October Thanksgiving

Y’all. I missed October. I’m still kind of stunned.

I know exactly how it happened. I was working two full-time jobs, making edits to the short stories that are out on submission right now, trying to not ignore my Board duties for the non-profit I volunteer for, helping to run a monumental 15-hour Regatta, and attending my dad’s wedding. Still. October freaking disappeared.

I’m only wailing because October is the absolute best month ever. Anyone who thinks otherwise is simply wrong. The leaves are turning, Halloween is coming, the weather is getting cool and crisp, stunning storms and sunsets are prone to pop up, Halloween, and did I mention, Halloween. I first fell in love in October. I discover a new piece of myself every October.

Except for this one. Because I missed it. Damn it.

I did, luckily, have just enough time (one hour, in fact) to throw together a costume and hit both Journey to the End of the Night and my friend Julie’s party. At Journey, my rocket-ship buddy did me a solid and chased a few runners into my camera-sight:

Then at the Carnival party of the century, I snapped a few more:

So I got a bit of Halloween. A bit. But. For the first time in over ten years, I did not host a Halloween party. I didn’t even decorate the dang house. And my costume was a pretty severe cop-out; I took the SFist idea of Fisherman’s Wharf Bush Man and threw on a pair of jeans and a BBQ grate threaded with tree clippings.

I didn’t completely miss Halloween, but the entire month did fly past me. As such, I think I need to take a moment and be thankful for the blessings in my life. Yes, I know, most people do that in November. Not me. In November, I’m writing like crazy, and besides, who doesn’t feel more thankful when walking past darkened cemeteries as strains of the Danse Macabre float through the air? ‘Kay, maybe it’s just me. Whatever.

• I’m thankful for crinolines, striped overalls, clown masks, and all types of costumed wonder. (Seriously, people went all out at that Carnival party. Still thankful.)

• I’m thankful for my family, and the fact that I live just a stone’s throw from my sisters. Dad’s wedding was gorgeous (evidence here) but it reminded me that some people only ever see their family at weddings. In fact, there was an awesome cousin there that I’d love to see more of… but she’s, like, four whole hours away. So, y’know, an eternity.

• And, putting those two together, I’m thankful for my sister who got rid of one of her crinolines, and 10 more bags of clothing. Professional attire: check. Why did I need the professional attire? Well…

• I’m thankful for my new job. Really, really thankful. Not only do these guys have a system DOWN (seriously, I’ve never been more set-up to succeed), I get to see pretty much every show in the Bay Area. On my second day, I scored a ticket to Richard III, starring Kevin Spacey, at the Curran. My sisters are already staging mud-wrestling contests and pistols at dawn over the Baryshnikov show. The perks are amazing, the coworkers seem great, and the work itself will be both satisfying and interesting, I can already see.

• While I’m at it, I’m thankful for my old job. It was a challenging, thrilling ride that prepared me for just about anything, and through it, I’ve met some of the best people in the world, who are going to be friends for life. So a win. I shall miss the old place.

• I’m thankful for my first car, a VW Bug named Zsu-Zsu. Likewise, driving her prepared me for just about any other driving adventure. I can heel-and-toe with the best of them now, and now how to push a car down a street and jump-start it.

• I’m thankful for books, and writing, and writers. There is so much of this category in my life, and yet I want so much more. (By the way, I am NOT going to miss November; NaNo might kick my butt, but I will appreciate and savor every second of it.)

• I’m thankful for apocalypse kits. Not sure why writing led into this one, but it did. Maybe because of Aftertime (dude, I know the author! and it ROCKS!) or maybe because of Hunger Games (which also rocks, but I don’t know the author, so fewer exclamation points). Either way, I truly think a life-altering (if not life-ending) event is coming very soon, and I’m thankful that I have a meager preparedness plan set up. Really meager. Dang, I need a water filtration system. Or at least one of those cool filter water bottles.

That’s it for now. Happy Thanks-tober!

Animals

Rachael made an aside about her mounds of animals, and it reminded me of a moment at her last party. She’d locked all the animals in the bedroom, except for Adah (who had been hiding). When found, I offered to help Rach put the last cat away. I opened the door, knowing FULL WELL that beyond that barrier was a mass of animals. I still jumped back and screeched a bit. It’s not that any of them are scary or anything; they’re just so overwhelming, and really know how to fill a small space.

I must admit, I’m happy with the one. She keeps me busy, and she really adores being the queen of her domain.

Sadly, she’s only ever been queen for about a month or two. First, she had bratty little brother Brody up in her space for 3 whole years. How she ever put up with him, I’ll never know. Then he moved out, and she sorta breathed a sigh of relief and spread out a little. Then there was a short, bad episode with a small dog, moving immediately into a 2-cat situation. She is most decidedly not the queen of anything now; those cats knock her around like a fluffy big-eared volleyball.

And she copes. She even cuddles with the kitties once in a while. But while she is never as happy as when she’s chasing an oblivious ball-focused cattle dog in a park, having other animals at home never seems to add anything to her life. She loves not having to share the sunspots – or share anything, actually. She’s much less stressed about bones and toys when there’s not someone else trying to steal them.

Kinda like me. I enjoy writing dates, and my writer’s groups, and the fantabulous Night of Writing Dangerously, but those are my trips to the dog park. Those are the moments outside the norm. True, they make me gleeful. But for day-to-day routines, I prefer the moments alone at my desk when I wrestle something into submission-quality and do a private little happy dance. I like not sharing those moments. I like to jealously guard my plot revelations sometimes.

As if I didn’t anthropomorphize my dog enough already. Next thing you know, I’ll be dressing her in a beret and fashioning a typewriter that she can paw at.

Happy October

October is here, and I’m sad.

That’s not fair. Now that October is here, I should be giddy. This is the best time of the year, with the smell of leaves and impending rain and first fires and apple cider and fog machines and chick o stix… Okay, chick o stix don’t really have an odor. Laffy Taffy?

October snuck up on me, though. I’m not ready. I haven’t cracked a single box of Halloween decorations, I’ve no idea what my costume is going to be this year, no evites have been sent, and I haven’t even had a chance to bake a pumpkin anything.

Maybe this weekend I’ll find the time. For now, I’m just going to stick my head out and sniff as the rain drips down on me.

I’m talking about #HungerChallenge at Pens Fatales today!

Um, that’s all. Go say hi.

If you have to fail, fail miserably

So here we are. Day 6 of the SF Food Bank‘s Hunger Challenge, and I am here to admit defeat.

This challenge was never really about whether or not I could do it (I say defensively). I always knew I could – millions of people do, every day. I was just curious about how healthy I could be, and how much awareness I could raise. Man, was I confident.

Thus, the failure stings even more. I’ll post a picture of the amazing soup I plan to make tonight (the soup that should have been made on Monday) to cheer me up later, but for now… sigh. I’ll look at my oh-so-Important Lessons that I planned to rely on, and see where they let me down.

1. Soup. This would have gone excellently, had I actually made the soup. I wisely planned all soft foods, soup and mashed potatoes and scrambled eggs, knowing that on day 2 I would be having a root canal. Smart, except I forgot that the post-canal Vicodin would sap me of any will to make anything. Which means I sent loved ones out for piles of Boston Market mashed potatoes, milkshakes, and soup, all of which was way outside my budget.

2. Go Freegan. I actually kinda excelled at this, but it still felt like a failure, for reasons I’ll return to in a minute.

3. Plan. See item 1, re Vicodin.

4. Pick your shops wisely. A mix of failure and success on this one. The Sunday closing-time farmer’s market was as perfect as it could have been, but that success made me careless in other places, buying milk at Walgreens and a burger at In-’n'-Out. Not that a burger anywhere should have been in my shopping plans.

I was weak, I know. People living on food stamps have days like my Vicodin-hazed Monday all the time, and they still have to stick to their budget. But I caved, and told myself it didn’t really matter. I’d get back to it soon enough, and finish up the week strong.

Except I didn’t. The leftovers from my weakness lasted me out the rest of the week, with a few freegan meals thrown in for good measure. Friends gifted me with Burma Superstar leftovers. Sisters brought me cheesy bagels and coffee. And there was a reeeeally good seminar at work that left behind brownies, cut veggies, and more coffee.

I ate it all with a guilty heart. Part of the reason I’m not on food stamps is because of my support system. Heck, it’s pretty much the whole reason. If this challenge was to really put myself in the shoes of a person on food stamps, wasn’t relying on them cheating?

Yes. Yes, it was. I’m consoling myself with the fact that I am still writing about it, and raising awareness, and really, if given the opportunities, wouldn’t anyone hungry do the exact same thing? But I cheated, with willful impunity. I’m sorry. I’m a bad, bad person. I think I’m going to go donate to the food bank in order to make up for it. You totally should too.

My Hunger Challenge, Day 1

I was ready to go when I woke up. Saturday was the monthly meeting for my writing association, and I was able to squirrel away a cup of leftover fruit for my breakfast. I also picked up a cup of beautiful tomatoes, grown in East Oakland by the most amazing silver-maned erotica author you could ever hope to meet.

Then I went back to bed. With the Netflix increase this month, it’s no longer in my budget, so I watched my last online movie in bed (Tees Maar Khan; good, but not as good as Dil Bole Hadippa. You can’t beat cross-dressing romance and cricket stars) and put my account on hold. Sigh. I’ll be back. But I bet I’ll get a lot of writing done in the meantime.

I braved the world outside the covers just long enough to make a fried egg and fresh tomato wrap (with some Barbados hot sauce a co-worker brought back for me last year) and heat up leftover squash soup, and make a quick trip to the Farmer’s Market.

I hit Walgreens first for some milk and cash (already breaking my rule 4; milk at walgreens is anything but cheap, but I forgot to hit an atm) then the Temescal Market, just before closing. And what a haul I was able to pick up!

There wasn’t much variety – everyone was packing up for the day – but man, the deals! All of the above cost me $7.75, and should get me through the week. A full bag of peaches for $1!

Which is good, because my summer squash soup plan went out the window (goodbye, rule #3) as soon as I got home and realized I’m out of olive oil. Luckily, there just happens to be some leftover from my work’s summer courses; no one’s going to use that before next year. Score! But, it means I had to scavenge through the fridge and end up with a pricier wrap.

So. Freaking. Good. And there’s enough for tomorrow’s lunch. Shrimp, zucchini, fresh corn, tomato, and hot sauce. Yum.

So here’s my tally so far, including any tax:

$7.75    veg for the week
$3.00   milk
$2.00   shrimp, roughly
$2.50   leftovers for tonight & tomorrow, roughly (zuke, corn, squash soup)
$2.00   eggs
$0.90   whole wheat tortillas
$18.15

That leaves me with $15 for meat, bread, and pasta. Let’s see what I can do tomorrow.

I’m stoked with the healthy choices I’ve found so far, but it’s a heck of a lot of work. Plus, I’ve still got it easy with my freegan opportunities and markets; they don’t take food stamps at the farmer’s market.

The Hunger Challenge

I signed up for the SF Food Bank’s Hunger Challenge, and starting on Sunday, I’ll be trying to eat for $4.72 a day.

Actually, I kinda feel like I’m cheating. See, I’m broke, and on Tuesday I had the first part of a very expensive root canal. So not only am I very unexcited about food right now, I also have just about $30 to eat on for this week. So hey, that works out.

I’ve been eating on that budget for a while now, but in even more of a cheater’s fashion, slowly emptying my cupboards of the unattractive beans and strange boxed meals. The cupboards are getting bare now, and it’s time to put what I’ve learned into action.

1. Soup. There will be TONS of soup this week. It’s a great way to stretch pretty much anything, and you can use not-quite-molding ends and tops to make killer stock on the cheap.

2. Go Freegan. I work at a fabulous place to find free food. There are workshops and meetings every week, and about half of them leave their snacks and leftovers behind. Coffee is easy to find, pastries a bit more of a challenge (Real Estate groups always bring the swankest scones), but the best day is when the retired school teachers get together for their monthly meeting next door. They bring a BOMB potluck hot lunch, and always bag it up nice for us rats after.

3. Plan. This is something I hate to do. I like to find a good, seasonal recipe, pick up the few ingredients I still need on my way home, and wah la. Dinner. Budget eating don’t work that way. I’m going to plan, plan, plan. One shopping trip, with hopefully a little leftover $ for emergencies.

4. Pick your shops wisely. Obviously, avoid Whole Paycheck and Andronico’s. But even supermarkets can be improved on. Farmers markets can have great deals, especially late in the day (and on a sidenote, does anyone remember when farmers markets actually catered to early morning restauranteurs and low-income moms and had the BEST deals? I swear, it was only yesterday that they turned ’boutique.’ Sigh.) and little local groceries often can beat out the big stores on prices, especially if you’re still trying to go organic.

I think I can already safely say that living on this budget takes serious work. Planning, searching, lots of cooking (just think, one night out at Zachary’s pizza would completely wipe that budget out). I think, think, that there won’t be as many surprises for me. But like I said, I’ve been cheating up until now.

This upcoming week, I’ll be staying away from the major foodstuffs left in the larder, but I think staples like flour and honey are okay. And I’m totally using my stock, because since I made it myself from leftover bits and pieces, it counts as freeganism in my book.

Here we go. Let’s get hungry.

Storm Memories

AJ over at Two Coasts got me reminiscing about the storms I’ve lived through. My memories, like hers, center around the aftermath, but I’m embarrassed to admit that I remember the excitement and thrills more than the destruction.

When I was six, I was living on Saipan during Super Typhoon Kim. The storm itself is a flash of memories; hiding a Garfield book under my shirt as we dashed across to our neighbor’s house, wind, hot cocoa, more wind, windows breaking.

Oh, but after! After is vienna sausages under candle light, and sterno haute cuisine for a month. After is giant uprooted trees, and roots that transform into pirate ships for imaginative little girls. After is a tin hut magically transported into the tip top of a tree. After is plentiful fresh coconut water, and heart of palm. After is a beach strewn with detritus and treasure.

But most of all, after is the heartbreak of wet books. I remember a tarp laid out behind the house, covered in sopping books. My job, and a very important one for a pretty useless little 6-year-old, was to rifle through each book periodically to ensure that the pages dried without sticking together.

There were so many favorites that we had to throw out. For years after, I’d find myself craving a particular Piers Anthony book, only to remember its fate. I saved so many other favorites, though. To this day, there’s a shelf of M.M. Kaye novels down in the family room that have the slightly swollen look of a book that’s seen hard times.

Island folk are a special breed. We have a reputation for being laid back and relaxed, but that’s just part of the story. When the storms come, there’s no evacuation route. You hunker down as well as you can, ride it out, and pull things back together after. You’re constantly reminded of your powerlessness, and you learn to just sit back and accept the good times and the bad.

If that isn’t a lesson I need to remember right now in my personal life, I don’t know what is.

All this has nothing to do with the lives and livelihoods that will be lost and that my heart aches for. But, hey, way to make it all about me, right? And I love storm parties! Wish I was there, East Coast!

And in all seriousness, my prayers are with you.

Practically Magical

Some days, I wonder why I love Practical Magic. Every other day of the year, I re-watch it and I wonder why anyone would fail to love it.

Yes, I am going to break my long blog silence by waxing lyrical about a Sandra Bullock movie. Suck it up, or look away now.

I watch this movie regularly, ever since it came it out. Which means I’ve probably seen it about a dozen times by now. And the little bastard still makes me cry, just about every dang time.

I used to blame it on my own strong relationship with my sisters, and my predilection for all things witchy and Halloweeny. Plus, Aidan Quinn. And Euro-Clooney. It’s hard to beat all that. Throw in Dianne Wiest, Stockard Channing, and a kick-ass nineties soundtrack, and yeah, of course it’s awesome.

Still, enough people have questioned my sanity on this (20% on Rotten Tomatoes; that’s lower than both Your Highness, SuckerPunch,  and every single one of the Final Destination movies) that I felt I had to examine my affection after watching it yet again tonight. I turned it on to fall asleep to… then it wouldn’t let me sleep.

I mean, come on. ——–>
Wait, what was I saying?

Oh yeah. So I deconstructed it. Not a feminist deconstruction, because that would probably make me a little ill, and pretty mad at myself for falling for it. Personal deconstruction, then, and plot deconstruction.

I took a closer look at the moments that whack me in the gut. It does, by the way, help if I’m really tired and a little bit emotionally unstable when I watch this movie. Invariably, these gut-punchers rotate around Sandra’s relationships. Her and Aidan’s first kiss. When he turns away, could it be forever? Oh, the pathos. A moment when she’s lying nose-to-nose with her sister, in tears. There are an awkwardly high number of those scenes in the movie, and yet they still get me.

What makes these moments satisfying? It’s not the writing. Or the direction. Or even the acting (I love you Sandra, but it’s not). It’s the completeness. The yin/yang of the circle coming together. Western lawman meets Eastern pagan woman. Sister of Chaos clasps hands with Sister of Order.

It’s a pretty darn satisfying plot device. It’s not the ‘unfinished chord’ that a certain awesome someone was talking about at RWA today, that lingering note that an author refuses to tie off simply in order to tantalize her audience. The story may not prey on your mind and captivate you (in fact, in this case, I can pretty much guarantee that it won’t), but it soothes. Like comfort food for the over-stimulated mind. Like eating a lunchables box for dinner, complete with the Caprisun Cooler. Apparently I needed soothing tonight.

I value the fact that I am a complete person, in and of myself. I’m kinda my own yin and yang; I used to describe myself as glitter lipgloss and steel-toe boots. I’ve always wanted another complete person as a partner; I never wanted anyone to ‘complete’ me. And I still don’t. I recognize real life from cunningly (if not expertly) crafted fiction.*

And yet, there are these tired, late night moments. It doesn’t help when I think about the wonderful couples around me. They all seem to be perfectly balanced complements to each other. Two of my best friends make a couple that I tend to refer to as the pocket vegans, or just ‘the girls,’ in a simple homogenizing way, even though they are actually as yin and yang as you get.

In the morning, these simplistic generalizations will be revealed for the complex realities they actually are. I’ll remember the fact that these couples share world outlooks and amazingly kind hearts, and other similarities that are much more important than their differences. But right now, I think I’ll go to sleep wondering about my yang.

Okay, that just sounds wrong. Strike that. Instead, I’ll leave on this lovely, Aidan-in-a-hammock-from-another-movie-I-hate-to-love note:

*totally, totally not talking about Hoffman’s book – just the movie.

Memory

I just opened a window on my browser, tabbed over to the google search bar, then… nothing. In the amount of time it took me to make those two actions, I’d forgotten what I was wanting to look for. So I came here instead. It’s just that kind of day.

What was I saying?

I’ve decided that Boonie will never truly be a ‘fetch’ kind of dog. She does adore running after balls… or so I thought. However she’s pretty terrible at picking it up when she gets there; she usually runs straight past it in the purer joy of simply running. If she does pick up the ball, she generally runs away from me, rather than the traditional fetch behavior of returning.

I always assumed she just didn’t get it. I figured some day it would click, but I wouldn’t worry too much about it. I’m starting to wonder, though. That gleeful chase for the ball could be a very different emotion. “Mom! My thing! Why are you throwing my thing? What on earth would you do that for? It’s mine!” Then the chase, and then she either gets distracted (she is a bit of a dim bulb, and really loves flat-out running) or she picks it up and takes it somewhere safe, somewhere far away from crazy precious-chucking momma.

So I shall not throw the ball for my dog any more. I refuse to torture her that way.

I had another thing I wanted to blog about, but I’ve completely forgotten what it was. I remember it was one word, that had the same rough number of syllables as “dog ball.” That’s how I told myself I was going to remember it. “Blankblank and dog ball.” Generally those sounding techniques work for me, but I think this one wasn’t quite close enough to work.

Sooo…. instead perhaps I shall talk about Oakland and the perfect waffle. No? Right, then, the joys of berrying. Also no? It came to me while I was in the car, just leaving the dog park… there was a lot of traffic… I remember seeing…. No good. It’s not going to come to me. It could have been while I was thinking about returning books, or finding wood (oo! gotta call Irina), or thinking of Urban Ore, or dreaming of putting fairy doors in the backyard, or thinking about art and supplies, how it’s a cheap thing to do, but requires a little outlay at first.

Nope. It’s not coming. It was far, far more interesting than the dog bit too. GOLdang it, that’s going to bug me. I mean, even more than it already does.

Something about my car? About concerts? About…

Memory is a funny thing. Just when you think you’ve got something down, it goes and twists on you. That’s why Memento was so affecting, and why Alzheimer’s is so terrifying. Everyone has those minutes, or hours even, where the loss of a memory drives them completely batty. But can you imagine living your entire life in those minutes? Having only moments of clarity, and then back into the fog.

Today is as close as I’d like to get to that, thank you very much. And yet, I know it’s highly likely I’ll get closer. I’ll just not think about that right now. Luckily, today it seems remarkably easy to not think about things.