Who Let the Dogs Out?

Jacob is still fascinated by this video, and the first thing when he came in this evening was that he wanted to look at "Who Let the Dogs Out?" This is a picture of him singing along with it, belting out "Who, Who, Who?" The Burtons came for the Japanese chickenburgers they missed earlier in the week, and it was a pleasant evening, even though Jacob got kind of whiney.
Other than that it was an ordinary but pleasant day--I had lunch with my friend Fred, who said he's just read Jonathan Alter's (no relation) The Promise, an assessment of Obama's campaign and first year in office. Fred says although Alter is clearly biased toward Obama, he is also clear about the mistakes he's made and the problems he's run into--mostly Congress, both sides of the aisle. The subtext, especially throughout the last half of the book, is that Obama is clearly smarter than most members of Congress and they resent that. It got us off on a discussion of the general resentment of intellectuals in this country--while not counting myself as an intellectual, I clearly see that as a problem in our society. Then again, think of Socrrates--civilizations have always resented the intellectuals among them. Fred better watch out, because he is one. We ate at Nonna Tata, a country Italian place where I had my favorite dish: brasola.
I did a bit on my mystery tonight--slightly under 400 words but enough to keep me in touch with it--and decided what would be my next exploration in the Texas foods book, so I'm moving ahead. I looked forward to a long, fairly lazy weekend, so maybe I'll get some work done. As always, I'm distracted by reading--this time its Julie Hyzy's Grace Under Pressure.

Bookish Frogs enjoy a Dan Jenkins evening

Tonight the Bookish Frogs, a community support group for TCU Press, had a wonderful evening with Dan Jenkins to celebrate the press' reprint edition of Baja Oklahoma. It was a potluck supper at the home of--okay, I met the host and hostess, chatted amiably with them and liked them a  lot, but never got their names. But it was in a new, gated community and was probably the most spectacular modern house I've ever been in. We walked in an open door and were immediately in the living area--only we weren't. It turns out we walked into the patio, but glass sectioned doors that separate the patio from the living area had been opened so that it was all one huge open space. With wonderful artwork, a superb library that left my tongue hanging out, and a beautiful master bedroom--in which a tiny Pappillon begged for attention. He could hear the crowd and wanted to be amongst us. I live in a house built in 1922 and love it, so I wouldn't want to live in that open glass and steel space--but I sure did admire it.
There were about 30 people and there was so much food for the potluck supper that I came home with at least half the sandwiches I had made. Jeff Guinn, now a noted author and once book editor of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, interviewed Dan and both were jovial, funny and entertaining--yet it was an evening with insights into the art of writing. I'm impressed that TCU Press can put on such an affair--in that setting, with those people, and with an author of Dan's star quality. Truly a triumph--and hats off to Susan Petty who put it all together.
At noon today Linda, my friend from Granbury, brought her mother for lunch, and Connie, the widow of my ex-husband's partner and a longtime friend of mine, came down from Keller for lunch. We meant to go out, but Connie got lost and by the time she got here all restaurants would be crowded. So we left the two older ladies, whose friendship goes back to the late '40s, to visit on the porch and went to get lunch from Nonna Tata--salads for them and braseola (the beef versionof proscuitto, dressed with lemon, olive oil, arugula, and grana cheese) for me. We had lunch on the porch where there was a delightful breeze--but Billie, Linda's mom, is always cold, and I brought her my prayer shawl which she wrapped around her shoulders. It was fascinating to hear them talk about being in Kirksville, Missouri in the late '40s--Linda was four and probably doesn't remember much; I was there for four years in the early '60s, when it was already a much different town. Recently fund-raisers from Truman State University visited me (it used to be Kirksville State Teachers College) and we talked about the town--some of my favorite restaurants are still there, but both the state university and the osteopathic medical school campuses have changed so that I would not recognize them. I haven't been back since 1976. But back to lunch with Billie Connie, and Linda--it was a delight. And bringing lunch to the porch proved to be just the right touch.
What a nice day.

Reading is addictive

I've lost myself in reading lately, and not even the mysteries that I constantly consume. But I have so many books I want to read that I'm ignoring other things I should be doing--like working on my new novel. It started with a book I am to review for the Dallas Morning News, titled 97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Families in One Tenement. Set in the lower East Side of New York City, it spans the 1860s through the Depression. I won't be a spoiler for the review, except to say that it chronicles the way various cultures--German, Irish, Jewish, and Italian--contributed to American foodways and in turn, the habits they assimilatede from American culture. I read it avidly and had the review ready a month before it was due.
Then I became probably the last person I know to read Katherine Stockton's The Help, about the relationships between white women and their black maids in Jackson, Mississippi, in the 1960s. It's hard for me to believe some of the white women, and I thought perhaps they were caricatures, but friends who lived in the South assure me it's true. Stockton, who grew up in Jackson, turned the material into a riveting novel, and although I ached for the black women, the one who gave me the most pain was a little girl named Mae Mobley who thought her nanny was her real mother because the mother never gave her any love or attention. When the maid is fired, for becoming part of an imaginary tell-all book, she walks away hearing Mae Mobley's anguished screams. It's a book you can't read without being moved, and I spent almost all of last weekend reading it.
The Help made me think of GeeGee, the black nanny we had in Chicago when I was a toddler. Relations between her and my mother were much more cordial, though I can remember Mom recalling her amazement (and disapproval) when GeeGee let me eat four eggs for breakfast one morning (maybe that's why I didn't like them for years!). I asked my brother the other day when GeeGee left and how old I was, but he just shook his head and said he didn't now. "They're so many questions I didn't ask and now wish I had," he said. I remember GeeGee coming back once for a visit and how happy we were to see her. In retrospect, I wonder if the death of my younger sister at six months (probably SIDS, though I was told she had a heart defect) didn't contribute to GeeGee's leaving.
Now, I'm reading an advance copy of Spilling the Beans, by Clarissa Dickson Wright, one of BBC's Two Fat Ladies who wheeled about the countryside in a motorcycle and sidecar cooking at various locations and gatherings. If you ever watched the show--and millions did--the picture on the cover will be familiar: a dumpy, slightly rumpled English woman in a  funny hat with a big smile on her face. The inside of the book reveals a far different and intriguing story. I'm reviewing this one for the Story Circle Network, so don't want to be a spoiler there either.
Speaking of the Story Circle Network, Beth Knudson and I are going to coordinate a class on Writing Your Life Story, based on the principles of the Story Circle Network beginning in early May, You don't have to join the network to be part of the class, but there is a fee. And we're going to ask everyone to participate in pot-luck snacks and wine. If you'd like more information, e-mail me at j.alter@tcu.edu. And if you're interested, you might search for Story Circle Network on Google. It's an international organization designed to help women tell their life stories. I've taught the class twice for the TCU community class program.
A food note: I've had a delicious day and still come out ahead on points. For lunch I had a tuna salad plate at a place I rarely go--it was really good, came with a quarter hard boiled egg, a bit of tomato, one thin slice of avocado, and a fruit cup. Tonight Betty and I went to Nonna Tata (I was prepared and took a bottle of wine and two plastic wine glasses), and I had braseola (the Italian cured beef version of prosciutto) dressed in lemon and olive oil, with grana cheese, and a vinegar based German salad. One of my favorite meals.
Okay, back to Spilling the Beans.