A leftover day

 

Sue and Jordan

I think that’s a perfect name for Saturday. After a work week and before Sunday starts a new week, Saturday is the day left over. I had a busy week and a more active day yesterday than I am used to, so I promised myself a slow, easy day today. It turned out to be a day of leftovers.

I wrote like a fiend much of the week, averaging over a thousand words a day plus, most days, my blog. That wasn't drudgery—it was joy. I’m in one of the spells when the words seem to come easily and the story flows—and writing is fun. But yesterday, no writing. I was up early making tuna salad for a lunch guest and a dip for happy hour guests. At noon, my long time (50 years?) friend Linda arrived. She had the good manners to rave about my tuna, and we caught up with families, the few old friends we still know about, life as elders, and touched on the world situation. Her (relatively new) husband had an appointment elsewhere but popped in. and they both left shortly after two, because Linda insisted I need my daily nap. And I do. Sophie and I are always overjoyed to have Linda in the cottage.

In the evening, Subie, Phil, and Renee came for happy hour. The discussion was wide-ranging but got particularly spirited when we talked about wolves and their effect on the ecosystem and about the city of Greenville (see below). It was all fun, and we were tempted to stay where we were, but a little before seven we left for a farewell party for Teddy and Sue. I’ve explained this relationship several times, but fifteen or more years ago Sue moved into the house next door to me. I can still see her dad walking down the driveway when I asked him, “Are you my new neighbor?” and he replied, in a wonderful Canadian accent familiar to this daughter of a Canadian, “I’m your new neighbor’s father.” Sue, newly divorced, moved in with two young children, and her parents went home to Ottawa, Ontario. In time, Sue declared she needed a Fort Worth mother, since hers was so far away. I was honored and consider her my Canadian daughter. Along the way, she bought a house ten minutes away and married Teddy (one of my favorite people in the world). Now they are moving to Greenville, South Carolina—because they fell in love with the area. My parents retired to a small North Carolina town nearby, and I can easily understand the pull of the region. I’m excited for them but will miss them.

The party was fun, and I even knew a few people. But there were two stairs to get in, and we had to recruit a friend from the party to help me. That sort of got me off on the wrong foot, and it was hard to get my party face on. Still I knew a few people and enjoyed visiting. The setting was a gorgeous house, and I was particularly impressed by the hostess’ daughter who acted as the party angel. Teddy, bless him, helped me out and saw me safely into the car.

So that’s why today is my leftover day. I confess I am still wearing the flannel pants and T-shirt I slept in, and I think I’ll just fall into bed tonight, still wearing them. My work today was leftovers—my neighborhood newsletter, some bills and some insurance matter, more worry about the trees. Kept me busy all morning.

Even my meals are leftover: tuna salad from yesterday for lunch; a bowl of split pea soup brought to me some time ago by a friend. It’s been waiting for me in the freezer for another cold night, and tonight is perfect (at 6:30 it is 41 and headed down). The Burtons are going to Plank, the new seafood restaurant I really want to try. I threatened them if either one came home and told me they had a steak or a hamburger in a seafood house.

Tomorrow won’t be as easy. I’ll go to church in the morning, and I’ve promised to make Norwegian hamburgers for Sunday dinner. Norwegian hamburgers are something we learned about from Colin’s mother-in-law, who lived in Norway until she was seventeen and came to the US to marry Lisa’s father. The hamburgers are meat patties in beef gravy, but don’t dismiss them as like our hamburgers. Different texture, different flavor and delicious. We love Torhild, and we love her cooking. I hope I can do them as well as she does, and I hope there are leftovers.

How about you? How was your Saturday Stay safe and warm on this chilly night.

Pot roast makes for a good day

Pot roast

Yesterday, for reasons of its own, was not one of my better days, but today is a good day. I woke to sunshine, the temperature has been moderate all day, and my cottage smells wonderful. I put a pot roast in the crockpot early this morning, added potatoes about noon, and carrots about four. Now I can’t wait to eat it. They say you should bake bread (or cookies) if your house is being shown for sale; after today, I’d say you should put a roast on. The gravy in this one is a simple mix of dry onion soup, cream of mushroom soup, and half a cup of red wine. I used to do that for my kids all the time.

Am I crazy? I am just devastated that Gov. Abbott has opened up the state—no mask mandate, business as usual. Yes, I’ve had both shots and feel fairly safe but not invincible. I had been looking forward to dinner in a restaurant with a friend next week. I distinctly remember having dinner with her on March 12, 2020—it was the last time either of us ate in a restaurant. But now I’m not sure I want to eat elbow-to-elbow with unmasked people. The CDC is issuing a stern warning against rushing to open too soon—guess the good governor just didn’t hear that one. I’m not inclined to be a fan of the Texas governor, he who brought us the energy crisis. Now he’s exacerbating the covid crisis.

I know the argument is that we must restore the economy, but I’m skeptical that letting large numbers of people catch the virus is going to do much for the economy. It seems to me a question of weighing human life against the economy, and I know which one I’d choose. Abbott says individual vigilance is still needed but state mandates are not necessary. What fairyland does he live in that he thinks everyone is going to continue to mask and social distance without the mandate? Sure, a lot of us will, but too many won’t. For one thing, trump politicized the whole mask question to the point his followers think it’s a badge of independence to go without a mask. And Lord knows, we have too many of his followers in Texas!

One more comment on that subject: how many people have you heard of with the flu? Think maybe masks work? Sure, between CDC protocols (masks and social distance) and the terrific roll-out of vaccinations (Isn’t it nice to have a president who does what he promises?), covid numbers are dramatically going down. When you’re winning is not the time to quit fighting.

On a brighter note, I found some clothes I’d lost. I asked Jordan to help look, and she was quite insistent that I had approved giving them away. I knew that wasn’t true because it was a favorite pair of leggings and a shirt that I wore with several things. She was standing in the closet, puzzled, when I suggested maybe they were buried in a basket that sat to one side. And there they were, under some other things—shirt, leggings, a pair of pajamas I wear a lot. Please do not ask how they got there. Brightened my day.

And another bit of bad news for the day—the estate of Dr. Seuss has decided to pull six books from the market because of racial images. I’m not sure which six books, so I can’t speak to the images, but it seems a shame to deprive children of the joy of Dr. Seuss.

Don’t get me started on Governor Cuomo. I’m on a tear already tonight!

Becoming my mother and thoughts on someone else’s long marriage….

They say we women all become our mothers as we age. When my mom got older, she had a series of strokes which affected her ability to think clearly. One little result of that bothered me a lot—her clothes were always spotted. You could tell what Mom had for lunch by looking at her outfit. I swore I would never get there, but today I happened to look down at the T-shirt I sleep in. You can count how many times I’ve brushed my teeth by the drips of toothpaste! And then there’s that spot of marinara.

Another clothing faux pas. I wore what I thought was a cute, coordinated outfit to church this morning. As a matter of fact I also wore it to dinner last night. A turquoise-and-gray top, with gray pants and gray shoes. Imagine my surprise when we got home at noon and I looked down in broad, full daylight only to discover that my pants, far from gray, were blue. I asked Jordan why she didn’t tell me, and she said she didn’t notice. Maybe no one else did either.

Tonight I went to a dinner party and managed, I think, to wear an appropriate outfit—okay, that turquoise top again but with gray pants this time—and not to dribble food on my shirt, though we were in a Mexican restaurant with plenty of opportunity for dribbling salsa and pico de gallo. I gathered with some fifty other people to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of friends Carol Roark and Lon Burnam. We celebrated our friends and clapped when Lon made a short speech about their first meeting.

The whole gathering was like a mini-meeting of the Tarrant County Democratic Party, and we were all energized, even before the news went around the room that Nancy Pelosi had lunch in Fort Worth today with a couple who were in the very room with us.

For me, the party was a chance to see friends I hadn’t seen in a while and sort of catch up, though the noise level was extreme and half the time I couldn’t hear what someone was saying to me. Still, I managed to re-hook with a friend that I thought had moved out of my life and to garner a speaking arrangement for spring, after my Alamo book comes out. So it was fun, with an extra layer of good for me.

Lon is a former Texas legislator and now a consultant for causes he cares passionately about, like world peace and nuclear waste and the environment. Carol, a historian and librarian, retired as director of the Texas Collection at the Dallas Public Library and now pursues independent projects she cares about, like digitalizing records of the local black genealogy society. She also writes books and has edited some of mine. They travel frequently, sometimes together but often not. Seeing a couple like Lon and Carol, with a long marriage but yet degrees of independence, makes me think of those wonderful words from Robert Browning’s “Rabbi Ben Ezra”:

Grow Old with me,

                The best is yet to be,

The last of life, for which the first was made . . . .

They fill me with admiration for what they have accomplished, because I know the forty years haven’t always been easy, but as a survivor of a marriage gone terribly wrong, I also admit o a twinge of jealousy. Happy longevity is something not many achieve. God bless them.