The organized and tidy soul of Martha Stewart lives in a camper visiting Allegany State Park in Western New York. The tendencies and preferences of the Martha soul are tempered by local idiosyncracy.
Tip: An empty cigarette box will keep your q-tips clean and organized during traveling.
Hoist with my own petard. That’s my tomato situation. Although to be fair and correct I wasn’t intending to harm anyone with my tomatoes. Ok, I might maybe have considered throwing the nibbled ones at squirrels and urban skunks so maybe I can use the petard thing. You know, I’m just going to.
Last summer I planted five heirloom tomato plants: the garden peach and some kind of giant lumpy variety. They grew fast, blossomed well, and produced just a few incredibly aromatic, pleasantly textured tomatoes. The WideEyedSpouse and I made an event of each one because they were so few.
This summer I decided on a tomato blitz. I tortured myself with descriptions of heirloom and organic varieties in the Fedco catalog. I agonized over which seeds to buy. I settled on a cherry variety, a dense purpley Cosmonaut, and the succulent yellow Garden Peach. I nurtured those seedlings under a grow light in my dressing room for months. It was inconvenient, sure, but we all dreamed of a tomato bounty. Baskets full. Frozen. Sauced. Canned. Salsaed tomatoes.
Look at your calendar. It is September. My 15 lush, health tomato plants carry hundreds of turgid, deeply green tomatoes. I counted them.
If only they were yellow, purple, and red as they are meant to be. Cursed cold Buffalo summer nights. Cursed green tomatoes. Next year I am shoving a couple of store bought Big Boys in the ground and calling it good.
A sorry week’s harvest.
“It’s disgustingly hot and humid,” the WideEyedSpouse tells me. I can hear the barest hint of dogs panting in the background of the call. “Huh,” I tuck my cold feet under me and look out the wide window into a chill, gloomy, rainy fall afternoon. “I’m putting the a/c unit back in the window,” he says and I shiver.
Yesterday was our 18th wedding anniversary and we were almost as far away from each other as we can be while remaining in the U.S. We weren’t the farthest apart we’ve ever been on an anniversary. That was in 1998 when I was living in a Eureka BombShelter tent on the north shore of Attu Island and he was in Madison, Wisconsin.
The WideEyedSpouse celebrated our anniversary by walking the dogs in the park. As their gift to him, Hamish and Miss Tibbit produced a record setting 11 dookies in one day between the two of them. “Congratulations Boss!” they might have been thinking, “Many happy years to come!”
I celebrated by huddling at my makeshift desk, crafting careful language into formal documents. In a morning break from the labors, WideEyedFriend D. and I poked at the ever-entertaining frozen pig heads, examined the nori packages, and flirted with new teapots at New Sagaya grocery. WideEyedFriend D. selected a package of the smallest item at the store for closer examination and the bottom fell out. Ten thousand tiny forks scattered at our feet. We stood quietly watching them for a bit. I thought they would go away on their own. They did not.
My anniversary lunch was miso soup, house salad, and bacon wrapped enoki on a skewer at Yakitori. Crunchy salty fat around fibrous chew. Interesting, and besides, after 18 years I figured I should shake things up a bit.
For anniversary dinner, WideEyedSpouse had a Five Guys burger. He sent me a picture. I went to Aladdin’s with Friend D. to feast on perfectly prepared halibut followed by baklava.
It was a relaxed and happy 18th anniversary. 4100 miles apart.
“I’m feeling peckish,” Miss Tibbit, the Useless-Little-Black-Dog, thought to herself this sunny Saturday morning. She was curled tight on the Big Bed next to the Person.
She laid there for a few moments more, thinking through her options. The Person had coffee and a book, nothing worth asking for there. Wiggins the Ancient Cat now lives in a sequestered room and his food bowl was not accessible. Miss Tibbit had cruised the kitchen counters during breakfast two hours ago. Empty. Also empty was the Sesame Melba Toast carton abandoned by Hamish the Corgi on the living room floor.
Miss Tibbit sighed and resigned herself to hungry napping.
One ear perked. Miss Tibbit had an idea. An elusive memory tracked across her tiny mind. She felt that something wonderful sat on the kitchen floor, unguarded, far away from the Person, and certain to satisfy even the biggest snacky appetite.
The Person mistrusts Miss Tibbit’s intentions as a matter of habit, so this had to be a cunning operation. Miss Tibbit made a plan.
“Yaaawwnnn,” she said, with a cute squeak at the end. She stretched against the person and made her brown eyes limpid and relaxed as she assessed how deeply the Person was immersed in the book. Pretty deeply, Miss Tibbit judged. She stood, slowly, and jumped from the Big Bed. “Where are you going?” the Person asked immediately and suspiciously. Miss Tibbit dipped her tongue into the water bowl, thinking “see, just a little thirsty.”
She stood staring at the water until she sensed the Person’s eyes were off of her. She casually tiptoed out of the room and stealth stepped down the stairs, pausing at the landing to listen, and into the kitchen.
Miss Tibbit’s eyes grew wide and round. “Yes,” she thought, “I knew there was something wonderful here.” She approached the nearly full 25 pound bag of IAMS Naturals dog kibble that had been sitting next to the trash can for nearly a week. The Person and Hamish the Corgi brought it back from their trip to the shore. Miss Tibbit noted its arrival, but sort of overlooked it in the excitement of having them back. “Overlooked no more,” she said to herself, “time for some brunch.”
Using the little nibble teeth at the front of her mouth, Miss Tibbit removed a tiny, barely noticeable she thought, section of the bag. She pushed her nose into the opening and sampled. “Oh yes,” she sighed. She dipped her head into the bag again. And again, faster and faster because after all, it isn’t everyday that a useless little black dog gets an All-U-Can-Eat brunch.
Many minutes later Miss Tibbit stood swaying and belching as the Person harnessed her for morning walkies. Hamish sniffed Miss Tibbit’s breath. “Miss Tibbit,” the Person said, “why is your stomach distended?” Miss Tibbit belched again, wafting kibble aroma directly into the Person’s nose. “Brunch,” she smiled.
The notepad lurked deep in a c. 1980 box of desk cleanings. The box itself was nearly flattened under the weight of two chairs, several broken boxes of broken toys, boat cabin cushions, a walker, an empty roll-away bed frame and some lumber.
I’d like to believe that the notepad’s message so profoundly impacted the owner of the desk who packed up it, that they valued the notepad even though it was torn and ringed from the residue of multiple sweatingly cold drinks. I’m afraid, though, that the simple truth is that the notepad was packed into the box willy-nilly with the rest of the desk top junk – one hand holding the sweating drink high, the other sweeping across the desk top and over the box.
It doesn’t matter. The message is what is important, and we should be thankful this wisdom was preserved.
I’m thinking about toilets this afternoon. Yes, I am feeling just fine, thank you – don’t be crude. I mean I am thinking about toilets, not thinking about using one. I think toilets might be unsung heroes and the porcelain joy of our lives.
Toilets are there for us. They are always in the same place in the dark night. Toilets are a cool and strong comfort during vile, feverish retching. With their lids down they are nice perch for filing nails, watching kids splash in the tub, resting towels on during dog baths. With one simple push of a lever or a button, everything that is distasteful just disappears. Even when not in use, toilets are witness to privacies of every individual in a household – including guests.
Toilets greet us, all clean and ours, when we come home. Have you never been happy to be back at your own toilet after some kind of sickening ex-household experience? I mourn the absence of my own toilet when living in the outer wilds. I pine for my own toilet while sharing one with a dozen other people in a field research apartment. Faced with unspeakable highway toilet horrors, I have speculated that when we do develop a molecular transporter, we’ll all use it to get home to our own toilets.
Three days ago the WideEyedSpouse and I were cruising the country byways on the way to archery class. There, on the side of the road, an abandoned toilet. “Free,” it said.
We stopped to laugh and take a picture. A few hours later the Spouse noticed the fine print on the Free sign: “to a family who will love me.”
I just felt bad. Poor old toilet. It probably served well for years, keeping secrets, holding steady, only to be tossed on the side of the road for the sake of a fashionable bathroom. Years of use left. Poor old toilet.
But I mean, ew.
“YOHA “ I read the bold word on the flag. It flapped cheerfully from the porch of one of the grand old homes on the morning dog walk route.
“Yoha?” I said to the dogs. I wondered what it meant. The WideEyedHousehold is in a pretty multicultural neighborhood – even a little global what with the proximity of all the colleges and the medical corridor. It could be in any language; it could be English but mean something I am not familiar with.
“Yoha.” I tried it out again. I said it all cheery and imagined walking past the house flying the YOHA flag and saying it to the people who lived there. “Yoha, neighbors!” They’d probably wave back at me, happy that someone was greeting them in their language.
The dogs and I turned the corner and I took one last look back at the YOHA flag. The yellow and white sailing boat on the flag above the lettering undulated in the breeze. “Must have something to do with the ocean or water,” I said to the dogs.
I walked a few more steps. Miss Tibbit paused for a wee. Hamish sniffed a tree. I thought about the flag.
Unstoppable laughter welled up when I imagined myself yelling “Yoha!” to the unsuspecting owners of the AHOY flag with a sailboat on it. I laughed my way down the street and back home. The dogs wondered what so funny.
Just because I have a lot of thoughts in my head, doesn’t mean I’m smart.
Friday: There was a horrendous, apocalyptic thunderstorm and she was forced to go out into the yard for bedtime peeing while the storm still rumbled in the distance. It was scary.
Saturday. It was still raining, and Miss Tibbit had to go for morning walkies in the rain. Her coat got all wet and her paws splashed through endless puddles. Plus, all the worms were floating and mushy instead of barbequing on the sidewalk the way she likes them. Who wants worm soup?
Sunday. Even though the sun was shining everyone was too busy scrubbing the traffic soot off of the front porch and making a screen for the front window. No one offered a nice, long park walkie. No one lounged around in the back yard for hours. It was boring.
Monday. The vet’s office was smelly with other dogs, none of whom were available for playing. Miss Tibbit had lots of treats, but she was stuck by three needles dumping stuff in her, one needle taking stuff out, a nasty nose drip medicine and, AND, some people held her down to clean out her ears. It was awful, so awful that Miss Tibbit could do nothing for the rest of the day except lay on the sofa and sleep away the trauma.
Tuesday. There was thunder again. The Boss and the Lady shoved a tube full of smelly medicine in her ear and squirted gunk in there. Miss Tibbit had to shake and shake her head all over the house to get that stuff out. Which, if pressed, Miss Tibbit will admit was actually was a little fun, not great, but a little bit fun.
Wednesday. The temperature dropped to below 70 degrees and Miss Tibbit was cold. She curled herself around her nearly hairless pink belly and shivered on the window seat. She concentrated real hard on making her winter hair grow back. It was uncomfortable.
Thursday. Today. The Lady stole a flat, maggoty baby bird right out of Miss Tibbit’s throat. Tibbit worked and worked to get it swallowed fast, but she didn’t make it in time and the Lady reached right in and took it. It was unfair.
Poor, poor Miss Tibbit. Maybe next week will be better.
The dogs and I visit the sere back lawn a few times a day. When we can’t stand it anymore, we slump back inside through the furnace that is the kitchen, trudge up the stairs and head back into our master bedroom sequester. The air conditioner is in there.
For a week I’ve been running my professional life from my bed surrounded by notes, books, and computers – I am a heat-born invalid. Across the hall my office reaches 86, , 88, 90 degrees as the afternoons progress and the high humidity threatens to reanimate the long dead, road-kill flattened, dried frog hanging on my office wall. A zombie frog. That might be interesting. I would be too hot to run away.
Old houses were designed to draw breezes, to vent, to cool themselves in summer. So I’ve been told, so I’ve read. It isn’t true. I think the old timey folks created this mythical cannon to convince themselves that they weren’t miserably sweaty and uncomfortable in their endless layers of wool, cotton, silk.
Sweaty.
Sweaty.
It seems no coincidence to me that the window A/C unit became commonly available in the 1930s – exactly when clothing shifted from breathable natural fibers to rayon, nylon, viscose. Rashy families cooking in their summer plastic wrap probably would have sold their children to get relief from the soul-sucking heat.
Sweaty and rashy.
Sweaty, rashy, and quite probably stinking of bourbon.
If there are ghosts in my 104 year old heatsink of a house, they are likely in here with me, hogging all the cool, fresh air.
(*All images from the NYPL Digital Collections: ditigalgallery.nypl.org. Digital image identifying numbers in order of appearance: 816671, 816553, 1599845, 1599912.)
I knelt along the grassy edge of my garden at about noon on Sunday.
The newly blooming lilies scented the air in front of me.
Coreopsis Moon Glow danced in a little breeze off to my left.
Bees, large and small, hairy bodied and crunchy looking, twirled with the blooms.
The lavender, heated in the sun, wafted calm scents toward me from the right.
Bees were in the lavender, too.
The mystery lilies, planted sight unseen last fall as unassuming bulbs, are waiting to burst open.
Daisy, who lives next door except for when she is sleeping on the sunny rocks in my garden, stopped by to learn why I was kneeling in the yard.
When winter comes, and I find endlessly creative language to complain about slush, ice, and the grim, damp cold of Buffalo, remind me of the bees in the summer garden.
wideeyedfunk 