Author Archives: Tata

Let Me Take You There

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Pete and I prepared for Italian Christmas Eve for two days, not to mention the shopping and crepe-making that went on weeks ahead of time. It was a long series of firsts for us: Pete’s first Christmas with us, our first without Dad and the first time Daria’s husband Tyler bought sweaters in his own size in actual colors. I’ll explain later. It all worked out fabulously, though at any moment it all might’ve gone straight to hell – but, you know, with a nice bolognese. If you’re wondering: the manicotti was the best of my illustrious career and I’m still shaking my head. Yes, that’s what’s rattling. Hush!

Pete took dis beeyootiful piksha I thought yous might enjoy.

There’s always a story to tell. At the moment, I can’t tell it. I will, though.

I will.

So Try Another Flavor

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Busy! busy! busy! today reworking and revising the menu for Italian Christmas Eve. Tomato sauce for the manicotti is cooling on a back burner. The crepes are thawing. Pete’s dashed out for fresh herbs. We have a thousand things to do today, but they’re all tasks I’ve looked forward to for weeks. I enjoy wrapping presents and rolling manicotti and fussing over details of grilled vegetables on a gorgeous platter. Plus, there’s time for a much-needed nap. On Friday, when I was too tired to lift my arms, I called out for pizza. When the pizzeria got the order wrong, I nearly burst into tears, a ginormous hint that I was long past exhausted. Other than last winter, I’m not the teary type.

Bonus picture of fog hanging over the river and obscuring the city. I assure you that New Brunswick with its bland skyline sits there beyond the water. I can see parts of it from my living room window, perhaps because they’re about a half mile to the left of this section of the Raritan and surrounded by the orange plastic fencing one sees during lengthy construction works. You can’t miss the orange.

I’ve never planned the menu for Italian Christmas dinner before. and it will be our first without Dad. Daria and I are determined to get through it and New Year’s Eve with a minimum of drama. My stomach flutters a bit. Outside, snow may be falling.

Is Pointed At Me

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A Pleasant Solstice to you.

Today, we begin a new project Pete and I are excited about: 180 Days. One of us will take a digital picture from the same spot at the same angle every day until the next Solstice. We’ll publish the pictures on PIC every day (unless I am, say, on a boat in the Caribbean). The view is of the City of New Brunswick from the sidewalk in front of my apartment. Pete took this picture this morning. We discovered last night there’s no way to take these pictures at night because the city photographs at night on my camera like a distant Christmas tree fire.

So. The city sits on the other side of the river and through the trees. We will see more of it, then less. The place where we photograph from may change a bit. We shall see what we shall see.

I urge you to pick a place, take your digital camera there and try this experiment yourself.

Friday Cat Blogging: Teenage Hopes Arrive Edition

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Topaz, you may recall, came to me with respiratory issues manifesting in the form of a weepy right eye. The vet promised me the condition bothered me more than it bothered Topaz so I let it go. As the temperature dropped, hatches were battened against the weather and the apartment felt snug, then stuffy. So did Topaz, who seemed to be constantly sneezing. On Wednesday, when I opened my bedroom door in the morning, the apartment felt like an oven and the sound of Topaz’s breathing was louder than the TV. I brought home a humidifier and set it up to run constantly. Minstrel advised what I pretty much guessed I should do, then the Chinese medicine consultant at the health food store agreed: eucalyptus drops in the humidifier. This morning, Topaz sneezed a bit but not much and was cranky enough to resist my efforts to wipe away a bit of snot. So: things are looking up. And speaking of looking up –

Topaz sits at Pete’s feet all the time and gazes up at him with all the sticky emotion one hopes to avoid in a torrid teenage love affair. Tuesday night, I was working on something and Pete said, “Get the camera.” Though Topaz usually sees the camera and takes a powder, this time Topaz sat still and blinked out her message of awkward, gooey love. Mostly, Pete ignores this peculiar source of unguarded affection, which reminds me that in high school he went out with the beautiful, shy blonde girl everyone stared at and sighed. I had forgotten he must have had awkward girls in pigeon-toed droves staring at him like this.

Yesterday was the longest day of my life, I think. I just have to get through today and then I’m off until 3 January; crucial, as I am running on fumes. Wednesday morning, I dragged a case of Joint Juice to my office, plus two packages to be mailed out, lunch and oranges for my co-workers. It was too much for me to carry, really, which I discovered during the quarter-mile trek from my car to the library. The wind was blowing in great gusts. I put up the hood of my coat and threw my messenger bag over my shoulder, which pushed hair in my eyes. I balanced the whole load and set off, pretty much blind. A minute later, I realized I was standing on a 30′ sheet of ice in 2″ heels, carrying more than I should. I wish I had this on video for you. You would enjoy it. I’ve recovered nicely!

Somehow, I got across the street before the case of Joint Juice shifted. Instead of plummeting to the ground it flew up in the air. I juggled it – juggled it – juggled it, then BLAM! It slammed to the sidewalk and one side burst open. I burst out laughing. A wide-eyed, almost hysterically earnest young woman appeared out of nowhere and helped me gather up the little cans. Still laughing, I said, “You have to admit: this is pretty funny.” She exclaimed, with deep feeling, “I have an exam. THANK YOU.” After she disappeared – whoosh! – back into nowhere, I toddled another fifty feet before I heard the shopping bag in my left hand tear. I put the bag down and marched into the library, where a man I know pretended not to be wetting his pants at my misfortune. He took the box of Joint Juice. I went back outside, gathered up disintegrating shopping bag and its contents. Then I went downstairs to tell everyone I was having a bad day with containers and should in no way make coffee. Fortunately, the office was out of bottled water.

Pete looks at Topaz and in his best Jan Brady voice says, “Drusy, Drusy, Drusy!” Pete claims Topaz has a Drusy doll stuck full of pins. As you can see, our long-legged princess doesn’t seem to care – not when there’s festive tissue paper to steal and destroy! Gift-giving holidays are a boon to the pussycats, who try to help with these chores. Tuesday night, Drusy stole and de-ribboned presents as fast as I wrapped them. I couldn’t get mad about it, though. She looked so happy, vanquishing the raffia. I almost didn’t have the heart to steal them back.

I have agreed to catsit for the people upstairs again. They bribed me with homemade pralines so good I wanted to slap them for the extra pounds on my butt. So next week: double your pleasure, double the cats.

Your Haunted Social Scene

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From Wintle, our field reporter in the Land of Do-Goodery:

Yesterday was the last day that Amazon could guarantee delivery by Christmas. Therefore today is the first day the procrastinators shop!

Don’t want to give clutter to someone who has an uncluttered life? Don’t know how to gift to someone who so impresses you that you somehow suspect they wouldn’t appreciate a singing fish for their den? Want to kiss your bosses ass, but don’t know the slightest thing about what they like? Looking to get with the cute new receptionist with the Suicide Girls tattoo?

Christmas (and their ilk) conjures up dread in the souls of many. There is a cultural imperative to stoke the coals of capitalism by giving things to family, lovers and other people who wield power over our dreams and aspirations. Tribute must be given. A “thoughtful gift” is required. You tried the Barnes & Noble gift cards last year and it didn’t go over all that well, really, did it? Something new. Something different. Something that will get you laid.

The web site Changing the Present allows you to pick from a myriad charities (some really fun and unusual ones), nicely organized by category. You donate to the charity through the site. They send 100% the money to the charity (you pay the credit-card fee), plus they can send you (or the recipient) a nice physical card announcing the gift (Since yesterday was the XMas deadline for that, you might want to go with the eCard option). You get a statement for tax purposes. They even have an application for facebook addicts. Pretty cool, huh?

If you want more details you can read them here.

He’s always miles ahead. Thanks, Wintle.

A Spot On the Sidewalk In the City

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I.

Pete has a cold but we still have scads to do, so yesterday, whenever possible, he held still and stayed warm in front of the TV. I made yogurt for the week, then made crepes for the Italian Christmas Eve manicotti. When I emerged from the kitchen, Pete was watching The Sand Pebbles. At intervals I didn’t understand, film guys sitting on film guy chairs would talk about the historical context of the movie, which was the Yangtze River in 1926. Let’s just say it was a bad year to be an American imperialist, but an even worse year to defend American imperialism on a Navy gunboat, especially if you weren’t an American. This movie is full of torch-wielding angry mobs.

Gritty. A minute or two after the end of this clip, the student-soldiers marched into the square and stood at attention for a while, looking for all the world like boys playing dress up. Our ingenue skipped lightly down the stairs and I said, as Candace Bergen, “Who wants cookies?” Then I went back into the kitchen to make breakfast. When I returned to the living room, where Pete was stationed on the couch, with breakfast on giant plates, one of those angry mobs was chasing Mako down a pier. I got a sick feeling and ducked into the kitchen for my coffee. A minute later, that mob had caught Mako and was in the process of torturing him as his shipmates looked on helplessly from a safe distance when this happened:

Tata: What the fuck is going on here?
Mako: [Screaming]
Chinese Character: Poor Po-Han! Someone should shoot him.
Mako: [Screaming]

No white man would suggest such a thing; thank Christ the Chinese guy is there to think outside the procedural box. Steve McQueen grabs a gun and runs somewhere for a clear shot. Richard Crenna chases him as if to stop him. Steve McQueen takes aim and hesitates. He loves Mako!

Tata: SHOOT HIM, YOU DOUCHEBAG.

Steve McQueen shoots. Mako recoils, obviously dead. I spend the rest of the day trying not to throw up.

Tata: Have you seen this movie before?
Pete: My parents took us to the drive-in and we sat in the back seat.
Tata: How old were you?
Pete: Six or seven.
Tata: Jesus Christ. That same scenario came up in The Cowboys and made me sick for weeks. I’m almost afraid to ask what they were doing to Mako.
Pete: It was the death by a thousand cuts. Can you imagine bleeding to death by a thousand cuts?
Tata: I would never have guessed that from what we saw, and I saw too much. That’s going to bother me for a while.
Pete: They cut a lot out. That scene’s been bothering me since I was a little kid.

II.

The unnamed university employs a man who does one thing, and one thing only: he removes gum from sidewalks. This is his whole job. Each day, he goes to buildings on campus, of which there are a great many, and scrapes gum off the sidewalk. Though I’ve worked at the unnamed university nearly all of my lengthy adult life, I had not encountered this man until a couple of months ago, when I was startled to realize the sidewalk leading from the street to the library was generously dappled with gum. Since then, I have stared at this walkway many times. There’s gum everywhere I had not noticed. It would not occur to me to stand next to a garbage can and drop gum on the ground. It’s an idea I would not have, and though the thought disgusts me, apparently a lot of people can have the same disgusting idea, at least in passing.

III.

There is no excuse for torture, and no excuse for defending it.

Period.