pomegranatesandpaper

Twas the Night Before Prep Cooking

Can I have a show of hands:

• How many of you do all your prep AND most of your cooking for Thanksgiving before Thursday, and just have to shove the turkey in the oven and make the gravy?
• Do you (or your help - ha ha - like a child/hubby/unwitting neighbor) set the table the day before?
• How many know how to make gravy (not from a can).
• How many of you make your own cranberry sauce?
• Homemade biscuits? 
• Appetizers in the living room?
• First course at table, or just dive straight into the mashed sweet potatoes?
• Oh - do you sweet potatoes or yams and what's the diff?
• Marshmallows on top (how did that even start??) or brown sugar and pecans, or just roasted with butter?
• Dressing vs. stuffing?
• In the bird or out?
• Oyster dressing (You know I love oysters, but cooked with bread, etc, not for me.)
• Fresh bird or frozen/organic or whatever
• OMG - anyone who does NOT have turkey?? I want to hear from you iconoclasts. Such courage!

 

Inquiring minds want to know and this will be reviewed in an after-post.  I'm not sure if you can post photos to the comments, but alas, I still haven't figured out how to get 12,000 photos off my laptop, so Typepad still won't place nice with me. 

 

Growing up, Thanksgiving was a very big deal and very time-consuming prep was performed. There were rigorous standards and tasks engraved on Plymouth Rock by my mother and both grandmothers. 

I'm not going to pretend to remember them all., but tablecloths were washed and ironed, along with many napkins. Crystal stemware, compotes for shrimp cocktail, the GOOD GOOD dishes, and sterling silver flatware were pre-washed, polished, and immediately after the meal, hand washed, dried and put back in the dining room breakfront or server. 

Shrimp was fresh, raw, and were peeled and deveined, boiled with bay leaves, cooled on ice, and placed in a milk bath in the fridge overnight. Cocktail sauce was ketchup, lemon, and however much horseradish as the person making it cared to put in. 

We always had canned cranberry sauce. My mother threw us all out of the kitchen (I kid you not) when it was "time to make the gravy" from the drippings, but it was damn good. 

We did not do biscuits, except for the kind that the Pillsbury Dough Boy had us womp on the side of the sink to open the container. Trust me, the dinner rolls you had to roll up yourself were a the height of holiday gourmet. 

We had salad after the main course (as if anyone actually ate it). Between turkey and dessert was a leisurely hour of fruits, nuts, and roasted chestnuts, my favorite part of the day.  

Then a MONUMENTAL push to wash everything (no dishwasher), clean the kitchen, put out all the desserts (99% homemade cakes and pies), set up the coffee, and check the bathroom was clean for the relatives who were coming only for dessert. 

You have NO idea how much yelling, crying, and storming upstairs went on about 5:00 when the shift from dinner to dessert prep was ensuing. 5 daughters squabbling who had done what and who had to do what. Someone would always be sick or have their period. Someone would always be crying. My mother would be yelling. My grandmother and aunt would be tut tutting or trying to make peace. Someone's boyfriend would ring the bell and that daughter would excuse herself from all further menial chores. And my father would be smoking his pipe in the living room until he heard the commotion and then he got into the act, which was never, ever a good thing. 

Despite this, by the time the favorite aunts and uncles and cousins piled in the door, it looked like House Beautiful but at least one kid would be sulking in the living room and refuse to come to the table for dessert o until my father got up and "escorted them in" and my grandmother pleaded for that child to stop crying. 

PHEW! 

But my lord, I'd give my right arm to be sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner at Claire Avenue right now. 

Those of you that have read me for years know that you can go to the archives and read 14 years of November and December posts in which I reminisced about all this, discussed trying to replicate the (good parts of) the holidays as a young mother in New York, or when we lived in Fresno or Memphis. 

When we finally moved back to New York, I think I hosted Thanksgiving every year in our house except one or two. 

This year, we are in an apartment in an area with congested parking. Our living room is large and we could move the dining room table into it, but once 17 people sat down, there really would be nowhere to go. My kitchen is a postage stamp galley (I swear that the dishwasher was a toy that someone electrified and plumbed). My roasting pans, Kitchen Aid, and holiday dishes are in Cape Cod. There's nowhere for the kids to sleep overnight so we can all be together on Christmas morning. There's no backyard in which to boil the lobsters.  (Actually there is, but it's three flights down and across the parking lot.) Everyone wants to go to Cape Cod until push comes to shove and who has to work, who doesn't want to drive in holiday traffic, and what sisters will be hurt that we went away. 

I feel adrift. 

I went to the make the cornbread for the stuffing and realized I don't have any baking pans. I could not fit a turkey in the apartment freezer unless it really was a cornish hen. 

And I really, really don't have my mojo back after the surgery to do it all anyway. 

So, my youngest sister took on this Thanksgiving. She is missing her oldest, who is away in Sicily, and she is keeping busy. She set her beautiful tables (yes, plural) yesterday after work.  We are all bringing dishes. I am going over tomorrow to be a sous chef. There were still be too many pies. We will miss our mother. We will worry about some elderly relatives who are not doing well. We will be happy to see the teens and twenty- and thirty-something cousins all bonding and laughing. We will play games. William will entertain us. 

Hopefully, no one will cry, but I suspect there may be some eye rolling and pouting (after all, I will be in attendance). 

And I thank God that all sisters and our families will be under one roof. 

Whatever and wherever you are spending Thursday, may it be in a place of peace. What more could we ask for this year?

 

FEAR, HOPELESSNESS, SADNESS, JOY

I just came home from the hospital today. On Tuesday, two days after my son’s wedding – by plan – I had the lower lobe of my right lung removed for primary lung cancer. It is a, non-aggressive form of cancer that rarely recurs.The PET scan and the pathology was clear of lymphatic involvement (it has not spread). Other than the primary tumor, they saw no visible cancer in the lung cavity.

My surgeon told me on Tuesday that I probably would go home this Monday and that he rarely had patients be released as early as Friday. But I recovered quickly. I only spent a day and a half in ICU before being sent to a step-down ward. This morning, they took a final chest X-ray, gave me the wonderful pathology results, pulled out my chest tube and sent me home. I have no evidence of disease. I do not need chemo or radiation. I go back every six months for a scan.

My doctor agreed I could wait until after Chris’s wedding to have the surgery. Otherwise, by the time I had the various pre-ops done, he could not guarantee that I would be recuperated enough to attend.

In between the August diagnosis and today when I found out the pathology report, were the worst 5 weeks of my life. Worse than when my Dad died in three months’ time from pancreatic cancer. Worse than when my mom died in her sleep without any warning. Worse than when my husband called me in Memphis from Portland in the middle of the night because he was in agonizing pain in an ER and needed me. Worse than when Jessica called me from Cape Cod on a New Year’s Eve to say that she was hemorrhaging when she was pregnant with our grandson and they were driving to NY at breakneck speed to get to her doctor.

My family and friends rallied around me with prayer, spiritual nourishment, visits, cards, and tears. My husband, my children, my sisters and their families were like warriors of love.

I didn’t write a word of this before today. Only the immediate family and close friends knew about it. They all promised that not a word of it would be spoken about at the wedding.  Originally, I discussed blogging about it but my family and friends counseled me to hold off. The last thing they wanted was for people to give me unsolicited medical advice or question my doctor’s protocols. I went underground more or less. I did attend two art retreats where only a tiny group knew what was going on and the support of my friends and the weekends full of art were like being blessed with artful prayer.

We went ahead with the wedding, planning outfits and gifts, helping to set up, attend the rehearsal dinner, and dance the night away. I was able to truly, magically, and overwhelming fall in love with every single person at the wedding and have the most intense spiritual experience of love of my entire life for the whole weekend.

I will be writing more and more about this. But I am writing tonight, this night to you and you and you for this reason only:

GET A CHEST SCREENING FOR LUNG CANCER WITHIN THE NEXT WEEK.

I FOUND OUT THAT I HAD LUNG CANCER BY ACCIDENT. IT SHOWED UP INADVERTENTLY ON A CT SCAN THAT WAS FOR KIDNEY STONES. MY SYMPTOMS HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE CLASSIC SYMPTOMS OF COUGHING, SPITTING UP BLOOD, PAIN IN CHEST OR BACK. 

I haven’t smoked in over thirty years. I socially smoked with my friends in high school, in classrooms and the dorms in college, with friends in law school, and at my first job. I was asked how many packs a day I smoked then. Are you kidding me – who remembers? I just know my mother never saw me smoke; I never smoked at home, in my car, in Stan’s car, or in our apartment after we married. I quit cold turkey the year before we decided to have a baby.  I was never exposed to asbestos, radon, or any chemical that I know of. Yet…

We had spent most of August on the Cape. We were living the dream. We stared at each other in disbelief that we were just…there, day after day. Kids came and went. Sunny days rolled past. I painted away the afternoons. Stan puttered. Cousins visited.

But all along, I knew something was wrong.

For the last 18 months, I’d felt unwell. I had serial migraines and tension headaches. Recurrent UTIS. Fatigue, malaise, depression, night sweat sweats, weakness, and pounding heart. I saw urologists, my PCP, ENT, had all sorts of urologic tests, CT scans, and trolled the internet looking for a connection, explanation, diagnoses. I went to my doctor at least twice and said simply, “Something is wrong. I have an infection somewhere.” He would examine me, do every kind of blood test, and come back with no positive findings.

Oh, you just need to retire. You’ll be great once you see that grandson more often. You need sleep. You need exercise. You’re a nervous wreck. It’s allergies, mold, sinuses, anemia. Again, and again, all the tests, labs, and scans came back negative.

But I didn’t get better when I retired. I went to urgent care twice in Cape Cod. I took my grandson out for the day and had to sit in a chair at the Children’s Museum while he played because I was too sick to walk back to the car. I spent three days in a bed with a migraine. I lived on Allegra. My husband asked each morning – nicely (mostly) – well, what’s wrong today? I called my PCP and begged for antibiotics long distance. We came home, began setting up the apartment, and I was babysitting a few times a week. One morning I fell asleep with my grandson playing at my feet and the TV blaring. Just fell asleep on the sofa like I was drugged and woke up a few minutes later with a start.

I was waiting to see a urological specialist when I experience what I thought was yet another UTI. As I was unpacking in the apartment, I was sweating and felt so shaky that I couldn’t stand up. I managed to get an appointment with the Physician’s Assistant for my doctor. I almost cancelled it because I felt too sick to drive there, but felt badly cancelling an hour after they worked to fit me in.

The PA spent a long time talking to me. He thoughtfully went over the last year’s medicals and exams, searching for a clue. He examined me one more time and hit a spot over my left kidney that was tender. He sent me to the imaging center downstairs to have a CT scan for kidney stones because I had had one in June. He explained that I could have very small stones causing chronic irritation and infection.

I was praying it would be positive so I would know what was wrong. I practically skipped downstairs and had it right then. When it was over I was getting in the car when the phone rang. It was the PA. He was asking me to come back upstairs. He was fumbling over his words.

He said, “You don’t have any stones, but your scan caught the bottom of your lung showed a, uh, an …abnormality.”

I had a mass in my lung.

I waited an hour to see my primary care doctor, a man I have trusted for almost twenty years.  He showed me the scan. He told me that the radiologist thought it was primary lung cancer. He hugged me. Told me nothing was certain until a biopsy. He offered to call Stan to come right from work to talk to both of us.  He made an appointment right then though it was after hours for me to see the best person he knew in thoracic surgery, and we scheduled a PET scan for two days later.

I called one of my sisters in a panic as I drove home. I couldn’t breathe. Stan was waiting for me. I began crying from a place that I never want to go to again and continued off and on for five weeks.  

My physician’s assistant saved my life.

PLEASE GET A CHEST SCREENING WHETHER OR NOT YOU HAVE EVER SMOKED IN YOUR LIFE.

 

My surgeon told me that if I had waited a year until the symptoms were more pronounced, the cancer would have filled my lungs and I would have had weeks to live.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of death in the United States. More people die of lung cancer than all the people who die per year from the next 5 cancers:

 

• Lung and bronchial cancer: 792,495 lives. ...
• Colon and rectal cancer: 268,783 lives. ...
• Breast cancer: 206,983 lives. ...
• Pancreatic cancer: 162,878 lives. ...
• Prostate cancer: 144,926 lives. ...
• Leukemia: 108,740 lives. ...

 

Yet, there are no “lung cancer awareness” months, walks, drives, ice bucket challenges, or cute ribbons to wear.

I will write more about the medical experience, the fear, the doubting of my survival, the awful internet research which led to more doubting, but most of all, the extraordinary spiritual support I received.

I am not sure I will ever understand all of this. I am not sure I will even absorb all of it. All I know is that if I had not forced myself to keep that appointment, for instance, if I’d still been working and had been too busy to go as I had been before many times, if I had waited to have the CT because I was too afraid, it would have been too late. I’m one of the lucky ones. Why? There is no answer. EVERYONE should be one of the lucky ones. But now comes the more important question: what will I do with this experience to transform my life from the inside out? How will it change me to help me reach the core of why I was put on the earth in the first place?

It is 10:00 p.m. I have a sick dog who needs petting (yet another strand to this story and one that does not have a happy ending), and I am exhausted. My love to you all who wanted to know where I’d gone. I’m here, better than before.

X0x0x0

Fear and Loathing in Retirement

 

Thank you to all of you who wished me well upon my return to blogging! Your “welcome backs” were like warm hugs from old friends – which you all are!

I am replying to comments on the blog itself. I’d love if you all would look there to read my comments – and each other’s, and respond to comments yourselves. I need a village to surround me and you all are the nicest villagers I’ve ever met!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I honestly was not certain that I would ever start blogging again. Once I began my new position at work, I put it on lockdown and felt in my heart that the creative part of my life was over. And it was. It flared up a few times a year when I was fortunate enough to take a class or go to a retreat, but months went by when I would not write or even hold a paintbrush. Eventually, I just stopped thinking about it. I deadened myself to it, subsumed with work and stress and family.  I did not handle any art supplies until I had to pack up the studio to move.

So far, retirement life has not blossomed into an unlimited expanse of relaxation, writing, drawing and painting, and reading. It’s been unsettling. There's a lot of empty space where work, work, work used to be. I just can't seem to grab hold of any of it and put it to use. It's kind of like rescuing a starving woman who has been dreaming of lobster and champagne but can only manage a small bite of a peanut butter sandwich and a sip of water. 

It's a lot to digest. 

During the day, I look around at all the stuff to do in order to turn the apartment into a home, and then I leave the house and go to Starbucks.  The evenings are worse. I don’t know what to do with myself. If I were “home”, I’d be on the screen porch or popping in and out to work in the garden.  Here, I binge watch Ozark with my journal, books, and paint around me untouched. Something was gnawing at me and I could not figure it out.

And then it hit me. 

I had "ghost work anxiety".

I did not have a clue what to do with myself because the truth is, when I was “home”, whatever the season, I would be working in the evenings. I would type up the long deposition summaries and prepare for the next day’s deposition in Brooklyn, Queens, Newburgh, Melville, or wherever they sent me. I would type until my hands hurt and my eyes crossed, and then shut the lights.

Considering how miserable I was, why do I miss work?

I miss having somewhere to go each morning. I miss getting up with a purpose and putting on nice clothes. I miss the intellectual part of it and the collegiality.

I miss being part of something bigger than myself. Between the retiring and moving into an apartment with scary dogs in the hallways (another story, another time), I've felt diminished. Aged. Weakened. Lonely. I am a middle child, after all.

You see what was happening, don’t you?

The great white whale of the blank page has reared its empty, white forehead at me.

What I missed was being so subsumed with work and life that I never, ever had to face the blank page and think, “I’m not as good as I thought I was. I’ll never write a book. I’ll never have a portfolio. I’m a joke at painting. It took me three days to write this post. I don’t want to sit alone in the apartment.”

Gawd, I’d rather go depose someone about their post-accident medical treatment for three hours and then write ten pages about it that no one will ever read, than finally figure out if I was just full of shit all these years.  

It’s get real time. And it’s terrifying.  

If you’re looking for me, I’m the woman hiding under the table Starbucks.  

And So, I Return to Blogging, Mischief, and Mayhem

 

I had grand plans to redesign the blog,  pay for a higher level of Typepad, learn how to code it myself, and certainly get a new header, all before I posted my first Official Retirement Post. 

Ain't happening. Not right now. Turns out retirement is busier than work!

But here I am! All retired and stuff. 

We sold the house. And the screened porch (sob). And the garden (at it's height - sob!).

We now have an apartment downtown in our city. It allows dogs, which is a major issue, obvs.  We dodge a ferocious pit bull and a multitude of small yappy dogs in the elevator and lobby in order to walk these poor animals a million times a day. And by "we", I mean mainly Mr. Pom. 

Mr. Pom is working only a few days a week as a consultant to his company of 17 years. He enjoys knowing that the second day he works each week is his Friday. 

The sorting, discarding, packing, and hauling was a horror. This was the house we lived in the longest (17 years) of our marriage. I was very grateful that we had three major long distance moves prior to this as I cannot imagine what we would have amassed had we not. Children were summoned to pick up mattresses, cars, school stuff, clothing, and various storage stuff that we all keep  at our own parents' homes until they were sold. 

Tons of goods were distributed to the Salvation Army, friends, and relatives. Heirlooms were given to sisters and children. I need to return at Christmas to my block and leave our sanitation workers a case of expensive champagne for their matter-of-fact hauling away of a football field of "stuff", including large dressers, mysterious metal stuff we inherited with the house, and boxes and boxes of all the things we hold dear until they are out of sight and out of mind for ten years and we can't imagine why we saved them. 

The garden, alas, cannot be packed up. Our bronze fennel by the front door attained a height of over six feet and has burst into glorious blossom. I ran by the house over the weekend to pick up a package and the plant looked like a Chinese silk screen. I was too shy to stand there and take a pic.  The Russian sage was positively sprawling. The purple rudbeckia was in full bloom. The blue star thistles were shining. And the huge oak hydrangeas had just begun deepening into that amazing shade of rose. 

Ah, well! We have half an acre we intend to plant in Cape Cod, so onward and upward!

Thus far, we are scooting up to the Cape for four or five days between family events. And this summer is full of them! Beautiful, wonderful events. 

I will be back as regularly as I can between dragging fearful dogs into elevators in order to go for walks, figuring out how to use the money card in the laundry room so we don't spend 9.60 to dry a load of wash, and opening up boxes in search of various items, which are always in the other place. 

Breathing a sigh of relief that I will never ever ever have to spend the rest of my law career asking people how many acupuncture needles they received,  how long they remain inserted, and writing a five hour report about it.

I am yours truly, 

Retired!

 

P.S. Typepad and the MacBook Air appear to hate each other in re inserting photos, so sorry for words only right now!

The Bright and Shiny New Penny of a Year

 

 

Oh, these long but short dark-days of new winter!

Too much rich food and drink, dazzled by strings of colored lights and the bling of sequins and velvet, and the nostalgia of vintage ornaments casting diamonds round my room.  The lure of cookies about to turn stale with age, the royal icing as badly chipped as my Christmas manicure, yet still enticing me with memories of tins over the childhood stairs. The pantry a seduction each time I pass with its open bags of cinnamon candy dots and peppermint shards that never had the chance to adorn Christmas Bark, left unmade.  The old school tray of liqueurs and cordials, bright green crème de menthe, honeyed Amaretto, and crystalline anisette, stoppers run under hot water to break the seal of dried out sugar, unused except for a secret dollop in the eggnog of a maiden aunt.  

I shall not succumb. 

The sun is bright! The temperature pleasingly chill! Perfect for a brisk walk round the neighborhood, a leisurely time to consider resolutions, choose my new Word For the Year, restart the Fitbit, and sardonically comment to myself on various neighbors' dried out wreaths and icicle lights hung askew, whilst I turn my back on our dead light up reindeer, lying across Santa’s lap like a sacrilegious Pieta.

Virtuously, I commit. It is done. I conquer the block and return.

Cheeks red, limbs tired, the sofa beckons with its throws of soft (faux) fur) and stacks of books waiting to be read.  Just a few short hours until it is dark.  Surely the house will be hoovered and dusted and tree denuded and dragged to the curb by someone other than I. All I need to do is carve a hunk of cheese from the week-old antipasto platter, grab a handful of nuts from last night's revelry, and I will be horizontal (and asleep), book unopened in hand, and a thin string of drool down the front of my Christmas sweater in minutes. 

What is that smell in the icebox? My nose practically crawls onto the shelves, sniffing out bowls of mushy Brussel sprouts and containers sealed with plastic wrap as holey as Swiss cheese from the sharp tails of once proud and plump cocktail shrimp. Moldy raspberries liquefy onto melted brie, a crime scene on a plate.  The once proud rack of prime rib now a stomach-turning platter of dead flesh streaked with fat as hard as candle wax.  The cheese drawer is a snowfield of tipped over parmesan and curling bits of Genoa salami as dried out as poker chips. 

Out, out it all goes in one furious tip-out into fresh garbage bags, including the gelatinized Chicken Scarpariello, pried with a serving spoon from the death grip of a greasy plastic container and into the garbage right before it almost hit the floor. The rest is tossed in with nary a thought: the errant, extra lobster marinating in its own decomposing juices; the provolone so ripe it could resuscitate a dead cat; and the hardened clumps of linguini with calamari tentacles grimly waving from the bottom of a bowl. Out goes the button mushrooms the color of dead flesh; the rancid marinated red peppers reeking of garlic; and the wet stew of the former perfect spinach, red onion, and clementine salad laughingly saved for a healthy meal on a post-Christmas day. Bowls of mystery sauces are rinsed into the sink and containers of hardened fried rice (we were sick of leftovers) are unceremoniously trashed, plastic container and all 

The cookie tins are opened and emptied as quick as Santa down the chimney. The dregs of flat soda glug down the drain and join the empty beer bottles, Mouton Cadet, Prosecco, ginger ale, and artisanal sodas from Brooklyn ($$$ what was I thinking) thrown into the recycling bin with a pleasant tinkling of shattered glass. Maraschino cherries suffer the fate of the garbage disposal. Errant lemons and limes are retrieved from the corners of the counters and corralled into veggie drawers.

The family will applaud. I will be lauded with cheer. The refrigerator only smells of a whiff of bleach and the fresh box of baking soda on the top shelf will take care of that. I run my hand over the clean cook top, my finger down the polished marble counters. I see myself almost reflected in the contours of the sparkling farm sink. 

I have earned my rest. Plus, the few gingerbread cookies I deemed edible and an unopened package of chips.   The sofa awaits, the tree lights are lit, fire is flaming, and It’s a Wonderful Life is about to start. 

Let me just lock the back door. 

How did you dogs get outside? I thought you were in the living room.   Oh my lord what are you EATING? What is this mess, what is the yellow, viscous fluid on the new wool rug and what is this trail of sludge??

The bags! The garbage bags, the ones too heavy to carry to the bins, the ones I left outside the back door with impunity, knowing the husband would handle when he got home!  The bags have leaked ...no split!  The back porch has sprouted button mushrooms, the bags are spewing lobster juices and rancid butter like the Exxon Valdez on the flagstones, and the pool of oily sauce has been tracked by myself and the dogs across the new rug and over to the fridge where it apparently puddling into an environmental disaster for which I will need a hazmat suit to escape. 

My hard-won virtue is soiled.  

I drag out Windex, Mr. Clean, mop, paper towels, a shovel, and dog treats to pull the dogs away. 

But before I start, I open the cabinet over the fridge. I pull out the bottle of Amaretto and clean the neck on my sweater. I grab the opened bag of Red Hots. I take a glug of Amaretto. A handful of Red Hots. I let the candy melt into the sweet alcohol until my head gets a little warm and my heart beats a little faster.  

2017 I'll be damned if you are gonna get away from me this fast. 

Christmas Getting On Your Nerves a Tad?

Then watch this fabulous bit of a British take on The Twelve Days of Christmas. Narrated by the wonderful Phoebe Waller-Bridge and sourced by me through the marvelous blog, The Women's Room. 

 

Enjoy!

 

 

Tiny, Tiny Things

 

This is a muddy attempt at a wreath. 

 

I don't have much.

Been inside this house for ten days.  What I haven't been is driving all over New York to conduct depositions and staying up all night to write reports. So while I'm feeling sorry for myself that I am missing the Christmas festivities, I remind myself that last year I worked on Christmas Eve (which I had taken as a vacation day) until 5:00 that night. 

So this is my report from inside my quiet house. 

It is very cold out today, so I've been told, but my house is very sunny and the heat is warm. 

My knee feels as though a bowling ball is strapped to it, but I can get up and down the stairs about two times a day with the cane, which is a big improvement from even Sunday, when I wasn't using the stairs at all yet. 

The house is not decorated for Christmas, but Mr. Pom has been dragging up decorations that he likes (he's developed a thing for bottle brush animals and is taking up all the available table tops leaving me nada.)

 

This is as close as the dogs want to be to me at all times. 

 

The Graphic Designer came for Saturday night and Sunday morning. She had four Christmas parties to attend (oh to be young and living in Brooklyn and working in Manhattan) and had nothing to wear. When my oldest says she has nothing to wear, I roll my eyes. When the youngest says it, I give her my debit card because she has, indeed, nothing to wear. She's not a consumerist. 

The days are long but I manage to cajole a sister or daughter to show up and visit. I had grand dreams of sitting on a stool and making Christmas cookies* but I did not account for 1) oxycodone head and 2) pain/exhaustion when I try not to take the oxycodone. (*Substitute for "making Christmas cookies" any of the following: drawing, painting, writing, reading a book, or looking at a magazine.) 

I am not able to babysit the two-year old or  run after him when he is here, but he spent the day yesterday with his mommy and one of my sisters.  My daughter made a delicious roast chicken for dinner and my sister ran up and down the steps after the two-year old. I was accused of hogging all the afghans and throws, which I was and had the right to because I Had Surgery.

 

 Rare moment of cuddling. 

 

He freaked out when his mother tried to get him to nap in the beautiful crib that Grandma bought. I mean FREAKED OUT. Crying so harshly that my stomach twisted.  Just when I was sure his mom was above to cave, she skipped down the stairs. She remembered that he goes down in the crib pretty easily when she is not there. Making one of those very wise mommy decisions, she kissed him and ran out of the room. As soon as she shut the door, he stopped mid-scream and went right to sleep. This little one will soon learn what I've known for 32 years: don't try to BS my daughter. 

When we got him up later, I asked him to let me get in front of him on the stairs in case he fell. Without missing a beat, he said, I go down backwards so you don't hurt your little foot, Grandma. (He knows I have a boo boo but just not sure where) and proceeded to go down the stairs on his stomach. So now I do not need any Christmas presents, because I got the best one of all. 

The amaryllis bulb that I planted before Thanksgiving was just about to get the heave ho into the trash when I noticed a teeny, tiny green tip peeking through the dead top of the bulb. It won't be ready for Christmas but Valentine's Day should be swell. 

As aforesaid, no  baking has been done in this house. No gingerbread has scented our rooms and the only use for sprinkles is to give one to the two-year old when he visits. But the youngest (who will be 25 next week!!!!) brought a gingerbread man and  woman (8 inches big at least) from Union Square Market over the weekend and I am sufficiently over gingerbread for the season, having eaten at least half of each. 

 

When life give you limones...

 

I have "ordered" through my sister an Egg Nog Latte to be brought to my throne chair. I allow myself one a season, so I am already 100% over my caloric egg nog latte intake. Thankfully my sister is picking it up because my PCP's office is in the same shopping center and I often run into him at Starbucks, causing me to make sure he sees me pouring skin milk into my drip coffee and then hastily slugging in some half and half after he says hello. 

I have sat down (most times, I am lying down) multiple times to paint a Christmas card that Mr. Pom could take to be copied this weekend. So far, nothing. Nada. How many pomegranates and blue bowls can an artist draw. It seems my creative flow is covered by the Aquacell bandage on my knee.  So eh, maybe I can hop thru CVS this weekend and find something for those relatives I just cannot miss.  It will be such an Christmas adventure! It will involve the purchase of stocking stuffers and candy canes and many magazines I will not read. 

Tell me your fun and wild tales from out it in the great, big world!

Hallo the Merriest Days of the Year!

Tomorrow my arthritic knee will be replaced with a titanium marvel.

It's not exactly the start to the festive tidings I had imagined for the year. When I look at the alternative to being home on disability,  i.e. driving all over the metro area and upstate and taking double depositions all day, returning and prepping for the next day, and then staying up till midnight typing the reports, I must say that this December is a win-win.

A tree has been secured and is in a bucket by the side porch. I managed to bring up from the basement a big raffia woven gold star and the three Christmas platters from the  gorgeous, now discontinued, Christmas  folk art dishes that Mr. Pom gave me twenty years ago. I have laid in several boxes of Orea thins (mint flavor) for my post-recovery recuperation. 

The rest of the festivities will be up to somebody else. 

I have positioned a large picnic basket by the floor on the side of the bed. It contains magazines, watercolor travel palette, a small Stillman and Birns soft cover landscape format w/c journal and large Kunst & Papier red binder board w/c journal, as well as way too many assortments of pens, pencils, brushes, etc. 

Mr. Pom trips over it every morning when he kisses me good bye. 

I purchased a French press, electric water kettle, and a bag of Starbucks Christmas blend. The art room is the coffee bar. All I need is for Mr. Pom to bring a thermos of milk and some toast, and I have breakfast.    

Since this is the second knee replacement, we are very organized and know what to expect. 

(Repulsive side note: Al Roker just had a knee replacement. I saw a commercial for the Today Show and Dr. Oz was showing a titanium knee and next to it was Al Roker's ACTUAL KNEE. Looked like something the dog dug up in the woods. Eww is all I have to say.) 

I have also purchased suitable pajamas and robe for the hospital, possible rehab stay, and any physical therapists that will be coming to the house as well as visitors (who are strictly limited to children, grandbaby, and sisters). The old yoga pants with the unraveling elastic and baggy t-shirts I usually wear to bed were  deemed unsuitable for third party viewing. 

Unfortunately, I have already binge-watched every cable and subscriber format series I want to see (The Fall, Gilmore Girls, Vera, Great British Baking (make sure you watch Paul and Mary Master Class for Christmas with a tub of whipped cream in your lap).    Funny to think that for the last surgery five years ago, I secured oodles of DVDs like Room With a View and Enchanted April. We still have them but we don't have a DVD player anymore except on the first floor. And, like all my scarves and art supplies the DVDS are Packed to Move even though we have yet to even LIST the house. 

But no fear, there are issues of Flow, Uppercase, Lucky Peach, Cherry Bombe, and a bunch of Japanese ones I purchased on the reco of Mary Ann Moss and although they are in Japanese they have pretty pictures. 

On a more serious note,  while home these few weeks, I have discovered that I can no longer paint. Nope. Nada. Can't do it. I have an entire Stillman and Birns journal filled with grainy, blobby, clumsy attempts that I then collaged over because I couldn't stand looking at them every time I opened it. I intended to show them to you, but it is after 9:00 p.m. and I still have to "sterilize prep" my knee before I go to bed. 

Have no fear, though, I have worked through the art block. I am back to painting fruit and veggies which I find a very good starter when life has interrupted your art making. All those organic shapes and rich colors. 

I still didn't know what to do with the double spread of red, white, and blue "H" icons for Hillary. Too painful to see, so I pulled out some gorgeous 2015 letter press calendar cards I'd saved and pasted them right on top.

If all goes well, I will pop in on FB and IG over the weekend whilst in between visits every four hours with  my friends  Ocycontin and Tramadol.

And nobody better eat my cookies while I'm in the hospital!  

 

 

Thanksgiving Prep

 

 

Hey, guess what: 

November 2nd was my - wait for it - 13th blogaversary!  

Here's a link to not the very first post, but a post that I remember writing and loving those long years ago. 

The blog was quiet and then shuttered for a year, but I have a little time right now while I wait for the knee replacement surgery.  I can't go trotting off into Manhattan or clean up my garden, but I can read a few books, do some writing, and write a blog entry. 

Today, the birches and the oaks are the last of the trees hanging onto their yellow leaves. My elderly neighbor has an enormous (4 story no joke) weeping tree that I shamefacedly cannot identify. It  has long cascading leaves that are golden and wave like streamers  in the strong winds we are having. There were snow flurries for a awhile this morning. The first true day of early winter downstate.

On Saturday it was 65 degrees when we went to our city's Thanksgiving parade. Mr. Pom was able to drop me off right at the route and I sat in a lawn chair. I have been going to it since I was a girl. This hometown parade tugs at my heartstrings. While we stand in our usual spot in front of the now defunct pizza parlor known as "Cannone's",  I am watching the parade go by and my sight is filtered through so many layers of years past.  

The day reminds me of my Dad, who would take us to the parade. My Uncle Ed who would march as the Grand Something of the Elk Club. Of dating Mr. Pom and going to the parade , which used to be held at night, and then to The Turkey Bowl, the big football game on Thanksgiving Day between our public high school and Iona Prep.  

When we moved back from Memphis, I made all the sisters and their families, and my mom go  to the parade. Mystery Man was in the high school marching band. Julia and her friends were clowns. The turkey float signaled that the parade was almost over. And then Santa on the firetruck was the finale.

We used to have a lovely brunch afterwards at my sister Maria's house. The kids would all play football outside or run around shrieking, depending on age. She'd have up some of her Christmas decorations already, and after waffles and bacon and coffee, you would rush to get a comfy chair and a throw for a nap. 

Kids grow up and move away. Knees wear out.  

And then, a grandson is born!

 

 

So when everyone was busy elsewhere this year,  we had the delight of taking Peanut.  You cannot be left untouched while watching the parade through a two-year old's eyes.  He did not want candy. He did not want a toy. He just wanted to stare intently at the police motorcycles and the fire engines and the giant balloons, and best of all, the marching bands and the  bagpipers!

 

 

It's a veritable Rockwell painting. (Who did live in our town and painted many scenes of it.)

 The older I get, the more I treasure the holiday traditions  - and the more I am willing to break the ones that do not work anymore.  

Most of them are inherited traditions of beauty and perfectionism:  homemade pies; each component of the meal made from scratch; gourmet dishes; polished sterling silver; ironed table cloths; dishware and crystal that must be handwashed;  5 extra leaves in the dining table and chairs for 18. And all this is after the housecleaning! Bathroom washings! Multiple trips to the grocery stores! Trips to bakeries and wine shops!  The fish market! The florist! 

The sumptuous beauty. 

The exhausted hostess.

The cranky husband.

The squabbling-about-chores children. 

The post-holiday migraine. 

This holiday,  whether I wanted to do all that, I cannot physically do it. You might say that I have been lucky to draw I The Mother Who Cannot Stand For Long  Card. Kinda like winning the holiday lottery, frankly. I can sit back and enjoy? 

And you know what? As long as Mr. Pom barbecues the turkey and I can make the stuffing by sitting on a stool at the counter, I don't think anyone cares. 

Thus,  I bid adieu to the bondage of perfection and control.  Everyone is cooking or bringing some part of the meal.   There will be a lovely cloth - ironed by the dry cleaner.  The rose transferware inherited from my grandmother (dishwasher safe) will be used instead of the china that must be hand washed.  I will, however, use  my mother's sterling silverware because it is made to be used, not wrapped up in cloth bags in it's wooden chest.  I will use the green goblets from Pottery Barn but my great grandmother's crystal will remain in the cabinet.  We will have shrimp cocktail, but in the living room out of a chip and dip bowl instead of glass compotes and that take up the entire kitchen counter before they are handwashed. 

And then - best of all! - we travel two blocks down the hill and go to sister #5 for dessert! 

I can just feel myself relax as we walk into her beautiful home and I am handed a piece of coconut custard pie. 

May Thanksgiving be the day you want it to be, however you spend it, wherever you spend it. 

Love from the Poms, who thank you for your years of readership of my funny, little blog with tales of no more importance than the stories we have to tell. 

 

Dear Folks, Pretend that It's Monday

 

Gratuitous adorable baby pic to get your attention. 

I plan to post on Mondays - or rather, I plan to  do the following: 

 I am about to launch a newsletter. Isn't that an amazingly 90's concept?? Except I seem to be the only bumpkin under the log regarding this new - err - old - medium of communication.  Seems like during the last few years when work has crushed my soul and ground my creativity into stale crumbs, all the au courant bloggers have switched to this more direct, controllable outlet. It appears it resolves many issues for me, including acting as a  swift kick in the butt to keep me on a regular schedule. 

I'm investigating, organizing, and getting ready. 

WATCH HERE FOR FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.  

 

 

November All Soul's Month (in my life anyway)

 

It's All Soul's November all month at my house. I set up an altar on the mantel to honor all our deceased family members. You probably remember the stunning painting Estelle Kline gave us after my mother died. A friend of the youngest's and fellow MICA grad,  the kindness and generosity displayed by Estelle was overwhelming. 

My daughter did a beautiful pencil sketch of my Dad from a sketch he had done while in India during WWII. Unfortunately, I cannot find a photo of it and it has been packed away, awaiting our putting the house on the market and hopefully subsequent downsizing. 

In front of the painting, I placed a shallow plate with three large pomegranates in front of the painting about two weeks ago. Maira Kalman (oh yes I'm a-gonna name drop) told me that if I leave them alone, they will eventually turn brown and dry out, and the seeds will rattle inside. I love the idea of the story seeds concentrating into bits that can be felt and heard. Unfortunately, one has developed a soft spot and is about to be chucked. I think I should not have had them touching each other. So I will try again with new ones. 

I light the votives at night. I have collected tokens of my family from all over the house. There's the house number "2"  and house key to my maternal grandparents's house. Dad's pipe and his photo.  Mother's Day gifts I had given my Mom over the years. A small ceramic car that The Baby painted and gave to Mr. Pom on Father's Day. It reminds me of a VW, which always reminds me of Granny, Mr. Pom's mom.  

 

 

The Sicilian pottery vase just to the left out of frame belonged to my grandmother. (It's always the maternal side; I don't have a thing from my father's family.)  It is a gorgeous pattern of large bees and I love the vibrant colors. Apparently it fell to pieces at one point in its life and my grandmother painstakingly glued it all back together. It could not be more precious to me and is a symbol of spirit's endurance despite odds. The clock is just the ticking reminder that life is short but family love exists from one generation to another through the stories we tell. 

 

Soundbreaking

I will have a knee replacement in 16 days. (The other knee had a TKR five years ago and it's the strongest part of my body. ) I don't want to  look back on these weeks as time wasted. My plan has been to write in the morning and paint or draw later in the day and in the evening.  Between doctor appointments and PT, I am just getting into this groove.  Has anyone been following Soundbreaking on PBS? It's a new series showcasing different aspects of the music industry and artists. Last night I watched the first two episodes. The first was about  the role of the music producer in developing the distinctive sound of an artist.   Amazing behind the scenes film of the early Beatles and Elvis, etc, as well as those groups who would not use a producer - such as Sly and The Family Stone and Joni Mitchell. The second episode,  "Painting with Sound",  showed the evolution of Phil Spector and his creation of "the wall of sound", which all contemporary artists adopted thereafter.  Impossible to watch this series without e singing along at the top of your lungs. Perfect accompaniment to  a painting session. 

 

For now, let a melody counterpoint the anxiety that is running through our days.

See you next Monday.