land of the vowels

Happy 9.10.11! It is Saturday and we're in Helsinki. Days get folded into one another when you're on vacation. It feels like Friday or Sunday or Thursday...

Billy Elliot marquee in front of the Victoria Palace Theatre.

We left the U.S. on Tuesday evening and spent the night/next day traveling, an evening in Cambridge with our dear friends Rich and Christy and their son Matthew, then a full day and night in London. We road in the top of a double-decker bus and toured London for a couple of hours (descriptive), saw Billy Elliot (delightful) and sat in a pub drinking beer and eating fish & chips (delicious).

Yesterday we flew to Finland. Helsinki is a great city. Beautifully designed, fairly easy to get around on bike or tram or on foot. The only challenge is deciphering street names that are so chock-full of vowels you barely figure out the word before the tram is at the next stop.

All in all, the weather has been amazing. In the 60's during the day, 50's at night. In London there was a bit of drizzle but mostly it was dry. Helsinki is sunny and unusually warm for this time of year.

Iida with her fashion-forward hat and sweet face.

Since I am (voluntarily) Julie, Cruise Director, it has been hard not to be "on" at all times. That and short nights of sleep have left me little time to write or pause.

So, off for a short walk and perhaps a little reading for me tonight. I am happy for an activity-free evening.

Tomorrow we join our dear Maria, her husband Janne (/YON-uh/) and their beautiful daughter Iida (/EE-duh/) for a walk around the market and some dinner at their house.

to market, to market

I was sorting through the Roma tomatoes today at the farmer's market. Not a big fan of Romas (prefer the globe variety) but they're cheap and great for drying. The place was moderately busy for a Saturday morning but not maddeningly so.

Our farmer's market is not of the hyper-local, chi-chi organic ilk. No. It's in an economically lower-end area of town, run by members of the local Hispanic population. Some of the fruits and vegetables are grown nearby and some are trucked in from parts unknown. I suspect little of it is organic. You're not going to find any fussy heirloom tomatoes, hydroponically grown radicchio, or cunning containers of edamame (delicious foods for which I am constitutionally unable to hand over that much of my income). But you can get stuff that is in season and reasonably priced. They've also got bulk rice and beans on the side and a flotilla of above average taco carts out back. Across the street is a panaderia full of pan dulces that are tasty, artificially colored and probably have never been compromised by ingredients as expensive as butter.

It is, as close to the traditional, enduring marketplace as you can find in a large urban area. A large urban area rife with brightly lit, flagship supermarkets, big as a football fields.

The place has rows and rows of low-walled wooden tables, each piled high with fruits or vegetables. As I picked through the ripe Romas, I looked up and saw an older Hispanic woman doing the same, focused on her task with sure, slightly arthritic hands. While a middle-aged Asian woman at another table sorted through beans next to a young woman eying the peppers, I experienced a rare moment of connectedness to women who have visited marketplaces for millennia. Going through the ordinary, mundane act of sifting and sorting through foodstuffs to find the best items at the best price, in order to make meals for their families.

And I felt honored to be counted among them.

queen for the day

There are lots of serviceable words in our language that have been overused and misused into verbal mush. Dysfunctional is one of them. Anyone who talks about their dysfunctional family as if they're unique should be smacked hard out of their egocentric little world.

That said, most people find their own family's brand of dysfunction understandably fascinating. Recognizing that mine is neither the worst nor the most entertaining in the world does not prevent me from declaring that in my little corner of the universe, I am Queen for the Day in the my-family-is-more-fucked-up-than-yours contest.

I just finished reading In the Time of Butterflies by Maria Julia Alvarez. A compelling historical novel, set in the Dominican Republic, about four sisters who lived under the regime of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo. The real life dictator. His 30 years in power, to Dominicans known as the Trujillo Era, is considered one of the bloodiest ever in the Americas...(source)

After I finished the book, I called my father, who is also named Rafael Leonidas.

Me: Dad, did your mother name you after the brutal Dominican fascist, Trujillo?
Dad: Yeah.
Me: What the hell? Seriously, what could she have been thinking?
Dad: Well, it could have been worse.
Me: Really?
Dad: Yeah, she could have named me after Hitler like your Uncle Adolf.

Oh, yeah. My abuela named one of her sons after a Dominican tyrant and the other after one of the most evil men who ever lived.

Queen for the Day in the Dysfunctional Family Relay.

2011

Here I am 9 days into the New Year. I sailed right past Epiphany Day and a crazy quilt of events both foreign and domestic with nary a peep (though the cerebral commentary never stops).

As I lay in bed last night, listening to the laughter and murmurings of my grown children and their friends, I had a muted epiphany. That everything I'd planned and fretted about and worked so hard to achieve was mine. Barbara slept peacefully next to me. My house was warm (where it wasn't drafty) and smelled of good food. My job gave me satisfaction and enough income to have a future. My extended family is basically healthy and secure. My friends are true and they make my life richer. My children were laughing. Real belly-laughter laughing.

Now, don't think I'm losing my edge. There are always things. But for the moment, I just want this. Simple uncrafted, fucking Norman-Rockwellian bliss.

t-minus 2 months

Two months ago my dad was talking to me about what he and mom were thinking about doing for their 55th wedding anniversary. That, in itself, is a little odd for the non-celebrating, unsentimental couple they usually are. They considered Puerto Rico (where he was born and has relatives), Portugal (a great idea but I doubted they'd spend the money/travel that far) and something else I can't remember. And then, he said, but we've decided to spend our anniversary with you. In October. (4 months from the phone call, 2 months from today.)

• I am tickled.
• I am horrified.
• I am honored.
• I am terrified.

My parents haven't been here in ten years. You know all this DIY I've been referring to lately? That's the connection. So, to recap. I am thrilled that my parents are coming to visit but I'm bouncing between high anxiety and...less anxiety...

• My parents (mom-driven, family-wide) are 100% house-perfect crazy. Their house always looks like a model home. I am not shitting you.
• I love that we'll be celebrating their 55th anniversary here.
• My mother's standard is insane. But I am an adult! I choose how I live! BUT this is hard-wired. I can't escape how my fairly normal looking house will look to my folks.
• My house is in dire need of fixing up and this is probably just the impetus I needed.
• I can in no way get it up to the acceptable standard I was raised to expect but I'm going to die trying.

Stay tuned.

writing, woodworking, wishing

Ernest Hemingway about his writing:

I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, 'Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.'

—Ernest Hemingway, quoted on today's Writer's Almanac

This for me and for my dear Eric.

I've also been reading, in between the house-fixing. And traveling. And breaking bread with my beloved family and friends. I can't write about that now because as I left my son yesterday at the Portland airport, I realized that the only thing I could concentrate on to prevent the tears I'd like to keep so neatly contained was ripping wood on my table saw. Thinking about that methodical and dangerous process edges out the grief. Funny that.

But real grief is losing those you love...this to keep perspective.

I miss him. Dearly. But seeing him again is as dependable as my reality. I will wake tomorrow, in all likelihood, and I will embrace my son and laugh with him again some day, as well.

all good things

I wrote to a friend:

The last full day of vacation tempts some people to begin mourning the inevitable end. But vacation time is too short to waste a single minute whining about going back to one's "regular" life. Besides, one should love great swaths of one's "regular" life and not hate to return to it.

But still. I have waited to see my firstborn again these 18 months and am hard-pressed to keep every seam of my resolve sealed against sorrow. It leaks in a bit.

In my inner dictionary, his face illustrates the definition of joy.

if it's friday this must be eugene

There are few things more wonderful than being transported from a hot, muggy Houston summer into a lovely, temperate Eugene summer.

But one of those things is getting to spend time with my boy. I am delighted to be here.

good times in tampa

This is me and my beautiful little sister. Warhol style. It was her birthday this past weekend and we scheduled our Florida trip to coincide with it. I framed this image for a present. I also commissioned the endlessly talented Queen Bodacious (aka, "Dr. Ding") to whip up a little jewelry for her. Sister-the-Youngest loved it all. Reluctant birthday girl that she was, she had a great time.

We had so much fun. And got to watch her lovely daughter play softball and hang out with her sweet son. My mom and dad came down for the festivities. There was merriment. There were outdoor festivals. There was chocolate mousse cake.

I don't have a family member that lives less than a thousand miles away from me. I miss them greatly but it does make the visits pretty sweet.

On Friday night, Sister-the-Youngest and her best friend, who I affectionately call (Mr. Fabulous) "Anonymous," St. Barbara and I went out to the local gay bar for karaoke night. For the price of a $12 wristband, well drinks were free. I found the rum & coke fountain and made that $12 stretch like the fishes and loaves.

Ave Maria, did I get schnockered, plastered, lit, fucked-up, shit-faced, loaded, drunk off my ass.

What a great time. I danced. In public. I sang along with some bad karaoke. (I did NOT however, perform any karaoke...there isn't enough alcohol in the free world.)

When we got back to the house, the festivities continued. Well, that was the plan anyway. I walked into the master bathroom to use the toilet and passed the bed. The beginning of the end. However, when I lay my drunken self on the bed, it transformed into a Tilt-A-Wheel. Amazing. I slid off onto the floor, where the ride mercifully ended.

The next morning I woke up more hungover than I've been in 15 years. I stumbled to the bathroom and must have peed 30 proof urine. Swear. We had to sober up and get to the softball field. Where there were millions of people. Sonic boom level noises and blinding sunlight.

No regrets. Had a GREAT time.

leftover succotash

My little craigslist listing [with addendum] has netted what seems like some promising tenant applicants. More on this when it actually pans out.

We're about to refinance our mortgage and that makes me...a little stressed. Not that I haven't researched it to death, kept tabs on the interest rates like a jealous lover and not that I don't have my neurotic ducks in a row. It just stresses me.

We're flying to Florida to visit family in a couple of weeks. I love seeing my parents and my sister and her kids. I feel guilty for only getting down there once a year, my folks are in their seventies and well, I want to see them more often. Family is supposed to make you crazy. And mine doesn't usually have quite this affect on me. So why am I all whacked out? I need to figure out a way to calm the fuck down. I am wound like a proverbial top and it's disproportional to my current experiences. Yes, there are stressors. There are ALWAYS stressors.

I'm just going to go to bed later and grind my molars down for awhile. That always helps...

building little bully billy bigots one panel at a time

Look at little Billy's face in panel two. Is it even possible that there's a child out there who gets this torqued-out about wearing clothes made in other countries? (Any child not poisoned by xenophobic parents, that is.) Or even grasps that clothes are not made by the clothing elves living in the department store basement?

Aside from the fact that this comic strip is inane and the very definition of saccharine, what kind of message does this send?

Free market exchange for us but not all you brown fuckers (Now, Billy, you're still not allowed to say the brown word), I mean, brown kids. Or: We can dress up like you on world cultures day at elementary school, learn your folk dances and the bleached version of your history but we're not buying your shit...unless, of course, it's made in our goddamn sweatshops.

With a sweet little nod to knittin' grandma.

Family Circus sucks.

long island

I think homeland security is in cahoots with the manufacturers of travel size containers.

My aunt died. On Mother's Day of all days. Nature is not a kitten, my friends. My parents and three of the four sisters will meet on Long Island tomorrow. The missing sister represented at my cousin's funeral a few weeks ago, so we are representing for her this week.

Things have not gotten off to an auspicious start. However, the liquor up north tastes exactly like the booze we swill down here in Texas, so I'm sure it will all work out.

Hope our presence, in some way, honors our dear aunt. Hope our family time is incident-free. Anecdote-rich but incident-free...

eating humble crow pie

When I was 16* my parents adopted a boy. No squalling, cuddly bundle of blue was he, however. Michael was a greasy, red-headed, obnoxious eleven-year-old. He was moved into a home with 5 females and my father, who was a policeman in another county and worked shifts that kept him out of the daily fray two-thirds of the time. I was the second of four daughters. Up until this time, our house consisted of my parents and "the girls." Which later mutated to a strangely convent-ish "The Sisters," but that's another story altogether.

Anyway, this was a situation screaming for a social worker but, alas, that wasn't how things were done back then. Michael was a foster child with a family that attended our church. He had had a rough time of it. His father abandoned the family when he was toddler and his mom died when he was 7. He was about to be booted out of his current foster home** when Dad stepped in.

I'm not denying the nobility in saving this urchin from the child welfare system. Not to mention getting that operation to fix his crossed-eyes. But let's not underestimate the misguided machismo of a man who had seen his wife's four pregnancies result in one female child after another. The man wanted a son and he wasn't going to sire one then, goddammit, he was going to pick one up at church.

So, into our estrogen-saturated abode was dropped a pre-pubescent male child. I never took to the little intruder. I was a year or two from leaving the nest for good (unbeknowst to me) and Michael's passage from 11 to 13 did little to endear him to me. As a good Christian girl I tried to act the part but my hardboiled allegiance to truth eventually won out. You don't have to like your family members, you just have to act that way.

Okay, fast-forward. Michael, who is just 4 years my junior, grows up. Well, not very much. Fate set his vertical limit at 5' 2"*** which, through no fault of his own (calm down all ye defenders of the short), seemed to add to his smooth, schmoozy, salesman-like personality. Admittedly, I saw him little after I left home. Once or twice a year for family visits. But as an adult, he started selling Amway and my already jaundiced view was eclipsed by the slamming of the I-can't-believe-he's-my-brother door.

A public reversal
A few years ago my grandmother died. She was 91 and impressive. All of The Sisters (yes) arrived in eastern Florida to pay their respects to the implacable, matriarchal abuela. When I got there, Mom mentioned that Michael was coming. With my usual obeisance to gentility I shot back, But WHY? Mom, in her ever patient, endearing manner said, Enita, she was his grandmother, too. Oh, I grumbled, ceding the point.

Michael arrived and I told myself to make the best of it. This was a family funeral, forchristsake. But gone, apparently, was the plaid jacket and the photos of him with a "babe" on each arm. Warily, I watched and waited. He was quiet and unobtrusive. At one point, he tapped me on the shoulder and asked me if I wanted a cup of coffee. The previously mentioned, dead-bolted door cracked open.

I am not a woman averse to reconsidering her point of view, no matter how set in concrete it may have seemed. No matter how scathing and public her former opinions may have been presented.

In other words, I am a woman who can eat crow/humble pie. Now for the etymological part of our show:

Eating Crow
The origin seems fairly obvious: the meat of the crow, being a carnivore, is presumably rank and extremely distasteful, and the experience is easily equated to the mental anguish of being forced to admit one’s fallibility. (There's another story about this expression's origin that involves Brits, Americans and poaching crows that, frankly, I found a bit tedious. Suffice it to say, it isn't that interesting or appetizing.)

Humble pie
(The British equivalent of eating crow. Abridged here, for those less enchanted by the OED)
The original umbles were the innards of the deer: the liver, heart, entrails and other second-class bits. It was common practice in medieval times to serve a pie made of these parts of the animal to the servants and others who would be sitting at the lower tables in the lord’s hall...However, it seems it was not until the nineteenth century that the expression humble pie appeared in the sense we now know...The word umbles is a variant form of an old French term noumbles, (originally from Latin lumulus, a diminutive of lumbus, from which we also get loin and lumbar)...umbles also sometimes appeared in medieval times and later in the form humbles. Contrariwise, the word humble (originally from the Latin humilem from which we also get humility) was frequently spelt and pronounced “umble” from medieval times right down to the nineteenth century. (www.worldwidewords.org/articles/eatcrow.htm)

I love that they actually use the word contrariwise. Those Brits kill me.
Back to my umbling.
My slowly revised opinion of my naturalized sibling was boosted this past week by the weather. My daughter, on her way to Italy (a graduation present from her moms), was stuck in Atlanta for 24 hours because a storm had delayed her flight and caused her to miss her connection to London. I called my brother to ask him if he could help her. And, dear reader, he came through like...a brother. He drove out to the airport, had her stay with him and took her back the next day. I am just a sap when it comes to my kids. He's in. It took over 30 years, but he's no longer in the "family by name only" category. I admit to an opinionated reversal.

Give me a big ol' slice of that humble crow pie.
 

*I hate not having the facts in line. Update: I was almost 16 (15)
**I'm not sure he was about to get booted. I am sure, however, that he was happy to leave his foster home for ours.
***He is almost 5'2" (5'1" if anyone is counting)