How soon can I go back to bed?

 

Do some moments from your childhood—ordinary moments, nothing of special importance—come back to you with amazing clarity? I remember one morning going to the garage with my mom. She was going to drive me someplace—not school, because I walked to elementary school and took public transportation to high school (and I’m so old that we didn’t have middle school in Chicago in my day). Out of the blue she suddenly said, “I woke up this morning wondering how soon I could go back to bed.” For her, at that time in our lives, the answer was at least ten at night. I can’t date this incident precisely but we had the pale blue Ford (I can see it clearly in my mind’s eye), so it was undoubtedly the Fifties, and I was too young to drive but old enough to understand what she was saying.

This came back to me today because that’s the way I’ve felt all weekend. I’ve said before that even though my schedule is my own, I somehow let down on weekends, move at a slower pace. And this weekend I wanted to sleep a lot. Two things kept me from it: the first is Sophie, though she slept until eight yesterday, praise be! And today her snuffling and coughing woke me at six-fifteen, but I gave her a Benadryl and talked gently to her about it not yet being daylight. She went back to bed and slept until eight.

The other thing that calls me to get out of bed is my conscience. I don’t remember it ever being said directly, but in the house of my childhood, sleeping late was a bit slothful. There is the world’s business to be up and about. This morning I finally got up for real about nine and felt terribly self-indulgent. One of the things that distinguishes weekends is that I generally don’t try to write fiction. I don’t know why Saturday and Sunday feel different, but they do. I did today read some background material and work out the genealogy of a family whose history I hope will play into the story—found I needed to slip in another generation or I would have had women having babies in their sixties.

And I had the neighborhood newsletter to get out. We will lose two working days this week, so I was anxious to get it to the designer in the hope that it could still come out about the first of December. I had done most of the work on Friday, proofread what I’d done yesterday, and waited for stragglers to send their stuff today. Frustrating. But tonight it is in the hands of the designer, and one more thing is off my conscience.

Last night, Jean came for supper. I made a chicken casserole and cooked an artichoke a neighbor gave me. The casserole is part of my current interest in retro food—used good old cream of mushroom soup, with chicken and hard-boiled eggs and a lot of diced celery for crunchiness. Made a sauce of mayonnaise, lemon, garlic, and pecorino cheese for the artichoke. Another time I’ll leave out the minced garlic—just hard little bits you don’t want to bite on. The dinner was so good, I had it all over again tonight.

But before I had my supper tonight, friends Subie and Phil came for happy hour with their son, Sean, and his girlfriend. I haven’t seen Sean in a while and as glad to meet Roni. We had a jolly time, arguing over literary figures and movies and somehow avoiding politics. Sean and I are Facebook buddies, on the same page about everything from Kyle Rittenhouse to covid vaccinations (he’s a nurse practitioner). When the Rittenhouse name came up tonight I simply said, “Don’t get me started.”

Now I’m off to read a mystery I just started: Funeral Food, by Kathleen Taylor. Set in a small-town café in South Dakota and so gritty you can smell the dust off the prairie. There’s a lot of focus on sex and inuendo, and the narrator’s tone is irreverent and wonderful to read. The story involves two Mormon missionaries adrift in this town but more than that I don’t know.

Tonight, I read; tomorrow I get back to work.

Sleeping my life away

 

The thing about shingles is that the medication makes you sleepy. I am in danger of sleeping my life away. Last night about nine, I lay down to take a quick nap, planning to get up and blog. I woke up at midnight, did the bare essentials—locked up the cottage, turned on the alarm, saw that Sophie had water—and went back to bed. I slept until nine this morning. And then the day floated away as I dealt with emails and read Facebook.

Line of the day—I’m sharing with a line from an email with you before I go public with it, but it is so funny. This comes from author Ann McCauley who wrote a great review of Saving Irene. She says she wants to be invited to Henny and Patrick’s wedding, but please do not seat her at the table with Irene. I love it when my characters become so real to people. There is some buzz about Irene in Danger, the sequel on which I have not written word one. But Ann insists the wedding has to be at the Palmer House. Such fun. And, yes, I do listen to my readers.

Lots of nice things have happened to me in the last couple of days. Yesterday morning, a dear friend called. She lives not far away but we haven’t seen each other because of quarantine. She’s had some family business to worry over and tend to, but the restaurant they own is going along with their supervision being remote. It was good to catch up, but I was sad we can’t see each other. She does not quarantine as strictly as I do.

In the afternoon, a childhood friend sent a message asking for my phone number. I sent it, and she called immediately. Judy and I lived next door to each other from before I can remember until we were both grown. I have seen her and her Episcopalian priest husband occasionally. When they travel through Texas, they put me on their visit list. But it’s been a while, and I was glad to hear her voice today. We had a grand, long conversation. She loves the Hyde Park references in Saving Irene but she specifically loved one character that resembled someone we both knew. What fun. She said we’d talk again soon. She and her husband, who has retired, live in Muskegon, in cold north Michigan, along with Judy’s younger sister, Nancy. I’m getting lots of input about a second Irene story, do Judy and I will talk about that.

I got the December issue of Southern Living, which always makes for a good day. And Jordan made the dinner tonight, while I sort of supervised and washed a good load of cooking dishes. Tater tot casserole is apparently a favorite in the Midwest. I just heard of it but realized tonight it’s a complicated recipe: meat layer, sauce layer, repeat, then add tater tots and top with cheese. It was delicious. Jordan and Christian both thought it tasted like stroganoff, though there is no sour cream in the sauce, which is a mire poix in a white sauce—I think the white sauce is what they tasted. Anyway, it went on our list of keepers.

Last night’s entrée also went on the keepers list. Christian pounded chicken breasts flat, slathered with onion soup dip—you know, the stuff your kid could eat a whole bowl of and, truth be told, probably you could too. It’s an old friend and highly addictive which means it has lots of salt. Once you covered the chicken with that, you cover it with panko. Sauté until it is gold brown on both side and the meat is cooked through. The sour cream keeps the meat moist and good. Jacob wants it for dinner every night.

I’m thinking tonight about quarantine and the surge and wondering if I’ll ever be able to dine in a restaurant with friends. I’d like to break out of my cocoon. And I’m thinking too of a defeated president who is threatening the security of the nation by satisfying his ego and refusing to concede. They are not happy thoughts, but the determined way Biden is handling transition gives me hope.

Be safe and well, my friends.

I’m not blogging about this

We are all to some extent creatures of habit, me perhaps more than some and perhaps more so as I age. Today my routine was upset. Movers were due at nine o’clock this morning to take three pieces of furniture from my bedroom—a mahogany bed with a six-foot headboard and a four-foot footboard, a matching mahogany buffet with a marble top, and a sewing stand. The buffet is not so heavy, but the bed and buffet are. The plan is for the movers to store the furniture until the new floor is in.

I was not surprised that I woke up at four-thirty and could not go back to sleep. Anticipation. Worrying about those few last-minute things I had to move—a drawer to be emptied, the bed to be stripped. With the help of Jordan and Jacob, I had emptied drawers over a two-week period and moved chairs and gotten everything off the floor and much of it stored in the main house. But there was that nervous anticipation.

The movers arrived promptly, and all seemed well. But then they had trouble dismantling the bed frame, and that made me nervous. It’s the bed my parents slept in—probably the one in which I was conceived—and it’s a memory from childhood, the place I would go for comfort. I remember once having nightmares—the only time in my life—and going to sleep with my parents. And I remember as a tiny child being invited to cuddle in the mornings. No, I don’t want anything to happen to that bed. The buffet was always in our dining room. Now its marble is broken into two pieces, and I am never sure if it always was or if that happened in one of my moves since I’ve had it. The sewing stand, also a piece of childhood memory, is light and not a problem—and it makes a great bedside table. I love being surrounded by family antiques.

They got everything moved in fairly short order once they figured out how to deal with the bed. And Omigosh! The mess under the bed. And the difference in color in the carpet where it was trafficked from where it was under the bed. That carpet was a mistake from the beginning. W will leave it in the closet simply because clearing out the closet was too much to even contemplate. I took pictures of the mess, but even as I did, I heard Jordan’s words, “Don’t blog about this.” I am not sharing those pictures.

The floor people had said they’d be here “after lunch,” but time ticked away. By two I decided to take a nap on the couch, figuring I could hop right up if they arrived. They didn’t, and now I hear that they will be here at nine-thirty in the morning. I can sleep late, provided the couch lets me sleep soundly.

I was delighted that with all this today I got quite a bit of writing done and am headed in the right direction on research. But I sure will be glad to have my house back in order and to sleep in my own bed. Who knows when?

Lazy days aren’t just for summer

This morning I woke up, knew I had an 8:30 breakfast group—and rolled over and went back to sleep. I just didn’t want to get up and get going. Finally dragged myself out of bed just in time to hug Jacob before he went to school. Then this afternoon I slept two hours and lounged in bed another half hour, dozing, dreaming, and thinking. The only positive result that came out of that is I made notes for my new novel—the notes are probably 100 words, not an encouraging start on a 70,000-word novel. But it was a lovely day—took time this morning to make ham salad and devil an egg, so I had a wonderful lunch. And email kept me busy a lot of the day.

In line with my new program of improving my mobility, I put a note in the neighborhood e-mail list that I needed someone to do errands--what I didn’t specify is that I wanted someone to do errands in the mornings with me, not for me. A lovely lady, with two kids in middle and high school, responded, and we came to an agreement. But I was overwhelmed with offers, a few from people I didn’t know but many from friends. I thanked each but explained I wanted this to be a business arrangement and not Judy taking advantage of friends. We will have our first outing tomorrow—I made a long-delayed appointment with the audiologist at TCU. And Thursday we’ll go to the hardware and grocery and then, by myself, I’ll meet a friend for lunch. Life is on the upswing, but I am so grateful for the many offers. People are good.

Tonight was neighbors’ night at the Grill, and I was escorted by two young men, ages nine and ten. They were well behaved and did me proud. Full table, so that I didn’t even get to talk to the people at the other end until I went to say goodnight—and remind them of the signing next Tuesday night. Fun, but now it’s time for Jacob and me to go to bed.