That "Poor Girl" Thing

One of my endeavors operates under the name "Poor Girl".  You might see that name if you visit the t-shirt link on my website, for example.  I wanted to explain a little bit about where that name came from.

I'll start with misfortune.

Whenever something bad happens to a person, someone inevitably will say or think or insinuate "that poor girl" (or woman/girl/child/man/boy/person/etc)".

As someone who has had more than her fair share of misfortune (which you will likely eventually hear about as this blog journal progresses 😏), that phrase has been used about me more times than I'd like to admit.  It has always made me very uncomfortable as pity is not something I aspire to attain; also, I am vehemently opposed to being a victim of anything or anyone.

You see, it seems to me that every single bad thing that's ever happened to me has taught me a valuable lesson that I never would have learned if I hadn't gone through the bad thing.


Of course, I am not saying that I am walking around hoping for bad things - God forbid - just so I can learn and grow and evolve.  But bad things are inevitable and if our eyes are open and we're paying attention to our own lives, it is from those things that we learn not only our most valuable lessons, but through them we experience endurance, fortitude, integrity, insight, and the list goes on and on. Maybe the bad thing wouldn't be as bad if we remembered to look for the lesson(s).

I used to a be the senior editor of many world famous reference books and publications.  Then I got sick and the stress and demands of that position were making me worse so I had to give up my career.
I remember sitting home a week or two after my last day at the publishing house and all of a sudden the thought "well, who am I now?" popped into my head.  It was a pure "poor girl, had to give up her high-paying, status-filled career" moment.  I panicked.  I thought that I had lost my identity because my identity had become so wrapped up as Sharon, Senior Editor.  Thankfully, I forced myself  to get over it - and get over myself - and realize that my life is not my job/job title.  I can't tell you how many amazing experiences and endeavors I have since had and would have missed out on if I had stayed stuck in an office dealing with corporate bureaucracy and insane deadlines as Sharon, Senior Editor.

I would not be who I am if not for all the times I was a "poor girl".

I'll finish with financial.

In one of the Real Housewives shows, someone says "I was poor, then I was rich, then I was poor again.  Rich is definitely better."  I couldn't agree more...just maybe for a little bit of different reasons.

When I was very little we were real deal poor.  My divorced mother was a waitress in NJ diners.  She received $25 a month from my father for child support and I don't think that was paid regularly. Needless to say, we were on welfare.  She shopped at Goodwill.  Sometimes we ate lumpy farina or baloney with onions or something called Shit On A Shingle for dinner (ground beef cooked in flour/milk gravy served over white bread).  We weren't alone in being poor and I don't ever remember lamenting over our poor-ness.  Everyone in our Elizabeth, NJ neighborhood was in the same or similar boat.

Around the time I was 5 or 6, my mother met my future stepfather and - POOF!- suddenly we weren't poor anymore.  Actually we were pretty well-off, maybe even wealthy.  My step-father was a successful Italian mason contractor and we didn't want for anything.  I was plucked out of school every winter as we snowbirded our way to Miami Beach for a few months.  As luck would have it, I won the Stepfather Lottery and was the apple of his eye almost immediately.  I was his shadow, where he went I went, and man did he love to spoil me.

Logically, I should have grown up and continued with that kind of life but it didn't work out that way. I chose what I naïvely thought was love over logic and that left me with a serious cash flow problem many, many (many) times.  Like, rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul-so-that-Paul-doesn't-turn-off-the-electricity kind of problems.  I married way too young the first time which was an unhappy and short-lived marriage (but I did get an amazing daughter from the union) and not too long after that one ended, I married again, disastrously.  Husband #2 was bipolar with a strong aversion to medication and working for a living.  This can be referred to as my Creative Ways To Pay Bills Era.  In other words, I was definitely not well-off (literally and figuratively).  One time I sent my well-loved winter coat to the dry cleaner...and never picked it up because I could not afford the $10 bill.  That's a true story.
I have not ever been the type to make my problems anyone else's plus I was appalled that I found myself in this situation so I sucked it up and dealt with it to the best of my ability.  Mind you, I was still gainfully employed in publishing during this era but it was a 3-person household and I was the only one of those persons who had steady income.
I paid our not cheap rent on time every single month since having a roof over my daughter's head was my main priority.  After that, as I said, I robbed from Peter to pay Paul to keep the lights on and the heat running.
I made breakfast for dinner. Or soup for dinner.
I bought any new clothes we needed at Walmart.
I walked a lot.
I rode my bike.
I checked hundreds of books out of the library.
I painted and drew.
I wrote.

At some point, I realized that being poor, so to speak, didn't suck.
In fact, I was having a pretty good time being broke.  My daughter and I (didn't care much what Psycho was doing or not doing...especially since he was mostly just sitting on the couch for months or maybe even years at a time.) might not have been dining out or taking vacations or wearing high end anything but you know what?  We were having big fun anyway.  We weren't feeling sorry for ourselves, that is for sure. My daughter had much of what the other kids had except for the fancy clothes and vacations but I kind of think we both had so much more.
I still think it was during this time that we had our best quality time, together and individually.

We were money poor but life rich.

I certainly am not saying that being broke is better than not being broke because that's obviously untrue.
I'm saying that the times that good fortune was not shining down upon me are the times that I learned the most valuable lessons and grew from them.

Humbly,

 

Weekend Roundup

I hate to be cliché (a lot), but Mondays are almost always bad days for me.

For one - and this is really corny - I miss my husband!  We always seem to have the best weekends together and then Monday rolls around and we have this pitiful goodbye ritual in the morning before he rolls out to go to work 😢 because we're both sad that our weekend time together is over.

So he leaves and I stagger up to my office with a massive cup of coffee...and then I waste several hours doing absolutely nothing productive.  For example, it's 12:40pm as I write this and it will be the only thing I've started so far today...although I did start and finish a really good tomato sandwich a little while ago.  🍅

Despite crappy weather - we are experiencing some Blackberry Winter right now (springtime cold snap that happens just when the blackberries bloom) - we did still manage to get a lot done and have some fun in


the middle of it.  We started off Saturday at a local house and garden show at one of the fairgrounds nearby.  So nice to be outside again at these kinds of things but I do have to complain about one thing: why oh why do vendor-type people insist on accosting you as you stroll by their booth or table?!  I mean, we see what you have and if we're interested in it, we will surely come over and talk to you.  We had one lady nearly chasing us down to buy a deck from her and when we told her we already have one, she switched gears and started pushing an enclosed sun room for the deck we already have! And she didn't leave out that they offer easy financing.  All this in the few seconds it took to walk past her booth!  She was up and chasing us!  Obnoxious and intrusive never really sells anything, now does it?

We weren't quite ready to go home after that so we headed over to a local winery to try some of their new stuff.  We sampled about five of their red wines, settled on one, bought 4 bottles of it, then we also bought a glass to have right then and there to enjoy on their covered patio which overlooks their grapevine fields.  We had the place almost all to ourselves which is always a bonus for me as I do not love crowded places very much at all.

We finished up the afternoon at a nursery where we bought a beautiful hydrangea plant and some other stuff.

Hydrangeas are my utmost favorite and we're planting a bunch of them out by the front porch. They're such lovely old fashioned flowers.

I'll post pictures when they're in the ground looking pretty.

On Saturday night while sharing a simple dinner of meatball sandwiches, we got to talking about North Carolina.  I spent a significant part of my childhood in NC and I miss it a lot and we talk often of buying a little house down there where we'll probably ultimately retire to.  That's years away, but still.

If you are at all familiar with the Andy Griffith show you will have heard them talking about Mt. Pilot which is really Pilot Mountain which is a very real place and is where my heart is.  My father and his girlfriend moved to Pilot Mountain when I was really young and I spent all my free time down there with them. I was quite the little jet-setter back then and used to fly by myself when I was still in elementary school.  One time I was supposed to fly back to NJ but somehow my father "forgot" to bring me to the airport and the next day wouldn't you know it but my mother and stepfather showed up on our NC doorstep...along with some of the officers from the sheriff's department.
Seems they don't take too kindly to attempted kidnapping in them parts.
Nothing says "your dad really loves you" like when he attempts to kidnap you.  Or to put in another kinder way, attempts to keep you all to himself.
Good times, good times.

Pilot Mountain, NC

After talking on Saturday night it seems we might start taking some exploring trips down there soon...so my fingers and toes are crossed.  You can take the girl out of North Carolina but you can't the North Carolina out of the girl!  JP tells me he can sometimes still hear a little bit of NC in the way I talk...combined with my northern NJ accent!  It's a wonder anyone can understand me.

Ever since we bought our house, Serenity Hill, back in January 2016, we wind up spending our Sunday mornings at either Home Depot of Lowe's.  Yesterday was no exception.  I've been wanting a little gardening spot somewhere on our property.  I used to always have a really big garden but it was a lot of work and we'd just wind up giving away all our bounty anyway.  Serenity Hill is literally covered in the most beautiful shade trees so we have very little sun for a garden (but just enough that shines directly on our swimming pool in the afternoon hours).  Still, I missed growing stuff - particularly eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes - so we designed a tiny spot in the backyard where I can grow just those things that does get some of that afternoon sun and JP decided that yesterday would be the day to build it for me.

Ladies, if you can at all help it, do try and marry a man that can build and fix stuff.  I am so lucky to be married to a man that not only can build and fix anything, but does it gladly because as he says, he "likes to do stuff that makes me happy".
Yes, I did win the husband lottery.  And, yes, I do know that woman can fix and build things - I do it all the time.  But I can't do the things my husband does and that is exactly how I like it.

My Little Tiny Garden.
We're adding slate pieces to it to pretty it up.  They're almost done so I'll post a picture when it's completed.

Before I finish this up, I have to tell you about what happened at Lowe's.  We had a big old wagon filled with cinder and end blocks for my Little Tiny Garden and other projects.  We rolled it outside and I stood with it while JP went to get the pickup.  When he pulled up and dropped the tailgate, I noticed a couple walking from the parking lot toward us and the store.  I thought it was odd that they were going to pass between me with the wagon and our pickup truck (tight squeeze).  But I read it wrong.  When the man - who was not young, by the way - got right next to me and the wagon, he stopped and grabbed the first cinder block and handed it to JP who was standing in the back of the pickup moving some bags of dirt we had purchased earlier.
That man picked up and handed off to JP our entire wagon of block.
Now that might seem like a small thing to you but to us it wasn't.
We thanked them profusely and I looked at JP and said "faith in humanity, restored".
It's true:  kindness rocks.

Here is where we finished up our weekend:

This spot is so not done yet - it still needs new cushions and curtains and plants - but it worked very nicely last evening for some warmth from the chimenea while sharing an end-of-weekend glass of wine.

Overall I think we achieved splendidly our constant mutual goal of simplicity.
Low, slow, and easy.

Hope you had a similar weekend experience,

Nobodies Are Better Than Somebodies

Have you ever noticed that you'll be loving on some website/business/tv show that has a whole bunch of the stuff you love - whether that is things they sell or some service they offer or just words they write or some other content that just really speaks to you - and you're thinking that finally there's some down to earth people out there who get it...and then the next thing you know they're gurgling about how they're hobnobbing with this or that celebrity?  It's as if now that some celebrity(ies) has graced them with their attention, they are validated by them. They have arrived, they're now successful, and they are dropping names and unabashedly gushing about rubbing shoulders with people whose name is well known. Twisted, isn't it? Validated by celebrities?  Now that is a concept that is seriously lost on me...and I've known a few celebrities in my time.

Celebrities are just people who had/have to perform publicly for their chance to win the lottery.   That's it. They are not divinely sent (sorry Kanye) or possess some special gene.  God does not love them any more than he does you or me.  Don't let them tell (sell) you otherwise.  And, good Lord, please don't be so influenced by them that you make important decisions in your life based on their opinions!
You are not a sheep and they sure as heck are not shepherds.  Make up your own mind.

I am not a starstruck person. I couldn't care less if you are the world's highest paid celebrity or politician or some other random bigwig. I am way more interested in non-famous, ordinary people.
That's the real truth.  Real, everyday people are far more interesting because their stories are not one-dimensional.  Celebrities don't want the public to know about their real lives, they only want you to keep worshipping them and giving them your money simply because you know who they are.  There are exceptions, of course, but they are few and far between.

Oh, and if I'm ever going to want to be validated by anyone, it's going to be the person who's struggling to get by with limited resources of both time and money who is spending some of that on me and my stuff.

That's where my attention and gratitude lies.

 

In The Beginning...

Hello, my name is Sharon and Poor Girls Mercantile is my endeavor.

I'm in the middle of building the PGM website and there will be an About Page where I will explain the story behind PGM further.  In a nutshell, I want to create terrific stuff that is hopefully affordable for most everyone.  Nothing bugs me more than these sites who are all "we love you! you're part of our tribe!...all you have to do is purchase our $100 tshirts!"  Pffffffft.

I also promise that there will be a bunch of other stuff that will have nothing to do with you spending money  Nothing is worse than sites who constantly want you to buy from them.

I also want the site to be fun and inspirational but not in that corny, platitudinal way that seems to be so prevalent everywhere.  PGM is about being real.  In other words, you will not see much of this kind of thing:

So, welcome.  I'm really glad you're here.  There's exciting stuff coming.

 

Sick, Facebook, Ice Cream

I have been too long away from writing here and it's all because of stupid sickness.

I don't like being away from writing for too long because my mood - which is already a precarious thing - gets incrementally worse as the days pass with no action and expression from me.

Plus I really hate disappointing my stalkers by not giving them their regular Sharon fix.   I'm nice like that.

Anyway, about two weeks ago my digestive system decided it was going to make me as miserable as possible and I am just now starting to feel a little bit better.  I couldn't even eat so you know if that was happening that I must have been pretty sick.  Drinking coffee was a particular problem, too, which is ridiculous because I don't even think that a bout of Black Plague could keep me from my sweet elixir of life coffee.

I drank tea for one day and that might have been what started my ascent to semi-wellness.  Not the tea itself, mind you...just the idea of having to drink that crap in lieu of coffee for any amount of time.

Tea is nice from time to time, don't get me wrong.  One time JP and I were both up in the middle of the night with insomnia and we made tea and ate toast and it was oddly this ridiculously romantic thing that we still talk about.  For us, though, it's always the little things.  Tea and toast at 3am.  And he always butters my toast for me just the way I like it (to the edges, full coverage).

Anyway, I don't trust people who drink tea regularly instead of coffee, do you?
There's something sneaky about every one of them.  And let's not forget how pretentious they are as they announce "I don't drink coffee" as they look down their nose at you, you slovenly coffee drinker you.
Okay, that was a tangent.

So I was pretty busy while I was away being sick, though.  For instance, I spent entire days perusing the Internet looking at a lot of things.  That wore me out in more ways than one.
For instance, people.
The people on the Internet make me want to climb into bed with the covers over my head for an extended period of time in order to hide from them.
They also make me want to punch them in their faces.

During this time period I also shut down my Facebook art page that has 600+ followers which was a direct result of the precarious mood thing I mentioned above.  That, and my mostly utter disdain for Facebook and its stupid, idiotic like button.  Did you know I very rarely click 'like' on Facebook?  It's the truth...it makes me feel stupid.  Like an automaton.


like...like...like...like...
What started it all was that I updated my website address on my Facebook page and apparently Facebook generates an automatic post that says something like "Sharon just updated her website address!"
And then, to my astonishment, a bunch of people 'liked' that post.
Like, what's to like about me updating a website address?!
I mean, does someone think "oh look, Sharon just updated her website address.  That's great.  I mean, wow, that's so terrific.  I really like that she did that.  Like, let me click that LIKE button to let her know that I like that she updated her website address."

See, the thing that gets me is that no one is thinking anymore.
No one is contemplating what they are seeing, nor are they subsequently gauging their own action/reaction to whatever it is anymore.  Do you know what I mean?
Liking everything without thinking about what you're liking is why people keep posting selfies and pictures of their food while they're eating it and of their vacations while they are on vacation!  The madness must stop.

I post my artwork to my Facebook page and usually I'll get a bunch of 'likes' and I hate to say this because it makes me sound like a big jerk but I don't know the value of their like because they're all liking everything that comes their way!
I don't want your like, I want your thought-out comment.  I want to hear that you like the artwork because the sky is pretty or it reminds you of something or you wish you were right there inside the scene.

From my About Me page:

"People don't slow down enough to look around and see the magical world they live in," she says. "I capture my photographs by taking long, aimless drives on endless beautiful back roads. But I am forever pulling over to let speeding cars pass me. They're going too fast to notice the beauty all around that I'm seeing and I think that's sad. I needed to find a way to make people see and feel again...to make them slow down, to pause for just a minute. That's where the fairytale, magical realism look of my artwork came from. By making things look a little bit wonky or whimsical...this gets their attention. This makes them see."

Apparently not anymore.

I did re-publish my Facebook page but right now I am unsure if I will keep it live.
Facebook does not allow me to disallow likes which is what I really want but the like button is what has made Mark Zuckerberg a gazillionaire as he sells all of our privacy and personal preferences to the millions who advertise on Facebook...so that's not changing anytime soon.

Ironically, I have to decide whether to...like it...or lump it.
And I'm leaning toward lumping it.

I'm also leaning toward another trip to my favorite ice cream place that just opened for the season.
JP took me there the other night because I've only been able to eat soft foods and what better soft food is there than ice cream?  Plus he knew that my standard cup of vanilla with chocolate jimmies/sprinkles and whipped cream would probably not do a lot for my digestive system but would do wonders for my mood problem.  And this place does not skimp on the whipped cream like Rita's some other lame-o places do which is exactly what the doctor would not have ordered which is why I avoid them.

After all, when all else fails - like your digestive system and society - there's always ice cream.


 

Are You "Hate-Following" Me?

I was just doing some work on my websites and once again saw that my sites are getting hits from people who know me quite well, seemingly don't care for me and subsequently choose to not interact with me in real life or who sorta know me indirectly but have no reason to interact in real life or fake life or anywhere - the people who have no business in your business. I can tell who it is because their town/location shows up a lot on the it's very easy to get their IP addresses and/or phone information so I can pretty easily figure out who they are). 

I think it's called "hate-following" or "hate-stalking".  Heck, they can spy on me all they want if they are so inclined but -  
don't you think that's weird or sad or creepy or all of the above? 

Do you creep around people who you don't like?

I hope not - life is too short for that nonsense.

Plus there are about 800 gazillion better things to do with your time.  

But okay, interloper(s), here you are on my site(s).  My amazing powers of deduction lead me to believe that you are very interested in me.  So that must mean you keep coming back here trying to find out stuff about me.  
That's understandable; afterall, I'm interesting.  And fun. And slightly nuts.
Since you have chosen not to interact me in a normal fashion, I can only make guesses as to what keeps you coming back here.  I have a few ideas but we should probably have a real discussion so I know for sure.

Silly me.


#LetItGo
#TimeToMoveOn

 

Home Ownership

I am going to sound like an ungrateful jerk in saying this but I'll risk it: I don't always love owning my house.

That is not to say that I don't love my house, because I do; but loving the house and loving owning the house are two very different things.

Honestly, we have such a great house.  It's really beautiful.  We named it 'Serenity Hill' because it's the perfect name for our house...but after a year of living here I'm feeling like it might be a little too serene.

Let me explain.  Our neighborhood is wonderful: wide, tree-lined streets, well-maintained homes, quiet.  There's one way in and out so no traffic except for the people who live tucked in our hidden area.  The only real problem we've encountered here are the jerks who "walk" their dog off leash.

We are in the southern part of New Jersey - Cumberland county - or Really South Jersey (RSJ), as I refer to it.  The thing with RSJ is that there's nothing down here in the way of a variety of things to do and other conveniences like restaurants, etc...and sometimes it's hard to believe that we are an actual part of the State of NJ - which is the most densely populated state in the United States. You would never know that here.  It's like living in Iowa.  I mean, I've never been to Iowa but I think that aside from its cities, it's probably a whole lot of wide open space with a gas station and convenience store every hundred miles.  That's kind of how it is here.


Proof of that is shown in this population density map of NJ:

You can see that in Cumberland county there are 322.2 people per square mile.
In the two other counties I've lived, the figures are 936.3* (Ocean) and a whopping 5403.6 (Union)!

I'm already feeling better about where I live after looking at those figures.
I don't know how I ever lived in a place where I was shoved into a single square mile with 5402.6 other people.  Just thinking about this make the claustrophobic and introverted portions of me very, very uncomfortable.

But, conversely, it isn't easy living in a place with so few people either.
Companies don't build or open businesses where there are no people...especially when the companies are retail-based and the people who live there don't earn a lot of money. How can they earn money? No companies means no jobs...it's a catch-22. Cumberland county is an agricultural county; we've got lots of farms which makes for a blissfully bucolic place to live but if I am to speak honestly...it gets boring.  In the year that we've lived here, a major supermarket and a national discount store both have closed in my town.  That says a lot.
And also, in a neighboring town a Sonic opened and subsequently closed a few years back.  Sonic. Closed! How does that even happen?

The boring here is both terrific and terrible.  Terrific because it's peaceful here and we have no real traffic.  Terrible because I have to drive one hour to get to the good stuff.  The good shopping, the good grocery stores, the good restaurants - and that gets old after about the first time you do it.  If I want a good sub sandwich...one hour drive each way.  So if I want to eat that sandwich at home, it's 2+ hours before I can which is obviously ridiculous.
What to do?  Do without.  Or postpone it until the weekend.  And sometimes I just don't want to do without or postpone it or take a freakin' two hour drive to eat good food.

So I get mopey.  Not ungrateful for my great house, but mopey that it is where it is.  We got very lucky with our house in that if you took our house and planted it almost any other NJ county, the price of it would be at least doubled.  In some counties, the price would be almost quadrupled, no joke.

The answer, of course, is to count my blessings and DEAL with the inconveniences.  And I am learning to do that but it is definitely not an overnight thing.

I'm not good at being slow-paced.
I am too young to be slow-paced.
I want to live in a slow-paced area...but I want it to be about 20 minutes away from the good stuff instead of an hour.

And I'm pouty and a little bit belligerent about it all about every third or so day.

But at least we're no longer living in Delaware.
That's a constant good thing.

Oh...
and I wholeheartedly remain glad to be back living in New Jersey.


 

*This figure increases dramatically in the summer months because of everyone flocking to the shore areas.

More About Being Anosmic

I have never been a group activity kind of girl.

I have not ever been the type to get excited about pretty much anything that involves interaction with more than a person or two.  I joined Girl Scouts when I was young and I was really excited to get all the gear but I quickly discovered that attending the meetings was a big drag because there were a whole slew of girls there and they were squealing a lot and had too much energy, etc.  I think I went to 2 or 3 meetings and then I was out of there and on to more interesting and intellectual pursuits like reading books at the library.

One time I had a sadistic boss who thrived on gathering employees together, putting them in groups, and


making them do "team-building" activities that involved moronic games in which grown up people were forced to perform like circus monkeys in order to pretend they were team players so they didn't lose their jobs.  I got called out for not being an eager participant - no big surprise there as I am incapable and unwilling to act ridiculous on command or to feign enthusiasm.  I mean, I'm pretty ridiculous on a regular basis...but on my own terms, ya know?

Knowing all of this about myself and being this way my entire life, you can then imagine my surprise when I find myself to unwittingly be part of a group that I never signed up to be involved with.

That groups is Anosmics.  People who, like me, lost (or never had) a sense of smell.

See, what smart people do when they are afflicted or affected by something is to reach out to others in the same or similar boat.  Obviously this is not something I'm very comfortable doing but I learned how essential it is years back when I was dealing my ex-husband's mental illness.

So now that I am part of this group I have joined several different communities for anosmics because it helps to know I'm not alone.

I've probably written this before but I'll risk redundancy: there is so much more to losing your ability to smell than simply not being able to smell anymore.  I wish with all my heart that it was that simple but it's not.  I'ts so not.

Most of the time I don't even want to talk about it anymore.  I thought for awhile that I would be some kind of Olfactory Crusader...

Sharon the Olfactory Crusader

flying around to testify at Congressional hearings for research funding...
to drop in on ENTs and other medical professionals to convince them to take this thing seriously and stop shrugging their overpaid shoulders and saying only "good luck" as they're showing us to the door...
to pop over to utility companies to get them to install what could be life-saving alerts in the homes of people who can't smell if there's a gas leak...
to quickly get to other anosmics to hold their hand and let them know they're not alone.

I wanted to be that.  And more.  But the truth is that I can't - at least a lot of the time - because dealing with this thing has sucked a whole lot out of me.  I'm eight years in to not being able to smell.  At some point kind of early on I figured out that I had to not "go there" which means I had to learn how not to think too long or too hard about not being able to smell anymore because if I did I was going to be swallowed alive by it.

It is a daily draining struggle.  I'd like to write about the myriad of ways not being able to smell affects those of us who can't but the idea exhausts me.  I'll just write that it's not just "I miss smelling flowers or ______".  I am no longer connected to the world I live in and that, I promise you, is not a histrionic statement*.

That's what anosmia is, that's what it does.  It cuts you off from life and that doesn't mean because I can't smell apple pie.  It means my smell memories are gone, my ability to create new ones are gone, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.  If you think that your senses are simple you need to do some research.  The loss of any is tragic in many ways and on many levels.

Truthfully nowadays I focus only on the things that make me happy or bring me some kind of pleasure (whipped cream is nice)  and when I feel myself "going there" I have to remember and do my best to refocus or take a nap.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.  I can't worry anymore about whether the people around me understand or know what I deal with.  Those who really care have been there with me through this thing.  They know that sometimes I want to use my own fists to pound on my nose while screaming "work! work! work!".

Last night I was talking with JP about this and I told him that what I am now is kind of like a zombie.
I said it a little bit in jest but he didn't like it and tried to object but I stopped him.  This thing is mine and someone who can smell their world would never be able to understand what I meant by that.
He doesn't like to see me sad and I love him for that but what I said was really kind of true.  Zombies are what? Half alive, right?  It's sorta kinda accurate in a being cut off from life way.

This is my smell kit:

It consists of four essential oils - lemon, eucalyptus, rose, clove.  These are the four scents that are supposed to be most effective in retraining your olfactory system to learn how to smell again if you're lucky enough to still have a working olfactory system. The doctors can't tell you if you do for sure, by the way.  They can't test you and then say "Great news!  One day you'll probably get your nose back!" or conversely "Bad news.  You'll never smell again."  It's a big giant mysterious guessing game.
I'm sure there are way better explanations for how this smell kit works so you can probably Google it if you're so inclined.  I use this kit regularly.  Usually I play a game with the three bigger bottles (the little one is rose which is super expensive, that's why it's so much smaller) where I mix them up and close my eyes while sniffing them...then I see if I get them right.  Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.
I get really excited when I get them right.  Right now it seems like they do help because I sometimes pick up scents when I'm being good and remember to smell kit.  And when I do smell something it's for like a nanosecond; it never lasts.  Or sometimes I'll walk into a room and know that it smells like something because I pick up on a change in the air...but it's as if the scent is 3,000,000 miles away, if that makes any sense.
But as minute as it is, it's progress and I'll take that.
One of the hardest things to deal with is phantom smells which are smells that are not actually happening in your immediate environment at all but that you think you're smelling.  They are your brain remembering a scent and knowing that something is amiss - that there's a disconnect somewhere.  It is a maddening thing.  Do you know when it's cold and damp out or maybe foggy and you're standing by the ocean smelling the heavily salted air?  That's what has been stuck in my head for weeks now...ever since we were down by the ocean.  My brain sent out the Salty Air Signal and it hasn't shut off for weeks.  So I'm smelling it but it's a false smell, a smell that is not actually happening but is instead emanating from my brain and my brain's memory.
It's been mildly nauseous for weeks now.

And on that note, I think I need a nap to escape from it.


 

Further reading on this topic:

The Nose That Never Knows
Smell Training

* I deal with enough and there's no room for drama from me or anyone else.

Lamentations & Exultations

Lamentations & Exultations...man, that's what I should have named this site!
 (Don't steal it. If I come across a site with that name I will know you stole it from me and so will everyone else because they can check the date of this post so ha ha on you, thief.)

Speaking of lamentations, the schedule to the left is from one of the New Jersey churches we've been visiting lately as we investigate my family's geneaology that have connections to my Sierzputowski/Stachura heritage.



(I might have an Irish last name but I am really, really Polish because that's where every single tradition I have from growing up comes from: the Polish side.)

When I saw "Sorrowful Lamentations In Polish" all I can think of was old Polish grandmas sitting around church complaining about stuff which, of course, made me want to be there for that.  I mean, how great would that be?!  It would be like the Polish version of Festivus, right?

But, no, that's not exactly what Gorzkie Zale is.
Really it's hymns and prayers - some dating back to the 1700s - that reflect sorrow for the suffering of Christ.

Not as much fun as the idea of Polish Festivus, though.

Speaking of Polish things, this past Sunday we took my mother up to Elizabeth (NJ) to take her on a tour of places that meant something to her.  Sort of like a traveling version of This Is Your Life.  First off, I have to tell you this was nothing short of a small miracle because we finally got her to leave her apartment.  My mother goes nowhere except the grocery store and doctor offices.  We have tried cajoling, we have tried bribes...nothing has worked for a very long time.
Until we started this genealogy thing and she and I started having really long conversations about it.
I've been asking her a million questions about her life, her relatives, and it was like she came back to life.  So we drove two hours to her house and then another hour to Elizabeth. Then we drove her around for two hours while she told stories and I took pictures.

For example, the above picture is Brophy Field in Elizabeth.  (It's a terrible picture, shot from inside the truck because it was about 20° outside and because there is a lot of traffic in Elizabeth and people there would not take kindly to someone holding them up to take nice photos.)
This is the exact spot where my mother was when the sirens started going off all over the city because World War II had ended.
She was with her brother and it seems that the park was locked up but they had slid under the fence (of course it was a different fence back then) to get in the park to play (hoodlums!).  The sirens started going off and her brother took off running, leaving her behind.  When she tried to slide under the fence to go after him and see what was going on, she got stuck!  Luckily for her, a beat cop was nearby and helped unstuck her.

I love these stories.  They are the ones I've been listening to my whole life but they take on a different life when you are actually at the exact location where they happened.

If you have this kind of opportunity, please don't miss out on taking advantage of it.
The advantages are numerous.

While we were in Elizabeth, of course we stopped for hot dogs at Jerry's (we don't go to Elizabeth without always going to Jerry's) but I also wanted to hit up a Polish store that I'd never been to in Linden.

Oh my God, am I glad we went.  Syrena Polish Deli is more like being in a Polish supermarket. Or in Polish heaven.  They have everything.  Can we start with the rings of all kinds of kielbasa hanging at the deli counter?  We bought regular and double smoked and they were hands downs the best I've ever eaten in decades of eating kielbasa.  I also bought apple cake or Szarlotka.  Then I picked up these frozen items:

Alexandra's Kraut & Mushroom Pierogi

I was skeptical because, well, frozen pierogies makes me think of Mrs. T's and if your only experience with pierogies is Mrs. T's then you have never actually eaten a real pierogi.
Happily, these were outstanding for being frozen.  The dough was not too thick or too doughy and they were overfilled perfectly with sauerkraut and mushrooms and the sauerkraut was real deal...not the straight-out-of-the-can/package bitter/sour stuff.
If you have only ever eaten straight-out-of-the-can/package sauerkraut then you never really eaten real sauerkraut.  Stay tuned...I will post my recipe for quick and real sauerkraut soon.

I bought my mother a package of Potato/Cheese and she said they were "just okay" but we can't really take her word for it because she usually makes her own and nothing compares to homemade.

I also bought a bag of frozen grated beets.

Poltino grated beetroots

We are serious beet people in our house but we don't love beets in a can so much so finding this product was heaven because cooking beets is a royal pain.  From this I made Cwikla to go with our kielbasa.  I don't use a recipe but to the beets you add vinegar, brown sugar and horseradish.  The more horseradish, the better...because we like our cwikla hot.  Some cwikla recipes call for ridiculous amounts of horseradish but that would be TOO hot and would take away from the beet flavor, in my opinion.

I will make beet sliders soon and post that when I do.
Yes, beet sliders!  Little tiny sandwiches made with roasted beets.  You won't believe how good they are.

People are always asking us how we find these places and why we travel so far to go to them.
See, I grew up with this stuff.  Polish food was regular food for me.  Same way with Italian food...the real kind anyway.  I was lucky enough to be brought up in a culture-centric environment in a very ethnic area. After school we used to stop for falafel or bialys in Elmora.  Having friends from lots of different cultures meant eating whatever their mom cooked when you ate over.
Also, my father's girlfriend trained at Le Cordon Bleu and taught me how to cook a million different complicated things like coq au vin and tomato aspic (so gross!) before I was 10 years old.
So, I don't do bland.
I also have to go "home" on a regular basis to Elizabeth (and close-by places like New York City!) and when I'm there I shop at the places for the foods I know and love.  Or I look for shops in other places so we have an excuse to road trip and have an adventure.
Our life is anything but bland.

This post wouldn't be complete if it didn't include a lamentation so here it is:

This morning I heard shouting outside my window and when I looked out it was my inconsiderate neighbor yelling for her dog...the one they "walk" without a leash.
The one who runs and poops all over everyone's property.
This is making me nuts.  Who does this?!  I can't imagine being so clueless and inconsiderate.
And so irresponsible with your dog!  One day I fear that dog will bolt at the wrong time and get injured.  Such foolish people.
But what to do?  Any move on our part is going to make for neighbor hostility and I hate the idea of living like that.
Almost as much as I hate the idea of their dog running all over our yard and leaving its gifts.  Our dogs use our front lawn 2-3 times a day.  What if their dog isn't up to date on shots or has some other illness?

People can be such jerks sometimes.  What to do?

 

Technology & Assumptions

I am getting a new cell phone tomorrow.
It's long overdue because I don't really care for/about cell phones all that much and so mine is old and outdated and has been on its way out for awhile...but I like to have one with me when I'm out cavorting, so it really is time for a new one.

Earlier today I went into the settings on my current phone and saved/deleted some stuff in preparation for the new phone.

A short while later I heard the notification that I received a text message.

The message was from October 18th, 2016...a full four months ago*.

And so, little grasshopper, the lesson here is clear:  do not assume that someone has received your message and then make even more assumptions based on your first assumption.

You could, you know, maybe call them and say "hey, did you get my message?"
Sometimes technology and gadgets - like people - aren't infallible.

Full circle back to my second sentence above about not really caring for/about cell phones:  too much reliance on and faith in them + assumptions that they always do what you want them to do = bad.

I wonder how many misunderstandings/lost connections have occurred because of our over-reliance on small electronic handheld devices in which all of our important communications have to bounce invisibly through the air via some kind of voodoo.

I remain unconvinced that cell phones have actually made our lives better.



*http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php/1550042-Anyone-else-receive-text-messages-delayed-by-months