Day 3: A Kitchen with Everything In Its Place

The Drawer

 

Somewhere in this kitchen, there is a grater or a mandoline. How else could she make grated carrot tempura? Or shred Napa cabbage for making dumplings. There is definitely no Cuisinart in this kitchen. I found evidence of a mandoline, its blades stored in a tin cookie box; the tin box buried in the drawer under a bounty of commercial grade paper towels and napkins accumulated from patronizing their favorite fast food establishments. But the body of the mandoline is nowhere to be found.  I open every drawer and cabinet. I open them again, and each time, it is chaos so organized, I can’t find anything.

I give up. We won’t have cabbage tonight.

This kitchen isn’t the kitchen I grew up in anymore. It’s been taken over by plastic bags, plastic take out containers, mini-wood flats the sushi gets packaged on, packets of soy sauce, plastic soy sauce saucers, paper coffee cups from the bank, more plastic bags and more plastic take out containers…All so neatly stacked. And stacked and stacked. I just don’t remember there being so much…stuff. Everywhere. I laugh when I open the mustard yellow oven door. “Does it still work” is so irrelevant. You could order take out faster than it would take to empty the storage oven. This just isn’t the same kitchen where mom made her amazing mac and cheese – rigatoni, chock full of ham, corn, shrimp; it would come bubbling out of the yellow oven, the white American cheese nicely browned. My affinity for white American cheese was sealed in that oven.

The Oven

 

Hanging from the window sill, just above the sink and next to the dish rack I find a vegetable peeler and a handheld grater. Obviously. Their place in this kitchen is the window sill. I have a go at the cabbage with the grater and I think I could have been more effective gnawing at the cabbage head with my teeth.

Nope, we won’t be having cabbage tonight.

It haunts me in my sleep. The mandoline is in the kitchen. Look with your hands, not your eyes.

First thing in the morning, I open the drawer and stare at the paper towel bounty. I reluctantly pull one pile out, then another, then another. You can tell by the way they lay mom likes to grab about 4-6 at a time. I grab more and finally, I grab it all out and throw the pile on the counter. I pull out a plastic bag of something, and another bag of something with a small soup ladle, and a peeler, and a bottle opener. Still. No. Mandoline. Arrrgh!

I start to stack the paper towels into straight piles and put them back in the drawer. What is in this plastic bag? Plastic soup ladle. Mandoline.

The Mandoline

 

PS – Don’t tell mom, I threw out about ¼ of the bounty. I mean, she won’t really notice. Right?

 

 

I Almost Lost Dad Today (Don't Leave the Keys in the Car)

I'm on the phone with my cousin this afternoon. It's been a while since we've caught up. I'm in the kitchen as it seems to have the least spotty reception. Mid-conversation, I hear the garage door open. Shit! I run over to the family room window to see if he's backing the car out. I figure with the pace I saw him backing the car out this morning, if I see the rear end of the RDX start poking out I can run down faster than he can get out of the garage. I see nothing. Listening to my cousin talk, I still see nothing several minutes later, so I return back to the kitchen. A few minutes later, I see Dad weed whacking the back yard. Good, he's getting some physical activity. He's still at it as I wrap up my call 40 minutes later.

Around 6:20 PM, I go look for Dad. I don't find him in the house. I go down to the garage and SHIT! The garage door is open and the car is gone! I run back upstairs and call him from my cell phone. And I can HEAR it ringing nearby which means he does not have his cell phone. WTF. Where did he go? When did he go and what if he gets lost? What if he can't remember how to brake like mom said the other day. Damn it. If he's lost AND he doesn't have his phone...how the hell am I going to find him without a car? If he calls I can Uber to him. Is there Uber in Montvale? But he can't call, unless he gets someone to help him. If he hits someone, I'm sure I'd get a call then. It's 6:28. There are still a few hours of daylight but if he doesn't show or somehow call by 7:00 I'm going to have to call the police. Where would he go? It's Sunday, the bank is closed. Did he need something? Is he checking in one of the tenants? This is SO f'ed up!

At about 6:35 I see the RDX come down the street. I stand at the garage, like a parent catching their child break curfew, steal the car and  watching them try to sneak back inside the house. I'm watching him fumbling inside the car, at the dashboard, with the door partly open. He's trying to turn off the headlights. I tell him they're set on auto. He went to get gas, because I said earlier there was less than 1/4 tank. He thought he'd be right back but got lost on his way back. As if he's not feeling bad enough about getting lost, I have to chastise him for being SO irresponsible. He knows exactly why mom doesn't let him drive the car, yet he does it the moment she's not around! And not only does he not tell me he's going out, he doesn't even have his cell phone with him. It's inevitable he will get lost while driving. But no one can help him if he doesn't tell anyone where he's going, and if he can't call for help. Dad knows he made a mistake, several mistakes, but unlike your kids, I don't think he'll remember the lesson next time.

So, I think we won't leaving the car keys in the console anymore. And I should probably do a closer inspection of the car to make sure there's not any damage he's not telling me about.

It's going to be a long week. 

 

 

does this thing work?

maybe the better question is how does this thing, this life, this me, work? sometimes it works great, and i'm like a champ! and some days, some weeks, some years later, it feels like maybe the screws came loosened over time with use, eventually one dislodged, causing other parts to become overburdened to compensate, and the wearing became uneven, further placing stress on yet other parts and pieces. and then it just stops working.

ironically, the two broken watches on my nightstand have become today's metaphor. placed there with the intention to one day seek out the special touch of an expert hand, to bring them back to life to do what they do best, count down to the future. but there they sit, suspended at 10:24 and 2:03, a little more dusty, not forgotten but not worthy of special attention. so what does one do with broken timepieces?

grounded

Well, I think there is something about taking a flight to catch a boat that just doesn't quite work for me. Circa 2003 or 4, family cruise to Alaska departing from Vancouver. I'm grounded by the blackout back east. Yes, the very one that brought citizens of New York together, sharing bbq and icecream before they turned to spoils shut down the entire airline system based in Toronto, including the one that controlled my flight out of SFO. After hours in the lonely corridor that connects abandoned Terminal 2 to Terminal 3 with one hand cradling the too short pay phone handle to one ear, and a cell phone to the other, at least I was able to meet up with the cruise in Ketchikan. The next day.

Today, not so lucky. First, after hours of sitting bored, passing time staring out the window, since the early afternoon, before a 10:30 departure, the message comes through at 4:30 that the IAD to STT leg has been cancelled and quite possibly they've already booked me on another flight. Fat chance. Can they really cancel flights that far in advance?I look up the weather report, partially sunny skys, low 30s for sunday, what the f***? Suddenly all those happy posts on Facebook about winter whiteouts back east...not so happy. They can't get me to STT until Tuesday or Wednesday at the earliest. Not only that, but my SFO to STT flight set to depart 10:30 PM (the very one I was whittling away hours to board), has been delayed until 02:30 AM. Panic mode sets in. What the fuck am I supposed to do. Do I fly out to IAD only to arrive 4 hours later than I expected and camp out in the DC areas until Tuesday while the boat sails forth?

Hunched over the laptop, ear to the phone...trying to look on the brighter side of things. Two and half hours later...I have an extra week to workout before donning the bikini, I have an extra week to read through the bareboat cruising texts, I can go eat noodles tonight because again, I won't be wearing a swimsuit tomorrow. Stay positive...And I can sail into the new year.

off to sea, out to see

i really should be reading my bareboat cruising texts right now but instead i'm downloading R&B hits from the 60s. so i might not know how to come about or read the navigational chart but i'll have a little otis and al to make me feel better along the way.

i can't tell if i'm the right mindframe for this trip. i really don't know where i'm going and i haven't prepared myself in the usual fashion. i guess i really will land where the wind takes me. put a globe in from of me and i would not be able to place my finger in BVI without studying the dots off Florida for a few minutes. i have no idea how many people are on this 43+' boat with me. i don't even know which city my layover is in (IAD), and i've been guessing it's DC but i couldn't even tell you why. all i know is that by sunday afternoon, if all goes smoothly, i will be sitting by the docks somewhere in the carribean, a body of water i've never seen. just me. watching the tide roll away.

butter. sugar. bittersweet

how am i supposed to do this?

its been hours and batches and batches of cookies since i walked in this room. and there are two dirty coffee cups still beside the bed. there is still a bottle of old spice in the cabinet. there still sits, ready for the needle, the record you last played. there is still the lingering scent of heartbreak on the sheets. lock the doors, stop the sun from rising, stop the darkness from falling. to no avail. just keep walking, don't look back.



how am i supposed to do this?

congratulations, they're engaged! to witness and celebrate what i only dreamed for us to be embraced by and for others. how could i get this so wrong? did i confuse the salt for sugar? egg white, or egg yolk? i'm just me, but how come i get to choke on tears while others savor sweet bliss. what soul can flourish on salted tears?



how will i do this?

minute by minute. song by song. glass by glass. day by day. i am downright scared. scared to forget or remember. i should be scared when my anthem is "i'm a do the things that i wanna do, i ain't got a thing to prove to you, i eat my candy with the pork and beans, excuse my manners if i make a scene". oh, weezer, how they see me through my darkest hours.

unimaginable misfortune

"it is the darkness of your heart that leads to enlightenment"