I was up at 5 a.m. to do some writing before leaving for Cliffs of Moher and Galway on Wild Rover Tours. It’s clear across the country, as Dublin is on the east coast and rather central and this day trip would take us straight across the the west coast and the Atlantic Ocean.
We met the bus at 6:55.
We left the hotel at 6:30.
I experienced some unusual motion sickness. So M took that as an occasion to drug me on the way home.
We stopped at a service plaza where I purchased overnight oats that turned out to be the best oatmeal I ever had.
The Cliffs were gorgeous but they had a lot of wind. The wind tossed people around.
Ireland has stone walls that serve as property lines and date back 5,000 years. I knew that, in a way, but I did not suspect how many there are. They are everywhere. The Burren, as Stephen the tour guide said, had some of the most welcoming, beautiful scenery anywhere in the world. As M said, “I don’t usually get off on a field of grass but…”
I don’t have many photos because I needed to save my phone’s battery life as we were away all day. The bus had USB charging ports but I have a USB-C cord. Perhaps if M reads this he will send some of his photos.
But I do have a video of some unusual, but also ordinary, traffic. Keep in mind, they drive on the left in Ireland so that narrow passageway in the video is indeed the other lane. “This is what we call gridlock traffic” Click here.
The craziest part of the day was when we reached Claddagh Jewellers on Shop Street in Galway, I felt something family about the branding of the shop. I studied the window displays and I found the wedding rings Darrell Parry and I ordered from the Irish store, Donegal Square, in downtown Bethlehem. We spent hundreds of dollars on them and waited for months for them to arrive from Ireland.
And we got compliments on them all the time. In the last photo in the series, the gold ring directly in the center of the bottom row is the men’s version.
I wish I could tell you I went to bed early last night, but at 7 p.m. I got my second or third wind. M suggested Indian takeaway, because we felt it would be a great experience to get takeaway, because Americans do take-out and our takeaways are lessons not dinner.
And Spice & Rice had fal— an extremely spicy item.
He did not order fal. He ordered spicy chicken vindaloo and I ordered lamb korma, which shocked him because I don’t normally do mild dishes. I got the meal for one deal for 20.95 euros, which included a drink, a starter, a pilau rice, a naan (I got mango peshwaari)and poppadom. So much food. I don’t know how they consider that meal for one. That is easily meal for two.
We wandered down to the restaurant around 7:30 p.m. and it was dead, enough so that M was nervous that maybe the food would be bad. While the food cooked, we meandered to the end of the block to Peader Brown‘s, a traditional Irish pub that has a history of Irish Republicanism. They had several televisions visible from the tented outdoor area as they were at capacity because of the World Cup Qualifying match between the Czech Republic and Ireland.
The moon was bright and the game was amazing, each time we went to return for our takeaway, the Irish team scored. We wondered if maybe we were a good luck charm.
We read the pro-Palestine posters, and M even noticed a Palestinian flag across the street. That’s not surprising as the Irish are acutely aware of the politics of ownership by occupation.
We also started calling the Czech team and each other feckin eejits as I had stopped at a curiosities shop earlier in the day where they had some interesting mugs and dirty feckin eejit soap. (“Weird is wonderful,” the window said.”
This also led to M and I conversing about why Ireland has such a “cussing culture” and my hypothesis went to the idea that the Irish have a long history as a working class culture, people who have survived on an island for a very long time (in Dublin’s case 900 years).
Speaking of oddities, I saw a sign in the window of the barber:
“Spectacles and Wooden Legs always Wanted.”
We brought the takeaway back to our room where we stuffed ourselves with a delicious feast that we could not finish. So we piled it into the fridge, but we have no microwave so we may need to reheat it with some creativity with hot water from the electric kettle.
And then we turned on the game.
Now we were exhausted and stuffing our faces with Indian food, but the Irish team was giving it their everything. And we couldn’t stop watching.
The game remained 2-2 and went into double overtime, and an Irish player and a Czech player collided so hard the Irish player left on a backboard. (I have to Google that and see if he’s okay.) Those boys were tired, sweaty, covered with grass stains and still playing an intense game.
And then it went to penalty kicks. M tapped out. He can’t handle penalty kicks. But I had to know who won. The Czech team missed the third kick. The Irish team missed the fourth. Then the Irish team missed the fifth and the Czechs did not. The Czechs won the game on the fifth penalty kick.
Last night didn’t go exactly as planned… there was a horde of children ages 5 to 8 and even kids in arm floaties in the hotel pool loudly playing Marco Polo at 8:30 p.m.
So Eva and I got our massive can of bar nuts out of the car and watched Treehouse Masters on HBO Max. Apparently, that’s one of her favorite shows from middle school that she used to watch when she slept over at her grandmother’s house.
Departing DoubleTree
We got up this morning and headed to breakfast– which made Eva very excited as they had a nice selection of bread and smoked salmon. I found it rather mediocre, but perfectly serviceable. It was not included with the room, but I paid for the add-on, so it was $25 for the two of us.
The server was delightful, and when I asked him about my breakfast with the room, he asked for my coupons, which they did not give me when I checked in. We went to the front desk and got them. He was very attentive and tried to find Eva dill pickles when she requested them, and he must have thought he succeeded because he brought her a very substantial pile of more bread and butter pickles.
Now, if I had to leave a review for this particular Doubletree, I would give it a three out of five stars. Do not compare this rating to any guidebook or official system. It was a decent hotel. It also smelled amazingly clean. But there are a few things that disappointed me:
They charged me twice for parking. I guess I’m going to have to sort that out.
They forgot my breakfast coupons.
They did not have towels in the pool area, despite stating we did not need to bring ours from the room.
The rooms seemed small.
My past experiences with Doubletree felt more full-service. More amenities, more things to do, better dining and room service, which this hotel did not have.
They had specials at the bar advertised that had ended three days prior.
The refrigerator didn’t seem very cold.
In general, I don’t like the coffee at Hilton. Especially the coffee left in the room.
We did not stick around so Eva could take her swim, and digital checkout (and parking right next to our room) made leaving a breeze.
“Hurry up!” Eva told me. “We have relaxing to do.”
I do lament we could not try the taco truck across the street as it had very good reviews on Google maps.
We checked the oil in the car, and at 9:15 a.m. we headed to CVS. We purchased an eclectic variety of items, not because we needed them on this trip but because we were curious what selection they might have. And they had soooooo many hair products for my curls and I had coupons…
We left CVS at 9:36 and arrived at M’s house at 10:15. By 11, we were in the car because Eva wanted to visit the National Zoo.
Smithsonian National Zoo
The Zoo parking was full, so we set the GPS for M’s old apartment and decided to try our luck at the back entrance to the Zoo. Eva found a spot on street that we thought was nearby. It ended up being almost a mile, and an uphill walk. But we certainly got our steps in!
But we did get to see this beautiful mural of Marilyn Monroe. We passed a Nando’s.
The Zoo was crowded. It was also everything Eva remembered. She spent most of her time commenting about the habitats and how well the zoo provides enrichment for the animals.
The exertion made my walk a tad unstable and I experienced some exercise-induced asthma and some high heart rates. Probably got some sunnburn too.
And then Eva got the idea maybe we could leave from the back of the zoo and not have to walk back up the hill.
We could not.
We were also pleasently shocked to see how many alcoholic beverages were available at the zoo– and how many moms with open cocktails were chasing toddlers.
We left the zoo at 2:45 to return to M’s house. We stopped at Manhattan Market for beverages. And I showed M my DK travel guide to Ireland from 20 years ago and my Irish/English dictionary.
Eva and I are traveling to Washington, D.C., so that I may grab a flight to Dublin with my traveling companion M on Wednesday.
M. and I have not traveled in about a decade, and this is probably the first time we are traveling someplace where they are not shooting each other.
But that’s another story.
Eva is on spring break and for some strange, serendipitous reason, she has no pet clients this weekend. She’s exhausted after finishing her home renovation project on our hallway.
I could have taken Amtrak from Philly to D.C., as a matter of fact that is how I am getting home. But Eva wanted to visit D.C., and thought it might be nice to visit the National Zoo. She had hoped she could introduce her boyfriend to our friends in D.C. but he is traveling to a welding competition.
Now, Eva didn’t want to make the 3.5 hour one-way trip to D.C. and then turned around a few hours later and drive home alone.
But we learned none of our friends would be home Saturday until late.
So we booked a room at the Doubletree in Gaithersburg, MD, basically because they had a breakfast, an indoor/outdoor pool and who doesn’t love the warm cookies?
And Eva never had the warm cookie experience.
So at 9:30 we checked the old in the car– she’s an old girl and has been acting a tad funny lately about her oil. It disappears and then reappears. Maybe she has some build-up. We know she’s burning some… but to be safe, we check her often. And today we checked her cool in the flat garage
She looked good. But we have oil with us just in case.
We headed to Sheetz, and by then I already needed to pee. Eva put gas in the car. I hoped to find the cookies and cream puff things but every since I decided to try them, they never have that flavor.
Next, we went to Grocery Outlet. I need my famous $7 pen set. This cheap set of gel pens comes in a plastic case and I love them. Each set lasts about 6 months before my favorite colors start running out.
Meanwhile, Eva was in charge of road trip snacks. She selected:
2 C4 energy drinks in zero sugar, very fruity flavors. I find these are easier to stomach than coffee or soda when temperature can not be maintained. Plus we both like them so we can share, and save space in the cupholders.
A present for someone’s birthday that has nothing to do with this trip
sunglasses
A massive can of bar mix nuts
A fairly big box of those nutty buddy style wafer bars that Little Debbie makes but instead they were made by Nature Valley and trying to be fancy. 20 of them.
A bag of beef jerky– some plain, some ranch, some buffalo, all mixed in one bag
We were on the road by 10.
Around 11, we got a phone call– the dog had bit the neighbor and the neighbor went to the ER. Now, it was a minor bite, but it broke skin, and the neighbor wanted to make sure he didn’t need shots/antibiotics. But that’s another story. But it sure did put a stressful spin on the next couple hours.
At 11:30, we arrived at Midtown Scholar Books, once voted bookstore of the year by Publisher Weekly. See my review here on the Parisian Phoenix blog. (It was $4.35 to park for 90 minutes in downtown Harrisburg.)
Eva had a doctor appointment via Zoom at noon so she took that in the car and then we visited Broad Street Market. Apparently, oldest market in America in continuous operation. We weren’t hungry– all those road trip snacks but they had all kinds of ethnic food from Chinese (I think) to Korean, Jamaican to African.
1 p.m. We crossed the state line into Maryland while on the phone with Larry Sceurman.
At 2:10 we arrived at Doubletree Washington DC North in Gaithersburg MD (about 40 minutes from M’s house). We got our cookies and our parking pass. We didn’t really need our keys because I used Hilton’s digital check-in, chose my room and they had emailed me that it was ready and activated my digital key which I can use from my phone.
I picked a room on the end of the lower level, away from any noise but fairly close to the indoor/outdoor pool.
And there’s a frozen yogurt vending machine in the lobby.
Panera and CVS are within a third of a mile and there’s a food truck in the shady looking parking lot across the street that has good reviews on Google Maps. I wonder what time they open in the morning… They don’t… the internet says they are closed Sundays. I might have to head out there tonight…
Eva and I went to Habit Burger and Grill because it was three-in-the-afternoon and we were hungry but not insanely hungry and while it is a chain, it’s not one we knew. I saw it had a free self-serve pepper bar with jalapenos, banana peppers and pepperocini. So we had to investigate.
I had a nice fish sandwich and limeade.
We came back to the hotel and I did some stuff for the business while Eva did some schoolwork. We plan to go swimming tonight.
Because I review so many books on Amazon, and use reviews as a way to maintain my own memory of things I ordered online, Amazon invited me to be a product reviewer several years ago.
I do my best to take my work seriously, and today I wrote a review I enjoyed reading.
(If you are here looking for more information on the writer’s conference that concluded yesterday, that’s what I’ve been trying to write when I got hungry and sidetracked by adjwa dates.)
Hard to believe that a small fruit can travel halfway around the world into my mouth… I love dates, and a good medjool date is my favorite. Or so I thought. So as someone who occasionally suffers from anemia, I love incorporating dates into my diet for the iron. As someone who loves sugary candy, dates are the perfect food to compensate for those sweet cravings. I had never had an ajwa date. At first, the small size intimidated me. The pit-to-date ratio was more pit than fruit, but once I tried the date, the sweetness and texture surprised me in the best way. They were chewy and firm enough to have a great mouth feel, and also properly giving and moist. Each one turned out to be the perfect bite-sized treat. The package is gorgeous and provides information about the type of date itself, the nutritional information and the company information. These are highly specialty dates cultivated in a certain region of Saudi Arabia (Medina), so it’s more like buying a specialty imported cheese or wine than a simple fruit. In that way, the price seems reasonable. (Think of it like “champagne” technically only refers to sparkling wine from the Champagne region of France or the cheese from the caves of Roquefort.)
We recently got an old, hand-me-down deep freezer.
And at the same time, the federal government shutdown and Pennsylvania state budget impasse have complicated SNAP benefits for families who have them.
I heard on the news that 1-in-8 Americans have SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition or “food stamps”). I heard one story this morning about an unemployed widow with a 15-year-old son whose soundbite suggested she sent him to school so he could eat breakfast and lunch.
I hope she’s sending him to school for an education, first and foremost.
I consider myself a fiscally-conservative Democrat who believes that education and healthcare should be attainable and fair. I would love to have a Ph.D., but I can’t afford to finish my masters and I refuse to go into debt for it. I also have a disability, and even when I am well-employed I often have to make choices about my medical care.
Right now, I have my own small business. I work a part-time job in the food service industry to provide some reliable income on a steady timeline. I am an adjunct instructor at my local community college, and if you break it down to an hourly rate, I probably make a similar wage at my fast food job (because of the fact that I did not have the money to finish my degrees). And I have freelance writing and editing jobs and a mini author’s assistant job.
And I’m always on the look out for more. Applied for another this morning.
I started my career in public relations, and ended up in print journalism, which led to a long career of lay-offs as newspapers died. I worked in non-profit communications and development, where I learned a massive amount of useful skills like grant writing but also experienced a ridiculous amount of toxic managerial behavior. Some people work in the non-profit sector because they want to make the world a better place, but at the same time, many of those people have either childhood trauma and/or personal insecurities that create some challenging environments in an already difficult field.
I mention all of this because I have experience with unemployment. I have experience with being the single mom with maybe enough resources to survive a month. I was a single mom raising a teenager who lost her job during the pandemic and did not find out if she qualified for unemployment until the weekend after she accepted a new job. I was unemployed for four months and had opened my home to one of my daughter’s friends who didn’t feel safe in her own home.
I applied for public assistance because I was volunteering at a non-profit that provides services for people exiting human trafficking situations and my “boss” suggested it. Because I had no income and I had an official dependent, I received more than $700/month in food stamps. And Medicaid. Which was a great help. Even though I only received food stamps for four months, I rationed them so they lasted almost a year.
I had accepted a job in the warehouse at Stitch Fix. I loved that job, and the company, but after three years they decided to close our warehouse. After three years at a wage where my take-home pay was the same as what I had made as the development manager for a small non-profit with a two-million-dollar annual budget (thanks to the fact that Stitch Fix offered their employees free medical benefits), I found myself laid off again.
And when my unemployment ran out, I once again applied for food stamps. I had gone on multiple interviews, built up my small business, but still struggled with the cost of my medical care– my estranged husband put me on his benefits but my medicine was $50-$100 a month and all my doctor’s appointments I had to pay out of pocket because of the high deductible. So I really hoped I would qualify for Medicaid again. And I did.
I also qualified for $525 in food stamps.
Around this same time, Trump got re-elected and the cheap refrigerator I bought started freezing the food in the refrigerator and not freezing the food in the freezer. But I couldn’t afford a new fridge– and I still can’t– so we started buying only what we could eat in a few days, or foods that could safely thaw and refreeze.
Lettuce is not one of them, if you were curious.
The point of all this is to ask: Regardless of how you feel about who uses food stamps or how the government distributes them or whether or not people try hard enough or work hard enough, why is no one asking why we have a system where 1-in-eight Americans qualifies for food stamps?
I have seen and heard so many things about the system, and I have known people who work in the branches of government that distribute these types of assistance and they are all people who want to help. I have met people afraid to work because they might lose assistance, and I have seen people who need the help lose it because they made too much money. (And, like me, it’s usually people who need medical care.)
I have about $2,300 left on my deductible this year, and I have spent almost an equal amount if you read my EOBs from the insurance company. I’m losing my hearing in one ear and I need a hearing test and a visit with the audiologist. The muscles in my one leg have been spasming 24-hours-a-day for almost a year now and I just blamed it on my cerebral palsy but my neurologist has concerns that previously noted damage to my spine (from all these years of walking crooked) may have caused nerve damage in my lower back. And my one finger has been doing crazy things for about a year.
That’s probably at least $6,000 worth of tests. Do I just try to schedule it all before the end of the year and finance the $2,000+ remaining of the deductible on a credit card? Or Able Pay? or do I wait until I am better off financially?
Back to the deep freezer. A friend of the family was hoping to get a decade-plus year old freezer out of his house. We took it. We took all the stuff from our cheap refrigerator that needed better freezer conditions and piled it in. And I thought– when Trump was elected an I was worried about the future of food stamps, I didn’t have a freezer to fill. I did however invest in every non-perishable food item I could tolerate.
My childhood traumas leave me to ruminate frequently about food scarcity, financial security and general stability. I will probably always behave as if every trip to the grocery store is the last one I can afford. And I have done my grocery shopping at the Dollar Tree and the Grocery Outlet because I only had $20 left to feed us for the week.
The Office of Vocational Rehab considers me the most severely tier of worker, whereas the federal government says I do not qualify for disability because I work so much and at so many jobs. But the federal government doesn’t take into consideration that I have to work that hard to make ends meet. And I don’t always succeed and I often hurt myself doing it. And I just work past it.
But how do you determine an equitable way to decide who deserves help? And I ask a third time: Why does 1-in-eight Americans receive food stamps? What is wrong with our society if 1-in-eight people cannot afford to feed themselves according to the criteria the government sets forth?
I will be telling parts of this story on my Substack newsletter that I plan to post tomorrow morning. I write about my publishing company, Parisian Phoenix Publishing; books, the ones we publish, books for writers and fun books to read; and writing. You can subscribe here.
I had booked a table at Books and Booze 2 at Madness Distillery in the Country Junction Plaza in Lehighton, Pa. (With a name like Madness Distillery, how could I stay away?)
I had packed the books earlier this week but left decisions about signs and other marketing materials until today, and despite sleeping decently last night, my brain would not kick in. So it took all my focus to get out the door on time.
And I had to drop Eva off at her dad’s so she could borrow his car for the afternoon.
About a mile from the house, a bee flew onto my windshield at a stoplight. I pointed him out to Eva. About four more blocks down the road, he was still sitting there. I said to Eva, “If we take him all the way to your dad’s, he’ll be more than a mile away from his hive. How will he find his way home? Will he have food? Will he be warm? How is he just sitting on that windshield?”
And then I added a final thought: “If we leave him at your dad’s, that’s like someone dropping you off in England and telling you to swim home.”
We stopped. I said my goodbyes. I waited for my daughter to cross the street. The bee had not gone. So I resumed my drive.
About 4 miles later, I got onto the highway. Little bee did not fare well as my speeds increased. He slid across the windshield (toward the top), putting one foot down and another up, trying to get his grip.
I had to speed up even more, and now we’re about 12 miles away from home. The bee is starting to curl into himself and press down into the glass. I wonder: Would it be kinder to turn on my windshield wipers and smoosh him?
I can’t stop watching him, but I have to, because I’m driving 70 miles an hour on the highway. I’m getting upset, and fighting tears as my nerves fray. I ponder exiting the road because of this bee. I call Eva. I tell her everything.
“Mom, it’s a bee.”
“He doesn’t deserve to suffer. Nothing deserves to suffer.”
“Mom, life is hard.”
I cackle. I hang up. I get one more mile, and the bee rolls into a tight marble and disappears. He was on my windshield for about 15 miles.
About this time, I realize my mother married my father 50 years ago today. My father died three years and eleven months ago. My wedding anniversary was Thursday. My husband and I married 26 years ago. We splint up six years ago. And my mother’s 71st birthday was also Thursday.
The GPS took me past the site of the dirt track where my father raced micro-stock when Eva was a toddler. Past the post office where my father got his mail. Past one road to his house. Past the diner where he ate most of his meals. Past the gas station where he bought his cigarettes. Past the other road to his house. Past the funeral home where we had his services.
My parents divorced when I was 15. But my mom always loved my dad. And I think he never got over her. So I texted her when I arrived at my destination– which was alongside the lake where my dad would drive his boat.
“You married Dad 50 years ago today. I miss him soooo much.”
I set up my table, met some of my fellow authors, and tried to shake off my nerves.
Photo by author Shannon Delaney, a family member of my dear friend Mitzi from Pocono Lehigh Romance Writers and Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group
I counted about 20 people who attended the event– not including anyone with the other vendors at the event. I sold three books: two hardcover copies of Larry Sceurman‘s Bookworm’s Magical Journey and one advance copy of Geraldine Donaher‘s young adult Mouth Shut Head Down, which doesn’t officially launch until January.
The distillery had a sign in the window. It read “Adult Book Fair Today.” I think what they meant was “Book Fair for Adults today” or because it was a distillery, “Book Fair today. Adults only!”
But it immediately made me think I should have brought more erotica. The only erotica title I brought was Juicy Bits. Most of the authors for Booze and Books 2 were romance authors, and it looked like the most popular offerings were romances-with-shirtless-men-on-the-cover. It looked like most vendors sold 2-4 books, though I later learned that some vendors sold none. (To be fair, tables cost $10, so no one had huge expectations of kicking off a bestselling book tour at this event.)
The event is between coal country and the Poconos, so I thought my spicy horror novels would do well. I also brought our romances, Trapped: What if Skunks Were Matchmakers? and Any Landing You Walk Away From… (the author of the latter, Dawn O’Harra, is from the Poconos). I made a Halloween section on the other side of my novels, with Hugo Yelagin‘sLovecraftian Deadlightsand Eva Parry‘s tarot journal. Any Landing served as a transiton into non-fiction, and I brought Motorhome Gypsies and Coach of the Building (as the author of Coach teaches public school in the area) and then Larry Sceurman‘s fiction to appeal to any men accompanying wives and his children’s book because many romance readers are moms. And Geraldine’s book? Not even sure why I tossed that in.
Two hours into the event, my mother returned my text. “Hadn’t even given it a thought.”
When I left the event, I was hungry and pining for pizza. The GPS took me a different way home, perhaps recognizing my emotional distress from the previous route. It took me home the route I had anticipated on the way up– it took me through Palmerton, Pa., one of my favorite places. I celebrated my 49th birthday in Palmerton. Read about that here.
As I was driving away from the venue, I thought to myself: That looks like I’m heading toward Palmerton. Maybe I can find that awesome little pizza shop in Palmerton. I looked at the GPS. It told me my next turn was onto Delaware Avenue, which, if I remembered correctly, was the main street in Palmerton. And the pizza shop was on it.
Sure enough, I entered Palmerton. Pulled up right in front of the pizza shop. Went in, ordered two slices dine in, grabbed a boxed iced tea, and paid the employee $8.64 (which is roughly the price of one Grilled Club Chick-Fil-A sandwich).
15 minutes later I was back in the car.
That little detour changed my mood. Perhaps a gentle reminder that we find our own destinies and don’t have to conform to outside expectations.
I realized yesterday, after working for at least four hours on a political profile for Armchair Lehigh Valley on the upcoming Easton (Pa.) City Council race, that I currently spend about ten hours a week on political journalism for that publication, about ten hours a week teaching college and another twenty hours working my evening fast food job.
That’s 40 hours a week, before we consider the 30-plus hours a week I devote to my book publishing business, Parisian Phoenix (parisianphoenix.com). I thought I had everything perfectly balanced– but toward the end of the week, my sleep was starting to suffer.
And last night I fell. Not once, but twice. And not at home. Or even on the street. But at my fast food job. Both of the falls were trips. Both were quickly forgotten.
But when I got home, and when I woke up this morning, my body was struggling. And when I caught my right foot “catching” on my left ankle and almost causing a fall on the way to the restroom, I went and got my cane out of the car.
(And because I often have a lot of 21-year-olds in my house– Eva, her romantic interest, and one of her friends from high school staying with us– they thought my snake head cane was badass. They also encouraged me to change my outfit to match it as I am currently in sweatpants.)
After finishing my lesson planning for my class at Northampton Community College this week, I started the new Superman movie as I am a Superman fan. Since the movie includes Krypto the Superdog as a significant character, I restarted the movie an hour in so I could watch it with Eva.
When Eva left for work, I cleaned the cupboards and collected all the open and stale food items that were more than a couple weeks old. I also admitted what items I would never eat and I took these out to the compost heap. A lot of crackers including a box of Triscuit thins I treated myself to and forgot about.
This is really hard for me. I have experienced food insecurity and have gone mildly hungry, so I have a tendency to not waste food to an excessive degree.
I used to garden when Eva was little, and our neighborhood has terrible clay soil so I keep a compost heap under my porch. And believe-it-or-not, the regular digging and turning of the heap provides a great deal of emotional relief for me. Resuming care of the compost heap has given me some renewed vibrancy. And a lot of mosquito bites.
And if you haven’t cared for your own soil, it’s amazing to see the soil change and grow richer.
In addition to the maintenance of the compost, I also cleaned my popcorn machine. I’m hoping maybe the 21-year-olds might want to have a movie night with popcorn sometime.
All those memories of pizza and popcorn from Target Café.
I sat down a few times to write a post and never finished.
In the last two months:
I celebrated my 50th birthday.
My personal cat of five years died suddenly.
My daughter turned 21 years old.
I spit out part of a tooth, one that I originally damaged during my big fall 15 years ago.
Even though we have other animals, and even other cats, in the house, the loss of Fog has troubled me. That’s been hard. It creates a special loneliness to have other pets around but none of them are truly mine. Now the bird would beg to differ, she would say that she is the ultimate companion and that I should have no other beasts before her. And perhaps that makes me her pet. For larger birds are even worse than cats for acting like they are the most superior of species.
Yesterday, my dear friend (and Parisian Phoenix art director) Gayle and I went to Boonton, N.J., to see if we could find the remnants of their portion of the Morris Canal.
We failed. And while I was there (specifically somewhere around point 10 on the map), I spent a few minutes studying the map to make our visit more successful, but the summer sun perhaps made it more difficult to interpret the map. I may have to return and try again.
So, Why Boonton?
I wanted to visit Boonton for several reasons. I had been discussing and researching the Morris Canal as part of my work with Maryann Ignatz, the fourth-generation proprietor of Steve’s Café/ Historic Morris House on South Main Street in Phillipsburg, N.J. Her family’s business abutted the Morris Canal and canal workers would stop for food and drink along the way.
Reason 1. I have a fascination with canals and the Industrial Revolution in the United States. The coal regions in Pennsylvania were so instrumental in feeding the cities from Philadelphia to New York. Think of all the petroleum reliance we have today– and in this era as electricity was just coming onto the scene the indsutrial sector used coal to produce steam to provide energy for travel and manufacturing.
Reason 2. I was born in Boonton and some of my family used to live there.
How the visit went
Parking is super easy and plentiful with a $1 fee to park all day. If you use ParkMobile, the fee is $1.30 and gets you exactly 24 hours.
I fell before we got fully out of the parking lot.
(But it was my first fall since April! And it didn’t register on my watch which means it wasn’t a hard fall. The impact was relatively gentle.)
Loved the Van Gogh paint job
The downtown had at least four coffee shops, some art galleries, several gyms/pilates/yooga studios, a record store, an alternative clothing shop, a bookstore (which is only open Friday, Saturday and Sunday), pizza places, convenience stores, a crystal store, a Mexican restaurant in what appears to be a classic diner, and other businesses and restaurants.
We meandered along the Rockaway River and found a couple of the spots listed on the map, but somehow completely missed that we should have explored Plane Street.
After exploring parks and looking for historical markers for about 1.5 miles, we visited Catfight Coffee– chosen for its name of course. It offered Goth-inspired decor and music from the dark end of the 1990s. ‘
The final thing we noticed was The Dog Days of Summer project. Various dog sculptures lined the downtown.
My shift at the restaurant Thursday evening went much easier than Wednesday— though I couldn’t bend and reach the floor and I took a lot of Baclofen.
And my left hand strangely hurt last night in the fifth metatarsal, in the same spot where I broke my right hand what had to be a decade or more ago.
Today I slept until 8 a.m. when my Goffin’s cockatoo, Nala, screamed, probably concerned that I died in my sleep.
I stripped my bed, started laundry, drank some coffee and used household chores as my warmup for a home workout. (After clearing my business email and banking stuff.)
The scale showed another pound gone. Soon I might hit the ten-pound mark.
Nothing like 30 or 40 pound cat litter boxes to practice farmer’s carry. And five trips up and down the stairs gets the heart rate up.
I did a pretty solid shoulder workout today, 22 minutes of just weights— including push press, dumbbell row, shoulder lateral raise.
Did some more wash, handled some more email and spoke with one of the Parisian Phoenix authors about a presentation we have been invited to give at Hellertown Library.
I did the dishes, started cooking some chicken livers for the dog, and made myself a big salad with lots of carrots.
I went to Panera for a while to work on my background material for the stories I am writing for Armchair Lehigh Valley regarding the May 20 primary.
And I got my schedule from the restaurant— 4 days in a row and 22 hours. I messaged my boss on Slack to warn her that that may be a struggle for me. She hired me so quickly I never had a chance to tell her about my cerebral palsy. She hired me to work 10-12 hours a week in the dining room, so I didn’t think I would have to.
But here I am, working 20+ hours all over the place.
I wasn’t sure how to bring it up, and I feel it’s better to do these things in person, but at least on Slack there’s a paper trail.
It turned out to be a great conversation. One we will continue in person. As I suspected, she’s short-staffed and I can really use the money so I didn’t want to complain.
Eva picked me up and we stopped at Grocery Outlet. And as soon as we got home, three garbage trucks swarmed us and our house.
I made a vegetable lovers DiGiorno thin crust pizza and split it with Eva and watched some more of The Pitt. Then I came up to make my bed, clean litter boxes, feed the bird, and get the cats water before my shower.
Now it is almost 8 p.m. and I plan to read until I am sleepy.
Angel Ackerman 