Sauerkraut

Two things you never want to see in a can of off-brand sauerkraut:

1) A bulging end

2) The words "Best by Dec 2018"

Thank you for your lack of service, kraut can! There are some things that I will eat, even 20+ years after expiration (i.e. candy), but sauerkraut is not one of them.

UPDATE: On my fb group that helps people decipher old German handwriting, someone posted this photo which, yes, I have stolen just for readers of Mrs Guy. What's super interesting about it is that these are containers for tea, dill, caraway and flour. I shared my surprise at how much caraway they use in proportion to tea and dill, and someone responded: "One word: sauerkraut!"

Well ok!

Canned Milk

The prompt was about something learned from someone else. While my first instinct was to write about gardening, canning and racism, an easier topic came to me while I was making coffee. 

_____

When I was an undergrad, I tried my hand at working as an art model for life drawing classes. I loved the setting, learning along with the students, making interesting angles and shapes to challenge them. And the pay was good. 

When I moved away after college I looked for similar opportunities, because I had just graduated with a degree in Medieval Studies and had few job skills to draw on. I called an artist friend and he got me a job sitting for his Monday drawing group. The host was a well-known California realist. His studio, down some rickety stairs, was spare. The model stand was large enough to have been a bandstand for a four piece, and on the wall behind it was a large lithograph map of the city of Paris in the 1800s. From the model stand and over the heads of the artists: the hummer, the tiny and adorable man from Martinique who had dated Julia Child's sister, and my comparatively regular friend from Chariton, Iowa, you could see the streets that inspired Wayne Thiebaud's famous streetscapes. 

I remember that there was a table holding an urn of hot water, and tea to drink during break. And alongside them was a can of Carnation Evaporated Milk, that we used in our tea. Models worked for two Mondays in a row, and there was the same can of evaporated milk, now wearing a tin foil cover. It hadn't spoiled. 

A few years later, when I got tired of waking up and going to Kidnapper's Liquors to get milk for my coffee on my day off, I started buying canned milk for my coffee. This is what I now use in my coffee every day. It's always in the pantry, and nobody ever drinks the last of it.

Mrs Guy's Revisionist History, or How The Mighty Have Fallen

15 years ago I wrote a post about something that happened the day I gave my first public presentation ever, in Japan.

I went back to look at it and, well, there is so much that went unsaid. So much that has become part of guy family lore from that day. And what I've been finding recently is that mrguy uses this blog sometimes as a memory aid, as I do. And sometimes he finds my descriptions missing or lacking in detail.

This is a post that may become a regular thing: Mrs Guy's Revisionist History.

The original post is here.

In 2008 I was invited to speak at an electronics convention in Japan. For my entire life I had been terrified of public speaking, but they were offering a trip to Japan for me and mrguy and I could not resist. So I agreed to speak about education at forklift companies. It was an amazing experience but there are details that have become family lore that I left out.

The background on this is that, as I said, I was not a public speaker. I was also in this weird situation at work where I had been demoted and the team I worked on pretty much hated me and resented that our boss had suggested that I be offered as a speaker instead of him, and that I got to go back to Japan. To his credit, fearless leader coached me, gave me one of his presentations as a starting point for my own, and through the process of doing this presentation I learned company history, developed a long-term love relationship with Keynote, and got to introduce mrguy to Japan *and* the joy of business class travel to Japan on ANA, which I would do just for the experience.

First I had to learn Keynote. Once I learned that I could use presenter notes, I felt more assured that this would work out. I perfected the presentation, merging one of my boss' about Hammerslag history with new content on education. I practiced like crazy, even borrowing a projector on the weekends and using the drywall on our kitchen under construction as a screen. I practiced until it was seamless.

We got to Japan and to the convention center and freshened up and did a technical rehearsal. Our fellow presenters were extremely important people. The head of what we would now call streaming at a British firm, the founder of an audio company, a guy who teaches forklifting in Japan, a presenter from Japanese television. And me, recently demoted and quite frightened archivist from a forklift company. Rehearsal went great, and everybody was super nice. Some of the British folks invited us for tea and Dundee cake in their booth the next day.

The next morning we VIPs opened the show with a ribbon cutting ceremony. I wore a pantsuit and pearls. We all wore white cotton gloves and had ribbons on our lapels with our names hand painted on them. The scissors were gold.

After the opening ceremony mrguy and I went onto the floor and looked at electronics. My favorite booth was the one with buttons -- buttons you push to turn things on. Switches to flip, etc. And the one where ladies ("booth babes", in the parlance of the time) danced to soft Brazilian jazz but what the company was really selling was gigantic broadcast cameras as big as shopping carts. The dancers were your on-camera talent to focus on while trying out the camera. It was wild out there on the convention floor. There were presentations with 3d Howie Mandel and, of interest to mrguy, booths full of fancy microphones.

We were so overstimulated by the time we got to our friends' booth, the promised oasis of calm with tea and cake. They'd proudly announced that they'd sourced it from Marks & Spencer. It was lovely. A firm cake dotted with dried currants, which went really well with the tea.

On presentation day I practiced a few times early in the day while mrguy wore his earplugs and put a pillow over his face to drown me out. We went down for breakfast and...I started feeling distinctly unwell. Down there. Urgently! It worsened and my inner voice was saying "ohfuck-ohfuck-ohfuck these people have brought me *and my husband* to Japan at great expense and I am going to shit in the middle of my presentation and mortify myself, my hosts and my company". 

Or something like that. 

I shared my situation with mrguy, who went into fixit mode. We were in the middle of a convention complex in Chiba, but he set out to find something to settle my situation (note: I never travel without Imodium now). Meanwhile I had to go. I ran over to the bathroom and as I entered I saw one of the booth babes curling her hair at the mirror. I entered a stall and waited for her to leave, which she did not do. So I used the electronic sounds on the Japanese toilet to (not really) cover my own extremely loud ones. By about my 4th visit to the restroom I realized -- blessedly -- that this was not influenza. It was the Dundee cake. Studded with dried fruit. There could only be so much of it in my system and this would both literally and figuratively pass. Hopefully before I got to the podium.

It was now almost go-time. Mrguy reappeared in the lobby holding a little yellow box with a cartoon of angry internal organs on it, and a story of his own about Japanese pharmacies. The Dundee cake worked its way through my system and I did *not* have to paste a maxi-pad over my butt (plan b). I did my presenting. Woo!

I had fulfilled my obligations (mostly), and after a cocktail party of sorts "don't you celebrate a mid-way through a project?" they asked, we were on our own. We looked for a place to have dinner, but didn't want to spend $36 American dollars for a cup of storm petrel nest and crabmeat soup, so we used the vending machine and ate Cup O Noodles, instead. In our hotel room Mrguy put on his shortie hotel robe, having done a bang up job of shepherding me around all day, and set about getting his noodles wet. His noodles came with chopsticks, but mine did not. I was up shit creek. So I waited for him to finish his bowl and then used his ABC chopsticks to eat my meal. I started the day wearing a ribbon, but ended it waiting for mrguy to give me his used hashi!

So ends the true story of the electronics conference.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

My friend Jane says that it's the hate that keeps my mom going. And I have to agree. My sister reported over the weekend that #1 caregiver says that mom is moving into a calmer stage of life. I had to agree somewhat, until the next day when the weekend caregiver quit because it was too difficult for her, mentally. I told her that I understood and was sorry and grateful for the care she'd given her. 

The next day I went to my mom's place early to greet and orient the new caregiver. Mom was super nice to her until the end of the day, when she heeded my earlier warning and gave mom space when she got wiggy.

I visited yesterday, and mom was totally zonked out. She napped on my shoulder while I caught up with #1. Eventually she woke up, looked out the window and said "I like to look out this window...but it needs to be washed" She followed this up with "I think that this table is so beautiful...when it's clean. Don't you want to clean it?" #1 and I laughed. No, actually, we don't want to dust her table.

Whatever, mom.

This evening I missed a text while we were watching Suits. Apparently mom had a tantrum while she was being assisted on the john. Fighting, biting, etc. Then she farted so loudly that it could be heard in the next room, and the force of the fart apparently blew open a hemorrhoid. Lots of blood, a call to the doctor...

More laughs (and farts) from the fun factory.

After a volley of texts with my siblings I consulted the Magic 8 Ball -- "Will my mom die soon?" 

"Yes, definitely" it said.

But as long as there are people to hate and things to despise she will live another day.

A Brush With Greatness

It was the summer before junior year of college. I was living with my parents and working as a security guard at the same electronics company where my high school boyfriend's mom worked the assembly line. It was dull, I did a lot of reading, and I spent a lot of time chatting with my best friend, who was working the phones (and a few of the partners) at her father's architectural firm. There were good things about that summer, but my relationship with my parents wasn't one of them.

I'd been in group therapy during the school year, but I was somewhat adrift that summer. A childhood friend had hooked me up with the security gig, and she did me a further solid by suggesting that I go with her to her group therapy session in the big city. It had helped her communication with her family, she said. It helped her be more...actualized, whatever that was. Well when I looked it up, it was certainly something that she didn't need. Her parents were quite brash. When I was the reluctant host of a diet restaurant in my senior year of high school, my friend's parents, Phyllis and Albert would swan past me at the host station, stand in the middle of the place and say loudly "Where's my table?" These were people who said what they wanted and got what they wanted. What did they need with therapy?

I'll never know the answer, but on one bright summer day I went with my friend to her therapy session. It was held in an anonymous looking building on the edge of Chinatown. We took an elevator, I believe, to a floor that had a reception area of some sort and an open space behind it, with rows of chairs set up as a classroom. A green rolling chalkboard stood in front of us, and between it and us were some perky folks who were there to impart wisdom. One guy wore a peach colored Izod shirt. I could tell that things were about to get smarmy.

The only therapy I could compare this to was my therapist at school. I'd see him once every few weeks in a converted 1920s bungalow that was one of the original buildings on campus. And I went to his group session, all of us seemed to share the blight of being liberal arts misfits attending an agricultural college. We sat in a circle, in a dimly lit room and took turns sharing. I believe that there are studies about the optimal physical orientation for sharing intimate details in a group. Circles work, and being seated in rows facing Ken and Barbie orients you for a different kind of learning.

They welcomed the group and asked the people who brought guests to introduce them and say why they had brought them today. What each of them, in turn, meant to say was "As we all know this is a cult with a splash of multilevel marketing thrown in, and if I bring a friend who might convert you'll give me an extra goodie like the ones you've gotten me hooked on." But the way it came out of each of them is "This is my friend Fifi and I brought her here because I love her." 

Then they invited the guests into the large room next door, without our hosts. We were too polite to say no. Because our person loved us and wanted us to be happy. 

Our person was a motherfucker.

For an hour, people told us about the miraculous lifting of life's misery by way of the things we'd learn in a simple one weekend seminar. Man I love a good testimonial. A before and after. I was completely in love with those Ayds diet ads in the back of Ladies Home Journal where the person lost a billion pounds and you could see their ribs again. So I was an easy mark. I wanted to be more powerful and persuasive (still do. still am not). I saw these people's stories as the future me who would finally have direction and be motivated and completely unlike myself. And at the end of the hour I had written a check for $350, which I had because of my job, and I vowed to lie to my family about my whereabouts for a weekend and somehow get to the location of the seminar and, as they say these days, do the damned thing.

I was so proud of myself. I was going to do something and change my life and I was completely converted in no more than an hour. I wanted to be a better and less miserable person. This was the answer.

So when I got home and told my sister, who was home visiting, that I was going to do EST, she was livid. "Everybody who does EST is an asshole, and you are not going to do it. You are going to call the bank and cancel that check and then you are going to tell me what is wrong and I will help you. But you are NOT doing EST."

She did talk to my parents, who lightened up. I never did EST. I ended my friendship. I was ashamed that the folks at EST had managed to con me, even when there were so many signals that something was wrong. I have always counted this brush with a cult to be a blessing in disguise. I saw a cult up close without being swallowed up.

Making Friends

Friday was a day of adventures.

I took the day off because I had an ultrasound on my left hooter. I'd been at the doctors the week before and she did an exam and felt something and said "Does it hurt when I do this?" as she pressed the area with force and tiny fingers, and indeed it did hurt. So an ultrasound. And things are aok. But I took the day off so I could not have to rush from work. The last thing of the day was to have an adult beverage with a lady from one of my caregivers' support groups. Her mom lives in the same place as mine does. Did I mention that there are currently 9 cases of Covid there? That's been part of the excitement of earlier in the week.

So my cohort indicated that she would like to get together and I thought that was fine. But the communication was a little out of sync. I asked for her suggestion on good times to get together, and the response took awhile. Then she said she had car trouble, and I suggested that when things smoothed out she might want to get back in touch. Which she did...and gave me her phone number. So I texted her and gave her my number, which is what people in my demographic do these days when they share phone numbers. But she rang me instead. I suggested we get together the following day at 6pm at the wine bar. She agreed, but seemed to have some difficulty finding it on a map, or retaining the numbers of the address that I was telling her (it's on a main drag). 

After my mammo and ultrasound I came home and put on some makeup and a passable outfit and toodled down to the wine bar. I selected an interesting sounding wine -- a chilled red from Georgia (the country). And then I sat. And wrote notes in my notebook and checked off things I'd done. And looked at my phone. And took pictures. And sipped my wine.

The wine was amazing, and it saved the day, if by the day I mean the situation of being stood up by my now non-future friend. The wine tasted exactly like the smell of my folks' sideboard in the dining room. Cedar and ground black pepper that's past its prime. Loved it. By 6:20 I was all whatever. By 6:36 I was all "do you want me to pick up bread on the way home, husband, cause I'm gonna bail!" I texted and emailed the woman a message saying that I am heading out, and I received one in return saying that she'd written it down as Saturday. What part of tomorrow and Friday is Saturday, by the way?

If this ever comes up again I will certainly decline the invitation. I could tell from all of the previous communication that this was likely to be a bust, but I gave it a shot. And had one :)

Summer Produce

He's insane for corn. 

But when I caught him in the act with a cantaloupe, he had this look on his face like I'd caught him in the act with a cantaloupe.

I Can Confirm That Payback's A Bitch

I've been unpacking memories, as they say, with my new therapist. Lately my thoughts turn to my being a bad person. All of the things that I've done that make me twinge with shame. Surprisingly these are not my more recent transgressions, like this entire blog where I unload (pointedly) about my family. This is my coping mechanism.

Things I really do regret are things I did in the past -- drawing on peoples' faces in yearbooks, for example. I actually spend real time worrying that things I did to get a laugh will appear in Ancestry.  Anyhoo, I did something shitty while I was in middle school. A girl in class was bugging me and I retaliated by cutting her down in a very personal way. After that day she and her friends spent the next few years following me, doing things to me and generally making my life miserable. It only stopped when, in the locker room after PE one day, she confronted me and I locked eyes with her while trying to find a weapon I'd stashed in my binder. Luckily for both of us I didn't find it, and she eventually yelled "Don't give me them eyes, Bitch!!"

My kindly therapist asked some probing questions after I'd told him that I'd often thought of trying to find her to apologize. We're all grown ups now, and I wanted to let her know how very sorry I was for pain that I had caused her. The therapist wanted to know what was stopping me, and the answer is usually (cause I think of this a lot) that if the pain was still fresh I do not feel that my apology would be helpful. I'm still kinda confused about it all.

This weekend I looked her up. I wasn't expecting to find her because she had a common name and also chose different nicknames over the time that I knew her. But I did find her. And her fb feed is almost entirely filled with memes about how if someone crosses her she will not reveal where she hid their body. I told this to mrguy and he thought I was exaggerating until I performed a recitation of dozens of the memes found in her profile. 

I have decided not to pursue this idea of an apology any further.

I wish her well. I hope that it's all a put-on and that she isn't really that angry. I still regret that I said that thing to her. And if we ever come face to face again I guess I'll have to give her those eyes. Or run.