A Sure Sign

I cleaned my stove last night.  It's an unpleasant chore, one that I duck until the situation reaches Defcon 5.  But I visited some amazingly clean appliances over the weekend (clean because they were still in the store) and when I came home to the horror of my own stove, I was forced to take action.

I also cleaned the floors and scrubbed the bathrooms.  All this tidiness is a sure sign that I am returning to school this week.  Usually I reserve all my Ms. Clean action for Labor Day weekend, per the example of my school-teacher mother, but school is cranking up earlier this year.  And so I poured a Pine Sol cocktail and celebrated in the way my people have been partying since time began.

I know how to live.

Food Friday: Grilled Portabello Brie Burger

I am a big fan of sandwiches and this sandwich, based on a recipe I found at Tasty Kitchen, came together quickly and was, as advertised, most tasty. The fresh basil was a perfect addition; somehow that taste always spells summer for me.

I sliced up the veggies before I put the sandwich together and served it with cole slaw, sliced tomatoes and some fresh melon.  It was the perfect meal for a summer evening and will certainly show up at my supper table again.

Home

On Monday afternoon, after 10 days away, JT returned home.  We've been through this routine a few times now and so I know what to expect.  The moment we two are alone in the house, he grabs hold of me and starts to cry.  For the next 15 minutes, he clings to me while I hold on to him.

We don't really say anything, we just hold one another tight and we both cry.  I think it's an expression of the pent up emotions of the time away from one another.  There is a strain involved in making do in the midst of the irregularity that life apart brings us.  And once we return to one another's company, we can finally exhale. In those moments, our mutual relief is palpable.

Though it happens every time that we are apart for more than a few days, the intensity of the return to our life together always surprises me.  That I have deeply missed him while he is away is a given.  Life without the boy around is so very different that it feels unrecognizable.  I hope that when he is away from me his life doesn't feel uncertain or incomplete.  I know that he's not afraid to leave, and I am glad of that.   That he's happy to return is equally certain.

In that certainty I can see how blessed I am to be JT's mama.  And I am glad for it.

Update: Blogger and I are getting along just slightly better, and I would be pleased except that I don't know what I did to unify the font.  Gah.

Adirondack Improvement

These Adirondack chairs have been on my back porch for the last three years. I gave them to my then-partner as a birthday gift. I thought they'd be a comfortable set of chairs for us to enjoy in our backyard for years to come.

When she de-camped, I kept the chairs. They started life as two bright cherry red chairs, but the paint faded to a dull yellowed red and then peeled because I left them outside for several winters. Not good.

The chairs are still quite sturdy and they certainly deserve better than that. So last weekend, I carried them out to the yard for a little renovation action. They were badly in need of a good scrubbing and that was the first step. I sanded the rough spots where the paint had peeled.

Next, I hosed them down to clean off the dust from sanding. Then I tipped them over to dry.

A conversation with the folks who made the chairs (Lands End) had yielded the advice that I use spray paint to fix them up and that's exactly what I did. I picked a darker color for the chairs; a high gloss version of the cranberry trim on my house. Three cans of spray paint later, the chairs were left to dry in the backyard.

And now they are back on the deck, looking most welcoming. They'll be outside for a few more months. Then, when winter comes I will carry them to the garage for storage away from the elements.

Though my spray paint can trigger finger was sore for the next two days, the project was mostly easily to manage. From start to finish it took just three hours to make the improvements on these chairs. Not bad.

Blogger and I are still working out our font issues.....and so far, Blogger is still winning.  Word Press is looking better and better.

Hibiscus Blooms

I've had this pink hibiscus plant for three years now. In the cold of winter, it comes inside to stay in the study. But come the summer, the plant heads outside and usually grows thick and lush on a corner of the back deck. My only challenge is to ensure that this water-loving tropical plant gets enough water to keep the blooms coming all season long.

This summer, Mother Nature has handled the watering duties and I've seen the largest flowers yet on the plant. In the summer sun, with up to a half dozen of blossoms at a time, the plant looks downright blousy and gaudy.

It's a most happy development.

Note: I see that my blogger font troubles continue. Grrrrr. I'll get to work on this straight away, but I make no promises.

Nine Year Boy Sought for Light Duty

Must be able to shuck corn (note: the previously successful applicant was a born and bred cornhusker, so the bar is high).

Perform forbidden headstands on the sofa.

Willingness to stage art projects in the front yard.

The successful applicant must be willing to pet sassy cats who insist on sitting on his lap.

Job is heavy on the hours required, light on the allowance. Generous fringe benefits include a lifetime provision of guacamole tacos and fudgesicles, a warm soft bed, good books, excellent Halloween costumes, laughter, and the adoration of a doting Mama.

The post has been vacant for 10 days and needs immediate staffing.

I've quite bravely endured the quiet that has filled my home in the last week but enough is enough. I expect the boy to return home this afternoon. Whomever it was who said "absence makes the heart grow fonder,'" must have been the mama of a nine year old boy.

Note: I have tried - repeatedly - to standardize the font on this post. But Blogger does not love me today........I'll try again when I have more patience for trouble-shooting.

Clean Living

When I moved away to college, I distinctly recall that my mother ordered me to leave my room a mess. Coming from a woman who was obsessed with cleaning, I thought it was a strange request. It had certainly never been an option in the first 17 years of my life.

Years of therapy later, I came to realize that my mother liked cleanliness and order because it was about her dual allies: structure and control of emotions. I'm able to express my emotions (yes, you're saying to yourself, I read this blog and know that you are a persistent over-sharer). Even so, in my own life, cleaning has served the purpose of permitting me to manage my anxieties in a mostly functional fashion. In the last week, with my son away and out of contact with me, I have been a cleaning machine. My usual cleaning tasks were dispatched with efficiency and then I turned my attention to other matters. It's a very efficient way to keep my demons and anxieties at bay. And the end result is a tidy home.

First target: the kitchen pantry. Here's how it looked before.
And afterward it was most lovely.
Next up: the family bulletin board that hangs in the hall between the kitchen and the living room, directly across from the basement door. Please note the before chaos.....
And after.
Look for a post next month on the bulletin board project, which entailed a little more than simply cleaning off the old papers.

And then I worked on my most challenging task yet: the large (and very full) bookshelf in the study. The before photo says a lot, mostly that I have delayed this task for far, far too long. Also, in a more promising interpretation, that I like to read.
During....Please note that the feline wildlife had completely fled the room and might have left the premises if they were allowed outside. They did not find cleaning enjoyable.
And after.
The boy will return tomorrow. He may or may not be impressed with our newly ordered life, but he'll certainly benefit from the fact that all this ordering helped to keep his Mama sane while he was away.

By the way, the nice people at Blogger report to me that this is my 1100th post. I had no idea I'd produced quite that much drivel in the last three and a half years.

Update: Nichole is right...I have a grits problem. But when you mix a cup of cooked grits with a cup or two of grated cheddar cheese and a few chopped pickled jalopenos and then bake the lot in the oven for 20 minutes, then you will understand why I love the grits.

Feedback

I'd been reading Michael Pollan's writings for a couple of years before this past spring, when I finally sat down and read The Omnivore's Dilemma and An Eater's Manifesto. At that point, I officially made the conversion and now consider myself to be a Pollan disciple.

When Pollan talks about the process of putting a meal on the table, I recognize my own point of view. I like to garden and cook because I like to eat good food. For me, these things are linked to one another. The process of collecting fresh ingredients, making them into a meal, and setting them on the table for myself, my family and my friends is enormously fulfilling for me.

Most nights, my son and I sit down together and we eat a homemade supper. In fact, even when JT is away, I cook. I'm not heating ingredients that come pre-processed, I am making actual food. It happens only because I plan for it to occur. I make a list of the foods I want to cook and then I head to the market to buy the necessary ingredients. In a recent New York Times article, Pollan discusses why this is so important: actual cooking requires actual ingredients, not the processed foods that fill our grocery store shelves. And the result is healthier in a myriad of ways. Naturally, I concur. As I was reading his essay, I was struck again by the satisfaction I derive from the process of cooking. The orderly assembly of quality ingredients into a tasty meal is the best way I know to relax at the end of the day.

After being out of town for four weeks this summer, I was eager to get back into the kitchen. I made plans to cook meals that require a good deal of chopping, because that's my favorite kitchen activity. And last Sunday I lured some friends to the table to enjoy the fruits (literally, as it turns out) of my return to the kitchen.

The Menu:
- fresh cherries
- Mediterranean chop salad
- Summer tomato pie
- Spicy corn fritters
- garlic toasts

And for dessert, we had a slice of grasshopper pie. The satisfaction of planning and cooking a meal feels timeless to me. Maybe that's why I enjoy my garden and kitchen so much.

Twenty Years

August never passes that I don't reflect on the ways that my life has often changed in the eighth month of the year. August is my month for moving house. Twenty years ago this month, I left California for grad school in Nashville, Tennessee. Five years later, in 1994, I left Nashville for a job in rural Nebraska. And yet another August move was made in 2002, when I left Nebraska for a new job in New Jersey.

I generally think of myself as a Californian but I've lived in the West, the South, the Midwest, and the East. And the place I love best is Tennessee. I wouldn't say that I'm a drifter, but I certainly have tried a fair share of places. My son was born in Nebraska but he left at the age of two and isn't really a midwesterner. New Jersey and the East Coast are his home; the place most familiar to him. I am always surprised to realize that JT's most familiar place is not native to me.

I'm a bit of an outsider, I guess, in that I view my new home through the lens of someone who has lived elsewhere for a while. I've always come to see the place I live as beautiful; as places that fed my heart and felt like home. When I think of mountains, I still think of the immense grandeur of the Sierra Nevada range in California; no other mountains can hope to match up. I loved the woods and green hills of Tennessee and the vast sweep of the prairie in Nebraska. In New Jersey I've found satisfaction as well. In the woods where I go walking and on the front porch and in the backyard of my home, I see a restful beauty that is at odds with the stereotypical impressions people have of this state.

I'm not moving this month; I expect that I'll be in New Jersey for some years to come. But I've been thinking often of the ways that home has been a moving target for me. A friend of mine used to say that home is where you keep your clothes, and that's certainly true. But for me it's more than that. Home is the place you choose to make your own, where you find comfort and sustenance for your heart and soul.

And in my case, these days, home is the Garden State, a state with plenty of opportunities for retail therapy, replete with Jersey peaches, the best pizza in the world (and you'll want to call it a pie when you call Giuseppe's for takeout), and a Dunkin' Donuts at every corner.

Smack Talk

On our last night in California, I joined JT and my nephews in the swimming pool for some games. We ended up armed and dangerous, playing a game whereby the children shot at me with water cannons and I sought to evade them, shooting back as necessary.

They are young and quick but I like to believe that I was a worthy enemy. Worthy enough to frequently disarm the most smack-talking of them all, my nephew S, who repeatedly announced, "You just got served, Auntie S," most often shouting that just as I relieved him of his weaponry (a scenario we repeated several times).


I like the way kids can seamlessly slip into a game they've never played before, quickly organizing for fun, as if that is the very reason that we exist in the first place. It was nice to leave adulthood behind and play along. And a reminder that I need to have fun more often.


And though I say it myself, I still think it's true: You boys got served by JT's Mama.