This Old House

 

Scooby with baby Sophie

Saturday night when Jamie was here, we talked about curbside ordering from Central Market, and Jordan remarked that I had ordered cube steaks for the four of us and got eight steaks, which prompted a bit of nostalgia on Jame’s part. He remembered he liked the way I used to do them in steak fingers, floured and fried, and then douse them with lemon. So that’s what we had tonight, along with another old favorite: wilted lettuce.

My lettuce crop was a failure. Jordan and Christian think we waited too long to harvest; I think seeds were planted too close together and needed thinning some time ago. What we really needed was a much bigger place to plant, but my portable herb garden was full of green onions—still is, and I suppose we need to eat them. Last time I tried, yhey were still too tiny. There is, I’ve decided, a perfect time to harvest vegetables, too early or too late spell unsatisfactory, if not disaster. This frustrates me because when I lived in the house and was not hampered by mobility problems, I used to have good harvests every spring.

The salad tonight was good, made with store-bought leaf lettuce, which is a whole different thing from home grown. But it was better than nothing, and I was grateful for the variety in our salad menu. Want to do it? Fry some bacon, remove from pan. Pour some vinegar into the grease (remember: 2/3 oil to 1/3 acid) and pour over cut greens in salad bowl. Crumble bacon on top. Makes me think of my mom.

Jordan found out today that the new back door for the house is in and will be installed Saturday. This may not seem like a big deal, but it is. The door has suffered from dog abuse. I think my Aussie, Scooby, was the first to paw at it to get in. Poor Scoob had been an abused backyard dog, turned out with several other dogs, food thrown at them, given no human companionship. He was confiscated, I guess by the Humane Society, and was three years old when I got him. He never got over some skittish traits, like flinching in you reached for his collar. But he was maybe the sweetest dog I’ve ever owned (Shh! Don’t tell Sophie, who is a bit more wrapped up in her own concerns!). Scoob spent his days lying by my desk (you can see where he wore the finish off the wood floor in the main house at the spot where my desk used to be). He spent his evenings sleeping right by my bedside—on the side of the bed where I slept. I absolutely adored him—he was beautiful besides—and grieved when he left us. I still miss him.

Back to the back door. When the man who helps us around the house comes to install it, he will also install the new flexible screen door on my French doors. The screens get a hard beating from dogs and people going in and out. Today they have huge rips, only partially covered by repair tape, and I notice fruit flies and even some bigger flies, so I am anxious to have the new screen up. I figure it has a life span of about a year, but it’s a price I’m willing to pay for being able to have the door open most of the year and for Sophie to come and go. I’m not so happy about June Bug, the Burton dog who is not sure of her house manners—oh, heck, she doesn’t care.

This year, 2022, marks the hundredth anniversary of our house, and Jordan is anxious to get it in shape so we can celebrate. I bought this house in 1992 (I think), lived in it until 2017 when I moved to the cottage, and Jordan, Christian, and Jacob moved into the house. It’s the longest I’ve ever lived in a house, even the one of my childhood.

The best picture of the house that is not
in a blizzard or Halloween.
Two years ago, for Jacob's birthday

Once a visiting author and her husband came to lunch. When I remarked that the house was built in 1922, she asked, “Have you lived in it ever since?” Before I could gather my wits to reply, her husband said, “She’s an author. She’s not good at math.”

Sweet dreams, y’all.