A quiet kind of satisfaction

 

Th

A chocolate sunflower

at’s what I feel tonight—happy but not giddy. Just sort of an “At last” feeling. I refer of course to trump being found liable in the case of his attack on E. Jean Carroll. I never had any doubt that she was telling the truth, but for her to pursue the case and for a jury of her peers to decide in her favor (and decide pretty quickly) is satisfying. Maybe beyond satisfying it signals that even DJT will be held accountable for the first time ever in his life, that presidents are bound by the law, that, indeed, law and order will win in our society. And I think it signals the beginning of the end for the orange-skinned monster. His power has been slipping, and I hope this is the incident that kicks it to the cub.

With Republicans, you never know. This afternoon about three Sophie was desperate to go out, so while I waited for her to come back in, I booted the computer, not expecting to find much. But one, obscure news note reported the verdict. I could hardly wait for the evening news—and then I missed it because we had company. But I’m beginning to see reaction from several sources. What I haven’t seen is reaction from major Republican players, and I’m anxious to see that.

The verdict is a political victory but only in part. It’s also a huge victory for all the women whose stories have been discounted, rape kits lost, charges modified. All the women who have not found justice. I hope now many more will feel empowered to come forward, especially those who accuse trump.

He will, of course, appeal. His lawyer, who has not been brilliant throughout, crowed that a jury had just proven that trump is not a rapist. I don’t want to go into unsavory details and technicalities here, but I think the case may demonstrate that he was not, in this one case, a rapist, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. I hope, for Carroll’s sake, that his appeal goes nowhere, which is what I sort of suspect will happen.

Elsewhere the news of the day is encouraging, at least to me. Greg Abbott is taking a real drubbing in the media—not just online but with credible print outlets—for his efforts to divert concern over guns to mental health problems and the crisis at the southern border. He’s sending his private army to secure illegal crossings at the border, which I read today may be illegal. Does that mean legal troubles for him if they kill immigrants, as they undoubtedly will?

Abbott’s distraction about mental health isn’t faring much better. Researchers have demonstrated that mental health programs are unlike to make an appreciable difference in the rate of gun deaths in Texas. And good old guv has outright lied about a couple of things—that the gun rate death in California is higher than Texas (it is about 73% lower) and that cartels are bring illegal weapons across the southern border (they’re bringing deadly drugs, not weapons). So tonight is another of those rare nights when it looks to me like the good guys might win.

Otherwise it’s a good day of fine weather—we keep hearing rain is coming but nada. Chance are better in the next couple of days, so my fingers are crossed. The lawn crew just put in some new native plants in the back yard, and they sure could use water. Also they moved the sunflower from the herb garden to the native plant bed—Jordan, not sure what it was when it was small, had put it in with the herbs where it began to grow amazingly tall. I figured out what it was and asked the guys to move it today. It is a chocolate sunflower, which I’ve not seen before.

Tonight we had happy hour with Mary, who has been gone for eight weeks due to extensive back surgery. Glad to report that she has had a good recovery, is getting back to normal, and doing well. Fun to be together again. We talked about everything from her surgery to trump to how to poach an egg. I served spanakopita (freezer, not homemade), and ate enough to count them as dinner.

So, pleasant dreams. The world just may be headed in the right direction.

What Sunday should be—with a minor crisis

 

My chicken dinner from Drew's Place

I looked forward to Sunday for several days. It was shaping up to be the kind of day I love—no pressure, and I could float through the day. I could sleep late, I had leftovers for lunch, and I’d worry about supper when the time came. I had a book to read, and a friend gave me an idea about something I wanted to write. To top it off, I finally ended with fried chicken leftovers—perfect supper.

Last night, we took fried chicken from Drew’s Place to Joe and Mary Dulle. They’ve had a meal train feeding them while Mary recovers from surgery, but the meal train had made its final stop. Jordan and I always said when that happened, we’d go to a restaurant near their new apartment famed for the fried chicken and take it to them; as it turned out, the classic lunch place, Drew’s, was much more reasonable. So, chicken in hand, we arrived for a tour of the apartment, a glass of wine, and a good visit. Great to see Mary looking so well, and now I can visualize them in their apartment. We came home, each nibbled on our chicken—of course we bought some for ourselves!—and gathered on the patio when the Burtons’ friends Sarah and Jay came over. Lovely evening, but it eventually got too chilly for me.

Yesterday morning Jordan, Sarah, and I had gone plant shopping. I know it’s a pain for Jordan, but it’s delight for me to be rolled through all those aisles in a transport chair instead of having to concentrate on my walker and my footing. This way I could focus on the plants. We bought things I’d never heard of, like optic grass, and old familiars like sweet potato vine, coleus—not sure why I can’t think of the others, but it was a hefty bill, so we got lots more.

Going to the nursery and then to visit the Dulles meant I was off the property twice in one day—as Christian said, a wild day for me. I don’t think it’s age so much as it is the breaking of my routine that tires me, but I was tired last night. When we came home from the Dulles, we found that Sophie doesn’t like her routine disturbed either—kt was a bit late for her dinner, and she had strewn dinner bowls on my bedroom floor, water bowl in the kitchen, and Pill Pockets (she couldn’t open it) in the living room. Sweet spoiled baby!

The back yard is beginning to look like summer. Jordan has most of the pots filled, but we need new grass—the winter rye was really awful this year and has huge, ugly bare patches. Somehow the lawn guys took out my mums a couple of months ago—I had wanted them left until time for spring flowers, but now there’s unslightly barren ground in front of the deck. Instead of pentas, which were a disaster last year, I’m going to put in native plants. Lots of bright yellow with black-eyed susans, gallardia, coreopsis, and the like.

So back to today, Christian and I collaborated on matzo brei (I had sold it to him as like migas, but he pointed out migas have pico and seasonings). The matzo brei tasted like matzo (big surprise) and was good, maybe a bit bland and a lot heavy.

Jordan went to the grocery but was gone an extraordinarily long time. She came home to tell us she had a flat, had to go get Fix-a-Flat and fix it herself. That left a quandary: they couldn’t drive to Coppell on that tire, they couldn’t drive Jacob’s SUV because it goes in tomorrow for brake pads, and they wouldn’t drive the VW. Jordan saw it as yet another sign the gods are picking on them; I saw it as an unfortunate incident. They ended not going to have dinner with Christian’s dad but going to a friends’ fiftieth birthday party.

So now I’m about to heat the potatoes and green beans that came with my chicken and have a lovely dinner—still have fried chicken. And a book I’m enjoying. Can life get any better?

Hope everyone has a great week.

A day of ups and downs

 

Last year's mums
I hope this year they will be as spectacular.

Today I read a post from a friend who was busy planting bulbs for spring in the garden in a house new to her, and I felt a bit guilty that I don’t do my own gardening. On the other hand, if I got down to dig in the dirt, I might never get up again. So mine is a compromise. And it made me happy today when the yard guys came to plant a row of gorgeous mums, already partly in bloom, in front of the deck.

I may have told this story before, but in summer they plant pentas in front of the deck, and most years they are glorious, about three feet tall with profuse color. This year, with the heat, they really suffered, despite Jordans watering. Some in the middle died, others maybe grew to a foot, but there were no blooms--none. One day when John Filarowicz, who owns the lawn service, came by he said they were the most pitiful pentas he’d yet seen. Just as I was about to say, “Gee, thanks,” he added insult to injury and said, “I feel like an oncologist delivering bad news.” So today the pentas are gone. The one mum on the end closest to me—naturally the one I see first—has a big dent in the top, like maybe something hit it. At first, I was disturbed, thinking the asymmetry would bother me all winter, but then I remembered the Zen concept of wabi sabi—the beauty of imperfect things. So now that mum will be my favorite

The guys also replaced the saddest decorative grasses I’ve ever seen. They were in two beds at the foot of the deck stairs and by the gate. For a couple of years I had lovely native grasses in those beds that grew to a good height, and when the wind blew, they danced. I loved to watch them. Then, for some inexplicable reason, they died. We replaced them with other varieties twice, but nothing took hold. The latest ones remained sparse, drooping on the ground. John was as puzzled as I was. So now we have native plants, though tonight the only impressive thing is one prickly pear. The other plants are low to the ground. Christian complained it is not what he expected—he wanted the plants more crowded. I explained they will spread as they take hold and grow—he’s a big gardener and should know that. So now of course I’m worried about the new plants but having the mums is a real “up” for me.

The down is literally a down. For only the second time in five years since my drastic hip surgery, I fell. Neither time was due to the hip nor weakness nor anything associated with the surgery. The first time I fell asleep on the commode in the middle of the night and took a header onto the bathroom floor. Luckily I was able to get myself up, take a couple of aspirin, and go back to sleep.

Today I was leaving my desk, holding on to the walker, when my foot caught in the cord to the foot massage machine that lives under my desk. Somehow the cord had worked its way to the front, where it does not belong. I actually thought I handled the whole thing gracefully. I held on to the walker and simply went down on my knees—ouch! Collected myself and sat cross-legged next to the walker. I considered getting up but decided calling for help was the better part of wisdom. Jordan was home, came out, and helped me get on my knees and over to my desk chair, which is more stable than the walker. I pulled myself into a crouching position and seemed stuck, so she had the idea to put the walker under my bottom. While she was trying to do that, I pulled myself to a standing position. Proud? I guess so. And not hurt, though my knees were a bit tender. I do admit I was a bit shaken.

I’ve always told myself that if I fell and really needed help, Sophie would go to the back door of the main house and bark like mad until someone came to see what the matter was. Know what she did? She took one look at me on the floor and turned and went into the security of her cage. Kind of a “I’m not messing with that” attitude.

Other than that, it was a good day. I wrote a scene in the new Irene book, and it turned out to be one of those that just writes itself. The words kept coming, and the direction things took surprised me. But I had my daily thousand words before I knew it. And felt good about them. A technician from the security company came to program a new key fob for me, and I attached a house key to a huge leather shape of Texas key chain I have. Hard to lose that one. And Jordan and I tried a new recipe for taco salad tonight—pretty good. I decided the lime juice made the difference in the dressing.

Our new taco salad
with a sour cream/salsa/lime dressing

.

So now I’ve got an evening to read. Sweet dreams, y’all.

Is there a spot on the moon?

 

Crotchety old woman

Last night as Jordan walked by my desk, I said, “I feel like a crotchety old woman.” Not only did she not rush to deny that, I think I heard her mutter, “Yeah.” We had company for happy hour—good, dear longtime friends, the kind who fortunately love you in your worst moments. It may not have been my worst, but it surely was not my best. Everything irritated me, from the a/c which was too cold to the conversation that was too loud to the discussion of house repairs, a subject I am vehement about: I want the service people with whom I have a longstanding relationship, and Christian has finally come around to believing that is best. But when someone suggested our plumber wasn’t doing a good job, I bristled. It’s not the plumber, it’s the pipes, some of which are a hundred years old.

This morning my mood was not much better, but with what little good sense I had left I recognized that the problem was with me. Granted, some influences mostly beyond my control contributed: the atmosphere has been a bit tense around here since the refrigerator in the house quit and then, Saturday morning, a pipe began spewing raw sewage out under the deck. My work on a big project is consuming me but not going well, and I feel that it’s always on my mind. Jordan is consumed with a heavy workload, and I miss the easy camaraderie we used to haveand now enjoy less frequently. I could probably dig up other excuses, but the truth is that the problem is with me. I am in a fun and trying hard to claw myself out of it

It didn’t help that tonight two neighbors came for our regular Tuesday night happy hour, and I lost patience with one of them and spoke when I should have kept quiet. We did part as friends, but I was aware that my funk overtook me.

Lots of good happened today, and it should make me happy. For a brief period this morning everything happened at once: Keith, my favorite plumber, came, with a helper, and fixed the sewage problem, though he warned it is not a permanent fix—old pipes you know. While they were working on the deck, the yard guys arrived to fertilize, and Christian ran back and forth between the two.

When the plumber’s helper was getting ready to leave, he left the gate open. Suddenly I realized Sophie was nowhere around and not answering my frantic calls. I alerted the helper, called Christian, and began to alternate between prayer and chewing my nails. The plumber’s helper started down the street—Soph was in sight—intending to call her to come. Christian said, “That won’t happen. She’s not trained. I have to get the car.” So he got in my VW, drove down the street, opened the door, and she hopped right in. Moments like that, though, when I’m worried that she’ll be hit by a car or snatched by someone who wants to sell a cute dog, I realize how much she is a part of my life. I held my breath until I could lure her back into the house with a treat. And by the by—she is trained. She knows about “Come.” She just chooses not to do it.

The garden is something that should make me happy. Christian is going to buy a few herbs for the elevated herb garden which was decimated by the heat, but I noticed this morning that four or five green onions are poking up, straight and strong. The hyacinth bean vine on the fence is blooming, so I’m now reassured that we may get seeds to plant next year. And this morning I noticed that the Turk’s Cap, almost hidden by a tree, has a few brave blooms. On the downside, the pentas are growing and have a few blooms, but they are nowhere near their glory of previous years. When John, who owns the lawn company saw them, he said they were the worst he’d seen, and he felt sort of like an oncologist delivering bad news. Thanks a lot. And on the real downside, the deluge of nuts on the patio continues. And the mosquitoes are back!

Still the garden’s resurgence is a sign of hope to me, and I’m going to take it to heart and vanquish my funk. And I will take a few practical steps with my work projects, diverting myself to something with more immediate rewards.

Sweet dreams, all. Tomorrow is a newer, better day.

Priorities

 

The view of the Highlands from Stirling Castle

As I write, I have friends just back from a few days in LA and before that a longer stay in far north Scotland; other friends are in New Mexico, Pecos and Taos specifically, and one of them is only recently back from a tour of Scandinavian countries. One of my daughters is in Chicago, one son just back from LA, one son-in-law in Nashville at a music camp. My friend Jean has recently been to Mackinac Island, before that New York, and is making plans for a winter trip to Santa Fe, while Jeannie, who also went to Mackinac, is going to the Galapagos and then will be in on the Santa Fe trip. Mary is going to Galapagos, and Babette will stop in Fort Worth on her way from Winedale to Santa Fe. The whole world is traveling.

Meanwhile, the lawn service guy and I spent time looking out the window at some decorative grasses that are not one bit decorative. Mostly brown, they are lying limp on the ground—and were before the awful heat so that wasn’t the cause. This is the third thing we’ve tried in two smallish beds outside my desk window. And he said our pentas are the saddest he’s ever seen. (He has a horticulture degree from A&M, so he knows what he’s talking about). We have decided to put wildflowers in the two beds where the grasses are, and I will live with puny pentas until October when it’s time for mums. The wildflower beds will not be cheap—replanting beds usually involves a three-man crew, and time is money. My son says I pay too much for lawn care.

Tonight, Jean is coming for supper. We’ll have store-bought guac for starters, a smoked salmon Salad Niçoise, and a splurgy piece of chocolate cake for dessert. I usually keep smoked salmon on hand and often guac. I buy good wine, good quality meat and fresh fish, and my grocery bill is high for one person, though please remember that I feed four of us many nights. I haven’t yet bought the leg of lamb I crave, but I know I will someday. Or a rack of lamb.

You can see where this is going. I said to Jordan the other night that I know some friends and family think I spend too much on the yard and at the grocery, and she said, “It makes you happy.”

“It’s my travel,” I replied.

If I listed all the travel of my lifetime, I’d realize I’ve been far more places than most people. I’ve been to Scotland and Hawaii, California and Florida, New York and New Mexico, Seattle, Spokane, and Spartanburg, and more. Generally, I have great memories of trips, but the truth is I am not an easy traveler. I feel like the little old lady who, just off her first plane ride, was asked how she liked it. “It was all right,” she said, “but I never did put my full weight down.” I’m not really comfortable on flights, though when we went to Scotland on a red-eye, I was the one who slept while two of my grown children could not. But when I’m away, no matter how much I’m enjoying the new experience, I’m always counting how many “sleeps” (Jordan’s term) until I can sleep in my own bed again.

I do still have a bucket list of sorts. I never got to Alaska, and I’d like to do the inland waterway cruise and maybe visit Victoria on the way, see the abundant flowers, and have tea at the Empress Hotel. And I’d love to go back to the Scottish Highlands. But those are pipe-dream trips, given my mobility challenges. So I will content myself with wonderful memories of my one trip to Scotland. On a more practical level, I’d like to go back once again to Chicago, my hometown, drive by my childhood house, stay at The Palmer House that I’ve now written so much about. I could do that one. Just have to gear myself up to fly.

And I’d like to have a family get-together in Santa Fe. We used to go every Christmas, but now it’s been several years. I have some hesitation about the long drive. I love watching the flat Panhandle turn into the mesas of New Mexico as we head west, but ten hours in a car seat? Colin said, “We’ll rent a motor home.” Now that’s an idea to my liking.

Meantime, I’m content and happy in my cottage. I travel to the kitchen and the garden, though right now the latter is pretty pitiful.

The eloquence of companionable silence

 

The other night my visiting daughter, Megan, and I were in the cottage, each absorbed in whatever we were reading. We had about chatted ourselves out, catching up on what’s going on in the family, what’s happening with my Austin grands (the younger of the two got a job hosting in one of my favorite cafes—I can’t wait to go there again!), talking about recipes which we can do endlessly. But we had settled into silence. About nine-thirty, she came for a hug and said, “I think I’ll go inside and get ready for bed. It’s not as though we are talking to each other.” I protested, “But I was enjoying your company, even If we weren’t talking.”

It made me think of a favorite poem, “Speech after long silence,” by W. B. Yeats, so I looked it up and printed it out. Only when I reread it did I realize it didn’t really apply to a mother and daughter—it’s obviously two older lovers—but I have always thought it spoke to the eloquence of a shared silence. I printed it out for Meg, but she is not much given to poetry, I don’t think, and was busy with other things. So I’ll share it with you. Yeats having died in 1939 and the poem being all over the internet, I’m pretty sure it’s in the public domain:

Speech after long silence; it is right,

All other lovers being estranged or dead,

Unfriendly lamplight hid under its shade,

The curtains drawn upon unfriendly night,

 That we descant and yet again descant

 Upon the supreme theme of Art and Song:

 Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young

We loved each other and were ignorant.

That resonates with me on so many levels, so I hope it may with you too and bring you some comfort on this almost-rainy night, whether you have companionship for your silence or, like me, memories.

Yes, rain—almost but not quite. Last night we had an impressive serenade of thunder. Sophie took it seriously enough that she was right by my side. But we probably didn’t get more than two minutes of scattered drops. Tonight the sky to the northeast is dark and blue, which is strange because our weather usually comes from the west/northwest. I understand downtown they got a brief shower and much farther east, they got some good rain. Not us.

Jordan has pulled the dead herbs from my wooden garden and the petunias from the pots by the door. You wouldn’t think that is cheery, but I am relieved not to look at dead, brown plants. The pentas are still struggling, and nothing has bloomed—not the pentas which were so tall and colorful last year nor the magnificent oakleaf hydrangeas. It’s a brown, sad world. But the bright note is that at seven-thirty, my computer tells me the temperature is only 85.

Trivia for the day: I really appreciate the man who took the time to write me about my You-Tube page, what is wrong with it, what he would do to make it vibrant and attract customers. Trouble is, I don’t have a You-Tube page. I think he may be worse than all those men who write to tell me how beautiful my smile is and how impressed they are with my posts and how they’d love to be friends but they’ve tried a couple of times and the requests didn’t go through. Would I please respond so that we could correspond. My first thought as I hit “Delete” is, do they know how old I am? Second is, how dumb do they think I am?

And I found out the name for cottage: it’s an “Accessory Dwelling Unit,” ADU for short. I shouldn’t joke because I read that in a moving article about a challenged adult whose family built an ADU so he could be close and still get personal care. For me, I like “cottage” a lot better. Granny-pod is maybe okay, though those are often simply a bedroom in a separate building. For heaven’s sake, I want to do more than sleep out here in the back forty. Just fixed myself a dinner of salmon patties, leftover cooked carrots (which I adore and no one else eats), and leftover oven potatoes with gravy—too full to eat the potatoes, so they went back in the fridge.

A good, productive day—I wrote maybe 800 words on Helen Corbitt and a thousand on Irene’s latest adventure. I think I’m entitled to spend the rest of the evenin with a book—in companionable silence with myself.

Stay cool and pray you get wet. If it rains, walk right out into it and raise your arms in glory!

Texas is on fire—and so am I!

 

Here's the illustration for the post that nobody seemed to read.
Hope the picture isn't a jinx. I will not post a picture of my dying garden.

The wonderful herb garden I was so excited about has dried to dust, the pentas are shrinking instead of growing and nary a bloom on them (last year they were so gorgeous!), and the grass is brown. I’m sure it does not come as news to many of you that Texas is burning up. We’ve had days over a hundred degrees for a least two weeks now, and the forecast is over a hundred through the end of the month--no rain. The first three days this coming week are to be between 108-110. It’s brutal. And it’s taking its toll not only on our yards and gardens but on our dispositions and sense of well-being. It’s like being haunted all the time by a nameless, shapeless, invisible enemy.

I run two of those ceiling air conditioners—one in the living area and one in the bedroom—twenty-four hours a day, although in the early morning and late evening I can open the patio door for fresh air and freedom for Sophie.

In weather like this, all you can do is stay inside. So that’s what I did this weekend. Jordan and Christian visited friends at a lake house not far from here, and Jacob had a buddy spend the weekend. So, I was on my own. Had a welcome visit Friday from Sue and Teddy who are headed tomorrow for an intriguing far north Scotland resort hotel—so far north that it’s on an inlet from the North Sea. You may wonder about a resort in such rugged country, but it’s a place for hiking and maybe fishing, enjoying wonderful food, and lots of peace and quiet. I admit to a bit of jealousy—if I could go, I’d let everyone else hike, and I’d stay in the studio with a desk and write. Pictures of the interior of the hotel are captivating—imagine Scandinavian modern in a nineteenth-century stone manse. I admit I’m more than a wee bit jealous.

Saturday, Jaimie and Greg Smith came for happy hour—they live at the other end of the block, but the heat is so bad they drove from their house to my cottage! We had a good visit, caught up on each other’s doings—they had just been on an Alaskan cruise, another thing to make me jealous except they ate no salmon. Who goes to Alaska and doesn’t eat salmon? We ended, as we often do, talking politics, and it was a lively discussion but got us nowhere because we all agree, loudly and fervently. They are good neighbors and I treasure their friendship.

But most of all this weekend I wrote and researched like a mad fool—got the material I have for next month’s newsletter edited and ready to go, just waiting for final submissions; wrote my monthly column for the online newsletter Lone Star Literary Life (check it out every Saturday if you haven’t already) and wrote the first draft to a foreword of a forthcoming cookbook. Imagine that! Me, asked to write a foreword to a cookbook. I’m beyond flattered. And then I did a lot of research on Helen Corbitt. The next chapter is beginning to take shape in my mind, but the draft is still woefully short. And today, I wrote a thousand words on the next Irene novel, just because I miss being with my friends from that novel. For now, the next installment is titled Irene Goes to Texas but that's blah, and I hope to come up with something better. I am, however, ignoring the suggestion of Irene Does Texas. Bad connotation.

You may have noticed I didn’t blog. That’s because I’m a bit puzzled. Friday night I wrote what I hoped was an interesting post about the reprints of three of my historical novels about women of the nineteenth-century American West. Twenty copies of each suddenly landed on my coffee table—and that’s where they still are tonight. I gave a synopsis of each book, hoping it would attract readers. Nada. Not a single like nor comment. Now I don’t mean to whine, but there are some who comment on almost every post, which makes me wonder if this one somehow didn’t make it. It shows up on my Facebook page, but maybe not yours. Here’s a link if you missed it: View from the Cottage: Where is my librarian? (judys-stew.blogspot.com)

Tonight, the Burtons are back home, and I fixed us a sheet-pan supper of King salmon, potatoes and onions. I slow cooked the salmon—twenty-two minutes at 285^o. Salmon was delicious; potatoes and onion not so much. Undercooked. Close to raw. And those sweet onions I ordered? They weren’t. A substitution. Still the salmon with Jordan’s great salad was enough to make us all satisfied. And there’s cold salmon for lunch tomorrow. Who cares about potato and onion?

Stay cool, my friends.

 

Bragging on a grand and some good writing

 

Morgan Alter on the left

So proud of Morgan Alter, my Tomball granddaughter. She and her team placed first in the food innovation regional competition of FCCLA (Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America). Now they go to the state competition. They had to prepare a lunchbox meal modeled on such delivered-to-your-door dinners as Hello Fresh. They came up with their own recipes, did taste tests, and did marketing research. Morgan, a high school junior, has been cooking for years, a big help to both Mom and Dad. On Father’s Day, she always fixes Colin’s dinner—last year was Beef Wellington. She’s more ambitious than I am, but I’m so glad to see a grand take up my foodie interests. Proud of her.

My own cooking was only so-so over the weekend. Last night Jean came over for an early supper, and I made my very first frittata—broccoli and mushroom. Between us, Jean and I cooked it too long. The flavor was good, but the texture should have been softer. Lesson learned. I tried to interest Jordan, because she likes her eggs cooked like concrete, but she didn’t want it for her lunch.

Tonight, I’m going to experiment—you’d think I’d learn that is not a good idea. Jordan brought me some smoked salmon, which I adore, and I’m going to try a pasta with a creamy sauce of cream cheese and sour cream, some green onions, maybe those hearts of palm in the fridge. I’ll get all that cooked and only then add the salmon because cooking it changes the taste and texture to me.

Tomorrow night I’ll get back to cooking for the family—baked cod with a buttery crumb topping. I think I’ll make a lemon sauce recipe I found on my favorite new food website—Kitchn. (Note there is no “e” in that!)

The snow has melted, the sun was bright today, and I’m just sure this will be a better week. I made good progress last week on the mystery I’m writing and yesterday I realized I was almost but not quite to the point of having half a novel. I was also to the point where I was about to go off the rails and needed to stop before I just kept adding words. (I swore this time I wasn’t going to write by word count, but it’s a hard habit to break.) So today I started reading at the beginning, filling in descriptions and other bits, correcting typos but that was only incidental. I am more concerned now with the structure of the story. And as I read each chapter, I construct an outline. I’m calling it a retrospective outline.

There's been a long thread about structure on a listserv I follow, with many people advocating various approaches, including one nice summary of the classic hero’s journey. But to my mind it all comes down to the basic Shakespearean plan—an instigating event, rising action (takes you into Act IV), climax—the high point where thing cannot get any worse or more complicated, and then the denouement, with its sharp drop-off in tension, the resolution of whatever has happened.

So far, I’ve only gotten three chapters into my manuscript, but I am pleased to see the complicating factors that I’ve scattered along the way. I may be ready to send it to one of my beta readers for an early look-through.

I guess my grad school studies are showing with my reference to Shakespeare. Last night I complained to Jean that I had to memorize Beowulf in grad school. She countered that she had to memorize it in high school and could still recite. Whereupon she began, “Whan that Aprilles with his shoures suite ….”

“That’s Chaucer,” I said. “Canterbury Tales.”

She decided she’s never read Beowulf, and I told her she was lucky.

I was distracted a bit today when at my desk because the yard guys came to take out all the dead stuff in the back yard—I left the front for Christian. It’s his domain. But they took the dead hyacinth grape vines off the fence (I really hated tooking at that), cut back the oak leaf hydrangea, pulled up the dead fountain grass, and took out the mums that were so gorgeous in the fall. It’s still a bare, brown winter landscape, but it’s not as straggly. And I figure it’s a step toward spring.

“If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”—Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Okay, this English major is signing off.

A plant controversy

Grape hyacinth on my fence

Years ago, during a remodeling, we decided having dogs with access to the main driveway gate was not a good idea. Scooby, my beloved Aussie, would get so frantic if a storm was coming that he’d try to crawl into the gate, and I was afraid he’d get stuck and hurt himself. So, with the help of Lewis Bundock, the wonderful contractor who kept my house in good repair for years, we fenced off the driveway from the yard. Because I was pinching pennies, it was—and is—a four-foot hurricane fence. Not aesthetically pleasing, though I have to admit the openness it offers is a bonus as opposed to a solid wooden fence.

But it’s been an eyesore for years. One year I tried climbing roses, but they died. Then I tried to plant a vegetable garden of sorts in the tiny strip of land on the driveway side of the fence. The onions and lettuce died, even though a neighbor bought all the right soil, etc., and labored long and hard to put that garden in.

So this summer when a neighbor offered the community free grape hyacinth seeds and said they would grow anywhere, I took her up on the offer, with great gratitude. I couldn’t plant them, and I was unsure when anyone else in the household would get around to it. Plus, we had that track record of dead plants.

I mentioned the seeds to the young man who owns the lawn service, and he said, “Give them to me. I’ll have the guys plant them.” And he did—fifty dollars later. My free seeds were suddenly expensive. But I am not complaining, because the vines are growing and I’m quite sure otherwise the seeds would still be on my kitchen shelf.

This week, the vines began to bloom—a lovely, delicate pink, tiny bloom. I am delighted to look out my “garden” window and see them. But controversy has arisen: Christian went online, looked up grape hyacinth, and announced the plant is a creeper, not a climber. I have two amateur opinions that it is grape hyacinth. But if it’s blooming and softening the look of that metal fence, does it really matter? (After too many tries, I have given up trying to get the internet image posted--if you are interested, please google it; believe me, it looks nothing like what's on my fence.)

The vines are all sort of centered on the fence, but I am hopeful that they will branch out laterally as they continue to grow. Or maybe the plant reseeds itself abundantly. I figure we’ll give it a year to see what happens, but so far I am pleased with it.

And the bougainvillea, which seemed to suffer from the harsh winter, even though it was inside, has finally offered a few blooms. The pentas in front of the deck are lush and colorful, and the zoysia grass looks green and even, in spite of dog pee and poop—I despaired of it in the spring but apparently zoysia is slower to fill out than some other grasses. My lawn guy kept saying, “Patience. Give it some time.” He didn’t know, apparently, that patience is almost a useless word to use with me.

The plants—and I—were grateful for the rain this morning. Jacob, playing in a tournament on a golf course, was not so grateful. And now that we’ve gotten the yard in good shape, it’s too hot, humid, and buggy to sit out on the patio—not for me but for almost everyone else.

A handyman came today to look at all the little jobs we have accumulated—the flexible screen on my patio is torn and patched, and I have a replacement, but we needed it installed. Jordan looked but decided it was beyond her pay grade; Jacob inadvertently put a golf ball through one board in the fence beyond the driveway, but I notice tonight the gentleman took the board with him. The back door needs molding replaced where dogs have pawed at it to get inside, and the flag holder on the front porch was installed backward—Jordan claimed that one, but at least she tried. And then there’s a chandelier to be replaced with a ceiling fan and other small things. We miss Lewis Bundock something fierce but will be glad to have a reliable replacement.

And so, summer life rolls on. We are still fortunate with weather, and still grateful. I read with great sympathy and concern about heat and fires in other parts of the country. I worry about my children’s half-sister in California, who was burned out last year, but so far, she had not mentioned fires near them. The abstract horror becomes much more real when it hits someone you care about.

Sweet dreams, everyone—dream of flowers, not fires.

A really dumb mistake

 

No blog tonight. I was almost done with a brilliant (of course) blog on how to write a mystery. No joke—I knew exactly what I wanted to say, and the words flowed. Then I noticed a funny symbol by the second paragraph and tried to delete it—and deleted the entire rest of the blog. Then spent way too long searching for ways to recover it. Finally located the recycle bin, but it wasn’t there. None of Windows’ helpful hints were helpful. If you want my newfound take on how to write a mystery, you’ll have to wait for another night. I will say that in a long career of writing on computers, this is maybe only the second time I have lost copy. I’m really lucky. But now I’m burnt out and too frustrated—or angry with myself—to rewrite it.

I will content myself with some trivia: one is that my oak leaf hydrangea survived the snowmageddon and is flourishing with big, beautiful blooms. But it is another dark and stormy night in North Texas. Thunder rolling, but we are lucky—the hail all around missed us, and we got a nice rain. I’m grateful the hail didn’t batter those new blooms. Jacob moved the deck plants under the roof overhang, just in case. Now we’re sorry they didn’t get the blessing of the rain, but there’s a better chance tomorrow with a 90% chance of rain—a mixed blessing. I will have to get out in the late afternoon for a medical appointment, and it is the day the neighbors come for happy hour. I have said since we’re all well vaccinated, we can move happy hour indoors if need be.

I had planned to go to dinner at a patio restaurant with friends who live perhaps a mile from me, but we cancelled because of the prospect of rain. She emailed to say she was glad we weren’t there in the lightning, but I honestly did not see any lightning tonight. Sophie for sure heard the thunder though, and it didn’t please her.

The other thing is to post a picture of my second-oldest grandchild and her father (my second son). She was ready for her high school prom, and since graduation will be distanced and limited—we won’t get to go—I am grateful she had the prom experience and an all-night after-party that I am assured was well chaperoned. This is Eden, getting a kiss from her dad, Jamie. Needless to say, I love them both a lot.

G’night all. Maybe tomorrow I’ll share my new secret on how to write a mystery. It’s an untried theory at this point anyway, so you’re not missing much.

An ordinary day

I waited all day for the rains that were supposed to come, but we got just one slight shower in early afternoon, accompanied by just enough distant thunder to make Sophie nervous. In contrast, Megan reports that in Austin it dumped all day.

I wanted rain for my garden that is beginning to look really good. Last week, the yard guys planted an amazing number of pentas along the front of the deck, where no grass will grow. I had thought one flat of pentas was a reasonable cost and, yes, I knew there’s be a bit of labor involved. But it’s something I can’t do myself, and Christian cannot either. Besides his interest is in filling the front porch with beauty, and he does a tremendous job of it.

Still I was surprised by a crew of three, some heavy equipment, and at least thee flats of pentas. And then I was surprised by the bill. But they look great, and they are right where I can look out the window by my desk and enjoy them. They should bloom all summer.

The other blooming plant—a bush really—that I’m much enjoying is the oak leaf hydrangea. There is one directly under the window by my desk. When we had regular hydrangea there, they never grew tall enough for me to see, and I only enjoyed them when I went in or out the driveway. But the oak leaf blossoms have grown tall enough that they peek over the windowsill.

The true beauty though is an oak leaf that is by the back fence—I can see it distantly from my desk through the patio door, but I really enjoy looking at it when we have happy hour on the patio. We haven’t done that in a couple days—busy schedules,                                                                                                      and I’m not much for sitting out there myself. I need a little help getting my walker over the high lintel—when we built this cottage, we had no idea I’d need a walker. All that aside, the plant is magnificent. Next to it, a turks cap, once tall and glorious, is now a ground plant struggling to gain some height. I don’t know what happened to it, but I used to love the tall red blossoms.

Other than admiring my plants, it was an ordinary day—work at my desk, leftovers for supper (sometimes a very good thing—tonight a salmon cake, corn pudding, and a bit of guacamole). But these days, I am aware of what a blessing an ordinary day is, when we are surrounded by such gloomy predictions.

I would not say Dr. Fauci was gloomy at the hearings today. He was, instead, knowledgeable and realistic, but the picture he painted of what happens if the world opens too soon was grim. I am appalled at Rand Paul’s rudeness to him and much impressed by the good doctor’s grace in handling that rudeness. There’s been a lot on the net today about class, since McConnell brought it up in reference to President Obama’s comments on the handling of the novel coronavirus. Dr. Fauci gave a lesson in class. I’m sure it went over McConnell’s head.

Ah, me, what days we live in.

A happy hour kind of day

A slanted view of happy house

Happy hour on the patio. In truth, I needed that sociability. Happy hour was a welcome break from a long day in which I was getting tired of my own company. I did work—my usual thousand words, and I was pleased with them. I’m finding my brain tires after a thousand words, and I best give it up. Today I was deep in cattle drives of the 1860s, from Texas north to Abilene, Kansas, and then points ever closer until the railroad got to Wichita Falls. Not sure if tomorrow will be a working day or not, since it’s Sunday and church is on my agenda. I hope to go in person, but if that doesn’t work out, I’ll be a virtual attendee.

But at any rate, the next workday will be devoted to a study of the “Indian depredations” in nineteenth-century North Texas. The trouble with writing about this is the problem of politically correct language. I know better than to refer to Native Americans as Indians—they should be referred to by tribe or called Native Americans, but the latter does not roll off the tongue easily, and it sounds downright awkward in some passages in writing the kind of history I’m writing. On the other hand, I can only say “Comanche and Kiowa” so many times, and I end up using the word Indian which is inaccurate and derogatory. I tell myself it’s okay because back then it was the current usage.

I worked hard this morning, wore my brain out, and had a nice nap dreaming of preparing to take a cruise, with Jordan, to Alaska  For some reason we were staying in an upscale hotel for several days before departing, but Jordan had left my walker in a field where we’d parked to load the VW van (don’t ask). The worst of it was that she’d left Sophie tied to the walker. That image alone sent me into the giggles, because a walker would never stop Soph—she’d just go where she wanted, dragging the thing along with her, albeit somewhat unhappily. Tonight on the patio, she wormed her way into the passageway between our yard and the neighbors, and Jordan and Jay (yes, the handsome neighbor I haven’t blogged about much lately) had to go fetch her. When I scolded her, she refused to look at me.

Jordan, who has been working all day helping clients even on a Saturday reminds me of myself at that age. She doesn’t sit still but pops up to feed Sophie, water a plant, get the wine bottle, let her June Bug out and then in when Junie changes her mind. Jordan’s moments of peaceful rest are few and far between.

We did have a nice visit with Jay, who we don’t see much these days. Mostly we talked about garden matters, and it left me with a list of things to do. Some tree branches are threatening to fall on my car and must be tended to, there is nut grass in the lawn, and the lawn crew needs to weed eat in that narrow strip behind the cottage. Sigh. It’s always something.

I came inside and fixed myself a squash casserole, which was really good and will, I’m sure, show up in a “Gourmet on a Hot Plate” blog sometime soon. The innovation I am proud of? I topped it with crushed Cheez-Its, those crackers I remember from a childhood addiction. Neighbor Mary likes them as much as I do, and I keep them for our Tuesday happy hours. Tonight, when I went looking for Ritz crackers, the Cheez-Its seemed like a perfect solution—and they were.

Sweet dreams, y’all.

A magical storm

I suppose any rain in August in Texas has a magical quality to it, but today’s certainly did, at least for me. I woke in the night because I was cold and turned off the a/c. But I also woke because it was noisy outside—wind blowing, rain pouring onto my roof, maybe a dab of thunder or two. When I looked out the window, the heavens were really dumping water on us. Went back to bed and slept soundly, secure in my little cottage. This morning it was still raining but slowed to a drizzle, and Betty took me to the grocery.

I was safely home and stashing my groceries when the heavens opened up again, dumping great buckets of water on us. I simply sat and watched for a while—it was magical seeing things in the yard perk up. All that is except the grass which, for some reason, is beyond hope this summer and gets worse ever day. Several of us have theories on what’s wrong with the grass—no two theories alike. Mine is a fungus, though gardener/friend Greg says he doesn’t think so. I’m about to call in the storm troops.

But the rest of the garden loved the rain. Fittingly, I am reading a book about a magical garden in Scotland. Now, you must realize, much of my career has been spent studying the American West, and if you told me there was a magical garden in Texas, I’d scoff and dismiss you as a featherweight. But tell me it’s in Scotland, and I’m all ears. I believe in Scottish lore, in the wee people and the legends.

The book is Flowers and Foul Play, fittingly enough an entry in the Magical Garden Series by Amanda Flowers. In this, which may be the first, a Tennessee girl has come to see her inheritance—a small, almost-seaside property in Scotland left her by her godfather. The land includes a walled garden, built around a stone menhir said to stand for at least the last three centuries. The garden itself began to die the minute word came of its owner’s death in Afghanistan. When Fiona finds it, all is brown except one yellow rose that twists around the menhir and blooms brightly in defiance of the season and the locale. It bloomed, Hamish the caretaker tells her, when her plane landed on Scottish soil.

As Fiona walks along the wall of the garden, the brown ivy turns green as far as she walks. When she stops and turns, the greening stops. Wonderful, impossible phenomenon. Of course, there’s a body in the garden, and an attractive but too-brusque inspector, and you can see where all this is going. But I’m loving it.

And today there was such a parallel between my greening garden and the magical garden. Now if that magic would only reach my grass.

May your dreams be filled with greening gardens and magical wishes.

A rainy day—in Texas—in August

The news is all over town. No use trying to keep it a secret. It rained in Fort Worth today, much of the day. Almost unheard of any August but particularly considered too much to ask for this year.

I was getting ready to go to the grocery when the friend who was going to take me—I can’t go alone because I can’t get groceries into the house—called and said she thought we’d better wait. She didn’t think taking me and my walker out in the rain was a good idea. I appreciated her concern, but a part of me wanted to go stand in the rain and get soaking wet. We never did make it to the grocery, because it rained until mid-afternoon. A steady but gentle rain that finally settled down into a drizzle. I see mud in my yard—mud, I tell you!

For some reason I particularly noticed that the Turk’s cap was wilted, its leaves drooping straight down without a sense of life. Tonight, those leaves are perky and standing up. Even the fig tree, which has suffered so badly, is looking better. The grass, which turned tail and quit much earlier in the summer, doesn’t look much different, alas. That’s why I can see mud.

And the temperature. I’m not sure it even got to ninety today. Since I don’t especially like meat-packing temperatures, I turned off the two ductless a/c units and threw open the patio doors, so I could drink in that heavenly smell of rain and wet plants and earth. Only thing that doesn’t smell better in the rain is the dogs, but I didn’t notice Sophie too much. She didn’t stay out long enough to get soaking, and didn’t, as she sometimes does, go crazy wild running and tearing things up in the yard and then bring all that mud into the cottage.

So it was an inside day. I’m feeling much better but still tired enough to retreat to bed several times—woke tonight at nine with a start and couldn’t figure out where I was or what time it was. And why was the TV, which automatically goes off about nine, still on? Just as I got myself oriented, the TV obediently flipped off.

A funny phone call enlivened the day. Did you all read about the couple in a small town in New Mexico who apparently stole a Willem de Kooning painting years ago and kept it hidden on the wall behind a door in their bedroom? The only way one could see it was to be in the bedroom with the door closed. The painting, definitely not to my taste, is worth something like $165 million and will be returned to the Tucson Museum of Art from whence it was stolen. Its location was only discovered upon the recent death of the woman—her husband had died many years earlier.

The couple’s last name? Alter. So when I read that story I forwarded the internet link to a niece in New York and asked her to show her dad and inquire if there was any hidden wealth in the family. He apparently laughed and said no. My own kids didn’t think it was a funny as I did.

But today, a friend from church called because he wanted to make sure I knew the story and to ask if those were relatives of my late and ex-husband. He seemed to think that at the least I would get a good mystery out of it, but intriguing as it sounds there’s not enough story there. A short story, maybe? A book, nope. I have filed it away in my mind for possible use as a subplot in another story.

The way I heard it Alter wasn’t even the patriarchal name in my ex’s family. His grandfather came over on a boat from Poland and was asked his last name. A long, complicated Polish name, so immigration officials asked how he made his living, and he said he was a tailor. “Good, we’ll call you Alter.” Years later, my ex, a surgeon, proudly wore a T-shirt that said, “Alterations by Alter.” But I digress. The point is we weren’t related to the art thieves, and ultimately nobody who was profited from the theft. One of life’s funny stories that just happened to come close to home.

Hope you all enjoyed the day as much as I did. I love rainy days. Now if I can just remember that tomorrow is Saturday, not Sunday, and I’m going to the grocery about nine-thirty, all will be well.

Down in the dumps and scolding myself

Sitting at my desk and gazing out the window at the garden, I see the stark contrast between last year and this year. Last year we had a lush and lovely yard, at least the half near the main house. This year, we have abundant and leggy ground cover in the back half, by my patio, but the grass has not done well and there are great bare patches. Is it because last year it was new grass, not strong enough now to endure three dogs peeing on it—I admit I’m not happy with that theory. The other thing, of course, is the extreme heat. And last year, the deck was full of abundantly blooming flowering plants—a bougainvillea, hydrangea and hibiscus. This year, most of the blooming plants are on the front porch where they are somewhat sheltered from the heat by a partial roof. The ones left are struggling and look—well, the word for it is crisp. It’s this blasted hot summer we’re having. The lettuce, long turned to brown stalks, and the basil, drooping beyond recovery, need to be torn up and discarded. When even basil doesn’t flourish, you know it’s bad.

I guess maybe I’m not in a good mood tonight, and perhaps the heat magnifies my discontent. I have so much to be thankful for that I am ashamed to say all those blessings sometimes cause me stress. My birthday was wonderful—but stressful. Being the center of attention and yet confined to my seated walker was a new experience. The trip to Tomball was wonderful—but stressful. I’m at a crossroads with my career, not sure what I want to do next, exploring. Being an impatient soul, I want something to leap out of the woodwork at me and say, “Write this!” Some days I think I did best as a student when there was a clear assignment.

Jordan, Christian, and Jacob are going on vacation soon. I lived alone in the house for probably twenty years and did fine, but now I’m used to Jordan coming out morning and night, just to pop in, and to Jacob occasionally wandering out to visit. I will feel abandoned, isolated—or maybe I am just telling myself that. But I am busily filling my social calendar for the time they will be gone. I know I’ll be fine once they’re gone—it’s the anticipation.

I am not an easy traveler. I think anxiety pretty much covers it, so excited as I am about our upcoming Great Lakes cruise, I am also apprehensive. I will be traveling with the family travelmaster, Jordan, superstar travel agent, and I know she takes care of every detail, planning ahead, and will take excellent care of me. But doubts beset me—how steep is the ramp up to the ship, boat or whatever we’re going on?  What about seasickness, apparently possible even on the Great Lakes. I have more than once been accused of bringing my bridges up close, so I can jump them, and I guess that’s what I’m doing now.

The logical part of my mind scoffs at all this and lectures me sternly on how petty my problems are. I have friends who are facing medical uncertainties, one woman I care about who rather suddenly finds herself in hospice care and with at best a short lifespan left. How dare I grouse about my problems, most of which grow out of the blending of many happy advantages with my natural disposition toward anxiety. No panic attacks this time—just a slightly queasy stomach.

The best I can do is be stern with myself, whack those anxieties right out of my life, and carry on with a smile. It may take me a day or two. Meanwhile. I am reading in search of a new topic, reading focusing on some interesting (and spunky) women of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Friends, thanks for listening. I’ll be back “at myself” in a day or two. Hang on with me, please. Have a good evening.

A damp, chilly day and my view on Facebook

Spring was in full bloom when I woke up this morning—rainy and a bit chilly. Oh the temperature wasn’t bad, but it just felt cool. Rain was heavy, then slight, then heavy again, but it rained almost all morning. Actually, I’d have liked it—after all, my basil seeds, and my newlettuce and onion were getting good soakings,--but I had to go out in it.

Or I thought I did. Two days in a row now I’ve tried to go to doctor appointments that are really next week—somehow I was just a week off on my computer calendar. Yesterday I caught it before I left the house. Talking to a friend and arranging a lunch for next week, I noticed that the audiologist was listed twice—once yesterday and once the next Monday. Hastily I called to check, found out it was next week, and cancelled my ride in time to avoid Betty picking me up or me showing up there only to be told I didn’t have an appointment.

Not so lucky today. There was great confusion over whether Jordan or Christian would take me to the eye doctor. Ophthalmology appointments always take so long because of eye dilation and all that someone drops me off, and I call when I’m through. To my surprise, Jordan came back after dropping Jacob at school to get me, and I arrived at the office with one minute to spare. Checked in and settled down to wait my turn, only to have the receptionist come and say solicitously, “Your appointment is not until next week.” I called good friend Jean who came to get me and take me home. I figured Jordan had barely gotten to her office, and it would upset her routine to have to leave again so quickly.

I’ve had two nice long days at home at my desk, with a brief detour this morning. With rainy weather, I’ve been grateful to be at home, snug and secure. And it’s great nap weather.

Yesterday I got into a protracted—really long!—and sometimes unpleasant discussion of gun control, so ugly that it led me to block someone, a thing I’ve only done twice before in my long years of social media. The person I blocked accused me of being an angry old white woman, which I readily acknowledge—I am angry that children have to show us the way. But the line that got me was that he wasn’t going to enable me—sorry, sir, no man “enables” me. I have another FB antagonist who is absolutely, to my mind, off the wall in his arguments, leaping from this topic to that so fast, you can barely follow and always coming back to blame it all on Obama and Hilary. But I know he’s otherwise a good guy at heart, and he has never ever attacked me as a person—so I don’t and won’t block him. I enjoy our exchanges—okay, sparring matches. But many on the conservative side cannot exchange opinions without attacking the person voicing the opposite view. I deplore that. I am not now capable of volunteering for many causes I find worthwhile--speaking out is one of my ways of paying it forward.

Some ask why I’m so vocal on Facebook, and I can only reply that my conscience makes me speak out against what I feel is unjust, dangerous, cruel,, detrimental to our country—and these days that’s a lot. To remain silent would be to be complicit. Fellow authors suggest I might antagonize readers. I hope not, but it’s a price I’d pay for liberty and justice for all in this country. I am constantly reminded of Martin Niemoller’s WWII words:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

That, my friends, is why I speak out—for my family, my grandchildren, for you, and for me. I hope it doesn’t upset you.