A new friend and two words of wisdom

 

A truly worthwhile book by my friend, Stephanie

Sometimes serendipity can lead to the nicest things. Several months ago, the neighborhood newsletter that I edit did an article about Ann Darr, the neighborhood representative to the Fort Worth ISD board. I stressed to the writer that it had to be apolitical, following the guidelines for the newsletter, and it came back raving about what a good school board member she is. I sent it back, explained again about no politics, and got an article Ii thought usable (yes, I got some criticism, but not much). A few weeks later, Ann Darr contacted me and asked if we could meet. We had confusion finding a date, and I had to explain I could not easily meet her someplace for a happy hour drink but I would welcome her to the cottage.

Tonight, finally, was our happy hour meeting. I made a tuna spread—not very original, but it was good and she seemed to like it. We chattered like magpies for over an hour and a half. Found out we go to the same church, one of her children is in Jacob’s class at the high school, and one of her sons is at U of Arkansas where Jacob will go next year. We are politically in sync, though her position, like my newsletter, is apolitical. We chattered about education today—charter schools, home schooling, book bans, intrusive parents (she says that has peaked and died down), the necessity of trade school programs, financing, Abbott’s sitting on funds allocated for teachers because he didn’t get his way on vouchers, and on and on.

I have friends I see often and simply adore but familiarity sometimes results in fairly stagnant conversations (I can hear them now—“Does she mean me? Surely she doesn’t mean me!”). I think we tend to know what our close friends think and not dive deep in conversation. But when you meet someone new, in the process of getting to know them, you go deeper—at least that’s what I found tonight. I hope Ann Darr will come back to the cottage, and we can develop a friendship. PS She’s a dog person, so what’s not to love. After welcoming her with frantic barking, Sophie was as good as gold all evening, pretty much stayed on the patio.

Two words of wisdom for the day: resilience and gratitude. My friend, Stephanie Raffelock, posted in her Substack column this morning about her goals to reach by the age of eighty. I misread and thought she was referring to her seventies as her last decade, so I hastened to send a rebuttal from my advanced age of eighty-five. She called to say I had misread and her goals are to prepare herself to live into her eighties and nineties. We talked about aging, and she mentioned a book that is meaningful to her: Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. A Jewish psychiatrist, Frankl spent four years in various Nazi concentration camps, and he came to believe that the will for meaning was the single most important factor in survival. He got so he could look at fellow prisoners and almost predict who would survive and who wouldn’t. I probably won’t read it simply because I refuse to read about Nazi cruelty. I find it too upsetting to realize such evil exists in the world. But I like the theory.

Stephanie had written that it was a goal to be pain-free, and I told her that was a pipe dream—as we age we all suffer minor aches and pains. The goal is not to let them grow so big in your mind that they become major. I mentioned that as a doctor’s child, I was taught to be brave about health problems and pain. Doctors, my mom told me, laugh at those who magnify problems or pain. I took it so far that my brother once said he thought I was taking Mom’s advice too seriously. But once when I was in the hospital with a fairly serous health problem, I said to a resident physician that I guessed this would change my life, and she replied, “Oh, I don’t know. You seem to be fairly resilient.” So that, for me, is why resilience is important—bouncing back from major or minor upsets.

Stephanie had just been reading about gratitude, and she proposed that as a factor in aging well. Gratitude takes us beyond ourselves. If you can give up moaning and whining about your present state—or about the state of our country or the world—and look for the positive, your whole attitude toward life will change, and you will be healthier and happier. I try, every night, to thank the Lord for the blessings of my day and those of my life in general. I find I have lots to talk about.

Resilience and gratitude: Try them for a week

Life’s trivia—Christmas is finally over, a forgotten artist, and conspiracy theories abound

 

This is the image of Andrew Taylor Still I copied in paint--or tried to.
Okay, confess: I could not find a free image of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce.

Life sure is interesting. Today, Jordan took down Christmas decorations in the cottage. That tells you a bit about how hectic life has been around here. But after all, it’s rodeo season. I had truthfully gotten used to the Christmas lights, and now that they’re down, the living area looks a bit bare. Jordan kept the multi-colored lights on pussy willows (sounds a bit garish—you have to see it!) and put my antique lamp on the timer, so I can turn it on and off remotely.

Biggest bonus: she unearthed from the high-up spaces of my closet a wonderful portrait by the late Fort Worth artist Emily Guthrie Smith. It is small, maybe 12 x 15, of a winsome looking young girl—Smith was noted for portraits, particularly those of children. This is not a happy picture, but neither is it sad—more thoughtful. I have no recollection of buying it but I must have felt flush at one time, and I was as I am now intrigued by this face. I vaguely remember that I wanted to use it for a book cover but couldn’t find it.

And therein is the story: I thought I lost this painting for some time and since it’s the only original painting I own, I was disturbed. The kids seemed to have no memory of it, and that collection of things in the closet was far beyond my reach. So I was delighted when she got it down tonight. Along with this one, she got down a charcoal drawing of me done when I was about twelve. It is by an artist, Kurt Frankenstein, who boarded in a girlfriend’s home. Kurt was a survivor of the Holocaust, and his work was tinged with that sadness. My mom didn’t like this charcoal because she said it made me look too old and sad. Jordan has taken into the house to hang in her hallway gallery. The other thing she took in was a primitive painting of a log cabin in a snowy scene. She was surprised when I told her I painted it. The log cabin is the birthplace of Andrew Taylor Still, founder of osteopathic medicine. I painted that and one other, taken from a portrait of Still holding a fibula and studying it, while in Kirksville and exploring what I wanted to do. IN my salad days, I was a great class goer and took classes in painting, sculpture, macrame, and writing. The painting of Still already hangs in the living room in the house, and I’m a bit embarrassed. I hope it’s fair to say I’m a much better writer than a visual artist.

Changing topics, I am alternately amused and disgusted by the buzz over Taylor Swift and Travs Kelce. Seems like those folks who delight in conspiracies can’t recognize outlandish when they see it, and now they are claiming Swift is a psych-op—slang for psychological operations. She is, they claim, an undercover operative for the Biden administration. The thing is that Swift has endorsed some Democratic candidates (including Biden in 2020), she is philanthropically generous, she pays her troupe well and takes care of them—and, she’s a success. Of course, that means she’s an undercover agent.

A Dallas area minister, musician, and writer, Eric Folkerth, published a Facebook column with a whole different take. The problem, he says, isn’t Swift—she’s been a target for conservatives at least since 2020—the problem is Swift and Kelce. Travis Kelce, billed as the best tight end in football, represents the repressed dreams of most middle-aged American men who wanted to be sports superstars and musicians in their youth. Conforming to society, they’ve put away the high school trophies and hung up the guitar, gone to work in a steady job, raised a family, joined a church, become a good citizen. And here’s Kelce, living out his best dream.

I found Mr. Folkerth’s column thought-provoking (look it up on Facebook) but I believe, as someone suggested, he writes from the masculine point of view. The same could be said for women and jealousy—yes, that’s the word—of Swift’s success. Most of us dream of stardom of one kind or another—for me, it was the New York Times bestseller list. The closest I ever came was when they reviewed one of my books favorably. And a friend, older enough to be a mother figure, said to me, “Have you ever considered that you’ve had more success than most who want to be writers?” No I hadn’t, because we always want that spotlight, that stardom. And Taylor Swift is one of the few women, at least in our day, who’ve made that dream come true, especially in show business.

And now she and Kelce are, from all appearances, wildly, madly in love. That once-in-a-lifetime, if you’re lucky, kind of love that just like stardom and sports fame, eludes too many of us. What’s not to envy? For me, they are so ecstatically happy, at least onscreen, and it does appear genuine, that I am delighted for them. And I’m sorry for the slings and arrows of the bitter that have been thrown at them. I wish them, individually and as a couple, nothing but continued success and happiness. If they can hold on to what they have now, they will be fortunate.

But there are those conspiracy theories. You know what, if she were a Biden psych-op (what a strange term), I say more power to her. We need good, successful people on our side.

What I ate today—or how boring is that?

Sauerkraut skillet supper tasted a lot better than it looked.
Besides, I forgot the picture until I'd eaten half the sausage.
But it's here for the algorithms

Sometimes I feel, especially on dull days of which there are a lot, that this blog deteriorates into “and then I did this …. And then I did that … and then I ate that.” Especially the “what I ate” part because so much of my focus seems to be on food. But tonight I have to say I nailed it with a dish that I cooked off the top of my head, with suggestions from an anonymous friend who apparently wrote me a note about it.

When I was a child, my mom made a skillet supper of ground sausage and apples. I remember liking it a lot. But when I tried to duplicate it recently, it didn’t work. The dish had no cohesion, nothing held it together. It was just two separate things cooked in the same skillet. Along the same line, my brother’s ex-wife used to caramelize sauerkraut—I can see her yet with a sugar bowl in her hand, patiently shaking a bit at a time into the skillet, while turning the kraut endlessly—it was wonderful to us, two kids whose German mother despised sauerkraut and never ever served it. I didn’t taste it until I was grown and out of the house. But we could never duplicate what John’s ex did.

Recently I came across a recipe for a sausage, apple, and sauerkraut skillet supper. I must have mentioned it to someone because I have some notes about how someone else did it. Meantime, Mary V. who comes for supper occasionally and is a willing subject for my experiments—she told Jordan tonight that she really enjoys dinners of all the things my kids won’t eat—was scheduled for supper. I wrote and asked if she eats sauerkraut (sometimes it is best to ask these things ahead of time rather than have an unpleasant surprise). She wrote back that she loves sauerkraut. But then weather interfered—the night she was to come was one of those when it got down to ten degrees, and she didn’t want to venture out. I was left with a lb. container (a plastic tub, not a glass jar) of kraut in the fridge, and four lovely plump veal and pork sausages in the freezer.

Our schedules didn’t mesh, and tonight, almost three weeks later, we had the skillet supper. Here’s what I did: I browned two sausages in plenty of butter in the skillet and then added thinly sliced onion, peeled apple slices (I think they were McIntosh), and several forkfuls of drained (but not squeezed) sauerkraut. I poured white wine over all and stirred in about two Tbsp. dark browns sugar. I started to simmer this with the lid on but realized all that liquid needed to cook off if things were to caramelize, so I set the lid aside. And that’s exactly what happened—after about half an hour on a 220^o burner (knowing the temperature is an advantage of an induction hot plate), the liquid was gone and the kraut, apples, and onions nicely caramelized. I turned it off, put the lid on, and let it sit.

Mary arrived, Jordan came out to drink a glass of wine, and we visited. Finally I turned the burner on for about ten minutes and served supper. (Jordan left at this point lest the kraut jumped out of the pan at her.) The caramelized things were terrific, the sausage mild and good with a bit of Dijon. I think maybe Mary liked it better than any supper I’ve given her, and I liked it a lot myself. When I was heaping apples and onions and kraut into the skillet, I thought I was making enough for Coxie’s Army and would have leftovers no one wanted, but they do cook down dramatically, and between the two of us we ate it all. So that’s what I ate.

A word about gratitude—and groceries. Every week I place a fairly lengthy order to be delivered from Central Market (you have no idea how I long to be able to shop there in person). This Saturday, as I was unpacking five paper sacks and thinking what a boring, exasperating chore it was, I suddenly realized how many people in this world would feel so blessed to have so many groceries. My attitude changed immediately. And so tonight, I am grateful for the good food we ate, the company of friends with whom I often dine, and the comfort of my cottage.

May you all enjoy good meals and the bounty of God’s blessings.

A happy foodie weekend—and a cuckoo clock

 

My new birdsong cuckoo clock

I have a new cuckoo clock! Forestalling any comments on the appropriateness of such a clock in my cottage, I hasten to tell you this one is different. It could say “Cuckoo!” but instead Christian set it to a bird song. On the hour, a little blue bird emerges and trills it song—I am not knowledgeable enough about birds to tell you what bird it is, but it is cheerful and, to my delight, not too loud (it doesn’t wake me at night). It has a repertoire of twelve birds’ songs, but the instructions are in German, so we may not change it often. Thanks to son Jamie for this cheerful addition to the cottage. I’m really enjoying it.

As my weekends often are, this one was devoted to food—but rather to writing about it almost more than preparing it. I keep finding recipes that fit into my cookbook featuring my mom’s cooking or my updates on it. I have now, I think, gone through most of the old files I have, but I also keep remembering things she fixed. Like salmon croquettes—I had written that she rarely cooked fish, claimed she didn’t know how. And then I remembered the croquettes, only because Jordan and I had my version (salmon patties) for supper Friday night. And today I remembered but haven’t written up that in that era of jellied foods, Mom had a fish-shaped mold and made a jellied salmon appetizer. Not sure I have—or want—the recipe, but it deserves a mention.

Jordan and I have seen a lot of each other this weekend and enjoyed it, at least I did. Friday nights Christan often has a late happy hour with a good friend, so it was just the two of us. I made extra patties in case he showed up hungry, but I’m not sure he would have eaten the salmon at all. He once told me his mom made them and described them as like hockey pucks (she liked all meats very well done). I do remember once he said he’d try mine, and he liked them, but he hasn’t seemed anxious to try again.

Fresh salmon was on sale at Central Market, so I ordered—what turned out to be a huge piece for Saturday supper for the three of us (Jacob never has weekend meals at home—ah, to be seventeen again!). At the last minute, Christan was invited to the rodeo. Saturday morning he was most apologetic about the last-minute change and then began to tell me how it was really good for his business, etc. I told him he didn’t have to rationalize, and he laughed. Jordan still wanted salmon but we discovered the pound and a half was big enough we could cut off portions for ourselves and still freeze the rest for a meal another time. Christian has promised to grill it. Last night I roasted it with a garlic/anchovy/butter sauce. Good, but one of those recipes I can’t follow exactly because it calls for starting the dish in a skillet and finishing it by putting the skillet in the oven. When you only have a toaster oven, that’s not possible. Still, it was good, and I enjoyed the tiny bit I saved for lunch today.

Tonight though was the big deal. Christan a couple of weeks ago requested carnitas, one of his favorite meals. I can’t tell you where I got the recipe, although some years ago I had an editor who taught me to cube a pork butt and cook it in simmering water until the water is all evaporated and the cubed meat crisps and browns in the fat. Then I found a recipe which adds spice to the water—orange peel, chopped onion and garlic, salt, bay leaves, oregano, cloves, and a cinnamon stick. The trouble is the water rarely evaporates in the time the recipe suggests, and I always worry that we’ll be sitting around until ten waiting for dinner. My prep time was lengthened because the boneless, cubed meat I ordered—wasn’t. I’d say at least ten percent was on the bone and hard to deal with, and instead of the one-inch cubes I requested, I got three- and four-inch pieces. I am honestly not a complainer, but I feel a call to Central Market coming on tomorrow.

Tonight I calculated two hours for it to cook—forty-five minutes longer than the recipe said. We ate at 7:30 which was only half an hour past my target time. We serve the meat with guacamole, sour cream, shredded Monterrey Jack, chopped cilantro, diced red onion and, of course, tortillas. For all my worry, it was really good tonight—full of flavor and very tender. It’s a lot of work and worry but worth it. I promised to do it again in six months.

So here we go into another week. Zenaida, who cleans the cottage, hasn’t been here since before Christmas, her schedule upset by holidays and weather, so Sophie and I are grateful she will be here in the morning, even though she’s coming at the awful hour of seven-thirty. And I have company coming for supper—I’ll need my nap.

May each of you have a blessed week. In Fort Worth, it will be sunny and in the sixties. We will be lulled into thinking winter is gone, but I am sure it is not. At least we can enjoy the good weather.

 

 

A delightful gathering

 

Women in Texas Publishing
(l to r), Fran Vick; UNT Press; Kathie Lang, SMU Press;
Gayla Christiansen, Texas A&M University Press;
Shannon Davies, UT and Texas A&M University presses,
and me, TCU Press, seated

It’s been a dull, rainy week in North Texas, and for me, personally, a week filled mostly with a medical appointment, untangling insurance mix-ups, and that kind of busy work. Not much time for writing, so you can perhaps imagine how delighted I was yesterday afternoon to host a brief reunion of women I’ve worked with in publishing. The annual meeting of the Texas Philosophical Society made this reunion possible. The society is meeting in Fort Worth this year, and most of my gathered colleagues were headed to a reception that marked the beginning of a  weekend of study devoted, far as I can tell, to the life and work of the late Larry McMurtry. Their list of assigned reading included the relatively new Larry McMurtry: A Live, by Tracy Daughterty. I expect them to be most knowledgeable about McMurtry, his puzzling life, and his many and different books.

Meantime we gathered at the cottage, and I served them wine and a caviar dip (figured I had to do something to measure up against the reception they were going to). We talked about writers we’d worked with, from McMurtry to Larry L. King, about what is going on with various university presses today, and what we would do differently were we still running the show; we caught up on news of some folks we hadn’t seen in a while. We talked a lot about food and cookbooks, though I honestly tried to steer the conversation in other directions because I didn’t want it to be all about the book I’m working on.

But a difference of opinion that came up interested me: some thought in working with vintage recipes (strange to think of the Fifties as vintage, but that was seventy years ago, so its historical) you should never change a thing, not one  comma or period of quarter teaspoon of salt. Others  (including me) think it’s okay to adjust  the recipes for today’s palate. It struck me later that the conversation was like the division on the Supreme Court—originalists vs. moderates—or like religious differences, principally among Protestant churches: is the Bible the literal word of God or the work of men, to be taken as a guide rather than carved in stone. I won’t check in on that one, but I am not a constitutional originalist (mostly because I don’t think the second amendment is at all relevant in an age of assault rifles). So I’ve decided I’m not a recipe originalist either.

I also got nice words on what an original and interesting character my diva chef Irene is—those comments may spur me to go back to look at the half-written fifth book in the series.

And we caught up on families and children and grandchildren and, yes, Gayla and I exchanged dog news. Because these women are family to me. But the big takeaway of the afternoon to me was that I enjoyed book talk with women who are knowledgeable about books—the kind of talk I long for and don’t get often enough. I had a long career in Texas publishing and loved every minute of it. When I said yesterday that I still sometimes dream that I’m working again, hosting an Autograph Extravaganza or going to Texas Book Festival, someone asked, “Really? After all this time?” (I’ve been retired twelve years). “Really,” I replied. “I’m sometimes very busy about books in the night.”

So for a bit yesterday I was back in that world, and there was a touch of magic about it.

The philosophical folks are dining at the Drover Hotel tonight and were told to wear “Texas chic,” whatever that is—lots of turquoise, boots and jeans for the men I imagine. Seems perfectly fitting to me for a society that puts two disparate terms—Texas and philosophy—together. I’m anxious to hear a report.

A bit of borrowed wisdom and some kitchen fails

 

Sharon's happy hour

An online friend, one of those I’ve never met in person but consider a good friend, had a birthday recently, and for her birthday resolve she vowed to follow her mother’s advice to “look up and out” rather than look “down and in.” If you look up and out, you focus on the world outside yourself and what you can do to make it better. If you look down and in, you are focusing on yourself. Such focus leads to self-absorption as opposed to a lively interest in the world around you. I can think of lots of reasons to avoid self-absorption—the people I know that spend their days looking down and in tend to be boring, unhappy with their lot in life, obsessed often by minor illnesses. On the other hand, have you recently met someone who seemed genuinely glad to meet you, interested to know who you are and to share thoughts with you? That person is looking up and out. I thought it was such a perfect way of encapsulating attitudes toward life that I wanted to share.

But I must admit I’ve been looking down and in a bit lately. One of the ways I define myself is as a pretty good cook. I may not write recipes and I may be challenged by such things as crispy tofu in lemon-tahini sauce (really?) but I can tackle most basic dishes, even some fancy ones—okay I do really want to try Beef  Wellington. I can even often fiddle with a problematic recipe and make it work out. And I enjoy doing all that. So kitchen fails upset me more than I should allow them to.

Friday night I was dining alone and decided to treat myself to a piece of salmon. I’d seen a recipe for roast salmon filet with a horseradish glaze—I like horseradish as well as the next Englishman (perhaps an inheritance from my dad) so I tried it. Probably the recipe was a mistake in judgment on my part in the first place. The recipe was for four servings, and I was adjusting it to one. Plus the lovely piece of salmon I had was the tail end of what had apparently been a whole half—rather thin, so I adjusted the amount of glaze and the roasting time. Even so, I ended up with a piece of slightly underdone fish with a thick sauce. I dislike overdone, dry fish and I love sashimi, but this piece was just thick enough I wanted it done more. And the sauce didn’t make things better. Fail #1.

The next night I was expecting three people for supper—Jean, who often has supper with me, and Greg and Jaimie, who usually come for happy hour. I went all out—made an overnight salad the night before, spent a bit of time that day making broccoli/cheese soup according to a Southern Living recipe. Jaimie, who is an excellent cook, brought a spinach/artichoke dip, and I immediately sensed one problem. I should have provided the appetizer, so that the total menu had a plan. As it was, we had a lot of vegetables. As Greg suggested, a lot of roughage that might have consequences. And everybody ate so much of the dip, they weren’t hungry for dinner. Especially Jean,, who didn’t try the soup at all. Then it turned out Greg can’t abide broccoli. I said the soup had a lot of cheese, and he said he’d try it. But he didn’t. Jaimie and I were the only ones who ate it, and she took a baggie home for lunch, but I think she did that to make me feel better. Anybody want broccoli/cheese soup? I have it in the fridge, and I’m kind of soured on it now. It used to be my Jamie’s favorite, and I’d long been thinking I’d like some but hadn’t cooked it because Christian, like Greg, abhors it, can’t even stand to be in the house when it’s cooked. Jacob loves broccoli, but he’s not been around much for me to try it on him.

So tonight I sort of redeemed myself. Tuesday night is the night Mary comes for happy hour, and tonight we included longtime friend Sharon in honor of her birthday tomorrow. I stuffed mushrooms with my mom’s cheese mixture, made a spread with a cream cheese/curry base topped with cranberry chutney and garnished with green onions, and trotted out the rest of the ranch dip I’d served last night. I think Sharon felt well feted, and I felt redeemed a bit. The mushrooms were really good, but one problem with ordering your groceries is that you don’t get to choose the mushrooms—I have never stuffed such tiny “shrooms.”

Anyway I feel better about things now, maybe for having gotten this off my chest. Tomorrow, I think I’ll pitch the soup (my mom would be so horrified at the waste) and make the family spaghetti for supper. And maybe tonight I’ll dream of Beef Wellington.

An almost perfect day

 

No high drama, no hilariously funny situations, no exhilarating moments—just a day spent quietly at home with my nose in a book. It’s cold outside, Christian is fixing supper, I had leftovers for lunch, and nothing demanded my immediate attention. I even indulged in eggnog for breakfast—a habit I picked up in Santa Fe over Christmas, and I know better than to let it become regular. But there’s that big bottle Jordan bought staring at me every time I open the fridge.

Yes, I slept late, and yes, I “went” to church on my computer. And yes, I had a long afternoon nap. The only other thing I did of any consequence was to proofread the forthcoming edition of my neighborhood newsletter—at midnight last night, I was still scrambling to get last-minute articles and changes to the designed, so today I feel pleased that there weren’t more corrections than the scattered ones I found.

I’m reading Death at Bishop’s Keep, by Robin Paige, a pseudonym for my friend Susan Wittig Albert and her husband, Bill. They team wrote it, which is of great interest to me because I can’t imagine letting anyone else into my imagination as I crafted a novel. Susan tells me they edited each other’s work but, eventually, there had to be one editorial voice to achieve a consistent narrative style. She was the final voice editor.

Bishops Keep was published just after the first few of Susan’s signature China Bayles series, which intrigues me because I would think her writing style—the way she uses words—would have changed over thirty years. Critics often use the word “matured,” but that isn’t quite it—her style was never immature, but I think perhaps today it has a bit more subtlety. Part of that, of course, has to do with subject matter. It is perhaps easier to be subtle about current manners and ways than it is to go back over a century and recreate the social atmosphere of which most readers are innocent. And which sometimes now seem so—what? Trivial? Useless?

The time of Bishop’s Keep is late nineteenth-century England, the dwindling down of the Victorian era. Essex, to be specific. The book is a lot of things that don’t ordinarily attract me—British for one thing, life and restrictions among the landed gentry for another, the upstairs/downstairs/below stairs conflicts. But Kate Ardleigh, an American heroine—outspoken, independent, intelligent, and bent on being an author, which was unheard of in the day, especially in England—wipes out all my objections. Sir Charles—the English nobleman who dabbles in crime detection and the new science of photography—intrigues Kate to the point that she occasionally thinks maybe spinsterhood isn’t for her after all. It’s almost all standard Agatha Christie stuff (albeit a bit earlier) but it has me hooked, and I have spent a happy day mostly buried in the goings on at the Keep, surely a troubled household. My fascination is in large part due to Susan’s skill with character, even British, and structure.

These days I find I am more and more selective about what I read. Thanks to Amazon’s sample reading program, I often dip my bookmark into three or four books and withdraw it in disappointment. I long for that book that calls me back, tempts me away from the work I should be doing, keeps me up late at night. That’s probably why I read so much mystery, but even within the genre, I find disappointment. So I rejoice when I find such a book. Granted, that enchantment doesn’t always happen in the first twenty pages—you must persevere.

Bishop’s Keep is the first of, I think, twelve novels, and I’ll probably go on and read some of the remaining ones, though I'll not commit to all--maybe that's what happens to most series. (China Bayles, with twenty-seven books in print, is an exception). Once I am hooked on characters and their fictional world, I want to stay with them. So thanks, Susan, for a good reading experience and a lovely, self-indulgent day.

What about you, dear reader? What book has simply carried you away from your ordinary world, captivated you so that you crave every reading minute?

A new word, gratitude, and hot water

 

Sometimes my experiments go awry. This is salmon with horseradish sauce.
I did not save the recipe. Enough said.

A quiet day for me, spent mostly at my computer. I said to Jordan it was awfully cold, but she replied, “Not as bad as the other day.” A friend pointed out, however, that what we in Texas are feeling now is Rocky Mountain northern cold, not the southern cold we are used to—a distinction I’d never thought about (and am still not sure I get). But when Sophie comes in leaving the door open, it feels cold to me, southern or northern be darned. I had let up on my “really cold weather” precautions and taken the extra cover off the bed. So of course in the middle of the night I had to get up and prowl in the closet for my mom’s crochet afghan. And this morning, I decided I’d wash my hair just to be safe if the hot water goes out again. There was—eventually—hot water, but it sputtered and spit and never came on in a strong steam, which gives me cause to worry. Tonight, though, I could scald my hands washing dishes if not careful.

I heard from friends in Omaha today, which gave me a bit of misguided schadenfreude—they are buried in snow and have had temperatures well below zero and wind chill factors down to -40^o. Even while I am rejoicing that I am not there, I do worry about them. They both have had Covid over Christmas, he a fairly heavy case and she a milder case but fearing complications due to some ongoing health problems. It shows me once again that I must be grateful for the blessings of my life which include fairly good health for a woman of my age.

My small online writing circle uses Fridays to “brag” about how we spent the week. The woman who starts us off on Friday, my friend Stephanie, used today to talk about what we are grateful for, and I used that prompt to think about gratitude and my life. I’ve been a bit out of sorts, maybe due to the restrictions of cold weather and related problems, about all the things that haven’t been done—starting to use my new composter (my kitchen sink cannister is officially full tonight and a bit smelly), my new battery-powered electric blanket isn’t hooked up, my new cuckoo clock needs to be hung and started—it plays bird songs, so I have to get into the instructions and  see if I can figure out how to choose a song. I’m not optimistic about my ability, and I am woefully ignorant about recognizing bird songs, so I figure this will give me an education. I think my mattress needs to be turned—remember when your mom did that at least once a month and all by herself? Amazes me yet. But there is a deep hole where I sit every day to change clothes. Colin told me to Google it, and I did—found the mattress is supposed to inflate. I sent him a picture of the hole, hoping he’ll find a magic solution from a distance.

These delayed chores or whatever depressed me. So did the fact that Zenaida, who cheerfully cleans the cottage and does my laundry every two weeks, hasn’t been here since before Christmas, and I am expecting company three nights this coming week—to a house that badly needs the thorough cleaning I can’t do. I had a little pity party, feeling frustrated because I am so dependent on others. But Stephanie’s reminder jogged me into gratitude. I think for a woman of eighty-five who needs assistance walking, I manage quite a lot on my own. Some days I want to make a list so I can say to Jordan, “Look what I did all by self (a phrase from my kids childhood) today!” I will have to continue to send myself that message—and be grateful for hot water and other blessings.

My new word: my youngest grandson had surgery two days ago for a torn shoulder (this is the third time soccer has gotten him—two earlier broken bones). We sent him Tiff Treats (ice cream and cookies) and when he texted his thanks, he wrote, “Thank you, shawties.” Well, of course that sent me to the online dictionary. It’s slang term of generalized affection, African American in origin. But sometimes it’s more specific, referring to a beautiful young woman. Was that sweet boy being sarcastic with his aunt and grandmother? If so, he’s a sly one. I was impressed one way or another that he knew the word, although I can’t figure a way to work it into my conversation or my writing. I guess for the nonce sharing it with you will have to do.

Good night, shawties! Sleep tight, sweet dreams.

 

It’s always something

 

This pictue of my beautiful boys popped up on my computer today.
Jacob with Scooby, the dog that taught him to love dogs.
Scooby was a sweetheart but wild at the core. 
He has a huge place in my heart still.

Today was one of those days. It began early, though I was blissfully unaware of the confusion in front of the house. A couple of days ago I emailed Jordan and Christian, reminding them the tree trimming guys would be here between eight and nine this morning and please have all cars out of the driveway—except my VW which has been dead for weeks and sits in the drive like a permanent piece of sculpture, albeit bad sculpture. Moving the cars was complicated because we live across from an elementary school that starts classes at eight—so the car moving, school dropoff, and arrival of the really big tree company equipment all collided. Sophie and I slept on.

I had fed Soph about seven and let her out, but I knew she would want to go again after her second breakfast. By then, however, the gates were all open—I learned my lesson about that yesterday. She was really good, and when Jordan came to give her a shot, she walked her on the leash. The rest of the day Sophie was good as gold, and the tree crew closed the gate for me when they went to lunch.

Meanwhile, the temperature was slowly rising. I checked throughout the morning, hoping it would get enough about freezing to defrost my tankless hot water heater. That may have thawed slowly, but the faucet on the deck of the main house thawed rapidly. I’m still not sure I got it right, but Jordan rushed out here about one o’clock and demanded I get on our neighborhood email and ask for someone to come turn off the water at the curb—it was, she said, gushing. I suggested she ask the tree guys who were eating lunch in their trucks. That didn’t please her, but she did—invading their lunch hour, she said—and they got it turned off. She was not exactly calm about the whole thing. Turned out there was something broken—never did find out for sure what—so she called the plumber, who said it would be Friday before they got here. I have to admit I paled at the thought of two days without water, because disregarding all advice, we hadn’t prepared for it. I had a bit of extra water in the teakettle, and I think there’s a gallon jug in my closet. And that’s it.

Action shifted to the spigot on the deck, where we’d had trouble before. A pipe below the deck burst. It dawned on me, not a happy thought, that if they turned water off at the curb, I wouldn’t have it either—somehow I had thought, “Well, that’s their problem. At least I have cold water, and the can use my water.” Fooling myself.

Next I knew neighbor Jay was on the deck with Jordan. They looked and fiddled and talked for a long time—and then went away, leaving me in suspense. Just before I napped, Jordan texted that all was okay for the time being. I tried the hot water faucet, and it had a trickle. I went to sleep,

When I woke, I had hot water! First thing I did was wash my hair. Next thing was to ask about the pipe, and it seems Jay is going to Home Depot tomorrow and will get the needed part. Good neighbors are priceless, and I wish the story ended there, but about six, Jay’s wife texted that she thought we should know that their yard was littered with dead branches and they were throwing them all into our yard. Jay had talked to the crew, and they assured him they would clean it up.

Finally, about 7:30 Jordan and I had a calm supper of crab cakes, salad with my favorite buttermilk dressing, and marinated cucumbers that I made today because I had cukes that needed to be used. A good end to a fretful day.

Tomorrow peace and calm. Fingers crossed. But another cold spell is due in a couple of days. It’s a thing called climate change.

 

Sophie’s adventure

 

Sophie is home again, after a brief adventure.

Sophie went walkabout this afternoon. Scared me to death.

This morning I saw an article that proclaimed your dog should always have a collar tag with name and address, even if microchipped. I remember thinking that I was so glad that Sophie had grown old enough she was no longer anxious to explore the great world beyond our fence. Besides, I told myself, she never has a chance to escape.

This afternoon at about four, I let her out, waited a bit, and called her—she likes being out in the cold, but it still worries me.  She didn’t come despite my call of “Cheese!” I went to get the cheese, happened to look out the kitchen window, and saw that both gates were open and Jacob’s Suburban was in the drive with the back hatch open. Hate to admit it, but I panicked and jumped to a conclusion. Called Jordan and when a male voice answered, I thought it was Jacob and yelled about Sophie is gone  and you left the gate open and …..!!!! It was not my finest moment.

Christian yelled back: “I just got home, and I didn’t leave the gate open.” Then he and Jordan began to yell at each other. In retrospect I realize I had started a family mini riot. Christian did come back on to say, “We’ll get her. We’re leaving right now.” In a minute, Jordan came out to the cottage to get bribery treats and told me firmly I should have looked at the gates before I let her out. Not the time to argue.

I live in one of those wonderful neighborhoods with an active email list. People are always posting about seeing a stray dog or a dog that got out and then you see the posts telling you the dog is safely home. I was on my way to the computer to post a notice when I saw Jacob leading Sophie out the back door.

She had gone all the way to the front yard. A bit anticlimactic. When Jacob called her, she trotted right up to him and followed him in the house. He left her in the yard, gate shut, and Jordan came up the driveway still carrying the treats, which she gave to Soph, who couldn’t understand all the fuss.

All’s well that ends well, but I can’t begin to describe my panic. I apologized to Christian, Mary came for happy hour, Jordan and Jacob went, with separate parties, to Bull’s Night Out at the rodeo, Christian and I had corned beef hash for supper, and life goes on.

When Sophie was younger, she escaped a lot. Smaller, she could slip through under the gate and other places. She was also poised to run every time we opened the front door. She seemed to have a burning desire to see Canada. Once poor Christian chased her for blocks—she would let him get just close enough and then bolt, and the border collie in her gave her greater speed than he ever thought of having. Another time, a janitor from the school across the street rang the doorbell, with Soph under his arm. “They told me she lives here,” he said. Indelibly imprinted in my memory is the time, when she was still tiny and wore a leash all the time, that she ran merrily down the driveway, dragging her leash. I swear I could see a smile on her face.

She’s older now, and wiser, and it’s cold out. I think she knows where her dinner and her bed are, but finding her gone, on one of the coldest nights of the year, still makes my heart stand still. Right now, she’s peacefully asleep in her crate. She has no idea how fortunate she is, and I am, that the whole family loves her so much.

It’s still cold—17 degrees—and I still have no hot water, which seems such a first world problem that I feel guilty whining about it. But I would really like to wash my hair, and my hands are weary of washing dishes in ice cold water. Tomorrow, so they say, a thaw. I remember Chicago winters and am grateful that this doesn’t happen to us often.

Stay warm and safe and don’t let the dogs out!

My snow day

 

The patio, looking pretty bleak

2:00 a.m. The smoke alarm over my bed begins to beep. Each beep alarms Sophie, and she is not reassured by my words,  nor will she come to me. She’s too busy tilting at – smoke alarms. I lie awake, listening for the next beep.

3:00 a.m. Sophie finally decides barking at the alarm does no good and goes off somewhere to sleep.

5:00 a.m. – Sophie needs to go out. My computer tells me it is 10 degrees. There is a light dusting of snow on the ground. The smoke alarm is still beeping. I go back to bed.

7:45 a.m.- Sophie wants the first half of her breakfast and to go out again. It is 11 degrees, and there is a lot more snow. I go back to bed.

9:00 a.m. – Sophie wants the second half of her breakfast. I no longer care about the temperature—I know it is cold—and I can see the snow. I discover there is no hot water. I am up for the day.

9:45 a.m. Jordan comes to give Sophie a shot and takes down the smoke alarm. It continues to beep until she figures out how to dislodge the battery. We discover the TV is out, but the internet is working—praise be. I remind Jordan that she has long said if Sophie barked frantically, they would hear it and come running. “We didn’t hear it,” she says. So much for that.

10:00 a.m. My dinner guest cancels for fear of icy roads.

3:00 p.m. I get a much needed nap. Sophie, asleep, refuses my offers to go out, and I am afraid she’ll wake me.

5:00 p.m. Sophie and I wake up. I feed her, and she goes outside.

5:30 p.m. Jordan and I have wine and eat the last of the cheese ball from Christmas. The cottage is almost comfortable. I have on a sweater, a blanket over my knees, and a heater right behind my chair.

8:30 p.m.  I have eaten the chili Jordan brought me and am thinking longingly of my warm bed. The cottage is getting cool again.

 

Good night, all. I can hardly wait for Wednesday’s thaw.

Snow PTSD and arthritis of the soul

 

The one thing I wish for in the cottage is a fireplace.
Meantime, this will have to do.

There’s a pot of chili on the stove, the little artificial fireplace is blazing away—no heat, but the image is warming, and I am at my desk with a blanket over my knees. The trouble with that comes when you have to get up and move around—your legs, accustomed to warmth, freeze. The words cozy and cottage seem to go together, but as I learned in Snowmageddon and am learning all over again today, so do chilly and cottage.

A friend said recently that Texans have PTSD from Snowmageddon. Mention the possibility of below-freezing temperatures and that dreaded wintry mix, and our nervous minds jump back to loss of power and days spent shivering under a pile of blankets, to say nothing of over two hundred people who died. We relive the ice storm of 2021, and we are convinced the grid has not been fixed, the power will go out, the pipes will freeze, and we’ll be cold, hungry, thirsty, and miserable. All week there’s been a sense of dread in the air as folks prepared for the cold—outdoor faucets were covered, pot plants came inside, grocery stores were mobbed. Folks in my area turned out in good numbers to get blankets and beds to shelter animals and hay to areas where stray dogs and feral cats are known to hang out.

What I hate most, even more than the discomfort, is the sense of ennui that comes with a severe cold spell. It’s too easy to think, “I can’t do that now—or this—or whatever, because it’s too cold.” And I feel more isolated, although Jordan has already been out to the cottage three times. The psychological effects of severe weather are almost as bad as the physical.

Sophie, however, is undaunted by the cold. She had been out three times by ten o’clock in the morning, and when I refused a fourth trip she barked at me in frustration. I explained to her carefully that she would freeze her little tuchus off, but she only cocked her head an looked at me quizzically. When I finally let her out about lunchtime, she wandered around as though it were a spring day. No squirrels to chase today and few birds to catch her eye. She looked hopefully at the main house, perhaps for a glimpse of Charlie the kitten, and then she reluctantly came in. She has not, however, learned to close the door behind herself, so each time she pushes the door open, I have to dislodge my lap blanket and get up to close the door. She is now ensconced in the wing chair, snoring softly. It’s a comforting sound.

If the phrase “Snow PTSD” got my attention, so did the title of this morning’s sermon: “Arthritis of the soul.” Russ Peterman preached, to a very sparse crowd, about forgiveness. Somewhere in there was the thought that God forgives all of us—and in this day and world, my thoughts immediately go to trump and Greg Abbott. How can God forgive them when they show no remorse, no repentance, no sign of changing their ways. In fact, they seem bent on doubling down. But, according to the sermon, there are some things that forgiveness is not: condoning—you don’t have to approve of the action, whatever is t; forgetting—you don’t have to forget that the offense happened; reconciling—you don’t necessarily have to hug and make up, things may never be the same again; and, justice—if justice is called for, forgiveness doesn’t alter that. That made a lot of sense to me.

Stressing that if we cling to resentment, it eats away at us, he quoted Ann Lamott’s familiar line: “It’s like eating rat poison and waiting for the rat to die.” It gives you arthritis of the soul. It was a sermon I needed to hear, not only because of the cruelty of men like trump and Abbott—they are such public figures, for better or worse, that we are painfully aware of their transgressions. But the truth is that the world is too full of people like that. But an even bigger truth, to me: I don’t know about you, but there are a  couple of people in my personal life that I need to forgive. I’m working on it, and the sermon helped.

In this cold weather, it’s easy, especially for those of us in our “golden” years, to be more aware of arthritis. For some, it is a crippling thing, but for many of us it’s a lot of little aches and pains that grow worse with cold weather. So it is with arthritis of the soul. The isolation and depression of an extreme cold spell makes it easy to fan the flames of resentment and exacerbate arthritis of the soul. Letting go is hard, but none of us want to be that guy down the street who is crippled with anger and hate.

Stay warm and safe my friends.

 

If you grew up in the Fifties, you probably ate Spam

 

The 1950s were an interesting time for America—and for American women. The men were home from the war, and Rosie the Riveter and her sisters who had filled in for the absent men were now expected to go home, have babies, and care for their families. Ladies’ magazines were full of images of happy housewives wearing cheery little aprons and serving delicious meals—including lots of jellied salads, even jellied meats. Families moved to the suburbs, the economy boomed, there were pesky wars in places like Korea but the big one was over, and optimism was in the air. Or was it? And was that housewife really happy?

I grew up in one of those stereotypically happy homes. Not the suburbs, but inner-city Chicago. We were a family of four—my brother being some seven-plus years older than me. Dad went to work every morning as president of the Chicago College of Osteopathy, and Mom stayed home, saw us children off to school, grocery shopped, kept the house, fixed dinner. And always, before she fixed dinner, she showered and changed into a fresh dress or a peasant blouse and long skirt, to look nice for Dad when he came home. She handed him his Scotch and water, visited for a minute, and then produced a dinner of meat and potatoes to suit his Anglophile tastes.

But I know in her heart Mom yearned to be part of the wider world beyond our home. She did not act on that, because it would have embarrassed Dad if people thought that he couldn’t support his family. Still, she had a degree from the University of Chicago and had been secretary to the university’s chancellor, Robert Maynard Hutchins, founder of the Great Books Program. She exercised her abilities through volunteer work at the hospital associated with the osteopathic college. Among her responsibilities, she managed the hospital gift shop. Except that she was almost always a happy person, she might have been the perfect model for Betty Freidan’s unhappy housewife.

Mom also managed to steer a course between good, old-fashioned cooking and the wave of convenience and prepared foods that swept America in the 1950s. Social change in a society is often mirrored by change in its culinary world, and so it was with post-war America. The food industry that had been supplying military needs suddenly needed a new audience—they turned to the housewife. The Fifties saw the rapid rise of convenience food—canned goods, cake mixes, TV dinners, frozen foods, instant foods, even junk food, anything that could cut down on the housewife’s time in the kitchen and give her more control over her own life. Frozen foods were a particularly significant advance for the food industry, even though few American homes had freezers. The futuristic dream was a kitchen stocked with frozen and prepared goods that the housewife could bring to table in something under fifteen minutes.

The food industry, whose goal was more to make a profit than it was to feed America, was quick to spot trends—and exploit them. Companies’ advertising departments were almost as large as their production centers and accounted for all those pictures of happy housewives in cheery aprons. One popular trend promoted in magazines involved gelatin. Jell-O molded salads containing everything from hot dogs to olives to fruit suddenly appeared on dining tables. We had our share of Jell-O salads. One in particular, if I remember correctly, used dark cherry Jell-O, drained dark cherries, and maybe a touch of port wine. I don’t remember that Mom made many other such salads and certainly never the jellied pickle horrors that we now see pictures of.

The company that produced Hellman’s mayonnaise saw the trend and introduced, “Party Potato Salad”—potato salad in a jellied chicken broth base and molded into a loaf shape by a bread pan. Made a great centerpiece. [Kate Prince, “Trends that Have Impacted the Food Industry throughout the Years, investor.com, Feb. 2022] Other even less appetizing examples were a tuna/olive/onion/vinegar dish in a lime Jell-O ring mold or the ubiquitous orange Jell-O with grated carrots. We had that one a lot about my childhood home. Years later I hosted a retro potluck dinner party, and one guest brought that salad—I was rather glad to taste it again. The makers of Jell-O advertised that anything could go in their new lime product by showing a drawing of a dead fish, a shrimp, a chicken leg, a cucumber, a bell pepper, cabbage, one lonely walnut, an olive (also ubiquitous in those salads), celery, and a tomato slice. Presumably the cook was to choose among the items, but there were some weird combinations.

Spam and hot dogs, leftovers from military meals, were frequently twisted into something approximating elegance: a crown roast of hot dogs, stuffed with mashed potatoes. Creamed chipped beef, once the despair of enlisted men and women, became a staple on dinner tables. I fix it and enjoy it today, but there are still many people who scorn “shit on a shingle.” And, of course, there was Spam. Mom would slice and fry, or, trying to make it a dinner dish, score it like a ham, stud with cloves, top with brown sugar, and bake. While I’m not fond of it today, I don’t have bad memories of it.

This decade also saw the introduction of canned soup-based casseroles and TV dinners. The TV dinners usually consisted of a meat, two vegetables, and a fruit or dessert, all in its little tin tray which the busy housewife could simply discard. There was no waste management in the fifties. Typical dinners might offer turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, green peas, and a slice of pie. Or meatloaf, potatoes au gratin, green beans, and a brownie. To take advantage of TV dinners, households had to own two of the new innovations: a TV set and a freezer. We had a giant, chest-type freezer in our basement but never that I can recall had a TV dinner.

Canned soup casseroles also appeared in the Fifties. These relied primarily on Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup. The classic, developed by Campbell’s, was a tuna casserole with topped with French fried onions or crushed potato chips. Other casseroles might feature ham and Swiss cheese, sausage, any of countless ways of including chicken, a Mexican beef casserole. Church and Junior League cookbooks offered endless ideas for using soup. Some purist cooks, decrying canned soups, devised ways to make faux canned soup, avoiding they said the preservatives and fat of the original. The trouble with these imitations was that they went counter to the idea of convenience and were much more trouble to make than opening a can. Mom was happy to use canned soup in casseroles, and it was one of the many things she taught me. Despite many rather harsh critics, not all food of the Fifties was disgusting. Jell-O molds have pretty much phased out, but canned-soup casseroles are still served in many households across the country, including mine. Grocery stores still sell TV dinners and frozen pizza, so there is a market somewhere.

 

I am embarking on a new project, a cookbook probably titled Mom and Me in the Kitchen. I plan to explore the food of the Fifties, as I learned it from my mom, and look at how it impacted how many of us who cook today. I’d love to hear suggestions,  comments, questions. Email me  at judyltr@gmail.com. I will post excerpts from time to time on the blog.

 

 

Living your best life

 

My children--perhaps the biggest reason I'm so content these days.

Texas weather did it again! For two days we got dire warnings of severe storms, hail, and a slight chance of tornadoes. We got not a drop of rain. Nothing. I thought once in the night I heard the distant rumble of thunder, but I can’t be sure. They always say if you don’t like Texas weather, wait a minute. But the other thing is that the more frightening the warning, the less likely we’ll really have bad weather. But you’d be foolish to count on that because when you did would be the one time we really did get that storm or whatever. Jordan tells me the storms were south of us. But now we’re anticipating a low Monday of nine degrees, and I’m afraid my cozy cottage won’t be so cozy. The outdoor faucets are all covered, and a space heater is in the closet. Fortunately, this is to be a short if severe cold spell. We’ll see.

Last night I had a late-night conversation with my youngest son, Jamie. He had a birthday yesterday—good golly, how did he get this old?—and I called to wish him a happy day, even if it was the tag end of the day. When I asked about Eden, his daughter still in college, he said, “She’s living her best life.” The phrase struck me, although I know it’s a common one these days. But she’s only twenty—does that mean she’ll never again have as good a life as she’s having now? I hope not. And then I got to wondering what your best life is, though of course it varies for each of us. For Eden, it’s college, sorority life, some dating, but a real dedication to her studies, with her eyes set on graduate school in the future. Is your best life happiness or contentment?  The two are very different.

Then, of course, because I can be quite self-centered, I got to thinking about myself. I’ve always thought of my thirties as the happiest years of my life, the age I would return to if I had a genie in a bottle. My babies were young; my marriage was, I thought, happy; I was a bit frustrated professionally, but I was so wrapped up in being wife and mother, I didn’t really worry about it. There were tensions of course, prime among them that I was blissfully unaware that early in my forties, the man who had promised to love and cherish me would leave me to raise four children alone (it’s another story, but one that worked out very well). So I was happy, but I wouldn’t say I was content. It was like there was an itch inside me that I couldn’t scratch, a premonition that something less joyful was coming.

Now, well into my eighties, I think I am more content than I have ever been. I don’t feel the desperate need to produce two or three books a year—perhaps whatever I have done has to stand for my career. These days I still have projects, still consider myself a writer, but I am not driven as I once was. I have a comfortable, safe home with plenty in the refrigerator and on the dinner table. I am surrounded (and coddled) by loving children and grandchildren. As someone who's fought anxiety most of my life, I now don't have to do many of the things that make me anxious (okay, there was that rough parking lot at a doctor's office today but Christian saw me through it). I have good friends that I see often, a church where I find spiritual comfort (even when I only attend remotely), and a dog that I love—I think she returns that love, though with Soph one can never tell what’s in that mischievous little brain. Am I happy? Perhaps not in the joyful sense of the era of new babies, but yes, I’m happy. One lesson I’ve learned—and work hard at remembering—is not to bemoan the things I didn’t get to do, didn’t have, but to treasure the memories of all I did do—travels in many states and once to Scotland, a sentimental visit to Chicago with my grown kids, a high profile in some professional  writing organizations, lots of parties in my home and elsewhere, countless restaurant dinners that helped turn me into a foodie. I will probably never get to go back to Scotland, never take that cross-country railroad trip that Jamie wants me to take, never again be the belle of the ball (was I ever?), never have a best-seller book on Amazon or the New York Times,  but there are so many good things I have.

Your best life differs for each of us. In a way I think it’s fitting that you live that fairly young. If you’re lucky, you can carry it through several decades. But I suspect there’s growth in there, a spiritual growth from great joy to contentment. I don’t consider myself a spiritual person (and I separate that distinctly from religious), but I do believe in growth of the spirit as we age. And with that growth, maybe, comes some bitter knowledge about life that nudges us from the joy of our best life to the contentment of age.

Or maybe I just had an extra glass of wine wth my dinner tonight. How do you feel about living your best life? Or the Texas weather?

A day lost to technology—or was it?

 

Jacob working on assembling the composter

The finished assembly

You have no idea what a triumph those two pictures represent. It’s not just that Jacob put the composter together and got it set up out in the driveway—though that in itself is a victory. But the big deal is that I took those pictures with my phone and was finally able to send them to my computer, so that I could use them in a blog. Actually, I meant to use them several days ago when I blogged about the compost tumbler as part of the finally disappearing chaos at the cottage. But my phone wouldn’t cooperate.

Two weeks ago tomorrow, in the car coming back from Santa Fe, I noticed that I wasn’t getting any emails through my TCU account. Strange, because I always get at least 50 a day. The next day, home and settled, with my computer set up on my desk, I found a bunch of emails waiting on that account. And when I tried to send photos from my phone to my computer, nothing happened (which hampered my blogging a whole lot—my theory is a blog without pictures is mostly ignored).

Colin and I tried countless fixes over the phone—he in Tomball and me here at home. Nothing worked. If I have a computer problem, he takes over my computer and generally fixes it, but with the phone, he couldn’t see what was happening. He said I needed to get a Burton out here to Facetime with him and show him my phone, but it was a busy weekend, and I never found a tactful time to ask for that help. I told him I’d call the Help Desk at TCU—but I had to wait until Monday and TCU’s re-opening.

Monday came and went, Tuesday a doctor’s appointment took up too much of the day—I was stalling, because I was afraid trying to correct the problem would involve a long, long phone call with TCU and my inept computer skills would be revealed—and it was just something I dreaded. I was getting by because I still got emails on the computer, but the photo business really stymied me.

So this morning I called, and I got a lovely, understanding service tech named Cathleen. She walked me through re-installing the program (at some point I had deleted it from the phone)—something I had to do three times before I got it right, but she was patient, kept reassuring me. When it was all done, I had incoming mail on my phone and could send outgoing messages—but not photos.

Early afternoon Cathleen and I talked again, but by then I had on my own discovered a work-around: I’m not sure what you’d call the method I’d been using for years, but I activated Outlook on the phone and discovered I could send photos through that app. Hence, the photos you see.

An unrelated problem: in trying to make a call the other day, my thumb slid across the screen and suddenly the phone stopped speaking to my hearing aids. I could hear on different settings but not as clearly, and if someone called me, it went to the aids and was fine. Magically, this afternoon that corrected itself. Mine not to question, but I am pretty sure somewhere in all my dealings with TCU I turned the phone off and back on again, and I suspect the hearing aid program reset itself when I did that.

As you may tell, I have strong technology insecurities, so today was a long, trying day. (Okay, yes I had a nap—I told Cathleen I would be “out of pocket” or a couple of hours!). Still, it is always a relief to me to have all my technological things—computer, phone, hearing aids—working smoothly so I don’t have to worry about them.

And it’s also a relief when your cardiologist says, “See you in a year!” Thanks to Christian for taking me all the way to Harris Southwest for the appointment.

Things are looking up. Now if I can just get a handle on this cookbook/memoir about the Fifties.

Sweet dreams, y’all.