baked with love, indeed

Since I returned from vacation in New York with the family, I've been thinking about / missing my (maternal) grandmother a bit more than is the norm. Whenever we go up north to our cottage, we stop by the graves of the grandparents and this year, because my brother came up a few days after did, we wound up visiting the cemetery twice. Not a bad thing at all, just...more difficult. And watching Brianna frolic around the cottage just like I did when I was that age was tough. In the way that, at the same time, is positively heartwarming.

I used to spend time at the cottage over the summer with just my grandmother and grandfather. Both of my grandfathers tended to favour my brother and my maternal grandmother favoured me. I have no doubt she loved each one of her grandchildren dearly and I think that was obvious to each one of us. But we just had a special bond.

One of my favourite things to do was play games. Scrabble, Gin Rummy, Sorry, Uno...I have no idea how many hours the two of us spent sitting at the table while my grandfather watched the news or a read a book. And when we weren't doing that, we were doing what I loved to do most with her...baking.

We baked the best date nut cookies ever and those awesome peanut butter ones with the Hershey's Kisses on top. But pies were my that woman's specialty. When she and my grandfather lived in Florida, she made pies for everybody...neighbours, the mailman, anyone who would eat one, I think. Some of the best memories I have are ones of the time I spent with her at the lake in the kitchen. And thanks to what I believe is my vacation and the fact that cooler weather is coming, I've had a huge desire lately to sharpen the ol' baking skills. I've put it off for a bit because I'm one girl and I don't want to eat everything I bake but don't really have a bunch of people with whom I can share. But I've decided, fuck that. Maybe I'll bring stuff to work. Maybe I'll leave something for the mailman. Maybe I'll be the weird girl in the building who bakes things for neighbours she hardly knows. Maybe I'll send some to friends and family. We'll see what trips my trigger when the time comes for consumption.

I suck at cooking and I don't at all enjoy it. Its carefree, experimental "throw in a pinch" aspect of it...well, throws me. But baking? Baking, I dig. I'm an 'order and direction' kind of girl and I like to know things in explicit and exact terms. How many eggs will make my brownies chewy and not cake-like? How much corn starch will turn pudding into solid brick? I want a recipe to give me those answers, I want to follow the directions in said recipe, and I want to take something out of the oven that is a finished product of deliciousness.

So, today at lunch, I strolled over to Borders and completed Step #1.

I'm going to browse through them a bit tonight and tomorrow and bake my first...something...over the weekend.

On the way back from the bookstore, I made a pit stop at Daley Plaza to walk through the Farmers Market, with the intention of picking up something on the healthy side for lunch.

It didn't work. The flavour was super yummy but the consistency of the filling was a little too gelatinous for my taste (not nearly as good as my grandmother's pies..or the ones my mother makes, who may very well be the maker of the world's best pies). But, combined with some milk, it totally hit the lunchtime spot.

And has left me seriously leaning toward baking a pie this weekend.

the post in which

I channel Sophia Petrillo.

Picture it. Penn Yan, New York. 1983.

It was the day I turned five years old. And my very first day of school. On the corner of my mother's beloved corner lot, my brother and I waited for the school bus; him in his Firemen hat (the baseball team on which he played) and me decked out in the finest home-sewn, coloured polka dot dress a girl could want. I imagine I was a giddy little girl when my mother finished it and gave it to me but all I remember about it is standing in our kitchen holding the McCall's pattern in my hands and thinking how cool it was that Mom was going to turn drawings of something into a something I could actually wear. Paired with the baby blue sweater knitted by what I believe was one of my two dear grandmothers, I think I was quite stylin'. But it's really the cross-stitched-with-love gingerbread handbag I'm carrying that really pulled the outfit together.

I don't remember how school went that day or if I celebrated my 5th birthday like a rock star. Or who the hell the kid is in the background watching the teary-eyed mother taking a picture of her babies as the youngest heads off on her own into the world for the very first time. There's not even a crazy, made-up story that goes along with this photo, so I suppose that makes me a pretty piss poor Golden Girl knock-off.

But it's one of my most favourite photos ever and just felt like sharing.

Je m'appelle...

I'm lifting the idea for today's blog post from one of my favourite blogs: Shakesville.

Do you like or dislike your name? If you dislike it, what would you change it to? Is there a story behind your name?

I love my name. Love, love, love. When I was younger, I wasn't terribly fond of it, seeing as though it was an uncommon one but as I got older, I grew to appreciate it and eventually, love it. Which, I'm sure, is partly because of the story that accompanies it.

After getting married, my mother knew two things: she wanted her house on a corner lot (still no idea what that's all about) and two children; a son and a daughter. I believe she even wanted the son first and daughter second, which is exactly the order in which my brother and I came into this world.

My father desperately wanted a baby girl so he and my mother decided that if they had a girl, he could name her. For as long as I've been lucky enough to be their daughter and even as newlyweds and soon-to-be-parents, my mother and father have always been equal partners. So, they agreed that if the first child was a boy, my mother would get to name him. When Andrew John was born, they were the happiest first parents you could ever meet and four years later, Mom was pregnant again. Throughout the second pregnancy, she was positive the baby was another boy. Mother's intuition? Tummy was hanging low? She drank a mysterious potion that promised a penis? I have no idea. But even during her labour, she was sure I was a boy. Perhaps that accounts for the fact that I hate dresses, shoes, most pink things, and feel pretty strongly about never wanting to push a human being out of my bajingo? I'm not sure. But that's tangent material, right there.

My father, the optimist that he is, wasn't giving up hope until he absolutely had to but finally agreed, while in the hospital with my mother, that they really ought to come up with a boy's name in case he wasn't going to get his girl. I don't recall if they did come up with that second boy's name but somewhere along the line, my father decided that should he get his baby girl, her name was going to meet his criteria..."I want it to be beautifully French and just flow."

I'm not sure at what point my father told my mother the name he had decided on but after the doctor cleaned my naked little ass up and handed me to my mother, she asked the good doctor if she could tell my father it was a girl. And when they wheeled her out to see him, she told him, "You've got your Janelle Lynn."

For the rest of the day, he kept telling my mother, "I'll be right back, Hon. I've just gotta go look at her again." And Janelle Lynn has been Daddy's Little Girl ever since. Every year on my birthday, my mother always works in the story of the morning I was born. And every year, it's my favourite thing about my birthday.

Merci, mon père.

When I was...

four years old, I had a tonsillectomy. From what my mother has told me, one night she awoke to me vomiting blood, rushed me to the hospital and I soon went home sans tonsils.

While visiting my parents not too long ago, I found in what used to be my bedroom closet, the only thing I remember about the entire experience.


A pin my brother, who was about eight years old at the time, bought for me in the gift shop.

He's had a lot of sucktacular days lately and I think he has a few more to push through before coming out the other side stronger. As much as I hate the thought of parting with my tangible memory, I'm thinking of sending it back to him. I don't recall how it made my four-year-old self feel when he gave it to me but I imagine it must have made me feel like everything was going to be okay simply because I knew I was loved.

Here's hoping twenty something years later, it can do that again.

finally, a chance to use the Buffy cookie dough analogy!

My father asked me once what I think are the best choices I've made for myself so far in life. It didn't take me a minute to answer him: 1. going to St. Bonaventure, 2. moving to Chicago, 3. my trip to Portland / Seattle.

Until this past weekend, I hadn't been back to Bonaventure since the day my parents and I packed up my little Ford Escort and their cars and moved me back to Penn Yan. I've always wanted to go back but not for an alumni function or anything, just...for me.

I haven't kept in touch with my college friends much until finding them all on Facebook. Even now, it's a Facebook type of friendship where we have a little interaction on there and that's it. But there are very few things about my four years there that I look back on with anything less than supreme fondness.

For a girl whose family has always meant the world to her, moving to school was a bitch for me. In a lot of ways, it was harder than moving 12 hours away and here to Chicago. Like a lot of people headed off to college, it was the first time I lived away from my family and my closest friends. My friend Catie and I had breakfast the morning before we were headed off and I remember standing at our cars afterward, hugging and crying and my telling her she was the one I really didn't want to leave.

It was the first time I lived up close and personal with complete strangers. I met people and we had a blast and we went to classes (for the most part) and we grew into the people most of us probably thought we'd never become. I remember little things about my time at school; the time we got into trouble for drinking in our dorm room the first night of our sophomore year, the time we took booze and my friend wore my green bathrobe to class for St. Patrick's Day, the time we almost started a fire in the lounge, the first time we got high with the Hot R.A. But when I think about the years spent there collectively, I remember the person I felt I was when I got there and the person I knew I was the morning I left. And I'm still amazed.

Our visit last weekend affected me more than I had prepared myself for and I think it's because it was really time for me to go back. Until recently, I've felt like someone completely other than who I know myself to be and I was ready for a reminder of just how far I've come since I hugged my parents and they told me they're just a phone call and two hours away.

For me, college really was the beginning of figuring out who I am. It was the first time I realized I could truly make it on my own (as much as one is on their own when their parents are helping pay for school and helping pay for me to live while there). For maybe the first time, I felt like someone other than a daughter and a sister and a niece. After changing majors three times, it was the first time I realized all I really want to do is read and write good stuff. The first time I considered myself to be a feminist. The first time I really had to study and work hard in order to meet my own standards. I don't know at what moment but at some point in those four years, I knew I was going to eventually move away from New York.

A lot of people put a lot of stock into a college degree but I've got to say that I couldn't care less that I walked away with a piece of paper telling me I have a B.A. in English. I walked away from college having learned just what possibility means. And I walked away having started to truly grow up and into the person I hope to be. The one I'd like to be. The one I will be, really.



After having taken the last of my photos this past weekend, I laid back on the grass next to the "E" on the beautiful central New York afternoon it was and thought about my time there. And my time since then. And the time I haven't yet experienced. I wasn't then but as I write this (and having just mentioned it and its everlasting relevance in conversation), I'm reminded of one of my favourite Buffy moments.

"...I'm cookie dough. I'm not done baking. I'm not finished becoming whoever the hell it is I'm going to turn out to be. I make it through this and the next thing and the next thing and maybe one day I turn around and realize I'm ready. I'm cookies. And then, you know, if I want someone to eat me...or enjoy warm, delicious cookie-me, then that's fine. That'll be then. When I'm done."

it doesn't make me old if I enjoy sitting around reminiscing about the "good ol' days," does it?

My first job out of college was at Kinko's Document Creation Center. It was in Rochester and when any number of stores throughout New England / New York got jobs in their store, they were sent to us, we completed them, and sent them back. Because I've always been able to type super fast and they needed a typist for the 3-midnight shift, I took the job that paid $11.00 / hour...at that time, not too shabby for a girl with a pretty useless English degree.

The "cool" people worked the night shift.

Heidi was a short and hilariously funny goth girl; the oldest of the group. Because our boss was uptight about our work matching as closely as possible to what came in, we had to match margins, fonts, etc. and Heidi was "The Font Girl." I couldn't tell what font was used? She'd look at it for a few minutes, tell me try something, and bam, that would be it.

Ross was closest to my age and one of the two gay guys. I was kind of Grace (with much better tits) and he was Will (and just as gay). He's kind of my now-a-day-cute-co-worker; the guy with whom I can be wildly inappropriate at work.

Tom was also gay, in his thirties at the time and a big lumberjack-lookin' guy. To this day, he's one of the wittiest people I have ever met in my life and always had the greatest sense of humor. We went to his house every so often and hung out with him and his partner, Eric, who was equally as witty and crazy. Their dining room had dark, bleeding purple walls and a piano.

Heather was the ecclectic prooreader who was always dark and mysterious in black outfits, her hair always in a bun. She smoked clove cigarettes and smelled delicious.

Sara was my first girl crush. She was also my age and we got along from day one. She had fiery red hair, we took smoke breaks every hour, and the only one I hung out with by myself outside of work. Every so often after we got off work, we'd go to her apartment and sit around with her boyfriend, Rob, who was a film student, watching some crazy-ass film and smoking far too much. She was the one who first got all of us to go out one night after work and it soon became a pretty regular thing for us to go to some bar that I can picture perfectly but can't remember anything about the name other than it was named "Mc" something.

Working the night shift, we screwed off a lot and we each took turns getting to choose which streaming tunes we would listen to. Tom and I mainly loved the oldies but for some strange reason, it seems like no matter what station we were on, Spin, Spin, Sugar would come on and we'd all be lovin' it. One oldies night, Midnight Train to Georgia came on and Tom and I started singing and within minutes, nobody was working anymore and I became Gladys and Tom became my personal pip. From then on, whenever it came on, work stopped and we got our groove back on. Sara's and my favorite was Elvis' Kentucky Rain and Ross and I loved Don't Pull Your Love Out On Me because we couldn't sing the "don't pull your love out on me baby" without smirking.

I don't even know how long ago it was now but when I still kept in touch with them after moving out to Chicago, Tom emailed us that he and Eric were moving to Florida and having a going-away party that he would all love or us to attend. I emailed him back that unfortunately, I wouldn't be able to make it but was secretly planning on coming back to surprise him because I figured it would be the last time I would ever see the man (sadly, so far, that's been the case).

I drove up to Rochester so I'd get there a little later than everyone else and will never forget the look on the man's face when I knocked on their door and walked in. I don't think I've ever been hugged so tightly before in my life. It was strictly a Kinkster's Reunion so we were all there and drank and smoked and laughed the night away.

The best part of the evening was when Tom got up, gave a little toast, and turned on Midnight Train to Georgia. I don't remember where it came from but he threw a boa at me and I performed with my pip for the last time, with the full "woo hoo" train sounds and arm motions in the appropriate places and all.

I remember at one point during the night, I went out on their front porch with my drink, sat in their comfy green loungy chairs to smoke a butt outside, and Tom came out to give me another hug, and somewhere in between our teariness, we told each other how glad we were that I was there.

Every now and then, I find myself thinking about them and wondering where everyone wound up post-Kinkster's; especially when I'm hanging out in my apartment flipping through my tunage and stumble across one of our oldies but goodies. Part of me feels sad as I sit here listening but then I remember that I'm also sitting here with a goofy grin on my face, singing too loudly, and remembering what I consider to be some of the best times I've ever had with some of the best people I've ever known. And it makes me feel nothing but happy.

ah, youth

Strawberry Shortcake, Care Bears to Receive Makeovers; Childhood Spoiled

If they start messing with Jem



or She-Ra



I'ma start gettin' pissed.