Giving Tuesday: Five Donations That Don't Involve Money

Even your salad loves it when you give.

Today is Giving Tuesday, the annual push to encourage people to give generously to causes they believe in at least one day of the year.

But what does "generous" mean?

There used to be a commercial that feature round-bellied kids or sad-eyed animals in cages that had the slogan "give until it hurts." I don't believe in that at all. Giving should be joyful and feel really good, warm and fuzzy and bubbly. Yes, I know what the slogan means, but sometimes it's important to reaffirm that giving feels good and should be done as frequently as possible. So we all can see how giving doesn't always mean money, here are five ways to give that are no monetary on Giving Tuesday:

1. Give time: This one is a common suggestion, but what does it mean to give time? Do you have to volunteer for it to count? Nope. Giving time can mean paying full and whole-hearted attention to your kid or your partner as they talk about their day. It can mean taking five or ten minutes and really being with your dog or cat (in the way that they love, even if it means putting up with them licking you, which I hate but which my dogs love.). By giving undivided attention you are sending the message that this person in front of you matters. Maybe this will be the stone in the pond that ripples outward.

2. Give extras: Give away books, clothing, household goods, electronics. Give away furniture and old appliances that work but you don't need. But don't just give them to a thrift store. Find people and organizations in need and give directly to them. Women's shelters for domestic abuse victims always need baby and children's clothes and diapers, and many of the women need professional clothes to interview for work. Contact the shelter and donate directly. Animal shelters always need old blankets and towels, and they can also always use toys, food, and newspapers. Clear out your attic, stop holding onto stuff you don't need, and give it to people who can use it.

Side note: giving away stained and ripped clothing is ungenerous and stingy. Throw those out and do better.

3. Give food: You know those ubiquitous "buy one, get one free" specials at the store? Starting today, bag the free one separately and donate it directly to a food bank. Or go through a community organization and adopt a family through the holidays. This can be especially important for families with children who may get most of their food through school. Once the holidays hit and school goes on break, they may struggle.

Side note: Really focus on nutritious food. My school ran a food bank for two years, and it was astonishing the crap that people donated. The "it's better than nothing" rationale is bullshit. Look for tuna, canned veggies, canned beans, rice, and pasta. Only give what you yourself would eat or feed your family. Stay away from cookies and other processed crap. If you must do that, try to find healthier versions. Low-income folks suffer disproportionately from Type 2 diabetes and obesity. Don't make it worse.

4. Give shelter where there is none: This year, The Teenager and I have made up large Ziploc bags filled with comfort items for homeless people we see. They have hand warmers, socks, a couple bars, travel-sized baby wipes, and a few odds and ends in each. We keep these in the car and hand them out when we get accosted. We carry one around with us. If I am being honest (which I always try to be), I don't 100% trust that a person on the street is going to use my money for food or shelter. I don't believe they are stranded and just trying to get back home. And I have had food thrown back in my face when I have given it to them. But they are people, and I can't do nothing. So we came up with the idea of comfort items and portable foodstuffs. The bags probably cost more to put together than the dollar or two I would give, but that's okay.

5. Give skill: Do you have a vital skill that you can give to the world, free of charge? Can you write a resume, build a bench, teach a class, tutor a child, or train someone to cook? Do that. Is there something you are passionate about that you can offer into the world? Do that. I am a yoga teacher, and my goal is to teach at least one class free a month. In this, I give not only physical fitness but also mindfulness, good karma, and skills to apply in the world; it's a type of giving that goes beyond the class. I am a writer, and I currently mentor two other writers who are just starting out, previewing pitches and pieces and offering suggestions and guidance when needed. This follows the apprenticeship model and also helps me continue to do what I love (teach) while connecting with other humans (which, let's be honest, I don't always love. The other humans. So it helps me get out into the world, which I need. But I digress.). Donating knowledge is the gift that truly keeps on giving.

So don't give until it hurts; give until you are bathed in the soft glow of self-congratulatory generosity. Give until you feel so good about yourself that you glow like a lightning bug. It's okay to feel good about yourself when you give. Give with no expectation of thanks, recognition, or reciprocation. Do it for the sake of the action.

Can you make a pledge to participate in giving, today and in the future? What will you give?  

Take A Bite Out Of The Ass Of Life

It took me 26 years to figure out what I wanted to do with my life.

In 1997 I had just moved to Seattle and was temping for a contractor's office. I had spent the previous 11-odd years drinking my way through college and moving to a different state or house when I felt restless or uncomfortable. I waited on my fair share of tables, slung thousands of drinks across a bar, nanny-ed for the same family for three years. Once I got to Seattle, I signed on with a temp agency and was immediately hired by the company I was temping for. I may have loathed office work, but I was damn good at it.

A year passed, and just as I was about to quit, an opportunity to become a VISTA volunteer in Seattle Public Schools came up. I don't know why I applied; I hated school, quitting in my senior year.  I was not especially fond of kids of any age. I guess it was a safer step than the Peace Corps, so I applied, was accepted, and promptly fell in love with middle schoolers and teaching. Like, both-feet-in, crazy-in-love with kids and teaching. I got my master's degree in education and settled in to my calling.

And I was a damn good teacher. The hard kind, the kind that believed in you more than you believed in yourself. The kind that kids came back and thanked, not for throwing pizza parties and for hand-holding (although there was a fair bit of that) but for pushing them to do better, to be better, and to work harder. I put everything I had into this work. If I was a religious person, I was say that I was called to teach, and then again to start a school. The work was hard, the pay was shit, and the respect was zero, but it was all about the kids and changing the world.

Yesterday it smacked me in the face, right after I published the blog about inertia and vata conspiring against me and my motivation: I am trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. AGAIN.

If we are lucky, we find something in our lives that drives us, something that we feel so passionate about that motivation isn't always an issue. Sure, there are days where even the most passionate people want to blob it out on the couch. There were days when I desperately needed a break from teaching, but the drive and the motivation to do better and be better was always there.

But then there is the reality for the vast majority of people, I think:

"Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them." (Thoreau)

Most people don't find something that really drives them. They get a job, get up, go to work, work, come home, drink a beer, watch TV, go to bed. Lather, rinse, repeat. Maybe there is a vacation once a year or a weekend away. Maybe there is  a painting class or golf lessons. Maybe the kids play a team sport, so weekends are dominated by that. The job may not be the best ever, but it pays the bills and puts food on the table. For most people, this is enough. This paragraph is the point of life.

For me, that's not enough. And that is a blessing and a curse. In the movie Big Night, Angelo cries out, "It is never too much! It is only not enough! Take a bite out of the ass of life!"  A day job with an occasional night out or weekend off is not taking a bite out of the ass of life. Not even a nibble.

I think this lack of direction and feeling that what I am doing is not meaningful is causing my ennui. I blame Dane, 100%, which is not particularly helpful but super convenient. Most days, because that jackass had to go and die, it is really enough that I can keep everything together and continue to move forward. Teaching, giving so much of myself, is not really an option for me. So the calling that took 26 years for me to answer is a painful reminder of what I used to have, what life used to be like, not an uplifting and inspiring reason to get up every day.

I find myself muttering "fuck" every morning when my alarm goes off. I always knew that Dane was going through something, often before he did, when he would curse every morning when the alarm went off (we both favor "fuck" as our curse of choice). This feels the same. For now, I write (getting paid for writing assignments but also occasionally working on The Book That Shall Not Be Named), I docent at the American Visionary Art Museum, and I am in yoga teacher training.

I feel like a precious housewife, dabbling, a lady who lunches (although I don't really lunch). Some days are better than others. Some days are worse. Sometimes I get kooky and walk the dogs in the middle of the day or paint something.

And it is never too much. It is only not enough.

How many years will it take for the next calling to come? I am not the type of person to plod along and am liable to do something really, really stupid (I blame my dad for that character trait). I am still trying to say "yes" more often than "no" (failing at this of late), doing things that make me uncomfortable and exploring, but Christ on a bike. I just want this whole self-discovery bullshit phase to be over. How many times does a person have to figure out who they are in one lifetime?

Where do you fall? Do you have a passionate calling? Do you think that whole concept is a waste of time? What matters to you?

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You Are Here: How Small Is The Universe

So the universe is vast and expansive and wee at the same time. How do I know this?

Dane's 7th grade girlfriend is married to a childhood friend's brother and living in Myersville, Maryland, about 10 minutes from where I grew up.

To clarify, Dane was living in Seattle in his middle school years, in a neighborhood called Magnolia, the same neighborhood we moved when The Teenager was born. All the way across the country in a little backwater of a city (at the time; this was the early 80's) tucked between two mountain ranges.

This morning, I got a message in my Facebook "other" folder from Dane's middle school girlfriend who happens to have married into the family of one of my own middle school friends.

So if the universe isn't small in some ways, at least it has a good sense of humor.

 

 

Sorrow Prepares You For Joy

What would the world be without Rumi? A dark and terrible place, I think. A place I wouldn't want to be.

Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.

~ Rumi ~

I confess I have not deeply read his writings; rather, it seems like the universe sends them to me at times that are most appropriate. Which is very considerate of the universe, seeing as how I have not always been its most enthusiastic or reverent member.

If I had read this two years ago, it would have washed over me like rain on a newly-waxed car. Today, this quote speaks to a place in me that is so deep I cannot see the bottom. With a child newly returned from Paris, spring on the horizon (even as clouds and chilly rain move in), and a plethora of professional and personal opportunities offering themselves up, this quote gives me, dare I say it, hope. Curiosity.

The tagline of this blog is "Seeking joy." How nice would that be? Joy.

Do I dare hope?

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I Believe In Ladybugs

I believe in ladybugs.

I throw salt over my shoulder when I spill it.

I am immune to black cats, having owned one myself, and I don't set much stock in the rumors swirling around the bad-luck potency of the number 13.

I believe in the power of the moon, as it moves the ocean, and we are, all of us, 90% water. How could we not be swayed?

When my nose itches I wonder who is talking about me, and who is coming to visit when my ears tingle. Or the other way around. I can never remember.

I believe in the irrefutable power of the first kiss. That flutter means something, and if it's not there, well, that means something, too.

I can tell you for sure that when a bird flies into a house, someone is going to die.

I believe in signs and symbols. I think the universe talks to me, if I can just shut up enough to listen.

Today at the coffee shop I force myself to go to at least once a week, right after I hit "send" on an application for a job that I really, really want, this ladybug landed on my coffee.



S/he circled the rim, playing hide and seek as I tried to snap a photo. When I finally got this picture, s/he fluttered down to rest on my sweater and got cozy until I stood up to leave, when I finally placed him/her on the table.

I believe in ladybugs.

Do you?

Single Parenting: Don't You Yell At My Child!

It's funny, but it is only just now sinking in that I am a single parent. How strange is that? I would read articles online about the struggles single parents face and think to myself about how hard it must be for all those single parents out there. Which is ironic, because with one parent of the parenting team dead you don't get much more single. I have been a little slow for the past 24 months, but I finally got it.

I am actually a single parent, and it sucks in one really unexpected way: no one will ever share my child with me the way Dane did.

Yes, dealing with financial worries and plumbing and the stupid fucking computer and discipline and The Teenager's crushes is really hard. Yes, I have friends around who will give me a break and willingly take The Teenager when she is being awful or will let me sit at their kitchen bar or table and drink really delicious cocktails or work in peace when I just can't take it anymore. Yes, the practical parts of being solely responsible for the life of another person is sometimes crushing and requires huge sacrifice, but that's not the hardest part.

The hardest part is that no one will ever share The Teenager with me on a cellular level. No one will ever look across the room when she does something amazing and feel the same kind of pride I do. No one will love her the way I do. The only other person who was there THE WHOLE TIME is now in a box on my dresser. The only person that shares the birth story (and, well, the conception also) is no longer here.

I am not currently dating anyone because I am a hermit and strangers are awful so how will I ever meet someone, but in the event that a miracle occurs and I suddenly become less critical and judgmental and meet a dude to date, he will not understand that when I say, "I just want to poke her in the eye!! What a jerk!!" that he is not really allowed to say, "I know! She's a total jerk!!" Dane could say she was a jerk and get away with it because underneath there are all those little cells that make her part of us in a very physical way, a way that prevents us from meaning too deeply what we say when we call her a jerk.

A stranger, some new dude, won't have those cells. He won't know on a cellular level about the time when she cried for five hours straight and almost fell off the bed because she refused to just LAY DOWN AND GO TO SLEEP. He won't get how compassionate she is, even when she pushes the dog away, because he doesn't really know her. He won't know when she is nervous just by looking at her hands, or how happy she is by watching her walk.

And when she is being 100% teenager he might be tempted to criticize the way she thinks, acts, or dresses, but he won't have the right to do that. To be clear, no one really has the right to do that, but some dude thinking he can waltz in here and insert commentary should probably just waltz right back on out of here.

Dating after divorce (really, the more common form of single parenthood and the whole reason for this blog, as a friend of mine is going through this right now) is probably very much the same, especially when your ex- is a shitbox. My friend's ex- is a dangerous shitbox, so in addition to being on edge when her kid is with the ex-, many states away, she has to deal with knowing that her boyfriend is happy the kid is away for awhile. I don't think it is possible to describe in words how deeply hurtful that is. It's also not grounds for a sustainable relationship, knowing that the person you are with is biding their time until The Kid is out of the picture.

Newsflash: The kid is NEVER out of the picture. Maya Angelou said that having a child is like consenting to have your heart walk around outside of your body, and I can't find a better explanation of this type of love. The kid may be off at college or in the world, but they are forever a part of you in a way that is real and true and inexplicable. When someone insults The Kid, they are insulting you, even if you are the healthiest, most non-striving parent who is not living through their child. And the insult is not a flesh wound; it's deep, slow to scab, easily re-opened with the smallest conflict.

I have another single parent friend who deals with this by just never introducing her boyfriend of many years to the kids. Or rather, they have been introduced, but the contact is minimal.

Are you a dating single parent? How do you deal with this thorny issue?

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On Vulnerability

"The question, then, is not only how to uncover our fundamental tenderness and warmth but also how to abide there with the fragile, often bittersweet vulnerability. How can we relax and open to the uncertainty of it?"

From this article by Pema Chodron, in which she discusses how loss and heartbreak opens us up to warmth, but then how we snap our hearts shut soon after. In the days following 9/11, this was the feeling of vulnerability that prompted most people to treat each other with tenderness. Shortly thereafter, just days, really, that tenderness faded, and we all went back to being gruff, protected, sheltered. Hiding our softest parts.

We all have them, these tender spaces that very few people are allowed to see. Babies are born with them, even called soft spots, so delicate that you can see their hearts beating through their downy hair. The body itself wisely closes that soft space as the baby grows, and our heart buries itself deep into our chests.

As 2014 ends and a new year begins, February looms. February, the most bittersweet month on the calendar, mercifully short. The month I met my love, and the month I lost him thirteen years later (almost to the day we met, on the day of our first date). I have felt crabbish and small these last few months, thinking daily of Dane and Life After.

I can feel myself shrinking a bit. I have had a hard time looking strangers in the eye. I have had a hard time being open and vulnerable. More often as I write this blog, this blog that is supposed to be the purest expression of myself (by my own design, as much as I can, as honest and authentic as I can be), I have had to stop or delete altogether blogs written for an audience by some version of the self I would like to project.

I don't want that to be me in my work anymore. I assume there is an audience of some kind reading out there because I get your comments and analytic reports. I cannot write for an audience, though. I have to write for me and know that on some level it might resonate with someone. Being authentic and vulnerable here has been harder of late.

This is the time, Chodron says, that we should turn to each other. The time we feel the most vulnerable and anxious and scared is the best time to recognize that these are universal feelings that everyone has felt or is feeling or will feel. Instead of feeling connected, though, we get angry and withdraw or blame something/one else. We shrink into anger instead of expanding into love.

I don't want to be that person. I want to be open and vulnerable and trust that the people I meet will not hurt me (intentionally). I don't know how to do that except to just do that, but transparency goes against my nature, or at least the vision of myself.

" For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." 1 Corinthians 13: 12 (KJV)

But then also...

"Ignorance is regarding the impermanent and permanent, the impure as pure, the painful as pleasant, and the non-Self as the Self." Sutra 5, Book Two The Yoga Sutras of Pantanjali

So I think I know who I am but maybe not so much, and this darkly clouded glass is ignorance and confusion. Chodron says that pain is an illuminating experience in the most spiritual sense of the word if we can manage to seize the opportunity to stay with the tendency towards warmth and light as the pain starts to fade.

All this to say, simply, I want to fall in love again, but I don't know if I am capable of letting myself be that open to another human.

That was hard to say. It took 653 words to get there. It's what I was referring to in this earlier post but literally could not type the words yet.

But as I think about falling in love again, I feel myself closing up. I referred to myself as "not a hugger" multiple times in settings when, in fact, I actually could have easily been a hugger and people wanted to hug me, but I threw up the barrier as much as if I had stacked bricks.

I don't know if I have the capacity to let go that much anymore. But I know I don't want to be alone.

What do you do when you want to do a thing you don't feel you can do?

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Food Love

"If you really want to make a friend, go to someone's house and eat with [her]...the people who give you their food give you their heart." ~Cesar Chavez~

I've said it before, and a section of this blog post prompts me to say it again: food, to me, equals love. If I cook you something delicious (or anywhere close to delicious, like merely okay or just edible) and give it to you, chances are good I like you. I probably even love you.

Not necessarily in that way, unless you are Ryan Gosling, or Viggo Mortensen, or a smoking hot neighbor with a steady job, a sense of humor, and a tool box. And a truck for moving big things. No more dogs, though. If you are aforementioned smoking hot neighbor and you have a dog, keep driving your truck on by. I am full up of dogs and just waiting for one of them to die so it feels more manageable.

But I digress.

Food means comfort and creativity. It is at the base of who we are; it shapes our culture, our day, our life. We move to places based on where we will be able to get food; one of the first things we find when we land in a new place is pizza that doesn't suck and a bar with delicious cocktails (or a coffee shop, or bakery, or whatever floats your culinary/survivalist boat). In Georgia, you identify your neighborhood by which Kroger you live near (with clever nicknames, like Murder Kroger, Disco Kroger, and Done Been Kilt Kroger. Seriously. I can't make this up. Except the last one that Sicily and I made up  based on a murder/suicide that happened in the parking lot but still cannot say without chuckling). In Baltimore, it's a farmer's market or a hipster nose-to-tail butcher. Or the newest ironic dive with innovative food.

We speak of food deserts in inner cities where the landscape is sere and hard with the lack of fresh green places and bustling life. Food swamps with their hot Cheetos and Twinkies aren't much better. It crushes my soul in a very non-hyperbolic way to think of kids who have no idea what fresh food tastes like, kids that haven't seen a non-canned green bean or a roasted beet.

I fully recognize the elitist nature of my even being able to write this blog. Absence of food does not mean absence of love, and all around the world people love each other in ways that have nothing to do with calories.

Still.

For me, a cookie is a caress. Fresh bread is a warm embrace. Food is love.

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The Most Important Things: Of Love and Rehab

I can't find my knives.

We are unpacked in our temporary rental, closing on the rehab this Friday, and I am ready to start cooking. But I can't find my knives. So tonight's dinner (chicken, roasted veg, and smashed potatoes) was prepared with an old steak knife. Knife cuts don't matter for any of these foods, so it should all work out just fine.

In the meantime, our first cooking blog entry looks like it is going to be bubble tea. I know, weird.

So because it's odd, I am also going to mix up a big batch of gluten-free flour and make some chocolate chip cookies. It's like I am getting ready to go and just waiting at the same time.

Only it doesn't feel like waiting. It feels like two other things simultaneously: living right now and taking advantage of what's happening in the universe.

Fact: I love what I do for a living. Sure, I need more projects to make it really profitable, but we have had a few things going on, and still have a few things going on. So for now it is at the sustainable level and allows me to make our transitions as seamless as possible. It strikes me that with all of this time and flexibility I may be vacuum parenting right now (sweeping all obstacles out of Sicily's way), but I don't care. I want her to focus on school, not whether or not we will have a place to live. If what I do allows me to take some pressure off and maybe clean the house or scoop out the kitty litter more than she does, at this point it's okay.

Fact: I love that I found this place for us and we have moved in. It's my first place since Dane died, and Sicily and I moved us in by ourselves. While that sucked a little, it showed Sicily that she can really do whatever needs to be done. And we will for sure be manipulating our next move date so that we have lots of help (because, for those of you we will be recruiting, and you know who you are, it is going to be a bear). But for now, we have set up a comfortable temporary home and have settled in nicely in just two days. Even with internet.

Fact: I am more grateful than ever for what I have. This does not include things at all. My support system of friends and family, a sunny sky when we moved, an awesome landlord, a great kid: these are the things that matter.

Today I meet another contractor at the house. My brother is meeting me there, too, so it's a family affair. Which is amazing because it feels like I am following through with the main lesson I learned in the wake of Dane's death: keeping the most important thing the most important thing. And with that all things are possible.

If Wishes Were Candy..And The River Was Whisky

I am tired.

I am sore.

I am grateful for rain, M&Ms, my kid, and people who will take me in even when I am an asshole (thanks, Mom).

I would like to wake up in my own bed (which no longer technically exists, as I gave it away before we moved), in my own house.

I am grateful for steady writing assignments and dogs that sleep on the bed and love you SO MUCH when you wake up.

I would like to be done with this quest. I would like to no longer be on this path, or at least I would like to step off for a few moments and just be light and free. It is wearing, to have the steady hum of missing a person and reforming a life without them be the background white noise to your entire life, but not really knowing it until something quiets just enough to hear the hum. I wish I could quiet that hum.

I am grateful that I live in a place where I get to wish for that. If wishes were candy...and the river was whisky...

If the river was whiskey and I was a duck

I'd dive to the bottom and I'd never come up

Oh, tell me how long have I got to wait?

Oh, can I get you now, must I hesitate?

I am also grateful that I am not a black man in this country, but that's a whole other blog and so heart-wrenching and awful to me right now that I cannot even give it too much space in my head for fear that it will take me to a really bad place. It's hard enough to take small sips of the violence in Gaza and the poverty in the world without having to think about how little has really changed in the minds and hearts of the U.S. since Jim Crow.

But I digress.

I should go to sleep now. I should eat less chocolate so I can actually do that.

Tomorrow, I will worry less. I will breathe more.

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Food = Love

Saturday The Child and I ate our weight in food. I think this is perhaps normal, but we have gotten in the habit of snacking and not much else. On my personal menu was bratwurst, four cookies,  a million marshmallows, two chocolate bars, half a bag of salt and vinegar chips, and 1/4 of a watermelon. Oh, and some kale salad and a yogurt drink.

I love food. I love making it, reading about it, writing about it, and eating it. I do not count calories, grams of fat, or sugar. It all evens out in the end, and I do yoga every day. So I eat what I want to eat, and what my sensitivity to gluten will allow me to eat (and plus I found an amazing gluten-free flour mix recipe that you can sub cup-for-cup in recipes which means CUPCAKES AGAIN which makes me SO HAPPY but I digress).

We have gotten out of the habit of sitting down to a regular meal. Even though we spend massive amounts of time together every day, there is something about sitting down to a meal that is different, especially if you have made the meal together and set the table nicely. I believe all the hype about the family meal. I believe the research that shows kids who eat with their families at a table on a regular basis are sexually active later and less likely to abuse drugs.

Plus, as noted previously, if I cook for you, it means I think you're swell. It's a very Jewish grandmother-type thing (of which I had one), but food=love for me. So yesterday's gorging sort of counts; La and I went to the farmer's market together and bought the brats together, then she packed all of our supplies in a picnic basket while I started the fire outside. We started with a s'mores appetizer (she set up the rig - chocolate on gluten-free cookie - and I roasted the marshmallows), and moved on to our brats. Something about the fire and eating outside, but we talked about some pretty heavy stuff while we ate, stuff that needed to be talked about, but because our bellies were pleasantly fully of chocolate and marshmallows it seemed a little lighter.

When we move to Baltimore and settle into a permanent house, I am going to be making every recipe I have pinned on Pinterest, and everything I have reblogged in Tumblr. I will adapt everything to be gluten-free (if it isn't already) and then take pix of the final product (for better or worse). I am not sure if it will be on this blog or not; I may link it to an old blog where Sicily and I tried to bake 25 days of Christmas cookies (hint: we didn't quite make it), and I invite you to play along, either in the cooking or in sending me a recipe you pinned/reblogged/otherwise saved and are just too damn lazy to make yourself. Post a recipe in the comments if you want to play.

Baltimore peeps, get ready to eat!!