The Tao of Martha: My Year of LIVING

by Jen Lancaster

  six bottles of tanning lotion for electric tanning beds, none less than four years old

  a single mitten

  three kinds of pastel Easter grass, not bagged or contained, just pretty much sitting on a shelf with other bits of effluvia like quarters and screws nesting in it

  a garage door opener to an apartment we vacated in 2008

  three empty bottles of bug spray

  a copy of Life magazine with Richard Nixon on the cover (to be fair, we’d been antiquing recently)

  eight thousand loose AA batteries

  two chewed-up dog hairbrushes

  nine broken Christmas ornaments

  three packages of plastic caps to go on the cats’ claws to keep them from destroying the furniture/one another

  phone books, phone books, and more phone books. Because apparently the Internet no longer exists

  one set of 1970s mustard-yellow salt and pepper shakers shaped like mushrooms (In and of themselves, this is a reasonable item to house in a kitchen cabinet. Yet Joanna and I purchased them because they closely resembled the photo our friend received of one guy’s junk and we thought it would be funny to send them to her…except I fail at execution.) (Also? Naked Dude who thought he was being sexy by sending unsolicited shots of his gentleman business? For future reference? This photograph was passed around the table at Moto on the night of my birthday in 2010 at least a dozen times. Other tables even got in on the action. For Christ’s sake, we showed the same waiter who later appeared on Top Chef. Many, many laughs were had at your expense. Sending someone a picture of what’s in your pants is not a good way to flirt. However, it is an excellent way to have the story of your poor decision memorialized in the Library of Congress, so let this be a lesson to you.)

  As I work, I have to wrestle almost every one of these items away from Hambone, as Libby has taught her the finer points of counter-surfing.

  Oh, Hambone.

  Once the cabinet’s emptied I’m able to wipe it down and restock with the overflow of pastas and rice from the other cabinets. That’s when I realize that all the times we’ve been to the grocery store and I’ve said, “Do we need more bucatini?” we did not.

  After I finish my purge, I chop the red cabbage and toss it with a little cider vinegar and coarse salt. The acid in the vinegar will cut down on the crunch factor, and its fresh tang will complement the rich pork. Hambone begs for a bite of cabbage, and I hand her a chunk. Her jaws snap as she relishes this delicious treat.

  A word about the Bone?

  I appreciate her enthusiasm when it comes to food. Loki’s always been fairly laid-back about dinner. He likes what he’s served, but he’s never been one of those dance-around-the-kitchen types. He has too much dignity. Until our old, toothless cat Tucker started eating his leftovers, Loki would often leave half his dinner until later. Loki likes to lie down while he eats and chews slowly, savoring his meal. Libby’s easy to please, and she’ll take what she’s given and will consume in a manner best described as “polite.” She’s the kind of girl who’d place her napkin in her lap, given the chance.

  For the last couple of years, Maisy was decidedly fussy about her dinner. Of course, she was always hungry, yet still quite picky. Being sick really brought out her finicky side. I was constantly striving to find the proper mix of wet and dry food in order to make sure she ate. She started on prescription food last winter and she despised it. So it was my job to flavor it enough to make her kidney kibble more palatable. She was always changing her mind, too. One day, she’d love Evanger’s canned beef, and the next she wouldn’t want anything to do with it; then it would be her favorite again later. (After August, she was on palliative care, so I didn’t worry about her prescription diet—it was too important to load her up on any sort of calories.)

  My point is, I’ve never had a dog that was as enthusiastic as Hambone is about eating, and I appreciate that. Every single thing she tastes is her favorite dish ever. There’s no begging when I feed her, no doctoring. I just set down her plate of dry kibble and in ten seconds, it’s spotless. Recently she discovered that the apple tree is more than a source of superfun red balls to chase. I almost died laughing the day she ran to the door looking like a luau pig, pink eyes bulging, with an apple crammed in her maw. Now she’s got the other two turned on to apples, and every time I glance outdoors, they’re all happily munching away like a bunch of horses in a field. Stacey says to be careful, because if the apples are on the ground too long they’ll ferment and the dogs will get drunk.

  Yeah, a drunken Hambone is just what I need.

  Anyway, I still have time for another project before dinner, so I decide to tackle the freezer. I have a general idea of what’s where in here, and I’ve tried to keep the same kind of meat on the same shelf. Unsuccessfully, apparently.

  I find a number of containers of mystery items, some creamy and white, some bumpy and red, and I let them defrost. We’re not going to eat them, but I’m curious as to what I thought was important enough to save. (The contents turned out to be ancient Bolognese sauce, bacon grease, and maple cream-cheese frosting for cinnamon rolls.)

  Fletch bought a number of plastic bins to better organize his already impeccable workspace in the basement, but I make the executive decision to commandeer them. They’re the perfect size for packages of meat, and they make the process of categorizing everything far simpler. Then I label everything in the fridge, so going forward I can stick with this system.

  I still have time to spare, so I start to clean off the big kitchen table. The bananas are on the verge of breaking bad, so I go to toss them in the freezer, because that’s what I do. Then I notice that one of the bananas has busted open and there’s what I believe might be a couple of tiny maggots at the bottom of the fruit bowl. Whatever they are, they’re…writhing.

  My stomach heaves as I dump every last piece of fruit in the trash and fill the sink with boiling water to scald the bejesus out of the bowl before running it through the dishwasher.

  And just like that, I step into the laundry room and toss my entire collection of frozen bananas. Although I can’t promise that I’m done being a Professional Banana Grabber forever, I’m definitely through for now.

  I give Fletch a tour of the new and improved kitchen before we sit down to pulled-pork sandwiches. He fakes crying with joy, but I can tell he’s pleased.

  The truth is, I’m ridiculously proud of myself right now, and I haven’t had time to feel depressed while I work through my project list. There’s something about having physical evidence of my hard work that’s deep-down soul satisfying. But do I wish Maisy were here right next to Loki on the bed, eyes trained on me, watching while I get it all figured out? More than anything. There will always be a pit bull–shaped portion of my heart reserved for her. But the more I accomplish, the more I’m able get out of my own head and move forward. Progress, definitely. And despite all evidence to the contrary, Hambone is helping.

  Fletch settles in with a Diet Coke as I finish up the pork. What had been a tough pork shoulder eight hours ago is now so tender that it’s falling apart before I can even break it up with a couple of forks.

  “On a scale from one to ten, how impressed are you right now?” I ask, dishing up his dinner on one of the plates he loves.

  “Ten, absolutely. But you realize that this entire project has been you coming around to my way of thinking,” he replies.

  I glance up from the Crock-Pot. “How so?”

  “Well, you’re finally using the right equipment and becoming organized. I’ve been begging you to do this for years, but you’ve perpetually thwarted my efforts. Really, you can thank me.” He considers this statement for a moment and runs his hand over his chin. “And you can thank my beard.”

  But I don’t offer a snappy retort; nor do I stab him in the neck with my fork, because I’m aware of one of Martha’s most relevant portions of the Tao: Prison sucks and you’d miss your pets. Avoid at all costs.

  Besides, I’ll need
my fork for pie.

  EVERY DAY IS HALLOWEEN

  I hate Halloween.

  Despise it.

  Loathe it.

  Detest it.

  I actively screen Halloween’s calls. I block Halloween on my privacy settings. I slash Halloween’s tires and secretly subscribe it to NAMBLA newsletters. Given the opportunity, I’d go all Travis in Old Yeller on Halloween’s ass.

  Mind you, I’m not trying to justify my disdain of Halloween; rather, I’m simply sharing a somewhat nonsensical feeling. For the record, Halloween is not my only vaguely irrational, deep-seated prejudice. I also harbor an intense dislike of all things Kardashian and…Abraham Lincoln.

  Yes, you read that right.

  Listen, I understand Lincoln was a great man. I appreciate how he pulled himself up from humble beginnings to be the sixteenth president. I know he issued the Emancipation Proclamation. I’m well aware that he was all about honesty and integrity and stalwart leadership during our country’s darkest time. (Also? Vampire hunting.)

  There’s no rational basis for my dislike, yet every time I spot his big ol’ mole on the penny or see a stovepipe hat, I feel twitchy. And that four-score-and-seven-years-ago business? Would it have killed him to say eighty-seven? Was he being paid by the word for that address?

  Point? I realize it’s way better to be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt, yet here we are. I don’t claim that my own personal narrow-mindedness is anything less than ridiculous, especially since Halloween used to be the best day of my year.

  As a child, I much preferred Halloween to the more obviously kid-centric Christmas. I mean, sure, I could appreciate that Christmas meant the celebration of the birth of the savior and his promise of life everlasting (and also receiving gifts). But for me, nothing could be more miraculous than a pillowcase stuffed to the brim with free candy. Anyone who grew up in a household where carob passed for chocolate and apple pies were actually filled with zucchini will feel me here.

  (Seriously, what was up with the zucchini? Clearly I’m a fan, but what was so unhealthy about a freaking apple that it required a vegetable surrogate?)

  Every year as Halloween would approach, I’d make meticulous plans for my costume, agonizing over each nuance. No detail was too minute for my scrutiny. “I shan’t just don my brother’s Little League uniform to portray some generic baseball player—I’ll paint on a handlebar mustache, grab an Oakland A’s hat, and go as Rollie Fingers!” Or, “Look at you garden-variety witches in your gym shoes; everyone knows the real Wicked Witch of the West requires fancy Mary Janes and properly striped socks!” Or what about, “All you weak-sauce, drugstore-costume-wearing fake Wonder Women can suck my Golden Lasso.” I was nothing if not boldly authentic.

  My best effort ever in terms of costume was when I hit the mean streets of Teaneck, New Jersey—the wealthy burb on the other side of the street from my middle-class home in Bergenfield—in full Ace Frehley regalia. To this day, I fixate on how much better my moon boots would have looked had I simply been allowed to spray-paint them silver, rather than being forced to wrap them in aluminum foil.

  I was one goddamned can of Krylon away from officer candidacy in the KISS Army, Mom.

  Sigh.

  As I grew up, Halloween transitioned from a sugar-fueled, door-to-door beg-a-thon to youth-group basement costume parties, then to bobbing for apples in friends’ garages, eventually followed by haunted-house outings. The pinnacle of high school Halloween festivities was the year my nerdy Masque and Gavel drama club compatriots and I piled into Carol’s car for a pizza party at our coach’s house, with an eye toward later telling ghost stories in a graveyard.

  We were totally sober, by the way.

  (Did I mention the nerdy part, or was that truth already self-evident when I said “drama club”?)

  Carol had just inherited her grandparents’ Cadillac, a vehicle slightly smaller than your average aircraft carrier, and almost as easy to maneuver. But because of the car’s color—a startlingly vivid turquoise, despite being twenty years old, with bonus white hardtop—I felt my costume should reflect my ride.

  So…I dressed up as a prostitute.

  Much as I used to sweat the details on my costumes, I didn’t have an inkling of what a real working girl might wear in 1984. And how would I know? Cable television wouldn’t arrive in my neighborhood/sheltered little universe for ten more years, and the Internet was but a twinkle in Al Gore’s eye.

  My only frame of reference for Ho Couture was Jamie Lee Curtis’s character in Trading Places, and she spent the bulk of that movie running around in a Fair Isle sweater. (And, BTW, never actually having sex with men for money.) So I truly believed that my white, ruffled, high-necked, puffy-sleeved poet blouse, knee-skimming miniskirt, and opaque tights were exactly how a hooker would dress.

  Regardless, I felt superhot in my outfit, and I was pretty sure that before the night was over, one of the cute drama club guys would want to make out with me against a mausoleum.

  As the singular nod to any sort of authenticity, I’d warned the other dorks not to mess with me, because my pimp would be arriving shortly. About an hour into the evening, our buddy Trey showed up in full Huggy Bear regalia, thanks to a visit to our community theater’s costume cache. He sported a fedora with a two-foot-long feather protruding from the brim, and a silky shirt unbuttoned to his waist, over which he layered a dozen gold chains. His platform shoes added four inches to his height and were completely ensconced by the depth and breadth of his phenomenally funky bell-bottoms. Trey’s commitment to working his look was so awesome it almost made up for my not being allowed to paint my boots years before.

  Almost.

  When we reached the ghost-story portion of the evening, we sat in the damp night air, trying hard not to disturb the frigid tombstones. Certainly some of us were grateful for having the foresight to wear thick tights. My rationale was that women working street corners would be loath for their legs to get chilly. (At no point did it occur to me that if pros were all about rational thought, they likely wouldn’t be doing blowies for a sawbuck. Seriously, set up a phone sex line and charge five bucks a minute like the girls in the movie For a Good Time, Call.…That’s a much better business plan.)

  Anyway, our geek squad clung to one another as we spun our terrifying yarns, our breath forming misty puffs in the darkness. And we reveled in our abilities as thespians when lines like, “The calls are coming from inside the house!” and, “He found a hook latched to his door handle!” caused the boys in our group to shriek even louder than the girls.

  I didn’t realize that all the drama club guys were gay until I had Facebook years later, but that’s neither here nor there. Although this discovery does neatly explain why no one wanted to make out with me against a mausoleum.

  Once the elements of liquor and straight men were added to the mix, Halloween exponentially improved. Playing the “Monster Mash” at a junior high bash was always fun back in the day. But hearing the same song while swilling grape trash-can punch with my sorority sisters, all done up in matching cat costumes?

  Incomparable.

  Even the silliest bits of Halloween, like carving pumpkins, were fun when executed with my best college buds.

  So I can honestly say I loved Halloween.

  Until I didn’t.

  Maybe it was because the party invitations stopped rolling in after graduation, when no one wanted to throw down in a Princess Leia outfit on a Tuesday night. Possibly I lost my passion for the day because I was so broke as a young professional that I couldn’t afford to fill anyone’s pillowcases with something fun-size.

  Most likely what soured me was seeing grown-ass adults wearing costumes to their day jobs. I had a lot of cognitive dissonance when I’d receive my day’s assignments from someone dressed like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. Does your little dog want me to complete a spreadsheet, too? I didn’t enjoy sitting around the conference room while Count Dracula and Mr. Clean droned on about go-to-
market strategy; nor was I a fan of having to elect health care benefits with Tony the Tiger in HR. And the day I went to deposit my paycheck with the teller dressed in a gorilla suit? Suffice it to say I did not go ape for the bank’s new mon(k)ey market accounts.

  To date, I’ve successfully avoided Halloween for more than a decade. Back when Fletch and I were too destitute to go out for dinner during peak trick-or-treat hours, we’d cover the windows with garbage bags, which made our place look vacant and unintentionally spooky. We’d turn out all the lights and sit in the dark watching TV while wearing headphones. When we moved to the place with a big security fence, we padlocked the gate and headed out for Thai. And I have to be honest—when it came time to buy our first home, we picked the one at the end of a long, wooded drive on a sparsely populated street, partially in hopes that roving bands of Gypsies and Elmos would pass us by.

  And for the past two years, they have…largely because with all the lights off, you can’t even tell there’s a house here. The first year we went to a movie, but last year we stayed home and watched television (no headphones!) upstairs. I didn’t have candy, but I figured if anyone braved the long, dark walk, then they’d be rewarded with a chocolate–peanut butter PowerBar.

  Hey, those things are two bucks apiece—so, you’re welcome, Yoda.

  But this year, everything changes.

  Martha goes all out for Halloween; ergo, so will I.

  Or I’ll go all John Wilkes Booth on myself while trying.

  Which is an option I’ve not yet ruled out.

  To get into the Halloween spirit, I first need to make this place look festive. I have to set the stage for trick-or-treaters so there’s no confusion that we’re open for business on the big day. Yet one of the (myriad) things I despise about Halloween is tacky yard decor. I don’t want to fill my lawn with fake tombstones, and I’m not about to make the landscapers weed around them. Frankly, after dulling their mower blades with hidden plastic Easter eggs and fallen piñata candies all summer, they’re not my number one fans.