A Tale of Two Kitchens....

Recently, I was a guest in two very different kitchens.  The first was a sterile, shiny kitchen strikingly devoid of anything not attached to a wall, floor, or counter; a kitchen so obsessively clean that not even a fingerprint would dare stick around.  It sits on the twentieth-something floor of a condo in Miami and is meticulously maintained by my friend, Marilyn (previously known as "my sister's friend, Marilyn")  It looks like this.

The second kitchen had no counter space at all.  All the chopping and mixing was done in bowls on the floor; which was covered in ash from the charcoal fires burning in their metal stands.  There was no sink (water was carried in in old plastic bottles) and a refrigerator would have been a waste of space as there was no electricity to run it.  This kitchen was in the upper room of a ramshakled cement building in the remote town of Jeremie, Haiti and is used by my friend Madam Fritz.  It looks like this.

Both kitchens are amazing in their separate ways.  Marilyn is an organizational freak!  I wouldn't be surprised if some day, she comes up with a better system for organizing the names and numbers in a phone book.  She's also a neat-nick.  Everything has its place and she isn't emotionally attached to "stuff" so when she's done with it or no longer needs it, it gets pitched.  She is The Fen Shui Queen!!!  I spent several minutes looking around her kitchen for the trash can.  I looked under the sink (an obvious and common storage place) and in large pull-out drawers; I wandered around looking behind and beside the counter, the fridge, the stove....  I finally had to ask her if she even had one!  She went to the laundry room and came out with a small basket, explaining that she doesn't like it cluttering up her kitchen so she keeps it hidden in a back corner of the laundry room. 

As proof of her organizational skills, I offer these pictures of her kitchen drawers and refrigerator...

The second kitchen is amazing in its ability to even function as a kitchen at all despite the lack of running water, stove, counters, drawers and cupboards, or even a sink.  It's literally just a room with four walls and a floor.  Pots and pans, knives, a stool for sitting, a mortar and pestle all had to be brought in from their storage areas in the neighboring bedroom.  All the ingredients needed to cook lunch had to be purchased and carried in as there is no space or system for storing supplies for future use. 

In addition to her strict ideals on how to keep house, Marilyn also has some strong opinions about what should and should not be put in the body.  So, on the morning she fixed me breakfast, she opened her tidy refrigerator, withdrew several previously hard-boiled and shelled eggs, cut them in half, removed the yolks (which she tossed down the garbage disposal) and filled the cavities with prepared hummus.

Several days later, the cook(s) in the second kitchen also prepared a meal for me.  They butchered a couple of chickens, plucked the feathers, cut them up, pounded the spices, and left them to marinate in a large bowl.  There was no removal of undesirable food parts and throwing them away.  To the contrary, several things were left in the food pot that probably should have been tossed to the cat!

Marilyn artfully displayed her hummus stuffed eggs on rice crackers topped with yogurt and an olive.  She brewed a pot of coffee which she served with some sort of almond milk instead of cream.  Her breakfast was actually quite delicious and ready to consume in under thirty minutes!  (Martha Stewart could take a few pointers from Marilyn!)

Back in kitchen #2, after plucking, cutting, and marinating the chickens, they were stewed in a flavorful broth and served with boiled plantains.  If you include the time spent going to market to purchase the live chickens (and other ingredients) it took more than eight hours to prepare lunch.  But it was worth the wait!!

I'm looking forward to the day when I can visit both of these kitchens again!!!

Just call me "George Costanza"

So!  I am going to tell you how I've spent the last 15 months of my life....

Back in April of last year, Eddy and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary with a cruise to the Mediterranean.  While in Egypt, we purchased two papyruses from a shop in Cairo.  The papyruses were $150 a piece for a total of $300.  Our purchase was rolled up and sealed in a cardboard tube, which we packed in our luggage and didn't open until we got home.

After returning home, I opened the tube and found only one papyrus inside, and it was not one that we had purchased!  I began making phone calls.

First, I called Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL) and they referred me to an agency which they said handled all these types of claims.  From there, I was put in contact with an agent named Sandra who began asking me endless questions; what date was the purchase made?  what was the name of the shop?  the address?  what was our tour bus number?  the name of our tour guide?  Every time I answered one question, she came up with another.  Questions such as the tour bus number and name of our tour guide were impossible to answer, even after months of trying to make contact with someone who should know.

I wrote emails, sent faxes, made phone calls.  Eventually, I stopped hearing from Sandra.  I'm sure at this point, they thought I would just give up and go away.  But the injustice of the situation infuriated me and  I couldn't let it go.  It was no longer about the money; it was about restitution! 

I lost sleep as I plotted my next course of action.  I let about  six months go by and then I started a flurry of letter writing activity again.  I wrote to NCL and explained why I would never again be sailing the seas on their gnarly ships.  I threatened to write letters to newspapers and leave bad reviews on public Internet sites.  I said I would be telling all my friends about my miserable experience with customer service.  I explained that it wasn't the money, it was the "principle" of the thing!  I made copies and sent identical letters by fax, U.S. mail, and email.  I sent letters to every name and address I could find at NCL.  Then, I sat back and waited...

A few days later, I received a phone call from someone at NCL who said it was his top priority to resolve this issue for me and he contacted Sandra and got her involved in my complaint once again.  This time, she made contact with someone in Egypt.  He said I would need to mail back the papyrus I had been mistakenly given and he would issue me a refund.  He asked for my bank account information and said he would be wiring a refund into my account.  I was a little bit leery about giving my bank information out to some guy in Egypt, but after contacting my bank and explaining the situation, they assured me it should be o.k.

I took my cardboard tube and headed to the post office.  I paid for a speedy delivery to an address in Cairo, Egypt and paid extra for insurance and proof of delivery.

Finally, after another month of waiting, I received an email from Sandra saying they were wiring $24 into my account.  $24!  Are you kidding me???!!!

I got back on the phone and called Sandra.  I explained how my receipt clearly showed a charge of $300.  She told me that the agent in Egypt said there was an LE after the charge indicting that the amount was in Egyptian pounds and when converted, came to $48 U.S.  (There was no "LE" on the shop receipt that we had been given, but he was claiming there was one on the original charge slip.)  Furthermore, since I had only returned one papyrus, they were only issuing a refund for one papyrus.

At this point, my voice started to wobble and shake as I explained, for the umpteenth time, why I was only returning one.  Because I had only been given ONE!  And furthermore, I had paid $150 U.S. a piece for them.  Sandra asked that I send her the credit card statement showing the actual charge.

ARG!!  Eddy no longer remembered which card he had used and he doesn't keep his statements.  So... we began making phone calls, trying to track down a charge that had been made in Egypt over 15 months ago.

Finally, tonight he talked with someone at Bank of America who was able to see the charge on his account, and guess what?  It was only for $48!!!

Are you kidding me???!!!!!!  The stupid tourist shop made a mistake on the charge slip and undercharged us by over $250!!  (A side note here.... Eddy isn't very good about going over his statement each month so it would be quite easy to over or under charge him and he'd never know.)

So, it seems I've spent the last 15 months of my life and about $52 fighting for a refund of $48.  Oh, the madness!  And now, I find myself in the very embarrassing position of either dropping the whole thing or calling Sandra back up and admitting that the refund should really only be $48.

Or wait!  Here's an idea.  I think I'll ask that the shop use the item numbers on my receipt to track down and send me my original purchase and forget the refund.  Then, I can hang them on the wall and tell their story every time some unlucky soul wanders into my living room!!

Out with a BANG!

My life has been pretty full the past couple of weeks.  Last Wednesday I made a new friend, Melodee (that's her at the rear pottery wheel.)  She is a fun lady with an amazing story.  She has been battling cancer since she was 24 and her journey includes a total bone marrow transplant and several near-death experiences.  She's a potter at heart and has a studio set up in her basement which she is allowing Trina and I to use while we pursue our new-found passion.  It's funny how knowing that I'm going to have my hands in clay on Wednesday can make my whole week brighter!

Friday, I got to try out some of the pieces I made at my introduction to pottery class.  The Amazing Matta is in town and I had her over for dinner.  It was fun serving appetizers in my very own hand-made dishes!

I wanted the meal to be as special as she is.... a hard thing to do for such an amazing lady! I ended up making Moroccan pan-roasted seafood.   The dinner turned out really great and the next day, I enjoyed sitting out on the patio and eating the left-overs for lunch.

Saturday night, Eddy and I celebrated the 4th of July at David and Denise's place out in Kendalville.  They are new friends we made through Randy and Trina.  They have a gorgeous, secluded place on 30 plus acres with a pond nestled in their ginormous backyard.

David is a pretty interesting guy.  Almost everything on the property he has made out of someone else's throw-aways.  He recycles other people's junk!  I was really impressed with the really cool wallpaper he has covering the walls of his "man-cave" and even MORE impressed when he told me that it was nothing but torn up grocery bags slapped on with wallpaper paste.  He has little ponds and water running all over the property.  In a small pond bed next to the back deck, I heard a bullfrog croaking.  Took me a while, but I finally spotted him!

Eddy and I had a great time just chillin' around the pond with new friends and great food.  When it finally got dark, Randy and David began setting off fireworks.

I recently began writing articles for an online magazine called Examiner.com.  My articles are food related with a local focus.  I'm writing an article about a local Burmese restaurant owned and operated by a Burmese immigrant.  The place is just a little whole-in-the wall, but the food is fantastic!  I have an appointment with her in about an hour and she is going to give me an interview and let me watch her cook.  I'm really excited!!  I think it will be a great way to end my 48th year.  Tomorrow is the first day of my 49th!! BANG!!

Painfully delicious anticipation......

Do you remember that feeling you used to get as a kid when it was your birthday and you had a whole pile of unopened gifts stacked in front of you?  Each wrapped package a secret promise.  As long as the gifts remained wrapped, they had the potential to be almost anything in the world!  This was always the most exciting time for me; that brief moment when anything was still possible.  Oh!  I'm so lucky to be enjoying this feeling once again!

About a year ago, I read a wonderful book called The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.  This book went straight to the top of my list of "The Ten Best Books I've Ever Read."  Zafon has such a gloriously mysterious way with words.  I hungrily devoured the first half of the book but by about midway through, I found myself forcing a slow down.  I didn't want the experience to end!  Zafon had created a dark, intriguing story line dripping with atmosphere and mystery and used words in ways that literally sometimes made my heart beat faster.  The book was that good. 

Immediately upon finishing the last page, I did an Internet search for anything else he might have written.  But alas, he is a Spanish author and I was not able to find anything else that had been translated into English.  Sigh....

Two weeks ago, I walked into Border's to pick up a CD of Bach cello suites.  Unless your own life is blessed/cursed with a similar passion, you can not begin to imagine the excitement that surged through me upon seeing a display for a new book by Zafon.  I raced over to the display, (pushing, to my shame, a young mother and her toddler out of my path; the Bach CD completely forgotten for the moment) and grabbed up the new book, The Angel's Game.

I felt light-headed as I turned it over to read the back cover.  Another novel, set in the back streets of Barcelona, written in the same Gothic style as the first and claiming to be a "riveting new masterpiece" filled with plot twists and mystery.  Oh Joy!  Oh Rapture! 

I've had the book home for two weeks now and have not read so much as the first word.  I haven't even opened the front cover.  I'm battling the urge to begin a journey that I know will end all too quickly.  As long as it remains unread, I have so much to look forward to: each new day holds a whisper of promise for something I can't quite define.  It's sitting on my coffee table and every time I catch a glimpse of it, my toes tingle and excitement fills the back of my throat like a fuzzy tennis ball.

I have decided to save it for my trip to Haiti next month.  I leave on July 19th and have literally begun to mark the days off on my calendar; not in anticipation of my trip to Haiti, but in anticipation of my trip through the dark, back alleys of Barcelona!!

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

I've been doing a lot of wandering around inside my own mind lately.  I don't stay focused on any one thought very long before I'm off pondering something new.  I'm thinking about life, purpose, after-life, the force we call God.....  Why do we humans have such a strong drive to give life meaning?

A couple of weeks ago, I was reading a medical thriller.  The cast of characters included an elderly man who had "locked-in syndrome" as the result of an accident.  Locked-in syndrome is where your brain stem is damaged and although it still transmits messages to your brain, it can not transmit messages FROM your brain.  As a result, the individual is completely paralyzed but can still feel pain and discomfort.  By completely paralyzed, I mean unable to even breath without the help of a respirator.  In a small percentage of cases, the individual will have muscle control in one or both eyes. 

So, in this book I was reading, reference was made to Jean-Dominique Bauby, a Frenchman who was the editor of the magazine Elle.  He suffered a stroke and as a result, ended up with locked-in syndrome.  I wondered if this was a true story or made up for the sake of the book, so I goggled him.  Turns out, it was a true story and he wrote a book about his experience called The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

I logged on to Amazon.com and ordered the book.  It's a small book and I was able to read it through in less than an hour.  But the impression it made on me was immense!  Bauby died within days of the book's publication.  He was one of the "lucky" few who are able to blink an eye and it was by blinking, one painful letter at time, that he was able to share his trapped thoughts and experiences with the outside world.

The title of the book refers to his condition.  The diving bell is his locked-in body, but the butterfly is his mind, which is free to travel wherever it wants  and do whatever it desires.  He had an amazing strength of spirit!

One passage that struck me was his reaction at seeing himself reflected in a window as he was being wheeled through the hospital.  He writes,

...Reflected in the glass I saw the head of a man who seemed to have emerged from a vat of formaldehyde.  His mouth was twisted, his nose damaged, his hair tousled, his gaze full of fear.  One eye was sewn shut, the other goggled like the doomed eye of Cain.  For a moment I stared at that dilated pupil, before I realized it was only mine.  Whereupon a strange euphoria came over me.  Not only was I exiled, paralyzed, mute, half deaf, deprived of all pleasures, and reduced to the existence of a jellyfish, but I was also horrible to behold.  There comes a time when the heaping up of calamities brings on uncontrollable nervous laughter - when, after a final blow from fate, we decide to treat it all as a joke.

In another passage he declares that he would be the happiest of men "if I could just swallow the overflow of saliva that endlessly floods my mouth." 

I'm thinking, here was this man who couldn't do anything but think and blink one eye and yet he managed to touch the lives of countless people and influence change.  (Although I'd never heard of his story, it seems people around the world have because I read endless testaments to the positive impact he has had on individual lives.) 

So, the aimless wandering I've been doing in my own mind lately is really a search for my own path.  What can I do with my life of good health and privilege to make an impact of my own?  And why is this even important to me?

What I've been doing instead of blogging......

I can't believe that it has already been over a week since I last blogged.  Where is my time going?  I set out to find the answer to this question and here's what I've been able to come up with....

1.  Reading .....well, no surprises there, I guess.  Since my last blog, I finished The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, I read The Second Opinion by Michael Palmer, and I've started The Help by Kathryn Stockett.  I enjoyed The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo so much, that I got on Amazon.com and ordered the second book in the trilogy, The Girl Who Played With Fire. 

2.  Cooking .....  If you follow The Cooking Curmudgeon then you already know that I joined a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) group.  This has been great stimulus for my cooking creativity.  I'm not by nature very creative in the kitchen, although it seems like I am because I like to try new things.  But typically, I pick a recipe, gather the ingredients, make the dish.  Now, I'm planning meals around the produce I get in my weekly sack.  It's actually a lot of fun!

3.  Pottery ....  I've started taking a pottery class.  It meets on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.  Day 1, I pretty much sucked.  Throwing pottery is a lot harder than it looks!  Whenever you see a skilled potter working at a wheel, the clay just seems to respond obediently to the tiniest direction.  But for me, it was a messy misery!  After three hours, I was covered from head to toe in wet clay and all I had to show for it was one miserable, lopsided, thick-walled midget of a pot.  Here's a picture of me wedging my clay.  (You wedge clay almost the same way you knead dough.  You do this with the lump of clay you are going to throw.  It's a process that is supposed to remove air bubbles from the clay.)

4.  Adoption ....  This has been the real time-sucker!  I've gotten involved in helping with another adoption.  This time, I've matched two little girls whose mother died from injuries sustained in the earthquake in Haiti, with a family in South Whitley.  The girls are 2 and almost 4 years old and so cute, it makes my heart hurt!

If you know anything at all about the long, rough road I traveled the last time I helped with an adoption, you're probably just as shocked as I am to find out I'm doing it again!  I will probably be making a trip down to Haiti before the end of the summer with the adoptive parents to get the initial paperwork filed in Port-au-Prince.  Adopting from Haiti is NOT for the faint of heart!  It takes faith, hope, love, and tenacity!  But mostly, TENACITY!

Because it feels so good!

I had the good fortune to be raised by parents who were always showing kindness to strangers.  My dad was always stopping the car to help a distressed traveler or to give a ride to a hitchhiker, and my mom was always bringing lonely or unfortunate strangers into our home for dinner or a place to hang out.  Over the years, our holiday gatherings grew to regularly include many of these individuals in our family celebrations.

So, what may seem odd, or maybe even dangerous, to other folks, seems rather natural to me.  Today, I was in a restaurant waiting for my take-out order when a very distressed woman appeared in the doorway.  An older gentleman sitting at the bar turned to her and asked, "what?"  In a shaky, hurried voice she babbled about needing to go home and get her insurance card.  She said she was hoping someone would help her out.  She offered $5 in gas money.  She said the cop had told her it was alright.

When she was done babbling, there was nothing but silence and the sound of a distant t.v. in the room.  After a few seconds, she turned around and walked out.

As she left the room, my carry-out arrived.  I had already paid so I was able to grab my sack and hurry out after her.  As I stepped outside, I looked down the street and saw that she was just reaching the end of the block.  I called out to her, "Ma'am!"  She turned around.  "I can take you were you need to go."

The poor thing almost collapsed with gratitude.  She hurried towards me and I led her to my car.  As we pulled out of the parking lot, she began telling me in hurried, choppy sentences, what had happened to her.

It seems she had parked her car along the curb and was opening her door to get out, when a passing vehicle rammed into her door, all but ripping it from the frame.  I had passed the accident site on my way to the restaurant and had noticed a police car and a bunch of glass in the street.  Kim (it turns out that was her name) did not have her insurance card or information with her.  She hadn't even taken her purse with her when she left the house.  The cop told her it would take him about 20 minutes to write out the accident report.  If she could produce proof of insurance before he was done, well and good.  But he also warned her about leaving the scene of an accident.

Kim looked like she'd had a rough life.  Her face had the leathery skin of a life-time smoker.  I guessed she looked older than her age, but I placed her somewhere in her 50's.  She certainly didn't look like a Kim.  More like a Betty or Franny.  She talked nervously the whole time in sentences peppered with bad grammar.  She told me that she had just been ticketed yesterday for driving without a seat belt.  She was upset about the money she had just paid to have some repairs done to the car.  Her voice was raspy with emotion and I thought she might break down and cry any minute.

We reached her house and she ran in.  Seconds later she returned with her purse and an armload of files.  I took her back to the parking lot where I had picked her up.  Before getting out of the car she reached into a pocket and pulled out a wad of paper.  Buried inside was a $5 bill which she extracted and handed to me.

"Oh, no!  That's alright.  You keep that."  I told her." 

"Really?  Are you sure?" she asked me in a trembling voice on the verge of tears.

"Yes.  And good luck.  I hope everything works out o.k. for you."

As I was driving away, I thought about the good feeling I had growing in my chest.  I thought about how interesting my day had gotten all of a sudden.  I thought about the small difference I had just played in helping someones bad day go a little bit better.  I thought about how lucky I was to have been raised by parents who so beautifully modeled Jesus' message to "love thy neighbor."  And I determined to not only help out when an occasion presents itself, but to actually seek opportunities.

My sister shared this quote by Viktor Frankl with me:

"What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general, but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment."

I think I like that!

Regrets

It's been raining for a thousand days......  I like the rain, especially if I don't have anywhere to go and can spend the day curled up inside sipping tea.  I love the way the rain sounds when it pours down in heavy sheets and sounds like a train rumbling by.  And I love the way it sounds when it drizzles and drips sounding like a tiny percussion orchestra.

The tea I'm sipping was given to me by my hostess in Istanbul.  (Every time I turned around, someone was offering me more tea, usually accompanied by a plate of something to nibble on; nuts or sweets.)  And as I sip my Turkish tea, I'm filled with regret because I remember the Turkish tea set that I almost owned.....

On the day I left Turkey,  Akif took me to the airport and he insisted on giving me a fistful of money to spend.  I told him that I still had money left from the last time he took me to the airport, but he wouldn't listen.  He said he wanted me to take the money and spend it in the airport.  Well.... I certainly don't want to offend anyone!  So, I took the money and we said good-bye.

I had about two hours to wait for my flight and the Istanbul airport is full of interesting shops so off I went.  After eating and drinking a small portion of the money, I decided I would exchange the rest for US dollars at an exchange bureau.  But before doing that, I wandered into a shop that sold traditional Turkish items; Turkish delight, beautiful scarves made from Turkish cotton, jewelry, spices, pottery, trinkets, dried fruit and nuts.  And tea sets.

I was quite taken with the tea sets.  The cups and saucers were made of glass and had beautiful, lacy designs on them.  Many of them had gold swirled in with the colors and others were etchings all done in gold.  I fell in love with a set that had colorful dots on the sides and gold rimming on the lips of the cups.  The set cost 70 Turkish lira which is about $45 US.  I stood there and agonized for almost 30 minutes over whether or not to buy it.  I kept asking myself why I needed it?  I had already lived for 47 years without a Turkish tea set.  I was pretty sure I could live another 47 without it.  How often did I drink tea, anyway?  I'm more a coffee drinker.  And I'd have to hold it on the plane since the box was too big to fit in my carry-on.  And if I didn't buy it, I'd go home with 45 more dollars.

I didn't buy it.

Since coming home, I've thought about that tea set several times a week with regret. I wish I had bought it.  And here is the conflict for me; I don't NEED it!  I spend so much time in Haiti, with people who live on almost nothing.  It has gotten difficult for me to justify spending money on stuff I don't need.  This question of what I need and what I don't gets difficult as I wonder just where do I draw the line? 

On the other hand, what did I end up doing with the $45 I didn't spend on the tea set?  I have no idea!  The money is gone and now I have no money AND no tea set!!!!

So, in the future, I'm not going to hesitate to make the purchase.  And that decision has lead me to make a bigger, more significant decision.  I'm not going to hesitate to do something nice for someone when I can.

Maybe those things seem unconnected.  But I've never regretted making a decision to buy something I wanted, the same way I've never regretted spending the time, energy, or money to do something nice for someone.  I've only regretted what I haven't done.

Oh dear!  While I've been busy philosophising, my tea has gotten cold.  I'm off to re-heat it!

ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!

If this photo doesn't make you fall off your chair laughing, it's only because you haven't read my post from a couple of days ago titled "The Swinging Mailbox."  Read it.  I implore you!

So, why is this mailbox sitting on top of a trash receptacle?  I can only assume there was a serious design flaw in the original mailbox structure.  I haven't had a chance to talk with my dad so I don't know what the story is.  I'm wondering if he has placed the mailbox thusly so that it can be collected with the rest of the trash?

From the looks of things, I don't believe this is the evil work of teenage thugs nor the result of impact with a moving vehicle.  I think this mailbox committed suicide!

Happy Anniversary to me!

Yesterday was my one year anniversary.  It has been 365 days since I last had gainful employment.  It wasn't until I was looking through my facebook notes this morning that I realized what a funny coincidence this is.  Here is a picture I posted to facebook telling how I spent my first day of unemployment.

And here's a picture of how I spent my day yesterday.

I don't know, it just seems beyond weird that in my entire life, I've probably only  spent two days working outside in my flower/herb gardens and it just so happens that they fell exactly one year apart.  And it just so happens that I took pictures both days!  I promise you, this was not by design!

So anyway..... the gardens were a mess!  I had been thinking about working in them for almost two weeks and with each beautiful day that passed, I felt guiltier and guiltier for not getting this done.  So yesterday, I went up the road to what used to be Sandpoint (it has some new name now, which I can't remember) and spent $50 on a few perennials and some top soil.  I came home determined to work outside and get my patio looking nice.

Here are the steps I usually follow when attacking any project that demands physical labor:

1. Spend several days pretending like I'm going to do it, but then realize that it is too late in the day to get started.  Make a plan to start first thing the next morning.  Do this for several days, or maybe even weeks.

2.  Realize I need to make a list of things to do and gather before I can start my project.  Make a list and then repeat step one.

3.  Begin collecting the items on my list.

4.  Once everything is finally ready and all purchases have been made, sit down and look at the area in which I will be working.  Check the time to see if it's lunch time.

5.  Eat lunch.

6.  Start in with the physical labor.  Work hard for five minutes then take a break to stand up and look around.  Work hard for ten more minutes. 

7.  Sit down and take a break.

8.  Wonder if maybe I've been a bit too ambitious in thinking this is a project I can finish in one day.

9.  Go back to work and repeat steps six through eight until the project is done.

Sometimes, it doesn't go exactly like this.  Sometimes, after step eight, I decided the project is too big and I quit for the day.  But yesterday, I was a whirling Turkish dervish!  I got the project all done, including planting two tomato plants and washing down the patio furniture.  Here are the before and after pictures of the garden.

Before......

After......

And to top it all off, I made a delicious supper, too! 
I am Wonder Woman!  I am too amazing for words!!!

Better than Christmas

Yes, it certainly can.  And today, it did!  Today was a good day.  Better than Christmas or my birthday because what happened today was totally unexpected.

First off, the day started out pretty fantastic all on its own.  The weather was delightful with just enough breeze to keep the sun from becoming annoying.  And it's Friday, which doesn't really mean anything to the unemployed since every day is pretty much like every other day to us.  But I know that it means something to the rest of the world.

I was excited because I knew just what I was going to make for dinner (if you want details on that, go to the Cooking Curmudgeon).  I had been out and about picking up a few ingredients and as I pulled into the lane, I stopped at the mailbox.  Inside was a large, padded, yellow envelope with an object just exactly the size and shape of a book.  And the name on the label?  Was mine!

I'm pretty used to getting envelopes like this one as I can't seem to stop ordering things from amazon.com.  But then, who can?  The deals on books and Cd's are amazing.  But the thing about this envelope was..... I wasn't expecting anything.  I already had everything I'd ordered.  The return address was a bookseller in New York.

Curiouser and curiouser......

I took the envelope inside and spent a few minutes doing what my husband usually does with mail when he doesn't know what it is.  I turned it around and over.  I held it up.  I examined the return label.  I sat and pondered.  I said out loud, "I wonder what this is?' 

And then, I opened it.

Inside was the book you see pictured above.  How odd!  I first read this book when I was living in Haiti, way back before I got married.  I found it tucked away and dusty in a stack of junk at the house where I was staying.  I read it out of boredom.  The book was delightful!  It's an hilariously witty account of an immigrant from Georgia (part of Russia, at the time) who arrives in America after 27 days at sea with nothing but the karakul hat on his head.  Which he is immediately swindled out of.  The book is so entertaining and fun to read, the author so honest and funny in the telling of his story, it's like sitting on the edge of a pier at the end of a hot summer's day and dangling your feet in the water while you lick an ice cream cone and watch the sun set over the lake.  THAT's how good this book is!

So anyway, the book wasn't mine and I had to leave it in Haiti.  But after coming home I searched for a copy.  This was a bit challenging since it was out of print and there was no such thing as the internet.  I eventually found and purchased a copy and, after I read it, shared it with a friend of mine.  We aren't sure what happened after that.  She may have returned it, she may not have.  Neither of us remembers.  But the point is, the book has gone missing.

So when I opened this package and saw this book, it sent a tingle shooting right up my spine!  How extraordinary!  Where did it come from and how in the world did it end up here?  Enclosed with the book was a folded purchase order thanking my friend, Robin (*****), for her order.

How cool is that?  How lucky am I to have such a friend?  One friend like that is worth 1,000 ordinary friends!  I heated up my Lean Cuisine pizza, poured myself a glass of wine, gathered up my "new" book and sat outside on the patio eating and reading.  Two of my favorite things!

What a great day!

The Swinging Mailbox...........

When I started this blog, I made a promise that I would not blog about my children.  This blog is about my own life and my personal journey through middle age and even though my children are a very large and important part of my life, their lives are their own.  (Besides, they made it clear that they did not want to become the objects of my posts.)  But I don't think I can be expected to keep my entire family out of my blogging because then, I would be left with almost nothing interesting to blog about.

Case in point, the photograph above is a photograph of my dad's new mailbox.  While I have been busy battling the sock monster over the past decade, my dad has been engaged in numerous bitter battles of his own.  Many of these battles are with the forces of nature.  He has waged war on the ants that invade his kitchen each year, the squirrels that build their homes inside his, and the rabbits that feast in his gardens.  Recently he's been engaged in battle with the forces that seem intent on destroying each and every mailbox he installs.

Dad lives just outside the city limits on five acres that he affectionately (and somewhat comically) calls "The Farm."  Although he hasn't put a lot of energy into maintaining the house (well, aside from installing a corn burner for heat and devising an organizational system that allows him to type an item description into the computer, such as "old phone books", and immediately be given information that will direct him to the exact room and box number containing said item) he has spent a LOT of time and energy maintaining his outdoor property.  He has transplanted weeds from the back field into his front yard and laid down old carpet between the rows to prohibit the growth of "unwanted" weeds.  He's designed and built all kinds of small and large gardens which grow scattered all over the property.

 He even dug a swamp in the back field using nothing more than a shovel and his own man-power.  (This was supposed to be a pond, but after a couple of years of hard work, he decided to call it a swamp so he could be done!)

Most of these outdoor projects he enjoys.  So it has been a great annoyance to him to have to interrupt these projects to install yet another mailbox.  The events that destroyed his previous mailboxes vary.  Sometimes, a snowplow has knocked the post over while engaged in the task of snow removal.  Other times, it has been a carload of "hoodlums" that get their jollies by knocking off mailboxes with baseball bats. 

After the last mailbox was destroyed, Dad spent a couple of days designing a mailbox in his head that would withstand all kinds of vicious abuse.  He scouted around the property for materials and found everything he needed just laying around in junk piles, waiting to be put to some glorious use; heavy linked chains, railroad ties, telephone pole, heavy sheets of metal. 

Once again, using nothing more than his own manpower and an old pick-up truck, he built and installed his new mailbox.  It looks like this

He's managed to move the post far enough away from the road that it should never again be flattened by a passing snowplow, while still allowing the mailbox to be close enough for the mailman to fill it without having to descend from the mail truck.  Pretty ingenious.  I'm thinking this mailbox will last for a long time!

One woman's battle with the sock-eating monster.....

Since the beginning of the 20th century, when the first in-home washing machines were being invented, something has been eating socks.  Although socks are made in pairs, this mysterious sock-eating monster only has appetite for one of a kind.  It never eats both socks.  Over time, this leaves the washer-person with a pile of pairless singles.  I know I am not the first person to notice this as I have read many articles and heard many people mention this phenomenon.  The problem got so bad in our home, that about a decade ago, my husband announced that he was taking over the washing of his own laundry.  He was convinced that the missing sock problem was directly related to a flaw in my laundering technique.

This problem has plagued me for years and over time, I began a practice of saving the un-matched sock in a plastic sack along with other un-matched socks.  Then, once every couple of months, I would dump the sack out and look for matches.  Every now and then, I'd manage to match up one or two pairs but never more than that.  After a long length of time had passed, I would eventually dispose of the sack and start the whole procedure over.  But I was always baffled by the idea that somewhere in my house, there should be an equal-sized pile of missing socks.  Where in the world were these socks going?  SERIOUSLY!  Where?  WHERE??!!  I could understand if one or two remained missing...... but a couple of pounds worth?  They would be taking up some serious space somewhere and search as I might, I could never find them.

Three months ago, I bought a package of six pairs of socks and I determined, most definitely, that these socks would never lose their partners.  I have been diligent!  Before throwing them down the laundry chute, I fold them together.  I take them apart as I put them in the washing machine.  I remove them to the dryer with the utmost care.  And once the dryer shuts off, I immediately carry them to the bedroom and match and fold them.

Occasionally, it has happened that one goes missing.  When this happens, all other household life grinds to a halt while I search for the missing sock.  I look in the interior corners of both the washing machine and the dryer.  I retrace my steps from the laundry room, searching the floor for the escapee.  I pick up and shake each article of clothing that was in the dryer, looking at the front and back in case a sock is clinging there.  And I have always been successful in finding the little rascal.  Until last month.

A black sock went missing and I went high order looking for it!  I spent two hours searching the basement and the bedroom.  When none of my regular procedures produced the missing sock, I started in with drastic, ridiculous measures.  I moved my bed away from the wall, in case the sock had tumbled there when I threw my laundry pile on the bed.  I retraced my steps from the basement looking under furniture in case it had managed to drop and roll.  I pulled the washer and dryer out from the wall thinking maybe it had jumped loose when I was removing the laundry from the washing machine and putting it in the dryer.  I even looked down the walls of the laundry chute, thinking maybe it was clinging to the wall there in spite of the fact that I had a clear memory of unfolding the pair when placing them in the washing machine.

I eventually had to give up.  The sock was nowhere to be found.  I now had proven to myself that there was indeed some sort of supernatural, unexplainable phenomenon going on related to socks and laundry and I left the newly single sock laying on my dresser as a reminder.

This morning, I decided to wear a sweater as there is a bit of a chill in the air.  As I was pulling my purple sweater jacket on, my hand hit an obstruction half-way through the right sleeve.  Baffled, I removed my hand and looked inside.  Guess what I found all scrunched up and hiding INSIDE the arm of my sweater?  Finally reunited, the pair of them is on my feet as I sit and type this post.

Bucket List

I didn't mean to let so much time pass by without posting.  I've been writing things in my head, and sometimes even speaking them out loud (especially while I'm driving), but haven't really felt motivated to sit in front of the computer and type them out.

Eddy and I went out last weekend with some friends.  Sitting outside around their fire pit, the night sky stretching wide above us, each cradling a mug of coffee, and having our moods mellowed somewhat by a glass or two of wine, our conversation turned towards middle age, growing old, and eventually, dying......

My friend asked each of us what was on our "bucket list."  I haven't gotten around to writing my bucket list (although I do have a list of things to do before turning 50) but I have some hopes and dreams knocking around in my head.  I'd like to make a positive difference in a lot of lives.  I know that sounds altruistic, but it isn't really because besides helping me sleep well at night, it's one way I feel I can go on existing after my body gives out.  And I'd like to do some self-centered things, like start my own business and be a participant in a really great small vocal ensemble.

But what I'd most like to do is to go on a trek to some of the most ancient and spiritually significant spots around the globe on a sort of spiritual journey of my own.  I'd like to spend a couple of months where my only focus is inward and I'm completely free of any sense of responsibility.  I sometimes feel a sense of desperation to get started on this journey before it's too late.  But then, I tell myself, other people have gotten it all figured out and they didn't have to take a vacation from regular life to do it.

Maybe my life is just too cluttered with "junk" (both literally and figuratively) to be able to mentally relax into that meditative state where God can find me?  (Or rather, where I can find God)

In the meantime, I've developed a talent for enjoying life's great and small pleasures while ignoring the critical concerns.  If you follow my "what I'm currently reading" tag, then you are aware that I've been reading Puccini's Ghosts for over a week now.  Usually, I tear through a book in a day or two and it isn't that this book isn't good.  It's just that I keep getting blindsided by sentences that make me close the book and think for a while.  Like this one, "Moderate sensual pleasures can, with practice, assuage intangible miseries."  I like this quote and have certainly found it to be true in my own life (although the effect is only temporary).  In fact, I have become so good at assuaging my "intangible miseries" with moderate sensual pleasures (such as food, or a soak in a hot tub) that I'm always caught off-guard when they manage to assert themselves back into my consciousness.

More often than not, I feel as if I'm wasting my life away with the business of ignoring the critical concerns and I sometimes wish I could donate my future to someone who would do something useful with it!

A picture perfect day.......

If I were going to special order a day for myself, I'd start by waking up in my own bed after a good night's sleep.  The day would be filled with sunshine and bursting with spring.  The morning would be carefree, and I'd treat myself to a walk outdoors and let nature entertain me.

Then I would head downtown and have lunch at my favorite place with one of my favorite friends.

I'd have a hard time deciding what to order since everything on the menu is delicious.  But I'd probably end up with combination stir-fried rice noodles.

or maybe, I'd have pork fresh noodle soup........

After lunch, I'd wander around downtown and enjoy the sights and sounds of spring in the Fort.

I'd definitely want to visit the beautiful downtown Cathedral.  It's a stunning and awe-inspiring structure sitting on Calhoun St. in the heart of downtown Fort Wayne.

 

Then, I would climb the hill at the reservoir and see what the city looks like from up there.

Before going home, I'd treat myself to a Fort Wayne tradition.

Once I arrived home, I'd eat supper, take a hot bath, and snuggle down in bed to watch House and 24 (because, of course, it would be Monday night).

Wow!!! What do you know?  I just described the fabulous day I had yesterday!