Category Archives: The Domestic Front

Ornaments

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When my brothers and I were toddlers, at Christmastime my mother set out a fake table-top tree with unbreakable ornaments we could put on and take off to our hearts’ content. I’ve been imprinted on tree-trimming ever since, and have continued this tradition with my own children. Every year the day after Thanksgiving, we haul a little artificial tree and box of soft ornaments from the garage and set it up in the living room. My girls are in their 20s now, and can be trusted with fragile glass angels, but woven pandas and plush whales from Marine World still dangle from the table-top tree.

Even before our daughters were born, my husband and I started laying things away for them—not money for college or a home of their own, but Christmas tree ornaments. When I was pregnant with the baby we called Tadpole before she emerged as Emma, we hung a tiny red-and-green striped stocking on our spindly tree with enormous hope and excitement.

For Emma’s first Christmas extra utero, we chose a bristlecone-pine bear in a cradle. Ally’s arrival three years later brought a baby on a rocking horse to keep the bear company. Along with setting up the table-top tree every year right after Thanksgiving, our family goes ornament shopping. It’s our favorite tradition, and each girl is allowed to pick one special ornament. There have been some doozies along the way, like the pink-flocked hippopotamus, purple-glitter octopus, and plastic day-glo peace sign.

Since the girls have gone to college and beyond, some years they haven’t made it home, and I’ve substituted my better and more tasteful judgment. The year Emma was in St. Petersburg, and hard pressed to find her favorite food in Russia, we hung a glass-blown sushi roll in her honor. Ally’s junior year abroad was marked by a miniature French baguette dangling from the tree while she downed the real thing during Christmas travels to Paris.

This year Ally’s back in Europe, teaching English in Bilbao, where it rains 24/7. Since the rain in Spain falls mainly on my daughter, we found the perfect ornament for her in absentia—polka dot rain boots. And Emma, who moved to Brooklyn in February but is home for the holidays, picked out a pink-frosted glass doughnut to commemorate the first job she landed in New York at an upscale doughnut store.

As soon as Emma and Ally have Christmas trees of their own, I’ll present them with the numerous snowmen, Santas, dogs, cats, and pink-flocked hippopotami that have graced our trees through the years. It will be a good start as they set out to create their own homes, families, traditions. My husband’s and my tree will be a little sparser, but that’s OK. I’m going to keep Tadpole’s tiny red and green striped stocking for remembrance of Christmases past.

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What’s your favorite ornament or holiday tradition and the story behind it?

 

Health Care for the Holidays

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Covered California home page

A version of this piece recently aired on KQED’s Perspectives.

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With the holidays here, I know just what I’m going to ask my daughter for this year. Emma’s almost 26, and like a lot of young adults, she’s piecing together a couple of part-time jobs while figuring out what comes next. I don’t want her to spend her hard-earned cash on stuff I don’t need. Instead, I’m asking Emma to make sure she signs up for something she needs: health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

It’s true that the rollout has been riddled with problems, but the Affordable Care Act’s tremendous benefits remain. Besides, Californians are lucky to have Covered California, the state’s fully functional and easy-to-navigate healthcare exchange. Those who enroll by December 23 will be covered when the law goes into effect January 1. What better way to start the New Year?

Our family has already benefited greatly from the Affordable Care Act–it’s allowed us to keep our daughters on our plan until they turn 26. Soon, though, Emma will need her own health insurance. Before, she never could have afforded it. It’s hard to find jobs these days that offer coverage. Emma, like millions of Americans, might have been forced to rely on costly ER visits or the “Cross my fingers and hope I don’t need it!” plan. Now, under the Affordable Care Act, she and the many Californians like her who’ve risked disaster due to unattainable insurance will be eligible for expanded Medicaid, federal subsidies, or tax credits.

As parents, we make sure our kids are safe: teaching them to buckle up, wear bike helmets, and drive defensively. Grown-up children may think of themselves as Young Invincibles who don’t need insurance, but accidents and serious illness happen, putting health and family finances at risk. Here’s our chance to further guide our kids into responsible and secure adulthood, continuing to protect them by making sure they’re covered.

That’s why I’m asking Emma for the best present of all: good and affordable healthcare for her, peace of mind for me.

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Covered California: www.coveredca.com or 800-300-1506

Other states: check your local resources or www.healthcare.gov or 800-318-2596

Open enrollment period ends March 31, 2014

 

Turkey Comfort

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Shrink-wrapped Turkey

Actually, although I love to eat turkey, when it comes to preparing the big bird, I am turkey-phobic, so I take little comfort in the roasting ordeal ahead of me. To brine or not to brine–that is the question. Most everyone says the answer is a resounding “YES!” but adding coolers and ice and the prospect of salty gravy to the mix has driven me back into the trusty arms of my mother-in-law. She counsels oil-soaked cheesecloth and two cups of wine, one to pour over the turkey, one to pour down my throat. I love my mother-in-law.

I also love Thanksgiving and cooking, except for roasts that everyone else claims are the easiest thing in the world. (Note: I am also gravy-phobic, and have a standby quart from the deli just in case.) I especially love to bake. So, apparently, do the cooks at my favorite cafe, Comforts, where I spied these adorable mocha buttercream turkeys while getting my daily latte this morning:

Mocha buttercream petit-fours turkeys from my favorite cafe, Comforts I almost bought up a dozen to add to our Thanksgiving table, but in the nick of time saved myself from further caloric catastrophe by snapping a photo instead. I sent it to my daughter Ally in Spain, who is at this very moment wondering how cornbread made with olive oil will taste, and how to track down green beans in a country enamored of tomatoes. The price of living abroad.

My oldest daughter, Emma, however, blew in from New York last night ahead of the storm now wreaking havoc on holiday plans throughout the northeast. Soon we’ll get to work making cornbread-and-wild-rice stuffing, whipped sweet potatoes, cranberry relish with horseradish. And the desserts! Blasphemous as usual, I don’t like pumpkin pie, so true believers are charged with bringing that. Emma and I will contribute Almond-Filled Cookie Cake

Almond filled cookie cake

and Chocolate Truffle Tart (sorry, no link!).

Chocolate Truffle Tart

Tarts are sort of like pies, aren’t they?

Emma and I will have our own mother-daughter deliciousness, something I wrote about in a different essay published this month in Skirt! Magazine. It’s about the food, but it’s also about the love transmitted from generation to generation.

Emma in the kitchen

So enjoy whoever and whatever is at your table, brined or not.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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What are your favorite memories of delicious food and Thanksgiving gatherings?

Best Laid Plans

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Water spill

I sit down to write after watering and fertilizing the droopy, yellowing plants. I have been in a bit of a drought myself lately, but rain is in the offing, and today is the day I have promised myself to move from avoidance to the keyboard. I have deliberately left the Internet off so I won’t be tempted to fall down the rabbit hole of email, Facebook, and depressing headlines. I have put five discs in the CD player, hoping to feed myself with music instead of the crackers and tea I obsessively consume to fuel my procrastination and self-doubt. I have set the kitchen timer for just an hour, following the advice of a writing teacher: “Under-commit, over-achieve.”

On my way to the computer, I see that water is streaming from the saucer of the pot I have just doused. It pools on the oak surface before cascading down the bookcase, onto the books and framed pictures— Ally’s 18th birthday party, the professional shots of my daughters at their most beautiful. Only the photo of them as little girls in the bath together remains dry.

Shit. If I catch the spill now, I can prevent the rot and warp of delay. So I mop it up hastily, removing a few books, swiping at the glass protecting my daughters, hoping the water has not seeped into too many hidden places.

Fetching another towel for a final sopping up around the edges, I am tempted to throw in the towel on the morning’s writing. I try to convince myself that the rot and warp of delay, the seeping into hidden places, is the fertilizer of writing. Which it is. But it is also the avoidance that takes me too often into a parched landscape where nothing grows.

So I write this before the timer rings.

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Anybody else have days like this? Anybody not have days like this? How do you recover?

 

All Aboard!

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High speed train

According to congressional Republicans and right-wing media, the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, is a “train wreck.” Nonsense. What’s really going on is that hyper-partisans determined to thwart President Obama have been busy since the law’s inception laying dynamite on the tracks. Now they’re even threatening to blow up the government and the economy if they don’t get their way! These saboteurs hope to derail a reform that will make better and more affordable health care insurance available to almost all Americans, including 25-30 million who are currently uninsured.

So don’t trust the wannabe train wreckers for accurate information. Here are some highlights of what Obamacare actually provides:

  • Young adults can stay on their parents’ plans until age 26
  • Insurers can no longer deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, dump patients, or charge women higher premiums than men
  • Free screening tests, immunizations, and preventive care
  • Elimination of yearly caps and lifetime limits on insurance coverage
  • Closing the “doughnut hole” that leaves seniors on the hook for prescription drug costs
  • Making sure at least four out of five of your healthcare dollars go to ensuring your health, not insurance companies’ administrative costs or profits
  • Tax credits for small businesses providing coverage for their employees
  • Expansion of Medicaid for people making up to 133% more than the poverty level
  • Subsidies to make healthcare insurance affordable for low- and middle-income earners
  • Health exchanges in each state to make comparison shopping easier and to create large risk pools, thereby lowering the cost for those now at the mercy of buying individual or family plans on the open market

Obamacare will NOT force you to give up your current insurance policy, drive up medical costs, increase the deficit, put bureaucrats in charge of your healthcare decisions, or take away your freedom.

It WILL, however, make you free from anxiety should you get sick, have an accident, or lose or change jobs. Because Obamacare brings almost everyone under the protection of insurance, it also eliminates exorbitant costs of sole-resort, emergency-room care for the uninsured.

Let’s stop in their tracks those laying dynamite on the tracks. All aboard for affordable healthcare for all!

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Obamacare goes into effect January 1, 2014. (Some key provisions are already bringing relief to millions!) Health care exchanges open October 1, 2013, with the enrollment period lasting through March 31, 2014. 

For more information about Obamacare, the exchanges, how to sign up, costs, and your eligibility for subsidies, go to:

Contact your elective representatives to urge them to support Obamacare: http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml

Suggested reading for more in-depth understanding:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/28/your-money/health-insurance/a-guide-to-the-new-health-insurance-exchanges.html?_r=0&hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1380564316-6/3NmZyBAPPxs2/tTVLb/w

http://www.scholarsstrategynetwork.org/node/3747

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114870/obamacare-exchanges-start-tuesday-oct-1-heres-why-theyre-worth-it

 

Greenwashing

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Laundry

I have a hunch why climate change denial still holds sway, and it’s not just because of the oil and gas industry’s lock on politicians.

It’s because of laundry’s lock on me.

Take, for example, one easy step I can take to save the planet: hanging my laundry out to dry. Since I work only part-time, live in a dry climate, and no longer have children at home, this should be a no-brainer. Especially since years ago young and enthusiastic energy auditors installed a retractable clothesline for free when they switched out all our light bulbs for fluorescents.

They did not, however, stick around long enough to do any laundry. Which is how I learned that wet clothes are extremely heavy. But hey, I’m game for a little upper-arm workout if it will keep me on the good side of Al Gore. Unfortunately, keeping the ton-of-bricks laundry basket on my good side as I navigate the stairs throws me out of alignment. Pausing to rub my sore back, I balance the load on a step. It tumbles down the stairs, landing on surfaces that are not, shall we say, as pristine as they might be. (Who can see to clean in my now-dim house? On the bright side, who can see the mess?) Since I’ve switched to washing everything in cold water, the damp clothes aren’t that clean to begin with, so what’s an extra patina of fine grit?

Plus, now I get to enjoy the fresh air! For a really long time! Seriously, what would have taken 30 seconds, including cleaning the lint screen before tossing the load into the dryer, now takes a good 20 minutes. And that’s if I’m lucky, with enough clothespins and line space to hang everything properly. More often I’m draping underwear over the patio furniture and hoping it doesn’t blow into the neighbor’s yard.

The slow-clothes movement continues, especially when I forget to fetch the lot in and leave it overnight. In the morning, the laundry is limp with dew. Nothing another hour or two of solar power won’t handle.

Voila! Limpness eliminated! In fact, my laundry is now as stiff as RyKrisp. This is fine for my husband’s underwear if I’m mad at him, but makes it hard to bend the towels over the towel racks.

So I unpin the RyKrisp and crunch it into the basket in preparation for the penultimate step of playing Green Goddess Laundress—lugging everything up all those stairs again, and slipping the load into the dryer for 10 minutes on Air Fluff (no heat, but alas, no more nice fresh air scent either). Then the grand finale: Sorting. Folding. Putting everything away. (This step is the same whether you’re green with virtue, or green with envy at those wasting away happily in their bubbles of denial.)

And that is just the first load of laundry.

How much have I saved? According to a Terrapass report from 2006 (presumably data collection discontinued thereafter because too many research subjects threw themselves down the stairs), air-drying 183 loads of laundry a year saves 1,016 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions and $63.88, not counting the trips to the chiropractor. But good news–it does factor in the cost of what the report refers to as the “clothes horse!”

Which you definitely will not be if you insist on wearing RyKrisp.

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What greenery have you tried, for better or for worse?

 

Vocabulary Lesson

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GRE for DummiesMy daughter Ally is studying for the GREs. Despite graduating with a BA in Linguistics and a near-perfect GPA, her vocabulary is:

  • a. wanting
  • b. wanton
  • c. wonton
  • d. pathetic

So I’ve been helping.

Or maybe not. It depends on whether you consider it helpful to reel off synonyms whose meanings are equally obscure.

“Perfunctory,” I coach Ally. “You know, pro forma.”

She rolls her eyes before returning to GRE for Dummies. “How about diffident?” she asks.

“You know, it’s like . . . reticent ,” I stammer. “I know what it means, I just don’t know how to explain it.”

“How do you even pronounce p-h-l-e-g-m-a-t-i-c?” Ally sighs.

“Phlegmatic,” I boast. “It either means calm or its opposite. I can never remember which. But isn’t phlegm related to bile, one of the dark humors? Oh, yeah, I think it means angry.”

For the record, it does not. Nor is Ally remaining phlegmatic.

“How about effete?” she asks, agitation rising in her voice.

“Hmmm. Like ‘Effete intellectual.’ Maybe elitist or snobby?” I venture.

Wrong again. Apparently Vice President Spiro Agnew was not back-hand-complimenting people of a certain persuasion on their braininess, but accusing them of “lacking in wholesome vigor; worn out.”

It occurs to me that not only am I a vocabulary snob: I am a vocabulary fraud. Like a smart person who passes for literate, I’ve been pretending all these years.

What new fad did I fall victim to during my formative years in the 60s? My ability to ferret out close-but-no-cigar meaning from the context suggests a whole-language approach. Probably some hippie-dippy, out-of-the-box, newfangled pedagogy. What I remember, though, is literally learning out of the box—pulling those self-paced, color-coded flashcards from the big Scholastics box on the low tables of grade school. Kill-and-drill. But I loved it! I was a straight-A student, adept at that quintessential secret of success—faking it.

Now, as I help Ally with her own kill-and-drill cramming, even the words I’m sure of turn out to be wrong. Take tenuous, for example, as in, “She has a tenuous grasp on reality.”

But the only definition GRE for Dummies offers up is: “thin; slim.” As in, “I wish I were tenuous.”

Hmmm . . . maybe not. But I’m excited to have learned new and proper usage. Now I can say with full confidence that my vocabulary is pretty:

  • a. tenuous
  • b. slim
  • c. effete
  • d. pathetic

 

Subversive

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Peaches

In honor of today’s news that the California Supreme Court has rejected another last-ditch attempt to revive Proposition 8, I’m running something I wrote years ago paying tribute to an unlikely pioneer in gay rights.

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My bathroom houses a miniature library of periodicals, from the literary to the political to the lifestyle-you-wish-you-had-but-don’t. Sunset magazine is my favorite leisure reading for those private moments behind closed doors.

But not for the usual reasons.

My home improvement skills end with changing light bulbs.

I use the water shortage as an excuse to let my garden go to seed.

I am too poor for a kitchen makeover of $50,000.

And who has time to cook?

What I really love about Sunset is that it’s been quietly on the vanguard of gay rights for years.

Readers are just as likely to find Craig and Jeff and their golden retriever in the sun-washed kitchen of their lovingly restored farmhouse as they are Tom and Judy sipping chardonnay with guests on their new deck.

A recent issue features Janie and Virginia and their eco-friendly paint company.

As the reader drinks in room after room of sumptuous color in the photo spread of their Portland digs, it’s clear that these women are not just business partners.

While some fan the flames of bigotry and fear, Sunset quietly broadcasts that we are all the same.

Well, almost the same.

The couples in the glossy pictures just have more disposable income and fewer dust bunnies on their gleaming hardwood floors than the rest of us.

As I read in the privacy of my own bathroom, I think of how irrelevant it is what others do in the privacy of their own bedrooms.

Besides, Craig and Jeff, Janie and Virginia, Tom and Judy probably aren’t doing much of anything. Like everybody else, they’re too exhausted from hauling dirt and lumber around, not to mention cleaning up after all those fabulous dinner parties.

Let’s hope the sun is setting on ignorance and intolerance.

Meanwhile, I’m going to grab my magazine and fantasize about a better life to come–new kitchen cabinets, the perfect peach, and love and justice for all.

 

Resurrection

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Resurrection plant

I’m not in the habit of paying much attention to those shopping circulars that clutter up the mailbox, but this one caught my eye:

Resurrection Plant

The House Plant That Never Dies!

Keeps “Coming Back to Life” for 50 Years

No Matter How Dry You Leave It!

 I’ve been in a pretty dark place lately, so my first thought was to question Resurrection’s insanely optimistic premise. Eternal Symbol of Hope & Rebirth!? All I could think of was why awful things we thought were finally gone just keep resurfacing: Bellbottoms. Whooping cough. Unfettered market capitalism.

Upon closer inspection, I saw that Resurrection wasn’t so much a plant as a plan to survive the Apocalypse:

NO Water?

NO Sunlight?

NO PROBLEM!

The plant, promised the ad, “’comes back to life’ from a dormant brown ball . . . It can survive a full 50 years without water or light.”

Resurrection’s appeal was growing. I, too, sometimes feel like curling up into a dry brown ball and lying low for awhile. Plus, I’m always on the look out for things I can neglect without consequence. Children, husbands, pets, bills—not so forgiving, except for the dog.

With Resurrection, however, once the Apocalypse or the dereliction of duty passes, all you need to do is add water.

So even though Resurrection looked like green plastic dreadlocks atop a cheap bowl, I took out my credit card and placed my order. If anything failed to satisfy, I could return it for my money back.

Which is a lot more than you can say about kids and husbands.

An unassuming mailer arrived a few days later. I tossed it onto the kitchen table and forgot about it. After all, the whole point was inconsequential neglect. It’s not like I’d sent away for baby chicks needing immediate revival under a heat lamp after a traumatic night with FedEx.

Eventually I got around to opening the mailer. Most of its contents consisted of advertising for various bunion cures. Clearly the target consumer craved relief from all kinds of suffering. Then came the box that held the real treasure—my Resurrection.

The bowl in which life would begin anew looked like one of those plastic domes on the super-sized Slurpees from 7-11, except without the hole for the straw. There was a small bag of what appeared to be kibble or, more accurately, kibble dust. Another bag contained a mass of shriveled threads stuck to something resembling a dessicated walnut. As instructed, I rinsed everything and added water. Then I sat back to watch life unfold.

Within minutes, a couple of shrunken fronds limply rose above the mass of what was starting to look like freeze-dried seaweed. I was hopeful. After one hour, if the picture on the box was any guide, Resurrection would look like the lettuce garnish on a platter left out in the hot sun. After three hours, it would rehydrate into its full-blown glory.

I read more about what awaited me. That’s when the first seeds of doubt crept in. The instructions printed on the inside of the box, the ones you can’t see until it’s too late, demanded that the plant and bowl be rinsed thoroughly, the water replaced daily for the first week. This wasn’t part of the bargain. But isn’t doubt always an aspect of faith?

I read on, only to discover that Resurrection “prefers” semi-shade and “prefers” to dry out several times a year. This was beginning to sound like an alcoholic relative intermittently committed to rehab. Or a houseguest who promises her visits will be no trouble, except she “prefers” eggs over easy and toast lightly buttered with her fresh-squeezed orange juice.

The instructions also advised, “Don’t be afraid of any mold you see.” I wasn’t so much afraid as annoyed, but, since practicing forgiveness was in keeping with the theme, I breathed deeply and went on with my day.

Several hours later, I took a peek, when full vitality was promised. Resurrection had definitely progressed beyond the seaweed stage. As the box noted, the plants resemble moss, and it did indeed look like the feminine hygiene products our ancient ancestors were forced to use before the advent of tampons.

Dutifully, I rinsed Resurrection and replaced its water daily for the first week. The only change was the growing mold.

“What is that thing on the windowsill?” my husband asked.

Instead of giving me a pass on neglect, Resurrection just screamed out a silent rebuke.

There is a time for everything, and it was time to put my experiment in the trash. Relieved, I slid the gelatinous mess into a bag and put it out for the garbage pick-up.

I’m glad to have a guilt-free windowsill again. Besides, now Resurrection has gone to a better place, with the plastics in the landfill that have also found eternal life.

 

 

 

 

Hostile Dependency

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Cartoon of dog biting the hand that feeds it

Why is it that regions of the country with a high proportion of people who rely on the safety net tend to elect politicians who vow to slash it?

Many factors help explain this phenomenon. Differing world views and values, voter apathy, misinformation, and political manipulation of wedge issues all contribute. But the psychology of hostile dependency is also at play.

A New York Times article examines criticism of the safety net by those who increasingly depend on it. It notes that middle-class people who are angry at, but reliant on, government “are frustrated that they need help, feel guilty for taking it and resent the government for providing it.”

Parents of adolescents may recognize this pattern. Teenagers, still dependent but longing to be free, often chafe against them. It’s an age-appropriate version of biting the hand that feeds you.

Hostile dependency suffuses not just families but politics. “Hands off my Medicare!,” shouted by anti-government protesters, echoes Get Out of My Life, but First Could You Drive Me & Cheryl to the Mall?, a popular book for parents of teens.

This sheds new light on today’s political landscape. America is a young country, with all the exuberance, idealism, frustration, and self-absorption of adolescence. Youth, combined with culturally ingrained tropes of freedom and self-reliance, define our national character.

It’s hard to integrate the equal imperatives of dependence and independence that define a well-balanced individual or society. Distinguishing between what fosters or stymies growth is not always clear. The task is further complicated by our national fixation on going it alone. We often mistake need for failure, abandonment for freedom.

Like the tumult of adolescence, perhaps this reactivity will subside as America moves toward a more secure identity in which interdependence is embraced rather than repudiated.