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There are so many clichés about surviving hard things in this world. Kittens on branches remind us to “hang in there.” Football coaches (and Billy Ocean) preach that when the going gets tough, the tough should get going. My personal and indelicate favorite to invoke in times of stress, and you may know from reading this blog, is “Shit happens for a reason.” Like anyone, though, sometimes I forget the “for a reason” part and have trouble focusing on anything but the shit.
We all get there. Our problems may be of the first world variety, they are still problems, and problems often consume emotional, physical, and financial resources that seem to exceed what we have to give. A strange and wonderful part of being a writer sometimes is that it’s part of my job to ask people about their problems. This is in no way an exercise in schadenfreude for me, if I may use the $5 word; in fact it’s quite the opposite. Instead, it selfishly gives me a chance to talk to people I don’t know in situations often different from mine and explore how they spend their energy when their needs seem to exceed their resources. It’s heartbreaking, fascinating, uplifting, and humbling. It makes me understand that behind every pre-packaged, news-bite version of a story, there’s a real human who is making real time decisions about how to cope – even if my job is to give the world the short version of their story. Last year, I wrote a piece about a woman with lung cancer. I got to reach out and reconnect with her a week or so ago and got an update on how she is doing (doing well, thank you). Re-reading her story made me think about how she was spending her energy, and likewise about how I was spending mine. It made think about how life goes on when it feels like it should stop. It made be realize that we are all winging it somedays and owning it others. It also made me realize how sometimes it takes a silly picture of a kitten on a branch to reveal a universal truth. Go read my version of her story if you like, and see what you think. For me, it affirmed, once again, my belief that shit really does happen for a reason. http://www.cancer.org/treatment/survivorshipduringandaftertreatment/storiesofhope/determined-survivor-makes-lung-cancer-awareness-a-personal-priority
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It's a lovely thing to meet a human who wants nothing more than to help make life easier for other humans. I got to do that recently when I talked to a cancer survivor named Linda and wrote a story for the American Cancer Society about how she's working to help out her fellow man (or in this case, mostly fellow women). If you have a moment, click the link below and go meet Linda. She's pretty darn cool. Back in June, I was hired to write a story about a cancer survivor for the folks at the American Cancer Society. I interviewed a fellow named Brian, a three time cancer survivor, who is, hands down, the most joyful, optimistic, and warm human I've talked to in a long time. I wrote my piece, sent it in, and smiled to think that something as simple as one person's story could make such an impact on my day. Today the American Cancer Society shared this on their Facebook page, and so far it has more than 2,500 likes and was reposted close to 900 times. I'm happy to say that Brian made a few other people smile, too.
Check out the story here.  I recently decided that after a summer of cramming my freelance writing work into the cracks between my children, I needed a vacation. Well, not so much a vacation per se, but a spot outside my house where I could do nothing but eat and sleep and write. I needed “a room of one’s own” as Virginia Woolf calls it, not just to tackle some deadlines, but also because I just needed to get the hell out of Dodge and leave the unfolded din of real life behind. I could have checked in to the corporate hotel around the corner from my house for this kind of escape, I suppose, but I decided I was going to do it up right, so for the same price, I booked a few nights in a historic bed and breakfast in the small Southern town of Senoia. On the day of departure, I packed my bag, taking not much more than my laptop and an extra pair of stretchy pants, and headed out, listening to whatever the hell I wanted on the radio, and singing along as loudly as I pleased.
As I pulled into the gravel parking lot of the B and B, I was struck by the clouds of Southerness that rose with the gravel dust. I learned the town is pronounced “See-NOY,” not "Sen-OY-ya," for the same reasons why Lafayette is called “luh-FAY-it”: it’s just more Southern that way. The old Victorian house B&B had so many rocking chairs and porticos it practically drawled. I parked, hauled out my suitcase, and rang the bell, causing the two owners to come careening in joyfully from two different directions to help. “I didn’t mean to bug the whole house, but I’m checking in,” I said. “Are you the writer?, “ the female owner asked. I smiled, a little chagrined at the title. I told her when I made the reservation that I needed a desk in my room so I could work. “Yes, ma’am,” I said. “I am.” “You’re gonna be in room 8.” As it turns out, room 8 is the only one with a desk. It also happens to be the bridal suite, so I get not only a desk, but a couch, a 12-inch TV, and an en suite Jacuzzi bathtub big enough for two – not to mention a queen sized antique bed and the matching chiffarobe (not bureau, kids, a proper chaffarobe) stocked with a collection of vintage hats. Of course, I tried them all on, and immediately fell to Facebooking my favorite. I felt the white wool set off my dark hair nicely. After a quick session of dress up, I pulled out my computer and set up at the shabby chic desk. Over the screen of my computer, I could see the green glow of oak leaves straining through the lace curtains, and I heard church bells ringing the hour. I realized for a moment that, except for my laptop and us women getting the vote and all, it could be 1850. The vibe that came with that realization made me feel part rebellious and part chaperoned, as if I should go out and get a tattoo but only somewhere that would be covered by white cotton tea gloves. I went down to the parlor, and tromped out the door to the heart of the town, which I could spy through the oak leaves roughly half a block away. The town of Senoia (pronounced See-NOY, now, don’t forget) is literally picture perfect. So much so that it has been used as the small town in a variety of film and TV projects, including “Sweet Home Alabama” and, most recently, The Walking Dead. (Fans of TWD, if you remember Woodbury, the zombie-free zone not so benevolently run by the governor, that is literally downtown Senoia.) I tried not to feel creeped out by its perfect, Children of the Corn vibe, and instead embraced the idyllic buildings and buzzing of cicadas on a summer evening. I walked the entirety of the two-block town in 10 minutes, peering into the recently closed stores – it was after 5pm after all – and then sat down on a park bench. There are many strategically placed park benches in Senoia. I decided to eat dinner at the most happening place I could find, the Irish pub, where I was welcomed into dark, paneled rooms, and sat, by myself, at a table for 6. A gathering of film crew members was clustering around a few of the high top tables at the bar (Walking Dead crew, perhaps?), and I ordered fish and chips and pretended to watch baseball. It’s been a long time since I have eaten alone. I tried to brazen it out, but instead made a mental note to pack a magazine for next time. I considered going nuts and ordering whiskey after whiskey, then stumbling home drunk and ringing the doorbell of the B and B to be let in, but I realized I don’t have the balls to be rude or the necessary pensiveness to get drunk alone and mean it. I went to bed early that night, trying not imagine that there were Civil Wars ghosts lurking in the draperies. DAY 2 The church bells in this town ring on the hour and half hour during the day. But, because this is an EXTREMELY perfect little town, they don’t just ring. They also play songs. At 5:00pm the day I arrived, it was “Tomorrow” from Annie. At 8 pm, it was “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” The next morning at 8am, it was “Puff the Magic Dragon.” I know that because I needed to wake up to get to breakfast, which I was told by the owner “is kind of a big deal.” It is a big deal. The first course was yogurt, fruit, and a piece of French toast garnished with an edible flower. The second course was a broiled tomato topped with four different kinds of cheese and sautéed mushrooms. The third course was a full plate of grits, bacon, and eggs (“straight from the chicken coop!”). Then there was homemade peach cobbler for dessert. I have now learned that there should always be peach cobbler for dessert at breakfast. Since there were only three of us staying in the inn, some very nice ladies invited me to join them at their breakfast table, and they gave me some hot tips about traveling in the area and details about where to eat in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. I found out over coffee that the owner had her husband give the little desk in my room a new coat of paint just for me, because it was “on the shabby side of shabby chic.” I thanked her and asked if I could take my coffee cup up to my room. “Take the carafe!,” she said, and I took it, waddled up to my room, took a quick picture of me in my vintage hat of the day – a white, netted number I called “The Church Lady” – and sat down to get some work done. At noon, the church bells played Yankee Doodle Dandy. At 3:00ish, I found @suburbanhaiku on Twitter, and took a break from the speech I was writing to pen the following: My headache is back. Will swallowing the kids work like aspirin would? At 3:30, I stretched my legs and left the room in pursuit of lunch. At 5:00, I returned, bloated from pizza and humidity, after walking through downtown. I stopped in every shop and made polite small talk with every owner. I looked at homemade jewelry and at smocked dresses with matching bows, and at the zombie T-shirts of every ilk at the Walking Dead museum. I bought a few small things, including two Reader’s Digest condensed books die-cut into my children’s initials and an $8 bar of triple milled, honey scented, French-named soap that’s really made in Seattle. I decided the next thing to do was to fill up the trillion-gallon bathtub so I could use the soap, so I drained the heated bulk of the Chatthoochee into the tub until it was a foot and a half deep. Despite toting in a drink and a magazine, once I got in the bath, I couldn’t muster the energy to do more than stare at the window covered with stick-on frosted glass film. I laid my head back and floated, experimenting with the sensation of rising in the water when I filled my lungs with air, and then sinking as I exhaled. I felt anointed and zen as I got out, and I stank happily of Seattle honey. I thought to myself that the flow, that state they keep talking about on the internet where you are so involved in a task you don’t notice time passing, must lurk in the corners of this room along with the ghosts. At 7:00pm, the church bells played the theme from Chariots of Fire. Taking inspiration, I pretended to run in slow motion to dinner. I hit up the local barbecue joint, and as it turns out, I was the only patron there other than an elderly table of 20. I had their signature white barbeque sauce with smoked brisket and some excellent meaty beans. I read my magazine and laughed to myself about an article on all you can eat buffets in Las Vegas. I realized there was no one there with whom to share the joke. After dinner, I went home, rummaged in the chiffarobe, and posted a picture of myself wearing a full-length, tiara-ed wedding veil. Multiple people asked me, “Are you writing, or are you playing dress up?” A little of both, I thought. I sat in the quiet room and realized that other than exchanging pleasantries with my host or the odd waitress, I haven’t spoken out loud for most of the past two days. I also realize the primary reason writers need to read. They need a voice in their head other than their own. DAY 3 I rose early the next morning and decided, after my Internet admonitions, to don a much more serious hat of the day, so I chose a somber, bow-topped black affair I call the “Peggy Olson.” It was filled with minimalist Lutheran efficiency. I posted a picture, ate eggs and peach cobbler, and said goodbye to my breakfast ladies, who were headed home. Everyone asked me how the speech I was writing was going and marvelled at the tourists in from China at the table behind us. (I gave them a hearty “Ni Hao” as I walked by them on the porch later. Thank you, Nick Jr., for the lesson in Mandarin.) I finished my biggest project by lunch, and I poked once more through downtown. This time I found, among the jadite glass kitchen things in an antiques store, a set of four glasses featuring muscled men in sassy poses. I realized their clothes disappear when you fill up the glass. I was tempted to bring them home, but I smiled and left them there to shock the next Southern Baptist tourist. Clearly, the owner has a sense of humor to go along with her Gone with the Wind plates and autographed picture of Burt Reynolds. I headed back to my room just in time to hear the church bells do a 3:00pm medley of “Feelings” and “Send in the Clowns.” I ate a bite of a cupcake that I picked up at the cute little bbq joint, and it tasted vaguely of smoke and meat. I sat down at the little white desk once more to work, and after a few minutes, the creaking stairs preceded the chatter of the B and B owner as she guided some new guests to their room. “Oh yes … she’s a writer,” I hear her say as they pass by my door. Damn skippy, I think. And I keep typing. DAY 4 Much like a cruise ship pulling into port, I am swept back into real life all at once as I realize that this is my last morning at the inn. I need to pack my bag. I need to take a shower. I need to get an oil change. I need to go to IKEA. I decide to go out with a bang and take the final, triumphant hat from the chiffarobe, a black beret-ish chapeau with black tulle and feathers. It’s just the thing a girl would wear to court so she could wink at the judge during her testimony. I christen it “The Vixen,” snap a quick picture, then fluff it up and put it back on the shelf. I have completed my projects. I have made up the bed. I have zipped up my bag, and I am ready to head home. But as I walked through the room for the last time, wistfully looking at the bathtub, I decided to whisper something to the timeless feeling of flow that was in the corners. “Come home with me,” I said. “And maybe bring the hats.” Whoever invented strep throat is hilarious. I am enjoying their hilarity right now, in fact. What kind of disease makes it so you can’t eat or drink? Who is in charge of this? Strep sucks for anyone, but as a person who loves food, this disease is freaking torturous. I am hungry, but I can’t eat anything because my throat hurts. I am thirsty, but I can’t drink anything because my throat hurts. I have to meter out every swallow, which means I have to make sure what I get into my belly is substantial, but also not pointy. As I discovered this morning, this last part is more challenging than you might think. Routine choices such as breakfast cereal, granola bars, or toast and eggs are out, of course, but improvised choices come with their own perils. Lemon Greek yogurt? It burns! It burns! A smoothie? The tiniest strawberry seed is like thousand claws on my gullet. A protein shake? I’ll be hungry again in an hour, and then I’ll have to do this all over again with twice as many swallows. O Misery! O me, O life! I rue the day I met thee, malady!
After settling on a meal of intentionally oversogged cereal this morning (gag), I decided I was NOT going to go through that again for lunch. I had to have real food. Soft, not-too-bulky real food. I raided fridge and cabinet. Mushrooms? Yes! Smushy and tasty! Soup? A good Southern woman always has a can of cream of mushroom in the pantry. Garlic has medicinal properties, right? I’ll sauté up the mushrooms with a little garlic, add ‘em to the soup, throw in some steak seasoning so it doesn’t taste like paste, and then perhaps a splash of sherry? Game on. GAME ON. So for lunch, instead of soggy cereal, I got to eat some real food – even if it was basically the liquid part of a green bean casserole in a bowl. Given all that energy, I have decided to take the rest of the afternoon off. Do you guys know anyplace where I can get Popsicles delivered for dinner? Not-At-All-Pointy Cream of Mushroom Soup 1 tbsp. butter 1 package sliced white button mushrooms (feel free to upgrade to fancier ’shrooms) ½ clove garlic, minced or pressed through a garlic press 1 can cream of mushroom soup ¾ of a soup can milk 1/4 tsp. (or to taste) Montreal steak seasoning 1-2 glugs dry sherry Melt the butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. After the foam on the sizzling butter subsides, add the mushrooms to the pan. Sauté the mushrooms, stirring occasionally, until golden brown. Add the garlic and sauté 30 more seconds, just until fragrant. Add the soup and milk, reduce the heat, and cook and stir until the lumps of soup are gone and the mixture is heated through. Throw in the steak seasoning and add a glug of sherry, then taste to adjust the seasoning. Pour from the skillet into a bowl and enjoy. Serves 2, or one person who is recovering from a soggy cereal breakfast. Sometimes you write philosophical blog posts. And sometimes you eat sprinkle cookies and drink Red Stripe. Happy Friday, people.  Remember my rant from last week about awesome and intelligent women, and the side note about how one of the women I get to hang out with owns a vineyard? Well, the place my friend owns is a family winery in north Georgia called Yonah Mountain Vineyards, and the very nice people there asked me if I might do a post or two on their blog. Now before you get all huffy, know that they are not buying my love: Even if they could afford my love, it would be hard for them to get a hold of the necessary Star Wars figures to barter with my husband for it anyway. I wrote for them cause I think they are cool, and I think their wine is great, and I like them. If you hung out with them, you would like them, too.
So forgive the extra clicks, but feel free to go check out my guest posting on their blog, or poke around their website and read more about their wine and winery. If you decide to go visit, take the cave tour and be sure to ask for Bob or Eric as your guide. I can tell you from personal experience that in addition to knowing a lot about wine, Eric does a mean Borat if he's wearing the right suit, and Bob will blow your mind if you ask him to play the accordion. I am very fortunate in my life to be surrounded by smart, interesting, and hilarious women. I am even more fortunate because I often get to eat with them. That’s a very particular privilege, as most women know, and when it’s done well, a good, solid girls night dinner is a tonic for your soul. Take my book club. Oh, stop – I feel your collective eye roll. “How stereotypical, you’re in book club and all you do is hang out and drink wine and eat extra dessert and talk about your husbands instead of the book.” Damn right, that’s what we do. When we get together, we do in fact drink wine (often excellent wine from a vineyard founded and run by one of our members), have second helpings, and linger over the dinner table to discuss our love life and our day. It should be no surprise, however, that we also discuss books, politics, culture, business, and religion. That’s what happens when you get a table of interesting women together. The dessert course at my book club is the modern equivalent of the Viennese coffee house. Ideas flow, great notions are put forward, and lists of cultural consumables are made. Whatever we are eating, whatever is on our minds, and whatever is happening in the world come together with a lovely sort of conviviality that means there is always something to talk about – and more often than not the conversation veers into high-level socio-political places we didn’t anticipate. Our dinners, though, are simply a modern day version of what eons of women have done before us. We are sharing the food and conversations that help make the world go ‘round. In the past we might have been roasting a goat, or snapping peas, or discussing who in the village has cholera, but our gatherings served the same sociological purpose: we are keeping each other sane, helping each other navigate life, and giving each other the gut checks that help to ward off the strife that could ruin us. We are also eating good food and feeding our souls so we can go fill the bellies and souls of the people around us. And that is extremely important.
Tonight, I had dinner with two great friends of mine. We shared a few drinks and a plate of perfectly fried okra and talked, and it was the most therapeutic and earth-shattering thing any of us could possibly do on a Thursday. Sure, we drank an extra bourbon and ranted about trashy books and our spouses (all good things, all good things, especially the bourbon), but we also discussed Toni Morrison’s Beloved, the meaning and motivations behind certain Jewish religious and cultural traditions, and effective corporate structure. We made critical declarations and shared personal revelations over sorghum-soaked date cake with buttermilk ice cream and a slice of house-made strawberry pie. From across the room, it would have been easy to peg us as the silly, giggling table of gals having a night out without the kids. That’s exactly what we were doing. But we were also saving the world. That’s the power of a shared meal, and more importantly, the power of a shared meal between interesting women. Give us four spoons and one plate of dessert, and we’ll give you the foundations of society. Even better, send us over an extra piece of strawberry pie. We will have this cold fusion thing licked in no time. I love my husband. Very much. And I prove it every week by going to the deli counter.
To paraphrase Molly Ringwald in “16 Candles,” I loathe the deli counter. It’s not so much that I don’t get good service or that I hate lunch meat. It’s that the deli counter is a giant potential pain in the ass in a long line of grocery store pain-in-the-asses, and since it is the first thing you generally come to, it has the power to make or break the rest of the trip. Is there a line? Is the lady in front of me doing a world tour of cheese samples? Will the person behind the counter have to go to the space-time continuum refrigerator in the back to access whatever dimension has the sale items? I am typically a kind, flexible, and even-tempered human, but there is something about the stupid deli counter that makes me want to tinkle in the display of potato salad. This makes life interesting, because my husband, who has very particular tastes about certain things in this world, happens to have strong opinions about lunch meat. Sometimes he needs me to go buy this lunch meat at the deli counter. And we all know how I feel about the deli counter. Now, I adore my husband, but he is the original creature of habit. He takes his lunch to work pretty much every day and he prefers to eat the same thing pretty much every day, and if he was running the world, his meat would be sliced pretty much the same way every day. When he goes to the deli, he takes pride in making sure his order is done to his exacting standards. I believe there is comfort to him in the familiarity of a consistent sandwich, or at least a sort of relief in the fact that in a swirling vortex of day, he knows he can have his thing – his one thing – that’s exactly how he wants it, even if it’s just lunchmeat. I appreciate that, I truly do, but I do not share his philosophy. I would never think to eat the same thing for lunch for a week, let alone two days in a row. Not when there’s a whole word of amazing lunch possibilities out there. I mean you could have soup, a cheeseburger, a soufflé, a barbecue ribs … lunch is like early dinner, and just think of all the things you could have for dinner. I love an inconsistent lunch. Which is, of course, exactly why I married my husband. He needs a bit of Maria to balance out his Captain Von Trapp, and I need some of the good Captain to keep me from repeatedly turning the curtains into jaunty, matching play clothes. I would never, of my own accord, go to the damn deli counter for the joy of consistency, but it makes my husband exceedingly happy. I love him, so making him happy is fun. That’s why, most weeks, I go to the deli counter with two wiggly and or cranky children at an inconvenient time, when I have many, many other groceries to buy and places to go, and I patiently wait my turn. I smile at the lady as she goes into the vortex in the back to get the items on sale, and I do not pee in the potato salad. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is a many splendored thing. And in my house, love is also a half a pound of Boar’s Head low sodium turkey breast – not the “catering” one with the brown skin, the other one – sliced on setting number 5, and seven slices of Boar’s Head yellow American cheese sliced on setting 6 (slightly thicker than the turkey) with papers in between them. |
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September 2023
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