How Sweet It Isn’t: Part One

lemon-garlic shrimp skewers

I've been changing the way I eat lately. I don’t want to say "diet" because diets never work, at least not long-term and certainly not for me. Also I get to pretend that it’s all about healthy living and not losing weight, which isn't 100% crap but neither is it all that close to the truth. I've kept close track of my weight and managed to lose over 10 pounds, which makes my driver’s license no longer a lie. Not that the number is all that impressive for a woman my height, but I take what I can get.

My eating changes are pretty basic. Carbs are the enemy. Specifically the whites are to be avoided: sugar, flour, potatoes and rice. And sadly, beer. For me, the more carbs and sugars I eat, the hungrier I get. Before I cut these out you did not want to be around me when I missed a meal. I never understood how someone could “just forget to eat” (*sidelong glance at my husband*). Now I see that when you eat in a balanced way your body does not constantly plunge you into mood swing hell. I can actually feel hungry without also having an overwhelming urge to murder someone.

spicy pumpkin seeds

I started by going cold turkey, cutting out not only the whites but all sugars and flours, even fruit and whole wheat. And alcohol. I've tried this method before with limited success. My craving for bread is just too strong and I cave. This time around I made sure I had plenty of low carb snacks to grab instead. Beans tend to knock out the bread craving for me, so I loaded up on hummus and three-bean salads. Instead of focusing just on vegetables, I let dairy, meat and nuts played a big role in my diet. I’m sure I would have lost more weight more quickly if I had laid off the fats, but I was still amazed at how steadily the weight came off. After a few weeks I let fruits and whole grains back into my diet, but kept them a small part of my meals. Alcohol is now exclusively red wine, and not too much of it.

Of course there is everyday eating and party eating. If I’m having dinner at a friend’s house I’m not going to turn down a homemade apple pie or skip eating if she serves pasta. I’ll just have a bit less than I used to, and maybe double up on salad. When I’m out at dive-bar karaoke red wine isn't really an option, so I’ll have a Bud light. This way of eating is really about the trend, so the occasional indulgence isn't a cause for concern. As long as the Halloween candy binge doesn't disrupt the healthier habits, no real harm done.

Coming soon... Part Two: That advice you didn't ask for.

Rooster in the Fire

Keeping true to the theme of this blog I have again failed to post much at all. I did manage to publish a couple of pieces for Modern Latina. The articles center around motherhood issues - being a bit kinder to ourselves and being mindful of how we talk to our children. It's motivating to write for something besides my own blog, and scary too. Big questions come up. Just what am I doing with my writing?

For years I've been planning to write about my tough, caustic, slightly crazy grandmother. I mostly knew her as a mean old Portuguese lady. This was a woman who loved to pick a fight just for the sport of it. Without understanding Portuguese I could catch only the tone of her tirades but it's a sure bet she wasn't pouring forth compliments. As she aged her outbursts grew comical. The family couldn't wait to hear the latest Vovó Flora story. Yet I suspected there was more to her than a lifelong bad mood.

As I got older I learned more. About a youth marred by poverty and abuse. About her struggle for a better life. How her harsh words were a cover for shame of her past.  Her health and her sanity declined as she aged but this was a woman who grasped tightly to life. Stubborn will kept her alive 92 years. Even after the fire, a fire that mangled her body and left her blind and unconscious, she did not die. Not that first night, as the doctors predicted. Not the next night. Not until 10 days later, when the family decided the humane thing, the right thing, was to remove life support rather than have her awaken in this painful and wretched state. Her legacy was that fight, against her past, against anyone she suspected might take advantage of her, even against a force of nature than destroyed her body. I'm determined to honor that legacy by telling her story.

There is another side of my grandmother's story, one I understand as little about as I did this woman. My Portuguese heritage is something of an afterthought. I've always been American first and Portuguese by birth. I don't speak the language. I don't get the nuances of attitude and interaction that are part of the national identity. It's impossible to reveal the life of my Vovó without exploring the richness of the culture in which she was raised. The food, the music, the vibrant and comical and puzzling customs of a people few outsiders understand. It's a nation of idiosyncrasies, at once baffling and beautiful. The story of my grandmother is the story of Portugal.

So this is the challenge I set for myself: To uncover a woman and a heritage. To research what I know of her life and to discover the wonders and mysteries of a people. Like the legendary black rooster that sits in every Portuguese kitchen, there is a story of survival against all odds, of strength in the face of tragedy, of joy found unexpectedly, of redemption born of fire.

An old bird can be plucked, roasted, counted out and still rise to sing out once more.

Update: I've started a blog to capture the life of Vovó Flora, My Dead Grandmother.

Killing the Blues

Some days are just born bad. A night of hot still air and fitful sleep led to a morning that broke far too soon. I could hear Adele calling from her crib but didn’t want rise and face the day. I felt too fragile, too close to cracking. Why? I don’t know. I just know that mixture of sadness and fear always ends with an explosion. Or tears. Or both. I managed to get the coffee going before it hit. Lucas misbehaving with no sign of remorse, me trying desperately to keep calm. I managed not to scream, to stay firm and in control, but it took all I had. By the time Philip got up I was close to a breaking point. Why? What makes me feel like this, like I can’t even move across the room without losing it altogether? And why today?

Philip tried to help, and did help, though it made me feel worse somehow. Pushed me from that boiling anger into all-consuming sadness. But I didn’t give in. I picked myself up and went on with my day. My goal this morning had been to work out while Lucas was at preschool and then run errands in town. Already it was an hour later than I had hoped, but no matter. I put on my running clothes, buckled Adele into the car seat and hit the road. I still felt weak, but also proud of myself for shaking off the mean reds and plunging ahead. It wasn’t until I pulled up at the trail head that I realize I didn’t have the stroller. Here I was facing my fear and desperation, all geared up to run, and it wasn’t going to happen. I tried to console myself. Really, was it that bad? I have a great life. The fortune of having free time to go running, to have beautiful happy children, to even own a stroller to begin with. That only made me sink lower, reminding me how I had no right to feel the way I did. And yet I did feel that way. And it’s painful.

I didn’t break down though. Philip helped again, responding to my woe-is-me text by advising I let it go and get coffee and a pastry. I went on with my errands, giving myself credit for trying to go ahead with the day when all I wanted to do was crawl back under the covers and stay there. Adele was a bubbly antidote to a heavy heart as we stood in the returns line at Home Depot and shopped for baby wipes at the drug store. Without much to show for the day besides good intentions we fought nasty beach traffic up the mountain, fetched Lucas from preschool, and came home.

The afternoon is nearly over. It’s 97 outside but breezy. When Adele wakes up we’ll head to the pool. My life is good. Very good. No worries. No outside demands.  A loving and understanding husband. Kids that, while demanding, are really very well behaved and good-natured. A wonderful new house that is in fine shaped to be ignored for a while. So I guess that just leaves me. Some days are fine. And some are just born bad.

Home Wreck

When I attended Notre Dame Belmont it was transitioning from a high school to a "college preparatory institution."  To combat dwindling enrollment at this all-girls school — there were 88 girls in my class, only 54 in the class 2 years below us — the staff had put a sharp focus on education. Gone away were the Home Ec classes. Women of tomorrow don’t need to cook and sew! They need top-notch academics to compete in a man’s world!  The retooling did the trick. Enrollment rose and the school thrives today.

Only now, as a mother, do I see what a disservice it was to cut out those Home Ec classes. We were brought up to be super women. To have it all. To balance with a career and a family. To bring home the bacon AND fry it up in a pan. And that’s all great until we become mothers without a clue of the basics of running a home.

Turns out the home arts come in pretty handy. Would it really have been so bad to teach a little household management to women who, while destined to be the leaders of tomorrow, will still have to make sure the kids are fed, the laundry folded and the house clean for company? The stresses of caring for a family are huge, and those expectations don’t diminish for a working woman. Or for someone like me, who has a career on hold and finds herself drowning as a homemaker.

This is fresh on my mind as I taste the white plum jam I made this week. It was a valiant effort that jelled well but turned out way too sugary. Most of what I try to do around the house ends up like that. Folded sheets are lumpy, hems are crooked, floors never quiet come clean. It works out, but not well.  I read up and try to improve but I’m missing that basic experience of how to do all this. I’m just clueless.  I don’t really beat myself up that much —  life is too short to worry about dust bunnies. But I imagine how much easier this job could be if I had few basic skills under my belt. Because at this stage of my life I don’t have time to go back to Home Ec.

Grease 3 - This Time It's French!

As a fan of Grease 2 on Facebook (What, you're not?!) I was informed that yesterday was film's 30th anniversary. My sister in-law asked me if I really liked it better than the original. For me, that's like asking if you prefer Star Wars or Spaceballs. One is a beloved classic, the other a silly, over-the-top spoof. Of course that's not what the creators of Grease 2 intended, but it's what they ended up with.

I'll admit I love the sequel more. Way more. Grease shows high school kids in an idealized light. The T-Birds are cool, smooth and perfect, with the bravado of teenagers who have it all figured out. Compare that to Grease 2's T-Birds who try to be cool but are dorky, insecure and mess up a lot. I appreciate the more realistic depiction of immature teenagers over the fantasy that an immature teenager would hold - that anyone in high school has a clue what they are doing. Plus, Michelle Pfeiffer straddles a ladder. While singing.

But enough social analysis of a cheesy flopped sequel. On to the greatest movie never made: Grease 3: A T-Bird for France. In the early 1990s my high school friend Michelle introduced me to the wonders of Grease 2.  We loved that movie. We even convinced our sophomore class to perform "Girl for All Seasons" in the school talent show. Serious love. So of course we wrote our own sequel. These days you'd call it "fan fiction" and maybe get a book deal. Back then we were just dorks with too much free time.

This screenplay combines our love of French (we were Madame Takala's favorite students) with our passion for watching and re-watching Grease 2. Our tale has Dolores Rebchuck, the tough little sister from Grease 2, running the Pink Ladies just as she predicted. There is one spot open and the Ladies are holding try-outs to see who's pink enough. Pinky has dreamed her whole life of being a Pink Lady but starts falling for Jean-Pierre, the new French foreign exchange student. Trouble! Pink Ladies can only date T-Birds, so this causes a dilemma of epic proportions. For a teenager anyway. To complicate matters there is also a female French exchange student, the sultry and sophisticated Brigette. She's caught the eye of all boys at Rydell - including the T-Birds - and she wants JP all for herself!

We penned a few songs, intending to have Michelle's boyfriend Brian set them to music. We started picking friends for the cast, though never actually mentioned it to them. I was to play Dolores and Michelle would be Pinky. We had Parissa, now an international tango star, in mind for the part Brigette - it could have been her first big break! We scouted out filming locations at local schools. I remember a playground painting of the USA was to serve as the backdrop for a number called "Coming to America."

For all this planning, we only tapped out seven pages on Michelle's Macintosh Classic before the project stalled out and we went back to the concerns of normal high school nerds, like studying for the PSAT and joining library club.

But the time has come. The world needs..... A T-Bird for France!

You're welcome.

Failing with Intent

Fully living up to the name of this blog, I have failed to write much in the past 6 months other than Half-Baked Birthday posts, and I'm even lagging behind on those. I love to write. I write well. And I never make the time for it because I am a giant wimp.

Facing fears is no fun, but the whole point of this blog (and probably of life) is to go beyond what's safe and easy and boring. All the goals I set for myself are meaninglessness without a way to overcome this basic fear that I'm no good at this, that I'm too old to start making a go at writing, that I'll end up taking the safe path back to a job I do well but don't care for much.

So my new goal isn't framed as motivation or designed for success. What this lady needs is a lot more failure. My plan is to receive at least six rejection letters before the year is out. In order to be rejected by publications, I must submit writing for publication. Since my goal is to fail, I'm freed from the worry about what it will mean if I get rejected. I just have to write and submit, write and submit. And fail.

Ninja Skills

We all get down on ourselves from time to time, so I like to remember that I have a lot going for me.  Of course the best way to showcase this is with of list of Ninja Skills. Such as:

- Etch-a-Sketch art

- Photoshop skills

- Pantry iron chef skills
     (can make a pretty decent meal with whatever's on hand)

- Writing skills

- Skill of hosting a damn good party on very little notice

- Movie trivia (pre-2000)
- Good hair

- Photo taking skills 

- Ability to follow the gist of a conversation in a language I don't know

Nobody's perfect. Here are some of the skills I need to improve upon:

- Not interrupting

- Remembering names

- Time management

- Stop buying foodstuffs and never cooking them

- Lazy/messy

- Over-committing

- Actually writing sometime