An ordinary Sunday with a touch of France

 

Well, I had hoped to take you with me on a vicarious tour of Paris, but all I got today from Jordan were a couple of selfies and this one terrific picture of her by the Eiffel Tower. She talked of a sunset cruise on the Seine, and I expected lovely pictures—maybe tomorrow. She did have lunch today in the restaurant on the third level of the Eiffel—hake (a South American light, whitefish), chocolate mousse and “flowing champagne.” How will we ever keep her down on the farm after such a lunch.

After lunch, she was headed for the sunset cruise, but we’ve had no report. I suspect after a long flight yesterday, champagne at lunch, and a sunset cruise, she was ready for bed. Perhaps more pictures tomorrow.

Not to be outdone by Jordan’s lunch, I must report I had branzino filets for supper with lime juice and sugar snap peas. Alas, no flowing champagne—just a modest glass of white wine. Branzino is a whitefish found mostly in Mediterranean waters It tickled me that Jordan, in Paris, was eating a South American fish while I, on this side of the pond, was eating one from the Mediterranean. Our modern world!

Other than that it was an unremarkable day. Christian and Jacob went to Coppell to have early dinner with Christian’s dad—at Babe’s. I thought Christian would come home and fall asleep, having eaten too much fried chicken, but he was indignant, said he didn’t even finish his chicken, and wss working on a project on the front porch—getting ready, I guess, for his usual gorgeous display of summer blooms.

Neighbor Polly Hooper, who takes magnificent pictures of all Berkeley functions, came over tonight because I was having trouble downloading her photos for the neighborhood newsletter. What she showed me was so basic and simple, I was ashamed that I did not figure it out on my own. But it gave us a good chance to visit over glasses of wine and catch up.

Polly’s visit sent me in search of a file on my computer that I can’t find and can’t figure how it disappeared. She is researching painted churches of Texas, and I told her I once wrote a short story titled “Prisoners” about the WWII Italian POWs who painted the chapel of the church at Umbarger, Texas. Blithely assuming I could find it, I promised to send her a copy of the short story. But my entire file of short stories has disappeared. It’s probably not the end of the world, because they are on file in the Southwest Writers Collection at Texas State University-San Marcos, but I am unsure how easily they are retrievable. And It makes me beyond uneasy to realize that an entire file just disappeared. The collection is Sue Ellen Learns to Dance and Other Stories, available on Amazon.

Polly did a really good thing while she was here—and taught me a lesson. Sophie has a bad habit—barking at me demandingly when there is happy hour company. I think it’s a combination of things—she’s hungry, she associates late afternoon company with food, and she wants attention. Jordan loses patience and threatens to go in the house, and I end up talking sternly to Soph about bad behavior. Neither is effective.

Sophie was particularly bad tonight, annoying, and it was hard to talk. Polly called her over, took gentle hold of her collar, told her to sit, and said, “This mean old lady is not going to put up with that.” She talked gently to her but held firm on the collar, and when Sophie tried to get up, Polly said, “This mean old lady says sit down.” Once I truly saw Sophie roll her eyes at Polly, and I almost laughed aloud. But pretty soon, Soph was lying on her back, asking for tummy rubs. And she was quiet after that—wandering in and out, lying quietly. We could talk and hear ourselves.

Sophie had one other adventure this weekend—she discovered a baby possum in the flowerbed under the window by my desk. Curious, but with no bad intentions, she jumped up and down, her bark shrill and frantic with excitement. As is my lazy habit, I sat at my desk and thought, I’ve got to do something about that. My only option is not always effective—it’s to wheel to the door, tell her to stop barking, and offer her cheese. But Christian beat me to it, and the next thing I knew he was at the open French doors with a huge shovel. He explained she had found a dead baby possum, and I asked if maybe it was playing possum. Turns out I was right. He put Sophie in the house, got the shovel, and went back only to find the possum gone.

I couldn’t resist. “What were you going to do with the shovel?” His answer, “Throw it over the fence.” I replied, “Gently, I hope. Possums are our friends.” He was astounded. “They are? I thought they were rodents.” I didn’t go into a lecture about marsupials, but I did tell him one possum can eat a thousand fleas and tick a day. I think he was impressed. I always like to enlighten that city boy.

So that’s my day. I’m reading a good mystery and going to spend the rest of the evening with it. Sweet dreams. Maybe tomorrow, more of a French tour.

A pandemic learning lesson and a pleasant happy hour

We have all gotten into routines during this pandemic/quarantine that vary wildly from our usual daily routines. I’ve pretty much gotten used to my new routine and am okay with it, but today I had a funny wake-up call about how much my life has changed.

I haven’t worn make-up in five months. Why waste the makeup and the effort when I was going nowhere, wouldn’t see anyone but my family and a very few friends who, I hope, love me as I am. But today I had a doctor’s appointment—routine checkup, a little blood work, a look at my still-fat leg, nothing to worry about. But I decided to wear makeup because I think the better you look, the more it makes a subconscious impression on the doctor. If you look pale and wan, he’s going to think you’re poorly.

So I sat at my bathroom sink which doubles as a vanity—and I couldn’t remember what to do! I put on a light bit of liquid foundation and then scrambled in the drawer to find what was next. Powder! It turned out to be the dregs in a pressed powder compact. Do I have another? I still don’t know. I figured out blush, but then came to the part I think it important—eye makeup. My eyebrows have never darkened with age—they’re still the pale blonde they were when I was ten. Had I lost the technique for darkening them, so they were subtle, not obvious? Could I still do mascara without smudging it all over my eyes?

In the long run, I think I looked fairly respectable when I arrived at the doctor’s office. Certainly, he said I would survive such things s the apparent mosquito bite on my elbow and the arthritis in one of my fingers. And my leg is oh-so-gradually going back to normal. But I imagine it will be a while before I try the makeup thing again.

One doctor’s appointment messes up my now-established routine for the day, and I didn’t get much work done today. Mary came for happy hour, but it was just us two. Jordan has pulled a muscle in her back and does not sit comfortably; Prudence was busy with a final exam for an online graduate course she’s taking. But Mary and I had a pleasant, low-key visit.

She is one of those people who attract mosquitoes. While they rarely come near me, they swarm around her. It’s a concern these days not just for the discomfort of bites but because we’ve seen rising rates of West Nile virus in our county. So Mary arrives with all kinds of paraphernalia—a long-sleeved shirt, a face fan that drapes around her neck, bug spray (we have some but I think she likes hers better—ours is organic, at my insistence), and a lantern that is supposed to emit a vapor that drives the pesky critters way. She never got it to work quite right and fiddled with it a lot.

Meantime, Jordan had turned on our fan and the bug light which should discourage most flies and mosquitoes. It worked well for me, but poor Mary was constantly batting them away, particularly from her ankles. I told her I was grateful that she attracted them all so that they wouldn’t bother me. She wasn’t particularly amused.

Tomorrow I’ll get back to serious work, writing lessons for the online course on creating a chef. I think tomorrow’s topic will be “How ambitious is your chef?” and I’ll explore the career paths open to chefs. Which means I’ll spend a lot of time online researching. Not everyone can become Wolfgang Puck or Giada de Laurentiis or Jacques Pepin.

Now I’ll settle down with a book I’m to read for a competition. It’s about a rather grim subjects—can’t say more—but I have a feeling it is well done, which means I’ll have to read more of it than if I could dismiss it as sloppy and amateurish.

Today was pleasant, but the temperature is to go up all week. Bummer. Glad Is Isaias didn’t do more damage than it did, though several deaths are significant. And pray for the people of Beirut, where an explosion has killed at least seventy and injured many more. As someone I respect says, “There’s a world of hurt out there.”

Satisfying job on an unsatisfying day

See Clifford the leopard in the foreground?

He's keeping watch over my books

The weather gods ae playing tricks on us. They give us a couple of sunny, bright days so that we think fall is here in all its glory—and then they turn the world drizzly and gray. I swear this weekend I looked at the extended forecast and it was for seventies Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. But if today got to 70 it was in some other state. Here, it was drizzly and gray, not really cool but the kind of damp that makes you feel a chill. I had turned the heat off but turned it on again this evening. Rain forecast for the morning—my new winter rye grass will appreciate that.

It was the kind of day that it’s good to have a project or else one (this one anyway) might mope and grouse the day around. Mary Dulle came to help me finish sorting my bookcase. Saying “help me” is a misnomer, because Mary does all the work and I sit and pass judgement on titles like some sort of authority. She can do all the bending, standing, reaching that I can’t, and she graciously includes dusting shelves and tops of books. Today she even asked for a broom and swept up some spider eggs. Above and beyond.

We divided books into those that I want on my shelves, those that can go to the storage locker (extras of books I’ve written and by far the biggest category we had—anybody wants to buy a book just let me know; I can probably open a store), and books that I will give to the library’s used-book store. What I kept on the shelves we roughly organized into books I had written or had chapters, essays, etc., in, books by good friends of mine, and books that I cared about. I was delighted to find some treasures—a few cookbooks that I thought had been lost in the great deluge that ruined most of my cookbooks, a book of William Barney’s poetry—the Fort Worth postman who became a Texas poet laureate, two copies of Bartlett’s Quotations (who needs two?). and other treasures.

One half-shelf holds old books of sentimental value—hymnals from my childhood and  a copy of the songbook that my dad and I used to sing out of on Sunday nights—he’d play the piano and we’d both sing, though neither of us could carry a tune in a bushel basket. There’s a copy of Get Thee Behind Me, a preacher’s kid’s (pk) account of trying to counter sin—a book that made me laugh when I was a kid with a dad who was a pk—and a terribly worn copy of Foster-Harris’ invaluable guide, The Look of the Old West. I used that research tool a lot when I was writing westerns. Lots of treasures.

We were dusty and dirty by the time we went to the Black Rooster for sandwiches. I’m a fan of that bakery, and it puzzles me that some of my friends aren’t. Chicken salad on a croissant—what’s not to like?

But the upshot of the day is that I have neatly arranged bookshelves with some room to display family photos and the like, and an accessible shelf for office supplies. Well, it will be accessible when we get one box and two shopping bags of books to storage. Then even I can get to printer paper and book mailers.

Doing this massive undertaking with Mary made it fun instead of a chore, and she was the one who pointed out it was better to be busy than to mope. There’s nothing like a good neighbor and friend.

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.

Sunshine and problem solving

My romaine harvest

Loving this bright, sunny day even if it is still cold enough that I have my woolly gray sweater around my shoulders and my prayer shawl over my knees. Sophie, feeling better than she has in a couple of weeks, is out enjoying the sunshine instead of sleeping in a chair. Her day got off to a better start than mine—she ate the biscuit I had put out to defrost for my breakfast.

My day got better though. I woke in the night worried about three things—hearing aids, my herb garden, and the novel I think I’m writing. You know how sometimes in the night your brain gets wired, and no matter how hard you try to think of other things your mind always goes back to what’s bothering you? That’s where I was at two-thirty this morning.

I am having hearing-aid-battery troubles—one ear keeps going dead, which I could stand except that, because my aids are hooked to my phone, the phone quits when the battery goes out. The other day I picked Jacob up from a sleepover. Not wanting to disturb people I didn’t know early on a Saturday, I parked at the curb and called him. The phone rang once and disconnected. About that time, I realized that right aid had died, but I didn’t connect the two. Kept trying to call—I’d hear him say, “Juuu” and then nothing. When he finally came out, I asked why he didn’t answer and he said, “I did. You called so often I thought you were butt dialing me.” Later that day when I went on an errand by myself, I had to choose which was more important—the hearing aids or the phone. I chose the phone.

This morning the wonderful Tracy Burger at TCU’s Miller Speech and Hearing Clinic told me I can use disposable batteries until the rechargeable one on order comes in, so I feel relieved about that.

And the equally wonderful Zenaida who cleans my cottage every other week was able to undo

The out of control mustard

the extension on the arm of my herb garden, so now the light is back down low, directly on the seedlings. Last night Christian and I transplanted the basil, which is semi-flourishing, to a separate pot, and I started seedlings in the herb garden, having figured out that mix and match wasn’t a good idea. If you do three of the same things, they grow at the same rate, and you aren’t raising the arm for one plant and thereby depriving of the warmth and light it needs. I worried about not being able to raise and lower the light not just because I didn’t want to waste seedlings but also because I didn’t want to be a failure at indoor herb gardening, after my son had given me the garden.

So far I’ve harvested romaine—made a salad—and mustard greens, which I added to a salad I served a friend the other night. The plant had grown tall—taller than the highest extension of the light arm—and had flowered, which to me indicated harvest time. It was good but there wasn’t enough to make a real difference in the salad.

And I’m working on that novel, putting into play all the notes I made yesterday, trying to get to know the characters better, figuring out their backgrounds. Usually I get the first line and just sail into a story, but it wasn’t working this time. I didn’t feel I knew the characters well enough. I’m slowly getting a handle on it. Thirty-six hundred words; only sixty-seven hundred to go!

Enjoyed my weekly Tuesday night happy hour with neighbor Mary Dulle tonight, and then had sauerkraut and potatoes for dinner. I intended to add meatloaf, but the vegetables looked so good I just stuck to them. So glad I don’t have to watch a political speech tonight. I didn’t want to watch trump last night but kept it on in case coverage switched to Beto. It didn’t on the channel I was watching.

Interesting and horrifying times we live in.

Panic and other moments in the day

Sophie decided to go walkabout this afternoon. After my obligatory afternoon nap, I let her out as I always do. Oops. About two minutes later I noticed the yard gate and driveway gate were both open…and no Sophie in the yard. She never misses a chance. Bless Jordan. I called her and she was out the door with a leash and a treat. After stopping traffic as Sophie ran across the street, Jordan finally cornered her and brought her home, nonetheless the worse for wear. I cannot describe the panic I feel each time a dog, any dog, is missing. In this case, I feared a car hit though I also worry about dognappers. I have become a little calmer because Sophie consistently returns unscathed and joyful about her outing, but that worry is always there.

Sophie had a hard day anyway. The plumber and upholsterer were both here today. The plumber required many trips outside to see what was going on; for the upholsterer, the plumber—by now a good friend—locked her out in the yard, which caused her great frustration. She recovered by napping on the couch.

I now have three newly re-upholstered chairs. I’ve thwarted Sophie’s tendency to sleep in the wing chair by putting a cushion in it. She eyes the barrel chairs, but I’ve only seen her in one once.

The couch seems an obvious choice. The chair she’d slept in all her life was so stained and dirty that I’m ashamed—a friend is putting it in her cabana for a dog chair (appropriate). And I’m reconsidering Sophie’s bath and grooming schedule. That thick doodle coat is too much for me and I send her to the groomers, but I think now it must be more often.

Years ago, a neighbor and good friend needlepointed a pillow for me with the Blue Willow pattern on it. I have my mom’s Blue Willow china plus some that my ex gave me. My kids grew up on it, and now that I’ve downsized by distributing all the other china sets I had to my family, Blue Willow is both my daily china and my entertaining choice.

The pillow, however, has gotten worn and dirty over the years. Jordan wanted to get rid of it, but I wouldn’t hear of it. The upholsterer took it today and will use leftover material from the chairs to back it.

I argued with my neighbor tonight. Nothing new. We argue all the time—he’s a conservative, and I’m a liberal. I like to say I’m a social liberal and a fiscal conservative, but the two may be incompatible. Tonight’s topic was Stephen Colbert. I contend that when government, FCC in this case, investigates social media for unfavorable comments about our presumptive president, we are on a steep, slippery slope. Jay argued that it was profane. I dislike profanity, in fact I’m pretty much a prude on the subject. But I think the level of comment doesn’t affect my basic idea—censorship is censorship, and it leads to dictatorship. Anybody want to weigh in?