Recovery and trivia

I’ve spent the last two days recovering from my birthday. Yesterday I was on fire. By noon, I had been to a doctor’s appointment, written a thousand words, finished the novel I was reading, and, best of all, eaten my Christmas dinner leftovers. Today not so much fire.

It was a day to keep the TV on, even though I was working. I’m no good at focusing on the TV alone, so I was working with one eye on it. I saw a man who is methodical, soft-spoken, controlled, and absolutely thorough. I think some of my persuasion wanted sudden fire and brimstone, dramatics and passion, but that’s not who Mueller is, was, or ever will be. Nitpickers can call dementia and slipping and vague and all the other things I read on Facebook today, but I think he delivered what we need. People also expect instant results, but it will take a few days—or much longer—for this to shake out. But I believe we are on the road to outing a corrupt administration and an equally corrupt political party. And this country owes Robert Mueller a huge debt of gratitude for speaking honestly without fear. Would that others would do that.

So I did a bit of research on my current project, got involved in answering editorial queries on the Alamo book, and yes, keeping up with the social niceties—answering messages to friends, sending notes where I should—a thank you for fresh tomatoes, a note of support where there is illness in the family. A thoroughly satisfying day.

The weather has been so mild for July that I’ve worked with the French doors open. Last night friends of Jordan’s came by for happy hour, and we considered the patio but thought it a pain to transport Jordan’s wonderful array of snacks, so we visited with the door open.

Tonight Betty and I went back to the Tavern for supper. We liked what we had so much last week that we had it all over again--sole piccata or meuniere (whichever—I think they are about the same) with good, buttery mashed potatoes and sautéed spinach.

Some trivia that I like;

Jordan’s brother-from-another-mother brought me a delightful birthday card. It had a definition of ‘Framily”—friends who are more like family. That’s definitely what David Barnes is to the Alters.

A billboard outside a church: “Too hot to change the billboard. Sin bad, Jesus good. Details inside.”

There’s your laugh for the day. May all your days be filled with laughter and joy, and your troubles few and far between.

An exciting day—at least on TV

First Robert Mueller stole the TV channels in the morning and delivered his final comments on his special investigator’s report. His nine-minute recitation, read from a script, confirmed what I thought. This is a man who shuns the public spotlight and adheres to the letter of the law. I’m sure we’ll be hearing pro and con and many interpretations of what he said for days to come. I think it was an important moment in our history, and I agree with him that all Americans should pay attention.

Then, in Fort Worth/Dallas, there was a police chase, with every minute recorded by overhead cameras. Inevitably, the escape car slowed, stopped, and two men of color got out and threw themselves flat on the ground. They knew their lives were in danger. I wanted to yell at them, “How did you ever think you were going to outrun the cops?” but I suppose none of us have none the desperation they must have been feeling. It’s a sad time in America when, even momentarily, your sympathies as an impartial bystander, are with the objects of the chase. Although I don’t know what they did, I have a vague notion it was robbery and was not something heinous like murder. And I knew that as men of color, they knew one slightly wrong move could earn them not one but several bullets. I watched carefully, from my helicopter/TV vantage point, but didn’t see any police brutality Tonight it strikes me that we as spectators get so caught up in that story—and then we never hear another word about it.

And then came the storm warnings. We’d known all morning that severe storms were expected in the early afternoon, but about one o’clock the sky darkened, and the TV was filled with tornado warning advisories, which means a funnel cloud has been sighted. Forecaster were saying ominously, “Take shelter now Go to the lowest safe room in the house” I often beat my chest like a warrior woman and declare how much I love Texas storms—but today made me nervous The dark sky, what looked like a shelf cloud. Then my TV wouldn’t turn on—too many stations in use. AT&T has this ridiculous rule about how many TVs can be one at any given property. I knew just what had happened—Jordan had it on in every room in the house so she could keep up no matter where she wandered.

She finally came out and asked if I didn’t want to come into the house—probably a bit more secure. We laughed about the evening, several years ago, that Jacob set up the closet with a chair, a blanket, a glass of wine, and a book—and then insisted that was where I was to go. Today we decided either the closet or the bathroom, though I think the bathroom is a cliché and still remember one tornado where a mom and her two daughters were found dead in the bathtub where they’d taken shelter.

After about twenty minutes as I stared at the weather news, it was apparent the rotation was northwest of us, and I decided to come back to the cottage. Which meant we had to take back the flashlight and iPad and phone and other supplies we’d taken into the house. What we got was a good heavy rain but no lightning, no hail, very little thunder I suppose sometime our luck might run out, but it held today.

As I hear and read about the floods in Oklahoma, I have a funny image in my mind. Christian and I had a discussion about the direction of river flow. Simplistically, I maintain that rivers flow from north to south—thinking of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. But he thought the local Trinity River was high because they opened Benbrook dam—which is south of the river. Made no sense to me. But if water flows north to south, I have this vision of Oklahoma sending sheets of water, unbounded by river patterns, down on Texas. I truly grieve for that state where every county has been declared a disaster area. I don’t know which is worse—the destruction of a tornado or the slime and filth and contamination of a flood. And both kill people. I truly hope the administration stops its war on science and climate change and pays attention to what is happening to our world.

Saturday Odds and Ends

A bit of whimsy for your weekend pleasure

Jordan sent this from a lake house where she and

some friends are celebrating a birthday

Who can resist? I watched the Kentucky Derby today, or as someone described it, “the most exciting two minutes in horse racing.” Oh my goodness, the mud! As the stable boys led their horses out, I wondered that they didn’t flounder in that deep mud—horses and stable boys both. And near the end of the race, I could see that the horses were having trouble with their footing. What a miserable sight. I always feel a bit sorry for the jockeys at the rear of the pack with almost no way to catch up, and so I felt today. I also wished for a mint julep. I remember one year when I was invited to a derby party—had two juleps and was home in bed, leaving the kids o fend for themselves, by six. Never again!

Special investigator Mueller always looks so solemn, though I have seen one or two pictures when he was jovial. One obviously doctored meme today showed him laughing at Trump and saying, “You misunderstood. Not Nobel. No Bail.” But if anything can make that intense man laugh, the antics of Giuliani and Trump ought to bring some amusement. When I was young, my then-husband used to tease me about being clumsy. I had a good friend in Missouri who was equally clumsy, and he called us “the dance team of Ox and Klutz.” It’s all I can think of as I watch those two tripping over each other, lying to explain away their previous lies. Sorry, guys, it ain’t working. I got a good laugh out of several opinion columns today.

But I also felt a lot of indignation about all the ongoing crap—forgive my language. Trump’s speech to the NRA, obviously toadying up to them and forgetting everything he ever said about gun control; the ongoing situation in Puerto Rico; the part of our population who blindly accepts his moral transgressions, whereas they called for Clinton’s head and would have called for Obama’s if he’d given them cause—well, actually he did by being black. I am heartbroken about the hate Trump has opened up in this country, the destruction of women’s rights over their own bodies, the desolation of our environmental and worker protections. But I am blathering about stuff we already know. What we don’t know is how much longer we have to put up with idiocy, deceit, lies and corruption. And I, for one, think Trump is mentally incapable of handling day-to-day life let alone the presidency.

A quiet day today, and I worked on the cookbook. Every time I think I’m ready to send it off, I find more to do. But tonight, my dinner experiment went better than last night. I made pasta with anchovies and breadcrumbs. Lesson learned: the way to make good, crisp crumbs is to rough chop a piece of artisan bread in a processor—I used sourdough—and sauté those crumbs in a saucepan with a generous glug of olive oil. Stand over them and stir constantly. They were—I say modestly—a culinary triumph. The pasta sauce was simply garlic-infused olive oil with a whole lot of anchovies mashed into it. I liked it, but I wouldn’t recommend it unless you really like anchovies.

Now I’m going to indulge in reading a mystery—Ellery Adams Murder in the Locked Library