The letter never sent

Dear mom,

I'm very sad that you passed away and that you'll never see this. I'm also disappointed that you didn't get to see your best friend or your other daughter before you died. But

• I'm glad you had your faith (even though I don't agree with it)
• I'm glad you had your friends (even if they are insane, overbearing and over religious)
• I'm glad you got to see a lot of the world
• I'm glad you and dad had 49 years of happiness and hell together
• I'm glad I was off work and able to spend time with you at the hospital
• I'm glad the foot massages I gave you made you more comfortable and even put you to sleep at times
• I'm glad I could relay your messages to dad when he was too hard of hearing to hear your soft voice
• I'm glad I could make you laugh
• I'm glad you were aware and cognizant up until the end
• I'm glad your last meal was chicken and mashed potatoes, which was what you ordered, rather than what food services wanted to give you, and that the chicken tasted like chicken
• I'm glad we had your last meal in a room with a spectacular view

You thanked me for being your daughter, but I'm more grateful for having you as a mom.

Love,

your daughter

It's a long way to the end of therapy, it's a long, long way

Strange to think I'm in therapy. We never like to think of ourselves as needing help, especially not psychological, I tend to think of therapists as residing in the world of rich New Yorkers (think Sex and the City) or the truly deranged. But here I am, going to see someone about my issues.

It's not a bad thing necessarily, a good therapist will help you take a good hard look at yourself and determine if you're going down a path you really want to go, or if you're supposed to take that path that's obscured by a few more trees. I'm looking forward to the journey of finding myself; if I was really honest with myself, I'd say I should've done this at least 20 years ago, but coulda, woulda, shoulda. Perhaps I wouldn't be as forthcoming if I had gone into therapy earlier on in life, but that could've led me down a path I wasn't ready for at the time. I'm grateful for my time so far in meeting the people that I have, making the friends I've made. So despite the mistakes and hardships, overall I'm grateful to be me.

Love is...

Remember those old cartoons? Well for me, love is gutting and cleaning fish so that the husband doesn't have to deal with it. It's more a matter of self preservation; I don't want to listen to him gagging over fish guts and blood. Actually gutting the fish was the easy part, my father in law came over to help (he gutted 4, I gutted 3) and he got one to take home for his efforts. And really, cleaning fish is nothing compared to eviscerating chickens. The more difficult part was actually determining how to cut them up.

Our kitchen reminds me a little of Kitchen Stadium, but only in that the husband and I are always battling for supremacy, although neither of us are master chefs. He likes to remind me that he's worked in restaurants before, including one fine dining restaurant. I refrain from reminding him that that was many years ago and he was a bus boy at the upscale place. My experience on the other hand, is based on watching my mother cook, reading cookbooks (or more to the point, drooling over the pictures) and watching Food Network like it's going to save my life. So we both bring something to the (kitchen)table; he's more into beautiful presentations, I'm more inclined to have a main ingredient or theme running through each dish in the meal. If we could only learn to work together in the kitchen, we'd make beautiful meals together.

Love at first bite

Thanks to my sister, I got hooked on making bread. Not by hand so much, but with a bread machine where you throw everything in and walk off and let it do its thing. Hubby bought me a breadmaker a couple of years ago and despite what his co-worker said to him ("she'll use it once or twice and then not use it again), it's been put to very good use making loaves of bread and lots of pizza dough.

More recently however, my sister turned me onto artisan bread using the bread machine. I finally made a biga, and made a loaf of Italian bread. Hubby had a slice, toasted and he thought it was manna from heaven. It will be hard to go back to regular bread after this.

Thanks sis, for inspiration yet again.

Things that go bump in the night

Call me old fashioned, but to me, tattoos are for Japanese warriors who fight to the death. Tattoos are not supposed to be cutesy permanent marks on a person's body that's going to look like goodness knows what when everything starts to sag.

A friend of ours used to date a gal who was into tattoos, a lovely gal actually but I just couldn't relate to her because I can't understand using your body as a canvas. Unlike a normal canvas, your body does not stay taut and tight forever.

If I met this gal in a dark alley late at night, I'd be looking for a quick exit. In broad daylight, I know I could take her with one arm tied behind my back because she's such a tiny thing, but at night, I'd be worried her tattoos would come to life and beat the living crap outta me.

And now back to your regularly scheduled program

I'm currently reading a book called Sex and Bacon (not the only thing I'm reading; another book is about an undertaker who solves murders, and the third book is about a sea monster terrorizing a small town who's sheriff is a pothead), written by a former porn actress. it wasn't the sex part that got me interested, but rather, what is this person writing about in terms of food and why did she get published?

I picked up the book because I needed something else to read that was non-fiction, other than cookbooks and it was there staring me in the face. This book is great in that each chapter is like a new story and so for someone like me with ADD it's possible to read it when I feel like it and not have to keep yet another storyline straight in my head.

Her writing style is like Anthony Bourdain in some sense, so not for everyone. She's blunt, swears and of course reveals things from her past life that are funny, poignant, and sometimes, for a chickenshit like me, even gross. But hey, that's what makes the world go round right?

I figured after all my whining and complaining and feeling sorry for myself for the last while, it's time I wrote something that was in some ways semi-related to the title of my blog.

The World has to come to an end

And not because the Mayan calendar says it will, although in some ways I think they were right; the world as we know it has to alter in some way and hopefully for the better.

I'm hoping that by 2012, all these so-called reality shows will just die a sudden death. The final show that got to me was "What would Brian Boitano Make" on the Food Network. C'mon are we really that starved for something to watch that they need to put some former figure skater on a cooking show? I thought the food network showed only serious cooks, but then again, they let Rachael Ray on as well, don't they? Maybe it's just time for me to stop watching tv.

Wherefore art thou, bluebird of happiness?

You know that old joke about "I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather, not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car." I'd like to take it to a more serious note and say I want to die thinking I've lived my life how I want and not regretting a single moment. Okay, I'll regret a few moments, but overall, I hope not too many.

Why this morbid thought? Mom's dying, as we all are, but she's reflecting on it, and not in a good way. She's focusing on how all the negatives in her life, how her kids didn't embrace religion like she did (I'm crazy, not stupid), how she wasn't the best mother she could've been (the whole motherhood book wasn't on sale at the time), etc., etc. Even dad has told her, you live each day, how you want to live it is up to you. You can either be happy and grateful for what you have, or be pissy and negative, the choice is yours.

I hope that when I get to my mother's age, I won't be incapacitated with a major illness, as I know that's a big reason why she doesn't have the bluebird of happiness perched on her shoulder. But I think having the right attitude will also see you through a lot.

And on that note, I will get off my soapbox and make way for someone else.

New Year's Resolution? Nah!

I don't do New Year's resolutions, I don't have that type of determination nor memory to remember what I said I would do. Instead, I'm going to make an affirmation (is that the right term for it?) to be a more positive person. I'm not going to be a Pollyanna by any means, that would go against my very essence, but I can try and be a more happy, forgiving person. So for the 2 to 3 people who actually ready my blog, you can hold me to this.