Six COVID-ish Stories That Have Me Feeling Some Kind of Way
1. Going Away For A While
When my daughters were younger, I’d send them off each summer to see their dad. He lived several states away, so there was no Every Other Weekend custody arrangement. For the most equitable purposes, they’d spend half of each summer break with him.
Each time my daughters would leave, their friends were still here, having playdates, going to the mall, and keeping up with their other friendships. There was no Facebook then. There was no Snapchat. No pre-teens with mobile phones, no unlimited data plans. There was no way for them to stay connected. Out of sight, out of mind was very real in the age of N’SYNC.
By the time they got back home, there was barely a week or two to buy school clothes, get new 3-ring binders and pencils, and get back to school. And once they arrived back on campus, they learned a hard lesson; all their friends had forgotten about them. Each year they were shocked that their Best Friend Kylie was now Best Friends with Madison, and they were left having to make friends all over again.
Right now, because I live alone, I feel like I’m away for the whole summer. When this is over, will I still have friends?
2. Fortune Cookies
When I was about 13, I had a recipe for fortune cookies. I think the Young Women’s President in my Mormon church ward gave it to me one Sunday. I remember rolling out the dough and using an empty egg carton to hold the cookies while they dried before baking them. Or maybe it was after they were baked, I can’t remember.
My favorite part was making up the fortunes. I sat down and imagined what my friends would want to hear. I wrote each one down in my spiral notebook, then typed them carefully using my dad’s typewriter. I cut them to just the right size, placed them on the cookie dough, and folded them just so.
If I could write fortunes for all of you right now, they might sound something like “you will be wiser tomorrow,” and “sometimes fucking it all up is exactly the right thing,” and “not all love is obvious.”
I hope you like the cookie, too.
3. The Ethics of Neighborhood Rose Bushes
Last night on my very late-night walk around the block with my 14-year old terrier, I noticed a freshly blooming rose on a bush within my reach. Without even thinking, I reached over, and under the lamplight, carefully felt my way down the stem for a section without thorns, and squeezed my fingers together to break it right off the bush. When I got home, I put it in a glass of water on my nightstand.
This morning, I woke to the glorious scent of rose in the air, and I felt joy. It’s been a long time since I felt blessed by something as simple as that garden-fresh rose.
I understand you might be angry with me for committing midnight grand-theft floral. However, I feel confident that the owner of the rose bush would have let me have it if I’d explained to them how I felt this morning.
4. That Was Supposed To Happen
My oldest daughter, now 27, has a witty response anytime someone tells her that she has food in her teeth, or a crumb on her cheek. She quickly, without hesitation, smirks and says “Thanks. I’m saving that for later.” As if to make sure we know she meant for that to happen.
What if all our missteps, our mishaps, our mistakes, our lapses in what others consider ‘good’ judgment… what if they’re all something we meant to happen?
What are you doing during your time at home that others might think is wrong, but you’re doing intentionally? I stole a rose from the neighbor’s bush at midnight, for crying out loud. I’m deliberately not finishing an online course I began before the Stay at Home orders were enacted. I am eating much more food and exercising much less. I am deliberately shunning my meditation practice because the first two times I tried, I started crying.
When this is over, I may have to re-acquaint myself with vegetables, water, meditation, neighborhood ethics…. but I meant for that to happen.
5. When it Sours
I have fucked up my sourdough starter twice now.
Yes, like every other basic Karen on Instagram, I am using my shelter in place orders to build a sourdough starter. From scratch.
So far, over the course of 10 days, I’ve failed at something that is supposed to be “very easy” according to the experts on YouTube. Once, I put a very, very hot spoon in the sticky mess, and I killed the yeast. For three days it wouldn’t come back to life, so I tossed it and started over. The second time, I put it in my oven with just the oven light on, to keep it warmer, just like the internet said to do. Then, I plumb forgot my starter was incubating in my oven when I pre-heated it to 450° to make pizza.
This last go round, I’ve been more diligent (in part because flour is a pretty hot commodity these days, and I’m pretty sure that if I screw it up this time, no self-respecting grocery store cashier would sell me more flour if I’m just going to piss it away by flubbing up something as useless as a sourdough starter). And even though it looked like it was going to go sideways a few times, I managed to save it by following the instructions of every sourdough expert on the internet: just keep going. It may take longer, but you will get there. Keep going.
Keep going. If that isn’t a metaphor for this time in our lives, then jeez, Karen, I don’t know what is.
6. We Got a Hot Crustacean Band
All through high school, I was on the school’s cheerleading team. By the time I was a senior, we had won the national championship 3 years in a row. We were winners, and we were invincible.
[Editor’s Note: There was a fierce and fighting leader like Monica Aldama long before Navarro College’s Cheer squad showed up on Netflix. His name was Ed Anderson, and he was the life of our cheer squad. He passed away from cancer when I was a senior. RIP Ed. We love you.]
One day early in my senior year, our choreographer came in and announced that this year we would be competing in an additional category; Performance Cheer. This category was for huge halftime performances that were thematically based. They involved costumes and the entire 40-person squad. In other words, we were basically going to be putting on a whole Broadway dance number. No skirts, no poms.
He played the music for us before he began to teach us the blocking and choreography. It was a pieced-together rendition of The Little Mermaid’s Under The Sea, and the girls were all going to be costumed as mermaids or fish, and the guys were all going to be lobsters, a la Sebastian the crab.
Our choreographer was famous in the L.A. circles in the late 80’s. He had worked with Paula Abdul and the Laker Girls, and choreographed Janet Jackson’s What Have You Done For Me Lately music video. We should have thought he was off his rocker, but instead, our blind adoration meant that we smiled and nodded and ooohed and aaaahed everything he brought to us.
In the end, the costume costs and the entrance fees were just too much for our little farm town school to handle, so we scrapped the routine. But to this day when I hear the first 2 stanzas of the song, I can still bust out that kick-ball-change choreography.
It’s okay to start something wacky and different right now. Trust yourself. Right now, you are the only expert on what might work. You don’t have to follow it all the way to the end. But there’s a good chance you‘ll remember bits of it 35 years from now.
The Best Carrot Cake I’ve Ever Made
Here’s my tried-and-true carrot cake recipe just in time for Easter. Even if you’re not celebrating this year, it’s never, ever wrong to have cake. Ever.
INGREDIENTS
CAKE:
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (288 g)
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups sugar (256 g)
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil (335 g)
3 cups grated carrots (roughly 2-4 carrots, depending on size.
1 cup chopped pecans, optional
CREAM CHEESE FROSTING:
2 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
1 stick salted butter, softened, 1/2 cup
1 (16-ounce) box confectioners sugar
Pinch salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup chopped pecans
INSTRUCTIONS
Chop pecans and grate carrots before starting the cake batter. Set aside.
Preheat oven to 350° F. Spray 3 (9") round cake pans with cooking spray; line bottoms of pans with a circle of parchment paper. Spray the paper with cooking spray (just to be safe). Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, and sugar. Add eggs and vegetable oil and beat with a hand mixer until well combined. Using a rubber spatula, fold in the carrots and pecans. Pour into cake pans.
Bake for approximately 40 minutes. Remove from oven and cool for 5 minutes on a wire rack. Remove cakes from pans; gently peel off the paper then place cakes on waxed paper to cool completely on a rack before frosting.
FROSTING:
In a mixing bowl and using a mixer, beat the cream cheese, butter, vanilla, and salt until smooth. Gradually, beat in the confectioners sugar (you may need to do this in 3-4 additions) until smooth and fluffy.
Frost between cake layers, on the sides, and on top of cake. Garnish top as desired with the pecans. Store in the refrigerator.