Whiskers on Kittens

I'm not in a "raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens" kind of mood today. The Cranky Librarian is definitely living up to her name. It's gray and rainy, we're in the middle of state testing, and I need a nap in a bad way. So in honor of my crankiness and sour disposition today, I am going to list a few of my not-favorite things. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Julie Andrews.

The Cranky Librarian's Least Favorite Things:

1. Smashing a finger in a cabinet door or stubbing a toe, especially if either of those things happen in the morning, and most especially if both happen the same morning (as they did today.)

2. Dropping something, and then when you pick it up, dropping the damn thing again. (Ever seen the episode of Everybody Loves Raymond where Debra drops the raw Thanksgiving turkey on the floor and, since it's slippery, keeps dropping it until she finally gets ticked and just pitches the whole thing in the oven? Classic.)

3. Noisy neighbors who never fail to fire up their four-wheeler and joyride around their yard revving the engine on Sunday afternoons just as you've put your preschooler down for a nap.

4. When your DVR gets punked by gremlins and fails to record your favorite show or, worse, records all but the last 2 minutes when there's this really big revelation you know everyone will be talking about the next day and you'll just have to imagine that scene in your head.

5. Drivers who start to merge into your lane because they're too busy talking on their cell phones to actually watch the road and then, when you honk at them to get their attention and not get run into oncoming traffic, flip you off as if you're the a-hole.

6. Spiders.

7. People who ask questions in movie theaters loud enough to annoy everyone around them, especially if the questions they ask are about the plot and could be answered if they would just shut the @#%^ up and watch the movie.

8. Getting overcharged on a sale item, especially when you don't catch it until you're all the way home, and realize that the gas you would waste driving back would cancel out the buck the store owes you.

9. Streaks on my glasses.

10. Tangled hangers.

11. My baking pans cabinet, which barely holds everything I need it to, and only if everything in it is organized just so, and which makes enough noise to wake the dead when I try to pull out a cookie sheet because everything in it shifts position and spills out the back. And when that happens, I have to reorganize everything to make sure I can get all the contents back in the cabinet, which makes more noise, and causes more pans to spill out, which occasionally makes me throw muffin tins and cake pans around the kitchen...

I could go on and on 'cause it's just that kind of day. Use the comments section to add your own little grievances.

Oh, Yeah? Well, Google THIS!

I love Google. No, really. As a librarian I know I'm supposed to come out and say, "Books are better" and "You can't trust the internet as a reliable source of information" and all that. And I do say that. If I were assigned a research paper right now, I would try to not use a search engine and would try to avoid listing a single web page as a work cited. I would do what I tell my students to do: use reference books, nonfiction books, and electronic databases that search and retrieve peer-reviewed journal articles. But if there's something I gotta know, and I gotta know it fast, I must tell you: I use The Googles.

If someone stops in front of my desk and asks, "Who won the 1984 NCAA men's basketball tournament?" I am going to Google it and in a few seconds I am going to have an answer. (Try it and see for yourself--first person to respond in the comments section wins something from my house that I want to get rid of!) Could I also find that information in a helpful little reference book like the World Almanac and Book of Facts? Yes. Would it have been as quick? Probably not.

I discourage students from using Google sometimes because they aren't always good searchers . I try to help them be smarter internet researchers, but the "Ask Jeeves" set doesn't always grasp the concept of keywords and limiters. But I, you see, am a trained professional. I can Google with the best of 'em. And the more complicated the request, the more fun I have trying to track it down online. Need statistics on drunk driving fatalities in the state of Kentucky, and have looked in a couple of books but can't find it? Bring it on. Want to know the name of an obscure comedian who performed on a Rodney Dangerfield Young Comedians' Special in the 80s and did a sketch portraying a not-so-bright football player? Gotcha covered.

I love Googling so much and have gotten so many answers that way that I wish I could Google all the really tough questions in my life. Such as, where the hell did I leave my watch? How did I get that bruise on my leg? What was the third thing I needed from the store, now that I'm in here and standing in line with two things in my basket knowing as sure as the world that there were three things I came after?

I really wish there was a "magic" Google that I could use to get the answers to all my deeper life questions. Until then, I will continue to amuse myself Googling the everyday questions I get.

And if you happen to find my watch, do let me know.

Confessions of a TV Junkie

Hi, my name is Cranky and I am a television addict. Wow. I'm sorry if I get a little emotional this afternoon. It's just that this is my first meeting, and I am just so glad to get that off my chest. I thought I was alone, but looking around at all of you here today...I realize I am not alone. God bless all of you who share this affliction with me.

My addiction started when I was very young. Looking back, I can see that my parents were TV addicts, too, but it was a problem that was kept behind closed doors back then. My mom and dad were pretty progressive parents, and they believed in letting their daughters watch what they watched. And the TV was on in my house all the time; my dad worked second shift, so at a time of night when most people in the neighborhood were finally turning their sets off, ours stayed on so that my parents could watch Carson and Letterman and late-night Westerns. This is hard for me to admit, but they even let me stay up through Carson's opening monologue sometimes. On school nights. We were a family of night owls. I'm not making excuses for our bad habits. But that's just the way things were in my house, and I had no idea that it was wrong...

Because we just had the one TV and it was almost always tuned to what the adults wanted to watch, I had some very unchildlike tastes. I watched MASH in reruns every night and can remember camping out in the living room to watch the final episode when I was not even old enough to read the credits. Don't get me wrong, they let me watch lighter and more kid-friendly shows like Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood and 3-2-1 Contact. But the majority of what I liked to watch on TV were shows that could have done real harm.

You know, my mom used to wonder why I was afraid of the dark and couldn't sleep alone as a kid. I wonder if she realizes it's because she let me watch the edited-for-TV-but-still-scary-as-hell Halloween and even The Exorcist before my 6th birthday. Please don't judge her. I am sure she thought that because these movies were on prime time TV, they must be OK. And usually she watched them with me. But sometimes she left me alone in front of the TV to see all the T and A and pick up on all the sexual innuendos and double entendres in shows like The Newlywed Game, Three's Company, and Dallas. The only time I remember being censored was during an episode of All in the Family when Gloria wanted "Meathead" to get a vasectomy. I laughed at a joke that was probably inapproprite for a young child to think was funny, and the channel got changed. That was the only time I can remember that. The rest of the time, it hurts to confess, my parents enabled my addictive behavior by laughing with me through The Carol Burnett Show and popping popcorn for a family Saturday night consisting of The Love Boat and Fantasy Island.

I almost came clean in college. It's the closest I've ever come to TV sobriety. Centre kept me far too busy to spend time watching television, and even if I'd had time, I had no access to a clicker. No one I knew freshman year had a TV in his or her room, and we didn't have cable access in the dorms at that time. Then I moved to a dorm sophomore year that had a comfy common area with a nice TV with cable access. I lived there with some friends with their own bad television habits. It started small; I only watched TV for one hour on Wednesday night with my dorm-mates to get a little soapy buzz from Melrose Place. It was just a way to let off some steam.

Then some friends from another school told me about The Adventures of Brisco County Junior, and I watched that show every Friday night. Alone. I know; the true mark of a junkie. I used to sit in the common room by myself for that one hour on Friday nights, getting my Bruce Campbell fix before going to my boyfriend's fraternity's parties. If he wanted to see me earlier, that was too bad. I had my priorities so messed up.

We got TiVo a few years ago thinking it would help my addiction; instead of being a slave to a prime-time network schedule, I could record and watch my favorite shows at my leisure. It worked that way for a while; I didn't do much fruitless channel-flipping looking for something on TV to keep me entertained because I had a nice digitally-recorded stockpile of favorite shows. I didn't have to cancel all my plans and turn off the phone to watch Scrubs, Survivor, Everybody Loves Raymond, Paula's Home Cooking, and The Daily Show. I had a nice balance.

Things have gotten really bad in the last couple of years, though. I have gotten hooked on some new shows and am having a hard time balancing my TV addiction and the rest of my life. It's Lost's fault. No, wait: I have to accept the blame for my own actions. But until Lost, I was really only watching TV one night a week. On Thursdays I would catch what remained of "Must-See TV" and watch the very few shows from earlier in the week that I had TiVoed. I held off on Lost as long as I could. I didn't watch it during its first season. I didn't want to give up another hour a week of my already-full life.

I caught the pilot when it was repeated at the end of the first season's original run, and I immediately knew I was hooked. That one show started a downhill sprial. Every Wednesday night that summer I stopped what I was doing to get caught up. And when our old set died that same summer, I caved to the charms of a LCD flat-screen HDTV partly because I wanted to see how the island (and Matthew Fox) looked in high definition. When the 1st season DVD came out just days before the 2nd season premiere, I stayed up late into the night on many occasions trying to fill in the gaps the reruns left. We watched the 1st season finale on DVD the night before the 2nd season opener. I have a job that requires me to get up very early in the morning, and I came to work many mornings during that time tired and groggy from late-night Lost watching after the kid was in bed.

It was only going to get worse. The thing with Lost is that I cannot wait until the next day to watch an episode from TiVo. I have to catch it live! I wouldn't be able to function on Thursday without that fix. Believe me, I've tried.

It's on at 10pm now, and that's why I came here seeking help today. I've had two miserable Thursdays in a row where I have actually gotten migraines from trying to nap for a couple of hours at 8pm and watching Lost at 10pm the nights before. My sleep cycle is just all screwed up. I'm watching something obsessively every night of the week now. I gave up American Idol last year, but the whole Sanjaya drama sucked me back in this year. And Heroes is about to start back up. I'm not sleeping enough, I'm not reading enough. I'm a woman on the edge. One more show, and I just might snap. Episodes of 30 Rock are piling up on my DVR like broken promises. I want to add this show, but it's too much. I have to stop my addiction somewhere before it completely takes over my life.

Whew. I really feel better having told my story. I know this is the first day of the rest of my life and having admitted to my disease, I can start healing. Summer is coming, and my beloved shows will be on hiatus. I will take this opportunity to reconnect with my family, to read some books, to just turn the TV off. I will just say "no."

At least until next fall...

Blue

Whenever I remember my dad, I think of the color blue. Nearly every shirt my father ever owned was in some shade of blue. Blue stood for his beloved Kentucky Wildcats and represented his political affiliation. Blue was the color he always painted his bedroom, and the color of every car he drove until his last one. Blue was the color of the last hospital gown he wore; an impossibly beautiful robin's-egg hue that made him look like an angel the last day of his suffering. And it was the color I chose for his family to see him in for the very last time.

When he passed away, the task of choosing his burial clothes fell to me. I volunteered for it; I felt so helpless, so lost in the face of all we had been through, that I was desperate for any task that might bring meaning to an ending I had come to feel was senseless.

Just as there was no question what color I would choose, there was no question where I would go. If Dad needed anything, from a new lawnmower to a pair of boxers, he went to Sears. It rarely failed him, and it didn't fail me that day. I found a set of clothes I knew my dad would have approved of in life: a short-sleeved polo shirt in a shade that matched the clear April sky outside, and a pair of Dockers. I had never seen my father in a suit in my entire life. For that matter, I had never seen him wear a long-sleeved shirt that wasn't a sweatshirt. As I bought the clothes, I felt like things were right for the first time in months. His illness was marked by so many things that had gone wrong, but this...this was good. And it was blue.

He looked at peace in the funeral home wearing his new sky-colored shirt. When you see a loved one in a casket he so rarely looks like himself, especially after a battle with cancer. But we all agreed that my father, wearing his color and surrounded by pictures of his beloved grandchildren, looked like the Chuck that we remembered. Not the one ravaged by a cancer so aggressive that it kept him from healing from surgery and confined him to a hospital room for the last three months of his life. Not the one who fought so hard to beat cancer when it singled him out for a third time. But the one I knew: the one who loved to mow his lawn, coach college basketball from the couch, and bring stuffed animals to his toddling granddaughter. And I knew that he had finally found peace.

It was two years ago today that I lost my father. Sometimes I miss him so badly it gnaws a hole in my heart and leaves an ache I feel for days. Last month when Tubby Smith resigned as UK's basketball coach, I turned to my husband and started to say, "I need to call Dad and see what he thinks about all this," and had my mouth open before I realized that I couldn't ever call him again. I was surprised at myself; we think if we're strong we're going to be able to let go quickly. But it's easy to forget that a person who has been a part of our lives from the beginning, who has a starring role in our earliest memories, is gone. It's a jolt even now, two years later, and I suspect it will be twenty years later.

I tell my daughter about him and remind her how crazy Papaw was about her. We remember him every night in our bedtime prayer. It's a way to make him a part of our lives even though he's gone.

And on the bad days, the days when I feel his loss as acutely as if it had just happened, I close my eyes and picture a tranquil and soothing shade of blue. In the blue, I can find my dad.

Food Fight

If you ever come to dinner at my house, beware: one of us is a known food thief. There you'll be, minding your own business, when bam! A hand comes out of nowhere and steals your hot dog. While you stand in disbelief, waiting for your grilled delight to return to your plate, this person will eat the stolen item right before your very eyes. It's true, man. I've seen it happen with my own two eyes.

Those of you who know I have a 4-year-old are probably thinking that she is the food thief. After all, children are still learning boundaries and the rules of possession and take what they want until they are old enough to know better. You'd be thinking wrong. In my house, my husband is our food thief.

OK, I'll be fair. It's only happened once. But it was such a memorable event that our friends guard their food a little more carefully when Jason's in the room.

Back when we were starving college students living away from home, a cookout was a big deal. Every summer through college my high school friends and I would reunite at "grandma's" for a feast. My friend's grandmother was a surrogate grandma for us all, and good lord, can that lady cook. My friend would man the grill and "g-ma" would put together all the sweets and sides that hungry undergrads dream about when they're back on their cafeteria meal plans. Then we would all swarm around her kitchen like lions circling a kill, filling up our plates and growling if anyone got too close to our staked claims. We were preparing for the long fast ahead.

Once while we were circling the spread, my husband snatched a hot dog right off my librarian friend's plate. Jason does stuff like that; he lives for surprise attacks, for catching people off guard with an action or comment. It's part of what makes life with him so gosh-darn fun and unpredictable. But he usually stops before he goes too far with the joke. This time, though, while we were all laughing and waiting for his big "Just jokin'!" move to put the sandwich back on said friend's plate, he proceeded to stand there and take a big ol' bite. Then eat the whole thing. While we watched, shocked. And I don't think there were too many hot dogs left for my friend to replace hers with. It caught us all unawares and from then on, we knew to guard our kills a little more closely around Jason. Chances are he wouldn't do that again, but with him...well, you just never know.

So it cracked me up last night when I learned my daughter is on to him.

Ainsley is, in general, a good eater. I can't complain, really; any kid who will choose beans and rice from Chipotle over McNuggets from McDonald's 9 times out of 10 is a kid whose palate I can appreciate. But she's easily distractable and it's not unusual for her to take, like, an hour to eat a single meal. She talks some, she sings some, she eats some. So to get her to stay focused on her food, Jason will sometimes say, "I think I'm just going to eat it," and make a move for something on her plate.

Last night in the shower, out of the clear blue, Ainsley asked, "Why does Daddy always try to eat my food?"

I told her her daddy was just joking with her because we wanted her to eat her dinner instead of playing around sometimes. But I did tell her the tale of the swiped hot dog. Partly because I was laughing at her question and thought she might want to know what was so funny, but also because I wouldn't want her to be as shocked as we were should she fall victim to frankfurter theft.

When dealing with a food thief, you just can't be too careful.

Grits and Determination

Excuse me for just a moment while I open up a can of caffeine and let out a mighty yawn...much better. I was up late last night reading Paula Deen's memoirs, It Ain't All About the Cookin'. Paula is one of my favorite people on the face of this earth and my wonderfully thoughtful husband grabbed her book for me this weekend. He probably regrets it because I pretty much tuned him out after Ains(ley) got in bed last night. I couldn't help it; Paula and her cooking helped get me through a tough time a few years back, and I eat up (ha!) anything that woman publishes.

When I started chemo for my lymphoma 4 years ago, Fran, my angel of a nurse, told me to treat food as though it were medicine and to make myself eat even when I didn't feel like it so that I would stay strong. I never thought anyone would ever have to tell me to eat; I love food and until very recently was one of those lucky people who could indulge in whatever I wanted without worrying about my waistline. I had my chemotherapy treatments every other Wednesday, and immediately after that first infusion I wanted to eat. It was a good sign. On Thursday after my first treatment, I was hungry, too. Fabulous! But Friday...well, Friday was the beginning of some bad days. Zofran, that unbelievable medicine that actually goes to your brain to turn off your body's vomiting response, kept me from ever throwing up but didn't do much for the all-encompassing nausea I felt as my body reacted to the poisons that were, ironically, saving my life.

And then there was the taste. Words fail me in describing the bitter, metallic taste many cancer patients develop from the drugs. My lunch buddy and fellow survivor says it best: "It's as if you've just licked the hood of your car." Not that we really know what the hood of a car tastes like, but if you can imagine hot metal and road dirt on your tongue...well, that's pretty close. I first noticed that taste the Friday after my first chemo and nothing I ate or drank that day tasted close to right. The fatigue finally hit that day, too, and it took serious effort to go into the kitchen and put something on a plate. I decided to stick to Gatorade and Snickers bars for the remainder of my treatment regimen.

Saturday morning as I tried to dissolve into our recliner so that I would never have to eat again I caught my first episode of a Food Network show called, Paula's Home Cooking. I had heard of this Paula; my mom, a certifiable Food Network junkie, told me about the beautiful, bubbly lady from the deep south who fixed chicken and dumplins that looked just like my mamaw's. Now, my mom is a helluva southern cook herself, and we all agree that my mamaw was just about the best cook that ever was, so I had been on the lookout for this mythical person whose dumplins could impress my mom.

As I watched Paula fix her famous "The Lady's Mac and Cheese", a strange thing happened--my stomach growled. Despite the piquant flavor of hot car roof still lingering in my mouth, I could almost taste that dish of cheesy goodness. And it tasted good. The more she fried and baked and buttered that episode, the more my stomach told me it might just be ready for something more substantial than soda crackers. I pulled myself off the recliner and announced to my surprised husband, "Hey, let's go get a sandwich somewhere. I'm starving." And by God, that was the best reuben I've ever had in my life.

I wouldn't have had the guts (literally) to hit Schlotzky's Deli that day if it hadn't been for Paula Deen. I wouldn't have known that it is possible for a chemo patient to eat normally. Every Saturday saw me tuning in to Paula's show, figuring out what might taste good to me that week. I baked her mac and cheese, and when it turned out better that any attempt I had ever made at homemade comfort food, I was hooked on her recipes.

People we knew from Jason's work were wonderful about cooking for us while I was sick. One weekend, though, I decided to cook dinner for one of those couples when they came to visit. I made Paula's pot roast, and that one act, cooking dinner for friends, made me feel normal. It was as though I hadn't lost my hair, or wasn't fighting for my life. I was just me having fun on a Saturday night. Food, and southern food in particular, is comfort. Paula's food is a soft, warm blanket on a cold, rainy day.

Paula Deen recipes are a staple in my house even now that I'm well. About once a week I pull out one of her cookbooks (I have all of them) and feed our souls. If you're invited for dinner at my house, chances are you'll be having either her lasagna or baked spaghetti with one of her gooey butter cake variations for dessert. When Jason's mom found herself in the hospital on Easter Sunday with some health problems of her own, I sent Jason with a plate of leftovers from our dinner--ham, country green beans, and Paula's broccoli casserole. She called an hour later after devouring everything on her plate to thank us and to say in particular how much she liked the broccoli casserole. I already fancied myself a pretty good chicken fryer (at least of the boneless, skinless variety) but I've really mastered the art now that I follow her example. And the "Is It Really Better Than Sex?" cake? Yes. Yes, it is.

Reading her memoir and seeing the hard road she herself has travelled is very inspiring. Here is a woman who battled crippling agoraphobia to become one of the most successful and best-loved business women in America. I've never met her, but she's on my list of people I would most like to sit down and have a margarita with. Watching her shows, and now reading her memoir, I feel like I already know her. And though I really enjoy cooking her food myself, I can't help but wonder what a batch of chicken and dumplins from her own kitchen would taste like. Heaven in a bowl, I would imagine.

Food is medicine--it can help your body heal. Good food, prepared with love (and generous amounts of butter, pork fat, and cheese) can heal your soul.

Cinderella's Magic Table Update!

We have a spot for the big Disney World character breakfast--Cinderella's Magic Table! And I didn't even have to sync up my cell phone to call at precisely 7am or anything.

I learned that you can call to make reservations for character meals at Disney not 90 days out like I was told, but 180 days out. Since we are well past the 180-days-in-advance mark for our vacation, I lost hope but thought I would give it a random shot yesterday afternoon in the event that the wheel of fortune was tipping back up in my favor. The gods must have been smiling on me yesterday, for reserving a spot at this legendarily-hard-to-book event was a easy as picking up the phone on a random Wednesday afternoon.

Just goes to show you--don't believe the hype.