January 17 - Staring at Marshmallows

There is a very famous study of will power where children are given a marshmallow and told that if they wait and do not eat it until the researcher gets back, they will get two.  The videos of these kids staring at the marshmallow is all too revealing in how hard delayed gratification really is.  

What they have found is that the kids who can delay their gratification actually grow up to be more successful. They are savers, they are rational and clear headed when it comes to making important decisions.  How did they make it past that marshmallow that was staring at them?  They want it, they can taste it.   They did anything they could to make it go away.   Some cover their eyes to just make it go away. They distract themselves by singing, humming, squirming, even poking the marshmallow.   Others just seem to say who cares, I'm eating it and I'll figure out how to get another one later.  (Maybe I can whine.)  

I am not sure I would have passed that test when I was a kid and I am pretty sure I would not pass it now.  I have a real problem with delayed gratification.  I am not sure why.  Gosh knows that my parents did not give me everything I wanted.  I had to be very rational.  I had to know what I wanted and why and I might, just might, get it.  But it had to be within reason.

So how did I grow up to be someone who really does not like telling myself no?  Upon reflection I think I am of two minds on this.  I have walked away from many things that I wanted.  Just a few weeks ago, I was staring at a piece of art (a retablo) on the internet that I wanted and I told myself no. I may buy it someday but at that moment I turned away.  Then I was going to go to a gallery that was having a sale on similar art but I stayed away.  I just avoided it.  I pretended I forgot. 

On the other hand, I often give in to my wants.  Often.  But then my wants usually remain reasonable.  I have never salivated over $500 shoes or designer purses.  On the other hand, the fact that I have a hundred pair of shoes does not deter me from buying another pair for say a hundred bucks.  I don't need it.  I just want it and so long as the price is fairly within reason, I am okay with it.  

This is how I came to have a closet full of coats.  And that closet let me down, putting a marshmallow in front of me.  I was getting ready to go to a party in Baltimore.  I was dressed in a nice pants outfit.  Not too flashy, but not casual either.  The temperature was sort of warm, say around 50º.  When I went to my coat closet I was stumped.  Too warm.   Too cold.  Not dressy enough.  Too dressy.  So I picked out something that was not heavy enough and I froze.  This set me on a mission--I need a coat for this specific occasion.  

Hello marshmallow!  I don't need that coat.  I have plenty of coats.  But the white, sugary marshmallow is staring at me. It says, you know you want a coat.  You can find one cheap.  It is the end of season.  No no no!!! I say covering my ears so I cannot hear its siren call.  But still I am sitting in front of that marshmallow staring at it, thinking about it, wanting it.

I made it two days then I bought two marshmallows.  Hey, they were cheap!  

Tina Turner's Dress

            I was standing in front of Tina Turner's dress when it hit me.  It was one of those mini-skirt, shimmy dresses with strings of sequins that Tina is known for.  So short you wondered how she kept it in place.  No doubt she sang "Proud Mary" in it, with her mighty legs dancing in heels in a way that no woman has ever matched.  The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame lovingly collects memorabilia to remind us of our collective music past. 

            You would think that my reaction would be, "Wow, Tina Turner's dress!"  That is the emotion the Hall hoped to evoke.   But it wasn't.  At that moment a feeling struck that has stayed with me ever since.  Without Tina, it really is just a dress. Seeing it on a mannequin, it said nothing.  It evoked memories of Tina, of course.  But Tina infused that piece of cloth with her own magic.  By hanging there lifeless, the dress itself proved to me more fully than any memory how Tina filled its space with her life force and that this is what we see when we experience Tina Turner.  If that dress were on anyone else, it could never evoke the energy that Tina has.  The dress was Tina and Tina was the dress. 

            Time and again, I have found this memory-object relationship to be true. I have my mom's old hats and jewelry, my dad's cuff links and ties.  They bring back memories and they remind me of how they looked and dressed.  But the objects themselves are dimmer than I remember them.  The life that I associate with them is gone.  I can wear my mother's jewelry in her honor, but I can never bring to it the same sensibility that it had she wore it.  Although I resemble her, I have a different aura, a different look.

            At first, I was startled by this sense of de-animation.  I felt it even more fully after my mother died.  I joined my family in cleaning out my parents' house. This is the place where I grew up.  I can picture every room—how each had been decorated over the years. The house was small, but we managed.  My parents' room was painted blue with dark mahogany furniture.  The paint by numbers pictures my mother had painted, a Japanese lady and gentleman in traditional robes, hung on the wall.  My old room was decorated with red flowered wallpaper and a Raggedy Andy doll sat in a rocking chair.  Back in the 70's my brothers' room was decorated with lime green walls and green and blue plaid curtains.  He had a stereo with round speakers. The oldest of us got the bedroom in the attic bedroom, a private space for a teenager to pin up posters of teen idols, to listen to the radio and to dream. When it came to be my turn, I found space for myself by living in the attic. 

            I learned to cook in the kitchen where we spent countless hours around the table talking, laughing, and sometimes crying.  At Christmas, the tree was in the corner of the living room, we could never find a better place for it, and we decorated it with blinking lights and icicles. In the summer, clothes hung on the lines and my mother grew gladiolas next to a yard large enough for a baseball or football game with the neighborhood kids.  The driveway was impossible to back out of but we learned. 

            All of these memories were there.  But as I walked through it, a strange sensation came over me and it was not one I expected.  The closets were full of old clothes, linens, medicines, and old aftershave.  The table was scattered with long since read magazines and old mail.   The pantry was still stocked with canned beets and green beans and boxes of spaghetti. There were my parents' things-- mementos, furniture, knick knacks and pictures.  But somehow, these objects, while evoking memories, could not breathe life into the rooms and spaces. The people connected to them were gone, existing only in my own memory.

            As the house was emptied, the structure that was our family, that my parents breathed life into and anchored, was taken apart as well.  What was left were pieces from our own experiences to be kept in our own separate memories. I took my share of objects and I have them on my shelves or on display.  Some of them, I keep around to look at, so that, like Tina Turner's dress, I can recall the memories.  Yet, the warmth of the house, the living force was gone.  All that was left were the shadows evoked by the objects. Yes, the memories were there.  But the dynamic organism that is a home was not.

            So I was not surprised that the same feeling came over me as we packed up our treasures and belongings and moved out of our house of seventeen years.  I thought I would be more upset, more attached.  But as I started removing things from the walls, and started packing our stuff, I could sense that our own life force was leaving too.  Without us, without our things, and without our energy that gave those things meaning and life, the house would become just an empty house.  It would never again be the spot so vivid to us.  We were taking our lives with us and moving on. 

            Is this true of all history? We might visit Monticello or maybe Tombstone to get a dose of the Wild West.  But can we ever really know, really feel, the lives and energy of those who lives in those places?  The guides tell us stories, some of the original furniture is there.  But you cannot understand or sense the emotions, you cannot sense the personality that was once that place, that home.  So too, for a person and a family.  As the life forces dissipate, you are left with just a house, not a home.  Just a dress on a mannequin, not Tina Turner. 

The Short Sale – Shattered Lives

            We are standing in front of a very nice house, built only a few years ago, in a very nice subdivision waiting for the real estate agent to open the door for a tour.  The house is listed as having four bedrooms, three baths, a morning room with designer kitchen, family room, living room, dining room, a finished basement and a two-car garage.  And it is going for a song, easily thousands less than any other house on the street. 

             My husband and I decided that it was time for a change and what better time to find a new home than a buyers' market.  Nowhere is that market so tempting as in the world of foreclosures and short sales.  There is no doubt that a good property can be had if you have the time and patience to go through the months long process of wresting a house from a bank.  What we did not count on was being confronted with the shattered lives that are so apparent in the homes we have viewed. 

            As we enter this particular home we are confronted with scattered items of every day life—a vacuum cleaner, toys strewn about the stained and dirty carpet, a broken lamp, clothes left hanging in the closet. Seeing a house in such disarray you cannot help but think, these folks left in a hurry.  Then comes the inevitable question:  why?  We wander into the kitchen and the cabinet doors are randomly opened as if a robber has come through.  Dishes are still on the counters, cleaning supplies are out but clearly not used.  The stove is caked with cooked-on food, the stainless steel sink is a dull, dirty gray.  I open the refrigerator and am confronted by rotting food, a gallon of milk now green, and an odor that is overpowering.  I slam the door shut.  Okay, the fridge will need to be replaced. 

            In the master bedroom, we find a picture of an older couple, happily gazing out at us.  It is a portrait, the kind taken at a portrait studio on an important occasion, maybe an anniversary.  The husband is in a suit, the wife in her Sunday best.  They smile to the camera.  The picture is tossed in a box of things not taken.  Were they forgotten? 

            I notice dog excrement and a busted potted pant, the dirt long dried into the floor.   This carpet will need to go, too.  The bathroom tile is moldy.  Nothing that we cannot undo with the help of a cleaning crew.   The medicine cabinet door is open and shaving cream sits on the sink, as if the husband will be back in a minute.  I try not to think about that.

            We trod down to the basement and there we see some evidence of what might have gone wrong—crutches, a handicap toilet, and a Bible.  The agent tells us that she thinks the wife died after a long illness.  The husband went a bit crazy and fell behind on his payments.  They were told to leave. The bank has not foreclosed yet but the owner cannot meet the mortgage payments so he has to sell for any price.  The house is under water.  The bank will have to approve the short sale, a process which can take months, and even then the bank may say no.  Then, it will be on to foreclosure.  She has been trying to get the owner to clean out the house.  She tells him he cannot sell a house in this condition.  But a part of me understands why he may be having a hard time facing it. 

            We leave trying to keep our investor wits about us.  We agree that most of the work is superficial—cleaning, carpeting, new appliances.  But can we ever rid ourselves of the picture of that happy couple whose lives ended this way?

            I'd like to tell you that this was a unique experience.  But it has not been.  We have been in numerous homes with the same aura of lives come crashing down—a hurried departure, things left behind that could not fit in the moving truck or the car or whatever was packed up.  Each house has a story to tell but we can only see a faint outline of the calamity.  In an apartment, a child's room is painted pink with painted animals dancing along the walls.  A few toys have been left in the top of the closet.  Cables lay on the floor disconnected from t.v. and cable boxes.  Nails speckle the walls where pictures once hanged.  Nothing appears abnormal except for the oddly empty feeling of a house that only recently was a place some child called home.  Another house, fallen into disrepair with rotting wood and a collapsing fence, reveals a Harry Potter-themed room with a magical closet for magical toys.  And there in the back yard, now overgrown, is a tree house, a girl's playhouse, and what were once fish ponds. Someone had a really great childhood in this house.  Where are they?  The house is a short sale, so something went wrong.  Does the renovation that included a handicapped bathroom mean anything? The house is too much work for us to consider and we move on, thinking about what it might have been like there only a year or two ago.  

            The statistics tell us that in the Washington area, housing prices are rising and unlike the rest of the country, this area has not been hard hit.  I beg to differ.  Come with me some Saturday and you will see that the housing crisis has touched us too.  

July 24 - Storm

We had a very powerful storm that brought the region to its knees again.  This time a severe thunderstorm.  It looked very much like a tornado was about to form but we did not see one.  The driving rain and wind lasted about 20 minutes but that was enough to down hundreds of trees and to take out electricity for miles around.  Hundreds of thousands of people were without power and even the water treatment plant was closed.

Here is the good news.  Usually when we have such a storm, our block gets left for days without power.  We had been at the funeral and it took us forever to get home because there were no traffic lights and the back ups were lengthy.  We drove through dark neighborhood after dark neighborhood, with only candles flickering in the windows.  We were praying we still had power and as we turned the corner there is was--light.  We were so relieved to be one of the lucky neighborhoods to be left standing.  Not having power in the summer is really hard.  No A/C, and the food rots fast.  Not fun.  But we survived.

July 22-26 - Funeral

I did not record that Matt's grandmother died on July 22.  She had been in a nursing home for quite some time and we all think this was for the best.

But is makes me want to scream that our only solution for taking care of our elderly is relegating them to a nursing home.  Yes, I know it is the best we can do, but there is just something heartbreaking about the fact that we are unable to care for our sick and dying and we have to ask strangers to care for them because it is such a burden.  And it is.  I do not deny that.  But still, long term care, watching someone just exist because we can keep them alive and marginally comfortable is troubling.  Wouldn't it be best to just let them go?

July 2010 - The $23 Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich

          The midnight snack tradition in my family is found in the simple peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  My dad loved them, I love them, my brother loves them.  My Dad's reliance on pbj even went beyond the midnight snack.  If we cooked something for dinner that was a little outside of the norm, say, pasta with a funny sauce, he would dutifully eat whatever it we put in front of him.  Then he would go to the kitchen and make a pbj sandwich.  If he had a sandwich, you knew he really did not like the meal.  He needed something, anything to make him feel satisfied.  I inherited this gene.  If I am craving something satisfying, I want a pbj sandwich. 

            When I was a kid, I used to eat a double decker pbj, made with three slices of bread.  That was back when I could eat a full meal and go to sleep and still be five pounds lighter when I woke up.  Now I get one piece of bread and fold it in half, small but that is enough to satisfy my craving. 

            Like all comfort food and daily habits, there is a level of need and desire that kicks in.  Once I think about having a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I am not satisfied until I have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  At this point in my life, I am so accustomed to having a midnight snack, and it is usually a pbj sandwich, I pretty much have a pbj sandwich every night.

            This can cause some problems when I travel because a pbj craving does not understand travel.  It only knows that it wants to be fed.  To take care of that little devil, I have been known to pack peanut butter and jelly and English muffins to make sure I have supplies to satisfy my pbj tooth.  But with airport security, this has gotten dicey.  I have had my bags selected for search more than once because peanut butter looks like plastique in the scanners and they come to me wondering whether I am a terrorist.  I have been told that they can actually test the peanut butter to make sure it is what it is. 

            My devotion to pbj is so great that I have been known to track down a local drugstore or even a 7-11 to find my hotel room supplies.  Since drugstores are now nothing more than mini-grocery stores, you can be pretty certain to find something that will work.  I pack plastic knives with my toiletries so I always have them on hand. 

            But there have been times that I forgot to pack the Tupperware, and I am not able to find a store with supplies.  Then I have to rely on room service.  I judge hotel room service by whether they can supply me with a pbj sandwich.  Hilton is on the ball.  Historic hotels, not so much.  I know what you are thinking.  You call room service for peanut butter and jelly?  Are you crazy?  You do not know my craving.  It is powerful.  I am used to the idea of spending a bit on this midnight snack so I try to keep it to situations that are most dire.  But in the past it was not unusual to spend perhaps twelve dollars including tip on a pbj sandwich and a glass of milk. 

            Until this last trip when Hilton out did itself with its charges for room service and I ended up paying over twenty three dollars for a pbj sandwich and milk.  What I learned is that it pays to read the fine print.  The sandwich was listed in my menu at eight dollars.  A little steep, but I could live with it.  I could not locate the price for a small glass of milk but I was figuring around three dollars, which, with the standard added tip of 15%, would bring me to a little over twelve dollars for the sandwich.  It hurt but I was hungry.  (As a note to the infrequent traveler, never add a tip to room service.  It is always there in the bill.  They do not tell you that.  There is always a blank line for "tip" and those not looking fill it in with the usual 15-20%.  The guy who brought the food ends up with 30%.  If you are feeling ornery, look the waiter in the eye and ask, "Is the tip included in this amount?" That kills them because they have to admit it and it proves that they knew it and they were about to let you give them another tip on top of it.)

            On this last trip, I was taking a shower when the sandwich arrived and when I came out, Matt said, "You know, that was a twenty three dollar sandwich."  What!!!!!!!!!  How much!!!!!!!!!!  Yes, indeed, TWENTY THREE DOLLARS.  How did they arrive at that kingly sum?  Here is how.  My menu was old and the sandwich actually cost nine dollars and the milk cost, get ready, five dollars for an eight ounce glass of milk, which calculates out to a forty dollar gallon of milk.  That must be one luxury dairy. 

            But here is the real kicker.  We all know that the price of room service food is jacked up to take into account that the hotel is, after all, taking the time to have an employee bring the food to you.  You assume they have worked the cost of delivery into the price of the food.  Well, apparently Hilton had not jacked the room service prices up enough to cover the costs of delivering the food.  A nine dollar pbj sandwich was not steep enough.  Learning from the airlines I suppose, the hotel added a separate delivery charge on top of the room service prices.  At the very bottom of the menu, in very small print was a notice that they would add a delivery charge of six dollars to every room service order.  They added a delivery charge to a delivery charge.  A double charge.  They really have learned to nickel and dime like the airlines.  If I had know that this was going to be added, I would have walked to the kitchen to get the sandwich myself.

            Once they added in the 17% tip, taxes, and other fees, I was at a twenty three dollar sandwich.  I complained to no avail.  The young man at the front desk seemed to not really understand why I was a little upset that two pieces of bread, with a few tablespoons of jelly and peanut butter and a glass of milk should cost more than a night out at the movies for two, more than about four large containers of peanut butter, more than the cost of about eight gallons of gas, more than the cost of two Pizza Hut pizzas.

            I guess this means I am going to have to start packing in my supplies again or locate every all night drugstore within a mile radius of my next hotel because the craving will be there insisting on my pbj but I will stand up to the man and the double delivery charge.  

A Week of Nothing But Strawberries

          

 My clothes are dotted with pink juice stains and dark brown chocolate globs.  My tummy is bulging but we still eat.  And the eating is good.   It has been an all you can eat strawberry week as we work our way through six quarts of just picked berries.

            When I told Matt that I wanted to have strawberries for dessert., he thought that I was going to buy some berries at the store and cut them up for some strawberry shortcake.  No.  My plan was much simpler:  to enjoy some ripe berries as close to the vine as possible.

            Off to the berry farm we go.  Deep red strawberries are piled in flats, green stems attached, field dirt clinging to some. Fresh from the field they are still sun-warmed and their odd musty scent fills the car as we drive home. 

            After dinner I get out two big bowls.  Rinsing off the dirt, I pile them high with fresh strawberries. I leave the stems.  I hand Matt him his bowl and he hesitates.  No, I mean it.  You have to do this just once.  Just a great big, giant bowl of naked berries, one at a time, each one to savor. All strawberry, nothing more is needed.

            Taking one big bite, separating the stem from the berry with my teeth, the berry explodes and the feast begins.  Pink juice runs down my fingers and on to my t-shirt.  Mmmmmmm escapes my smacking lips.  Fresh strawberries are not sweet like pineapples.  They don't hit you in the teeth or make your jaw clench. A good strawberry is sweet, but has a background flavor of honey, a little spice, and some earthy musk tones.  Sometimes one berry is so perfect, I can only utter a gurgling mouthful of, "Oh my God, that was a good one," as juice dribbles down my chin.  Half way through, I start to feel giddy.  Enjoying each moment, tasting each berry, I am shining with berry love and happiness.  You simply cannot have a bad thought while eating ripe strawberries.  It is impossible.  They are nature's feel good food. 

            My bowl is finally empty.  That was good.  I think I will do that again tomorrow. 

            Tomorrow comes and I decide to give the bowl of berries a kick of chocolate.  I melt bitter sweet chocolate and carefully drizzle it in a stream.  The berries are cold and the chocolate firms into a fine web.  More Mmmmms.  More Oh my Gods.  The bitter chocolate plays off the sweet tart bite of the berries perfectly.

            Another day.  We do it again.  The berries are still wonderfully firm.  I have an angel food cake on standby for shortcakes but the berries are holding their own.  It is not yet time to cut them up and macerate them in sugar.

            The week passes and the pile of berries is slowly disappearing.  We may need to make another trip to the farm before this moment passes.  Life is too short to miss out on the season's pleasures.  Pretty soon it will be time to savor peaches.  The seasons progress and my taste buds rejoice!