Life goes on

 

Benji resting by my desk

If you asked me how I feel today, I would probably say sluggish. Maybe tired. I have bouts of energy and then periods of fatigue. I tell myself I’ve had two major blows within a little over a month—the loss of my only brother and last blood relative and the loss of the dog I’d loved for almost thirteen years. It’s neither sacrilegious nor silly to say that I am not weighing one against the other—both have been real blows. Most of my life I have been known for a sort of “carry on no matter what” attitude—that’s gotten me into trouble when I ignored some physical symptoms until they became major problems. I think maybe this time I am listening to my body. I sleep well part of the night and then toss and turn, but boy do I sleep soundly at naptime. I’ve been taking two naps—my usual afternoon one (I slept two and a half hours today) and another about 8:30 or 9:00 at night, after which I get up and work. It’s a schedule that seems to suit me for now. A couple of small medical problems are not helping my frame of mind—the malignant place on my scalp is healing and itches like fury, but of course I can’t scratch, I am hoping next week I’ll hear that I can stop putting Vaseline on it—who wants Vaseline combed into their hair? But I have weeks to go with the medicine that is intended to stimulate the immune system and kill cancer cells—and it is the real cause of the itching storm. Also next week, I have a swallow test which I dread less because I’m worried about the outcome than because I am worried about swallowing the barium. I’m sure they have techniques for helping queasy people, and I tell myself it will be over quickly. But it looms. So that’s my sad story.

On the positive side, today marks one week that Benji has been with us, and he’s done a remarkable job of adjusting. So, I would modestly say, have I. This week he is apparently feeling enough at home to be a bit naughty—yesterday morning I found one of my shoes in the doorway to the patio. I showed it to him while repeating “No!” in the sternest tone I could muster. He looked appropriately chastised, whatever that means. A few minutes later, Jordan came in carrying the other shoe which she had found in the back yard. Since my hip surgery and broken ankle, my feet are so fat and swollen that I don’t have the usual wardrobe of shoes—this was my only pair of black. Stretchy, wide, easy to get on. I am keeping the closet door closed. I also caught Benji digging at the base of one of my new plants of muhly grass, and that’s got to be a no-no. He frolics among the grass, and I tap on the window each time and call his name. He’s so good he comes running to see if I really want him.

But he does not beg for food, even when we have appetizers on the coffee table—Sophie would have decimated that in nothing flat. And he puts himself to bed in his crate about ten o’clock, and stays there quietly until I get up, usually about eight in the morning. He’s responsive to his name and seems eager to please. When he’s outside, he frequently comes to the doorway to check on me. And, though he is right now barking, he’s toned that down a lot. With his wild energy, he is like having a teenager in the house—you know if you can just wait through this period, there’s a great person in there. Adjustment is a slow process for both of us, and Benji is distracted by all the people who love and fuss over him bigtime—and then go away. I’m here for the 24-hour long haul. He  seems to understand that—he follows me to the bathroom, lies by my desk at night when I’m working. He’s going to be a good dog.

I had a spectacular kitchen fail last night that was also a great learning lesson. It taught me how to make a good red wine sauce for hamburger steak, and it also taught me a lesson I should know: don’t multi-task when cooking. I was making sirloin patties with red wine sauce, but I was also trying to finish up some computer work. And I wanted to make sure Jordan’s pattie was not pink in the middle, because she does not like pink meat. So I let the patties brown too long, but gosh they had a nice crisp crust! Then the wine reduced about three times as fast as usual—it usually takes forever, especially if you watch it, but this time, I turned my back. Added the beef broth and it did the same thing, so by the time we served, there was little sauce. And the patties were surely not pink in the middle. Christian’s mom liked meat cooked to a fare-thee-well, so he once told me her salmon patties were like hockey pucks. He could have said the same thing about my patties last night, though he kept reassuring me they had a great flavor. I tried to steam one for lunch today and threw it out. I swear I’m going to try again next week—if I get it right, I’ll share what I did.

I have had my evening nap, and I’m feeling better, over my pity party. When I was young, my mom had migraines and would take to her bed for a day. But never longer. So I learned to say, “She’ll be all right tomorrow,” if someone asked about her. So that’s my motto tonight: I’ll be all right tomorrow. Thanks for letting me whine. Good night, you all. Good night, Benji!

Sunday evening supper and tears near the surface

 

One of my favorite pictures. 
John and I enjoying a happy time at his ranch.

Renee came for Sunday supper tonight, and we had a high old time talking about everything from Jacob’s upcoming prom to osteopathic medicine. Sunday supper is a longstanding tradition in my family, the sense that it should be just a little bit better, a little bit different from ordinary supper. When I was living at home and my brother gone to college or the Navy, Mom rolled her tea cart into the living room, in front of the fireplace, and we had a casual, light supper—a souffle or cheese strata. Today, Sunday supper is still special—we try to have everyone home and the menu is carefully chosen. Tonight Christian cooked an Asian beef and green bean stir fry, and, mixing cultures a bit, I fixed a Lebanese potato salad. Christian didn’t think the two would go together but admitted tonight they did complement each other

But tonight it was the Sunday suppers of my children’s high school years that were much on my mind. My big brother, the patriarch of our family, died yesterday morning at the age of ninety-two. He was my last surviving blood relative and the man I knew all my life would protect me. Everyone asks how I am, and the answer is “fine, but teary.” John and I have lived in close proximity probably more than not—as children, of course. He went to boarding school as a high school junior and was never home again, but in 1961, he declared I needed to get out on my own and took me off to Kirksville, Missouri where he was studying osteopathic medicine and his wife was working on a master’s in English. I too worked on that master’s. That move set the course for my life, including marriage to an osteopathic student and a doctorate in English. I moved to Texas in 1965, and he to Colorado in 1966. In 1980, he moved to Fort Worth to join the faculty of the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine.

In the early 1980s, John and I found ourselves both single with six teen-agers between us. Sunday suppers became an institution. We gathered at my house each week, inviting stray people we thought needed to join us—the parents of my goddaughter often, a good friend recently divorced several times, the kids’ friends. I fed anywhere from ten to fifteen those nights. Presence was required for the kids unless they had a job obligation, which some did. John presided over the table, led us in grace, and ceremoniously served the meal. Table manners were strictly monitored,  mostly by John, and I’m proud to say today all six of those kids have great table manners.

I loved cooking those dinners. Mostly they were a success, though sometimes not. I remember a turkey Wellington recipe which I have long since lost to my regret, and I distinctly remember one night I did a marinated butterflied leg of lamb (I must have thought I was a rich woman). Sometimes we had a turkey or a casserole or whatever I chose. One night, when my office was working on a regional cookbook, I fixed a cornbread/hamburger casserole I’d found the recipe for. John took one bite, looked at me, and asked, “Sis, is the budget the problem?”

Probably though the kids most remember the conversation. John went around the table, asking each person perhaps what they were grateful for or what they had done that week. No one was allowed to shrug it off—you had to have a cogent, intelligent answer. The classic that everyone laughs about to this day is the time we were asked what we were grateful for. Megan had brought a new beau to dinner (in retrospect quite brave of her) and the young man stood (his first mistake—none of the rest of us stood) and said, “I am grateful for Megan and her beauty.” The adults managed straight faces, but the teens couldn’t handle it. To this day, everyone laughs about this.

Today, Sunday dinner is served around the coffee table in my cottage, a far cry from that crowded, formal dining room on Winslow Avenue. But John will always be at my dinner table—and in my heart. We had our differences, particularly political—how he grew up in a staunch FDR/Mayon Richard Daley household and turned out a conservative is beyond me. But we learned, especially in our golden years, to put those aside in favor of our strong bond. We loved to talk, for instance, about the Indiana Dunes where our family had a cottage or Chicago, about which these days I am more nostalgic than he was.

John was sick, mostly bedridden for over a year, and our togetherness, such as it was, was always by phone—he lived south of Granbury on his ranch. We talked every few days, and I always ended the conversation with, “I love you.” It was hard for him, and he’d say, “Back at ya.” So here’s back at you John!

Feeling pensive

Image by Freepik.com

It rained in Texas today! Not the downpours that residents feel in the Northwest or the storms that sometimes deluge the eastern coast, but it was wet, and in Texas we are grateful. But it was also dark and dreary, the kind of day that can encourage deep thoughts.

My church recently was rocked by the tragic deaths of a prominent member, active in church affairs and the city of Fort Worth, known and admired by many, and his two children. They were killed in a horrendous accident on Thanksgiving Eve. The mother, badly injured, survived. The funeral was today, and the church expected an overflow crowd. I zoomed from home. I did not know this family—I know the older generation by sight and reputation, had never heard of the branch of the family involved in the accident. But I went because I know they are good people—it makes you think of the now-old book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, by Harold Kushner. I went because even without knowing them I felt surrounded by grief, by the impact of this tragedy on our community. As a now-retired minister once said to me when I asked about a tsunami, “Shit happens.” Faith helps us sort out that shit, and that’s part of why I went today—call it curiosity. And finally, I went because at my age I need reassurance about life and death. Like many people, I am still trying to sort out my belief, even as I feel the time for doing that is shortening. Was it John Donne who wrote, “But at my back I always hear/Time’s winged chariot hurrying near”? At the polar opposite of that thought is the fact that two children died in this accident, and our minister acknowledged that there is something particularly heartbreaking when we lose children with so much of their life ahead of them.

The service brought tears, no doubt about it. I grieved for the brother who gave the eulogy and had an obviously difficult time getting through it, though he managed occasional bits of humor. And I grieved for the visiting minister, the father’s college roommate, who continually wiped his eyes as our minister spoke words of comfort. I grieved for our minister, who had been close friends with this family and had loving stories to tell about all three. I grieved for the surviving widow/mother, who sat in the front row, flanked by the two grandmothers and holding hands with them.

The message of hope that our minister delivered was that God is always with us, in good times and in tragedy—perhaps you must be of my Protestant faith to accept that. But what I came away with today is that we must live with vitality, with a positive attitude. Grief doesn’t go away. It is always there, waiting to overwhelm, to trip us up. I think the same is true of doubt. But it is up to us to live past it and through it. Both the brother who gave the eulogy and the minister talked about grief being with us every day, if we let it in. It’s up to us to shut that gate.

What I’m trying to talk about in these meandering thoughts is the importance of a positive attitude. And that’s what was reinforced for me today in the memorial service. I know it will be a long time before that extended family can move through and beyond grief, but it is up to us to surround them with love and encourage them as they move forward. And it is up to us to live beyond and through our doubts and temporary problems. I am a big believer in the power of positive thinking. Who wrote that book? Norman Vincent Peale, of course.

I had other deep thoughts today, probably about rain or maybe about list-making, but somehow now, after a glass of wine and an offbeat but good dinner—smoked salmon, cream cheese, and some frozen spanakopita—they don’t seem so dark to me. I have been making lists for a couple of weeks—I am not one to let Christmas sneak up on me, and this year I will have my whole family around me. So you can tell lists are needed—food, gifts, things to do. Perhaps attending today’s service, which had sort of loomed over me much of the week, reaffirmed my faith and freed me to move on to holiday planning. I hope it will help me too to remember the true nature of the holiday I celebrate as a Christian and not get lost in the lists and the gifts and the food.

How does the holiday season affect you? Have you made lists? Have you looked at your darkest thoughts? It’s a tough time of the year, despite it being the season of hope and joy.

Not much of anything and a whole lot of nothing

 

You may have missed it when I posted earlier, but Story Circle Network published a short piece of mine on their blog today. (For those who didn't know him, this is a picture of my ex, Joel Alter, after he finished a marathon, around 1980; I should mention that I was in the picture but got cropped out--perhaps a metaphor). Written some ten years ago, the piece is about my feelings the night Joel died. It was a piece that I found when I was scrabbling through notes and bits and pieces for a memoir. I posted a link to the piece on Facebook this morning and was highly flattered by the responses.  (https://www.storycircle.org/december-12-numb-and-puzzling-grief/) I’m thinking there is indeed a memoir in my future. Two projects remain between me and a memoir—Irene Deep in Texas Trouble—I’m almost at the end of the first draft now—and then my Helen Corbitt project. I have no idea how long it will take me, but it’s nice to have projects lined up before me.

Before I retired, I used to worry a lot about retirement, afraid that I would wake up in the morning and think, “What in the world will I do today?” So far, that has been far from the truth. I often wake up with my mind whirling with the things I have to get done. This week, it’s finish the Irene adventure and wrap Christmas gifts—two totally unrelated activities. Any Christmas cooking that can be done ahead is already done, though I may decide at the last minute to do something for extra gifts.

Blog writing is hard these days. My mind wants to be filled with Christmas trivia and goodies and music and all that goes with the season. But for this child of the Midwest, it’s just not looking a lot like Christmas. Today the yard guys came with mowers and blowers and when they finished the thick carpet of leaves was gone from the driveway and yard. But it took them forever to do it, with Sophie barking her displeasure all the time. Although we’ve had just occasional rain, it’s been so damp—and the leaves so wet—that there is mold growing on the patio. I hesitate to use bleach because of the dogs. Storms are predicted for tonight and a freeze highly possible for this weekend. A little snow would sure make it feel a lot more like Christmas.

Another blog problem: I don’t for right now feel the intensity of the political atmosphere that finally really culminated in Raphael Warnock’s re-election to the Senate. Fund-raisers are already pointing us toward 2024 with dire warnings that the Democrats need big war chests (I suppose the Republicans do too, but I don’t get those emails except in rare instances of misdirected mail—I do not want to hear from the likes of Newt Gingrich, thank you).

A few issues do spark my interest. The return home of Brittainy Griner is one of them (who knew she’s a Baylor alum?). I am continually incensed at columns and comments to the effect that she hates America. She proudly brought home two gold medals for her country—funny kind of hate. Even more objectionable are comments that she should have been left behind and Paul Whelan brought home. As several have pointed out, our country suddenly has a wealth of armchair hostage negotiators who know exactly what should have been done. They completely overlook the fact that Whelan’s freedom wasn’t offered, was never on the table. They think it makes a good story to embarrass President Biden who, to his everlasting credit, seems beyond embarrassment as he quietly goes about his job of doing good for the country.

Another issue that interests me is the fight for leadership in the Republican House caucus. I think McCarthy’s days are numbered, and I’m not at all sorry. He apparently has a poor grasp of government issues, and his lust for the speakership overrides any good sense he may once have had. I am afraid, though if he is defeated, someone really awful will take over—like MTG who once again this weekend, at  national Republican youth gala, demonstrated that she has not an ounce of decorum about her. Just don’t ask her about what she saw for sale at Target.

Today was a blah day for me, not that I regret it. I slept late, worked all morning and part of the afternoon, had leftovers for supper (who can quarrel with steak and a twice-baked potato filled with cream cheese?), worked some more in the evening, wrapped some packages. I’ll read a bit and go to bed. But above you see where my mind goes when I have nothing else to offer for the day. If I miss a few days of blogging in the upcoming days, please forgive me. I don’t want to take your time with, “And then I did this, and then I did that.”

Thanks to all who have expressed concern about my cold. I know I whine like a baby but I’m not often sick, and so I take it seriously when I am. Maybe that’s another blog topic. Meantime, it is getting better, and I feel okay—not sure however that my cough would be acceptable in a restaurant or a party, so social plans are on hold.

Night all. I’m going to quit babbling.

Of children and dogs

Anybody in Fort Worth recognize this good-looking fellow?

For me, another day of grief, watching as more news and more sadness comes out of Uvalde. I have friends who have turned off their TV and ignored the newspaper, because they find the news too stressful. I can’t do that—reading and sharing posts keeps my anger up, and I hope, yours too. If we’re going to fight for a decent society where kids are safe in the schoolroom, where what women do with their bodies is between the woman and her doctor, and where everyone has equal opportunity to vote, we have to stay angry. And we have to be informed. We have to win this fight—the alternative is unthinkable.

Greg Abbott used the word “unimagineable” in his press conference, but as Beto and others have pointed out the tragedy in Uvalde was not beyond Abbott’s imagination. This is the sixth school shooting on his watch. He doesn’t have to imagine. He know the drill, at least as he perceives it—do nothing preventive but after the fact stress all that you are doing to investigate. Who needs investigation? A troubled kid got a gun he shouldn’t have had, and now he’s dead and can’t tell us more.

Today we learned that law enforcement stood outside the school for forty or fifty minutes, while parents urged them to go in. Standard procedure since Columbine is to go in immediately. One father, who lost his daughter, tried to get an unarmed citizen group to rush the building. Meantime, children were dying inside. I also heard the police got their own kids out first. There is much to be investigated about the reaction to the shootingand much to be learned, but that’s not what Abbott was talking about. And we must not let it fade away as other mass shootings have. Make this the last one. And as Beto said, now is the time to do that.

Do not tell me Chicago has more violent gun deaths. That’s apples and oranges. I grew up on the South Side of Chicago, and I know about inner city violence. Have you heard of one school shooting in that city? Most of the gun deaths are gang rivalries, with, unfortunately, children too often caught in the crossfire.

Do not tell me that gun control laws don’t work, there will always be bad guys, and they will always get guns. That’s a cop-out for politicians so they can continue to collect NRA funds. Gun control doesn’t work in the U.S. because there are no consistent laws and there is lackluster enforcement. Texas has perhaps the loosest gun laws of any state and one of the highest number of mass shootings (plus other gun deaths). Coincidence? I hardly think so. How can an eighteen-year-old who can’t yet vote or drink legally, walk into a store and purchase two assault rifles and God knows how many rounds of ammunition. Senator Cornyn brought up another interesting opoint today: where did he get the money?

I challenge Greg Abbott to study what was done after mass shootings in Australia, the UK , New Zealand. I also challenge him to go talk personally, one on one, with the parents who lost children at Robb Elementary. Not a press conference where he is buffered by politicians, like the loud mayor of Uvalde who was out of line in his public attack on Beto O’Rourke at the presser.

I am indignant.

As if that were not enough trauma for the day, I have spent much of the day worrying and writing beseeching posts about lost dogs. Today alone there has been notice of at least ten dogs wandering, looking for help and afraid to approach would-be rescuers. One, a gorgeous big fellow, lies on the front porch of an empty house, waiting for his people to come home. Speculation is that college students went home for the summer and left him behind.

People get on various internet sites and ask, “Anybody want this dog?” It makes me blood boil. My constant advice: if someone claims the dog as theirs, demand proof—photographs, an identifying physical characteristic, a letter from their vet. Watch how the dog responds to his supposed owner. In Fort Worth (and I think Texas) strays must be registered with the local animal control facility because that’s the first place people go to look for a lost pet. It is illegal to re-home a dog or cat within 24 hours. And, no, animal control facilities do not automatically euthanize these animals. The Fort Worth facility has a re-home rate of about 95%. There are people out there who acquire “pets” just to abandon or torture them. I’m told there are no organized dog-fight rings in the Fort Worth area, but there are “pick up” fights.

If  you want to re-home your dog, the same cautions apply. Do not just give him or her to someone who says, “How cute!” By taking a few precautions you may be saving your pet’s life. Sometimes circumstances make it impossible for devoted pet owners to keep their animals—death, illness, etc. But I hope people who are considering adopting dog remember that it is a lifetime commitment. I get really angry of people who tire of their dog or want a younger one or just don’t have time. You are that dog’s only family, and he or she trusts you.

Yeah, I harbor a lot of anger at the world tonight. Some shrug and say, “That’s the way it is.” I say, “It doesn’t have to be that way.”

Anger must surpass grief

 

     

That old cliché, “’Twas a dark and stormy night,” applies tonight. It is depressingly dark early, and I hear distant thunder. Sophie refuses to leave my side. We need the rain so badly that I would welcome a good storm, if I could add certain conditions: no hail, no tornadoes, just rain—preferably steady and not too heavy. As it is I fear it will once again pass over. I think tonight of the people of southern Ontario where a terrific storm swept across the land, moving from Toronto to Ottawa, where it flattened many old, sturdy hardwood trees. One forester said Ottawa’s tree canopy was forever changed. Some used the term derecho, so I’ll add that to my conditions, no derecho.

The dark night seems to reflect the national mood tonight. We are once again grieving a mass shooting, this another horrific targeting of young children. What kind of a madman shoots innocent young children? We will never know for sure because the shooter at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, was killed on the spot. But for many of us, the images of Sandy Hook have come roaring back with unbelievable tenacity.

President Biden spoke for many of us tonight in his brief words from the White House. At first, his grief rendered him almost speechless, but then grief turned to anger as he lashed out at the fact that we are the only country to suffer such mass shootings. Other countries have angry people, mentally disturbed people, but they do not have mass shootings. It is of course because we have gun control that is ineffective and almost non-existent. The president called for lawmakers to get a backbone and do what we all know needs to be done.

I can add nothing to the words that are flying across the internet tonight. Except to say that many of our gun aficionados on Facebook are downright scary people. They range from the woman who told me her husband needs an assault rifle to hunt the wild hogs that infest much of the South and Southwest to those who told me their guns are protection: if the Russians attack, they are ready. I can almost understand the wild hog argument—my brother has a ranch, and the hogs are so destructive as to be beyond description. They are also tough and numerous—if you hunt with a rifle, you get one at a time. If you hunt with an assault weapon, your stats are better—and that matters to ranchers whose livelihood is threatened; many of whom hunt almost nightly as a means of self-preservation. The flaw in that argument is that if assault weapons are legal for a small group of people, they will inevitably work their way into the hands of those who should not have them.

The self-protection people are more scary. They truly believe they could stand off a Russian invasion, completely overlooking the selfish patriotism, long years of organized training and preparation that have gone into Ukraine’s ability to counter the Russian invasion. Some believe that their guns are protection against their own government. And too many speak of the coming civil war. These folks always overlook the part of the Second Amendment that calls for an organized militia. In fact, they overlook the entire working of the amendment, bending it to their will and refusing to see the difference between weapons in the eighteenth century and today.

Gun folks never mention the mass shootings but they talk about all the illegal criminals Biden is letting in (actually he is under court order to turn immigrants away and most aren’t criminals, but that’s another topic for another day). They claim only criminals will have guns. Their arguments are almost desperate, and often semi-literate. They scare me. And they are rude. I have been criticized, insulted, dismissed as both naïve and an idiot by people who have no rational answers. If you question their statements or logic, they shut down and don’t answer.

So my reluctant conclusion is that logic will do not good. Neither will grief nor appeals to their better selves. We need anger, active anger on the part of all of us. And we need new legislators and a new SCOTUS.

The town of Uvalde, the state of Texas, and the whole country grieve tonight. I cannot imagine the families who sent their children off to school this morning, only to learn that they’ll never see them again. My heart breaks. But we must move on to the anger part. This is a call to arms. We’ve had those calls before—too many of them. What is it going to take to break this pattern? (Note: the NRA is meeting this week in Hoston; trump and Abbott will speak.)

And on a good note for the night: we are getting a nice soaking rain. It didn’t last long enough, but it was lovely while it did. One big clap of thunder sent Sophie scurring to her hidey hole between the couch and the coffee table—she thinks she is invisible when she’s there.

A Sunday lapse, good food, and new resolve

 

Salmon Nicoise

All my new resolve to get out in the world more—call it quarantine recovery—went out the window this morning. It was to be our first week back in person in church, but I woke early in the morning worrying about it. Would I have the stamina to walk as far as I would have to? That and a thousand other worries, all imaginary, went through my mind. I stayed home.

But I did go to church online, and found it rewarding. The sermon was, “Where does it hurt?” and was about realizing that many around us are in pain and reaching out to them. One point that Russ Peterman made is that you don’t promise people that everything will be all right, nor do you tell them that platitude, “Everything happens for a reason.” Sometimes you just sit and share grief with someone who is suffering.

It made me think of dinner, many years ago, with two dear friends. The book, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus by John Gray, was the trending pop psychology book at the time, and we were talking about it. Andy said that what the book basically said was that women want to talk about whatever is bothering them; men only want to talk about it if they can fix it. I have thought about the truth of that statement many times over the years.

I think we need different listeners for different aspects of our lives—for instance, I long for another mystery writer with whom I can sit and have an hours-long discussion about where my book is going, where theirs is going, what we think about the market. My kids are good about listening, but wonderful as they are, they don’t really understand. And days like today, I need someone to talk to about the demons that sometimes crop up in my face. There again, those around me mostly don’t understand.

I suggested today to an acquaintance on Facebook who is suffering severe chronic pain and posts about it all the time that she might consult a mental health professional. She was instantly defensive and scornful, demanding why she should talk to strangers who don’t understand. I refrained from pointing out that she talks to strangers all the time, every day, on Facebook, and that a professional would understand much better than those random strangers. Made me think again of the wisdom of today’s sermon. And made me sad for this woman’s suffering.

On a happier note, we have been eating so well. Friday night I made salmon niçoise. You can cater a niçoise plate to your tastes—we left potatoes off mine and artichoke hearts off Christian’s, subbed tiny new asparagus for green beans, deviled the eggs (per Jordan’s request), and so on. What got me was that Christian wanted his salmon on a separate plate so it not touch his lettuce (I had splurged on butter lettuce). He missed the point of the salad. But anyway, I served it with a red wine vinaigrette that was terrific—we have filed it away as a keeper. I had leftovers last night and doused the salmon—Jacob’s piece because he was out with friends when we ate it—with the dressing. Who needs lemon? This was delicious.

Tonight we are having a recipe I found years ago on Mystery Lovers Kitchen. Called Dead Man’s Bones, it’s baby back ribs grilled with a mix of apricot preserves and soy. I have made an interesting cucumber salad to go with it. Cooking is such fun!

And I am looking forward to the week. At long last I have some ideas for the mystery that’s been simmering (I hope) in the back of my brain, and I itch to get back to it. Good times ahead!

Have a great week everyone!

PS: The internet is on a real kick tonight. A passage my son-in-law sent about Libbie Custer and I tried to save as Libbie, ended up labeled Lonnie--Lonnie is my plumber and a nice guy, but .... And then I tried to save salmon nicoise and it came out salmon no pose. Go figure!

A sad night

During the day I squirreled away a couple oh-so-clever items to blog about tonight, like my miniscule crop of tiny, tiny tomatoes from my unruly plants on my desktop green house. Or I could tell you about the birthday dinner I had tonight, with three friends—lots of laughter and a bit of commiserating about the difficulties of aging. But my heart is too heavy tonight for trivia, and aging seems a blessing denied to many.

A Paschal high school student died at noon today because he was racing his car against a friend, lost control, and hit a tree. On a street that I travel often, the route I took to work for years. Somehow, we don’t expect these things to happen close to home. I do not know the boy’s identity, but the horror increased when I heard that tomorrow is his sixteenth birthday, and the car in which he died--a Mustang—was his birthday present. I cannot stop thinking about that family whose child is not coming home tonight. Jacob will go to Paschal in another year, which also brings it closer to home. How do we build a protective bubble around our children?

I grieve too for Bothran Jean, who left us some time ago, and for his family and for Amy Guyger who shot him and who today was convicted of murder. I watched TV for a while just after the verdict was announced, and it was wrenching. What she, a police officer, did was so wrong that there is no comprehending. Jean was in his apartment, eating ice cream—the only thing he did wrong was to leave his door ajar. She entered, thinking she was in her own apartment a floor below, and shot him, out of fear for her life, she says. I presume, as a police officer coming off duty and still in her gear, she had other ways to subdue a threat, but she shot to kill.

As the prosecutor said today, there’s a strong lesson there for police officers, a lesson about deadly force that should be a cautionary tale for so many police officers across the country. I was sad that supporters of Bothran Jean’s family made it into a racial issue, though the tones of racism were always there—she is white, he was black. But it seems to me this is more a police training and brutality issue than a racial one, though perhaps in our society today the two are so intertwined as to be inseparable. But like the teenage driver, Bothran Jean will not be coming home to his family—ever.

The judge allowed the castle theory defense for Ms. Guyger which seemed really out of whack to me. She wasn’t defending her “castle,” which was one story below. She was invading his castle. Still I thought she might be convicted of manslaughter. When the murder conviction came back, I felt a wave of sympathy for her, awful as what she did was. I could imagine, seeing the shock on her face, that she was desperately wishing that this was a bad dream from which she would wake up. But it wasn’t. She will pay a stiff price—from five to 99 years—for the grief that she had brought to two families and to a community and a city.

As a good friend of mine says, there’s a world of hurt out there. Be gentle with one another, my friends. None of us can see around the next corner in our lives.

Cooking away the grief

Vigil in Parkland, Florida

When my mother’s first husband, my brother’s father, lay dying from a WWI wound, my mother was in the kitchen baking a chocolate cake—her way of dealing with overwhelming grief. At least, that’s the story I’ve always been told. I’m my mother’s daughter, because this weekend I took my small part of the national grief over the Parkland shootings to the kitchen. No, it didn’t make things any better or the grief any less, but it kept me occupied.

Friday night with guests for supper I made the easiest chicken and rice dish ever—recipe below. My guests raved about it, and I have two and a half chicken tenders left, which I intend to use for a chicken salad lunch tomorrow.

Saturday was all about food. Jordan and I mixed our signals—I thought we were eating together Thursday night with Christian busy, so I suggested mushrooms on toast. She turned out to have plans but got the mushrooms anyway, and then began to say “You better cook those.” So my decadent Saturday lunch was mushrooms on toast. I saved enough mushrooms to go with our roast tonight—only Jordan and I eat them. Saturday night I made myself ham patties—an experiment but so easy and so good. That recipe as well as the chicken one will go in my cookbook.

After church today we went to Pearl Snap, a kolache shop that was closing as we got there but let us in. I had been counting on a ham pattie for lunch and went reluctantly, but the bread part of the kolache tasted exactly like my mom’s dinner rolls. Nostalgia! I still came home and ate one pattie to see how they held up. Good.

Tonight, is a big deal, an experiment. I had toyed with the idea of getting an InstaPot but decided against it—I have no room, and I certainly have the time for long, slow cooking. But my brother, having gotten one for his wife, his daughter, and his son, decided I had to have one. I have to admit right here that he also got me a bidet over my objections—and I love it!

We solved the space problem rather easily. The InstaPot lives on the low-down shelf in my butcher-block cutting board. When I want to use it, it trades places with my induction hot plate. The learning curve was another matter. I gave Christian all the instructions this afternoon, including a recipe for roast with potatoes and carrots. We started at 5:45; we ate dinner at 8:45. That 55-minute roast took a tad longer than we anticipated. The InstaPot was not instant.

Christian cooking

We had accounted for it being a trial run which would go a bit slow. We had not accounted for the test run, the sauté cycle, the vegetable cycle, and the reduction sauce. By the time we ate we were ravenous and all a bit cranky. But the carrots were delicious, the potatoes nice and soft, the sauce or gravy wonderful! The meat was flavorful and tender enough though it could have been a bit more so. For a first time, it was a pretty darn good meal.

Confession: Christian did it all, with me watching closely. I’m not sure I’m ready to cook a meal, but I sure learned a lot. I need recipes to choose from and will work on that. One of my neighbors is in love with her InstaPot and stands ready to help. Maybe next Sunday’s dinner.

Meantime, I’m exhausted, maybe from a bit of extra wine while we waited for dinner, maybe from hunger, maybe from a long day. ‘Night all. Sweet dreams. I feel it in my bones—good times are coming. I’m almost but not quite ready to break out a chorus of “Happy Days are Here Again!”

That chicken recipe:

Our InstaPot dinner

1 box Uncle Ben’s Original Wild Rice, Fast Cooking if you can’t find Original

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 can cream of celery soup

1 lb. chicken tenders.

Mix rice and seasonings thoroughly with the two soups. Put in oven-proof dish (I used one that fit in my toaster oven). Salt and pepper chicken tenders and lay on top of the rice mixture. Cover dish tightly with foil. Bake two-and-a-half hours at 275. No peeking or you’ll ruin it.

How I Became a Writer

Please welcome, Gloria Alden, my Wednesday guest blogger. Gloria writes the Catherine Jewell Mystery series: The Blue Rose, Daylilies for Emily’s Garden, Ladies of the Garden Club. The Body in the Goldenrod, as well as a middle-grade book, The Sherlock Holmes Detective Club. Her published short stories include “Cheating on Your Wife Can Get You Killed” winner of the Love is Murder contest, “Mincemeat is for Murder” and “The Body in the Red Silk Dress” in Bethlehem Writers Roundtable, “The Professor’s Books” in Fish Tales, “The Lure of the Rainbow” in Fish Nets, “Once Upon a Gnome” in Strangely Funny and “Norman’s Skeleton’s” in All Hallows Evil. She lives on a small farm in NE Ohio with assorted critters: her collie, Maggie, two house cats, a canary, two old African ring-necked doves, two ponies, and six rather old hens, plus one loud guinea fowl. She blogs with Writers Who Kill on Thursdays.  http://writerswhokill.blogspot.com/ Website: www.gloriaalden.com.

 I am a writer. I write poetry and mysteries. Although I’ve been writing for over thirty years – not counting my teen years – I only started calling myself a writer when my first story. “The Professor’s Books,” was published in the first Guppy Anthology, Fish Tales. Before that I labeled myself wife, mother, Girl Scout leader, teacher, etc., but not a writer.

The first time I had something published was the year I started college as a non-traditional student. My first English professor encouraged me to submit an essay I’d written in class to the ICON, a twice-a-year Trumbull Campus literary magazine of Kent State University. It was an emotional piece, “Saying Good-bye,” about the death of John, my eighteen-year-old son, from cancer the year before. I received many positive comments about it which encouraged me to start submitting poetry.

From then until I graduated, I had at least one if not more poems in each issue of ICON, and I won The Virginia Perryman award for freshman writers covering all of KSU for a short story I entered, but I still did not call myself a writer.

When I entered college as an older student, I was unsure how I’d do. It had been twenty-five years since I’d graduated from high school. However, I thrived. I loved the academic world and was that eager student at the front of the class. Well, maybe not so much in the math and physics classes I took. After that first semester, I always took extra classes, and almost all of them were literature, poetry or writing classes. I was that odd student who loved writing; term papers, poetry, research papers, whatever. Even though my professors liked what I wrote, it didn’t necessarily mean I was a writer.

When I graduated, I became a third-grade teacher. I loved it but missed the academic life so I went on to get a Masters. Fortunately at that time, I was able to get it in English and didn’t have to pursue something relating to elementary education. Again I was in my element; reading, researching and writing. I’m still not sure how I did it because as a teacher, I always went above and beyond what was necessary. It was probably on very little sleep. In those years I was a teacher, and that was the only way I saw myself, not as a writer.

Sometime after I got my Masters, I started my first book, a cozy mystery with a gardening theme since gardening is one of my other passions. I’d planned to write a mystery for some years, but I procrastinated, until my sister, Elaine, came up with the idea that together we should write a book. We worked on it as a team in the beginning. However, since we don’t live near each other, before more than a few chapters were written, I took over the writing. It took several years, but I finished The Blue Rose. But since it wasn’t published, I still didn’t consider myself a writer, only a wanna-be.

Off and on for the next ten years or so, I sent out query letters, and with each rejection, I’d stop sending out query letters for several months or longer before starting up again. But I didn’t stop writing. I finished a second book in the series, Daylilies for Emily’s Garden, a middle-grade mystery, The Sherlock Holmes Detective Club, and went on to write two more books in my Catherine Jewell Mystery Series: Ladies of the Garden Club and The Body in the Goldenrod. I’m now working on my fifth in this series, Murder in the Corn Maze, and have lots of ideas for more books.

Those small successes of having short stories accepted encouraged me finally to self-publish that first book. I felt even more like a real writer at the launch of The Blue Rose when I sold and signed copies. Being asked to join the Writers Who Kill blog several years ago was also a validation that I was a writer.

Many people think about becoming writers without pursuing it. We’ve all heard people say “I could write a book if . . .” and then come the excuses. I think many writers need some catalyst to actually get them started down that path. For me, it was the death of my oldest son. Only those who have lost a child can understand the pain. Over the years I’ve written well over thirty poems for John. I plan on putting them together with a few essays I’ve written into a book. There are several ways to deal with that kind of death; one is to spend your whole live grieving and another that I chose: to do something positive that makes a difference not only in my life, but others. I chose to become a teacher, and it was one of the best choices I could have made to help the healing. The writing just kind of worked its way into my healing process. It doesn’t mean that I don’t think of him often, but I’m content and happy in my life as a writer.

 

 

 

That kind of a day

It's been that kind of day around here--slow and not much going on. Sophie was so bored she decided to dig into her toy basket herself. She did have some play time with Jacob, and it was fun to see how protective she is of him. When his dad wrestled with him, she got really upset and tried to jump into the fray. She also "talked" in her own expressive way.
I've been editing a manuscript all day--it's probably been ten years in the writing, but I really hope it sees the light of day this year. It's been edited, but I'm going through it again, checking the edits, finding things I want to change. I imagine I could go through it ten more times and find things to change. There comes a point where you just have to trust yourself. This is one I think I want to self-publish as an experiment, so I want to be sure it's perfect. But all editing makes a long day, and Sophie too has felt the boredom.
I need to get back to  yoga--haven't done any exercise in almost a month because I'm not sure how to go about it in an orthopedic shoe. It seems easier to just wait---two weeks and two days--than to figure out what I can and cannot do, but I know that's a cop-out. I have however been very active--from housework to walking, running errands, etc. Not a couch potato--that's my justification.
Last night I made chicken soup--good flavor, funny thick and long noodles that I had in the cupboard. Tonight when Jacob was hungry, I fished out the meat (he does NOT like meat) and gave him noodles--the soup had turned very thick in the fridge and didn't produce that much liquid when heated--guess the noodles soaked it all up. "I don't like noodles," he announced. I reminded him he'd eaten them a week or two ago, and he said, "Well, I don't like them now." His dad came along, liked the soup, and after eating a bowl took the rest home with him. I was glad to send it since I have dinner plans the next three nights and lunch plans two out of three days (ah, the whirlwind life of the retiree).
Nice news tonight--the neighborhood newsletter I've been editing since spring has won an award from the city Neighborhood office. The former editor, good friend Mary Dulle, and I will go to the awards dinner Wed. night.Surprisingly, when Mary posted the announcement on Facebook, it got lots and lots of comments. Nice feeling for both of us.
Tonight I am grieving with young friends who have been dealt the kind of blow that I don't know how you recover from. I have faith they will recover, and I remember them in my prayers, but the devastation they must feel now is beyond my comprehension. I want so badly to reach out, but there is nothing I can do. This winter, with its unpredictable and sometimes miserably cold weather, has been a bad one for sickness and death. As my friend Jim says, "There's a world of hurt out there."
The whole day makes me think that life has its ups and downs--moments of joy, times of great grief, boredom and busyness. I guess we each have to learn to balance them for ourself.