Warning: Bodily Functions Ahead

ARRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH.

That made me feel a little bit better.

ARGUGSDGJHGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH!

Okay, I'm getting there. Yes, I in such a crappy mood that I've taken to screaming into the Internet to feel better. Today just started off wrong, and slightly hungover due to my brilliant idea to have a Sunday evening beer and Wii marathon with my husband. Despite my best intentions to go to bed early, I ended up staying awake until nearly midnight anyway. Probably due to the mass quantities of Guinness I'd consumed, my sleep was fitful and somewhere around four o'clock became completely non-existent.

There aren't many things in life worse than laying in bed and watching the clock, trying to will your body to take advantage of the mere hour it has to get some sleep - especially when you're already suffering from a self-induced beer headache and crazily parched throat.

Once I finally got out of bed and showered, the only thing keeping me going was the thought of sneaking a nap on the bus. Although I have all of a twenty-five minute ride to work, I catch an inter-county bus with gorgeously plush high backed seats. The kind of seats made for nappin'. I call my bus the Prince of Motorcoaches, because unlike the rank local buses that smell like urine and force you to park your ass on a plastic half-seat, this bus is Relax City. As a bonus, most of the riders are coming from downstate and have an insanely long ride, so at seven in the morning it is also gloriously quiet. Usually.

This morning, some yahoo decided that he'd bless us all with his loud cellphone conversation about...wait for it...his cellphone. Yes, he was talking to someone about the very phone he was talking on. I now know all about his warranty, his text messaging plan, and his goddamn accessory case, but I didn't get a wink of sleep.

I call people like this fine gentleman "Chatty Johnsons". Male, female, old, young, black, white. Doesn't matter. Chatty Johnsons have absolutely no qualms about their annoying voices being the only sound that forty-five other people are forced to listen to. Chatty Johnsons do not realize that they are the asshole that everyone is cursing uner their breath. Chatty Johnsons do not belong on my Prince of Motorcoaches, I'll tell you that much.

So I get to work, grumble some good mornings, start my computer, and go to make my morning cup of tea. So far, so okay. About an hour later it's Cheerios time. Surely, Cheerios will make me happy, despite my throbbing head. I keep a half gallon of milk in the work fridge at all times for the express purpose of tea and Cheerios. Although I write my name on it with a big, black marker, I know that people take a little nip out of it every once in awhile. No big deal. This morning though, between my tea and cereal it looked like someone had drank at least half of my remaining milk. Not cute.

I brought the milk back to my desk, poured it liberally all over my cereal, and devoured the whole bowl, hangover style. I was thinking about going for Cereal Part 2when I glanced over at the milk and realized something was very, very wrong. No one drank my milk this morning, I was drinking out of an old container that I neglected to throw away before putting in my latest jug. The milk that was now sloshing around my digestive system had expired six days ago.

Although the milk wasn't exactly lumpy, it clearly smelled off. Apparently the battery-acid hangover taste in my mouth had masked the putridity of the milk as I was eating. I immediately felt like I was going to puke, not from the affects of the milk necessarily, but from the thought of consuming a vast quantity of spoiled milk. I ran to the bathroom and locked myself in the handicap stall, where I splashed water on my face and somehow willed myself not to be sick. It was not a pretty picture.

Fast forward to the bus ride home. I've already managed to spill chipotle lime dressing all over my boobs during lunch, run over my toe with my very own chair, and do something to irritate my Old Lady Shoulder, which is inexplicably sore for no obvious reason every couple of weeks. I board the Prince, ready to close my eyes and nap, praying that no one dares to sit next to me. The bus gets a couple stops from work when all of the sudden there is a rumbling in my stomach. Oh no. I've got to go. I've really got to go.

I'm too far from work to run back at this point. That's okay. I can do this, I think. So what if my intestines are twisting with a combination of Guinness and spoiled milk and chipotle lime salad dressing (not the best choice, all things considered)? I take a couple of deep breaths, in through my nose, out through my mouth. Slowly. It won't be long until I'm back at my car and then home. The bus pulls onto the highway - and straight into a wall of traffic. We sit, and sit, and sit some more. I am curling my toes, scooching in my seat, practically hyperventilating. This is how they should interrogate war prisoners. Forget pulling out fingernails! Give them a laxative and make them sit in a public bus, stuck in traffic.

Needless to say, I didn't poo my pants or anything, but I don't ever want to be that close again. Seriously. I didn't even have time to take my coat off before running to the bathroom and making my day a little happier. With the door open. Thank god we don't have children.

Sleep Dog Lullabye

Winston is the reason why every pillow in my living room is concave when I come home from work, but isn't he just so stinking cute?

The Mysteries of Brownleaf Rd.

I have probably just been watching too many episodes of The Mentalist lately (god, that show is so easy on the eyes), but I've noticed some odd things that have been going on around the house. I'm sure most of it can just be blamed on my poor memory or my scatterbrain tendencies, except that I don't really have any of that. I can remember the first and last names of kids in my pre-school class, and I am my family's premier multi-tasker. I just don't have an explanation for any of the recent weirdness, and the fact that it all occurred over a single weekend is...well, weird. Hey, I didn't say I was my family's premier vocab champ, did I?
So, here they are, in rough order of occurrance:

1. The Spoons - We received a gorgeous everyday use set of flatware for my bridal shower about a year ago. Like everything else we received, I took really good care of the flatware because it was the first time that I ever had a complete six person set of nice silverware. And then, suddenly, my spoons dissappeared. When I say suddenly, I truly mean that one day I opened the drawer where they've been for a year and there were only two left. I still have 6 of everything else - knives, soup spoons, dinner and dessert forks. But two teaspoons. Jeremy and I grilled each other over their possible whereabouts, but neither of us could think of any reason we would have used, and subsequently lost, four spoons in a single night. They're still missing to this day.

2. The R - So, remember how about a week ago I wrote about my Mom eerily finding a picture of her grandmother (that she's never seen before) on her kitchen floor? This weekend I walked into the kitchen and found a tiny scrap of paper near the chair I'm sitting in now. I turned it over, and it contained nothing but an old fashioned looking typeset letter R. I know that doesn't sound too out of the ordinary, but believe me when I tell you that I have no clue where this scrap would have come from, and the fact that I'd just posted a similar story days before and my great-grandmother's name was Rose... I don't know. It didn't look modern. It wasn't something that came out of a glossy magazine or anything like that. I'd post a picture of it, but my husband, who believes that there is very little legitimate weirdness in the world, made a joke about a ransom note puzzle and threw it away.

3. The Violin- This morning around ten, my husband and I were both waking up (in my defense, I'm not feeling well)when we heard a sound I only describe as three notes being played very loudly on an out-of-tune violin. We both gave each other the "what the hell was that look?" and I got out of bed to investigate. Before I got out the door, we heard it again, slightly different, but still sounding like a very old violin. Both sounds seemed to be coming from our home office, but of course there was nothing there that could have made the sound. Jeremy made a joke about the Symphony Orchestra being lost and needing directions to the Opera House, because, once again, the man can't admit to himself that disembodied instrument sounds aren't normal things.

So there you have it, three unrealted but unexplainable things just in the past week or so. After the violin incident, I kind of wished I was at work today instead of home by myself, where my mind will surely be playing tricks on me in my search for more unexplained mysteries. I'm so leaving all the lights on tonight until my husband gets home.

The Great Bedroom Remix- Day Three and Done

Okay, I lied. Almost done. We still need to adorn the walls a bit more, and clutter up every surface with our junk so it feels more like a bedroom and less like a display in the Museum of Freshly Painted Bedrooms, but we're those are things that will likely be done little by little during the upcoming weeks. All I have on tap for tonight is curling up in bed and watching a movie, with a really strong candle lit to drown out some of the paint fumes. Yikes.

In other news, our new TV stand thingamajig arrived today - damaged. Lurking inside one of the two forty-five pound shipment boxes was Middle Shelf C, with a seismic crack in it. Boo. Honestly, if it was just a tiny little knick I would have just said to hell with it and started assembling. Sadly, Middle Shelf C is a support shelf, and a crack that size would compromise the structural integrity of the whole unit. Luckily, The Company Store can ship just the replacement shelf to us, saving us from having to fight with sending everything else back. The bad news is that it'll take 3-5 weeks for this to happen, which will put us well into the two month mark of the Great TV Stand Debacle of 2009. First it took me forever to find a piece the right size and color, and now this. Meanwhile, we're still using our TV/VCR combo straight out of 1988. Ha-cha-cha!

I should have known better to assume that the Bell household could order a piece of furniture and have it arrive unblemished. Still, I pouted over it for a couple of minutes, but quickly cheered up when my sweet husband offered to run out and get us a pint of ice cream to share. Oh, I'm so predictable, aren't I?

The Almost Completed Bedroom Remix: Day Two

Oh, the joys of sleeping on the couch. Not only did I sleep in fits and wake up with my back feeling like it was afflicted with a combination of sciatica and scoliosis, but I got to share my space with Winston all night. I love my dog, I do. But when he's perched on your stomach and stirs at the tiniest little sound, there's not much sleeping to be had.

I still made out better than Jeremy. He graciously volunteered to sleep in the chair, which I think increased his grumpiness tenfold.


Yeah, sleeping on the couch is the pits, but we'll be back in our bedroom tonight! That's right, we pud the pedal to the metal and came out way ahead of schedule. In the span of one very, very, very long day, we accomplished the following:

- 2nd coat of primer and both coats of color
- primed and painted a 5 drawer dresser and two nightstands
- moved all the furniture back into the room in proper fashion
- hung a brushed nickle rod for the sheers that will cover the open closet
- got about 75% of the decorating done

All I'm waiting for is the buzz of the dryer, so I can hang up my freshly washed curtains and make the bed up. Poor thing's been naked all weekend and there's no decency in that.

Even though painting walls absolutely sucks, painting the furniture was surprisingly fast and stress free. Here are a couple of before pictures of our 55 year old faded olive green bedroom set, waiting to be beautified.




For good measure, here is an after picture of the main dresser, although I'll kindly ask you to ignore the missing nob about half way down. It's currently somewhere in the expanse of the back yard, and will probably be located as when Jeremy runs it over with the lawn mower. I usually listen for cursing and then run out to see what treasures he's found.


One more trip to Lowe's tomorrow morning (I bought extra lightswitch plates and not enough outlet covers, oops), a couple pictures that need to go up on the wall, another good vacuum, and we're pretty much done.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I am in desperate need of a cold beer.

The Neverending Bedroom Remix: Day One

Day One of the Great Four Day Bedroom Remodel is coming to a close, and the labor train is chugging along right on schedule. I still have paint in my hair despite a good scrubbing in the shower, my right eye is still recovering from an unfortunate dripping incident this afternoon, and neither one of my arms can be lifted above my head without considerable pain, but we're ON SCHEDULE, so who cares?

Just to give you an idea of what we're working with, here is our bungalow's main bedroom, in all its non-glory.

In a mere three days, this bedroom will go from zero to hero, with a freshly cleaned carpet, new paint job, new bedspread and decor, and refurbished furniture. I, on the other hand, will likely end up with more bumps and bruises than a month old banana.

Today's accomplishments range from spray painting a wicker baker's rack that I plan to reappropriate as a media center for our little TV and DVD player to priming the walls and giving the carpets the first of two planned steam cleans. I'm slightly ashamed to admit that our bedroom carpets are so grody that they need two full-on cleanings, but it's the sad truth. It's not totally our fault - the carpets are just old and dingy. You know how when you cut down a tree, you can count the rings to see its age, and find the ring that represents an important historical moment like the first shot of the Revolution or the first flight at Kitty Hawk? I think the bedroom carpet is like that as well. That splotchy brown stain near the closet? That can be traced back to a day in 1975 when someone spilled shoe polish. That murky, yellowish stain near the foot of the bed? In 1957, someone dropped a mustard covered hot dog. Eventually, we'll replace all the bedroom carpets to match the wood laminate we have through the rest of the house, but for now it's just not in our budget, so I obsessively steam clean every few months instead.

I completely destroyed two Magic Erasers cleaning the grooves of the old windows and scrubbing the sills and door jambs while getting them reading for spackle and sanding. Spackle, I am convinced, is the Devil's Frosting. I never seem to put the right amount on my scraper and end up with a spot the size of a dinner plate covering a nail hole.

The entire house is in a state of disarray even though we're only painting a single room. We moved most of the furniture into the office, but due to overcrowding (as in, the office is so packed with crap that the door won't shut), our mattress, box spring, and bed frame are all sitting in the middle of the living room. I should have just kept the sheets on and moved the whole bed out here so we'd have a place to sleep, but as it stands now we'll be camping out on the sofa. If it wasn't so chilly out tonight I would totally get some use out of our tent and have a little backyard camping experience. Maybe tomorrow night, who knows?

At the butt crack of dawn tomorrow I want to be back in the bedroom, applying either the second coat of primer or the first coat of color. I don't know that the rule is on that one - if you're painting over a dark color, which is better: two coats of primer and one of color, one coat of primer and two of color, or two of each? We've only worked off of white walls or new drywall thus far, so I guess I've never had to think of it before.

While the paint is drying, I want to continue working on the furniture, probably tackling the night stands. On that note, I'll leave you with a picture of me, modeling the latest in refurbishment couture. Old "PEACE" t-shirt, ratty purple hoodie, greasy, unbrushed, paint splattered hair, sexy face mask.My glamorous life is the envy of the neighbors.

The Sixteen Most Important Albums In My Life

Since it's a chilly first day of Spring and I'm stuck indoors instead of out in the yard nurturing daffodils or something, here are the sixteen most important albums of my life, in no particular order:


Arcade Fire- Funeral:

I first heard this album courtesy of an old friend on a lonely Thanksgiving Day, far from home. It was the only one I've ever spent away from the people I love, and I think for that reason this haunting and innovative album has been a favorite ever since

Guided By Voices - Under The Bushes, Under The Stars:

Oh, 1996. What a confusing and wonderful year you were. This album reminds me of the better parts of my teenage years, and is an awesome album from the gods of lo-fi.

Pavement- Wowee Zowee:

I bought this album when I was thirteen, and it opened my eyes to a whole genre of music that I fell in love with. I still rock out whenever Grave Architecture comes on my iTunes mix.

The New Pornographers- Mass Romantic

I discovered this album about five years after it came out, around the time I met my now husband. All of their albums remind me of the first few months we dated - the beginning of the happiest times of my life.

Kings of Leon- Aha Shake Heartbreak

This album is just pure, unadulterated fun. We all need that in our lives. It reminds me of Marilyn, who I really miss and wish would come visit. Hint, hint.

Operation Ivy- Energy

I know, I know. The black sheep of my album list. Let me explain it this way: in 1993, middle school angst was at an all-time high. This album was the perfect compliment.

Wilco-Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Summer. Even better, college summer. House parties, street faire, my first apartment, the feeling of absolute freedom on the cusp of adulthood. This album still reminds me of starting to find myself.

David Bowie- Changes

David Bowie is the man. Even though his heyday was well before I was born, I still think of him as a god amongst men. This is the quintessential Bowie collection, except for the fact that it doesn't have Queen Bitch, my favorite song of his. What is THAT about?

Belle and Sebastian- The Boy With the Arab Strap

Belle and Sebastian are perfect for dreamy winter evenings or summer nights on the porch with a cold mojito. This album reminds me of winter during my senior year of high school, and its soothing string arrangements fostered many a dream about the future.

The Shins - Oh, Inverted World

Perfectly crafted, this album takes me back to senior year in college- beers with good friends on the porch of my old apartment building, working at a coffeeshop, the excitement of graduation. Oh, to be 21 again.

My Morning Jacket- Z

Another album that reminds me of meeting my husband. I first heard My Morning Jacket at the University of Delaware's radio station, where I had a show in college. I saw them live at the Stone Balloon, the venue where my parents met. I saw them again through the years, most memorably at Bonnaroo in 2006, at midnight. This album is still my favorite of theirs.

The Smiths- Louder Than Bombs

Yes, it's a compilation album. In my defense, The Smiths released a lot of singles not included on albums, so this is the definitive Smiths album for me. And oh, how I love The Smiths.

Spoon- A Series of Sneaks

For reasons I won't go into, this album brings back memories of New York City, Lolita, long walks from Jersey City to Pavonia/Newport. I listened to this album in a lot in my late teens, on the last cassette tape I ever owned.

Tori Amos- Under The Pink

I'm not a huge Tori fan, but this album sort of came out at the right time. I can remember early in my morning, before my first day of high school, listening to this album as I got ready. I was going to a new school, a private school where I knew only three people, two of whom I didn't even like. Tori's soothing voice still brings me back to the sheer trepidation of that day.

Hefner- We Love the City

Oh, Britpop, you were a staple in my teenage years. Blur, Suede, Pulp, Elastica, and my beloved Hefner. Beth and I were both really into this band, and this album is fantastic. Hefner may be the most underrated band of the 90s Britpop invasion.

Gerry Rafferty- City to City

Hello, childhood? Childhood, can you hear me? One of my fondest memories is dancing to Right Down the Line with my Dad.

How about you guys? What albums shaped who you are?

Hello, risotto.

The beautiful risotto to your left is this evening's masterpiece - a delicious, perfectly creamy dish that I made in about a half an hour. In my microwave. Thank you, Everyday Food.

I can't find the recipe online to link to, here's the recipe from the April 2009 issue, which arrived just in time for me to use up all those mushrooms I had left over from last weekend's pizza extravaganza.

- 2 tablespoons butter
-1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
-10 oz. button mushrooms, trimmed and quartered
- coarse salt and ground pepper
-1 cup Arborio or long-grain rice
-1 (14.5 oz.) can of chicken broth
- 3 cloves of garlic, sliced
- 1/4 cup of grated Parmesan

I substituted Shitake for button mushrooms, and I think they worked out well. First, the butter and thyme are nuked for about a minute in a microwave safe container with a lid that fits on nice and tight - this will be essential later when the rice tries desperately to escape while cooking. I used an 8 quart round Pyrex dish with a lid and it worked out perfectly.

Next, throw the mushrooms in with your herbed, melted butter, cover, and microwave for about 8 minutes. If you use a thinner sliced mushroom you may want to cut that time back a bit. I learned that the hard way when my Shitakes came out almost as crisp as bacon. Transfer the mushrooms to a plate to me used later, and combine your rice, chicken broth, and garlic, along with however much salt and pepper your heart desires. I didn't use reduced sodium broth, so I skipped the salt all together. Microwave for 9 minutes, covered.

Next, add 2 cups of water to your semi-plumped rice, and microwave for another 9 minutes. The recipe then calls for you to add the mushroom and microwave for another 2 minutes. Although the instructions don't specify, I microwaved without adding the mushrooms, with the dish uncovered because my risotto was looking a bit watery.

After the two minutes were up, I added the mushrooms and Parmesan, gave it a good stir, and I had an awesome, no-sweat risotto without even turning on the stove.

One more tip - Everyday food claims that this recipe serves four people, but I just don't see how that's possible, unless it's served as a side dish only. I planned for this to be the main course for my husband and I, and panicked after I saw the amount of risotto the recipe produced. The picture I posted above is roughly half of the total yield, so you may want to consider increasing the ingredients a bit if you have an appetite greater than a bird. Luckily, I had some thin-cut chicken breast in the fridge that I threw in the oven. It was a nice compliment to the risotto, but it held up dinner by about 15 minutes, and risotto is a dish better served immediately. I probably would have been pissed if I was making dinner for guests only to find out that I barely had enough for two.

I wish you guys could see me right now, because I have this goofy, shit eating grin on my face that only happens when I've purchased the absolute perfect something for the house.

Today, I purchased two absolutely perfect somethings for the house, one of which I've been searching for for well over a month: a TV stand with the perfect measurements. Man, you should really see my grin.

Behold our current entertainment center:

Outdated in almost every imaginable way? Check.

Collection of random board games inside the display cabinet because we really have nothing to display? Check.

Flawed design feature that requires unsightly wires to be plugged in to the front of the unit instead of the back? Check.

Teeny tiny television with a BUILT IN VCR? Yeah, we've got that too.

But not for long! We have a nice, normal, modern television sitting in the spare bedroom just waiting for the arrival of something much simpler and elegant:

The dimensions will hold our new television perfectly, and it'll fit snugly under that pesky living room to kitchen wall cut-out. Oh, gods of online shopping, you have finally decided to look down upon this house favorably.



That oddly small picture is the bedding set I ordered for our master bedroom, which also means that we'll spend this weekend doing one of my least favorite things: painting. We need to paint not only the walls and trim, but also our bedroom furniture, which is a light olive color set from the 1950s that was one of the first things my grandparents bought for their house. In a way I hate to alter it, but on the other hand, isn't that the beauty of hand-me-downs? I'm excited to give it a new life - one that will surely include new hardware. Don't worry - those diamond shaped retro knobs will be recycled in another project - eventually.


I was thinking of going with a deep cream color for the dressers and something from this palate for the walls, maybe Ounce of Silver?

I honestly don't know how I'll occupy my time when the house is finally finished. I guess I'll let you know in twenty years - give or take.

About that time that a psychic gave me a message from my great-grandmother

I was working in the cafe of a bookstore in New Jersey soon after moving there after college. I was in that stage of my life where I had no idea what I wanted to do and was perfectly content with working for peanuts and talking to people about books and coffee all day. Like any other coffee shop, the cafe had a regular morning crowd, a regular mid-day crowd, and a regular evening crowd. It was kind of comforting to have regularity day in and day out, especially because I was hopelessly homesick.

I’ll always think of New Jersey as being my own personal Pit of Dispair , but that job wasn’t half bad. I got to talk a lot, and we all know I love to talk. I talked to college kids, dog groomers, stay at home moms. I talked to a woman whose father was the founder of a cult that she would never tell me the name of. She changed her name, got a Phd, and has recently solved a very important mathematical theorum. But she is not the focus of my story.

The woman I want to write about is named Sarah.* Sarah worked close to the bookstore and came in around mid-morning for a latte nearly every day. She was bubbly and sweet and loved to talk, so we got along swimmingly. Around Halloween she told me she was participating in an all-night paranormal investigation at a local private residence, because she had recently suffered a long illness and emerged as a sensitive medium. This was years ago, before I ever could have dreamed that I'd one day be leading tours myself as part of Delaware Ghost Tours , and before I'd ever met other people interested in the paranormal, so her statement took me by surprise.

I've always been a believer in the paranormal, and I know people who are incredibly sensitive themselves, but at the time I'd never had anyone talk about it so openly - especially someone who was essentially a stranger. Not wanting to be rude, but not really having time to think of anything to say I just kind of nodded and said “Wow, really?”

Now, let me take a break in the story to let you know that “Wow, really?” is the quintessential thing that I say when I have no idea what else should come out of my mouth. It’s especially useful when listening to someone with an accent so thick that you have no clue what they just said. Usually people just respond with a “yes” and you move on. And we did just that. Several weeks went by and she never mentioned anything about ghosts or psychics, and I never brought it up. One morning, she came in as she usually did, we made small talk, she paid for her drink, and then turned to leave. Before making it out the door she stopped, turned around, and came back over to the counter.

“Would you be uncomfortable if I told you something that is coming to me from a paranormal source?”

Would I be uncomfortable? The first thing that came to my mind was: please don’t tell me I’m going to die. Is she going to tell me I’m going to die? But what came out of my mouth was “No, not at all.”

“Well, okay. I’ve been wanting to tell you this for quite some time,” she started. Please, please, no death, no death, I thought.

“I’m not going to talk about death!”

Now she had my attention. Was it the look on my face that gave me away, or was she really picking up on what was running through my head? “First of all, I need to know the connection to the rose.”

The connection to the rose? Where do I begin? Well, for starters, Rose is my middle name, I explained.

“Because from the first time I met you, I’ve seen roses all around you and I don’t think it’s just because of the name. It’s connected to the older woman who I sometimes see hanging out near you.” Now I was spooked. Rose is the name of my fabulous great-grandmother who is sadly no longer with us. For most of my life, I’ve felt that Rose was indeed still hanging around me, but more on that later. I explained the connection, and Sarah nodded. She mentioned a few other, more personal things that she claimed were messages from Rose, and then a bunch of commuters with caffeine jitters started queing up behind her, and she squeezed my hand and left.

I didn’t know what to think for a long time. The Rose connection was eerie, but I wasn’t completely sold. She could have heard me talk about Rose, she could have heard me mention my middle name. Hell, I could have told her my middle name and just not remembered the conversation. Still, it always stuck in my mind because - well, how could it not?

The connection to my great-grandma Rose and myself has three and a half other quick stories, each one of them kind of eerie. The first happened when I was very young. We were on vacation during the summer, and I was asleep with the bedroom window open. At some point during the night my Mom came to check on me and discovered that a trail of big, red, fire ants had made their way in through a small tear in the window screen and were all over the headboard of the bed I was sleeping in. As she ran over to grab me, she swears that she heard Rose’s voice saying - clear as day- “Don’t worry gal, I didn’t let any bugs get on our baby.” Sure enough, there wasn’t a single bite on me, even though the ants were all over the pillow and the bedsheets.

The second story happened when our family first moved into the new home my parents built during the 1980s. I was at school and my Mom was putting away laundry. She walked upstairs into my room and as soon as she entered the threshold, she smelled her grandmother. Sometimes there really isn’t an accurate way to describe the way someone smells. It’s a mix of shampoo and perfume and laundry detergent and body chemistry, but after awhile it becomes familiar. She knew what it was, and she got the feeling that Rosie was checking out the new house and making sure everything was okay.

The third incident also involves my Mom and the house. A few months after the second experience, she was walking through the kitchen and noticed a yellowish square of paper on the white linoleum floor. My Mom is kind of nuts about being clean, so she picked it up on the tip of her finger and flicked it into the trashcan. Hours later, there it was again on the counter. She picked it up on her finger once again, flipped it over, and discovered it was a photo. Of Rose. It was just Rose’s face, and it was a photo she had never seen before. The shape of it and the lack of centering made it implausible that it was cut for a locket, but there it was all the same. This time, she put it safely in her jewelry box, where it stayed for several weeks until one day it suddenly wasn’ t there anymore. We still have no idea where it came from. Maybe it was just Rose’s way of letting us know she was still checking up.

The last story is the one I call the half, because I’m really not sure if it was related to Rose or if I just want it to be. In late June of 2004, I got into a really bad car accident on my way to work. My car was hit by an 18-wheeler on a highway and completely totaled. There wasn’t anything left of the back seat of the car, the windows were all smashed in, and yet I walked away without a scratch. If there is someone watching over me, then they brought their A game that day.

In the ambulance on the way to the hospital, I was making small talk with the driver and discovered that he was originally from Jersey City. He grew up on Hutton Street, just a few houses down from the little red rowhouse where my great-grandmother, Rose, had lived for most of her life. It's a small coincidence, for sure, but a quarter million people live in Jersey City at any given time, and moments after I walk away from a crushed car, I meet someone who, as a little kid, knew the woman I consider to be my guardian angel.


*Name has been changed, and this entry is edited and reposted from an old blog.

About that time my brother wanted to be a grave digger...

My brother was the kind of child who was easily influenced by things he watched on television or read in a book. For example, when he first saw Karate Kid, he became obsessed with making up his own form of kung-fu and practicing in his room wearing a pair of pajamas that was made to look like a karate outfit, complete with a black belt. Considering I was the target of many of his newly invented moves (such as the jump-from-the-top-of-the-bunk-bed-and-beat-the-shit-out-of-your-sister-while-saying-HIIIIYYYAAA! move) this was a rather bleak time for me.

When Back to the Future came out, he immediately started begging my Mom for a jean jacket and a padded vest, a pair of sunglasses, and those old school white Nikes with the red stripe on the side. If memory serves me correctly, he got at least the jacket and vest for his next birthday, and although he had already moved on to imitating characters from other movies, he would still put on his get-up every time we watched the movie.

My parents always indulged our imaginations, and I give them a lot of credit for that. They never told me that in all likelihood I would not grow up to be a professional ballerina during the day and an astronaut at night. I was never discouraged from writing love letters to all the members of the New Kids On The Block and planning what Ralph Maccio and I would name our future children.

Just for the record, it would have been Ralph Maccio Jr. for a boy, and Laverne Shirley Macchio for a girl.

Although we were encouraged to dream and create to our little hearts content, there were times that we clearly took it over the limit. One day, my own children will be complete jerks, just like I was. This is probably my Mom's one wish in the world.

One summer my Mom was out in the backyard hanging laundry on the clothesline to dry, when she heard giggling and scampering feet coming through the kitchen. Seconds later, the screen door leading to the backyard popped open and there stood my brother, with most of his exposed skin covered with hair. For a few moments she was probably unable to grasp exactly what kind of catastrophe she was witnessing, until my brother made his hands into a monster’s claw shape, howled, and exclaimed “Look Ma! I’m a werewolf!”

Inspired by watching Teen Wolf on cable, my brother had taken scissors to his head, cut off huge clumps of hair, and then pasted the hair all over himself. A buzz cut and a stern talking to later, my Mom gave us both large cardboard boxes decorated with felt and filled with various crafting items like pipe cleaners, pom-poms, buttons, and construction paper. I think she realized that if we weren’t given a proper medium for expression she was probably risking waking up one morning to find us covered in homemade tattoos that we’d inked from a ballpoint pen and sewing needle.

Still, my brother continued to be extremely effected by all forms of media, which was especially evident in the myriad of career choices that his youthful self planned for the future. One day, when he and his friend Gregory read a children’s book about a graveyard on Halloween, they decided that there was nothing they wanted more in life than to one day become grave diggers. They weren’t at all interested in dealing with the mortuary end of things - the embalming or the funeral arrangements, the soft spoken condolences to the family of the deceased- no, Greg and Mike were blue collar men. They wanted to wear coveralls and bandanas, they wanted dirt under their fingernails and calluses on their hands.

Ambitious and eager to perfect their skills at their future vocation, the two boys started digging. Starting in our sandbox, they soon realized that it lacked the depth a real grave would surely have and became dissatisfied. Using child sized shovels made out of hard plastic, made it was difficult for them to break ground in our newly thawed backyard that Spring.

So, after breaking their entire arsenal of sand shovels and Little Tykes Gardening Set instruments, my Dad reluctantly took one of his own small metal shovels and sawed down the handle to make it more appropriate for his three foot, seven inch frame. Then he took a rubber grip off of an old mop and fashioned it to the handle, and cut the fingers off of an old pair of batting gloves he had in the garage. The gloves were still a little big on my brother, but they gave him the satisfaction of feeling like a real gravedigger.

It didn’t take long for Dad to regret modifying the grave digging shovel for Mike's practice digs. Our backyard was soon becoming pock-marked and unsightly. Mounds of dirt full of wiggling earthworms sat next to shallow holes, abandoned when one of the boys encountered a tree root or got tired of standing in the same place for too long. After a day or two they were ordered to fill in all the holes and relocate to a park down the street, where they spent most of their summer.

The grave digging ambition continued for some time, although the practice decreased in frequency once the boys started school. Mike would doodle headstones and grave markers on his sketch pad, trying to make designs he thought fit the personality of those near and dear to him.

For example, he wanted to make a pink heart for my mother's headstone when she died, and on days when he was feeling particularly mean to me he would threaten me with a promise to forget to close my coffin during my burial so that worms could crawl inside and eat my nose. He took his chosen profession very seriously.

To this day,I'm afraid to cross my brother.

In Defense of Rachael Ray

Today is the first and only day this week where I can come home from work, put on some comfy clothes, and veg out on the couch. I have absolutely nothing planned, with the exception of tuning in for Lost tonight at nine. As an added bonus, dinner was waiting for me in the crockpot, courtesy of my husband. It was sausage and cabbage, which I happen to like, but even if it was a geoduck and Casu Marzu casserole I probably would have had seconds, because I was famished. Slow cooked cabbage makes a house smell vaguely like a prison laundry room, but it's so worth it.

I watched 30 Minute Meals with Rachael Ray while eating, and as she was making a jiacama and carrot slaw with an orange sauce and cilantro, she said something to the effect of people either loving or hating the taste of cilantro - there's no in between. I stopped imagining myself eating jiacama and carrot slaw long enough to realize that she could have said the exact same thing about herself. Doesn't it seem like people either love or loathe this woman? Rachael, you are the cilantro of the Food Network.

I was just having a conversation about her the other day, in fact. Most of the other people in the conversation talked about how annoying she was and how they just couldn't stand her and so on and so forth. I honestly don't get it. I watch 30 Minute Meals almost daily, and not only am I not put off by her personality, but I've gotten a lot of good recipes and tips by tuning in.

Yes, she's perky as hell, but wouldn't you prefer someone who giggles at her own jokes and talks to turnips over a strict, schoolmarm silently chopping vegetables and scowling at her unseen audience?

Okay, she also gives unnecessary abbreviations and nicknames to pretty much everything. I don't think there is a single person in the world that doesn't develop a little of their own vernacular. When you get together with your best friend or your significant other, don't you start saying things like "Let's go to Carlito's to grab a bite of some yum yum bump bump grub?" No? Okay, that's probably just me. How about "Please take the dog out before he does a poopski on the floor and I go berzerker." Oh. Just me again?

Anyway.

A lot of people seem to have a beef with Rachael Ray's lack of training, but as someone who loves to cook, I think it's refreshing. She measures tablespoons by filling the crook of her palm. She doesn't use terms that you need a culinary dictionary to understand. I can't stand watching a cooking show and hearing someone call egg whites "albumen" or some freaking raw celery and onions "battuto." I like the fact that her show isn't shot in soft light with dramatic closeups of manicured hands slowly kneading dough while fusion jazz plays in the background. I want to learn how to cook, not watch food porn. Giada de Laurentiis, I'm looking at you.

She makes food accessible and fast, and trust me when I tell you that there are days when I feel like putting a PopTart in the microwave for dinner will take too long. There are days where I long for the day when the Food-A-Rac-A-Cycle from The Jetsons is invented and I can push a button and have all my culinary desires satisfied.

I've heard the criticism that many of Rachael's 30 Minute Meals can't be replicated by the average home cook in thirty minutes. I don't doubt that's true. She uses a lot of pre-washed veggies, and she has stellar knife skills. This woman is like a perky little Edward Scissorhands, and she unleashes a fury onto the cutting board. I know I can't chop things as quickly, so it'll take me some more time. I also don't have a cooking show stovetop that can accommodate huge pots and pans simultaneously or an oven that miraculously heats to 400 degrees in the time it takes her to chop cauliflower, and I certainly don't have whatever magic pots Rachael cooks her pasta in to make it cook completely in a three and a half minute commercial break, which I think is often the result of some crafty editing.

But still, her meals are mostly made of fresh, healthy, non-processed ingredients. Thirty minutes is a concept, not an exact measurement of time. The point is that if you can make yourself or your family something flavorful and not full of sodium and monoglycerides and you don't have to spend an exorbitant amount of time slaving over the stove, then why not give it a try a couple nights a week? Considering a Stouffer's family sized lasagna takes an hour to cook in the oven, I'm not going to split hairs over an extra ten minutes.

So, to all the foodies who think that starched whites and exotic ingredients are the only route to culinary success, we'll just have to agree to disagree. Yum-O!

The dirty young wives turn to dirty young mums in the Springtime

I know it's only the ninth of March, but can I just say how ready I am for Spring to make its permanent arrival? It was almost gorgeous this weekend - in the upper 60s during the day, but overcast with gray clouds that threatened to dump rain at any minute.

Even though we're a few solid weeks or more away from the kind of weather I want, I'm eeking out every ounce of Spring humanly possible. For one thing, I started carrying my lemon yellow bag and switched to my blue lightweight waistcoast. Today, I paired them with pink shoes, because once the warm weather bug bites, I refuse to give it up even when it's back to 40 degrees. That's right, atmosphere. Can't nobody hold me down.

I added some new foliage to the house in anticipation of all the planting I want to do once the ground thaws enough. Meet Veronica, my new plant of an undetermined nature. Yes, she is sadly undernourished and about a quarter of the size she should be, but that's where I come in.




I've also gotten into the mindset where I only want to wear flip flops when I'm not at work, as you can see from the picture below.



Yikes. I should get myself into the pedicure mode as soon as possible.
I also decided that some snazzy pink finger nails could perhaps will the gods of Spring to get on with this warm weather thing already.





Okay, maybe the pink fingernails are a little cheesy, but you know what is entirely awesome? When my cat and dog decide to be friends, even for a minute.




See, Springtime is for lovers after all.

I cannot believe what happened this morning!

I'm home sick from work today because the head cold I've been fighting with for the better part of a week has disquietly settled into my chest and is now creating a bevvy of unpleasant symptoms.

When I woke up this morning, I let Winston into the backyard so that he could do his business and run around a bit, now that the snow is finally melting. He had a history of getting out between the slats of the fence when he was smaller, but since we put up some temporary garden edging as a reinforcement, he's been fine. In fact, all this week I've let him out in the hard for up to a half hour to frolic in the snow, with absolutely no issues.

After a few minutes, I asked Jeremy to go call him in so he could eat his breakfast and get warmed up, and Jeremy said that he was just kind of playing and didn't seem interested in coming inside, so he let him be. About five minutes later, he was gone. He must have crawled under the edging and out through the fence. Jeremy ran out front, but didn't see him, so he came back in to get his keys and take the car around the neighborhood to look for him. As he was doing that, I looked out the window and saw three people chasing my dog, who was coming from the direction of the main road that our neighborhood is off of.

Jeremy ran out and managed to wrangle him in, but as it turns out he had already caused an accident, when a van stopped short to avoid hitting him, and a car plowed in to the back of the van.

With the dog safely in the house, Jeremy went down to the fender bender, made sure everyone was okay and that the police were called, and then gave our name, address, and phone number to both drivers in case the police needed to talk to us. That was a couple of hours ago, and we haven't heard anything since, but I suppose their insurance companies may want to confirm the story with us.

I can't even believe this happened. I feel like a horrible dog mama, and a horrible person. What is Winston had gotten hit by a car? What if anyone in those vehicles had been seriously injured or killed? At a minimum, our dog caused a major headache in these people's lives and caused damage to their cars. I'm so thankful it wasn't worse than that, but I still have this awful feeling in my gut, like I was responsible for a horrible thing.

The people involved in the accident were very nice and understanding. One woman just kind of smiled and said "That's life!", and I know it could have been a stray cat or a deer or one of the geese from the pond that wandered into the road and caused the same result, but it wasn't. It was our dog, under our watch, and it just feels so awful.

The Progress Chart

What is it about weekdays off that make them infinitely more productive than weekends? I feel like I get nothing done on your typical Monday through Friday, but when I take a day off during the week, I get this urge to run non-stop for twelve hours until I can check everything off of my list.

I suppose it has something to do with the fact that I don't have to wait until six thirty or seven at night to start doing things that need to be done. And the fact that I haven't just put in a nine hour workday, schlepped my ass home on the bus, walked the dog through the freezing cold night while begging him to poop before my hypothermia sets in, begrudgingly cooked something healthy for dinner when all I want is stuffed pizza from Ciao, and then tried to put in 40 minutes of Wii Fit without the dog freaking out at my flailing arms and legs and trying to bite my toes, which is pretty much my typical night. Who wants to head back out after all that jazz? I'm generally perfectly happy on the couch, getting some writing done or researching graduate programs with a mug of hot tea in my hand.

I sort of have a self-righteous entitlement issue going on with weekends. I feel like I've worked hard and deserve that Friday night Happy Hour, and I deserve to blow off all of my responsibilities in order for Jeremy and I can rent six movies that we watch in our PJS over the course of two days, and I totally deserve a piece of that stuffed pizza after all, because everyone knows that weekend calories don't count since can easily burn them off with a Saturday afternoon bedspread romp.

Jeremy and I both took a vacation day on Friday, giving me a three day weekend and inadvertently giving him a four day weekend because the sissies at his office closed due to the "snowstorm" that blew through on Sunday night. Having a weekday off did wonders for my motivation, and we got a ton accomplished on the house.

Now, those of you who (like the two of us) bought what was essentially a junky house and are renovating it a little at a time on a limited budget with absolutely no experience in these sort of things know that real life is nothing like HGTV renovation shows. For one thing, I don't have a highly qualified staff of hotbodies with an unlimited set of tools and energy to whip me up some crown molding or built in bookshelves. I also rarely, if ever, have 24 obligation free hours to string together and get projects finished immediately. Everything is piecemeal, frustrating, and often chaotic.

However, when we're hot, we're hot. This past long weekend? We're about 90% done with the home office - we just need to hang some curtains and frame some of the larger paintings of our good friend and talented Philadelphia-based artist Den Cob. We have several pieces from his Freaks collection that I can't wait to get up on our walls.

My piece de resistance of the weekend is that I regrouted the tiles on the bathroom floor! I can't lie - it absolutely sucked and took a few solid hours, but it was so worth it. No amount of scrubbing and bleaching was doing the trick, so I took matters into my own hands.

As I stood in the doorway of my tiny bathroom, armed with my grouting tool, I felt like a character in a Sergio Leone western. I stared at the tiles. They sat, staring back at me. I gingerly placed my hand on the grouting pen and squinted, considering the delicate balance of regrouting versus drinking a beer and reading on the couch. A tumbleweed blew by. The shrill vibrato of a pan flute rang out into the air. The sun gleamed off a single tile, daring me to make my move. I made my move, and four hours later my sore knees and aching back were the only indication that my bathroom floor had once been a the scene of some of the nastiest grout this side of the Mississippi.

Here's the midway point. The finished tile is at the top of the picture, although I hope that's rather obvious.




Here's the finished product. Please ignore the carnation pink shower tile, AKA the bane of my existence.




It's not perfect, but I think I did a damn good job for someone with absolutely no handyman skill set and a spotty track record when it comes to motivation. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to ignore the dishes in the sink so that I can eat Girl Scout cookies and watch Lost.