two days without tv or internet, plus the relatively healthy (for most) upper-body workout of a driveway in need of shoveling have nothing on an overburdened tent camp on Hispaniola. In another life, in another dimension, I would be aboard the hospital ship USNS Comfort, currently floating off the coast of Haiti; part of a medical and support staff serving as they might. Sometimes I wonder about a life full of pedestrian game moves, such that (at the moment) my greatest concern is whether I’ll be capable of single-handedly patching the back fence where the snow-burdened Leyland cypress fell over on it.

1 dishwasher, hold the scary logo.

I will try to see my dysfunctional Fisher-Paykel dishdrawers as a charming, but ultimately disappointing, object lesson in why we avoid early-issue technology. Assuming this strategy succeeds, I will manage not to buy an iPad until they’ve discovered the worst kinks, and released a second generation.

However, this plan is of no help whatsoever to my dishes which, at the moment, are being sloshed with steamy water, but not washed in particular. Because, indeed, there were kinks aplenty in the guts and electronics of our prototype double-decker dishwasher. And now, about 5 years into service (and about 8 years after purchase...the kitchen took us a while...) it has this one advantage over letting the dog do the dishes: You can close the drawers and make them disappear.

So, on Thursday, we went to ApplianceLand. To be completely forthcoming, the name of the business is “ApplianceLand, etc.” First let me say that I have always failed to understand why businesses append words such as “city,” “land,” or “world,” to the name of the commodity they’re peddling in order to construct a name. I’d rather they just call it “Filbert’s Appliances.” (Or, if not Filbert, then whatever name is appropriate.) Because an ugly former bank building, with reflective turquoise-mirror windows, at the corner of Route 2 and West Street, is most certainly not a land. I can get over it, because they’ve been reasonable merchants to deal with, but I’m still nagged, just slightly, by the second appendage--that is, “etc.”

ApplianceLand, etc? What does this mean? That they also retain the riparian and mineral rights to this land, and possibly the airspace as well? Important, no doubt, however small and bounded by traffic the land is. (Maybe they should have called it “Appliance Duchy,” or “Appliance Principality.”) At any rate, stupid name or not, I will be completely happy with them when they deliver my new dishwasher, and get it properly installed, in a week. Oh...unless it’s delivered by the mascot:

If I open the door next Saturday, and something that looks like this slithers in, I’m going to be seriously wigged. I’m not exactly sure what this is. As near as I can tell, it is a fiendish female genie wearing a crustacean gown and a Jackie-O pillbox hat, who is gesturing for you to come close enough that she can push you down the garbage disposal. I did not see her in the showroom on Thursday, but the thought of her popping out might make me wary of opening the ovens or fridges on display.

Well, demonic mascots notwithstanding, I’ll be glad to have a functioning dishwasher.

time for adjustment

Today we went in search of a watch. Jeff has had many watches over the years, and the most recent--a rugged but basic Timex, with white face and black hands--was selected with visual simplicity in mind. For several months now, he’ll catch sight of the watch counter as we make our way through stores, and say “Hey...I need a watch.”

"Is there something wrong with your watch?” I reply, realizing he has no idea we’ve had this conversation five or six times. “It’s just...” he says, looking at it. “It’s just...I just want a basic watch.”

I don’t know why I’m so slow, but I finally connected the dots after the third time I saw him walk over to the oven, stoop down, and squint at the control panel. We have two wall clocks in the greater kitchen/dining zone. One classic round, which I found on the clearance table at Williams-Sonoma quite a few years ago, and a more recent acquisition--directly from the Alzheimer’s Store online--a big, white standard clock-face over which resides a flip-type readout which tells us (today) that it’s “WED 3 FEB.” I rely on this calendar help quite a bit myself, as I tend to be lax where keeping track of dates is concerned. And for a while, Jeff remembered to look at this clock.

But now, the oven display. Which is, now that I thought about it, digital. This all makes sense. What is an analog clock, but a graphic, pie-chart representation of time? And what is a big thing Jeff can’t do? Read graphs.

Flashback to 2004. We and all 4 kids are visiting Jeff’s brother Wade in Boulder, Colorado. Wade is working, and we’ve decided to drive to Pike’s Peak, near Colorado Springs, to give oxygen deprivation a try. I’m driving south (by then, I mostly was driving,) in our rented minivan (completely inadequate, I might add, for Rocky Mountain terrain,) and I want to know, for my own sense of orientation, how much ground we’ve covered between Boulder and Colorado Springs. With the sense of foreboding that goes with doing something about which you know better, I hand Jeff the Colorado highway map. “Find Boulder,” I say. “It’s that smaller yellow blob, just northwest of Denver.” Jeff stares intently, as if staring intently will cause what has become--to him--nothing but a confusing array of lines and colors to make sense. I realize what I had suspected: He can no longer read maps. At this point, I know I should forget about my desire for orientation and live with the uncertainty of being “somewhere” between Denver and Colorado Springs, but instead, I ask Jeff if he would mind giving the map to Rachel, who is sitting in the seat behind him. He has a mini temper-tantrum and throws it behind him. Rachel orients me, and I’ve learned something new about Jeff’s cognition, 3 years pre-diagnosis.

So I realize what has happened. Jeff can’t read an analog clock. We need to find him a digital watch. After rejecting the too-expensive options at assorted mall kiosks, we stop at Kohl’s on the way home, and I zero in on a Timex Expedition with nothing going on but the time and date. It is in a counter-top case, with many other Timex models. Jeff points to a plain-looking analog. “How about that one?” he says, “it looks simple.” In fact, I say to myself, it looks just like the watch you already have, and it occurs to me, then and there, to conduct a small clinical test. “Let’s see which watches are easiest to read,” I say. (I am helped in this test, by the fact that none of these watches have been set to the proper time, so they’re all different.) Then, I point to various of them and ask him to tell me what time it reads. Each time I point to a digital he tells me straight away. “3:32, 6:28, 11:05.” When I point to an analog, he hangs...like a computer with frozen software. “Uhhh...” And I switch to a different, digital one.

We choose the light brown one. He likes it. He does not realize why he can read some and not others. He thinks the ones he can’t read are just “too busy” or something.

We stop for a treat at Baltimore Coffee & Tea. For Jeff, this means simply coffee. For me, this means a “Snow Angel” Latte--chocolate and vanilla with soymilk. We take turns using the facilities. When it is Jeff’s turn, he heads to the rear of the shop. This is what you see: two doors, plainly marked, with tea displays to the left and right. I am watching. He doesn’t know what to do. He peers at both doors, then turns to the tea shelves on the right to see if they’ll provide any assistance. I hurry to the back of the store, turn the handle to the men’s room and say “right here.” Brains are complex, and they fail complexly.

blogging by iPhone email...

...doesn't format properly, I see. (Shall fix it.)

7 up, 7 down

I like the view from the 7th floor of Georgetown University Hospital. Across Reservoir Road, a pair of retrievers is trampling merry dog prints all over the snow in the middle of the University practice field, while their person runs laps on the track. Not far beyond, the highest tower of the National Cathedral is poking its four spires above a row of old, and therefore well-built houses. If we were across the hall we'd be looking at the Washington Monument obelisk.

Behind me, Jeff is being unwired from an EKG machine. Soon I am summoned to think of two events--one within the last week, and one within the last month, which Jeff will be asked to recall. I think of our flight to Colorado 3 weeks ago, and the snowfall over the weekend, providing useful details to the extent that my sometimes foggy memory permits.

I hope that we'll have time for lunch. Even a Chipotle burrito. A last-minute change in routine (the usual ride going home sick) means we'll be hightailing it from D.C. to Baltimore to retrieve a couple of schoolboys this afternoon. I've brought snacks, and we could avail ourselves of the bag lunches on offer to clinical research participants, but they aren't my favorite, and seasoned rice and black beans always appeal.

Funny thing--as we were headed toward the stairwell from our parking space in the catacomb-like L7 level of the underground garage (that's level negative 7,) a healthy looking man said "Elevator's broken. But the east-side one is working." And he took off across the long, gloomy tomb of a garage to the far stairwell. People really don't use stairs, do they? I thought, as Jeff and I walked up the stairs.

Maybe I should shovel

Although the hefty batch we got just before Christmas was all the snow I needed this winter, today’s is at least picturesque, without the dubious promise of 2 feet lingering on the ground for weeks on end. No, it should be well and completely dispatched by Tuesday, so today--a Saturday--I’m not minding it. In fact, I’ll pop a log or two in and sit facing the fireplace once Gabe has ended his marathon shower, and I’m certain the exhaust fan is off. What I don’t want to do, when it’s 17〫F outside, is suck smoke into the house and have to open windows.

Jeff wants coffee. He pulls a random bag of rock-hard beans out of the freezer and waves it at me. “Do we have something high-test to use?” he inquires. I take the frozen bag and put it back, then make him a 4-cup pot. It’s not that I’m trying to make the coffee-making procedure arcane but, even at its simplest, it’s got too many steps for Jeff. At the moment we have a freezer shelf well-stocked with various bags of ground fair-trade beans, brought back by Katherine from her last business trip to Central America. So, my usual protocol--mix equal parts caffeinated and decaf, store in ziplocs, grind just before brewing--has been temporarily disrupted to allow for grinding the decaf, then mixing with the El Salvadoran, or Panamanian, or Mexican pre-ground, and pushing “go.”

The fire has started, its cooperation finessed by use of a mini java-log starter, and now I suspect that the Estonian timber will not last long. The bread machine is rattling along through its first knead cycle in the kitchen, and the dog is gazing dolefully out the front window, wishing someone would take her out to play “Balto.” Perhaps this afternoon, mukluks strapped in place, I will.

The next chapter of my story awaits, ready for me to fill in the details of a new setting. It’s a tower, at the top of which lives and works a wealthy eccentric...but the devil--as they say--is in the details, and Clarence my muse seems reluctant to take him on.

Gabe is proposing Candid Camera-style scenarios. “What if a family is in the kitchen, and a person they don’t know walks down the stairs, and casually asks if they have any milk?” I’m supposed to have a good answer to this sort of question. I wonder about Gabe’s roommate for next year. Will he dig a discussion about the relative merits of being able to control dust with your mind versus having the power to enlist the assistance of every lightning bug in the vicinity? Meanwhile, Gabe has selected a phase B plan--he’ll ask for deferred admission to a school in North Carolina which has accepted him. Then, after a preparatory year in Connecticut, he can stay or transfer. There are hurdles--for instance, I still have to take him driving until I get him licensed--but I feel, at least, like I’m clearing them, one at a time, without too many skinned knees.

No fowl.

How much of a nuisance can a scruffy thing weighing in at about 7 pounds be? Somewhat. As we returned from morning errands, Hazel’s bid for attention took the form of bopping sundry items--from pens to a stack of newspapers--off the kitchen table, maximizing their splat value. She did not catch on, until I set one of the bags down, and she stuck her small, slightly scabby head inside, that one of our calls had been to the purveyor of fowl-free kitty foods, otherwise known as “Crunchies Natural Pet Foods.”

You’d hope that a kitty you rescued as a desperate and homeless six-month old, 10 years ago, by tossing a hoodie over her and taking her home, would have the courtesy to not be an unnecessary expense. But, for reasons known only to her mast cells and basophils (and they’re not talking,) bird in her diet will provoke her to lick herself into a bald, gooey, pink thing.

It took some time to completely figure this out. Several years ago, when this all started, the standard-issue “hypo-allergenic” food for cats, purchased through the veterinarian, was made of duck and green peas. I thought I was doing all I could, yet I still had to cart her in every 3-4 month for a steroid injection when the bald pink patches appeared. Clearly not a healthy choice. A couple years into this protocol, the vet informed me that now duck was considered to have similar allergenicity to chicken. At this point I turned to Crunchies, 15 minutes down the road, to seek alternatives.

Chicken-free cat food at the grocery store would be a rare find but, at Crunchies, I can come home poorer in cash, but well-stocked with small cans containing venison, rabbit, lamb (Forest Friends, Becca calls it,) and seafood of assorted stripes. Each new variety must be put to the test. When you open a can of food that your cat doesn’t like, she doesn’t say “Thanks for trying, but it appears that somebody put the bass-o-matic on 'chop’ instead of ‘puree.’” No, she leaves off the “thanks” part altogether, and just stares at you the way the aliens at the end of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull stare at Cate Blanchett just before they make her head combust. So you say “Aha...‘Outback Grille’ is out, eh? How about some nice ‘Polynesian BBQ?’” Actually, you rarely offer a second choice. Once a variety has been established as “acceptable,” subsequent refusals will nix it from a position on the “buy” list, but my on-the-spot response will be more along the lines of, “Fine then. Looks like it’s nothing but fishy kibbles for you today.” So far my head has not exploded from the glaring.

She has not required a steroid injection in almost 2 years though, thanks to her bird-free diet. She’s still a bit of an itchier-than-average thing...I guess some of us just come into the world that way.

Chessie, on the other hand, is permitted a dish of chicken-based kibbles in the garage, where Hazel never goes. (Having spent her first winter alone, outdoors, and cold, Hazel does not trust outside, and will not go there.) Hazel and Chessie rarely have matching preferences in canned food, though they both favor rabbit. (I realize that rabbits must breed quickly, because they apparently taste too good not to.) They both universally panned this morning’s selection. So much so that Chessie crankily bopped Hazel on the head, and Hazel doubled the intensity of her laser-stare. “Marbella Paella” has been culled from the list. Another breakfast down.

I've neither a sent nor a kroon, but perhaps a Euro...

My dad collected coins when he was a kid. They lived in a box, in the upper reaches of my parents' closet, and one day--when I was about 12--he let me choose one. Maybe he hoped, since I'd been pretty much a wash-out in my half-hearted venture into his current hobby--basketball (he coached,) that an interest in numismatics might provide an intellectual diversion from my usual vague activities of tromping through the woods and neglecting to brush my hair. (My brother collected stamps and encyclopedic knowledge. My sister collected straight A report cards and horse-show ribbons. I collected dirt under the fingernails and dust under my bed.) 

As it happens, it didn't take. But I remember the coin I chose. It was an Estonian "1 sent."  (plural: senti.) It was tiny and cute, and that was the basis on which I'd selected it. I knew nothing about Estonia. I don't know what became of that coin. I kept it in a box of random objects, with a pearl from Sea World in Florida, and a small gold cross pendant of the sort people used to give babies, but babies never wore. I'm sure my mom eventually dispersed/dispensed, or otherwise dispatched those objects and that box, after I left home. 

Fast forward to the present. As I mentioned in another entry, I have a small stash of hardwood, purchased at Whole Foods Market, next to my fireplace. The wood, oddly, was imported from Estonia. I don't know why they'd sell Estonian firewood in Annapolis. The point is, though, that I thought of my firewood as I watched the opening panoramic vistas in the film The Singing Revolution, because there they were--the verdant forests and hills of the Baltics sweeping past--former home of the logs I've yet to burn.

The film is a documentary, tracing the history of Estonia's occupation by a succession of external forces, from the time of Czarist Russia, to the final--very recent--efforts to sweep away the remaining hold of the U.S.S.R (as it lost its grip all over the place.) I assume that the gaping hole in my familiarity with Estonia and its close neighbors--Latvia and Lithuania--stems from the fact that when I was going to high school, Estonia was a Soviet Socialist Republic, not yet enjoying the relative liberties of perestroika and glasnost, and the Iron Curtain was a barrier we rarely peered behind, even from the boring comfort of 10th grade European History. 

Childhood impressions are weird, and while I could have told you next to nothing about the nature of the nation of Estonia, I could have attached emotive words to my vague impressions of the Iron Curtain concept--cold, grey, metallic--most likely the very impressions our post-McCarthy curriculum would have wanted to impart to our young democratic minds.

Hence, if my guess about the Estonian people might have been that they were a drab and colorless lot, with drawn faces and dreary raincoats, huddled around the clanking radiator in a two-room apartment while dining on the solitary potato that was for sale at the market...well, I would have been mistaken. Not that the fear and chill evoked by the specter of Soviet occupation didn't feature in the story of Estonia's emancipation--it certainly did, and many if not most of the players interviewed for the film had spent time in Siberia, while the rest lived under the threat. But, still, the people portrayed in the documentary took me by surprise. 

So much blond hair. A Scandinavian-looking bunch, for sure. Now, I'm not going to argue that I didn't fail myself in obtaining a proper education, because I most certainly did...but I think it's all too easy for American schoolchildren (if they get a sense of Eastern Europe at all, and they might not,) to mix up things like Baltic and Balkan.

Thus, when imagining an Estonian, it is important to imagine an Estonian. And not, let's say, a Macedonian. Because the fact that Estonians are closely linked to the Finns in both language and ethnicity is quite obvious, once you begin to pay attention.

When you grow up in middle-America, thinking that your second grade textbook, Greenfield, U.S.A, gives a reasonably accurate picture of what life is like, you tend--at least as a child--to extend such assumptions about life (safety, comfort, friendliness, plenty,) to encompass the folks on that continent over that-a-way...Europe. (You have no such illusions about the other continent over that-a-way...Africa...because that's the one they always use to illustrate how things aren't always so great.) 

And you assume that stuff you saw in old newsreel footage--Nazis, concentrations camps, the strafing of cities by small buzzing planes--is history. As in, distant history. (Maybe it was easier to be so oblivious as a 12 year old in 1974 than it would be for a 12 year old in 2010, who has to learn why she can only bring liquids in 3 oz increments on airplanes.) But, anyway...here's the remarkable thing about Estonia in the 20th Century--When the Allies routed the Third Reich, and the parts of Europe about which I knew the most returned to a way of life I would have more or less recognized--the Soviets marched right back into the Baltic countries. Estonia continued to experience a continuity of bad news until the last of the Soviet forces marched away in 1994. That's practically yesterday.

And here, on film, are sweeping scenes of a beautiful, wooded landscape, and the lovely singing faces of people who are neither drab, metallic, nor wearing grey raincoats. But who are both young, and still remember when singing was, maybe, a slightly risky proposition. 

konnichiwa and extra mushrooms, please.

Today I stepped, with minor trepidation, into room 205 for day #1 of 3rd semester Japanese. The misgivings had nothing to do with whether I'd be able to remember that the "te" form of iku is itte and not ite. Nor did I retain any lingering fear that Lizzie-san--with her plastic tiaras, fishnet stockings, and tendency to burst out in punk rock songs in the middle of class--would be sitting behind me, destined to be lumped with me for another group project. (Lizzie-san, no doubt, failed to make the 2nd to 3rd semester cut anyway, having run shrieking from the building on the day we were slated to deliver our group presentation. I mussed my hair a bit to play her role, and the remaining 3 of us got on just fine.) The new girl in class (well, new to me anyway,) wears a black trench coat and declares her name to be "Bouzu," which means something along the lines of "bald monk." In fact, she is not bald, but her hair is very short. I'm not concerned. Monks are not given, as far as I know, to singing in class.

No, I was concerned about Jeff, whom I'd left downstairs in the lobby, by the coffee bar, with a tall cup of joe and Accounting for Dummies. An hour and a half is quite a while to wait, and I knew that if he decided to hunt down a bathroom, or step outside to take the air, he could be tricky to relocate. I stuck the cell phone that he doesn't know how to use in his shirt pocket, having earlier scrawled across its back, in indelible black marker: Emily 555-555-5555. (Well, no...not really 555...my real phone number, for which the 5s are subbing. But you knew that.) And I changed the ring to something more shrill that he'd be sure to recognize as a phone-ring, and not a random jazz riff appearing in the air out of nowhere.

As it turned out, he waited just fine. And I realized, afterward, that a smaller solarium-like lounge, at the end of the hall on the second floor, might be a safer, less frenetic place to wait, should he keep preferring to come with me.

And as for Japanese class, I am glad I'm still at it. Apart from a few minor switch-ups in class roster, (Lizzie⇋Bouzu, as mentioned, being one,) the classroom was a mirror-image of last semester, with (this time) Paul-san to the left, Duane-san to the right, and several other pleasantly familiar faces. It's something my brain needs. Brains are like pizza dough. Real, handmade, Italian pizza dough that needs to be pummeled a bit before being tossed in the air, spun a few rotations, then stretched against its natural elastic tendency to shrink back on itself. Well, take that brain. 46 new kanji to learn this semester. Exactly the kind of abuse I need. And I guess, if worse comes to worse, I can sit Jeff in the back of the classroom.

zip

I did my best to keep Jeff's coat alive. The gray, puffy "Jim Whitaker" down jacket from L.L.Bean, which he'd had for roughly 20 years. It was dirty, stained, and beginning to sprout holes. And the zipper pull was a distant memory. But still, for inexplicable reasons, that was the zipper he could still fasten. Even without a pull. Not every time, but often. 

I enjoined him, occasionally, to switch his devotion to the equally gray, equally puffy, Sierra Designs Gore-tex jacket. But he insisted it was "too good." Not that it's at all good, really. I used to wear it, years ago, before I became enamored of all-black, all the time, in my outerwear selections. (well, except for my raincoat, which is raspberry.) And it is, in fact, older than the Jim Whitaker. And missing a zipper pull. Instead, it has a small o-ring, which I slipped on in lieu of the original pull.

But, I do what I can for Jeff, because he drew a crappy card from the deck, and I think he deserves small indulgences such as wearing an ugly old coat, if it pleases him to do so. So, I decided to fix the big hole in the sleeve which had begun spewing feathers around the front hallway. (Note: just because the material a coat is made of reminds you of the sleeping bag you fixed with an iron-on patch 10 years ago, does not mean it is the same material.) I tried to iron on a patch. Well, the hot iron had scarcely made contact with the coat, when fizzzzoooosh...where once there had been a ½" slit, there was now a 2" diameter gaping melt-hole. I gave up, and tossed Jim Whitaker in the trash. 

So now It's Sierra Designs, which should have as much beat-up old cachet as Jim Whitaker. But here's the problem: Jeff can't do the zipper. He also can't do the zipper on the buff-colored wool jacket I recommend to him on more temperate days. With either of these jackets, he snaps the bottom snap, then snaps the top snap, leaving a big, gaping belly-full of exposed shirt underneath. It's useless for me to explain or demonstrate. His ability to zip zippers went in the trash with the Jim Whitaker jacket. Reminds me of the old grandfather clock song, but kind of less picturesque. 

So I do the zippers.

Pile o'shoes? Well, okay.

I think there will be a moment where young adult children, departing to resume their at-school lives, realize that it would be thoughtful to leave their rooms tidy. Maybe pick up the towels and other flotsam off the bathroom floor. Maybe toss empty dental floss containers and underwear packaging in the trash can instead of on the floor. As it stands now, I usually allot the day or two following their decampment to washing towels, piling abandoned garments in baskets, picking up little bits of trash, and vacuuming the remainder.

To be fair, I am aware that it pleases them to wait until the last minute to gather the scattered necessities. At home, one is in at-home mode. It is a time to decompress, as much as is possible, from the obligations of academia, and no one is anxious to attach a whole new set of must-dos to that interlude. I am hardly the picture of the overly put-upon domestic maternal figure, anyway. Don't like it, don't do it...and nobody much cares. But, I do need my visual space. And my personal definition of visual space is essentially the same as not-cluttered. I believe objects must emit a certain type of radio frequency that my brain is unfortunately unable to tune-out, hence the more there are, the more energy that might be put toward attempting to write an intelligent paragraph is diverted to communing with the cacaphony of objects strewn about the kitchen table or the bathroom floor. And I did mean cacaphony. It's almost noise. 

There's another side of it, though, that I noted this morning as I walked into the upstairs hallway and observed the absence of extra people living behind the extra doors. People are a fair trade-off for a reduction in the Spartan simplicity of my space. 

Even microbiological cultures have to try

(note: this is the last in a series of posts I made from my iPhone while on a trip to Colorado with Jeff. I posted in bits, hence, the sequence is backwards! Annoying, I know. To make sense of them, scroll down--next page maybe--and start with the one labeled "Start here...")

We're probably roughly over Indiana. It's dusk. The world below
remains lightly dusted with snow, cut every which-way with dark
streaks, like the veins in blue cheese. In patches, human civilization
spreads out--random cultures in a global petri dish, with a
luminescent trait. I can't tell you whether they're gram positive or
negative.
It's a little hard to fathom--watching these clusters glow, spread,
and interlace their tentacles--a pov which insists that the prevalence
of humans does NOT affect the Earth's climate. But to acknowledge that it does need not equal an indictment. Life, of any sort, tries to prevail. Don't know how we'll do longer-term. I hope we figure out and implement a good trick or two without the cross-purposes of our conflicting motives reducing it all to static. Maybe.

Let me just add, that when breakfast coffee is served in a small white ceramic cup labeled "illy," it cannot help but be delicious.

There is a toasted Einstein honey-wheat bagel with hummus in my carry-on for cross-country sustenance. Soggy, possibly, but better than airline Chips Ahoy crisps. I hope Jeff and Wade will have a good week, and that the dishes are washed at home.

And now I am on my way home. I left Jeff and Wade after breakfast, and am relishing the time alone--from the quiet drive across somewhat-barren Boulder County, to my imminent flight, on which I will be concerned only with the upright and locked status of my own seat-back.

Wade chided me for buying $10 "earlybird boarding" privileges for our Southwest flights, because Jeff's health status should be enough to let us access priority boarding. Here's the thing--so far, he is much more comfortable playing that card than I am.

Prior to dinner, yesterday's most useful activity consisted of finding a means to make it easier for Jeff to tie his shoes. Wade recommended shoes such as his, which laced with bungee shoestrings, cinched with one of those spring-loaded locking gizmos. The perfect pair were not in evidence at the 3 shops we visited, so I went with putting spring-cinch thingies on his existing shoes. There is a problem in that he can pull the plastic mechanism off and be befuddled. This will take further study, and perhaps bona fide bungee laces when he gets home.

Last night's dinner spot was called Sushi Tora, which, thanks to my iPhone Kotoba dictionary, I can translate as sushi tiger. I did not order tiger myself, but my teriyaki tofu, miso soup, and wasabi mashed potatoes proved that it is possible for a Japanese restaurant to be as good as Joss in Annapolis.

Hi! Go all the way down to the fireplace pokers and read backwards!

The morning with a cup of coffee view

We have worked at making sure he can identify the correct rowhouse should he wander out alone. He seems to be retaining "660," and we've employed more visual cues: "See? 3' tall wooden Confucius with only half a face? This is the house."

Jeff's struggles seem incrementally more severe. I will appreciate Wade's review, after 5 days with Jeff and not me.

then came back to this far better than average townhouse and drank a glass of Argentinian Malbec. Wade's dog Kashi is sweet, and our hosts--friends from whom he's currently renting a room--are a great couple. I bought them a couple bottles of red at the Boulder Wine Merchant today. (Barbara thinks that I look like EmmyLou Harris. How could I not?)

But we are here. We grabbed a yummy late (for our East Coast bellies) dinner with Wade at a little Pan-Asian hole-in-the-wall called 5 Spice,

A few miles down the highway, something started to go "screeeeeeee."
"Jeff," I said, "your window might be a little open."
Thankfully, he was buckled in, because his reaction was to open the door, at 65mph. His reflexes worked. He pulled it closed. And the screeeeeeee got louder, at which point I realized his knee was hitting the window crank. I pointed this out and, remarkably, he tightened it. No more screee.

You know those National car rental ads where the guy says "I can choose any car in the aisle???" Well, our "aisle" consisted of a Hyundai Accent and a similar Chevy. I picked the Hyundai because it was silver, not white, and off we went to discover that--compared to the Hyundai--my Soobie is a luxury car. It took me a couple secs to figure out how to roll down the window (a crank.)

(we are about to have blueberry pancakes, courtesy of Wade. More when my coffee/food/blood sugar ratio has restabilized. )

It is also one of the catch-22s of Alzheimer's that the greater the need for assistance, the less welcome such assistance will be. Hence, whether I was pointing Jeff toward the proper end of the plane for exiting or trying not to lose him in the flow of humans, his expression remained: "What's your problem?"
This dynamic intensified as we boarded a shuttle bound for the car rental lot. Jeff could not sort out how to place his duffel on the rack, let go of it, then join me on a seat. As I gave him step by step directions, the guy sitting opposite chuckled--clearly one of those "women...pains in the butts, aren't they?" kind of things. Then Jeff decided he needed to put his coat on in the 80 degree F shuttle...and I didn't help. So I think the guy, and--I'm quite certain--the shuttle driver, finally caught on as Jeff couldn't ascertain top, bottom, inside, nor outside of his jacket. Still, I hit a point. One of those points where you know you'll continue to be judged for your "overbearing " behavior by people who have no clue what's actually going on, and I was thankful I had tucked tissues in my carry on bag, as I stared out the bus window and dabbed.

Anyway, there are few times when Jeff is more disoriented than at the end of a flight. I don't know why this would be...perhaps the brain has instrumentation which approximates the work of the plane's navigational gear, and the particular deficits from which he suffers leaves him more scrambled than usual. But it is so.

It occurs to me, as I blog in text-bits, that this story will post backwards. But the Colorado sun is shining. Perhaps I don't care too much.

Yesterday, we ate an adequate, if overpriced meal at the Silver Diner/BWI airport before boarding our 1:15pm flight. Being crammed into airplane seating for a mere 3.5 hours is tolerable, but resolved me to become rich enough to afford business class before I fly again to more distant geographical points.

It's good to feel good. Yesterday, en route to Denver, I had my moments.

row of houses across the street to a glow, and a small red hatchback is adding a charming accent. Not my usual reaction to the aesthetic offerings of cars and housing developments, but it doesn't hurt that this particular row of homes sits just in front of the foothills of the Flatirons.

Start here...

(This is where the Colorado sequence starts!)
At the moment I'm feeling some Colorado Rocky Mountain high. Out the front window of this rowhouse north of downtown Boulder, the morning light is burnishing the earthy tones of a

Have Estonian wood, will poke.

Today’s field trip, hastily stuffed into the schedule when it became clear that none of the daughters-on-break required my feeding services, took us north of Baltimore, to Wegman’s. Wegman’s is known for its general bigness, and--I guess--fabulousness, but, as there isn’t one which is by any means a practical commute from Chez Em, it became a fun, rather than practical outing. Especially when combined with a need to poke our burning fireplace logs with something other than a 14” stainless steel shishkebab skewer. Right there, near Wegman’s, see, is a Plow & Hearth store--the sort of place that causes you to walk around thinking Wow...if only my yard weren’t a concave mudpit where the sunlight is completely blocked by those trees that like to drop branches on the car in the middle of February ice storms...‘cause then I’d buy that eucalyptus garden bench, yes sir.

But, as it turns out, our yard is that thing that I said, and also I’m aggravatingly whimsical when it comes to spending money. And most of the time, I don’t want to. Still, I spied a set of wrought-iron fireplace tools, which met the dual criteria of functional and simple (except for the shafts charmingly twisted like wire coat hangers,) and accepted the display set when none were available packaged. Not that I wanted a package anyway.

But, as for Wegman’s: We ate lunch there, in the dining area that appears to go on forever, giving you countless different options for overlooking the shoppers below, as you eat your reasonably adequate fried rice and egg roll from the Asian hot bar. And your partner eats his chicken caesar salad. Which is kind of what he always eats.

But, indeed...big it was. Not only big though, it was partitioned up into sections that--from a bird’s eye view--must closely resemble the very random patchwork of tilled fields you see as you fly over, say, Indiana. Which means more of a maze than continuous aisles. This poses a bit of a problem for us, as Jeff likes to tail me by about 5 paces, but cannot track as I turn a corner. Hence, I must stop, peer back around into the the corridor where he is considering following the woman in the blue coat instead (her hair, after all, is blondish too,) and get his attention, and not completely disappear from view again until I’m certain he’s on the right track. And this happens in Wegman’s about every 15 feet. As a consequence, today’s purchases were limited to a french baguette (well, batard, actually,) a canister of “Peppermint Joy” tea, a mesh sack of grapefruit, and a package of store-label multigrain english muffins.

Yeah, it was a fun outing. I try not to mind noticing things, such as how much less useful it becomes, incrementally, to ask Jeff which fireplace poking set he prefers. These, I say, pointing at the twisted shaft ones, or these, I say, pointing to the set with simple hooks at the top, but a “bird cage” embellishment in the middle of the rack. I point down at a set. He gazes vaguely at the confusing array of visual stimuli at floor level and says “those are good.” Then he stands exactly in front of the service counter until 3 different clerks have asked if he needs something, at which point it occurs to my slow brain (I am admiring dog beds, and cat-shaped door-stops, you see,) and position him in a slightly more out of the way spot.

So, if they build a Wegman’s down the road from us, as has been rumored for roughly 5 years now, I’ll visit. I still prefer Whole Foods Market. But, given my grocery shopping druthers, I would evict Food Lion from it’s prime spot near Clement Hardware, and insert a Trader Joe’s.

Ok, so I'm ready to poke logs. But there is this weird thing, that just occurred to me: The logs I bought at Whole Foods the other day? They're birch, from Estonia. Why in the world does my firewood need to be imported from Eastern Europe? You know, I should have swapped it out for the bags of local stuff, but I wasn't paying attention. I grabbed a hefty sack full, from the pile by the underground parking garage, carried it up the stairs, plunked it in my cart, wiped the bits of bark off my coat, and then realized that I'd also carried up the sign that said "European Birch." So, I carried the sign back downstairs, and replaced it on the pile before I even noticed the domestic wood pile on the other side of the doorway. Next time. For now, I'm sure our next fire will burn with a almost-Russian accent. Looking forward to it.

ok...twenty-ten, let's see you.

Day four of 2010, and so far I like it. Even with the cold. Even walking back from Rams Head On Stage, through the darkened streets of Annapolis (after seeing Maggie Sansone and company,) in 20℉ (which I realize is piddling to those in more northerly climes.) Even with the cold, I like it. I cannot recommend long undies and hats strongly enough, but these are not negative factors.

Nor did I mind my usual morning routine of helping Jeff put his jacket on right-side out, cleaning up his spilled o.j., and pre-determining his need for an english muffin, a butter knife, a coffee cup, and some directional pointers.

I am presently waiting for the girls who, last night, announced that “going to breakfast” would be an excellent idea. It will not be my breakfast by the time they get up--it will be my lunch, or brunch or something...but food is good.

I like that it is the first day of Gabe’s last semester of high school. I don’t think he particularly likes it, but--for me--it represents the possibility of change. I cannot predict anything much. I cannot predict how Jeff will do as time goes on, or whether I’ll want to live somewhere smaller, or whether I’ll never leave...but just the potential for different choices, different activities, and--most likely--different challenges, at least engenders a slight serotonin spike, and I never argue with serotonin spikes.

But here we are, on day #1 of semester #8 (final,) in the coldest, darkest part of the winter, counting down the 5ish final months of getting up at 5:15 am, as the days progressively lengthen (yay sun!) and warm up.

To be sure, peri-menopausal moodiness is unlikely to have stayed behind in ’09, nor will have existential angst, but--yes, thank you--I will accept all good moods that care to apply.

this does not make me a consumer.

I go to the store, at night, for fun.

I don’t know, frankly, whether it’s a sign of ends which have become even looser, or evidence that my mood has picked up and I’m more motivated to seek entertainment. Surely it is, whatever else, a distraction--a means of presenting my brain with stimuli that will divert it from the doldrums of company that isn’t company, and conversation that, well, isn’t.

Actually, that’s why I’m partly looking forward a great deal to next Fall, when I’m no longer bound by the parameters of Gabe’s carpool schedule. Do stuff, go places, see things, write about them*...and not spend much time feeling the soggy, pervasive, and useless guilt that comes from feeling I should be able to entertain a presence who is neither entertaining nor entertainable.

And, for whatever non-ecological reason--I am better company to Jeff in the car. I can talk about something or nothing, he appears interested, and it’s ok that it won’t stick, or even be thoroughly comprehended.

*Yes. Write about places of interest that we visit and not the tiresome drivel of a brain in a rut.

This week I have done it twice. Once to the mall, (where I purchased jeans which I meant to acquire anyway,) and last night to Trader Joe’s, where I beefed up the larder. But without beef. Or lard. It was cold, and it was windy--but the thing is, I’m not minding the arctic chill. I’m just looking for fun. And the vacuum carafes of sampleable coffee, on the service counter at TJ’s is, yes it is, fun. And so are two lovely packages of chickenless nuggets.

I kind of wish they’d go ahead and tell us what Gabe needs for his housing situation next Fall, although I don’t expect to learn more details until this summer. Because, then we will acquire them. And that will be fun.

duck

Just before you are born, you go to the little plastic wading pool, with extra water jets installed, and pick a duck. There are swarms of little floating plastic ducks, clumping, whirling, and eddying in the wading pool, and you just pick one.

It is natural to feel a swell of hopeful expectation as you grab your duck--it could be an extraordinary one, with the special marking on its belly designating you as someone charged to be a notable persona among zillions of plain-bellied ducks. Well, of course you aren’t going to be a duck, regardless (unless you are a duck,) but an extraordinary duck selection means you’ll be launched with an extra spark of zest, charisma, or dynamism--the sort of person whom plain-bellied duck pickers admire, and say things about like: It would be great to be able to sing like that! or where does she get her great ideas?

A lot of people who pick a fancy duck may end up sort of half-wishing they’d picked a plain duck. And, odds are, you did pick a plain duck. It’s exceedingly rare not to. As for me, I am still not clear on whether the magic markings on the bottom of the ducks, and the subsequent “significance” they convey, may not be just a red herring. This is a definition for red herring: A red herring is an idiom referring to a device which intends to divert the audience from the truth or an item of significance.

Now that I am becoming slightly more hip to sleight of hand, as Gabe’s primary test audience, I am learning to look toward that which I am being distracted away from. Still, as far as ducks go, it’s clear I picked a plain-bellied duck. Now...just what is the item of significance away from which my attention has been diverted? When I find it, I may have to attach an electronic beeper to it.

I will yell Happy New Year in the morning?

There are Trader Joe’s “Mini Morning Buns” in the oven. I suppose the morning is as mini as any. It’s 8:40, and I’ve barely done more than get the buns going and start the elliptical for Jeff. What it means to start the elliptical is 1)Turn on the TV to CNBC. Harder than you think. One remote to turn it on, and adjust volume, another to aim at the cable box for channel selection. And both subject to disappearing in couch crevices. Then I push the green button on the elliptical console, twice, and invite him to climb aboard.

Trader Joe’s mini morning buns come in an awkward packaging size for the current crew-in-residence. 12 minis/box. One box means I should only eat 2. Two boxes means I can eat 4 or 5, but there will be leftovers to dry out. Easy call: 2 boxes.

It’s 10:55 am, and my left shoulder is holding me accountable for having slept on it last night. Darned if there’s a position that works, without repercussions, anymore. I may look into stringing a hammock across the room this year. Seriously. Could work. Meanwhile, Jeff is about to be scooped up by his sister for a kindly social call to an old friend of his late mother, and I’ll visit the grocery for some last minute peanut butter cake ingredients, since I’m supplying New Year’s day dessert.

1:00. Eating leftover Indian food, in our usual scavengy way. Happily, there’s enough rice to dilute the chickpeas channa masala, which smart a bit straight. Then Jeff and Helen return, mission accomplished. Jeff is wearing a brown leather shoe on his left foot, and a mahogany suede shoe on his right. I point the discrepancy out, but he is baffled, so I take his suede shoe upstairs and swap it for the other brown one. I hand it to Jeff, and he reaches to remove the other brown shoe from his left foot. “No,” I say, “put on this shoe.” He remains baffled. “Where?” “Put this shoe on this foot.” He struggles with the laces. Olivia catches my reflexive movement and verbally holds me off. “He can do it he can do it!” she chides. He more or less does.

3:30. I am presently vegging on the living room couch. My macbook battery indicator suggests a re-juicing. At the kitchen table, four of us take turns plugging into to one AC adaptor, like the mermaids at Weeki Wachee sucking on the air hose so they can go about their underwater business. It is my AC adaptor. I am, consequently, only wired about 25% of the time when girls are home.

Girls are scuttling about, embroiled in the processes of getting ready to go out for the evening and/or head back to St. Mary’s County. Nail polish, heels no reasonable person could walk in, and the guinea pig...waiting patiently on the kitchen table while its ride takes a shower. Hazel-cat is intrigued, rolling around on top of the cage. The message is clear: I could really play with this animal if you’d let me. I busy myself with nonsense--Tiki Towers on the iPhone, Facebook stalking, anything. I’ve got chickenless nuggets in the oven for Gabe and Jeff, but I can’t relax and reheat more leftover daal for myself until the girls have launched themselves. I inform Gabe that he will be required to vacate the TV with dvd player in a while, as I plan to watch the film (500) Days of Summer which Becca has kindly left behind.

15 minutes ‘til movie time. It’s 6:40. Some combo of my glass of sauvignon blanc and general flaggedness at having launched the 3rd and final girl out the door has stripped me of any remnant of patience. I have a nonsensical conversation with Jeff about whether it’s ok for him to sit in his chair (it is) while the cat is sitting in the other one. (yes, still ok.) But I sound cranky. I wonder if I could have an email penpal, like Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in You’ve Got Mail, but agree never to meet.

Halfway into the movie Gabe gets a call. He’s going to Matt’s house for the night. Goodbye Gabe. The movie was ok. Sort of sad, but the protagonist got things straightened out in the end, maybe. Me, I’m still stuck in the part where he declares it all b.s. and quits his greeting card job.

Jeff tried to go to bed. It didn’t take. It is 9:10pm. Lately, in the morning, he lies in bed until I finally stop hitting the snooze button, then pops up exactly as I do. And bedtime is increasingly unlikely until I have also succumbed. I was warned about shadowing. I know what behaviors are likely to be coming. But, if you’ve ever played Sims, and bought the sad clown painting...you know what comes next. Yes, it’s like that, but without the sobbing. The clown begins to follow you around. Something like a heavy shadow that never quite gives you privacy, but never quite intrudes either.

So, we’re having tea. Tea is the answer, if there’s no other. This is called “Organic Easy Now,” and purports to ease tension and stress. ‘Tis a pleasant brew. Well...I’ve just hatched a plan: Tonight, just after I post this, I will start a new Pages document. Over the course of the year, I will fill it with good thoughts. Every time a little lost wandering good feeling wafts by, I will place its imprint upon that page. The little lost wandering good feeling won’t mind. They like to do things like that.

It’s 9:30. I won’t make it ‘til midnight. I rarely do. ; )

(heading added later...a fish couldn't do that.)

Blogging from the iPhone? As if that can do anything to sharpen my content. I know...maybe it will make my posts shorter. Snappier? Crisper? Posts like garden-fresh string beans? Or merely symptomatic of my koi-like attention span...

Reel? or no real.

Of course the new film It’s Complicated is entirely realistic in positing a middle-aged protagoniste as the object of the competing affections of two eligible (or, not so,) suitors. I hold out hope. All the fun cannot have been passed, like a baton, to the next generation. I won’t have it.

As for the supposition that the character, played by Meryl Streep, could a)run a successful cafe/bakery, b)maintain a well-appointed house, stocked full of homemade food, and c)cultivate a beautifully groomed kitchen garden? Nonsense. But this is the movies we’re talking about.

I have selective suspension of disbelief, as required.

Partly sage, but nary the time.

I am holding this book, The I Ching for Writers, by Sarah Jane Sloane, which my friend Katherine gave me for Christmas. Now, it is normal, when I consult the regular i ching books, for the proffered advice to chide me for my need-to-know. The i ching does not care for neediness or clinginess, and when you ask a similar question too many times, it responds with the taoish equivalent of “because I said so.”

But the I Ching for writers...now this is a side door knob I haven’t yet jiggled, so just maybe I can--if not outsmart the Sage--at least take it a little by surprise, and shake out a more definitive answer. Confucius would probably say “impatient dweeb should fold laundry,” but there’s no harm in having a go at it, is there?

So, I’m going to open with a question: Is the story I’m ever-so-glacially crafting completely useless pixelation? And now to go pester the cosmos for either a) a nod, or b) a smackdown.

My coins are a mismatched set--two bronze, one silver--of hole-in-the-center, small bit pieces that came home in my father-in-law’s pocket, from China, roughly 22 years ago. They spend most of their time happily tarnished, in a small black jewelry pouch that something came in from Sundance catalog, and they’re always ready to come out and play their role in a reprimand from the Sage.

Six tosses. And it’s heaven over water (whatever that means): 6, with a changer on toss #4, making the future potential a 59. Don’t try to understand this. Just trust me. I’m sure I’m convincing. So, excuse me momentarily, as I read the interpretation...

...Ok. So, apparently, the Sage is advising me to burn something down in my story. As a means of risk-taking. Just let me say it now: If--upon its completion--you ever read this book, and think to yourself, not bad, except for the part where the city was consumed by flames,...you must blame it on the Sage, and not me.

On to 59, where the so-called moving lines have carried me: I see. Tie up the loose ends. So, first burn something down, then tidy up. It has just occurred to me that this advice may actually be intended for my fireplace, which is badly in need of a good sweeping out. But, for want of better inspiration, I will first squirt it, like powdered graphite, into the joints of my story...and just see...

One last, and not entirely welcome thought: What was my original question? Oh, right: Is the story I’m ever-so-glacially crafting completely useless pixelation? I don’t suppose the answer hits the question in a very direct way, now does it? Or does it? Fire and tidy up? Throw the whole thing into the virtual furnace? That could be what the i ching is saying, you know. But perhaps the text should reassure me. The consulted chapter advised “Writing Dangerously,” not packing it in irretrievably. So, tally ho....or FIRE! (as the case may be.) Onward.

but no scree tea.

Hmmm...what was it? One Christmas stocking pb-filled chocolate maple leaf? Or was it the homemade candy ball, straight from the land of old-fashioned food goodness, Tazewell, Virginia, that pushed my touchy head into the ibuprofen zone this morning?

I am looking out at the shlorpiest of Saturday mornings, where the the constant splat of rain has turned what seemed to be insurmountable heaps of snow into the great dismal slush swamp. We will need to go out in it. There are leftovers in the fridge, to be sure, but Jeff ate the last of the cinnamon-raisin Trader Joe British Muffins, toasted in two extremely uneven halves, this morning. As he cannot be retrained to initiate a different breakfast, I will set out to obtain more, and some milk and o.j. in the bargain.

One Subaru emerged from the snowfall with wipers unwilling to function. I certainly erred in not bearing at least one child with mechanical inclinations, so we will need to throw a bit more money in the direction of Annapolis Subaru on Monday. The rivulets of water in the basement I will not worry about. One can hardly expect a 62 year old foundation to hold this much meltwater at bay.

I wonder: Is it ever possible for humans to be as content as a kitty snuggled up in a new RocketDog deluxe black microfiber, size 8M, ankle-boot box? I would happily give each of my children--and anyone else for that matter--such a box, sized just for him/her, if it would keep them happy in the face of a world where slush-swamps and chocolate headaches, but especially the vagaries of forging important long-term relationships, are often making the path a skid zone. Well ouch. I’d keep the headaches, and sweep up all the scree.

I think tea is our security blanket. It’s warm. It steeps. You can make it with cute equipment. And it does not, as far as I know, contribute to headaches.

On the hike, I will burn wood.

There are times when the simple pleasures really are. Melancholy ebbs and flows, washing in or out an assortment of tidal flotsam, and sometimes when you’re looking at a typical evening with the increasingly usual wry acknowledgment that life ain’t always all it’s cracked up to be, (but, then again, maybe it is...or more,) the best option is to add a java log to the fire, and an inch or so to the scarf you’ll be knitting forever. (Because you only add an inch about twice a year. And yes, I did check to make sure all the bathroom exhaust fans were off before lighting the pseudolog.)

Jeff wanders in to see if I have any interesting television plans for the night. Oh, possibly a crappy Hallmark Christmas movie in an hour or so. More than likely, he will tire of his chair soon, and--as it is too late for the usual distraction of coffee--go to bed. Gabe wanders in to admire the bogus uniformity of a flame born of compressed wax, coffee grounds, and who-knows-what-else, and challenges me with the following query: Who would win in a fight between someone whose superpower was telekinesis, and someone who could teleport? I predict that it would be difficult for the teleporter to lose, but...then again...it might be equally difficult for him to win. I should hope that if I ever find myself gifted with either skill, a fight to the death will remain unnecessary. But, at the very least, I would have an easier time acquiring real wood as needed, for burning.

I’ve got a wad of cotton, infused with liquid “Bio-Ear,” tucked into my left hearing appendage. It’s some sort of concoction of herbal extracts, designed to scare off the nascent ache in my eustachian tube. This will do nothing to impair my enjoyment of the badly written dialog I’m fixing to experience shortly, on cable tv.

Did I mention I’m sitting in a rocking chair? I really am. That’s another comfort. Odd though--to observe oneself a)knitting, b)watching the fire, and c)rocking, at a life interlude when other relatively uncontrollable facets of life have left you thinking they accidentally switched you with an 85 year old, is another one of those things you can merely observe with the aforementioned wry acknowledgment. Well. I hope that 85 year old is having lots of fun, and maybe even hiking the Continental Divide Trail! Actually, I’m going to assume, right here and now, that this is the case, because it makes me feel good to think so. I very much hope, in fact, she will send me a letter that I can keep, until one day, possibly at 85, it’s me.

hard to tawrrrrrrggggrrrrkkkkk.

I think I need a vocal coach. Not for singing, in particular, (though that could hardly hurt,) but for just regular speaking. This is not ordinarily a problem as, in day to day life, I am of a sufficiently taciturn nature that I rarely need to speak except in short bursts. But, in the event that I do need to utter more than a few sentences without a vocal break, my voice begins to grind like brakes without pads, or knees without cartilage. It’s uncomfortable, and probably doesn’t sound very nice to boot.

Lately this is troublesome, because I read to Jeff. There is not much excitement in a day of chair-sitting, and patio-sweeping, so, if we can break it up with a chapter of Bill Bryson, everyone benefits. Currently, we’re working on The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America, and Bill is putting his unique spin on a dinner of “ineffable crappiness” in Virginia. Jeff likes it. I enjoy the opportunity to get the inflection just right on every sentence, and employ my best thespian flair to maximize his otherwise-impaired comprehension.

But when, a couple pages in, my voice begins to acquire the timbre of E.T. in his death scene, or Linda Blair with her head on backwards, I can’t help but wonder whether I simply don’t use my vocal equipment properly.

When I was 19, I took a basic music theory class in college. The professor had us meet with him in small groups, to practice hitting notes with the one instrument we’d have with us at all times--our voices. One exercise went decidedly higher than my comfort level, and I said so. “Any female worth her salt can hit that note,” he said. So I did. I hit it, (and higher ones, a good many more times years later when I took a voice class at the Community College.) And I remember one other thing that professor said. It was an observation, that I speak in a tone that’s lower than my “natural” speaking voice.

Why would I do that? Because I learned early that my “real” voice, as revealed by the cassette recorder/player that we kids got one Christmas, was (to my ear) babyish and squeaky? Maybe, after that, I developed a habit of trying to lower my voice. Perhaps, if I actually spoke “correctly,” I could get through a few more pages of Bill Bryson without rolling off the road into the vocal gutter.

But I don’t know how you do that. So, if we speak, and you notice my tone becoming oddly light and airy, just know--I’m merely recalibrating.

a blustery, only slighty frustery, day

How hard is this to open? The fact that I took the picture with my MacBook’s built in camera, which shoots (and displays) in mirror image and is, therefore, damnably hard to hold correctly when aimed at an object, and therefore gave me this nice “vertigo view” notwithstanding, that is.

Why do I ask? Because it is a timely case study to use in considering how neuronal pathways fail. I imagine that you would insert your fingers, from below, behind the semicircular convex object at center-top, and pull toward yourself. Correct. That is the simplest technique.

But what if you’d spent 40+ years using and selling hardware (including pulls of this very sort,) and in fact, installed this particular mailbox yourself and had been using it for the past 10 years, and this happened: You couldn’t open it one day. You completely missed the visual fact that it has a pull, and instead grasped fruitlessly at the sides, bottom, and rear of the box, not even thinking to pry the door down by its front edges. Luckily, in this case, “you,” are oblivious enough that you do not object when your wife takes over and gets the mail out.

Gabe reports that he happened to see Jeff trying to exit, via the front door yesterday. Jeff opened the door, stepped outside, then attempted to find a means of pulling the door shut again. He grabbed the tongue part of the latch mechanism that pops in and out, but realized he would shut his hand in the door if he continued pulling, and instead, stepped inside and pulled the door shut using the inside handle. Then, discovering he was not on the side of the door he intended to be, he tried again, this time pulling, correctly, on the exterior handle.

It’s a remarkable failure to try to comprehend. As Gabe said, it would be funny if it weren’t sad.

I realize, progressively, that these things are catching up to us, and we will, increasingly, feel the limitations. Today, Jeff and I took a field trip to Ellicott City, to walk the 18th Century mill town’s historic Main Street, visit the train museum, and have lunch. We entered a curiosity shop, of knick knacks and antiques, displayed in 9 rooms, on all 4 levels of a former duplex, now merged into one building. At each end of each level, was an ancient wooden staircase--the type where the treads are narrow, and twist at irregular points. (Clearly these were the homes of humble mill-workers--no grand entrances into the drawing room from elegant stairways here.) I was uncertain, as stumbling is becoming a consequential concern. But, we made it up and down, with minor missteps, although I changed sides of the house, as needed, to avoid the possibility that any calamitous falls would sweep a mother with small children down the stairs as well.

But it was a nice day. Cold. A little blustery. But sunny, and pretty, and--with a hat, scarf, and gloves, I felt perfectly equipped.

Maybe I am a green field?

Among the mysteries of my early education is this: Why did our elementary school music books contain the song “Marching to Pretoria,” and why did we sing it so much? I discovered much later that it was a marching song, sung by the Afrikaaners during the Boer war, but this would certainly have meant nothing to me in second grade, and, frankly, has little significance to me now. I remain confused.

It’s strange that the song would be a standout point in my memory. But stand out it does. Along with the textbook: Greenfield U.S.A. Of all the textbooks, in all the classrooms, in all the gin joints of public education of the late 60s, why I would specifically recall that book remains an unresolved question. Even now that I’ve acquired a copy.

Yes, I did. It’s one of the marvels of the internet age, that the title Greenfield U.S.A. needed only flit through my head at an Amazon moment, for me to discover that I could get one. For 19¢ + shipping. “Aha,” I thought. “Here is my opportunity to discover why I am so indelibly marked by blandness that my college art professor decreed my efforts to be trite, except for the one where I accidentally smudged the chalk, and gave the child-subject an evil glint.”

Surely it all goes back to Greenfield U.S.A. Or, at least, Greenfield U.S.A. must serve as a token--a representation encapsulating all that shaped my developing aesthetic into something that now struggles, blandly, to break free of its cultural tupperware.

I examined the book. It was smaller than I remembered. (surprise!) Copyrighted in 1964, by D.C. Heath and Company, this particular copy was stamped by the Board of Education, Pittsburg, Kansas, which probably only retired it a couple years ago when they discovered it makes no reference to intelligent design.

I continued to explore the text, determined to discover--now, with my razor-keen insight--the insidious presumptions foisted upon my young brain, which doomed me now to eternal blandness.

And I think I found the key. Like it or not, Greenfield U.S.A. is a perfectly pleasant book, exploring life in front of and behind the scenes of the classic, Main Street-focused town, which we’d all like to live in, but scarcely exists. And was very rapidly going out of business even in 1964. Of course I opened the book with questions and expectations related to gender-identity and ethnic diversity; all those things that hit an assortment of fans in the decades following the book’s publication, and I will highlight a few.

I wondered if women in Greenfield U.S.A had jobs. Ever. Suffice it to say that in most of the book's vignettes, they were moms, and wore uncomfortable clothes. However, there were minor exceptions. A female store clerk did sell Mary a red raincoat, there were female nurses in starched white dresses when that idiot Fred fell out of a tree and broke his leg, and there was this: Proving that those skills learned by eager girls in their Future Homemakers of America clubs still could come in useful, even if one didn’t find Mr. Right. Most reassuring.

Meanwhile, I discovered something that I had possibly not noticed at age 7: Policeman Bill was quite a studly muffin,
and it was therefore no wonder that the teen-girl-squad pictured below walked straight into oncoming traffic against the green light in order to elicit his intervention.
Most likely, however, they got more face-time with the same starched nurses who’d helped Fred with his leg.

I wondered if every person in Greenfield U.S.A was, by decree, of Euro-heritage, whitebread stock. And the answer is, mostly. Look closely, however, at this parade scene, and you’ll note that a man of possibly African/Asiatic heritage has sneaked into the background, catching the eye of the red-haired woman who is visible between the tuba and trumpet players. She is intrigued. The rest of the town is, fortunately, too distracted by the parade to be appalled.

So, no. Not too many people of color in Greenfield, but, if you keep reading, a very small chapter at the end of the book discusses “living in other places.” One of those other places is A City Neighborhood. Here, apparently, Tom could learn to swim in an ethnically diverse crowd, and--remarkably--seems none the worse for it. Did you ever wonder what happened to the “skinny guy” from your old comic books after he used the Charles Atlas method and punched out the bully? Well, now you know. Here he is, teaching Tom and the other boys to swim at the Boys’ Club in the Big City. Do not ask me what they are doing at the Girls’ Club. You already know: They are learning to wash heads of lettuce.

Well, anyway, at least I now know what’s wrong with me. Greenfield U.S.A presented life as it “should” be, and I--apparently--believed it. More or less. I don’t know. Maybe if Mary had said, “No. I don’t want a red raincoat, I want a lab coat, like Dr. March.” Or maybe if Mike had said, “No Dad, I don’t want to go fishing, I want to wash lettuce.” Maybe then, just that one slightly unexpected twist would have--like the butterfly effect--launched my immature neurons into a lifetime where feats of the imagination are easy, fresh, and unexpected.

But that didn’t happen. So, like acquiring a second language post-childhood, I continue to attempt to acquire creative spark, and a mind inclined that way. And Greenfield U.S.A has supplied a clue. I am bland because I was raised in abject blandness. I know now why thinking outside the tupperware box--to a mind forged in Greenfield--is as tough as learning Japanese.