When I am asked whether I want to drink chocolate milk or regular milk, I don’t understand the question.
Where I’m from, plain milk is an ingredient, something to stir chocolate into or blend with fruit to make a licuado.
The question feels like a prank, but when I look around the cafeteria, half the kids are drinking from red and white cartons.
Soon I will learn that this cafeteria is technically called a “cafetorium.” I will savor this word for years, thinking it cosmopolitan––maybe the original Latin?––before learning that it is really just a portmanteau for cafeteria and auditorium, a way for public schools to cut costs. My school is full of franken-words like this––cafetorium, spork––and when I learn them I feel second-hand embarrassment, like maybe the U.S. is not the sophisticated place I had imagined it to be.
In Mexico, everything seemed fancier if it came from the U.S. Please, my cousins and I begged our mothers, please make eslopi yos. When my aunt finally did, I struggled to choke down the saccharine saucy meat that I’d so idealized when I saw it in a movie about summer camp where the kids ate at long wooden tables. It’s too sweet to be lunch but too meaty to be dessert, I thought, trying to categorize the flavor of my first sloppy joe.
Fast-forward and here I was, in a real American cafeteria, at my own long table, eating from a squeaky styrofoam tray and drinking chocolate milk from a thin square carton, trying to ignore the taste of paper that came with every sip.
This week Devin and I drove my mom home to Texas and drove back to Wisconsin with one of her dogs, who is now our official pandemic support pet. Here’s a little blurb I wrote about her impact on our lives and her “storied” lineage.
Chloe is a rescue who is rumored to be a long-lost descendant of ’90s superstar Wishbone. Despite her uncanny resemblance to the PBS Kids storyteller, Chloe harbors ambitions that are decidedly less literary. Her biggest dream in life is to fight the big dogs—and win.
When she’s not preparing for battle, she enjoys curling up on someone’s lap or laying on little pillows. (Here she is, curled up like a donut on our friend Emma’s lap.)
I think dogs are the best pandemic role models because they love staying home, going on walks, stretching, and relaxing, which are all things I want to keep loving, too. I feel so lucky that we get to keep living with such a good role model.
My mom just left, after being here for a week, and my heart is so full. My head is also full, with the realization that I am just like my mother. I could illustrate this point with a million anecdotes, but let’s just talk about ducks. My mom is really into ducks, and when I say she’s “into ducks” what I mean is that she likes to eat dead ones. And somehow eating duck meat has become associated with Devin and me in her brain? It started when she came to visit us for Thanksgiving in 2013 and we ended up at a tiny Thai restaurant on the Upper West Side on Black Friday. “I’m going to get the duck,” she proclaimed. After dinner, she said, “That was the best duck ever, ever, ever.” And now, when the three of us are together, my mom remembers the Best Duck Ever and takes us to a Thai restaurant where she invariably orders the duck.
The funniest part about it is that she doesn’t eat duck meat all the time. When my mom and I hang out without Devin, she usually eats whatever I eat. But when we are all together, eating duck is A Thing. I suppose it’s our family tradition, which is weird because Devin and I are vegetarian.
My mom and a plate of duck at a Thai restaurant, 2017
This year Wisconsin upped the ante on our tradition because Devin and my mom found a raw duck in a little local grocery store in his hometown, where we spent Thanksgiving. They found the duck on Black Friday, and my mom thought it would be a nice gesture to cook it and share it with Devin’s family as a thank-you for hosting us. Except guess what. Practically nobody in Devin’s family eats duck. So we came back to Madison with a frozen duck and no idea how to cook it. Last night we found a recipe and cooked it in the slow-cooker after a very dramatic duck chopping session (we learned the hard way that quartering a duck does not require cutting through its spine. OK, OK, all I did was read the WikiHow page out loud as far away from the whole process as I could be, but it still feels like something we did together). Earlier tonight, Devin and I were staring at the yet-to-be-washed slow-cooker remembering our duck adventure, and he said, “You and your mom are a lot alike,” which is exactly what I was thinking. I mean, I don’t make duck, but there is this beet recipe with pomegranate seeds and pistachios. I have fed it to everyone I know. I make it for Devin at least once a year, even though Devin has never expressed any preference for these beets and would probably prefer that I stopped. But when it is November, and I see pomegranates for sale, I am overcome by the conviction that it is Time for the Beets, and I have to make them. Of course, before beet season, it’s You’ve Got Mail season, which again does not seem to be important to anyone but me, and yet I regularly watch You’ve Got Mail with all my friends. OH. There was also the time that I ended up at a Christmas tree lighting in downtown Portland, singing carols with five of my friends, none of whom had any interest in Christmas trees or Christmas carols, but I was so excited that they didn’t have the heart to tell me that they didn’t want to go (I didn’t realize they weren’t that into it until I asked my friend Alison why she wasn’t singing, and she said, “Actually, I’m Jewish”). That’s the thing about genuine excitement, isn’t it? It’s contagious. It makes you do things that you might not do otherwise. Devin and I don’t have any interest in eating duck, and we definitely had no desire to cook it. But my mom loves to eat duck with us. She really loves it. And so, in a weird way, we love it, too.
Sometimes I remember something that feels good to remember, and I have to write it down.
Like the time Devin and I rode home from Philadelphia on the Megabus. It was summer. I was wearing a sundress. And the A/C was turned up so high that I couldn’t feel my feet. My eyes were frozen grapes. My goosebumps had goosebumps, which had goosebumps, which had even more goosebumps––generations of goosebumps on all my limbs. I covered myself with everything in reach (my backpack, Devin’s backpack, his button-down shirt), but I was powerless against the cold. And I knew that just outside the window, it was hot. Sunny, sweaty, sniff-check-your-deodorant hot.
This cold was a man-made problem! It could be fixed with the turn of a dial. If only I could get to the driver’s seat… I pictured myself a spy: Kim Possible minus the cargo pants on a mission to turn down the A/C while the driver fumbled with the radio. But Devin napped the whole way back, and I was in the window seat. Powerless.
We got off the bus in Chelsea, which was convenient because we could catch the 2 train right there and ride it home to Brooklyn. The bus dropped us off right at the subway stop, and we started to go down the stairs, but I was cold. I was still so cold, and I knew the train would also be blasting the A/C. I turned back to look at Devin, who was oblivious to the whole thing. Angry New Yorkers scowled at us for holding up traffic on the subway stairs. I yelled, “No! I am not getting into another air-conditioned vehicle! I would rather walk home!”
And Devin, who had no idea that I had transformed into the world’s worst enemy of air-cooling technology while he slept, said, “Sure, we can walk home.”
We could have been home in 40 minutes, but instead, we walked 2 and a half hours. It felt exactly right.
Recently, I joined a writing group with a reward/punishment system to create accountability. It started out simply enough. We each had to create punishments to give ourselves in the event that we did not meet our weekly writing goal (most had to do with bringing snacks for everyone else in the group). But then someone had the idea to ring a shame bell every time someone failed to meet their goal. And someone else decided that it would boost morale if people got to ring a success bell every time they did meet their goals. So we unwittingly became a writing group centered around ringing bells and snacks. No, the Pavlovian connotations are not lost on me. Yes, I am cringing a little. No, I won’t give up the bells or the snacks, thank you very much. The man was clearly on to something. This week two of our members had to drop out of the writing group, and when I heard the news, my first thought was, “But how will they write without bells?” I made it my mission to find some for them, and luckily, I found a whole shelf of bells at the thrift store. The hard part, it turns out, is not finding bells but finding bells that don’t commemorate a significant wedding anniversary. Most of them say 25th Anniversary or have 50 written in huge gold cursive letters, and why is that? Were they gifts exchanged by couples to symbolize their undying devotion? After all, nothing says love like, “You can ring this bell anytime you need something but don’t want to get out of bed.” (Maybe this seems particularly romantic to me because it’s cold in the mornings now, and the thought of being able to ring a bell and have Devin bring me a warm fluffy robe to make getting out of bed slightly less painful, makes me want to fast-forward to our twenty-fifth anniversary tout de suite, even though, now that I’ve admitted this, I’m pretty sure I’ll never get an anniversary bell.) My other theory is that these bells were gifts for guests at anniversary parties––ceramic precursors to the dreaded-but-somehow-omnipresent commemorative t-shirts. (What’s the deal with those? Related: what happens to shirts that commemorate something that doesn’t end up happening.) I don’t think we know enough about the fine American tradition of commemorative consumer goods, and maybe that should be your next writing project? Let me know. I’ll send you your bells.
I. I walked into a dining room full of tables with people sitting and talking and asking others to pass the salt. The whole scene reminded me of the fancy restaurant I used to work at on Sundays during the brunch rush, only the people at the soup kitchen actually seemed to be enjoying their food. It was my job to help serve in a buffet line. That’s where I met an older gentleman who said to me, “Hello, I’ve come for my lobster” and smiled. I asked him if he wanted a whole one, and he said, “Oh, yes, of course.” After he’d gone through the whole line and gotten beef, potatoes, salad, and fruit, he turned back to me and said, “Merci beaucoup” with a wink.
Part of a mural near the soup kitchen.
It reminded me so much of Abbita, my grandmother. When she had to get a walker to help her get around, she called it her Rolls-Royce with a smile. She lived in a comfortable little apartment, and I never heard her ask for anything, not a new TV or a fancy anything. Like the man I met last week, she seemed to know that you don’t have to have the best, biggest, or newest fill-in-the-blank to be happy, and it doesn’t matter what’s on your plate as long as you have enough to eat and good people to share it with.
Part of a mural near the soup kitchen.
Right now, as I write this in a coffee shop, I am listening to a couple talk about how they are going to get a $6,700 couch because it is the absolute best. The world is fascinating.
II. This morning I was having a terrible day. I set an alarm, but it didn’t go off, and it seemed like all my plans were ruined, and I might as well go live off the land all by myself because there was no way I would ever be a productive member of society. I decided I might as well go eat a bagel on the promenade because it was sunny, and I might as well say goodbye to the skyline before running away to live in the forest. I was walking there, wishing I’d been smart enough to buy something to drink with my bagel, when I heard, “Cupcakes and hot cocoa for sale! All proceeds benefitting the Malala Foundation!” The two little girls were about seven years old, and I could tell it had all been their idea, everything from the sign to the cupcakes was clearly made by them, and they smiled really big when they talked about Malala. The hot cocoa wasn’t really hot anymore, but it’s the best thing I’ve had all week. When I paid the market-rate price ($5) instead of their ridiculously low asking price ($1)––didn’t their parents teach them to do market research?––their jaws dropped, and I realized all my missed plans had been worth it.
New York, today.
P.S. I worked at the soup kitchen for a couple of hours last week. I say “work” instead of “volunteer” because there was something in it for me (who do you think I am, some kind of altruistic chump?). Devin and I shop at a food coöp, where our groceries are very, very cheap. In return, we have to volunteer once a month. There are lots of jobs you can do in-store, like being a cashier (the prices are low because most of the labor is done by members), but there are also jobs you can do outside the store, like volunteering at the soup kitchen.
The other night, two of our favorite neighbors came over for dinner. He is the youngest member of the New York Bromeliad Society, and she is a therapist from England, whose mom happens to be from upstate New York.
‘Where in New York?’, I asked and when she said Poughkeepsie, I said, ‘Oh! I love Poughkeepsie!’
‘You’ve been there?’, Devin asked.
‘Well, no, but it’s in my favorite movie…sort of. Actually, it’s not my favorite movie’, I quickly tried to take it back, but it was too late. Soon I was doing my best Carrie voiceover: ‘And just like that Charlotte Poughkeepsie’d. In her pants.’ I don’t normally like potty humor, but in the movie I interpret it as cosmic punishment for her racism. Poetic justice at its finest!
Then, I had to explain how there are certain movies I like to watch in certain seasons.
In the fall I watch the transition season classic You’ve Got Mail and turn up the volume for the dial-up internet connection sounds of yore. Beep-beep-beep-beeeep-dooo-bee-doowoh-shhhhhshshshshshgrsh! I first watched You’ve Got Mail when I was nine years old and obsessed with AOL Kids chat rooms, so it’s really special to me.
I forget about them the rest of the year, but as soon as it’s December, I long to watch A Charlie Brown Christmas and Love Actually. They are the Christmas gifts I give myself every year. I also love the live-action Grinch, primarily for the costumes and set design, but some years I skip that one because it’s long, and no one else likes to watch it.
In spring, I watch You’ve Got Mail again! I can’t help myself. It has the best descriptions of spring and fall in New York, and I’m astounded every time that I live so close to where it was filmed. If my nine year-old self could be here now, she would bemoan the state of chat rooms today and then go get a sandwich at Barney Greengrass. I’m pretty much exactly the same person I was then, come to think of it. Anyway, right now in New York, we are smack dab in the middle of spring, fast approaching the scene where Brinkley tugs on Joe Fox’s jacket, if you know what I mean. Most people don’t, unfortunately, but I assume they do because I’ve been reading Hey Natalie Jean for years, which is in essence a website about You’ve Got Mail disguised as a personal blog. Really. I can’t even link to all the posts about You’ve Got Mail because there are too many, so I will just link to my favorite. I happen to think I am married to a Frank, though he emphatically does not self-identify as a Frank (though isn’t it just like a Frank to be so emphatic about it?). I think I’m a Patricia! Again, this probably means nothing to you. I should move on.
The famed library
Soon it will be summer, and I will watch Sex and the City the feature-length movie precisely once. Fun fact: I spent the summer of 2012 doing freelance work from the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building of the New York Public Library and got to hear tourists discussing Carrie Bradshaw in every language.
Now I am wondering why in the world I thought this merited a blog post and whether you have any seasonal movies yourself?
Today is Mexican Independence Day. I started the day thinking about papel picado, yelling ‘¡Viva México! (¡Viva!), fireworks, and mariachis. Then, I over-thought it. What does independence mean? IS Mexico independent? I thought about imperialism—how almost all the foods sold at the Oxxo are American-owned, how practically the only commercials on TV for Mexican companies are the ones for Televisa itself. I thought about immigration—the friends Devin and I made who can’t visit us here, the friend in Texas who couldn’t go to her mom’s funeral. I thought about the drug cartels and ‘la inseguridad’.
And then I was like nope, not today. Today’s not for dwelling. It’s for celebrating. Even better, today could be for dreaming. And so I present unto you kristy’s solution to all of Mexico’s problems.
The solution is chamoy. Yes, I believe that a condiment is the answer. Hear me out.
Chamoy was created from Chinese dried pickled plums way back in the 1800s when the Chinese workers who built the railroad in California were kicked out of the US by the very government that benefitted from their labor (sound familiar?). The Mexican government was all, ‘Sure you can come over, bring food!’ Clearly I don’t know the specifics, but I imagine some people tried the plums and thought, ‘You know what would make this better? Chile piquín’. and thus was created a sauce in which spicy, sour, salty, and sweet flavors enhanced each other. A food with the potential to become the ultimate symbol of harmony.
Most people I’ve met outside Mexico have never tried chamoy. I always assumed it would be too much for people who weren’t used to it, but I was wrong. On our honeymoon, Devin and I ate lots of fruit with chamoy, and he declared that everyone should eat watermelon with chamoy because it is so much better.
We brought a big bottle back and have been revolutionizing our friends’ palates for the past two months. Everyone loves it. We took it to a church picnic last Sunday, and yesterday a womyn in our pew whispered, ‘I haven’t stopped thinking about that watermelon all week!’
I propose that Mexico makes chamoy its number-one export. Once people try it, they’ll love it, and it will be in very high demand. Drug users will decide it’s soooo much better than drugs, and the cartels will go out of business. The economy will be so buoyed that there will be plenty of legitimate jobs for everyone. Instead of narcocorridos, bands will sing chamoycorridos about the thrill of eating and sharing chamoy. Everyone will be so inspired by the harmony of flavors within chamoy that world leaders will decide barriers are bogus, and that life is better when we can all move as freely as chamoy spilling on a kitchen counter. All borders will be taken down, even the U.S.-Mexico border. And no Mexicans will have to migrate to have a better life, but anyone will be able to move anywhere without the fear of having to leave behind the world’s greatest sauce.
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