Nesting

     It has cooled off in the Mitten and the urge to stock up yummy supplies for the winter has hit me hard. Last weekend we went to the Flint Farmer's Market and I bought some tomatoes which I cooked into spaghetti sauce and froze.  I also bought raspberries and blackberries, some of which somehow disappeared from my kitchen, but others made it into cobbler and others were cleaned and frozen. This weekend I bought pie pumpkins. I roasted them, mashed and pureed them, and put the pumpkin into freezer bags - 2 cups per bag, so that I can make pies this winter. There is also container with roasted pumpkin seeds, but I doubt those will last long. Next up, apples from the local orchard and then a freezer full of apple sauce for the winter.
     Doing all this reminded me that I owe a special someone in Kansas my recipe for Raspberry Razzle:

For those of us who love raspberries, this is the perfect side dish or dessert any time of the year.

1 Package Raspberry Jell-O

1 10 ounce package frozen raspberries or 1 cup fresh
1 cup sour cream
3/4 cups water

Combine all the ingredients in a medium saucepan over medium heat using a wire whisk. Bring to a boil. Pour into a pretty bowl or mold. Chill until set. For dessert, serve with a dollop of whipped cream. Yum.

About Time

     Across the back of my yard there is a row of a dozen blue spruce trees.  Since we moved in to this house, I have marked the passage of the seasons by watching the sun rise behind those trees. This morning I woke up before six “enjoying”, as my sons would say “a personal tropical vacation”. Seeking relief, I made my way down to the deck, stopping off to make a pot of coffee on my way. When my coffee and I stepped out onto the deck, it was cool, dark, still, and silent. Peaceful.
     As I sipped my coffee and watched the sun rise I was amazed, once again, by the world awakening all around me. Oscar bin Laden, terrorist kitty, joined me on his favorite perch atop the covered gas grill. The sky began to lighten directly behind the row of trees and I was reminded that the autumnal equinox is quickly approaching. The breeze picked up, birds began to chirp in the maple tree, and the sun breached the horizon, spilling gently through the center spruce tree. In the distance the rumble of the first school bus approached the neighborhood.
     Then the sadness washed over me. This is the first time in my adult life that I am not involved in the start of a new school year in some way. Weird. My children are grown and the one who is still in school is on the other side of the country. I am not working in academia so there is no significance to the beginning of the year for me. There is no excitement at meeting new teachers, or classmates, or students. There were no trips to buy school supplies or the “cool” clothes. There is no need for the family calendar marking the dates and times of practices, games, and concerts.  Nothing.  Just the sounds of the endless stream of school busses coming and going from the neighborhood.
     This year I will not mark the passage of time by midterms or school breaks, I will not watch the syllabus for the next assignment. I will mark the passage of time as the sunrise moves across the spruce trees to the south and then again to the north.

Fat Tuesday

I woke up feeling very strange this morning. The first thought to pass through my semi-conscious mind was that today marks one year since my Dad passed away, and I felt sad. I remembered my sister in-law calling me on the phone, waking up on the sofa in my parents apartment in Tucson and hearing her grief stricken voice telling me that Dad had passed peacefully. Then I thought about going in to wake my Mom, laying down on the bed beside her cancer stricken body and telling her that her husband of 65 years had passed away. "I guess we should get up" she said to me. Then I thought, I can't let the sadness swallow me whole... I get to go to work today, I have to find a way to find some joy....

And then I remembered it is Fat Tuesday. I thought about the Flint tradition of paczkis. I never even heard of these until I moved to the Flint area where on every Fat Tuesday, thousand of these giant jelly doughnuts are purchased and consumed. I don't really know where this tradition came from, but my guess is that the Polish immigrants who came to work int he automotive industry brought them to Michigan. I wondered, briefly, if they have them in Kansas, but I doubt it.

And then I thought about the most fun I ever had on a Tuesday... it was at the Fasching parade in Cologne, Germany. (Koln for the purists.) The whole area has a huge party, thousands of people in costumes - whole families of cowboys, Indians or clowns - gather along the streets to watch the fun. Each little town has a section of the parade - which lasts for hours and hours. The village participants dress in matching costumes, bring their town band and huge ancient wagons filled with the town's favorites who toss flowers to the ladies lining the street and candy to everyone. Every town has its own candy which is wrapped for the event in papers which tout the town's name. I had been told about this so Larry, Nick and I went prepared to grab as much candy as we could. I was thinking probably little squares or maybe 'fun-size' bars of chocolate... which there were... I had not been expecting them to throw 3 pound boxes of chocolates at us! It was the most amazing parade I had ever seen - and I have seen a lot of parades! After about four hours, we were exhausted and ducked into a nearby cafe to sit and watch the rest of the parade go by while we had soup and something to drink.

Now I realize that this parade was not as spectacular or glitzy as those in New Orleans or Rio, but it was the most fun I had ever had on a Tuesday. I have decided that I am going to focus on the Fasching parade today whenever I feel sad.

Struggling to focus

I hate it when I can't focus. When I suddenly forget what I was going to do and get distracted by something that I can't do anything about. It has been happening a lot lately. And I am pretty sure that it has a lot to do with the grieving process, and moving through it. A year ago last week my Dad was stricken and hospitalized, and I left Michigan to go to Arizona to help. It never occurred to me that the events would transpire as they did. I never thought I would loose my Dad first... and so suddenly.

Grief is a strange thing. I will be doing something totally normal, driving to school, or waiting in line for lunch, or washing the dishes... when suddenly, a simple thought passes through my mind - a flash of something my Dad said or did, or a look he gave me. There is a constriction in my chest, grief washes over me and tears spring, unwanted, to my eyes. My face gets hot and I can't breathe, for just an instant. Then I take a deep breath, and recognize the grief and it passes. This is followed by fear. I am afraid the grief will come, and I wont be able to stop the tears from rolling down my face - when I am in some very public place and people will stop, and stare at me in askance. I am afraid I will pull others into my grief.

It is hard to continually "out-create" these feelings. And I have to. I have to stay busy, and keep myself occupied all the time. And that is hard to do in this little apartment in Kansas. If I were home, there would be plenty of distractions and plenty to keep me busy - except I wouldn't have work that I love. So I dig in to the work with gusto, and that keeps me going during the day. During the week I come home and am tired, so it is easy to keep the grief at bay. But on the weekends... I am still in the transition stage here. I don't have a circle of friends to socialize with on the weekends... yet. I haven't 'created' my life here in the ways that will keep me happy... yet. I am still struggling with keeping myself busy on the weekends - keeping the grief at bay. I know this is all part of the "grieving process", but I hate it. And the worst part is that I know with complete certainty, that it is up to me to create myself out of this. Starting with dinner tonight. I think I'll make Salisbury steak, mashed potatoes and green beans.

Siblings

It has been an auspicious weekend in a small college town in southern Ohio. My older sister threw herself a birthday party. Not your typical birthday party with balloons and cake in her living room, no she rented a hall and hired a band. And apparently ordered 19 dozen cupcakes! She is turning 60 on Wednesday (she is my much older sister...) and I guess she felt that if she didn't do something big, she may never have another chance.

This was the second of her "big parties", the first was in Tucson a month ago. In Tucson she reserved a private room at the Metropolitan Grill, designed a special menu and pre-ordered all her favorite desserts, which we all shared. This party was attended by members of my family; my older brother and his wife along with two of their kids, Larry, me, my sons, Nick and Dan, Dan's fiancee Sarah, and my parents. It was a kind of strange and awkward luncheon, as my Mom has terminal cancer and my Dad teared up when he told a story about a recent trip to the hairdressers. But this weekend was to be a party with her friends and colleagues.

Apparently she invited 160 people to this shindig. She had asked me to mark the date on my calendar while I was still in Istanbul (In March, I think). Unfortunately, I had to work on Saturday, and the meager $40.00 I made for my time and trouble is important these days. And, to be frank, I have been to her place several times and hung out with her friends and colleagues and it is not a lot of fun to hang out with a bunch of people you do not know. However, after much plotting and planning, my brother, Paul and his wife, Carole, flew from Tucson to Detroit on Friday and went to southern Ohio with my younger brother, Bill and his girlfriend. We didn't tell Cathe that they were coming, it was to be our family surprise for her big day. But before they went to Ohio, Larry and I drove to Ann Arbor to have dinner with them on Friday night.

Any time you get my brothers in the same room it is highly entertaining. They have banter and telling stories down to an art. We went to one of Bill's favorite haunts, which was packed since it was the night before a big football game. We all ate way too much food and laughed until our sides hurt. I love my brothers. (And my sister.) What is the point of all this, you may be asking? The point is this... even though we all live far away from each other, and lead very different lives, family is important. It is a 'stable datum' which helps to bring order to the chaos of our lives. I am sorry that I missed the road trip to Cathe's party. I am sorry that I missed her singing with the band she had hired. (Although she told me that if I had been there, she never would have done it - but asked me to sing with them instead.) I missed helping her figure out what to do with the dozens and dozens of cupcakes that were left over. And clean up the mess afterwards. And hanging out - the four of us. Alas, the next time we are all together will probably be connected to my Mom's passing... but even that will be nice in that we have so much shared history.