Monday blues on Valentine’s Day

 

A reconstructed apartment in The Tenement Museum
Photo from the Tenement Museum

What an oxymoron! They just shouldn’t schedule Valentine’s Day on a Monday. In fact, I may become an activist for rescheduling all those Monday holidays. I know, what I don’t need is another cause when I have Texas politics (and national), banned books, dogs … let’s see, what else?

I didn’t so much have the blues today as the blahs, and or no reason. The day was sunny and almost warm, though the temperature drop between four and six this afternoon was dramatic. Sophie did get me up early—twice, so I missed my morning doze. But my work went well, and I got my thousand words written, though they were what I would call transitional words, trying to get the characters from one problem to another. Now I’ve left them at a dinner party—can’t wait to see what will come out of that dinner, and Henny is nervous about it. She’s serving her homemade pasta, which is definitely not one of her signature dishes.

Zenaida was here this morning, so the cottage is sparkling and clean. Other than her cheery presence, there wasn’t a highlight to the day. I tried to create one by watching a Zoom special on love in the tenements. I follow the Tenement Museum at 97 Orchard Steet in Manhattan’s Lower East Side (I’m pretty sure I’ve blogged about it before, so if you find this repetitive, please bear with me). The building housed waves of immigrants from the 1860s through the 1930s—the Irish fleeing the potato famine Lutherans from Germany, Jewish people escaping the violence of eastern Europe, eventually Italians and Hispanics. The immigrants did not mingle—one wave followed another, so that for a time the building was almost exclusively Irish, then Jewish, etc. It’s like a mini-history of New York City. Rescued from demolition in the late 1980s, 97 Orchard Street is slowly being refurbished, and “model” apartments are stark reminders of the shabbiness of poverty and the lack of amenities.

Tonight’s program featured just a few couples in love and probed the question of how you find out about love in history. The part about a Jewish couple featured quite a bit about traditional matchmaker and the decline of their business early in the twentieth century.The pictures were fascinating, along with interesting chat comments. But I so want the museum to do some training of their presenters. Tonight there were two—a woman who was so animated as to be almost frenetic; she talked too fast so that she was hard to understand; her constant playing with her long hair was distracting. (Yes, I had my hearing aids in and my auxiliary speaker turned on—still not good.) She was partnered with a young man who was just the opposite—laid back, soft spoken, lacking her obvious spark. I don’t know which is better—or worse. A side note: each was identified by name and pronoun preference. She preferred she/her, and he identified as he/him. But I thought it interesting that they felt it important to include that information.

One of my colleagues on a writers’ listserv just recorded some demo work hoping to get voice-over assignments, and she shared the demos with the group today. I was impressed by the range and variety of her voice and by the fact that whether she was doing a voice for an animation segment or one for a corporate presentation, her speech was clear and understandable. I want her to run up to NYC and teach the Tenement Museum staff. I know they operate on a shoestring and the staff may even be volunteer, but I think if they upped the quality of the programming, they’d get more contributions.

My recommendation, if you’re interested in this history, is to read the book, 97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Families in One Tenement, by Jane Ziegelman. Or check out the website: the tenement museum - Search (bing.com)

Christian is fixing a new version of carnitas for Valentine’s Day, and I’m being reclusive—I guess the blahs have made me lazy. I declined an invitation to dine in the house—they can have a candlelit dinner. I’m waiting for a plate of food.

Tomorrow is a new day!

Christian's carnitas
Just delivered and delicious!

Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate!

Nobody wants to know the technical reason that chocolate makes you feel almost as good as being in love—phenyl-what?—and nobody really needs to know that St. Valentine was beheaded by order of Roman emperor Claudius for marrying Christian couples. Claudius thought being married would make soldiers less fearsome in battle. So Valentine was fearless in love.

But everyone needs chocolate on Valentine’s Day. Here’s a recipe that you can either call pudding or mousse, whichever strikes your fancy. It’s quick and easy, and if you don’t have the ingredients on hand, it’s not too late to run get them. Just to show how old this recipe is, it calls for a double boiler. Anyone have one of those still?

16 oz. semi-sweet chocolate, either two 8 oz. dark candy bars or chocolate bits

½ cups chopped walnuts

2 Tbsp. crème de menthe

4 cups whipping cream

Melt the chocolate in that double boiler you don’t have or the microwave. Just don’t let it burn. Stir in walnuts and crème de menthe. Cool to room temperature

Whip the cream until stiff peaks form. Gently fold the cooled chocolate mixture into the whipped cream until thoroughly blended. No white streaks.

Serve chilled in individual dishes. Wine glasses, even martini glasses, are nice Decorate with chocolate sprinkles.

Note: I don’t really like nuts in soft things, so I leave them out of this. Everyone to their own taste.

If you’re old enough to remember double boilers and valentines like the one above—remember they used to come in variety packages? —you’re old enough to remember Valentine Boxes and the days when every kid worked hard to make his or her own to be proudly carried to school on the day. Lots of tissue paper, some crepe paper rolls, cut-out cardboard hearts, maybe even a bit of lace if your mom sewed. It was definitely a competition to bring the fanciest box. And then teachers made sure you had a valentine for every child in your class, so no feelings were hurt.

Ah, the good old days. I don’t think kids do that anymore. They’re missing wonderful memories.

Of children and dogs

Yesterday, Jacob and his mother got separated in a store where they'd gone to buy valentines. He panicked, thinking he'd lost her. Jordan assured him she would never ever leave without him, and they are going to discuss again asking a salesperson for help. My heart was filled with sympathy for the poor child...until I remembered the day I left Jamie in the grocery store. As I drove away I glanced in the rear view mirror, only to see him madly chasing my car. In retrospect it reminds me of those horrible stories about dogs being thrown out of cars and desperately chasing those cars. Jamie apparently survived unscathed, though if he sees this he'll tell me, "I'm suing."
Another time I had my four plus a neighbor child in the drugstore. As I walked out I realized I only had four children and should have five. As I turned to go retrieve the missing child, I bumped into a woman. Excusing myself, I said, "I've lost a child." She patted me on the arm and said, "Don't worry, honey. You have enough." Wish I had digital pictures of those wonderful days.
The other day I saw a beautiful picture of a dog on Facebook with a sentiment to the effect that we should never trust a person who doesn't like a dog, but always trust a dog who doesn't like a person. I'm not sure Sophie is hat discriminating--she seems to love everyone. But she grows into a better dog every day. Sure, she has her moments of high frenzy over guests, but she calms down quickly. And, yes, she can be demanding when he wants to play fetch, but she deserves those minutes of my time. At night when she knows I'm headed for bed, she lies on her bed and waits for me to come give her a tummy rub. Today, she was playing with her toys for Jordan and me while we had a Valentine happy hour in the living room. Jordan caught this picture of her looking at me and titled it, "Yes, Momma."
She follows me everywhere around the house, knows the signs when I'm dressing to go out. If she doesn't want to go outside, she runs as fast as she can in the other direction when I get out the leash. When I went out to pick up scattered toys (boy and dog) this afternoon, she peeked out the door but wouldn't venture out--she did not want to be in the back yard if I was in the house. The picture above was taken by a friend--shows how badly she needs a haircut but also shows her sweet face and is a demonstration of how effective b&w photography can be.
So nice to be without snow, ice, slipper roads and walkways. Today it was sunny and beautiful, in the low sixties. Makes everyone want to be outside, and the traffic was heavy when I did errands this morning. I guess others felt the same way. My daffodils have grown so much in a week. And here's the orchid Jordan got me.
Life is good. Hope everyone had a happy St. Valentine's Day