Jobs

I didn't always enjoy the luxury of having summers off. Believe it or not, I am no stranger to work. Hard, dirty, back breaking work. Of course I am fortunate that those jobs have been offset by some pretty cushy jobs as well--like working as a racquetball club receptionist during my senior year of high school and (my hands down favorite position) as a dental receptionist for my family dentist (and dear friend) during college summers.

Dr. Bauerle let me take breaks whenever I needed to “go to the bank” [read: smoke a cigarette] and whole days off to go to the beach if a banner day was forecast. I learned my love of words from him and our mutual friend, the dictionary, and gained confidence in my writing from him. He saved every letter I ever wrote to him and my other friends in the office—Mary B, Maureen, Janice, Colette. My musings made him laugh. He thought I was clever. In fact, I remember when once he told me he couldn’t understand why I was majoring in Biology. “You could be the Erma Bombeck of [your hometown]!” he said. If only I hadn’t thought then that what I wanted to do was find the cure for cancer, or understood what a daunting task that would be, I may have changed majors. After college, he kept me on as an honorary staff member so that I could continue to attend Christmas parties and summer get-togethers. From all accounts he still has my letters with him in Florida, where he and his wife retired. And I continue to have connections with The Bauerle Bunch as we call ourselves.

But long before I got to show up late and start answering phones when I was good and ready while surrounded by supportive friends, I was more practiced at the aforementioned hard labor.

The summer after 3rd grade I went to work on a broad leaf tobacco farm with my grandfather and sisters. It was my great aunt’s farm, and therefore didn’t seem obscenely cruel or illegal. I was 9. I worked there every summer until I turned 14, and could work for legal farm wage with my friends from town on a shade tobacco farm. So I did. And I loved it. I have fond memories of those summers, waiting for the grey bus to lumber down the street early in the morning, having to wash black, sticky tar off every hair on my arms in the afternoon, then napping in the one air conditioned room in our house. I also remember having money to pay for fried dough at the local firemen’s carnivals and admission tickets at Riverside (now Six Flags), and having Levi cords in every color when I went back to school.

Of course you already know about my days saying “Howdy Partner” in the Roy Rogers Drive Thru, but there was also a yet undisclosed summer I spent as a housekeeper at the local Howard Johnson’s with Jill. Only they called us chambermaids back then. “Tick tick tick [our keys would forewarn] Housekeeping!,” we’d say, feigning cheer, hoping that we wouldn’t key in on anyone, hoping against hope that at least one room would be untouched, that the flight attendant to whom the room was registered had fornicated with the pilot next door, so that we would have one less room to clean and finish with a spritz of bubble gum scented air freshener. (I swear. Bubble gum.) How we survived that summer I don’t remember. But think it had something to do with Haffenreffers at night.

More often than not, and until fairly recently, I worked two jobs at the same time. During high school summers I worked on tobacco during the day and at Roy Rogers at night. I worked as a Resident Director full time during full time graduate school, while working part time at Crate and Barrel. And I worked part time there when I was a text book editor, too. Then, when I began teaching, I waited tables at a seafood restaurant two nights a week and weekends. I took on more shifts during summer.

I clocked a lot of hours in all sorts of jobs before I took my first summer off at 35 and I appreciate every hour I spend by the pool these days, not working. In fact, I think I have earned them.

Spending

If you know me or have been following my blog, you know I like to travel and eat out (often). I use room service. I buy books in hardcover. I pay to have my nails done because they look nice and my eyebrows waxed because I cannot stand to pluck them myself. I love my shoes and handbags and shop at Lord and Taylor—although rarely pay full price for anything there. Still, by many people's accounts, I am a snob. Extravagant. A spendthrift.

Have a seat.

Years ago a colleague of mine reported that his vehicle set afire. He returned to his Jeep after being out to find the fire department dousing what remained of it. I know. How freaky is that? But God help me, after ascertaining that no one was in the vehicle when it was ablaze, the first thought that crossed my mind was I wonder if he had a full tank of gas. That would really piss me off.

See?

God, how I hate to part with money and get no enjoyment or use from it! If it makes my taste buds dance, or feels good against my skin, looks pretty on my finger, I’ll spend the money gladly. (As long as the ring isn’t overpriced, being sold for three times its value at a suburban housewife jewelry party.) I’ll open my wallet because I will enjoy that meal, and I’ll wear that sweater and ring. I know that typically a tank of gas is useful, as it gets me around in my car, but it is especially painful for me to leave chunks of money at the pump. This, therefore, would qualify as one of my cheap pockets. Overpriced jewelry is another, I guess. But now I’m getting ahead of myself.

“Cheap pockets,” as Liz and Jimmy (sister and brother-in-law) call them, are those things for which we have trouble parting with money. For my brother-in-law it is ice. He hates to pay for ice, and he’s frankly somewhat obsessed with it—from making it in unconventional containers to packing coolers with it. I believe he knows precisely how many minutes it takes to chill a can of beer and a bottle of beer in a well-packed and well-iced cooler (they have different chilling times, he will tell you), which includes a combination of large blocks of ice (frozen in Rubbermaid containers) and cubes. If he can help it, he will never pay for those cubes. Even though it’s a pretty good bargain at less than 2 bucks for 10 pounds, he chooses to make trays of ice, even little Dixie cups of it, to complement the larger blocks of ice. He won’t pay for ice but has electric scissors.

Notice I did not make any claims that cheap pockets or spending patterns are logical.

Summer Harvest

I love this time of year, not just because I am on vacation and addicted to sitting by the pool, tanning and reading books. I love this time of year because despite all those fun things I keep in the fridge, I can live on cucumbers and tomatoes—both from my mother’s garden.

Before there was a Slow Food movement, before it was in fashion to be a part of it, there was my mother , Bogusia (her American friends call her Millie), feeding my family (and friends!) from the fruits of her labor—tomatoes, cucumbers, dill, green beans, squash, zucchini, onions, basil, parsley, chives, varieties of lettuce. Before my sisters and I became teenagers and got paid to work on other people’s farms [read: before we got an attitude], we used to help my mother with her garden, planted in part with seeds she brought with her from Poland in 1960. (Thereby also ahead of the heirloom curve.) Bugles and potato chips may have been in short supply, but I was never without a fresh sliced tomato (no mozzarella necessary, although awfully good) or a cucumber, peeled and cut in spears—4 or 6 depending on the size of the cuke—with a salt shaker close by. In the summer, mizeria, a cucumber salad made simply with coins of cucumber, salt, and sour cream is still a standard dinner side dish for me. Tonight, it was my main course.

What my mother doesn’t grow these days, she is—still, at 70—willing to pick at farms where such activity is encouraged (and sustains said farms). The two blueberry bushes in her yard are not enough for my parents’ blueberry consumption and her winter stock, so she finds pick-your-own places and goes with her friends. She does the same with strawberries. And raspberries. She bonds with her friends in the fields the way I do mine in the teachers’ lounge and restaurants. (And I guess the pool.) Moreover, she has friends with farms, bigger than her gardens (plural because she tends one at her house and one at my sister Mary's), who bring her samples of their treasures, sometimes by the bushel, so what she doesn’t grow she can barter, and fresh produce is never in short supply. And what is not eaten fresh is never wasted.

In the winter, I continue to savor her tomato soup (I know you miss it, Jill!) made from her summer bumper crop of tomatoes. Year round I complement sandwiches with something from a selection of endless jars of her pickles—delicious dills or butter and sugar. Honestly, nary a day passes when I am without something, some wonderful thing, that came from the earth and from my mother’s hands.

I'd trade my anchovy paste to keep it that way. (That's serious.)

Staples

I know there are those of you out there whose eyes widened thinking school supplies! while visions of the supply store ad (in which a dad skips through the aisles as he filled a cart) danced in your head. But I am ill-equipped to think about back-to-school, despite being assaulted by store displays on every end cap and ads in every medium. Beyond ill-equipped, I am unwilling to think about it. I mean really, who are the people who actually open the emails from LL Bean and Eddie Bauer in August and take advantage of their fall classics sales? It seems like I just got my cashmere sweaters out of the dry cleaner! When the dew point is 72 in New England and the weather forecast says hazy, hot and humid, who shops for turtlenecks and corduroys? (Come to think of it, who shops for corduroys and turtlenecks any time? Probably the teachers with whom I work who actually wear jumpers. Don’t get me started. But I digress.) I have no interest in “[being] the first to shop the new fall collection!” No, I want to delete those emails and sit by the pool. As soon as I finish here.

The staples to which I refer are refrigerator must-haves. A friend who knows I like to cook asked about the things I make, and the things I have on hand, and it occurred to me that as much as a well-stocked pantry—with pastas and grains, diced tomatoes, cans and cartons of broths and stocks—is key to a meal in a pinch, certain refrigerator items can not only elevate a meal but also create a plate start to finish as handily as it will create an image of you as a host that really has it together.

· cheeses—at least: a block of cheddar for cheese and crackers, Parmesan and/or Romano for grating and shaving, blue cheese crumbles, feta cheese crumbles, shredded mozzarella for pizzas, and fresh mozzarella

· other dairy—2% milk, half and half, sour cream, Greek yogurt, eggs

· meats—pepperoni and/or salami, prosciutto, pancetta, bacon

· condiments—mayonnaise (full fat), mustard (yellow and Dijon), ketchup, Soy sauce, terriyaki sauce, Soyaki (from Trader Joe’s), toasted sesame oil, chili oil, mango chutney, yellow Thai curry (also TJs), Worcestershire sauce, horseradish, hot sauce (feel a Bloody Mary coming up?), Sriracha, anchovy paste, tomato paste in tube, jarred pesto (yes, a condiment), sundried tomatoes, capers

· water—bottled and a pitcher

· limes

· lemons

· tomato juice (there we go)

· orange juice

· Prosecco

· olives

· pickles

· some sort of fruit (grapes usually, and not just the fermented kind)

· veggies including greens and lettuce for salads and whenever possible…arugula, which makes me very happy

Give me garlic and onion (which I always also have on hand) and I can get busy with that box of pasta or some thing from my freezer--chicken, pork tenderloin, raw shrimp, cooked shrimp, or that foil-wrapped baguette. I can write about my freezer on another day, though. The sun is shining and the pool beckons. There are no back-to-school ads there.

Home Sweet Home Again

Sometimes I think the best vacations are the ones you don’t mind coming home from. Sure, there is something to be said for the vacation you never want to end (if your funds are endless), that fantasy world you get to sample that makes the rest of your life a miserable and futile act of wanting, but I’m not sure that always does any long term good. Unless you’re Shirley Valentine. So I don’t mean to imply that the best vacations are not good vacations; it has nothing to do with having a bad time. I think, in fact, for it to qualify as such a vacation, one actually needs to have a good time, but then (still?) feel good about being home. It is a combination of having a great vacation, a few fun days away, and returning to reality that is a life from which you realize you really didn’t need a break.

As I have written, I had a great time in the PNW. I spent time with an old friend and got to visit two of my favorite cities. (Thanks again, Tam!) And even though I had a teary goodbye, I was happy to come home to this life of mine that wasn’t driving me crazy, to a life I see even more clearly is blessed. And again, there is no implication here that her life is chaos. I didn’t go visit a friend in a crack house and think thank god I can still get by on alcohol! Rather, I was happy to visit with a friend and see that she has a good life and to be a guest in that life for a few days. And it was okay to leave her in her element and return to my own.

It is nice to be home again. I hate to sound materialistic, but I like my things. I like to be around my things. My couch, my vases, my art. I like knowing where everything is. And not having to ask to use them. (Okay, now I sound like a control freak. I’m not. Although I do think I am particularly independent.) I like my life and my relaxed summer routine. I like writing in the morning before I do anything else. I did that today before I sat by my pool today and read. Then I came in late this afternoon to my chilly AC and made a plate of cheese and crackers to snack on as the lunch I missed while I was engrossed in reading. Today was a good day. Most of my days are.

Yesterday, as I made my way to the baggage carousel at Bradley International, a flight mate—walking beside me at that hurried, yet exhausted, pace of travelers who have made it home after a long day of travel—turned to me and said, “Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.”

Indeed.

Soap Box

I am at the Seattle Tacoma Airport, with a couple hours ahead of me to wait and a harrowing experience just behind me.

For my last day in Seattle, Tamara and I headed downtown to Pike Place Market.




As I mentioned before, I love it there. With the vibrant flowers, fresh produce and flying fish (and check out those lobster tails!), it’s a bit like Quincy Market and the weekend Haymarket in Boston, but all rolled into one and a little more, every day. I love to people watch and window shop and take pictures, and Pike Place Market has it all to offer.





We started by strolling through the artisan stalls, and then went out to lunch to The Pink Door on Post Alley. We had a light, delicious lunch on a colorful deck—bright, mismatched table cloths and overflowing, hanging flower pots—overlooking the water, and enjoyed every bit of everything.




After lunch we made our way down to The Soap Box where I bought a bottle of Verbena lotion—apothecary style. I decided against the richest (A-D-E) lotion (too thick for summer) and went with a lighter version, better for summer, the season during which verbena is my scent of choice. We strolled some more, stopped for late afternoon drinks, and then my vacation was over. After a wonderful visit with Tamara and her family and friends—and with five books from Powell’s in Portland and my verbena lotion from Pike Place Market in Seattle—I was ready to head home.

Twenty minutes later I was at SeaTac saying a tearful goodbye. I checked my bag curbside and headed to security.

“Do you have lotion?” the TSA agent asks.

“Oh, no! …[string of expletives in my head as I tried not to cry] What a waste of money. I just bought it and forgot to put it in my checked bag.”

By the grace of God, and maybe because I wasn’t holding anyone up or because I didn’t have a quart size bag full of 3 ounce bottles already, he said, “We’re letting it through.”

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

So, that thing about amateurs who live under a rock? Maybe some people just forget, or make silly mistakes like I did…

Pilgrimage to Powell's July 31, 2009

My favorite bookstore: Powell's Books in Portland, OR



literary bike racks
The Blue Room/Fiction