Sunny faces

Ten years ago--a whole decade--a lone daffodil poked its way up through a neglected pot in my front yard. In the barely two weeks since it had first emerged, it had had to deal with rain, snow, sunshine and an earthquake, but it still soldiered on. February and March that year were colder than usual, with the same bitter nip in the air that we have been experiencing this year.

But in the wee hours of the morning ten years ago, amazing things happened. The wind shifted, bringing not cold air from the north, but warmth from points east and south. As if a huge sigh had been released, everything seemed to relax a notch; trees popped blossoms, and the lone daffodil knew it was time, and opened up, facing our front door to greet us.

It was there to greet the midwives as well, though it was still too dark for them to see properly, and they were focused on other things. With the sun's rising came warmth, birdsong, and a perfect little baby boy.

As one of my babies knows he will mark another trip around the sun with crisp falling leaves, so this one knows it is daffodils: the one in the pot that bloomed for eight more years before giving up; great swathes of them by the road in Ireland, and handfuls at the checkout counter waiting to fill the vases at home.

But this year is different. My Little One is no longer quite so little (his shoes are almost as big as mine), and daffodils remain elusive. We have seen a few in sheltered planting strips, but the cheery yellow faces have not yet appeared in that forlorn pot nor the checkout lane.

So this afternoon, in a last-ditch effort on my way to my monthly after-school date with said boy, we stopped at one last shop and struck pay dirt: there, hoards of bright cheery faces greet us, and even go so far as to tell me that they come from just up the road in Mt. Vernon.

Happy Birthday Little One.

Walla Walla WA

In a less generous moment, I might say that we need to start looking at old folks' homes for my mother. Like all of us, she has good days and bad: at her age, the bad can seem scary for those of us still coming to terms with middle age. But there are still plenty of good days in her.

She is on my mind as a package arrived today bearing her return address. She had not only managed to find a present for Little One and our address and a box, but got it shipped out to arrive a day early! But she did warn me that she had enclosed something she couldn't bear to throw away.

So it was with trepidation that I opened it--wanting to spare Little One from any trauma from unpacking garbage for his birthday, and there it was, nestled amidst cornstarch packing peanuts (she saves them for me, since she knows of my green leanings) and cheery tissue paper: a brown paper sack that read, "Remember? This was the last can--(it spoiled) But I thot the label was worth saving! xxx Mom. P.S. Happy Anniversary!"

Now, you have to understand the history of gifts from my mother: the makeup brush kit, the French provincial salt and pepper shakers and the glass pig are all legendary. I was almost afraid to open it. Was it the clam chowder that they don't make any more? It couldn't be the moon peaches (peaches we put up the day Neil Armstrong took that small step), since they were in a glass jar--spoiled, no doubt, but I know that last jar is still on the shelf as a historical relic.

So I take it out, let out my breath, and smile. Yes, I remember. Shortly after my family moved to Portland, we discovered the joys of fresh asparagus. We had survived our first, dark, grey, Pacific Northwest winter (my father did not go lightly, but cursed it loudly from the front porch, much to my mother's chagrin). My mother's lunch buddies decided to can asparagus, and arranged a date in a real canning facility. They went and trimmed the delicate stems, packed them in tins (upside down), and the facility put the lids on and processed them. She came home with a dozen or so naked tin cans, and I asked if I could label them. My father must have been enamored with the provenance, and started singing about Walsh's Walla Walla Asparagus. Kind of catchy.

Impractical

Ok, I admit it, I bought an impractical, red, not-your-mother's bra. And the matching panties, if you must know. But this was a special event, one that called for special dress, and I had found said special dress, and it required the aforementioned impractical undergarments. And I have to say, they were well-appreciated.

In my own defense, I did try picking it up at the brick & mortar store nearby, but they didn't have my size in stock, as they cater to the teens who pour in every Wednesday afternoon, their early dismissal day. Online it was.

So I wasn't surprised when their catalogue arrived in the mailbox. I'm slightly irritated with the one they enclose with the order (didn't I just buy something?), but I sigh at the identical one that arrives a week later. Don't they remember they sent it with the order. Or recall it was an online purchase? Seems they track all my other buying habits. Why would I want paper? I call the 800-number on the back, dutifully recite my quick service number, and chuck it in the recycle bin, much to the chagrin of my future firefighter.

And then they start arriving. The other catalogues, from outfits I've never heard of. There have been two this week alone, and it's only Thursday. That's right, they sold the list during those two weeks I was on it, and the snowball effect has taken hold.

Dear merchant, enough is enough. It's in everyone's best interest to add a simple little checkbox: "no paper catalogue" to your website. Save the postage, save the trees, save my time and yours. Because even practical, considered people need impractical, pretty things in their lives.

Shopping at home

The dish has gone through a family evolution: in my childhood, it used plastic-wrapped ground beef from a white styrofoam tray from Fred Meyer, two cans of Contadina sauce  and a packet of Lawry's spaghetti seasoning. By the time I had moved out to my college apartment, the ingredients list on the seasoning packet was a turnoff, so I replaced it with real (well, Spice Island) herbs.

In the piles of my past is an essay written as part of a freshman English class in which we were to instruct someone how to do something: I wrote, unsurprisingly, about preparing a meal. Spaghetti, as it would have it, and I instruct the dutiful reader to add red wine to the mix and to pour a glass for themselves and whomever else might be around. I'd like to tell you I waited until my 21st birthday before I started adding it to the mix, but given that I was underage throughout my university career, that seems unlikely.

In France, it took patience while the slow hotplate heated water to boil noodles, and I admit to resorting to jarred sauce--cold. It was one of the first dishes I taught my darling to-be-husband, and soon became a code for I'm not making it:

"Hi honey, I'm home! What's for supper?"
"Spaghetti."
"Oh, that bad? I'll make it."

As food sensitivities mounted and our numbers increased, the basics have been replaced by fare from the co-op, including pork sausage (my Italian Girlfriend admonished me).  My shopping list and habits changed. Until this year. This year, or rather last summer, we shopped the farmers markets, peeled, chopped, boiled, dried, and stuffed our larder and freezer full. Add to it a quarter pig that we affectionately call 'Porker,' and I haven't had to shop for anything but the pasta and onions since July.

Instead of making a shopping list, I head out to the garage, and reach into the arctic box for some Porker sausage and a bag of chopped heritage tomatoes (Yellow? Black? Or red?). Behind me, one jar breaks rank from the soldiers of tomato sauce. Upstairs, hanging from wrought iron hooks (from the blacksmith who visits at Michaelmas) are garlic and herbs.

This is the first year we have tried this, and it has been a glorious 7 weeks. Only seven, as the last of Porker's sausage (there are still chops and ribs and bacon) went in the pan this evening, so we shall revert to the co-op's decent-but-not-as-good stuff. The chopped tomatoes should last until late spring, and the canned ones should last 32 more weeks--until just about the time that the first local tomatoes start showing up at the farmer's market.

Comfort

The mushrooms at the grocer's are big this year, perfect for stuffing if you are so inclined, but the stems are too thick and tough for the delicate risottos and duxelles I have been leaning to these dark, cold evenings. Taking the knife to the fungi takes me back to when I first brought my first knife home and spent hours patiently practicing slicing and dicing. Snapping the stems from the cups, a blade to halve the circle, turning the cut edge down. It is all familiar and comforting.

The same knife and nimble fingers make short order of the crimini this evening, destined for a humble pizza. But just as the tops of onions and odd bits cut off carrots and parsley find their way into the stockpot, so these stems sit by my cutting board awaiting a similar fate. They go into their own dedicated pot, a bit of salted water and today's onion discards, to make mushroom stock, for I am reminded of the need for comfort, and not just in our home.

Little One's class is having a hard week, it seems, with book-ended traffic accidents leaving two parents laid up with fractures and bruises, and their families asking for help in the form of dinners and carpools. We are grateful we are not polishing shoes for a funeral, but it is hard to see the silver lining when the sun is so dim.

And so the simmering stock will be thickened, and cream added. Noodles will be boiled--a few more than usual. I will open two jars of tuna this evening, and fill twin casserole dishes with food designed to be reheated and to comfort the soul. 

Noodling

On a sultry summer's day a lifetime ago, my fresh-faced darling husband and I steered our rusty Opel up a twisty road in Alsace, past the brewery and through a rusty gate to an old house covered in vines. The inhabitants were parents of  a young woman who had spent a year abroad in the same English village as my husband, long before I met him. After meeting the family, we retired to a table in the back, under towering old trees to sip and sup our way through a light meal. Somewhere between the main course and the coffee, the monsieur of the house got up and headed to the kitchen, re-emerging several minutes later with a large pot. He carried it up to the rear of the yard, where happy wagging tails greeted him. Penned up for our visit, it was nonetheless time for the pooches to have their supper, French style--noodles and some gravy.

The image sits clearly with me to this day--the textures, the sounds and the tastes--as we prepared for a jaunt across the Rhine to fill up on French provender and visit the daughter. Her mother, a plump woman with a smile and a way with vegetables passed a few years back, and her father declined rapidly without her steadying love, so it was to be lunch with her family, now situated in the suburbs a few miles up the road, with a husband, three kids and two cars.

We look forward to these visits, a reconnection to simpler days, when we found delight in the possibilities that the future may hold. But alas, a brief message came to us, cancelling our date; her father had passed in the night, and she couldn't bear the thought of entertaining just now.

The day dawned with a cold fog that settled in the valley, refusing to budge, like a pall over our visit. There was no warm hearth to welcome us, no groaning table and smelly cheese course, and no papa to slide his chair back from the table to make the dog's noodles. We made our way through the supermarket, and filled our coffers with treasures to mete out in the days and months to come. It seems fitting that the dernier cri in the chocolate aisle this year is fleur de sel, salty tears on our French chocolate.

Joy to the world

Much has been made this holiday season about how important it is for retailers to have a good year, to get back on track with our insatiable appetite for unsustainable growth. But if spending money we didn’t have (both us personally and the big guys) got us into trouble, I'm a bit fuzzy on how it's supposed to get us out of trouble.

With that in mind, my family pursued the time-honored tradition of doing as little as possible on the day after Thanksgiving. We have only a few rules:

1. No one is to get up before the alarm would usually ring
2. Pie for breakfast
3. No one is to get dressed before noon
4. Leftover turkey sandwiches (on white bread) for lunch
5. No spending money

This appears to be at odds with everything I read in the papers (after my pie, still in my jammies), about Black Friday. I do admit that we did actually go out, but only to the library, to stock up on magazines and more books to get us through the long lazy weekend.

One magazine I picked up loudly proclaimed on its cover, "42 ways to add joy to your day!" Not surprisingly, every single one of the 42 items was something you could buy. Another magazine notes also that this is the week that Oprah comes out with her list of Ultimate Favorite Things for 2010 (look, you can even print it out to make shopping easier!). My friend Corey, half of Celebrate Green, very helpfully has posted her greener version of the same list.

But I'm just not a big fan of shopping, both personally and big-picture wise. And so I offer you an absolutely non-exhaustive list of things you can do to put a bit of joy in your day or someone else's. Use these as a starting point to stop shopping and start thinking, and remember, these ideas are not limited to the holiday season!

• Read. Go to the library and check out a book. If it's a recent best-seller, you might have to wait, but when you get to the top of the list, what a great surprise for yourself! If you absolutely want the title on your shelf,  see if you can score a copy from swaptree or bookmooch; you can also treat yourself with a trip to the second-hand bookstore (which usually has the added benefit of being locally owned); if you're going there anyway, you might bring along some books that you're discarding and use the store credit they give you. 
• E-read. Our library also offers e-books, and the reader for my laptop and phone is free--when we travel, we check out an e-book or two, giving us something to read without weighing down the luggage or chopping down a tree. Walk right past the overpriced airport store! 
• Write. An old-fashioned letter will set you back $.42 in postage, but the return on investment is priceless. Garage sales are great for old postcards--a box of someone's travels will last you for years. An email is ok (and free), but a pretty card inevitably gets stuck to the wall behind my computer as a reminder that someone thought of me. 
• Watch a movie. Again, it's the library for us! We call it the poor man's Netflix, but we've come to love the surprise of which movie has moved to the top of the list. My husband and I both keep separate lists, and love to surprise each other with a movie date. If you really want first-run movies, consider sharing a streaming account with a someone: you can watch the same movie at the same time and chat about it during or later. 
• Bake something. Ok, this won't be free, but it will be tastier and more appreciated by the recipient, I promise. As I started looking at gifts to send to my best clients this year, I was dismayed to see how cheesy and small the affordable baskets were. This year, I'm baking up some lovely cookies, party mix and making truffles, and will hand-deliver the baskets to them. 
• Knit. Or just make something with your own two hands. Since I knit, I know it's easy to whip out a hat for a baby or a cancer patient, or thick wooly sox for kids, a little grey mouse for my Mom's cat, or a coffee cup sleeve for my caffeinated friends. Small projects use up my scrap yarn and only cost me time--time I usually spend waiting at music lessons, the dentist… 
• Curl up with a magazine. I'm thinking evening to myself, fuzzy slippers and a magazine or two. Again, I head for the library, where the selection is so broad I can pick up five magazines, from People to Atlantic Monthly to Gourmet. And the best part is that I can enjoy them and send them back, so I don't end up with towering piles of once-read periodicals. 
• Grow something. When I've spent the better part of a week bent over my desk, I need to clear my head. The garden wants tending, even in the dead of winter. Prune the fruit trees, train the beans up the trellis, and rake the leaves. 
• Preserve. When harvest season comes, make jam and dilly beans. If you're family is sick of jam and dilly beans, I bet the neighbors won't be. And you might get a jar on something you didn't have in return. 
• Do chores. You know that woodpile that needs restacking? The shower that needs cleaning? Spend a half-hour and enjoy the feeling of satisfaction. You can also surprise someone by doing their chore for them. 
• Share a picture. So, you finally got around to clearing off the memory card on your camera, and you found a great picture from that BBQ last summer? Send it on, especially if it's rainy and cold outside. Do this on a regular basis for grandparents, and watch your relationship improve. 
• Go for a walk. Enjoy the lingering light of cool evenings in summer, bundle up and enjoy the Christmas lights in winter. Steal garden and home improvement ideas from your neighbors, who, if you see them often enough, will actually talk to you, or buy cookies from your girl scout when she comes knocking. 
• Clean out a closet. Choose a small corner of your life that's looking cluttered, and straighten it up. Vacuum out the dust bunnies, put things away neatly and set aside items you don’t need or want anymore. If they're in good shape, consider passing them on to friends or a charity. You can also list them in online classifieds, or give them away on freecycle or swaptree. 
• Make music. What do you suppose people did before TV? Even the poorest families would have an instrument or two tucked away in the corner, and we are all endowed with a voice. Musical scores can be checked out from the library and found online. Or you can play by ear. 
• Play a game. Our thrift store has oodles of board games for under a dollar, which makes for a great family evening, or you can organize a game night with friends. A deck of cards is good for a game of solitaire (with a cup of cocoa, while you wait for your teen to come home late) or for a game of old maid with your kid in the airplane. Not to mention strip poker with your lover. 
• Draw. Sketch a love note and put it on your sweetie's pillow. Doodle a cartoon and stick it inside a kitchen cupboard where your teen will find it. 
• Dance. Put on the radio or a CD (library again!) and push back the furniture and dance. Collapse into a laughing, exhausted heap. Repeat. 
• Decorate. Draw a smiley face on your husband's office coffee cup. Stick eyes on your stapler. Write a pithy quote on the wall over the washing machine. 
• Embrace the geek. My father used to clip funny articles and cartoons from the newspaper and send them to me once a month when I was at college: you can do the electronic equivalent by using a site's "email this" feature. I also like to put a silly, free app on a friend's iPhone when they're not looking.