No It All

Thursday marked our twenty-first wedding anniversary, also known as May the 4th Be With You. And no, we most certainly did not have a Star Wars themed wedding, *gag*. I was hoping to spend the day doing James and Jaimie things, but the hours got away from me with electrician work and some guys who came all the way from Redondo Beach to fix the French doors we’ve had zip-tied all winter (Grandma’s good idea). I did make a dinner reservation at one of our favorite spots so the boys and I would have a date to look forward to.

In the morning, I stepped outside to check James’ little bonsais and gather my handful of beach rocks drying in the sun. I have a little morning ritual where I put one rock into a little bowl of water and tell James something I miss about him. It’s a special little marigold-colored bowl I bought at the Portland Japanese garden. My rocks are a diverse collection from the beach in Avila. Once I’ve used all my rocks, I pour the water into a little bonsai and start again. As my grief counselor says– we can adopt anything that helps make this easier to carry. So I’m all about appreciating little signs. They make me reflect, laugh, wonder. Things we can all use more of.

Which is why the boys and I light a candle every night when we sit down to dinner and place it at James’ spot at the table. We take turns as the boys are not confident users of the lighter (skill issue), and share a story or something we miss about Dad. The boys recently shared that when they were little they thought their Dad had special powers. He’d countdown at stoplights and predict exactly when it would turn green. Pure magic.

So on Thursday morning I place my rock in the bowl, make my way downstairs, and freeze in my tracks. There’s a little rainbow on the floor. We have a bit of a thing for rainbows. Have I ever seen this before? That’s so weird. I can’t find where it’s coming from, but there it is, in the center of the foyer so we’ll walk right through it on the way out the door.

I drop the boys at school and am driving up Highland. My eyes are blurring with tears. There’s something about this spot… just up the street from where we met… the exact spot where he told me he loved Hawaiian pizza. Through my tears, I have a bit of tunnel vision. And then all I can see is a guy on an electric scooter zipping up the hill past me– he’s wearing beige shorts and has The. Worst. Wedgie. I literally laugh out loud and say, “Oh that is not a good look.” It’s like James has sent me this menswear inspired laugh at this exact moment.

I stop for coffee and have a typically challenging and rewarding workout with Casey. The week before I’d given her two big boxes from the shop, hoping her husband Clay would find some things he likes. She shares their try-on experience and it is so nostalgic and heartfelt. We get some Kleenex and hoist the boxes back into my car.

That afternoon I sit down for a moment with my journal. As I’m taking some time to reflect, two little birds keep coming and going… landing on the tiny horizontal grilles of the French doors. Last summer, James brought home a baby fiddle leaf fig from the shop that wasn’t doing well. It was the Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree of fiddle leaf figs. Over the winter, I accidentally left it on the deck one night where a storm battered it so badly all the leaves fell off. I was pretty sure it was dead. But I watered it and placed it by the aforementioned zip-tied doors. Where it has remained as a leafless, lifeless stick for countless months.

Until I’m watching the little lovebirds and a tiny green leaf catches my eye. A new green shoot. I’m dismayed.

After Nate’s practice, the boys and I head downtown to the Bear and the Wren. We pick-up a tradition James and I started on our first anniversary… we each articulate a goal we have for the year ahead in our journal. Nate proclaims the Bee Stang the best pizza of his life: red sauce, mozzarella, spicy calabrese salami, basil, and calabrian hot honey. I’m envious he has found the pinnacle of pizza perfection at the age of twelve.

We head home and our sweetest Auntie Jill has door-dashed us a little anniversary treat. I open the bag and I’m just laughing and shaking my head. It’s filled with these brightly colored French macarons from downtown. A shop that James and I visited recently, but just once. The macarons are covered in glitter. And after he ate them his face was sparkly for days.

I love you so much Jame. We miss you every single day. No amount of time would ever have been enough. Thank you for the rainbows, the laughs, the new growth, the sparkles. And the magic.

When the boys were little, they loved to talk about spirit animals. I have no idea how it started, but it’s one of my favorite sources of interesting thoughts and questions. Plus I felt especially prepared when I was sipping wine at an afternoon winery work function and a colleague leaned over and asked, “What’s your spirit animal?” And without missing a beat I casually replied, “Hummingbird… you?” And he replied, “Red-tailed hawk.” He’s a ginger.

So I’ve been quite steadfast about my spirit animal for many years. Until I started noticing other animals circling me.

One time I had a particularly stressful day at pandemic zoom work. I headed out to walk the loop and clear my head and Jesse found me. Jesse is our neighbor’s elderly black lab. She somehow walks to our house most days because she loves trucks and construction and tradies. She can’t hear anything… except my heart. She walked the entire loop with me that day– my sweet therapy dog.

Then after the great bonsai bunny mystery, my friend Arlene was convinced bunnies were my spirit animal. She was seeing them everywhere. She may be right. But in my typical style, I pointed out it was almost Easter.

Then one afternoon, I’m on the phone with Alesia and I look out to see a bobcat perched on the edge of the hill in the front yard. She was about the size of a spaniel. I’d forgotten about it until two Sundays ago… I’m doing laundry and Nate’s playing X-box and Jacob’s at the movies with Hollis. I come out of the laundry room and freeze. The bobcat is napping on the concrete patio next to my fig tree. She’s beautiful and relaxed and lulled to sleep by the constant monologue of Nate sitting on the floor playing Fortnite.

Someone recommends looking up the meaning of bobcat spirit animals and I find the following:

Bobcat symbolism and meanings include self-reliance, perception, moxie, stealth, friskiness, beauty, and affection. The bobcat spirit animal embodies the famous quote penned by Shakespeare: “This above all: to thine own self be true.” The bobcat reminds you that learning to trust yourself and to stand on your own two feet is an important part of your spiritual growth.

I also learn that there are spirit animals and totems and spirit guides. I like to think of her as our spirit guide. This past weekend I spent several hours chasing turkeys away from the doors. They keep coming up, fanning their feathers, strutting around, and then fighting themselves in the glass. ‘

Yeah, I’m pretty confident I don’t need to manifest more turkey energy in my life…

Losing your best friend and partner since college is like breaking your heart and then losing half your brain. One day 50% of your knowledge and memories are stored safely in someone else’s noggin and then poof. You’ve lost where the water and gas hookups are at your house. Where the german car goes to be serviced. How many times you’ve been to England. And how to stop the incessant beeping of the espresso machine. You also lose the other half to all your inside jokes.

So today a friend sends a screen shot of the weather app and it’s predicting 5 straight days of little rainclouds– some with mini lightning bolts. It’s been sunny and beautiful since it rained over spring break. We’ve already forgotten what it was like to be trapped on the mountain, surrounded by water. Most days I find myself regularly stepping into the sun and proclaiming, “Ahh, the sun feels good on my baboon heart.”

Say what? Yep. James always said it. He swore it was from Saturday Night Live. And we’ve been saying it since I was nineteen. But there was no YouTube back then so I just had to trust him it was a thing. I’m a sleeper.

I literally just watched the skit for the first time ever… yes Jacob… “uncultured”– Take Your Shirt Off – SNL. Take 7 short minutes and watch it. I’m still giggling… except that I can’t unsee that outie. Anyway, all this time and I had no idea it had so many famous actors and comedians– Woody Harrelson, Chris Farley, Kevin Nealon, Adam Sandler, Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, and David Spade. Well, whose ever heard of Kevin? But my pop uncultured brain definitely recognizes him.

One time, in college, I said it while driving James’ truck down Foothill Boulevard. And then a police car immediately turned on their lights and pulled me over. So then we started saying, “Ahh, the sun feels good on my baboon heart. Woop woop.”

Next time you step into the sun, try it out. I guarantee you’ll smile. And now you and me, we have an inside joke.

I love Easter. I love freesias and mini daffodils and ranunculus. I love Easter eggs and Easter dresses and Easter foods. Especially brunch foods like honey baked ham and cheesy au gratin potatoes and asparagus with lemony hollandaise sauce. And I love my mom’s coconut cream pie.

From the moment I met him, James claimed to hate shredded coconut. He had this great comedic bit where he spit and spat when he detected shredded coconut and claimed it tasted like plastic Easter basket grass. It was also his basis for a lifelong boycott of Mounds and Almond Joy.

This year we spent a beautiful Easter in Los Osos with all the Fucillos and Tasseys. The weather was perfect. There has never been more perfect weather in the history of Los Osos Easters. We ate a big breakfast and had four Easter egg hunts. I don’t know who hid the first hunt but clearly they didn’t notice Jack is no longer two. It was over in three minutes as they raced around and picked eggs up off the open pavement. Round two was harder, but the Littles aced it. Then the grown-ups hid the eggs for the Bigs. They loved it. Then the Bigs hid eggs for the grown-ups. It was so hard… it took us forever. Nonna and Trisha were the star hunters. At some point I gave up. We never could find the last egg. We left it for next year, when it’s nice and moldy. Every good hunt needs a disgusting leftover from the year prior.

When we got home I made my mom’s coconut cream– but I like to make it as a parfait rather than a pie. I would have made it for Easter brunch, but I’d brought two kinds of tiramisoup the night before and was too tired to make a third dessert.

I opted for coconut flakes, rather than shredded coconut, thinking this might cut down on the James-inspired Easter basket grass feedback. After dinner, I serve it up to the boys and it’s as good as always.

I ask Jacob if he likes it and he says it’s “bussin'”– that means really good in Middle Schooler– but, “it would have been better with less of the stuff on top.” He’s talking about the toasted coconut. I’m not sure exactly how he described it…. All I can hear is his dad spitting like Porky Pig and wiping his tongue with a paper napkin to rid himself of plastic Easter grass in his dessert.

Like father, like son.

Sweetie’s Coconut Cream Chiffon Pie

This recipe comes from my maternal grandmother, Sweetie. The commentary comes from Grandma Suzy.

• ¾ c. shredded coconut
• 1 T. (1 envelope) unflavored gelatin
• ¼ c. cold water
• 3 eggs, separated
• ½ c. sugar
• ¼ t. salt
• 1 t. vanilla
• 1 c. scalded milk
• 1 c. whipping cream
• 1 T. powdered sugar
• ¼ t. vanilla
• 1 baked pie crust—good made w/ 1 T. added sesame seeds

Sprinkle gelatin in the cold water (use a mug) & set aside.  Combine egg yolks, sugar, salt & vanilla.  Add the egg mixture to the hot milk & cook over medium-low (maybe medium) heat in a saucepan until the mixture coats the back of a spoon.  Add gelatin to the hot mixture & stir until dissolved.  Chill until syrupy. (I use the freezer & stir about every 5 min.)  This is actually a thin vanilla pudding you have created.

In a 425-degree oven, toast ¼ c. of the coconut in a pie pan, stirring with a fork & shaking every 2 minutes.  Watch—it can burn quickly!

Whip cream, adding 1 T. powdered sugar and the ¼ t. vanilla near the end.  Whip egg whites, using cream of tartar, if you have it (amount is shown on the container).

To the chilled vanilla pudding mixture, stir in ½ c. untoasted coconut & fold in whipped cream & egg whites, using a spatula.  Pour into the pie shell.  Top with the ¼ c. toasted coconut.  Cover with plastic wrap and chill—BEST IF CHILLED 24 HOURS BEFORE SERVING TO DEVELOP THE FLAVOR.

(If your vanilla pudding gets too thick, just let it warm up a bit & whip it with the electric beater until it becomes more fluid.)

After we were freed from Zoom School and the boys descended the mountain, our school system announced free meals. James and I gladly shoved the lunch bags to the darkest back corner of the deepest cupboard and embraced the simplification of our morning routine. True freedom and luxury can be found in eliminating the daily squeegeeing of shower glass and the packing of school lunches.

So every day when I pick-up Nate from school I ask him what he had for prison lunch. That about sums up his general feedback on the school lunches at Pacheco. I’m told the chicken strips are “wet,” the hamburgers have “sawdust,” and the cheese in the mac and cheese is radioactive and “glows.” He does like the orange chicken, but they only give you “two bites.”

Please note, this does not reflect all school district lunches. The ones in Merced are famously delicious and overseen by one of the best in the biz. She makes most of my holiday meals and my craft cocktails and that one knows how to cook.

As you can imagine, our prison lunch conversations are generally pretty entertaining. Nate likes the spicy chicken sandwich, but it’s never spicy enough. I mean this is Pacheco, where we’re learning in Spanish and English– we eat real Taki’s… not those faux Taki’s from Trader Joe’s. I once heard a parent use this fun fact to disparage our rival school near the country club.

We recently learned all of the lunches are made at Jacob’s school and then shipped out to the rest of the district. Apparently Laguna is the prison where Martha Stewart did her time. This may explain why Jacob loves just about everything they serve for prison lunch. Or he’s fourteen. He especially raves about their salad bar.

A few months ago, I pick Nate up and ask him my usual series of questions. He also likes to talk about PE… but that’s only Tuesdays and Thursdays which is definitely not enough for him. He’s looking forward to daily PE at Laguna. Just another middle school prison perk. So I ask him what he had for prison lunch and he tells me “dog food.”

“What? Dog food? C’mon now… it couldn’t have been that bad.”
“It was like a Lunchable.”
“I don’t understand. Was it like wet dog food or dry dog food?”
“Dry.”
“Like Kibble?”
“Yeah. It was pretty good.”

This exchange had previously earned itself top ranking in Letterman’s Prison Lunch Countdown. Till a couple of weeks ago.

“So what was for prison lunch today?”
“Goldfish.”
“Goldfish?! That’s not a lunch.”
“That’s all they had.”
“Seriously? What else was there?”
“Well, you could get a piece of cheese.”
“What about fruit?”
“Yeah. They had those mini orange things where you eat the skin.”
“Kumquats?”
Silence.

We checked the website and it said lunch was (sawdust) hamburgers. Nate said they don’t have a late lunch. They hadn’t run out of hamburgers and desperately turned to goldfish. I text Cruz’s mom for an independent third party data source. Unprompted, Cruz confirms goldfish.

I’m not one to really ever call the school except to lie about absences. They really do want me to lie. I hate it, but I can just tell that’s what they want me to do. So I call the school and Amy answers.

“Hi Amy. My son just told me all they served for lunch today was goldfish. Is that true?”
“Mmmm, that can’t be right.” She says as though it’s preposterous.
“I’m wondering if maybe you could look into that and give me a call back?”
“Oh yes, of course. I’ll check, but that just doesn’t sound possible.”

Yeah, I didn’t get a call back from Amy…

I’ve always found certain countries and cultures speak to certain souls. The first time I understood this phenomenon was Jamie A.’s mom’s love of France. I’d met my first Francophile. Then I noticed my dad’s an Anglophile. And my brother’s an Anglophile. Nathaniel is a third generation Anglophile. I recommend inviting Nate on a casual lunch date and speaking only in British accents.

Personally, I’ve have always been a Mexiphile. So are Alesia and Jennifer Anne. And James was a Japanophile.

I once met a creepy American guy in Madrid who practiced martial arts and collected asian tchotchkes. You know the type. Fortunately James was more into the simplicity of design and impeccable craftsmanship. He didn’t have any belts or katanas. He taught me about kintsugi and shou sugi ban and of course, bonsai.

At the age of 5, Jacob became a Japanophile, like his dad, when he developed an insatiable hunger for Pokémon. And sushi. Jake credits his early literacy to Pokémon and those teeny tiny ant-sized words. He just had to know what they were saying and I was an unreliable medium.

So to top off Spring Break 2023, the boys and I took a short roadtrip down to LA to visit Little Tokyo.

Jake and Nate have had a multi-year fascination with “conveyor-belt sushi.” I don’t know where this originated but my guess would be YouTube. So we went back to the source to determine which restaurant to visit. We took a page from James’ Disneyland build-up, ingesting YouTube videos to narrow in on exactly how to spend our caloric intake.

Friday morning we woke-up, filled our water bottles, prepped our Google maps, and set out for the closest Japan Town this side of the Pacific. We got a front row parking spot and headed straight to Yamazaki Bakery. We chose a cube croissant, a sugar ring donut, and the melon pan. Nate and I had to get back in line to buy some canned guava nectar and a milk tea. The pressure was on as we watched Jacob on a bench in the distance, inhaling our freshly bought pastries while we waited. Fortunately we made it back out to the plaza in time. My favorite was the cube croissant– it was really unique with a ribbon of red bean paste and some sort of white cream like a danish. All the bloggers raved about the Japanese melon pan. The boys declared it Mexican pan dulce of which they are experts. This explains the “pan” and why we mostly heard Spanish behind the counter at the Japanese bakery.

As we ate our second breakfast we enjoyed looking at the corn dog joint’s colorful windows. Nate regrets not eating there, too. Next time.

Most of the shops weren’t open yet so we decided to take a spin around Nijiya Market to preview what we’d buy later. This ended up being the highlight for Nate and me. We saw all kinds of interesting snacks and delicacies. On our second trip back at the end of the day he picked out the spiciest looking chips, the spiciest looking ramen, and the sourest looking lemon candies. Jacob found some colorful anime-themed drinks in the cooler and a bag of cookie things. I bought Japanese mayo, yuzu, and sesame salad dressing.

After a walk to the bookstore, we ate an early lunch at Kura Revolving Sushi Bar. It’s a restaurant chain that started in Japan. We were seated at Table 8… an auspicious sign. Our server then showed us how to lift the plates correctly so as to spring the little clear dome open as the sushi passes by on the lower slow train conveyor belt. He also showed us how to use the iPad above our table to peruse the menu and order anything which would arrive on the upper bullet train conveyor belt. Then our server tested us with his demo dome… making sure we all successfully passed before we were allowed to be left alone.

The boys ordered two Sprites from the iPad and I made a quick break for the loo. This is my only regret. I came back and the yellow minion drink robot was just leaving… fortunately it returned to deliver sodas to the guys behind us and I got to see its cutie eyes and hear its Hello Kitty voice. I’ve never been big on robots but if they’re short and bring drinks and have cutie eyes, I say more robots, please.

We ate all kinds of sushi. Rolls. Nigiri. Nate and I tried the conch. Strange crunchy texture– do not recommend. The boys chose watermelon for dessert. Once we’d eaten our fill, we placed the plates down this little perfectly plate-shaped chute where it counted them up and calculated the check. We just exceeded the 15 plate threshold with 16, winning ourselves a surprise prize. It came down from a little machine above the conveyor belt, spitting out a round black plastic Easter Egg. The egg produced a little baggie of generic Legos to build your own… wait for it… sushi roll. Pure delight.

We left Kura to find Japan Town full of visitors. As we waited for some of the shops to open at noon, Jacob felt ill. He’d eaten way too much and had to rest on a bench. It wasn’t clear whether sitting or walking was helping but he rallied when we found some sweatshirts at Japangeles. Jacob’s clothes are currently verging on crop-tops. Mom hack: shopping trip disguised as sushi-eating expedition.

We tried to go to the Japanese garden on the roof of the Double Tree hotel. For some reason the doors were chained shut and we could only see the garden through the windows. We poked around some other little shops and then stumbled into Bunkado on our way back to the garage. They had my favorite Hasami porcelain so I bought a little cream and sugar set that matches my mugs. The shopkeeper asks if we’ve been upstairs. Why no, we haven’t! We head upstairs and find the sweatshirt Jacob saw that brought us in in the first place. I find the cutest little wooden tray that goes with my tea set. There is a lady selling linen sprays. I buy Jacob a second sweatshirt. Turns out I have to go back downstairs to buy the wooden tray. After three transactions the boys are convinced we’ve got to get out of this store.

As I’m signing the receipt at lunch I pause when I notice the headline reads:

Your server’s name is James.

Of course it is.

We head back to the car with our stomachs full of sushi, our arms full of shopping bags, and Dad in our hearts.

It appears I’m an infinite font of stories featuring our local radio DJ, JoJo Lopez.  What up JoJo?

Ugh, lesson learned.  Never google radio hosts.  The mismatch of voice to face is purely avoidable self-torture.

So for a couple of weeks the boys and I have wanted to call into Talk-About-It-Tuesday.  This is where you can call in and talk about anything that’s on your mind.  I’m realizing this morning show is new for me because James was on drop-off and I was on pick-up.  While I was busy managing product teams in India via Zoom, they’ve been enjoying each day’s theme:

Monday: Angel Readings with Bonnie (Ohhh the stories I could write on what the boys think about this…)
Tuesday: Talk About It Tuesday
Wednesday: Woman Crush Wednesday
Thursday: Kids These Days
Friday: Joke of the Week

I program the number into my phone and then last Tuesday, as we’re driving to school, I call in over the speakerphone and say something to the effect of the following on the recorded line:

What up JoJo?  This is Jaimie, Jacob, and Nate.  For weeks we’ve been dying to know if it’s really Morgan Freeman doing the voiceover for the local lawyer commercial, or is it a deep fake?  We have to know, please tell us!

As soon as I hang up, Jacob and Nate have melted through the backseat and are a puddle of pure teenage embarrassment seeping into the asphalt of Los Osos Valley Road behind my Volvo.

“Mom!  Why did you say our names??  Now someone’s going to come and kill us!” (My internet security lectures appear to be working… maybe too well.)

“I can’t belieeeeve you Mom.  Now everyone will know it was us.  Why did you do that?”

What started out as a fun family fone call has flamed out fast.  Whatevs.  Just be glad I didn’t roll up to your school in my red Mercedes convertible with huge rollers in my hair, covered by a scarf.  And then when you yell at me through gritted teeth, pull around the corner to let you out in front of the crowd of middle schoolers applying more eyeliner with one hand as they smoke cigarettes with the other.

We drop off Jake in all his cringe.  Nate and I continue on.  This sparks a conversation about deep fakes and the legality of impersonating someone as famous as Morgan Freeman for commercial voiceover work.

And I say, “Oh, there’s this guy.  He’s so good.  He sounds exactly like Trump.  He’s way better than the guy on Saturday Night Live who plays Trump.”  (I leave out the part where Alec Baldwin also somehow shot and killed someone while on a movie set…)

And Nate says, “If he’s so good, did they put that guy on the show?”

And I’m like, “No… it’s probably one of the hardest shows to get on.  It’s basically impossible.”

And Nate says, “But there are other people on the show?…”

And I respond, “Well yeah…”

“Then it’s not impossible Mom.  It’s totally possible.”

I just love how he thinks.  And our Talk-About-It-Tuesdays.