shishnit.org

My 89 yr old grandfather reads the newspaper from front to back every single day. Now of course he’s reading a small-town paper, but still! Every word! (even the classifieds and the lost dog ad’s…all of it, he knows all the town news!) He then spends the majority of his day’s reading books. He can go through about 3 a day sometimes. He watches 1 hour of the news on TV every single day at noon. Then it’s back to reading. So his day goes “newspaper, read, news, read read read, sleep”.

He’s almost completely deaf in his old age and screams and yells in order to communicate. My grandmother begs him to get a hearing aid. NO GO he says. He does not want to “look” old. (smirk)

However, a few years ago his eyesight started to go wonky and he immediately visited an eye doctor and scheduled in cataract surgery asap, within a week both eyes were done. When asked why he won’t get a hearing aid but he’s willing to allow doctors to cut his eyes, he replied with his typical scream:

“Because damn it I need to see to read and if I can’t read I don’t care what anyone has to say!”

My grandfather is my hero.

My grandmother is from Italy and when I was 15 and first dating I would often bring my first boyfriend Steve to my grandmother’s house for Sunday dinner.  The first time I brought Steve to my grandmother’s house she chose this particular day to make polenta.  Most people have somewhat heard of polenta but in my grandmother’s native town in Italy they prepare a softer version of polenta (the consistency of oatmeal or grits) and it was and is tradition to serve polenta straight off of the dining room table.  Meaning, she spreads her polenta in big circlular shapes on her Formica dining room table.  She then spreads what most of us know to be spaghetti sauce on top of this and then there is a liberal sprinkling of romano cheese all over.  This later step is done with a huge flourish of activity; the cheese is literally flying all over the room. 

This is something I have seen and been party too since before I could walk or talk.  She then hands around forks for all to begin eating after my grandfather says grace.  Yes, there are no plates…and yes we eat the polenta off of the table until it’s gone. One of my fondest memories growing up is of when my brother, sister and I would try to make the shape of America out of our side.  Her table was shaped like a big circle with a big split down the center.  We always tried to shape America.  I have no earthly idea why.  We would argue over who ate Florida because once you eat away Florida the United States looks like a square.

So, one Sunday Steve and I walked in just as she was handing out the forks.  He eyeballed 15 loud Italians eating and talking with their hands sitting squeezed in around my grandmother’s somewhat small table eating red mush off of the table like pigs eating from a trough and proclaimed, “I cannot eat like this”.  My grandfather jumped up and said “Well then you do not pass and you cannot ever marry Kristy!”  He was of course joking but I don’t think that boyfriend ever really recovered from that experience. 

I wonder what Rick would have done if faced with that same dilemna.  Every single time I personally make polenta he creeps over to where I’m eating it and says “What the hell is that?”  Every single time.
I wonder if Keith remembers how he scarfed down Polenta when he was a toddler.  He called it “o’la” I have no idea why.
How do you make Polenta the way my grandmother does?  You can eat it off of plates…but….its like licking a donut instead of eating it…just not as satisfying!!!

Polenta

Ingredients:
1 cup yellow cornmeal

1 tsp salt

3 cups of water in pot

1 cup of COLD water

Spaghetti sauce

Romano cheese

Procedure:
1. Boil 3 cups of water.

2. Mix cornmeal, salt and 1 cup of COLD water in a bowl.

3. When water in pot boils gradually add the cold water mixture into the boiling water stirring constantly.

4. Reduce heat.

5. Continue cooking over low heat 5-10 minutes.

6. Spread mixture on your dining room table.

7. Cover with sauce and sprinkle generously with romano cheese.

8. Eat this meal directly off of the table with family surrounding the table. If you put it on a plate you’ll not get good luck like you will if you eat it off of the table.
 

Serving Size: 2-3 servings  

Grandma Rena’s homemade Spaghetti Sauce  
(the easy way)
 

Ingredients:
2 cans Contadina tomato paste

4 cans water

1 stick margarine (do not use butter…it doesn’t work!)

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp rounded Italian Seasoning

1 tsp onion powder

Procedure:
Simmer over low heat 30 minutes
Serving Size: perfet for 1 pound of spaghetti, and also perfect on Polenta
 

Let me start this by saying that Rick knows about this friendship, he approves and I am a strong believer that if Rick and Greg were in the same room I would quickly get pushed off to the side so they could talk fishing and smoke together.  I’d become the afterthought and I rather like the idea of Rick and Greg meeting one day so that Rick gets to know the person I know so well.  But this entry is not about Rick, but I can’t write it without saying Thank you to him for getting me and allowing me to be me. I love you tenfold for that.  And I’m pretty sure that Greg thinks you’re cool too because you make me immensely happy.

So….this is the entry about Greg.

He calls me Kripsy.  He’s done it forever.  He told me the other night when I didn’t want to bug him by calling back late… “I’m not sure you ever once bugged me” and it made me realize that in 10+ years of friendship we’ve never had one falling out and I sure hope I’ve never once bugged him because he’s never once bugged me either man.

I’ve been wanting to blog about my friend Greg forever!  Yes forever.  I write this blog post a thousand times in my head and I never get it right and I’m pretty sure I won’t get it right here.  I have a friend named Greg. Greg and I have been friends since the late summer of 1998.  That means that we’ve been friends for 11 years.  When I met him my son was 5 years old.  My son will soon be 17. yah “I KNOW!!” (said in my best Craig Ferguson imitation)

Greg and I met online in a chat room. In other words, Greg and I have never met.  Yah we think it’s all weird too and so does everyone else pretty much.  We’re weird, its ok.  I cannot for the life of me recall which chatroom and really it no longer matters.  Greg was there for me when my ex-husband was cheating on me and leaving our bed at 4 in the morning lying to me about going to work early, often just leaving before 4 a.m. and explaining or saying nothing, leaving me lying in the dark feeling rejected and miserable.  When I met Greg, he too was going through a breakup.  Oh we were a sad state of affairs each night hashing through out simliar pain with one another, but we’ve both gotten past the past and the current lives are fantastic…we’re having much more fun sharing the happy stuff, trust me.

In the years since we met, we’ve both been through a lot of ups and downs and right now, we both happen to be in very very good places.  He has a new girlfriend and he’s deliriously happy right now.  THAT makes me happy because I’ve been gushing to him for years now about just how much I love my husband.  However, when I first met Rick and I was gushingly happy and faling in love and Greg wasn’t in that place he was still super happy for me and how happy I was.  That’s a true test of a friendship….when your friend is happy when you’re happy even if their own life is in the shitter.

It’s hard for me to write about Greg without wanting to get sappy and philosophical.  I mostly want to get across that he’s been there for me and chose to be my friend when I was an absolute mess.  When I had no direction, no focus, no mental clarity and on and on and on.  Greg was there.  He listened and he and I formed a friendship despite my misgivings.  Sure, he’s not perfect.  Oh man is he not perfect.  He’s had his own struggles in differentw ways.  (mostly all those women who don’t love him back even half as much as he loves them! Stupid bitches!!)

I’ve gone through my share of online friendships….some of which have made it, one of which burned out like a massive blaze in a giant forest full of gasoline trees and another that is lukewarm on it’s best days which are fewer and farther between’er.  Greg and I have remained friends.  Good friends.  He really taught me what friendship was about…(him and Carla that is..) and I have him to thank for eleven years of him hanging in there while I grew up, branched out, took chances, remarried, enrolled in college and generally got my shit together. And every time I reach a goal or find success, it is Greg that is happiest for me and it is Greg’s approval that matters because he knows how far I’ve come and so his congrats mean the world.

Greg paints.  Sometimes that’s the only definition of who and what Greg is that’s necessary.  He doesn’t just paint in my opinion he creates art.  Everything about Greg screams artist and while I was initially fascinated by that, I now see how much it can also be a double edged blade.  In this photo my favorite painting is the girl in the upper left. I’m sure that anyone who’s read it long enough has seen that image before. I adore it…he was painting it when we met and it just tugs at my heart when I see it. I don’t know why he painted it or who it is…it’s not me…but it resonates within me and makes my ribcage hum when I see it.  I consider it “my” painting and that’s the best kind of art.  And no he didn’t paint it for me…and I’m pretty sure he’s sick of hearing me gush over that one painting.  (I do love a lot of his others…)

Greg is always being told he look’s like the “white snoop dogg” and I can’t say that’s far off, except I don’t know snoop dogg and I do know Greg.  Greg looks like Greg to me.  Greg is honest, upfront, crazy, thinks off the wall things and generally makes me laugh. I love his voicemails and the way he answers his phone all crazy saying anything that comes to mind. “Hello Jello Pudding line, we can’t help it if you have the runs”.  Just one example of thousands. 

Recently it occurred to me that Greg has always been there.  Always.  I can’t remember a “before Greg” anymore. I recently broke down and told him how I felt. I stumbled through it all and I don’t even remember what I said but at some point I do recall saying “I have a brother but I don’t have a brother..”.

Greg  let me babble on and on…..and he didn’t say much. He knows me. He knows I’m no good with emotional diatribes.  And at the end of that above sentence I said something like “I want to print out your picture and put it on my desk and when people ask me who that is I want to say “That’s my brother Greg” and then brag about how you paint and play drums and write poetry and come up with great fiction story ideas and and and…”

A few days later I called Greg to check in on his newfound paradise/love situation and he said “Hey sis what’s up?”  and it…gosh I’m writing this and I can’t even find words to tell you….but tears immediately flew down my face and I answered with as calm a voice as possible “not too much, how are you today?” or some such other normal response…I can’t even recallw hat I said…I only know that some gaping hole in my heart mended over.  We’ve been friends for ten years, he’s been my brother for a few weeks.  It matters to me.  I can’t stop thinking back to that moment.  Someone got it…got what it is to muddle through life not feeling like you belong.  I’ve often told Greg he has a lovely familly…but it makes sense because Greg is an amazing person.  He’s good to a fault..so good that people don’t seem to know what to do with all of it.  It’s like being handed a priceless hummel figurine and not knowing how to handle it.

This is the shot he texted to me one day a few weeks ago.  It cracked me up because it’s the crazy Greg I know and consider a brother.

One day I broke down over the phone with Greg (hey we’ve never met in person…..did I mention that shit? lol) about how Rick and I couldn’t have babies and why and everything that was happening and how I felt and he designed a tattoo for me based upon that conversation.  You can go see it and much more here. 

I love it.  It depicts everything I was saying and feeling and I don’t know how he did it but it makes perfectly good sense to me and..Rick wants to get it on his arm and I want it on my leg.

                                                            
When I got my little writing gig, I tested the waters by telling Greg first…..he wrote back:

Sweet!!

Congrats Kripsy,
 
I think you will excel in that setting. good4U!!!

I think King has a new book coming out b4 xmass.

Im very proud of you Kripsy, you have come a long way since we first met and that my friend I think is awesome.

party on Kripsy!!!

g

That email mattered…a lot.

This is my favorite photo of Greg…chillin’ with a cup of coffee….because this is who I know him to be.  If you don’t have a Greg in your life…a surrogate friend willing to take on the job of being your brother because you so desperately are lacking one…..you are not as lucky as me.  I have a biological brother, I haven’t seen him since 2001 and he barely uttered a hello to me.  He’s 36 and I don’t know him, his choice.  But I finally have no reason to want for one…..I have one.  Hey look it’s my brother Greg. He paints and shit….er..he paints shit…er….I mean he can paint shit….I mean he’s an artist and he’s my friend.  He’s cool so you should commence being jealous now that you don’t have a Greg.

We’re going to meet Rusty on Saturday…and if Chloe say’s its ok, Rusty’s going to come home and live with us.  Rusty sounds like a good companion for Chloe.  I’m nervous.  Rusty needs a new home due to the housing crisis. his Mommy loves him but she had to move into a condo on the 3rd floor and its not the best or most ideal situation for Rusty as she struggles to rebuild. 

Remember, we took Chloe in when she needed a home and I cannot say enough about how much I love Chloe.  I just hope they like each other so I can help Rusty.  Rusty is six, about the same age as Chloe, who we think is between 7 or7.5.  I almost didn’t blog about this because I don’t want to jinx anything, but keep good thoughts for us as we transition from a one doggie home to possibly a two doggie one. And keep good thoughts for Rusty as he seeks to find a new home. 

I saw an ad on Craigslist after rmy friend Theresa directed me there to read something else about a dog who had major behavior issues..not Rusty’s ad!!  And then I saw it….a min pin who needs help. My heart cracked open a hair…and then I felt a draft…an opening…..a possibility…

Not surprisingly my sister has not responded to my last email. I really don’t expect her to.  This is the pattern in my life. I open up and tell someone how I really feel and I tell them I disagree with their take.  And they largely reject me, or at the very least, they don’t respond.  And I suppose it is possible that for her, her little emotional crisis has ended as Leah is recovering well, and now she will close herself back off.  I’m ok.

Really and truly I am ok.  I’m finally ok with it.  I am not the one missing out on a sister, she is.  I am not the one closed off to life, she is.  I also said what I wanted to say, I spoke MY truth and that’s what really matters.  It matters to me that I did not just “let it go” or ignore something that truly bothered me.  My sister and I are not close because of my mother, not because of “actual” distance.  And I had to say it finally.  I’ve for too long, let this go and did the proverbial nod of the head when it’s untruthful.

To answer a question…my niece had steel rods inserted into her back to keep her spine straight.  They will remain a part of her for life.  I am positive her experience will make her stronger, better, etc.  I almost wish everyone adversity, it is the stuff of building guts, inner strength and gratitude about life.  I have learned that life does that to you.  It knocks you down, but when you get back up you are steadfast in your stance thereafter.  

Family….it’s the ever illusive thing for me.  I’m finally ok with that not being my lot in life.  My life is blessed in so many other various ways.  I have finally learned to see the wealth in my life and it is massive in its own ways.  Had my mother loved me, I wouldn’t be where I am today.  Sometimes I think I gathered my pain early and I’m now dropping it later in life as I am blessed blessed beyond measure now.  I spent last weekend in Daytona Beach and I was happy.  I stood on the beach and felt overwhelmed by just how happy I was on the inside and outside.  I felt bathed in it, and it was bliss.  I have rarely had that experience.  Daytona Beach in August is now my happy place.  I lay on a bed in a room full of arches, and I was cozy.  I was blissful standing at an outside bar, the wind dancing in my tangled hair.
All throughout last weekend, my heart was soaring like a bird in and out of the open doors at the street bar, across the boardwalk, inside the Harley shops, always dreaming of new experiences, new memories.  I stood in a bathroom reading the text scribbled across the walls, knowing that I was a mere speck, a moment in time.  And it was ok.  It was an emotional waterfall of joy.  I stopped and took memory pictures to review later on a rainy day in my heart.  They come, but oh when the day is bright blue and cloudless…it’s a keeper in the soul. I have learned to feed my soul, I have learned how to sustain all that is good and keep it tight.  I have learned to weather the storms and shield myself with all the love I am blessed with.

I read something today “An employee without a goal is just a worker.”  This is a statement that a fellow student in my current Project Management course stated.  It has stayed with me.  I have long been a human without a dream, a human without happiness, a human without wings.  

I have so much now and my flight, it is glorious. I encourage you to dream.  It changes everything.