Crazy Stable

We have a new refrigerator!

It's been an emotional roller-coaster, this Great Fridge Transition. We knew the old one was living on borrowed time--16 years' worth, to be exact. (The average life span for a fridge is 13 years.) For years, the condenser (compressor?--the motor) would kick in with a terrifying groan, one that we presumed meant I am consuming enough kilowatts to light most of Flatbush. But spending more than $600 to shave a few bucks off your electric bill is the sort of choice you make when you have, well, more than we usually do. The fridge went on the critical list over the weekend, just as I was attempting to store a mountain of freshly grilled meat, salad, etc. for a luncheon I was catering the next day. At 2 a.m., as I prepared the last of it, there was a sinister silence. Under the strain of the first real heat and excessive door-opening, Old Reliable just gave up. An hour later, as I frantically downloaded Smart Refrigerator-Buying Tips from the internet and prayed a lot, I went downstairs and checked...it was back on, rumbling weakly. The temperature crept down out of the "give-everyone-salmonella" range, and I was spared having to phone my poor Tenant in the wee hours for the insane favor of stuffing his fridge with tandoori chicken. But the time had come to pull the plug.

Which brings us to the insanity of refrigerator-shopping. Our goal was simple: replace one 18-cubic-foot top-freezer model with another. If it had a few nice new features or was more energy-efficient, that'd be a bonus. But after one trip to Sears and another to Lowe's, I realized I had entered Appliance Hell. As several salespeople sheepishly confirmed, there's been a sort of industry-wide Hummer-ization of the whole refrigerator concept in the 16 years since we bought our first fridge for the CrazyStable. The big brands like Whirlpool, GE, and Frigidaire (which may all be owned by the same evil multinational conglomerate) have clearly turned their attention to the sexy monsters in custom McMansion kitchens. Gargantuan "side-by-sides" (two doors)  rule, and they've got everything: custom icemakers, gelato dispensers, penguin feeders, you name it, clad in brushed titanium, Olde Englishe cabinetry, or whatever. Meanwhile, your basic budget-model white/bisque/or black top-freezer refrigerator has declined in quality--crispers made of brittle plastic like a cheap shoe-storage box from the 99-cent store, shaky shelves, and still that mysterious "leather-look" surface that catches kitchen dirt and grease so efficiently.

And then there's my need to take the editors of Consumer Reports and flay them alive. Anticipating the Great Appliance Die-Off, I have kept up a $5-a-month subscription to the Consumer Reports testing-and-recommendations site. Well, you can download all their "best bets" and "quick picks" like a good little scout, but be prepared: In the wilderness of Appliance Land, you are unlikely to find more than one model whose serial number remotely resembles those in the printout you have geekishly clutched in hand. But wait, it gets worse: You can't trust CU's numbers...not even for the dimensions of the appliance. (Which were the most important criteria of all in our tight Chinese-puzzle kitchen layout--an inch off and the sucker would have to go back on the truck.) I even sat poring over Lowes' manufacturers' catalogs, and the CU specs didn't line up with those in the book.

Fed up with my worthless research and the creepy, indolent salespeople at both Sears and Lowes, I headed for A&B Drimmer, the indie local dealer on Coney Island Avenue where we've always scored well for CrazyStable appliances. Their sales staff is pure Flatbush, generally manic, Orthodox, and dedicated to getting you what you want fast. Our salesman spoke Yiddish, Hebrew, Spanish, and Russian (and English), all of which he'll use in a typical day; he pointed to a nice Frigidaire with a better-than-average build and finish and arranged next-day delivery, all while noshing his lunch out of a plastic clamshell. Now, that's more like it.

The transplant surgery was a massive operation, not done yet, involving total removal of the hutch and its contents as well as the stuff in the fridge (ruthlessly edited--no ancient jars of half-used condiments going back in, no sir). More importantly, it meant cleaning the unseen valleys of death behind the fridge for the first time in....ahem, a long time. Let's put it this way: Quentin Crisp was right that after 5 years, the dust doesn't get any worse. We fished out the usual assortment of cat treasures, including several hazelnuts, and discovered that, no, Lexi was not hallucinating mice in the bottom of the hutch. The whole tear-out process brought back vivid memories of the day in 1991 when we finally got the kitchen up and running--when the tiles and the paint job were new, and the cabinets hadn't lost 10% of their mass to Cocobop's vigorous manicure workouts. Now the new Frigidaire (bisque) is up and running, and all that remains is to put the entire kitchen back together again.  I feel like making an ice-box cake!

Thanks to French bloggeuse Zoe for that nifty image up top.

Mid-May days of sparkling sunshine on tender grass...rosebuds popping open amid waist-high emerald ferns in the garden...a sojourn in the CrazyStable by a beloved and marvelous cousin...and laugh-packed kitten action. Is this house bipolar and on a manic high, or is it just me? For that matter, is it hot in here, or is it just me?

No, it's hot, gloriously sultry, and the house is reveling in it. Even now, I hear Spouse scrabbling up and down the staircase, exchanging humidifiers (employed to counter the dessicating effects of the Terrible Radiators of Winter) for fans. Lush woodland-scented breezes are pouring in from Prospect Park. Last week, when Beloved Cousin arrived, New York City contrived to offer up a buffet of weather choices, a bit too heavy on spring rain, but at least her first full day in town was perfect.

Valeska Lynne in HER gardenSo what do you do with your few days in the Big Apple? If you are Beloved Cousin, you suggest that we get in some gardening. I suggest iced tea and a good sit; she is primed for action. Now, understand that BC is more than a decade my senior (we first met when she came East for a visit from her native Ohio as a fresh-faced teenager; in an old photo, she is holding ecstatic me, age 4, in her arms.) And BC is still recovering from a shattered ankle after a pre-dawn jogging mishap on the ice in Colorado, 2 big surgical scars on the shin, soaks it every night. The "pre-dawn/ice/jogging" thing is a tip-off to BC's character; she relates enthusiastically how she has been scooting around her own garden on some conveyance or other, planting her tomatoes, landscaping a berm, chopping down a pine tree...I am foolish enough to mention my plans for the "Garth," which involve eventually breaking up the cement pad with a sledgehammer. Hey, do you have a sledgehammer? We could start now! After I threaten to subdue BC with the sledgehammer, she contents herself with planting, mowing (using our colorful little push mower, which she accurately describes as looking like "Barbie's lawnmower"), and weeding the blazes out of everything. 

The funny thing about all this is that I have been sinking deeper into a Garden Loneliness Pity Party lately...just little ol' me, struggling away out there...Spouse mows and offers to dig holes, Child flits about and occasionally plants something, but it's usually a solo act, haunted by a few ghosts. Garden Ghost #1, my mother, who would (before the walker/wheelchair days) offer to come out and "help," then quickly (and very noisily) retreat in either groaning agony from her sciatica or shrieking terror from an insect fly-by. (A dermatologic allergy type, she was convinced that, if stung, she would promptly die of anaphylactic shock. Just once, a bug did contrive to sting her, and she staggered inside bawling for someone to call 911 for an Epi-Pen; she was not amused when I told her that, if she had enough airway left to howl the words anaphylactic shock, she was not in it.) Post-fractured-hip, she would haul herself to a window and call out morosely, "I wish I could help you." [Dig, dig, dig...Don't worry about it, Mom.] "I do worry about it...Look at you, out there working so hard all alone."  [Dig, scrape...Not alone enough, dear.] "What?" [Stab, dig, poke...NOTHING, MOM, IT...IS...JUST...FINE.]

Garden Ghost #2, far more benign, was dear friend Merian, an avid beach gardener (she even participated in the Burpee Test Garden program) who loved to sit outside and talk plants with me. Dainty little elf, she taught me the art of ruthless seedling-thinning, yanking out whole green tufts at a time. Towards the end, when she lived with us for one fragile summer just before emphysema claimed her as a prisoner, she perched on the grass and tweaked a few weeds within reach as I bitched about the house. Drawing a breath,  she looked up at the raffish backside of the CrazyStable and said in her quick exhalation singsong, "Oh, it's a wonderful house." A decade later, I recall those words like a benediction.

And now, just in time to lift my spirits, here was Beloved Cousin playing "Gardening Barbies" with me! Suddenly my flaring arthritis didn't seem so bad, and I could hardly wait to start filling planter boxes and turning over earth.  We worked easily side by side, quick and intuitive--Thyme, here? Yeah, sunny, good.  It wasn't the first time BC has rescued me, either; remind me sometime to tell you about the time her visit to our Uncle Don's country place turned into a decontamination emergency thanks to a deceased chest freezer. (Have you ever seen liquid bacon? We have.) This was pure pleasure, though, and the energizing effects of that morning are still buoying me up. As our Uncle Don once said, after walking 20 Manhattan blocks with a crutch at age 93, "My legs work better because I'm so excited and fascinated!"

We did let BC do something in town besides our gardening...there was the graduation of her son, my Brilliant Cousin Once Removed, from Columbia with a newly minted architecture degree...we paid a visit to the New-York Historical Society to see amazing stuff on Tiffany lamps, Audubon birds, and the Civil War...and in DUMBO, we peeked at the renovated carousel (gorgeous), got gelato at Almondine, and were treated by BC to the frozen hot chocolate at Jacques Torres, a thick dark sexy/bittersweet slush-puppy that we slurped on the way to the airport.  (Oh, did I mention that BC whipped up a fabulous Chinese dinner for the lot of us after a full day of sightseeing? Trying to keep members of her clan from preparing feasts--usually improvised, organic, elaborate ones--is like trying to keep border collies from herding behavior. Or as BCOR, who should know, said over the sound of his mother's brisk scallion-chopping, "Resistance is futile.")

In return, we could offer only our little blue-and-white third-floor guest room...and Charlie the Kitten, at large.  Yes, he's technically still in quarantine, but the little shaver is so frantic for companionship that we had to start setting him free for short intervals with the Big Guys, Cocobop and Lexi. By now, he's free most of the day, just in his isolation room at night and for naps. Cocobop remains disgusted and diffident, but Lexi bloomed almost at once into a doting mother and wrestling partner.  Here, just in time for Cat-Blogging Friday, is how it's been going:

Hmm, Hamster-Sized Thing (Me) vs Turkey-Sized Thing (Her)...no problem! A quick death-bite to the throat should do it...hey, Mom, do you have a throat under there? Can I call you Mom?

Ow...ow-ow-ow...who said anything the hell about having my ears washed?

Ha-ha! Try this one on, Big Girl--the four-footed chin-block! You are no match for me, Fur-Turkey...[clunk, sound of Hamster-Boy getting body-slammed to the mat]

Had a glorious Mother's Day outing to Green-Wood Cemetery...no, not to visit a deceased Maternal Unit, but to enjoy an outdoor performance/tour cooked up by the Aquinas Circle, an honors group at the Child's parochial school, Holy Name of Jesus in Windsor Terrace.  The show, called "The Stories Never End, The Love Never Dies," was a delight. Costumed middle-schoolers earnestly impersonated various historic personages interred amid Green-Wood's verdant hills, including DeWitt Clinton (who, although dead, was still running vigorously for President); gangster Johnny Torrio (a pint-sized fellow in chalk stripes, describing his takeover of Al Capone's speakeasies while chomping a chocolate cigar); Leonard Bernstein (reincarnated as a redheaded young lady who warbled a few bars of "Tonight"); and "ordinary" wife and mother Clara Ruppertz Koch, a portly frau whose monument proclaims her "the greatest woman who ever lived," and whose young interpreter, a dainty angel in a flowing gown, recited Emily Dickinson's "I'm nobody; who are you?"

In the course of our tour, I also stood for the first time at the statue of Minerva on Battle Hill, to witness her breathtaking (and very deliberate) eye match with the Statue of Liberty way out in the harbor. Just imagine--some cretinous condo developer wanted to block their locked gaze with a cheesy sliver building. He was stopped (although the fight against moronic and greedy overdevelopment in the so-called Greenwood neighborhood goes on).

Keeping up the theme of Brooklyn fabulousness, Spouse attended the "BKLYN Designs" ^TM  festival in Dumbo (or should that be DUMBO? An acronymonious debate!)  I went last year and found it a bit wearing--lots of painfully hip furniture made out of packing peanuts or recovered wood pallets or cat-food cans, and lighting fixtures made out of antlers and the like, with a few really nifty things that (like everything else) were hopelessly out of our price range. (Shouldn't at least the stuff that's made out of recycled garbage be, um, cheap?) But I wish I'd had the chance to see the newly restored carousel (working, but not ride-able yet in its indoor housing) and to visit the wonderful works of my favorite stained-glass artist, Nancy Nicholson, who makes moody compositions with pigeons and water towers seem as evocative as the lilies and saints in Green-Wood's mausoleums.

 Just for fun, here is one of (I was told) only two male angels in Green-Wood Cemetery, atop the monument of Edwin Litchfield--who was so peeved at the takeover of his turf by Prospect Park that he instructed that this fellow's back be turned upon the offending place.  Those are chestnut blossoms in the background. I like my angels, like my chefs, to be guys. This one reminds me of a young Dean Martin.

Had a blast tonight at the Second Annual Brooklyn Blogfest, meeting other borough bloggers in the ridiculously historic Old Stone House in Park Slope. The event, organized by Louise Crawford, a.k.a. SmartMom of Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, featured the heavy hitters in the fight against the Atlantic Yards project, and an intriguing array of newer bloggers (including your StableMistress) got to introduce themselves at an "open mic" section afterwards. I greatly enjoyed meeting Chris Kreussling (XChris) of Flatbush Gardener, Anne Pope of Sustainable Flatbush, and Jonathan Butler of Brownstoner, the real-estate-obsession blog.  I'm also looking forward to the debut of Bklynmama.com;  Helen Zelon plans to focus on those of us with "Brooklyn kids who are broken in" (i.e., beyond the stroller years).  

But the warp core driving the Brooklyn blogosphere remains the pushback movement against Bruce Ratner's bloated Atlantic Yards project--and, more broadly, the whole hive of issues that rise up buzzing when urban gentrification goes on a roll. I jotted down a few quotes (or paraphrases of them) on this grassroots civic action and DIY journalism from some of its practitioners. They reminded me of the tireless, smart-alecky urban muckrackers I met as a student journalist in the 1970s at places like The Village Voice (back when it stood for something besides futon and escort service ads) and MORE (way back, when it was a magazine about the news industry and not about female midlife crises).

"The zone of my experience that I care most about is served poorly by local and national media." -- Steven Johnson, founder of Outside.In, and coincidentally a honcho at NYU's J-school, my alma mater; his elegant bit of genius was to organize blogs in searchable geographic mode.  (His site recently published the listing of "America's Top 10 Bloggiest Neighborhoods," which, he said, arose partly out of a desire to use the word "bloggiest.")

"The mainstream media have abrogated responsibility for local coverage except for crime, car crashes, and fires. We're having an impact on public discourse by providing information on local projects and development. It's about shining a light on things that would otherwise happen in the dark. The days when you could tear down a building without anyone noticing are over; within 45 minutes of taking down one brick, one of us will be writing about it." -- Robert Guskind, Gowanus Lounge.

"I practice stand-alone journalism, using a blog. Bill Keller of the New York Times said that they practice 'the journalism of verification' while bloggers just comment, and he's more right than wrong. But in some things, we're more right than wrong." --Norman Oder, Atlantic Yards Report.  (Oder is a single-minded anti-Ratner crusader whose most recent coup was an analysis showing that anticipated tax revenue from the project had been overstated.)

"I was surprised by the power of a critical mass of community [of blog readers]. It takes a while to build, you can't rush it." And, on his well-chronicled decision to quit his day job and blog full-time: "There's that 4 a.m. panic when you look at the ceiling and wonder what's going to happen; plus now you're really living the blog, it's pretty intense. Be careful what you wish for." --Jonathan Butler, Brownstoner

"Authenticity, truthfulness, trust..nobody's paying us, our opinions can't be bought, and I think that's what people respond to." --Louise Crawford, Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn (who accepted the sponsorship of a tequila brand for the evening only because they use organic agave nectar--gotta love those Park Slopers!) (By the way, the free margaritas tasted fantastic; bring on the organic nectar!)

As I headed home, I glanced back at the Old Stone House, rebuilt from a rubble pile of masonry that was originally fitted together by a Dutch farmer in 1699. The house had seen an early and ghastly battle of the American Revolution (the "Gallipoli"-like charge of the outnumbered Marylanders' regiment against the Brits while Washington and his troops retreated across the East River), and had served as a 19th-century clubhouse for the team that evolved into the Brooklyn Dodgers. The original owner of the snug little dwelling on Fifth Street undoubtedly communicated with his neighbors by saddling up a draft horse and clip-clopping down a road between the fields for a chat. Now, on a warm spring night, it was bursting with happy, networking, margarita-swilling bloggers, exchanging business cards and refueling their determination to keep Brooklyn from being devoured by alien skyscrapers. I live in a place where almost anything is possible.

Graphic, top: Lisa di Liberto of Urban Seashell, another nice blogger I met. Wish there had been T-shirts with this poster on them, hint hint. Bottom: NYC Parks Department.

Photo: Global Down Syndrome FoundationJust in time for Mothers Day (although the ironic proximity goes unacknowledged) comes an article from the New York Times describing the efforts of parents of people with Down syndrome to prevent the mass prenatal extermination of children like theirs. Now that quick and "safe" (for the mother) prenatal testing for Down is available, it has been recommended by the moral midgets at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) for all women, not just those over 35--because while the risk of having a Down child rises steeply after age 35, the greatest raw numbers of affected kids are born to younger moms. Surprise, surprise: at least 85% of people "diagnosed" with Down syndrome are aborted. Appalled by the thought of a eugenic future without people like their own beloved and beautiful children, these brave and loving parents have undertaken a grassroots campaign: 

Photo: Global Down Syndrome Foundation"With no formal financing or organization, parents are arranging to meet with local obstetricians, rewriting dated literature and pleading with health care workers to give out their phone numbers along with test results. Medical professionals have for the most part responded with caution. Genetic counselors, who often give test results to prospective parents, say they need to respect patients who may have already made up their minds to terminate their pregnancy. Suggesting that they read a flyer or spend a day with a family, they say, can unnecessarily complicate what is for many a painful and time-pressured decision.

Their goal, parents say, is not to force anyone to take on the task of parenting a child with disabilities. Many participants in the ad-hoc movement describe themselves as pro-choice. Yet some see themselves as society’s first line of defense against a use of genetic technology that can border on eugenics.

'For me, it’s just faces disappearing,' said Nancy Iannone, of Turnersville, N.J., mother to four daughters, including one with Down syndrome. 'It isn’t about abortion politics or religion, it’s a pure ethical question.'"

But Nancy, Nancy, isn't it good to know that our "professionals" so value our time and our "choice" that they will refrain from burdening us with the reading of a flyer in the face of the decision to destroy our unborn child's life? And what's the big problemo with those faces--the ones we used to call "Mongoloid"--disappearing, anyway? Sure, it's a blow to diversity, but not the kind of diversity our society seems to crave--that would be Naomi Campbell in a Victoria's Secret line-up, not the earnest moon-faced kid who's careful to wipe your table in McDonald's.

Am I ranting? Whew, sorry. I'll let someone with more journalistic cred take over, then I'm done. Here's George F. Will in last January's Newsweek, father of a young, employed sports fan and Down Syndrome guy named Jon, on the ACOG recommendations:

"Nothing—nothing—in the professional qualifications of obstetricians and gynecologists gives them standing to adopt policies that predictably will have, and seem intended to have, the effect of increasing abortions in the service of an especially repulsive manifestation of today's entitlement mentality—every parent's "right" to a perfect baby."

Thank you, George. As a medical writer and as a mom, I couldn't agree more. But what, you may ask, has me so hot under the collar about Down syndrome? Well, for one thing, as I've recounted here recently, my own sorry prenatal ass was on the line some 50 years ago when my mother's ob/gyn considerately recommended that she abort me--at age 44, she was "high-risk" for having a Down baby. It is to my mom's even greater credit that she let me live, since she had a cousin, Daniel Beecher, who had Down syndrome, and (being my mom) found him "an especially repulsive manifestation." Dan was a hulking, sullen kid with mean little eyes, she recalled with distaste; he seemed to have preternatural strength to back up a stubborn temperament, and died young, as most Down folks did until recently, of vaguely defined causes. Apparently Dan wasn't institutionalized (an exception back in the 1920s), but he wasn't anyone's pride and joy, either. In all my mother's voluminous family photos, there are no pictures of cousin Dan. I like to imagine him looking like actor Chris Burke, and smiling because he was someone's pride and joy.

Maybe Dan, the cousin without a face, is the reason I am drawn to people with Down and care so deeply about them. They're not some sort of generic "angels," as I discovered in high school when I worked as a day camp counselor with the handicapped. But neither are they a "diagnosis." When I finally became pregnant at 35, my mother (still loaded with insight and compassion) worried aloud about my risk for a Down baby. Told the Dan Beecher stories again--another reminder that Catholic guilt, not unconditional love, was what punched my ticket out of the womb, (and thus showing that Catholic guilt has some real utility). As for me, I told my ob/gyn not to bother with the test, not even the "safe, convenient, early" version--finding out about Down syndrome on my baby's birthday was good enough for us.

The Child, as providence would have it, turned out to be "perfectly normal." But look around at this house and its history, I tell her, and you'll see that perfect,or even normal, were not criteria for entry. Happy Mother's Day to all the moms who love whatever faces the Lord sends them, regardless of the very real pain and cost and hardships involved. Prayers for the more than 200 families waitlisted to adopt a Down syndrome baby, and for all those who know they're expecting one. And Daniel Beecher [eyes turned cornily skyward], here's looking at you, kid.