Am I a Texan or a Chicagoan

 

I’ve lived in Texas since the summer of 1965—that’s a whopping fifty-eight years, well over two thirds of my life. That first summer saw the flourishing of the “Born in Texas” movement, and shopping malls, which we frequented then, had kiosks with T-shirts bearing that slogan and others, like, “I wasn’t born in Texas, but I got here as soon as I could.” You could buy certificates that certified that you were a native Texan, although of course it would have been easy to cheat. In a few years, by the time I had children and wanted T-shirts for them, the craze was over.

People in Texas thought I talked funny with my Chicago flat speech, but after a year, when I went home or talked to a relative back home, they all laughed at my southern accent. To this day, my kids say my accent depends on what I’m talking about—If I am, as I frequently have in the past, talking about author Elmer Kelton, one of my heroes, they say I get a cowboy twang.

Much of my career—as an author, as director of the TCU Press—revolved around Texas, and over the years I began to feel like a native Texan, even if it was a bit of a lie. Still folklorist Joyce Roach and I had a dog-and-pony show we took to meetings and other places—once even performing for an elite group of big donors at TCU. Joyce talked about the glories of being a fifth-generation Texan. My talk was titled, “Notes from an outsider.” I knew my place.

Not every book I’ve written has been about Texas, but a high percentage of them have. I’ve been best known for writing about women of the American West—Elizabeth Bacon Custer, Jessie Benton Frémont, cowgirl Lucille Mulhall, and Etta Parker of the Hole in the Wall Gang. But there were lots of Texas titles—a book about Elmer Kelton, books about Texas food from chili to great chefs, and most recently, three mystery series set in Texas. Yes, I claimed my credentials as a Texas writer.

But in the last ten years, a feeling for Chicago—I’m not sure how to describe it, but perhaps affection is a good word—has increasingly taken a place in my thinking. Years ago I wrote a y/a novel, I Wish I Lived at Eleanor Lee’s House, about something that really happened when I was a teen. I was then published by a small Texas press, and the publisher had no market for a Chicago title, so I put it aside. I’ve recently gotten it out and reread it with some interest.

But it was The Gilded Cage, a fat historical about Bertha Honore (Cissy) Palmer, wife of hotelier and robber baron Potter Palmer, that first renewed my interest in Chicago. I loved exploring the complex history of the city in the late nineteenth century, from the Great Fire to the Columbian Exposition, with the Civil War, the Haymarket Riot, Pullmantown, and a myriad of fascinating subjects.

None of that, though, explains why I set a new series of mysteries in Chicago. What may have sparked my more intense identification with the Windy City is a trip there with all four of my children. We toured the neighborhood where I grew up and the University of Chicago where I went to school, gazed at the lake, ate in fine restaurants, and took the historical tour at the Palmer House. I fell in love with the city all over again.

That may be behind the Irene in Chicago Culinary Mysteries though I cannot tell you where the characters came from. They were just there one day: Irene, the domineering, demanding faux French chef who claims a Cordon Bleu background she does not have, and Henny James, her apprentice, who tells the stories in a slightly snarky tone of voice.

Now, suddenly or so it seems to me, there are four Irene mysteries—Saving Irene, Irene in Danger, Finding Florence, and Irene Deep in Texas Trouble. They haven’t set the bestseller lists on fire, but they’ve earned respectable stars on Amazon and enough people have commented that I think someone out there enjoys Irene’s shenanigans.

A couple of months ago, I started a new Irene book—Missing Irene—and then for reasons unknown to me I set it aside, tried to write a bit on a memoir, fiddled and procrastinated and didn’t know what I was doing. Tonight I went back and read what I have of that new manuscript, and guess what? I rather liked it. Maybe I’m getting bolder but it will revolve around a case of incest. I think for the time being I’ll go back to it. I hope you’ll read it one day.

Random thoughts from the cottage

 

Looking at Jordan, like,
Where are you taking me?

Sophie went to the vet yesterday. Poor dear leads a sheltered life. She’s either in the cottage or in our relatively small backyard, but at least she can come and go between the two at will.
Still, she gets excited when we bring out her leash, and a car ride is a real joy. Somehow she

Looking at the world

never figures out that the vet is at the end of the ride. But she got a good bill of health yesterday, some new medicines—ear drops which she acts like are the most painful things in the world, an anti-bacteria pill for an unhealed sore. Jordan took some cut pictures of her in the car (why wasn’t my daughter’s attention on driving? Maybe these were all at stoplights.)

Resting, all is well.
We're going home.

Some odd food notes: today from my favorite grocery store I saw an ad for personal watermelons. Stopped me short—I can’t think of what they are unless they are individual-sized watermelons, and I’ve never seen such. In other food news, for the past two nights we had happy hour company and never really had a proper supper. Last night I wasn’t hungry but thought I should have something solid and substantial, so I decided on scrambled eggs—my go-to. I had watched a video of Jamie Oliver’s foolproof technique for making an omelet, so I thought I’d try it, even if I wasn’t going to put any cheese in the middle. Major fail convinced me I will order omelets out and give up trying to do one at home.

Not an omelet

Tonight I made lamb burgers and put lettuce, mayo, and feta in the buns. So good. And satisfied my longing for a substantial meal. Added a cucumber salad with a yogurt dressing that had, of all things, a bit of mustard. You couldn’t taste the mustard, and it was really good.

But speaking of food, a friend emailed today and wondered if Irene ever made clafouti, the French dessert of fruit, traditionally black cherries, covered with a flan-like batter and baked, then dusted with powdered sugar. After all, she reasoned, it’s French so Irene must have made it. The subject came up because I said pitting cherries is too much trouble, and I intend to make a blueberry dump cake. I don’t even want to imagine what Irene would say about a dump cake (fruit, cake mix, and butter) but I have promised to mention clafouti to her. (In France, it’s called calfoutis.) And by the by, don’t plan a trip to France for your clafoutis—they are having serious problems with too many tourists.

Big news at the cottage today is that we got new sod in the backyard—a variety of Bermuda called TurfTen I think. It was fun to watch the guys install it—they scraped out the old, dead, beat the new into place and affixed it with a huge roller thing, a much more complicated process than I never thought planting grass was. Grass in our back  yard is a sore subject—we have tried everything—zoysia, St. Augustine, winter rye. And I always end up having to replace it. The part of the yard that is grass is relatively small, and I’d be all for decorative grasses and ground cover, but the dogs need someplace to poop and pee. And that, of course, is what kills our grass. I don’t expect it to improve a lot now that we have only two dogs instead of three, but my lawn service friend assures me this should come back next spring (if it survives this summer).

I read today that in thirty years it will not be uncommon for the Texas temperature to hit 125^o.  I am advocating for replacing the front lawn with native plants but am stopped by cost and lack of knowledge. Christian showed me one such front yard in a nearby neighborhood that he said was the only way he would do it—plants grouped by variety and still a bit of grass. I would like a wilder look. Probably a pipe dream since I am hit with vet bills, hearing aid bills, and other big expenses. At this point in my life, the odds of making a fortune with a bestselling book are pretty slim.

Take heart, my friends. Tomorrow is supposed to be a tad better but still pretty hot. After that, though, we begin to head down into the nineties, which I find reasonable, and there’s the promise of a breeze and a hint of possible rain next week. I keep remembering a year when Colin and Lisa came for the fourth—at least twenty years ago—and it was downright cold. Guess climate change has made that unlikely to happen ever again.

Stay cool and safe.

Preserving Fort Worth

 

When I was a kid, we went to movies at the Piccadilly Theatre, some three blocks from the house. It was a grand, elaborate place with gilded columns and a heavy velvet curtain on the stage, chandeliers, and, if I remember correctly, gilt-edged panels painted into rich, red walls. The lobby, of course, was equally spectacular, and I can tell you from personal observation that even the ceiling was elaborate. I know because to this day I remember spending all of Captain from Castile staring at the ceiling to avoid the violence onscreen. I was a wimpy kid.

That’s what movie theaters were like in the forties—single screen and fancy. Fort Worth had its share, including the Parkway on Eighth (long gone), the Isis on North Main (still in use) and the Berry on Hemphill. But now the city has issued a demolition permit for the Berry, deteriorated (and trashed by vandals) until it would be prohibitive to restore it. The land will become a free clinic for uninsured in the neighborhood, which is all well and good—except we are losing another landmark.

I’m no preservation expert. Just someone who values the history represented by older buildings, but it seems to me Fort Worth finds the tear-down decision easier than restoration. Once a grand row of cattleman’s mansions lined what is now Summit Avenue and was once Hill Street. The only remaining is Thistle Hill, restored to its Georgian Revival glory and open for visitors and events by an intense public effort. For more on the now-gone mansions, read Fort Worth’s Quality Hill by Brenda McClurkin. You’ll mourn the history we’ve lost.

Another bit of architectural history is under consideration by the city: the Community Art Center, former home of the Museum of Modern Art, now housing gallery spaces, studios, nonprofit offices, and the Wm. Edrington Scott Theatre. Alternative uses for the building are being considered, but apparently the cost to renovate will be as great as the cost to demolish and rebuild. As far as I know, the city has not decided yet, though preservationists are working to save the building.

Not my picture; not Fort Worth.
But you get the look-alike idea.

All the history we have lost and continue to lose brings me to the topic of stealth houses. It’s not unrelated that I cannot have a stove in my cottage kitchen—I can have anything that plugs in, so I cook with a hot plate and a toaster oven. That zoning restriction if part of the TCU Overlay designed to control student rentals in the neighborhoods around the university. But it’s not renovated servants’ quarters like mine that are the big problem: it’s stealth dorms, houses with as many as ten bedrooms and one common kitchen. To combat this, the city has passed laws for single-family neighborhoods that no more than five unrelated people may occupy a single housekeeping unit. The trouble is the law is not heavily enforced. One friend attended a neighborhood meeting after a stealth dorm went in amidst their single-family homes. She found out you cannot even lodge a protest until the law is broken by too many unrelated students moving in. By then, the battle is lost, the single family home demolished, the stealth dorm a reality.

Neighbors around TCU object to the stealth dorms because they bring a raft of problems—parking, traffic, garbage, noisy parties, loss of green space, etc. My objection is as much to history lost as to the deterioration of neighborhoods that high-density buildings inevitably bring. To build these structures, developers, looking for a quick profit, tear down single-family homes, some dating back to the 1920s, many bungalows built post-WWII. In replacing those individual homes, developers replace houses of distinctive and interesting architecture with blocks of high-density, look-alike structures. We are losing the whole history of neighborhoods, as most of us knew them as children. A chunk of city life, from say the early fifties to the present, is being wiped out. In one neighborhood of 160 properties, only sixty-three single-family units are now owner occupied.

Granted, the city does not make these individual decisions—developers offer homeowners deals they simply can’t resist. But I remain convinced the city could do more to curtail the flood of stealth homes.

Like most cities, Fort Worth has an organization dedicated to preservation: Historic Fort Worth. I would never want to discount their efforts and their successes. I just wish for a more conservation minded—and less profit-oriented—attitude from the city. Once history is gone, it cannot be built again. And stealth dorms are generally ugly.

Reviving happy hour

 

Jrdan's charcuteries

It’s been almost seven years since I moved into the cottage. At first, everyone was curious to see my digs. The idea of living in a converted garage full time was new, and friends were curious. We live in a neighborhood where many older homes, like mine, had guest cottages that were really converted servants’ quarters. Oh sure, some people fixed them up as rental property—which led to my kitchen facilities being limited by a zoning ordinance, but that’s another story. Still, I think the idea that I would move out of my three-bedroom house into a 600 square foot cottage was a bit surprising. So it was like Field of Dreams—if you build it, they will come.

And come they did, every night. Jordan and I fixed elaborate finger food, often charcuterie but sometimes other offerings such as tea sandwiches or dip and chips or whatever. It challenged my kitchen creativity, and I enjoyed it. But happy hour began to take a toll on my work time, and the wine bill was pretty high. So we began to cut back. These days, I may put out a bowl of chips or a wedge of cheese, but that’s it, and many “regulars” bring their own drinks, partly because they know my wine cellar and liquor cabinet are extremely limited and partly to help my budget. It all works out.

Tonight, however, we went back to a full charcuterie board. Subie and Phil are preparing to move to Trinity Terrace, and Subie’s sister Cynthia and her husband from Colorado Springs are here to help pack. We calculated tonight that Subie and I have known each other at least forty-five years. I didn’t think in all that time I’d ever met Cynthia, although she said tonight she thought maybe we’d met many years ago. Whatever, I was delighted to have them all for happy hour.

I spent some time debating appetizers and finally settled on a charcuterie board, over crab bites or some other favorites. I thought that would be plenty for the seven of us. Then I spent time deciding what to include—a couple of things I had in the fridge, like a really nice jar of marinated artichoke hearts and a tub of pub cheese. I bought the slightest amount of three meats from Central Market and splurged on olives because Christian loves them. In fact, I had so much I ruled out some items—like a sliced apple and honey to go with the blue cheese (too hard to serve and sticky). Jordan ruled out some leftover horseradish/crème fraiche sauce which would have been good with ham but, again, was too hard to serve. I ordered a baguette—and forgot to ask to have it sliced, a mistake I won’t make again. And somehow my grocery order included some odd chips I never ordered—they got saved for another time.

Faced with all that, I wondered how to arrange it. Jordan to the rescue—she took charge and created a beautiful arrangement. Together we make a pretty darn good team.

So there we were—seven people in the cottage (which pushes my seating capacity) on one of the hottest nights of the year. We turned on both a/c units and shut the door I usually keep open. Given the temperature, Phil did not bring his dog, Porter, but Sophie was inside with us the entire time.

Sophie getting sympathy

Soph has been a happy hour problem—bad habits have overtaken us. She has learned that if she barks enough she’ll get a treat to silence her. I’ve been trying to break the cycle, but it requires enduring the barking—eventually she runs out and settles down. Tonight we tried something new—her leash. I put it on her and kept her near me—and she lay quietly. When we finally took it off, she jumped up on the couch, apparently to tell the out-of-town visitors what a hard life she has, and they responded with appropriate sympathy.

It was a jolly evening, with Subie and me reciting for Cynthia how we’d met and some of our shared adventures over the years—the time the three of us went to the Caribbean for Christmas because my oldest child was there, or the time the Burtons and I visited the cabin in New Mexico that Subie and her sisters share. Lots of good times in our history, and I’m hoping they’ll continue after they move into the retirement community.

serious talk on jolly evening

I think our move into more elaborate happy hours is a one-time thing, although Subie has another sister who will be here soon. Got to get my thinking cap on. But Mary is coming for her regular Tuesday night visit tomorrow—I’ll pull out what’s left from tonight, and she will bring what’s left from a Zoom cooking class she did today on front porch entertaining. Leftovers are part of the fun.

If you’re in Texas—or reading the newspapers anywhere else—you know it’s hot. Ninety-five at ten o’clock as I write, and they say it will last all week. Knock on wood, the cottage is blessedly comfortable, and Sophie and I stay inside and go about our business. But the yard guys came tonight at five o’clock, and I thought what a long, hot day it has been for them. I love living in Texas—most of the time—but it does sometimes test one’s patience.

Stay cool and safe, please.

Is there a better name for aging?

Some time ago the senior minister at our church announced a series of sermons titled, “Life Comes at You Fast.” He intended to explore four ages: childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and, according to the announcement, old adulthood. I howled in protest that I did not want to be called an “old adult,” and Russ Peterman, our minister, confessed that was a typo: it should have read “older adulthood.” Not much of an improvement in my mind. Later, he wrote that at one church he’d served, the seniors called themselves Third Agers. I thought that sounded a lot better, but then, a few days later, I saw a reference to the “chronologically-enhanced population.” Whoever wrote that admitted the phrase does not trip lightly off the tongue. But it’s pretty expressive, and Russ used it in his sermon this morning.

He talked about some closely-held ideas in America, one of them being a fear of aging. We all know that the media bombards us with glorification of youth and rarely has much good to say about age. Similarly, one person talked of the so-called golden years as a time of being, not doing. You’ve worked hard all your life, doing, so now you can let others do, and you can just be. Not an attitude that Russ endorsed. Instead, if I got his meaning, he spoke of our older years as a time of freedom—kids are grown, family is probably more stable financially, career is over or slowing down—but he emphasized that we cannot sit back. We in our seventies, eighties, and beyond have accumulated wisdom to share with the world. It behooves us to share our wisdom, to use our new leisure time to better the world somehow. A wealth of volunteer opportunities are open to older adults. What I got out of today’s words—and I hope I’m not distorting—is that we should use the hard-earned lessons of the past to move forward. We are never too old to participate in life.

That struck home to me because the other night I was talking to a friend, a minister, and said I feared becoming irrelevant. This was partly prompted by the fact that more and more when I go out, I want to be pushed in the transport chair rather than walk with my walker. I’m not sure if it’s a return of my fear of open spaces (I sort of suspect that) or a sign of growing weaker. My friend said it was not a sign of weakness. “You are engaged,” she said, and that made me feel a lot better. And maybe that’s what Russ was saying: as we grow older, we must continue to be engaged, bringing with us the wisdom of the past as we move into the future. He quoted former U.N. Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld: “For all that has been, Thanks. To all that shall be, Yes.”

Last night I had a lovely dinner in the Blue Spire, the formal dining room at the Trinity Terrace retirement community. Friends Carol and Lon have been there about two months, and they invited me and Jean (who already lives there) to join them. The dining room is on the twelfth floor, and I tried to take a picture of the view, but it didn’t come out. Me, who goes weak in the knees at height, loves to be inside looking out from that height. Jean lives on the seventeenth floor, and I’m not sure I’d be comfortable with that. Carol and Lon are on the fifth floor in a different tower, and I was at ease with that. When Subie and Phil get there next month, they will be on the third floor, easy for Phil and his seeing-eye dog to navigate.

Much of the conversation was about Trinity Terrace, what goes on there from food service to programs, and who lives there. It struck me that someone said, “Has memory problems” about every second person whose name came up. Is it in the atmosphere? Something that’s catching? Then it dawned on me: these people are in their seventies and eighties (and a few nineties)—of course they have memory problems. It’s part of aging and doesn’t necessarily lead to Alzheimer’s or dementia. I have memory problems all the time, mostly people’s names that I can’t grasp. After a few minutes, the name comes to me, and I go on my way. I think I’ve been doing that since I was, maybe, forty? Where I wonder, does one draw the line, and what is the line anyway? I am reminded of me friend and once teacher Fred who moved, with his wife, to an apartment complex filled with friends of Jordan. When I pointed out he is old and the other occupants were all young, he said, “Precisely.” Maybe he too was afraid it was catching.

One final thought from the sermon: we take with us into old age the attitudes we’ve had all our lives. I hope your attitude is on health and happiness.

Thunder gods, congressional flubs, and a good book

 

The thunder gods bowled and had a party over my house this afternoon. I haven’t heard such sustained thunder in a while. It brought lightning but no hail and a nice, fairly gentle rain. My Canadian daughter, who came for supper, said at her house—less than two miles away—they got heavy rain and winds, and Jordan, who was maybe two miles in a different direction, saw two trees that looked like they were split by lightning. We talked about how funny it is that we lives so close to each other and still get such different storm experiences, and how glad we are to be so close to each other.

It seems to me that rain often is all around us but skips, as though it deliberately avoids our property. All week we’ve had promises, only to have them dwindle to nothing. And all week, I’ve been home, safely in the cottage. So wouldn’t you know that this morning, when I needed to go out for an appointment, it began to rain. By the time we headed out—Christian taking me for a Covid vaccine—it had slowed to a drizzle.

I have a new hero. Ever since trump’s first impeachment hearing, I have been a fan of Adam Schiff. The more trump mocked him, the better I liked him. But now, after Republicans in the House maliciously censured and falsely him, he is my new hero because of the grace and humor with which he bore what was meant to be a devastating put-down and turned out to be nothing more than a bad joke. Schiff’s entire speech is well worth reading, but here are his opening words: “To my Republican colleagues who introduced this resolution, I thank you,” he said. “You honor me with your enmity. You flatter me with this falsehood. You, who are the authors of a big lie about the last election, must condemn the truth-tellers and I stand proudly before you. Your words tell me that I have been effective in the defense of our democracy, and I am grateful.” No anger, just the right amount of humor, and a lot of grace. What a man, or they say in his faith, a true mensch.

Schiff showed his dedication to truth in another instance this week when he questioned John Durham before Gym Jordan’s committee to uncover weaponization of the government, whatever that is. Durham had been appointed by Bill Barr five long years ago to investigate the “false” allegations that trump accepted Russian help and conspired with Russians in the 2015 campaign. This despite the Mueller report which resulted in legal charges, some convictions, and definite indications of that collusion.

The Republican-led committee had egg on its face after Schiff and others questioned Durham, who seemed unable to come up answers more definitive than, “It would seem so,” and “I would call it ill advised.” He had obviously not read the Mueller Report, and there was some doubt he was familiar with his own committee’s report. Gosh, Gym Jordan, tell us who’s next? I’m breathless with anticipation.

It's not been a good year so far for Republicans who control the House. So far they’ve had two men come to fisticuffs—Mike Rogers and Matt Gaetz, both Republicans, during the long, drawn-out voting for speaker. Now two female representatives have had a catfight on the House floor—no need to guess. It was Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebbert, both wanting credit—wait for it—for the motion to impeach Biden. Greene even managed to call Boebbert “a little bitch.” In the background a man, perhaps spineless Kevin, can be heard saying, “Take if off the floor, ladies.” Such a lack of class in our elected officials really troubles me.

But a part of me wants to laugh too. The custom in the House is to refer to a male member as “the gentleman from ????” and a female member as “the gentle lady from ????” But the spectacle of McCarthy calling on Greene with, “Does the gentle lady from Georgia wish to speak?” sends me into giggles. She is neither gentle nor a lady. Still I mourn for our country.

And it seems though the House has sent several bills forward, they have all died in the Senate. So now, they have taken one concrete step: to censure Adam Schiff on the basis of facts already long ago disproven (shhh! don’t tell them—maybe they think it’s a secret). And they are building toward another ludicrous piece of legislature: impeach Joe Biden. What rock do these people live under?

No wonder with all this idiocy dominating the news, I’m glad to retreat to the world of fiction. I’m reading and enjoying, Murder at a Scottish Wedding, by Traci Hall. Lots of wonderful Scottish brogue (dialect, not shoes), some unexpected characters who don’t follow the guidelines of the cozy formula, and romance that doesn’t end all tied with a bow. I like the unexpected!

Take care out there—wicked storms are afoot tonight, and hot weather will be in many locations at least trough the first of the week. Sweet dreams!   

An epiphany

My sweet Sophie

Several years ago I had a friend who had an epiphany every other day. No, not the religious meaning associated with Christianity, but the simpler definition of a sudden realization of momentous importance to your life. Such realizations often come in a very ordinary moment, like doing the dishes or mopping the floor. I’m not sure what I was doing—maybe napping because I seem to do a lot of that lately. But I suddenly realized that I have been in a funk without knowing it. I need, as they say, to get my groove back.

It began with my inability to settle down and read any book through to the end. Nothing grabbed me, spoke to me. For the last two weeks, I’ve started and abandoned maybe ten books, everything from mysteries to food-oriented nonfiction, some well-reviewed, others by authors I usually enjoy. I really did begin to worry that I was becoming a dilettante.

Then I realized I have not settled down to one writing project since the publication two months ago of Irene Deep in Texas Danger. I’ve dabbled with a memoir, though now I do have 6,000 words, but it is slow going, bouncing from my blog to remind myself what happened and back to the memoir to fit events and feelings into the story. I also started a new Irene story, Missing Irene, and wrote 4700 words before I put it aside. I’ve even been a bit lackadaisical about blogging. Perhaps the only thing I follow through on is cooking meals for family and friends.

So I started thinking about why. That’s how my mind works—I want to know why, what’s behind something. I’m not depressed so why am I not settling down to what I consider my work. Well, these are, as we all know, troubled times, and I feel obliged to keep up with what’s happening and, more than keeping informed, often comment on it. I think that’s the conscience of my father speaking through me. But if Greg Abbott signs a bill wiping out the water break requirement for construction workers, I think the voting public needs to know about it. And if Justice Sam Alito jets off to luxurious resorts with a rich businessman who has business before the Supreme Court and then denies knowing the man, I think we need to know about it. Right now I’m in suspenseful agony worrying about those people in that lost submersible (I once went in one, though it hovered just below the surface—my children thought at the time I was extraordinarily brave but in retrospect I think it was those Carribbean rum drinks). Never again. But I am appalled at the heartless attitude some people are taking. My prayers are with those five souls.

And emails—I get 150-200 emails a day. Last night my friend Mary told me she was cleaning out her emails. She had a backlog of something like 250,000. I was absolutely appalled. I never go to bed with an unread email, and once I read it, I either answer, discard, or file. I deal with it. Back in the day when business was transacted on paper, the mantra was if you pick up a piece of paper, never just put it back down: deal with it. The same applies to emails, to me, though I realize not everyone is as compulsive as I am. My emails keep me in touch with friends, other writers, blogs, and miscellaneous pieces of news. I enjoy them.

But my point here is that it takes me most of every morning to deal with what’s come in on my computer overnight, and by the time I do I am often distressed, tired, angry, whatever. And then I turn to my writing. I need to reverse things: write first, social media later, but old habits are hard to break. Maybe I turn first to emails because I’m expecting something wonderful, like a letter from “The Millionaire.” (His money wouldn’t go very far today).

And then, it’s been a rough year for my family. We’ve lost Christian’s mother and for a while I was afraid of losing my brother. His recovery, if it is that, is slow, and I am still worried about him. I spent a difficult two months thinking every day with my beloved Sophie might be the last. She is doing so much better now, but there are ongoing medical concerns. And the Burtons had to say goodbye to one of their dogs. Maybe I’m just reeling from family trauma. And now it’s summer in Texas, hot and uninspiring.

I don’t think, however, pinning a label on anything fixes it. It’s up to me to dig myself out of this hole. I’ve done it before, and I can do it again. So watch for me, I hope, to be more dedicated about my work, to take fewer really long naps, to get my act in gear.

Oops, it’s time to cook dinner for the family. But I think I feel better already. Thanks for listening.

 

See you around the ‘hood

 

The main entrance to Lily B. "Sweet Lily B." Clayton Elementary School
Oh, how many times I've climbed those stairs!

Neighborhoods are on my mind tonight. Today was the absolute, drop-dead deadline for the July issue of the Poobah, the newsletter for the Berkeley neighborhood which I edit. (There’s a story about that name, a clear reference to Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Mikado where the Poobah is a self-important person—the name was first a joke for the newsletter, but then it stuck.) Tonight was also the quarterly Berkeley Place Association zoon meeting. So neighborhood has sort of taken up my day.

Fort Worth is, to me, a wonderful city, a wonderful place to live. But I am struck by the diversity of neighborhoods, the way each neighborhood has something to distinguish it. We all come together as citizens of the city, but many of us also have strong bonds to the neighborhood in which we live.

I first moved to Berkeley in the early ‘80s, fresh from a divorce, with four children. We lived in an absolutely charming house on Warner Road, with such Mediterranean touches a arched doorways and parquet floors. Never mind that there was no closet—I asked the seller where he would put the vacuum if he lived there—and only one living room. The kids and I couldn’t both have friends at the same time. I was a single mom in a neighborhood of “typical” families—Mom, Dad, and two kids. While I never felt ostracized, I never felt at home either.

We moved to a larger, ranch-style house in Westcliff, a neighborhood designed in the fifties to break the stereotypes of straight streets and small bungalows. Our sprawling house was on a curved street that wound through a neighborhood of similar houses. My brother lived down the street, close friends a block away in a different direction. I didn’t discover the importance of neighborhoods then either.

But in 1992, a sprawling house was too big as the kids started to move out on their own. We moved back to Berkeley, to the property Jordan, Christian, Jacob and I still occupy. By then I had friends in the neighborhood, and within a few years, I found myself editing the newsletter, a job handed down by good friend Mary Dulle. I began to learn what neighborhood is really about.

Editing the Poobah is pro bono work. I’m a firm believer in giving back to society in whatever way you can, and this volunteer job is the perfect way to use what skills I’ve developed over a thirty-plus-year career in publishing and as an author. It is my way of giving back. But it has many rewards. After who knows how many years I feel fully integrated into the neighborhood. I don’t know everyone in our 604 houses, but I know a lot of them. And I am friends with many. I get emails from contributors who obviously think they know me and want to chat about the newsletter, the neighborhood, whatever. Oh, sure, I get some complaints—once someone suggested I should include more city business and fewer recipes, but we get city news through our syndicated newspaper, the Star-Telegram, and more effectively through our independent newspaper, the Fort Worth Report. There are a lot of good cooks in this neighborhood and a lot of families to be fed—I figure bringing them together is a service of the newsletter.

So is presenting pups from rescue services who are in need of a forever home. I try to feature a pup each month, but of course I want to bring each one of them home (shh! Don’t tell Sophie!). The July Poobah will have a budget report, a breakdown of how many houses have paid dues, an article about the goals of Fort Worth Report, a letter from our association president, advice from a local vet about pets and Texas heat, and a review of a new grocery/restaurant. My goal is to make it a mix of neighborhood news, like cheers to residents who have done something special, and city news—restaurant reviews, zoning disputes (oh that endless short-term rental business) and similar things.

Each neighborhood in our city is distinguished by something—perhaps a fairly homogenous group lives there or the architecture is all the same or there are landmarks and a fascinating history. I think Berkeley is distinguished because, like Park Hill, it sits above the zoo (which causes us horrendous traffic problems every spring break) and by it’s elementary school—Lily B. Clayton, one of the city’s most diverse and forward-looking, successful elementary school with a rich history, including its architecture. It also has a fiercely loyal group of parents/fundraisers (we share the school with the Mistletoe neighborhood).

If you want to know more about Fort Worth’s neighborhoods, I suggest you read the Fort Worth Report on Mondays. Each week, they feature a resident from a specific neighborhood, writing about why they love living where they do.

Me? I’m rooted in Berkeley, in my little, cozy cottage. What’s special about your neighborhood?

 

Father’s Day thoughts

 

Jacob, right, with longtime friend Colin
Hosts at Joe T.'s

Across the country today, Americans celebrated Father’s Day. Regardless of what you think of the commercialization of parenthood (think of Mother’s Day which is Father’s Day on steroids), this is traditionally a day to celebrate all things masculine, mostly with food: steak, potatoes, and the grill. Not if you’re a Burton though: like many holidays throughout the year, Father’s Day calls for dinner at Joe T. Garcia’s.

For those not from Fort Worth, the restaurant is commonly called Joe T.’s and is Fort Worth’s classic Mexican restaurant, the place where every celebrity that comes to town dines. Joe and Jessie Garcia began the business in 1935 with sixteen tables. Over the years it has grown, expanding on the original small space until today sprawling patios lush with plants and several dining areas can seat over a thousand. But the menu remains the same. It also remains very much a family business.

Signs were evident though that the children the Burton men are growing up. We went for lunch rather than dinner because Jacob’s host shift at Joe T.’s began at two-thirty and his cousin, Ariceli, had to be back in Denton at seven to work in an ice cream parlor. Times, they are a-changing.

Some sixteen years ago Christian waited tables at Joe T.’s. Since then, he and Jordan have been back often, hosted events there, and generally kept in touch. So for Jacob to go to work there this week was like following a family tradition. (Besides, all four of my children worked in food service when they were in school.) Going to Joe T.’s with Jordan and Christian makes you feel you are in the company of celebrities—the management staff, wait staff, lots of people come hug them, chat about what’s going on, and this time, to tease and fuss over Jacob who bore it all with extremely good grace. Christian sometimes seems to still work there, popping up to get a napkin or look at Jacob’s schedule or some such.

The occasion called for me to push my mobility limits and ultimately gave me cause to brag. We took my transport chair and Jordan pushed me up the long ramp to the patio only to find because of the heat we were seated inside. This meant, with Christian’s help, I walked up three steps, across an entry way, up another step, and then down three steps. Between the up and down I got parked out of the way of traffic and found myself next to a table where someone was finishing a meal. The woman seated there looked at me and said, “You can do this.” I joked about something, but I want to thank her for giving me a boost in confidence. After I got down the stairs, I turned to give her a thumbs up and she returned the sign. Finally we were at the table. Fortunately, we went out through the original restaurant, now a tiny reception area, where Christian could push me right down a ramp—no stairs to conquer. I was uncertain about his joke that if he let go I would go sailing right down. Not a funny thought!

At Joe T.’s at night, the menus is limited: you get fajitas (either chicken or beef) or “the dinner” which consists of mini tacos, enchiladas, beans, rice, guacamole, and tortillas—always too much for me. But at lunch there’s a wider choice—I was torn between bean chalupas and tortilla soup, which Christian pointed out were two very different items. I went with two chalupas—full but not uncomfortably so. And wine, while others were having the world-famous margaritas.

Lunch at Joe T.’s for me is subtitled, “How to kill an entire day.” This morning I did about a half hour real work on the memoir I’m struggling with—taking notes from blogs during the appropriate time period. Then I “went” to church on the computer—Christian and Jacob went in person and though I searched the computer screen, I didn’t see them.

There was a moving baby dedication for Father’s Day—two gay men presented the daughter they have adopted, an Asian girl who looked to be maybe three months. She was alert and curious, and as the minister said, loving being the center of attention. Her two dads stood in front of the congregation beaming. Really proud of my church, proud to be a member of an inclusive congregation.

We went to Joe T.’s at 1:30, got home after 3:30, and I ran, not walked, to take a nap. Day drinking may have been okay in my past, but it does me in now. I dozed from about four until five-fifteen when Sophie asked very politely for her dinner. Couldn’t resist—I went back to bed and next thing I knew it was six-fifteen and Megan was on the phone.

So now the dilemma after a Joe T.’s lunch: I’m full but a bit hungry, I want to eat but I don’t know what I want to eat.

Hope all who celebrated had a good Father’s Day. We can always grill something another time.

A book recommendation, recognition of a literary icon, and the search or an absorbing read

 

Some time ago I wrote about outrageous cozy mysteries—those that require the reader to suspend disbelief because nothing so far-fetched, improbable, outrageous could happen in real life. If these stories were onstage, they might be called slapstick. I cited Lois Winston’s Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun, first in her Anastasia Pollock Crafting Mysteries. Amateur sleuth Anastasia learns her husband, supposedly on a business trip, dropped dead at the tables in Las Vegas, having lost every penny they had and with a mobster after him for gambling debts. Anastasia inherits the threatening mobster, her mother-in-law who is a card-carrying, outspoken Communist, and a parrot that quotes Shakespeare. An editor at a crafting magazine, she finds a body in her office chair, firmly attached by glue from a hot glue gun. See what I mean by outrageous? (Of course I included my own Saving Irene in the list.)

This week I read the latest of Anastasia’s adventures, A Crafty Collage of Crime, published today. Twelfth in the series, the book takes her on a honeymoon to Tennessee’s wine country where she and her superhero (really, he can almost stop bullets) husband stay at a winery owned by three whacky sisters who are true-crime addicts. When the sisters’ husbands start turning up dead, the local sheriff welcomes Anastasia’s help—seems everyone knows about her because of a true-crime podcast featuring her. Anastasia is the only one who doesn’t know about the podcast. What follows is a hilarious mix of tourists, wineries, an ex-con, crooked real estate deals, a corrupt politician, kidnappings, and cryptocurrency. It’s a wild and improbable pace and lots of fun. The action is sprinkled with Winston’s talent for the comedic. For instance, she refers to her first husband as “the Dead Louse of a Spouse.”

If some days it seems the world is too much with you, I suggest you read A Crafty Collage of Crime. You’ll probably want to go back and read the rest of the series. Anastasia is irresistible. 

In other book news, no one who follows the news, particularly in Texas, can have missed that Cormac McCarthy died this week. Texas Monthly solicited statements of praise from ten authors, everyone from Stephen King to Annie Proulx (author of Brokeback Mountain). He was a Texas icon whose literary reputation stands with our greats—Larry McMurtry, John Graves, even J. Frank Dobie. If Dobie established southwestern literature as a genre, McCarthy took it in a new and dark direction. McCarthy’s prose is amazing, his landscape passages breath-taking, and I know his reputation will endure. Someone who knows Texas literarature well once speculated on what Texas authors will still be read a hundred years from now—he didn’t mention McCarthy, but I’d add his name to the slim list.

All that said, I never read one of his books through. McCarthy saw a darkness in humanity that was too much for me. Violence, corruption, and always the shadow of mortality hung over his works. Perhaps the violence of his vision accounted for his reclusive lifestyle. I am glad to recognize his importance in the canon of Texas literature (and earlier that of Appalachia) and I regret his death, but I cannot call myself a fan.

Obviously, from the recommendation above, I like lighter reading. Yet this week, I’ve had a hard time settling down with a new book this past week. Perhaps I’m picky. One stretched the limits of satire too far for me, another was too slow for even a cozy mystery, still another threatened to delve into Nazi brutality and, like McCarthy’s dark vision, I can’t go there. And then there was one that quoted Gertrude Stein (an apron is an apron is an apron) and waxed eloquent on the sensuality of cutting into a pumpkin. No thanks. I’m prowling my Kindle for all those books I haven’t yet read.

What are you reading?

A red-letter day and some random thoughts

 

Eureka! I have a new keyboard, just like the one that bit that dust. I installed it in five minutes with no problems, and, knock on wood, it’s working great. This may sound neurotic, but the last few days I’ve noticed my back and shoulders hurt after a morning at the computer. I’m wondering if it’s not from trying to use the laptop keyboard. Either way, I’m delighted to have my new keyboard. Kudos to son Jamie who ordered it, tracked it, and made sure I got it.

I am always too absorbed in what’s going on in our country these days (too absorbed is my own judgment because I spend too much time reading about politics when I should be writing). But the last couple of days I’ve been worse than ever. I haven’t put my thoughts together in any cohesive order but here are some random reactions.

I am delighted to know tonight that the House failed in its vote to censure Adam Schiff for his efforts to impeach trump. Not only censure him, but fine him $16 million. Some 200 Republicans voted for the measure but enough sided with the Democrats that it failed. Talk about revenge politics! Schiff wrote that the woman who proposed the measure came up to him afterward to say that it would be filed again next week and would pass this time. I think—and hope—that she’s lost her momentum.

But at the same time I am appalled at how many Republicans, from office holders to ordinary voters, think the trump indictment was a move on Biden’s part to undercut his primary opponent. I read somewhere that few if any of those Republicans have read the indictments through. If they would, I think they would change their minds—okay, not Gym Jordan and his ilk but some of them.

Tonight on PBS I saw a journalist with a focus group in Iowa. To a man (and woman) they blame Biden for the indictment and think it was politically motivated. They think trump had every right to keep those documents and to declassify them—do these people read at all? I doubt it. If trump is convicted that will only increase their support for him. They distrust the FBI, the CIA, and all those alphabet groups. They think Hilary should be in prison. It’s amazing to me how our country has come to this.

Meanwhile I read today that the orange man has a new excuse for keeping the boxes of files: he thought some of his shirts and shoes were in them, and he just hasn’t had time to go through them. As if he himself would go searching through boxes looking for shirts and shoes. And as if the boxes weren’t clearly full of documents If nothing else His supporters should  realize that the man is making way too many excuses—the sure sign of guilt.

I also read today that his current lawyer is a real estate lawyer from Miami with no criminal experience. One almost feels sorry for the poor innocent lamb who has wandered into a fight that is way over her capabilities. Apparently, no reputable lawyer will take the case, mostly because the client is so difficult to control. I heard the new lawyer speak outside the courthouse yesterday, and she repeated old, disproven ideas. Even I could have easily beaten her arguments.

I simply cannot understand how one group of voters can see so clearly the enormity of what trump is charged with—actions that could easily lead to the destruction of our country, military attacks, cyber attacks, biological warfare (we may have yet to see the fallout and we’ll never know who he sold secrets to). Yet another group thinks it’s all fabrication. So much has been written about it that I can add nothing more.

Local politics in Texas are not much better. The Tarrant County GOP is going to vote to censure or condemn or whatever the impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton, who’s been getting away with awful stuff for years in Austin. What business is it of a country party when the case is before the Senate—and his fraud trials are now confirmed to be tried in Houston (It’s about time). What happened to the idea of letting justice play out in the courts?

Mine is definitely a biased point of view, but I am not apologetic. It seems to me that the Republican party today operates on a theory of reactive or revenge politics. The offer no meaningful policy—witness dramatic tax cuts to the wealthy just days after they moaned and whined about cutting expenses—but their principal business is attacking Democrats. In that light Joe Biden and his administration have followed the best course of action: they have kept quiet about all the meaningless drama and let the Republicans fight among themselves, while they go quietly about the business of the country, including major restoration of the economy.

I am definitely a Joe Biden fan. But that’s no surprise to anyone.

Christian cooks dinner

 

The kitchen when Christian cooks Asian

When he has the time, Christian is a terrific cook who loves to experiment. He particularly likes to cook Asian dishes, so this week I ordered a lot of stir-fry vegetables—snap peas, bean sprouts, matchstick carrots, baby sweet corns, baby bok choy. I figured if Christian didn’t have time or didn’t want to cook, I’d do it, though my results would not be as spectacular. Two things about Christian’s cooking: he follows a recipe, maybe with side trips but he has to have a recipe to begin with, and he is slow. Even when he starts early, as he did today at about four-thirty or five, dinner is a bit delayed. I often think though that I should take a lesson from him and recipes—I try to do a familiar dish off the top of my head, and I usually regret the outcome.

So tonight Christian said he looked up stir-fry recipes but was disappointed—at most they called for soy sauce but no other Asian ingredients. So then he looked up chop suey, which I thought was something that came in a can when I was little and no one served anymore. Except Christian who found such a good recipe he decided he had to make fried rice to go with it. Dinner was, as he said, delayed. Jordan came out laughing sometime during that happy hour. It would, she said, take two days to clean the kitchen. Christian is not one who cleans as he cooks—maybe that’s one place where I outshine him.

Mary Dulle came for our regular Tuesday night happy hour, so we laughed and chatted while Christian cooked away inside the house. Somehow much of our talk was about Alter family tales, crazy things that happened when I was raising four teenagers. I guess that was partly because today’s big news was that Jacob got his first job—he interviewed this morning at Joe T.’s (Joe T. Garcia’s, a world-famous Mexican restaurant for those of you not from Fort Worth). His first shift as host is Friday, and a childhood friend will be showing him the ropes. We are all excited for him—I think it’s going to make such a difference in him—a big step toward maturity. An interesting note: Jordan said he had to sign a confidentiality agreement. Joe T’s gets almost every celebrity who comes to Fort Worth, and the staff is forbidden to take pictures. I know from experience that the wait staff will use our camera to take a picture of all of us, but that doesn’t count: we are not celebrities.

And, of course, this job puts Jacob squarely in family tradition. All four of my children worked in restaurants as teenagers. My friend used to tease me about being a generous tipper and I said it came from having my children work in hospitality. There was hardly at the time a restaurant in Fort Worth that I routinely went to where one of mine hadn’t worked. And when Jacob was an infant, his dad waited tables at Joe T.’s, while working in the title business during the day. I’m enthusiastic about Jacob’s job, and since he has his parents’ people skills, he’ll do fine.

Back to our dinner—Jordan and Christian carried it out to the cottage about seven forty-five, and I have to say it was worth waiting for. Vegetables were delicious, and Christian had “velveted” the chicken which made it tender. Best stir fry/chop suey I remember having—ever! And leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

Christian's chop suey

This morning I would have told you today as Monday all over again—I had a hard time getting myself in gear after sleeping late. I was up at six and seven-thirty with Sophie and couldn’t resist going back for one last dream. Mary calls that second sleep, and I find I’ve gotten to count on it, now that Soph and I seem on a fairly settled schedule. Of course today I had to have the TV on to watch the doings in Miami, though there wasn’t much to see. Still, as Christian said tonight, the commentary was interesting. So many predictions, countless interpretations, statistics you can’t trust, and wild opinions about trump’s indictment, it leaves my head in a whirl. I have lots of opinions—no surprise there—but they are for another day, another blog. Meantime, I did manage to write a thousand words this morning—no small achievement. These days, reading the political news takes way too much of my time and cuts into my working time.

Today will stand out in my memory for a while as the day Christian made the good stir fry and the day Jacob got his first job. It’s enough.

Scaring myself and an impromptu dinner

 

Curried chicken salad
before running it under broiler to melt cheese

Last night I had a scary experience that brought home to me the isolation of living alone in your eighties. I am not given to nightmares, and I don’t think that is what happened. But I woke up slightly before four in the morning and was suddenly convinced that I could not roll over in bed to get up. In retrospect, I think maybe I was so soundly asleep and woke so suddenly that I somehow hadn’t “collected” myself. But I remember thinking that I must not panic and then, inch by inch struggling to turn over. I sleep, out of deep habit, on my left side, with my back to the cottage.

I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about how you get out of bed, but today I can tell you that I swing my legs over to the right and that momentum carries my body until I find myself sitting on the edge of the bed. Some time ago I learned of a physician’s advice to sit a bit rather than springing right up, and that made sense to me, so I do that. The advice also included lying there a minute when you wake up to adjust—I don’t do that all the time, and that may be where I got in trouble last night. Anyway, after that scary moment, there I was sitting on the edge of the bed, just like any other night. I went to the bathroom, came back and got in bed, and spent the next hour getting in and out of bed just to prove to myself I could do it. Four o’clock in the morning is not a good time for rational thoughts!

But a lot of things beyond the moment scared me—or at least worried me. If I couldn’t turn over, I couldn’t get to my phone which is always on the seat of my walker. I couldn’t reach to bang my Apple watch against something hard and alert the alarm system. I was just there. Naturally I thought of all the horror stories I know: a friend who fell out of bed and lay there for twenty-four hours before her son realized that she wasn’t answering her phone—she was safely locked into her house, which meant fireman had to be called to break in. Ironically she fell right by her telephone stand and the telephone was just above her, but she never thought to pull it down and call for help. Another friend told me her mother had pretty much the same experience—my friend wished her mom had had some sort of alarm to call for help but instead lay on the floor or a ong time. A friend of my brother fell and couldn’t get up—his wife was out of town and he lay there for twenty-four hours until she came home. The medical consequences have been long-lasting.

I realize the time may come when I cannot get into bed by myself, let alone get out, and I want to be proactive about this. But I’m not sure how. In the meantime, my panic died down in the cold light of day, and I was still in bed, making up for lost sleep, when Jordan came to give Sophie her insulin shot. I’m comfortable about going to sleep tonight, but I’m also aware I want to find a future plan.

As if to counteract the above, which to me had a lot to do with aging, I proved myself still pretty capable tonight. Christian and I had agreed on some menus—he was to fix stir fry tonight (I had gotten some interesting vegetables—baby corns, baby bok choy, matchstick carrots, bean sprouts, etc. But Christian had to go deal with the tire shop that was installing two new tires on Jacob’s SUV—the Burtons have had a rash of flat tires all at once, so much so that Jordan commented tonight that it’s really bad when you greet the tow truck driver as an old friend. “Hey, hi! How are you?”

So Christian and I traded—I had ingredients for a curried chicken salad with a crispy potato chip/cheese topping. I would fix that tonight, and he’ll do the stir fry tomorrow night, which is great because that’s when Mary Dulle comes for happy hour. So I rushed around, poached the chicken, cut up an enormous amount of celery, and got the chicken salad made by six-thirty. Thing is it has to be cold, so I shoved it into the fridge and cooked some asparagus that really needed to be eaten. Close to seven-thirty, we pulled the salad out, topped it with the cheese and chip mixture and ran it under the broiler. You really need CorningWare to do this! Recipe maybe coming in Thursday’s Gourmet blog.

But all was worth it when Christian took seconds and said, “Great dinner for spur of the moment.”

So tonight, I’ll hope to sleep the night through and not scare myself. Hope you do too.

Sunday, ah Sunday!

 

My simplified Salade Nicoise
Sorry, Julia Child, no olives.

Somehow Sundays are do-nothing days. It’s not that my routine is any different than any other day, but something inside me knows it’s Sunday and doesn’t want to buckle down to any serious work. Today, I “went” to virtual church, cooked supper for myself, did a couple of small, list-making chores, and spent an incredible (and wasteful) amount of time playing on the web.

For instance, my son-in-law sent pictures of the Mahr Building in Telluride, once a bank and the very first bank that Butch Cassidy ever robbed. It’s been almost thirty years since my version of Butch’s story (really Etta’s story), Sundance, Butch, and Me, was published, and I really don’t need to do any more research on Butch who, in my view, was a Robin Hood character and did not die in Bolivia. Nonetheless, I followed that rabbit hole for a bit—that’s what Sundays are for: odd little bits of knowledge and investigation.

I have been reading or trying to and am beginning to worry about myself. I am a picky reader and I have tried four books and given up on all of them. One, set in 1947, had flashbacks to a female spy in WWI—she had been tortured and I didn’t want to read about that, although the main plot interested me. Another was a murder set in Provence, according to the title, but it proceeded at far too pastoral a pace; a third proposed to take cooking out of the realm of domesticity and make it a respected occupation. I opened it eagerly, only to find a series of short stream of consciousness entries about the physical sensations of cutting through a pumpkin. Scratch that. The final book, which I opened with enthusiasm, was almost a spoof on romance and cooking. It’s a popular book, one I’ve heard much about and thought I should read. At first, I read it with pleasure but then I began to wonder how long the author could sustain the literary conceit on which it was based—a very unlikely (and not particularly likeable character) in a kitchen. Not quite halfway through I decided I was done. So I am an author in search of a good book to read.

Sundays are also for napping, and I am one of those who remember vivid dreams. I’ve had a couple of doozies this weekend, both what I think experts would call Freudian. In one, I was cleaning out my VW (not far-fetched—it’s nineteen years old and Jordan still drives it), getting rid of a bunch of detritus an ex had left behind. I thought that man had moved out of my head a long time ago, so why was I still dreaming of getting rid of him? The other had to do with my office—everyone was going to Austin for a meeting that we all enjoyed annually, only they had all made plans to travel with others and nobody asked me, asked me where I was staying, acted like they planned for me to go. Even one of my sons, who never had any connection to my office. I’ve been thinking a lot about aging lately, and I think that dream was subconsciously reinforcing what I say every day I know: let go of the past and enjoy the good memories. In this case, let go of the job I loved so much and treasure the memory of all those book festivals and conferences. Makes me a bit nervous about going to sleep tonight.

I’ve been on my own, without company, for dinner two nights in a row, and I’ve taken advantage of that to fix a couple of things I really like. Last night I fixed brinner—breakfast for dinner, consisting of soft-scrambled eggs, smashed baby potatoes, and grape tomatoes. Tonight it was a modified Salade Niçoise with a good anchovy vinaigrette. Enough left for lunch tomorrow.

I think I’m glad tomorrow is Monday. I have some serious writing replaying itself in my head, and I need that new keyboard to get it done!

Maybe more thunderstorms tonight. I hope they are like the one we just had—gloriously loud and noisy, with lots of rain, but nothing destructive—no hail, no wind. Hope everyone else in the area was as fortunate. Sophie, of course, barked furiously as though she could intimidate the thunder. It didn’t work.

Brinner