Living With Sweet Denial

I refuse to believe that in the next few days snow is in the forecast. Yes, I am in the ultimate denial stage. I’ve heard from multiple sources that the temperature is going to drop quickly and that the predicted heavy rain will fall and turn into snow. Yes, SNOW.

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I am not going to believe it nor will I think about it.  Instead I am going to live in my world of fantasy for a few minutes, at least, and dream or reminisce about something nice that happened in my past. Let’s see how long I last with this new coping technique…

I once went on a trip to visit my grandparents with my dad in Vienna, Austria. ( Remember we always had free airline tickets.) Do I remember the time I spent with my grandparents? Honestly, no.I remember that my Opa was grumpy but he did love me best and Oma made incredible, moist schnitzel, the best I’ve had in my entire life. Naturally, I remembered food. I also remembered the desserts that my dad and I shared. Both of us had the worst sweet addiction in the world.

I can’t remember what I had for dinner last night but I do remember desserts I have had when I was a teenager. On that trip to Vienna we had a red currant pie that when you took a bite the currants would explode in your mouth. I’ve looked, searching for something similar now for forty years. The other dessert we called “The Swan” filled with vanilla cream, a delicate white meringue, shaped into a swan, covered in aluminum to take home.

Many years later we would look at each other and just say..”remember the swan?” My father is long deceased but when I think of these moments that we shared together they make me feel close to him.  I have not disappointed him in my pursuit of sweets. In fact, I have carried that trait on to my now grown-up children.

My daughter is a chocolate fan, definitely inherited from her dad’s side of the family. It’s chocolate, dark chocolate and nothing else. It could be ice cream or cake but it has to be chocolate, once in a while they will have coffee mixed in but that’s all.

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Ah, but my son comes from my side of the family with the love of fruit, custard tarts, crème brûlée and all things vanilla. Sure, we won’t turn down a brownie but our main focus is definitely NOT on chocolate, just the opposite. We like pear tarts and apple crumbles, strawberry fruit tarts with vanilla custard, blueberry pies and for me, anything with coconut or lemon.

Dessert makes a sad day or a bad day happier. It doesn’t have to be big, and it doesn’t have to be a large serving but in our family it does indeed have to exist. My husband and I, since the kids are in college, have a new ritual in the evening: after dinner and cleaning up, working/writing for a while around 8:30 we start to watch television on our bed. Our dog, Lexi is always at our feet. A half hour goes by and instinctively we look at each other and smile.

We know by our stomachs, not a clock, that it is time for dessert. My husband goes down to the kitchen and prepares two small bowls of ice cream, frozen yogurt or a combination, maybe a cookie with it and a few M & M’s. I think we both get the same amount of pleasure from it, I am thrilled with the anticipation and he is thrilled that he is doing something so incredibly kind and I appreciate it. (Not to mention the fact that we are about to have “D” the nickname for dessert in our house.)

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We continue watching our show, we eat our desserts slowly (well, I do) and that makes the world a little brighter. Compared to some people it’s not a big deal but for us it’s not only  enough, it’s heavenly sweet.

In memory of my dad.

The Family Of Foodies

When our kids come home from college for a visit, suddenly our kitchen is bursting with the smell of my freshly baked banana bread with raisins and chocolate chips, soon afterwards dark chocolate brownies are left to cool waiting for me to slather on the thick, creamy dark chocolate frosting.

Their dad and I have both gone to the supermarket to stock up on their favorite foods, they could stay four weeks, even though they are only here for four days or is it one day? It doesn’t matter. We pack the leftovers so the kids can take them to share with their friends.

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I stood in the freezer section getting frost bite while choosing six quarts of ice cream, all different flavors.  We have Ben and Jerry’s Coffee, Coffee Buzz, Graeter’s Black Cherry Chip,

 

Graeter’s (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Black Raspberry Chip, and Chocolate, Chocolate Chip. We also have Mango Sorbet, Blood Orange Sorbet and Haagen Daas’ Pistachio ice cream (which to me, is a great disappointment, vanilla with a couple of shelled pistachio nuts in it. I won’t buy it again.) Any suggestions of another brand of pistachio ice cream?

 

 

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We have rainbow cookies, molasses cookies.

 

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amaretto cookies, and of course, Double Stuffed “Oreos.”(Thank you, Nabisco)

 

We don’t live like this all the time, believe me, we only stock up when our college kids come home to visit. Our daughter’s description of the ideal break is: “watching, (streaming episodes) of her favorite television shows on her computer and eating her home-cooked favorite foods and I quote.” Isn’t that what coming home is all about?”

My husband made a delicious eggplant parmegian/ parmesan, I made guacamole, and a tomato, mozzarella, olive oil, basil salad, we had

 

 

chips, pizza, huge salads, creative salads with lettuce and arugula, cranberries, goat cheese, string beans, grapes, and cucumbers (and anything else I found) with no meat (for our daughter “the vegetarian.”) Yes, she DOES get plenty of protein, she never liked meat and never ate it as a baby. I’m anticipating the questions that will follow…

BOTH of my grown-up children came home a day early as a surprise and I consider myself deeply blessed. I am truly grateful to be able to have one night together with my whole family, where we eat will be up to them, with our approval, and bound by price range and affordability.

Tonight, we will eat leftovers with no complaints and if there are complaints, that’s okay, the only other option is…no other option. I do regret how lenient we were with our children when they were small. I felt like a short order cook, a grilled cheese for one, spaghetti with meatballs for the other….the things you learn in hindsight.

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We all make mistakes as parents but if that’s the worst mistake we made then I think we did pretty well. We have super nice, polite kind, kids, independent, loving, street smart and compassionate. What more could a mother and a father want? NOTHING.

Are they perfect?  No.  Are we? Heck no. Do we wish they would change certain things?  Sometimes. No, I am NOT going to argue with you about this!! (you- know -who) I know that they wish the same for us. We’re a family, we all need to work together. Every single one of us needs to learn how to compromise and accept not always being right. Accepting someone’s difference is harder than deciding to disagree. Respect another person’s position without judgment. Try.

What would you rather be, a very old friend asked me thirty years ago, right or at peace?

My answer thirty years ago was” right,” I changed my answer in the years to come. The kids will learn that, in time. Or, they won’t. That is entirely up to them. It took me a long time to see it, peace wins for me now, every single time.

We all grow-up, we make mistakes, we fall down, we get up and we fall down again. Children, like adults, learn, from their mistakes. Let them make them.

When our kids went back to school a few days ago my husband and I went right back to eating very simple meals. Scrambled eggs with cheese and toast, pasta with meat sauce, home-made pea soup, chunky with carrots, ham, spices and a salad and french bread. A roasted chicken, rice and freshly cut vegetables with a yogurt dill sauce. After dinner, we often go upstairs, lie on our bed, watch our television set with a small (ok, medium) bowl of ice cream in our hands (with rainbow-colored sprinkles for me) to watch the Jimmy Fallon show from the night before. A simpler life, quieter, we accept what we have, what we can’t change and that’s okay. Love what you have today, understand and accept that you will see your children less, yesterday is gone and we don’t know what the future will bring.

Enjoy the moment. Be Thankful. Breathe.

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Gray Skies, Shocker!

Fourth day in a row, gray, drizzling, I’m not smiling but I’m not depressed either. I guess I have a choice which way to head. Not going down the negative road, maybe I’ll head to Target and buy something yellow that I can place in my window sill. Here’s a situation that I have NO control over, the weather but I’ll make other choices that may help.

I do have a choice whether or not to go to my chair yoga class and it was iffy in the morning. After a strong cup of coffee

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with a little honey (a new idea) I decided to force myself to go and know I won’t regret it.

I’m looking at my “sun-lamp” (don’t waste your money) that I bought years ago, it’s in place but really does nothing, save your money and buy yourself some exquisite chocolate or butter pecan ice cream

Butter pecan caramel ice cream (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

or some exotic fruit you have wanted  to try.

(As if I would show a picture of a new piece of fruit, LOL)

I’m going to play some music, put on some perfume, slip into my new black, Dansko clogs and make the best of the day that I have.

Think of it this way, I didn’t wake up with another migraine, I am grateful for that. I guess having migraines now makes the days that I don’t have one extra special, I really appreciate those days.

I guess if I’m stuck with a new painful illness I may as well look for the silver lining, sure is better than complaining about it.

Be sweet to another person, do a good deed, appreciate what you have, pay it forward. You will feel better immediately even if you do have a migraine.

*Show Me You Love Me, Bake Me A Peach Pie

or a vanilla coconut cake, or a chocolate cake with raspberry preserves, please.

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or buy me one.. How about a last of the summer plum-cake? I would love that too. The way the first bite of flaky, buttery crust feels as it slides into your mouth. The texture of the  plums both soft, liquified, chunky, as they scrape against your teeth. Tart and sweet at the same time. Summer is officially over when you see the first prune plums in the supermarket, it’s a daunting site. For my mom and me, it’s the true symbol that Summer is definitely and completely OVER.

Another plum cake (Photo credit: Wikipedia)







Rapture. Heaven. I am a sweet tooth junkie. My husband would be happy with a bowl of ice cream every night but I dream of pastries. This is what happens when you are born to a German mother and an Austrian father. I blame it all on genetics and the fact that I only had jello,applesauce and sherbet for dessert growing up. I didn’t know any other desserts existed.b

Banana cream pie, crème brule, there is no dessert I would refuse. Fresh fruit cup, perhaps? That’s not a dessert to me, it’s a snack. True, also for cheese plate, that’s lunch.

Yesterday, at our town’s farmer’s market I saw a small homemade peach crumb pie that I bought immediately. I was ready to devour it that night but my husband cajoled me into freezing it and saving it for when our son comes home from college for a visit. God knows I love my children more than myself but I had to really think about this. Sigh, it’s in the freezer.

There was nothing there was pure chocolate for when my daughter comes home but I know the exact place to buy her a chocolate-chocolate cake. I could even bake it myself.

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Even when the kids were little dessert was holy, we definitely weren’t one of those organic, no sugar, no junk food homes. Having been deprived of snacks like Yodels and Chocolate Chip cookies, Mallomars, Oreos and milk I stocked them for my kids when they came home from school. Their cousins LOVED to sleep over at our house, they came in and dove into our cereal aisle. The only cookie we had growing up was “Social Tea.” I happen to still really like them but on a play date I discovered a junk food group I had never seen before!

Before I get any angry letters from herbalists and organic naturalists, I should say that everything is good in moderation. We don’t eat boxes of any cookie, we’ll eat one cookie or two and we eat fresh fruit and vegetables always. Now that the kids are in college, we tend to eat much healthier.

Dessert is a treat, “no dessert” used to be a punishment in our house. We thought it was a good idea until a few years ago our grown-up children told us it was a complete joke.

Parenthood, you do the best you can, it doesn’t come with an instruction booklet.

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*This post may not be safe for those who are diabetic.

Food Fighters




Adam Richman, host of the new show Food Fighters on NBC has finally found himself a respectable job. Adam of Man vs Food show, the gluttonous, eating pig-out contest (see Man vs Food on my blog )

 

Man v. Food (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

record-breaking, heart attack making show was in one word, disgusting. It was Adam, a lot heavier, breaking stupid records  for example if  someone had eaten  15 triple cheeseburgers in a row, Adam, of course, would have to top it and eat 16. Ugh. It was not a pretty sight.

 

Ninety-nine percent of the time, he took the title which is why his weight probably ballooned up, I guess the restaurant has to win once in a while. Apparently now a thinner, but nastier Adam is in a Twitter/Instagram (?) fight about remarks he made to some fans which were really distasteful, ugly and insensitive. Not smooth Adam, not good for Public Relations. Your manager is probably eating themselves up in cronuts right about now.

 

I love this show Food Fighters which puts together talented home chefs against professional chefs to cook a meal. Of course, if you are like me, you are always rooting for the home chef to win and to wipe the smug grins of the celebrity chefs right off their faces.

 

Tonight’s episode featured a home cook that really seemed to need the money and I was rooting for her. She beat every single professional chef that was on the show winning a total of $100,000. I had tears in my eyes when she won. She had come from a bad place, was unemployed and really needed a new start. I’m not positive but I thought she said she was living and cooking for her brother and family.  This win, gave her the opportunity to start over.

Aside from identifying too much with the contestant (which I did ) she was a woman you just wanted to cheer for. Her name was Elisha and the only thing I missed was a seat at the dinner table to taste her food and that of the celebrity chefs.

I LOVE THIS SHOW. I haven’t been this excited about a new show in a long time. Thank goodness for this, it’s the little things that make me happy, like the tiny sliver (okay big) slice of chocolate mousse cake

 

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that I stole from my daughter’s birthday cake. Heaven. Moist, creamy, fudge-like icing, my husband was aghast with horror. “Since when have you walked over to the dark side?” What happened to Vanilla Girl?” he asked. I didn’t think it required an answer because basically I was eating the frosting and did not intend to distract myself with an answer.

As many of you know I tend to be VERY flexible when it comes to dessert. I like many different types of dessert and I will have a slice of cake over a scoop of ice cream any day. I eat ice cream, of course, but it has to be in warm weather, outside of Ben & Jerry’s, seated in their cow couch outside licking a cone with rainbow sprinkles. Rainbow sprinkles

 

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make me incredibly happy. To me, they are what dreams are made of, my husband will only eat chocolate sprinkles or jimmies as they called them in Massachusetts.

It’s a particularly hard world out there now and very difficult for our family as well as many families that I know. We do what we can to cope with our situations but if an ice cream cone or a good cup of coffee, once in a while, makes you happy, I say, go for it. It might very well (no pun intended) perk you right up.

 

Just one blogger's thoughts. Allegedly.


Food. GASP!


When I have NO food cravings I know there must be something wrong with me. I live for food, I think about food, write about food and I talk about food. I also fantasize about food and now I watch food porn on The Cooking Channel, The Food Network and more. My favorite shows include Master Chef when Chef Ramsay is nice and Hell’s Kitchen where I practically hide under my bed with all his screaming.

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I also love, LOVE Junior Master Chef and the new (but not improved) Supermarket Sweep (Supermarket Games?)

My fantasy is to eat food, write about food and eat Phish food (Thank you, Ben & Jerry’s) maybe one day get paid for eating food. Yeah, right.

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I inherited my love for food from my dad who loved food dearly. I remember one winter when I was a teenager my mom sent him out shopping for bread and milk. He came back two hours later with blackberries, he forgot the bread and milk. He couldn’t resist, he just had to have them and he knew we would all love them.  I can still hear my mother yelling about how much money it cost him. He didn’t care. I don’t care either.

 

 

 

The only difference between my father and I was that I can eat only eat small portions during the day and my appetite revs up at around 9:30 pm. My father never felt full. Ever.  He could keep eating and eating…. There’s a word for it called appestat, he had no appestat or barometer to ever feel full, he was constantly hungry.

 

 

 

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I have the anti-appestat for the last four days. Thus, I have no appetite. What is wrong with me? No food cravings, no food fantasies, no planning of what I want to eat for dinner tonight (even though it’s only 9:00am.) This is not me. I’m not even planning what I want to eat tomorrow night or the day after. Mind you, I do not even pretend to be a good cook.

 

 

 

The lack of appetite must be leftover (no pun intended) from the horrific migraine I had on Thursday night (see: Thursday, While I Was In The Emergency Room) because I am still forcing myself to eat.

 

 

 

I bet my friends would even prefer if I was eating pizza with grape jelly (or banana slices!! as I just saw photographed.)

 

 

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Also, and this seems tragic, I can’t even play the food fantasy game. One of my all-time favorites:

 

 

 

You are seated in an expensive restaurant with a person of your choice. The restaurant is known for it’s superb dining skills, everything from scrambled eggs to the highest quality beef wellington and exquisite sea food. What do you order” Three meals minimum:

 

 

 

Usually my answer would be something like this: Warm, Just Baked Bread with Butter, Room Temperature, I hate cold butter, (Shrimp Cocktail, Deviled Eggs, Beef Wellington/ Filet Mignon with sauteed Mushrooms and Brussell Sprouts AND the berry pie that explodes in your mouth with a slice of chocolate layer cake that has raspberry jam in between the layers. An Americanized version of a Sachertorte. Home made whipped cream or as we know it, Schlaag,(no Reddi-Whip) is essential on the side.

 

 

 

I play this game often and with ease and sometimes just with myself but today, the closest thing I can come up with is a graham cracker. That is pretty pathetic. I know, now you are jumping up and down in your seats screaming “NO D ???”

 

 

 

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And I would have to shake my head, lower my eyes and sadly say “No, I don’t even want dessert.” This is the strongest indicator that something is wrong wiith me that I can come up with. I am so sorry. I have no doubt that my appetite will come back any day now with relish (eew not that kind)

 

 

 

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and I will be sure to write about the very first meal I get ridiculously excited about. I don’t want to let you down. I think I have, forgive me. Maybe if you give me your fantasy meals I’ll get some inspiration?

PS  And, Judith, dear, Judith ice cream for all three is cheating.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Reunion

 

My husband Gary and I were sitting at the kitchen counter, drinking coffee, when he brought up the same conversation about my college reunion that I thought we had finished discussing long ago.  “You just don’t want to go to the reunion, he said “because your best friend hurt your feelings.”  “Gary, I replied slowly, she didn’t just hurt my feelings, she  decimated them, there’s a big difference, don’t you think?”

“What I think, he said, is that you’re being too sensitive, after all, you were best friends for four years.”

I had never wanted to go to any type of college reunion, what was the point to seeing people twenty years older, heavier, thinner with more or less hair? This time my husband pushed me to go “Come on, he said to me “why not? Everyone should go to one class reunion. Think of it as a rite of passage,”

I sighed.

Then, the final blow, my husband shouted “you just don’t want to go because you think Caroline might be there, admit it.”

I paused, of course he was right, but how dare he say that?  Did he not know the rules of marriage? He was supposed to stick up for me no matter what. “Asshole” I replied,  “that has nothing to do with it.” “Oh come on, he said, she was your best friend in the world, you think she betrayed you and you have never forgiven her.” “Just grow up,” he said impatiently.

I paused on the stairs leading up to the bedroom, gave him a killer stare and in a slow, moderated voice I said “Fine, if it is that important to YOU let’s just go” I said airily as I climbed the stairs to our master bathroom to shower, condition my hair and shave my legs very carefully.

We drove up on a Saturday morning, we checked in at the front desk of the University as if we were registering for classes. I saw my ex -best friend, Caroline, from the corner of my eye, I turned quickly away before she could see me.

“Bitch” I muttered under my breath.

“What? Gary said? “Nothing,  I didn’t say anything.”

Then, as my worst fear became realized, Gary, spotted Caroline and they waved to each other wildly. He nudged me, “Look Caroline’s waving” At that moment all I wanted was a divorce attorney. I turned to look at her and put my arm up with the faintest crack of a fake smile plastered to my face.

During college, the infamous Caroline, had been my  roommate and best friend. I loved her, like a sister and she was the one who introduced me to Gary; we had all been good friends.

After college we each moved home, she lived in Massachusetts and I lived in NY. We assured each other that we would always be best friends and find an apartment together somewhere in the middle.

In the beginning we talked on the phone every day. After that it dwindled to once or twice a week. Soon, I stopped hearing from her, she wouldn’t even return my calls. I wrote her but she never wrote me back. I convinced myself that she was dying and called her parents in desperation but they assured me she was fine.

I lived with that pain and that rejection in my life for many years. I just wanted to understand but I couldn’t, she wouldn’t even talk to me. Eventually, with time, It became more of a mystery and a dull pain and less of a piercing betrayal.

Many years later, on a vacation to Boston, Gary and I ran into Caroline at an Ice cream store where we took our two children, Nicholas, 5 and Erika, 3 for a special treat.  We were happy, laughing, eating dripping ice cream cones with rainbow sprinkles and I froze as soon as I saw her walk in the door.

 

I said ” hello” to her then, so did Gary and she commented on how cute the kids were. She was about to start playing with them and I felt the flush of heat go through my body. I tried hard not to say anything and then, suddenly, my temper flared and I pulled her aside. I demanded to know the truth: “Why did you stop the friendship? What happened? We were best friends!”

She looked at me blankly, she shrugged her shoulders and I will never forget the words she said: ” out of sight, out of mind.” I was speechless.

The next time I saw her was at the reunion, she came up to Gary and me and started chatting about neutral topics, the weather,  our jobs, and finally she asked about our children.

“Ben is applying to Medical school, I said and Sarah is finishing up college, with a degree in International Relations.” “What about you,” I asked somewhat sneakily. “How is your life?” She blinked and looked away for a split second and then said lightly “Oh you know me, I’m destined to live a life alone, I’m too much of a free bird to have a family,” she said  chuckling.

I nodded politely, “yes, I said, slowly, staring directly into her eyes, I think you made that clear many years ago.

I turned to Gary, who by now was grinning, he took my hand and we went into the seminar together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Craving Cheeseburgers, Part 2: My Love Affair With Dessert

When we last spoke in “Craving All Cheeseburgers” my husband and I really DID go out for the delicious, juicy cheeseburger and I kept my promise (to you) to look at the dessert menu. Did you think I would disappointed you, my friends? Of course not.

On the dessert menu: Creme Brulé, Ice Cream, Sorbet, flourless chocolate cake (No other pastries) and a special Banana-Chocolate bread pudding. That definitely interested my husband, since he loves bananas and chocolate. I was trying to be nice, so I said I would share it with him. I had my doubts.

Big Mistake.

It tasted like the banana bread that I bake except much drier.  I

Monique’s Banana & Raisin Cake (Photo credit: Great British Chefs)

make banana bread several ways. Plain, with raisins. Plain with chocolate chips and lastly banana bread with both chocolate chips and raisins.

I’m a huge fan of raisins, so give me an oatmeal raisin cookie and I’m in heaven. I will eat chocolate chip cookies but I prefer oatmeal raisin, I might have to try to make them this week. I’m an oddball I know, I like molasses cookies and cinnamon cookies ginger cookies and vanilla cookies, that’s why my nickname, years ago, was “Vanilla Girl.” I like chocolate too as a pre-dessert, dark chocolate I consider medicinal in a heart healthy kind of way.

The bread pudding was too hard to resemble anything pudding like. It had the consistency of a very dry sponge.  My husband ate some of it and we

Description unavailable (Photo credit: rob.knight)

brought the rest home which is still sitting in our over crowded refrigerator. I scrounged around our cabinet and came up with some cinnamon cookies and a (large) spoon of Nutella for my dessert. Not bad at all.

Tonight, I am looking forward to the Greek diner’s rice pudding that my mother lovingly bought me after we shared the best tuna sandwich in the world. There are only a few places that are known to us for tuna approved edibility.

Our main course tonight will probably be scrambled eggs and English muffins but as long as I am happy with my dessert nothing else matters. I have to put raisins in the rice pudding now, before I forget.

Rice pudding bowl (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I haven’t told anyone this but I just ordered home-baked molasses cookies on-line and I am waiting for them to arrive any day now. (They were expensive.)

My friend Judith really does eat dessert first when she is home, I need the anticipation. I have a Pre-D and then a  real-D. Same kind of concept mine just has a base of protein.

Tomato, TomAto.

PS Those were the best cookies I have EVER had. Worth every dollar. They also come in a “Snickerdoodle” variety which the company says is the Molasses cookies with raisins. Does anyone know? I looked up Snickerdoodles and there are many versions.

Please help.

That is going straight on my birthday list. I’m drooling.

Cookies? Check. Ice Cream? Check. Impulse Items? Check.

WELCOME HOME

 

I haven’t had the energy to go grocery shopping (something I hold near and dear to my heart) since early Spring. I’ve had all my illnesses flare up at the same time: Fibromyalgia, Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, Syncopy, Fainting and Crashing, No Energy etc. For me? A tragic loss. For the supermarket? A major deficit. I’m not joking (as most of my readers will tell you) I LOVE FOOD, good food, strange food, NEW food and products. I will always look at every item on the shelves to see if I can spot any new items. I always can and I always buy them. I have no idea what the photo below is showing but that is a product I would definitely buy and eat, wouldn’t you?

Fastelavnsboller (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

 

 

 

 

My husband came along for this trip just to see if I could physically make it but once we were in the store I shot out with my carriage grinning wickedly. I don’t need a list nor do I want one. This is my home. I look at every item in every aisle and I know what I need, want or have to have for that week.

I knew it was a mistake NOT to go into marketing after I graduated college. I am the one to pick out the next new product, the new sensation, the new flavor, I’m a marketer’s taste test dream. Is it too late? I am at my prime, have your people twitter my people.

My mom says I have been like this since I’ve been five years old. I haven’t outgrown it and am proud to say my children, have inherited this hobby too. Even now, in their twenties, they love to go shopping with their mom.

For a while when I was younger (no, I’m not kidding) my then boyfriend, now husband, watched a show called Supermarket Sweep. We watched the original show every single night when it first came on. We toyed with the idea of getting married in a supermarket but somehow never went through with it; I regret that.

Stew Leonard’s is a great place to shop and fun too. I bet they would help if we could talk my (un) romantic husband into the idea. Right near the mooing cow! Don’t get me too excited, please.

Stew Leonard’s (Photo credit: JeepersMedia)

Anyway, I bought: (New Product) lemon ice cream with mashed lemon cookies inside,huge, soft oatmeal raisin cookies (new brand) some new kind of skinny-ish popcorn for when you need something slightly salty but not fatty while you are watching a movie at home.

 

Also, I am now taking a new medication for my fainting spells, the fancy name is Syncopy also: Fibromyalgia, Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, Narrow Angled Glaucoma, Eppiglottitis, IBS,  and others. I now have to have breakfast. I bought apple, blueberry and strawberry breakfast bars. This is the first time in all my life that I have eaten breakfast, my mom will be so pleased.

Usually, it’s just that steaming cup of coffee in my white Starbucks mug with half and half and one sweetener. I look forward to the smell and the first sip every single morning.

After that, I just go on with the boring details of my day. If I don’t feel the need to nap, I feel it is a personal triumph. Then our dinner conversation begins around 4pm. What shall we cook?  It doesn’t really matter, last night we had hot dogs, baked beans, and broccoli, the night before pizza but they are all precursors to the most important part of any meal: dessert. The lemon ice cream dessert:

I dipped my spoon, my little spoon, into that new lemon ice cream, slowly, tasted a small bite, let it linger on my tongue and swallowed slowly, making sure I had a cookie bite with the ice cream. I was hoping for a dance sensation in my mouth or as my husband and I used to say “I hope it dances.” Did it? Oh yes. After half a cup of delicious lemon ice cream with bits of lemon cookies, I have found a new love. It’s so nice to be in love again, I feel tingly all over.

 

Smelling Change, Part 2 (2 weeks ago)

Illustration of the Devil in the Codex Gigas, folio 270 recto (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A follow-up to “Smelling Change” where I was highly optimistic….

It was a long week or two that followed that one amazing day of innocence.

 

WHAT THE HELL WAS I  THINKING?

 

At least I thought things were going to change for the better.

I know, nice try. The thought of happiness and joy, like being enveloped in a soft pink cotton shawl didn’t work at all. Maybe it was a lot of bull—-. Maybe I was just in a really good, positive, affirming mood that day. I’ve tried so hard, you know I have, but I went from gratitude and perseverance to sadness, depression and disgust. Now, I’m plain fed up.

The fantasy of hope was delicious for a few days, like savoring a spoonful of a rich, vanilla bean ice cream twirling on your tongue, letting it melt and slowly swallowing. A tantalizing, sensual process. I lick my lips with the tip of my tongue.

 

Now?

I have lost all feelings. I’m in an empty, lonely place and that scares me more than any situational depression. I am a woman with great emotions, always, good or bad, high or low and now I feel like I am pressed in a corner, invisible, except for the dust bunnies that surround me. My husband will most likely vacuüm around me but not see. He prides himself on his vacuuming skills.

Worst of all, now I feel nothing. If you can feel numbness, that’s what I feel. Things haven’t been going well at all. I feel alone, not the “we’re in this together” support that usually holds us closer together. We may watch television together but he holds his cell phone in his hand playing games and not my hand.

Droid Apps Cell Phone (Photo credit: GoodNCrazy)

This is the person who was my support system, my best friend in the world. Whoever is living in the same house now, I do not know. He’s a stranger to me. Yes, I am here, imperfect, with all my flaws and disabilities but I have raised our children and have done a great job of doing that. I need more in my life than emptiness, and sitting on my bed to eat alone. I have my dog who keeps me company, I enjoy that.

I feel sad when I write this, is that a good sign? I know all couples go through good and bad times. It’s not the very first time this has happened in 25 years but of course, it feels that way.

When my husband brought up my disability, Fibromyalgia, in a threatening/demeaning way, “when I get a job, things will be different because you are sick” what the HELL did he mean by that? AM I NOW supposed to apologize for my pain? Get down on my hands and knees, scrub the floors but not be able to get up?

That was insulting to me and to my Fibromyalgia sisters and brothers, something I will not accept.

EVER

 

underwater fibro fogSigh,

We both need to work harder to communicate more clearly. Over and over again. Riding the waves, up and down, in and out; there are never new problems, just old problems recycled again and again.

The work is endless, the peaks and valleys are like that of an EKG. Everyone has problems, we go up, we go down like waves on the beach, we’ve been down together for a long time. Are we ever going to be able to get up? To rejoice? We, have lost all hope in the world, not in us, but in the world.

We are both under a lot of stress and have been for many months, we both realize that. But, we are on the same team and need to rally, once again to support each other. To keep each others hopes and dreams alive.