Where Food Comes From

Where Food Comes From

To Whom It May Concern: 

I would ask that you do not LIE TO ME while I am eating lunch because it makes me cranky.

No, I’m not writing this to the PEOPLE who eat lunch with me.  I am writing this to the INDUSTRIES that make and package my lunch.  I’m tired of the lying.  If I want bologna, I will make that sandwich myself!

Here’s what I’m talking about:

                The designer carton of today’s lunch boasts, among its virtues:  “NO preservatives”

What, pray tell, then is “630 mg of sodium”?!  If I was to drop dead right now it would probably take me a year to start decomposing.  It’s what the Nutritionists and Dietitians (friends I keep at a distance because they make me feel badly - just kidding) call it “Hidden sources of sodium.”  Once I started reading labels JUST looking at sodium, my eyes were wide-open!  There is NOTHING we need to eat that comes in the door with 600, 800, or 900 grams of sodium….. unless you want ankles that look like they belong in a zoo!

So back to this package of delicious lunch –and yes, it really was – which lists 490 Calories.  And you look at it and think, “hmmm… not bad…. Only 490 calories.”  Sure Baby-cakes, read down a few more lines, then reality smacks you on the forehead.   Wrap your brain around: 21 g of Total Fat.  Look it, frankly, I’ve got about 21 lbs. of extra fat that came from somewhere.  I wouldn’t mind it so much if it evenly distributed itself across my terrain, but, no that’s not how that works.  Ever.

I got nervous when it said, “Contains raw fish.”  I wondered if eyeballs were included.  Thankfully, they were not.  When I order pizza I never order anchovies.  Not because I don’t like the taste.  In fact, I might if I tried.  It’s just I can’t get over the idea of food that stares back at me.

Think of the scene in The Christmas Story where the family has to abandon their plan for Christmas Dinner because the Bumpus’ dogs from next door ate the roast.  They end up at the Chinese restaurant eating Peeking Duck.  Not Peking Duck.  Peeking Duck.  It’s got eyes, and it’s mouth has an apple or something jammed into it.  Then the Chef comes to the table and they sing “Deck the holls with bowrs of horry, fa-ra-ra-ra-ra” and the Chef hacks the duck’s head off with one fell swoop.  Now back up and recall when was the last time you were served duck or chicken with its head ON?  Um, never. 

I won’t go on for too long on explaining this or I will talk myself right into being a vegetarian.  Point:  I don’t want the duck, the anchovies, or any kind of fish staring back at me when I eat.  It makes it too real about where food comes from ….

To be completely honest, I IGNORE where food comes from.  I have to.  As I said, my conscience may kick in and I might go vegetarian or go vegan and get a bunch of tattoos and piercings.  (Latent vegan theory:  I won’t wreck an animal’s body, but I am okay with defacing my own body?)  

So you do what you are going to do, and I do what I am going to do.  And that is:  eat veal.  

Omigosh how I LOVE veal.  I have eaten it like five different ways and don’t know which I like best:

                                Veal parmigiana ….. IF it’s breaded thin and crispy and there is a slab of                                               mozzarella on it.

                                Yes, and throw in a side of angel hair – not regular spaghetti – must be angel hair.

                                Veal Francais …. Lightly breaded with lemon and capers.  What the heck is a                                       caper?  It’s a texture thing.  They feel like eyeballs look.  I am not going to eat                                     those.  So skip the capers.

                                Veal Marsala …. Marinated in marsala.   Wine has never in the history of the                                         universe made anything taste badly.  Then there’s the Lovely mushrooms that                                       have been pre-fried and have a crisp, not slimy taste.  Skip the darned onions.                                        Needless.  Plus they make me ill.  No, I’m not allergic.  Just that my stomach                                       hates them.  That’s all.

Inevitably over the years when I have ordered veal when sitting with the Younger Set I get harassed.  “Do you know where veal comes from?”  and “It’s a baby cow!  How can you eat that?”  To which my Number One go-to, all time Response will always be:  “What do you have against chickens?”  My accusers recoil a bit, “What do you mean chickens?”  I drill in further with a note of sarcasm:  “What do you have against chickens?  Where do you think chicken nuggets, tenders, etc. come from?  Chickens have mothers too, you know.”  End of discussion.

The next box of the day contains a slice of frozen pie.  It assures me that the ingredients are “real.”  Define “real.”  If I am eating pie, I have long abandoned the concept of real being associated with “good-for-me.”  If anything, it’s just “less bad.”  

And why give me an expiration date on the boxed pie?  What a thoughtless waste of ink!  Suggestion:  Put an expiration date or a statement on frozen mixed vegetables.  Make it say something like, “if these appear shriveled and are surrounded in more ice shards than Dr. Zhivago’s HOUSE, it may be time to throw these out.”  At that point I remember that I really bought the veggies for my domestic collection of birds.  And they end up not getting to eat them either.  Why would I feed my birds expired junk?  The birds outside on the lawn don’t even get stuck with that! 

The thing that concerns me most on any kind of pre-packaged food is the items listed that I, with two college degrees, cannot pronounce.  Why are there three different kinds of oils listed?  When I cook something, I only use one.  Why is there gum in this product?  Is it an adhesive?  Is there a relationship between Salt, Sodium Caseinate, Sodium Citrate and Disodium phosphate?  I think I might not need a chemistry degree to start asking questions again about “Hidden Sources of Sodium.”

Recently I received an email from a health corporation that said, “I really regret eating healthy today – said no one ever.”  I would like to propose that their sample used for the survey data was way too small. 

At least I think I can play nice in the sandbox and say I will agree with the Portion Control Proponents …. and also with St. Thomas Aquinas who said “all things in moderation.”  It is worth noting that Aquinas was known as the “Dumb Ox” by his college seminary buddies.  And it was only half because they didn’t know what he was thinking.  He went on to write the greatest theological works ever written.   To boot, he had a mystical experience where God swept him up in the air when he was praying…. From looking at the artistic renditions, it was about 300 pounds of “Dumb Ox” floating in the air.  Moderation indeed.

Anyways.  That’s my rant for today.  I would like to dedicate it to my new Heroine:  Emma Morano in Verbania, Italy who in May of 2016 was 116 years old –the oldest living person in the world.  The secret to her longevity?  “The doctor said Morano has never had a very balanced diet, relying mostly on animal protein, the occasional banana and grapes in season.  Her diet now includes two raw eggs and 100 grams of raw steak a day ….”  Emma Morano, you rock the planet!!!

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No Gift Like the Present

There’s No Gift Like the Present

I know the expression goes:  “There’s no time like the present.”  But I think a corollary should be:  “There’s no gift like the present.”  I would like to put on point-toed shoes and kick the Idea of Multi-tasking in the shins.  This ridiculous concept has deteriorated our attention spans in the name of progress while at the same time it has eroded our ability to relate to the person before us.  We’re no longer human beings.  We pride ourselves on being human doings.  Therefore, if we are what we do, the more we do, the more we are, right?  Or that is at least the logical flow of this trend.

You see it in board meetings and seminars:  people are not bringing their A-game to the meeting because they are distracted.  They are not fully engaged in what is happening around the table because they can’t be.  They have a hand-held device on their lap and are managing some other piece of life at the same time.  You can’t give 100 percent twice.  So you are giving either the meeting or the hand-held issue a 50/50 …. But more likely a 40/60 or 30/70.  Don’t argue with me.  It’s a math issue and numbers don’t lie.

You also see this distraction on our highways and at traffic lights.  Really, the worst marriage is when Car A has the Texter in it, and Car B has the Road Rager in it.  Then you’ve got two people who aren’t any closer to being in the reality that the other person is.  This reason alone makes me take my proverbial hat off to Traffic Police:  they have to sort out these selfish people after the wreck happens.  Both the Texter and the Road Rager have a self-centered problem.  They each think that their priority is more important than anyone else’s.  The Texter thinks:  “Hey I just have to check and see who this is.”  They look down for a second and slam!   The Road Rager thinks:  “I have to get where I am going and these idiots around me are in my way.”  People are seen as obstacles to their progress.  They take risks to prove a point.

 

Here’s a perfect (and recent) example:  On one of our main routes, I had a Road Rager in a jeep pressing right up against my rear bumper.  To any way of thinking, this was unjustified.  Point A:  It was dangerous for him to put his frustration forth like this and create an accident-ready environment.  Point B:  Ask my MOTHER – I do not drive slowly!  In no way was I slowing HIM down unless he mistook it for the Indy 500.  This guy – well, at least we could say:  Jerk – was riding up the back side of my car, then he cut out and around and up in front of me.  Then he applied his brakes.  Are you kidding me, buddy?  Had I known that I could call his license plate in, I would have done it right there and then…. using my hand-held device because my issue was more important than, well, the person in the car next to me as I would drift into their lane.  You see my point.

All of these things in our culture – our handheld devices, our self-centered philosophies, our disconnectedness from the community we need to nurture around us – work against civilization.  But I would propose to you that for each of us there are moments, golden opportunities, for break-through.  And I love it when it happens, when I recognize it for what it is, and when I am the more noble person I want to be 100% of the time.

I was standing askance from the counter at the hotel where you make your own waffles.  If there is anything I like more than the smell of malt waffles in a great hotel lobby, I can’t think of what it would be at this moment.

 

There were two waffle irons to work with.  The one on the left was being attended by a fireman (I read his tee-shirt) for his little son.  The one on the right was empty and being stared at by this guy.  Well, I hung back a bit and watched to see what the hold-up was.  The guy on the right walked away.  Then he came back and stared some more.  I figured the machine on the right was broken.  I missed the cue initially.  I stepped to the center batter machine and filled a plastic cup with batter.  The left side machine now free, I poured the batter on the waffle grill, closed the lid and flipped it so the two minute timer would activate.  The man at my right was still staring.  Then I realized it:  he had never seen this before and did not know how to proceed.

I asked if he needed help.  He humbly replied, “Yes.”  And I heard an ever-so-slight French Canadian accent.  Ahhhh…. Now I know.  I talked him through the process in simple English.  He got it, and thanked me very graciously.  I turned to put strawberries and walnut topping and whipped cream on the waffle that waited for my renewed attention.  I could care less that it wasn’t piping hot.  Under other circumstances, I’d be more than happy to put a slab of black raspberry ice cream into a waffle, so temperature was of no consequence to me.  But something in my heart felt warmer.  I made the world a better place with a waffle iron.

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Taking it With Me

Taking it With Me

I am dedicating this post today to my precious friend Denise Bennett-Garrett who passed away last week.  She will always be my favorite person to cook & eat lobster with and I am confident that someday we will sit side-by-side with saints and friends ... and we will show them how to eat a lobster The Right Way.  Denise - all of my best trips to the shore had you at our side..... I may not have been able to teach you how to swim, but you taught us all to be better women.   Love always, Chris.
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Her sun-bronzed hand had gently caressed the faces of her children, placed the winning card on our vacation kitchen table, flowed the length of the flute, and rose up in joyful worship as she sang at church.  But today is different.  Today it is clenched in a firm, almost death-grip.  Her left hand held wrapped tightly around her foe, her right hand simply snapped the thumb off of the orange-red lobster claw. 

This is our annual ritual meal as my friends and I leave the shore to return to our homes.  It has been in the same place for years and yet I can’t quite recall the name of it.  We sit at a dockside restaurant’s picnic table.  Everyone at our table is getting lobster.  One friend chooses “lazyman’s lobster” because she doesn’t want to tackle the work involved in the steamed lobster.  Another friend digs into the fresh green salad as if it is the last salad she will ever get in her life.  Perhaps we are hungrier than we realized.  But I know that this meal is going to linger.  None of us wants to leave the shore today.

I glance across the bay at the mini amusement park.  There is a ride comprised of heavy duty plastic hot air balloons.  They are red and yellow and the ride moves in a circle with squealing children aloft.  I have not been on that ride as a child, but I will miss it when I get back to “civilization” just the same. 

The way the air smells of salt and freshness and deep fried French fries near the pier!  How could anything that smells that inviting possibly bad for you?!  Maybe it was in a moment of nostalgia like this that I coined the phrase I want on my headstone some day:  “If you’ve gotta die of something, it may as well be happiness.”  A speckled seagull careens by the edge of our table.  He, too, is a fan of French fries.  Yet he gets to stay and I have to leave.  It seems so unfair.

A small yacht backs up and prepares to leave the harbor.  I consider what life this man leads that affords him such a moment in time.  Also, a modest working vessel on the other side hangs its nets to dry – it is from the work of men like these that my table will be blessed momentarily.  A “fun” boat with a couple out for a leisurely afternoon passes by the edge of the dock. They wave at me as if we are old friends.  My next door neighbors don’t even do that.  What is the world coming to?  Is there a safer, friendlier mentality when we all go on vacation?

I remember the trip one of our friends lost two hundred dollars.  She thought it might have been stolen by the hotel staff that moved our baggage from one room to the suite upgrade we asked for the next day.  Four of us searched with her for the cash.  The front desk staff was in shock and assured us that the woman in charge of housekeeping in our room had been with them for fifteen years.  I knew what they were saying and perceived the pain in their eyes caused by this accusation – it seemed unthinkable – to them and to me.  Four of us offered to give our friend $50 each so that we could move beyond this dilemma and just forget it.  She would not accept the money; nor would she accept any consolation.  It made me ponder how we sometimes choose to “hold” the pains or insults that life hands us, when we need to just let it go and move forward with a new plan.  Maybe money means too much to us in the long run.  I don’t think the housekeeper took the money and I imagine the accusation was devastating to this woman just trying to make ends meet in a tough economic climate.  Sometimes I hate money.  It divides us into the have’s, have not’s, accused and innocent.

Ah!  The lemonade and diet Pepsi make it to the table and I am still wishing it was diet Coke.  No discussion to be had there.  At least the cafeteria where I work offers both.  Small children seated two tables away spring up and run to the lobster tank to peek inside.  Is this a lobster haven or a memorial for them?  How long do they get to live in the tank before they get yanked out for the table?  When we make lobster at my friend’s house for our mid-winter feast, we steam them in beer.  We joke that it is kinder for the lobsters to send them out with a beer.  Then we shake in some Old Bay seasoning.  And we use “real butter.”  That discussion will be forthcoming when the lobster is brought to the table.

“Is this real butter?”  You can tell it’s not because it is watery-looking but we have to give every cheapo restaurant a hard time about it every year nonetheless.  I think we take turns asking the question among the five of us.  It is unthinkable that you would serve such a great food to people and then cheap-out on the dip.  Kind of like fat-free salad dressing.  I embrace the adage, “If you’re going to hang by one leg, you may as well hang by two.”  But, I digress.

Lobsters are now on the table in red plastic baskets with a token slice of parchment paper under them.  An empty dish is placed in the center of the acrylic-top table.  Two of us go to work like brain surgeons.  We will not let one piece of this gentle meat escape our grasp.  We know every nook and cranny of this shellfish anatomy.  I crack my lobster in half and drain the hot water into the bowl.  Ouch.  Hot, steamy water.  Discussion ensues about the tamale.  A friend from my childhood always insisted to eat it.  I wrinkle half my face up with the memory of it.  Then I am pondering why they call a seafood member’s guts by a Spanish title?  “tamale.”  I once lived in Arizona.  Now THOSE are tamales!  Corn meal with shredded beef with peppers wrapped and steamed in a corn husk.  This is nothing like that! 

Eight “straws” which are really the legs of the lobster are handed from one plate to the next.  The original diner did not want to be bothered with the work of getting a bit of flesh out of them.  There are two hard core ways to eat lobster:  My way, where you start on all the small pieces and finally work up to the two big claws and the tail.  And the other way, where you eat all the big pieces and hope you have room for the smaller clean up details afterwards.  The advantage to my method is only that you will genuinely be starving by the time you poke through the little legs and get to the real meat.

My friends are poking at various other pieces of their lunch and I am moving to the tail.  I slice from sternum to tail and am sure to extract the pieces from the four tail flaps.  Then I take that long chunk of arguably the best part of the lobster and slice it deep down the center to remove the “vein” - which is not so much a vein as it is a drain.  Use your imagination, I’m eating and I don’t want to get into the details.

The baked potato.  A necessary afterthought.  Finally, a restaurant that brings me enough sour cream.  

There is a house near where our hotel was that had a statue of Dianna or Venus or some Greek goddess and giant columns on the front of the house.  The statues were the color of the sour cream – pure white.  Every year we drive by and look for the house, as if someone would have moved it during the previous eleven months and three weeks of the year.  Why do we have our rituals, our obsessive-compulsive habits?  Do they make us feel more secure?  “Good.  The statue is still in front of that house.”  And we ask the same questions:  What do the people do for a living who can afford a house like that?  (Do they own stock in Atlantic City casinos?  Do they work on Wall Street?) 

And then there is the elephant.  I allow myself to be fascinated by things other people assess as tourist traps.  I found it online when I was searching for things to see on vacation.  There were three larger-than-life battleship metal-sided elephants built around the same period of time.  One was at Coney Island and sadly it burned down.  One was down near Cape May and it was disassembled because if fell into bad disrepair.  Then there was Lucy.  A land developer positioned Lucy in the beachside community of  Margate to attract potential homebuyers.  Eventually some wanted to tear her down.  Then they realized she was over a hundred years old and was an historic landmark.  She was moved to a lot the size of a postage stamp and turned to face the ocean.  And there she remains.  We were able to go up inside the spiral staircase within her back leg to the belly of the elephant which was at one time a bar.  It is possible to go up to the chowdah canopy on top of her and look out to the ocean.  You can also walk into her head and look out her eyeball at the ocean as well.  Now that is good fun.  My friends gave me a black and white print of Lucy the Margate Elephant which hangs in my kitchen today.

The waitress brings our check.  We order an extra lobster to-go for my friend’s husband who waits for her at home.  I am mentally gearing myself up for the long drive home. It has been a different sort of week:  on the Tuesday of our vacation I was browsing in a beach shop that was a block away from the water when suddenly the whole shop shook.  I looked at the young man standing behind the register and with my poker face on, asked rhetorically, “does the shop always shake on Tuesdays?”  He looked down at his phone to see the report that there was a mild earthquake with the epicenter in Virginia.  Yet here we were in New Jersey.  Go figure all those miles away and we still felt it.

All those miles away… and I still feel it.  I am not really having lobster today.  I am having this lobster memory.  My beach restaurant in Sea Isle City, New Jersey, might not be there waiting for me this year.  The hurricane Sandy has destroyed the physical realities of many of my memories.  But I have my memories.  And this is something.  I always thought I would be pondering my journeys as an old woman in a nursing home – and the realities of the beach and boardwalk would be just five hours drive away from me in my bed or wheelchair.  But in fact, a natural disaster far more unpredictable than my own aging process has stolen the substance of my ponderings.  I am sorry for the losses.  Sorry for the people who lost their homes and businesses, etc.  I am nervous about going back – is the statue still on the front lawn of that house?  I do not know.  But I do know this:  Lucy still stands in Margate gazing out to the sea  herself,  unharmed.  And somewhere I will find another dockside restaurant and crack open another lobster with my friends and ask one more time, “Is this real butter?”

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Never Walk Alone with Exploding Shoes

Never Walking Alone with Exploding Shoes

I did not move here to New York from Arizona (aka Paradise) because I decided “I love 4 seasons.”  I moved here because what seemed like a good idea at the time was actually a wrong turn.  At least, that’s how it appears most of the time to me – and I ought to know, I am the one living it.  I cannot go into all the details except to say that I moved here to Central NY over 25 years ago because of love and it exploded in my face.  It was an almost instant ignition and left me stunned, but somehow glad.  I don’t know what made me think it would work anyways, but my optimism switch can be stubborn to un-do once I engage it, especially in matters of the heart.  So he is off living his life elsewhere, and I am here living mine.  I am not bitter about that; I wouldn’t bring him back into the scenario for any reason. 

If I explained more about this period of my life, it would appear as one big complaint.  Frankly, I am aware that we each have our own complaints and you don’t want to read mine.  Especially because the pen would be smoking hot and even without naming names, people would feel badly.  So I lay that aside.  What I want to talk about really is how in the middle of apparent adversity there can be a sense of Presence.  Yes.  THAT Presence.  I think it is important to articulate it.

One of the things that become such a paralyzing factor in life is money, or lack thereof.  For some people, money defines their social circle and shapes their personality.  It designates the neighborhood where they will love; the stores in which they will shop; probably the people they will marry.  It dictates their wardrobe and what they have to do to make a living to pay for that wardrobe.  It also places an unfair sense of obligation on them not unlike winning the lottery:  all of a sudden everybody wants to be around you … like barnacles on one of the tall-ships docked in the Boston Harbor.  Just try to scrape them off.  Impossible.  It’s easier just to tolerate them and hose them down with cold water occasionally. 

They say this happens to people who win the lottery:  long-lost relatives appear out of nowhere.  My cousin Marty once said to me that I should never hang my ID badge in my car because people could scam me.  Theoretically, they would read it, walk up to me, address me by my name and then kidnap me because I would think I might know them.  Yeah, whatever.  They’d bring me back after about ten minutes.  I am the only person in the world who causes Jehovah’s Witnesses to sprint away from their doorstep.  I start asking them to answer my questions – and you don’t want to fool with me when I am holding a Bible in MY hand!  LOL.

I keep telling God that I would be generous – even more generous – if I had extra cash.  And in my heart I believe that.  And then it became imperative for me to leave my part time job.  Well, it was either that, or leave my integrity and sanity.  And the latter two tend to matter more to me than anything else.  The intriguing thing is that when you do what appears to be God’s Will or flow with the Divine Plan – however you choose to label it – He starts looking out for your interests too.  The Bible uses the Hebrew word sedeq to describe that.  It’s His righteousness, His faithfulness and it is something you can really itemize.  Just look at the psalm – I forget the number, so there’s your homework – where every verse lists a deed that God did for Israel and the response is “for His mercy endures forever.”  Mercy is sedeq.  It’s Him not leaving you in the fire alone.  For Him, mercy is a driving force for all He does for humans.

Remember that classic movie where the title declares:

“When you walk through a storm, hold your head up high, and don’t be afraid of the night.  At the end of the storm is a golden sky and the sweet silver song of the lark.  Walk on, walk on through your hills and your fields and you’ll never walk alone.  You’ll never walk alone.”

I tear-up every time I hear that song.  I’ve seen those storms firsthand – and I know the song is right about the not walking alone.  I’ve seen sickness, death, tragedy, unemployment and all kinds of “stuff” and I know that I am not walking alone.

Heck, I’m so happy my shoes are exploding.  Let me tell you how:  I prayed for money.  No, seriously, I did.  I just asked God to help me out so that I can meet my obligations.  He gave me a little part time job.  That’s cool.  But it’s the other stuff that actually filled me with laughter just to watch it happen.

      I ordered flea medication for the dogs online.  The company contacted me via email and said they were giving me a $15 gift certificate.  Great.  So I called them up and asked how much cockatiel seed would that buy?  Two and a half three-pound bags.  The girl on the phone said, “Wait a minute.  Let me look at your account.  You actually have a thirteen dollar credit.”  I was able to get three bags, shipping covered, and only owed 42 cents.  Rock the planet, baby!

      I emailed the guy I buy dog food from online and asked if there was a food that would help my dog that has Cushing’s disease (think:  always thirsty, always drinking, always peeing; and me letting dogs out twice nightly after I’ve been asleep).  He said, “Hey we’ve got this new Elite dogfood out there and we’d like you to try it if you want.  Can I send you two bags?”  Sure.  I expected bags the size of potato chip bags. He sent me two FORTY POUND BAGS of dog food for free!  Insert icon of me dancing here.

      My vehicle has 187K miles on it.  For those of you who are mathematically challenged, the K stands for “add a comma and three zeroes.”  I was kind of dreading putting extra summer miles on it.  Then the airbag recall got enforced.  I was asked to park my vehicle in my own garage until they could secure the part – the new airbag – for installation.  I’ve been driving a 2016 rental for over a month.  Yep, for free.  Well, granted, it’s a tiny sedan and I feel like I’m sitting in a bleeping pea-pod and when I stand up to get out I have to contort my body to extract myself.  But it’s free and it’s all good.

      Then I was looking at my shoes and thinking how I’d like a nice pair of Clark’s.  I think I pushed my luck.  My good friend gave me a huge bag full of shoes.  I sorted through and I found …. The Clark’s.  I was happier than …. Well insert just about any metaphor here.  Day one, I wore them into work.  Ah, luscious.  They conform to your foot, give you excellent support and make you just feel happy.  I went into the side room, you know the one with the bowl in it, and sat down.  For no particular reason, I pointed my toe.  The shoe exploded.  Yeah, no kidding.  The seams and their threads had seen better days.  I find that very funny.  There were other pairs of shoes that fit just fine.  I will have to get my own Clark’s someday, but for now, I’m in good shape.

All of these blessings happened in the time frame of about four months.  Apparently the Almighty is not so busy running the rest of the universe that He can’t pay attention to me.  It just makes me love Him more.  And maybe that’s what it’s all about.  And for now, well, I’m just not walking alone – no matter what shoes I am wearing – and I’m good with that.

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Of Tigers & Rollercoasters

Of Tigers & Rollercoasters

They arrested a man locally for keeping a tiger in his basement.  Yes.  Seriously, in a major city in Central New York, someone thought that it was somehow do-able to keep a big cat in his basement.  And apparently there were other sizes of big game down there too that he got in trouble for – a bobcat or lynx, etc.  Aside from animal welfare concerns, sanitary concerns, human safety concerns and the thought of the extra-pungent smell of tiger pee … I am most concerned with the idea of a tiger in the basement.

Do you have a tiger in your basement?  I have one that visits.  Sometimes I feed him, sometimes I don’t.  When I feed him he stays and causes trouble upstairs.  He grows.  He affects my other relationships.  He makes a mess.  He is too much for me to handle and I worry about how to safely manage him.  When I neglect to feed him, he may be cranky at first, but he eventually shrinks to a smaller and smaller cat… and then he goes away.  Until he’s back again. 

I can’t kill him, because he has a role to play.  When he is little, he is a signal that something is wrong.  He points out injustice.  He can make me a better person and teach me to avoid things that make him roar.  If I train and harness him, he can serve me well to address wrong-doing and evil.  My tiger’s name is ANGER. 

I think we have a culture full of people that have tigers in their basements.  We have young men in our inner cities that have very unmanageable tigers – and they acquired them sometimes because they themselves have been deprived of love and fathers who teach the taming process.  We have people who absorb values from tv, the movies, the radio that alienate them from their families and they turn the tiger loose inside the house.  The media can be a terrible role model on how to tame tigers:  sex, lust, greed, violence, selfishness.  Those are all things that are gourmet tiger food.  Now that I said it, you are probably calling me “Captain Obvious.”  But let’s ask:  Once you stop feeding the tiger, do you know how to let him out? 

Other than childbirth, I can think of only one socially acceptable place in our society where we can scream at the top of our lungs:  the rollercoaster.  Even for people who are “afraid” of rollercoasters – and there are plenty of good reasons to be – I think it is therapeutic and I recommend it.  Overcome the fear, and let it out!  I looked at a website a few years ago called “ride accidents” and was amazed that there are fewer reported injuries on the rollercoaster than there are on the other more popular ride:  the ferris wheel.  Yeah, that baby goes at warp speed – NOT!  But due to mechanical failure, rider failure, or operator failure, the ferris wheel has a bad rap.  I think the rollercoaster has less reported injuries because people may pay more attention to the warning sign.  If you are a cardiac patient or are pregnant, you may have some vestige of common sense that says to you:  “this might not be the risk I want to take.”

One of the major New England amusement parks is set along the shores of the lovely Connecticut River.  Frankly, I’d rather be boating on that river than looking at it from afar, but that’s just my preference.  I stood in line with my dearest friend from childhood and my brother waiting for about 30 minutes to go on this new rollercoaster.  

We were adults beyond our 30’s at the time.  I know that standing in the line I read the warning sign about 20 times.  For some reason, I wasn’t grasping English.  It told me how fast the rollercoaster went and the depth of the first plunge.  I am not sure what did not “click” in – perhaps I had low blood sugar at the time?  But we got on that rollercoaster and as we were going up this humongous incline, Pam, with all the serenity of Mother Teresa, said to me :  “Look, how beautiful, the Connecticut River.”  All of a sudden I was asking myself why I was on this incline. I quipped back to her, “Shush. I’m getting my affairs straight with God.”  Luckily, to my awareness, it was a short list because the crest and plunge were horrific. 

As we went down, in slow-mo I heard her say, “…. my cell phone slipped out of my pocket ….”  My brother, sitting in front of us, reached up into the air and the cell phone brushed his fingertips … and we plummeted downward.  (no cell phone.)  We whipped into the curve, felt a spray of mist on our face from some machine, (who thought that was a good idea?!)  and then finished the ride.  The whole thing was less than three MINUTES.  And my brother asked me:  “So did you like it?”  My response, “It was great, IF YOU LIKE CAR ACCIDENTS.” 

But somewhere in there, I screamed out – ever so briefly – all the aggravation of the past year.  The basement was empty.  I had tranquilized the tiger with the therapeutic stun-gun of an amusement park.  Now I’m making it my business to not feed him anymore ever again.  So just don’t irritate me.  ;o)

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Responsibility - Not as Previously Advertised Everywhere

Responsibility – Not as Previously Advertised Everywhere

Some days I feel that my dream to grow up to be a “responsible” adult was too big for me.  The details of responsibility are not the same from where I sit now, 40 years away from teenage reverie. 

I had it in mind that I would have a car, and drive it as I wish.  I did NOT have it in mind that I would be concerned with things like making appointments for oil changes when I could be “sleeping in” on Saturday mornings; looking at the recall list for airbags on line; having to garage my vehicle for months on end and start it up weekly to keep the proverbial juices flowing until the airbag can be replaced; or actually washing the car more than twice a year.  Yes, even when it snows.

I had it mind that I would have a house in the country.  I would “work the land” and plant flowers and vegetables and it would be a neat place to be.  I learned the hard way that things go wrong that no one warns you about:  the 4 inch drain outside the basement walkway got plugged one spring.  Result:  flooding.  Figuring out how it was happening required consulting a handful of people who gave reasons that were not tied to the problem.  Their speculations cost me about $2,000 in unnecessary pseudo-remedy.  But I had my own bad guesses too.  The very first person who weighed in told me, “it couldn’t be that.”  And he was the first one who was wrong.  That fix would have cost me only $300.

I have a spectacular backyard, just like in my dream.  And in July – just when I want to sit out there – two things happen.  #1) the winds across the pastures blow over – as in “capsize” - my super, duper screened in gazebo.  I re-set it about four times that first summer.  I then gave up.  #2) The mysterious fly-hatch that occurs on the days when I can actually take the time to sit out there.  These little baby barn flies swarm like a Biblical plague on my backyard for a couple of weeks and render that whole area useless and off-limits.  Damn them.

I dreamed of having a meaningful job.  Over the many years and many occupations, I have wondered if that particular day’s job was or not, and to whom.  I presumed upon financial stability.  Like it would just happen if I worked my butt off and did my part… I was wrong.  I also passed-up two proposals that did not involve marrying into stable incomes.  I still joke about “marrying into money.”  And for someone who marries ME that, too, would be a joke for him!  Not a very funny one.

My passion for theology has never waned.  I dreamed of a Church that would love me and my zeal and humor, and want me to teach at University.  Then I found out that you actually had to get a doctorate (ka-ching, ka-ching) to pull that off.  Not to mention, in my field, I would have to learn about five more languages – including, but not limited to: French, German, Aramaic, Hebrew and one other.  I took two semesters of Biblical Greek which was great fun.  I can read it out loud to you, even if it is written in the Greek alphabet’s letters.  I even know some of what I read.  But, Hebrew.  Yikes.  I didn’t know a pencil could make that many variations on one letter!  And if you throw the wrong little mark above something, it probably ends up being a swear word.  I think I will stick to occasionally utilizing my Spanish, and perhaps learning some online Polish.  At least I know Polish swear words.  How handy.

My midlife dream-modification-therapy has not been much more successful than my teenage musings.  But at least I am not so crest-fallen when the air zips out of the balloons of my hopes.  I just get mad instead. 

Last Spring, I had actually reached out to the Foster Care system to go through classes.  I thought that would be great for me and for some child in crisis.  After all, I am unbelievably fun and still enjoy the tilt-o-whirl.  I brought my A-game to my first four classes…. Even though Eeyore was teaching them.  Even though we were told ad nauseaum that this was a “Mutual selection process” and that we could be “de-selected” – even then it sounded so Nazi-like.  At that final class that I attended we were shown an anti-Christian piece of bigoted propaganda that was created to assault certain moral belief systems.  The commercial was for an amoral State of acceptance – even under your own roof, where I propose you should be able to think as you wish.  It was a short but very clear montage of unfair, hateful caricatures.  I cannot repeat to you my exact thoughts about The System at that point.  Oh, it’s not that I don’t remember; it’s that it wouldn’t be proper.  But it had something to do with offspring of female dogs.  And as a dog breeder, I use those kinds of words sparingly, even in my head. 

I guess all along, I wanted to be a responsible, contributing member of society… and found out over the 40 year lab of that theory…. It aint easy.   Oh, William Shakespeare, I thank you for telling us, “To thine ownself be true”!  - This, a Glorious Truth in the midst of rejection and struggle.  I know my Center and I know Whose I am – and that makes all the difference!

To my fellow pilgrims – you do not walk alone.

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