The Cause of My Insomnia

Since last Friday I have not been able to get a full night's sleep. This is the reason. My cat is standing menacingly on my head all night long and I can't figure out what she wants or what to do about it. I must be clear here. The cat is standing on my head. For no reason. She is not making biscuits in my hair. She is not attempting to cuddle. She is standing on my head exactly as depicted in the accompanying illustration. See the very serious expression on her face in the picture? That's how she looks. Of course I move her. She comes back. I lock her out of the bedroom and she howls at the door. She has food, water, clean litter and no one is stuck down a well. What could this cat possibly want from me? Also, why is she not bothering my husband at all? Why must she torture only me as he snores softly and comfortably, in deep sleep beside me? At one point he woke up to pee and told me the next day that Canela was up in my face staring intently and frighteningly at me as I slept, or tried to sleep rather. I was trying to ignore her. I think she's trying to steal my breath. Internet, please help. What does my cat want?

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A Millpond Moment

When I was little I loved playing with my cousin Tara who had hair as red as Ronald McDonald and lived further out in the country than I did. Tara lived in a tiny house on acres and acres of land by a pond where otters played loudly all night. To the East of her house was a peach orchard where we played and where, as a child, I gained great fame amongst my cousins for stepping barefoot on a snake. Of couse it had been a complete accident, but I told everyone I did it on purpose and then we all swore that it had been a copperhead or a cottonmouth or whatever we thought sounded scariest and most poisonous. In reality I think it was just a black racer looking for water rats that had come up into the orchard to nibble on rotten, fallen peaches. Across the street from Tara's house was a green pepper field where sometimes in the summer we would sit in the dust and pick peppers for Memere Marie's now-husband Ray who owned the field. Back then they weren't even dating, so this was just a coincidence.

Tara's mother, who was also my cousin, although I called her my aunt, was the sort of mother who canned her own vegetables and jellies and who let us drink Kool-Aid, play in the sprinkler and stay up late. I loved going to Tara's house and sometimes I would stay for several days on end. I also need to add that Tara had an Easy-Bake Oven and did not mind taking her Barbies outside and getting them extremely muddy. This was the epitome of fun.

When Tara and I got to middle school something happened and she became different. We were never in the same classes because she was at a lower level than I was, but when we passed in the halls we never even spoke. Later I learned that she had endured a terrible trauma, which I won't detail here. At the same time I was enduring my own trauma, living with my stepmother and biological father and these collective problems caused us to stop being the muddy, jelly-sticky little girls who tore through the peach orchard screaming at imaginary terrors. Because before Middle School the only terrors in our lives were made up. Then suddenly, we were growing up and the things that scared us became very real and very horrible and because neither of us had words to express what we were going through and because each of us thought the other led the perfect life, we never shared our stories and we never talked again.

I was 20 and lived in Atlanta when Tara got married. She was almost a year older than me, so she was 21, which to me was appallingly young to be getting married. At 20 I was at the peak of my bohemian, wannabe artist, never get married phase and although I was a high-school dropout I fancied myself as quite the intellectual because I read a book every few months. I was an asshole. I heard about the wedding through relatives and then to my surprise Tara actually sent me an invitation and I went to her wedding.

Tara made a lovely bride, but all brides are lovely. I had a really good time at her wedding, but it was definitely your average Millpond wedding - pot luck and held in the fire house. Everyone wore jeans and there was a keg, but that drained pretty fast so some boys (my cousins, all of whom look like Kid Rock) took off in a truck to make a beer run and on the way back they hit a deer which they put in the bed of the truck with the beer to later skin and butcher. Then everyone line danced to Billy Ray Cyrus playing on a boom box and when the beer ran out again we all left. The after-party was in the Wal-Mart parking lot.

I didn't talk to Tara after that, but I always sent her Christmas cards. She got a job working for the state making Xerox copies. Mommom Jewel reminded me of this often as I went from working in a hotel to a collection agency to a pottery studio to a kindergarten.

"Your cousin Tara's got a good job workin' for the state. She makes Xerox copies. You could do that too you know but you just want to run around like you do," Mommom Jewel would say. Repeatedly.

I never told her that if I ever had to work for the state in Millpond doing nothing but making Xeroxes all day long for hours on end that I would surely start pulling out my hair by the roots and biting chunks out of my own arms. Tara and I had taken very different paths in life apparently. By the time we were 26 she had four little boys.

I decided to go see Tara. I have a better understanding of what happened to her. I wanted to see her children and reconnect with her.

Tara is still married. I don't know her husband, but everyone says he's a good guy and I wanted to spend some time with them. They live in a buttercream colored house, still way out in the country, surrounded by sorghum fields and dark, piney woodlands. There are no other houses around and when pulling into Tara's driveway the first thing that came to mind was that this was the sort of place where people get abducted by aliens. I was glad it wasn't night.

A gun case figured prominently in the living room. Someone had customized the gun case with airbrushed pictures of wolves and bucks with a confederate flag waving in the background. The kids weren't there. A framed Nascar poster hung on the wall. Tara was quiet. Her hair was permed and she looked too skinny. She still bit her nails. I wondered how she got the bruise on her wrist.

"Where's Dean?" I asked (Dean is her husband).

"Dean took the boys 'coon hunting with Big George," she said.

"Oh," I said, hoping very fervently that she mean Rac-coons. The confederate gun case scared me.

"Who's Big George?" I wanted to know.

"He lives up the road. He's a 'coon hunter."

I wondered if 'coon hunting was a profession. I asked what they did with the 'coons, praying she wouldn't say that they ate them.

"Make hats."

Hmm.

"Or sometimes we just hang them on the walls," she added.

Then she showed me the den where one wall was covered in raccoon skins. Luckily I was saved from having to compliment the raccoon wall because a pregnant teenager knocked on the screen door in the kitchen and we had to go let her in.

"Tara, you know when them boys is supposed to get back?" asked the pregnant teenager.

Tara didn't know.

"'Cuz I got cravins and Big George took the truck so I can't go into town and get some Krystal burgers!"

The pregnant teenager left on foot. We invited her in, but she declined our offer. Tara told me her name was Misty and she was Big George's 18 year old girlfriend. The baby wasn't Big George's. Big George had started dating her when she was already 3 months along and had been broken up with the baby's father for a couple months already.

"How old is Big George?" I asked.

"37."

"I see."

The next half hour was tense and awkward because Tara and I had nothing to talk about at all and she is very reserved. I would ask her questions and she would only say "yeah" or "no." I couldn't get anything out of her and I felt like she didn't want me there. Her life looked depressing to me, but maybe it isn't to her. I couldn't tell because she seemed so robotic and devoid of expression. I found it all, honestly, very troubling and I didn't want to come off as being a snob, but I think that's how she saw me anyway. I left Millpond. I got educated. I don't have kids. I live far away. I don't make Xeroxes for the state. I am threatening, but I don't want to be.

"Do you remember when I stepped on the snake?"

"Yeah," she said.

"Did your mom teach you to can? I used to love her blackberry jam. She was good at getting all the seeds out."

"No."

"We used to have a lot a fun didn't we?"

"Yeah."

I couldn't take it. I still don't know what to make of it. I left before the sun set and on the drive back into town I thought about how I must seem very foreign to her. Maybe I make her sad because I remind her of a time that was stolen from her too soon. Maybe she makes me sad for the same reason. I hope that she is not as unhappy as she seemed.

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Dogwoods

The best part of my trip up North last week was that it was Spring. Normally, living in Florida I tend to mourn Fall and to pine for snowy nights, and during this trip I realized that I had forgotten about how beautiful Spring was too. Everywhere flowers bloomed. It smelled good. The mornings and sunsets were cool and crisp and the afternoons were warm, but not too warm. And the dogwoods were at their peak. I had forgotten all about the dogwoods. In Millpond it seems like every house has at least one dogwood tree and they even grow wild in the forests which edge the fields outside the city limits. The dogwoods made me sad in the way that things that are rare and temporary often do and I cursed having to go back home to Florida where there is no Spring and there are no dogwoods. I swore that next year I would find a job teaching in a temperate climate with all four seasons, but when I got home late Sunday night and got out of the car, home and tired, I smelled the Night Blooming Jasmine and I thought, it can be beautiful here too.

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Let's Talk Some Politics With Memere Marie

My parents arrived in Millpond via bus last Friday night on a small detour from their normal route back to LA and Saturday Husband and I and my parents took Memere Marie (my mother's mother as you may recall) and her husband Ray out for pizza. She loves pizza. Ray loves food period. If it's edible Ray loves it, which is the only possible way he could have stayed with Memere Marie for the past 20 years because she is an abominable cook. Her cooking is like a year round Passover, but worse. She puts yellow hot dog mustard and Velveeta in everything and cooks almost exclusively in the microwave.

Before I go on to the pizza lunch story I have to digress and tell you about Ray's eating habits. Ray, who is almost 80 and in way better shape than me, as I said will eat ANYTHING and like it. Whenever we go out he eats everyone's leftovers right from their plates - pizza crusts, the onions we pick off our salads, the lemon slices from our iced tea and the stripped bones of our baby back ribs. I've never seen anything like it. One time he came home from working on his farm (he is a farmer who raises race horses, chickens, corn, soy beans and green peppers) to get some lunch. He found a small margarine container in the refrigerator that had some leftovers in it, which he heated up and ate with saltines. Later that evening, thinking about how good his lunch was, he asked Memere Marie what she had cooked and put in the margarine container. She thought for a moment.

"I don't know what you're talking about Ray," she replied.

"Well, it was kind of like a stew," Ray said, "But then I thought it might be a pate' although I did heat it up and you're not supposed to heat up pate' are you? It was just delicious. I was hoping you'd make it again."

Memere thought some more.

"Oh dear God Ray. You've eaten a can of Nine Lives!"

That morning she had fed the cats a half a can and saved the other half for their dinner in the margarine container and Ray ate it.

"You're kidding! It was delicious!"

Since then, Ray has often, when in a pinch, opened up a can of wet food for himself, which he eats, just like pate', and spreads on crackers. He has since stopped heating it up and says his favorite flavor is Ocean Dinner. I do not recommend that you attempt eating cat food yourself.

But last Saturday we did not, thank the blessed Lord, eat cat food. We had pizza. The first thing Memere did when she saw me was to call me a "little shit" and then make all sorts of accusations about what I'm doing on the computer. She has never in her life even touched a computer, yet she claims to know all about them. I'm not sure what she thinks the Internet is, being that she has never seen it, but she is convinced that every single thing you do on it is completely public and that there's nothing but child molesters on it.

"Well I guess I'm safe then, being that I'm an adult and child molesters aren't interested in me," I replied.

The second thing Memere did was call me a "Smart Ass SOB" and I confess this may be somewhat accurate.

After the pizza arrived my mother started talking about some of my recent accomplishments.

"Are those Liberals at that university giving you any problems?" Memere asked me totally out of the blue.

This caught me off guard.

"What?" I asked.

"Those Liberals. Don't try to tell me they aren't. I know what kind of left-wing radical nonsense goes on at those colleges. I see it on Fox News and I said to myself it's a good thing no one in the family's been to one of those places. Except you. I think in this day and age it's best to stay away from the universities. They don't teach a damn thing anyway. So I'm just interested in what kind of problems the Liberals are giving you."

I had no words.

"Or," Memere continued, lowering her voice dramatically, "Are YOU a Liberal?"

She said this in a tone that stated quite emphatically that if the answer were "yes" that she would instantly get up from the table, walk home and never speak to me or love me ever again until I registered as a Republican.

While I was more than a little tempted to tell Memere that just the previous week I had flung my bra into a bonfire on campus before praising Allah and performing "The Vagina Monologues" buck naked with "Fuck Bush!" painted across my braless boobs, I resisted the temptation and instead just told her about the Al Qaeda training camp that all English majors, especially Poetry MFAs are required to attend before graduation. No, I'm just kidding. I didn't do that either. But oh how I wanted to.

"Memere," I said, "I am not always Liberal but I am not a Conservative either, and while this may disappoint you, I am registered as an Independent. I'm a Moderate. I see good and bad things in both sides. I try to stay balanced. Some things I'm really Liberal about, but every now and then I get pretty Conservative too, but I refuse to subscribe to any ideology. In my life, and in my job and situation, I feel that this would be irresponsible. I think that politics should bring people together to make the country better for everyone, not tear people apart and make them fight."

The color drained from her face. Apparently, in addition to being the only member of the family to go to one of them universities I am also the only person to ever betray the Republican party with my heinous disloyalty. She turned to my mother.

"She's voting for Obama! Did you hear that!!!" Memere told my mother as if I couldn't hear her.

Ray turned to me.

"Are you done with that lemon in your iced tea?" he asked, "Because I'll eat it if you don't want it."

I don't talk politics with my family in Millpond. I can't. I will never convince them of anything and it will only cause fights and misunderstandings because they don't share the same worldview or understanding as I do and most of their political leanings are very uninformed and based on emotions which stem from the fear that their very isolated and narrow way of life might be threatened by invasions of people who are different from them, and by that I don't mean immigrants. I mean people from universities too. You can't argue with that.

You can, however, make fun of it on the Internet for all the child molesters to read.

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We Killed Eight Belles

I'm just going to warn you all right now that this story is disturbing as hell, so if you're having a sensitive, PMS-y kind of day you might want to read this at a later moment. If you love horses I'll suggest you don't read it at all, because well, my family and I - we kill horses. And we killed Eight Belles the other day at the Kentucky Derby.

I must first offer a heartfelt, sincere apology to the owners, trainers, handlers and fans of Eight Belles for killing her. We didn't mean to do it. We certainly don't kill horses on purpose. It just happens. It's part of the Holland Family Horse Curse.

As you all know my grandfather is gravely ill. He is so ill that there was the possibility of my not being able to even see him at all. He had been in the hospital all week. They try to keep him at home as much as possible, but sometimes his condition gets so bad that they have to take him to the hospital. For weeks now he has thought it was the Eisenhower era and if anyone tries to tell him otherwise he gets mad. He has a brain tumor that is causing dementia. Now you can imagine how scary it would be for you to swear it was the mid 1950s yet all around you are people not dressed like it's the 50s, wearing clothes that aren't from the 50s and driving cars and using computers that are definitely not from the 50s. It's a bad situation. Add to the dementia that he is frail, skeletal and sick from chemo and radiation and you can understand what we're dealing with.

But Pop wasn't always like this. He had a long career in the military. He's a General. He went to War College. When he was younger he was a tall, imposing man with a very commanding presence. He rode a motorcycle to work and came home every night and drank a few beers. He liked fried seafood and his favorite thing to do was to watch sports. His favorite sport was horse racing. When I was little and lived with Mommom Jewel and Pop Byron I always wanted to be close to Pop, but he was always watching sports and I hated sports. Except horse racing. Horse racing was about the only sport I could stand and it appealed to me because the horses were pretty, the jockeys wore brightly colored outfits and at the end they wreathed the horses in hundreds of flowers. I loved it. So whenever horse racing was on I could sit with Pop and we would pick a horse to root for and we would cheer and yell until Mommom Jewel would yell from the kitchen for us to shut up. It's one of my favorite childhood memories.

Every year Pop and I looked forward to the Kentucky Derby and we always said that one day we would get to go. I got a book from the library all about it and learned the names of all the winners and I daydreamed near constantly about wearing a gigantic hat with 25 pastel, satin bows hanging off it along with seven yards of Belgian lace, a tall ship and a bird's nest with real eggs in it. If you know me now I'll bet you can still imagine me wanting to go to the Kentucky Derby just so I could wear a completely out of control hat and sip mint juleps. To this day, I've never had a mint julep. I'm saving it for the remote possibility that I might actually get to go to Louisville. You never know.

When I was around seven or eight years old I developed a ridiculous obsession with wanting to be a jockey. It looked like a really cool occupation and I desperately wanted a career that involved wearing colorful silk jumpsuits and a little cap. Clearly I am all about hats. Obviously I had no idea what being a jockey was actually like ("Seabiscuit" hadn't yet been made) and I didn't know that I would, in a few years, grow to be way to tall for that to ever be a possibility. In the innocent meantime I fantasied about riding winning race horses and practiced by riding my very own thoroughbred, black, vinyl footstool that my grandparents called "the hassock" and beating the living hell out of it with a wooden spoon, because as you can imagine, footstools don't exactly run very fast. You have to really whip them to get them to even budge, especially when the race track is in your grandparents' wood paneled family room with a green shag rug.

One summer, around the time of my jockey obsession Pop started taking me to the horsetrack and letting me stay up way too late betting on horses. Mommom did not approve, so she said we couldn't bet anymore and she started coming with us to make sure we weren't gambling behind her back. Just for fun we would pick horses anyway and by God if every time we didn't bet real money the horses we picked would win. This proved too tempting for Mommom Jewel. We were missing out on good money, so she reversed her stance on gambling and decided to place a bet.

"Just this once," she said, "And then we're taking the money and going home. I'm just betting this one time because I really like this horse."

Mommom went and put money down on the horse we all liked.

Halfway through the race the horse was leading. We were going to win again, but then something happened and the horse tripped and fell. The other horses trampled past it and when the race was over our horse still didn't get up. An ambulance came and took the jockey away and some men walked onto the track, looked at our horse and then a few minutes later another man came out with a gun and shot our horse. It was extremely traumatic and thus began the Holland Family Horse Curse.

After that we stopped going to the track. Later that summer I got the chance to ride a horse, was thrown and ended up in the hospital with a concussion. I decided that being a jockey was no longer a viable career option and decided instead to be a famous portrait painter who marries a foreign prince, because that was way more realistic.

During this time we lived in a little white ranch house with green shutters that was out in the country. At the end of our road was a horse pasture and every night after dinner Mommom would give me carrots and apples and I would go to the split rail fence and call the horses, who would all trot over to me for treats. My favorite was a Palomino who had a long blonde tail that trailed out behind him when he ran. That October, on one of those misty, dreary Fall days when it's just starting to get chilly in Millpond, the horses all jumped the fence and escaped. I was home with a bad cold and looked out the picture window to see all of the horses galloping joyfully down our street.

The horses turned and ran through a newly planted rye field, kicking up dust. They ran in a wide circle, led by the Palomino and then they ran far up the road. The next day we learned that the Palomino, in his last moments of freedom, had run straight into the path of a Buick. The horse was killed and the driver of the Buick, a pilot from Baltimore on his way to the airport to fly to Paris, died instantly. After that the farmer moved all the horses, sold the pasture and a developer came in and built boxy tract homes where the pasture once stood.

I got older. We stopped watching horse races. I went to live with my biological father and his wife for a short time. Then I went to live with the parents I have now and we moved far away to New York where there were no horses. I never returned to the track. I forgot the Kentucky Derby, the hats, the mint juleps and the wreaths of 500 red roses and soon I was so tall that I would tower over any jockey. Because I now wanted to be a portrait painter I spent a lot of my time with a starter set of acrylics and small canvases, but I never painted horses.

This year it was a coincidence that the weekend I went to Millpond to see Pop was the weekend of the Kentucky Derby. Pop's doctor released him from the hospital Friday and we did't know if he would be well enough for me to visit on Saturday. We waited all day and my aunt talked to Mommom and convinced her to let me come over. I got there a half hour before the Kentucky Derby.

Pop looked bad. Mommom warned me that he wouldn't know me, that he gets tired and agitated and that he has severe dementia so not to be upset when he forgot who I was. None of this happened. He said my name.

"You came to see me!" he said, "It's Derby day! Do you remember when you were little and we'd watch it and you'd ride the hassock?"

Pop was completely lucid. Mommom brightened up.

"Let's pick a horse," I said, "For old times sake."

"I'm not picking a horse," Mommom said.

"Why not?"

"Don't you remember what happened last time I picked a horse? They came out and shot it!"

Then Husband, Cousin Bella and I told Mommom how stupid and superstitious she was being and how that was 25 years ago and they would never kill a horse right on the track in this day and age, especially during the biggest horse race in the world in front of millions of viewers. We told her how now they treat the horses as well as Olympic athletes and have advanced medical technology.

"Well, all right," Mommom said.

We liked Eight Belles. Black horses have always been my favorite and we had to root for the only girl in the race. She was the underdog and and she was beautiful; fast as any colt. We unanimously rooted for Eight Belles. And she won second place.

The camera focused on Big Brown's win and then there was a horse down on the track after the race ended. It looked black.

"What on earth happened?" we asked.

Something was wrong with Eight Belles. No one said anything. A few minutes later we found out that they had, indeed, in front of millions of people, euthanized a horse, our horse, right on the track. It really happened. It was our fault. We all sat there for a minute not quite knowing what to do and worrying that this would upset Pop too much. This was supposed to be our moment where we relived old times, where we cheered and we were happy again, where we forgot that Pop was so sick. It was supposed to be like when I was a child and when Pop was a tall, strong healthy man who barked orders at Corporals. Our horse was supposed to win and now she was dead and none of us wanted to say anything or acknowledge what had happened because we didn't want to upset Pop and we didn't know if he realized that the horse had died or not.

"These things happen," Pop said.

I tried very hard not to cry, because it's true. These things happen. But before she died, she still won second place and that is definitely something.

Pop stayed lucid. Before we left he said my name again.

"I love you so much," he said.

"I love you so much too Pop."

And then we left.

I can't end the story here. It was too disturbing of a thing to happen. I tried to find meaning because I guess I am too superstitious, but Pop was right. These things happen.

This reminded me of a conversation I had with Pop last summer when he was first diagnosed with lung cancer. I had been upset and had called him.

"Don't worry about me. I'm an old man," Pop told me, "This is what happens when you get old. You go to the doctor every damn day, everything starts to hurt and nothing works like it used to and the world has changed so much that you don't know where or what anything is anymore. I'm old. Old people get sick. That's just what happens and it's a normal part of life. So don't you spend your time worrying about me. I'll be fine. You just worry about yourself and go have fun and remember to do as much as you can while you're young. You let me worry about me and no matter what I love you."

And so I have tried to remember that. Old men get sick. Racehorses break their legs. These things happen. But you can count on me never ever picking another horse ever again.

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I'm Home!

I have returned safely from my trip, and before I go any further I must heartily thank Marisa of Apartment 2024 for her outstanding Philadelphia recommendations. I was thrilled to find that she reads my blog because I've been reading her site for a couple years now and it has always been one of my favorites. Do yourself a favor and check her out, especially if you like food as much as I do. You will also probably like her sister's music. Thanks to Marisa I ate extraordinarily well in the City of Brotherly Love and will be dreaming about the pork and greens sandwich at DiNics and the gelato at Capogiro for years to come. It is deeply unjust that I can't have this gelato near where I live. And by near where I live I mean actually in my house because it is just that wonderful.

I would like to thank everyone for sending their travel tips. I used as many of them as I could and as a result did manage to see pretty much every major attraction in Philadelphia in one day. Yes, one day. My visit to Philadelphia lasted one day, but I was gone for almost a week galavanting all up and down the East Coast. I have to confess to you that I wasn't on vacation and that this trip was emotionally very difficult for me. I went back to Millpond, my hometown to visit my grandfather and tell him I loved him for what might be the last time. Because I knew how hard that would be I added in the day up in Philadelphia as a special treat, because even in sad times, or perhaps especially in sad times we all need special treats.

While I was away I had many adventures and witnessed all sorts of bizarre behavior coming from my family members which you all will get to hear about for the rest of the week. There's so much to tell that one post just won't do it and I'm still exhausted. It was a hard trip for me, but also beautiful and full of moments that I needed to experience.

In other news my parents have gone back to Los Angeles (WITH BOMBOCLAAT!), stopping halfway through to trade in the old bus and get a new one (do not even ask me) and I got home in the middle of the night last night and proceeded to move back into Casa Dei Sogni.

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Philadelphia, I Am Going There

I'm going to Philadelphia this weekend. I don't know if I have any readers there or not, but if I do I'd love some advice from locals on what can't be missed, especially in the food department. I'm going to the Frida Kahlo exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art hopefully and will see the touristy stuff like the Liberty Bell and all that.

Husband just finished watching all of his Tivoed episodes of "John Adams" so he is really excited about this trip. Much of the mini-series took place there, but I think they had to film it somewhere else since John Adams lived pre-cheesesteak. Now Husband wants to see the real historic sites where all the drama on the show went down. I really wanted to watch "John Adams" too. It seemed so intellectual. Stuff White People Like (which is not as funny or cool post-gigantic book deal and I guess I understand that, but it makes me sad anyway) should do a post about John Adams. White People love John Adams. Not the man, the mini-series. It has that guy from "Sideways" in the starring role even. But anyway, I wanted to watch "John Adams" in the same way that I sometimes long to be the sort of person who can listen to an entire Terry Gross interview and then go talk about it at a dinner party where the host, who is not Morroccan, is serving couscous out of her new tagine that she just got at Williams Sonoma. This is, however, not my life and as much as I wanted to I couldn't get through "John Adams." It didn't involve any poop humor, so it didn't hold my attention, although everyone had authentically disgusting teeth and everyone, except semi-hot Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, were really damn fugly looking and I think Jefferson and Hamilton were only decent looking in comparison to their company. So try as I might I couldn't suffer through "John Adams." Husband joked that if someone was able to watch the entire series that they should be able to list it on their resume under accomplishments. I guess he'll be updating his soon.

Please give me your suggestions for what to see and eat in Philadelphia in the comments section and thanks in advance. I'll take pictures.

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Oh I Almost Forgot - The Green Eggs and Matzo Because Ham Isn't Kosher

I can stand the prunes. I can stand the flanken, the boiled chicken and ok well, not the fish, but this needs to stop now and no one in my family will listen to me. You are not supposed to boil eggs for three hours until they turn a dark and dismal shade of army helmet green. This is really not ok and everyone in my family, including my own parents boils the ever loving crap out of their eggs. Look, this poor egg has been cooked for so long that even its white has turned brown. I didn't even know that was possible. The egg looks like a science experiment. I remember in 8th grade Chemistry we cooked some sulphur to see it turn from yellow to greenish-gray. This was fascinating to a bunch of thirteen year olds who loved sulphur because of its seemingly unlimited potential for "who farted" jokes, but for some people who just want a decent meal, it's really not acceptable. Eggs aren't chemistry experiments. Eggs need to stay yellow people. Ok? All you have to do to boil a daggoned egg is to put it in water, bring it to a boil, turn it off and let it sit in the pan of hot water for about ten minutes. That's it. Please, if anyone that I am related to is reading this, I implore you desperately to follow my directions and don't make me eat or have to even look at another hard boiled egg that is so overcooked that not a single spot of yellow remains in the yolk. Please.

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Oh Yeah Baby - Stewed Prunes for Dessert Here I Come

At some point in my life I made the fateful mistake of briefly and vaguely mentioning in the presence of my grandmother that I might enjoy the occasional small portion of stewed prunes. Ever since she has responded by cooking up vats and barrels and cauldrons of stewed prunes every time she knows I'm coming over. While I appreciate, adore even, the fact that I have a grandmother who is so thoughtful and caring to make large amounts of something she thinks I like, the sad truth is that I don't particularly care all that much for stewed prunes. It's not that stewed prunes are horrible, because they aren't. Stewed prunes are definitely edible, far more delicious than gefilte fish or flanken any day, but there's a certain richness about them that makes it hard to eat a lot. If, by mistake, one does happen to eat a lot of stewed prunes, it's best to understand that there are certain...ummm... consequences. There are side effects to eating a bowl of stewed prunes. So if you really like stewed prunes as much as Savta thinks I do, you really need to make sure you have two or three days free to spend housebound. In my case, I can't really afford that much time off, but yet to be polite and to show my love for my grandmother who so selflessly cooks me stewed prunes I have to eat a lot of them. As I've said before, thank heavens there is a rest area on the highway halfway between my grandparents' house and my house. You may be saying that the above dish does not look like stewed prunes. I assure you it is. This is a celebratory dish called compote (how festive does it look, come on) and is not only stewed prunes, but also some stewed dried pears and apricots to boot. Should you choose to eat something like this don't come crying to me. I warned you.

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Yes Readers, we've made it to the main course. And this is it. Chicken from the soup (that means chicken boiled for 17 hours straight) and Flanken, which is pronounced "Flonken" and is not good. Not even a little bit good. It is, in fact, completely nauseating and no one except my grandparents likes it. Can you see why? But I eat it anyway and if you don't look at it, the chicken is at least tender (disintegratingly so) and it tastes like the soup, which isn't terrible, although it certainly isn't a pizza. I thought a lot about pizza during Passover. Also in case you have ever wondered about my mother - here you can see her hand modeling the boiled meat. She has lovely red nails doesn't she?

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This is Our Table Setting

I thought you might like to see our pretty table setting. In the middle we have a Seder plate with symbolic food items. This is the centerpiece. The book is called a Hagadah and it has all the words to the songs and prayers in the right order for the meal. This year mine was missing pages and I tried to use this as leverage to speed up the ceremony but had no such luck. Alas. You may also note that the table is covered in plastic. My grandmother has OCD and there are two reasons for the plastic, which I couldn't resist poking holes into. Her first reason is that someone may spill Fish Jello or wine on the table cloth. The other reason is that there could be the remote possibility that the tablecloth could have molecules of wheat or yeast dust on it from another, non-Passover meal. If this happened the Seder would be irreparably contaminated we would all have to go to Hell which would be Savta's fault and she could never live with herself if she doomed her family to eternal damnation at the hands of bread molecules.

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Gefilte Fish

Because in the other picture you just couldn't see the whole thing and you really need to see the whole thing in order to fully understand my horror. The purple stuff on the side is a strong combination of beets and horseradish. My theory is that people pile on the beets and horseradish in order to sear their tastebuds off so they don't have to taste the cold carp cake.

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The Best Part of the Meal

This is the matzo ball soup that my grandmother makes and which is far better than the matzo ball soup that anyone else's grandmother makes. Really. It's good and it's the only part of the meal that I enthusiastically eat.

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Fish Jello: The Evidence

This is a piece of the gefilte fish that always causes such a stir when I refuse to eat it. I don't like this - it's grey, gelatinous, cold and fishy. Imagine not liking that. I know, it's shocking.

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Best of Widelawns - Leg of Wheel

I wrote this last year at Passover, but you know what? This year not a single thing had changed so I'd like to post this piece again, especially since there are so many new readers. And can I just say that oh my God I am so glad Passover ended last night and that I ate some wheat bread and bean soup to break the fast and it feels like a stone in my intestines.

I like Passover. I'm really glad it's over, but I do like it. Mostly. I think. I like the songs. We do a lot of singing and its way better when we do it at home because I like how my family sings the songs better than how everyone else's family sings the songs. I also like my grandmother's matzo ball soup better than everyone else's grandmother's matzo ball soup. That's because it's better. Everyone says their grandmother's soup is the best, but they don't know anything. MY grandmother's soup is the best and that's all there is to it. I have no idea what's actually IN the soup and I will never attempt to make it because I don't WANT to know what's in the soup. I have this terrible feeling that if I knew what lurked in that broth I'd never want to eat it again.

You have to be careful what you eat at my grandparents' house. They come from a different world where people ate things that frankly, horrify me, and although my grandparents can now afford all sorts of good things to eat, they got stuck eating the things that horrify me, to the point where they love the things that horrify me and actually choose to eat them. I know it came from living in WWII Europe when people were starving to death. My grandmother told me stories about how her family had one chicken to stretch between 15 people. If you have to stretch one measly chicken between that many people you'd be amazed at what parts of said chicken suddenly become appetizing. I suspect that some of these parts are in Savta's soup and I don't want to think about it.

Saba and Savta like to eat the insides of bones. They adore fish skin and fish heads and fish eyeballs. They eat things cooked in stomachs and don't bat an eyelash at innards, organs and offal as long as they come from kosher animals. The kosher part is of utmost importance because my family is Orthodox (not my parents, just the rest but we've been through this all before).

Because of my grandparents' propensity for eating gross things, you have to be extra careful when you're at their house because they WILL try to feed you some nasty shit, and you never can tell what it is. You could think something was a perfectly innocuous brisket and then it'll turn out that what looks like brisket is in fact braised cow hoof, tail and colon. You might like cow hooves, tails and colons, but I don't and I don't want to take that kind of a risk. The first rule of eating at Saba and Savta's house is to always ask what something is before you take a bite. Always. Sometimes it's best to ask three or four times because they don't speak English that well. This has caused a few misunderstandings in the past.

I've always had a mild sense of culture shock within my own family, which is a strange feeling. I didn't always have this family, as you might recall. I was a little hick from Millpond, a place where there are no Jews and certainly no dang foreigners, except for them Mexican pickers who come in the summers. I went to go live with my parents when I was 11. Until then I had never been out of Millpond, and then all of sudden there I was, living in New York, with a new last name and a whole new religion that I knew nothing about. It's taken me 20 something years to catch up and figure it all out and I still feel a little behind. I don't know the songs that well. My family speaks Hebrew and I've learned to understand a lot, but I can't speak it and I can't do the "Chhhh" bone-in-the-throat sound very well. Their food always seemed weird to me, although there are things I really enjoy. I grew to love of all the strangeness though and what I don't love I respect, yet still, I always feel a few steps behind and even after all this time, I'm still a little bit of an outsider.

For instance, I hate gefilte fish. No one in my family can understand that I refuse to eat this mess. Gefilte fish is horrendous, vile and should not be consumed. Basically, it’s a cold, carp cake, boiled in juice made of fish bones and fish heads, fish skin and fish behinds, along with some onions and carrots. The little cakes are chilled and served with beet horseradish and slices of mushy, cold carrot. This is the kind of food that one simply has to be born into to enjoy, except my mother who has long since proven that she will eat anything. My mother is the last person you'd think would eat this, being a born and bred Southern lady and all, but she likes it because she likes everything. So if a boiled cake made from the discarded bits of a pond fish that eats poop, topped with beets and horseradish isn't gross enough, the juice that it's boiled in, is then chilled and then through a process with which I want nothing to do, it suddenly turns into fish flavored Jell-O. Where I come from, Jell-O is not supposed to taste like fish. No. You go to the store and you see all the little Jell-O boxes lined up and you see lime, cherry, strawberry-banana and orange. You don't see black cherry, grape, lemon and FISH!! Jell-O is also supposed to be clear, bright primary colors. Fish Jell-O is grey. You can only imagine my utter horror, when, as an innocent 11 year old, I was first confronted with a plate of gefilte fish with a side of fish Jell-O.
I've never forgiven my parents for this, but they tried to trick me and tell me it was a chicken croquette. How mean is that? That is so wrong to tell a child that a gross food is something not gross. The fact that you'd even have to lie about it at all proves that gefilte fish is vile and shouldn't be eaten. Yet, every year Savta tries to hand me a plate of gefilte fish and fish Jell-O. This has happened at least 75 times and every single time Savta and everyone present expresses utter shock and disbelief that I don't like gefilte fish and then it causes a scene.

"Why is she not eating the gefilte fish?"

"You don't like gefilte fish?"

"How does she not eat gefilte fish??"

"EVERYONE eats gefilte fish!!"

"She's not eating the gefilte fish??"

"Something is wrong with the gefilte fish?"

"Something's wrong with the gefilte fish?? Oh my God!!! I ate some!!"

It's utter, overwhelming chaos. It will happen again tonight. Then my mother will chime in and try to convince me that I actually LOVE gefilte fish.

"You always eat it!" she'll say, "It's delicious. You LOVE gefilte fish!"

"I do not."

"Be quiet, you do too."

Every single year I go through this.

Although my mother will eat just about anything, a few years ago Savta made something that we all had to draw the line at.

A strange grey, gelatinous substance arrived on the table. It was ominously reminiscent of fish Jell-o, yet, somehow different. It had long strands of grey, shredded meat suspended in its jiggling, quivering depths. It was cold with slick, oily surface. EVEN MY MOTHER WOULDN'T TOUCH IT. This is huge. My mother eats organs and animals feet. She will kick your narrow ass for a chicken neck, but still she wasn't going near this stuff. Finally my father asked Savta what it was.

"Leg of Wheel," Savta replied, matter of factly.

"Leg of who?" my mother asked.

"I swear she said Leg of Wheel," I said.

"What is it again?" my mother asked.

"Leg of Wheel," Savta repeated, as if we were all complete retards who should have, duh, obviously known that this was Leg of Wheel.

My mother and I looked at each other.

"She did say Leg of Wheel," we agreed.

"Wheels don't have legs," my mother stated the obvious.

"Wheels aren't edible," I added, "and I am not eating it."

Since we still couldn't figure out what the hell this was, and by now Saba and Uncle Mendel were tearing into it and putting ketchup on it, we tried a new tactic. We made my dad ask.

"It is LEG OF WHEEL!" Savta was very exasperated.

My dad shrugged.

"How do you make it?" we inquired.

"On the stove," Savta replied tersely, "You put Leg of Wheel in pot. Add onion, garlic. Boil, and you must to skim the top. It gets ehhhh, how you say....like thees, on top and you must to skim."

We just gave up. My dad told her to tell him in Hebrew and he attempted to translate.

"It's bones of a baby cow," he said.

"Leg of VEAL!!!!!" I shouted.

We figured it out. Leg of Veal. It certainly didn't look like anything's leg and knowing what it was made me even less inclined to eat it, but the mystery was solved.

This year the whole above scenes pretty much played out in exactly the same way as they always do, except that this year I took pictures. Photo essay forthcoming. Did I say I was glad that Passover was over? Because I am.

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