Summer job

During the summer of my sixteenth year, I toiled away in the kitchen of a beloved local Italian restaurant.

Most weekend evenings at four p.m., I'd trudge up a cement ramp to the kitchen entrance and step from an August swelter into a maelstrom of preparation for the soon-to-be packed house.

It was the kind of place where three generations of one family happily overfed three generations of their neighbors' families, six days a week, including Sundays, for decades.

One parent ran the front; the other ran the back. The brothers lined up the meals, and the sisters served. It wasn't especially easy to tell the relatives from the non-relations who filled out the remainder of the staff, but we were all there: the waitstaff, and the bussers, and the dishwashers, and me.

I was the person you'd call for take-out orders: Pizza, veal parm, shrimp scampi, pasta in various shapes and sizes, and antipasti, which, I learned that summer, was not pasta at all, but a salad with meats and cheeses.

I'm not entirely sure I was good at my job, but I grew to feel somewhat accomplished. After all, I knew the difference between spaghetti, linguini, cavatelli, rigatoni, penne, ziti, and angel hair pastas.

The phone would ring, and I'd wedge it between my shoulder and chin. I'd scribble as the voice on the other end read off a list. I'd always ask if they wanted garlic bread before I told them when their order would be ready: 45 minutes to an hour. The garlic bread was my favorite.

I'd hang the ticket in front of its first destination. It would wind its way down the line, picking up salads and sides until the ticket and its corresponding boxes of food appeared at my station. I would bag them and clip the ticket to the top. The hostess or the bartender would appear through the swinging doors when the customers arrived, and I'd hand off their meals.

It was a process that would continue at least twenty times a night before the shift ended, and my father would be waiting for me in the parking lot. I would get in holding a small brown envelope filled with my wages and a share of the tips. Each figure painstakingly noted in the matriarch's steady handwriting on its pre-printed front, along with the taxes and fees that had been taken out.

I haven't thought about those days, or how hard everyone worked - seemingly independent of the others but seamlessly integrated like a watch for a sole purpose. I never thought about how lucky I was to be at the end of that line.

To be honest, I was surprised at the clarity of those memories as they came streaming back to me these many years later. Maybe something about waiting in a parked car for my daughter jogged them back.

Who, being more outgoing and personable than I had ever been, came sauntering out of her first official job interview with an unmistakable smile.

"I'm their newest employee," she said with a little squeal for emphasis as she got into the car. "I start next week."

Your happy place

During dark moments, people always tell you to go to your happy place.

I always thought of this as an imaginary land, where everything is glorious, and nothing hurts. My happy place has a river and kids splashing in it and dogs digging holes to their hearts' content in the soft sand. Of course, they are off-leash, because they always come when they're called.

Recently I found out that my happy place really does exist. As it happens, the site materialized out of my wildest imagination by the banks of the Hudson in a town called Stuyvesant. It's not without its downside: located just over two sets of railroad track, where commuter trains travel at 80 miles per hour.

I didn't find this place by accident.

A friend told me about it. She explained where I should park and how I should walk there: it's a bit tricky, as the first attempt felt like having to be guided by faith.

I didn't quite believe I could safely walk along the train tracks, but she assured me the trains no longer use those outer lanes.

The dogs pulled against the leashes as I leaned backward, barely a human governor on their progress. The river ran alongside us, egging us onward. They scampered over the cobble, daring me to stay upright.

Once we found the opening in the trees, we slid down the bank together. None of them worried for my safety.

As soon as we'd gotten to the beach, my gaggle of growlers slowed to a crawl. Too many things to see and smell, and not near enough slack in the now tangle of leashes.

I had made a point to ensure it would be low tide. I checked the charts, made aware by my friend it wouldn't be much fun at high tide when twice a day the river swallows up the beach.

But with the water drawn back, hundreds of yards of oddities are uncovered. Such as the roots of trees tiptoeing forward, sending out scouts that somehow grow strong without soil. Taking deep drafts of river water and small sips, they don't seem worse for wear.

Without trash cans, one would think the detritus would be ankle-deep, but most visitors, it seems, pack out what they pack in. The only junk to be seen must have washed up from the river: Shards of glass are still transparent and sharp. River glass doesn't get tumbled to softness as it does in the sea.

I pick up some litter and take it with me, dumped in a bag along with the "do" the dogs paused long enough to deposit.

I am determined to leave no trace even when no one is watching.

But since we are alone, I unclip the leashes from their collars. I call them back as a test before I let them romp and roll, and dig in the soft sand.

Just watching them lowers my blood pressure.

Everything they do is joy personified: They jump over tree trunks; They wade in the thin marshy grass; They roll, pounce and splash at the river's edge. They are happy. I am happy. We are lucky to be here. Lucky to be living in this time and lucky to have found this place.

Jackpot

Clickety-clank clunk. Rattley-rattatattley-roll. Clang-y-clang-y-clang. Tink.

Diiiiiiiiiing!

I don't expect a jackpot.

Lately, the mechanical churn of the clothes dryer has been anything but dull in my house. Mid-cycle, the machine begins to resonate with the sharp metallic sounds of chaos.

I tend to follow the head-plunged-in-sand form of household detective work.

Had I been driving in my car, I would have held my breath and turned up the volume of the radio.

Had I been laundering sneakers that manage to kick their way free, I wouldn't have given the struggle a second thought.

The dishwasher made some noise last week that did sound right. I didn't even flinch. After all, what could that thing possibly do to me that is worse than not washing the dishes properly anyway?

But all this dread piling on pokes my consciousness into higher awareness. Has something else gone awry? Has an integral part shimmied free from the clothes dryer's bindings, sounding an alarm that catastrophe looms?

I've already managed to work around the door with a few screws missing. If I push it upwards as I slam it closed it will find its perfect fit.

The untimely death of its motherboard could orphan our bulky loads permanently.

No need to panic just yet ...

More likely it's just some loose change or a treasure stashed and forgotten: a drill bit; or a rock shaped like something extraordinary ... a heart, no doubt.

It is the rare resident who empties their pockets before tossing the day's togs in the hamper.

Not that I ever check to see if there is anything of value mingling within. I just stuff the lot of it unceremoniously into to the tub. Whites, Darks, Delicates? Pre- and spot-treat your garments? Psssssssssshaw. You are old enough now … but feel free to lodge any complaints with my wholely imaginary toll-free line: 1-800-DO-IT-YOURSELF!

Not that the toll-free line doesn't accept the other parent's credit no matter how much of his cash I have laundered over the years in these very machines. ...

You know ... like the two-day-old iPhone that inadvertently took a swim with the husband's work clothes … .

And the countless clothes (as well as the inside of the dryer drum) permanently marked by all the miniature sharpies a certain someone left in his pockets.

I'd like to think all the money that wound up in my coffers was figuratively a wash.

The room suddenly goes silent. An error message blinks unexpectedly.

I'm not worried. Sometimes it does that. Every device in the house harbors its own quirks.

I open the door, slide my hand into the whirl of warm fabrics, and check for dampness.

"Just a little bit longer," I tell the machine as if a soothing tone will make all the difference.

I reposition the clothes, reset the controls, and press Start again.

Nothing.

Once more ... with feeling.

This time the dryer comes to life, cascading the fabrics effortlessly and without the sinister clunking. 

This alone makes me feel as if I won the grand prize. Not that I expect a jackpot, just a couple of quarters when this cycle finally ends.

Best medicine

Every time the phone rings, I hold my breath a little. The air catches somewhere between my lungs and my throat. My heart beats faster.

Phone calls after prime time are the most affecting.

I always imagine the worst: An ending for someone, or at least the beginning of the end. 

Maybe it will start with a trip to a hospital. My heel rises and falls against the flooring to the rhythm of my own uncertainty. Will I be the one to decide if it will be-transportation-by-ambulance or if whatever it is that ails them can wait the 20 minutes until I get there?

Will I make the right choice?

The phone is still ringing.

I'm always ahead of myself. Mind racing with worst-case-scenarios until I lift the receiver.

A long pause between my tepid "hello" and some sunny voice -- the current ruse of  I'm-not-trying-to-sell-you-anything sales callers -- that isn't even human means I can hang up with neither pomp nor politeness.

I will inhale deeply and relax.

If there is an immediate voice at the other end of the line, it most likely belongs to my sister or my father. Sometimes both, as they live together and will trade off the handset like a game of hot potato. 

"Talk to him," she'll say with the exasperation of being able to move the stone wall in her midst. 

"Oh hi," he says. "What's up?"

"Sis tells me she's worried about you."

 All of us connected now, old school-like with tangled, tethered cords and modest fees for long distance despite our geographical locations separated by only 11 miles.

"Aw ... I'm fine. But I have this pain in my side. I didn't notice it until you left earlier today. Now it's just excruciating when I stand up and walk around. It doesn't hurt at all when I sit down, though."

He sounds a might anxious. 

"It doesn't sound too serious. Maybe you just pulled something."

I'm trying to sound cool.

For a moment, I wish caller ID could run the data for me. Check my work. Push a chyron of questions to ask so I could be sure my recommendation -- two extra-strength acetaminophen tablets and relaxing in a chair for the evening -- wouldn't amount to filial malpractice. 

But I don't have caller ID, and furthermore, I don't think I'd like a service that could cooly diagnose illnesses with ease of Dr. Google MD. I definitely wouldn't be about to fight my way out of that spiraling rabbit hole.

I trust the internets less than I trust myself. 

 All I can do is hang up and wait for the next phone call.

Which will happen in about 30 minutes ... 

Ring-ring ring-ring?

It's my dad.

"Hey, I gotta tell you something. I found a tick on the dog. It took me about a half hour to get it off of her. It was still alive! So as I was taking it outside, you won't believe what happened ...

"That pain in my side just disappeared."

The dam that had held back my breath finally broke, releasing with it a flood of laughter, the best medicine of all.