Grumpy about compliments

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I feel cringing-and-squirming uncomfortable when people compliment me. Just acknowledging compliments makes my skin crawl. A handful of folks have said really nice things about some of my blogs in the past month, and I’ve ignored them best I can. But in this impersonal moment in front of my computer I can finally say thank you. It’s so kind of you, and it does inspire me to keep dumping my thoughts.

I don’t know why that’s so hard for me to say. Jesse’s the same way. Her therapist, the supreme practical man, says, “some people are just really bad at accepting compliments.” Helpful insight.

When I was working in a law firm, I didn’t have to worry about compliments. There was always something for partners to complain about, and whatever you did right was always in the past. As a last resort, if faced with really irreproachable lawyering, partners could just shit on your billable hours.

Before that, I studied classical music right through college. Compliments in that extremely competitive field come few and far between, so that worked for me too. My all-time favorite compliment came from a tiny French fellow who taught in the music theory department at Oberlin. I don’t remember his name. He walked with a massive limp – might have been a prosthetic leg – and wore a jaunty beret. His personality didn’t fit the hat. I had just finished up my oral exam in his office. It consisted of things like sight-singing a new piece of music to him while beating the time. Imagine this happening in an office with the floor dimensions of a twin size bed. Imagine if I had bad breath. Now say this to me in your very best French accent: “you have no talent, but you are very well trained.”

I loved him for looking me in the eyes as he said it. I walked out of his office with a smile on my face and an A on my transcript.

Grumpy about bread

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I made this bread. Isn’t it pretty? I’ve always enjoyed making fresh bread, all the way back to college. I used to make bread from various whole grains, dense and hearty, and I thought it was cool to give little loaves for gifts. One day Anthony told me, “Carla. You should stop making bread.” Why? I asked. “Because your bread sucks.”

I felt like my Anthony, who can be quite subtle, was gently trying to let me know that my bread sucked. It was kind of humiliating, but in my heart I knew that the cannon balls I generated were more like dog treats than human food. I stopped baking bread for many years, but the siren song of yeasty gluten has always called my name.

About 7 years ago, I was thumbing through Bittman’s How to Cook Everything and found his easy French bread recipe. It used a food processor — power tool! — and Bittman claimed it was easy and amazing. He was right. He referred back to an earlier book, The Best Bread Ever, by Charles Van Over, who was an early champion of food processor bread. I got that and went technical for a while, and discovered that with my Cuisinart I could make bread that even people other than me liked.

And of course, now that I’m finally good at bread, everyone says it’s bad for you. Until last year, I thought “I have wheat belly” was a euphemism for “I just ate a great meal.”

The bread in the photo is a super easy Cuban bread recipe from Bernard Clayton’s New Complete Book of Breads. It’s a beginner bread that makes you look like a pro. In my opinion it won’t come out right by hand or in a stand mixer; you don’t get the same artisanal chew and flaky crust. Someone asked for the recipe and someone else suggested I post it to my blog. I’m not sure if they were joking. Anyway, I’ve never been good at following recipes, and there’s a loose art to baking bread, so here’s how I do it, best I can relay.

Dump into a large food processor:

3 cups bread flour (you can add a handful of oats if you want some extra crunch)
2 tsp instant dry yeast (or one packet)
1 1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tbsp sugar

Pulse a couple times to mix. Now run the machine non-stop while pouring in about a cup of water, ideally warm (120-130 degrees) but it doesn’t have to be. The exact amount will depend on your local weather conditions. Here in dry Wisconsin I usually need about a quarter cup more.

Add enough water for a loose ball to form. It’ll roll around and around on the blade with a few boogery trailers chasing it in the bowl. You might have to hold the machine still on your counter (say things like “whoa Nellie”). Check consistency. It should be sticky and soft, like something you don’t want to knead by hand. If it’s too wet, add some more flour. Run the machine for about 45 seconds.

Oil a large bowl and dump the dough in. Let it rise to double, about 20 minutes to an hour, depending on how warm the air is. Then punch it down good (aggression reduction opportunity) and shape into a ball. I don’t even use a surface, I just dip my hands in flour and go at it. Place the ball on a parchment-lined baking sheet, sprinkle the top with flour, and cut two deep slashes (about 1/2″ deep) to make an “x” on top. Put a shallow pan of warm water on the bottom shelf of your oven. Put the dough pan on a middle shelf. Now turn on the oven to 400 degrees. The bread will rise and bake as the oven preheats. How cool is that? Bake about 45 to 50 minutes, until it’s nice and brown and thumps on the bottom (or stick it with a thermometer- look for 205 to 210 degrees in the center). Cool on a rack. For best results, wait at least 2 hours before cutting it.

(Cold location suggestion: preheat the oven to about 125 degrees before putting the dough in, for better results).

Day 5 solo parenting-off to a good start

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Anthony is supposed to arrive home this afternoon. I’m pessimistically optimistic about that happening, because I’m seeing flight cancellations all over the country. It’s becoming a parenting emergency. We were only awake an hour before I screamed at the kids because they harassed me and each other while I was on the phone for 5 minutes with Anthony. It’s not like I’m on the phone all day. Still, I was over-reacting badly.

They ran upstairs in a flash. I calmed myself by starting to color a Hidden Transformation picture, another gift from Santa. This one is a peacock and also a school of fish becoming birds becoming flowers. I found a butterfly too. When I was calmer, I pouted in the basement a bit and then went upstairs. I found my babies huddled up together under the covers on Jesse’s bed, watching Care Bears on the iPad mini. I stuck my head under the sheets and muttered “sorry for yelling at you.” Jesse gave me a stern look and announced firmly, “we are hiding from you.” Nick ignored me.

Good choice, because it looks like Exorcist Mama is back in town. I better start having fun with the kids before my head starts spinning on my neck again.

grumpy about pedicures (don’t touch my feet)

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I hate the very idea of a professional pedicure. I think I’m in a very tiny minority on this among women, and I do like the idea of healthy callous-free feet.  I just don’t want to pay someone for them.  I guess I’m cheap that way.

More important, I don’t want a strange woman coming at my feet with a razor. It makes me anxious. I’ve also heard that my feet might share soak water with other people’s feet? Musing on that actually gives me shivers and a mild gag reflex. But maybe the shared water is an urban myth bandied about by the 8 women in America who don’t get pedicures. On behalf of the professionals, well… Come on. Other than wiping people’s asses after they poop, I can’t imagine anything worse in the personal hygiene field than having to deal with a bunch of skanky, calloused feet all day. Plus I would just feel awkward going in as a customer. What would I say? Hi Pedicure Lady, it’s your lucky day! Meet my nasty feet!

And yet as I age, I’m finding I need a solution to all this cracking and callousing.  Last summer, I was even occasionally almost embarrassed when I wore sandals, and the heel cracking was sometimes deep and painful. I’ve tried pumice stones, softening lotions, and those scraper thingies, but really it’s too much hassle. I’ve considered my Dremel and the belt or orbital sander, but they don’t seem like super wise choices. I was even starting to think about the need for a pro.

Costco to the rescue! Last Friday I hit the big box and in the pharmaceutical section I saw a display of what I thought were battery-op tasers. Strange and unexpected, but… Sweet! They were packaged Costco-style, with batteries and extra parts in a 4-foot-by-3-foot hermetically sealed double-thick plastic tray that I could use to boomerang your head off. I drew closer and saw that it was actually the Emjoi Micro-Pedi, which will grind the callouses off your feet. If it has batteries and moving parts, it’s a power tool, and I can always go for that. I brought one home.

It’s actually a tiny little doll-size drum sander, so even if it’s not a taser… Sweet! I set that drum sander to work on my feet and oh my god!! I think I may have taxed the motor as the drum worked its way through my half-inch reefs of callousing, but I never smelled a motor burn. Amazing. It was fun too; I felt like I was sanding a piece of furniture to prep it for refinishing. After just 10-odd minutes of effort, my feet looked and felt great.

I never ever have to have a real pedicure, ever, as long as I have double-A batteries and I can order replacement tiny-drums for this brilliant little tool. But I may need to wear an asbestos mask because it generates an extremely fine dust, and it occurs to me that I was probably aspirating my dead foot skin. Another gag reflex moment.

It says a lot about the wealth of our nation that engineers were able to devote energy to crafting an affordable mini-drum-sander to safely take the callouses off my heels. Maybe it also says something twisted about our culture. I’m too tired to go there tonight though. I’m at the tail end of solo-parenting-day-4, and all I want is for Anthony to come home tomorrow and take a good look at my newly primed feet. Sweet!

Solo (un)parenting day 3

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Today I embraced the unparenting philosophy, kind of like unschooling. I woke up and headed out with the dog. I don’t know what the kids were doing, but they were still in two pieces when I got back. Good enough. I made coffee and ignored them until they told me they were hungry. I think they had the TV on by then (which I almost never allow) but I’m not actually sure. I dutifully fed them and then ignored them some more while I cleaned up a bit. Still no idea what they were doing, and I didn’t need to know because no one was yelling or crying. They asked for sweet treats. Sure, why not? Then the babysitter came over for almost 5 hours.

WOOOOHOOOOOOO.

I had lunch with a friend and attended to shopping errands. In three not-having-lunch hours I made successful visits to 7 retail establishments – SEVEN – and kept an eye appointment, and also had time to slump for a bit with a cuppa at the book store cafe. All of that would have taken two weeks if I had to lug the kids around, and I saved the 25% mark-up on expenditures I associate with co-shopping with my minions.

I got home and walked the dog, and then I ignored my children until dinner, which I slapped on the table indifferently.They actually complained about my not making a better meal, but fell quickly silent when I reminded them they usually refuse to eat my dinners. (Nick frequently announces dinner is “disgusting”, which is very cute out of a four-year-old mouth.) While I was considering not doing the dishes, the electricity went out and I couldn’t ignore the kids anymore because it was pitch black in the house. But by then they seemed to understand that today I’m pretty much on strike. Jesse worried over our frightened dog while I found the emergency flashlight, and then she rounded up a camping lantern and a couple LED book reading lights. Nick hovered but didn’t beg to be held. They were great. We got ready for bed and relaxed until the lights came back on and then they went to sleep peacefully.

I don’t understand why they haven’t been more difficult. I feel like I’m in the eye of a storm and I’m pretty sure I’m going to pay for my behavior tomorrow, when day 4 of solo parenting commences. I’m already feeling stressed and grumpy about whatever revenge they’re planning. I’d better have a drink.

grumpy about aging

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My grandma, Lee Nak Soon

My grandma, Lee Nak Soon

A few weeks ago after a couple extra trips to the swimming pool with the kids, I developed a painful itchy rash over much of my body, including my face. A gift of Wisconsin’s arid winters, I suspect. First I looked like I’d spent too much time in a tanning booth. Then the skin became extremely dessicated and wrinkled for about a week as it healed, especially around my eyes. One night as I stared at the strangeness in the mirror, it occurred to me that I was seeing myself in about 20 years. Since I live in please-don’t-let-me-grow-old America, I’m sure I was supposed to say EEEEK and start googling local providers of face lifts and acid baths. Americans think aging is ugly, and we’re obsessed in the ugliest ways with not growing old.

But looking in the mirror, that’s not how I felt. I pictured myself 20 years in the future, and I thought I looked pretty good for 67. I even thought I looked beautiful as I laughed at my image. I’ve always thought old women look beautiful.

When I was very small, I believe I spent most of my waking hours with my grandma. I have photos of her, but they’re nothing to my memories. She was beautiful beyond the dreams of little girls who’ve seen too many Disney fairies. She was my binkie. I have simple and happy memories of her. I remember learning to read in Korean with her. She took me to my piano and dance lessons. She sang children’s rhymes and hymns to me. We’d walk through the streets of Seoul — in my child’s memory they were either scary alleys surrounded by massive concrete walls or scary multi-lane roads filled with insane drivers — and stop for treats from street vendors and small shops. She took me with her to the rice miller, where we watched the rice flour come out the end of the mill. I loved sleeping over at her home, an old-fashioned little two-bedroom place with floors heated by coal, Korean-style. We’d walk there from my parents’ house. She made me rice and eggs with soy sauce, and we drank barley water. We cuddled up together and watched Korean variety shows on her tiny TV. We played funny little kids games, and she told me stories and myths on demand, mesmerizing me like a Royal Shakespeare thespian. She kept a coffee can in the bedroom for a chamber pot in case I had to pee during the night. For real. I remember using it.

By around the time we moved to the United States in 1976, when I was 10, Grandma was living with my uncles in Seattle. I don’t remember whether she came here before or after us. I just know that it meant I didn’t see her as much. She would fly to California once in a while to stay with us. She slept on a futon on the floor in my room, and I felt like we were reliving some very good times. I remember her sitting one night at bedtime, putting on lotion and looking at the skin on her arms. She said to me, “I’m getting old, aren’t I. Look at my wrinkles.” She must have been somewhere in her 60’s at the time. At 11, this idea startled me, but my reply came easily and honestly. Not to me, grandma. I think you look young and beautiful. She chuckled and nodded. Now I think back and it seems that she was rueful, or maybe (I can hope) she was grateful to have me with her in that moment.

Shortly after that conversation, maybe even on the same trip, Grandma had a massive brain aneurysm that sent her to the hospital. She had two life-saving surgeries that took many hours, she was hospitalized for days, and she was severely incapacitated as a result. My memories of what followed aren’t clear, except I know my mom was emotionally incapable of handling the situation, filled with grief and rage and guilt. Grandma regained speech and bodily control eventually, and she went on to live another 20-plus years. Her thinking and behavior were obviously altered by the aneurysm and surgeries, and there was a sort of sunken spot on her forehead where they must have had to do something to her skull to get to the clot quickly, but she never stopped being utterly beautiful to me. I always thought she aged wonderfully. She wasn’t mean or bitter, and it seemed to me she had a simple faith that made her not worry too much about things; and so there was a clarity to her face and eyes, and her mouth didn’t turn down in a way that spoke to a lifetime of unhappiness or misery.

In the last years of her life, I barely saw Grandma. I was a busy lawyer in Washington, D.C., and I had lost most of my Korean so I couldn’t communicate well with her. I sent her flowers now and then, I showed up for her 90th birthday party. It wasn’t much, but I hope she knew how much I loved her anyway. One spring, I flew to California with Anthony. He had a conference in the Monterey area, so we doubled up a short vacation with a visit to my family. It so happened that just then Grandma fell very ill with pneumonia and was hospitalized. Since I was already in California, it was a small thing for me to grab a couple plane tickets and fly up to Seattle with my mom to visit. So, a week or so before she would die, I was able to spend a few hours with my grandma in the hospital.  She was well under 5 feet tall. I remember the nurse coming in to check her feet for something.  She lifted the covers gently and found nothing. Look higher, I told her dryly. We giggled a little, but the situation wasn’t funny. Grandma was suffering. She was about 91 years old, ground down with age and illness, skinny, her breasts shrunken to nothing. But she was still so beautiful, and not even the cloudiness in her eyes could hide it from me. I felt like a little child again. She patted my hands, petted my head. She sighed occasionally, backed by 90 years of experience and feelings I couldn’t possibly fathom, murmuring “ooh-lee eh-gee” and “ah-gah-shee”, my baby, my little darling. In a lucid moment, when she wasn’t hurting too much, she held my hand and, in mild exasperation over my uwillingness to conceive yet, blessed me. It’s okay, Carla, she told me.  You can just have two kids, a boy and a girl. That’s enough. Have a good life.

And indeed, Grandma’s blessing is my reality today. In my opinion, anyone who thinks growing old or being old is ugly, anyone who thinks wrinkles are ugly, has lost touch with a lot that matters. When I looked into my grandmother’s beautiful, wrinkled face, I never saw age. I saw who she was, my sweet grandma who would pretend my stuffed animals were peeing on her and give me airplane rides on her feet. I saw love, right to the end. I hope someday I can also be a wrinkly, grizzled old lady laughing with my grandkids. If you think I’m ugly when you see me then, I really won’t care.

A joyful Carla and her loving grandma

A joyful Carla and her doting grandma

Solo parenting day 2: everyone still alive

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Solo parenting alert: my children are still breathing and I’m still functional. Right now my salvation comes in the form of Dragon Riders of Berk, season 2. Jesse and Nick even smothered me with kisses in exchange for the season purchase on Amazon. It seemed like a good barter to me, about a dollar a kiss.

I ate a delicious salad for dinner, with things like avocados and a grated carrot and mushrooms. Nick had a grilled cheese and Jesse had baked apples, and also she tasted one piece of lettuce from my salad. I’m a classy mom.

Nick became very noisy as our 3-minute sit-down-together meal winded down, subjecting me to all manner of screeching as he careened happily about our tiny kitchen. I was getting increasingly upset until Jesse giggled and rebuked me mildly. “You should just laugh, mommy. We can’t understand anything he’s saying anyway, and he’s actually really funny.”

I hate it when my kids are right. I’m not sure how I’m going to survive 3 more days of this sickening cuteness without Anthony.

Solo parenting day 2 commences

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I wasn’t born to be a solo parent. Anthony is an extremely useful second parent, and when he’s out of town, I struggle. I especially have a hard time getting the dog out for walks. The kids refuse to come outside with me in these frigid temperatures, but then when I’ve walked out the door they’re filled with intolerable dread over being in the house alone. So Nick does things like run out of the house bawling, “mommy mommy where are you??” and Jesse chases him down the driveway screaming “Nick come back, COME BAAAACK!!!” It echoes through the entire neighborhood like rolling thunder, drivers-by observe my half-naked, shoe-less kids wandering the front yard at sub-zero wind chills, the dog’s too distracted to take care of business, and then she waits until I leave and shits in the basement.

To avoid this horrible spiral in the mornings, I let the kids turn to electronics while I walk the dog. They never took to rubber binkies as babies, but WOW the iPad minis do the trick. It’s a fun way to start the day, until I tell them to put the iPads away and get going. It’s all downhill from there, but at least my neighbors don’t have to witness as much of our insanity.

The rest of today and 3 more days to go before Anthony returns. Somebody help me not hurt my kids until then.

I’m grumpy again, aka can you take my child to school for me?

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If you have issues with cursing just walk away now because I have to unleash some feelings and I don’t think I’ll edit.

Today, as we geared up for the first day back to school after winter break, I remembered that I fucking hate taking Jesse to school. I hate it in an irrational, tantrumy, 5- year-old-facing-down-broccoli way. I’m so fucking tired of it. Counting preschool and Jesse’s traumatic, PTSD-inducing 7-month stint in the most evil Montessori school ever, I’ve been taking Jesse to school for 5 and a half years now. I want a new job.

First, I have to make her lunch because of her egg allergy. It’s a ball and chain in my life. Jesse doesn’t eat packaged or normal so it’s either some crazy home made taco array with fresh tortillas, or fresh bread. Fresh as in I have to make it and bake it, otherwise she won’t bother to eat, and then her blood sugar and her mood go all haywire. Bad. When well-meaning (or maybe not) people suggest I send something easier in her lunch and she can take it or leave it, I say things like “yeeeah I don’t think that’ll work…” and I try to sound like a hippy. But inside I’m thinking mature, constructive things like, “why don’t you shut the fuck up, you patronizing asshole, or I will beat the shit out of you, and don’t think for a minute that you can take me because under this blub I am CHISELED.”

Next, I have to get Jesse fed and dressed in the morning, via some random combination of threats and promises. I used to have action plans and sticker charts, but they made no difference so I just live in the moment now. It’s all pulling teeth, and most of the time it involves a great deal of whining and dissent. Jesse often joins me in the noise-making. Getting out to the car involves more threats, more promises, more grim waiting. On the worst days, Jesse screams during most of the 5-minute drive to school.  If she knew how to curse, she would curse me to hell all the way. Picture Charlton Heston on a beach.

The battle continues when we get to school. Usually I end up standing next to her open car door in the parking lot, bent over with my hands on my knees, insanely muttering “God I hate this I hate this, this is the worst part of my day” while she sits glumly, refusing to get out of the car.  By now, the promises have been used up and it’s all threats. Eventually she dawdles her way to the school doors. When she starts with the whining noises, I think things like, “oh my dear lord, you little shit, get your ass through that door or I will drag you by the ankle to your classroom and good riddance.”

Then comes the worst part of all, when I sit on the bench outside the entrance and help Jesse put on her backpack. As other children straggle past, she turns to me with those enormous, puddly green eyes, sad and scared, leans in on me and murmurs intensely, earnestly, “Mommy I don’t want to go to school, I just want to stay with you.”

I can’t even say it makes me feel guilty; it’s worse than that. I feel broken and useless. After 5 and a half years, how come I haven’t figured this out yet? Why is it so hard? But Jesse and I have to keep moving before the emotional shale slips out from under our feet and flattens us. We hold each other, touch foreheads and lock eyes, ignore sweet-and-easy Nick for a moment. I whisper sweet nothings to her. You’re an awesome kid, have a great day, go with the flow, let yourself be ish, see you at the end of the day, I love you. She nods and takes a breath for courage, puts on her backpack and grabs her lunch. We fake smiles for each other. We tuck our broken hearts away and step forward into a new day. More often than not, she takes one last look at me as she walks through the door, but then she trudges on without a glance back, a diminutive 46-pound soldier walking to her schoolroom doom.

Do over tomorrow.

That's my girl

That’s my girl

I’m not grumpy tonight

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I got nothing. I’m not really grumpy about anything tonight. It’s New Year’s eve and the year 2013 in review looks really good for pretty much everyone in my family and my acquaintance. Also I found out this morning I don’t have breast cancer, and that’s brightened my outlook measurably.

Although, about that.

I suppose I’m annoyed it took so long to obtain this cheerful news — almost 2 full months from the initial mammogram. That seems like too long.

And I’m experiencing some feelings I can’t find words for at all, though I’m sure someone somewhere has done so. I’m thankful and relieved about my own good news, but what of the 20% of biopsied women who got bad news today?  They matter just as much as me; as many prayers were spoken for them as for me; and I feel like I’m gloating at them if I get overly happy about this.  I remember what it’s called–survivor’s guilt, right?  I’m experiencing some lesser version of survivor’s guilt, like…  I-don’t-have-cancer embarrassment.  (I know, I have a gift for words.)

My guess is that this runs deeper in my soul than just this episode. I was diagnosed with bladder cancer in my 20’s, which is a story for another day, and everything turned out fine. It was an easy fix, a scope surgery and nothing more, a very low grade cancer. For what I had, there’s probably a higher risk of death from catching influenza.  But the word “cancer” always seems to gain me a special respect, like I’m a SURVIVOR.  It doesn’t seem fair I get such a back pat over it whenever it comes up.  It’s embarrassing.

I addressed my uncomfortable feeling pronto this morning.  As soon as I learned about the negative biopsy results, I rounded up the kids and went shopping. Almost nothing takes the edges off my happy place as much as shopping with Jesse and Nick. We landed at Target and didn’t even make it past the checkout area before I stopped, bent over in exasperation with my head resting on the shopping cart, taking deep breaths to stop myself from yelling at them.  Shortly after that, when I managed to gather them in one place for long enough, I explained that mommy was going to keep moving, and if they lost me they should look for anyone in a red shirt with a name tag and request that mommy be paged.  Next stop was Trader Joes, which went about as well as Target.  In all, it was a long two hours. 

But I have to admit, it still wasn’t enough to make me grumpy for longer than a few moments at a time. Today I’m happy for no reason, and it looks like nothing is going to bring me down.  Happy New Year, my friends!