The Toasted Tomato

Forgive me if I’m writing too often about my favorite girl in the world these days, but my stepdaughter Gabrielle has been jumping over so many milestones I feel this need to document, if only to help slow things down. First, it was her 13^th birthday. Last Friday, it was her first dance.

She casually mentioned the event a few weeks ago, announcing that the Beta Club was sponsoring it and she would like to go. I looked over at her in the car, as darty as a squirrel, and assessed that her expression firmly indicated she did not wish to speak about this anymore. No, not one bit, Tara Paule Kaprowy.

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As I was going through my old photos the other day, I came upon one of myself playing catch with my dad and little brother Matthew. It was Father’s Day circa 1998, and I had decided we needed to do something special. So we packed some sandwiches, cold cans of Coca Cola and headed to St. Ambrose beach on Lake Winnipeg. The photo is of me standing knee-deep in the water, my face scrunched up with determination, ready to throw the ball to Matthew.

The photo looks good, but the three of us all knew where the ball was really going to end up: bobbing in the water after sailing either way to the left, way overhead or way short of my brother.

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Oh how nice it is to have little to write about this week. After 10 weeks of recognizing column topics as I lived them, today my mind is blissfully blank and, rather than sit at the dining room table writing, I’d prefer to run from it and head instead to the garden.

So far, despite my early March planting of peas, onions, shallots and Swiss chard, the garden hasn’t sprouted a thing. We had it tilled before Christmas, so for the first time I have a big space in full sun with excellent soil. I’m itching to see some green spring forth from it, but so far, it’s still pretty brown out there. I’m surprised about the peas, as I thought they would have popped out a little by now, but no dice. I’ve considered digging up one of them to see if there’s any action, but it seems a little like cheating, like opening the oven door to see if the soufflé has risen.

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When March turned into April last year, for the first time I was depressed to meet my birthday month. I was set to turn the ugly 35, a number not even I could romanticize. The milestone for me, at the time, was one only of departure — saying goodbye to my lighthearted, fun-loving youth. My 20s were long gone, and now I couldn’t even say I was in my cute early 30s. It was just those two odd numbers pressed together, fast on the road to 40.

For the most part, turning 35 was difficult because I was having difficulty getting pregnant. We’d been trying for years and with each passing birthday, I was keenly aware that my hope of becoming a youngish mother was dissipating. But now, the pressure was really on. Age 35 is when things change for women fertility wise. All of a sudden, pregnancy becomes Risky. The brochures say it. Google says it. Your doctor tells you that.

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About a month ago, I was roaming around on Netflix when I saw that it offered the television show “Glee.” I’d always been semi-curious about the wildly popular show, but had never watched an episode, in part because I don’t watch TV during prime time hours, in part because laugh tracks kind of freak me out.

But here were the first three seasons of a show that everyone had been talking about for years free and available on Netflix. What did I have to lose?

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One of the important ways my life has changed in the past seven weeks has to do with what I drink in the morning. Despite the stress of my husband’s illness, no, it isn’t a shot of tequila (yet) and, no, it isn’t freshly-squeezed health juice involving celery and beet root. Instead, it’s a much-celebrated beverage whose celebration, up until now, didn’t involve me.

It involves, yes, coffee.

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For the past several weeks, that tender hour after work but before dinner has been spent with the game of cribbage. Each night, my husband William and I sit down at the kitchen table. He starts shuffling the cards while I turn on the Amy MacDonald station. And we know we’re another day farther along.

After William got sick, his sister Teresa dropped by with the cribbage board, a rectangular piece of wood punctured with a lot of holes. We’d spent the past five days with Yahtzee and Battleship, so it didn’t take long for the the board to call to us. In early February, we pulled up the rules for cribbage on the Internet and got to work learning them. We were addicted immediately, and for Valentine’s this year, I bought a simple, walnut board as my gift to my husband.

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Kale is my new favorite four-letter word. For the past month, I have snuck this green leafy in almost dinner I’ve made: soups, pasta, on the side, in a tart, on pizza, dressed up with garlic, dressed down with apple cider vinegar.

It’s gotten to the point where my husband will just stare at it and say, “More kale?”

“Yes, William, more kale.”

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It’s been three weeks and a lifetime since my last post and I’m feeling more than a little bit wobbly writing again. In part, I’m fighting tears because I can’t believe how much my life has changed since I last sat down and typed, in part I’m looking outside and rejoicing in the fact that I see pink stubs on our cherry tree. After three weeks of dark winter, we’re on the cusp of spring — a delicate place on the brink of new life, new colors, a fresh start.

On Jan. 27, my husband William, my very best friend, was admitted to hospital after an EKG showed his heart was beating at 168 beats a minute. Shortly after medicine did not work to get it to slow down, the cardiologist led me to an ICU waiting room so he could shock William’s heart.

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On Sunday, I went to my sister-in-law’s house for a birthday celebration for my brother-in-law Art. He has the unfortunate luck of being born on Dec. 29, which means his birthday always gets squashed by Christmas and New Year’s.

After walking in, I found Leah in the kitchen desperately opening packages of cheese and Art, my nephew Eric and his girlfriend Emily riveted by the TV in the nearby living room. Noticing that Leah kind of just wanted to be left alone in the kitchen (actually, she politely told me to get out), I wandered into the living room.

“Happy birthday,” I said to Art.

“Yeah, it was two weeks ago,” he said, not taking his eyes off the screen.

“Whatevs.”

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