what's up, buttercup?

kids & food

It’s not even 9 AM and my fingers smell like garlic, the result of packing Mr. 8 a shepherd’s lunch of baguette smothered in salted butter and slices of raw garlic.

Do you know how hard it is to find a good, metal lunchbox these days? Pretty much the only choice is “vintage”, where by vintage I mean items that all us 36+somethings could have carried uphill both ways. Vintage costs a shitton of dollars on the ebays. There are even some metal boxes from the 50s, which sounds more like vintage to me, but I guess if it’s old enough to rust, it’s vintage.

The reason that a metal lunchbox is specified is that the boys’ schoolyard is infested with squirrels, which are really just cute rats. The classrooms all have a small outdoor area, and lunches are stored just outside the classroom door. The new lunchboxes that you can buy these days are canvas, with zippers. The squirrels have McGuyvered those open, ruining zippers, on a number of occasions. Metal is the only defense against ravenous, fat squirrels.

The lunches are overpacked, I know. They are not those types of lunches that entire blogs could be dedicated to, in their bento box cute glory, day after day. Just regular lunches, though the eldest’s has a bit of a Turkish shepherd’s flair, to account for the propensity to prefer radishes, vinegar, and kalamatas over PB&Js.

—

There are many philosophies in the feeding of children. My father was raised in a “finish your plate” environment and resented it, along with frozen lima beans, and so we were never subjected to that approach (or lima beans). I asked my mom if she used to cook us different things when we didn’t like the main thing, and she said, “Summer, I’m not really a very good cook, so no.” The boys sometimes sucker me in to making them each something different, but I’ve learned their wiley ways and so now this is the exception, not the rule.

My sister recently broke up with her boyfriend, because they had polar opposite food philosophies (and he was an asshole, regardless, according to me). He thought it proper to basically force feed a child, and once he made his own 4 year old son eat a full-sized fast food hamburger through tears. The lil’ child puked, yet this did not mitigate his Finish It philosophy. Heather is perhaps more yielding than I on Cassidy’s dietary approach, but it’s more in line with mine, and it works for them. Her ex thought that Heather, nearly 5 years into her parenting gig, should change to his way: give my niece a plate and make her finish it. Heather took a walk instead and learned a lesson in co-parenting (and assholes).

—

Navigating the food struggles is mostly about trying to foster a healthy relationship with food so down the road the kids will make smart choices, while at the same time trying to get enough leafy greens down their gullets to feel as if their mineral intake is sufficient. It’s fascinating to me how much energy we put into getting energy into our bellies. Now I think I’ll go have a cupcake.

</end fragment>

This is a quintessentially Pacifica day. The fog is thick and drippy, the ground is soaked with mist. From my apartment I can hear both the freeway and the ocean waves. Sometimes it’s hard to discern if the roaring sounds are an 18-wheeler bearing down the steep, southward side of Highway 1 or if I hear the sea crashing into the cliff. Today, though, it’s a high surf advisory and the roaring is louder than usual, so it’s the ocean, the advance raging of a storm somewhere offshore.

—

I have one older cousin, the daughter of my mom’s only sister. We were close when we were little, because we lived in the same neighborhood, but she was always trouble and I knew this from the time I was 5 and she was 8. Nothing she’s ever done has made me change that opinion. She has made a series of choices in her life that have made chaotic her norm. Horrible choices in men and hard drugs chief among them. She has borne some serious tragedy not entirely of her own making, and one can only guess the genes her bipolar father left her with. Her birthday is 9/11 for gawdsakes.

She moved back to California a year or two ago, not far from me. I’ve stayed away, not wanting to get pulled into dysfunction not of my own making, frankly a bit scared of the types of people she surrounds herself with. I don’t know if we could be more different.

Now though, she has been diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer and she’s in an unsafe living environment and I live closer to her than any other family. She doesn’t have dependable friends. She can’t even keep up with a cell phone bill. So now of course I have to cease the escapism. This is giving me mixed feelings along the lines of,

“your cousin has to get cancer before you’ll bother to get mixed up in her life?”
“how bad is this going to drag me down?”
“I wonder how psycho the current boyfriend is and if he’s going to make this incredibly difficult?”
“is she on crack again?”
“will she even take my help?”
“what if she doesn’t make it?” and
“this is all making me kind of angry”.

—

I’m laying here now, trying to decide what’s a “normal” way to feel about all this. Is there a normal in these situations, or just a range of emotions and thoughts the full spectrum of the rainbow, or more likely shades of gray?

If I rub my eyes hard enough, my hands smell like cut onions, as if there’s some core layer of me that is all allium bulbs and home cooked meals, a mirepoix that seasons everything I know.

—

I just returned from a walk to the beach, down the newly constructed trail, built upon the edges of the crumbling cliff. I didn’t even see the surf, really. I mean, I saw the edges of a couple of waves, but I didn’t watch them form offshore, come crashing to the sand, as one who hasn’t seen the ocean in a time would probably do. How funny, to walk west to nearly the edge of the land and not really see the ocean. What I mostly saw was the fog, endless fog.

—

Yesterday was a perfectly sunny day, not even chilly as we walked from Powell BART past Union Square. There was an engineering luncheon, full of vultures (me among them), at the Sir Francis Drake hotel. The hotel is one of those SF gems of the post-earthquake ’20s. There were golden carved embellishments above every door and fanciful chairs snuck out of Wonderland. People used to dance in those halls. Later, at happy hour, we walked into the marble lobby of Bar Adagio. There, the brown leather chairs and bold, earth-toned paintings made me feel lucky, so lucky, to get to sneak into these beautiful places, to soak them in in an instant, to feel their texture painted into my story, whatever that story ends up being.

to hope to be extraordinary

Some weeks are just weeks. They fall into that category of ordinary, which is the same as not extraordinary, except they are indeed extraordinary in the fact of our mere mortal existence. This was one of those weeks, just a week, a work list so mundane it need not be archived with words. The highlight of the evenings was Ken and our conversations, too late past bedtime, I love him so.

I once read some passages from my great grandmother’s bound journals, kept at a time when she still lived at home. Day after day she wrote about the mundanity of it all: laundry, grocery shopping, shoveling snow. Somewhere in there, buried behind pages of curly, hard-to-read handwriting, surely there must be some profound observation or meaningful thought, something bigger to life than chores? She was no Iowan Dorothy Parker.

Tomorrow I am headed into the City to pick up a canvas print of that photo I took of Ken and the boys. It’s the first photo of mine that has ever been printed on canvas (or bigger than 5x7, really). It’s 24x36 or some such and will have a wall to itself. This all pleases me, makes me proud.

Ken got me the Vivian Maier book for Jesus was Born Day and I love it. There are photos in there that give me the chills. There are moments that the photos make me think I’ve never taken a good photograph in my life. There are many pages where the work is technically inspiring and eye-opening.

There’s something about the story of Vivian Maier that haunts. That she lived her life collecting these images, honing her skills, diving so deep into this singular passion and yet no one really knew. That we even know of her work is serendipity. But there are something like 7 billion +/- such stories, right? Everyone living their lives, the depths of their untold stories, the boldness of their actions, fleeting aromatic memories, mental slideshows come and gone, so many feelings and never enough time to understand or share them all. Ah, the human condition is a strange one. And so we love and write and make art, to be in the moment, to share, and to hope to be extraordinary. Perhaps.

But for now, enough philosophyishness, I have clean sheets and tired eyes. Goodnight moon.

tl;dr

at La Sagrada Familia, 2006

I was remembering one night when I was in Barcelona. I had stayed there two days longer than I’d planned, in a stuffy and crowded 5th floor hostel in an alley off Las Ramblas. I’d spent the day doing the those Barcelona things: viewing the entire contents of the sea for sale at the outdoor market, gasping at the Gaudi, the phototaking and the basking on the too-crowded Mediterranean beach.

At night I shared some wine with some fellow hostel people, someone from Israel and someone from the US. We ventured out kind of late and found some particularly Spanish restaurant and all that I remember of dinner was 10 handfuls of tiny, crunchy, greasy, salty fried anchovies and more wine, though I know we ordered more than that. We wandered to a square (or was it a plaza), alive at night with tourists and locals, watched over by a fearsome looking SWAT team of police. We sat on the edge of a rather mundane fountain. There were two pretty Russian girls and I played wingman to my two hostel friends. There were some boys from Africa, refugees or migrants or some label that people who build borders like to use. We talked about how they’d come to stand here, how long they’d been there. Only the one spoke English confidently enough to carry on a conversation. The quieter one, the one less confident in his English, had a walkman of the tape variety. They handed me one of the ear phones and it was Bob Marley. We sat there for a song, some African boy and I, listening to Bob, bobbing our heads and he said, “niiiice, yah?” We walked around the corner, away from the heavy eyes of the policia, and four of us smoked a joint.

We met back up with the white boys and the Russian girls and headed out onto Las Ramblas. By this point I was buzzed and stoned. We all sat up on a stone wall, watching the night crowds come and go from nightclubs. Along came a girl from Bolivia, wandering down the cobbles with a boy from Boliva. She was wicked drunk in that giddy, loud, ferocious, and happy way. Back when I was in Barcelona, George W Bush was still President and Arnold was my state’s governor and while some people from the U.S. told stories of being from Canada (and of subsequently being caught by Canadians when they couldn’t produce a place beyond a province), I for one simply said I was from California (pronounced with a flair of Spanish accent). When someone asked me what I thought of the whole thing I said that it was embarrassing, that I believed my country, my state, could do better. When that girl from Bolivia learned I was from the U.S., she began berating me, “Why do the Americans not have a Revolution?! The Americans put up with corruption! I do not understand why there is not a Revolution!” I told her that we are, by and large, comfortable, that we’d had our revolution, that even though things like the Al Gore Supreme Court decision were outrageous, that we still have this unwavering belief in the eventual outcome of the system, that we value the order of things, that, overall, we were able to comfortably go about our daily lives and that comfortable people do not hold Revolutions.” She told me that we had a responsibility to the world to stand up for ourselves and others.

As I see these #OWS protests grow though, I can’t help but think about my fleeting Bolivian friend and how far and fast things have changed since 2006. I don’t know if OWS will fundamentally shift things, but I think it’s already shifting the dialogue and it’s clear from some of the reactions that it makes a certain segment of politicians uncomfortable. I bet my Bolivian friend is rooting things on.

I have a storage unit. Just a small one. It’s not even half full. Everything is neatly boxed, and most of the boxes are filled with like items. The things that are there are things I decided I didn’t have room for in my one-bedroom apartment, or that weren’t worth schlepping the long walk from the street to my apartment and up the stairs.

I haven’t been there in a couple of years, when I last went to grab all my Jesus’ Birthday decorations. There are of course things I know are there: my beloved, neglected Trek mountain bike; the rocking chair Grandpa gave me when I was 3; my backpacking stuff; books, oy books; random clothes and shoes; all my pretty breakables that I don’t have a china cabinet for; a guitar bought half a decade ago and all I ever learned was Redemption Song; a big djembe that Carter would love to play; etc.

My backpacking planning led to the stage where the trip to storage was necessary, to acquire boots, a once used stove and water filter, and on and on, REI offerings that will make the 4-day trek more enjoyable. All of that stuff was neatly tucked into one little, blue Rubbermaid tote. Easy.

Then I decided I should go through all the boxes, just to remember what was there. The box of unshredded papers - totally didn’t need to store. The bridesmaid dress from Christine’s wedding - totally never gonna wear it again. One thing, however, has been on my mind for a long time. My grandma had made a gorgeous, detailed felt tree skirt. In the Divide Up the Ornaments Party of 2007, my sister, Heather, got a hand-painted, ceramic nativity set and I got the tree skirt. These were the two items deemed of highest value in our negotiations. But alas, two years ago the treeskirt wasn’t in my Christmas boxes. I’d been quite concerned that I’d left it behind when I moved out of my last place, as things had been co-mingled and then had to be unmingled. So I went through 14 boxes. In Box 15, the last box, located at the bottom of a pile of boxes, there was Grandma’s treeskirt, neatly wrapped in tissue paper with a whole bunch of other Christmas decorations. I breathed a serious sigh of relief.

Walking on Market Street

Let me tell you about Market Street, or at least the half block I walk most days. On the corner there’s a big, white apartment building of utilitarian design, the kind of building that the Planning Commission should have sent back to the drawing board. It’s set far back on its lot, with a paid parking lot out front, facing both Market and 8^th. Along 8^th, there’s a little brick wall, thigh-high, edged with scraggly bushes pretending to be landscaping.

Now, if you were to just visit the City, you’d think this block was populated by random people in random places at random times, but walk the block often enough and you’ll begin to see the same faces at the same times doing pretty much the same thing.

Before I describe them, though, let’s get a better sense of setting. From the corner you can see the top of the City Hall dome, blue and gold-gilded in its renovated glory. City Hall reeks of power. Across the street is the fabulous Orpheum, with its tall, white wall painted black and green in the form of a Wicked poster. Half a block up, where my walk ends, is UN Plaza, full of fountains and stone obelisks etched with ideological phrases. Each day of the week the plaza comes to life with a different set of street vendors. Wednesday is farmer’s market. The Salvadoran lady with pupusas used to come on Mondays, but maybe she found a better paying spot, or maybe she left this expensive city, because she’s not there anymore.

It’s a wide sidewalk. Market Street has a perfect bike lane in this section, the trolley rolls in both directions, and there is no parking allowed. It’s the edge of the Tenderloin, the edge of Civic Center. It’s six blocks from the Financial District, and fewer blocks to social services and hotels-by-the-week. In the daylight hours, it’s always bustling.

There’s the big black man, friendly, who sits on the high section of wall, at exactly the same longitude and latitude. He’s been playing a guitar there most mornings for the past year. When he first started to play it, all that echoed forth was confused and discordant, the kinds of sounds that make you wince. He would strum away, though, energetic. At some point since then someone must have stopped and taught him some chords, because just the other day the sounds were more like music and less like just noise.

There’s the Indian guy, of the Native American variety. He’s short and jovial, almost always in a friendly conversation, except for when he’s passed out. He’s nearly archetypal in his drunkenness, a real life caricature. His most consistent accessory is a brown paper bag. He gets so deeply drunk I worry for his liver, but it’s probably too late for that.

There’s the little old lady, so tiny. She sits right on the edge of the wall, next to the walkway. She’s always dressed immaculately in what looks to be her Sunday best, a flower print dress with pearl buttons. She wears coral lipstick, a silly Easter hat, and carries a plastic clutch pretending to be patent leather. She looks just like Daisy from Driving Miss Daisy, only she’s African American and much less fiery. She sits there muttering to herself, with her hand placed upon her chin in a coquettish fashion. Her eyes dart. She’s the kind of person who makes you wonder where she came from, where her people are, why she’s sitting there all alone in this big and sometimes scary City. Sometimes I’ll say hello, and she’ll just look away or get up nervously and shuffle along.

By afternoon, at the 8^th Street end of the block, there’s a group of 6 to 8 guys standing around in animated conversation, some sitting some standing, some nearly blocking the entire path. They’re always there, at that location just at the top of the BART stairs, offering a collection of CDs, records, or random dumpster diver finds. Sometimes the guitar man is there.

Some days, nearer the end of the month, there’s the itsy bitsy lady in the wheel chair. I’m not sure if she has one leg or none; I’m quick not to stare. She’ll be on the sidewalk, right at the edge of the crosswalk, unobtrusively yet unabashedly asking for money. I remember a 3-part story in the San Francisco Chronicle and decide that she probably lost her legs to a junkie’s infection, and this presumption stirs in me conflicting feelings of pity, annoyance, and anger. When she’s there, there is always some man lurking in the wings, there to take advantage of the greater take a wheelchair-bound woman is bound to make, alert to the dollars that fall into her Starbucks cup, waiting, I presume, for just enough money for that next perfect fix.

There’s the intense white dude, the one who kind of scares me. He’s short to my 5’7” almost-tallness. He’s got features like a gnome, his face covered in a thick gray beard, and his head a shock of wiry gray hair. He looks angry, so angry. He always stands at the edges of the groups of regulars, rarely (if ever?) engaging in conversation. Sometimes he will hold a sign at the top of the BART stairs in front of the Orpheum. He will never ask for money from women.

And then there’s me, walking back and forth between coffee and the office, usually a soy latte in my hand, my zipped up purse slung cross-body over my shoulder, taking in the faces of the people sitting on the thigh-high brick wall. You’d think this block was populated by random people in random places at random times, but walk the block often enough and you’ll begin to see the same faces at the same times doing pretty much the same thing.

tl;dr

50 things to my 17-year old self (part 1)

this meme is making the rounds…

50 things to my 17-year old self
(part 1)

You will never have big boobs. And you really won’t care.
Those boys who you have crushes on will grow up into not dreamy looking guys (hell, one will even become a CHP officer complete with copstache). Don’t waste your time on the boy crazy business. You’re really better than all that.
Angst is the teenage condition. When you look back on the photos of you with your friends, you’ll see that you were really having a pretty good time, despite all that angst up in your head. Relax, chica.
Dye your hair in streaks of some ridiculous color like hot pink or purple, because when you have a grown-up job, the time for such things will have passed in the wind.
When you tell your dad you want a guitar and he rambles off all the options – 6-string, 9-string, bass - just tell him you want a normal guitar and that he’s making it more difficult than it really is. Take lessons and never stop playing.
Be nicer to that rad little sister. She will forgive you for pushing her away, but you will always feel like an ass for hurting her feelings.
Go to that European history class and read all the books, because that professor is a hard-ass grader and that part of history is fascinating. Also, GPA.
Travel to far away places every chance you get. Do a semester or a year abroad.
There will never be a time when you aren’t the smart girl. Just deal with it.
Don’t start eating meat again. A 10 year gap in an otherwise meat free life is lame. You will feel sick every time you eat pig because you shouldn’t be eating pig.
Vodka is the devil. So is whiskey. (Though you do a pretty good job of handling your (top shelf) tequila.)
Painfully skinny + freshman 15 = perfect.
Those friends who you don’t want to let go of when you go away to college, you will really all keep in touch. Really.
When you get to that part of the night in your drinking where it becomes very easy to throw back a shot, go home immediately, drink lots of water, and sleep it off. Do not do another shot. Spinning is bad.
Get a fake i.d. You’ll hear more live music that way.
Take pictures of every car you ever own; they’re like milestones along the journey. The internet will not have a picture of a burgundy 1978 Plymouth Valiant with tan tapestry interior and your words do it no justice.
Learn to budget ASAP.
That time in LA will be kind of lonely, but it will build some good character.
Learn to SCUBA when Erin is an instructor. She’ll stop doing that after she gets back from Thailand and life will take over.
Ask Grandpa to tell you more stories. You’ll miss him lots when he’s gone.
Living in a house with four other girls and only one bathroom is probably a really bad idea, but it will be worth it because that’s where you will become best friends with Erin.
Take more pictures.
You don’t have to always be happy. You’re not responsible for the happiness of others.
Trust your intuition.
Things aren’t going to turn out according to some template white picket fence life that has been provided you. You’re making it up as you go and that’s more than ok.