Good Day Sunshine

4/27/15

Today is dreary, wet, dark, windy, disorganized, quiet...a classic April Monday. I am sunburnt from the weekend's baseball game, so I'm simultaneously sweaty and shivering. What a combination...

These kinds of days used to be spent at a campus apartment in a room overflowing with Neil Gaiman, boxes of saffron tea, half-finished writing projects, skeins of yarn, books upon books upon books,  piles of shoes, West Wing re-runs. 

Now they're spent dutifully in an office, playing dress-up with black slacks and white button-downs, hair twirled up, pearls in my ears. Later tonight, I will drive to my graystone house on the hill and be glad for the greeting of a slobbery dog, for my husband's welcoming smile. 

But right now, I'd rather visit that campus apartment and watch some West Wing.

Butts

I posted a cutesy picture of my husband this week and I think maybe a million people liked it. Same with pictures of the pie I baked. And my dog. My #tbt of our first wedding anniversary. Instant hits.

Then one morning, I posted a Bible verse that cropped up during my readings and commented with a note about bringing peace, working together, recognizing shared humanity, etc. It was not eloquent, it was not long, but I hoped to at least recognize the presence of Christ in the midst of tragedy instead of calling out haters and perpetuating the cycle of online negativity. It was such a far cry from my normal puppy pictures. Surely this would get so many hits. What a conversation we could have! So I posted. And waited. And waited.
And waited.
Nothing.

Finally, a notification. Let the conversation begin!
 
Except....not. It was my mother. I could post about watching paint dry and my mother would click the thumb's up. Might as well have actually posted about watching paint dry for all the conversation it spawned.

I'm a weird Millennial. I don't usually post about politics, religious conflicts, current events, personal slights, family things, etc. I do grapple with these issues, just not publicly. There's enough drama and arguments without my contributions, because Lord knows I used to jump right in and say whatever I thought sounded best, even if I hadn't researched the issue to even develop an informed opinion...especially if I hadn't developed my own opinion. Maybe because of the chaos created from that impetuosity, I spend my opinion coins sparingly. I like to think they are worth more now.

Opinions are like butts. Everyone's got one. Doesn't mean you need to let it all hang out.

What I'm trying to say is that sometimes we forgo very important conversations for very shallow ones and walk away thinking we displayed prodigious skill and intelligence and dazzle everyone with our convincing arguments when really all we did was show off our butt.

Maybe we're just throwing away our opinion coins. Pearls to swine.

What a waste of a good butt.

Welcome back, me

Who knows why I ever started this blog. I'm glad I abandoned it for so long, because now I'm ensured complete privacy by lack of readership.

Hurrah for privacy!

First rule of publishing - alienate your audience.

I'm a closet Mennonite

There is a poultry farm, a dairy farm, a stone mason, a garden nursery and three farmer's stands less than a mile's radius from my house. A horse pasture backs up to my neighborhood. Behind my house is a pond, and beyond that is a farm with goats and sheep.

My office is in the campus of the Mennonite Heritage Center and down the street from a Mennonite Meetinghouse. One of my best friends graduated from a Mennonite high school and sometimes we drive slowly to pass tractors and avoid globs of roadside horse droppings.

Frick, Potshop, Schwenkfelder, Franconia, Wartman, Perkiomen, Groff, Lederach, Wambold, Fretz, Orvilla, Koffel, Weikel, Bustard, Derstine, Limekiln, Skippack, Applebutter, Cheese Factory.....


 .....All names of roads, not lung diseases.

Welcome to Mennonite territory.

Home sweet home.

Speechless (or, Part B)

Does the right word always exist? Does any adjective convey enough power to describe what a life has become, to illustrate its complete transformation? Maybe we need to invent new phrases for a dream that suddenly leaps into reality.

Because, for once, I have no words.

All I know is that my heart's desires are blooming into reality before my eyes, shifting out of tightly furled, half-hoped-for achings and suddenly blossoming to life, huge and vibrant, breathtaking as a leap into sheer air.

I can't tell you how I felt when I shook hands with my new boss as he welcomed me into the company for a position far above my level of experience or knowledge.

I can't tell you how I felt when my mother called me, sobbing, saying that my grandfather was in the hospital - yet again - for cancer. I am equally inarticulate about the day my big sister announced that a baby was on the way. Elation, coupled with fear of the unknown. Has every new baby been welcomed with such a mixture of joy and terror? Indescribable joy and unfathomable pain, sharing the same heartspace.

There are no words for the October evening when my best friend knelt in front of me with a ring for my left hand, voice shaking and eyes shining, but with a full heart fit to burst with love.

That was the moment my heart stopped talking and it began to sing instead.

Sometimes, there are no words left. And that's where the music begins.

Life called just when I lost signal.

I've missed my life calling.

As I stood at the kitchen counter, chopping zucchini with one hand, sauteing bacon and onions in butter with the other and checking on the homemade stuffing with my free hand (yes, I have three hands. Doesn't that explain a lot now?), I realized that this was what I've always, always loved to do. Perhaps it was the smell of fresh bacon that did it, or maybe catching myself narrating each step of my original recipe aloud was the clincher, but suddenly, it hit me.

I've missed my life calling as a TV chef.

Yes, the Food Network is my true home. After years of studying the English language and nearly blinding myself with pouring over its treasured tomes of literature, my passion rears its creative head, not in writing, but in cooking. I take great pride in flipping the perfect omelette, in minced onion blended with mashed garlic and spread over a toasted, buttered baguette just so. I narrate to myself constantly, inventing sometimes-bizarre meals out of basic ingredients (ergo, the advent of the Muen-dog Omelette), or testing a made-up a recipe for baked stuffed zucchini because I was bored and hungry (recipe soon to follow!). And yeah, I did just whip out homemade ice cream. Oh, you don't like ice cream? That's ok--I got more concoctions up my sleeve that you can even guess. I'm a kitchen fiend. Throwing seven different kinds of smoke over the stove here. Oh wait...sorry, no, that's the steam from MY HOMEMADE LONDON BROIL. If I wasn't me, I would totally marry myself.

Four years of college misdirected. Twenty-two years' energy wasted. Thousands of appetites left empty, possibly millions of empty stomachs, all starving, because I never taught them how to make my special holiday version of snickerdoodle cookies.

There's my plans put to shame. Oh wait...I don't have any plans anymore.

Looks like I'm setting up a videocamera in my kitchen and finally putting my YouTube account to good use.

BOOM. ROASTED.
__________________________

Baked Stuffed Zucchini

Ingredients:
1 large (or 2 medium) zucchini
1 box Stouffer's Whole Wheat Stuffing
1/4 cup onion, minced
4 strips cooked bacon, minced
1 1/3 cups water (for stuffing)
1 1/2 tbs butter (for stuffing)

Prep time: 15 minutes
Bake time: 20-25 minutes

Prepare stuffing as directed on box. Boil zuccini whole for 8 minutes, turning at 4 minutes to evenly cook. When done, cut zucchini into quarters, and scoop out the pulp, chopping it finely. Place the zucchini quarters in greased baking pan. Saute the bacon and onion together, and add to the stuffing. Combine stuffing mixture and chopped pulp. Spoon mixture into zucchini quarters and bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes.

This is Part A, because I'm convinced Part B will follow.

I didn't think it would be like this.

Frustrating, sure. Moneyless, absolutely. Only a lucky few college graduates walk off the platform and into a full-time, permanent job. The rest of us press into the workforce, fired up and ready to hand out resumes to whomever will take them.

But not deadening. Not suffocating. Didn't see that one coming.

I get that some level of disillusionment is normal. I understand that, after such an adrenaline-drenched experience as college, the process of coming down off that high is often an emotionally brittle time. I also realize that trying to reason this with your heart only goes so far.

In all honesty, I'm not worried about the job search itself; there will always be jobs for people willing to work. No, it's that I think I've burned the candle at both ends so long that I've burnt myself out, long before I even got started on what really matters. I feel like I've used up all my energy and talents, so that there is very little left to work with. That's not exactly a comforting realization at the onset of a job search meant to propel the searcher into a fulfilling and decently well-paying career of...well, we'll get to that.

The only thing I know these days is this: Deus providebit.

Then again...isn't that all we ever need to know?