pooped

i can't believe how tired i am from my days off. so sad. well, i also had trouble sleeping last night on account of my bum shoulder... it kept me awake for at least an hour at one point, and it makes getting to sleep hard, too. i think i'll have to take hubby's advice and see about getting PT for it.

at any rate, lots to tell and lots of pictures from thanksgiving (yes, actual pictures!) but i can't do it now. just wanted to send up a sign of life. love to all...

it's not all doom and gloom

as you no doubt know i have been pretty bummed about my friend jamie, but life does go on, so if you're at all inclined to, don't get worried about me. :)

i am really looking forward to thanksgiving! it did make me a little homesick for a while, but i've rallied. drew and i did the first round of shopping yesterday and despite forgetting my list i only forgot to buy two things, which i can easily pick up on my vegetables shopping trip on wednesday. our tom heritage turkey is arriving tomorrow via fedex, so drew is staying home to receive him and put him in the fridge. so far our yummy menu includes:

turkey (of course!) brined in williams-sonoma apple & spices turkey brine (i can't find it on their site anymore... totally annoying), a baked ham (one of drew's family traditions), mashed potatoes (using my potato ricer; i'll report on it soon), stuffing, gravy, sesame green beans (these are seriously yummy, a huge hit at our dinner parties), roasted asparagus, a blue cheese salad our friends are bringing, and of course pumpkin pie w/ whipped cream and mincemeat pie, plain or a la mode. :) i was so stoked to find the nonesuch mincemeat at save mart yesterday; safeway only carried that brand i don't like, the crosswell something or other. totally inferior to nonesuch imho. even better, it's the little boxes, the kind you have to cook up with some water which smells divine while cooking!!! that's such a childhood memory... my mom cooking up the mincemeat on the stove. it's funny how much of what we do for holidays has to do with what we did (or in some cases didn't) do as a child. luckily for me it's a case of what my family did do that influences me. :)

all of this writing about food is making me hungry! i think it's time for lunch.

oh, and if you've never had brined turkey, you have no idea what you're missing. the article includes the chez panisse turkey brine recipe. i've never had turkey there, but i'm betting it's pretty excellent.

i have spent the weekend being supremely bummed out about jamie. fuck, but everything they say (you know, that undefinable "they" that we all refer to), about anniversaries is true. all the sadness and missing comes right up to the surface and it just sucks, sucks, sucks. it's different from other times when i talk about him, when it's not sad at all, because i'm remembering him, and it helps keep his memory alive. it's fun, even, though other people don't necessarily get that. beth and i had a talk about this just the other week. one of the few times i've been really glad i missed someone's call, because the message she left was just lovely.

but i digress. i had a long, well, not long, but a talk with jame today, while i was cleaning my bedroom. just sat on the bed and took five, and told him how much i miss him. and i do. it was one thing to hang out with him when he was sick, knowing he was going to die even though he was in complete denial about it. death wasn't an option so far as he was concerned, and who can blame him? it's quite another to live with him being dead, knowing that every real conversation i'll ever have with jamie bevilacqua has already happened. there won't be any more. i know it's true and yet i just can't wrap my head around it. it just seems so impossible.

at my wedding reception jamie's mom was really bummed out. not that i knew it from talking to her. she's way too thoughtful for that. beth told me, and even though it hadn't occurred to me (duh) i realized it was true. i remember talking with her at the reception, making sure to go see her, holding her hand, and she said to me "he's here." and if he was going to be anywhere that day my wedding reception would have been it. jamie loved a good party, especially if it was celebrating the happiness of someone he loved, but i just couldn't feel it. i couldn't feel anything that might give me an indication that jamie's spirit was with us, or me, ever, since he's died. i've had a dream or two... saying goodbye dreams, that kind of stuff. in fact, i had one that was so real that it woke me up and then i got up to pee and it took me about five minutes to figure out that yes, jamie really had died. i was so confused waking up from that dream that i thought he was still at his mom's house, sick, but still with us. but i have to honestly say that i've never felt his presence, ever, not once since he died. i've only felt the brutal, non-negotiable absence.

jamie, jamie, bo bamie

my best friend jamie died four years ago today and i really miss him. i can't believe it's been four years since he died. metastatic melanoma, aka skin cancer, at an entirely too young 33 years. it was a very weird day... we were moving into the place we rented on wetzel road in glenshaw that day. jame's sister, gina, called me that evening using his phone, while we were in the toilet paper aisle of the glenshaw giant eagle no less (i've always thought jame would have gotten a chuckle out of that.) i remember seeing the caller id and saying to drew "jamie's died" before i answered the phone, and being so worn out from the week leading up to that day that i couldn't even react right.

but, i was lucky. i was jamie's friend for at least fifteen years and he was was always what a good friend should be: funny, loyal, good about staying in touch and keeping you in the loop about life even if it was kind boring because nothing exciting was happening, and someone i would laugh with until my sides hurt. i got to see jamie that week, on tuesday night, i think (he lost consciousness that night and went into the hospital the next morning), after he'd gotten back from california - the last ditch treatment with a different doctor. if only it had worked even though i knew it wouldn't - and we had a great visit. it was really hard for me, as he looked dreadful, and his mom and step-dad's hearts were just breaking, anyone could see. it was so hard to see and experience but he was still the same old jame. wanting the gossip, even though he was tired, looking forward to when he could eat tomatoes again w/out them wreaking havoc on his system, and setting up physical therapy for later in the week. he didn't go of course, anyone could see he wouldn't be going even if that hadn't been the last week, but jame was having none of it and there is something very admirable in that spirit that refused to surrender.

but...

i don't think he'd approve of me going on and on about my loss, and i could, believe me; not a day goes by i don't think about him. i think he'd approve more of the "jamie, jamie bo bamie" stuff, which is why i gave this post that title. some of the most hilarious times i had with jame were:

homecoming night of his senior year, 1988. i was his date that year - he'd left it too late to ask the girl he had his eye on - and he was also the chairman of the choir float, which basically meant he was working on maybe two hours sleep a night for the entire week leading up to homecoming. so off we go to dinner and the dance, the choir float won and jame and i did a celebratory dance to "lady in red" (remember that one, children of the eighties?) afterward we went to our friend amy's house. jame proceeded to pass out on the floor of her family room and when it was finally time to go home it took our combined efforts to wake him up. so what does he do? he grabs his docksider shoe and walks into the powder room with it, then comes back and i think he sat down. amy and i were just dying of simple chronic hilarity... it was so funny... he had no idea what he was doing. we go into the powder room and he'd set his shoe on the sink! i seriously thought we were going to pee our pants, and of course jame found all this laughing really annoying, even though he had no idea we were laughing at him. he was so embarrassed when we told him the story, too. ah, youth!

and... thanksgiving, the year before he got diagnosed, so that would have been 1997, 98? he came down to berkeley and were were cooking away. my dog, zinger, had her doggie bed in the back by the deck and when the doorbell rang she would bolt out through the kitchen to go see who it was. well, she had so much speed going that when she went to make the turn into the hall she started slipping on the linoleum, but her feet kept going and it took her a full twenty seconds to accomplish the turn, all the while looking like something out of a cartoon. jamie and i were laughing so hard we forgot about the asparagus we were steaming and ruined it, but it was totally worth it. to this day thinking about it makes me laugh out loud.

and... kennywood, my senior year, so 1987. we all went for the school picnic, the usual suspects: darcy, amy, ted, me, jame, christie and maybe even a few more. ted won this penguin and it was kind of overstuffed and funny looking. jamie pokes at it and says "he's stuffed to the gizzards!" stuffed to the gizzards really hit darcy's funny bone, hard, and she proceeded to laugh about it for the rest of the day. not giggle, but full out belly laughing, and this phenomenon continued for several years. all you had to say was "stuffed to the gizzards", no matter how completely out of context, and she'd lose it. he never said so, but i think jamie was secretly tickled at how much it made darcy laugh, and of course we all got many hours of enjoyment out of it.

last but not least: singing that song from sesame street with jamie, the "ma num a num" one. you know, ma num a num, beep beep bedeepity, ma num a num, beep beep de beep". i'd forgotten about the bridge part of the song, the middle part that i'm not even going to try to phoneticize here, so i stop singing and jame just starts belting it out, top of his lungs... it was great. and i always think of him whenever i hear or sing that song ever since. hearing jame belt it out like that, at the best of his goofy form, was a real treat indeed.

so... here's to you, jamie! i miss you, my dear, and love you, and know we'll meet again some day (and if we don't i will be so seriously pissed off it'll be good that i'm dead or i'd probably kill somebody.) we can have some more stuffed to the gizzards laughs then, and just imagine the gossip that we'll have to catch up on. i expect there will be lots of simple chronic hilarity to go 'round. :)

heritage turkeys, oh my!

gotta say i am feeling so much better the past few days it's not funny, so thank you all for the positive vibes and wishes after my last homesick post. so nice not to be down in the dumps. nothing like talking to mom to get the old head on straight.

well, we took the plunge: we ordered a heritage breed turkey for thanksgiving after reading this article in the nytimes. the turkeys are raised by a farmer, frank reese, jr., who is trying to preserve rare/heritage breeds of turkeys and genetic diversity overall. since the slow food movement and genetic diversity, not to mention good food, are very important to me and my honey, so we decided to get our turkey from farmer reese. we need to start living out our values in the realm a lot more, and what more patriotic way to do so than on thanksgiving? i am really looking forward to our turkey, and if it's half as good as i'm expecting, it'll be worth every frightfully expensive penny. call it enlightened self-interest.

another reason for the great mood is i went to lunch yesterday with a colleague to find out more about scu's resident ministry program and left so excited and jazzed! my colleague is currently a resident minister (rm) and had to lots of valuable information and many insights. the things i was worried about as obstacles are not, in fact, going to be a problem. indeed, one of them (pets) she thinks will be an asset as it's a good way to connect with students. whew!!!! that was a deal breaker. we're a "no pet left behind" kind of family. people who view animals and pets as expendable really make me so angry, but that's another post for another day.

anyway, i am so excited about applying to be a rm! keep your fingers crossed.

last, but by no means least, we just got home after attending a really great lecture by gary macy, professor of religious studies at santa clara university. it was based on his new book, the hidden history of women's ordination, but it covered so much more than that, since he's a historian at heart. gary is such an engaging speaker, really funny, and having met him i can attest to what a completely lovely person he is as well. drew and i enjoyed ourselves immensely.

more later...

maybe it's just that time of year

man, but am i homesick the past few days... i miss everyone: my family, my friends, our old flat and walks around highland park, admiring all the pretty old houses. stopping by the unofficial dog park to hang with fellow members of the doggie set. i miss riding the 73b into work every day, not even because it was such an easy commute, but because it was fun, too. thanks to "chatty cathy" drew we made a lot of friends on that bus. i miss our dinner parties, and know a lot of you do, too. even the grammatically atrocious, way too loud conversations of yinzers from la-ville would be welcome right now. that it's the gray time of year, as my good friend beth put it, doesn't dampen my desire to be home at all.

i am missing a sense of place... a sense of permanence and belonging. everything is too transitory and ambiguous right now, and i don't like ambiguity. i like things to be clear and defined. living in santa cruz is temporary, and while i am really thankful for that because the commute sucks (in terms of time) and it's too far away from everything despite being a lovely town, it means more change. it's too soon to know what moving up to the south bay will be - will it be getting our own place or starting as a resident minister here at scu and living on campus? both have their pros and cons... our own place would be expensive, but it would be our space, with our stuff, and that has great power and appeal. resident ministry would mean getting to use my masters degree, which is exciting, a great commute (a few minutes walk) and an opportunity to save some money, but it also means our stuff staying in storage, which is so discouraging to me at times that it makes me almost want to sell most of it on ebay and craig's list and save that money to start again later (a bad idea, i know.) rm would also mean a small apartment, close physical confines. after living in someone else's house, which we are very lucky to be doing, it would be so nice to feel like our new space is really ours.

i guess i'm also feeling a bit worn down by the unforgiving nature of life in northern california. yeah, it's beautiful and there's lots to do, more opportunity work-wise for both of us, but it's so expensive that the opportunities don't make up for the difference in cost of living. they just don't. any mis-steps or set-backs can mushroom in no time flat to something incredibly unpleasant. that was one of the things i really liked about home... much more forgiving in that respect. even though i really love my job and i'm very grateful that drew isn't having the sorts of problems he was having in pittsburgh, it feels like we're losing ground. i was a very late bloomer when it comes to career. i didn't get it, if that makes any sense, until recently. maybe it's partially a product of being the first generation to go to college in my family combined with living at home while going to school, but i didn't understand, hell, i didn't even know how to go about building a career. i didn't understand what it took, never mind how to get there. i didn't know how to leverage my degree to my advantage so i just kind of drifted from one thing to the next. i'm way far behind in that respect, which a little over a year shy of forty can be kind of depressing if i let it. and how the hell did i end up pushing forty? that is just way too bizarre. i usually don't let this stuff bum me out, but you know how it is when you're already feeling low. i can do better from here on out, of course, that's the beauty of life, but i wish i'd understood it all earlier.

i guess, fundamentally, i'm feeling lonely right now. i have so little free time during the week that i don't have time to connect with the few friends i still have out here, never mind making new ones. i'm so fucking tired by the weekend that i never seem to get everything i need to do done. thanksgiving is coming up and we still don't know what we're doing. i can't seem to pin my sister down about what they're planning/do they want to plan something with us... i need to call her today about that. several of the friends i do have here still have been part of a book club for over fifteen years that does thanksgiving together, others have moved on to have families and are doing their own thing, so they're out. i was always the one who invited the strays to dinner; realizing i might actually be one is pretty discouraging. combine that with wanting to cook and fuck! no wonder i'm blue. drew and i can always have thanksgiving together, but let's be honest, it's kind of pathetic to have two people for thanksgiving.

ah well. believe it or not, i am actually feeling better that i was yesterday, thanks to the efforts of the homesick/discouraged/weeper support network (aka beth, kendra and judy). and i know i'll feel better soon, i always do. :) at least i don't delude myself thinking i have to get life figured out. i don't think that ever happens, really, even when you're eighty three. you have some stuff figured out by then for sure, but LIFE? it's too big to figure it all out, but it sure is interesting trying.

a new look

"i'd rather be in pittsburgh" is sporting a new look today. not exactly how i want it, but the template options are pretty limited, and at least the pictures aren't scrunched up and cropped awkwardly, which was driving me nuts before (the best part of the "oh happy day" picture is all the guys, imho, and half of them were cut out before!) i do like the purple and green, i must say. i must also get cracking here... the day's a-wasting away and here i am, fucking around with my blog. ah well...

fireworks 101

no offense or anything, but people in santa cruz are retarded when it comes to fireworks. and firecrackers, bottle rockets, roman candles etc. it's not that they don't love them, because believe me, they do. if anything, they love them too much.

when you think fireworks, you think.... forth of july, new year's even, a winning pirates game (so few and far between they have to do something), and on the west coast or nyc, you might even think chinese new year. am i right? well, in santa cruz, they think fireworks any time from the forth of july on, and while i love firecrackers and bottle rockets as much as the next gal, my dog, zinger, does not. after all the trick or treating excitement was over on wednesday, drew and i took zinger on a walk. and it was a really great, spooky, halloween-y halloween too... totally socked in with fog, so it pretty creepy. especially for those of us with over-active imaginations. we made it out of our cul-de-sac and almost to the end of the next block when some genius sets off a firework. i think it was a bottle rocket, based on the acoustics (high pitched and fading wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, followed by a loud POP!)

what the fuck, people? since when are fireworks, crackers, rockets, etc., fair game for halloween? halloween is jack-o-lanterns and fake cobwebs with over-sized spiders in trees and signs that say "spooky lane" by the front walk, next to the fake tombstones for count dracula and frankenstein. these maroons (thank you, bugs bunny) are continually freaking my dog out! i expect this on the forth of july, and a week before and after. shit, let's be generous and say i expect it for the entire month of july. but october? for fuck's sake! i must say, the little dog really rallied and surpassed my wildest expectations this time. usually, after the initial startlement (complete with tail & ear tuck and pulling on her leash (with a pinch collar) until she's gasping for air), she'll give it to the closest pooping spot (in this case 1.5 blocks away) do her business and then turn around, indicating none too subtly that she is finished with her walk and wants to repair to the safety of her beneath our bed lair. and who can blame her? not only did she pass the poop spot, but she didn't pull on her leash until gasping (though it was taut), and while she did an initial tail and ear tuck, she got through the whole walk, and even managed to wag her tail after a few minutes. if there'd been another firecracker all bets would have been off, but as it was we didn't have any additional displays of santa cruz genius, thank god.

much as i am looking forward to thanksgiving (even though we have no idea what we're doing yet, apart from cooking) if we're in santa cruz i hope it doesn't include fireworks. i hate to think of myself as a bah-humbug kind of gal, but my poor doggie just can't take it.