A blessed mix of a day

 

Sophie in her safe spot

I have a couch problem. No, it’s not that I am inclined to be a couch potato, but Sophie is. I am inordinately proud of my rather ordinary couch, because it is enlivened with a hand-woven wool blanket, designed loosely after Navajo patterns, and has a matching pillow—these were done years go by a high school student under the tutelage of a good friend who was a weaver. The final accent on the couch is an octagonal needle-point pillow depicting the story on the Blue Willow plate (in case you don’t know or forgot, at this point in my life Blue Willow is my only china—in the downsize I gave away at least four other sets). Years ago a good friend made this pillow for me. I have since had it re-stuffed and cleaned, but it is suffering wear again (read below).

Every afternoon, when Jordan comes in, she straightens the blanket, which has somehow crept up so that it almost falls over the back of the couch, and she picks up the two pillows that are on the floor between couch and my big oak coffee table, which is one of my favorite pieces of furniture. Next morning, all is in disarray again.

We know the culprit of course. I’ve watched Sophie go frantic on the couch, as though she was having some wild party of her own—she buries her head, then twist, and jumps, and bats the pillows down. But today at noon Jordan caught a picture that tells the whole story. Soph creates a nest for herself on the floor between couch and table. Dogs feel safe in a confined spot, and this is the spot she has chosen as her safe place. For the time being, she has again abandoned her crate, but soon as I take it up, she’ll want it back.

A do-nothing day, mostly because I spent a huge chunk of the morning on the computer with a customer service rep from McAfee, the computer security company. I’ve had lots of annoying pop-ups, the most alarming of which tell me that my McAfee subscription will expire in four minutes. How dumb do they think I am? But McAfee had also warned me that my email was found on the dark web and some of my passwords were in danger. I was freaked about computer security, although my software engineer son-in-law tried to tell me everyone’s email is on the dark web and passwords are leaked all the time. Still, I was completely befuddled about how to tell legitimate McAfee emails from scams and phishing.

So this morning I steeled myself to spend time, got a most helpful gentleman, and learned a lot. He took remote control of my computer, deleted some programs, including some that said McAfee but apparently weren’t, and re-installed the whole thing. He also found that I had two concurrent subscriptions, so he added what was left on one to the other one and extended it. And he gave me a lesson on some things to watch for: when you search for McAfee, for instance, the first site that comes up has [Ad] in vary small letters at the beginning of the site description. You want to avoid that. You also want to avoid any offers that show up in icons on the far right of your screen. And if you get a pop-up with the words “topsearch.com” on it, you want to quickly delete and exit—that’s apparently where my fake McAfee threats were coming from. I feel better about my security tonight but am still going to work with my son to use 1Password, a password management program. Yikes, I hate this kind of stuff!

Our regular Tuesday night ladies came for happy hour tonight—first time since Mary has been gone a month or more, and we had a pleasant visit on the patio. Hot, but with the fan not unbearable, and nobody mentioned mosquitoes. I decided my life is calm compared to my neighbors who have relatives with terrible troubles, school troubles, and a host of other issues. Grateful that I just bobble along from day to day in my little world which, knock on wood, goes along smoothly.

Tonight, we had Big Mac Salad for supper—one of the favorites of Jacob and Christian. We had a bit of Thousand Island dressing in a bottle, but I threw it out and made my own. So easy and so much better.

The gnats are awful tonight!

Cooking and Writing

That’s the way my world goes in these quarantine days—cooking and writing, and I’m not sure which comes first. But this week I wrote six thousand words on a new mystery. There’s a backstory. Over a year ago, in one of my fits of “what shall I write about,” I started a mystery. I wanted to do something in the culinary tradition. For some unknown reason, I, who love to cook, had created in Kelly O’Connell a protagonist who didn’t know a frying pan from a toaster. Kate Chambers, of the Blue Plate Café Mysteries, was a bit better—a gourmet cook in her private life, but a short order one in the small-town café she inherited. And food was really secondary in the stories. So I wanted to do something with food front and center.

I wrote nineteen thousand words about a young woman who was assistant to a TV chef but whose ambition was to manage the food segments on the TODAY show. She lived in Chicago, in the neighborhood I grew up in. As soon as she met her neighbor, she decided he was a great guy but gay. No romance there. And someone was threatening the chef she worked for. There's the story.

I’m not sure but I think I put it aside when other projects called—principally nonfiction for the publisher who did my book, The Second Battle of the Alamo. I got involved and forgot about Henry Smith—yep, that was her name, short for Henrietta.

Now, with the pandemic and quarantine, I find myself again without a project. My publisher is on furlough, which means the editor hasn’t looked at the manuscript I sent that was due May 1. I have no clue if she’ll be back working May 1 or not. And I’ve had no word on the proposal for a third title I submitted. So here I am again—aimless.

On an impulse, I pulled up that unfinished mystery, read it, and thought, “This is isn’t half bad.” I liked the voice, and I found several plot threads. That discovery has energized me and propelled me through  days of quarantine. This week I wrote six thousand words on the novel, blogged every day but one, and produced a twenty-four page newsletter. I think that novel energized me. And I’m having fun. (Sorry, Elaine, it's not another Kelly mystery.)

On the cooking front, Christian and I collaborated on a terrific dinner tonight. Grilled salmon with an herb sauce, and tossed salad with a creamy blue cheese dressing. The herb sauce was a bit of a pain—chopping all those herbs—and next time, I would cut back on the oil and vinegar. It was a bit too runny, I thought. But oh so good. Picture is above.

Last night I dined in solitary splendor and resisted Jordan’s suggestion that I have my last salmon cake. I’ve been enjoying those with mayo on rye bread for lunch. So I baked an egg on top of layers of torn sourdough bread, chopped spinach, and grated sharp cheddar. After I cracked the egg on all that, I covered it with a thin layer of buttermilk to keep it from drying out, and baked it about twelve minutes at 350. I like my eggs runny--you may want to do it longer. It doesn’t show all that well, either fresh out of the oven or all mushed up, as I like it. But trust me, it was good.

Baked egg after smushing

Now I need to go doze, so I can figure out what happens to Henry in tomorrow’s installment.

Sweet dreams. Take care and stay quarantined. It’s too soon to open up the world, in my opinion. And don’t fall for false and crazy cure suggestions. We’re in this for the long haul, but we can stay safe if we self-isolate and wear masks and gloves. I’m appalled at the people who don’t take those simple precautiions.To say nothing of protestors.
Oops. Just discovered three gnats in my wine. It's that season again.