Cleaning House, a memoir

Progress Report or I Promise I'm Not Hiding Under the Bed

2012-01-20T11:02:00.003-06:00

Art Museum in San Angelo, Texas

Last night was San Angelo’s third Thursday Art Walk. I really, really wanted to go, but I did not want to go by myself. My husband’s work schedule is such that I never know when he will walk through the door in the evening. After thirty-two years of marriage I’ve gotten used to being fairly flexible when it comes to planning and I’ve never shied away from going out on my own. But circumstances feel different in a new town where I don’t yet have friends I can count on seeing when I solo.

I made myself a deal: If my husband didn’t get home in time to go on the Art Walk I would stay in and have a glass of wine with Dr. Sheldon Cooper (Big Bang Theory) instead. Fortunately, I was spared my virtual date and had the pleasure of a real date with my spouse.

Our first stop was a new studio, Art in Uncommon Places, where I had the pleasure of meeting the owners. These two women are literally changing the face of San Angelo with their creativity. I got to see a mosaic mural in progress that will soon adorn one of the bridges near the Concho River. I also learned of other public art installations planned for their work. Being in their studio, talking to them, inspired in me such a rush of creativity I am inspired to get back to work on my own projects.

At another stop we enjoyed a glass of wine and listened to live music. While there I met one of the owners of the wine bar, eavesdropped on a conversation about a yoga studio, and realized I had met the performing singer the day before while in line at Office Depot (one of the joys of living in a small town).

Our last stop of the evening was the cosmic culmination of the night. At a gallery/wine bar (yes, another wine bar) with live music and open mike night, we enjoyed a glass of our favorite local wine (Christoval Vineyards Tempranillo) and listened to a very talented bar patron sing songs by Paul Simon, The Beatles, and Neil Young. Then the stars aligned and who should come into the bar? The singer from the previous bar and the yoga conversation woman. We enjoyed more dialogue and discovered we all live in the same neighborhood and have similar interests.

I’m meeting people. I’m not hiding under the bed

Apologies to Dr. Sheldon Cooper for standing him up.

Home

2012-01-18T09:22:00.002-06:00

So here I am, back in my new town trying to get on a schedule after a month and a half away. I didn’t really have an opportunity to settle in to my new home before I left. The house is a mess, not even fully unpacked from the move (or even my trip). There are many remodeling and renovation projects yet to do. I still need to learn my way around town. I still need to meet the neighbors. I still need to make some friends. I want to find a place to volunteer, to exercise, to get my nails done, to shop. The dogs need a vet and I need a housekeeper and a contractor. If I let myself think about it all I get a little overwhelmed.

Perhaps I should focus on the positives. I’m here. I’m reunited with the man I can’t stand to be away from after living apart for over a year. I have a doctor, a dentist, a pharmacy and a drycleaner. I found someone to cut my hair. I met some wonderful women and hopefully new friends in the extended learning class. I took the extended learning class. I have affiliated with my local political party. I joined the museum. I discovered the river walk. I went to a wine tasting at an awesome wine bar. I found a great place to listen to live music. I found a place to have a glass of wine at four o’clock in the afternoon while contemplating buying art. I’ve eaten at several really good restaurants. I met another newcomer and we’ve enjoyed several outings. I learned about The Chicken Farm Art Center and attended one of their first Saturday events. I went on the third Thursday art walk in November. I’ve had houseguests twice. I’ve gone to garage sales and estate sales and antiques stores. I went to the mall. I have a workable home office. I guess I’m doing okay.

After hearing that I had signed up for an evening class at the local university one of my best friends commented that if she were me she probably wouldn’t have left the house yet. That comment brought on thoughts of how much easier it would be to just hide under the bed all day or sit on the couch and watch bad reality television on Bravo until my husband came home from work and announced that this move was just a joke and we were going home. But I am here and this will work. No more “Housewives of Anywhere” marathons, no more episodes of “Hoarders,” no more hiding under the bed. I’ve got things to do, people to meet, and a housekeeper to find.

Metamorphosis

2012-01-16T10:41:00.002-06:00

I went to New York on December first for the arrival of my first grandchild. She was due on the fifth, but the little sweetheart made her own schedule (and has been doing so since) not arriving until two weeks later, opting to share her father’s birthday. My trip was scheduled for the entire month of December, giving me what I thought would be almost a month with the precious child. I had a glorious time with my daughter and son-in-law while waiting, but I wanted as much grandmother time as possible. Fortunately, the owner of the apartment I was sub-letting agreed to two more weeks.

Everyone told me having a grandchild would be a life changing experience and I thought they were exaggerating. Sure, I was excited to have a grandchild, but life changing, really? Yes, really!

From the moment I walked into my daughter’s hospital room and saw her holding her daughter I was changed. I held my granddaughter and with tears streaming down my cheeks and splashing onto her I realized that this little girl and I are going to have quite a time over the next several decades. With her miniature face looking inquisitively at me we formed a bond, I swear we did. I will always be there for her, no matter the miles between New York and Texas that separate us.

It is said that on one’s deathbed your life flashes before you. At my granddaughter’s birth I saw my life and her life before me. I saw long walks on the beach searching for perfect sand dollars. I saw over-priced frilly dresses and tears at airports and reading Anne of Green Gables and hugs and kisses and letters and phone calls. (Or texting or skyping or whatever technology brings us in the years to follow.) Mostly I saw love, an overwhelming, all consuming, my-life-really-won’t-be-the-same-ever-again love.

And then, way before I was ready, forty-five days passed and I had to board a plane for home. My heart broke to leave my little New York family. My heart broke to leave my granddaughter. I’ll see her in two months and we will get to know each other all over again, and continue to make memories in this new love affair I have embarked on. It is life changing – really, truly.

Husband

2011-11-13T08:49:00.002-06:00

This is the sort of man I am married to: He hates to kill things. He is not a hunter, but it goes much further than just not owning guns and shooting deer or birds or lions or tigers or bears, oh my. He doesn’t like to kill anything and this can sometimes lead to problems in our marriage, because there are a few things I don’t mind seeing killed – like spiders and mice and (ugh!) cockroaches. He is the person who will take a spider outside to freedom rather than kill it. I am the person who will step on it faster than you can say, “Oh – my – God – is – that – a – spider – about – to – land – on – your – head.”

We recently moved to a new (old) house and I hired an exterminator ten seconds after I saw the first roach (albeit, dead) in the house. The cockroaches in my new town are apparently a different breed of roaches than I’m used to and I was not about to encounter one of the huge things alive. The nice man came out immediately and sprayed the house and voila – I haven’t seen a roach, dead or alive, since. (I’m sure I will develop some heinous carcinogen-related illness as a result of this someday, but at present I’ll take that over vermin in my home.)

I don’t think mice are susceptible to the bug man’s bag of tricks. I found a mouse in the sink drain of the guest apartment and pretty much went ballistic, so much so that my husband had to take the plumbing apart which led to a myriad of issues in our 75-year old house. But, alas, problem solved. Or was it? One can never be too sure when it comes to mice, so I did the unthinkable (in my husband’s book) – I bought glue traps and put them under cabinets and in closets. My husband hates glue traps, thinks they are cruel and inhumane. I couldn’t care less about the suffering of a rodent. I’m sure that makes me a horrible person and I will probably come back in my next life as a mouse and get stuck on a glue trap and die a horrible death, but for this life I’m killing the little bastards any way I can.

Yesterday, before we left on our vacation, I went to the guest apartment closet to get an ice chest and there on the aforementioned glue trap was a huge lizard, not a vile mouse, but a big brown and white lizard. Oh dear God, what have I done? I like lizards. I wouldn’t wish this kind of death on a lizard. The glue trap was specifically put there for a monstrous mouse, not a sweet lizard. Now I had to face the reckoning. I had to tell my husband that a.) I had put out glue traps and b.) I had imposed a horrific death upon an innocent lizard. I passed him in the hall, shuddered, and said, with tears in my voice, “Go look in the guest house closet.” I was ashamed of myself.

My husband was gone for a long time. What was he doing out there? Could he be holding a burial ceremony for the lizard? Could he be calling a divorce attorney? Could he be giving the lizard mouth-to-mouth resuscitation? When he finally came into the house I meekly asked and found out the lizard was still alive and my wonderful and caring husband had freed it from the glue trap. How in the hell can one free anything from a glue trap, I stepped on one once and almost had to throw away my shoe. But patient and diligent and not willing to let the lizard die, my husband worked gingerly until he freed the little guy.

Was my husband upset with me for setting out the glue traps? Nope, how can a guy who won’t kill a spider and spends hours setting free a lizard be mad at his wife? I sure married a great man, even if he won’t kill bugs for me.

The Estate Sale

2011-11-04T09:13:00.001-05:00

Another chapter in my life has come to an end – the closing up of my dear grandmother’s house. This past weekend we held Big Red’s estate sale and it wasn’t at all what I expected. I was dreading having strangers in her home picking through her things, but amazingly it turned into a nice experience.

A funny thing happened. A lot of people came to the sale and just stayed – they stayed to hear about Big Red. Who was this woman who quilted and tatted and knitted and loved books and did calligraphy and had a green thumb and collected stamps and made porcelain dolls and painted ceramics and baked bread and taught school and raised ten children and lived to 104 years old and had 104 progeny and collected rocks and pottery shards and driftwood and loved cowboy lore and poetry and owned every Weight Watcher cookbook and had a great record collection and costumes and vintage hats and an aquarium for a boa constrictor? Who was this woman?

And, what a great house. Yes, I can see that it hasn’t been updated since 1953, but what a great vibe it has. Good bones. I’ve never seen a bathroom (kitchen, living room) this large. I love the original linoleum. She raised how many kids here?

As the day progressed the estate sale bargain hunters became our new friends. As we told the history of the antique trunks and the dining room table we found the people we wanted to be the new owners our grandmother’s things. The young couple who bought the claw-foot iron bathtub and so many books, the university graduate student and her husband who came back on the second day and were thrilled to take home the Robert Wood print for half price and the man who bought the antique sewing machine because his family had one just like it that had been lost in a fire.

While we told the story of our Big Red and sold the household goods already picked over by her family and friends we silently wished for the love, happiness and good karma certainly contained within her “stuff” to follow their new owners. I think Big Red would have been pleased.

Thinking Outside of the Bag

2011-10-27T13:42:00.003-05:00

This week I read a story in the Parade Magazine insert in our Sunday newspaper about three generations of a family who wrote notes on napkins in their loved ones’ sack lunches. I used to do that for my daughters. I am inspired to start doing it for my husband now that he is brown-bagging it every day.

The article got me thinking about all of the sack lunches I’ve made in my lifetime. From the time I was old enough to reach the kitchen counter my mother passed on the job of making lunches to me. First it was just my father’s lunch and mine, then my brother’s, a year later my sister’s was added, and finally, four years later, baby brother began school and his lunch box was lined up with the rest of ours. I seem to recall his was a metal Dukes of Hazard lunch pail. By this time, I’m sure I was too old for my Barbie-themed lunch container, handing it down to my little sister and opting for a brown paper sack with my name written on it with a black or red Bic Flair pen to distinguish it from my father’s lunch.

Lunches in those days consisted of a sandwich; cold cuts and American cheese, mustard on the meat side, Miracle Whip with the cheese. This was a rule no one in my family considered breaking until I grew up and discovered that mayonnaise was much tastier than Miracle Whip, but I still put the mayo on the cheese side. The lunch meat of choice at our house for years was a thin-sliced, packaged ham; a pressed meat sliced so thin you could actually, as my father would say, “read the newspaper through it.” He got more than one slice of ham, but we kids got only the one. In hindsight, I’m sure my frugal parents saw this ham as a budget-minded school lunch for four children. Mother did, however, always splurge on the best cheese – real American cheese, Kraft, none of that imitation processed American cheese food for her family. What is cheese food anyway?

Along with the sandwich we had a baggie of chips, not the small individual serving bags, but sandwich bags filled with chips from a family-sized bag of Ruffles or Fritos or Cheetos. I do recall a period of time when we always had a five-gallon can of Charles’ Chips brand potato chips. I’m not sure where they came from, but I’m almost thinking it was a bonus product one could have delivered to the front door with our gallon jugs of milk by the milkman.

A sweet treat rounded out our lunchtime fare. Typically cookies in another baggie; Oreos or gingersnaps or Fig Newtons or vanilla wafers. We knew we’d hit the big time when we graduated to Ding Dongs and Twinkies and garishly pink coconut studded Snowballs. I always nibbled around the edges of these desserts saving the bite with the white cream filling for last.

Every evening Daddy’s pocket change went into a plastic cup in the shape of an orange with “Smirnoff” molded onto the side, a promotional item pushing the consumption of screwdrivers. Every morning Mother gave us coins from this cup admonishing, “Don’t lose your milk money.” I never bought milk; I opted instead for a cup of crushed ice and grape “juice” from the fountain machine. I can still smell the artificial grape aroma wafting off of this pale purple excuse for juice. I’m sure it was nothing more than corn syrup and water dyed to look like Concord grapes.

By high school I was too cool to take my lunch, so I bought spaghetti or hamburgers or burritos in the lunch line at the school cafeteria and sat with my friends and flirted with boys. Then came the “open campus lunch,” probably the worst idea to hit school districts since New Math, where we got in cars and exceeded the speed limit to arrive en masse at fast food establishments where we wolfed down quarter pound hamburgers and over-salted French fries and washed it all down with large Dr. Peppers before speeding back to school in time to hear the lunch tardy bell ring as we pulled into the parking lot thanking our guardian angels that we weren’t all killed when we ran the last three red lights.

I hope school lunches have changed since my days of eating too much processed food from sacks, cafeterias, and fast-food restaurants. I hope what my sister tells me about the lunches her students bring to school is true. She reports that the pre-school aged children of today’s modern parents bring organic fruit and goat cheese and mineral water from France. I’ll keep that in mind as I pack my husband’s lunch and I’ll be sure to tuck a little love note in the bag as well. I hope he gets as much pleasure out of a random “I love you” in the middle of the day as I once did from the real American cheese my mother insisted on buying.

Being Brave

2011-10-21T09:23:00.002-05:00

The freshman album release of one of my favorite singer/songwriters, Amanda Shires (www.amandashires.net), is titled “Being Brave.” I love that title, I love that premise – Being Brave. I know Amanda from the days when she was just beginning to sing. She began as a fiddle player and it was fun to watch her “earn her chops” singing at small local venues and then move on to a full-time music career in Nashville. I’m sure it took Being Brave to pull off what she has accomplished. I’m very proud of the hometown girl.

Even though she has gone on to release several more albums with much better music I don’t think she will ever be able to top the title of that early work, Being Brave. I think about it all of the time. It was my theme when I first came out of the closet as a writer, it was my mantra when I was faced with seemingly insurmountable work goals and deadlines, it got me through my husband’s career crisis and subsequent move, and now, right this very minute, it is getting me through living in a new town and making a new start..

Being Brave. It is hard to do sometimes, but if Amanda can do it, then so can I. Thanks Miss Amanda Shires for being a good example and a damn good writer. Keep Being Brave and so will I.

Muscle Up

2011-10-20T12:12:00.001-05:00

As I climbed the stairs to my home office this morning I was brutally reminded of my approaching 55th birthday. My legs screamed at me for abusing them. The muscles in my back, arms, shoulders, rear, thighs, calves and feet (There are 33 muscles in each foot!) objected in unison to any further attempt at running.

Whoa, just who do they think they are talking to? Am I not the boss of them? I’ll teach them to try to squelch my running goals.

I went to the River Walk with the intent of just walking the soreness out, but after a few minutes I took off at a slow trot (which is what I call running). Almost immediately I felt a pain in the center of my right kneecap. I have no idea what a meniscus is, but I imagined that was where the pain was coming from and I know enough to know I don’t want a torn one, so I stopped running and began a walking pace again (which is pretty much the same as my running pace, just not quite as spastic looking).

I quickly grew bored of walking and got up the nerve to test the knee again with another attempt at running and this time it didn’t hurt. I was able to run for a greater distance and with fewer walking bits. I am still not running on the inclines, or hills as I prefer to call them.

Coming from Lubbock, the flattest place on the planet, I’m finding San Angelo’s hills lovely, but it is daunting to think of running the up-sides. Locals will probably laugh at my interpretation of the hills, we are not, after all, officially in the Hill Country, but after 35 years on the Texas High Plains I feel like I’ve moved to the mountains!

My muscles can scream at me all they want – I’m just happy to know I’ve still got ‘em!

Run

2011-10-11T18:00:00.001-05:00

As many times as I have started, stopped, and started my blog, quadruple that number and you get a rough estimation of how many times I have started, stopped, and started running. Not an athletic person by nature or nurture I succumbed to the Jane Fonda fad in the eighties, but mostly just to wear the tights, leotards, legwarmers, and headbands. After a long history of joining and quitting every gym in town I finally found a trainer who taught me how to run. I’m not one of those born-again runners touting the awesomeness of the runner’s high. I have never had the runner’s high. I have had the runner’s knee, the runner’s sore big toe, and the runner’s heat exhaustion, but never the runner’s high. It was because of the runner’s knee that I quit running, but I’m as bad at quitting things as I am at, well, at quitting things. That is to say, I quit quitting.

I ran today. I didn’t intend to, it just happened. I enjoy my morning walks in my new town. There is a fabulous trail around the Concho River that just begged me to run it. I tried to ignore it, but there is something about the rhythm of running that gets me every time. It is like typing or writing when you are really in the groove and it just flows, sort of a writer’s high of sorts.

Will I run tomorrow? I don’t know. I hope I will. I hope I can make a better showing than I did today. I must confess to only running on the downhill parts of the trail, but at least it was a start. Maybe I’ll keep it up until I experience the runner’s high I’ve heard so much about. Or, maybe I’ll just keep trying for the writer’s high – it is a lot easier on my knees.

Lost Opportunity

2011-10-07T16:00:00.004-05:00

My grandmother told me there was a perfect age at which to memorize poetry. Unfortunately I cannot remember the exact age, but judging from her propensity for poetry recitation, I know she was right. She memorized many poems in her youth and remembered them for as long as she lived. She could recite long passages from Lowell’s “The Vision of Sir Launfal” and just about anything Tennyson ever wrote. After she lost her sight I enjoyed reading aloud to her and wasn’t too surprised when she could recite most of Longfellow’s “Hiawatha” with me as I read.

I must have been at that perfect age for memorizing poetry when I learned “Three Things Come Not Back” (author unknown) as I can still recall the poem today.

Remember three things come not back:
The arrow sent upon its track
It will not swerve, it will not stay
Its speed: it flies to wound or slay.

The spoken word, so soon forgot
By thee; but it has perished not;
In other hearts ‘tis living still
And doing work for good or ill.

And the lost opportunity
That cometh back no more to thee
In vain thou weep’st, in vain dost yearn
These three shall never more return.

Today it is the lost opportunity which haunts me. I missed so many opportunities when I stopped writing last December. My blog is allegedly about cleaning house and I missed the chance to write about actually doing it. In the months between March and July I completely purged and cleaned the home I’d lived in for almost thirty years (yes, even the garage) in order to put it on the real estate market. (Maybe not writing about it enabled me to get it done.)

The move would have been excellent blog fodder. Packing, deciding what to keep and what to let go, schlepping my “stuff” 170 miles downstate, dealing with moving day and movers in their semi-truck size van – all would have made great blog material.

But the event I’m saddest I didn’t write about was the death, at 104, of Big Red, my beloved grandmother. I didn’t document my thoughts and feelings. I didn’t put on paper that I really believed she would live forever, that we’d seen her decline and rally so many times in the past this time couldn’t be “it,” or that I was three hours away on the morning of her death and made it to her just before she passed.

Big Red is gone, but her spirit lives on. Her spirit will be in every poem I read and in the voice of every child reciting the verse which they memorized at just the right age.

Dog and Butterfly

2011-10-05T12:42:00.003-05:00

The song “Dog and Butterfly” has been on my mind a lot this week. Never a big fan of that particular Heart song, it is interesting that I can’t get the somewhat sappy song out of my head. I know why it is playing, non-stop, like an endless loop on the old reel-to-reel recorder in my brain. It is because I’ve been walking my dogs through fluttering swarms of orange and black butterflies this week. It is my first experience with the Monarch migration and I love it.

Walking the dogs in the morning and evening at my leisure is a new activity for me. I am newly retired and newly transplanted to San Angelo, Texas which I’ve just discovered is in the Monarch migration flyway. My new home is in a historic neighborhood along the Concho River, peaceful and quaint with beautiful parks and gorgeous homes. This week I feel like I live in a fairy tale. I half expect a bluebird to land on my shoulder and bunnies to hop along beside me, even though I know the dogs would have none of that. They are curious about the butterflies, but have tolerated their company thus far. Which brings me back to the “Dog and Butterfly” song.

Since I can’t seem to get the chorus out of my head I Googled the song lyrics, then I had to Google the meaning of the lyrics. There is much speculation concerning the song’s meaning, but the last verse spoke to me:

Another night in this strange town
Moonlight holding me light as down
Voice of confusion inside of me
No begging to go back where I'm free
Feels like I'm through
Then the old man's words are true
See the dog and butterfly
Up in the air he like to fly
Dog and butterfly, below she had to try
She roll back down to the warm soft
Ground with a little tear in her eye
She had to try, she had to try
Dog and butterfly

The Monarchs are not alone on their migration. Perhaps San Angelo is my migration flyway too.

Serendipity

2011-10-03T20:23:00.002-05:00

Serendipity, Divine intervention, karma, fate, kismet, coincidence – whatever you wish to call it, I love it when it happens. I watch for it daily. Sometimes it is subtle and other times it hits you like a ball-peen hammer to the forehead. Once, at my former non-profit agency job, some kind benefactor donated cases of windbreaker jackets bearing college basketball logos that would be perfect for our indigent clients during winter weather. However, there was a catch. The jackets could only be used if the sewn on basketball emblems were removed, the emblems were specially designed and reserved for top-tier donors to the university and of course could not be worn by someone standing in line at a soup kitchen. Within five minutes of the realization of the conundrum we were facing we received a call from the university department that used to be called Home-Ec., but is called something much fancier these days, offering to do a service project for us. Hello, can you take a seam ripper and remove embroidered patches from hundreds of jackets? Of course they could, and did. Serendipity, baby!

Yesterday, after months of ignoring my desire to write, I decided to resurrect my blog and to begin working on long unfinished writing projects, namely two novels that I think have potential, but have been sitting in that special place where unfinished manuscripts live (a box under my bed) for almost a year. This morning in the newspaper was the following article under Local Briefs: “Writing from the Heart,” a hands-on writing class for anyone who has ever thought about writing or is in the middle of a writing project and needs a jolt of creativity and inspiration to get to “The End,” will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursdays, Oct. 6 – 22. Ball-peen hammer to the forehead.

This afternoon I signed up for the class, tonight I’m posting this on my blog, perhaps tomorrow I’ll hear from a publisher – serendipity baby!

Why I Abandoned My Blog

2011-10-02T20:37:00.003-05:00

I quit my blog in December about the time my husband left me. Well, in all fairness to him, I should explain that opening sentence: He took a job in a town three hours away after being unemployed for almost eighteen months. There, I said it. We were “victims of the economy.” I put that in quotation marks because it is a phrase I heard a lot over the last couple of years and because I have been dread to admit that we were part of that national statistic. I even make air quotation marks with my fingers whenever I say it aloud. Really, I thought all of those “victims of the economy” were just lazy bums who really didn’t want to work. Neither my husband nor I have ever had difficulty finding and keeping a job, we aren’t the kind of people who don’t work. So imagine our surprise when he, one of the highest paid managers at his company, was “let go.” I use the quotation marks again, because in actuality he was fired, but somehow “let go” sounds ever so much nicer. But the experience was anything but nice. We consulted an attorney to see if we had grounds to pursue a wrongful termination suit, but discovered that in Texas you can be fired if someone doesn’t like the color of your shirt and there isn’t anything you can do about it.

So began the longest year and a half of our marriage. We learned a lot. We learned that we really meant “through good times and in bad,” we learned about the ineptitude of State and Federal employees when trying to maneuver through COBRA and Unemployment Insurance, we learned we didn’t need cable television or dinners out, and we learned how to not think about our future. My husband, burned and disappointed by his chosen profession, decided to change his career path in his mid-fifties. He learned that was not an option, at least not a viable one for him. He also learned that any self-doubt he acquired during eighteen months of unemployment was misguided. As a favor to a friend he offered to look over a company in the aforementioned three hour away town to see if it was salvageable or if it was ready for the auction block. After a month he knew he could turn it around. After three months we knew we couldn’t stand the separation. Another lesson learned; we really like each other. So here I am. I quit my job, sold our home of thirty years, said goodbye to our dear friends, and moved to a town where I know not a soul except for my husband.

I think I’m probably ready to resume my blog. I’ve got lots to talk about.

2011

2010-12-28T22:15:00.002-06:00

Christmas is over, I'm still reading Great Expectations, and I am not sure that I am ready for 2011. Guess what, it will be here anyway!

Countdown to Christmas - Day 8

2010-12-08T21:03:00.002-06:00

I thought I didn’t have anything to blog about in the way of a Christmas countdown for today. I’m not feeling great and didn’t do anything Christmas-y. I am, however, reading Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and what could be more Christmas-y than Dickens. So there, now I can get back to my book.

Countdown to Christmas - Day 7

2010-12-07T20:24:00.000-06:00

The cold has arrived, and I ain’t talking about the temperature outside! In spite of my best efforts to ward it off or convince myself otherwise, I am officially “with cold.” At least I made it through the first holiday party, which is fortunate because I was the host. The cough began as soon as I got in bed last night and has turned into something similar to the bark of an angry seal. All Christmas preparations are temporarily on hold awaiting my recovery, which better be before Friday, as I am leaving for an out of town soiree that I will not miss.

Tissue, cough drops, Nyquil, Mucinex, hot tea, and anything else I can think of will be my constant companions. I’m also making garlic soup for dinner – a sure cure if there is one.

Countdown to Christmas - Day 6

2010-12-06T22:18:00.002-06:00

The perils of holiday weight gain. In October I attended a business conference in New Orleans. One can’t possibly go to New Orleans without gaining weight – it is a physical impossibility. From the moment the plane touched down at Louis Armstrong International I could feel my waistline expanding. Walking through the French Quarter, Hurricanes at Pat O’Brien’s, muffulettas at Central Grocery, gumbo, etouffe, boudin sausage, and seafood on every corner, I began to feel like Eddie Murphy in The Nutty Professor morphing into an obese version of myself.

New Orleans was just the beginning. Next came my birthday and two vacation trips – more excuses (as if I need an excuse!) for excessive amounts of food and drink. Then it was Thanksgiving and now December. My goal for December is to not gain another pound.

I will be faced with every form of food temptation this month. My favorite food group is one the USDA has yet to identify, but I’ve know about it since college – Happy Hour Food. The delectable little nibbles on tiny plates, eaten with your fingers, served to counter massive amounts of alcohol. Sweets and savories, this is the food of December. From the office break room to Christmas cocktail parties, Happy Hour Food will reign. Ah, it appears innocent enough – it is all mini. Mini sausages wrapped in biscuits, a miniature cupcake, a wee dab of dip on a tiny cracker, small slices of French bread slathered in butter – what harm is there in such a small bite? I’m here to tell you, Happy Hour Food is big trouble in a little package. Run away when anyone, even your favorite aunt, tells you, “just taste it.” There is no such thing as one taste.

And then there are the spirits. What holiday gathering is without alcohol? (Okay, I’ll rephrase. What holiday gathering that I’m attending is without alcohol?) Beer, wine, fancy cocktails, punch bowls, eggnog, after-dinner liqueurs. I once attended a party where the dessert intoxicated me and I had to phone for a designated driver. Have you ever figured the calorie count in a glass of wine? About one-hundred calories in a small glass. I will be bringing my own bottle to parties this year, my own bottle of sparkling mineral water – nary a calorie to be counted.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to at least hold steady on the bathroom scale this December. In January when the masses begin battling their December weight gain, I’ll tackle my New Orleans and November pounds. Bon Appetite and cheers!

Countdown to Christmas - Day 5

2010-12-05T19:24:00.001-06:00

Ugh – I feel like I might be catching a cold. I won’t, I won’t, I won’t! I will not get sick! I’ve been drinking Echinacea tea, sucking on Zicam lozenges, using the “nose boat” (sinus rinse), trying to get plenty of sleep, and taking massive doses of vitamin C to ward off any potential germs that might be heading my way. I may even pull out the “big gun” and make garlic soup. Being sick, having a cold, at any time is no fun, but during December it can nearly bring your life to a screeching halt and that can’t happen – there is way too much to do. The decorating is done, but there is still shopping (lots and lots of shopping), cooking (lots and lots of cooking), cleaning (no comment), and holiday* parties (lots and lots of holiday parties). I cannot get sick. I will not get sick.

*If anyone is offended by my use of the word “holiday” please don't be. When I mean Christmas I’ll use Christmas, but in this case I am being inclusive. I do have parties with my non-Christian and Christian friends who celebrate other holidays during December.

Countdown to Christmas - Day 4

2010-12-04T21:06:00.000-06:00

Shopping

Michael’s
Hobby Lobby
Target

Not fun

That is all

Countdown to Christmas Day Three

2010-12-03T20:08:00.002-06:00

Tchotchke (Typically pronounced "CHACH-kee") are small toys, gewgaws, knickknacks, baubles, lagniappes, trinkets, or kitsch. The term has a connotation of worthlessness or disposability, as well as tackiness.

Thirty years of Christmas decorating has left me with a lot of Christmas “crap.” Ornaments and decorations that I can’t bring myself to throw away because they have some strange sentimental value attached to them. Typically, when I decorate the house for Christmas I use my discretion about what I will (or won't) put out on any particular year. This year, however, I am not the one decorating, my husband is, and apparently he doesn’t know about the discretionary rule – he’s putting everything out. Now, I realize it sounds like I am complaining – but I swear I’m not! I am thrilled that I don’t have to decorate. I am thrilled that my husband is taking care of everything this year. I’m even thrilled to see some of the tchotchkes that haven’t left the storage boxes in years.

If you are familiar with the origin of this blog you know that I have trouble throwing anything away, and Christmas items seem to be especially difficult to part with – even if I know I will never put them on display again. What kinds of things am I talking about? Let me give you just a few examples:

A cardboard Christmas wreath ornament with shell macaroni glued to it and spray painted gold.

A wooden triangle painted green to look like a Christmas tree with kindergarten candy canes drawn on it.

A bazillion circa 1980 wooden Christmas crafts purchased at craft shows.

All of my mother’s glass ball Christmas ornaments, most of which have faded and have splotchy surfaces.

Three felt elves with plastic faces that were once (probably 1955) decorations on a Christmas package.

My youngest daughter’s green handprints in the shape of a wreath dated 1991.

This is only the beginning of the list – but I won’t go on, I’m too busy looking at all of my cool stuff (I mean "crap") that I haven’t had on display for years. I’m glad my husband didn’t use discretion while decorating the house for Christmas - I'm having a really fun walk down Christmas tchotchke memory lane.

Countdown to Christmas - Day Two

2010-12-02T20:34:00.003-06:00

Scrooge, Grinch – whatever you want to call me, I was dreading the countdown to Christmas this year. I think the thought of all the work involved to get ready for the holidays depressed me. I asked my husband on Thanksgiving night if he thought anyone would mind/care/notice if I didn’t decorate the house for Christmas. His reply: “You will regret it by December 22nd, and then try to do everything in two days.” He was right. Visions of Jamie Lee Curtis in Christmas with the Kranks flashed through my mind. I was wondering how I would muster the desire/energy/motivation to pull the boxes of Christmas décor out of the garage when, what to my wondering eyes did appear when I came home from work yesterday – my tree was up and the house was mostly decorated – Thanks to my wonderful husband.

With the decorating issue out of the way my next dread became gift giving. Buying presents for family and friends has become harder over the years. Who really needs anything? Just when old Ebenezer was about to take over my mind and soul - my daughters surprised me with Angel Presents. Angel Presents have been a tradition in our home for over twenty-five years, but was dropped a couple of years ago when the girls grew up and moved away. The tradition began when my friend, Debra, and I made felt angel wall hangings when our children were toddlers. The angel has twenty-four pockets on her skirt into which I put a slip of paper with a clue as to where to look for that day’s angel present. The presents were typically small tokens of holiday love (which grew larger and more expensive with each passing year) specially selected for my girls. I shopped year-round to come up with twenty-four just-right Angel Presents and we all looked forward to December first when the gift giving began. The scavenger-hunt type clues were sometimes even more fun than the actual gift.

Last night, at our weekly family dinner (Wednesday Winers), my daughter handed me a slip of paper with a clue written on it. I was momentarily dumbfounded. What in the world did “Big Red’s version of the A.A. Serenity Prayer” mean? Then it clicked. This was a clue. I found my way to a small wooden plaque in my grandmother’s den that reads, “It is okay to drink like a fish provided you drink what a fish drinks” and there I found a wrapped gift – an Angel Present for me! After I finished crying and opened my gift I learned there will be twenty-three more – a role reversal of Angel Present gifting from my two daughters. Wow! Their thoughtfulness has inspired me to look at gift giving in a new light. Rather than the chore/drudge/torture I was anticipating, I am now excited about finding my loved ones the perfect expression of my holiday goodwill.

Ladies and Gentlemen – the Grinch has left the building!

Countdown to Christmas - Day One

2010-12-01T22:17:00.002-06:00

Okay – the entire theme of December was going to be a whiney-pout-y “Oh, I have to do all of the Christmas decorating by myself” Blog, but NO – my nice husband had to go and pull out all of the Christmas decorations today while I was at work, put half of them up, and inform me that he would take care of all decorating this year. So, where does that leave me? With no blog topic for the entirety of December! Oh well, thankful for a considerate husband.

Breathe

2010-11-28T10:32:00.002-06:00

Ahhh – I didn’t realize how much I missed the lake. I had no idea how much I needed to relax until I got here and felt the tension drain away. It’s been over six weeks since I was last here, probably the longest stretch I’ve been away since we bought the place. My life got in the way – work, family, friends, trips out of town, obligations, “stuff” prevented me from escaping and relaxing at the lake.

Today I plan to breathe deeply, to sit and stare at the lake, to watch the birds at the feeder, and hope for the occasional deer to wander by. I will yawn and stretch and maybe take a nap. I’ll read a book, thumb through a magazine and listen to music. I’ll walk the dogs, hold hands with my husband and marvel at the beauty of winter. When the day is over and I must return to reality, I’ll be ready to face the hectic pre-Christmas insanity at work and at home.

Thank you lake for giving me the peace and serenity I so needed. I promise I won’t let another six weeks go by.

Thanksgiving

2010-11-27T15:45:00.001-06:00

I love the holidays, especially the major relatives-come-to-visit holidays, which in my family are Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Hailing from a large clan there is always quite a crowd around our table for any celebration; this Thanksgiving we had twenty-seven, twenty-seven relatives and friends under one roof, breaking bread and giving thanks for our many blessings. This year we counted as our number one blessing the presence of my one-hundred and three year old grandmother at the head of the table.

How blessed we are to have our matriarch still with us, how blessed she is to have a family who loves and cares for her as we do. As I looked around our holiday table I was truly thankful for those gathered – husband, daughter, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends – each one a gift. Or as my grandmother says when she looks at her progeny, “You are all my fault” referring to the fact that none of us would be here if it weren’t for her.

Thank you, Grandmother (Big Red), for being the force that keeps up together and gives us so much to be thankful for at Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving Excitement

2010-11-23T18:15:00.001-06:00

My sister and her family arrive tonight. I am so excited! I feel like a kid at Christmas (or the kid on the Disneyworld commercial – “I’m too excited to sleep!”) A sister should be a best friend, a confidant, a touchstone to your shared history, and a guiding light toward the future. My sister is all that to me and more.

I credit our parents with the close-knit relationships I have with my siblings. They taught us, by example, the important role family plays in our life. Aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, in-laws, and out-laws are all key to my happiness, but there is something special about a sibling, and there is nothing in the universe like a sister. My mother and her four sisters taught me that from an early age – my aunts still show me daily the importance of sisters.

For two short days I will get to cram in all of the holiday fun I can stand. We will shop, cook, reminisce, laugh, cry, stay up too late, eat and drink too much (at least I will), and do what sisters do – love each other and make more memories to tide us over until we get a chance to do it all again.

Little did I know, all those years ago when we shared a bedroom with twin beds, royal blue quilted bedspreads and a bay window, when I thought she was a pest, that I would one day look so forward to seeing her. They are on the road now, making the long drive for Thanksgiving - my brother-in-law, my niece, my two nephews, and my sister, my best friend. I’m too excited to sleep

Green Tomatoes

2010-11-22T21:48:00.007-06:00

If you are from the south, green tomatoes are a delicacy usually only available at the very beginning of tomato season, and again right before the first freeze. In the early summer I judiciously decide which tomatoes will forfeit their ruby red future in exchange for a dip in egg, cornmeal, flour, and a pan of hot oil, to end up on my plate as a fried green tomato. Once that yen has been satisfied, the rest are safe to ripen.

In the late fall I carefully pay attention to the weather forecast, anticipating the first hard freeze. On the appointed day all of the tomatoes – red, green, or in between, are stripped from the vines and brought into the kitchen for sorting. The red tomatoes are put to use immediately. Tomatoes in and on everything. (This year I ate tomato sandwiches for five meals in a row – breakfast, lunch, dinner, breakfast, lunch!)

The in-between or pink tomatoes or even green tomatoes with the slightest hint of a pink blush are individually wrapped in newspaper, placed in a box, and stored in the back of the pantry. I’ll check the box every few days and bring out a newly ripened tomato, one at a time, savoring it as if it were the first tomato of summer. Hopefully, my last tomato of summer will be sometime in December or, if I’m lucky, one or two will last until January.

The green tomatoes are destined for a greater purpose – chow-chow. There are mixed opinions on the much maligned condiment known as chow-chow. I say – If you don’t like chow-chow, you’ve just never had mine. I can’t divulge the recipe (or I’d have to kill you), but it is a concoction of green tomatoes, cabbage, bell peppers, onions, garlic, jalapenos, sugar, vinegar, and pickling spices. It is all chopped, cooked down, and put up in jars to be stingily doled out during the winter. With each bite I am transported to my grandmother’s east Texas kitchen.

A tomato is a wonderful thing. I can hardly wait until it is warm enough to plant again. But, until then, I have jars of canned tomatoes in the pantry, along with wrapped tomatoes ripening slowly and fourteen pints of chow-chow to tide me over.

I'm Back (Again)

2010-11-21T08:55:00.002-06:00

I haven’t blogged in weeks. It is amazing how quickly I can get out of a habit. Truth be told, my blog has all but disappeared from my mental radar. I hate that! I enjoy writing this blog and it serves several purposes.

First, it is like an appointment with a therapist. This is my place to vent, to blow off steam, or work out a problem. If I’m bothered by the stupidity of the world (or a co-worker, or the man in front of me with a cart full of groceries in the ten items or less line) thirty minutes with pen and paper helps me release my desire to move to a deserted island or to eat and island size dessert. Considering most psychologists charge over $100 an hour, I’ve saved a considerable amount of money by blogging.

Another reason I blog is for the practice and discipline that comes with it. Knowing that I must (should) keep my blog (somewhat) current forces me to sit down to write on a (somewhat) regular schedule. In my “second half” (that is what those of us over fifty call our life) I’ve discovered a passion for writing. A blog is a good outlet for that passion. It is immediate gratification unlike that unfinished novel or the journal pages no one but me will ever read.

Perhaps the real reason I blog is because it is self-indulgent. I spend the majority of my life taking care of others – the youth I work with in my job, my 103 year old grandmother, my children, and my husband. Writing this blog is a few moments a week when I can pretend that my thoughts and/or the events of my mundane life are important to someone outside of my front door.

In spite of posting my last real blog well over a month ago, this blog is important to me and I will continue to indulge myself by writing it. God knows I need the writing practice and I can’t afford a therapist. I’m back (again)!

Long Time

2010-11-15T22:12:00.001-06:00

Wow - Over a month without a blog post.
Horrible blogger! You should be fired!
I will try to do better.
Okay, we won't fire you.

Yes I Can

2010-10-11T11:27:00.004-05:00

I think the appeal of canning, for me, is not wasting anything. Even my small garden will produce a bounty that is overwhelming. This weekend I had to face the bowls and bags of peppers in my refrigerator with the realization that it was use it or lose it time. I ad-libbed a recipe using the vinegar-sugar base I strained and saved from the previous weekend’s canning of sweet-hots or bread-and-butter jalapenos. I enlisted the help of my twenty-five year old food processor and chopped every bell pepper, green chile, pimiento, onion, and garlic clove in the house. To this I added the head of cabbage I discovered once all of the peppers were out of the refrigerator. The jalapeno-infused vinegar was the perfect complement to this mélange of vegetables, making (what I am labeling the jars as) chow-chow.

Canning seems to be a manic activity for me, so while I was at it, and since my kitchen was now a complete disaster area, I decided to keep going. The morning’s harvest yielded a fair amount of green beans and I recalled once being served a Bloody Mary with pickled green beans instead of the requisite celery stick, so I was off. Out came the vinegar and a few hours later I had jars of lovely pickled beans.

Sadly, I have not yet made and canned my own tomato juice, so there were no Bloody Marys to be had. But, I have a near empty refrigerator and a pantry full of the last of my summer garden’s offerings – and nothing went to waste.

Putting Food Up

2010-10-04T09:05:00.002-05:00

Fresh produce is a lot of work! Sometimes I ask myself why I go to all of the trouble when I could pick up food at the grocery store for minimal cost and oh-so-much ease and convenience. I know the answer, even though growing and preparing my own food is a major undertaking and probably more expensive, I know it tastes better and is better for me than the mass-produced over-processed “stuff” I can buy at the grocery store.

Don’t think for a second that I don’t buy “stuff” from the store – I’m at my neighborhood grocery almost every day. It’s a bit embarrassing when the cashier or the carryout person says, “See you tomorrow.” But, I do try to grow and eat as much as I can from my own garden or from the farm or the farmers’ market. Growing the food is one aspect, but what I want to discuss today is bringing all of that fresh food into the kitchen.

Fresh fruits and vegetables come with dirt. I learned in my Master Gardener course that we grow things in soil, but what remains on the veggies when they arrive in my kitchen is dirt. Cleaning the produce is a major undertaking. Let’s compare lettuce for an example. Lettuce from the supermarket is either triple washed and sealed in plastic bags or sold as heads that were grown without benefit of soil in a hydroponic environment. There is not a speck of dirt to be had on store-bought lettuce. Lettuce from my garden goes immediately into a sink full of very cold water. The leaf lettuce is washed multiple times, each time leaving a residue of dirt, sand, and bugs in the bottom of the sink. In spite of my best effort there is still a gritty texture to most of my salads. Head lettuce is even harder to clean; each leaf must be removed and rinsed and there is usually a surprise at the core – a bug carcass or two. I’ve never found a bug in my store bought salads. But, really – how did we get so far away from the real source of our food that we would be freaked out by a bug in our lettuce? In theory a bug in our lettuce should be a good thing, indicating the lettuce was actually grown in natural conditions. Bugs or no bugs, my salads taste better than any of the pale, limp, watery excuses for lettuce I can buy at the store, but I will be in the produce section buying it along with the masses when I am unable to grow it due to weather.

Canning vegetables, or “putting food up,” as my grandmother called it, seems like a ridiculous undertaking in these modern times. I spent five hours yesterday canning jalapeno peppers and ended up with seventeen quarts of pickled peppers and eleven pints of sweet-hot bread and butter jalapenos. I could buy a jar or can of pickled peppers at the grocery store for about a buck! The time and money involved in home canning is not the issue for me. I see canning as another way to connect with my food, to appreciate the bounty, and to carry on a tradition which is fast becoming a lost art. I will proudly present gifts of my “put up” produce to friends all winter and I will take a great deal of satisfaction in opening a jar of tomatoes for a soup or stew, knowing I planted the seed that grew into the tomato that I harvested and processed in my very own kitchen. How many hands touched the tomatoes in the three-for-a-dollar cans at the grocery store? And how many miles did those tomatoes travel in their short life spans to get to my neighborhood store?

Whole foods, fresh foods are a lot of work, but worth it in so many ways; the taste, the nutritional value, the control over food safety, and the plain old satisfaction of it. Anyone can open a bag, a box or a can – but I take immense pleasure from growing my own food and supporting my local farmers. I’d write more on this topic, but I have a bushel of green chiles in the kitchen waiting to be “put up.” (I might even find a bug!)

1960 Redux

2010-10-02T23:20:00.002-05:00

Tonight my husband, Frank, and I went to a concert at our county fair sponsored by the local “oldies” radio station. We saw the Grass Roots, a band I really liked in the late 1960s. In fact, one of my favorite songs of all times is “Temptation Eyes” by the Grass Roots.

Frank and I went early in order to take in the fair before the show, but it didn’t take long to realize we weren’t going to ride any rides or play any games of chance on the midway, nor were we going to eat anything “on a stick” or fried, which seems to be the only fair fare offered anymore. We took our concert seats early to people watch. We saw several folks we knew and compared notes. Frank saw a former co-worker, I saw a girl I went to first grade with. It was fun to observe the crowd from our upper section seats and try to find someone we knew. I saw my cousin, Bunny, Frank saw the sales manager from our insurance company.

I said, “There’s the guy from the Grateful Dead concert.” Frank gave me an odd look, because, contrary to popular belief, we have never been to a Grateful Dead concert. And then he saw him; a total Dead-Head. Sitting an aisle over and a few rows in front of us was a sixty-something-year old in a tie-dyed t-shirt, jeans and a ball cap with a feather poking out from the crown. He had a glazed look which suggested his brain was fried from too much acid in the 60s or too much pot in the parking lot at the fair.

The minute the show began our Dead-Head was on his feet (much to the chagrin of the family he was seated in front of) and rocking out to “I’d Wait a Million Years.” He proceeded to dance erratically to every song, at times threatening to topple over on the people in front of him. At one point he tired of the constraints of a mid-row seat and moved to the row overlooking the floor seats. From this new vantage point he could keep his glazed eyes on the band while simultaneously entertaining those of us near enough to see him and threatening to fall on top of unsuspecting floor seat occupants.

I did enjoy the Grass Roots but, I must say, the Dead-Head put on a much better show. His writhing dance movements and his awesome air guitar performances were MTV-worthy. In spite of repeated requests from Security to return to his seat, he continued to entertain until the final encore of “Midnight Confession.”

I am happy to report that the Grass Roots (or a bunch of guys who call themselves the Grass Roots) put on a great show, especially when they sang “Temptation Eyes” (second to last song), but perhaps the real show was in my section, performed by a guy who never left the 1960s.

Fall

2010-09-29T07:44:00.001-05:00

Fall is here. Since the first day of the fall season the weather has been convincing; the sky overcast, the temperatures lower, rainy days, and even the leaves are falling, as if on cue. The past week seemed choreographed just to convince me that fall is really here. The weather isn’t the only talisman of the changing season, there are many others.

My summer garden has shut down. Just like that, it has quit producing. The plants are spent. A lacy layer of dried pole bean vine covers almost everything, as if Mother Nature has thrown a tatted tablecloth over the whole garden to say, “Enough.” Dried spears of okra forbid entrance and yellowed tomato vines don’t have the energy to flower.

People are trading in short sleeves for long. Bare brown arms and legs exposed and glistening with summer sweat only a few weeks ago are now hidden behind veils of fabric. Perky pink toenails are no longer peeking out from strappy sandals, but locked inside pumps or loafers or sneakers. And no self-respecting southern woman would dream of wearing a white shoe after Labor Day.

I like fall. The distant sound of the high school band practicing for the football game. The crunch of dry leaves when I walk across my lawn. The odor of chimney smoke on a cool evening. The feel of a warm sweater across my shoulders. The taste of soups or stews seasoned with the last of the summer’s bounty – butternut squash or pumpkin. And there is the feel in the air, that promise of a slower pace. The world seems to be saying, “Take your time, look at me, see what I can do next.”

Hopefully, I will slow down and watch. I’ll watch the Virginia creeper on my backyard fence turn to a brilliant red. I’ll study the downward motion of a particular leaf as it makes its descent. I’ll look up and watch the flying “V” of the Canada Geese as they fill the sky in their migration. I’ll light a fire, I’ll sip red wine, I’ll put my feet up and say, “Don’t you just love this weather?” And then I’ll turn the air conditioning back on and pull out my sleeveless shirts and sandals because Mother Nature was just giving us a glimpse of fall. It will be one-hundred degrees again. I know there is still that Indian summer to come; it’s one of the things I know about living in west Texas.

RICE

2010-09-21T20:06:00.002-05:00

RICE = Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevate – the rules of treating a sprained ankle. I know this because I Googled “sprained ankle treatment” out of necessity. The treatment sounds simple, but let me tell you, from first-hand experience, it is harder than it seems.

Rest – Sounded great at first. I came home from work mid-afternoon on Friday after the unfortunate fall which resulted in THE sprained ankle and got into bed. A long afternoon nap followed by an early bedtime appeared luxurious, until the novelty wore off. Forty-eight hours after my injury (forty-four of those hours spent in bed) I am bored and ready to do something, anything, but rest.

Ice – Ice keeps the swelling down. Ice is also very, very cold. Ice is wonderful when shaken with vodka, but on one's foot it is not nearly as fun. Trying to position the ice pack on the outer side of one’s ankle is difficult, leaving it there for the prescribed twenty minutes is nearly impossible without visions of frostbite and the Byrd Expedition running through my head.

Compression – A simple ace bandage does this trick. This also keeps the swelling down as well as protecting the injured area. From the internet: “The wrap should be snug, but not cutting off circulation to the extremity. So, if your toes become cold, blue, or tingle – re-wrap!” Define “snug,” please! I spent the greater part of my waking hours comparing the color of the toes on my wrapped foot to the color of the toes on my other foot, and asking my husband, “Do they look blue to you?”

Elevate – Again, for the swelling. “A few pillows under the ankle should be fine to get the leg up enough while keeping the injured limb comfortable.” There is no such thing as comfortable! It is impossible to prop up one’s ankle without hyper-extending the knee. Another pillow under the knee helps, but every time I move I cause a pillow avalanche.

After all of this treatment my ankle is still sore, swollen, and bruised. I can’t walk without the aid of crutches and we are running out of ice. Surely this can’t last too much longer. I’m sure I’ll be fine just in time to return to work on Monday morning. What a way to spend the weekend.

Arggh...

2010-09-15T21:46:00.002-05:00

Don’t say it, bite my tongue, resist temptation, take the high road, leave the room. I am so tired of censoring myself while others voice opinions which I think are idiotic. I was raised to be nice, polite, sensitive to others’ feelings. Am I the only civil person left in the United States of America?

This is one of those times when I really, really miss my parents. My mother always knew the right thing to say (and it was from her I learned to be so accommodating), and my daddy always stood up for me, even when he disagreed with me. I need a champion.

But, I don't really want to be that person who doesn't bite her tongue, resist temptation, or take the high road. The person I am is the person whom my parents made. I will continue to bite my tongue, resist temptation, take the high road, leave the room. I owe it to them. Thanks, Mom and Dad for making me the person I am, even if I find it very frustrating at times.

This Summer Has Kicked My Butt

2010-09-12T14:23:00.001-05:00

In the last forty-eight hours I have worked twenty-one hours, skipped my writing time, begun a diet and an exercise plan, chewed someone out, threw a temper tantrum, developed a cold and had a cry-fest/pity-party. I have been a very busy girl. Last night I slept for twelve straight hours. I wonder if there is a correlation.

What a difference a day (or night) makes. I feel like a new person. I hope this feeling will last. My reality is – I can’t blame everything on the last forty-eight hours. This summer has kicked my butt. To use the cliché, I burned the candle at both ends, is not an understatement. My grueling summer was a result of necessity, choice, and circumstances beyond my control.

It was necessary to get up and go to work everyday, it was necessary to put in nine or ten hour days, it was necessary to work some six-day weeks, and it was necessary to do work beyond my physical capabilities in one-hundred degree weather. It was also necessary to keep my house in some semblance of order. I had to clean and do laundry and grocery shop and cook. I had to run errands and pay bills and balance my checkbook. I had to do the things necessary to maintain life as I know it.

It was my choice to put in a home garden which required me to get up a little earlier to tend. It was my choice to “have a life” – to spend evenings out with friends, to entertain, to attempt to be a good wife, mother and friend. It was my choice to say up too late reading and to get up too early to write. I chose to make some I-don’t-really-have-time-to-go trips to the lake cabin. And, most regrettably, I chose to waste time on facebook and in front of the television.

Then there were some things I had no control over. I had no control over others who unintentionally (or not) invaded my time or space. Well-meaning friends/neighbors whose “Do you have a minute?” or “Let me just tell you this one thing” sucked the life out of an entire evening. I have no control over my obligation to those I love. I am hard-wired that way. My one-hundred-three year old grandmother has been my closest friend since we were roommates in 1977 and this summer there were things out of my control because she is, well, because she is one-hundred-three years old. I have no control over the economy which has added a strain on my personal finances and added an impossible workload to my nonprofit organization. I have no control over the insane politics of the wackos who tire my patience daily. But perhaps the thing most out of my control is me. I can’t control that I am growing older. I am not twenty-one (or even 40) anymore. There are some things I can’t or shouldn’t do anymore. I shouldn’t lift an eighty pound bin of squash at the farm. I can’t stay up all night anymore (and still expect to be productive the next day). I can’t drink of fifth of tequila anymore – okay I never did that (no matter what anyone says), but you get my drift; age has changed the things I can and can’t do.

Twelve hours of sleep has made a dent in the damage done by the last forty-eight hours and by the summer. I feel so good I think I’ll take a nap!

Too Much of a Good thing

2010-09-08T21:28:00.000-05:00

I love good company, good food, and good drink, but there comes a time when enough is enough. My daughter, my son-in-law, my baby brother, his wife, their four children (my lovely nephews and niece), my big brother and his wife have all been visiting. A visit from family typically means too much food and too much wine – this visit was no exception. After three weeks of company and food and drink I am ready for an early bedtime, some yogurt for breakfast (and perhaps lunch), and a dinner which is limited to one course (preferably a vegetable course). I love my family dearly, but I am really looking forward to a bit of normalcy – at least for a couple of days.

Hospital Bed

2010-08-17T20:23:00.003-05:00

When I did this before it was different, it was quick; although, it didn’t feel that way at the time. But it was hurried. This is slower, a lot of waiting. The last time we went from diagnosis to radiation to hospital to hospice to funeral home. Of course there were stops between - last lunches at favorite restaurants, and a baby shower for a grandson she only caught a fleeting, drug induced glimpse of – but by standards, it was quick. Five months from diagnosis to death.

Of course she had to have known earlier, but not one to ruin a Christmas, she kept this news to herself. But this time is different. There is no diagnosis. Is old age a diagnosis? There is no textbook chronology to follow. We wait, we hope, we realize how ridiculous that appears at 103. What does it really mean to die of old age? We don’t know.

The latest development – a hospital bed; that was our joke thirty-five years ago, “When I get old, don’t put me in a nursing home. Set up a hospital bed right here in the dining room, so I can still keep tabs on my neighbors." The bed came today – but it is not in the dining room, macular degeneration prevents you from seeing the neighbors' comings and goings. (Probably a good thing, since child number 10 is now your neighbor – sorry, Steve.)

I didn’t stay to see how you’d take it - the hospital bed. The truth of the bed in your room replacing the bed you and Lewis shared, replacing the bed that you have slept in for fifty-plus years, was more than I could bear. Instead of accepting what the hospital bed means, I choose to dwell on your sense of humor. When asked this morning, by Mary, “How do you feel today, Mother?” You replied, “I feel like I was called for, but wouldn’t do.”

That’s the spirit. That’s my Big Red. That’s what I choose to accept. No hospital bed can diminish that spirit.

Monday Morning Regrets

2010-08-16T07:56:00.002-05:00

Monday morning. I am not ready to go back to work today. I didn’t quite have enough weekend. There are a few things I intended to accomplish that didn’t get done, like my toenails and the refrigerator. I really wanted a pedicure and I really need to clean out the refrigerator. I know there is a bowl of sliced cucumbers in vinegar that should be tossed. It has been in there three-plus weeks and every time I open the door I smell the cucumber-infused vinegar (it actually smells pretty good, but I’m not brave enough to uncover the bowl). I only made a small dent in the pile of ironing and I neglected the fallen green bean teepee in my garden. My home office is a disaster of unfinished projects and I’m only halfway through the Dewey Decimal System in my home library undertaking.

These and so many other things left undone would lead one to think I did nothing all weekend, but I was busy from the time I walked through my front door on Friday evening until late Sunday night. How could I have been so busy and yet still have so much to do? And I’m not even counting the things I know I should be doing – the things every woman’s magazine at every check out lane in every grocery store in the country makes one feel guilty about not accomplishing:

Exercising – Wow, I really need to think about this and hopefully, actually get back into some sort of routine, but it would have taken a minimum of one hour each day, and I swear to you there were no hours left.

Meditating – A few serene moments of nothingness, a mind purge, would have done me good, I know – but no time.

Volunteering in my Community – I know I’m suppose to do this. I work for a non-profit organization and see first-hand everyday how important volunteering is, but how in the world do these people find the time is what I don’t understand.

Walk the Dogs – I am embarrassed to admit I did not walk the dogs this weekend. Does that make me an irresponsible pet owner? It was too darn hot and there was that time thing again. (I did however, play a rousing game of fetch with them in the backyard on Saturday night.)

Speaking of Saturday night, another thing I neglected was: My Social Life – I guess you can figure that one out on your own if you paid any attention to the parenthetical sentence above.

I did not shave my legs, color my hair, pluck my eyebrows, or moisturize my skin. I didn’t even put on makeup all weekend. Just so you don’t think I’m a total slob, I did shower and wash my hair.

I did not clean my house or write my blog, which were on the top of the To-Do List I painstakingly made on Saturday morning. What did I do, you are surely wondering at this point.

I watered my garden, I shelled a bushel of black-eyed peas, I drank a little wine, I talked to both daughters on the telephone, I watched a movie, I worked on a writing assignment, I stayed up too late catching up on facebook, I harvested and cooked a pot of green beans from my garden, I went to the farmers’ market, I did a few loads of laundry, I went to the grocery store, I canned ten quarts of jalapeno peppers, I invented a recipe and cooked all of the squash, eggplant, onions, garlic, tomatoes and peppers from last week’s harvest, I drank a little more wine, I ate chocolate, I sat under the chandelier in the garden (see blog dated June 12, 2010) with my husband, I drank coffee and read the Sunday newspaper and did the crossword puzzle in bed, I did not go to church, but did listen to a sermon online by my dear friend Fawn (you can see it too, at: http://www.echristchurch.org/templates/System/details.asp?id=42525&PID=638046),
I finished a writing assignment, I visited relatives at my grandmother’s house, I harvested okra, I got mosquito bites, I got a bit of ironing done, I watched another movie, I microwaved leftovers, and I finished reading a novel. All-in-all I had an enjoyable and fairly productive weekend. If I only had one more day, I’m sure I could find time to meditate.

Oops, We Did it Again

2010-08-03T21:16:00.001-05:00

We did it again. Approximately thirty of my sorority sisters and I morphed into our eighteen-year-old-selves for the reunion weekend. We have discovered our Fountain of Youth. It only lasts for about thirty-six hours once a year, but that is enough for us; we’ll take it. The transformation from fifty-something to eighteen happens the minute one walks through the door of our log country cabin. Squeals of recognition, hugs, tears, and laughter are the tonic.

Women arrive on Friday evening made up, coiffed, and dressed to the nines, unsure about fitting in – “Will I know anyone?” “Will they remember me?” Soon, Fawn’s laugher fills the room, Johanna’s southern accent caresses our ears, and we are back in the sorority house, and it is 1975. Someone has disco music booming from an I-Pod (my, how technology has changed), scrapbooks and Kodachrome snapshots are spread out on every surface, and beer, wine and tequila begin to flow – SPLASH, someone falls (or is pushed or jumps) into the swimming pool. We are all eighteen.

We’ve seen divorce, and illness, and death. We’ve seen marriages, and births, and graduations. We discuss diets, and hair color, and wrinkle cream. By Saturday morning no one bothers to put on make up or fix their hair. We are who we are. We are eighteen year old college girls. We can see past the thirty years, we can see through the wrinkles and the under eye puffiness to the real person.

On Sunday we hug and cry. It is time to go back, back to the world of responsibilities where we are fifty-something, a bit overweight, and where we see a colorist on a regular basis. But we each take with us the memory of that eighteen year old and perhaps we will laugh a little more, or fall into a swimming pool this year, while we await our next appointment with our Fountain of Youth. See you next year, girls.

Same Time Next Year

2010-07-29T18:37:00.001-05:00

My third annual college sorority reunion is this weekend. We waited thirty years before we organized our first get-together in 2008, at which time we vowed to meet every year, and wondered why we hadn’t thought of this sooner.

Aside from the obvious (getting to see old friends), the magic of the weekend is the transformation of fifty-something year old women into eighteen year old college coeds. Who wouldn’t want to be eighteen again for a weekend? But, alas, we are not eighteen. We are grown women with families and jobs and responsibilities. We have aging and infirm parents, we have unrelenting job schedules, we have children and husbands depending on us, and a plethora of other demands on our time.

Sadly, there will be some friends unable to attend this year, but there is next year, and the year after, and so on. We are a determined group of women; determined to stand by our friends through illness or loss, through injury or a son’s deployment, and even through death. We will buoy each other’s spirits as we face whatever life has to throw at us, knowing that we will have next year.

So, to my friends who cannot make it this weekend – know that you will be with us in our hearts. We will raise a glass to you, we will miss you, and we will see you next year.

Health Care

2010-07-26T20:13:00.000-05:00

I’m not feeling well today. What became of the old practice, written about in Jane Austen novels, and seen in old 1940s movies, of sending people away to the country or seaside to convalesce? I am in dire need of a “rest.” I promise if sent away for “my health” I would do nothing but watch the tide come in. I wonder if there is any way I can get this old practice into a healthcare plan. I am certain my HMO wouldn’t go for it. Bother.

About that Hall Closet

2010-07-14T20:30:00.003-05:00

I just looked back through my blog to see when I last wrote about the hall closet – it was May 20th. I have slowly been organizing books in the new library, the former hall closet, and even more slowly trying to deal with all of the other “stuff” that once called the hall closet home. You may recall that when my husband decided to transform the closet into a library for me he moved everything (everything!) into Daughter #1’s bedroom, which is now our guest room. I have been procrastinating, as usual, and haven’t really found a new home for much of the “stuff.”

One of the big problems, aside from the sheer quantity, is the sentimental value attached to so much of the crap I own. There have been days when I really-truly wanted to tackle the job, but all I could do was stand in the doorway and stare at the boxes of my mother’s china, my husband’s grandmother’s crystal, and other assorted heirlooms. But, horrors, we are having guests! One week from tomorrow I will have actual houseguests, who will expect to sleep in an actual guest room. My procrastinating days are over. Today I made a dent in the “stuff.”

I opened one box to discover a zillion (okay, maybe 25) milk glass punch cups, each carefully wrapped in white packing paper. These belonged to my mother and they go with the milk glass punch bowl I remember so well from my childhood. But, where is the punch bowl? Since my lack of memory cells is well documented, I called my sister to see if she recalled where the punch bowl was relegated after Mother died. Nope, she had no idea. After discussing, at length, the insanity of keeping a zillion milk glass punch cups which I will never use (I’m sure I would still never use them even if I had the punchbowl!), she gave me permission to get rid of the punch cups. What a feeling that permission gave me. Knowing she saw the absurdity of hanging on to the cups just for sentimental reasons, and validating my desire to ditch them was a wonderful gift from my sweet sister, a gift which takes up no space in my closet or home.

But then I brought up Mother’s milk glass pitcher and goblets. When my sister “aahed” and said, “Oh, I remember those always being on the hutch in the dining room,” I knew I would be keeping them. The punch cups were not on display for the duration of our parents’ married lives.

But there was still the dilemma of what to do with boxes and boxes of “heirlooms.” I am rather proud of myself for coming up with an ingenious solution to my storage problem. The boxes are an eyesore – ugly grocery and liquor boxes with yellowed masking tape holding them together, there is no way I can put them back into my newly painted library and there is nowhere else to store them. Keeping them in the guest room is no longer an option. The solution:

I selected several rolls of nice wrapping paper that coordinate with the new paint color and I am wrapping all of the heirlooms. I am even putting gift tags on them, labeling the contents of each box. I have effectively solved my storage problem and I’ve also had a really good laugh, thinking about the day when my daughters or grandchildren discover the “presents” I have left them. Then it will be their problem to decide whether or not to get rid of the family heirlooms. Maybe milk glass will see a resurgence in popularity or be worth something by then.

Donna

2010-07-13T20:48:00.001-05:00

I received the news today.
How can it be?
We were eighteen.
Your white-blonde hair,
your Virginia Slims cigarettes.
You were a wounded bird even then.

Oh, the fun we had.
Products of a southern upbringing,
yours more southern than mine,
complete with a propensity for the “unique.”
Dear God, you were unique.

We shared more than the south.
Our best friend, Kat,
and double dates.
We shared late night confessions,
you introduced me to your demons.
We were sisters.

Truth be told,
we lost you long ago.
We lost you, you lost us.
I hear Don gave you your world back,
a family (what we tried to give you),
surely better than those college boys.

Your laughter, your life, your light
all gone. All hidden forever,
behind the smoke of your Virginia Slims,
your blonde hair, your fractured beauty.
Southern Comfort, empty now,
but not our hearts.

We hold you dear,
like that long, long road a winding
that we’ve heard about.
We will see you again,
raise a glass, laugh.
We love you, Trixie.

Happy Birthday Mom

2010-07-06T06:21:00.001-05:00

Today would have been my mother’s 77th birthday. It is difficult to believe she has been gone for 20 years. It is difficult to believe she died at age 57. I am almost that age and I feel that my life is just beginning. There is a world of adventure and fun I am still looking forward to.

The catch-phrase these days is “bucket list.” I don’t have a bucket list. What I do have is a very vivid imagination. I see myself, one day, as a very old woman (my maternal grandmother is 103, surely I have some of her longevity genes swimming around somewhere in my body). I see myself surrounded by family – children, grands and greats. And, I’m still destined to live in a quaint, secluded beach house on a beautiful shoreline.

The things my mother missed I will get to experience for both of us. Retirement – days with my husband, traveling to all of those places. Doing all of those things that were postponed because raising children took priority. I will read all of the books she never got to. I will tend the garden she never saw. I will see my grandchildren born, graduate from college, marry, and present me with great-grandchildren.

I will one day bury my grandmother, and one day, when I am very, very old, and have lived a long full life, my children and grandchildren will spread my ashes along my favorite stretch of beach and remark what a full life I was fortunate to lead.

I’ll do it for us both, Mom. Happy birthday.

Oh, The Places I'll Go

2010-07-03T10:21:00.001-05:00

Where do you go, or what do you do to hide from the world, to hide from your life? Do you turn off the phone, the computer, draw the curtains, ignore the doorbell, or leave town? Perhaps you send the kids to Nana’s, tell your husband to go play golf while you schedule a pedicure or go shopping?

I have several ploys. I hide in my garden – if it’s not too hot (and if there are not too many mosquitoes). Or, I might cook – if I have someone to clean up behind me. Retail therapy sometimes works, but really, I don’t need a thing. My favorite escape is a book, but, for reasons which I can trace back to my early childhood, I usually feel guilty when I hide away in a good read. Today the planets must be in alignment, because, as the Magic Eight Ball from my youth would indicate from its little triangle floating in that orb of black liquid, “all signs point to yes.” I’m at the lake cabin where there are no household chores to be performed and it is overcast and rainy. In other words – it is a perfect day to stay in my pajamas and hide out in a book. No guilt! There is absolutely nothing else I should/could be doing.

For the rest of today, and perhaps for the remainder of the holiday weekend (the weather forecast is calling for more of the same) I am on vacation from my life. I love the magic of books. Who will I be, where will I go? Alice McDermott’s bigamist’s daughter, or in Clifton, Arizona in 1904 witnessing the great orphan abduction or maybe in Carson McCullers’ south losing myself in her short stories? My destinations are endless as I sit on the couch, watching the rain bounce off of the deck, with books spread around me like alternate universes awaiting exploration.

I’m off, safe travels to me. I’ll be in touch when I return.

The First Tomato

2010-06-26T14:05:00.003-05:00

Hallelujah, tomato season has officially begun at my house. The fist tomato of the season is a cause for celebration and the ceremonial eating of the tomato. With great fanfare the tomato was sliced, positioned on toasted whole wheat bread slathered with mayonnaise, a little sea salt, and fresh cracked black pepper. Let the eating commence.

Coke and Kumbaya

2010-06-23T16:48:00.001-05:00

This blog entry is in no way meant to support the Coca Cola Company, but I have to say, I think they were on to something with their “I’d like to buy the world a Coke” advertising campaign. I am growing so tired and frustrated and sad by all of the negativity in the world, and especially here in the good old U. S. of A. The blatant disrespect for our Country’s leaders, the hate-mongering, the thinly-veiled bigotry, and outright meanness is, to borrow a circa 1970 phrase, “really bringing me down, man.”

In the 1970s, when my siblings and I were teens and not getting along, the threat my mother made was, “I’m going to make you kids hold hands and sing Kumbaya.” She never actually followed through with the “punishment,” but we got her point and understood she meant for us to remember we loved each other and it was high time we started acting like it.

Buying the world a Coke is the same concept. Why can’t we all just get along, hold hands, drink a Coke (or beverage of your choice), and sing Kumbaya? In my opinion, that sounds wonderful. I can almost hear the birds chirping and see the butterflies and bunnies in this new, magical existence. But, sadly, there will always be those who are too mean and/or narrow-minded to offer their fellow man a Coke (or a glass of water). Too bad my mom is no longer with us. She’d tell them to hold hands and sing, and this time she’d probably follow through with her threat.

Father's Day

2010-06-20T10:00:00.002-05:00

Father’s Day and Mother’s Day are bittersweet for me since my parents are no longer living. I had the good fortune to be born into a loving family, with parents who nurtured and encouraged me in everything I did. I had the double good fortune to marry a man who continued the love, nurturing and encouragement with me and with our two daughters. I don’t forget for one minute how lucky I am.

In honor of all of the fathers and in memory of my father, I am sharing one of my favorite stories about my dad.

Winter Coat

When I was a child my mother had agoraphobia. A little fact I didn’t become aware of until I was an adult and one of my aunts mentioned it matter-of-factly in a passing conversation. Well now, that certainly explained some things – like why she rarely left the house. I just thought it was normal for my father to do the grocery shopping and take us to the mall to buy school clothes. Mother’s phobia was not too severe, because she attended Mass every Sunday with the family, and would go out with my father. I think she was just anxious about venturing out on her own with four children in a big, unfamiliar city.

One year, when it was time for me to have a new winter coat (I’m sure my arms were at least four inches too long for the sleeves on the current one), my father took me downtown to a big department store to shop. This was unheard of. We lived in the suburbs and shopped at the mall. I had never even been downtown, that involved driving on the freeways, a task that my mother couldn’t comprehend. The freeways were my daddy’s domain. He rose early every morning and carpooled to the office with other men from his company. But unheard of or not, here we were on a Saturday morning making the trek downtown to buy me a winter coat, just me and Dad.

I have no recollection of the department store or even of selecting and purchasing the coat, a camel colored wool, which I still have. My memory of that day is of driving down the skyscraper-shaded streets of downtown, passing a huge public transportation bus and of seeing an old, sad, rheumy-eyed gentleman in a dark, too large suit, searching his palm for change to board the bus. That image has stayed with me as long as my camel-colored coat. It was, and is the saddest image I have ever seen in my life. That elderly man reached out and grabbed my heart. I hurt for him because he was alone, I wanted to help him select the right coins and take his arm and gently help him onto the bus. I wanted to sit with him and make sure he got to his destination. I looked at my father to see if he had seen the old man. Daddy was waiting for the light to turn green, but I know he noticed because the old man, in his dark suit, white shirt and fedora, could have been my father’s father, my grandfather. In an instant we drove past him and all that was left was his sad image permanently etched on my heart.

That event was over forty years ago. Mother is gone, Daddy followed her two years later, but the man from the bus stop is still here, along with my memories of my father who never let on that it was out of the ordinary to take me shopping for a winter coat.

Gimcrackery

2010-06-12T19:18:00.002-05:00

gimcrackery n 1: ornamental objects of no great value [syn: folderal, falderol, frill, gimcrackery, gimcrack, nonsense, trumpery]
The word above is from today’s “Do I Really Want to Increase My Vocabulary” Blog http://doireallywanttoincreasemyvocabulary.blogspot.com/2010/06/gimcrackery.html
I decided to write this blog about gimcrackery because a friend of mine, after his first visit to my home, was shocked by the amount of gimcrackery I own.
The following day he emailed me this:
A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg
congeries
PRONUNCIATION:
(kon-JEER-eez, KON-juh-reez)
MEANING:
noun: A collection of miscellaneous things.
ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin congeries (heap), from congerere (to heap up), from con- (with) + gerere (to carry).
USAGE:
"What an unsightly congeries of mismatched assets the McGuinty government seems to have in mind."

In the same email he requested the web address for my “congeries” blog. I gave him the website of this dear blog and I haven’t heard from him since. This leads me to believe he is either (a) still reading about all of my stuff/gimcrackery/congeries, or (b) he is horrified and has decided he no longer wants to associate with me. Oh, well – back to purging my gimcrackery, or at least writing about it.

Excuses, excuses!

2010-06-09T21:34:00.003-05:00

I have not blogged in a while because I have been very busy at work and at home working in my garden. You can see from the picture below that I have quite a bit of activity going on in my raised bed and in my container garden.

But the really exciting news is - I now have a chandelier in my garden! I am certain this will make everything grow much better.

I'll let you know.

Holiday Cooking

2010-05-30T14:12:00.003-05:00

On a day when most everyone I know is gorging themselves on bar-b-qued everything – brisket, ribs, chicken, pork chops, hamburgers – I am working on two new things in my life, being a vegetarian and trying to eat “local.” I don’t miss the meat, but I did want to prepare a special meal for the holiday weekend, and I did want to incorporate the local ingredient I got from the farm this week – kale. This is what I came up with, and it was so delicious I didn’t even mind the smell of the steaks on the grill next door.

Black Bean and Kale Soup

1 pound dried black beans
Olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
4 ribs celery, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
1 teaspoon fresh thyme
1 ½ teaspoons chili powder
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
¼ teaspoon allspice
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 cup sliced carrots
12 ounces kale, cut into bite-size pieces
1 cup fresh orange juice

Rinse beans and soak overnight. Sauté onion and celery in small amount of olive oil until soft, add garlic and ginger and cook for one minute more. Add soaked, drained beans, 7 cups of water, thyme, chili powder, cayenne pepper, allspice, and nutmeg. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer approximately 2 hours or until beans are tender, if necessary add boiling water to beans. When beans are tender, add carrots and kale. Simmer until carrots and kale are tender. Add orange juice before serving.

P.S. I also had a sampling of the potato salad referenced in yesterday’s blog. (Okay, it was more than a sampling! And it was as good as the stranger said it would be.)

It's in the Air

2010-05-29T09:14:00.003-05:00

At our small lake community the atmosphere is different from “in town.” The very air is changed; it doesn’t feel charged with too much activity and too much indifference. So, I really shouldn’t have been surprised when a total stranger approached my next door neighbor and me, as we were enjoying a glass of wine on the back porch last evening, to ask my neighbor, “Are you the lady who made the potato salad for X and X’s bar-b-que last week?”

It turned out she was indeed the potato salad maker, and it was the best potato salad the stranger had ever eaten, and it just so happens he’s having a bar-b-que this weekend, and if she’d write down all the ingredients he’ll bring ‘em by in the morning, and now she’s making the potato salad for the stranger’s bar-b-que.

That’s how things happen here. I really should not have been surprised. I think it is something about the air.

Short Week

2010-05-28T22:41:00.001-05:00

Wow - 2 short weeks - back to back. I am back at the lake, a long weekend followed by a long weekend. How awesome. I intend to DO NOTHING. I will try to blog about that, if I can break out of the "Do Nothing" mode.

The First Harvest

2010-05-26T21:01:00.002-05:00

At the farm we have been harvesting all spring. Things like lettuce and greens, strawberries and snow peas. But in my small backyard garden things have not been so prolific. Yesterday I saw the first fruit of my labor; yesterday I had the first backyard garden harvest of the season. So what if it wasn’t much. I proudly carried it into the house, washed it as tenderly as I would a newborn babe, and then admired it and showed it off to my husband. I even photographed it. When my husband reminded me that I should eat it, I sliced it into tiny rounds and savored each peppery bite (I even shared with husband). It may not have been much of a harvest, but it was the best radish I’ve ever eaten!

The Hammock

2010-05-25T06:30:00.003-05:00

From my perch in the hammock I have a beautiful view of the lake or of the leafy tree and sky overhead, depending on my position. I take the necessary supplies with me – a bottle of water, a couple of books, a pen and a notebook. I climb into the woven cocoon suspended between two cottonwood trees and feel as if I am floating. A gentle breeze blows the last of spring’s coolness over me as I read and sway until I am overcome with a drowsiness which tears me from my novel in favor of a nap.

Eyes closed I can see the red negative outline of the lake on the inside of my eyelids. The color gradually fades until it all but disappears and I forget where I am, imagining instead that I am on a raft in the sea or on a magic carpet flying through imaginary air. A bird calls and I awake with a start, remembering where I am.

I smile and return to my book. Life is good here in my hammock.

Remember the Hall Closet

2010-05-20T21:33:00.002-05:00

If you have read this blog for any time at all you probably recall the hall closet, a.k.a. – the bane of my existence. The hall closet is second only to the garage in clutter and scariness. I have put off the hall closet project for months and months and months. I would still be procrastinating, but my husband has other ideas. My husband is turning the hall closet into a library for me. We saw this picture in a magazine and because our hall closet is approximately the same size he thought it would be an easy project.

I am so excited about this. I have always wanted a “home” for my books, a place where they could be organized, maybe even employing the Dewey Decimal System. Right now we have books in every room in the house. Every bookshelf in the house has books double layered in each shelf. I have no idea what books I actually own, because it has been years since I have seen some of them. So, yes, I want a home library. There is just one little problem – where in the hell do I put all of the “stuff” that was in the hall closet?

Stay tuned - while my husband is painting I will be finding a new home for my closet "stuff."

Where's the Beef?

2010-05-19T20:42:00.002-05:00

I just returned from my weekly family dinner, Wednesday Winers, with my grandmother, aunt, uncles, daughter and husband. We began this weekly tradition several years ago and it is one of the highlights of my week. However, having dinner with family or friends has taken on a new complexity since I decided to quit eating meat. I gave up meat for Lent this year and by the time Easter rolled around I decided I wasn’t ready to go back to being a carnivore just yet. My issue is with the industry, not the animal. If I think about how beef, pork, chicken and even seafood are farmed, and slaughtered for food production I lose my appetite. For years I’ve done my best NOT to think about it, but oddly, after my hiatus from eating animals I’ve given it more thought than ever. I am amazed at the cavalier attitude I’ve had toward my food. I am a fairly educated person, I garden in my backyard without chemicals, I support the “buy local” movement (when convenient), and I do realize the real cost of cheap food – except I never really followed through with what I knew to be the right thing for me to do.

I haven’t joined PETA (yet), but I do support the SPCA. I still wear leather shoes and carry a leather purse, but I prefer not to ingest an animal that was raised and slaughtered in inhumane and quite frankly, gross and yucky conditions.

Am I a vegetarian? Well, not exactly. Last week I had a hamburger. It was not made from ground beef purchased at my grocery store, and it was certainly not from a fast food restaurant. It was from a local beef producer who uses no chemicals or antibiotics. The animals are raised humanely and slaughtered (yes, I realize they are still k-i-l-l-e-d) by a small local processor. In my opinion, this is better. Was the burger good? It was okay. Will I have another burger anytime soon? Probably not. The truth is – I don’t really miss meat. I prefer my vegetarian menu. I love beans and pastas and soy and grains and eggs and cheese. I am still eating eggs and cheese and I am also eating some wild, not farm-raised, seafood.

Have I felt deprived? Not at all. And here we are with the summer’s garden bounty upon us. What a great time give up meat!

Our Lady of Perpetual Dishwater

2010-05-17T14:27:00.001-05:00

“Is this my mother who doesn’t blog,” asked Daughter #1 on the telephone last night. She continued to tell me how disappointed she was to find no new blog entries when she finally had time to catch up with her blog reading following her finals. So, apologies to anyone else who may have missed the blog. I have excellent excuses, which I promise I’ll keep to myself. I’m hereby setting a goal of blogging at least three times a week, so feel free to check back in. Maybe I’ll even write about cleaning my house – but that’s just a “maybe” not a goal.

Having taken some time away from blogging I am able to see, once again, that I am pretty far off of the original mark. When I began this blog and gave it such an awesome and catchy moniker, I really did intend to write abut cleaning house and how it related to my life story. My mother was a fun-loving, outgoing, beautiful woman, but she was also one dedicated housekeeper – so, many of my memories of her and of my formative years are associated with a very clean house. Even though I am the rebel child when it comes to following the example set by my mother when it comes to being a “housewife,” there are still a few ingrained lessons which are difficult to ignore.

Just yesterday, after washing up the lunch dishes before leaving the lake house, I swear to God these words came out of my mouth: “It’s a shame to waste all of this hot, soapy dishwater. Too bad there isn’t something else to clean.” I then had to explain to my shocked friend that I was channeling my mother, who at one time we dubbed “Our Lady of Perpetual Dishwater.”

My mother always had a sink full of hot, soapy dishwater and she wasn’t afraid to use it. From the time she woke up until the time she went to bed there were always suds in the sink ready to serve my mother’s every cleaning desire. One could hardly finish a drink or a plate of food before the dish was whisked away, washed, dried, and returned to the cupboard. (And we had an electric dishwasher!) Our countertops glistened, our appliances sparkled and no dirty pot or pan was allowed to soak overnight in her kitchen.

In my kitchen I am thrilled if I remember to soak the pans – it saves me from having to bring out a chisel when I’m ready to clean. I use my dishwasher daily, but on the occasion when I do run the tap until it steams and squirt in a copious amount of Ivory Liquid I always say a little prayer of thanks to “Our Lady of Perpetual Dishwater,” my mother, for teaching me how to do it right, even if I rarely follow her example.

Leaving Las Vegas

2010-04-21T21:42:00.001-05:00

My husband and I had a long weekend in Las Vegas. We arrived on Friday and returned home on Monday evening. That was about three days too long. We went for a special gathering with some of my high school classmates and I was very excited about reuniting with them and reliving our glory days. Vegas is a destination we have long enjoyed for its never-ending bacchanalian party, the constant stream of “interesting” people to watch, and the cheap drinks and food. One of us has changed – either I have become more discerning or Vegas has undergone a major transformation.

As Robert Earl Keen so brilliantly states, “The road goes on forever and the party never ends.” But, I’d like my road to be a tad bit shorter and for the party to stop at a reasonable hour. I cannot believe I am about to admit this, but - I can only take so much hell raising and then I would like to go rest for a while. My feet hurt, I needed to remove my contact lenses due to all of the second hand smoke, and I was just plain t-i-r-e-d. I tried, I really did try, but I just couldn’t stay up until the wee hours of the morning drinking and gambling and hanging with my friends. If memory serves, I don’t think they were up for the late nights either. At one point my husband looked at me, asked if I was having fun. I couldn’t lie – I said, “No,” and we called it a day.

Oh, my God – the crowds. I thought America was experiencing a recession, but someone forgot to tell the zillions of people crowding the streets and casinos of Las Vegas. And the noise, there was nowhere I could go to escape the constant drone of humanity mixed with machinery. From the United Nations mix of languages on every street corner and in my hotel corridor to the ding-ding-ding of the slot machines there was no escaping the sounds. Even in the confines of my over-priced hotel room I could hear the conversations of every guest and every hotel worker who passed my door. I craved silence. On more than one occasion I asked myself why I hadn’t spent this vacation money on a trip to a secluded beach.

And spend money we did. There is no such thing as a “cheap” meal in Las Vegas anymore. We used to enjoy some nice dinners for reasonable prices while visiting the casinos – but no more. Now every restaurant boasts a big name, celebrity chef which apparently means they have the right to charge $57 for a plate of butternut squash ravioli. Let’s not forget the alcohol – I certainly didn’t. I did however, end up paying $12 to $17 for a glass of mediocre red wine. The same mediocre red wine I can buy for less than $12 a bottle at the grocery store. The cutesy little cocktail waitresses on the casino floor brought me several glasses of wine for only a meager tip, but once I sipped it I was afraid I would wake up blind the next morning and so I opted to continue on with the overpriced mediocre red. (Note to self: If I ever open a winery I should call my wines Mediocre Red, and Mediocre White.)

All-in-all I was not sad to leave Las Vegas. The highlight of the trip was seeing old friends and reminiscing about our high school days. Thanks guys for making the trip worthwhile. As far as I’m concerned what happens in Vegas can certainly stay in Vegas – I sure don’t want to take it home with me.

The Five-and-Dime

2010-04-14T22:04:00.001-05:00

I write more than just this one blog, I have a blog called: http://doireallywanttoincreasemyvocabulary.blogspot.com/
It is a much easier blog to write; therefore I post more often to it. Tonight when I was selecting a word for the vocabulary blog I came across the word “five-and-dime.” Selecting that as my word for today reminded me that I have long wanted to write something about the dime store my sister, brothers, and I frequented as children when visiting my grandparent’s house in Tyler, Texas. The store was called Perry’s and it was on the block behind my grandparent’s home. We walked out of their back door (slamming the screen door), across the Saint Augustine grass-covered back yard, through the creosote alley, alongside a neighbor’s garage, crossing a street and finally arriving at the magical five-and-dime store. We were really young when allowed to make the trek alone – something my adult mind has a hard time accepting, but it was one of the highlights of visiting our east Texas grandparents.

As soon as we arrived at our ancestral home we began begging our parents and/or grandparents for money to go to Perry’s. As soon as the car was unloaded and Daddy had poured himself a highball he would give us his pocket change (usually supplemented with coins from my MaMaw’s coin purse) and send us on our way to the magical emporium known as the “10-cent-store.” Even in the 1960s I doubt there was much we could purchase for a dime, but we perused the aisles like any discriminating shopper, trying to make the most of our money.

I can vividly recall some of the purchases made at Perry’s. There were wooden paddle-ball racquets with elastic strings which usually broke before I could get the rhythm of the game, balsa wood airplanes, plastic faux Barbie dolls, and sets of marbles and jacks. My siblings and I horded our new toys and plotted how to trade with each other as soon as the novelty wore off (or as soon as we broke ours).

All too soon I graduated to Cutex nail polish and Tangee orange lipstick. It wasn’t long before the allure of the Perry’s five-and-dime wore off. I was too sophisticated at thirteen to beg my parents for pocket change to buy cheap goods from the dime store.

How I miss those simple days. How I long to go back to Perry’s and browse the aisles for little treats. It was such a small, simple pleasure, but one that doesn’t exist anymore. Oh, sure, I might get a small thrill when I find a really interesting item at the Dollar Store, but nothing can compare to the childhood pleasure of selecting my own merchandise and spending money without adult supervision that I felt on those long ago days at Perry’s.

I feel sorry for the children who will never know that feeling, the feeling of being a bona fide consumer. I don’t think the Mega-Store, Wal-Mart experience can bring the same exhilaration. There are no longer store clerks willing to wait on a child with only a quarter to spend, no longer store clerks willing to make a child’s solo shopping experience one they will recall forty years later with such nostalgia.

Thank you Perry’s for giving me such grand memories and thank you Daddy for giving me your pocket change.

Nice People

2010-04-13T22:50:00.003-05:00

Any time my husband accompanies me to an event he comments on the quality of folk I know. Yep, he is right. I know a lot of great people. It is sometimes awesome to be me. Thanks to my friends for making my life so great. I love you all.

House of Cards

2010-04-12T21:45:00.001-05:00

I think my life is like a house of cards (or maybe like the plate twirling acts on the Ed Sullivan Show). Over the years I’ve become adept at the construction – multiple stories made from multiple decks of cards, but lately I feel as if I’ve maxed out my building capabilities. One more card and the whole shebang will come tumbling down. As it is, I feel like some cards are beginning to slip and I’m working extra hard to shore up my house of cards.

The majority of the cards are face cards, but instead of the Jack, Queen, and King looking at me, I see the faces of my friends, family, co-workers, and clients. I see the face of illness, the face of death, and the face of demand. And every one of them is yelling at me to hurry up, do more, be better.

One more card and it is all going to topple. What will that card be? I’ve recently added the most likeable card to the repertoire – gardening. It is a seasonal card, but one I enjoy. I hope I can find a place for it among the other cards without bringing down the house. We shall see.

Epiphany

2010-04-03T21:42:00.002-05:00

Epiphany:
Merriam-Webster’s collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition (2003)
epiphany noun (plural -nies) Etymology: Middle English epiphanie, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin epiphania, from Late Greek, plural, probably alteration of Greek epiphaneia appearance, manifestation, from epiphainein to manifest, from epi- + phainein to show Date: 14th century 1. capitalized January 6 observed as a church festival in commemoration of the coming of the Magi as the first manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles or in the Eastern Church in commemoration of the baptism of Christ 2. an appearance or manifestation especially of a divine being 3. a. (1) a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something (2) an intuitive grasp of reality through something (as an event) usually simple and striking (3) an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure b. a revealing scene or moment

I had an epiphany (see definition 3 above) of sorts at my grandmother’s house this past week. Until that moment my mindset was “let’s fix this,” much as it was after my mother, Carol, was diagnosed with lung cancer. On my first trip home, after receiving mother’s medical news, I arrived like gangbusters, ready to take on the entire Houston, Texas medical community to find a cure for my mother. I passionately and positively roused the rest of the troops (family) and convinced them all that a cure was in the cards for Carol Louise Owen Primo because we were special, we were blessed, we were determined. Four months later, when the battle was over and Carol was gone and hindsight was focusing in on twenty-twenty, I realized I was wrong. If I could repeat my mother’s final four months I would arrive at her house a kinder, gentler daughter to enjoy our last days at home with the help of pain killers instead of in the hospital undergoing procedures and pain. I can’t blame her doctors, they all fell in love with my mother and wanted to cure her with the same vigor that her family was demonstrating. No one knew when it was time to accept fate.

I found myself in the same “champion of the sick” mode when I entered my grandmother’s bedroom to make her get out of bed, to make her go to the surgeon’s office so we could find a way to cure her. I quickly remembered that no one can make my 103-year old grandmother do anything.

When I saw her frail-bird body lying under the fluffy down comforter, and when she politely, yet firmly, told me “No,” it came upon me, as an epiphany, that she was right. She did not have to get up from her soft, warm cocoon of a bed. She did not have to do anything. All of the frantic energy I was focusing into finding medical help for her ebbed. I lay down beside her, felt the softness and warmth she was wrapped up in and realized she was still the leader of our family, still in charge in spite of her frailty. I was at peace.

The term “quality of life” is much tossed about when a person has died of cancer after grueling months of chemotherapy and radiation. I have rarely heard the same term used when talking about old age and illness. What is quality of life at 103? I think it is staying at home and staying in bed as late as you wish – warm and snuggly under the covers. It is eating what you want, when you want. It is having your family around you to minister tender loving care. It is knowing you are loved and respected and held in esteem. It is when everyone around you allows you the dignity you have earned during your long life. It is calling your own shots and making your own decisions.

I am proud my grandmother is enjoying such immense quality of life at her age. I am sorry Carol didn’t have the same opportunity, I hope I will.

Yawn

2010-04-02T20:39:00.002-05:00

Tired, very tired. I have not been sleeping well and feel that I am suffering from sleep deprivation. I can’t think straight, my work is suffering, my house is a mess, and I am a wreck.

Sleep, I need sleep.

I wrote those words yesterday. What a difference a night makes, a night of sleep. With the help of a much-touted pharmaceutical wonder I was able to get NINE hours of sleep last night. I can’t remember when (if ever) I’ve slept for nine hours. I awoke feeling refreshed and rejuvenated, ready to tackle all of the work I haven’t had the energy to pursue of late.

That energetic feeling lasted about an hour and I reverted to my normal self, but oh-well, at least I’m rested. Sleeping felt so good I think I’ll give it another try tonight, but without the prescription sleep aid. I’ll try it on my own tonight, without the “training wheels” and see what happens. Hopefully my body has gotten the hang of it and will do it on its own.

I don’t know if it is a sign of aging or maybe an indicator of too much stress, but lately sleep has been elusive. This is fairly new for me, I’ve never had a difficult time falling asleep or staying asleep. Well, except for when the snoring husband wakes me, but even then I can fall back to sleep once I’ve kicked him in the head and told him to roll over.

I’m afraid my new sleep pattern, or rather – lack of sleep pattern, will become a habit. I’m practicing good sleep hygiene, as prescribed by all of the Google insomnia sites I’ve visited. No television in the bedroom, no exercise or alcohol before bedtime (guess which one I don’t mind eliminating), a dark room, no noise, etc. I’ve given up caffeine after lunch and even tried warm milk and chamomile tea in the evening. Next I’ll have to make a trip to the health food store for melatonin to see if that works or if it is just a new-age snake oil treatment.

When I was a child I tried hard to avoid sleep, refusing naps and holding out until the last possible minute before acquiescing to my appointed bedtime. When I was a teen I stayed up late and slept until mid-afternoon when I could. As a young mother I never got enough sleep because of infant feeding schedules and a most hectic lifestyle. I suppose I’ve always had an odd relationship with sleep, but now I’m developing a relationship with sleeplessness, a relationship I don't want.

The kettle is whistling, the chamomile is calling, and I feel like an old woman complaining about my ailments. Maybe tomorrow I can write about the arthritis in my thumb.

I Am So Out Of Here!

2010-04-01T19:58:00.001-05:00

I really thought I’d make my goal of writing everyday during Lent, but here I am with only two more days to go and I’ve decided to call it quits. Not just on the forty days of blogging, but on the whole blog idea. This will be my last blog. I am finished, kaput, out of here.

I began this blog on September 13, 2008. During that time I have posted 230 separate blog entries, each one painstakingly written and monopolizing a fair amount of time – time which I could be using for really important things, like cleaning my house.

If I felt like anyone was actually reading and/or enjoying and/or appreciating my efforts I might not quit – but I just did a quick check of my blog stats and out of all 230 blogs I have only received 75 comments. Only 75! That really tells me that no one cares; no one gives a @#% about anything I write. So I’m stopping.

After all, I’m doing this for you – my so called eager readers. I am toiling away hours and hours daily to try to make you happy. If anyone is still reading this entry I hope you have realized by now that today is April Fools Day and I really don’t give a @#$% if I have any readers or if anyone makes a comment. This is my therapy; I’m doing this for me. But if you would like to comment, feel free. Don’t forget that sometimes you have to hit the submit button a couple of times before it actually works.

Easter Clothes

2010-03-31T22:32:00.000-05:00

With Easter approaching I have memories of white patent purses and shoes, frilly dresses, and Easter baskets. Mother always made certain we had new clothes to wear to Mass on Easter Sunday. My sister and I got pretty dresses, white gloves, lacey anklet socks, and white straw hats held securely to our heads by an elastic string under our chin. My brothers got slacks, crisp white shirts and clip-on bow ties. Daddy usually wore his best suit, but with freshly polished shoes and a new tie, not a clip on – one he tied in a most complicated fashion. Mother looked more beautiful on Easter Sunday than any other day of the year, wearing a slim dress, a glamorous hat, and high heels which made her thin legs look like a movie star’s.

I followed the family tradition of outfitting everyone in new clothes for Easter. My daughters usually had matching sister-dresses and the requisite white patent leather shoes and purses, plus a straw hat. Gloves were passé. My grandmother explained to me why we went through this ritual every year. During Lent we strive to better ourselves and on Easter Sunday we “put on the new man.” We dress in our new finery to show the new and better person we have become.

I no longer follow many of the Church traditions, but Lent and Easter customs seem to be deeply ingrained. This Easter I’ll celebrate the rebirth of myself and of the world and reminisce about little girls in new dresses.

Four More Days of Lent

2010-03-30T21:42:00.002-05:00

Four more days! Four more days and I will reach my goal of blogging every day during Lent! It has been difficult. Usually I write a blog when the spirit moves me or when I get a particularly good idea (or when my writing group makes me feel like a slacker for not submitting any work), but during this Lenten challenge I have blogged even when I didn’t feel like it, even when I had nothing to blog about (like tonight).

What have I learned or gained from this exercise? Well, according to my Aunt Mary, our family’s expert on all things holy, one is supposed to finish Lent realizing that they can continue to do, or not do, what ever it was they said they would do, or not do, even after Easter Sunday. This theory totally blows all of the past Lenten seasons when I gave up drinking only to consume massive amounts of alcohol at Easter lunch. I never knew I was supposed to realize I could live without red wine forever, or sweets – really? Does anyone really think I will never eat chocolate again?

But the discipline I have gained by forcing myself to write my blog everyday has been good. I do hope I can continue to write daily even after Lent. But just hoping for something vs. feeling like I have a religious reason to prove something are two different things. I still have the rest of the week to finish this challenge – say a prayer for me and hide the chocolate bunnies and malt-ball eggs come Easter morning.

My Friend, Roy

2010-03-29T22:17:00.001-05:00

We buried Farmer Roy today. He was laid to rest in his denim bibbed overalls and a sweatshirt proclaiming he was a member of the GRUB Team. The silk lining of his coffin was embroidered with a John Deere green tractor – a fitting emblem for a man who loved plowing fields and growing things.

We buried Farmer Roy today. The church was full of family and friends and a diverse group of teenagers he had taken the time to know and love and influence. There were tears of sorrow at our loss, mixed with tears of joy because Roy did not suffer a long and debilitating illness.

We buried Farmer Roy today. The minister knew all the right things to say because he knew Roy. A loving and inspiring tribute to a man who did so much for others and asked very little in return. We should all be so lucky when it comes our time to be eulogized.

We buried Farmer Roy today. At the graveside a military contingent played taps and presented the folded flag and thanked the family for Roy’s service to our country. His first tour of duty was followed by three more in Viet Nam. He was highly decorated. He was a good soldier and a good man.

We buried Farmer Roy today.

Sunday Night Rant

2010-03-28T20:54:00.000-05:00

Really, is it almost Monday – again? I’ve had just about enough of this! Why do the weekends fly by so quickly? And why do I spend the precious time grocery shopping, cleaning house, running errands, and doing laundry?

Because there is no other time!

Step Up

2010-03-27T21:47:00.001-05:00

What a day I have had. How do you tell teenagers that the man they have worked with and loved for years has passed away? Some of the teens I work with had already heard the news, others found out this morning when we met for our Saturday workday at the farm. Instead of pretending we could go on as usual, we spent the morning talking about our Farmer Roy. It was amazing to hear the kids (I call them kids, even though they are young adults) talk about their relationships with Roy. Several mentioned that he had been a father/grandfather figure to them. We laughed and we cried as we remembered how Roy has touched each of our lives. How fortunate we all are to have known such a kind and caring man.

The Executive Director of my non-profit organization joined us this morning. What a kind thing for him to do. He knew it would be a difficult morning and his presence was appreciated by us all. He reminded us that Roy’s kind acts had left a ripple effect and it was up to all of us to continue his work. I know we are up to the challenge.

Roy had a vision for the youth project, a vision that was contagious if he ever spoke to you about it, a vision I hope to carry out with the help of the young adults in the program. As Roy would say, “Step up.” So, the kids and I will step up and fulfill his dream. We are up to the task.

Home Is Where The Heart Is

2010-03-26T22:31:00.002-05:00

Since 1953 the heart of our home has been my grandmother’s house. Every family gathering I can recall has taken place at her ranch style home. Tonight one of my cousins wanted some time alone with my grandmother, so the rest of us were displaced – temporarily. It is interesting to see the how we found our niche even when we couldn’t congregate at my grandmother’s house – we all ended up at my aunt’s home, just a few blocks away.

Home is where the heart is – all of our hearts – three generations of hearts congregated at my aunt’s house to share our love and concern for my grandmother. It doesn’t matter where we are, it doesn’t matter that we are not in the house my grandparents built and where they raised their 10 children – all that matters is the love that is gathered.

So, we were a few blocks away, we still acknowledged the love we have for our matriarch and acknowledged the love we have for our family. Our hearts were there – home is truly where the heart is. Tomorrow we will move the “heart” of our family back to my grandmother’s house, but just for tonight the heart of our family moved a few blocks to the east and gathered at Aunt Gail’s dining room table.

Thanks Gailee for hosting your family. It really doesn’t matter where we are – as long as we are together.

Loss

2010-03-25T21:52:00.001-05:00

If you are very, very lucky once in a while someone great enters your life. That was my luck when I met Roy Riddle in the late 1990s when I discovered a community garden in my neighborhood and was bitten by the idea to garden. I had no gardening knowledge, so I turned to a class called “Gardening in West Texas,” taught by a former Army pilot known as Farmer Roy. Roy taught me the basics of gardening and even offered me some additional land to try out my new skills. I had a bumper crop in my community garden and learned to grow broccoli and onions on a small plot at the South Plains Food Bank Farm. A love affair was begun – a love of growing my own vegetables and a love for the wise old gentleman known by all as Farmer Roy.

Fate, or luck, or karma soon intervened and shortly after my novice gardening experience I was offered a job at the food bank, a job which soon turned into the best job I could ever imagine. Before long I was overseeing and administrating the efforts of Farmer Roy and others on the food bank’s 5-acre farm and the 2,500 tree apple orchard and in the youth project called GRUB. I loved my new job, but I was in over my head. Farmer Roy came to the rescue. He taught me what I needed to know in order to do my new job. He didn’t want to sit behind my desk, but he was glad to show me the ropes and led me to a point where I could make it through my work week without a nervous breakdown. He was my mentor, he was my rock, and he was my confidant.

Now he is gone. On Monday we will bury Farmer Roy. Ironically Wednesday was to have been his last day of work. Roy was retiring. Roy was hanging up his shovel. I could never really picture him in a retirement role; maybe he couldn’t see it either. Today I had to call Roy’s friends to tell them the news, one friend remarked that perhaps God needed a good farmer in heaven – he sure got one in Farmer Roy.

Rest in peace, Roy – you will be missed.

Big D

2010-03-24T07:01:00.001-05:00

Driving six hours to attend a work conference is tiring. Sitting for two days listening to speakers is exhausting. Shopping with the women I work with is exhilarating. Dallas 3/23/10.

Thoughts on Health

2010-03-23T23:36:00.001-05:00

I’ve been thinking about how our society deals with illness a lot lately. Maybe it is because of the National Health Care Bill or maybe it is because I have a dear, dear, friend with a terminal illness, or maybe it is because my grandmother is 103 years old and we, her family, are trying to keep her safe, comfortable, and well taken care of in her own home for as long as possible.

My friend, Roy, was scheduled to retire at the end of the month. He hired his replacement and was eagerly looking forward to the transition and training process. Two weeks before he was to pass the baton he began sleeping all of the time. Four days after his trainee arrived Roy was diagnosed with the worst possible brain cancer, underwent surgery, has been non-responsive since, and will enter Hospice Care this week. Through it all he has had a cadre of his sisters and nieces at his I.C.U. bedside tenderly caring for him. There are nurses, and doctors, and aides, but his family has been by his side through this unexpected and devastating illness. They have taken time off from their jobs and/or flown in from around the country to be with Roy. One niece, when thinking of long-term care, commented, “We are all just working people, I don’t know how we will continue to do this.” But so far they are managing. How they will manage the gazillion dollar hospital bill is yet to be seen.

My grandmother is in good health, she is just old and tired. At 103 her mind is sound, but her body is weak. Every step she takes behind her wheeled walker is an effort and a risk of a possible fall. I found her, uninjured, on her bedroom floor the last time she fell and it broke my heart to think she had been lying there waiting on my rescue. She has one of those “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” buttons around her neck, but was so shaken she forgot to summon help. Now the family is wondering how to increase her level of home care. An assisted living facility, or in my grandmother’s vernacular, an old folk’s home, is not an option for us at this point. My grandmother has been quite opinionated and vocal about her feelings toward nursing homes for over half a century. Moving her from the home she has lived in for also a half a century would certainly kill her.

Like Roy’s family, we are just working people and/or are spread out all over the country. One of my aunts is already a nearly full time caregiver with my uncle and me serving as backup after our full time jobs. Hiring a stranger to stay with grandmother is an expensive and unpleasant option. Once again, it will be the family stepping up and stepping in to offer the care and love my grandmother needs at the end of her years. I don’t know how we will do it – but, like Roy’s family, we will find a way. My grandmother is fond of saying, “It’s a good thing I had ten children, now it is payback time.”

How do those without family make it through an illness or through old age? I’ve seen first hand the devastation of a prolonged hospital stay, first with my mother’s long bout with lung cancer and more recently when I had pancreatitis and gall bladder surgery. A patient needs an advocate, someone to make sure they get the right medications, a bath, and decent, compassionate care. Without family by one’s side it is next to impossible to traverse our health care system alone.

I’ve not mentioned the expense of health care or the expense and necessity of health insurance. These are issues currently dividing our country. I have good health insurance coverage, paid for by my employer; the rest of my family is not so fortunate – the rest of America is not so fortunate. How we treat our infirm and our elderly is an indicator of how we rate as a society – Roy’s family gets good marks, my family gets good marks. I am afraid for those without family, friends, or the financial resources to look after them in their time of sickness. Thank you President Obama for looking out for those without access to adequate health care – it is the right thing to do, for everyone, especially us working folks.

Conference Time

2010-03-22T21:58:00.000-05:00

I am leaving for my work trip to Dallas today – and I really don’t feel like going! I have too much work to do here. A dear, dear friend is still in I.C.U. and now my grandmother appears to be ailing. I hate leaving with so much uncertainty.

The work will still need to get done – five days worth of work will somehow be compressed into two. To top it off, the conference I am attending will generate additional work. I will return to the office with great ideas, but not with the staff or funds to implement the great ideas.

The upside of this is I will be accompanied by co-workers, board members and volunteers from my organization, all of whom are passionately committed to the mission of our nonprofit work. I hope to return home energized and inspired – I’ll have to be to get all of my work done this week!

I will trust in a Higher Power to watch over my loved ones in my absence.

Home Movies

2010-03-21T20:30:00.002-05:00

We have a large collection of VHS home movie tapes from the eighties shot with a video camera approximately the size of a professional news crews’ equipment. The tapes have been in a box in the garage for years until this past Saturday night when my husband brought them in for the family to watch.

We only made it through two of the tapes, one of a vacation to the Grand Canyon and another of a trip to the coast with my parents and siblings. I discovered I filmed more scenery than people, hours and hours of scenery. I wish I knew then what I know now – I don’t care about the majestic vistas of the Grand Canyon or the crashing ocean surf, I want to see people. Upon watching the videos I yelled at myself, the camera operator, to turn the lens toward my daughters. I wanted to see more of them at the places where we stopped en route to Arizona. I want more film footage of them at Flintstone World and at the cliff dwellings in Walnut Canyon. Apparently I thought I was filming a documentary on Fred, Wilma, Betty and Barney in their prehistoric cartoon world.

As much as I missed seeing more of the children on the video, I wonder what I really missed at the time. While I was behind the camera filming the scenery what were they doing that I didn’t get to enjoy? All I have are fleeting shots of Daughter #2 running through each scene (she never stopped running on that entire 1000 mile trip) and Daughter #1, an almost teenager, asking me to hold her purse while she chased after her little sister. The on-screen time my children got is disproportionate to the time I spent filming the “stuff” – the stuff that won’t make the final edit.

I plan to edit the videos and transfer the final cut to DVDs (or whatever format is in vogue when I finally finish this Herculean task). I am looking forward to watching each tape and judiciously axing all of the superfluous footage of mountains and canyons and oceans while keeping the precious shots of my daughters and my other family members.

Watching the beach trip video my daughters were rapt, looking for a shot of their beloved MaMa, who died almost twenty years ago. The few clips of her are treasures. Why, oh why, did I not film her more?

The moral of this story – take lots of photos/videos of people, not stuff.

Namaste

2010-03-20T21:11:00.002-05:00

Today I did my civic duty. Today I served as a delegate to the Democratic County Convention. I begrudgingly gave my Saturday to join like-minded locals as representatives in the bigger political picture. I really didn’t want to go. I really (despite what all of my friends think) don’t want to get involved in the political scene. I find it difficult to fight off all of the disparaging comments I get just being my apolitical self. If I should choose to become politically active, God only knows what kind of harassment I would be subject to.

At the convention I saw so many of my dear, dear friends. Friends whom I should have known were Democrats, but because I don’t normally pigeon-hole my friends, I wasn’t sure what their political leanings were. A defining moment of the afternoon was when I saw a former neighbor and we began a long overdue visit.

“I hear you are teaching yoga,” I said.

“Yes, I feel that it has an overarching message,” she said. “I took my son with me to drop off the recycling and I said to him – this is what it is all about. Everyone doing what is important for everyone else in the world.”

I loved how my friend tried to explain to her son what IT IS ALL ABOUT. It is all about DOING WHAT IS RIGHT FOR EVERYONE. I had a great experience today while doing my civic duty. I am proud to be a free-thinking (and thinking) member of the United States of America. I am proud to be a consciousness member of the Democratic Party of Texas. In spite of being a minority in State and National politics – I shall proudly hold my head high and continue to do my civic duty for the country I was born into and am trying to be a part of.

Perhaps we should all take a lesson from my yoga-instructor friend – let’s do what is right for not only ourselves, but for the rest of the world.

Namaste.

My Little Girl

2010-03-19T23:55:00.001-05:00

“All good things must come to an end.” I hate that adage. I wonder who made that one up. Probably an old party-pooper! Today is the last day of Daughter #1’s visit. Very early tomorrow morning we put her on an airplane back to the BIG CITY, back to the life she has there. I am sad she is leaving, I will miss her very much, but I am happy for her and proud of the woman she has become.

I hope she enjoyed herself this week. I recall from my own experience as a twenty-something, how difficult it was to return to my parents’ home as an adult when they still saw me as their “little girl.” I like to think I learned from that experience and didn’t repeat it with my own “little girl,” but I see now what a difficult task it is to realize your children are grown up and independent.

I have one last day to enjoy my daughter’s visit. Tomorrow I will accept the fact that she is a grown-up woman. Just for today she is still my little girl.

My Name is Mud

2010-03-18T21:04:00.002-05:00

As of yesterday afternoon I have enacted a new policy at the non-profit agency where I am employed – the Executive Director and I are no longer allowed to travel together without a driver/navigator or a damn good Global Positioning System. He and I have the reputation of being the two in the office with absolutely no sense of direction or “homing skills.” The first time we attended a national conference in Washington, D.C. we flew into Baltimore and took the train to D.C. – not a brilliant plan! That was almost ten years ago and I still have nightmares of roaming the city hauling a week’s worth of luggage. Since that first auspicious trip there have been others. We got lost in Boston on a walking tour of community gardens, and in Dallas looking for a restaurant. We’ve even lost our way in hotel corridors searching for conference rooms.

I was forced to implement the new work travel policy yesterday after a series of unfortunate events involving a drive to a small town approximately fifty miles from our office. We were scheduled to pick up a used vehicle, which had been donated to my program, at a ranch in the middle of nowhere. My boss had detailed written directions so I felt comfortable traveling with him. I only made one disparaging remark about our inaptitude as we left the building. Had our excursion been part of a novel, my comment, “Dear God, I can’t believe anyone is letting us leave together,” would have been called foreshadowing.

All went well until we reached the small town which was to be one of our landmarks. The town was so small we weren’t exactly sure if we had driven through it or if we had just passed a cluster of homes on the side of the road. The next instruction was to look for a utility substation, turn right, and drive three miles until the road came to a dead-end. When we saw a smattering of what appeared to be electrical equipment we turned onto a dirt road. Due to rare precipitation received in our normally drought inflicted area, the dirt road was now a mud road. Thinking we could traverse the slippery street and reach our destination (after all, why would anyone direct us down this road if it were impassable?) we continued on in the compact car.

I must give my boss credit – he skillfully maneuvered approximately two miles of slime before landing us in a ditch. Under the watchful big brown eyes of a herd of cattle, we buried the car up to the axle in mud while trying to free it by spinning the tires alternating between drive and reverse. Not a good plan. After contemplating lassoing a cow to pull us out, we had no choice but to call our eighty-something year old benefactor to report our predicament. We gave him our location and awaited our rescue. We waited, and waited, and waited. Another cell phone call verified my worst fear – not only were we axle deep in a muddy ditch with curious cows surrounding us, we were lost as well. We had not driven through the small town, we had not found the utility substation, and we were certainly on the wrong road.

To make this extremely long and mud-splattered story a tad bit shorter I will not give the dirty details of being pulled out of the mud, not once, but a total of four times, before we made it off of that road. It took two four-wheel drive pickup trucks, a John Deere tractor, and several lengths of heavy chain to get us back onto a paved road. We followed the octogenarian driver of one of the pickups to his ranch with mud flinging in our wake the entire twenty miles. (Read: we were twenty miles off course!). We picked up the donated vehicle and made our way back to town, careful to stay on paved roads.

I found a bit of irony in driving back a ¾-ton four-wheel drive Suburban that would have come in handy on our earlier adventure.

Happy Anniversary

2010-03-17T20:51:00.002-05:00

Today is my wedding anniversary. I have been married for thirty-one years. How things have changed and how things have stayed the same in thirty-one years. When I think back to the twenty-two year old I was on my wedding day, my first thought is how did anyone let such a child get married. In our wedding photos my husband and I look like we are about twelve years old and playing dress up. Fortunately, we knew what we were doing, we knew we were in love and were committed to each other for the long haul.

Most people looking back on a thirty-plus year marriage might recall the bumps in the road, but our road has been pretty smooth. To what do I attribute this good fortune? Are we just lucky? I doubt luck has much to do with it. We took our wedding vows seriously on this day thirty-one years ago. Till death do us part, for rich or poor, in good times and in bad, sickness and health, and take this ring as a sign of my love and fidelity. We meant it all then and we mean it all now – that is our secret.

Sure, I want to smother him with my pillow when his snoring wakes me at 4:00 a.m. and I’m sure my housekeeping (or lack of) makes him want to strangle me, but we are both disciplined enough to not follow through with our homicidal thoughts. I know the good will continue to trump the bad. I know it now and I knew it thirty-one years ago. I was certainly wise for a girl of twenty-two.

Pray for Rain

2010-03-16T23:12:00.002-05:00

I like to think there are people a lot smarter than I running things. Apparently this is not the case at our lake community. We purchased our cabin there when the lake was at a historic low level, not really concerned about the recreational aspect of the water level – we were there to get away – not ski! But now, several years later, I would like to be able to get a boat in the water to fish or at least putter around the lake.

The “powers-that-be” consist of the Water District Manager and the Board of Directors. The manager is paid an outrageous salary and is given the use of a house, a dock and a vehicle (all of this I’ve been told through the gossip grapevine at the Marina Restaurant, so it must be true!). Like I said, I like to think the people in charge are smarter than I, especially when they are paid more than I.

The problems I can see at our lake are numerous. The most obvious is the lack of water. I realize the solution to this is more complicated than turning on the garden hose to fill the lake like I used to do with my children’s plastic swimming pool. Things I’ve heard (again, the Marina gossip-grapevine) are:
1. Ranchers on adjacent properties have dammed streams and creeks which have traditionally flowed to the lake.
2. There is a huge problem with salt cedar trees and other water sucking vegetation.
3. Oil companies are using/buying water to flush wells.
4. The natural water run-off into the lake is blocked by overgrowth of vegetation.
Add to these issues drought and/or near drought conditions for the past few years and the bazillion gallons of water pumped to the surrounding communities every day, and there is a real problem – one which desperately needs to be fixed.

The course of action our water district manager proposes is – Pray for Rain. That is his plan for managing the water resources he was hired to oversee. I believe in the power of prayer as much as the next person – maybe even more, as I saw first hand the results when Daughter #2 was brought back from the brink of death at age three, but I still took her to the doctor. I took her to someone a lot smarter than I when she became ill. I still prayed like a mad woman, but I combined my praying with medical expertise.

If the good folks at my lake community are satisfied with the water district manager’s approach to fixing the problems at the lake, then I’d like to apply for the job. I feel I am at least equally qualified in the prayer department. I can pray for rain with the best of them.

Clean Food

2010-03-15T22:11:00.000-05:00

I wonder about all of the crap we put into our bodies. A very dear friend of mine was diagnosed with brain cancer last week and I can’t help but wonder if chemical warfare, first in Viet Nam and later in our food system, didn’t play a critical role in the formation of his disease. What are we doing to ourselves? Why are the foods which are most readily available chock-full of pesticides and God only knows what else?

I make a concerted effort to eat healthy and yet I know I am poisoning my body with every meal. The fruits and vegetables are only organic in the summer when I’ve grown them myself, the grains I consume are typically over-processed, and I don’t even want to think about where the beef, pork, and poultry I occasionally eat come from.

As of today I will make every effort to be aware of my food. I will examine each bite to ensure I am not feeding myself tainted food. I just hope I am not too late.

I Shot an Arrow into the Air...

2010-03-14T22:01:00.002-05:00

There is only one sport I have even a passable skill in – archery. I figured this out as an adult, accompanying my daughters to Mother/Daughter camp when they were in the Girls Scouts. The camp experience on the whole was horrible, with the only bright spot being the discovery of archery. Who knew there was an outdoor sport that required no sweating?

I bring this up because we pulled out the archery equipment yesterday and shot arrows at a target we keep at the lake house. Several Christmases ago my family gave me a beautiful bow and a dozen arrows. The meadow between the back door of the cabin and the lake is the perfect place to set up the target and shoot, as long as a deer doesn’t wander by and provided we keep the dogs in the house.

Yesterday my daughters, my husband and I had a great time taking turns shooting at the target and enjoying a beautiful spring day. Then my husband, who is usually quite sane, acted upon an idea I knew had been forming all afternoon. My first clue was when he began reciting Longfellow:

I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

After an afternoon of shooting, and perhaps one too many beers, he announced, “I’m going to shoot one more time, just to see how far it will go.” Before I could tell him what a stupid idea that was, I heard the ping of the bowstring and the arrow was off. How far did it go? We finally spied the feathers on the arrow, through binoculars, just before they sank in the middle of the lake.

There are a couple of morals to this story:
1. Poetry, beer, and archery don’t mix.
2. Just because you can shoot farther, doesn’t mean you can shoot better!

See accompanying photos for documentation of my skills, and not one arrow did I send into the lake.

Pizza Time

2010-03-13T16:38:00.001-06:00

In the middle of the grocery store, on the condiment aisle – in front of the teriyaki sauce, my detailed shopping list was abandoned. The meals I had carefully planned for our family excursion to the lake were thrown over in favor of home-made pizza, which at the time seemed like an easier option. We opted to prepare two pizzas, but once we began selecting ingredients we decided three would be needed. After an hour at the supermarket, my husband, my two grown daughters, my two dogs, and I finally made it to the lake. We unloaded the cars (we came in two vehicles because the dogs don’t like to share the back seat – or the girls don’t like being covered in dog hair, take your pick), opened a bottle of wine and fortified ourselves with cheese and crackers after our long (one hour) drive. When we finally set to work on our pizzas this is what we created:

Pizza #1: tomato sauce, caramelized onions, spinach, red bell pepper, ricotta cheese, mushrooms, garlic, fresh tomato, and mozzarella cheese.

Pizza #2: pesto, artichoke hearts, green olives, black olives, green onion, jalapeno peppers, garlic, and feta cheese.

Pizza #3: refried black beans, chipotle salsa, green chili, jalapeno peppers, green onion, black olives, and four cheese Mexican blend. This pizza was served with avocado and sour cream.

By the time dinner was served we each tried a small slice, wrapped up the leftovers and went to bed. Sometimes it is good to abandon your plans and be spontaneous – I won’t have to cook the rest of the weekend!

The Supermarket

2010-03-12T08:21:00.001-06:00

Who knew that one of life’s simple pleasures could be going to your hometown grocery store? What seems to be drudgery for me is an outing Daughter #1 is looking forward to on her visit from the BIG CITY. In her eyes it will be an event. The large supermarket will be a change from the small neighborhood markets where she typically shops for one meal at a time on her way back to her apartment.

As she has shown me the sites of the BIG CITY when I visit her, I plan to entertain her with our grocery shopping outing. We can purchase coffee from the barista at the front of the store to sip as we stroll through the well-stocked aisles. She will marvel at the abundance and variety while trying to figure out how much regional food (Tex-Mex) she can smuggle back in her suitcase.

While the cashier scans our purchases we will tally the points we’ve earned in a game we invented years ago on one of her trips home; it is called the “Supermarket Game.” You get a point for every familiar face you see. It is a game only fun to play in the town where you grew up.

When we exit the store with too many bags of groceries my daughter will be amazed that the store still employees “carry-out-boys/girls,” who will constantly chat us up on the way to the car. “How’s your day?” or “Are you enjoying the weather?” Pulling out of the parking lot I’ll see a smile spread across my daughter’s face.

“That was fun,” she’ll say.

“Who knew,” I’ll reply.

Homecoming Food

2010-03-11T18:40:00.001-06:00

Daughter #1 is coming home for a visit tomorrow. In keeping with family tradition this means I must prepare her favorite foods. My mother began this food ritual when I went home on college weekends or holidays. At that time my favorite comfort food was my mother’s macaroni salad. It wasn’t the mayonnaise-laden gunk you see at salad bars, but a fresh vegetable and pasta concoction that only my mother could make, and make it she did – using the largest container we owned, which was the Tupperware “ham keeper.” When I arrived home I knew there was a vat of macaroni salad taking up an entire shelf of the second refrigerator in the garage. That harvest gold refrigerator was also sure to be housing Dr. Pepper, and my mother’s Revere Ware Dutch oven full of chili con queso dip. Knowing she had gone to the trouble of preparing my favorite foods made me feel special, spoiled, and loved.

When my daughters came home for college weekends the tradition continued. Daughter #1’s coming-home meal is tortilla soup and Daughter #2’s is potato soup. They each knew they were guaranteed their favorite meal upon arrival.

I must get out my soup pot (my Revere Ware Dutch oven) and start cooking. In addition to the tortilla soup I suddenly have a yen for macaroni salad.

Iron Chef?

2010-03-10T07:53:00.003-06:00

Wednesday night is family dinner night – we call it Wednesday Winers. We mostly drink wine, but to maintain a level of respectability we eat dinner also, taking turns preparing the meal (or taking turns ordering take-out). Tonight is my turn to cook. Boy is my family in for a real treat. (You may read that last sentence with heavy sarcasm if you wish.)

I may have mentioned in past blogs that my day job includes, among other things, overseeing an urban farm. One of the perks of the job is I get to sample the veggies. Yesterday’s harvest included mixed salad greens, spinach, broccoli, turnips, turnip greens and kohlrabi. At eight o’clock last night my kitchen (having just been thoroughly cleaned in anticipation of Daughter #1’s arrival from the BIG CITY) was turned into a one-woman version of television’s Iron Chef. Without benefit of recipes or a trip to the grocery store for special ingredients I undertook the challenge of preparing Wednesday night’s meal for my family. This is what I created:

A beautiful salad of mixed greens – since this mix contains about 742 varieties of lettuces and greens I won’t add anything to it except a vinaigrette dressing when served. The fresh spinach I added to a whole wheat pasta, mushroom and pesto dish. I will cheat and add some freshly grated Parmesan cheese I know is in my grandmother’s refrigerator (or icebox as she still calls it). I’ll steam the broccoli and top with a lemon-garlic-butter before we sit down to eat.

Now for the Bobby Flay Throwdown challenge: what to do with the turnips, greens and kohlrabi? I chopped the turnip greens and sautéed them in olive oil with garlic. What began as a bowl of greens roughly the size of a washing machine cooked down to about two cups. This is what is referred to in the south as “a mess of greens.” Digging through my pantry in search of ingredients I found a box of quinoa, a wonderfully versatile grain, which I cooked and mixed with the greens. I diced the turnips, boiled them until tender with chopped onion and topped the greens with the cooked turnips. After reheating this evening I will add toasted almond slivers to the dish.

Last, but by no means least, the kohlrabi. By the time I got to this vegetable (and after a couple of glasses of wine) it looked like little green aliens had invaded my kitchen. I think kohlrabi was the inspiration for the design of the 1950s Sputnik. Having never cooked or eaten kohlrabi I was stumped. Taking a cue from the turnips I employed the same cooking process. I sautéed the leaves and diced and boiled the bulb – then I threw it all in the food processor and made a kohlrabi puree. I’m not exactly sure how to serve this bright green paste – as a dip, a spread, or just a blob of a side dish? I’m on my way to being crowned the culinary winner of this vegetable challenge – because after a few glasses of wine, no one really cares what we eat!

Dear 3:00 a.m.

2010-03-09T19:16:00.002-06:00

Dear 3:00 a.m.,

I am going to be firm this time – you must leave me alone. I do not want to see you anymore! I know you are stalking me and if you don’t stop I will be forced to call the police to get a restraining order. I mean it – go away!

I know we had a relationship in the past. In my teens and early twenties I saw you on a regular basis, but that was before I discovered sleep. I’m with sleep now and I don’t want you in my life anymore – why can’t you understand that? What we once had is over. You must let me go – we can’t build a relationship on late night parties, nightclubs and alcohol. You were only a phase – nothing serious.

Seeing you later, when the children were small meant nothing to me. I was only there for them not you. It wasn’t my idea that they pick you to share their feeding time. I swear I wasn’t trying to lead you on; it was merely a coincidence, nothing more. Don’t try to read anything into it. (And the times I met you when Daughter #2 was a teenager and out past her curfew was out of my control.)

I’m in a new relationship now, please respect that. I’m very happy with 6:00 a.m. Our relationship is based on openness and trust, not on sneaking around in the dark and regret. I’ve got a good thing going with 6:00 a.m. – don’t ruin it for me.

I hope I have made myself perfectly clear. I am banishing you from my life. Don’t come back – or so help me God, I’ll be forced to bring in the “enforcer.” I will bring in the Prescription Police, a.k.a. Ambien. So there!

Lost Weekend

2010-03-08T21:14:00.001-06:00

I seem to have misplaced my weekend. I know it was here a minute ago, but I can’t find it. I would consider placing an ad in the Lost and Found column of the newspaper’s classified section, but I can’t remember what it looked like; I could offer no description. The little bugger is always running off just when I’m ready to enjoy it. What a tease the weekend is. I look forward to it with such anticipation and then it just disappears – poof -- gone. No goodbye or anything. If I wasn’t so used to the disappointment I might have my feelings hurt.

If you do find my lost weekend pay no attention to the slanderous remarks it is sure to make about me. Don’t believe a word if it tries to tell you I ignore it or treat it poorly. Just because I have to work on Saturday doesn’t mean I don’t want to enjoy my weekend. I am not intentionally snubbing it, and doing laundry, running errands, and cleaning house does not mean I prefer those tasks to my weekend. Geez, who knew the weekend was so sensitive?

If I promise to be more attentive next time do you suppose my weekend will return on Friday to give me another chance? If you should happen to see it, please tell it I’m sorry and I promise I won’t ignore it again. Thanks!

Dog Alarm

2010-03-07T16:54:00.003-06:00

I may never again need the services of an alarm clock. I have two mostly Border Collies who learned quickly that the alarm rings at 5:45 and they pride themselves on beating the clock. Every morning, seconds before the alarm buzzes, I am awakened by a sharp bark from Chloe Belle, followed by the clinking sound of Dixie Girl’s tags. There is no snooze button on a dog so I have to get up (or if I’m lucky, my husband has to get up), let them outside for their “morning toilette,” and then feed them. They are rather demanding first thing in the morning, but at least they insure I will never oversleep.

You Can Come Home Again

2010-03-06T17:48:00.000-06:00

Daughter # 1 is coming for a visit. She lives far, far away in the BIG CITY, and I have not seen her in almost a year (ten months). I am giddy with excitement and began the countdown to her arrival yesterday with, “one week from today…”

She will be returning home to find her childhood bedroom transformed into a guest room (see blog dated 8-4-09). I wonder how she will take it. All of her “stuff” – the knick-knacks, the 1990’s grunge band posters, her memories, the flotsam and jetsam of the first eighteen (or twenty-five) years of her life now packed away in boxes. Her floral bedspread and brightly painted room now replaced by sedate colors. Hopefully, she will take comfort in the familiarity of her books, shelves and shelves of books; her touchstone since an early age (see blog dated 8-5-09).

In spite of the physical changes the space has undergone, it is still her room, no matter that she is married and lives far, far away in the BIG CITY, this will always be her home. She may as well forget she is all grown up – we are her “Mommy and Daddy” forever and are looking forward to a week of spoiling her rotten.

“Six days from today…”

Will work for...

2010-03-05T20:17:00.002-06:00

Daughter # 2 has a second interview for a job she really wants today. She has been job hunting for months and blames the economy for her lack of success. I am amazed that no one has snatched her up yet – she would be the most wonderful employee anyone could hope to have. I know several people who are having a tough time finding work right now, they are all more than qualified, and they all blame the economy.

Every job I have held, I have come by easily. I began my job history babysitting my younger siblings and all of the neighborhood kids. I was always in demand. On Friday and Saturday nights I had several job offers and I was booked for New Year’s Eve months in advance. I could be selective about my employers, only selecting those with the most docile children, the well stocked refrigerator and the best television and stereo system. I raked in the dough, beginning at fifty-cents an hour and eventually working my way up to a dollar.

The day I turned sixteen I applied for employment at the neighborhood drugstore where all of my friends worked. The owner, a man in his early thirties with a wife and two kids, hired all of the cute and popular high school girls. He hired more girls than he needed to help out in the small store and eventually went bankrupt, but I got the job and began earning minimum wage which was an astounding $1.60 an hour. I worked in the drug store through high school and during every vacation of my first two years of college. I learned a lot at that job; I learned I cannot drive a standard shift vehicle (after the transmission on the delivery van had to be replaced following my attempt at “delivery-girl”), I broke up with my boyfriend in the Hallmark Card aisle, I turned down a marriage proposal from a lonely pharmacist, and I realized I never wanted to stand behind a cash register ever again in my employment career. I still have nightmares featuring long lines of angry customers and a frozen cash register.

I finished college working as an early morning nanny for four children whose newly widowed mother had returned to college. I loved the children, but hated the hours. After college I moved on to a string of very interesting jobs before I landed my dream job of stay-at-home Mom, the most demanding, underpaid and underappreciated career path I could have chosen. When my children were in junior high and high school my current job came along quite by accident, when I wasn’t even looking for work.

The point of all of this is to say – I have never had difficulty finding employment. Thank God I’m not looking for a job today! It frightens me to see what is happening with friends and family looking for work. I have visions of the Joad family from Grapes of Wrath every time I hear a report of another qualified friend being fired, or laid off, or “let go.” My brother’s company is shutting down one week of each month to cut expenses. That translates to a twenty-five percent cut in pay for him – but, “at least he has a job.”

“At least he/she has a job,” is a phrase I have heard a lot this past year. It has come to mean – so what if he/she is overworked, underpaid, treated poorly, and has no health insurance – “at least he/she has a job.” Whoa – we live in post depression-era, prosperous America, don’t we? I really want to believe our economy is turning around. I really, really want to believe the recession won’t turn into a full-blown depression. I’ve got my fingers crossed for my daughter’s interview today. If she gets the job perhaps I can erase the vision of myself cast in the role of Ma Joad – that’s one job I don’t want to come by easily.

Tomatoes

2010-03-04T20:42:00.002-06:00

I awoke this morning thinking about tomatoes. It is early March and I want a real tomato. I don’t want one of those tasteless anemic imitations they try to pass off as a tomato in the produce section of my grocery store. I want the real deal – a vine ripened, home grown tomato.

Sadly, it will be close to four months before I will have the pleasure of plucking tomatoes from my own garden. I will eat the first ripened beauty standing by the plant with the juice from the sun-warmed fruit dripping down my chin. It will be the best tasting tomato of the summer. This will mark the opening of an approximately three month-long fresh tomato season when my kitchen windowsill, countertop, and refrigerator will be boasting the red fruit. I’ll have tomatoes for breakfast, lunch, supper and snacks; broiled tomatoes on toast, tomatoes sliced on sandwiches and in salads, tomatoes and basil and zucchini and eggplant. I’ll dry tomatoes, can tomatoes and give tomatoes to my friends and neighbors. Just when I begin to think I never want to see another tomato for as long as I live, the season will end. One night I’ll hear the weatherman predict the first freeze and I’ll run outside in my nightgown to strip the vines of even the green tomatoes. For days, or weeks if I’m lucky, I will hoard the remaining tomatoes like a miser and I will savor each bite, and then – they will all be gone.

For now all I can do is thumb through seed catalogs and dream of that day in late June or early July when tomato season officially begins.

The Brain is a Terrible Thing to Clutter

2010-03-03T21:17:00.001-06:00

Today is my 201st Cleaning House, a Memoir blog! What began as an attempt to purge my house of twenty-five years of collected “stuff” has turned into a platform for daily (or weekly, or monthly) mind dumps. Whatever is on my mind I’m free to throw out into cyberspace without the worry of Mrs. Wright, my fifth grade teacher, sending it back covered in red ink corrections. The blog entries are “off-the-cuff,” unedited, unrevised short essays (or rants) about my life, my family, my friends, and on rare occasions about cleaning my house.

I am a vain woman by nature, but not so egotistical as to think that anyone gives a damn about what I have to say. On occasion I may strike a chord (or a nerve) and on occasion I may make one of my aunts (usually Gail) cry when I write about my mother, but in general this blog is for me. It is my daily (or weekly, or monthly) therapy session. If I write it all down, get it all out, first thing in the morning, I free myself of so much mind clutter. It’s very similar to cleaning out the closets and drawers in my house – I get rid of the “stuff” taking up space, the “stuff” in the way, and make room for new “stuff” to be added later.

I have always heard that humans use only 10% of their brain, but I recently learned that is a misconception attributed to Albert Einstein. He was misquoted and it stuck. So in view of the new knowledge that we need all of the room in the brain we can get – it is important to keep it clean of all the unnecessary clutter – hence my blog, or my brain purge. It is important to me to have at least one area in my life that is neat and tidy and uncluttered and it sure isn’t my house. Let the blog roll on, this is post # 201 and counting.

Where's my Candidate?

2010-03-02T21:35:00.002-06:00

Today is voting day – not the big November voting day, but the other voting day – the primary. I am sick to death of the campaign signs and posters littering the landscape, weary of finding the brochures taped to my front door, stuck beneath my windshield wipers or in my mailbox, and tired of screening my phone calls only to have an automated voice leave me a message on my answering machine begging me to vote for so-in-so.

The signage is an eyesore and a traffic hazard. Every street, commercial or residential, is lined with printed campaign promises, some of the signs as large as a compact car. Republicans and Democrats jockeying for the most prominent position on the roadway; the subtleties of their language breaking down. I fully expect to see, “Don’t vote for the other guy – he’s a bastard,” written in red, white and blue.

Then there are the brochures or pamphlets. They litter my lawn and invade my house via the U.S. Postal Service. The slick faces of politicians and their families beaming up at me between the gas bill and my Oprah Magazine; each piece of paper informing me of their strong character and moral values. As if anyone believes that crap anymore. Perhaps a more effective campaign slogan would read, “Vote for me and I promise to be discrete when I commit adultery with my nineteen year old intern.”

By far the most annoying of the barrage of politicking is the automated phone call. Even if I remember to check the caller I.D. a voice comes through on my machine. The good-old-boy voice telling me I want a conservative Republican (isn’t that a redundancy?) in Washington. How dare these politicians presume to tell me what I want? Shouldn’t they at least ask me first? The catch-words for this election are: “pro-everything” (life, family, church, public schools, home schools), “transparency” (if I hear that word once more I may stab my eardrums with an ice-pick), “positive change” (as opposed to negative change?), honesty (sure), integrity (okay), and my personal favorite, “common-sense-conservative Republican” (oh, dear God).

I especially enjoy the ads which list each and every contributor to a candidate’s campaign. Do they seriously think we real all 1,242 names and say to ourselves, “Oh, if Horace Peabody and Jackson Gulch gave him money then I must vote for him.” That’s called peer-pressure, you idiots. Remember telling your teenagers not to succumb to peer-pressure? And can someone please tell me what an “A” rating from the NRA means? Never mind, I really don’t want to know.

I have yet to see the candidate who speaks to me. I want a candidate who says, “I’ll try to be nice and do the right thing for all people, everywhere,” Even though there is no such person in the running I will go vote today, eager to get all this political hullabaloo and brouhaha behind me. Oh, wait – it continues until November, by which time I will be buried under an avalanche of slick brochures trying desperately to ignore phone calls from common-sense-conservative Republicans telling me what I want.

Monday

2010-03-01T20:39:00.002-06:00

Today is going to be a horrible day. My work week is going to be so jam-packed-busy there is no way anyone human can possibly accomplish everything I must do. Today will determine the rest of the week and I dread it. The only way to deal with my day, my week, is to just do it. (Apologies to Nike for using their slogan.) The sooner I get to my week’s “to do” list, the better my chances of success, but this morning I just want to pull the covers over my head and go back to sleep. I’m exhausted from a night plagued by bad dreams.

The worst dream involved receiving a voice message from a friend telling me she would be late returning from a trip and would I please continue feeding her dogs for one more day. In my dream I was horrified because I hadn’t been feeding her dogs – had no idea I was responsible for taking care of her pets. I had no memory of being in charge of this chore. I couldn’t recall having been asked. I had no key to her house or an alarm code. How could I have forgotten something so important? How could I ever face my friend if I were responsible for the scene she was sure to discover when she arrived home?

Dreams are like that. The mind has the ability to grab one tiny thread of worry or doubt and then produce a feature length motion picture starring you and your worst fears. I left too much undone at the office last week and I am unprepared for my hectic week. Every time I almost thought about work this weekend I pushed the thought from my mind. “Fiddle-de-dee,” said the Scarlet O’Hara of my subconscious, “I will think about that tomorrow.” Now tomorrow is here, and as my dream reminded me, I’m scared to death I have forgotten, or will forget, to do something majorly important.

So there really is no other choice, covers back over the head is not an option. Carpe diem and all that jazz; I’m off to seize the day. No animals will die on my watch.

Sunday Night Blues

2010-02-28T20:05:00.001-06:00

I’m always a little blue on Sunday nights, the weekend is over and even though I enjoy my job, I’m never quite ready for Monday morning to arrive. The weekends are too short, I never manage to get everything done I had hoped to accomplish. This Sunday night I am even bluer than ever. This Sunday night marks the end of our family reunion celebrating my grandmother’s 103rd birthday. Tomorrow morning I will go back to the office and my family will board airplanes or load up their cars for the trip home. How sad we can’t all live in the same town and see each other more than a few times a year.

I wonder what it would be like if we did all live in the same town. My grandmother has 95 direct descendants, when you add in the spouses that is a boatload of kinfolks. Our weekly family dinner, Wednesday Winers, could no longer be held at my grandmother’s house (we were able to seat 44 in her den last night for dinner, but that maxed it out), we would have to rent a ballroom. The quiet evenings I spend alone with my grandmother would no longer just be the two of us, with that many family members in town there would surely always be several relatives around. The care we give to my grandmother would be shared among all of the relatives, no longer just two or three getting to spend the time with her. There are so many wonderful aspects of the whole family living in my hometown.

The downside to having everyone within arms-reach is that family time would become routine, the novelty of seeing my relatives would be gone. I think I much prefer the excitement and anticipation of family reunions. I just wish we had our gatherings a little more often.

I’ll look at the reunion photos again and chase away the blues with the memories I made this weekend with my wonderful family.

Feeding the Masses

2010-02-27T09:19:00.001-06:00

Last night our family group of twenty-four went to a local restaurant for dinner. Great business for the local restaurant, but the logistics must have been a nightmare; how to seat twenty-four people in a small establishment while still accommodating the regular dinner crowd. They pulled it off. The owner is a friend of the family (I think my grandmother was his second grade teacher) who went to great lengths to make sure our party was well served.

Tonight we will seat thirty-five for dinner in my grandmother’s pine-paneled den. The logistics for this dinner will also be difficult to pull off. Tables and chairs will be delivered and set up, furniture will be moved, and the den will be readied to hold our large clan so we can break bread together as we celebrate our matriarch’s 103rd birthday.

All of the preparations for gathering a large family for a meal make me wonder how my grandmother did it on a regular basis. With ten children, there were sure to be at least twelve at the table for every meal. And that was if there were no friends, other relatives, boyfriends/girlfriends, future or current spouses. How did my grandmother do it? Remember, this was in the days before fast-food take-out or pizza delivery. Remember also, my grandmother worked outside of the home teaching a classroom of schoolchildren every day.

One way she managed to pull off feeding the masses gathered at her table was with a lot of help from the children. The older kids each had a meal a week they were responsible for preparing. My aunts and uncles can recite who prepared what dish, as they each had one signature entrée they prepared every week. Aunt Sandra learned to make Eggs ala Goldenrod in Home Ec. Class and “treated” the family to this hard-boiled egg concoction on her nights to cook. My grandmother still shudders when she recalls Sandra’s specialty.

In addition to helping with the cooking all of the kids pitched in with the clean-up, each assigned a week for dishwashing duty. Aunt Karen was notorious for stacking the dirty dishes in the cabinet under the kitchen sink until the supply of clean plates was exhausted, at which time she had a week’s worth of dishes to clean. Meals, dishes, taking out the trash and cleaning the kitchen (and the rest of the house) were duties shared by the family. Aunt Gail was known for “cleaning” the house by using every drawer, closet and cabinet to hide the clutter. The house would look clean for about an hour, but no one could find a thing. My grandmother was a great believer in the adage, “Many hands make light the work.” She also believed strongly in, “Spare the rod and spoil the child,” but that is a topic for another blog.

This evening’s dinner for thirty-five of my closest kin will be no exception to our family’s tradition of sharing the work. We will pitch in and get it all done. I just hope Aunt Karen doesn’t try to hide the dirty dishes!

Big Red's Hair

2010-02-26T23:09:00.001-06:00

Her white hair, once red, softens her drawn and softly wrinkled face. (How can a face be softly wrinkled? I don’t know, but the more wrinkled her face becomes the softer it gets.) I am glad we’ve stopped dying her hair, the red was becoming garish at one-hundred years of age – but the color was her trademark, her nick-name, Big Red, given by an aunt’s long ago boyfriend because of her beautiful auburn hair color. Little did that long ago boyfriend know, the hair color was courtesy of a Miss Clairol bottle. The color matched the braid she wore twisted into a bun (or a cow-patty, as some of us less respectful grandchildren called it) on top of her head. Few knew that the plaited bun was not her hair. I imagine generations of second graders thought Mrs. Owen’s hair, when unbound from the confines of her braid, hung down her back practically to her butt. (But I’m sure Mrs. Owen’s Catholic second graders would never think the word “butt.”) How shocked would they have been to see her remove the big sliver hair pins and take off her bun each night?

The braided bun has been a fixture in my life and on my grandmother’s head for as long as I can remember. I loved to watch her unbraid it, wash it, comb it out, and re-braid it. I was fascinated with this switch of hair. I liked to imagine it had once belonged to John Steinbeck’s “Little Red Pony,” but rumor had it that the hair was actually my grandmother’s own hair, cut off and made into a hair piece. This version was more romantic when I entered my teen years and left behind the horsetail theory. I imagined she cut her hair in sorrow over a lost love or perhaps when being forced to enter a convent. When I lived with her in my twenties I asked how she could have cut her long hair off. She laughed and told me the braid was ordered form a wig maker.

She had a few braid escapades over the years. Once, driving home from school, exhausted from staying too late in her classroom grading papers or preparing lessons, she unpinned her bun and set it on the passenger seat of her car. The next morning she searched the house for her bun, not finding it. She reconciled herself to arriving at school with a bun-less head. How relieved she was to find it when she got into her car. Imagine the horror and trauma she spared those second graders.

One night while sitting up grading papers (my grandmother could wrap the planet with all the papers she graded while sitting in bed), she began to smell something burning. She would get up to investigate the burners on the stove, or the pilot on the water heater, but each time she got back to her paper grading she would smell the acrid odor of fire. On her next foray into the kitchen to find the source, she noticed, as she passed her bureau mirror, that her head was smoking. She hadn’t removed her bun and it had been in contact with the bulb of the reading lamp illuminating the homework assignments she was marking with her red ink pen. She had to un-braid and re-braid the bun that night to hide the scorched hair.

As she aged and her own hair grew thinner it was harder and harder to attach the heavy bun to her head. There were many occasions when a bun avalanche was averted at the last minute by a half dozen more hair pins. Eventually the bun was put away and my grandmother’s trademark was gone. But she still insisted on coloring what was left of her hair the same auburn red it had been since she was a child. She continued to dye her hair until her one-hundredth year. I guess one-hundred is as good a time as any to go gray. I plan to follow her lead. Someone needs to keep Miss Clairol in business.

Babies

2010-02-25T07:36:00.002-06:00

When you are from a family as large as mine there are always babies; babies in arms, babies in strollers, babies in car seats, or babies in utero. Someone has a baby, is expecting a baby, or wants to be pregnant.

Being around the babies brings back memories of me as a young mother at our family reunions. I was so proud to show off my beautiful daughters to the gathering of relatives, but traveling with children, staying in a hotel room or in a grandparent’s guest room was never easy – especially on the kids. My perfect daughters turned into perfect monsters on these trips. A baby accustomed to sleeping through the night would awake crying every few hours which resulted in a cranky disposition taking the place of her normally sunny personality. The perfect child I so wanted to parade in front of my family now replaced by a female version of Damien from The Omen. I was usually on my own on these trips (my husband saving his vacation time for a “real” vacation) and tired and cranky myself from the baby waking every hour, I could only offer pitiful protests and lame excuses. “She’s not like this at home.”

Thankfully, everyone at the reunion had been in my shoes at one time. Thankfully, everyone at the reunion loved me and my children in spite of our surly behavior. “Give me the baby, I’ll rock her while you go catch up with your cousins,” or “So what if your four-year old has made the hotel elevator her personal carnival ride.” Then the family lore would begin. “Remember when,” would be followed with tales of other relative’s children, about the time my cousins put red dye in the hotel fountain, or the time the so-in-so boys shot toothpick darts through drinking straws in a nice restaurant. And on it would go, everyone relating a horror story about a cousin, a niece, or a nephew that would make my wild children look like the perfect angels they were (at home in their own surroundings).

This reunion weekend it is my cousin Leigh’s turn to experience the stress and joy of having two small children at a far from childproofed grandparent’s house. She made a 600 mile trip with a baby and a three-year old (her husband saving his vacation time for a “real” vacation). The kids are tired and cranky, they want to touch, move, or break every fragile item in their reach, they need a nap, but can’t sleep in unfamiliar rooms, and the meals we are serving are not exactly child-friendly. But it will be okay. Someone, an aunt or a cousin, will rock the baby until she falls asleep and I will tell Leigh, “Remember the time…”