Unhand Those Name Brands Fool!

“Whoa.” Number One’s eyes bugged out of his head as he peered into the brown bags the Turk dropped on the kitchen counter. Immediately, he called for his brother. “Yo Nug! Get down here! You gotta see this.”

Nugget bounded down the stairs with the heft of a man well beyond his 60 pounds. When he saw the goods Number One was uncovering, he too stopped in his tracks. “What the hell?” (I’ve tried, really, I have, but Nugget has a fondness for profanity and hell is his most pedestrian choice.)

“Can it, boys.” I could feel my blood pressure rising as my cheeks heated up and my jaw began to twitch. How could the Turk do something this reckless? Clearly, he had a death-wish. Lucky for him, the subzero New England temperatures meant the ground was frozen solid so digging a shallow grave for him was inpossible.

Nugget turned towards me, clutching a massive jar of Jiff peanut butter to his chest like a security blanket. “Mom? Are we rich now?”

“That’s what I was thinking!” Number One chided. “I mean, come on Mom, this is so not normal.” He pulled every item from the bags with a vintage Price Is Right girl hand flourish. “Ortega tortillas? Pace salsa? Who are we?”

That was the question. Who in the hell were we? While the jury seemed to be out at this point, I knew who we weren’t. We definitely were not the kind of people who consume name brand groceries. It has only been due to recent pandemic shortages that we have become the kind of family who pampers themselves with a high falutin brand like Charmin and as soon as supplies return to normal those days will be gone. 

While my family has long called me a cheap ass, I prefer the term frugal. It’s not that I favor lesser quality goods, rather, I firmly believe that 98% off all store brand goods are exactly the same as their big money, name brand shelfmates. Why pay more for a fancy label? Years ago, I read an article about how the supermarket Aldi contracts with big-name producers to package their goods in Aldi packaging. General Mills makes a batch, then slaps a Cheerios label on half and a Crispy Oats label on the other half. Same goods, half the price. Frugal.

Through many phases of life, I’ve been broke. (I had a career in the arts, then became an expat. Not big wealth builders.) I also spent a large chunk of my childhood with a Depression era grandma. These things teach you how to make the most of less. Frugal, not cheap. But the only way to stay frugal is to keep tight reins on the groceries and never let The Turk do the shopping.

However, last week I slipped. I didn’t want to go out in the snow to get my groceries and the Turk, volunteered. 

“I go to Home Depot in morning so I can stop and get grocery. Just give me list and I get it.” 

 Now, In the beginning of the pandemic my asthmatic ass wasn’t risking the food store so the Turk took care of things. (While it looked like a chivalrous move, really, he was terrified I’d get Covid and he’d be in charge of the kids.) His shopping was bad but there were lots of empty shelves and shortages so I took what I could get and let him off the hook….except for the 5 pound jar of mayo he thought was a good deal (we rarely eat mayo) and the industrial sized can of green beans he panic bought. Oh, and then there was the Dorito debacle. By the end of May I had 7 bags of store brand Doritos in my pantry. No one in our house likes Doritos.

“Honey, why do you keep buying these chips? No one eats them and now we have 7 bags.”

“They are on list.”

“No, they’re not. Why would I put something on the list nobody eats?”

“You say nacho chips on list every week. Look at bag. It say nacho cheese chips – aka nacho chips.” 

“No. I mean chips FOR nachos.”

“That is not what you write so that is not what I buy.”

Somehow the great Dorito Debacle slipped from memory when my husband offered to grab the groceries. I made the foolish assumption that he would know enough to at least, go to the requested store, and remember his wife does not pay double price for name brand groceries. I wrote the Turk a detailed list with every item in order of where he would find it in the store. It was a shopper’s dream. He literally had to stop at Aldi, roll through the store and grab my 35 items. I even gave him an estimated price. 

So, imagine my shock, after all that planning, when I saw 7 bags of name brand groceries sitting on my kitchen floor with a receipt for three times his estimated price.

“What the hell did you do?”

“I go Walmart. That list was mess. I was running all over store. Why you not put it in order like usual?”

“IT WAS! What in the hell were you doing at Walmart?!? You literally drove 15 miles out of your way to go to Walmart.”

“I know. Why you say go there?”

“I didn’t!!!!”

“No?”

“No. I said ALDI! I gave you a list for ALDI. I must have said ALDI like 50 times!”

“I do not hear you.”

Steam was spewing from my ears. “Plus, you know name-brands are not allowed. We can’t risk the kids getting accustomed to this kind of lifestyle. What were you thinking?”

Nugget jumped in front of him with half of a Nature Valley granola bar hanging from his mouth. “Don’t listen to her Baba! Don’t you dare listen to her!”

“No worries there, Nugget. Why would he start listening to me now?” I screamed, slamming a container of Morton salt on the counter before storming out.

For the past week I’ve had to listen to them gush about the freshness of Jiff and the creamy goodness of Cabot cheddar. Enjoy it while you can fools. Next week it’s back to cheese from the Happy Farms and Peanut Delight Creamy. Mama runs this show and you will never see name brands again. Happy shopping!

Of Chipped Teeth and Chicken Bones…

“Be honest, is it bad?” I gingerly grinned at the Turk, exposing my front tooth.

He bent down, tilted his head left and right. “It is not that bad. I mean, it is not good but I think no one notice if you don’t tell.”

I ducked into the 1^st floor powder room, the one with the fabulous purple walls and paintings of cats in trucker hats, and immediately began practicing my new closed-mouth smile. I looked like I was seven years-old but it was either this new no-teeth-revealed grin or the possibility of death. Pandemic choices suck.

The route I’d taken to this moment was nothing short of a tour in stupidity led by no one but me. For the majority of my life I’ve danced over the line between vegetarian and mild omnivore on the reg. I’ll be a solid veg-head for years until one day mama needs meat. The problem is, when I come off the veg wagon, I go hard and scarf down meat like a T-Rex on a bender. No surprise, 2020 pushed me over the edge and suddenly, Mama’s raging on a meat bender. 

So, when my darling son left his plate of chicken wings unattended last Friday, Mama-Rex couldn’t help but snag one. But honestly, who can say no the hot, juicy, greasy joy of a Buffalo wing? Not this chunky gal, that’s for sure. As I shoved that wing into my salivating mouth and bit down I was ready for the burst of sweet, spicy pleasure to take over. (Is this why people do drugs? Oh lord, am I a buffalo wing junkie?) But instead of joy my body immediately filled with horror. I felt the crack. Then the chip. Then that terrifying feeling that you’ve just bit down on a rock. I rushed to my purple powder room to inspect the damage only to find a solid chip out of my front tooth. My fat ass chipped a damn tooth trying to steal a chicken wing. The irony was not lost on me at all.

Thoughts of Mama Cass flooded my psyche. (If you don’t know Mama Cass you’re a child. Goog her. She’s a legend.) Perhaps it’s an urban legend that she died choking on a chicken bone but my maternal grandmother Dink always warned, “be careful eating that chicken, you don’t want to end up like Mama Cass.”  Ok, so Mama Cass ended up dead and I only had a chipped chomper but I felt connected to that woman 100%.

“What am I going to do?” I whined to the Turk moments after the incident.

“I guess you have to go to dentist.”

“Obvi, but what about the ‘Rona?” 

“I guess we trust they take care.” He was very unconvincing. Partially because he isn’t really a fan our dentist and partially because he was standing on a ladder in the bathroom trying to rewire the exhaust fan simultaneously. My chipped tooth was of little interest to him. Thankfully his electrical work prevented him from asking for a blow by blow of the incident. I had no need to confess to my husband how I had really committed this atrocity.

Hesitant, I left an after-hours message with the dentist and prepared myself for a Monday appointment. But by Sunday I wasn’t feeling it. Was it chipped? Yes. Did it look bad? Oh, hells yeah. But I’d had a root canal on the same tooth years ago after taking a Thomas the Tank Engine to the front tooth by a post-surgical Nugget so there was no health danger. Was I ready to sit in an office, mouth open, sucking in germs during a pandemic with an airborne virus just to get it fixed? Maybe not. Perhaps I would just never open my mouth again. Practical right? At least I might finally lose that quarantine fifteen.

Sunday night I had fitful sleep. In my dreams Steve Martin was reprising his role of the sadistic dentist from Little Shop of Horrors above me while Covid germs permeated the air and catapulted themselves into my gaping mouth. I’d wake from one nightmare, walk around to brush it off, then return to pick up with another. I died at least three times that night and was near death more than I could count. By the time I woke up, I was convinced that this chipped tooth was going to be my death sentence. Was I really prepared to leave my beautiful babies to suffer through a future with The Turk? He can barely get them dinner when I leave it in the Crock-Pot.

As we sipped our coffee, I dropped the bomb. “I can’t go. If I go to the dentist I will die.”

“I agree.” He took a long sip from his little Yoda mug. That’s the thing about marriage, while being opposites is great, it’s always good to have a spouse that shares your same level of crazy.  

He put Yoda back on the counter, “I think it ok you can wait. We are red zone. It is very dangerous to go now. Plus, you see nobody but us and if you go out, you wear mask. No one can see.”

My Turk made a very good point. This whole mask thing could be my vanity’s savior. While maskholes argue about fabric face coverings impeding their personal freedoms, I’ve always been all in because: 1: I believe in science. 2. I believe in protecting society and 3. Most importantly, those masks hide a double chin like nobody’s business, and I will take that all day long. Now, as an added bonus that mask is going to hide my snaggle tooth until this virus subsides enough for me to get to the dentist. 

After some practice in the purple powder room mirror, I’ve resigned myself to my new look. I’m sure it would be considered nothing in some places (I’m lookin’ at you Kentucky, ) just know that the minute we are no longer in a danger zone, my ass is in that dentist chair.

2020, the year that just keeps giving.

I Can’t Dig It

If one were to dig through decades of public records, I assume no less than 75% of all divorce decrees site the reason for dissolving said union as “home maintenance project.” Over the past days, the Turk and I nearly joined that crowd. Fortunately, his final jab of the shovel revealed the treasure we’d nearly killed each other to find, a septic tank lid.

Let me start from the beginning of our descent into the seven circles of hell. One of the many joys of our little house in the woods (like falling trees and raccoon invasions,) was that it came with a septic system rather than the luxury of a public sewer system to which we city dwellers are accustomed. The Turk and I were septic tank virgins prior to this purchase but he designed wastewater treatment plants back in Turkey and now spends his days talking about things like leeching fields, bio-solids and sludge removal, and I’m a Google queen so we could handle it. The thing we didn’t know was to ask for the exact geographical location of the tank lid before signing the final papers, which seemed like no big whoop, until it was time to pump.

Calling the septic man was on my to-do list since fall but it only ever crept into my consciousness at 3:00 in the morning when a random toilet flush seeming to glug more than normal caused me to imaging my septic system exploding and waking to find the remnants covering my homestead. However, once I returned to dreamland, all worries were forgotten. Fortunately, I saw the pooper-scooper at the neighbors’ last week and stuck while the iron was hot. I was on the horn getting a poop-pointment within minutes. There was only one problem, where was the tank lid?

The septic man assured me locating the tank was simple and a map could be found on page 15 of a report he guaranteed was in our closing documents. It wasn’t. Then he told me I could get the map from the Department of Health. I couldn’t. They’re closed for Covid. The Turk was certain he knew where it was and began to randomly dig in the general vicinity. I managed to watch him dig random holes for only a few minutes before I hid. I had no need to witness his descent into madness.

Hours before the poop-truck was due to arrive, the septic man texted me a map he’d managed to secure from…somewhere. Though I was thankful for this crumb, the map looked like Nugget had drawn it. It had no key to tell me which direction it faced and no scale. The only writing on the map was the word ‘deck’ scrawled on a rectangle. We have 3 decks, ask in the vicinity of said buried treasure.

With map in hand, I tried a low-scale search and recovery mission in the opposite direction of where the Turk had dug the first 50 holes. When I came up empty, the Turk decided to try his hand. Again, I ran for cover because I knew where this was heading when suddenly I heard, “Honey! I think I found it!”

In mutual madness we dug in tandem around the red concrete circle hidden in our yard. (If you’re following along, there are now 2 areas of the yard excavated.) Success. It was right where the new 1st grade quality map said it would be…until it wasn’t. As we neared the edges, we found this was only a concrete disc. Someone literally buried a 2’ concrete circle, painted red, in our yard for no apparent reason other than to screw with us. (Or perhaps it was to mark a shallow grave. It could go either way but I stopped digging just in case.)

Dejected, I canceled the poop truck and we returned to digging holes where the Turk was certain the tank should be following industry logic. “Why it is not here? Pipe comes out here. Outlet for effluent is 16 inches from here….pipe must be 10 feet. It has to be right here. Where it is? What the hell?”

Worried I was going to either lose my husband’s sanity or my yard, I dialed up the previous owners. Surely they would know exactly where it is right? No.

“I think….it might be….you know what, I’ll see if we have a map.”

Moments later I received a map. This map was likely drawn by a 2^nd grader because it had straight lines, but still no words. It was dated 1973 and it showed the septic to be in a completely different location –the front yard.  Give me strength.

“I think it’s next to the fence,” came along with the second map. Armed with this new information, Number 1 Son and I decided it would be an easy find. The Turk was out on a grocery run and we planned to gloat about our success upon his return. That didn’t happen.

We dug the entire area in front of fence. We dug up bushes. We dug 3 feet down because Google said sometimes that happens. We dug to the driveway. We dug to the steps. We even managed to dig up some kind of wire we shouldn’t have but in none of that did we find a freaking septic tank. After 2 hours of digging the 12 year-old and I were exhausted and empty handed.

This continued for another 3 hours when the Turk got home. Our yard looked like a scene from the movie Holes. I was near tears and the Turk was near meltdown so we called in a friend who works in plumbing to help. He did the measuring thing. He did the map thing. Then he joined us. “What the hell? This is crazy. Is has to be right here. Where could it be?” His validation was just what the Turk needed.

“That is what I say. How it is not here?”

After another hour of measuring pipes, following lines and trying not to fall in any of the holes now pocking our property, greatness finally struck. What was listed on the drawing as a deck wasn’t a deck. It had been converted into a mudroom years ago making all our measurements – WRONG.  The digging started again but now in a different location and after removing all of the soil from the foundation and coming up empty, yet again, the Turk jabbed the shovel into the corner for safe keeping. CLUNK.

4 days, 2 maps, 5 grown-ups, 1 kid and that damn lid was on the corner of our house, covered only by gravel, right where no one would ever expect it to be.

Much beer was consumed after that clunk and when the poop man pulled up the driveway (after nearly driving into the ravine) the next day, I would’ve hugged that pooper-scooper were it not for the social distancing thing…and the fact that he seemed to have some of his work on him. As further validation, he also confirmed that lid was in the last place he’d have expected too.

We’re good to flush for at least another year or two and next time there will be no search because I’ve painted it orange. (Like I’d ever forget now.)  We managed to salvage our marriage once the holes were filled and I learned something important. Should I ever need to dig a shallow grave, it will take me about an hour but I can get ‘er done. However, I will need some Advil the next day.

 

I Shall Rule From My She-Fort

When I was a kid, I loved all things Little House on the Prairie. I wanted a big sister who could braid my locks like Mary. I too had a whiney little turd sibling like Carrie and of course, being the overlooked middle child, Laura and I were simpatico.  I read all of the books (more than once) and like any woman now on the back-end of her 40’s, I settled in once a week to get down and dirty with the Real Prairie Wives of Walnut Grove. (Mrs. Olsen was pretty trashy under those tight curls.) But while there was madness with goats, fires and random blindness, the Ingalls family functioned pretty well in their little cabin removed from society, much like my own.

I’m also sure there was an episode when Ma and the entire family had to shelter in place due to a horrible virus that came from China. (That I’m sure was transmitted because Mrs. Olsen demanded they order Chinese silk for the general store. Hag) The one-room schoolhouse was forced to swap over to poorly planned e-learning leaving Ma Ingalls at home to school her own children and homestead simultaneously while being forced to rely on Pa to shop for necessities. I’m also sure that Pa Ingalls may have sucked at the task but when he forgot to get the coconut milk and brought home sourdough instead of rye, Ma made do but she was pretty pissed. (You guys remember that too right? No? Am I projecting?)

Each week as I carefully construct my alphabetized grocery list, organized by aisle to insure success, and send the Turk off into the wild with little more than a ninja mask to protect him, I feel a little Ma Ingalls. As soon as the Turk returns to the homestead with bags full of quality soy crumbles, kale and the occasional Oreo for balance, immediately I interrogate him. “Was it crowded? Were people wearing masks? Did you stay away from humanity? Were there stupid people crying about needing a haircut like on TV? Tell me everything.” I am literally dying to know what the world is like during this apocalypse.

Why? Because I have barely left this house since mid-March and while I am a major fan of this whole self-isolation thing, as are all career homebodies, I’m getting a little restless.  Way back in March, when the world blew up and it all hit the fan, my darling husband locked me down. “You stay home and I will do it. Just give me list and I can go to stores. You cannot. If I get sick, I can be fine but you cannot. You have asthma and you cannot even breathe like normal person anyway. You get the Corona, you can die. We cannot risk you to die.” And while it was a bit psycho, I know my darling hubby and I know that overprotective, paranoid, psychosis is his love language and protecting me from the horrible virus is his version of stepping in front of a shooter for me.  So for the past two months, he has Rapunzeled my ass in the tower until the plague passes.

Sure, I’ve been busy working from home, educating my little half-breed Turks, doing all the other crap mothers do to keep their family alive and more, but recently I’ve been jonesing to dip my toes into the societal waters for a minute, just to see what’s going on beyond my tree-lined view. However, Pa Turk said no. He hitched up the Cherokee, pulled on his bandit mask and said, “Not yet. Stupid people are everywhere. You cannot risk it. You can die.” And just like Ma Ingalls, I stood on the front deck waving as he headed off into the wilds of suburbia to bring home the tofu.

I understand his point of view but as an independent old broad, I really just want to take care of things myself. I want to choose my own cheeses and grimace at the old lady who cut me in line at the check-out. I want to feel that familiar disappointment when I look at the Target women’s department and roll my eyes at some moron taking up two parking spaces at the wine store. I only need like an hour, but I want to experience society for a little while just to remind me why I choose the reclusive life.  Just about the time I was thinking of breaking out, Pa Turk did something brilliant. He gave me a new fortress from which to rein to quell my need for fresh vistas.

If you’re a regular reader, you know that my engineer husband took our children’s request for a “tree-house” or even a “tree-fort” and turned it into a massive feat of aerial engineering. In case you missed it, here’s the tale. Anyhoo, after a year of waiting for the Turk to add the steps so that they could actually enter the structure 12 feet above their heads, it has happened. The Turk finally finished the tree fort. (Or as he quantified, Phase 1 is done. There’s more to come.)

I sent a friend photos of my view from the new fort and she wisely pointed out it should not be a tree-fort, but rather, a SHE-fort and I should claim it as my own. Utter brilliance! She-fort indeed! Mama has a new domain from which to gaze at the bogs, watch sunset over the wetlands and sip merlot all while two little Turks armed with Nerf guns stand sentinel.

Farewell society. Pa Turk will continue to do my bidding for a while longer while I ride out the next phase of the pandemic in my She-Fort. Ma Ingalls might not have had a she-fort, but she damn well deserved one. Amirite???? Stay safe friends!

I Shall Be The Quarantine Queen

Stay home. Avoid people. Socially distance yourself. Spend copious time in stretch fabrics and fuzzy slippers. Order in and have groceries delivered. I HAVE BEEN TRAINING FOR THIS FOR MY WHOLE LIFE. I shall be the Queen of Quarantine.

We’re in a weirdo space right now. It kind of feels like being stuck in Jello. Every morning we get up and brace for the damage report and every night we lay in bed waiting for the anxiety to fade.  But over here in our little 1400 square feet of heaven, we’ve got it under control.

On the first floor, I’ve spent the past week busily stress baking and then following that up with stress eating said baked goods. Cakes, pies, brownies, an obscene array of cookies and today I moved on to breads. If the carbs were not enough, there have been soups from lentil to tomato and dinners including such classics as lasagna and falafel, and mousakka and makarna. (PS – there is no better time to be a vegetarian family than when all you crazy carnivores are storming the meat department pre-quarantine. Ain’t nobody whipping tofu off the shelf or grabbin’ soy crumbles from my basket. We are livin’ the dream. ICYMI – here’s how I fooled my family into the veg life. ) I literally cannot stop. Any good shrink would say this excessive kitchen self-flagellation is my attempt to show love and protection to the men who live here but I don’t know…maybe I’m also a fat girl that loves to cook because she loves to eat.

The second floor remains a tween hidey-hole providing a hotbed of entertainment for Number 1. Normally he’s not a video game kind of kid but with nothing to do and crappy weather, well, any port in a storm. My history dork found a series of games he loves and from what I hear coming down the stairs, so far he has slayed some bastard in the Egyptian Pyramids, ridden his horse in a loincloth around a digitalized version of our old town in Turkey and taken down the Empire and a gazillion Storm Troopers before driving Le Mans.

The basement is housing an exasperated Turk who traded a cushy office in Boston for a corner of the basement where he hunches over his computer like a troll under a bridge desperate to finish work. For the first several days, Nugget’s sword fights and basketball games occurring above his head would send the Turk into a rage causing him to bound up the stairs with his trademark, “WHAT IZ DIS???” To which his charming youngest son would reply, “Baba chill.” I do feel for the guy though, between work and a graduate class he’s got a lot to accomplish under his bridge. We’re hopeful we might see him before the end of the quarantine.

Nugget transcends all three floors like only a spastic, ADHD 6 -year-old with an overactive imagination much like his crazy mother’s, can.  In the past week he has been the following, in full costume, LeBron James in the Cleveland days, Luke Skywalker, Boba Fett, Yoda, Iron Man, Captain America, Chewbacca, Fletcher Cox of the Philadelphia Eagles and Peyton Manning of the Denver Broncos, The Flash, Darth Vader, a Storm Trooper and Gordon Hayward of the Celtics. I’m sure he’s had more personalities that I’m forgetting too. After donning full regalia for each of his characters, he runs from floor to floor, chasing bad guys, shooting baskets or holding the line while carrying on full conversations in distinct voices. Could it be a sign of early-onset crazy? Sure, but it is too damn funny to stop.

In between the lunacy we’re also working on school, (because it sucks to have a mom who’s a teacher during times like these) drawing tons, reading loads and watching Britbox on the telly. I’m a big fan of the low gore, high dialogue murders found on British television. They remind me of Turkish television but I don’t have to exhaust my brain by translating the whole show only to have the murder solved before I get the entire story translated. The kids are on the Britbox train too. Number 1 loves when I flip on a show and tell him how he and I watched the show religiously back in Turkey. (Because we had 1 channel in English and it was BBC). Nugget is more of a murder man. Boba Fett and I watched an entire murder mystery yesterday on the sofa and he called the perp long before I did. He’s like a 3 foot Jessica Fletcher.

We also hit up a few concerts during the past week too. The Dropkick Murphys put on a stunning show in my living room, and though none of us looked as good as we did when I used to go see them live in the late 90’s, we’re still punk. I also forced my children to sit through the Indigo Girls and Wilco live streams while I regaled them with tales of when their mother was cool and waved lighters at their concerts. (They were painfully unimpressed.)

 We’ve also had quality fire pits, soccer matches and even a relay that nearly killed my aged ass. Fortunately, our beaches are still open and free of idiotic 20 somethings whooping it up. Is it because our beaches are 35 degrees and rocky? Regardless, our beach time has been paramount leaving Nugget to ask, “How do you even thurvive a quaranthine without a beach?”

So at the risk of being too Mary Sunshine in this moment, this smothering mother, with introvert tendencies, that loves a good excuse for kitchen time is finding the bright side in this cray. Stay safe, stay healthy and stay home and wash yo damn hands!