Oh my god, we are open this week (sortof), we had yesterday & Monday off, and we get Friday afternoon off, and these are going to be the longest days of my life. I have no idea why I dressed up today. Wait, that’s a lie. I haven’t done laundry in two weeks and my current cycle of clothing needs washing. In any event, I cannot wait for the minutes to sail by & I will run from the building. Wait, that’s a lie, too. I don’t run. I will, however, scamper. Quickly.

Garsh! Well, how are you doing? I am reminded of a book I had as a teenager that yelled at me, “When you’re bored, you’re boring to be around!” And that’s how this blog entry sure feels. BO-ring. Not that life hasn’t been interesting & good, or even painful and sad, because it’s been all those things. There was a moment on Friday when all of James’ family was in the house, plus our neighbor, and food was being eaten & stories were being told & voices rose & fell and air was inhaled and exhaled to laugh at what was being said and alone in the kitchen, I felt the infinity of the emptiness in me, that I will carry with me always, but it fell out of its moorings and dropped through the floor and into the ground and through the earth and into the universe, and the sadness of missing my dad and that cold reality faced me, that we will not gather and laugh and I just burst into tears. I am getting better at recovering quicker, but I sense that I will probably have a good cry here in the next few days or so, I’ve been hastily packing up how I feel and keeping it contained in my quarantine jar. My loneliness for him is exquisite. I think of the tree branches outside my childhood bedroom window, delicately overlapping their twigs, silhouetted against the sky. The shapes they formed, so thin, so tiny, so blurred in the dark, I could never capture them on paper, just in my mind. My feelings are similar. I can’t find the exact arrangement of words to describe it, because it will never do it justice.

Anyway. One foot in front of the other, one minute begins anew as the previous one comes to a close. It’s all we can do.

I refuse to get agitated. I won’t do it. I don’t care how slowly, or badly you drive, or how badly you park, or how dimwittedly you conduct yourself through this holiday maze, I Will! Not! Succumb! To your stupidity.

Not that I didn’t get a triple-dose decker exposure to it today. Serenity now!

I went to Target, to pick up a few groceries and with the notion that I’d get a mani-pedi at some point, depending on when my favorite place opened. I left fairly early (9:30), stopped at QuikTrip, and then moseyed on south to the 135th & State Line MeccaLand. First order of business? Obtain kasseri cheese. I’ve seen it before in cheese cases, at places as innocuous as Price Chopper. So certainly a SuperTarget will have it. Oh no. Nope. I read all the little labels three times, scanning like an Evelyn Wood Power Reading Success Story. Finally a man behind the counter asked if he could help me find anything, and with a hopeful, yet knowingly sad, tone in my voice, I asked about the kasseri. Nope, he didn’t know anything about it. Motions over Moustached Man. Nope. I ask for a suggestion on where to try, because I do have a little time to kill before the nail salon opens. Well, there’s a Hen House over on 135th, but he recommended the Hen House up at 119th & Roe, because they have EVERYthing there, including kosher cheese.

I refrain from pointing out that just because they both start with a “K”, doesn’t mean they’re gonna have it. But anyway. He was pretty convinced that was THE place to go. I finish my shopping there, hop back into Mimi, and toodle on into Kansas. I see a Price Chopper, the size of a small stadium. Well, now I’m in fancy-schmancy suburbia, so why not give it a go? It’s always bewildering to walk into a grocery store you’re unfamiliar with, because you don’t know, do you go to the left or the right? To the right. After a second of blinking, I found the cheese case. Strike Two. Onward to the Hen House that will surely have it.

Again with the confusion and which way to go, and holy toledo, this store’s a LOT busier. And we go to the left. Blink, blink. OK. They have a special showcase for one brand only. Hm. That can’t be it. Then, and I almost thought I heard angels singing, but it could have been the holiday Muzak, I see a white-coated man stocking up a case labeled “SPECIALTY CHEESES”. Sweet salvation! Since he’s right there, I skip the Evelyn Woods performance and just ask. He looks up at me and says, “Kasseri? Nope, we don’t have any.”

At that point, I looked like a cartoon character, because I clapped my hand to my forehead. A woman moving around me even expressed some sympathy for me, as they obviously didn’t have what I wanted. I asked Mr. Specialty Cheese where he thought I could find some, praying he wouldn’t say “Dean & Deluca”, which happened to be right across the street, and me without my house papers to take out a second mortgage. (I joke, I would probably have to just put the Murano up as collateral.) He offers to call the other Hen House, out at 135th & Metcalf, and he’s on the phone for a long time. He hangs up and says, “He’s got kasseri in the case.” I nearly danced a jig. Back out to the car (I started to feel like I’d gotten my exercise for the day at this point), and through the traffic that is ever-increasing as the day moves along.

Locate this Hen House (Store #4 on this adventure, for those of you counting), wait patiently for one vehicle to Austin-Powers his way out of a spot, wait some more, watch the woman in the SUV behind Austin P. throw her hands in the air and scream, laugh to myself, because I don’t care, these people have the cheese! Go inside, again, the blinking orientation, go to the right, and there are now triple the amount of people out shopping I’ve encountered thus far, all of whom are just milling about in the produce/deli area. Find the cheese, buy three packages of it. I will only need one & a half? But I’m not going through this again anytime soon. Think to myself I am exceptionally clever, and go to pay for my cheese at the salad bar, where, much to my chagrin, three old people have decided it is the PERFECT place to stop with their carts and catch up with each other, seeing as how they haven’t been in touch for about thirty years. But I am the kasseri ninja. I do not care. I am bobbing and weaving behind another driven shopper, and within five minutes I’m out of there.

My nail place opened a half-hour early, and the best employee there greeted me when I walked in. (She’s awesome, she spends loads of time on the massage part.) I read my book, got my toes done, got my fingers done, picked up some yummy Chinese & now am making homemade french bread to go with my kasseri appetizer. We’re going over to my good friend Beth’s house tonight, for dinner & fun; I expect Miss Amy will be beside herself what with Santa coming tonight.

Oh, and after all that, maybe you want to know what to do with Kasseri cheese, and why this quest in the first place? Well, this dish was one of my dad’s most favorite things in the world. It’s quite easy. You just take a glass pie plate (or similar sized baking dish), and fill it with coarsely chopped (or grated) kasseri cheese. Then you put some minced garlic on the cheese (more or less to suit your Transylvanian taste buds), sprinkle with oregano leaves, and the juice from about half a lemon. Put it under the broiler in the oven until the cheese has gotten a golden brown & serve with sliced (preferably fresh) french bread. Be warned: let the cheese cool a bit or else you’ll have a “pizza burn” on the roof of your mouth. Listen to the experienced one who usually can’t wait because it smells so good. In looking online, it seems like this is a pretty traditional Greek recipe (they even light it on fire!); Dad got the recipe from the chef at a French restaurant they frequented, that served it as an appetizer. I can still see how his eyes would narrow with delight as he savored it.

Merry Merry Merry. May Santa bring you Kasseri, or whatever else your heart desires.

Just like the movie, I’ve been starring in my own high-strung screenplay for a few days now. Mel Brooks? We should meet, my friend. Actually, I think I’m calming the fuck down now. I can almost hear my dad saying it, “Jennifer! Calm the fuck down!” when I type it like that! By my best estimations, we will have eight (8) adults, two (2) teenagers, two (2) children, and two (2) dogs in our house by 8:00 this evening. I expect we’ll see our first guest hit the door by 2:00. Because when you say “Come by around 3:00” in his family, that means, “Really, any time after we wake up.” I have never met more showin-up-early folk in my life, god love ’em. And amusingly, I’m actually getting used to it! The first couple of years were tough, I did not understand this several-hours-early behavior and I reacted a lot like they were hitting me in the face with a ball-peen hammer. Now I’ve adapted, and for everyone’s sake, learned to get dressed a LOT earlier.

James & I wrapped all the presents this morning, he sat at the table in his undies with our youngest niece’s bike helmet on his head (still with the plastic case on it, too), butt-dancing to 80’s music, and we agreed he looked exceptionally special needs. He’s been on a roll, seeing how he put away five martinis last night in about an hour & a half, and was the stand-up comic for his fellow teachers and me. We were at the Melting Pot for happy hour, and while we didn’t have a repeat of the crazy “You’re No Stanley Kubrick”, I think my husband was just as amusing. He kept promising me I could get drunk tonight. (With his family! And they won’t be drunk, so wouldn’t that make for a Christmas to remember?) Quite frankly, I’m not ready to take on the Bad News Hughes family for drunken holiday blogging. If you’re at work today & looking for some good entertainment to eat up the minutes until (hopefully) your boss realizes absolutely nobody’s working & maybe it’s time to release you to the world, and stop being a Scrooge McItchyPants, then read last year’s holiday recap, and hit the ones prior as well. That’s a family that knows how to party…..

We have reached the days that move slowly in the workplace. Like we are suddenly submerged in a snow globe filled with Karo syrup, and we moonwalk-bounce through the day, drifting, clockwatching, repetitively checking mail and clicking for email in hopes of discovering something new and exciting to break up the day. (Evidence: I have watched “Dick in a Box” now, um, at least 12 times, and doubled up on the Barry Gibb Talk Show and Welcome to Homelessville. Go to NBC.com and SNL’s page within, it’s good for eating up 20 minutes with stupid humor & lots of laughs.)

My excitement today came over lunch, when a co-worker and I went to Index, in the River Market. Index is a restaurant supply store, and at one point, I rounded a corner, and an employee asked me how I was doing. I replied, “I’m having the time of my life!” And I think he thought I was being sarcastic – but I wasn’t! I tried to engage my co-worker in a whisk war, because the whisk? Was four feet tall. It was the most entertaining thing to brandish. The world would be a better place if we solved our problems and differences with oversized whisks, I just know it. (God, how it would hurt to get your nose stuck between the wires though!) I bought a dozen steak knives for $12.20. (Don’t worry, I’m not brandishing them. We only have a set of four, and I’m tired of hobbling together a mismatched collection of knives, some of which are meant for paring & not cutting meat, when more than four sharp cutting knives are needed at dinner.)

Then we went to the enormous Asian supermarket, and I impulsively bought some of the necessary ingredients for fresh spring rolls. Which I won’t be able to make until Saturday, but that’s ok, I’ll have time & be on holiday break, and I won’t be watching light move across the floor to mark the passage of time.

The new bosses are finally taking over the company, which has resulted in several changes, like new insurance that costs less, more 401k contributions, you know, BENNY FITS, and while I’d like it if they could do something about the horrific construction out front, and the drilling and pounding, which just started up again, I’ll take the bennys. One of the other moves that was made? New coffee. Because morale can be measured by the quantity and quality of the beverages available in the workplace! So we’ve got, like, gourmet coffee now, and the Brio 250 now sits on the floor by the fridge in our breakroom, waiting to be hauled away.

The Brio 250. It was designed to make money, but they turned off the feature making you put money in it to get a beverage. It tried, like an ideal politician, to be all things to all people. Did you want extra sugar? Push a button. Vanilla Latte? Push a button. More creamer? Push a button. It also made very good hot chocolate. Me? I rarely used the thing. Several months back, I installed a small fridge under my desk & have fed my caffeinne habit by keeping multiple twelve-packs of diet soda chilled & at the ready. Any coffee was brought from home, and I still make the random cup of tea every so often.

So, with the new coffee machines and new coffee and demise of the Brio 250, so went the auto-hot-frothy-cocoa feature. And my buddy Kristin is a devotee of the hot chocolate. She lamented that the packages Swiss Miss just weren’t the same, and I had recently seen a Cocoa Latte machine advertised in my Linens-N-Things mailer. (What a dumb name for the store, btw. Pretty much anyone or any brand that uses “N” as a shorthand in their name is stupid in my eyes, though. Take that, Crunch N Munch!) So I emailed our dude in charge of the money (a.k.a., the “CFO”) and suggested we buy the Cocoa Latte for the cocoa drinking populace. Next thing I know, my boss (who ok’d the buy) comes thundering around shouting, “THE CDP HAS SPOKEN!” and I had permission to purchase a genuine Cocoa Latte machine for the office. As well as having coined a new term for a group of people.

I brought it in yesterday, and I think we quickly learned that you still need to upgrade your quality of drinking chocolate to improve anything. It does mix and heat and froth quite nicely, but at the end of the day, it’s still a cuppa Swiss Miss, and comparatively, the Brio had a better mix. So I’m going to go to Costco & get all the ingredients to make our own homemade mix, one sugar-based, one Splenda-based, and then, hopefully, we’ll have a good upgrade on the hot chocolate front. As someone who doesn’t really drink hot cocoa very often, I’m honored to be the voice of the CDP, instrumental in bringing change and establishing a new benchmark for cocoa drinkers everywhere. We’re rising to a new dawn with the leadership change, and it’s finally happening…. one cup at a time…..

Well, there’s my idea of what could turn this day around. Actually, I’ve had quite the morning of JT-Saturday-Night-Live skits via the YouTube & NBC.com. The “D*** In A Box” sketch has had most of our office reeling with laughter. Of course, I had to dig out Omeletteville, and then another co-worker had never seen the Chronic(What?)cles of Narnia, so I’ve done an excellent job of avoidance and gotten my fill of web-based SNL entertainment.

Pizza Hut. Bringing me Xmas tidings from my mortal nemeses, what with the fucking burglars writing ANOTHER check. I hate these people. I want to punch them in the face. I want to smother their mouths and noses with hot burning cheese (from a pizza). Mother Fuckers. And mother FUCK the police, who don’t seem to give a rat’s ass about the riff-raff of the earth having pizza parties on my paper. Yeah.

I’m going to listen to Weezer all afternoon, get my monthly massage at the end of the day, and go home and hit the sauce. I think we can officially declare that the holidays are upon us.

So, I am out of touch with the Youth of Today. I know this, yet I still cling to a belief that I still know what the Youths are Into.

I’m going to defend myself by first saying that I recently watched all the final season episodes of The Wire. And if you watch this show, you know that part of the storyline revolves around The Corners, where drugs are sold, and you hear in the background people calling out the new, hip name of whatever they’re calling the latest shipment of crack, or meth, or whatever in hell it is they’re selling, like “Pandemic! Pandemic!”

Yeah. And on my way to work the past couple weeks, I’ve seen these signs, the Do-It-Yourself signs, with a Sharpie scrawl and a phone number? Often times used for “Work From Home, Make A Million!” or “Weight Loss With Hoodia!” Those signs? Parked along the parkway, and they said “T.M.X. ELMO” and a phone number.

And I thought “What in the hell is that? T? M? X?” And I decided perhaps it was a new drug. I know what Elmos is, but I thought perhaps it was a twist, a play on our assumptions & sensibilities, like a tablet that makes you warm, fuzzy & rocketing high as a kite. It wasn’t until I saw a news report with an Elmo doll pounding the floor with laughter that the light bulb went off.

My senior years are gonna be AWESOME. Just keep me away from the phone.

I’ve been told by two separate people in the past two days that I’m wound up. One of these peeps was my hubby, so it’s probably true. However, I like to think of it as returning, a bit, to my erratic, nutjob self that’s been swimming in the tarpits of grief for the better part of the year.

It’s so difficult to explain, how you go from being happy to crying your makeup off in 0.4 seconds. This is what happened in my brain yesterday morning, as I was putting on my makeup:

I need to make that cherry-chocolate biscotti this weekend. That would be good to give to some people as little presents next week.
I should make at least a double batch.
(Visualizes my Kitchen-Aid mixer)
Man, if I had that super big Kitchen-Aid mixer, I could do a triple batch all at once.
J.Wo wouldn’t think a new mixer’s a good idea.
I don’t use the mixer I have enough to justify that.
What would I even do with the old mixer if I bought a new one? (See how I just skimmed right on past why I shouldn’t get one? It’s like being on ice skates.)
Oh, I couldn’t get rid of that old mixer. Dad gave me that when he bought Mom the big one for Christmas that year.

And then I remembered that moment, when Mom opened her gift, and she looked at him, and he turned to me and said, “Go look under the counter, you get that one.” I raced to the kitchen and opened the door – and he had snuck a bow onto that mixer in between dinner cleanup and gift opening, and even as I type this, it’s like being punched in the jaw, reeling, seeing his face, just how much he loved to give presents, how he loved to delight, how he enjoyed the shock and surprise of something so unexpected.

And I felt the knife twist, that little sharp reminder that I’d never see him again, or that smile, and that I’d thought Christmas wouldn’t be a big deal, but what the hell do I know? Not much. The tears slide, taking off makeup as they run their course.

So I started this post with how I’m wound up, and it’s true. I contain my moments of grief, I feel them fully, oh so fully, I turn to my husband who would gladly buy me 100 Kitchen Aid mixers if it meant it would take away this sadness, and I crumple into his arms. And then I brush myself off, wipe away my tears, put on my mascara, and get squirrely and mouthy and brassy and sharp and funny and do my job and knit and love and even bake cookies. I want to invent a new language, because when I say, or hear, “it gets better”, better doesn’t mean what it used to mean. Better means it’s more manageable, not forgotten or easy or non-stop happy. And I know that I don’t even understand or know what it’s going to mean in another six months. I do feel like I’m living my life differently. And I’m happy that my four poster dull torpor is lifting. I enjoy being wound up, more than ever….

The Dirty Rotten Kitty (in focus, while the dogs aren’t) got a workout. They tugged-o-war, played & Gracie went to work on the tag, shredding it bite after bite after bite. She’s something of a seam ripper, that one.

Gracie got some gnawing in on her end as well – though Polly initiated most of it.

For the most part, Suzy was non-plussed.

This is how Gracie looks, almost always. So Sad. Poor little matchstick dog.

Aaaaand this is how Polly looks, almost always. Ready to parrrr-tay! Unless she’s insanely jealous, which happened every time Li’l G came over to get pets.

Driving in to work today reminded me of a Halloween graveyard scene – misty and overcast, stark leafless trees silhouetted against the gray sky. I brought in a bunch of Carrot Cookies, with a few held back for the Wo, and they were pretty well devoured. The switch from an orange glaze to an orange cream cheese frosting was a smart move.

I’m going to upload the photos tonight, but suffice it to say, dog-sitting Miss Gracie was a fun adventure. Polly could not believe her luck, to have a like-minded playmate who wanted to party and play with toys, every waking minute. Three dogs are funny, because you watch the whole pack behavior take over, and fortunately for all of us, Miss G is not particularly interested in being the Alpha, or even really anything but the Omega, so Suzy maintained her role as Top Dog, and then Polly spent a lot of time knocking Gracie onto her back in the yard. In the house, they played with Dirty Rotten Kitty and with each other, lots of paw action, and they would get pretty rambunctious. Quite possibly the funniest moment of the entire weekend was when Suzy had enough of their antics, and she stood up from her pillow, took two steps towards them and bellowed a disapproving “WOOF!” They chilled for a minute or two, then went back to carousing, and she did it again. I could barely see, I was laughing so hard. Like she was grouchy yelling, COME ON, you young ‘uns, I’m tryin’ to sleep.

To give myself some peace, our dogs went out to their kennel for parts of the days, and that’s when Miss Gracie was her calm self, and quite possibly the sweetest dog I’ve ever met. I dubbed her “She Who Will Be Stepped On”, because she’s always right at your feet, usually behind you. She just wants petting, some love, to nap, and then to watch TV. I’ve never seen a dog watch TV like Gracie. We watched a lot of Law & Order, and I figured it was good to teach her about Justice. We also watched Million Dollar Baby, which was so good, but so sad. I think Polly & Gracie were only interested in the boxing techniques….

As a thank-you, Miss Kristin gave me a gorgeous skein of yarn – I’ll get a pic of that as well. Lots to do tonight – tune in tomorrow for photos!