“Learning” To Cook

I put learning in quotations because while I did cook with my mom as a child, and my six siblings and I spent many hours in the kitchen preparing, eating, or cleaning up one of her meals I wasn’t so much taught how to cook as allowed to absorb. My present respectable cooking abilities are proof of this—when I moved out on my own I could cook a Totino’s party pizza, and one out of five of those I burned. Further proof is that aside from her Christmas cookies (best cookies made in December, ask anyone) I only prepare one of my mom’s staple recipes: fettuccine alfredo. Not that she doesn’t have many wonderful dishes, it’s just that fettuccine afredo is the only dish with an existing list of ingredients. The rest is made up and that’s what I’ve had to do: make it up as I go.
As long as I’ve lived on my own, I’ve used my mom as 1-800-Dial-A-Cook. She is like a database of kitchen facts: How long is hamburger good? How can you tell if it’s bad? (Note: all hamburger smells bad to a vegetarian.) Can I use unsweetened cocoa cubes instead of powder? (Yes.) Just don’t ask her for a recipe. All you’ll get is: “About a cup or two of this, and maybe half a can of that. Melt some butter and add enough flour to make a white sauce.”
“What’s a white sauce?” I remember asking.
“Butter and flour.”
Ah-ha.
Drives me mad asking my mother how to make something. Unfortunately, despite the cliché, I have become my mother. I cook by handfuls and shakes. When asked for a recipe, sometimes I can pass along a list of ingredients, but it most likely had some mutations from page to platter. Even more often I find myself saying something like, “It was a kind of a combination of two recipes. Instead of using breadcrumbs I used brown rice and zucchini instead of mushrooms.”
I like to think of myself as a moderate savant. I do keep and use recipes, a collection which at this writing is undergoing a major revitalization effort to transfer them from the folder of cut out magazine pages and scribbled, water-damaged notes into a binder full of neatly written pages. However, despite my best efforts, when I cook it’s always clumsy, messy and unpredictable. Usually dinner is good, though sometimes it’s not. No dish tastes the same twice in a row until I get it perfected, which is when others want to know how to make it. I try my best, as my mom always did with me, to recall what I did, but who has that kind of perfect recall? I don’t and I was “trained” by the best.

The end of August passed in a blur. We visited Spokane and extended our trip to Seattle. Actually, our hotel was in Port Orchard, which is on the Kitsap Peninsula across Puget Sound from Seattle. What an unbelievably beautiful area. My parents moved to Bremerton, also on the peninsula, so hopefully they’ll stay put long enough for us to head back and poke around a little more. Three days was not enough.

We’re back to school now but before that the kids and I visited Grandma Dianna in New York City. Alex loves New York and Greta had so much fun that the night we stayed there, between two am and five am, she was too excited to sleep. Walking the streets of New York (and riding the subways) is always a rush. I stopped by my favorite book store, The Strand, on 12th and Broadway and found it much improved and expanded since the last time I made it down there. I could have spent all day there. Both of the kids really enjoyed seeing their grandma so much that the drive felt worth it. We even got a short visit with the Dixon’s when we stayed the night to break up the drive on the way up and again on the way home.



Then came a camping trip over Labor Day weekend. I was not looking forward to this trip at all. It would make four weekends in a row that the kids and I had not been home. But, the Hogan’s were camping with two-month-old Brody (paying us back for last year when we went camping with a two-month-old Greta.) I’d also heard that there was some good mountain biking to be had, so I reluctantly pulled the gear out of the attic and less reluctantly pulled my bike out of the shed—first time in about two years the poor thing had seen the light of day. Jeremy and I didn’t get to ride together due to the kid factor, but we both got to ride the two trails with one group or another. I’m still on a bike-high so this Sunday, for our 12th anniversary, we’re hitting the trails again for a romantic ride-a-deux.

Our big news of the week was Alex starting his first day of kindergarten. He had a great week and I’m thankful. His first day he came home and said school was boring—they had to sit and listen all day. Fortunately, it’s gotten better since then, but I think the bus, school lunch, and recess are trumping the actual learning so far. Oh well, I’ll take what I can get.

The Traveling Pugh Show

We’re shuttling across the country this week, on our way to Spokane, WA to visit my family. Siblings from L.A. and Salt Lake are also meeting up where my parents live to celebrate my grandma’s 90th birthday. (Go Florence! It’s your birthday!) My parents, grandma, and two younger brothers moved to Washington about a year ago and this will be my first time in Washington. I always enjoy the chance to go someplace new and I’ve heard great things about this part of the country. The monumental amount of planning involved in getting a family of four on the road is the price I have to pay, I guess—on top of the monumental price we have to pay for air, rental car, hotel, etc.

In the midst of arranging for a crib at the hotel, late check-in and discovering our rental car company doesn’t provide car seats, we found out we have a lame dog. That’s not an insult, but the vet’s diagnosis: Floyd has a partially torn ACL, which will require surgery. Poor puppy. And poor Pugh’s too, 'cause our insurance doesn’t cover canine causes. In the three days I’ll have between returning from Spokane and heading out again with the kids to visit my mom-in-law in NYC I have to take Floyd to the surgeon to find out the game plan. Until then he’ll be doped up. Any of you who know Floyd are probably wondering, “How exactly does one tell a doped up Floyd from the everyday Floyd?”

This is Floyd:













This is Floyd on drugs:















Any questions?

I’ll try and post from the road, but I can’t promise anything. Eight days seems like a long time in theory, but vacations have a way of warping time. One minute you seem to have the whole trip in front of you and the next it’s time to head home. In between you can count on at least one family drama, a kid melting down in public, forgetting one essential item, and enough photo opportunities to permanently damage your retinas.

I’m trying to climb out of my book binge. Never easy. I, of course, read the new Harry Potter, but more on that later. Most of my reading material had been in the magazine form because articles and short fiction fit so well into the short snippets of time that I have between fishing foreign objects from my one-year-old’s mouth and fielding my five-year-old’s cryptic questions (“Did we park the wrong way or the right way? …er, right?). The New Yorker Summer Fiction issue was exceptional this year, especially Wildwood by Junot Diaz. I also got turned on to Breece D’J Pancake this summer and I’ve enjoyed his short fiction. I’m still trying to dig my teeth into Irving’s newest, but time is running out. It’s a library book for one and my open season on reading time is limited. I hate spinning my wheels. Lolly Winton’s new novel Happiness Not Included was a really good read. Her characters were all so sympathetic that the ending was both inevitable and a surprise. Not simple to pull off.

Then there’s J.K. Rowling and her epic story. I had so much fun reading the Harry Potter books. Rowling reminded me why I want to write: I love stories. What an amazing accomplishment to weave a tale that captures the entire world. Incredible. I’d like to read it again now that I know what happens in the end. Maybe I won’t read so compulsively next time. I also got a list of books from my professor for fall semester, (I know, boo! It’s semester break, right?) Problem is, I know absolutely nothing about Medieval Epic and Romance literature. I only recently learned to spell Medieval. I won’t be able to focus on the writing and revising we’ll do in class if I’m completely ignorant of the literature.

If there’s one thing that signals the end of summer, it’s the trading of novels for textbooks. We’re off to Spokane, WA to help my Grandma celebrate her 90th birthday for ten days in August and even though we have a month of summer left, so much of it’s already booked (add a trip to New York and camping to the Spokane vacation.) I hate to see summer go, but now that I live in Virginia I’ve learned a new appreciation for fall – at least the mosquitoes are dead.

Finally, summer semester is over. Can I get a hallelujah?

I have lots of projects I want to get done between now and the end of August when Fall semester starts, most of them writing related. I’d like to make this blog weekly instead of monthly/sporadic. I intended to use the blog as a view into the writing and revision process, but other than the one short short story I worked on, everything else it too long to expect anyone to read (twice!) so I decided to switch formats to a column-type post once a week. This week’s topic is: Why I don’t do well in crowds.

I bring this up because the family spent Saturday at an amusement park—crowd hell. It was Jeremy’s office family day at Busch Gardens, a nice enough park if you enjoy lines. We waited in line to park, to get through the gate, to go to the bathroom, to get food, to get on rides, and when you consider the crowds, we basically waited in line to walk down the paths. We had with us both Alex and Greta and we brought along Alex’s buddy Drew. The five-year-olds were in heaven. Greta—not so much. She had to spend the entire day moving from one container to the other.

As much as I wanted to leave at certain points of the day, there were other moments that were very cool and reminded me that I too once looked forward to my dad’s work-sponsored amusement park day even though, to keep track of all seven of their children, my parents made us all wear the same retarded t-shirt and despite the embarrassment, I mean effort, they always had to fetch one of their children from the lost kid room near the entrance. One minute I’m wearing the shirt of shame and the next I’m dressing my son and daughter in the brightest tie-dye shirts they own.

This year we took Alex on his first “big” ride. He had been asking all day to go on a ride that went “fast” and we finally found one that if we messed up his hair and he stood up as tall as possible, he could just meet the height requirement. It happened to be the magic carpet-type ride, one of my favorites. Drew said no, then yes, then no, he wasn’t quite ready so it was just Alex and me. We laughed the entire ride and as soon as we got off he said, “Let’s go again!” This time, Drew decided if Alex had fun, then maybe he would too. Jeremy got to go this time while I let Greta stretch her chubby legs using her stroller as a walker. When they got off the ride this time Alex again said, “Let’s go again!” Drew said, “No fanks.” I guess it wasn’t his cup of tea after all but we were very impressed that he’d give it a shot even though he was obviously pretty nervous about it.

Anyway, after that we stopped by a fast food joint for some horrible service and even worse food (but at least it didn’t cost us $100) and headed home to the sweet sounds of Greta screaming in the back seat.

The good news is Jeremy took the opportunity to upgrade our free passes to season tickets so we get to repeat the experience as often as we want! I suggested next time we leave the kids at home and have a roller coaster riding date night on a Monday when the crowds are thin and I can ride all the rides I want because the magic carpet ride reminded me why I used to love amusement parks so much: roller coasters!

Well, I didn’t quite make my goal of 300, words. I pared it from 450 to 350 and I think if I deleted any more it would be a different story. Maybe it already is. What do you think? Is it better or worse for the editing? The original is back on the 1/31/07 post. If nothing else, it was a good exercise. Truly amazing what uselessness you find when you’re word counting. Here’s the revised version…

Change of Heart

The air outside smelled of daffodils and dandelions pushing up through the dirt, so strong with spring you could get drunk from one deep breath. I came outside to shake the scent of dust and bat shit out of my hair. I took deep breath and started laughing—I was crying, cheeks cramped, before I could get control of myself again.
Jaime pulled up in his driveway. Behind the stack of Thai take-out he still wore a scowl from the fight we’d been having. He walked around the hedge that separated his driveway from where I stood: back porch of the dead neighbor with no living relatives. One offer to mow the lawn, turned friendship, turned certified letter bequeathing the entire contents of his house to Jaime. It had taken us three days to sift through the rambler and conclude that the Salvation Army was going to score. All we had left was the attic, but of all the crammed-full-of-crap corners it was by far the worst: tax returns from the sixties and twenty boxes of Christmas decorations—not the porcelain nativity type, but the tinsel variety. I was beginning to reconsider my resolution to give Jaime and me one more chance.
What a difference a bag of cash can make.
I didn’t feel great about the fact that it took finding the old man’s stash of money to make me realize I should admire Jaime’s effort in memory of a man he’d barely known. He was going to come out of it on top by about 30-grand—proof enough for me that the universe approved of his efforts.
From the back porch I heard Jaime call my name then clomp up the pull-down ladder. The duffel bag was back where I’d found it, on top of the last stack of boxes, so he could experience the rush of finding it himself.
I waited a few minutes and made my way back to the attic. Jaime was in the corner. The duffel bag was lying, deflated on top of the “toss’ mound.
“Looks like we’re just about finished,” he said.

Happy Birthday to Greta! I can't believe my baby is one today. Last year has to be the fastest moving year on record. We had Jeremy's parents in town last week and it was a wonderful visit. Jeremy and David put a playset/fort up in the backyard and we had a small cook out with a few friend to celebrate Greta's birthday. Today Alex and I are going to take her to the play area at the mall and maybe let her pick out a toy from the store. Not that she needs anymore. We have toys and baby clothes coming out our ears. Anyone need a baby girl wardrobe?

As far as the writing bug goes, I think I've finally been infected again. I dusted off my notebook which has been oft neglected this last year and I've recommitted to crack it open once a day. I knew that this first year of Greta's life would take me away from writing - it did when Alex was born. Honestly, I was pretty content to get consumed by that Mom/Baby bond, but it's time to begin the separation process and let the writer piece of the pie get a bigger share of my time than the sliver it's had lately.

In addition to the notebook I've spent some time researching markets. I have two stories I think are ready and I'm going to send one out to all six and as I hear back I'll send the other out. I also found a market for my short short that I posted a while ago. I need to make it shorter (by quite a bit - at leas 100 words) and clear up a few muddy spots that were brought up in workshop. I'll post it tomorrow when I've finished.

What? A new entry on this dusty, abandoned blog? ‘Tis true. Sorry for the absence. No excuse save finals. I’m happy to report that my hiatus paid off - another three A’s to add to the 4.0 and I brag only because it was a very close call this semester. I think my Italian grade came from the graces of my professoressa who I’d had for four semesters because it definitely wasn’t thanks to my test scores. So, thank you Professoressa Wallace, not just for the grade, but for two years of excellent foreign language classes. I’ve been at this school thing for a while and can attest to the rarity of truly inspiring teachers. Teachers, who not only impart knowledge, but excite their students as well. After a couple of years teaching yoga I decided to return to college to eventually become a teacher of literature and writing – my true passions. I only hope that I can live up to examples set by some of the great teachers I’ve had over the years like Mrs. Patterson, my third grade teacher who infected me with the writing bug years ago. Every week we wrote a poem in class and each week she’d pick one student’s poem and design a bulletin board around it. I will never forget that soaring feeling when I came into the room and saw my name next to my words on such a grand scale.

As is my usual semester break tradition, I’ve been book binging. I finished the newest Adrianna Trigiani novel and can’t say I’d recommend it. I only finished it because I was familiar with the characters from the previous novels. It seemed like a bunch of explication to me – no tension. Now I’m reading a novel called “Lost Hearts in Italy.” I love being able to understand the Italian phrases and it’s very well written – author is Andrea Lee. I’ll withhold a full endorsement until I’ve finished it. I haven’t been writing much because….because it’s hard, that’s why. And also because I’ve been pretty contented and busy. I spend my days playing with my kids. Greta is absolutely the most adorable, sweet-natured baby girl on the planet and that makes for one whopper of a distraction. I stuck a picture in so you'll see what I mean. I’ll get back into a rhythm. The same thing happened the year after I had Alex. It’s easy, especially for mothers, to get lost in a relationship with an infant. I’ll come out the other side, but in the meantime I’m going to enjoy being consumed because as I’ve found out with my 5-year-old, they become independent pretty fast. I do have a couple of stories to show for the last few months thanks to my writing class. One brand new and one reworked. They both need a little more attention. I do have a handful of stories that I am considering putting out there. I need to pick up a new copy of some market book and start sending. Rejection sucks, but so does sitting on work.

Va bene, basta!
(okay, enough!)

I haven't had a chance to post a revised version of the one-pager, but I will soon. I didn't get too much critical feedback from workshop - mostly positive. I do think I need to work on describing the setting and character placement a little better, so I'll see what I can do with the rewrite.

The next story was due a few days ago, but I won't fall into the workshop line-up for another few weeks. I decided to hand in an older story that I wrote and abandoned years ago. The piece has been haunting me and I'm glad to have finally given it some more attention. The protagonist has amnesia from a brain injury and I was intimidated by the technical subject matter. Amazing what a little research can do. I've also taken a psychology class in the time since I wrote the first draft and one of the sections focused on brain injuries and amnesia, together with the research I feel pretty confident about the details. We'll see if the workshop agrees. What was amazing to me was that once I went back to the story armed with facts I had to change very little of the original draft, which basically came out of thin air. Seems the character knew what he was taking about. Guess that's why they call it the "Spooky Art."

The next story I'd like to start from scratch. Not that there aren't thirty other stories I've already written and would like feedback on, but because I haven't started a new story in a while and I miss it. The creation of a new character and a new world is by far my favorite part of the writing process. I'm going back to fertile short story territory for me: three words and blank notebook pages. The three-word trick started years ago with my writing buddy Leaf - we'd pick three words and each use them in a story. Leaf writes horror and I write more commercial/literary type fiction, so you can imagine that the use of words varied greatly. I love starting out with three little building blocks - words - a story broken down into it's most basic element, and watching what develops from there.

So for this next story I'm going with: draft, tick, and arch.

I haven't had a chance to post a revised version of the one-pager, but I will soon. I didn't get too much critical feedback from workshop - mostly positive. I do think I need to work on describing the setting and character placement a little better, so I'll see what I can do with the rewrite.

The next story was due a few days ago, but I won't fall into the workshop line-up for another few weeks. I decided to hand in an older story that I wrote and abandoned years ago. The piece has been haunting me and I'm glad to have finally given it some more attention. The protagonist has amnesia from a brain injury and I was intimidated by the technical subject matter. Amazing what a little research can do. I've also taken a psychology class in the time since I wrote the first draft and one of the sections focused on brain injuries and amnesia, together with the research I feel pretty confident about the details. We'll see if the workshop agrees. What was amazing to me was that once I went back to the story armed with facts I had to change very little of the original draft, which basically came out of thin air. Seems the character knew what he was taking about. Guess that's why they call it the "Spooky Art."

The next story I'd like to start from scratch. Not that there aren't thirty other stories I've already written and would like feedback on, but because I haven't started a new story in a while and I miss it. The creation of a new character and a new world is by far my favorite part of the writing process. I'm going back to fertile short story territory for me: three words and blank notebook pages. The three-word trick started years ago with my writing buddy Leaf - we'd pick three words and each use them in a story. Leaf writes horror and I write more commercial/literary type fiction, so you can imagine that the use of words varied greatly. I love starting out with three little building blocks - words - a story broken down into it's most basic element, and watching what develops from there.

So for this next story I'm going with: draft, tick, and arch.

Back to school. Spring semester is underway and so far all is under control. I ended up getting the writing class I wanted. Having fiction writing and reading for homework will make the 9-credit class load a little easier. My other two classes are Italian and Astronomy. I consider physics just as much of a foreign language as Italian and both are going to be a challenge. That 4.0 gets harder to maintain every semester. I'm positing my first writing assignment - a one-page story, set in an attic, and my assigned emotional core was Disillusionment. Because it's such a short piece, I thought I'd post a before workshop copy and another one after I've had a chance to get some feedback and edit.

Change of Heart

The air outside was so strong with spring you could get drunk from one deep breath. The sunshine smelled of daffodils and dandelions pushing up through the dirt. I came outside to catch a whiff of the perfume and shake the scent of mold and dust and bat shit out of my hair. My hands were shaking. I took another deep breath and started laughing. I was crying, cheeks cramped before I could get myself under control again. Jaime pulled up in his driveway next door. Behind the stack of Thai take-out he still wore a scowl from the fight we’d been having before he left to pick up lunch. He walked around the hedge separating his driveway from that of his current charity project: the neighbor with no living relatives. Last summer Jaime had offered to mow his lawn; the arrangement developed into a friendship and after the old man died, a certified letter arrived bequeathing the entire contents of his house to Jaime.
It had taken us three days to sift through the two-bedroom rambler and conclude that the Salvation Army was going to score. We left the attic for last and of all the crammed-full-of-crap corners in the house it was by far the worst. After a morning spent sifting through tax returns dating back to the sixties and no less than twenty boxes of Christmas decorations—not the porcelain nativity type, but the tinsel variety suggesting devout agnostic beliefs—I was seriously reconsidering my resolution to give Jaime and me one more chance. And I think my inability to hold back the sarcasm had Jaime thinking the same thing.
What a difference a bag full of cash can make.
I’d been such a jerk about this whole neighbor thing and I didn’t feel too great about the fact that it took finding the old man’s stash of money to make me realize I should admire Jaime, not harangue him. He was going to all this effort in memory of a man he’d known less than a year. That he was going to come out of it on top by about 30-grand was proof enough for me that the universe approved of his efforts.
From the back porch I heard Jaime call my name then clomp up the pull-down ladder. I had put the duffel bag back where I’d found it, on top of the last stack of boxes, so he could experience the rush of finding it himself.
After five minutes I couldn’t take it anymore and made my way back to the attic. Jaime was in the corner. The duffel bag was lying, deflated, on top of the “toss” mound.
“Looks like we’re just about finished,” he said.