Green-Means-Go (And Red Means Something Else)

I know I've already told you about how fast I walk home from work. Even when I'm not rushing home to Tiffany, I'm still rushing. I like to immediately differentiate between my work day and my personal time. As soon as I walk in the door, I drop my bag and change clothes. Sometimes Tiffany comes home--or out of work if I've walked to meet her--to find me in the strangest outfits because I've grabbed a shirt off one stack and a pair of sweats off another without any thought as to whether they go together.

When you're walking quickly, every traffic light is a possible obstacle. I use a system I call "follow the lights." I zig and zag across the street with green lights until another zig would take me off course. Then I have to just hope I get green the rest of the way home.

Sometimes I attach meaning to the lights, like: "If this light stays green too, what I'm working on today will be no problem." I might even whisper "Yes!" under my breath if I'm coasting across under green-means-go. Of course, sometimes I don't make the lights I've attached meaning to. Sometimes I have to pull up short because it turns yellow-red when I'm still several feet from the curb. Or-- talk about ambiguous--as I'm in the middle of the street, the light will turn yellow and I'll actually hesitate, like, "oh god, what does this mean for my day?"

The other day I was walking home extra fast. It was the night my mom was flying in and I was meeting Tiffany and some friends at a bar before I drove to pick her up at the airport (have no fear, readers who don't know me--I don't drink). I found myself stuck behind a man who was walking at exactly the same pace. He was a little rough around the edges, but he was conscious, which put him light-years ahead of most of the people I pass on my way to and from work. And, he was fast. Every time I broke left to pass him, he weaved left too. When I made a dash to pass him illegally on the right, he tottered--at full speed--to the right. Eventually I squeezed past him on the right by dropping my left shoulder back so as not to bump him and scraping my right shoulder on a brick wall. I kicked into high gear to give us a little space only to pull up short at an out-of-nowhere yellow-red.

"Sh*t," I exhaled.

"Aww man," the man said, as he pulled up short beside me.

I looked at him. I had never seen someone else so distraught over a light.

"I hate it when I miss a light," he muttered, half to himself.

I looked harder at him, and he turned to look back at me.

"Know what I mean, deah?" he asked, in a thick Boston accent.

"I do," I said, incredulous. "I hate it too."

The light changed and we crossed together.

At the next light we pulled up short again. The sudden stop caused his cigarette to fall from behind his ear. He stooped to get it and patted it back into place.

"I'm not against jay-walking," I hinted.

"Oh, me neitha," he replied, as we both started to cross on the red. "Except when theyahs kids around. Then I can't do it. They gotta learn, ya know."

"Me too," I said, but quieter. On certain occasions, I have jay-walked in front of moms holding back small children on the edges of curbs. But I did feel guilty about doing it. I made a quick promise to not do it again. If this man, with the smell of stale alcohol on his breath, could forego jay-walking for children, so could I.

Through the remainder of our shared lights, I learned the man was turning fifty in two days and thinking of returning to Boston where he had family because he was having trouble finding work in San Francisco.

At my block, we ended our conversation abruptly. We were both in a hurry to get where we were going.

"Take care, deah," he said, turning to go.

"You too." I said. "Happy birthday!"

I wished him luck, but I didn't make it contingent on the next green-means-go. One should never pin their hopes on a traffic light. After all, maybe stopping at red is exactly what's supposed to happen every once in a while.

Don't Cut the Cord!

This morning I turned on the television while I ate my oatmeal and a commercial for Office Max almost made me cry. It was a back-to-school-supply-themed commercial, filled with scenes of moms saying good-bye to their kids. Four hours earlier, I had gotten out of bed at 3:15 a.m. to say goodbye to my mom who had been in town for the weekend. Barefoot and bleary-eyed, I stumbled down the stairs with her suitcase and hugged her before she climbed into the shuttle that would take her to the airport. It was our zillionth such goodbye.

My brother and I call the sadness we feel after such visits "post-Mom depression." This morning when I got out of bed for the second time, I did my best to keep it at bay by immediately tearing her sheets off the couch and her towel and washcloth off the rack and stuffing them all into the laundry bin. I find it best to remove all traces of her as soon as possible. I have to be thorough. Otherwise, I am sure to feel an ache in my chest at the sight of something she touched. This morning, I was feeling fine until I saw the tea cup, spoon and teabag she had been using all weekend. She had put them all together on a shelf by the stove for safekeeping to reuse. I tossed the tea bag and washed the spoon and cup.

I am, in fact, a self-sufficient adult. Oh, sure, Tiffany and I have cultivated our own special co-dependency--we can't pick out a brand of shampoo, for instance, without a series of checks and cross-checks with each other--but we are both responsible and productive members of society on our own. In other words, yes, the doctor cut the umbilical cord attaching me to my mom when I was born.

How to explain this deep sadness then? Well, for starters, it isn't anything new. When I first left home ten years ago to go to school in Boston, it was before security requirements kept non-ticketed people out of the gate area. I hugged my parents at the entrance to the jetway and walked into the tunnel on my own. On the plane, I settled myself into my seat. I found that I could keep from crying by continually swallowing the lump in my throat and also by not opening my eyes. And then the flight attendant tapped my knee.

"Excuse me, honey," she said.

I opened my eyes.

"Were those your parents crying outside the jetway?"

I closed my eyes again, barely managing a nod.

Over the years, my mom and I, more than anyone else in our family, have said goodbye to each other over and over again. That's because we fly to see each other more, finding it nearly unbearable to have a three-month span without a visit on the calendar.

In other words, the cord that connects my mom and me--which we have carefully built up to sustain us through good times and bad--is now an extension cord. But it only extends so far.

The Cell Phone Lot

I was early when I went to pick up my mom at the airport tonight, so I pulled into the cell phone lot to wait. It was my first time in a cell phone lot. I was a little bit nervous. I mean, it was a dark, nearly empty lot, adjacent to the long term parking and the place where all the shared-ride vans wait before they drive around to the terminals. Most of us were by ourselves in our cars, sitting with our engines off and our radios on. If you've seen a scary movie, you know just what this type of scene can lead to. I could just picture a man creeping up beside my car, lunging at my door handle. I shivered in the driver's seat and pushed the electric lock button.

But it really wasn't that scary. Mostly, the other cars pulled in and parked politely--a few spaces away from each other so as not to intrude. But then a woman in a Honda pulled in directly across from me. I squinted into her lights. She turned them off and smiled, so I smiled back. Next, a woman in an SUV pulled in beside her. A few minutes later, a woman pulled in beside me, cut her engine and immediately began to apply foundation to her face. The man who parked behind me and to my right was dressed in a nice Western-style shirt and pressed jeans. He got out of his car to scarf down a hamburger so he wouldn't drip on his clothes.

My mom called.

"Yay!" I answered, reaching my right hand up to turn the key.

"We just landed and we're still on the plane" she said. "Where are you?"

"I'm in the cell phone lot," I said, dropping my hand from the ignition.

"Yourself a lot, what?" she asked.

"Never mind," I said. "Call me when your baggage carousel starts up and I'll drive around. Love you."

We hung up. More time to kill. I looked around. The woman across from me had reclined her seat and was reading a book. In the SUV, a small dog had appeared and was sitting upright on the driver's lap. Next to me, the woman was rubbing lotion onto her bare legs.

It was kind of awkward, all of us sitting there alone in our cars pretending not to see each other. A little like being uninvited guests in each other's living rooms. I fiddled with the radio. Read the signage (a $500 fine for feeding the birds although I didn't see any birds) Looked out at the sky. Every once in a while a plane flew overhead, roaring above us.

I was there more than an hour because my mom's bag was diverted to the wrong carousel, and I couldn't pull up to the terminal until she was ready to go. Several people who were parked before I got to the cell phone lot left in that time. Then the people who got to the cell phone lot after me began to leave. The woman with the lotion left, starting her engine up apologetically with a sidelong glance my way. I watched the hamburger man zoom off in my rear view mirror. Yet there I was still, fiddling with the radio, wondering about the $500 bird-feeding fine, looking out at the sky, watching the planes. It was kind of like standing around waiting for someone to ask you to dance. It feels like everyone else gets chosen first.

Then my mom called again. She had her bag. I felt like I should say good-bye to someone but we hadn't ever said hello. I turned my key, gave a little nod to the woman with the dog, and made my way out of the lot.

Jubilation Part II (without the music)

I know exactly what my mom looks like in an airport when she's on her way to see me.

That's because one time I got to see her in an airport when she was on her way to see me. Here's how:

For spring break of my freshman year in college, my brother and I flew independently to meet our parents in Florida for a week at the beach. When we lived in Mississippi, our family vacationed in Destin every year. Some of our best memories are from those trips: long days in the water, sun and sand, never-ending picnic lunches, getting cleaned up to go out to dinner, red faces and wet hair.

As it happened, the trip my freshman year was our last family vacation. The next year, my parents separated, and though we continue to do some holidays together, we have not vacationed as our old unit of four. But I digress.

I flew from Boston. My parents flew from Kansas City. And my brother flew from Texas.

I had a layover somewhere. As I was racing to my gate, I was struck by the sight of a blond woman seated with her back to me. The back of her head looked exactly like the back of my mom's head. I slowed down, circled in front of her and broke into a grin. It had been the back of my mom's head. It was, in fact, my mom. She was reading a magazine but must have felt me staring because she looked up and stared back. And then she broke into a grin too.

"Oh my god," I said. "I can't believe you have a layover here too!"

"What are you doing here?" she asked. "What time does your flight leave?"

I told her.

"Oh, ours is about that time too," she said, her voice dropping, knowing I would have to go to my own gate soon.

"I wish I could stay," I said. "But I bet I'm about to board. Where's dad?"

About that time we both noticed him, cackling to himself as he watched the scene unfold.

"Look at your ticket, Rebecca," he said.

I looked.

We were on the same flight.

It was one of my dad's best gifts ever: time. He had arranged their flight so we would be on the same plane for the last leg of the trip. This meant that we an extra three hours to talk non-stop and just be together.

When you live thousands of miles apart, time means a lot.

Right now, my mom is on her way to me. And so, in a little bit, I'll be on my way to pick her up. And you can guess what I'm doing now, I hope.

That's right: breaking into a grin.

Jubilation...

The other day I was riding in my co-worker's car and Simon & Garfunkel's "Cecilia" came on. And then it was like I wasn't even in the car at all. All of a sudden, I was 13-years-old again.

Around the time I was 13 and my brother was 17, he used to turn that song up full blast in his bedroom in our old house in Shawnee, Kansas. My bedroom was right next to his, and, although I generally screamed at him to turn his music down, I loved that song too. When he played it, we would meet in my room or his, belting it out at the top of our lungs.

Even though that was 15 years ago, I can picture it clearly. Both of us with our eyes squeezed shut, neck veins popping out, as we yelled:

"Cecilia, you're breaking my heart
You're shaking my confidence daily
Oh, Cecilia, I'm down on my knees
I'm begging you please to come home
Come on home...

Jubilation, she loves me again,
I fall on the floor and I'm laughing,
Jubilation, she loves me again,
I fall on the floor and I'm laughing."

I was lucky, I know, to get the brother I got. Oh, of course, we fought. I hated to lose, and he was four and a half years older than me, so I lost a lot: at tetherball, soccer, football. Inevitably, when we played burn-out (throwing a baseball as hard as possible at the other person to see who called it quits first), I burned out, shaking my beat-up glove and glaring at him from across the yard.

But mostly we got along. We loved each other. More important, we liked and were loyal to each other. Although he threatened to, he never told our parents about the time he heard me say "Jesus F*cking Christ." And I never told them about the countless times he drove me to the bank so I could withdraw money from my savings account to pay his speeding tickets.

Our best friend tells this sad story of how every time our families got together and it was time to say good-bye, he would agonize over the fact that while he rode away in the backseat of his parents' car by himself, my brother and I got to ride away together. Sometimes we rode away talking and laughing. Sometimes we rode away bickering. Sometimes we rode away just doing our own thing next to each other. But it's easy to see our friend's point: we were together.

My brother and I live in different states now. It's not often we get to sit next to each other in a car. But that doesn't really matter. We were on the same road to begin with, so we can't get too far apart.

Just Pickin'

For most of her life, Tiffany has hated tomatoes. Once when we were in college (before we were dating), I bought her a t-shirt that says: "You Say Tomato, I Say F*ck You." She loves that t-shirt.

So, yesterday, when we were standing knee-deep in a sea of tomato plants, lifting the heavy vines and twisting the warm red fruits off their stems, I knew how much Tiffany loves me.

I love tomatoes. My mom and I can eat them like apples with a little sprinkle of salt on each bite. We never grew them ourselves, but occasionally, in different places we lived, we had "tomato-men or -women. Mr. Arnold was the first tomato-man I remember. He was retired, about 75-years old, and used to fix our lawn mowers and cars for next to nothing, clanking around in his driveway. He had a Siberian husky with blue eyes named Cody. Mr. Arnold grew his tomatoes in his backyard and every time we went to pick up our car or lawn mower, he'd say, "Now, hold on a minute, let me get some tomatoes for you." And he'd come back with a cardboard box full of them, warm and dirt-spotted, fresh from his garden.

On Saturday, Tiffany and I became our own tomato-women, just for the day. We haven't seen the sun for weeks in San Francisco, so we got in the car and went to find it. When we finally broke out of the fog about 20 miles outside the city, we high-fived each other and relaxed into the warmth. We went for a trail run. We spent 30 minutes at the gas station filling up, putting air in the tires and washing the car. We went to Target and bought big things we can't get or carry in the city. And, in between all that, we drove out to a family farm, following the U-Pick signs and parking on a dusty road next to a gigantic tractor.

I'd never picked my own fruit. I have a vague memory of picking a live Christmas tree once in Mississippi but never fruit or vegetables. We ate a lot of them in my family, of course. My mom and I went to the farmer's market in downtown Kansas City every weekend. But everything we bought was already picked.

Tiffany grew up picking berries in the Northeast, so she knew what she was doing. She handed me a gigantic red bucket and we traipsed into the crops. First, we went for the tomatoes. There were rows and rows of different kinds: Juliet, Black Russian, Roma, funky-shaped, green. We filled my bucket. The man in the tractor told us to taste at any time, but I was still nervous to try any. Tiffany prodded me, laughing. She tossed me a skinny tubular tomato she'd just picked. I looked around for the man and then bit into it. It was perfect--even without salt--warm and juicy. I threw it back to Tiffany. She wants to learn to like tomatoes and is being very brave about it: she braced herself for a minute and then bit in really quick.

"It's really not bad," she said, trying to keep her face neutral. She had dirt on her forehead.

After the tomatoes, we made our way to the plums and then to the peaches and nectarines. Each time we went to a new row, I picked up my red bucket and limped along with it awkwardly, resting it against my left shin.

"Where are you?" Tiffany kept calling, as she moved from tree to tree, touching the fruit, finding the ones that were just right.

"Here," I called back. "Just looking at my tomatoes."

I put my bucket down and followed her into the rows, watching her bite into a peach here, a nectarine there.

"Did you see these?" she called.

"No," I smiled, chasing after her voice to find her reaching up for a cling peach.

Everything we picked was $1 a pound. We had ten pounds of plums, peaches and nectarines and 13 pounds of tomatoes. We have plans for every pound. Tomato sauce for pasta and pizza. Salsa. Our first attempt at preserves.

On our way back home, the car smelled like all our fruit at once. We drove the whole way with our sun roof open and the windows down, savoring the summer weather. When the city came into view, so did the fog, sitting heavy, dark grey and white swirls on top of the buildings.

But we were sunburned and happy. At home, while Tiffany showered, I opened up the box of tomatoes and picked out two green ones to fry.

The Zucchini and I: Part II (Into the Kitchen)

You know that calm some people have in the kitchen? The cool easy way they keep an eye on a stovetop, an oven and a cutting board?

I don't have that.

This is what a verbalization of my cooking looks like: Oh, this is so nice, I'm making an awesome new dish that Tiffany will love, she'll be so impressed... oh sh*t, how many teaspoons of this were there, let me check again, oh crap, I'm not holding a teaspoon, I've got a tablespoon in my hand, umm, okay, well, I didn't put it in yet, so that's fine, alright, let's see, oh the sauce is boiling, when sauce boils, turn down to low and simmer, okay, simmering, simmering, tasting, tasting, oh sh*t, sauce on my white shirt, awesome, well, laundry tomorrow then, and, I need to be cutting vegetables, so I'm cutting vegetables, chop, chop, chop, chop, careful with my fingers, I'm so scared I'm going to cut my fingers, sh*t, I haven't steamed the greens yet, okay, I'm chopping the greens, I'm throwing them in a pot, and now I'm chopping again, wait, wasn't this supposed to be relaxing--yes, it was, I'm putting on a c.d...

(I'll pause while you digest the fact that Tiffany and I still have c.d.s. You'll need another pause to digest this: not only do we still have all our c.d.s, but because we moved out together with them in those soft travel cases, we went out and bought plastic cases, put our c.d.s in those and labeled them all... by hand. We sometimes did this on Friday nights and we loved it.)

...oh, I love this song, I'm singing, I'm singing, I'm... and my greens are smoking, awesome, the greens are smoking, they need more water...

I don't have that natural knack for the kitchen. But I do have a mom who does and a handful of second-moms who do, and, lucky for them, I also have Joy (that's Joy of Cooking, the gigantic cookbook, for you non-cooks) So I have enough make-shift knack to get me by. And I enjoy being in the kitchen. I like trying new recipes. In fact, unlike Tiffany, I must have a recipe when I cook. Tiffany is different--she likes to experiment.

A few weeks ago, I was on a major baking kick. I baked a loaf of dill bread, which was a little dense, but tasty. Then I tried baking a French baguette. This, I'll admit, was too ambitious. After all, prior to the dill bread, my baking accomplishments included: biscuits, cookies and cornbread. The French baguette, my mom pointed out gently, is one of the hardest breads to make. What I made was more like a long brick. It tasted alright (although not like a French baguette), but it was as solid as a rock and required microwaving to make it soft enough to chew.

As faithful readers will remember, last week I became the proud owner of a 17-inch zucchini. On Saturday night, while Tiffany went out with some friends, I stayed home for some much needed down-time. I put on a mix-c.d. that one of my friends from college made me when we were in college, and I made zucchini lasagna--with the zucchini as the noodles! I danced around a little bit, reveling in the space of our new kitchen. I sang out loud. I nearly finished a bag of jalopeno chips and did finish a can of Dr Pepper. I made a huge mess. I cleaned it up.

And then I tried some of my 17-inch zucchini lasagna (actually only 8.5-inches because the pan wasn't big enough for the whole thing). It was delicious. And, when Tiffany came home, she thought so too.

Office Space

On Saturday, a few hours before I rolled the scooter over my right foot, Tiffany and I enjoyed our first weekend breakfast in our new apartment. We made eggs over medium and toast. Tiffany cooks eggs over medium. I scramble. So she worked the skillet while I took the bread out of the bag and put it in the toaster. We warmed the butter on the stove top in between the burners and, in a few minutes, it spread easily on the browned tops of our toast.

It was a lovely start to the morning. But before we finished breakfast, we began to bicker. Specifically, we bickered about how much of Tiffany's "office space" should be mine.

We don't have an office. But we do have a little space. It's between our couch and one of our windows. Forty-six and a quarter inches of space, to be exact. This has been designated Tiffany's office, which I fully support. We're selling the furniture from our old apartment that doesn't fit in our new apartment and that money is going toward a just-the-right-size desk for Tiffany, who works from home on her clients' programs and needs a place to study.

I thought half the desk might be mine, when we get it. Tiffany didn't think so.

"I need my space to be organized," she said.

I bristled.

"I am..."

I paused.

"Okay, so maybe my side of the old desk was messy but your side was just as bad!"

I think it's a commonly-known tenet of therapy not to make accusations in a fight. But Tiffany and I aren't in therapy, and accusations slide so easily off the tongue, even between bites of perfectly cooked over-medium egg and beautifully buttered toast.

This particular jab was a low-blow. As you may have noticed in previous posts, Tiffany takes great pride in her organizational skills. Organizing is one of Tiffany's favorite tasks.

Aware that I had escalated a simple disagreement into one of those you-are-so-wrong fights, I stormed off to wash the dishes. One strategy I often resort to in such moments is to do something totally helpful because it's so obviously irritating. Running water also provides cover for under-the-breath cursing.

"I can do those," Tiffany seethed between her teeth.

"No, it's fine," I huffed, swooping in for her plate and swiping her unfinished mug of coffee.

Thankfully, it only took a few minutes for us to come to our senses. We remembered that we love each other (and even like each other too!). I promised to be neater and admitted that I do not need 23 and one-eighth inches for my checkbook, address book and stamps. Tiffany conceded that, given the fact we do not have an actual office, I might need to sit down at the desk once in a while. Having resolved the matter, we huddled in the 46 and a quarter inches together and considered whether the couch could move closer to the radiator to stretch the space to a full four feet (It cannot.).

What To Do When Your Foot Is Stuck Under Your Scooter

This morning I rolled the scooter over, and onto, my right foot. Specifically, I rolled the back tire over my big and second toes, perhaps some of my third toe. It was difficult to tell. Rolling your scooter tire over your foot is hard to do. At least, I've never done it before.

I had only dismounted for a moment to slip some books into the drop-box outside the library. I was in a rush to get to a conference I had to attend for work, dressed in Monday-through-Friday clothes. Luckily, I hadn't put my heels on yet. I don't like to scoot in heels so I was wearing a pair of sneakers. I parked, kept my helmet on, ran to the drop box and back to the scooter. I rolled it off its stand and, as you already know, onto my right foot.

I was holding the handlebars of the scooter with both hands, my body slightly twisted to keep the hulk of metal balanced. I tried to pull my foot out. Nothing. I yanked. Wiggled my ankle. Maneuvered my heel. Nothing. I considered taking my shoe off but wasn't able to do so without my hands. I tried rolling the scooter a little bit forward but almost dropped it. I tried to roll it a little bit backward but faced the same problem.

"Sh*t," I said into the face mask of my helmet, fogging up the plastic. "You've got to be kidding."

I looked up. The main library in San Francisco is a haven for the kind of homeless people who don't look like they care to have a home. What they look like they care about (and what they can often be seen caring about) is getting high on whatever's being sold on the corner. The people I saw were not the kind of people I wanted to ask to help roll a scooter off my foot. Besides, most of them were passed out.

I considered calling Tiffany. Then I considered what she would say when she picked up the phone and heard me, slightly panicked, asking her to come free my foot from under the tire of our battered Vespa. In spite of the pain, I laughed out loud, fogging up my face mask again.

I glanced around again and noticed two men dressed in clean clothes walking my way. There wasn't time to be proud.

"Can you help me?" I called.

They looked toward me and then away. I lifted the face mask to give my voice some distance.

"Excuse me, can you help me?"

They stopped.

"My scooter's on my foot," I said.

They were very nice. They didn't ask how my scooter came to be on my foot or why I couldn't get it off by myself. They didn't even laugh.

Later, as I shared the story and we shared a sandwich, Tiffany and I did.

The Zucchini and I

Here's something I did not expect to have in my hands when I left work today: an enormous 17-inch zucchini. Keys, yes, cell-phone, certainly. But a colossal garden vegetable? No. Not even close.

And yet, that's what I found myself lugging up (and back down) the hills on my way home, not quite as fast as normal given the extra weight.

Here's how it happened. This morning when I got to work one of my colleagues had brought in zucchinis from her garden to share. She spilled a few samples out onto the table. They rolled to a stop, regular-sized, dark green, perfect-looking.

"Ooooh," I cried. "How cool! We were going to pick some up at the market this weekend, so this is great!"

I reached to grab one and then she came back with another. The biggest zucchini I'd ever seen. Like, it might have won a prize. Instead she was offering it to me. I was hardly deserving of such a gift. After all, I only knew two ways to cook zucchini: I either sauteed it with tomatoes, onions and squash or fried it right up, Southern-style, to sprinkle with salt or dip in ranch dressing.

My eyes widened.

"Oh my god," I said. "I've never seen anything like that!"

She laughed and explained that all her zucchini would grow that size if she didn't pick them in a timely fashion. She hadn't noticed this one (don't ask me how it escaped her--I can't imagine any leaf big enough to cover it) and so it had grown. And grown and grown.

I drew my hand back from the regular-sized zucchinis. She put the monster in my arms. It was the length of an 15-month-old baby.

"You could make a lasagna," she offered.

I nodded, speechless.

And then I took it. When I got ready to go, I rearranged my backpack, stuffing the fat end of the thing down and leaving the narrow end up. But still my bag wouldn't zip around it.

"That's some zucchini," the man in the elevator said, smirking a bit, as I edged past him trying to keep my back to the wall.

I looked at him, felt my face redden.

"I know," I said. "It's embarrassing."

He kept smirking.

"I'm going to make a lasagna," I offered.

He nodded, eyebrows raised, and then exited a floor before me.

"Enjoy," he called out over his shoulder.

I smiled as the elevator doors closed. I was still smiling when they opened a minute later. I hoisted the bag on my shoulders. And then the zucchini and I made our way into the world.

Piles and Piles

I made a mistake," I told Tiffany, looking up from a pile of anti-itch cream, Vitamin C chewables, cold-and-flu relief pills and generic Tums. I had dumped the contents of our "medicine cabinet"--a little bag that a box of stationery came in four years ago--onto the floor outside our bathroom. Let me spell it out for you more clearly. At a time when nearly the entire floor of our new apartment was covered with things from our old apartment, I had chosen to litter the one-square-foot of free space with things we had no immediate use for.

I had already put away most of my clothes in the dresser and on hangers and organized the Tupperware in a drawer in the kitchen (Tiffany promptly reorganized it, but I did do it). I needed something to do to feel productive. There were plenty of existing piles to work with. But Tiffany was organizing the hall closet, which is next to the bathroom. I was tired of being in different rooms, so I sat down with the bag and dumped it out next to her.

She looked at me. I knew she wouldn't be mad because she felt bad for undoing my earlier Tupperware organization.

"Why don't you make piles," she suggested. "That's what I'm doing. Then we can find a place for each pile later."

I half-heartedly moved the two anti-itch creams together and put the cough drops with the generic sudafed. The thermometer (which Tiffany makes me pull out every time she has a cough) was its own pile. I didn't think we needed the bulky boxes the generic tums came in, so I started pulling the foil-wrapped pills out of the open box and...

Tiffany turned. It was as if she sensed my incompetence.

"It might be a good idea to keep pills with their original box," she said diplomatically.

"Oh, I know," I fibbed. "I was just going to put them all in one box."

In reality, I thought the pink chalky-looking tablets would be easily recognizable even years from now when we would again reorganize the medicine cabinet-bag and throw everything out because it had expired (I had an expired pile going too). I stuffed the pills from the opened box into the formerly unopened box. It wouldn't close.

And then I gave up on organizing. We had been at it for hours and were in a work-week-liveable situation, in my view. We could pass through each room in the apartment and the shower curtains were up. We were sore and tired and an hour or so earlier we had both stubbed our toes in the span of a minute. Our first overnight guest (my mom) wouldn't be arriving for three weeks. It was time to stop.

I left Tiffany with her piles and mine and wandered into the kitchen. I made a bunch of turkey burger patties to freeze and kept one out to cook. I made our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for our Monday lunches and mixed up some brownie batter. Then I got in the shower. When I got out, the hall closet was organized and the medicine bag was in the recycling bin, its contents dispersed. I cooked some frozen french fries and our burger and put it all on an unpacked plate to share. I put the brownies in the oven for a later-night treat and made my way to the living room, skirting around our potted plants and empty bookshelves. While I was in the kitchen, Tiffany had hooked up our d.v.d player to our t.v. More importantly, she had cleared the space between our t.v. and our couch: we sat down on it, watched a movie and ate.