Today was lovely, the kind of day that makes me think of that poem I had to memorize in grade school. It began, “October’s bright blue weather,” though I don’t remember another word of it. Pretty as today was, a part of me longed for a repeat of yesterday’s long, slow and steady rain. Apparently, we are to get more rain this weekend, so I’ll be content.
I’m
trying hard to be a working writer this week. Just sent my webmaster the copy
for a Fall newsletter. I do an “only occasional” newsletter—if you don’t get it
and would like to, please email me at j.alter@tcu.edu.
Also, today I wrote about 1800 words, not my record for a day but darn close and
a total that made me feel proud. I know somewhat the end of Irene’s Texas story
but getting there had me baffled. Today I decided to stop thinking ahead and
deal with each scene as it comes. The characters will lead me to the right direction.
Cooking
has taken up a bit of my time, but my one real triumph is so unimpressive that
I almost hate to brag. Still, I made the best ever salmon spread the other day
and had it in sandwiches for lunch for two days. Colin and I split a case of
salmon from Alaska—it really is better than the usual offering in the grocery
stores. My secret trick is that I whirred the salmon in a food processor until
it was finely flaked. Then I added a bit of finely minced scallion, salt and
pepper, juice of a whole lemon (lots of lemon was what made it work), and just
enough sour cream/mayo mixture to bind. I didn’t want a juice, sloppy mix; I
wanted a spread. Terrific on sourdough bread.
Tonight,
we ordered dinner from Bonnell’s. Fort Worth folk will know the place. During
pandemic, Jon Bonnell utilized the location of his upscale restaurant on an
access road to offer drive-by meals—a different menu five nights a week. He called
his customers, “roadside warriors.” The program was so successful, he continues
it to this day. We ordered once before when they had pork cutlets with gravy,
potatoes, and I don’t remember what else. It was delicious, so this morning
when I saw the offering was chicken marsala, soft polenta, green beans, and
salad with green goddess dressing, we decided to order it. Once again delicious
and so very generous. The food comes cold with clear directions for reheating.
Christian was dishing up tonight and had he plates full when I asked about the
green beans. He had left them in the house and thought dinner was compete with
all that food, We scrunched things around to make room for buttery green beans.
A worthy meal.
With
mid-term elections two weeks away, I find myself reading less of the prognostications.
I read somewhere that then-president Barack Obama coined the term “bedwetters.”
He said about this time, in every election cycle, the bedwetters come out with
their predictions of gloom and disaster. Everybody is losing, nobody has any
money, this is your last chance, and so on. I find it so annoying I have given
up.
This
morning I read a terrific column by Gabe Fleisher on polls and their
reliability or not—read it here: Let’s talk about the polls (wakeuptopolitics.com).
If you don’t know Fleisher’s daily column, “Wake Up to Politics” I urge you to
subscribe immediately. It’s totally bipartisan, sometimes way too much so for
my tastes. These days I sense a great gap between what the polls are saying and
my intuitive sense of the mood of the country. Christian would tell me I only
hear a select audience, and he may be right. I tend to hear educated voters,
and there is a vast world out there, I know, of voters who accept whatever they
most recently heard. They are easily misled which is exactly what those who
would lead us to fascism want.
This
is such a critical election that now, even two weeks out, I am finding the
suspense difficult to bear, and I wonder how candidates in those tied races can
maintain their calm. I’ve given a lot of thought to how I’ll spend election
night. My best idea is several glasses of wine and in bed by seven, with a pillow
over my head.
Sweet
dreams, everyone.
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