On Friday we got several packages of pet supplies, as I’ve mentioned on earlier posts, the parakeets have been rough on toys and perches lately so it was time to update everyone’s cages.
The first set of packages arrived early in the morning.
But we had to wait until after our Saturday chores of laundry, garage cleaning, dishes and vacuuming.
Then we emptied both the cages and dumped all the toys on my bed.
Old and new toys
Now I often switch perches and toys between Nala, my Goffin’s cockatoo, and my budgies. Keeps everybody from getting bored and I think the budgies are teaching Nala to play. She often seems afraid of toys.
The teenager worked really hard updates the bird corner of my room. It looks great— but one problem… The kittens can easily hop to the top of the cages.
My daughter and I have developed a fascination with The Attic Clothes in Bethlehem as they have been hosting online sales on Instagram and Facebook.
We’ve been supporting small local business and indulging in one of the great teen girl sports of all time— consignment store shopping.
I’m going to switch up the chronology of this piece since right now the teenager, my blind friend, Nan, and I are among several other cars in the Dunkin Donuts parking lot.
Troublemakers
This experience can be summed up as— as my daughter put it— Nothing Just Happens.
So, Nan, being blind and a little strange, decided to wear her mask over her eyes.
We invited her along to pick up our consignment items. We stopped at the teenager’s grandmother’s to drop off a stepladder we borrowed. And her grandfather bought her the new Cats movie on DVD, like seeing it three times in the theatre wasn’t enough.
We had promised to take Nan for a car ride and stop at Dunkin for coffee and snackin’ bacon. And we all shared a matcha since Nan had never had any.
It was starting to look like the perfect day for the teen.
Until she discovered I messed up her coffee and she didn’t like it. So we went through the drive through a second time. This time we were going to order Munchkins too!
The teen wanted the 50 count bucket that looked like it came out of Kentucky Fried Chicken. But since we’re all gaining weight— the only way we were getting 50 munchkins is if Nan were taking 45 of them home to share with all her neighbors.
But they said they were out of munchkins. And they were paid for. So I told the poor guy to throw anything in the bag. He asked if I would accept a donut or two. I said sure. I think he was uneasy that I made him choose but he gave us a chocolate cake donut, which Nan and I split, and a chocolate iced donut with sprinkles which we gave to the teen.
That and her blue raspberry coolatta will have her high as a kite by the time we get home.
We were cleaning the garage earlier and removed about 150 gallons of garbage— she’ll have the energy to go home and finish the job, hoisting furniture over her head like a she-hulk.
So while the teen is trying on clothes in the backseat (skills learned in marching band), quasi-modeling her purchases, there are people wondering what the hell is up with us.
And Nan says it makes me look like the normal one.
After work I cuddled with the cockatoo and took a walk with a neighbor. Visited with another neighbor on the lawn as the teenager trained her dog.
We got two packages from Petco and one from Chewy. Yes the teenager and I did some unboxing videos and plan to redo bird cages this weekend. Will post when we do.
I’m up to page 96 of Bill’s novel, Debauchery, which I am editing for him. There has been some wonderful humor and sardonic attitude, but there is a lingering air of sadness in the novel that I hope isn’t a harbinger.
Then, it was 7:3O pm and I hadn’t made supper yet, which I promised the teen if she vacuumed the entire downstairs for her gym class I would make her a nice meal.
She vacuumed.
And since last night’s dinner was a bedroom picnic…
I made zucchini Parmesan tonight which the teenager loved.
I helped her with some of her homework today. She’ll be working on a persuasive essay— we of course picked the topic “why music should NOT be cut from school budgets,” though we had to brainstorm 5 potential topics— and a band assignment where she had to order instruments for the entire band and keep to a budget of $150,000.
I love the creativity some of her teachers have shown.
So we have some adventures planned this weekend and lots of ridiculousness to blog about. Please tune in.
And eating late on a Friday night alone with the teen. It was so damn easy to be together.
I mentioned to my blind friend Nan, whom I help with typing and submissions in her writing and poetry career, that this pandemic was an opportunity for her to write about maintaining her independence without family.
We typed the piece last night, and in the quickest acceptance/publication sequence ever, The Mighty had it posted within 8 hours.
Yes, I know the title is nonsense— but the world has turned a tad upside down as the world tends to do as having billions of people and billions of animals on a planet will erupt into some unexpected situations from time to time.
The teenager loves to eat lemons. I love to cook with lemons. For a while, especially when I first discovered Gaz Oakley the Avant Garde Vegan (Check him out on YouTube—amazing falafel, his own recipe for peri-peri sauce) I always kept fresh lemons in the house.
That was also about the time I would have lemon water first thing in the morning. The juice of half a lemon with tap water.
I did that again this morning. First time in probably a year. Or more.
Today was also the first time in a week I haven’t gained weight. The first month of this pandemic, I was eating better but stopped because… Easter… or so I claim. I am a jelly bean addict and once I start eating the jelly beans I launch onto a sugar and caffeine roller coaster.
This was breakfast. Not ALL of them.
So maybe this post should be called “bad habits.” I originally lost about 5 pounds due to stress in the beginning of the pandemic, but between beer, pizza, Easter candy, homemade cookies and triple jalapeño bacon cheeseburgers from Wendy’s they have found their way back.
But look— I got a salad
It’s been rough. More pressure than ever at work. A good friend walked away coldly without even saying goodbye. A work colleague who often made me smile left unexpectedly. Medical bills still coming in.
But in the end, I still feel inside these struggles help us grow and bring us to the next level— as another work colleague likes to say— we don’t age, we gain experience like in a video game. So I’m less than a month away from my 45th Level with the teenager two months away from Level 16 and a drivers license.
Designated Driver AND babysitter, mom friends out there!!!!
Yesterday was a sunny day amidst a forecast of rain. Last week the teenager did not complete her three weekly gym assignments and she told her teacher in her log that she “got lazy” and he wrote back that sometimes he gets lazy, too. This is a great lesson for our (older) kids in communication and work ethic. Those of you with younger kids, God Bless You and Keep You.
I would be screaming every day if the teenager were, say, six. Our brains are wired too differently.
But back to gym. We got out the tandem bike. (Yes, we have a bicycle built for two— it was a gift.) I wanted the teen to “win” gym this week. And she should get extra credit for captaining a bike with her mom, who has cerebral palsy and no real balance skills.
Tandem biking
Then her dad came over and brought his famous hot buffalo chicken dip for dinner, at the teen’s request, and included beer for us grown-ups. And he even got on the bike! (He doesn’t ride bikes.)
I excused myself to work on some more chapters of Bill’s novel Debauchery (and reached the first sex scene— those characters are so in love it hurts). Please don’t be scared by the violence and BDSM in this novel/series. The real theme here is the beauty of acceptance no matter who you are.
And the first of several pet related packages came. So here is a Petco unboxing and some animal videos:
The teenager wanted to get out of the house yesterday and I knew as a responsible adult we needed some fresh produce.
With the Coronavirus still keeping our state on lockdown, I’ve been trying to explore as many small local businesses as I can that are adapting to the situation.
I’ve never been to Tucker, an Australian Cafe at the Simon Silk Mill in Easton. They hosted an amazingly successful benefit to raise money to fight the Australian brush fires.
So they already have my admiration.
The only friend I know who ate there was not impressed— she felt rushed and a tad snubbed by their waitress.
But I’ve been intrigued by their recent business model… They’ve adapted by becoming “Tucker Provisions” and it’s like a drive up general store.
They feature a a variety of other local and regional farmers, vendors, and small businesses. The apples in the picture are from Bethlehem’s Scholl Orchard. The golden raisins are super plump and juicy, so good.
And I am so looking forward to trying the potatoes, zucchini, Brussel sprouts, rhubarb and broccoli.
I even splurged on some Mexican soda.
While we were out, the teenager spotted these:
She loves rocks.
“Mom,” she says as the car is stopped. “There are some really nice rocks over there.”
“Go get them,” I tell her.
Maybe she’ll be a geology major.
For supper last night I decided I wanted homemade cream of broccoli soup. We have some heavy whipping cream in the fridge that’s past its date, more than a week past, and I hate to waste.
Now I never follow a recipe, never exactly. Either I never have all the ingredients or I just don’t want to. This was a little of both. While I prepped the soup, I roasted some of the Brussels and our last radishes and the smallest of our fingerling potatoes.
I made mini bread bowls out of the heavily discounted fresh baked but day old dinner rolls I bought at Weis last weekend and tossed in the fridge. I even toasted the removed guts of the bread bowl to make croutons on top.
Good stuff. Looking forward to enjoying it for lunch if the rain keeps up.
I’m so excited. My dear friend William Prystauk has asked me to edit his upcoming novel, Debauchery, the third in a detective/erotic series that crosses genre lines and pushes boundaries while exploring themes about human relationships, our need for acceptance and love, and exploring our sexuality.
It’s some well-written, nail-biting stuff with a heart-wrenching gooey side. At least, that was my experience of his first two novels.
So when he lamented that his regular editor was too busy to serve him, I quickly raised my hand. Pick me! Pick me!
The manuscript arrived today.
Bill and I met more than a decade ago at an after-party for a book signing. A typical strange six degrees of separation story connecting us with mutual interests with intersecting paths.
I still remember the first time we exchanged samples of our written work. Sharing literary endeavors is the true test of whether a friendship between writers will work.
He sent me a chapter from Bloodletting which featured a murder via crucifixion in a church; and I sent him what was then chapter two of my working manuscript which featured two witches performing violent, bloody sex magic on an altar in a church.
Neither one of us knew the other was sending such sacrilegious work. Yet, we both sent samples of the most disturbing things we could think of to do in a church.
So Bill can trust me with his baby. Working on this manuscript will be my reward. And if any of you have questions for Bill, drop them in the comments. He’ll be glad to take a look. He also has a very cool podcast that has won some accolades.
I admire artists. I have several friends who have the visual arts among their gifts, as does the teenager’s dad and his family. They have « the music » too. Well, the teenager’s dad has a pretty good ear for music, but he doesn’t make any. But visual arts is a language he speaks. And he almost went to Pratt Art Institute instead of Moravian College.
Me, I have always loved all of the arts but I have an absolute tin ear for music—it’s just an alien language I cannot speak or hear as those who are fluent do—and I struggle with visual arts.
I practiced for years to learn the basics of fashion drawing and every time I stop doing it I have to get out the books and magazines and teach myself all over again.
I commissioned a fashion illustration from Renie Hanna that still hangs in my living room.
I love the Impressionists— Berthe Morisot is my favorite and my favorite museum is the Musée D’Orsay in Paris.
My friend Rachel has given us watercolor paintings, which I hang with pride. We need new glass for one, the strange one, which is slated for a new home in the living room.
And the only painting I ever saw that I HAD to have was one by Heather Pasqualino Weirich— and it has hung in my “entry hall” for about a decade and still mesmerizes me with it’s vibrancy and simplicity.
Interestingly, the two paintings in my bedroom were done by me and my step mom in those “any idiot can paint” classes. I love them, but I know they are relatively crude and awful.
How anyone can pull a picture out of their head and see the details to replicate on paper is a great mystery to me.
That is why I love photography. It captures moments that are happening. It freezes time. There are two great tricks to photography: 1. To take a lot of photos so you don’t miss anything and 2. To sense when a real moment is about to happen and not miss it.
My daughter’s latest iPhone has a camera way better than my iPhoneX and it has given her a chance to explore photography. Perhaps when she rouses from her bed on this rainy Sunday, I can convince her to pick a series of her favorites and host a show here on my blog.
But she took these photos of me yesterday, and I want to share them with you because they capture so much… We went to pick up her dress at The Attic clothes in Bethlehem. They are hosting online sales via Instagram and Facebook.
She asked to surprise her grandparents (her father’s parents) who live a few blocks away.
I said sure.
Now, my husband and I have lived apart for 10 months. We haven’t started divorce proceedings yet probably because it’s a new process and neither one of us likes to do new things that make us uncomfortable. There’s a whole lot of practical things that don’t impede our daily lives that we need to untangle. And we just haven’t.
So I always feel a little awkward showing up at his parents’ house. Especially unannounced as I have no reason to be there.
But I had a lovely conversation with my father-in-law and my mother-in-law fed us the leftovers her husband didn’t want to eat and she told the teenager stories.
Cabbage and noodles with the teen
And we compared the teenager to her paternal great grandfather who died before she was born. Pappy Buss was a farmer, a master carpenter who did some work for Martin Guitar, a pure-hearted Christian man who embodied everything a good person should be, and a mischievous prankster.
His first language was Pennsylvania Dutch and he played trumpet, unless I have my facts wrong.
But every since the day my daughter was born, I felt she had a piece of Pappy in her. And it gets stronger as she ages. Of course, she doesn’t have Pappy’s quiet demeanor.
So, here are the photos the teenager took of me at her grandmother’s kitchen table, eating angel food cake.
It’s definitely Saturday. I stayed up late working on the first draft of a poem— right now in very poor shape and entitled “You become”—but I slept really well.
I fed the beasties, did some vacuuming, started some laundry and my mom dropped off some Easter candy.
So, since I am a mature adult, I decided to have the bottled Starbucks drink and Brach’s classic Jelly Bird Eggs for breakfast.
Opie, the three-legged cat, disapproves of my breakfast choices
I gave the budgies some shredded wheat as a treat and let them fly free for a couple hours. The teen came down to my room to use my desk to complete this week’s geometry and Oz the big, dumb, recovering-from-depression cat opened the door to my room to join us.
Angel Ackerman 