Lost my oomph

 

Christian's porch plants

Somehow, today, I lost my oomph. Not all that unusual on a Sunday. Sometimes my body seems to say, “Nope, it’s Sunday. The day of rest. I’m not gonna do that, no matter how you nag.” And my brain follows right along. So I fiddled the day away, browsing on the net, napping, reading.

I did a couple of good things—sent off a critique to an as-yet unpublished author. She replied that she was taken aback by some of my comments, and I admit I was brutally honest. But the manuscript didn’t engage me, and I saw some clear ways to fix it. I was honest about the fact that I only read fifty pages—because I was bored, though I didn’t say that—and she of course said if I’d read further, I might have been more engaged. I replied that if most readers have to go fifty pages into a book, they just won’t do it. Ideally, you should capture the reader on the first page. I have lingering regret over the whole thing—it will teach me not to volunteer to critique. But I couldn’t see encouraging a writer about a manuscript that, in my best judgment, has no market appeal. At least, I was honest, and it’s off my desk.

And after a bit of difficulty I sent the neighborhood monthly newsletter to the designer, so that too if off my desk. But it will come right back in the form of proof tomorrow.

Jean came for supper, and Christian fixed his delicious hamburgers. I made smashed potatoes to go with them, something I’ve just learned to do. The first time I asked Christian to get tiny Yukon Gold potatoes, he got about four times the number I thought I needed. So tonight I cooked what was left. In duck fat. Jordan and Jean really like the potatoes but would like to call the fat something else. When Megan first told me she cooked these, she said she had chicken fat. I refrained from asking if it was kosher schmalz, but I don’t think the girls would like this any better. The first time I used duck fat, I thought it instantly made my tiny kitchen small like Thanksgiving. It makes terrific potatoes.

The big accomplishment of the day belongs to Christian and Jordan: tonight they pulled the electric wheelchair to the middle of my closet, located the charger, found that the chair still turned on, and plugged it in to charge overnight. My brother goes home from rehab tomorrow, so the timing is good. Now we have to get the chair from Fort Worth to Tolar and all is well. Except of course that the chair is in the middle of my closet—no way my walker and I can get in for clean clothes, laundry, etc. Zenaida comes tomorrow, and the first thing she does is start a load of my laundry in the house. Not tomorrow. I am telling myself none of it is the end of the world.

I had a hilarious conversation with Christian tonight—because I thought I was talking to Colin. Too detailed to tell all, but the voice said he would need make and model number of the wheelchair to check the battery location, and I said, “Sweetheart, I sent it to you days ago.” The voice, incredulous: “You did? I don’t remember seeing it.” When I asked when he thought he might come look at the chair (mind you, this was, in my mind, Colin who is four hours away in Tomball), he said, “Well, tonight when I come out for supper.” That was my clue I was talking to the wrong person.

The fact that they were able to charge the chair is good news/bad news. It means there is no excuse to get Colin up here to do chores, and as I freely admit I will use any excuse to get any of my children to come visit. “Want a deli sandwich from Carshon’s. Colin? I’ll buy!” But I don’t want him to drive all this way if he doesn’t need to.

One of the things that the voice said to me in that misbegotten phone call was, “I’ve been out all day planting.” Didn’t sound like Colin to me—he is more likely to spend the day building or repairing something big. But who am I to ask. It was of course Christian, and he was busy with the pots on the front porch. Christian is a pot gardener (no, not that kind!), and each year the front porch is amazing. I’m letting a couple of his photos carry the weight of this blog tonight.

Hope everyone has their oomph in place as we approach this new week, the last for most pubic school kids in Texas. Who knows what the schools

will look like in the fall, after this legislative session is over. Fingers crossed, prayers said.

Every day an adventure

Several years ago I inherited the job of editor of our Berkeley Place Association newsletter, the Poohbah, from a friend and neighbor. It was sort of temporary while Mary, then the editor was on an extensive European trip, but it morphed into permanent, and I’ve been doing it ever since. I don’t mind; in fact, I’m glad to do my bit for the neighborhood because it’s a great place to live.

Along with the job, I inherited the woman who was designing it—a graphic designer, I’m not. We’ve worked together smoothly for several years and developed a nice give-and-take in our working relationship. In fact, she designed my cookbook and did a super job. But I knew nothing about her as a person.

My good friend Subie distributes the Poohbah, and was astounded that I’d never met Amy, the designer. “We must take her to lunch,” she said. And so today, we met Amy for lunch.

I’m not sure what I expected, but I think it was someone older, perhaps a little Bohemian. Amy is a bit younger than my youngest child and looks ten years younger than that. She has a four-year-old child and says she does her best work after he’s asleep. And Bohemian she’s not—she’s a graduate of TCU and would fit right in on that campus today.

We had a delightful lunch, chatted about design work and the Poohbah and probably bored her with too many tales about our families and adventures. We probably won’t meet often, but it’s terrific to have a face and a person to match with the name.

                                                                                          Wednesday morning

Oops. Didn’t finish this last night, because I went to the TCU Scholarship Dinner—a huge and impressive affair honoring scholarship recipients and donors. There are well over 900 scholarships available to TCU students.

The dinner was held in the Ed and Rae Schollmeier Arena, where the usual basketball floor was covered with temporary carpet and filled with beautifully decorated tables. What most impressed me was that TCU knows how to do it with class and precision. Everywhere we turned there was someone to help us—my host, friend and neighbor Mary (she who gifted me the Poohbah), had called ahead to be sure there was a golf cart to take us from parking to the concourse; inside there was someone stationed to show us the elevator, and on the floor level someone  else guided us through halls to the dining area. Same when we reversed, where TCU police gallantly opened doors.

Although I only spoke to a couple of people I knew from my TCU days, I spotted many other familiar faces. As I said to Mary, some of them have aged. Her reply was, “So have we.” There were easily a thousand people there, maybe more.

Fun, briefly, to be back in the academic world, but even when I was there full time I rarely participated in the big, showy events—so it was almost a new adventure for me.

Back to routine today.

Busy day…and a good one

Every evening when I type the date on my blog post, I wonder where the month of November has gone. How can we be halfway through already, with Thanksgiving a week away? I do NOT want to hear how many shopping days are left until Christmas. Have you done your shopping? I’ve got a good start on mine—all online ordering, since it’s hard for me to get out and shop, and I never was a good shopper anyway. Bless Amazon.

Worked long and hard today on the neighborhood newsletter but it’s the kind of work I enjoy—tracking down details, checking on facts, rearranging words and punctuation. For me, that’s fun. In one article there was a reference to a Miss Maberry. From context I could tell she grew up in our neighborhood in the 1920s, but she just seemed to hang there in space. It was an article reprinted from years ago, so the original author was not available to question. I asked a friend who’s an author/historian/archivist/researcher, and she soon came up with fascinating information on Miss Maberry, who apparently lived in her parents’ house all her life, a single lady. That kind of little stuff really excites me.

Tomorrow, back to editing the next novel. I’ve been dillydallying because my editor can’t look at it until January. But a conversation with dinner pal Betty tonight plus a reminder from my webmaster made me realize I have a lot to do between now and January 1 and I better get to it.

Betty and I took Jacob with us and went to a reception that Jordan’s new company gave to welcome her tonight. We only planned to stay fifteen minutes. She introduced us as only staying five minutes—is there a message there? Just kidding. We had both dressed carefully to make her proud, and we were so impressed with both the office space and the people. Lots of sincere greetings, a beautiful space with a lot of wood decorating it, a kitchen that was to-die-for and chefs from a cruise company at work in the kitchen. Bonus: good wine.

The office is U-shaped and wraps around a patio that is all wooden deck, with lights in the trees. The party drifted through the offices but was centered on the deck. Really classy event, and I’m so proud of my baby child and so happy for her.

We went to a local restaurant having a lobster festival, and I had a lobster roll—good, the meat tender (sometimes it’s not when you’re far from the ocean and it’s been frozen and cooked too long). Betty, who cannot resist shrimp just because I can’t have them, had lobster/shrimp Newburg. Jacob had cheese pizza, and we brought a whole lot of it home.

Nice, now, well-fed and socialized, to be home in jammies and at my desk. Jacob is supposed to be doing his homework. I can see that he just turned off the TV, so maybe that’s a step in the right direction.

The world seems to be in its place. Okay, we won’t talk about tax plans and health care bills though I can’t help giggling: 45 cut the advertising budget and enrollment time for the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, as a way of killing it. A record number of people have already signed up. Anyone believe in karma?

Some experiments just don’t work out

Sporting Baylor's green and gold. Real school spirit

Quiet Saturday night. The Burtons are in Waco for the Baylor homecoming game, though they plan to make it home before the storms hit later tonight. Right now, it’s a lovely night. Patio doors open, and in the distance, I can hear faint music and cheering from the TCU homecoming. Of course, in my mind, Jordan, Jacob, and Christian have gone to the wrong game, but Christian is a dedicated Baylor fan and my efforts to convert Jacob to TCU have been fruitless. His cousin, Ford, however, is a dedicated TCU fan.

Perfect night for an experimental dinner. I’d found a recipe for eggs poached in red wine. Since I love poached eggs, it seemed to have my name on it. I added some sautéed mushrooms, and it was okay but not the score of ten I’d hoped for.  Best thing about it was the baguette slices browned in garlicky olive oil.

Eggs in the pan

The eggs looked beautiful in the pan, not so much so when I dished them up. It tasted okay but just not the outstanding and unusual dish I’d hoped for. I may work on it another time.

The final dish

Basting the eggs with wine gives them a funky color

A light supper was okay, because I had a hearty lunch. This morning I was working away when Jordan came out to announce that Christian had taken Jacob to a soccer game and did I want to go to lunch. So I showered and got ready. We chose Press Café where we could eat outdoors and enjoy the lovely day—temp in the 80s, slight breeze, comforting cloud cover. I had a cheeseburger—and I can’t believe I ate the whole thing! Usually I bring half home for a future meal, but this tasted really good although it was not quite cooked according to my request.

We drove around the new shops at Clearfork, Fort Worth’s new ultra ultra (and expensive) shopping center anchored by Neiman Marcus which alone tells you something about it.. There are restaurants there, but I will avoid many of them because the price is so high. I have my eye on one though that seems to have an interesting menu and reasonable prices. I had no idea there were so many shops back in there.

Came home and napped—that glass of wine with lunch! But I got a good thing accomplished today—the November neighborhood newsletter, the Poohbah, is ready to go to the printer as soon as I get answers to some questions I unearthed in the copy and approval of some bold changes I made in the minutes. Nice to have that out of the way.

A long email from a treasured and longtime friend who lives way too far away completed my day. She nailed it, said what drives us both is a northern European Protestant work ethic. Read that as we are two compulsives. Martha and I were in graduate school together in the sixties---shh! No comments about how long ago that was, please—and we gravitated to each other immediately. We were both in the English department and had another thing in common—our fathers were both presidents of osteopathic medical colleges. Ours is a friendship that has endured over long distance, with a few wonderful visits, for over fifty years. Such is rare and to be treasured.

A really good day. I think I’ve got my oomph back.

Livin' High

Yesterday I posted above livin' high at local restaurants; today it's just living high in general. Today my horoscope said something about "the various elements in your life that are flowing together smoothly" and that's exactly how I feel. Everything in my life seems to be going well. I feel good and optimistic, and I wake up each day with joy. I'm not a big believer in astrology but I do read my horoscope most days--usually it's so wildly off the mark that I ignore it, but I find it comforting when it's optimistic like today. It went on to say something about a key relationship might thrive if I don't let ambition get in the way--I always think that means a romantic relationship, and I'm way beyond believing a knight in shining armor is going to ride my way. On the other hand, it could well mean a professional relationship--and I made a contact today that I think will smooth out one project for me a great deal, so maybe that's it. I don't see ambition getting in the way, but I suppose we don't see ourselves clearly.
Tonight's a full moon, which may have something to do with this. I don't follow or understand all that about Mercury in retrograde or anything, but I wonder how long this euphoria will last. I'd like to bottle it, please.
Tonight Mary Dulle and I went to the city's Neighborhoods office awards dinner--the Poohbah was one of three honored in the newsletter category. Mary edited it the first half of last year, and I did it the second half so we shared the spotlight and had our picture taken with the mayor and our city councilman. It was pretty impressive to hear what some neighborhoods have done--the Neighborhood of the Year (still can't figure out where it is) instituted an extensive drowning-prevention program. Another neighborhood lightened a tunnel under RR tracks that kids have to walk through to get to school--an artist painted a mural. There's a lot of civic pride in Fort Worth, and it was neat to see it and see how many people turned out for the dinner. Nice, efficient program--over by eight. The way things ought to go!