If You Don't like the Weather....(written May 2013)

The seasons in Wisconsin have given all creatures of this fair state a run for their money this past winter.  We had record-breaking snowfall, resulting in an end to the drought we've experienced in the past couple of years.  It snowed into April, which is the cruelest month anyway.  I read a Vonnegut short story some time ago, where he wrote that "April...drove everyone crazy by not being quite spring."  It occurs to me that this past April has been less like what I'd prefer to call spring at pretty much any latitude.  Goddamn!

The first year I lived here, it snowed in mid-May.  In fact, my husband and I had just returned about ten days earlier from our honeymoon in New Orleans.  I can recall exclaiming, when we got home, that "Spring came while we were gone!"  Shortly thereafter, cherry and apple tree branches (not to mention power lines) were breaking under the weight of a heavy, wet spring snow.  It felt like I'd stumbled onto the end of the world.  My father-in-law, the author of a large vegetable garden each spring and summer, sensibly starts his tomatoes indoors under a grow-light, and NEVER puts a plant in the ground till after May 15.  A wise man, indeed.

This year, the first really big storm happened just a few days before Christmas, on a Thursday.  I was spared the terror of driving to work in that mess because I'd arranged to take the day off; I was actually supposed to pick up my older daughter from college in Milwaukee.  Obviously that didn't happen.  A co-worker of my husband's got stranded in Milwaukee and graciously agreed to bring our child home the following day.  Shortly thereafter, I became ill and spent most of Christmas week in the house.  I remember that the Saturday after Christmas, my husband was bringing me home from the hospital while fat flakes of snow drifted down from the night sky.  Even in my weakened state, I could appreciate its beauty, but given the amount of snow we'd already had, it was pretty much overkill.

A friend visited us from Australia just after the turn of the year, and I daresay between Green Bay and Banff, Canada, she got her lifetime fill of snow.  And it was cold here, in a way it hasn't been in several years.  Between December and February, our almost-new snowblower got the workout it missed last winter.  However, the snow decided to refresh itself repeatedly in March as well, to the point that on the first calendar day of spring, I took a photo of a mini-mountain in our parking lot at work.  Seriously, where else can you put it all, once you've started piling it up?  We used to have a "handicapped parking" sign on the far end of the parking lot.  Yeah, not any more, folks.

Lest we forget, April was also a freezing mess.  I have another picture, this one of a small bush outside our office totally sheathed in ice.  (I am still grateful that it was only smaller objects that received that coating.  I've lived through ice storms a few times, and they are, surprisingly, no fun.)  Oddly, though, as if a cosmic switch had been thrown, at a certain point, the grass obediently began to green up without the usual benefit of warmer air and sunlight.  So far as I can tell, the trees are lagging behind somewhat; but already I see patches of opportunistic dandelions.  And my neighbors have begun to reappear as well.  Spring is normally when we notice that some folks might have moved--or not.  Kids, runners, the Jewish Chabad community down the street: all have been out on the few nice days, playing, doing laps, raking, fertilizing, and whatever it is that people who have the time do for their lawns.  Crazy.  But we love it, and long for it all the long winter.

They seem to get longer every year.

Nick Curran 1977-2012

Every year, we have to get used to the fact that, sadly, we've heard the last of some of our favorite performers.  In 2012, the one that hit me hard early in the year was the sudden passing of Davy Jones, maybe the first celebrity/singer I'd ever crushed on.  I was just a little girl when The Monkees debuted in the mid-60s, and Davy was my guy, oh yeah.  That show (on Tuesday nights, and repeated on Saturday mornings for those who missed it) was the reason I wanted to live in a beach house with my besties when I was old enough.

However, I should say that the passage that hit me hardest was that of Nick Curran, who had just turned 35 when he succumbed to cancer.  It just wasn't right: in an ideal world, that man would not only be alive and kickin', he would be a huge star.  I suppose he always will be, in my eyes, and in those of so many others. 

I first came in contact with his music when my husband brought home a copy of Nick's first cd, Fixin' Your Head, recorded when he was in his early 20s.  I don't recall being all that impressed at the time, but I do recall that it had the "vintage" feel to it in the mono mix.  Fast-forward to 2010, when Little Steven's Underground Garage featured "Sheena's Back", from Reform School Girl, as one of the Coolest Songs in the World.  Holy shit!  One listen and you knew Nick was the real deal: not just vintage-styled, but a dyed-in-the-wool, card-carrying rocker.  Two more of his songs were featured that year, including "Baby You Crazy" and the title track.  In the weeks before I bought the cd, I can remember sitting in my car, listening to another one of Nick's songs, and thinking, I've never heard that Little Richard track before.  Surprise!

Before long, I had my own copy of Reform School Girl.  Then I had the chance to see Nick play at a local casino.  It was almost too good to be true.  He played a huge Gretsch electric with an ease and confidence I don't know that I'd ever seen up close before then.  Thinking about it later, I realized that I'd actually seen someone like Johnny B Goode, "playing guitar just like ringin' a bell."  I didn't think it was possible.  And he sounded great.  That was part of the package, too: a voice that could howl or shred as needed; a little rough, just like the rockers of old.  It gave me goosebumps.  And his look was distinctly his own: Misfits t-shirt, jeans, black nail polish, black leather motorcycle cap...and tattoos, loads of them, adorning pretty much every available surface.  (My personal favorite was the bright-red lip print on the right side of his neck.  I had to wonder who'd been the model for that kiss.)

Some time later, my husband went with me to see Nick again.  It was even better than the first time.  When I was lucky enough to see him, Nick thought that he'd beaten the cancer that he'd battled once before.  Sadly, this wasn't the case.  Soon afterwards he announced on facebook that he was ill again, but was determined to "F*ck Cancer" and move on with his career.  He kept his fans advised of his treatment; his continuing love of and additions to his tattoo collection; the progress he was making on restoring a vintage cycle left to him by his late dad; and the fact that he was still making music whenever possible.  His spirit and sense of hope simply amazed me.

Shortly before his last birthday, Nick added one final tattoo to his canvas: a single tear on his face in memory of his father.  And just about a week after turning 35, he left us.  I may have been choked up over the loss of Davy Jones, but Nick's passing made me cry.  It broke my heart to think that someone so talented was gone so soon.  Like so many others, I feel a terrible loss, but his music really will live on.  I'm grateful to have seen him perform, and feel lucky to have loved his music, as I will continue to do.

On Growing Old(er)

My sister recently called me long-distance to ask if I knew that our mom had just had a face-lift.

I was puzzled.  "She told me it was a neck lift," I replied.

"Dad called it a face-lift," she remarked, explaining that Dad had then told her how our 75-year-old mother felt she "wasn't aging well" and had mentioned wanting "to look like Joan Rivers."

This was news to me.  I can't imagine anyone wanting to look like Joan Rivers, or for that matter, anyone else who's clearly had their face re-sculpted beyond all recognition.  I can imagine my mom wanting to look her best, something that, as we all know, becomes increasingly difficult to do as we age. 

Now, to be fair, my mom's face has suffered a bit recently.  She fell out of bed about two years ago when accidentally over-medicated, which caused quite a bit of skin discoloration on the left side of her face.  And just last New Year's, she wound up in hospital after falling in the bathroom and hitting her head on a fixture, which caused a scar on her forehead.  However, on a recent visit (they live in Florida and I don't see her too often), she looked pretty much the same as always, albeit covered with a bit more foundation.
I was much more alarmed when, as I looked down at her feet in open-toed shoes, I saw that her toes were terribly disfigured.  They were curled in on each other as if huddling against a storm.  I asked her if they didn't bother her; didn't they hurt?  They sure looked painful.  She poo-poo'd my concerns when I mentioned that instead of a neck lift, she might want to invest her money in something more important, like fixing her feet. 

"Oh, no," she said airily, "Medicare will pay for that."  (I wondered privately if her feet might have been an underlying cause of the last fall she'd taken.)  I still thought that repairing the sorry state of her feet might be more important than whatever she thought was wrong with her neck (or face), but I let it go.  I've found that in the last few years, trying to persuade Mom of anything, let alone something she doesn't believe or think in the first place, is like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall. 

Even my Dad, normally the voice of reason in most situations, has given up.  True, he no longer does that really annoying thing he used to do when I was younger: say something that sounded like he agreed with me, but which really meant he was siding with Mom.  He was the master of the veiled-but-barbed insult, pun or quip.  But now he basically just lets Mom do what she does, whether she's buying too much jewelry on QVC or deciding to have plastic surgery in a quest to look like someone I wouldn't give candy to at Hallowe'en. 

I'm sure that my opinion matters not at all to Mom, and I try not to say uselessly hurtful things to her when she blurts out observations that are hurtful to me.  This much at least I have learned.  The only issue here is a focus on outward appearance rather than a person's general health and well-being.  This maybe wouldn't be such a big deal if (1) my mom wasn't beautiful to begin with--and she still is; and (2) she didn't judge others so harshly on their surroundings and appearance. 

I can understand a person wanting to improve their appearance if they find something on their person to be lacking or poorly designed.  I once had a high school friend whose breasts were vastly different sizes, so she had them evened out via plastic surgery.  I got that: she could never find a bra to fit her otherwise.  Personally, I'd like to have a shorter nose.  (My mother's is far and away the cutest beak in the family, followed closely by my older daughter's.)  But it's not something that affects my health, and it's expensive, so my own nose is still just as it's always been.

Far be it from me to question another person's view of herself.  We all do things to keep ourselves looking younger, haircolor being the most common.  But without trying to sound too cliche, I think that looking young comes from acting in a youthful (preferably not childish) way.  I suppose there are some (Mom) who might take issue with my love of certain kinds of music.  I guess that's too bad for them.  I still tell people that I'm really just a 16-year-old (or 19-year-old) inside.  There are days when I feel as old as my own mom, or older.  Taking care of yourself physically is important too; I have frequent pre-menopausal days when I would give one of my arms to feel better than I do. 

But I think also that a youthful spirit is the most important thing in life.  I hate it when I feel chained to the ground (or my desk), and can't imagine something better than my present situation.  You spend so much time when you're growing up wishing and trying to be older; then you spend the rest of your life trying to look younger.  Where's the sense in that? 

I don't articulate it often, but my personal motto is "Embrace Imperfection."  You might have moments of perfection, just as you have moments of joy, but they don't last.  They can't, because nothing is perfect, and that's okay with me.  So there are always things that you want or need to change; how you look as you age might be one of them.   The important thing to me is to enjoy what you have, and take care of your health as best you can. 

It may be a cliche, but beauty, like so many other important traits, starts from the inside.  A truly happy person--and there are too few of those--will always be beautiful, because they'll smile and make others happy as well.  Wouldn't you rather have laugh lines than a flawless face that never shows joy?  I know I would.

Valentine's Card

This is what was at my spot this morning after breakfast today:

My husband bought it for me last summer at Greetings from Geralyn in Asbury Park!

Asian Chicken Soup

My brother-in-law Paul (PJ) has his own blog (homegrowncooking) and just posted a kick-ass Thai-inspired noodle dish, which got me to thinking about something I normally whip up with leftover store-bought roasted chicken and lower-sodium chicken broth.  Since everything except for the vegetables is already cooked, it's actually a pretty quick hot meal.

The recipe below was adapted from one I found in Food & Wine magazine.  Theirs was a simplified version of a chef-conceived Vietnamese chicken-rice soup, which was just that--chicken and rice.  I wanted to make it more nutritious and interesting, so this is what I came up with. 

Happy Chinese New Year, folks!

2 Tb olive or grapeseed oil
1-2 Tb each of finely chopped garlic and ginger
up to 1 Tb of Urban Accents Thai Garden spice mix (if you can get it, they don't make it anymore)--feel free to use any Asian seasoning you like
2 Tb fish sauce (or more to taste)
1 Tb sesame oil
1 c shredded, grated or julienned carrots
2 c fresh spinach leaves, washed
1/2 c chopped fresh cilantro leaves
2 c thinly sliced cooked chicken meat
6-8 c lower-sodium chicken broth
lime wedges
white or brown rice for serving
Optional:
1 small chili, finely minced
red pepper flakes
1/2 c shiitake mushrooms, reconstituted if dried, thinly sliced
2-3 finely chopped green onions
1 c snow peas, sliced thin diagonally, steamed

Heat oil in a large pot (at least 4 qt).  Gently brown garlic and ginger, plus chili if using.  Sprinkle Thai seasoning into pan and allow to cook for about one more minute.  Add chicken broth, fish sauce, sesame oil and carrots, and bring to a boil.   Lower heat and simmer for about ten minutes.  At that time, add chicken meat and spinach; simmer until spinach is wilted, about 5-7 minutes.  Take off heat and ladle into bowls over rice.  Add mushrooms and snow peas, if desired; garnish with cilantro leaves and juice from lime wedges.

Note: If you're not serving this to a picky eater, you can feel free to add the mushrooms and snow peas right into the soup.  If you are serving it to picky eaters, have those items in separate bowls so everyone can add them--or not.  Your favorite Asian-style noodles would also make a good substitute for the rice.  Those who like a richer broth can feel free to add some dry white wine, or the juices from the roasted chicken if you use a store-bought one.

I enjoy being a girl...NOT. (rant alert)

You know, in all fairness, being female isn't too bad.  I mean, people don't always expect you to be the strongest or fastest, and sometimes they might think you're dumb because you're of the fair persuasion.  Of course, we wily women can sometimes use those assumptions to our advantage.

I'm just one sentence in, and already, I digress.  Sorry.

I'm just gonna say it: It's fun being a girl.  No kidding.  I mean, yeah, when I was a kid, it's true that I wanted my male cousin's toys, but maybe that was because we were so close in age, it was like being twins.  I'm sure we played together on many occasions due to that fact.  But overall, especially now, girls have the best and brightest toys: Barbie! Build-A-Bear Workshop! all that Disney Princess shit! 
Other things in a girl's life can be pretty sweet too.  We get to dress up almost as much as we want.  In fact, our moms generally encourage it.  They want us to be pretty, femmy, frilly.  Nobody pressures us to do anything but draw, color, paint, chase butterflies, and act goofy.  It's a pretty good existence for those first ten years or so.

And then comes...womanhood.  (And as Greta Garbo once said in Ninotchka, "Don't make an issue of my womanhood."  I frankly don't know how you can't, but whatever.)

It starts off innocuously enough.  Incredible as it may seem, after all I'd been taught in health class in grade school, I was looking forward to "becoming a woman," as they liked to term it when I was a kid.  Oh my God, the innocence of those days!  And to think I was jealous of my younger sister, who started her period at nine (mine didn't come till I was eleven and a half).  Yeah, I got over that real quick, after a couple of monthly cycles introduced me to the concept of cramps.  I didn't remember any of the literature explaining about them.  Lovely.

Thereafter--sparing you, my gentle readers, from the gross details--I spent at least one day every month writhing in pain in bed; on the couch; on a cot in the school nurse's office.  I'm sure I was as surly as the next female teenager, but I'm equally sure that much of it had to do with monthly symptoms such as mood swings and pain, pain, pain.  This pattern continued, without a break, ruining countless school days, holidays, parties, ad nauseam.

Many years later, in my 20s, I lived in a house with three other ladies.  One of them was about thirty, and she complained of her PMS by telling us, "I think my body is just saying, 'Oh my God, have a baby already!' "  I'm inclined to agree with her on that.  I was in such intense pain one month, that, as I told my OB/GYN, it felt like someone broke my spine and put it back together in the wrong order.  He just shook his head at me, not knowing what to say.  I don't blame him.

Men, as sympathetic as they may be (my own wonderful husband included), just don't get it.  Bless them, they can't.  It's beyond them to imagine being in pain on a regular basis, on a schedule in most cases, unless it involves strenuous physical activity.  But we women struggle on every month, trying our best to ignore or overcome the pain.  By the time I was in college, I'd been all the way up the pain med ladder, starting with Midol (aspirin--killed my stomach), to Tylenol (kinder to my poor stomach, but ineffective), and on to prescription Anaprox (now an OTC medication known as Aleve).  Where the hell was the ibuprofen when I was sixteen and missing a day of school almost every month?

I did speak to my mom's OB/GYN, who of course suggested birth-control pills.  The idea was that regulating my period might bring relief from the pain.  (Yet another way in which male doctors are sympathetic, but still clueless.)  I balked at the time--I couldn't see the point, since I barely had boyfriends then, let alone sex--and I'm still convinced that I must be the only woman my age who's never gone on the Pill.  I must admit, there were probably a few months back then when even pregnancy seemed like a better alternative than what one of my aunts used to call "crampoons"--the kind of cramps that seem larger than your own body.

Fast-forward to me now: married twenty-plus years, with two daughters (one gets the crampoons; the other, not so much).  Having had my kids so late, I'm now approaching menopause while they're still relatively young.  It's not pretty for anybody at my house for many days in the month.  Lately, my PMS has expanded itself to almost two weeks.  Two weeks of bloat, stomach upset, mood swings, oops-did-I-just-say-that? moments; two weeks of insomnia, weird dreams, fatigue, hot flashes and lack of focus.  Awesome. 
I have Ambien to help me sleep, but I can only take it so often.  I have Prozac to help improve my mood, but since anti-depressants could kill my liver, I try to use them only as a last resort.

It's not hard to be at the end of my rope when I'm on edge almost constantly.  I sure won't miss my period when it's gone (she claims before her boobs fall), nor will I miss the goddamn PMS.  But this transitional time makes me feel like my hormones are killing me--or will eventually kill someone in my house, anyway.  And yet I love being a woman, being a mom, being a wife.  I like my job; and I don't strictly mind the laundry, driving kids around, cooking, shopping, and all the million-and-one other things I do for everyone else on a daily basis.  I'd just like to be able to do them without feeling like my hair is standing on end all the time.  And I know everyone around me would appreciate it too.

Thankfulness-ness

Yeah, I know, the title doesn't even make any sense.  But bear with me.

I was just reading the post of a fellow blogger.  She's the wife of a co-worker of mine, and she and her husband just brought home their 3-yr-old adopted son from the Ukraine.  Overall, it was an 11-month process, filled with mountains of paperwork and the terrible wait and uncertainty that must accompany any adoption.  In the end, they only wound up having to make two trips in order to "bust him out of the orphanage" as she puts it; he's healthy and they adore him.  And yet with all those blessings, she was having trouble putting into words a piece for her local paper about being thankful.

Gratitude, I've found, isn't an instinctive reaction to something given, or even earned: how many of you constantly have to remind your kids to say thanks after they receive something, anything, from a friend, grandparent, etc?  It can also be hard to say thank you and mean it. Just as most of us murmur "fine" when people ask how we are, regardless of how we're really doing at that point in time, we tend to say "thanks" almost as a reflex (after we finally learn to say it in the first place). 

The Thanksgiving holiday in America has become an excuse for gluttony, a day to celebrate football (Packers fans, you know who you are), the final deep breath before plunging into that ocean known as the Christmas (shopping) season.  It can be stressful, fun, crazy, or all (or none) of the above.  I love it, yes, mostly because we have a great dinner that can only be matched at Christmas (my husband's aunt makes a pumpkin pie that puts all other pies to shame), but also because it's one of the few times a year that everyone gets together. 
As our lives have gotten busier and more involved with other pursuits, even my husband's close-knit-but-not-in-your-face relatives don't get the chance to see each other as much as we might like.  We all bring something to save work for the person hosting the dinner, who gets the dubious honor of making the turkey(s), which is really the biggest job, but at least the host doesn't get stuck with making everything else too. 

One memorable year at my brother-in-law's house, he'd made two turkeys and had brined one.  It was so delicious that John didn't get any of it.  And I still recall that in my own family, Thanksgiving was pretty much the ONLY time of the year when we'd have mashed potatoes, my mother having deemed them "too much work" to eat on a regular basis.  (Nowadays, I cheat and don't peel them, so that never gets in my way.)  A few times we had those nasty fake mashed potatoes from a box, which are maybe the foulest thing you can put on any table.  In fact, when I was in college, I warned my mother that I'd sooner stay there for the holiday than endure that crap.

However, apart from all the goodies, and without getting too sentimental, I would like to offer a list of the things I am currently thankful for:

1. I'm thankful that I have a job.  It may not always be the ideal situation--my company decided that this Black Friday, all of us must assemble and work, so there went everyone's four-day weekend--but I have a great boss, fun co-workers, decent pay and good benefits.  Things could be worse.

2. I'm thankful to have a house.  Sure, it's a mess, but people live there.  Our rooms are too small, and it always looks like it's in a state of renovation/repair (okay, I made up that last bit about repair).  We have too much shit.  But at least it's a place for our shit, and it belongs to us (and the bank).  My kids have a place to come home to, and so do their friends; and that's worth so much more than what we paid for it.

3. I'm glad to have a wonderful partner.  Without bragging, please let me state that my husband is a great guy.  Yes, he drives me nuts with things that he does sometimes, but I'm sure I return the favor many times over.  I deal with his love of the Packers, and he deals with my love of fan fiction.  (Well, maybe not so much deal as not quite know for sure what I'm reading.)  In that spirit, we try our best to tolerate each others' quirks and not fight about them; if we do, we try to forgive and move on. 
Nobody's perfect, but his mom sure did a good job with him.

4. I'm thankful for both my families.  My own family, nutty as they can be, are a loud, affectionate bunch.  Till about a year ago, we were privileged to have my Nana at the helm.  We're very lucky to have known her for so many years.  My husband's family are equally nutty--and I say this with love in my heart.  Each of them is different from the others in their choice of spouse and raising of kids, but nobody, including my in-laws, judges anyone else.  Plus most of them, including my brother-in-law, are excellent cooks. 
And my kids blame me for making them insane...if only they knew.

5. I'm grateful for music.  What would my life be without music?  You may as well damn me to a lifetime without love of any kind.  The silence might be nice for awhile, but I think that it would wind up killing me ever so slowly.  How would I ever get along without that songs that have come to mean so much to me?  What would I do without the wonderful feeling that wells up in my chest whenever a current (or old) favorite starts up on my music player/radio/phone?  I don't even want to think about it.

6. Last but not least, I'm grateful for my friends.  The combination of busy lives and being so far from where I was raised means that I don't always get to see the other people I love: my friends, the family I've chosen to surround myself with.  I recall that back in sophomore year of college, I was so very grateful to my friends for helping me through a tough year that I bought them gifts, and pretty much shut my actual family out of the gift-giving.  (As you might guess, they were none too pleased.) 
Nowadays, many of my friendships were either born or nurtured on the internet.  Some of those friends have become close; I see them even less often than I do my own families, but their place in my heart is still secure.  It amazes me when I can tell someone I've never met that I love them, and mean it completely.  The level of support I've received has been amazing in many cases.  It's also good to know that I can keep in touch with those I've known for many years on the internet too...when we both have time.

So, thanks to all, including but not limited to: Shari, Deb, SanDee, Dannika and Colleen.  You make the adventure even more interesting.

Happy Thanksgiving.