The suitcase

I am to transport a suitcase from here to Chicago for a friend later this week. I picked up the suitcase from a prearranged place where it was left earlier this morning. It’s packed and ready to go.

However, as I lifted it into my truck, I noticed that one of the zippers was broken: it was one of those situations where you think you’ve pulled the zipper shut, but it leaves a trail of unconnected little zipper teeth in its wake. It was not a crucial zipper, not the foundation that holds the whole bag together, but it does expand and contract the suitcase and so it does serve a function.

Dilemma: should I fix it before handing it over to the friend in Chicago? I mean, Cecil over at shoe repair is a magician with these things. But if I fix it, shouldn’t I unpack it first? [The friend cannot be consulted with on this one – he’s up in the air somewhere, flying around the States.]

I could unpack it and no one would ever know. Unless my friend put one of those crucial hairs or threads in a particular place to see if any person would poke around his personal belongings. But the ethics of such an intrusion notwithstanding, I do not really want to poke around someone’s stuff. There are things that one doesn’t really want to know, even about very very good friends. Like how many mismatched socks they have or if they fold shirts neatly.

Handing a filled suitcase to Cecil is also unfair. Do you know Cecil? He is old, stooped, frail. He should not have to muck around with packed suitcases.

What would the ethicist say?

Answer: for every ethical dilemma there is an innovative solution. Cecil solved this one for me by fixing it on the spot while I lifted and moved the bag around for him. The guy is a repair genius – always has been. My kids were raised to show great reverence and respect for the man, as he has bailed us out of many shoe and suitcase problems over the decades.

Cecil understood the dilemma. Of course! He’s the kind of guy who may have himself packed an odd little private something in his day. He’s a man of strange habits after all – the same man who kept cats in his store and got chased out of the strip mall because the cats peed on the hallway carpets. Cecil didn’t seem to mind. He loved his cats and proclaimed: if the cats go, I go. And so out he went, to a different strip mall, one without any carpeted hallway to pee on and mess with.

It says something about my days that this was by far the most interesting thing that happened to me all morning.

We are the young, the children of the world…

I knew it. My trust in Peter was well-founded. I came home at dusk and found him thus, proud keeper of my yard: (thanks, nine-year-old pal! you rule!)

The yard's yours, Peter. You earned it. 

Motherlicious: seven degrees of bond-ification

A happy mother's day to all my mother-ly friends!

So my first gift of the day – an e-card… mmmmm, so nice…
My second: come on, let’s not get up just yet, a few more hours! It was the longest repose I have had in years…
My third gift: a walk. To the Arboretum (a mere five miles away), then from the Arboretum to Borders (add three more) and then home (another three, easily);
My fourth gift: martini glasses from my girls (they read Ocean too carefully). Beautiful! With a swirl of blue!
My fifth gift: dinner out (where I meant to post pictures but ultimately forgot, as is my tendency these days);
My sixth gift: the best Cosmo I have ever had at Eno Vino. With cranberry essence swirling down the glass… yum!

My seventh gift: looking at the album of photos where my older daughter was learning to bond with her newborn sister. You wonder then: where is this heading? How strong will their connection be? So now, twenty years later I know. And it truly is the accomplishment of accomplishments for me: to know that I have not derailed (indeed, facilitated?) this deep bond between two sisters. Happy mother on this day, indeed.

Mother's Day 1985: at the Arboretum, of course. 

1985: a mother (me), a suspicious older sister, a newborn 

A Tale of Two Parties

Why is my recollection of them so fuzzy this morning?

Two parties: one -- a gathering of the Sad Liberals in the neighborhood, the other -- honoring Chef Tory, the new proprietor of Madison’s legendary restaurant downtown.

Snippets, I remember snippets. From the Sad Liberals:

Are our houses built on landfills? No, farmland.
But there is a landfill underneath the schools. Did you know it has been documented that men in this area have an unusually high degree of sexual (something or other: here my memory fails; what was it: impotence? malfunction? virility? what???)…

...No kidding, and then there’s that run off “stream” that comes out of nowhere. Where is that water from? The 100-year rain pond off of Mineral Point Road. The 100-year rain pond? It is 100 years old? No (explanation follows, I have little recollection of it).

...Oh, if you are making martinis, you can have the olives in my refrigerator. Go ahead and take them, the front door is open. (a few minutes later) You have absolutely no food in your refrigerator! You didn't see the organic eggs, organic skim milk and organic strawberries? Not nothing in my book.

Do you know that it has been said that there are six layers of meaning to every Dickens novel? And that it is nearly impossible to get at some of them? Classes are constructed to analyze just some of these layers from one text. Why do you write your blog (a direct reference to Ocean here) like a Dickens novel (this was not hurled as a compliment, nor was it received as such)? Why not just say what you mean so that we do not have to have a class to analyze the six layers of Ocean (this was perceived as a compliment even though it was probably not hurled as such)? Sometimes there are only three layers of meaning. Sometimes there is only one. Sometimes.

From the Tory night:

My sister is managing the business itself as I take charge of the kitchen. You know, if I had known half a year ago that I would be co-owner of a “French” (one could call the style of cooking here that, if pressed for a label, though Alice Waters would, I suppose, protest) restaurant, I would have paid attention to what and where I was eating when I happened to be visiting Paris.

I love some of the new things you are already doing with the menu! Like the chili pepper in the chocolate Vesuvius truffle. Yeah, that was awesome. We want to update the dining room. Soon! Of course, we have to be prudent. We just bought a restaurant!

This is the best damn sangria in the world... all in the quality of the wine and the cutting into it of the right fruits, don’t you think? When was the last time you have had great sangria?

After which I vaguely remember telling Tory’s sister (who maintains her residence and also work connection in Racine and is desperately looking for a decent and affordable place to stay in Madison) that she should stay at my house which is too big for me anyway, if indeed I myself am still staying at this house since it is too big for me anyway. Though, I forgot to warn her that men in this neighborhood have a high degree of sexual something or other. [I can’t believe I virtually gave away my residence to a person whom I barely know. I tend to do things like that if I like someone. And no, it is not the result of drinking too much sangria. Though it was really good sangria.]

so good 

Spinning tops

Life is a blurr (like the photo below?)

Things are spinning, spinning, oh! those of you who were children in the fifties and sixties: remember those tops we had? The ones where we wound the string around and around, climbing it up the sides of the top and then with one fast release – off it went!




Sometimes I think that I have been using my years to wind up this top of mine and now I am letting it fly. Wheeee! Such a cool toy (sometimes the spin is a dud, a failure).

So I’m spinning along, only it seems that, unlike the toy, my speed is increasing.

Diversions, there are diversions: currently I am enjoying the company of one daughter who is home for a few days. Another will join us soon. This is a movement I can live with. Their popping in for a brief spell is like a coating of rich dense chocolate over a candied orange peel. [Now why did I think of that? I am not sure…]

This morning I went to the Saturday market. My first this year! I’m posting three pictures: one of our local cooking hero of the year, Chef Tory, taking care of foraging for foods at the market because his employed forager (me) decided she didn’t feel like working today. [Does he look peeved? No, that’s what makes him cooler than cool. More Tory news later as I plan on celebrating his ascent this week to restaurant stardom later tonight.]

The second photo is of a person who loves her spice girl treat on a Saturday morning (a daughter who has heretofore resisted being part of an Ocean post, but for some reason decided to oblige today; the surprise of the moment was so great that I rushed with the shot blurring it to pieces, of course).

The third is of the bouquet that traveled home with us. If only I could post the incredible fragrance. It smells like…lilacs. Real, wonderful, blooming lilacs. No surprise there.

so cool! 

wonderful 

perfect 

On having someone important ripped from your life

It takes time to develop trust and confidence in a person, to experience mistakes, to repair them, to start afresh, to build and grow, to feel happy and secure in what you have created together. You can’t have that special bond right away, no matter how good the chemistry, how delightful the encounters.

Okay, so it’s there, you’re happy, you hope they’re happy. And then pffft! They’re gone. Just like that.

This is the story of Eva, the waxing woman, the one who was the first to ever shape my eyebrows, the one whom I had just recently grown to rely on. I come home and there is a message on my machine: Eva has moved. She is no longer available. I need to schedule an appointment with someone else.

Easier said. As if I can just plunge right into another relationship. Eva, whom I trusted to be part of my Madison days for a long long time, Eva who loved to talk about how wonderful her visits to Warsaw had been, Eva, who convinced me that my future lies within the world of wax, Eva has betrayed me and moved to greener pastures. Thanks a lot.

Would you take the last miserable piece of sushi offered on an empty plate?

Tonya, Oscar and I were at a party today where there was not enough food. An hour into the event, all platters stood nearly empty. The saddest was the sushi tray, for on it rested one solitary piece of sushi – the reject, the one that no one grabbed in the end and in its isolation, it appealed to none of us.

Oscar remarked that the three of us were of different ethnicities and each of our heritages lead us to demand of parties that there be food. I had to answer that each of our heritages was actually uniquely focused on food and no one from our necks of the woods would regard a party a success unless people left saying “there’s too much food!”

We left early. It is a rule: you leave a party before the last piece of sushi gets taken. Take heed: never, ever run out of nibbles one hour before the guests are supposed to leave.

Local hero

If you're dining at Madison's L'Etoile anytime from tonight onwards, seek out Tory: chef, and as of today, proprietor. Tell him congrats and that you're rooting for him. And then do root for him -- he's got the talent to truly succeed.

My future with the restaurant? No longer uncertain. I'm on board after the month of May -- with the coolest sign-on in the world: whichever Saturday I feel like working.

An ode to the insolent and surly

God, I love these two: rotten and crabby, mean and quarrelsome, churlish and ill-tempered, oooooh, they are my kings and queens! I love their boldness, their from-the-gut honesty, their bravado, their swagger, their “don’t mess with me” stance.

I love it, love it, love it!

I love reading it, eating it first thing in the morning, I love running into it in the course of the day – sends chills down my spine! You vamp! You monster you! Let me get a little closer so that I can feel a tingle from your impertinent and saucy self!

It’s like a cuddle with the devil: get rid of the pink, the fluff, let’s have a black & red attack, with fierce fires raging, pushing that steamy arrogance forward…mmmmmm, sexy, nice!

Oh, to trample down the timid wretches, the cowering cringing unassuming yielding, always goddam yielding spineless wimps: get out of my way!

Yeah, bring on the disdainful, domineering, self-centered ooooh, there are not enough adjectives out there to describe them: my kind of people! Come out, let’s play, I’m in the mood for YOU!

And now that we had our little play, can we all please settle down and try on kindness for size? **** (fill in your favorite curse word), it can't be that hard.

Blogging mommies, blogging women

Oscar (what, you have never read Oscar? Go read Oscar!!) does a nice tribute to moms who blog.

I, too, am enamored with this group: their stories are poignant and often brilliantly insightful. Their dilemmas are real and heartfelt. Their blogs are among the most captivating to read. And whereas the typical blogger makes a million references to every nuance of her or his latest little worry or disgruntlement (I include myself in this group), blogging moms are living the saintly lives where internal peace of mind always always has to be put aside when a kid calls. And a kid calls very often in the course of a childhood.

Oscar asked me if I minded being “outed” with my parenthood. He was right to ask as, for the most part, I keep my own daughters out of the blog. I traded away the right to comment here on their lives by writing under my own name. True, they live far away (in a small city on the east coast, easily recognizable by the careful reader as I visit there often enough) and they are older (23 and 20) and so stories of toddler antics would have to be replaced with their more adult cleverness and sharp wit. And they are the wittiest of all witty people out there! But I stay silent about their world.

One question that I have for you, the reader: so what has happened to all the women who are done with child-rearing? Are they too exhausted to blog? With one notable exception, every female blogger that I know is either prior to or in the midst of child rearing. And even if she decides not to have children – she is definitely under the age of fifty. Young voices permeate the blogosphere: they set the tone even as they write from a history that is very very short.

Oh point me to the blogging woman who is a decade older than I am! Missing, she is missing from my list of daily blogs. [The one small consolation is that Ocean has linked me with readers who fall into that group. They are among my favorite correspondents. They pick up things in Ocean – small, deliberate things that, with rare exceptions, a younger reader will have missed, being, it seems, forever in a hurry to get to the punch line and move on to the next blog.]

Still, I am mesmerized by the singular and yet familiar stories of the mommy blogs. And I read them with a smile, because I know that eighteen years of mommy-sainthood brings you the reward of an adult friendship that is indescribably wonderful. And strong. And enduring. Like no other.

New York Interlude: and how will I choose to remember my trips to the city?

If you go out on a bright day, you can find what you're looking for: the good stuff.

Isn't it important to leave places with good and kind images? Isn't it entirely within us to think just in this way?

P.S. In the last possible second the purse issue resolved itself: small, sleek, marigold yellow, a pouch crossing over and freeing your hands, from Canada, sold with a smile.

stick with the NYC classic 

small pleasures for small people