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About Face

I took a break from facebook,a social networking site on the Internet. Ha! As if I have to define it. I couldn't take it anymore. All the applications,the comments,scrabble games,and those endless status reports. My head was swimming. I had 238 friends at the time of my leave of absence. Seven had become white silhouettes on a blue backdrop, and their names were in black. That meant that they had dropped out of facebook. I thought that maybe I should do that for awhile. They give you the option of returning to your wall intact.

You know when you play little mind games with yourself? My husband told me that when he was a kid shooting hoops alone he would tell himself that if he didn't get 10 in a row his house would burn down in the middle of the night. He would change it to 10 out of 20 , but there would be real drama for each free throw. Everyone plays some kind of game.

My game was: If one more person updated their status report with "is" I would quit facebook for awhile. It took three days, but it inevitably happened. I don't know what it is about that particular update that makes me cringe, but it does. I saw it so often like it was ironic and original. That was when I realized that I was a facebook snob.

But really. Those status reports can get exhausting. Who cares if you are putting blueberries into your oatmeal? Now you are feeding your cat? About to hop into the shower? Do tell. When it is a quick and immediate event you can be assured hourly updates throughout the day,people get on jags. Some friends will settle on a long term goal and leave it up for weeks. When these people finally delete their status report they usually leave only their name up for awhile, no update at all. Then there is the fellow with the invitation to anyone in the area to meet him for drinks at 5pm two weeks ago Friday as his update.

I was no better. I went on jags.I started to get self conscious and sick of my own updates, so I quit those for awhile. The constant need to come up with something pithy and current was taxing. I had been posting far too many photos. I should have been pursuing other pursuits. I am trying to write a book, this was becoming such a distraction.

It wasn't until I got my "feelings hurt" that I realized I had to take a step back. It was all becoming a bad flashback to high school. As a fully grown adult, I should have known better. What happened was I had gotten in touch with a lot of my old friends from Athens, GA. That was fun. I caught up with so many people who I hadn't seen in years. There wasn't the pesky bother of small talk either. You get right to the meat of peoples lives when you witness their walls. I saw pictures of their husbands or wives and children. It is a fully invasive/non-evasive re-connection.

On one of my friend's friend's list I saw this gal that I hardly knew. She was really popular and pretty. She used to wait on me at breakfast. I requested her friendship because I am wicked nosy and I wanted to see her pictures. I wanted to see if she had gotten married or had any kids. She accepted , I looked at her pictures (no and no) and then she got lost in the abyss.

About 4 or 5 months later I was looking at one of my friend's walls and I saw that my breakfast waitress had written her a note. I thought, I haven't seen her wall in awhile I wonder what she is up to, so I clicked on her picture. A little box popped up stating that I had to be her friend in order to view her complete profile. I was stung. I thought I was her friend! She had unfriended me! What did I do? I was seriously hurt and thought about it for days. I couldn't figure it out. It finally dawned on me. I didn't really know her at all. She probably didn't want to open herself up to a complete stranger. I think I am too out there.

I do understand the need to keep certain people at bay.I just didn't think that I was one of them. When I was in India I joined the India Network on facebook. If you are in a network you can see other network members complete profiles. I had to give up that network. I was getting friendship requests from every Kumar, Rajiv, and Ghandi with interesting messages attached.

There are a lot of great things about facebook too. It really does connect. A friend of mine who now lives in Colorado came by to visit at Christmas. We went to high school together. He told me that another friend of ours was on facebook and that she lived in the next town over. I hadn't seen her since I was 14 years old. She transferred schools in our junior year and we completely lost touch.

I became her facebook friend and saw that she was also the mother of 2 boys 22 months apart,and that she too enjoyed cooking. She still liked the English Beat and Squeeze. We had been fanatics in high school. It was nice to get the 411 first, there's nothing like screening old friends. I invited her over for lunch and we had a great time, then I went to her house and she came over again. Back and forth without having to beg our parents for rides. My how much we had grown.

During the election I enjoyed the debates through updates. There is something very communal about facebook. Major drama plays out in real time. When something big is happening you can just sit there and hit refresh. You can read everyones take. If you are smart, you'll turn off the computer entirely and make some beds or soup, maybe read a book.

I took six weeks off and I got a lot done. I am writing that book. It is a silly little coming of age drama. I like it. I like making up characters and having them say and do anything that I please. My little puppets,totally at my mercy.

I am back on facebook now but I am more of a voyeur and less of a participant. My first status report upon my return was "Lucy Cuseo is almost there and really not here". Too cute? I thought so. I took it down. Right after I re-upped,I saw this really cool application. Name your top five albums of all time. I couldn't help myself. The graphics were great. The five album covers are lined up on your wall, I had to do it.

I picked Raindogs by Tom Waits, Blood on the Tracks by Bob Dylan, Eat a Peach by the Allman Brothers, Harvest by Neil Young and Facing Future by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole. That application prompted me to put all the cds on my ipod. Now I have a new mix for my hikes up and down the hills of Brown and RISD. So there is that. I changed my status report to a line from a Tom Waits song. "Lucy Cuseo is staying out of circulation until the dogs get tired." Still too cute? I'll take it down, and leave only my name. That's what all the cool kids are doing these days. I like to watch.

Look at her. Isn't she great?

This is Miss Charlotte Kwasha. She tells me the secret to her longevity is never having been married and never having had kids. She winks when she says it. She told me that she lost her chance at marriage when her mother had a stroke. Charlotte was 17 at the time. She said that she dropped out of school to take care of her. She said-"I thought at the most 4 years". You should hear how she says it. She is so clinical! She has a kind of a detached amusement. It was 73 years ago after all. "Do you know, she hung on for 10! Well, I was 27 when she finally passed away,far too old to be eligible for marriage."

So Charlotte got a job at City Hall here in Providence. When she was 34 years old she was "tricked" into becoming a WAAC. She joined Women's Auxiliary Army because some guy dared her to sign a paper, she was feeling a little stir crazy that day, so she"without realizing it, signed away her life!". When he flipped the paper over it had some official seal and some numbers on it. She told him to rip it up. He said he couldn't "on account of the numbers" so off she went to Des Moines, Iowa for training and then she spent years in New Guinea,sleeping in a tent as bullets whizzed overhead.

On February 12 of this year Willard Scott told America how pretty he thought she was and wished her a happy 100th birthday. She likes to go for brisk walks every day, she insists on making her own bed,completes the daily crossword, and is always involved in a book. She eats only when she hungry,and enjoys chit chatting. These are her secrets.
And now Charlotte is on the web.

Ruv the Duv.

This is my brother-in-law Dr. Ravi Chopra. He married my sister Jo when I was eleven,and soon after,he took her away from me. I was pretty mad at him at first. I mean, he took her to India! That was the end of the earth to a preteen in Fall River, Massachusetts. We didn't have computers. You should have heard the echo on the phone when we called her. Calling her was an event. None of my friends believed me.How could I have a sister who lived in India? Just who did I think I was?


I always carried one of their wacky wedding pictures and a recent airletter from Jo in my pocketbook as proof. Jo was so good about writing to me. I lived for those blue pre-stamped letters. Lived for them!

Jo met Ravi in 1978. She was on the Continental Walk for Social Justice and Disarmament and he was on a march for Indians for Democracy. Their marches crossed in New Jersey. They all stopped to have a hippie picnic. The love. 11 months later they got married. Their wedding was to behold. It was in Nanaquaket, Rhode Island. The first part of the ceremony was Catholic. Fr. Daniel Berrigan celebrated. He had been one of the FBI's 10 most wanted men in America for awhile. He had thrown blood on the steps of the Pentagon. He was so cool. The second part of the service was all incense and Indian. It was so gorgeous. The colors,the smells, the ceremony. Even at eleven, I was moved,changed,thrown, I knew I would someday go to India. Jo moved into Ravi's Hoboken, NJ apartment. I used to visit them all the time, until they left the country.

Ravi has little things that he walks around saying for months,sometimes years, often decades. When they left America in the early 80's Ravi had a habit of responding to anything that I said with "Colt 45!" It was the way he said it. I always laughed. Another one of his favorites was "Why Oh why is the sky so high and you can't fly in the month of July" That would just spring from him for no apparent reason.

I wrote to Jo to get some more Ravi-isms. I laughed out loud because he is STILL saying "Send-a me the book, no?" No one understands why or where these originated. This guy is a total genius. He is sort after all over India to fix problems.

Last month I had lunch with my niece Cathleen and nephew Anand, Jo and Ravi's kids. I asked them exactly what it was that their father did. I have always told people when pressed that he is an "Appropriate Technologist".Turns out,I am right. Ravi studies the state of India's environment and figures out appropriate means to preserve or correct it. If the situation calls for a mule, he'll send in a mule. You know what I mean.

He has a team of people working for him and they go into places all over India that have been hard hit by disaster. Gorgeous Rajasthan (drought), all over Uttarakhand (earthquakes),Latur(also earthquakes), Orissa(cyclone) and Bihar (droughts and floods). India reminds me of Biblical times. There was a locust invasion too.

Ravi is a very very busy man,this is not to say that he doesn't have time to sit and watch an episode of Tom and Jerry with his youngest daughter and his father- in- law.
It is always clear though that his thoughts are never far from doing anything he can to make the lives of the truly desperate livable. His work is intense,and so is he. I totally understand why Jo took such a leap of faith. He is a good guy and he is the right amount of nutty. Send-a me the book no?

Mr. Crane

When I was about 9 or 10 years old I used to walk home from school by myself. I would never dream of letting my boys do such a thing, but times have changed. I used to walk by the Fall River Firehouse. Mr. Crane was always sitting on this bench at that time of day. He was a gem. He was probably in his late 70's, early 80's. He had the same birthday as me. We would sit and talk everyday.

Some days we would cross the street to get a better look at a display of bottles that this lady had in her kitchen window. We would point out our favorites. Some days we walked around the block. He and I talked about a lot of things. He seemed to take me very seriously, always listening to my youthful insights with kind attention. I liked this old man a lot.

One Saturday I was just walking around my neighborhood and I saw him down the street from my house. I invited him in to meet my family. My mother had never heard of him. I could have sworn that I had said something about him. No one in my family had ever heard of him! I had been hanging out with him for well over a year but I had never mentioned it.

To Everything There is a Season.

My 8 year old son, Enzo gets up early every morning so he can read the sports pages cover to cover. He pores over them at the kitchen table. He bangs his fist. He is like a middle aged man. If a game that he really wants to see is on a Sunday afternoon, he will speak of nothing else all weekend.

On Saturday morning, after he reads the sports, he will announce that he is going to be "RNH" the following afternoon. RNH stands for "Really Not Here". Fabio coined the phrase a few years ago. He says it whenever he needs to get stuff done around the house without being disturbed,and he is RNH when there is a big game on TV.

On Sunday afternoons, while Owen plays at the neighbors or just outside,Enzo will sit in front of the TV. I only see him during commercials. I have healthy 3 minute snacks for him waiting in the kitchen. No more eating in the TV room. If it is dinnertime, I will turn the game on in the kitchen. Thank God he's not a fat kid.

The weather has been too cold to do much of anything except stay home. Soon Enzo will need to end this little obsession and start playing outside. Summer will be better, so I indulge him now. It gets dark at 4, what are you going to do?

I let him watch all of the Super Bowl even though it was past his bed time. He fell asleep in the middle but woke up for the exciting finish. He wanted the Steelers so he was happy. I don't follow football but his enthusiasm overwhelmed me and I was screaming for the Steelers too.

During the Pro Bowl, Enzo explained to me in agonizing detail the differences between it and a regular season game. In the Pro bowl there is no blitzing,a coach cannot challenge, they can't replay and intentional grounding is allowed. Do you know how much they make mom? The winning team gets $45,000 and the losers get $22,500. To split? I just said that to make him laugh, he can be so serious.

He is now counting down the days, hours and minutes until pitchers and catchers report for Spring Training. Baseball is something I can get into with him. I love the Red Sox and so does he. Owen, or O contraire as we like to call him, likes the Yankees. I live in a house divided. A Tale of Two Cities. Owen is just doing this to bug us. It started in 3rd grade in a mad fit to impress a girl who won't give him the time of day in 4th, and now I think he feels stuck.

It doesn't help that we have a picture of him as a baby in full Yankee attire. It was a joke. I don't even know why I allowed it. We were living in Hawaii at the time so it didn't seem so evil. Fabio grew up in Westport, Connecticut and had been a life long Yankee fan until we met. In fact, it is sort of how we met.

I was sitting on a cooler at a party and Fabio wanted something that was in it. He asked me to move. I said, "Oh, am I sitting on the cooler?" I guess I didn't pronounce my "r" in cooler. He said, "Where are you from?" I said "Boston" (close enough). The very next thing he said to me was, "So what do you think of Bill Buckner?" This was 1996 , we hadn't won the World Series yet, unless you were counting 1918. Was he really bringing up 1986? I got up and gave him a hateful stare. I said, "I have to go." I was trying to be funny but the pain was real.

I really did have to go. I was supposed to pick my niece up at the airport and if I hadn't left then I would have been late. I left the party. Fabio found the hostess, my old friend from grade school,and said, "I have got to get that girl's number." He called me and we have been together ever since. Spent a romantic honeymoon in Cooperstown, NY if you know what I mean. We are perfect for each other.

I must point out that Fabio became a Red Sox fan BEFORE they won the World Series. How can you not root for the home team when you live in it? I will ask Owen.

Maybe I shouldn't be so hard on Owen, his dad threw loyalty out the window for a girl too.

My New Clog

I had such a nice soup party about two weeks ago.Three families came over. I served Roasted Corn and Butternut Squash Soup (with some diced roasted red peppers). I also made an amazing white chili (I am going to end this post with that recipe-it is that good) and an involved minestrone. My boys had Progresso Chicken Noodle out of a can. Do you believe that?

The white chili went,there was nothing left. I had 2 tupperware containers filled with the other two soups. I put them in the mudroom which is a little colder than our refrigerator but not quite freezing. I forgot about them for two weeks. I would have loved them too. I can't believe I did that. It was because the boys weren't bugging me for them.

I finally got around to cleaning the mudroom. I am slowly working my way around the house. I have brought 6 huge boxes to Goodwill in the past two weeks. I saw the soup and figured drat it is off. I guess I am fooled by how modern our kitchen looks. I assumed I could use the disposal to dispose of the soup. So I did. It went down , I let it run, I ran the water. Everything seemed fine.

The next morning I went to switch the laundry that is directly below my kitchen sink. Both my basement basins were filled with water and soup. Apparently, our pipes are not modern at all.

I called Fabio, I tried to sound calm. He took the news well, as well as he could. He told me to pour 2 capfuls of this heavy duty stuff down the kitchen drain. If that didn't work in a day or two (he gave me a dosing schedule, it was 2 capfuls every 12 hours),I was to stick my arm in that mess and plug up one side with a rag and try to plunge the other side.

Of all days. Minutes before I saw this nightmare scenario playing out in front of me I had stripped all three beds. I was planning a marathon laundry day. I literally tripped over a mound of bed sheets as I spotted this avoidable disaster.

Fabio pulled up my blog entitled Help Wanted and read the third paragraph aloud to me over the phone. He repeated the last 3 lines just for fun.He was right. I didn't listen. He had told me that the pipes were old and not to use the garbage disposal for anything more than a stray crumb. I swear, I usually don't. I don't know what I was thinking. To hear Fabio tell it, it was as if I wasn't thinking at all.

It cost $365.00 to repair, but if anything happens in the next 5 years we are preferred customers. I actually woke poor Fabio up at 5 AM (he asked me to) when Mr. Rooter arrived at my door. I needed to know which credit card to use, and so on. I am telling you, I am like a new born baby when it comes to managing crisis. Before I married Fabio I was a serial live in nanny. I always had my own apartment and cars but nothing was ever in my name.

My 5 AM Fabio was positively Zen about everything, even when I tackled him with the grand total. I think it is because my birthday is coming up and he will not only miss that he will also miss St. Valentine's Day. Did I mention that it is snowing again and the kids are probably going to be dismissed early. I won't even get into my tub full of dishes.


White Chili (from the kitchen of Rosemary Liu)
INGREDIENTS
1 lb. small white beans
6 cups of chicken broth (although I use a lot more as it cooks down)
1 chicken bouillon cube
2 tsp. garlic powder
2 to 4 tsp. cumin
2 tsp. oregano
1 tsp. cayenne pepper
2 medium onions chopped and sauteed in 1 T oil until transparent
12 oz. chopped Ortega chilies (1 large and 1 small can)
1 whole (oven roasted) chicken, shredded
2 cups sour cream
3 cups grated jack cheese

INSTRUCTIONS
1. Soak the beans over night, discard water.
2. Add beans to chicken broth, bouillon, spices, onions and chilies.
3. Simmer 2 to 3 hours (I go for longer and that's where I add more broth, so watch it).
4. Add chicken, sour cream and cheese.
5. Serve with cilantro and olives.

This is the best chili I have ever had in my life. This chili never saw my drainpipes.