The Megastore recommends: when the party's over edition.

Yesterday, after the historian came home from a medical procedure, buoyant despite feeling dragged out, no doubt, from anesthesia and so forth, we both rested for awhile. In the afternoon, and then in the evening. And in the evening, after resting, I arose from the bed and said, I shall make two kinds of cake. Thus, a festive mood was set, as my son and his wife jointly worked on a tricksy word puzzle and I beat butter and sugar together, etcetera.

The party is almost over--the long June that saw family coming and going, a giant festive celebration of my mom and dad's sixty-years-long marriage, my brother and family in town, swimming, dinners out and dinners in, fancy breakfasts with grandchildren at my table, a medical procedure near the end.  I told my son today that while I'm in the whirl of such a wonderful month, it can feel so intense, that concentration of so much fun and so many beloveds, that I feel overwhelmed, but when it's over, I feel overwhelmed with sadness. What to do?

...+ this equals the breakfast
that will see me through.

this...

1. Eggs for breakfast. The departure of beloveds calls for a substantial breakfast, one that will fortify you and make you feel sturdy and, basically, the embodiment of survival. I have eggs. I have potatoes. I have, or will have, green chiles. I plan to make eggs with a good cheese and green chiles, fried potatoes, and toast on the day everyone leaves. If I need to cry, on and off, all day, those eggs will back me up and right the ship. I'm counting on it.

the title of this is 'don't cry about it,'
but my advice is precisely the opposite.

2. Speaking of crying, go ahead and cry. There's really no point in trying not to. So what if you look like you had an encounter with grave difficulties and only barely escaped with your wits? SO WHAT. Feel free to wear your dark glasses outside and, frankly, inside, if it's called for. Also? Feel free to rest in a darkened room with a damp cloth. PRO TIP: you can get the necessary crying started by listening to whatever pop song does that for you. The car is a perfectly good place to cry, but do abide by all traffic laws. In conclusion: the crying is its own event. Suit up.

something along these lines.

3. Work out, for the love of everything holy. Is it possibly true that, whilst all the fun was being had and the day at the hospital was happening, and while two cakes were baking and so forth, that the two a days fell by the wayside? Of course it's true. And while it was worth it--who wants to be that person, who won't have the fun because she has to go to the gym?--it was definitely worth it, it's also true that the workout canNOT resume soon enough when the people leave, abandoning to us to our own resources. Our own resources, which include working out. Which, by GOD, get on it.

the first step is to write PLAN
on a sheet of graph paper, obviously.

4. Make a plan. This week, the historian and I are pretty much hanging out together. I am insisting that he eat nutritious food on the regular and policing his meds like it is my job (I sound super fun in this scenario, I realize). Next week, I have a few meetings hither and yon, and a couple of engagements I'm looking forward to. I've been writing every day this past month, even with the full-on family extravaganza, and I intend to continue with this regimen. We bought tickets to go to Scotland. The plan is essentially your counter narrative to the 'everyone is leaving and life is a bitter and empty shell' story that is kind of inevitable when everyone leaves and, well, life is a bitter and empty shell. If you have a plan, the terrible story built into the situation will, possibly, have a shorter half life. Possibly. These are the hopes we hang on to.

I realize that I am making these recommendations to myself, by the way. Of course I am.

The Megastore recommends, spring for real edition.

like these.

1. Red shoes. People, we have come through, just about, a long and justly wintry winter. And I am
not tempting the weather gods--see, I said 'just about,' so I know--we still have some bluster and sleet and whatnot. Plenty of rain, and so forth.

Still: don't tell me you're not tired of those heavy boots and sturdy waterproof shoes you've been wearing. Your feet want a little dancing. They want lightness. In a word, they want red.

Red shoes are pretty much the most reliable of the frivolous shoe colors. Red is elemental. Since it's elemental, I say we all decide it's a neutral. Let's all buy new sneakers, red ones, and wear them with everything. Sneakers have the virtue of being practical, but red sneakers? lightweight ones? they will serve your dancing and lightness needs with aplomb.

basically, like this, but
with pancakes.

2. Eating breakfast with the door open. Sure, you might not have a kitchen that opens to the outside, but maybe you have access to a window? The day is still young, the chill is still in the air, but the light is starting to filter through the leaves, and that light, that light is the reason. You know that light is both particle and wave. It is material, my friends, and there is no good reason in this world, when the chill is forecasting a later warmth, that you should not eat your oatmeal with some of that material light adding savor to the whole deal. Just try it. And for heaven's sake, wear a sweater.





3. Inspecting the yard. Did you know that your tulips are cutting

this is LITERALLY happening right now.

through the dirt? and probably, also, your crocuses? Also, that little project over there in the corner of the yard, the one you didn't finish last October? Still needs to be finished. But hey, the rose canes are reddening and the leaves are just about to pop. Not to mention all that blue flax. Things are happening out there--you don't want to miss it!

so close!
(dave mcmanus,
'brokenwing resting,'
on flickr)

4. Spring break. Shhhhhhhh--can you hear it? It's getting closer. Super close. Almost here. I know this is counterintuitive, but I think I can literally taste it.

The Megastore recommends: The Blues edition.

America, it's January, and all that that implies. To wit: the syllabus hustle, the Canvas meltdown, the Too Cold Crisis, the stayabeds. Maybe it's just me, but maybe not. In these dark times, it seems important to have a few recommendations at hand, with which to rouse oneself from the abyss. I'm throwing you a rope, in other words, and with it you can lasso a tree branch and pull yourself up, like a Navy SEAL. That's right: with the following recommendations, you can be your own hero/rescuer. You'll have to supply your own white uniform and cap, however.

...it's       right      there....

1. Finish your orientations. Did you offer to orient every man, woman and child in the vicinity, and beyond, because it's an online class? Did you set up orientations all over the schedule, to accommodate the worker, the mother, the living in a foreign land-er, the slacker? The Lord knows you will feel relief when you've reached the end of that agenda--when you have explained for the last time that the student can find many an answer in the syllabus which is right      there      and then, when there are no questions--none!--they thank you and sign off. You will have the breathing room that comes with the item checked off a list. You will feel, psychically, baptized, arisen from the waters, blameless and pure. You did it! You got through the first week! Now sit right down and eat a plate of spaghetti, because the Lord also knows that you really need some carbs, and right now.

it's the very last syllabus. of the semester. there
may be other syllabi in my future, but not today.

2. Finish the last of your syllabi. The course that is taught but once a week, on a Friday, is lo! a great blessing, when you are experiencing the Onslaught of the Syllabi, that epic mythic battle. But when the storm has passed, and you're teaching your regular classes, that unfinished syllabus for the Friday-only class looms like a bastard, just glowering and leering, reminding you that, sure, you wrote down your suave assignment ideas in a tidy little list that is ... somewhere, maybe in your purse? Or in some grungy little document loitering around in an unmarked file on your hard drive? Ugh, you're going to have to come up with other ideas, stupider, more prosaic ideas, that will make the course huff along like a car in need of a tuneup. Not at all like the sleek machine you imagined back when you wrote those ideas down, where the hell are they?

But when you finish that syllabus, the angels will sing. Can you hear them? They are lauding your resilience, your persistence, your wherewithal, your je ne sais quoi. Come to think of it, I can't hear, exactly, what they're singing. Maybe it's more like the child's choir intro to You Can't Always Get What You Want. But if you try sometimes, you might find you get the syllabus you need.

Now that you've finished that syllabus, go buy and then eat some candy. It's dark outside. Your mouth needs something sweet in it. Or salty, go buy some potato chips also.

I meet all my students on plazas,
in filtered sunlight.

3. Meet with humans. AKA students. It is amazing how talking to an actual person who will be in
the class you're teaching makes teaching feel viable again, as opposed to hypothetical, and hypothetically anathema. They might not tell you that in teaching school, but it's true.

sparkly like a BOSS.

4. New school outfit. Did you iron a white shirt recently? You are so freaking diligent, you deserve to buy a new skirt! Make it a sparkly one.

Did you say your blues are existential? I feel you. Mine too. So you can trust and believe that my having accomplished all of the above does not mean that I did not cry like a sap at the Modern Family episode tonight, where Phil Dunphy realizes that he has to let the ducks go because 'the internet says they were ready to fly a month ago.' Birds gotta fly? Ugh, where's the sparkly skirt to compensate for that, I ask you?

The Megastore Recommends: Sick Day Edition.

Sure, go ahead and bust it out, finish that epic swath of student conferences and come home late, fall on the bed, breathe, whatnot. Go ahead, think I only have to make beans and brussels sprouts to take to Thanksgiving. Go ahead, ignore that little sniffle that hangs on like a bad thought, like a nagging, insistent pop song. Just wait. By the end of the beautiful, family-filled night, it'll just be you and your sinuses driving home, and you'll be all mucinex mucinex mucinex, like it's the most beautiful line of dactylic trimeter you ever did sing/sniff.

Well, come the next day, you're going to need a few recommendations, and I'm here to give 'em to you.

1. Accept that the bed is your destiny. Sure, you might think, hey, I don't feel so dang bad when you're still horizontal and the day is young. And you might sit up and let all that sinus action sort itself out. And walk tentatively into the kitchen, and make oatmeal.

But then? Well, it's time to go back to bed, you and your Mucinex, because you're achey and a little sniffy and by golly it feels a little chilly out there in the world, outside the blankets. So lie down again. It's okay.

2. Accept the dog as your nurse. Sure, he doesn't actually do things like get you a glass of water or bring you that magazine or adjust the covers or remind you when it's time to take the next dose of Mucinex. But he does lie down on the bed beside you, and he sighs when you sigh, and when the magazine falls from your hand and you slip into sick-sleep, he is right there with you. Dog-accompanied sick-sleep just may be more restful than regular sick-sleep. Actually, we have a trial for this going on. I'll let you know our findings.



3. Soup. Soup is the answer.

No: Soup is The Answer. That's better.

We ventured out at the end of the day to our local Indian restaurant, where they brought us complimentary saag shorba, and it soothed our souls, and also my sick.

4. Don't bother being aspirational. That's the medicine talking right there. No, you can't sort through your sweaters. Or revise your manuscript. Or grade, really. Pretty much all you're good for is clicking through the channels and maybe finding something on Netflix. Truthfully? what you're really good for is watching something you've watched a million times before. When you're sick, the familiar jokes and anticipating the good parts of something you've watched a million times before is remarkably fulfilling. A cure for what ails you? it just might be.

The Megastore recommends: Long Day Edition.

Sometimes, no matter how hard you try to avoid it, you have a long day. Sometimes, the long day just comes at you like an enraged rhino--what'd you ever do to deserve an enraged rhino, coming at you?
--and you just have to let it roll. Either way, you'll have a better time of it if you

Last Minute Post It (LMPI)

1. Articulate your plan in multiple places. Let's say that the schedule for your long day is such that you have to execute your being-in-all-the-places plan with laser-like focus and superhuman precision. In that case, you better have your plan in your

• Outlook calendar and replicated upon a 
• text document, backed up by a 
• Word document, and actualized on a
• last-minute Post It.

Otherwise, things might slip out of view. I'm telling you: recursive planning! It's the next big thing. I'm already developing the app. (If by 'developing the app' we mean 'thinking about how the Last Minute Post It (LMPI) is already a pretty good app for recursion in planning.' Which we do. That's exactly what we mean.)

Shaun T, you and your abs
need to stop bossing me around.

2. Work out first. Some days, you know that the end of the day is just going to be a cluster-cuss, and there's nothing to be done about it (see: enraged rhino, coming at you). So you better work out first. If that means rolling out of bed to put on yesterday's workout clothes, so be it. If that means that when Shaun T tells you to FOCUS you kind of want to talk back to the dvd and tell him to shove it? So be it. If this means that when you on your yoga mat, first as Superman and then as Rocketman, you kind of feel like a boss? So be it. Work out first and you will be the superhero of your own core. Whatever that means. Just do it. (Not the Nike slogan, just the regular, unbranded admonition.)

3. Eat the breakfast and lunch that give you the power of the righteous. So what if

NOT the snack of the righteous.

Starbucks is out of the bacon gouda artisanal sandwich? Eat oatmeal: the breakfast of the righteous. Bring your lunch from home--and if it's leftover caprese salad and leftover broccoli and a peach, that right there is the lunch of the illuminati. Perhaps less righteously, you may later eat a doughnut (delicious!) at a meeting, and a nut-and-seed bar at another meeting (real good! maybe healthy?), and you might also have a giant diet Coke with lime that you obtained from a drive-thru with your daughter and grandchildren. And who knows what you'll eat at book club (although it will be super tasty). Point is, the righteous breakfast and lunch are the base. Crazy snacks and not-quite-dinner: mitigated.

You're gonna feel so much
better if you do.

4. Just reschedule your last hard thing already, and go do something better. I did this today--I had one appointment at 6 p.m., and if I rescheduled it, I could see my daughter and the grandkids, just barely. There was just enough time. So I did it. I rescheduled, and got to drive with my daughter and crew to Trader Joe's, so we could talk in the car. I got to hear how Deacon finished Zelda, and how Gwen was going to wear her dream-come-true dress. I got to hear about my daughter's travel plans, and I got to gaze upon the sweet, sleeping Naomi. My rescheduled appointment allowed this little dollop of joy and pleasure. Near the end of a long, long day, I call that a win-win.

A few recommendations.

a big YES.

1. Getting things done. Yesterday, I messaged all the students who had not yet attended an orientation. Out of nearly 100 students, the people, just over thirty had taken the course compass in
hand, as it were, and set themselves aright. That's just over 30%. That is a failing grade on any Bell curve.

Dammit, students, I said in the message, this cannot stand. Or words to that effect. Well! Today, forty or so more came, to five different orientation sessions. Which happened at all hours of the day and evening. While this does mean that I am all orienteered out, it means that we're passing, grade wise, at about 70% percent. Very satisfying.

2. A schedule, a calendar, a plan. Until Labor Day has passed, I confess that I can barely be arsed, as they say, school-wise. I am pretty sure that this is an insouciant overstatement. But the spirit of it is true. While I am doing the steps, I am putting in the work, my heart is not in it. I will not go

I'm pretty sure it was like this

when I was swimming at Redondo

Beach after Labor day but before

school started.

into my whole nostalgic deal about how in the olden days, we did not start back to school until after Labor Day, a conviction which leads to what are, I'm sure, wholly falsified memories in which I had the whole of Redondo Beach to myself and I wandered lonely as a cloud and school was on the horizon but not yet at the door.

I will not, as I say, go into it. But let's just say that any person responsible for educational calendars who starts the official school year before Labor Day is living in a fool's paradise, if said person expects any serious work to get done.

That is why one needs a plan, the people. One needs to update one's calendar. One needs to make a little weekly schedule that represents one's fixed points, one's points of navigation, one's north stars. One needs to update one's Outlook calendar. One needs to look at one's schedule until it is imprinted upon one's eyes, one's heart, one's brain. One needs to get real with the new school year, and a schedule, a calendar, a plan is the way to do it. Just not till after Labor Day. Otherwise, Educational Calendar Czar, you're just asking for it.

these are they,
boots of joy.

3. Cute shoes from abroad. Well, now that I've got that off my chest, let me say that I acquired new grey suede boots from Marks & Spencer, that venerable department store of the United Kingdom, which now ships to America. Let me start over. When I was shopping with my daughter in
Aberdeen, we went into Marks & Spencer and I found the grey suede boots that completed both my quest for grey suede boots, and me, myself. That's right: the boots completed me in some deep spiritual shoe-based sense. And then, I talked myself out of getting them. Did I already have grey boots? Yes. Even grey suede boots? Well, yes, maybe. Okay, yes. Did I, strictly speaking, need grey suede boots? or any boots whatsoever? Possibly not.

And yet, once we left the store, I yearned for them. I looked on the M&S site when we got back home. Where were the boots? They were nowhere to be found, mere ghosts of memory. Soon, we left for America, bootless. Literally. I looked on the Marks & Spencer website. Still no boots. And then, a few days later, lo! they appeared. And reader, I did buy them, with free shipping. And today, I wore them. And they are perfect.

...except fluffier, and with
feta.

4. An omelet for breakfast. Chorizo and feta. Green onion. With the most perfect hashed browns in the world riding shotgun. And toast, sourdough. Eaten with a friend who knew you from back in the day of young motherhood. The breakfast the end of the birthday celebration line. This is food to fortify the soul. This is food that  gives courage and fuerza. With this food in the belly, one can make a plan, and orient the students, and update the Outlook calendar, and wear new boots even though it's still just a little too hot for boots. The omelet stays with you all day; the omelet is steadfast.  The omelet is helmet, buckler, and shield. The omelet keeps watch. The omelet will not let you down.

The Megastore recommends.

that's the blue I'm talking about.

1. Cool evenings. In the summertime, we look at the weather for the possible hint of a dip in the temperature. Today, it was cooler than you'd expect for late July, and that felicitous condition just got better as the day wore on. I had a date with my friend Jennifer to have dinner downtown. When I got there at 6:30, the patio was humming, and when she arrived a few minutes later, we decided to eat outside. 'I like to be outside when it's nice,' she said, and that's, to me, the quintessence of summer: too hot, and I feel like my brain and also my will to live are melting, but when it's light and lovely and not too hot, it's only heaven. We took a seat outside and proceeded to have a blissful three hour conversation with excellent food and a pretty great soundtrack. At 9:30, we walked around the corner to our cars. The sky was a particularly sublime shade of twilight blue, which I also recommend.

a dramatic reenactment of the excellent fries
we had tonight.

2. French fries. The people, there is perhaps no greater indication of human civilization than cooked food. You might say feats of engineering or art. And you'd be right--those are also indicators of &c &c, but cooked food? Cooked food makes the world a better place for you, the people, and all the people, really. Example: the fried potato. The potato belongs to the humble, maligned carbohydrate tribe, but really, it and its starchy brethren deserve some serious credit for keeping hope, and people, alive. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that french fries are the best. And it's totally acceptable, in my book, to make a little project of eating french fries at this and that fancy restaurant, for the purposes of science, to see which ones are good, and which one are better, and which ones are the best. Let me emphasize: for science. And also because french fried potatoes might remind you of your mom and how she used to make french fries with a deep fat fryer from time to time, and how they were so so so good. EAT FRIES, is what I am trying to tell you are you even listening to me?

like this, but with chocolate creme anglaise. and popcorn.

3. A whimsical dessert. Okay, I've calmed down, even though I am still excited to report that, at my
lovely dinner, we shared a dessert that was both adorable and delicious. It was another fried thing, a doughnut, beignet style, dipped in cinnamon sugar and served with chocolate creme anglaise. Also, caramel popcorn, don't ask my why, except that it was tasty and charming and we ate every last bit of it. What were they thinking when they thought of it? why chocolate creme anglaise and caramel popcorn? I don't know, but after having eaten it, I say why not?

4. Working on a tiny book project. My previous book project has emboldened me to think I can probably do anything. So I would like to announce that today at the Publication Center's Makerpalooza, which I hope will become an annual event, I began my project, which will entail the following:

just google it, and see some examples of the splendor
of this book form. seriously. just do it!

• a piece of writing that I have recently taken out of my manuscript but which I think still has potential,
• laid out in InDesign and
• turned into a photopolymer plate, so that
• it can be printed on the etching press, to create
• a letter press effect, and which will be
• folded by hand using the Turkish Map Fold, which is
• actually a real thing, and
• bound in a do-si-do binding (thank you for the idea, Charlotte!), which will be
• covered with another letter press title page, and titled Variations on a Book.

If I can pull all of this off, grand and splendid possibilities will await us in the Publication Center. Foolhardy optimism, it turns out, is another thing I highly recommend.

The Megastore recommends.

compared to ours, this mattress

pad is a bed of thorns. I'm telling you,

it's good.

1. Better bedding. Last week, I bought a new mattress cover. Our old one, which had stood us in good stead, was nonetheless looking a little the worse for wear, and frankly was not doing its part in terms of our sleeping comfort. This new mattress cover was labeled 'luxury' and 'sateen,' and it seemed, therefore, simply by virtue of these two words, to be a step up. I waited until bedding washing day to put it on. The people! It has smoothed out our ride and softened our slumber, and it is fantastic. Better than anything? it was deeply on sale at Target. I cannot tell you what the better bedding item is that will make your sleep infinitely (if also infinitesimally) better, but I urge you to haunt the clearance racks of wherever it is you shop and listen carefully to what the sales goods in the bedding department are telling you. Be a bedding whisperer.

2. A new park. A few days ago, the historian's daughter mentioned a new park in a city across the

somewhere in this plan is a
fantastic playground.

valley. After a little bit of querying, my daughter and son and his wife and a passel of grandchildren headed over there to take it for a spin. It was good, very good, if a little bit on the un-shady side. There were excellent climbing opportunities and a zip line and all manner of play possibility. We played until we couldn't take the sun anymore, and then we tried

it's by the park!

3. A new pizza place. It had thin crusted slices and one of those fancy Coca Cola drink machines where you can get the soda of your dreams (mind is sparkling water with lemonade in it--not too sweet, very refreshing!). We all agreed that there might be better pizza in the world, but it was pretty good. And, as my iPhone told me when we were sweltering (let's admit it) at the park, it was only 700 ft. away. So: convenient!

4. Wowing a grandchild. Today at the park, there was one of those spinning merry-go-rounds, the

little spinning death machines,
in my opinion.

kind that I basically think are accident-machines, since they work on centripetal force. This one was a kinder, gentler version, with cupped sides, to reduce the likelihood that children will fly out when it goes real fast. Or that they will try to hop on in similar circumstances. ANYWAY the grand boys had all hopped in, so I began to spin it around. I broke into a run--and by 'run' I mean, well, I guess 'run,' but, you know, low impact. 'I didn't know Grandma could run,' one grandson said to another. Well, me either, actually, but there you are. I ran that spinning piece of playground equipment around. So I also recommend surprising oneself with physical feats such as a light run while sending the kids on a whirly, fantastic ride.

The Megastore recommends (summer food edition).

We haven't yet made it to the farmer's market this summer (this Saturday, we've promised ourselves), but I have been to Trader Joe's, which means that I have things to recommend to you for dinner:

1. Side dishes as main dishes. I stole this recipe list from a blog I read, and I immediately fell

see? side by side by side by side.

upon it as if upon the face of a long lost loved one. It's all sorts of vegetables that are supposed to be served on the side of something. What, I wonder? ( < rhetorical question) Well, around here, we like our vegetables in the middle of things. Or vegetables side by side. So, side dishes on the side of other side dishes? Anyway, let me recommend some other things related to this recommendation:

this guy is so, so healthy.

2. Raw, not cooked. This recipe, for summer squash, mandolined into ribbons and marinated briefly in the simplest vinaigrette, then adorned with basil and toasted pine nuts and goat cheese? So good. If you have ever eaten a rather chunky slice of zucchini in a crudités platter and thought, well., I urge you to try this. It tastes so fresh, so light, so exactly what you need when the day has been hot and you have schlepped yourself to Trader Joe's and back, and worked out, and so forth. You don't have to cook one thing. Well, I guess you have to toast the pine nuts.

pro tip: you really, really have to cook
potatoes before eating them.

3. Cooked, don't be ridiculous. This potato salad, you guys. It is the ne plus ultra of potato salad. First: loads of fresh dill. Second: loads of thinly sliced green onions. Thirdly: capers, which--sometimes capers seem kind of ridiculous, but they add a little salty, slightly pickle-ish je ne sais quoi to this, and it is good. But the dressing! It has tahini in it, which adds a slightly smoky, seedy element, which, combined with the French mustard lemon juice and some more dill, is just the best. People tend to be a little doctrinaire about potato salad, but this--this is worth changing sides for.

pretty, and good, and more than
pretty good, let's be honest.

5. Strawberries. When they are good, they are good, and by good, I mean there is nothing better. So have them, already, sliced into a bowl with a few blueberries and--hear me out, now--some kiwi. This makes a very refreshing finish to your dinner out of side dishes, and refreshment, the people, is what dinner is all about in the summertime. You know I'm right.

The Megastore recommends.

gross.

1. A double-triple-quadruple schedule. It's true, I have a day by day text doc that I keep a running
'gotta do' list; a Word doc that I have devised to be a calendar of the last five weeks of the semester (I always do this); the calendar in Outlook that is, like, a really mean and exacting god; and various Post Its that tell me the status of discrete projects (like my grading--that is a really, really, really full Post It).

This is absurd. But somehow, it makes me feel slightly more on top of my game. My game is Crush the Captain, and it would be a terrifying game if I were actually Captain of my, you know, LIFE.

I love you so much, V.

2. Vegetables. Oh vegetables! You are soulful, mute magic. When I am feeling tired and worn out and beset and begrudging, a dinner made principally of you will save me from nearly everything. Thank you for your variousness. Thank you for being from Brussels and also from my freezer, in the form of not very recent corn. With rice and sautéed mushrooms, I felt like my home was the best place, and my dinner table the best place in my home. Vegetables, you complete me.

like a knife with superior engineering.

3. A well-attuned tool. I have recently pulled my mandoline out from its tidy cupboard, the better to make very thinly sliced carrots and peppers and fennel for a salad. The people, the mandoline is superb. The mandoline has totally upped my salad game. Thinly sliced everything makes a salad feel sexy and thrilling. I'm so glad I bought my mandoline however many years ago, because now that I have rediscovered it, and I'm eating all the thrilling salads, I kind of feel like a genius prognosticator of this precise moment, when my brain realized that, in the future, I would be in a condition that requires salad, suave, shaved salads,
and would therefore require the proper tool to make them.

poor burden-head.

4. Sleep. Not that I'm getting any or anything.













> POEM. <

The Megastore Recommends: Outfits Edition.

The people, I have a lot of sweaters. And the sweaters I'm talking about are my winter sweaters, not even all the sweaters. There is a whole nother subset of summer sweaters and spring sweaters. I'm just saying, sometimes when you have a big day and it's 11:30 at night, the sweaters might be a little overwhelming.

But the big day demands it: the outfit must be assembled, the sweaters must yield one of their kind to complete the ensemble, and a scarf must rise from all its sisters folded in the scarf box. In other words, the 'what to wear' of the big day must be prepared, just as the documents for the big day have been organized into their Google Drive file, and the sandwiches have been ordered, and the schedule has been published high and low, and individual emails to a billion people have been sent. For clothes maketh the woman, or something, and also: shoes maketh the big day bearable to contemplate, if they are comfortable.

Did I say I was going to recommend some things? Okay, I will recommend:

not my dress.

1. A new dress. I'm recommending this even if you have a lot of old dresses, as I do, or if you don't wear dresses, then a lot of old whatever it is you do wear. (No offense.) Sometimes, a new dress just crystallizes a moment. It speaks to you. It says: Wear me and you shall feel polished, pulled together, efficient. It says: Wear me and there shall be no residue of old, ordinary days.  I know: my clothes should probably not be taking this hortatory tone with me. But when you have an immanent big day, you'll take the wisdom you get, even if said wisdom emanates from a plain but stylish gray sheath dress with slash pockets, which is what sold it to you in the first place.

not my scarf.

2. Silk scarf. Will never go amiss, and that is no overstatement. How light! how shimmery! How very bright and yet elegant it is. It came from someplace exotic, it was brought home to me by a friend, I bought it at T.J. Maxx--whatever its provenance, it's silk and silk means business, scarf-wise, and in terms of pulling the outfit together.

cute! (but not
my cardigan.)

3. Cardigan. Have I shared with you my love of the cardigan? Perhaps not, so let me just say: I have become a collector--it's exactly the right word, not to say hoarder--of cardigans. I like them a little on the long side and sometimes a lot on the long side, and I like them thin, and I like them in all the colors. Despite the fact that I have a lot of cardigans (see above: I have a lot of sweaters), I am not sure that I have all the cardigans I need. For instance, I may or may not have enough pink cardigans. Be that as may be: I am lucky that a persimmon colored cardigan spoke from the depths of my sweater cupboard and reminded me that gray and orange are a good combination, especially in the spring, and especially for a big day, when a shot of color may just be the thing that gets me through.

you know I wish these
were my shoes. (but
these are not my shoes.)

4. Snappy shoes. Also may be the things that get me through, especially if they are (a) pearl gray, and (b) low-heeled. Which mine are. So, I'm just saying that, with these shoes and the other outfit components I have recommended above, the odds of my big day tomorrow going okay seem ever so slightly more likely to be be in my favor.

Either that, or I'll have to fight to the death in The Hunger Games. But, you know, that scarf--it can probably be used as a slingshot and a garrote--it's that versatile.

The megastore recommends.

still light!

1. Getting home before it's dark. The people, this seems obvious, but sometimes it isn't. I
recommend it. When you leave the gym and it's still light, it makes you feel like you can go to the grocery store and buy food. Arriving home with said food when it's still light makes things like, oh, talking to the people you love, and standing around in the kitchen chopping stuff feel both possible and delightful. Arriving home when it's still light makes the enthusiastic and sniff-you-up way the big waggy dog greets you at the door feel sweet and charming instead of overwhelming.

2. Making dinner, with food. Speaking of chopping stuff: how lovely it is to have dinner at

dinner! with food!

home! Even when it's the same old thing, because it's what people like and it's manageable and--this is key--it's reliably delicious. Chopping red onions and green onions and a half a jalapeño and cilantro and tomatoes feels like a little bit of ordinary wizardry. It's good. It feels like you're living your life instead of your life living you.

like this, but on the
inside.

3. A fleeting feeling of leisure. Oh, how I treasure this. It's not like there aren't a million and one things on the list, and maybe they're even clamoring for my attention. But it's Thursday night. I got home before dark. I bought food, I prepared it, we ate it together and had a conversation at a dinner table. I put the leftovers away. After that, a little note of devil-may-care creeps in--why not take a moment to read the paper, or think a desultory thought? And maybe lie down for a tiny little rest whilst your husband watches a basketball game? Why not?

guacamole technical note.

4. Guacamole. Cut the avocado right in its skin, then scoop it into a bowl. Minced red onion, sliced green onion. Finely chopped jalapeño and cilantro. If you're in the mood, a little chopped tomato. Salt. Do what you feel you need to to make it the texture you like--mash or further cut it with knives in the bowl. Is this not, in fact, a tiny little fiesta, happening right in your kitchen? Well, isn't it?

The Megastore Recommends: the too much food edition.

1. Leftover roasted vegetables. The people, we had a party on New Year's Day. It was wonderful. This historian's daughter, out of kind concern that I may possibly, sometimes, overreach in my menu planning, which makes the dinner potentially glorious but also exhausting, suggested that we have what Tom Haverford calls "apps and zerts"--appetizers and desserts. It was great.

"What are you making?" my daughter asked me, meaning for the party.

I said, breezily, "Oh, I'm keeping it really simple. I'm mostly laying things on trays. I'm putting out grapes, apples, some really good cheese and fancy crackers. I'm making this bean dip with really good chips. Creminelli salami and some olives and dolmathes and artichoke hearts. Also this thing my mom makes called Josefinas? that you spread on slices of baguette and toast? And roasted potatoes and roasted green beans. And for dessert lemon squares and these pecan squares and this ricotta tart I found on Martha Stewart? And ice cream cones for the kids."

She laughed. "Doesn't sound so simple to me."

I literally canNOT resist overdoing it. But it's true that the party was in fact a little simpler because I didn't have to cook so many things, as in: I had to turn on the oven fewer times.

these are the beautiful potatoes I
roasted. Or like unto them.

But because I made too much food, there were leftover roasted potatoes and roasted green beans. Roasted vegetables, leftover, are a boon when it's dark outside and you're hungry. So last night we had straight up leftover potatoes and green beans and olives, and it was delicious and perfect. I mashed a little gorgonzola and--let's be honest--butter into the potatoes. I roasted them in the first place with garlic and rosemary and olive oil and plenty of coarse salt. Delicious. And tonight, I turned those potatoes and some broccolini into a frittata with some raw baby Swiss. Perfection.

see? so pretty! and crunchy!

2. Leftover raw vegetables. I forgot to add to my overkill list of apps and zerts that I also cut up the prettiest array of raw vegetables that you ever did see and put them in a pretty dish surrounding a bowl of peanut pesto, which is very, very good. (Peanut pesto: either peanuts or crunchy peanut butter, some minced garlic, soy sauce, a drizzle of sesame oil, some honey, a little hot water to thin it down, and some black pepper.)

Orange, yellow, red, and purple carrots. Raw turnips. Fennel. Celery. Sweet peppers. There were, of course, plenty of these left over. Which I have been eating for lunch every day. At work, in the movies, at home. They are lovely, crunchy, delicious and virtuous. I defy you to find many foods that fit all of those criteria.

I may have a small categorical issue here.

3. Leftover bacon. In the category of "things I overestimated," you can add "the number of breakfasts I might cook for all the people during the holidays." This overestimation meant that I had a leftover package of very good bacon, just sitting there in my refrigerator, saying in all but words, what're you going to do with me? Aren't you people vegetarians? Well, that package of bacon had clearly not heard of my Bacon Exception. I'm not proud of it, but there it is. When you like bacon enough that you have a bacon policy, it's kind of nice to occasionally have a little at home, so you can make...

an excellent Rico's tortilla will
up the awesome in your already
princely breakfast. true fact.

4. A breakfast burrito. What with your small handful of leftover roasted fingerling potatoes and your stash of eggs, some grated Monterey Jack Cheese, and that bacon burning a hole in your pocket, you can make yourself the king of breakfasts, the breakfast burrito. Quick and easy, too. Just fry that bacon, drain the fat, slice up a couple of teeny potatoes, give them a good toss in the hot pan, then beat your egg with a little cheese and scramble it to the side of the potatoes. When it's all cooked, slide a spatula under the eggs and potatoes, and put your tortilla in the pan. I happened to have really good tortillas on hand (see "things I overestimated" and "the number of breakfasts," #3 above). Heat the tortilla. You can press it down with your hand and hear the fat in the tortilla sizzle as it heats. Flip it and heat the other side. Lay the eggs and potatoes on the facing-up side, and crumble the bacon. Slide the whole shebang onto your plate and add a little salsa. This is a breakfast that will stand you in good stead for the day of syllabus-consideration and instructional-activity-devising.