wild*life

I’m sitting in a Hampton Inn lobby.  In a little town in Pennsylvania, the morning of my Aunt Rozanne’s celebration of life.  It’s brought back all the memories.  Especially the Thanksgivings at Aunt Rox and Uncle Tom’s.

None of us are sure how many times we came for Thanksgiving over the years.  It feels like it was an annual tradition.  Or maybe it was only two or three times during those most formative years.  The photographic record is spotty.  But it left a lasting impression.  It still never really feels like Thanksgiving if we aren’t at their house.  Feeding our puzzle addiction and going to Penn State football games and visiting the Monroeville mall movies.

We’d pull up to their yellow brick house, a lifesize cardboard JoPa greeting us in the window.  Back before the king fell.  A pack of little dogs greets us.  Yipping and barking and attacking us with love.  And we’re enveloped in a frenzy of animals and cousins and all of the foods special to my family.

My mom is the youngest of three sisters.  When I was little I’d sit at the kitchen counter on the weekends, swinging my legs as I perched on a stool.  Drinking in the half of the conversation I could hear as she caught-up with her older sisters.  Her eldest sister, Sara, looked like my mom and their mom and was clearly the first born.  As a fellow big sister, she’s easy for me to understand.  Aunt Rozanne, or Aunt Rox as we called her, was the middle sister.  She laughs and swears, maybe even more than my mom, which is saying something.  She has these beautiful pink cheeks and her eyes sparkle.  I love listening to her accent.  She’s the only one that looks like my grandfather, Pop, which I always found so intriguing. My mom is the youngest.  Relishing this role as only Aunt Suzy can.

While I don’t think Aunt Rox likes to cook, she likes to eat.  And when we’d visit she’d make all our most favorite foods.  Mouthwarmers and Texas Sheet Cake and big piles of stuffing.  My mom used to talk about how she’d eat milk toast growing up.  I’m still not sure I even know what that is, but I know Aunt Rozanne loves it.  She’d bring big pans of lasagna to the cabin.  And let us eat any treat we wanted.  She taught me to make peanut butter toast and tea.  And while I never slathered butter on my toast prior to the peanut butter, like Uncle Tom, it’s still my most favorite, go-to comfort food.  Soothing to the soul.  The only appliance I took to college was a toaster for this very reason.

Aunt Rox has two daughters and so she always knows what girls like.  In sixth grade she mailed me my first electric razor so I could shave my legs.  My aunts would buy me make-up and things teenage girls like.  One time we went to New York City and all the sisters went clothes shopping and took my cousin and me to the theatre.  But Aunt Rox is also practical.  Sending me a tool box with all the supplies when I left for college.

On those Thanksgiving trips, she introduced us to the mischievous mirth of pranks.  She loved to give us fake dog poop and dog vomit and teach us exactly how to place it to get the best reaction.  She taught us the trick of putting Saran Wrap under a toilet seat and the glee of a whoopie cushion.  Once she bought us a book called Walter the Farting Dog.  It came with an accompanying Walter stuffed animal, true to his name.  She liked it even more than my little brother and me.

We all know how much Aunt Rozanne loves animals.  She taught me how to befriend Buddy the parrot.  Singing and dancing and making a real raucous.  We fed her pig, Bonkers, grapes.  We looked everywhere for her beautiful cats that would hide around the house.  One time she took us to the mall to play with the puppies.  Back when you could do such things.  There was a cocker spaniel that bit my long hair and I fell in love.  She loves animals even more than my dad.  When I was in second grade we had twenty one animals.   Multiple times we took Aunt Rox to the Santa Cruz flea market and came home with a parrot.  Maxi for sure.  And an umbrella cockatoo named Roxy in her honor.  I always thought maybe my dad should have married my Aunt Rozanne over this shared love of animals.  But the universe knew better than to create that kind of Tiger King match.

Aunt Rozanne had the best love life.  Her stories were mysterious and memorable and the kind you hope to have after a life well lived.  And even just this week we found some pictures that left us wanting more.

We spent many family trips together.  Visiting the parrots in Sanibel and shelling on the beach.  We paddled canoes and looked for horseshoe crabs.  When I was older, we mixed girlie drinks and drank them on the lanai.  And at the cabin in Flatrock, she gave baby Jacob his first cabin bath in the turkey roaster.  She lounged on the porch and asked about our fishing excursions and brought masks for the outhouse we call Sutton Memorial.

Speaking of the Sutz, she was a loyal reader of my blog.  This one.  The one I started sixteen years ago.  I like to think she genuinely enjoyed it, once telling me it would make a great book to read on the pot.  Isn’t that exactly something Aunt Rox would say?

I love you Aunt Rox.  I am so thankful for you and your place in my life.  We lost my husband James almost three years ago, but it still feels like yesterday. I know Uncle James welcomed you with open arms and a big Texas Sheet Cake, made a couple days before so it would be at its best– cake in one arm, and a puppy in the other.  Happy Thanksgiving Aunt Rox.  It was the most special day with your big, beautiful family. I know you’ll take good care of James. Good thing he likes to cook and you both enjoy great food. He’s even trained on how to make mac and cheese the best way, served with ketchup of course.

As I say every night when we blow out the candle, and tuck in for the night– We love you and we miss you forever.

This morning Jacob says to me, “Oh Mom, I saw the big buck today.”

“Which one? The big daddy?”

And he’s like, “Yeah, I think we should name him.”

“Ooh, good idea. What’re you thinking?”

“I was thinking something like Hundo.”

“Huh. Wait, what?”

“You know, because he’s a buck. But like one of the biggest bucks is a hundo.”

“Oh, good one. I like it.”

Then there’s a pause as we pass in the pantry and I say, “I was thinking more like Karl.”

We thought we were so funny.

I usually cry on my birthday. I’m not known for being a big crier– James declared me a robot many times. But after practically three years of almost daily cries, I’ve sure shown you, Jame.

And on my last birthday with him, I remember sitting on our bed and crying. He’s holding both of my hands. And he’s listening as I’m spinning out. I feel the time slipping through our fingers, even as my mind can’t really grasp what’s happening.

He looks me in the eyes and he says, “Jame, I’m still here. I’m still here.”

This summer, Jacob wakes-up one weekend and tells me he’s going “thrifting” with two buddies. The child who once yelled, “I will never like clothes as much as you, Dad!” Likely still true but my how things change. He wears your t-shirts almost daily, sometimes impressing all of us with a jacket.

You’re still here.

Earlier this year I walk into the boys’ bedroom in the barn and Nate quick turns his phone over on the bedspread. Suspecting something nefarious, I flip the screen over, only to find he’s looking at expensive sneakers.

You’re still here.

Jacob’s curiosity for eating continues to drive his interest in expanding his meal making mastery. Since going to the gym almost daily, the Protein Marketers have found their mark. We make steaks on the grill and I teach him how you taught me that meat gets harder when we press the spatula down, and that’s how we know it’s ready.

You’re still here.

Then yesterday, the boys go to Michael Rose for haircuts, for the first time, all by themselves. Jacob drives. And uses his credit card for approved purchases only. I forget to coach him on the right percentage for tipping. Next time. They arrive home and Nate declares he is never branching out. Ever. Michael Rose has earned himself a loyal clientele for life. At dinner I impart the ol’ Dad wisdom that you have got to take a shower and wash your hair before climbing into your bed. Jacob immediately agrees. Meanwhile Nate makes a case that all of the little hairs have most likely shaken off as he ran the mile at practice. Right? Nope. This is Dad Wisdom that can’t be ignored. He heads-up to the shower, no questions asked.

And now I’m sitting here on what I like to call Field Day Friday. Unlike you, I don’t know a single barista. I’ll never really know how you made so many friends. They call your name.

It’s the big trips and the anniversaries and the new milestones, big and small. But mostly it’s in the little things day to day. Jacob’s ability to win over almost anyone. Nate’s quiet confidence. The way they get ready and head off to school, no bickering, no rushing. Just the time-aware pair, chatting in their language using words I’ll never know about things I’ll never understand. Forever is such a long time. It’s never felt longer.

But, you’re still here.

Nate claims all of our overseas adventures get better with nostalgia. As in, around day ten they’re ready to sleep in their own beds and stop walking tens of thousands of steps a day. But as soon as I get them home, they long for nNea’s pizza on a balcony, and pintxos after falling into sidewalk chairs, overcome by hanger. We relive pastries in Manchester and pastries in Amsterdam and maybe we just live for pastries.

Last year I was on my daily loop when it hit me like a bolt of lightning– it will be 2025 and James’ fiftieth and father’s day and what would we most certainly have done? That’s right. Japan. There’s no doubt.

So I book the flights and somehow rope the Tassey family into our plans. And it was everything we’d hoped it would be.

We explored Tokyo, wandering through acres of irises under the gentlest rain. We ate bathtub-sized bowls of raman. Jacob customized a pair of Levi’s that were made in Japan. The boys stood in line to buy their quota of Pokemon cards, opening them on my bed in a flurry of wrappers like it was Christmas morning. The girls, Nate, and I ate fish-shaped pastries filled with custard. We explored a mile of kitchen wares on Kappabashi Street. We shopped for beautiful knives and adorable tea towels and origami-shaped coffee pour over sets. We ate authentic soba and ran through a rainstorm to the indoor botanical garden where Uncle Bryan taught us the wonders of plants. We had life-changing pancakes at Flipper’s Shibuya. And life-changing onigiri at Onigiri Goku in Kyoto. We drank matcha lattes to escape the heat. And visited Saihoji Moss Temple, the Katsura Imperial Villa garden, the bamboo forest, and the red gates of Fushimi Inari. We ate sandwiches for breakfast in an Elvis-inspired cafe. We melted, I mean, met, my cousin Joey in Osaka for okonomiyaki and kakigori shaved ice. We tasted whiskeys and sakes and craft cocktails. We ate the best sushi of our lives off a counter at a hole in the wall, Jacob’s friend Orion recommended. We explored dozens of temples, and dozens of 7-11s. It was truly beautiful and memorable, and even more special to share it with our cousins.

Hands down one of my favorites was our excursion to Chofu, a small town on the outskirts of Tokyo. It was green and lush and quaintly Japanese. It’s known for soba and for the second oldest temple in Tokyo. We had lunch at Tamon and then walked through the iris garden behind the restaurant. At Jindai-ji temple, I decided this would be the one place to get my fortune. First we wafted the smoke over ourselves and washed our hands. And then I approached the fortune area.

It was raining. I was nervous. It was my first time. It was relatively empty, but there was a group of teenagers milling around. Oh how I love being watched by a gaggle of teenagers. I bravely walk up, shake the big canister, and pull out a slim stick with Japanese characters on it. Then I’m faced with trying to match these characters to the wall of drawers full of fortunes. I look around. All of my travel companions have wandered off.

I turn to the teenagers, asking for help. They navigate to the drawer, find my fortune, and present it to me. It’s completely in Japanese.

I turn to them again. “What does it say?”

And one boy answers, “It’s a good fortune. It’s good.” There’s a pause. “Actually, it is the BEST fortune.” I like the sound of that. I bow and use my only Japanese, “Arigato gozaimasu.”

I return the stick to the canister, shut the drawer, and thank them again, guarding my BEST fortune from big fat raindrops. And a boy pipes-up, “Have a great day! No… have a great year!”

And I can’t help but feel so very fortunate.

Summer’s over and the kids are back. It’s the time of year when Target appears to have been attacked by locusts, and Trader Joe’s feels like trying to get to the bar at a popular nightclub. I recently asked ChattyG to tell me how many people live here. The basic math was 25,000– double it when the college kids come back.

This week was move-in week and we’re really lucky to have a new crop of family friend freshmen starting school. Which means I got us out of the barn in the nick of time for guests. So nice to have a visit from the Palms.

This time of year always reminds me of my first back-to-school after we’d moved here. I was parkouring my way through Trader Joe’s, dodging boys holding all their groceries in their arms. Like they don’t know about shopping carts or baskets and so they walk around the store trying to hold everything they want.

I find myself near the milk cooler and there are two young “adults” pondering the milk. One guy says to the other guy, “Which milk do I get?” And the other one is like, “Bro, what kind of milk do you drink?” And the first kid’s like, “I dunno.” And of course I’m like, “Holy bleep. I have to get home and make sure the two boys at my house are not one day wandering around Trader Joe’s with armfuls of peanut butter cups and orange chicken, not knowing the basics about cow’s milk.”

Periodically I introduce pop quizzes. One time I asked Nate, “So you know that story I told you about the two dudes at Trader Joe’s and the milk? What kind of milk do you drink?”

And he says, “Organic.”

“Good, but there’s more.”

And he exclaims, “DHA Omega-3!”

And I’m like, “Whole milk, Nate. The answer we’re looking for is whole milk.” So I’m still working on helping him understand skim, 2%, and whole. I appreciate that the cartons he’s been reading do lead with this value prop.

Unfortunately, I missed Nate’s first season game last weekend for a girls trip to LA. Crazy fun. But, apparently at Nate’s game there was a lot of drama, multiple red cards, the whole thing. Fortunately, we won. Coach relayed one of the quotes from the other team to one of our players, “Eff you you effing rich boy.” That’s when he got his red card.

Given this whole milk convo… sounds about right.

Growing up, I was the only person in my family of four who was the first born. My mom, my dad, my brother– all the youngest. Say what you will about birth order, it is definitely a thing. Through no fault of their own, they just don’t fully get me.

Then I had my own family and we were all first borns. Except Nate. The tables had turned. But of course like many youngest siblings, this doesn’t bother Nate one bit. He just lives his life pushing buttons and giggling hysterically. The universe showers him in effortless abundance. Money falls from the sky. He’s always living his best life.

A number of years ago I started teasing him that pretty soon, I’d be the smallest cutest member of our family.

He’d just look at me and smile– a conspiratorial sparkle in his eye. I could see the wheels turning. He certainly wanted to be taller than me. But did he want to lose his pint-sized position of privilege?

Then the week he graduated from eighth grade, Nonna declared him taller than me. But there was dissent. Big hair obscured the results.

Then we went to Japan. And bathtubs of ramen, and counters of sushi, and mile high Japanese pancakes catapulted him ahead. We arrived home and he was visibly taller. Let it be recognized that as of June 20th, 2025, I am now officially the smallest cutest member of this family.

This past Thursday night I bolt upright at 2:30AM, awakened by the fire alarm. While I power through cardiac arrest, I check the upstairs and the downstairs and confirm it’s a false alarm. Spiders? Fog? Sleep demons? I diagnose the offending alarm as the one in my bedroom, which then calls all the other ones so they all go off and a robot man makes commanding statements so that in your disoriented state, you’ll never know which one to rip from the ceiling. I grab the step ladder and realize I can’t reach the alarm to pull out the battery or end its useful life. I can only wave a towel at it and climb back into my bed, cover my head, and pray it will stop.

I really thought being the smallest cutest member of this family was going to be better.

One afternoon, as a teenager in the nineteen hundreds, I’m in the kitchen and I open the coffee cup cupboard, which was over the counter. Back when no one questioned upper cabinetry. And I open this cupboard and a turquoise plastic measuring cup comes tumbling out at me and before I can react, it hits the tile counter and cracks. Like totally unusable cracks. And my mom scoops it up and is immediately in tears.

In my defense… it’s my blog so of course I’m mounting a defense… this cupboard was filled with a lifetime of coffee cups and what we now know were poisonous plastic travel mugs. Back then there were no decluttering YouTube channels espousing the freedom of only keeping good coffee cups that are worth drinking from. And what I gathered from whatever ensued, this measuring cup was my grandmother, Sweetie’s. And if we know anything about Sweetie it’s that she was an excellent baker. All my favorite cookies and pies are Sweetie’s. One time when I was little, we were baking together. She held up a sharp knife and asked me if I wanted to bake my hand. Wide-eyed, I quickly hid my hand behind my back and assured her I most certainly did not.

So earlier this summer, Nate was eating his two thousandth quesadilla and he couldn’t get the Tajín to come out. I dig around in the silverware drawer and thoughtlessly hand him one of his yellow chopsticks to poke into the container. A second later I hear it snap. Like totally unusable snap. And I scoop it up and am immediately in tears.

This is one of four sets of chopsticks we bought during our last family trip to Portland. We picked them out at the Japanese garden: James blue, Jaimie pink, Jacob green, and Nate yellow. And now our set of four is down to three. Just like our family.

I let myself have a good cry over broken chopsticks and beat myself up on why I didn’t hand him one of the steel straws and then finally surrender to the impermanence of everything. Then wouldn’t you know, we go to Japan.

And in a sea of hundreds of chopsticks, stores and stores of them, I find the EXACT yellow chopsticks Nate broke. Identical. Not a good match. Exactly the same.

I wasn’t even searching. They just found me.

Nate knows all the British football songs and chants. I’m no fan of Liverpool, but I do love me some Darwin Nuñez. And I love to sing his song, even though I only know a couple lines…

Darwin, Darwin Nuñez,
He came from Benfica to the big Reds,
It’s frightening with him and Luis Díaz,
There’s nobody else like Darwin Núñez

So speaking of Darwin, a few weeks before school ended, Jacob was driving us to school (more on that later) and we came across a teeny tiny Bambi in the middle of the road. She was the size of a dog, tons of spots. Literally like “born yesterday” little. No sign of her mom.

We creep along as she runs down the middle of the road. This might be the first time she’s ever run before. But her instincts are “cheeks” as Nate would say. She runs downhill, all the way to the bottom, never once considering going off the side or up the hill like every other deer.

Poor baby is limping from all the exertion and she keeps running down the middle of the road. Now Jacob’s worrying about being late to school so we stop the car and tell Nate to get out and chase her off the road. This is what happens when you’re the little brother.

He successfully scares her to the side, but by the time he climbs back in the car, she’s back in the middle of the road, running towards Laguna. We continue to crawl along as she merges onto the Canyon road and continues doing the exact opposite of what we’re hoping she’ll do.

Now there are cars behind us and cars coming at us and finally, finally she goes into the grass and looks at us like we’re the crazy ones. I name her Darwin and we’re all convinced she won’t make it through the day. Over the next few days I keep an eye out, hoping to spot her alive and well, but we’re not optimistic.

A week or so goes by and I see two little Bambis in our front yard with their mom. I watch them and they keep tasting the artificial turf. All three of them. Multiple times. Most deer are smarter than this. I’ve watched them.

No doubt, it’s Darwin.

Post Script

It recently occurs to me Nate doesn’t know about Charles Darwin and thinks I’ve named our neighborhood fawn after my favorite Liverpool player. But my favorite Liverpool player is Salah so… I digress. I test my theory and turns out, I’m right. Looks like he should know it from seventh grade but, mmmm, Ms. Longabach. There’s a refresher in ninth. Phew.

If you’re hungry for external validation, I recommend cooking for teenage boys. Just about everything I make is “bussin'” or “fire” or sometimes even “gas.” And while this all sounds like public transportation exhaust, it actually means sooo good.

And what better time for a young man to learn to cook than when he’s at his hungriest? Previously I was hoping Cuesta’s College for Kids Culinary program was going to do some of the heavy lifting. But then they scheduled multiple summers of literally the exact same recipes and my children revolted. They weren’t going to be able to sustain their future adult selves via Mukimono Munchies or Treats and Tai Chi.

So last week I asked Jacob what he wanted to learn to cook and he told me 14 meals. Ambitious! I think the logic involves two full weeks without repeats. Like his dad, he’s not big on leftovers. So we made a list and now we’re working on building confidence, one weekly dinner at a time. Last week we started with Dad’s Shitake Stroganoff.

I’m not sure if James originally thought they were called shit-take mushrooms, or if he just decided it was funny to pronounce it that way. In any case, we’ve retitled his signature stroganoff in his honor. The littlest bum bum brother takes special delight in all things shit-take.

Dad’s Shit-take Stroganoff

INGREDIENTS
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp butter
1 package shitake mushrooms
1 yellow onion
1-2 cloves of minced garlic (Trader Joe’s frozen garlic cubes are fast and easy)
1 package of bison tenderloin steaks (get ’em at the Whole Paycheck)
1 package of tagliatelle egg noodles (Whole Foods Jovial gluten free brand is our fave)
1 cup sour cream
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard (pronounced dee-zhaan, not dee-John, or dee-hone, Nate)
Splash of balsamic vinegar
Salt
Pepper

DIRECTIONS
Start the grill
1. Turn the grill on outside to high, shut the lid, and set a timer for 5 minutes.
2. Clean the grill with the wire brush and turn the flame down to low.
3. Put salt and pepper on both sides of the bison steak (preferably at room temperature), then place on the grill, over the flame (7 minutes). Shut the lid.
4. Flip the steak and cook the other side (7 minutes).
5. Remember to turn the gas off. Put the steak on a plate to rest for at least 5 minutes.

Start the sauce
1. Meanwhile, slice the onion in half, remove the outer layer, and cut into relatively thin slices.
2. Cut the mushrooms into slices similar in size to your onions.
3. Place a skillet on medium heat, add the olive oil and butter. If it’s a non-stick skillet, only use plastic/silicon utensils to stir.
4. Once melted, add the garlic until fragrant.
5. Add the onion and gently saute until translucent. Lower the heat so they don’t brown as the brown bits become bitter (about 3-4 minutes).
6. Add the sliced mushrooms and cook until soft and golden (about 5 minutes).
7. Sprinkle with a pinch or two of salt and lots of ground pepper.
7. Remove from heat and put the lid on to keep warm.

Make the pasta
1. While your onions and mushrooms saute, heat a big pot of water and cook the noodles per the package instructions. Start testing them a minute before they’re supposed to be done.
2. Pour into the strainer and quickly rinse noodles with cool water.

Put it together
2. Slice your steak, but not too thin.
3. Remove the lid and add the sliced steak to the onions and mushrooms over very low heat.
4. Add the sour cream, dijon mustard, and a splash of balsamic vinegar.
5. Stir until the sauce is consistent in color and evenly coats all ingredients.
6. Spoon over warm noodles. Serve with green peas, steamed broccoli, or a green salad.

NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION
Ha! This blog doesn’t do nutritional information. This is a high calorie meal for teenage boys that can eat anything.