That much-needed rain

 

It’s easy to get out of patience on a rain-soaked day with those who say, “But we need the rain” as if they were somehow justifying its presence. To me, soft, gentle rain on a spring day is one thing, but the bone-chilling damp and forties temperature we’re having today is totally another. It’s a harbinger of winter, and I’m already cold.

Because the wonderful Zenaida Martinez is giving my cottage a much-needed, thorough cleaning, I am huddled in the family room of the main house. It’s a room of windows, and I think it’s cold. Jordan says she feels it’s warm back here, but she has Mediterranean blood and I can only claim northern Anglo-Saxon—we pale blondes with blue eyes chill easily. I have a blanket over my knees and a sweater around my shoulders—and I wish I was curled in bed under a comforter.

Jacob is in the next room, with only a louvered door between us, working on a project for school, so I can’t listen to the audio version of Saving Irene. I am going to listen to the entire book before sending off to ACX to be sold in the Kindle store. It’s going to be a big task—I only got three chapters in last night. I intended to follow the text while listening, but I realized immediately that I sort of know the book by heart now and would recognize a gap or mistakes. So far, it’s great, and I’m enjoying it. The narrator shares my Chicago twang, but I think that’s appropriate for the setting of the novel.

We had roast and potatoes and asparagus for dinner last night. I botched the artichoke I was supposed to cook—it was too big for my pan and even though I left it a long time, it was raw. Not sure what I’ll do about it. But tonight, I am to fix tourtiere, a French-Canadian meat pie. We had great fun trying to pronounce that last night—Jacob, who is studying French, nailed it. My mind is toying with a sequel to Saving Irene, and one of the things I’ve been thinking about is French dishes for Irene to insist on. I’m putting tourtiere on the list, and last night, in a dream, a friend reminded me about chateaubriand, that elegant tenderloin roast we don’t hear much about these days. I’m also thinking Irene should be partial to Lobster Newburg or Lobster Thermidor—for authenticity, I’m sure I’d have to try both dishes. Meanwhile, Henny can root for barbecue and beans and potato salad. France meets Texas—which one will be overwhelmed?

I was glued to “Sixty Minutes” last night and thought it was one of the better interview programs I’ve ever seen. Lesley Stahl is tough. And I hate to revert to that traditional form of thinking, but she looks terrific for her age. I was impressed, the wrong way, by trump’s obvious discomfort and ultimate rudeness—actually he was rude to Stahl throughout. And I was impressed, the right way, by Biden who was composed and confident and had real plans to talk about, as opposed to trump who whined that Biden got softball questions and fabricated how much he has done for health care.

I’m also impressed, the wrong way, by Republican misogyny. Nationally, who once wrote speeches for Reagan and hasn’t left that era, criticized Kamala Harris for her joy in campaigning—specifically her little dance in a rainstorm. Harris does always look happy, a cheerful contrast to the gloomy conservatives, but she too can be tough as nails, as she showed interviewing Kavanaugh.

In Texas, John Cornyn, that pale shadow who follows trump and McConnell without a glimmer of personality of his own, is criticizing MJ Hegar as unladylike because she occasionally cusses—Cornyn could drive all of us to that—and because she has tattoos. Oops, wrong thing to criticize—the tattoos cover shrapnel scars from her tours as a combat pilot in Afghanistan. Open mouth, insert food, Cornyn.

Stay warm and safe, my friends.