PEPPER RED SWEET

Some days it just works out…

Upon driving to the supermarket this afternoon, I realized I forgot my wallet. boo. Then I remembered feeling a single bill in my coat pocket earlier in the morning. Please be a twenty, please be a twenty… It was! yay. I buzzed around the market in a way I typically don’t, paying attention to the price of citrus fruit and doing mental math. Then old habits kicked in and I chose a red pepper based solely on the variety of color it would add to my dish, though the cheaper green bell pepper would have sufficed. Two aisles later, I second-guessed my indulgent selection and impetuously plopped said pepper onto the fancy olive bar scale. Shoppers were definitely judging this action, the equivalent of putting Miller Lite in a champagne flute, but they didn’t realize the stress I was under—when is the last time they paid cash!? It was just over half a pound. At $3.99/lb, I was going to be cutting it close. I decided to take a chance, be spontaneous, throw caution to the perpetual Ithaca wind and head to the check-out line with an awareness that I may just have to be that shopper who needs her zucchini voided so she can foot the bill.

A perk of shopping at a high-end grocer with only 20 bucks in your pocket is that you are undoubtedly eligible for the 10-items-or-less line. There was no one else at that particular checkout as I embarrassingly spilled the beans to the cashier. She seemed pretty cool with my old-school dilemma and the game began. I handed her each item one by one. Once we got past 10 dollars, she graciously verbalized each subtotal. BABY BELLA MUSH puts you at $15.23, ONION RED—16.74, SQUASH GREEN—17.61. I tentatively handed over my last item, that prodigal red pepper. She set it on the scale, punched in the 4 digit code, and then said nothing… I peeked at her screen: BALANCE—20.00. Now THAT’S a sweet pepper!

I entered the store hoping that 20 bucks would cover the cost of ingredients for my hummus veggie pizza dinner. Somehow it also managed to buy a restoration of faith in the “life is good” notion that has eluded me for the past eight months. Definition of money well-spent :)

Cheers,
Heather

Home Is Where the Blank Is

A few weekends ago back in Philly, I had just gotten in from a super-fun night out with Kitty, et al. and she asked if I was spending the night at her place. My response was, "No, I'm going home. I'm gonna get up and drive home for lunch tomorrow, but have to leave right after so that I get home in time for yoga." WHAT!? Let's deconstruct...

"No, I'm going home" = Kitty, I won't be staying on your couch tonight, but that of Kel, another of my amazing friends who takes me in, rubs my metaphorical belly, and feeds me treats like the lost little puppy I am.

"I'm going home for lunch tomorrow" = I'm driving to Allentown, my parents' house, the one I inhabited for 23 years, where I will toss my coat on the living room floor and devour the delicious vegan food my mother spent 2 hours preparing for my hour-long visit.

"...so that I get home in time for yoga" = so that I allow myself ample time to navigate the 190 mile stretch of road that separates Allentown from Ithaca while alternating between zoning out to and rewinding self-help books on CD --all so that I miss not a single moment of the cat/cow warm-up at the local Y. Namaste.

I used the word "home" to refer to a friend's, my parents', and my college apartment. Oddly, the one place I didn't refer to as "home" is my Philly house that I own! (Okay, Wells Fargo and I went halfsies on it, but I'm making a point. And by "halfsies" I mean 80:20, WF:HE) Moving on...

Atop the French doors in my parents' family room resides a burgundy, scripted plaque that reads, "Home is where the Heart is." I'll admit, it rolls nicely off the tongue, but so does bullsh*t and, personally, I prefer the latter. Isn't your heart with you no matter your location? Does that make everywhere your home? Snails aside, I don't buy it. And what if you're having one of those days where your "heart's just not in it"--does that mean you're homeless? Plus, if home is truly where the heart is, shouldn't homeowner's insurance cover a broken heart? All-State never sent me those checks... There are just too many loopholes, so I started thinking about how I would fill in the blank.

Home is where the *family* is? Nope, doesn't apply to us single girls. Home is where your *mortgage* is? Except mine's not. Home is where your *bills* are sent? Obsolete with the emergence of on-line banking. Home is where you get your *slumber* on? Getting closer, but it only applies if you're not slutty and I don't want to discriminate. The only phrase I could come up with that made sense to me is this: Home is where the unlit walk to the bathroom at 3 a.m. is a non-injurious one. Presently, by this definition, I am able to proudly call five residences "home."

In fact, if I ever live in a place with French doors, I will have the following, less succinct, yet no less felicitous verbiage scripted on a plaque to place atop:

Shiver, hallway, left, shhhh, don't wake the babies; 8 tip-toe steps, right, close door, then hit light, wonder why they sleep with the door open; leap--curling iron cord, pause--scrape gritty particles from bare foot, no need to shut door, ahhhhh relief

The plaque, of course, will be purple. My heart, I hope, will be happy. My un-stubbed toes and I will be home.

Cheers,
Heather

How Ithaca Equates to Skinny Jeans

Back in August, I stepped into Ithaca and immediately felt that it was the wrong fit. For months I’ve been cranky and snarky and puffy-eyed from all the crying. I marinated in my dislike, soaking in the negative feelings with each passing grey, rainy day until even I got tired of my complaints.

These are not unlike my initial feelings toward John Mayer and skinny jeans. Years ago, I decided that, regardless (or because?) of their commercial success, neither was cute. I didn’t need a hand behind my head before it hit the bed. And I certainly didn’t need my thighs accentuated via severely tapered denim (sporting that look back in 6th grade was enough!). But with time, something changed. I don’t remember which came first: the jeans sale at Banana Republic—“I’ll just try a pair on”-- or Mayer’s tattooed sleeve—HOT! Let’s just say my up-turned nose took a downward dive and, at this point, I’d happily shell out a couple hundred bucks to have either one on me. (Sorry, had to.) The one-eighty shift doesn’t end there. This Ithaca place is growing on me…

Highlights include my cute apartment, awesome classes, and interesting colleagues, but also that it’s really easy to eat here. That’s not something an East Coast vegan gets to say very often! Each week I survey the multitude of tofu brands (I go with local, of course) available in the supermarkets, share animal-free treats with my vegan friends, and choose among several vegan options offered on restaurant dinner menus (as opposed to one cheese-laden vegetarian option on most Philly menus). But there’s something I’ve eaten lately that is proving to be way healthier than tempeh bake-un or spaghetti and beanballs: my words. During winter break, I realized that maybe Ithaca (or John Mayer, skinny jeans, my mother during my middle school years…) was never the problem; perhaps it was my sucky attitude. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still not perfectly happy, but at this point I’m at least honest with myself, humbled, and fairly content—all while wearing my skinny jeans, listening to John Mayer, and chillin’ in Ithaca.

“Fear is a friend who’s misunderstood. I know the heart of life is good.” ~John Mayer

Cheers,
Heather

Something to Red Bean...

She bounds over to me on a daily basis, her face lights up as she says, "Haaaather." She is usually the first to make me smile on any given day. Her name is Jing and she came to Cornell from China at the beginning of the semester. Jing and I often share rides to and from school activities where we chat and conduct grammar lessons. While her English improves each week, we often giggle like the school girls we are over our miscommunications--her confusion over why I would take a yogurt class (it was yoga), her query as to what a condom was...in the middle of a food chem lecture (if I had it to do over, let's just say I'd omit the hand motions), our perpetual bewilderment regarding the use of sounds to convey "yes" and "no" (who knew that the Chinese "nnnnn," while sounding much like a negative, actually equates to the English "uh-huh?")

One night in September I was driving her home and feeling particularly sorry for myself. I was droning on about my unhappiness and all that I missed back home. I asked her what she missed about her home in China and she said, "nothing." I thought maybe the language barrier had gotten the best of our conversation once again, but then she said something that made me realize she had understood perfectly. She said, "you should be thankful that you have something to miss." Wow.

This week during one of our "how do you say" lessons, I asked her how to say "red bean" in Chinese. She told me, I repeated. It sounded exactly like what she said, but she told me no, so I repeated again and again until I got her approval. Next she told me that "red bean means when you miss somebody." I didn't quite understand, so I said, "you mean you tell your boyfriend that you 'red bean' him." She laughed and said that no, it was more like a symbol that expressed the sentiment of missing someone (okay, so those are my words, not hers, but we worked it out!). Like if you give someone a red bean confection, it means you miss him. Cool.

During my days at Cornell, distinguished professors have taught me about rheology, water activity, Reynolds number, and the benefits of flavanols. My amazing friend, Jing, however, has taught me a more important lesson--be thankful that you have something to miss. I will "red bean" her when I move back to Philly. Tomorrow I will ask if there is a Chinese symbol to express gratitude. Until then, I will simply say: Thank you, Jing.

Say My Name, Say My Name...

So, here's the story that won me tix to see my faaaaavorite band in a studio session last year. My favorite band, since you're wondering, is Dashboard Confessional. And, no, I'm not 13. And, yes, it's difficult to find friends who will attend their concerts with me. (Thanks, Kitty.) On with the story...

I'm a high school chemistry teacher and, while I can't imagine doing anything else, there are days that I think I'll go crazy if I hear the words, "Miss Erney" one more time. More accurately, it's usually a nice, strident string of "mussurny, mussurny, mussurny" that makes me want to scream. It is at those times that I change the rules on my students--if they want me to respond to them, they are no longer to refer to me as "Miss Erney." (And, no, they don't get to choose what else they'd like to call me...) I write my new name on the board--Mrs. Carrabba--and I smile as I wait for someone to figure out my schtick. After the inevitable guesses of, "you really like the Italian chain restaurant?" one excited 15 year old girl usually figures it out. She agrees with me, of course: Chris Carrabba IS dreamy. We simultaneously sigh.

If you didn't know that Chris Carrabba is the lead singer of Dashboard Confessional, that's okay. It just means that 1) you're not 14 and 2) less competition for me =)

So that's been my life for the last 10 years. Now it's this year. About a month into my return-to-college, I realized that I really look forward to Thursdays. That's odd since it's my longest day and I have lots of work due each week for my food chem lab. I finally recognized why it's my favorite day--my lab partner says my name. I don't really get to hear "Heather" much anymore. Many of my profs don't know my name, the students are friendly enough, but don't get too buddy-buddy with the "mom-like" student, and I spend a lot of time in my apartment, where spiders abound, but rarely say my name. My lab partner, though, addresses me as "Heather" during labs. When I realized this, tears came to my eyes (yes, I know that crying during class may not help attract would-be friends...). It makes me sad that people don't know who I am. It also makes me question whether I really know who I am. I went from a city to the country, from friends to strangers, from a teacher to student, from hearing my name repeated ad nauseum to forgetting that I had a name, from happiness to...

Anyway, to all the Harriton kids, I vow to never again complain about hearing "Miss Erney" too often! Unless Chris Carrabba is reading this and has a proposal in mind. =)

PS Thanks, Allen.

As Vision Changes, So Does Perspective

In the last entry, I joked about my pursuit of the perfect backpack. Well, I made it back to Philly last weekend and was contemplating the wall-o-backpacks at EMS. I was excited by the external water bottle holders that would allow for dry lab notebooks and the 20% student discount WITH student ID. Which color should I get? I selected green, but it appeared more gray...That's because my second bout of optic neuritis was commencing...while buying a backpack... so that the 31-year-old student could (kind of) fit in. Geez!

Optic neuritis is a swelling of the optic nerve, caused by Multiple Sclerosis. It was my initial symptom of MS and what prompted my diagnosis eight years ago. Within a few hours, I was in the hospital so that I could get the IV meds I needed ASAP. All this during my second week of school. Ugh.

A million things ran through my mind as I came to terms with what was happening, not the least of which was, "what will my professors think of me?" Will they think I'm a slacker? What if I can't drive back to Ithaca or see to do my homework? Will they fail me? Should I drop out of school right now? I was again reminded of my own students' struggles and their emails to me explaining their extenuating circumstances. I'd wondered if I'd been too harsh with them, too "that's the way the cookie crumbles, you should have planned better." My apologies if that was the case.

At some point, I got a hold of myself and focused on the priorities. #1 was to get the medicine so that I could get physically better within a week or so. #2 was to calm down so that I could get emotionally better within the same time period. #3 was to focus on school and how I going to complete my work. (It was a team effort, by the way. My mom read dough rheology articles aloud to me, the nurses overlooked my laptop, calculator, notebooks, and textbooks as they came in to take my vital signs, and Ms. Demaray scanned my Sensory homework. Thanks!)

After listing priorities, I thought about my perspective. I couldn't see very well, yet in some ways MS helps me to see more clearly than I ever did when I was healthy. And these are things from last weekend that I will likely remember waaaay after my year of grad school has concluded: my goddaughter running up and hugging me as I'm bawling, having a hand to hold during IV insertion, eating non-vegan blueberry pancakes from Perkins in a hospital bed, my parents entering the room and not looking torn-up because, really, we're getting the hang of this MS thing.

Heavy stuff. And now, some not-so-heavy stuff...

Top 5 reasons to love your lab partner:

5. He gets your safety glasses out for you.

4. When you ask, "can I tag along with you to the food science club meeting," not only does he say, "yes," but he makes a point to stand next to you during it. (Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the first meeting of the food science club was standing room only!)

3. After you've messed up, like, 6 times and stalled the lab experiment, he finally screws up and causes a slight delay.

2. He patiently teaches you how to use the micropipet because these convenient technologies were not present in college chem labs back in the 90's.

1. He could have been your student, but he's classy enough not to verbalize this.

A Chemistry Teacher Returns to Studenthood...

I recall one of my writing assignments from Honors English my freshman year of undergrad. We were given the task to "define empathy." If only I could get that same assignment fourteen years later, I'd ace it! I've returned to college after teaching for ten years. I am a student who thinks like a teacher. What does this mean? It means I hear a senior undergrad complain to our lab instructor, "there's too much work in here for a 2 credit class." I immediately think, "stop whining," yet I totally agree with her. It means that I do school work from the time I get home from class (5 pm) until the time I go to bed (~1 am), but I don't drink beer. (Incidentally, presently this suits me just fine, as I have no friends in Ithaca.) It means that, after spending hours on a lab write-up and not being in the mood to edit it, I make myself do it because I'd expect that of my own students. In a larger way than I thought, I feel like this year will be dedicated to them, my former students--the ones who love me (yes, there are a few) and the ones who hate me (I think there are a few more of those...). I've held them to a high standard and they've risen. Here's to holding myself to that same standard. I hope I rise, too.

Some funny moments from my first week:

• A sophomore asked me what year I was. I was so caught off guard that instead of saying, "I'm a grad student," I blurted out, "I'm 31 and have taught high school for the past 10 years." She replied, "wow, you don't look it." After hugging her in my mind many times over, I realized it was probably the adult acne that had thrown her.
• Apparently, Jansport backpacks are no longer "all the rage" as they were back in '96. (Though I fully endorse the brand, as the original from my freshman year is still kickin'.) Now there are lots of REIs and some expensive-looking brand with a fancy label (Swiss Army, perhaps?). I'll confirm the brand next week, as I'm going to scour the stores this weekend until I find one to call my own. I'm not kidding. I want to fit in. If I wore Mom jeans, I'd be swapping those out, too. So far, though, I think I'm holding my own fashion-wise...once I set the backpack down, that is.
• When I explained that I had been out of school for 10 years to a fellow grad student who'd recently arrived from China, she smiled and said, "Oh, are you married?" Oh, wait, wrong list, that's not funny :/

So, here's to putting myself in my students' shoes and making this a terrific school year. I heart Harriton. Soon, I hope to be able to heart Cornell. I'll let you know how it goes after I get my new backpack :)

Cheers,
Heather (formerly known as Miss Erney)