Here in the Ides of January, 2024, we of the Fuuuuutuuuuuure have cured cancer, solved the Riddle of the Sphinx and easily feed the world. We walk tall and cast long shadows. Our jet packs propel us hither and yon, and all that road surface has been returned to arable land. Everyone says please, thank you, and Remember GoFundMes for cancer treatment? Home Owners Associations are gracious when disabled people need help and accommodations. Individually, we recognize that other people will be better at some sorts of work than us and we enjoy their successes, as they improve everyone’s lives. Once we cured Alzheimers and other forms of dementia, we no longer feared aging and welcomed its wisdom. We value the lives of children enough to educate and protect them from violence, and their comfort is a comfort to us all. Our economy is organized around research and development of technologies that enhance our quality of life and harmony with Nature. Oceans are free of toxic trash. Ice shelves model stability and, from year to year, weather and Dad jokes remain the same. It was challenging when we decided to care about the future our grandchildren were born into enough to change how we did business, how we conducted ourselves and how we governed ourselves, but it was worth it.

With a chance to reflect on weird shit in one’s past, one may conclude ‘That’s who I was, that’s what I did or didn’t do, that’s how it turned out,’ and shrug. Events weren’t going to turn out better or worse, since I was there and made that mess. Or didn’t. Who the hell knows, anymore? One of my older cousins isn’t speaking now to any of my father’s children because 30 years ago I asked what happened to my grandmother’s older brother and my older cousin didn’t want to open that or any other can of worms. It annoys me that the older ones in the family are planning to take all the secrets with them, but short of pumping a tartuffo full of truth serum, what are the options really?

Four years ago, my mother joined The Choir Invisible and somehow still manages to trill a confusing tune. My sister Daria recently found this recipe my mother photocopied in the seventies. In my mother’s papers we found piles of photocopied recipes from the same era – and probably the same Xerox machines – that were the result of many office parties with co-workers from all over the Northern Hemisphere. She may have enjoyed Sauerkraut Cake or simply asked for the recipe to be polite, but I feel sure this recipe originated somewhere in a fervent desire not to starve and its people migrated to the U.S., where heavy cream is available in drugstore refrigerators on every corner. Or near cows. People have cows. Did she make this cake? Did I sample it? All that is lost in the mists of Time. I’m not making that cake – ever.

Yesterday, I bought chickpea flour. This comes with its own conflicts for me. My family called chickpeas ceci beans. I will deny under oath I ever called them chickpeas and you did not hear me say that. Right? Exactly. We’re all ashamed. Eeeeeeeons ago, I watched an Italian cooking show in Spanish from Latin America, and while it’s totally crucial to know that I don’t speak Spanish, I am reasonably conversant in Italian food. That chef made a form of Sicilian pizza with a ceci bean flour layer. I was scandalized! I was intrigued! I forgot about it until yesterday, when I decided the past wasn’t getting any less confusing. Fritters made from ceci bean flour are called panelle. They have few ingredients and are a testament to the ability of Sicilians to survive on very little, but was that a lost part of our food tradition? I have no way of knowing if it was, because it isn’t anymore. Related: in my mother’s recipe box, I discovered most of the Italian recipes my family cherishes came from such authentic sources as Good Housekeeping.

What happened to us? Everyone who would tell us is gone, and the one who could tell won’t talk. We have been making messes now long enough that they’re ours. So I’m going to make panelle. Maybe I’ll be embarrassing forty years from now.

This is a happy story. That’s how I start telling people about what I’m doing. I say, “This is a happy story. My oldest friend died and -”

Eyes glaze over. People want to protect themselves from other people’s sorrows, and who can blame them? I can’t. We all carry about as much as we can handle. But not everything is what we expect, and some things can still be pretty goddamn funny. You may or may not remember that when I started the cat blanket project with the lovely Georg, I was a reasonably terrible knitter, but who cared? Cats don’t! The two points were to comfort shelter cats and keep yarn out of landfill. After I made dozens of knitted blankets, I learned to crochet and we were off to the races. Crocheting the same amount of space-filling fabric is much faster and I suck at it so much less. Plus, it’s a lot like performance art: no one knows what you meant to do. Maybe you meant to do that!

Here, we see two of Trout’s sweater project panels. I pulled these panels out of the bags, separated the yarn balls and cut off the strands of mohair, to which I am allergic. Probably. The jewel tones were so beautiful it was almost worth hives and possible gasping explanations to EMTs, but honestly, there are only so many times you can say, “I knew I was allergic, and I was stupid enough to go ahead anyway” before you say to yourself, “Hey, so: give that shit away.” On Friday, a friend of the family stopped by, left the engine running and took away three large bags of mohair yarn.

I knitted these panels off their needles, then crocheted borders to extend these panels into cat blanket sizes. It’s important to remember one thing:

I continue to suck as a knitter. Trout was a fine, right-handed knitter with a tight gauge, and I simply am not. I’m left-handed and haven’t knitted much in years. However, cats do not care. Thanks to Trout, cats will have two more cozy blankets. Hooray!

If you stitch, there’s a shelter near you that needs blankets. You can help even if you suck at it!

Yesterday, I saw this.

That’s a ring around the sun. I’m sure this phenomenon has a Greek or Latin name, but I don’t know it. My friend Snake says it portends rain or snow, and that’s what I get for looking up. So, friends, if you’re in Central Jersey and it snows on you, that may be my fault.

Oops.

It’s funny what you can see when you’re not really looking. Pete was driving through our tiny town and noticed the paint stripers had striped paint where no cars were supposed to park. But no cars were supposed to park on that side of the street, which you surmise from the sign saying NO PARKING, so do not park there. But also do not park there because because the corner is nearby and you will obstruct visibility for other drivers, who also should not park there. For all of these reasons, do not park there. I don’t know how Pete failed to drive off the road, laughing.

In 2022, my life changed a lot. I retired from the unnamed university in the late spring after 35 years, the last few of which were torturous. The library system was in the clutches of a malignant narcissist and control freak, and finally, I couldn’t stand being an object any longer. I flounced off to my home and stayed there all summer, jarring peaches.

Retiring – no matter what anyone says – takes some fucking practice. Because I’d worked two, three and at one awful point four jobs most of my adult life, having free time feels like an elevator in freefall. The idea that I can just sit quietly and not berate myself for doing nothing is new, even now. Last spring, I started taking long walks around the tiny town, and almost right away realized I saw things I’d never noticed before each time I put on my sneakers. Near my house, a wisteria plant has eaten a garage. Fifteen years ago, this garage was in use. Now, no one who isn’t a lumberjack is getting inside that door. Behind me, as I took this picture, the wisteria is climbing an oak tree. One day it will interfere with Newark Airport’s flight path, and no one is going to stop it.

The other day, I woke up to a feline-based poopsplosion on two floors and because I am retired, I had time to mop. Then I had time to consider whether I’d missed spots. I then had time to advise Pete to change his socks and mop a second time. My house smelled like lemon-scented cleanliness and not pot roast and farts, like your house – unless you’re a vegetarian, in which case your house smells like kidney beans and farts. It’s December! Everyone’s house smells farty, but in any case, for a brief, shining moment, my house smelled lemony.

With Twitter descending into unmoderated Hell, I’ve joined a bunch o’ different social media sites, though I’ll probably narrow it down to one or two soon. Too much words! Too many talk! One site I can’t figure out at all. Anyhoo, the idea of writing again is one I had not considered until a couple months ago, and it seemed like if I’m going to do that, I should start here. Who am I anymore? Who is even talking? I both know and don’t know. Maybe we’ll find out at the same time.

Well, hello there. I remember you.

The Lovely Georg, first of her name, practical joker and fiber artist beyond compare, sent yarn for the ongoing cat blanket project, promising they would be immune from the predation of porch pirates. She would explain nothing more. I asked if she’d mailed me a live skunk, but no answers were forthcoming. A few days later, I was standing on my front porch when a letter carriers appeared in a torrential downpour carrying two enormous wee wee pad boxes and knew immediately they weren’t full of pads. For one thing, I don’t have a dog. For another, the letter carrier did not struggle with the weight of the boxes. When I quit guffawing, I explained why those boxes had arrived at this destination. He was a pretty good sport about the whole affair.

I’m not going to claim to know you, but I may know two or three things about you. The pandemic changed everything for me. It changed me. We can talk about this later, but I will say I no longer have a moment to offer people who waste my time. Life is very goddamn short. Grab your purse, fellas. We’ve got places to go.