Food for Dragons

Image generated by ChatGPT

Gina pulled her apron down from the hook on the back of the door and put it on. It was heavy-duty, made of canvas and almost ample enough to wrap around herself twice. She pulled the strings around to the front and cinched them into a neat bow.

Gina placed her hands on the wooden workbench and dropped her head in a silent plea. Oh please, she thought, let today finally be the day they eat. After taking a deep breath, holding it, then slowly letting it out, she got to work.

Gina pulled vials of spices down from the shelves over the workbench and cut snippets of thistle, rosemary and thyme from the potted plants under the long row of mullioned windows, mixing, measuring and weighing ingredients. Herbs and unique vegetable preparations were her specialty.

Not long ago, Gina had been a culinary student, excited about beginning her internship. The restaurant she’d been placed at was small, housed in an odd brick tower located in a back alley in the historic part of the city. It was very old, and very, very exclusive. Or at least, that was how the Chef explained it when Gina questioned the unusual architecture and lack of customers.

That first day Chef Zorelio asked Gina to fetch a few more potatoes from the root cellar in the basement. She hadn’t been able to find any, just carrots, parsnips and a few malodorous onions. “No, no! They’re at the back, all the way in the back. You didn’t go far enough in.”

Obligingly, she went back down the narrow stone staircase, Chef Zorelio stomping down the steps behind her. He ushered her back into the root cellar, poking her between the shoulder blades with a gnarled finger to urge her forward.

The root cellar was long and narrow, and there was no light other than what came through the open door, so it seemed reasonable that perhaps she’d just overlooked the potatoes the first time, but surely they couldn’t be so very far from the entrance or the other vegetables?

Just as she was about to turn and say this to Chef Zorelio, a trap door opened and she found herself sliding down a metal chute into pitch blackness. She must have hit her head when she landed. When she awoke she was here, in this wretched tower that resembled the restaurant, yet was worlds away.

The circular room looked like the restaurant dining room, but here it was the kitchen. It was lined with windows that looked out over a vast valley full of trees and vegetation, with no signs of human life for as far as the eye could see. Not only that, but for as far as she could see through the brass telescope mounted on the windowsill as well.

Chef Zorelio was, in fact, not a chef at all. He was a breeder of Dragons in a world parallel to her’s. After a blight killed off the ubiquitous vine that was the dragons’ primary food source, he brought her here in the hope that with her knack for creating unique, flavorful vegetarian meals she could devise a recipe that would tempt them.

Zorelio was desperate, and desperate men were dangerous. He made it known in no uncertain terms that she would remain captive here until her task was complete, or else. Now the clock was ticking and she didn’t dare think about what would happen if she failed.

Dragons could only survive a week or so without eating. But so far nothing Gina concocted had appealed to the picky flying reptiles. Day after day she mixed, whipped, roasted and braised to no avail. Each new preparation was roundly rejected, leaving her more and more discouraged.

The sound of vast wings displacing massive amounts of air in the distance, like muffled thunder, caused Gina to look up from the pot she was stirring. On the horizon, she could just barely make out the shape of the dragon pack, coming closer by the minute.

Making haste, Gina poured the thistle stew into a pail and hauled it to the windows. She threw open the window pane before putting her eye to the telescope. There were three dragons today, two adults scaled in sleek orange, and a smaller one whose scales shimmered with the iridescent undertones of a juvenile.

Gina hefted the pail up onto the sill and stepped back as the dragons swooped in, their leathery wings stretched wide. The adults hovered just beyond the window, plumes of white smoke curling from their nostrils, while the baby dragon came to rest on the window ledge. Gina’s throat constricted; she could see the poor thing was weak from hunger.

The little dragon craned its long neck towards the food, head cocked with curiosity. “Come on, baby,” Gina coaxed. “Just take a bite. I promise you, it’s good.” As the dragon extended its long tongue, Gina hardly dared breathe. Both their lives depended on what happened next.

#flashfiction

#magicalrealism

Back to the Future

The last time I posted to this blog was way back in the pre-Trump, pre-COVID19 era. Sometime around the end of 2014, to be exact. That post was an announcement about moving to my new (now old) website, which no longer exists. 

I happily blogged at the new site until my domain expired without my realizing it. When I tried to renew it, I found someone else had purchased it and now wanted an exorbitant amount of money to return it to me. 

Um, no.  

Fast forward a bit, and here we are, all staying at home trying to flatten the curve of this damned pandemic. It's just me and the animals here in the house, so I have a lot of time for introspection and reminiscence, and I happened to reminisce about blogging. 

On a whim, I searched up my old domain name. Apparently, I'd accidentally waited the bastard out, because kellyospina.com was available again. I quickly snapped it up. From there it didn't take much to un-archive my old Blogger account, link it to the domain, and here I am. Now, the question is what do I blog about? 

The original premise for this blog was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with myself after leaving the non-profit I helped co-found. Then, just as I was getting started, three kids fell into my life. Hand-to-hand combat with CPS, the legal system, and immigration became my daily grind, all while changing diapers, checking homework, and trying to manage everyone's Big Feelings. It was an intense three-year adventure, but at the end of it the kids went home and I found myself right back where I started, trying to figure out what to do with myself.

I had some big goals back then. I wanted to buy a house, get published, and get myself sorted out financially. So what happened with that?

Buy a house - check. I bought my condo in 2016, and I'm still just as over-the-moon grateful today as I was on the day I signed on the dotted line and it became mine.

Get published - check (kinda). I published two flash fiction stories, so I guess technically I'm "published." But both of the novels I wrote are still in first-draft status, and still not very good. Guess I gotta keep working on this one.

Get myself sorted out financially - check (kinda). I'm able to survive with just one job now, so that's a huge plus. I'm finally in the 401K at work, which is another plus, and owning a home means I'm building equity, which is also good. But I'm still only one big car repair away from financial ruin at all times, so there is still plenty of work to be done in this category too.

Do I have any new goals in 2020? Why yes, I do. But I'll blog about those another day. 

The thought I'll leave you with for now is this: I still may not be living in the fast lane, but if I'm going slowly these days it's by choice. I'm appreciating the small things, living in the moment. I'm "doing me" in ways I couldn't when I was raising a child by myself, fighting the good fight as an activist, or being a foster parent. 

I don't know where this blog is going to go from here, but I think I'm going to take my time and just enjoy figuring it out.

My Happiness List

This afternoon I got a little bogged down in negative feelings. I was stressing out over things that weren't going my way and sliding down the slippery slope of self pity into a pretty deep funk, and then I glanced out the window. The gloomy, gray sky that looked back at me matched my mood perfectly (I guess we know where Big Brother gets it from now, don't we?).

I realized I needed to snap out of it!

Sure, I've got a laundry list of things I wish were different right now, but THIS is the list that really matters:

• Big Brother has a good job, is in a good relationship, and is healthy. He's becoming a man I'm proud of in so many ways.
• THE KIDS GOT THEIR MOMMY BACK!!! Sometimes I still stop and think where we were a year ago and have to pinch myself, it is just so AMAZING that this happened.
• All the kids are happy, healthy, feisty, super-duper smart and growing like weeds. Did I already say they're happy? Well, let me say it again because it bears repeating: THE KIDS ARE HAPPY! After watching them be supremely unhappy for two years this happy business is a pretty big deal.
• I have a bunch of kids. Wow! I never planned to be a second-time-around mom at almost fifty (and I still harbor fantasies of graffiting the CPS office under the cover of darkness), but I wouldn't trade the experience for anything. It changed my life in all the right ways.
• Even better than being a temporary second-time-around mom is getting to be a permanent-stuck-with-me-for-life Aunt. Having their mommy back does mean I have to take a step back in their lives, but the good part about that is I get to enjoy all the fun parts without the boring stuff like laundry and vomit and dental appointments.
• I've got a good, solid job where I can totally be who I am without judgement. Heck, I announced today "If they deliver a unicycle next week, don't be alarmed. Its mine. I'm going to learn to ride it around these file cabinets," and nobody was all that surprised.
• The hard work I've been doing on my financial profile is slowly starting to pay off. I'll post more about that soon.
• I'm a writer. Just typing those words feels good, after a lifetime of not-quite-daring to believe I could do it. Someday in the not-too-distant future I might even get to add the word "published" to that sentence and that will feel even better.

There, you see? Before I even listed ten things my grumpy mood evaporated into gratitude.

A Word or Two From Big Brother

Yesterday I had parent teacher conferences for both Princesses. Sitting there in the little tiny chair, surrounded by kid artwork and colorful posters, I couldn't help but think back to when I did the same for Big Brother. He was a rambunctious child, very imaginative and not at all shy. His conferences usually involved a recounting of some mischief or other that he'd gotten into. In the second grade he tried to incite his class to help him take over the school when he mistakenly thought science class had been permanently cancelled. In sixth grade there was the infamous hot sauce incident, where he encouraged everyone to taste the super-hot hot sauce a classmate had brought for show-and-tell, causing a stampede to the nurses office. It was always something, so I usually approached conferences with my heart in my mouth. Luckily, neither Princess tried to take over the school (at least not yet) and their conferences went very well. 

Anyway, in honor of school conferences, and since the Princesses have recently shared some of their work, I thought I would post some of Big Brother's work form back in the day.

First up is a lovely poem he wrote in the 4th grade as a Christmas present for his mom and dad:

I am a funny, caring guy who loves skateboarding.
I wonder if I will ever be a pro skateboarder.
I hear a wheel spinning like a jet on an airplane.
I see my board breaking like shattering glass hitting the ground.
I want to be able to do a 900 just like that.
I am a funny, caring guy who loves skateboarding.

I pretend I'm a famous skater.
I feel like I've accomplished something when I learn a new trick.
I touch my helmet that looks like the sky.
I worry if I will get badly hurt.
I cry when I fall because it feels like 1,000 knives stabbing me.
I am a funny, caring guy who loves skateboarding.

I understand I'm not the best at skateboarding, but I always try.
I say I can do this when I want to try something.
I dream of doing the longest board slide ever.
I try to go as fast as the wind.
I hope I won't die trying.
I am a funny, caring guy who loves to skateboard.


And here is an essay he wrote in Freshman year in high school, for your reading enjoyment:

REFLECTIVE ESSAY
Written on 1/20/08

The one thing that surprised me about myself this year is that I didn't know I could change this much in a short amount of time. The one thing I wish I could improve upon myself is to learn from my mistakes and get better grades. Usually when I get myself into a lot of trouble I do learn to never make that mistake again, but sometimes I try and find sneakier ways of doing it to not get caught, but that hasn't been working out very well lately. I don't really know if there's anything that people should know about me because the people I know already know enough about me. Next year I'm hoping to find a job that I'll like and be able to look back and say I had some of my best times there. The one thing I was wrong about in high school is that it's not as hard to learn your way around as people say it is. The thing I was right about is that it's way better than middle school in some ways and you can most definitely make a lot of new friends and enemy's. The part of high school that will be best for me is probably being able to get through each year and get that much closer to graduation. My greatest challenge will be to maintain my grades and try as hard as I can not to get into too much trouble.*

True Confessions - NaNoWriMo Edition

My manuscript in Srivener as I work my way towards 50K

One of my favorite things about doing NaNoWriMo is the chance to network and learn from other aspiring writers. To that end, yesterday on the NaNoWriMo facebook group I participate in everyone was posting links to their author sites, blogs and facebook pages so we can all link up. I happily posted mine and began making the rounds, checking out everyone else's pages. I saw some really great looking websites and facebook pages that had tons of followers and practically screamed AUTHOR! WRITER! LOVER OF BOOKS! Very impressive, indeed.

I came away feeling envious. It isn't that I feel like I'm less of a writer, because I don't. I suppose I just envy those who know, with absolute certainty, who they are and how all the pieces fit together in their lives. I too often feel that my own life is like a patchwork quilt, little pieces of various odds and ends, all thrown together, that somehow add up to a full-sized, if somewhat skimpy, existence.

Although I write and always have, I have to wonder, will I ever be A WRITER anywhere except in my own imagination? And if so, am I writer enough to do this as more than a hobby one day? Doing Nano not only reminds me of everything I love about being a writer, it also reminds me of just how far, far away I still am from ever being able to make writing anything more than a peripheral theme in my life.

Ironically, NaNoWriMo is going swimmingly otherwise. My word count is at 20K, which gives me a buffer zone of 5,000 words. My story is taking on a life of its own, going places I wasn't planning on. That is OK, though. It keeps things interesting.

How is Nanowrimo going for you?

Does gaining on your writing goals sometimes still leave you feeling melancholy with no explanation, or is that just me?

Boo Who?

"BOO!"

Mom is tied-up with NaNoWriMo, so Princess Ariel volunteered to provide more artwork for the blog this week.

Princess Jasmine suggested she should put some words with the picture. "You should make it say something."

Princess Ariel looked thoughtful for a moment. "Ok." She agreed. "Let's scare them. Make it say BOO!"

Social Media in the Slowlane



A screen shot of my too often neglected Twitter page

When my teenager wanted a MySpace account a few years ago I let him have one, but part of the agreement was that he had to give me the password. From time to time I would check it and, if he posted something particularly offensive or inappropriate (which was often), I would log in and do a little judicious editing. While I was in there I would poke around, seeing what his friends were up to and checking-out any of their parents who also had pages. That was my introduction to social media. I could see why my son liked it, but I didn't really get what all the hype was about.

Then facebook came along. I wasn't really sure what it was at first, or how it differed from MySpace, but people started asking me if I was on it. Eventually I decided to dip my toe in the pool and make a page of my own. I quickly got caught up in the fun of connecting with people I hadn't seen in years (not to mention being reminded of why I had been avoiding some of them in the first place). It was especially gratifying to connect with my cousin in Ireland and other relatives in far away places.

Twitter, on the other hand, still confounds me. When I joined I expected to like it, but instead I found it overwhelming. It always reminds me of a big block of skyscrapers in the city, where the occupants all periodically open their windows and randomly shout something out into the courtyard. Maybe it is just me, but I can usually only take a small dose of the shouting before I feel the need to firmly close my own window and go find something else to do.

As writing is becoming more of a priority in my life I am working on building a "platform." This means rather than just posting pictures of my cat or what I made for dinner last night (two of my usual subjects), I'm supposed to be using my social media accounts as a tool to build an electronic brand for my writing. In addition to this blog, I now also have a website kellyospina.com, a separate facebook page for my blog and, of course, the dreaded Twitter.

As platforms go, I'm well aware that mine is the bargain basement version. The lack of a single, cohesive look and feel between the various elements gives it a bit of a Tower of Babel effect that I wasn't really going for, but "free" is the best I can afford right now so it is what it is. I'll just have to use the installment plan strategy to improve it over time, Slow Lane style.

How has social media impacted your life? If you are a writer I'd especially love to hear how you approached building your platform, so feel free to share in the comments below.

Move In Progress - Please Hold

It is a box extravaganza around the apartment these days as the clock ticks down to moving day

I haven't posted much this month because moving has sucked the life right out of me. As many times as I've moved before, it never gets any easier. If anything, my loathing of the entire business only gets stronger.

Come February all this mess will be sorted out and I'll be back to blogging once again. There will be some exciting new changes around the Slow Lane, and not just our address, but you'll have to wait until next month to find out what they are.

In the meantime, here are a couple of previous Slow Lane Specials for your entertainment:

When Technology Attacks

Someday We'll Laugh About This, Won't We?

Palm Trees, Sunshine and Bickering

New Year, New Life

Were they going for Charlie Brown's sweater, or was it a coincidence?

For my family the new year is bring lots of changes, not the least of which is a new address.

As you can see, in true Slow Lane style our new home has pink and gray zig-zags in the dining room. But wait, there is more! Fluorescent green and black adorn the kitchen while upstairs, various shades of brown and purple that should never, ever, share the same wall are openly co-mingling. Painting, along with schlepping boxes and lugging furniture, will be filling my free time from now until the end of the month. 

Moving, for me, is as much a mental process as a physical one. I've moved more than twenty times, but it is always the same. I start out feeling nostalgic about the old place, pining for whatever it is we're leaving behind. Then the nesting instinct takes over in a flurry of unpacking and I begin to see the possibilities in the new space. After a couple of awkward days, looking for things in the wrong places, the dust settles and I feel like I'm home once more.

This move, though, has a more poignant feeling to it than usual. When we moved in here, my son was an 8th grader. As we move out, he is about to turn nineteen. Leaving my son's last childhood home behind is making me face up to the fact that our little family is changing. We're entering a new stage where so much on the horizon is new and unknown and just a little bit scary. For now, at least, the process of moving is comfortingly familiar.

Why I Love (And Hate) Holiday Baking

I only wish my cookies looked like these!

For most of the year I avoid baking like the plague. This is partly because if I baked regularly I'd be even fatter than I already am, but mostly because I'm just not that good at it. My cakes always seem to come out looking like ski slopes, my cookies are all too dense or too flat and my popovers never pop. Baking requires a precision and a dedication to technique that doesn't seem to be a part of my genetic code.

Yet come Christmastime the baking bug gets hold of me and I find myself mixing, rolling and decorating, usually battling through a cloud of flour while spilled sugar sprinkles crunch under foot. With a lot of fuss and muss and a little bit of swearing like a sailor, I usually manage to put forth a reasonable approximation of Christmas cookies.

I know, you might be wondering, if I already know I suck at baking, why - oh why - would I put myself through it? Wouldn't it be easier to go to the bakery instead? The short answer is yes, of course, that would be one hundred times easier! The thing is, it would also be utterly bland and impersonal.

I may hate the mechanics of it, but I love the fact that home made holiday baking is a little piece of somebody's heart, captured in flour, sugar, eggs and butter that is meant to show their regard and appreciation for the people in their lives. To me, that is a beautiful thing, even if the baked goods themselves are a little wonky looking. This is why I happily blunder around the kitchen, scorching cookies and bungling icing every December.

So the next time somebody gifts you a homemade batch of something sugary and misshapen, don't cringe. When you open up that tin or unwrap that plate you aren't just looking at a squadron of warped gingerbread men. Know that what you are really seeing is love, friendship and good wishes, spoken in food instead of words. This even applies to that weighty fruit cake that you would rather use as a doorstop than eat. Whatever the baked monstrosity you've been given, just know that whoever baked it for you is telling you that they care enough about you to take the time and put in the effort that baking requires--even though they may have hated doing it.

The photo above was submitted to Allrecipes.com by baking_queen. For the recipe she used, click here.

Slow Lane Shoe Shopping

Light up sneakers - one of the few benefits of wearing a size three shoe

Yesterday I realized I couldn't remember how long ago it was when I last bought a pair of shoes. Since both the pairs I wear daily are looking a bit decrepit, I decided it must be time to go shoe shopping once again.

If you sense a hint of reluctance in my tone, it is because I dread - absolutely dread - having to buy shoes.

I know, it practically goes against nature for any self-respecting card-carrying member of the female gender to not like shoes, right? Lest you want to email me with hate mail for breaking the girl-code, let me explain. It isn't that I don't like the shoes themselves. I do. But it is very, very, frustrating to walk down the aisles in the shoe department looking at all the lovely styles I will never wear. Instead, I must turn a blind eye and continue on, to the children's department and the size threes. Yes, you heard me right. I wear a size three shoe.

In case you've never looked, let me assure you, there really isn't much selection available in that size. I speak for myself and third graders everywhere when I say that the situation is dire. Yesterday, for example, I found I had a choice between a pair of exceedingly pink Barbie sneakers, a pair of light up sneakers, and another pair adorned with cartoon characters of some sort. Naturally, I chose the light ups.

Once, I bought a pair of black sneakers. They had a checkerboard number 8 on the side, but I needed black footwear for waitressing and these were the best I could do. I wondered why people sometimes honked or yelled "Whoo hooo! Number 8!" at me when I walked down the street in them, but it was several months before I realized I was wearing Dale Earnhardt sneakers. Before that, I think I had a pair with Pirates of the Caribbean.

To the good, at least my light up sneakers will mean I won't have to worry about cars not seeing me in the dark when I go out for my power walks this week.

When Technology Attacks

It took me a long time to warm up to the idea of cell phones. I remember my dad once complaining I should get one, because then he could reach me more easily if I was in the car. I was horrified at the thought. About the only time I ever got any peace and quiet was when I was in the car by myself. The idea of being reachable anywhere and everywhere at all times couldn't have been less appealing. I finally caved in a couple of years later, once my son got old enough to want to roam around town without me. The phone I once didn't want has now become practically an extension of my arm.

Although I may be more tech-friendly these days, technology and I still have an uneasy relationship. Just like some people emit a weird electromagnetic frequency that breaks their watches, I seem to do the same thing for computers. Whenever I have to call the tech department at work (which is often) I hear the dread in their voices when they realize who it is. And no matter what the issue is, they somehow always end up saying "How did you do this? We've never seen anything like it!" I can never tell them how I did it because I don't know myself.

Looking back I see my initial encounter with a computer was probably prophetic. It was in 1989 and I had just started work at my first-ever office job at Home Life Insurance. On my very first day I managed to bring down the mainframe for the entire company after only ten minutes on the machine. Over the course of my career I've gone on to mangle computer files and be thwarted by hardware at every job I've had since. I snarled up the drive-through computer at Boston Market, right in the middle of a spectacularly long line of cars during the height of dinner service on a Friday night. I crashed the plate maker on a massive rush job when I was in printing. And here at my present job, I'm on my third PC in just seven years.

My powers of technological destruction aren't limited to the work place, either. Once a friend asked me to help him set-up his wireless router. The instructions said it would be easy. It wasn't. I fought that thing for hours. Finally, it was up and running. Oddly enough, though, my friend's computer couldn't access it. His brother who lived across the street, however, could. We never did figure out how that happened - or how to fix it. For the entire two years he lived there if he wanted to go on the internet he had to go next door.

This morning when I got to work my email was down. About a dozen people have called into the office to say they, too, are having problems so I don't think it is me (this time). Everybody who called so far sounds frustrated and annoyed. Personally, I'm just glad it wasn't me for once, so I'm going with the flow. I'm going to make myself another cup of coffee, open my snail mail and relish not being connected while it lasts.

Time Marches On

Flemington is a very small town (only about a mile square) and the majority of my daily business is concentrated on just one street of it. On sunny days I walk from my apartment down where Main Street begins, just beyond the traffic light, to my jobwhere Main Street ends, at the war monument.

Flemington is a pretty town, very nice for walking. Victorian homes line streets shaded by trees and punctuated by stone urns filled with flowers. It is still the type of small town where everybody knows everybody else, for better or worse.

Main Street on a sunny fall afternoon

Recently my oven mysteriously stopped working. With the holidays approaching I decided I'd better get the thing fixed. I called up Burkett Supply and was pleased to hear they could send somebody out the very next day. They said they'd call when the repair man was on his way over.

"Oh good." I said. "Just give me about 20 minutes notice so I can walk home in time." The man on the other end of the phone snorted and said he could walk up and down Main Street three times in twenty minutes, but that would be fine with him.

The following day when I got the call I grabbed my jacket and my house key and set off down the street at a brisk pace. I'm 4'11" and don't take big steps, so my idea of a brisk pace probably isn't all that brisk. I was only about halfway there when I heard a voice yell "Hey there, are you Kelly?"

It was the repair man from Burkett Supply, leaning out the window of his van.

"Hop in!" He said. A white haired gentleman in his later years, neatly dressed in a blue uniform, he knew which driveway was mine without me having to tell him. "I put most of the ovens in back here years ago."

While he worked on the oven we exchanged a bit of local gossip. Although we chatted mostly about current events, something about the conversation reminded me of days gone by. Maybe it was just that he knew my landlord and half the neighbors, or that he talked about the goings on over at the American legion and the Ringoes Grange.

Having lived here most of my life, I remember when elderly farmers in baggy overalls still hung out down at the grain elevator and the famed Flemington Speedway still sent the roar of stock car engines and dust from the dirt track floating over town on a Saturday night.

Flemington Speedway in all its former glory

That Flemington is long gone now, of course. A Lowes and a Walmart replaced our beloved race track several years ago and what is left of the grain elevator will soon be torn down to put in more fancy retail shops. Even run of the mill farmers seem to be gone now, replaced by younger, hipper, "artisan" growers down at the weekly farmers market.

As the Flemington I recall from childhood is fading away, a new and seemingly fancier one is emerging. I have mixed feelings about the fancier bit, but not all the changes are bad ones. I'm looking forward to seeing what Flemington's future looks like. Even so, it was still nice to shoot the breeze with somebody who remembers the Flemington I grew up in.

Thank you Mister Oven Repair Man, wherever you are.

Someday we'll laugh about this . . . won't we?

Someday I'm sure my son will look back and reminisce fondly about his first couple of cars and their many foibles. 

The other day he asked me to come outside and help him fix the passenger side door. My job was to lean on it and hold it closed with my prodigious bulk (I was glad it finally came in handy for something) while he jury rigged it with duct tape and a couple of old shoe laces. Passengers now have to enter and exit through the window, but at least they no longer have to worry about falling out going around corners.

The car, a battered red Honda civic, is a recent replacement for an equally battered Mazda protege. At first glance the protege didn't look half bad, but it had the nasty habit of coming home on the tow-truck every time he drove it more than fifteen miles out of town. After putting more new parts into it than I care to think about, the transmission finally went. Following yet another long tow truck ride we decided it was finally time to junk it.

We purchased the civic from a friend-of-a-friend. She said the car was in great shape, that it had no problems. And it didn't, at least for the first ten minutes. Then I rolled the window down and we quickly realized it wasn't going to go up again without taking the door apart. Aside from the door and window issues, the air conditioning doesn't work and the little knob that controls the lights on the dash is missing. It also has something wrong with the muffler that makes it sound like a 747 zooming through the neighborhood. (My son actually seems to like that, for some reason. The neighbors and I, not so much).

I've given up freaking out over stuff like this. Instead, I am trying to look on the bright side: At least we finally found a use for those shoelaces in the kitchen junk drawer.

As I said, I'm sure one day my son will look back and laugh about all this . . . it just won't be anytime soon.


Evan in the Protege saying "Mom! Don't take a picture, this is embarassing!"

A8DC9EP8AG9W

Crazy is like a Condiment, a Little Goes a Looooong Way.

I have never been a person who cared about having stuff. I've never been interested in fancy cars, big houses, dressy clothes or flashy electronics. I have simple tastes and don't need a whole lot to be happy. I can't claim any credit for that, it just seems to be how I'm built and always has been. But as I'm getting older, I do find myself craving some of the creature comforts of life. Little things, mostly--for example, I would give my eyeteeth to have a dishwasher in the next house I live in and if I was lucky enough to have a real backyard, too, well, it almost doesn't bear thinking about. It would just about be like winning the lottery!


Right now, we live in a second floor apartment in a tiny cul-de-sac off Main Street with a cast of crazy neighbors like something from a bad sitcom. We've got the pink-haired crazy cat lady with the homemade chicken wire fence around her parking space, plastered with "NO PARKING" signs (she works at the Post Office, I kid you not). Then there is the guy on the corner who, when liquored up, has a thing for old ladies. He's liquored up rather a lot, and in fact, even calls the cops on himself sometimes. I've heard he tells them "I've had a few, I think I might be gonna do something. You might want to come get me now, save yourselves some trouble later." And they do!


I'm sure you are wondering why we put up with this, why we don't just move. Well, frankly, because we can't really afford to go anywhere better. Anything else in my meager price bracket is going to have issues of some kind or another. The last place we lived, for example, we had the elderly neighbor who used to "forget" to put his pants on before going out (we'd often find him in the backyard on a weekend morning) and there was somebody, although I never confirmed who, who every now and again would get liquored up and start shooting guns off in back in the woods. When we'd hear it I'd call the police, and the dispatcher would usually say, in a blase tone of voice, "Oh he's at it again, is he? Well, we'll go over there and check it out. Thanks for letting us know." Business as usual, apparently. So wherever we go, I know it would just be a matter of trading one kind of crazy for another.

To tell you the truth, most of the time I enjoy a little bit of crazy--it keeps things interesting--but crazy is like a condiment, it is best enjoyed in moderation. When it becomes the main course, well, that's when things get dicey. Mrs. Pink hair, for example. Her chicken-wire antics would be amusing, if she kept them on her side of the complex. But for some reason known only to herself, she has decided that my family is the anti-christ. If anyone comes here to visit or drop one of us off, she will call the police if the offending vehicle tries to execute a k-turn too close to her fence, of if they pause too close to her house while they look at the apartment numbers. She mutters under her breath about "hoodlums" whenever my son walks up the driveway, and she's put angry notes on our door, letting us know that she's "watching" us.

Mr. Liquored up on the corner has exceeded his entertainment value, too. Last fall he went on a bender and tried breaking down the door of the elderly lady across the driveway. The police came and manhandled him off to the clink, but she was too afraid to sleep in her own home for almost two months. He's never bothered me, but I give him a wide berth whenever I see him now. But the bloom was finally off the rose for good when the police condemed our house, because the person downstairs was a hoarder. Luckily, they let us back in, since our apartment is separate from hers, but we had to live with a gynormous dumpster out front, blocking the door, for weeks on end. To add insult to injury, the landlady (who is herself the offending party) put us on blast recently because she didn't like how our garbage cans and recycles looked at the side of the house. Nevermind she's let the grass grow up waist high, let alone the hoarding issue, it was our recycles that were at fault. Needless to say, we had words over it.

Hopefully the dust up over the trash cans is now behind us and won't come up again, but if it does I don't know how long we'll stay here. Ideally I would like to avoid moving until I absolutely have to. In another year and a half my son will be going into the service, and my plan was to stay here until then. My landlady is a nice person, when she's not obsessing over my recycles, and we actually get along very well. But even I have my limits and when I'm done with something, I'm done. Another episode like this one and I think it might be time to start perusing the classifieds. If/when we do leave here, I'm sure some kind of crazy will be awaiting us wherever we go. Hopefully, just a little less of it.

Most of What I Learned in Life, I Learned in the Kitchen

I am the proud owner of a twenty-year Associates Degree in Business. My diploma sits on my desk at the office, as a reminder to myself and others that yes, I really DO know what I'm talking about, at least some of the time. But the truth is, most of what I know in life that has any value didn't come from a textbook. The most valuable lessons I've learned in life were picked up in restaurant kitchens.

I always like to say that restaurant life is about the same as being in the Marines, except without the nice uniform or the sword. It's tough, dirty, hot and sweaty work with difficult people where you are expected to do the impossible day in and day out. The Marines have to navigate land mines and enemy fire and full frontal assault. We dealt with erupting grease traps, bus loads of Swedish Skiers ten minutes before closing, and multiple screaming babies. Ok, so maybe it isn't quite the same experience, but at least the Marines don't have to smile while they engage in hand-to-hand combat. No matter what outrageous thing our customers demand, we waitresses are always supposed to smile and be gracious.

Restaurant life quickly separates the strong from the weak. If you can't multi-task, think on your feet, deal with difficult personalities and carry twice your own body weight on a try over your head, you probably won't last that long. People always ask me how I can handle so many projects at once and this is why, when you work in food service multi-tasking is the very first skill you learn.

Back-of-the house in just about any restaurant is usually a volatile environment. When you put people with strong personalities together, most of whom have are working back-to-back twelve hour shifts, add a little heat-and-humidity and a cranky manager and possibly multiple languages, you're bound to get some fireworks. Clashes between back-of-the-house and front-of-the-house are legendary. I have seen some waitress/line cook screaming matches that would make your hair stand on end. On TV line cooks are usually portrayed as shiftless slackers, refugees from more civilized society. But the reality is, most line cooks take pride in their work and only got to BE on the line in the first place because they were good. Any line cook worth his salt takes pride in his food, and nothing will set him off as fast as a waitress questioning how he does his eggs or whether or not his steaks are the right temperature.

In most of the restaurants I've worked in back-of-the-house was dominated by men, front-of-the-house more so by women and college kids.  Over the years I also watched the kitchens come to be dominated by immigrants, which added another layer of difference between the people in the front and the people working in back. A lot of the bosses I've worked for were immigrants, too. Like I said, restaurants are not for the faint hearted, and nobody has the work ethic or the drive to succeed that a restaurant needs like an immigrant, who came here to make something better for himself and his family.

I've seen some heart-breaking things in restaurants, too, and working with so many people who came from somewhere else is why I ultimately became an activist. I wasn't actually trying to be an activist, I was just trying to help the people I worked with, people who some way or other always seemed to get the short end of the stick. In one of the restaurants where I worked a 17 year old got seriously burned when a pot of boiling soup fell on him. He should have been sent to the hospital, but instead the boss told him to clean up the mess and go back to work washing dishes. I've worked with two men who, in separate incidents, were hit by cars while riding their bikes to work. In both cases, the people who hit them drove away and left them. Neither went to the hospital, they just pulled themselves together, limped the rest of the way to work, pushing their broken bikes, and did their best to work all day through the aches and pains. Some of the finest people I've ever had the pleasure to know were my humble, hardworking immigrant co-workers, many of whom taught me more about life and what is really important than they will ever know.

It has been a couple of year's since I've waitressed. I'm getting to old and, frankly, too fat. I can't move as fast as I used to and I can't tolerate being on my feet for extended periods anymore. I also think I've reached my limit for smiling at people when really I'd like to break the plate over their heads. But I am still grateful for all that I learned about life and all the fine people I had the pleasure to know working in food service.