A day in limbo

 

Sophie waiting for company on the patio.
We had our first patio gathering tonight.

This morning before I was even out of bed, the vet called with not-so-good news. Sophie’s kidneys were failing. He didn’t sound hopeful, but he said we would give her the morning and see how she did. He’d call back mid-day. So I piddled—read emails, read Facebook, answered a bit of correspondence, but all thoughts of creative work fled. I was watching the clock and wondering what his idea of mid-day was. I think I was a case study in suspended animation.

My kids rallied around, as they always do when I need them. Colin, skiing with his family in Wolf Creek, Colorado, has called three times and been very supportive. I guess the best thing he said to me was, “You’re always tough about the big things.” And this, I agreed, was a big thing. Megan, packing up her family in Tahoe to head home, called, and Jamie called from Denver and tried to cheer me with made-up Biblical quotes. I love them for trying, but talking to them made me teary. I was better off when I didn’t talk about Sophie.

Dr. Burney called around two o’clock. No change. She was still lethargic, not interested in food, not interested in peeing, kind of mentally sluggish as well as physically. But he didn’t sound ready to give up. When I said, “She was my miracle baby,” he said, “Oh, I know. Mine two.” So we decided to give her the afternoon. He called about five-thirty, and we agreed to give her until morning. Are we postponing the inevitable? Maybe. One thought I had was that whether or not Soph took advantage of the day, it had been a help to me, allowed me a chance to collect myself and face what lies ahead. I sent her a telepathic message this morning, told her it was up to her—she either had to turn it around or shut it down, but she had to save me from making the decision. Dr. Burney said he was sure she got the message, but he would repeat it to her. I love that man.

So we are still in limbo. I think tomorrow morning, no matter which way it goes, Jordan and I will go to the veterinary clinic and see her. When she was so sick a year ago, Dr. Burney warned me that she would be mad at me, because she thought whatever happened to her was my doing. And boy, was he right. She wouldn’t come near me. So that worries me a bit about going to see her. Jordan thinks seeing us will give her a boost. I am not sure.

And to pile complication on complication: Jacob has tested positive for Covid. He’s just home from a three-day fishing/swimming/hanging out trip to Oklahoma with three buddies. Called his mom at lunch and said he couldn’t taste his Chick Filet. (In my opinion that’s a good thing—I boycott Chick Filet, but he loves it and I can’t appeal to his teenage hunger on moral grounds). So when he got home, he tested positive. So now he’s bummed, because he can’t hang out with his buddies during his senior year spring break, and he can’t work to earn money.

But there is family good news. My brother, who is pretty much bedridden, has been in the hospital for two or three weeks, but it looks like he can go home tomorrow. I’m so grateful for small slivers of hope.

Tonight Subie and Phil came for a drink. She said she watched all day for a message telling them not to come, but I would have wanted them here no matter which way things went with Sophie. They are longtime friends, the kind who are a comfort, and they were tonight. It was the first time Subie drove over our new, nicely flat driveway, and she was full of raves about it.

I am deeply grateful to all of you who have sent hugs and prayers and good wishes. You help me as I wait in limbo, and I’m sure. If she knew, Sophie would be grateful too. She always did love to be the center of attention.

Sophie’s story part II

Sophie, 12 weeks old
The day we brought her home.

Tonight, the cottage is quiet and a bit lonely. Sophie is spending the night in the hospital. She had taken lately, with the warmer weather, to lying on the patio until late at night when I enticed her inside with a bit of cheese so I could go to bed. During the evening, she’d come in from time to time to get a drink of water and, I hope, to see that I was where she thought I ought to be, but it was not as though we spent the evening chatting. Still, I miss knowing she out there, and I may even miss her demand for breakfast at seven in the morning.

She is in a specialty clinic, not your neighborhood vet (think big dollars), but the doctor who saved her life is one of my favorite people. She needs his spot-on knowledge. He called tonight to say that she’s still pretty rough. This morning he reported that her diabetes was out of control, her blood sugar ridiculously high, and she had opened the old wound (once a bed sore) on her front elbow. (I’d caught her licking that now and again but she stopped when I told her to.) Tonight he says the sugar numbers are much better, so I will wait for a morning report.

I like to say this all happened so fast—the first clear sign was yesterday morning when she didn’t eat her breakfast. But in retrospect, I know there were small signs—another time I’ll be more alert to them. She, who is always ravenous, turned down her dry kibble though she kept eating the canned food. And if I poured broth over the kibble, she’d eat it. But that quit yesterday. We caught her chewing nonedible things. And both last night and this morning she disappeared into the far reaches of the back yard where I cannot see her and cannot follow with my walker. I’ve had experience before with a dog who went off to die, so that freaked me out. In fact yesterday in the wee morning hours I called Christian but just then she poked her head around into the door, and I hit disconnect quickly. But last night and this morning Jordan and Christian had to go get her and carry her back to the cottage.

So tonight I am feeling sorry for myself. Jordan and Christian have gone to a friend’s b’day dinner at Don Artemio’s, the relatively new, upscale restaurant featuring the food of northeastern Mexico—think Saltillo and San Miguel, also think nopales, cabrito, tacos de Lengua (tongue tacos and my favorite on the menu). Don Artemio’s was a finalist for the best new restaurant in the James Beard Awards for 2023. I suggested jokingly Jordan order the cabrito, because that’s what I want the next time I dine there. I knew she’d frown, and I bet she orders a steak because that’s what she likes and what she is comfortable with. Me? I want to try new things, as long as they are not too spicy.

But more than feeling sorry for myself, I am feeling sorry for Sophie. I know she thinks we’ve abandoned her. She hates the clinic, and we all know when you feel bad, you want to be home, not in some sterile place. Fingers crossed, prayers said that she can come home tomorrow.

Tonight Mary came for happy hour. She is to do a two-part cooking class on Helen Corbitt for the Silver Frogs (non-credit, community classes from TCU for an older audience, a truly vital program.) Mary cooks from her kitchen via a Zoom-like arrangement, and for the Corbitt program she plans to have me chime in with my research into Corbitt’s career. So she showed us the treasures she’d bought for the demonstration—a Hollandaise sauce mix, chutney, flower pots for the cakes Corbitt made for LadyBird, etc., and the Power Point presentation she’d put together. I declined to do that because I have no idea about Power Point. It was fun to talk about Corbitt, and I enjoyed the hour. Then Mary and Jordan rushed off and I ate leftover meat loaf and a small green salad.

But I’ve got great cooking plans coming up—only to be told Jordan wants a b’day dinner of tacos Saturday night. I have a recipe for chicken tacos I might try to talk her into, but I am not hopeful.

Pray for Soph, please. I hope tomorrow I can report she’s safely home.

Worrying about Sophie

 

Sophie is having what I guess you’d call a diabetic crisis—so I am having an emotional crisis. Over the weekend, we caught her eating some odd things—like my rattail comb, a baseball card picture of one grandson, and so on. Jordan said, “She’s hungry”; Christian said, “She’s bored.” Turns out Jordan was right.

Last night I had to get up twice to refill her water, which is unusual. When she went out at five in the morning, she was gone twenty minutes or more, and I couldn’t find her. Was about to call Christian when she stuck her head in the door. She has breakfast in two servings—a complicated story because of her insulin shot. But this morning, she did not lick the bowl clean as usual with her first breakfast and did not eat her second at all. Christian was taking Cricket to the vet, so he described the symptoms, and the vet said her blood sugar is high. She needs to eat and have insulin.

This evening we tried everything to get her to eat—pouring broth over her dog food, grating cheese and dropping it on the floor with an “Oh, oh” (which is what we do when we’re working with cheese—it usually delights her), and, finally, putting dog food and broth in a blender and using a syringe to force feed. Worked pretty well—until she went outside and threw it all up. Per vet instruction, we gave her a half dose of insulin. Both Sophie and I would be lost without Jordan and Christian to manage all this.

So tonight, lethargic is a mild description of her condition. Poor thing apparently feels awful, so first thing in the morning I’ll call the vet. I anticipate we’ll take her in, they’ll feed her through an IV (there goes the fur on one leg), and give her insulin. I pray they can do it without keeping her overnight.

Christian put our feelings into words tonight when he said, “I didn’t realize how fragile her health is.” Now that I look back, I should have seen more warning signs—whereas she usually ate anything you gave her, she scorned her dry kibble for several days. One day I put broth on it and she ate it heartily, but now she won’t even do that. And canned food? She was ravenous. It’s such a sudden change.

Being a pet parent has a lot in common with parenting a child—that feeling of helplessness when you want so desperately to make them feel better, can’t make them understand how to help, and don’t know what else to do.

Nothing else on my mind tonight. Tomorrow, I hope, a more cheery report.

 Were the Little House on the Prairie books anti-feminist? What a question!

 

  

 

President Biden warns us repeatedly that the November election is the most significant in American history. We will choose between democracy and fascism. Recently I’ve noticed another threat—to women. It’s not just abortion or our rights over our own bodies; it’s our place in society, in the world in which we live. The presumptive Republican candidate for the governorship of Norh Carolina, a man named Mark Robinson who is endorsed by trump, has said he’d like to go back to a time when women didn’t have the vote. A politician (I think it was Montana, and I apologize I didn’t get his name) said that America ought to be ruled by men of God—strong, white men. In Texas and in my home county of Tarrant, incumbent women lost a significant number of offices, everything from state representative to tax collector and the state school board. Nationally, there’s the quixotic campaign of Nikki Haley, now ended, or the well-publicized shootout in California between Katie Porter and Adam Schiff. Porter s now being criticized for being a sore leader, akin to trump, but I think she was doing what she does best: exposing politics and corruption. Could her being a woman have added to her current dilemma? After years of fighting the glass ceiling, women are once again gradually being edged out of power, influence, etc.  

Senator Katie Britt’s response to the State of the Union has been mocked, critiqued, disputed all over the internet, and I won’t repeat the comments here, though some are hysterically funny, especially the cold open of SNL. But beneath all the laughter, there’s serious concern. Right-wing extremists give every indication of wanting to send women back to the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant. The dismissive attitude is summed up by a recent incident in Arizona: when Gov. Katie Hobbs called for reproductive freedom in her State of the State speech, a male legislator who must have thought he was clever said there’s already aspirin. He advised women to hold an aspirin between their knees, a suggestion so demeaning and insulting I hardly know what to say.

In her March 8 column, Letter from an American, historian Heather Cox Richardson traces the demonization of women back to the Sixties and cites protests over the 1968 Miss America contest. She doesn’t say it, but the early 1960s saw publication of Betty Freidan’s The Feminine Mystique, the book many credit with starting the late-twentieth-century feminist movement. Richardson traces the status of women through those years: Nixon’s turn against abortion in an effort to win the Catholic vote, Phyllis Schafly’s screeching attacks on the Equal Rights Amendment, the 1973 Roe v Wade, which did so much to free women from traditional, pre-WWII roles, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Little House on the Prairie books which Richardson suggests reinforced the idea of women needing men to take care of them. In 1984, Walter Mondale chose Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate, and they were soundly defeated. And then there was Rush Limbaugh with his “feminazis” and right on up to Hillary Clinton’s battle with donald trump. I urge you to read the entire column: March 8, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson (substack.com)

Of course, the battle began at least a century earlier than the Sixties. It was 1848 when women met in Seneca Falls, NY to plan their fight for rights. There followed years of protest, jailings, beatings, and unbelievable courage until in 1920 the 19^th Amendment gave women the right to vote. The fight is different today but nonetheless intense. Anger and indignation are not good motivation for action, but in this case, I think they are appropriate. I hope women across America will see the insidious nature of this campaign against us and rise up en masse to tell right-wing extremists we are no handmaidens. Will you join me? I am tempted to say “Vote Blue!” but much as I personally want to see Joe Biden in office for another four years, that’s not the point here. I think every woman should evaluate each candidate on his or her stance not only on abortion but on women’s rights and the rights of minorities, because the two go hand in hand.

In peace.

Cooking up a storm

It looks a bit sparse on that big plate, 
and the bok choy looks a bit pitiful,
but the chicken was really good.
Perhaps I need to improve my food stylist skills.

It’s the weekend, and as usual I’ve spent much of it cooking. Along the way I’ve learned a couple of things. Besides, I’ve enjoyed it.

Friday night, I fixed cottage pie—the English version of shepherd’s pie. If you make it with lamb, it’s shepherd’s pie; with beef, cottage pie. We had cottage, though as I made it I regretted that I hadn’t thought to get lamb. It’s about time for some more lamb in our diet, perhaps Julia Child’s recipe for spring lamb stew. But until I get to that, cottage pie makes a good, one-dish meal. It’s one of Christian’s favorites, and I always cook with at last one thought of him in mind. Jordan sweetly mashed the potatoes for me, though I cooked and peeled them. Somehow having her do that made the meal less of a chore.

Tonight I was more ambitious and followed recipes for sauteed baby bok choy and bourbon chicken—it turns out Christian had several bottles of bourbon stashed in my closet. I refrained from using the good stuff, though it was only a quarter cup. That recipe had a little bit of everything in it—ketchup, apple cider (I used white wine). Honey, soy, bourbon, chicken broth—no wonder it was flavorful. There was part though that was an ordeal: cubing the chicken thighs, even though they were boneless and skinless. I put them out to defrost, hoping to catch them in a semi-frozen state when they would be easier to cut up. First time I tried, they were still frozen too hard; then I let them go too long, and they were defrosted. And the lesson of the day: my knives really needed sharpening. I’ve known that for some time, hated to add one more thing to the list I ask the kids to do for me. You ask why I don’t do it myself—I have an electric knife sharpener but  simply cannot bear the sound. So tonight, after dinner, Christian left with the sharpener and several of my knives.

Other than that, the bourbon chicken was fairly easy to do if you remember mise en place—prepping all ingredients and equipment before you begin. The list of ingredients in the sauce for the chicken was fairly daunting—unless you took it item by item and had it ready before you cooked the chicken. Similarly the bok choy recipe called for two separate mixtures. So I did all that and carefully considered what pans I would use. As it turned out I used a pan for the bok choy, transferred that to a slightly smaller pan, washed the first one, and did the chicken in it. But the real saving grace was having all those little dishes of oil and garlic and complex sauce ready before I began.

None of us were too enthusiastic about bok choy even before I served it. Although it was billed as baby bok choy, I suspect it was larger than that. Christian doesn’t like cooked greens, though the stems were crisp and good, and he remarked he liked the taste. Jordan and I were lukewarm. So the recipe went into the round file, and the remains into the compost.

The chicken was another matter—it was not only hard to cut up but hard to cook. You tossed it with cornstarch, but that turned it into one gluey mess making it hard to follow directions that said cook in a single layer. I persevered but none of it browned like the recipe promised, and I ended up deglazing the pan with a bit of uncalled for white wine to get up all those good, browned bits. Perhaps my pan is not as non-stick as I like to think. But I removed the chicken, heated the sauce and cooked it until thickened, added back the chicken, It was to be served over rice, but neither Jordan nor I care for the rice, so Christian brought his own. We garnished it with green onions and declared it a semi-Asian success.

So what I learned was the importance of mise en place. But the other thing was a certain pride in myself. It’s hard to admit, but I live in a semi-assisted living arrangement. There are things I can no longer do for myself and have to ask for help with. But when I do one of those little things, I feel so triumphant. Tonight, it was figuring out how to get lids off two resistant things—the chicken bouillon where I used my mom’s hot water trick, and the bourbon where I used a rubber jar “thing” to twist the top off the bourbon. Somewhere in my not-so-colorful life, I have torn both my rotator cuffs and, of course, never had the surgery because I know it is brutal. So both my reach and my grasp are compromised, But tonight I figured hacks to get me by things that normally would have required help and that made me inordinately proud. I will add that the mechanical jar opener I recently ordered was worthless.

Tomorrow the Burtons will go to have dinner with Christian’s father. Sunday nights are always a bit hard for me, because for so many years that was family night, and I fed anywhere from fifteen to twenty. I always think Sunday dinner should be something special, so now when I’m alone I splurge. Tomorrow it will be baked scallops in lemon butter and probably a few spears of asparagus with cheese sauce. And, oh yes, a glass of wine!

One of the wonderful things about my retirement/reclusive/golden years life is that I eat very well. I hope you do too.

Random thoughts on a chilly night

I was about to start this post with the unoriginal observation that Texas is at it again—unpredictable weather. Yesterday and apparently overnight we enjoyed some much-needed rain of the moderately gentle variety rather than the heavy downpours that run off before they can soak into the ground. I was especially pleased because I thought the newly exposed roots for my two huge trees must be grateful. But then the phrase “Texas is at it again” struck me in a whole different way.

This week showed us Texas, Greg Abbott, at the behest of his oil-rich billionaire sponsors, shoving Texas ever farther to the right. What kind of a governor indulges in revenge politics, deliberately challenging state politicians who opposed him, in this case on the infernal question of school vouchers? Unfortunately, money talks and Abbott’s challengers beat out several of the more moderate Republicans on the down-ballot. It looks like we are doomed to have school vouchers, which will further weaken our already pitiful public school system. Texas needs to put that money into teacher raises, classroom equipment, etc. In short, it needs to strengthen public education, not siphon off possible funding. The irony is that the voucher amount is not enough for many low-income families to send their kids to private school so who benefits? The rich who are already sending their kids to private schools and now get some money for doing so. It’s a rotten system.

Ken Paxton was not quite as successful in avenging himself against those who voted to impeach him, and there’s now a glimmer of hope because he is finally going to go to trial later this spring on fraud charges he’s delayed for years. But right now he’s busy suing everyone in sight—an El Paso faith-based organization that helps immigrant (of course Paxton hates them), several school districts for electioneering (but has he looked at private schools who push petitions for vouchers on their parents). Today it was announced he is suing several entertainment and/or food venues for not allowing police officers on their premises if they carry guns. Ah yes, Texas is the state where guns are more important than human life. His targets include the State Fair of Texas of all things. Also the popular Meow Wolf in Grapevine, a restaurant in Deep Ellum, a theatre in Grand Prairie, and a bar/restaurant in San Antonio. Must keep the poor guy busy finding his targets. But it costs money to mount these lawsuits, taxpayer money, and we never hear about the outcome. Except today I did hear that a judge quashed the suit against the El Paso immigration charity.

But if you look at it, Abbott and Paxton are spending Texas taxpayer money without our consent for extravagant, cruel and illegal means at the border (a judge gave Biden a big victory on that today) and to sue business which are adding to the Texas economy and quality of life. For this, Abbott and Paxton get big bucks from those oil men who think they can run Texas, and what do we, the taxpayers get? An inferior education system that consistently ranks in the middle to lower grouping nationally. Good going guys.

On the national scene, it is redundant to say that President Joe Biden hit it out of the ballpark last night with an energetic, challenging, comprehensive State of the Union message that exposed all of the Republican lies and sent the orange former guy to tweeting out no less than seventy-five angry posts. I had thought with the primaries behind us, the volume of emails and texts would diminish but no such luck. My email was a mess this morning with politicians from all states wanting to ride Biden’s coattails. Many of them are candidates I would support were I a wealthy woman, but I’m not. All this deluge of messages does is a) make me feel guilty, and b) make me want to explain my support but straightened circumstances. I am tempted to say I’ll vote for the candidate—oops, specify progressive candidate (I’m not ruling out a Republican, though I don’t think I’ll find a progressive one) who sends me the fewest emails. But then again, who’s counting.

Here we go again into a frenetic cycle of fund-raising. I’d love to turn off my computer, but I won’t because I think we each have a civic duty to be well informed and because, politics aside, I enjoy my online life. November seems a long time away. Also it really bothers me, and has for years, that money determines election outcomes. I realize it’s true, but I resent it. I want us to elect politicians because they will run the country with knowledge and wisdom, they will try to protect America, keep it strong, protect democracy, and improve life for the average American, not because they have the biggest war chest (Abbott wins that one in Texas and looks what it gets us—a fiefdom). 

Just call me Pollyanna, the idealist.

 

Surviving, Day #2

No, it's not Jacob's birthday, and he hasn't been 14 for several years.
But in the upper left you can see the trees I've written about tonight.
They are too beautiful to lose, and we need lots of trees for the climate.

Yesterday it was the ophthalmologist; today it was the dentist and the driveway, or teeth and trees. The dentist first:

When I was a kid, back in the Dark Ages, I had bad teeth, inherited I’m told from my dear father. Whatever, I had lots of cavities and in my tween years spent a lot of time in the dentist’s office. The dentist happened to be a family friend—he and his wife/nurse were Uncle Walt and Aunt Kaffee. Uncle Walt was a taciturn man, but what did a kid of twelve know about taciturn? I just thought he was disapproving of me, and I was intimidated. In those days, the dentist’s drill was a clumsy, slow thing and having all my cavities filled was a long and painful process. (To Uncle Walt’s credit, most of those gold fillings are still in my head some seventy years later and to his double credit as an adult I learned to appreciate him.) Needless to say, I dreaded and hated going to the dentist. I remember making those trips to the Hyde Park Bank building, though now I can’t tell you if it was on 51^st Street or 53^rd. Seems to me, I went alone, though some thirty years later I always went to the dentist with my children. Add to all that the truth that anxiety is a feeling I’m all too familiar with, and it’s easy to understand that I carry with me today some dental phobia. At my ripe old age, I have finally learned to take excellent care of my teeth (especially if I don’t eat blueberries) and the hygienist is pleased with me. Visits are usually not long and always painless—especially since she’s agreed not to use the hydroelectric thing on my teeth. But I still get anxious, so having a dental cleaning behind me is a great relief. Of course I have to go back in three months, but I’ll worry about that tomorrow.

And I’ve had such problems with dental insurance. I didn’t like Cigna’s coupon books because I pay through my bank, so I ignored their coupons, sent them checks which they returned, and then they cancelled me for nonpayment. Me, Pollyanna, the good girl who pays all bills promptly! Then I took out an Ameritas policy which not only didn’t save me money, it cost me because it hardly paid anything on my dental bills and I was left with a huge balance plus monthly insurance payments. It seems that my dentist was out of network, but then I found he isn’t in any networks and yet he has a thriving practice. So I cancelled Ameritas (angrily, I admit) and discovered my Humana Medicare covers dental work—why I didn’t know that all along is another puzzle. But the final blow came today when I was told that with any Medicare policy, I have to pay the full amount up front, and they will reimburse me when the insurance pays. The system is beyond me, but I admit to a few unladylike phrases today (not in the dentist’s office, however).

On to the trees: For years I’ve worried about two tall, beautiful oaks that grow at the edge of our driveway, close to the house. They provide wonderful shade for the house in summer. Over the years (maybe as much as a hundred) they have broken and pushed up the concrete of the driveway so navigating it is a real challenge. I knew it would have to be addressed one day. When an arborist surveyed our trees, he suggested replacing the concrete with gravel so the tree roots could breathe. A good friend who has a masonry company offered to pull up the concrete, but the owner of our lawn service threw in a monkey wrench by asking, “What if the concrete is holding the trees up and they fall over?” (One would for sure take out my cottage and me if I were in it.) The arborist said that almost surely wouldn’t happen (no guarantees), but he wanted to treat the trees first to strengthen them. For a couple of weeks I’ve been trying to coordinate arborist, mason, and the lawn service guy. And I’ve been worrying about trees falling over. Was it safe for me to stay in the cottage while the concrete came up? Finally, it was all set for four o’clock Thursday; then it changed to 1:45. And then, today, Wednesday, the concrete crew showed up unexpectedly. Good that it cut down the time for me to be anxious. All went smoothly, the trees are still standing, and the broken concrete is gone.

Tomorrow, there is nothing on my schedule except work at my desk. Nothing, I hope, that I must survive. Color me thankful that these two days are behind me, my eyes are okay, my teeth are clean, the broken concrete is gone, and the trees are fine. God is good..

Surviving

 

Helen Corbitt cooking
Photo from the Texas History Portal

Feeling a little foolish about it, but I have to brag I survived the appointment at the ophthalmologist’s office. Bottom line is that nothing about my eyes has changed since the last visit. Surgery would probably make my vision a bit better, but there are risks, minimal, but still. Having had one “rare” eye disorder that required surgery, I am not willing to go there again. But the survival aspect is because I get really really nervous going to the eye doctor. As I’ve said, I feel like I’m failing an exam I should have studied for during the eye test. Today I had a kind, encouraging tech who kept saying, “Very good.” I thought I was acing it and was a bit deflated when the doctor said it showed no change from last year. The appointment was not quite as long as I anticipated—just under an hour and a half, which was good because Christian had to get me home, pick up Jordan, and get her to a noon hair appointment. It all worked perfectly. My only moment of losing it was leaving the office with my eyes dilated and the sunshine so bright—I suddenly felt like my knees wouldn’t hold up, so Christian obligingly pushed me the maybe six feet to the car. So glad that’s behind me. Now if I can just get past tomorrow’s dental appointment.

We had planned to celebrate Mary D.’s b’day a bit late tonight with a hot dog dinner—she loves hot dogs, and her husband, sweet Joe, doesn’t eat them. But Joe’s usual tennis night cancelled, and he came with her for happy hour. So we postponed the hot dog dinner for a week and served happy hour fare—Jordan brought roses and pink champagne and watermelon, and I whipped up a ham spread, which I thought was pretty good. So did Mary and Joe, but Jordan doesn’t do ham. Joe declared he enjoyed the evening, but poor guy, I’m not sure how. Much of it was about cooking and food.

Mary hosts demonstration cooking shows for the Silver Frogs, a senior community group from TCU, and she has arranged to do two sections on Helen Corbitt. She will cook, and I will fill in with facts and stories about Corbitt. (If you don’t know, Helen Corbitt was the doyenne of food service at Neiman Marcus stores in the late fifties and the sixties, but there was much more to her career, both before and after Neiman’s; a New York native, she literally transformed the Texas palate). So tonight we talked recipes—Texas caviar, which is one of her signature dishes; chicken broth, popovers, and strawberry butter, which is still served today to every dining guest at Neiman’s (I think only two Neiman Marcus restaurants survive—in Dallas and Fort Worth). Corbett was known for her extravagant use of butter, cream, and sugar—and then her spartan menus at the Greenhouse spa. Most of us don’t want to go the Greenhouse route, but we probably want to adjust a lot of her recipes to today’s standards.

Big political night, but I have turned off the TV late at night. Really, the primary results, with a few exceptions, don’t tell me much. I want to see what happens when progressive candidates go up against MAGA extremists (okay, loaded language on my part). I am glad Colin Allread won the nod to be the Democratic candidate for Texas Senator and hope to heaven he can get Ted Cruz out of our hair. Tonight, I am already weary of “Breaking News!” messages telling me Biden and Trump swept their primaries. That was a given, not breaking news, but it shows how hungry the media is for punch with their news. Tomorrow we’ll get a more sober reassessment of what both statewide and national results mean.

The political cause that engages my mind tonight is the Supreme Court and the obvious corruption, particularly from Justice Clarence Thomas. That he doesn’t recuse himself from cases dealing with Trump is inexcusable in light of his wife’s involvement in the January 6 insurrection. And I read an article today that pointed out that the relationship between Georgia’s Fani Willis and the prosecutor she hired is getting all sorts of attention while the Thomas’ relationship is getting none. Media bias is still a real thing.

Ah well, we won’t solve all that tonight. Sweet dreams.

Monday blues

 

Christian fixed supper tonight: snapper piccata, Louella's rice, and blue cheese salad.
With thanks to Marty and Mike Slaughter for the fresh-frozen snapper.
It was a good as it was pretty.

Mondays are always hard, even for those of us who work from home. I talked to a friend yesterday at church who told me she generally makes it to her computer by nine o’clock or thereabouts, and I thought that sounded perfectly reasonable—as long as I could still be in the clothes I slept in and I had a cup of hot tea in my hands. But today I moved slower than many Mondays, mostly because I don’t like what the week will bring.

It’s tax time, and I got my tax organizer the other day. I thought I could whip it out Saturday morning, but no such luck. It’s like following the end in a tangle of yarn--one knot leads to another. I went through my Discover bills item by item and found several that I didn’t recognize. So now I have to track those down, in a laborious process, even if they don’t matter to my taxes. And the phone/internet/access bill was absolutely out of sight and beyond explanation. Other things went amuck: I tried to order dog supplies from Chewy.com but had to enter a new credit card and they declared it was invalid. The bank sent a thick folder about a dispute—over a $29 charge that hardly seems worth worrying about, except that I don’t want it to repeat. In going through online orders, I found an email from Written Word Media thanking me for ordering books from them and paying for them—but I didn’t do that. I think it’s phishing, but I am keeping it just in case some books show up uninvited. So tonight I am exhausted, and Irene will have to handle her affairs without me.

Yesterday, however, was a good day. In the morning, I went to church—actually went to the building, and the walls did not cave in. They were having an event called “Author! Author!” and those of us who write were encouraged to display our work. I took five books that I thought were representative of the things I’ve done. When someone asked, “And these are all your books?” Christian laughed aloud. “A fraction of them,” he said. I saw people I hadn’t seen in a while, and I met new people. One incident stood out. A man walking by held out his hand, saying, “We haven’t met.” And he gave me his name. I immediately said, “We’re Facebook friends.” He grinned and said “I read everything you post.” That really made me smile, because I often defend my heavy presence on Facebook to friends who are scornful. That demonstrated my point. A number of my Facebook friends are from my church. I did not go to a service, because there was enough traffic in the hall that I thought I should stay and represent my books. But Christian went to the service right by us—the nontraditional service called “Ten: 10,” and enjoyed it. One of my favorite ministers conducts that service weekly and a wonderful young folk singer holds it all together.

I had great plans for Sunday supper—meatballs and spaghetti. But I discovered that the 2 lb. package of ground meat I thought I had was really the one lb. package I couldn’t find earlier in the week. And it occurred to me that I don’t have a large enough, oven-safe pot. So I filed the recipe away for another time and made hamburger sliders and bean salad. Jean came by for a drink, and Renee joined us for supper. Lots of laughter and good times—and it may not have been meatballs, but the dinner was good.

Speaking of food snafus, it occurred to me today that Jordan has invited anywhere from nine to thirteen people for Easter brunch—at a compound where the only working oven is my toaster oven. She immediately began to think of creative ways to use the air fryer, the crockpot, the stove, and even their smaller toaster oven. This should be fun. Fortunately she is the one in the family who inherited my plan-ahead gene.

Not my favorite week. Tomorrow an ophthalmology appointment, which I always dread because they take so long, and the vision test makes me feel like an underperforming teen. Then Wednesday, the dentist, which I always dread just on general principles.

And the final snafu: I just discovered that I loaded my personalized mailing labels into the printer, thinking they were part of my stash of printer paper. So I printed tax info on the blank side of pricey labels. When I do things like that, I always fear that I’m losing it and senility is creeping in. It reassured me, however, about my brain this morning that I inadvertently caught myself quoting lines from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Perhaps all is not lost after all.

How about you? Do everyday dumb things that we all do make you worry? Or are you that rare person who doesn’t do them?

 

Updates and thoughts on passion—no, not that kind!

 

Sophie in her donut collar. 
She is now old and mostly blind, and it shows in
her expression which clearly says
"Why are you doing this to me?"
I have no idea how to tell her it is for her health.

Update on Sophie: she is docile about the donut collar, and the shot-givers have all learned to avoid the tender areas, so no more snapping. Her cellulitis bump is going down, and she sleeps through the night. Praise be!

Update on the plumbing crisis: my native plant bed is totally destroyed, filled with large rocks—who knows where they came from? No hole in the floor yet, but the handyman is prepared should that happen. And it goes on. Today, Saturday, there is one man here working. I have no idea what he’s doing.

Update on Judith: I am faced with chores I dislike—my tax organizer arrived, so did a multi-page questionnaire to complete before a ophthalmology appointment next week, my miscellany holder on the desk badly needs sorting, and I need to check the Discover bill.  The great American novel will have to wait, though I have yet to figure out the resolution, so maybe that’s a good thing.

I’ve been chewing on the concept of gratitude lately. I try to make it a part of my life because I truly feel blessed. I was born white (not racist to say that’s worked in my favor), fairly intelligent with a comfortable life and a loving family. My refrigerator and freezer are overflowing, and I sink into a comfortable bed with a secure roof over my head each night. I am, I think, the epitome of privilege. It could have been so different; I could be an immigrant at the southern border, desperate for a new life in America, or a child hiding in a makeshift shelter next to my dead sibling in Gaza, or a farmer in Ukraine, or a nonbinary teen in Oklahoma. And somehow I think gratitude accounts for what Christian called my passion for my beliefs. It is simply because I am not that teen in Oklahoma that my blood boils when I hear a legislator refer to them as “filth” and proclaim, “We are a Christian state.” (Ironic for someone in a state with a high native American population and for someone who proclaims himself a Christian.) Gratitude is why I despise Greg Abbott’s cruelty with his cursed razor wire at the border—because I am not that pregnant woman who got entangle and died. I know life doesn’t have to be like it is for those and millions of others throughout the world.

There’s not a lot I can do from a walker in a cottage in Fort Worth, Texas, living on a fixed income. I can’t walk the block or go to rallies; my financial contributions are so small as to be insignificant, even though one of my favorite candidates insists $3 helps. Were I wealthy beyond measure, the list of politicians and charities I would support would be long. Progressive politicians like Katie Porter in California or John Tester in Montana or our own Colin Allred here in Texas. Add to that environmental organizations, wildlife and animal welfare causes, women’s rights, and others. Someone said to me that money rules the world (I think greed was implied), and I reluctantly agreed. When I protested that some people use wealth for good causes and cited Joe Biden, Christian immediately said, “He’s a millionaire.” But that, I countered, is not the operative thing about him. His life is shaped by his passion for democracy. I believe the same is true of Obama or Beto O’Rourke and was true of Ghandi, Mother Theresa. We have role models in this world. It’s just that too many of us ignore them.

One of the things I’m grateful for is that I have a church home where I am comfortable—and challenged to do what I can to make the world better. I like the Jewish concept of Tikkun olam, literally “repairing the world.” And I think it’s precisely because I am so blessed that I am bound to do what I can to repair our obviously broken world. And so I speak out. I don’t hide what Christian calls my passionate beliefs. Some have asked if I worry about alienating readers, and my answer is not at all. (Besides my career is winding down).

I’ll end this rant by quoting Martin Niemöller, “Then they came for me/And there was no one left/To speak out for me.” (see the complete poem here:  Holocaust Memorial Day Trust | First They Came – by Pastor Martin Niemöller (hmd.org.uk)