A strange weekend

A spatch-cocked chicken with vegetables
The vegetables cook in chicken grease and are delectable

North Texas was at its absolute best tonight. A lovely evening, with just enough breeze to keep the mosquitoes away and make you forget the temperature was in the high ‘80s. The breeze ruffled the trees, the garden is beginning to grow, the pentas are showing first blooms. Neighbors Greg and Jaimie Smith came for happy hour, and we all forgot about itme—spent two hours having such a good visit.

Greg once was my lawn and garden guru, and he gave me hints tonight—like deadhead the coleus and mow those ornamental grasses that aren’t at all ornamental. We talked of kids and grandkids and college and fear, of schoolrooms (Jaimie is a retired teacher and was consulting in a small-town district this week—a hard week, she said). We talked of aging, though they are almost a generation younger than me, and we talked of dogs and cats because we are all animal lovers. I relish evenings like this. I gave them crab canapes from the freezer.

Usually I cook a lot on weekends, but this has been a strange weekend. The Charles Schwab Invitational PGA tournament is in town at Colonial Country Club—our end of town. Jordan and Christian and Jacob have been there all day for three or four days, so I filled my social calendar with others. Jordan was home Thursday, and on Friday Jean came to eat chicken salad and fresh green beans with me.

I had cooked a terrific sheet pan chicken for the family Thursday night. I am in love with this recipe. I thought I had written about it on my Gourmet on a Hot Plate blog, but tonight I couldn’t find it, so it will be up online Thursday this coming week. But let me just say that I am a huge fan of sweet onion sauteed—in butter, in chicken drippings, in whatever. I’d probably love them cooked in water. Watch for that recipe because it’s too good to miss.

Last night I made chicken salad out of what was left of the spatch-cocked chicken. It was traditional, simple chicken salad—chicken, green onions, celery, salt and pepper, lemon juice, and mayonnaise. Jean enjoyed it, and I have to say it was delicious. I am not a fan of grapes and nuts in chicken salad. And there’s just enough left for me to have some tonight.

I am trying hard to blog about something other than the Uvalde massacre—and that last word fits what it is. That tragedy has occupied my thoughts this past week, and it’s hard for me to think beyond all the things I want to say. I am both grieved and furious, but I figure I can’t wear readers out with that. I know my own anger—at the needless loss of life, the law enforcement failure, the doublespeak of Governor Abbott will not go away soon, nor do I want it to. I want to keep my anger up—and yours—and that of all reasonable people of voting age, because I desperately want the Democratic Party to score a lot of victories in the mid-terms. Conventional wisdom is that Republicans will triumph—in light of the abortion wars and the Uvalde school shooting, it’s time to throw conventional wisdom to the winds.

Meantime, here are a couple of literary diversions. I guess this is still political, but it’s such a delicious story. In a collaboration between author Margaret Atwood and Penguin Randon House publishers, there is now a flameproof copy of The Handmaid’s Tale. A wonderful picture shows Atwood aiming a flame thrower at the book which remains untouched. So much for the rabid book banners and book burners who infest our culture. The Handmaid’s Tale is set in a dystopian future where the seventeenth-century Puritanical restrictions on society pale in comparison. It is where we are headed with abortion bans, likely to be followed by bans on contraception, interracial marriage, trans marriage, etc. All those personal freedoms, gone.

On a somewhat lighter note, although murder is never a lighthearted subject: a romance novelist has been convicted of murdering her husband. The kicker? She wrote a column several years ago on “How to Murder Your Husband.” It’s a case of fiction becoming reality, but in her case, the dry run didn’t work out. Will the wacky world never cease to provide us with bizarre humor?

Peace to all. This is a difficult time, but I am still sure we will get through it, and democracy will triumph.

 

Of children and dogs

Anybody in Fort Worth recognize this good-looking fellow?

For me, another day of grief, watching as more news and more sadness comes out of Uvalde. I have friends who have turned off their TV and ignored the newspaper, because they find the news too stressful. I can’t do that—reading and sharing posts keeps my anger up, and I hope, yours too. If we’re going to fight for a decent society where kids are safe in the schoolroom, where what women do with their bodies is between the woman and her doctor, and where everyone has equal opportunity to vote, we have to stay angry. And we have to be informed. We have to win this fight—the alternative is unthinkable.

Greg Abbott used the word “unimagineable” in his press conference, but as Beto and others have pointed out the tragedy in Uvalde was not beyond Abbott’s imagination. This is the sixth school shooting on his watch. He doesn’t have to imagine. He know the drill, at least as he perceives it—do nothing preventive but after the fact stress all that you are doing to investigate. Who needs investigation? A troubled kid got a gun he shouldn’t have had, and now he’s dead and can’t tell us more.

Today we learned that law enforcement stood outside the school for forty or fifty minutes, while parents urged them to go in. Standard procedure since Columbine is to go in immediately. One father, who lost his daughter, tried to get an unarmed citizen group to rush the building. Meantime, children were dying inside. I also heard the police got their own kids out first. There is much to be investigated about the reaction to the shootingand much to be learned, but that’s not what Abbott was talking about. And we must not let it fade away as other mass shootings have. Make this the last one. And as Beto said, now is the time to do that.

Do not tell me Chicago has more violent gun deaths. That’s apples and oranges. I grew up on the South Side of Chicago, and I know about inner city violence. Have you heard of one school shooting in that city? Most of the gun deaths are gang rivalries, with, unfortunately, children too often caught in the crossfire.

Do not tell me that gun control laws don’t work, there will always be bad guys, and they will always get guns. That’s a cop-out for politicians so they can continue to collect NRA funds. Gun control doesn’t work in the U.S. because there are no consistent laws and there is lackluster enforcement. Texas has perhaps the loosest gun laws of any state and one of the highest number of mass shootings (plus other gun deaths). Coincidence? I hardly think so. How can an eighteen-year-old who can’t yet vote or drink legally, walk into a store and purchase two assault rifles and God knows how many rounds of ammunition. Senator Cornyn brought up another interesting opoint today: where did he get the money?

I challenge Greg Abbott to study what was done after mass shootings in Australia, the UK , New Zealand. I also challenge him to go talk personally, one on one, with the parents who lost children at Robb Elementary. Not a press conference where he is buffered by politicians, like the loud mayor of Uvalde who was out of line in his public attack on Beto O’Rourke at the presser.

I am indignant.

As if that were not enough trauma for the day, I have spent much of the day worrying and writing beseeching posts about lost dogs. Today alone there has been notice of at least ten dogs wandering, looking for help and afraid to approach would-be rescuers. One, a gorgeous big fellow, lies on the front porch of an empty house, waiting for his people to come home. Speculation is that college students went home for the summer and left him behind.

People get on various internet sites and ask, “Anybody want this dog?” It makes me blood boil. My constant advice: if someone claims the dog as theirs, demand proof—photographs, an identifying physical characteristic, a letter from their vet. Watch how the dog responds to his supposed owner. In Fort Worth (and I think Texas) strays must be registered with the local animal control facility because that’s the first place people go to look for a lost pet. It is illegal to re-home a dog or cat within 24 hours. And, no, animal control facilities do not automatically euthanize these animals. The Fort Worth facility has a re-home rate of about 95%. There are people out there who acquire “pets” just to abandon or torture them. I’m told there are no organized dog-fight rings in the Fort Worth area, but there are “pick up” fights.

If  you want to re-home your dog, the same cautions apply. Do not just give him or her to someone who says, “How cute!” By taking a few precautions you may be saving your pet’s life. Sometimes circumstances make it impossible for devoted pet owners to keep their animals—death, illness, etc. But I hope people who are considering adopting dog remember that it is a lifetime commitment. I get really angry of people who tire of their dog or want a younger one or just don’t have time. You are that dog’s only family, and he or she trusts you.

Yeah, I harbor a lot of anger at the world tonight. Some shrug and say, “That’s the way it is.” I say, “It doesn’t have to be that way.”

Still reeling from the horror in Uvalde

 

I am not a native Texan. I cannot, like many of my friends, claim roots that go back generations (they often let me know about it). But I have lived in this state for fifty-seven years. In Texas, I raised my four children, built a career based on Texas history and literature, found a more-than-satisfactory life. I love this state. Tonight, I grieve for it and I am angry—indeed, furious.

I watched Greg Abbott’s presser today and was mildly surprised but overall appalled. It was all about after-the-fact, what we are doing to help families and the community of Uvalde heal, when truly it is much too soon to even talk about healing. The grief is too raw. I did think, briefly, that both Abbott and Dan Patrick showed some real emotion, but they soon turned it aside to recite the same old stuff. Abbott read lists of agencies involved in the investigation and in caring for survivors. The time frame of the attack was detailed, the fact that all the dead have been identified and their families notified seemed a point of pride. I heard the word “prevent” exactly once. When questions came, Abbott stressed the seven laws he has passed to strengthen mental health in this state.

Not a word about the nineteen laws the last legislature passed and Abbot gleefully signed that loosened restrictions on gun ownership. Not a word about the way shooting deaths have since skyrocketed. Not a word about the six school shootings and other mass shootings in the state that preceded this one. Abbott stuck to the playbook he’s used after every shooting: “This is not a time to politicize.” It makes great cover if you take it at face value.

Beto O’Rourke may have done himself no favors by interrupting and accusing the governor—Republicans will jump all over the incident, and I believe it was the mayor of Uvalde who disgraced himself, though he may not yet recognize it, by loudly calling Beto, “a sick son of a bitch.” But Beto spoke the truth: it will happen again, because Abbott is willing to look anywhere but at gun ownership—specifically automatic assault weapons. After every shooting, we have had the same pattern—Abbott calls a conference, makes a lot of noise, and does nothing meaningful.

When Beto was interviewed after his interruption, the passion he felt about these deaths was so palpable it was in stark contrast to the controlled statements inside the civic center (or was it the high school?). I for one cheer him for making his voice heard, for striking out against “one more time.” He’s right: unless something drastic is done, it will happen again in Texas, one of the states with the laxest gun laws and the highest number of gun deaths. I have five grandchildren still in public schools in this state, and I fear for their safety every day. Beto pointed out that Abbott called this tragedy unimaginable, but it really is not because we’ve seen it happen six times already. It is far too easy to imagine it happening all over again.

What can we do? Does it do any good to write to Ted Cruz? Probably not. To the governor? Probably not. I am not a fan of John Cornyn, but I will give him credit for cancelling his scheduled appearance at the NRA celebration in Houston this weekend—Abbott will supposedly still appear, along with trump who has not uttered one word about the shooting. What an appallingly bad case of timing. We can send donations to help with funerals; we can, as one of my neighbors suggested, donate blood which is apparently needed in the Uvalde hospitals. We can make our voices heard. And we must vote!

I wish there was better news tonight, something happy to write about. But it will take a while, a long while.