My hands have really bad circulation. As in, really, really, bad. When my body gets too cold, my hands protest by not sharing any blood with it; they lose color and feeling, and the lack of blood makes them very thin (note to self: use cold as strategy if I ever get a ring stuck on my finger). My boyfriend tells me I should wear gloves all the time, but I'm afraid someone might mistake me for someone from the Rent is Too Damn High Party.
The only reason I'm even typing this now is to see 1) whether the motion of typing would get the blood flowing, 2) what it feels like/what it doesn't feel like to type with numb fingers, and 3)whether I'd be able to hit the right keys. To answer number one, no; for number two, as if I were hitting the key with some part of my finger farther from the tip; and as for number three, thanks to the delete button, you can't tell. Mwah-ha-ha.
This might be a medical problem, but I'm guessing the doctor would tell me to wear gloves, and I think we're still too close to the Michael Jackson Era for me to pop out a glove for my one of my cold hands while indoors.
Well, like I said, cold finger was the only reason I wrote this entry, and the numbness is losing its luster. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go run some water over them-- anything to avoid the gloves.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Monday, November 22, 2010
Green beans, pecans, and Macy's: a Southern Thanksgiving
I've always woken up pretty early, even when I was a kid. For instance, the morning Princess Diana died in 1997, I woke up at about six a.m.(per usual). Being nine, I'd never heard of Diana, but I could at least surmise that she was pretty important. When my parents moseyed down the stairs after sunrise, I dutifully communicated the news to them as emotionally as I could manage, considering my actual confusion about the circumstances.
I always woke up early on Thanksgiving. It wasn't the only day-- for instance, the morning Princess Diana died in 1997, I coincidentally woke up at about six a.m., and felt like a badass when I was the bearer of information for my family (although I had no idea who she was, I could tell she was important). But on Thanksgiving, everyone seemed to sleep in, tired from games the night before and not quite ready to baste the bird and bake the pies. The slugabeds (real word, look it up) in my family left me to traipse down the stairs alone and plop myself in front of the boob tube for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
"Macy's Day Parade??" you might say, if you know me (or if you don't!). What I mean is, I have never been a fan of shopping, much to the chagrin of my sisters, friends, and clean-cut boyfriend (who tenderly suggests that perhaps eight year-old jeans could bear replacement). Shopping malls and department stores spend all of their advertisement budgets reminding their guests that they won't look okay until they have bought the latest jacket, shirt style, or wedge heel, and that even then, their bodies won't display the same tightness of a model-- especially the unyielding firmness of the plastic models department stores actually use. Environmental historians have written extensively about shopping malls as "palaces of consumption," but I'll spare you that tirade (even as I trickily allude to it now).
Despite my deep-seeded disgust of department stores, Macy's grabs my heart with their tacky, media-saturated parade every last Thursday of November. I love it. Watching the show tunes in front of Macy's, wondering whether the balloons will obediently stay between their skyscraper lane-markers, laughing at pop stars who can't quite get used to which roadside speakers their voice is emitting from; the list goes on.
Maybe the parade grabs me because of associations--- watching it inevitably makes me think of green beans and pecans. Every year, my mother knew I would be up before my sisters and bored (often I played Tiddlywinks with myself, but after you've won a certain number of times in a row, it's time to move on), so she would let me know what I could help with in the kitchen. I'd grab a colossal colander full of fresh green beans and snap off the ends while I attentively listened to the announcers, picking up the scoop on which Backstreet Boy had been demoted to the back of the float.
When the green beans where done, I jumped to pecan cracking and grinding. From an early age, I was nuts for these Georgian egg-shaped delights, a love that catapulted me to the status of pecan-pie-maker in the Mirandola Mullen family (I think my mother might have later regretted that decision, judging by her later attempts to remind friends it was actually her recipe, not mine).
I cracked, ground, chopped, and of course, ate my favorite snack. I watched the streets of New York City, a place that existed for me only within movies and the popular (but for me at the time, "age-inappropriate," my parents would remind me) show Friends; a city that served as a reminder that far away from my home in Lawrenceville, Georgia, people were gearing up for winter in their earmuffs and down jackets. I was so jealous of them. But, I did have pecans.
I still watch the Macy's Day Parade, no matter how infrequently I go to Macy's or listen to the pop singers they invite to their parade (which will remain true unless they figure out a way to bring Frank Sinatra back for it). It is part of Thanksgiving to me, regardless of how silly that sounds. This year, when my boyfriend joins my family for the holiday in Georgia, I'll probably wake up before him, sneak down the stairs, and watch the parade. Maybe Mom will even set aside some green beans for me to snap.
I always woke up early on Thanksgiving. It wasn't the only day-- for instance, the morning Princess Diana died in 1997, I coincidentally woke up at about six a.m., and felt like a badass when I was the bearer of information for my family (although I had no idea who she was, I could tell she was important). But on Thanksgiving, everyone seemed to sleep in, tired from games the night before and not quite ready to baste the bird and bake the pies. The slugabeds (real word, look it up) in my family left me to traipse down the stairs alone and plop myself in front of the boob tube for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
"Macy's Day Parade??" you might say, if you know me (or if you don't!). What I mean is, I have never been a fan of shopping, much to the chagrin of my sisters, friends, and clean-cut boyfriend (who tenderly suggests that perhaps eight year-old jeans could bear replacement). Shopping malls and department stores spend all of their advertisement budgets reminding their guests that they won't look okay until they have bought the latest jacket, shirt style, or wedge heel, and that even then, their bodies won't display the same tightness of a model-- especially the unyielding firmness of the plastic models department stores actually use. Environmental historians have written extensively about shopping malls as "palaces of consumption," but I'll spare you that tirade (even as I trickily allude to it now).
Despite my deep-seeded disgust of department stores, Macy's grabs my heart with their tacky, media-saturated parade every last Thursday of November. I love it. Watching the show tunes in front of Macy's, wondering whether the balloons will obediently stay between their skyscraper lane-markers, laughing at pop stars who can't quite get used to which roadside speakers their voice is emitting from; the list goes on.
Maybe the parade grabs me because of associations--- watching it inevitably makes me think of green beans and pecans. Every year, my mother knew I would be up before my sisters and bored (often I played Tiddlywinks with myself, but after you've won a certain number of times in a row, it's time to move on), so she would let me know what I could help with in the kitchen. I'd grab a colossal colander full of fresh green beans and snap off the ends while I attentively listened to the announcers, picking up the scoop on which Backstreet Boy had been demoted to the back of the float.
When the green beans where done, I jumped to pecan cracking and grinding. From an early age, I was nuts for these Georgian egg-shaped delights, a love that catapulted me to the status of pecan-pie-maker in the Mirandola Mullen family (I think my mother might have later regretted that decision, judging by her later attempts to remind friends it was actually her recipe, not mine).
I cracked, ground, chopped, and of course, ate my favorite snack. I watched the streets of New York City, a place that existed for me only within movies and the popular (but for me at the time, "age-inappropriate," my parents would remind me) show Friends; a city that served as a reminder that far away from my home in Lawrenceville, Georgia, people were gearing up for winter in their earmuffs and down jackets. I was so jealous of them. But, I did have pecans.
I still watch the Macy's Day Parade, no matter how infrequently I go to Macy's or listen to the pop singers they invite to their parade (which will remain true unless they figure out a way to bring Frank Sinatra back for it). It is part of Thanksgiving to me, regardless of how silly that sounds. This year, when my boyfriend joins my family for the holiday in Georgia, I'll probably wake up before him, sneak down the stairs, and watch the parade. Maybe Mom will even set aside some green beans for me to snap.
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