Saturday night and no TV

Well, not quite. But what do you do with a six-year-old when the TV in his playroom is out and the one in my kitchen is also out--I really like to watch the news or the food channel while I cook. A fruitless 45 minutes with someone-- in where? Pakistan? India?--who I couldn't undertand; he reached the conclusion (I think) that the problem was with AT&T U-Verse and a service person will be out between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. tomorrow night. Till then, the only TV working is that in my office, so Jacob and I had a cozy supper at my desk--I threatened him with death and destruction if he spilled his sparkling cider on my desk and still brought in an extra towel for mopping, just in case. Now we're cozily sharing the rest of the evening.
The phone consultant asked if my internet was working, and I ran to check--that would be the final insult. I'm afraid to turn any of the working things off for fear they won't work again in the morning--but this week, of all weeks, I was looking forward to Sunday morning news programs. Wonder if I can win that battle before we go to church?
I also have a sinking feeling that without the TV to go to sleep by, Jacob will want to sleep with me again. Not a restful night for me at all.
I had hoped we could work on the half-done jigsaw puzzle tonight but with TV so rare he seems glued to it. I'm reading Murder Takes the Cake by Evelyn David, so I can lose myself in that. It's interesting to me, because after telling audiences several times that cozies feature female amateur sleuths, here's one that features a retired police officer who's opening a PI office. Then again, it's probably not a cozy, although it's got a lot of the characteristics such as wacky characters. But the opening scene is definitely not murder off-stage.  And the basic mystery has me puzzled. I can lower the volume on Jacob's TV program and read in content--if I can get him to get off the desk top and go sit in the chair again. Togetherness is nice, but I'm getting a tad claustrophobic.
Remind me again about the days before TV, the internet, iPads and all those things. Being without makes me feel suspicious of everything--is the electricity going to go out? The air conditioning (which we really don't need tonight anyway)? Trying to be flexible about adjusting to this change in things--and all the Jacob closeness I'm enjoying.

Sophie is sleeping through the whole thing.

In the kitchen again

Wow, I'm tired. It's been a grocery store/cooking day. I'm having old friends for dinner tomorrow night--a couple, once my neighbors, that I've known since before our third children, respectively, were born--and those kids are 36 this year. My good friend Charles lives in their garage apartment (that was connived and not an accident), and he'll come with them. They'll pick up another friend, Cissy, recently both widowed and displaced from her apartment by the relentless urge to tear down and rebuild. I remember serving Bill and Sharon an antipasto platter one night that they thought was wonderful, so I'm doing a more substantial version, sort of dinner on a platter--a strip of salmon, an herbed chicken thigh, a half ear of corn, a dolma, and a small baked potato Southwestern style for each. Then piles of cherry tomatoes, asparagus, hard-boiled egg halves, artichoke hearts--all laid out on a long platter that goes down the center of the table (it's a wonderful maple platter that I brought from Appalachia years ago). And fresh sourdough bread at the far end. I've got most of it cooked by tonight, except the salmon. Also I made a brandy/chocolate bread pudding that I'll serve with whipped cream and frozen raspberries (fresh are just too precious). So I did all that cooking and then fixed myself dinner--a bit of spinach, left from the remolaude sauce I made for tomorrow, a half ear of corn (corn doesn't come in five halves!), the excess stuffing from the potatoes. I had bought bay scallops for my entree and followed a recipe that combined them with crispy browned brioche bread crumbs (the brioche was in the freezer), sliced mushrooms (also left over and in the fridge), and a bit of shallot. Delicious but way too rich. I have scallops and potato for lunch tomorrow!
In between all this cooking, I truly have spent the weekend editing. We'll do a wondereful book next fall called True West: The Heyday of the Western in Popular Culture, with only about 20,000 words of text but lots and lots of illustrations drawn from the author's incredible collection of paraphernalia (I keep wanting to say ephemera)--movie posters, book jackets, comic books, sheet music, you name it. The text is funny--and so knowledgeable about the popular western. That was the field I studied in graduate school--though I was in the 19th century and this author is in the 20th. Still I remember writing a scholarly paper on McCloud, the western--was it Arizona?--sheriff who ended up on duty in NYC--and who is duly mentioned in this new text. Editing has been fun.
Rachel Ray is on my TV right now, cooking polenta egg cups with chorizo but wearing a sort of peasant dress with flowing sleeves and a huge dangly necklace that comes almost to her waist, along with a tight spiral bracelet on her wrist. Do you realize what would happen if I tried to cook in an outfit like that?

Books, food and Halloween

It's always fun to get one of my books in finished form. Today I got author's copies of Audie Murphy: War Hero and Movie Star, a short book for 4th graders. It's part of the Stars of Texas Series from State House Press. The topics of these books are determined by the list of people Texas 4th graders are expected to be familiar with for the TAKS test. I'm not sure, personally, about Murphy in this category. He fought bravely in the European theater of World War II and was such an excellent marksman that the number of enemy soldiers he killed is high. Discharged, he went to Hollywood and became a movie star--but it was sort of an on-again, off-again career that spiraled downward, in large part due to his problems with what we now call post-traumatic stress but which then was generally unrecognized. Still, young boys will probably revel in the tales of his war adventures. I just don't think I'd have liked him if I met him, although he was supposedly charmingly boyish and shy. And he did have to work hard to overcome his farmer's drawl--and the walk that looked like he was in the cotton patch. If you check back here in 24 hours, there'll be a picture of the cover.
Yesterday was a long day that made me realize how much I count on my afternoon nap. Just about the time I was getting ready to take a nap, the Dish Network guy came and stayed, for two long hours. The first receiver he put in didn't receive or whatever. But he finally left, and I spent a very happy evening watchng the food channel while sitting at my desk--I'd never been able to get the food channel before, and I loved it! This new addiction, which probably means I'll never write another word, began when I was in Frisco babysitting four-year-old Edie. We watched idly on Saturday, but Sunday morning, after watching Meet the Press which she couldn't possibly have understood, she said, "Juju, I'd like to watch the food channel now." We watched it all day, me with one eye while cooking dinner and occasionally stopping to sit with her on the couch. I've asked her folks to tell her we can watch it here now.
Tonight is Halloween, not my favorite holiday. I think way too much is made of it. I know that sounds curmudgeonly, but TV programs (even the food channel) are full of Halloween, and today I went to lunch at a restaurant where a huge contingent of costumed people filled the sidewalk tables. At Central Market the other day I was studying a shelf of something and looked up to see such a realistic straw man that I almost threw my hands in the air in surprise. Halloween seems to me a celebration for young children (yes, I know the religious tradition from which it comes--we just did a book on the Day of the Dead, which is slowly turning into a Mexican Halloween instead of the religious festival it was meant to be). When I had small children, I enjoyed it, and I've loved the few Halloweens I've spent with grandchildren. But generally I bring the dog in, turn off the lights, and ignore those few trick or treaters who don't take seriously the signal of my dark porch. Jacob is having a party tonight--such a clever child at 16 months!--and I was going to go, but the more I thought about it, the more it didn't feel right. I want to bring Scooby inside so he doesn't bark all night, and I don't want to come home to stumble across a dark front porch (peppered with this year's acorn crop, and if you stop on one in the dark, you're liable to go flying). So I called Jordan with my regrets, and she didn't even protest. I'm savoring the thought of a lamb chop and green salad.