I am blaming this one squarely on you, my fellow blogger and slicer, Arjeha. Yes, you with your memory of bread, and then baking homemade biscotti.
Darn, and I don’t mean the thing one does with socks or sweaters, your hide.
Those who read my post yesterday know about the squirrels that distracted me from the work I planned on doing. I was minding my own business, being a good blogger by posting and responding to other random bloggers/slicers as is my wont, when someone, who shall not be named again(!), posted memories of the warm homey smell of baking, and then making homemade cinnamon biscotti. Why, oh, why did I then have a hankering for homemade biscuits? Unlike the gazpacho desire from a previous post, all the ingredients were readily available. I knew in the amount of time it would have taken me to get dressed go to the market, return and make them, I could have made them on my own, so to the kitchen I go.
Two things: 1- I have not made biscuits from scratch in over a decade because 2- I don’t know how to make small batches. I have been single for fifteen years now; yet I still cook somethings, like lasagna and biscuits, as though I’m feeding a horde. I was ever so grateful when Pillsbury started making the smaller containers for their ready to bake biscuits because the standard size one was too many for. But I wanted homemade cinnamon biscuits. Can’t get that prepackaged.
And yessiree Bob, (heh!) the aroma of cinnamon and butter wafting through the place was very delightful indeed! Fresh out of the oven, with melted butter, a spot of jam and tea – oh my! I could have been any age between 7 and my current 57 when those flavors hit my tongue. Still, what the devil am I to do with over twenty biscuits? (What? I said I don’t know how to make small batches.)
My best friend, and a few of my neighbors unknowing thank you, Arjeha. (Fine, so do I.)
And I did eventually get some work done on that project – whew!
I have been up since 7:30am with the intent to give some time to a writing project I’ve let slip by the wayside for a couple of days now. I changed my sheets, had breakfast and sat down around 8:15-ish to begin. But first took a phone call. Then shot off a couple of emails. Then got coffee. I’m ready now. It’s now after 11am and the only thing I’ve done is open the Word file to review where I left off in the work. To be semi-fair to myself I needed to reference information I had bookmarked. Unfortunately, I’ve tossed a lot of things into the bookmark folder for this project, and others, over time. It was a mess. Notice I say was.
If I were Sherlock Holmes, then Bookmarks are my mind palace. I can find any piece information stored in my bookmarks, provided, like any filing system, I have stored it properly first. Regrettably, I’ve been doing a lot of just stick it here for now. A. Lot. Speaking of Sherlock, for instance, I have no idea what I was thinking when I dropped a bookmark of the Mars rover named Sherloc, with an assistant aptly named Watson in the midst of bookmarks for medical and forensics, but there it was. [Don’t ask, I (like to?) imagine I’m one of those people on a government watch list for the things I research.] A link to a YouTube video on the Maned Wolf was mixed in a folder on fencing, which also had a link on Wari Tombs (I said don’t ask). Suffice it to say the reorganizing of one folder, turned into an overhaul of several before my mind palace of bookmarks is a cohesive system up to my standards again.
An excellent sense of accomplishment on one end, but not what I set out to accomplish on the other. And in the midst of it remember I need to slice today. So this is me, now looking at noon creeping up on the clock, posting in the hopes that, after lunch, I have no other distractions and can buckle down to – wait- what was I doing again?
When I posted yesterday I had nothing to slice about, and with no plans for the rest of the day, I honestly thought I wouldn’t have anything. So much for that…
Two hours later my best friend and I are on the road. “Come be my navigator to Jersey. We can ride out, pick up my package and ride back.” It’s a Friday afternoon, don’t have any plans, it’s a quick run, why not?
Did I mention I live in NYC, specifically The Bronx? Getting to New Jersey means getting to the George Washington Bridge which means getting on the Dantean worthy stretch of road legally, but jokingly named Cross Bronx Expressway. The expressway part of the name is a fallacy. Anyone familiar with the CBE is likely already cringing as they read this. Perhaps, at 3am, when there is no traffic, it would be an hour to our destination and back. But no, this is a Friday afternoon at the onset of rush hour, nonetheless.
Any notions for a quick run are dashed with our Waze GPS app politely informing us “There is a twenty-three minute delay on the Cross Bronx Expressway. You are on the fastest route.” I all but heard the sniggering of “Suckers!” from Fate, Karma and the Universe following that. There is going to be nothing express about it. We are looking at an hour just getting there. Okay, radio up, window down, let’s do this.
It’s a sunny late-afternoon in early March. The first hints of spring are in the air. My bestie and I are reminding each other not to quit our day jobs as we badly harmonize with the radio. We pick on New Jersey versus New York drivers. Even with the traffic it’s a smooth-ish drive to our destination. Then there is the return home.
Now we are near the height of rush where even going in the opposite direction is no help because of the George Washington Bridge traffic. At 4:23pm, Waze informs us we should be an home by 5:48pm. Riiiiiiiiiiight. At 6:12pm we have only just cleared the GWB itself to approach the dreaded CBE again. I don’t drive, trust me you do not want me behind the wheel of a two-ton battering ram with my temperament, but I spend a lot of time in cars, taxis, Ubers. If there is one thing I know, it is how to get home. I see the traffic c-r-a-w-l-i-ng ahead at the main East River crossing and nicely introduce my bestie to a work around where even Waze knocked ten minutes from our ETA once we’re over the Alexander Hamilton Bridge. [An aside: For the record I now know I will never be able to read or hear the name Alexander Hamilton and not hear it sung with passion and ending with an orchestral hit, a la the musical Hamilton, for the rest of my days. Thanks Lin Manuel Miranda.]
We are discussing dinner plans because we both have separate Zoom calls and this one hour run, now over two hours, has crunched into our time when we suddenly see rising black smoke ahead of us. Because of the curve of the expressway it takes a moment to realize the even slower snarl in traffic is on our side of the road. As three lanes become one, we see a man alone, backing several yards away from something on the far side of where we are forced to drive up on the shoulder to give clearance.
Then we see why.
Now, I have seen cars with their engines on fire in real life. I have seen vandalism that has badly torched a car. What I have never seen is a car fully engulfed in flames, including the sudden loud pop! as something gave, except in cinema. Until this:
We realize the man backing away must be the owner of said car. He clearly saw what was about to happen, pulled the car to the nearest shoulder and got the hell out. At least he is safe and we sincerely thank his forethought and courage to get the car to the side and as much out of the way as possible before escaping. I imagine the vehicle must have had a full tank of gas for that to happen. I don’t know what happened to the audio in this video, but I exclaim, “You can feel the heat. Yo! You can FEEL the heat!” with awe as we drive up on the raised shoulder, giving the burning vehicle a wide berth as we drove past. The heat being something else you cannot get a real sense of watching it from the comfort of a theater or a home. The driver had no choice but to get far away from it, yet still be in the vicinity as at least three fire trucks that we saw raced to the scene.
And speaking of scene: because I am a New Yorker, and such is a part of life here , I admit I did look to see if there were a movie film crew nearby before my dang sense kicked in and I took my own phone out to record the above. Because I’m honest, I could do nothing but agree when my bestie thanked the powers-that-be in gratitude that we had passed it all before FDNY arrived and closed off the road to handle it. And because I am an idiot, my next thought was and I thought I’d have nothing to slice about(!).
Busy day of virtual trainings. + Combatant in a passive-aggressive email battle that pretty much went like THIS (I’m the one in bronze in that scenario).+ Set up more classes for next couple of weeks.+Resolving a kitchen sink that decided it wants to drain sssslllloooooooooooowwwwyyyy.+Working on an overdue, by my standards – plenty of time for theirs, assignment.+ A phone call with a friend who is going through some things. = A Raivenne who has subsisted on coffee and a bagel, both of which were consumed before 10am, and is a little beyond a bit peckish.
Nearly eleven hours later my stomach has made its displeasure at its treatment, or more precisely the lack thereof, quite known.
So, do I desire the pork tenderloins, spanish rice and broccoli? Nix. Or the italian sausage and pasta? Nein. Perhaps a not so simple crack monster (croque monsieur for those of you who insist on calling it by its proper name)? Nyet. All of which, and a few other tasty little options, are within easy access of my fridge, my microwave or my oven to satisfy me within sere minutes, but do I want any of it? Noooooooooooooooooo.These taste buds of mine get a hankering for gazpacho of all the blessed things.
Gazpacho? Really? I mean, why on earth should my taste buds be reasonable when I’m hungry? (And on National Pancake Day nonetheless!)
To be fair, the erstwhile spanish restaurant were we last enjoyed gazpacho came up in conversation, so I fully lay the blame there. Still, the idea was planted and that was that. So now what? We’re in the midst of COVID, yes restaurants are open to limited capacity, but everything is reservations only. Even were I willing to drag myself downtown, which I most certainly was not, the establishment in question no longer exists. So what’s a Raivenne to do? It’s gazpacho, not DNA encoding or rocket science, to the Google!
I admit it has been a couple of years since I’ve had gazpacho, but if there is one thing I know, it does not take nearly three hours to make. My brain, heedless of my belly went off on a tangent in a fruitless attempt to determine why something that’s not even Best or Authentic, would take so long. And I say fruitless because even with the 15-20 minute options, without moving from my computer, I realize I do not have the have key ingredients: tomatoes, let alone my preferred Romas, and fresh red onions. So, now my taste buds, my belly, and I myself are mad because we all know I am not dragging myself to the 24 hour supermarket because all the local ones are now closed.
I’ll tell you about it over the weekend, I had to begrudgingly force down that absolutely delicious the pork tenderloins, spanish rice and broccoli, washed down with a nice sauvignon blanc. Oh, the hardship (!)
A friend, and colleague, told me how he had the pleasure of being awakened by the US Marshal’s this morning. It was the full POUNDING on the door, though there is a perfectly fine working doorbell, production. There were two at the door, presumably with the warrant, accompanied by several armed officers. To use his words “It was made perfectly clear my fat ass wasn’t going nowhere.” Not exactly what anyone wants to wake up to bright and surly in the morning, Especially when that man being awakened is a Black man in his mid-30s during these times as is my friend.
Clearly, this encountered ended well enough. We spoke via instant message about it and I’m blogging the story. A simple case of mistaken identity. My friend is fine. He said he cracked a joke with one of the officers in the relief of. All’s good, right? I just had one question for him: how did his mother take it when he told her? I know he’s close to her, so I know the first he called was her. He tells me she’s okay, but she is more mad and upset about the incident than he was. And that is where the title of this post comes in.
I asked about her because as a mother of two Black sons, I knew. “I’m just damned glad the first time I meet your mother is not at your funeral.” as I explained to him. She’s his mother, and pre-COVID when we were all in the office, I was, and to some degree still am, Work Mom. She and I know of each other, but we have never met. We are around the same age and have similar mindsets. He’s semi-jokingly terrified at how we’ll gang up on him if we ever got together and he’s likely correct, but I digress.
As he relayed the story to me, I interjected my comments and jokes, but I also felt a bit of panic. My sons are only a few years older than him. I visualized my sons at the door, being thusly awakened at the crack of dawn. I know the deep breaths she took as her child relayed the story. I know how she tried to tell herself it’s okay, he’s okay, it’s alright, and I know how for a long while it did not help. And I know how her son, with the invincibility of youth and the adrenaline of relief of being able to now somewhat laugh about it, cannot understand her quiet panic as she listened.
For him, it’s just a story he gets to tell about how he survived it. And that’s the way it is.
I know for his mother it’s a story on how she could have lost her son. And that’s the way it is.
For me it’s a scratch at that itch we mothers in general, but I feel mothers of black sons in particular, don’t want to acknowledge that no matter how much of an adult they are, they don’t stop being our children and the fear of that call stays with us. Today is my eldest son’s birthday, like my friend, he’s older and has matured where I feel he’ll think first and avoid being a name to remember. But then I remember Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd… so I still worry.
It’s my eleventh anniversary blogging with WordPress. As I am wont to say time flies regardless of fun, so yay me?
Still blogging after all these years… Kudos to any of you who heard that in Paul Simon’s voice.
When I started this blog some friends joked that this was another step on my path to global domination. I am sure at the time I joked that global damnation was more likely. Well, it’s eleven years later and neither have happened. Part of me is is in the mindset of Meh -whatever for the former and a Well thank goodness for the latter. I’ve looked through my stats and some years were certainly better than others. (Yes, 2020 and its dearth of content, I’m seriously giving you the stink eye.) Overall, I feel a sense of pride and accomplishment that even threw the dearth years I still posted a little something. And as I said yesterday, I’m looking forward to being more active again.
I’m still stepping and I’m still having fun most of the time, and that is always a good thing. YAY ME!
This has been a year and then some. In these past twelve months of living the life COVID, it seemed to drag for so much of it. Yet, here we are again. I start this year’s Slice of Life Challenge, now my 5th year(!), as I always do, hopeful I will finish, but fully aware some days are going to be a close call, hitting POST with bare minutes to spare. I’ve been remiss on this blog, so I am also hoping this year’s Slife of Life Challenge gets me back into the swing of regular posting again. Also, to reconnect with a few of my fellow bloggers I’ve lost contact with in the craziness of this past year. I do and say this while working on a book of poetry, along with other challenges creatively and professionally. But such is life, no?
Raivenne-lations 