1. Sometimes I feel too deeply. I feel through the bottom of my soul and into some dark unknown land of overgrown thoughts and tearful nights. They are sometimes wonderful and joyous, but sometimes paralyzing. I have too many feels.

2. I often eat popcorn for dinner. Or cheese and apples. Or sprinkles and wine.

3. Pinterest makes me feel inadequate.

4. I jump to conclusions. Hardcore, deep-down, scary conclusions. I texted you and you haven’t responded for 3 hours? You obviously hate me. Obviously. You didn’t notice or respond adequately to my new hair? It’s obviously hideous. Obviously.

5. I love my cat more than I do most people.

6. I tell horribly absurd jokes that, typically, only I think are funny. But they are so, so hilarious. Pee-your-pants, hilarious.

7. I am insecure. And sensitive. And self-conscious. And jealous.

8. I don’t remember your name and might never. It’s not that I don’t like you or want to like you, it’s just that I’m horrible with names. Horrible.

9. Somethings are worth getting your heart broken over.

10. I am not perfect.

11. I love trashy romance “novels.”

12. I sometimes wonder if I’ll ever be “enough” – creative enough, skinny enough, fast enough, funny enough, original enough, traveled enough, educated enough, loved enough.

13. I wish I was in Ireland. Right now. I’ve imagined that I own a little cafe in a small town on top a little green hill.

14. I am terrified of failure.

15. I worry about money all the time. Even now, when I’m fairly confident about my bank account, I still have intense fear each time I go to the ATM or check my online banking. Once poor, always poor.

16. I am afraid of rejection and thus don’t put myself out there in the world.

17. Sometimes I am ugly, inside and out. Yes, I will judge you and not know you, but know that I am judging myself all the same. And probably worse. I am extraordinarily hard on myself.

18. I am messy and lazy. I made that mess. That one, right there. Will I clean it? Maybe tomorrow, or maybe not. Right now, I’m too busy doing nothing at all to bother.

19. I often crippled by the fear that I will never find someone to love me and spend my life with.

20. I feel like the world is one big popularity contest.

21. I’m not as smart as I like to pretend.

22. I am not perfect.

It snowed a couple of days ago.  Chubby, fat flakes the size of a baby’s fist tumbled to the pavement and {SPLAT!} broke into fine, delicate pieces.  Shattered flakes dusted the pavement all along the drive home.

It was warm just two days before. We went to the zoo and oogled the lions and penguins and spent some quality time with the North American otters.  Next to the penguins, I think the otters have to be my favorite zoo animal.

Their grace and pure joy at seeing sticky fingered kids flattening their bodies against the glass makes me supremely happy.  Besides feeding time, the otters seem to be happiest mimicking the children’s riotous path from one end of the murky tank to the other.

For some reason this last week has been rough for me.  I find myself thinking back to those otters slicing through the water.  The way they  move, spinning, diving, swirling.   And the way they always seem to be grinning.

I close my eyes, breathe deep, and remember.

The zoo always make me think of sticky July days.  Planning the perfect route that allowed adequate outdoor viewing with prime air-conditioned reptile house breaks.

And sweet ice, dripping from chins and hands, staining mouths and shirts.  I’m a sucker for grape shaved ice, although the shockingly green lime has caught my eye lately.

Until July, I’m making do with homemade popsicles.

Especially this one: mango and pear. Pureed mango with sliced pears, and just a hint of lime juice. The perfect stand-in for summer.

Mango and Pear Popsicles
Makes 10 popsicles

1 ten ounce bag of frozen mangoes
1 cup 100% apple juice
freshly squeezed lime juice, to taste (I used approximately 1.5 Tablespoons, but each lime is different, so start small and add more as needed)
1 pear, cored and thinly sliced (it’s up to you if you want to peel the pear – I didn’t)

Combine the frozen mangoes and apple juice in a blender.  Puree until smooth, adding more apple juice if the mixture is too thick.  Taste and add the lime juice.

Pour the mixture in popsicle molds, about 2/3 full.  Carefully slide in the pear slices, as many as able.  I added 2-3 slices per popsicle.

Freeze according to instructions.

My first memory is of my grandfather. Well, I say “my grandfather,” but in reality my parents, grandmother, and possibly my aunt were present as well, but for me, it’s all about my grandfather.

The picture is hazy, but I am sure of one thing: there was a boat and we were on the water. I assume that we were fishing somehow as a certain dancing fish stars prominently in the memory.

I hear the slap of the water against the side of the boat. At this point, however, I’ve come to believe that my memory must be patching in pieces because, as I see it in the darkness behind my eyes, we’re in a canoe. And I know that cannot possibly be correct as neither my mother nor my grandmother would ever willingly get into a canoe like that. So we must have been in some sort of motorized boat, but I don’t hear the motor in my mind, so in my head it will always be a canoe. A blue one. Or maybe green.

I hear the slap of the water against the side of the boat. The thwack is strong and seems to echo with the ripples. It rocks us from one side to another, and me, sloshing against my mother and back again. The smell of the water permeates my skin, mingling with drops of sweat, leaving it damp and sticky and slightly sweet. The air tastes mossy like a hillside after a strong summer rain, ever so mildly sour and damp-earthy. It hangs around us like the branches of a weeping willow – flitting and flicking against our cheeks, never seeming to settle.

In my memories, we’ve arranged ourselves with the men on one side and the women on the other. I’m sitting in my mother’s lap, my grandmother to the side. Like all small children, I’ve found myself in the center of our small group. It’s at this point that I realize there must have been a motor and either my father or grandfather was its operator. I suspect my father. I still stand by the blueness (or was it greenness?) of the boat.

And then the fish. The smell hits me first, and then the fear.

It smelled as all fish do – slightly of algae and water and wet soil. It danced around the bottom of the boat, its small tail flicking specks of water that curled with the sweat on my legs. It flipped and flopped on the peeling wood until my grandfather wrapped his large hands around it.

“Fishy! Fishy!” he chanted as he brought the flapping fish level with my small, wide eyes. “Fishy! Fishy!” He wagged it around, making it dance in the air. Swimming with the wind, swooping and diving, closer and closer to my frozen face, its mouth moving in time with the rocking of the boat, gasping for air.  Wah! Wah! Wah! it seemed to cry.

I sank farther into my mother’s lap, searching for caverns and crevices in which to hide, curling my face against her chest, my fingers clutching her shirt. My father laughed and I heard my mother exclaim, “Oh, Arnold!”

And then, splash! back in the water. It was too small, they said, too small for anyone’s dinner but for a bigger fish. Maybe next year.

Cornmeal Crusted Fish and Red Potato Chips with Garlic-Lemon Aioli

1 cup cornmeal
1 cup milk
salt and pepper
canola oil
2 tilapia filets, halved longways
4 medium red potatoes
olive oil
1 large egg
2 Tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 cup olive oil
2 Tablespoons finely minced garlic

For the fish, begin by heating 2 inches of canola oil in a large cast iron skillet.  Place the cornmeal in a large bowl or plate and season with salt and pepper.  Pour the milk into a bowl.

To prepare the fish, start by dunking each tilapia half into the milk, dredging in the cornmeal, back to the milk, and back again to the cornmeal.  Then, carefully place each piece in the hot oil.  Let it cook for two minutes, then flip for two minutes more.  When the cornmeal coating is nicely golden brown, remove the fish from the pan and let them drain on a paper towel.

For the chips, preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.  Using a mandolin or a sharp knife, slice the potatoes 1/4 inch thick.  Place them on a parchment lined baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil and salt and pepper.  Toss lightly to coat.  Bake at 450 for 20-30 minutes.

For the aioli, (aioli can be made in the bowl of a food processor or by hand, with a whisk.  If you want to make it by whisk, the process is essentially the same, just whisk continuously and once it emulsifies do a little jig to celebrate how awesome you are and reach for an ice pack to soothe your sore arm.) blend the egg and lemon juice in the food processor.  Very slowly, drizzle in the olive oil while processing continuously.  Once the mixture is thick and creamy, add in the garlic and salt and pepper, to taste.  Give it a quick pulse or two to combine.

The aioli can be chilled in the refrigerator for a few days, but is best within two days of making it.

I went to a parade today.  My first in probably ten years.

I forgot how much fun parades can be, especially through the eyes of an exuberant five-year-old.  It’s also one of the few times where it’s socially appropriate to take candy from strangers and to eat it after it was thrown on the ground or dropped by another person.  My kind of party.  We gorged ourselves on tootsie rolls and waved to entirely too many clowns and were thoroughly windswept.  It was one of the better mornings I’ve had in a long time.

Mornings like this make me realize how fortunate I am. And how I take advantage of it far too often.  These days I’m working closer to 50 hours a week than 40, and not taking enough time to just sit and appreciate.  The weather reached nearly 80 degrees two days this week and I missed it entirely, save for walking to and from the car.  I spoke to a lot of people this week who had been out in the world but, I’m sad to admit, I was not one of those.

So today, after we arrived back home from the parade, I made a salad and then sat and enjoyed it.

I’m not usually a big fennel person.  I suspect it has something to do with the absolutely absurd amount of licorice I ate as a child (and the same reason I refuse to eat cinnamon-sugar toasts).  Even the slightly sweet aniselike smell typically turns my nose before it even touches my lips.

But I was reading Molly Wizenberg’s A Homemade Life and I found myself dog-earing the page.  The combination of fennel, pear, and parmesan certainly peaked my interest – and it was perfect.  The pear provided a nice foil to the fennel, which was shaved so delicately thin that it had only a suggestion of licorice. A perfect post-parade lunch with a torn chunk of baguette to soak up the lemony-olive oil dregs.

Fennel and Pear Salad
From Molly Wizenber’s A Homemade Life
serves 2-4

1 small fennel
1 red pear
Olive oil
Fresh lemon juice
Shaved Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper, to taste

Cut off the leafy fronds and long stalks of the fennel bulb and trim away any bruised or blemished areas with a small knife or vegetable peeler. Cut the fennel bulb in half from root to stem.

Using a mandolin slicer, slice the fennel 1/8 inch thick. Set aside.

Cut the pear in half root to stem as well. Remove the seeds and any remaining stem. Slice 1/8 inch thick with the mandolin as well. Set aside.

Arrange the salad as follows: on the bottom, layer some shaved fennel, top with drizzled olive oil, add some sliced pear and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice, repeat. Top with a nice drizzle of olive oil, the shaved Parmesan cheese, and salt and pepper to taste. I like to use a nice “chunky” salt like sea salt.

Eat immediately.