So, How Was Your Day?

Sammy is finally feeling better, so I escaped the house yesterday. I packed a lot of errands into a little time and it was just nice to get out, finally, and be back among the living. I got my hair cut (trimmed), picked up some garlic bulbs to plant before winter, picked up cute boots, tights, started home milk delivery (yay!) and laughed at the "controversy" surrounding the Nobel Peace Prize.

I wore my favorite of the tights and boots today and must say, I am in love. Look!


I am loving the cooler weather. Boots, tights, hot chocolate...My frequency of patronizing Starbucks is increasing as the temperature gets lower and I've noticed something the past few times I've been in. Namely that my GEB is working there.

The first time I saw him, I was in the drive-thru. I recognized his voice and shrugged it off because, really. Why would he be here working at Starbucks? But, no, it was him. We did the lovely, quizzical dance around the "do I know you...?" question without saying anything. I leave pretty sure that he's wondering where he knows me from. Yesterday, I go in to grab my usual and he's working the counter. Nothing. No hint of recognition, very...dead-faced. I think, wow. He doesn't remember me. Huh. Ok. And I move along. This morning, Sammy wanted something to drink and I'm a little chilly from the farmer's market, so we head...well, you know. He's working the counter again and this time he's, um, more like I remember him. Friendly, funny, charming, talking to Sammy, etc. Still nothing toward me, though. So now I'm stuck. I can't keep going in (and I WILL keep going in - it's almost peppermint hot chocolate time!) and pretending I don't know who he is, but how does one start the conversation that would lead him to remember who I am? "Hey, remember me? We semi, kinda, sorta but not really dated but hung out nearly everyday for a few months one summer 15 years ago..." Right? I don't know. On the up side, he looks great. Which, on the down side, means I can never go grab hot chocolate looking schlubby again!

Music for when you run into...

(split enz, history never repeats...as an aside, we all know my love of Neil, but how good is Tim looking here? Dang.)

Don't Look Back in Anger

When I started this blog, my objective was to tell my stories. I'm of the firm belief that everyone has a story to tell and this was a way to tell mine while keeping my writing up during my career hiatus. Styles of blogs have come and gone and I often wonder if I need a niche to attract an audience. But what I really want is to simply keep telling my story in the best way possible.

In doing so, however, I've noticed that memories are fuzzy. Guesses happen to fill in gaps. Caricatures of people in your past who are no longer in your present happen. Take my ex-in laws for example. They were a significant part of a certain portion of my life. I remember my ex-FIL as just the best man among men. He was kind and patient and gentle and funny and just wonderful and taken from this earth way too soon. I remember his good influence on my ex, but I also remember how his passing is tied to the beginning of the end of my marriage. True? I certainly think so, but allow that it could all be timing mixing things up. My ex-MIL was, well...stereotypes were made for a reason, no? She, out of the two of them, has become the caricature in my mind. Screechy and not nice and difficult to deal with. I would love to know what is memory being distorted by time and where reality really lies.

How do you stop this from happening? How do you tell your life stories and be true to them without the fluff to make them funnier or the drama to make them more sad? How do you keep the supporting players real and true to what they are while still protecting details that aren't for public consumption? I'm not sure anyone really can, actually. I think it's human nature to soften the edges of memories and make them better or worse depending. I think it's natural to see things through individual filters and things that happen will look differently to those who lived it. Even while relying on journals and notes made while in that time period, you are still seeing just one side of the story and a personal slant on things.

So while my goal is the same, I'm looking at it differently. I want to tell my stories, to write, to interact. But I know now that some details of my divorce will never be written, at least by me, and that will make that story incomplete and details that are shared may be fuzzy and disjointed as a result. Some aspects of prior relationships will not get discussed due to the nature of the incidents or relationships or where I am in my life with all of it. And while I'll do my best to recall how people truly were, I know some will be second stringed to caricatures of how I remember them and not how they would remember themselves, if they were the one telling the story.

Life has so many aspects to it. Peoples' stories have so many nuances to them that it's impossible to give a fully accurate accounting of every minute that story was star. I remember a vivid conversation with Isaac during the first few months of marriage that resulted in a lack of spaghetti for dinner for many years. I now know that he remembers that conversation in a completely different way. We're both right. And that's what makes these stories personal, unique, fuzzy, true, distorted, illogical and messy. That's why I love true to life stories so much. They are all the same, they are all different.

Music for cold remembery days:

(joss stone, tell me what we're gonna do now)

What Sound Does Exhaustion Make?

Sammy's been sick since Wednesday and I'm tired. So very tired. Doctor's appointment this morning to find out why he keeps spiking these crazy fevers. And then, hopefully, rest.

Yesterday, since Isaac was home, I finally got a little tag team help with Sammy. That was lovely. So I did what relaxes me. Cook.

We had an amazing veggie chili. I slow roasted the last of the garden tomatoes with fresh garlic and salt. I mixed that, fresh peppers and onions with corn and black beans and spices. So very yummy. Spicy goodness!


Then I made pie. My mom makes a homemade chocolate pudding pie that I LOVE, so I took her basic pudding recipe and made a vanilla pudding raspberry pie. Cannot begin to tell you how fabulous it was! I made a crust (not big enough for my new deep dish pan!) and then took fresh market raspberries and crushed them with just a little sugar and spread them in the bottom of the crust.

Bake until the crust is done. While that was cooking, I made my homemade vanilla pudding (milk, cornstarch and vanilla) until thick. Pour that over the raspberries and I mixed it *just* a little so I had some of the pretty berries peaking out. Cool, set and eat!

I definitely needed to double the recipe to fit my deep dish pan, but other than that. YUM. I love making pie...

And Sammy? He did a little of this:


some of this:

and a lot of this:

Here's to a better week - one of actually getting to my to-do list and figuring out if I should open a jewelry etsy shop or not...