Mini-Mes

 I went to visit my parents for Father's Day this past weekend.  On Saturday they had invited friends of theirs to come over for a BBQ.  I had heard quite a bit about my father's friend Michael and his wife Angela, and their two daughters, Ludovica, 16, and Martina, 8. How gentile and intelligent Michael was.  What a great cook Angela was.  How beautiful and sweet their older daughter was and what a spark plug their younger daughter could be.  Despite being an irrational reaction, I sometimes bristle at the sound of my parents heaping praise on someone else's children.  It must be leftover from my insecure teenage years where any mention of another young girl's good looks or disposition would have me sulking for days, thinking, why don't they say those things about me?  They wish that other kid was theirs.

But when my husband and I met Michael and his family, I could see that my parents were right.  Michael was quiet and thoughtful.  Angela spoke very good English for someone who came over from Italy when she was 41.  She kept apologizing that she couldn't help with serving or clearing because she had to keep her swollen, post-op foot elevated. 

The older daughter, Ludovica, was lovely--tall and slim, with chestnut brown hair and the olive skin so many people try (and fail) to achieve with spray-on tans and Jergen's Natural Glow lotion.  She reminded me of the oldest daughter in the Von Trapp family--Louisa--from The Sound of Music--almost an adult, but still with a foothold in childhood, I am 16 going on 17, and all that. My husband later said, I didn't think a teenager existed who was so nice.  I kept looking for the chink in the armor and there wasn't any!  

But the family member who I liked the most was quite different from the rest.  She was a chatty, attention-seeking, boastful little girl with strands of stringy, long hair that she would often chew at when she wasn't holding forth as master of ceremonies at my parents' party.

When I get older, I'm going to own an Canadian Eskimo Dog.  

She said this with the authority that I might use when saying I refuse to argue with you anymore.

It turned out that a Canadian Eskimo Dog was just one of the many breeds she had listed on her Nook, under the assertive title "Dogs I'll Own."

Italian greyhond (sic)
Terrier
French bulldog
German pincher (sic)
Pug

Are you going to own ALL of those dogs, I asked.  NOOO, she replied, as if she couldn't believe I would even bother to ask such a silly question.  These were just options and more breeds would be added before she was satisfied.

I was flattered silly when Martina decided that out of all the guests that night, she liked me best.  She would follow me around, sit next to me on the couch, and ask me what I was doing and where I was going when I got up to use the bathroom.  I was pleased to be chosen, like she had picked me to be her partner on the school bus trip and share her watermelon Jolly Ranchers.

We watched funny animal videos on her Nook, and then she switched back to her electronic lists. Another of her lists was BFFs.  But there were no names, just the header.  I asked her if she didn't have at least one best friend (an absolute essential for girls if they wanted to get through the worst of their school years.  I always had a best friend, even in sixth grade when many of my other friends abandoned me in various tactless ways.) She said no, all the girls her age were pushy and snotty.  She stuck her hands on her hips and sashayed around with her nose pointing to the sky.  New Haven, CT is apparently home to all manner of rich and snotty fourth-graders.

But the idea that she didn't have a BFF didn't seem to phase Martina. She was the kind of kid who didn't hide the fact that she was teacher's pet--getting quarters for knowing things like which animal stalks its prey the fastest? (the mantis shrimp--who knew that, besides Martina?).  She liked American Girl dolls and was definitely girly, but also liberally used the words "poop" and "butt" in ways that suddenly made those words the funniest in the human language. She cracked me up.

They say that one of the reasons people have children is so they can relive their childhood through their kids.  But I don't think that inclination is strictly the province of parents.  I find that the kids that I like the best are the ones who encompass the same qualities that I did at their age.  Is this vanity? Egotism? Or is it a wish to still have those qualities that made us so confident and fearless once upon a time?

Martina wasn't a simulacrum of me as a child, but she was close.  The bright, flowery sundress, the way she talked like an adult yet made silly faces like a child.  Her matter-of-factness.  Her hamminess.  All of those were traits that I had at age 8, and that I still have, hidden away so deep behind layers of adult conformity and fear that I don't believe they'll see the light of day again.

But as much as I laughed at Martina's antics, she also exhausted me.  At one point when it seemed that I would be babysitting for the rest of the night instead of relaxing with my glass of Prosecco after a long week, I slipped upstairs and barricaded myself in my old bedroom, which my parents have changed into a study.  I worried that when I returned she would no longer look for me, that I would never be her BFF.  But I treasure my quiet moments to myself.  And she's not my daughter.

Looking for a few good men and women

I attended a Volunteer Appreciation Dinner last night at an American Legion in Newton, MA.  Springwell organizes this every year, but this is the first one I've attended.  Every once in a while it feels good to know that what you do is appreciated, although I already know that my client and friend Linda appreciates me.  She always says so in the birthday and Christmas cards she gives me.

Because I've been volunteering with Linda for 3 1/2 years, Wendy, my coordinator from Springwell, asked me to give a speech about my experience.  I culled this from various blog entries I've written and I share it here as an inducement for anyone who has a little free time they'd like to use wisely and for a good cause.  If you do have free time (or can find some--we're all busy), I urge you to try volunteering--with Springwell or one of the many reputable organizations out there. For more information, click here.

***

Hello, I’m Jennifer Campaniolo and I’ve been volunteering with Springwell since December 2008.  I'm what they call a "friendly visitor" (a friend asked me if they were looking for "unfriendly visitors," the kind who arrive 1/2 hour late, upturn the cat's litter box, and throw their host's purse out the window. I said I didn't think so.)

The woman I visit once a week, Linda, is in her mid-sixties, and as far as I know she has been on disability her entire adult life, and has lived in various Section 8 housing.  She was adopted as a baby and most of her family is either dead now or out-of-touch.  She started having trouble with her legs when she was young, and perhaps out of fear of what people would think or just plain denial, her family acted as if nothing was wrong, and according to Linda, never addressed the problem. The likely-treatable condition became her life sentence.

Springwell does many things to help Linda, and my weekly visits are the least of them.  Because she lives alone and is disabled, Linda has groceries delivered every Sunday and a woman comes each Wednesday to do laundry and light housework. These are all services that Springwell provides.  For someone who lives alone and doesn't go out much, every interaction she has is an important part of her day.

My friendship with Linda is not the stuff of Tuesdays with Morrie, but she is always happy to see me, which puts me at ease. My one other experience volunteering with senior citizens was with a 96 year-old woman in a rehabilitation hospital in New York City who would sometimes ignore me when I came into the room, although that could have been her bad hearing.  But sitting facing away from me on her institution-issued hospital bed, even her back seemed hostile. 

Linda, on the other hand, smiles at me when she meets me at her door. I ring her buzzer around 7PM and when I tell her who it is, she cheerfully answers "OKAY!" She meets me at the door wearing either pink or blue scrubs. She doesn't work in a hospital, she just finds them comfy. I greet her cat Maxine while Linda goes to get our two cans of seltzer water.  Every week I bring a snack for us to share, usually hummus and celery or guacamole and chips.

I thought that when I came to visit her we would play Scrabble or watch old movies or read to each other or listen to soothing music.  But she wasn't interested in any of that.  She wanted to talk.  Linda likes to talk about her love of cats (her own cat plus the many stuffed cats and cat paraphernalia with which she surrounds herself), and enjoys showing me whatever new item she has bought from a catalog or that her neighbor found for her in the basement where residents put stuff they no longer need.  

Another of her favorite topics is the arrangement of her furniture. I can always count on her to ask me if the desk lamp would look better on the table near the front door or next to the waterless electric fish tank. Would it change the aesthetic of the room to swap the display case of beanie babies with the low book shelf containing all her Dr. Phil books and John Denver CDs?

I don't think she really listens to my response. She just likes asking. Rearranging her apartment is something to do, a challenge, a never-ending project.

Because of her disability, Linda has never held a full-time job. She once volunteered at Mass General Hospital, assembling surgical tools for doctors. But that ended when she had trouble getting in and out of Boston on time.

I can see why Linda is endlessly moving her stuff around, why she changes her phone company as frequently as her bed sheets, why she quickly returns items she orders from catalogs and goes back and forth between a Verizon cell phone and a Jitterbug. These are the otherwise mundane tasks that keep her occupied and engaged. Granted, changing phone plans is one of many chores that busy people dread. Who wants to spend an afternoon talking by phone to customer service? Linda does. And if she gets a good rep on the phone it means the difference between a bad day and a great one.

"Some people have jobs to think about." She once said to me in a moment of astute self-awareness, "All I have to think about all day is my furniture and things."

When we're talking, I try to be fully present for her. I look her straight in the eye to let her know I'm interested, even when she repeats herself, which is often. Through my visits with Linda, I'm learning patience. I'm learning to listen, with no expectations or agenda of my own. I have to remember that it's her life, and I'm just there to be a witness.

We all need a witness for our lives.  Although I still fill out a time sheet for Springwell, I consider Linda a friend and assume she feels the same.  I typically leave her apartment in a good mood. Though on paper we don't have a lot in common--she doesn't like reading, watching movies, or cooking, for example, and I am not a fan of John Denver or Pillow Pets--we still find plenty to talk about and there's hardly a moment of silence when we get together.

And let's face it--there's also that little glow of the do-gooder that we all experience when we volunteer or commit some random act of kindness.

It's really true that you can get out of volunteering as much (or more) than you put in.

The Sanctity of Sox

Photo Credit: latimesblogs.latimes.com

"The peace that comes from peaceful surroundings is not
          true peace.
     Only in the peace obtained in the midst of activity
     Is found the true sphere of one's original nature.
The pleasure that comes from pleasurable surroundings is
          Not true pleasure.
     Only with the pleasure obtained in the midst of
          suffering
Can one see the true movements of the mind." 

          --From Master of the Three Ways: Reflections of a Chinese Sage on Living a Satisfying Life, by Hung Ying-ming, translated by William Scott Wilson


I've been getting back into walking lately. This comes after one handlebar-gripping turn on Cosette, my bicycle, one recent Friday.  Inspired by my husband and the fellow bike commuters I work with--who still manage to get into work earlier than me, looking fresh-faced and energetic like they just stepped off the set of a commercial for multigrain breakfast cereal--I announced on a Thursday night that I intended to start riding my bike to work.  But the reality of riding in the same lane as cabs and trucks, snaking my way to Horticultural Hall where I work, and nearly getting run over when I crossed a lane of traffic just when the light changed--and those cars hurtling toward me were not slowing down, what was a 38 year-old cyclist in a skirt doing in the middle of the street anyway--changed my mind about the pleasures of tooling around the city on my pretty bike with the baguette-ready basket as a means to get around.   

So I went back to my old standby.  I walk for the same reasons many people walk--for exercise, for the head-clearing effects, for the simplicity of it.  But there is another force that I can't leave out, one that makes walking the best option...really, the ONLY option.

The Green Line of the "T" has always been one commuter away from a sardine can, but lately it seems like it's getting worse.  I would console myself with the thought that the college students will be going back to their parents' houses in May, but even that offers little relief, because overlapping with the end of the Spring term is the start of Red Sox season.  To fans this is a blessed time of year, one of the most holy after Patriots season.  Another year of sunny afternoons at Fenway, drinking $8 beers whilst having the person in the bleacher behind you spill their $8 beer all over the back of your favorite shirt (if I was paying $8 for a Sam Adams, I'd hold that cup steadier than a surgeon's scalpel to avoid ANY of it spilling.) Or if it's raining, drinking $4 beers at any number of bars in the Fenway area, getting beer spilled on your shoes.

For me, this is the beginning of the seasonal onslaught of red t-shirts, ballcaps, jackets, earrings, watches, go cups, oversized finger forms, and every other matter of kitchsy item that can be emblazoned with those pair of white socks on a red background.  The people who wear this fan flair travel in packs and don't know (or have forgotten since the same time last year) that the doors on both sides of the train car don't open at Kenmore Square, so there is always a lot of pushing in a train car that is already filled to bursting with people and their bags, ordinary folks who have just ended their workday and want only to get home, where no one is yelling,

"It's this stop, Jon! That door don't open.  C'mere, I'm holdin' the door far ya."

Why couldn't they segregate the Red Sox fans from the rest of us non-baseball nuts?  Give them their own little red shuttle bus shaped like a pair of socks that would have interior soundproofing so the people on the street wouldn't be subject to the cacophony of a bunch of white people yelling over each other while downing their contraband hooch.  Better yet, keeping in mind how the city would burn down to the ground in riots if they closed Fenway Park, find a way to pick up and move the beloved baseball stadium to some outer suburb--maybe close down a few Walmarts while they're at it--and plop it down in an area that doesn't even touch the city borders.  They did that with The Kinsale Irish Pub, why can't they do it with a sports arena?

Of course, to say any of this while in Boston, to even whisper it under your breath, is against the law.  If a Bostonian heard that I had no interest whatsoever in the Green Dragon, or Monster, or whatever it's called (who cares, it's just a wall, right?) and that I wouldn't go to a game if someone handed me a pair of free tickets for seats located right behind home plate, I'd be carted away by the Boston Sports Authorities (BSA) and thrown into a gulag in Springfield. 

To avoid the Red Plague I might hail a cab, but it would be faster to ride on the shell of a sea turtle than trust my luck in a cab stuck in stadium traffic.  One time I tried to take a cab home and it cost me $18 to go six blocks.  I ended up jumping out of the cab after paying the driver so I could walk the rest of the way home.  Meanwhile my cabbie was shaking his head, wondering how he was going to extricate his cab from the coarse snarl of cars.

To avoid the whole scene I simply walk home.  I mark all the home game days on my small Pema Chodron calendar hanging on the bulletin board at my work desk, and on those days when there's an "X" I put on my sneakers (or if I've forgotten my sneakers, I take mincing steps in my work shoes, coming home with blisters on the soles of my feet.  Believe me, it's worth the physical pain.)

My husband says there are something like 81 home games from mid-April through early October, and that's if the Sox don't make the playoffs.  But think to hard to yourself, "Please let them lose!"and the BSA might hang you by your feet in the gulag. 

So I keep my annoyance to myself, which is the way of survival for most city dwellers trying to find their own patch of peace and quiet among the crowds.

And I consider the bonus of toned calves just in time for bare-legged season. 

Character study

"Rather than obsessively following states of mind such as anger, fear, or grasping, states that will bring harm to ourselves and others, we can let go as though dropping a burden. We are indeed burdened by carrying around habitual unskillful reactions. As wisdom reveals to us that we don't need these reactions, we can abandon them."--Sharon Salzberg, from Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness

Every town has at least one "character."  If you're in New York City, there are too many to take notice, but in Brookline there is one particular woman I'm thinking of.  She's an older lady--maybe in her 70's--with a well-coiffed head of short white hair.  She is usually trailing a rolling suitcase behind her, or she's got a very vibrant-pink-colored Jansport backback on as if she were on her way to go hiking in The Whites.

I see her walking in my neighborhood, but I've also seen her get off at the same "T" stop as me at Heinz Convention Center in Boston.  Recently, I saw her get on the train as I was heading home for the day.  She sat right next to me.  I have a thing about not looking at people for more than 1/2 second because I don't want to seem like I'm nosy or rude.  This is a problem for someone who likes to write about human nature.  I did notice she was eating old-fashioned gumdrops from a bag and that she smelled of fish.

The reason I say she's a character is that whenever I run into her, it's her voice that I hear first.

"Get out of the road, you jackass, don't you see people are crossing!"  

"No turning on a red light, ass****.  Who taught you to drive?"

"Hey, Buddy, slow the fu*k down!  You're going to mow someone over."

I should add that most of the time that she's yelling at traffic, she's not actually crossing the street or in the road at all. Either she's a self-appointed crossing guard for the residents of Coolidge Corner, or at one time she was the victim of a hit-and-run and now she's the vigilante of automobile safety.

I do wonder about this woman.  Most of the time when I see other people react to her, they either step aside with a worried glance or they laugh.  I understand both reactions, even though as I get older I grow more empathetic of people who stray from the norm and wince when I see them mocked. 

What I wonder is, what really makes her so angry?  And is her anger only reserved for this one occasion?  She doesn't appear bedraggled enough to be chronically homeless.  Does she have a family?  Anyone who looks out for her?  Tries to get her to calm down, even smile once in a while?  Her anger--like many people's--is palpable and contagious.  If I'm around an angry person not only do my defenses go up, but my blood pressure increases and I start thinking about how satisfying it would be to tell someone off (which I rarely do because confrontation nauseates me.)

Some women fear being a bag lady when they're old, even if they are currently well-off.  But it seems just as troubling to be an angry old lady, mad at a world that has changed too much, too fast.

Or perhaps she's always been angry and never learned how to manage it, and so now her anger is magnified, making her into less of a character and more of a caricature of the curmudgeonly old woman.

It seems to me that if I want to grow into a happy old woman, now is the time for me to learn how to let things go.

Happiness is the sum of each moment

Photo still from the film The Descendants

"'Well, that's what life is — this collection of extraordinarily ordinary moments," [Alexander] Payne says. "We just need to pay attention to them all. Wake up and pay attention to how beautiful it all is.
'If you were falling in love and you could go back in time and relive a day and see the banal things you did that you'd forgotten about, you'd weep, looking at that day,' Payne says. 'Somewhat dramatic things happen, and you don't even always notice them — that's what life is.'
Those moments, unless you write them down or photograph them, drift off and away. They just go by."--From "The Extraordinary, Ordinary Life of Alexander Payne" by Susan Stamberg, via NPR.org 


My husband and I were walking to Shaw's to do our regular Sunday morning grocery run.  We like to go early in the morning, both of us unshowered, in sweatshirts and sneakers, my static-prone, fine hair looking like it's lost its way and is flying in multiple directions.  Once inside the store we're relieved to see plenty of carts lined up waiting for us, carts that actually move forward when you push them rather than side to side.  The few customers who are already there are mostly loners--middle-aged men in hooded sweatshirts to hide their unshaven faces, a college student in a BU tee buying a tub of skim milk, a woman with a small child negotiating about a package of cookies.  The loudest sounds in the store come from a trio of Haitian men, likely brothers, who laugh with the gusto of people who are completely free and comfortable expressing themselves when they are together.

My husband has brought The Wizard, a pocket adding machine like the sort a 1950's housewife would use.  It's hard to tell sometimes if he really enjoys being eccentric or if he just relishes the look of bewilderment that's so frequently on my face.  Actually it doesn't have to be one or the other.

We are shopping using only cash and The Wizard will help us stick to our budget.  Of course the electronic calculators on our cell phones that we carry around anyway would do just as good a job, but that would be less fun for him.  He is a fountain pen user.  He has a collection of old-fashioned, double-edged safety razors.  He enjoys reading every plaque on every statue in the park.

Although I predict a fight over whether or not we really need to buy both a sheep's milk cheese and a cow's milk cheese, or whether it's really worth buying two boxes of premium crackers to use a $1.00 off coupon,  we actually do pretty well.  Unaccustomed to looking for the price of an item--my old style being, hey, this looks yummy, I'm throwing it in the cart before I even look for a price tag because who cares how much it costs, I want it--I find that we've spent $60 in the first aisle of the store alone.  But at least we have a cart half-filled with fresh produce and meat and cheese, rather than three kinds of jarred pasta sauce, a $20 bottle of Balsamic Vinegar, and Nutello.

In fact, in our attempt to keep under our spending limit, we skip most of the middle of the store, where the majority of the processed foods live, and pick up milk and eggs on the outer periphery.  There is a nice buzz of cooperation between us, and when we walk out of the store, me pointing out that we went $8 under budget, I know that my husband is happy, which makes me happy, and it gets better when I take the extra money and buy Monkey Bread with Caramelized Walnuts at Clear Flour bakery to have with breakfast.  At $6.75, it feels like a splurge, when normally I can't walk out of that place without spending less than $20 on heavenly carbs.

Later at the kitchen table, which is half covered with sections of the Globe, we are each tearing off pieces of the sticky bread and licking the cinnamon sugar off our fingers.  It is a MOMENT.  Nothing life-altering or euphoric, just a MOMENT when all is peaceful. My husband says, "I like Sunday breakfast with you."  Right back at you, babe.

Mindful Cooking

Photo: The "cheesy" snowman appetizer I made on New Year's Eve, from an idea I found on Pinterest


"The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one."--Elbert G. Huddard

Last spring I started a family recipe binder.  I bought a stack of clear insert sheets, and divided them by categories like "Eggs and cheese," "Shrimp and meat" (shrimp is the only fish I can stomach), "Vegetarian" (that section is the thickest because Mike is a veggie and a good guinea pig for my cooking lessons). The rule is my family recipe binder can only include dishes I have made and liked (or that would be good with some minor tweaks).  On each one I write the date and make notes about the process and results ("Make this one when tomatoes are in season" or "Mike LOVED it but it gave him gas").

The recipes themselves are from all over--stained index cards in my mother's handwriting for dishes I remember having as a kid, like Lentil Stew and Chicken Cacciotore, which she wrote out for me before I left home.  My own writing on torn notebook paper, some sheets dating back to my college years when I used to go to the library and copy down recipes from hardcover cookbooks I couldn't afford to buy.  Lots of pages ripped from magazines, dating back to 1994, when my job at the University Bookstore included managing the magazine rack. When a new issue came in, I was to pull the old one off the shelf and rip the cover off in order to mail the unsold covers to the distributor.  I'd take topless copies of Eating Well and Food & Wine back to my dorm room, ripping out recipes I planned to follow once I had more than a hot plate and one aluminum pot.

Photo: Chicken with cherry tomatoes, onions, and grits


Back then I was eager to have my own kitchen because cooking dinner was something very adult and sophisticated.  I didn't see it as domestic drudgery, like cleaning the toilet and washing the windows.  Cooking was dinner parties, family meals around the table, creating new tastes and experimenting, sharing my love of food with my guests or partner.

 Photo: Shrimp stir fry with shiitakes and snow peas

What I love about cooking (and baking, although that tends to be a more exact science) is that I generally don't worry about making a mistake.  It's one of the few areas of my life where it doesn't bother me if I screw up a step because I usually find a way to fix it so the dish is still edible, or even unaffected.  I think it's this kitchen confidence that keeps me from second-guessing myself.  Cooking and baking are fun, they're creative, and you usually get an end result that makes people happy. 

Photo: Mini lasagne in pastry shells

I find that unless I've had a particularly tiring day, even cooking on weekdays can end things on a good note.  Yes, it means laundry has to wait until tomorrow night and maybe the pile of dishes will sit overnight.  But cooking and baking are two of my favorite ways to unwind, especially on a cold winter night when you feel lucky to be indoors, warm, and well-fed.  You have to find the things that engage you in this life--and then have the courage to pursue them without worrying about being perfect. 

Photo: Coconut chocolate-chunk muffins (made with coconut and rye flours)

It's good to have a creative outlet where you aren't expecting to win anything, or make money off of your effort, or impress strangers (yes, I am sharing pictures of my cooking and baking online, but that's simply because I love looking at pictures of food and yes, I'm proud of what I make).  I almost always follow recipes so it's not like I'm coming up with all new dishes destined to win a cook-off.  I do slip in the odd substitution here and there, and by doing that I learn what flavors compliment each other and how I can work with a recipe when I don't have all the ingredients readily at hand.

Photo: Chicken with potatoes, green olives, and lemon

I was surprised when I heard from my mother that most of the family members in my generation on my father's side, Italian-American women and men living in a city where just a few blocks away there are stores carrying every imaginable ingredient, never learned to cook from their older relatives (or simply don't bother).  My great aunts and uncles, my grandparents--they all cooked amazing Italian fare everyday, but these days my cousins are more likely to order in Chinese or serve cold cuts at social gatherings.  I don't understand how they could grow up with such a bounty of home-cooked food always available to them and not want to replicate this for their own families. 

Mike grew up with home cooked meals every night, but like most kids he also had a taste for junk food.  Recently, after he heard that Hostess (and the New England division, Drake's) was going bankrupt, he started searching the snack aisles of every convenience store, bodega (or as New Englander's curiously call them, Spa), and supermarket in Kendall Square trying to find his childhood favorite, Funny Bones, those chocolate-covered peanut butter and devil's food logs.

Growing up I wasn't allowed to eat Twinkies or Devil Dogs, though inexplicably my mother did allow me to have Hawaiian Punch and Chips Ahoy cookies, which are no paragons of health. For some reason it was anything Hostess-branded (including Wonder Bread) that was off-limits to me.  Of course she couldn't stop me from eating whatever was offered at the slumber parties hosted by laxer mothers, or at the convenience store five blocks away that my friend Heather and I would frequent, gripping our weekly allowance in our fists.

Thing is when I did have my first Hostess cupcake, I wasn't blown away.  In fact I was disappointed in the off-taste of the creamy filling, which I thought would taste more like the fresh whipped-cream my mother made.  The little frosted donuts and the coffee cakes were pretty good, but nothing special.  I far preferred my mother's homemade cookies.

Yesterday Mike found his Funny Bones at our local Shaw's.  Wanting to see if the coffee cakes were better than I remembered, and, more importantly, wanting to share in his nostalgia, I picked up a box.  I felt like a felon placing the artificial cakes in the cart.  I didn't want anyone to see them and say to the person next to them,"Wow, that couple isn't discriminating about what they eat, are they?"

When we got home and unloaded the groceries, I opened the box of coffee cakes and slid out a plastic-wrapped two-pack.  They were smaller than I remembered, but most things are when you're a grown up.  They tasted OK--sweet, but not cloyingly so, and moister than I was expecting (of course, they contain "stabilizing agents," whatever those are).  Mike savored his first Funny Bone, which he said was just as tasty as he remembered and a little taste of his childhood.

So when I told him that I was planning to bake brownies, he said, "What for, we have the Drake's cakes."

"I want to try this new recipe in Cook's Illustrated," I said.  "They've perfected the classic brownie.  Anyway, the Drake's will last for weeks and weeks. Isn't it Twinkies and cockroaches that can outlive us in a Nuclear attack?"  Maybe that's something else I like about making something from scratch--it's a delicious moment in time best enjoyed the moment it's served.

Photo: Cook's Illustrated brownies

Back to Black Friday

 

"I just don't understand Christmas, I guess. I like getting presents and sending Christmas cards and decorating trees and all that, but I'm still not happy. I always end up feeling depressed."--Charlie Brown from A Charlie Brown Christmas  


Christmas used to be my favorite holiday, hands down. Ornamental glass and glitter to dress up a freshly-cut Douglas Fir, Elvis crooning about his hope for snow, the feast of the seven fishes on Christmas Eve in Bensonhurst when my grandfather was still alive.  I didn't actually eat any of the fish--certainly not the stuffed squid or the marinated octopus.  But even though my dinner consisted of several slices of semolina bread and rice balls I was content.  I liked the traditions, even the ones in which I didn't take part.  And the presents!  At midnight was the crisp pop of an Asti bottle, an opened Panettone creating a cloud of powdered sugar overhead, and all the relatives and friends squeezed into the tiny livingroom to sit shoulder to shoulder on the plastic-covered faux baroque furniture.  Piles of opened gifts formed at our feet, and the sounds of appreciation and glee continued as the last present was presented to Pipina, or sometimes Pipinella,  my grandfather's nicknames for my grandmother Josephine, or Guiseppina in their native Italy.

Even as I slipped into my twenties and early thirties, and the boisterous Christmas Eves in Brooklyn became the much tamer Christmas Eve's of my parents' house in New Jersey, I still looked forward to Christmas. We no longer waited until midnight to exchange gifts, and there were probably only five or six fishes if you were counting, but there was still the comfort of traditions my parents and I shared.  My mom and I exchanging one gift early ("Just a little one!") The tree festooned to toppling with an assortment of ornaments that took my mother decades to accumulate. I worried a little more about getting the right gifts (and enough of them) for my family, but I also felt expansive in my desire to make other people happy.  I felt a connection to my father--who always goes a little over-the-top at Christmas--every time I was extravagant, buying those last-minute cashmere gloves for my mother or the basket of gourmet treats from Chelsea Market for my Aunt. 

This year my parents will be in Sweden on Christmas, visiting my uncle and cousins on my mother's side.  While I'm happy for them, I can't help feeling like I'm losing the lovely feelings that the holidays usually bring.  Some people might say that Christmas is a holiday meant for children, and we don't have any small children in our immediate family.  Others look to the spiritual significance of what is otherwise a consumer bonanza that starts in mid-October.  But unlike Charlie Brown's existential holiday blues, I'm not newly inspired by the story of Mary and Joseph in the manger because I'm not religious.

Even my husband, who is usually adept at cheering me up, is no help here. He dreads Christmas because he sees it as a time of excessive obligations.  Whatever joy he brings to the occasion is for my benefit.  We adopted our rescue dog Carmelita last year because, while attending a performance of the cloying A Christmas Celtic Sojourn , I wept at the sight of little girls in frilly dresses and striped tights, knowing they were much happier than I was at that moment and wishing to borrow one of them to distract me from the crap playing on stage.  Actually I was the only one who appeared to be bristling at the sound of Brian O'Donovan and the sight of the blonde and bouncy young thing kicking it up every interminable minute.
 
Black Friday is this week, an ugly reminder of the disregard some of us have for the welfare of others (and I'm not excluding myself here--I can be a hellion at a sample sale) as we push our way toward the promised deals before some other knucklehead gets them.

Even if there is bad news, like the kind I received from a close friend recently, and heard about secondhand from others--the holidays still come.  What do those families do to get through, and how can you celebrate when you know there is suffering going on in your midst?

How do we make the holidays meaningful again, without completely deflating the joy and occasional frivolity?  I'm not trying to be a joykill here, I just don't deal so well with change and naturally there have been a lot of changes since I was young.  It used to be my main concerns were as shallow as "Did my father get me the perfume I want? or "will I have a boyfriend this year and if so, what should I buy him that shows the right amount of affection without scaring him away?"  Now I wonder if there's more to the holidays than a discounted iPhone.  Even the cookies I like baking have become sugary carb bombs as I get older and thicker. 

Maybe I just need to start simple and without high expectations. You know, peer into some decorated department store windows, or make an ornament out of pipe cleaners, or buy a holiday outfit that will make me feel pretty.  Or maybe I'll try to think up some new traditions that will fit the way my family, friends and I live now.

Do you have any favorite holiday traditions that make the season bright for you?