It takes a year, and then some

In two-ish hours (around 3 a.m.), it'll be 1 year since my mother died. Today is also the beginning of Holy Week, and I expect it will be a more emotional seven days than other Paschal weeks have been. I'm doing OK tonight, though over the last two, I experienced a resurgence in the insomnia I suffered last year, and I found myself weepier and touchier than normal. I don't plan a special memorial for tomorrow. I've been remembering my mother all year long. I'll go to Palm Sunday service, where I'll light a candle for her as I do each Sunday I'm in church, and then I'll go see my nearly-100-year-old friend, Betty. And then I'll go home for a while. I may go to the gym, as I usually do on Sunday evenings. Somehow it seems as though living well and happily this day would be the best way to honor my mother, who worked so hard to get me born, grown and launched, and who was my friend. And so at least right now, this significant day is sitting mostly peaceably with me. Yes, I'm up writing at 1 a.m. instead of sleeping, but at least I'm not sobbing as I type. The next impending holiday, Mother's Day, does bother me, though. Last year I barely noticed Mother's Day, because I was so engulfed in grief. But this year, I inwardly flinch at every ad that begins "Get Mom a..." or "Mom will LOVE this...". It's the same when "Dads and Grads" ads start popping up in June--and it's been eight years since my dad died, so I suppose I can't expect to be inured. The sharpness of grief has left me, and I have regained my balance. What remains is a deep longing to talk with both of my parents. I wish I could dream of them, but it doesn't happen. So all I have is photos. Now and again I'll get one out and stare at it, and imagine their voices, their laughter, the way they moved as they spoke. And sometimes, a little, that helps.

Off my fast

I fell off the Lenten fast when I went to Boston for a week. Really, I would've had to have been a saint to stay on it: My aunt put together a fabulous dinner reception for THS and me and invited all our aunts and uncles, second cousins, and others who couldn't fly out to our wedding. She even got a little wedding cake from a local baker. It was all so tasty. Then of course there was the famous Abe and Louie's steakhouse downtown. I mean, once you've started so thoroughly down the pike, why not just get into a Ferrari and speed yourself along? So now I'm not going to fast again until Holy Week, which is at the end of this month. Gah! Hey, at least I have something recent for confession. If I go. Getting back to Things Food-Related: I'm considering joining The Daring Bakers' Blogroll. The Daring Bakers are a bunch of cooks who all agree to bake a chosen recipe each month, and then blog about their experiences. The Blogroll just lists the blogs of all the bakers. I realize that joining the TDBB would be a be quite in keeping with the mission of this blog, which is to distract me from writing. And so what likely will happen is that I'll decommission the wedding blog (because hey, I'm married) and instead write a food blog. You wouldn't believe how many food blogs exist. Some of them are so graphic and sensual that they make Nigella Lawson look like nun. Anyway, that's the noodling I'm doing right now. I just got back from the gym and I'm completely worn out, which keeps me from dwelling on "hey, it's nearly been a year since my mom died"-type thoughts. Which is good, as I have writing to avoid. The writing I'm currently attempting to avoid is a story that's due to my writers' group on Tuesday. Hrmmm...

Tomorrow it's fish!

Tomorrow is Annunciation, which means we Orthodox folk can eat fish. Mmmmm. I'm meeting my pal Andrew for a sushi dinner. It's a long way 'til April 27, and my dear husband has been a trouper about lenten eating. Probably this is because I have been cooking from the Moosewood Low-Fat Favorites cookbook. Cook from Moosewood, and you're pretty much cooking vegan, which is pretty much the whole dietary idea of lent, but it's darn-tasty vegan cooking and that makes all the difference. We don't feel as deprived. But the whole idea of lent is to deprive yourself of pleasures that connect you to the world, so you have less distracting you from focusing on your spiritual health. As I understand it, Catholics get to choose what they give up for lent. For Greeks, it's prescribed: no meat, no dairy, no olives nor olive oil, and no wine, for 40 days. Loads of Greeks do not fast. My aunt, for example, teases me about my adherence, saying that converts are the worst.

Right about now in the lenten timeline I start questioning the whole effort anyway: One thing I'm not so good at is formal praying; giving up pork chops and cream puffs is probably not going to make me a better supplicant. A healthier wanna-be is more like it. Also, most people who do follow the fast end up making indulgent meals anyway. For example: lobster is allowed. All shellfish varieties are allowed. I don't know about you, but where I come from, lobster, scallops and abalone are considered delicacies. And wine is disallowed, but if you interpret the dietary law most narrowly, and many fasters do, that's the only alcohol that's prohibited. So you can go out and have a steamed lobster preceded by a martini (twist, no olive), wash it down with strawberries dipped in melted chocolate, and tell yourself you're being penitential. This is the line of thinking (and practice) that makes me want to throw up my hands and order cheeseburgers to be delivered to the entire congregation post-liturgy. But I have digressed horribly. Tomorrow, it's fish. I may have a tuna sandwich at lunch, for good measure. I can't figure out a way to get fish into breakfast. There are no trout streams nearby, and freshly-caught trout is the only decent fish to eat first thing in the morning.

Baking bread. Mmmmmm.

I baked two loaves of bread last weekend using our Kitchen Aid mixer, and they came out pretty good. But because we received a spiffy Le Creuset 6.5-quart dutch oven as a wedding gift, I'm now able to try out the "Almost No-Knead Bread" recipe from the Jan-Feb 2008 issue of Cooks Illustrated. I'm so excited. I've been wanting to try the recipe since we first got the magazine in our mailbox.

Cooks Illustrated is one of my new husband's favorite things. When it arrives, he grabs it, goes to the couch, rips off the plastic covering, and looks at the back inside cover to see the photos of the featured recipes for that issue. Then he thumbs through the magazine, commenting on the bits that interest him and slotting recipes into the next week's menu plan. It's delightful to watch.

I'll post a review of the recipe when the bread comes out of the oven and is cool enough to cut. Meanwhile, Happy Friday.

Lent+hunger=creativity in the kitchen

It's lent, and for the Greek Orthodox who observe it, that means no meat, dairy, olive oil, or wine for 40 days. Our Easter is on April 27, so I have a way to go. Tonight THH (newly-created acronym for newly-created reference to my husband--he used to be The Hunky Scientist; now he's The Hunky Husband) is away at a Golden State Warriors game with one of his pals. So I was on my own for dinner. When I bach it, I often just head down the street for a slice of pizza. But the no-cheese lenten thing nixes that. So I foraged. I found a sweet potato, pierced it and put it in the oven at 375F. Forty minutes later, I thawed some spinach and squeezed it dry, then minced a large clove of garlic. I heated up some canola oil in a small skillet, added the garlic and sauteed it a little while, then added the spinach and sauteed it a little longer. I added some pepper and salt, then for a spicy kick I added a squirt of sriracha hot sauce. Once the sweet potato was baked and had a crispy skin, I pulled it out, cut it open and fluffed it up. Then I topped it with the spinach mixture. Oh boy was it good. And I have a healthy-eating halo over my head, too. Yes, I'm smug. I wonder if lenten-cooking smugness needs to be confessed before Easter communion.

Sweet life

Today I felt happier than I have in I don't know how long. I was buoyant, and couldn't stop smiling. Everyone I spoke with noticed, and most said that if two weeks away from regular life did that to me, they want a vacation right now. It's more than the two weeks away, though: it's also feeling so well-married, along with getting back my creative spark. It's just permeating everything I do. Right now, though, I'm sitting on my couch, bird on my shoulder and cat at my feet, nose buried in my laptop because I just made the frosting for a German's sweet chocolate cake. The three cake layers are cooling on their racks, and the frosting is also cooling, but it beckons from the saucepan. I adore that frosting, cake or no cake, and am liable to consume it by the spoonful if I'm left unminded. The hunky scientist has gone to the gym, so I'm vulnerable to the pecan-laden, coconut-caramel come-hithers issuing from the kitchen. I practically have to lash myself to a mast and stopper up my ears. Soon my husband will be home and we'll consider dinner. He'll take over the cake construction (it's for one of the guys who reports to him at work), and then I'll be free of the frosting temptation.

New energy!

I'm sorry to have left the last post up for so long. Wedding prep, then being married and honeymooning, took up all my time. But I'm back now, and full of the vigor that only two weeks of sloth and gluttony (along with other sins) can bring. A wonderful bit of awesomeness: my creative well has filled with sweet water again. No more drought. Whew! Another bonus: I didn't gain a pound while we were away, despite our having eaten gourmet dinners nearly each night. I found this out tonight at the gym, when I climbed up on the scale pre-workout. I stepped down and did a subdued happy dance--subdued because other gym-goers were walking past and blocking my groove. Heh. Anyway, I'm composing a wedding and reception recap, complete with photos, for my dear ones who couldn't attend. I'll post that over on the 1+1 site as soon as it's done.

Sick, and tired of it.

It's exactly one week until I become a married person. I've been doing a lot of prep work, which you can read about on the wedding blog (link at right). It hasn't helped that I've been sick with an intestinal bug since late Wednesday night. It's kept me awake on the hour these last four nights and I'm a bit drawn. If things don't clear up by tomorrow, I'm going straight to the doctor. Enough is enough. Today I really wanted my mother here, and not only because I'm sick. It's just too strange to be heading into marriage without my parents. My dad I'm accustomed to having lost. I miss him, but I'm used to it. I'm still not used to being without my mom. It's helped immensely that since July I've been seeing a counselor at Kara, a non-profit grief support organization based in Palo Alto. If not for that, I'm certain I'd still be really deep in the weeds. I go weekly. After I'm done and have been away from it a while, I'll go back, get training, and become a peer counselor myself. It's something I feel a strong pull to do. In this world, grief is not given its due. It's weird enough that nobody talks about dying and death. But it's even stranger that those of us who are grieving are pretty much doing it alone. And we're expected to do it quickly--at least here in America we are. Six months is considered the outer limit of time allowed. Mention any feelings of loss after that, and we're considered mentally ill and in need of medication, or at best self-indulgent. And so you swiftly learn to just not talk about it. Not even with family and friends, at least not in any detail. And so thank God for Kara. I think every town and city should have one.

Underdogs score big.

We threw Super Bowl Chilifest III at our house this afternoon, and 24 people showed up. That meant a triple batch of meat-only chili, which called for 11 pounds of pork, 42 pasilla chiles, 16 onions, several cans of tomatoes, and a small VW-full of spices. Bob did the cooking while I cleaned the house and then caught up on wedding crafts (for details, see 1+1, my wedblog; link at right). He also made two pans of cornbread and four ricotta-spinach pies, along with two pans of raspberry bars. We had a 'fridge full of sodas and beer, and at 3 p.m. people starting streaming in the door, bringing with them enough drink to float the Queen Mary. It was spectacular. Except, of course, for the fact that New York took the trophy home. My entire paternal domestic line is now officially in mourning. We host a pool and give away prizes at each quarter. This year, newcomers took the first-, second-, and third-quarter prizes. A 12-year scotch as the fourth-quarter prize, and our neighbor from across the hall won that. It's fitting, as he and his wife run a wine shop and are always bringing us bottles to try. We cleaned up within an hour, and now I'm sipping some red and catching up on my browsing and blogging.

meme-o-rama (from my cousin's blog)

I want to know 36 things about you. I don't care if we never talk, or if we already know everything about each other. It can be as long or as short as you like. Be honest! Answer in the comments and then repost in your own journal so I can respond.

**You can answer what you're comfortable with**

1) Are you currently in a serious relationship?

2) What was your dream growing up?

3) What talent do you wish you had?

4) If I bought you a drink what would it be?

5) Favorite vegetable?

6) What was the last book you read?

7) What zodiac sign are you?

8) Any Tattoos and/or Piercings? Explain where.

9) Worst Habit?

10) If you saw me walking down the street would you offer me a ride?

11) What is your favorite sport?

12) Do you have a Negative or Optimistic attitude?

13) What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator with me?

14) Worst thing to ever happen to you?

15) Tell me one weird fact about you.

16) Do you have any pets?

17) What if I showed up at your house unexpectedly?

18) What was your first impression of me?

19) Do you think clowns are cute or scary?

20) If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be?

21) Would you be my crime partner or my conscience?

22) What color eyes do you have?

23) Ever been arrested?

24) Bottle or can soda?

25) If you won $10,000 today, what would you do with it?

27) What's your favorite place to hang at?

28) Do you believe in ghosts?

29) Favorite thing to do in your spare time?

30) Do you swear a lot?

31) Biggest pet peeve?

32) In one word, how would you describe yourself?

33) Do you believe/appreciate romance?

35) Do you believe in God?

36) Will you repost this so I can fill it out and do the same for you?

Stark-raving pissed off. Oh, and writing.

A coworker is driving me barking mad (arf!). Just barking. She's obsequious, disingenuous, self-serving. Her time-management skills mock the term. She was witless enough to alienate her department's admin within a week of her arrival nearly a year ago. She makes promises about my services that I can't keep (not only because her promises are ill-informed, but because they are usually ridiculous). She calls in me and my services as though I were her gifts to offer. Her products. And I'm not even a member of her department. It's clear that in a company whose internal motto is "We are here to make lives better," my coworker is here only to make her portfolio better. I rant, I know. But I seethe. She's been making me nutters for almost 12 months. I've tried talking with her, coaching her, baldly saying what she needs to know. I've tried different approaches, saying the same thing many different ways in case she has an unusual way of learning. All to no avail. She just keeps getting upset when I don't fulfill the promises she makes in my stead. It's unbelievable. So today I sent an incendiary 360 review form to her boss. I feel bad, but only marginally so, and that only because I have to deal with her now. (We work on the same floor of the same building, she in Public Affairs on the north side of the building and me in my little cube hosted by Public Affairs on the south side of the building. Which makes me hope her boss even marginally agrees with my assessment of her, because otherwise I may be out of a seat. No matter. I can work from home and other remote locations.). I heeded the advice of my longtime friend and dear mentor, J.H., and didn't put anything in the review that I haven't said to her face. Still, I'm certain she'll act shocked and hurt, probably even betrayed. That's because no matter how many times or how many ways she's told something, if it doesn't fall in line with her own objectives or perceptions, she doesn't retain it. It's kind of like talking to a brain-damaged person who has no short-term memory. I have to keep repeating myself. Now, I'm one of the most forgiving, mentoring, second-chance-ing, patient people I know. But once I've been crossed too many times, my patience runs out and then I am not a supportive person. No, not at all. So I'm starting with the negative review. We'll see where it goes from there.
+++
I owe fiction at our next group meeting, 2/12. Eeep! I have some pretty raw stuff and now I have to sit down and hold it against the shaping and buffing wheels for a while. Wish me luck.

Holidays' end

Our first Christmas tree met an undignified end on Sunday night: we unhooked the ornaments, unwound the strands of lights, hauled it out to the balcony and pitched it over the rail to the sidewalk below. Once we got the tinder-dry pine out onto the balcony, I threw on a jacket and went down to the metal-cage security door that opens out onto the sidewalk on our busy SoMa thoroughfare. I looked both ways, then shouted up an all-clear and ducked back behind the steel mesh. The tree hit the sidewalk sideways, rustling on the way down. Then my fiance came zipping downstairs and dragged the sad castoff to a pile of windfall across the street. The city is scheduled to come by, saw up the all the trees that fell in the big storm last week, and take the pieces to the mulch yard. We figured that'd be a better use for our Christmas tree than being chucked into a landfill. Still. As much as I love the fragrance and cheer of a live tree, I really regret having a dying plant in our home and using it as a symbol for renewed life. I'd much rather have an aluminum tree and funky silver ornaments. But my fiance doesn't have a retro molecule in his body so that's never going to happen. Ah, well. More news over at 1+1 (see link at right).

Demon-free for another year

Today Theophany was celebrated in the Orthodox Church, complete with the Blessing of the Waters. Along with an uncommonly long commitment of TIC (time in church), this involves being sprinkled with holy water, which feels pretty good, particularly when the guy doing the sprinkling is His Eminence Metropolitan Nikitas of the Dardanelles. I got to take communion from him, too. Nikitas is a cool metropolitan. He mentioned during his little chat exhorting parishioners to stay after liturgy for the whole holy water to-do that he's a Florida Gators fan, so he understands the die-hard commitment of waiting in the rain and snow until the end of a close game. Any priest who brings football into his preaching is OK in my book. After the liturgy and blessing of the waters, everyone was free to pick up a vial of holy water from a tray in the narthex. Cool. Tap water that through the power of 20 minutes' blessing can safeguard my home, car, spirit, bodily health* and even allegedly my peace of mind. I nabbed a bottle and left almost immediately afterward, DFH (dear future husband) in tow, to meet friend Andrew for lunch. Andrew, a wit and fellow convert who now attends an Orthodox church a bit south of mine, said they celebrated theophany/epiphany at his church, too, and that "nobody had burst into flames so it was all good. No vampires." Then he allowed as to how the whole sprinkling with holy water thing was handy, as once a year it allows the priests to check their congregations for demons. One thing I really appreciate about Andrew is that he's a churchgoer with a wicked sense of humor.

*The whole bodily-healing thing really had me going there for a while. But I tried it on my mom multiple times. Either holy water just works on the Orthodox, or I wasn't enough of a believer. Or it wasn't in God's plan. Or maybe it's just that nobody gets out of that final train ride and my mom's car was at the blasted station. Whatever. It didn't do anything for her bodily health and even though I find holy water charming, I'm also still a little bitter about that.

Whew!

Much better now. Being inside and cozy while a huge rainstorm is blustering outside has added substantially to my now-much-lighter mood. We woke up this morning to see many trees split or downed in the tree-lined alley across the way. Huge limbs blocked both ends of the alley, and a good 40 or so cars were blocked until mid-day when the city showed up with big power saws and cleared the way. Power was out until 2. I'm happy my good spirits are back, and not even the prospect of a party-less birthday (my birthday is tomorrow!) is getting me down. Our friend Arthur, who was going to make dinner for me and dear future husband and a small group of friends, came down with a bug. So that's probably off. But now that the power is back on, my sweetie can make the cake he was planning to bake, so there will (if the storm gods are with us and don't take the electricity back out) be sweet chocolatey goodness on the morrow. Bonus: my older brother sent me a present and it arrived by FedEx today. I love getting packages in the mail.

The elevator and the candle

I made it through Christmas just fine. But sometime in the days afterward, a funk snuck up on me. The best visual to describe the emotional sinkhole I've gone into would be a mine shaft elevator. Somehow I descended from serenity and calm happiness into a sorrow so deep that the strongest urge I feel is to just shut down and shut out everything, even the light. I'm finding myself leaning back on an old remedy: Find one thing every day to be happy with, and somehow that day will go by OK. It doesn't have to be a big thing. It can be the print a leaf leaves on the sidewalk after a rain. It can be something silly and charming, like the the word "tacky," which is such a singularly human construct that the word always makes me appreciate my species. It can be seeing my fiance cheer at a football game or my cat stretch in front of the fire, or getting a friend's writing to look over, or watching a dog run zany circles in the park across the street. I wait for these things, and they get me by. I know from times before when I played this game that it works. These little talismans light my way to each new sunrise until steady cheer dawns in me again. The trick is to avoid wondering when that will be. I've got a story due in 17 days, so that ought to keep me occupied.

Holiday catch-up

It's been a while since I last posted, and that's because I was insanely busy with Christmas preparations. It's the first time I've ever not gone to my hometown for Christmas. Notice my use of the term "my hometown" rather than "home." Now, for the first time, I feel like my home is here, in San Francisco. It was a good decision to stay here for Christmas. But it meant that I had to have everything ready and into the mail by last Monday. Gifts for everyone I was giving gifts to; chocolates for everyone I was mailing or handing them to; cards sent. In the past I could just wait til the last minute with just about everything except cards, then put it all into the car the night before and drive it all to Santa Barbara. Not this time. I put together 18 calendars in iPhoto, made a tutu for one of my nieces, made 20 pounds of chocolates (truffles, caramels, barks). I was a good holiday citizen and got all my cards into the mail early.

It was my first Christmas away from my hometown and with my new family--my fiance--and while I've had some sad moments thinking about what can never be again, it was a good, self-supporting decision to stay up here rather than go to Santa Barbara to be where everything would remind me of loss rather than the joy of Christmas. But not being there at this time of year was so new to me that I wasn't quite sure of how to go about it. So I thought we could begin by figuring out what some of our holiday traditions would be. I requested we see a choral performance, since choir music means Christmas to me. So on 12/23, we went to see Chanticleer at St. Ignatius here in the city. It was the most exquisite a cappella singing I've ever heard. And the church was a stunner, too. It was so beautiful it nearly made me want to go Catholic (I'm still safely Greek Orthodox). We were so blown away by the whole experience that we decided to make Chanticleer's Christmas concert one of our permanent holiday traditions. We may add a nutcracker next year. In fact, next year we may just get each other Christmas concert tickets for gifts instead of the "under-the-tree" kind.

Last on the holiday catch-up list to write about is a dinner we put together tonight for 10 of our friends. We made crostini for appetizers and served that with sherries. Then came the main course: turkey with cornbread and roasted vegetable stuffing; mushroom gravy; lemon-roasted green beans; cranberries with port and cinnamon; bread and butter; pinot noir for the wine. Dessert was a chocolate panna cotta cake that came out wonderfully, paired with various ports and sauternes. The calorie load was staggering. Our guests were charming and fun. One of them brought the board game Taboo and we played a round, then chatted and drank more dessert wine until around midnight. The carnage in the kitchen was so complete--every dish out and every wine and cordial glass used--that we had to snap some photos. I'll post 'em later. Now I've got to head over to my wedding blog and catch up there. Then it's time for bed, at last.

My first Christmas tree ever

Believe it or not, I've never had my own Christmas tree. I always went home to Santa Barbara for Christmas; usually to help decorate the tree that went up shortly after Thanksgiving, and then again for the Christmas holiday itself. This is the first year those ornaments from my and my siblings' childhoods won't be unpacked from their boxes out in the garage. They'll stay there through the cold nights until one day next year we'll divide them. Meanwhile, my first-ever Christmas tree stands, lit and fragrant, in our living room in San Francisco. We bought it for $37 at a tree lot outside the Grocery Outlet in Redwood City. It's a six-foot fir tree. The cat loves to play underneath it. Thanksgiving was profoundly depressing for me. But the idea of Christmas, here with my fiance, with our own tree and our own new traditions, makes me feel peaceful. There'll be no sibling politics to deal with. No driving, except maybe to the store for any stray dinner ingredients. No house-where-parents-aren't. We'll go hear Chanticleer on December 23, open some bubbly on Christmas Eve, and make dinner for a few friends on Christmas Day. When I think of Christmases past, I feel so sad. But it's Christmas Now, and I can feel happy about that.

The bad, the ugly, and the good

The only good things about the Thanksgiving weekend trek that (1) I was with Bob, and (2) we got to visit with relatives. Oh, and (3) we took a trip to March Field Air Museum, a place where I feel strangely at home. We drove 1,100 miles, from San Francisco to Nuevo, then Indio, then Santa Barbara, and back to San Francisco. We were exhausted and cold-ridden when we returned. I'm sneezing as I type and contemplating which cold med will decongest me enough so I'll be able to sleep tonight. Whine, whine. On the good side of things, my Christmas present (early) is a bazillion more sessions with the trainer. Woo! Another sizable bit of good fortune is that I received a story written by my dear friend and mentor, and I can't wait to tuck into it.

Discouraging

I heard the other week that one category of submissions that always makes publishers cringe is loss-and-grief manuscripts. Word is they're almost always pitched into the toss or sendback pile. This is not encouraging news, since I'd planned to compile my journal entries and emails into a journal-style book about my mom's death. On top of this, I face spoken and unspoken criticism from writers I know who think laboring over fiction is somehow more legitimate than the writing project I plan. Of course, I'm beginning my work. But as I go, I'm struggling to not feel like just another hack.

Personal environment

I have two visits to go with my personal trainer. The effects of all my iron pushing started showing up a few weeks ago and continue incrementally. I have better muscle definition and I'm starting to lose a little body fat. It's a huge relief to be in shape again, and now I know how to use the free weight section of the gym, which used to intimidate me. Now I shoulder past the big, sweaty men and take my place at the cable machine or on the weight bench and go through my sets. It feels good. I'm sleeping more. Writing more. And have a generally cheerier outlook. Marred, currently, by the fact that an idiot skipper ran his container ship up against a Bay Bridge support and spilled a crapload of fuel oil into our bay. The sludge has encircled Alcatraz, coated untold thousands of birds, and is washing up on various beaches. Nightmare.