Comfort Food

Toasted cheese sandwiches on white bread. Chocolate ice cream.

Celery stuffed with peanut butter or cream cheese.

Scrambled eggs.

Corn flakes with bananas.

Potato chips and French onion dip.

These have been my menu items of choice for the past week.  Comfort food items, none of which are particularly healthy or even flavorful. But they were all favorites when I was a child, so when I’m under stress I find myself craving these simple concoctions.

It’s been a stressful week, as I hinted in my last post. We had a huge, nasty surprise with our tax bill late Monday evening, giving us just a few hours to muster up a rather large sum of money. All this occurred after spending the weekend caring for my mom, who suddenly developed severe, intractable pain resulting from a herniated cervical disc which necessitated more than one trip to the ER. To add insult to injury, Monday evening we sank onto the sofa to relax with some mindless television only to discover our TiVo had died, taking our entire stock of recorded programs with it.

And just in case you don’t think I deserve those comfort foods I listed at the start, all this has happened on the eve of our travel to Florida to pack up and close on the sale of our home there.

So hand over those chips, would ya?

Truthfully, when I’m stressed out I generally lose my appetite completely. Over the years I’ve enjoyed some major weight loss on the “stress diet.” Many people eat more when they’re anxious, but the very thought of food these days really turns my stomach. And the semi-healthy diet I’ve been attempting to follow for the past few years - more vegetables, whole grains, and fish - hold absolutely no appeal whatsoever. About the only thing that sounds palatable are the simple dishes I mentioned above - nursery food, you might call it. Food that demands little of the taste buds or the digestive tract. Food that’s easy to prepare and can be consumed while standing at the counter or perched in front of the computer screen.

I hinted at another of the reasons these foods are so appealing when I’m stressed - they were childhood favorites. During stressful times, I think it’s common to yearn for one's childhood days, when someone else handled the big worries (like taxes!) and all we had to do was memorize spelling words and remember to take out the trash. When I was little, potato chips and dip was the snack of choice for TV time with my grandparents.  On Sunday nights, I’d snuggle between them on the big old sofa in our basement “rec room” and watch Bonanza. My grandmother would put a big bowl of Lays potato chips on my lap, and set the Borden’s French Onion dip beside me. (Right about now my son and daughter in law are probably cringing at the thought of me giving Connor food like that!) Still, more than 40 years later, one salty bite takes me back to a time when I felt content and safe. These days, that’s what I need to feel more than anything.

And if I can get it from something as simple as a bag of Lay’s Potato chips, it’s worth a try.

How about you? What are your eating habits in times of stress? What foods comfort you?

Stuff

Even when you think you’ve done a good job of containing clutter, you realize that stuff threatens to overwhelm you. We’ve been making lists this weekend, mentally doing inventory of every room in our Florida house as we decide what to store, what to bring back to Michigan, and what to dispose of. Although we’ve owned the house for 10 years, we’ve never really “lived” there full time. It was always a vacation home, so we purposely tried not to clutter it up with too much stuff.

But we did furnish it from scratch (and oh, was that fun!) so we had to purchase every little thing you need to survive in a home, from wastebaskets to screwdrivers and everything in between. You’d be surprised at the things you take for granted - rubber bands, paper clips - that you don’t have in a brand new house.

As we do our inventory 10 years later, we realize that despite our best efforts we could probably start our own hotel supply company. Even though I intended to buy just the bare minimum, in a house with three bedrooms and three bathrooms, the bare minimum turned out to be quite a lot, and certainly more than I need up here in my little 1950’s style ranch house.

I don’t really have the kinds of hospitality supplies & hotel catering supplies that some folks do, but there’s a pretty good start toward setting up my own mini version of the new PeaceSuite Hotel Linen and Laundry Supply I read about online the other day. Their slogan is “take control and get organized.” Now that’s something I definitely need more of.

Life Happens

It’s been quiet here at the Byline. No clackety clack of typewriter keys in the press room, no crotchety, cigar -chewing editor barking out assignments from the city desk. But then, it’s usually quiet here - just me and my little Apple computer, tucked into my favorite chair.

Like most news rooms, a lot goes on behind the scenes. Many things happen out there in the “real world” that coalesce in my mind and finally become words on the page. Although the only editor is the very fallible one in my brain there’s an editorial type voice in my head,  an ever-present impetus to try and bring my experiences to life on the page.

Life has been writ rather large of late. Lots of stuff going on and most of it hasn’t been good. Today I compared the events of the past week with a perfect storm - a coalescence of conditions that brought a number of things to a head at the same time and created utter chaos.

And I’ll admit - I don’t do well with trauma. I’m not one of those Sadie Strong types of women who thrive when the going gets tough. I like life on an even keel, and when it isn’t I’m the first one looking for a bucket to start bailing.

But there are oh so many things from which there are no escape. Old age. Illness. Death. Taxes.

Change.

That’s the big one.

There’s a big bunch of it around here.

So things will likely continue quietly in this newsroom while I attempt to keep my wits straight and my head above the water.

Monday Come and Gone

Well, Monday. You lived out your reputation today.

You brought me internet and automotive failure with broken crockery and dog vomit thrown in for good measure. It was a day of subtle - and not so subtle - annoyances, the kinds that make you throw your hands up and say “What next?”

As I was on my hands and knees gingerly cleaning up shards of glass (where just moments before I had been cleaning up the aforementioned dog vomit), I fully expected the phone to ring with news from my accountant of a Ginormous tax bill.

Oddly enough, it didn’t. (Although the night is not over yet.)

Some days it’s hardly worth getting up in the morning. But life undulates like waves on the ocean that I love so much. The natural rhythm of the world lives in our spirits, I think, and keeps us ever mindful of opportunities for things to be better.

Otherwise, how could we go on?

With what remains of this Monday I will take some deep cleansing breaths, curl up in front of the television (Dancing With the Stars, y’all) with a warm puppy on each side of me, and let my mind sweep and sway across the ballroom floor.

Later I will sleep and dream of a tomorrow that is better and brighter and less fraught with wrongs.

How about you? How was your Monday?

Open for Business

“Open Easter Sunday, from 12:00 - 8:00."

So read the sign at PetSmart yesterday when I took Molly in for her bath and haircut.

So read the sign at Bed Bath and Beyond this morning when I went stopped in to shop for a new doormat.

So read the sign at Home Depot when I drove by on my way to lunch at Panera Bread.

I’m certainly no authority on Christian doctrine or history, but I’m quite certain that Jesus would not have arisen from the tomb and felt the need to go shopping at PetSmart, Bed Bath and Beyond, or Home Depot.

To parpharse a once popular song -“What’s shopping got to do with it?"

 Whether or not  you observe Easter (or Passover) from a religious standpoint, these holidays give us the opportunity to spend time with family or friends, to step back from everyday concerns and focus on something more meaningful than the mundane tasks of life. When stores remain open on holidays, they force their employees to choose between family time and work, a choice they already must make far too often. Plus they encourage the rest of us to forsake time we might otherwise spend more fruitfully.

At the risk of sounding like a cranky old Grandma (wait - I am a cranky old Grandma!) I recall when retail stores were never open on Sunday, or even after 5:00 p.m. (except on Thursdays and Fridays). Would it really be so  bad if we couldn’t wander around the mall on Sunday afternoon? What would we miss if we weren’t able to buy cosmetics, or electrical equipment, or tennis shoes until Monday morning?

Instead of shopping and spending money most of us don’t have anyway, perhaps we could go to a concert or movie, play games with our kids, try out a new recipe. Take a nap. Take a walk. Read a book.

Naturally  from a business standpoint it’s all about making a profit. But from a human standpoint, I think we need to be about another business entirely.The business of living a meaningful, fulfilling life, one that enriches us, our family and friends, and the wider world around us.

I just don’t believe shopping has anything to do with that.