What I now know about pressure cookers…

image: http://www2.worldpub.net

They scare me.
I’ve always considered the pressure cooker to be the most menacing piece of kitchen equipment.  I understand the appeal of cooking something super fast, rather than leaving it to braise for hours upon hours, but I was always intimidated by their mystery.  This past week has only confirmed my fears.

They continue to make a contribution to contemporary life.
Last Monday’s events at the Boston Marathon added the verbalized request from my youngest child of “Please don’t get killed at your race on Sunday” to the terrorism dialogue I have had with my children over the years.  The opening statement in this conversation came in the form of question in September of 2001: “Why do the buildings keep falling down?” I don’t like having to revisit these acts of violence with my boys, and I am resentfully heartbroken about the necessity of these talks.  It sucks.

They boggle me with their capabilities.
I don’t understand a lot of what happened last week.  I can’t grasp that so much carnage can come from ball bearings, nails and other bits of metal.  I will never accept that an elected official could make a statement like this, and while I’m not beyond a bit of suspicion when it comes to my government (weapons of mass destruction,  anyone?), I really don’t believe there is any type of conspiracy theory worthy activity here, either.

They work quickly, but not necessarily reliably.
The media coverage was at least as explosive as an overheated pressure cooker.  The unsubstantiated information circulated was alarming and it was difficult to look away from my Twitter feed.  When those pictures of the two suspects were “broadcast,” it became impossible to ignore the immediacy of current news technology.  It was breathtaking.

I don’t ever want one in my home.

My youngest son is obsessed with John Lennon and related dilemmas

Image: @yokoono/Twitter

Quinn asked me to load some Beatles on his iPad recently and I finally had a moment to do it this morning.  He has been really into Here Comes the Sun and chose this song as our first tune of the day.  Not a bad way to start a Sunday, I’d say.

As the music was playing sweetly, Quinn mentioned that every day he thinks about George Harrison and John Lennon being dead and he gets angry.  Well, as he said, not really about George because it wasn’t his fault that he got sick, but the thing about John?  That made him really upset. Why did that guy have to shoot him?

Quinn asked me when John was killed – what year?  I’m sure that 1980 sounded like a million years ago to my boy, but I continued my remembrances of that time (freshman year of high school) by telling him that the man who shot Lennon was still in prison for committing that crime.  He was outraged – “Why wasn’t he executed, Mom?  How could he have done that to John Lennon?”

How do I respond to that?  How does one explain the precarious relationship between the emergence of sunshine, the death of an idol and a life spent behind bars?  Oh, Beautiful Boy, where would I begin?

All that you can’t leave behind

Referencing a lyric from an Irish band on a day when I learned so very much about my maternal, German side of the family may seem inconsistent, but it actually couldn’t be any more appropriate.  We each are the direct product of two people, yes?  Of course, who we truly are involves many more than two individual people, as I was reminded on this very day.

Today I saw a WW II monument in the tiny cemetery where my grandparents are buried, with the name of my Opa’s cousin etched into the stone.  Hubert Meder was 20 years-old when he died in service to his country.  I saw a photo of my Great Uncle Josef, who I had the opportunity to meet many years ago, in the uniform of Germany’s army in that same war.  When I knew him he had an accordion in his hands.  There were photos of my Opa’s sisters taken when  they were young, before they took their vows and became married to Christ for all of eternity.  And I saw my first photos ever of my mother as a young child, in the days when she was presumably permitted to be a toddler before she had to mach schnell with always a purpose.

My eldest aunt shared her memories with me of a life when the sole purpose of girls was to contribute to the family’s income and assist in taking care of the younger children.  I learned of the outrageous hypocrisy of a young couple, Ludwig and Rosa, who knew from experience the challenges and burden of becoming parents prior to marriage, yet were comfortable damning their own daughter (their third born child, yet the first to be conceived within the confines of matrimony) for the same sin.  I felt the pain of a nearly 80 year-old woman who still did not understand why her parents continued to leave her to be raised by her Oma rather than claim her as their own for any reason other than to demand her wages once she became of age to work.  

This afternoon the dining table nearly bowed with the feast spread upon it, but the soul was fed even beyond the belly.  Seeing the pictures carefully mounted between onion skin, hearing the stories and knowing something of the people who came first, fills a place which will never again feel empty. 

Sad, mad and glad

image: http://bettertomorrow.sodexousa.com

Last week was a weird week in the news. I mean like the kind of week when I almost feel ready to abandon reading anything beyond cooking and fashion magazines so I have a prayer of staying in my happy place. Are they going to print those upbeat type of glossy publications on Hearst’s new press?

Ever since I saw this story on the TU website I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind.  I understand that these accidents occur with far too much frequency, but for reasons I haven’t quite grasped yet, this one has really had an impact on me.  My God, did you see the car?  It doesn’t seem possible that someone could have survived that crash and I’m left wondering what the future holds for the driver of that vehicle. How many times will he wish for a do-over, for the chance to take it back and do it all again differently?  As a parent, I’m tempted to begin printing out accident scene pictures and the related obituaries and start wallpapering my boys’  bedrooms with the consequences of bad decision-making. I’m scared and my heart aches for the families involved who both lost their children that morning, because I’m certain the young man who was driving that car will never be the same.

And how do you feel about the smoke story?  No, not the Pope Francis thing, this one.  Apparently, Assemblyman Steve Katz, an opponent of legalizing medical marijuana, has no personal problem with getting blazed and speeding up the NYS Thruway – at 10:00 a.m, by the way.  Perhaps he is anti-medical marijuana because he understands it won’t cure the severe case of hypocrisy he appears to be suffering  from.  What a jerk.  Throw him out of office and let him wake and bake on his own time.

If marijuana could in fact cure hypocrisy, maybe Rob Portman has been indulging in the wacky weed, too.  Seems that now that his own son is at risk of being denied basic civil rights because he is gay, Portman has had a change of heart in his consistently anti-gay marriage stance.  I don’t really understand why his son’s life and access to the benefits of marriage are somehow more important than the millions of other gay Americans who have been denied access to wedded bliss.  I’m sincerely glad he’s changed his position, but I’m even more glad that I could never imagine believing that my own child’s opportunities are somehow more valid than those of anyone else’s child.

I’ll go back to my Bon Appetit now.

Burning memories

When I was 18, our house burned down.  It was at a point in my life when I didn’t have much, but everything I owned, other than 2 laundry baskets of dirty clothes which had been in my car, disappeared on a beautiful summer day.  The memories of that day have faded, like the photos in the albums which were pulled from the ashes, but the lesson that will always remain me with is the knowledge that stuff is just stuff.  Replaceable, forgettable, unimportant.

My brother was home sleeping when the fire started, but thankfully escaped without injury.  I’ve always felt that he lost more than I did in the flames – he had an impressive collection of pewter figurines he had painstakingly painted which were turned into a puddle of metal from the heat that day.  He had albums and books and other collections that were important to him.  I had clothes, lots of clothes, outfits that I continued to miss for months, if not years.  I can’t tell you how many times I was drawn up short as I planned my evening’s outfit only to remember that I no longer had that dress or skirt.  I got used to it.  I moved on with the sense that none of it mattered all that much, and the knowledge that what I truly considered necessary in my life had been forever redefined.

This morning, I awoke to the sound of engines running.  I live on a small, narrow street and the noises weren’t going away.  Reluctantly, I got out of bed and looked out my window to see a street filled with emergency vehicles, yet still surprisingly quiet beyond the hum of the diesel motors.  I assumed it was a medical call until I picked my head up and looked directly across the street – to the house I will always call “George’s house,” and saw the flames licking the dark sky.

After putting on a robe, I went downstairs and outside where the temperature didn’t even register as cold, much less frigid.  I think I became aware of the extreme cold and the fact that I was crying, simultaneously.  Nearly three decades had disappeared in an instant – at a speed that surely rivaled the rate of that fire’s rampage through the second story of 12 Arcadia Avenue.  As the owners of the immediate neighboring houses were evacuated, we made contact with each other.  I invited them inside, offered coffee and a bathroom, a refuge with a bird’s-eye view of the devastating flames.  Texts were sent between other neighbors.  We connected and consoled each other with the fact that other than two dogs, the house was vacant at the time of the fire.

The firefighters were impressive – focused, thorough, professional and, despite the limitations placed upon them on such a narrow street, they battled the fire and contained it in a remarkably short period of time.  The sun rose and it was over.  But was it?  More vehicles arrived, vans emblazoned with K-9 Ashes on their side.  Police and more fire officials and some media.  Word started to spread – the loss of life wasn’t limited to canines, horribly a young woman’s life had been extinguished by the smoke and the flames.  Irreplaceable, unforgettable, important to those who knew and loved her, and always to be remembered, may she rest in peace.

Ghosts of Christmases Past

Christmas always makes me feel melancholy.  I don’t think it is a lack of presents or cookies or family or traditions – I have as much of those things as I desire. Each year when this emotional deflation occurs, it surprises me.  The unanticipated sobering, despite festive bubbles imbibed, seems to sneak up on me when I finally have met, to the best of my abilities, my holiday obligations.  The shopping, cleaning, prepping, wrapping, cooking flurry has come to an end and what’s left?  A sense of … not quite disappointment or dissatisfaction, just a slightly disconcerting hollowness.  There’s something missing.

In years gone by, I’ve been able to look to physical and mental tiredness as likely culprits for my reflective mood.  Lack of sleep and overindulgence certainly could be held responsible for my feelings.  For many years, we hosted a decadent dinner party on Christmas Eve, which, naturally, was followed by a too brief night’s sleep and a midmorning drive east to join family.  That’s not the case, though, now.   My house is quiet and a nap beckons.  The boys are gone – they even took the dog.  They’ll continue to make the drive East for the foreseeable future, a realization that makes me smile.

Last year, I flew to the desert on Christmas Day.  I spent 5 days running and doing yoga and absorbing sunshine and love from a dear friend.  It may have been my favorite Christmas ever.  Self-indulgent without being an orgy of commercialism or consumption, it was stimulating and relaxing in equal measure.  I came back to New York renewed and satiated.

Thinking about that trip makes me feel happy.  So, today, I’ll snuggle back into my flannels, close my eyes and hopefully dream about the magical desert mountains where the sand flies when my sneakered feet pass through.  When I wake up, I’ll pull on my running clothes and make the dusting of snow outside do something similar.  As I count off the miles, I will remember Christmases gone by and imagine Christmases future, but mostly I will try my best to enjoy the present of today.  Merry Christmas.

I don’t hate guns

image everydaynodaysoff.com

I hate what people use guns to do. Guns scare me, but I don’t hate them.  Today, more than two dozen people were massacred in a(nother) school shooting.  Twenty-seven people, including 20 children, woke up today for the last time.  I went for a run tonight and thought of the terror that was school today for those children and adults in Connecticut.  Each time I imagined the fear those children must have felt, I gasped anew, feeling my  heart nearly stop with my exhale.  Horror.

I couldn’t post today about the 12 Days of Dining DelSo. How could a person even consider a holiday season on a day like today?  This day belongs to those lives lost.

Peace.