My wedding dress makes me look like a sexy mime.

I'm tempted to wear it just for the fact that I could not wear such a thing for any other occasion and hear You look Beautiful! It gives me an odd joy to think that dozens of people would tell a sexy mime that she looks beautiful one day and that the same dozens of people would tell a sexy mime that she looks ridiculous the next.

The dress goes back. But I'm going to try it on once more just to laugh.

I decided to paint the living room floors. The living room, being the center of the entire building, provides access to the bedroom and the washroom.

When the living room floors are wet with oil-base paint, one does not have access to half of the house.

The room also hosts our wine glasses (of which there are quite a few) and the majority of our large furniture. When one decides to paint the floor, she must take into account that the things that sit on the floor must be moved first.

With a wedding not two weeks away, Erik would have cared to focus on something else – anything else – other than moving our furniture into our bedroom and rendering the house unusable.

Any. Thing. Else.

You know those brides that can't be deterred from having something at their wedding? Some insist on doves or a three tier cake or a pug in a tux carrying the rings down the aisle. We aren't providing a wedding cake. We aren't releasing more pigeons into the wild. We don't have an aisle.

We have a weird, multi-materialed floor in our living room.

I wanted to paint the floor and I really didn't care if it was in the center of the house.

So I did.

They look beautiful. The Shanteaux (Our friend Anne's term) looks beautiful.

Now we can get married.

We're painting the living room today. It's a daunting task if you consider all that we have to move. We have to leave the house for a couple of days and stay at a our friends' house.

After the living room floors are done we have a kitchen to paint. We weren't going to paint the kitchen but we painted the mud room and it looks gorgeous. The kitchen deserves the same treatment.

My mania is running itself out.

We are expecting about 100 people to come to this wedding. I really don't know where we met all of these people or how they can all make a Tuesday evening wedding, but they are coming.

The To-do list is large when you are hosting 100 people for a wedding.

Today we cleaned out the tool shed – the best built building on the property. It's going to be the kid game room at the wedding.

In it there were fasteners of all sorts and in all places, large insects dead and alive and the leavings of a man who fixed everything from little sports cars to big tractors to irrigation. You can tell a lot about a person by looking at their workspace and I feel like I know the man who owned this rock.

He was a big man both tall and broad, the shelves go all the way up to the ceiling. He was a veteran, there was some certificate that said so. He was capable of building anything but he loved to craft things for his wife –there was a lot of saw dust left on the floor and lots of little wood propellers for windcharms. From the number of bent screws and nails that he kept, one can tell he grew up in the depression.

The last thing he built required large nails.

The tool shed is going to be my best friend here on the property, I can tell.

So Erik and I are getting married. Soon. Sooner than soon. Sooner than soon can soon enough be.

We're getting married soon.

Not only are we getting married soon, we're relying on someone in our guest list to become an ordained minister and compete in a challenge and then perform our ceremony.

The challenge consists of a multiple choice test that has to do with how well you know Erik or me; A Trivia Challenge; A Bocce Ball game.

It's crazy.

It's trusting.

It's us.

It isn't semi colon worthy exactly; but it is definitely punctuated. At the moment, I'm still trying to redesign one of the outbuildings.

Now to find a dress.

And a suit.

The minister will come.

I've redecorated the living room.
Our good friend Wes came over and put an excellent product called Vortex down on our bathroom floors. This entailed putting down sub flooring. That entailed pulling the toilet and the sink.

Wes, being Wes, made it all look perfect and easy. It was not and I doubt that Erik and I would be speaking to each other now if Wes weren't in charge of the project.

I've repainted the bathroom wall. We bought wainscoting for the bottom half of the plumbing wall to cover the water damage.

Erik re caulked the tub.

The bath's light fixture needs to be replaced and that means testing the wires. Somehow I have four wire nuts from a collection of live (black), neutral (white) and ground wires (copper). I looked up the problem online and got my mother's website.

This did not help. The irony of this fact hurts.

I ended up calling my aunt and talking to her genius companion. He explained the goal and the process to me very clearly and, as I sipped my wine, I knew to wait until the morning to turn the circuit back on and test the wires. I've decided to read a few wiring books because this issue is going to come up again.

The floor in the office has been painted. The garden has been planted. The wedding invites are on their way to our door. By the end of the week we'll have most of the house put together.

Amazing what you can get done when you avoid your emotions.

Fortunately, we have four outbuildings that I can fix up into little guest houses. They're run down but it'd be an easier task than acknowledging any devastation.

I have discovered eternal life in weeding. Weeds never go away. Weeds never die. So if you're lucky enough to be born a weed, you're set until the sun explodes – at that point you can invade some other planet's garden.

It rained last night.

This morning, the sky is a shy blue. The sun is still low slung on the horizon.

The textured hills, deeply verdant with curious patches of stubble, roll back and arch under the light.

The lake is calm – water rippling with fish.

In The New World, I'm up at 6:30 in the morning and am astounded at the familiar smell of wet pine needles and the sound of startled quail puhuping across the lawn.

It's time to redecorate the living room.

When you are engaged to a chef, it is often assumed that the non chef partner knows nothing (or nothing of interest) about food.

From hunting mushrooms to choosing the wine with my meal, I have learned to be the red-headed step child of my life in the kitchen and at the dinner table.

It has been made clear by all who know Erik, that Erik is everything food. All things considered, it is an ironic situation to be in.

In our hunts for wild asparagus, I have been bound and determined to pickle a few bunches. I have picked asparagus based on what I would like to see in the jar. I wanted curly, strange things that could wind behind on the other side of the glass.

My mother taught me how to pickle. She taught me that the look of the jar was just as important as what was inside. There is no recipe, there is only taste and when you know the taste is right, you seal the jar and cover it with cloth and wait. When the lids pop (a delightful sound) you wait some more. Three months later, you have a work of transient glory.

So tonight I pickled with my mother. Obviously, since she is dead, I didn’t pickle with her. I pickled with my memories of her. Her voice, measured and calm, told me what steps we were taking, when to check the brine and how adorn the inside of the jar. I didn’t get everything I wanted, some of the spears I picked were gone, there was no mustard seed to be had, I like to use pink peppercorns – which are impossible to by here.

What I did get was a moment in which no one questioned what I know how to do. No one was going to turn to Erik and ask him how it was supposed to be done. No one was going to tell me what was next. It was my kitchen. It was my process.

Sometimes it’s nice to own your reality.

Financials for business. Financials for home. Financials for my mother's estate.

Cleaning.

Hosting my future mother-in-law for the week.

Writing just one more obit.

Putting together a DVD of my mother's life.
Planning a work trip down to Calistoga for May 12.
Creating a new menu, posters and emails for the next two Sunday dinners.
Finding a place for our friends to stay.
Creating recipes for the May 21st cooking class.

Getting a restaurant space lined up, painted and open by June.

Training animals who don't like each other to stop attacking one another.

Most all of the above must be off my plate IN THREE DAYS.

The obit is due now.

Ask for help? Not in this family!

You know what? It can be done. I can do this. If anyone can, I can.

In one day we have:
Planned a memorial service
Planned a wedding
Planned another person's restaurant
Created an equipment list for today's event
Created a to do list for dinner on Sunday
Created a to do list for the restaurant
Gone shopping for all the food we need
Prepped food.
Made a to do list for next week.
Taken the dog for a major run walk.

I'm tired. I'm so tired I want to bap people on the head. No one in particular. Just the people at large.

Not a good attitude for someone who serves food.

Erik and I have been working with our new dog. He hunts the cat. He hunts the things on television. He hunts affection. We run him, we walk him. We throw things for him. There is a challenge in tiring a Catahoula Cur/ Black Mouth Cur mix. A herd of cattle can't do it, Erik and I are no herd of cattle.

The cat hunts everything else. She hunts the small dog. She hunts the skinks. She hunts the bees. The birds. The leaves. The human face (only early in the morning when deep sleep makes life is impossibly sweet and kitty claws enlighten one to the concept of hell).

The small dog, Officer (who we keep trying to rename Pomme) hunts the big dog. Officer (Pomme) hates the big dog.

He also hunts the cat's poo. This last fact makes me want to put my head in my hands and vomit just a little.

We've started to go to bed early, just to be away from all of the animals.

I want chickens. I want a goat. I'd even like another cat. But I don't want more pack members. We're done. No more animals. They out number us, that is never good.

Still we sit together and some of us read the paper. Some of us attack the paper. Some of us attack the those who attack the paper. Some of us are beginning to understand the middle east conflict a lot better by watching the turf wars that happen in the living room.


In other news my purse smells like a Chinese restaurant. I think it is my Chinese grandmother haunting me.

It's spring and the wild asparagus is growing.

Wild asparagus looks like a dead shrub. It's unattractive and difficult to maneuver around. The green stalks are thin and long and taste like a snap pea.

They're very good.

I'd never gone asparagus hunting before and while it can't compare to mushroom hunting, there is a certain satisfaction to snatching up a bunch.

This morning, in an effort to identify and then learn how to kill a weed on our rock, I read that the weed in question (Japanese Knotweed), is not only a menace but it is edible.

Instead of scanning the horizon for someone who is not there, I am now scanning the hills for something I never knew existed.

My mother loved when I told her stories. She also loved birds. This the beginning of a fictional bird book. One that I probably won’t finish. The process is often the purpose.

THE COMMON CLOUST

OVERVIEW:
The Common Cloust is a fist-sized, round bird often seen in large flocks in the vermillion Artacia Plains between the Ilion Mountains and the Eumedes Range. The Common Cloust is similar in appearance to the Blue Cloust, showing the same yellow and orange mottling that camouflages the bird against the ground. The Common Cloust’s head is grey (as opposed to the Blue Cloust) and retractable into its body – allowing it to roll away when predators approach. Once considered the bird that rolled down and died when threatened, researchers have observed the Cloust violently attack predators and human hunters when the birds are able to gather in great numbers.

SONG:
An escalating chant similar to the Northern Eurayle and other Gorgons
Chooo-ooh! Chooo-Ono!

BEHAVIOR:
A flock of Cloust is called a cudgel as they defend themselves in groups of no less than 24. Rarely seen in flight, the Common Cloust huddles and sometimes stacks one on top of another in shrubs and hedges where they are most vulnerable.

BREEDING: Monogamous. Gregarious.
Common Cloust breed twice a year. On winter nights, great cudgels of the Common Cloust gather in the open. Mating has been described as balls of fire on the ice, with the male Common Cloust jumping above the female and bouncing off the snow covered ground. On summer mornings, the female sits atop the male and balances as he rolls across the ground. Given the method, the Common Cloust is a remarkably prolific breeder.

NESTING:
Incubation 20-26 days by both sexes. Tended by both sexes. Flight in 8-22 days. Two to three broods a year.

POPULATION:
Once over-hunted for their feathers and as taxidermy trophies, mandated protection of the Common Cloust has allowed for re-population.

FLIGHT PATTERN:
Rarely seen in flight. Often rolls on the ground. Cudgels attack by rolling up to a threat, stacking themselves against the predator, extending their heads from their body and vigorously pecking. Extraordinarily effective defense against the Puddle Yote and bare-fleshed humans.

You know the seven stages of grief?

There's Disbelief, Denial, Bargaining, Guilt, Anger, Depression, Acceptance and Hope. Frankly, this sounds like a single day for most of us under the Bush presidency (sans hope), but whatever.

I think I've decided to skip depression and do an extra stint of anger.

It is odd to be angry at something one has no control over. It's like shouting at the television or bashing the crosswalk button again and again and again. It's futile to be angry and futility makes me rage.

In general I have a three-foot rule. People, animals, those who possess a nerve of self preservation must stay three feet away from me at all times. I drop things; I trip; I cause objects to fly off of a surface and fall to the ground.

Everyone has learned this – even our Sunday Night Dinner customers. Those in-the-know lean WAAAA-YY back when I approach the table with plates of food.

Since my mother has died, I've expanded my rule of distance to 6 feet. My finger nails have grown long and I believe I have fangs budding from my gums. Small children have begun to whisper my name in fear. The villagers are sharpening the tines on their pitchforks. Leaves wilt when I walk though the orchard. Well-meaning people who give me advice are set aflame by a single sneering word.

I am a creature to avoid.

The realization makes me want to re-read John Gardner's Grendel. I had always thought that the book was an allegory of the alienation a writer feels and the battle between the mundane and the creative. Possibly it is the story of great loss.

Possibly I need to be more creative. I definitely need a manicure. I don't need advice.

My mother's birthday was yesterday. She was born on Good Friday. My father used to say that is why she was such a cross to bear.

We had some fantastic Easters. It wasn't about religion or empty tombs or a missing body. It was a holiday around food, a new dress, photo ops and eggs. My aunt makes beautiful pisanki. We celebrated our Russian heritage and our ability to host a party.

It seems odd that there won't be an Easter basket on the front stoop. Like her Christmas stockings, my mother created beautiful baskets. They always had a theme and were full of utilitarian things. I could never do them justice.

This Spring is a rebirth. Life won't be the same, but I won't suffer for it either. I've done this before. I know how to do loss; when your heart breaks, fill in the cracks with new experiences and learn about foreign things.

It's the only way to get better.

To everyone who has commented on this site about my mother, thank you. Your thoughts and hugs are of great comfort. Now, however, it's time to start new. Grief only goes so far. I don't want to hear anymore of it from you. Good stories are welcome, but no mewling. Don't anyone feel sorry for me. Pity makes me sneer.

Now we are a pack of five. One of my mother's dogs, Wiley, has come to live with us. He's high energy, smart and faster than fast. Time to start running again. Time to relax.

It's going to be a very good year.