Think about what you had to eat today. Then subtract everything you ate that had gluten, soy, dairy, corn, nuts, seeds, grains, nighshades, beans, legumes and eggs. What are you left with? Meat, vegetables and fruit.
Sigh. The title of this post, Twigs and Kombucha, pretty much sums up what I’ve felt like I’ve been eating for the past few months. After my October diagnosis with Hashimoto’s, I’ve been playing only one numbers game, and the goal is to get my TPO antibody numbers down.
Most doctors agree that they key to Hashi’s is managing your autoimmune response through diet. Lucky me. BRB, going to buy lottery tickets.
First, my doctor came for gluten. Why gluten? In a nutshell, the gliadin protein in gluten closely resembles the proteins that make up thyroid tissue. When Hashi’s patients ingest gluten, the body thinks it has more proteins to attack, so your body goes on the defensive and your antibodies go up. So I gave up gluten (and giving it up for Hashi’s means 100% adherence) and my numbers dropped, but not nearly enough for Doc’s liking.
So then my doctor came for everything else delicious, including wine. This meant the next step was the AIP diet or Autoimmune Protocol (for those of you who still get to eat fried Twinkies and drink beer). The goal of the AIP diet is to eliminate foods that are inflammatory and damaging to the gut so the body’s immune system has time to rest and heal. Basically, it’s taking the Paleo diet and making it even more strict. On the list of approved foods are meat (muscle and organ-good thing I like pate!), non-nightshade vegetables, 2 servings (max) fruit a day and fermented foods like sauerkraut, kimchi and kombucha. To reiterate, you can’t have ANY of the following until it’s time for you to reintroduce foods, one at a time, to see if you can tolerate them: gluten, soy, dairy, corn, nuts, seeds, grains, nightshades, beans, legumes and eggs. Nightshades are white potatoes, tomatoes and all peppers, FYI. So salsa, BLT’s and tater tots are out as well.
Being on such a strict diet has resulted in the following:
I never knew how much I loved wine until I couldn’t have it. Wait, that’s a lie. I am fully aware of how much I love wine. After almost two months, my numbers dropped enough so that my doctor let me choose one thing to reintroduce. I chose wine. (DUH!) She said once a week and in moderation. We have different understandings of the concept.
No one gets as excited as I do when my favorite brand of kombucha is on sale. I thought I was going to wet my pants in Safeway the other day when they were 2 for $5. When it comes to brewing my own, I am trying to muster up enough bravery to overcome my fears of exploding glass and dying in my own kitchen as a result of tea poisoning. Wouldn’t that be a classic headline; “Native Southerner Poisons Self with Tea.” Plus you have to deal with the scoby, which looks like slime. I’m a little scared of the scoby.
The dog has developed a taste for certain veggies, and her counter-surfing is in championship competition shape. To wit: she’s insane over spaghetti squash. I had one split and cooling on the counter and made the mistake of going to the bathroom. I hear a thud and exit the loo to discover Lou Lou going to town on a spaghetti squash. You don’t even want to know what her farts smelled like that night.
I cook ALL THE DAMN TIME. All. The. Damn. Time. There is nothing that comes out of a box or package that is AIP compliant, so I live in my own Groundhog Day of going to several markets and bonding with my kitchen.
Plus, I have conversations like this:
Me: I want Aunt Henrietta’s homemade pimento cheese on white bread with some plain Lay’s potato chips.
John: YOU KNOW YOU CAN’T HAVE ANY OF THOSE THINGS!!!! WHAT ARE YOU THINKING???!!!
Me: I’m thinking I’m fucking hungry.
Or
Me: I can’t have gluten, so I’ll have the grilled fish, plain, no seasoning or butter and the steamed veggies, no seasoning and no butter and no rice.
Waiter: So do you want your rice on the side?
Me: I can’t eat rice, any grains or gluten.
Waiter: So do you want mac and cheese instead?
Me: Um, no thank you. I think I’ll be so totally full from the fish and vegetables. Just no room. Thanks honey. (smizes, throws shade)
Or
Me: So what did my LRA/ELISA test say?
Dr.: Well, you can’t have… (starts reading list)…chicken eggs, broccoli or tapioca either.
Me: (whining) You can’t take away a vegetable! What am I going to eat?!!!
Dr.: Asparagus, anything else green. And you can reintroduce duck eggs and see if you have a reaction. Alright, how much wine did you have last week?
Me: Two glasses, I swear.
What’s the silver lining to this culinary cloud? It turns out you really are what you eat. My TPO numbers are going down, and I’ve never felt better. So maybe my doc does know what she’s doing. Let’s just hope that maybe, just maybe some pimento cheese is in my future.
I have Hashimoto’s Disease.
In the simplest of explanations, your immune system attacks and damages your thyroid, which leads to really wack hypothyroidism, which basically turns you into a more tired, more achy, more chubby mess than plain ole hypothyroidism.
There, it’s out. Now I know why I’ve felt like ASS for the past 6 years, no matter how much synthetic thyroid hormone I ingested. Well, now we all know, and here’s my advice: If your doctor doesn’t listen to you, really, really listen to you, find one who will. I wish I had much sooner than I did.
Six years ago, I found myself completely exhausted. I chalked it up to the hours I was working at the time. I tried a million things, but never had the same amount of energy that I used to have. I finally went to my GP and ran through my symptoms and described the crippling fatigue I was dealing with. I had been spending time with Dr. Google, so I asked him if it could be my thyroid. He said probably not, that I was working too much and not taking care of myself, but he’d send me for the basic thyroid bloodwork anyway. His demeanor was a tad exasperated and annoyed. I should have severed that relationship right there and then.
My bloodwork came back that I was hypothyroid; I was relieved that now we knew what was wrong with me. I didn’t know that I should have had more thorough testing done, to look for antibodies. I took my doctor at face value. He did, after all, go to medical school. I started taking Levoxyl and started to feel a bit better. My next bloodwork revealed that my levels were in the acceptable range, so I stayed at that medication level for a while. When I started feeling really tired again and was putting on weight despite a really disciplined diet and exercise routine, I went back to him and asked that my levels be checked again. He asked me if I had been a fat child, since that would explain why I was getting chubby. When I replied no (with a really peeved look on my face), he seemed at a loss. He wrote me a script for a higher dose of Levoxyl and said to come back if I didn’t improve. I did improve, for a while, then the cycle just repeated itself. Go to the doctor, get humiliated, get new script.
When we moved to DC, my new doctor was one of the most well-respected internists in the area. I thought myself lucky to have such as wise man as a doctor, and relayed to him my thyroid woes. He ran the standard thyroid panel, said my levels were in the acceptable range, sighed, wrote me a new script for yet more Levoxyl and handed me some diet pamphlets, saying that if I followed the same diet as his diabetic patients, that the weight would fall off. It didn’t, and after repeating the same song and dance routine that I had experienced in Chicago, I gave up for a while.
And then I got really tired of being tired.
At the recommendation of a woman I met at an event, I booked an appointment with an integrative doctor who specializes in thyroid/endocrine problems. She and her medical group don’t take insurance, which allows them to spend as much time with patients and do as much testing as they want, without interference or directives from insurance companies. My first appointment this past Monday lasted almost three hours. It was the most thorough exam I’ve ever had, and she asked me (what felt like) a zillion questions to round out the eight pages of medical history that I had filled out.
She asked me if I had ever been tested for Hashimoto’s Disease and I said no, that both of my doctors had been dismissive when I asked them if I should be tested. The look on her face when I told her this was priceless, like she wanted to beat on someone priceless. She promised me that we’d get to the bottom of this and get me back on track. She then ran though the diet and lifestyle changes I’d have to make if I did end up having an autoimmune disease, of which the biggest change was going gluten-free (GF). Not to be trendy, but to help my body behave better and quit attacking itself.
One of the perk$ of going to a doctor who operate$ out$side of in$surance re$striction$ is some really great communication. Dr. S said to look for an email from her later in the week with my test results and marching orders. True to her word, an email showed up this past Friday afternoon directing me to log in to the patient portal to view my lab results and a note from my doctor.
I put off reading the email until almost bedtime. I was convinced that I did not have Hashimoto’s, absolutely convinced. I had it in my head that all we needed to do was get me more Levoxyl and I’d feel great. This was not to be. In no uncertain terms, my blood work revealed that I did indeed have Hashimoto’s. To add insult to injury, the way that I had been medicated was wrong and actually doing me harm. I needed my medication totally changed up, and, yes, no more gluten, ever. SHIT.
I told John…and then I got mad. John, being Mr. Positive, was all like now we know what’s wrong, that’s awesome. I was like, no it’s not awesome, someone should have tested me for this before now. I went to bed angry at my old doctors and angry at myself for not being a better advocate for myself. If I had treated my own health and questioned the doctors like I treat Lou Lou’s health, this probably would have been discovered before now. Dr. Google and I stayed up until the wee hours of the night. I went to sleep envisioning bunches of little Pac-men eating my thyroid gland. Nom, nom, nom.
On Saturday, I got myself into the acceptance mode. Told family, bought some books on being gluten-free, and cleaned the gluten out of the kitchen. I did make a gluten section in one cabinet for John, who said that he would try to give up a lot of gluten in a show of solidarity. Maybe he will let me smell his Triscuits if I play my cards right. Today (Sunday), I am in in the thank goodness it’s not worse, I can handle this, I can still drink red wine frame of mind. Hashimoto’s is totally deal-able; I got this.
I do have some things to get off my chest:
1. A big fuck you to the doctors who told me to diet more, exercise more, get more rest, and no you don’t need anything other than a standard thyroid panel. Let’s call it what it was: white-coat fat-shaming. Good thing I’m not the litigious sort.
2. I’d like to commend my former personal trainer (who, despite the fact that I saw him 3x a week and ran at least three miles each other day of the week we weren’t together) for not judging me, but praising my hard work in the gym and making me into a real fit bitch, even if I didn’t look like it.
3. Thanks go out to my friends and family, for being patient and kind, no matter how I acted because I felt like shit.
and 4. I am blessed with a supportive, encouraging husband who puts me and my well being ahead of everything else.
So, the lesson learned here? Don’t repeat my mistakes. Never let a doctor dismiss your concerns. Either your doctor listens and helps you find the answers to your questions, or you walk and find one who will. If you have been diagnosed with hypothyroidism, insist on the full blown panel plus the tests that look for antibodies. Hashi’s (what a cute nickname!) is more common than you think. The longer Hashi’s isn’t treated right, the more damage it does, plus it can lead to other autoimmune disorders. Great.
Now, someone go drink a nice, big craft beer for me and tell me how good it tastes.
Ciao, gluten!
When I walk through a farmer’s market and see someone hawking a homemade consumable like soup, jelly, soap, peanut brittle, etc., I often have this rather romantic vision of myself in the kitchen, crafting one of my specialties (bacon pecorino dog biscuits, anyone?) in bulk, and selling my cleverly packaged goods at Eastern Market. My daydreams include media mentions on some local websites and regular customers who loved being the ones who “discovered” some great new stall at the market.
Today, I have disabused myself of this foolish notion.
After giving up hope that the last of his tomatoes would ripen, my father-in-law dumped a sack of green tomatoes on my porch last year. I hate to waste food, so I scoured the internet until I found this recipe for Green Tomato Salsa Verde. I had just enough tomatoes to make one batch, and it was hella delish.
Fast forward, one year later.
I told my FIL that I’d be happy to take any green tomatoes off of his hands and make salsa again. Unbeknownst to me, he decided to become a larger scale backyard farmer and planted more tomatoes than he did last year. This is how I ended up the recipient of 12 pounds of green tomatoes. TWELVE FUCKING POUNDS.
How could I be so sure? I got out my little kitchen scale and weighed the tomatoes in batches. However, the only thing that would hold the tomatoes on the scale while making it easy to zero the scale was Lou Lou’s stainless dog bowls. Before you get grossed out, these bowls are washed in the dishwasher on the sanitize cycle after every single use. Nobody gets food poisoning on my watch.
The next thing I had to do was some math, which can be a hit-or-miss enterprise with me. I checked some websites that had advice for multiplying recipes and after some calculator and pencil work, I had the ratios worked out and a grocery list written up.
The first doubts crept into my mind when I was at the grocery store. As I loaded up a sack of yellow onions, I thought that they would be a bitch to chop. When I was stuffing fistful after fistful of peppers into a sack, the man next to me gave me a really weird look and slowly edged away. Add in a sack of lemons, two bunches of cilantro and enough garlic to take on all the vampires in Bon Temps, Louisiana, and I was good to go.
Once home with my Safeway bounty (gas points, bitches!), I spread it out on the counter, mentally calculated how much chopping a pile that big entailed, and promptly opened a bottle of wine. Tomorrow is another day, after all. Cheers, Scarlett.
This morning when I saw that one of the tomatoes had taken on a slightly orange tinge, I knew today had to be the day. I spent my time running Lou Lou at the cemetery planning my sequence of execution. Once back home, I got everything all mise en place-d and started chopping.
I started with the tomatoes. Easy enough, right? Core and quarter, into the pot. Happy tomatoes. My hands started getting tired about the time that I questioned if my most gigantor pot would be big enough for all the ingredients. Recalling that no one on the Food Network was ever a quitter, I pushed on. What would Anne Burrell say when I saw her at the South Beach Food and Wine Festival next year?
Next up, onions. Six of them, rough chop. The first two were OK, but by the time I was sliding the last of them into the pot, I had tears streaming down my face and I was gasping for air. I spent the next several minutes in the bathroom trying to get my nasolacrimal ducts under control.
Once I could see again, what I saw was a big glossy pile of anaheim, jalapeno, serrano and habanero peppers. I swear I think I heard them laughing at me. I girded my loins, donned some latex gloves, and got down to business. Again, my eyes watered until I could barely see and I started choke-coughing, but the worst was that my nose started running. And gushing. If you have ever gotten pepper juice or oil on a mucous membrane, you know why I kept going and didn’t deglove to blow my nose. I wiped my nose on my shoulder and chopped as fast as I could without asking for a trip to the emergency room to sew one of my fingers back on. While all this was happening, I thought I felt the pepper fumes dissolving my eyelashes and eyebrows. It was during the pepper phase that Lou Lou decided she had heard enough of the strange noises and cussing, so she slinked upstairs to her crate. I should have gone with her.
This is when I begin to understand the depth of my folly. I have no business attempting to cook in bulk and I’m sure as hell not going to be the newest darling of Eastern Market. But…I’m only halfway done. I still need to zest and juice some lemons, pick and chop two cups of cilantro and get out the stick blender. Time to take a break. I changed t-shirts, pausing to admire the amount of snot I had produced and took a scroll through Twitter and Facebook. I read a post about how the impending government shutdown could affect certain programs and felt guilty enough about wasting food to get back to work.
I learned a few things in the second half of Game Salsa. 1. It takes a lot of zesting to get three teaspoons of zest and zesting is a precarious endeavor. Too fast and sloppy means you have zested some of your fingers in with the lemon, so you need to zest with utmost care. 2. You should rinse cilantro way, way, way before it needs to be used so it is relatively dry. Wet cilantro has amazing static cling-like properties that amplifies the amount of time needed to produce two cups of leaves. 3. I should have stopped to eat lunch.
Once I got everything into the pot, it was time for the stick blender. I need lessons or something, because my cabinets are dotted with green goo and my face is stinging in several places due to my lack of stick blender skills that sends salsa airborne. Despite the loss of product to the cabinets, counters and my body, it was finally time to let the salsa simmer and clean up the mess. Oh, and take a Pepcid while I’m at it. Taste testing salsa should never be done on an empty stomach.
Adversity teaches you a lot, and today I learned that I don’t have the right stuff to be the next culinary it-girl featured in the Food section of the WaPo. I have the wrong stuff. Wrong as in I don’t like anything enough to torture myself like that again. Wrong in that too much chopping almost drove me to day drink ON A MONDAY. Wrong as in nothing is worth chemically burning off your eyelashes that are the product of hundreds of dollars worth of Latisse. Wrong stuff, I have.
Please tell me I’m not the only person who has a bad case of the “Regretsy’s” after a big project turned into a pain in the ass. Has this happened to you?
I’ll be the first person to admit that I am a gas point whore (GPW). For those of you living in places where your local grocery chains vie for your loyalty, you probably know what I’m talking about. If you don’t, here’s a primer: Grocery stores offer ‘points’ according to what you buy and how much you spend. Then, a gas station partnered with the store offers you 10 cents/gallon off your gas purchase for every interval of points you earn. For example, at my local Safeway, 5 gas points is 50 cents/gallon off. But the points expire after a month. And since gas is ridiculous in DC, this becomes a game for me. Wait, it’s more than a game; it’s a calling. My husband is the person who (jokingly and lovingly, lest you comment with a verbal abuse hotline number for me) first teased me about being a gas point whore. He reminds me that we’re not destitute and that I needn’t be so zealous.
Sugar, it’s not about the money, it’s the thrill of sticking it to someone, somewhere. The chase and then the triumph at the pump. It’s getting away with something. My own economic Olympics. The Hunger Games for OPEC. Whatever.
Now, the crown jewel of gas point whore yahtzee is 10 gas points, which is $1/gallon off. In a household of two people and one dog, this is hard to do unless you game the system. Throw in the fact that we buy most of our produce and eggs at the farmer’s market and you’ve upped the ante.
Poor Safeway, they didn’t even see me coming. See, you get anywhere from double to quadruple points on gift cards. Hello. Why pay cash at Starbucks, Amazon, iTunes, Nordstrom…you get the picture…when you can use a gift card instead? It also pays to read the circular in the Food section of Wednesday’s WaPo; you can add extra points and in-store coupons that you see there to your online Safeway Club Card account. Then you can go shopping and be THAT WOMAN at the checkout counter who watches the register monitor, “Whoa, Tierra, the circular said that those were two for five and bonus points on top of that.” I’m shameless.
I drive so little that I fill up once a month, usually. So I have roughly 30 days to earn and use points, which requires careful calibration of the stock in the cupboard and the needle on the dash. However, the dark side of this Faustian bargain is the email correspondence. Scads of it. I’ve tried to opt out of every Safeway email to no avail. Their ‘Manage Email Preferences’ part of the website is probably run by a Sisyphean troll who signs you right back up for the email you just said you didn’t want to get.
Once in a while, though, all the dedication it takes to be a certified gas point whore (CGPW), and not a poseur, is worth it. Case in point: this recipe that landed in my inbox along with this week’s Just for U specials. Why not? I needed to get my grocery shop on since I was still stinging from my last date at the pump, when I had only 7 gas points (70 cents/gallon off) and hung my head in defeated shame as the receipt whirred out.
I have a hard time following a recipe when some of the ratios look wrong to me, so apologies to Christine L. (who originally submitted the recipe) and Safeway. If I weren’t so busy scamming gas points, they could certainly use my help in their test kitchen.
Nutty Wild Rice Salad with Kiwifruit and Red Grapes-The Gas Point Whore Way
2.25 cups vegetable stock (no need to hurt a chicken for its juice)
1 cup wild rice (the good stuff-tell Uncle Ben to take a hike)
2 tablespoons lemon juice (from a real lemon, not a plastic one)
2 tablespoons honey (use the raw stuff and not the goo that pretends to be honey)
a smidge of olive oil, just enough to help emulsify the dressing (for shits and giggles, the original recipe said 2 teaspoons, which is too damn much, I thought, what?, is Bertoli sponsoring this recipe?)
3 kiwis, peeled and diced
1.5 cups seedless red grapes, halved
.50 cup (that’s 1/2) toasted chopped pecans, eh, I probably used more ‘cos I’m from GA and we like our pecans
- Put broth in medium saucepan, bring to a boil, put in rice and cover, simmer for 45 mins. Drain any extra liquid from rice, uncover, let cool a bit, then stick in fridge
- Whisk together lemon juice, honey and olive oil until the honey has dissolved. Season with salt and pepper to taste, but go easy on the salt as the rice and pecans have enough umami that you don’t need much (according to my tastebuds)
- Place chilled rice in medium bowl, fold in fruit and nuts and drizzle/mix in a little dressing at a time until you like it. Season to taste. Feel good about self because only bees were affected in the making of this dish.
- BOOM!
Yummy
I’m shaking off the cobwebs from a little over two month’s time lacking a creative rhythm while treading residential and emotional water…
After realizing the suburbs weren’t for us and that 2 people and a dog didn’t need much space, we decided to sell our home in Arlington and move back into DC. Our house was under contract less than a week after we went on the market (yo, full asking, bitches!), so we went into scramble mode to find a place in our targeted DC neighborhood. When you are looking for a place at the same time hordes of summer interns are also hunting for digs, you have to treat house hunting like you’re on a survival trip with Bear Grylls. For a few weeks, I armed myself with Lou Lou’s doggy resume and copies of our credit report and transformed into the pushiest version of myself. I’m happy to report that after a lot of legwork and checkbook waving, we are happily ensconced on Capitol Hill in a great rental row house that will allow us the time to find a similar place to renovate to our likings.
For me, moving is no longer an emotionally stressful event like it is for some people. We have scaled down quite a bit and are pretty mobile for people who have a dog with her own closet. Instead, moving has become an annoying speedbump in getting to the next place I want to be. So we move fast-and-furious-style: packers come one day, the movers come the next and the new place is unpacked and organized within 2 days after the move. No drama, just gettin’ it done so we can get on with life. Now, that kind of sequence requires a suspension of life as we know it, but John and I have perfected our roles over many a move these past 11 years, so we don’t mess with what works. Of course all of this is happening during baseball season, so for the most part I am flying solo while my husband has to log some obscene hours at the ballpark (he works in the Washington Nationals front office). I can’t complain about that, because in the words of Sammy Sosa, “Baseball been very, very good to me.” What does suffer, unfortunately, is the undivided time I crave to be able to write well. I managed to eke out one article during this time and I’m glad I had the stones to tell my editor that I couldn’t take on more without quality suffering.
In the midst of the move and real estate pain-in-the-ass-back and forth of selling a home, we had 2 big health scares with Lou Lou. The first was a lump on her lip that turned out to be an adenocarcinoma. Yep, she had a cancerous tumor on her lip. She underwent surgery to remove the lump and had follow-up care with a veterinary oncologist. Good news: they got it all and her body/lymph node scans are clear. While this was happening (as if doggy cancer isn’t scary enough), she came up lame in her left hind leg. Diagnosis: partial CCL tear. For you non-dog people, that’s pretty much the doggy equivalent of a partial ACL tear in humans. Strict exercise restrictions and drugs came with the news, which could have been worse (a full tear would have meant surgery). So we dodged the bullet twice, but not without it taking a toll on me.
The fear I felt while caring for Lou Lou during these trips back and forth to numerous veterinarians was the worst kind of fear I’ve ever felt. I won’t go into much detail here (check Dog Mom Diaries soon for the full account), but suffice it to say that the sheer powerlessness of it all added onto the the thought of losing her to cancer really rocked me. I was already pissy and tired from the move and this all just sent me into a worry-cave. Some people find that writing their way through something difficult is cathartic. Not me. When the shit hits the fan, I get quiet and pull back. I tend to focus on the core things that really matter, so from Lou Lou’s lip surgery until she was able to come off exercise restriction, I tended to the basics. Feed and care for dog, self and spouse. Ignore they grey roots and the dog hair accumulated on every horizontal (and vertical!) surface. Drop the heavy reading and pick up an US magazine. Have a glass of wine and some Mc Donald’s fries. Whine a little bit on Facebook. Cry in the shower so the dog doesn’t get stressed from seeing you be an ugly crier. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Considering where I felt we were a few months ago, I think Drake says it best:
“Started from the bottom, now we here…started from the bottom, now my whole team fucking here.”
I have my dog, my husband, my family and my friends. Deep breath. The reset button gets pressed…now.
Jason Collins came out today as the first openly gay active player on an American professional sports team. In an interview earlier today, LZ Granderson asserted that this revelation “isn’t that shocking” and I agree. It’s not shocking that gay professional athletes exist. But as a free agent, Collins’ bravery to live authentically has the potential to rewrite the professional sports script from here on out.
After I got over my own shock at the hateful, venomous comments some readers left before the comment feature was disabled, what got me thinking was not what this moment means right now, but what it means for the future.
Professional athletes incite an element of hero-worship in fans. Little kids paper their rooms with images of their favorite players and vie for autographs before games. Adolescents discover that all that dreaded math in school helps them understand a player’s stats. Grownups watching the game forget about big-people problems for a while. We all share in the collective euphoria of a great win and die a thousand little deaths after a loss. The psychology of it all boils down to this: when athletes talk, we listen. Not only do we listen, but we also emulate. We use their phrases (That’s a clown-question, bro.), we buy their shoes (Air Jordans), and we get duped into wearing yellow bracelets. In short, we so admire them that we want to be them. That’s powerful stuff.
Now imagine if that power was used for good. Real good. Not just paying lip service to a disease or a foundation or a cause, but changing the way people think and what they believe. As someone who gets to peek behind the curtain of professional sports, I see this power in action. Players sign a jersey and tell a kid to eat her vegetables, then she runs back to mom, waving the signed jersey and begging for broccoli. An athlete’s message can be tremendously influential and that message should be about equality, fairness and acceptance.
I’m hopeful that all professional athletes use the power of their words and actions as bravely as Jason Collins did today so that who and how an athlete loves no longer merits a huge headline because it really is all about how you play the game.
The great pre-move purge continues and today was my reckoning with what I like to call my “crafty” side. My office furniture includes a hutch that can store a surprising amount of loot, and over the years, I’ve done a smashing job of filling it and a couple of closets with the evidence that I am a sucker for DIY.
It started innocently enough. I subscribed to Martha Stewart Living and Real Simple magazines. I’d “borrow” my mom’s Southern Living and occasionally I’d peruse Better Homes and Gardens in line at the grocery store. And then came HGTV and Pinterest. Hell, even Buzzfeed’s in on the crafty action. Couple all these ideas with my personality flaw of really, really believing I can do anything (yes-anything!) and you have a mess in the making. I so wanted to be crafty.
I’d read an article, for example, ‘Sew Your Own Reusable Grocery Bags!’ and the next thing I knew, I’d be standing in the middle of AC Moore, JoAnn or Michael’s with a list in one hand and a basket in the other while I gathered the requisite supplies. It was almost as if I entered a fugue state after I was inspired by the glossy photographic evidence of a professional crafter’s handiwork. Everything seemed both dreamy and exciting until I realized that the directions weren’t clear enough for me to figure out how to thread a bobbin, if that’s even what’s it’s called. I dunno. This is how I ended up with a very nice sewing machine that’s never been used.
There have been a number of crafty phases, some more successful that others. I did make a headboard that I still love to this day, but I realize that a sloth with a staple gun could have done the same thing. I’m pretty good with paint (as long as it’s one color), I can knit (scarves only!) and I’m especially fond of anything that requires the use of a glue gun. I’ve had some epic fails as well. Making my own yogurt is an endeavor that my husband still teases me about, and I’m the only person I know who has managed to short out a Dremel while trying to make her dog a custom-height feeding station.
As the evidence of craftytimes past piled up in a corner of the basement, I experienced a new personal truth. I had accumulated a bunch of stuff in hopes to somehow make myself feel like those smiling people in the Home Depot commercials after they finish a project. In reality, I enjoyed very few of the projects I embarked on once I realized that they were more time-consuming or more difficult than I had anticipated. I was a poseur thinking that my personal enlightenment was just one hand-stenciled pillowcase away. I remain in awe of my friend C who is a whiz with a sewing machine and my friend S who makes museum-quality greeting cards. I wish I were more like them, but acceptance of who you truly are is indeed easier after 40. I’m just going to concentrate on coloring within the lines from here on out.
Therefore, in an effort to downsize and acknowledging the fact that I really was a C student in Art, I promise myself the following: All the craft crap is going in the garage sale. I am no longer allowed to read craft porn or bookmark ideas (see above magazines and websites) and I may only enter craft stores during December, which will now be my crafty month.
But…I’m keeping my safety glasses, just in case.
Safety First!
It’s been a busy few weeks around here. Travel, puppy sitting and purging. And by purging I mean the kind where you go through a closet, setting aside a great part of its contents for a garage sale, and think, “Who needs all this shit?”
I’m not alone. This past weekend, a friend and former colleague who lives in California crafted several Facebook posts about her family’s garage sale. Her unbridled joy in unloading a bunch of crap leapt off the screen. Getting rid of unnecessary possessions made her happy. I get it. Last night, another friend and high school classmate posted a link to this NYT piece about living with less and commented on how she looked forward to downsizing from their currently too-large home. I couldn’t agree more, and in fact, being overwhelmed by space and stuff is one of the prime reasons why we are selling our home and moving into smaller digs in the city.
When we lived in Chicago, we had a condo that fit us just right. Enough room for us, a dog, our stuff and a kitchen I really enjoyed. It was little enough space inside that when we window shopped together, we’d agree that there was no place to put whatever we were looking at, so our wallets remained closed and we went on living. When John’s job took us back East to DC, we first settled in a townhouse in Old Town Alexandria. Our stuff barely fit, and we purged a lot of crap we honestly didn’t even know we had. After a series of Purple Heart pickups, I realized that I missed nothing, I repeat, NOTHING of what we had purged. And we went on living.
And then came the big mistake. We bought a house in the ‘burbs, to be exact, the close-in suburb of Arlington that claims to be urban and progressive. Hah. We got seduced by the idea of plenty of space for our stuff, a yard for Lou Lou to chill in, a man cave for John in the basement, room for a home gym and a 2-car garage. We drank the kool-aid of American Consumerism. We then started to work with an architect to expand and upgrade the home. The project took on a life of its own; we were creating a home that other people would want to live in, a home too big for our needs. Our conversations centered around the house, not planning out next trip or which new hike to try with Lou Lou. We weren’t living.
I’ve learned that mistakes are fixable, and so we’re set on a course to fix that mistake. The house goes on the market soon and we’re working on finding a rental in DC. Every place I’ve looked at in the neighborhoods we’re targeting is smaller than our current space and it makes me giddy to think of having less stuff. I’m applying a ruthless lack of sentimentality as I gut closets and drawers, separating things into keep, toss and garage sale piles. We’ve spent a great deal of time in DC trying out new neighborhoods. We feel like we’re living again.
What is this living, you say? For me, it’s simply about experiences over stuff and exploring over collecting. If you gave me a bunch of money and asked me to pick a trip or a bunch of new furniture or clothes, I’d take the trip every time. You can’t take it with you, really, so live it up while you’re here. Oh, and pass me that Hefty bag while you’re at it, I’ve got some more stuff to throw away.
Even though my car has a navigation system and my iPhone has Google Maps, I’m still a fan of paper maps. In the car when I was little, my dad would hand me the map to read, probably to shut me up. During the Disney years, I recall marking one map of Florida with the exit in Orlando that had the Waffle House, which is a really, really important thing to be able to locate. I’ve never gone on a road trip without an atlas and I dare anyone to be more proficient than I am at the ancient art of map folding. On girls’ weekends, I’m the one with the map book, navigating us around. When I complained about it once and stated that next trip it would be someone else’s turn to lead us around, my girlfriend C shot back with, “I don’t think you can give it up!” Funny and true. Whenever we travel, I buy a map book and study it before we leave. It came in handy this past summer in London during the Olympics. The mapbook worked quite well when the cell-towers were overburdened.
I still have a road atlas in my car, but it’s been relegated to a bin I keep in the back cargo area that allows my dog and I to be prepared for any adventure that might come our way. In addition to the atlas, there are towels, a few tennis balls, an extra Chuck-it, a long line, some Musher’s Secret, a backpack, two water bowls and other items that allow us to take a hike anywhere if we feel like it. When we’ve had a lot of fun, the bin gets disorganized, so I decided to tackle the mess we had made after a few jaunts into the woods.
I ended up dumping the bin upside down and this fell out from beneath a bunch of towels. Wow. A blast from the time before I toted an IPhone and before my car had a nav system.
Dog-eared diary of a Chicago newbie by Amy Knebel
It’s a Fodor’s Flashmaps of Chicago; I bought it in late 2004, right after my husband left to start a new job there and I was back in DC packing us up. I remember going to the Barnes and Noble at Clarendon and scrutinizing 6 or so different Chicago map books before settling on this one. On a few trips to Chicago before the move was complete, I spent my air time marking maps with my favorite mechanical pencil. “OK, we will be living here. John’s office is here. I take the ‘L’ this way to get to Marshall Field’s.”
For the first six months in Chicago, I never left home without that map book. It was always in my purse and I was glad to be old enough to be completely OK with looking like a tourist as I stood on a corner trying to get un-lost. The day that I really made Chicago home was the day I accidentally left it at home and ventured far and wide (within the city limits) without needing to consult it or freaking out.
The inside is a cartographical diary of the days before our phones’ maps kept us on the beaten path. One note is the address of the camera shop in the Viagra Triangle where I bought John a nice pair of binoculars for his birthday. Another series of notes helped me Red Line and bus it to South Shore for a teacher expo. Another note is directions to a dear friend’s home. Check marks kept track of places we dined, imbibed, shopped and gazed. When I think about it now, the way I learned the city is the best way, technology-free, Luddite-style.
We’re getting ready to move into DC from Arlington and I’ll be the first person to admit that I’m a little giddy at the prospect of selecting a new map book for DC and marking it up. It’s been 1o years since we lived downtown and a lot has changed. I’m sure to get turned around and lost. How will you know it’s me? I’ll be the Luddite with the map book on the corner.
This is where I tell you, dear reader, that we have potentially taken on a project that could be my undoing. Last year, we bought a 1953 Cape Cod in Arlington that is a remodeler’s dream. We were drawn to the house because it had only one owner and scant updates to the ancient kitchen and baths. We were excited to put our thumbprint on a house with good bones, charming curb appeal and more space than we needed. However, neither my husband nor I are very handy. He has no clue about anything DIY, while I’m the one who starts the project only to wimp out and call professionals after I’ve made a mess and exhausted myself. The good news is that my brother-in-law (BIL) is a talented builder with a stable full of subcontractors.
Fast forward a few months and we have a few projects under our belts. In order to keep the basement dry, we had my BIL get a crew out to raise and brick in the window wells and do some grading. That went great. The next project was getting the basement painted. Again, my BIL sent his best guys out for a 2 day paint-a palooza.
Now we needed carpet in the basement, so I set up a few people from reputable companies to come out and give quotes. The first one came out today and it didn’t go well. Most things that happen in my world that require thought and being nice before 10 AM don’t go well, FYI.
My salesperson started off with the wheezy, why pick us/why we’re so awesome speech. (Move along, we’re not getting married, so I don’t need to know all this.) Then the speed talk though the particulars so I can’t remember the terms (HAHA! I taught high school for 10 years and you still can’t talk as fast as a 9th grader. I heard and understood every word you said.) Next came the actual look-see of the basement space and carpet samples. (How exciting. All I want to know is how resistant it is to dog vomit and red wine stains, really.) At this point, said salesperson had made what could have been a 30 minute appointment into almost an hour; this poor soul had no idea my attention span had already been shot.
I like the one in the middle, you? by Amy Knebel
Then came that magic moment when the sales pitch was ON. The conversation drifted from 10 year warranties directly to *the best price if I chose next day installation*. (You’re kidding, right? Ain’t no way that’s happening. You’re the first carpet sales troll we’ve had to visit! It simply isn’t done.) Alas, carpet troll thought a raised voice would convince me. (Nope, that’s when I start laughing on the inside. I’m not deaf, I’m just not buying carpet today.) Next came the former teacher discount, the contractor discount, the overstock discount. (Funny, the price has come down $900 in 45 seconds and you were pushing for a sale before the magic price. How stupid do I look?)
When it was clear that I wasn’t going to be swayed to buy carpet at that very second, out came the woe is me tales of fuel costs, the dastardly sales manager, and making ends meet. (Hey, I have 99 problems too, and you just made yourself not one of them.) Undaunted, the carpet sales maniac pressed on and suggested that it would be better if my husband, the decision maker, was home to just say yes to this absolute best price. (Even funnier. The only thing we bother the Mr. with deciding is what’s for dinner and how much water in his Scotch. I could be insulted, but why bother?)
We eventually agreed that no means no, and I sent said salesperson off for the next magic carpet ride, no sale. If there is a sales manager deity, please let today’s visitor be called on the carpet for making sure I won’t be doing business with your company ever.
