Golf, closed roads, and traffic

I'm a back roads person. If there are side streets, park roads, whatever that will get me where I'm going, that's my route. I remember years ago an older friend said to me, rather primly, that she always believed a straight line was the shortest distance between two points. Not me. I'll ramble, curve, backtrack, anything to avoid main thoroughfares with lots of traffic and stoplights and angry drivers.
But this time of year, one of my favorite scenic paths through park, along a golf course, and through a lovely residential district gets messed up. I saw it happen today. Cars parked on the front lawns of expensive homes; foot lanes marked with cones on the side of the road. Some roads blocked--no matter, I can go another way, at least for the time being. But soon roads will be blocked, and I'll have to go another way.What's the sense of having a convertible on a gorgeous day if you can't drive under trees? Who wants to drive through a business district?
It's time for the Crowne Plaza International Colonial Golf Tournament--in the day it was the Colonial N.I.T. and I've never gotten over calling it that. Whereas my Fort Worth kids eagerly anticipate it every year, I dread it. They like the partying, the people watching; I hate the traffic.
When the children were little, I used to drive by the tournament, saying to them, "Look at the silly people following the little white ball." Once their father and I took them to the tournament--disaster. We were  neither one smart enough about golf to tell them to be quiet, and we got dirty looks.
Would you believe my oldest son is now the accountant for a series of golf clubs and one of the highlights of his year is the Shell Tournament in Houston. Traitor. I wonder if the people in that neighborhood feel as I do?
I realize that in Fort Worth the Colonial has a big place in our civic history. Novels have been set there, and Priscilla and Cullen Davis cemented the tournament's significance as a people-watching place. Our golf tournament has, I suppose, helped create famous sports writers like Dan Jenkins. I like Dan but remain unimpressed, with a secret wish that some year they'd just cancel it.
I sound like a curmudgeon, don't I? Maybe I am. At least about golf. I've never undertood why people are so fanatical about it.

Home again--and some lessons from Thanksgiving

No matter how much I enjoy being someplace else--and I did love our Austin Thanksgiving--I am always glad to be home again. We drove on Saturday to beat the Sunday traffic, but we didn't get away from Austin until 3 p.m, which I thought was a bad plan--and it turned out to be. Traffic slowed just past Temple and bunched up off and on until Hillsboro, slowing us sometimse to 10 mph, averaging maybe 40-50. Nerve-wracking. We were tired and hungry, and Jacob got weepy--though a few Cheerios, Goldfish and raisins restored his blood sugar. Actually got to my house a bit after 6:30, which isn't bad--it just seemed that way. My cat could have cared less about seeing me but wanted food; my dog didn't care about food, but he was delighted to see me.
Leftovers are always the best part of a holiday meal, but here are a couple of things I learned:
--Mashed potatoes and gravy make a wonderful breakfast. We never get enough gravy from the turkey, so I made traditional gravy out of the drippings, scraping up all those good brown pieces, and then we added two quarts of prepared gravy Megan had bought from a home delivery service in Austin called The Soup Kitchen. Their gravy was quite pale, so I added a good couple of dashes of Kitchen Bouquet which turned it a lovely rich brown and spiced it up just a bit. It was the best we've made in a long time. Weight Watchers doesn't count too heavily for mashed potatoes, but they just don't know how much sour cream and butter Jordan puts in hers!
--I learned to love chess pie. I'd heard about it, probably never eaten it. Mel made it according to her great-grandmother's recipe which calls for corn meal and vinegar in the filling. Jordan called it baked sugar. I ate finger-sized slivers of it and was heartbroken this morning to discover it was all gone. Weight Watchers has never heard of chess pie (or vinegar pie) so I figured it was fair just not to mention it. The foods that I eat that Weight Watchers knows nothing about are numerous--I think they need a more sophisticated dietitian. Meantime I plan to ask Mel to share the recipe.
Elizabeth was right--going on Weight Watchers before the holidays made me a more conscious eater--I managed to come in almost on target with my points by taking a tablespoon of this and that. With so many offerings, that's a great way to taste everything and yet not feel stuffed. There again, Weight Watchers doesn't realize Lisa makes green bean casserole with sour cream, jack cheese (or monterrey, I'm not sure) and corn flakes soaked in a whole stick of butter. I cannot begin to tell you how much butter we used on Thursday!
--A non-cooking lesson for everyone who might find themselves in cold country. A norther hit Austin Thursday afternoon, like a snap of the fingers, dropping the temperature dramatically within minutes. That night it was really cold. I sleep in the office, the only upstairs room, that is always much colder than the rest of the house (and I don't think the heat was on at all that night). I could not sleep and realized it was because I was cold--my feet were like blocks of ice, and I was curling around myself to keep warm. Finally got up and got my sweats--put on the shirt and made a pocket out of the pants for my feet. It took a while for them to thaw, but then they were warm and toasty. Another problem is when the air gets cold, so does the air in a blow-up mattress. The next night the girls put a duvet on it for me, and I again slept with my special foot warmer and my sweatshirt and was as toasty and warm as I could be. Slept very well. I may sleep with my feet in sweat pants all winter--their soft lining makes them just wonderful, better than a cat on my feet.
We were supposed to come home on Sunday but came today for a variety of reasons. Still, I cannot get over the idea that it is Sunday. Jordan said something about Christian having a day off tomorrow and I asked why he wasn't working. I looked at businesses we drove by and wondered why they were open on Sunday. And tonight, of the newspapers left by Moksha, the pet-sitter, I threw the thickest on my desk to read. I swear I searched that thing three times looking for Parade, until it dawned on me it was Thursday's paper and was thick because it had all the ads for the Friday super sales.Okay, I'm beginning to get it: tomorrow is Sunday.
Back to routine, but overwhelmed by things to do. Some of my porch plants froze and I have to uproot them, especially the sweet potatoes. And my driveway is solid leaves, though I don't plan to tackle that.
How about you? Did you learn any life lessons over Thanksgiving? Are you charging into December feeling that you have a ton of things to do? A freind sent me a Biblical verse about living in the day and knowing God will help you face whatever tomorrow brings. I do wish I could learn to live in the moment and not worry a week or so ahead. I'm working on it.

Yoga, cooking to nostalgic music, and back to school

My recumbent exercise bike is off its course. I finally reset all the settings--time, distance, etc.--but when I peddle it shoots up to the highest resistance, way beyond my capabilities. I've called the company, and they said I need to check the voltage, so I'm waiting for some kind soul with a voltimeter (is that the word?) to come along. Meantime, every day for over a week, I've been doing yoga, and I'm glad to be back at it, finding myself more confident about my yoga--and, interestingly, more confident in life. I don't know if it's the yoga or the meditationa afterward (which turns into prayer for me). But I frequently wake up a bit depressed and have to get going before, as one friend said, I get my happy on. But this morning I woke up cheerful, ready to get on with the day. And when I took a nap, I nearly leapt out of bed to do my yoga and then cook, feeling enthusiastic about all of it.
Tonight I was cooking in preparation for happy hour guests tomorrow and a happy hour gaggle of cookbook contributors on Monday night. I made a faux pimiento cheese--with chopped sun-dried tomatoes instead of pimientoes (of which I'm not overly fond) and added a bit of cayenne to the recipe, because that's how I make pimiento cheese. Then I hard-boiled eggs for deviled eggs and made a sardine spread for tomorrow night. During all this, a paid advertisement came on for a CD of all the golden oldies from the '60s and of course they played snatches of songs--"Because of You," "You Belong to Me," "No, No, Not much," "The Twelfth of Never," some Elvis pieces, etc. All were enhanced versions of recordings by the original artists. I had a wonderful time. I usually enjoy cooking anyway, but this added a new dimension. Then I put a piece of salmon in a pie plate, sprinkled it with salt and pepper, surrounded it with white wine, and baked it while I sauteed some zucchini. Great dinner.
School starts Monday for many Texas schools. For me, this has dual significance: first and foremost, my grandkids go back to school. Maddie will be entering middle school (how did she get so old?) and I have this fearful feeling of sending her out into the big world, after the sheltered environment of an elementary school almost across the street from her house; Edie will be in second grade (growing so fast) and Sawyer and Morgan will both enter kindergarten--a milestone in their lives. I haven't had a report on Morgan, but Sawyer found he will have a man for a teacher and is much excited. My hat's off to men who teach those younger kids. The remaining kids will be in day care, but Jacob has been promoted to the four-year-old class. When I asked him about it, he said, "Yeah, I go upstairs now." That's his idea of being promoted.
But school starting has another, more immediate effect on my life. I live across from an elementary school. (After I bought this house, 16 years ago, a good friend said she would never live across from a school--thanks for telling me too late.) Actually I love the house, and it shouldn't be such a problem now that I don't have to rush out the door and driveway at eight, but parents dropping their darlings off are unbelievably rude and thoughtless--they park across my driveway (I once almost hit a kid and another time almost hit a car because when I looked it wasn't there and then suddenly as I backed down the drive, there it was!). They also let their kids out in the middle of the street, which is unbelievably dangerous. The other night the school had an open house, and someone had stopped across my driveway to let his family out just when a friend came to pick me up. Every year, my neighborhood sighs and complains, but it never seems to help. I know the school tries to remind parents, but I think our neighborhood policeman needs to be on the scene. There, rant finished.