Category Archives: Uncategorized

08.11.19
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Tyler, and my Bleeding Heart

I was watering my front bed of flowers last night, as I’ve been out of town for a week and it never rains in Sacramento, so my flowers were seriously freaking out.  I had just started a heavy water on my “ketchup and mustard roses” when I saw a homeless guy limping in my direction. I’ve lived in the city long enough in Atlanta, and witness the excessive homeless here in Sac just long enough to know to avoid eye contact and pretend I don’t have a soul. I had ear buds in, and Don Williams was carrying on about Amanda, and her need to find a husband, so I had a distraction. But he stood in front of me, and I finally looked up, made eye contact, and removed my earbuds.

“Can you spray me, please?” Mind you, it’s 104 here, and without water or shade, it’s got to be unimaginable to survive. He was young…like 30s…in an old jersey and ripped sweatpants, and I noticed as he walked up that he had a notable limp.  I changed my sprayer to something lighter and said, “Sure..but I actually feel really weird about spraying you like you’re a plant….but okay.” I sprayed him down, and he thanked me profusely. “I’m Tyler, what’s your name?” Nicholas would kill me for engaging, but I told him my real name and asked him to hang on so I could grab a Gatorade from the downstairs fridge. I came out with a drink, and you’d have thought I gave him a savings bond and apartment to stay in. He cordially moved on….but my heart was bleeding.

I kept watering flowers and was battling the urge to go get him some food. I made a pork dish today, there’s pizza in the fridge, and I had just made Nicholas a sandwich. The amount of food that is wasted in our house makes me sick to my stomach.

But I waited too long.

I ran upstairs and grabbed a sandwich I had just made, wrapped it in paper towel and came out to find him, but he’s a fast limper and he was gone. I left it on the patio, in case he came back, or someone else, and then felt terrible that I had hesitated so long to do the right thing.

I know Sacramento has an enormous homeless problem, but at what point do we cease to be human? I know I can’t save everyone and I know it can be super dangerous, especially if they know where I live, but how do I turn my head when I know I have multiple meals I’m throwing away and someone outside my house is starving? He wasn’t on drugs…he wasn’t acting crazy.  He looked like one of the many young people I’ve read about that have timed out of the foster system and have no one in life.

I doubt I’ll ever be homeless because I have hundreds of family members that could always take me in if misfortune really struck. But what about those that don’t have any family, have timed out of a messed-up system and are taking one moment at a time on the streets?

I actually applied for a lot of jobs to work in the homeless shelters and/or work on the educational programs for re-integration. I believe in divine intervention, and am super thankful for the career path I found, but sometimes I wonder what I could have done if I had gotten a job in a different system.

I hate feeling helpless when my heart is bleeding, but I’m channeling Lynyrd Skinner and saying, “All I can do is write about it,” even though my heart knows there’s more I could do.

I told Tyler to “Take care of himself” like that’s helpful…but at least we had a moment to connect and he got a cold drink. Here’s hoping he’s got a place to sleep tonight, but I have a feeling I’ll be pretty restless.

 

 

08.10.19
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Tomato Talk, Honey-Bees, and Other Farm Goodness

Yesterday I got to run around an East Coast farm all afternoon—I was in Connecticut for a work summit, and the afternoon was dedicated to an excursion of our choice.  Ironically, someone I’d never met recommended via email that I check out this farm adventure, and I’m so glad I took her advice.

Stone Acre Farm in Stonington, CT is bordered by the Atlantic, and while it was 86 degrees, the town pulls an awesome ocean breeze every few seconds. About 40 of us stepped off the bus and onto a gravel lane that led to an open lawn area for lunch.  A local chef mixed up a variety of greens (and even some “weeds”) in a perfect summer salad, grilled jalapeno-Parmesan corn on the cob, and topped our pulled pork tacos with pickled red onion and cojita cheese. We sat in the sun on picnic tables, sunflowers in milk jars as our center pieces, and sipped local brews and ciders between bites.

It was divine. The food, the scenery, the company. I found myself tearing up a few times (and again now as I’m writing this) in the name of both nostalgia for my childhood and gratitude for the life I have as an adult that is so rich with adventure and opportunity.

After lunch, our farm education began in the form of a tour and strategically placed “stations” around the property.  We stood 10 feet from the honeybee swarms and hives while we learned about the importance of pollination, the purpose of the Queen bee and her drones (now there’s some girl power), and then got to taste this season’s harvest in comparison with another local honey. My mind flooded with memories of Rocke’s Honey (my paternal grandfather was a beekeeper) and I loved the gentle reminder of nature’s beautiful intricacies and the vivid memories of my Grandfather telling me to “put some honey on it” whether that was my sore throat, an open cut, blisters, or a broken heart.

Next stop was “tomato training” and I was in hog heaven. I had a custom tote-bag made last year with my favorite things printed on the front, and garden tomatoes made my top 3 short list. We tasted juicy heirlooms and dark yellow Sun-golds, and then traipsed through the dirt of the greenhouse to learn about pruning and plant “training.”  (Who knew you could train tomatoes to not only resemble a vine, but produce clusters of 15+ tomatoes instead of the usual 1-2?) I found myself sharing stories of growing tomatoes and sweet corn in central Illinois, and how proper protein is super overrated when you have a plate heaped with thick slices of salted garden tomatoes and “peaches and cream” corn on the cob from Uncle Kent’s field. As we walked to our last station, I was already scheming about adding tomatoes between my yellow roses on our rooftop patio in Sacramento…I just need to get my hands on some heirloom seeds and good dirt.

Speaking of dirt—last stop—composting.  I was in a navy dress and pearls (I’m fresh out of overalls, and somehow thought this was appropriate for a hot farm tour.)  Anyway, poor clothing judgement didn’t keep me from getting really excited about playing in the dirt. I don’t think I made any friends at that stop, however, as the rest of the group backed up a bit when our “teacher” invited us to get messy.  I played with a pile of regular dirt, partially composted-dirt, and super rich composted-dirt. Again, I was thinking through the logistics of a compost pile in the corner of our rooftop back home and chided myself for living the last 20 years without any composting. (Hopefully my husband doesn’t read this until my tomatoes are planted, and compost has begun so he can’t talk me out of being a farm kid in the middle of the city.)

After our stations, we had time to roam aimlessly about the property—a field of Queen Ann’s Lace bordered the back portion of the property with elaborate flower gardens next to the homestead. The “Yellow Farmhouse” has since been converted into a non-profit, educational space for all things regarding nature, farming, and cooking.

Pretty awesome. I was geeking out the entire afternoon and my heart was ready to burst by the time we boarded the bus to head back to the hotel.

**************

My family’s farm (in Metamora, IL) will always be my favorite place, as it’s a collection of my best childhood memories that have gently shaped me into the adult I’ve become.  I didn’t appreciate it too much as a kid, as my idea of a good time wasn’t gathering eggs through chicken poop, walking beans in the summer, or stacking split wood in the cellar.  But a day like yesterday reminds me of the goodness that I knew on the farm because it’s where I learned almost everything that matters to me now.

It’s where I learned about hard work, the power of Faith, the strength of family, how to properly compost, and how to best plant beans in straight lines.  It’s where I learned about broken noses, broken hearts, and broken fence.  I learned how to make jam, strip wallpaper, run a saw, preserve beef and butcher chickens.

It’s where I learned to drive…a 3-wheeler, a tractor, and a 5-speed stick shift on the back gravel road. (What I really learned, was that my dad had/has the patience of a saint, and that his attention to detail and requirement that I listen to all things about proper engine functioning was going to teach me patience, too, as I had to take it all in before I could even start the engine.)

It’s also where I learned to paint, mow in straight lines, play football, recycle before it was easy, and build a mean snow fort.

I credit almost all of my imagination and sometimes excessive creative thought to having a childhood void of pop culture. I learned to play, imagine, create, read, and write, in lieu of TV or radio entertainment.

I know general education, college, higher degrees, and ongoing learning are super important, but I’ll also argue that a proper farm education trumps everything else.

So thanks, mom and dad, for the farm degree and thank you “Yellow Farmhouse,” for the refresher and for carrying on a farm education through each lesson you provide the folks who visit your property.  Maybe you could take a page from Robert Fulghum and create a collection of vignettes: “Everything I need to know about life I learned from the farm.”

I’d buy a copy.

07.19.19
by

Meet Zelda–A Cautionary Tale

Tonight, I walked around our hardwood floors barefoot.

I mean, I didn’t limp around the house; I legitimately roamed the kitchen without
insole-d tennis shoes, for the first time in over a year. (I know, I just made insole into an adjective.) This is kind of a big deal, and I mean the walking part, not the grammatical invention.

Just a tad over a year ago, we expanded our little family by beautiful Zelda, who(m) I’d been talking about for years.  The moment we walked East Atlanta and I witnessed pretty mopeds littering the side walk, I was pretty convinced that I needed a moped to buzz around the city streets–you can park anywhere! The little 50-cc model goes up to 45, which is the limit in most of the Atlanta neighborhoods, and I really thought it was my time to own one, but these thoughts were mostly in my daydreams as I sat in crazy traffic most days and had a pipe dream of running around the city after-hours on a smaller, easier way to navigate the packed streets and increasing millennial population.

With almost no adult discussion, Nicholas surprised me on my birthday with 2 helmets…I kind of thought they were intended to be bicycle helmets, as I had been talking about more cardio in our life.  After the 3rd package turned out to be googles, it was clear I had something more motorized in my future.

On July 12th, I worked a Gordon Food Service bash at PREP Atlanta and was a sweaty, exhausted mess when I pulled in our drive. But one view of a mint-green moped hanging out in the driveway perked me up. Nicholas had broccoli in the oven and sous vide pork chops brewing in the kitchen and had just finished packing us for my belated birthday weekend in the mountains.

I didn’t even change out of my Gordon polo and dress pants before Nicholas turned the bike over to me and said, “just run her to the end of the alley and back; dinner is almost ready.”  I hit the gas, got to the end of the alley and mentally scoffed at the idea of turning around. People rent these in Europe all the time–I’ll just take her around the neighborhood. I blew through a few blocks, grinning with the wind in my hair, and then started to circle back. I turned the last corner and came up on Drip and Vickery’s–both with packs of people on the patio. I went to brake as I came up on the boccie court, and rolled the gas handle forward instead.

I nailed the cement curb of the boccie court, flew off, and landed on my right knee. I had quite an audience across the street, so initially, it was only my pride that really smarted until I tried to stand. I couldn’t put any weight down, and my knee had shifted a couple of inches to my right. The pain shot through my leg, and I remember thinking that I must have dislocated my knee, and I just needed to get it popped back into place.  (I mean, when I was a kid, I broke my nose a few times–dad would straighten it out with a good pop in place, and when the blood stopped, I carried on as normal.)

When Nicholas came around the corner, I was still a little dazed, thinking about that relocation procedure and trying not to cry. I wasn’t visibly bleeding, so he assumed I was okay and tried to help me up…and then tears came. I couldn’t walk. At all. It was an act of God to get me on the back of the moped to ride the block back to the house and from there it was holy terror to Urgent Care for X-Rays, then to the Emergency Room for more X-Rays.  5 torn ligaments and a shattered tibia later, I was admitted, but “holding” for a room in Grady’s Trauma Center, as Emory couldn’t or wouldn’t do my surgeries.

I’ve never been admitted to the hospital before, never peed in a bed pan, and never felt so helpless in my entire life.  Nicholas was beside himself, which made it even worse, and the only silver lining was that I had an absolute angel who had a Sixth Sense to get in an Uber to trek downtown before we even knew how bad it was.

My Mother-in-Law, let’s just call her mom from now on, has this bizarre intuition that could probably be a career as a See-er. She said she felt a dark cloud all day that Thursday, and couldn’t place her mood; Nicholas texted her that I had an accident and she was in an Uber in under 5 minutes, sure that I was the black cloud she was feeling and needed to be with us. My leg had swelled beyond what my pants could handle, and she was there in time to help cut my pants off of me and hold my hand in between Nicholas.

The trauma unit was a special kind of hell.  I had 4 screws drilled into my ankle and thigh bone to attach a rod to the outside of my leg, forcing it to straighten out after days of holding it in a bent position from pain.  Once the sun went down, it was all night-terrors; I had to sleep with my leg in the air so that the swelling would reduce as quickly as possible for the second surgery. The walls were thin and I could hear the screams of other trauma patients all night long–there were 3 rooms in a row of screamers and no one could seem to quiet them. It was truly terrifying.  In those moments, I realized that I was likely the luckiest in the wing.

The nurses were either wrapped-out or fresh out of empathy, so struggling with bed pans, wipes, pads and all the other mortifying parts of being bed-ridden were even worse and I’d find myself asking for help and then apologizing for it; They’d forget to give me back a bed pan and leave the room, and then be super annoyed when I mashed the service button for them to come back. They’d fill my water and leave it out of my reach…meanwhile, I’m in soul crushing pain and literally can’t move except when I elevate the bed.

The second surgery repaired my ligaments with cadaver, and “installed” enough metal screws, rods and plates for me to be “bionic Jules” and set off airport alarms.  The pain coming out of surgery was like, well, I’ll be redundant.  It was a special kind of hell. I hallucinated with pain in the days and nights after, and poor Nicholas was alone with me on one of my worst nights.  I was convinced that I was Wonder Woman and I was going to fly off the table, fueled with pain….it was truly awful, and I didn’t have to be the one to watch helplessly.

And then the visitors started…dear friends bringing food that trumped the wilted lettuce and inedible “dinners” that Grady called food. Flowers littered my little room, and while there was no where to sit or spend the night, mom and Nicholas would rotate the schedule to be with me even when I was out cold from meds and pain.

I couldn’t walk for over 3 months, and as we lived in a 3-story town house, I learned to scoot down the stairs on my hiney and borrowed an extra walker from a customer so that I at least had a mode of transportation on a couple floors of the house. It was the heat of the Atlanta summer, and the effort to get ready and get down the stairs to catch an Uber was almost more than I could handle. I’d beg to get out of the house, only to cancel plans half way through the getting ready process because I’d be worn out and in so much pain that I didn’t care about fresh air and lunch anymore.

I was on disability, so I wasn’t supposed to connect with my team, which was insane to me, but the beauty of great relationships is that they usually can transcend the rules, and thank God for the amazing folks I had in my corner who showed up anyway, brought shrimp and grits, and cared enough to risk an extra phone call or house visit.

I learned a lot about relationships, my own expectations of myself and others, and really tried to practice gratitude for the many people in my life who kept showing up, even when it was really hard and inconvenient.  Mom continued to stay with me, bring my coffee to the living room, and “run” the stairs for door deliveries even though her own pain was much worse than mine. (Imagine trying to use a walker with a hot cup of coffee….it’s a real juggling act and never ended well.)

Friends came with goofy t-shirts, a croqueted bag to hang on the front of my walker for incidentals and silly coloring books and bubble wrap to add levity to an otherwise mundane day of pain, naps, and self pity.

Nicholas would come home with his usual “babaloo!?” greeting as he walked in the door and somehow put aside the stress of his day to check in on me, order or cook dinner, and be my safe space to remind me that this is just a chapter, and I would eventually recover. But my cabin fever was real, and I had an incredibly hard time staying positive as I couldn’t see past the pain, immobility and reliance on everyone else to do everything for me, from bringing food, cleaning my kitchen, picking up dry cleaning, and making grocery runs.  It’s quite humbling, as a control freak, to ask for help on nearly everything.

I packed away my cute wedges, heels, and flip flops, as once I was able to start walking, I could only wear the ugliest of shoes and still limped with pain with each step. It’s crazy how much I’d taken for granted the simplest life tasks of being able to get in and out of cars, walk like a “normal” person, and have the strength to run the most ordinary of errands.

I returned to work, attempted to be as normal as possible and jump back into all the work that leading a team can entail, but I felt like everyone expected me to be 100% and I wasn’t even close. My work ethic didn’t cooperate with what I innately knew were my physical limits; I felt like I was mentally drinking from a fire hose to get caught up, and then my body would shut down my best laid plans.

This is all to say that it was an incredibly rough season; I’m so grateful for the friends and family that loved us through this time, and as I come up on my “year anniversary” of multiple surgeries, I’m reflecting on that season, what it built in me, and what I learned about the folks in our corner who were willing to put their plans on hold to helps me/us out. We moved during my continued PT and I still (in theory) have a couple of months left before I’ll be cleared for everything except running. I don’t normally run unless I’m being chased, but I at least want that option, which will come in 1-2 years, according to the doctors.

While I’ll likely never be able to be as active as I once was, I’m grateful that it wasn’t any worse, that I had somehow signed up for disability for the first time with work, and that we had enough outside love and support to see us through a time that felt very dark and endless.

So walking barefoot? That’s a big deal; and while I know it seems ordinary to anyone else, it marks another stage in my progress, and requires a moment to really remember the pain, disappointment, cabin fever, and vulnerability that I felt then and contrast with the gratitude for the life I have one year later.

What a difference a year can make.

PS– Zelda’s name sake is from the 20s, Fitzgerald, and all things flapper.

07.13.19
by

Big Love and Mullets: A Rocke Family Anecdote

Family can be hard.

You can’t choose them or change them, but I’ve learned to love them hard for a million reasons. And the older I get, the more I appreciate our differences because the one thing that’s constant is the big love we share, and the even bigger love my parents have instilled for us to have Faith; over the years, they’ve really embraced whatever that Faith and Belief looks like for each of us, as we’ve not always chosen the same path, and while that has created some momentary dissonance, in the end, great love and faith has always trumped all the idiosyncrasies….and as I try really hard to root all things in gratitude, I’m most thankful for the nimbleness of our family and the willingness to really try to understand and table judgement in the name of a bigger love.

I mean, we might share the genetic “fisherman’s nose” (sorry Jeff, you and I got that one honest from Dad and Grandpa Rocke) but sometimes the similarities can end there. We all grew up in this DIY world together on Rural Route 1 (yes, that’s a real address) but we couldn’t have turned out more differently. But that’s what makes the Rocke clan pretty awesome–we still make massive effort to gather together even though we’re as different as you could imagine.

My oldest brother is a father of 5 kiddos (can you imagine??) and the Elder of our family’s church in Minneapolis; he is the master-mind and owner of an engineering company and his daily tasks are so far over my IQ that I have to take notes on things to Google later so he won’t think I’m a complete idiot.  (As I’m writing this, I’m not even sure that it’s an engineering company…but again, over my intelligence level. It’s something important.) Being the oldest (especially of 5) comes with its own set of challenges, none that I pretend to understand, and he continues to be our leader of sorts and make time for family shenanigans even when I know that it has to come from some personal sacrifice.

My only sister is an interior design genius that left an architecture firm to go out on her own a few years ago, and is a super-mom (of 3) who literally has her hands in every possible honey pot in Bloomington, IL. You need her to bring food for 150 high school kids after the Joseph Musical? No worries. Give her 2 hours notice. Want her to run Bible School or the Vacation Bible School program? She’ll do it in her sleep while she coordinates a mission trip to a remote place with no running water. I need a Xanax and stiff drink after hearing about her day, but meanwhile, she’s already on to saving whales or planning to re-do the entire backyard without using a handyman (insert her husband here, but I’m just focusing on the core 5 here.)

My middle brother is a total unicorn. (Sorry, Brad…but I always joked your fashion style would never find you a wife…lol.) But he married young, had 4 amazing kids and started his own Ag company before being an entrepreneur was even a thing. Like my eldest brother, if you ask him about his business, it’s so complicated I feel like I need a translator just to have appropriate responses. I do care, but it’s so over my head that I resort back to that big love concept and just embrace that he’s happy and try not to have a brain implosion when I try to understand better. He’s the calm, even voice of us kids, as I don’t know that I’ve ever heard him get loud or irrational like the rest of us so easily do. (And his little bum was just too cute not to share here.)

And my littlest bro…he’s the family trail blazer…He’s always been the strong willed one who knew what he wanted before anyone else could even hope to start tracking; we spent the most time together “on the homestead” before the West called him for ranching and all the wild things that entails, but he’s the hardest lover…we used to fight and act crazy, but I always knew he had my back and would love me over the disagreement. He’s the awesome dad of 3 kids…and he’s a grandpa..which is amazing and hilarious at the same time, considering he’s the youngest of us that had kids. In a lot of ways, he’s been my person as we’ve gotten older, which is pretty wild if you see us together, as he’s usually trying to start a farting contest and I’m worried if I picked the right nail color.

I bring up the rear, as the perfect child, of course. Just kidding. Nicholas (my hubs) and I wore matching “Black Sheep” t-shirts to our family bash, and while I think I’m pretty well behaved, it is kind of true…I left for Atlanta when I was 21, met and got engaged to Nicholas in 3 weeks, and later decided we didn’t want to have any children.  We live in California now, and while my life choices haven’t taken the traditional or expected route, my family has embraced our path and only care that we are happy and have some version of spirituality.

All joking aside…we’re an interesting bunch and we love each other in spite of any difference in life choices, and while I’m clearly biased, I think my parents raised a pretty awesome clan.

My parents have been married for 50 years. Seriously?! Can you imagine being married to anyone that long and still look at each other fondly? Well, they do…and my dad shared a bit of their story this week that none of us had heard.

My mom was pretty hard-headed (shocker) and had no plans to every marry. Now that’s something we ironically have/had in common. She was in school at Illinois State to be a teacher, which was somewhat unusual in her time and situation, as women were typically not college bound, and instead were more apt to take a church marriage and settle in to raise children. Somehow, my mom was ahead of her time and managed to not only do both, but do so with 5 hooligans on a farm with little money and the need and/or desire to grow and raise our food, sew our clothes and manage family camping trips every summer.

And my dad was the guy who openly said, “I’ll love her enough for the both of us.” Thankfully, while their engagement began as my mom saying yes because she believed it was God’s plan more than anything, she wound up loving him completely (duh–to know him is to love him) and 50 years later, they’re a love story that we could only hope to replicate. It’s the Faith-based, all encompassing love that transcends all else, and this Rocke, motley crew was and still is fortunate enough to see in action.

I’ve always joked about my parents’ frugality (and I’m a self-proclaimed exaggerator, so sometimes Nicholas doesn’t believe me and I have to fact check to be sure I had the core stories straight.) True story–mom made most of our clothes, matching whenever she could, cut our very uneven mullets (and sometimes permed them) and we all bathed in the same 2 inches of cistern (rain) water.  There was no such thing as expired food (because if it did come from a store and not from the garden) it was never going to waste…insert Mystery Meat Mondays and solutions for spoiled milk. I’ll spare you too many details here.

Their frugality in our childhood and understanding that there are more important things than store bought Levis and Guess sweatshirts were the reason that they could fund a beach trip like we had this week. Their generosity and constant need to make sure we all stay connected is one of the many things that I’m thankful for, as it’s too easy to grow older and grow apart.

We gathered in Hatteras, NC this last week to celebrate them (and my mom’s 70th, though she looks 50) and it was an awesome time to connect, laugh, and share the many stories of childhood with our spouses and kids.

Mom prepped a slideshow of old photos, and I took the liberty of sharing some goods here–hilarious. I know that only folks that know us or grew up in a similar way might be amused, but I wanted to share a taste of our Rocke childhood on RR1 and all the love that grew with us.

So because I like to cheers all things lovely in this world, here’s to you, mom and dad, the beautiful story that you’re still living, and all the goodness you’ve planted in the Rocke kids. I speak for all of us when I say that we love you more than we’ll ever be able to articulate in mere words, and we’re so thankful for your love, your faith, and you’re incredible influence in the adults we’ve all become.

PS–I still claim the kids’ table.

06.28.19
by

Big Love and Belly Laughs

Nicholas and I only knew each other for about a week when I met Mom and Poppi–I taught by day and worked nights and weekends at Cafe Au Lait (next to Nicholas’ Target store), so taking off a Sunday to “meet the parents” was a welcome change of pace in lieu of making raspberry lattes and slicing over-priced cheesecake for a clientele that were often my high school students. (Insert humility lessons here.)  Poppi was grilling on the back deck, I went out to meet him, and it was as if we’d known each other forever. He hugged me straight off, started telling stories, and cracking jokes with that big belly laugh. My first memory was all love and laughter, and that couldn’t have been more perfect for me, considering I had moved to Atlanta a semester prior without knowing a soul.

He supported our wild 3-week engagement, kept the groomsmen in order right down to appropriate socks, and loved me as his own. He cooked up a storm every Sunday and there was no better place to be than next to him, stirring the red sauce, dicing garlic, and snitching the sauteed mushrooms for quality control.  The Rat Pack kept us musical company and we only turned it down long enough for Poppi to sit at the head of the table, bless the food and begin stories between bites.  Sundays were an event, and we were in no hurry to break up the dinner table party to clean up the kitchen. The priority was never the sauce-stained table cloth or scraping the meatball remnants from our plates. The priority was God, Family, Love, Food, Stories, and Laughter. In that order. Always.

Poppi is the reason I’m in the food industry now (story cataloged in other Pop blogs) and the reason that I could accept another job in the food industry as of yesterday. I would never have had the courage to even consider a change–but he taught me enough about confidence and cooking to be dangerous, and I took it from there.

Pop had a “weak heart,” the doctors always said, and 5 years ago that heart stopped beating; I like to think that he loved so hard his heart couldn’t keep up.

He was only in my life for 11 years, but that kind of BIG love will sustain me always–I feel him in every great sauce I make and this morning as I was picking 2″ basil leaves, I couldn’t help but think how excited he’d be that it’s growing like a weed in California soil and the homeless folks that terrorize my front flower bed haven’t touched it. I’m pretty sure he’s watching over it and probably spooks anyone who passes with his, “I got two words for you, and it ain’t Happy Birthday!”

But today, Happy Birthday is in order. I know he’s dancing to Sinatra while he sautes onions and San Marzano tomatoes, a rumpled towel over his left shoulder, and his seltzer close.  At some point, he’ll spill sauce from the taste-tester spoon and have a bright red splatter down the front of his white Hanes undershirt–“Italian war medals,” as he called them.

I often have dreams of him and when I started in the food industry, those dreams helped simmer my anxiety and night terrors, reminding me that I have a Heavenly Chef in my corner.  A couple weeks before we moved to California, I had a dream that Poppi and I were in a red sports car burning down Route 66–his laughter was so real and the air smelled like ocean salt and garlic.  Mom was staying with me in Atlanta still; I came downstairs to tell her and she said Poppi talked about a red sports car, and road-tripping the West Coast would have been so his thing. After that, I didn’t question the move anymore, as it felt like Pop’s nod of approval.

Happy Birthday, Poppi. Thank you for teaching us to cook slower, laugh louder, and love harder.

 

 

06.27.19
by

The Clean Teeth Tribe

One of the many terrors of moving and packing up our life was the sheer panic when it actually set in that we have to start over and rebuild “our tribe” in Sacramento. I can’t spontaneously drop in on my girlfriends for a quick patio debrief, the swinging door of Sunday Funday no longer exists, the Sangria pool parties are so last season and I can’t Uber mom over to have a Bull marathon for the weekend. (Nicholas’ mom used to Uber over a good bit for weekend sleepovers, and after Nicholas left, she spent every day with me until I left, too.) Now, our tribe has to conquer a 5-hour flight, 3-hour time change, stale airplane breathing and mini bags of unsalted peanuts.

A notable part of our Atlanta tribe included our “PDS Peeps,” as Nicholas invited the (Pacific Dental Service) team and owner-docs over for meetings and social/team building time as often as he could;  eventually, we integrated them with other friends and family and every social gathering at Brasfield Square was sure to have a few Smile Generation folks in tow.

When Zelda (my mint-green moped) and I disagreed last summer and I shattered my knee, PDS was the first to send some love to the Trama Unit; and the love and support didn’t stop there.  We had the best of restaurant and home cooked Indian food delivered to our door, flowers in pink ball jars, thoughtful “couch-bound” care packages, and constant message of encouragement and offers to help. I ugly snot-cried at Nicholas’ going away party, and fully expected the work bonds in Atlanta to be a lucky anomaly that we would be hard pressed to ever find again.

Nicholas had a month head start in Sac, so by the time I moved, he knew enough to be dangerous, and was adjusting well to his team and new work climate, but short of my childhood best friend living in the bay area (anecdote to come), and an acquaintance from Atlanta, I knew no one else. I was prepared to hunker down, find a job, and settle into our new place without much support, as Nicholas has enough on his plate and I can be resilient for a while; what I wasn’t expecting was the Clean Teeth Tribe, California style.

Thoughtful invites rolled in immediately, in a sincere effort to make us feel welcome–local sporting events, farmer’s markets, trendy restaurants, birthday parties; it was so unexpected to be welcomed into intimate friend circles, not just big parties, but small groups where we were invited to meet childhood friends, families, etc.  I even got this rad coffee mug from a doc and his wife from their recent trip to Mexico….and I get texts wishing me well on interviews and checking in on me while Nicholas is traveling. In a world that is so consumed with being busy and relationships seem primarily digital, it is so incredible to be building a new life here based on authentic human connection and compassion that would ordinarily take years.

Last Saturday PDS hosted a mobile dental clinic for the Sacramento Children’s Home, and Nicholas and I went to “help” for the day–there was plenty of support, so I found myself just mingling and getting to know folks throughout the region. Every person I talked to asked me if I like it here, made suggestions on activities or restaurants, and genuinely wanted to know where I was in the job search. We’re so far from home, and yet Saturday I had the first sense of organic belonging and the realization that this is home now.

So here’s thanking our Atlanta “Clean Teeth Tribe” for being our people, loving us hard, and teaching us that job titles and seniority can be left in the bocce court out front while we just share this life thing together.

And here’s to the “Nor-Cal Region” for welcoming us with open arms, including us in pig roasts, brewery parties, and fancy sushi dinners; thank you for caring enough to text me about my pending job interviews, inviting me for dinner when you know Nicholas is in the bay, including us in The Best of Sacramento and local sporting events because you care that we embrace the city and feel integrated.

My headspace feels muddy some days as I’m still interviewing and working through some of my own crazy that’s too personal and inarticulate to try and share, but my gratitude trumps all, and for that, I’m really thankful.

PS– I’m working on a stash of denture ice cubes for a PDS bash…heheh.

 

06.21.19
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De-cluttering & Enemas: a real ‘clean out’ story

My husband, Nicholas, is a bit of a neat freak. He scrubs the counter tops obsessively to make sure there are no streaks, and if I leave a pair of heels on the stairs he breaks into a full body rash. Before I purged for the big move, he would regularly peruse the house for anything he thought he could discard, in spite of the fact that I constantly had a designated “Goodwill” box in the garage to assist in regular clean out.  Last summer, I was couch-bound for 3 months with a shattered knee, and he knew I wouldn’t scoot down multiple stairs on my hiney to check any recent additions to said donation box. And thus, about a quarter of my “treasures” mysteriously disappeared into the abyss of the local Value Village.

In his defense, he’s been (mostly) a good sport about my constant stream of family inheritances (I don’t mean one expensive vase….I mean, boxes and boxes of things from my grandparents, my parents’ farm, childhood things…the list is admittedly excessive.) In the last 4 years, we lost two of my grandparents, Grandma Hodel moved into the local nursing home, and my parents moved off the farm.  All of these changes and transitions were emotional and tricky for me living out of town, and I found myself claiming boxes of country and gospel records, candy dishes, floral china, toothpick holders…I even saved the “1-2-3 Enema!” recipe card from my Great Aunt Edna. I mean, what if Google implodes and I need a little GI assistance to the rescue?  I like to be prepared.

The pending move to Sacramento sent me spinning, and I called in my parents for de-clutter reinforcement. They drove 12 hours South from Central Illinois in their work clothes and tennis shoes with game faces on. I was terrified to leave to-do lists and disappear for work, but I knew that I didn’t really want to know what all they were purging.  I just knew I had to get rid of about 1/3 of our goods, as California real estate thinks everyone made big in the Gold Rush and a square foot costs 2 new borns and a pair of this season’s Frye boots.

Everyone survived the chaos…I mean, some of my things suffered a home displacement, but I couldn’t tell you what’s missing. I look around our Sacramento digs and grin at my little mighty mouse toothpick holder, the pearly white chicken candy dish, and the fancy decanter and shot glasses from Great Aunt Wilma, (who I can only assume had for decor and not functional use).

I appreciate a good de-cluttering session, as it actually has an emotionally cleansing power as well.  I’m thankful for the bits of our families that surround us in a modern

space that hasn’t been lived in before us.  The Pacific Railway runs right behind our patio, and as I type, it rattles my mom’s old metal picnic trays and the lid on the penguin ice bucket from Nicholas’ mom. For a fleeting moment, I forget I’m in the middle of the city and not one of the box car children on a rural adventure from my childhood story books.

I do think I should get a free pass for a year or so on any other clutter commentary from the peanut gallery…and in exchange? I’ll share the family enema recipe.

 

10.23.18
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My Best Piece

February 8th, 2003…the night we got engaged. Three weeks after our first date. 🙂

October 18th, 2003 in Miller Park, Bloomington, Illinois.

One of our cruise adventures.

Happy Anniversary, Shug.  15 years of our journey together flooded my mind late last night, and for the first time in awhile, I wanted to get to some writing again, and I just wanted to catalog a few things…

We met and got engaged in 3 weeks. I mean, who does that? You could have been an ax-murderer and I wouldn’t have known yet…truth is, I just followed my intuition when you popped the question. I knew I wanted to spend my life with you, so why postpone any of the good stuff?  I didn’t actually know you terribly well (how can you in 3 weeks?)…but I figured I’d have the rest of my life to do that. I taught and coached high school and worked nights and weekends in a coffee shop, and you were working all kinds of crazy hours at Target, so our time together was any and all seconds in between; meanwhile, I hadn’t caught my family or friends up so 3 weeks and no warning? Obviously, everyone freaked out.

They said we wouldn’t make it. That we didn’t know what love is. We were too young. We didn’t have any money. We had our lovers and supporters too…baffled, but supportive and so excited for us. It’s a blur of both as I think back.  

Marrying you is the best thing I ever did. We say sometimes that “we married our best friend,” but that’s not really true. I didn’t know you well enough to say you were my best friend; you had a million of the qualities that make up the definition, but not enough time invested. Truth is, I fell in love with you, and you became my best friend. In a lot of ways, we “grew up” together, as we learned and changed a lot in our 20s. We consulted each other, and grew and changed enormously in our first decade or so.  I loved you from first words, but you became my best friend after doing life together and maneuvering all the things…good and bad.

It’s not like it’s always easy; we were two very different people jumping into a life together.

You’re a neat freak–like, you clean the counters three times every night before you can sleep well. And I actually enjoy clutter. It makes my heart happy.  Especially old farm trinkets that remind me of my parents or grandparents and have a good story. All the chicken candy dishes and Hodel’s Eggs envelope openers? Yes, please. Any old records or Rocke’s Honey paraphernalia? Yes, I’ll take all of it. You snore louder than all of the late night construction behind our house, and I have the worse night anxiety ever, so some nights, we’re a real hot mess just trying to get some rest (and we don’t even have kids). I have serious ADHD with home projects and will have 5 things started at once with no end in sight. (See my first point; this is not an easy tick to live with for someone who is a neat freak.)  I’m irrational with money–I’ll spend $300 on a spa visit but will almost only shop online consignment for clothes. You love a Nordstrom personal shopper, as if that’s what all the cool kids do. In spite of some of our differences and my ticks that drive you crazy, doing life with you feels like breathing.

Remember when we scrimped each month to have a $14 Chinese dinner at Oriental Kitchen in Auburn? When we had too much sun and too many cocktails at Caesar’s Palace and decided we should tattoo our wedding date in roman numerals? Or changed hotel rooms (and flights) 3 times to monopolize on free rooms in our favorite city? When we started a new adventure in San Antonio without knowing anyone…and had to rely on each other, almost solely? When your Dad died in Panama and we had to maneuver another country and try to figure out death certificates and legal docs in Spanish?  When you transferred back to Atlanta months before my teaching contract was up and we did long distance for a few months? When I broke my foot turning flips on a trampoline and 2 years later shattered my knee on a moped and you took care of me? (Summer of servitude part 1 and part 2.)

I never actually thought I’d get married–I never had the wedding day dreams of the perfect dress, flowers, and handsome groom. I just thought I’d be the cat-lady English teacher who got to go rogue in my single life and travel wherever I wanted–and I was pretty stoked about this idea when I left my hometown for Atlanta. While you hate cats and I gave up teaching 4 years ago, I still get to go rogue and travel wherever I want…with you by my side. How lucky am I?

It’s funny how life turns out in ways I could never have imagined, and I’ll never be more thankful than anything else in my life than our unexpected meeting, quick engagement, and long marriage.

You’ll always be “Mein Bestest Stuck.” (German for My Best Piece.)

XOXO

11.06.16
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Musings on Gaining a Shoe — and Losing Disclaimers

Maybe it’s my new shoes—the new orthopedics that aren’t terribly hideous, but not exactly my first choice if I were attempting to be trendy–or maybe it’s just the fact that I have one on each foot today, for the first time in 6 months. Maybe it’s the fact that it’s the first week of our fiscal year at work, so life feels shiny and new. Or maybe it’s the slight chill in the air, finally, the sudden turn of the leaves and the changing of the seasons–the beginning of a new holiday season that sets my soul into a different motion. Regardless, today turned into a bit of a goal setting day, and while it should have been all business, it feels more personal than anything.

Today is the end of the disclaimers.

I was sitting in a meeting today on the anatomy of performance and development goals and I realized how much I consistently undermine myself.  When people congratulate me on recent performance or any success in the last year, I always say things like, “Well… I just got lucky,” or “I’m really dumber than a box of rocks. I’m just a country kid from the farm with absolutely no pop culture awareness.”  I’ve actually come to believe this, because I knew nothing about sales or food when I signed on to do street sales for a food company; but I figured the one thing I know how to do is work really hard. So I figure if I just work really hard, and just outwork everyone else, then I will be successful. I’ve come to place where I don’t give myself credit for anything except for working hard–and I even undermine myself on working hard some days.

Today someone posed the question about whether or not working hard was enough to be recognized. The leader of our group quickly jumped in to say, “No, none of us think that–we all know it takes more than that to be recognized.”  And yet in my head I’m thinking, “yeah that’s kind of been my entire motto for the last year and a half.” I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t have enough product knowledge, and I have no sales experience; and a lot of that’s because I keep undermining myself so I start to believe it, but because I don’t know what I think I need to know, I just work really hard and I feel like I’ve convinced myself that as long as I work harder than everyone else I’ll be successful.  The problem is that getting up at 4am to meet trucks and coding until 9pm might be working harder, but it’s certainly not working smarter. I’ve always felt like I wasn’t smart enough to work smarter, so I’d just work harder and that would be enough.  And while I think that to some degree it’s working, I don’t want to work this hard; it’s not sustainable and it doesn’t make sense.  I know that if I just had the confidence to learn what I need to learn and feel empowered to stop cutting myself down, I could actually still be successful and find a work life balance in the meantime. I make jokes about that fact that I move to the guest room at 3am so that the early calls won’t wake Nicholas up, and constantly say, “I’m so glad he hasn’t left me this last year!” I know it’s not funny–it’s ridiculous, and I’m lucky to have a man who supports me through a position that has taken away from our comfortable norm of “Sunday Funday,” dinners without cell phones, and normal wake up routines together.

I don’t want to feel like I have to give disclaimers anymore. I want to be able to just say, “thank you, I did work really hard, but I’m trying to work smarter.” When someone asks me what I want to do with the company, I want to be able to give an answer, without filling my response with disclaimers about how I don’t know enough yet. I may not have enough knowledge and confidence yet, but I can at least begin with cutting the disclaimers, because “I’m not sure yet” or even silence is better and more productive that my consistent disclaimers.

The truth is that every day scares me and I’m outside my comfort zone in almost everything that I’m doing. But I also know that nothing good comes from self doubt and pushing myself to be more and do more is at the core of how I was raised. So this is the end of the disclaimers—and while the right kind of confidence doesn’t come over night, I can at least begin with taking an extra breath before a disclaimer, biting my tongue, and if I can’t think of anything else to say, I’ll keep quiet.  Now there’s a goal for the record books. 🙂 shoes-blog-pic

 

 

10.03.16
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He Still Calls Me “Cookie”

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Disclaimer– this post is a bit self absorbed with a smattering of dramatics.

I’ve always preferred nicknames, as my dad called me “Julie-belle” or “Jeweler,” my grandfather referred to me as “Jewles” with any variety of endings, and any close friends or family just followed suit. When I met Nicholas, he called me “Shug” for years (short for sugar, but looks better with an h) and sometime in the last few years started calling me “cookie.” Typically, I was only called my first name when I was in trouble or just being a huge pain in the arse, which is frequent in my world, but to this day, Nicholas has never called me “Julie.”  He should have this summer….

See, life has become divided now into two massive chapters: “before I broke my foot” and “after.” This is where I know I’m being dramatic, but most people think of a broken bone and assume you’ll be casted and up and running in 6 weeks or so. Four broken bones in my right foot, however, meant 3 1/2 months of no weight on my foot, which obviously means no driving.  Since we conveniently reside in a 3-story town house, this created quite the interesting summer—“The Summer of Servitude” as Nicholas likes to so gently put it.

After a week of crutches and being propped up on the patio all day on the main level of our best friends’ home, we came back to our townhouse at the tail end of our kitchen remodel.  Every floor was covered in a thick layer of dust and insulation, and all of our kitchen and closet belongings were still in stacks in the living room. It was complete chaos, and I was on a knee scooter, leaving tracks on the hardwood floor through the layers of dirt and grime. Nicholas had to carry my scooter up to the third floor every  night, and I followed slowly behind on my hands and knees to get up to bed–he’d leave my scooter by the bed so that I didn’t have to crawl to the bathroom in the middle of the night.  I never thought I was needy until I realized how much I needed help to do the most basic things. I’d get up to bed and need a drink from the main level. I forgot to bring my computer up and needed to finish some coding. The battery is almost dead–can you get my charger downstairs? While you’re at it, can you just bring me my contacts case and a face towelettes? Actually, I’m feeling really old tonight–would you mind finding my anti aging cream in the bin under the sink? My glasses are across the room in the dresser drawer–can you bring me those, too? And if you don’t mind, I’d really sleep better if you’d fill the diffuser with water and some lavender oil.  Seriously?? I had become a nightmare.

I won a trip to Charleston  for the third week of June (2 weeks after said incident on the trampoline) and I knew that saying I wanted to go would mean definite work for Nicholas. Can you carry all the luggage? And push me in a wheelchair around town on uneven cobblestone streets? He insisted that we go–I’ve never so much as won a jelly bean contest, so I was ecstatic that he was up for it, but don’t take the effort for granted for a moment. It wasn’t a weekend get away for him; instead it was caregiving in another city, helping me up stairs in old restaurants with no elevator, and carting around a wheel chair and crutches so that I could experience my first “Winner’s Circle.”

I used to cook a lot–but now our kitchen was still only partially functional, and the filth was too bad to even attempt. But the thought of going down 2 1/2 flights of stairs on my rear to get out the front door on crutches and hobble across the street to Vickery’s was so exhausting, I was tired and sweating just thinking about it.  Can we just order in? Or do you want to just bring me a bowl of cereal? Or just a vodka water is fine and I’ll go to bed.

And start over tomorrow…. scoot to the bathroom, crawl into the shower, sit on a stool because I couldn’t stand on one leg with fear of falling (and that happened a few times too) attempt to get partially ready before he had to leave for work so that he could carry my scooter back down the stairs to the couch where I’d set up shop for the day.  He’d bring me everything I might need in the next few hours, and then thank his lucky stars he didn’t have to work from home and could catch a break from my requests.

But then he’d come home….my days were busy with phone calls and computer work, but I didn’t have any of the “good stuff” from work, like positive human interaction and changes of scenery, so I slowly became even more needy, if that’s possible.

I attempted to “pull my weight” by begging friends to come over and help clean and put our remodel back together, and then resorted to hiring people to do everything from grocery shopping to moving furniture, and loading the cabinets with china.  I slowly went out of my mind with cabin fever, and was impossible to please, because after declaring I wanted to get out for the night, I’d start getting ready… and the effort to shower again, dry my hair and put on make up would create another sweating fit (I never realized how much extra sweat pain creates) and I’d decide I just wanted to stay home after all. Pain in the arse…that’s what I’ve been for months, in spite of my best efforts to try do be otherwise.

Every Uber ride to the Ortho, I’d be ecstatic to get some kind of “release,” but every appointment was “5 more weeks, no weight bearing, no driving. See you then.” Weeks turned into months, and Nicholas would still call “Babaloo! I’m home ‘Cookie’!” as he’d come up the stairs, reserving the angst of his day to see how I was.

He did the laundry…put it away, ran every errand, cooked or coordinated every meal, and provided me sanity when I thought I was about to cliff jump.

We’re creeping up on 13 years of marriage, and I realize it’s no small thing to have been married this long and say this has been the hardest summer we’ve had. I know we’re blessed. We have an amazing life that we’ve created together, and there are powers much bigger than me that have allowed us to thrive and grow together in ways we never could have imagined when we got engaged after a few weeks of dating.

I finally started walking 2 weeks ago with my grandfather’s mallard cane (it’s on the counter in the picture), and started driving last week; while I think about what a long summer it’s been for me, I realize that it’s been even longer for him. He jokes about his “Summer of Servitude” but that’s exactly what it’s been.

In two weeks, we’ll be cruising the Western Caribbean together to celebrate our anniversary, and while this damn boot will be an eyesore in pictures and continue to be the reason that only my left heels are getting worn and I feel a little less girly, it’s perfect timing to celebrate us and the end of a hard summer.

And he still calls me “Cookie,” and for that I’m grateful.