Rita Arens's Blog, page 10
December 30, 2015
2015 in Books
it was amazing
it was amazing
it was amazing
it was amazing
it was amazing
really liked it
it was amazing
it was amazing
it was amazing
really liked it
December 28, 2015
People of Walmart
I spent two hours yesterday like this.
December 26, 2015
Trippy Dreams
Compact, episodic dreams packaged neatly into before and after I wake up with my leg aching dully but purposefully: I am a violent sleeper, and my dreaming body doesn't know I broke my leg until my the pain reminds it.
In the first dream, I'm wearing a silk fifties-style frock and I'm riding a train into a large city with an older man who is not my husband but in the dream I understand I will be ousting his current wife. We arrive in the city and walk a long way until we enter a building tha...
December 25, 2015
When We Were Invincible
Having spent the Christmas holiday hobbling around my relatives' houses from crutches to rolling chairs to recliners to shower stools to my parents' bed because then I don't have to take the narrow stairs and am steps from a bathroom, I now understand why old people constantly talk about their health.
Especially with people who knew them when they were younger.
Using a shower stool and having to sit on the bathroom floor to put on makeup has been humbling. As has asking my seventy-year-old f...
December 21, 2015
Just Like That, It Changes
On Friday night, I was going to put my dishes in the dishwasher and head to bed. I stepped from the carpet of the living room onto the tile of the kitchen floor and the next thing I knew, I was on the floor on my ass with a broken glass in my hand. I sat there in total shock and pain as my husband cleaned up the broken glass and asked me if I was okay. I ended up hobbling to bed. He brought me ice and I put a compression sock on, thinking I'd probably sprained my ankle and would deal with it...
December 15, 2015
Before Sleep
Turning the lights out. Checking to see the doors are locked. Kissing the cat's furry head, watching as he shifts in his sleep and sometimes (if I'm lucky) sighs.
Pausing at the bottom of the stairs, listening, for what I never know, but I always do. Stopping into the playroom to peek at the almost ten-year-old hermit crabs whose claws clack against the glass of their tank as they make their way about their business.
Feeling my way over stuffed animals, paperbacks, discarded clothing and hang...
December 11, 2015
December 10, 2015
Holiday Food I Hate
Today's #BlogHerWritingLab prompt is: What food do you always reject on the holiday table? Why?
Well, remember how I said I loved the German cookie springerle? I really can't stand the German candied bread that can be used as currency in my family. Like currency, like I can trade it like cold, hard cash.
Stollen takes approximately seven years to make and is full of candied fruits and raisins. You make it into little loaves that my father hoards like bricks of gold. It can be eaten at any ti...
December 8, 2015
German Cookies No One Likes But Me
Today's #BlogHerWritingLab prompt is: Finish this sentence with your favourite food: "The holidays are not complete without..."
My answer is: springerle. They are German cookies that have cool patterns and I never liked them until my mom made them a different way about ten years ago and suddenly they were fluffy instead of hard and I fell in endless love with them. I remember we had both the embossed rolling pin and the little wooden blocks. I have yet to make them myself because my mother is...
December 7, 2015
The Time-Travel of Food
The #BlogHerWritingLab prompt today is: What dish transports you to a different place and time in your life?
A new restaurant in a small town is life-changing. When I was growing up, my small town was dominated by the local Pizza Hut in a way that hasn't been realized there before or since. All the cool kids in high school worked at Pizza Hut, and after football games we'd all head over to cram seven people into each side of the booths and try to make it out of the restaurant afterward with r...
