Frozen in Feburary

Valentine’s Day has come and gone and as a widow I thought I had gotten through it triumphantly without picking the scabs off from old wounds. I barely thought about the day in terms of what it used to mean when I had a man in my life. I didn’t cringe at the sight of red or avoid kissy-face movies on TV. I had another bee in my bonnet that kept me fired up and after that went out, I realized that I had spent Valentine’s Day playing Susie Homemaker. And not just any old kind of Susie Homemaker. I spent the afternoon in the kitchen making comfort foods. A roast beef dinner with carrots and potatoes was in my mini crock pot. I baked bread for the second time since my husband died and I made tapioca. Considering the fact that I’ve been living on two protein and fruit shakes and one colorful meal a day for a few months now, I was surprised that I did all this cooking on a whim.

Well, not exactly on a whim. I freeze single serving pieces of protein---salmon, chicken, beef and pork and at any one time I’ll have enough frozen packets to get me through two weeks. One of the last things I do each night before bedtime is to grab something to defrost in the refrigerator overnight. So the roast beef dinner was planned. But I pulled the ingredients and gear out for making bread without any more forethought than it would be a great way to warm up the kitchen. (It’s been brutally cold here and I haven’t even been out to the mailbox since it started.) The tapioca came about because I had some Silk almond milk in the refrigerator that was getting close to its expiration date and I thought making tapioca would be a good way to use it up. Hint: Don’t do this at home. It ends up to be an unnatural greyish tan, not the white stuff my mother used to make on Thursdays and every since has been one of my favorite comfort foods. Roast beef dinners earned that title, too, because it was her company-is-coming meal and when my husband was alive, it was one of my few claims to culinary fame along with baking bread. My yeast was outdated so my bread wasn’t exactly a success yesterday but the fact that I actually made it again was a widowhood accomplishment. When Don was alive I made bread once or twice a week.

Memo to myself: Even when I think I’m handling widowhood just fine, thank you very much, the signs of loss are still under the surface. The comfort foods come out of the cupboard, the sleepless nights creep back in and enjoying the present takes a back seat to worrying about the future and the legacy I’ll leave behind. I suppose those things could also just be a by-product of cabin fever which is common here in the frozen north this deep into the winter. If it’s not the snow keeping us inside, it’s the sub-zero wind chills. It’s the blowing snow and whiteouts on the roads. It’s the lack of human contact that comes with wanting nothing more than to stay warm. This week, even the dog isn’t staying outside any longer than it takes to do his business which is totally out of character for the little bugger. 

“He taught me the real importance of words properly used”---that’s a quote from a TV conversation going about the death of journalist, David Carr and it was said by Anthony Bourdain. The moderator of Reliable Sources---whose name escapes me--- closed the segment with words to the effect that he will carry a piece of David around with him for the rest of his life. And wouldn’t that be a great thing to say to widows at a funeral? “I will carry a piece of your husband with me for the rest of my life.” When you think about that statement, we can all say that about the people who have touched our lives. For good or bad, we are the sum total of the people who have influenced us along the way to becoming the unique people we become.  We gather nuggets from here and there and years later we find ourselves baking bread on a Valentine’s Day because it made your husband happy when he was alive. Sometimes we carry so many pieces of others around that it’s hard to know where we actually start and stop. Woo is me, I’m about to get philosophical and wish I drank beer so I could cry in it.

The temperature right now is six and tonight it’s supposed to go down to seven below. With weather like this it can’t help but remind me of how miserable it was to plow snow when it was this cold. That’s when plows and hoses always seem to break down and I’d be holding a flashlight while Don crawled around in the snow fixing them. It also reminds me of the time my husband had a drunk seagull tucked under his arm while he drove all around the mall, showing his plowers his feathered prize. But that was the topic of another essay, one I can’t find and may have to write again. Some memories are just too good not to document in black and white. ©

Spam, Not Just for Dinner Anymore

Recently I was on my blog dashboard, looking at comments that needed to be approved through to public viewing and I found some spam. Spam comments are generic, canned comments that people hope will fool you into thinking they’ve read and enjoyed your blog and they always end with something like, “Come visit my blog.” You’d think they could find a more effective way to drive traffic to their blogs, but it is what it is and sometimes those comments are quite entertaining. Here’s the most recent one and it was left on the last post where I was lamenting about a knitting pattern I wasn’t willing to share. The spammer wrote: “I'm amazed, I must say. Rarely do I encounter a blog that's both educative and interesting, and let me tell you, you have hit the nail on the head. This problem is an issue that not enough men and women are speaking intelligently about. I’m very glad I stumbled across this very important information! Here is my blog” selling yadda, yadda yadda. Oh, ya, knitting rates right up there with discussions on global warming and sex trafficking. We need more people to talk about it!

Another bit of spam that cracked me up was left on a post titled, The Widow’s Workbook: “I was recommended to this blog by my cousin. I'm not sure, but I think he wrote your Monday post for you as nobody else knows such details about my problems. You are incredible! Thanks!” His site was a place to hire others to write essays and homework assignments for those who don’t want to do their own damn work. Aside from spam selling plagiarizing services, there are spammer selling drugs like this one: “Hi, I log on to your blog regularly. Your writing style is witty, keep up the good work! I sell cheap Viagra online. Check out my site. I’m sure you can use it.” I beg your pardon? Oh, my!

A post I wrote with “widowhood evaluations” in the title snagged two bits of spam: “I blog often and I seriously thank you for your content. This great article has truly peaked my interest. I will take a note of your blog and keep checking for new details about once per week. Find me at”…a place selling "cheap flat Irons." What the----!? And the other spam comment was: “I will right away take hold of your RSS as I can't find your e-mail subscription hyperlink or newsletter service. Do you have any? Please let me know RIGHT AWAY in order that I may subscribe. You can find me at…” a site for Black Friday deals. 

Sometimes you have to work harder than others to determine if a spam comment is a spam comment like with this one: “Today, I went to the beach with my children. I found a sea shell and gave it to my 4 year old daughter and said, 'You can hear the ocean if you put this to your ear.' She placed the shell to her ear and screamed. There was a hermit crab inside and it pinched her ear. She never wants to go back! I know this is totally off topic but I had to tell someone! Here is my blog…” which turned out to be a blog that sells sports gear. The post she attached her comment to was about the day my husband’s brand new Chevy got shot on a hunting trip and it probably turned up in a search engine using the term ‘hunting’ or something similar. “Awesome!” another spammer wrote on the same post. “It’s in fact an amazing post, I have got a much clearer idea about the topic from this piece of writing. My site has the best cyber deals at….” a place that shall remind nameless.

For some reason whenever I use ‘diet’ in the title I get more spam comments than with other titles. Like this one: “I like what you guys are up too. This is clever work and reporting! Keep up the good work, guys. I've incorporated you guys in my blogroll. Here is my web-site…” It was site that sells vacuum cleaners and I’m still scratching my head on how they landed on a post about diets. And this one also has me scratching my head: “Hello. I wish to share a comment here concerning you. I personally loved this particular study you've done. We preserved you. Keep up the quality work. My website is ...” a porn site! Dieting and porn? I guess to some people they go together like ham and cheese.

All spammers think flattery will win you over so you’ll moderate their comments to go public---or maybe they don’t realize that some of us bloggers actually use a moderating feature on our blogs. In either case it’s very clear when someone hasn’t read your content like with the following spam comment left on a post about a Red Hat Society outing I went on: “These are actually impressive ideas. You have touched some fastidious things here. Anyway, keep up writing!” If that person, who sells dragons in every form conceivable, was truly fascinated by a bunch of ladies in red hats going to a deer park, I’ll apologize and eat my hat. Seriously, though, I do need to apologize to one anonymous person whose comment a month or two ago got incorrectly sent to my spam folder. Oops, I just found it! I'm sorry! ©

The 'Widow' Who Wasn’t and the Knitter

For mid-February here in Michigan, the roads were as clear and dry as summertime and that’s rare where I had to go last weekend, which was 93 miles round trip out to the boondocks to a baby shower for my niece’s soon-to-be born first granddaughter. Along with a few store bought things, I had knitted a baby car-seat blanket, finishing it just in the nick of time. The parents picked gray and yellow for the baby’s “theme.” My niece’s other daughter-in-law picked brown and blue for her baby. Knitting for newborns isn’t cut-and-dry, pink or blue anymore. This past year I’ve even made a maroon and gold car-seat blanket. I didn’t like it but sports team colors apparently are all the rage with babies now, at least in my husband’s family. This last one was my eighth car-seat blanket in a year. Nine if I count the one I donated to the senior hall craft show last Christmas. I’ll need a couple more before all the potential new parents in this generation (Don’s side and my side) are covered plus I’ve got plans and yarn around to make more for the next craft sale.

I’ve decided I am a selfish person. A lady I don’t know from the senior hall, who also donated a car-seat blanket to the craft sale, tracked me down and asked me if she could have a copy of my pattern. It’s a basket weave and she uses a standard stocking stitch. I’m not sure where the original pattern is---I printed it off the internet---but I’ve made it so many times it’s in my head. I could probably write it out for her but here’s where my selfish side is coming in. I don’t want to! People rave over how pretty that basket weave pattern is and it’s the only claim to crafting fame I have down at the senior hall. If she starts making them, too, well, you know where this is going. I did tell her the name of the stitch so she could easily adapt her pattern but that wasn’t good enough. She wants it written out. So what do I do? Do I give it to her even though I’d rather not, or do I play the forgetful, old woman card the next time she asks? 

Knitting has been this week’s theme. My niece-in-law wants me to teach her how to read patterns, do increases and decreases, make mittens and do a cable stitch so I’ve been preparing samples and finding hand-outs for my mini class. I’ve never made a mitten in my life until this week, but she’s got a bunch of young grand-babies and years of mitten making ahead of her so the lesson will be time well spent. 

Christian author and speaker, Joyce Meyer, says, “If selfishness is the key to being miserable, then selflessness must be the key to being happy.” If that’s true---and I have no reason to believe it’s not---then what does it mean when we are selfish in one situation (like not giving patterns to strangers) but generous with others as in sharing my time and knowledge with someone I know and love? Am I two-faced or is it human to be inconsistent with a basic value of living in a complex society? Is there a little calculator in our heads that keeps track of the long-term and short-term consequences of our selfless and selfish actions? Author and political commentator, Alan Dershowitz seems to recognize selfishness isn’t a black and white issue. “Good character consists of recognizing selfishness that inheres in each of us” he says, “and trying to balance it against the altruism to which we should all aspire.” 

I started thinking about all this a few days ago when I was reading a blog written by a woman who calls herself a “widow” but the man she loved and who died was a married man. She told about how she had gone to a grief support meeting and left in tears because she thought the other women there would “judge her” if she told her story. Well, duh! She also said she felt all alone at the funeral because the man’s wife was “getting all the condolences.” Well, double duh, Sweetie! The woman who writes the check for the funeral usually does get that privilege. Call me crazy, but to me it would be an act of pure, audacious selfishness to expect widows at a support group to welcome her with an open heart and loving arms if she spills the beans about having affair with a dearly departed. But what do I know about selfishness and selflessness, I’m the woman who doesn’t even want to give a stranger a knitting pattern!

I couldn’t get her story out of my mind. Where does a non-widow like her go to find support? Is there an app for that? I consulted Google and guess what. What she is going through actually has a name. Its call ‘disenfranchised grief’---grief you can’t talk about because it’s considered unacceptable to others. I learn something new every day! And now I suppose I need to go Google how to atone for my judgmental, SNL church-lady persona. ©

Agility, Tea Sets and the Power of Good Intentions

The dog is doing his cat impression, sprawled out in a bright ray of sun coming in through the glass dining room door. He looks contented surrounded by his stuffies and with a full belly, a canine smile on his sleepy face. If I could get down on the floor, I’d cuddle up with him. Correction: Getting down on the floor isn’t the problem, getting back up with my two fake knees and screwed-together elbow would be the problem. I’d have to butt-crawl my way into the bathroom and use the safety rail in there to help me get to my feet. It works. I’ve had to do it twice in twelve years when I’ve fallen. If I miss anything about being young, I’d say it would be having the agility to do whatever I want physically and that’s something we rarely appreciate when we have it.

Let’s back up here to the part about missing anything about being young. There are other things about being young that I miss besides agility. Being taken seriously is something I see slipping away as I age. It sneaks up on us in the form of “dear” and “sweetie” coming out of the mouths of people in health care and the service industry. It comes in the form of a postal clerk being shocked when I mentioned that I’m going to text my niece that a package is on the way. “You text!” she said. “Why, yes,” I told her. “It isn’t rocket science.” Sure, I have gray hair and was born before television but why do people assume that means I’m still using a candle stick telephone? Well, I do have one in the bedroom but it’s not connected to a service line. A tech-smart kid could probably turn it into a novelty cell phone, though. I read an article about a kid who turns ancient, manual typewriters into computer keyboards. Very cool! I want one.

Back on topic: I also miss the feeling that the world is a wonderful place that keeps getting better with every decade. When I was young I thought all we had to do to have a successful life is to leave the world a little better than we found it. And try as I may, I can’t see how that is going to be enough in this age of terrorism and political infighting. My head tells me I just have to readjust my time-table and remember that the world actually does get better with each century, however that doesn’t cancel out the growing pains we have to live through. But my heart still wants to see the world through the same rose-colored glasses of my youth. When I was young I wanted the Peace Corp to bring peace in my life time. I wanted the United Nations to unite all nations. I still want projects like Playing for Change to actually change things. In other words my younger self wanted the people of the world to all be singing kumbaya in the streets by the time I die. I’d probably have to live another three hundred years for that to come about. But that wide-eyed, naive view of the power of good intentions, thank goodness, can still be found. I saw it yesterday in a news story about a little girl who started her own lending library for kids in a local hospital. I saw it on the news last month about a little boy who collects blankets for the 793 homeless people in town. (Yes, they actually do an annual census count of the homeless.) Hope for a better world is not dead it just starts at a younger age than it did in my day. These kids were eight and nine. I was twenty when I first thought we could save the world with good intentions.

I bought a tin tea set that comes in a tin box to celebrate the upcoming birth of my niece’s first granddaughter. The tea set is so cute with its old fashioned concept and its updated colors. I know, I’m a couple of years too early for a gift like that but I couldn’t help myself. My niece has a long-ago history of having tea with my mom and I so want to honor those memories by encouraging my niece to carry on the ‘tea party’ tradition with her grandchildren. That may not come to pass---kids are different now days---but I do know my niece will pass on the tradition of encouraging little kids to believe in themselves and playing by the rules of life. She’s a great mother and will be an even greater grandmother. The continuum of life and traditions goes on.

And for me, life going on means I saw my orthopedic doctor this week, a follow-up appointment to the shoulder surgery I had last fall.  I’m still restricted from starting therapy, picking anything up, shoveling snow or bench pressing. Darn, I really wanted to do the latter! We’re letting the nerves calm down that are causing pain just above the elbow---they all feed through the surgical area.  I go back in three weeks. Thankfully, this is the same arm with the screwed-together elbow, so I still have one good limb in case, someday, I throw caution to the winds and get down on the floor to sunbath with the dog. ©