What you do before you friend someone

I opened the bathroom door and a squeal erupted from inside.

"I'm deodoring!" my son said.

Oops.

*

Recently, I challenged myself to record each day with a photo and an observation, much like what happens at habit: a collection of days. Some of the pictures and writing I've used here, others I only posted on my Flickr account, Dance in the Kitchen. You can find them here, if you're curious.

You get what you get

It was an extravagance, turning a whole chicken into stock, but I wanted a rich, fragrant, meaty broth with shimmering droplets of fat, a soup that cured. It bubbled on the stove all day long.

I don't like caring for sick kids. I resent their neediness, the tether they become, the disruption they cause, but I am their mother and this is what mothers do: They measure cough syrup, brew cups of herbal tea, take temperatures, rub backs, then wake in the middle of the night to do it all again. Yesterday, I did this but not well, for in between the good-mother stuff, I lost my temper, cursed my children, rudely hung up on my husband and ate handfuls of chocolate chips straight out of the bag. I feel guilty that I'm at my worst when my kids need me most, but there it is.

I needed this chicken broth to work magic and restore not only health but also good will, which was asking a lot from a bowl of soup, but I can wish, can't I?
  
"It's not simply its warmth, aroma or digestibility that makes you feel better. Chicken soup really is good for you, but only if it has those pools of golden fat floating on its top," Jennifer McLagan writes in the cookbook "Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient." "All poultry fats contain the monosaturated fatty acid palmitoleic acid, which is believed to boost our immune systems. Chicken fat has more palmitoleic acid than other types of poultry fat."

I seasoned the broth, added thin coins of carrots, dill and plump matzo balls. But some days can't be saved. Some days are bitter, a struggle to live through, a slog. My daughter continued to whimper that her chest hurt when she coughed and my sons didn't return my smile when they returned from school. Although beautiful flecks of fat glittered on its surface, this soup didn't cure what ailed the day, although it made it taste a little better.

Chicken stock

One whole chicken
Enough water to just cover it
A couple bay leaves
A handful of whole peppercorns
One onion, quartered
Salt and pepper, to taste

Bring to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer and skim the foam off the surface. A whole chicken simmered a long time will yield the richest and most flavorful stock, but you also can use the bones from a couple roasted chickens. About one hour into the process, I pull the chicken out and cut off the breasts, saving them for another meal. Typically, I simmer the chicken until it falls to pieces or about four hours, then strain through a colander.

French kissing a mermaid

Courtesy of Steve Snodgrass.

I've eaten an oyster.

To be completely accurate, I've eaten six.

Each one was like a wave exploding in my mouth, soft, salty, sharp. I swallowed and felt this rush, this high, this incredible feeling of aliveness like I get when I bodysurf, but this time the ocean was tumbling and crashing inside of me instead of me inside the ocean.

Man began eating oysters some 140,000 years ago, and I like to imagine that we've been uttering the same sound for oyster since prehistory. After all, the word hasn't changed much: Oyster is a derivative of the Middle English oistre, which comes from Old French uistsre, which itself comes from Latin's ostreum, which comes from the Greek word ostrakon.

My first oyster shimmered in its shell. I wasn't sure what to do with it, so I watched others sitting at the Walrus and the Carpenter oyster bar then squirted lemon, added a generous pinch of fresh grated horseradish, drizzled vinegar, and slurped. I closed my eyes and managed one bite before it slid down my throat. A slow, silly smile spread across my face, the very same grin I get when I've been tossed head-over-heels by a wave and am yanking up my swimsuit so I can head back out and ride another. More. More. More.

Courtesy of Swamibu.

I worked my way from small to large and somewhere in the mix I ate a kumamoto (sweet, buttery and a bit briny) and a baron point (soft textured, with a slightly mineral taste and a musky finish). Apparently, oysters are like wine and cheese, with much of their flavor credited to terroir or the environment in which they're grown, but my virgin tongue couldn't taste the difference; all it wanted was more of the full-contact experience, another soft, salty, citrus-y wave crashing inside my mouth.

"I feel like I'm drunk and I haven't even finished my glass of wine," I told my waitress. "What's going on?"

She rattled off various possibilities: The oyster's considered an aphrodisiac, it's raw food, the whole act of eating one is somewhat ceremonial. Then she pointed to the oyster shucker behind the bar, he'll know more, she said.

The shucker pried open the shell, used his knife to flip the oyster onto its belly -- they look prettier and plumper, he said -- and nestled it in ice. He picked up his next shell, explaining that my "oyster rush" was a physiological reaction to the burst of protein and minerals, that this slippery, squishy shellfish is loaded with zinc, packed with protein and rich in amino acids that trigger sex hormones.

Hmmm. So that's why author Tom Robbins once wrote that "eating a raw oyster is like French kissing a mermaid," but since my plate was empty and there were no more mermaids to be found, I took the next best thing -- my man -- and went to Sunset Hill.

I am 40, now

I can't weave straw into gold, but I can make threads of silver. It surprises me, each strand sparkling brilliantly against the duller browns. I hadn't expected to enjoy turning gray.

***

I'm reading "Crime and Punishment." For some reason I'd never read it before, but then there are so many classic novels I've never read, and when I finally begin my reaction is always the same. My gosh, this is good. It's so good, so much better than this book or that book that I just wasted my time on. Why have I waited so long to read this? Then I go around telling everyone how great this novel is, as if I'm the first to discover it, when really, I shouldn't be surprised. It's why they're classics, after all.

Anyway, I had picked up "Crime and Punishment" again, the night of my birthday (long after song and candles and brownies had been sung, extinguished, devoured), when these sentences made me pause. I re-read them.

For although Mrs. Raskolnikov was forty-three, her face still preserved traces of its former beauty. Besides, she looked much younger than her years, which is almost always the case with women who keep their serenity of mind, the freshness of their impressions, and a pure and sincere warmth of heart to their old age. We may add in parenthesis that to possess all this is the only way a woman can preserve her beauty even in old age. Her hair was already beginning to grow thin and grey, crows'-foot wrinkles had long ago appeared round her eyes, her cheeks were hollow and shrunken from anxiety and grief, but her face still remained beautiful.

It's an odd feeling, learning that Dostoyevsky would've considered me old.

Cancer cracked me open and I weep

Courtesy of Kent Landerholm.

I drive through the intersection of an emergency.

I hear sirens. I see the red flash of a fire truck, a policeman directing traffic, people looking up. So I slow down and I look up, too. From the roof of a tall building is a woman balanced on her belly, legs dangle, waiting.

I drive past a man praying next to man taking a picture on his smart phone. I drive through two lights then join a crowd of cars on a freeway where no one knows that blocks away a woman is deciding whether to live or die.

***

I cry as as I wash dishes, as I run, as I write. Two months ago, my father was healthy; now he fights for his life. Life is painful, resentful, but also, strangely enough, beautiful. The discovery of cancer reminds me how fragile and gorgeous and fleeting is my life, my dad's life, my children's. 

Cancer cracked me open and I weep.

Until I laugh.

At the absurdity of life because it wraps a suicide in a good sky day. Because on the way home, my 2-year-old pukes all over himself and his car seat. Because I go to the grocery store and buy things I don't need and forget things I do. Because two months ago, my father was healthy and now he fights for his life.

At home, I pull the soiled clothes off my son and he walks, naked, into the house. We rock in the sun until my eyes close and my head drops, jerks. I wake. Then nod off again.

Courtesy of Deja Photo.

I don't know what to  make for dinner. I never know what to make for dinner anymore. Yesterday I came home with leeks and a pound of dried currants. I forgot bread. Four days ago, I bought five pounds of spinach. I forgot milk. Now I stand before the refrigerator and am uninspired. I pour cans of chicken broth into a pot. I saute spinach with garlic. I boil water and begin poaching eggs. In bowls I ladle broth over spinach and egg and hand it to my children. 

I've never had this before.

Not eggs. Please, Mom, not eggs.

I sing.

I do not like the way they slide. 
I do not like their soft insides. 
I do not like them many way,
and I could do for many days 
without eggs.

It's a song they know from the many hours spent listening to the story of a young badger named Frances who refuses to eat anything but bread and jam. They take their bowls. Ten minutes later, one son is halfway through his bowl and looks up stunned. 

What's wrong?

Nothing. I just realized this was dinner.

I smile ruefully and finish my own bowl of soup, salty, garlicky, thickened with the sweet yolk. I get up from the table, walk into the bedroom. It's 7:30 p.m. and I'm so tired. I pull off my clothes, crawl into bed and sleep.

A conversation with a young superhero

Ivan, in training.

"How can I fly, Mom?"

"I don't know. How does a superhero fly?"

"I can fly up and I can fly down."

"It's easier to fly down, I'd think."

"I wanna fly up."

"Okay."

"You get the remote control?"

"To help you fly up?"

"Yeah."

"I think you're going to have to do this on your own."

He ran.

He jumped.

He skidded.

He fell.

Then settled for piloting a paper airplane.