The STUFF Sisters

Carrying The Beauty With Me

I glared at her with eyes that reminded her that I was the boss of me, not her.

It is a well-known fact that when you are under-the-weather you can look a little homeless.

This past Tuesday, after being at a local cancer center for a family visit for a little over four hours, I stopped and picked up a sandwich at a place where I have eaten for years and years before returning to my work. Early that evening, it was all I could point to that could be possibly making me feel pretty yucky in the lower regions, besides a slice of banana bread at 7am.

By the next morning, I was spent. All signs pointed to a “little food poisoning”, of which there is another well-known fact that “little” has no point in that description. I steadied myself enough to take a shower and head on into work, where I lasted ten whole minutes. I aborted my mission, canceled two imperative meetings, and drove myself back home. Slowly.

To digress: On my drive to work, I had phoned my sister and told her of the night’s excitements. She listened, she told me to stay home, and we hung up. Since she was my sister, I had regaled her with details about exit strategies my body had available and my thankfulness that only one had been utilized. I was yet to be visited by a quick and high fever, so I we didn’t talk about that.

When I arrived at work, she handed me this amazing flower in a wine bottle. True beauty, that flower. She told me I looked like I had been as busy as I had said and that she still thought I should head home. I glared at her with eyes that reminded her that I was the boss of me, not her. Then I cancelled my meetings, grabbed all my things and my wine bottle friend, and said goodbye. By then, leaving was entirely my idea, not hers. See the difference?

The rest of that day, while I battled my sheets and a fever that slightly scared my husband, I carried that hydrangea from room to room with me, but mostly we resided in the bedroom. It stayed upright. Me? Not so much. I would occasionally find myself begging for mercy, but it was all mostly calming down and I was sleeping.

Slow and steady won the race, and I was back at work on Thursday at the meetings I had moved. Rip-roaring and ready to go; that was me. Lie. I moved tenderly and precisely as I relearned my body and her edges.

I had left the flower at home, which was actually hard to do. This sucker is huge and beautiful, and it saw me through a day like no other in the last ten years. I don’t do sick, but I know I looked homeless carrying a wine bottle stuffed with a perfect flower with me for a whole day. It’s a pure certainty.

More lies: That first sentence should also lose the word “little”. You look homeless, plain and simple.

Truth: I mean no disrespect to any homeless people anywhere. Ever.

Hands Free Existence

I am afraid of missing what’s right in front of me – my friends, my loves, curious strangers, the familiar, the unknown – because my face is buried in a screen and fidgeting with buttons and prompts.

I seldom have my phone in my hand. I do not enter stores – even the grocery store – without my handbag. In that handbag is my wallet, phone, keys, and too much more. I like a “hands free” existence, although lugging around my beautiful handbag can get old. Heavy, physically and emotionally. Technically, it’s on my shoulder, so, therefore, I am “hands free”.

For years and years, I took photos on a camera. A Canon PowerShot. I made sure I had it with me for daily life and special events. I have carried it in my evening bags along with only cash for tips, my reading glasses, and Chapstick when attending charity events. At one such event, one of my cool, hip, young friends said, “Look, an old-fashioned camera.” It didn’t phase me, and all my photos came out nice and crisp. I still carry the camera every day, and it might just be a lifetime member of the “too much more” referred to in paragraph one.

Lately, it sees little use, as the lens on my phone has become better and better. Or I have become so at taking photos, which is highly doubtful.

However, I refuse to hold my phone in my hand, and I have lately taken to stopping and digging for it when I want to take a photo. Usually I am with other people and talking while strolling, and I want to stay “in the moment” with them. I register what I would like to photograph in my mind and wait for the conversation to find a resting spot, and then, excusing myself, I walk back to what caught my eye. In museums, I wait until I have walked the entire exhibition and then ask a guard for permission, all while traipsing back through the show. Art is always worth the second look, especially when viewed in the opposite direction and against the flow.

I am not afraid of missing a shot, because I am not a professional photographer. I am, however, afraid of missing what’s right in front of me – my friends, my loves, curious strangers, the familiar, the unknown – because my face is buried in a screen and fidgeting with buttons and prompts.

This past August, I traveled to New York City and New Jersey for work. I was not alone, and my husband and sister made for delightful travel companions. Besides, our son had worked an internship on his campus in Hoboken over the summer, and he was my reward after two long summer months at home without him.

My phone stayed in my briefcase, and many times I was heard to say, “Just a minute. I want to take a picture.” My walking companions would linger while I sought what had been fleeting. Then, as a group, we moved on.

I liked it.

p.s. All these photographs were taken in August with my phone’s camera, the last photo captured with my son’s right arm built in selfie stick. Some were posted to STUFF’s Facebook page and some to my Instagram account. One of my favorites from the trip is on Instagram and is the first time I’ve every really tried to photograph neon at night. Look for it here.

Behemoths and Mach Speed

Our son has been back in New Jersey, where he goes to college, since mid-June. He was home briefly for deep sleep, a little touch of his old life, and a thrilling one-time experience.

Our son has been back in New Jersey, where he goes to college, since mid-June. He was home briefly for deep sleep, a little touch of his old life, and a thrilling one-time experience. It was a month just like any other – it moved slowly for the first few days and then just went way too fast.

He has an internship at his university this summer and is loving every minute of it. When we talk on the phone on Sundays, I can hear the smile in his voice as he tells me about the past week and snippets of his weekend. He loves what he’s doing, and he loves being “in the City” for the summer. The campus is quieter, but New York is seven minutes away when he gets off work.

In my time after work and on my vacation, I have continued to make plans for recovering parts of our home that had been dedicated to his upbringing. One of those rooms is one we referred to as “Dakota’s Playroom” when he was a young child and “Dakota’s Sitting Room” when he was in high school. The air hockey table is still in the center of the room, but his desk is near the window where he sat every night for the four years of high school and plowed through homework.

This air hockey table is now doing double duty as the table for LEGO creations left by our young man. The behemoth was carefully covered with a custom cotton sheet to protect the little tiny air holes from becoming clogged with the dust that settles when children move along. A constant and huge reminder of the quickness of childhood and lazy days, it has seen little use for years.

For the past several weeks, I have been churning over in my head my plans for this room’s next incarnation. It has a fireplace in it that has not seen a flame or log in twenty years. Parental exhaustion and limited time are the culprits. The nightly rushes toward a child’s bedtime did not make for the quiet caring that a fire demands. Peace and quiet and a slightly slower pace have just come back in style around here.

Last night, I began the reclamation of at least the desk, knowing that, if I can get through that, the rest will fall into place. Its surface has remained strewn with his keepsakes and treasures for the past year. Almost a year ago, I ceased crying every time I walked by this museum of study. These are daily journeys, and the dust got deeper and deeper as I was still unable to really move anything.

It’s now empty, the desk. Nothing went in the trash can, but all was thoroughly dusted and either placed neatly in the drawers of the desk or taken down the hall to his bedroom and placed on shelves and dresser tops. Tear-free, I moved silently through the task, only stopping occasionally to answer the dog’s questions about particular placement.

Tear-free. Well, for over one hour.

Completely done and turning to change clothes in an adjoining room, I saw the air hockey table and the LEGOs. I had the common sense to not use the cotton rag saturated with Pledge to wipe my eyes.

That’s what trashed out tee shirts are for, and I was handily inside one. They quietly soak up memories of long afternoons of “competitions” between a short young man and his taller mother. During back-to-back games, I worried constantly about him losing teeth as I gently pushed that floating puck towards him. How horrible, I thought, if it jumped that one inch barrier and took out all his front teeth? How will I explain this to every one, especially his father? He won constantly, because he didn’t care how hard he hit it back in my direction. He was looking for mach speed. I was always a little too slow in my reactions to his amazing force.

The air hockey table and the LEGOs are to be dealt with next. The LEGOs have found a permanent home in my mind’s plans for the room. The air hockey table will be finding a new home outside of these walls.

Damn. Nineteen years flew by. One competition, one night of homework, and one LEGO creation at a time.

p.s. All photos in this post were taken in the short time he was home this summer. The one below was captured at the airport when we sent him back East, just minutes before a torrential downpour inside my car. It passed like summer rain, and I quickly dried my face and turned the car toward home.

Catching Flak

Where the flak is launched from is Harl and Dakota, my husband and my son. They hear me kvetch, and they listen to me rave.

This is my new handbag. I love it. Very much.

Where the flak is launched from is Harl and Dakota, my husband and my son. They hear me kvetch about how much I hate the one I am hoping to replace, and they listen to me rave about the new one.

The last bag I carried was not my favorite. Ever. It was just holding a place for what I was really looking for. I have entered a phase of my life where a bag you just dump everything into is not going to work. As a grown woman, I look crazy when I am up to my elbows in my bag digging for a pen or my phone. I speak solely from experience and do not speak about other women; that would be poor form.

This bag is hand-crafted from reclaimed pieces of Afghani fabrics. A single comfortable leather handle. It hangs perfectly. It’s all wonderful and good. Currently perfect.

What’s the absolute best, however, is that it has two amazing pockets on the outside – one for the blasted phone and one for the lauded reading glasses. If that wasn’t enough to send me into convulsions of excitement, there are two more inside – one for my car keys and one for my Sharpie pens. Right at the top. Right where I need them to be. The rest of my existence can fall to the bottom.

I have caught many comments from the peanut gallery the past few days as I’ve entered into my new love affair. Dakota gives the bag “three months” before it becomes a loathed item. Harl, wisely, has tried to keep his mouth shut – “tried” being the key word.

p.s. The photo of the peanut gallery was taken a few nights ago on an outing. The photo of my new, fantastic bag was taken this morning while it rested easily in air-conditioned comfort in the front seat of my new, used car. To read more about that sweet ride, click here.

Time To ‘Fess Up

Yesterday, like most days since our son left for college, I did not want to go to the grocery store. We needed very little, and truly I believed they were all things we could do without for the rest of our lives. The list was maybe seven items long. So I came to my senses and began negotiations with my husband.

“Do we really, really need mushrooms?” I demanded.

“Yes, if you want me to make this egg thing you love with the kale,” Mr. Wonderful answered.

“Can the rest wait?”

“Sure. For a few days,” he wisely stated. “Just drive me by the store, and I’ll run in while you wait.”

Done. I didn’t even wince or make a pucker face.

The routine when we get to the grocery store near our home – not the one near my business, which has another routine of its own – is that I drop him at the door and then circle the car to the west of the lot and watch for him to come out. Then, lazily, because I am off going to the grocery store right now, I pull up and pick him up and speed off. I am ‘fessing up right now to the fact that this has happened a great deal and not just yesterday. I am owning it.

But yesterday, when I pulled the car to the west of the lot and got out of the car, I bathed myself in the beauty of the two gorgeous, huge crab apple trees that grow along the embankment. I forget about them every year until I see them. The smell was of my favorite childhood home and the magnificent old crab apple tree that grew there.

Every spring that tree exploded with blooms that were massive. My sisters and I danced underneath it, shook its branches to be showered in petals, and pretended the petals were pink snow on the day every year when it gave up its finery for leaves. I remember my sister Casey being a “bride” underneath it, and the petals that cascaded down her dress were being “thrown” by the flower girl – not the older sister shaking the thickest branch.

If I had gone into the store – grumbling all the way while grasping my cotton grocery bags – I believe I would have missed this grandeur. Pure justification, I believe, for never entering a grocery store again.

What if I miss something? Something very important?

Fully Outfitted

One of the upsides to getting a new used car is the act of cleaning out the old car and deciding who you are going to be in the new car. I’m going to be with Roscoe.

On an afternoon where I had a host of other priorities and jobs to accomplish, I decided to put all that off until the evening and focus on moving into my new used car today.

One of the upsides to getting a new used car is the act of cleaning out the old car and deciding who you are going to be in the new car. I usually take a full week to open up the box into which I crammed all the “old” things while dropping the old car at the dealership. I like just one week of feeling like it’s a brand new top-of-the-line race car on loan for me to test drive. You know, to help the manufacturer realize its potential. A true fully-functional prototype. One I won’t have long, so why bother sullying it with all the baggage of my real life?

And then real life steps in, and I remember this is my car to keep on a two-year lease. The charity notebooks, the trash can, the lint roller, the glass heart from my maternal grandmother, my stash of mint gum, Sharpies, small notepads, a tub of hand wipes, and the phone charger all made their way into the main cabin of the car today. Much was tossed – my 2015 and 2014 Fringe Festival buttons, a crammed full notepad of what seems like unimportant notes now – and much more.

A week ago, I called my father and asked him how to spell his father’s middle name. I knew how to spell the beginning part and was pretty sure of the whole thing, but I really couldn’t remember if there was an E at the end.

“There’s an E. Why do you want to know?” the smile in his tone apparent.

“Well, I am finally ordering a Roscoe bag. For my car.”

“What do you mean, a Roscoe bag? Who makes it?”

So I reminded him of my small love of L.L. Bean tote bags. What made him laugh out loud was my story of the inheritance of one and the purchasing and monogramming of two more.

When my Mom’s mom died, I asked for the L.L. Bean tote bag that had Grandma’s name, Gladys, in red script. I had seen her bring it to my home many times for Thanksgiving. Always in full use, it held the fixings for stuffing, spices for the turkey, and food and utensils I might not have on hand.

She had told me that she had finally purchased one with her name on it for “going to church.” She took this bag to church when she was part of the “meal brigade.” “It’s just perfect for casseroles, which you can stack with cardboard between them in the bag. Just ask your grandfather.” I didn’t need to ask him. She never lied, but she had a hand in teaching me the art of dancing around truths that could cause harm to others.

The part of the story I remember best is how she admits that the first one she had made by L.L. Bean carried her initials: GAP. Gladys Amanda Price. They were in block letters, and she liked them in that order and in that font. “But at the time that store, The Gap, was very popular, and someone did the very un-Christian thing and swiped it from me. I guess because they thought it was from there.”

Not to be deterred from her deliveries of food to the widows, widowers, mourners, wedding parties, and celebrants, she ordered another one. Same red-and-cream bag, same handle structure, but this time with her name in cursive. “Very different and definitely mine,” she concluded.

When L.L. Bean came out with the offering of longer handles – much easier to get up on your shoulder for pack-horse style carrying, my stock in trade – I was transfixed and knew I must have one. Not one to purchase things out of silly desire, I made a plan. I explained to my husband that, with all the road trips we were taking with our young son, we needed a bag to carry the food into and out of the car with ease. The food that wasn’t in the small travel cooler. The apples, the EDC knife, the tablecloth, the crackers, cookies, and chips. We stopped often at roadside parks and Interstate rest areas to stretch legs and eat, so this bag would “be perfect!”

My dad’s mom had just recently passed away, and I knew exactly what I would emblazon the smaller, long-handled red-and-cream bag with: Virginia. In cursive. I would have both of my grandmother’s working with me again. It was dreamy when it arrived, and its use has been frequent.

With my new used car, I wanted a bag for all of my road supplies. Moving blankets for work, jumper cables, ice scraper, cotton grocery bags, first aid kit, and more. I wanted it to zip closed and have a terrific monogram. Not something that stated something boring like “car things”. I had been wanting a blue L.L. Bean tote for a few years but really had no apparent use for it. But this: this was clearly an apparent use. A true necessity.

Five days after laughing my way through the story with my dad and hanging up, the bag arrived. The biggest bag they make and with short handles, Roscoe will start riding with me tomorrow. I’ve stashed all the unsightly but necessary things away and zipped the top shut.

I probably should have named it “Cal” or “Madison” after my mom’s father. He was the highway patrolman who taught me car safety and the need to have on hand the things that will be riding in the Roscoe bag in the first place.

But I needed Hubert Roscoe Simmons to help me organize the remotest section of my car. He was a terribly tidy farmer who worked very hard, as all my grandparents did. But his cabinet-making workshop was a place to behold when I was a child. We three girls were always welcome and were taught the virtues of having every tool and piece of wood in its place at all times.

That’s who’s riding with me in my fully outfitted car starting tomorrow. Roscoe.

p.s. I wrote about my grandfather Cal here. I miss all my grandparents every single day.

p.p.s. Previous musings about the color blue and L.L. Bean totes can be found here and here.

Standing Alone

Today, much like a day months before that, I sat by myself while a family member stood alone to protect all that she holds dear. It has been over 20 years since I stood in a court room alone; the last time I was alone in a hospital bed, they handed me a baby of my own.

Today, much like a day months before that, I sat by myself while a family member stood alone to protect all that she holds dear.

My sister has just finished a ten month ordeal that ended in a court order. She has shown fortitude, strength, love, and anger. Today, she most likely dug deep and stood on the firm conviction that love always wins and the truth would light the way. Leaving a court room triumphant can be bittersweet, with the emphasis on sweet this time around.

Several months ago, I sat holding my father’s jacket and his wallet in my lap, leaving my handbag on the floor of the surgery suite. He never took off his street clothes as the surgeon took a brief look and an even quicker biopsy. The bottoms of his shoes were my only sight line on him as they raised his form to horizontal on the padded table. He was there alone with his thoughts, while my mind raced. A large Band-Aid in place, we were swiftly off to the safety of the car.

Both events ended well for my family, and for that I count my lucky stars. However, I am trying to absorb and learn from the power these two people voicelessly reminded me that I also harbor. It has been over 20 years since I stood in a courtroom alone; the last time I was alone in a hospital bed, they handed me a baby of my own.

Missing Persons

I am not a total slacker. I decorated for Christmas. Admittedly, the other holidays are seeing a marked reduction in decoration of the home.

I used to decorate for every holiday. Valentine’s. Easter. Fourth of July. Halloween. Thanksgiving. Of course, Christmas. This was when we had a young child at home. I am not sad about not having the child at home. I am a bit sad about not seeing the things that others gave me throughout the years to decorate with.

One was my dad’s mother. If there was ever a woman on this planet that loved to celebrate every little thing, it was my grandmother. She was not a wealthy woman, and many of her decorations were tissue and, in particular, honeycomb and cardboard shapes. Turkeys. Eggs. Pumpkins. Five-and-Dime treasures. At the end of the “season” they were delicately folded back down and clipped shut with plastic-covered steel paperclips. I inherited a turkey and a baby chick. Both have very little wear and tear from over 50 years of use. One, the turkey, sports a 29-cent price sticker on the inside.

I have to admit that only one item for Valentine’s Day has made it out of the box this year, and that is the hand-worked and painted heart that I love hanging on the front door. It made it out a few days ago. I didn’t have the energy to pull out the other favorites. Too tired from a business trip, I promised myself next year would be different.

When it comes to the mid-winter holiday of Valentine’s Day, both of my parents embraced it to its fullest. Little keepsakes and sweet bites. Dainty bouquets. Notes of love and sweet cards. Small silly gifts. Any and all of the above was pretty normal when we were kids and young adults. My mother still is amazing at giving little gifts of love on a day that can seem unimportant and contrived. She reminds us every year that we are “still kids.” To her.

Valentine’s Day can be just a spot of fun in a winter that is often all too drab in the Midwest. I sent little gifts to my nieces in Chicago this week. Our son will be receiving his mail delivery from home with a few extras stuck in to remind him that he is adored. We will eat heart-shaped pizza with my mom and my other niece on the “big day.”

I will miss my grandmother. She, like the others, is a missing person on these days. I was lazy to not get out the plastic straws she gave me right after our son was born. I am certain of that. They are bendy (her favorite kind of straw) and look like stacked conversation hearts (a favorite holiday candy). I can only imagine that the combination of the two was a no-brainer when she saw them. I carefully washed them every year after our son used them and then packed them away. Last year saw them in a small glass vase sharing their bright perkiness when I entered the partially dark kitchen on my way to work every morning.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

p.s. Featured in all the photos are items we are selling at our store this year. My grandmother would have loved them all. I am giving a few myself to ones I love. It’s how I was raised….

p.p.s. I am not a total slacker. I decorated for Christmas. Admittedly, the other holidays are seeing a marked reduction in decoration of the home.

He Would Have Been Horrified

Rain was changing to snow. The temperature had dropped fifteen degrees in less than an hour. It was dark. We were still two hours from home. The highway I was on was familiar but not memorized. I was not wearing socks.

Friday night I stood in the ice-flecked, bitter air at a truck stop in very rural Iowa. The wind that blew across the concrete from the wide open and fallow corn field beyond was cutting. In the brief minutes it took me to finish operating the gas pump and wait for the receipt, I heard my grandfather’s voice in my head at least two times.

“Are you prepared for the road trip?”

“Have you checked everything?”

Maybe there were a few more of his comments bounding around my frozen brain. He spent his career as a Missouri State Highway Patrolman. He not only loved a good road trip – as I was on that day – he spent most of his career working the highways and back roads of central Missouri in a car. He didn’t teach me so much about cars mechanically, but what safety on the road really was.

When I was in college at Mizzou, I made trips to Chicago to visit my boyfriend (now husband) many times in my 1983 Honda Civic 1500 S. Thirty years ago, at lower speed limits, it was a rock-solid eight hour trip. Time meant nothing to me and my passengers. Well, not time of day or daylight. We would leave for a weekend just as soon as we could on a Friday and not get into the car in Chicago to return until midnight on Sunday night – a time chosen because it was exactly eight hours and forty minutes from the start of my geology class.

He knew about these trips. When I saw him during this time of my life, he would drop hints like, “Sweetie, have you checked the tire pressure lately?” or, “How’s your washer level?” I visited him and my grandmother often. One, because I loved them with my every fiber, and two, because they lived in Jefferson City, which was only thirty-five minutes from my dorm. A hot meal and great love was a short ride away.

Any deficiencies in my car upkeep was dealt with in the carport right off the kitchen. Extra jugs of washer fluid were always on hand, and I knew exactly where it went. His son-in-law may have been my chief teacher of all things under the hood, but my grandfather’s eyes shined with pride when I knew to pull the dipstick, wipe it, and place it back before pulling it again for the “real” oil level reading.

I had checked my car tires before leaving Friday morning. I checked the gas level. (Oil level and the like are now the purview of the dealership that leases me my car. I trust them.)

Travel safety was my grandfather’s ultimate goal. He always wanted me to have a few bottles of water in the car in the winter. A blanket would be nice. “Pretzels keep nicely,” he would mention. Of course I had harnessed a AAA card in my wallet, a birthright of all his descendants. Cell phones were not of his era, but I now have one.

He would have been horrified at the conditions last Friday evening. Rain was changing to snow. The temperature had dropped fifteen degrees in less than an hour. It was dark. We were still two hours from home. The highway I was on was familiar but not memorized. I was not wearing socks. There was no water in the car. Heck, I didn’t even have a winter coat with me. Quite possibly, his first born great-grandchild, who was in the car with me, was coatless as well.

An angel swooped in on us when I bothered to try and swipe the salty road crust off the windshield while idling at the truck stop. I had pulled forward from the pumps so my dear friend had a shorter walk from the restroom. Nothing came out of the sprayers. My husband jumped out and purchased a gallon of the magic blue water like he was jet propelled.

I am wise enough and have been happily married long enough that I did not jump out of the car to help my sweatshirt-clad husband find the reservoir in the thirty degree wind. He did just fine, although he utilized one choice cuss word.

I would have so loved to see my grandfather’s smile had I been the one to remove the big black cap and place it for safe keeping in the track of metal to the left formed by the fit of the hood to the body of the car. Far away from moving parts. Safe and secure.

p.s. These photos were taken Friday when we drove to and from Kansas City, Missouri, to Des Moines, Iowa, to eat pizza that we meant to eat last March on another road trip. It’s a long story, but the pizza and friendship were divine. Much love to my friend and travel buddy Sherry Jackson, who remembers my grandfather well and enjoyed many a meal at their home when we were in college. You can read about the trip that birthed this one here.

Giving Thanks

We are indeed thankful. In so many ways, and for so many reasons. We wish you the most delicious and peaceful Thanksgiving. Ever.

We are indeed thankful. In so many ways, and for so many reasons. Each year, we take a moment right about now to thank our lucky stars for this amazing planet we all ride on and the lives we’ve built within that powerful grace.