Letter to Dessert Lover

Dear Apple-Pie Dessert Lover,

I don't think we have ever met. My work associates and I were at the same restaurant as you this afternoon. I probably never even saw your face, nor you mine. This is probably a good thing.

I need to explain the finger-shaped dimple mark that you may or may not have noticed in your whipped cream. You see, all through lunch my friends and I had noticed how the dessert tray samplers' whipped topping did not melt under the hot lights. We had concluded that the dessert tray samplers were just yummy looking fakes.

So, when I innocently stabbed YOUR whipped topping, placed at a separate location within the restaurant, I had assumed that my finger would merely bounce off the shellacked hard surface of pretend dessert. You can imagine my surprise and horror when my finger came away from the surface with remnants of real whipped cream.

I sincerely hope that a- you were given another finger-dimple free dessert by the restaurant, or b- you ate your dessert without the knowledge of my error in judgement. Had I guessed I was dealing with a real dessert, my finger wouldn't have pierced its white and foamy depths. I'm about 99% sure of this.

I assure you it is my first dessert-related finger-dimple. It won't happen again.

Yours,

Becky

PS - Had it been me, I would have gone for the chocolate cake, but that's just me.

xoxo

I won’t be a concert pianist any time soon, but…

I had my first piano recital on Saturday.

I feel a little silly writing that sentence. "Come on," the snarky voice says in my head. "Piano recitals are for kids, not 30 something moms with a free piano." But, snarky voice aside, I did in fact play the piano in public. Who knew?

A few months ago, I decided that I needed to start taking piano lessons. Despite the fact I had proudly set out to teach myself to play the piano, I needed help with timing, with some of the notations (brackets, ties, dotted half notes, and repeat symbols all were greek to me). So a few times a month my friend Jenny would patiently listen to my painful playing and try to have something positive to say about it.

When she mentioned that she was having a recital and offered to help me prepare a piece, I scoffed a little. But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like it was something I could do. Maybe even wanted to do. I had the easy piano music for Pride and Prejudice (Kiera Knightly version; sorry all you BBC fans!). So for about a month I played nothing else on my piano. Thomas got so well acquainted with it that he was able to sit down and figure out the first few measures, playing by ear.

I really enjoyed the recital. I knew I was going to mess up, and I did, because despite the month of practice I still had areas that I got lost. I was prepared, however, with the knowledge that no one outside of my household knew what the piece was supposed to sound like. If I could keep my composure and just play until I found the place I was supposed to be, I could keep going. It kind of threw me back to my days of dancing, when I realized that since I was the only one on stage, I could make up my dance as I went along since there was no one around to contradict me. So I just kept playing, wincing a little at the wrong keys I hit, but knowing I could get back to familiar ground if I just kept going.

It was fun. I can't tell you how much enjoyment my piano has brought me over the past six months. I was excited that I could play the piece; it was challenging enough to satisfy my desire to play "real" piano music. I'm starting a new piece out of the same book, and it's exciting to see that I've learned a lot from my last piece. The whole piano thing just doesn't seem quite as impossible as it did in December.

A great Mastercard commercial in the works...

3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house in the suburbs: $125,000 (In 2000)

Playstation 2: $138

Playstation 2 Tony Hawk game: free (brought over by neighborhood 6 year old coming to play for the afternoon)

Said neighborhood 6 year old feeling comfortable enough at my house to walk into my master bedroom and use the bathroom without asking: priceless!

I love having my kids bring their friends over. Seeing multiple neighborhood kids having fun and making themselves at my house is the best feeling ever.

Happy Friday, everyone!

Why I fear for the youth of America...

I like to wear the "Shade" shirts. Okay, so they aren't all made by Shade, but that is what I call them, since the first of these modest under t-shirts that I ever had was made by Shade. I wear one almost everyday, just to keep things all nicely covered up.

So, when I found that one of the Shade-type vendors was having a "buy 2, get 1 for $1" sale I picked up a few shirts. Generally speaking, it is hard for me to spend $10+ for a shirt that always ends up being covered up, but even so, there is an essential need to eventually replace these shirts as they get old. Combine the price issue with the fact I can never decide which styles to buy, I can say that I usually resist the temptation to buy new ones. How does one choose? Sometimes I need the regular high-necked model. Other times I want the scoop neck variety. I hadn't yet tried the camisoles, and don't even mention the debate of lace or no lace. Suffice it to say that up til this trip, I've always bought shirts with sleeves and no lace. Ah, it's exhausting just writing about it.

Fast forward to last week. I ended up with 2 lace-on-the-bottom camisoles (one black, one white) and a sleeved, no lace scoop neck of a variety that I'd already worn & loved. Okay, so do the math with me. There were two cami's at $12.99 a piece, and one scoop neck at $9.99. This meant I paid full price for the first two, and $1 for the third. It didn't matter what I picked, that third shirt would have been $1, as long as it was of equal or lesser value.

So. As soon as I got home & tried on the cami's, I knew I'd made a mistake buying the scoop neck. They fit better than I thought they would, and covered up enough of what I want covered, and so I knew no longer wanted the scoop neck t-shirt. So on Saturday, I decided I would return it for a third camisole, which in my brain is a simple, here's-one-shirt, give-me-the-other-shirt type transaction.

This was not so apparent to the sales girls manning the t-shirt kiosk.

I find the correct kiosk and explain my situation. After handing her the affore-mentioned scoop neck and my receipt, Salesgirl #1 (SG #1) gives me a a perky "Oh, I can do that!" So, I pick out my white camisole and hand it to her. I can see her face cloud as she takes it.

"Now, you will owe me money if you pick this shirt, you know that, right?" she says to me.

Huh? is all I can think. I explain to her that I bought the shirt on the sale, which let me pick any 3 shirts and get the third for $1. "Yes, but the shirt you bought is a $9.99 shirt, and the shirt you want is $12.99. So you will owe me money." I try and try to explain that yes, I know that the shirts are priced that way, but I still only paid $1 for the shirt, and I could have bought ANY shirt and still got it for $1. But she didn't get it. She directs me to the other kiosk in another part of the mall. Maybe they can help me there.

So fine, whatever, I walk down to the second kiosk, and explain my situation to Salesgirl #2 (SG #2). She says the whole thing is fine, she can exchange the shirt, I just need to find it on the shelf & give it to her.

They don't have the right size at THIS kiosk. Hmmm.

So, after explaining this to her, she asks me to walk down the other ORIGINAL kiosk and we will look there. I knew they had the right one, because I had it in my hand before I was told I'd have to pay extra for it by SG #1.

Now, picture me. I'm feeling some serious pity for SG #1, because she didn't seem to understand the situation. I think I'm dealing with a full deck with SG #2, until, as we are walking to kiosk #1, she tells me, "Wow, you really worked this sale for your own good." HUH? My confusion grows, but we are at the kiosk, so I hurry to find the appropriate camisole to exchange without asking what she meant.

As I hand SG #2 the camisole, she said something (I can't remember exactly what it was) that leads me to think that she IS GOING TO GIVE ME MONEY BACK FOR BUYING THE MORE EXPENSIVE SHIRT. Sorry for yelling, but "working it" comment had finally clicked into place in my brain and I just couldn't believe it. While stifling giggles, I had to explain to her that no, she didn't owe me anything. I was simply replacing 1 shirt that I paid $1 for with another shirt whose value in this situation was also $1. I probably reassured her 3 times that she didn't need to give me any money, and that no one was getting (for lack of a better word) screwed by this simple transaction.

I left the mall, shaking my head, and giggling at the fact that SG #2 told me I'd "worked the sale." First I have SG #1 telling me I have to pay extra to exchange the shirt, then I have SG #2 who wants to pay me for getting the more expensive shirt. I wonder that they aren't robbed blind on a daily basis.

It all seemed so simple. I fear for the future of our country. I wonder: how will they react when they encounter something REALLY complicated?

Book review: Belong to Me, by Marisa de los Santos

When Marisa de los Santos’ first book, Love Walked In, came out, I read it with no prior knowledge of how good it would be. De los Santos was a poet before she turned novelist, and this couldn’t have been more apparent to me as I read it. I noticed her ability to bring small, eloquent details to the forefront that give depth and beauty to her writing. I also thought that she gave her wonderfully unique characters Cornelia, Teo, and Clare their own, very distinct voices. So I hoped for a lot from her second novel, Belong to Me, which continues the story began in Love Walked In.

I was left a little disappointed. Cornelia and Teo Sandoval (the main characters from LWI) are now married and newly settled in their first home. They find themselves in an established neighborhood full of families who all know the intimate details of one another’s lives. Cornelia wants to fit in, but finds herself impeded by the neighborhood queen-bee, Piper. Piper is given her own chapters where you see what life looks like from her side of the street as she takes care of her dying friend Elizabeth (who also conveniently lives in the neighborhood).

Ironically, Piper’s and Elizabeth’s chapters end up showing the best of de los Santos’ writing. In the scenes leading up to Elizabeth’s death, I often found myself fighting back tears. Passages like this are just too gorgeous not to share.

“Elizabeth held her children all day long, read to them, sang to them, built Lego towers with them, touched their hair and their faces, spread their fingers open and looked at their hands. She told them over and over that they were perfect, that they made her life perfect. She told them that she would love them forever, that she would stay with them, would be invisible but with them, like air. They could talk to her, she told them, and she would listen.”

As a mom, I can’t read this without putting myself in her position; the thought of my little boys going on without me, of going where they can’t follow and saying farewell to them is unimaginable. These passages of raw, vivid writing were what made the book for me more than what was being portrayed in the story. For me, the loose ends were tied up too conveniently, the youthful characters given more maturity than was believable, and the secondary plots were too tentatively connected to add much to the story. But I appreciated reading it all the same. It just isn’t fair to compare Belong to Me to Love Walked In, because it isn’t the full package the way Love Walked In was.

I wonder if it would have been a stronger book had Ms. Santos given the entire book to Piper and Elizabeth. The twists and turns that are portrayed in their lives would have been engrossing enough fill a novel, had they been given more room to develop. And, while it was nice to know what happened in the end to Cornelia and Teo, their portrayal wasn’t strong enough, which somehow taints their characterization from Loved Walked In. They became caricatures, and I was left disappointed.

All that being said, I would recommend this book, if for no other reason than for others to enjoy the beauty of de los Santos writing. It is truly beautiful, and her talent is apparent. Just don’t expect the it to have the impact or distinctiveness of Love Walked In.

Do you remember the Cure song about Saturday night and the tap dripping and him crying for yesterday? The only part I can conjure up in my head is the part where he says, "And the tap drips, dripdripdripdripdripdrip...." and so on. There's also the U2 song that has the line, "There is a silence that comes to a house when no one can sleep. I guess it's the price of love; I know it's not cheap."

These are the songs that come to my head as I sit at 2:49 am on my computer, my sleeping household unaware of my inability to sleep. I have so much CRAP rolling through my head from stuff from the past 2 days that I can hardly stand being in my own skin. Do you know this feeling? All the people I've talked to and probably offended with my inappropriate words & responses & my bad attitude & all the things I should & shouldn't have said are just running wild around in my mind, like some crazed free-range chicken.

It seems like there is so much going on, big and small, around me that I don't know how to take it all in. There's my dad. And my mom. I don't want to write too much, I don't want to be indiscreet, but believe me, I could write volumes about my frustrations there. Then a conversation I had with a family member that I feel like I did more harm than good, and gave some incredibly vague and unhelpful advice. And then the friend I feel that I bowled over today with my own selfishness. And the extremely nice man at the church carnival tonight, who tried to make a connection and ended up getting a response from me that he totally didn't deserve. I feel like I have a list of people to call tomorrow to apologize to, a list that grows longer as I evaluate myself over the past 24 hours.

This probably all sounds a little crazy. Maybe this little post will disappear in a poof of smoke shortly after I wake up tomorrow morning (or maybe it won't.) But I needed SOMEWHERE to get it all out, you know? Because it's all just rattling around up there, and annoying me, the way that tap drips and drips on into infinity.

And the silence of not sleeping screams in my ears, but not loud enought to drown out my self- remonstrations.

Blah blah blog…

Hmmph. That is how I’ve felt about my blog lately. I’ve written 2 or 3 posts that have never left my posts list; they just suck and I can’t seem to push the “publish” button on them. I guess I’ll just have to do a list of things that have been on my mind:

• My dad got another month’s reprieve at home. My mom is still finalizing the paperwork, so he will wait until July to make the big change. Sigh, does more time help or just put off the inevitable? I don’t know. But I am glad he won’t have to spend his birthday there.


• I’ve been sewing like crazy the past few weeks. I made a blanket for a friend at church, thanks to Amy’s great instructions on make rag quilts. Of course, I had left my camera at my mother-in-laws, so I didn’t get a picture of it. But it was cute. I’ve also been sewing a bunch of stuff that I started/bought at Christmas time. It seems a little weird to be working on nativity quilts and Christmas advent calendars in May/June, but it’s been fun, and I’m actually motivated for once, so I guess I better keep it up.


• For each month from now until November, someone in my life, be it a friend, neighbor, or family member, will be having a baby. Geez, I guess 2008 was the year to be pregnant. They seem to be coming out of the woodwork these days.


• I had my waking nightmare last Monday at the grocery store. We had stopped to grab some things for a Memorial Day BBQ we were heading to, and one of those items happened to be a six pack of alcoholic refreshment for my husband. Normally this isn’t a big deal, but as we were leaving the beer aisle, who do I run into but 2 nice neighbors who also go to my church. I spent 3 painful minutes talking with them, knowing that they knew what was in my cart, but refusing to acknowledge it. It really isn’t that big of a deal, I just hate to open myself or my family up to unfair judgment. I mean, I know they know that my husband doesn’t go to our church, but still…it sucked. But we had fun at the bbq, and I knew it would be something I could blog about. Too bad the post I came up with regarding it SUCKED and I’m sticking it in this listy thing. But now you know my nightmare and can join in on the fun. ;)


• Shane’s Grandma Mary had her 80th birthday last week. When we called to wish her a happy birthday, Grandpa told us, “Yeah, I never thought I’d be sleeping with an 80-year-old-woman, but now I am.” It was cute. One of the best things about being married to Shane is having grandparents again. I just love his grandpa; he holds a very tender place in my heart. He has filled a little of the void left by my grandpa Fuzz. There is just something so special about the grandparent/grandchild relationship, even if they are in-law grandparents.
This is Grandma Mary & Grandpa Bob with my kids & their cousin last month.

• I’m participating in a book exchange. This is the second time I’ve done it, but I’m stressing more this time around. I get nervous picking out books for other people to read; I feel all this pressure to pick out a book that is smart and witty that in turn, you know, makes me look smart and witty. I think I might have failed this time around. So, if you are in my group, I hope you don’t hate my book. I thought about hating it, but since I picked it, I feel a certain sense of needing to stand up for it. Sigh. This book needs to pull more of its own weight.

I think that does it for my list. Oh, and speaking of books, I have Maria de los Santo’s newest book, Belong to Me, to read before Thursday. Why do I always wait until the last minute to do stuff? Has anyone read it yet? I loved, loved Love Walked In, so I’m hoping its good.