For the last year, my son has been recovering from necessary surgery. He was a key member of his high school football team, leaving the year with a memorable game where he scored the only touchdowns that led the team to their state championship. His strength was his speed. After the season was over, we discovered a tumor on his knee that forced him to be operated on in April of 2009. Fortunately, the tumor was benign and he is fine. But it left him unable to continue his athletic career in college. He’s a young kid and had to give up his sport before he was ready. I relate to his pain but in a different way.
I admit to approaching my 60s in body yet my mind is around 35 to 40 years old. I still love to ski, to dance and to wear clothes that are probably not age appropriate. I went skiing this Saturday for the first time this season and while I loved it, my body aches from the inactive muscles of the summer. I dance but I wonder if I look old and foolish because I don't know the latest and greatest steps. I love wearing footless tights with skirts slightly above my knee but while I can make the look work, everything above the hips are of a different generation. If I lived in NYC, I would probably blend. But I don’t. I live in a suburban town on the outskirts of the city where trendy doesn’t exist for a mother of 3 adult children.
Is it time to give it up? Do I care what other people think or am I comfortable with who I am to not give a hoot. I care. I don't want to look ridiculous but I do want to do and wear what I like. I don’t think my deciding to wear a short skirt with footless tights will be a life altering decision, but skiing, well it is a little more threatening. I am not athletic in any other way and I’m not a bad skier. I love the whole atmosphere of the sport. There is nothing like being on the scenic mountains, the feeling of control on the slopes and the thrill of accomplishment at the end of the day. If I don’t ski, there is no instead, no alternative. I’m not good at doing nothing and everyone knows there is no thrill to being on the treadmill.
During this year's football playoffs, I was routing for the Minnesota Vikings because I like Brett Favre. My son dislikes him because Favre retired and then changed his mind. Favre thought he could walk away but he wasn’t ready. Maybe he was trying for the big win before he left - the Super Bowl. It didn’t happen. The Vikings are out. I felt bad for him and, in some way, could relate. I don’t want to be out, I want to walk out content with my decision. I think that will happen when I find the thing that takes the place of skiing or the footless tights whatever that may be.
My whole life I have heard that line every Christmas season. The famous Virginia of a Christmas past who wrote to the NY Sun newspaper asking whether there was a Santa Claus. While the response was historic, the line I love is "Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias".
This year, this Virginia is looking at Christmas past, present and future. The past spent in the home of my parents born of another country in simpler times, unaccustomed to the frivolity and commercialism of the Christmas season of today. My brother and I were given one gift each (not one from each person, just one gift) and were forced by my father to wait until 5 pm on Christmas day before we were allowed to open it. I suppose it was to teach us to be patient. It didn't.
The Christmas past with my own family was much different with lots of decorations and new traditions. For years, we would started the season on the Saturday by driving to a farm after Thanksgiving to cut down our own Christmas tree. My husband and I would have this make-believe argument about what size tree we should have (I envisioned one comparable to that of Rock Center while Tony favored the love starved, Charlie Brown tree). Sometime during December, we would invite friends for a traditional white elephant gift exchange holiday party giving me the chance to cook hopefully dazzle my friends with homemade Armenian specialties. It seemed to work because they cam back every year and with the same junky gift they got the year before. Then on Christmas day, the kids would get up at some ungodly early morning hour to open gifts.
Christmas today is with a fake tree that comes out of a box and decorations that are from Crate and Barrel. The Christmas morning sound of kids running through the house with excitement has been replaced by their sleep deprived grunts of dragging them out of bed sometime around 9 am to open gifts. After which, they would go back to bed for another few hours of rest while I cooked. It is different from the past but it is the evolution.
Who knows what the Christmas of the future will be like or where we will be. Every year, the friends who made up our Christmas day either change or relocate to another place. The street I live on is comprised of multi-ethnic families that do not decorate. Our Santa and snowman figurines on the lawn are reminders of Christmases when the kids were little and still believed in miracles. Times have changed and we have too. My mother in law reaching 84 years old this year is not coming Christmas nor does she want anyone to pick her up. She is not upset, just more afraid of travel. I remember as my aunts’ aged, they also passed up holidays to be alone within the quiet comfort of their home rather than in the hustle of the day. It seemed strange to me then, but not anymore.
I hope I always want to be in the hustle of the day, but if I don’t, I hope my kids will understand. I hope I always want to be among friends but if I can’t go to their house, I hope they come to mine. I hope my kids will always be happy throughout their lives and love Christmas. If one year they don't, I hope they remember the Christmas’ of the past and look to make changes for a better one next year.
The translation is "Gone to Armenia, talk to you soon, Love". I am leaving Tuesday for a trip to my heritage land. Going to Greece first where I will be with my cousins and then travel to Armenia where my one cousin and I will be staying with her sister in the capital, Yerevan. There are so many things I am afraid of:
flying, yet not afraid enough to stop me
getting sick, as I hear that I should not drink the water in Armenia
leaving my family as I am traveling alone.
coming back to find out I have been laid off
packing
I can deal with the first two. I love traveling and will have to take a plane if I want to go where I want to go. Getting sick, well I'll try not to. Leaving my family, that's a tough one. When I booked the trip, it seemed easy. My kids are self-sufficient and perfectly able to take care of themselves. What am I worried about? I don't think it is about them missing me. It is more that I will miss them. When I visit my family in Greece, I don't cook, I don't clean and I don't run errands. How do I deal with relaxation? It is so not me.
Coming back to find out I have been laid off - well I stressed about that for a while. But after working all this weekend, I am done stressing. If a company is stupid enought to lay someone off that works 10 hours for each of 2 days and 5 hours each on Saturday and Sunday to clean up all her work before vacation, then they do not deserve me. F--- them.
Now packing, there is the real challenge. I still don't understand how one can plan their wardrobe for 8 days without knowing what they will encounter in their travels. I can't do this with less than 6 pairs of shoes - can you? There are comfortable shoes, heels, the just-in-case shoes, and the shoes that go with one outfit that you must have. I refuse to look like the American tourist in sneakers, sweatpants and the fanny pack. Ugh, no way!
So I am gone from 10/6 through 10/17. I promise to take pictures to post.
Sirov,
In 1969, I looked like this – hip hugger jeans, floral empire waist dresses and long, curly hair that I ironed so I could look like Joan Baez. It is 40 years later, and I am still dressing like that. Same style dresses, still in my hip hugger jeans, and with hair that I sometimes get tempted to pull out the iron along with pulling out the gray hair that gets past my dye. My cousin, in the photo with me, was always the neat and tidy one while I was politely referred to by my aunts as, "the free spirit".
In 1969, the news was not all that good - the Manson murders had just taken place, and the evening news reported the daily trauma and death count from the Vietnam War that incited riots in colleges everywhere.
I had just graduated high school. I was a shy kid in what seemed at the time to be a big school. I guess I was a non-descript student - not athletic (not that there were so many choices for girls back then), did not go to my prom and had no idea what my future was going to be about. So many girls were either getting married or going to college after high school. I was doing neither.
During high school, I worked at a local handbag company and made friends with a girl who was around my age. She told me about this 3 day concert in August in upstate New York called Woodstock. Knowing it would be a stretch to get my parents to let me go to this event, I brought my friend to my home and introduced her to my parents. They liked her and somehow, they let me go. I think my mother might have convinced my father that this would be a good idea. She understood I was lonely and that going up to the mountains of the Catskills with a nice friend to an outdoor concert sounded like a nice, peaceful vacation.
Memory doesn't serve me well after 40 years so a lot of what I did or saw isn't all that clear. But, this weekend, I saw the movie "Taking Woodstock". It all came back to me – I sat in the movie theater alone recognizing the Route 17 we took to get there, the grocery store we bought food at, the lake where people swam and the hill that some slid down on that Sunday when the rain came again. It was all there. Not the music, just us and this area in Sullivan County. Someone saw what I saw and brought it all back.
At home, I was not the popular one, or the rich one or the going to college one. At Woodstock, while many of us were the shy one or the I-don’t-know-where-I-am-going one, that weekend I was surrounded by my kind. We all met and took this vacation from the reality of the world for just a few days. We helped each other with food, heard some of the concert and somehow, made it through the 3 days without incident.
Last week, a friend invited Tony and I to meet his new lady and see his new home in Wurtsboro, NY. We had a lovely day in this town, which is near the Basha Kill, a beautiful nature preserve. It turns out, we are in Sullivan County, home of the Bethel Woods site of the 1969 Woodstock festival. The simplicity of the countryside came back to me. The natural beauty of the area, its undeveloped landscape, and its acceptance of the shy kid who didn’t know where her life was going beyond that August weekend – it all came back to me. For a short time that day, I did not work in corporate America or had responsibilities. It was 1969 again.
I learned more about Woodstock in the aftermath than when I was there. I didn’t realize then that it would be this historical event and that my being there would be the thing that made me cool to my kids and interesting to others. I am not that shy kid anymore. I am not lonely, have direction and adult responsibility. But, I will go back to Sullivan County more now because it tugs at my desire to be that free spirit again even for a little while.
I am a very good cook - maybe a very, very good cook. I enjoy it and love having people over to cook for. I usually prefer up to 6 people at a time as it is easier to manage a recipe for that many people although I have been known to make meals for 20 that haven't turned out too badly either. The larger parties usually mean a less complicated and less expensive menu that consists of pasta and a roast of some kind. On the shelf alongside my favorite cookbooks, I have a 3-ring black binder with recipes I collect from magazines, newspapers and from people who's meals I have enjoyed and are willing to share the formula of their creation. Having said that, I cannot remember if I have ever followed a recipe where I did not alter it to accommodate the likes or dislike of an ingredient, suit my taste more or use up something that has been in the fridge too long.
With much anticipation, this weekend, I saw the movie Julie and Julia. The movie was okay - Meryl was great as was her character. I found the Amy Adams role a little dull. Seeing the movie however, spark my interest to pull out my 1971 copy of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" and cook one of the recipes. So I spent most of Saturday shopping for and cooking boeuf bourguignon (page 315).
The results were excellent - even if I do say so myself, but not without alteration. The recipe calls for 3 cups of very good red wine and 2 - 3 cups beef stock.
a) that is too much liquid as only 3 total cups is needed to cover the meat.
b) unless you make the beef stock yourself, the store bought version is either salty or tasteless (low sodium version).
c) 3 cups of red wine adds a sharp taste to the sauce that can be unpleasant. 2 cups is enough.
d) my frugal personality cannot pour over 1/2 a bottle of good wine into a sauce when I could be pouring it down my throat.
Other adjustments included using pancetta as I had a piece in my freezer and I couldn't find a slab of bacon in my hopelessly white-breadish Stop & Shop. The same for not using thyme as I wanted fresh and it was nowhere to be found.
As usual, I blame my mother for causing this inability to not follow recipes in its strictest detail. She never owned a measuring spoon, never measured a thing, and used regular cups (not measuring cups) to determine the right amount of flour. Recipes for Armenian foods are not easy to come by, so if I wanted to learn how to cook these foods, I had to sit in front of her taking out what she put into the bowl to measure it and then write it down. She so hated my doing that as it interrupted her thought process. Consequently, it was not quality mother/daughter time.
I have found that there are cookbooks meant to cook and others meant to teach. Julia's cookbook is meant to teach you how to cook as stated in her forward which goes, "Our primary purpose in this book is to teach you how to cook, so that you will understand the fundamental techniques and gradually be able to divorce yourself from a dependence on recipes"
To summarize, spend quality time with your mother by buying the cookbook and then get a divorce.
My daughter asks me every week, "why haven't you blogged". I don't know I say. I have a list of about 5 topics that I want to write about and never do. So I am coming back with pictures of what has been going on in the last few months. And a big thank you to you Christine for bugging me to come back.
A lot of this is about Thomas but it was, after all, his last year in high school and a great year too:
Thomas' prom - don't they look handsome!
Tom's Graduation
The Graduation Block Party:
Ever see so much testosterone!
Having way too much fun
And the girl's aren't bad either (they're the ones in the skirts)
The "young_old man" at bat. Form is still good, right!
And July 4th fireworks in Manhattan pictures:
I am posting twice today as some what of a makeup - second post - Julia and me. Still to come, the Paul McCartney concert and more altered recipes.
Twenty four years ago, I made the decision to be a parent. At the time, I could not imagine my life without kids and still can't. I'm lucky. I didn't have to struggle much to get them, but it sure has been an adventure having them. I could tell you it was a joy all the way through but the truth is, there were challenges along the way.
Last weekend was Mother's Day. I never want gifts, a card - one that expressed their feelings, was all I hoped for. I got what I wanted. I read the card that my eldest son picked that said "I see how you put your needs aside for me" and think that he may have realized that our social life revolved around his schedule and his friends and his enjoyment. The card my daughter picked said "I realize how lucky I was to have someone like you to depend on" and think of the days when she felt alone and needed our presence. And the Snoopy card my youngest chose offering a hug instead of a clean room - yeah that's right.
They think so much of me yet, there is so much more that I wish I could do but know that I should not or can not do. I wish there was an easier road for them to take but there isn't. I cannot interfere with their choices in love even when I know the partner is so wrong for them. I can not make their coach pick them for a play even though I know they should be picked because they are that good. I cannot ask their friends not to disappoint them by canceling plans last minute. If I did, that would be the utmost sin a parent can do. These are the facts of life - it isn't always fair and there isn't any other way to learn it except to get through it. Yes, I deserve a lot of credit for doing the hardest thing a parent can do and that is not to parent. I let them fall and I don't sleep that night because I don't want them to feel the pain.
I sometimes wonder how my own mother did it. I was not a perfect child. In my young adult years, I stayed out too late, dated the wrong guy and made the wrong choices about my future. I guess the answer is that she let me fall and because of it, things didn't turn out too bad after all. She never seemed to struggle with those decisions. She just seemed to me to be a smart woman who put her needs aside for me and for who I could depend on. I can only hope.
