[Heart] Note...to Words

I am happy that I paid attention in high school and completed my vocabulary lessons. I am grateful that Dr. B. took the dictionary out when he had a no-show and reviewed words I had learned in high school (avuncular comes to mind) and taught me new ones while I was doing day sheets. Using good, not necessarily big, but good, smart words gives me a thrill.

Using the word tarmac for the first time made me feel like I had arrived; it was the intellectual equivalent to a debutante ball. (Woo hoo! I travel; it’s a tarmac, not a parking lot for planes!) Likewise, I bristle when I hear someone misuse a word, like nonplussed. (I know it sounds like I’m “not plussed” (even though plussed is not a word), so people think it means I’m “not confused,” but it means the opposite. Nonplussed means confused. A nonplus is a quandary.) Finally, I still care enough about words that when I hear one I believe is mispronounced I will get up and take the time to look it up in the dictionary. (For the record, the guy on the news wasn’t wrong when he said forMIDable with stress on the second syllable, but the way I pronounce it, with stress on the first, is the first pronunciation given.) (And, people, plethora is PLEthora, not pleTHORa. The latter is not even an option.)

I love that word, plethora, and avuncular, and nonplussed, and heretofore. Antithetical is a favorite, and specious is a good one too. Portend and prescient get a high five, and ornery definitely gets a “good word!” out of me. I find myself using gauche a lot (shame that I find the need) and bourgeois comes in handy. While the Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary does list staycation and frenemy (egads!), it does not acknowledge jackassery. I, however, do. It’s in my favorite old-school dictionary (Webster's Ninth New Collegiate), and it’s a favorite word. In fact, a lot of it goes on in my classroom and the halls at school, so I’d be lost without it.

Debacle, snafu, behoove, comeuppance, upend, erudite, fecund... oh how I [heart] words.

A Teacher's Prayer

Dear God,

I know you have better, more important things to do, grave situations to ameliorate, needy people to feed and comfort. I get that. But maybe, just maybe, you need a little coffee break and are looking for something not-so-time-consuming to do, something a little more fun if not particularly satisfying.

So I ask you, if you aren’t mad at me for anything, to pleeeease give me a snow day. I haven’t had one since December. And I haven’t had a delay since the beginning of January. I checked my journal, God, and at this point last year I had 3 snow days and 3 delays. I’ve been really busy lately and it would just be nice to have your permission to sit around and do nothing. Because really that’s what a snow day feels like to me, your way of saying Take a Break.

Within the next few days would be perfect. I just got Julie and Julia in on Netflix, I have lots of laundry to do, and I haven’t cooked a pot of soup in a while. (I might still have a nice bottle of red Jill and I never got around to opening.) And I’d like to have a little more time to write, too.

So, I’m just saying a good old fashioned Nor’easter would do the trick. Actually, that would really rock. And please, please, please not on a weekend. Because that wouldn't be a real snow day.

Thanks,
Joanne

PS I'd even promise to stop asking for the new gym members to fall off their resolution wagons.

Group Hug

In the past I may have started this post by saying, I have no right to be sitting here writing! when I still have midterm exams to correct and grades are due tomorrow at 7 am, but I don't believe that. I do have the right, and I do have the desire. If not every day, writing is certainly part of my week--several times a week. I feel at home at the keyboard. And yet it has been 6 (albeit busy, fun, exciting) days since my last post. I'm in writing withdrawal....

I also already miss having Jill around (she just left this afternoon), and I don't know what I'll do with myself next weekend. The party is over and not only will I have not have any centerpieces to arrange, but I won't have a hectic schedule to keep. I suppose that part is not bad; it will be nice not to have to be someplace new every few hours. Yet there was some comfort in the chaos. The party was a collective (and successful) effort; at every point in the frenetic schedule I was with friends and family. The whole weekend was a bit like a big, long group hug. Although I did shed a few sentimental tears, I laughed far more than I cried. I would do it all over again.

But since I don't have to, I will have a nice, quiet weekend with a little more time to write.

PS Didn't Norma do a great job on the cake?...

[Heart] Note....to Care Packages

It has been a busy week. We are in midterm exams at school and as always I'm a little behind in correcting around this time, catching up just as two-hour exams are completed and ready for correcting. At home I've been trying to get ready for a house guest (Jill gets here tomorrow night!), getting overdue cleaning projects done (despite previous revelations and proclamations to keep up with my space). Meanwhile, I keep getting these pesky migraine headaches, which is probably not a surprise, but really, really sucks. I want to hide in the dark, not correct under fluorescent lighting, and that's exactly what I did at around 11:30, after giving a day at work my best effort.

Lucky for me I came home with a care package from Amy and Chris, who had made meatballs and sauce last night and were nice enough to share some with me. How nice it was tonight to boil some pasta and heat up their sauce and meatballs and have a delicious meal in minutes, made with love, comforting and filling.

I would have enjoyed it as much without a migraine, during a not-so-busy week, but today the timing was just perfect. I was reminded that I love care packages (like my French onion soup from Maureen at Christmastime)(and limoncello from Erika), generous gestures of sharing, homemade gifts from the heart.

An American Dream

My parents’ 50th wedding anniversary is this week. To honor them and celebrate this momentous occasion (really, can you imagine?) my sisters and brothers-in-law and I are having a big shin-dig for them next weekend—complete with a polka band and pierogi. As their printed invitations announced, “Please join us for dinner and dancing following 4 o’clock mass[…]” We are going all out for my parents because…well…because they deserve it. Obviously, there is a considerable accomplishment in being married 50 years. That in and of itself seems worth a party. But there’s so much more than that.

They never had a wedding. They married quietly in Poland in 1960 before emigrating here, separated for the first several months of their marriage. They worked hard, learned English and had three daughters. They educated us all, threw two weddings, and dote on four grandchildren. They have been retired for several years, but my father still does side work on a farm, and my mother keeps busy in her garden and the kitchen. Lately, they’ve been getting excited about the party.

Jill flies in from San Diego Thursday night, and Norma is coming up on a train from New York Friday night ahead of Ray and their kids to help us out and to make the wedding-style cake. Saturday I’ve enlisted Donna again to get our centerpieces right and the hall looking perfect, and Sandy is meeting us there well in advance with her black-and-whites and bar gear in tow to make sure the bar is ready to go. My dad is chomping at the bit to throw some money in the pot, of course (absolutely not!), and my mom is going to bake some desserts (there was no saying no to that), but for the most part they have accepted that this something we want to do for them. It is their turn.

If you put them on a couch like the couples in When Harry Met Sally, I wonder what they’d say. What was the secret to their success, other than divorce being absolutely not an option for them? I honestly don’t know what they’d say, and while I am curious, I don’t think I’d ask. Instead, it is enough to remember, when I think of my parents and times in our life as a family both good and bad, two things.

Even if they weren’t talking or I could tell my mother was mad at my father for something, my father always kissed my mother when he walked in the door from work. Every day my parents kissed. And at every event at which there was music, they danced.

Words to Live By

I was out with my friend Kim tonight; it was our first time catching up in a long while. In fact, it was our rescheduled holiday get together. We work together--well, we're teachers in the same building--but rarely see each other. We might pass each other in the hallway or wave across the room at our monthly staff infection, I mean meeting, but we maintain our friendship outside of school, albeit sporadically. Sometimes it takes several tries to pick a date, pencil it in, and then not erase it, but eventually it happens. And we enjoy ourselves. The nice thing, as with most adult friendships, or those worth working on and keeping anyway, is that we don't guilt trip each other or set unreasonable expectations. I don't take it personally if something comes up with her daughter or if she has plans with another friend; she doesn't take it personally if I have something else going on. It works.

Aside from having gone to high school together and then finding ourselves 15 years later teaching at the same school two towns away (both having taken circuitous routes there), she and I have something else common these days. She has a dear friend, Patty, who is battling cancer and, as you know, I have a dear cousin, Donna, doing the same. She asked about Donna and I told her she is just amazing, doing remarkably well. She shared the same about Patty. And we both agreed that we don't think we'd have the same strength or courage to fight as gracefully and valiantly as they both have been fighting--and winning--the battle. Then, at the same time Kim and I both recalled hearing from people in situations such as theirs that you never think you have the strength until you need it, until you find yourself in the middle of the fight.

"I don't know, Kim," I said. "Donna is working, willing to help us decorate for my parents' anniversary party. I just had dinner with her last weekend. She's so positive and energetic and focused, and honestly, I'd probably be like, on the couch, 'Where's my cocktail? Would somebody get me a f**kin" drink for God's sake?! I'm dyin' ovah he-ah!'" (though not dying, of course)

At which point Kim thought the moment was perfect to give me my present: a fun, faux needlepoint throw pillow which reads: I'll have a caffe mocha vodka Valium latte to go, please!

(And to which Donna just replied when I told her the story of how I think I'd react, "How's that any different from the way things are now??" ha. ha. ha.)

Touché, sistahs. Good times.

Deep Freeze

I clean “experiments”, out of my refrigerator fairly regularly—or at least as often as I need the room for new, fresh groceries. Rubbery celery gets tossed to make room for fresh celery that I vow to eat every last bit of—including the leafy heart that I’ll put in soup. Slimy mushrooms make room for another container of mushrooms and carrots…well…you get the idea.

I have been better lately (really, I have!), trying to plan meals and real cooking experiments based on what I have on hand and on my plans. If I fall in love with a container of cremini mushrooms I make sure to pick up some pizza dough or plan to make a pasta dish with them because I know I won’t go through all 10 ounces on salads. If I buy deli meat it shouldn’t be a week during which I plan to cook a lot, because I’ll end up with uneaten leftovers or sandwich meat that will go funky before it gets eaten. And I shouldn’t buy a lot of produce if I have plans to go out more than once, because restaurant leftovers will make their way into my fridge, and let’s face it, it’s much easier to nuke leftover curry chicken and vegetables with sticky rice than it is to caramelize onions and get my dough paper thin.

I am my mother’s daughter, so I hate to waste things, especially food –try as I might not to—and including money, which is why I shop on sale and freeze. Unfortunately, my freezer doesn’t get as much attention as my fridge.

As things fall out I shove them back in, rearranging the contents only as absolutely necessary. (Ice for my cocktail might be melting on the counter, after all.) But today I had a little extra time to tackle one of those non-emergency—even though I do risk life and limb (okay, maybe I only risk broken toes) when I open my freezer—projects that gets put off. And because the other day I couldn’t tell, when I put several new chicken breasts in the freezer(purchased on sale, of course)(and smartly labeled—this time), if those frozen lumps of chicken already in there were boneless and skinless or not, it was time. And it went a little like this.

Ouch.

Berries. Oh yeah, I thought I might try to get on a smoothie kick. (Right after I moved in. In 2007.)

Oh, I already had two steaks in the freezer when I bought those two steaks to have in the freezer? (When do I ever make steak at home? Do I think one day I’m going to get tired of the 9.95 Outback special?)

Ditto pound of raw shrimp.

Ditto pound of cooked shrimp.

Ouch. M*#$^ er F(&$^%*er.

I think I’m all set with pork roasts.

Freezer burnt Gyoza. And haricot verts. Yum. Not.

I think that was chicken pot pie filing. When did I make that?

Is that veggie soup? Or tomato sauce?

Lean Cuisine? (I am proud that I haven’t eaten a frozen meal in years.)

Chopped onions? Because I’m ever without at least one yellow and one red onion in my yellow bowl next to my utensil crock?

Oh my God, mom would be so upset if she knew you never ate these pierogi.

1, 2, 3, 4…Looks like I can have a bagel a week until spring. Maybe my birthday. (I’m a Memorial Day baby.)(I rarely eat bagels. Rye bread is my bread of choice for my Sunday breakfasts and my occasional sandwiches.)(Interestingly enough, I am out of my freezer stock of rye bread. And baguettes.)

How long have I had this kielbasa?

Why didn’t I wrap this sausage better?

Okay, I’ve got wheat bread. Good. I can make that work.

Tortillas? Maybe I’ll have a soft taco tonight.

Sh*t. No fish. Well, I could do shrimp. No cabbage.

I could go for a piece of halibut.

Wow. That's much better. No broken toes for me!

Mystery food went in the kitchen sink to thaw before it met its fate in the disposal. And I exercised great restraint not to start a new grocery list for freezer stock. I did however look through the grocery store fliers. And organize my coupons.

I love my mother dearly, but becoming her clearly it has its drawbacks.