Back to real life

 

 

Jordan and Sophie
Twelve years ago, plus

Sophie seems to be on the mend, so it’s back to real life at our compound. Tomorrow is Jordan’s birthday—my St. Patrick’s baby. I won’t say what birthday it is, but here’s a hint: next year is a biggie. She has an all-day come-and-go party planned for tomorrow at a local hamburger joint/sports bar (I’m sort of guessing what it is, because it’s not on my circuit). None of my friends have been included—as she said tonight, “No adults.” I reminded her that she and her friends are adults now, many of them in their fifties. But I get that mindset and it’s okay, Anyway I will not be at this all-day celebration (and miss my nap? No way). As she pointed out, it will be everything I don’t like—loud, noisy, crowded. So tonight, we had her birthday dinner, the same dinner she’s requested since she was old enough to request: tacos.

There’s a bit of a story behind that menu choice. For the first forty-seven years of her life, Jordan thought she was half Hispanic. That’s what we’d been told by the Edna Gladney Home, and we dutifully set about keeping her informed of her heritage, just as we did for Jamie with his half-Chinese background. For years, Jordan resisted any kind of genetic testing, but a few years ago she broke down and did 23andMe. The results showed that she is almost a hundred per cent northern European. She admitted it came as quite a shock after thinking of herself as Hispanic all these years. So while she might have asked for bangers and mash or shepherd’s pie for her birthday, she stuck with tacos.

Christian was out of town all day and late to our taco party. He had stopped, per my request, at the store to get things needed for the tacos but by the time he arrived we had eaten, so now I have two heads of leaf lettuce, a bag of Fritos, and I don’t know what else that I won’t use. The sharp cheddar I will always use. I thought the meat was dry, but Christian pointed out that sour cream, cheese, and guac hide a multitude of faults.

No cake. Jordan didn’t want one, so I had chocolate bonbons after they went inside.

In the spirit of getting back to reality, I wrote a thousand words on my Irene novel last night—so close to the end and yet so far; it is tantalizing to have it in sight. Except that just when I thought I could wrap things up, the mystery solved, the bad person caught, a new plot twist plopped into my mind and won’t go away. I only have one sentence in my mind, and I have no idea where it will lead me. Also, last night, I blogged and finished the novel I was being slow about reading. So I feel all caught up and a bit righteous.

Last night’s dinner guest, my good friend Jean, cancelled because she had a cold. I didn’t open the can of sardines in preserved lemon that I intended to serve, but I did make myself a good-sized panzanella (Italian bread salad)—so good. Tomorrow night, when the kids are celebrating all day (a concept I struggle to understand) neighbors are to come for happy hour, but now that is uncertain because the wife injured her hand badly enough for an hours-long, middle-of-the-night ER visit. I’m just letting that be on hold.

And the day’s Sophie report: she was responsive this morning and obviously happy to have Jordan pet her, but I thought just a bit more lethargic. The tech explained there had been a problem with a catheter and fixing it had probably worn her out, plus she had just been for a walk an hour earlier. So maybe she was tired, which her panting would indicate. When we were ready to leave, she obviously wanted to go with us and stood before the door to the lobby. When the tech urged her out the door leading to the kennel, she braced her feet and resisted for a moment, but then went docilely along. She is a good girl, but I think she is ready to go home. My heart and my pocketbook are ready to have her home. Apparently, they don’t welcome visitors nor ever discharge patients on Sunday, so we are on hold. Our vet, who I like a whole lot, will be back on Monday, and I am hoping we can move this along.

Meantime, I leave you with a quote. There is a Tyler Farr folksong chorus that goes:

I wish love wasn't so hard.
I wish people could stay together.
I wish girls couldn't break hearts.
And dogs could live forever.

But I have seen another version, and I can’t quote the early lines, but the end is: “I wish dogs lived forever and chocolate cake wasn’t fattening.” I love that, and if I ever come across it again, I’ll share.

Meantime, sweet dreams, happy days, and thanks for being my friends.

 

 

 

A useless day—or a day when I was useless

My brother and me, in happier days

Truth is, probably no day is totally worthless; each has some redeeming quality. But I am hard put to find much good about today. No, it was not a bad day. It was just a day, a plain day, one when I didn’t know what I wanted to do and did almost nothing. I checked emails in the morning and made chicken salad for our dinner, so it could cool and blend its flavors in the fridge all afternoon. And then I fiddled, manufacturing things to do, avoiding what I’d set as my goal for the week.

You see, I’m almost at the end of the first draft of Irene in a Ghost Kitchen. I have the end—the climactic scenes, if you will—in mind, and I think I know how they should go. But I am avoiding putting the words on paper. I think in part I’m afraid to ever call the silly, short book finished, and in another part I’m afraid the end won’t work out as I intend it to. With Irene, one never knows. The entire cast of characters could take off in their own direction and spoil what I think are my plans. So I piddled.

And I didn’t know what to blog about. It’s been a different day—my brother is in the hospital again, just down the street from us. I knew last night they had requested transport from Granbury to Fort Worth where his cardiologist is but there were no beds at the hospital. And then all day today, I knew nothing and was afraid to call, maybe because I didn’t want to intrude or interrupt and maybe because I feared bad news. Finally at six o’clock, I called, he answered, and we had a short but semi-reassuring conversation. When I asked if we should come visit him, he said his dance card was already pretty full. And then he said it was complicated to get there, and I thought he was thinking of me in my transport chair. I have found in the past that hospital has a lot of twists and turns, and you can get lost if you don’t know where you are going. So we will talk again tomorrow.

Also today, Jordan’s new cat went to be neutered, which didn’t affect me much but did throw a monkey wrench in scheduling. They took him eight and were to pick him up at three. Then I called Sophie’s vet because we discovered an abscess on the back of her neck. I had a faint hope he would prescribe antibiotics over the phone, but no—he wanted to see her. Diabetes complicates infection. Jordan took her at eleven and, to my dismay, they kept her. Then they called and said she could go home at three. Schedule conflict! No way the kids could have the dog and cat in the car at the same time. It all worked out: they got the cat, Jordan and the cat came home, and Christian got Sophie about four. She is home, has some antibiotics, and my wallet is a lot lighter. But I am grateful she didn’t spend the night.

Last night we had a farewell happy hour for my Canadian daughter and her husband—I fixed a spread instead of just a light snack, because I knew they would have packed their kitchen and couldn’t cook. Pigs in a blanket, devilled eggs, veggies with a dip, olives, pickles, cherry tomatoes, etc. We had a pleasant evening, and I worked to avoid topics on which we disagree, but somehow the subject of money ruling the world came up. Reluctantly I realize it’s true, but I hate it; she accepts it with a degree of cynicism that frustrates me. When Sue said she as always proven right, I didn’t remind her that she had absolutely guaranteed that trump would win in 2020 because money rules—and he didn’t. But I hated that a touchy subject came up when who knows when we will see them again.

So maybe all that baggage was on my mind tonight and kept me from writing or, until now when it is almost midnight, from blogging. Who knows how creativity works? Tonight, because I as so at loose ends, I took a nap about eight-thirty and that was when I really came to grips with how out of sorts I felt. So I got up, came to the computer, and deliberately wrote three sentences. And I felt the muse kick in, I knew where I was going. It was too late to keep at it, but now I’m fired about tomorrow. I had promised myself I’d write a blog post first thing in the morning, so I turned to the book I’m currently reading. And then it occurred to me that if I wrote the blog tonight, I could go right to the novel in the morning. And sort of what I wanted to say flitted around in my mind. So that’s why these cobbled together thoughts on creativity and indolence.

Sweet dreams all. I hope I dream of Irene wrapping up that story in her usual fine style.

A leftover day

 

Sue and Jordan

I think that’s a perfect name for Saturday. After a work week and before Sunday starts a new week, Saturday is the day left over. I had a busy week and a more active day yesterday than I am used to, so I promised myself a slow, easy day today. It turned out to be a day of leftovers.

I wrote like a fiend much of the week, averaging over a thousand words a day plus, most days, my blog. That wasn't drudgery—it was joy. I’m in one of the spells when the words seem to come easily and the story flows—and writing is fun. But yesterday, no writing. I was up early making tuna salad for a lunch guest and a dip for happy hour guests. At noon, my long time (50 years?) friend Linda arrived. She had the good manners to rave about my tuna, and we caught up with families, the few old friends we still know about, life as elders, and touched on the world situation. Her (relatively new) husband had an appointment elsewhere but popped in. and they both left shortly after two, because Linda insisted I need my daily nap. And I do. Sophie and I are always overjoyed to have Linda in the cottage.

In the evening, Subie, Phil, and Renee came for happy hour. The discussion was wide-ranging but got particularly spirited when we talked about wolves and their effect on the ecosystem and about the city of Greenville (see below). It was all fun, and we were tempted to stay where we were, but a little before seven we left for a farewell party for Teddy and Sue. I’ve explained this relationship several times, but fifteen or more years ago Sue moved into the house next door to me. I can still see her dad walking down the driveway when I asked him, “Are you my new neighbor?” and he replied, in a wonderful Canadian accent familiar to this daughter of a Canadian, “I’m your new neighbor’s father.” Sue, newly divorced, moved in with two young children, and her parents went home to Ottawa, Ontario. In time, Sue declared she needed a Fort Worth mother, since hers was so far away. I was honored and consider her my Canadian daughter. Along the way, she bought a house ten minutes away and married Teddy (one of my favorite people in the world). Now they are moving to Greenville, South Carolina—because they fell in love with the area. My parents retired to a small North Carolina town nearby, and I can easily understand the pull of the region. I’m excited for them but will miss them.

The party was fun, and I even knew a few people. But there were two stairs to get in, and we had to recruit a friend from the party to help me. That sort of got me off on the wrong foot, and it was hard to get my party face on. Still I knew a few people and enjoyed visiting. The setting was a gorgeous house, and I was particularly impressed by the hostess’ daughter who acted as the party angel. Teddy, bless him, helped me out and saw me safely into the car.

So that’s why today is my leftover day. I confess I am still wearing the flannel pants and T-shirt I slept in, and I think I’ll just fall into bed tonight, still wearing them. My work today was leftovers—my neighborhood newsletter, some bills and some insurance matter, more worry about the trees. Kept me busy all morning.

Even my meals are leftover: tuna salad from yesterday for lunch; a bowl of split pea soup brought to me some time ago by a friend. It’s been waiting for me in the freezer for another cold night, and tonight is perfect (at 6:30 it is 41 and headed down). The Burtons are going to Plank, the new seafood restaurant I really want to try. I threatened them if either one came home and told me they had a steak or a hamburger in a seafood house.

Tomorrow won’t be as easy. I’ll go to church in the morning, and I’ve promised to make Norwegian hamburgers for Sunday dinner. Norwegian hamburgers are something we learned about from Colin’s mother-in-law, who lived in Norway until she was seventeen and came to the US to marry Lisa’s father. The hamburgers are meat patties in beef gravy, but don’t dismiss them as like our hamburgers. Different texture, different flavor and delicious. We love Torhild, and we love her cooking. I hope I can do them as well as she does, and I hope there are leftovers.

How about you? How was your Saturday Stay safe and warm on this chilly night.

Silence and simplicity

 

Such a lovely evening last night. I thought it would be colder than it was, so I made a pot of chili. A good friend came to share it—plenty left over for tonight. She is the kind of friend who lets me dump about what’s on my mind, from personal problems I know won’t travel any farther to the political thoughts—and outrage today about the Texas abortion case—that we both share. She brought the gorgeous poinsettia above. I’ve never seen one like it and am particularly fascinated by the one white leaf with the red splotch in the middle.

But late last night, when all was still, Sophie was asleep in her crate by my desk (her favorite place) and I could hear her gently breathing, the Christmas lights still on, I sat with a glass of wine reading the Truman book that has me so interested. And I thought to myself it was one of life’s rare moments of real contentment.

I haven’t been writing lately, except blogs and business letters to take care of all kinds of loose financial ends, but it occurred to me this morning that I was being lazy, and I really should get back to the work-in-progress, another Irene episode. Just when I was scolding myself for slacking off, I went to virtual church, and our minister, Russ Peterman, preached about silence and simplicity and how we get so frantic at this holiday season that we miss the real meaning of whatever holiday we celebrate. We need, he said, to create space in our lives to pause and take a breath, space for stillness. And I thought, “Wow! That’s what I’ve been doing. It’s okay.”

I had originally thought, when I backed off from keeping a compulsive schedule, that I’d pick things back up after the holidays. Now I’m back to that thought. My family will all be together—between fifteen and eighteen of us—and there are things I need to do, lists I need to make. But there are also a world of things I want to read, including that Truman book, and now I feel at ease to do them. This morning I slept late, really late, and about the only thing I did that might be called constructive was to make a batch of chutney, which is not turning out as it should. Otherwise, I’m reheating the chili and going to spend the evening with good old Harry.

This may be the new me. But so far, I’m liking it. Have you taken time to create a space in you life?

Potatoes, onions, and books—an odd combination

 

 

Feeling mellow and content tonight, after a nice (and easy) supper, a good visit with Jean and Jordan. It’s been a lazy day. In fact, it’s been a lazy week. I read an article this morning entitled, “Ten Things You Can Do Around the House to Avoid Writing,” and I thought I didn’t even need that article. I’d been procrastinating nicely on my own. The article made me think of Erma Bombeck (remember her?) who famously said when she rolled a blank sheet of paper into her typewriter, she’d rather go mop floors than write. This article suggested making an elaborate recipe—I did that tonight with--wait for it--marinated kale. More about that another time. Or folding laundry—I don’t do that so much. Walk your dog is pretty much out for me since I need the walker—I doubt Sophie would like that. Erma’s classic mop the floors is there, along with taking a nap. Now there’s a distraction I can agree with.

I do have a complaint though. Has anyone else noticed with dismay how big onions and potatoes are these days? Onions, even my beloved sweet onions, as big as a baseball. And the last couple I’ve tried to slice or dice are hard a rock. And potatoes five or six inches long. I tried to bake one for my supper last night. Used the British method and baked it at 200 for two hours—did not faze that potato. I tried to split it, fluff to let the steam out, as the British do, and I could not begin to split it. I upped the temperature and put it back twice, until it was nearly eight o’clock, and I was hungry. I could cut it, but it sure wasn’t fluffy and tender like you want your baked potato. What I had for dinner was essentially toppings—sour cream, bacon, green onion, grated cheddar with an occasional bit of potato thrown in. Delicious, but not substantial and probably not very good for you. I was so desperate to eat that my final trick was to try to bake just half the potato—didn’t help at all. I told myself I’d bake the other half for lunch today, but I was so disgusted I threw it out.

One problem is that of necessity I order most of my groceries delivered. I try to add a note that say, “Smallest onion you can, please—none of those humongous ones,” but it rarely does any good. It’s just not the same as picking out your groceries yourself. I try if the timing is right to ask Jordan to get them on her occasional grocery runs. But I think someone—farmers, grocers, whoever—has gotten carried away with the idea that bigger is better.

While I’m whining, here’s another complaint. I love seeing on the computer pictures of classic libraries. Some are old, with intricate railings around tiers and tiers of shelves, and you can almost smell the books when you look at the picture. Other pictures show elaborate home libraries, still tall with many tiers and a moveable ladder to get to the top ones. I hereby declare that much as I love books and reading, I do not want any book badly enough to climb one of those shaky ladders to get to it. I also love old things and ways as opposed to modern days with everything machine and computer driven, but I’ll make an exception for libraries, even ancient ones. Surely someone could devise an automated system that would deliver those books to you. It’s one instance where I’d exchange a bit of the picturesque for practicality.

I admit to a lifelong fear of height—acrophobia. I read somewhere that people with a fear of height always want something to hold on to. That wouldn’t do it for me. I wouldn’t climb a ladder to the fifth tier of books, even though I could hold on to the ladder. Jean lives on the seventeenth floor of Trinity Terrace, and when I’m at her apartment I stay clear the other end of the room from the balcony, just in case some magnetic force would pull me out to that open space. Friends Subie and Phil live on the third floor, and I’m much more comfortable there. I’ve often thought I wouldn’t sleep comfortably on the seventeenth floor, but then I remember I have slept on floors that high or more in hotels. That’s another story, but I won’t go into it—a funny story about staying in a Hyatt with babies who could climb. Suffice to say I like my feet—and my bed—firmly planted on the ground.

On that note I’m going to retire to my comfortable bed in my comfortable cottage where I can open the door and let my dog out on good, green earth. A tree man was here the other day, seeing what our trees need (don’t even ask!) but when he came into the cottage to report on what he’d seen, he looked around and said, “I really like your set-up here.” So do I. I thank the Lord every day for my cottage and my comfortable life—and then I feel a bit guilty about all those throughout the world who are living in horrendous conditions. Let us all pray for peace—in Ukraine, in Gaza, at our southern border, in many African nations where there is turmoil. Throughout the world.

So far, a good week

Sophie does not care about elections like I do.

Maybe Tuesday evening is too soon to call it a good week, but this one is starting out well (hear that sound? It’s me, knocking on wood). Last night, Jordan, Christian, and I went to visit friends Subie and Phil Green in their new apartment at Trinity Terrace and were so impressed by how spacious it is, how well laid out, and how comfortable. Windows on the south and west provide a great view—well, okay to the west, it’s the parking lot but the city is beyond and to the south it’s mostly the roof of First Presbyterian. Their patio is the first one in that complex I’ve thought I would venture out on, because it’s only the third floor. Deliver me from Jean’s seventeenth floor balcony! I told Subie if they’d find me a ground floor apartment with an attached dog yard, I might move. I wouldn’t really, but it was good to see them so happily settled.

Most interesting part of the evening: their neighbor in the building is a man who grew up in the house where I lived for twenty-five years and where Jordan, Christian, and Jacob now live. Christian even found a place where he had carved his name—Kenneth Jones—into the cement in our now-crumbling driveway. Kenneth was born in the house next door to the west, moved to our house when he was five, and lived here until he married, at which time he and his bride moved to the house next door to the east. “We were working out way down the block,” he said. He had memories of when there was no Forest Park Boulevard and University Drive stopped at the river. Fascinating evening, and I certainly hope to see more of him.

Tonight was Mary Dulle’s happy hour night, but she brought longtime friend Sharon Benge with her. It was great to catch up with Sharon and particularly to hear her report on her oldest son. Years ago, Sharon and I lived in the same close-knit neighborhood, and I can still remember her and Bill sitting in our dining room and announcing they were expecting their third child. Fun memories. Sharon’s late husband always used to call to check on me, and I truly appreciated him. There are no friends like old friends.

Tonight I made a retro appetizer—stuffed celery. I tried hard to string it but didn’t get all the strings. Still I liked it a lot, better apparently than any of my guests. I used pub cheese that comes in a carton but spiced it up with a recipe I found.

During the day so far I have made my goal of a thousand words a day—that’s purely a goal I set for myself, but I figure it’s a way to keep up the momentum. If I don’t do something like that, I’ll never get this book written. I am reminded of the saying of Ivan Doig—I think that’s the author—who said writing is like driving when you can only see as far as the headlights. Certainly true for me with this book—my mind is usually only one scene ahead of where my writing is. I have no idea how the silly thing is going to end—but that’s good, because you as reader will not be able to guess the end. At least that’s my hope.

I’ve also dealt with a host of business/housekeeping details this week—a bill for last year’s mammogram that was settled in April, but in October the insurance company asked the provider for (and got) a refund which then became a balance for me to pay—can they do that? I will file yet another protest. The upholstery cleaners I like so much are coming by to pick up a newly cleaned cushion which has a new stain—and Sophie is going to the vet so maybe we can figure out why we’re getting these small puddles. I had to reschedule my dentist appointment, since my covid cough is almost gone, and call an arborist because our lawn guy says our trees really, really need professional trimming. It’s always something. My to-do list included a book to order, a curbside menu to check up on, all the little stuff that makes up daily living. And I’ve talked to my brother each day—he’s still in the hospital, and yesterday his voice was strong. Today he’s been sleeping off some pain medication that made him crazy (in the words of his wife). It reassures me to talk to him each day.

It's election night across the country, and I am curiously hopeful. One column I follow—Wake Up to Politics—said not to pay too much attention to off-year results, but I think they will give us an indication of which way the political winds are blowing. I can’t believe some of the statistics I read online—like trump, who seems more deranged daily is leading in five key swing states. It’s too early to be alarmed by such, but I would feel better if we had some strong progressive victories tonight—like enshrining abortion in some states.

Sweet dreams, all. Think positive thoughts.

 

Letting go

 

All my life, I’ve been in a hurry, always rushing to get more done, feeling pressured by deadlines, even though they were of my own making. I remember once hurrying back to my office at five o’clock after an event had taken me away for a couple of hours. The dean of students pointed out that I was going the wrong direction and it was time to leave work, not arrive, but I replied, “If I could just get a few more things done ….”

I don’t know where this pressure came from. My memory is that my mom took life as it came. Dad, however, was a workaholic, and I can still see him sitting at the dining table, late at night, with papers spread before him, a cigarette between his fingers until he quit at the age of fifty. (I remember thinking then that fifty was soooo old—now I have kids who are older than Dad was at the time. How did this happen?)

Even retirement didn’t slow me down. I just exchanged one job for another and went from directing the TCU Press to writing full-time. For several years, I pushed myself to write three mysteries a year. Now I wonder why.

It took pandemic to slow me down. Part of it was, like all of us, I stopped going out to lunch and dinner. After a few months, Christian was amazed. “You’ve been so social! How can you just stay in the cottage day after day?” I assured him I was content. My family ate supper with me, and we had a small group of trusted friends, also quarantining, who came to visit on the patio, even in cold weather—we didn’t want to be in a small, closed room, breathing on each other. But I really was content as the whole pace of life slowed.

In the tumultuous years since the pandemic, I’ve wondered how I ever had time to write books. Many days I don’t finish my opening-the-day routine until noon or later—I read emails (I get a lot of them) and I read selected news sources online—the local newspaper, a site called atAdvocacy that I really like, Daily Kos (yes, I know, it’s a liberal rag but there’s some good stuff there), Wake Up to Politics, Texas Monthly’s daily highlights, etc. And of course food columns. Mostly I think if I don’t write by noon, I won’t get it done, because afternoon is nap time. In the last year, I’ve started staying up until almost midnight—my whole schedule has changed.

I kept thinking if the national political scene ever quieted down, I wouldn’t “waste” so much time online, But something I read recently changed my view of it: retirement and slowing down gave me “permission” to be curious, to dig down any rabbit hole that interests me, including all those political opinion pieces. For instance, for yesterday’s blog, I went exploring to find out about fake scallops and to learn about the comparison of sardines to tuna. If an article totally unrelated to anything I’m working on catches my fancy, I feel free to follow it. So now I can tell you a new trend, popularized on TikTok (no, I don’t follow that) is pairing wine and potato chips. Chardonnay alls for Kettle Salt and Vinegar. Or I can tell you about forest pre-school programs, where youngsters three to five spend 70% of their time outdoors, learning about nature, both animals and plants. My curiosity has full play.

There’s another aspect to this relaxation. If I don’t write it today, there’s always tomorrow. I never ever felt that way before—I’d set a goal of 1500 words for the day and kill myself to make it. Yesterday I had a scene in my work-in-progress in mind all day, but I just didn’t get to it. Come nine o’clock, and I’m ready to read someone else’s mystery. Then I thought, “I’ll just jot down some thoughts.” In the next hour I wrote 1200 words. If I’d forced myself to write at that hour, I’d have slogged through some uninspired passages. But because I let it happen spontaneously, I got in some good writing.

Perhaps the first sign of this new (to me) relaxation I noticed was that I stopped and stared out the window more frequently and for longer periods. At the right time of day, I can glimpse the children going to school across the street. I have a cool glass teakettle with neon blue lights indicating it’s heating. These days, I sit and watch it, stare at that blue light, watch the bubbles come up, wait for that magic moment when suddenly silently it goes dark when it reaches boiling. Never fails to fascinate me. The old me would have rushed back to the computer to make use of that two or three minutes.

None of us will ever in any way be grateful for the pandemic, but I do think this is one small benefit. And, yes, I am most content.

A ho-hum day

 

Pearl Jam--still a big deal, thirty years later

Do you ever have days that you look back on and wonder what you did? That was sort of mine today. What I call a ho-hum day. Didn’t sleep well last night—you know how three o’clock-in-the-morning-thoughts can look so dramatically awful and the next morning you wonder what ever was the matter with you? At three, I thought I was having a heart attack; at five, I decided since I hadn’t yet died, I should go back to sleep. At seven I decided it was just a muscle spasm, and I scrapped plans to email my doctor first thing. Then Sophie, once fed, let me sleep until nine o’clock. Once up and around, I was fine, but it’s amazing how short the morning is when I don’t get to my desk until 9:30!

Email takes up so much of my time these days because there’s so much I don’t want to miss, what with the Paxton trial in Texas and Kevin McCarthy’s foolish announcement of an impeachment investigation. There’s some really interesting commentary online, but there is also a lot of alarmist nonsense. I guess my contacts have winnowed themselves, but I don’t get much from the “other” side of politics. But my own side can be silly enough—twenty-four hours after McCarthy’s announcement, posts are still headlining, “Breaking News!” when by then it’s old news. It never was news really anyway.

There are some news columns I read religiously every day. Probably the most important is Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American. A professor of history, Richardson so aptly blends today’s events with the historical trail behind them. It’s eye-opening. Then there’s Gabe Fleisher’s Wake Up from Politics—I’m impressed because Fleisher has been doing his column for ten years, and he’s only now a junior at George Mason University (I think that’s right) in DC. I’m not as enamored of his column as I was—in his attempt to be even handed, I think he bends a bit far to the right. But that may be me. A new compilation of news I’ve recently started reading is atAdvocacy News which is openly liberal, pulls no punches, and sometimes makes me laugh out loud. We all need a good laugh these days.

Despite a late start and reading all my “morning stuff,” I did get some new words down on my first draft of “Missing Irene.” It’s fun to be back with Irene and Henny and the folks, though strangely this time I find Irene is sinking into the background. Main characters are Henny and Chance (If you haven’t read the books, this will not mean much to you). But it’s fun for me.

I’m feeling old tonight, and it’s all because of entertainers and bands. A few days ago Mark Wahlberg was pouring tequila at Joe T.’s. I had not a clue who Wahlberg was, but all three Burtons were excited about going, though Jordan and Christian eventually decided against it. But Jacob picked up his girlfriend and headed there, only to be confronted by a long line. And the guy who said he’d hold a table couldn’t. So they left and had supper at—wait for it—Chipotle for a change. I could not believe, however, that for two nights running our dinnertime conversation was about this Wahlberg person whoever he is, was, whatever.

So tonight, Jacob is laboring over his essay for his college application—he just brought me the opening paragraph, and I was favorably impressed, which he pronounced “awesome.” But his parents were invited to a Pearl Jam concert. Okay, I’ve heard of Pearl Jam but have no interest in them. Saw a picture of what I guess is the lead singer and thought he looked sweaty and dirty and his outfit was, to say the least, unremarkable. To Jordan and Christian, those are the musicians of their youth. Christian said to me this morning, with real awe, “Those guys must be at least in their sixties.” It was not the time to remind him he’s in his fifties, not that far behind them. Christian is a media junkie—movies, bands, etc. He knows them all. Me? I’m still back there with Joan Baez, Neil Diamond, Joan Collins, and their ilk. I don’t even get Asleep at the Wheel.

My activity tonight was to make a turkey/bacon/avocado sandwich (got to say that was good) and then wolf it down so I wouldn’t be eating while tuning in to a neighborhood association zoom meeting. Got my nose out of joint and signed out early. So next on my agenda: reading a manuscript that a friend of a friend sent. Yes, it takes time, but that’s what I have lots of. And helping wannabe writers is my way of paying it forward.

Jacob just came in wearing a hoodie which astonished me, but when I asked, he said, “It’s raining. It’s been raining for a while.” And I missed it! Hope you got rain, wherever you are.

A day gone amuck chases away the doldrums

 

If a day could go amuck, this one did. I could have happily lingered in bed this morning. Sophie was asleep and not desperate for food, and I was comfortable, trying to recapture a pleasant dream. But I had things to do—groceries would be delivered at ten, company was coming for happy hour and supper. And there was a to-do list on my desk.

Along about nine-thirty I realized I’d never gotten a confirmation from Central Market nor the cheery email which says, “We’re working on it.” Checked my computer and twenty-seven items were still in my cart. Rescheduled the order for late afternoon.

Then Jean emailed that she had picked up some kind of bug and would not be leaving her apartment today. I was sorry but of course grateful she didn’t bring us whatever it was. Then the happy hour guests cancelled—a long story, but it meant I had to quick cancel one errand I’d asked Christian to include on his morning run.

And finally, Jordan came out and said she and Christian hadn’t communicated well and they wouldn’t be eating with me tonight because good friends were having a birthday dinner party for their daughters. There went my plans for good appetizers and crab nachos for supper. I hastily refroze the crab. Maybe we’ll have it tomorrow, maybe we won’t. I should learn that I am alone in my compulsion to plan ahead!

So what do you do when you’re home alone for dinner on Saturday night? You fix a cold salad plate with a small can of salmon. And use some of that huge container of guacamole I ordered this morning.

And so is the fact that I wrote 800 words this morning, may do more tonight. I’m not sure if the day going amuck chased away the doldrums or not, but I wrote those words in less than an hour. Of course, I’ve not re-read them. They may all need to be deleted, but for the time they moved the story ahead.

I’ve been thinking a lot about writing today, and I’ve decided I’m a bit defensive about my writing. On a small writers’ listserv that I really value there’s been a thread about magical realism, one of those literary terms I never can quite grasp (I don’t think anyone talked about it when I was in grad school). A couple of posts really helped me grasp it, especially one linking the movement to the spirit world of Latina culture and citing Gabriel Garcia Marquez. So this morning I was all primed to enter my two cents worth, as the author of cozy mysteries, but overnight the thread had taken a deep turn into mythology, Greek and Norse and other, and Jungian archetypes and the like. Here’s a confession: that stuff is too deep for me.

I may have dealt more seriously with history when I was writing about women of the American West, but these days I am a storyteller. I write to give readers a good story, something to engage, amuse, puzzle them, and something to distract them briefly from the daily grind. Entertainment writing. I make no claim to plumbing the depths of the human psyche or tracing the origins of certain behaviors, or changing a reader’s life. That is not to say that a good mystery can’t weave in elements of the spirit life or insights into humanity—it should, but that’s not the reason for the story.

Right now I’m reading an older Murder, She Wrote, subtitled Highland Fling. I picked it up because of the Scottish setting. Turns out the setting involves a lot about the history and punishment of witches in Scotland—surely an element of the spiritual life (if a negative one) and mythology of its own, when you think back to the sixteenth century and the brutal punishments inflicted on suspected witches (specifically in this book, a pitchfork through the heart and a cross carved into the throat—pretty brutal for a Jessica Fletcher’s story). When a contemporary murder imitates that, Jessica must find the villain (if you’ve read any of the books, you’ll know the pattern.) To me, it’s crackling good reading, with just enough history, Scottish culture and landscape, food and brogue to lighten the mystery, and it’s fun. When I finish this blog, I’ll go back to it.

One of my core beliefs is that we each must leave the world a bit better than we found it, and sometimes that worries me in relation to my writing. I think of it as light stuff, not world-changing, and maybe I should be putting whatever skills I have to better use. My friend, Susan Wittig Albert, a prolific and popular writer, assures me that by bringing readers pleasure, I am contributing to the well-being of the world. Her China Bayles mysteries always have an underlying social theme, whereas my Irene stories don’t. But I’m working on that.

Enough rambling. I want my salmon supper and then I’ll settle down with Jessica. Wonder what tomorrow will bring?

Stay happy and cool. Sweet dreams.

 

The summer doldrums

 

A place where I can lost the summer doldrums
Colin's lake in Tomball. Note Sophie next to me. 

It’s hot, and I’m in the doldrums. Or am I just lazy? Or is age creeping up on me? I have a friend, slightly younger than me, who says she no longer has the focus for long projects--like novels--and she is considering other ways to keep writing. Maybe that’s what’s wrong with me, but Missing Irene, the fifth adventure for my diva chef, is dragging along. For a while, it was going great, and I could see the road ahead for some distance. But now it’s ground to a crawl, and the road is murky. Oh, I know what’s going to happen, but I’m having trouble getting there. And I’ve only just begun.

I think if you’ve been writing long enough, you know when your writing sings—and you know when it doesn’t. Years ago, my then-agent asked me to do a proposal for a publisher who wanted a young-adult book about a girl in the American West. I wrote what I thought was an acceptable proposal and sent it off. It came back with one devastating comment from the publisher: “Frankly, we find Mrs. Alter’s writing pedestrian.” Pedestrian! What a devastating word! But it probably was spot on, and I was young and green enough not to recognize it. But now, with a long career behind me—forty-plus years and over a hundred books of various types, plus articles, reviews, columns, etc.—I am very aware when my writing “feels” pedestrian. And that’s where I’ve been the last couple of days.

Lately on a writing listserv I follow, there’s been a thread about how to tell a budding author what’s wrong with a manuscript, especially if everything’s wrong from syntax to plot to character. I remember once submitting a sixty-page manuscript, on assignment, to a pamphlet series about western authors. It came back with the first twelve pages so heavily edited I could hardly find my own words amidst the red pen notes. It was absolutely the best writing lesson I have ever had and much of it has stood me in good stead over the years. So maybe that’s what I need now—a heavy red pencil.

I know the best thing to do when a project seems stalled is walk away from it and let it sit for days, even weeks. Then go back to it with new eyes. But when I do that, I feel guilty for not writing, even though I set my own deadlines. No one else is telling me I must write a certain number of words a day or produce a finished manuscript by a certain date. It’s one of the big reasons I am an indie-published author.

I can put it aside because I have other interests and projects, principally cooking. With this hot weather, Jordan has challenged me to cook light meals, and I’ve been happy with my results. Like the open-faced sandwich (see last night’s “Gourmet on a Hot Plate”) or the old-fashioned layer salad I made last night and had for lunch today (probably see next Thursday’s “Gourmet on a Hot Plate”).

I so enjoy meal planning that my grocery bill is out of sight, but I have figured something out. I buy groceries for happy hour snacks (I limit happy hour these days to a few close friends who I know haven’t been traveling—call me cautious, but the cases of Covid I’ve known have almost all been people who’ve been traveling). And I buy groceries for dinner for the three of us—Jacob is now working at Joe T.s almost every night, so I don’t figure him in. That’s a lot of groceries, between Central Market and Albertson’s, but the thing I don’t do is go out to eat. I figure I save a whole bunch of money by cooking at home. Of course, because I experiment, I buy things I wouldn’t ordinarily, which increases my bill (I just ordered furikake—look it up if you’re puzzled).

I’ve been thinking, while my novel lingers in the doldrums, of doing another cookbook. I’ve learned a lot, found a lot of new dishes in the five years since Gourmet on a Hot Plate. And I have a thick file now of what I call “keepers.” I’d love any feedback on whether it would be a good idea or not to combine my food blogs into a book.

There’s one more thing that keeps me occupied, and that’s what I see as the state of our country and the need to speak out. I could blog about that every night, but I figure I’d begin to sound shrill and would become one of those with lots of indignation and no solutions. So I save such blogs for only occasionally, and only specific topics I consider crucial—hard to define that because so many are crucial.

And that’s where I am in the doldrums. I will appreciate any cheering words, advice, suggestions, jokes, and the like. This too shall pass, and I know it, but friends are gootd to have when you’re in the doldrums.

And now, I’m off to read an old Jessica Fletcher mystery set in my heart’s country, Scotland. I missed it the first time around. Stay cool.

An epiphany

My sweet Sophie

Several years ago I had a friend who had an epiphany every other day. No, not the religious meaning associated with Christianity, but the simpler definition of a sudden realization of momentous importance to your life. Such realizations often come in a very ordinary moment, like doing the dishes or mopping the floor. I’m not sure what I was doing—maybe napping because I seem to do a lot of that lately. But I suddenly realized that I have been in a funk without knowing it. I need, as they say, to get my groove back.

It began with my inability to settle down and read any book through to the end. Nothing grabbed me, spoke to me. For the last two weeks, I’ve started and abandoned maybe ten books, everything from mysteries to food-oriented nonfiction, some well-reviewed, others by authors I usually enjoy. I really did begin to worry that I was becoming a dilettante.

Then I realized I have not settled down to one writing project since the publication two months ago of Irene Deep in Texas Danger. I’ve dabbled with a memoir, though now I do have 6,000 words, but it is slow going, bouncing from my blog to remind myself what happened and back to the memoir to fit events and feelings into the story. I also started a new Irene story, Missing Irene, and wrote 4700 words before I put it aside. I’ve even been a bit lackadaisical about blogging. Perhaps the only thing I follow through on is cooking meals for family and friends.

So I started thinking about why. That’s how my mind works—I want to know why, what’s behind something. I’m not depressed so why am I not settling down to what I consider my work. Well, these are, as we all know, troubled times, and I feel obliged to keep up with what’s happening and, more than keeping informed, often comment on it. I think that’s the conscience of my father speaking through me. But if Greg Abbott signs a bill wiping out the water break requirement for construction workers, I think the voting public needs to know about it. And if Justice Sam Alito jets off to luxurious resorts with a rich businessman who has business before the Supreme Court and then denies knowing the man, I think we need to know about it. Right now I’m in suspenseful agony worrying about those people in that lost submersible (I once went in one, though it hovered just below the surface—my children thought at the time I was extraordinarily brave but in retrospect I think it was those Carribbean rum drinks). Never again. But I am appalled at the heartless attitude some people are taking. My prayers are with those five souls.

And emails—I get 150-200 emails a day. Last night my friend Mary told me she was cleaning out her emails. She had a backlog of something like 250,000. I was absolutely appalled. I never go to bed with an unread email, and once I read it, I either answer, discard, or file. I deal with it. Back in the day when business was transacted on paper, the mantra was if you pick up a piece of paper, never just put it back down: deal with it. The same applies to emails, to me, though I realize not everyone is as compulsive as I am. My emails keep me in touch with friends, other writers, blogs, and miscellaneous pieces of news. I enjoy them.

But my point here is that it takes me most of every morning to deal with what’s come in on my computer overnight, and by the time I do I am often distressed, tired, angry, whatever. And then I turn to my writing. I need to reverse things: write first, social media later, but old habits are hard to break. Maybe I turn first to emails because I’m expecting something wonderful, like a letter from “The Millionaire.” (His money wouldn’t go very far today).

And then, it’s been a rough year for my family. We’ve lost Christian’s mother and for a while I was afraid of losing my brother. His recovery, if it is that, is slow, and I am still worried about him. I spent a difficult two months thinking every day with my beloved Sophie might be the last. She is doing so much better now, but there are ongoing medical concerns. And the Burtons had to say goodbye to one of their dogs. Maybe I’m just reeling from family trauma. And now it’s summer in Texas, hot and uninspiring.

I don’t think, however, pinning a label on anything fixes it. It’s up to me to dig myself out of this hole. I’ve done it before, and I can do it again. So watch for me, I hope, to be more dedicated about my work, to take fewer really long naps, to get my act in gear.

Oops, it’s time to cook dinner for the family. But I think I feel better already. Thanks for listening.

 

A ladies luncheon

 

We may have had a ladies luncheon,
but unfortunately none of us looked like this--
and no cocktails were involved. 

Lunch is not a social time for me. I rarely go out for lunch or invite people in. I’ve got this daily routine down pat and socializing at lunch interrupts it. I work all morning, eat leftovers at my desk, and work until two, two-thirty when I take a nap. But today was an exception: Jean and a young woman I’ve corresponded with but never met came for lunch.

Since yesterday was a busy day, I did not have the meal prepared in advance as I often do. I did make a marinated bean salad yesterday, but when I got up this morning and got going instead of rushing to my computer, I made a chicken casserole. Not a big deal, probably took me an hour to make it and clean up the kitchen. The most onerous part was dicing celery and green onions and chopping up the chicken—a rotisserie chicken which was deboned and in the freezer. Jordan finally convinced me deboning them is not bad if you do it right away when they come from the store, still warm.

The young woman is the daughter and niece of friends of mine, her aunt long gone, her parents recently deceased. Mary Lou was a friend through the years—we met in 1970. Shortly thereafter she lost her daughter tragically, and I was one of the people she turned to. She was a big part of my life until maybe ten or twelve years ago when she retired and moved to Dallas. Through her, I met her brother, Alex, and got to know him because we both served on the board of the Friends of the TCU Library. At board luncheons, Alex and I would sit together and whisper about liberal politics, trying to stifle our laughter like naughty schoolchildren. We knew several people in the room would frown on our ideas, but we always had a good time.

In recent times, Alex’s wife developed Alzheimer’s and was in a memory care facility, and he moved into a retirement facility (not the one I’m so familiar with). Jean and I went to have lunch with him once, were planning to go again, and I was making plans to have him to the cottage for lunch to get him out of what I thought was a cold and unlovely environment. He fell, broke his shoulder, went rapidly downhill, and died about a month ago. I had been in touch with his daughter, Leah,.because Alex had almost no vision left (macular degeneration) and dictated his emails to her, so by the time he died, I felt I knew Leah.

So today she came to lunch, and that young woman (okay, middle-aged) Alex had described to me as an introvert who didn’t like to be around people, was outgoing, frank and open about her family, and talked constantly of how lucky she has been in the people who support her and her family. She seemed thrilled with the prayer shawl Jean brought her. We had a lively discussion and a good time.

And now I have leftovers for a frequent visitor to the cottage who is coming for supper tomorrow night. Meantime I’ve had a slow, lazy afternoon and evening, enjoying the thunder and rain.

Between hearing aids, grocery and social engagements, the week that started off to be a writing week has fizzled. Monday, I wrote 1500 words on my cottage memoir and felt so good about it. Full steam ahead. Since then, I have written countless words in my head but committed nothing to paper. I itch to get to it. Perhaps tomorrow, but Thursday is always the day I post a recipe to my Gourmet on a Hot Plate blog, and I haven’t even chosen the recipe. The road to hell is paved with … but then you know that saying.

Just in case you missed it, I had a guest post today on Lois Winston’s Anastasia Pollock blog. Lois has a spot for recipe blogs, so mine is on Texas caviar, a recipe developed by Helen Corbitt, later of Neiman Marcus fame, way back in the 1940s. It’s still good today. Check it out if you want a good side for a summer barbecue or picnic party: https://anastasiapollack.blogspot.com/2023/06/cooking-with-cloris-author-judy-alters.html 

 

The gods of small (and large) appliances

 

Our front yard has a mass of cone flowers I planted years ago.
Jordan brought me this bit of cut blooms. I love the color.
Some folks call them echinacea, but I like the simple name.

Somehow, I have displeased some mechanical gods. They say things break in threes, but I think I have already gone beyond that. Last night when I turned on the HVAC unit hanging from the ceiling in my living room, just before I went to sleep, it wouldn’t open its vents. The power light went on and all that, but no air came out. I finally resorted to the unit in the bedroom, which is sometimes noisy. I didn’t set it very low, and I think that helped keep it quiet. Plus the humidity was low—I think high humidity makes such things work harder. This morning the living room one worked like a charm. Electronic things sometimes need time out to collect themselves.

But last week, my electric teakettle quit. Switch wouldn’t turn on. I figured it wasn’t worth repairing, ordered a new one. The new one is fancy—clear glass, with blue LED lights that match the lights on my electric corkscrew—and my Blue Willow plates. I took seriously the instructions which said not to immerse, so I stewed over how to clean a new pot. Jordan finally rinsed it with hot water and pronounced it ready for use. So this morning, I filled my two-cup measure and dumped it in the pot. It worked for two seconds, flicked itself off and refused to do anything else. I retrieved the box, thinking it would have to go back to Amazon. Jordan came along, said it was all wet, dried it and let it sit. After a doctor’s appointment in the late morning, I tried it again, and it worked fine.

But tonight the electric can opener won’t work. It has to be plugged tightly into the wall—I’ve run into that before—but just to be sure, Jordan pushed it in. I tried it a few minutes later and nothing. So tonight I let it sit, unplugged, to collect itself.

Meantime, the touchless garbage can has been collecting itself for two weeks with no results. When you run your hand over the opening, the lights come on, but the lid doesn’t open. When you open it manually you can feel some tension it the lid—it’s not just limp and dead, but nothing automatic works. I found today that you can order parts, but I don’t think a new battery pack is what we need. Christian has promised to take a screwdriver to it so he can get inside to the working parts—or nonworking as the case may be.

Funny how dependent we get on these small appliances. I know my mother would scoff.

Not a good day. I don’t have panic attacks anymore, hardly ever, but I had a brief, mild one today. Jacob drove me to the podiatrist’s office. I really like him and his wife, who is his receptionist, assistant, and all good things. But I dislike the handicapped ramp going into the building. It’s steep and a rough texture. I especially feel like my walker will get away from me going down the ramp. Jacob was really good, holding on to the walker, but when we got to the bottom, he started to walk away while I was still struggling with the change from rough ramp to parking lot. I got into the parking lot, no more than five feet from the car, and had that irrational thought: I can’t do this. I called to him, and he, sweet boy, came instantly, held the walker so I could sit on it. I ended up back peddling to the far door of his SUV, which was probably much more dangerous than if I’d walked. When he put out the stool so I could climb in, he said, “I’ve got you,” and I told him climbing on a stool to swing into an SUV was a piece of cake. It was that open parking lot. Nobody ever said panic made sense.

That kind of finished my writing ambition for the day. I took a nap, and Mary came for happy hour. Jordan was under the weather and didn’t join us, but we had a good visit, though both of us were a bit boring, confessing that we really didn’t know much new. I fixed breakfast sandwiches for supper so I could use up the Canadian bacon in the fridge. I intended to put them on croissants, but Central Market sent me mini croissants with a sugar coating. Not the stuff of an egg and bacon sandwich. Luckily, I had English muffins in the freezer.

So tonight, in bits and pieces, waiting for the Burtons and then after supper, I wrote 500 words. The thing is when I went back to bed this morning after feeding Sophie, a long, complicated scene came clear in my mind, and I wanted to capture it. Now I’m hoping it will stay until tomorrow, when I have, I hope, a clear day of writing, followed by supper out with friends.

Life is sweet, but a bit complicated some days.

My interesting life

 

Some of my friends almost visibly wring their hands over me, spending my days at my computer, sometimes not leaving the property for days (I do have plenty of company). Several years ago Jacob asked one of his parents, “What does she do all day out there? Play on Facebook?” He should read this post. It’s true, some days are a bit boring—like when I’m bogged down in a manuscript that isn’t going at all the way I think it should. But today, I’ve been amused by the variety of projects that came across my desk.

Yes, there’s politics—if you know me at all, you know I speak out at injustice, and these days I see a lot of it. Hot topics with me today are the school voucher bill about to be considered in the Texas Senate and the appalling reaction of Texas leaders to two mass shooting within a week. So yes, I wrote to my state representative about the bill some legislator introduced to give trauma training to third graders and install bleed stations in third-grade classrooms. Third graders? I cannot abide the acceptance of violence with no effort at prevention. And tonight I’ll write my state senator protesting the school voucher bill which, to me, is a sop to the rich and part of Abbott’s program to undermine public education, which it will effectively accomplish. The proposed stipend will not enable many more families to choose private education, and unless things are changed, there’s no accountability for how the money is spent.

A year or so ago, I did the basic writing for twelve tile plaques to be placed on the exterior walls of the Will Rogers Memorial Center, chronicling Texas history. Since then, the text for those plaques has been rewritten, edited, amended, and whatever by a variety of hands including those of my good friend Carol Roark who knows far more about Texas history than I do. Today those captions came back to me once again (I think this is the second time), now in final form. Perfect. Would I just check punctuation. So I did, found lots of capitalization problems and a couple of sentences that just didn’t make sense. If you cut out extraneous stuff and take a sentence down to subject, verb, and object, nonsense jumps out at you. So back they went.

And then a newbie writer sent me a copy of her work-in-progress, a historical mystery set in Chicago. I forgot I had volunteered to be a beta reader because I’m always interested in Chicago history. I’m glad to do it, though—along the way others have helped me, and I’m glad to pay it forward.

I also had on my to-do list for today an evaluation of a manuscript under consideration at a university press, so I wrote up my notes, filled out the forms, and sent it off.

And finally, this evening I go an email from the Southwest Writers Collection containing the unpublished manuscript of a young-adult novel I wrote years ago. It had to do with the house of a childhood friend where life, at the time, seemed much more exciting than my staid household. The friend I wrote it for died several years ago, but her older sister wants to read it. So I’ve sent it off and saved a copy for myself, which I’ll read when I get to it.

With all that reading stacking up my project tonight is to finish the mystery I’m reading so I can clear the decks and review the forthcoming mystery by a friend, which I’ve promised to put in this blog, and read that Chicago novel. The mystery is a thriller, which is not my usual fare—I don’t like to be scared or depressed when I read. But this is absorbing. When it gets tense, I just take a break.

The Burtons are at the Paschal golf team’s end-of-year dinner tonight, so I’m on my own. While they eat Italian food, I’m thinking about what I can do with a can of sardines. I have plenty because for a bit every time I put anchovies on the grocery list, Jordan came home with sardines.

Not a bad day. Not boring at all. In fact, a lovely way to spend a rainy day. We had a slow drizzle much of the day—perfect for those new plants that were put in yesterday. Not so perfect for Sophie who has declined to go out except for one quick and desperate trip.

Friends, dogs, and a momentous decision

 

Sophie with her guilty look.
Yes, she ate a basket of zucchini crisps.

A lovely couple of evenings with friends for happy hour last night and supper tonight. Last night Phil and Subie came. I experimented on what was supposed to be zucchini crisps—one of those recipes that sound too easy and good to be true. Just sliced zucchini topped with Parmesan and cooked in the air fryer. First time I ever tried my air fryer so I’m not sure if that was the problem or not. First, Subie announced she didn’t really like zucchini. At the time I thought these would come out crisp, like potato chips, so I assured her this would be different. It wasn’t. What we got were soggy pieces of zucchini with Parmesan on top. To add to my embarrassment, Sophie managed to grab the entire basket and devour the contents after we’d each had maybe two slices apiece and had voted against keeping the recipe. Subie asked if that would be a problem with Sophie’s stomach, but I assure her it wouldn’t. And it wasn’t.

Sophie was, however, a problem in another way. She got into one of her incessant barking phrases, so much so that Phil threatened to go home. I fed her a small bone treat, and she was quiet—but that goes against all my child-raising and dog-raising theories. I guess it’s a bit late with Sophie. She knows very well when she’s been naughty and won’t look any of us in the eye.

Tonight, Jean came for supper. She, Jordan, and I sat on the patio with wine—a perfectly lovely evening. Mostly the talk was about Jordan’s upcoming trips to San Miguel, Paris, and Iceland (talk about a weird itinerary!). After we went inside, I put together salmon burgers, for once following a recipe because when I do it off the top of my head they are never the right consistency. Recipe or no, these weren’t either—way too dry to hold together, so I added mayonnaise, perhaps too much. Three of the five fell apart when I flipped them. We ate the two that held together in buns loaded with lettuce, tomato, and onion. Good, but you’d never want to eat it in public. Salmon burgers are one of those things for which I have yet to find the perfect recipe, but I will do it! Jean and I sat long after supper, solving the problems not of the world but of being in your seventies and eighties—uncharted territory. It’s good to have someone to have those discussions with.

It has been a rushed twenty-four hours for me. Somehow, I forgot that yesterday was the deadline for submissions to the May issue of the neighborhood newsletter I edit. So there I was—a deadline and no articles. I sent out an urgent plea on the neighborhood email, taking full responsibility, and was overwhelmed with the response. I got so many articles and photos that I was up until midnight editing, and it was noon today before I sent the issue to the designer. I am so grateful for neighbors who have my back when I make such a mistake. I think this may be one of the best issues ever. But gosh, it was a lot of work, all with the pressure of a deadline. Tonight I am glad to have the mundane—a grocery order and a blog. Then I get to read the novel I’m enjoying—All Stirred Up! a culinary novel, love story of sorts, set in Edinburgh. Lots of Scottish life, lots of recipes. My cup of tea.

I reached a big decision the last couple of days. Many of you know that I have, for years now, been working off and on to write a book about Neiman Marcus doyenne of food service, Helen Corbitt, and how she fit into the changing foodways of America in mid-century, particularly her enormous impact on the way Texans ate and viewed food. I find the material fascinating. But when it came to writing the book, I came up short. Corbitt left behind cookbooks and articles galore but almost no record of herself a an individual. What was her childhood like? Why did she never marry? What’s the story behind those three times she was supposedly engaged? What was she like as a person? What we have is all surface stuff. I came up with a 30K-word manuscript, about half what’s needed for even a short book.

I even tried telling the story as fiction from the first-person point of view. But I couldn’t get the voice right—because I didn’t know enough about her. I was getting depressed and sending myself all sorts of negative messages. I have put this project aside and come back to it many times. Now I have decided to put it aside probably forever. And I feel a sense of freedom.

So, once again, I have an optimistic outlook on life and what I’m doing. I’m sure there will be further bulletins, if you are interested.

Happy Fridy night, everyone. Enjoy the weekend.