The Tao of Martha: My Year of LIVING

by Jen Lancaster

  (And thanks for taking away my ability to one-stop shop now, you stupid thieves with your supple skin and tiny pores.)

  Anyway, the compressed air comes with that long, narrow straw that, in theory, will be the perfect size for really getting into the shell. This seems like a rather elegant solution, and when it works brilliantly, I plan to share this news with the folks at Living, because I’m that kind of magnanimous. Ooh, maybe draining Easter eggs will be my X factor?

  I leave Target and head to Michaels, where I hope to find some variation of inexpensive Easter baskets. I make a major score when I discover stacks of pastel plastic buckets with attached shovels outside the front door on sale for a dollar apiece! They’re plain, yet they look almost exactly like the ones I saw in Martha’s “Last-Minute Easter Ideas” section of the Web site, covered in cute, puffy stickers.

  As this place is the Thunderdome for all things cute and puffy, I easily locate loads of Easter-themed stickers. I select a few sleeves of pirate stickers for Wendy’s son, who I suspect is attending less because he hopes to hunt for eggs and more because Joanna’s daughter Anna is freaking adorable. At the checkout line, I also grab a few packages of these sparkly little daisies, which I plan to spread across the tablecloth to make it extrafestive.

  When I arrive home, Fletch offers running commentary on all my purchases as I unload.

  “Fifteen pounds of candy? How many kids are coming again?”

  “Nine.”

  Fletch is incredulous. “You bought fifteen pounds of candy for nine little kids?”

  I frown. “Is that not enough?”

  He snickers. “You do candy math like you do drinks math.” At the holiday dinner party, I budgeted three bottles of wine per guest, which is apparently two and a half bottles too many, unless Fletch wanted to drive everyone home.

  Moving on to the grocery bags, he says, “What’s with all the discount eggs? Are you planning on avenging your honor at the Sig Ep house?”

  I actually feel bad for purchasing cheap eggs, because I’ve used only certified-humane products since January. I tried becoming a pescatarian after the New Year, figuring I could use Martha’s recipes to learn how to cook fish. Everything was going beautifully until I ate some bad sea bass, and now I can barely even look at anything with fins. So my compromise is buying meat that’s pasture-raised and humanely processed whenever possible.

  The eggs we normally choose are free-range, and the chickens are raised on a sustainable farm and fed a diet of vegetarian whole grains without hormones or antibiotics. For the price, I wouldn’t be surprised if the chickens all have their own iPhones and Pottery Barn bedding, too. In fact, the label shows the farmer hugging his hens, so you know they’re spoiled rotten. But at five bucks a dozen, especially when I’m dumping the actual contents down the sink? Sorry, no hugs for you, sweatshop chicken.

  “We’re decorating eggs tonight,” I tell him. “We’re going to marbleize some and do designs on other ones with a wax pencil. Well, actually, I couldn’t find a wax pencil, and the craft store kind of creeped me out. Seriously, you’ve never seen so much glitter in one place outside of a Ke$ha concert. I grabbed crayons instead, because I figure it’s the same thing, right? Anyway, I bought discount eggs in case we break a few. The cute bunny centerpiece I ordered on eBay holds twenty-four, and I figure we might lose a few in the process, hence the extra.”

  “Sounds reasonable. When are we starting?”

  “As soon as I finish stuffing these plastic eggs. Shouldn’t take me long.”

  Three hours later, my hands are cramped and gnarled and I kind of never want to smell chocolate again. I’d planned on supplementing some of the eggs with a bunch of dollar bills, but I had only three of them in my purse, and coins seemed kind of chintzy. Plus, I really need the eggs for all the candy, and what are little kids going to do with a handful of singles anyway? Hit a prepubescent strip club? So I placed a single dollar in each of three eggs and figure it’s going to be fine.

  My pile of stuffed eggs is borderline towering. There are so many of them! Then I begin to wonder if making kids hunt for this many eggs is less “fun” and more of a “violation of stringent child labor laws.”

  Also?

  Candy Math—1.

  Jen—0.

  “We’re boiling these?” Fletch asks, gesturing toward the tower of egg crates in front of him.

  “Nope, no need. We’re going to hollow them out,” I reply. “We’re supposed to take a craft knife and poke holes in either end, then stab the contents to break the yolk, blow out the innards, and presto! They’re the perfect blank canvas!”

  The dogs surround our workspace, because they believe that what we’re doing is food-based and, damn it, they want in. Loki and Libby love eggs, but Maisy has always turned up her nose at them. Like eggs offend her delicate sensibilities. How can this be? She’s a dog; this is actually the kind of shit she’d forage for in the wild. I could see how she wouldn’t eat apples or carrots or green beans (three of her favorites), but to snort in disgust every time I offer her a bite of my omelet? I don’t get it.

  Of course, it’s pretty much Maisy’s world around here, so it’s not unusual to see her wolfing down beautiful dinners of Tiki Dog Kauai Luau with whole prawns while I have canned tomato soup. But if she’s happy, I’m happy, so it all works out.

  The dogs nudge each other for purchase while I assemble Fletch’s supplies, which include a paring knife, a paper clip, and a can of compressed air. He curls his lip at my offerings, because he never trusts me to use the right tools for the job. I mean, yes, I understand he’s the kind of man who has seven different kinds of hammers in his workshop, but it’s all the way downstairs, and sometimes the heel of a loafer works just as well in driving a nail.

  Wordlessly, he steps out of the kitchen and returns with a power drill topped with a long, narrow woodworking bit.

  Typical.

  “I’m shocked you’re not wearing your tool belt,” I say.

  He shrugs. “I considered it, but I thought you’d laugh at me.”

  He’s got me there.

  While I stage my dyeing production line, he works on the maiden egg. He drills the first hole without issue and offers the egg for my approval.

  I’m grudgingly impressed. “That worked surprisingly well.” I can’t believe this isn’t something Martha would have suggested herself.

  Of course, I’m less impressed three seconds later when the egg cracks on his second attempt.

  “No problem,” I assure him. “We have plenty to spare.”

  We blow through a cool dozen before he gets the hang of the drilling. Once he has his first double-holed specimen, he inserts the compressed air tube and sprays.

  The egg doesn’t crack so much as it explodes with a deafening pop, flinging shards and ectoplasm upward of fifteen feet. The previously invested dogs make a beeline for the safety of their beds on the other side of the house, all, “The eggs ain’t worth it, man.”

  “That didn’t work,” Fletch observes.

  “You don’t say,” I reply, picking pieces of shell out of my hair.

  We realize the problem is that he didn’t break the yolk first, which sends him on a ten-minute wild-goose chase looking for the right tool, until I can finally convince him to just try the damn paper clip at least once. Reluctantly, he does, and I’m shortly rewarded with my first perfect hollow egg.

  Which I promptly shatter when trying to rinse it.

  Argh.

  We bash through another dozen until we finally have one ready to dip. I mix the dye using vinegar, hot water, and food coloring, and I pointedly ignore Fletch when he remarks that the concoction smells like my loafers when I don’t wear socks.

  I decide to try plain dye before I get fancy with marbleizing, and after repeated dipping, I craft an egg the exact shade of Tiffany-box blue. Oh, my God! This is beautiful! Now we’re cooking!

  We continue our process, netting one perfect egg for every six that detonate
and splatter across every kitchen surface. I make a note to wipe the whole place down with bleach so that guests don’t get salmonella by brushing against the counter.

  We continue to adjust our methods in terms of emptying the eggs. First, we each take a crack (pun intended) at trying to blow the raw egg out with our mouths, but I almost black out and Fletch grumbles something about listeria. We find that we have the fewest instances of egg Kristallnacht when we use a turkey baster to force egg out of the bottom hole. In retrospect, I should have checked for an ear syringe at the drugstore, exactly what Martha recommended. Had I done more than skimmed the article, I’d have known.

  The good news is that this experience has led me to the first conclusion in my whole theory of the Tao of Martha, that being: There’s no benefit to blazing your own path when the perfect trail already exists, dumb ass.

  Maybe she wouldn’t add the dumb-ass part, even though it’s totally appropriate in this situation.

  As Fletch surveys the final dozen eggs, he asks, “Are you sure you don’t want to hard-boil these?”

  I shake my head. “No, I hate the idea of having cooked eggs out on display around the house. You know I’ll forget about them and then suddenly the house will be all eau de garbage truck.”

  Fletch nods. “I used to have to hunt for hard-boiled eggs when I was a kid. What was the point of that? Was I supposed to be, ‘Yay! I found them! Egg-salad sandwiches for everyone!’ I was seven! I wanted chocolate, not bioavailable protein.”

  We finish the final candidate and end up netting eleven eggs out of six dozen. That is sixty-one failures, for those of you keeping track at home, or a fifteen percent success rate. Shameful. I suddenly wish I’d decided to build Martha’s vermicompost heap so at least the sweatshop chickens wouldn’t have toiled in vain. But when I read the part about how fat red wiggler worms do all the work? No.

  I arrange the few good eggs on one side of my fancy centerpiece. It’s not perfect, but if you look at it from one side only, it’s really lovely.

  While we tidy up the kitchen, Fletch offers me the gigantic silver bowl full of egg innards. “Are you going to use this for the frittatas?” Fletch asks.

  “No, I thought I’d use the carton of Farmer Phil’s eggs in the fridge. They’ll taste better, and they aren’t full of eggshells and spit.”

  As Fletch drags out the stepladder to scrub the sunburst of yolks from the ceiling, I stage the buffet table in the dining room. Although I didn’t read explicit instructions from Martha on how to present the table (sensing a theme here?), I believe that I’m upholding the spirit of her work in mapping out where each dish will go and readying serving pieces beforehand.

  With this brunch, I plan to neatly erase everyone’s memory of My First Thanksgiving, as well as that whole steak-knife-curtain thing.

  Before I can set out anything, I have to cover the table. My dining room table is an odd shape because it’s very, very wide. I’ve always had trouble finding the proper covering, until one time I accidentally discovered that a recently dry-cleaned duvet cover fit impeccably. So I guess the shape isn’t “odd” if you’re familiar with the dimensions of a king-size bed.

  “Hey, Fletch? Have you seen my table duvet?”

  “Check the hall closet.”

  I do and it’s nowhere to be found. The last time we used it was at our holiday party. “It can’t still be in the dry-cleaning load, right?” All domestic chores in the past three months have fallen on Fletch’s shoulders while I’ve been on book deadline, so it’s not unreasonable to expect him to have handled this. Plus, after our holiday party, Fletch had one job, and that was to police the dirty linens.

  Ipso facto, my clean table duvet should be here somewhere.

  Fletch doesn’t answer me. “Right?” I call again.

  “There’s a slight possibility it may be dirty,” he admits.

  Now I’m frustrated. I stomp into the laundry room and discover the Bolognese-sauce-and-wine-speckled tablecloth buried under seventeen soiled sweaters, all of them mine. Well, that also explains why I’ve been forced to wear the same damn hoodie every day. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Worst. Assistant. Ever.

  I make do with the tablecloths I have, fashioning a long white one over a short one. I have created the equivalent of a table mullet—business in the front, party in the back—but I don’t have a lot of other options. I place these over the strips of protective cloth that I duct-taped together because I could never find the right-size table pad. (Note to self: Look into water-resistant mattress pads.)

  Now I’m ready for the fun part—decorating! What Martha does so brilliantly is decorating in a manner that’s beautiful, but doesn’t come across as too stuffy. There’s always an organic element to everything she creates.

  Instead of buying big, formal flower arrangements to place on the table, I take a couple of clear glass vases and fill them with cuttings from the apple trees currently blossoming in my backyard. I curse these damn trees three hundred and sixty days a year, as the spindly branches catch my hair and tear at my clothing every time I round the corner to the side of the house. Then they block out the sun all summer before depositing hundreds of small, infested apples that bob merrily atop the surface of the pool at the end of the season. But for five days a year, the branches droop with the weight of hundreds of pink-tinged blooms, filling the entire yard with the heady scent of apple blossom. So they live. For now.

  As soon as I place the branch-laden vases on the table, the Thundercats slink out from their basement lair to investigate. I have to hook a spray bottle of water to my belt loop, and I blast the little bastards every time they hop up on the table.

  Martha keeps a healthy supply of bunny-related items on hand, and suggests to her readers that they stock up when items go on sale after Easter. Fortunately, I’m delighted to have gotten ahead of this trend years ago, and my guest room is filled with my massive collection of ceramic and cast-iron rabbits.

  Fletch, of course, thinks this room is creepy. He claims that all the rabbits’ cold, dead eyes stare into his soul.

  Fletch may be right, but I don’t care.

  I haul my collection down the stairs and artistically arrange all the rabbits with my right hand while blasting cats with my left. Then I place bowls of jelly beans in my pink poinsettia Depression-glass pieces and sprinkle the whole thing with the tiny pastel daisies I picked up at the craft store. There’s not an inch of the table that isn’t color-blocked, flower-topped, or lapine. (Watership Down, bitches!)

  As I step back to survey my handiwork, I’m pleased. “Hey! Come in here and tell me what you think!” I shout. Fletch has finished scouring ceiling yolks and started on the dishes.

  He takes in the table and the sparkly eggs hanging from the chandelier and the garland that he crafted from dozens of adorable fabric carrots. “Looks like Easter threw up in here.”

  Which means I totally nailed it.

  THANK YOU, EASTER BUNNY, BAWK, BAWK!

  I’m up at dawn to get the food together. I approach the dining room on the way to the kitchen and I’m compelled to stop to admire my handiwork. This is my first full-fledged, soup-to-nuts, Stewart-style project, and I could not be more pleased with how everything is going, eggs-plosion notwithstanding.

  In terms of gauging personal happiness, this particular project has checked a number of boxes for me. The preparations have forced me to be out and about, instead of hibernating in front of the television. I’ve greatly enjoyed the creative aspects of the project, while still maintaining a sense of frugality. When everyone comes and has a great time, there’s a huge potential for praise, and I’ve met my deadlines and learned new, better ways of approaching certain tasks.

  I definitely feel happy today, and Maisy has picked up on my excellent mood. She’s been trotting all around the yard for the past few days and showing the kind of energy I haven’t seen since last summer. In fact, she keeps swiping pillows off the couch and running away with them, which is
something she does only when A) she feels well, and B) she is seeking attention. We call this the Naughty Run, because she chugs away with the purloined item in her teeth, looking over her shoulder the entire time to make sure we’re paying attention.

  Hands down, the Naughty Run is my favorite thing in the entire world, and my heart is lighter knowing that she’s in a good place right now. So, for a second, I don’t feel the crushing anxiety of what may come. I can unclench, at least for today.

  I smile and nod my head as I survey the dining room, recognizing that this is a good day indeed.

  Of course, that’s exactly when I notice that one of the vases has been knocked over and the entire tablecloth is saturated.

  Argh!

  This is what happens when I let down my guard.

  Not only is everything wet, but the Day-Glo-yellow Post-it notes I used as place markers have bled onto the white cloth, as have all the scattered pastel daisies. I appear to have attempted a Wavy Gravy–style tie-dye at a recent love-in. Damn it! Even my festive, color-coordinated bowls of jelly beans have fused into singular sticky clumps.

  That’s when Chuck Norris, chief feline instigator and vase toppler, hops onto the table to demand breakfast.

  For years I’ve considered myself a “cat person.”

  Today, I am reconsidering that designation.

  I round up the asshole cats and put them in the basement with their breakfast. I’d planned on getting them out of the way for the brunch anyway, but now I’m doing so a few hours early. They shan’t be missed.

  At this point, Fletch ambles out of the bedroom and suggests I just replace the tablecloth with another one, and I strongly consider locking him in the basement, too. Instead, I set him up with a hair dryer, and he tackles the most egregiously wet spots. Looks like we’ll be able to live with the results, but I’m pretty sure I just conceded a few happiness points.