Daphne

A brief editor's note: The flower assigned to my last blog "Stop and Smell the Flowers" is a Daphne. I took a picture of this little confection of beauty from a plant in a pot on my deck. I walk by the heavenly scent of my dear friend Daphne every time I come in and out of my house. Introduced to this floral delight by friend Laurie...my gardening guru, she gifted me the plant that acts as sentry to my home. It is a winter blooming gem that has the waxy flower quality of a stephanotis, gardenia or orange blossom; all four seem to share a similarly haunting fragrance as well. It seems to flourish when neglected, which is a boon for me. Still, I love this plant best for its name. Daphne DuMaurier, who lives in my mind in a cozy house with Jane Austen and The Brontes, is one of my favorite pioneering female authors of all time. If I ever have another girl child I will name her Daphne. In lieu of giving physical birth to a Daphne, I might just name a literary child after her....we shall see.

Stop And Smell The Flowers

Since my book “Night of Grace” was recently rejected, I have been disinterested in blogging. Rejected might not be technically accurate. I submitted my little ouevre into a book 'casting call' of sorts from a reputable agent and neither received a rejection or even an acknowledgement or explanation for its inadequacy. Rather, the deadline for the contest came and went without my poor defenseless book receiving any feedback. So disheartening. I hate rejection, technically accurate or not. To make matters worse, I only started this blog so I would have some writing samples for that agent to check me out. This makes the blog guilty of rejecting me by association. Or of failing to win over the agent. Either way, poor blogsite is tainted with the stink of failure and so I don’t want to be associated with it anymore. I think I’ve mentioned my penchant for quitting. It’s kind of my thing. I live with this motto, slightly different from a common adage: “If at first you don’t succeed, never, ever try again.” Truth be told, a less pithy cousin of this motto more accurately describes my modus operandi: “If at first you don’t succeed, throw a snit fit, slip into a funk and finally quit with a snide, ‘I never really wanted to do that anyway.’”

On a more practical front, I’ve been a little busy. My in-laws celebrated their 50th anniversary by inviting their five children, spouses and ten grandchildren on a cruise to Ensenada, Mexico. Immediately thereafter, my sister gave birth and I was able to stay at her house in LA area for a week to help her acclimate to the wonders of a fourth boy. Flying home, I was soon whisked away by husband and kids to Tahoe for my 41st birthday. Sidebar concerning the age forty-one: it lacks the novelty and excitement of turning 40 but assures me that I am stuck in the forties for the next decade. Blah. Upon my return from my sister’s house at which I helped her reorganize her closets and drawers and give some bathrooms a militant scrubbing, I was struck to the core that I hadn’t done the same in my own home since the last time she gave birth two years ago. So I’ve been in the throes of determined cleaning and reorganization of my home. Have I been avoiding the blog? Perhaps. But I’ve fabricated some seriously legitimate excuses for neglecting my blogging duties.

But this Monday morning I read something that broke through my blog anxiety. Unfortunately, as part of my ongoing house revamp, I had already determined in my heart that this Monday would be the day to attack the odious and olympic task of cleaning my sons’ room so I couldn’t take the time to blog. Background: My sons are sixteen and soon-to-turn-eighteen. Not to cast aspersions on an entire gender(male) and breed(teenager) but these children of mine are some kind of gross and their room is a monument to their worst hygienic mishaps. Times two. Here is a historic sampling of things discovered in their room:

• week old taco bell tucked under the bed for later consumption
• empty bag of french fries with a small container of mustard inside
• empty box of Good Humor strawberry shortcake ice cream bars
• cafeteria style gum collection stuck to the back of a headboard
• dirty socks stuffed under mattress
• dirty underwear lost in the back of closet for nigh on a year

The list goes on and on. Because this is not an attempt to shame my sons (as if that were possible) but rather an effort to convey my reluctance to attack this job, I have only listed a smattering. But Monday was the day on which I had scrounged up the resolve to sally forth into the fray. My son’s eighteenth birthday is coming up and I thought it would be nice way to start his year: with a clean room and a new paint job.

It is now Wednesday, the sty is almost clean, new paint a-drying and I have a chance to refer back to the reading that ignited a tiny flicker of inspiration. For my aforementioned birthday, my dear friend Laurie gave me this beautiful tiny antique book called “Pure Gold.” Bound in elaborately stamped and embossed red leather, this book contains little snippets of wisdom for me to ponder in the mornings. On Monday I found this:

I have at length learned by my own experience (for not one in twenty profits by the experience of others) that one great source of vexation proceeds from our indulging too sanguine hopes of enjoyment from blessings we expect, and too much indifference for those we possess. We scorn a thousand sources of satisfaction, which we might have had in the interim, and permit our comfort to be disturbed, and our time to pass unenjoyed, from impatience for some imagined pleasure at a distance, which we may perhaps never obtain, or which, when obtained, may change its nature , and be no longer pleasure.

~More

Sigh. This has been particularly true for me lately. First of all, having built up my hopes in anticipation of my first cruise ever, I was kind of disappointed. My expectations were dashed to bits when Julie McCoy did not greet me on the Lido Deck. I was further upset by the strange, stale stink that pervaded the entire boat. At the Captain’s Dinner I was taken aback by the graceless goofball who was supposed to be running the ship, no Captain Steubing he. Curse you The Love Boat for making me think my experience would be an endless round of romance, moonlit dances and white shorts clad employees just waiting to make me smile.

Then, my birthday trip to Tahoe left me feeling a little unsatisfied. In all fairness, having some gem of a human being break into our car by shattering the driver’s side window to steal our GPS might have put a damper on the festivities. Also the inedible ahi tuna at my birthday dinner was gastronomically upsetting. Still, there was so much I could have been grateful for but because I had built up the event in my head, the slightest mar kind of spoiled the whole deal.

I was so desperately “impatient for some imagined pleasure at a distance”, that “I scorned a thousand sources of satisfaction which I might have had in the interim”. On the drive from San Francisco to cruise embarkation at Long Beach, I could have basked in the fabulous time I had with my kids. We literally laughed the whole way. I could have been overwhelmed by the fact that, every night, outside my window, a full moon graced the waves. I could have relished the moments, quickly dwindling as the children grow older, that we could all be together. Ditto for my birthday trip. Why wasn’t I, in the moment, appreciating the funny, smart, enjoyable beings these young humans have become? Why was I waiting for the next fabulously forty-one birthday event to make me feel like the Queen of the May?

In the same way, when I failed to win the opportunity for that agent to choose my book, I was thoroughly deflated. Instead of enjoying the blogging experience, being thrilled with the fact that I had actually completed a book, glad of the opportunity for growth in sharing my writing with others, I focused only on what I thought was my ultimate goal. I was so desperate to win the prize of being a published author that I failed to to stop and smell the flowers.

So, this week, armed with my nugget of Pure Gold, I have decided not to be indifferent to the blessings I do have, even during the loathsome process of cleaning a filthy room. My new wisdom firmly tucked in my pocket, I was ready to appreciate everything from the spiritual to the physical. As a reward for my new attitude, I was blessed with an unexpected windfall: not precisely a flower but some kind of flora...cultivated right inside the room of my very own children. How could I have ever failed to appreciate these "thousand sources of satisfaction"?...more commonly known as mold spores.

dyeing my soul

This morning, I was reading a book that quoted Marcus Aurelius as having said: “The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.” For me, this is true. On a bad day, if I'm not careful with my thoughts, I can have stained my poor soul all the hues of a gangrenous rainbow before midday. There are people who are glass half full people and those who are glass half empty people. If I allow myself free reign with my thought life I can be a "this filthy glass is half empty with tepid water that stinks of sulfur," person. I don't want to be that person. I don't want my children to learn from that person. In a combative effort I've adopted the motto: "Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."

Please don't get me wrong, this doesn't give me an instant Pollyanna outlook (BTW Pollyanna gets a bad rap. Read the book, she has the right idea.) that renders my whole life lollipops and raindrops but when I catch myself focusing on the negative, I try to turn my sights on something better. It helps.

It's not necessarily easy. Take, for example, the Case of The Disabled Dishwasher. My dishwasher has been on the fritz for approximately six months...maybe more if I am honest. I'm not exactly sure when it started but the dishes just stopped coming out shiny clean. Then they started coming out with scummy white residue. Then the dishwasher itself started getting greasy build-up the kind of which one might find between the teeth of a person who has not been acquainted with a toothbrush in a fortnight or in the ears of a child who never met a bar of soap. I was reluctant to call Sears for a service repair for a few reasons:

1. that loathesome time window that presupposes I have nothing else to do with my life.
2. the inevitable lecture blaming my poor maintenance for the resultant appliance failure.
3. I have avoidance issues.

I hoped that if I ignored it long enough, it would get better. Surprisingly,this magical thinking didn't work so I tried troubleshooting the thing to death. I concluded that the water was just not getting hot enough. Maybe the heater was broken? Finally I became desperate enough to overcome my reticence—I just wanted my clean dishes. So I called the Sears service center and made an appointment. Of course, the automated robot voice gave me a appointment window for a Friday between 8am to 5pm. Not an auspicious start. I waited all day long and the guy never showed. He called at 7:30pm to say he wouldn't make it but would put me on the schedule for Saturday...unlikely. Didn't happen. After several aborted reschedules, he showed up the next Wednesday.

Can somebody please explain to me whether there is a special class at appliance repair school called "How to belittle the appliance owner 101". Before the sentence, "I think something's wrong with the heater," was out of my mouth, my new friend had dismissed that notion with a flip, "If it was the heater, this thing wouldn't be running at all." Okay, I guess I was wrong. He then proceeded to tell me that he wasn't familiar with the Bosch brand and had never seen my particular model. Additionally, he had no repair manual for this model, blaming the "Information Nazis" at Bosch for deliberately withholding their schematics. He then launched into a didactic about the history of the dishwasher since the late nineteenth century, while never once touching my dishwasher. Seriously? At this point, I began opening the dishwasher and gesturing at it and even taking off the filter and one of the dishwasher arms as if to say, "Please feel free to follow suit." No takers.

After peering into the airgap and making a few unfruitful phone calls, he told me that my water was just too cold because the dishwasher was located on an outside wall. He advised me to run the hot water until it was scalding before running my dishwasher because the Bosch heating unit was inadequate to heat my water sufficiently. I had already tried this little nugget of water-wasting wisdom as advised by my owner's manual... to no avail and told him so. Shrug. I tried to show him the build up of scum throughout the unit and he responded, "Yeah that's pretty gross." Shrug. At this point I felt tears of frustration building up. He added, "Ever try Dishwasher Magic? That should help clean the gunk and I have a special on it today for only ten dollars a bottle." So desperate was I for any result, I almost said yes. I made a quick pitstop at my computer and checked the internet for comparable prices. Lo and behold, several sources were offering this dishwashing miracle for only five dollars...for the same number of fluid ounces...hmmmm. When I declined his amazing bargain he stated, "Well, I don't know how I'm gonna get you outta here for less then $129."

Pause.

Deep breath.

Pause again.

"When I made the appointment with Sears, they told me it would cost $75 to receive an estimate of repair. Why would it cost more?" He sighed and rolled his eyes, "The $75 is just for me walking in the door." Um HELLO, ALL YOU DID WAS WALK IN THE DOOR!!!!!! I just stared in silent disbelief. After several minutes of a staring contest, he said, "Well if you want the $75 dollar offer, you'll have to decline my estimate." Your estimate? WHAT ES-timate? I continued to stare until I finally found my words, "Um, yeah I'll be declining your estimate." Even the $75 was galling.

If there are any readers out there, I bet you are wondering how this story has anything to do with my opening paragraph. How is this me thinking on the noble, right, pure, admirable? You're right, it's not. I am getting there.

The unrepair job happened in mid December. After that, every time I neared the dishwasher, I just wanted to smash plates to smithereens in violent protest. I wanted my glass half smashed. I was bemoaning my dreadful fate to a friend when she told me about a guy who had fixed her Bosch when her heater broke. She looked in my dishwasher and told me, "Oh yeah, that's what mine looked like." She gave me the company's name: Dunn Wright (if you live in the San Francisco Bay Area write this down- it's a name worth knowing) She told me, "My guy's name was Bruce and he was awesome." Awesome? I don't know this Awesome you speak of. I practically ran to the phone. That's a lie. I was so afraid of a repeat of the last repair debacle that I delayed and delayed and delayed. Did I mention I have avoidance issues?

Finally I just couldn't stand it anymore and I called the folks at Dunn Wright. My friend's guy, Bruce, came the very next day, early in his three (yes, only three) hour window and listened to what I told him. He then proceeded to dismantle my dishwasher where the other individual had never even lifted a screwdriver. Within twenty minutes he had discovered that the circuit board that tells the heater to heat was short-circuited and I would need a new one. He ordered the part, came back in one week and installed the item. He charged me $224 for the two visits and the part. Now my dishwasher works to perfection: sparkling clean fabulousness, HOT out of the dishwasher.

So here's the thing, what if the guy from A&E factory direct, the maintenance company contracted by Sears, had fixed my dishwasher in the first place? I definitely would not have been so frustrated, I wouldn't have wanted to punch him in the skull, I wouldn't have spent a month struggling with my ridiculous avoidance issues. On the other hand, I am so wildly grateful for the fact that my dishwasher is finally fixed. I practically skip to the kitchen these days. I almost want to kiss each dish as I take it out of the washer. So, maybe I'm not exactly grateful for the useless ripoff of my first encounter with the Sears guy but without him, would I be as appreciative? Right now, not only is my glass half full, it's completely full with a pretty party parasol on top. Excellent. I'll think about that.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Friday Book Discussion

As I began to read TGWTDT, I had the strangest sensation that I had already read it and was quite disappointed that I had purchased it rather than borrowing it from the library. The descriptions evoked a picture in my head that I had seen before. Waste of money, not to mention I had started a doomed book club based on a book I've already read.

Then I realized I was wrong. The opening pages only reminded me of this other book called Borkmann's Point by Hakan Nesser. Nesser is a Swede like Stieg Larsson and both books are mysteries. Seems like a thin connection. While I was searching for the memory of Borkmann's Point...aided by the handy internet, I found that there is this thing called the Nordic Mystery Boom. I am pretty excited about it because, to be sure, my first love in literature is the mystery: since Harriet The Spy, through Hounds of the Baskerville, to my first grown up novel The Bourne Identity, all of Agatha Christie and on to my serendipitous discovery of PD James (the Julia Childs of mysteries). So devoted am I to the mystery novel and all its manifestations that I once embarked on a summer of James Patterson. Actually his first novels were good but I persisted in reading them all, until I finally had to throw a paperback into the pool in disgust at his ridiculous attempts at penning the voice of a woman: "You go girl!" Gag.

I was still wondering what it is about these two Swedish writers whose similarity made me mistake one for the other. A review of the purported Nordic Mystery Boom in an 2008 LA Times article came up with a word that concisely captures the reason for my déjà vu vibe. The reviewer called the lot of them "glum". You, Joe Queenan, are correct. They are glum and therein lies that uncanny similarity I think. There is something about the glumness that I really like. Any thoughts?

BTW, Jessica, you will be happy to know that the original Swedish title to TGWTDT was "Män som hatar kvinnor" - "Men That Hate Women". If you can take comfort in the veracity of a Wikisource then you will be pleased with this less cheesy title I think.

Book Club

As Death Cab For Cutie and my son’s blog would say...”So this is the New Year and I don’t feel any differently.” It is 2010 and I’m the same me, only older. Boohoo. Resolutions? Hardly. How can I tackle a new challenge when I barely want to meet the same old challenges? And by challenge I mean: cleaning the kitchen, getting out of the house, writing this blog. I think I might have some sort of Seasonal Affective Disorder (otherwise known as SAD which makes me chuckle...so maybe not). SAD or not, I definitely need to jump start myself through these winter doldrums. How can I do this? Well, I have this handy trick: I have learned to impose synthetic constraints on myself to meet the smallest of goals. What does this mean? In short, I play mind games on myself to achieve a desired effect...as if I were both Pavlov and his dogs.

Take for example: exercise. As I age, I have come to a place where my laziness outweighs my vanity and I no longer am particularly motivated to go to the gym. I can tell myself that it is good for my health, that I like being strong, that it releases endorphins that increase my sense of well-being...blah blah blah. None of these arguments for exercise have ever been particular motivators. Only the fear of cottage cheese curdling on the back of my body has made me a regular habitué of 24 Hour Fitness. As the years pass though, cottage cheese seems an easy price to pay for the pleasure of remaining stationary. What’s a little extra geography compared to my desire to hibernate? These are dangerous and seditious thoughts that need to combated cleverly. So brilliant me, I have come up with various motivational tricks to get meself to the gym. My failsafe is to find an interesting book and strictly allow myself to read it only while running on that silly elliptical machine. Believe it or not, this usually works. Apparently I am stupider than I am lazy. I have been playing this trick on myself through approximately ten consecutive winters. I wonder when I will catch on?

Unfortunately, in this new year I was having trouble finding a book interesting enough to pull off the prestige until genius struck again and I utilized my facebook status to glean book suggestions. In no time I was rewarded with a healthy list. Because I appreciate the response, I have decided that I will honor each of these suggestions by reading them in the order received ( with the exception of the books I have already read). I’m pretty excited. (Little do I realize, this list will be tricking myself into going to the gym for the next six months)

Concurrent with my vile laziness, I have this other pesky problem. I have been having trouble finding a book club that I feel attached to. I was going to one club and it was fun to attend but I am not sure that, in all fairness, it should be called a “Book Club” (picture me making air quotes here.) Invariably 75% of the members had read 45% of the book or less. Our discussion of the actual book rarely lasted more than fifteen minutes in sum. This group would probably be better defined as a “Social Club” or perhaps a “Wine (or margarita or martini) Tasting Club” These sort of clubs are fun but not really what I’m looking for in a “Book Club” (more air quotes) If I were writing a singles ad for a book club here’s what it would look like: Desperately seeking a reason to read books that I might never have otherwise read, hoping for insightful discussions on the merits, or lack thereof, of a book, love long walks on the beach... I jest but you get the idea: I'm looking for something a little more meaningful than a glass of wine and fifteen minutes of mindless fun.

Final stroke of genius: I’ve decided, armed with my facebook list of book recommendations, to start my own Night Of Grace Blog Book Club. Here’s how it works. I will post my trusty facebook list. Whenever I start a new book I will post the title of the book and begin making comments as I see fit. Feel free to read along, maybe you’ve already read the book and have insights, make comments, don’t read along and make comments, make comments on another piece of literature, music, art, tv show, movie that might be apropos of the discussion, or make comments apropos of nothing. Clearly this is an experiment, so I can make the rules up as I go along. Just come and participate. Make it a resolution. You will be helping me:

• Get Me To The Gym
• Be In A Book Club
• Continue This Blog (I desperately want to quit and I’m trying to make it through a one-year commitment...to myself)

Book Short List:

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Firefly Lane

Straight Man

Wind-up Bird Chronicles

Those That Save Us

I will be adding more as we progress (unless this is a total failure and it doesn't progress) Feel free to post more book suggestions in the comments

Starting with The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo...get ready, set and go!

Maggot Brain

So, I was watching House last night. I love that show. House is brilliant AND people absolutely love him for being an insufferable misanthrope...please. My favorite thing about House, after the scathingly witty writing and Hugh Laurie, is the music at the end of each episode. Whoever has the job of song choice is a niche savant if you ask me. That one song almost always evokes and then multiplies the poignancy of the show's climax.

Even so, in last night's episode I was completely taken by surprise by the guitar solo that accompanied the death of House's patient. I am not necessarily a fan of the long, drawn out, indulgent electric guitar solo. I don't really get the fuss about Jimi Hendrix to be quite honest. So when I wanted to cry at the end of the show, I wondered if I was just emotionally attached to the dying character. Short answer: Nope, not that attached. It was the music that was causing an emotional reaction...weird. I whipped out my trusty iphone. My husband recommended this handy app called Shazam that allows me to hold the phone up to any piece of music, tag it and nine times out of ten, Shazam tells me the name of the song and the artist who is performing the song. So cool. Ten seconds later, I found out the guitar solo that broke my heart was called "Maggot Brain" by Funkadelic. Hmmmm, never heard of it.

Strangely intrigued, I googled Funkadelic and Maggot Brain and found out that the soloist's name was Eddie Hazel. Okay, I don't really claim to be a music aficionado. I listen to what I like and that's about it. But it seemed strange to never have heard of a musician who could produce something so achingly beautiful. The last time I had such a visceral reaction to an instrumental solo was YoYo Ma's Bach Prelude From the Unaccompanied Cello Suite No.1. Pretty big stretch but genius is genius.

Anyway, I Wikipedia'd Eddie Hazel because I was interested but only interested enough to get the amount of reliable information Wikipedia answers can give. The anecdote that I found most interesting was a tidbit where George Clinton (now him, I've heard of), while recording this song, told young Eddie to play his solo "like your momma just died." Why interesting? To me, the first two and a half minutes of Maggot Brain sound exactly like I felt when my momma just died. Oh, and I guess the second half of the song was supposed to be played as if the guitarist had found out his momma was really alive. By then, I think the LSD that Mr Hazel was allegedly under the influence of had fully kicked in. After the first two and half minutes the music starts to degenerate a bit and loses the poignancy that made me stop breathing for a second. It definitely doesn't sound like I would have felt if I found out my momma was really still alive. But the first two and half minutes were amazing. So, well done Mr. Hazel and thank you.

Home Grown Terrorism

Today I am betwixt and between two forms of laziness: a Lost marathon which is getting my family game ready for the Series Ending Season coming up on February 2 and the Jets' game (Go Jets!). Translation: my derriere is essentially soldered to the sofa. Unfortunately sometimes nature calls. Even more unfortunately when I went to answer her call, the sign said "Occupado". Seeing as I had already disengaged my lazy bones from the couch, I thought I'd better clean up the breakfast dishes. After all, our daughters had been so kind as to prepare breakfast, the least I could do was clean them up. As I was cleaning, I discovered a pan from last night's roasted chicken hiding out in the oven (don't you judge me) Needless to say, the marinade of soy, oyster sauce, balsamic vinegar and spice was soldered more closely to the sides of the Pyrex pan than my behind to the couch.

Here's a Hint from Heloise: Fill a severely scalded pot with water and some dish soap, set it to a boil and allow the debris to soften and naturally fall away from the pot. I didn't see any reason this practice should not be extended to the Pyrex pan. Pyrex is supposed to be indestructible is it not? So, I filled the pan with water and dish soap and placed it across two gas burners on my stove and turned on the flame. As I let the water begin to boil, the bathroom finally became "Vacant". Blessed relief. Just as I shut the bathroom door behind myself I heard a loud explosion in the kitchen. Oddly, I knew exactly what had happened.

A few things:

1. Good thing I went to the bathroom at that exact moment. The blast radius was at least four feet. I am not sure of the force with which the glass shards flew across the kitchen but I am picturing myself standing at the sink with stalactites of pyrex sticking out of my back. (I suppose neither stalactites nor stalagmites would be correct but I don't know the term for a sideways formation. I should ask Superman. What with the Fortress of Solitude and all, he must be an expert)

2. I've never been so pleased that everyone in my house is a veritable underachiever in the cleaning department. This translates into nobody else being in the kitchen at the time of blast. Thank You, God. Literally.

3. I was pleased with my quick thinking in recording the disaster. Last time I had a disaster I wanted to blog about, I cleaned up too quickly and only had remnants to record.

4. What a bummer that all this gloriously broken glass came from a pyrex pan. Given my penchant for redeeming broken parts for a new creation, you'd think I'd be thrilled with all that new material. But I don't care for clear glass, it just has no character if you ask me. My mind began to change as I cleaned up the blast site, piece by piece. Some of the chunks of glass were just too beautifully patterned from the stress of heat to throw away. Score.

5. One kitchen terror disaster = one more blog. Thank you Pyrex

6. The Jets won! GO JETS!