A Busy Weekend and New Things

This weekend I went out to my school for our annual Auction. I haven't been in years, but on Saturday I met up with my best friend, and we bought chicken corn soup and apple dumplings and watched the bidding on home goods, furniture, and the "class baskets." I ran into some old friends and soaked up some nostalgia. It was perfect. Later in the day, I went over to the school where Peter teaches where there was a similar homecoming event. We ate BBQ chicken and watched a soccer game, then Pete played in a staff vs. alumni volleyball tournament. It was a lot of fun, and we even won a rocking chair at the silent auction.

When we were ready to go home, I decided to drive out to a nearby furniture outlet first. They're going out of business and I thought I'd check for a cheap love seat. All the furniture in our apartment - and I mean all of it - was used. It was either mine previously, Peter's previously, or we bought it second hand, or it belonged to a family member who graciously gave it to us. We did not own a single new item. Our beautiful queen bed belonged to my cousin. I haggled for our retro kitchen table set at an antique store. The hutch by the door was in Pete's parents' basement and Dad repainted it for us. Many of these items we love partially for the stories that come with them. They are family pieces that we were proud to inherit. Our love seat, though, which belonged to Peter's grandmother, was one piece we did not plan to keep for long.

The love seat on move-in day... when the living room was clean.

The pattern was a seventies floral, brown and mustard and splashes of turquoise. But the whole thing was a few shades darker than its original color, made dirty by the years. It was a sturdy piece of furniture, and we appreciated having it when we moved in, but it was first on the list to be replaced.

Thus, I went to the furniture outlet. As I came in the door, I was greeted by a tall man in a white button down shirt with greying hair.

"I guess I'm your furniture salesman," he said. "I'm Rick. What are you looking for?"

I told him just a love seat, and he said most things were being sold in sets, but he knew of two love seats being sold singly. I liked one, texted a picture of it to Pete, called Dad to ask if it was a good deal, and within a half hour, I was driving to the warehouse to pick it. Peter's dad met me with the pick up truck, and then brought it over to our house.

The new love seat, in Olympic Chocolate.

Now, it's in the living room, our first truly "new" home item. I like it. Pete loves it. He napped on it this afternoon. I'm cozied up on it now. It's settling in and becoming part of the things that make up home.

In other weekend news, I hung out with my Bible Study girls Friday night to throw Jen a baby shower, Sunday afternoon we celebrated Peter's dad's birthday, and just this evening I made bread pudding. Most interesting of all, though, on Saturday I met a woman in the parking lot of Martin's who told me her whole life story as if I were an old friend. She saw me taking a picture in the parking lot (because I'll miss Martin's and I wanted a picture of it) and she pulled up beside me in her minivan and said, "Oh, I'm so glad you're taking a picture! I was just going to take a picture, because I'm out in the middle of nowhere, aren't I, and I wanted to show my son where I went to get fabric for his little girl, but I was worried I'd offend someone by taking a picture of this place!" It was quite sweet, actually. She told me how tough her job is and what it was like being a single mom who wasn't out to land a new husband, but was focused on her kids, and how people always think she's younger than she is which was always fine, but now she's a grandmother and she doesn't want people to think she's a "hoochie-mama," so now she wants to look her age for the first time... I'll be praying for this woman, a special ed teacher in Philadelphia who's helping her son raise a 9-year-old granddaughter whose mom died four years ago. Her name is Laura, and you can pray for her too.

New things: Jen's coming-in-two-weeks baby. Laura's story. A rocking chair. Our chocolate love seat. The bread pudding cooling on the counter. And the week that's about to begin.

Extravagance

I have started playing a game with myself when I go food shopping each weekend. The game is: buy as little as possible. The game is secretly: spend as little money as possible, but that is not as fun. I challenge myself to recall what I already have at home, and to work with those items, plus a carefully selected collection of economical new items, to create a week's worth of food for me and Pete.

Today I played the game in an even more challenging environment. After church today we went on a date to... Wegman's. Although we agree there is nothing inherently wrong with the veritable cornucopia of fruits, vegetables, breads, cheeses, meats, seafood delicacies, and baked goods, the abundance of food at Wegman's seems a bit extreme. And it does make it extremely easy to fall into greediness and to desire the luxurious life that is associated with cartfuls of expensive food. Walking by displays of bright orange peppers, just-misted bunches of fresh parsley, bundles of sunflowers, and $4 menu magazines is tempting. But I actually did well with my game at Wegman's today. The one luxury I planned to purchase - English crumpets - was out of stock. So I was spared that indulgence.

For a girl who's become accustomed to shopping at ALDI - where there are absolutely no frills - the extravagance of Wegman's is a bit of a shock. So are the women in heeled leather boots drinking lattes while they shop for organic fat free ice cream and Romanesco broccoli. There's a woman handing out tiny sample cups of just-squeezed orange juice. A small child is screaming at the gelato bar where her grandmother is about to buy her chocolate ice cream. There's a whole aisle of various international foods (although NOT crumpets). There's a miniature train set suspended from the ceiling that chug-a-chug-chug's in a loop above your head in the cheese section. The environment of the luxury grocery store is a bit embarrassing.

But at the heart of Wegman's and ALDI is the fulfillment of a basic human need - the need to eat. And if I can create meals that tantalize, satisfy, and nourish us, I don't think it matters where I've purchased the ingredients. Wegman's is a place to ponder the creativity of God in his design of a world full of edible things. At ALDI, food is just food; no fanfare. Either place, it's a loaves and fishes game to make something plentiful out of whatever I can afford. Sometimes, tossing in a little something extra is alright too. Today, a five-dollar container of gourmet olives from the Mediterranean Bar was not on the shopping list, but it made Pete's day. And for my splurge - if you know where I can get crumpets, let me know.

Detergent

For the past fourteen months - since I moved into this apartment - one household chore has taken a seat as the most burdensome task on my list. It's a chore I've never hated, never minded, never been annoyed with. But now, it requires lifting, maneuvering, driving, waiting, then lifting, maneuvering, and driving again. What is it, you ask?

Laundry.

You see, like many others living in small first apartments, I do not have a washer or dryer. Instead, Pete and I have trusted the kindness of our parents and used either my mom and dad's washer or his mom and dad's washer almost once a week to do our laundry. Not only does this mean getting our laundry baskets downstairs and through the narrow porch doors, into the car, and over to someone else's home, but it also means waiting for the wash to be done - usually two or three loads - and then waiting through dryer cycles, all while 20 minutes from home and unable to complete other chores.

Last weekend - thinking that perhaps after a year, we might find another solution than the kindness of moms - we ventured for the first time to the local laundromat. I have a fear of looking dumb in public (who doesn't, I guess?) so I tried to pretend I totally knew what I was doing. I walked in boldly, head held high, and found a few washers together that weren't humming with someone else's clothes. The washers were the same ones we had in my college dorms, so it wasn't too hard to figure out. And each load cost only $2.00! A bargain, I thought. I had brought quarters, so that part was easy and after we put three loads in (three loads at once - who dreams of such luxury!?), I zipped down the street to Wawa for some sustenance: a blue slushy for Pete, Nantucket Nectar for me, and a stuffed soft pretzel to share. I felt pretty secure there on the bright blue plastic bench with Husby, waiting for my clothes to be cleaned.

The laundromat experience was excellent, not only for the ease (three loads at once, then tossing the contents of all three into a MASSIVE dryer) and the quality time with Husby, but also the people-watching opportunities. I had brought my crocheting and was working on a project while I sat on the bench along the wall. A woman sat down on the bench next to me, browsed a few magazines sitting there, then turned to me and asked what I was making. I told her, and she said she used to crochet blankets too. She had made two the same, a pattern with three dimensional rosettes on each square. The first, she said, she made ignorantly out of wool, and it got destroyed in the washing machine. Later, she made one out of more suitable yarn and she says she still has it. That day, she seemed to be washing mostly mu-muus, slips, and other things made of silky material. She must have pushed the button for a quick cycle, because she was in and out of there in no time at all. In the meantime, I had barely noticed another woman trotting back and forth between the two change machines, evidently trying her single five-dollar bill in each one, flattening it out against her leg and trying again, with no success. Finally, she came over to me and asked if I had change for a five, which I did. It's nice to help a stranger. Later, as I was pulling my clothes out of the dryer, hurriedly folding each item in half just to keep them unwrinkled until I got them home, a girl about my age in leggings and a white t-shirt was meticulously folding a bunch of colorful toddler clothes. Small square piles of shirts and pants, and little stacks of socks covered the folding table in front of her. Perhaps an afternoon at the laundromat was the break she needed from the little ones.

This week at the laundromat most of the people I saw brought in their laundry in large plastic trash bags. Two little sisters were pushing the wheeled laundry carts in races from one side of the room to the other. A few youngish men seemed surprised at the capacity of the dryers and I felt proud for having learned this already. And a middle aged man was doing a load by himself. It was a funny group of us there, all sitting, waiting quietly (the laundromat does not play the radio, I was surprised to discover), spending a Sunday afternoon together

The laundromat creates a community of people in need. We may get our clothes at Goodwill or at J. Crew, but we all need them washed. We may use Tide or Wisk, carefully apply stainlifter to each garment or toss everything in the washer in a tangled mass, pay with quarters we've saved all week or feed a ten into the change machine and catch a noisy pile of coins in our hand. It doesn't matter. It's a leveling instrument, a humbling place where we admit that our lives - or at least our cheap apartments - are lacking something. At the laundromat, we're sharing space for an hour or so, then going home with something warm and good-smelling. It reminds us that in all things - not only our laundering needs - we are not so very different from each other as we might think.

Irene

Sometimes a little storm is all life needs to be suddenly sunny again. This weekend we hunkered down under the splattering edge of Hurricane Irene and enjoyed the drama of just such a storm.

Saturday morning, with Hurricane Irene blazing a trail toward us, Pete and I went for a bike ride with Dad (whose knee is slowly on the mend). Just 8 miles or so, a good short workout in preparation for our ride in four weeks. It was a windy ride, but that was good preparation too. Those bridges into OC are killer with a stiff headwind. Afterwards, I made my weekly ALDI run, but was careful not to buy too much food that might spoil if the power went out during Irene. I spent the rest of the day reading, crocheting, and watching the rain start to come down. We went to bed as the wind and rain intensified and hoped for the best.

The power went out around midnight and we heard the whistling wind as we tried to sleep for the next eight hours. When we got up, Pete decided we should have ice cream for breakfast since it would otherwise turn to inedible soup in the warming freezer. A bowl apiece made for a nice breakfast, but it turned out to be unnecessary. Our landlord graciously let us run an extension cord out our kitchen window to his generator so we could power the fridge.

I sat on the porch for the next hour or so, reading and then - suddenly - around 11:00, the power was restored. I whipped up a batch of chocolate chip muffins, which I'd been craving since last night, and took some over to Mom, Dad, and sister who'd also been without power and had spent the morning bailing water out of the basement.

Later in the afternoon, Pete and I took a drive over to the park to see the river. It was brown and swift, much swollen and looking rather tired of all the drama.

Me? I would rather enjoy another day at home, a cup of hot tea on the porch, and a safely whistling wind outside. But if I must return to the office tomorrow, I will make the best of it buoyed by the refreshing glow of a storm that has passed.

[I write this post in the context our our safety in southeastern Pennsylvania. For those who weathered Irene in far more dangerous conditions, I do not assume that a refreshing glow was the result and I certainly do not mean to make light of a storm that, for some, caused extensive damage.]

Celeste, Loss, and The Best Pork I Ever Made

One of the first years I rode the MS-150 City to Shore Bike Tour with my dad (which I'm riding for the eighth time this year) I remember seeing a bright sea-foam green bike at one of the rest stops, propped up against a tree, and I pointed it out to Dad. I thought it was so pretty and unique. My hybrid mountain/road bike was a patriotic blue color and most other bikes I saw were white, red, blue, or maybe yellow. This one stood apart. Dad told me it wasn't just the color that made that sea-foam green bike special; it was a very expensive and especially good bicycle. It was a Bianchi. They make Biachis in other colors, but this sea-foam shade is the classic Biachi hue and is most recognizable. It is known as Celeste.

For quite a few more years, I happily rode my hybrid Raleigh and was content. But this summer, I have been given the chance to purchase a Celeste Bianchi from my sister-in-law for an incredibly affordable price. I borrowed the bike last week to give it a try. They say "It's like riding a bike" to refer to something natural and completely easy. When I straddled Celeste for the first time and put my hands to the curled handlebars... I felt I had never been on a bike before in my life. The shape my body assumed, the pressure points and aches that instantly became sensitive, even the way my leg muscles reacted to each stroke... it was a feeling unlike anything I've encountered on a bike. Still, I'd never felt more like a cyclist than when on that sea-foam Bianchi. I'm riding her again this weekend, and very excited to get a better feel for her and put a few miles under our belts together. I have a feeling Celeste and I are going to become good friends.

_______________________

Early this week, some Facebook news sank like a knife into my nostalgic heart. First, a bit of background: About three and a half years ago, I spent three months at Oxford University with a student exchange program. I lived in a delightful British house with 21 other American students and our British Junior Dean. The program, SCIO, owned the home and had been housing students there for years. This week I learned that SCIO has sold the house. As with the loss of a childhood home, a grandparent's backyard, or an elementary playground, the loss of this house has chopped out a piece of my heart. Although chances were quite slim I would ever venture back to 8 Crick Road, there was a certain peace in knowing it was always there. The crazy quilt still in the living room. The sink still in my bedroom downstairs. The tea kettle still in the kitchen and the freezer in the library. The washing machine spinning constantly with someone's clothes and the map of Cracker Barrel restaurants still tacked up in the powder room. I liked knowing that if the Road ever took me back to Oxford, 8 Crick would be waiting for me. Now, that hope is gone.

________________________

 Tuesday brought a culinary success with my attempt at Peppered Pork Sandwiches. Peter was a bit skeptical, and even asked why I don't stick with recipes I already know, but in the end he enjoyed it too. I have not had good success with pork in the past, and was hoping for a first success. I cut boneless pork chops into strips and then in half so the pieces were about an inch and a half long and less than half an inch thick. Then I peppered them - coarse pepper would have been better, but regular black worked fine - and tossed with olive oil, then sauteed them until cooked through. It took about 10 minutes, maybe, and the pork was deliciously tender. Then I threw in some chopped roasted red peppers from a jar and let the whole thing warm on the stove. In the meantime, I whipped up a quick sauce of mayonnaise, a little Parmesan dressing, a few splashes of milk, and one minced garlic clove, adding more mayo until it was thick enough to spread. I didn't buy pitas, but used some good bolillo rolls from the Giant bakery. We spread these with the sauce, then spooned on the pork and peppers, and enjoyed sandwiches that made me think of a carnival. They were perfect. I think I've just secured my go-to pork recipe.

Vacation Is... (Part II)

Tuesday, July 5: After work, Peter and I went to Mom and Dad's house to pick up the bikes. Then we were on our way to Peahala Park, NJ on Long Beach Island. Over the bridge, along the straight, thin roads of New Jersey, around a couple round-abouts, and in just over two hours, we were there. Jon and Kim met us at 104 Sailboat Ave, our cottage, and helped us unpack. A few hot dogs later, we were off to bed.

Wednesday, July 6: Finding a coffeepot in the cottage kitchen, but no filters, I improvised with paper towels and made a pot of just-drinkable coffee. Then we whipped up some pancakes, and chopped some strawberries, and by the time Jon and Kim were up, it was breakfast time! We enjoyed a delicious meal in the little dining room, then packed up and walked down to the beach. From towel, to chair, to ocean, to towel again, we relaxed throughout much of the day on the shores of the Atlantic. In the late afternoon, we went back to the house and took turns in the shower, then Peter and I drove down to ACME for some dinner items and we grilled up burgers for dinner. With a little leftover baked beans and fruit salad, it was a perfect meal. Afterwards, we took a stroll to Skipper Dipper for ice cream, and then Jon and Kim headed home.
Peter and I hopped on our bikes for an evening ride and stopped to watch the sunset on Winifred Street, where his family's cottage still stands although it was sold many years ago.

Thursday, July 7: We began the day with a bike ride up the island to the Haymarket, Peter's favorite toystore in the world. On the way, we stopped in at Bageleddi's for breakfast and enjoyed our muffin and bagel on the bench outside. After browsing the toystore, we rode back home and got ready for the beach. It was a beautiful day. Peter got me in the water a few times, although I'm usually a sand-dweller, and we took a walk down the shoreline. In the afternoon, we took a drive to browse some shops including The Wizard of Odds, Firefly, and Lucille's Candies. We bought some fudge and taffy, and then cozied up back at the cottage (in front of the food network - we don't get cable at home!) with chicken soup from the crock pot. Later, we took a little stroll on the beach.

Friday, July 8: A cloudy morning delayed our beaching, but we sat on the deck and read our books for a little while, then beached a little later. In the afternoon, Mom, Dad and Shanna arrived and we went back to the beach. In the evening, we drove out for dinner, and picked - simply because it looked local and not too crowded - a place called Boulevard Clams. It turned out to be a fish market that also had about ten tables for eat-in diners. It was clearly a local joint, friendly, homey, and casual. I ordered lemonade, which came in a plastic quart container. Huge! Allen, our awesome waiter, also got me some Advil for my very painful sunburn. We all ordered seafood -- even me! Dijon salmon, which I really enjoyed. It was a very enjoyable meal. Three cheers for Allen and Boulevard Clams!

Saturday, July 9: Mom and Dad picked up coffee and donuts for us Saturday morning and we snacked while packing and cleaning. We spent a little time on the beach in the morning, walking in the shallows and sitting on the sand, then we finished up back at the cottage and drove the key down to the Real Estate Office to check out. For the rest of the day, we headed up to the northern end of the island to the lighthouse. We walked on the jetty and climbed the lighthouse. Before heading home we had lunch at Viking Village and browsed the cutesy shops there.

Peahala Park, Long Beach Island and 104 Sailboat Ave, thanks for a lovely little getaway.
Hope to see you again next year!

Honey, I saved the dinner... Maybe.

Dinner was flavorless tonight. I can't figure out why, because it was a fairly tried and true recipe, something I call Tie the Knot Pesto Pasta. It's basically bow-tie pasta (although tonight I used penne, which I had), tossed with sauteed chicken, peppers, and onions with about 4 tablespoons of basil pesto sauce. I've loved this meal in the past, but tonight it lacked its usual flair. Admittedly, I did things a little differently. There was the penne instead of the bow-ties. Then I swapped the peppers out for zucchini which I had instead. Also, the chicken had been frozen, although I've never thought that makes a difference. As far as my cooking knowledge goes, it should have come out the same. It did not.

My attempt to save dinner: make it into a casserole! I browsed my cookbooks for chicken casserole recipes, and found a common ingredient: cream of chicken soup. So, I went down to the Farm Store. I needed milk anyway, so it was worth the trip. (However, I did waste at least ten whole minutes talking myself out of buying chocolate chip cake, blueberry muffins, and cinnamon raisin bread - all freshly made, and oh-so-tempting.) Sadly, the Farm Store does not carry such lazy-cook necessities as cream of chicken soup, so back at home I whipped up a quick alfredo of butter, flour, milk, chicken broth (which may have been in the fridge for over a month, but smelled fine), and some seasonings. When this had thickened, I added it to the skillet meal, dumped the whole thing into a casserole dish, and topped it with Italian shredded cheese.

It's out of the oven now - baked at 350 for about 25 minutes. Jury's still out, though, on the results. Fingers are crossed.