Moving slowly

 

Yes, that's Jacob in an outfit his preschool put on him. 
My other kids were pretty upset, and I got lots of message to the effect that,
"Your other grandchildren are pretty cute too!"

Moved slowly this morning. Nothing wrong with me except that I felt sluggish, unwilling to face the day. Perhaps it was that unsettling dream I had between feeding Sophie and getting up for the day. I have that technique down to six minutes at my best (I remind myself of a barrel racer). I can let her out, dish out her food, rinse the spoon so it doesn’t stick, feed her, go to the bathroom, and be back in bed in six minutes. Some mornings I time myself—racing against my record. Usually this is about five-thirty, still hard dark.

Or maybe I didn’t sleep as well as usual. Sometimes about three in the morning my brain gets caught in a semi-awake, semi-asleep cycle in which I repeat a scene or plan over and over—it maybe a scene I plan to write, a recipe I want to cook. This morning it was a recipe.

But maybe I was unwilling to face a world that seems increasing loud and noisy. This week, I’m quite sure it’s all the loud noise trump is creating with his multiple, self-contradictory lies and excuses about the classified documents. In a week when the nation should be celebrating several significant victories of President Joe Biden, we’re being drown out by trump, while Biden goes quietly about the business of making America better.

Along political lines, in case you missed it, I can’t resist telling you about a campaign video by Dr. Oz that has recently resurfaced—to the great hilarity of his opponent, John Fetterman. Oz is in a grocery store—with Wegman’s in mind and the real name of the store, he comes out with Wegner’s, which is wrong. He’s shopping for crudities for his wife—as Fetterman points out, a lot of us call that a veggie tray. Trying to skewer Biden for inflation, Oz choses a head of broccoli, a package of asparagus, a ginormous bag of large carrots, a container of guacamole and one of salsa. Then he points out that a crudities tray costs $20. A store employee posted that employees repeatedly tried to tell him they had vegetable trays, with guac, available for $7.95. He said his wife likes salsa. Do you suppose she dips raw asparagus in it?

And speaking of food, I’ve noticed lately that the food memoir is a new thing. People are taking classes in exploring their deepest inner lives by focusing on what they eat/ate, particularly as children. It’s always nice to be on the cutting edge, so I’d like to point out that I wrote a food memoir, Cooking My Way through Life with Kids and Books, way back in 2009, before it was trendy. I belong to a small online writing group where many write memoir, and I’ve always felt slightly deficient because I can’t seem to wrap my head around a traditional memoir. It’s not that I’m afraid of confronting some truths in my life, but it’s that I never can get the peg on which to hang it. In 2009 food was the peg. It’s kind of hard to find on Amazon, so if you’re interested, here’s the link:  Cooking My Way through Life with Kids and Books (Stars of Texas Series): Alter PhD, Dr. Judy: 9781933337333: Amazon.com: Books  You’ll not only find out more than you want to know about me, but you’ll get most of my family’s favorite recipes. Then again, a lot of water under the bridge since 2009.

As I write this, it’s six o’clock, and I think I’ve got my groove back. Everyone’s gone elsewhere for supper, so I’m thinking scrambled eggs sound good. My mom used to dump a spoonful of cottage cheese in them, and I think I’ll do that. Haven’t done it in a long time.

I read an anecdote today about a woman who was being shown to her room in a nursing room. “I know I shall be very happy there,” she said, and the attendant protested, “You haven’t even seen the room yet.” “No, but I know I’ll be happy there. Because I choose to be happy.” It’s a choice we each make daily—we can be happy or we can be miserable. Tomorrow I’ll get my happy back on. Tonight, I’ll read a mystery.

Patio and book day

Jordan and Christian worked on the yard this afternoon. It’s that time of year when the pecan tress drops those “worms” all over. You can blow them off in the morning and by mid-afternoon, the patio is covered again. Sophie, with her woolly coat, brings dozens of them into the house—this morning I could follow a trail where she went from French doors, down the hall, and into the bedroom to get into my still-unmade bed, where she dropped more “worms.”

Jordan was so proud that she cleaned the patio while I napped, but by the time I got up, it was littered again. She spray-painted our two metal flamingoes. The paint had been the subject of great controversy. Jacob painted the small one a year or so ago, with a Pepto-Bismol spray paint that was way too pink. I insisted we go to the hardware for a better shade, but that was all they had. So our big flamingo is now an unnatural pink.

I am reminded of my friend, Carol, a purist about many things who once complained, “Why are all my friends’ gardens sprouting this tacky Mexican tin art?” Guilty!

We sat on the patio tonight for a pre-dinner glass of wine. Lovely, peaceful, and green—but those worms dropped all around us. Luckily, none landed in the wine.

Sometimes I feel Sunday is a good day to dedicate to a book, and that’s what I did today, reading most of Ruth Reichl’s Save Me the Plums, the title taken from that marvelously intimate poem by William Carlos Williams. This is Reichl’s memoir of her tenure as editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine. I wouldn’t call it charming, but I would call it mesmerizing. She is honest and frank about her own insecurities as she ventured into the corporate world, one where she was never completely at home. She admits to anxiety attacks, feelings of inadequacy, guilt about her mothering skills—all this makes her so human.

The memoir is in a way an exposé about corporate America, the kind of revelation that makes me grateful for my small-time, no-pressure, no-big-success writing and publishing career. But it is also a book about food, and Reichl is a skilled food writer, one who can talk unselfconsciously about carousels or explosions of flavor in her mouth, bread that makes you think of a forest on a sunny day, flavors that reverberate. I think I’m a fairly adventuresome eater, but she relishes things I would never try, like squid guts and cod sperm.

A few recipes are scattered throughout the text. In spite of the exotic food she eats and her extensive knowledge, the recipes for such things as jeweled chocolate cake or spicy noodles are easily accessible for the average home cook, a thing she kept in mind during her years at Gourmet.

As in most of her books, the shadow of Reichl’s mother hangs over this one. A troubled woman who suffered from grandiose desires and frequent depression. As Reichl enters the Four Seasons restaurant, she remembers how her mother loved going there for a martini and wished they could afford to go for dinner. It made me realize I under-appreciated the one time in my life that I dined in that hallowed spot.

But there was also Reichl’s father—a quiet, gentle man, a book designer with a marvelous understanding of typography and the importance of the interior of a book (or magazine) but also a clear recognition that cover art was not his forté.

Reichl’s style is casual, chatty, friendly. Reading her memoir is like reading a novel, only you know the end—and it’s not good. I haven’t quite gotten there yet, but the handwriting is on the wall.

Me? I wish in another life, I could have a career like Reichl’s, only without the corporate pressure. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.