Category: Archives

I cut down my lilies today.

My dear friend and neighbor, Laura said I was sobbing so hard that she could hear me over the lawn mower.

Pink, yellow, orange lilies, Asiatic and Stargazer lilies. Their empty stalks had been choked out by eager, Morning Glories and thistles long before any of them even had a chance to bloom this year. Underneath them, no mulch was to be seen, the weeds were so dense. There was simply nothing left, no remnants of all of the love I had poured into the ground.

I mowed over my once-vibrant Black Eyed Susans… more like a Black Eyed Susan… as there was only a solitary stalk left from the patch, like a soldier desperately trying to keep his flag flying.

As I worked, one of the other neighbors came out and started screaming at me over the fence.

He rides and repairs motorcycles. He’s one scary dude, and some of the neighbors are so afraid of him they won’t talk to him. I always had made it a point to talk to him anyway. Before we left, we were on very good terms and even shared special batches of foods and freshly picked produce and flowers from our gardens.

None of this seemed to come to his mind at that moment. He was livid, spit flying with every word.

I was still choking back the tears over my beloved flowers. He didn’t care. He let me have it, full force.

“Since you’ve been gone, no one has consistently kept up with the yard. The weeds in the front are as tall as my waist. I have had to call the police more times than I can count for people trespassing in your yard, and once even for a guy trying to climb into your basement window. The sidewalks are covered in ice in the winter….” he went on, in this manner, inserting some very pointed cuss words throughout.

“The trash has been piled up for a long time,” he continued. “There are animals that come to check it out on your porches and then they come into my yard…”

Finally, I clenched my fists at my side and shouted back.

He wouldn’t have heard me otherwise.

“PLEASE STOP YELLING AT ME!” I said loudly. “I just mowed down my most favorite flower garden,” I screamed back, so angry and hurt I didn’t care that I was crying in front of him. “Did you know that I dream about this garden when I’m away? And then to find it like this? I am absolutely heartbroken over this yard! This house! And you stand here, swearing at me and threatening me over the condition of my house and you’ve been throwing large BRANCHES into my yard!”

This made him even more angry.

He started to yell about the branches overhanging his house and how he’s had to cut them himself… how there was no contact information for us.

This part wasn’t true, and I stopped him. I had given his wife contact information before we left, and noted that he even acknowledged that some neighbors had mentioned they talked to me online. I called him out on this, and he said that perhaps he hadn’t pursued getting in touch with me as well as he could have.

He started to calm down a bit.

“Look, I think of you as a friend,” I said. “I had no idea that things were this bad. I haven’t been here for two years. All I know is what I’m seeing right now. I am sick over the condition of this house and it is against what I believe about stewardship for it to have gotten this way. I know that the upkeep of this house is my responsibility alone, no matter who else was living here or who was hired to keep up with things. I truly didn’t know this was going on.”

He mentioned that he was upset because he felt like it was bringing down the value of his house.

He was becoming more quiet.

“It is bringing down the value of your house, and I’m sorry,” I said. “I will be working to correct this problem. I love this neighborhood and I want it to thrive – not just be trashed with junky houses like mine!’

He said, “I’m sorry for making you cry, Sarah. Deep down, I had a feeling you didn’t know. You put so much work into making this yard lovely. You must be really sad to see it like this.”

I said, “I am. You didn’t make me cry. I was already crying when you came over. This is my fault for not keeping closer tabs on this place personally. I totally understand why you are upset, and you have every right to be. It’s not your responsibility to keep an eye on the house. You have enough on your plate as it is. Thanks for calling the police when someone was trying to break in.”

I gave him my phone number, and he gave me his. “I’d be happy to help you in any way I can, Sarah. Sorry for yelling at you. I’ve just been really fed up about this place and felt frustrated that I didn’t know how to get a hold of you. I was actually going to call the police again tomorrow about it.”

Again. Sigh.

“I understand you were frustrated. I’m not mad at you for feeling a need to call the police over it. You were just trying to get something done about this place,” I said, again acknowledging his position.

He said to say hello to Tom for him, and I asked if he would say hello to his wife. He said that he would. “You call me if you need anything, Sarah. I’m serious. I want to help. I wouldn’t have given you my number if I didn’t mean it.”

We said goodbyes on neighborly terms, and with the assurance he’d call me first before calling the police in the future.

In the cool of the night, and safe from the bees that buzz around the weed flowers, I culled four enormous garbage bags of prickly thistles from the English ivy on the hill.

Meanwhile, he sat on his porch nearby and smoked a cigarette.

I imagine he needed one after that.

“Whatever you do,” said our tour guide for Dunn River Falls, Jamaica, “do not tell anyone your name or buy any souvenirs from the merchants – they are overpriced.”

With that, our royal blue bus, a refurbished airport limousine from Japan of all places, some ancient stickers on the backs of the seats giving away its familiar place of origination, swung around the corner and lurched into a parking spot.

The driver opened the door, and we climbed down the beat up, black linoleum-covered steps.

After an hour’s ride over steep highways and winding shoreline roads, it felt good to stretch while standing on the sidewalk. The sun was brutally hot, and I took a few steps toward the shade of a nearby tree.

“Ya mon!” said a guy standing next to our bus. “Welcome to Dunn River Falls! Is this your first time?”

“Yes!” I answered, truthfully.

“My name is CJ. I work here. What’s your name?”

“Sarah.”

“The falls are beautiful, Sarah,” he said. “The guys clean the rocks every day, so they’re pretty safe. It looks scary, but you will be fine.”

“Thanks, CJ.”

“Is this your husband?” he asked.

“Yes.” I was thankful to be stepping closer to Tom. Something didn’t quite seem right all of the sudden. Why did this guy care?

“He has a beard that looks like Moses! What is his name?”

“Tom…”

Oh, craaaaap. Suddenly, the tour guide’s words came back to me and made perfect sense.

Mr. Shadypants was putting something in my hand. A woman. Carved from wood. With my name etched on the side… next to someone the name of someone else that had been quickly scratched off.

“In Jamaica, the woman is the boss,” he said, trying to impress me.

I was mad. Mostly at myself.

“Yeah? Your wife is your boss? And you’re okay with this?” I said, trying to hand him back his trinket.

“Oh, that’s a gift for you,” said Mr. Shadypants, pushing it back towards me with his open palm. “We men say, ‘No problem!’ See how it’s carved right here?”

My skin crawled as I noticed the guy’s pupils were dilated as big as saucers. Why didn’t I see this before? Crap! Crap! Double Crap! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

In his other hand magically appeared a male figurine with Tom’s name carved along the side. Beard and all. Wow, Mr. Shadypants was fast.

“Tom, mon!” he said, getting Tom’s attention. “See how they kiss?” He smooched the two figurines together. “This is a gift for your wife. She’s a good woman,” he said. “This one, though, well, I was hoping you could give me something for it… you know… whatever you think it’s worth. I have a family to feed, mon!”

Tom shot me a lethal look, retrieved his wallet, and gave Mr. Shadypants $10.

Mr. Shadypants went to go hustle the people getting off of the next bus.

“You had to tell him your name, didn’t you?!” growled Tom.

“You had to pay him!” I retorted. “You could have said, ‘my wife is crazy… no thanks!'”

“He was a scary dude!” said Tom. “Aren’t you afraid of big scary dudes?”

To my detriment, no.

I am a naïve little girl who always thinks the best of people… especially on vacation when my guard is, apparently, down. (Note to self!)

I hate myself because I know better.

Dunn River falls is amazing, and you must climb it if you go to Jamaica.

Just, please, don’t give anyone your name.

Have you ever been hustled into buying something? At what point did you realize you’ve been had? Please tell me your story so we can commiserate together.

Micah, 5, was sprayed in the face by a skunk.

While vacationing in Tunkhannock, PA, this past week, Micah and Aiden were driving Aiden’s radio controlled monster truck through the campground and encountered a skunk.

Micah got a little too close.

In this YouTube clip, Micah describes what the stink cloud looked like just before it hit him.

He vows to keep away from wildlife, and, for the record, his eyebrows still stink.

While I shopped for sunglasses, two of my “children” revealed their true identities. In their warbled, extraterrestrial voices, they explained they were aliens with many eyes.

The better to see you with, my dear.

If you ask Leah what she wants to be when she grows up, she’ll still tell you she wants to be an assassin.

Recently, on the xBox360, Tom and the boys have been playing Assassin’s Creed II.In it, Ezio, the assassin, has a poisoned blade he uses to poke targets. They die moments later, after he is long gone.

While I was making Elise Bauer’s Pork Mango Picadillo this evening, Leah snuck up on me and pricked me with her homemade poisoned blade, fashioned by Aiden out of masking tape and a chopstick. “Tsss!” she hissed, and then ran into the other room announcing, “Hey guys, I poisoned mom and she will be dying soon!”

To which, I screamed, grasping at my throat and falling to the floor, “HEY! Who is going to cook for you… aaaaaaaaaahhh!!! I’m dying!!!!!”

Apparently the promise of not killing me only applied to being mauled to death by tigers.

If it wasn’t for her bringing me back to life with her kisses, I’d still be dead and you wouldn’t be reading this. (Nope. Still dead. See? I can only open one eye!)

As she sat at my table eating her scrumptious dinner, poison blade still attached, she declared, “”Mom, the aliens in Mars Attacks said (alien voice and all) “‘We come in peace, we come in peace.’ But, they KILLED everyone so they’re LIARS!”

She’ll be different, of course.

She will only tell the truth as she kills people.

“I am Assassin’s Creed II,” Leah said, non-nonchalantly pointing to her contraption with her fork, as if I hadn’t noticed or remembered what it felt like to be poisoned.

“Even assassins need to eat their dinner,” I said as seriously as possible, hoping she didn’t notice me snickering into my armpit! I didn’t have to remind her twice, though. It was gone.

She wanted seconds.

So, I’ve eaten two plates of Pork Mango Picadillo… um… and a few bites right from the pot. Make this and you may just have some interesting dinner conversation, like we did. Then, stop over to Simply Recipes and tell Elise how amazing she is! You can also follow her (personal tweets) on Twitter @simplyrecipes and again at @recipeupdates (recipe feed).

.

Oh the rush of unexpectedly being smitten by beauty!

I had bought some new drinking glasses at the Daiso 100 ¥ Shop. Daiso provides scraps of newspaper, on worktables placed at the end of the cash register aisles, so that breakables can be wrapped for safe transport.

I picked up a handful of scraps and began to cover each glass and tuck them into my shopping bag.

The sad, frustrating truth is that I cannot read Japanese. The many vertical characters on the newspapers’ pages blurred together into mysterious meaninglessness.

When I glanced down at the stack of paper to grab a fresh sheet, I found this lovely young woman staring up at me! There were few photos printed on the paper scraps that day, and so the contrast – this beauty standing out amongst the rows of gibberish – was especially striking. The painting, in art’s universal language, was something I could understand. I tucked the scrap into my purse for safe keeping.

This morning, I had brunch with my friends Sonia and Miyo and, as I went to retrieve a pen, I felt the saved newspaper in my purse and excitedly showed Miyo. She translated it for me.

I learned that the 1915 painting is called “The Black Obi” and it was painted by Okada Saburosuke. His style was heavily influenced by Kuroda Seiki, whose real name was Kuroda Kiyoteru. Seiki went to Paris as a young man, where he lived in an artist colony that included several Americans. He even studied English. Such things are difficult to comprehend, as I tend to forget that Japanese were in the US prior to World War II.

(Once before, this very thought really got to me after watching Letters from Iwo Jima, where Ken Watanabe’s character, General Kuribayashi, speaks of his life in California before the war and how he socialized with actors, and even received silver pistol as a gift, but then returned home when the war broke out to fight for Japan.)

One of the thing I love about The Black Obi is that it is the first time I’ve ever seen a Japanese woman in the context of an Impressionistic painting. It is exquisitely surreal as if she was cut from elsewhere and affixed to a Monet or a Renoir.

Such talent!

Seeing this painting made me wonder — Would this style of art would have continued in Japan if history’s course had been different?

More on Japanese art history can be found here.