A memorable weekend

 

My four loves

I have been silent and out of pocket because we went to Austin for a long weekend and a long-delayed get-together with most of the Alter clan—all four of my kids, five of the seven grandchildren, one wife, and one husband. We were missing two grandchildren, one wife, and one husband—and they were sorely missed.

The minute we arrived Thursday night, Jacob was swept up into who knows what with his two Austin cousins, and the same happened the next day when Kegan arrived from Tomball. The four reminded me of classic pictures of the Beatles as they trooped in and out of the house. Sawyer, now 17, drove them everywhere, and I know they loved being on their own. Two of my three granddaughters could not come because of other commitments, but when Eden, the only girl among them, arrived, the boys happily included her in their activities.

The grands--four boys and a girl

We ate extraordinarily well—no surprise there. A fish dinner at a neat restaurant called Monger’s, another supper of grilled pork sandwiches with aioli, and a Mexican night with Bob Armstrong dip from Matt Martinez. And cake—chocolate with chocolate icing, yellow with chocolate icing, and some kind of coconut (obviously I stick to double chocolate).

Megan found sleeping space for most of us--the teenage boys bunked together, I got a bed in the office, and Jordan and her brothers stayed in the cabana. (Jamie's wife and daughter only stayed one night and the three of them were in a motel, but Jamie stayed in the cabana after they left.) Jordan reports many hijinks--the boys had a drum contest with snares and bass, seeing how much noise they could make, and Jamie threw on a sheet and tried to scare Jordan as a ghost. It didn't worked, but she laughed a lot. This was all at one a.m. So much fun that my grown kids can still hang out and fool around--and no, nobody else heard the drums.

We were celebrating all the birthdays and graduations we missed during pandemic, but because my birthday was the most recent, I got extra gifts—what every girl wants for her kitchen: a new garbage can. But its one of those where you wave a hand and it opens like magic, and I think it has a charcoal filter. I am so tired of smelly garbage. But I am doubly proud to announce that I am now a Scottish landholder—I own one square foot in Dumfermline Parish in the Scottish Highlands—yep, I have a fancy certificate to prove it! You may now call me Lady Judy.

A highlight of the trip for me was seeing Megan and Brandon’s new house. They tore down their 1940s cottage which had been randomly (and inefficiently) added to and built a new and very modern house on the same footprint. Stucco outside and white walls inside with lots of large windows, it has clean, smooth lines, no clutter, lots of art, separate bedrooms for the boys and a common room for them to watch TV or hang out with friends. The kitchen, much like the one they had installed ten years ago or so, has a long marble slab which seats at least six—perfect for gathering and talking while Megan cooks, which she does often and well. 

Most remarkable to me though were small architectural touches for efficiency—light switches that are at the height of fingertips and not up on the wall where they interfere with artwork (and there is new, stunningly modern art work throughout the house, including a skateboard painted silver and bearing one word: Impeach), window shades that automatically go down at a certain time in the evening, desks that can be raised to a standing position or lowered to the traditional seated height with the touch of a button, a guest bath with a shelf under the sink for towels, etc., and a neat bar for hanging towels—perfect also for hanging my travel kit. Hidden storage spaces are everywhere, and a laundry chute lets the boys drop their clothes right on top of the washing machine. Everything is designed for efficiency—perfect for a busy family with two high schoolers and two working parents. And yet it is as attractive as any layout from Architectural Digest. I'm strictly an old-house person, but I loved this--as did Jacob who is drawn to modern.

Megan's house, from my favorite perch
with Megan at her computer
That's my computer in the foreground--I set up an office

Home today. We came the back way—183 to 281 to Cleburne and up the Chisholm Trail—to avoid the construction traffic jam in Waco. And unheard of for Texas in August—we ran into rain. Brief but intense cloudbursts, with threatening skies all around us. We could see rain in the distance when we weren’t right in it. Jordan did a masterful job of not only driving but figuring out which way the storms were headed and pretty much skirting them.

And so we are home, hungry and happy, after a truly great weekend. I know I’ve said it before, but I am so blessed with family.

Christian took great care of the dogs, and Sophie got to be in the main house.
The first day he sent this picture with this explanation: Reporting for duty, Sir. 8:30 a.m.
The house is secure, but I will continue to monitor the situation.

Photos trigger some nostalgia. . . and I learn a new word

The United Church of Hyde Park

A Presbyterian/ Congregational church

I grew up in the historic Hyde Park/Kenwood neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. Think of it as home to the University of Chicago, several Frank Lloyd Wright homes, and a lot of diversity. It was a wonderful place to grow up—the threat of violence not included—and I treasure those memories. Today, the bulletin of the Hyde Park Historical Society included some pictures that sent me reeling back in time.

The first was of the United Church of Hyde Park. As a child of the city, I was fortunate to have the church and the YMCA as the centers of my teenage social life. Although my parents attended a different church, they allowed me to attend United after I was part of a Brownie troop there and made many friends, several of whom became lifelong friends. I sang in the youth choir, belonged to the youth group—strangely named Tuxus which I don’t understand to this day. We were a close-knit group, and we pretty much avoided the temptations that beckon to many city teens. When I think of parties, I think of pizza and chess games. The mother of one of my best friends was the church secretary, and we pretty much had the run of the church. I remember creaking floors in Fellowship Hall, serving as a waitress for church dinners (how I loved those dinners), and being in Girl Scout productions on the stage in that hall.

Today the church is in trouble. Church leaders hope to get a historical designation that will save the building, and they are working to come up with creative, yet acceptable non-worship uses of the building. Preservation Chicago is supporting their efforts.

Promontory Point

The lake picture is of Promontory Point, known simply at The Point. It is a finger of land that juts out into the lake at 55^th Street. There is indeed a shelter at the Point, a  roofed structure without walls but with all important restrooms. You could rent it for parties and picnics and the like. But our crowd didn’t care about the shelter. We spent long summer weekends on blankets thrown on the grass above the rock retaining walls that held the waters back. There was no beach, and the water was deep. Swimming required climbing down the rocks, chancy in itself, and then plunging into cold, deep water. Although I happily swam in Lake Michigan on the beach at our Indiana Dunes cottage, I never got in the water at the Point. One of the younger and shy kids, I was just anxious to be part of the crowd, so I lay on my blanket and pretended to have a good time.

The Cook County Medical Examiners Office

An example of Brutalism in architecture

My mind was on Chicago today anyway, because of the novel I’m working on, and I learned a new term—Brutalism. I was trying to describe the Cook County Office of the Medical Examiner. It’s one of those concrete, stark, cold buildings with deeply recessed windows that seem to characterize municipal architecture from the Fifties and Sixties. I wrote to my friend Carol Roark, whose architectural knowledge far exceeds mine, and she wrote back to say it was called Modern, but she liked to call it Brutalism or Brutal architecture. I thought at first it was a term she invented to express her disdain for the style, but she provided a Wikipedia link. It is a real style that plagued (my term) much of the twentieth century. The city halls of both Dallas and Fort Worth are also examples.

Always a good day when you learn a new word. But probably those pictures of Chicagoland made my day. Hope yours was good and you are safely quarantined.

Haircuts, tigers, and the Alamo

The difference a haircut makes is amazing. This morning, it was still chilly although sunny, and I was in a bit of a funk, reluctant to get started on a long day of work broken only by a two o’clock haircut and dinner with a friend. But then Rosa, the wonderful lady who keeps me from looking shaggy, called to say she could come by around nine instead of two. I managed to get my hair washed but she found me lazy otherwise—bed unmade, dishes in the sink. But that haircut turned my attitude around, and the whole day was better than I expected.

Sophie got a haircut a week or so ago. She had been having terrible allergies, and I could hear her wheeze and that wet breathing that scares you when you hear it in a child and worried me for my dog. She was also sleeping a lot. But after the haircut, she is a new dog—lively, allergy-free. I truly believe she was carrying around dust and pollen in that shaggy coat.

So in my next life I’m either going to be a hair stylist or a dog groomer. Such a good service they do for us.

Something appalling that I read this morning: there are only 3,000 tigers in the wild, while there are 5,000 in captivity. No, most of them are not in zoos and wildlife preserves. They are in people’s back yards. Estimate is that 2,000 are in Texas yards. Sorry, folks, but that’s an atrocity. Those magnificent creatures deserve to run free and should not live their lives in cages in back yards. Thank goodness, zoos are doing a better job these days of keeping animals in a so-called natural environment, but even that is less than ideal. The virtue of zoos is their breeding programs, which save many animals from extinction. I can’t begin to understand why someone would want a tiger in a cage in their backyard. Probably people who think life isn’t complete without an AR15.

Today is the 183^rd anniversary of the fall of the Alamo, which means, among many other more significant things, my book about the Alamo should be out by this time next year. I’ve seen several posts about this anniversary, and they all show pictures of the chapel. But that is not where the battle was. It took place in a building, now restored, adjacent to the chapel, called the long barracks. In the public mind, though, Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie swung their rifles in hand-to-hand combat on the roof of the chapel. Truth is, the chapel was in such disrepair at the time of the siege that it had no roof. When the U.S. Army occupied the building as a storage depot, in 1847, they put in the roof and added the familiar rounded arch or hip at the center.

Today I read an article that demonstrated how popular that style is in commercial and residential properties in Fort Worth, many dating back a century but probably few if any pre-dating the Alamo roof. So the assumption is that loyal Texans copied that feature, probably as a tribute or way or honoring the history. If you’re in Fort Worth, take a look, for instance at the Livestock Exchange. I suppose the same imitative style can be found in other Texas cities.

Take a minute too to think of the men who died defending the Alamo. As I’ve found out in my recent research, it’s not the simple heroic story most assume it is, and its ramifications are felt, good and bad, in Texas to this day. History lives on.

The times they are a-changing

            I tried to go grocery shopping at Central Market online today. I’d decided to fix Swiss steak for the family—long story but there’s a diet involved that really limits my cooking. Guess what? Central Market found zero results for round steak. So, in person, at Tom Thumb I asked, and the butcher said it’s an old-fashioned cut of meat, no one cuts it any more. One more childhood memory gone in a swoop. Butcher recommended something else, but it doesn’t have that little round bone. My brother and I used to fight over that tiny bit of marrow.

As we drove to the grocery store—we’ve gotten to prefer the one that is almost downtown, for it’s wide aisles and clean atmosphere—I saw other evidence of changing times. Suddenly, there are whole buildings I’ve not seen before. I know I don’t get out often, but I didn’t think I was that sheltered. A new coliseum almost done? A huge camera shop I’d never seen. In fairness, I have to say I don’t have much occasion to go up Montgomery, but we did today.

Still almost everywhere I go I see new buildings, familiar buildings and houses gone. Today, on Vickery, I looked at a large scraped empty lot and said, “I can’t even remember what was there.” Neither could Jordan. It’s a strangely disconcerting thing to see my city changing around me, even though I am one who acknowledges that growth involves change. But I am conflicted, because I love old houses, old structures. I value our history as it is represented in buildings. And tonight, I worry about the fate of the historic Will Rogers Coliseum.

I also mourn the changing times in the number of people who apparently find me old these days. I am so grateful for the many friends who visit the cottage, take me out to eat, and sometimes take me to doctors’ appointments, but I have noticed a clear drop by a few friends. Some I used to enjoy a glass of wine or a casual lunch with. My theory is that being on a walker has made me suddenly old in their eyes. I am actually in better health, mentally and physically, than most people my age. I simply cannot walk unassisted—and as a restaurant owner said to me recently, “Oh, well, you’ve been hobbling around forever.” And it’s true—I was uncertain of my balance, I carried a cane—but the walker makes a difference. There! I’ve said it! Wanted to say it for a long time and now I’ve done it.

My family suffered a loss today. The Frisco Alters—Jamie, Melanie, Maddie and Eden—lost their chocolate lab, believed to be about thirteen (he was a rescue and you never know the age for sure). He had shown signs of aging—anxiety and arthritis among them, bless him—but I don’t think any of us were ready to send Mosby to the rainbow bridge. I love my dog to the moon and back, but I have to say Mosby was one of the sweetest dogs I’ve ever known. Patient, loving, and never demanding, loyal to his family. It’s a hard loss.

A bittersweet day—and it ended with the news that we’re bombing Syria, that poor beleaguered country. Sometimes the world is a discouraging place.

Living in a Book’s World

Do you ever finish a book and find you’re not only sad to leave it but you’re reluctant to leave the world created in the book? That has happened to me tonight. I just finished Ruth Reichl’s Delicious, her first and as far as I know only novel.

I meant to work all weekend. I had a lot I was going to get done, mostly editing a novella. If I had applied myself I might be almost through with it tonight. But yesterday, seduced by Saturday’s delicious laziness, I spent most of the day reading the novel. Today I went to church and did some household chores, a bit of cooking, but every other minute, I read Delicious.

Confession: at first I wasn’t drawn into this book. Through most of Book One, which details a young girl coming to New York looking for a writing job and lucking into an interview with an old and revered food magazine. The editor sends her on a deliberate wild goose chase, during which she discovers many wonderful tastes, the unique small food places of New York, some unusual and distinctive characters—and demonstrates that she has a remarkable palate, able to distinguish subtle flavors in almost any food. Okay, so much so good but where is it going in the rest of the novel?

In Book Two, she discovers a cache of correspondence during WWII from a thirteen-year-old girl in Akron, Ohio, to iconic American chef James Beard.  Clearly Beard held up his part of the correspondence, because his suggestions, recipes, and ideas are referred to. The letters are lively, and the readers comes to believe Lulu is a real person, her mother and boyfriend only a little less so, and then there’s the father, missing in action. You can’t help but be embroiled in the story.

It would be a spoiler to reveal too much about Book Three, but it brings together wonderfully intriguing threads—not only food. The Underground Railroad, WWII, romance, architecture, transformation, forgiveness and acceptance. All those things floating through the book are made clear in surprising ways.

So tonight I find myself reluctant to start another book, though the stack on my desk is high. Editing my own work? I’ll dig into that tomorrow, but tonight I’m still floating in Lulu’s world.

Delicious by Ruth Reichl—find it, read it, and then try some of her nonfiction food books. She’s addictive.