A sort of nothing weekend

 

Usually I plan ahead and see that there are good things on my calendar for weekends, but this weekend? Nothing! It’s a bit of vanity to realize that one reason was that I couldn’t wash my hair. Sounds silly and frivolous but I think it’s true. I had that thingie removed from my scalp on Friday, and the doctor said to wait two days to shampoo. That was Friday late morning, so does Friday count as one of the days? I decided to err on the side of caution and wait until Monday. But my hair had Vaseline in it from the procedure and was generally a mess, and I was self-conscious about it. Tomorrow I am going to wash it first thing in the morning, and I expect the world to be a lot better.

We hoped to hear about the new dog we are interested in today—hear as in an invitation to greet and meet. But it didn’t happen. The wheels of dog adoption, like a lot of other wheels, move slowly. Having adopted four children, I should not be surprised at this slow procedure, but I guess I expected pet adoption to be easier. It’s probably a good thing for pets that it is not. The foster said she wasn’t able to get approval of my application today, so we wait (I am already conditionally approved). I was afraid that the poor boy was so attached to his foster that he wouldn’t want to be uprooted, but Jordan found out that agencies rotate dogs, not letting them stay too long with any foster for just that reason. I suppose that also cuts down on foster fail, where fosters fall so in love with the dog, they decide to be the permanent adoptive family. We did hear that the boy we have our eye on has been in foster care for two years, which makes me so sad I want to rescue him immediately. But we have also heard that he is afraid of “everything,” and that gives me pause. I had an experience with a fearful dog at Christmas when my granddaughter’s dog was afraid of my walker. And I want a dog with some spirit. So I am uncertain.

Weekends are usually good cooking times for me but that too went awry this weekend. I planned last night to make cod in a butter/lemon sauce, so with my grocery order I requested a lb. of cod. I got a quarter lb.—enough for no one else but me. We had garlicky chicken thighs in an anchovy/lemon sauce. Good, but I wanted to cook the fish, partly because I like fish and partly because I’d like to add more of it to our diet. Jacob has been wanting spaghetti, so tonight I made a recipe called Weeknight Bolognese. I can’t recommend it. I chose to make it on Sunday so I could cook all day, but the recipe really didn’t take that long—except for browning two-and-a-half lbs. of ground meat (beef and Italian sausage). I got wide pappardelle noodles, but the sauce wasn’t as rich and thick as I wanted. In fact, it was thin. Good flavor, but not what I want in an Italian sauce. And I thought it was way too much meat in proportion to the sauce. Jacob didn’t say anything, but I noticed he didn’t eat much. I’m going to plan soon to make an old-fashioned, Italian nonna kind of Sunday soup that cooks all day. Honest we could have used the bottled Rao marinara sauce Jordan bought, and it would have made me happier.

It's ten o’clock, and I have just had my second nap of the day. I relish my afternoon nap—it’s become a part of my routine, and I think it healthy. But when I fall asleep at my computer at eight-thirty, it’s a clear sign that I am not engaged in what I’m doing. So that too will have to change. I find I almost never want to go back and pick up where I left off—clearly I abandoned them because I wasn’t that interested. So I’m on a mission to find a book that absorbs my attention and calls me back.

All of this leaves me with a lot of resolves to kick up my interest in life. Fortunately, I understand that these dull, down periods are a part of life and are regularly more than balanced by periods of high activity and engagement. It’s up to me, so I resolve to be a new person (again!) starting tomorrow. Now who’s got plans for next weekend?

 

 

The old lady in the mirror

Mushroom soup

Routine mammogram the other day. As usual, they sat me in  tiny dressing room to wait my turn, and the tech gave me the simple instructions all ladies have heard countless times. After she left, I turned to Jordan who was with me and said, “There’s an old lady in that mirror.” She laughed and said, “You were staring at the mirror the whole time that woman was talking to you.”

Indeed I was—staring in horror. I have always prided myself, vainly perhaps, on neither looking nor feeling my advanced age. But there I was staring at this woman with thinning gray hair plastered to her head—where was my comb and what happened to blond me? I had great bags under my eyes and sort of sallow skin. Plus of course, those wrinkles.

“I look like my Aunt Alice,” I wailed, which set Jordan to giggling again.

“It’s a fake mirror, designed to make you look old. Maybe I should see how I look.” She stood up, back to me, and stared in the mirror for a long time. Then, with an impish grin, she turned around and said, “I look pretty good.”

Thereafter ever time she caught me looking, she’d giggle and offer to change seats with me. Truly, there was no other place for me to look. The blasted mirror was about four feet in front of me in that small room.

I swore I didn’t look like that when I left the cottage, and I vowed to go home and check my mirror. At home, I did look better, but the lighting is different, softer. Now I worry about how I really look to others in the daylight. Maybe I’ll just wear dark glasses all the time. The pouches truly are hereditary from my dad’s side of the family.

To top it off, the tech was too solicitous. In truth, she was pleasant, talkative, and concerned. But she repeated things in a deliberate loud, slow voice and kept reassuring me I did fine. What’s to do wrong in a mammogram? Maybe she took a clue from the receptionist who checked us in and talked almost exclusively to Jordan after I confessed that I didn’t remember to bring my insurance card. And some money fell out of my purse, which led Jordan to ask why I had loose money in my purse, and I replied I didn’t have a clue. Guess I was marked as doddering right then and there.

Tonight I redeemed myself, I hope, by fixing dinner for a friend—a goat cheese/pesto appetizer, homemade mushroom soup, small dinner salads. So good. The soup was an experiment and involved both my small food processor and my immersion blender, but I finally got it close to the velvety texture the recipe specified. For dessert, I offered Trader Joe’s cookie butter. When I read about it, I asked Jordan what you ate it with, and she replied, “A spoon.” Tonight my friend tried it on a baguette slice and said it was much like peanut butter. I gave the rest of the jar to Jordan.

It’s a joy to me to prepare such a meal for a friend, and even the fixing is a joy—okay, maybe not chopping the onion and garlic—but the rest of it, making it come out right even if I have to use blender and processor (I have hand washed a lot of dishes tonight), planning the menu, finding I had hearts of palm to add to the salad, deciding to add a dollop of sour cream to the soup when serving. It’s all fun and gives me a sense of accomplishment.

Tonight I cooked for a friend of over forty years. Our ex-husbands were colleagues in medicine, and we stayed in touch, sporadically, over the years after our respective divorces. Though she’s recently had major surgery, she remains a person of happy disposition with a good sense of humor, and I thoroughly enjoy her company. We differ on our opinions about trump, but I tried to soft-peddle it when it came up tonight. That means I was not my usual vociferous self. Where, I wonder, do I draw the line between passionate loyalty to our beleaguered country and friendship of long standing.

This old lady in the mirror is signing off. Sweet dreams, everyone.

Winter, pause for thought, and a thought on vanity

            It’s a wintry cold day in Fort Worth, the kind of damp cold that chills to the bone, or as old-timers would say, to the marrow. A morning trip to the grocery made me cold for the day. My cottage is cozy, but it has lots of windows, and since it’s an old structure at heart, it’s drafty. I long for a fireplace, but there’s no room for it.

My ego has suffered a terrible blow. A couple of weeks ago, Jacob confided he had asked a certain girl to be his valentine. When I asked what that meant, he shrugged and said he’d probably take her to dinner. I heard no more about it, but Jordan announced the other day that she and Christian would be going out that night, and I would have Jacob for supper. Valentine’s happens to be a Wednesday (and also, in an odd twist, Ash Wednesday). That’s the night my weekly dinner pal Betty and I go to supper, and she said Valentine’s didn’t matter. So I asked Jacob if he’d like to bring said girl to dinner with me and his “Aunt Betty.”

The answer was a definite negative shake of the head. I have to say it was delivered with one of his charming smiles and a sparkle in his eye. But he was clearly appalled at the thought. “Why?” I asked. “Is it because we’re old.” The head shake was affirmative this time, though the grin stayed in place.

I have to admit I was taken back. I don’t think of myself as old, and it . .. well, it hurt my feelings a bit, that he sees that as my defining characteristic. Jordan said he wouldn't even let his parents take them to dinner and is trying to get up some groups event. Still, I’ll have to get his oldest cousin to talk to him. Once last summer she drove over from Frisco to have supper with me, and when I thanked her for coming all this way to see an, old lady, she assured me I’m fun. Maybe when Jacob’s eighteen instead of eleven!

I’ve been thinking about the occupant of the White House and vanity. A friend posted that 45 has done so much bad that people attach anything bad to him, whether it’s his fault or not. I agree, but he bulls through life with such belligerence and such lack of grace that it’s hard to muster any sympathy.

I saw a picture the other day of him boarding his plane. The wind was up, and it played havoc with his hair, exposing the very bald back of his head. I might feel sympathy for another man—or woman—similarly exposed, but all I could think was what crashing vanity compelled him daily to construct that elaborate and unattractive hairdo. Why doesn’t he adjust to baldness, like thousands of others do? Or at least wear a hat.

Thought for the day: The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails. So, folks, adjust your sails and stay warm this wintry weekend. And, Mr. Trump, get a fedora.