Good Ol’ St. Pat

cooking, etc., food, holidays, travel, , , ,

By some bizarre circumstance, I’m able to post this on both Sunday, as I usually do, and St. Patrick’s Day. Here’s a list of what I’m not going to write about: green beer, four-leaf clovers, or shamrocks (those were practically the only visuals I saw when I was looking for an image to go with this post.) I will not be writing about St. Patrick and how he was really a Roman and chased the snakes out of Ireland. I’m not going to write about the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame.

No, I’m going to talk about Irish food. The picture you see here is shepherd’s pie, meat and vegetables and gravy topped with mashed potatoes. It’s so good that it’s made its way into our food repertoire. Except that traditional shepherd’s pie is made with lamb. We make it with beef, which technically makes it a cottage pie, and often with mushrooms. Then we sprinkle cheese on top and run it under the broiler because cheese.

(Actually, I had shepherd’s pie a number of years ago in a restaurant in Michigan. They didn’t serve it in the traditional way. They made three scoops of it on a plate, which looked disturbingly like triple breasts. But I digress.)

When Dan and I went to Ireland a couple of years ago, I told him not to expect the lousy cuisine that Ireland and England are said to produce. I knew better. Ireland, after all, is surrounded by water and has lakes and many a river running through it as well. I knew we were in for some good seafood.

We had fish and chips pretty often, supplemented with beautiful, succulent pink salmon, either fresh or smoked (which is also called lox around here). But the best seafood I had was a luscious, juicy, huge bowl of mussels I had in a small place in the seaside town of Dingle.

Irish breakfasts are amazing, too. They feature bacon, sausage, eggs, potatoes, beans, soda bread or toast, broiled tomatoes, mushrooms, and white or black pudding. Sometimes scones with jam and clotted cream (which I always thought sounded gross, but is really like Irish cream churned to near but not quite butter. But I digress again).

Nor do the drinks suck. There’s Irish breakfast tea (which I forgot to mention when I described breakfast), darker and heartier than English breakfast tea. Then there’s beer. Dan drank Guinness, which is served warm. I don’t care much for warm beer, so I learned that if you want cold beer, you have to ask for a pint of lager, which is what I did.

There’s also Irish coffee made in the traditional manner, with Irish whiskey, sugar, and real whipped cream on top. (I’ve found that if you ask for Irish coffee in an American bar, what you sometimes get is coffee with Bailey’s Irish Cream in it, which is not the same at all. (If I can get a real Irish coffee in a restaurant (I’ve learned to ask first how they make it), I sometimes have one for dessert. But I digress some more.) When we toured the Tullamore Dew distillery, we had the real thing.

So, what are we doing for St. Patrick’s Day (besides avoiding Irish bars where college students end up vomiting green beer in the gutter, I mean). Well, I think I’ll ask Dan to make a shepherd’s pie, then kick back with some Guinness for him and Harp Lager for me and listen to some Irish music or watch The Commitments. Wear Guinness and Sean’s Bar t-shirts. Maybe look at the photos from our trip.

We’ll do it just for the craic, as they say in Ireland.

Do Something Funny!

etc.

Finding something funny to write about can be frustrating, especially when no one is cooperating with me. Generally, I rely on my pets, my husband, and sometimes myself to supply me with humorous antics, frivolous quotes, and amusing situations. But right now, they’re not putting out. (So to speak. At least I know I’m not. But I digress.)

Anyway, since the universe isn’t conveniently providing me with comedy, I’ve decided to resurrect some of the hilarious things they’ve done in the past.

Here’s a cat story I filed under Stupid Cat Tricks. Shaker was a tuxedo cat of vast and lofty dignity. But once we found a shed whisker, put it on her head and went “boop, boop, boop.” She was mortally offended. We could actually see her disapproving of us. (It only works for dignified cats, and we haven’t had many of those. But I digress again.)

One day Dan and I were sitting on the sofa, doing something with toothpicks. (What were we doing with the toothpicks? Making canapės? Probably not. Building a model of the Eiffel Tower? Definitely not. Picking our teeth? The explanation is lost in the mists of time. But I digress yet again.) I had a small bundle of toothpicks in my hand. Shaker jumped on the couch and delicately plucked a single toothpick from the cluster with her teeth, then whipped her head around and flung it across the room. Then she did it again. And again. We never did figure out why, but sometimes we held toothpicks out to her just to see her do it.

Dan is also good for a lot of laughs. My favorite memory of something he said was when we were watching TV and the movie Gunga Din, one of his favorites, came on. He innocently asked, “Honey, do you like Kipling?” That’s right—he opened the door and walked right in. For the first, and most likely last, time in my life, I was able to say it. “I don’t know,” I choked, barely able to speak through my snorts of laughter. “I’ve never kipled.” That was the moment I knew he was a keeper.

I even admit to doing some humorous if embarrassing things from time to time.

At my age, gravity takes my least little misstep and turns it into a trauma. Just the other week, I wiped out on a short flight of concrete steps, despite using a cane at the time, and bruised my leg, skinned my scalp (which bled like an SOB), and produced a massive goose egg on my forearm. The goose egg ebbed eventually, but it left a hideous bruise that had still not resolved to a proper skin tone. I glanced down and thought, “Wait! I don’t have a huge birthmark there!” And even if I did, it likely would not be turning entertaining but appalling shades of dried ketchup, soot, teen hair color, and pea soup as I wait for it to dissipate. It resembles either a tornado sky or a very overripe, much-abused eggplant.

Another time, I was breakfasting with some friends and one of them remarked that it was taking a long time for her eggs Benedict to arrive. Innocently, I replied, “Maybe they had to go out and steal some hubcaps.”

“I know I’m going to regret asking,” she said, “But why?”

“Because there’s no plate like chrome for the hollandaise,” I said. She almost defenestrated me. (It would have been worth it if only to shatter one of the large panes of plate glass that made up the hotel solarium we were dining in. But I digress some more.)

Coming next week—new funny stories. Get busy, Toby, Dan, and me!


What I Love About Election Season

education, etc., government, journalism, social policy, television, , , ,

I’m tempted to say “Nothing,” but that would be too obvious.

I’m tempted to say “Watching the debates,” but that would be a lie. (I do enjoy the Bad Lip Reading versions, which are truly hysterical. But I digress.)

I’m not tempted to say “The engaging political discourse and the spirited exchange of ideas,” because that would be a big, fat lie.

However, if there’s a woman candidate, I do like to watch and see how many times the media comments on her fashion sense and grooming and calls her voice shrill and her personality unlikeable. I can keep score and see which outlets do the best and worst jobs. But that seems somewhat unlikely this year, though there may, of course, be female VP nominees—most likely will be unless Joe decides to ditch Kamala, which he shows no sign of doing.

No, what I love about the election season is the opportunity to view rhetorical fallacies in the wild. Slippery slope? Got it. Moving the goalposts? You bet. False equivalence? You know it. Appeal to the common man? All over the place. The places to see them are the debates and the TV commercials. Again, it’s fun to keep score. Keep a checklist handy. It’ll keep you distracted from your outrage.

(One year during election season I was teaching freshman English at a university, and I had a grand time introducing rhetorical fallacies through the above-mentioned method. It wasn’t around at that time, but now there’s a card game called Fallacy, which would have been a dandy teaching aid. But I digress again.)

Of course, there are classic political ads. (Some would say notorious.) The king of them all was Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America” ad. It starts with a daisy and ends with a mushroom cloud. It was a classic slippery slope fallacy (also called the camel’s nose). The subtext was “Give the Soviets an inch and they’ll scorch the earth.” (This was back when Russia was our enemy.) It was also a notable campaign because it introduced the phrase, “Let’s Make America Great Again,” though no one wore hats that said that. And for a little more nostalgia, let’s remember that Reagan was 69 when he was elected. Back then, we thought that was old. (An underground slogan was “Reagan in ’80. Bush in ’81.” But I digress some more.)

Speaking of Bush (H.W., in this case), he took a vivid and vicious swipe at Michael Dukakis with his “revolving door prison” ad. This was the heyday of attack ads, which I think we’ll see a resurgence of this year. It could be both entertaining and appalling, as well as full of rhetorical flaws. (Also, Dukakis didn’t help himself with a commercial showing him driving a tank, which was supposed to be patriotic, but just looked silly. It was described as “The Photo Op That Tanked,” which I have to admit was a clever headline, unlike so many others that try to be witty. But I digress even more.)

I also love seeing how many times the candidates use the words “patriotic” and “freedom” without ever defining them and whether they refrain from talking about re-education camps or death panels. What I really love about election season, though, is one when there’s no violence. May it be so.

The Edible Elephant

etc., funny things, humor, , ,

When you think about therapists and elephants, you probably think of family therapy and the “elephant in the room.” As you may know, it refers to a not-so-secret secret—something everyone in the family knows but won’t talk about, like a family member’s alcoholism. But what if the room the elephant’s in is the kitchen? And what if the necessary thing to do isn’t to talk about the elephant but to cook it up and eat it?

There’s another saying among therapists, “Eat the elephant one bite at a time.” (Yes, I’m in therapy—have been for decades. (I can hear you saying, “Well, that explains a lot.” Don’t deny it.) But I digress.)

What it means, essentially, is “You’re going to be in therapy a long time. Maybe decades. Like Janet.” Thanks to insurance companies (or no thanks to them), therapy that takes six weeks or fewer is preferred. But there you are, some of us take just a tad longer. “Eating the elephant one bite at a time” is like “baby steps” (only much more vivid).

(I don’t know what sauces or side dishes would go with roasted elephant—or, more likely, pressure-cooked elephant. Maybe a peanut sauce. (Sorry not sorry.) But I digress again.)

My father also had an animal metaphor he used on me more often than I’d like to say: “You don’t have to go at it like killin’ snakes.” It’s related to the one about the elephant. It was advice that I didn’t have to do whatever it was I was doing (like filling out college applications) in a desperate hurry. I could take my time.

(I think if they were actual snakes, though, like the tomb full of ones in Raiders of the Lost Ark, I would want to kill as many of them as I could as soon as possible. The saying only applies to metaphoric snakes, I guess. But I also guess that the elephant is metaphoric, too. But I digress some more.)

Once when I was editing educational magazines for a living, I had a writer I liked very much. He had good ideas, wrote them to the right length, and turned them in on time—he was very reliable, and I used him a lot. But one day he sent me an article about not letting paperwork pile up. It was full of animal metaphors, though not, as I recall, elephants or snakes. But when he got to the point of describing a huge stack of overdue papers on one’s desk, he compared it to a rotting water buffalo. It was certainly vivid. And memorable. And, much as I hate to admit it, apropos. But I gently let him know that it was a little too vivid. I told him he could keep the other animals but the water buffalo had to go. (He was not in the least upset. That’s another thing I liked about him. He never kicked about being edited. But I digress yet again. (I just typed “digest” instead of “digress.” I need to wrap up this post.))

The end. Or, rather: You may think that this is the end. Well, it is, but there is another ending. This is it. (Just to get a duck in here with all the other animals.)

What I’ve Learned About My Writing From Writing

blogs, books, education, etc., writing

I’ve been writing since I was in second grade. Back then, and through college, I wrote poetry, most of it pretty terrible. (Pretty depressing, actually. I was bipolar but undiagnosed. Thus begin my day’s digressions.) Gradually, my poetry turned into prose and I went where my muse took me. Maybe it was all those papers I had to write for college English that reinforced my love of prose. (I still write some poetry, but mostly to experiment with different forms like haiku, sonnets, and villanelles. I’m on my second digression already.)

But on to lessons learned.

• My ability to handle distractions has increased. It used to be that I had to write in complete silence, which helped me concentrate. But, as writing became more routine and natural, I experimented with music for writing. Instrumental music was okay with me, but anything with lyrics took me out of the zone. Now I prefer to write with the TV on in the background. I’m not really listening to it. It’s just ambient noise and I tune it out. (My mother used to put on baseball games, which she was not really interested in, just to have some noise in the house. But I digress again.)

• I can keep a schedule. The ghostwriting company I work for bases its deadlines on writers producing 1,500 words a day. I’ve fallen into a routine. I write 750 words for about two hours in the morning and another 750 for around two hours in the afternoon. If I don’t make my 1,500 because of an appointment or something, I write 1,000 words, morning and afternoon, until I’m caught up. (If only I had had this kind of discipline when I was writing my failed mystery novel! Of course, for ghostwriting, I work from an outline, which I didn’t have for my fiction. But I digress some more.) I have to work my two weekly blog posts in there somewhere, but I’ve given myself a deadline for them as well. I post them every Sunday at 10:00 a.m.

• I seem to be specializing in self-help books. I gave up on reading self-help decades ago, but now it’s about all I write. (I did ghostwrite one short piece of fiction, but it was pure smut. So I guess I learned that I can write smut as well as self-help. But I digress yet again.)

• Ghostwriting suits me. Yes, it’s playing in someone else’s sandbox. And no, I don’t get a byline or royalties. But it’s steady work and keeps me from stealing hubcaps. Also, it supplements my Social Security nicely—not bountifully, but nicely. I don’t know what I’d do all day if I didn’t write. Become even more sedentary than I already am, no doubt. Or steal hubcaps.

• I can pivot. I write humor. I write about social issues. I write about mental illness. I write about language. I write about writing (you may have noticed). I’ve written about flesh-eating diseases, pandemics, and baseball heroes. I’ve written prayer services and stories about nuns. I’ve written about poverty in Jamaica. I’ve written about playgrounds and childcare. I’ve written lesson plans for textbooks. (My nickname is 1,000-words-on-anything. I suppose I’ll have to change that to 1,500-words-on-anything. But I digress even more.)

• I can call on my husband to help me brainstorm topics. He also keeps an eye (and ear) for news stories he thinks might interest or inspire me. And he has plenty of quirks that are fun to write about.

• And I’ve learned that cats are no help at all when it comes to writing (especially one named Ow-Toby), except as subjects. Which I’m sure will come as no surprise to you, but I put it out there anyway.

Music From Hell!

etc., funny things, humor, music, , , , ,

Whenever you see a cartoon about someone arriving in hell, they’re issued a musical instrument—almost invariably an accordion or bagpipes. Sometimes a banjo.

Why is that? Are they played badly every single time? Are there no tunes that they’re really the best instrument for? Why all the hate?

Let’s start with the accordion. Unquestionably, the virtuoso of the accordion is “Weird Al” Yankovic. He has made fun of the instrument by using it to mimic the sound of an iron lung in one of his early songs. (Not politically correct, I suppose, but very funny, which, now that I think about it, sums up a lot of Al’s repertoire. But I digress.)

The Weird One is particularly well known for his epic medleys of famous tunes played on the accordion. Among the tunes he’s given the polka treatment are “99 Red Balloons,” “Hey Jude,” “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,” “Hot Blooded,” “Jumping Jack Flash,” and “My Generation.” Just wrap your head around that.

Another much-maligned instrument is the bagpipes. About the only song that people will tolerate from a bagpipe is “Amazing Grace,” which is what was played every night when Dan and I were on a “barefoot cruise.”

But in general, the Scottish instrument is usually held in the same esteem as Scottish cuisine. (Never having been to Scotland, I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the slight on their cooking. I have been to England and Ireland, also often derided for their food, but I enjoyed eating both places. In England, I actually ordered a dessert called “spotted dick” and ate it, mostly so I could say, “I ate a spotted dick.” But I digress again.)

Yet another instrument that has a bad rep is the banjo. I think this is primarily due to that scene in Deliverance, where it became shorthand for mentally challenged Appalachian children and perverts. “Dueling Banjos” is the only banjo tune most people can name, and that’s half guitar.

But as Weird Al is to the accordion, Bela Fleck is to the banjo—a virtuoso, I mean, not a comic genius (though Fleck does have a tune called “Cheese Balls in Cowtown”). Fleck plays mostly jazz banjo, of which he is the only practitioner, to my knowledge. However, he has been known to dabble in classical banjo, recording an entire album that included the Keyboard Sonata in C Major, which can be heard here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ych7SiJ1pjg.

(I actually tried to learn to play the banjo once, but I was caught up in my perpetual music loop—when I had time, I had no money for lessons; when I had money, no time. Eventually, when I was broke, I sold the banjo, which solved the problem. But I digress some more.)

Some of my favorite music stories involve an old friend of blessed memory, Bill Maraschiello, better known as Bill-of-Many-Instruments Maraschiello. If it had strings, keys, pipes, or anything else, Bill could play it. Guitar, mandolin, hammered dulcimer, lap dulcimer, and more. I swear if you put an old shoe in front of him, he could play it and make it sound wonderful. Once I once saw him play two pennywhistles at the same time—a different melody on each. It was nothing short of amazing.

Bill was short, just 5’2″, and sometimes he played miniature versions of accordion and bagpipes—concertina and uilleann pipes. (I suppose, since the haters often say that bagpipes sound like someone torturing a cat, the uilleann pipes would be blamed for abuse of kittens. Also, I couldn’t find a picture of them to go with this post. But I digress yet again.)

It’s said that music soothes the savage beast. I guess accordions, bagpipes, and banjos simply make them more savage. Perhaps it’s safest to avoid them, but I don’t think I can. Some of my musical heroes have played them. And I don’t think they’re going to hell for it.

Remembrance

etc., government, , , , ,

I saw a post on social media yesterday that showed Native children dressed in school uniforms. Their image, wearing Native garb, was reflected in a pool of water. The words “Never Forget” were printed in between the two images. It made me stop and think how few of us remember what happened to Native children who were taken from their families and sent to government schools. It wasn’t taught in the schools I went to and isn’t likely to be taught now in a number of states. How can we remember what we never even knew?

In the spirit of remembrance, though, here is a glimpse at what we at least try not to forget.

Never Again

The Holocaust is the most famous event that we are exhorted never to forget—and never to allow again. As time goes on, there are increasingly fewer people who remember its horrors for themselves. There are movies, books, newsreels, and other media that have kept the memories alive, however. These days, we’re more aware of the concept of genocide, though there are those who deny that the Holocaust happened. January 27 is Holocaust Remembrance Day. It’s worth noting that German schoolchildren are taught not to forget. They learn about the horrors and even visit the sites of concentration camps, which are preserved as memorials to the dead.

Attack on Pearl Harbor

National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day is observed every year since 1994 on December 7, the “day that will live in infamy” to remember and honor the Americans who were killed in the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. More than 2,000 people died and many more were injured. Remembrance Day is not an official national holiday, but flags are flown at half-staff. There are several memorials, the most famous of which is over the site where the USS Arizona was sunk. There is also a memorial to the USS Missouri, the ship where Japan surrendered to the US, ending WWII.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

The US’s use of the atomic bomb on two cities in Japan is another event that bears remembrance—and avoidance in the future. Japan has designated a church that was nearest the center of the blast at Hiroshima as the official Peace Memorial. There are also a park and a museum at that location. At the Children’s Peace Memorial in the park, thousands of colorful origami cranes, a Japanese symbol of peace, can be seen. Nagasaki has also designated a memorial and a museum. As threats of nuclear war grow increasingly plausible, it’s worth reflecting on the damage done and the lives lost.

NASA’s Day of Remembrance

This year, January 25 has been designated NASA’s Day of Remembrance honoring the astronauts who have died in the process of space exploration. Three crew members died in a fire on the launch pad in 1967, and 14 crew members, including “Teacher in Space” Christa McAuliffe, were lost in the crashes of the Space Shuttles Challenger and Columbia. Kennedy Space Center has a Space Mirror Memorial where workers and visitors often leave flowers.

9/11

This is the most recent event that needs to be remembered. Where we were when it happened is burned into those of us old enough to be aware of it. (It amazes me that I have to write that sentence.) Memorials at Ground Zero as well as in Pennsylvania and Washington have been built—parks and plaques and a 9/11 museum. Actually, countries around the world have memorials for the event as well. There have been solemn ceremonies such as the reading of the names of the dead on the first anniversary of the attack. There have been lots of other changes that remind us of 9/11 in less inspiring ways, such as increased security in airports and a greater awareness of terrorism in the US from a number of other sources.

It’s sad—tragic—that these remembrances involve so much death. And there are more tragedies that I haven’t even mentioned, like President Kennedy’s death (which some of us are old enough to remember for ourselves). Celebrations of people’s lives don’t seem to last that long.

Maybe it’s because the tragedies arouse in us deeper levels of feeling than lives lived well and examples that inspire. Maybe it’s because we hope something good will rise from the ashes.

Chatty Catty

cats, etc., family, humor, language, pets, ,

Yes, I’m one of those crazy ladies who talks to my cats. The thing is, some of them talk back. They’re not often communications that I can understand, but I don’t care. It’s like having the TV on in the background while I write. It’s part of the ambient sound of the house.

(Once one of my cats did communicate something recognizable to me via brain waves. Dushenka was sitting on the arm of the sofa looking at me, and I swear I could hear her thought: “I need a drink of water.” When I checked it out, her water dish, which she couldn’t see from the sofa, was indeed empty. It was a psychic communication, adorable and yet a little creepy. But I digress.)

We had a cat named Shaker who taught a parakeet to speak cat. Shaker went around all day saying r-row (rhymes with now). We’d have little conversations with her. (“Shaker, what’s a kitty say?” “R-row.” “Yes, that’s right.”) Well, Ralphie the parakeet (named after Ralph Waldo Emerson), after hearing all this r-rowing many times a day, began saying it too. (We tried to teach him to say “Pretty bird,” but he only ever picked up the “bird” part. He started saying “Shaker-bird.” He was one confused little guy. But I digress again.)

Some of our cats stuck to the stereotypical “meow,” but they put their own spin on it. Julia, for example, had a little meow that was decidedly bitchy. Her personality wasn’t a bit bitchy, but her meow sure was. Her littermate Laurel had a silent meow, perhaps in self-defense. She would simply open her mouth with her lips forming the word “meow,” but no sound came out. (Do cats have lips, anyway? I’m not sure. Siri claims they do.) Louise would make a darling little sigh when I held her in my arms. I melted every time she did that.

I loved silent Laurel, of course, but I longed for another talkative cat. I went to the shelter and told the helper, “I want a talker.” All the aides looked at each other and then simultaneously pointed at one particular cage. (The kitty in the cage was named Precious Bob. That would never do. We renamed him Jasper. But I digress some more.) Jasper would wait until we were in bed at night, then come bounding up on the bed and meow both incessantly and insistently. We didn’t know what he was saying—just that it seemed terribly important to him. We would ask him what it was all about. “What’s that you say, Jasper? Timmy fell down the well? And Grandpa fell in after him? And all the rescuers sent to get them out fell in too? And then a plane crashed into the well? And caught fire?”

Our present cat, Toby, doesn’t bug us for food (mostly, that is), but when we say the magic words, “Toby, do you want to EAT?” he says mm-weep. He makes other cute noises like mm-wow and mm-woo, but mm-weep is saved for breakfast and dinner. He occasionally snores. (We briefly considered whether he needed a little kitty CPAP, but then we considered trying to put one on him and rapidly changed our minds. But I digress some more.)

But that’s just how our cats communicate with us. There’s also the ways we communicate with them. These vary from babytalk that makes us sound like babbling idiots: “Toto-boo-boo, does you want your noms? Num, num, num—om-nom” to pleading: “Toby, get off my lap. I need to pee” or “Move! You’re standing on my boob. You weigh like a brick!” It doesn’t matter. He ignores both babble and pleading. Just like a cat.

Munchy Memories

cooking, etc., food, , , ,

Food is one of the most powerful ways to evoke memory. Just the smell of biscuits or chocolate chip cookies can take you right back to your mother’s or grandmother’s kitchen. Food is a trigger—a pleasant one—that helps you recall warm feelings and better times. In other words, food and the past are intimately intertwined. I have lots of that kind of food associations.

When my husband’s friend John and I used to go on what we called a “hot date,” we would invariably go to a diner and then thrift shopping. Maybe a bag of M&Ms to share for dessert. (My husband knew all about this and approved. He knew we wouldn’t take “hot date” literally. He also doesn’t mind when I joke about the dancing boys coming over when he’s away or my lover Raoul. But I digress.)

There’s a very retro diner in a nearby suburb called the Hasty Tasty, so that’s where we usually went, though sometimes we’d hit Waffle House or a small, family-run Mexican place. The Hasty Tasty has booths, waitresses who don’t greet you with “Hi, I’m Amy. I’ll be your server today,” and daily specials, my favorite of which is the chicken-n-dumplings on Thursdays. I haven’t been there in a while since John died, but I remember him and our dates fondly. I miss him even more than the Thursday special.

My Aunt Thelma owned a small hotel right across from another diner in Campton, KY. This was back in the 70s, so it was authentically retro, with the counter-n-stools, jukebox devices at every seat, and a pinball machine in the corner. They made a mean burger, grilled on a flattop, of course, and their chili was amazing. Along with the penny candy in the general store that Aunt Thelma also owned, the diner features in my favorite memories of Campton.

Comfort food helps you cope with feelings of depression and loneliness. That’s the magic it wields. I have many types of comfort food. Mashed potatoes (a common comfort food for many), mac-n-cheese, and chicken fried rice all somehow make me feel better.

In this part of my life, I’ve become a semi-foodie (or at least a gourmand), but when I want a grilled cheese sandwich, I want the kind that diners serve or that my mother made for me. White bread and American cheese (even Velveeta) are what I crave. Sliced diagonally The grilled sandwich that my husband made for me recently was delicious. It featured a thick slice of ham and Havarti cheese, but it just didn’t hit the right notes the way a more humble sandwich does.

I also have fond memories of a truly non-foodie food: the do-it-yourself pizza kit that came in a box. It included a packet of what you could turn into dough with the addition of water, a long metal can of sauce, and a smaller can of parmesan. If you paid extra, you could get one with pepperoni. Throughout my childhood, this and school cafeteria “pizza” were the only kind I had.

We didn’t have a round pan for baking it, so we used a rectangular baking tray. It was too long for the pizza dough, so we had a short, rectangular pizza. We used to fight over the corner pieces. (We did have an old, round lard can lid, but it was battered and lumpy, not good for baking even the least imposing pizza. But I digress again.)

Another favorite childhood memory is watermelon in the backyard in the summertime. Unlike eating watermelon in the kitchen/dining room, at the picnic table, we could simply dispense with plates and napkins and let the juice roll down our chins and make them sticky. We could spit seeds for distance.

But there was one other aspect of backyard watermelon that made the treat even watermelon-ier. That was a light sprinkling of salt. Salt improves most foods it comes in contact with—every form of eggs and potatoes, to name just two. Even desserts need a pinch of salt in the recipe to make them dessert-ier. On Food Network competition shows, when they say a dish “lacks seasoning,” what they mean is salt.

I tried to introduce my husband to the pleasure of watermelon with salt. He tried it, but it didn’t impress him. For Dan, it wasn’t a sense memory the way it is for me (unlike his mother’s stuffed peppers, which I have never been able to successfully replicate).

We are creating our own sense memories, though, and they’ve been added to my list of comfort foods. He makes mac-n-cheese with tuna and peas, shepherd’s pie (which has the advantage of having lots of mashed potatoes on it and gravy in the bottom to soak them in), and something we call deconstructed cheeseburger mac.

These will figure prominently in the years to come when I need soothing, comfort, and memories.

Beware the Sentient Cereal

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My husband hates TV commercials and other forms of advertising. There’s nothing odd about that. Most of us do.

One thing he objects to is sexism that targets men. If he sees a commercial that presents a man having trouble caring for a child or cleaning the kitchen, then a woman swoops in to solve all his problems, his head explodes. “That makes men look incompetent. That’s sexist!” he says. “You taught me that!” (Well, that’s true. I guess I did. So many commercials, even in these more enlightened days, depict women with disgusting, flimsy garbage bags and the hefty-hefty-hunk providing non-stinky bags as he ripples his pecs. But I digress.)

One of the ads that he has particular trouble with is the one where little angels—cherubs, really—manufacture toilet paper. “They’re dead babies,” he insists, “and they’re making ass-wipe. It’s bad enough putting dead babies to work, but this is demeaning.” That’s a hard argument to argue with. (It’s no use telling him that it’s a metaphor for softness. He only believes in metaphors when he creates them. But I digress again.)

Another one of his least favorites is the Pepto Bismol commercial where they sing about assorted gastrointestinal ailments. “Turn the sound down!” he yells if I have the remote. The idea is for me to mute it before they get to “diarrhea.” Somehow, singing about that bothers him more than the other ailments. (I’m troubled by the fact that they touch their hips when they say the word. I tend not to shoot from the hip, so to speak. But I digress some more.)

He also objects to billboards or restaurant signs that, for example, show a pig offering plates of pork to people. “That’s horrible!” he says. “They’re encouraging people to eat one of their own kind.” He’s right about that, I have to admit. It’s kind of creepy.

Where we seriously part ways is over one certain cereal commercial. It shows cereal squares frolicking, so I’d describe them as anthropomorphized. The cereal bits chase each other and then one eats another one. To Dan, it’s almost as bad as a B-grade horror movie. “I hate this commercial. They’re eating each other!” he cries. “That’s cannibalism!”

“It’s cereal,” I say. “At least pigs are sentient beings. Cereal isn’t.”

“It’s cannibalism, anyway. They’re being portrayed as sentient,” he says. “They walk and talk and play on slides.”

“But it’s just cereal!” I reply. That never ends the argument though, and it doesn’t prevent having the same conversation every time that ad comes on. I just have to wait until another ad comes on and hope it doesn’t trigger another one of his outbursts.

(Some would say that pigs aren’t sentient, but I’m willing to agree with Dan on that. They’re very intelligent. In my worldview (which, of course, is the correct one), most animals are sentient. They have thoughts and emotions, and not all their behaviors are instinctual. You’ll never convince me that a cat isn’t a sentient being. I’ve known ones that can engage in complex behavior like playing fetch or snubbing us. Crows are sentient; they can learn. Elephants are definitely sentient; they can grieve. I don’t know about fish and insects, though. I haven’t decided about them. But I digress yet again.)

But cereal isn’t even alive, much less capable of movement, thoughts, and emotions. It’s inert, not capable of higher functioning. Or any functioning at all, really.

We see these atrocities everywhere. Even some of the streaming services I pay for have ads these days. We don’t want to pay extra for the no-ads variety. They cost enough as is. But the cost to me is hearing Dan shout at the TV, complain about sexism, and argue with me about supposedly sentient cereal. It’s part of what I pay for.