Author Archives: midlifenatalie

I was cleaning out my email folders this morning, and it made me sad.  I miss having friends.  I miss intimate conversations, silliness, and dinner guests.  I miss one line emails and inside jokes.  I miss sincerity and thoughtfulness and just because.

It’s the nature of the beasts though.  The beasts being a job AND a lifestyle change.  When I was a stay at home mom I could go to lunch with friends or have them over for dinner.  Now lunch is in the teachers’ lounge, and dinner is not a recognizable event most days.  Hopefully that will change this year.  Hopefully I won’t be quite so worn out after work.  Hopefully teaching will be my job not my life.  Hopefully I’ll have time for friends.

Before I decided to come out as gay and divorce my husband I had friends to call on and hang out with.  Most of them know about the divorce, but very few know about the gay thing.  I haven’t given them the chance to reject me.  Divorcing my husband and changing churches took care of most of them.  Oh I could still call them to hang out, but it would be awkward and none of us want that.  Besides I hadn’t known most of my local friends for long since we had been overseas for so many years.  The friends I had from before we moved overseas have moved on so the landscape here is completely different.  My college roommates have known me for 22 years, but for 20 of those years I was part of a couple.  And they were his good friends as well.  They aren’t local so I haven’t had a chance to see them yet.

——————————————————————————–

I started this post on August 2nd, and today is August 6th.  I’ve reread what I wrote 4 days ago and I think it’s explaining things.  I’ve been moody lately.  I celebrated a birthday this past week, but I don’t think that has anything to do with it.  At this point 40 and 41 are the same thing as far as I’m concerned.  I think my mood has more to do with what I was writing here.  It has to do with missing authentic interaction with people.

I know I’m just in an in between stage of life.  I’m in between my comfortable old job and my new job becoming comfortable.  I’m in between homes.  I’m in between living my old life and freely celebrating my new one.  I’m in between places where I can really invest myself.  I’m in between old and new friends.

Fleur de lis helps tremendously, but right now our busy schedules don’t often lend themselves to much quality alone time or much celebrating each other over drinks.  But even that’s part of an in between stage and will be changing soon.

Two years ago I couldn’t imagine where I would be in a year much less 2 years.  The thought of that place filled me with dread.  Today I am there, and it’s not so bad.  I’m thankful for everything I’ve been through and all I’ve learned over that time.  But the best part of all is that I don’t dread the next few years of my life.  I am looking forward to them with hope and faith.

I took the kids on one last summer vacation this past week.

What we saw and did in pictures.

I guess we can go back to school now.

The other day my kids and I had an interesting conversation.  They didn’t understand how someone could be married for so many years and then just decide that they are gay.  (Now keep in mind that I still haven’t told my kids that I’m gay.  I mean I’m pretty sure they have an idea, but this conversation wasn’t even about me.)  I explained that when I was in high school I didn’t know anyone who was gay.  If someone was they certainly wouldn’t ever say anything to anyone about it, because they would probably be bullied, beat up or even killed.  People were scared to admit it to others and even to themselves.  They did everything they could to not be gay so they could be accepted by their peers.  Many gay teenagers lived a heterosexual lifestyle.  They dated people of the opposite sex, got married and had kids hoping that if they acted straight they would become straight.  This was a shocking revelation to them.  They couldn’t believe it.  They started naming people that they knew at their schools were were either openly gay or bisexual.  They said that some of the kids might make fun of them a little, but mostly no one cared.  Relationships formed and dissolved just like normal heterosexual relationships and everyone at school knew.  Wow.  Things have definitely changed.

Dear Waco IHOP customers who happened to be eating at this fine establishment at 12:30 am on Wednesday night,

I want to formally apologize for the noise that came from that table.  You know the one.  There was a mom and her 4 kids…although now that I think about it the mom looked way too young and amazing to have 4 kids over the age of 10….but I digress.  That was us.  Those were my kids who hadn’t seen their mom, aka me, in 13 days.  We had just been reunited moments before we walked into IHOP.  The noise/loud hum you heard was them telling me every detail of their trip all at the same time.  It was quite the spectacle I’m sure.  If you were lucky enough to have been seated near us you might have heard snippets of conversation such as

“and then I peed in my pants.”

“because my neck muscles were sore from making faces…”

“we were so close that we got dirt in our teeth.”

“and then I buried him.”

“in a trailer behind the house…”

“she rescued me and then he kept knocking on the window.”

and the ever popular and far overused

“I need a big boy cup!”

All in all they had a good time as I’m sure was evidenced by the sheer number of giggles and guffaws you heard from our table.   I hope you were able to enjoy your food despite our very loud presence.  I can guarantee you that we won’t be visiting that particular IHOP again any time soon seeing as we don’t live in Waco.  You can be assured that the next time you get a hankering to eat pancakes and chicken fried steak in your pajamas you won’t have to worry about meeting us there.

Thank you for your patience.

And you’re welcome.

Natalie

Originally appeared on my old blog in July of 2008 back when we were living in Turkey.

Tonight for dinner I made biscuits and gravy. Not the most healthful thing we could have had, but it was the requested meal. When we lived in the states I never made biscuits from scratch. Oh there was a time I used Bisquick and called them homemade, but now I know that they really weren’t. There is no such thing as a can of biscuits here. You can’t find them frozen or premade in any shape or fashion. In fact biscuits aren’t something Turks even eat. I mean they would if they had them, but it isn’t a normal bread form here.

So the biscuit recipe I usually use is this…2 cups of self-rising flour and 1 cup of heavy cream. That is it. Mix it together roll or press them to about 1/2 inch thickness and cut out with a glass. Now they don’t have self-rising flour here so I add 2 1/2 tsp baking powder and 3/4 tsp salt to the flour and mix before I add the cream. The biscuits are to die for in my opinion. So easy and so yummy. If you want you can add some sugar…maybe 1/4 cup to the dry ingredients if you like your biscuits sweeter.

But tonight I had to use a different recipe. I was out of cream, and I had already started mixing up the other ingredients. I quickly found a recipe for buttermilk biscuits and since I had ayran which is a yogurt drink similiar to buttermilk I decided to go that route. After mixing the dry ingredients I started to cut in the butter. Wow…memories flooded over me. Then I added the buttermilk and almost started to cry. My grandmother made buttermilk biscuits every time I went to visit her. She mixed them with her hands…exactly like I was doing. The smell of the buttermilk as I mixed it in was like stepping back in time. The movement of my hands as I slowly formed a ball of dough in the middle of the bowl…picking up more and more flour from the sides as I moved my hand around transported me back to her kitchen in the tiny town of Emerson, Arkansas.

I’ll never forget that place. That house. That kitchen. Where so many memories were cooked up. Memories of homemade sweet pickles…juicy and sticky. Memories of fried fish. Memories of chicken and dumplings, turnip greens, purple hull peas, cornbread, and chocolate pie. There were lots of other memories made there, but tonight it was the thought of the food that overwhelmed me. And even though I have learned to make many of those things they still don’t taste quite like hers did.

I went to church yesterday for the 3rd week in a row!

Once upon a time not too long ago I was in church every time the doors were open, and I wanted to be there.  Then I acknowledged my struggle and that I couldn’t do it within the confines of a church building so I didn’t go at all.  Well that’s not exactly true.  When necessary I drove through the parking lot and pressed the brake long enough for the kids to jump out hoping that nobody I knew would stop me.  But while I didn’t go to church I also didn’t abandon my faith.  It was too important to me.  Once things started settling down some I knew it was time to start looking for a place where I would feel comfortable being myself yet challenged to be who God wanted me to be.

The first church I tried seemed promising.  The pastor actually went to the same Baptist University I did.  The church was inclusive and liberal and Baptist according to their website.  All were welcome.  I walked in the doors to a very friendly group of people.  Most seemed straight, but there was a smattering of gays around the room.  That’s what I was looking for.  Then church started.  The pianist played familiar hymns but the words weren’t the ones I had grown up singing.  The new words didn’t mention God or Jesus at all, but they were full of the words compassion and humanity.  And while those are both excellent words and even ok church words because God was left out they felt quite empty to me.  The subsequent sermon and prayers were the same.  Lots of love and uplifting stuff, but God was no where to be found.  Even communion was a watered down version.  Instead of the bread representing the body of Jesus broken for us it was just referred to as “the bread of life”.  The wine wasn’t ever related to the blood of Christ, just “the cup of healing”.  I left there feeling like I had been to some club meeting, but I didn’t feel like God was anywhere in it.

The next week Fleur de lis and I went to a church together.  This time we went Methodist.  The church claimed to be a reconciled Methodist church where not only was everyone welcome, everyone was celebrated.  We walked in the doors and were greeted immediately.  Again there were gay and straight alike sitting around the sanctuary.  The pastor was making his way through the room and came over to greet us.  He asked us our church background so we told him.  He told us what to expect as far as the service went.  He was very nice, very welcoming, and just about perfect.  Church started and was more formal than I’m used to, but it was definitely something I could get used to.  The hymns weren’t really familiar, but they weren’t watered down versions of the old hymns either.  God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit were there.  Giving God the glory was preached.  I couldn’t believe it.  This is what I was looking for.

Yesterday I went back to that same Methodist church.  This time I went alone because Fleur de lis had something else she needed to do.  This time I went early.  According to their website they had Sunday School and/or fellowship before church started.  I wanted to see that.  I walked in the door and again felt welcomed there.  Everyone was friendly and warm.  I saw gay and straight talking and laughing with each other.  I talked to several people about the weekly bible study the church does during the school year.  I talked to a minister about the Vacation Bible School planned for next week.  I felt very comfortable and at home there.

About the same time I arrived another visitor walked in.  She was given a name tag and invited to participate in the conversation.  Everyone was warm and friendly with her as well.  She and I talked quite a bit about what we did and where we were from.  I watched how they treated her to see if they really were inclusive.  To see if everyone was not only welcome, but celebrated like the pastor said.  I watched, because you see she was a he.  She was big and tall and hairy.  She was wearing a skirt and blouse and heeled sandals.  She had painted her toenails and fingernails.  Her face was clean-shaven, and she wore make-up and a wig.  Based on her appearance I imagined that she probably lived her everyday regular life as a man.  This one day she dressed how she felt and came to church.  And they welcomed her just like Jesus would have done.

Oh yeah, I’m definitely going back.

On our recent trip to New Orleans Fleur de lis and I spent some time driving through the Ninth Ward and adjacent areas.  We were interested in seeing how the area has recovered since it was devastated by hurricane Katrina and the flooding in the days that followed.  We saw house after house with the familiar spray painted markings denoting when it was searched in the days following Katrina.  While so many houses were still abandoned and in disrepair many of those that had been redone and were being lived in still displayed the spray-painted reminder on the front of them as a way to never forget what took place there.

Driving through the Lower 9th caused mixed emotions.  Seeing driveways to no where and the stone piers where houses once sat left me without words.

I tried to picture the houses here and the families whose lives now bear the scars of losing everything.  Where were they now?  Did they abandon New Orleans or were they living somewhere else in the city?  Had they been back and stood in the spot where their houses once sat?

And I wondered how much it costs to buy an empty lot.  What price can one put on a small, rectangular piece of land with so many stories it can never share?  Stories of lives lived there and lives interrupted there.  The laughter, the tears, the hopes, and dreams and fears.  The nightmares and the secrets.  Those alone are worth something.

While the devastation was devastating we were excited to see the work that Brad Pitt is doing in New Orleans. His organization, Make it Right, is committed to helping rebuild the Lower 9th Ward. The houses are green and designed to fit on the narrow lots where the original shotgun houses sat. Amazing!

What has happened in the years since Katrina is encouraging, but they have so far to go.  So many empty houses.  So many empty lots.  And beautiful new houses are beginning to dot the landscape.  Houses that are architecturally advanced and full of hope.

At the end of our self-guided tour I couldn’t help but think about all that I had seen.  I remembered the pictures  I had seen of the area in the weeks and months after Katrina.  I remembered thinking that there was no way it could ever recover.  But I was wrong.  I’m so glad I was wrong.  Life goes on where the old meets the new in the neighborhoods along Claiborne Avenue.

On Sunday Fleur de lis and I took a spur of the moment trip to New Orleans.  It’s the city of my birth and where she spent her formative years so we had been talking about visiting NOLA together someday.  We knew we would enjoy it but had no idea it would be the trip that it was.

But that is not what I’m here to talk about today.  Today I want to talk about the food.  Lord have mercy was there food!

And to even tell you about the food I must backtrack to Saturday night.  Saturday night we had planned to have sushi at our usual place here in town.  We love sushi.  Unfortunately, unbeknownst to us our favorite sushi place had just started to take a siesta on Saturday afternoons starting right about the time we pulled into the parking lot with Niki Maki on our minds.  Ok…on to plan B.  Plan B involved seafood as well, but this time Fleur de lis thought it would be fun to do it Creole style.  We drove halfway across town and pulled up to the restaurant she had in mind.  There we were greeted by a billboard that announced the closure of the restaurant and thanked us for 27 wonderful years.  Well drat.  By this point Fleur de lis was determined to feed me seafood.  She drove back across town to a joint called the Mardi Gras Grill. Thankfully it was open for business and serving some good ol’ Cajun cuisine.

I ordered the fried seafood platter, because by this point I was hungry enough to eat the whole ocean and because I am so indecisive that I really did want a little of everything.  And really…what better way than a platter!  I also ordered the pretty red drink you see pictured above.  The fried seafood platter coupled with the pretty red drink got Fleur de lis all verklempt over a couple of places back home in New Orleans.  She told me about having the seafood platter at a little place called Middendorf’s when she would travel from the family home to New Orleans to visit relatives.  She also told me about a hot spot called Pat O’Brien’s in the French Quarter.  This place is home to the Hurricane, AKA the pretty red drink I tasted at the Mardi Gras Grill.  So by the time the last crawfish was eaten and the Hurricane weathered a trip to NOLA was planned for the next day.

We had morning commitments so we planned to head out as soon as we could after that.  Of course we couldn’t actually leave until we were properly nourished so lunch was eaten at House of Pies.  Oh…and dessert was eaten there too.  No way I can go to a place called House of Pies and not get dessert!

Once we were on the road we both started sharing road trip memories.  We had a common memory called Stuckey’s as I’m sure much of America does.  We wondered aloud if there were even any Stuckey’s around anymore.  Moments later we saw a sign advertising the famous Stuckey’s pecan log so we pulled over for a little visit.

Here we browsed the road trip souvenirs and decided against purchasing any of the lovely trinkets because we knew they would only end up in the trash some day.  Instead we decided to go with a six pack of GooGoo Clusters which would end up in our bellies within a few days.

Later around about dinner time Fleur de lis saw a sign for Cracker Barrel and pulled off the freeway so we could eat again.  We rounded the corner and came across a gas station that should have been called Kraker Barel instead.  Needless to say we didn’t stop there for dinner.  We went on down the road a piece and stopped at a well known eatery called the Waffle House.  Now I must admit here to a slight aversion to the Waffle House.  My last experience there included a worn out waitress, some cigarette ash, a sticky table, and a legion of flies so I was a little nervous about going in.  I am here to tell you not all Waffle Houses are the same.  This one served up a piping hot waffle free of flies and cigarette ash.  Huzzah!

We pulled into New Orleans in the evening with big plans for the next day.  And of course our big plans started with the free breakfast at our hotel.  After breakfast we did some touring then stopped at a little place I like to call Cafe du Monde.  I like to call it that because that’s it’s name.  It said so on the sign which I didn’t take a picture of because I was too busy stuffing my face with this.

These are beignets.  I have fond memories of beignets at Cafe du Monde.  Most of them just involve eating the beignets and sipping the creamy hot chocolate, but they are memories nonetheless.

After leaving Cafe de Monde we went around the corner to Aunt Sally’s where we purchased a 6 pack of pralines to go with our GooGoo Clusters for maximum road trip snacking.

At noon we made our way to Pat O’Brien’s for little nip.  I ordered the Hurricane and Fleur de lis chose the Rainstorm.

We had our drinks in to-go cups so that we could take our souvenir glasses home clean.  Stumbling out of the bar we decided it was definitely time for lunch.

We made our way over to Mother’s Restaurant where we waited in a long line for some po-boys that were more than worth the wait.

Later, after a food induced coma/nap at the hotel, it was time to eat again.  We chose a local dive called the Harbor Seafood and Oyster Bar where I ordered a cup of seafood gumbo AND a cup of turtle soup.  I’m indecisive, remember?  We also shared a piece of bread pudding that had more fruit in it than I’ve ever known to be in bread pudding.  I mean I get the whole raisin thing, but this bread pudding had grapes, pineapple, apple, and who knows what other fruits as well as raisins.  Despite it’s chunkiness it was still pretty good.

The next day started with the hotel breakfast, moved on to lunch at Don’s Seafood Restaurant (because our first choice, Middendorf’s, was closed on Tuesdays) where we ate more fried seafood as well as hush puppies to die for and some shrimp etouffee thrown in for good measure, and then culminated with massive amounts of GooGoo Clusters and pralines on the ride home.

I proclaimed then and there that I was never eating again.  I was so full from all the yummy food I ate that I couldn’t even imagine putting another thing in my mouth.

Until I woke up the next day craving beignets.  Thankfully Crescent City Beignets here in town was an ok substitute for the real thing.  Then I had a Tilapia sandwich and a cup of creamy potato soup for lunch at Empire Cafe.  Add to that the last of the pralines and you’ve got a good 10 pounds gained over 5 days.

This evening we have plans to go for sushi.  And we’ve come full circle.  Let’s just hope they’re open for dinner or who knows where we’ll end up!