A Coward Has No Scar

Pinocchio had Jiminy Cricket to tap him on the shoulder and point out when he was about to do something wrong.

Me? I have a short(ish) Asian-American woman named Anna. Anna is my conscience. She reminds me (just about weekly, in fact) that I am a deadbeat loser and that my blog is in need of updating. I don't hold this against her, though. No. I hold it against my Catholic upbringing. Because, were it not for all those days at St. Paul's Church of the Perpetual Culpability, I would be able to give Anna the finger and get on with the business of eating chocolate chips out of the bag while watching Phil of the Future reruns on Disney.

Anyway. I am behind. I am behind and my life is boring as hell lately. But I am going to blog my way into Heaven if it's the last thing I do.

Scars are souvenirs you never lose

OMG, I SO just quoted the Goo-goo Dolls. Someone shoot me.

Maggie tells me that talking about my scars is good blog fodder. She even suggests having my readers name them for me if I am feeling adventurous. Problem is, I think Anna is my only reader and we're already WAY too close for comfort (today we ordered the same meal at Taco Bell)(Sweet Jesus).

Anyway. I have lots of scars. And each one of them has a story. Um. Except for the one on my left wrist. I have NO idea how that one got there. Or when it got there, for that matter.

It's funny. As I have been sitting here contemplating which scar stories to tell, I have come to the realization that all of my major scars involve a distinct lack of adult supervision. Well. Two of them do. The third is really more about my college roommate being unable to hold up her end of a gargantuan loft.

Case In Point

My oldest and most noticeable scar (to the casual observer) is the result of an ill-fated attempt to impersonate Stevie Nicks. I was...no older than four at the time and I remember it distinctly. My mother (who was coincidentally absent from ALL of these near-death incidents, I might note) was at karate class and I was home with my father. There was a gauzy scarf. And spinning. And more spinning. And more spinning. And then, there was a sudden collision with the corner of the bookshelf in the living room which resulted in an inch-long gash at the tail end of my left eyebrow.

Mom tells me that my father [the biological one] fainted and that she found me in the bathroom pressing a washcloth to my head. I remember being held down in the ER so that they could put a butterfly bandage on instead of stitches. And so began my life-long love affair with danger.

I bet Stevie never suffered so for her art.

Two Scars Are Better than One

Fast-forward three or four years. I am about seven and we are living with my grandmother in upstate NY. My mother's bike is parked in front of the china cabinet in the dining room and I am riding in the Tour de Scriba--even though I have been explicitly told by no less than three adults to stay the hell away from this bike.

I'm not sure what happened, exactly, but I suspect that the Swiss team threw some spikes out into the lane as we entered the mountainous phase of the race because, suddenly, I was ass over apple cart into the china.

Oh. Did I mention the fact that the cabinet had a glass pane for a front door?

Right. I emerge triumphant, but with a GIANT PIECE OF GLASS STICKING OUT OF MY ASS. And when I say "giant piece of glass" think...well...picture a turkey's tail. Big shard. BIG. And really, really close to my spine. Less than an inch.

Sidebar: Here, I would like to pause and say that I am reasonably sure that my guardian angel had no idea what she was signing on for when she agreed to watch over me for this incarnation. Poor kid.

You might assume that this incident warranted another trip to the ER. It's a reasonable assumption, after all. But you'd be wrong. My grandmother (who, for the record, had NO medical training what-so-ever) assessed the situation and...well...yanked out the shard. She then tenderly applied a cocktail of methialate and rubbing alcohol into the open wound, slapped a bandaid on there, and called it good to go.

The result is about a two inch long scar that has kept me from a lucrative career as an underwear model.

And Three for the Hat Trick?

This last story is actually my favorite, but it's also rather long. And, as such, I am reserving the right to tell it at some later point when Anna is bugging me again about not having updated in a month.

I'll tell you this much, though. The doctor who was supposed to stitch me up? He passed out in the early stages of the procedure and was replaced by a pregnant woman in the early stages of labor.

I shit you not.

out of the mouths of babes

I spent Thanksgiving weekend with two of my three neices and one of my three nephews.

Here's a brief list of quotes that I gathered from Julia, age four. (This kid cracks me up.)

Julia: You shouldn't talk about butts in front of people.

Julia: Is that supposed to be a pig? Because it looks like a duck.

Julia: I'm a funny kid. God made me that way. Do you know God?
Me: I haven't met him personally. Have you?
Julia: No. But I've seen him on video.

Julia: Daddy, you should eat fruit because it's healthy and good for you.
Daddy: I only eat fruit when you are watching me.
Julia: Then I'm going to watch you all the time!

Nana: I'm thinking that if we turn on the Christmas trees, we can't use the word stinky anymore.

hoar frost is my favorite

The cool thing about living in a climate that has winter is that you sometimes get treated to beautiful things.

Like this:



That's not snow. It's a hoar frost. Taken this morning on Lower Creek Road.

A picture is worth 10,000 words

Frankly, I am a little disappointed in van nasty right now. We spent a lot of quality time together over this past weekend at the wedding of my sister-in-law, bonding over such topics as "Hooking up with the groom; Yesyes or Nono?" and the relative merits of gin and tonic as a rehydration tool.

But there is nothing--not one single thing--in her blog about this experience.

Anyway. I have, for your viewing pleasure (not you, Haley, you're dead to me), the following two images.

The Bride Was Not Stressed. Not Even One Little Bit.

Words cannot convey how much I love this picture. It is magnificent. It is, by my estimation, the best. bridal. portrait. ever.

Ever.

And if that is the best picture of a bride, then surely this is an excellent companion piece.

And, Another Thing...

The woman in brown (who is NOT, I assure you, NOT lecturing the groom in any manner what-so-ever)(ahem) is my mother-in-law. Who never lectures and is, by every estimation, a withering flower who would never dream of sharing her opinion.

Pardon me while I step aside and wait for the lightening to strike.

Actually, I am told that they were having a perfectly lovely conversation and this picture is simply the result of odd timing on the part of the photographer. And that's the story I'm sticking to because, yo, Christmas is coming and I have a list.




Okay. Okay. To be fair, both of these pictures are anomolies. The day was lovely and everyone was happy. Espcially my husband (brother to the bride), whom we have re-christened Jose [as in Cuervo].

But. Damn, I love that picture of the bride.

Two months ago today, I had my horse, Willie, put down. He was coming on 22 years old and we discovered a large (football-sized, actually) tumor in his abdomen. There were, of course, options to operate and remove the tumor, but having him euthanized seemed to be the only humane choice given his age and the type of surgery/recovery periods we were looking at.

So. My friends Anna and Jo loaded him into the trailer and drove him to Cornell and I signed a bunch of papers and we all cried. Then we left. I know this:

They did a physical exam.
They injected him with an over-dose of barbituates.
They took him to necropsy and let students do the post-mortem exam.
I got a bill.
I got the results of the necropsy. (Yes, in that order.)

Willie has very much been on my mind since I lost him (and isn't that a funny phrase? like...what? I somehow misplaced 1500lbs of horse?), but today especially. This morning, I sat down next to the mother of the young woman I bought him from six years ago. We both work for the university and our paths have never crossed before, but, today, we wound up in the same meeting and I didn't need to see the name on her tag to know that she was Willie's Grandma. It was like having an older version of Sarah sitting next to me.

I introduced myself and made the connection for her (since I doubted very much she'd know my name off hand) and we had a very nice chat about Willie and about Sarah. Then she thanked me. I'm not really sure why. Maybe for taking care of him. Maybe for being the right person at the right time when Sarah needed to sell. Maybe for just putting a face to my name.

It was nice. Comforting, somehow.

See, I have this whole twisted psychological thing about Willie and Sarah. Or. I guess I had one. Past tense. Even after years of paying his board bills and cleaning his wounds and tending to his moods, I still always half expected that she would come back one day and say "Thanks for taking care of him, I'll take it from here." Which is not to say anything what-so-ever about Sarah's character, but, rather, to give you a window on my own personal insecurities and psychotic leanings.

He was mine, sure. And I think that I eventually even won over his heart and mind, but there was a bond between them that I knew I wouldn't ever be able to touch. It's hard to decribe--the sort of emotional things that happen between person and horse when they work together long-term. I have long maintained that riding is the only true team sport--if only because you are never, ever solely responsible for anything while you are astride. There is always another being with you--another personality...another mood. And you have to deal with that--take it into account and cajole cooperation or, well, you're screwed. Screwed, I say.

Anyway. The morning that we took Willie to Cornell, I wrote Sarah an email explaining the situation and letting her know what I had decided to do. It had always been my intention to include her in this decision if it became necessary (and, really, I was just praying that he would make it for me one day and all I would have to do is mop up). So I told Sarah that in the email and I repeated it to Susan today after the meeting. And she said that although Sarah was sad, she [Susan] thought that she [Sarah] was relieved to have been removed from the situation.

So maybe that's what she was thanking me for. I don't know.

I do know that I miss him. We had our share of disagreements, Willie and I. In fact, we spent the better part of the first year I owned him in a nearly constant power struggle. He was opinionated. So am I. He was stubborn. So am I. I've always said that our major problem was that we were too much alike in personality...those buttons? They were so very easy to push--for both of us.

Willie had triggers (lead change across the diagonal? OMG NO!) and so did I (swedish oxers set at certain angles to the rail? ARGH AIIEEEE!). But we figured it out, somehow. And we learned to trust one another. And, by the end of things, it worked (mostly).

When I bought him, I knew full well that our time together would be limited in one way or another. Frankly, I'm amazed he stayed as sound as he did for as long as he did. I always asumed that it would be a joint or bone related issue that would force my hand in one direction or another. I was keenly aware of the ticking clock from day one and I know that I was very lucky to have him in my life for as long as I did.

Still. It was too short.

I have a friend who has just had to put her dog down for similar reasons. She is hurting and second-guessing and missing her pup and what I want to do is make her feel better. I can't. I know this because nothing anyone says to me makes me feel better.

You have these relationships in your life and you know from the start that they are going to end before you are ready for this to happen but, somehow, denial kicks in and you forget about that. I think that's probably why it hurts so much when it does end. Not only are you suffering from the grief of your loss, but you've also just been bitch-slapped by reality.

Too short. Too short. Too fucking short.



Willie's full name was Time Will Tell.

I think that's a pretty good mantra for life.

I Like A Fresh Bowl

The toilet in my hotel room (Clarion Riverside, Rochester, NY) flushes itself mysteriously about every 45 minutes.

At first, I thought it was just me hearing the plumbing from nearby rooms. But, no. It actually flushes itself. I know this because I was just sitting there when it happened. There I am, taking a break from my Geek Conference, and reading about Frances Mayes' first trip to Africa and...WHOOSH.

I am reminded of Peter MacNicol's character on Ally McBeal. John Cage had a remote that controlled one of the toilets in their famous unisex bathroom. I like a fresh bowl, he would say. And....whoosh.

This is an analog toilet. No fancy motion censors. Just a plain old handle; American Standard brand. And, being the crafty sort, I even took off the top to see if there were after-market parts somewhere in the tank. Nope.

What we have here, people, is your average run-of-the-mill toilet ghost. I should maybe introduce him to the dead Indian who lives in the closet of the guest bedroom at my folks' house. He is an electronics fiend who enjoys turning on lights in the middle of the night. Between them, they could keep an entire family awake.

uh oh. hotdog.

Anna tells me that when she is bored at work, she comes here looking for updates.

This is Ben. He's special. He also belongs to Anna.



Anna has a habit of picking special men to share her life with.

random picture of the week

Taken at a farm stand that I pass on my way into work.

The Luck of the Polish

Some might say I have incredible luck.

I've taken several nasty spills off horses and always managed to walk (or limp, anyway) away. I've been kicked in the jaw by a pony and lived to tell the tale. Two or three car accidents--never anything serious. And I always seem to talk my way out of speeding tickets with nothing but sheer honesty. Yes, officer, I do know how fast I was going. Sorry about that.

What I do not have, though, is the sort of luck that brings lotteries or other fabulous prizes. Take, for example, this weekend.

I was in Virginia for the wedding of an old friend. We had a late-night dinner at McDonald's one evening and I peeled off the stickers on my cup to reveal the Boardwalk piece from their yearly Monopoly game. Whatever I said. It's not like anyone ever wins these things. There's probably one Park Place on the entire planet.

Yesterday, I was running late for work and starving, so I went through the local drivethru. Park Place. On my hashbrowns.

PARK. PLACE.

In combination, those pieces are worth a cool million*.

Do you know who I am? I am Dumb Uncle Tony, who set sacks of wet flour on the ovens in the family bakery and burned half of Great Bend New York to the ground circa 1900, that's who I am. Well. His great-grand daughter, anyway.

One. Million. Dollars.

*Payable over twenty years. Must be eighteen to play. Taxes applicable. This offer is not valid in Illinois, Kurzikstan, or South Dakota.

I have no words.

So here's a picture instead--snapped this morning on my way to get tea.

with #2, you get eggroll

The Way to My Heart [is Through My Stomach]

Last night, I had occasion to eat dinner on my own at a restaurant. (Suffice to say that my husband was wearing his infamous CrankyPants™.) I took the opportunity to leaf through No One Cares What You Had for Lunch while I was eating and, being appreciative of irony in nearly all forms, was inspired by the suggestion that I blog about three or four of my best meals ever.

This is hard for me, though, as my mother is an excellent cook and there have been many wonderful meals over the course of my life. (And I'm not just saying that because my birthday is coming up, I swear.) Rather than sorting through them all, I offer the following:

Four Excellent Meals Eaten in Another Hemisphere

Potato-leek Soup and the Toasted Special, Pitlochry Scotland circa 1997

First of all, I cannot sing the praises of the Toasted Special loudly enough. Sure. You might say it's just a fancy grilled cheese sandwich (which is true enough, I suppose), but it's so, so much more than that. Ham. Tomato. Cheese. Onion. All melted together on toasty warm bread. What's not to love? Sometimes, if you're lucky, it's bacon instead of ham and then...then life is gooood.

But it's the soup that made this meal. My friends Linda, Gina, and myself were doing a whirlwind tour of the highlands and this was the very first meal I ever ate in Scotland. Six hour flight. Airline food--what's worse Icelandic Air airline food!. Driving on the wrong side of the road for the first time. Rain. Wind. Driving on the wrong side of the road for the first time. In a car that kept falling out of gear at unlikely and inappropriate moments on the motorway.

And then...soup. Glorious, wonderful, creamy soup. With tea on the side and that heavenly sandwich as a chaser.

Guinness Beef Stew, Doolin, Ireland 1998, 2002

Gus O'Connor's Pub is famous for its traditional Irish music. I've been there twice and haven't heard a single note. I go for the stew.

The story of the stew is very similar to the soup above...long flight, driving on the wrong side of the road....first meal in-country. Add in a cute bartender who gave me a free upgrade on my Guinness (half to a pint, thankyouverymuch) and a glorious sunset over the western shore. This stew was heavenly. Stick to your ribs. Brown bread on the side to sop up the dregs. I pine for it.

In '02, I forced my friends Deb, Heidi, and Susan to Doolin for the express purpose of lunch at Gus' place. (It helps that I was the only one who could drive...) They'd changed the recipe by then (or maybe it was just a different chef that day) and the stew was more like soup this time around. It was also later in the journey, so the magic of that first meal in-country was lost. (The first meal this time around was breakfast at a little cafe in Glendalough.) But we were joined by an older local man who told us all about his brother who had emigrated to Seattle and bought a little shop down in the fish market. Number 1916, which--and I quote--"Might not mean much to Americans, but I'll tell you that an Irishman knows that number by heart, he does." (He was, of course, referring to the Easter 1916 uprising.)

Oh, Gus, were that you had a brother in upstate NY. I'd sit in his pub every night for a chance to lick a bowl clean of that stew.


Haggis-filled Mushrooms, Portree, Isle of Skye Scotland 2000

That's right. I said haggis. Yep. Sheep innards--all the stuff they have to grind into nondescript bits before you'll even consider putting it in your mouth--spiced to the point of oblivion and living on in infamy at Scottish festivals around the world.

My sister-in-law (the spy) described it once as "spicy meatloaf" and she's not far off. I'm telling you, the stuff is good--especially after a long, windy day spent hiking in the Quairaing.

In this case, the mushrooms were an appetizer and I have no memory of the entre. I do, though, remember our waiter. He wore a crisp white jacket. Older (50s) and thin to the point of near gauntness, he answered our every request with a clipped "thank you!" and a slight bow from the waist. The fact that he did all of this in a Scottish burr only added to the charm. We had a view of Portree Harbor from our table, the Sabhal Mòr Ostaig school was around the corner, and I got to listen to The Archers Omnibus on my way back to our B&B.

Quarter-pounder with Cheese, Munich Germany 1989

I know what you're thinking [Mom] and I'm here to tell you that I really don't care if you're sneering at me [Dad] for ordering fast food in a foreign country.

I'd been in Germany for weeks--eating spetzle and schnitzel galore--and was fairly immersed in the culture. Heck, I was even dreaming in German. I love German food. I'll even eat veal for the sake of German food. But, man, the golden arches.

And, so, given the choice between traditional German fare at the famous Hofbräuhaus and processed "beef food", I chose to elect Ronald McDonald as my personal ambassador to the UN. Sue me.

Know what? It tasted exactly like the McDonalds in my home town. And it was good. I mean GOOD. And I don't regret it one iota. Since then, I have eaten at McDonalds in many foreign countries (they should totally have their own passports like the National Parks Service) and I am both pleased and somewhat appalled to note that they have all tasted the same.

Rock on, Ronald. Rock. On.

Two-dog Blog

My sister-in-law (the spy) hurt her back last week and has been laid up on her couch pumped full of percocet and other fun recreational drugs. She sent me a picture of her dog, informing me that Fenway wanted to be in my blog.

Because Denen is a) hurt and b) getting married soon and therefor stressed beyond reason and c) probably able to kill me fifty-seven ways with nothing but a twist-tie and some peanut shells (and also because I love Fenway to pieces), I have decided to agree to her request.

Fenway Pujols Buddha [Elizabeth]

Now. Okay. So you're thinking This is going to be one of those blogs about dogs.

And, well, you're right. I guarantee you that all of the various dogs in my life will, at some point, be either mentioned or pictured here. Probably both. And there are a lot of them.

You should take a moment now and decide whether or not you can deal with that.

I'll wait.

Meanwhile, I would like to offer the following as assurance that I will not always be blogging about dogs:

I have just purchased No One Cares What You Had for Lunch by Margaret Mason. I now have 100 ideas for my blog!

(Today, by the way, was a #9 meal at Taco Bell. I highly recommend it.)

Experimental Blogging is the Wave of the Future

I have this idea. I have this idea to write a blog that is suitable for consumption by my family and non-weirdo friends. (It's true, I do have some friends that are not weird.)(Well. They're not weird weird like my online friends are weird, anyway.)

So this is that blog. I called it fifty-two pick up because part of the plan is to write a post a week for the 35th year of my life. Also, there is the ridiculous card game of the same name, which my cousin Jeff tricked me into playing at least five times during my youth. It seems likely that Jeff will make at least one appearance in this weekly chronicle. But, if not, he can rest assured in the knowledge that I named my blog after one of the many ways he used to torture me as a child.

Technically, this blog isn't supposed to be happening until I turn 35 in two weeks. Um. One week. Whatever. But here I am. And there you are.

And here is a picture of my dog, Harper. He is sure to be a regular here. He does not usually have clothes on. I am not one of those people who dresses their dogs.

Well. Except for sometimes.

Monday in Disguise

When a recent trip to California was cancelled at the last minute, I decided to take some of the vacation time allotted and just chill out at home instead. Consequently, this morning was the first time my body had seen the back-side of 10am in about a week.

The injustice of this was compounded by two factors:

1. The weather. Monday, it was 65 and sunny. This morning, it was 27 and snowing.

2. My car. I got in this morning, turned on the engine, and craned around to grab the box of tissues from behind the driver's seat. My car, Chloe, decided to make her opinions known by collapsing the driver's seat into a fully reclined position. And getting stuck there.

Here is where I should mention the fact that there is no handle to induce reclining (reclination?) on the driver's side of my car. (Rightly so, the Subaru engineers decided that drivers should be fully upright and locked into position while behind the wheel.) This means that I have no means of releasing the lock on the position--thus making my car about as user-friendly as, oh...a concrete canoe.

If I were the superstitious sort, I could easily be convinced that this was a sign from God indicating that I should have just gone back to bed.

first and foremost

I have been trying to come up with the PerfectWay(tm) to introduce myself and I keep floundering between a bulleted list and a brief retelling of my life story.

How's this for a compromise?

I am: thirty-something, jaded with bouts of severe optimism, and a sincere fan of words used well.

Other adjectives that describe me are: tall(ish). horsey. insolent. irreverent. impertinent. impenitent. (occasionally) witty. rarely poetic.

I have: a perpetual jones for tea. a lot of animals. a bum knee. a fireman for a husband.

It means ecileh is my name spelled backwards. someone else had already claimed helice. (wtf? don't i get first choice?)

This is: a blog. (duh)

My Life Story: is unfolding.