The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper. ~ Eden Philpotts

Before being hired for the position I've had the past six months, I spent two and a half years working as a cook. Although I love to cook and bake, the job was not my dream job, and although I knew I was still working toward my goals and doing the best I could, there were days it was all just maddeningly frustrating. Since it takes awhile to realize a pattern is, in fact, a pattern, I don't remember when I first started noticing this, but at some point, I began seeing hearts at work: Heart-shaped soap splashes by the kitchen sink's, one heart-shaped potato chip on the edge of the deep fryer while the rest of the chips had made it into the fry-baskets, a heart-shaped spill of maraschino cherry juice. My supervisor would call out from the walk-in freezer that a container of gravy had been knocked off of the shelf and would I please clean it up, and I would be greeted by a heart-shaped gravy spill before me. I would bend down to pull a red onion from their box and find instead a heart-shaped piece of Romaine lettuce on the floor in front of me. The other cook would bump his hand into my cup and my iced tea would slosh onto the table in a heart-shaped puddle. The daily sweeping and mopping of the restaurant would almost always find me reaching for my cell phone to take a quick picture of the heart-crumb or stain that was suddenly stubbornly stuck to the floor. If one of the hundreds of red potatoes was heart-shaped, it would be I and not the other cook on my shift who would blindly grab it from the bin. 

These moments sound like stretches of the imagination, but they happened so frequently, and only at work, and even then, only when I wasn't expecting them. If I looked down at the counter in deliberate search for anything heart-shaped before beginning to make a waffle for someone, I wouldn't see a thing, but two minutes later when the waffle iron would beep, I'd start to scrape the baked-on batter from around the iron's edges only to find that some had already baked into a perfect heart. I'm sure I was Cliff Claven-ish enough to show my coworkers the heart-shaped potato and chip, but I didn't tell anyone at work just how often this happened to me.



 
I began to believe at some point that all these hearts were not "just" hearts. Granted, they were not visions of saints in toast, but as crazy as it may sound to others--and as it did to Mike when I'd mention over supper that day's latest heart-discoveries--the hearts began to feel like signs to me. All those days working in a restaurant kitchen when I ached to be somewhere else doing something else, just when I thought I'd flip out and scream, I'd be "tagged" again and a heart-shaped bacon-piece would be left over on a guest's plate like a calling card from the universe and bring me some small comfort. It is silly and a bit sad, really, the things that help get us through the hard times, but whatever works, I say. Maybe the hearts were signs and maybe they weren't, but eventually I decided that every time I found one from then on, I'd take a deep breath, thank God that I had a job at all, and recommit to the goals of hanging in there and being patient while working toward something else.
 
What ended up being two and a half years passed, as time always does, and last May, the phone call requesting an interview for my current position finally came. Call me crazy, and point out that I reaaaaaaaally could have used some time off, but I take my magic where I can find it and am grateful for it when I do. I haven't noticed any hearts--edible, spilled, or otherwise--in ages. I found them when I needed them, and I am thankful.

The Blue Santa-Mouse

I decided while at my parents' house this Christmas to take pictures of their Christmas decorations that mean the most to me. This blue Santa-mouse ornament was in the "Santa's Secret Shop" at my elementary school when I was a kid. Do schools still have this? It was so much fun. The PTA helped sponsor it, I'm sure. Each December, our school library was transformed into a "shopping mall" with the tables filled with really low-priced gifts like this. (My dad got a Mallard duck letter-opener from it.) Letters were sent home to parents beforehand explaining that gifts would be available at such-and-such low prices. Each class would get some time to go down to the library and shop. It was a blast. I don't think I even spent $2 total there each year but always managed to find something for my parents and two brothers.

One year, I hadn't budgeted my "Santa's Secret Shop" funds well, so I had almost no money left when it was time to go back to class--and I still needed to find something for my mom. I saw this mouse and knew she'd love it--she has so many blue Christmas things--but I only had a nickel left. I put my little-kid-shyness aside and told one of the PTA mom "salesclerks," "I only have a nickel left. How much does this cost?" and she smiled and said "It's only a nickel!" I was overjoyed. I didn't realize until years later that it surely hadn't really cost just a nickel. :) What a sweet lady. Thank you again, Whoever-and-Wherever-You-Are. ♥  This silly little mouse has been on my mom's blue Christmas tree probably at least 25 years now. 

Sniff the air for cozy smells: smell of flowers, fire, and food.... ~ Mary Ann Hoberman

Especially in the fall and winter, I tend to keep a soup pot filled with water and spices simmering on the stove. In our tiny studio apartment, even the space heater can quickly make the room too warm, and the old radiator is almost out of the question, as it makes the apartment unbearably hot so quickly. The "cinnamon water," though, is just right, and it makes our little home smell so good. Having had colds the past couple of weeks has meant that we've treated ourselves to oranges more often than usual, so all the peels have made it into our water, as well.  So cozy. 

Happy Birthday, Mom

Happy birthday to my mom, The Most Thoughtful and Beautiful. When we would complain as kids about having to return to school after Christmas vacation, she would remind us that she had always had to return to school on her birthday, thus trumping all our arguments. 

Mom loves the color blue, Grover from "Sesame Street," Viggo Mortensen's Aragorn from the Lord of the Rings movies, Doctor Zhivago, and Sam Elliot. She never fails to say "Ooh, Baby!" when Clark Gable first appears on-screen during Gone with the Wind, and she is still sad that "Captain Kangaroo" is no longer on the air, as she thought it was by far the dearest "kids'" show. She used to do a lot of oil painting but later worked more with acrylics and has sold her artwork in shops in Pennsylvania and Connecticut. Her great-grandparents were from France and Norway.  She adored her grandparents. She is known for singing out "Cup of tea!" when stressed, and she thought to bring my grandmother bouquets of garden flowers to the hospital to give Grandma life and color and beauty and a taste of home during her final days. ("Why do people always wait to give flowers to people after they've died?" she wonders.) 

Mom is better with children than anyone else I've ever met, and they gravitate toward her. She loves antiques and the ocean, Sophia Loren and red gingham, sugar cookies without frosting, and houses that are what she calls "small and chubby." She is creative in all things and talked my dad into tearing down our garage in the 1980s so we could use the space as a patio. She hates to sew but is always making pillows and curtains, and when a stuffed cat I fell in love with in 2007 cost so much as to be absurd, she made a replica of it for me as a Christmas present. 

She has three brothers and three sisters and helped raise the younger ones. She is still in touch with her best friend from high school, sweet Vickie. She is sarcastic and self-deprecating, and our sense of humor is quite similar. We can get each other laughing hysterically, although, as with most mothers and daughters, we went through our stages of not laughing together much at all. After my best friend, Sommer, died in 1995, she had dreams of her that were so detailed and lovely as to make me jealous. Without Mom, I would not have gotten through the rest of that year. My friends have always loved her, and she is still impressed that even now, when she runs into my former kindergarten teacher, Mrs. R remembers her and asks about us. She is short. She would live in her garden if she could, envies the "Hobbits" their little round homes, loves rabbits and miniatures, and she thought my dad was pulling her leg the first time they went to a baseball game and my dad told her there would be a seventh-inning stretch. ("But then everybody stood up! I just could not believe it!") 

Mom's favorite person in the whole wide world, although she would never admit to choosing just one, is probably her sister Laurie, pictured with us above. Mom doesn't like rudeness or vulgarity, and I've only heard her swear maybe three times. ("Yourmotherdoesn'tsaythat!" she races to apologize afterward.) She watched the "Guiding Light" soap faithfully, loved Robert Newman's "Joshua Lewis" character on it, and remembers watching the show with her own grandmother as a child. Daisies are her favorite flower, she thinks the world of Eloise Wilkins' illustrations, and she never forgets a birthday or anniversary. 

Somehow, in the haze of the past week and a half's cold, I still found myself in line at the post office December 30th to get her card and package mailed out on time, and since I'm determined to visit my family more often this year, I will actually get to see her again in just ten days. Happy birthday, Mom. ♥

The Christmas Cold

While my younger brother was at our parents' house on Christmas Eve, he croaked out something to me along the lines of "What?! You're not sick at Christmas?!" It really has been tradition for my younger brother and I to catch what we call The Christmas Cold. (And that tradition seems to have caught on with Mike, as well. He's been under the weather for a few weeks now, as he has been every Christmas and/or New Year's Day the past few years.) My younger brother was sick over Christmas last week, my dad was horribly ill, my niece had spent Christmas Eve morning at the doctor's office being diagnosed with an ear infection, and everyone else but me and my mom was either sick or recovering from having been sick. I left my parents' house Sunday morning amazed at my new!-and!-improved! immune system, took a nap back here at the apartment late that afternoon, and woke up that evening with a sore throat and a stuffed-up head. By the time I got home from work Tuesday morning, I had almost no voice with which to wish Mike a good day as he left for work. The tradition lives!

Intentionally napping, unintentionally falling asleep while watching Christmas movies, discussing which cold or flu medicines are working or not working for ourselves and for each other, stocking up on oranges and boxes of Kleenex, making tea, calling and emailing one another to check in and ask "Still sick?": These things, I've realized this week, have all become just as much a part of Christmas to me as the cookie-baking or gift-wrapping. And I'm not complaining when I say that. Although I'd rather be feeling better, there is something oddly comforting in knowing we are all in this together at the end of every year.

Some of my favorite memories from this Christmas are of we Christmas Cold-ers celebrating in our own low-key ways. While I ate a bowl of chicken Ramen noodle soup Saturday night, Dad and I played cards. He'd looked wiped-out all day, and as soon as he played his last card to win the game, he said he was going to bed.  Mike and I shared a belated Christmas together here Tuesday evening, and since neither of us felt up to eating at the table "like adults," we ended up eating our lasagna dinner on wooden trays in bed, with the box of Kleenex nearby and the "nighttime medicine" as dessert.  Supper was eaten side-by-side in bed again tonight, as I am feeling worse today and not better. But cherry pie and vanilla ice cream tasted good for dessert, and I beat Mike at Scrabble, so things really aren't so bad.  Tomorrow will likely be much of the same. And--let's just say it now, Younger Brother!--next Christmas will be, as well.

My idea of Christmas. . .is very simple: loving others. Come to think of it, why wait for Christmas to do that? ~ Bob Hope

Whatever it is that lives. . .should be touched gently. . . . ~ Elizabeth Goudge

"Nothing living should ever be treated with contempt.  Whatever it is that lives, a man, a tree, or a bird, should be treated gently. . .Civilization is another word for respect for life."  ~  E. Goudge

A Ceramic Stuffed

I found a blue and white cat-shaped salt shaker at the thrift shop last month and decided to paint it to resemble Stuffed.  For fifty cents and about five minutes' worth of painting, 

it has become one of my favorite things in our tiny home. 

♥

The December 3rd Story :)

A few years ago, pre-"dating days" with Mike, he and I emailed back and forth for a couple days on the subject of the worst things we'd done as kids. This is an excerpt from that email exchange. For me and my mom, it is just "The December 3rd Story." 

. . .Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, here's the best one--and I almost forgot. My mom still gets so upset about this, I can't even joke with her about it. I was a New Kids on the Block fan when I was 12, and they were coming to the city for concerts December 3rd and 4th, 1989. This friend I had at the time said we had tickets for the December 3rd show, then said she had seats held but needed them paid that night, and my dad--who is truly too trusting and good--paid for the tickets with his credit card. The girl then said we had somehow not gotten the tickets after all. (And of course, stupid 12-year-old Val was sobbing into her pillow throughout the whole saga. "Jordan!!!!!! I love you!!!!!!!" I was so upset at one point, I was just sitting in my bedroom all forlorn, and Dad came in and said, "Better days will come." So dear. But it didn't make me feel any better. "What does Dad know about anything?!" I was 12, you know.)

Anyway, this girl called me before I left for school the morning of December 4th and told me to fake being sick during 3rd period and to go home "sick"--because she'd gotten the tickets and her parents were driving us to that night's concert. I knew my mom wouldn't go along with any of this if I just told her about it, so I went along with this girl's plan. And when the school nurse put me on the phone with my mom, my mom said, "Valley, you know I hate driving when the roads are this bad, and they are REALLY bad out today, so if you're just upset about missing the concert today, I don't want to come get you just for that. Are you really sick?" And I lied--!!!--and said yes, and she came to get me, and while we were still sitting in the (ice-covered!) school parking lot, I told her the truth. It was baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad. I've never disappointed her as much, I'm sure. It was just a horrible moment.

And for whatever reason, she actually let me go to the concert when this girl's parents arrived to drive us to the city for it. (Gahhhh, my parents! They're so dear.) So, I went to the concert, and to 12-year-old Val, it was totally worth it and awesome, and I got to scream "I love you!" to Jordan during the show--and I was so loud when I screamed it, he actually said into the microphone, "I love you too!" ('One of the best moments of my adolescence, I tell you!) My friend and I could have fainted, we were in hysterics over that. ♥

But my mom still can't speak about this, she's still upset that I lied to her like that. I try to joke every now and then--"Hey, Mom, it's December 3rd again! Do you remember..."--and she gets upset all over again. But I was never punished. (And the next morning while I was eating breakfast before school, Dad, although I'm sure he'd heard about nothing else from my infuriated mom the night before, simply said, "Well, how was it?") That was the worst thing I ever did, though. If that makes it better.  

 

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