Will You Follow Me Anywhere?

It's time to end this relationship. It's not you; it's me. I've decided I need a change.  I'm sorry if this hurts your feelings, but, when all is said and done, it's all about me.  I'm selfish.  You must have seen that by now.

But you said you would stay with me forever.

I know what I said, but things changed.  You changed. 

How did I change?

Let's not get into that again.

What will I do without you?  You've become a part of me. Can't I do anything to change your mind.

No.  I'm sorry. I need to be moving on now.  It was great for a while, I won't deny that. 

How will I get in touch with you...if I need you?

I won't be far.  I'm just moving around the block to a Wordpress site:  www.christinevanderberg.com 

Oh!  Ok.  Let me write this down:

www.christinevanderberg.com

Will you be following me then?

I will follow you anywhere.  You know that.

OK, then.  Let's go!

To Quell A Mockingbird

So I did a little research.  And it turns out that I could actually kill that annoying mockingbird that has been hanging out in the tree outside my bedroom window.  According to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, the mockingbird is not a migratory bird and, therefore, not protected by law. 

You’re shocked?  So was my son when he overheard my husband and I planning an aggressive retaliation for the weeks of sleepless nights caused by the persistent abrasive repetitions of one annoying mockingbird.

With bloodshot eyes, hunched over our coffee cups one Saturday morning, my husband offered to look for his old bb gun in the attic.

“I may as well pull out my old bow and arrow,” I scoffed.  “You can’t hit a bird in a tree in the dark with a bb gun.  You’re liable to blow out the neighbor’s windows with a misfire.”

“I can’t believe you two are talking about killing a defenseless mockingbird,” my son chimed in.  “You know he’s only singing at night to attract a mate. I find it soothing; it puts me to sleep.”

I, too, once found the mockingbird a soothing sound in the middle of the night.  When my children were young and they would awaken me in the wee hours of the night with a stomach virus or a fever, I found the mockingbird’s songs a comfort.  The variations and repetitions of different birdcalls kept me alert all night while monitoring a child’s high fevers.  I found comfort in thinking that some other form of life was awake at that godforsaken hour of the night.

But now I am at that age when there are so few pleasures left in life, and a good night’s sleep is ranked high on that short list.  It is my due.  I’ve earned it.  And I’ll be damned if some annoying bird is going to squawk all night long outside my bedroom window.  I don’t care if he can’t find a mate.  Why can’t he go onto someone else’s rooftop on the other side of town?  My friend plants bushes in her garden to attract birds.  Maybe I could find a way to send him off to her neighborhood. 

In the meantime, I try everything to discourage his nocturnal noise.  I clap my hands and hiss out the window, imitating a cat.  He sings louder. The next night, I fling popcorn kernels out the window toward the tree and that stops him for a moment.  But just as my head touches the pillow he starts up again.

Another night, I’m walking back to bed from a visit to the bathroom and I see my husband crawling back into the bedroom through the window. He had been out on the roof, blindly swatting the air with his belt. This is what insanity looks like after many sleepless nights.

Night after torturous night the chirping, cawing, cackling, crowing, screeching, shrieking noise continues until, one night, I snap!

I put on my clogs and a bathrobe and stomp out into the blackened night. I start to unwind the water hose, slow and methodical at first, forming a strategy in my mind, but once I know what I’m going to do, I lose patience fast and pull the entire hose off the rack.  Big mistake.  The hose is all tangled now, but I pull it and drag it across the lawn anyway, stumbling over a wheelbarrow and a pile of pulled weeds and dirt.  In mocking laughter, the bird caws like a crow.

I’m huffing and puffing now, trying to reroute the hose around the dirt pile and the hose gets twisted into several knots.  I’m so angry, my teeth are clenched and I’m breathing steam through my nostrils.  And, still, the mockingbird sings.

I finally get close enough that I can see, if the water pressure is strong enough – I’ll have to go back and straighten out some kinks in the line – I just might blast him out of the tree.  I still can’t see exactly where he is, but from the sound of his squawking, I have a good idea.

I stumble back to straighten out the kinks, while the mockingbird breaks into a run of loud trills.  I turn the faucet on, rush back into position, using the playhouse roof to steady my shaking hand, pull back the lever and fire a strong steady blast of water into the tree.

Except for the sound of my own heavy breathing and the residual drips of water falling off the leaves, there is finally silence.

My nightgown is soaked from the dripping hose, there is mud all over my crocks and I can feel the burn from a scrape on my leg when I fell over the wheelbarrow, but I don’t care.  The adrenaline is pumping and I haven’t been this excited since I was a kid playing hide-and-seek on a dark summer’s night.  So this is what they mean by the thrill of the hunt!

I breathe deeply, slow and steady, and wait.  I’m not changing this wet nightgown and crawling back to bed just to hear the mockingbird start up again.  I don’t care if I have to sleep in the playhouse all night with this water hose clenched in my hand.

 I wait about 10 minutes, long enough for my eyes to get used to the dark.  I am a nocturnal creature now, listening for any movement in the trees, along the grass.  I hope to God there are no raccoons or possum hovering nearby.  Just to be sure, I squeeze the nozzle and spray a circle around me.  One more long spray into the tree, just to let him know I’m still here, and then I slowly retreat back to the house.

For the first time in weeks, I sleep in peace.

The next day, my husband rigs up a brilliant contraption so I won’t have to trudge around the lawn in the dark.  He pulls the hose up the side of the house and across the roof, anchoring it with a rope around a roof vent.

I have a new nighttime ritual. After I shower and floss, I check the position of the hose outside my bedroom window and then I retire to bed.

With a sparkle and a glint in my eyes, I glance lovingly across at my husband, and whisper, “I’ll take the mockingbird watch tonight.” And then I turn out the light and wait.

Who says there aren’t any thrills left at our age? 

If you would like to learn how to attract birds to your garden (please! take my mockingbird) see  "Attracting Birds To My Garden" posted May 17, 2012 at:  www.barbarathehealthynut.blogspot.com  

My iPhone, My Love

Flashback to 2009:  My husband and I are packing for a week’s vacation in a cabin on a lake in the Adirondacks. We pack a video camera and a digital camera, old wrinkled maps of Long Island and New York State, books, magazines, board games, movies, music CDs, and a thick book that has pictures identifying all the flora and fauna of the Adirondack Mountain region.

Before we leave I ask my husband to set up the VCR to tape my favorite show, since we don’t get reception on the television in the cabin, but he is busy stuffing the trunk with his fishing poles and hiking boots, so he says to me, quite irritably, “OK! Just wait a minute!”

As we are driving on the Northern State Parkway I ask him, “Did you remember to set up the VCR?” 

“Oh! No… sorry,” he answers sheepishly. 

After fifty miles of silence between us, he asks, “Are you still mad?” I could ignore him for the next six hours by pulling out a book, but I get nauseous when I read in the car. I can’t exactly sing along to the all-news AM radio station he listens to. So I sulk, giving him the silent treatment, as I am still fuming and afraid that any conversation we have will turn into an argument.

“Pull over at the next rest stop,” I tell him, finally breaking my silence. “I have to pee.”

“Me, too!”  He sounds so happy that I have finally spoken to him. 

When we get back from our bathroom break he points to the radio and says, “Why don’t you put something on that you would like to listen to.”

“Forget the radio; the only thing playing this far north is static,” I tell him.  “Hand me my Janis Joplin CD and move over. I’m driving now.”  He will pay dearly for forgetting to set up the VCR to tape my show.

~~~

Flash Forward to 2011: My husband and I are packing for a week’s vacation in a large house on a lake in the Adirondacks. The children and grandchildren will be joining us this time.  My husband packs a digital camera with several backup battery packs and the clunky outdated video camera that never works. There are the same wrinkled outdated maps of Long Island and New York State, different books, newer magazines, the same board games, a few old movies, the same music CDs, and the same thick book that has pictures identifying all the flora and fauna of the Adirondack Mountain region. 

I pack my iPhone and a charger.

As we are driving on the Northern State Parkway, he tunes in to his all-news AM radio station to check the traffic every ten minutes, and instead of zoning out, like I usually do, I pull out my iPhone and tune into Waze, an app that acts as a GPS and also alerts you to traffic jams, accidents, delays from roadwork and alternate routes to take. I inform him of an alert that someone posted about a traffic jam on the Merritt Parkway. “I’ll plot an alternate route with my iPhone!” I say, eager to try my new toy.

“That thing doesn’t know anything,” he scoffs.  “I just heard the traffic report and they didn’t say anything about any traffic jam on the Merritt Parkway. I’m not changing my route.” Later, with the engine idling in neutral on the Merritt Parkway, he asks me if “that thing” can get rid of the traffic in front of us.

“Let’s just make the best of the situation,” I tell him cheerily, and I pull out my iPhone. I open the Verizon app and remotely set the DVR box to tape Masterpiece Theater while we are away on vacation. He continues listening to the traffic report and starts shouting back at the radio that they missed this one. Next, I get on the Internet and log into my Amityville Library account, download a free book, put my headphones on and listen to a calm voice reading to me, as I close my eyes and relax. Later, I open the New York Times on my iPhone to read a bit of news, while listening to music in the background.

We make a pit stop for lunch and I snap a few photos with my iPhone, then switch to the video mode and span the mountain range ahead.  I notice an unusual flower bordering the picnic area and remark aloud, “I wonder what that is?”

“I’ll get the book out of the car,” my husband says, and jogs off.  While he is pulling things out of the trunk, looking for the book, I take a picture of the plant, download it to my Leafsnap app for identification, and within seconds I have the name, description, growing season and more information than I need to know about this plant. 

While he is repacking the car, I send a text message to our son:  Where R U?  They were supposed to meet us at this rest stop for lunch. He responds immediately:  Late start. Should B @ cabin by evening.  My husband is restless, scanning the parking lot.  “Where are the kids?” he wonders aloud.  “Weren’t they supposed to meet us here for lunch?”

“They got a late start; they’re meeting us later at the cabin,” I tell him, waving my iPhone to explain how I got the information.

As we climb into higher elevations, the car radio dies out and so does my phone’s reception, so I switch over to the iPod on my iPhone.  My mind is wandering, and I come up with an interesting idea for a short story, so I open the Voice Memos app and speak into the phone to record it. It’s a story about a woman who becomes so attached to her iPhone that she actually falls in love with it.

I’m thinking about my own relationship with his amazing device and how much my life has changed for the better since I purchased it a year ago. As we drive down the rocky dirt path toward the lake, I open my window and take a deep full breath of lush green pine scented air. I turn the phone off and slide my palm and fingers over its smooth cool surface, aware of how good it feels in my hand – such a sexy piece of equipment! I exhale slowly, and unwittingly confess, “I love you so much! How did I ever live without you?”

My husband puts his hand on my knee, and gives it a squeeze. “I love you too!” he says, a big smile lighting up his face.  He stops the engine and looks deeply into my eyes, inching his hand up my thigh. “I’m glad the kids aren’t here yet…aren’t you?” 

So Many Bras, So Few Choices

I need a new bra. Searching for a comfortable bra is such an ordeal for me. I dread shopping for bras more than I dread a trip to the dentist.  In fact, I visit the dentist twice a year – and that’s more often than I care to shop for bras.

             I will tighten the shoulder straps to pull everything up and move the back hooks in another notch, to compensate for overstretched elastic, just to buy me another one to three months of wear.

I didn’t feel this way about bra shopping when I was young. Of course, there weren’t that many choices either.  There were the white cotton bras you saw hanging on the clothesline next to your father’s work pants  - the kind your mother and your grandmother wore, and there were the bras I wore. They were so flimsy I had to wash them by hand in the bathroom sink and hang them over a chair to dry.

I always leave the dressing room of the bra department these days feeling like I’ve been beaten up. I try on bras with thick under wires that cut into my ribs. Some bras have seams in the cup that aren’t finished smoothly and I get all scratched up and itchy.  Other cups are filled with jumbo pads, so thick, that I feel like I’m carrying an extra pound of armor on my chest.  If the shoulder straps are too thin, they bore down into my shoulders, leaving little ruts of red stripes in their wake.  It’s no wonder I feel the need to go home afterwards and console myself with a chilled martini and a hot bubble bath.

And yet, with so many choices in the bra department, I still can’t find a comfortable bra. If I am lucky enough to find one, I usually can’t find it in my size. So I stand in front of the dressing room mirror, turning in different directions, squinting my eyes and thinking…if I lost 20 pounds it might fit.

A recent trip to Macy’s bra department left me dazed and dizzy, like a character in the Mel Brooks comedy High Anxiety.  I walked around and around in circles, up and down tightly packed aisles, lost in a sea of brassieres, calling out for my mother. (I hadn’t lost my mind; my mother was actually shopping with me.)

I don’t know if I’m getting shorter, or the racks were higher than usual, but it created a maze effect and I couldn’t see over the tops of the bras to find my way out.  I finally found the path that led me to a clearing and out to safety.

I’m due for a dental checkup this month. I’m just waiting for the little postcard reminding me to call for an appointment. This time of year, I also go for my total body skin cancer screening, and next month I’m due for my annual gynecological exam.  With so many options available, I ask you, why would I want to go bra shopping again any time in the near future?

A Bathroom Memoir

Twelve years ago, I ripped the closet door off in the downstairs bathroom. The bathroom – really just a powder room with toilet, sink and closet - was so tiny that you couldn’t open the closet door unless the bathroom door was closed first. 

I was in a cleaning rage. It was a hot summer day and I was cleaning out the closet when I suddenly became aware that I could hardly breathe. I was sweating profusely and the bathroom was covered with all the junk I had emptied from the overstuffed closet.  I couldn’t even move the stool I was standing on to close the closet door so I could open the bathroom door to get out and get some air.

“Help me! I’m stuck in here!” I screamed

My son knocked on the door to ask if I was all right.

 “Get me a hammer! Quick!”  I yelled. He said nothing, asked nothing, ran for the hammer, pushed the door open just wide enough to hand it to me and took off.

At first, I gently tapped on the hinges that held the closet door in place, but after years of being painted over, they wouldn’t budge.  As the sweat was pouring down my face, I let out a few carnal screams and whacked harder at the hinges, twisting them sideways and finally loosening the door.  When the door finally slammed down on the floor, it took with it about six inches of wood from around the molding leaving deep holes where the hinges once were.

Holding the door with both hands, I realized that I had cornered myself into a space the size of a coffin. I couldn’t get the closet door out of the bathroom without opening the bathroom door and I couldn’t open the bathroom door because I was standing behind it holding the closet door.

“Help me! I’m stuck in here!!” I screamed again, but no one came this time. I let out a few colorful expletives and then I began to laugh at the ridiculous situation I was in. I put the door down for a moment to survey the area and saw that I could slide the door between the toilet bowl and the wall, and that would give me just enough room to open the bathroom door and get out.

My son was waiting on the other side, eyes bulging at the sight of me dragging out the closet door.  “Holy Sh..! Dad’s gonna’ be pissed!” 

That night, my husband used the bathroom and came out looking very confused.  “What the hell happened in the bathroom?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” I asked him.

“Who ripped the closet door off the wall?”

“Oh; that.  I did that.”  He stood there waiting for further explanation so I told him, “I couldn’t breathe in there today while I was cleaning out the closet.  You’ll have to replace the door with some kind of sliding door, something that’s easier to maneuver in that tiny space.”

He stood there for a few moments staring at me in disbelief, finally let out a laugh, turned on his heel and walked out of the room.

Over the years, I stopped noticing the gaping hole in the bathroom closet. I hung a tension bar across the top and draped a printed sheet over it for a while.  I replaced the sheet with a flowered shower curtain and then a pretty lace curtain.  After a while I gave up trying to hide the mess and left the contents of the closet exposed, in hopes that my husband would finally give in and replace the door.

But as the years went by, it became a ridiculous idea to replace the bathroom closet door when the entire bathroom needed to be gutted and replaced. The fake Formica back splash around the sink was warped and leaking, wallpaper was peeling, tiles were cracking and the toilet seat shifted sideways if you didn’t sit down just right in the center.

We had been apologizing to guests by chuckling, “Don’t mind the bathroom; we’re working on remodeling it,” but after twelve years, I don’t even think our family members believed us.

And then the happy announcement came that our son was getting engaged. And then the unhappy realization that the groom’s mother was supposed to host the engagement party and we were going to have to invite his future in-laws to our house for the party and they were inevitably going to have to make a trip to the bathroom.

After fretting for weeks about the appearance of the bathroom, I begged my husband, “at least put a door on the bathroom closet!”

“What for?” he asked. 

“I’m embarrassed,” I said. “We’ve been living with this disgusting bathroom for years. These people have a beautiful home in Connecticut.  They have money. They’ll come here and see this cramped little house and that tiny horrible bathroom with splinters sticking out of the bathroom closet and they’ll think we don’t even have money for a closet door.”

“Good!” he said with a big smile on his face. “Then they won’t ask us to chip in for the wedding.”

And they didn’t.

My Secret Desire

            I love to sing.  That’s something that not many people know about me.  That’s because I never sing when anyone is around.  When I was a teenager, I would come home after school and, if no one was home, I would blast some Janis Joplin and try to imitate that boozy Southern Comfort rasp, full of pain and suffering.  On a good day I could harmonize right alongside John Lennon and the Beatles.  I wasn’t shy in front of my mirror with my hairbrush as my microphone.

            In my early twenties, I worked at Hofstra University during the day and attended classes there at night. My lunch hour was often spent in a tiny soundproof practice booth in the basement of the music hall, playing an out of tune piano and singing at the top of my lungs. No one ever heard me do that either.

            Sometimes when I’m alone at home, I’ll put on some music while I’m cooking and a song will grab me and I’ll start singing.  Not just humming along, but real serious singing – full of vibratos and crescendos, with some dance steps thrown in for effect.  Only our parakeet has seen these performances, and he isn’t repeating a word of it to anyone.

            When I was young, my secret desire was to be an actress on the stage.  I fantasized about being discovered by someone who was sitting in a darkened theater while I was belting out a song on an empty stage.

“You’re a natural! A marvel! Where did you learn to sing like that?” a voice would shout from the back of the theater. “You’re just what we’ve been looking for!”

 I even tried out for a rock band once, but got so nervous I forgot the words to the song and just stood there humming dada dada doo doo doo…

“Can you sing the words?” the band leader asked. But the words wouldn’t come out of my mouth. In fact, my throat started closing up and my hands started shaking, so I left saying I didn’t feel well. On the way home, in the car, with the windows clamped shut, I sang the entire song – with the words.

             I still fantasize about wearing a slinky black dress and singing the blues with a jazz band or belting out the solo in a Broadway play with a stage full of tapping feet behind me.  But this will never be, for I am pathetically shy and cannot sing in front of people.

~

            The other day, I was babysitting for my grandchildren. My son was coming to pick them up soon, so there wasn’t enough time to set out the paints or have a second go around with the Play Dough. To kill a few minutes, I pulled out a book of Disney songs.  I haven’t played the piano in years and I knew my arthritic fingers would turn some sharps into flats, but decided to plunk away to see if the kids recognized any of the songs.

            Within playing the first few bars of “Some Day My Prince Will Come,” my four-year-old granddaughter began softly humming along. She quickly turned into a demanding musical director and yelled out, “Grandma! Sing the words!” 

“I can’t,” I said, and continued humming as I played the piano.

“Yes you can, grandma. Try!  Sing the words!”

Let me tell you, reading the notes and reading the words at the same time was not an easy task and I hit many wrong chords, with both my fingers and my voice.  But my little audience was so appreciative; they clapped and clamored for more.  The next few songs were a little easier, as I gave up trying to read the words to the song and ad-libbed it, which left me more energy to concentrate on hitting the right piano keys. I can honestly say that my piano playing was atrocious but I thought my singing wasn’t so bad.  Getting up off the bench, I told the kids, “Grandma’s going to practice some more so I’ll sound better the next time you come over.”

“Yay!” my granddaughter cheered, “and next time, wear your glasses.”

Polenta!

I’m always looking for cheap and nutritious options for dinner these days.  Quick is good too.  Combine all three features and you have me humming in the kitchen. 

I want to share with you my new discovery – cheap, nutritious and quick – Polenta!

I found this recipe in a cookbook that I received as a Christmas gift in 2010.  I forgot about the book, put it on the shelf and never opened it until last week.  A hidden treasure on my bookshelf, The Best Simple Recipes from America’s Test Kitchen, touts the claim, “More than 200 flavorful, foolproof recipes that cook in 30 minutes or less.”  I’ve only made four, so far, and they have all been amazing, but the most versatile and interesting one was the recipe for “Polenta with Mushroom Sauce.”

We had this recipe as a main course the first night with a green salad on the side.  I am allergic to dairy products, so I had to substitute the heavy cream in the recipe with a fantastic all natural product called, Mimiccreme. The ingredients in Mimiccreme are:  purified water, nut blend (almonds & cashews), dipotassium phosphate, natural flavors, rice starch. I use it in all recipes that call for milk or cream and no one can tell the difference.

I had never used porcini mushrooms in a recipe and was quite surprised at the heavy earthy smell they emitted. Besides the fact that they are ugly as hell, the smell was so strong – like dirt and fish and old socks - that I almost didn’t use them because I thought there was something wrong with them.  After I soaked them in water,  the old socks smell was gone and I was left with light scents of musky and salty, combined with the piney fragrance from the fresh rosemary, I thought, “If nothing else, this is going to be interesting.”

The first few bites made everyone around the table pause.  The flavors were so different than anything we had ever had. The porcini mushrooms added a delicate salty earthiness – a kick – to the softer creamy texture of the white mushrooms.  The polenta had a buttery flavor, slightly grainy, and when eaten together with the mushroom sauce, was perfectly divine.

These vegetarian meals always cause my son to ask, “Is this it? No meat?” This particular night he said he was going to order some Chinese food after dinner because he didn’t think this meal would be enough for him.  But everyone filled up enough and there were even some leftovers.

The next night I fried some chicken cutlets and, instead of cooking a potato or rice, I cut up the leftover polenta with mushroom sauce into small cubes and added some additional polenta.  I sliced a small to medium sized onion, added about 3 garlic cloves, a little olive oil and cooked them in the oven in a 9x12 Pyrex baking dish for about 10 minutes.  I then added the cubed leftover polenta from the night before, plus a little more polenta, with some chicken broth (about 1/3 cup) for moisture, so the polenta wouldn’t stick. I baked the polenta cubes in the oven for about 20 minutes on 350° and the result was a wonderful side dish with barely any prep work.

Polenta is a lot like tofu, that other cheap, nutritious and quick food that is so versatile.  Like tofu, polenta takes on the flavors of the foods and spices around it. One afternoon, when my sweet tooth was acting up for something tasty, I reached into the refrigerator, sliced off a piece of polenta and microwaved it for 30 seconds.  I topped it with maple syrup and chopped walnuts and found a new quick substitute for a slice of cake in the afternoon. 

This morning I fried a slice of polenta in butter.  This gave it a slightly crispy outer crust with a soft warm inside.  I topped it with maple syrup and walnuts, a few strips of bacon on the side, and voilà! Polenta for breakfast.

Okay, okay, let’s get started… Here is the recipe for Polenta with Mushroom Sauce:

¼ cup dried porcini mushrooms, rinsed and patted dry (don’t be scared by the looks or smell of these things.  They are downright ugly and stinky!)

¾ cup water

¼ cup olive oil

1 onion, chopped fine

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 teaspoons minced fresh rosemary

1 pound white mushrooms, sliced thin

1/3-cup sweet Marsala

¾ cup heavy cream (or mimiccreme, as noted above)

Salt and pepper

1 (18 ounce) tube polenta, cut into 8 rounds

I could not find prepared tube polenta in my grocery store, so I bought a bag of dry instant polenta and made it myself.  It took about 3 minutes to mix up.  I put the cooked polenta into a bread loaf pan and let it cool and harden up. Then I sliced 4 pieces about 1” thick and cut them in half to simulate the 8 rounds.  That left me with extra polenta that I found other uses for, as explained above, during the week.

1.         Combine porcini and water in bowl and microwave, covered, until porcini are soft, about 1 minute.  Line fine-mesh strainer with paper towel and strain porcini, reserving liquid.  Chop porcini fine and set aside.

2.        Heat 2 tablespoons oil in saucepan over medium heat until shimmering.  Cook onion until soft, about 5 minutes.  Add garlic and rosemary and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.  Add white mushrooms and chopped porcini and cook over medium-high heat until browned, about 8 minutes.  Stir in Marsala and reserved liquid and simmer until pan is nearly dry, about 5 minutes.  Add cream and simmer until thickened, about 3 minutes.  Season with salt and pepper.

3.        Meanwhile, heat remaining oil in large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat until just smoking.  Cook polenta rounds until well-browned and crisp, 2-3 minutes per side.  Serve with mushroom sauce.