Losing Weight in the Kitchen: A Simple Solution

Are you feeling flabby and out of shape? Do you feel tired and worn down?  Do you blame it on your weight and you want it to disappear?  Then I have a weight loss solution for you...  And it can be done right in your own kitchen by following what I did.  It's easy...  Here's my secret... Plan to give your kitchen a makeover!

It was time to give my kitchen a makeover.  My landlady jump-stated the project by putting in a new counter top, a new sink and faucet, and lovely subway tile back-splash.   Many thanks to her for doing the hard part.  Of course, I couldn't just let it stop at that.  I needed some new hardware, a new coat of paint, and a good cleaning.  Sounds simple, right?  How hard could it be to put on a new door handle? Well, just about as easy as a changing a flat tire...  You know what I mean.  It's never that simple.

My adventures started with moving everything out of the kitchen. Within moments, I began to question whether I needed all of these cookbooks (most of which I had that new book smell -- at some time I was just sure I would make my own pickles), gadgets (some of which I don't know why I had to begin with... Who really needs a banana slicer?), and over 25 drinking glasses.  Over 25 drinking glasses -- What was I thinking!  I couldn't fit 25 people in my apartment, let alone offer each of them a drink.

Next came removing cabinet doors.  Step one: remove 32 layers of paint from the screws holding them on.  Step two: try to pry out the layers of paint from the screw's head to get the screwdriver in. Step three: take a hammer to it and pray that you don't whack off a big chunk of cabinet. Most were so rusted that they popped right off which made me realize that the 32 layers of paint may have been only thing holding them on.

Giving the doors a new coat of paint was easy, but putting on the new handles and hinges... Let me start by saying "Not all screw holes are created equally. Nor are the screws that come with the new hinges and pulls."  I've decide that manufacturers are using aluminum cans from the '90s to produce screws. One attempt with the electric drill and the screw head is stripped, never to be used again. And just hope that you don't have to unscrew it from where you just put it.  Don't get me started about the screw heads that broke off...  I went Queen of Hearts a few times.

Ah, the relaxing and soothing exercise known as "painting the walls and ceiling." I will admit that I love the new paint containers that make it easy to pour.  My hats off to whoever came up with that idea. Paint rollers have yet to meet the same improvement. You've poured out the paint and now it's time. The moment to find out if you chose the right color has come. You've carefully put on a new spongy roller, slowly and steadily loaded it with paint, holding it as close to the wall as possible to keep from dripping.  You've with a hair of the wall and... Paint drippings hit the floor!  Too bad that wasn't your goal.  Why is it that paint always waits until you are just ready to put it on the wall?  Is it protesting?  Is it suffering from anxiety?  I know I am...

And last, there comes a point when it's time to put everything back together.  That moment that you can say you're done.  Shelves back up.  Pot rack back on the wall.  Cookbooks in order. Dishes stacked neatly. And an 8-page list of "small things" to do to finish the project.  Caulk around the sink, the new back-splash, and around everything else. Fill the 50 holes that didn't work while hanging the shelves and pot rack.  Cleaning the paint drippings from the floor.  Scrubbing everything down. Packing up the stuff you decided to get rid of and then haul it away.  You know just a few remaining minor details until your dream kitchen make-over is all done.

Hopefully in the process, you met your dream weight.  Oh and by the way, plan on losing your mind and patience as well.  Happy Makeover!

CSM

I wonder what she's going right now?

Sometimes, I really miss my mother, but most of the time, I don't.

At first, that may sound like a harsh statement.  Basically along the lines of Moms Mabley say "you should only speak good of the dead. She's dead. Good."  But, it's not.  It's a statement of faith.  Why? Because, she comes around when I need her.

The other day, I was working at home, packing stuff up to send to auction.  I'm downsizing and just need to let go of stuff.  Stuff shoved in closets.  Stuff shoved under the bed.  Stuff shoved in a locker in the basement.  I just need to lighten the load.  While doing this, I was talking to my mother. Asking if it was okay to send this off.  How about these?  How about these old cards?  Can I throw them away? And trust me, I heard her response.  She was there. She stops by when I need her.

I don't spend a lot of time missing my mother.  I spend more time wondering what's she's doing.  My mother was an active person with lots of interests, so I'm sure she's not bored.  I'm sure she's got a very active schedule, just like she did in life.

Maybe she's sitting at a old barn loom, weaving away on a blue and white coverlet.  Maybe she's spinning some wool which she'll later put into a brass dye pot that has a vat of dried cochineal or maybe logwood.  And wondering what shade of red or purple it will produce.

Maybe she's baking in a dutch oven and keeping an eye on the pot of stew hanging on the crane.  The well-used hearth of brick in a home built in the 1820s.  Maybe Helen H. or Peg H. or Warren will stop by for a visit and a cup of steaming tea.

Maybe she's reading a Frances Parkinson Keyes or a Danielle Steele novel.  Or maybe she's knitting a new scarf from earlier dyed wool while watching one of her favorite shows like Murder, She Wrote or Perry Mason or Matlock.  Or maybe she's just hanging out with my father at the trailer in the camp grounds.

Hmmm...  I wonder.  I sometimes wonder what is my mother doing right now?

CSM

Why Did I Save That?

As a child of parents who lived through the Great Depression and then the rationing years of World War Two, I have inherited a sickness.  It's not quiet hording, but close.  It's call "Saving-something-just-in-case-I-might-need-it-in-the-future." You know like twist ties and short pieces of string.  Don't throw out that perfectly good glass jar.  You might use it again to store those twist ties.  And definitely don't throw any greeting cards of any sort.  I can use them for origami.

But one day, I realized the future has arrived and I now have enough glass jars that I could start my own home canning business.  And all of those pieces of strung if tied together would stretch from New York to San Francisco.  Let's not even talk about the twist ties.

I realized the other day that my sickness and my apartment have been together way too long and needed to part.  In other words, it's time to clean out and clear out my saving habits.  I should write it on the back of the post-it note I saved reminding me to save scraps of paper to reuse for the papier mache project I planned to work on three years ago.

Stuff has taken over.   My stuff.  My parent's stuff.  Stuff that people gave me.  Stuff here.  Stuff there.  Stuff everywhere.  I can't get the stuff I really need or use because of all the other stuff.  And where does it stop? And here comes my sales pitch... It doesn't, unless you start a hefty round of my Anti-Keep-It Meds. 

With a study course of these habit-breaking doses, taken at least six times a day, seven days a week, and after about three weeks, you too can began to break down that keep-it-for-use-later habit.  That's what happened to me.

First, you have to ask yourself... Why?  Why am I saving 15 photographs of a bear at the St. Louis Zoo from a trip ages ago?  And what good are three plastic baggies overstuffed with match books from various restaurants?  How about a stack of coloring books from when I was five?  There's still a few uncolored pages in that Mickey Mouse coloring book, so god forbid I send them to the recycle bin.  (Don't worry, they went.)

Next, does it make me happy to see it again when I dig it out out from the back of the drawer?  I don't know too many people who get excited over a few loose paper clips cowering in the back of the junk drawer.  Set 'em free.  Take 'em to work and put them to use.

And last, do you like it in general?  I have my mother's hair dryer -- the kind that where you hooked a hose to the blower and it blew up like a balloon on your head. My sister had the chance to sell it.  I just couldn't let her do it.  And now, I think, why?!  What was I thinking?  Was keeping this hair dryer that important?  Am I planning on sitting around with a blown-up bubble head?  I don't have enough hair to make it worth my while.

I'm finding that letting go of stuff that's been around for so long has gotten easier.  I just do it.  My "six times a day, seven days a week, and after about three weeks" doses have worked.  My apartment and, oddly enough, my waist have lost a few pounds.  

And now, I have just over thirty-five boxes (and counting) of stuff ready to go to auction.  I figure I might as well make some money from it. After all, it's lived in my place rent free for years, costing me money to move around, keeping it clean, and tending to, much like a college grad with a philosophy degree still living at home.  Thank god it's not a real person.  I'd be in really big trouble sending it to auction.

CSM

A View of the Town, Episode 7: Thanksgiving 1921

Welcome to A View of the Town, the adventures of Dr. Willis Fletcher in a small coastal town in Maine. Offering tidbits of local color and the lay of the land, we now return to Dr. Fletcher and the Thanksgiving of 1921.

This episode of A View of the Town is brought to you by dust.  You clean. You sweep. You make a fuss, but it's never going to leave you.  Dust.

And now on with A View of the Town.

Back in 1921, Thanksgiving was coming and the whole town was rounding up their turkeys and all the fixings to go with it.  You know mashed potatoes, green beans, stuffing, dressings, gravy. You name it and someone in town had it.

Now most people got their turkeys from a farmer named Durham Q. Byrd who about two miles south of town.  Yes, you read that right.  Durham Q. Byrd.  And to look at him, you knew it.  His waddle was droopy and red from scraping with a straight razor.  His eyes slightly bulged.  And his stomach jutted out making him look like a stuffed turkey himself.  Every year, he would have enough turkeys for the whole county and then some.  This particular Thanksgiving almost went turkey-less, due to a loose wooden peg about a half-inch long.

Richie Williams worked for Mr. Byrd for the month of November.  His job was simple.  Keep the turkeys safe and watch for foxes.  Richie was now seventeen years old, but not that bright.  He lacked in good old fashioned common sense.  Some say his ma had dropped him on his head when he was a baby. Others say his pa had given too much brandy when Richie was teething. Doesn't really matter which.  All we know is that night, poor Richie Williams would almost ruin Thanksgiving.

Six days before Thanksgiving and folks would be arriving to place their orders.  Often they could pick out their tom and Richie would tag it with Byrd taking the notes, carefully assigning a number to match bird with future owner.  On the day before folks would drop by to pick up their main course for their thankful meal, Richie got his first, and I might add, only bright idea.  His plan was simple: sharpen the ax (which he did), have a hot lunch down at Pearl's Diner (which he did), and then organize the turkeys in numerical order, making it easier the next morning to find (which he attempted).

Have you ever tried to arrange a rafter of turkeys?  Richie tried, but what he didn't realize was that turkeys don't care about the numbers.  Or the order of the numbers.  Nor did they take to kindly to Richie try to organize them in numerical order.  Richie found himself turkey pecked.  All over.  If you've never had a hundred turkeys surround you with all the same intention, well lucky you as Richie would say as he recalled the tale in the barber shop the next day.

"They came at me from ever direction," said Richie.  "There was this one ornery cuss. I called him Old Tom, you know like a tom should be called.  But by my recollections he didn't like that name.  He charged at me the moment I got half way to the center of the lot.  You see they was all in this large fenced in yard on the Byrd farm."  Richie tiptoed, like he was making his way through them.

"At first, I thought old Tom as going to just push back towards the gate and out.  But he got a few others riled up and they started pecking at my legs.  Before I knew what it was all about, they was all over me.  I thought turkeys couldn't fly, but they did.  Right at me."  Richie flailed his arms like he was battling them right then.

"So ran back to the gate as best I could, fighting off them turkeys.  I finally made it out, slamming that gate right on Old Tom and his buddies. And got out there.  Just as I got a few steps away, I heard something.  When I looked back, Old Tom had pushed that pin out and he and his boys, all one hundred, came flocking after me."

As you can imagine, the boys in the barber shop that day knew what really had happened.  Richie hadn't pushed the pin in.  Mr. Byrd confirmed that.  He had seen the whole thing from his kitchen window.  Richie simply opened the gate and ran, leaving the gate wide open.  As Byrd described it, it looked like a dark feather cloud just flying away.  He was so dumbfounded he didn't know what to do.

We do know this, he got most of the turkeys back and his business dropped a little next Thanksgiving, especially when the hunters found out that some of those turkeys had nested in the woods west of town.  Many were thankful that hunting season.  All thanks to Richie Williams.

Join us again next time, when Dr. Fletcher tells us about  Otis Major in the Witch's Woods.

This episode of A View of the Town is brought to you by dust.   It's true that we come from dust and we return to dust.  So are they coming or going under that bed?  Dust.

CSM

A View of the Town, Episode 6: Louisville Sam

Welcome to A View of the Town, the adventures of Dr. Willis Fletcher in a small coastal town in Maine. Offering tidbits of local color and the lay of the land, we now return to Dr. Fletcher as he recollects about Louisville Sam.

This episode of A View of the Town is brought to you by pins.  They stick and prick you, but they're still you're friends when they hold up that hem.  Pins.

And now on with A View of the Town...

I know I told you the last time you all read that I would tell you about Otis Major and his trip into the Witch's Woods north of town, but if you've noticed I sometimes stray away on some other story first. In this case, Louisville Sam plays a part in Otis Major's visit in the Witch's Woods. So, I have to fill you in on him.

Tall, slender, and fit the name, Louisville Sam told us of his travels in his younger days on the riverboats along the Ohio River. Being an Ohioan myself, I knew some of the river ports he spoke of between Wheeling and over to where it flowed into the Mississippi. His stories were so fascinating we never quite knew what to believe, but could only sit back and revel in the tales he would spin.

I remember the first time I met Louisville Sam at the barber shop. The boys all sat back while I simply asked Louisville Sam "You been here all your life?"  I soon learned that the true history of Louisville Sam would always remain a mystery even down to the basics like when or where he was born.  If you asked, he would answer "Two days short of a million and between two rivers rolling south like piss into a stream."  So, with snipping of barber clippers in my ear, I heard the longest answer to my simple question.

Louisville Sam fiddled with the silver buttons on his worn denim vest. He kicked the leg of his chair with his right boot as if he was trying to shake a memory loose from his big toe and get it to travel up to his brain, then he said --  "I've been here long enough to remember the original cabin that founded this town. I was a little younger then. But I remember meeting old Jedediah Cork East. That must of been about 50 years ago or more. I honestly don't remember. I helped him hew those logs for that cabin."  He stopped for just a moment and then proceeded to tell me about the time he caught a glimpse of the whale that Moby Dick had been based on.

The others in the barber shop just grinned as I sat there  wondering why this guy hadn't been locked up in an asylum somewhere and I probably had the facial expression to go along with that thought. But, Louisville Sam never blinked an eye as he spun out his tall tale about meeting the long dead founder of Misty Cove.  I did know that I had learned my lesson.  At least until that day the Otis Major walked into the Witch's Woods at the edge of town. If I hadn't been there to see it, I would never have believed it.  And on top of it, I'll have to tell you about the time he met the Queen of England herself.  Now that's another story.

Join us again next time, when Dr. Fletcher tells us about Otis Major in the Witch's Woods.

This episode of A View of the Town is brought to you by pins.  Both sharp and pointy, but never witty.  Pins.

CSM

The Three Ws: Writing, Working, and Worrying

Wow!  It's been a couple of months since I last wrote a post.  I hope nobody thought I died.  Is it because I'm over it?  No.  Is it because I've run out of ideas?  Nope.  Is it because the elastic is shot in my underwear?  Nah.

It's because I'm working on a new book, working on finding an agent, and taking time to breathe.  Let the creative juices rest a while.

So, it's time to get back to work.  I'm moving some stuff off the plate and reorganize what's left.  This includes the two new books --  a love story and a ghost story.  I've found lots of encouragement in the past couple of months.

First, the love story.  I'm going to admit right here.  It's a little autobiographical.  A long-line of making choices, reeling in obsessions, and rolling with the punches.  I'll just have to sit back and see what happens.

Second, I recently saw the new film Crimson Peak.  What a wonderfully delicious Gothic ghost story. Loved it.  It's not quite what my ghost story is about, but the atmosphere reminded me of what I want to kind-of do with mine.

Both are hard to write.  Both have been moving rather slowly.

Then there's the agent search.  It's slow moving.  In fact, it's almost at a complete stand-still.  I have lots of leads.   I need to write a query letter and read over each agent's requirements.  Following the rules is a major part of the search.

CSM

A View of the Town: Episode 5: The Tale of the Witch's Woods

Welcome to A View of the Town, the adventures of Dr. Willis Fletcher in a small coastal town in Maine.  Offering tidbits of local color and the lay of the land, we now return to Dr. Fletcher and The Tale of the Witch's Woods.

This episode of A View of the Town is brought to you by... Trees.  The taller they are, the harder they fall. So be careful and watch for their falling. Trees.

And now on with A View of the Town, Episode 5...

I've been promising to tell you about the Witch's Woods just north of Misty Cove.  If you follow East street all the way north, it eventually tees and you will run right into the edge of the woods. If you turn left, you will head out of town to Wasterman's farm.  And turning right will take you the Atlantic and the docks.  Of course, you also have the option of traveling into the woods on the dirt road.  Not many choose that option, but I can tell you at Halloween, you'll always spot a cluster of kids standing there.  "I dare you" one will say. "I double-dare you" is often the reply.  This banter will go back and forth among the crowd, until one young lad will take the dare to venture off into the woods.

Now we're not really sure what the truth is to the Witch's Woods other than back in 1882, a woman by the name of Amaryllis Stemm wondered into the woods and never came back out.  The legend goes that Stem had come in on a steamboat from somewhere down the coast.  Some say Salem, others say Savannah, but regardless, the locals believed her to be a witch.  She checked into Easterly's Hotel for one night where she created a ruckus of chanting and "voodoo" as Mr. Easterly had refereed to it.  It was said that the townsfolk had seen blue balls of light coming from her second-floor room.  Some imagined them to balls of blue fire.  Others said they looked like thick bubbles floating out the window.  Regardless, she spooked the whole town with her hocus pocus.

The next morning, under the suspicious eyes of the everyone, Amaryllis Stemm packed up, walked right down the center of town and into the woods.  She was never seen nor heard from again.  At least not in the flesh.  I have tried to winnow out the rumors from the facts.  One of those facts being that over the course of several years, blue balls of light could be seen floating around in those woods. Many believe that Stemm is still in there, practicing and waiting for the moment to... well... cause trouble.  I guess.  No one ever really said what she might do.  But they do fear that she might make off with one of their children.

I can related this story, part fact, part rumor.  A few years ago, one local youngster, Otis Major, took up Hubert Stinct and his gang's double-dare and ventured off into the woods on Halloween. It was dusk so they could see him and he could easily wonder back.  As the boys watched poor Otis traipse along, a band of blue lights spun up out of the underbrush and started to follow him.  Now the boys say that Otis fell down and never came back up again.  His mother tells a different story.  Otis showed up three days later as if he were in a trance.  He told her about meeting a young woman who matched Stemm's description.  When she asked where he had been, he simply muttered the most fantastic story and never spoke again... which by the way isn't true.  Otis Major later became a writer and moved to some place in Washington State.  His mother told me, but I don't remember exactly.

Join us again next time, when Dr. Fletcher tells us the story that Otis Major related about his time in the Witch's Woods.

This episode of A View of the Town is brought to you by... Trees.  They'll leaf every fall, but return every spring.  Trees.

CSM