When Life hands you spoiling bananas...fry them!

Today I had to go to the food bank because I had little to no food in the house and no money.  So I filled out the paperwork, presented two forms of identification and received a large box of goods.  On top of the box was a large bunch of brown bananas, falling away from their peeling, oozing next to the roll of toilet paper.  If you have ever received assistance from food banks you know that it is a blessing if they have vegetables and fruit of any kind, even from a can, much less whole produce! I needed the potassium those slimy brown fruits had to offer, but they would need to all be eaten fast or there would be nothing edible left.  Still as I lugged my burden the seven blocks to get home, I wondered to myself what to do with my treasure.

The prospect of eating them as they were was not very palatable.  Banana bread? They would be perfect for it, but I had almost no flour at home.  Fried bananas? They would never hold up their shape for traditional fried bananas...however...

So I got home, sank into the floor tiredly, got up, cooled off, put away my loot, and set about making my lunch out of my bruised tropical delights. 

I mashed them all up, saved most in the fridge for later, and kept the last three mashed bananas in a bowl for batter.  Now, how to make this into frying material? I had a little oil to cook with...so they would be fried somehow.  I had sugar in my room (I keep it on hand to use for exfoliation. It is effective and cheap.)  Two tablespoons of sugar went into the mashed bananas. I borrowed a pinch of table salt and threw that in too.  I had baking soda in my room (I use it for everything; cleaning, baking, deoderant, toothpaste...) I used a pinch of that.  I borrowed one egg and about a half a cup of flour. Beating the egg into the mixture with a fork, I gradually added the flour until it looked somewhat like pancake batter. 

Heating some oil in a pan, I plopped portions of the batter into the vessel and fried up "pancakes".  They were gooey and sweet in "banana pockets" in the cake. They were golden, crispy on the edges and had an uber-moist cakey texture.  They were very heart and filling as well.  Very satisfying. 

For the last week or so I had not been able to eat lunch, so this for me, was a much needed "pick-up" to my spirits.  Deo Gratias! Thanks food bank! 

Musings with My Morning Coffee

I am so nostalgic for those fabulous fifties fashions right now. I love how ladylike the looks are. I am also homesick for when I was living with my girlfriends. So much beauty! Everywhere! Whether we were gathered on the landing, under the stars, next to an outdoor fire, singing songs...or decorating a Christmas tree next to a roaring fire, or just drinking prosecco while watching an old movie, my friends had a way of bringing out the lady in me, of making everything more aesthetically pleasing, of spreading their pretty ways and gentility everywhere. There was such a comfort and familiarity within that environment.

I love dressing up for no reason at all. I love wearing baubles and playing with makeup. But now I live in an environment where everyone dresses down rather than up. Almost in reaction to the sloppiness and raggedness, I take special care to primp up on my walks. This makes me the object of some attention, needless to say. I am naturally a shy person, believe it or not, so at first this was met with mixed reactions. But as I pass by people on the sidewalk, crossing the street, or waiting to see the nurse and smile at them. They brighten up a little. One man that I passed while thrift store shopping, smiled, nodded respectfully and said, "Have a nice day, young lady." And when he said the word "lady" I smiled. Because we use the term "lady" two ways socially. One as an inoffensive way to refer to any woman, the second as a way to describe a woman who is gentle, polished and well-mannered. I think this time he meant it in the latter sense.

I suppose I would be the same person if I roamed around in my sweatpants. But I would not be making an effort to be pleasing a well-mannered about my presentation.  It is in that, I believe, that I have a chanceat exercising kindness to others as well as myself.

And now I am off to top of my coffee cup. Doo de doo di doo...

Morning Offering

O Blessed Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

I offer you my thoughts, feelings, words and deeds of today, in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world. I offer you my anger, my hurt, my sadness and my sickness and I place them into your loving, pierced hands, My Jesus. Holy Spirit, take my foolishness and give me wisdom, take my weakness and give me fortitude. Father of Heaven, for the love of the Son, have mercy on me and on the whole world, for we do not know what we do. Mother Mary, be my mother, today and always. Teach me to love as you do. Amen.

Marriage and Romanticism

I have been called a romantic all of my adult life. At first I never argued with the statement.After all, I was in love with being in love. I waxed poetic about sunsets, babies and elderly couples kissing in public. I loved jewelry, silk, lace, flowers and the color pink. I loved old fashioned wicker baskets, sun-rooms, ball-gowns, bird-cages, linen handkerchiefs, dangling gypsy earrings and bohemian styled clothing. I believed in true love. I believed in love-at-first sight. I believed that it was more romantic if you married your first love and stayed married to them your whole life. I hoped to marry young and have many children. I was overjoyed at every romantic couple I met and wept each time they broke-up\separated/divorced. I proclaimed every kind of weather and every season as "romantic". I was rhapsodic about men. I memorized poetry. I sighed and wept happy tears at the sight of a Raphael painting. I knew who Laura and Petrarch were. I knew who Dante and Beatrice were. I knew who inspired Botticelli's Venus. I knew something about Romeo and Juliet other than the fact that they were teens who committed suicide. I sang the Nat King Cole song, "When I fall in love, it will be forever..." Isn't that what a "romantic" is?

But now that I enter my late twenties, though I am the same person that I am when I was young, and still do all of those things...I would not classify myself as a true Romantic in the old sense of the word. The school of romanticism is enamored of the aesthetic ideal and is in eternal pursuit of the perfect. The tragic tension of the romantic is in the pride of Byron, the shame of Coleridge, the melancholy of Keats and the ecstasy of Shelley. It is in Wordsworth's daffodils, in William Blake's angel-laden trees, and in Walter Scott's nostalgia for times and realms that he never knew. We live in a finite, temporary, imperfect world and our hearts were designed for the infinite, eternal and the perfect. So our hearts rejoice at the sight of shadows and dim reflections of that ideal and then weeps at the realization that it was only a shadow.

When you were a baby, you probably saw a brightly colored flower, decided that you wanted it, plucked it from the ground, delighted in its beauty, then learned sadly that if you plucked it, it would wither and die faster. I remember once when I was a child, being dazzled by the majesty of light sparkling on water, and perplexed that when I filled my cup with it, the light would not stay in my cup. I still feel that longing for the eternal and the perfect, as we all do. And like a true melancholic, I am often saddened by the discrepancy between what I long for and what I am actually capable of doing, experiencing, being. As a Catholic, I know that my heart's desire will be realized only by God and He alone can sate that hunger. This hope, and this resignation, is where I part ways with romanticism. Because I know that the perfect is coming and that the perfect is God, I do not have to worry about finding the perfect on earth.

Why am I talking about this? Because this fact is brought home to me as I am planning my wedding.
There is no other phenomenon in our culture more saturated with romanticism than wedding planning and celebration. Just look at the magazines. "The Perfect Wedding", "The perfect dress", "Romantic locations" , "Exotic destinations" "Finding the right florist" "The right planner" "The right location" "The right time" "The right man"...You starting to see a pattern? No matter how impoverished the couple, the dream of the bride reigns supreme on this special day. The parents might be divorced but they must be there and be nice to each other. This might be the bride's fifth wedding but she must have a three-tiered cake.  Because this time it really is forever. She might have had to ask two girls she does not like that much to be her bridesmaids because her sister is overweight and her best friend got pregnant and she MUST have six bridesmaids. In her ordinary life, she wears a pantsuit, her gym clothes, and blue jeans every single day, but this day she MUST have a designer gown that costs five thousand dollars for the church and another that costs ten thousand for the reception.

Do not get me wrong. I love cake. I love silk, satin, chiffon, lace. I wear attention-grabbing colors and floor skimming hemlines in my every day life (and am sometimes called eccentric for doing so). I have no qualms with spending my money. I love flowers and sometimes buy them for no reason at all. I believe that every sacrament deserves celebration and magnificentia. Get a florist for a baptism too! Get a three-tiered cake for a first Holy Communion reception too! Wear a long white gown for your sixteenth birthday too! Or for no reason at all! Just because you are beautiful! Because you deserve it! Because no woman ever needs to give an explanation to the world for looking regal, feminine and drawing attention to herself!

What I find objectionable about this whole wedding mania is the fixation with one day for everything to be a perfect fulfillment of universal ideal and a personal fantasy. And the demand that it be such and the sense of entitlement about it. We all know the cliche about the dreaded Bridezilla. If you think about it though, every woman in our culture is encouraged to pursue everything she wants and never settles for less than what she wants-EVER. Moreover she is instilled with the truly romanticist notion that all of her dreams are attainable if she only waits long enough, cries long enough, nags long enough, gets the right lawyer, the right boyfriend, the right job, the right college, the right friends, the right career-goals, the right gym instructor, the right counselor...if she only would wish upon the right star...or sadly, if she is Christian, if she only prays hard and long enough. Then we wonder why there are so many divorces. Then we wonder why there are so many women with eating disorders. Then we wonder why there are suicides. Then we wonder why so many people are on anti-depressants. Then we wonder why the world has turned so jaded and cynical. Then we wonder why innocence is lost so young. Then we wonder why Taylor Swift writes so many whiny songs.

I do not believe that the perfect is attainable in this life.
I do not insist upon finding perfect happiness in this life.
Up until recently, I expected nothing out of life except misery. And yes, this is the opposite extreme. But the point that I am trying to make is that the idea that you will be perfectly happy forever in this life is just as nonsensical even if it is more attractive.
I used to expect that like many girls who come from my situation, that I would die very young.
When I was a child I used to try to convince myself that everybody that you loved would stab you in the back and break your heart.
Now I know better. But all the same, this does not mean that I don't know that my friends will sometimes unintentionally hurt my feelings.
My family is still going to do things that drive me nuts.
My children (when I have them, if I am so blessed) will fight with me, argue with me, disagree with me, and quite frequently drive me crazy.
My husband (after I marry him) will alternate between being "The Best Husband Ever" and "You impossible, infuriating man!" on a daily basis. My husband will alternate between thinking me the most wonderful wife in the world and the most frustrating person imaginable. That is life.

Life is supremely romantic in the same way that "Pied Beauty" is the loveliest poem.
Life is beautiful in the way that hugging my baby sister Catherine after she almost fell off the second story of our condo is beautiful. Life is beautiful as the snot and drool my sister Margaret coughed up after I saved her from drowning. Life is beautiful like the smile of delight on Elena's face after she sprinkled the bread flour all over the living room carpet. Life is beautiful like the tears on a child's face when she hugs her soldier Dad returned from Iraq. Life is beautiful like the bouquet of flowers a child picked for his mother out of her forbidden, untouchable, prized begonias. Life is beautiful like the fragile hands of an elderly woman clutching a rosary. That is the sort of romantic beauty that I want on my wedding day and the kind that I know that I will have. Because it is the sort of happiness, beauty and romance that comes from love.

At the end of the day, it does not matter if the bakery makes a mistake on my cake order. It does not matter if somebody accidentally spills wine on my wedding dress. It does not matter if I can not afford to go away for my honeymoon. It does not matter if I lose the twenty pounds. It does not really matter if my dress is alencon or chantilly lace. It does not matter if the ring pillow was made in china. It does not matter if my wedding guest are too few for a guest book. It does not matter if one of the groom's men has scuffed shoes. It does not matter if my mother in law hates my shoes.

It does not matter because this is not supposed the be the perfect day or the perfect life. The only thing I want to do perfectly on my wedding day, is love my husband. For that matter I want to do that perfectly for the rest of my life. But I know that I am imperfect and he is imperfect and our love for each other falls short of the love that God has for each of us. And I am ok with that.

My future husband said to me once, "I love you. And want to be with you when you are sick...when you are angry...when you are sad...when you are wrong...because I want to be with you always. I do not love you only when you do exactly what I want, or when you say what I want or think what I want. I love you. And I choose to love you forever."

And to confess the truth...that is sublime in its romance.

Beauty Ritual Survey For The Ladies

Most ladies have a beauty ritual of some sort each morning.

If you are married, your husband has probably noticed that this ritual can 

lengthen up to three hours in duration if you really have somewhere to go and do where you will be seen.  So this one is for the ladies.... which of these rituals is the most important part of your beauty regimen?  In other words, which of these options would you rather die than neglect?

A-Eyebrow "tweezing"

B-Eyebrow "waxing"

C-Facial "waxing"

D- "Mustache" bleaching

E-Facial exfoliating

F-Facial moisturizing

G-Sunscreen application

H-Eye and hand cream application

I-Eye lubrication

J-All of the above (A-I)

Now which of these is the most indispensable of your cosmetics ritual?

K-Primer application

L-Just a tinted moisturizer

M-Lip balm with SPF

N-Eyelash curling

O-All of these (K-N)

P-Just L-N

Since we have come this far, for those of 

you ladies who like Elizabeth Taylor or Sophia Vergara

simply can't be seen without paint,

which is most important of these?

Q-Foundation

R-Concealer

S-"Highlighter"

T-Eyebrow pencil/gel

U-Sheer powder

V-Blush

W-Eyeliner pencil

X-Eyeshadow

Y-Mascara

Z-All of these (Q-Y)

Now, if you have made it this far, which of these 

is the most vital?

1-Lip pencil

2-Lipstick

3-Lip butter

4-Lip stain

5-Lip gloss

6-All of 1-5.

Now which of these would you make sure to incorporate into your pampering

if you were to give a speech/go to a fancy dinner/fundraiser/sing in a concert/compete in dance/board meeting?

7-False lashes

8-Straighten/curl/gel/spray hair

9-Dry shampoo

10-Deep conditioning

11-Manicure

12-Just file and clip my nails

13-Just remove peeling nail polish

14-Heavy camera-ready airbrushing mousse

15-More powder to "set" the make-up.

16-More blush

17-Illegal-to-buy-in-the-US-eye-whitening-drops (just kidding!)

18-Teeth whitening

19-Lip plumping products

20-All of these?Are you crazy? Who do you think I am? Kim Kardashian? Nobody except celebrities on the Red carpet go to such extreme lengths to look "perfect"!

Thanks ladies! And to all the gentlemen secretly reading this post...1-You were warned

2-Why are you reading this?

3-What? You didn't think the celebrities you drool over looked like that naturally did you?

4-What? If you drool over celebrities who can only look like 

that by sitting in a makeup chair for five hours, what do you expect us to do?

How else do you think women compete?

No matter how many times you say, "We don't like makeup"
those statements are contradicted every time you 

stop and stare at a woman that we know has spent hours of time and thousands of dollars on

maintaining her appearance. Just saying...

"Oh no! I am over forty!"

One day at my cash register, a woman came and bought some beer. She was quite beautiful, with large violet eyes and exquisite white hair.  When my scanner read the UPC code on the item, the machine asked me, "Is the customer under forty?"  Accordingly and correctly I hit the "no" button.  The woman sighed a little and lamented, "I am well over forty, unfortunately."

"Why is that unfortunate?" I queried with naivete.

With a bitter chuckle she replied, "Because it means that I am old."

I smiled reassuringly and said, "It means that you are lucky. It means that you have survived the great and terrible adventure that is life."  I added with a wink, "Besides, forty is the new thirty and thirty is the new twenty. What with the life expectancy rate expanding, forty does not even mean middle-aged anymore."

"You can say that because you are like 22 years old," she chuckled as she left.

Twenty-seven actually. I said silently to myself. Twenty-seven, and suffering from an illness that has been known to kill people. Twenty-seven, and a survivor of child abuse, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and currently living with Borderline Personality Disorder. Yes, I can say that every single day of your life is a gift, that your life does not become less important after your first gray hair, not because my life has not involved significant suffering or discomfort yet...but because every single day of my short life has been something for which I have had to fight.

Do not misunderstand me, I am all too painfully aware of the age-ism prevalent in today's world.  Just in case a 21st century person living in a first world country did not have enough to handle with Marxism and Hedonism. In the wealthiest, healthiest and most entertainment-glutted nations in the world, every average Joe on the street has to broadcast how healthy he is, what expensive toys he owns and how hard he partied last night and whether or not he got laid.  Ludicrous.
Then he gets some wrinkles around his eyes, the booze guzzling and four AM munchies have started to show around his middle, and he gets rejected by a couple college-age girls...and then he groans when the girl at the checkout counter does not ask to see his ID.  Then he starts to enter a "crisis" where he wonders where all of his youth and energy went and what he has done with the first fifty years of his life and whether or not his life has any meaning. Now he has to buy bigger toys. He needs to make more money. His dates and mistresses have to stay shamefully young.  For the man who is poorer? Well, all he can really do is keep drinking the cheap, rotten excuse for American beer, go play at the casinos when he can, and when the twenty-something at the checkout hands him his receipt and says "Have a nice day," in the tone that means, "Never in a million years, Buddy," just go home.  Just go home and regret that you can't be young forever.

There are cancer patients who know how to live.
There are children in war torn countries who may never live to see their 20th birthday.
In India there is a catastrophic infant fatality rate.
In the US alone we have lost MILLIONS of children to the tragedy of abortion. These did not even live to see the light of day.

There are nine year old girls forced into "marriages" and eleven year old boys being kidnapped and trained to steal, kill and be killed. It would be a little difficult to explain to them this first world, 21st century malady called "Being Over Forty."

Growing up in the environment that I did, I can safely tell you that youth can be hellish. Not according to the natural order of things, but when youth is surrounded by violence, terror, tears and instability, yes, quite hellish. Every moment that I have spent freed from that environment has been a miracle. I am grateful for it. I know why 10% of people who suffer from BPD end in suicide, yet I also know that I will never be one of them.
I have survived too much, come too far and labored to long to give up now.
And you have too. That is what it means when you reach that milestone. It means "I made it! I survived! I have been given a great gift! I am strong. My life is precious. The lines around my eyes are beautiful. The touch of gray on my sideburns bespeak the wisdom I have acquired. I am over forty. Thanks be to God. Hurray for me!"

I look forward to reaching that milestone someday myself. Every new birthday I have, I get a little more excited. You see, when I was a child, I always expected that I would die very young. Twenty years ago, I never would have expected to live this long to celebrate so much. Deo Gratias.