P52 Week 17 - Food Photography

What can I say about food that hasn’t been said a hundred – a thousand – a million times before? How about some original recipes? – nope! What about overeating, under-eating, purging, hurling, starving? I could whinge about my own, deep-seated psychological issues with food – poor body image, oral gratification, low self-esteem, need for comfort food – all that crap. I’ve done all that – I still do some of that, but I won’t bore you.

I don’t cook much these days – it’s just me, and so I much prefer to go out with friends. I like Italian, French, Mexican – I love Mexican – and an accompanying glass of malbec or syrah is a must. I sometimes go for Thai. Seafood I’ll down anytime – the same with brunch. When I’m on my sane eating program, I eat half of my restaurant serving and bring the other half home – that makes eating out more economic and I get to enjoy feasting on a delicious meal twice.

I do make soups from scratch every once in a while. I roast a whole chicken, keeping it moist by stuffing a whole lemon in the cavity. I then make stock out of the carcass, adding onions, carrots, celery, parsley, peppercorns, salt and bay leaves. I munch on the boiled veggies as I strain the broth – hmm, good. After defatting, I add a new pile of fresh vegetables: onions – of course – carrots, celery, cauliflower, parsnips, chopped fresh tomatoes, and fresh green peas. I spice it with Hungarian paprika. And, if the mood strikes me, I add some pasta. I freeze the soup in single servings.

I warm the soup for my granddaughter when she’s with me. “More cauliflower,” she demands sweetly, but she avoids the chopped chicken. “Gaga eat the chicken,” she orders, shoving the spoon at me. After she downs the whole bowl of veggies, she begs, “Ice cream, please.” How can Gaga refuse?

P52 Week 16 - Street Photography

My street snapshots.

On my frequent walks, I pass by clutches of little Asian ladies. They smile and nod. Some of them know enough English to say “good morning,” others just enough to utter a tentative “hi.” When I stroll with my blond, blue-eyed toddler granddaughter, the smiles are extra wide and they lean down to make eye contact with her. “Pretty!” they exclaim. She’s nonplused but manages to take the attention in stride.

Bicyclers speed by, fully regaled in their uniforms: helmets with rear view mirrors attached – tiny, like a dentist’s – gloves, spandex shorts, tattoo blobs on their calves. They’re too focused on the ride to look at me, much less smile. Their bike touring is serious business.

A slim, middle-aged Hispanic – or perhaps Chinese – jogger in tan, pressed Dockers and a pristine white t-shirt, slowly lopes along.

A trio of young doe-eyed Muslim women, their shawled heads nodding together rosette-like, stand on a street corner chatting, giggling.

Another Muslim woman talks animatedly as she crosses the street, both hands conducting, a cell phone propped against her ear in her veil.

A dark skinned teenager with his pant waist fastened just above his knees saunters slowly. His gait is wide based – like an end stage alcoholic with cerebellar brain damage -- in order to keep the pants in position. Every few steps, he has to pull up the trousers, but adjusts them to no further than mid thigh. To hike them up over his hips is an unthinkable punk fad faux pas and so he waddles on, tolerating the fashion discomfort, much like women wobbling about in stiletto heels.

I see a petit oriental couple in the distance. She’s in fashionable, yet sensible khaki capris and a navy and white striped boatneck top. He’s in stylish baggy shorts and a pastel polo shirt. They’re holding hands, talking.

Here comes a small yippee dog, its owner with a brown weathered face in tow.  I pass by quite a few dogs on my walk: a Snoopy dog prancing along with her athletic outdoor type owner; a wrinkly faced mutt plodding along with encouragement from its elderly Hispanic friend.

An older, silver haired white couple walks briskly by, out for their morning constitutional – as am I. They smile brightly and say hello.

A tiny stooped lady trudges up the hill. Overloaded with plastic Safeway shopping bags, she stops to catch her breath and readjusts the bag handles that are cutting into her palms. She moves on, her face sober, her eyes downcast.

A stately African elder with a long skirt and cap, walks by. He is erect and proud.

There goes another dark-skinned man with a turban and an endless grey beard.

Two friends – a man and a woman – their smiles directed nowhere in particular, chat as they walk, gently tapping their white canes to and fro.

A serious Asian high school student passes by, backpack slung over his shoulder. There’s no eye contact or greeting from him.

Here comes a regular: a brown-skinned middle aged lady with a broad-brimmed and back flapped hat, jacket and gloves, wheeling a garbage can and using extended tongs to pick up hamburger wraps, pop cups, cigarette packs, blown about mailer flyers and other trash that has collected overnight. Hers is a daily pilgrimage. I wonder why people don’t pick up their own garbage like I learned to do in grade school.  

A woolly-haired father leads a hooded and robed wife and two hooded, robed little daughters, all three ladies demure, with downcast eyes. A lone son frolics freely in shorts and a t-shirt, unencumbered by traditional garb and gender expectations.

An imposing tall black youth with a steely gaze and a swaggering attitude holds a transistor radio to his ear, though why he needs it so close is unfathomable as it is blaring rap music for all to hear.

Outside my window, I sometimes hear cars revving and racing up the hill with woofers blaring. Other times, at night, I hear kids yelling, screaming obscenities either in jest or in ire.

Driving home late one time, I saw youths fleeing in all directions, police in pursuit on foot and in flashing and wailing squad cars.  

But most nights are quiet and deliciously peaceful.

These are some snapshots of the dwellers in my streets – in the neighborhood that I love. Not surprisingly, my zip code is the most ethnically diverse in the country.

P52 Week 15 - Photographer's/Writer's Choice

I have been part of a writing group for five years. My stalwart buddies have been there for me through thick and thin as I’ve struggled to complete my memoir. At every meeting we do some free writing, taking turns coming up with topic suggestions. This week Jack came up with ‘hike.’ Here’s what immediately came to mind….

Mailbox Peak! Stephanie had it on her bucket list and wanted to climb it on her 30^th birthday. Eager to please my daughter, I believed I was totally fit enough to join her, and idiot that I am, I agreed.

I’d heard how rigorous the hike was from my son, Stephen. He had climbed it several times in preparation for an even more vigorous climb atop Mt Rainier – which he ended up not doing because he became a dad and got smart. Stephen had driven up many an evening after work to do the climb – “No sweat Mom, it’s not that hard.”

I was well prepared – I thought. I had good hiking boots and socks. I had a hat, sunscreen, water, energy snacks. I even remembered a bug deterrent – a novel bracelet that I’d discovered at MacLendon’s hardware store.

I forget the exact stats but the hike entailed about a 4,000 foot elevation in 2 or 3 miles. Anyway, as you can see, I don’t remember the numbers and woe is me, I had no concept of what those numbers meant.

From the get go the trail was straight uphill, rocky, with huge step-ups. Well, this is a good workout I thought to myself. There’ll be a break in the elevation in a bit so I can catch my breath. Wrong! There wasn’t a break the whole way up. I had to stop every minute or two, perch on an incline in order to catch my breath. Stephanie was faring better, but not by much. The hikers coming down were encouraging when I asked how far to the top: “Not too far to go, you’re doing great!” Liars!

But at last, we managed to scramble to the top and there, indeed was a mailbox, weathered, rickety, filled with mementos, letters and a journal, dog-eared and chock full of entries.

The view was stupendous, gorgeous.

The bugs were belligerent and bountiful, totally unfazed by our bracelets. We took a quick picture or two and decided to head down before we got eaten alive.

“Remind me to check out my bucket lists a little more carefully from here on out,” Stephanie moaned.

The huge steps were even harder to navigate going down than climbing up. I managed several of them on my ass, and others with Stephanie assisting her old lady. My knees and thighs were barking – hell they were roaring – by the time we shuffled into the parking lot.

Ah, but the cool draft of beer, the juicy hamburger and greasy fries at the Issaquah pub afterwards almost – almost made the crazy hike worth it.

P52 Week 14 - Framing

Years ago, when in Hawaii, I bought some notecards that had tropical flowers such as orchids and Hawaiian grass embedded in lacquer. I loved the cards for they reminded me of my cherished nature place. I brought them home and I delightedly informed my then husband that I planned to frame them. He scoffed, “They’re just cheap notecards, Liz.” Undaunted, I had a frame store fashion custom mats and gold edged frames for them. I proudly mounted the notecards myself, Windexed the glass, sealed the backs of the frames with masking tape and hung them – six of them – in an elegant arrangement on my wall. Those pictures have hung in five different homes over the past thirty years.

My daughter’s a professional photographer, but you already know that, for her stunning photos are part of my blog. She has taken some amazing pictures all over the world – and yes, she has done photo shoots in Hawaii. In comparison to her brilliant work, those notecard flower pictures have become too dingy, too impersonal and much less relevant.

A few weeks ago, I decided replace the notecards with photos of tropical flowers that Stephanie had taken, thinking I could re-use the old matting and frames. Excited to begin my project, I cut out prints from a weekly calendar that Steph had gifted me with some years ago. The frame matting was an olive green, completely the wrong color to complement her photos. Undaunted, I came up with the bright idea of repainting the mats, using long ago stowed away watercolors. I brushed on layer after layer of red and yellow in an attempt to hide the green and finally succeeded in achieving a muddy rose tint. I wasn’t completely happy with the results but I pushed on, only slightly discouraged. I mounted the photos in the mats only to find that the sizing was completely off: the mats were not wide enough in one direction and were too long in the other. Erg! I kept at my floundering project, plodding on, refusing to give up. I added a white strip below the picture: “Steph can sign here – make it kind of like a formal autographed print,” I reassured myself, halfheartedly. By this time I was getting pretty tired and frustrated from my less than stellar artistic attempts. Nevertheless, I pushed on, wanting to finish the dratted project. I hurriedly placed the pictures in the painted mats, put them in the frames and mounted them on my bedroom wall.

“No, no,” Stephanie announced as I sheepishly showed her my botched creative endeavor. My daughter was absolutely right: my framed concoction looked awful. She and I are planning to have new prints made and will mount them in new matts and frames that will fit perfectly.

And therein lies an important lesson: I can’t always use an old frame for new work, no matter how hard I try to make it fit. And hasn’t that been true in my life as well? I’ve so often had to reframe how I view the world. How about you?

P52 Week 13 - Lines

I turned 65 this week and the Project 52 prompt has allowed me to muse about the various ‘lines’ in my life.

The first lines that immediately came to mind are the florid dermatologic varieties that have been etched through the decades. Easiest to spot, of course, are the wrinkle lines on my face. I espied the first wretched one in my mid-thirties as I glanced up from my daughter’s nursery dresser drawer to the mirror above. “That’s not too bad a one,” I told myself in an attempt to rationalize. “It’s only a laugh line about my eyes; it shows character.” My vanity wasn’t appeased, though, and became increasingly alarmed as I looked at my face over the following weeks and months. With growing horror, I saw that the wrinkle lines had begun to multiply and proliferate.

Laugh lines – hardly funny at all – appeared not only around my eyes, but also about my mouth. Furrow lines grew on my brow as if to dress down the cheeky laugh lines. But there were even more lines waiting in the wings and these insufferable blights, hashtagging my cheeks were the hardest to bear. “Hell’s bells,”– and even worse expletives – I muttered, “This is a full on wrinkle pandemic!”

When I dared to venture beyond my face and examined the rest of my figure, other time worn lines became evident. My belly had grown new lines: ridges of fat. My outstretched upper arms now hung with arced lines, shaped like cereal bowls. Wrinkle lines punctuated the sag of my butt. Lightning bolt stretch lines festooned my thighs as did the tiny circular lines of my cellulite dimples – not the cute kind at all.

Yes, I’ve had issues with my body image, but despite that, I am grateful that I have been able to look beyond my physical lines and to the broader timeline of my life. There, I have experienced many up and down lines – who hasn’t? I have had down lines: challenges growing up, in my relationships and in my work. My self worth has been rather rocky – my body image not withstanding. But I have also had up lines: growth and aware times, periods filled with laughter and joy. All of these experiences have infused my being with meaning and purpose.

Over this week – my birthday week – the full robust picture of my time line has been highly visible. My son and daughter-in-law hosted a delicious family dinner and gifted me with a new Australian wool blanket to replace the threadbare one that I’ve treasured for over fifty years. On my actual birthday, my son and granddaughter dropped by with a nosegay of their garden grown daffodils and tulips, and greetings poured in from friends and relatives all over America, Australia and Hungary. On my birthday evening, my daughter treated me to dinner and a fabulous Maroon 5 concert. I felt proud to be hip enough, for I was familiar with most every song they sang. That night I had a seminal dream confirming and reaffirming my worth. I awoke with a knowing glow and with joy radiating in my body that lingered throughout the day. My dear friend invited me to high tea and afterwards we walked in the gorgeous Seattle Arboretum adorned with the fresh greens and pastels of spring. And my birthday celebrations are to continue over the next couple of weeks.

I look at my life and I can honestly say this is perhaps the happiest I’ve ever been. I have balance: I enjoy free time; I devote time to being in service and giving back; I relish my relationships with my children, my granddaughter and with friends; my work is fulfilling; my body is healthy and fit; I explore the sacred in nature and music and throughout my life and I pursue a creative edge with my writing.

So, if the aging lines on my body are evidence of my life’s timeline – what I have overcome, achieved and celebrated over the past sixty-five years – then bring ‘em on!