Cracks and curlicues

It happened two weeks back, the day before Valentine's Day.

I pulled the glass out of the dishwasher that morning and noticed a small but clearly visible line under the pattern printed on its surface. It was time to retire this one, just like its twin, which cracked a few years earlier.

I bought these a decade ago from a little boutique that may or may not be in business now. I passed its window on the way home from class and went inside on a whim. These glasses were set on a sale shelf toward the back of the store with other random items.

Why these glasses? I don't completely remember how it came to be, but somehow, we adopted the curlicue as our symbol. I think it had something to do with time being a spiral -- cycling but still moving in a line. We needed a sense of forward motion but couldn't deny the detours our relationship was having to undergo. So, the curlicue. We'd doodle it on things, the way people would carve their initials on tree trunks, to remind ourselves of the possibility of a future in one location, even if we had to get there in a roundabout fashion.

So just before Valentine's Day ten years ago, I found these glasses waiting for me on that shelf. I took them back to my dorm, filled one with red and white M&Ms, and wrapped it up in cellophane. I sent that one to D and kept the other for myself. For the years we were apart, we used these. And when we had to separate for a second time, I made sure to take mine with me.

Of course, with all of that history, I can't bring myself to throw these away, but I haven't figured out what to do with them. Perhaps they'll become homes for small plants. Or candleholders. No matter what, glasses, we've had a good run. Here's to having you side by side.

Striped-up paisley

So not too long ago, I was over at French Fancy's place responding to this post, which got me thinking about the reasons I started this blog.

We were a long-distance couple, D and I, within weeks of becoming a couple at all toward the end of our senior year of high school. His family moved away that summer, and then we started college in cities a thousand miles apart.

Before that point in time, we still didn't get to see each other very frequently (dating wasn't an activity Troubadour Dad approved of, per se), so we got to know each other by phone when we weren't in physics class, launching things or setting them on fire. The only time of day that happened to work was late at night, after my parents had gone to bed.

To paraphrase what I wrote chez French Fancy, I was a tired Troubadour by then, so I would doze off in the middle of sentences -- but I'd still be talking. One of the phrases I randomly uttered in that state was striped-up paisley. To this day, we can't peg the origin or inspiration for it within that conversation, but we used striped-up paisley for the eight years we were apart to characterize our long-distance relationship. Striped-up paisley love: it may not look typical to other people, but it reaches across crazy circumstances.

And that hasn't changed, now that we're together at last. I started this blog to keep a record of our time apart, our ways of coping, our reasons for sticking to each other in spite of the inordinately frustrating challenges those eight years presented. Going through more recent posts, which talk a little about the new challenges in adjusting to each other, I realize that striped-up paisley isn't a temporary condition. As obvious as it may seem, the ways we've learned to love and stay in love were formed out of that experience. And we're using what we learned then to handle the challenges now, in each other's presence.

So, striped-up paisley. It's my outlook for us. And I guess it's what this blog was and still is about.

A great big pile of

... mulch. And you thought I was going to say something else, didn't you?

This is what's left of the three cubic yards of fine-bark goodness we spread over our little garden plots two weeks ago. We're hoping it'll inhibit most of the weed growth we fought last summer. And protect the bulbs we planted last fall -- you know, the ones that thought it was spring three weeks ago. Silly bulbs! Here are our irises from way back when I first started blogging, now transplanted to the great outdoors. The stems on the lavender in the foreground never even died off over the winter:





And here are the lilies that came with the property. We've got others in the ground near them that seem to be a little wiser.


We've been getting frost at night, so growth has slowed down since I shot these pictures. D says everything's doing all right, though. And apparently, the trees in our neighborhood are BLOOMING. When I left, our lilac tree looked like this:


But maybe not anymore! Wait for me, lilacs; I'm coming back!

I'm asking D to take pictures so I don't miss them like I did last year, when I was away at Little U. on the Prairie (Land of the Deep Freeze). One of the profs on my thesis committee -- the one I mentioned in this post -- wrote as part of an excuse for his/her e-mail silence, "It's tirelessly cold here. If this were a logging (rather than a college) town we'd all be deep into booze."

And because I lived there for two years, I still sympathize. Just a little.

Said prof sent me feedback a few days ago. It was, shall we say, thin -- and so delayed that the suggestions were almost irrelevant (i.e., I've reworked the manuscript in an attempt to keep moving forward to the point that certain areas of concern the prof referenced have undergone significant changes). But s/he did send it, that feedback. And it at least reaffirms for me that my editing instincts were good ones, even if I have no clue whether the changes themselves improve the work. It's the small things we have to be grateful for, I guess. They add up in the end. Case in point: one cubic yard of mulch weighs 500 to 800 pounds, depending on its moisture content.

Which means, over the course of one afternoon, D and I moved about a ton of it. Likely a little more, since it was fairly wet.

That's more than I thought I was doing at the time. Perhaps this thesis too -- ? Oh, I hope.

The devil is in the details

So Thursday's pancreatic function test went off without any complications (or so I'm told since they put me under for the procedure). Results should be available in a few days. Until then, I'm busying myself with (what else?) thesis work and keeping a close eye on what I can and cannot eat for the rest of this trip.

The problem is that the restrictions change from day to day. For the next test, which is in progress at the moment, Dr. Specialist is having me eat as much fat as possible (aiming for 100 grams per day) so he can measure how much of it isn't getting absorbed. Hence the last few nights of dis-figuring dining: burgers topped with blue cheese, spring rolls from scratch, and butter-drenched shrimp scampi (see below). Goodbye, waist; hello, tasty, tasty stuff. With gut-wrenching side effects.

Photo courtesy Almost Dr. Sis. This is actually a shot of the dish when she
prepared it three weeks ago -- last week's has been demolished.

On Wednesday, I'll be switching over to this diet to prepare for Thursday's test, which measures levels of GI-tract bacteria:

• white bread (no fiber, no whole grain)
• eggs (hard/soft boiled)
• grilled or broiled chicken (seasoned with salt and pepper only)
• white rice (seasoned with salt and pepper only, no butter or margarine)
• tuna fish, baked or broiled white fish seasoned with salt and pepper only
• turkey or chicken lunch meat
• plain water (not flavored)
• coffee or plain tea (no dairy, sugar, or artificial sweeteners)
• clear chicken or beef broth

Talk about drastic changes!

After that, I get 24 hours of more-or-less normal eating, then I start removing all whole-grain foods, salad greens, and dairy, progressing (regressing?) to nothing but clear liquids and a tasty little prep solution on Sunday to prepare for Monday's colonoscopy.

Yeah, the procedure my parents had last year, the one recommended for people once they hit age 50. I am so not close to 50.

But I sort of saw this coming after the last appointment with my GI doctor in Seattle. And fortunately, growing up in my family meant automatically developing a commodious sense of humor, so Almost Dr. Sis and I have been cracking poop jokes for a week to keep things light around here. I mean, why pass on such a bottomless can of laughs? (You can groan all you like.)

But in all seriousness, I cannot wait to have that colonoscopy -- if only so I don't have to refer to my Google calendar to see what the day's menu requirements are.

A word, sir

Airline food: expensive for what it is and generally not blood-sugar friendly. Solution: bring your own. Seems fairly logical -- I pack whatever works for me into a reasonably sized bag or, alternatively, I buy something from an airport vendor. Either way, I board the aircraft with my meal. Shouldn't be difficult.

About 5:45 a.m. Monday, I approached the gate for my flight out of Seattle as I have many times before. On my person: one rolling suitcase of appropriate carry-on size, extender zipper properly closed; backpack containing toiletries, medications, laptop, and other TSA inspectables; and one meal-sized bag. I'll admit it up front -- the contents of the bag were not to be consumed on this flight, but they were readily identifiable food: two boxes of crackers that Almost Dr. Sis can't get easily where she lives (see above). They were a gift for her.

Gate Agent: (as he scans CT's ticket) "Have a good flight."

CT: "Thanks." CT starts walking toward jet bridge with her luggage. Gate Agent takes the next passenger's ticket then notices that his machine is indicating something from the previous scan.

Gate Agent: (to CT) "Wait, you're in an exit row. Are you willing to assist?"

CT: (turning from jet bridge door) "Yes."

Gate Agent: (notices paper bag in CT's hand) "Oh, you can't have three bags."

CT: (raises paper bag such that contents are visible): "This is food."

Gate Agent: (with a withering look) "Yeah, but you're not really going to eat all those crackers, are you?"

Now, at that moment, I have to say I was a bit taken aback. First of all, if I'd been carrying, say, a McDonald's bag of the same size, would you, Mr. Gate Agent, have bothered to question me about my baggage count? Secondly, what business was it of yours whether I was going to eat the entirety of what was in said bag? Food is food is food. As far as I know, your airline allows people to bring their own meals onto the plane and doesn't limit the type of food they purchase in any way. Sure, Manchu Wok is kind of gross to contemplate at 6 a.m., but you're operating a flight that lands in a time zone two hours ahead of this one. If I wanted lunch at 11:00 CST to adjust to the switch, it wouldn't be strange for me to have containers of General Tso's Chicken and Black Mushroom Tofu on hand since your flight doesn't reach its destination until nearly 12:30. But oh right, if I'd been holding a bag from a commercial food vendor, you wouldn't have blinked.

So, Mr. Gate Agent. I don't appreciate your rolling your eyes at me one little bit. For the record, not one of the flight attendants had any problem with the bag in question as it fit under the seat in front of me anyway, along with my backpack.

Just because I had my camera handy once I did manage to get myself some lunch at O'Hare, allow me to offer you a visual aid:

McDonald's sack containing a salad and a small cup of water.

Same McDonald's sack vs. bag containing two boxes of crackers.

Tell me, Mr. Gate Agent -- what, besides your attitude, is wrong here?

Buried

... but still here. Things have been hectic leading up to this month's trip to Almost Dr. Sis's campus. I finally flew out yesterday and am properly moved in for the next two weeks. It's cold and snowy (check out the crazy icicles outside the kitchen window!) but it is good to be with my sister.

The plan for the week: consult tomorrow afternoon, pancreatic function test Thursday morning. And then we wait for the results to determine how next week will go.

Meanwhile, Almost Dr. Sis and I are experimenting with new recipes. This one is amazing. It makes cauliflower taste like crab cakes -- but it's way less expensive to make! Note: the recipe at the link above does not include the capers you see below, but they are essential. Just throw in a few spoonfuls.


More to come. There's a backlog of stuff with photos to go with it, so you can be sure I'll get to it, even if it's in shorter-than-usual posts.

Love/sick

Writing. I love it. But sometimes, what it reveals makes me a little bit sick to my stomach. So here's your warning if you're going to read this post: have some ginger ale ready if family drama makes you queasy.

Okay. So as I've been stumbling my way through this thesis, I've started to realize just how much Troubadour Dad was nothing more than a stranger to me in the first few years of my life. I didn't feel like I was missing anything per se -- I had no idea, you see, what a dad was supposed to be. I didn't expect him to read me bedtime stories or play dress-up with me or even really talk to me because I didn't need him to. I had Troubadour Mom for all that -- sweet, patient woman that she was (and still is), she would act out the stories of Cinderella, Snow White, and Alice in Wonderland with me every afternoon just because it made me happy. (I played the aforementioned Disney heroines and associated royals like the Queen of Hearts; she was the rest of the cast.)

So at that age, I used to look forward to the weeks when Troubadour Dad had to go out of town for conferences because it meant we didn't have to stop our play. Instead of having to make myself a quiet little girl once Troubadour Dad got home, I could continue being me (or whoever I wanted to pretend to be). Dinner was a fun, relaxed sort of thing instead of a tense one where anything I might say would be met all too frequently with a stern look and the words, "CT, that's not ladylike." (I agree, exclaiming "Off with your head!" probably wasn't an appropriate response to anyone for any reason, but didn't Troubadour Dad understand it was make-believe and not something I would utter in polite company, which we rarely ever had anyway? Mom seemed to trust my discretion.)

As I got older, I started looking forward to those free evenings even more, evenings without needing to listen for Troubadour Dad's car pulling into the garage. That was the signal to get the hell out of the kitchen, where Troubadour Mom and I would talk while she was prepping ingredients for dinner. If you stayed, there was a fairly high risk that the man on the other side of the door was in a bad mood from another overbooked day at the office, and when he came in, he tended to pick whatever (or whomever) was nearest to criticize, even if all you were doing was standing around. (If you were standing around, you either weren't studying when you were supposed to be or you weren't helping to get dinner on the table when you could have been.) It was a control thing, I think. In any case, I made myself scarce. We still do, my sisters and I, when we hear the garage door in the evening at our parents' house. Conversations end. Adult children scatter.

In those middle school years, on the nights when Troubadour Dad was away, my mother and I would make a point of talking, luxuriating in the chance to have uninterrupted conversation. As the oldest kid, I had a slightly later bedtime than my sisters, and in the hour after they had gone to sleep (sometimes more, if we conveniently forgot to look at the clock), my mother would tell me stories about her life before she met Troubadour Dad. These were often interwoven with small but unmistakably sad comments about Troubadour Dad, his idiosyncratic but tyrannical demands on her in their relationship from the beginning to the present. This is how, without realizing it at first, I gradually became my mother's confidante.

Once I became aware of my role, I was glad to be my mother's "person" in some ways -- I adored her, wanted to be like her when I grew up, was thrilled to be taken into her confidence. But because I loved her, I was also dismayed. If things in her marriage were as unpleasant as they seemed, why was she letting them continue without protest? Well, all right, not totally without protest, but protest that led nowhere, not even to the slightest change. It had gone on for years, she said, which was strangely no surprise to me: even in my earliest memories, I can recall expecting to hear my parents fighting after I had gone to bed. And they did. Many nights. Loud, explosive fights that, oddly enough, didn't scare me. No -- the only emotion I remember feeling is anger.

Somehow, I knew that my mother wasn't the one picking the fights, not at first anyway. She was almost always sweet-tempered with me (and whenever she scolded me, I knew I deserved it). Why, then, was Troubadour Dad thundering so horribly at her? I couldn't have explained what bullying was when I was two, but at that age, I understood it instinctively. And it pissed me off. So I did the only thing I could to save Troubadour Mom: I would make myself cry, and she'd come running. Score one for CT and Mom, zero for Troubadour Dad -- fighting effectively suspended. At least until the next night.

This worked until I hit the age when it was no longer okay to cry. By then, I had sisters for whom I had to be a proper role model, something Troubadour Dad made sure I understood on a regular basis. It was double, triple the incentive to keep my ass in line, if I didn't want to be held up as a bad example to them, so keeping my parents up at night with crying? Not okay, even if they were the ones making more noise to begin with.

It was those late-night chats with my mother, from middle school until I left for college, that convinced me that Troubadour Mom was unhappier than my father realized. At one point, she told me that one of the only things keeping her from leaving him when he was especially unkind was that she didn't want me and my sisters to have to deal with the fallout of a divorce. And he was a good provider, she said. She didn't know where she would go if she were to leave him.

I didn't know what to tell her.

Meanwhile, Troubadour Dad continued to be enormously critical of all of us, especially in front of his extended family, which we began to see more often as my cousins got old enough to marry. (Weddings became an excuse for post-nuptial, week-long family reunions.) Suffice it to say that those years -- the years when you're already obsessed with how other people see you, what other people think of you -- didn't leave me with much to feel good about outside of school either. I knew that in Western culture, it was considered wrong for my father to say the things he would say about me or let my relatives say about how I looked and acted, and Troubadour Mom, in our late-night chats, agreed many times over with me. So I started to speak up for myself, hoping she would back me up as she had when we were alone. Well, Troubadour Dad told me in no uncertain terms that I'd better be more respectful if I knew what was good for me. Anything else, he said, was unacceptable, which I took to mean that I was unacceptable.

Troubadour Mom said nothing.

My sisters, if they had their own issues with Troubadour Dad, smartly didn't try to buck the system at that time. I wasn't as wise. I rebelled and got punished, rebelled and got punished, over and over and over again. These were small rebellions, mind you: talking back, raising my voice, saying how much I hated Troubadour Dad to my American friends. My mother could see that I was hurting, would join me in saying how much she hated my father too whenever he wasn't around. But in the moments when her voice would have counted (in front of his extended family), something was preventing her from speaking. In a way, I pursued my little rebel acts to try to make her speak, to beg her to use her rank as my father's equal -- at least generationally -- on my behalf. She never did.

It took until last summer for me to understand what was holding her back. At my cousin's wedding in Newfoundland, when Troubadour Dad decided I needed a scolding in front of his relatives -- keep in mind that at that time, I was already older than he was when I was born -- I decided I had had enough. There was nothing more, is nothing more, for me to lose in front of his family. Forget talking back, I thought. How about just asking not to be treated like a child? But as I opened my mouth to say what I'd been suppressing for the better part of a few decades, my mother put her hand on my arm. "Please, CT," she whispered. "Do not embarrass me. He was wrong to scold you, but I have face to save here. They will think poorly of me."

And I shut up.

This, this is why my mother could not defend me before I was old enough to defend myself, why she allowed -- still allows -- my father to bully us both. She's still gagged by cultural norms she accepts as much as she abhors them. No amount of talk from me will change her position, so that's her own mess to figure out, if she even wants to. But I am no longer going to let her use that to gag me. I willingly gave up a piece of my childhood when I became her confidante. What I didn't know was that doing so would also mean losing her protection, that instead, she would -- dare I say it -- allow me to be harmed for the sake of protecting her.

Perhaps this sounds reductive, but I'm writing an entire thesis around the idea -- so let's call this blog post a sort of abstract. Don't worry; I'm sure there is much more I could say to make this fairer to my mother, and I intend to in the larger work. Indeed, as damning as the above account may be, I do see how terribly trapped my mother felt and still feels in her relationship with Troubadour Dad.

But we spoke Friday night, while my father was away at one of his conferences. And I told her how robbed I felt by the problems in her marriage that still prevent us from having the relationship I've wanted with her, one we do have when Troubadour Dad isn't around. "Uh huh," she said sweetly, as if I'd been telling her about the tulips coming up. And then she changed the subject.

I was too saddened to change it back.

Less-than-retail therapy

It's been a hard month. And not just because of the medical stuff and relationship adjustments.

You know when your thesis committee tells you to give them a draft of your work no later than the first week of December so they can get back to you before the craziness of the spring semester starts up? Well, that's what I did. Did they actually send me feedback?

Of course not.

My advisor has been in regular contact, thank goodness, but the rest of the folks who have to sign off on my work in order for me to graduate have been incommunicado. One of the committee members has a very good excuse -- major surgery. Another member also had minor surgery over break and came back to find that all three departments s/he works within were either getting eliminated or folded into some yet-to-be-created umbrella department, so s/he understandably has his/her hands full dealing with the administration. And s/he e-mailed me to let me know what was going on. But the last committee member? Not a single message. Yep, despite my numerous gentle inquiries, s/he didn't even bother to send a one-liner to say, "I'm too busy. Bug off."

I FINALLY received a note from that last professor yesterday, with brief, customary apologies, but still no feedback. Unfortunately, after a month of being e-snubbed*, I'm not really in the most charitable mood, given that I'm paying for this person's expertise. I know I'm just a lowly grad student, but that doesn't mean it's okay to ignore me for weeks on end. That's just rude.

Alas, I'm still powerless to make this process move any more quickly, and I know it's affecting my ability to write. I hate that I'm letting the situation do this to me. I've tried to keep going as usual with my work, but I had the sense that some weighty critiques would be coming any day now -- critiques with things I very much want to consider going forward -- and it kept me from feeling confident on the page whenever I would sit down at the keyboard. I need just to forget about what those critiques might say and delve back into the manuscript with more faith. Easier said than done when you're at the mercies of the committee for your degree.

I spent the weekend trying not to get sucked under by all this, and the product of that is a few small acquisitions from Craigslist and Ross. Am I satisfying my need for some instant gratification? Oh, yes. But at least it's all deeply discounted ...

First, a much-wanted console table via Craigslist for our back entryway, which leads to the garage. We've been using the little valet (pictured below) and various surfaces in the kitchen as the catch-all for keys, wallets, glasses, etc. Now all that can be relocated here:


The cost? The equivalent of drinks and a moderately priced dinner for two. Hey, I'm happy to cook at home if it means I get to eat on a clutter-free kitchen table!

Next, an extremely useful toiletry shelf from Ross for the first-floor bathroom. Until we found this, we were putting the extra toilet paper in a basket on the floor, and the soap dispenser was perched rather precariously on the sink.



Cost: A cheap dinner for two, no drinks.

Finally, a mirror. This was actually included in the price of the console table, along with a very cute lamp -- we decided it made better sense to put those items in our bedroom. We may change out the shade on the lamp some time in the future, so for now, meet my new dresser:



This table had its former incarnation in our apartment bedroom as four large moving boxes draped in a bed sheet. This is actually an upgrade: two wooden bar stools we couldn't find a place for after the move with some spare particle-board shelving from the kitchen sitting on top of them. I just threw a tablecloth and some other pretty fabric over the whole thing and propped the jewelry frame D gave me for last year's birthday against the wall. (Don't worry, I made sure the whole rig was safely weighted.) Add one mirror, and it's actually a very functional vanity.

So now I'm off to put some new sheets from Ross in the wash (ours were getting holes in them after years of laundering). Those were also deeply discounted -- the cost of nice drinks for two. I figure I've gone long enough without one of those to offset the expense here! The set is a pretty chocolate brown to go with the beautiful accent pillow slips Marketing Sis made us for Christmas:


DIY guru that she is, she picked the fabric herself! Here's a closer look at the patterns.



So there, January, is my answer to your interminable limbo. It doesn't fix the problems at hand, but it does make me feel better.

* Credit for this term goes to this article. I only wish (a) that I could figure out how to adapt the remedy described in order to make it work in the academic bureaucracy and (b) that I had the guts to employ said remedy.