if you don't want no peaches, honey

It's a learning curve. Canning. Preserving. Putting up peaches. I've been holding my breath for the ripening of the Maryhill peaches, famous for their uniformity of size and flavor. Now finally ripe, they are good, but not so good as the smaller "Starfire" from Jossy Farms in Northplains. I've canned 22 quarts this week, and one peach cobbler. I tried baking a peach pie while on vacation, and it turned out okay, but not great.

The zen of peaches is all about getting the fuzzy skin off. If you like the fuzzy skin, then I think we would have little else in common.

Canning Peaches 101

Boil a kettle of water, prepare an ice bath in a deep bowl. I use one of those wire wok utensils to dip the peach in the hot water and transfer it to the ice bath. I've seen most websites tell you to leave the peaches in for 30 seconds. That's a long time. I think I leave mine in for ten or so, maybe 15, or the peaches cook. If your peaches are truly ripe and you're not playing god and trying to push your way to the head of the line, you shouldn't need more than 15 seconds.

Now comes the fun part: getting them out of their slippery little nasty skins. If you have 1.) patiently waited for ripening, and 2.) done the hot/cold baths properly, you won't even need a knife for this part. I just pinch the skin around the stem area and pull it away. I compete with myself to try to peel all of the skin off with one pull. It can be done, but I can't really explain it. I could show you, but you're not here. Duh.

So now you have a bowl of nekked little orbs of wonderfulness. Now you need to step it up just a bit or they'll go brown on you. You can toss them with lemon juice and they will stay nicer, or you can snap it up and toss a sixteenth of a teaspoon of ascorbic acid into each jar to acheive the same result without blurring the flavors. Nothing against lemons. Really.

So, now you halve the peach with a paring knife, and if it is a kind peach it will fall apart in two perfect segments into your hand. If it is a stubborn little bitch, you may have to pry it apart ever-so-gently, and what you wreck, you may eat. Then, I quarter the peach and just start tossing the quartered pieces in the pretty clean jar.

Pretty clean means it was boiled before you started this process two hours ago and was, at one point, damn near sterile, but not quite.

So, you keep tossing peach quarters into the jar until it is full. shake it around a bit to let them settle. Go ahead and push 'em in, just so long as you leave a good half inch of "head space" (we all need this.).

Then, oh shit, I forgot to tell you to make the syrup. So, make the syrup. You can can with plain water if you like, but the peaches will taste, you guessed it, watery. So a lite sugar syrup is indicated. You won't get to heaven any sooner if you skip the sugar and the peaches you eat will taste better. But, if sugar is your enemy, which it should be but I live in constant denial of this fact, then a couple cups of sugar in a gallon of water should do it. Most sugar syrups call for four or five cups. Yeesh. So you make up your mind to do whatever. Sugar doesn't do anything magic for preservation, it just keeps the fruit from tasting washed out. Your call. I use a little sugar. Sue me.

So set up your table with the sugar syrup -- hot, the ascorbic acid, a rubber handled spatula, a damp cloth and a magnet for lid-getting.

Pack the jar; add ascorbic acid; fill with syrup to leave a good half inch; slide the rubber handle down inside the jar to release trapped air bubbles; wipe the top of the jar; go get the lid with the magnet thingy; put on the lid without touching the lid.

So, the thing with canning peaches is putting on the lids. You do understand by now that we're not working in a sterile environment, right? Tossing just-cut peaches into a pretty clean jar and wiping the jar clean with a damp cloth is not sterile. Then you drag the hot but not boiling lid with a weak magnet across the kitchen hoping it doesn't crash to the peach-strewn floor, and dangle it over the rim of the pretty clean jar, land it like a robot arm on the moon, and voila! its ready for the ring.

Now for the rings:  "Finger tight" can have many interpretations. For me, I read it as: spin on the lid and give it a little push when you reach the end. NONONONONO!! If you tighten the lids too tight, here's what happens. As you lower your perfectly peeled and glossy yummy fruit that you've slaved over for two hours, down, down, down into the boiling water, you will hear this ever so subtle snapping noise. This, my lonely readership, is the sound of jars breaking. You'll know for sure as peach bits begin to float around in your water. So, without scalding your legs, pull the jars from the water as quickly as you can and undo the damage. Get them to solid ground and unscrew those lids. I don't need to tell you to dispose of the fruit from the broken glass, do I?

Turns out finger tight really means finger-tip tight. Really. Just barely. A butterfly could do it. AND, start those jars out in warm water. Not lava-hot boiling oil water.

So you get the jars into the water, boil them for awhile. At least ten minutes, maybe 15. The old ways would have you boil them to death. A good roiling boil for 10 to15 is fine. I didn't die, right? But then, I believe in bacteria. I'm a fan of dirt. I am immune.

Then, you wait for the good popping noises. The noises that mean it worked. It is not uncommon for a jar or two our of 20 to fail. If this happens to you, put these little personal failures in the fridge and eat them within two weeks.


I only lost one jar to breakage, all the rest of them sealed and I have 22 pretty little jars of peaches.

where we been and what's next

I'm on an extended, if not forced, stress vacation, so it was challenging to get in the appropriate mood to go camping, although I am almost always in the mood to go camping. Last Friday we headed out, trailer packed imperfectly as though we'd never done this before. Did you bring the stove? I thought it was in the trailer. I think it is. Okay. Fast forward to an RV park situated along the Skagit River, and no stove. After blame was successfully assigned, camp life went on. We do have a stove in the trailer, but it was hot inside and out, and I had planned to make curry for dinner and wanted more than one pan. Long story short, we had our damned curry. The thing with camping food is that things thaw in a certain order, and should be used within a certain time frame so you don't die of ptomaine poisoning or botulism or something. Chicken first, pork, then beef. Beef can hang out for ages, it turns out, if its really cold, and we do have a great cooler. Better than the baby blue fridge but not as cute.

So I limped along with a crab cooker, 50,000 btu's of propane blasting whatever meal I came up with. We ate well, as usual, first in the RV site, then on up to Birch Bay.

This time we took a side trip around the base of Mt. Ranier. Neither of us had been on that road, and it was nice, but not spectacular. I'm sure there was a place to get off the road and see things, but we weren't chased by grizzlies with claws the size of butcher knives as promised by asha. But you know how she is.

Camping was excellent, but interrupted. I like to get somewhere, set up, and sit there for four or five days. This was not possible due to the lack of pre-planning, driven primarily by forces beyond our control (work) and procrastination. Most of the good spots are taken at least nine months in advance. That's the soonest you can reserve sites that are reserve-able and almost all of them are nowadays. So I've made a calendar that tells me what to do for next year.

We made it to Birch Bay the second day and got lucky to find a crappy spot which was so much better than the RV camp that it was fabulous, then stood in line for another crap shoot the next day. A spot came open for two days and we snapped it up. It was a beautiful site with a view of the bay, sunset included at no additional cost. Dazzling. But only two days worth.

On the way north, we took a side road toward Larrabee State Park, because of our last name, just to check it out. The drive there was terrifying for Kurt, pulling the trailer and all, past rocks that jutted out into the lane just shy of the aluminum siding. The park was outstanding and I immediately decided I liked it better than Birch Bay. I've since changed my mind. It doesn't have the ease of access that I prefer, no great bike rides like the more level bay. But I'm gonna try to get #36 if I can for next year and try it anyway. The best sites at Birch Bay are a secret and I'm not going to tell you. Try me.

So, back to the story of my uncertain life: It seems I have developed a Severe Panic Disorder. For the past two years or so, work has become nearly impossible for me to, um, looking for the word... endure? tolerate? do? Whatever. I can't breathe when I'm there. I take deep breaths all the time and try to suppress that crushing sensation with a number of medications, none that work. I didn't realize this was happening, really. I just thought I was anxious. I am. I was. I thought being away from work would fix these symptoms, so I jumped at the recommendation for a leave of absence. The problem is, the anxiety has become much worse, I'm not having any fun being away from work, and the breathlessness has now been identified as panic. I didn't know. Now, I don't see myself as someone with a Severe Panic Disorder. I don't think that sounds like me at all. I think I'm a little too serious and self-absorbed and basically lazy, but the shrink I'm seeing (must see to justify the leave) thinks I've endured burnout past the point of no return. I don't know what this means for the immediate future. I don't know if she'll okay me to return to work or not, and I'm truly conflicted by that. So much of who I am is what I do. I've always said I'm a writer and an artist -- and I am -- but my day job.... may have been more than that. I feel my age just now, and I'm not sure I've really allowed the fact that I am sixty years old to settle into a comfortable place in my psyche.

Waxing philosophical.... my apologies....

quiet morning on clinton street.

What are car alarms for? I'd really like to know. There has been one going off for about 45 minutes for a second time this lovely morning and I've even gone out to make sure it isn't mine. Just in case my hearing and perceptions are as skewed as I sometimes think they are. Really? 45 minutes? Twice? What is so valuable in or around that vehicle as to make all that racket. If I had a solid gold car I wouldn't make it that loud.

I retain a reasonable expectation of quiet, however misplaced, living in a big city and a busy little micro-mecca for foodies and shoppies and special Portland-ites with tall bikes and ribbons of colorful ink swirling around their fit arms and legs and necks and bellies. Me? I'm a jailhouse girl: black on white. No color for me. Alas, I have no tattoos. I'd have words, if I had one at all. But which words? So many to choose from. My own or someone elses? But I digress.

I wish I was a headlight on a northbound train. That's nice. And true. But if I wrote that, permanently in blackadder font down my left leg, for instance, you might assume that I'm a Deadhead, which I am most definitely not, although I do love Workingman's Dead. I did know Nancy Norcross's older sister who Jerry Garcia carved a zucchini for to remember him by back in 1969. It was a good sized zucchini with GARCIA carved in block letters. She kept that thing til it rotted. I wonder what happened to the Norcross sisters?

Anyway.

Another day in which I try to figure out what to do instead of working. These are the hours I swore I'd write, but I am rather consumed by anxiety and not-knowing, and the threat of return to a job that has killed me. 

cabin view

I am spending a day up at Judith's cabin to add to that sense of r&r that is so hard to come by when the dishes call my name and there is laundry and the floor needs vacuumed and my husband is fishing and I am supposed to make jam. I have 6 quarts of blackberries, 4 of raspberries, 3 of marionberries that I can hear from up here in Brightwood. They threaten to rot, to not taste the same, to vanish, to disapprove of me.  I don't care what they say, I'm going to sit by the river and mend. That is at least as important as jam, don't you think?

the view from clinton street

Here's a list of what not to do on the 4th of July:
Go to Bluesfest.

Why?
They do not play very much blues music really at all. There is some weak R+B sung by white chicks, a little rockabilly, some disco , zydeco and little else.

The fireworks are set off behind trees that hide the fireworks. I'm not sure who can see them, but those of us watching the main stage cannot.

The backdrop to the fireworks is classic rock radio. As the explosions ebbed to the lyrics of American Pie "...singin' this'll be the day that I die," only to start up again for the finale with something by Van Halen or White Snake or Tim Burton or something, it was much like sitting inside a huge old 8-Track player, tapes scratchy and overplayed with bees buzzing in the background, little firefly sparks just barely visible above the treeline. Glowsticks would have been brighter.

The organizers have hidden in the small print that, in addition to charging ten bucks and two cans of food for admission (we paid cash, garbanzo and refried beans) the only show worth seeing -- Robert Plant -- costs FIFTYMOREBUCKS!!! So much for old school Portland freebie blues shows. Now, I can't really claim the right to be Portland Old School. I'm a Rogue Valley transplant married to a Portlander. And what do Portlanders want? Weather between 70 and 73 degrees and free shit. I mean, look at the sidewalks around my neighborhood. Even the garbage is up for grabs.

Okay. I'm not working so I'm back to scathing but erudite observations of lowlife. I love home. I have learned, however, in my first week of R&R to get up and shower and make coffee before sitting down to the soul sucking internet or come 5:00 I'm ashamed of my lazy self and there is nothing taken out of the freezer for dinner, which is my only responsibility these days, which I love. Steak, corn and zuchinni on the grill tonight. w-o-m-a-n.

sunny day

I opened the back door this morning to let in the clear air of morning and got a face full of canine habitat aroma. The sun is out and roasting their side of the yard. They have half, we have half. They crap in theirs. We usually don't. We hadn't changed out the cedar chips in awhile, so that's what the day called for. Much better now.

It is the first really warm day in Portland. Everyone is out and about. I went to a very good meeting and felt like I was part of something for the first time in awhile. Tomorrow is Easter Sunday and I wish a happy Easter to all of the faithful and a happy Spring to you heathens, my husband included.

samson

I cut off my hair. In the background I hear the strains of Crosby, Stills and Nash, maybe Young. Only its not almost. Most of my long blonde curlylocks fell out because of rapid weight loss, so I'm starting over. Short and sweet. But, like Samson and Delilah, I have this lingering belief that I have lost some essential power. Like many beliefs, it isn't true, just coercive and unsettling. Too many Bible stories, too young.

petals

Her face is smooth now, long gray hair drifts across the many pillows that surround her tiny body. She is taking her last many breaths, pulling air in, pushing it out, as her children surround her, telling stories of their youth, laughing, crying. When nothing is left of her, only her husband's name lingers on her breath: "Sam." She calls to him as though he might be just around the corner, just beyond her reach. "Sam."

"Sam's in heaven, honey. He's waiting for you." I tell her this and it calms her for a moment. Heaven is such a nice idea. "Go on home, now."

starlight and rose petals

In an Alzheimer's unit, Valentine's Day is never quite whole. Half of the lovers are dead, the others don't know it. In total, I had five couples to celebrate -- well, six, but one couple wasn't speaking to each other because she has persistent beliefs about his infidelity and a nasty temper. Who can say what is true? And one couple is just friends, but friends count. When you're ninety, it all counts. 

So we planned a party, a starlight party, with red globe centerpieces, scatttered rose petals and Hershey's kisses from the dollar store. I found plastic champagne flutes for the sparkling cider. The chef made a beautiful dinner: broccoli soup, puff pastry, pork loin, pasta and squash. For dessert, a four layer red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting and strawberries cut so the heart shape was evident. Sweet. 

But here's the thing. (You knew something was coming. You, my faithful readers, you know everything is never really okay in the merry ol' land of Oz.)

So Pansy, she was dying. Not right in the middle of the party or anything, but dying just the same. She'd been trying to make a ladylike exit since the Thursday before, but her daughter, a nice nice woman, unfortunately the tiniest bit impaired by her mother's slight case of OCD. By the time I got her mom, she couldn't remember the O part. Growing up she had polished the bottoms of her child's white shoes every morning with white shoe polish. That kind of OCD. Untreated. Lifelong. So the daughter, having the final word, needed to say some things. Lots of things, for a really long time. So Pansy, captive little blue-tinted lady by this time, stayed to listen long after she was ready to be onto her next thing.

In another room another of my little people had been on his way out, was taken to the hospital for repairs, and was set to return the next day. 

The party was set to begin at 5:00. Dinner time. Everybody was dressed up, spouses wheeling their ways to the table, single long-stemmed red roses given to the wives by the husbands. Oh -- I told one of my guys that his wife was sitting next to him. He said, "Don't threaten me." I told him I had a rose for him to give to her. He asked, "Are there any thorns on it?" Anyway, there we were, all red and pink and romantic. 

Pansy's daughter, who had been calling me all day, asking for guarantees, like families do: "If I wait until 3:00 to come can you guarantee she'll still be alive when I get there?" 

Uh, no. No crystal ball here.

"I see (she lied), well, how far is she since I was there? How's she doing?"

She's doing fine.  

"She's doing FINE??!!?? Oh my God, she's better?"

No. By fine, I mean she's dying just fine. She's coming right along. She's about half as alive as she was the last time you called. She's dying at about exactly the same rate. Slow. (I didn't really say all of that.)  

So the daughter shows up about an hour before dinner and Pansy is still hanging on. and on. and on. I ask her please to sing or talk quietly. This means, if it makes your mother jump, its probably too loud. I whisper these instructions. To make a point. Its hard work dying and one must honor the process. 

 -- Really, if someone you love is dying, or someone you have unfinished business with, suck it up and wait until after they're gone. If you couldn't figure it out while they were alive, don't lay it at their poor little lavender feet at the bitter end. Not fair. 

So finally, we are ready. At 4:45 the food arrives. Drumroll... You know what happens, right?

At 4:45 Pansy dies. ("I think she's gone. Do you think she's gone?") 

At 5:00 we begin to serve dinner. 

At 5:15, Charlie rolls in from the hospital on a stretcher.

Crap.

Now, there are things that must be done. So, between courses, we do them. Personal things. All the while, having a romantic dinner, and escorting the mortician around the back door, closing the fire doors so we don't have to wheel Pansy's corpse through the rose petals and chocolate truffles. 

Charlie, of course, thinks the party is a welcome home for him. 

   

  
 

dresser

I realized late last night that a newish dresser would solve many if not all of my organizational problems. I considered buying new, but the WWII officer's chest I've been using for 35 years is and has been so unattractive that it seemed selfish to spend much to replace something that, while homely, is fully functional. .I also considered shopping the many vintage shops in SE Portland, but their idea of retro is that slick, blonde, danish-modern, Jetson kock-off crap that is the stuff of my impoverished childhood. Instead, I fired up my computer: craigslist.

There were more than seven pages, at 100 dressers per page. As I cruised the offerings, I narrowed my choices and developed a plan. This is the beauty of craigslist: you see so much shit you end up galvanizing your choices. I realized, for instance, I needed a highboy (rather than lowboy), with as many drawers as possible. If I had nine drawers, I could have a whole drawer just for black turtlenecks. Oh, and it would need to be more or less in the arts & crafts style, preferably a darker stain. And real wood. No chipboard. There was so much to consider. And the drawers needed to work flawlessly. Nothing I hate worse than sticky drawers. Well, that's a lie. There are many things, but not at the same time. If I'm hating something and I pull out a drawer and it sticks, I hate the drawer more.

I'm stunned at the items for sale, the sheer number of dreadful things: long, low, mediterranean-esque sets with carved fake-wood moldings; shiny black disco-era dressers with chrome swans for pulls. Sexy; Lots of white french provencial sets, aged with brown or gold or avocado green, swirled around spindled accents.

After about twelve hours I found just what I wanted. Of course I did. two hundred bucks. So we drove out to Tualitin and picked it up. It wasn't easy or fast. And it had one tiny little problem: a history of bug infestation. Not like bedbugs, but some kind of floridian powder beetles that chew through lead to get to wood, apparently. This scared my husband. Nothing scares me. I live my life on the principle that: I've never chewed up your dresser ergo you'll never chew up mine. This works for robbery too. The fact that I used to be a robber doesn't count. My rules.

Anyhow -- We did a thorough inspection (It's pretty, let's buy it) and humped it out to the truck, home, up and into my dressing room. A place for everything and everything in its place. Amy fucking Vanderbilt.

The next morning, my darling husband says, "What if the bugs aren't gone? What if she lied?" Well, I just don't operate on those fear-based, people-are-inherently-bad, beliefs. I stroll happily through life, surprised at the mayhem of the human race. So we drive back out to Tualitin and get the actual jar of poison that killed the alleged bugs. I say alleged because I didn't see any. There is the smallest, ever so unnoticeable bit of damage across two thirds of the entire top of the dresser, but that's what dresser scarves are for, right?

My husband's fears were only allayed when he looked up the dresser online and found that it sold retail for 3 thousand dollars. It may chew down our old wood house, but he does love a bargain. He says the sale price compared to the original price supports the argument that she is lying about the bugs. I say it supports the argument that she is nice.

bullets

My husband has been out buying bullets. Rather, trying to buy bullets. There aren't many to be found in the post-Sandyhook-hysteria. Not even in a liberal oasis like Portland. Its a redneck Easter egg hunt, four-wheel drivers filling the lots of Bi-mart just as it opens, waiting at the door, rushing the counters. We may look like Liberals, but we're country folk at heart. Even with limits, boxes of .22 shells sell out in minutes.

Why am I writing about this? It's Sunday morning and I slept way in. My husband went fishing and I slept and slept, having circus-bizarre dreams, finally to awaken to an empty house. Ahhh. I could be doing so many other things. Laundry, dishes, bad things.

So I said to him as he left the seventh store in search of ammunition, "Just how many rounds you think you're gonna get off before the army that is marching down Clinton Street gets you?"

But for him, it is just not liking to be told what to do. Or not do. There is no army marching down our street shooting citizens. We just aren't that interesting. But it does raise those questions, doesn't it? What is freedom? I won't try to answer that, but I do question the political debate that focuses soley on guns and again and again turns a blind eye to mental illness.

Since Reagan de-institutionalized the mentally ill (whenever that was -- don't ask me about dates, I wasn't paying attention during the entire Reagan administration) -- the "rights" of the mentally ill have, in my opinion, created a false reality that behavior can be predicted with mimimal oversite and the assumption of appropriate use of medication. This paradigm works well for insurance companies that don't want to pay for care/housing, or long term treatment, or diagnosing of the breadth of the problem. Associations like NAMI, persuasive organizations that advocate for the rights of the mentally ill, have a great argument, but faulty at its core. You can't fix a broken brain with a broken brain.

 Its not that I would return to the days of trepanning, but it is, I'm sure, far more costly to deal with the mental health crisis than to go after the guns. All that being said, it is only one facet of gun violence: what about black men shooting black men? It's a great solution for white men, so we won't look too closely at that.

Anyway, happy Sunday. I'm gonna heat up my wax and paint.

french toast

I have been living on Medifast and pumpkin seeds for a long time, and the last few days I've been cruising the well-merchandized deli sections of Freddy's and Safeway and best of all, New Seasons -- so pretty-- hunting for the perfect bad food to satisfy my endless craving. I've tried to be good with whole grain cookies; bad with maple bars, ridiculous with a whole lemon pie from Safeway that may have been sugar free. Nasty. But finally, finally, I found it: satisfaction is sourdough french toast at the Cup and Saucer restaurant on Hawthorne. Cooked just for me, with maple syrup and raspberry jam and butter.

Portland girls walk by the window in the cold of morning, whims of blue-black ink scrawled across skin white as canvas, wrapped around and around sun-starved necks and upper arms, anemic little girls with permanent opinions that will not fade when their minds change, and change they will.

part II: christmas letter

I couldn't get it all down on paper afterall. Not in one swoop.

I made Christmas hats for the girls. I slaved away and learned by trial and error how to sew with fake fur. And in traditional judybluesky style, I didn't start easy: I used fake llama fur, long and twisty. Its funny, not really, when you go to these sewing stores to buy this shit and ask the twelve year old at the counter at Fabric Depot, " is there anything special I need to know about cutting this stuff out?" "Naw," she says, perky in her red christmas vest that I'm sure she made out of felt scraps collected for free from the cutting room floor. "Just cut it out and  sew it up. You can grade one of the seams to make it lay flat." I decided to make my task even more difficult and line them with velvet, so went out to the Milwaukee store (Mill End) where the clerks are older even than me, for some washable velvet. (I only have silk-velvet. Poor me.) I asked the same question of her  "Oh, yes! Have you never worked with this fabric?? Well, then you need to cut it out like this and sew it like that and blah blah blah..." I learned so much in two minutes. It made the job somewhat more manageable, although I learned much the hard way - -my way.

I made my own pattern: a pointy hooded hat with attached scarf. My girls, tiny little things, look like abominable snow-pixies with them on. This year was the first year they felt like my kids. It is our 9th year together, and finally we are almost comfortable as a family.

Medifast update: I've lost 58 pounds. I gained back three during the holidays with some permitted leniency. On the trip south, Nicole and I decided on a Christmas menu that would fulfill the carbohydrate void I've been experiencing since July third: a Mexican CarbFiesta menu, with green chicken enchiladas, tamales from Canby Asparagus Farms and refried beans, with hot carrots, greenbeans for color, eggnog and all that. The morning before, I OD'd on Christmas cookies: cutout and frosted thinly with powdered sugar glaze and a hint of lemon zest in both cookie and glaze. yummmmmmmmmmmmm. But the way I ate them: in secret and as though it was a contest, made me realize that my eating habits, while in limbo, remain untreated, and when the medifast food ends, which it should eventually, I will surely regain the hard-lost poundage.

So I signed up to learn Tai Chi, a taoist class that meets once a week for 4 months. My goal is to learn the form and practice it at home when I'm done. It has always interested me, and with my various painful joints, it seems the better choice between tai chi and yoga. Yoga intimidates me. Well, not yoga, but the tiny women who carry their little mats down Clinton street and disappear into the studio that is all draped with velvet with Bahktishop scrolled in white across the windows.Turns out bahkti-style yoga is about love, and the group is about loving Bahkti and the place is about love first and not really about exercise for health,which is fine, which is what I say when it is not fine with me. The Tai Chi class is more health-based with the religious association secondary. I may need an influx of religion, but that's another post for another day.So happy new year plans include movement.

Two posts in two days. Wow. Just like olden times.

the traditional christmas letter

I have many things to discuss and I don't know if I'll get to it all. None of it matters, Still, I'd like to get it down on paper. Paper. Have you seen the new Paperwhite Kindle? We already have paper books. Now, behold: an electronic device with a screen that looks like paper, is as easy to read as paper, no glare, just like a book. Oh wait. We already have that.

Anyway, I haven't updated my fan base for months and apologize to you both. It's been an interesting time. Let's see.... Since Halloween I've been actively pursing my habit of pumpkin seeds. I've purchased or found eight pumpkins, seeded them, and consumed all of the seeds. My lips look like I've had botox and my sodioum level is through the roof. I've also purchased many packages of pumpkin seeds only to re-bake them myself with olive oil and sea salt. I can't get a thing done at work or at home. My car is full of seeds, the housekeeper at work is mad at me for having to vaccuum six times a day. At home, well, let's just say it is an effective hand to mouth distraction.

To tree or not to tree? Being Martha Stewart is hard sometimes. I usually wind up spending at least sixty bucks on a beautiful Grand or Noble Fir, perfectly shaped, to go in our perfect bay window. Sometimes I just pull out the Charlie Brown replica and leave it at that.
This year, husband says, "There's a lot out in Hillsboro and every tree is 15$."
"I'll hate them," I assure him. "I'd rather have no tree than an ugly one."
"Let's just see," he says.
"Fine."
So off we go on a holiday mission, to replace our Christmas lights with LEDs and to find the perfect cheap tree. I'm sure it can't be done. The first lot we visit has a small spray painted sign, ALL TREES $15. I roll my eyes and get out of the truck. Before me stands a lot full of perfect 8-foot Nobles. "Really?" I ask. They don't speak any English. They just smile and nod. Kurt loads up the tree and gives him 17 bucks. I am put in my place. I'll never live it down.  

 Mid-December we made the obligatory pilgrimage to the Southlands. We didn't know what was in store from hubby's side of the family since he had effectively started WWIII with his clan in July by being the first in twenty-some-odd years to tell his most recent in a long and notorious line of step-mothers to shut the fuck up.I have to admit, I'm on his side in this one. So, with the step-monster-in-law in check, we had a decent visit, but didn't stay over like usual. The beautiful little cabin we used to stay in has deteriorated into rat piss and decay, so we stayed with Rita, my mother-outlaw, my son's grandmother. Things are never awkward with her. I envy her social skills. She is the best person I know. Really.

So there we were, basking in the glow of the Blessed Season, playing UpWords instead of Scrabble, which completely taxed my never-agile left brain, when my husband shouted from the basement: "JUDY!!!!!" When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,.... I ran to the stairs to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash, tore open the shutters and threw up the sash. The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow gave the luster of midday to objects below. "Duffy's got skunked!" my sweetie howled into the once-pleasant early dark of winter. "He's through the fence." Crap. True to form, my little West Highland White Terror saw the skunk waddling across the backyard and bolted after it like the ratter he was born to be. Apparently, the skunk's escape was stalled by the hogwire fencing and it turned in self defense, spraying Duffy full in the face--in the mouth and in the right eye and all down his right side. By the time I arrived, Duffy was across the fence, choking and gagging, rubbing his face in the dirt and pine needles, trying to get away from himself. Nicole, bless her, jumped the fence to rescue him. Not considering the ramifications of handling a freshly skunked dog, she handed him to me across the fence and I received him and hugged him and cuddled him, and too late, smelled him. Aarrgghh.

Jane, my sister-outlaw, for lack of tomato juice, brought around a bottle of spray and wash and a water-tight garden cart, and out there in the cold and dark, I bathed my poor little dog. He looked at me with his little coal black westie eyes, wondering at this fresh torture, never once considering the consequences of his actions, I'm certain. Once the first layer of oil was scrubbed, we moved inside and bathed him again with peroxide and dish soap. He stunk all the way home where he has been twice-bathed with tomato juice and he still stinks.. Even Rita, bless her, will probably not welcome Duffy back for a repeat holiday visit.

So, back home, I received a letter in the mail that it is time for Duffy's annual exam. Now, it won't surprise you that I barely attend to my own health concerns, let alone that of my dog's. But give the recent skunk contact, I thought it prudent to check things out, rabies and all. As we stood in the exam room, Duffy high up on a steel table, quivering-- me keeping him from jumping -- the vet came in. A nice young woman, serious about dog-health. As she got close, she inspected his teeth and I said, "Sorry about the smell. He got skunked last week." She was immediately embarrassed that she hadn't identified the smell. A country vet would have known right away. Either that or she'd assume Duffy had a bag of good weed stashed nearby. Anyway, she asked about the skunking and I told her about the bathing and that he had some bumps from soaps and stuff -- his skin is sensitive. She found one larger bump and I told her I'd just pulled a tick off him while we were in the office.

Good God. You'd think I'd told her he was on fire.
"Where is this tick?"
"In the garbage. It was just a regular old tick."
"How big was it?Was it engorged? When do you think it embedded?"
The questions were urgent. She was very excited. I wondered if she'd ever even really seen a tick. Me, I've pulled about a million of them off animals and a few from humans. This one was small and I got him out easily, smashed him and put him in the trash, like you do. But the city-vet was pretty agitated about the whole thing.
"Even 'regular old ticks' carry lyme's disease and rocky mountain spotted fever." She mocked.
I didn't like that very much."Right," I said. "I'll keep an eye on him."
After a litany of related symptoms to watch for, she launched into a dissertation on the need for proper dental care. A sales pitch, really. "He'd have to be sedated, of course," she claimed, handing me an estimate for $1009.00.
"This won't be happening," I admitted. I'm sure. A grand to take my dog to the dentist? Really?

Okay. So that's the Duffy update. What a fun dog he is.

Merry Christmas.

long weekend

Almost. I spent Friday driving a patient to a psychiatric hospital, but other than that, work free. The paucity of mental health services for the elderly is stunning. Back in the day, when I worked a different job that was pretty much the same only without the death factor, we used to marvel at what we could do if we lived in the metro area, where all things medical are possible. Wrong. So, by the time there was a bed open, I wasn't about to pass it up because of transportation problems. They wouldn't admit her if she couldn't walk in under her own steam, and she's nuts, so, if she was on her way through the doors with a stranger, and the door says: TUALITY CENTER FOR GERIATRIC PSYCHIATRY, she's no dummy. She'd have turned and bolted. I opened the door before she got to it, shielded the words, did a quick Halley's Comet diversionary tactic, and we were in.

Wait. She was in. Let's be clear about that. She. Not WE.

So she's in and I can rest for a minute.

Thanksgiving was fine. Real food, consumed in about twenty minutes.Mother in law hostessed with her ailing sister, who fell in her bathtub. "It has nothing to do with my age." she said before I even said anything. I swear, its that old Angel of Death thing. They see me coming a mile away. "She's coming for me." I can see this thought bubbling slowly to the brimming sludge that is what's left of their little grey minds. "She knows." It would be awful, I'll concede this much.

So its back on Medifast one day later, and I don't really care about food so much anymore. The dinner was okay, and anti-climactic, and I'm just aware of the focus I've placed on food for far too long. I remember Alan McLean, one of my very first nursing home patients, who, after a career in the CIA, had his mind scrubbed and was left with little else but a love of black pepper and a fixation for  Casablanca and  Joan Collins, who he had allegedly had a one-nighter with in his heyday. He was known to say, "I eat to live, not live to eat." Well, good for you, Alan. Good for you. Me too.

A movie review: we went to see Lincoln, and I loved the politics, the tragic silliness that remains today, the gamesmanship. I think James Spader should get best supporting actor for his role as an early lobbyist. Hysterical. But DDLewis, wow. Loved his voice, the frail, gentle Lincoln rang unexpectedly true.

Our new Dyson is sucking the carpet off the floor, quietly, as I type.

black friday

That sounds so negative. Kurt is at Costco now, purchasing a new vacuum cleaner for our happy home. A condition of marriage was that I never receive household appliances for gifts, so this is a non-gift -- a necessity - a Dyson power sucking pet hair eliminating monster. Sid's hair is a cross between a porcupine quill and  a corkscrew. Once embedded, it is there to stay. He rode in my car once. Once. And his hair is still there despite magic pet gloves and car wash power vacuums. His hair, not Duffy's. Not my darling Duffy's.

I ate regular food yesterday. I've lost 55 lbs so far, and am not fat anymore. I've always been fat. Always. I feel fragile and light and strange and cold. It is difficult to keep up with psychologically and I know why I've always managed to put the weight back on. Such a warm coat in the winter months. Such a reliable layer between me and everyone else who is not me. I am exposed and I understand vulnerability like never before. I am without armor.

My wax is on upstairs and I am producing items for sale. Do your christmas ordering now. I'm taking special orders. I'm usually kidding. Not now.

wax on

Another Saturday on Clinton Street. Duffy sits at my shoulder keeping an eye out for squirrels and wayward neighborhood cats who perch just beyond his reach, chirping and mewling, taunting, taunting.

This blog has become a maudlin account of death and doom. I need to find another topic. Another job.

one more

Charles never seemed old, but he turned 91 last week. He referred to himself as Charles Lorenzo Eduardo -- although he was that rural Oregonian shade of white that could never believe we have a black president. He died just now, they tell me. He paced the hallowed halls, looking for his car, a can of paint, the army, all the misplaced parts of his life he just couldn't hang onto -- or let go of. What will I look for? Cling to? We are what we do. I am a sofa. I am a keyboard. I am wax and housework and a frying pan over a hot stove. I am the sidewalk in front of my house that takes me to coffee. It is pouring down rain, finally, in Portland. I'm heading upstairs to turn on my wax. Therapy.

out loud

Pansy is dying. I've lost 52 pounds to date. People look at me funny, like they want to say something but are afraid, at my advanced age, that I'm dying too, or that something has gone seriously wrong. I'm not. It hasn't. I feel really good -- just ask my knees. We, the body parts, are happy with each other and the brain right now. It feels something like the opposite of cognitive dissonance. It might be contentment. I wouldn't know. The war, while not over by a long shot, is momentarily at rest. The brain is finding fault, however, with the legs: too thin, the ass -- gone. the gut, still not perfect, although the belly button that was inserted by dear Dr. Young, my plastic surgeon of days gone by, is nice again and my tits are still here.

I've claimed to have lost 50 pounds in the past, but I don't think it was true. I'd meant to be telling the truth, but I think it was wishful speaking. Find something that weights fifty pounds. Right now. Now try to lift it. Go. I'll wait here...... Freaking heavy, right? I've lost that much weight. No wonder I was so tired all the time. For now, I see myself quite differently. But, pessimist that I am, it all feels pretty mercurial. Dreamlike. Temporary. I'm fifty-fucking-nine years old and I have at long last lost the post-baby fat from my 35 year old son. It is frightening to say out loud, but there, I've said it. Its in the blog so must be true.

I don't know what to wear. I've been a long time fan of Flax clothing, plain linen tent-like garments, expensive and expansive, elastic "waists" held up by invisible suspenders over layers of extra me. Now that there is less extra me, I'm not sure what my style is. I may like simple things. Still prefer black. Still want to be invisible. Thankfully, I lived and shopped in denial most of my adult life, so already had bin upon bin of small clothing that kind of fits what is left of me. But even those clothes are a bit baggy. I hope I'm not complaining. I have boxes and boxes of leftover clothes. I got rid of what I hope not to wear again, but I didn't get rid of all of it. There's too much and this isn't my first rodeo.

So if you read this and need some 1-2x clothes, I'm your gal. Think black and white and menopause beige.

Well, that's it for now. I had to write this post eventually. I was kind of holding my breath. I should take a bunch of pictures now before it goes away.

what's in a name

Hellen has one foot in the homeland. "Two L's." Hellen was a big round beloved woman, a preacher's wife who loved a good deal. Her daughters, each equally well-heeled, came in the evenings, their most recent bargain in hand: a pair of Nine West shoes for three dollars, a silk scarf embellished with roses, just fifty cents at a yard sale. They whirled into their mother's little room waving the treasure and announcing the price. Hellen would smile with crinkled eyes, nodding from the bottomless well of her heart with a sweet, "Hey girlie, where you been?"

Now she's not so round as she once was and her crinkled eyes are closed. There are no sweet words carried to her children on her eternally hopeful breath. She will be gone before daybreak.

There are too many to take her place. A crooked line forms just outside my door, and they bang with gnarled fists to come inside, in full-retreat from the darkness that envelops them and steals their thoughts, pushes them down and breaks their bones.

Recently, though, as Hellen and Edna and Elsie and Myrtle have passed, they are quickly replaced by Janice and Eileen and Barbara and Susan. I greet them with uneasy familiarity, these younger women with names like mine.

I marched in the Alzheimer's walk. The Walk to End Alzheimer's. It won't end, though. You know that, right? But we march and we raise money and we pretend there is hope. But there isn't. Not like that. What hope there is lives in the workers I train, and others like me, who teach the young ones to carry the sick on their backs to the end of their lives.What works is not Aricept or Exelon Patches. It is kindness and understanding, clean hands,strong backs and open hearts.

I raised some money for the Alzheimer's Association and my name was put into a drawing. I won first prize. I won a 50 inch plasma TV. Kurt says we can put it in the neighbor's house across the street and watch it from here. I've never really won anything before. Its too big for me.

Addendum: this morning Harriett is gone. I planted hundreds of spring bulbs today in her honor.