Couple of Crumbs

Summer Lovin’: Back Where I Come From

By: Funfetti

If someone had told me that I was going to start feeling nostalgic on visits to my hometown, I would have laughed at you. Thought you were crazy. Possibly given you the stink eye. I never thought this day would come. But lately, it has. Every time we pull into familiar territory, my heart drops a little bit and I’m scared I will start kicking and screaming when it comes time to go. You may remember from past blogs that I decided to go to college far away because I needed to get out, and then I even moved to another state with my now-husband. I don’t know. Maybe it takes like two years or so for you to grasp the changes in your life, and realize, holy shit, my mom is no longer making my dinner and I am sleeping in bed next to a boy! Every night! Possibly in lingerie. Sometimes in less!

I guess this goes back to me saying to Mr. FF recently that I wished I was in middle school again. You know, things must be rough if I am wishing for those “good old days”. I honestly hated middle school. I didn’t know how to dress. I felt uncomfortable in my own skin. I took it upon myself to “fix” my unibrow. Things were tough. I was struggling to stay friends with people I had known since kindergarten and figuring out how to trust new ones. But for some crazy reason, middle school sounds pretty awesome right now. Factoring in a three-month break from school, sleeping in, and the possibility of a summer vacation in a beautiful place, it sounds like heaven, doesn’t it?

Ah, summer vacations with your parents. When you didn’t have to pay for a dime. Soak it in, kids, because when it ends – It. Is. Rough.

I was a lucky kid. Since the time I was a little girl, my parents would take us to the beach for a week or two. We stayed in hotels, started renting cottages and condos, and then they bought one. Soon after that we went on road trips, and then plane trips. It was pretty much easy living, with the occasional fight thrown in, of course. And just like I never thought I would be missing my hometown, I probably never thought about the day when I would no longer take vacations with my family.

Or maybe I did and I was too blinded by future independence and going away with my boyfriend and friends. Totally not realizing I wouldn’t always be able to have both. Even the logistics of the trips have just hit me now. My parents taking off time from work, paying for four people to eat 2 times a day for five days. Not to mention the activities associated with vacation and the souvenirs. My parents didn’t even spoil us. They were very conservative, but we were also really well-behaved children. But still multiply anything by four and it can get expensive. It’s a lot to consider.

Then there’s the family time. I had a lot of it before I moved out. But not even that much since I was working full-time and commuting. Vacations were always a nice escape from the real world. We could focus on having fun together. Not all the other crap. It’s been almost four years since I’ve been away with my family, and that was only for a few days. It’s hard enough for us to find time to get together these past couple of months which is sad. What I wouldn’t give to be able to just drop it all, win the lottery (not much, I’m not greedy), and take us away so we can just laugh and talk for awhile. Without tolls or traffic or worries about money. Have a drink, scarf down a nice meal. Make some new memories together.

We have just about everything going against us when it comes to this actually materializing. My dad is still unemployed. My mom and sister are both working multiple summer jobs, not to mention Mr. FF & I have limited vacation days to take and can’t afford to take another unpaid break.

I’m happy my parents have still found a way to take a vacation together this year. They will be celebrating a huge anniversary, as well as giving my mom some down time from juggling so many responsibilities this year. Maybe it is the pick-me-up my dad needs to inspire him to do more than talk to the television, who knows? (This sounds like a joke and it partly is… but I’m getting worried.)

As luck would have it, Mr. FF and I will be going away within a few days of my parents and I just wish we would have been able to coordinate it so that we could be together in the sun for a few days.

But alas, not this year. My mom and I had been talking about, at least before my dad’s lay off, possibly taking our first true family trip next summer after my sister graduates college. Here’s hoping we can make that happen. Mr. FF hasn’t had the PLEASURE of seeing my family in action on vacation, and after our multiple years together, I think it’s about time! (Don’t be scared, hun!)

So what am I saying exactly? 1) I miss a lot of things. 2) I wish I had unlimited cash and unlimited time. 3) I’m thankful for what my parents have done all those years prior when it came to vacation, ballet lessons, etc. 4) Even if my parents are a little crazy, I still would like to swim in a beautiful pool with them, have them take multiple ugly pictures of me, and at the end of the day, share a beer (or in my mom’s case, a glass of wine).

Until then, I can go to this hometown that has become somewhat majestic in my eyes (even the old pharmacy where I used to work – a landmark!) and spend whatever handful of hours I can with my family. I don’t think there will ever be a time I don’t miss what used to be, in any respect, even if it all wasn’t a fairy tale, and hope the stars align and we can recreate some of those summer memories at a later date. And make them even better.

* * *

Back Where I Come From is part of our Summer Series.

Summer Lovin’: Little Ghost Girl

Eatinist Bitch hails from Queens, NY and loves food almost as much as she likes to talk. She’s been blogging since Summer 2010, and is currently interning for Robicelli’s Cupcakes in Brooklyn, NY. Check out her blog and like her on Facebook to get recipes, reviews, and other tasty nibbles.

“Can Geico save you 15% or more on your car insurance? Does a 10lb bag of flour make a really big biscuit?”

A mother walks in on her son, standing on a chair in front of the kitchen table. He has a look of utmost calm upon his face as he carefully butters the top of an enormous biscuit. Flour and baking materials lay askew, and a fine cloud of the powdery stuff hangs over all. She stands speechless for a beat, and goes right back out of the kitchen shaking her head and leaving him to his handiwork.

To my friend, Tana, that entire commercial is how she imagines me as a kid: a food obsessed child with permanent flour streaks on her face (also, a biscuit enthusiast). I don’t think she realized how close to home the commercial hit until I told her this story.

On a rainy Saturday, my 5 or 7 year old self took to wandering around the house, because that’s what I did when I was bored. My afternoon cartoons were in reruns, and you could only read the same books so many times. So, why not go exploring? My house isn’t that big, but at the time I thought it was a castle of warm wood and cozy spaces. Even if I couldn’t find somewhere new to play, I could at least find a nice place to nap. Eventually my wanderings led me to our kitchen, one of my favorite places in the world.

I was greeted by the lazy whoosh of the ceiling fan as soon as I walked in. I stood in the middle of the kitchen to assess my situation. Did I want something to eat? Did I want to go to the big bookshelf filled with cookbooks and pull something down to read? I wasn’t hungry for food, or reading or anything like that…I wanted to play. That’s when I turned around and saw it.

My mom had 3 ceramic canisters that she used to keep dry provisions in. One marked “Rice”, and another was marked “Sugar”. The third, well, it was unmarked and looked very different from the first two. Those were on the tall side with square edges and domed lids with grips on the inside of them.  The third container was a circle all around with a shiny white cover that looked like a tam o’shanter cap. And, its belly was always filled to the brim with white, unbleached flour.

 (source)

I pulled a chair over from the kitchen table and climbed on top of it so I would be level with the counter. I positioned the canister in front of me using both hands, because I knew it’d be less likely to fall that way. I pulled off the lid slowly, and a little puff of flour rose into the air. It tickled my nose and made me giggle, and the sound echoed in the silence of the room.

On the side of the flour jar, there was a little ceramic loop that held a little wooden dipper. It was carved smooth and light, and looked like a tiny ice cream scoop. I saw mounds of soft vanilla ice cream in this pile of flour, and I thought it should be scooped as such. I began to scoop the flour, lifting the little trough high in the air, and then turning it over so that the flour would fall out with a soft plop.

The kitchen soon began to smell nutty, as I was sending quite a considerable amount of flour into the air. I had long since abandoned the scoop, and instead, plunged my hands deep into the cool powdery mass, letting it slowly sift through my fingers. My mother didn’t really bake very much (she used the flour primarily to make dumplings, which I despised for their doughy heaviness), but I knew from the cooking shows that I adored and the Jewish bakery that we got our Challah and cookies from, that flour was usually the start of something good. In flour’s pale blank state lay the promise of cookies, pie crusts, cakes, and big fluffy biscuits to drag through rich brown gravy. And aside from all that, playing in the flour was just plain fun.

Now, my back was to the kitchen door, so I hadn’t noticed that my mother had been watching me powder myself and the kitchen counter like a doughnut for the past 10 minutes. There’s always a change in the air around you when you’re about to get in trouble, though. Almost as if the air’s ions are scrambling to find a hiding place because they are scared of your 5’11, Jamaican mother.

Somehow, I came to the realization that something was amiss, and stopped.

I slowly turned myself around on the chair and looked up right into to her big, brown eyes. What a sight I must have been! Face, hands and arms completely covered in flour, and sprinkles of it dusting my plaited pigtails that stuck out like sausages from the side of my head. I was a complete mess. I saw my mom’s hand reach out for me, and I wasn’t too sure I wanted to see what would come after that. I jumped off the chair with a yelp and ran away, twisting around her long legs, and hoping with all of my might that I would disappear, like the little girl ghost that I had become.

* * *

Little Ghost Girl is part of our Summer Series.