Falling into bad habits

 

My family has left me on my own for supper on this drizzly Sunday afternoon. I’m not particularly blue about it, because I have a dinner plan—I will open a can of that good salmon I get straight from Oregon, put a lot of lemon and a bit of sour cream on it, and run it under the broiler. But I realize how quickly I would fall into bad habits if I totally lived alone.

Jordan has a cardinal rule: you don’t eat dinner in the clothes you slept in. But I am still in those clothes—a bright tie-dye T-shirt that the Tomball grandchildren made for me years ago and a pair of pants that could pas for slacks if your standards aren’t too high. But on the positive side, I have cleaned up, my hair is washed, and my bed is made. I’ll probably eat supper a lot earlier than we would eat if we were having family dinner.

I’ve just talked to Megan in Austin and of course we hit on the fact that all 17 Alters were supposed to be at her house for Thanksgiving. It’s not going to work out that way. They are recovered from covid and have disinfected their house thoroughly, including using those special lights hospital use. The problem, for me, is the trip down there. As soon as you tell me we can’t stop, I will have to make a bathroom stop—as Megan pointed out, a woman with a walker doesn’t have the bathroom options a man does. My sons do not feel that they have quarantined well enough to be with the family, so we will be four separate family units. It is more than a little sad to me.

It really is a gray day and chilly with drizzly rain predicted. I’m grateful that Jordan has decorated the cottage for Christmas, and I have two bright spots of light—a glass block with Christmas lights inside it that I’ve had for years and Jamie’s table-top artificial fireplace that glows with realistic flames. Or, depending on how you look at it, depicts the fiery eruption of a volcano. Scientists have now proven that putting up lights will make you happier, and these days I think we should give scientists all the credit we can. So I’m glad for that bit of scientific knowledge..

Beside that scientific boost, I’ve had a longtime habit justified in print. For years, when entertaining—a formal dinner or the huge tree trimming parties I used to give—I put the serving dishes out days in advance and put a little note in each to remind me what I intended to put in that dish. After she married and began to entertain on her own, Jordan did the same. Christian was astounded and finally told her, “You and your mom have a screw loose.” (Megan would be the first to let you know that gene for organization skipped her.) Today in his column, Sam Sifton mentioned putting the dishes out early and putting a sticky note in each. Need I say more?

A couple of nods to nostalgia: when I was a kid, my mom used to mix cornmeal with milk or water (I don’t remember which), pour it into a loaf pan and let it harden. Then she’d slice it, fry the slices, and serve them to us for breakfast with lots of maple syrup. We called it fried mush. These days, we have a fancier name for it—polenta—but you can put lipstick on a pig and it’s still a pig. I made tamale pie with polenta for the family last week, and it reminded me how much I liked fried mush. So when we ordered from Central Market, I got more polenta, and this morning I fried a couple of slices in butter and slathered them with real maple syrup. So good. I was a kid again.

My other nostalgia trip even pre-dates me. But Sam Sifton mentioned in his column that this is the 125^th birthday of Hoagy Carmichael and offered a link to Carmichael doing his 1930 classic, “Georgia On My Mind.” And there was Lauren Bacall in the still photo accompanying the music, looking intently at Carmichael who looked up sideways at her. Classic 1930s jazz. I loved it.

And speaking of anniversaries, I thought this anniversary of the assassination of JFK went by with little public notice. Too bad, when we are embroiled in one of the worst political threats our democracy has ever seen. It would be soothing to go, even briefly, back to the days of Camelot.

I kind of got carried away, and I apologize for this long blog. Stay safe and well—and cozy tonight.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

The importance of September 12

 

Yesterday was a somber one for all of us. When September 11 rolls around, images shoved to the back of our minds swim to the surface again, bringing with them the horror that is beyond imagining, a horror that made daily life grind to a halt, a horror that most of us couldn’t really wrap out minds around. People posted what they were doing when they heard the news of the attack on the Twin Towers—from traveling abroad to sitting in a classroom. I was, no surprise, at home at my computer.

It reminded me of the reaction for years to the assassination of JFK. People recalled where they were, what they were doing when those shots rang out and the news first broke. I was listening to my car radio on the main street of a small Missouri town and wondered why those news guys couldn’t get anything right. And then they got it right. It’s hard for me to believe that a whole huge segment of our population, including my four children, were not yet born by November 1963. But they will remember September 11, 2001.

I read a post yesterday by someone who said he wanted to go back to September 12, 2001. Not to relive the horror but to recapture the unity of America on that day. Led by George W. Bush, who was not my choice for president, we came together to grieve and mourn but also to declare our faith in the American way, in the survival of democracy. (That I didn’t agree with Bush’s later retaliatory actions is another matter.) We will all remember Bush, with his megaphone, at the site of the destruction.

What we got yesterday in leadership was a president who sat with his arms folded in a belligerent, bored pose during the reading of names of the victims who died at Shanksville; he didn’t seem to know the words to the Pledge of Allegiance when it was recited. In stark contrast to all political candidates since 2004, he did not pull his campaign ads for the day. Joe Biden told reporters they wouldn’t get anything from him yesterday—it was a day to honor the dead and not to campaign. He pulled his ads.

Today’s America, as many bemoaned yesterday, is far different than it was in 2001. We are a nation almost brought to our knees by a pandemic that has killed 200,000 of our family, friends, and neighbors,  economic depression worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s, terrorists who turn peaceful protests in our cities into riots, and wildfires that seem to consume the western third of the nation. I wrote “almost to our knees” deliberately because I think we can still save America from those who lie to us, who put greed above human life, who are power hungry. We are too strong as a nation. It’s scary to be overly optimistic, but I have faith.

We bumped into another hardship of quarantine last night. My friend Jean came for happy hour—a delightful pleasant evening on the patio. Jean had had a down day, as many of us had, and we worked to cheer each other. As she always does, she said, “Just kick me out when you’re ready to cook dinner.” As it was, we didn’t have supper until eight-thirty, but that was another story and not all Jean’s doing. Later Jordan and I talked about it because our natural instinct is to say, “Oh, stay and eat supper with us. There’s plenty.” (There is always plenty!) But quarantine gets in the way. We haven’t invited anyone into the cottage since last March. With cooler weather coming, the patio will lose some of its appeal, and we’ll have to rethink that.

Having mourned once again yesterday, I think today is the time to recapture the spirit of September 12, a spirit of moving forward in strength, not one of defeat or anger or retaliation. I’ve been accused of always walking on the sunny side of the street, and I guess it’s true. Just call me Pollyanna.

 

Another Dark Day for Dallas

July 8, 2016

Dallas has had dark days. November 22,1963 stands out as the darkest, the day President Kennedy was assassinated. The negative reputation earned that day stayed with Dallas for years. I remember when I first moved to the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex, we drove to Dallas to look at the assassination site. Just the drive made me so nervous I thought my heart would beat out of my chest. Fifty years later, I go by it without a thought, which is a pity.

Now Dallas has another blot on its history—last night’s shooting that killed five and wounded seven, most of them law officers. So much has been said about it that I hesitate to add to the mass. Many people have asked an unanswered question—why Dallas? Some suggest it’s the racist divisiveness fostered by Texas’ extremely conservative state politicians. Other suggest it’s because Dallas has so many underprivileged, angry people with access to guns. (One protestor last night was carrying an AR-15 slung over his back—he supposedly came in peace but one wonders.) And then there are those who blame the racist hate-mongering of President Obama. Pardon me? I must have missed that. I find the president one who embraces all people and stresses the need for unity, not division.

So why Dallas? I suspect it was probably happenstance. The angry young man who was eventually killed in a parking garage could easily have been in Chicago, Seattle, Cleveland or Philadelphia. He just happened to be in Dallas. On the other hand I read somewhere that this was a plot hatched some time ago, waiting for an opportune moment to happen. That would certainly make it more sinister, if such is possible.

As a resident of Fort Worth, some 35 miles to the west, I’m not fond of Dallas. The pace is too hectic, the drivers are rude—though I have to add that the restaurants are really good. My feelings are not based on the traditional rivalry between the two cities (Dallas is where the East peters out; Fort Worth is where the West begins). But a recent poll showed Dallas to be one of the rudest cities, while Fort Worth is one of the friendliest. In Fort Worth, though, we feel the impact of events in Dallas and perhaps none more than today.

We tell ourselves that would never happen in Fort Worth, but that’s head-in-the-sand denial. It could as easily have been an angry young man here. We have a peaceful protest planned for Sunday, and I pray it remains peaceful.

Last weekend, speaking on the occasion of the death of holocaust survivor and activist Elie Wiesel, President Obama delivered a message that is particularly meaningful today: He raised his voice, not just against anti-Semitism, but against hatred, bigotry and intolerance in all its forms. He implored each of us, as nations and as human beings, to do the same, to see ourselves in each other and to make real that pledge of ‘never again.’

It’s a message we all need to take to heart today.