Blinner. Breakfast + lunch + dinner. For instance, eggs can be eaten any time of the day. Who doesn't love fried eggs? Egg salad? A veggie omelet for dinner? Then there's cereal--the most incredible food item in existence. You can include in this category sandwiches of many varieties, even oatmeal. I guess, looking at this list, breakfast items are really the only true blinner items one can enjoy at any time of the day.
Needless to say, I got eggs, milk, a few cans of tuna fish, apples, peaches, a few yogurts--all for under 10 bucks. Oh, and chocolate chips. (I've got a potluck to go to this weekend and have most of the ingredients needed for a healthy chocolate-chip cookie pie, inspired by one of my favorite bloggers, Chocolate Covered Katie. If you haven't been to her blog, I highly recommend it! http://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/) As I was checking out, I noticed the woman in front of me had the New York Yankees logo tattooed on the nape of her neck, amidst the tufts of fluffy, frizzy white hair growing there. She was about forty, give or take, wearing a t-shirt that was too tight, a bra that was too small, and jeans from the juniors section of American Eagle or Aeropostale. They may or may not have had embellishments on the pockets; I'm going to err on the side of yes, yes they did. She was alone.
For whatever reason, I couldn't stop staring. I must have said out loud, "Wow. That's dedication." because the cashier looked at me puzzled, for a brief moment, before telling me that I owed her nine dollars and some change. Snapping out of my trance, I quickly collected my things out of the shopping cart at the end of the conveyor belt. At Aldi, you either steal their boxes and pack all of your shit in, or bring your own bags to prove you're going green. You can also buy bags at the register, but luckily I was able to fit everything into my arms.
I walked quickly to the automatic doors, hoping to gain some ground on this Yankee woman. Was this some sort of dynastic family symbol? Perhaps her father, now dead from leukemia, was an avid Yankees fan and this was some sort of tribute. Her son, born on the day the Yankees won their last World Series (which, by the way, seems like ages ago) was a child of God; his umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck and he wasn't supposed to survive. His father, screaming both at the television in the hospital room and at the good Lord for his undeserved travesty, watched as his wife pushed out his first son at the same exact time the immaculate trophy was brought on the field. She went weeks later and got the tattoo. Perhaps good gin and less tonic put her into a state of utter oblivion and her then-boyfriend pressured her into getting the NY as a way to prove her undying love to him. Maybe she just really loved the goddamn Yanks.
Her car was parked adjacent to mine, but she made it to her car and unloaded her cart in record time. By the time I made it out to my Cavalier, she was dipping her inked neck into a Pontiac and shutting the door. I opened my driver's side backdoor and set my things down--eggs first, of course. I made sure that the yogurt and milk were sitting upright, and tore open the bag of apples with my fingers, grabbing one for the drive home. I got into my front seat, took a bite of Empire State, and drove home.
I don't know why, but this woman--we will call her Maude--kept popping into my head randomly throughout the day. This morning, when I woke up, I saw her tattoo on the ceiling in my room. The walnuts in my oatmeal created the letters "N" and "Y" next to eachother; I swear I heard Whoopi Goldberg on The View say something about a crazy woman with a Yankees tat that was parading her almost-three year old son around Times Square, celebrating prematurely his birthday and praising God at the same time. Why was this woman tormenting me?
My favorite poet is e.e. cummings. I'm not entirely sure why, except for the fact that his manipulation of language and creation of phraseology is unmatched by any other American poet, in my opinion. since feeling is first is my favorite cummings poem for sure, but it isn't my favorite thing he has said or written. That sentiment lies in a quote on being true to yourself:
I don't know how I came across this quote today, or why e.e. cummings was even on my mind. But, nevertheless, Google images came through for me. After seeing this picture, I thought of Maude. Maybe her life was one big battle, and the only thing that really made her happy was watching the New York Yankees, win or lose, rain or shine, trophy or not. Maybe Maude's way of fighting was silent; maybe she was exhibiting her constant struggles in the name of family illness and strife via a gigantic NY because it was her way of proclaiming victory, something she had chosen for herself. I thought that maybe yesterday, after I had seen her, Maude was going home to start preparing dinner before her husband, a hard-working, construction-loving, concrete-laying build of a man, got home. There is a babysitter at her apartment, watching her three-year-old son, Paul, named after Paul O'Neill. The babysitter leaves. Maude walks into his bedroom, where Paul is taking a nap. She rustles his hair, pushes it gently out of his eyes, tells him all the things a mother can only say when her children are asleep. She slowly fingers the discoloration under his chin, a deep-penetrating scar that creates a half-moon on his neck, remembering how he is a miracle. Paul's eyelids flutter and he reaches his arms out, eyes still closed, in an effort to put them around his mother's neck. Maude obliges and bends her forty-year old back, the one in constant pain she inherited from her father, toward her son; creaks her aging neck down to his tiny, delicate hands. He traces the ever-so-slightly raised scar tissue on the back of her neck-- N in fluttered swoops, then the Y splitting the middle that caresses her upper spine.
I thought maybe Maude knows more about winning battles than most.
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