Two years ago I got really sick with continious urinary tract infections.We cronic urinary tract “participants” call it amongst ourselves a UTI. After the last one left my door I suddenly could not keep any food in me.In fact I spent most of the time in the bathroom in one heck of a lot of pain after I ate.Being older I was told things would start happening to me and maybe body parts would start falling off if I did not take care of myself.Who wants to believe that kind of stuff ?Of course I still cannot watch to this day the movie Death Becomes Her with Goldie Hawn and Meryl Streep.I saw what happened to them without their miracle doctor Bruce Willis around to take care of them. I am still personally waiting for an arm to fall off or maybe my nose like Michael Jackson.

After a few weeks I was losing weight like no tomorrow and beginning to call this the Miracle Diet.I was getting into pants that I had not worn in years .I liked that , yes really liked that , but did not care for the pain . Let alone the bathroom door was constantly shut with me being in there groaning and piling up a library of books for those hours on end.One day after even slipping ito another smaller pant size I decided enough was enough.

Did I find out I had some ecoli disease? A third world country plague?No,I found out I had celiac disease.Celiac disease is supposedly ( Id like to find out which one of my ancestors I can thank) an inherited disease in which the lining of the small intestine is damaged from eating gluten and other proteins found in wheat, barley, rye, and possibly oats. I will put it to you in laymans terms.No flour.. no gluten… no fun. Interesting the Yak is the Mascot of Celiac disease.I have wondered if the Yak is the mascot because of a play on words.You know,” Don’t eat this or you will get ‘yakking sick’ or “Yak You bowels!”

Living with Celiac disease is a bitch to put it mildly.Especially if you do not read labels carefully you can get really sick.Sometimes I think it is a bad joke that Monsanto is playing upon us.Are they playing with the seeds and grains as more and more people are being diagnosed with it ? .As some of my friends come down with it I try to direct them to places that carry gluten free products and tell them if I can do it they can too.Yes, blame it on the genes as they say and keep trying to tell yourself that you don’t need no stinking bread.

So last night was an annual Christmas party that I enjoy immensely.Eating out is like playing Russian Roulette.Sometimes you get out scott free, sometimes you don’t.If it looks delicious , generally that is a warning sign that you cannot eat it. So I slowly choose a few things and was sure I was going to have a homerun.Of course the only place left to sit was right beside the cupcake table .I don’t know about you but everytime I go by The Teacake Bakeshop in Emeryville I want to slit my wrists or take a quick run into the traffic on the 80.Cupcakes are my number one food group choice.If I could I would live on cupcakes out of that place for the rest of my life.This , my friends is no lie. I try and ignore the cupcakes calling out my name like cartoon characters. I try so hard to ignore the smell of chocolate and icing and sprinkles.Ohhh mama I need to walk away.I need to put my hands down and walk away from the Cupcake Van as they say.But I can’t. I need to face this and be strong.

A tiny cute two year old girl approaches me and points to the cupcakes,.I too am still pointing at the cupcakes in my mind.She says one word,She says the word “Yum”. I glance at her mother and she comes over and gives her one.I watch the little girl eat it bite by bite.I am dying watching her eat it almost being in slow motion.I watch her eat the chocolate cupcake and lick the icing.My tongue is frothing at this point like a crackhead needing his fix.It’s over as soon as it starts.She suddenly wants another one.Her mother says no but she can have a cookie.Okay, this is way too much punishment here but I just cannot get up and leave.I am glued to the chair as I watch her suck in that Hershey Kiss in the centre of the cookie for almost forever and then gobble down the rest.She smiles at me and wants more.Thankfully her mother picks her up at this point and they leave the mana from heaven table.I am going to be alright.Oh yes I am as I silently pat myself on the back. I am saveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed.

Id like to end it her but I wasn’t saved.In fact I was about to endure a journey from hell.Yes, girls and boys we have a celiac incident coming on.Big time..
I started to get a horrible hard pain in my stomach and it worked down.Way down, it went lower and lower until it met its final resting spot.You can feel it coming like freight train cruising down the the tracks.Yes my train was coming full tilt down the old intestine tracts and it was taking no prisoners.

I tried to smile at the lovely Japanese lady that was talking to me about her father in laws art.Words like Japanese interment camps and Smithsonian were not keeping up with my eyes that were darting back and forth at the line forming in front of the only bathroom door.The bathroom is so close but if I get in there and it all lets loose will most of the party move away from this room after the door is open? Will all their eyes bear down on me and their fingers point and the unruly mob will all yell,
“She did it!”

Five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes.I am dying here right now and all of a sudden the bathroom door is open.I am free. I need to go.I need to go now as I did not bring any extra underwear for traffic accidents or whatever might happen to me.I excuse myself and run.I do not walk , I do not stop nor do I pass go. I run like the wind and slam the door shut. In 3 minutes flat my deed is done and I get up.I flush the toilet and it does not go down all the way.In fact the water is rising.My heart starts beating wildly as I search for a plunger.There is no plunger.No plunger anywhere.Who has a bathroom without a plunger? Is it against the enviromental laws of Berkeley not to have plungers anymore? Is it something I have missed in reading about composting? The water starts to go down.I wait and flush again and then I keep flushing and flushing until the evidence is gone.Well.almost all the evidence.What to do about the air quality? What to do ? What to do? This is a green home I do not see any aerosols but I do see a vintage perfume display.So I grab one and spray an expired Yardley scent through the air. It smells like decayed rotting flowers but it does the trick.

I listen at the door and hear nothing.I open it an inch and see no one.Everyone is outside listening to music in the cold night air. I walk out and run once again.I mingle with a small crowd .I try to blend in. I succeed. I score. I am okay.

The Hostess comes around with a tray of goodies and I smile and say,
” No sorry I can”t have that I have celiac disease”
And in my mind I am really saying,

“I am so sorry about spraying perfume from your vintage perfume display and you really need a plunger in there” “Yak the greening of America laws”

I smile again and walk away pain free and think about how convenient a portable pocket size plunger would be nice for all of us Celiacs to have. Note to self. Email Amazon about it tomorrow.

Linda Seccaspina
copyright 2009
Savannah Devilles

I sit here and look at Christmas light displays on “youtube” and cannot wait to see the pictures being sent to me of the fesitve lights put up this year in Canada.My friend Wanita sent me a link to her ex husbands outdoor Christmas light display that was so good it was featured in The Globe and Mail today.It brought tears to my eyes. I am basically living Christmas through others and feeling darn sad for myself.The Martha Stewart Christmas CD plays for the umpteenth time and after 17 Christmas movies on the Hallmark channel I just cannot watch another one.Or can I ? Are these gut wrenching movies and especially the Martha Stewart CD making me into a Negative Nancy?

I had something happen to me this year that was life altering.There is not a day that does not go by that I do not think about it.It literally changed my perspective on life .It was almost like learning there was no Santa Claus when I was a child.That innocence and the good of mankind was gone.So I sit here and ask myself at almost age 59 how many Christmas’s do I have left? What had I not lived and missed Christmas this year? Well, I did live and Christmas is almost around the corner.

So I try to snap out of this funk and remember.Remember the smell of Christmas Trees.The sharp pine pungent scent and smell home baking in the air.To be honest the last years of my Christmas’s twelve years ago were not spent smelling a fresh Evergreen tree.It was spent looking at the latest model of Sears “best in the line “of decorator trees.:) I remember the delicate fragile glass ornaments that belonged to years gone by.I remember the blue lights on the tree.Why my family could never ever splurge on colours I will never know.I can always remember Miss Watson playing the church organ next to a huge tree filled with blue lights too and thinking it was quite strange. So maybe, yes maybe, this must be the reason.. I feel like it was something that was decided one day on Altar Guild Day.Yes, I can hear them now talking with their glasses perched on their noses and fluffing their short tight perms.Everyone except my grandmother.My grandmother poor Mary Deller Knight lost most of her hair in a tragic accident at a hair dressing salon one fateful day in 1953.In Mary’s case she pulled her wig on straight. Yes they all stood there and decided blue lights and only blue lights should be on a Christmas tree.I am sure that is what happened. Well,maybe not, but it does seem quite peculiar and darn right odd.

Then I remember two weeks after Christmas fourteen or was it fifteen years ago when my sons and I stood on top of a wet soaked carpet staring at a completely black Christmas tree..Staring at burned out walls and my oldest son wondering if his purchasing one small TY Beanie Baby monkey started the fire that turned our lives upside down for over a year.He kept telling me for a very long time that “Congo” caused the fire, and that he should not have bought it. I am sure deep down today he still thinks about it.He is very much like his mother.We dwell on things and don’t give them up. We are good like that

But Christmas went on the next year and no one was a Negative Nancy.We still watched Charle Brown’s Christmas and baked cookies and hung up stockings and I still left small presents on the door steps of the elderly.I used to dress up our German Shepherds with antler’s ears and take them around after the midnight service.It was usually snowing and cold and first it was Zar that accompanied me .Then after he passed Snoopy used to run his nose along the snow filled sidewalks and snort much like he was Santa’s helper.He never wanted much except the jellybeans I carried in my pocket.I swear I turned that poor dog into a sugar junkie. There isnt a time that I dont look at jellybeans and remember him riding shot gun in the Cherokee jeep and catching the jelly beans in his mouth that I threw at him.

So what to do? How do I get out of this Downer Dan mood. I decided to make the “only in Canada eh?” pastry that would make me feel festive called Butter Tarts.
Butter tarts are unique to Canada and consist of small pastry tart shells that are filled with a sweet mixture of butter, brown sugar and eggs.They are kind of like a pecan pie or even a British treacle tart. So not having the ‘good” Canadian shortening to make pastry I use a Trader Joes frozen pie crust. I cut out small circles with a floured glass and spread each one out in a small muffin tin.The first one was a bit sloppy but by number two I am a pro.I make the filling of eggs, brown sugar, vanilla and half and half and carefully pour it into each tart shell.You can add raisins, but why put anything thats really good for you in it? I smell them baking in the oven and know using Organic brown sugar just isn’t going to produce the real butter tarts Im used to, but it will do.

Twenty minutes later after listening to Loreena McKennitt singing Good King Wenceslas for the umpteenth time I pull them out the oven.They smell wonderful but as I had assumed the organic brown sugar did not pass muster but they did look great.Of course just as I want to bite into one I remember I have celiac disease and cannot taste one.You know..No flour, no gluten , no fun. But I know they will be enjoyed so that is what Christmas Hannukkah, and Kwanza is all about isn’t it?

Making people happy, making people smile, good will to all? I sit there and pomder.I try to make people happy every day so Christmas should be every day for me right? I guess it is.So why so glum chum?

I take off the Martha Stewart Christmas CD and file it away not to be played for let’s say at least a day. I put out a Christmas wreath with a Hanukkah rattle in it. I play Linus and Lucy from Charlie Brown’s Christmas by Vince Guaraldi on the CD player and I dance. I dance and I dance and realize the holidays are what you make out of it and not to expect anyone to drop the Christmas spirit outside your bathroom door. because it just ain’t going to happen.I would seriously bet my last butter tart on that:).Even if they are made with organic brown sugar.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Linda Seccaspina

Savannah Devilles

On the first day of January,
Godiva gave to me
One Key Lime Chocolate and 74 calories to me

On the second day of February
Godiva gave to me
Two Key Lime chocolates ( I had to buy one)
And 148 calories to me (not bad at all)

On the third day of March
Godiva gave to me
Three Champagne
Two Key Lime,
And 2% of sodium to me ( lower than a bag of chips)

On the fourth day of April
Godiva gave to me
Four Chocolate Raspberry
Three Champagne
Two Key Lime
And 6% of cholestrol to me (not talking about it)

On the fifth day of May
Godiva gave to me
Five Strawberry
Four Chocolate Raspberry
Three Chapagne
Two Key Lime
And 25.5 % in Carbs to me (Good carbs!Nothing but good Carbs)

On the sixth day of June
Godiva gave to me
Six Hazelnut Praline
Five Strawberry
Four Chocolate Raspberry
Three Champagne
Two Key Lime
And 114 grams of Sugar to me ( no wonder Im jumping all around and I thought it was the hotflashes)

On the seventh day of July
Godiva gave to me
Seven peppermint truffles
Six Hazelnut Praline
Five Strawberry
Four Chocolate Raspberry
Three Champagne
Two Key Lime
And 27 grams of Protein to me (wow this could be on the Atkins plan)

On the eighth day of August
Godiva sent to me
Eight Milk Chocolate truffles
Seven peppermint truffles
Six Hazelnut Praline
Five Strawberry
Four Chocolate Raspberry
Three Champagne
Two Key Lime
And 220 grams of Fat. ( who is counting at this point)

On the ninth day of September
Godiva gave to me
Nine whole lots of nothing (I was out of town)
Eight Milk Chocolate Truffles
Seven peppermint truffles
Six Hazelnut Praline
Five Strawberry
Four Chocolate Raspberry
Three Champagne
Two Key Lime
And 300% of Saturated fat (sure that isnt the daily alloted 30%? )(Could be a typo…)

On the tenth day of October
Godiva gave to me
Ten Key Lime (cannot get enough)
Nine whole lots of nothing (I was out of town)
Eight Milk Chocolate Truffles
Seven peppermint truffles
Six Hazelnut Praline
Five Strawberry
Four Chocolate Raspberry
Three Champagne
Two Key Lime
And ‘ “we are not counting anymore” said me (its in the vault)

On the eleventh day of Novemeber
Godiva gave to me
Eleven more of “a whole lot of nothing” (I gave my November away) :(
Ten Key Lime (cannot get enough)
Nine whole lots of nothing (I was out of town)
Eight Milk Chocolate Truffles
Seven peppermint truffles
Six Hazelnut Praline
Five Strawberry
Four Chocolate Raspberry
Three Champagne
Two Key Lime
And we need a bigger pant size said me

On the twelfth day of December
Godiva gave to me
Twelve huge smiles from the saleslady that gave me a ten dollar gift certificate for spending over Fifty dollars
Eleven more of a whole lot of nothing (I gave my November away)
Ten Key Lime (cannot get enough)
Nine whole lots of nothing (I was out of town)
Eight Milk Chocolate Truffles
Seven peppermint truffles
Six Hazelnut Praline
Five Strawberry
Four Chocolate Raspberry
Three Champagne
Two Key Lime
And we would never give up our free monthly sample chocolate said me

Never Ever Ever!!
God bless that Gold card!

Linda Seccaspina 2009 December

Celeste the sock was getting a good soak. Immersed in laundry soap and hot water, she swished around, glad to have a good wash. She somehow had been worn two days in a row and she was becoming ‘toned’. She belonged to a book seller and preferred the word ‘toned’ to ‘yellow’. She did not smell much like a rose either. While she spun around and around, she was getting excited thinking of how she was going to be packed up and worn on some sort of Christmas vacation. She was thrilled as she made her final tour in the spin cycle. She wondered if she would be accompanying those new jeans her owner had bought. “Oh, how exciting” she thought, as the final spin made her feel better.

Her owner came to put everyone in the dryer and somehow Celeste got stuck to the inside of the machine. She cried for help but, as you know socks are quite silent. Quite silent indeed. She stuck to the side for hours until someone plucked her out and hung her on the door. From the view on top of the door, Celeste knew it was a long way down and there was no way that she could jump. After all, socks cover the feet but they themselves don’t have feet. Well, yes, some do have toes..:)

For days on end Celeste hung there thinking she would never ever got off that door. She could not yell for help because she did not have a mouth and of course she really couldn’t see much through the fabric knit. But she saw her owner go by some days and wondered why she did not come to get her. She knew her owner would just buy more socks and not worry about having lost one.

One day, someone came into the laundry room and took Celeste off the door. She was taken down the hall to a huge room full of sewing machines and fabric. She was put on a child’s hand and the child sewed eyes on her. Black and white plastic movable eyes. Celeste could now see. The little girl also sewed some doll shoes on the edge of Celeste. Then the child took some embroidery thread and, very carefully, embroidered a smile on her. Now Celeste had a mouth and very carefully and slowly, formed one word and that word was,

“Help!”

She said it once, she said it twice and finally she screamed it out.

‘HELP!!” ,

The little girl’s eyes look frightened and she scolded the sock and said,

“Socks don’t talk!”

Celeste stopped talking and just sighed. Even with a mouth and eyes, no one cared. No one cared at all.

For days Celeste layed on the table and then became part of a pile of something. What exactly she did not know, but the pile of something was heavy and she was getting fed up.

What to do , what to do….

As she laid there, she realized she had shoes so she could move. She squirmmed and squeezed and somehow got out of that pile. She slithered down the floor and out of the door that was ajar. She spotted a very very small bicycle in the hall and got on it and rode and rode. She rode down the hall to where her owner lived but no one was home. Then she rode out the door and down two blocks and then two more blocks and then blocks and blocks and more blocks. She was free. Yes, she was free but she needed to be found, and she wanted to be home.

She rode by the church and went in to look to see if her owner was there. It was Christmas Eve Day and everyone in there was preparing for the night’s service. The church was filled, full of happy people, but her owner was not there.

She rode by the dairy and went in and had her picture taken so she could be on milk cartons. Actually it was going to be on the egg nog cartons as “twas” the season. She knew her owner loved egg nog, so she might see Celeste’s face on the carton.

She rode down the main street but her owner was not shopping in the bustling stores.

She rode up to the top of the hill where her owner would gaze at the stars but she was not there either. She did not seem to be anywhere.

What to do..What to do…

Celeste laid on the sidewalk beside her bike while people walked by. No one glanced, no one exclaimed that a sock with eyes and a sad mouth was on the ground. She was thinking she might have to give up when she had an idea. It was her last hope and her last chance. Yes, her very last chance.

She got on her bike and drove to the cookie store. There in the windows were so many festive cookies ready to eat. Her owner’s best friend owned the store and Celeste had been there many times. She knew that her owner’s friend Jimmy, would be with her owner on Christmas Eve. He would bring her very favourite cookies; sugar cookie base with peppermint icing topping and drizzled chocolate on top. How her owner loved those cookies!

Celeste very carefully looked behind the counter so as not to be seen. Sure enough, there was a bright green bag with red ribbons, full of the chocolate peppermint cookies. Celeste slithered quitely into the bottom of the bag and waited and waited. Soon the lights were turned off in the store and Jimmy took the bag full of cookies and Celeste out the door. He opened the door of his bright yellow Citroen and put the bag in the back seat, got in the car and drove off into the dark night.

After what seemed to Celeste the sock a very long time, the car stopped and she and the bag were ushered into the white house on top of the hill which belonged to her owner’s family. She heard loud and happy voices and one voice stood out clear as a bell. It was her owner!

Her owner was thrilled to see the cookies and quickly took the bag from Jimmy. She dug her hand deep and shrieked!

“Jimmy! ”
“What is this?”
“Oh my goodness. It’s my lost sock but now it has eyes and a mouth and feet!
“Is this some sort of joke?”

Celeste did not think it was any sort of a joke, she was just happy to be back with her owner and hopefully reunited and paired up with her twin sister Marjorie.

Her owner looked long and hard at Celeste and started to giggle. With a cookie in her mouth and another in her hand, she grabbed Celeste and hung her above the fireplace. She was filled with a baby rattle and another small toy. She had become “The Christmas Sock’ for her owner’s new baby niece Belinda. Celeste smiled and her owner smiled back.

The next day she was handed to her owner’s sister and brand new baby. Her sister giggled at how funny Celeste looked. Celeste wondered what would happen to her after the gifts were removed. In fact she was quite worried.

The very next day Celeste was packed away in green tissue paper and folded carefully into a box. She was to become a cherished family heirloon. A Christmas sock. One to be remembered for years to come. The sock that came with the peppermint cookies. The sock that cared.

For all of you who lose socks from time to time, do not believe the myth that elves and leprechauns take them in the night. Remember the story of Celeste, the lost sock that found her true calling. Look carefully at those Christmas stockings this year as one of them might be your lost sock. And, oh yes, do check the pictures on the milk cartons..:) You just never know.

Linda Seccaspina
copyright 2009
Savannah Devilles