Cats are connoisseurs of comfort. ~ James Herriot

♥

Soup Days

Soup is the simple winter meal from days at Papa and Grandma's house. It is the sign of a quiet and thoughtful day. Soup means no racing to the store and back for ingredients. Soup means time at home. Mom's potato soup on Fridays as a child meant it was Dad's night to work late. (Soup can "keep.") Maurice Sendak's Chicken Soup with Rice means a school musical in the first grade. Stone Soup is later in elementary school and laughing with my friends on the library carpet. Campbell's chicken and stars soup means pneumonia in the fifth grade and blearily seeing Mom hovering over my sick-bed on the couch. Bubbling red/purple cabbage soup is the eighth grade and we are all gagging around the table as we tease Dad about his newest recipe. Mom forced me to eat vegetable soup in the days following my friend Sommer's death my senior year of high school. "You haven't eaten in days, Vally. You need something. At least drink some of the broth." Ramen-style chicken-mushroom soup is the taste of loneliness: It is my freshman year of college and not yet having friends to eat with in the cafeteria. After we begged her to eat something--"anything"--the day Papa died, Grandma requested plain chicken broth with crackers. "I bet you never thought," she dryly murmured to my younger brother as we sat beside her at her lunch table in the rest home that day, "that you would be invited over to Grandma's and not be offered anything to eat." When I restarted grad school in 2002, friends from my program gave me belly laughs and tough love and a recipe for tomato soup made from ketchup packets. Tomato soup today means I'm trying once more to learn to love it. Maybe if I add more basil, maybe if I add mozzarella.... To have a bowl of vegetable soup before me makes me happy. To have a pot of vegetable soup simmering on my stove makes me content. Homemade chicken noodle soup means I am 25 and sitting with my newly-ex-boyfriend in my first apartment, hoping that this bowl of broth and carrots and mushrooms will make him love me as-more-than-just-friends once again. Asian chicken soup with greens means I am in the city working as a cook and had time between orders today to jot down a recipe to try at home. Tortilla soup and egg drop soup mean I am in my 30s and dating Mike now. Lasagna soup was one of the bright spots in 2011. Dill pickle soup is my friend Tom and his goodness and kindness. Seinfeld's "No soup for you!" gets shouted in my home whenever we face a disappointment. Tonight's vegetable soup means that I have today off from work and thus will get to enjoy a simple supper of soup and grilled cheese sandwiches with now-husband Mike. It means that life is good. It means that despite all the craziness and coldness out there in the world, there is still and always warmth in my home and love in my heart and everything is okay. 
 

Pink Rocking Chair

Stuffed is quickly claiming this chair, but it is supposed to be mine. Mike and I decided just to enjoy the new-to-us spaciousness in this apartment and thus to hold off on getting a couch until we have a house someday. (Remember our sweet red gingham couch? It broke too many times, so we have been without one for awhile now. At least I learned how to faux-reupholster one if I want to in the future.) In the meantime, we have "his and hers" arm chairs, a wing chair for Mike and the pink upholstered rocker for me--except that it's more like "his and his," since Stuffed is always curled up on one of them. His latest favorite spot is the pink rocker. When he's not asleep on it, he's asleep behind it. 

Summer 2011

After watching her health seriously deteriorate in two months' time, my mom was diagnosed yesterday with Lyme Disease. I was shocked when I saw how thin and frail she looked when I traveled home for a family wedding last month.  "Your mom weighed 100 pounds last week," my dad had warned me upon my arrival at the bus station, but when I saw Mom back at home, I knew she now weighed even less than that.  And it has been stressful for us all to wonder what was going on with her. 

After a winter and spring of other stressors, this summer has been one of stories of her ER visits and dizzy spells and reports on blood work and mentions of hands-going-numb-while-driving and of weakness-too-great-to-be-able-to-get-out-of-the-car. While the stress and other health concerns continue, at least now we know that Lyme Disease is a big part of what's happening.

This year, while not as laughter-filled as others, has been one of extra care packages, phone calls, and cards for my mom, and I am grateful for all the love and prayers sent her way. Mom is now on meds to help battle the Lyme, she is at the hospital again today for more tests, and my dad and brothers and their families are right there to help out. I can make another visit home to Mom soon, bring her Daisies wrapped in gingham tissue paper, bake her some chocolate chip cookies, and settle her into a nest of blankets on the couch for a movie marathon. Hopefully, too, we can share another good long laugh. It's been too long.

♥

Windows

One of our--I speak for Mike and Stuffed here, as well--favorite things about our new home is the windows. Windows!  ♥  Two in the dining/living room, one in the kitchen, two in the bedroom, one in the bathroom: Windows! Our last apartment was one room in an old Victorian-style house, and only two of its five windows even opened, and since the tops of the window frames were about twelve feet above the floor, we could never hang curtains either. Yesterday was Curtain-Hanging Day in the dining/living room, and ahhhhhhhh! It's starting to feel like home in here. Stuffed's been stretched out face-down on this windowsill most of the morning like a lemur on a tree branch, so it's safe to assume he agrees.

She Moves in Mysterious Ways

This photo is from last week's U2 concert, a welcome break from all the stress of getting ready to move.   Noooo
photos were taken during Moving Day yesterday of a
sweetly-smiling-at-each-other Mike and Val.  :)

Mike and I finished moving things from our old apartment into our new one at exactly 11:00 last night. Mike's final words on the matter as we collapsed onto our mattress after midnight: "I hope we like it here. Because we're never moving again." This move's highlights included:

• my giving myself a bruised and bloody lip by missing a step and falling while carrying a wing chair down our concrete front porch stairs and out to the rental truck by myself ("Little Miss In-Dee-PEN-Dent!" my dad would roll his eyes and mutter upon hearing this)--And this was how Moving Day began.

• Mike's locking the rental truck's keys inside the truck around 9 p.m., resulting in my having to peel off socks and shoes and climb up into the already-loaded-to-overflowing bed of the truck out on the street in front of our old apartment and repeatedly hook a taped-up broom handle through the truck's back window to try to unlock the back passenger door with the sticky-from-electrical-tape end. After a bunch of attempts over the next hour or so, made while Mike swore and berated himself and called up increasingly desperate (and "helpful") queries like "Could you just TRY?" and "You really don't think you can DO it??" I did, indeed, "DO it," but I was then hit with an unexpected fear of heights, and it took me awhile to be convinced that the truck bed's back door would support me as I swung my legs over it to jump back down onto the ground.

• And then, truly worst of all, were the final moments of the move as I sat in the backseat trying to calm a caged-in-his-pet-carrier Stuffed. He had clearly not enjoyed the first few minutes of the drive to the new apartment, batting at the metal cage with his floofy paws from time to time and meowing more than usual, but he had been fine overall, but the last minute or so of the trip, just as we pulled up in front of the new apartment, he started freaking out, biting at the metal bars, and he got his front paw stuck in the cage. He began crying--my Stuffed, crying--and the sound of it coupled with the belief that he'd just broken his paw right in front of me made me start crying, and meanwhile, Mike was trying to parallel-park along a still-busy-even-at-11-p.m. city street and shouting into the backseat for both of us to calm down. After he'd parked the beast of a truck close enough to the curb, Mike hopped out and told me to get out and step aside, and just as I slid down from the backseat, Stuffed started bashing his head against the cage, still making that horrific crying sound and with his little paw still stuck in the cage, and I really thought he was about to break loose from it and get past Mike out onto the street, where he'd surely be hit by traffic. Those were some of the most horrible moments I've ever had. Mike somehow got Stuffed's paw loose, and he told me to stay with the truck while he hurried to cross the street and carry him up to the new apartment. I was almost swaying, I was so nauseous and stressed by that point--Stuffed was scared, Stuffed didn't understand, Stuffed was hurt, Stuffed was crying, Stuffed could have died--and the entire time I stood beside the truck in the streetlight waiting for Mike to come back out so we could carry the last few things up together, I cried and shook. A few people walked past on the sidewalk as I stood there trying to take deep breaths and stop crying, but it had just been too long of a day after too stressful of a month, and I couldn't settle down. "Is he okay?" I kept calling out to Mike through my tears when he finally reappeared across the street from me outside our new apartment. "He's okay?" And even thirty minutes later, when Stuffed was prowling around the apartment sniffing at our new surroundings, perfectly safe and injury-free, and Mike and I were momentarily camped out on the living room floor with bottles of Gatorade and iced tea, I was still choking back little sobs. What a horrible way to end the day.

On the bright side, and oh my yes, there is one: We love ♥♥♥ the new apartment and are already so much happier here than in our old one.  Today was our first full day here, and although life is never all rainbows and smiling unicorns anywhere, this place already feels like home and has such a good vibe. We have more than one room now, cried out the former Studio Apartment Dwellers! That alone is just such a thrill. A bedroom! A freezer that actually freezes things! (We can buy ice cream again!) More than two windows that open! A shower curtain rod that's built right into the wall and thus doesn't crash down onto our shoulders every time we pull the curtain back! A shower with good water pressure! A bathtub that fills quickly! A lot more floor-space--and more windowsills--for Stuffed! Enough room for a big Christmas tree! Storage space in the basement! An oven door I can open without having to ask Mike to help me move a shelf out of the way first! An oven with a light, Ladies and Gentlemen! :) There are all kinds of little things about this apartment that are not little at all to the three of us. We have survived Moving Day (marriage intact!) and are so grateful to be here. 

In the Summertime When the Weather Is High

 About every six-eight years I get the urge to cut my hair short, and today was the day again.

As I happily walked past him after leaving the salon, a homeless man on the sidewalk turned to one of his cronies and said, "Isn't she beautiful?" but this is also the same man who mutters "Well, okay, Sir!" when I don't give him money, so I don't know if the day's first compliment really counts. :)

An endearing little "Mr. Mike thing" is his love of singing Mungo Jerry's "In the Summertime" to me to make me laugh, :) and today is the first day this summer--the first day in awhile, for that matter--where life feels carefree (even though it's not). Mike's song comes to mind today, and I will be requesting his spirited rendition of it when he gets home from work tonight. ♫ "Sing along with us, dee dee dee dee dee. Da da da da da, yeah, we're hap-pap-py...." ♫ :)

Dad

My dad has never received a store-bought Father's Day or birthday card from me. He prefers the cards I draw for him, each occasion's illustration depicting our current in-joke. (This year's showed him cheering on his beloved Pittsburgh Pirates, a word balloon over his cap-covered head stating "Look! They're making a COMEBACK!!")

My mom named me "Valerie" because it means "strong one," and Dad liked the name because it was actress Valerie Bertinelli's and he thought she was cute.
 

His days off when I was a kid were Thursdays and Sundays, and he would always take me to the public library after school on Thursdays and proudly announce to my mom the number of books I'd checked out when we'd arrived home with my stash for the week.

When I was into gymnastics as a kid but he and Mom couldn't afford lessons, he built me a balance beam out of wood and leftover blue living room carpet. I would run and tumble in the backyard while he worked in his garden, and I would breathlessly ask him after each move, "What did you think of that?? If you had to give it a score from 1-10 and 10's the best, what would you give it???" He too liked gymnast Mary Lou Retton for her spunk and strength, and when a certain curly-haired figure skater became popular in the 1980s just as I was getting into roller skating, he noted that I resembled her and started calling me "Debi Thomas."

He was the one who tried to comfort me when I missed the New Kids on the Block concert when I was 12, and I don't remember how young I was when his appreciation of Neil Young became my own.  Young's "Heart of Gold" always reminds me of him, as do the songs "It's Baby's First Christmas" and "Blue Christmas" sung Elvis-style. I think of Dad as quiet and reserved, but he'll also be silly--he sings a few lines of those songs over the holidays--and in this way, I take after him him. (A willingness to dance in public is, alas, not something we share. My brothers agreed that the highlight of my older brother's 2002 wedding was watching my dad gleefully do the "Macarena" at evening's end. )

When I was 24 and my soon-to-be first boyfriend brought me flowers at my workplace, Dad smiled while I bashfully told him and Mom about it and just said, "Ohhh, Dolly Donuts," a nickname he has had for me since the day I was born. He also calls me "M&M Eyes." 

Every Sunday my miserably homesick freshman year of college, he would write me a long letter telling me of the week's news and ending with Dad-isms like "Pacienza, Val!" a reminder to be patient that his own grandmother would exclaim in times of stress. He sent me and my husband a letter just last week that teased Mike about possibly wanting to change favorite baseball teams from the Yankees to the Pirates and ended with the words "You two take good care of each other." When we were at the flea market together last month, Dad helped me get my beloved antique green table and chair set loaded into the car and back home and also bought an Alex Rodriguez baseball card for me to bring back for Mike.

He has always encouraged me in my efforts at running and writing, two activities that have meant a lot to him in his own life, as well. The past few years, as I have kept up with the running more seriously than in previous attempts, he has bought me running shoes for my birthday. I regret that I was not into running while Dad was still a runner.  Whenever I mention a writing project, his eyes twinkle and he quotes "John-Boy Walton's" dad's line from the Christmas movie The Homecoming: "I don't know much about the writin' trade, Son. But if you're going to take it up, you'll have to give it your best."

He taught me how to fish and drive, tried but did not succeed at teaching me how to swim, and made up bedtime stories for me about a mischievous pig he called "JoJo." After I'd mentioned how I loved rhubarb and pestered him to plant some the next year, he spent that season trading lettuce from his own garden for rhubarb from an elderly neighbor's for me.  Dad had never met this person before.  He had noticed a garden along his morning walk that had a big rhubarb plant growing in it, and on his next walk, Dad stopped at that house with a bag of lettuce from his garden in his arms, explaining to the man who came to the door that he'd be willing to trade him for some rhubarb for his daughter.

On my visits home since my last move in 2007, Dad and I have watched The Muppet's Christmas Carol together, made a trip to a cemetery to find my great-grandmother's headstone, and played cards. 

Once when I was a little kid, Dad held up his can of Genesee-brand beer with his thumb covering the last two letters and told me it was named "Gene's" beer after him, and I believed him. (Mike sighed when I admitted this today.) When I was maybe five years old, I was asking my parents about a rock we, for some reason, had in the living room, and Dad told me it was a moon rock, and I believed that too. I remember thinking, "Well, he was in the Air Force, so I guess. . . ." Air Force? Astronaut? What did I know?! He told me when I was 18 not to be so gullible, worried when I moved to New York City at the age of 23, and as someone who had once wanted to become a Spanish teacher, before Vietnam and then married-with-children life unfolded for him, he cheered me on when I moved to Baltimore to teach Spanish in one of the city's public schools when I was 24.

When I called tonight to wish him a happy Father's Day, Dad said he'd cooked a spaghetti dinner for the rest of my family today, was watching a ball game on TV, and had already read most of the book I'd mailed him as one of his presents last week. And he enjoyed my handmade card as always, he said. I will see him in two weeks when I go home for my younger brother's wedding. His shy daughter will not be joining him in the Macarena that evening, but I'm sure the visit will somehow give me fodder for his August birthday card. ♥

And Now for Another ~We Love Stuffed~ Moment

♥

Green is the prime color of the world, and that from which its loveliness arises. ~ Pedro Calderon de la Barca

I had never seen a green traffic cone before this one. My sheltered little self had only ever seen orange ones. I've since learned they come in all colors, but this green one I always walk past on my way to/from work is especially striking. From all I've witnessed along this stretch of street on my walks, I think my idea would be. . .how do we say. . .little-appreciated, but I'm still tempted to throw some soil and seeds into the top of the cone and see what comes of it. :)