Fun on the weekend

 

My blog has been quiet for a couple of nights, mostly because there didn’t seem to be much to say. I worked at my desk, but nothing seemed remarkable. Maybe I just had a springtime case of the blahs. Anyway, the Alter/Burtons had fun this weekend.

The picture above was taken Saturday night at HG Sply when Jamie came to visit (that’s Jamie leaning over my shoulder—Jacob, the picture taker, sort of cut half of himself off). Jamie lives in Frisco, but his work as sales manager for an international toy company takes him all over, especially to Los Angeles where he spends a lot of time (happy coincidence: his youngest daughter, Eden, is in school at UCLA). Upshot is Jamie doesn’t often have time to get to Fort Worth, so his visit is always a treat.

Dinner at HG Sply was a new treat for me. We ate on the patio, which was handicap accessible (it’s a long walk from the parking, so Jamie pushed me in the transport chair). Because of a funny quirk in my digestion, I am watching what I eat—so I happily watched myself eat salmon, sweet potato and grilled avocado half with chimichurri sauce. Wonderful meal! After dinner, we sat around, visited, laughed a lot, and had a good time.

Friday night, Jean and I planned to go to our favorite Japanese restaurant, Tokyo Café, but by the time we called, they were booked. So Jean got us take-out—she had a yakisoba noodles with tofu and vegetables (no tofu for me, thank you!). I ordered salmon crudo—I had scant idea what it would be except that it had salmon sashimi. It was delicious but next time I’ll probably just order sashimi.

Today, Jordan and Christian went to the Hidden Garden Tour in Fort Worth—all the gardens were in Crestwood, a lovely older neighborhood with beautiful trees and grand old homes. Despite of unseasonably high temperatures, they report a good time. I like the TCU skeleton.

So tonight, we’re all home, and I have fixed a cilantro/lime chicken salad. We’ll have a green salad with it. And I have a good book for the evening.

The week wasn’t that blah, really. I did a lot of work. Finding Florence went to beta readers, and I already have the first report back, so that’s tomorrow’s project. I wrote my May column for Lone Star Literary Life (if you don’t know that free, online weekly newsletter, you should look it up), I did an small editing job for a nonprofit here in Fort Worth, wrote a book review, and finished the recipe section for Finding Florence, despite the fact that the computer kept eating the recipes. Now, as another week looms, I have projects to look forward to—edits on the new mystery, a story/recipe to compose, and choices to make about my next project.

I close with a nostalgic picture of the Alters on the Fort Worth Zoo train—Jacob must have been no more than three or four, but I can’t imagine what accounts for the funny look on his face. A good memory.

Hope this is a good week for everyone—may the weather cool off in Texas.

Me, you, and our differences

 

Me and my children
I post this to demonstrate how different they are.
Each is their own person, 
and you cannot describe them adequately as Judy's kids

Tonight, a random thought struck me. I wasn’t going to blog—again, two nights in a row! Was I losing my touch? But it seemed not much was going on. Then there came this thought: my grandson is taking STAAR tests (or whatever tests a high school sophomore takes) tomorrow. He’s a great kid, smart as can be, but he isn’t particularly interested in academics, and what occurred to me was that those standardized tests might be a poor picture of his academic—and non-academic--achievements in life. (He is a star on the varsity golf team and a genuinely nice kid!).

Take that one step farther, and it leads to what I’ve always thought about standardized testing, though I have not investigated it. I think that mindset is part of the problem. Was it Ross Perot who made standardized testing mandatory and a requirement for participation in extracurricular activities? Anyway, fie on whoever did that. It forces teachers to teach to the test and not to the student, and it assumes all students are alike and progress at the same level. And just as the size and height of sixteen year-olds can vary wildly, so can their scholastic ability. Teachers lose the ability to wander from the prescribed curriculum and use their own creativity and experience in exciting students about learning.

Take that yet another step farther, and it points to a serious problem in our culture today—the lack of consideration, and respect for the individual. Human beings come in many color, sizes, abilities, interests, personalities—you name all the ways we can differ. Somewhere along the way, we’ve lost the respect for that. We expect everyone to measure up to (or fail) one standard of perfection. As far as I can tell right now, that standard is white, male, Christian, Republican.

Abortion is such a hot topic currently that I hate to even touch it, but perhaps nowhere else is this standardization more evident. The various states who either have already enacted strict laws (Texas, O My Texas!) or have trigger laws on the books make no exception for rape, incest, or medical emergency. Old white men in their wisdom assume that all pregnancies go along smoothly and result in happy babies. They refuse to consider ectopic pregnancies, which can kill a woman; deformed or dead embryos, which can kill a woman; any other of myriad medical emergencies that endanger both child and embryo. In their righteous authoritarianism, they are blind to the fact that almost all abortions are done in the first trimester; those done after that are almost always for compelling medical reasons. It’s the compelling medical reasons that have me reeling tonight. I cannot imagine letting a woman die of a complication of pregnancy that could easily be controlled medically because it is against the law. What kind of Orwellian world have we wandered into?

Now some states are even making spontaneous miscarriages a crime. What gives them the medical knowledge to do that? I read today of a woman who went to a doctor, not knowing she was pregnant, because she was cramping and bleeding. Turned out she had already miscarried, but she said the tone of the doctor changed dramatically when that fact was confirmed. Of course it did—he/she was afraid of being complicit in an abortion. Having once miscarried myself before I knew I was pregnant, I can fully sympathize with this young woman. Eventually her doctor concluded she really didn’t know, and all was well. But what about a less humane doctor?

My whole point here is less about abortion than it is about life. We have somehow lost respect for each human being as an individual. Think about fingerprints. No two of us have identical fingerprints—not even, I believe, identical twins. No two of us are alike, and we must stop treating people that way. We must re-learn the art of appreciating the individual, with all of his or her own glory. It goes beyond stereotyping or profiling. Such respect means really looking at, listening to each person as they tell their story.

May those who lead us stop thinking of people as herds of cattle (even they are not all alike) and start seeing a crowd of many individuals—in the US, in Ukraine, in Russia, anywhere there is oppression of groups or classes of people. Not in the US, you think? Guess again.

Reprise of the Derby and Mother’s Day

 

Two of my girls

Jordan and Christian were among the hosts for a Run for the Roses Party Saturday, a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society where they are both active. In the picture above, Jordan is shown with another of my daughters, though they aren’t sisters. The girl (she’ll like that) on the left is Sue Springfield. She calls me her Fort Worth mom, and I call her my Canadian daughter. The temptation is always there to call her my adopted daughter, but as the mother of four adopted children, I think that muddies the waters.

Maybe fifteen years ago, maybe more, Sue divorced, and she and her two young children moved next door to me. We became fast friends and spent many an evening sipping wine on my front porch and solving the problems of the world. Sue’s kids finished at the elementary school across the street, she was unhappy with the condition of her rental home, and she bought a house about ten minutes away which, over the years, she has transformed from ordinary to extraordinary. And then she met Teddy Springfield, a doctor and business manager from California. They married, and instead of whisking her away to California, Teddy moved here. And through all this, Sue and I have remained friends. One of my happiest happy hours is when Teddy and Sue come to sit on the patio.

So this picture reminds me again what a lucky mom I am. And since I spent Mother’s Day home alone, due to an unforeseen set of circumstances, I needed that reminder. The Burtons met with Christian’s family at Joe T. Garcia’s. At first, I cancelled some plans I had made and planned to go with them. But the more we talked about accessibility, the less enthusiastic I became. Finally I decided to stay home, and Jamie said he and Mel would come over from Frisco. But yesterday morning, he called suffering from one of the dizzy spells he periodically gets and has since he was in elementary school.

So I stayed home, and the day was like any other. When the Burtons came home, they were exhausted (post-Derby, I’m sure) and wanted nothing more than to sleep. During the day Jordan flitted in and out a couple of times, and Jacob came to blow the tree droppings off the patio, but that was my human companionship. I talked to each of the other three, had a sweet message from Sue, and spent the day at my desk.  Cooked myself a good dinner—crab cake, carrots cooked in olive oil and brown sugar (I love cooked carrots but no one else here will eat them), and guacamole Jordan brought home from Joe T.s. I was really fine alone, except for a couple of minutes of self-pity—which only proved that I’m all too human.

In posting about Mother’s Day yesterday, I forgot to acknowledge four women who I think of each year—the biological mothers of my children. I worry and wonder if they still feel a hole in their lives, have they moved on? I cannot believe that my babies don’t linger in a small corner of their hearts, and I’d like to reach out to them and tell them how healthy, happy, and successful those babies are. The social climate was a lot different fifty years ago (yes, three of them have passed the fifty-year mark), and I am grateful that these young women carried their babies to term. It’s particularly poignant right now.

A day brightener: yesterday I saw a male and female cardinal right outside my desk window. For several years now, this pair has made their home in our yard. They are, like me, homebodies and not given to wandering, so we see them frequently. Beuse of the old belief that the sight of a cardinal means someone from the other side is thinking of you, I always think this couple means my folks are watching over us.

So that was my Mother’s Day, a bittersweet one, now consigned to the past, while life goes on. Today I worked on recipes for my new novel, talked with someone about a small free lance project, and made plans for a new project. And just now I realized I was watching the news on BBC instead of NBC—an interesting change! Wondered why none of the newscasters looked familiar.

Mothers’ Day Musings

 

I looked long and hard for the family group photo I wanted but couldn't find it.
This will have to do for to catch the algorithms.

When my mother was young, my grandfather (a man I never met because he died before I was born) told her she took such a poor picture the only place he would hang it was in the barn (she passed this particular trait along to me, along with a lot of much better ones). So I have no picture of her to post—only group pictures, mostly taken with the grands who adored her. But she was a pretty woman, with auburn hair that she pushed into waves—beauty parlors were an anathema fo her. I lost Mom several years before I really lost her—a series of small strikes took away the loving, capable, sometimes silly, always kind woman I knew. It was a period of great grief for me, and one I still look back on with guilt. In the eighties we didn’t know what we do today about caring for dementia patients.

So, today, as I remember Alice Peterman Peckham MacBain, I cling to all the very good memories. Stories she told that made the tears of laughter run down her cheeks, her reassurance that thunderstorms were magnificent (she didn’t live in tornado alley), the time she signed her name Alice P. MacBread because she was watching some toast, the times we cooked together and all she taught me in the kitchen. She was a good cook and a gracious host to many dinner parties. She was also athletic—golf and swimming (she regrated my lack of interest in athletics and once said she wished she’d given me ballet lessons to make me graceful—thanks, Mom).

Mom had a dark side to her life—she lost her first husband to a WWI wound, and four years after I was born, she lost my six-month-old sister. And she lost my dad too soon. So I cling to the good memories of which there are many, and, yes, I still talk to her in my head. I know she’s listening, and most of the time I know she answers somehow.

On this Mother’s Day I want to give a shout-out to my two daughters and my two daughters-in-law, each in her own way doing a terrific job as a mother. The families and their styles are so different, but the end result is that I have seven wonderful grands. As a mother I am so fortunate that my kids and their families like nothing better than an all-Alter get-together. I only wish that my mom had lived long enough to know these families—she would be so proud.

 This day I am particularly thinking about First Lady Jill Biden. I so admire the courage she displayed by going to Ukraine to meet with Olena Zelenska. I read a long article about our First Lady last week in which the writer emphasized Dr. Biden’s ability to compartmentalize, to keep the parts of her life separate and focus on the moment. When she is teaching, her whole being is in the classroom; when she is First Lady, that is her focus; and when she is the president’s wife, she gives that role her all. Someone said recently that she should not have let her husband run for president because of his dementia. The dementia foolishness aside, I don’t think theirs is that kind of relationship, where one person “lets” the other do something. I suspect the run for the presidency was a joint decision, carefully considered and mutually agreed upon. And it is evident today that they are a team, working well together.

A word about Joe Biden’s nonexistent dementia: Russian bots and trolls insidiously injected that line of reasoning leading up to the 2020 election. What alt-right folks label dementia is simply a matter of style and being. Trump is all about drama, waving his arms, pointing at people, yelling, making threats, spewing lies, suggesting irrational solutions to problems, from injecting bleach to shooting civilians and bombing Mexico; Biden is calm, controlled, almost understated—but as he showed at the recent press corps dinner, delivering some zingers. Members of the press who have covered Washington for years say Joe Biden is the same as he has always been—quiet, competent, compassionate. Of the two men—the current and the former guy—it seems obvious to me that our current president is comfortable in his own skin, sure of his decisions. The former guy? Not so much.

A man with dementia could not have handled pandemic and vaccination programs a well as he did, built back the economy at the rapid rate he has, and masterfully united European countries against Russian aggression in Ukraine. He’s accomplished much more but is held back by conservatives. Economists, for instance, say Build Back Better would make an enormous difference in all our lives—instead conservatives are concerned about women’s bodies and their private lives. Ooops, I’ll get off my platform now.

We are fortunate to have both Bidens at the helm of our country today.

God Bless Jill Biden and all the mothers worldwide, women who have borne children, and women who have raised children not their own, women who act as mentors (because that is a form of mentoring), and women who fight for all of us. Fittingly our minister at church this morning began a series of sermons the fierce women of the Bible. May we all have the strength to be fierce.

The Kentucky Derby and other unrelated things

 

Since before I can remember, I was taught to be proud of my Scottish heritage. For years I have regularly paid my dues to be enrolled as a member of Clan MacBean. When my oldest son and daughter and I went to Scotland, we visited the MacBain Memorial Park in the hills above Dores, with a glimpse of Lochness. The land is part of the original clan homelands, purchased as a memorial in the sixties by Hughston McBain of Marshall Field & Co. in Chicago and then the McBain of McBain. Colin, Megan (see? Their names are even Celtic) and I proudly signed the guest book kept at the pub in Dores.

That 23andMe indicated I have English and Irish blood but not a drop of Scot didn’t bother me at all. I know better. I am a MacBain, with a park in Scotland. I thrill to the discordant notes of the bagpipe and the beat of the drums—and I’d love some year to go to Tattoo in Edinburgh, though I think perhaps that ship has sailed without me.

Still, tonight, I watched the streaming of the memorial service for James Hughston McBain, late the McBain of McBain, who died at the age of 93. Bagpipers and drummers made a ceremonial entrance before the service. Probably James McBain had many non-Scottish friends in Tucson where he lived, but I noticed a few tartans thrown over the shoulders of some women at the service. The pipers and drummers wore a variety of tartans, though I don’t think I saw one McBain plaid. Even the minister had a plaid stole. Fittingly given the Scottish heritage, it was a Presbyterian service. A nice Saturday reminder of both my faith and my heritage.

On another odd note, I read an article today about the history of containers for restaurant to-go food. There is, for instance, a man who has the world’s largest collection of pizza boxes. They are all brand new and grease free. The most prized are those with the winking chef, a jolly man in a toque with dark eyebrows and mustache, his fingers raised in an okay sign. You’ve surely seen him on any number of billboards, etc. But where does one store an extensive collection of pizza boxes. And to me this just says some people will collect anything.

The article went on to a discussion of Chinese take-out boxes, those intricately designed, folded things of waxed paperboard with a wire handle. Those were designed in the late nineteenth century and have changed little since then. When I was a kid that’s what every Chinese meal came in, though how I know that is a mystery, because my British father, a beef and potatoes man, would never have eaten Chinese. Today those boxes have a pagoda on them and printing that is meant to look like Chinese calligraphy. We won’t discuss authenticity.

And finally there are sushi boxes, which must wring the heart of every environmentalist. If made of wood, they might be priceless designs. Not so much so, made of plastic. Today’s black sushi boxes, often with red and gold flourishes, are an imitation of the artistic Japanese lacquered dishes with mountain scenes, flowers, and brocade. Think about that the next time you pick up sushi at the grocery store.

Jean and I watched the Kentucky Derby tonight and cheered mightily for the longshot who won but who obviously did not like being in the winners’ circle or his blanket of roses. I am always a bit on edge watching that two minutes, fearing that someone—mostly some horse—will go down. Today’s race was without incident, and I am glad. The build-up to the show was not as much fun as I expected—when I wanted the camera to pan the crowd and show us all the crazy hats, instead we got a lot of meaningless talk. And one time when they did pan the crowd, we got  a group of men who had obviously had too many mint juleps. But the race itself was exciting, and we were pleased for the winner.

Kentucky Hot Brown

My Kentucky Hot Browns were not as good as I hoped, though Jean is always an appreciative audience for my cooking experiments. Doubt I’ll try that again. Anyone want some leftover Mornay sauce?

Sweet dreams, and Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there—and all the many women who have taken on the mothering role though it was not biologically theirs.

 

 

A small hat and a cow

 

Mother's Day roses from the Burtons
Aren't they wonderful?

In Texas we talk derisively about people who are all hat and no cattle. Lest I be accused of that, I have taken a small step toward acting on the principles and politics I espouse so loud and long. I am part of a class action suit being brought by the Texas League of Women Voters against Senate Bill 1, the bill known as the voter suppression bill.

This came about almost by serendipity. When the local independent newspaper, Fort Worth Report, was collecting information about voters’ problems with mail-in ballots, I emailed them about my experience—had to apply three times for approval of my mail-in status and then, my ballot was rejected, as was my Correction of Information form. The result was that my voice was not counted in the March 1 primary election. I was one of nearly 23,000 mail-in voters whose ballots were rejected, just across Texas. Governor Abbott and the Republican-controlled legislature passed obscure new I.D. laws to ensure election integrity. (I have since voted twice, successfully, by mail—at least I assume it was successful.)

The problem with that? There was negligible evidence of voter fraud in the 2020 elections. Experts called it one of the cleanest elections this country has ever seen. Nonetheless Republicans did their usual: spurred by trump’s “big lie,” they created a problem where none existed. I am well-educated and a conscientious voter with some strong opinions, especially about Texas politics, so I pursued. Think how many folks in my position might have been discouraged and decided it wasn’t worth it. That was the whole point of this dishonest maneuver.

Maybe a couple of weeks ago, I received an email from a lawyer with ACLUTx, asking if I would tell her my story. I did, by phone, and she asked if I would be part of this suit. I did what any mother would do—I consulted my lawyer-daughter, who said, “Go for it!”

So today I had a Zoom interview with a young—oh so young!—legal fellow from ACLUTx. Bonus: daughter Megan sat in on the session. The young woman, Ashley, reviewed my declaration, asked a lot of questions, which I thought I handled truthfully and easily—at the time I never dreamed the information would be needed, so I made no record of the sequence or sometimes whether the voting office contacted me or I contacted them. But Ashley seemed satisfied, and Megan later said she thought it went well. According to Ashley, the state will depose me, probably the last two weeks in May, but it too can be remote. Apparently, ACLU will provide counsel for me, and Megan said if they would do that, she would prefer to remain unofficial.

I may have posted earlier about the time I spoke boldly to a friend, a retired political science professor no less, about my opinion that it was not fair to criticize current politics and a party without doing something to be part of the solution. Being part of this class action suit is my way of putting my words into action, and it feels good.

No, I am not satisfied, and I will still not be silenced. I hope I never get abrasive, but I feel compelled to speak out. I see a rigid minority taking control of this country, enforcing their beliefs on us, and I want to be among those who fight back. What, I wonder, happened to the separation of church and state. The three trump appointees to SCOTUS (rue the day that ever happened!) are said to be originalists—which means they interpret the constitution as it was originally written and without any acknowledgment of changing times.

This means they support the second amendment, written in the time of militias formed to defend against natives fighting encroachment on their lands, a time when men fought with muskets which had to be hand-loaded between shots, a time-consuming process. The amendment has no relevance in the age of automatic and military weapons in the hands of civilians, and the “organized militia” it calls for in no way means the vast number of yahoos wandering our streets with automatic weapons, both concealed and openly carried. It is an out-of-date concept. The separation of church and state, however, is not outdated, and we are seeing today the very thing the Founding Fathers feared—bold moves toward a theocracy which would put a perverted, right-wing Christianity (I can barely stand to call it that) in dominance over the country.

Voter suppression is but one small step toward their goal; so is the abolishment of Roe v. Wade. With their dirty little, puritanical minds fixated on what should be private between two individuals, they will next come after contraceptives, interracial marriage, gay marriage. And it will go from there. The Handmaid’s Tale was unfortunately prophetic.

A part of me wants to say, “I am old, and I only have a limited number of years on this planet,” but another, better part of me worries about my children and grandchildren and the world in general. There is so much good about America—yes, even Texas which, as a transplant, I love except for the politics—that I don’t want to see this great experiment in democracy fail.

I hope you’ll join me, whatever size your hat and however many cows you want to claim.

A sandwich tribute to the Kentucky Derby

 

A Kentucky Hot Brown
made with cheddar cheese

What a weekend coming up! Locally in Fort Worth, the weekend will see the first Mayfest celebration after a two-year hiatus due to covid. Festivities begin Thursday and run through Sunday in Trinity Park. Details and calendars are available online. This is the fiftieth celebration of the riverside, family-oriented festival that’s designed to bring families together for fun.

Looking at the bigger picture, families across the nation will be celebrating Mother’s Day on Sunday. If you haven’t made brunch reservations yet, you may be out of luck though a few restaurants might still have openings. Maybe flowers? Although various cultures tracing back to the Greeks and Romans have had celebrations honoring mothers, the holiday as we know it began in 1908 when a West Virginia woman, Anna Jarvis, held a private memorial for her mother. The idea spread, and by 1914 President Theodore Roosevelt signed It into law. Today many, including the late Ms. Jarvis, bemoan the commercialization of this tribute. It’s become a bonanza for restaurants, florists, and the greeting card industry. Still, it’s nice to thank Mom for all she does.

Don’t overlook the big event Saturday night: the Kentucky Derby, often called the “Run for the Roses” or “The Fastest Two Minutes in Sports.” Three-year-old Thoroughbreds run a mile-and-a-quarter track in about two minutes. If you blink, you’ve missed it. It’s the first of three races for the Triple Crown—next is the Preakness Stakes and then Belmont Stakes. The race goes back to 1875 and has been held every year since, even during covid.

I’m not much of a fan of horse racing and not a betting person at all, but I enjoy the celebration, with its ceremonial pomp and the outrageous hats and outfits on the ladies, the blanket of roses draped over the winner. The excitement in the air is so palpable you feel it sitting in your living room watching it on TV. So I’ll be watching, and in honor of the race I’ll be serving Kentucky Hot Browns.

There is not really a connection between the sandwich and the Derby, except that both are based in Louisville. The Kentucky Hot Brown was created by a chef named Frederick Schmidt in 1926 at Louisville’s Brown Hotel. Intended to be a late-night substitute for ham and eggs or for classic Welsh rarebit, it is generally an open-faced sandwich of sliced turkey, covered in Mornay sauce and decorated with bacon and grated Parmesan. Of course, these days there are variations—you can add tomatoes or mushrooms, you might want cheddar in your Mornay sauce instead of Parmesan. You can find recipes online for canapes called Hot Brown Bites or for Hot Brown casseroles. Some people make Hot Brown Sliders. One interesting note: the sandwich got attention because in the Twenties no one ate turkey at any other time of the year than Thanksgiving and Christmas.

A note about options: some recipes use milk, others chicken broth; some use Parmesan, others cheddar. I think it’s a question of pairing: if you use Parmesan, I’d use milk for liquid and add a pinch of nutmeg; if you prefer cheddar, use chicken broth and add ½ tsp. Worcestershire.

Here’s the basic recipe:

Hot Brown Sandwich for four

For the sandwich:

4 slices artisan white bread, toasted (if the slices are small, use 8)

1 lb. roast turkey breast, thick slices

2 Roma tomatoes, sliced

8 slices bacon, cooked and crisp

For the sauce:

¼ c. butter

¼ c. flour

1 cup whipping cream

1 cup whole milk (or chicken broth)

½ c. grated cheese (see note above for type of cheese)

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Toast the bread, lay it in a large, flat casserole dish, and top with roast turkey.

Melt the butter in a small saucepan and stir in the flour, making a roux. Gradually stir in the cream and milk or chicken broth, stirring almost constantly until the sauce thickens. Remove from heat and stir in cheese, seasoning, and salt and pepper.

Cover sandwiches generously with the sauce and broil until cheese bubbles and begins to brown—do not let it burn! Remove from oven and garnish with sliced tomatoes and crisscrossed strips of bacon. Serve hot as the name implies. And raise a glass to the Derby winner!

 

 

 

Thoughts on a dull evening

 

Summer storm in downtown Fort Worth

Storms are predicted for tonight, and barring tornadoes, North Texas will welcome them. We need the rain desperately. And I for one enjoy a good storm. My dog, not so much. But something popped up somewhere online today asking whether or not you enjoy storms, and that question took my mind back a lot of years.

When I was growing up, my family had a cottage on a high dune overlooking Lake Michigan at the very foot on the lake, in the Indiana dunes. Storms would roll down that lake from the north, churning the water into wild whitecaps. We were of course forbidden to swim on those days, but I loved watching those storms come in, and I felt secure in our little cottage with the lake to the front and the woods behind us. My brother and I both credit our mother for teaching us to enjoy rather than fear storms.

I enjoy them to this day, much to Jacob’s bewilderment when he was little and scared. One night when he was with me, a storm took the roof off a business down the street form us, and I did think maybe he was right. I should have been more concerned.

Another night, we watched large hail pelting us from the sky—and then we went to bed. At the time, the house was being re-roofed, and I didn’t realize that only a temporary tarp had been put over the flat-roofed add-on at the back of the house that served as a family room. In the morning when I woke up, the house smelled of rain and water. I nudged Jacob, because I wanted company, even if it was only a seven-year-old, and holding hands we walked through the kitchen to the back room. It was two or three inches deep in water. All my cookbooks were ruined, plus all the y/a books I’d written that we had put out for a special sale for parents and teachers from the school across the street. In no time, we had neighbors, our contractor, and the roofing company owner on their hands and knees mopping and sponging up water. Jordan, whose birthday it was, spent the day sorting books to see which could be salvaged. I was by then having severe hip problems and could do little except wring my hands.

But the storm memory that most remains in my memory is the night Jacob insisted we go to the long, walk-in closet in my bedroom. He had outfitted it with a chair, a flashlight, my book, and a glass of wine for me. For him, a puzzle or something, blankets and a pillow, and a sippy cup full of I don’t know what. I can’t remember how long we sat there until I finally convinced him the danger was past. Such sweet memories to treasure. I hope now, at almost sixteen, he enjoys storm as much as I do, but it’s not a subject you ask a teen about.

It's been a stressful week, and the odd thing is that it’s not just me. I’ve heard it from others, some in far parts of the country. The leaked draft of Justice Alito’s papers on the Roe case have profoundly shaken most of us, sending the abortion question to the states where in too many instances laws will be written without exemptions for life-threatening conditions, rape, incest, or a non-viable fetus (such as an ectopic pregnancy where the fetus lodges in a Fallopian tube and not the uterus). And these laws will be made by mostly white men with absolutely no medical background but a fiercely self-righteous piousness.

The Ukraine invasion wages on, and though we admire the Ukrainian bravery and resolve, there is no way to avoid horror at the butchery and barbarism. And closer to home, the wildfires of the West blaze on. The Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon fire has now burned something like 160,000 acres. That’s a lot of people displaced, and a lot of animals, both wild and domestic, either killed or traumatized.

The good news around here is that I, all by myself, fixed my hearing aids by re-pairing them to the phone. Directions are online. It just took me a bit yesterday to remember that. And Sophie seems some better. Sje refused to eat this morning but ate tonight and took her pills. Pill pockets seem to do the trick. She still has some ferocious coughing fits, but they seem less frequent. And she was chasing squirrels today—always a good sign. Maybe we’re slowly working our way out of the smaller traumas at our house.

Rain would help. So join me, please, in praying for a benevolent storm tonight. The last couple of nights I’ve seen lightening about three in the morning but have gone back to sleep too quickly to know if it rained or not. Both mornings, though, the streets were wet.

Sweet dreams of rain, everyone! And may it rain heavily in New Mexico.

A day out of sorts

I didn’t get squat done today. Gray and a bit depressing, it has been a day of bad news and interruptions, one of those days when the ordinary pattern of life falls apart. I was up earlier than usual because of a minor doctor’s appointment at 9:15, but barely past eight Christian and Jordan converged on the cottage to tell me the son of one of her childhood friends is in the hospital with a brain tumor. Jordan had already been to the hospital and back and was on stand-by for the rest of the day and presumably the rest of the week.

Cancer right now seems all around us. The mother of one of Jordan’s friends—a friend since elementary school and a mother I knew and liked—is hospitalized with what looks like a severe form, and the brother of a friend has been diagnosed with a brain tumor. It cannot but help shake your faith.

We went to my appointment (blood work) and then by her office to get paperwork so she could work from home. By the time we got home, I was already behind myself and more than a bit discombobulated—and with several emails and phone calls to make before I could settle down.

Bless Jordan for insight that I lacked. While I have worried about Sophie for days and bothered the vet almost daily, after one in-person visit I accepted his remote advice that allergies were causing her coughing, snuffling, and huffing. The medicine he gave her and diet change helped her stomach. But last night, Jordan was not satisfied. She was worried enough to announce she would take her to the vet. Because the vet was booked today, she dropped Sophie off to be seen whenever. The good part about that is maybe she would exhibit that awful cough for them (she didn’t until the last half hour she was there). The bad part was that I missed her. She goes in and out twenty-eleven times a day, and when inside she sleeps in a chair and, too often, wheezes. I missed all that, and I missed being able to talk to her. Tonight the news is that she has an inflammation (I’m not sure of what) and her x-rays are going to a radiologist tomorrow. Meanwhile she is on antibiotics and a cough suppressant. I hope we’re making progress, because the poor baby has been miserable. And so have I in the middle of the night.

Trying to listen to the vet on the phone I realized that I couldn’t hear him, and he couldn’t hear me. Jordan finally straightened it all out, and Jacob came out tonight to see what I had done to my phone. Truth was, it was my hearing aids, and I think it had to do with keeping them charged, a problem I’ve had for a while. The rechargeable batteries are apparently giving out (and they weren’t cheap) and the company no longer makes them. Damn! Back to changing batteries all the time. I may call the company and complain, for all the good that will do me. Typical of the day—one thing after another.

Then Jordan got word of the suicide of a young woman she didn’t know but who was good friends with some of Jord’s best pals. So we are worried, as always in those cases, about those left behind to grieve.

Christian had a difficult day at the office, and I appealed our tax appraisal, only to get it reduced by a measly thousand dollars. So I protested, but I have no idea what can of worms I opened. I am trusting Christian to see me through this. Seems like all day it was just one little thing after another.

A big thing that lurks in the background of this down day is the leak from SCOTUS—too appalling to think about, but I do have thoughts, and I’ll share them another night. Perhaps when I’m feeling more optimistic.

The bright note in the day, I think, is that I fixed a really good supper. Sheet pan chicken with vegetables. Trying to please everyone, I cooked carrots, potatoes, and sweet onion. With broccoli on the side for Jacob who, of course, ate while out with friends. But he did eat a bowl of broccoli when he came home. Jordan and Christian were enthusiastic about the dinner—Christian about the skin on the chicken (crispy and so good) and the potatoes, soaked in chicken drippings; Jordan appeared to like the whole thing, though she doesn’t eat potatoes. I hope she ate the carrots which I thought were wonderful. (See this Gourmet on a Hot Plate column for the way I cooked the dinner: Gourmet on a Hot Plate: Chicken thighs and sheet pan cooking

Sweet dreams, everyone. Sometimes life just comes at you in a hard rush, and the only way I know to get through it is to believe tomorrow will be better and to pray a lot for those who need our prayers. So that’s my thought for the night.

Things I wish were different

 

A Chinese pistache tree

It was a picture of a painted bunting that started me on this train of thought. The beautiful little bird had landed on someone’s bird feeder, and they, struck by their good luck, got a good picture of it. And suddenly, there I was, thinking about the things in my life that I wished were different.

No, my wishes don’t involve riches or great wealth, homes in Santa Fe and Scotland, servants to cook my meals and clean my house every day, and certainly not the huge house I once, as the mother of four, dreamed about. Today, my wishes are much more modest. But they are also, I realize, things of the past—bits of knowledge and habits that I wish I had cultivated years ago. It is now too late.

I have long wished I was knowledgeable about trees and birds. Oh, I can recognize an oak, even a post oak, or a pecan. But there’s a tree trying to grow out of the fence behind my cottage—and I would have called it a catalpa. But those are the things from back home in Illinois that grew long “cigarettes” that we pretended to smoke as children. Lots of leaves on one stem. A mimosa? When Christian said he wanted a Chinese pistache, I had no idea what he was talking about. I envy those people who can look at a tree, tell me what it is, what’s wrong with it or not.

Similarly, I wish I knew more about plants. My dad spent his weekends on his hands and knees, wearing grubby clothes with huge, ugly rubber pads wrapped around his knees to protect them. We owned the lot next to our house, and it was Dad’s garden—the place where he could unwind, let go, dig in the dirt, and be perfectly happy. He was the president of an osteopathic college, but he didn’t care one whit if a student came by and caught him in gardening clothes.

Me? I can barely tell a hosta from a hydrangea, though Christian has done much to educate me. Oh yeah, I recognize pansies and petunias, roses and geraniums, and I  once was sharp about recognizing poison ivy, but bougainvillea were a whole new experience for me. I’m learning, but not at a fast enough rate. And now that a challenge to my mobility keeps me from gardening, it seems a bit pointless. Oh, who am I fooling? I never much wanted to garden. I dabbled in it, but I am perfectly content these days to pay for a lawn and garden service. What I really want is a classic English garden replacing our front lawn where grass is always a problem—good some years, a disaster other years. Don’t tell me it’s Texas and too dry—I saw a picture today of a Fort Worth acquaintance’s garden--a lovely, wild English garden in front of his house--and I burned with jealousy. But I can’t do the work, I doubt the lawn service would do it, and Christian is wedded to the idea of a conventional lawn. I’m at least hoping to get him, one year soon, to consider clover because it’s cheap, lasts a long time, and is better for the environment—doesn’t require so much water.

And then there are the birds. I sit at my desk in the early morning or twilight, listen to them sing, and wish that I could link the song to a specific bird, but it’s beyond me. I can recognize bluejays (love when they visit) and cardinals—we have a pair that live in our yard, though I haven’t seen them yet this year. But I know the saying that when they do visit it means someone from beyond is thinking of you and I always think it's my parents.

At one point, a friend gave me, at my request, a guide to birds that I kept by my kitchen sink, back when I was in the house and had a greenhouse window over the sink and a bird feeder right outside. But I was never good at spotting birds—eventually the tree that held the feeder had to be cut down, and I moved from the main house to the cottage. We have hung hummingbird feeders out here, but to no avail. If my dad was the gardener, my mom was the bird person. She had a bird feeder right outside the dining room window in their retirement home, and I sat in the window many a time watching the hummingbirds whir and fight and eat.

But when I think about these things, I remind myself to think about the things I am passionate (and knowledgeable) about—books and reading and publishing and cooking, politics with a humanitarian slant, religion though I tend to keep quiet about that. In listing the things I regret, I am by no means complaining. I have too much in life to be grateful for. It’s just that sometimes I notice the things that have slipped by me.

Want to talk about the mystery genre and the various subgenres? I can probably hold my own in that conversation.