Tuna casserole and Simon Says

I am a woman in labor of thought, constantly awaiting arrival. I slam the dishwasher closed and make myself some toast, needing to hear that self soothe of liquid and dish churning to understand what it is I want to say. What am I saying? I don't know what to say.

I’m a stay-at-home/writerperson/stock girl at Nordstrom trying to keep my head on straight and not sleep during the day. I've turned nocturnal in less than a week; its wretched. It's given me a head cold.

Like today, sick as a dog, I have this unexplainable mission to make a tuna casserole. Tuna casserole, for myself. Right. Like somebody died or had a baby or something.(Maybe its for my labor of thought?) The entire heaping dish of it: for me.

It's sitting on my stove now and I'm just glaring at it.
Not sleeping makes a person do strange things.
Like wanting to start a blog called "Simon Says" but my name's not Simon. That kind of weird, stupid stuff.

So back to the dishwasher I go, for inspiration for calm, maybe for a nap bedding down next to it like my dad always does. On his lunch break, zonked out under the dishwasher, or on the dryer, like that dog from Charlie Brown that sleeps on top of his dog house. Nobody gets it. I guess they don't have to.

Dads are strange, but I find myself suspended in the gravitational force field of my dishwasher too, but not for a nap, for a damn good "something" to write about.  All I get is tuna casserole and Simon Says.

Imagine that. If dad's are weird, their daughters are certainly more so.

Take this paragraph Anne Lamott wrote about her dad, the writer, who she grew to be very alike it seems:

"Every morning, no matter how late he had been up, my father rose at 5:30, went to his study, wrote for a couple of hours, made us all breakfast, read the paper with my mother, and then went back to work for the rest of the morning. Many years passed before I realized that he did this by choice, for a living, and that he was not unemployed or mentally ill."

At times I feel like that mentally ill writer, despairing that my words won't be enough and I become hyper-self conscious when people ask what I do, like I work for the freaking CIA or something and can't tell them. With my insecurities compounding, I say: well, I write books, yes both my own and other people's. Or I'm a ghostwriter, which sounds  more like a rogue agent. I only pull that one out for special occasions.

One thing I like to do is chatter away on my computer keys especially when someone needs help taking the garbage out or doing yard work and looking at them like I'm about to crack the human genome or and saying: "I....am working." And they say nothing and I think to myself, huh. That worked. That might classify me as a miserable person, and if so, I'm right on track to becoming an excellent writer.

The Ann Conspiracy, and other issues.

Here I am, alongside a half-empty coffee cup, full of thoughts and regretting my lack of a morning run.

The clouds were able to stave off the rain for a record-breaking few days but as I peeked outside this morning it returned unannounced, like bad company. What else to do with bad company than drink coffee? Certainly you wouldn't go on a run with bad company. That would be a disaster. So I stayed.

The Ann conspiracy is something that struck me while trying to work. More like thinking about work, not actively working. Because at 7:30am, not much occupies this hour other than that which I expressly want to do. Because mornings are God's gift to men and women and to the little children who wake up with screaming voices at an hour when most adults are just doing their best to retain consciousness.

The Ann conspiracy is an indestructable trio of writers, the kind that inspire me: Anne Lamott, Annie Dillard, Ann Voskamp. Trying to write like the Anns' only aids me in looking goofy and amateur for even thinking I could use words like "grandiosity" and "inchoate" correctly.

But I want to. I especially want to fascinate others with my stream-of-consciousness, as if I were responsible for the most witty, downright compelling thoughts ever thunk in the universe. Anne Lamott is responsible for at least a few.

She is a “ likable narrator" and in her own words:

Having a likable narrator is like having a great friend whose company you love, whose mind you love to pick, whose running commentary totally holds your attention, who makes you laugh out loud, whose lines you always want to steal.

Airing my secret fears of being an annoying narrator, it is easiest to subvert this whole conspiracy by just changing my name from Lauren to Ann. Or maybe Laur-Ann, one friend suggested. Maybe Ann is too drastic, but Laur really sounds like Thor and I'm not going for that.

Let's face it, I've always been a little more like Anne of Green Gables, running wild with imagination in preference to having real conversations and friends. Well, isn't that just like an Anne would do. I'm starting to convince you aren't I?

Let's change our names.

My best friend (who is not imaginary) always wanted to change her name, from Brittney to something else. Her mom laughed at this suggestion and so did I, until the moment my very own name crisis struck. Names appoint futures, they loom like self-fulfilling prophecies that we have no control over.

Was mine spoken at the wrong moment? Did my parents simply take the easy way out and name me after my surgeon's daughter who is also a Lauren? What is the surgeon's daughter doing? Is she successful and are our fates interlinked because I was destined to become an Ann or even an Anne but fell off the wagon and became a Lauren for the sake of convenience?

I really hope not.

 I think I’ll use Ann as a penname, until I'm part of the Ann Conspiracy bringing forth literary greatness: until I'm published. For then, I will be the paranoid blogger whose thoughts, strangely enough, you are reading.

We bought a zoo...kind of.

I read good advice this week that I will stick to for probably the rest of my life...

"Write about what really interests you, whether it is real things or imaginary things, and nothing else." -C. S. Lewis

Now this seems self-indulgent and maybe it is. But I figure nothing good or interesting ever came of me writing about things I hated.

The zoo is imaginary but everything else is fact. I think its a good compromise.

There are two kinds of things at our zoo: the deer and the trees.

THE ZOO

The  man who formerly owned our zoo was up on the roof when he said he could count up to 200 deer around him.

This classifies as a pretty big zoo I think. Our land borders a nature reserve so at least our animals have lots of room. They can cross the road, they can eat the neighbor's plants for all we care, no one lives there.

We planted 20 aspen trees to border our zoo. It was a solid kind of moment, maybe even something to celebrate--the fact that we have this beautiful zoo.

Once upon a time we had fish too, koi I think? They all froze to death in our shallow pond. We fed them and everything. The trustworthy man said they would "winter" but we saw the whites of their bellies by January, maybe earlier.

We had a mountain robin once that was obsessed with staring at its own reflection in my dad's truck windows. It was like one of those people who develop weird habits like eating laundry detergent or washing their hands a thousand times a day.


I'm making this sound a little like a freak show and maybe it is. But it's the best little freak show zoo that I have ever been a part of.

I was flipping through our neighbor's People Magazine that the mailman fortuitously stuck in our stack and found pictures of this coonhound a photographer adopted from an animal shelter. He taught it to do the simplest, most dumbfounding thing I've ever seen: he taught the dog to balance, on almost anything. See for yourself:

http://maddieonthings.com/

We need one of these for our zoo/freak show to be complete. My birthdays coming up soon, so anyway...

I always thought the deer looked a lot like dogs, with that pleading, tame look in their eye. Then again, I've though that about a alot of wild things that didn't turn out to be so nice. 

This is a zoo, a very real operating zoo that I visit at least once a month because I miss it so much. Even though there are bigger one's with a lot more animals, this one's my favorite.

fri.ster.hood.

I had the privilege of meeting a number of wise individuals around this time last year. One in particular was a man with a gift at capturing the intimate stories of International Justice Mission clients through photography. He said this in reference to years of his time spent building relationships with perfect strangers and I will never forget it:

In the truest of relationships I’ve known, one does not run from the pain and one does not hesitate to share in the celebration of a gift. We hide neither from the hurt nor shield ourselves at a safe distance from the remote possibility of dreams come true. We embrace life. 

-Ted Haddock

Finding that your heart has made a quantum leap into the heart of another person is a fine thing. It's love; something that this world at times does not give even in family relationships. But its something miraculous I've found in my own, in friendships free of obligation and only with the expectation that all parties will venture deeper into truth and authenticity. Much beyond commonality, these kind of relationships are not only forged in shared happiness, but in moments of pain too. 


This is the first published account of the friend-sisterhood that is more aptly named: the fristerhood. Though we do not all fit into the same pair of traveling jeans, we do go to great lengths with whatever means of transportation just to be near one another. And we eat cheese, lots of cheese. Ours is a never-ending story, lived out in hilarity and bedtime stories told to the youngest members (two of which pictured above)enlighten us with silly antics and emerging personalities. We share our favorite things,our hand-me-downs and our opinions with or without request.

Shared life is good life. This is what I've found. Let the fristerhood unite more often than separate! 

Mille Feuille: pastry rules all.

Still recovering from my last baking faux pas; a homemade kettle corn that failed to caramelize and became gritty sugar clumps, I attempted to ward off failure for at least a week.


But cardamom and nutmeg leaped into my cart at the market to join my stock of canned pumpkin at home. 


Muffins were too easy a victory to attempt after the popcorn disappointment.


I had to up the ante this time. It could only mean one thing: a pastry.


Not just any pastry but the daintiest of all dessert loves: the mille feuille in all its flaky wonder. I knew if I botched this I would bake nothing but pre-packaged brownie mix and cornbread as a reminder to leave tarts to the culinary elite.


I tousled my way through the ingredient cupboard to take inventory. With exactly 2.5 cups of flour left and three flowery-scented heirloom apples, I had my green light.


Stackable bowls out. Recipe blog up.


Dough savvy as I wasn't, I managed to cut butter through a landscape of flour with a fork, sweeping it up into a central mass.


I hold two directives responsible for the good dough outcome I achieved:


Not over mixing.
Not letting the dough get warm (unless yeast is involved).


Following rules was my save in assembling tarts nothing less than precious. The darling apple cut-outs fit snugly inside their spice-flecked houses. You could almost say I tucked them into bed. 


Plated and cooed over, apple treats have ushered me into new heights of baking glory. I fancy my ascent to continue with a spice cake or maybe something Jewish with all the delicious somethings that can be done with honey. Things are looking up already.

My very own Grey's Anatomy episode.

With fall comes all things romantic (see list) and a bit of indulgent TV series watching. Slumped down in the couch for two episodes of Grey's Anatomy is where I am found after work.

My latest novel lies discarded on the floor somewhere near my passenger seat. I like to keep it near me during long drives. It has such a pretty cover. I almost feel bad for it.

I heard a recent parenting radio broadcast suggest that "TV media speaks to the heart while a book speaks to the mind." Within the context of orienting children toward literature instead of compulsive TV watching, it makes sense. My mom read to me often. I should know better.

But as a journalist, the statement makes me all kinds of conflicted. I received an overpriced education to become a news media person. I also work at Nordstrom. Sure, the news is full of bad messages. It dampens the glee of lunch hour in under a minute with stories of destruction from across the globe. Events are skewed are presuppositions are made. It is also a thruway for advertising and don't we all hate that!

If Jeremiah 17:9 suggests that the heart is the seat of wickedness and the news media is reporting on said wickedness, well then, they may just be doing their job.

After the seventh (estimated) Grey's episode this week, I made a trip to the dermatologist. Nothing out of the ordinary, just for an examination of a small bump at the base of my scalp. It took Dr. Tavelli all of 5 minutes to assess and tell me:

"You're a healthy kid. The spot doesn't concern me too much. We can inject it with cortisone and it will likely disappear"

Or...

"We can cut it off, put a couple of stitches in the scalp and send you on your way."

I answered decidedly, lacking my usual discretion:

"Cut it off? Yes, lets do that."

As Meredith Grey said, "Surgeons like to cut." It is not always the answer and in my case, did nothing life-altering. Romanced by the operating field delivered through my TV screen the chaotic brilliance and metallic sheen of a ten-blade, I wanted "the procedure."

 It may sound macabre (Happy Halloween!) and maybe it is, but I wanted there to be blood. A small clip and a couple of sutures later, I requested a mirror to see where the two sides of my flesh were sown together.

At the outset of this week was the dilemma of which fall boot to purchase for the season. By Thursday, I'm cavalier about clipping a piece of my scalp off.

What a welcome to October. I think it should involve more reading and a little less medical drama just to be on the safe side. Who knows if I might find other reasons to be visiting a surgical table soon...

That was meant to sound creepy.

Now read my list of romantic fall activities to make yourself feel better:

Smiling pumpkins.
The moccasin heel.
The return of the cozy blanket.
Smiling pumpkins.
A heap of old sweaters, some old, some new.
A game plan for colds (not getting one).
The familiar hug of denim.
Don't mind if I add a scarf.
Time indoors.
The bikini body postponed for another season.
Saying yes to a scone.
Applesauce making.
Collecting chestnuts.
Leaf smell.
Curtains.

September

Praise be to the back-to-school shopper! If not for sales, for social interaction. September blew into Portland on the smoky breeze of a forest fire. I am thankful it's here.

August was a sluggish retail month, a time for making lists because there is time to make lists when you are paid to remain upright and exuberant for a period of eight hours a day. For an introvert it can be an exhausting feat.

After punching my employee number into the register at mindblowing rate of five times per minute (in the event of a miraculous increase in sales figures), I am fabulous at waiting.


Waiting for that velvet hum of the receipt printer. That sound is nice.

Wait. Wait.
 Mistake woman's purse dog for domesticated squirrel. Laugh(discretely).
Wait. Point the way to women's restroom.
Wait. 
Answer phone. Wait. 
Take a stroll ( to the other register). 
Wait.
Swivel mannequins hands right side up after being tampered with by sugar-infused children. 
Wait again.
Scan the floor for signs of life. Wait. 
Locate happenstance customer. Appear casual, not desperate.
Maximize small talk. Ask questions. Lots of questions.
Accept a return, with enthusiasm.


Wait...