The Truth About Volunteering

day 88
The Pause That Refreshes


First things first. Dad had emergency surgery today after a suture ruptured last night. Like my ornery but occasionally amusing sports guy TONY KORNHEISER, I am bringing you for a few days while I try to help Dad get better--"The Best of .." my columns and writings published in honorable publications elsewhere. ;-)


xxxooo
Wanda Eve

Soup's On
We are all hungry, but for what?


By Wanda E. Fleming
Sunday, October 26, 2008 



"Spies always make the worst soup," Darryl mutters. "You're obviously a spy."


Until now, I've been the shelter's helium balloon. I've floated above it all, a yellow smiley face stamped on a Mylar disc. Now I stand accused of espionage and, worse, lousy soup-making. I drift to the floor.


No other volunteer experience has prepared me for this one, not the Earth Day cleanups or candy striping at the children's hospital or the food bank distribution of cornflakes and diapers. All three ventures unfolded the same way: the assisted bubbling over with thanks. This one's different.


I turn from the stove, where I've been ladling bowls of carrots, pasta and broth. It's days before Thanksgiving. Soon, an avalanche of donations will swallow the kitchen. Canned vegetables will stack every inch of floor. Dozens of perishable pies oozing fruit from their slightly damaged boxes will crowd counters. We'll scurry to decide what to do with frozen turkeys dumped on our doorstep minutes before dinner. But for now, I pass off watery soup and day-old baguettes as lunch.


I start to explain to Darryl that a crate of fresh carrots arrived last night. That's why they're firm not soft, but he is unconvinced. "Look, Miss, they ain't firm; they're hard. Typical CIA."


I don't intend to react, but I do. I chuckle. Then a smirk seeps across my face. I, the "spy" of the badly cooked carrots, am thinking, "Look, buddy, you're the hungry one; be grateful."


My accuser is not just homeless, he's a veteran, which evokes indulgence for his moods and paranoia. Sometimes, he's lucid bordering on bookish. Other times, he's cranky and incoherent. Like most of the 20 men who line up for lunch, Darryl appears older than he is. Lines hug his mouth as though decades ago he laughed at everything, even bad jokes, but now he's paused to regret.


He stares at us, the five Saturday servers -- the volunteers. It's as though he has our number, and any minute now he'll say, "I know why I'm here, but why are you?"


He empties his bowl of the uneaten carrot chunks, then heads to the bathroom, a room that always smells of slapdash cleaning and the pine tree deodorizers hung in gypsy cabs. When Darryl rushes out, he nods without words, his trademark goodbye. The bar of soap has disappeared, as have the paper towels, the brown industrial kind.


Fran, the elderly head volunteer, hustles to the bathroom after each man departs and sprays disinfectant to a mushroom cloud. Her voice wafts out with the fumes.


"See. That's why I never buy the good stuff," she shouts. "They always steal it!"


Fran barks at the men, whom we call "guests." As she sets the table and folds their napkins, she tells them where to sit. "Lose the profanity! Take just one roll!"


Still, Fran is the only one willing to walk the blocks to our local bakery and to haggle for day-old loaves. She loads them up in her rattling cart. Friday nights she makes bread pudding, at least two pans, often three.


The other volunteers shake their heads at Fran. They whisper behind her back. "She really hates Darryl," one of them blurts. "Why does she bother coming if is she hates them all so much?"

Soup from one of my favorite blogs!
Catie's Corner. Recipe here.

No one asks why anyone else comes. Service lures with the heady scent of sacrifice -- sacrifice allegedly free of motive. For this reason, I don't say I'm an insomniac, grappling with a faith I no longer fully believe in and seeking an antidote to both ailments. No one points to the college student who serves food as restitution for a drunken driving incident, or the teacher who whispers to me as we chop wilted celery, "You think I'll ever find a nice guy here? . . . Oh, God, I'm getting so old." Though some set the tables and ladle the soup, we are all hungry.


When the men leave, we wash their plates. We sit on the floor drinking leftover coffee. A few eat the government-issued cheese that smells of plastic couch covers. Just as we lower the kitchen lights, banging erupts from the front door. The knocks come hard and fast, with barely a moment to slip back the locks.


It's Darryl.


"I forgot my knapsack," he mumbles
.
He snatches the bag from the vestibule and turns away. Paper towels peek from the pocket of his cloth coat.


"Hey, Darryl," I say. "See you on Thanksgiving, man."


"Yeah, I guess. You making that cake?"


"What?"


"Your chocolate cake, you making it?"


"Yeah, sure -- maybe," I say.


"Good, it's better than those carrots."


I ease the door back. He doesn't bubble over; I don't float. For that, I am grateful. I suspect he is, too.

Nightfall
day 87

I'm at the hospital with Dad....

where right before moving him to an sub acute rehab facility a suture ruptured..delaying his move. Surgery likely tomorrow.

 ;-(

love to all

W.

ETSY Loved and Found

Sunday Montage

A Gush of Royal Hues
day 86


Deep Blue & Purple are royal even when gracing something as humble as violet bubble gum. Each hue says, "Look at me if you dare." And mostly you can't help yourself, so help yourself to these slices of grandeur. Funny thing is though, the swath between deep blue and purple can be as whisper soft as pale periwinkle or as lush as a heap of museum jewels. As always, yours for the picking. (see links below)

Love these? Find our ETSY featured artists with a click away!


white and purple flower pillow
purple and red leaf necklace
river girls juicy blackberry sage soap
handmade stitched journal
launch into autumn crocheted hat
pretty vintage '50s dress
raw violet necklace
scarf
pointed flower art print


good night
sleep tight
Wanda ;-)

Think Pink

  day 85
Today came in with a flurry of requests. Before I could put up the coffee and discover we were completely out of milk, a girl wished for all the Coco Chanel cards I could muster. Then the flapper girl coasters were sought by a newlywed in Paris. Hippie Girl soaps to San Diego and a string of white lights on pink chemise for me. This Saturday was meant for a whirl of Pink.

Find these fabulous River Girls things at Etsy

Love the white lights photo? 
See the wonderful work of this teen shutterbug here. 

Good night,

Wanda

Being Sick: Lessons on Illness

Etsy Print Art

day 84
I don't look at sickness and death the way most people do. I see it as inevitable, the shadowy breath on the nape of my neck that never evaporates, even in spring.


Chalk it up to the deep cut and scarring myomectomy  performed when I was 25. In the middle of a demographics class at the Kennedy School, I stood up and fell faint. Then it happened: blood gushed down my legs. A large tumor was rearing its head.


Forty eight hours later, my surgeon, a chivalrous ob gyn named Jerome Federschneider stared at my mother. She had rapidly left my dad at home in DC and flown up to Cambridge. Dr. Federschneider's intense plaintive eyes paused on me, then her. He said, "She will have 60% chance of recuperating well enough to have children. There may be miscarriages along the way."


What that surgery taught me is a lot of what I have had to learn over and over again. When I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, when my mother died at 65 of a massive heart attack. When our first child was diagnosed with diabetes, type one insulin dependent. And yes the preordained miscarriage, the loss of a child between the first and second  Now with dad's cancer. I know some things for certain:


At First, You Can't Breathe ....And then you're not sure you want to.  You can't bear the news but you do. You go to sleep grateful to stop thinking about it. You awake begging: "Please God, just let me go back to sleep. Let me forget this; let none of it be true." But it is true and somehow you manage to rise. You go back to grapple, to slug it out, to fight.


The Body Betrays
Suddenly, the body parts don't work. Yours---your parents'--your child's. They are supposed to work, and perhaps they have, but now they don't. The uterus won't hold; bad cells migrate; genes betray. Witnessing the body's disrepair and disintegration can be such a rude awakening. Recognizing its capacity to embarass and betray is painful. But the truth is these occurrences, these realities, are simple stepping stones to final endings. The body is a shell. The soul prevails. 



True Friends Shine. The Fearful Recede.

The story is always the same. Serious illness strips veneers. No matter what, it shows you who your true friends are. Some people are eloquent; some bumbling but the eloquent and the bumbling have the same spirit. They are twins harboring a desire to tell you: "I want you to be well. To survive this suffering. I love you. I'm sorry for your pain."


The fearful, however, disappear. Like cotton candy on a hot summer tongue, sweet, then poof! Gone. They are unable to exist with the merest application of life's heat. Beyond awkward, they are invisible when you are reeling. They are the ones who often think, if I have all the right tests and eat all the juiciest healthiest things it won't happen to me, but of course it will. Things happen; they always do.


Support comes; love surrounds
Out of no where come bands of angels: the neighbor who never really speaks suddenly does, the old friends from high school find you, the sibling who hates sickness steps up, the nurse on her 11th hour of a grueling 12 hour shift says "hang in there." 


So often when you are suffering, another human being will come and stand by you. She will tell you of her own father's illness or say, "I am pulling hard for you," or bring a big yellow cake like your mom used to bake and that tastes better than anything you've eaten all week.


Never forget to tell those you love
how much you do, never underestimate the power of small gestures.


Good night friends,
Wanda


copyright 2011

Zonked

day 83

Too tired to speak, also known as speechless.

Good night Friends

Wanda

Gorgeous Fat Tomatoes

day 82

Today, Dad asked that we leave the hospital where he is recuperating from surgery and go to the house to retrieve his glasses and box of tissues. A prolific gardener,  he had complained for weeks about the scorching sun and how he didn't think he would see many tomatoes this season. Yet, when I rounded the back yard, there they were. Bunches and bunches of fat juicy tomatoes and deep red peppers hanging from their vines.

Dad still can't eat anything, but we took one of each back to the hospital so he could see how well he had done. He told me to take them home, use them, and now, I have. 

I will make spinach salad with roasted almonds, and chop them for omelets and toy with a sweet and spicy salsa recipe. I will eat some raw and go to sleep dreaming of a orange red tomato soap that soothes acne ridden oily skin. Ahhh the possibilities of tomatoes.

Good night,

Wanda

A Pretty Box for River Girls Italian Orange Chocolate Mocha Soaps...

day 81

Of the 30 soaps I pour each month, Meant to Bee  and the Italian Orange Chocolate Mocha cup soaps are by far the most detailed and demanding. Each is a two layer, two color pour but both are rife with possibility for error. The molds have deep small wells that the soap pourer must be certain not to overpour.  The slighest misstep or bump and out come the paper towels to rescue.

Today, I received requests for both and for special birthday gifts. I purchased a series of pretty polka frosted containers that resemble Chinese takeout containers. Depending upon how you position the bars, these containers hold two to three of River Girls' specialty bars. Include colorful tissue paper and a fabulous bow. 


Pretty, pretty good.


Good night friends,
Wanda Eve

Alive....sort of.

day 80

Dad's surgery was successful. He came out of the OR 90 minutes, early tumor cleanly removed--(Two broadly smiling surgeons). Cancer has been staged at 3, chemo coming in 4-6 weeks. Kindly continue to keep him in your prayers. I believe in their power and am grateful. 

Good night,

Wanda

Etsy Loved and Found

day 79
Blue Beauty


It's true! Blue is a mood, but it's also the night sky before it turns black and the sparkle of cobalt glass. It's the serenity of the Aegean Sea from the parapet of a village church. But mostly it's the craftiest, most versatile hue of all, capable of easing from passionate indigo to gentle azure in the swiftest of eye blinks. What's not to love? (Links for these pretty little ETSY things are found below...)

Pretty Charm Bracelet
Degas Corset
Bluebird Hair Barette

Dragonfly Jewel Cuff
River Girls Botanical Gel in Decadent Scents
Pretty Starfish Cookies
Cobalt Pottery Tumblers
Midnight Blue Gown
"I Love You Even When You Steal All the Covers" Card



Want to be featured? Each artisan is carefully considered. A few are selected each week. ;-)  Follow River Girls Studio 365 and drop me a comment! 


Good night,
Wanda Eve

Inspired to Create

More of These....Pretty Please

day 78

Sometimes you're under the gun to create but circumstances conspire to get in the way. That is when I corral a mental scrapbook of  life inside and outside the Studio walls. 

These are pictures, photos, and words that inspired me today...I'd love more of these...lots more ...

1. because Frank Sinatra wore hats and sung the words "just the way you look tonight" like he meant it...2. because Fresh local apples say, "Smell the sweet and taste the tart; there's nothing here waxy wrestling down your tongue!" ...3. because Snarky words remind you that sometimes you'll die if you don't think them, and you'll stay dead if you don't say them... 4 and 5. because there will always be ways to say  I Love You, starting with a magnetized sneak attack on the refrigerator and a scripted tattoo... 6. because sometimes, the best way to clear your head and get all gaga creative is to sniff a bar of River Girls Wake up Call soap in Peppermint and Eucalyptus.. 7. because strawberry cream cake can make you see stars and do very crazy things with a loved one. ';-) 8. because Giraffes  are tall, have sumptuous long lashes and an average blood pressure of 220 over something else ungodly but they never ever look stressed. 9. because images of the Madonna and Child in colors of copper and burnt sienna conjure up her true life full of dust, sand and labor. 10. because making s'mores is more than an exercise in the kitchen; it's girl scouts galore and at last. 11. because a full body tattoo in cherry blossoms is stunning and while I might not be getting this, I'm beginning to think some brave soul should!  

Stay inspired!

Wanda

River Girls Yum Fun Images 

Snarky  "Your Fault" card from Etsy; Gooey S'mores from Fork vs Spoon (decadent recipe included here!). Magnetic love photo at Flicker. Love is Enough tattoo at Flicker. Ahh the Giraffe beats the competition at National Geographic Travel Photo Contest. Bite me apples fine art print at Etsy. River Girls truly awesome clear your passages Wake up Call! Soap. Dreaming about a cherry blossom body tattoo? Wow! See more ...

My Mad Dash Movie

Day 77

Today, the hospital told Dad he could now have a liquid diet after having consumed nothing for three days. Then came the extra sentence. "You can call a relative if you'd like, and perhaps, they could make you a thin broth soup." 

I was the relative. Even though I was pouring the beautiful but very tedious Meant to Bee soap, the request made me Mrs Happy Go Lucky. Why?  Because in the midst of the week's turmoil, a movie fantasy reel began to unfurl in my head. 

I cut the carrots and chop the onions. I core my sweet red bell peppers. Scoop up and toss in a melange of dry herbs---but mostly rosemary and marjoram. The kettle is bubbling with chicken broth. I toss in all the ingredients and then add my love, my well wishes, my strength. An hour later the soup's steam undulates to the ceiling. The taste is sweet but full of heat in that way that makes you crave more.

The night before the surgery, my father is served the soup. Oddly, it arrives with white linen napkins and a vintage silver spoon.

The next day in the operating room, the members of the surgical team are left aghast. As the incision is made, and the skin flaps opened, the colon is revealed as healthy, plump and pink. The urologist faints to a crumbled heap. The observing intern gasps.

Within days, the news leaks out. The soup was magic! Who made that soup? Where is the recipe?

Dad and I are pursued all over global countrysides by paparazzi and evil CIA villains. I get to ride a baby blue Vespa over waterfalls. I learn to swim well by sheer terror and default. And yet my hair looks fabulous!

That's it. That's my movie. Did I mention Sean Connery plays Dad? Halle Berry gets to play me. That's some dumb luck those two caught!

Good night,

Wanda

Hospital Chat

Day 76
I spent the day at the hospital with my Dad. We talked about the Debt Crisis, the Nationals' amazing season and the times he made vanilla bean ice cream for 4th of July. 


Sometimes, when I talk to my Dad I think I am the luckiest person in the world. I think to know someone who has lived this long and still yaks lucidly about the world is a gift. I like to listen to him talk, and I think it must be because he seemed so quiet when I was growing up. 

River Girls Soap

Now, when I lie down and try to sleep at night, I think about him telling me he was voted Blue Bird of the class.  It's a story he told my daughter when she was young and came to interview him for a class project. I have heard  it so many times but it is the first one I replay. As a boy, he had a wonderful singing voice and was named class Blue Bird when end of year prizes were awarded. 


I replay the one where his mother gave him a book about the life of Luther Burbank, and it made him love seeds. It led him to grow flowers for her, then leave for college to study botany and horticulture, at least for a while.


And then the one about being a young man working in the Mrs. Smith Pie factory. Yes that one!


The stories I flip through in the dark night have spring colors, hopeful colors 
big fluffy meringue pies 
speckled birds' eggs
and long stem peach roses.


I dream about Dad awash in these colors, 
pushing back the images the doctor shows of 
black corroded cells and carmine blood 
leaking where it has no right to.


Goodnight,
Wanda Eve

Deep Breath

Day 75

My father is sick. It happened very quickly, and I don't know if he is going to make it.

Tonight in the hospital, I kept staring at him. I was thinking he looks great! He's still handsome. He's laughing.


I'm dreaming this.

When I was a little girl, my dad slipped on a rug as he walked to the dining room with a plate of hot rolls. He sprained his arm and had to wear a sling. He had his  tonsils taken out when I was 12.

But that's all; that's it. Nothing else, never sick.

My father grows beautiful peonies and has since I was a baby. Two years ago, he telephoned me and said,  "I have a surprise for you. I am dropping by your front door some peony roots."

I still have the slip of paper he wrote the directions on. It has a smiley face with funny hair and reads:

Do not plant me too close. I like to breathe.  

Love, Dad

The first year my peonies came up weak and spindly, with just a few flowers. "Be patient," Dad said. "Next spring, they'll be beautiful. You'll see."

This May, they sprung up everywhere, fragrant, large and beautiful in white and peppermint stripe, born of 50 year old roots. 

I'm trying to take a deep breath. Ever hopeful, Dad.

Goodnight Friends,

Wanda

A Beautiful Day Inside: Lovely Limbs Three Sugars Scrub

day 74
Oh Baby, Can You Say Furnace?
Today was another near 100 degree day in Washington, D.C. And I have decided that I now know why I ventured north to Brunswick, Maine for college when I was a young girl of 18. It's the summers here. I manage all the seasons well. I am a lover of places that have four seasons. Yet, even as a child, summer was my least favorite. Living round the clock with sterile air conditioning but claiming to love summer, well it's just not true. We are all awaiting the moment of cool relief.

River Girls Lovely Limbs 3 Sugars Scrub in
Raspberry Blackberry Sage,
Coming Soon in 4oz Try Me, Love Me Jars

I  love  the chill of air, and breezes, and the sort of hushed quick way the sun sets on short days. I love pumpkin carving and holidays but most of all, stepping out on my back bedroom porch at night and shivering a bit.


Woweeee Holy Cow!
All of that said, today was a lovely day full of  well stitched completions. The beauty of nothing extraordinary happening but everything ordinary falling into place. That was this day.

River Girls Lovely Limbs 3 Sugars Scrub in
Lemon Lavender TeaCake, 
Coming Soon in 4oz Try Me, Love Me Jars

For the upcoming Fall 2011 Season,  I have committed to giving River Girls best selling  Lovely Limbs Three Sugars Scrub its own Made To Order menu of divine scents. The original will continue to be served up in Cranberry and Brown Sugar. The new list will include Raspberry Blackberry Sage; Vanilla Bean; and, Lemon Lavender Teacake.  Hippie Girl and Wake Up Peppermint Eucalyptus are under consideration as well as an in-house custom blend of White Chocolate Peony and a Coconut Blood Orange scent. I am experimenting; if you have a fantasy scent idea, suggest away!

Unlike the Brown Sugar Cranberry original, these will come in the smaller 4 oz jars and weigh in at 6 ounces. The truth is at $7.95, you'll want to buy and try all!

Happy Tuesday Evening!

Wanda Eve

Dear Hollywood, Are You Trying to Give Me a Lap Dance or Are You Just Happy to be in the Dark with Me?

Or Why I Detest 3-D Movies
Day 73

Etsy Film Button CLICK Here!

Recently, I ventured out to see the summer hit Captain America. My daughter who had preceded me to the ticket counter ran over and whispered "Mom, bad news. It's that 3D stuff you hate."


Bad news indeed. Hate? Yes, that's me, the nose thumbing, party crasher of Hollywood's latest money making venture.

River Girls Audrey Hepburn Happy Birthday "Dahling" Card

Maria Godoy of National Public Radio reported last week of her disdain for the cinematic slight of hand. 3D movies make her extremely nauseous. She claims she is not alone: "Reports of people suffering headaches, dizziness, eye fatigue and other visual discomforts from 3-D viewing have grown alongside the use of 3-D technology..."

I confess 3-D movies do  not give me a headache. They don't trigger nausea in me either, and I have a PhD in Nausea. Back when I was pregnant with our two children I suffered from severe hyperemesis. For the Latin challenged, that's when you wake up barfing. Then you throw up from seeing food commercials, smelling food, tasting food, and touching food. Basically for weeks, you're crawling around on the bathroom floor, moaning, "Please dear God, just kill me now." (Sometimes, if you're still in a half way decent mood, you add in "No offense kid," as you hold on to your trembling belly.)


No nausea at the movies, but I digress.


I hate 3-D movies for the gigantic glasses that I have to wear over my contacts which already do not accurately correct my astigmatism. Imagine if I had to wear them over my former coke bottle glasses? Please.



I hate them for that three extra bucks the movie moguls are charging for wobbly face plastic that costs about 45 cents to produce. Then they ask for them back? Really?


But mostly I hate it for the sense that Captain America was  sitting in my lap giving me a bachelorette lap dance I never ordered. We were that close. I half expected him to begin slurping on my overpriced, over-iced diet Coke.  


The You Are There intimacy of 3-D is crudely contrived and unnecessary. I never needed the dumbing down of 3-D to tell me that Jaws' Great White Shark was about to gnaw off a swimmer's leg or that the Godfather's Sonny was headed for the tollbooth massacre of his life. That's what imagination and a soundtrack are for.


And speaking of sound, the 3-D  movies are quite loud. The technology generally embraces the action and horror genres which are already loud. After all, they're jam packed with noisy vehicle crashes, mayhem and screaming.  


Are you saying I will enjoy it more if I would just lie back and allow you to MEGAPHONE it all to me? If I could just see the nose hairs of the leading guy and dodge the screeching oncoming train as it careens off the hovering Alps? Ohhhh. That would be so cool. 


I don't think so. ;-)


Good night,
Wanda Eve