Mo

moses loves that his birthday falls in the luckiest of lucky charms months.  green is his favorite color.

Moses turned nine this week.  Here are two things about him:

more shamrock-themed birthday times.

1) Three weeks ago, he discontinued kissing me on the lips.  Some of you will be relieved to hear this.  He at first cloaked it in the excuse that he didn't "want to make me sick," but it was pretty obvious that he's finally figured out that kissing your mom good-bye isn't super cool.  I realize it's time for him to move on, but I can't help feel a bit sad.

lucky rainbow sans pot o' gold.

2)  When he was born, i was convinced he would be dark haired and olive-skinned.  i don't know why. when i first saw his blonde hair and blue eyes,  i think i said something like, "wow, he looks like brad pitt!"  

he's a handsome little dude, and looks almost identical to his father.

birthday dinner season

meyer lemon tart.  georgia buchert made the stunning crown for me, and it's become our birthday crown.

we have eleven family birthdays in january, february and march. 

what are you people gettin' up to in april, may and june?

birthday dinner season is in full swing at my house.  today was cecily's family birthday dinner.  i'm always really curious about what my people will ask me to cook for their birthdays--i finally get to know how they really feel about certain dishes.

some of them have predictable favorites:  moses always wants spaghetti and meatballs.  christian always wants a classic chocolate cake with no frosting.  eva frequently requests beef stroganoff. 

catsup chicken, broccoli with daddy's dipping sauce.  i bought a cheaper rice this week to see if it really made a big difference.  it did :(.  have been spoiled by a much more delicious rice.

cecily surprised me by asking for something new this year: two family staples::  the meyer lemon tart from alice waters' & lindsay remolif shere's chez panisse dessert cookbook (a classic cookbook you might add to your collection if you're into that kind of thing,) & mark bittman's  minimalist ketchup chicken from the new york times, a fantastic, garlick-y comfort food i discovered a few years ago that is very popular chez exoskeleto.

(a note on the tart:  meyer lemons are sweeter than eureka lemons.  i use the two meyer lemons called for in the recipe PLUS one fairly large eureka lemon.  i always want less sweet, more tart, and more lemon flavor in lemon desserts.  i need to continue working on making this tart a little tarter, but this alteration is a step in the right direction.) 

what do you want for your birthday dinner?

i want chicken under a brick, lula's curry fries, and the tart cockaigne from the joy of cooking.  

my birthday's in july, so heads up!

a thinning of the veil: 11 things for 11 years

eleven

every february 21, i think about how i woke up leaking fluid on the 21st of february 2003. and how, when i called my perinatalogist he said, "get in the car. you're having a baby today." and how i took a shower, packed my bag and hopped in the car with christian & with one last thing to take care of: her name.  

I had a list saved on christian's palm pilot of a hundred names. i poured over it: when church was boring, when we were driving anywhere, when someone asked me about our naming plan.  i fretted. 

each name had qualities i liked, but not one of them sung to me.

(i even considered "diamanda," after diamanda galas.  who is rad.  and so is her name.)

and how i called my mom to tell her the delivery was imminent, and how christian said, while i was talking to my mom, while we were on the slushy late-winter i-15 "how about cecily anna?*"

and so i said to my mom, "christian says: how about cecily anna."

and how my mom said, "that name is so beautiful and perfect it almost makes me cry."

and how i could tell by her voice that she wasn't almost crying, but was actually crying.

and how all our emotions were just tender to the touch and so right there.  and how this delivery, we knew, was going to be emotional and piercing and uncertain, and how it felt, as we say in the mormon tradition, that the veil was thin.

it's hard to explain what that means, the thinning of the veil. basically it's something like close to death, but more than that. close to a knowledge of the other side, to those who have come before, and gone.  and to those spirits who are yet to come.

close to a kind of knowledge that you can almost, but never quite, grasp here in this earthly realm, as my people say.

it means that you are inhabiting a space that is not quite life and not quite death.  and it's mostly ineffable, and what i can tell you about it is this:  it's both scary and peaceful, both sad and joyful, both hopeful and despairing.

something important here is the bothness, the in between.  not opposing or contradictory states of being, but simultaneous.

i remember exactly how i felt then, so close to almost seeing through the veil, almost touching the other side, and i haven't felt this way before or since.  i can't tell you in words with anything close to exactness what i felt then, only that i did.

and:

how hard it is to find the words to say how much i adore cecily! how special she is. (one of her nicknames is special. and & also sesame, & cee, & specialty. . . .)

and here are 11 things i love about her:

1)  her smile.  i think everyone who knows her agrees it's remarkable.  grandpa noel calls it a mona lisa smile.

2) her caramel-colored hair.  i love braiding and twisting and brushing it each morning, and i'm honored that she entrusts it to me.

3) her writing.  she tells the most fascinating stories.

4) her humor.  a lot of her stories come with illustrations, and every line of her drawings vibrates with character, humor, and wisdom.

5) the way she enjoys life.  she's so fun to hang out with, to do exciting things with, or to do nothing at all with.

6) her outfits.  i'm excited each and every morning to see what she'll wear to breakfast.

7) her fashion blog, ifashionista101.blogspot.com

8) her sensitivity.  she always tries super hard to never hurt anyone's feelings.

9) her taste.  she has fantastic taste in music, movies, books, clothes, and food.

10) her run.  sounds weird, but she looks really cute running.  her run exudes great joy.

11) her affection.  she loves to hug, kiss, and cuddle.  she has silky cheeks and tiny soft hands.


* cecily came from our love of oscar wilde's play the importance of being earnest, from the character miss cecily cardew.  i also love that cecilia is the patron saint of music, and i love the sibilance of her name, the three syllables, the femininity of it, the lilt and the look.  i love the name a lot.

*anna  connects to my mother's middle name ann, and one of the most beautiful people i know, anna vinten-johansen burdak, a gorgeous singer who inspired us to write the first opera we had ever attempted, a girl's body at crepescule. she performed the lead, and was a co-founder of seattle experimental opera, more than twenty years ago.  she and i have recently begun a new project together.

birthday partay

why are birthday cakes so beautiful?  

eva's birthday party was great, thanks to lots of helpers and fantastic guests.

beehive cheese--barely buzzed.

but i'm too wiped now to write, so some photos will have to do.

anna and lula made the cake, the tables, the mojitos, and brought the magic.

grandma beth and bam, flim and lula.

cecily favored us with "cruella deville", as per eva's request.

if you have an event, call anna and lula.

awesome guests.  my favorite people.

the kids' table.

legwear: black tights, blue suede shoes.

inspiration: family & friend time.

looking forward: to a good night's sleep.

happy birthday, baby girl!

picnicking in kingston, ontario.

it's a special day today, julie.

eva as kate in taming of the shrew, 6th grade.

22 years ago, eva snow was born.

i promised her she could get a dog when she grew up & got her own apartment.  hard to believe that day has come.

i love this girl.  she's unspeakably beautiful and talented, kind, smart and funny.

legwear: tomato colored skinny cropped jeans

inspiration: the beautiful eva snow.

looking forward: to celebrating eva's birthday tomorrow.

to aunt bonnie

cecily assists aunt bonnie in blowing out her candles

tonight was aunt bonnie's birthday dinner:  pork tenderloin, purple slaw, cucumber, garden tomato & feta salad (thanks for the tomatoes, janell!) sour cream & chive mashed potatoes, rolls, corn & pies from grandma beth, peach crisp & homemade ice cream. it was almost like a little house on the prairie dinner.

but i digress. the important thing tonight is to tell you a few things about my amazing aunt:

1) she is one of the foxiest and most stylish women i know.

2) she started and ran her own business for thirty years, a beautiful flower shop and boutique that brought an extra dash of class to provo.  she did wedding flowers for redford, covey, & osmond(s).  she was named provo chamber of commerce business woman of the year in the early 2000's.  my first job was "working" for her, when she would let me make "corsages", etc.

3) she adopted a beautiful son from honduras when he was four, as a single mother, and raised him by herself.  upon his death, she started a foundation in his name in tegucigalpa to help honduran kids get an education.  recently, a young man she helped got language for the first time at age fifteen.  he was deaf, and had never been able to go to school to learn signing or reading.  because of my aunt, he now has massively increased communication.  as long as i can remember, she has been helping a lot of different people, friends and strangers alike.

4) she loves adventure:  hiking, traveling, being on the move.  she's pretty darn fearless.

5) she has been a great friend, helper and companion to me for my whole life.  and now to my children.  i'm very grateful to have her in my life and to get to live near her.  she is a great strength to our family and community.

Wendy's Rolls

happy birthday, wendy ann whitaker  candland:  part 1

today is my beautiful mother's birthday, and I have a lot to say about her, so this is gonna be a two-parter.

part 1--my mom in the kitchen

everyone wants to eat dinner at my mom's house.  she's famous for her delicious and generous spreads, and for feeding multitudes:  family, friends, people who have nowhere to go for dinner, new mothers, sick people, the elderly, the lonely.  

we children were lucky to grow up so well-fed and well-cared for.  

i inherited my mom's love for cooking and feeding.  i inherited her love of a groaning table, an accumulation of perfect and totally from scratch dishes, a sometimes over the top way of observing sundays and holidays with enormous and exhausting family dinners.

my mom is most famous for her dinner rolls.   these rolls, straddling genres between cake, roll, bread, and soft, pillowy baby flesh, are richer and fuller than your garden-variety roll.  this gem is made with milk, egg AND butter.  slightly sweet, so pillowy and buttery, they also make great pecan rolls and orange rolls.  (i remember trying to learn to make a clover roll, a crescent roll, or a sweet roll, made with a rectangle of dough covered in sugar, cinnamon, and pecans, or orange zest, butter, and sugar, then rolled and stretched into a log and cut.)

so, happy birthday, early or late, to YOU ALL on the internet.  here's my mom's famous recipe.  it feeds about one million:

Wendy's Basic Roll Dough

4 c. very warm water
3 T. yeast
1 T. salt
1/2 c. sugar
1 c. melted butter
4 eggs
1 c. powdered milk
12-14 c. flour

add: water, salt, sugar, and butter in mixer.  add three cups of flour, yeast, eggs, and powdered milk.  add three more cups of flour, scrap around sides and mix well.  add the remaining flour, being careful not to add too much flour.  the dough should be very sticky.  oil a large bowl and let the dough rise in the bowl 'til double.  divide into four portions and roll into a rectangle on OILED, not floured, counter.  cut with a pizza cutter into triangles.  roll from the widest part up to the tip for crescent rolls.  place rolls on greased roll pan, cover and let rise until doubled.  

bake at 375 degrees for about 20 minutes or just until golden brown.

See Above/See Below

1.   Tights sighting today.  See above.  They were on an older woman, too, which made me happy, as we move into the second half of summer vacation.

2.  I re-celebrated my birthday last night on The High Line.  See below.  I've decided you can keep celebrating your birthday day after day until you get it right.

3.  Is there anything better than a post about tights and cupcakes, Lara?  I'm sure there is, but I haven't thought of it yet.

How Do You Make Your Birthday Great? (If That's Important to You)

We forgot the matches.

Wish I could have done this day over again.  And better.  Am I allowed to do that before another year goes by?

Got this cone at the 11th hour:  Pink pepper corn and black mission fig gelato from Il Laboratorio del Gelato.

Great songs posted to my Facebook wall.

Thank you.

Good night.

Pasts That I Know

The days leading up to my birthday have been rather difficult and cantankerous.  My kids seem to be arguing more vociferously than usual.  There have been too many dumb shows streaming from Netflix, not enough deep, rewarding activities happening.  Things are planned then cancelled.   I'm not sure what that would be--maybe an entire film instead?  At this point, I'll take it.

So my birthday is tomorrow and it seems as if I'm getting older at an alarming rate.  This wouldn't be so bad, I think, if I didn't feel like the tight space I started the year with is still largely intact, and I'm not quite sure what to do with that.

So what am I doing?  I'm writing about a past--not mine--but creating a past for characters based on pasts that I know.  Above you see a house that lives on Douglas Street in Salt Lake City.  I'm pretty sure I lived in this house when I was a graduate student at the University of Utah in the very early '90s.   The story I wrote today is set in the house, in the basement.    Writing these stories every day have been the best thing I've been doing every day for this past week.

Tomorrow is my birthday.  Lara, there is still no cake.

cake porn

birthday picnic in southfork.  i'm making a really major wish here.

LARA: i look at images of cake online the way some people look at baby kitties.

yesterday,  a tough day, had me perusing the sites of some of my favorite bakeries, imagining the platonic birthday with the most perfectly round cake ever.

had me remembering cakes past,

planning future events

the kind of rumination that my therapist warns me about.  too much past and too much future

united in sweet, sweet cakery.

plus julie turley and i had to spend quite a bit of time chatting about what type of cake she should have for her birthday next week.

this is what a birthday cake should look like.

the pink dot
at ingrid's high school graduation time in 2010, i ordered a baskin & robbins ice cream cake covered in fondant polka-dots.  i love this cake, and would be pretty happy if i had it on my birthday every year.  it's a good cake for july, being composed of mostly ice cream, and the roundness of the polka-dot echoes the roundness of the cake and is so satisfyingly symmetrical, in a round ladylike way.  (and the polka-dots should be pink, always.)  so i order this cake, and i invite a few other graduates and parents for a little celebration. but something went awry with the polka-dots.  they were not perfect in any way, and looked like the owner's child had made and applied them. i was bitterly disappointed.

flash forward to my birthday, a month later, when i came home to find a perfect polka-dot cake in my fridge, put there by mary and dian, who had witnessed, and understood, my great disappointment in the first cake.

(christian thought it was funny, and didn't get that i was seriously upset by this sloppy cake covered in irregularly shaped dots.)

when i opened the box, my first thought was i'm not too old for birthday wishes to come true.


emily: bossing cake

emily with lula's 7th birthday rainbow sparkler cake

it is 2005 & i am as far from mental health as i have ever been in my life, excepting perhaps 2004.

the hapless mother of five, the ill-begotten doctoral candidate, with a newborn, a toddler on oxygen & what seems like a fortune in medications & averaging about three doctor's visits a week, not including visits to my therapist who is keeping me, barely, out of the psych ward.

in this state of body, mind, and finance, i am far from able to afford a bakery cake or to bake one for my own children.

lula's 7th birthday.  you can't tell from this photo that i am really & truly on the verge of a nervous breakdown.  balloons and emily's rainbow cake distract from the real picture.  hopefully lula didn't know this.

yet i feel to not provide a cake for the christenings & birthdays, at least, would be unspeakable, would remove my last shred of dignity and hope for the future, and would confirm my failure as a mother, a woman, a poet, and a grad student.

all of those things baked and frosted into tangible evidence of success.

sweet potato cake with white chocolate ganache--emily made this for moses' christening day.  this cake is one of the family's, and now the neighborhood's, favorites.

in swoops emily, the reigning cake boss of the asplund family, with some cake magic.  relieving me of the baking pressure on many more occasions than i am documenting here, and providing the levity & festivity to get me through those bootless cries, that tantivy of sorrowful birds darkening my view, eventually taking flight and revealing bluer skies.

JULIE:  My birthday is in nine days but I've been thinking about this year's cake for well over a month.  Over the years, I've ordered cakes from Something Sweet (who just lost their license due to health concerns), Sugar Sweet Sunshine (whose large portrait of Jackie Kennedy over the counter always inspires me), a now defunct bakery across from Tompkins Square Park, Ciao for Now, and for the last several years--Whole Foods:  The New York store really does offer beautiful store baked cakes, and vegan versions, too.

Sigh, I feel like I'm becoming so old that my cakes have to keep getting better.  I'm still undecided.  I've even wondered if I should do a strawberry shortcake or a pie.  But I would miss the buttercream.

A. accuses me of having a quasi romantic relationship with my cake every year.  And I guess I kind of do.    I also love cakes rendered two-dimensionally in art.  Did you know that renowned American artist Wayne Thiebaud has a cake fetish, too?:  

And Lara, here is the Black Hound Bakery cake you picked up for Eva's 18th birthday in NYC.  And do you remember how exciting it was when we found out they had a cake with bees!  Remember how awesome our waiter was when he ceremoniously served the cake to E?  It was his idea to blowtorch the candles upright, too.

eva:  18, only a month or two into college in nyc, with a utah themed birthday cake

we ate a cake similar to this exquisite mrs. backer's vintage-y decadent buttercream fantasia one summer in slc for julie turley's birthday at the pleasure palace.  j.t. has introduced me to all of the most memorable and delicious cakes and cupcakes.  i can't wait to see and hear about the cake she chooses for july 26th of this year.  

blah blah

so not bland

today was kind of bland.  probably because i spent it grading.  no doubt because i spent it grading.

i will do the same thing tomorrow, then have a break.  then everything will be okay, right?

because at this very moment i'm on the brink of an existential melt down.

allow me to take a moment to reflect on the tangible evidence of the real and good in my world.

and to  show you pictures of the most unexistential thing in the world.

tamales.

mi amigos green corn tamales. thanks to my parents and brother david for their hard work keeping a high quality restaurant going and for being so generous with it.

these are from the family restaurants, mi amigos, bought by my parents in 1980 (or '81?) and now run by my brother in mesa and phoenix.

whenever my parents visit utah, they bring a dozen or two green corn tamales, frozen in a bundle, and a quart of the best green chile sauce in the world.  we so look forward to tamale dinner at my parents' condo on each and every visit.

every time, the menu is exactly the same:  tamales with green sauce, my dad's roasted chile salsa, "corn crisps"(a kind of open faced quesadilla on a corn tortilla), black beans garnished with cilantro and diced white onions, and shredded lettuce, tomatoes, and sour cream.

my dad's roasted chile salsa.

it's part mexican, part gringo, and 100% candland family tradition.

don't you love little boxes with presents inside?

so sunday was ingrid's birthday (have i mentioned that?) so my parents hosted a dinner for her.  the light was so beautiful, the table so warm, and lula's lemon curd filled cupcakes so tragically delicious.

anna did the pretty writing.  i added sparkly sprinkles cuz i couldn't leave well enough alone.

sexy close-up of lula's lemon curd cupcakes.

i'm lucky to have a great family and some really fun, strong traditions.  and parents who have worked really hard to create family unity and loyalty.  julie has reminded me on several occasions that i can't take this for granted.

the older i get, the more grateful i am for my family, and the more i realize how unusually blessed i am in this regard.

christian, mom & dad. something about the light was special that evening.

also lucky to have my 90 year-old grandparents around and my wonderful aunt bonnie who is like a second mother to me slash really awesome therapist/girlfriend.

feel the luv.

more details and photos of someone else's family dinner than anyone could possibly care about, but thank you for the indulgence.  i do feel slightly less existential now.

it's time to start talking about julie turley's birthday now, right around the corner.

20 times around the sun

happy birthday, bingy

lots of people love ingrid because:  she's wise, she's courageous, she's funny, she bakes delicious treats, she stands up against oppression, and she wears great outfits.

the fates smiled on me when ingrid came into our home and blessed it with something i can only call magic.

whenever an acquaintance learns that i'm her mother, i hear the same thing,  "you're ingrid's mother?  i love ingrid!"  (i hear the same thing about ingrid's grandma, pat asplund, someone she bears more than a passing resemblance to.)

on her birthday, i want to celebrate some of the specific little magics she bestows on so many of us.  those of you who know her will understand what i'm talking about:

1)  why wear regular clothes when you could wear a sparkly party dress?

2)  why can't humans marry trees?

3)  when is it inappropriate to wear a tiara? never.

4)  why put dots on your "i's" when you could use hearts instead?

5)  why just take a candid shot when you could pose?

6)  why would anyone turn down a speaking engagement?

7)  why would anyone not join every club on campus?

8)   with what outfits should i not wear my doc martens?  none.

9)  why not stay up all night baking?

10)  why not dress like betty page when you're baking, even if you're all by your lonesome?

11)  when should you keep quiet about injustice?  never.

12)  why wear regular hair when you could make a party bun?

13)  why sleep?

14)  when should you not go skinny-dipping?  never.

15)  why not visit your professors' office hours every week?

16)  where should you leave lipstick kiss marks?  everywhere.

17)  who should i invite to my party?  everyone.  ev-REE-one.  i repeat:  include everyone, always.

18)  when should i get bummed out and despairing?  never.

19)  how good do science goggles and vintage maxi dresses look together?

20)  q:  how important are bees?  a:  bees are the foundational creature of the world.  pay attention to the hive, and the world will be okay.

i love my ingy.  happy birthday to my baby chick.

continuing birthday bliss

signed copy of life on mars arrived in the mail from julie.  cake bites hand delivered by heather.  my kids were trying to sneak nibbles of them all day.

yesterday and today i received a few more birthday blisses from some friends who know me oh, so well.  so fun to have a little birthday aftermath.

thrifted calvin klein pumps arrived in the mail today from marni, who always finds my favorite shoes at value village, seattle.  can i wear them with tights this fall, julie?

now i'm off to make cold, crisp french salad for dinner, and maybe i'll tell you about french salad tomorrow.

silk oscar de la renta scarf from marni.  i feel so fancy in it.

then to moonrise kingdom with c., since both of his weekend nights are taken up with gigs this week & it's pretty much too hot to stay home tonight.

first the third then the fourth

me & my beautiful mommy at guru's birthday brunch

provo is the most festive fourth of july city i know of.  people go nuts here.  our neighborhood is be-flagged.  every home has an american flag planted in the front yard by the local boy scouts, put up in the early morning and taken down in the evening.  hot air balloons are launched in early morning, we have a big parade that closes down many neighborhoods and streets, and the evening brings stadium of fire--a massive affair with musical acts and fireworks.  tonight's act is the beach boys.

many families hold their reunions around the fourth as out-of-towners like to come for the festivities.  our reunion is always held on the 3rd in Midway, so my birthday is always a holiday of sorts.  (i may have an overblown sense of importance since my mom told me how my birth was accompanied by fireworks.)

yesterday, my mom, sisters and daughters had birthday brunch at guru's.

ingrid is the baked good queen at exoskeleton.  birthday watercolor by moses.

ingrid stayed up all night baking--birthday shortbread with fresh apricot puree and toasted pecans, cakes and mini-cupcakes for my sister hilary's wedding reception tomorrow night, and birthday peanut butter m&m cookies in a hand-decoupaged tin for my birthday present.

is eva becoming a farmer?

eva and anna came to midway for the reunion bearing this breathtaking basket of produce, honeycomb, chicken and duck eggs from the urban homestead they're living in right now in salt lake city.

uncle tom's teepee, fire in alpine.

uncle tom's, where the reunion is always held, is an amazing place.  he has gardens, animals, and, the kids' favorite, a golf-cart they can drive around the property. here's the tee-pee against the backdrop of a huge blaze in alpine, utah that started yesterday.  this whole state is on fire.

annual whitaker family reunion cakewalk.  c. playing harmonium in the background.

every year aunt bonnie makes cakes and flower crowns & c. brings his harmonium for a cake walk.  this year moses won.  he ran up to me with his cake, "isn't this the coolest looking cake you've ever seen?  aren't you so proud of me for winning?"  i was.

sample one: sasha and eve

here's a small sampling of (a few of) my nieces, visiting from out of town.

sample two:  ruby and baby lara

my nieces and nephews are extra adorable and brilliant, as you can see.

slopping the pigs

before leaving the reunion, we slopped the pigs and visited the (on-site) cowboy museum.  uncle tom has an intense relationship with cowboy culture, having started the heber cowboy poetry festival which has now become a major national event.

trying to get evie to give me a little birthday kiss

the day ended with a baskin & robbins ice cream cake from c., who knows what i love (i'll be spending my williams sonoma gift card from him today), fries and onion rings from stan's with katie, and working up my duet with kristin (a michael jackson song. . . .)

this fourth of july poem by gregory djanikian will give you a small sense of how i feel in provo in the hardcore patriot season here.  i sometimes feel like an immigrant here--somewhat baffled by the weeping and waving, but also intrigued and amused.

and, because this poem is in what i would call the billy collins school, more narrative & expository than poetic, i almost don't wanna put it up.  but it's apropos, so i will.  it will be fleetingly expressive of a momentary emotion.

Immigrant Picnic

BY GREGORY DJANIKIAN

It's the Fourth of July, the flags

are painting the town,

the plastic forks and knives

are laid out like a parade.

And I'm grilling, I've got my apron,

I've got potato salad, macaroni, relish,

I've got a hat shaped   

like the state of Pennsylvania.

I ask my father what's his pleasure

and he says, "Hot dog, medium rare,"

and then, "Hamburger, sure,   

what's the big difference,"   

as if he's really asking.

I put on hamburgers and hot dogs,   

slice up the sour pickles and Bermudas,

uncap the condiments. The paper napkins   

are fluttering away like lost messages.

"You're running around," my mother says,   

"like a chicken with its head loose."

"Ma," I say, "you mean cut off,

loose and cut off   being as far apart   

as, say, son and daughter."

She gives me a quizzical look as though   

I've been caught in some impropriety.

"I love you and your sister just the same," she says,

"Sure," my grandmother pipes in,

"you're both our children, so why worry?"

That's not the point I begin telling them,

and I'm comparing words to fish now,   

like the ones in the sea at Port Said,   

or like birds among the date palms by the Nile,

unrepentantly elusive, wild.   

"Sonia," my father says to my mother,

"what the hell is he talking about?"

"He's on a ball," my mother says.

                                                      

"That's roll!" I say, throwing up my hands,

"as in hot dog, hamburger, dinner roll...."

"And what about roll out the barrels?" my mother asks,

and my father claps his hands, "Why sure," he says,

"let's have some fun," and launches   

into a polka, twirling my mother   

around and around like the happiest top,   

and my uncle is shaking his head, saying

"You could grow nuts listening to us,"   

and I'm thinking of pistachios in the Sinai

burgeoning without end,   

pecans in the South, the jumbled

flavor of them suddenly in my mouth,

wordless, confusing,

crowding out everything else.