….finished off with 25 pages of feel-good, too-perfect crap.  That’s how I would describe Wally Lamb’s I Know This Much is True. It’s 997 pages that I devoured in just over a week (at one time in my life, this would have been slow, but a full time job and 2 kids will change that) and it was so great – until it wasn’t.

So here’s my beef.  I related so much with a lot of the book.  Not in actual fact – I had a very happy, pleasant childhood, and I’ve never dealt with any of the more extreme drama that the protagonist, Dominick Birdsey, dealt with – but in the fact that the past few years of my life have been really tough.  Really, really tough.  And there have been times where I’ve simply felt the world was out to get me.

Dominick feels the same way.  And, like me, he loses his faith in God.  Like me, he also struggles a lot with anger.  (Although I’d say I’m better at controlling mine.  But it’s always there, beneath the surface.)  And so I could really relate to his struggle to come to terms with his life and to let go of his anger.  To realize that the world ISN’T out to get him, and that his anger isn’t helping anything.

I appreciated how messy and complex life was, and the ways in which he began to take small steps forward.  But the problem was the end.  Or actually, the problem was that there were NO problems at the end.  Every bad thing in his life is suddenly (and sometimes incredibly unrealistically) resolved.  In fact, things that weren’t even a problem were resolved – he’s suddenly a rich man!  And he suddenly has a cultural identity he didn’t even know he had!

I don’t know.  I’m not being very articulate here.  All I know is that for the last week or so, I’ve eagerly picked up that book at every opportunity.  And although I’ll still treasure the book for the first 872 pages, I did not anticipate that the last time I put it down, I’d be so utterly disappointed.

Edited: I’ve been skimming through the 3 star reviews on Amazon.com to see if other people agree (they do – it’s one of the top two critiques of the book, but there are a vast preponderance of 5 star reviews over any other rating).  And I found one reviewer, by C.S. Junker, who managed to say it far better than I did in two short sentences:

“If a writer wants to say something profound about life, he should avoid facile conclusions. He doesn’t have to end it like “Hamlet”, but it doesn’t have to be a fairy tale, either.”

I was driving home from dropping something off at Nate’s office earlier, and I passed a McDonald’s.  It has one of those electronic marquees with a scrolling/changing message, and it is HORRIBLE.  It can only fit two short lines of text, and it seems like something is always being broken up between screens at an odd place.  (This is a McDonald’s I drive by regularly.)  However, today took the cake.

Screen 1:

Play Monopoly

Win $1

Screen 2:

Million

I think I’ve figured out just why I like history so much and why I prefer to read about history over modern day affairs.  Although I have very strong political ideals and am very interested in what happens in the political arena, I find that I actually avoid reading too much about it.  I’m not one of those people who soaks up blogs and books and newspapers and radio shows about politics.  Perhaps I should be, but I’m not.

See, the thing is, I’m a very empathetic person – empathetic to a fault, perhaps.  The suffering of other people actually makes my heart hurt.  This empathy is absolutely the foundation of my political beliefs, but it’s also why it’s often difficult for me to read about modern day issues.  Reading about people dying in Darfur or children starving in our own streets makes me want to cry.  It actually hurts, physically; when I say that it makes my heart hurt, I mean that literally.  I feel a squeezing in my heart and an ache in my guts when I read these things.  And other news just makes me angry, so much so that I clench my fists and grit my teeth.  Reading about avaricious pharmaceutical companies or lying CEOs just makes me want to scream.

On the other hand, history is calming and even uplifting for me because history is already fixed.  Problems of the past have been made better.  (I’m of the camp who firmly believes that human belief systems have evolved mostly for the better over time.)  We repudiated slavery.  Women can now vote, own property, choose to divorce, etc.  Children aren’t forced to labor in unsafe working conditions.  (Although I recognize that even today, these things still occur in other parts of the world.)  I think it makes me feel good and, more importantly, optimistic to see how humanity has progressed.  It gives me hope that all of the other social ills I see can one day be fixed as well.  I doubt we can ever reach “perfection,” because I also believe that while humans are inherently good, we are also inherently flawed.  But reading about history provides a bit of a balm for the sadness and anger that I feel about too many things that happen today.

As much as I still can’t wrap my mind around it, my baby boy turned 1 today.  And I was so proud of myself.  I did really well all day.  No tears, good spirits…yay!  We had a simple, fun day.  No big party, just dinner and cake as a family. 

After devouring cake – his first sugar ever! – and making a thorough mess in the process, he got a bath, and we put our big boy to bed.  Nate and I watched some TV, and then he headed to bed, too.  I decided to stay up just a bit longer because I was trying to remove all the tags from the MASSIVE amount of clothes his Grandma gave him. 

When I was done, I hopped online for a few minutes.  I had posted birthday threads on a couple of my favorite message boards, including a brief retrospective of pictures: hours old, 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, and 2 from today.  I checked the threads to read the new replies, and again I had to go back to my original post and look at the pictures.

And suddenly, it just washed over me.  My chin started to tremble, and my eyes welled up.  And I just knew that I needed to have a good cry.  So rather than try to gather myself back together, I succumbed to the inevitable.  I went to my online photo album and perused all the pictures from Gus’s first month and cried my eyes out. 

It was funny seeing how much he has changed, and yet how essentially Gus-like he was from the very outset.  Even as a days- or weeks-old newborn, he had certain expressions and habits that he still has now.  So often, people think that all newborns look alike, and most of the time I wouldn’t really disagree.  They just don’t really seem to have individual personalities at that age.  And yet here was photographic evidence that Gus was Gus long before we all thought he was Gus.

So there are my birthday ponderings.  It’s hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that this is likely my last 1st birthday.  Even though lately I feel more and more comfortable with the idea of being done with two, much moreso than I ever expected to, that also means coming to terms with the idea that all of Gus’s firsts are now the last firsts I’ll ever experience.  I want to hang on to these baby days as long as possible, but I’m inexorably swept along by time.  Everyday, he changes a bit more, becomes his own person a bit more.  And although it’s delightful to see, I won’t pretend it’s not bittersweet.

In closing, I’ll post the photo retrospective I mentioned earlier, as well as a few wonderful pictures from present time and cake time.

Day 1

3 months

6 months (and hatching a plot to rule the world…)

9 months

1 year!!!

With all his gifts:

Loving his brand new playsilks:

Kisses from Mama:

My horribly embarrassing attempt at cake decorating (I swear, it looked even worse in person), including Gus’s own little personal cupcake:

Clearly enjoying his first taste of sugar!

The aftermath:

I’m sure I could write a novel here, but I’ll try to keep it brief.

1. Nate got permission to drive again in June.  It’s been so nice to not have to deal with bus schedules and hauling the kids out in bad weather and such anymore.

2. Gus has gotten MUCH better.  He was dismissed from PT in June.  His torticollis is gone, and as of our follow up with the ortho, his scoliosis has gone from 28 degrees to 18 degrees.

3. Gus is no longer developmentally delayed and is fact now ahead of the curve!  Starting in May, he just suddenly started changing.  He caught up with rolling skills (although to this day, he has a preference to roll one direction, the one that’s easiest for his back), started engaging more actively with toys, and began pushing up on all fours.  In no time, he was scooching, and then only a few days later he was crawling.  Not more than a couple weeks after that, he was pulling to a stand and cruising!  By August, he was actually letting go and trying to balance, and from there, it was a short road to walking.  He’s now been walking for a little over a month, and as of the last week, he can get to standing without having to pull up on something first.  A remarkable change for only four months!

4. As part and parcel of all this, though, his sleep has gone to hell.  He used to be a decent sleeper, but since June, it’s gotten progressively worse.  All I can figure is that it’s related to how many milestones he hit very closely together and probably teething (although he still only has four).  Whereas he used to take 2-3 naps a day, including at least one good one, he’s now lucky to take 2 45 min naps per day.  And where he used to sleep a minimum of 6 hours straight each night, I now jump for joy over 4.  The typical stretch is 2-3 hours.  It’s wearing, but I hope now that he’s gotten through all those major milestones, maybe it’s going to get better again.

5. In May, Maggie was invited to be on the pre-competitive team at gymnastics.  She was only the 2nd 4-year old they’ve ever invited to be on the team.  I was very excited to have her go at first, but my excitement soon turned to doubts.  The other girls were 5-7 years old, and even though Maggie is very coordinated and strong, there’s still a certain amount of skill that comes simply with age.  Plus, having never been in school, she didn’t really have the classroom behavior the other girls had, and this is an INTENSE class.  (It’s 1.5 hours, twice per week – she used to do 45 min, once per week.)  They’re really getting serious already, and I was concerned she was just too young.  However, I decided I’d give it 2 months before I made a decision, and I’m glad I did.  Although I think she’s still nowhere near the “top of the class,” which is weird for me to witness because she usually is when she’s in her peer group, she’s adjusted to the class and is thriving.  Most importantly, she really loves it.  If she didn’t, or if she was feeling stressed, I would’ve pulled her out in a heartbeat.  But she’s doing great and really coming along.

6. Maggie is also taking a ballet class again.  We’re on the border of overscheduled here!  Again, though, if Maggie showed any signs of burnout, we’d take her out of something in a heartbeat.  But she is SUCH a high energy child, and honestly, she’d be up to doing even more.  I’m the one who is tired out shuttling her around!  LOL.  The really nice thing is that a new dance studio opened literally right around the corner from us (gymnastics is right around the corner the other direction), so no more 20 minute drives to ballet class.  Yay!  Heck, if there were decent frigging sidewalks here, we could walk there when the weather is nice.

7. Maggie’s biggest news – she started kindy!  And, no surprise here, she LOVES it.  Things are going really well so far, except for her adjusting to having to sit still more often.  She doesn’t like that part, LOL. 

8. As of early Sept, I’m back to work again.  I’m working from home, 2 hours per day, 6 days per week.  I’m really hating the schedule, though.  With Gus’s bad napping, it’s hard for me to find the time and the focus I need.  I’ve decided I’m going to try to find work in a bookstore one day per week (when a friend should hopefully watch Gus) and one weekend day per week (when Nate can watch the kids).  I think I’d enjoy getting out of the house, and I know I’d appreciate not feeling like I have to work and care for my child at the same time.  My job (I’m an online tutor) requires a lot of focus, and it’s just so hard to get it.  And beyond that, because I work so many days per week, I feel like it’s hanging over my head everyday.  I never go out with Gus because then he’ll sleep in the car and I’ll lose one good nap and then it will be harder to finish my work.  So I like the idea of just working two longer days per week and being DONE.  And having worked at bookstores before, I know I’d love the work!  Books are my thing, man.  LOL.

9. Nate’s health is about the same.  The kidney and brain tumors have not grown.  The only issue right now is that the cataract in his eye that is a result of the vitrectomy is not resolving itself.  We’d like to have it removed to help Nate’s sight improve further (right now, he’s on the border of not being able to drive – even a small change for the worse would mean he’d lose his license), but the problem is that surgery is dangerous with his tumors.  Disturbing the eye can reactivate the tumors, and that would be BAD.  So for now, we wait.

Well, I think that’s the main news of the last 6 months.  I’ll try to start keeping up with this again.

So it’s been pointed out to me that it’s been almost 6 months since I blogged here.

Oops.

What can I say?  I’ll try to be better.  Can I just say, “Lots of things happened,” and call it all good?  No?  You want more than that?  Sheesh.  Demanding much?

Alright, alright.  I’ll try to come back after the kiddos are in bed and update my blog.  Nate is gone all this week helping his family out in CA, and since I have no plans to throw a wild house party (wait a minute, maybe I should….), I should have plenty of downtime. 

Until later.  (I know the excitement will just consume you in the meantime.)

Regarding my last post, in my defense, I’d like to say that it was entirely true.  I really could see in Gus’s eyes that something was different and he knew it.  And frankly, he seemed to behave differently for a couple of days.

But the good news is that he has the lovely short memory of a 6 month old, and he’s forgotten all about it.  I’ve made up for it as best as I could with lots of love and snuggles, and he’s back to his old self.  I’m sure having tons of family in town all of last week for his baptism – family who doted all over him, of course – didn’t hurt matters.

In retrospect, though, I can all see that my overreaction had a lot to do with one thing: my (re)deepening depression.  As I feared, it’s back and back with a vengeance.  I was feeling so amazing for the first 2-3 months of Gus’s life, better than I had in years, but the clouds have crept back in.  And because of it, I did what I always do and stopped taking my meds: including the Zoloft.  I get in this place when I’m depressed where I feel I don’t “deserve” to be healthy, and that my health problems are physical manifestations of the worthless person that I am.  In some ways, it’s not even a conscious thought.  But it happens time and time again nonetheless.

So off I went to my doctor last week, and we did two things.  First, we changed my metformin dosage (I take this to help with the insulin resistant aspect of my PCOS, not for diabetes).  I’d switched off of the extended release version at the beginning of the year due to an insurance change that made it very expensive.  I know that the wildly swinging hormones of untreated PCOS can play a role in depression, so my met is every bit as important as my Zoloft.  But the problem is, the new dosage was to be taken 3 times per day, and I just could NOT remember my midday dose EVER.  And I almost never remembered the morning one.  I’m a nighttime pill person, and that’s all I could remember.  But then with the depression, I wasn’t taking it at all.  I decided to ask for the XR back, but the doctor and I came up with a good middle ground – we switched me to a twice a day dosage.  If I still don’t take it, then we’ll switch to XR.  However, I think I can get myself into a rhythm where I remember to take it in the morning, so hopefully that won’t be necessary. 

Then in addition to this change, we upped my Zoloft.  I was only on the lowest dose, 25 mg, so we put me on 50.  But my doctor said to let him know in a month or two if I still wasn’t feeling right, and we could up it to 100 mg.   I’m hopeful, though, that 50 will do the trick..

And so now that Gus’s baptism is over and we’re all starting to get healthy, I have one goal: getting my life back on track.  The first order of business?  Losing weight.  Nate and I have been trying to figure out what to do about this for awhile, but after seeing my brother-in-law and sister-in-law this weekend, who lost over 100 pounds between the two of them on Slim Fast, that’s what we’re going to try first.  I’m a little hesitant to ingest all those chemicals, but it does seem like the diet I’m most likely to stick with, and that’s the real key.  I can segue to a more whole foods oriented diet eventually, but I’ve got to get going.  Also, now that we’re all healthy (please let this last!), I can start going to the gym again, so I’m going to try to start working out 4 times a week.

I’m also on a mission to get the other two big things I struggle with – housekeeping and staying on a budget – under control.  I’m planning on doing what I do best and making lots of lists and plans.  It helps me feel a little more in control.  But also, I find that when I successfully lose weight, it helps these other areas of my life fall into place.  The increased self confidence and the greater structure in my life just seem to have a ripple effect.

So there you have it.  Hopefully the meds will kick in and I’ll be feeling better and posting more in no time. 

As you may recall, I’ve complained before about how Gus’s naps and Maggie’s preschool always seem to conflict.  I believe I’ve also mentioned the problem I have many mornings when I drive Nate to work, which is that Gus falls asleep in the car (inevitably within 2 miles of home) and then won’t go back to sleep.  Once he’s good and out, it doesn’t matter how long it’s for; if he wakes up, he thinks he’s had a nap.

Well, today, for once, I was going to get a break.  Due to a convergence of several different coincidences, Gus was going to get the perfect nap schedule in.  First, he woke up earlier than normal, at 7.  This meant he’d be ready for a nap between 9 and 9:30.  Still recovering from my stomach bug, I’m not yet up to driving Nate all the way into work, so instead, I just took him to the bus stop today.  Perfect.  He needed to be at the bus at 9, and the stop is close enough to home that Gus wouldn’t fall asleep in the car, so I knew he’d nap at home.  Hopefully, he’d sleep for a couple of hours, waking around 11, which would make him due for his next nap around 1.  Perfect again.  Maggie’s preschool starts at 12:45, and again, it’s so close to home that he wouldn’t fall asleep in the car.  Then we’d come home, he’d nap again until 3-ish and be up all on his own for us to get her at 3:45.  And I?  I would have 2 or so blissful hours entirely to myself; I can’t even remember the last time that happened.  And after we picked Maggie up, Gus would be due for a final, short nap around 5, which would mean he’d wake up about 6:30.  Again, perfect.  This is the time we need to leave for Maggie’s dance class.

All went according to plan for the first part of the day.  Gus stayed awake on the way home from the bus stop and napped right on cue.  Sure enough, he woke right around 11, so when we got home from Maggie’s school at 1, he was primed for a nap.  And I was beyond primed for those blissful couple of hours of alone time I was anticipating.  So I changed him, grabbed the excellent book I was right near finishing, plopped down in the recliner with the Boppy and nursed him.  And that’s when everything started to unravel.

I think I have to blame it on the book.  See, Gus fell sound asleep while nursing, just as he should have.  When he does this, sometimes he unlatches naturally, and I go put him down.  Other times, he just keeps doing a tiny butterfly suckle until I unlatch him myself.  Today was one of the latter days.  But I was so engrossed in my book, that I let him continue sleep nursing for longer than I normally would.

And then Nate.  Poor Nate.  Nate, who knew not what he did.  Nate, who I want to kill, even though it’s really the book’s fault.  Nate called.  Fortunately, the phone was very nearby, and I grabbed it before Gus seemed to awaken, but somehow, my hushed whisper, “I’ll call you back.  Nursing Gus to sleep,” was enough to send those little eyes flying WIDE open.  Remember that part about how he thinks any stretch of sleep is a full nap?  Yup, that’s exactly what happened. 

So I quickly hung up the phone and switched him to the other side, praying that somehow he’d fall back asleep.  He didn’t.  He was wide awake.  And that’s when I hatched my evil plan.

To understand my plot, I have to rewind to a couple of days ago, when something similar happened at naptime.  It wasn’t the phone, but some other noise woke Gus up while sleep nursing.  Again, he wouldn’t fall back asleep, so I took him to his room and put him in his swing with his favorite lullabye on repeat on the CD player and again commenced praying he would fall back asleep.  (I pray a lot for an agnostic/atheist, don’t I?)  That day, he babbled happily for awhile, then got silent, and I thought he’d fallen asleep.  He hadn’t, and after a bit, he must’ve gotten bored and started fussing.  I let him fuss for a bit, hoping he just needed to fuss himself out a bit.  He didn’t; in fact he started getting more worked up, so finally I gave in and went back to get him.  I was very tired (I was just starting to get sick then and the fever was knocking me out), so I decided to lay down with him in bed and nurse him, and whaddaya know, the little stinker went back to sleep.  It seemed that his fussing had tuckered him out just enough to make him receptive to nursing back to sleep.

I should’ve known better than to take a lucky accident and try to replicate it.  But oh, how I wanted those two hours to myself!  I was so close to done with my book.  I know it was selfish, but it’s been a rough week, a rough month, a rough year, and I felt on the verge of desperation.  So I decided to do it.  I would put him back there and let him fuss until he got worked up some and tired himself out, then I would nurse him in bed and he would fall asleep and perhaps I could at least get an hour or so to myself, and he’d get a halfway decent nap before it was time to fetch Big Sister.

The best laid plans of mice and men and terrible mommies, eh?

I took him back to the room, put him in his swing, turned on the lullaby, and trudged back out to the family room.  I called Nate and my mom to cry and whine and generally be a baby first.  Then I settled in with my book.  All seemed to be going according to plan.  Gus babbled cutely for awhile and then got silent.  I even began to hope that perhaps he’d actually fallen asleep, but of course he hadn’t, or I wouldn’t have rambled on this long, now would I?  Sure enough, he started to fuss.  It was just light, so I let him go on for a bit.  I mean, this needed to be “tucker the baby out”-caliber fussing, right?  I wanted him to get just to the edge of worked up.  (God, I am a terrible person.) 

And finally the point came where he seemed suitably mad, so I dutifully went to enact the next stage of my plot.  Poor little dude was all red about the face; those “stork bites” really show up when he cries, just like they did (and occasionally still do) with Maggie.  I laid down to nurse him, and here the first chink in my plan showed up: he didn’t want to nurse.  I wasn’t perturbed yet, though.  When Gus is upset, he needs to calm down a bit before he can latch on; this usually takes no more than a minute.  So I sat up with him, got him a bit calmer, and tried again.  Still no go.  Alright, I thought, perhaps he doesn’t want to nurse laying down.  So I grabbed the body pillow I used to use for nursing him at night before we mastered side lying and gave that a whirl.  No go: he was still too upset. 

I tried several more times.  Every time I got him calm, he’d start crying as soon as I tried to position him to nurse.  It’s almost like he knew I was trying to placate him.  So finally I gave up on the idea of his ever going back to sleep, at least not via nursing, and decided just to snuggle with him for awhile.  By this point, I was already feeling awful.  I never meant for him to get THAT upset.  Heck, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him that upset and inconsolable.  So I wanted to snuggle him and soothe him and let him know that Mommy was there again and hope that he’d forgive me.  As we snuggled, it was clear he was tired.  He wasn’t squirming against me as he usually does.  He was very still, but he was still hysterical.  Occasionally, he’d calm for a few moments, and sometimes he’d even yawn, but always he resumed the sobbing. 

But on the few occasions that he would calm and open his eyes, I could see it: he KNEW.  He knew he’d been abandoned on purpose.  That’s why he was so upset.  There have been other times he’s had to cry and I couldn’t console him for whatever reason – usually in the car – and he’s always calmed instantly when I got him.  But this time was different.  He knew he’d been deliberately ignored, and his little baby heart was broken.  My own?  It was torn to shreds with guilt. 

And what somehow made it even worse was that there was no accusation in his eyes.  He wasn’t looking at me angrily, saying, “YOU abandoned me.”  Instead, there was just hurt and confusion and the clear knowledge that he had been left alone and scared for no good reason.  Somehow, I almost wish he would’ve been angry at me.  Then I could try to make it up to him; instead, I feel like I simply destroyed his whole world order in one fell swoop.

After a few minutes more of snuggles and sobs, I finally tried to nurse him one last time and then gave up.  We came out to the family room, and he instantly calmed down when we stood up.  I thought maybe he just needed a change of scenery, and since he was calmer, I figured I’d try nursing him again in our trusty old recliner.  At least he’d sleep right?  He’d certainly been “worked up” enough.  No go.  As soon as I tried, the crying began again.  And it continued, off and on, for another half an hour.  Gus, my sweet, happy, never inconsolable baby boy.  He cried and cried and cried.  And it was all my doing.

At last, he did calm down enough to nurse, nearly an hour after I’d gone back to rescue him from crying in his swing.  Oftentimes when I nurse him, I’m multitasking.  I’m surfing the web or reading a book or talking to Maggie or watching TV.  But this time, I gave him my full attention.  I stroked his head with one hand and let him wrap his tiny fist around one of my fingers on the other.  I stared into his eyes and begged silently for his forgiveness.  Fortunately, his memory seems to be short, because the look of hurt and confusion gradually melted from his eyes, and eventually, he drifted off.   Now he lays here upon me as I type this, rather than back in his swing. 

Allowing him to sleep here, snuggled on my chest, may be the best, the only, penance I can do.  For whom I’m doing penance, though, I don’t know.   I want to beg forgivenenss of him, but he can’t even forgive me because he doesn’t understand that it was I who wronged him.  In the pure, undadulterated innocence of his little soul, he can’t yet understand that it was I who destroyed his perfect little world.  But nonetheless, destroy it I did.  I’m sure that may seem melodramactic to some of my readers, but you don’t know.  You weren’t there.  You didn’t see his eyes.  I did, and I know that his worldview changed today.  It would’ve happened one day, of course.  But it shouldn’t have happened at my hands.

And for that, I will never, ever forgive myself. 

Ya know what I hate the most about blogging?  The pressure to come up with witty titles.  If you haven’t noticed, I mostly suck at it.  Every once in awhile, I come up with a good one.  I think the No one expects the Spanish Panic (Attack) one was pretty good, and Faith and begorrah was a nice little homage to my Irishness.  But for the most part, I come up with pretty boring stuff like On Books.

Be patient.  I’m trying to improve.  And if all else fails, I’ll enlist the services of my husband who, for better or for worse (usually for worse) is the King of the Bad Pun.  It is his gift, it is his curse.

Thanks to my dear friend, Stef, who lent me the book A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore several months ago (and I’ve just now gotten around to reading), I’ve come to an important realization:

The best books tend to be the ones you can’t possibly describe.  If you can fit it into a neat little package, it’s probably lacking a lot in creativity and imagination.  It might still be a decent read, especially if the writing is good, but it’s not going to leave any deep imprint on your brain. 

I think of it sort of like good food.  Sure, I might get a really good burger at a chain joint, but am I going to think of it in again in a week?  Unlikely.  A month?  Probably not.  A year?  Almost certainly not.  But I can still almost taste in my mouth the fabulous lamb chops at a local Middle Eastern restaurant.  The way they almost melt in your mouth.  The hint of garlic.  The buttery rice it’s piled on, loaded with tiny, slivered almonds.   

And I gotta tell you, I’m not even halfway through A Dirty Job, but right now, I’m expecting to remember that melt-in-your-mouth literary flavor and tiny, slivered bibliophile almonds for a long time.